Tea and government

Yesterday afternoon, I attempted to give Tea another appetite pill because she was still only eating a few morsels of food here and there. She hates these pills and has had a bad reaction most times I have attempted to get her to swallow one. And this time was the same: more frothing at the mouth and twitching and general discomfort but at least no vomiting (for Tea, that is, not for me). I could feel her bony spine and realised that 4 days after she came out of the hospital, we really had not gained much ground at all. Yes, she was much more settled and relaxed, but also very weak and lethargic and not all that interested in food and water. And I was getting pretty stressed out and weepy, yelling at Dean and God and anyone else in range that "I really could use some help here!"

And an hour or two later, something changed. I don't know what happened, but Tea came over to where I was in the kitchen and meowed at me. I took out the cat treats and placed a few in front of her and after she ate them, I placed a few more under her nose. She ate 12 of them and then a few hours later, she ate 9 more. In between, she went over to the cat fountain and drank for awhile. Then she hopped up on a box and scratched at it, displaying curiosity for the first time in over a week. Later that night, she gave a few playful swats at a mouse. And this afternoon she ate regular cat food - twice - though I still have to feed it to her one morsel at a time and sit with her. She is not totally out of the woods yet, but seems to have found a path heading towards the daylight. And I believe, so have I.

I don't like living under stress - it is counterproductive and apparently played some part in getting Tea into this mess in the first place. I have felt more stress in the past month than I have in the past few years, and I don't like it. I have been asking God to help me get rid of it, and these words that I read in Matthew this weekend leaped out at me: "Change your life. God's kingdom is here,"and a little later God's kingdom is defined: "that beginning right now they were under God's government, a good government!" (Matthew 4, The Message). Last night at church, I clearly saw that my stress is a result of my not submitting to God in certain areas.

There is something about submission and putting myself under the government of God that I am missing. I don't really know what the good government of God looks like. I am used to seeing what man comes up with in the political realm and finding it all very inadequate. And then I somehow project what I know about this world's government onto God's way of governing and figure they kind of look the same, but they do not. It is like comparing apples and sky. So, how do I learn about this good governing? I admit that I sometimes find it hard to believe what he says about me (that would be not submitting myself to his words). I know that I am still tied to the expectations of others, culturally and relationally, more than I want to be (that would be submitting myself to the opinions of others instead of pursuing truthful and uncluttered relationships). I know that I still sometimes find my value in how others respond to me and my actions (that would be not submitting myself to the person of Love). These are some of the things that govern me and I don't want them to anymore.

Last night I told God that I give up; I want to submit to his governance instead of every other governance that has been making demands on me and stressing me out. And that includes those demands that I put on myself and sometimes feel from others. It encompasses the cultural and societal and relational expectations in my life as well. I don't know exactly what I am giving up, but I am tired of the stress it causes, so I am walking away from it. Teach me about governing, God. That was my prayer last night.

This morning I had an email inviting me to attend the national gathering of leaders from the Vineyard Churches of Canada as one of the "critical thinkers and influencers...those that...would be integral to the discussion of how to take our churches and our movement forward." I think I am about to start a course in the government of God.

This is a photograph taken from my bedroom window last week - sometimes we see things through a glass that is not too clear.

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun. I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading. One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others). Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding. Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity. In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007. “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’ Consider but a sampling o

comedic timing

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim

outWORD by Matte Downey

Search This Blog