A Friend of God

In this Christmas season, I took the time to reflect on Christ. I know it sounds antiquated. The modern permutation of Christmas is just good old-fashioned consumerism and buying shit we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't even know. This is in deep contrast to the original Christmas concept celebrated by the Faithful of Rome in Fourth century (336 AD, if you must know). Christmas wasn’t the High and Buy, Buy, Buy Holiday it is today. Epiphany took top billing until the Ninth century.

Don’t press eject on me yet. This is not going to be a dry, scholarly piece because I simply don’t know how to write like a scholar. I won’t bore you with the etymology of the word "Christmas" which reads,

"Christmas" is a shortened form of "Christ's mass.” It is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, which is from Old English Crīstesmæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038 followed by the word Cristes-messe in 1131.  Crīst (genitive Crīstes) is from Greek Khrīstos (Χριστός), a translation of Hebrew Māšîaḥ (מָשִׁיחַ), "Messiah", meaning "anointed"; and mæsse is from Latin missa, the celebration of the Eucharist. The form Christenmas was also historically used, but is now considered archaic and dialectal."

If you wanted that crap, you could just as easily copy and paste it from Wikipedia, as I just did. Technically, I didn't bore you with that etymology, it was Wikipedia's responsibility following modern logic. While you consider your misdirected anger, I was reflecting on Christ, the demystified, "commonized" son of the Galilee He would have appeared at first glance.

What was He like during an "average day" for an off duty Messiah? Perhaps, sitting around a campfire and drinking from wine skins with the Disciples He knew more as friends than the revered apostles we are familiar with. What did He do in his downtime when there were no demons to drive out, Pharisees to school, or crowds in need of ministering? Did they sit under a shady palm near the Sea of Galilee and joke with one another? They must have.

Did Jesus have a dry wit, or was he more of a Soupy Sales kind of Savior? Did he ever annoy the Disciples with a “made you look” variety of inside joke? He would have been the best at this kind of humor.

Look Elijah! Made you look! 

Come forth Abraham! Made you look! 

Get behind me Satan! Made you look!

You can see my point.

All humor aside, what did Jesus see when He looked into His friend’s eyes? Did he see them in the present they shared or the road He was putting them on which would lead directly to their deaths? Probably both and everything else, as well. Try to get your head around that one. Relationships are hard enough for us, and we only have our own biased views of the past to contend with.

What games did they play together, or did they? What were the Disciples aspirations for the future? How did Jesus demonstrate love for His friends who, by outside appearance, were peers? Did Jesus cook? What were his hobbies? What of His silent childhood years ?

The Bible gives us no clues regarding the answers to my questions. The private friendships between the Disciples and the Master, like Jesus’ childhood years, will remain secret. It belongs to them alone, but I wish I could have shared in this  experience. Don't you?

As I contemplated these things, it occurred to me, in the way traffic accidents occur with screeching breaks and whiplash impact:

Christians are supposed to be in that very kind of friendship relationship with Christ and each other.

1. We are connected to one another by Christ.
2. He is our most trusted friend
3. We are His disciples and He is our Master
4. As we travel through life, we are to spread the Gospel.
5. We can even sit under a shady palm near the Sea of Galilee and talk to Him, providing you can cover the airfare. 

Yet, Christians do not share this relationship with one another. We quibble and fight over one minuscule point or another. We are ready to kill over the placement of a comma. Isn’t our God bigger than these things and everything else? Isn't true Faith trusting God to do the heavy lifting? It was called GOOD NEWS for a reason, wasn't it?

Instead, shouldn’t we be emulating our God by trying to become as forgiving as He is?
As loving as He?
As tender as He?
As trustworthy as He?
and everything else we consider Holy and Righteous?
Shouldn’t we?

Look at me, I am...
Made you look!

Have a very Merry Christmas to all and know that I Love you,

Michael

The Unmentionable

We have no word in any language for the sorrow which engulfs a man upon the loss of his partner. We do not give a name to that which we most dread. Although Zoe and I were divorced when she left us, I have spent many of my days in that terrible unnamed place where you are now. What Jean and all the rest of us need you to know right now is that you are not alone in this darkness and there is Light ahead.

All my Love,
Michael

Metanoia

Here, we are born on this misshapen sphere of water, rock, and molten iron careening through a mindbogglingly vast chasm containing little more than a faint microwave echo of a colossal explosion 12.75 billion years ago. Here, we are given a myopic sliver of history and cultural customs tightly bound within sacred rules and rituals painstakingly preserved on fragments of decaying vegetable fiber and told, “This is who we are, what we do, how we do it, and why. This is what we kill and die for, cheat, swindle, and lie for. This is us.”

I tell you there is something far more in store for you, and you, and you too, if you but Love. Love fiercely. Love invincibly, unabashedly, unstoppably, furiously, eternally. Love without measure, without remorse, without fear of loss. Love and never count the cost. Love.

Here and now, this is who we are. This is what we do. This is how we do it and why. Because on this tiny fragment of minerals filled with vegetables and animals speeding through the frigid bled we rose to our feet and shouted to the Heavens, “We can never Love too much and I Love all of you. Every last one of us. We are them. They are us. I am you. You are me too. We Love all of you!”

This is who we are. This is what we do. This is who... I AM... LOVE. So are you.

A Silence for a Seven

I haven't posted anything for seven months because I have had no need or desire to do so. While the Spirit has remained, the words that burn from the inside which can only be extinguished by the flow of ink on paper have been silent... until today.


The loss of Art hit me much deeper than I would have expected had I considered the prospect of his passing eight months ago. Aside from the reality vs. concept aspect of his death, it was the shock, the guilt, and the anger that tore into me. Art was eighty and that is about the life expectancy for an American man on the actuarial tables, but no matter how statistically foreseeable and mathematically probable his loss may be, I was still deeply shaken. 

Perhaps, I realized that Art and I shared the same "Immortality Project"(1), volunteering at our local food bank. So, if Art's Immortality Project failed, which it obviously did at his time of death so would mine in time. 

Maybe, it was that Art was a big part of my motivation to jump out of bed on Monday morning. 

Maybe, I just loved the old coot. 

Seven months later, I remain undecided, but I have found the Faith that God knows and this is sufficient.

Over then course of these past months, I've been afforded the opportunity to explore these feelings of guilt and anger. Understanding such feelings when they are understandable is not only a journey within oneself, but an exploration of those "deep waters" in which we all swim. When we return from our journey, we are better equipped to help others navigate their own deep waters. Here is what I found many fathoms down...

• THE GUILT was pervasive because I should have been more aware of his persistent cough. I could have asked him about his heart a week earlier. I know that a persistent cough often precedes a heart attack. I could have done or said something. I failed. 

That's me applying for the part of God, and feeling guilty for not getting the job.

• THE ANGER, that's so common I shouldn't have to explain. It makes me angry just considering how damn angry I was, and it's not soothing in the least that I have to confront it rationally right here, right now. 

That's me being mortal and at the core of my mortality lay my rage for not being more than an ordinary man. 

My good relationships, like the one I shared with Art, should last forever because that's exactly how I plan them. Don't you? 

So, when we hit a terminus that shouldn't be there, we get angry. It wasn't in our plan. That's the plan we're following. Aren't you?

But...It's God's Plan and we are just a mortal men and women. Here is the place where we must find the Faith to trust in a God who knows what He is doing and this is sufficient.

A Perfect God has a Perfect Plan. We don't have a competitive product, but that's not how we behave. As the Apostle Paul wrote many failed plans ago...

What remains is Faith, Hope, and Love. 

That's the raw materials that we have to work with. Prescience, flawless planning, and deft execution are not among them.

Faith, Hope, and Love. That's all we have and that is sufficient. 

Faith that God has His Hand in our every breath. Which He does. 

Hope that we will see the Resurrection of the living ad the dead.

Love for our God and one another. We should plan and perform a lot more of that because we'll be spending eternity together.

Art is one mighty step closer to the Almighty and that, my friends, is the purpose of His Plan and our Path. 


Now, We move on.




(1) Thanks to Ernest Becker for the concept