a beautiful mess

“Ooo. A stick!” – Owen Heap

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when walking the sun-dappled greenway, his not-quite-two year old heart can barely take it no more and he is drawn to another one of life’s most treasured and unique oddities: a stick.

he will collect all sorts of sticks during a two mile expedition. occasionally, he’ll stop to look at a flower or a caterpillar – but then something of triumphant value catches his eye and all attention is diverted to: a stick.

and my goodness! the amount of sticks this boy can cram in between his little hands and arms is astounding. just when you think he couldn’t possibly manage to hold them all while bending down to gather one more, he manipulates his pinky finger, focuses every ounce of energy and raises one more lonely stick from the cold earth from which it came. well, it’s not really all that dramatic, but it is pretty crazy.

so just yesterday this whole scenario, all of this dramatic stick-collecting and stick-raising activity, is happening like normal. and something for some reason, i blame it on the wind, causes my mind to make a correlation. this actually happens quite often if i am paying attention. and the correlation was between earth and heaven. basically, this is all a rambling way to say that i found a living object lesson unfolding in front of me.

and it was this: owen takes such great delight in collecting his sticks – perhaps he should, they represent, to him, a number of different mysterious things worth collecting! but truth be told: they are dead.

and in sort of a strange way, i watched him with this lens: walking around being drawn to and collecting little shards of death.

instantly i was struck with waves of questions:

is that an image of my life/my local church?

how often are we drawn to what we think is wildly full of life, but in the end, we look down to see our hands grasping: a stick?

how much of our life collection, so to speak, which is being held so close to our hearts is made up of old, dead fragments of lifeless ideas/traditions/beliefs?

are our lips near to GOD but our hearts far from GOD because we begin collecting and cherishing dead things? or do we begin to be drawn to the sticks of life when we become fluent with our mouth but foul with our heart? or is it a sad combination of both?

[selah]

but alas! before he becomes completely absorbed with his little lifeless wonders, i am able to convince him that we don’t need to take all the sticks home: certainly, there is an abundance of dead sticks to be found: what is wanted, my son, is life.

wait, was that what GOD said to me or what i said to owen or…? haha.

oh that we would put down our idols – and what many, many varied idols we have. oh that we would let go of the death we clutch between our hands.

what idols? you say. behold, the socio-politico-religio-relational idols. yes, even the ecclesiastical idols. the employment idols. the idols of security. of identity. of love or hate. of life or death. of want or need. every lie dressed up as truth. may they all be shaken and seen for what they are: death collecting death upon our hearts.

what are we holding on to? what are you holding on to?