Crucified Hearts

Dear Sasha….this will be my open reply to your blog. I write it here to share with others too. (You can read Sasha’s blog here.}

Christmas blessings, again.

Thank you for the mention in your blog today. I am thankful to have met you too. We share in spirit if not in all our interests. As I’ve told you, you’ve inspired me to write more often (to publish it here). I’ve been journaling since 1978, though hardly every day since then. I once wrote a weekly column for a local paper in Somerset, Kentucky, about six months until depression took me to another land. I lived in a small walk-up apartment across the street from the papers office, looking at them out my window, writing on an old Royal typewriter I picked up at a second-hand store. No computer for me in the late 80’s. I went to the editor with some copy, just for some help, and he asked, “So, what do you want, a column?”. Surprise and affirmation in one moment. If only….what could have been?

I write to sort my head, to search for the truth of things, to know myself, to know God, to pray, to share, sometimes to argue, persuade, or learn. I write to find silence before the Lord, to find the humility and love I need for being a giver and not a taker. I write too to stay silent with others, to resist my tyrannical urgency to express my opinion about every thing. Writing exercises and excises my soul. It is a daily circumcision of the heart. At least, I it can work as a personal means of grace, if I am the Lord’s willing servant for the day.

As for my video’s, that they minister calmness to your soul is very satisfying to me. I am as thoroughly Protestant as you are Catholic. Perhaps it is that part of you that finds comfort in my attempts at an unobtrusive yet active spiritual formation.

Last night, as I tried to sleep, my thoughts were filled with meanings and implications for the incarnation of Christ, for the supremacy of Christ in all things. I good way to nod off and dream.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it….He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1.1-5; 11-14)

I understand the whole Gospel of John as unpacking the meaning of this opening prologue, “…that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (20.31)

Lately, with my theological foundation always in Christology, in who He is and what He does among us, for us, and in us, I am trying to follow deeper into how Christ heals our trauma with His own wounds.

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53.5)

“Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. “With His stripes we are healed.”” (Ellen White)

As I thought on these things last night I also struggled to understand why my childhood memories are so full of my own presence while so many other people are forgotten. How does Jesus mean to heal my small but aching pieces of trauma? (I have to go to the gospel again and again.) What were the paths of my birth and upbringing that led me into such self-absorbing, soul-destroying, addictions, anger, and fear? (It was a home with alcohol). Where did the love go? Why so much linger fear? What explorations must I still make to uncover the latent lies that confuse me, that push me to defend the indefensible faults of my character and actions?

In working through the Book of Romans for my YouTube channel, Voices in the Garden, (thanks for subscribing, Sasha), I’m seeing Paul’s descriptions of our fallen nature, our idolatries and immoralities, our judgmental hypocrisy, deceits, and blood thirsty ways, with my understanding of trauma and healing, how it is healed by receiving the righteousness of God in Christ (Romans 3.21-31).

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Romans 5.1-11)

The whole Book of Romans, this exquisite catechism of the Father’s way of love for reconciling us in Christ, occupy’s more and more of my thoughts. I want to go further in ministry, learning how to live in the closest union and communion of my soul with Him, to abide in Him, His Word, His will, to hear Him in faith and act in love.

A favorite quote comes to mind:

“When every other voice is hushed, and in quietness we wait before Him, the silence of the soul makes more distinct the voice of God. He bids us, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10. Here alone can true rest be found. And this is the effectual preparation for all who labor for God. Amid the hurrying throng, and the strain of life’s intense activities, the soul that is thus refreshed will be surrounded with an atmosphere of light and peace. The life will breathe out fragrance, and will reveal a divine power that will reach men’s hearts.” (Ellen White, Desire of Ages, 363)

I’ll close with Paul’s prayer as my own, for myself, for you, for our readers, for any who seek the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Philippians 3.14-19)

For this year’s end, I am very thankful for you and look forward to more in our friendship .