Green.

I feel like the last few months I’ve been captivated by the idea of a story.  I’m beginning to believe it’s one of the most powerful tools in life for an innumerable quantity of situations.  Donald Miller discovered this long ago, and I’ve been greatly influenced through his capacity for both teaching about stories and telling them.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d love to live one of those stories people can’t stop sharing.  A story that leads you to lean in, eyes wide, with an insatiable palate for each phrase, word by word.  I want to be a part of an adventure, one filled with deeply impacting relationships, seemingly impossible struggles overcome, eye opening discoveries, and a vast outpouring of a love I’ll never fully understand.  Even now, my heart seems to gravitate and expand in ways that communicate an unfulfilled desire for a new tale.  I’ve fallen in love with those painfully clear moments where reality manifests itself wonderfully in a dream of how life was created to be lived.

Here lies the problem:  With every sun soaked afternoon, with wave after wave of heart warming light kissing the corners of every wrinkle, there lies a shadow behind, harboring the darkest parts of us we’d almost prefer to stay hidden.  If we are pursuing a truthful reality of life and our true behavior, these shadows must taken notice of, and must be boldly confronted.

I guess its time to discuss mine… oh joy.  As most of us have to come to realize, our stories are far from interesting, let alone remotely close to what we’d prefer they’d sound like.  A resounding sigh of disappointment echoes into the unexplored corners of my brain; an endless sea of neurons, rendered bored and useless in response to routinely practiced stagnancy.  What sort of messy fears and insecurities have been planted inside my heart and called it home? And why are we so afraid of taking risks in a story we don’t even actually like telling?

 My mother used to pay my sisters and I pennies for each weed we’d find and pull out of her garden.  Sometimes I wish it were easy to persuade my head into sending a million little helpers for a small price into automated pruning. Unfortunately, these types of barriers are much thicker and deep-seeded than the measly roots of undesired plant life.  I’ve come to believe there are practical ways of combating the shadows and improving the stories that are our lives.  First off, I think practicing honesty with both others and ourselves will greatly improve our abilities to change, since we’ll be able to stop lying to ourselves and witness our failures for what they are.  There is no better place to grow than ground zero.  The second idea that has helped me following honesty is intentionality.  The deliberate devotion of energy can be a powerful tool.  Regrets are minimized, and you start living for the things you actually want to live for.  I hope with these things in mind, I can propel the 22 year old story I’ve lived and watch it bloom into something incredible.

Now that I’ve got your focus on your own stories, think about the billions of others living out their own parallels to your life.  I look up from my computer screen and see the 18 others living out their own story in a coffee shop this afternoon.  I’m a terrible judge of character.  I don’t mean this in a sense that I’m bad at reading and interpreting personalities and good intentions; I’m terribly fantastic at taking a look at the surface and determining exactly how deep the water is.  I’m quick to strike down my own worst traits in others. This is where stories have helped me edge away from this type of behavior.  I’m coming to believe that once we learn the stories of others, we start to see how and why people are the way they are, and that is something incredibly beautiful.  I stop distancing myself through prejudice and arrogant judgment, and can start to accept, to welcome in, to uplift, and to ultimately love.  My friend Eric Palmer and I don’t talk much about feelings, though he has deeply impacted me with a phrase a few years back.  He told me the more he tries to love those around him, the more he finds himself loving.   As simple as this idea is, it has impacted my heart for years following.  Aaron Gillespie (The Almost, Underoath) captures the simplicity of this in a single line: “Learning truth, it’s all coming back to what you knew.”  Truth for me seems to rarely be new ideas, but the same old ones diving deeper into the black of my heart, reforming and bringing the dead parts to life.  The truth is, the more time we spend in relationship, learning the depths of our brothers and sisters, the better we can love and understand them in a way we never could dream of before.  We begin to further internalize that when Jesus says the most important action of all is to love God and to love each other, he means it. 

So where does all of this come together?

I’m starting to see the real adventures are lived in relationship and fellowship,  and risks taken in love are some of the most important steps we will ever muster up the quivering bravery to take.

This July I’m hoping to change my heart with a new story.  Out of my reluctant fears and insecurities I’ve found the same meek boldness rising up inside.  It drives me to take risks like travel to India with a group of people I don’t know very well.  While I’ve never been to India, nor witnessed the poverty of the Dalit population, I see the eyes of those in my team who have seen theirs.  I witness the raw and ruthless passion of a group that can’t simply sit still.  This is the driving force behind my devotion to this group. 

My heart will follow theirs to some of the most desolately poor areas of the world.  We hope to bring their story home with us, and we hope to share it with you.  In regard to the ragged, the run down, the broken-hearted:  there is a love that awaits you, a healing embrace unlike any other; it is life truly lived.  I’ve come to know the specificity of this source, and it has changed my life forever.  If you’re interested in this, be sure to ask me about it.  

Here begins a new story of our little group, and a bigger story of an entire people.   You’re more than welcome to join us- but more importantly, join each other.  Here’s to creating beautifully adventurous and messy tales, and to learning the stories of men and women around us.

Let’s do life together.

-Nick Green

Welcome to the Internet.  The vast land of every complaint and opinion on the face of the earth.  The land of the quick to speak and slow to listen.  In the wake of Proposition 8, what a “Good” Christian Presidential candidate looks like, and other morality based political topics, it leads me to ask the following:  What does God really expect of Christians in America?  

We fight hard and passionately for the protection of Marriage, of the preservation of life in unborn children, and many other battles of morality.  Some protest, others march, but most post a facebook status where there was none before, or “like” a cause that was previously un-“liked”.  With all the opinions floating around, its hard to know what’s right and wrong, what to believe and what to leave alone.  As Christians, our purpose seems to explain itself through our own title: To be like and to follow Christ.  

So with that example to go on, lets get past the “what would Jesus do’s” and take a look at the past itself.  We see Israel cry out for a human king, and where God pleads in return to allow himself to lead and be their King, they decline and in place receive one who could not possibly measure up.

We possess a Savior intent on strong action rather than strong language, on living rather than speaking.  

This, for me, is the most difficult reason to jump into politics.   I can’t envision Jesus voting.  I can’t see him grabbing the picket signs and joining the protest.  I think he would be too distracted building relationships with the broken.  Meeting needs with every resource he had and learning stories of the face underneath the policy. 

I just don’t think God expects us to recreate his Kingdom in the United States of America through legislation.  In an abstract, messy, beautiful Gospel of rebellion and unending, limitless love, I hardly can collect that laws in humanity can fix the broken and keep the holy sacred. 

Yes, we possess God’s law, but none but Jesus can live it.  It’s the mirror that reflects our dirty faces and shows we cannot possibly measure up.  Its the arrow that points directly to Christ, that through his active compassion and mercy will save us, and once we learn this compassion, can invite others into this story as well.

It just seems like the God of the Universe is pleading once again for us to allow Him to be our King.   To let compassion and love for each other supremely reign over our hearts and through it in a very real sense, to each other. 

I think more importantly than what God declares to be sinful or good, is our response to those things.  Words like love and compassion burn in my mind.  There’s a time to be silent, and a time to speak; I hope my story will be filled with much action and less talk.  More time spent learning the hidden thoughts of my brother’s heart than the confident or witty boast of a Facebook status. 

While I do understand the price paid for freedom in this country and respect it dearly, these things have seemed to plague my thoughts for a long time.  I dislike my apathy for political involvement and hope I can find a way to want to become more involved one day. 

As someone who has grown up hearing the words and ideas of the Bible, there’s one that seems to stick out more than the rest: Heaven.  Its on the tongue of every aching man or woman.  ”What?  My suffering will cease, my hurting gone?  No loss, no rejection, no prejudice?”  Sounds like the place to be- and it is.  However, we get so wrapped up in the grandeur of perfection, and being a part of it(which is something to marvel over, don’t get me wrong) to the point where we miss the point of living entirely.   I start to wish for something quick and terrible, a shortened life span, a quick way out to perfection(I’m not talking suicide, but even Paul wrestles with his feelings on this, see Phil. 1:21-26).  This kind of focus draws us away from even the core idea of our existence.  Not to say I know/understand the exact reason man was created, but one could argue that since man was created on earth, he was meant to dwell there.  So with that in mind, there’s a shift in focus.  A shift to the world around us, one where the victory is already won, and the Creator of the Universe has claimed us as his own.  The kingdom then, seems to already exist, and exist here.  God has chosen US to be ambassadors of this on earth- what honor and responsibility.  So instead of this far off place we wish we were, our far-sidedness decreases and we’re left looking at each other instead.  That’s where the story is left off, and that’s where our chapter is.  Donald miller, in a blog asks the question “Where is there more fearful darkness or illuminating beauty than in the depths of the person sitting next to you on a bus? Where is there more evil and more beauty than in the unexplored cosmos of a human being?”  Its time to get our heads out of the clouds and have conversations.  Learn real things even about the “friends” we’ve known for years but don’t know the first things about.  We believe God is worthy of our lives- and by Christ’s example, we see our coworkers, our friends, our families, strangers and yes, even those you can’t stand to be around are in fact worth your time and worth serving, worth loving. They’re worth learning more about because of the value that Christ puts on them- the same value he gifts to us.  

We’re quick to judge(I’M quick to judge) because we don’t consider the story of others.  Get to know them- the REAL man/woman, and you’ll find yourself growing in love and understanding rather than distancing through judgement and prejudice.  I’m terrible at this, but I hope I’m learning to apply these ideas to my life.  I see my friends learning too, and when they apply it to others, I’ve seen amazing things happen.  These ideas are changing my perspective.  

With a trembling hand I reach and speak your name

With a whisper so soft the word resounds

Your beautiful name 

But will this whisper be enough

If I hum it to myself

Through the window, tired eyes will come to pass

Still I hum it to myself, alone.

Is it enough to get by, enough to survive in here?

Bottle it all up, keep my mouth shut in here?

Cause its so hard to love and its so hard to trust how you would

God I’m so terrified of you leading me to that door

Yet here I am, I see that door

In whispering your name once more

I wasn’t ready for this

I didn’t come running, I wasn’t halfway

Hands stretched out wide, “Here I am, send me!”

But that wasn’t me, I was the coward

All I swore not to be

But is it enough to get by, enough to survive in here?

To bottle it up, keep my mouth shut in here?

Just as the sun covers all

And as the moon waits to shine in full

My eyes awake abundant in restless sleep

This morn

The dew, still collecting in droplets

Further reflecting all that’s come to pass

There was a day where our skin kissed the rain

And then found each other

Still I wait

Still I wait

In all living and passed

Of all good and glorious

There’s one I long for still

So in patience wait

Sweetly sing goodbye

With every welcomed breath

The softly aching heart will come to rest

For a full one every man inherited long ago

In swinging, swaying, it will never fall

And through the beaten smile of my heart

One desire burns still brightly with a spark

That though this love was turned away

Still patiently I wait

Still patiently I wait

We dreamed of our lives

and how different they’d be

Waking up by your side

And never walking away

Never feel the sting of pain

That day I chose to leave

Oh how our hearts would be safe and sound 

If our knees never had to fall   

But it all comes around to

The way you’ve loved me with my back turned

How could it be that simple?

How could it be that simple?

That this love is mine

Time again I’m chasing air

When I know well with every conscious breath

My lungs are full

But still I grow restless and tired

I’m chasing mirrors back again

“If love is a mere emotion, then our love for a spouse, children, even God, is dependent on how we feel about them at a given moment, but feelings are fickle and can be as up or down based on factors as simple and mundane as the amount of sleep we’ve had or whether or not we exercised today.  

No wonder people fall in and out of love so much. They are treating love as an emotion or feeling rather than what it really is, an action verb.  

God demonstrated his love for us by sending His Son to redeem us.  Thats no mere act of emotion, but an act that lives out love.  Ultimately, we love God and love others around us when we actively demonstrate it.”

What an amazing picture of Christ’s love for us.  Thanks Future of Forestry.

This chest is full of memories

Of gold and silver tears

I’ll give you more to own than

All of this

And I’ll give you more than years

For you were once a child of innocence

And I see you just the same

Your burdens couldn’t win or

Lose a thing

Oh, I’d tell you once again

But you’re always on the run

 

Slow your breath down

Just take it slow

Find your heart now, oh

You can trust and love again

Slow your breath down, just take it slow

Find your smile now, oh

You can trust and love again

 

If you leave I’ll still be close to you

When all your fears rain down

I’ll take you back a thousand times again

I’ll take you as my own

I would sing you songs of innocence

‘Til the light of morning comes

‘Til the rays of gold and honey cover you

In the sweetness of the dawn

But you’re always on the run

 

You’re not alone

You’re now a part of me

You feel the cure

I’ll feel the toil it brought you

Just read the Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, and it presents the idea that hell can be escaped, and those in captivity are really the one’s holding the key to their own escape, should they choose to endure the transition.  Trouble is, most are so wrapped in their pride and apathy that they refuse to release themselves and become free.  Sort of tried to show a version of that in the two verses.   

Relied on what I know

I’ve seen all the things I can hold

I know how far I’ll run

Out till I’m old

Slowly closed my eyes and drift into night

Hang myself in a cage under limitless skies

The truth beyond the world within my reach

But I’m already here

So how can you chase me

When all I’ve done is pushed you away?

Chris, Sleep for Sleepers