The 300 Pound Pig

I have decided to characterize this time of my spiritual journey as the time of the 300 pound pig. Let me explain. My son and I used to slaughter farm animals for friends and neighbors some years back (those nice packages of pork chops or bacon just don't grow on trees you know). We knew our equipment limitations (scalding tub size, lifting equipment) and were content to kill and prepare 200 to 225 pound pigs. So when a neighbor called late in the season I queried him if the pigs were really the right size. He assured me that they were and off we went. When we pulled up, set up the equipment, got the water to heating we went inside the barn to look at the pigs. These were not your nice 200 to 225 pound piggies, these were 300+ pound porkers. I had my doubts and should have walked away but chose to proceed. I put the first one down and bled it. When it took both of us to drag it out of the barn I should have known we would have problems. When we hoisted it up and it bent my hay hook out straight like an awl I should have suspected it was worse than I thought. When we finally had it up and plopped in the tub and there was literally no room between it and the tub walls (imagine big, big fat person, naked, lying on back in small tub and you get the picture). At that point my son and I bent over the pig with scrapers in hand and he asked the very pointed but obviously belated question, "What do we do now?" Faced with no easy way out I said, "Start scraping", and we did. And we scraped and scraped, and pushed, and prodded, and ached, and swore, and vowed that we would never be suckered into doing this again (even though we knew we had a second monster pig waiting in the barn). But when you are faced with a 300 pound pig and have made the commitment to start, the only way to get through it is to throw yourself at it and keep at it for however long it takes to get through the job at hand. And that is why I feel that where I am spiritually is wresting with that 300 pound pig. I know that there is an end, even if it is not in sight yet, but the only way there is to keep at it.

Halfway through Lent

So it turns out I did have some random thoughts about halfway through Lent. On the fourth Sunday of Lent I dutifully recorded some ideas in my little pocket journal and then promptly forgot them. The first was that we tend to pray in categories. I glean that observation from years of listening to corporate prayers being read in church, or looking at printed prayer lists, or being on phone chains for prayer (now email chains). I don't have all the categories worked out, but I have some. There is the prayers of separation...we have an addiction or a problem or a sickness or a difficult relationship and we want to be free from it, separated once and all. Or it can have a positive spin as well....we sense our separation from something and we want it to be joined back to us. And so we pray or ask for prayer that it would happen. But I wonder if we are putting too much on God and not enough on ourselves or the individuals we are praying for. The writer of Hebrews said we had not yet got to the point of shedding blood in the struggle against sin, but as I have said in the past, many times we are not even willing to break a sweat. Maybe these types of prayer are more about personal choices and facing our own demons and realities. Another type of prayer related to this is the prayer of limitation. We become acutely aware that we cannot do all things well and therefore we pray that God would remove this limitation and make it possible. Maybe we are always short of cash, or overweight, or struggling with our job performance, or unsure in our marriage relationship, you get the idea. And if God would just make that limitation go away everything would be all right. But again those types of demons don't just go out by command or prayer alone, but with much fasting....effort, facing up to shortcomings and challenges, seeking opportunities, doing all that is within our power to prevail.

The second note I jotted down is a quote from Joel 3:14 (the pastor decided to preach through Joel in Lent for some reason). Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! I know that is about end times and all, the days of judgement and such. But what decision are we setting before these multitudes to consider? To follow Jesus, to be born again, to become a church member or even more importantly a member of a committee, to contribute faithfully, to be in attendance on this or that day? I don't see any real good choices being set before us any more by the local congregations. We still seem more concerned about keeping the doors open another year and conducting our business as usual, and the ultimate questions that lead to the important decisions are never broached openly.

Half thoughts from a point halfway through Lent.

Guilty of Neglect

I am once again guilty of gross neglect. Can it really be that more than a month has passed before I wrote anything down about the journey I am on? I will beg your indulgence here and say that it was the fact that Easter Sunday came somewhere in all of that, and work is picking back up, and the demands of life as the snow disappears and yard work appears is greater. But deep inside I know that the real reason is that I did not have anything worth recording. And this is why. In all of my personal spiritual journey I have never felt so unsure of where the heck I am headed. After thirty some years all I have is questions and very few satisfying answers. How does one walk so long holding certain things to be self evident and true, and then suddenly, as if a veil was drawn back, see all of those things in a different light and from a different perspective? In the old days I would have simply been apostate, but what is the difference between an apostate and a seeker? I think they share a lot in common. I am not saying that the old answers are untrue, I am just saying that they don't really answer the questions I have fully and I really have not found a resting place yet where that satisfaction can be found. I guess that's how I know I have not yet crossed that apostate line, I think someone who is apostate asks the questions but finally stops caring about the answers and just leaves it all behind rejecting it wholesale. I need to do something to sort this out, but I am still not sure what that is. More on this later.