I've been a Christian for thirteen years and wrapped up in the traveling circus of ministry for close to ten years of my life and still I cannot get over how absolutely insane my faith seems to myself, much less how it must be viewed by those on the outside looking in at me.
Everything in my heart, in my mind...in my soul comes back to this horror show moment of a Rabbi being mutilated and nailed to a tree. How does one get from this gruesome display to such endless expectation and hope that these physical world is only a mere shade of the true spectrum of reality?
It's not like I just woke up one day and decided to dedicate myself to the endless quest of hunting for the meaning of life and being endlessly distressed over the existential questions of life. I was just a little kid reading J.R.R. Tolkien and playing Super Nintendo RPG's when I had this first transcendental experience that crossed time and space...and somehow...and in someway I felt the horror of my own sins and the endless love of the resurrected Christ.
I'm of the strong stance that a person cannot be born a Christian like it was some sort of political identity or ideology. Christ cannot be found in the systems of government or the institutions of Christendom. The text of the Bible points to Him but ultimately it is this experience of your soul being touched by the eternal.
For some people it is a long series of events with no one particular moment of the light bulb coming on...but for me I have a distinct memory of the first major experience that was followed by an event four years later when Jesus asked me to not just stand in my small church boat of faith but to take His hand and follow into this world.
What does this even mean?
This is the single most important thing in my life but I can never find the words for it...I, full of hubris and overwrought words, am struck and humbled by love. Love by an infinite God who refuses to bow to me or let me define Him in my terms.
At the end of the day my true desire isn't to make a long list of converts, have a paycheck, kiss babies or make everyone happy...I just want to know what it means to love Jesus and love everyone.
Why can't it be that simple?
I have tried to run from both church and ministry in order to 'find myself' but ultimately I realize the problem is in myself, not the people.
The solution is in the macabre and incredibly awkward display of the cross.
The general picture of Jesus is this mystic hippie, Aryan with the blue eyes and blond hair, this soft spoken teacher who just talked about love and had no backbone. The actual teachings of Jesus, much less the cross, makes people incredibly awkward because action is demanded.
It's sort of like what C.S. Lewis said:
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
Quite honestly I sometimes think I must be mad, that everyone of those I love that professes similar beliefs must be in on this worldwide joke...but no.
I have looked those people in the eyes and see the same fire lit inside of them.
Not the fire of political reformation.
Not the fire to sell a product.
Not a fire to judge those of other religions, creeds, race or practices.
Not the fire found in useless platitudes.
But love.
Love that demands we sacrifice all we hold dear in order that we might find life and then give it to others.
I firmly believe that we Christians are either onto the truth or the greatest danger this world has ever witnessed. I'm not a fundamentalist wanting an excuse to kill someone but I want to have the love of Christ burn so passionately in me that I no longer care about political borders and would give my life to showing real love at any cost.
A true martyr is one who by giving up their life is a witness to this love, this impossible personal divine love that somehow points back to this bloody cross.
** ** ** ** **
** ** ** ** **
"From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.
But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!”
Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.""
-Matthew 16:21-25
But why a cross?
Why is suffering the way to life?
Anyone with any sense of reality can see how screwed up this world is.
It's an oversimplification to simply blame it on sin but that is the closest word I can find to even attempt to explain the horror, the heartbreak, the disease and the proverbial Hell surrounding our comfortable middle class bubbles.
For all the talk about it, the Bible seems to be rarely read in a way that attempts to view it in its proper context...but it is a love story of humanity screwing things up and God reaching out in love to us. It's complicated, messy, confusing and not the neat little package we would want...because it involves humans and a God who is all at once impossibly far away but oh so intimately near.
The Cross is God painting a picture of how horrible our personal and collective sins truly are, how grotesque our abuses of each other are and the radical steps needed for us to begin to be reunited to God and each other.
The Cross is not about guilt for its own sake.
The Cross is not a symbol of power.
If God wanted to destroy, purge or remove us He could.
Life isn't some cosmic chess game with the moves predetermined as much as a bizarre opportunity to learn how to begin to walk in eternity while on this side of things.
The Cross is God's ultimate trump card against our 'can do' attitudes, our attempts to redeem our lives with the material and the abuses against our bodies.
The Cross is the coup de grâce of all religion.
Systems cannot redeem the world, only love in service can.
I have never seen Christianity as anything but a means for learning how to be a failure in the eyes of the world. It is not only taking the 'path less traveled' but burning all the bridges on your way down. It is an all or nothing proposition, a one sided gamble of throwing my life into the only thing that has ever made a shred of sense while simultaneously being so beyond my understanding.
Every lesson of The Cross is counterintuitive:
-If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
-And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
-Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
-And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.
-No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
-Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
It almost seems silly to have a single day devoted to talking about, thinking about and dwelling on the cross, the resurrection of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins.
Every morning, every day, every moment of life is this connection that goes back to the cross at Golgotha.
The only hope I have is in this Jesus of Nazareth being the Son of a God that is passionately and hopelessly in love with his broken creation.
We are broken, so hurt, so twisted...we hurt each other and know it is evil but still we do it...but we do not care.
Justice would be our destruction but The Cross is God taking on human flesh and bearing all of our failures, all of our weaknesses and sins so we might finally begin to see what Love is.
This is all I know.
It's what I so desperately hope my fleeting life and poor writings point towards.
Christ is all I have.
"In the soundless awe and wonder,
words fall short to hope again.
How beautiful,
how vast Your love is,
new forever,
world without an end."
"Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him."
-Romans 5:6-8
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Isaiah 53
Who has believed our message?
To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.
He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.
He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.
But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins.
I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.
He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.
He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.
But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins.
I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
Quote of the Day
“Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
After spending most of the day in bed sick, making an excessively painful drive...I should have just went to bed instead of indulging in my asinine curiosity.
Life is such a paradox...a wonderful burden and painful blessing to carry.
The weakness of my flesh begs for release, it infiltrates my soul and begs a path i must not walk.
But here, oh here my soul is to stay for many fleeing days more.
Is the burden self appointed or was I called to carry the pain of others as my own?
"The gate to my heart has been weld shut
with the splendor of my aspirations closed in
how many years have we waited
for a ship that never set sail?
And how many days have we wasted
chasing a love that was not our own?
Is this your salvation?
Is this all you can give?
I will not stand in reflection
of someone else's dream"
Every megalomaniac bathed idea to cross my lips and mind...
Every jagged emotion cutting my heart as it slips out my mouth...
Every pain.
Every joy.
All of this...for you.
These broken dreams and shattered ideals.
Every last burst of venom I wish to shed for you.
Take this broken soul.
May it yet give you praise.
Life is such a paradox...a wonderful burden and painful blessing to carry.
The weakness of my flesh begs for release, it infiltrates my soul and begs a path i must not walk.
But here, oh here my soul is to stay for many fleeing days more.
Is the burden self appointed or was I called to carry the pain of others as my own?
"The gate to my heart has been weld shut
with the splendor of my aspirations closed in
how many years have we waited
for a ship that never set sail?
And how many days have we wasted
chasing a love that was not our own?
Is this your salvation?
Is this all you can give?
I will not stand in reflection
of someone else's dream"
Every megalomaniac bathed idea to cross my lips and mind...
Every jagged emotion cutting my heart as it slips out my mouth...
Every pain.
Every joy.
All of this...for you.
These broken dreams and shattered ideals.
Every last burst of venom I wish to shed for you.
Take this broken soul.
May it yet give you praise.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Quote of the Day:
“When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.”
-Flannery O'Connor
-Flannery O'Connor
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
I'm just feeling out into the empty white spaces...leaning forward before I jump, taking into account for the wind before I just plunge headfirst into the nothingness that feels so encompassing.
This white page of potential is so hazardous to my writing...my desire for art...for peace and for peeling back the layers of my soul.
What is good?
What is pure?
What is right to write about?
Purpose...purpose...fell purpose and dread.
Hope in the future, that grace has and will continue to fall upon me...fallen that I am.
This white page of potential is so hazardous to my writing...my desire for art...for peace and for peeling back the layers of my soul.
What is good?
What is pure?
What is right to write about?
Purpose...purpose...fell purpose and dread.
Hope in the future, that grace has and will continue to fall upon me...fallen that I am.
Quote of the Day:
"Biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world."
-Francis Schaeffer
-Francis Schaeffer
Monday, March 29, 2010
"What an arduous task, it proves such a feat to be only one of a kind,
Through the scenery slips through the spaces we meet,
Press forward and leave me behind,
What a child you are, for you look just like me,
Looking out for number one, I'm all that I have and all that I see,
Saved by the grace of the Son,
So shall we deny?
And rot as we die?
As I write a book about me,
My noble wealth of serving myself,
I am so selfish it's funny."
Through the scenery slips through the spaces we meet,
Press forward and leave me behind,
What a child you are, for you look just like me,
Looking out for number one, I'm all that I have and all that I see,
Saved by the grace of the Son,
So shall we deny?
And rot as we die?
As I write a book about me,
My noble wealth of serving myself,
I am so selfish it's funny."
Quote of the Day:
"God is not moody or capricious; He knows no seasons of change. He has a single relentless stance toward us: He loves us. He is the only God man has ever heard of who loves sinners. False gods--the gods of human manufacturing--despise sinners, but the Father of Jesus loves all, no matter what they do."
-Brennan Manning
-Brennan Manning
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Rejoice
Why do I?
I'm so tired of...disappointment and getting upset over small things...really things not even worth consideration or bothering with...
...but at the same time I try.
Too hard.
Much too hard.
Jesus...why can I not just be happy with what I have?
Why do I strive for absolutes and the perfection that doesn't exsist?
Why am I such an idiot that I cannot simply let the past be?
I really just want to hit myself.
Really, really, really hard with the hope that the pain would shock me out of the idiotic fantasy playground I have been living in.
Reality, truth...is people do not care.
Most could care less about anyone but themselves and the problems of those around them...much less the whole world.
Why am I differnt?
Why do I care at all?
Does it matter if I even try?
I can't change the world, I can't even change myself, change the anger and bitter pain inside of me...so why am I so stupid and delusional to think I can do anything to help the world?
"He helped others but he cannot even help himself."
I just want to fall on my knees, yell and scream to the heavens.
Proclaim my incompetence, my sin and my failures...oh Lord, oh Lord what do I have to offer to thee?
I am so incomplete.
I need You, oh Lord I need thee.
I need you.
"I try to sing this song loud
I try to stand up
But I can't find my feet
I try, I try to speak up
But only in you I'm complete
Gloria, in te domine
Gloria, exultate
Gloria, Gloria
Oh Lord, loosen my lips"
I'm so tired of...disappointment and getting upset over small things...really things not even worth consideration or bothering with...
...but at the same time I try.
Too hard.
Much too hard.
Jesus...why can I not just be happy with what I have?
Why do I strive for absolutes and the perfection that doesn't exsist?
Why am I such an idiot that I cannot simply let the past be?
I really just want to hit myself.
Really, really, really hard with the hope that the pain would shock me out of the idiotic fantasy playground I have been living in.
Reality, truth...is people do not care.
Most could care less about anyone but themselves and the problems of those around them...much less the whole world.
Why am I differnt?
Why do I care at all?
Does it matter if I even try?
I can't change the world, I can't even change myself, change the anger and bitter pain inside of me...so why am I so stupid and delusional to think I can do anything to help the world?
"He helped others but he cannot even help himself."
I just want to fall on my knees, yell and scream to the heavens.
Proclaim my incompetence, my sin and my failures...oh Lord, oh Lord what do I have to offer to thee?
I am so incomplete.
I need You, oh Lord I need thee.
I need you.
"I try to sing this song loud
I try to stand up
But I can't find my feet
I try, I try to speak up
But only in you I'm complete
Gloria, in te domine
Gloria, exultate
Gloria, Gloria
Oh Lord, loosen my lips"
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
I miss playing music a lot.
But more than that...I miss the bond and the feeling of standing against the world with my brothers.
I miss that in so many ways, more than words can express.
That at least, is the beauty of being in a band with like minded people attempting to make a difference in the world.
But there is a reason...and a means and a meaning...
But more than that...I miss the bond and the feeling of standing against the world with my brothers.
I miss that in so many ways, more than words can express.
That at least, is the beauty of being in a band with like minded people attempting to make a difference in the world.
But there is a reason...and a means and a meaning...
Just An Idiot
My hands tremble from caffeine
and stress of bearing my soul into writing,
emotional history
becoming distress,
dissimulating reality
only as I have seen it
and as the music blares from the machines
to the earphones,
into my soul.
I find it impossible
to not consider,
to not wonder
and think of how you fare as
one who lives in another world,
so far away
and apart from anything I have known.
I'll be wide awake thinking about the cross
and the sacred bond
that binds the hearts of all who believe
and I wish your heart well in its venture.
It is always silly to base life on dreams
but if all were to dream
and there was hope for only one
my prayer
and the hope I dare
is that this dream continues to blossom
and bloom
bringing you joy
from here until eternity.
From the hands of the Father
may the blessings fill your heart
to such levels of overflowing
that you loose footing
and drift into His arms tonight.
and stress of bearing my soul into writing,
emotional history
becoming distress,
dissimulating reality
only as I have seen it
and as the music blares from the machines
to the earphones,
into my soul.
I find it impossible
to not consider,
to not wonder
and think of how you fare as
one who lives in another world,
so far away
and apart from anything I have known.
I'll be wide awake thinking about the cross
and the sacred bond
that binds the hearts of all who believe
and I wish your heart well in its venture.
It is always silly to base life on dreams
but if all were to dream
and there was hope for only one
my prayer
and the hope I dare
is that this dream continues to blossom
and bloom
bringing you joy
from here until eternity.
From the hands of the Father
may the blessings fill your heart
to such levels of overflowing
that you loose footing
and drift into His arms tonight.
"Sure Shot" - The O.C. Supertones
"I wanna do the right thing.
I wanna be the sure shot.
I wanna have my mind straight.
I wanna have my point got.
I wanna be a good man,
I wanna have my act down.
I wanna be the future
and I wanna be right now.
Sometimes I feel
like I can change the world.
But I don't know where to start.
I dig and come up empty,
clutching an empty heart.
I wanna see a life change.
I wanna see a new man.
I wanna fight the good fight.
I wanna take the right stand.
I wanna be like Jesus.
I wanna pour my heart out.
I wanna pick my cross up.
I wanna hear the mob shout.
I'm wide awake
and thinking about the cross,
the Trinity apart.
I dig and come up empty,
clutching an empty heart."
A Sojourn into the Shadowlands
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
-Revelation 21:4
The photo series of ‘Murder She Wrote’ by Angelique Strum is a rare example of a provocative, thought evoking and truly artistic endeavor by an artist who is a Christian. Although the definition of what makes a Christian artist is a topic better left for another essay it will suffice to say that by using such an uncompromising theme in her work it is pointing to higher things than the frivolities found in works by the likes of Thomas Kinkade. Similar to the gospel of Jesus, her art is forcing people to move beyond mere religious sentimental platitudes and force people to deal with the taboo and awkward subject of death in incredibly concrete terms.
In Jungian psychoanalysis one of the most recognizable archetypes is that of the Shadow. This Shadow is made up of the darker aspects of our inner conscious and the biggest pains that people seek to repress in their lives. Jung wrote that "Everyone carries a shadow and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” By acting as a sounding board art is able to draw out these darker thoughts and repressed emotions that would otherwise never be considered or properly dealt with.
One the single most difficult subjects for me to write, speak or much less talk about is that of family. The Christian subculture in the southeast tends to portray the typical all-American Nuclear family as the norm and anything existing outside of that as being abnormal, dirty and something to be ashamed of. Given the choice who would want to grow up barely having contact with their father and then loose him at the age of eight? Who would want to grow up having to navigate the conundrum of life, having to discover what it really means to be a man and having no one to guide them by the hand?
From some of my earliest memories up until today I have dealt with issues of low-self-esteem, bouts of deep depression and intense moments of social anxiety. Based on my brief reading of the work of Jung and the intense reaction I had from viewing Strum’s art collection I believe there is a correlation between these issues and my inability to properly confront the Shadow dwelling in my soul. I have come to believe that the longer I go without reconciling my perception of reality with what is true, the greater the crash will be when I can no longer go about living as though everything was alright.
One of the ways that this Shadow has manifested itself in recent years is concerning my ability to follow through with my faith in feeling called to serve in ministry work. Even though I have had a deep seated faith in Jesus Christ since I was nine years old there has been this hole in my heart, this deep aching that will never be filled because of my dad being taken away from me. The reality of the situation is that I am human. I am a paradox that is simultaneously full of faith, hope, fear and doubt about the goodness of God in a world marred and in decay because of death and the evils of humanity.
There are enough wolves posing as sheep that inhabit the pulpit, the last thing the church needs is another actor pretending to have their life in perfect order. In the course of examining this art I heard the word of Jesus echo in my head, his demand in Matthew 16:24-26 that:
“If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me. If you want to save your life, you will destroy it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find it. What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself? What would you give to get back your soul?”
By refusing to confront the darkness hiding in this Shadow I have been refusing to be myself and refusing to accept the fact I am in fact human. To carry the cross of Christ means to accept my broken nature and the absolute fact I cannot live this life on my own. I have to cast aside this addiction and crutch of hubris before it envelops my soul. Instead of a lifestyle based on the lie of "do it yourself Christianity" I must come clean about my weakness and my need for a Savior outside of myself.
True art will only change the world if it forces people to examine who they are, what they believe and why they believe it. Unless this confrontation occurs than a person will continue on a religious path best describe by Marx as being the “opiate of the masses”. A person can only begin to truly find themselves when they cast aside the charade they have grown comfortable with and begin to look deep into the Shadowy abyss of their broken soul and cry out for help.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
-Revelation 21:4
The photo series of ‘Murder She Wrote’ by Angelique Strum is a rare example of a provocative, thought evoking and truly artistic endeavor by an artist who is a Christian. Although the definition of what makes a Christian artist is a topic better left for another essay it will suffice to say that by using such an uncompromising theme in her work it is pointing to higher things than the frivolities found in works by the likes of Thomas Kinkade. Similar to the gospel of Jesus, her art is forcing people to move beyond mere religious sentimental platitudes and force people to deal with the taboo and awkward subject of death in incredibly concrete terms.
In Jungian psychoanalysis one of the most recognizable archetypes is that of the Shadow. This Shadow is made up of the darker aspects of our inner conscious and the biggest pains that people seek to repress in their lives. Jung wrote that "Everyone carries a shadow and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” By acting as a sounding board art is able to draw out these darker thoughts and repressed emotions that would otherwise never be considered or properly dealt with.
One the single most difficult subjects for me to write, speak or much less talk about is that of family. The Christian subculture in the southeast tends to portray the typical all-American Nuclear family as the norm and anything existing outside of that as being abnormal, dirty and something to be ashamed of. Given the choice who would want to grow up barely having contact with their father and then loose him at the age of eight? Who would want to grow up having to navigate the conundrum of life, having to discover what it really means to be a man and having no one to guide them by the hand?
From some of my earliest memories up until today I have dealt with issues of low-self-esteem, bouts of deep depression and intense moments of social anxiety. Based on my brief reading of the work of Jung and the intense reaction I had from viewing Strum’s art collection I believe there is a correlation between these issues and my inability to properly confront the Shadow dwelling in my soul. I have come to believe that the longer I go without reconciling my perception of reality with what is true, the greater the crash will be when I can no longer go about living as though everything was alright.
One of the ways that this Shadow has manifested itself in recent years is concerning my ability to follow through with my faith in feeling called to serve in ministry work. Even though I have had a deep seated faith in Jesus Christ since I was nine years old there has been this hole in my heart, this deep aching that will never be filled because of my dad being taken away from me. The reality of the situation is that I am human. I am a paradox that is simultaneously full of faith, hope, fear and doubt about the goodness of God in a world marred and in decay because of death and the evils of humanity.
There are enough wolves posing as sheep that inhabit the pulpit, the last thing the church needs is another actor pretending to have their life in perfect order. In the course of examining this art I heard the word of Jesus echo in my head, his demand in Matthew 16:24-26 that:
“If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me. If you want to save your life, you will destroy it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find it. What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself? What would you give to get back your soul?”
By refusing to confront the darkness hiding in this Shadow I have been refusing to be myself and refusing to accept the fact I am in fact human. To carry the cross of Christ means to accept my broken nature and the absolute fact I cannot live this life on my own. I have to cast aside this addiction and crutch of hubris before it envelops my soul. Instead of a lifestyle based on the lie of "do it yourself Christianity" I must come clean about my weakness and my need for a Savior outside of myself.
True art will only change the world if it forces people to examine who they are, what they believe and why they believe it. Unless this confrontation occurs than a person will continue on a religious path best describe by Marx as being the “opiate of the masses”. A person can only begin to truly find themselves when they cast aside the charade they have grown comfortable with and begin to look deep into the Shadowy abyss of their broken soul and cry out for help.
A reaction to Marx's view on religion:
Those that view faith as being a crutch or a mere ‘opiate of the people’ are sadly mistaken. In true Christianity the crutches are taken away, the blinding fetters are ripped from our face and we are forced out of our complacency concerning the life around us. True faith in Jesus means a person is no longer concerned with their advancement but in how they may lower themselves to a place where they may serve ‘the less of these’. The only home for the Christian is in the gutters, the slums and ghettos of the world. The friends of a Christian are the prostitute, the beggar and drug junkie dying of AIDS.
There is no place for the politically minded, those seeking personal advancement and the fool who seeks to use God and His people for their gain. The opiate is only found in the dead church whose chief concern is building a tomb for an ignorant and stubborn people concerned only with the shades of paint on the church wall and raising enough money for a new steeple.
The true Christian is concerned with not how much to give but is grieved in their heart that they have gave everything but haven’t been able to feed all of the hungry, clothed all the naked and heal all the diseased.
There is no place for the politically minded, those seeking personal advancement and the fool who seeks to use God and His people for their gain. The opiate is only found in the dead church whose chief concern is building a tomb for an ignorant and stubborn people concerned only with the shades of paint on the church wall and raising enough money for a new steeple.
The true Christian is concerned with not how much to give but is grieved in their heart that they have gave everything but haven’t been able to feed all of the hungry, clothed all the naked and heal all the diseased.
Quote of the day:
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
-Friedrich Nietzsche
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