Tag: christianity

Letting Go

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Mountains, Poetry, Sky9 Comments

And Forgive Us our Debts

Nothing left to give.

Look into my empty sack,

my empty jar.

See my cold black torch.

How am I to live?

I cannot pay back what I owe

‘til I get payback for my lack.

And they took it.

They squandered it.

They spent my joy on riots.

They spent my innocence on games.

They threw my peace on the bonfire

and danced around it.

Let go

I’ve squeezed my eyes until they bled,

I’ve held my breath

until my heart pounded on death’s door —

still I cannot disappear

into the disheveled dirt bed

And here you are

–and you want more.

How dare you?

How dare you, God?

How dare you?

How dare you shove

your saber hand into my chest

and divide spent spirit from sullied soul

to reach the hissing python.

Let go

I can’t let go!

It’s only anger —

it’s only hate

that coiled around my crooked spine

enables me to stand up straight

and curse them!

Let go

Aren’t you gentle Jesus

meek and mild?

Go take your love to some purer child.

And stop that!

You’re hurting me!

Let go

They poached my song!

They caught my rhyme!

They raped my soul!

They took my time!

They grabbed my mind

and jammed it on a fearsome pike –as a warning.

They took my gates forever.

I’ve damned the light

and sealed the sash

with dark green plastic meant for trash.

What good are thickened walls of stone

when the door’s been burned to ash.

Let go

The bill’s right here;

I have kept track.

My hands will tighten ‘round their necks.

My hands are strong —

they’ll not be slack

‘til I get everything I lack.

Give it back!

Give it back!

Give it back!

Let go

You let go!

I’m offended by this “loving hand”

that feels more like a gunshot wound.

Let go

I can’t let go!

I won’t let go!

I don’t want to let go!

They owe me!

Let go

Help me.

Let go

You know if I let go it will kill me.

I know

It’s hard.

I can’t fill your hands until you empty them.

Who is going to help me?

I am.

(This poem was written about one of the toughest steps in healing from chronic depression  –forgiveness. To me forgiveness is about letting go of legitimate debts owed me and allowing God to supply my needs.)

Therefore I remember

On By Charis PsalloIn Sky11 Comments

Someone asked me recently, “What is the difference between heartache and depression?” Having known both I could answer, “Heartache causes you to cry out, in your pain, to the God of hope; depression causes you to lose sight of hope.”

I do not believe that humankind faces any greater pain than the loss of hope. I’ve had a lot of painful physical problems in my life, but none so bad that I wanted to die just so the pain would stop. Depression made me want to die.

I was familiar with the sense that the dark clouds were again descending and feeling helpless to stop the storm that sucked all the colour out of my life. If you understand what I mean by this, I urge you to keep your eyes on the sliver of light on the horizon, and when it disappears, to cling by faith to the memory and certain hope that light is indeed still there and will again arise in the dark. And if that fails, cling to someone who can carry faith for you.

The psalmist understood this pain.

As a deer longs for streams of water,

so I long for You, God.

 I thirst for God, the living God.

When can I come and appear before God?

 My tears have been my food day and night,

while all day long people say to me,

“Where is your God?”

 I remember this as I pour out my heart:

how I walked with many,

leading the festive procession to the house of God,

with joyful and thankful shouts.

 

 Why am I so depressed?

Why this turmoil within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,

my Savior and my God.

 I am deeply depressed;

therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan

and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

 Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls;

all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.

 The LORD will send His faithful love by day;

His song will be with me in the night—

a prayer to the God of my life.

 

 I will say to God, my rock,

“Why have You forgotten me?

Why must I go about in sorrow

because of the enemy’s oppression?”

 My adversaries taunt me,

as if crushing my bones,

while all day long they say to me,

“Where is your God?”

 Why am I so depressed?

Why this turmoil within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,

my Savior and my God. –Psalm 42

There is no pain or humiliation that Jesus does not understand.

There is hope! After 40 years of  seeing that darkness descend again and again I am finally free. I am so happy -yes happy- to be alive! The God of hope is faithful to his promises. He is so good!  He is so very, very good and I praise him with all my joyful heart!

Use your words

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folksLeave a comment

I heard a newborn baby crying in church. You know, it was a sweet sound. The mom had a difficult delivery and it was such a blessing to see both of them happy and healthy.

Some of the kids turned around to see what was wrong — or to see how long the baby was going to get away with this. I felt like explaining to them that crying is the only language babies have and it doesn’t always mean they are in pain, or even that something is wrong.

Then the Lord spoke to me in my spirit and said, “Sometimes people cry and whine because it’s the only language they have.”

This came up in the context of praying about how to respond to people I care about, but who cry and whine a lot. (OK, I’m one too). Sometimes I feel like a mom in the kitchen at 5 o’clock with a whimpering baby demanding to be picked up and a whiny toddler demanding immediate satisfaction and an older child groaning about being asked to set the table. I get frustrated and I am so tempted to snap at them using a less than kind tone myself.

If a child is never spoken to she will never learn to use words. If a child is only criticized he will never learn to speak positively. Children learn by hearing, or by watching in the case of sign language, and then by being given opportunities and encouragement to practise their new skills.

Sometimes, like my three toddler grandchildren, we need to be reminded to use the skills we are gaining. Frustration and whining decreased when they learned the signs for milk, please and thank you. Now they are starting to talk, and the oldest one is being actively taught to use kind words by her parents who have instituted a time of blessing every day. Even the 18 month old is learning to say, “Nice, smart, kind, strong.”

I wonder if some people cry and protest a lot because it is the only language they know. I wonder if we need to teach people how to gain new ways of expressing themselves. I wonder if we need to speak more kind words to them.

I wonder if my prayers would be more effective if my first response to Abba’s requests was not a groan. (Although admittedly there are sometimes in prayer when there are no words, and only a primal moan will do.)

I wonder if we need to be very understanding of those who only have the language of crying.

I wonder if we also need to seek the Lord for discernment and wisdom as they grow to recognize the time to start withholding gratification and to say, in as kind and patient a voice as we can manage, “Use your words.”

I wonder if God sometimes withholds gratification until we learn to communicate respectfully with an attitude of trust and appreciation –to help us mature. I hear him say, “Use your words, honey.”

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Phil 4:6

Wild little prophets

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers4 Comments

I saw these guys on my walk in the woods yesterday.

Crocus flowers, or pasque flowers as they are sometimes called, fascinate me. As forerunners they are the first to demonstrate the change in season by the prophetic act of blooming before any of the other wild flowers in the Rockies.

I read this recently: Hope is hearing the music of the future; faith is being able to dance to it today.

The crocus reveals, as it folds back its furry purple robes, a heart of gold. It’s mere presence between patches of dust-weary snow in the mountain meadows sings to me songs of stepping into destiny by faith.

Come out of your caves! Don’t let your past define who you are today!

Open to the light! Let it dispel all the dark fear that keeps you from letting anyone see your heart! You are beautiful!

Wakey! Wakey! Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed in as fine apparel as the Lord has already given you who love him. He has equipped you with every good gift you need for this season.

Are you listening? Can you feel it?

Ready…

Set…

NOW!

Bashless

On By Charis PsalloIn Neither animal nor vegetable1 Comment

I hope to keep this blog a bash-free zone, not that it comes easily to me. Change will  require effort. I have been known to wield an acid pen and in the past have taken far too much delight in humour that comes at the expense of another’s dignity. Sorry ‘bout that.

I just read this: Now if you feel inclined to set yourself up as a judge of those who sin, let me assure you, whoever you are, that you are in no position to do so. For at whatever point you condemn others you automatically condemn yourself, since you, the judge, commit the same sins. God’s judgment, we know, is utterly impartial in its action against such evil-doers. What makes you think that you who so readily judge the sins of others, can consider yourself beyond the judgment of God? Are you, perhaps, misinterpreting God’s generosity and patient mercy towards you as weakness on his part? Don’t you realise that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2 Phillips translation.)

I do believe we all harbour bash-worthy thoughts and practices in our lives. I also think that most of us are perfectly aware of them. We can make excuses and try to camouflage them from ourselves for a while, but when the spirit of stupid takes up residence in our lives it produces a mound of garbage no amount of room deodorizer can disguise.

There is a difference between offering critique and being critical (“helpful” or otherwise). One is requested and delivered in private with respect by a person who has proven themselves to be trustworthy; the other slops all over the place. Proper loving critique improves, encourages and builds one up. Judgmental criticism is published on Facebook and blogs, broadcast in the media, gossiped at coffee shops, preached from the pulpit and whined at the breakfast table. Condemning judgment (as opposed to wise discernment or encouraging assessment) effectively hits every target but the intended one. (We all know “open letters” are read by everyone except the person to whom they are addressed.) Frequently the purpose of such judgment is to dismiss or even eliminate perceived competition.

Strangely the very issues that trigger our pontifications are often the same besetting temptations we shove back in the closet. You know it is the kid who inherited your own character flaws who most drives you up the wall. When we attempt to parent the whole world those same weaknesses fuel our urge to flame. When momma taught us the dangers of playing with word matches, the fascination with that power didn’t disappear for many of us; we just blow-torched the personal refuse bin of someone at a distance instead.

The problem is that fire spreads.

Chapter three of James says: The human tongue is physically small, but what tremendous effects it can boast of! A whole forest can be set ablaze by a tiny spark of fire, and the tongue is as dangerous as any fire, with vast potentialities for evil. It can poison the whole body, it can make the whole of life a blazing hell.

Yes, but what if somebody on the internet is wrong?

Have they asked to be set right? Are you in authority over them? Then they’re probably not listening anyway.

It was God’s kindness that drew me to him. Years of striving and putting in my best efforts and failing to follow even my own moral code led to discouragement. His loving kindness led to encouragement. He poured into me the courage to go on when all I wanted to do was quit. He knows the plans he has for me.

I like the lyrics from Stuart Townend’s song:

Come all you vagabonds,

Come all you ‘don’t belongs’

Winners and losers,

Come, people like me.

Come all you travelers

Tired from the journey,

Come wait a while, stay a while,

Welcome you’ll be.

Come all you questioners,

Looking for answers

And searching for reasons

And sense in it all;

Come all you fallen,

And come all you broken,

Find strength for your body

And food for your soul.

Come those who worry

‘Bout houses and money,

And all those who don’t have

A care in the world;

From every station

And orientation,

The helpless, the hopeless,

The young and the old.

Come all believers

And dreamers and schemers,

And come all you restless

Just searching for home;

Movers and shakers

And givers and takers,

The happy, the sad

And the lost and alone.

Come self-sufficient

With wearied ambition,

And come those who feel

At the end of the road.

Fiery debaters

And religion haters,

Accusers, abusers,

The hurt and ignored.

Come to the feast,

There is room at the table.

Come let us meet in this place

With the King of all kindness

Who welcomes us in

With the wonder of love,

And the power of grace.

The Woman at the Well

On By Charis PsalloIn Neither animal nor vegetable, Poetry11 Comments

The Woman at the Well

My soul longs for you as a parched land.

The memory of honeyed smiles crumbled

and caught by the wind of too-many-words

has scattered among the freeze-dried roses.

Dust fountains, flowing with artificial love

choke the living well,

and like the foreign woman

I have poured buckets of dirt into cracked clay pots.

Sir, give me this water,

this living water,

that I might not have to

come here again

to lower my craving

into the dark well

alone.

Jesus often chose to reveal profound truths about himself to women first. He ignored a lot of cultural taboos. The revelation of his true identity to a lone woman at a well in Samaria is one example. I’ve heard so many sermons about this woman and her five husbands and the one she was shacked up with who was not her husband. Across the centuries she is still judged as being promiscuous -and probably seductive.

I knew a woman who had been married five times. I admit to some curiosity as to how she managed to snag five men when I had lovely, talented, caring, single friends in their forties and fifties who had not yet managed to snag one.

Then I met her fifth.

Well, let’s just say anyone could catch one of those. Most people with sense would have taken him off the hook and thrown him back in.

The thing about the cultural norms Jesus was defying is that they were different from many of ours. We don’t realize how revolutionary his relationships with women were unless we understand how disrespected and powerless they were in that place, at that time. Women could not choose to divorce. Men chose to divorce. A provision for divorce was made in the Jewish law so a rejected woman would not starve. A divorce allowed another man to claim her as property so she wouldn’t languish in poverty like many widows in India used to, for example.

If the woman at the well had five husbands and another guy, it’s because she was either widowed or rejected five times. The most common cause for rejection was sterility, a source of shame in a place where women were treated like cattle. The likely reason for her to be at the well alone in the heat of the day was not that others considered her a tart, but that she considered herself as damaged, rejected goods. The guy who was not even her husband was probably at the end of a line of very poor options.

Her astounding boldness demonstrated by running back into the town to tell everyone about the man who told her everything about her life at her Messiah encounter speaks of the change of identity Jesus is able to impart. He is not unaware of our reality; he does not reject us for it, but he offers us a better one.

Encounters with Jesus, the real Jesus, the living water, cause us to see ourselves differently. When we understand who he sees us to be, we can leave the craving for identity behind, run in new freedom and make a difference in the world.