Shepperds, not charlatans

Salvation is the greatest power of all, for from it poured as great a power as was displayed in resurrecting Jesus Christ from the tomb…and even more than was shown in the Spirit when He created the world…

   for in salvation God re-creates a soul, a heart and a life from its filth, it’s defiled state and its total depravity, and restores it forever to eternal acceptance before Him…to the always-intended image of Himself… once and for all!

Amen.

Pastor Paul Washer

Everything God does is to get you ready for forever

How SIMPLE and serious it is! God be praised and known for who He truly is!

the Wedding Ring

I’ve often wondered about the whole expectation surrounding the wedding ring. I understand that a diamond is an amazing mineral to strap to one’s finger…it is rather captivating as a stone spilled from the earth’s arts and crafts section…but why is it the tangible epitome of nearly every wedding covenant I’ve heard of?

when possibility turns to promise, there is the diamond waiting to be worn.

I had lunch with a wonderful sister in Christ a few weeks ago and simply had to probe this question with her…I know, I know…probably not the wisest of topics to maintain less than romantic discussion, but I trusted I was not auditioning with my words, nor that they were being heard in such ways. Now perhaps I lucked out by sitting across from Chelsea, but she seemed to identify with my questioning of the whole wedding-ring-phenomenon.

I started by tossing my most overarching question at her…

He won the war, but we wage in battle

Doesn’t seem like much to start off with…but it was truth and tears all at once. Great song about God!

Homeless hospitality

I made my way downtown tonight around 7:00′ish to a heralded hot-spot of some of Portland’s finest. The spot was beneath Hawthorne bridge, and the “finest” were the collective faces of the homeless, the jembists, the fire-dancers, and any of those lucky enough to just pass by and find themselves in the throws of community of a different kind…at least to this affluent, Seminary, white-boy.

 So, the story goes… my mentor, Brian Luse, grew up with this guy named Travis. Travis has, since they parted ways years ago, put into action an idea that God brought to him  …in fact he literally nestled it up right under the forgotten bowels below the Hawthorne bridge. The idea is simple… serve the homeless and the Church, all at once. It’s such a simple plan, perfect for what it’s set out to do. His flyers read as follow…

Many people do not give to the homeless because they are afraid the money will be used for drug and alcohol. By substituting Sanctity of Hope tokens for cash, we’ve removed these concerns. People and businesses donating to Sanctity of Hope receive one token for every $1.25 donated. These tokens can be given to the homeless. The homeless bring the tokens to the Sanctity of Hope mobile storefront and exchange them for goods such as food, blankets, clothing and personal hygiene products.     

Now, how many of you people that drive or walk by homeless people and want to give them something, but don’t, for fear of feeding an addiction, just felt like…

cable cars and baby eyes…

It happened the way Portland usually seems to play with my affections…the city goes a bit quieter than usual… shuffles and scatters its many walkers around just enough to call some it its bigger streets empty… drops randoms leaves from nowhere and somewhere… runs its fingers full of wind through everyone’s hair, especially the ones who would humorously bat it away… it seems to hum and hymn of its long forgotten stories, it’s sound pulses, breathing gently in and out, as though it were perfectly relaxing away just another day… filling it’s otherwise nook and cranny landscape with tongues doused in geographic and economic accent…   

Portland is the homeless man who winds through another day, just scraping by… and it is the garbage man who probably receives less eye contact in a day than he does respect… it is the misunderstood, confident Gothic girl draped in anything black…

it is the readers that fill and finance the coffee shops by trekking to their second homes, laced with literature and latte… it is the quiet face of a native born Thai woman who seems more taken back by my eye contact than my hug oddly enough… it is the cable car that is noisy but never seen as rude…

it is the corporate man sharing space at a crosswalk signal with a young Asian orphan named Tyler who will likely never own a cell phone, or at least not one as expensive as Joe Shark to his left… it is the breast cancer survivor shirt that just ran past me on the left… and the resident crazy man who leads out with bellows and protest about political issues that have long been decided upon…”We need to kick Reagan out”… it is the “Fuck your God” tee-shirt tightly hugging a rather barrel chested man who grinned as I walked past with the Bible in my hand… 

it’s the hungry eyes I see in so many of the students wandering around the inner city campus of Portland State… it’s the lonely hazel eyes of the bread shop girl who looked right into mine and leaned in so close she could have stolen a kiss if she had dared it… it’s the blood shot eyes from the elderly woman named Moira making her daily 6 block trek through the wind and allergies, all in a hope that she would get a bed at the Rescue Mission for the night…

it’s the grizzled chin of a disabled man named Charlie downtown who smelt of whiskey and what I could only guess was the sweat of someone else all over him (the corporate guy had the same smell…what stories those must be)…

it’s the baby crying just within earshot, and the baby peacefully draped on the nannies’ back wondering why his fellow baby is making a fuss… it’s the stray dog looking for scraps and affection and the poodle covered in sweater and rhinestone, sitting anxiously in a purse about its’ size… it’s the “free Love” body paint that traversed the old man’s bare back to my right… it’s the tired Mom of the three kids who won’t stop tugging at her shirt tail and what I imagine to be her life… it’s the breast feeding Mom in the park and the “A sex offender just moved in” notice pinned inches from her on a rather tac-holed electric post.

AND… Portland… for now…is my wandering green eyes… soaking up all that I do not deserve to be graced with and learn from… the people, the mountain in the clouds (Mt. Hood), the smells, the eyes, the sounds, the bridges that get so very overlooked as they’re crossed, the laughs, the unnoticed streets, the hurts, the fights, the intimacy, the shyness, the weeping, the indifference, the defeats, the food, the searching of so many, and the dreams that escape from people’s mouths as readily as the caffiene seems to enter them. I am steeped in a city God knew would exist..and one that He Loves deeply, even if it would rather try on every other shoe before ever even thinking about adorning Him as their resolution. (sigh) Portland… the eclectic miracle of the Pacific Northwest.

  

While it doesn’t entirely dwell in my depths as being home, I am grateful to God that He would allow me to share in this place that so many others, by choice and be default do call home. It is a door to another world I feel…  

I choose to honor Him with where He always knew I would end up.

Acts 17:26

homesick for the eventual

“What is a man to do in order to discover how to live with his heart…when he would rather be lost at sea as opposed to being what he often finds himself…lost at land?

Is his current port to be a thin line between test and torture… a delicate divide between serving in his place and time, and the insatiable desire for seeking the unknown, truly living alongside the destitute…defending those who are unable to defend themselves.
Is he in need of rescue, ever and always, more than he feels the need to rescue? Is it really as simple as he deems it when no one is around to hear…when his audience are pillows and ceilings…does he just want to find family…people to Love on…not out of Godly obligation, but b/c they are so created to incite all that is within him; Every capable fiber of affection I have they call home, like a lighthouse does the wanderer.

 To find people to call family…I thought they were found in Scotland, and to an undeniable degree they were, but Lord, You know that cannot be well with my soul…they are forever family…but not mine to live along side…at least not right now. I cannot serve there knowing I would detract from Your Kingdom in that place…and your Kingdom Lord is far more dear than any longing for family I might possess. 

And yet still Lord, I sit, I wait, more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning… wondering where I would have to go to find my niche…my place in this world…to find my Godly vantage in this fallen surrounding…what odd Lovers they make at times.