Grace grows in winter

Grace doesn't grow in the springtime. Grace grows in the winter, when everything's dead, when life is the brown sludge beneath your rubber boots.

It comes as a surprise.

We talk about life as having seasons. In the spring, life is born. In summer, it's sustained. In fall, it starts dying and by winter, it's dead.

But what if that's not how it works at all? Maybe life is always about dying. Maybe it's about repeatedly dying to our worldviews, our theories, our ways of doing things, our attitudes, our agendas, our impatience, our sins.

I think the seasons of life take place between October and December. In October, we start dying, but not to the right stuff. We die to the good we've always known. In October, we sin.

Then by November, we've killed God. We have sinned enough to shut him out, to no longer care. We've let sin creep in, settle on our sofas and stay awhile.

In November we think we're screwed.

So we started messing around in October, now we're deep into this new way of living. It's easy to be short-tempered; it's easy to walk past you. We've become different people. We used to be, by the grace of God, patient people. Now look who we are.

Hope: it's gone. The trees stay green forever.

But in December, Grace grows unexpectedly. Up from the ground, under your feet, through the snow, through the dirt, through the frozen ground, Grace grows.

Thank God.

You don't need Grace in the summer when all is well. You need Grace when things couldn't possibly get any worse.

--

I wrote Late October first, while reflecting on sin -- my own sin -- and how it seemed unconquerable. A week or so after, I wrote Late November and Late December while plotting a way out of sin. I want a way out. I'm close.

It's been fall for a long time; now it's winter, and I've seen sprouts of Grace.

In the past week or so I've posted two of the three poems in this series. Here's the complete collection including Late December, my poem on Grace.

--

Late October

Late October

and the Norway maple hasn’t turned

red or orange or whatever color

Norway maples turn.

Today

and tomorrow:

an endless cycle of green

and green and green

and green and green.

Through the window

the masochists

slit their wrists,

crying but with bliss.

Late November

Late November

and God is dead

like the maple trees and the leaves

falling out of them.

I did it

with a handful of the

foliage of God, yanking leaves

one by one by one by one

—just so I know he’s gone:

he’s dead.

God haunts still,

like apparitions, and

he howls through crooked

branches, waving:

Hi, I miss you.

Do you miss me?

Late December

Late December

and grace grows

like heaths. It is the

dead of winter,

yet grace grows in the dead

leaves crushed to the ground

and stomped upon,

with booted feet,

crushed into snow

and slush: grey, black,

brown.

one by one by one by one

3.
Late November
and God is dead
like the maple trees
and the leaves falling
out of them.

You did it
with a handful of the
foliage of God, yanking leaves
one by one by one by one
—just so you know he’s gone:
he’s dead.

God haunts still,
like apparitions, and
he howls through crooked
branches, waving:
Hi, I miss you.
Do you miss me?

Relationships are always in flux

I told Nate I've forgotten how to write prose--perhaps I have. I've been writing poetry a lot lately, mostly for class, and I've written a lot of news stories. I haven't had time to write creative prose. This blog may seem disjointed, probably because I'm out of practice, or because my thoughts are so disjointed.

--

What have I been thinking about lately? Sin.

I almost wrote a sin blog a few weeks ago, but I haven't found the time. Even now, even on fall break, I know I should write a lit. analysis or a four-page paper on Saladin instead of blogging--but I need to blog. I have to blog.

So. Sin.

I used to try to narrow all my petty sins back to a bigger, more internal sin. Usually I got it back to pride or selfishness. I think that's true.

What was Eve's sin? She took the fruit from the snake. How was that a sin? She disobeyed God. Why did she disobey God? She thought he was holding back something from her, something she needed. She was insecure. She was selfish.

What I hate about sin is how unavoidable it is. Christ says stuff like "things that cause people to sin are bound to come." You think you're clear of sin: things like lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, gossip? You get all haughty and proud. Good job: you just sinned.

I hate that God's standard for sin is so broad: "Whoever, then, knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." I should eat low fat yogurt instead of this chocolate chip cookie ... ah, what the hey. It's the weekend. Whoops, you just sinned.

I hate how sneaky sin is. Thrice (yes, the band Thrice) describes sin as a lion and a wolf. You try to keep the big sins out, but the little sins sneak in without noticing like a wolf in sheep's clothing. (Or, I think of Little Red Riding Hood.) Those little sins let the big sins in the door.

The wolf, he howls
The lion does roar
The wolf lets him in
The lion runs in through the door
The real fun begins
As they both rush upon you and
Rip open your flesh
The lion eats its fill and then
The wolf cleans up the mess


I hate how much God hates sin. George MacDonald said whatever comes between us and God must be destroyed with fire.

--

Here's my question, theologians, when you're stuck in sin, how do you get out? If you tell me that to be a Christian I must live a God-honoring, righteous, sin-less, "blameless" life, how do I stop sinning? Is it just my decision? Is it willpower? Is it God? Can the Holy Spirit stop me?

What if prayers aren't answered? What if the cycle of addiction never stops? What if I can't overcome, what if I let sin win, what if I have to give in, what if I'm tired of fighting, what if I no longer care?

You Calvinists say I'm fine.

You Armenians say I'm going to hell.

When will I remember that life is a series of troughs and peaks, summits and nadirs? When will I remember that my relationship with God, like all relationships, is in flux?

In Comm. Theory we talk about Relational Dialectics which states that truth: relationships are always in flux. There are times when everything seems to be perfect, this is called the "aesthetic moment." It never lasts. 

So my aesthetic moments with God are few and far between.

But we're okay.

(God, we're okay, right?)

--

At least there's hope.
Believe it or not: there is some.

"There's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

And,

"But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end."




Ezekiel

and green and green and green ...

II.
Late October
and the Norway maple hasn’t turned
red or orange or whatever color
Norway maples turn.

Today
and tomorrow:
an endless cycle of green
and green and green
and green and green.

Through the window
the masochists
slit their wrists,
crying but with bliss.

--

Author's note: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come" [Luke 17:1a]. If only they weren't.

"Sinai," from George MacDonald: an Anthology, p. 4

"[God] is against sin: insofar as, and while, they and sin are one, He is against them--against their desires, their aims, their fears, and their hopes; and thus He is altogether and always for them. That thunder and lightening and tempest, that blackness torn with the sound of a trumpet, that visible horror billowed with the voice of words, was all but a faint image ... of what God thinks and feels against vileness and selfishness, of the unrest of unassuageable repulsion with which He regards such conditions."

--

Lauren's thoughts: It's odd thinking that God is both for and against us. He's against the sins we're tangled up in; he's against our innate drive for self-gratification, for hunger over restraint. But because he is against that, he's for us. He wants a Lauren - he wants a you - purged from sin.