I was supposed to be focusing on my day in the city, afterall I had only been there one other time in my life. But the man sitting on the sidewalk with the extended plastic container treasuring a few dimes and nickles wouldn’t get out of my head. Limp fingers cradled the cup. In his other world, he wondering if he would scrape enough change to buy hope.

His knees propped his arm which propped his head. A stack of cards. A gust of wind could move him, but it wouldn’t because it passed him by just like the millions of fanny-packed tourists, sly-suited buiness people, and guys going into the city to see a play, like me.

Here was a warning. This was no ordinay man. This was writing on the wall. This was nothing less than, “So what are you going to do about it?” He stood not only for himself, but for the vast sea of other nameless, faceless, hopeless people in the world.

So…what are we going to do about it?

The knees buckle. The back seizes. Another girl is thrown into the wall.

The lines that split the face of the world tell the tales of many horrors behind thin walls and cheap hotels. Each trickle of sweat carves a path down the strained pillars of the back, hoisting the altar of foul souls heavenward.

The lungs come short of their breath. The neck goes numb. Another child slips into his last slumber in the arms of his mother.

The mangled hair forms noose-like knots and drapes over the shoulders like the ends of whips adorned with shards of bone and stone. The tendons are wound more tightly than bow strings ready to release diamond tipped arrows.

Spine protrudes under the skin. Eyelids shut tight. A man loads his gun.

The hands grip the ripened globe, veined with a pulse as weak as the grasp of an infant breathing only to glimpse the ceiling before lowering its arm to the table and resting its eyes. Each moment that passes evokes a groan and a grimace, a consistent moan since time swung its pendulum.

Shoulders sting. Muscles give out. A man fills his syringe.

The jaw of the world is clenched in agony and resentment, cracked lips without utterance or redress.

Limping. Starving. A man flipping a coin.

The sweat coming from the temples joins tears and blood.

Trembling. A city is incinerated.

The lips unbridled, speaking.

Collapsing. Babylon resurrects.

The last words-

“To what end?”

I hear the clock ticking like an omnicient metronome. It’s hard to keep in step with the beat and dance to the song muddled out by the infomercials and 9-steps to success programs. It’s hard to sing the tune while the rage of those betrayed by religion utter threats toward to the church.

I believe in the bride, but she has been a whore and nobody trusts her. God probably should have walked away a long time ago and left her sprawled on her bed, writhing in guilt and shame. But he didn’t. He believes in her. He believes in us.

The world is tired of our excuses, and so is God. We’ve run both ways, assimilating into the world as well as confining ourselves to a legalistic bond that does not honor God. We live parallel to the broken but stay in our track, acting according to our fears. We stay in line with those who do what has been done a million times before though it does not work and we hope that when we have our turn we will somehow succeed.

While we trod endlessly towards futility, the world longs to return to its creator. It crosses the street to avoid the white steeple and it dodges the lame stadium revivals that are nothing more than concerts with a bunch of people who wear crosses on chains around their necks.

Our time here is short. Our time here is significant- we must treat it as such. The bride must return to the intent of her maker- reaching, loving, hoping, longing, praying, knowing, and serving a skeptical and bitter world. Her hands should be rough from her service and her smile lines should be deep from rejoicing with those who join her family.

“Christ glorified” should be our goal and nothing less.

Perhaps “religion is the opiate of the masses.”

Perhaps God is supreme only according to what we have devised with our own minds.

Perhaps this is all there is to life. You. Me. This ground.

Perhaps there is no answer to “why?”- there is only an echoing of human wishes and whimpering with no response; a long corridor leading to somewhere someday somehow.

Perhaps God was formed in the brute and selfish minds of men to control one another and achieve personal glory and power.

Perhaps…

or

Perhaps we appear mad because no one else understands.

Perhaps “religion is the opiate of the masses” is right in the sense that we are indeed caught in an ecstasy of freedom.

Perhaps God is supreme because our bodies, souls, and minds allow us to know him in that way.

Perhaps this isn’t all there is to life. You. Me. This ground.

Perhaps there is an answer to “why?”- where a creator God reaches out tenderly to comfort and give us our purpose.

Perhaps God has always been, and will always be, whether we believe in him or not.

Perhaps…

I was sitting with my arms folded across my chest, seriously considering popping out of my seat, leaving my paper on the prof’s desk, and walking out of the class. The class sat entranced as a girl had her phone set so that we could all hear the man on the other end giving her the contact information for certain recommended therapists. In reality, the conversation was uninteresting, but the class was still giggling and smirking at the spokesperson on the other end of the phone who happened to be representing an extremely conservative Christian website.

The professor stood rather smugly, surveying the scene of young minds drooling over the opportunity to skewer and bash people who do not hold their liberal viewpoint. I found it odd, because I fall as a liberal on some things and conservative on others- so I suppose that led to some of my confusion. But the one thing that I knew for sure was that this type of behavior was not helping anybody. This was the perfect example of the constant jabs that these opposing ideas have been taking for years, as if there are only two acceptable paths to take in this world.

My mind was buzzing because I did not fall into either side hoisting their flags of intolerance and bigotry. I understood why there was a unanimous feeling of wrath directed towards the anti-GLTB sites, I have felt it too. Some of the things they say are rude, inconsiderate, sheltered, and unloving…quite the opposite of the gospel they preach. I cannot tell the people to refrain from being upset, they have the right to! But to foster an environment that is as equally intolerant as the “opposing” idea does not make much sense.

“They think that exorcisms are a way to “fix” gay people” one girl stated, which of course set the class off like a firecracker. If they understood the ideas behind spiritual oppression, and that many things that can contribute and lead up to something that has become so taboo like an exorcism, they would be able to break through the Hollywood portrayals of young girls with spinning heads. Again, I understand the misunderstanding and the disgust. But how is anything supposed to be reconciled without civil discussion?

I weathered the conversation and left wondering what to do. I still have a lot of unanswered questions, and neither the Christians or the Non-Christians, Liberals or Conservatives, are offering a satisfactory truthful answer. There is a cyclical hate that circulates our world and grows stronger with each act of intolerance. This is not the answer, it can’t be. It must not be.

Denying the inimitability of our very  being cheapens the quality of our life and aids in the denial of God. From where I sit, I see a computer screen, a keyboard, a window, the hair of the girl on the computer across the aisle, and my very hands typing these words you are now reading. If you put your head next to mine, you would see the same things but you would not see exactly what I see- because you are not me.

Why are we unique? It is the way that we were created. But why were we created? Think back, if you will, before religion, before the world as we know it, and before people. Here we have God. This cryptic enigmatic being, of sorts, decides to take a day off for arts and crafts. He is partial to landscapes and sunrises, a big-picture kind of guy, so he starts off with his favorite brush set and moves his hands in purposeful strokes until the earth is spinning and the sun and moon ignite it’s living blues and greens. It is good he thinks. He does some more innovative work, nothing too crazy, and after sprinkling a few trillion stars around he goes back in for some detail work and makes a variety of animals. It is good he thinks, but it’s not complete.

We toss the phrase around “God is love” but the statement now takes on a new form as we consider him contemplating his canvas, wondering what is missing. You can picture him with his finger on his lips, squinting his eyes, trying to figure out what element will complete the masterpiece. He feels a bit detached from his work. Technically, everything is working splendidly, but there is no animal or plant that responds to him in its own unique way without prompting. The flowers bloom in their majestic array of colors, but merely because that is what he put on the canvas. I will make something unique, he says, and it will feel like I feel, it will know what I know. His love was something that he could not define and it was something that he could not hold in his own hands- the universe could not contain it or understand it or respond. He needed to add one more thing…

What else could “being made in the likeness of God” mean other than that part of him is in us. He stepped into his canvas to perform minute and technical detail touches when he started to make the first man. He mixed his colors and manipulated his tools in a masterful way, unparalleled, and he made man. A created being that thinks and laughs. A being that looks internally to explain the “why’ of his existence.  A being that can understand the depth and height of love- a word that he would soon create to describe the spiritual and profound experience that could make someone weep or leap without any need for an explanation.

God was so unselfish that he made people to feel and experience what he felt and experienced. He didn’t want to hoard the treasures of love, so he created a person that could live and feel it. The stars sparkled blankly when he poured out his heart to them. The animals looked up at him as he wept because he could find no part of his creation that could understand him. The universe acknowledged his presence but did not understand his burden. There was nothing that could choose to respond and love until man.

God’s greatest gift is not eternal life, because we were always meant to be eternal beings. God’s greatest gift is creating us uniquely to experience him. His desire for us to share in his joy and love surpasses any blessing or gift that we can understand. His longing for us to experience life and respond to his love was so immense that he went mad creating each person unique so that they could know and feel him differently. One person was unable to feel God the way that he wished. One person was unable to take in all that he wanted them to experience, so he made as many people as there are stars; each one different. Each one unique. God is love in the truest sense because that’s all he wants us to know. All he wanted was for us to feel what he felt. He didn’t even think that we might turn our backs on him and everything that he had in store for us. The thought didn’t even cross his mind. He had a man who would walk with him and speak with him and live fully in the pleasure of feeling life.

God’s brushes sat abandoned as he walked with his creation. Look at this river! Isn’t the way it winds and turns slowly beautiful?  he would say- and his creation laughed and danced around him in agreement. It was perfect. The creator and the created walking hand in hand through lush grass. All was well. This was the beginning. This was the intention.

When we say “God is the same yesterday, today, and forever” we must remember this story. We must remember that God is lovesick for his children to come back to him. He just wants to be known and to have someone to experience all that is perfect and beautiful; someone to choose to spend time with him and understand all of this. The gratitude in our hearts, if we are to grow close to God, is to spring forth from the knowledge that we were created to love and to know him. Everything else is just beauty. Everything else is crying out praise because our prayers are less than valiant and less than true.

Give thanks.

Even the air didn’t stir the surface of the water. It sat still, as if posing for a photograph or resting before the sun rose any higher. Spread before me, I could see no ripple in the entire reservoir. The morning was silent, like 3 am on a winter night. The sky had shifted to a lighter blue from the dark canvas that had blanketed the world just an hour ago. I saw the other shore still in the shade with the sleepy pines still resting while standing up. In the distance, the winding walkway that traced the top of the dam would soon be spotted with elderly couples and moms walking their dogs. Because of the dam and the woods enveloping my perch, outside noises of morning commuters a few miles off were filtered out and I was able to be alone.

The rock that I sat on was only a few feet from the edge of the water, and its home was on a small beach of pebbles and round stones. My sweatshirt and jacket provided the warmth I needed to meditate and pray without distraction and I wondered how this small boulder had fallen to its resting place on this patch of shoreline. I tried closing my eyes, but the serenity of the moment pleaded with my senses to remain alert so as to recall this morning at any point when life seems too hectic or busy.

Praying is something that has come naturally to me since I was a kid. For some reason, it has never struck me as odd that I can pray to God. There’s really no structure to my prayer and sometimes I just relax and let go of life while my mind and soul bask in the moment of rest. I know some people don’t call that prayer, but I think it’s a lot more prayerful than mumbling a bunch of words that you don’t mean. So, this morning I just sat. I had come out to be in nature and to see what was in store for me. I knew that the water and trees always possessed healing powers and had new revelations waiting for anyone willing to sit and listen; I had set my alarm early to catch the show and that’s how I arrived at the rock where I prayed.

The weird thing about prayer is that sometimes you don’t say a thing and God talks to you anyways. He will actually wait for you to stop fumbling your thoughts to say something that moves your soul and opens your mind. That’s what happened to me as I surveyed the morning yawn of the woods. God’s voice isn’t audible to me. My body doesn’t shake and there are no lightning bolts that zap me like a bug- it’s just a thought of truth that stirs emotion and makes everything in my body feel tender and unveiled. “This is what I love. This is important to me. This is a part of me. Harmony.”

The words started to evolve into thoughts and I let my mind wander at its own whim so as to understand the meaning of the phrases. The still air churned over the water that unintentionally but dutifully reflected the form of the trees. The green from the pine starts to take on its full hue with the fresh daylight and the opposite shore is now bright with a golden tint of morning sun. I understand the words now. Harmony is simply the way in which things are supposed to work together, and peace is the result of true harmony. God delights in this.

When the world is working right it is living in harmony; the way that it was intended to be. This is a signature of a creator on our world, but it’s been smudged with our own alterations and manipulations. The entire canvas has taken on a new form and the harmony has been replaced with chaos and discord. Our entire world is built on competition, resulting in less harmony which consequently results in less peace.

True harmony has become an internal pursuit because it is unachievable in this world. God showed me what he meant as I sat by the quiet shore, and I have been carrying around that precious moment ever since. The only way that I can ever have peace is when my spirit harmonizes with its creator, echoing off the walls of my soul and pacifying the worries of this life. Harmony is part of who God is and it is something that He longs to share with us so that we can find peace that surpasses all understanding.

I breezed over the question at the time, and my reaction was counter to the purpose of the film. I liked the hard rock music and the guys running around with guns, but mostly I just waited for my ten dollar film to start because I didn’t pay to get recruited into the NAVY nor did I think that advertising to young punks in high-school was ethical or moral by any standard. War isn’t a 90 second trailer with hard rock and cool guns. Regardless, the question was already out there and it lingered over the crowd before settling to the floor with the popcorn kernels and chewed gum, soon forgotten and left behind.

But now I’m thinking about writing a book and I remember the NAVY commercial. It asked if our lives are exciting enough. It asked the exact same question that the beer commercials asked. Are we fun enough? Do we have the right things in our life to make us entertaining and purposeful? Do we use the right kind of toothpaste to give our teeth absurdly white shine to attract the woman or man that will satisfy our desires? Do we use the right kind of hair product to look beautiful for everyone else? Do we drive the right kind of car that will make others look on in jealousy?

Why have we been suckered into the advertisements? Even the pastors of “successful” churches are writing their books on Christianity as if they have somehow discovered some new route to encountering God and walking with Jesus. It’s as if we have all tried so hard to make things simpler and more entertaining that everything purposeful has been lost and covered up by our fake smiles and books on “how to pray”. The question that we are asked, in itself, is the lie. “If your life was a book, would anyone read it?” Doesn’t matter. So what if they do? So what if your life is attractive to everyone around you? Doesn’t it seem odd to live our entire lives, stretching our bodies and wallets to achieve worthiness in the eyes of people staring into their own reflection in the pond? Narcissus.

We’re beautiful now aren’t we? We’ve worked so hard for it, to find our worthiness! Life has become dreary because all that matters is the next object or idea to alleviate our suffering and create our meaning. Our lives are titillating TV spots with hard rock music; books that people want to read. We title our books “My Life” and parade around with the title on our skin and in our hair hoping that everyone will see. We store up the wisdom of man in our soul and apply our hearts to our own understanding.

We have trampled the peace and grace of God like the holiday shoppers who stampeded over the Wal-Mart employee. We’re crazed with our need for acceptance and we run right past a God who says, “I’ve always loved you.” Is that why we are here? To work and achieve some nominal form of happiness? We’re missing the point. It is not about whether people will want to read our book, but why we are writing a book in the first place. When we figure that out, then our books will morph into the most appalling and truthful stories that jerk our tears and make us belly laugh until we can no longer breathe. This will happen because we’re writing our books out of joy and worship rather than out of fear and desperation.

This may have looked odd because the only available table was wedged behind a large door at the entrance to the pub and here was this guy all bundled up from the cold sipping on the small glasses of beer roulette style. If I recall correctly, the Air Mail was my favorite. It was the darkest out of the samples and it bit me in the tongue when I tasted it. Good beer.

The stale pub air wasn’t a concern, because that’s what you come to expect after having been to a pub a few times. The cathedral ceilings reminded me of the paintings and architecture I studied in a class not that long ago and their high corners kept me curious until my friend arrived.

We wasted no time digging into theories and thoughts, books and philosophies. Me, a Christian. Him, a thinker. I suppose I am the one trapped in a label that most people can’t see through, but that is one of the reasons why I enjoy hanging out with this guy. He thinks, listens, and responds. This fusion makes room for real conversation. He also asks good questions, and that’s one of the reasons I am writing this- because of the question he asked me.

It was blunt and revealing. The dim lights made the beer look like tar in the thick glass that I was turning when he dropped his question. It landed on my ears like a sucker punch that gives someone cauliflower-ear. It bypassed philosophy and debate and got in my face while rapping its knuckles on the table for emphasis.

“Why do you think I should be a Christian?” I immediately gave a knee-jerk response to which he cut me off and said, “No. Not what do you believe, but why do you think I should be a Christian?”. The beer smirked in its glass, peering through a wall of glass watching my blurry figure, waiting for my response. My friend and I had run through a forest of thoughts in different directions, sometimes crossing paths and running parallel, but now we body-slammed each other mid-sprint.

I couldn’t separate my beliefs from my response. So I went ahead anyway and stammered a poorly structured answer in which I stole an idea I heard a while back. Jesus was a lunatic, a liar, or Lord. His words were either hollow utterances which bore no meaning, or his life and work were indeed true and had life-altering implications. I am bad at sharing my faith in open conversation like that- period. I am a horrible speaker and I suffer from some filter that jumbles my thoughts and spits out the shards like dropping an egg yoke into the blades of an industrial strength fan. It’s probably inexperience, but more likely, it is my fear of presenting my faith in a forceful manner that reminds people of others who have abused the name of God to justify horrific events like the crusades.

The conversation carried on and the question was soon behind us, buried under further thought and reminiscing. But the question stuck with me like gum in my hair. I couldn’t get rid of it. It’s the kind of question that strips you naked and then sets you in the middle of Times Square and you have no option but to stand there in all of your glory. I don’t know if he will remember my answer, but I will remember his question. I have learned more from his question than he did from my impotent response that lugged out of my mouth in the most sluggish of ways. It’s a question that I will cherish because it taught me more than many books on apologetics and cultural relevance.

It’s a question of truth and a question of purpose that needs to be wrestled and pinned down so that both truth and purpose can emerge and change our lives and the lives of those who make the ask.

Libraries aren’t all that different from New York City. Thousands of people, each with their own watches and preferences for wine, march back and forth on gray concrete. Each woman that passes by has a story. The next brunette you see wearing silver earrings might have been abused as an innocent child. The old man with weathered hands would tell you about the war if you had the time to listen. I sit here amidst thousands of people making remarks and positing their thoughts, some more intelligently than others. And I know as many of these fossilized persons as I do citizens of the city. If I wanted to, I could get to know a few of them and I might be better for it- but my thoughts dither to my own taste. 

The tombstones have a sense of orderliness that I have come to see as repugnant and inartistic. With rueful sentiments, these ideas on paper have been filed and lined up for woeful decomposition- when they will be sold for under a dollar at a tag sale and eventually deposited in a plastic trash bin. Maybe books should be decentralized and strewn about, then people would pick them up like rare stones that are stumbled upon while staring at the ground.

If each book is a part of a person, then we could as easily imagine rows of frontal lobotomies and tennis shoes, each unique in its composition. And if books are like people, than we can imagine a city full of books with various covers and contents, waiting to be read. Some you won’t like, and some won’t like you. But most are filled with stories of real life. Real pain and frustration and hopes and doubts about God, life, and you. I think that perhaps, we should take the time to read some books, and maybe we can be part of the next chapter. Maybe, even, more of these books might conclude pleasantly with a wholeness and sweetness that make us weep for joy when the last page is turned.