Inhabiting The Truth

How would our lives be different if we inhabited the truth? I don’t mean, what would it be like if we told the truth, although many of us would benefit from that as well, but rather what would it look like if we lived into the truth . . . about us?

In his amazing book entitled Tattoos on the Heart, a book describing his ministry among the gangs of Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle writes the following: “we seek to tell each person this truth: they are exactly what God had in mind when God made them – and then we watch, from a privileged place, as people inhabit this truth.”

What would it mean is someone whispered such a truth into our ears?

“You are exactly what God had in mind when God created you.”

I can only speak for myself, but living into that truth would be a challenge. So often, I inhabit other messages, none of which are true, but, to quote Julia Robert’s character in Pretty Woman, “sometimes they’re easier to believe.”

“It’s never too late to start your day over,” they say in recovery circles. Perhaps we could adapt that sage advice and say: “It’s never too late to inhabit the truth.”

I’m up for it, if you are.

Off The Shelf

After gathering dust on the shelf for over 14 years, I finally selected a book I purchased on Leadership. It professed to help people become servant leaders, a topic I have longed to understand more fully and practice more regularly. After completing it, I couldn’t help but wonder why it took me so long to pull it down off the shelf.

I realized an important truth: If you want a book to teach you something, you need to read it!

The many nutrition and physical fitness books I own can do nothing about my soft belly and high cholesterol if they remain on the shelf. The books on financial management will not help me balance my checkbook if left unread. And the many books on prayer cannot help me create a deep spiritual life if left on the shelf.

Recovery circles remind us that someone needs to become “sick and tired of being sick and tired” before he or she can get sober. They also teach the definition of insanity as doing the same behavior but expecting a different result. I think the wisdom of recovery speaks to all of us who own books we have not read, and long for lives we do not lead. At some point, we need to get sick and tired enough to reach up, select the book, and learn something new.

While shopping the other night, I watched as a number of people selected Bibles for graduation and first communion gifts. I remember when I received such a gift. In fact, I still have the Bible. It’s on my shelf, next to many other Bibles, sitting like a museum piece waiting for me to open it.

Frost Heaves

Sorry for the Brushstroke interruption, but they are back and I hope you will enjoy them once again. CB

I once lived in the land of frost heaves, a phenomenon of earth expansion and constriction that causes roads to buckle. Like a child kicking away the covers, the earth tries to breath and in so doing disrupts humanity’s attempt to control. The results can jar the most solid automobiles, and on a recent trip home they jarred me to see something spiritual.

Since I can remember, I have sought certainty. I find great comfort in knowing where I am and where I'm going. A clearly marked road provides comfort and security. Yes, I enjoy spontaneity, taking a less traveled route, as long as I know the traditional route is there. In musical terms, I love a variation on a theme as long as I know the theme.

But the frost heaves of a recent trip reminded me that, like the earth, my spiritual life is a living thing. It breathes. It expands and contracts and might well cause the road on which I am traveling to buckle. Rather than bemoan the disruption, I think spiritual frost heaves are God’s way to jar or awaken us. If nothing else, they can remind us that we are traveling and should stay away. They may even be an invitation to change our route.

At times of seasonal change, may we breathe in and out, expand and contract, and kick away those old ways that no longer fit.