The Ugliness of Life

This world I live in is surreal.  Odd shapes and distorted faces stretch out from my mind trying to bring understanding and a deeper reality, but never succeeding.  In the voices and pictures, I know there is truth, but there is so much more.  I end up with a collection of ugly images with dubious meanings. 

I swear to my heart I will not hear anything but truth; I will not speak anything but truth.  Yet I find myself fighting to understand what truth is.  He knows the truth but it’s not what I believe.  Am I wrong?  She knows the truth, but it’s not consistent with what I know inside.  Am I blind?  I reach out desperately wanting to find more of the truth and wind up wondering if I’ve found any truth at all.  All of the surreal about me screams for allegiance while I ask “what does it mean?”  Explain and let me believe.

I remember a line I’ve heard many times.  “Let God be true and every man a liar.”  That brings a momentary comfort, a promise of stability.  But in my heart I cry out “Not every man is a liar,” and the stability is undermined.  The conflict is that truth is so hard to determine even in my best effort.  It is my nature to want an absolute.  Yet so many times I have been sure of the truth only to find that my truth was tainted by my own interpretation and lack of knowledge.  Truth v Trust.

Much of  truth can only be found through trust.  Does believing make it so?  Can we make our world what we want by visualizing it?  Can I cast a mountain into the sea without effecting it’s inhabitants or the inhabitants of the sea?   Am I prepared to deal with the tsunami it would produce?  Can I materialize wealth or affection or success simply through cognitive assent?  How would that change the balances of my reality?  In my mind, if it’s true it should be universally astounding.  There should never be a question if it is true.  But the facts overwhelm me and I have to admit that sometimes I don’t even know what the facts really are.  I have tried to contemplate what it is that I honestly know.  But every truth of my life seems to be challenged by someone else’s reality.

There are those who want you to be wrong.  There are many reasons why they do and some of them make sense.  The most common is that what I ‘know’ as true challenges their personal desire and experience.  They trust a different set of realities, for they must.  But how can there be different realities.  The very word implies stability. 

Sometimes others want you to be wrong so that there is no reality to truth.  They have learned to navigate the shifting landscape –Perelandra, if you will- and they want no fixed terrain.  It just makes it easier to live if you make it up as you go. 

Sometimes another wants you to be wrong so that he or she can plant the flag of truth, as though truth is a plot of ground that they cannot own if anyone else has already discovered it.  “That’s my truth.  Get away from it!”  If you walk in there, you will be shown the pretties, by if you stay, you are a squatter.  If you have established yourself there, the other will shout “False!” and move on down the road.  If you insist on showing your pretties, they will be trampled and you will be torn.

Yet I have heard truth scream from the inside, “This is the way; walk in it!”  I have heard gentle promptings “There is truth here.”  I have sensed the validity of a word as it was being spoken.  But truth must be much more stabile.  It must be universal.  If God is truth, the truth of God cannot change as we do.  The truth of God can belong to any person with out being a unique possession.  What is unique is how it interacts in an individual life.  For that, faith must be applied; trust must be activated. 

I cannot change truth.  I must be willing to believe truth and let it change me.  For those necessary changes to come, I must know truth to believe it.  AND I am back to the surreal.  It is hard to tell if the meaning is clouded by the surreal or if the meaning is hidden in the surreal.  Yes there is a difference.  But either way, I find myself digging through the ugliness of life.

Three spots

Last night, I was late in starting back with Olivia for a number of reasons. They were all logical, good reasons and I knew my daughter was very busy and probably needed to work without the aid of a 7 year old.  But by the time I got ready to take the girlie back to her mom it was after 7 PM and  I knew Jackie needed to get back home and get to bed.  I offered to take Olivia all the way home, but my daughter insisted she was going to wait for me at Winslow so I wouldn't have to drive all the way out to the other side of Tontitown.   We hurried.
I had a little less than a quarter of a tank (three spots on the gas gauge) as we set out.  My grand daughter told me I should get gas.  I told her I probably had enough to get her there, but I might have to get gas before I came home.  I didn't want to stop before I left town because her mom was waiting and she needed to get home.  They have to get up quite early to get the kids situated and get to work on time.
Before we reached our end of 540, we were down to two spots. Generally speaking a spot equals about a gallon and my car gets good mileage -we've gotten 38 on the highway and usually get over 30 in town, but there aren't many stations for that stretch on the interstate and once you leave the interstate, the road is steep, winding, and the mileage goes way down.  Liv was watching my gas gauge and nervously announced that I only had two spots.  I told her that a spot was about a gallon of gas.  She wanted to know what a gallon of gas was and I told her it took us about 30 miles.  She said that was 60 miles and I agreed.  She asked how far their house was and I told her maybe 30 miles.

Adults understand that gas gauges are a little more complicated than that.  But to her, we'd already used a spot.  By the time we got off the interstate at Chester, she informed me we were down to one spot.  Yeah, I had noticed.  We talked about it some and she told me there was a station not too far from their house and I could stop and get gas there.  I was concerned that it might not be open at 8 on Sunday night.  But when we finally got to Winslow, it was open.  She wanted me to stop.  She would let her mom know we had to get gas.  I insisted I'd make it to their house and get gas on the way home.  Their house was only a short distance away.  She asked if I would call them if I broke down from not having gas.  I promised to call her as soon as I got gas so she would feel better about it.  She agreed.
After a short look at the progress -it's very lovely- I hugged and kissed and headed out to the highway alone in the rain and dark.  I had no spots left.  Jackie had said the station was open till 8 and it was about 7 minutes before.  I prayed that nothing would cause them to close early and headed down the highway into Winslow.  It was open -actually, until 9.  I got my gas and called my grand girl to let her know I was good and heading home.  I did take time to thank God for the provision and for the weekend with the girls.  
These are the things I took away from it.  1. God knows our need before we ask and he makes provision for us even on cold rainy dark nights.  2. God wants us to ask and trust.  He also wants us to care about other people and ask and trust for them.  3. Things are not always what we think with our understanding or see with our eyes.  4. The small trials of life are there to build our faith and strengthen our walk with God.  I pray that the gratitude of my 3 spot night will help me when I must face a greater trial and bring its request before my God.

Shameless Audacity

In Luke chapter 11, right after the desciples ask Jesus to teach them the right way to pray and he gives the 'Lord's model prayer for believers, this passage is given:  5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 
6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’
7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’
8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 
12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”


Why I am so often afraid to be who I am with God is a mystery, especially when I read these and other verses.  Now I'm not talking about disrespect and casual degradation, though nothing in my heart is hidden from him and if that comes out, then it is an indication of need on my part.  But I am becoming convinced that no prayer spoken in desperate sincerity is offensive to my God.  Some of those prayers I have prayed that were contrived to connive were probably offensively humorous to him, much like the manipulative requests of a young child bring us a laugh before we say 'ah - no.'
I remember "Oh Lord let me win this PCH clearing house sweepstakes" prayers that probably were offensive.  He has all the resource I could ever imagine and yet I would trust PCH.  What a mess!  
One of my favorite lines - there are so many - from Fiddler on the Roof is where Tevya is praying and complaining and says "I know you are very busy. . . but when you have time, . . . "  Another is when he asks God "Am I bothering you?"  In these verses, Jesus is giving us permission to bother God with our need - any time of the day or night.  Insist.  Recently a preacher in our church made the observation that he would rather know that God chose not to give him what he asked for than to admit that he did not even ask.  
Another observation from this reading is that the Holy Spirit, that divine personal presence in our life is more important in any situation than any other solution.  He brings enlightenment; He brings instruction; He brings the understanding of resource.  Most of all, he brings perspective and peace.
Shameless Audacity.  I intend to pursue it.  I'm convinced that God will not tell me to go home empty.