forgetting, and the cramps ..

it's been a while
besides being sick, i've felt the loss of my self .. i'm over there, somewhere
both body and soul languishing, me wondering about life, peeping around corners to catch a sight of me
..

then there was politics ..
astonishingly there was someone in the running who wasn't cut from the established cloth, someone who dared to call-out the reigning powers, looking them dead in the eye, unafraid - that's rare ..
and, more impactful, someone who cares for the lessers in society - you know, the ones that are snubbed and scoffed for being poor or homeless, or can't afford health care or an education .. like that

i fell-in .. for the first time ever i was sold-out, especially considering the alternatives, on both sides .. every other person on the redandblue carpet reminds me of why i never involved myself in the political scene .. a total waste of time, in my truncated view, my naive outlook
..
as a christian, i'd crystallized the fundamentalist concept of staying out - deal with the spiritual side of life and leave the social to the people 'of the world' ..
that changed over recent years, as i admitted the good in christians standing with the abused - MLK and those that walked with him serve as one outstanding example - and saw people in my new circles participate

so when i finally found somebody espousing the embrace of humanity as a whole, i leapt
..
that person is seen as a wildcard, an outsider .. they don't fit america's idea of american-norm
and that's fine by me - neither am i
..

however .. over the last few days something has been aching in my spirit-gut
i couldn't identify the parasite, but it was an occasional sharp pain accompanied by bloating ..

and then i read stuff about some of the candidates for unarguably the most powerful office in the richest and most powerful country on the planet .. ever
i found myself sitting folded in a darkness i can't describe, a hopeless lostness ..
my naivete had shown its tousled, unkempt head again and i was struggling desperately to stomp the bastard back into his hole, to refuse to accept that i could be so spaced, so literally illiterate at 50-something

`|`

that pain .. i understand now what it is
it's an old scriptural principle that i forgot .. or rather, shoved aside in my newfound enthusiasm, a principle that says " don't put your trust in princes or in humans or in chariots " .. your trust - the thing in you that resorts 'there' when the chips are down, goes just there when all your stuff hangs by barely a thread, there when the real you surfaces - is only ever deservedly spent on one person .. God

i'd lost that

so that, regardless of my confessed naivete and the potential for headinthesand, i, especially i, am only ever in the appropriate place when my think bubbles out of my Godheart ..
some may call that a safe place to retreat, to hide
i like to think of it as a refuge
some may see a slippery slope into quicksand
i see a rock
..
after all, it isn't whether or not i'm running-from, escaping .. that argument could go on for a while .. rather, it's this: my rock - the place i stand and land - and my fortress - the place i sleep and eat in safety - is my God

it isn't a rationale
it isn't a hidingplace
it's a dead-on principle that allows me a worldview above the current mess, while allowing me to be in the mess, part of the mess, getting messy with those around me for the sake of the kingdom of God, a concept that encompasses all nations, all people, all classifications, for reconciliation ..

i am obviously unable to make heads or tails of the mess
but that doesn't matter .. it doesn't because there's someone who is fully capable of doing that, and all i know (remember) is this: follow that Man, and i can't go wrong

i have learned again the enduring lesson that i am not the authority (my blatant ignorance of it all attests), and neither can anyone else provide 'the' perspective or have the definitive answer

Jesus walked the Godwalk, talked the Godtalk, did the Godthing .. done ..
mine is to stay in that sphere, know my place, and look to emulate Him ..
aside from that .. well, there's life in all its complexity and nuance to be lived; people in all their abridged humanity to know (and try to understand in my introvertedness); good deeds to be done - as someone wrote sometime past: " God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. "  (Eph 2.8-10)
..
there are two sides to that 'salvation' as it concerns this post ..
one is that God saves us: nothing we do
the other is we are saved to do

the confusion and disbelief i repeatedly encounter (as naivete) arises out of my passion to understand the depths of the human circumstance; i can't disavow that .. it's an integral part of my person
but one of the principles that allows me to keep my curiosity in perspective is that of trust in the Divine

and now, i'm off again .. trying to understand, hoping to be of use to someone, praying that my life will not be in vain, aspiring to Jesus in all his genuine humanity ..

and btw, i'm still pulling-for and praying-for that presidential appointment ..

peace to you