Private conversations

Looks dry and dusty and ever so technical, doesn't it? I think it probably doesn't look much different to most people than my bookcases full of topical studies and Bible reference books.

I was listening to an old teaching on praying in the spirit a few minutes ago and the thought occurred to me that, although I'm hearing some really great and useful things that I hadn't heard before, it's someone teaching from the inside of their experience with God. Trying to explain it or share it with most people would be really useless, because most people either have little or no experience with Him. He's an Idea, or afar off, or a particle physics discovery yet to be made.

I think it's just human nature to try to study all about God before we actually commit ourselves to Him, and we Fur Shure [!] try to read all the commentaries on speaking in other tongues before we do that whole baptism in the Holy Ghost thing. I have some good news for you, though - all that in depth study is completely useless without God Himself teaching you. You'll never know a thing about God unless He shows it to you.

I realized not long ago that the reason my relationship with my mother did not ruin my relationship with God was that she was not in the relationship. I "got saved" as a little girl of about six or seven. We kids sat on the back row in church while Mother sang in the choir. We were disciplined enough to hold ourselves together back there, and what fidgeting we did couldn't distract too many people, but she could still keep an eye on us.

Since the sermons were a bit dull to my ears, I used to go looking thru the pew Bible for the words in red, because I knew that was Jesus talking. Generally, you can find some good action stories that way, quite a few miracles, and a bit of talking about things that had plain words but just didn't seem to fit as a story. I lucked up [Ha!] on the gospel of John, and he just quotes Jesus talking for the longest time, pages and pages, especially in the time right before his death.

I really didn't understand all the things Jesus was talking about, but I knew I could trust him, so I just kept reading. Finally I came up on John, Chapter 17, and for the first time I could read an entire conversation Jesus had with the Father! I mean all of it, not some little synopsis, but him going on and on - it was just like being there! Oh, I wanted to listen to every little scrap of it, I wanted to really know what those two talked about in private.

And it's in there. It was like sitting at the table in their house while they talked about the most important things in Jesus' mission here on Earth. Jesus is giving a status report, going over how things have gone and what he has left to do, almost like a top secret intelligence briefing or something. I'm still amazed God had John remember and put it in his gospel, I mean, who lets that kind of stuff get printed up and put out for even little kids to see???

Anyway, I got down to verses 20 thru 23:
 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who believe in Me through their word;  that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:  I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."


I had found my way in. Jesus himself was asking the Father to bring  me to the table, it wasn't just for The Twelve, "but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they all may be one."  The official plan wasn't that I could be just one of the disciples, but "be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us."

I was completely entranced with Jesus' repeated insistence on "I in them, and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one."

I wanted that. I wanted up close, side by side, free, unhindered access to God that no one could interfere with or obstruct. Somehow I knew I was being offered that deal and I needed to accept the deal or not, no guarantees that I would ever be offered the deal again. So, one day soon after, outside playing around by myself, I agreed to it, crossed the line never to go back, all in and no getting out for life.

If you aren't sure you like God, or definitely don't like Him at all, don't sweat it, you've probably been reading technical manuals and listening to 57th hand stories about Him.  You'll never like Him much that way. Jesus came as the Passover lamb, he walked around letting himself be seen and examined for who and what he was before he was accepted as a sacrifice. Look Jesus over for yourself, see if what he said and what he did was beautiful and worthy and if he is the kind of man who you can trust with your life.

You'll never figure God out for yourself, let Jesus show you. There's a place at the table set for you.

Like Dolly

Something I wrote somewhere on a post about Dolly Parton. I think there was an interview with her on a video clip, I can't quite remember where. I don't remember what was said that this was in response to, either, possibly something about expecting Christians not to sin - which is thoroughly ridiculous!


All people are sinners, Christians and everyone else alike.
(Remember John's rebuke, "If we (Christians) say that we aren't sinners, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us." I John 1:8)

God loves us all, Christians and everyone else alike.
(For God so loved the world..." John 3:16)

Pronouncing judgement (declaring an order of condemnation on someone's soul) is reserved to God alone, because we never know what's going on inside of a person, and only God knows what is right and true and possible for them, and only God knows which step is the one each person needs next to walk towards life and what steps each person is taking towards death.

God has made it very plain that He wants people to Live, really be fully alive and experiencing every beautiful and wondrous thing He has created. Jesus came to make things simple enough for us to understand. If you like who Jesus was and what he did while he was walking around in the gospels, then you see exactly who God is - Jesus is God written in human form.

Dolly is right on target. She isn't worried about fixing everyone else, she is sharing the love and forgiveness and patience she has received from God with everyone else. She isn't Talking it, she is Doing it - like she sees Jesus doing it in the Bible. Dolly is a Christian, she is following Jesus, she has let Jesus have the God seat in her life and she is free to be her honest self.

The only thing Christians have that the rest of the world doesn't is Jesus. He's risky, he won't ride around in your pocket, he doesn't do your bidding like a genie, he has his own way of doing things and he expects his people to believe what he says, but he knows how to change people into people who look like him.

Like Dolly.

From a conversation with a friend about gays, marriage, and the image of God

The image of God is not in our physical bodies, God is outside of creation. When the Word of God became flesh, he had to get it the same way you and I did, thru our mothers. God is Spirit (John 4:24), all the attributes we know of Him describe His wisdom, power, grace, justice, etc., and none of them speak of his sexuality, genome, IQ, health or height, for He has none of those attributes, they are all physical. (Funny to think of Him as not having an IQ, but that speaks to the content and quickness of the mind, and His thoughts are nothing like ours - He knows everything, always has.)

Secondarily, we were created in His image at the beginning, but we have continued to reproduce thru the ages with that image marred. The power to create a child today comes from the original commandment to "be fruitful and multiply," and that commandment has not been withdrawn. We bring forth the next generation based not on an echo or memory of His command, but on the continuing power of that Word still working to effect new life out of us. Nevertheless, what or whom we produce is defaced, marred, wounded from their beginning because we carry Adam's sin nature. Sin doesn't always mean a conscious moral failing, it means something isn't the way God planned for it to be and we pass on every sort of damage there is to our children - physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, DNA, whatever.

Speaking to the irreplaceable and incomprehensible value of your gay friends in yours and God's sight, you are correct. There is no human being on this planet that He does not value and care for in a manner and depth that our current grasp of the word "love" can barely hint at, added to which He also passionately desires to make Himself known to and thru you and your friends, even to the point of death. His own, that is.

This is the place where we have become so familiar with His grace that we can become forgetful of its tremendous power. We know the story, yadda yadda, yet we fail to remember that His purpose is to make people in His image, that His own glory would fill the whole earth - not ours. He wants His wisdom, justice, grace, and purpose working thru us, not our reasoning and desires. He made a new and living way to Himself, and we don't come. We really don't. It's too hard, it's tedious, we don't like changing into His image, and we're afraid of what He will ask of us next. It can suck Really bad. For a Long Time.

Marriage is about being in the image of God, two working as one to create new life and make this earth flourish like a garden. However, civil government can do what it pleases. I've thought for a long time that the government should offer no more than a civil legal union to everyone. Pack whatever or whoever the body politic want in the thing, God is not subject to civil law, but He is King and Master over all creation. What's that saying, you're free to make your own choices, but you aren't free to choose the results? Forget about what you see in the movies and what is being sold on every street corner, judgement and revelation are in the truth about every alternative to God being uncovered and made plain so there is no confusion about the choices being made.

Love your friends, look like Jesus. Some of them are going to want out of the horror this world is becoming and they need you to know the Way in the dark.

Song of the afternoon

I've got the Dixie Hummingbirds playing this afternoon, the version from the Mama album being a little bit more upbeat than this one, but the truth is the same.

I grew up in the South when gospel song shows were the only other thing you could hear on the radio, other than preaching, before noon on Sunday. The earliest programs were the best because that's when the black gospel and the pentecostals had their singing, airtime was cheaper at 6 AM, y'know. About 8 was when the Methodists and Presbyterians took over with choirs and last week's sermon.  I guess I don't really know what came on after 10, because we were for sure headed to church ourselves, neither my mother nor my grandmother ever let us miss and where else would you be other than with one of them?

It's a good way to be raised, I learned some measure of self control keeping my mouth shut and my backside in the pew for the length of a church service. We were Independent Congregational Methodist Cumberland Presbyterian Southern Baptists when I lived at home, then I went off to college and belonged to nothing. Of course, that means when I finally started looking for a church home of my own, I became Church of God. I'd like to go to the Episcopal Church downtown because I really like the liturgy, but I'm not sure too many of them would understand how none of the above is in any way chaotic.

Church is about the fellowship of believers, not choosing a social club that thinks like you. You go to learn to think like Christ.

I bring up the Dixie Hummingbirds because thru them I really first heard songs that talked about friends and family failing you, even betraying you, but keeping on with the Lord who remains ever faithful.  I don't know why white gospel doesn't have very much of that, it still happens in white churches, we just are trained to never talk about it. King David talked about it, out loud, in church, and had the choir sing about it in the service. But we don't.

In any case, I recommend to you old gospel music and old hymns, you'll have something substantial to use when you need to lament. Lament? Now that's a very, very old tradition that completely confounds the moderns. We'll talk about it later.

I'll see if I can't do a couple of playlists on iTunes or amazon. Perhaps you'll find some really good new old stuff in there. Some old song to find something new in you.

Because I'm a little long winded

I've created this blog as a companion to Sweetbriar's because I tend to be a little long winded when it comes to the things of God, and I enjoy it. There is no end to His beauty and wisdom, and I could go on forever about everything I find in Him - but I have no outlet for that. I don't have the teaching gift, so looking for a Sunday school class to teach would be useless. Like evangelists burn to tell everyone the good news about Jesus, and pastors ache to protect and nurture and grow up the sheep of His pasture, and prophets must declare the message they've been given lest it become a fire shut up in their own bones, teachers must get what they have learned into their students.

If I give a beautiful exposition of what I've found in God, either in scripture or what He's taught me step by step, and someone still doesn't get it, well, that's alright, bless their hearts. I hope God takes them on into good things and His wisdom in His own perfect way. It doesn't have to be through me and they don't have to see things my way - which is a long winded way of saying I don't care, God bless you, and I'm moving on to the next thing.

However, the wretched thing about the internet (and getting used to using it) is that you just want to put your thoughts out there. I've kept journals for years, not religiously or daily, but I've got some entries set back that I still find fresh and revelatory, and it just seems a waste of God's grace to me to keep it hidden, only to be thrown into the dumpster when I die.* I've also entered a year of change wherein that change seems to be churning and working continually, not having yet faded with the usual washout of a New Year's resolution.

So, in celebration of the inner wheels turning and the fresh wind of hope that comes with it, I'm going to let this blog go into territory that is not so "recovery" driven, but is much more personal in some ways. This is the blog of an introvert who believes, so my way of sharing is to bring out all the treasures I find. To me, it will look like an old bookstore full of volumes that never made the best seller list and yet the proprietor swears each and every one is a little gem to be treasured if only you knew what was in it.

I'll be the crazy old lady in the stacks. If you come near enough, I'll start telling you all sorts of things as if you really wanted to know and as if you could understand everything I was saying. If you're not sure, ask. It's just a blog.

Leakey's Bookshop in Inverness, Scotland

Looks marvelous, doesn't it!

*Note: I've learned the hard way with my mother's death that 95% of all the stuff you collected and found valuable has fallen apart with use or been mouse pissed into garbage by the time you go. If you have something to pass on, give it while the giving is still good.

How can He wait?

How can He wait? How can the Lord delay coming to be with us, how can He stand to put off cleansing this earth of cruelty and murder and every evil thing and come and dance with us? 

If He had done it from the very beginning, we wouldn't be the multitude of multiverses we are now, but if the Father hadn't specified the day and the hour, and if the Son hadn't fully committed Himself to obedience, I don't know how He could hold Himself back. It is His very nature, love, and He wants to be found and seen and rejoiced and danced and loved with us. How can we hardly wait?

Time out of Mind

I found this article absolutely Fascinating, for two reasons. One, the 80 millisecond lag interested me because it seems that lights always take much longer to go off than that for me. That is to say, when I flip the switch that turns off the light, it looks like it takes almost a full second for the light to "run out." I couldn't imagine what the electrical excuse could possibly be for it, but it's probably just my brain. There are all sorts of implications in this article for people whose brains have a lag between one part and another, and for people (like me) who have especially high thresholds for attention spans and focus.

The second aspect, yet the trigger that brought me into the article, was the idea that things happen, but our brains lag until they've Formed the perception of it. As a Christian, I've always looked for some kind of analogy to explain to people how one "hears" God, because the word "hear" is so very audible, but the experience is pretty much guaranteed not to be. That is, God doesn't talk in your ear, he talks to your spirit, but the experience is not subjective - he is not you, he has his own words to say and, for the most part, they are not what you expected or particularly wanted to hear.

The analogy I've come up with is that when you "hear" him, it's the immediacy and the echo of someone who's just spoken. You know, like when someone at the next desk tells another friend, "Our English test has been moved up to this afternoon." Wait! What??? You were doing your own thing but the echo of those words are stamped very clearly in your mind. Or perhaps an announcement comes over the loudspeaker at Walmart, "Will the party meeting Darcy Milbanks please come to the Service Counter to pick up Mr. Milbanks." You may not be meeting anyone as you browse the cereal aisle, but the words catch your imagination a moment later as you recall, "Darcy Milbanks. That's a bit unusual for around here. I wonder what that's all about."

The voice of God is something like that. I'm not hearing it audibly, but I'm perceiving it as if the words still hung in the air between us. 

There's a second aspect to the voice of God that is ALWAYS true: He never disagrees with Himself. He will never say anything or ask you to do anything that doesn't line up with scripture. Count on it.

Now that you know that He always agrees with the Bible, you want to know where the best place is to hear Him? The scriptures. Just go read them. Read them so you are familiar with all of them. Don't worry about understanding them all, just read them all until you know all the stories really well, can recognise when someone is quoting the New Testament or the Old Testament straight away and (this is when you know you are starting to know the sound of his voice) you know when someone is misquoting the Bible. When you know someone has inserted words that aren't there, or has left out the the big context of a scripture so they can bend the truth and whine about their pet peeve instead, then you know you are beginning to recognise God's voice.

I heard someone make a great analogy once about knowing the scriptures and hearing the voice of God out of them, and it really is true. Imagine you had a little wireless teletype machine, one that you could use to send messages back and forth by radio, but the only messages you could receive would be the ones you had letters for. So if you only had five letters of the alphabet on your machine, you could make out short little words and do some little abbreviations of some others, and you could get some kind of information going back and forth.

Well, imagine if you got five more letters of the alphabet on your teletype message machine, what an explosion of information you'd have in your ability to send and receive message traffic! It's the same way with the voice of God, He is going to talk to you first out of the Word. The message of salvation is the same as it's been since that first day Jesus came out of the grave, and that's the first thing God is trying to get over to you. After that, He's trying to talk to you thru all the other things He put in those scriptures - and if you will go add those to your receiver, He can talk to you out of them, just like adding alphabet keys to your typewriter.

The Holy Spirit is your teacher and He is present with you always, and will never leave you. You don't have to go to every church in town or graduate seminary or hire a tutor to teach you about God. Read the scriptures, talk about what you are reading with your Father God, and let the Holy Spirit instruct you from the inside out.  If you are listening to Him, don't be rehearsing all the time what you used to think, just observe what's going on in the Bible and follow along with what He is saying in there. You'll learn if you LISTEN.

 (Don't worry, worryworts, the Holy Spirit always leads us to be in the company of fellow believers. Remember that in the scriptures?)