On Relationships

I started reading Brennan Manning’s newest book The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus right before I came back to SC to do my mentoring. I got about halfway through when I had to stop because of the assigned books I had to do for schoolwork. Since that ended about a week and a half ago, I picked it back up and am in love w/ it once again. I have to say that Brennan Manning is one of my biggest heroes and look to him as an unofficial mentor.

I am continually amazed by how there will be something that has been at the forefront of my mind and whatever I am reading will deal specifically w/ that and bring new insights, affirms what I’ve been thinking and feeling, or states it in a much more profound way. Relationships—the importance of them, the impact they have, and the constant struggle to reach out to those who aren’t like “us”—has been a constant on my mind lately and to be honest has not ceased for a long time. It’s always in the mix w/ whatever I’m thinking about—or better yet, analyzing—but sometimes it’s the sole issue. Here are a few things Manning says in the book about how to think like Jesus and be transformed so much by it that every single relationship and/or interaction we have w/ others is affected by something Other:

“To think like Jesus is to experience being loved so completely by God that we are existentially incapable of being other than the children of the Father in Christ Jesus…We cannot contain it bc love by its nature is meant to be shared…Perhaps by nothing more (or less) than our friendship extended to another, a friendship that is real, unselfish, nonproselytizing, w/out condescension, and full of profound respect, we can lead another to discover, ‘I too am loved by my Father in the Lord Jesus’…What a gift we can be to the world when we are transparent answers to their most heartfelt questions! Manning states a few pages later, “If we want to think as Jesus did, we too must break through our illusions of separation from others. While we make a conscious effort to live apart from the worries of the world, we must also recognize that God created a world saturated w/ beauty, lucidity, vividness, and intensity.”

(I’m sorry, but I just have to note that I am in Barnes & Noble right now and just saw a man walking around fully dressed in a Santa outfit—boots, belt, hat, the whole nine! The funniest thing is he is walking around like he’s not even wearing it. I smiled at him and gave him the ol’ ‘what’s happenin’ head nod and he didn’t give any sort of feedback like he didn’t realize what I was giving him props for. I love it! If anything in this day were to go wrong all I have to do is revert back to this moment and realize that the day has already been made and blessed by Johnny-Suit ‘em up-Santa and nothing can take that away. And I digress…)

What will it take for us to be instilled w/ the truth that love by its nature is meant to be shared? And further more, that true love knows no limits and has no restrictions or exceptions? It seems as though so many of us have an innate sense of conditional love. If we are made in the image of God where do learn how to conditionally love? Or maybe I should say when do we unlearn how to love w/ what we were born w/ by the Lover? It’s much easier to love others when we feel loved, but what about when we don’t feel loved? Should Christians ever have this feeling? I want to say not but I have felt unloved. I have felt alone. I feel unappreciated. Why? For the most part, it’s bc I desperately seek human approval and significance. I understand that I am shallow and all too often forget what grace is all about, ceasing to grant it to others bc I have forgotten that Grace granted Himself to me.

My favorite part is where Manning starts out w/ “Perhaps by nothing more…” This has been the greatest truth I have experienced about relationships in my life and especially since being a Christian. Why do we try to “do good things” for others or what is our basic intention in developing a friendship w/ someone at work, school, or wherever? Is it first and foremost to “win them to Christ?” Or is it bc we see Christ in them and are yearning to get to know Him more through them? When we see others as Jesus did, we see in them a loveliness that most aren’t even aware of. When I wasn’t a Christian, I learned most about who Jesus was not by those who quoted Scripture to me or tried to tell me how great Jesus was or even how much he loved me. It was those people who displayed a pure love and interest in me for who I was (and who I wasn’t) that I was able to see that I too am loved by my Father in the Lord Jesus. No strings attached. They never even said anything about being a Christian or talked to me about Jesus, but there was something different about them. The Unspoken spoke to me. He still does.

When we understand that we are the beloved, the gravity we hold on others we come in contact w/ is so great you’d think it was from God….oh wait a second, it seems like that bc it is. There is an unspoken that speaks through our every action. I am not talking about an understanding that is simply a knowledge or acknowledgment of being beloved by Love, but an understanding that becomes the blood flow of our life and our whole being is infected w/ this “beloved truth.” We can’t not love others bc God can’t not love others. That’s pretty cool. Now, in the first “…” of me quoting Manning, he stated, “It is overwhelmingly joyful news, and we become overwhelmingly joyful people bc of it.” So, what he’s saying is that after we become Christian we never have any negative emotions? What about what I was saying in the former paragraph? Should I not have these feelings at all? If other people—especially non-Christians—see me not happy they won’t know I’m a Christian, right? Hardly! This is a problem w/ many Christians today. We are so scared of coming to grips w/ reality and our human frailness that we’ll do everything to cover up our true emotions. Christians are called hypocrites so much bc we most certainly are. We take what Brennan Manning just stated in a way that makes Satan give fist pumps at our emotional roller coaster ride of religious experiences we call Christianity. If you’ve seen the movie Saved, the perfect example is when Hillary Faye gets everyone to start laughing at the lunch table so that Regina will think that Christians can have fun. This sad but true scene begs the question, “What are we trying to prove?” We have become someone we are not trying to entice, or “witness to” others that the Christian life is real and true. Why would we expect anyone to believe that it’s real and true when we’re not being real and true to ourselves and to God? We’ve forgotten we are all made in the image of God and accepted despite our faults and inconsistencies. When we have no concept of this we will cease to see others made in the image of God.

More to come…

A Little Symbolism...

1,000 apologies to my boy Vernon back in the 254 for neglecting to post on my blog for like 20 years and both of my other faithful readers...insert chuckle here...Anyways, I have a myspace account thing since I've been back in SC and have been posting a few things there bc most all of my youth are on that piece. So, here's a little post for my blogspot and I'll do much better w/ posting to this one also.


While riding home from church Sunday I began to think about something that happened to me earlier and then started to analyze it (shocker!) and found it to be a bit symbolic.

As I was walking around The Attic (the youth room) early Sunday morning before any of the youth—or anyone for that matter—were at the church, I noticed something unpleasant about my gray dress pants. I was wearing my gray dress pants, a button down shirt and a tie w/ a navy blue sports jacket. I mean I looked good…really good *wink*! However, at the bottom of where my right pocket is, there was about a 1½ in. tear. Not cool, but no worries bc it was easily covered up by the sports jacket and I’ll just get one of the older ladies in the church to fix it back up for me. I keep on going about my business and some of the youth are coming in when all of a sudden, FUMBLE!! The top button of my sports coat popped right off onto the floor. Alright, now this is getting reediculous. I’m lookin’ all debonair and what not yet I’m falling apart everywhere!

I got up early enough to go for a run, relax and stretch, fix a nice breakfast for myself, get a nice shower, shave, shine my shoes (yes, I still do it bc I’m a loser), put on my pants and make sure my tie and shirt are perfect, put on my navy blue sports jacket while looking in the mirror and grab my Bible on the way out lookin’ good and smellin’ great! I was perfectly dressed, in “my Sunday best.” What a funny statement—“my Sunday best.” I took such great care and concern to make sure I looked “my Sunday best” to go to church and made sure everyone would see me at “my Sunday best.” However, underneath it all, I have rips and tears and my buttons are falling off. Sure, I can cover those rips and tears up w/ something and nobody will see them or even know that they’re there, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re still there. And I know I’m missing a few buttons—as those who know me will agree to that—but I’ll just pick ‘em up off the floor and sew them back on later. That’s probably not gonna be the last button that I lose either. What a ragamuffin I am!

Now, I could go into a whole long discourse about my issues w/ how the church is so intent on looking our “Sunday best” and dressing ourselves up to look all nice when we’re falling apart right before each other’s eyes, yet scared to express it or even let each other—much less admit to our own selves—get a hint that we don’t have it all together. How people will get judged/condemned by others in the church when they do show it even though they’re the ones who know what it’s all about. We sing “Amazing Grace” and yet have no idea what it is or even ever experienced it to know that “amazing” doesn’t even begin to describe grace. I’m not even gonna get into all that.

So, here’s to those who know they are pitiful and have not loved God, others, and their selves, knowing they fail at truly loving, but keep pushing on knowing that True Love never fails. Here’s to those who have come to grips w/ this fact and cry out w/ Paul, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Here’s to the ragamuffins…


“To name is to love. To be Named is to be loved. So in a very true sense the great works which help us to be more named also love us and help us to love.” -Madeleine L’Engle in “Walking on Water”