chasing the sun

i started reading "Blue Like Jazz" again today...if you haven't read it please stop reading this, go buy the book, read it and then come back and tell me what you think...seriously, I'm not kidding. I like that book because I feel like I'm listening to the thoughts in someone else's head and heart, the kind you can only put in print because if you said them out loud you might laugh at yourself, or worse, cry and not be able to utter one sentence entirely.

what I am beginning to understand more and more about myself is that I always seem to need to understand the reason or reasons things have for happening or being. Most recently I've wondered what my reason is for happening. Then I think about Jesus. I wonder if he ever wondered why he was who he was...especially when he was a teenager and going through that "awkward phase." Did he have an "awkward phase"?

Jesus was a new thing, a new idea. He wasn't what everyone thought he was supposed to be. He fit few molds as he reached out and touched the dirty, the poor, the prostitutes and sinners that were much too unclean to suit the religious leaders of the day. The thing is, though, that Jesus didn't favor one people group over another...he favored his Father and his Father's ways, which meant he loved everyone. So, if Jesus came on the scene today, maybe he wouldn't be a republican after all...or a democrat...or a Catholic...or a Protestant...or a poor man...or a rich man...or a conservative...or a liberal. Maybe he would be just what he always was...a peacemaker. He was someone who stood between and above the divisions humanity had created for itself.

I think this way of living strikes others as non-participatory. Its like you have to choose a side. You have to be on this side or that side, but you can't just not choose a side because that, well, that's just not how we do things here in America or wherever.

I want more beauty in my life, more mystery. I feel spent and discouraged by the discouragement all around me. It drains me of all enthusiasm for life because I am surrounded by non-magical things. Maybe romantic is a better word than magical…not sappy romantic, but romantic as in unrealistic and impractical. We have lost our souls to pragmatism and “12 steps to happiness” programs that really only make you a program junkie…always looking for the next Purpose-Driven Prayer of Jabez or Chicken Soup for the Five Love Languages of Beth Moore Bible Study.

Yet life passes us by because we’re so busy trying to figure out how to live right, how to be on the right side of things, that we miss actually living. What happened to figure things out as you go?? I think some folks are trying to figure life out before they even attempt it…maybe I’ve just been in seminary too long.