Form 'other' to 'another' and the wide mercies of God our cradling Grace

My life has some pretty basic routines. One of them is going to the neighbourhood mall Junction 8. By now I know the street, the spots to park free, the stores and the short-cuts pretty well. But still, I never quite get used to all the life I will meet each time I venture out.

Even a familiar place can yield the unfamiliar. The expected can throw up a surprise.

We can walk like the dead, going about our routines, operating like the rest of kingdom animaliae; just trying to survive another day. But we get restless, we question, we mourn, we get served a notice that jolts us awake.

Today for example, in the hustle I saw this skinny man whose eyes did not seem to focus really well.

He's not really old, not more than thirty. He was in his green and yellow uniform, standing right there in the sea of humanity streaming around him scrounging for bargains and queuing to make payment. There he stood, quite oblivious, waving his arms with palms up as if to catch falling water. I looked for a leak but did not see any. He seemed consoled too that he did not catch anything, and then proceeded to pick up his broom and pan. 

At the car park, I shifted my cumbersome trolley and gave a wide swath to another cleaner who smiled appreciatively as he maneuvered his mop-bin-on-wheels across. 

"It's easy to feel good for kindness, but you aren't different from him".

 I know. 

 Like him and the other, we are all but souls with skins on. All trying to make it through.

Later, as my car perched nervously at the slope turning onto the road, I glimpsed ahead of me a van that had the words "Inspiring Hope, Enriching Lives". It was the van that brought the small party who live with muscular dystrophy for their weekly outing. 

I am rushing through my gorcery routine and I am as usual feeling thirsty; and all this Life is asking me to pay attention.

There was a time when our thoughts were 'other' - we see someone different and we thank God we are not born/bred/turned out so. We feel a twinge of sympathy and when the charity drives come along, we are moved to help with our monies. But there remains a I/they divide. What's more, we often compare and augment 'I' by classifying and categorising 'them' so that the 'I' feels stronger/better/more.


But there comes a time when we see just 'another'. It is just another life really; and very much like ours. Another life wanting to mean something, be useful, to laugh, be loved and love. The garb and language and colour and words may all be different, but it comes to the same stuff of dust seeking glory. This is why I am upset these days --

when I think how we interpret Jesus' words that he came to give us life abundant as a narrow, materialistic, self-indulgent offer that we deserve. 

when i find myself forgetting so quickly that the awkward, badly dressed teen is imago Dei as I am. 

when I push my closest ones away too quickly because my soul is out of shape and I don't know what to do with my jutting angles; and it is their fault for coming too close.

In Brennan Manning's final book, All Is Grace, he writes simply of his life without fanfare or any need to embellish. His was a life-time of struggle with alcoholism. His was a life others can only dream about: book successes and a life message about Abba Love...Yet here was a man, another, like you and me. He had his triumphs and his demons. He lived honestly as he could. His is not written to garner a book prize. It almost read like a child's re-telling of a long adventure.

The simple truth that grips your heart and changes you is this: Ordinary life shines because it is all Grace.

What would your life and mine look like if we lived like we truly believed this Grace is wrapping us safe and cradling us through the storms?

 What would our world look like if we saw each other as just another, and helped each other sip often of the sweet nectar of Grace rather than rush around thirsty?

A great song as we ponder The Love of God by Rich Mullins


There's a wideness in God's mercy
I cannot find in my own
And He keeps His fire burning
To melt this heart of stone
Keeps me aching with a yearning
Keeps me glad to have been caught
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God

Now I've seen no band of angels
But I've heard the soldiers' songs
Love hangs over them like a banner
Love within them leads them on
To the battle on the journey
And it's never gonna stop
Ever widening their mercies
And the fury of His love

Oh the love of God
And oh, the love of God
The love of God

Joy and sorrow are this ocean
And in their every ebb and flow
Now the Lord a door has opened
That all Hell could never close
Here I'm tested and made worthy
Tossed about but lifted up
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God

Getting pain for loving and living the Fight

The cat has a strange habit.

None of my other cats had it. Chats throws up. Yes, every now and then, the kitty will deposit a mess of still-being-digested contents at whatever spot she happens to be at. Our first instinct on seeing this? A chiding of course, "Chats! ....". Today however, I decide to go after her and give her a little tummy rub to soothe her. And this is what I got:

It is stinging me even now.

Talk about love being messy. Which part of "poor kitty' didn't she get? I feel utterly unappreciated, and I cannot argue with or reason with this feline. It is really painful.

All of us live with some form of pain; maybe the pain of regret or loss. Most of us learn to cope, or numb, or pretend. But there are many today who live where pain is a constant -

They are losing loved ones suddenly from blasts that shatter any solidity they may yearn for. Like in the Middle East.
They are being judged - first - simply because of their skin colour. Like in many parts of that free land called the US of A.
They are worried about being found out, exposed and rejected. Like the guys.gals who wrestle with being emotionally and physically attracted to the same gender.

There is simply no salve or solution, but there is this: Jesus enters the pain. 

I first heard this idea twenty years ago in seminary. In my youthful enthusiasm, the mere knowledge of it made it all so grand. I reached for this truth like it was a trophy and prize and may have uttered, "pain, do your worse for I am not alone!".

This cat scratch that still hurts is nothing. Over the years, Pain has thrown tornadoes and whirlwind against my soul and upset it in no small way.

Many days I wonder that I still stand.

Jesus has entered the pain ---
Is he here supporting me so I don't fall?
Is he giving me moral support, rooting for me with the "you can do it, coz I did" kind of thing?
Is he quietly working out this marvelous outcome, rigging the results while I am having this slugfest in the ring called broken humanity?

Jesus entered the pain by becoming one of us creatures-in-pain. He allowed his infinite being to be limited by time and space, subject to broken humanity and suffered all of the pains we do -

physically  from hunger to near-death physical afflictions,

emotionally from suspicion to outright betrayal,

and endured a pain none of us would ever have to: separation from God as a result of bearing the totality of sin.

In every season of pain, I have gone to this Jesus and asked him again, what does it mean that you enter our pain?
And I begin to realise that my pain is real. It is being taken seriously. I can talk to him about it. He is deflecting and absorbing some of it I am sure or I would totter and crash.

And like a dedicated medic who has rushed to the wounded solider in the trenches, he reaches over and bandages my wounds. He tells me it will heal. I look into His eyes and I believe Him even as the battle rages on.

As the bandage goes around the wound, he tells me too that I am to stay in the fight; not let the injury incapacitate me. I lean back and dreamily wish for Lucy from Narnia, coming up and applying her magic potion that would immediately restore me.

Sometimes it feels that way. It happens quick the healing. Other times, it seems the wound is going to just gape and mock me. But I arc and lift myself up; everywhere are the fallen and I must not get lost in my own pain....Even though sometimes there's the added burden of someone cussing nearby, another calls you a madman or a clown, others cry and melt down; and still a few yell back, "save yourself", the same words they said to Jesus that he may prove himself smarter and stronger; and if he did he would miss the point of love that dies for the beloved.


Lesser mortals would kick the cat that scratched. But I am no mere mortal now who contain glory am I?

"And you...he has made alive together with Him..." ~ Colossians 2v13

So I too enter into pain and deflect sometimes and absorb at other times. I too learn to bandage wounds and speak valour back into the wounded soul.

We are more than the wounded; we are the wounded healers.

And dear soul, how about just pausing for this: healer of my soul {michael talbot}

Of doubts and 'what if I am just psyching myself?'...

Doubts plague all thinking people.

And some of us, we are prone to question, and so to doubt; more than others.

But because the world loves to operate and talk as if we all know what is going on, to harbor doubts can be scary for us. It smacks of a lack of faith. It feels like we are missing something. It feels like we may be have a loose screw jangling noisily that only we can hear. So we berate ourselves and make ourselves feel worse.

But then with I read a cry like this,

Why have you forsaken me? ~ Psalm 22

and know that we who doubt are safe.

Psalm 22 has been called the Messianic Psalm, and right here is the cry from the pain-fraught, anguished soul of none other than Jesus. He cries out that God has left the scene! Jesus on the cross and felt the Father’s absence as the sin upon Christ caused the Father to turn His face away.

If you ever felt the stung of rejection.

This is what Jesus felt. For the first time. In the most awful way.

Because of you and I.

Rejection is at the root of all our doubt. It is the fuel for the “what ifs…” we utter frightened within our hearts. And all of us have felt this sting before.

We think God is all ready to reject us.

But he is the sting-remover; the One who wants to come close and apply a soothing balm to this sting that acts up and cause us to shrink back, become cynical and even paralysed us into non-action.

What if she laughs at me?What if he doesn’t believe?What if I am wrong?

More than once when journeying with people, they say at some point, “I think I am only psyching myself. I am tired of pep-talking myself…”.

I get that.

The pep talk, the one we do to remind ourselves of hope; yes it can seem pretty lame. It’s just words, and often with a stinging pain, it feels plain powerless to make any real difference. Besides, some of us just aren’t the talking kind.

But listen. We talk to ourselves all the time.

We even talk to ourselves that what we say to ourselves is useless, or useful.

It’s kind of circular and silly;  or  it is powerful and deserves repeating.

It really works.

However –

Our self-doubting capabilities will kick in. So we demand some evidence -

If I am worthy, then why doesn't anyone notice?
If I am gifted, then why is my life so ordinary and I am so wrecked with pain?If I am loved, then why do I feel so miserable and weak?

I get this too.

We need to talk to ourselves.

But we need more than preppy, happy, ’clappy’ shorthand ways of describing life. We need more than clichés.

This means it is pretty important that we talk to ourselves properly.

Takes time.

Takes effort.

Takes quiet.

Often helped with a journal.

If you want to have a great conversation that unearths truth and sends light exploding in strange corners of your soul.

If you want to be real and authentic; which is required for intimacy and communion.

If you want to feel free and lighter.

If you want to sense a trajectory to your life.

Then talk to yourself properly.

Don’t stuff your feelings or ignore your fears. Don’t kick those doubts or trash those tuggings.

If you reject yourself, you make yourself more prone to seeing rejection in others’ responses to you.

Even more – rejecting yourself is an affront to the God who made you.

This is the God who declared each of us fearfully and wonderfully made. There is no mistake or manufacture fault from His point of view. But it's so hard to believe this when we live in a world that defies this truth and trample upon it in a thousand ways; demanding that we prove our worth and earn our space here. Founder of evolutionary biology Richard Dawkins recently tweeted that couples should simply abort their babies because it's immoral to give birth to a Down Syndrome's kid. That's saying a lot - and talk like this floats around in the air we breathe in each day. It can get hard to talk ourselves to a place of security.

This is why, the self-talk must give way to silence – when we listen to God talk.

Whether we intentionally shut up and read Scripture, and scrawl sightings.

Whether we sit quiet and wait.
Whether we walk in the great world he made and let bird, water, light send their echoes of delight into our souls.
Whether we draw, doodle, make music, move or squish mud to be amazed that these hands and this body and this mind can come together and convey beauty and longing.

For in the end, we are reflectors. We reflect what we absorb.

“In the beginning was the WordAnd the Word was with GodAnd the Word was God…Through Him all things were made;Without him nothing was made that has been made.In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
~ John 1v1-4

The Word that's always been is what forms and makes and shapes. The Word gives definition and stirs to life. There is the promise here that we can be set alight by this Word that gives life. 

If we ever hope to have some light on our lives, the most important self-talk is to remind ourselves to go to the Word, the Life, the Light.

For a little more dissecting, here's the good, bad and ugly of doubts .