The people.....

I really haven't wanted to say much lately... seriously.. have contemplated more and more the removal of all things social media from my life....so much noise and clutter and craziness...

So I have paused and paused...
For me language and the expression of thought has been so very important
Silence was once a enemy and dark warden of my interior prison.. so much that should be said wasn't and so I began to speak and speak and found light and truth and healing and hope...
Although Silence has also become a refuge and within its embrace I have been learning wisdom...
My eyes have grown bigger and my senses take more in,
Silence has aided me in ways expression had not and I have become rich....

I got a text late last night from a friend who is just so dear to my heart....  in it her comment was, "I'm glad I can text you these random things."  

And upon the contemplation of her statement I once again found that which is upon my heart to express...

The older I get the more convinced I stand of the fact that  in those moments it is the people who you can text random thoughts in whatever hour, who you know will get" it ," regardless of what that "it" is that matter.....

These days I've been walking in more silence..  looking at solitude and leaning into those lessons learned...

I realized what was filling my heart again was frustration, cynicism, and anger over the mechanisms and industry of christianity, the truest remedy had to be silence. While the flock once again showed the world its best concerning all things duck calling etc...  I retreated...  I lived angry and burned out before and I can get sarcastic and cynical with the best of them but in my pompous intelligentsia  I have missed the mark too...

There will always be the religious... I can get Pharisaical with the best of them .. sadly
There will always be those CEO types using the gospel as their product and it all being about personal gain
There will always be those looking to exploit the gifts and power of God for their own kingdoms
There will always be this camp and that camp
There will never be anything new under the sun.....
There will always be the word for the day... or the prophetic revelation that will change your life and propel you and your family into wealth
There will always be those of us that take pot shots at those that I just described... (me included)

But then I have missed the mark....

The hand can not say to the foot I don't need you, and the eye can not say to the mouth you aren't needed.. I might think that this one or that one  are peddlers of a gospel that looks nothing like the one Christ preached, I might shake my head when grace is used in such a way that takes the sacrifice of Christ and cheapens in a way that grieves my soul but again to the human being, to the person...  I can not say I don't need you...


I love reading about the new pope...  his walk serves to inspire...  people see in his actions Christ... and it changes me.. it changes my heart..  walking away from the noise and the pomp and circumstance of his office and focusing on the people ... on the person of Christ..

I call upon myself to remember that this world is not my home.. its ways are not to be my ways and its thoughts are not to be my thoughts.. that there are ways that seem right to man and yet they  lead to destruction...  one can gain the whole world but lose oneself completely...

I have thought about the temptation of Christ and wondered about the offerings of satan.. how many would turn down his offer for "kingdoms," with so many celebrity mega church marquee players playing around I truly have wondered about these things in the days and weeks that have past.  For me not a crisis of faith but a crisis of its expression has brought me to a personal quietness and silence....

In  rest and repentance I have found salvation and in quietness and trust I have found strength...

In beholding people.. those I know and those that are but strangers to me.. in beholding their hearts and their dreams and their need and their hopes and pains and struggles and allowing them to be mine and empowering compassion in my life I see Christ more and more...  In silence I have quieted the voices that would scream for my attention and learn to listen for the one whose voice I must hear before action can ever come... In silence I have learned to listen to the hearts of those He places upon my path...  In silence I have beheld Him and those He loves

Wondering so very much what the expression of my Father's kingdom upon earth looks like.. I go to pure and undefiled religion. Once again to the people.. once again to the expression of Christ and His life... He went where the religious would not go... He told the sinners to stop and go and sin no more... He had the crowds with the miracles of His Father but then spoke His Father's words and watched as they all but a few disappeared.  He would not let Himself be handled.. but He "handled" not either...

He loved... His Father and the people....  simple...  truly simple..