What is it I hear through the trees
Coming down the mountains like the rushing onset of spring?
And what is brought to me on the wind,
Playing with wisps of hair as it pulls thoughts to my mind?
What is it that squeezes tears from my heart?
It is neigher of sorrow nor joy, but from a faint melody in which I start
to hear the voice of one that I've dreamed of for many days.
Do I imagine it now or will I turn around and gaze
Into soul windows of one with thoughts that speak to mine?
Yet still, I am left to wonder when it will finally be our time.
I could wander the paths that are shortcuts to love,
Waste life giving myself up
These painful paths lead only to ends
Littered with broken hearts trying to beat again.
O Hope, strengthen me to believe
That Patience will someday have its reprieve,
Gird me with the wings of Charity
Until Love be granted me.
And what is it that I hear through the trees?
The music of souls, the music of these things
Which confirm my sometime panging heart to wait,
To trust this song be not in vain.
Then on some morning, noon or night
When the tune of souls is playing kind,
then at one I know the dance will start
For the love that waits in these two hearts.
2-14-01
Monday, April 21, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
a vision of Jesus...
It is very humbling and terrifying to think that one can encounter the divine and live in the grace to tell about it. I know that I can count myself among the skeptics when, upon hearing another speak of hearing God or seeing God, I take a moment to pause and wonder if such encounters are simply of the imagination. Yet, I think there are the times in our own experience that prove to be so profound and so tangible, that no matter what skepticism enters the picture, there is the overshadowing indelible seal of the Spirit confirming that the unexplainable mystery of God has somehow encountered our own time and space.
I have been wanting to make such an entry of my encounter with the broken Christ since last May, and I have felt altogether lacking in my ability to even begin to explain it. Any words seem so inferior, but what makes me begin my effort tonight? I don't know, but nevertheless, I will try.
Last May, I attended a conference at Denver Seminary called the Spiritual Formation Forum. The three day conference was focused on Journeying with Jesus. I was just beginning my own journey into the possibility of what it would look like to become a spiritual director or counselor, so I attended. At this conference, I helped my brother in law lead worship as well.
There are often times that, as much as I feel a passion for leading others in worship, that I ultimately despise it as well. I'm sure this sounds almost blasphemous, but it is true. It is based on the fact that I know our worship here on earth is such a shadow of things to come and I feel that so acutely that I sometimes hate even trying. It feels so lacking compared with the holiness of God. What if we were to even get a glimpse? We would be doing something altogether different that what we do. I am convinced that we would be on our faces in such a holy and spellbinding silence that the world would stand still for just a moment.
Our team led worship the first night and it felt so forced to me. I was nervous, I was so self-focused and nervous as I sang. The second night was when everything changed. Another group led worship, so we were able to just sit with all the others. I sat about half way back and others were clapping along to the music, but my spirit was revolted by it all. I sat there and the last thing I wanted to do was clap or raise my hands and all the worship leader kept saying or yelling was "raise your hands, praise the Lord, dance!", etc. I just couldn't do it and I didn't know why, but I was almost nauseated by it. I began to feel a pull to the back of the room. When I say pull, I mean pull. It was as if some force was telling me to go there and I just followed. I had to get out of the crowd and have some space to just be with God outside of this experience.
As I went closer to the back of the room, I began to watch from the back what we looked like and again, the nausea came back. I began to scream inside "this is all wrong!" It wasn't that the worship wasn't genuine, but it felt so misguided as I watched everyone facing towards the front, towards the worship team, I almost felt like I was watching them worship the wrong thing. This is the best way I can describe it and yet, in that moment, I could not understand what was happening or why. And then the vision came.
In my mind's eye, but as clear as if I'd physically turned around, I had a vision of the back of the room behind me and to my left. I did not turn around, but I could see it and what I saw took my breath away. I saw a man slumped in a chair in the corner of the back of the room against the wall. He was absolutely broken and silent and his clothes were ripped and hanging off of him. His skin was dirty and sweaty and his hair hung down low, sticking to most his face. He sat, dejected and slumped in pain and utterly alone. His arms were limp and his head hung low to his chest, but he was able to barely lift his eyes and he just watched us. As I take time to describe him, it may seem that I looked and observed him for a while, but the opposite is true. It was in the same exact moment that I first took in the vision of him that I recognized him and I knew. It was the Lord. It was Jesus. It was him, there was no doubt and yet the sight of him absolutely shocked me. My breath was gone from my chest, and yet now it was not just in the vision, for I physically could not catch my breath and in a sob I said to him, "Lord, what are you doing here like this? I don't understand this". And yet again, in that moment I felt I did understand because I saw what he was seeing. I wanted to yell at all the people "Stop your noises! He's back here, don't you see him???" But the noise kept on. There was the biggest chasm I have ever felt in what I explained earlier about being unfit for worship.
I began to not be able to contain what I was seeing. It was too much for me to contain the image of his holiness combined with the vision of his brokenness and his poverty and how he was appearing. It was just that. Absolute brokennes and ugliness and yet, he did not lose one fiber of his holiness and beauty. I don't even know how to describe the distinct span of the depth of the Savior that I experienced that night. I ran out of the room and all the way outside completely overwhelmed by it all. It literally felt like my heart was being wrenched out of my chest and then came a gut-wrenching cry that I don't know if I will ever, or if I would ever want to feel that again as long as I live. I felt like he was uniting me to his Passion and I cried "Lord, I can't take this! Why, Lord?"
After awhile, as I somewhat regained my composure, I was able to begin to go back inside. All of this happened unbeknownst to anyone else and so it became all the more overwhelming to understand. I went back into the room and began to listen as the guest speaker, who I was unfamiliar with (both who she was and what she was going to be speaking on) began her talk. It was all I could do to not dissolve again when she said, "tonight, I will be talking to you about recognizing Jesus in the poor and the broken". I knew, I KNEW that I had seen and encountered our beautiful savior, revealed in all his brokenness.
I still have yet to fully understand this, and I'm certain that I never will completely grasp it, but I think of him often in this way and I still feel the pain when I do. Maybe as often as I remember, I also forget as well. But tonight I remember. I remember that I dare not "worship" unless I am worshiping him through the lens of serving the poor and the broken. I realize that I dare not forget the cost of his life for us and the justice he is bringing and calls us to bring. I realize again that I must align my worship in his presence and I must sit at his broken and holy feet and lose every part of me, if only to be found in him. I want to count everything as rubbish compared to knowing him and participating in his suffering.
This was the suffering servant of Isaiah 53...and why would he count any of us worthy to even share in his suffering, much less his glory?
Most often, as tonight, all the words cannot measure the scope of this greatness.
a vision of the Lord.
I have been wanting to make such an entry of my encounter with the broken Christ since last May, and I have felt altogether lacking in my ability to even begin to explain it. Any words seem so inferior, but what makes me begin my effort tonight? I don't know, but nevertheless, I will try.
Last May, I attended a conference at Denver Seminary called the Spiritual Formation Forum. The three day conference was focused on Journeying with Jesus. I was just beginning my own journey into the possibility of what it would look like to become a spiritual director or counselor, so I attended. At this conference, I helped my brother in law lead worship as well.
There are often times that, as much as I feel a passion for leading others in worship, that I ultimately despise it as well. I'm sure this sounds almost blasphemous, but it is true. It is based on the fact that I know our worship here on earth is such a shadow of things to come and I feel that so acutely that I sometimes hate even trying. It feels so lacking compared with the holiness of God. What if we were to even get a glimpse? We would be doing something altogether different that what we do. I am convinced that we would be on our faces in such a holy and spellbinding silence that the world would stand still for just a moment.
Our team led worship the first night and it felt so forced to me. I was nervous, I was so self-focused and nervous as I sang. The second night was when everything changed. Another group led worship, so we were able to just sit with all the others. I sat about half way back and others were clapping along to the music, but my spirit was revolted by it all. I sat there and the last thing I wanted to do was clap or raise my hands and all the worship leader kept saying or yelling was "raise your hands, praise the Lord, dance!", etc. I just couldn't do it and I didn't know why, but I was almost nauseated by it. I began to feel a pull to the back of the room. When I say pull, I mean pull. It was as if some force was telling me to go there and I just followed. I had to get out of the crowd and have some space to just be with God outside of this experience.
As I went closer to the back of the room, I began to watch from the back what we looked like and again, the nausea came back. I began to scream inside "this is all wrong!" It wasn't that the worship wasn't genuine, but it felt so misguided as I watched everyone facing towards the front, towards the worship team, I almost felt like I was watching them worship the wrong thing. This is the best way I can describe it and yet, in that moment, I could not understand what was happening or why. And then the vision came.
In my mind's eye, but as clear as if I'd physically turned around, I had a vision of the back of the room behind me and to my left. I did not turn around, but I could see it and what I saw took my breath away. I saw a man slumped in a chair in the corner of the back of the room against the wall. He was absolutely broken and silent and his clothes were ripped and hanging off of him. His skin was dirty and sweaty and his hair hung down low, sticking to most his face. He sat, dejected and slumped in pain and utterly alone. His arms were limp and his head hung low to his chest, but he was able to barely lift his eyes and he just watched us. As I take time to describe him, it may seem that I looked and observed him for a while, but the opposite is true. It was in the same exact moment that I first took in the vision of him that I recognized him and I knew. It was the Lord. It was Jesus. It was him, there was no doubt and yet the sight of him absolutely shocked me. My breath was gone from my chest, and yet now it was not just in the vision, for I physically could not catch my breath and in a sob I said to him, "Lord, what are you doing here like this? I don't understand this". And yet again, in that moment I felt I did understand because I saw what he was seeing. I wanted to yell at all the people "Stop your noises! He's back here, don't you see him???" But the noise kept on. There was the biggest chasm I have ever felt in what I explained earlier about being unfit for worship.
I began to not be able to contain what I was seeing. It was too much for me to contain the image of his holiness combined with the vision of his brokenness and his poverty and how he was appearing. It was just that. Absolute brokennes and ugliness and yet, he did not lose one fiber of his holiness and beauty. I don't even know how to describe the distinct span of the depth of the Savior that I experienced that night. I ran out of the room and all the way outside completely overwhelmed by it all. It literally felt like my heart was being wrenched out of my chest and then came a gut-wrenching cry that I don't know if I will ever, or if I would ever want to feel that again as long as I live. I felt like he was uniting me to his Passion and I cried "Lord, I can't take this! Why, Lord?"
After awhile, as I somewhat regained my composure, I was able to begin to go back inside. All of this happened unbeknownst to anyone else and so it became all the more overwhelming to understand. I went back into the room and began to listen as the guest speaker, who I was unfamiliar with (both who she was and what she was going to be speaking on) began her talk. It was all I could do to not dissolve again when she said, "tonight, I will be talking to you about recognizing Jesus in the poor and the broken". I knew, I KNEW that I had seen and encountered our beautiful savior, revealed in all his brokenness.
I still have yet to fully understand this, and I'm certain that I never will completely grasp it, but I think of him often in this way and I still feel the pain when I do. Maybe as often as I remember, I also forget as well. But tonight I remember. I remember that I dare not "worship" unless I am worshiping him through the lens of serving the poor and the broken. I realize that I dare not forget the cost of his life for us and the justice he is bringing and calls us to bring. I realize again that I must align my worship in his presence and I must sit at his broken and holy feet and lose every part of me, if only to be found in him. I want to count everything as rubbish compared to knowing him and participating in his suffering.
This was the suffering servant of Isaiah 53...and why would he count any of us worthy to even share in his suffering, much less his glory?
Most often, as tonight, all the words cannot measure the scope of this greatness.
a vision of the Lord.
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