without love i am nothing

Of man's disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden..

With those words, John Milton in 1664 summed up the plight of man - we are fallen. The epic story of the world as we know it is the story of a fallen people. It is the story of wars and diseases and famines and disasters, of pain and hatred and bigotry and fear. Yes, it also is the story of redemption and hope and ultimate, unending love, but that is not what this is about.

I need to be fallen for awhile.

Why? So much of Christianity is summed up in "victory theology", where Christ has come and has freed us from sin and death, defeating them both forever. Yes! This is true. Never for a moment believe anything otherwise. "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death..." (Romans 8:1) But oh, how I take this for granted! I see freedom and grace and hope as things entitled to me, and not as they are: bought with a price so high creation screamed at its payment.

Recently, a friend reminded me of the words of the great theologian Stan Lee, creator of Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility." In my zeal for my dream of a passionate world for Christ, I have forgotten this. I have a responsibility to serve those under - and beside - me. Jesus taught us this. With all the power in history, he came on the scene of a fallen world with the ability to immediately destroy sin. However, he didn't, choosing instead to become as the fallen, though sinless, that he might reconcile them before God. Christ's servant heart is a reminder of our state - that we cannot be "victorious Christians" igniting a revolutoon for the kingdom - without serving, humbly, remembering from where we have come. My prayer for myself is that in my state of conviction, I would remember what it is like to be fallen, and that in my state of authority that would bring me to my knees in the light of the One who has all authority in heaven and on earth. Unless I serve, I am nothing.

As the blogsphere is not always the most public of places, I'm not sure if this serves as a "public" confession, but as for the private nature of the event, it's the best I've got. Friend, I am fallen, as you are fallen - saints yet sinners still. I was, and am often, wrong. I will be wrong again. Never let my heart beat for anything but the heart of Christ, who was as a servant. Whatever it takes. All the revolutionary cries in the world are silenced if a heart of humility is not present. This is my charge for you, and my plea for forgiveness. My prayer is an echo of Dante, as he escaped Hell:

My guide and I crossed over and began

to mount that little known and lightless road

to ascend into the shining world again.

He first, I second, without thought of rest

we climbed the dark until we reached the point

where a round opening brought in sight the blest

and beautious shining of the Heavenly cars.

And we walked out once more beneath the Stars.

perfect...they are all perfect

Jim Elliot once descibed his overwhelming love for his future bride Elizabeth in a letter to her in which he called his situation 'perfect war'. This instantly strikes you as a contradiction - how could any war be perfect? We speak of 'just war' or 'necessary action', but never perfect war. It sounds as if the state of war itself is perfect, as if one caught in perfect war would never want to leave. It sounds crazy, like someone who wishes to go kill people forever. And rightly so, for thankfully no one holds this belief still (still?!?! yep - see Norse mythology and Valhallah).

My point on bringing it up, however, is that Jil Elliot was no crazy man. Indeed, his most famous quote states exactly the opposite: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Therefore, Elliot meant something different when he coined the phrase. That is what I love about the man, and why I relate so well right now to him. To Elliot, perfect war was a state of the soul in which everything seemed to be in chaos - future, love, security...everything. Yet at the same time, this war within the soul was exactly what God wanted - as if being in the heart of the hurricane (an outwardly stupid place to be) is directly lined up with the will of God (the smartest place to be hands down). Right now in my own life so many things are seemingly going wrong, yet there is a harmony in it all - a peace (of sorts, not like I'm happy with where I am or anything) that God is in my midst. My friend Meagen said it best: it's as if we're on the most terrifying roller coaster in history, diving, spinning, looping, twisting - I'm talking scream-your-lungs-out, pee-in-your-pants, hold-your-date's-hand-until-it-turns-blue-and-cry-for-your-mommy scary. But you knew when you got on that you'd get to the end in one piece. Why? You trust the coaster. Why do I trust my God any less?

Welcome to the war, Steve.

(Note:anyone guess what movie the title's from? It's one of my favorites - man experiencing new culture, amazing fight sequences, and the greatest love scene I've ever witnessed, and they don't even have sex!!! The warrior at the end of the movie, taking his final breath, looks at his fallen men, all dead, and says of the struggle for whivch they have given their lives, "Perfect...they are all perfect." May I be able to say the same.)

the vision

(I reprint this here becuase this poem, written on the wall of a prayer room some years ago, has harnessed my own feelings of what is coming - what MUST come. This is the heart of Jesus for the youth of America. This is what will change the world.)

"The Vision" by Pete Greig

So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth
and words come out like this…The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.They wouldn't even notice.They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision ?The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.A million times a day its soldiers choose to loose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…

This is the sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission. Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ?Can hormones hold them back?Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking,with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter!Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside. On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.Would they surrender their image or their popularity?They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.

Don't you hear them coming?Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from heros of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

the difference between steel bridges and mountains

"What is the difference between steel bridges and mountains? Size alone is no indicator, for many bridges span huge rivers that are as wide as mountains. Neither can beauty be judge, for some favor cold steel over rock and clay. The answer lies in their construction. As amazing as a bridge is, as precisely engineered, as strong and unmoving, it is simply a mound of steel, arranged to serve man. A mountain is living. No, its dirt and stone do not breathe, but the mountain moves, it changes shape and form as history takes place. Rather than workers building it in a day, a mountain's workers are the ants and birds, the rain and wind. The bridge is a monument to the efficiency and enginuity of man. The mountain? A testament to the power and artistry of God."

I made this discovery while viewing the mountains of Panama, halfway obscured by the Bridge of the Americas, a large steel bridge linking Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is an amazing structure. Yet so many come to Panama, and see the bridge, the canal, the night clubs and resturants - and miss the mountains completely.

Do I miss the mountains?

Is it possible for one's life to be so filled with constructs of wonder, skeletons of work, monuments to the enduring power of the self, that the mountains - true vessels of eternal Awe - are not seen at all? For some reason, the monks of old seem to have realized this puzzle. They forsook everything, not wishing that any comfort would hinder their worship. Perhaps this is what I lack now - I want to build the bridge so badly I am drawing up blueprints, when all my work is doing is blocking the view.