December

This is my December
This is my time of the year
This is my December
This is all so clear
This is my December
This is my snow covered home
This is my December
This is me alone

And I,
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I,
Take back all the things I said
To make you feel like that
And I,
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I,
Take back all the things that I said to you

And I'd give it all away
Just to have somewhere to go to
Give it all away
To have someone to come home to

This is my December
These are my snow covered trees
This is me pretending
This is all I need

And I,
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I,
Take back all the things I said
To make you feel like that
And I,
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I,
Take back all the things that I said to you

And I'd give it all away
Just to have somewhere to go to
Give it all away
To have someone to come home to

This song has a haunting tone to it. If you hear it once, it sucks you in and it holds you suspended in this state of wondering. I think to a certain extent it just cuts the the core of what a lot of people just want, a place to go home to, yes, but even deeper than that someone to come home to. I mean, what is a home? It's more than the four walls that make a room, more than a roof over your head. You can come back to a house, but if the people there are essentially non-existent to you, or if you are essentially non-existent to them, what's even the point?

If you come "home" to a house that is cold and lonely, where you are alienated from the rest of the world around you, it might as well be December, because, the world just seems cold in that circumstance. Ever ounce of us just wants someone to come home to, that is all. St. Anthony of Padua said, "Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone, to have a deep soul relationship with another." Isn't that the truth? The song has it right when it says, "I'd give it all away just to have someone to come home to." Fame, power, money all if it means absolutely nothing without that someone to come home to. As much as we may try to deny it and fight it, deep down, it's what our souls long for. Yet, here I am, this is my December.

Articulate

A sudden sensation has overrun my consciousness. There's this urge deep within me to simply write about this sensation that words just seem to be unable to articulate. It's the sensation of coming home to your best friends who have been anxiously waiting for you, it's the sensation of a warm bed to climb into and fall asleep in, it's the sensation of a difficult good-bye, it's the sensation of being exhilarated by the mere phone call or text from the person who's captured your heart, it's the sensation of drinking a warm cup of coffee with a close friend, it's the sensation of having your heart shattered, it's the sensation of discovering your secret passion that no one else will ever know about, it's the sensation of the loss of a loved one, it's the sensation of a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer day, it's the sensation of crying on the shoulder of your best friend, it's the sensation of getting into the college you wanted to get into, it's the sensation of being aware of everything around you and nothing at all... it's the sensation of falling face down in wonder and awe at all God has done.

Intensification

"Whether or not you claim to be interested in it, from the moment you are alive you are bound to be concerned with love, because love is not just something that happens to you: it is a certain special way of being alive. Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life...We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love–either with another human person or with God." –Thomas Merton "Love and Living"

We are intimately correlated with love, no matter how much we ignore it, or try to avoid it, or talk about how "love is pointless." As much as it may hurt, we really cannot claim to be human or even alive for that matter, unless we give in and allow ourselves to be consumed by this reality that is love. C.S. Lewis said once, "Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to keep it intact, you must give your heart to no one... avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable... The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love... is hell."

I very often fall into the temptation to lock my heart away and not let anyone in. It's safer there, I know that I won't break my own heart, so if I just keep it to myself and not allow anyone else in or put any love out, then everything will be safe. What is that though? I mean, Merton hits the nail on the head when he talks about how we will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love. Falling in love implies such a strange concept, no one ever intentionally falls, we like to stand up straight and walk as confidently as possible, falling just makes us look silly. When you trip and fall, you lose control of everything and it, literally, knocks you on your butt, falling in love is the same way. We lose control of it all, we're knocked flat on our butts, but, is it really all that bad? There's a surrender and a joy that comes along with falling in love and allowing that to happen, when we cut ourselves off from that possibility, whether it be in the context of a romantic relationship or not, we miss out on what life is all about.

Love is the intensification of life, I really like that idea a lot. Jesus says in John 10:10, "I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly." How do we have more abundantly? Through love. How fitting! The Son of God, the Creator of the entire universe stepped off the throne into the confines of time and space to give us life through love... through love! Did love hurt Him? Did it cause Him pain? Yes, in the most tangible way possible, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." –John 15:13. He showed us the way to intensify our lives, and to have it more abundantly. Will we take up the call? Will we love, despite the heartaches that are bound to happen? I want to live my life to the fullest, I want to love and not be afraid of the consequences. Amen.

Empty

"We accept our emptying because we realize that our very emptiness is fulfillment and plenitude. In our emptiness the One Word is clearly spoken. It says, "I will never let go of you or desert you" (Hebrews 13:5), for I am your God, I am Love." -Thomas Merton, "Love and Living"

The idea of emptying has been on my mind and heart these past few days. It seems as if I'm being stripped of everything. I mean, my ministry seems to have been snatched from me, I'm going to be separated from my best friend in the fall, heck, even the classes I'm supposed to be in seem to have been falling through. Why is this all happening to me? I think it's just that God is emptying me. In and through the emptiness, that is when God's Word can be spoken through me. When He empties us, and takes away all of those things that we hold onto so tightly, that's when His message of Love can truly be spread, without our own influences. What sounds better? "I love you through my own depraved nature" or "I love you through God, because, He's all I really have?"

St. Paul talks about being emptied in his letter to the Philippians when he said, "But, even if I am poured out as a libation upon the sacrificial service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with all of you." (Philippians 2:17) Being poured out is a good thing here. Being made empty is what is necessary because, I can do nothing on my own, however, "I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me." (Philippians 4:13). It's this paradox, in our weakness there is strength, in our foolishness there is wisdom, and even in our emptiness, there is fulfillment.

"Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something so that no human being might boast before God." (1 Corinthians 1:27-28)

This emptying is so that there might be no pride in me. Pride is the antithesis of love. How can I love if I'm too busy making an altar for myself? How can I see the goodness of God in others if I only see the falsified goodness within myself? Being made empty for the sake of love, that's what's going on, that's what He's doing in me right now. The pride needed to be taken away, for what end and purpose I still do not know yet. Father, I don't understand You, but I trust you.

Fall

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." -Hebrews 10:31

St. Paul says to the Hebrews that it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God, isn't that counter-intuitive? I mean, sometimes I know I just want to fall into the hands of God and just let Him be in charge of everything and take control. Even this, though, is a fearful thing. When you fall into the hands of the living God, you can't go back, you can no longer be the same person you were, it implies a change. Who knows what that change may be? It's different for each person I suppose. Maybe it's that we need to change our perception of the world, how we see the people around us. Maybe we need to change how we see ourselves. It's hard to let go of those things that we cling onto so hard.

When you fall into the hands of the living God, you need to realize that your life is not your own anymore. He'll lead you to places that are uncomfortable, hard, and will push the limits of what you can't even fathom yourself to be capable of. It's a fearful thing, there's a lot at stake here, we have seemingly everything to lose... but at the same time, we also have everything to gain.


Jeremiah was led by the Lord to the house of a potter where the Lord then told Jeremiah that just as the clay is formed in the hands of the potter, so are the people in his hands. I don't know if you've ever thrown pottery or not, but it's not a pretty process. First you take a clump of clay and literally throw it onto the center of the wheel, from there you cover it in water so that it becomes moldable. From there you thrust your hands into the center of the clay and begin to make an indent, from there you push the sides of the indent and continue to make the crevasse in the center of the piece deeper. You cut the excess clay off with a picking tool and then when it's done you throw it into the fire, after the first fire you glaze it and throw it into the fire again. Think about applying this sequence of events to our hearts. How docile do we need to be? How open do we need to be? How scary is the prospect of having ourselves thrown into some circumstance hard and from there to only have a hole made in our hearts, and then to feel the burn of pain, once, twice, maybe even three times! It is fearful to fall into the hands of God. How scary, how humbling, how liberating! Clay in the hands of the potter.

Simple

"There is only one thing to live for: love. There is only one unhappiness: not to love God. That is what pains me on these days of recollection, to see my own soul so full of movement and shadows and vanities, cross-currents of dry wind stirring up the dust and rubbish of desire. I don't expect to avoid this humiliation in my life, but when will I become cleaner, more simple, more loving?" -Thomas Merton

Why do I allow myself to make things so complicated? I look at situations and relationships surrounding me and I always wonder what the real "agenda" is. Do these people really care for me or are they just humoring me because they feel sorry for me? Is there any truth left in the world? These completely unfounded questions occasionally come to mind and shortly after they enter my consciousness I have to ask the questions, "Why am I even asking these things?"

There is only one thing that matters, love. Love. It seems like such a cliché, but it's true. Why do we get caught up in thinking that there's more? Love is what keeps us going, it's what makes things worth while, it's what gives meaning to everything, nothing would make sense if there was no love. That being said, why can't my love just be simple?

Simplicity is something that I think deep-down we all value. How often do we wish we could go back to the days when things "were simpler" or "less complicated?" I think what I'm beginning to realize is that we make things complicated, we bring it upon ourselves. Love is not complicated, love is simple, because, love is just...give. I have been caught up in this idea of simplicity the past couple of days. Every year at my parish back home we sing "The Love of God" during our celebration of Holy Thursday. A while back, Tom Booth changed the words a little bit and added to the incredible job that Rich Mullins had started, he wrote another verse that goes:

"If our love could just be simple, we could take Him at His word, then our lives would be thanksgiving, and we'd kneel and wash and serve."

If our love could just be simple. If we just simply loved God, how different would our lives be? If we simply loved God then we would just be satisfied knowing that He is God and we are not, and despite this fact, He loves us unconditionally. If that were the case, we would just know, and we would just not want anything more. If we just simply loved each other, how would our perception of others change? Would we see others for "What can I get out of them?" Probably not. If we could just give, give, give our love without restraint...things would be so much simpler. But, unfortunately, that is not the world we live in, people are broken, scared, and selfish. We live in a world where it's not practical to just love without restraint, because then you end up getting hurt. What a shame, but, I know that doesn't have to be the case. If you look at the lives of the saints, they are remembered because they dared to do what no one else felt capable of doing, they just loved, simply.

Panacea

Here we are
Here we are
The broken and used
Mistreated, abused
Here we are

Here You are
Here You are
The beautiful one
Who came like a Son
Here You are

So we lift up our voices
We open our hands
To cling to the love
That we can’t comprehend

Oh, lift up your voices
And lift up your heads
To sing of the love
That has freed us from sin

He is the one
Who has saved us
He is the one
Who embraced us
He is the one who has come
And is coming again
He’s the remedy

Here we are
Here we are
Bandaged and bruised
Awaiting a cure
Here we are

Here You are
Here You are
Our beautiful King
Bringing relief
Here You are with us

So we lift up our voices
And open our hands
Let go of the things
That have kept us from Him

He is the one
Who has saved us
He is the one
Who forgave us
He is the one who has come
And is coming again
He’s the remedy


Oh, I can’t comprehend
I can’t take it all in
Never understand
Such perfect love come
For the broken and beat
For the wounded and weak
Oh, come fall at His feet
He’s the remedy
He’s the remedy

So sing, sing

You are the one
Who has saved us
You are the one
Who forgave us
You are the one who has come
And is coming again
To make it alright
Oh, to make it alright
You’re the remedy
Oh, in us
You’re the remedy

Let us be the remedy
Let us bring the remedy

Here we are, the broken and used, mistreated abused, and we're completely helpless here. What a phenomenal concept! Just like the blind beggars in the gospels, we're here, abused, broken, and just completely falling apart and how often do we just accept it? How often do we just take the day to day grime and say simply, "That's life?" We're stuck in this darkness and we don't even realize it half the time, yet, here we are. We're in desperate need of a remedy, something to save us. I'm just so entangled in this concept of being broken, bruised, and sick and in dire need of Someone Higher than me to bandage me up and save me.

In John's gospel, Jesus says, "I came so that they may have life and have it more abundantly." -John 10:10. Here He is. He came, saw our desperate need for a Savior and He came here. Can we ever understand His perfect love? Probably not, our view of what true love really is has become so tainted and warped, and yet, He is our remedy. When we love and see through the eyes of Christ, it seems as if, everything is remedied, everything is cleared up, everything takes on a new light. He bandages up our wounds, heals us, and gives us life more abundantly, but what do we do with that? How do we respond to this incredible gift that's been given to us?

"You were called to freedom, brothers. But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love." -Galatians 5:13

St. Paul lays it out there for us. Our Lord gave us this freedom, he bound up our wounds and has made us whole and now it's our turn to serve one another through love. Yes, our love is supposed to imitate and point towards the ultimate Healer. Through this service to one another, that is how we can show our appreciation for all that has been done for us...

Let us be the remedy...