Sunday, October 27, 2019

shame: a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.

ever feel like that? ever feel humiliated or in distress because of a choice (or a series of choices) you made?

any time i feel this way - and i have this week - i go back to the garden.

it's there i picture adam and even frolicking in the most beautiful garden. i picture the colourful trees and flowers, the animals, the peace. i picture how pure their relationship with God must have been and how incredibly fulfilling their relationship with each other must have been. they had everything they needed. everything.

but then entered the serpent.

"did God really say, ‘you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden’?”

she was certain he did, but once that stupid snake informed her that she would be able to gain knowledge she never had before, she caved in, took a bite of the fruit that looked so aesthetically pleasing, and gave her beloved husband a bite, too.

though conniving, the serpent was right; in doing so, they had gained superior knowledge, but they had also disobeyed. once they realized they were naked and full of shame, they ... hid.

that's what shame does, doesn't it? it makes you want to hide. it causes you to avoid eye contact and people, and at times, if we're not careful, can be known to be the breeding ground for even more dumb choices.

of course, we know that this isn't the end of the story. if we read further (and i encourage you to), you'll see that there's grace and reconciliation and freedom all wrapped up in one person (the greatest story ever told!): Jesus.

but sometimes, just sometimes, we don't get there right away; sometimes, just sometimes, we choose to cover ourselves in fig leaves, hide behind a big ole oak tree and wallow in our sinfulness for a bit.

Friday, October 4, 2019

he pulled his shoe off and propped his injured foot up on the chair in between us.

"are you any good at bandaging wounds?", he said as i reluctantly looked at the puss soaked bandage in front of me.

"i'm not a doctor, *john*, but i'll see what i can do."

i tried to take the bandage off with care but i soon found out that he preferred the 'rip off the band-aid' approach.

it didn't look good. to my dismay, he had a nickel-sized hole in his big toe. i covered that baby in polysporin, bandaids and bandages and recommended that he get some real help as soon as he could. he promised he would do so the very next day as he hobbled his way to the homeless shelter where he planned to spend the night.

what i didn't tell you is, how, as i was, again, very reluctantly playing doctor, he was telling me of his frustration with his current 'housing situation' and how it wasn't fair that he couldn't find a place of his own.

that's the thing, and the very point of this post; under every bandaged foot lies a deeper need & underneath every social justice issue lies a busted, broken, unfair system.

so what do i (we) do with that? i'm not entirely sure, but i will keep bandaging feet until i figure it out.