flow through it

Flow through it. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the sons of God. I think it’s so fascinating to have the heritage of a person wrapped up in the way they choose to spend their lives. Like Jesus saying to the religious leaders of the day that they were like their father, because he had been lying since the beginning. Like they had entered into the heritage of darkness because they were obsessed with control and power and refused to give it up even when it meant cursing the blessed One.

It’s interesting to me, this idea of being a son of God. Like Paul talking about how creation is groaning for the revealing of the children of God. This idea that there is a sort of universal way of being that is healing for the earth. I think about how there is no law against the fruit of the Spirit. Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Goodness, and Self Control. Like there is literally no law against that because that is how humans want to be in general. We would like to be more kind. We would like to be more joyful and at peace.

I think the process of becoming a peaceful person is much more turbulent (in my experience). It’s difficult, the road inward is perilous and I find that I’ve often fallen into ravines of pride and self protection. Selfishness, and the harming of those I love through caring more about my lustful desires, (image has been a big one for me, to be seen a specific way) than the sacredness of the other and the preservation of the integrity of our relationship. These ways of being in the world leave deep wounds and the fall out is something that has to be faced. I think the beauty of redemption is that it doesn’t end there.

Lost in a ravine, despairing and wanting it to be over because of a nihilistic ambivalence to myself, as well as a deep seated feeling of powerlessness. A vessel out of balance and suffering from depression and the weight of the collective trauma of our time. This is not where the story ended for me. Although it came closer to reaching “that” end than I would have liked. The turn occured when i began to experience the gentleness and the goodness of the One who I had longed to know, but felt I couldn’t. Most of the people who said they knew him lived in a way that was harming other people actively and seemed tied up with image and power and all the energies that this beautiful One interacted with in a different way.

But I kept stumbling upon friends who were living in the ways of this God. This human God. This beautiful one. I kept having conversations with them and I kept being compelled and disturbed in my pursuit of something real. I have always been looking for home. A safe place to grow and become whole. A place to invite others into and cultivate a garden. Where i can cultivate peace and pursue the subtle art of attentiveness in a space that is familiar. I have always been looking for home. No matter where my wandering has taken me.

Love God with everything that is you and love your neighbor as yourself. How is Joel though? How are you? I was sick. I was lost. I was caught up in the webs of pride and self hatred. He comes close to those who humble themselves though. In that space where i laid down my tools that I was using to chisel away at the fathoms of existence. I opened my hands. More because I was so tired. I was suffering from depression that made the simplest decisions difficult to accomplish. I once drove around for 45 mins trying to decide if I was going to go to something that was 5 mins away from where I lived and the indecision was so painful and terrorizing that I ended up just not going and feeling so bad because I had said I would go. I never want to go back to that way of being in the world again.

He came close to me. He spoke through a son and said, “You are my good son, Joel” right there in the middle of my ravine of self hatred, pride, codependency, depression and panic. Would you be healed? Would you receive your healing? It took awhile to say yes, but now I know this beautiful one. I see the wisdom in sowing peace and the reaping of righteousness through the making of peace. It requires me to stop hating myself. To care well and be curious about this sacred body and soul that I am living in and as.

To be healed, I must come home to my heart and love it well. I must be brave enough to face the unknown with a willingness to experience loss and to lose everything and say yes to this abundant life. On that frontier, I find home. I find the one who is worthy and I can bow and say “worthy is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Worthy is the lamb of God who heals my eyes, so I can see this beauty that I’ve always been apart of. To be separate from this is wrapped up in a grasping for power and control. “the love of God is stronger far, than tongue or pen can ever tell, it goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell”