Letting the Light In

I'm tired this week.  Tired of everything and everyone.  I realize I'm being a big baby, but it doesn't change the fact I've reached a point of personal fatigue.  I could go on about the Boy Scouts, healthcare, Transgender bans, Russian spies, national voter registries, and the loss of Spicey on SNL - but I just can't muster any energy to do so this week.  I just don't want to do it.

So, in leiu of actually doing something productive, I decided to pick up this physical book thingy (which almost weighs as much as my tablet, and doesn't have a quarter of the same functionality *stares incredulously at the lazy book laying there doing nothing*).

Violence Unvieled by Gil Bailie ended up on my reading list due to a few recommendations from my small discipleship group.  Again, I had to buy it in paperback, which is fitting considering the topic concerns the brutality of society and the need for sacrifices with which to appease the masses and bring peace.

I wasn't necessarily looking forward to reading it.  Not because of the topic, I just don't like dealing with physical books.  But, I'm tired so might as well go full old school.

I open the book to a page of four quotes - two from the New Testament, one from Yeats, and one from Leonard Cohen.  Yes, Leonard Cohen.

No offense meant to Jesus and Yeats, but it was Cohen's words that floored me:

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in. 

For those of you familiar with Cohen's music, you might remember these lyrics from his song Anthem. I haven't even started reading the book, but I'm already flowing down the river of introspection to the ocean of relief. Yeah, I'm corny like that.

Reading those words - there's so much truth and wisdom - packed in those 4 little lines. 

• Ring the bells that still can ring.  Focus on what I have control over.
• Forget your perfect offering.  Nothing in this world is without fault. Accept it and move on.
• There is a crack in everything. We're all broken. Accept it and move on. 
• That's how the light gets in.  Only by facing the brokenness do we learn how to be better.  And not just generically better, but better in areas that actually matter.

Maybe this cluster of a year (or past few years) is really a blessing.  The hard times have made me really sit down and think about what's important in life.  What's important about me.  Made me evaluate what type of life I really want to have.

Maybe we can realize that the light coming up over the horizon isn't a nuclear mushroom cloud, but an understanding of how we can be better as a society and a country.

Maybe there is reason to be joyful, hopeful and happy during this time of emotionally draining muck in this country.

Maybe we just needed to let the light in.  Apparently, a truckload of extra strength light. 

And, maybe, just maybe...  I might actually read this book.

Why do you need to know this?

I just want to live my life.  I don’t want to talk about things with people when I feel it has absolutely no bearing on anything.  There are things I consider on a “need to know” basis.  Think I’m kidding?  Talk to my mom.  She thinks talking to me is like talking to brick wall that’s been plastered over with concrete and left in a vault at Ft Knox.

For some reason, people feel like they have a right to ask questions.  

An Example: my ear has decided it no longer wants to work appropriately and, as any normal person would do, I went to see the doctor this week at the walk in clinic at work.

I walk in and am handed a clipboard with some pages on it.  “Fill out these pages.”

I start reading through the questions figuring it had to do with past medical history and any meds the doctor should know about.

This is a sampling of what I found across 4 pages.  Yes.  FOUR pages.

• “What’s your level of personal stress?”  Was fine until I got this 4 page survey, of which only 25% dealt with my medical history.
• “What’s your level of stress at your job?” See previous response.
• “Do you have feelings of hopelessness?” I do while filling out this survey.
• “Do you sleep at night?” I may not as I feel my personal privacy has been violated beyond what it needs to be.

Oh, then finally this beauty - 

• “Which response best describes this statement: My partners and I use condoms: [Always], [Occasionally], [in monogamous relationship], or [Not having sex/does not apply]?”

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MY EAR?!   What does ANY OF THIS have to do with my ear?

PSA:  If sex has anything to do with your ear YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!!! Or, you have some weird fetish thing that I don’t want to know about, but you consider therapy.

On some weird adult level, I get it. People are asking questions to make sure they are looking out for me.  But, I’m a grown ass adult. I’m just here for my ear, not a gynecological exam.

I’m not in pain, I'm not bleeding.  I’m not dizzy, lightheaded, or otherwise think I’m Marie Antoinette (but I do believe in eating cake).

Just stick the lighty-thing in my ear, tell me it's an infection (or some weird wax buildup), and let me know what I need to do to make it better. 

That’s all I need.

It’s all you should need, too.

Dear Fellow Christians

I’m ticked at you too.

I shake my head and pray to God when I see some of your social media posts.  You scream about this being a country built on Christianity.  No, it was a country built on immigrants.  This is a country built on allowing people to believe what they want to believe.  This country was founded on FREEDOM, including religion.  This includes freedoms for agnostics, atheists, Hindus, Muslims, Wiccans, and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Just because things aren’t going the “christian way”, doesn’t change that one iota.

Here’s a history lesson for you - “In God We Trust” wasn’t put on our money until 1861.  Theodore Roosevelt tried to remove it in 1907.  TEDDY ROOSEVELT.  Later in the 1950s it was accepted as our national motto.  We went almost 200 years without it.  Two.  Hundred.  Years.  How on God’s Green Earth did we make it that long???

And, to top it off, “Under God” wasn’t added to the pledge until that same timeframe.

So, I have to ask - why are you so concerned about America being a Christian nation anyways?  Is not our treasures outside of this world?  Are we not called to carry the cross that He did?  Are we not called to be persecuted for His sake?

Are we not called to be apart from this world regardless of the consequences?

People have been martyred for our faith - fed to lions, strung up on poles, beheaded, burned at the stake or beaten.  None of which has happened in the US, at least not to heterosexual, caucasian, male, protestant christians.  Some outside that demographic haven’t been so lucky.  So, maybe you should think about that before getting too uppity about not being able to have a “Christmas” party at a school.

In the end, what are you so afraid of anyway?  The unknown?  Loss of your faith?  Children drifting off to join the CoFSM?  

Doesn’t the phrase “Fear not” show up in the Bible about 87 times?  Matthew 10:31 - “Fear Not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.”  

So why are you worrying?  Why are you pushing?  Why are you digging your heels in over a civic government entity? Why create more of a hostile environment for people who are already dealing with a world of hostility?

Yes, I know we are called to conversion and to be His hands and feet. But those hands and feet shouldn't be kicking and slapping people who don’t agree.  We should be the hands and feet that are working the fields, serving the poor and healing the sick.

So stop worrying about something that isn’t of our concern.  America wasn’t founded as a nation “under God” - this is a nation founded against tyranny.

Don’t undo that by making Him a Tyrant.