[Vision2020] reflecting on what it's all about

[Bill London]

K-
Wading through the petty name-calling on V2020, sometimes I consider just
ending my subscription...and then a real gem is sparkling on my computer
screen...
Thanks for your heart-felt words.
Of course, that is what it's all about
BL




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "keely emerinemix" <kjajmix1 at msn.com>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 1:14 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] reflecting on what it's all about


>
> I'm writing this with a heavy heart and tears streaming down my cheeks,
and
> I know that I'll wake up tomorrow and wonder if I should be embarrassed or
> apologetic -- I'll wonder if I messily poured my heart out in an entirely
> inappropriate setting, just because of grief that right now floods my
whole
> being, or if I've written because my grief offers something that may
> encourage or touch anyone reading it.  I don't know; I doubt that I really
> will.  Still, please accept my apologies if what I write offends you, and
> know that it wasn't my intention.  The morning may reveal that I've been
> maudlin and sloppy, but not deliberately cloddish or grating.
>
> All of us have seen the "Jesus -- The Reason For The Season!" signs,
> buttons, and bumperstickers that pop up this time of the year, and while I
> absolutely affirm the sentiment, I cringe at the form of expression it
> takes.  The birth of Jesus, for the Christian, is what we celebrate on
> December 25 with carols, gifts, food, worship, friends and family -- no
"war
> on Christmas" can change that, and it isn't lessened at all by
acknowledging
> and celebrating Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or just general feelings of goodwil
this
> time of year.  Still, I have a rough time with "WWJD?" bracelets, "Jesus
is
> the Reason" pins, and anything else mass-produced at profit, even by
sincere
> believers.   Like most profound, deeply held beliefs, the idea of Jesus
> taking on human flesh as God Incarnate loses a little something when
> expressed via a candy cane-festooned broach on the sweater of a Wal-Mart
> clerk, and I doubt that I'm the only one whose belief in the sentiment
> struggles to keep it elevated in the midst of holy kitsch.  But Christmas
> and what it means does matter -- to me as a Christian, but also, I'm
> convinced, to a sin-soaked world desperately in need of the love offered
by
> Jesus.  And this evening, why it matters, and why I care so deeply about
the
> Gospel and its presentation on the Palouse, was made clearer to me than I
> can ever remember.
>
> We got a call this evening from an old friend of ours, a former neighbor
in
> Snohomish who has been part of our lives for the entire 22 years of our
> marriage, even longer for my husband, who was adopted by them, in a sense,
> when he first began scratching out space for a greenhouse on five densely
> forested acres there almost 30 years ago.  Don told us that his grandson,
> Dana, had died suddenly and without apparent cause Dec. 14.  It hit us
hard,
> in the way that bad news drains the oxygen out of your body and leaves a
> jarring, iron-like grip around your gut.  Dana was only 30.  He was part
of
> our lives since he and his sister were preschoolers, and in some ways Jeff
> and I parented those two kids long before we had children of our own.
Dana
> and Monique were part of the tapestry woven in our first decade together
as
> a married couple, and even when they grew up, we never lost touch.
>
> Dana never knew his father.  His grandfather, our friend, is an alcoholic.
> His mother veered from booze to boyfriends like a punching bag on a
> too-loose spring, occasionally knocking over any semblance of structure
the
> children had managed to construct.  His beloved uncle was murdered when
Dana
> was only 12, and Dana himself was molested by another family acquaintance.
> He ended up doing what everyone pretty much knew he would -- he turned to
> violence, petty crime, and drugs, and his course in life seemed pretty
much
> set.  Dana Hendrix was, in the eyes of the world, the least of "the least
of
> these," and that was just the way it was.   God knows Dana got the
message,
> and often from "religious" people who knew better, knew more, and knew
best.
>   It was enough for them to "just know" about Dana, without the invariable
> messiness of actually knowing him.
>
> But Dana came to see that Jesus Christ knew him, loved him, died for him,
> and had a plan for him.  He began to go to church; then, he grabbed ahold
of
> God and never let ago.  He fell -- many, many times -- and then he got
back
> up, because his heart had new life that nothing could extinguish.  He
got
> clean, studied the Bible, married and fathered five children.  He worked
> hard, played hard, and laughed like a chorus of angels.  He knew he had
been
> ransomed, redeemed, renewed -- he knew nothing about presbyteries and
> Calvinism, nothing about postmillennialism and the Reformation, nothing
> about egalitarianism or patriarchy, and he didn't know that he didn't
know.
> Because what he DID know had lifted him, filled him, and carried him; Dana
> knew that his Redeemer lives, and loves, and when he couldn't find life
and
> love in the church, he blessed them anyway, and kept his hand in his
> Savior's.
>
> I believe he's home now, and I know Jeff and I will see him again.  But
> tonight the grief is overwhelming, for his grandparents, his mother, and
his
> wife and kids.  I can hardly type this for the tears in my eyes, and every
> memory of Dana is for now a suckerpunch to my heart.  I don't want to
> preach; I'm not trying to use Dana's death as an opportunity for strategic
> evangelism.  I'm not that clever and not that dishonest.  But Dana Hendrix
> was someone you would have wanted to know.  Just like Riqui, my friend who
> killed himself last year at age 18; the mania and the depression held on
> longer than his faith did.  But Riqui's life was changed by the baby in
the
> manger -- the presumed bastard son of a poverty-stricken carpenter and his
> wife under occupation and real, grinding persecution.  Riqui's family
> attended the church I led in Duvall in the late '90s, and I saw what grief
> and horror, faith and steadfast love, did to his parents.  And then I saw
> grace poured out and demonstrated beyond measure in a community of people
> who possessed nothing and gave more than I ever did, because Riqui's faith
> when he was well had touched so many people and did even more when he
became
> ill.  Just like Lucy, who died in January of  cancer.  She was a good
> person, a saint unlike anyone I've ever met.  She worshipped Christ  with
> her eyes and her touch when the cancer ravaged her brain, paralyzing her
and
> robbing her of speech.  I'll see her again, just as I'll see Riqui and
Dana.
>   And when my precious friend Shannon dies -- and it will likely not be
too
> long from now -- what will be true about her life won't be the
homelessness,
> the rape, the meth addiction, the violence endured and the fury lived out.
> It won't be the beatings, the abuse, the poverty or the cancer that
appears
> to have hopscotched throughout her body in the last year.  The "last
thing,"
> the true thing, about Shannon will be that her life, considered worthless
by
> virtually everyone in it, was remade in the image of, and by the grace of,
> her Lord and Savior, who loves me enough to let me be part of her
> exceedingly messy, extraordinarily beautiful, life.
>
> I write a lot about "religion" on Vision 2020, and I'm the first and
loudest
> to howl when mine is misrepresented.  I get it right a lot and then blow
it,
> and I sometimes wonder which is which.  I imagine I'm not alone in that.
> But I guess I'm trying to suggest here, grieving over three friends lost
and
> one just hanging on, is that despite what many of us have seen on Vision
> 2020 regarding the Gospel, the "religion" of Christianity, or the meaning
of
> this guy Jesus, there are Spirit-wonders all around us, and often in the
> most unlovely places and people.  My life has been transformed by Jesus
> Christ; I have the painful privilege of grieving the loss of three people,
> soon -- perhaps -- four, who weren't content to simply be loved and
blessed
> by Him, but who lived radically messy, untidy, unpredictable, utterly
> unconventional and entirely gracious and grace-giving lives because of the
> One whose birth we celebrate now.
>
> And I guess that's why I felt like I needed to write -- because this
stuff,
> the breathing of Spirit and life and agape love into the forsaken and
> forlorn, is what I celebrate, and it's slander and perversion is what I
will
> fight against, as kindly as possible, until I join Dana, Riqui, and Lucy
in
> Heaven.
>
> May you all be richly blessed -- with relationship, with forgiveness and
> reconciliation, with joy, with Godly sorrow, and with the privilege of
> seeing what a poor substitute religion, Christendom, and even the
> institutional church is for a life filled with Spirit, nurtured in love,
fed
> on truth, and guided by the Shepherd.
>
> keely
>
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