This place is a rehab

My sister spent a few years working at a rehab clinic in Plymouth, called "High Point". She earned a degree in drug addiction counseling while in college, and for some reason saw it fit to actually put this to use healing people who most often don't want to be healed. Most of her stories of the people inside were vaguely amusing, yet often disturbing. She always came back to one shocking point though; these people are not imprisoned. They are not ordered into the institution, but rather they must enter at their own free will. They can leave anytime they want, but they know that this will never solve their problems. They know deep down that no matter how much they push help away, they originally walked through the doors with the intention of seeking some sort of assistance. Now, I have never considered myself addicted to a drug or any substance for that matter, except of course for my passionate and unending love for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Yet I find the situation that these people enter into remarkably similar to some important aspect of my life.

This faith, this love, this way of life that I call Christianity, is the Great Rehab. As humans we have become addicted to ourselves. We have let greed, money, lust, and power overtake our abilities to behave like rational normal human beings, to behave the way God has intended. Our bodies have been transformed from gloriously warm temples into nothing more than cold damp rooms in which the spiritual bacteria that seeks to infect us may thrive and spread. We are diseased, and we must come to the realization that we need help. That is the first step; admission.

So what must we do now, in our greatest time of need? The answer is simple, we must seek out He who is an expert in the field of spiritual depravity. The only way I know how, the way that worked for me and therefore the one I must offer up to you, is to enter the Christian faith. Now, you must not enter into this 'rehab' expecting to be surrounded by the reformed. Do not be shocked when you see the faces of those tormented by the same addiction, a face that is often too familiar to bear. These are not saints and martyrs you will become to know as your family, but human beings just the same as you and I. You will find that each person will want to sit and tell you their own story, to witness to you the great changes that the Counselor makes in their lives every day. Listen long enough, and you will begin planning regularly scheduled visits with Him. He will sit with you, one on one, as if you are the only person on the face of the Earth. In his comforting words and solid advice you will find the foundation in which to rebuild your spiritual life. You will see how for so long human beings have been raised to believe a lie, to believe that we are simply "doing our best" in a messed up world. He will show us the blatant truth; that this is a horrendous lie, and that we have the capability for so much more.

Now, you may begin to enjoy these sessions so much that you may never want to leave. For a while, this is a good thing. You spent your whole life living only for yourself, so you owe a certain amount of time to the One for which you must truly exist. You will find yourself enjoying the company of the patients more and more. Looking out the window may begin to instill a sense of fear in your heart. I believe that this a completely natural feeling, yet one that Christ wants us to overcome. You must spend your time being rehabilitated, but you must remember why you entered in the first place, so that you could bear the trials of the outside world. You must walk through those sanitized walls, past all that feels safe to you, and enter into the cold of the night. And now, as if coming from a foreign planet, you will see the world in a different light. A place of both pure beauty and pure horror. With the right intention, this place has the capability to mirror heaven. That was Eden, and we gave that up for a drug called 'Power'. You will see the ambling of misplaced and confused souls as they walk the city streets. You will see the lack of color, the pale skin that represents disease in its early stages. Now, isn't it a wonderful gift that we have been equipped with the ability to offer the same help back which was once offered to us? We have the gift to bring these people back inside with us.

Now, I do not want people to have the impression that salvation through Christ is something which you can accept or throw away. It is one or the other. When you enter into this 'rehab', you never truly leave. I supposed a more correct analogy would be that you must frequently look out the door for people outside, waving them in with a smile. You show them the colour and warmth from inside that sharply contrasts the reality of the world. After that, it is up to God. All you have is your stories and your experiences to share, and you must hope and pray that they are enough. You must not become upset when people never even reach the stage of admittance. That is the danger of the most powerful drugs. They destroy not only the body, but also the mind. Clear thinking turns into clouded deceit. We would all agree that to look upon someone in their deepest stages of heroin addiction is a troubling site. Yet, how much more disturbing is it to witness those hopelessly addicted to the world?

Lucky for them, there is a place where the doors are always open, and where the Counselor always has time to share a few words with them. It is a place of both freedom and constraint. A place which I may choose to walk away from, yet a place I would never want to leave.

Strength of Solitude

Tonight while I stepped outside and enjoyed the pleasures of a fine clove, the cold winter air brought a chill of excitement to my rosy cheeks, and I spent a fair amount of time just walking and talking to God. It was then that the great realization that I was all alone became beautifully clear to me. I felt compelled to write on the idea of solitude, and its great importance in the drama of life.

Now, I realize that this is in sharp contrast to my last post on friendship, but at the same time I feel it is always important to remember how imperative it is that we spend time apart from the world, and in a blissful union with the Lord. Now, that is not to say that such things as conversation and companionship are irrelevant in the eyes of God. To make such a claim would be a heinous insult to the very fabric of human existence that has been so blissfully woven by His hands. When speaking of God, we must always remember that He has created all things with the hope that the outcome may be love towards Him. Is that not the very reason why man was first created? We were created in His image not to be autonomous machines, not to be mere functioning devices, but to be creatures capable of expressing the benevolent love that makes up every molecule of His being. Now, we see examples of this love displayed in almost all genuinely good aspects of human life. The strength of it expressed in a relationship with a good friend is what I wrote of in my earlier post. Tonight, however, I hope to discuss the Love that is feel is often vastly more important, yet largely overlooked.

This love, of course, is found in our solitude. Even when in church, surrounded by a fellowship of like-minded Christians, God affects us so because we sit alone. When we drive to work, or to the store to get groceries, or simply when we walk down an empty street, this is when our connection to God is often at its truest form. I am reminded, as I hope I can always be, of the life and teachings of Christ. As children of God and readers of His new testament, we often focus entirely of the time in which Christ spent with His apostles. The parables, the speeches, the miracles, all these things were done with Christ in the company of good men. Yet, what happened after the crucifixion and glorious resurrection was something just as important. At the last supper, before his walk to the mound of Calvary, Christ prepared his brothers for the trials ahead of them. He told them to take any charity that came their way. Instead of being adorned simply with His word and the Holy Spirit, he advised them also to walk steadfast with armor and shield. He warned them that they would be hated by the world, rejected by men just as He was, but that none of that would ever matter, as they would always be smiled upon by His Holiness. In essence, he was preparing them for the time in which they would walk alone.

The apostles eventually split up and preached the wonders of the new kingdom to all the lands of Abraham. It is a gift that they would carry with them to their very deaths. This gift is the same one that continues to be offered to every man and woman willing to accept and open it. It is like a present whose wrapping never ceases to end, each layer discarded reveals another beautiful shade of paper that burns the senses and enlightens the mind. We unwrap this gift much as children on Christmas morning. Our loved ones sit around us, watching, happy just to bear witness to the process. We shred apart the paper with full knowledge that what we asked for all along is nestled deep inside. Yet unlike our childhood gifts, we must realize that as human beings this gift is far too luminescent, far too marvelous for our eyes to bear witness to. We are then left with only one choice; to leave our loved ones, retire to some secret place, and continue the process of unwrapping.

And this, my friends, is solitude. This is our time of devotion. We come to layers of paper too strong for us to tear. Perhaps some string, or some ribbon proves too resilient to our fragile hands, and it is only God who can help us to tear it open. Yet even when He sits right by our side and guides or hands through this, He is always whispering in our ears that the present has already been given to us. It is His pain and His heartbreak that far too often we forget this. Do not be mistaken, however, this does not mean He would ever wish us to stop unwrapping. For just as a parent watching their child on Christmas morning, God watches us in the process, and the joy and wonder he sees in our eyes helps Him to remember that though rebels we may have become, sons and daugters we shall forever be.

On Friendship...

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

-C.S. Lewis

When I take time to look at all of the amazing things God has blessed me with, none shine truer than the people whom I have grown to know and love as friends. It is these people, as Lewis said, that grab your arm when you fall and help you up. They are not, in a literal sense, essential to our survival on this planet, but much like a good book and a cup of tea, they bring supreme comfort and relaxation in a world so monotonously plagued by worry and anxiety. True friendship is not going to the mall with someone, or sitting next to them in a movie theater. Friendship is not defined by what is done and said, but rather what is equally understood by both parties. The best friends I have are the ones with whom I can sit in silence with, marveling at a world so beautifully broken, and never feel the need to utter a single word. It is this deep connection, this state of simply being fulfilled in the presence of another human being, that brings the love of God from places seemingly unreachable into the very core of my heart.

But what happens when one finds themselves walking the paths of life without a companion, without someone to carry the latern and illuminate the path? Rest assured that the light of God is far more powerful than what any man can carry, but at that moment, does that notion ever feel securing? I look back on what I refer to as the 'dark times' in my life, and I attribute most of my depression to the absence of a faith, the asbence of God. Truth be told, however, it was the rejection of my peers that dealt such a crippling blow to my self-esteem. I often felt like Chihiro in Spirited Away while wandering the halls of my school. The classrooms were filled not with students and teachers, but rather with strange spirits whose maneurisms I could never hope to understand. I ran in desperation, trying to persuade myself that this was all a dream, hoping to find something real and tangible that I could call my own. In retrospect, I see now how foolish I was. I blamed everyone for not accepting me, never noticing that I wasn't really giving them anything to accept. I was much like a mason building a brick wall, always trapped behind his work. Every so often, someone would remove a brick, peer in, and wave. Frantically, I would get to work replacing the brick, filling in the whole that genuine human kindness had so easily created. Sure, I still have some bricks there, but I often feel like I have retired, in a sense. My hands are tired and calloused from meticoulsly removing the wall, brick by brick. Every new hole created brings a smiling face into view, and I realize that all this hard work has not been done in vain.

So now I am left with two options; to focus on the time I may have wasted, or to simply sit and revel in the pure goodness that can eminate from even one cherished friend. While sitting in a warm living room, surrounded by people so close that the word family is incapable of describing their vast importance to me, I see that it was never really an option at all. Thank you all and God bless!

Beginning

So this is my official first post on my Blogger account. I have found myself enjoying the act of blogging more and more as of late, so I decided to create an account. Eventually I hope to move to my own page, with my own design. For now, though, I will be posting blog entries at this site. Don't rely on a regular posting schedule, as I will most likely be writing whenever I feel inspired. Thanks for visiting, and keep checking back for more entries.