Tag Archives: Prayer

May 19th – June 2nd, 2006

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There’s a sense of….contentment? No. Peace…maybe. It’s not clean and pure. It’s tainted with the remains of idolatry….oooo! What I wrote in my long hand journal yesterday: At some point in time, every aspect of creation raises itself up, or is propped up by another aspect of creation in an effort to de-thrown the creator.

The smell of that still hangs in the air around me. It taints the otherwise lovely place I’m in these last few days. But it’s worth noting a couple of things about this lovely place:

  • It is directly linked to my spiritual disciplines. DUH!
  • It is directly linked to my willingness to put people’s opinions of me aside
  • It is still not ubiquitous (I start off conscious of God’s presence and feeling all cuddly in the morning but it wanes to mere neutrality by afternoon)
  • There is an anger just below the surface. The kind of hot, sharp, temper tantrum anger that makes me kick things out of my way, my heart to race, and vision get blurry. It seems only to find it’s focus on objects and ideas – not directly on people.

I’ve consciously said things or said them in a certain way, or behaved in a fashion that right sizes people in my world – I feel really free about it – I feel like God is being honored. But there is still the old man there, howling in the background. So even though it’s working, it’s like having a heckler. Maybe he’ll grow tired and shut-up if I keep doing things God’s way – or maybe I will simply learn to shut him out.

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This sermon on Romans 8….the old man. The way of the flesh. The law of sin and death…whatever you want to call it: Duality. This is where the mystery lies for me these days. All the concentric circles of “self” – trying to find the margins between who I am, and who I was – where the Spirit resides and where the redeemed me touches Him.

It’s still all very confusing to me – and I’m feeling a rising anxiety over trying to preach about all this on Sunday.

God, I’m in way over my head here theologically. In terms of doctrine – intellectually – in pretty much every way that a guy like me could get buried.

“Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life, hoping ourselves to rend the veil (between ourselves and God). God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy ‘acceptance’ from the real work of God. We must insist upon the work being done.” – A.W. Tozer

“Now is the time and place to wrestle before the divine face. If you will stand firm, if you do not bend, you will see and perceive great wonders. Christ will storm the hell in you and break your beasts.” – Jacob Boheme

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There has been an icreased awreness of God’s immensity. But its not immense in the AWE sense – the fear of God kind of immensity – it has a whispier quality to it. It is the still small voice kind of awareness.

Chris Rice Describes it well:

“I hear a sound and turn to hear a new direction on that rusty weathervane, suddenly the dead brown leaves are stirred to scratch their circle dances down the lane, and now those sturdy oaks start clap’n with the last few stubborn leaves that won’t let go, I can hear Old Glory snap’n and her tattered rope now clang’n against the pole and my breath is snatched away and a chill runs up my spine, feels like somethn’s on the way , so I look up to the sky I look up to the sky and from the corners of creation comes the father’s holy breath ridin’ on a storm with tender fierceness stirring my soul to holiness – stirring my soul to holiness…”

April 13th – April 14th, 2006

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Passover. Listening?! I don’t listen well. I don’t really know how to listen. Even when I get away for one of my retreats – I do a lot of thinking – and a minimum of listening.

I’m going to try again. Just going to get on the couch and try not to sleep. Going to find a passage on which to meditate for a few minutes and then simply try to hear….maybe that’s the difference! I’m trying to hear something rather than just listening to what’s there.

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That was a q relatively quiet Friday morning, and what  I heard was: “get up and go visit the places where you grew up.”

So I did.

I left work and drove to North Seattle and visited the Lake Forest Park home where I spent my youth from about 5 years old until I was 11. So strange. Parts of the neighborhood are so different now, and yet parts are so familiar. They put a pitched roof over the original flat roof on our home. But the decks, tool shed, and I think even the play house (now a storage shed) are still just like I remember them. Of course, everything seems smaller.

I received no major epiphanies.

The memories I re-lived were almost all good ones. It was a pleasant, if slightly surreal, feeling to be there.

I sat in my car. Just kept telling myself to “listen”, and didn’t really hear anything.

I moved on. Went up the road to the old elementary school, now Korean church. (Talk about surreal!)

No one was there, but I poked my head in the old Gym (now Sanctuary) and peeked in a few old classrooms. Followed the trail that we took through the trees to the road where the school patrol (crossing guards) did their duty. That was a real thrill for me in the 5th grade: being asked to be CAPTAIN of the school patrol.

I crossed the street and over to the “Nike Site” (an abandoned Nike missile base that we played in, now a city park) and recalled some distant memories. But the actual landscape has changed there. There was a reservoir that I had forgotten about. And I saw a view of the Seattle skyline that I never knew existed. I thought about the trail from our neighborhood that lead here…

As I came back up the trail to the former school I thought again about the school patrol, and how I stole the blue and red lapel pins from the storage lockers. I wanted those tokens of my success so badly. I wanted approval so badly. Attention. If there was any doubt that his battle for approval, recognition, attention and affection is a LIFE-LONG battle, there is no longer any.

I remembered for the first time in a while that this period of my childhood included regular bed-wetting, mysterious pains in my legs that I honestly cannot recall if I invented, my Mom invented, or were real, as well as thumb-sucking up until I was 10 or 11.

I remember Lee C. – my good buddy – she NEVER made fun of me for that. She was the only one who knew my thumb sucking secret – and she NEVER used it against me. Never. Thank you, God for Lee.

But it seems that I NEEDED more attention than just one simple, loyal and courageous friend could provide. I longed for it.

I recall lots of creativity: Many “shows” super 8 movie making, fantasy games; turning my closet into a super-hero lair, actually running around the neighborhood, IN COSTUME with Stan S. as my sidekick, looking for crimes to thwart. I think we actually committed a few crimes so that we could later “solve” them somehow.

I moved on from that house, and after only a couple of failed tries, found the house we lived in when I was born. Had some distant and foggy memories of the place. It was so small. It’s being re-modeled and no one was there so I could peek into the windows with impunity. Yep…that’s the place.

I tried to call my brother and my Dad on a whim to share the moment with them. Neither answered. I took that as a sign: shut-up Dan! Listen!

I listened some more. Still good memories, along with blurry “bad” ones. Conflict. Shouting. The older girls across the street: their house.

Listening. Speak little boy.