Musings on Manning's writings

(Quotations are from A Glimpse of Jesus by Brennan Manning):

"'To be a disciple, and thus different from the unconverted pagan, means being as the heavenly Father is: perfect,' writes Scriptures scholar Donald Senior. 'Luke uses the word merciful (6:36). Both terms can be reduced to the same reality. For perfect in Matthew's context means whole, complete. To be whole or complete, as the Father is complete, means loving with limitless compassion...Following Jesus in his ministry of compassion defines the meaning of being perfect as your heavenly is perfect'" (69-70).

I have always wrestled with that command--to be perfect as God is perfect. I always interpreted it as the latter option in the following quotation:

"Jesus confronts us with a choice...Open up to letting yourself be loved by my Father and living a life of compassion, or return to the regime of secure piety and well-regulated virtue" (71).

But appparently I was wrong? Hmm. It's not that being wrong is holding me up but being wrong for so long about something I thought was so right.
It's not that I've continued to preach that it means "not sinning and following a moral code." I haven't. I've preached the "loving" version, like Manning. But I haven't actually believed it or lived it or let it transform me.

That's why his writings hit me so hard this morning. To do as Jesus commands means loving myself with "limitless compassion" and loving others with the same. That's all that is asked of me. And yet this loving of myself has always been the hardest thing for me to do. But Manning is saying it is what God wants? God wants me to receive His limitless compassion and love myself with it the same way?
I get the connection between loving self and loving others. Weird how I always forget this knowledge that "I get."

So maybe for me, "taking up my cross daily and following Christ" means daily opening myself up to be loved by God which translates into love for myself and moves through and out of me as active love for others.

Cool.

Parallels, Please

This song by Jars of Clay is how I have been feeling lately and how I was feeling as I drove home tonight:

"I am a house that is divided in my heart and in my mind.
....
I use one hand to pull You closer, the other to push You away, (pause)
but if I had two hands doing the same thing,
lifted high, lifted high...."

Lately it's like I have a fettish for right angles--I've got one arm lifted up toward the heavens, wanting to both give and receive,
and the other out in front of me, wanting to keep God at bay.

Yet I'm aching for both limbs to do the same thing.

Tonight I was raising one hand to God and the other was flipping Him off.
Fuck cancer.
Who can I take my anger out on? Cancer's not a "who," and no human is responsible.
Guess that leaves God. So He got the middle finger tonight.

I never thought I would be so irreverent.
I know He understands.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Like a Movie

You know in movies the scene where a single woman walks into her small and cluttered apartment at night all alone, wearing grey and black clothes, and looking exhausted and sad? Where she either lays her bag on the couch and looks around at her apartment which is a metaphor of her life or goes into the kitchen and sticks a tv dinner lasagna in the microwave? You know the music that usually accompanies those scenes? I wish that really happened. I wish that when I walked into my dark apartment tonight, sad and alone, that music started playing--music that fit my mood perfectly and evoked a sense of empathy and understanding in the imaginery viewers of my stage. Maybe "If I Were a Boy" by Beyoncee. Or, "That Dress Looks Nice on You" by Sufjan Stevens. No no, it would be "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M.

Definitely.

"What is love? [God] don't hurt me. Don't hurt me...No more"

Currently, I don't know if God loves me.

This is not because I feel too ashamed or "sinful" (and i'm definitely NOT looking for pity) but because I actually do not know what I believe about if or how God loves human beings. This has been quite a distressful doubting experience, to say the least. Sometimes I just want to be indifferent, and for the first time in my life, I have little hiccups of apathy.
Yesterday afternoon my spiritual director suggested that I "re-imagine" God (yeah yeah another one of those Emerging Church words & suggestions). But, I think there's merit to it--At least I hope so...I'm kinda "at the end of my rope", as the saying goes. She suggested I start with a "clean slate," a non-image of God. She suggested I ask God to show me who God is--and to be open to these "showings" through any and all mediums I happen upon--including experiences, Scripture, dreams, and conversations. She suggested I continually, throughout the day, ask myself, "Who is God to me?"
Last night, Andy confronted me about how much it hurt him when I lied to him a couple weeks ago. It was not a shaming confrontation. His purpose was to reconcile with me, to tell me how much he loved me--to restore our distance. He closed his eyes and as tears started streaming down his face, I saw who God is...and who I need God to be for me. With his eyes closed, Andy told me how much it hurts him when I do not tell him the truth; how much it hurts him to have feelings of his own inadequacy as a partner to me; how much it hurts him when all he wants is to love me deeply, and I won't love him back by being truthful. I saw who God is.
I saw a God not disappointed but understanding. I saw a God not enraged but wanting relationship. I saw a God not looking away because of sin but moving toward me longing real intimacy. I saw a God who loved me. A God who loved ME. Who LOVED me. Me.

If this man sitting here with me is created in the Image of God, then right now he must somehow, even if just a little bit, reflect who God is.

~A-M, 2/11/09

Linda Momma

I wanted to call her 'Mom.'
I always had the urge to
But felt I should wait.
I wanted to call her 'Momma.'
Wish we could have talked
About all the cute memories she had
Of Andy when he was young.
I wanted to hear the classics--
His first words, the ways she made him laugh...
And vice versa.
But now I can't;
And I hate it.
We were going to be good friends.
I was going to call her 'Mom.'
We were going to dance at the wedding,
And give God thanks for her healing...
But there was none.

So goodbye, Momma.
We miss you.

~A-M, 2/2/09

April 1991

Maybe if there had been (more) color in my life,
I wouldn’t hate love so much.
All I remember is green.
The green of the visitor deck where the duck family lived.
I liked those ducks—
Liked watching them grow from infant to toddler
(Like) a premonition of the prayer in my mother’s womb.
None of it made sense—
It still doesn’t.
Maybe there’s some red in there too;
Red in the thin little tubes covering her face and body.
Red on his hands.
Oh yes, and black…
Maybe dark brown?
I remember her hair—
Her dark brown hair.
Seventeen years later it still touches the top of her shoulders.
I am at the same instant repulsed and drawn to her.
She’s both my heart’s magnet and finger nails on a school chalk board.
She’s like the sun and the rain—whenever I have one, I want the other instead.
She’s like chocolate and poached eggs.

And so I ask myself,

Why do five year olds not play dead?
And how can this answered prayer support a head?
I ended up wanting to be the one being fed…

I wish someone had told me I was necessary.

~A-M, 11/30/08

August 25, 2008

White flowers bloomed today in the August rain.

I thought the petals might fall off--

Might not withstand the pelting.

Frost knows what I was thinking.

I guess flowers can take a beating...

And bloom brighter because of it.

-A-M