Thankfully, I didn’t need to wallow in it for long. As these fiends were making merry, I cried out to Him in desperation. Then, all at once, the doors of this compromised bastion flew open from each side, the front and the back.
Now I don’t recall it being a windy morning, yet something quite unusual rushed by me in a fierce gust and it easily picked up the remaining filth on the theater’s floor. Gone was my little experiment, for everything was swept clean, even the filthy puddle.
Yet, but for this fresh wind, no one was present in the wake of it.
As I held my breath for a revealing, I was suddenly deafened by some ethereal shout. Still alone, I wondered if even this rock cried out.
Soon I heard those snickering bastards in the corners and they too were overcome; cockiness turned to whimpering—garbled cries of retreat and shame and weakness.
And then He walked in, the very One who grows neither weary nor jaded. I was overwhelmed by His Divinity—He approached me as a victor over these downward slopes and doubts, and certainly these demons. I stood dumbfounded, not knowing if I should run to Him or let Him continue His business on my behalf.
I made a wise choice to stay put. I watched as the very glare and blaze of Him seemed to inhabit every nook and cranny of this old porn palace. Feeble cries from the minions turned to horrid shrieks and pathetic mercy pleadings.
And then silence.
I fell to my knees as He turned toward me for truly He was and is the bright and morning star. In this form, as can be expected, all I could do was worship Him.
Glory in the highest!
Then, transforming into the man I've come to know, he lifted me to face him. It was over now and suddenly peaceful. He spoke calmly.
It just so happens, Jeff, that I am the final Word.
This Jesus of my day and my imagination cradled my face with his left hand, and with his right he firmly grasped my shoulder.
They know I am not one to be trifled with, but these snakes and scorpions will not relent against you nor against anyone who chooses to follow me. This is hazardous work, but it becomes infinitely more hazardous when you don’t realize and draw upon the Authority given you over this pervasive evil. You need to get that concept and never let it go.
I know this. I just need constant reminders. Maybe you do too. I need to feel it and imagine it and understand it—that with each battle and subsequent victory, Satan falls as a bolt of lightning from the sky, just like that ancient promise, which, I suppose, isn’t so ancient after all.
He could tell I was drifting. Tighter still he squeezed my shoulder.
Make sure the ones you serve are looking at a reflection of me when they look at you and not just you alone, for I will never fail them and my light will not dim. I will not become complacent nor indifferent. I will not grow cynical. I will not boast, for I know nothing of haughtiness. My passion will not falter nor dry up, for the source I draw upon is a living water. I will carry any and all burdens.
God, I needed this.
He turned to go, out the side door, out into some reality I should claim and know. He said one last thing, though, as he walked away.
There is a pristine path. Show them the trail I’ve blazed and let me do the rest.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Chapter 6 Some Evaporating Filthy Puddle of a Mess ~ Part 1
The space in the Rialto’s main theater is open and imposing, fully gray and altogether dirty, with dust accumulating in layers on the floor.
It’s Tuesday morning and I’m in the back, standing in the dark with my friend Joe. I put the cooler from Saturday’s work day on the floor and I open the little valve that lets the melted ice drain. The water rushes and surges out quickly because the floor has a gradual but steady downward slope, like most theaters do.
The work lights start to flicker on and we’re looking at the stream forming and pretty soon I announce that watching it has become the highlight of my day, even with the day still young. The course and rhythm of it is mesmerizing because it’s wandering the whole length of the concrete floor and there’s just enough light to reflect off of it as it forms tributaries and offshoots and meanders its way toward the vacant stage. With a clear mind of its own, it resembles quicksilver or some type of mercury experiment. Gliding like a snake and picking up dirt, it takes the path of least resistance in the grime and the stillness of the morning.
Before long, the cooler is empty, but this new creek in the middle of the theater’s floor still finds life as the end tries to catch up with the beginning, ultimately pooling near the bottom. And slowly the stream will dry, as time moves on, dwindling down to just a makeshift miniature pond. There it will evaporate by the Rialto's sunken pit, the very one where a man used to play a pipe organ in the days of Calvin Coolidge, before moving pictures had sound.
We eventually turn to go because the show is over now, and it’s just a filthy puddle really, even though it did render, at the very least, a clean path in its wake.
Truth be told, despite this highlight of my day, I feel like I’m in a bad place, my very own sunken pit, so this cooler-water-turned-old-porn-theater-creek may be serendipitous. You see, even this morning I wanted to venture into the open and imposing space of that big old theater and rush and surge at unseen demons that relentlessly taunt me. Their pressure seems almost unbearable these days, resulting in my gradual but steady downward slope toward indifference. And perhaps like what I've observed this morning, their hissing deception assures me that, while there may be a clean path in the wake I leave, ultimately, at the end of it, I’m just some evaporating filthy puddle of a mess.
So, my usual response is to fight back, on my own, swinging with fists of fury, as I’m wont to do, because I’m only human. I’m fully capable of picking a fight.
Show yourself! I’ll scream out to them. Cowards!
But my challenges and my goading won’t bring them into the light. They have no valor, nor the wherewithal to face me like a man. These minions are vile, sniveling, lying bastards who reek of brimstone.
And they much prefer to hide in the shadows.
From there they jeer and I guess I listen that maybe this faith and its required by-product of service and love has no choice but to reduce me and perhaps you into some dwindling, meandering conduits, some hapless victims of what we pick up and carry on behalf of needy others, reflecting not enough light as our passion dries up.
Then, they'll get me to boast. And rationalize. At the same time.
Look at everything I’ve done! When is it ever enough? Can I be done now?
As soon as it’s out there, they’ve won. Not only am I complacent toward what’s next, but I’m haughty and more than willing to point you instead to the trail I've blazed, the clean floor as evidence of what I’ve washed away.
The problem is, you're looking at me now. The pristine path I've highlighted for you leads right to me and you’re staring at me. But please don’t, because they've convinced me that I’m forever tainted, cynical and jaded to the core, some stagnant pool that's evidently been filled from a distant, empty source.
I hear them snickering in the corners now, apparently celebrating the highlight of their day.
It’s Tuesday morning and I’m in the back, standing in the dark with my friend Joe. I put the cooler from Saturday’s work day on the floor and I open the little valve that lets the melted ice drain. The water rushes and surges out quickly because the floor has a gradual but steady downward slope, like most theaters do.
The work lights start to flicker on and we’re looking at the stream forming and pretty soon I announce that watching it has become the highlight of my day, even with the day still young. The course and rhythm of it is mesmerizing because it’s wandering the whole length of the concrete floor and there’s just enough light to reflect off of it as it forms tributaries and offshoots and meanders its way toward the vacant stage. With a clear mind of its own, it resembles quicksilver or some type of mercury experiment. Gliding like a snake and picking up dirt, it takes the path of least resistance in the grime and the stillness of the morning.
Before long, the cooler is empty, but this new creek in the middle of the theater’s floor still finds life as the end tries to catch up with the beginning, ultimately pooling near the bottom. And slowly the stream will dry, as time moves on, dwindling down to just a makeshift miniature pond. There it will evaporate by the Rialto's sunken pit, the very one where a man used to play a pipe organ in the days of Calvin Coolidge, before moving pictures had sound.
We eventually turn to go because the show is over now, and it’s just a filthy puddle really, even though it did render, at the very least, a clean path in its wake.
Truth be told, despite this highlight of my day, I feel like I’m in a bad place, my very own sunken pit, so this cooler-water-turned-old-porn-theater-creek may be serendipitous. You see, even this morning I wanted to venture into the open and imposing space of that big old theater and rush and surge at unseen demons that relentlessly taunt me. Their pressure seems almost unbearable these days, resulting in my gradual but steady downward slope toward indifference. And perhaps like what I've observed this morning, their hissing deception assures me that, while there may be a clean path in the wake I leave, ultimately, at the end of it, I’m just some evaporating filthy puddle of a mess.
So, my usual response is to fight back, on my own, swinging with fists of fury, as I’m wont to do, because I’m only human. I’m fully capable of picking a fight.
Show yourself! I’ll scream out to them. Cowards!
But my challenges and my goading won’t bring them into the light. They have no valor, nor the wherewithal to face me like a man. These minions are vile, sniveling, lying bastards who reek of brimstone.
And they much prefer to hide in the shadows.
From there they jeer and I guess I listen that maybe this faith and its required by-product of service and love has no choice but to reduce me and perhaps you into some dwindling, meandering conduits, some hapless victims of what we pick up and carry on behalf of needy others, reflecting not enough light as our passion dries up.
Then, they'll get me to boast. And rationalize. At the same time.
Look at everything I’ve done! When is it ever enough? Can I be done now?
As soon as it’s out there, they’ve won. Not only am I complacent toward what’s next, but I’m haughty and more than willing to point you instead to the trail I've blazed, the clean floor as evidence of what I’ve washed away.
The problem is, you're looking at me now. The pristine path I've highlighted for you leads right to me and you’re staring at me. But please don’t, because they've convinced me that I’m forever tainted, cynical and jaded to the core, some stagnant pool that's evidently been filled from a distant, empty source.
I hear them snickering in the corners now, apparently celebrating the highlight of their day.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Chapter 5 It Gets Me Every Time
"After all, I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."
Notting Hill, 1999
It just so happens that I love certain movie moments, perhaps even more than the movie itself. I’m a sucker for powerful, heartfelt scenes and even though I’ve seen a movie a dozen times, I’ll watch it again and again simply to get there.
Of course, the more moments for me, the better the movie. As if some part is greater than the whole. Or the sum of it. Or something like that.
So, with that said, Notting Hill rises and falls, I believe, on one particular moment where Julia Roberts’ character delivers that now famous line in a quiet book store to Hugh Grant’s love sick puppy of a character.
And it gets me every time.
This is likely everyone’s favorite scene in the movie, but for those of you who haven’t seen it, Roberts plays a beautiful American celebrity opposite Grant's quite normal and ordinary guy who lives a quiet life in London’s Notting Hill district. So, understandably, their on and off love affair throughout the film is mired in much messiness; to include, but not be limited to, some controversy, the ultimate cost of fame, exposure at the wrong time and the wrong place, and last, but certainly not least, a touch of scandal.
As I was watching this movie (again) last night, I was struck by the simplicity of this well-crafted, Hollywood movie moment. Here is a woman with all of the benefits of money, beauty and fame, yet with every bit of vulnerability she can muster, she admits that all she really wants is some average, run of the mill guy to love her.
This isn’t some new concept, and I know it's just a movie, but we’ve heard it time and time again. Everything, it would seem, is reduced to love.
I got to thinking (I realize this is a dangerous thing) and I imagined myself in Hugh Grant’s shoes, receiving that proposal from the lovely Ms. Roberts. Yet, for some odd reason, as lovely as she is, I envisioned myself right there with none other than Jesus himself, and he was simply asking me to love him.
Before you stop and think that’s too much of a leap for you, just give me a minute to work it out.
You see, what we think will make us happy and full and known and successful fails so completely when held up against the standard of giving and receiving love—love being a word which I believe in the verb and the noun is embodied in the risen Jesus, who just so happens to be very much alive in the here and now. So, setting aside the controversy and the exposure and the scandal of this religion that Jesus has become mired in, we have to ask ourselves: what is everything—or more appropriately—what is Jesus reduced to?
If it helps you to stick with our movie moment, then here goes: If all of a sudden you found yourself standing before this living Word in a quiet room, what do you think he’d say to you?
Well, of course it's OK for everyone to have their own thoughts on that, but we also know that Jesus said quite simply when we love the least of these, we are loving him. That's not up for argument. And the least of these can presumably take many forms, for example:
A refugee.
An AIDS victim.
A beggar.
A single mom.
A cancer patient.
A homeless man, woman or child.
But I think it's alright to take it a step further and realize that those who are the least are not always the typical down-and-outers. There are also those who are marginalized through a certain poverty that arises from an absence of love; those who are overlooked, or ignored, as a certain translation renders. They are somehow missing real love in their life, some void that Jesus would never think twice about filling up.
A prisoner.
A thief.
A prostitute.
A pastor who has compromised his reputation.
A bully.
A politician.
The list could go on and on because at the core of it, an absence of love toward any individual is what Jesus came to fix. That part to me, well, it’s really not rocket science. And so we must find those in our lives who desperately need love and therefore, sometimes unwittingly, stand in the balance for him until he returns— those very people who quite beautifully provide a face and a pulse and real skin and a body to receive and know love.
After all, I’m just a human, standing in front of you, asking you to love me.
Everything boils down to love.
Oh sure, there will be some controversy, some cost of fame, maybe exposure at the wrong time and the wrong place. And last, but certainly not least, if you plan on loving these people, watch out for a touch of scandal. We all know that love can certainly be scandalous. But no matter how you get there, it’s always a powerful and heartfelt moment.
And it gets me every time.
Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me - you did it to me.' (Matthew 25:40 The Message)
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