I (Mark) was meeting with Karin last week and she shared a poem that I thought beautifully described our relationship with God. I don’t have the poem (just ordered the book) but I wanted to share the imagery of this poem. I don’t remember too accurately (surprising!) but the picture that stuck with me is of a creature hiding in a hole, in darkness. The poem describes someone gently and lovingly trying to coax this creature out of its hole. He would leave little treats at the top of the hole and wait for the creature to gain courage. He wanted so much that the creature would know that he was safe because what he wanted more than anything was just to enjoy this creature and let it experience the space and beauty of all that was outside of its hole.

I just thought that this so describes the process of our hearts learning to trust. We have been hiding for a long time in fear and shame and we’ve become so suspicious of love. He is coaxing our hearts out of hiding and He is doing this by showing us his kindness. Little by little. The creature takes one little taste of His goodness and then goes back into hiding. It continues to do this until it learns that it is truly safe to come out of hiding. This is a slow process and He knows that we will many times go back into our hole. He forgives us every time and then goes on leaving more treats for us to taste. He goes on singing a song of His love that beckons our hearts once again.

All of this reminds me of Romans 2:4 “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” So often it is us who get impatient with the process and judge our repeated failures. This is why we think we should stay in the hole, because we’ve failed yet again. It can be scary when all we can hear is the voice of shame because we so desperately want to step out of our prisons. We’ve tasted of the light, of freedom and we no longer want to hide in our holes. But all of this depends upon Him and not us. He is in charge of rescuing us from darkness. It truly is too much for us: our fear, our shame, the voice of the enemy. But God has always been in charge of delivering his people and I am convinced that He has begun a good work in our community that He will faithfully continue.

Psalm 18:17
He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.

2 Weeks.

Till the first phase moves into atangard.

The building.

2 Years.

Almost to the day, that this project was initiated.

2 Hot.

Outside this week.

2 Many answered prayers.

For me to deny that God really is faithful. I remember one meeting probably over a year ago where we looked at the story of the Isrealites escaping Egypt. The Lord, delivering these people from a life of slavery, performing miracle upon miracle, and it would seem that the Isrealites would almost instantly forget the Lords provision, and start to worry and complain…worry and complain..doubt and worry…complain. Mom talked about building a monument to remind us of the miracles, so we would never forget.

2 different temperatures.

..Coming out of the fosits at atangard, but not together. plumbing needs repair, and its a messy situation with years of (fill in the blank) patch up jobs.

2 be afraid.

The unknown stares us in the face and paralizes us. I have these feelings sometimes…they are fearful ones. They visit a lot of us and can cause us to loose hope, or sanity…or sleep or all of the above. They are not from God. How do I know what is from God? And what is reason or practicality or caution? What THOUGHTS (fears) do I tolerate and entertain? As a human, I like something tangable. Why do i forget the bible so easily?

2 entertain 2 long.

I may start to believe the lies. If I believe that God desires me (us) to do greater things then He did on earth, thats going to take a lot of faith. (our battles not against flesh and blood (” “))

2 be authentic.

I don’t want to pretend. I also don’t want to stay in the same place for the rest of my life. stagnancy is sad and boring if you desire to grow up. ..and frustrating as hell.

2 arrive.

That would be nice.

2 build a monument.

A mental monument perhaps? A memory that is in my heart. Of God putting a dream in his childrens hearts and then, in His wisdom and timing, carrying it out to fruition. And using the different gift and abilities of a bunch of underqualified, unexperienced, some very uneduacted, frightened, willing, generous, driven, modivated people, who were hungry for change…to do you know what…or maybe you don’t, im not sure I know…(but He will not delay). I don’t believe that God would bring us to the point of birth and not deliver.

2 Partner with Christ.

To have Christ as a partner? Like a real relationship? We would do stuff together? Make dicisions together? I’de have to really trust Him. and know Him, Ide have to want to spend a lot of time getting to know Him.

2 have “Half baked” next to you when you wake up.

Our little ceramic owl friend was designed in a way that makes him look a little stoned, as his eyes are half shut. We filled him with coffee grinds and his little twin has a flourishing peppermint plant growing from him. They will be moving with us into the atangard.

2 be content but not complacient.

2 learn to spell.

2 learn to love God.

2 enjoy life.

2 be thankful.

Today I want to simply remember what kind of God I serve. Faithful one.Trustworthy. Fearless. All knowing. Compassionate. passionate. generous. Extravagent. powerful. Dependable. Merciful. Gentle.

1cor 2:9 (scattered all through out my journal over the years, I think i was trying to make myself believe that life one day would be exciting)

Tess

It is my birthday, so perhaps that is the reason for my nostalgia, but I miss those days which will never be again…. the days of anticipation for a time we thought would never come and now we are so close I can taste it. Memories of huddled bodies in the Deck, knee to knee, speaking of life in ernest tones, laughing long, pouring out our souls before God and man…… Things I use to dream about are becoming my waking days and etherial visions are becoming tangible realities. As much as I relish this new found concreteness to the vision, I miss the last two years of plans and prayers, conversations and consultations.
I remember people who have flowed through our lives as supporters and constructive critics telling us the should’s and shouldn’ts …. sometimes we listened taking their comments to heart; holding them molding them until we understood what it would take to do this. The Others’ we considered thoughtfully and thoroughly and then with a resounding “We shall overcome!”…. overcame, but not on our strength alone.
Many hands make light work and they have, as people invested in rebuilding this place they were also developing community and a sense of place. Whether they live at the Atangard or not they have spent a part of themselves here and it will always remain with them and them in it. They will always be welcome because they have never really left.
The cost has been great… I know this especially for Dave and Sophia and the entire Suderman family. Our lives are short and how we invest the time we have is important, I am glad they have decided to invest it here. I am happy to invest with them as much as I can and I thank God frequently and vehemently that I can count them as friends. The people in this world as amazing as them are few….. So few in fact that it is a wonder that this project is surrounded by so many like minds, like spirits; and each new person I meet adds to the sum of the parts exponentially more than they could alone. The building is already physically more magnificent than I had imagined before we started it’s transformation and though I do not know what the community will look like, if the renovation is any indication it will be more than my words here could describe.

dan

Ok, no one else is posting so it’s me again…you’re just all going to have to deal with it 🙂

So it seems to me, through different conversations I’ve had with people and my own experience, that some of us are going through a time of difficulty, darkness, death (or whatever other d-word you want to insert here). I wanted to share a portion of a journal entry that, perhaps, is a relevant reflection (no juicy self-disclosures…too bad). So here it is:

“So many of us are in darkness, hiding from ourselves, hiding from others. We just can’t handle seeing ourselves honestly. But as we fight this exposure, this dissolving of the character that we’ve pretended to be, you absorb the blows of our monsters as you continue to woo our vulnerable souls. You continue to invite that simple playful child into the light of the world.

We have to listen to that invitation over and above the many voices around us that say that our souls are not welcome in this world, the voices that say it is not Ok to be as we are. Jesus, enable us to hear your song and for our souls to respond and burst forth into the glorious light.

As the cross represents the full-extent of our ego’s activities, our fears, our self-protection that ends up doing violence to others, so the resurrection represents the soul’s, the child’s victorious entrance into the world. That after all of our violence, all of our rejection of love, all of our reliance on our own self-protection, all of our pride, after all of this, the resurrection declares that despite all, he has still chosen to welcome the soul into the world. As the cross represents the painful death of our own efforts, the death of our images, our self-righteousness, so the resurrection represents the coming to life of that which is deepest within us, the glorious deliverance into a place where we are finally free to live as we’ve longed to live, beyond the fears and restrictions that lock up the soul.

But the cross precedes the resurrection so that we might know that we did not attain this through our own efforts, that we might experience the full-extent of His love. The full extent of His love was shown at the cross because it was in the midst of the full-extent of our violence. Jesus knows that we will only be able to rest in His love when we experience first our crosses then our resurrection. We can rest because we know that all we did was sin and the gift was still given to us. So often we can’t rest in the love of those around us because we know that we have earned it, or manipulated it. Jesus is wise in allowing us to come to the end of our ability to manipulate his love–and He does this for our sake, so that we might rest deeply in him, finally relax in love.”

Anyway, there it is…a short, as always, reflection that may or may not make sense.
Mark