Humanity

Shawn and I have spent a lot of time talking about the brokenness in our own life stories, the human condition within our skins, covering our bones, filling our brains and seeping out our fingers, eyes and mouths. The more I actively lay myself open, allow myself to be split open, the more often I find it happening and the more I have come to realize one of the most troubling yet blessed aspects of Christ. He splits us open, we are softened, we are laid bare and then we are truly exposed, we are then exposed to the world. We are exposed to the nature of the humanity around us, and all that is truly inhuman in our world. In essence as we become more willing to have Him draw near we find ourselves further and repeated grieved by our society. I have been finding this increasingly difficult as in many cases it feels like a victimization, in that I am personally grieved and captured by the same issue. For example the situation in Manitoba/Alberta - that incident showed to me once again how we as a society routinely, ritually or even systemically allow the spirit world - specifically the evil crossover, permeate and expand in our society. We fail to understand the event and respond with anger, and anger not fueled with God's justice, but our own flawed human understanding corrupted with: jealously, confusion, rage, hatred, revenge.

Yet though I am troubled and grieved by events around us, I am finding the birth of a flower - a lotus if you will - the purity and force of a white flower born from the sludge. There is a purpose, a flawed, yet directional understanding, that maybe the feeling of grief and victimization are essential for me to see myself and those around me as Christ does - victims of our actions and often active participants in acts big and small of the victimization of those around us for our own pleasure, gain, advancement etc. Currently Shawn is working with Ahava Kids - an organization that works to provide safe houses for those exiting the child sex slave industry. I have thought about it in and wondered how I can bear to hold a child who has been burned with the full force of our inhumanity and try and reassure them of God's love, knowing that I in my young adulthood knows there is not end to the victimization on this Earth, but yet there is God - His love, peace, comfort and providence - and you have to find that space in between - a life in the void between what I know and the world around me.

I have loved this song for ages, but it's the verse she added with the live version that is amazing... When I cross over Jordan...



Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/77412859@N00/212123740/