{ you're the target that i'm aiming at }

"target"... arrow ... cupid ... (cherub .. chubby?) ... valentines day ... eww.

in honor of this "eww"-ness, today i am reflecting on sin : D ba ha ha.


actually, i started this inner dialogue earlier this week. today just seems like the right day for the thoughts to assemble into letters and words and travel down my arms, through my fingers, to these keys, on this screen.

so, last weekend i went to this stupid complimentary training session. my trainer for the hour, among other things [i.e. handsy], was ... enthusiastic. after telling me my physique was "acceptable," he encouraged me to abide by a plan that i can only describe as a legalistic version of the religion of fitness. i admit, he was rather convincing. for a moment i actually believed my new life goal should be to have a BMI of 15%. when the session was over, i got my things and headed out. he stopped me, "wait, are you finished?" um. yes. "yeah. i've got a Bible study to get to." "oh, so you're one of those religious types."

i noticed him trying to catch my eye during subsequent work-outs. this kind of weirdness is interpreted by most ladies as creepy. i thought i had successfully managed to convince him that i was un-interruptible. [i felt pretty confident about my shoulder presses]. i was walking out of the facility when i saw him out of the corner of my eye... and he was moving towards me. then he said hi. then he walked with me to the door. then he cornered me. and started to ask me about church.

i said a little- just enough to answer his questions, not enough to invite more conversation. then he started to tell me about his beliefs. fair enough, [although the context of a 24 hour fitness was unexpected]. he told me that he had grown up Catholic, went to a protestant/evangelical church in his young adult life, and now as a 50(?) year old, he has found something new and "amazing." I don't remember the specific names of the people, books, or movements ... maybe miracle something ... but I do remember him saying that in this new spirituality of his he has found the truth: "church wants us to believe that we are separate from God when really we are one with him." [oh boy.] "God is love ... all that stuff they say about sin ... why would God create us to sin? God is perfect!" [oh no.] "I mean, it's so great! It all makes sense! God loves us!" it was the wrong time for me to say anything other than, "i'd love to hear more about it sometime," which was true. i want to hear what this spirituality of his is, because it says something about what he is looking for and what he needs.

my immediate afterthought was, "we [people] don't get sin." lately, God has been answering a prayer i said years ago, asking him to "pull back the covers to reveal my other [figurative] lovers." He's been dealing with me. He's been exposing what my heart seems to lust after like an adulterous wife. He's been meeting me, as i sit in a newly humbled posture. He's been loving me.

I think that it's possible that humanity can't handle the unrest of the topic of "sin" because we don't get it ... we don't see the full picture. We can see-feel-taste-hear-smell the shame, the void, the darkness. We don't like to sit in this stuff. some rationalize and justify to dissolve the guilt. some wallow in shame so as to at least be honest. my trainer friend decides that sin is an illusion and that we are really one with God ... that we ARE God. I wonder if he's really convinced himself of that. i can't think that he has ... there's too much pain in the world to keep flying in the face of such a farce.

i don't claim to know it perfectly, to live it perfectly, to be perfectly faithful to it ... but i know the answer - the one that even in all of it's mystery can free me from forsakenness.

Jesus.

the reality of sin is horrific.
the reality of Jesus is glorious.

by denying-invalidating-erasing sin, we deny-invalidate-erase JESUS that rushes in like a flood with grace, peace, mercy, fulfillment, joy.

we have to acknowledge the sin
sit with the mess
long enough
for the blood of Jesus to move in
and heal, bind up, purify, to give life

my heart doesn't always feel all of this as a reality. in those times i have to choose faith and hope in the things i "know" cognitively. there are a few moments in my life where it has seemed like the space between me and God wasn so thin that i could almost hear him breathing. One of these times was right in the middle of a pretty dark day [week... month ... semester?] of college. this song came on. and i stopped. it was like i was hearing the words for the first time. it was like they were passing over God's lips and humming in my ears ... kind of like how words sound when your head is resting on someone's chest while they are talking. the song's significance gets deeper and richer with every painful experience: "love to the loveless shown" adolescence?, "your heavy heart is made of stone" college?, "and I'm not gonna take it back, and i'm not gonna say i don't mean that" 2009? With all of the fractured displays of love in this world (sins against us), and the fallout we experience when we royally mess up (sins by us), it is NO WONDER the ache in a heart is stilled at the very possibility that God could love like this - relentless, piercing, reckless, valiant, forever.

so Lord, don't let me hide from the reality of my sin
and don't let me hide from the reality of you.

[disclaimer: "and i'm nothing on my own." God doesn't need us. right. i get it. and at the same time, there's an element of the opposite reality - that God isn't really God if he is not loving His creation. I haven't fully thought this one out yet. let it be in tension, people.] [and happy valentine's day, valentines.]


my song is love
love to the loveless shown
and it goes on
you don't have to be alone


your heavy heart
is made of stone
and it's so hard to see clearly
you don't have to be alone
you don't have to be alone


and i'm not gonna take it back
and i'm not gonna say i don't mean that
you're the target that i'm aiming at
got to get that message home


my song is love
my song is love, unknown
but i'm on fire for you, clearly
you don't have to be alone
you don't have to be on your own


and i'm not gonna take it back
and i'm not gonna say i don't mean that
you're the target that i'm aiming at 
and i'm nothing on my own
got to get that message home


and i'm not gonna stand and wait
not gonna leave it till it's much too late
on a platform i'm gonna stand and sing
that i'm nothing on my own


my song is love, love unknown
and i've got to get that message home

coldplay <3