Ruthless, Raw and Broken... Love and Easter lillies @ 3:16

"Love can be, such a non-word... sometimes, it loses its meaning, its potency, like, I really love cheeseburger... like, I really love, a sunny day, like, I really love my family... and all of those are different things.  The love that I am singin about in this song is not a pretty, clean, Hollywood Hot pink sorta love.  Its the kind of love that is willing to love things that are messy, and even the difficult, and, sorta, kinda gross, kinda things... "  -John Mark McMillan (commenting on the meaning behind the song "How He Loves")

That's just it.  Love can be used casually, love can be used intensely, love can be unrequited and Love can change the face of the world.  Such a word, such an action has so much meaning that even God himself has taken the word to say that HE is it.  I strongly feel that, through all of loves meaning, through all of life's defining love, that the sacrifice of a man, for all of his people, for His beloved, is the most brutal and real essence of Love their will ever be.  Love is not just Roses or Easter Lillie's for that matter, but love is also answering a friends phone call at 1am, stopping to make sure that car that went off the road is ok, or meeting a friend for coffee even though they have blown you off the last seven times.  Love is staring somebody in the eye and saying, "I forgive you".  Love is leaving your heart on your sleeve, not looking for a response, or a reward, but because that's all you've got, and you would rather have the courage to put that forward than stifle your truest self into the skin and bones of your being.  Love is not always pretty.  It is hardly perfect.  It may be messy and even gross, but Love, in all its forms, is the choice, is the action that we have to be willing to take, because maybe, just maybe, we experience a little bit of God's own heart when do.  Maybe it is in the "pouring out" of oneself, in blood, sweat and tears, that we find what we so desperately seek.
Happy Easter

"We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home." -ToWriteLoveOnHerArms


Video:
JMM- "How he Loves: a story"

Rescued and speechless

listen:
the Almost- "dirty and left out"





Redemption is different from reconciliation or forgiveness even.  Redemption is a building up, whereas forgiveness is most often a plugging the hole in the dam and hoping it will hold.  We often get caught up in what others think and what they will think if we do something or make a certain statement or action.  Yet it is not the act of forgiving, although this is nothing short of an amazing feat in itself, but the redemption that comes later, where we find the truest beauty in the frail human heart.
  Take for example the story of the prodigal son.  He probably doesn't feel that great telling his father all the things that had happened and especially not in the fact that he had already come to the conclusion (in his mind) that he would be lucky to sleep and work with the servants.  Yet we all know that his fate is sealed in his Father's love, the complete and unconditional love that accepts with open arms and leads to redemption.  I cannot imagine somebody being received in such a way and actually having the attitude or sickness to go back to the evil they had vacated.
  All this to say, although there are great amounts of pain in this life, when it comes to redemption, when it comes to light breaking through, when it comes to relationships being restored, it is all possible.  But we have to see it through.  I am so very thankful that redemption is a reality.  That we can bust out the other side, not just better, but wiser and more hopeful.
   Redemption can mean deliverance; but it can also mean rescue.  I cannot even begin to count the ways I have been redeemed and rescued over my relatively short life and this is available to all.  So why doesn't everyone feel redeemed?  If its available to everyone, what does it matter?

Because not everyone has been given the chance, and not everyone has been redeemed.  There are many situations in my own life where I have not felt redemption or even forgiveness, yet I can still find peace somewhere in between the Hopes and the brokenness.  Even though the redemption may never come, I take great comfort in knowing it exists, and no matter how messed up the situation is, deliverance is always possible.

Would that we would all find redemption, that when we offer "deliverance" and "atonement" that we would follow our words with a quiet prayer or a silent praise.

This is life; and redemption is a reality we all need,   
and,
I; rather WE, are never too far gone.

alex

I was in need of an adventure, in need of a break.
This week offers some alternatives to work (see conference) and a concert with some of my favorite people (and I am not even talking about the bands) before the bump and grind commences on Thursday... and I couldn't be more thrilled at the timing.  Just a couple weeks left for my Americorps post!
So staying local but trying something completely new and intriguing was the theme of today.  After skipping out on Fridays race due to an injury today was meant to be a get away into the woods and some light hiking to limber up and rest my tired body and mind.  Sitting down after the days adventures, "rest" or "light" was no longer in the books as words to capture the day.  But rather the day was summarized by "adventure" and "encounter".  After speed hiking about a quarter of Kearsarge's hidden gem, the Lincoln trail, I spotted another hiker just above me on the ridge, moving slowly but confidently.  Just as I caught up with him, we reached the top of this hill and the trail entered an exposed section with full sunlight. We exchanged greetings and shook hands and i quickly moved forward.  But he was not in the rear-view.  Oh no, rather he was was literally breathing on me and quickly asked if he could get by.  After he moved by I quickened my pace and decided to follow.  The encounter quickly turned to conversation, which led to questions, which further turned to the great tradition of hiker's sharing stories, sharing life;
and Alex, as I later found his name to be,
had stories, upon stories,
adventures, upon adventures.

This man had been places.

Among those mentioned were Warner, NH (of course), Argentina, Peru, Patagonia, Norway, and his current place of work, the Atlantic sea.  That's right, Alex is a lobsterman.  Tried and true, strong and adventurous.
All of a sudden, the quiet Sunday hike turned into something more.
A shared adventure,
a comparing of stories,
a companion for the ride.
After a conversation with another Colby-Sawyer friend at the top (Ricky), it was time to descend;
for myself back down Lincoln, for Alex, down the access road and over off into the dirt of one of NH's many class 6 roads and eventually back to the place where he would spend the night and prepare to go back out on the boat the following day.
This encounter has done more for my spirits and energy then I can even explain,
and it taught me a few important lessons that I believe to be universal to all-
That perhaps it is not about the speed or the distance, but rather the adventure itself,
That perhaps the work we do is only done to earn the means by which to pursue our true passions,
That perhaps each person's story, even our own, has the capacity to be marvelous and exhilarating,
That perhaps each one of us has a mission, a great task, and it likely involves helping another, perhaps some person or group of people that have otherwise been ignored...
 
So as for when we depart our homes in the morning, looking for a break and an adventure,
Let us leave with soft hearts and open minds,
for we never know who we'll meet, but,
you can rest assured,
that the craziness and seemingly random connections and correspondences along the journey of life are somehow weaved together to form extraordinary stories;
Would that we can share these stories often,
and play our part well.

"I watched the changes
(I watched the changes)
through your eyes
like a movie of my life"  

Listen:

As Tall As Lions- "if I'm not out burning bridges, I'm buying more matches"

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/200283828-001/The-Image-Bank

freedom and us

"freedom isn't free"
and
"the only thing needed for evil to succeed in this world, is for good people to do nothing"

Are two quotes that come to mind on this 4th of July 2010.  The first quote in particular often connotates a military notion, that we must pay for our freedom with blood, sweat and sacrifice.  The second confirms this notion, that good men (and woman) have to step forth to push back the forces that seek destruction and pain in this world.  Yet we very seldom live this way.  We have come to a time and place where we cannot see, except through military means or media, the brutality and the struggle that is at play in a world gone mad by the hunt for power and advancing oneself over one's brother (or has it always been this way?) and here in America we have a very small glimpse of what it is to fight for freedom (except our first hand military warriors).  But we are not completely free as you suppose.  There are many, many people in this country who do not feel free.  Perhaps this is because real freedom, in its simplest, yet deepest sense is neither free nor evil, but rather infinite.  The real freedom our hearts seek can only be found in the simplest of truths and a child-like sense of wonder.  Freedom can only be found in Truth; and Love.  Freedom goes beyond a feeling, relationships, or political control, but rather a sense of belonging to a larger story and leading an existence that is found deep within, so deep that it may only correspond to your own Hopes, Dreams and Experiences.
And it is a battle, a struggle.
It is a lifelong venture.
Freedom is not free.
Nor is it easy.
But "we owe it to ourselves"
and...
"we can't just let it go"
Our entire existence depends on freedom and the pursuit therein; yet it is only a select few who choose to seek and defend it.  We all have a part to play in this, in every word we say and every action that stays.  Let us seek the truth, absolutely, and in doing so, let freedom ring, and let infinity answer the call of the feeling we are truly after.  At the end of the age, freedom is not a right, but rather a precious gift, and as such amazing gifts are, it is not to be kept to ourselves.    
The choice to pursue freedom is of such earth shattering importance,
that all of our lives hang in its balance, as do the words nobody ever wants to hear,
"it didn't have to end like this"-

listen:
anberlin- we owe this to ourselves (King)