Why We Write

"A critic a few years back...wrote...wondering how i could have been born and raise in Waukegan...and not noticed how ugly the harbor was and how depressing the coal docks and railyards...i had noticed them and...was fascinated by their beauty. Trains and boxcars and the smell of coal and fire are not ugly to children. Ugliness is a concept that we happen on later and become self-conscious about."
- Ray Bradbury Dandelion Wine (page ix)

"In other words, if your boy is a poet, horse manure can only mean flowers to him; which is, of course, what horse manure has always been about."
- page x

"The people there were gods and midgets and knew themselves mortal and so the midgets walked tall so as not to embarrass the gods, and the gods crouched so as to make the small ones feel at home. And, after all, isn't that what life is all about, the ability to go around back and come up inside peoples' heads to look out at the [darned] fool miracle (i think he means yourself), and say: oh, so that's how you see it!? Well, now, i must remember that.
Here is my celebration, then, of death as well as life, dark as well as light, old as well as young, smart and dumb combined, sheer joy as well as complete terror written by a boy who once hung upside down in trees dressed in his bat costume with candy fangs in his mouth, who finally fell out of the trees when he was twelve and went and found a toy-dial type writer and wrote his first 'novel'."
- page xii

Why write? Why write when it makes an unrealistic, way-too-beautiful picture of the world around us? when we think up for ourselves such high expectations? when we beautify the things that are simple and expand upon matters that don't seem to matter all that much? Becuase when you write. When you write like that. It reflects something in the very depths of your heart. That we were programmed and created with a desire and a knowledge in our hearts that there truly is a place that beautiful. Even the most secluded of slaves can write about freedom. In our hearts we can picture just a glimpse of the beautiful land that awaits us. And so we write. Not to be unrealistic. Oh how that word limits so many good things... and bad alike. But no. We write for hope. We write because of assurance. We write from the depths of what we know to be true. The simple is beautified because anything more complex would be confusing. The simple is beautified because wisdom lies much of the time in silence. The simple is beautified because beauty doesn't have to be a complex production. So many of us spend our lives trying to make the lives we're spending so much more beautiful. We add and add and add and add til we think we've created a masterpiece. Yet in the end we end up finding out- that it would have been just as beautiful if we just thought the things we started with were beautiful in the first place. Make-up sometimes removes the raw truth and honesty. That true beauty is natural things covered up and bejeweled. True beauty is authenticity- taking the simple and changing your state of thinking to seeing it as 'beautiful'. Which is more of a miraculous, breath-taking change: to take something you deem physically 'not beautiful' and make it more beautiful yourself? or to let the thing itself sit around in your mind for a while and show you what it really is and then end up creating a beautiful change in your inner thoughts about what you think about it- taking your thoughts from degrading and judgemental to joyful and appreciative, not of things that COULD BE, but of the things that ALREADY ARE? Which is better? I say the second. If we fail to realize the true beauty of the things already before us, how will we every be able to judge whether or not the thing we've created is, in fact, truly beautiful? So we take the simple, the good and the bad about it, and we deem them both beautiful. Because we know that one day the bad will be changed to good and the good will remain and that physical beauty is fleeting, but a changed mind and a changed heart will last forever and impact generations to come. That is why we write.

Too. Much. Noise

For the people who hurt us

And the people who have been hurt

For the loved

And those who judge themselves to the point they don't believe they can be

For the hopeful

And those who think they're no longer able

to climb the gym rope and make it to the top.

You don't have to.

"he has sent me… to set the oppressed free."

For those who have no job

And don't believe they'll ever get one.

"whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it
 and it will be yours"

An elderly woman once said

"You just have to believe that He's done it and it's done."

So for those who have failed to believe.

Who have lost nearly all their sight to see

"He has sent me

To proclaim recovery of sight for the blind."

So are you having trouble seeing

Having trouble being

The man

The woman

The daughter, father, wife, husband, mother, listener, sister, or friend...

That you're called to be?

Well. you can't do it alone.

That's for sure.

Cause I've tried and tried and tried

 and tried

And I've seen the mix of pride and overconfident invincibility

And have found

That I can't do this thing.

This thing called life.

Cause I've tried

And tried and tried

And always getting in the way

Of my day to day glories to God

Of the "I'll praise you not myself" attitude

Is something overwhelmingly, ridiculously rude.

Myself.

I've decided that I'm rude.

I'm selfish a lot of the time.

I have things much better to think about than what I normally do.

If I did this alone, I would not be fit to praise

"Charm is deceptive

And beauty is fleeting

But a woman who fears the lord is to be praised."

Not independent but dependent

Not everlasting beauty but everlasting life.

Fear of the lord not fear of rejection

Will we do this alone

Or will we ask him for help.

Choice one: go solo

Go solo and fail

Which brings us to choice two because failing one leads to two

Just see God from the beginning

"and all these things will be given to you as well"

Cause without him, we're making our own hell

End up

Asking for

Help

Answers Help

When he would have just given them to us in the first place.

So. For those feeling trapped. In a hamster's wheel.

A never ending system

Going round

And round and up and down and across and wide and to the gas station five times cause you need a refill and you're tank's not big enough for all the load you've put on your plate and the overflow from other people telling you to eat their portions too. Are you beginning to feel perpetually-

               tired?

"He has sent me to proclaim… freedom for the prizoners."

So go home and kick off your shoes

No- slip them off cause it's time to relax.

There is renewal in silence

And patience

And bare feet.

So he can wash them.

It's hard to wash feet when your socks are on.

Dust off your listening ears.

And shake off the bitterness and tension from a past of years

And all the people who formed all your fears

Their voices in your head yelling expectations of you.

Just shake

Them

Off.

And pray in your talking voice

in a room shut away

Until you have nothing

 left in your

head.

Empty it out to the last drip drop. Nothing left but

 God's voice

Whispering sweet everythings.

There Might

Have Just

Been Too Much

Noise.

 for you to hear him.

Drops Like Stars thoughts

Rob Bell, in his book Drops Like Stars (which is so unexplainably beautiful despite the explanation of Christ) says:

"Do you know that feeling in class when somebody raises his hand and says, 'I don't get it,' and you feel so relived that you aren't the only one who isn't getting it?

That's what great artists do.

This is what great people do.

They ask it.

They say it.

They express it.

They put in words what so many others are thinking and feeling

And wondering. They affirm that…

You aren't the only one having this experience.

…

We're drawn to it  [music about suffering such as much rap music today] because so much of the time

WE'RE SURROUNDED

BY BUZZ

AND GLOSS
AND HYPE-

We slide down the surface of things.

And then we hear something born of suffering and advesity and we're moved because it's honest. It's real. It means something.

IT'S THE ART OF THE ACHE.

THE ACHE IS UNIVERSAL.

The ache reminds us that things aren't how they're supposed to be. The ache cuts through all the static,

All of the ways we avoid having to actually feel things.

The ache reassures us that we're not the only ones who feel this way.

…SUFFERING UNITES…

It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor or black or white or right or left or young or old-

If you have the same disease as someone else

Or if you both have a daughter with an eating disorder

Or had a brother in jail or had a spouse die

Or recently were fired…

You have a bond that transcends

Whatever differences you have.

That's what suffering does.

THIS IS THE ART OF SOLIDARITY.

…when Jesus died on the cross, this wasn't just another execution by the Roman Empire.

They believed this was the diving, in the flesh and blood, hanging there on the cross, bloogy, thirsty, suffering.

A god who is not somewhere else- remote,

Detached,

Distant- but among us, feeling what we feel, aching how we ache.

SUFFERING LIKE US."

• From pages 46-67

So we're feeling it. We're daring to ask it.

Maybe the question is 'Why?' but 'what now?' might be more productive.

Why?

Because without suffering, we probably wouldn't run back to God.

That's how we are.

Most of the time, it takes suffering

To get us to be willing to let Him change our lives.

It takes us realizing we can't do it on our own-

WE NEED OTHER PEOPLE AND WE NEED GOD.

And the rest of this book includes the answers to 'What now?' questions.

Suffering isn't easy

But it creates something beautiful in us.

Honesty.

Let's dare to be honest.

You're not the only one thinking 'I don't get it. What do I do?'

We are too.

The Box Reference.

To be brutally honest. I have had those days. Where i get up and say: "i don't really want to do anything today." i think we're all afraid to say that. we are afraid and too ashamed to admit that we have those days. Where our heart says "I don't want to do what i know i am supposed to do today." Days where we just don't feel like doing anything. And we're not honest enough to tell anyone. Well. that's my selfish self. and the devil got me to do that for a year and a half. And i will warn you now. You will feel as empty as ever if you let that feeling keep on going. If you do the things that just YOU want to do, you will end up feeling horrible and empty and self-centered and alone. Like i did. For nearly a year. I LET MYSELF slide into it. It was slow. It was selfish. And now i realize what i have to do. That's why it's so important to wake up every day and sit and talk to God until you feel like you have died to yourself. Tell yourself that whoever you are going to serve today is more important than anything you could ever want. Whether you FEEL like you want to serve that person or not. Pray until God gives you the feeling of invigorating love.
In Drops Like Stars, Rob Bell explains how some people aren't just "out of the box" thinkers. There are some thinkers who don't have a box at all. He says that sometimes those people we call "out of the box" really are just a different version of the people who are in the box. But the people who are really really passionate
are those who have been forced
or have decided themselves
to have no box at all.
In Rob's words
all their boxes have all been smashed.
Or they have asked God to smash them.
I think that's when we get bold.
When we ask God to smash all of our unsmashed boxes.
That's dangerous.
When we wake up in the morning and say
God i don't really want to do this
and i am being selfish.
i realize that.
please humble me
please smash all of my boxes and give me a passion to think without a reference to the box at all.
Make me brave enough to follow what you have boldly asked me to do.
Take fear away from me. Give me the strength to stand when all of my frames of reference have been smashed and confused.
And make me joyful when all my frames of reference were smashed.
When you just don't feel like feeling anything
that is a sign to go do something.
Go serve.
I need to find a place to go serve.
People.
Because when we seclude ourselves from people.
We get selfish.
It probably is possible to live alone all of your life.
But have you also observed that the people who live alone
end up being quite self-centered.
It hurts us when we decide to not go take care of other people.
someone other than ourselves.
SO yes.
I am human.
I wake up and sometimes think i don't want to do this today, God. I am scared. I am tired. I am whatever excuse i want to make up to not do this today.
Our sinful nature and our selfishness will make up all kinds of excuses to get us to not do what God wanted us to do. SATAN ONLY COMES TO STEAL KILL AND DESTROY.
DO YOU REALIZE THAT?
BY BEING ALONE, BY NOT SERVING, BY NOT FORCING OURSELVES TO DIE TO OURSELVES.
WE ARE FORFEITING OUR INHERITANCE AND GIVING IT TO SOMEONE ELSE.
ESAU SOLD HIS INHERITANCE- HIS BLESSING FROM HIS FATHER
TO HIS YOUNGER BROTHER
FOR A MEAL.
FOR a meal.
He had come in from the fields and he was tired.
extremely extremely hungry.
goodness he was tired.
and hungry.
So he told Esau that he wanted some of the soup Esau was making in the kitchen.
And for a bowl of soup, he sold his inheritance.
Because he was tired.
So that's why endurance is so important.
Endure. Get past that feeling of "I don't want to. i don't feel like it."
God's son died for you.
So that God would forgive our past sins.
And we would not keep on sinning.
And we would care for those who really
really
have something to whine about and be tired about.
So we can tell others who are stuck in the box
who are tired of trying on their own to be those "out of the box thinkers"
that they don't have to have a box at all.
That is freeing.
When you realize that you don't even have to keep on fighting the status quo.
God loves me.
Because God still loves you no matter what.
And therefore no status quo is necessary.
So We wake up.
Sit and read and pray and do whatever you need to do.
Have patience to wait and pray until all of that selfishness and unholy discontent is gone.
Die to yourself and serve someone else.
I don't think we realize that our inheritance is at stake.
God has a purpose for you.
If you don't know what it is. Sit and listen and read UNTIL HE HAS TOLD YOU EXACTLY WHAT IT IS.
The seen is temporary but the unseen is eternal.
We forget that.
We look to what we CAN see in our future,
saying "goodness i am not sure if i like that very much." or "okay tomorrow i have soccer practice and that one dinner with those people that i talk to all the time, then i'll do some work around the house then read a bit and go to bed and the day after that i'll start all over with a bit of variation just to make myself feel better."
and we don't realize that what we are missing
IS SOMETHING WE CAN'T EVEN SEE or HAVEN'T EVEN IMAGINED YET.
God has something planned for you that you haven't even imagined.
So sit down and talk to him. And listen. until He has told you what that is.
Or serve people and pray while you do so that he tells you what that is.
And that He gives you the strength to carry it out.
Sometimes it takes all of our boxes getting smashed to imagine that life could be any different than we have already planned it to be.

Look at how God planned the concept of time.
Time keeps us in our box a bit.
But God has a design and a plan for you that reaches beyond the stretches of time.
It is bigger than you could imagine.
Things are happening around you that you can't even see.

Don't try to fit GOD into YOUR logic.
Cause it's not going to work.
If you try and fit god into your mind
into your way of thinking.
i'll let you know now.
you'll fail.
i've done it before.
I've tried to over think things.
I'm actually quite good at it (and that's a bad thing).
I've thought about tomorrow way too often, and, likewise, i forfeit my inheritance, not realizing that any minute God could completely make everything do a 180 and put the cards into my hand.
What you can't see
is way more important than what you can see. Cause God is alot bigger than anything we could ever imagine.
He doesn't fit into our boxes.
He created us to live right next to him.
That's why we so easily get tired of referring to being "inside of the box" or "outside of the box"
It's tiring isn't it?
Because we were made to live beside god.
with no reference to a box at all.

Be who God created you to be.
If you don't know who that is,
ask God to show you and tell you.
Do what He purely created you to enjoy doing.
Do the things he tells you to.
Once we submit, we realize that we actually enjoy obeying more than we thought we would
cause God has our best interests in mind.
We can't out-think him and we can't fit Him into our frame of reference.
Cause He IS our frame of reference.
Love and be loved and die to yourself.

God, This is a bold statement.
Please give me the strength and will to live it.
Amen.