Burdens and Sabbath

 

Today I'm blogging over at the Summit Home website, reflecting on two passages of scripture:

“And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers.”   

                 --Jeremiah 17:22

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”   

                  --Mark 2:27-28

 You can click here to check out the full post.

For this Lenten season I am giving up perfectionism and posting a blog each day, Monday through Friday, from Ash Wednesday on February 13^th through Easter, on March 31^st.  For more information, read “What Are You Giving Up?”  Jesus died for me and loves me, and this is an exercise in remembering that.  Thanks for joining me!

photo credit: Michael Foley Photography via photopin cc

I Release You

I release you.

      The older sister outside the prodigal's banquet, I release you.

      Laborer who bore the heat of the day, I release you.

      Pharisee tying burdens on yourself, I release you.

Grace, favor, forgiveness, atonement,

    a whispered, “I release you.”

         --from your burdens, your faults, your sins,

              your perfectionism, your self condemnation.

I came to set the captives free.  I release you.

    You are free.  And being free you can rest.

I release you from your own expectations, your own standards.

    I am the Righteous Judge, and I release you.

You are my beloved, I am your husband, and I trust you.

I am not worried about your faults, failings, short comings.

    I release you.

        You can run.  You can dance.  You can delight.

I release you.

      And you are free.

For this Lenten season I am giving up perfectionism and posting a blog each day, Monday through Friday, from Ash Wednesday on February 13th, through Easter, on March 31st.  For more information, read “What Are You Giving Up?”  Jesus died for me and loves me, and this is an exercise in remembering that.  Thanks for joining me!

photo credit: Toby Keller / Burnblue via photopin cc

What Are You Giving Up?

Today begins Lent, the season of preparation, prayer, and penance, leading up to Easter, in the liturgical Church calendar.  Lent is the forty days, from Ash Wednesday, today, to Easter.  But not included in those forty days are the Sunday.  Forty is a significant biblical number, broadly meaning a really long time.  It rained for forty days before the great flood.  Moses grew up in Egypt for forty years, then lived in the desert for forty years, then led the Israelites for forty years.  After being baptized, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days.  So the forty days of Lent echoes the symbolism of each of those forty days/years as we prepare for Easter.   

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, so called because in many churches there is a service to begin Lent, and ashes are placed on each person’s forehead.  These ashes serve as a reminder that we are mortal—we were formed from the dust, and we will return to the dust.  It is only by the grace, mercy, love, and sacrifice of Jesus that we have an existence beyond our dust.  So Lent begins with focusing on our frailty, and looks to the death and resurrection of Jesus, the celebration of Easter.   

Lent often includes fasting.  Fasting is often an outward symbol of inward repentance.  As a spiritual discipline, fasting physically reminds me that I am not my own and that I am dependent upon God.  Fasting from social media, movies, or radio, or fasting from meat, chocolate, or coffee, are common examples of types of fasting.  In Lent it is common to ask, “What are you giving up this Lent?”  Lent is a beautiful season of preparing your heart.  Taking a season of solemnity and repentance to remind yourself why Jesus died, enhances the joy of remembering the resurrection on Easter.  Rather than just another day in our busy lives, we’ve prepared, and I find that I have usually grown through the process. 

I didn’t grow up in a particularly liturgical church.  We did follow the liturgical church calendar, but we did not have an Ash Wednesday service.  My mom had grown up Catholic, and I remember her talking about how they would give something up for Lent.  I don’t think it was ever suggested that we follow that tradition, but the idea struck a chord with me, and I often gave up chocolate—my all time favorite food.  (And not having chocolate for forty days certainly made that Easter basket full of candy all the more awesome!) 

More often than not, as a personal tradition, I’ve given up or fasted from some food for Lent.   In humorous juxtaposition to my theology, I enjoy the rhythms of liturgical seasons and the meaning in symbols and traditions.  So this year as Lent approached, I looked forward to a structured season of refocusing on Christ and I thought about what I should give up for Lent.  I thought about drinking nothing but water, giving up chocolate, and trying to read the entire bible in forty days.  Those are great things.  I’ve done some variation of them before.  But yesterday, I was getting that nudge from the Holy Spirit, and none of that seemed quite right for this year.  I’ve been in a season (six months, perhaps three years, depending on how I look at it) where God has been hammering, stressing, bombarding, whispering, shouting, reminding, embracing me with Grace and Rest.  Fasting or doing a stringent bible reading program (again, good things) seemed to not fit with what Holy Spirit has been focusing on to teach me.  This year, if I gave up eating chocolate for Lent, I’d be feeding my inner Pharisee more than refocusing on Jesus. 

So I talked with God about it more.  Since it has been a few years since I’ve participated in Lent, and it seems timely to participate again, I wondered what I should give up.  Since I’m in a season of Grace and Rest, this year for lent I’m going to give up perfectionism. 

Easter is a celebration and remembrance of Jesus’ death and rising again, His conquering of death and sin, and our healed relationship with the Father.   His death covers all my sin and I am the beloved daughter of the King.  Nothing can change that love.  Nothing can separate me from that love. 

When I live under the tyranny of perfectionism, I am making my standard for myself higher than God’s.  I am creating a separate measure by which I stand or fall—completely separate from Jesus’ standard for me.  He says to come as a little child.  And I am trying to be a proficient, accomplished adult.  Now striving for excellence is a good thing.  But it needs to flow out of love, not a necessity to validate one’s self. 

So this year for Lent I am giving up perfectionism.  What this will look like practically is I am going to attempt to write a blog post every day, except for Sundays, from now until Easter.  I need to post something by midnight each day.  It does not need to be profound or polished.  There will be grammatical and spelling errors.  Formatting of posts might be off.  There might not be the perfect creative commons photo to go with each post.  The posts might not convey some truth that gripped me to the core.  I may even miss a day or days.  But Jesus died for me and loves me, and this will be an exercise in remembering that.  Beginning with this post. 

So, what are you giving up?

 photo credit: sfroehlich1121 via photopin cc

Waiting and Trust

Do you ever find yourself in a circumstance where you have wait while you trust God to come through?  I have, many times.  And I’ve found that, to the best of my memory, God comes through in the moment after I give up waiting patiently.  You know the situation:  

It’s the 1^st of the month.  You have this bill due on the 15^th, but you don’t have enough money to cover it, and you don’t get paid until the 17th.  You could see if you could borrow it from family or friends, but it just doesn’t feel right.  You know God’s going to cover this one, you just have to wait. 

When I’m in that situation, I can stay reasonably calm and trusting.  Until the 14^th.  Then I’m antsy.  I mean, I like to be prompt and on time, early even.  So I’d kind of like it if God would return the favor.  You know, He could provide the money a few days ahead of when I need it.  That isn’t any less miraculous then the day of. 

This latest time of waiting while trusting God (I was going to say this last time, but I know it’s far from the last time!), I was in the middle of a phone call to arrange under my own ability for the provision I was waiting on—in the middle of the phone call!—when the provision came. 

At this point my emotions are usually gratitude, overshadowed by disappointment in myself for failing to trust yet again.  This time, however, I stopped.  It occurred to me (thank you Holy Spirit) that beating myself up for not trusting sound an awful lot like condemnation.  Maybe, instead of failing, I’m actually growing.  Because, part of the beating myself up internal conversation is that I never seem to be able to wait long enough, even though I seem to wait longer and longer each time. 

So I’m coming to believe that I’m not failing.  Instead, I living in grace more and more and am growing in trust.  Along the journey I can rest in Jesus’ great love for me and patience with me.  He is not disappointed in me, but excited with each step forward.  And that is a beautiful place to be. 

Gotye, Addiction, and Love

So I can't resist picking this Gotye video apart. Go ahead and watch it again--maybe twice even--and then we'll dive in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY&sns=em

"Somebody that I Use To Know" --Gotye

(I'm blogging away from my computer. My apologizes if the link doesn't work correctly.)

I think that the key line is "You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness." He only says it once. You'd think the oft repeated, "Now you're just somebody that I use to know," would be key. However, that is his addiction.

For instance, the first time I watched the video, I thought he was talking about the woman in the video. That she was that somebody. But after watching the video a couple times in a row, it's a very circular song. The end leads into the beginning.

Her last straw with him was that, in spite of him assuring her to the contrary, she did catch him getting hung up on somebody that he use to know. When she sings this, they are still relating. This is the moment that she is parting from him. This is evidence that he will have at least two some bodies that he use to know.

What is also interesting is that he doesn't even look at her until after she is done singing. He's too busy feeding off of past hurts to notice her.

The thing about addiction is that you feel compelled to feed it, repeating the experience, over and over and over. When he says, "You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness," this is the closest he comes to a confession. But even in that, he distances himself, using an impersonal "you". He also places all the blame for he hurt he feels on this somebody's actions.

He is a shattered, broken man--visually supported by the background that envelops him, including his face. He sees everything through that brokenness. She is almost equally enveloped. However, her face is not yet covered. She can still see, and chooses freedom. As the background washes off, she becomes free. She is no longer a pawn feeding his addiction. Or, perhaps, this is the choice he's been pushing her towards, in order to feed his addiction.

Why would he be addicted to a certain kind of sadness? He equates that "ache" of longing with love. He is so broken that he can't receive love when offered, but instead only dwells on the loss, "the end". When you can't feel emotions, or can't let yourself feel them, then even feeling negative emotions is a rush. An evidence you are alive. He is deadpan, except when recounting and reliving the loss. "It feels so rough" and that is all he can feel.

So at least she finds freedom. What would it take for him? Can he find redemption? Would he be able to hear it if, instead of a f-you kind of breakup, she reached out and removed some if the paint from his face? Hold the shattered pieces back, at bay, if only for a moment, so that he could see and get a taste of something else, a whiff of freedom. Because, she hadn't been healthy in the relationship either. She internalized everything and felt it was her fault. When she realized this wasn't the case, she snapped. If she broke it off, not in anger, but I'm more healthy way, could he have found freedom, too?

So what could we take away from this, apart from a hauntingly beautiful song? What I see is the absolute necessity to know who you are, and be secure in that. When I am secure in who I am in Christ and who He made me, I'm not going to take someone's faults as my own. (Though I will own up to my faults.) I'm not going to be as easily susceptible to manipulation. The paint of the shattered background wouldn't stick in the first place.

This also means that all elements of relationships are more likely to be healthy, including breakups. If I know who I am in Christ, resting in His love and forgiveness, I am more likely to extend that to others. The woman was right to breakup in this video, it was an unhealthy relationship. But had she known who she was from the beginning, she could have broken it off well, offering a piece of freedom, instead of feeding his addiction and giving him what he was after all along.

So, preaching to myself here, know who you are in Christ, stand firm and secure in that, and do all things in love.

What's your take on this video? Do you agree or see something completely different? Leave a comment and let's discuss!