Expats of Eden

A Christian’s take on racial reconciliation in America, and how to cross the aisle and find genuine unity in Christ.

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It has been a long couple of months. 

Civil society seemed to regrow. There was much hope for reconciliation within fractured families, and church attendance online increased as those desperately in need reached out for a higher power. Could this be the stuff of revival? Could this be the desperately needed turn back to God through Christ that the nation and world needs to repair itself?

What should never have been political became so. Those protesting for their liberties were demonized and misrepresented, and those concerned with their health and welfare as well as their family’s were castigated as cowardly and ill-informed. Across the board straw-men were stuffed and set up for ridicule, while truth took a back seat to partisanship and pandering. The powers that be spared no expense in pressing hard on the cracks already apparent in America’s civil society and worked to drive us further apart.

COVID-19 was many things to many people, and so many unique stories unfolded during its reign, but alas COVID-19 was not the end-all cultural moment that some had hoped. Fortunately, neither was it the end-all cataclysm that some had forecasted. It has not passed unfelt, however, and its true impact has yet to be realized as the deaths of despair and abuse that the pandemic has hidden, as well as the economic impact is uncovered and properly parsed in the months and years to come.

There was hope for but a moment, a breath of fresh air for a newly opened world, but the moment passed and our society has been presented with a challenge that is not new in the slightest, but strikes at the heart of the fracturing of civil society in the West, and in America particularly. It is an issue upon which I believe the future of this nation and global stability hinges, and one that has not been effectively addressed historically. I am speaking of course about the series of incidents that unfolded in Brunswick, Georgia and in Minneapolis, Minnesota: the unjust deaths of Ahmed Arbery and George Floyd.

Before continuing, I want to offer up a prayer, because the issues at hand cut deeply to the heart of the human spirit, and there is no way to have this conversation unemotionally. I contend that justice must remain blind, and the cold, methodical process of law be respected in its designated states and municipalities, but I cannot, in good conscience, hold the leadership positions I hold in my home, family, church, and community, let alone profess my faith in Jesus Christ, and not add my voice to this conversation. I have been convicted in my time doing this podcast that although my reach is small, there are those within it that need to hear what I say from time to time. No matter how small, I have a platform, and as such I am morally obligated to make the most productive Kingdom use of it, and to speak the truth as I see it, in love.

Heavenly Father, thank you for breath in my lungs today, and the reminder that it brings that you formed mankind from the dust of the Earth to reflect your Holy image, and chose to bestow life upon us not by word or gesture, but by your very precious breath into our first human father’s nostrils.

Thank you Father for the blessings that you have poured out on not only my life, but likewise upon the lives of those living presently in what is by historical standards the safest and most equitable society ever conceived of or implemented. Please forgive me for taking those blessings for granted, and likewise please forgive me for resting in the complacent stance that merely because things are better now than they have ever been historically, that they cannot be improved, and are not by their very nature as Earthly constructs fallen and subject to corruption and decay.

I pray for your very blood to be sprinkled upon the rest of what I am about to write and say, as I have but an inkling in my heart that how I, as a believer, address this matter can either serve to heal or further divide my community, and this nation. Please show me where I am wrong, and give me the wisdom and humility to recognize and admit it.

I pray for nothing of my own sin nature to come across in this entry, even if it makes it past my keyboard, recording, and editorial process. I pray that it falls upon deaf ears, and only what is of you is articulated. I pray that this is heard by those whom you intend it for. I pray that they receive it in the spirit in which I intend it. I pray that it will be a constructive addition to the conversation, and not a mindless resounding of gongs or clanging of cymbals. 

I pray for a spiritual awakening and revival, and I pray for this moment in history to be worked into it, so that we will not look upon these times as merely an ugly scar upon our nation’s history, but a moment in which something was finally done. I pray for wisdom in our governing authorities, I pray for you to work through them, and for the spirit of Christ to be embodied in them.

I pray, above all, for unity. I pray for your church to reflect and endeavor to undertake the difficult but deeply significant work necessary in order that our nation and world are drawn closer to you. 

For your glory; in Christ’s name.

Amen.

I must start by saying quite plainly that I detest empty virtue signaling. While I do not doubt the sincerity of those whom I know personally who have raised their voices over the course of the last month, I have worked in media and communications since I was a teenager, understand precisely how propaganda works, and have seen too much of the world and history.  Frankly put, it is easy enough to contribute an affirmative voice to a cause in the heat of a moment, but extraordinarily difficult to dig down and do the work necessary to address what lies beneath the pain and confusion. For those who are sincere, this is not for you—for those who have offered up a word merely for the sake of profit, for fear of being castigated for silence, or for the sake of earning points in a cultural battle that you have no intent in fighting, I humbly request that you examine yourself and your heart.

I have been silent over the last few months. While I have had every intention in keeping a bi-weekly schedule of writing and releasing podcasts, I have come to realize that to hold to such a schedule would only cheapen my words and serve to pervert via marketplace values what should be a plain parsing of the world and my heart through the lens of Christ for the sake of those who might listen.

I have been silent over the last few weeks, not out of lack of concern nor care for the events that have transpired, but out of a sincere desire to be very deliberate and accurate with my speech, and my outlook. My wife can attest to the conversations behind closed doors as I have grappled with this topic, desperately seeking out the truth amid the partisan confusion.

It was a time of reflection, listening, reading, and clarification. It was a time in which I caught but a glimpse of my biases, the shortcomings of my cultural perspective, and what will be, at least for me, the path forward in Christ.

I am white—a mutt—a melange of Scottish, Irish, English, and Belgian blood with a smattering (allegedly) of Cherokee, though the genetic testing on that end has proven inconclusive, so who knows? I frankly don’t care a great deal about my ethnic heritage, but have thoroughly enjoyed exploring my cultural heritage: celtic music, a deep love of Cherokee folklore, an affinity for the Southern Highlands and the wilderness which I have elaborated on at length in this podcast—but all of this is cultural and could have  just as easily come from my upbringing in the foothills of Appalachia.

I will acknowledge the cold hard reality that my ancestors were not perfect, because it serves to teach a lesson that every single human being ought to take to heart: that every human being has the propensity for evil, and that no one on Earth lives up to the glory of God. We are broken people living in a broken world, and we need a Savior to set things right.

My socioeconomic background has varied as my parents progressed through their careers, but I think it’s safe to say that we were upwardly-mobile, very well off, and never wanted for anything. My mother is truly unique in my family as she escaped cyclical poverty in rural South Carolina through hard work, dedication, and education, an attitude that she passed on to me and my siblings, all of carrying with us a natural tendency towards workaholism.

That, however, is my family history, not my race.

My family upbringing was such that the individual, not the individual’s group, was what mattered. If ever once in my childhood I or my siblings crossed a line into judging an individual based on their skin color, we were quickly rebuked and corrected. We were not raised in a household that considered race as anything but circumstance, and certainly did not consider it to give nor take value from any individual. To think otherwise was unspeakably shameful. 

My family endeavored, in their best efforts, to live up to Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream: to judge on the content of character, not color of skin. 

This has lead to confusion over the years.

I’m a naturally quiet individual and have had my standoffishness interpreted, with a great deal of anger and personal attack, as racial prejudice. Politically, I lean towards personal liberty and limited government and am highly suspicious of public figures in the public and private sector, and the cults of personality that form around them. This leaves me a political orphan every four years or so, and unfortunately, when I raised concerns about the Obama campaign’s individual policy points, I was accused of only caring about the candidate due to the color of his skin, not the policy positions.

As I have lived my life in high school, college, and beyond, hearing about supposed racial injustices, I have never quite known what to think about the accounts, and have tended towards the notion that perhaps our nation is making too much of race and is overly sensitive. It’s not supposed to matter, right?

The lines I used are familiar, and I see and hear them echoed across social media today: “slavery ended in the 1860s, Jim Crow is a think of the past, The Civil Rights Movement was successful… what’s everyone still complaining about? Can’t we just get over it? All Lives Matter…”

Further complicating things in my mind has been the prevalence of “identity politics” in today’s political discourse, the notion that an individual has some degree of social ranking based on immutable qualities such as race or biological sex. The logic bolstering such dialogue is, I believe, well-intentioned at its best as society seeks to reach dispossessed individuals, but ultimately toxic in its application. Anyone who has followed the churning news cycles of the last four years have seen first hand the public shaming, de-platforming of individuals with differing opinions, and a reactionary public conversation that relies on emotions, not facts, individuals desperately attempting to show how “woke” they are while canceling those who do not pass the purity test, a test whose criteria changes daily as the window of civil discourse shrinks.

The notion of judging an individual based on anything immutable is detestable to me, and our society’s reversion to angry, petty allegiances to identity groups has caused me to dig in my heels, be hyper-critical of social justice, and throw the baby out with the bath-water.

While I adamantly refuse to relegate individuals to nothing more than demographic data, I have realized over the course of the last few weeks that there is a negative consequence to completely ignoring immutable qualities of an individual—and they are playing out in real-time in the conversations surrounding George Floyd and Ahmed Arbery.

In considering race to be a non-factor in daily life, one runs the risk of ignoring the cultural history that an individual might carry with them, and therefore the lens through which individuals interpret the world.

I firmly believe that the individual is sovereign—the ultimate minority in the world with a perspective, struggles, and history completely unique to that person alone. I firmly believe that, as envisioned and written, the United States’ Constitution outlines a society governed by individuals, absent any consideration of their immutable qualities. This is nothing short of miraculous from a historic perspective as mankind has historically divided into groups and gone to war over their differences. I firmly believe that the history of this country has been a series of reconciling that miraculous ideal, of individual sovereignty, with reality.

The inherent call for equality codified in the United States Constitution is evidenced by the fact that the Confederate States of America were founded in direct opposition to that ideal in order to continue the subjugation of black Americans at a point in history when America was prepared to undertake the necessary work of abolition. In the Cornerstone Speech, made shortly prior to the start of The Civil War at Fort Sumter, Confederate Vice President Andrew H. Stephens admits as much:

The prevailing ideas entertained by [Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers] at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. […] Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the “storm came and the wind blew, it fell […] Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.

Had the founding document of the United States not been a miraculous codification of the inherent rights of mankind, there would have been no reason whatsoever for the secession of the slaveholding Southern states, nor the bloody conflict that resulted.

Through civil war and civil conflict, America has clawed its way forward, trying desperately to live up to its founding ideals, becoming a beacon of hope the world over and leading the way in raising much of the world out of extreme poverty over the course of the last century. I believe that this country is a gift from God, I believe that it has been remarkably blessed, and I believe its citizens live in a society that our ancestors would have killed to participate in.

That our peaceful protestors are permitted to do so largely unimpeded, that arrests and interactions with police amidst the turmoil do not, absent a minority of cases, result in violence and death, that we are not facing the type of unilateral action taken by authoritarian regimes that sees its dissidents gunned down in the streets or swept away to labor camps without even a trial—this illustrates that this country is still a place that tries to live up to its founding principles. We have room to improve, but we are a free people.

But America is not an idol in my heart. I will not pretend that we have been sinless. Our history is marred by the reality that we enslaved human beings and profited from it, and yes, some of our founders were complicit and active participants.

The horrors of the Atlantic Slave Trade, I cannot fathom. I don’t understand it, and I cannot comprehend the deep agony of the soul that those men, women, and children must have experienced in both being ripped from their homeland, as well as stripped of their dignity as human beings. I cannot understand what it means to be a part of black culture with that level of historical trauma. I cannot understand what it was like to be barred from public spaces due to skin-color, nor to have loved ones who did experience such hardship, keeping the oral tradition alive and well, reminding generation after generation of how far they have come, and precisely what human beings are capable of.

I cannot understand the unique cultural perspective of black Americans, but I can certainly listen and do my best to empathize. While I have not yet been convinced that America is systemically racist as the letter of the law reflects that everyone is free from oppression due to immutable characteristics, I can follow my worldview to its logical conclusion:

The individual is sovereign, with a unique history, series of struggles, culture, and perspective. Regardless of statistics or what is codified in law, I cannot dismiss the accounts from black Americans who have experienced racism. These are individual human beings with individual experiences that I have absolutely no ability to step into as a white man. The system itself may not be racist, but it is comprised of people. The law may be the law, but there is no legislating the human heart or mind. 

So, what is to be done? Tear it all down? I don’t think so.

Divisive, vitriolic discourse surrounding the issue of race in America is precisely why this problem has not yet been resolved. Oversimplifying this matter into partisan dialogue and adamant insistence that the other side is merely ignorant or being manipulated at best, or willingly hateful at worst fosters nothing but anger and a hardening of hearts across the board. It has to stop.

I do not think either side of this issue is entirely right or entirely wrong, and I think both sides of the issue have more in common than one would suspect at face value. 

In general, both sides want justice in the death of George Floyd. Both sides want reform to prevent future police brutality. Both sides are incensed at the presumed corruption that enabled the events that lead to the shooting of Ahmed Arbery. Americans are, overall, united in response to these events. 

These tragic deaths of people that are made in the image of God should and have unified us as a country in a fight for justice and reform on all levels, yet they have been used to divide and polarize people even further. This is despicable.

We cannot allow this to continue. We must humbly start conversations, find the common ground, and identify and discuss the differences at hand. We must genuinely listen and empathize, even and especially with those that we disagree. We must see each other as equals, having inherent worth, and not as political adversaries. People are grieving, people are hurting, and we are far too quick to speak than to listen.

In my humble opinion, this is the path forward, and the church has to lead the way.

At this point, I want to shift my focus specifically to the church, because the secular world is going to do what it’s going to do regardless, and we cannot follow in their footsteps, making idols out of our political ideologies or personal experiences.

The church of Jesus Christ has always been transcendent and unique, a brotherhood—a family—that stands in the gap and does, through Jesus Christ, what cannot be done in any other context. We are not interested in politics, we are interested in hearts, bringing the message of salvation in opposition to the spiritual powers of a dying world.

We need to recognize the fact that the church of Jesus Christ is a church without borders, walls, or ethnicity. We are a family of nations, and the story of The Bible, and specifically the early church is the story of gathering all of humanity, across all nationalities and races, back to God. Scripture tells us that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” We are to be unified as one people, but that does not mean that we are to be homogenous.

All of Scripture shows God using individuals with unique differences to serve His purposes, often those whom you would never expect: Jacob, Rahab, Ruth, Esther, Ehud, King David, the Apostle Matthew, the Apostle Paul—all are unlikely heroes in their respective stories. Christ Himself was born into a lowly estate, becoming a craftsman in a veritable backwater, subject to cultural misunderstanding and prejudice, before taking on His Earthly mission: a life of itinerant street-preaching to those whom society ignored. Likewise, the multitude from every nation, the final undoing of Babel, mentioned in Revelation indicates that the story that God has woven is one that acknowledges differences between human beings, and unites them under the banner of Christ, making use of our differences for the betterment of the Kingdom. We are one in Christ: unique parts of the body, none of us more or less important than any other.

So, I submit that we ought to take a moment to acknowledge our differences, particularly from a cultural or racial perspective. For me personally, this is about the most uncomfortable thing that I can think of due to my upbringing. 

Here’s what I know from my cultural background:

Two things can be simultaneously true: first, the codified text of the laws in place do not allow for the type of racism that we saw under Jim Crow. We have made great strides and in that respect. Equally true, however, is that a great number of black people in America have had personal experiences that do not square with this reality, indicating that there are injustices to address.

In the public discourse, I have seen nothing but disgust for racism and prejudice when it has been brought to light, and therefore don’t think that anyone except for a small minority of extremists are in any way in favor of racism in any capacity in America. 

What is perceived as callousness via inaction or silence in the wake of these tragedies is largely the desire to maintain a respectful silence in lieu of stirring the pot, and the cries of “all lives matter” reflects a culture that has tried to move past the issue of race and isn’t sure what is left to be done after the type of historical discriminatory practices endemic in America have been outlawed.

I have likewise heard a great deal of frustration from fellow Christians who simply do not know what to say, and are concerned about the anger directed at any who misspeak, or at any who inquire, in good faith and out of a genuine desire to learn, about the facts backing the assertion that America is a racist place that victimizes people of color. This makes many unwilling to engage in the conversation for fear of loss of face, relationships, or at worst, their occupation. Our current political climate and “cancel culture” makes much of ostracizing intellectual and political “others,” subjecting dissenters to public shaming, and that scares the daylights out of people. 

There is also a knee-jerk response in the white community that asserts “I’m not responsible for this,” and “I’m not apologizing for something that I didn’t do.” However, I don’t think that anyone, outside of an extremist minority, is asking for white people to take direct, punitive, responsibility for these individual acts of injustice. I do, however, think that there is a call for justice, a call that asks to be seen, heard, and understood: to acknowledge the individual injustices being protested, and to acknowledge the deep pain that they bring to the surface. To mourn with those who mourn. 

In order to do this as white Christians, it may be helpful to consider the fact that we don’t have the same historic experience as our black brothers and sisters. As such, we don’t have the same cultural perspective through which to view the world.

We don’t know what it’s like to have been raised in a culture that developed in a time where people were ostracized due to an immutable characteristic like skin color. It’s not in our history.

We do, however, have the history of the Christian church that we can consider, and hopefully utilize to reframe our perspective on this issue. Consider the early church—human beings ostracized and persecuted, gathering in secret and forming a brotherhood and family around the commonality that simultaneously united them together and separated them from society: Christ. 

Consider the history of slavery and racism in the United States—human beings ostracized and persecuted both before and after Emancipation, gathering in secret to worship while enslaved and afterwards being forcibly excluded from gathering with those not of the same race. It is understandable that the culture that would form in the wake of such an experience would be similar to the early Church in respect to the familial bond and brotherhood that simultaneously unites them together while separating them from wider society: the color of their skin.

What has dawned on me over the course of the last few weeks is that white Americans by and large don’t feel any sense of kinship with other white Americans beyond their common bond as Americans. At most, we recognize political or religious affiliation, or perhaps common interests, but I don’t think we genuinely FEEL like others who share our race have inherent importance to us. That’s all well and good, as it’s obvious to see where placing value on whiteness has lead our country in the past, but consider the alternative:

Based on my reading of black theologians and listening to other black voices in this space, and after talking with some colleagues who have had positive experiences working towards racial reconciliation within their churches, I have learned that that the black community tends to feel kinship because of the history of oppression in this country, and as such each instance of racism that we see as a nation is felt on a much deeper, familial level, allowing the community to unite in support against persecution. It’s a beautiful thing, and I think regardless of our cultural backgrounds, we could certainly do with feeling more strongly about the pain that other human beings are experiencing, and considering what we can do about it in our unique way.

That consideration has clarified a great deal of the cognitive dissonance I’ve been feeling about the current state of things, and while I vehemently disagree with much of the discourse that’s coming from the political left on the subject, I likewise don’t think that digging in to repeat statistics and contend that black people in America are somehow mistaken about their own felt experience is the way to go either. 

I can’t pretend to fully understand the matter at hand, but I can’t pretend that there’s not a problem in this country. The image of a black man being cornered in a residential area and being shot after he tries to defend himself, the image of a cop with his knee on a black man’s neck despite the protests of EVERYONE in the vicinity—this is not OK, and the deep hurt that’s come to the surface as a result of  these two incidents as well others that have not been nearly as publicized is real and valid. 

I can’t lend support fully to either the political left or the political right on this issue, because I don’t think to do so would be Biblical. There is too much vitriol and refusal to cross the aisle on both sides of this issue. Too much anger. Too much hate.

We can acknowledge our different cultural pasts, can acknowledge our unique cultural experiences and perspectives, and we can unite in moving forward as one people united in Christ, working towards the common purpose of kingdom work.

Jesus Christ cuts straight through to the heart, and in that spirit I’m attempting to walk a fine line towards genuine unity and reconciliation. It is what Christians have always endeavored to do, even if our attempts have been flawed.

If we are unwilling, as Christians, to find the common thread, then the world will step into the void, and, being unredeemed, will work in the manner that the world always works when race and ethnicity become topics of conversation, or points of value beyond simple humanity or cultural differences. History illustrates clearly what happens when ethnicity or other immutable qualities becomes the source of value or lack there of in a societal sense: Nazi Germany’s fascination with Aryans, Japanese racial supremacy and the atrocities it wrought on Nanking, European conquest of Africans in the Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery, apartheid in South Africa, various Inquisitions seeking to subjugate those of differing religious beliefs, the Rwandan and Arminian Genocides, the pogroms of Eastern Europe, the policies of contemporary China that enslaves Uygurs, bulldozes churches, and disappears dissidents for thought crime. This is to say nothing of the impact of blind allegiance to group identity on a broader timeline beyond the last few centuries.

I believe that there is a path towards racial reconciliation in the middle of all of this, and I believe that it is the church’s job to pick up the mantle. I believe that addressing this as the body of Christ will lead to flourishing unlike anything we’ve ever seen, and quite possibly the revival that is so desperately needed.

The post #19: Unity in Christ appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

As the world grinds to a halt from COVID-19, artists and creatives have a unique opportunity to minister through their work.

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I’ve stopped following the news, disgusted by the obvious spin and efforts to generate and capitalize on panic in the face of uncertainty. Instead, I have turned to official documents and press releases, going straight to the source to parse out reality for myself, a return to a simpler mindset that I lost somewhere a few years back. I thank God that the subtext of our local orders seems to be a respect for individual liberties, with clauses highlighting that abridgements of constitutional rights will be deemed illegal, regardless of what the moment seems to call for.

For now, at least in the quiet corner of the world that I inhabit, the march of totalitarianism, one of my deepest fears, seems quelled, though I am not so foolish as to think for one second that there are not opportunists waiting in the wings, eager to take advantage of a crisis. Time will tell, but I will, for the time being, turn my eyes away from speculation and focus instead on what I know for sure.

I turn to church leaders, eager to hear the thoughts of those in whom we have entrusted our guidance, and hear echoed the deepest convictions of my heart: we truly do not what precisely is happening in the world, but we do know that God is sovereign, and we know that times such as these are the things that revivals are made of.

Times such as these are the moments that cause complacency to lose its luster, and the vain comforts of the material world to blow away into the dust that we have been thoroughly assured that they ultimately are. Times such as these are when we as human beings realize with utter certainty how wild this world truly is, and how little control we have.

I frankly have no idea how someone without faith in a higher power is coping with the unfolding drama that this pandemic has brought to bear. I believe in a sovereign, good God who has vouchsafed my soul, and I find myself intermittently throughout the weeks shaken at how truly alone we are in this pandemic but for the grace of God. 

Our marketplace offers nothing, a few weeks of closures having broken an unprecedented course of prosperity. Our governments have proven impotent in preparing for or implementing strategies to avoid the worst possibilities. There is no hope in this world but for God.

And that, I think, is precisely the point of this moment in history.

Western civilization has been unspeakably blessed over the course of the last century with the most prosperous society in all of human history, and our response to such providence has been a wholesale turning away from the source of our blessings. We have answered God’s provision with proclamations of His death, rejection of truth, and a loving of self.

With that said, I do not think that this moment in history is a judgment. This moment in history is a wakeup call. I believe that this moment in history will be looked upon in the years to come as one of the greatest things that has ever happened to us as a people. I believe that from this moment in history, our culture will turn back to God and put our priorities in their proper places. 

I heard an account from Wuhan, China, the source of the pandemic, from a pastor in the local church who rallied his congregation to help distribute medical supplies over the course of the last few months. As the Chinese government mobilized to crush the spread of information concerning the virus and forcibly quarantine its people, this small church body mobilized in a concerted mission to spread the Gospel.

The result of this mobilization? Revival. 

I’m stirred by the testimony that, even as lockdowns occurred, the church in China took to using online services to further inform their neighbors about  where to find medical supplies, sharing the Gospel every step of the way. I am stirred that: 

“Some started reading the Bible, some inquired about the Christian faith, some even prayed the sinner’s prayer. Some people promised to attend church meetings after the plague, and some were already attending our online meetings. We saw how that with just a little faith we must follow the Lord without fear of danger… In a short time of 60 days, we have seen a big renewal in the ministry of church members. We saw that this plague was meant to bring about a great revival of the church. This revival was not started after the end of the plague, but in the course of the plague, we saw the wonderful grace of God manifested.”

Please see the full video here, as well as the article from Dr. Michael Heiser where I found it.

I am stirred because that account from Wuhan is not unique. I have been hearing similar accounts from church communities in the West, and I think God is moving mightily throughout this time of uncertainty. 

I am stirred because during this time, there are opportunities for ministry at every corner. Be it podcasting and blogs, or motivational posts online. The world is at a standstill, and so many are grasping for hope and finding none. Celebrity culture seems to have ebbed into obscurity, the austerity of it laid bare in the face of reality.

There are families walking the streets in our neighborhood. Our church’s online presence has exploded as we reach more and more people. Neighbors are talking to neighbors. Our societal fabric and civil society seems to be reforming each and every day.

That this coincides with Holy Week, or Easter Week, I think, is miraculous. How many who may not have ever darkened the door of a church will tune in to an Easter live stream next weekend? How many will hear the Gospel for the first time?

God has gone before us to prepare the infrastructure for a mighty Kingdom work, and I am beyond excited to see it.

In my own quiet corner, I am humbled by the reality that there are ministry opportunities available that make plain the purpose of years worth of unpaid labor and struggles on project after project that seemed so trite and empty in the moment, but have built up networks and skills necessary to spread the Gospel now when the cultural soil is tilled and ready. 

I am confident that the impact of the last few weeks and whatever is to come is going to leave a mark on our world, nation, city, and community for the foreseeable future. Each generation has its collection of defining cultural moments that alter the course of history, and this is one of ours.

It is Holy Week, and for the last few years I have been privileged to lead a group of creatives in the Atlanta area in applying their talents to sharing the Gospel and ministering to the church body and city as a whole. This year we will not have a gallery opening in person, but instead online, and as such, we are at a unique crossroads as creatives.

If you are an artist or creative person, as the world around us has ground to a halt and others panic, it is highly likely that each of you has had some sort of insight that might help minister to the body of Christ in a unique way. For me personally, this came by way of realizing that my years of musing on mortality and other melancholy subjects had short-circuited panic, allowing me to step into a difficult place at my job at a critical moment in our organization’s history.

Perhaps you have had a similar experience fighting anxiety and depression, or otherwise have crossed through spiritual valleys and deserts. Perhaps you aren’t as shaken during this pandemic as everyone else because you’ve already stared death and existential angst in the eye and didn’t blink.

Perhaps this moment in history doesn’t phase you, because you’ve read enough fairy tales to know that the stories that we’ve told ourselves over the years convey nothing if not the undying truth that no matter how dark things seem, God is sovereign and there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps you have some transcendent insight that can speak into this moment.

Perhaps not. Perhaps yours is a different perspective and story to tell, but I know one thing for certain: the body of Christ needs to be ministered to right now, and creative people are uniquely equipped to do it.

We trade in capturing hearts and minds, and now is the time for it, more than ever.

As a church body, we can rationalize and meditate on statistics until we are blue in the face, but cold facts will not lift a wounded heart in the same way that a piece of music will. Statistics will not speak to the deep parts of the soul in the way that a well-written poem will. Executive orders and pithy comments about “getting through this together” will not encourage the lonely in the same way that paint on canvas can when wielded by someone sharing their heart.

This is a time for poets. This is a time for painters. This is a time for artists. This is a time to minister to the people in the church body and those outside of it.

How will you rise to the occasion?

The post #18: A Time for Poets appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

As coronavirus brings the world to a grinding halt, I contemplate the spiritual ramifications and responsibilities of Christians and the church.

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Passing through town we see more and more people out and about walking, a stark reminder of the world that we now live in. It seems that Netflix and chill is not all that it’s cracked out to be when it’s all that is to be done.

The owner is glad to see us again and calls us by name. My wife is better with the pleasantries, I’m trying hard not to look uncomfortable…because the contrast is striking.

This is not normal. This is not the world we lived in even a week ago. The faces are all the same, but the lady behind the counter is wearing nitrile gloves and is clearly flustered as she cradles the phone, puts another customer on hold to ring us up, and cheerily greets a man who has wandered in. All in a fluid motion—impressive. Jarring. Unsettling. This is not normal.

We thank her and take our food outside to the only table still available to sit at in the area.  Local ordinances being what they are, all public seating has been blatantly removed. Tables are gone, and at the ones that are bolted down, the chairs have been stacked and shackled. We are fortunate to find a table literally welded to the cement: a wrought-iron affair with built-in seating. Let’s just see them take this away.

We dust off the pollen, say a prayer, and begin to unpack our carry-out order just a stone’s throw away from the establishment from which it came. The sun sets, the world turns, and we can’t help but wonder how things turned this upside down in the span of a week over a disease that no one we know has contracted yet, but for which the entire world has stopped spinning.

We fumble with plastic silverware and boxes. My wife has dressed up for this date… and I can’t do a damned thing to make it any more special.

The owner walks out of the restaurant and asks us if we need anything. God bless her, but we thankfully decline. Seeing our plight, she returns a few moments later with dishes and silverware. Virus be damned, she’ll take care of her customers.

It strikes me then as it has several times this week that the world, though impacted, is no intrinsically different than it was a week ago. Circumstances may have changed, but we’re all still here, still in the picture, still playing out the cosmic drama in which we’ve been cast.

For better or for worse, this is the world. This is reality. And there is much hope in that, no matter what may or may not have been said. Because we’re still here, the end is not nigh, and we have the opportunity now more than ever to rise to the occasion and live up to our best thoughts and values. This is a time for mobilization, even as we are socially distanced. This is a time for actions to line up with words. This is a time for heroes, big and small, to serve their families, friends, and communities well.

A few months ago I met with a friend over lunch, and talk quickly shifted to deep things. In the face of a fractured society constantly at each other’s throats, we pondered what could possibly come next for our nation and the world at large. What might the future hold?

I posited the notion that each generation has its landmark crises and trials: wars, depressions, pandemics, political upheaval. Rare is the generation that passes untouched. For two decades, however, it seems like that was precisely what had happened here in America. Not since September 11, 2001, could I recall a unified cultural moment of crisis in which everything seemed to stop here in America. A moment when individuals were forced to reconcile their worldview with the world itself and realize that despite all material gains and life stations, they were powerless in the face of the cosmos. By all accounts, we’ve had it pretty good.

I had but a seed of a notion how fortunate we have been in that respect. I know that America has prospered despite a slew of injustices and dispossession the world over. Truly, the poorest among our number live as kings in the majority of the world, and even those from our recent past. We have had it exceedingly easy in this country, and most surely it has spoiled us.

Despite my platitudes and awareness of the trends of history, I had grown complacent: surely the good times would continue. Surely, not within my lifetime, would the world just stop spinning. Surely not. Yet, for the last two weeks, it seems like that is precisely what has been happening.

In retrospect, it was inevitable. A cursory glance at world history shows that our society’s prolonged relative peace, stability, and prosperity has been an exception, not the rule. Both secular sources, as well as the Bible’s descriptions of the course of human history are clear: human existence is fraught with plague, war, economic turmoil, and uncertainty. This is what happens in human history. This is what always happens. History is one long narrative of the human species struggling to gain some semblance of control over the world, and being put in its place over and over again.

This isn’t to say that I think we’re in some manner of cataclysm at the moment, in many ways I believe we’re overreacting. This virus is not Captain Trips, the superflu at the center of Stephen King’s The Stand that decimates 99% of the world population over the course of a few weeks. This virus is not the resurgent Black Death or anything approximating similar diseases in their scope. By all accounts, the preventative measures that we are taking should be an effective course of action to preserve the lives of those at risk within our communities. These preventative measures should work. What concerns me, however, is not the scope of the virus, but the effect on the populace and governing bodies. What concerns me is not nature, but the hearts of mankind.

I have found myself wavering between a quiet resolve and a deep existential angst over the course of the last week. In so many ways I feel as though my introspection and contemplations have prepared me to perform my job and support those around me during a time such as this. Not to put too fine a point on it, but dwelling my own mortality and smallness compared to God and the universe is more or less my default setting, the current moment in history is merely validation. I have labored for years, uncompensated financially, pursuing projects that have taught me the skills necessary to execute and distribute media content online on a tight delivery schedule. Working in a church media center, this is precisely what is needed.

My resolve comes from the fact that I have struggled in prayer and diligence to reconcile my calling with my current station in life, faced frustration with what I perceived to be professional stagnation, yet ultimately have found a deeper sense of calling in serving the Kingdom of God directly as part of a ministry team, and just in time to be mobilized in distributing ministering content to those in our church family and beyond. Speaking with my mentor earlier this week, I reflected that it is as though I have been created and placed for a time such as this, a deterministic conviction that squares with the deepest parts of my soul. Earlier this year, as I charted out my calendar in prayer, I had the striking conviction that my efforts to streamline my creative processes and work schedule had been in preparation for some shift.  I thought, surely that means that my creative projects will finally get their place in the sun! Surely.

Then the announcement of pandemic. The social distancing. The business closures.

I quite suspect that I’m now seeing that shift play out in real time, not at all in the manner that I had so vainly hoped.

So many that I know within the church have been praying for some manner of revival in the West. The unfortunate reality is that revivals, spiritual awakenings, and true conversions to the faith often come as a reaction to desperate circumstances, and that certainly seems to be the trajectory that we’re on now. I, overall, take great hope in this, because a cultural moment of discipline by the hand of God indicates that all is not lost, and that His patience has not worn out. There is still yet time to work towards Kingdom purposes in our world.

There are conversations to have with friends and family that could never have been had in a world with consistent market gains and certainty. There are examples to be made as we give of ourselves to serve those who cannot leave their homes. The world over, communities seem to be coming together in the face of uncertainty and slowing down, and perhaps looking up. Perhaps this pandemic and social distancing is precisely what we have needed spiritually. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise.

 Yet, I confess existential angst as well. I suspected a market correction within the next year, I suspected more political turmoil, I suspected that housing prices would drop and that we might have a recession—I did not suspect that anything like COVID-19 and the ensuing market crash would happen. I was complacent. I was a fool.

As governments across the globe issue decrees, as death rates skyrocket overseas, as troops mobilize even in our nation to help slow the spread of the virus, as local stores shutter, as layoffs come, as markets tank, as the world slowly grinds to a halt, I confess that I am fearful. It is all-to-easy for me to speak about noble callings and the Lord providing opportunities to serve our communities while my hand is on the plow and my eyes are set on a goal, but each night, as I lay down to sleep, I am troubled by the uncertainty. I have absolutely no idea what the future holds, only that it’s a future that we all must partake in. Somehow, I will need to confront the struggles ahead. The potential of unemployment, the ramifications of an economic recession, the challenge of raising up a family in the face of it all. Maybe none of these things come to pass, but they are certainly on the table. I know, better now than in the past, just how blessed I have been, and that gives me hope, because my God remains the same though the seasons change.

I can thank God for His provision throughout the years. I can thank God for everything that He has done, from saving my soul to providing for my wedding, from growing my faith to bringing basic provision. God has been good, and I know that He is sovereign, even over this time.

With impeccably dark timing. My daily Bible reading has crossed into the territory of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Babylonian exile, a time of unprecedented tumult in Israel’s history as they were scattered to the nations. In that time, God did not call his remnant to look back upon where they had come and long for it—He lambasted the “feel-good-best-life-now,” false teachers that brought such messaging. Instead, God encourages His people to serve His purposes faithfully where they are in exile, accept their lot, and look towards His promises in a spirit of humble faithfulness:

The book of Jeremiah, chapter 29 verses 5-14 say:

Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and father sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, and don’t be diminished. Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to God for it; for in its peace you will have peace.” For the God of Israel says: “Don’t let your prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you. Don’t listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them,” says the Lord. For The Lord says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says The Lord, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future. You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” says Yahweh, “and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh. I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.”

This time will pass. There will be changes made to our lives overall, changes to the world and economy, there will be difficulties and uncertainties, but God is sovereign, and while we draw breath we are to be faithful in serving precisely where we have been placed. This is a time for heroes. This is a time to help those around us. This is a time to serve the city. This may be a time to isolate, but not in the manner of Prospero, drinking to his health in a raucous party as the Red Death devastated his country, and finally his own castle. We can maintain a healthy distance while making sure that we stay in touch with those around us.

We are not in control, and that is okay, because we have never been in control. We have always been operating at the good pleasure of a Sovereign God, and though we cannot see the grander picture from where we stand, we can be assured that He will bring His work to completion according to His will, and that we have the opportunity before us to put our money where our mouth is. 

I hope and pray that this blows over within a few weeks and that everything moves on, but I won’t act as though I believe that is the case. I certainly hope this is a footnote in history, but have to entertain the notion that this very well could be the type of cultural moment that is written up in history books that future generations look upon and marvel that anyone could have lived through it. Yet, those of us alive now are the end product of generations that have passed through storms far worse than the one before us, globally as well as within the church, and have marked the way with faithful witness of God’s provision and grace.

I recall Gandalf’s encouragement of Frodo, reminding him that no one seeks out times of trouble, but will be subjected to them all the same, before calling him to action to make the most of the time before him. This is such a time. A time for heroes, a time for action, a time for faith, and I hope and pray, a time for revival.

The post #17: A Time for Heroes appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

Where Christ-followers fear to tread, darkness takes hold.

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I must confess that I have been putting this entry off. It’s been mostly written since 2016, but it never sat right with me to share it, even now. Truthfully, I expected my next entry in this series to be a borderline self-help rambling about “how to weather a spiritual desert,” never thinking for a moment that perhaps I might need to consult God in prayer before proceeding with a series overtly dedicated to Him. I confess arrogance in that respect. God saw to it that my mind be changed, as a month ago, just before setting out to write that episode, a disruption occurred. 

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program for a nightmare, and a look beyond the veil.

I had a nightmare in the early days of 2020.

Usually when these dreams come, I ignore them as they consist of reasonably terrifying scenarios: getting eaten by a shark, natural disasters, discovering that you’ve withheld too little money for your quarterly taxes—basic fears. This dream was different, however. It brought with it a lingering fear that demanded to be articulated.
    In the dream I was a teenager again, young and blind to the world. I was singing the song “Me and Bobby McGee” as I ran with a group of other teenagers as they made their way through the streets of a run-down city. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t catch up with them, and despaired as I saw them shrink and fall between the cracks in the sidewalks and in between metal grates in dingy side alleys. 
    Somehow I passed beneath the grates and cracks myself, discovering the group once more in the ruins of a recreational center, where they had been waylaid at the entrance to a tennis court by a group of policemen who were intent on searching them for contraband. 
I approached the police, and they regarded me with tacit acceptance. Apparently, they considered me to be separate from my peers. I requested that the other teenagers be let go, to which the police assented on the condition that I surrender my own belongings and my clothing in exchange for the others’ freedom. 
As I considered, the other teenagers disappeared, and I was left standing naked in the Paris Island barracks from the film Full Metal Jacket as R Lee Ermy as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman berated me. Despite my obvious exposure and vulnerability in this moment, I gleefully began to mock the Sergeant to his face, raising the support of all of those around me. 
A bloated harlot of a woman emerged from the shadows beside me, also laughing, and the barracks melted away as we began to laugh and twirl around in circles, strange carnival music beginning to play all around us.
As I spun around, I saw around me a paradise in vivid, overbright technicolor, characteristic of a psychedelic experience. I saw friends from my early exiled years, and icons of those times and the culture that I once sought to emulate: Janice Joplin, Jim Morrison, and a myriad of flower children, all frolicking in a frenzied dance of joy and revelry. We laughed, we sang, and we danced beside a crystal lake and through green meadows to the idyllic backyards of classic post-war Americana.
We spun around and round as the years passed away, and  one-by-one these figures vanished until I was left in the empty living room of an old 1950s-era pre-fab house. 
At first, I thought I was alone, but soon saw that there was a teenager present. I approached the teenager, and he spun around aggressively, demanding that I stay away from him. I was taken aback, and inquired as to why he was so defensive. Hadn’t he seen the wild abandon and joyous celebration? Hadn’t he seen the freedom we all had in this place, freedom from fear or want? Freedom from judgment?
He shook his head in contempt. “I came here as a part of a history project, I came to see where she died.”
My eyes were opened to my surroundings.
This once-vibrant corner of the world had become grey and worn. Tendrils of black mold and unknown filth stained the walls, floors, and ceilings around me. The perfectly manicured lawns outside had given way to dirt lots. The fields and lakes: now a black-water swamp rife with cypress trees.
I looked for any sign of the others I had been with. There was no one to be found. In their stead I found scatterings of refuse and paraphernalia. Used, rusted needles and rubber hosing. Broken pipes. Spent condoms. 
I began to shake considering that the paradise I had been a part of, that seeming realization of pure liberty and freedom, had been little more than a skid-row. A den of addiction and degeneracy. 
“It’s pretty terrible, isn’t it?” The teenager said. I looked back to him and tried to explain that this was all a mistake, I wasn’t a part of this scene of rot and ruin. He smirked: “if you aren’t apart of this, then what are you doing here?” He turned away, and my eyes were open once more:
I saw myself: no longer a teenager, no not even a young man. Somehow time had escaped me and I was in the bloated, greying body of a man in his late-60s picking over the leavings of a misspent youth.
I looked and saw some of the friends that had vanished across the swamp attending a concert at a distant fairground. I knew in that moment that if I could escape from this place—so long as I did not set foot inside the fairground—I would be alright. 
The teenager’s words echoed through the air as I fled into the swamp to escape: “if you aren’t apart of this, then what are you doing here?” I saw a lantern light shine from between distant cypress knees.
I saw an old friend, emblematic of my life in exile, wearing a wide smile and a vacant stare, holding the lantern and wading through the swamp towards me.
“It’s time to go, Thorne,” he called out: “everyone is waiting for you. The concert is about to start.”
I stumbled in the muck, grabbing onto the exposed limb of a fallen tree. I yelled back dismissively, insisting that some things had come up and that I was no longer able to go along with the group. 
His face didn’t change. He stared through me with wide eyes and smiled on with his crazed grin. “It’s time to go, Thorne. Everyone is waiting for you. The concert is about to start.”
I repeated my protests, more desperately this time, as I tried to lift myself from the mud around me. I desperately grabbed for something to help steady myself, but found only branches snarled with poison ivy vines and wisps of Spanish Moss dangling from above.
“It’s time to go, Thorne. Everyone is waiting for you. The concert is about to start.”
I lost my footing and plunged into the mud.
Blinking past the grime I saw that he was now standing above me, grinning down fiercely, his face illuminated from beneath by the lantern that now lay in the muck at his feet. 
Vines wrapped around my body and in a flash I was bound and powerless. 
“I’ve got you!”
He began to laugh as something far away began to drag me breathless towards the fairground.
I cried for help. Once—how feeble we are in nightmares—a second time—this time I was sitting upright in bed, crying out into the darkness.
Somewhere in the night I thought I heard the whistling of the carnival tune… but alas it was but my wife’s breathing, wheezing because of the winter chill.

I couldn’t sleep for a long while. This dream needed parsing.

The imagery was familiar. It was a reminder of how I fell away from God, and how God brought me back. How I fell in the sense that I shunned my deepest held convictions in a frivolous quest for approval by my peers. At first I had rationalized my actions, insisting that it was simple altruism: the desire to maintain an open mind and empathize with others in spite of their readiness to abandon me or each other at the first sign of trouble.
Then, a niche as a journeyman: one willing to mock authority and convention for the sake of spectacle and cachet; a showman, a clown embarking on a fool’s dance into a world of reckless abandon.
I recognized the teenager that I had been, and the life that I had been leading within that dream. The ruin and decay at the tail end of it was most certainly the destination I had been headed for not seven years ago when God called me out of darkness back towards Himself. 
Seven years. Good Lord, I shudder to think how much damage I could have done to my life and mind had Christ not intervened. How much potential could have been lost? How many blessings foregone in the pursuit of pleasure? I don’t have to consider for long before the answers come to me: 
Friends and acquaintances from that time have borne examples of that hellish “could have been” life. Persistent fear and paranoia, financial ruin and despair, early graves so soon abandoned and overgrown. The lingering sense of loss of what could have been. 
A walk with Christ has removed me from those trails by necessity, removed me from those lives by force at times as the condemnation for my newfound path rang full and clear in my ears. The accusations of being a bigot, the vitriol at a moral stance misunderstood. The passive comments as though I were not present, the ceasing of calls and contact. The friendships grown cold. 
From time to time, I’ll hear a song from those days and the memories will come flooding back. The names and faces that marked a season of wandering and introspection. The searching out of self, that desperate desire to beat the wind, to live free as if there were no tomorrow. The sense of a tribe searched out and found… and lost once more.
There is a place in my heart that goes back to those strange trails far from the beaten road where time seemed to stretch on forever in a haze of reckless abandon. There is a lingering gloom and regret over that season, an ever-present duskiness that pervades the memories. I wonder that we did not perceive the darkness of the season for what it was, though perhaps it takes redeemed spiritual eyes to see.

Just a few weeks after this hellish vision of a life not lived, I woke up on a bleary Monday morning to find a message on my phone. There had been a death. A name from long ago. So long ago, that it took me a moment to process. 
Absent any details I wondered and prayed for God’s mercy.
In the back of my head, the music started to play, and I said with no hesitation, knowing full well the path that I was diverted from: “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”

—

Years ago, in a drunken state as I laid my head to rest, I had a moment of “the uncanny” where I felt as though I were no longer myself, and an internal compulsion posed a haunting question to me: “are you ready to meet God?”

    I lied to myself, ignoring my inebriation and the utter shame I was bringing upon myself: “Yes, yes I am.”

    I passed out.

    When I woke up in the morning, I learned that one of our modern gods had fallen; a man who could rightfully claim a spot as a cultural icon and wellspring of inspiration for generations of artists, succumbed to illness and passed away.
    I did some research, as I often do in the wake of a high-profile death, to see where he had placed his faith during life, and I saw a pattern that I have seen so many times echoed in celebrity memoirs, and heard from the lips of those I hold dear: a story of grappling for meaning in the face of a sure conviction that there was something grander beyond this sphere—a story of degradation transpiring in its pursuit—a story of dissatisfaction, and ultimately a looking back to the past and wondering where life had slipped through one’s proverbial fingers.
    This man had dabbled in Buddhism, Nihilism, Satanism, and Christianity, before concluding later in life that he knew that he could not claim to be a “full atheist”, but said of the question of God, “don’t even pose it to me”.  By this writing, there seems to be no indication that he ever truly addressed that question or realized an answer.
    The implications of this should shake each and every one of us to the core; because this was a man who had attained everything that our world tells us that we should want—and he died still searching for that inexplicable last piece that would have made the entire puzzle make sense.
    I am a filmmaker, and that means that I’m a student of pop-culture, for better or for worse. In my studies I have pored over the lives of the “big people” throughout history—the veritable movers and shakers—and I have found that this pattern of “searching in the face of deep existential angst, but never finding,” repeats itself time and time again.  Errol Flynn comes to mind.
    For the uninitiated, Errol Flynn is best remembered as Robin Hood, a heroic and romantic swashbuckler of the silver screen who starred in countless films over his storied career. Of course, his onscreen character posed a stark contrast to his actual life—he was a drunk, an addict, and a womanizer with a career of philandering so storied that his sexual escapades gave rise to a modern colloquialism—however crass, it is now a common utterance in many different social scenarios—“in like Flynn”.
    The man bragged and boasted about his Wicked, Wicked Ways (the settled title of his autobiography, as the publisher would not allow for it to be titled In Like Me) but those who knew him best, and indeed those who partook in the reading of his memoirs reflected that he was a deeply troubled man grappling for purpose in all the wrong places.  What’s more tragic—he knew it.
    He knew he was looking for something deeper.  He knew there was something more—and yet, he forewent the numerous “come to Jesus” rock bottom moments in his life (including statutory rape charges that shipwrecked his entire career) until he finally lapsed into legend.
    More recently, a well-known stuntman famous for his work on a prank television series—deeply troubled; deeply depressed; searching for purpose and never finding it—killed himself and a passenger after driving his luxury sports car, drunk, at 130 miles per hour off the road into a tree. In the years leading up to his death, it seems like he was also afforded those “come to Jesus” sort of rock bottom moments as well.
    I wonder, in my heart of hearts, if these men were ready to “meet God”. The answer is not mine to judge; merely to ponder and posit an educated, scripturally-based “hard-truth” guess: “probably not.”
    This is a tough subject to approach, but it’s one that eats at me day by day. I know that I have been at parties with people that will wind up being as well known as any of these men. I have counted them amongst my colleagues, coworkers, and friends.  I have, time and time again, attempted to be an ambassador for the Kingdom of God. Time and time again, more than I would ever like to admit, it’s fallen on deaf ears and in many ways I know that I have failed due to my own lifestyle and hypocrisy.
    I can’t just ignore it. The industry that I have been lead to is replete with these stories—I recently discovered that a well-known mogul claims to be an atheist, but believes in “divine inspiration” and that it “troubles him.”  Anyone who has followed his career, even from a superficial level, could plainly see that his work is anything BUT Godly. There were moments, early on, where it seemed like he was moving towards something truly divine, but upon seeing his latest film, I wanted to vomit at how divorced the soul of his work—and any artist’s work is an expression of the artist’s soul—is from anything good; and it just keeps getting worse.
When I first wrote this entry, it was 2016, a year before the “Me Too” movement would blow the lid off of the rampant degeneracy and abuse infesting the American film industry. How long had it persisted? The more that I learn, the more I realize that it’s been a feature, not a bug, of the major players since well before the introduction of sound to motion pictures. Like any human institution, corruption has been rife and taken root where good men have refused to take a stand.
    This pattern is observable all throughout the world—not merely amongst the “big people”. The “big people” are merely symptomatic of a larger problem. There are people who are going to Hell walking amongst us every single day, and I used to be among their number. 
I was walking that path. I was ignoring the chances for redemption. I was grieving the Spirit. By the grace of God alone, in 2013, after I completed my first feature-length film—a realization of a long-standing personal dream—God left me bedridden for nearly three months before lifting me up, by His grace alone, and setting me back on course.
    Spiritual warfare is a real concern; and, as Christians, we are to be soldiers in the cause. We’re supposed to fight. Why else is our Holy Book rife with images and metaphors for war? The bulk of the Old Testament pertaining to the conquest of Canaan could be viewed as a reflection of the Christian life in that respect, only that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the forces of darkness of this world. No matter where we are, we are on the battlefield—never safe on this side of Glory to disrobe the spiritual armor we are advised to put on.
    The problem I’m faced with is this—I don’t want any part of the industry that I have been called to. The culture surrounding it is corrosive, steeped in hedonism and spiritual darkness. Even still, I feel called to do battle there. I still have friends—very dear friends—who LOVE the culture and are actively chasing those dragons. What do I do?
    What are any of us to do?  What does it mean to be “in the world, but not of the world?” It’s this nagging splinter in my heart that I grapple with daily as I realize, more and more, that I don’t want to be a part of things the way that they are, but instead want to see them transformed.
    I see the “gods” of our age—celebrities—grappling with and reveling in addiction—and wonder why our culture elevates such people to such a lofty status?   We are rewarding behavior that we would recoil in horror from if they were to be found in ourselves, our families, our friends—our children—but every movie ticket we pay for, every CD we buy, every time we expend our money to consume something—we are giving tacit approval to the gods of “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll”.
    A few years ago, I met with a friend of mine who has been given a tremendous blessing—he’s “in like Flynn”—rubbing shoulders with really “big people” in his business. You’ve seen their work, you LIKE their work if the trades’ reports on critical scores are accurate, but the life they lead behind-the-scenes reads like the memoirs of a kid who burned out in college—only these aren’t average folks living average burnout stories. These are the “big people,” and the “big people” have the money to buy the “REALLY good” drugs and burnout on a global stage.
    I listened, I smiled, I said, “wow, that’s great, your career’s really taking off,” but inside my heart was breaking. This young man, whose heart used to be on fire for God was now gloriously recounting how he orchestrated a drug-fueled bender and sexual liaisons for dozens of A-list celebrities. What was I to say? Anything at all would have been preferable to what seems like the common default: a passive shrug and declaration of “different strokes for different folks.”
    I’m no better. Time and time again when I’ve touched that world, even for a moment, I’ve walked away corrupted and in desperate need of repair. Every time though, the Lord has been gracious and fixed me. This is what terrifies me about the fact that I feel called to be a filmmaker—how do I escape such degradation?
    My social network includes producers, actors, directors, writers—unknown and known, some you’ve seen on TV—I’m in this place where I’m in total exile and too suspicious of myself to know how to proceed.

I think of one of my personal heroes: Alice Cooper.

    Alice Cooper (his real legal name since 1975) used to sell out concerts at stadiums in the 70s.  He was the Marilyn Manson of that decade. He personally knew the legends of that time—Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison—and was close friends with Groucho Marx, Peter Sellers, and counted Salvador Dali and John Lennon among his celebrity fans. He also spent the 1970s drunk; rarely eating, and would start each day with a beer and began drinking hard liquor before lunch time.  This problem was addressed but recurred until it spiraled into hard drugs in the early 1980s. A few of his albums, all successful, he barely remembers writing or recording. Eventually, his marriage fell apart and he committed to saving it through Christian Counseling and rehab.
    Alice now relates a miraculous tale about how he walked out of rehab and felt like a new person—like he was never an alcoholic, and never would be again.  It’s not surprising to find out that it was around this time that he committed his life to Christ and became a born-again Christian. Unlike many celebrities, this new religious affiliation stuck like super glue.
    Concerned he could no longer be a rock star AND a Christian, he consulted with his pastor who gave him some encouragement: that God had placed him in the Philistine’s camp; that his lifestyle—now clean—spoke infinitely more than any mere proselytizing could in the world of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
    Alice Cooper continues to rock and record, and does it in the name of winning ground for the Kingdom of God.
    In reviewing Alice’s life, it’s clear that God gave him a lot of second chances, a lot of rock bottom moments where his life was spared (before the final one that saved his soul), and now the man is a faithful witness and one of the last living legends we have among us.
    Even if he’s in the minority, I think the few stories like his are the ones that really count.  The Kingdom of God is, after all, like a mustard seed. I take a great deal of hope in that.

Thankfully in the years since I originally wrote this, my network has shifted and I’m seeing more of God’s impact on the industry and world around me, but there is still so much to be done. 

So long as I’m living my work must continue.


I think back to 2016, and realize that I’ve tread this ground before. I’m again at the end of what I have to offer God. I’m outside the bounds of skills professionally, needing to learn more in order to keep up, I’m outside the bounds socially, now being pushed outside of my comfort zone as I realize the tremendous importance of investing in others. In 2016, when I was similarly at the end of myself, I was convicted to “wait and rest” in God. This time, I know that “waiting and resting” does not preclude action in what God has given. I can be faithful with what is before me, strengthening my skills professionally, socially, emotionally, and spiritually, for the path ahead.

That is all anyone can do. Lean on God and press onward.

Back to the present. That text message on my phone announcing the death of someone from my past life. I offered my condolences how I could, then repeated the mantra, “there but for the grace of God go I,” and went about my day, concerned, but refusing to be interrupted.
God had other plans. By the end of the week, I was called to “go and see, the place where they died,” and revisit those forgotten trails. Those who know the events of that weekend know what happened. I have been convicted of pride and arrogance and will not speak of what took place. I will, however, give my assent that there is indeed much work to be done, and I have the lingering conviction that God called me out of deep darkness to return seven years later with a lantern and a rope, as well as  the mission to be salt and light where both are desperately lacking.

For so many years I looked back upon my life with disdain, isolating myself from the industry and culture that I have been called to. I can no longer ignore, however, the truth that Christ did not come to save the righteous, but to call the unrighteous, and while I still sinned, He called to me.

Where Christ-followers fear to tread, darkness takes hold. Complacency is the path to damnation, not for the Christian, but for the world that they forsake.

At this juncture, at least, my eyes are open to that, and I must answer the call set before me. 


But before we part, I must ask you: where have you been called, and how will you respond?

The post #16: There But For the Grace of God appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

When crossing a spiritual desert, there is seemingly little of more importance than simple forward momentum.

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Hours turn to days, to weeks, to months, and here we are, a year since we began this walk, you and I. What has changed since we last spoke? What vestige of old life have you dropped, and what new affectations have you collected? Has it been for the best?
I suppose that is the only truly healthy way to compare oneself—the comparison against one’s own growth or stagnation. My old pastor used to say that in order to chart one’s growth, one must ask whether or not they are more like Christ now than they were a year ago, bearing in mind that there is no true stagnation in life, spiritual or otherwise. 
You are either moving up the mountain, or slowly slipping down the slope. To put it another way, “you’re either green and growing, or ripe and rotting.” Thank you, Mr. Kroc.
    As I look back at the last year, I ask myself: “which is it? Have you crossed the desert? Have you summitted another spiritual peak?”
    Maybe. Time will tell whether or not my current perception of things holds up.
    There have certainly been victories, but any great stride now may seem like child’s play to the man I might be in another year’s time, and even so, any stride is reflective not of my own strength or wit, but instead of God’s grace and targeted influence over the strange movements of my heart. 
    I will not boast in myself, but that God has been faithful even when I have not, and I will take solace that despite my flesh’s best efforts to stand still and slip away, He bade me forward, one step at a time. 
It has been over four years since that fateful summer when I felt so close to His will for my life, and the words echo in my memory from the dreams of that time: “this land was cleared for war.” God help me that it took so long for me to actually listen and heed what He had for me. I know that the past is firmly set, but I still consider the fact that He had set me up to marry Rebekah, something that I would have begun to pursue had my heart not been bent towards its own selfish means. Yet, on the other hand, the Lord used that season of wandering to further burn dross to equip me for the future. So, too, has the last few years been a season of wandering to an extent. 
When last I left this narrative, I was resigned to the fact that while things were moving in a positive direction, I was nevertheless in a spiritual desert of sorts.     Reflecting on the desert, I see that there was much within my ability to control the entire time. Reflecting on my perceived helplessness, I realize that it was self-imposed because I was not taking charge of what was actually within my control. I felt my time slipping away from me, but had never taken an honest look at what that time actually meant, nor how much of it there actually was. I was all-too focused on the fact that there were problems occurring, deserts to cross, one step to take after another. Too self-consumed to actually step back and realize that none of these things happen in a vacuum.
When crossing a desert, there is little of more importance than simple forward momentum. To be sure, as opportunities arise, you take them as you are able, but there is a general lack of zeal that resonates through everything. “Get it over and done with,” seems to be the prime directive as the hours slip away, and boy do they slip. There never seems to be time enough for what you wish to accomplish, and when the time is found, you have forgotten what it was you wanted to do, or have pushed on so hard that you’re absolutely exhausted. What a way to go through life, right? Bouncing between burnout and boreout with little space in between in a desperate bid to get to the next deadline, only to find that with one project’s completion comes a void of idle living and the incessant nagging at your mind that you ought to be up to something… and the cycle repeats. On to the next.
You know, I lived in that cycle for the last five years of my life at least. The spiritual desert just made it plain that something was wrong, and provided the routine I needed to put some control-variables in place and see where the system was breaking down. Why wasn’t I able to accomplish what I had in mind despite my relative industriousness? Why were my projects stagnating despite what seemed like constant effort exerted? Why was I being swept away by the waves of time instead of riding them as I had when I was younger? Why were my wheels spinning with no forward momentum? Why was I so miserable?
In May of 2019, I reached my limit and finally broke. Over the preceding 8-months I had shouldered an increasing number of responsibilities while simultaneously staving off relaxation of any type in favor of a constant attitude of hustle. The word “no” was not in my vocabulary, except when it came to taking it easy. “There would be time enough to take it easy when I ‘make it,’” I insisted. Time enough to have a Sabbath day of rest. Time enough to go visit the family more than once a quarter. Time enough to eat a meal at the table instead of at the desk. Time enough to be a well-rounded human being.
I very much suspect now that the “time enough” would never have come given my trajectory. There would always be another excuse, another task to perform, another hoop to jump through over and over again until a heart attack or other illness born out of such a lifestyle took me at an early age. Another statistic. Another casualty lying at the feet of Mammon.
Thank God I broke when I did. Frustrated with this general phenomenon of my time slipping away from me, I posed the question to myself: was this a “me problem” or a larger environmental concern?
The answer, I discovered, was complicated.
Do you know how many hours are in a week? 168. I know, I’ve counted. Struck by the notion that I first and foremost had a general sense that things were not OK, but no data to draw from, I set out to track every hour of my week in 30-minute increments. I wanted to know, precisely, where my time was going. I settled on a customized spreadsheet and color-coded labeling system that categorized my life between sleep, salaried work, self-betterment in the form of exercise, family interactions, social interactions, monetarily-driven projects, strictly passion-projects, religious commitments between church and participation in a regular Bible study, general freelance hours, and finally, wasted time. Each 30-minute block of time was labeled and coded based on the predominate activities within that period of time, with a running tally of hours dedicated to each category along with an accompanying pie chart and percentage score attached. Finally, I added a general “Mood” score to indicate how I felt at the end of the week.
From the last week of May into the Fall I gathered my data, recognizing the trend that I had been experiencing playing out before me in spreadsheets and numbers. Burn-out, bore-out. Elation, misery… stagnation. 
I was amazed to discover that my general feelings of restfulness were not correlated to actual time spent asleep, nor work performed. One week, labeled “on fire by Sunday night,” had 49 hours of work logged across all areas, but only 46 hours of sleep (roughly 6.57 hours per night) logged, while another week labeled “angry and burned out,” logged 43 hours of total work across all areas and a whopping 57 hours of sleep, or a solid 8.14 hours a night.
Where was the disconnect?
It wasn’t until November that I started to make a bit more sense of things. I reviewed my now several months worth of data, and something struck me. Weeks in which I had a dismal outlook on the world coincided with a few different things: a lack of planning coupled with excess free time, a prolonged period (several weeks or more) of diminished relaxation or time away from work or “obligatory” social engagements, and a failure to recharge at the end of the week in order to prepare for the week ahead. 
I was living “koyaanisqatsi,” a Hopi Indian word for “life out of balance.” Put more simply: I sucked at time management. While I was certainly able to function, my new routine had reached the end of my powers of improvisation. While five years ago, I may have been able to “play Jazz” with my schedule, allowing for my mindset to flit freely between a handful of different projects or obligations and efficiently execute them even while circumstances shifted, my life had changed in the intervening years, and I had done a poor job of managing my household.
I no longer had just short-term projects and myself contend with. I was looking at long-term projects, the development of business strategies, release schedules, a growing social network, and, most importantly, my wife to care for. My tendency to “say yes” to everything had resulted in a chaotic schedule in which I was unable to process through my obligations and create definitive plans of action on the fly. Any single “good” or “bad” week was purely accidental. It was the result of time making itself available to me, and not the other way around. I was not happening to life, life was happening to me. I would hustle when it was time to hustle, but the moment that a free moment made itself apparent, a moment in which I could direct my attention to an important, non-urgent task (thank you Stephen Covey), my mind would draw a blank, because I had never considered that I would have had the time to focus in such a way. This lack of planning was killing me.
A clear example of this came in the form of several weeks which I had labeled as “angry and burned out.” These weeks, I found, featured a great deal of wasted time. The amount of time varied, but usually clocked in somewhere around 4-5 hours across the whole week. The reason behind the waste, however, was always a variation of the same lament: “Unsure where to start. Gridlocked. No plan of action.” I simply didn’t know what to do with myself in those moments, and by the time that I had figured it out, another urgent task would present itself, and it was on to the next. Rinse and repeat. Burn out. Bore out.
I needed to learn to plan ahead. To set my mind on the time available and be prepared for when moments presented themselves in which I might make progress on projects that I deeply cared about. I needed to be proactive, not reactive.
This was only one part of my problem, however.
I had a dream a few weeks ago, at the tail end of 2019. It consisted of me languishing in a stormy ocean, desperately trying to fight back against the waves that insisted on driving me to the shore. As I languished, a surfer cruised by, riding along the waves with ease, and a definite swagger. It struck me that this was the perfect illustration of how I had been living my life. I was attempting to fight against forces of nature that I had no control over, instead of managing my means of harnessing those forces to propel me forward. I was exhausting myself in a desperate, futile, bid at control, instead of focusing on my sphere of influence (again, thank you Mr Covey). I hadn’t realized how exhausted I had become until just after the New Year, when I found myself sitting at the window of a local Chick Fil A drive-thru, having sat through the full line during the breakfast rush, and realizing that I had been so “in my head” that I had forgotten to place an order.
No more.
2020 had come, and with it came a break.
The second week in January, I took my first honest vacation in over two years. I say “honest vacation,” because any time I had taken off of work in the past had usually been taken in the spirit of getting more time to do things that needed to be done, all the while checking in sporadically to see what I was missing at the office. During this week in January, however, I didn’t check my email, I didn’t check my phone, and I didn’t make any attempt to devote some time to my passion projects. Beyond basic household chores, I simply allowed for my mind to relax and decompress.
The results were startling. I found myself picking out the knots in certain projects that I had been trying to work out for months in 2019. Now, without any effort, but merely a relaxed mind, they were coming undone, and my mind began to free up in general.
I found myself journaling more. I found myself able to concentrate more. I found myself feeling happier. I found myself able to confront what would have been unbelievably stressful social situations without a moment’s hesitation. I found myself, likewise, able to actually spend time in prayer and focus on the task at hand instead of my mind wandering. And, particularly shocking, I found myself no longer drifting towards negative coping skills like alcohol and overeating. I had taken the time to rest, and consequently, found myself all the more aware, creative, productive, and emotionally stable going back to the office. Go figure, right?
I have learned another “law of the wild,” it is far better to rest occasionally than to burn out constantly.
As a consequence of all of this, I’m pleased and blessed to say that it appears that that the desert I had wandered in has passed. There is an overwhelming sense that God has removed a knot from my heart in order to place me where he wants me so that His true purpose for my life can be enacted, and for that I am grateful. I had forgotten what a season outside of a spiritual desert could be like, how the day to day patterns of life seem to bend towards a greater purpose, how scripture comes alive, how the spirit can be at peace and assured of its trajectory.
I have been realizing more deeply the ramifications of the marriage covenant. Come what may, the Lord has entrusted me with Rebekah’s heart and life, and the hearts and lives of our children. There is no more consideration of myself when contemplating the future, but instead the whole of our family. It is a curious development, as I had never given a great deal of consideration to my mortality prior to being married. I had no qualms about drinking in excess from time to time, smoking, speeding on the highway, getting little sleep, getting less exercise, eating poorly, and the whole myriad of ways that human beings can efficiently subtract days from our number. Now that I am married, however, I have a lingering conviction that anything that I do to negatively impact my health will ripple throughout the lives of my wife and our future children. It is a deeply strange thing to consider that I had not properly considered caring for myself on such a level until I was caring for another human, but such is the case.
It’s damning, but well worth considering, that the “desert” I had been wandering in, had been created and maintained by my own hand. Each misplaced priority another bucketful of sand to a desolate landscape. I believe I had the persistent habit of grieving the Holy Spirit by my actions with sin I knew about and nurtured for years, all the while writing off my vices as a way to cope with reality. “Someday, I’ll take it easy,” that’s what I told myself.
    Yet, even in the midst of all of that, God set things firmly upon my heart as actionable: to get in community, to leave my freelance business, to get married, to move to a different church. Then, finally, in a confluence of these various pieces, He finally dealt a killing blow to that area in my heart so that I would make a change willingly and not in bitterness. It was as if I had zero coping skills apart from my sin, and God placed the skills into my life systematically before dealing a killing blow to my negative coping strategies.
“Someday, I’ll take it easy,” well, that “someday” has finally come, but voluntarily, not some blue-sky “better life” or state of plenty that removes all stress. “Someday” has come because it must. It is what God has called me to. Out of darkness and into light. Out of the desert and into… somewhere. The trail stretches out before me, and I frankly am unsure of where it leads. I have some inklings in my heart and soul, some definite plans of action, but how this story plays out is entirely out of my hands. What is within my power, however, is to plan ahead. Life is long, and I know that it is likely that I will stumble across another desert, or several, before the end of it.
    What can be done?

The post #15: Out of the Desert appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

What if, every day for the next year, you woke up with the perfect Christmas mindset, excited to begin the day, come what may?

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As the holiday season descended this year, I made it a point to grab hold of the reason behind it and truly partake and enjoy the holidays. “There’s no way,” I told myself, “that I’m having another year where I ‘miss Christmas’.” I look back on the last month and I realize that I succeeded. I did not “miss Christmas” this year, but instead thoroughly experienced it—the good and the bad. There were plenty of laughs and lighthearted moments with family, memories made, traditions created or upheld, Christ glorified in worship and contemplation, spiritual highs, deep prayers…and likewise tears of pain. Pain at hearing of a terminal diagnosis and the lost time and opportunity that such things portend, pain at learning of those around us who were suffering whom we were powerless to help, pain at seeing the fallen state of the world contrasted against the colorful lights that mark this season. 
Stark reminders that despite how glorious a season that it can be, it is at its heart a commemoration of a desperate pregnant couple trying to find shelter for the night as their child is born…and then the celebration of the birth itself and the kingdom that was sure to come. We often miss that, though: that there is a great deal of suffering to be had in advance of the Kingdom of God. We are, after all, exiled here on this fallen planet, and our holiday bliss is but a diversion from that. Far be it for me to condemn the festival bliss after my thorough glutting, however, I will do no such thing. 
For even if there is discrepancy, even if the hymn’s proclamations that “all is calm, all is bright,” does not currently reflect reality, the words of another hymn ring out, “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep,” and I remember the words of Fred, Ebeneezer Scrooge’s nephew, in A Christmas Carol, “though [Christmas] has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
I’ll take that one step farther. I’d like, in the next year and years to come, to make a practice of celebrating Christmas each and every day. 

I’ve never been good at wrapping presents, not until this year that is, though I still don’t think that my skills are anything to write home about. The switch came at a family  birthday party early in December when the Winter family’s collective skills were on display and it dawned on me that I really, really sucked at wrapping to the point that my family members always knew which presents I had gifted based on the wrapping alone. This, I decided, was unacceptable, and I set forth to better myself.
With a great deal of practice as well as emotional support from my wife, I was, by the holiday proper, able to wrap a gift that was virtually indistinguishable from everyone else’s, except for, perhaps, the added flair of the ribbons and bows that I began to add to my gifts in an attempt to stretch my talents that much more. It was Christmas, after all, and I wanted to be jolly.
Throughout this process, I began to contemplate the very nature of gift giving, and felt rightly embarrassed by my past gifts and their slap-dash “get it done” style of wrapping. While the contents of a package may be the gift proper, the wrapping tells a story all its own. Certainly the paper is torn away in a fraction of the time that it took to set it in place, but that ephemeral nature of the wrapping itself is just an extra way of communicating to the recipient that they matter, and that you took the time to do things correctly.
Consider the well-wrapped Christmas present: it is placed in a box or other container that somehow conceals its true nature. If it is light in weight, perhaps an object is added to the parcel to disguise that aspect as well. It is meticulously wrapped, each fold calculated and carefully laid into place. The entire package is deliberately crafted with presentation in mind, created to be destroyed in but an instant: in an exhilarating rush of anticipation to discover the contents. And then?
Surprise? Joy? Wonder? My wife seems to have mastered the ability to get those reactions from me with her gifts. Seeing that reaction on her face, or on the face of another loved one makes me consider how God must have felt seeing Adam take his first steps into Eden. Likewise watching a loved one try something out for the first time, particularly if the loved one is a child: how must God have felt knowing the joys that reality contained, and seeing His children go out and experience it?
What about the opposite emotions? The disappointment? The feigned excitement or gratitude? What about the confusion at a gift that has no readily apparent purpose? I’m sure we’ve all had that experience at one time or another. I can certainly say that in many of those instances, however, the real utility or thought behind such gifts have become apparent as time went on. I’m sure that God has given us all gifts like this, ones that we are unable to appreciate or see the use of in the moment: spiritual deserts that seem unending but hold opportunities for growth and transcendence. Shoddily-wrapped seasons of melancholy that burn off the dross of our hearts to make us more like Christ. Disappointments, ornately decorated boxes with nothing inside that make us reconsider whether our priorities are rightly placed to begin with.
What kinds of gifts are we to those around us? How often do we have the means by which another might be delivered from some hardship, but we do not offer it? Something that I realized over the course of this holiday season is that opportunities to be a gift to other people are a dime a dozen, it is just that the Christmas Season makes them all the more apparent. Moments of felt need are much more noticeable when all around is “cheery and bright.” I wonder how many of these moments I don’t notice during the year because my mind is on the path ahead instead of the world around. I wonder how many I flatly ignore.
I wonder at the number of times that I have withheld grace from others, focused too much on my own pride and satisfaction instead of the circumstances, whatever they be, that has lead to an unpleasant encounter.
A refrain I found myself uttering over and over again throughout the month of December, and particularly the week of Christmas itself was “it’s Christmas!” In excitement at times, yes, but also as a way of shrugging off a perceived slight or  defusing an argument. “It’s Christmas,” had a way of making the world seem a little brighter, and lightening my heart just enough to remain charitable to those around me even if internally I was seething. 
With that refrain, I mosied through the holidays with glee, though this year was  actually the busiest I’ve ever had. It didn’t matter what responsibilities, hustle and bustle, or obligations were on the table. It didn’t matter the workload or stress levels. “It’s Christmas,” and so it goes, no harm, no foul.
In the midst of all of this, I realized that one best experiences the joy of Christmas by helping others to experience the joy of Christmas. By realizing your role as a gift to others as a disciple of Christ. As God brought his son into the world as a free gift to humanity, one must follow in His stead and become a free gift to humanity, and therein discover the joy of the Christmas season. 
And how joyous a season it was: the best in a long time. There were moments throughout the season wherein Heaven and Earth seemed to intersect, where the hopes of the best Christmas carols rhymed with reality. I’m honestly not sure that mankind can sustain such joy in our present fallen state. We must cherish the moments that we do have, because they are foretastes of Heaven, and they always end. Just as Christmas ended, bringing with it a lingering sadness, because, just like my wedding, it was so wonderful that it made everything else seem lessened by comparison.
Dopamine crashes are a hell of a thing.
In the wake of the holiday, reality sets in. That there were relatives at the celebration who would likely not be alive next year, and that the time to invest in those relationships had slipped away, week after week, excuse after excuse. That there were likewise relatives present who, while not terminal, did show signs of age for the first time in your mind. Where had the time gone? The grim notion dawns that someday, you too will share their fate, and a new cast of characters will rise up to replace you. Good Lord, it’s the end of the year… January’s upon us. What is there to look forward to in January, or February for that matter? I’ve got to wait until next December to feel this all over again?
No, you don’t.
Because Christmas is just an excuse to be charitable, to be a gift, to get to know Christ more, to spend time with family, and invest in those around you. It’s an opportunity that we’ve made it extremely convenient to take advantage of because the whole world seems to stop the week that it comes around. There’s nothing special about the day itself. It has a sunrise and a sunset, weather patterns are what they are. The only thing different is that we treat it differently.
We celebrate the coming of Christ, the salvation of mankind, we proclaim cries for peace on Earth and good will to men (provided we’re not in traffic over the holidays), we adorn our homes in glittering lights, give gifts to one another, and allow ourselves to be given to festival bliss. But all of this holiday cheer and festive joy is but a scant reflection of Heaven and God’s glory, and there will be a day on which that joy will never end and the holiday will continue forever. For the professing Christian, however, that holiday can begin now. Because Christmas is just the beginning. It’s the coming of the Lord, and the beginning of Heaven on Earth. And that’s why we shouldn’t be sad about Christmas being over—if we’re truly celebrating, we will carry it on into the year ahead. 
    What if, every day for the next year, you woke up with the perfect Christmas mindset, excited to begin the day, come what may? What if you made the time to see that family member that’s on your heart, to reach out to that friend that you know is struggling? What if you asked yourself, every day, “whom can I bless today? What gift can I give?” What if you started each day with that cry in your heart, “it’s Christmas!” What if, when given the opportunity to be bitter, you instead proclaimed, “it’s Christmas,” and let the offense slide away? What if you kept the spirit alive until next December? How wonderful of a year could you have? How much a blessing could you be to those around you?
    I confess, I’m writing this on December 29, and despite trying to keep this up for even a week, I’ve found myself stumbling. It’s not that easy to do, but I know it’s possible. I missed Christmas last year and the year before, and blamed it on my job, my schedule, everything but myself. This year, I told myself that I was going to capture the spirit of Christmas, and told myself almost every single day, “It’s Christmas,” for an entire month, and despite my schedule being busier than ever, I found that Christmas joy. 
I want to try this crazy challenge. I want to live every day in the spirit of Christmas, being deliberate to consider how I can use my time, talent, and treasures in the new year. Try to ask myself each day, the questions that have been hanging on my heart: what shall I do now? To whom can I be a gift?

    Try it with me.

The post #14: Everyday Christmas appeared first on EXPATS OF EDEN.

Some brief thoughts and considerations on Christmas, Christ, and recapturing the spirit of the season.

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Two years ago, I moved out of the private sector as an independent contractor to work in at a church. Where in the past my client work may have simply wound down at the close of the year, affording a large amount of empty space with which to reflect, my Novembers and Decembers became a frenzied blur of preparation for one of the church’s biggest events: Christmas Eve, when our attendance numbers multiply several times over for one glorious night as the churched and unchurched alike gather together to acknowledge that something unique is being celebrated.

I confess that for the last two years I have missed Christmas, the holidays becoming something to endure and “get through” rather than a time of festival joy and honest reflection on the “reason for the season.”
Much has changed within my heart over the last few months, which will be the subject of our next episode, but as Christmas is upon us once again, I wanted to take a moment to re-orient—to refocus my heart on God and the endeavor to live as an exile in this world. 
I am determined not to let Christmas pass by without truly imbibing in the season and its meaning. The coming of the King, the birth of Christ—God become flesh. The ultimate tale of exile: that one so Holy would condescend to a fallen world to be the sole shining light of hope, bearing up the consequence of the darkness, and spreading the truth so that that singular light might spread across the world, re-orienting our eyes heavenward in hope and wonder at what as been done on our behalf though we deserve it not.
—

In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
We were created in the image of God, holy and pure in his sight. He gave us the world and its fruit as gifts, and the care of the world as a job. He walked with us and talked with us, we knew him face to face.
Yet amidst all of these blessings, there was one fruit forbidden to us. “If you eat it,” God said, “you will surely die.”
Even so, we took the fruit, and ate it.
And with that, our fate was sealed.
We were cursed, broken, fallen, and driven away from God’s presence, doomed to wander a world no longer within our control- our hearts giving way to deeper sin and darkness.
Born into sin and cursed unto death, no one on earth can save us.
But God had other plans.
He promised that someday there would come a man who would undo this curse and save mankind.

And thus we watched, and waited for the coming of the Messiah who would deliver us from darkness.
“In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” – The Book of Judges
The days turned to years, and the years turned to centuries- and human life continued down the cursed path we had brought upon ourselves.

But in his grace, God set apart a people through which he would save the world, God built a mighty nation, providing for, prospering, and leading them into the promised land.
But their hearts were fickle, and they quickly turned away.
Yet despite it all, God set apart a royal lineage through King David, through whom the messiah was promised to be born and rule over the earth.
But we did not want God’s chosen king. Though his prophets warned us, we would not listen.
And so we continued down the path we had chosen, suffering exile again and again.
But even in this, while we were still sinners, God remembered his promise to save us, and set apart a remnant for himself whose knees had never bowed before any idol.
And so it was, in the days of Caesar Augustus, ruler of the Roman Empire, that the Messiah would finally come.



Hear the words of the prophet Isaiah concerning the coming of the Messiah:
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there lived a woman named Mary. She was a virgin, pledged to be wed to a carpenter named Joseph.
Before they could be married, God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary to deliver a message:
“You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Through the years of exile, David’s line had continued.
The throne of Israel was empty, but there was always a living heir.
And so it was that Joseph, Mary’s husband took his pregnant bride with him to Bethlehem, the city of David, his homeland, where his son, the heir to the throne of Israel, would be born.

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the
Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Upon arrival to Bethlehem, it was time for Jesus to be born. But there was no room for the pregnant couple to stay at the inns in town.
Instead, Mary and Joseph were shown a stable- a home for the lowliest of animals. This was to be their lodging.
And it was in this most humble of places. That the Lord became flesh and came into the world.
No fanfare heralded his coming, the sole witnesses were his parents, and the beasts of burden that shared the stable.
But where man had failed to welcome the messiah, God once again had other plans.
He sent angels to announce the birth to a group of shepherds in the hills outside of Bethlehem. He placed a star in the sky that wise men from the East followed to Bethlehem, where they offered their gifts to a newborn king.
And so they went to worship and adore the baby Jesus, who would come to be known as “The Good Shepherd,” and the “King of Kings and the Lord of Lords”.
There, beneath the skies of Bethlehem, the messiah was born, and heralded into this world by the most unlikely of people.
Jesus grew into adulthood, growing in favor with both God and man. He called all who heard him preach to repentance and dedication to God.
He taught that he alone was the path to salvation:
“I am the way the truth and the life… believe in me.”

He performed miracles and healings, showing his power over the natural world.
He was tempted to sin like every one of us, but unlike us, never succumbed to the temptation.
He opened his heart and arms wide for those whom society had cast away, choosing not a life of luxury for himself, but the life of a homeless traveling teacher.
He lived a perfect and sinless life. The life any of us we should have lived.
He was loved. But he was also hated.
For preaching the word of God and claiming to be the Messiah, Jesus was betrayed into the hands of the Romans and sentenced to torture and death.
Fulfilling the words of Isaiah: He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
And he was hung on a criminal’s cross, endured hours of pain until finally, he died. The King of Kings and light of the world slain by those he came to save. He died the death our sins deserved.
He was buried just before sundown, and his followers left, heartbroken.

How could this be the end, after all that they had seen?
Of course, it wasn’t.
For on the third day, the tomb was discovered to be empty.
Word began to spread that Jesus had been seen alive.
Some believed. Some did not.
But soon enough, both Jesus’s disciples and many who had never believed could no longer deny- Jesus had risen from the dead.
He appeared one final time to his disciples, charging them with the task of spreading the story of his life, his death, and his resurrection- spreading the story of the Good News, that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
And then, in an instant, he ascended into Heaven, leaving behind another promise for a day when he would return:
“Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.’”
And so we watch, and we wait, for the return of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

And while we watch and wait, we are charged to be the light of the world in Christ’s stead, to go forth and make disciples of all nations and spread the word of the coming Kingdom, that kingdom which is “not yet”, but that is all the same happening “now” as hearts and minds are renewed in Christ the world over. We are truly living in exile, expatriates of the paradise that was Eden, refugees of a Kingdom that is yet to be fully realized, sent forth as ambassadors to encourage all that would hear: come. 
Come.

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