Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Walls or Boundaries???



"Me?" Tony was surprised. "Why would I want to keep them standing?"

"You built these walls to keep you safe, or at least for the imagination of safe. They substitute for trust.  You are beginning to understand that trusting is an arduous journey."

"So, I needed these walls?"

"When you believe that you alone are the only one who can be trusted, then yes, you need these walls. Self protective measures, intended to keep evil out, often wall it in.  What initially kept you safe can eventually destroy you."

"But don't I need walls? Aren't they good things?"

He felt the hug from behind. "You need boundaries," said the voice of Jesus,  "but not walls. Walls divide while boundaries honor."  Tony let himself relax into this tender embrace, his tears unexpectedly appearing and spilling softly onto the ground.

"Even in our material creation," continue Jesus, "boundaries mark those beautiful of places, between the ocean and the shore, between the mountains and the planes, where the canyon meets the river.  We will teach you how to thrill with us in the boundaries while you learn to trust us with your security and safety. One day you will no longer need walls."

Even as he spoke, Tony could sense more internal walls crumbling. Not disappearing, but tangibly impacted by an inner knowledge that he was utterly excepted, with all his flaws and losses, all his conditioning and pride. Was this love? Was this what it was like to be loved?

Cross Roads by William Paul Young



Friday, May 23, 2014

What path are you taking today?

Whatever you are intent on this day, is it to bring glory to you or to God?  Is it done in the Light or done in the darkness?  I wish I could say that I ask these questions of myself every day....

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

A story, an unfortunate story of life.....

One day a woman was driving with her children northbound to the nearest town to get some shopping done.  It was a beautiful spring day and it was around two in the afternoon.  Well, it just so happens that a man was driving southbound on the same highway and unfortunately he had had too much to drink.  As one would assume, there was a terrible accident.

The ambulance was called after the deputy arrived on the scene.  The woman and her children all needed to be taken to the nearest hospital.  The intoxicated man just had a few bruises on him and was questioned and released.

A few days later, the young deputy came to the hospital and sought out the woman to ask her a few questions.  As she lay there with one leg in a cast after surgery to put pins in which might leave her with a permanent limp, the pain of his questions were far worse than anything she was experiencing with that leg.  "Ma'am, why were you driving that day?  Shouldn't you have exercised more care in observing what was going on around you?  Do you not know that these types of things can happen and you should have exercised more caution?  How do you think this would have turned out if you would have had a better reaction time?" and on the questions went.  No matter the shock the woman was still in from the accident itself, the questions put her in a deeper shock as she had no idea how to answer them.  Was she indeed at fault here?  Could she have done something different to have avoided this accident?  And look at how her children have been affected?  The bruises will disappear, but the scars of trauma will remain for the rest of their lives?  Is this also her fault?

To extend matters further, the man who had been driving drunk came and also questioned her.  "Why were you out on the road that day?  Why couldn't you have been driving at another time?  Don't you know that I need the whole highway when I am driving after I have been drinking?  I don't drink all the time, but when I do after a stressful day, I don't need careless drivers on the road."

The deputy came in a few days later as the woman was trying to learn how to walk again with a cast and with the pins in her leg.  "Do you want to press charges?", he asked.  "You know this guy has been through a lot in life and I am sure he never intended to harm you in this way.  He knows he has a problem and, in fact, he has had other accidents involving others both while in his car and with other cars.  I have had to talk to them, too, and explain that this guy really means well.  He just has a problem but he doesn't really plan to hurt anyone.  He tells me that he even reads the police report each week so that he can look at himself and pat himself on the back that at least he isn't doing worse things.  Can you give him a break?"

If the woman were told that she was living an episode of the Twilight Zone, she would have believed it.  What a craziness!  Here she was having a wonderful day with her children and, yes, things hadn't been easy lately, but now she was faced with a permanent limp, possibly having to leave her job, seek out counseling for her and her children for the trauma of the accident after their physical wounds heal and she was to let this man go free to most likely injure others that come into the path of his life? 

"No!  This is wrong and he should face the consequences of what has happened so that no one else will get hurt, we can heal and this man will be forced to get help whether he sees that he needs help or not!"
As Nathan came before King David and told him a story and King David was enraged by it, the prophet says, "You are that man"!