rupture.

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Friday, December 24, 2010 7:59 AM Posted by i am guy

the night was heavy and humanity stumbled hopelessly, helplessly in the dark.
words whispered of something, of someone, greater.

locked in generation stories and cultural traditions, that something seemed hopeful, but forever distant. and when the time came, it came in a whisper, unnoticed.

time was ruptured, heaven and earth collided.
the sky announced the greater.
the earth felt the weightlessness of grace.
the heart of man, lifted out of stories and traditions into life renewed
...into eternity's gravity.




The time has arrived. When we celebrate the arrival of the flesh and blood of God's redemptive plan. For ages humanity, bound in tragedy and slavery and sadness, yearned for a new day; a day when they would be saved and the tables would be turned and their oppressors would be themselves oppressed. This alone kept their hearts holding on and kept their hands busy shaping the generations following them to be prepared to be liberated by a mighty savior and live in a new day. Undoubtedly, their imaginations went wild getting lost in revenge, retribution, domination and triumph. Imagine the insult when the foretold savior was said to be a baby, a carpenter's son, an irreverent man toppling tables, dirty with sin of those he dined with and with tears of those rejected.

Not much has changed.

Mankind still misses the reality of time ruptured, of Jesus born. The news is that there is a new day born. No longer do you need to walk around in shadows, lost in hopeless thought.

Wherever you find yourself today, whatever circumstance is heavy, whoever is in need...a baby was born, a carpenter's son has crafted a cross, an irreverent man angry at the unnecessarily weighted down tables in your life, dirty with your sin and stained with your tears, is waiting to topple them over, rupture your circumstance, redeem you from stories and lifeless traditions and bring new life..a new day in your life.

May you (re)discover this new time, this glorious new day in your life as you let go of straining to save yourself and change your own circumstance and be found by the greater news that Jesus was born, forever changing your day. May you find yourself at the crib of a baby today, rejoicing in your yesterday being swallowed by God's eternal hope and grace.

Merry Christmas.



one love. one life.
Guy

shelter.

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Monday, December 20, 2010 1:34 PM Posted by i am guy

Be my shelter,
And may your heart be my home.
Give me rest from the swelling storms;
Quiet my violent mind
which hates easily and lusts for control.

Sweep the dust that has gathered on broken floors,
carry it out back and burn the pictures;
spread the ashes over fertile soil.

May the dimming light in my eyes be swallowed by the warmth of a dawn new.
Let the pieces of broken bones be collected;
Plant my heart deep within your ground so that it may never again be found.

My hands are untrustworthy
and my steps are unsteady.
My eyes lie often and my lips know no good.

But only keep me here,
in the eternity of your shadow,
where grace breathes strength invincible,
where stained hands are held, not broken.

(re) entry...courage.

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Wednesday, December 15, 2010 3:12 PM Posted by i am guy

"The path to wholeness
cannot be discovered
by concentrating on the signs of fragmentation."
-Erwin McManus


"Courage is the discovery
that you may not win
and trying when you know you can lose."
-Tom Krause



It takes courage to re-enter life.

It would be easier to hold still in sorrow and scavenge the past for memories to squeeze life out of. But that's not living...that's dying prematurely.

Life was meant to be lived, fully; not only when it's good to live, but in every moment. If you live only when it's good to live, you end up living less days than you are given. The narrative that we find ourselves in is unpredictable, at best. No one can accurately forecast or predict the circumstance you will find yourself in tomorrow or in the short days ahead. But...you can always control the position you decide to take, always.

During the days Marianne spent in the hospital, I was quickly and easily overwhelmed. I lost courage, not strength, but my capacity to be courageous wilted. It's actually quite easy to be strong in moments of extreme stress and weight. Contrarily, it is challengingly difficult to be courageous because courageous is more of a perspective than a movement, or a way of acting. And once my perspective became affected, my mode of living became much more of a hiatus status. All of these after affects of losing my wife are undoubtedly normal when processing through grief, but at some point, living becomes essential again. In fact, there certainly comes a point when living must become more of a priority than grieving...that is not an easy transition.

The week we spent in ICU, every little detail and changing circumstance meant everything. What the doctor said, the look in the nurses' eyes, the hesitation in friends' voices...I could feel it all. And fear would settle upon my heart, reshaping my perspective...choking my life. I could do nothing and speak no specially phrased prayer to change the circumstance for my wife. I felt deep loneliness and the crushing weight of disparity.

In a frustrating moment, I desperately spoke one prayer: 'If this must be and I can do nothing to change this...if I have to leave this hospital alone, I can only go forward if you're closest to me. If not, I'm done.'

I stood up, walked away from the bench and back to my wife's room, not fully knowing which way the path would go. All I could think of was my kids and the haunting lack of words present in my heart that would leave their questions abandoned and unfairly unanswered. My ability to be courageous was lost in that thought alone. I walked into my wife's hospital room, stood beside her, closed my eyes and all I could hear was the repetitive sounds of the machines keeping her alive. My prayer ultimatum given to God on the bench still fresh in my thoughts was countered by a different thought louder than the varying, distinct sounds of machines...'today, you are fearful, but tomorrow will come.'

Three months passed, and I counted the days. Tomorrow never felt real...until last weekend.

Last weekend I traveled to a fairly remote place in the Ozarks to be alone and to disconnect from as much as possible. For 48 hours, I practiced silence and solitude. I read through a few prepared Psalms. I identified with the desperation, fear, hopelessness and isolation of the authors who poured out their heart before a God much bigger but sometimes a bit distant feeling from our situation. The first 24 hours were very uneventful. I was even bored and disappointed. But then, resting on a mountain top, my thoughts actually slowed down and stopped racing through my mind and something changed. New thoughts were given the chance to survive in the drying soil of my mind. These thoughts did not come from a place of death, betrayal and loss, but hope, certainty and tomorrow. God began to reshape the current of my thoughts with a redemptive touch.

As I sat and looked down over a valley filled with leafless trees, I felt love with every breathe and a new gravity with each passing moment.

I entered the Ozarks to peacefully let my love go; to let half-trust and a weakening faith die...to re-enter life. I did not find it. Instead, life found me. God found me and a new love filled my heart.

A new dawn is shining on my life.

The love that Marianne and I had was magical, the stuff of storybooks and almost timeless fairytales. The difference, it was real. I will forever carry her influence in my life. I will forever be indebted to my eternal Father for the opportunity to love her and be loved by her. But now, a new day is breaking; a new dawn bringing new life.

It's what I want...
it's what I need...
it's what will be.

Tomorrow is overcoming yesterday. There's a life-giving joy in knowing that tomorrow is not out there somewhere, but it is present in each courageous day lived.



one love. one life.
Guy

beneath the surface.

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Wednesday, December 8, 2010 11:16 PM Posted by i am guy

"Solitude is not a private therapeutic place.
Rather, it is a place of conversion,
the place where the old self dies
and the new self is born."
-Henri Nouwen


There is much to be said about the thoughts which linger in the noise of our minds. Often, we avoid silence to avoid ourselves...the tension just beneath the surface. We commute to work under the cover of music which helps to reshape our emotions momentarily or we simply stare at the road ahead as we hide behind the mindless noise insulating us. We fill our schedules with social events and friends because we cannot stand the thought of being alone with ourselves or we bury ourselves with work and busyness to keep our mind occupied and our thoughts moving.
All to avoid what will not go away just beneath the surface.

I have been holding on for weeks now waiting to get away. Just to make it through the day, I have tried several different things to burn away the minutes and to distract myself. A couple of months ago, I became very aware that I was not necessarily dealing with losing Marianne properly. I found myself guarding a lot, smiling at a lot of genuinely caring friends and saying the right things to build healthy perspective. But in each encounter, I could feel the dull, steady pain ever present. I felt betrayed by what I tried to so faithfully give my life to. I felt overlooked. I felt like a number...a tragic statistic. And I felt like in God's grand scheme of things, my loss didn't really matter. After all, in some beautifully poetic and magical, cosmical way, in the end, it would all make sense and I would surely be humbled in feeling this way...because God is always good.

For me, that thought was the last straw and what was circling beneath the surface reared its head.

I was not okay with it. I was not okay with trying to be okay with it. I wanted God to know the anger that burned in my heart...the anger that would not relent toward his plans, his purposes, his always goodness. In that moment, my heart bled. The surface was broken and my emotion lashed out. The release felt good, but much like a drug addict, the good feeling of the release escaped me when life tightened again. So I drowned out the building pressure with the noise in my mind...work, friends, exercise, writing, sleeping...anything. While none of these activities are bad, they can be harmful when we use them to escape and avoid dealing with real issues.

I knew then that I had to set aside some time to get away from life. I planned a weekend to travel somewhere I had never been before alone. And that weekend has finally come. I leave Friday with a pen, my journal and my Bible...and my mountain bike, for a weekend of complete solitude and silence. Initially, I figured it would be an escape into peaceful quietness and relaxation. Now, I know that I am going into the weekend to let things die, to leave things behind and let my heart breathe again and embrace new life...a new tomorrow...a new way.

Peace comes at a price. We must each measure its worth and decide if we will pay that price.

I would be so appreciative of your prayers this weekend.


one love. one life.
Guy

unafraid.

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Saturday, December 4, 2010 11:54 AM Posted by i am guy


The last time I was afraid
You were breathing.

It calls me back...
From distantly floating,
From carelessly bleeding,
From losing life, tonight.

Our words defy life's length...
Unselfishly they let me go
Into the care of another day,
Into the dawn that's breaking.

Dim shadows circle kindly.
So foreign to my hand you've become;
It's hauntingly okay tonight.
Our words echo and deliver life,
Our path well worn
To a love forever sworn.
And in the wake, blossoming beautiful memories of all shades screaming a love vividly, now free

Unafraid.

The last thing we learned was how to be fearless...how to be free.

rest.

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Wednesday, December 1, 2010 12:53 AM Posted by i am guy

"...we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."
Rom. 8:28

I am laying down at ease tonight, confident in a loving God who is fully aware of the things gone wrong in my life, of that which I count as unfair and unjust and of my unsettled and uncensored emotions which rage untempered with the rising tide. That I am not forgotten is a saving grace for me tonight.


What has YOU uneasy in life tonight?




one love. one life.
Guy
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