strata

 

 sentiment, what is it

some sharp reservoir

cold water in the face

of both rich and poor.

happiness, what is it

some vein of gold, some find

but you only come to there

going through the grind.

 

fullness, what, is that

what I do know of

 

in your faithful kindness, God,

this I surely have.

Don't Miss Japan

I need you to imagine a house.  And this house strikes the eye, because from the first time your eyes touch its exterior, they intake an image of flawlessness.  Visually, the house is practical, never overbearing- yet in its simplicity, veins of beauty have been accentuated, not concealed.  A pristine garden borders this house; as the structure of the house itself, neither is the landscape gaudy or colorful, but rather impressionable by its undeniable detail.  The house is not simply ordered- it is designed, intentionally- someone's hands were plunged into its affairs and wrought a system, not just an ordered system, but the best system for unpunctuated existence that could be reached for.  

Unpunctuated existence?  What I mean is that it's been thought through.  There is a method, a design for every imaginable scenario- a design for how to best catch the scenario, and protect it if it is good, and amend and heal it if it is dangerous.  There is no sickness in the house.  There is no uncleanness.  There is no waste; and there is no question.  There is no question of insecurity, no doubt of safety, no sinking feeling of "what if."  Every "what if" has been rushed into, fearlessly... and those intentional hands plunged themselves into what could be done.  What could be done- was.  What could be begun- was finished.  If it could even be dreamed- it could be done; and it was brought forth into reality and completion.  

The house exists in serenity.  The serenity is unpunctuated by unnecessary mistakes.  Life is able to run along, uninterrupted, unhindered- no, instead of those things, life is ushered forward, faster and faster, every door opened before those rapid feet; the hands tireless to quicken the pace at which every last seam or bolt may accomplish what it has been designed to.  If something evil may happen, it has been thought of and prepared against.  If something good could possibly happen, the way has been paved, in intricate detail, that it will.

Okay.

Japan is not a house.  Japan is not even a city, as may be imagined.  Japan is a nation.  

And if you can imagine that one, dream house I just tried to put into words- if you can imagine that house once, please imagine it a million times.

Welcome to Japan.  The society is immersed in perfection.  By perfection, I mean . . . I mean the society lacks nothing.  The society is improving itself as we speak.  It is a living being; and it is feeding itself, healing itself, instructing itself- Japan is growing faster, not older.  

Japan is growing wiser, not slower.

The things I've been witness to in a recent lifetime of seventy-seven days, the orderly flow of imagery that has washed before my eyes in the span of eleven weeks- indescribable.

Let me go for a little of it, at least a few shards and fragments of a much fuller picture.

Crosswalks, with flashing instruction that is adhered to whether in the fullness of hundreds of men and women surging out from office hours, or in the loneliness of a midnight hour with not a bicycle on the backstreet.

Local transportation, which arrives not only within the sixty seconds it promised a week ago it would, but also exactly where its automated doors will open before you, and not six inches to the left or right.

Sidewalks, creeping through the labyrinth of the city in clean-cut fashion, detracted from neither by a touch of trash nor by unkempt foliage.

Honor, honor of oneself, shown by each one's cultured dress and temperate, motionless, veiled disposition towards the world around them, the world towering stories above them and shuttling past floors beneath them.

Honor, honor of the surrounding community, silence not for the dead of night- but silence in the very midday for the man walking past you at a pace that will deliver him to his destination precisely at the moment that he is required to be there.

Trust.  Trust in your neighbour, trust in your community, the trust for every party to fulfill whatever their commitment may be.  Trust for the worker to work, trust for the driver to drive, trust for the methods to be upheld to.  Trust that the right thing to be done- will be done.  Trust that what could be done that will endanger the community- won't be done.  Trust.

These are only the examples that jump to my mind in the first fifteen seconds.  It would take a lifetime to merely appreciate the excellence that has been poured out from the spirit of one people.  Japan.  Tried, true, undaunted, unyielding, deeply protective, dedicated, detailed.  Accountable.  Trustworthy.  Delighting in solidity.  Delighting in attaining the highest mark.  Delighting in what is beautiful.  Japan.

This is what I found in eleven weeks living and breathing in Japan- and it is safe to say it is what you also shall find when you come.  When you come, the system will only be faster and fuller than what I have even seen now.  

Here seems like the natural place to end, but I am not finished.  

I have discovered the sheer, undeniable, powerful lifestyle of this nation.  But there is another heartbeat you will miss, if you will not know it... if we will refuse to know it.  For if this, if this true and actual scene I have just described above is all I discover, and I miss the pulse inside all this- I miss Japan.

Don't miss Japan.  Don't miss Japan.

I want you to keep carrying all the words I just delivered about this nation- but you need to add to it. You need to add the heartbeat if you are not going to miss Japan.

And the heartbeat?  The heartbeat is broken.  In the fastest pace race of a city I have ever beheld- the heartbeat is lost!  In the most effective and fullest discovery and studies- the heartbeat of this people is empty.  Amongst those with no lack- hunger!  Amongst those who have provided for themselves- poverty.  Amongst those who have searched and known all the routes of the human existence- lostness.  Lostness...

Have you considered the lost in Japan?

The nation that has found beauty and brilliance and wisdom and strength and resolve and community- the nation that has found the secrets of the world is

lost.

Are we finished?

We cannot be finished with Japan.  There is not a cry of poverty; there is no cry of need- and it is a mask that distorts the deep, longing, broken heartbeat of this people. 

The need is there.  The need is as sheer and undeniable as the brilliance and power and excellence you meet upon arrival.  Will you consider, oh to consider, the need of Japan also?  Will you lift your eyes to look, oh to look, at the need curled up in the hearts of millions who have done it all, and lack the one thing no man can "do"?

Japan is rising.  

Japan is called to rise.

Let us rise side by side; let us be there as a living, breathing, thriving people tastes what it is to thrive from the inside out.

          "On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out,

          'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 
          Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 

          "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."'"

          John 7:37-38

Can you imagine this people... filled with the Spirit of God, and revitalized- living, living, in perfect purpose, living to worship the Lord?  

The worship lifted to the Lord by the Japanese is a powerful sound.  But the sound when the people's hearts continue to turn.. the sound of a nation's voice?  God's heart is burning for this!

 The world isn't ready for this.  But I believe we can be there to envision what God has designed.  We can be holding our breaths to see what God is doing in Japan.  Get ready.  Be ready.  Japan will rise.  

Don't miss Japan.

"Each house was maybe the size of our kitchen."

They come back like men who have seen the world. 
You can see it in their eyes, the reflections of every scene, every second, blurred together into one, swimming weight.  Their eyes hold more than their mouths tell; their words hold more than my ears can drink... and in their silences, I know they are swimming back, back to the weight, the sight, the sound.

Each sentence is spoken like a story book, opened to me for just a glimpse, yet snatched away before my own eyes are able to focus on the sight. 
These are the ones who see the things I long to. 

"Each house was maybe the size of our kitchen."
My brother's words echo through my head.  Back and forth, back and forth, the sentence attacks my walls of thought, ringing against every structure of consciousness, as though looking for a way out.  
There is no release for it.

These are the sentences I will carry, locked up in my bones, until my eyes, too, can see the faces,
and until my ears, too, can hear the sound, the sound of the world. 

Do not forget the weight of what you have seen;
do not forget the weight of what you have yet to see. 

You Need The Wave If You Want The Ride

Nothing stops the Lord from accomplishing his will. 
There is nothing that can hinder him.  That much is true, and what does this mean for us?

Firstly, we need to know that God has invited us to exist in unity with himself.
The implications of that alone are beyond comprehension.. and it goes so much farther beyond "invitation."  It is his will, his highest desire, his earnest call on us each to be joined with him!  Unfathomable!
I must continue with this thought on the unstoppable nature of this stunning will.
Because God has invited us to exist in unity with himself-
we can want what he does.  We can be joined to his will.  It is possible! 

Where does that put us?  Where does submitting or surrendering to that will put us?

In the place of perfect safety.  In the place where nothing can hinder us, US, from his love..
the place where we are with him, and one with him, one with his will and his unstoppable purpose.

It is the place of grace.. that image of a bush consumed by fire yet not burning.  It is a miracle, one that grabs our eyes and makes us wonder.. because it is us in the flesh and in our weakness and yet bearing the power of God, bearing his Spirit within us, and acting as one with that Spirit.

It is a miracle, and it is God's great plan.  His will is miraculous; it's stunning. 
By that will, not only does he defeat sin in the flesh, AS A MAN(the man Jesus of Nazareth) overcoming the power of the devil- he then has us do it with him.

Us.  We, humanity, of whom ALL fall short of glory, are in him more than conquering the power of sin.. more than resisting it- we are in fact defeating the works of the devil.  We, the most foolish and most unwise! 
How glorious is God's plan for us!  How gracious, and miraculous.  Truly it glorifies him;
it was too little a thing for him to win us back and be satisfied in his victory- he wins us back and then invites us to fight and be victorious, to be with him and be unstoppable. 

How confounding to the wisdom of the world, how much higher are his ways. 
Do we want those ways?  Do we want his will?  Do we want what he does?

By the power of his Spirit, and by his own grace on us, which never runs out, let us choose those ways, that will, that life. 

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ...For... God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  ...we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. ...God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong... so that no one may boast before him.  It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God... our righteousness, holiness and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written, "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."  1 Corinthians 1

"What's the best way to live?"

Where can I begin.

It's been a long time coming, this message, a long time steeping. 
But I'm more ready than ever to speak it, because I'm more ready to hear it for myself everyday.

Three days ago, talking with a pal named Danelboy, I asked him,
"How much do you think a person can change?"

What I meant by that was, "How much do you think a person can change the world?"
I have a fascination with impact, with making a difference; I have a burning desire to do something great and precious with my life. 

Why?

Often, I know my mind wanders to this sort of question because of this habit:
I think that I can give value to my life through what I do.  Maybe, if I do something truly worthy, or live somehow truly great, I will value my life, finally value it the way my heart longs to. 
I want a valuable life so badly, so strongly. 

That's wildly incorrect, however, that habit of thought, (that I can make my life valuable, or that "greatness" makes my life valuable...) and that's something God has definitely been challenging me to rethink over a lengthy period of time.  He wants to redefine greatness in my mind.. and he certainly wants to redefine the value of my life and existence in my mind. 

Back to my broodings of the week.  The very night after I had spoken and been thinking on such a question, "How much can a person make a difference," my spirit was struck, perhaps by a whisper, perhaps by the mind of the Lord.

I felt that the answer I'd concluded was being replaced. 
My own conclusion had been this: "You only have one life to make a difference.  You only have one lifetime to change.  So... pursue that as much as you can, while you can."

But a different sentence settled over the old, and the old was disintegrated beneath it:
"You only have one life to get to know Jesus.  One life on earth.

What will you spend your life on?"

There is nothing greater, no destiny greater, than the one with which we were created:
to discover the Lord, to know his love, to be in relationship with him!  This is our creation destiny!
This is what we were made for!  This is the value God has put within us from before we were born.

Something within me longs for greatness, and worthiness.  My worldliness projects my perceived fulfillment of this desire upon worldly greatness . . .
but God has begun something deep and old in my heart saying:
"It's not enough.  The world is not enough for you." 

There is more? 

Even Paul, when he writes to a Corinthian church, says some ridiculous things:
"while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?  ...are you not being merely human?"

Paul is talking to Christians here, the church, those whose spirits have been made alive together with Christ, and this is what he's saying:
"It's not enough for you to be living like the world anymore.  It's not enough for you to be acting 'only human.'"

How can he say this?  Because he knows, he knows, he knows-
in Christ, we are better than that.  In Christ, living like only a man is no longer living out what we have been created to experience-
because in Christ we receive a new creation where we are created to experience a destiny far, far different than the one our sinful humanity assigns us to.

I could go on for a long time, but I think the main thought I want to know for myself and communicate to you is this:
We only have one life on earth to get to know Jesus.

What will you spend your life on?

it's when you stop running

and sound is a movement
the river is a laugh
I watched move down
the mountain's back

 and she would never stop to breathe

but faster fly and stronger heave
it's not like I can run that path
and not look back- to not look back

 

would fill my lungs with newborn air
and empty every dying thought
let go my unforgiving heart
let something die, and something start

stillness wells up as strong as she
I wrap myself so I can't breathe
I fear the sound of when you'll leave
or just don't know when I am free

prodigal lungs

while you wrap the sky in yellow fog
I watch you swim to Babylon
it's not the city where you live
it's just the room you're always in

inhale exhale toss and pitch
you love to drink your god like smoke
in time you'll spit him out and walk back home.

I swam through all the wires inside
but I still land here every time
shipmates on a swollen sea
always shipwrecked ever green

inhale exhale slam the sea
stir the surface incense me
I say you'll spit this out and walk back home.

you're open to attack my friend
your arms have never been this limp
it's what you want it's what you want
you wish your bones were made from salt

I sank four stories through a leaf
the blacktop wasn't underneath
what you can say, what you can do is much more than enough.

the salt is lighting up your skin
since you forgot your coat at home
your ears aren't covered for this snow
my son you've never been so vulnerable.

I crow I grin but I don't know
what'd ever make you walk back home
no it won't, it won't be you who walks back home.