Dear twitter friends: these days have felt heavy to me. I’ve not said a lot, b/c I haven’t had a lot to say. But feeling a little freed up tonight, maybe I’ll make up for lost time with a few unconnected thoughts. Not super coherent, but a glimpse into my heart-however random:
1) A “platform” will not pay your bills. “Influence” doesn’t automatically translate into anything quantifiable at all. Let him/her who has ears to hear, hear.
2) We are so terribly fragile. Seriously. So much smaller & more helpless than we project. We are all middle-schoolers, walking around with our lunch tray, hoping we find a safe place to sit down. We are children. If we grasped this, we’d be so much more tender. To everyone.
3) Scripture is wild. God is wilder. I’ve moved on a lot of things, because I’m convinced the God of the Exodus is still moving. I don’t believe Scripture is a primitive text, written by primitive people. It is alive, holy. I trust the story, even more than I do the “verses.”
4) I won’t concede the Bible to fundamentalists, or anyone else. I find every breath of my life is fsomewhere inside that book. It’s not a flat text-it’s sacred ground where God can be known. Nobody gets to take that from me.
5) Your story is also a sacred, Spirit-inspired text. It’s a treasure, & a gift of the Spirit. You know who you owe it to? Nobody. When it’s useful to share, share it. When it’s useful to stay quiet, ponder it all in your heart-nobody else owns it.
6) Don’t defend “ideas.” You can’t trust anything that’s not incarnate. Don’t devote yourself to anything invisible. God is all about flesh & blood. Be for particular bodies. Cherish them, hold them. Or else you aren’t up to what God is up to.
7) Don’t defend yourself. The internet is bullshit. By that I mean—bullshit. Run your half court offense wherever you go, or insert a non-sports analogy. The point is don’t be forced. You are to be LED. You aren’t driven, you are to “flow.” That’s walking in the Spirit.
8) You don’t die when your ego does. You go free. Lose your self, & your reputation, & you’ll find yourself. I’m paraphrasing, but somebody a lot smarter than me said that.
8) Spiritual fathers & mothers who were once used by God to break new ground, often react to their own sons & daughters with suspicion when they do the same. If you are one, remember that, & be suspicious of your suspicion.
9) Don’t pontificate when you can prophesy.
10) Don’t reason with the prophets of Baal. Call down the fire down upon the altar.
11) God is fire. It is not true that there is no judgment. It is also not true that judgment will destroy you. Judgment will transfigure you. Welcome it.
12) No argument is stronger than your testimony. Subject yourself to the wildness of God, & no man can tame you. Trust the fire in your belly. Follow it wherever it leads, but follow it in a community of people who revere the fire.
13) Be where God has planted you, until the Spirit moves you on. But be wary of being on the margins of a particular community for too long. You’ll just get bitter, always working against. At some point, you’ll need camaraderie & support, & that’s okay.
14) Shout out to the “just give me Jesus” people. I want Jesus, too. But a depoliticized, ahistorical Jesus is not Jesus at all. So...sorry, but following Jesus will have consequences in real life. Oh, & in your politics.
15) Most everything that everybody does in life is driven mostly by insecurity. This includes you. Recognize this, & go a little softer on them, & on yourself.
16) All holy people are tender people. Holiness is tenderness, not righteousness. People who know God are soft, not hard. There aren’t exceptions to this.
17) Refuse to be an expert. Insist on always being in over your head. Relate to the world with reverence, wonder, & honor the mystery. Preaching/teaching about it can’t ever be the goal. Be submerged. Be busier living, than describing living theoretically.
18) Integrity is about integration, not sinlessness. I don’t care which direction you’re going, nearly so much as you getting all of yourself going in the same direction. If that can’t be where you’re headed, seriously consider changing course.
19) Your life is a sacred text, you must listen to. Listen...with humility. Listen...in community. Find your text, in the Text. May your hermeneutic be bob charitable, & robust. May you find your story in a larger story, that bears yours along.
20) Don’t listen to anybody who isn’t living it. Listen to the people who pray with their lives. You’ll know the prayerful people because they are practitioners (no matter what they “think” about prayer). You don’t have time to mess around with theorists.
21) Every...thing...is...grace. Everything is about grace. Everything is headed towards grace, with or without consent. Anybody who’s life is not about grace, has nothing to teach you. If they don’t get this thing, they don’t get anything. Bend your whole life, toward grace.
22) Collapse. It’s okay to hit the ground. Don’t avoid seeing anything on the bottom you need to see. Love is the mystery at the bottom of the others...Spirit. There’s nothing to be afraid of, down here. God is at the bottom. God is always at the bottom.
23) Your life can’t amount to all that much, in the grand scheme of the cosmos. Not mine. And yet we are unfathomably, meticulously loved, in every nook & cranny. It’s absurd. It’s ridiculous. Let your lungs be filled with the comedy of it. Laugh deeply; you are loved stupidly.
24) Your life is a sign & sacrament for someone else. Please don’t withhold it. Let yourself be broken. Let yourself be distributed. You are such a miracle. We need you...your voice...your story. Jesus has need of you.
(Apologies if needed, & night night, twitter fam)
(“Bob”?!? LOL!!!)
