His bride, the church

a few things that came together in my mind recently:
1. Christ is called the second adam (1 cor. 15:47)
2.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the church as the the body and bride of Christ. after being involved in a bible study that was going through book of John, a few things came together in my mind.

Jesus' first miracle is turning to water into wine at the wedding feast - showing that he brings joy and celebration. but it also shows that he blesses this wedding.
Jesus came to reconcile his people (the church) with himself. his bride had been unfaithful and he came to win her back. and the first thing he does is bless a wedding. fast forward to his crucifiction.
when he dies his side is pierced and water and blood flow out.
it is important to note that during the times of sacrifice in Israel there were trenches dug around the alters to capture the blood of the sacrifices and direct it out of the temple. from a distance, looking onto the temple, it would appear that blood was running out of the side of the temple and mixing with the water of a nearby river. water. blood.

John also proclaims that Jesus came and dwelt amongst us - literally translated he set up his tent, or tabernacle amongst us. he was the indwelling of God, taking on our flesh to give it up for us.

so at this moment of sacrifice, when attonement happens, water and blood flow from the side of Christ (the temple) reconciling us to God.
another side note: Christ is called the second adam. Adam's bride was pulled from his side and eve was created. when adam awoke he said "bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh"
the church's rebirth came from the water and blood that flowed out of the second adam's side.

And Christ looks at us - bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh

and loves us.

when i thought of communion, i always thought of the last supper at which Christ invites his diciples to share in the wine and bread - a rememberance of the sacrifice he was going to make.
but he is, instead, inviting us to share in himself: in his sufferings, his death, his ressurection.

simply because it needs to bed said

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

thoughts from a disjointed being

God is moving in the way a stream flows. He is always moving, flowing, carrying and endless (the analogy falls apart here, because God is actually endless whereas a stream just seems endless from most given vantages. also, God is limitless where a stream has defined limits. forgive the holes my finite mind creates.)

i see God moving in other people, yet sometimes fail to see Him moving in me.
i sit on the banks of God and watch Him flow by. carrying others. changing others. all the while moving and flowing in a specific and meaningful direction.

i choose to sit on the banks. on occasion, i will get up and walk along the banks: carrying my heavy load - even convinced that i am doing good!

while God is in front of me. waiting to carry me. waiting to move me.

Smoke rings

Amic was beautiful in the way a smoke ring was.
Fleeting perfection achieved through too much time and dedication to a deadly habit.

She wanted to quit.

chess

Bryan lived like he played chess.
He had a general conception of how the pieces moved, but lacked any real strategy to his movements and also lacked the knowledge and foresight to predict the moves of others.

He wanted to get better at chess.

I swear i am willing to be refined.

i know i have yet to prove it. i should stop comparing myself to iron ore; as if i were strong. or any form of plant; as if by my very existence i would grow.

am i being refined? if not it is because i have buried myself far too deep.

the truth is that there is a fire burning hot enough. the opportunity persists, despite my resistance.

i want to end. end my unending thoughts. i want to stop thinking of what i am most like and start seeing what i am.
i am a wretched, mistake-making fool who gets distracted at every turn by everything meant to be left alone. i lack any sort of focus or discipline (or motivation for any real change) i am too good at lying about things and am believed by everyone at times. i am simply a regurgitation of the world around me: taking everything in and spitting it back out in some sickly distorted, yet appropriately placed way. yet somehow, beyond my delusions of grandiose failure, i am loved. i feel greedy saying that. i am loved (unconditionally, at that)
despite my irrationality and quirks beyond repair, i am loved

i have been loved

i will be loved

i am loved

i am loved

i am loved...

what i want, i can't have.

this is devastating.

contentment

why is it that the line between contentment and complacency seems so hard to define?

mathematics

on the playground one day the young children were showing off their math prowess by adding up various numbers. one child challenged another by asking what three-thousand plus two-thousand was. the surrounding children were in awe of the child that confidently spoke the words "five-thousand"
confounded, the children asked me to confirm the confidence of the mathematician.
"yes," i said "it isn't that difficult."
"but those are huge numbers!"
"yes. but it's the same as adding 2 and 3 together"
"5!" one anxious child yelled
"exactly. if all that's said is blank-thousand, just add up the first number and say thousand after. for example two-thousand plus eight-thousand is the same as two plus eight, but when you give your answer say 'thousand' at the end"
the children ran off to wow their friends who were outside of earshot of our conversation.

like many other times on that playground, interacting with children, i was blindsided by a lesson that i had just taught: everything seems complicated if you only look at the numbers.

this is who i want to be. this is how i want to love.

"i stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. a tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. she will be thus from now on. the surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; i promise you that. nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, i had to cut the little nerve.

her young husband is in the room. he stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. who are they, i ask myself, he and this wry mouth i have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? the young woman speaks.

'will my mouth always be like this?' she asks.

'yes,' i say, 'it will. it is because the nerve was cut.'

she nods and is silent. but the young man smiles.

'i like it,' he says, 'it is kind of cute.'

all at once i know who he is. i understand and i lower my gaze. one is not bold in an encounter with a god. unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and i am so close i can see how he twists his lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works."

-Richard Selzer, M.D. "Mortal lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery"

life in the now

live for the present. but what is the present other than short term memory? there are moments ahead and moments behind but it is near impossible to catch one now...or now... things move to the past far too quickly.

perhaps the 'now' is just a collective imagination held by all who either dread the future or regret the past.

but wouldn't this moment-only lifestyle preclude you from what you need as a human? (that being memories/knowledge/wisdom and aspirations/hopes/dreams)

what if you cherish the past and/or look forward to the future?

i guess the point of present-focus is to get people to not focus on their dread of the 'yet to' and their dissatisfaction with the 'has already'

but, perhaps, misses this mark.

this entry really has no point.

i dream far too much.

i like it.

to something far beyond myself

"Your name is glorious, glorious

Your love is changing us, calling us

to worship in spirit and in truth as all creation returns to you"

hello forgetful.

often times i wait for my heart to be where i'm going, rather than going there and taking my heart along.

not realizing the whole time that my heart is a polestar, pointing me to exactly what i find important.

Thank God that grace resounds off of our weakness and that his power is made perfect in my weakness.

i really wish i knew how to quiet my mind.

hello unknown.

honestly, when i think about the future i feel like i've been in a room with a sleeping lion for 8 hours; i know it's going to wake up at any moment.

and i'm wearing a shirt that smells like meat.

thank God i'm not the first.

"My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions"

Daniel 6:22a

i don't know why i continue to worry

it's amazing how weeks of deliberation can lead to nothing

but then, a single moment can change everything.

it's not that i now know, it's that i'm okay with not.

i realized tonight that i have a tendency to turn points into rays; that i expect individual moments to span out into eternity. by this i am simply referring to my tendency to expect my current circumstance to remain indefinitely. for example: when you're sick and you don't remember what it's like to feel okay. or, when feeling really depressed it's easy to forget happiness.

i suppose i have a longing for the eternal, but what i fail to realize is that i'm following the eternal.

how insulting that must be; going to see God's glory and stopping to marvel at a colorful pebble i've found along the way.

what a fool.

i want to be unconditional.

hello captive.

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

John 8:34-36

this is something i need to be reminded of on an almost constant basis. it seems rather pathetic when i think about it that i have to reminded of my freedom and the fact that i no longer exist as a slave to anything but my eventual righteousness...

i don't devote enough of myself to the righteousness that i say i pursue, which reminds me of another verse:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

2 Timothy 3:1-5


i have nothing more to say, unless you count my future actions as words (which you hardly could because they should speak much louder)

hello free.