'ordinary radical'

things have been exciting in my life. i feel the change happening in my insides but there is still so much more. there always will be of course.

so many pages have been turned and i feel like i'm on the border of starting a sequel to the first book. the first one deals with the silliness of being a hard headed kid who doesn't want to listen to any wisdom from others looking in, the growing, the heartache, and drama of highschool. a story of shame. discontentment. and never measuring up. as the first book ends it's almost showing the peak of the sun through a pinhole. the second book will be one of redemption of breaking down the 'great' wall that has had bricks added to the heights of it all through the past years. they were all those walls that sometimes i could try desperatly to climb over but i would be so physically and emotionally exhausted by the time i reached them that the majority of the time i would come tumbling heavily to the the rocky bottom. other times if i did make it over the wall than i would be so incredibly exhausted that i wouldn't be able to fulfill the reason i climbed over it in the first place and i'd just end up building a new wall on the other side.

i'm reading a new book i got. 'the irresistible revolution' ... wow ... i can tell this ones going to be a changer. oy. here's some excertps.

"I don't know if you've read the Bible, and if you haven't, I think you may be in a better place than those of us who have read it so much that it has become stale. Maybe this is why Jesus says to the religious folks, "the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you" (Mayy. 21:31). For me, it became hard to read the Bible and walk away as if I had just watched a nice movie. Jesus never seemed to do anything normal. How about the fact that his first miracle was the old turning-warer-into-wine thing to keep a party going? (Not a miracle that would go over well in some Christian circles.) And there's that time Jesus' friends leave him on the shore. If we had been in Jesus' shoes, some of us might have yelled for them to come back. Others might have jumped in the water and swum out to the boat. But Jesus just steps on the blessed water (Matt. 14:22-26). That's nuts. It scares his friends to death. Or take healing a blind person, for instance. I've seen people gather around and lay hands on the sick. Others anoint people with oil. But when Jesus wants to heal a blind guy, he picks up some dirt off the ground, spits in it, and then wipes it on the dude's eyes. (John 9:6). That's wierd. No one else did that. Can you imagine the other religious leaders? "Rabbi, could you hack me up a holy loogie?" Not a chance. No one else did stuff like that. Only Jesus would be crazy enough to suggest that if you want to become the greatest, you should become the least. Only Jesus would declare God's blessing on the poor rather than on the rich and would insist that it's not enough to love just your friends. I began to wonder if anybody still believed Jesus meant those things he said."

Here's one I've been asked many times as well. . .and was wowed when I read this. It just smacked me on the head...real hard.

"I remember hearing about an old comic strip back in the days of St. Ed's. Two guys are talking to each other, and one of them says he has a question for God. He wants to ask why God allows all of this poverty and war and suffering exist in the world. And his friend says, "Well, why don't you ask?" The fellow shakes his head and says he is scared. When his friend asks why, he mutters, "I'm scared God will ask me the same question." Over and over, when I ask God why all of these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, "You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet."

This is true. And I'm ashamed. But really be ashamed is not going to do a thing. So, I will act on it. One step at a time asking Dad to lead me in ways that this earthly, boxed in mind of mine could not think of on it's own. I want to be uncomfortable. And to be honest, even thinking that thought and typing those words scare me. But I want it. And I know there's going to be tears and perhaps some serious reluctance on my part. But just think...Oh, just think.