This month we have a DOUBLE FEATURE from the wonderful Barry Karasiewicz. Enjoy this second dose of heavenly insight plucked out of life’s randomness…

“The doors to the House of God are never locked.”

– Glen Sherley, “Grey Stone Chapel”, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison”

Systematic Donut-ology

Coffee is my friend. I spend a lot of time in my vehicle, either driving for hours to a particular job site or simply sitting in my vehicle for hours doing what I do at any given job site. Sometimes this is during daylight, sometimes I don’t see the sun at all, other times I straddle the line between the nocturnal and the diurnal for weeks on end. Because of this I get to spend a lot of time with my friend, coffee. More often than not, my shifts are 12 hours on, 12 hours off, 12 hours on, and so on, until the job is completed.  There have been occasions where my relief doesn’t show up and I have to work their shift, and then behind that I have to work my next shift, a thirty-six-hour stretch. To say that it’s a “bummer” is an understatement, but that’s the way it rolls sometimes, and I learned the hard way how to roll.  Experience has taught me to bring more than what I need to the job: a case of water, several military surplus Meals Ready to Eat, “Facial Quality Tissues,” spare batteries for my flashlights and other electronic devices, over-the-counter medications, a back up of my prescriptions, snacks, and a few donuts.

Yes, I get it, somebody reading this is thinking of the old bit about cops and donuts. But there are two things they’re missing. First, back in the day there was nothing open during the overnight shift, and the only place an officer could get a cup of coffee (and a bit of food during their 12 hour shift of dealing with all sorts of stuff that most folks couldn’t imagine) was at the all-night donut shop.  The second thing is this: Carbs! Flour and sugar. Quick calories take the edge off and help you push through the rest of the shift. So, yeah, it’s true, but there’s a reason for it.

But I digress, as I often do…

I usually gots me a stash of two or three donuts on any given shift. My preferred variety is Boston Cream. So, there I am, 2:30 in the morning, feeling a bit peakish (it’s a real word, check out Monty Pythons “Cheese Shoppe” sketch), and I reach into the bag only to find that hours ago the clerk at the shop just dropped the pastry into the paper sack. Gravity caused the chocolate frosted side to turn groundward and now the chocolate is stuck to the bottom of the bag. My temporary substance has been profoundly abused and I now have a sticky mess because the donut has been turned upside down.

Things are not supposed to be upside down. It’s no secret that when you turn on the news, folks get upset. Regardless of whichever agenda driven news purveyor you watch, it’s all the same “the other side has turned the world upside down” and they have video to prove it along with a bunch of experts to explain why you need to be upset about whatever it is that they need you to be upset about.

Things are supposed to be right-side up, not upside down. Nobody has any business turning things upside down. Well, almost nobody.   

The 24th chapter of Isaiah clearly states that the LORD reserves the right to turn the world upside down, but this will only happen as a consequence of our enduring nonsense. I totally get that when you read this chapter (and the surrounding chapters) in context. It can appear pretty dismal, but in reality, it ain’t.

Yes, God turned Egypt upside down. The same for Babylon, the Medes, the Persians, the Hittites the Amalakites, the Amorites, and all the other “ites.” And yes, He even turned Israel upside down.

Before we go any further, I need to clarify something here. Papa is not interested in flipping things for the sake of destruction, for the sake of harm, for the sake of punishment. That would be totally and completely against His nature. He is a kind, loving, generous, caring God who wants nothing but the best for us. The world He created, the Paradise, the Eden, was a reflection of His Goodness and His provision for our wellbeing. He designed it to fulfill our every need in every possible situation. Unfortunately, it was trashed when Adam decided to do things his own way and got us evicted from the Garden, and we’ve been doing things our own way ever since.

“In the beginning, the earth was formless and void…” In other words, chaos. Papa bought it out of chaos and introduced order. Adam bought it back into chaos and ever since we have been trying to impose our own order upon Papa’s creation. We do this by making rules and laws, standards of conduct, which become socio-economic systems that, at best, are cheap counterfeits of Papa’s original design. These systems grow like a fungus until the folks at the top are duped into serving the system for the systems sake, and the folks at the bottom are just striving to survive.

This is not, has never been, and will never be Papa’s plan for us. When He “…turns the world upside down…” He is not stomping on His children. He’s not a child abuser. What He is doing, however, is eliminating the systems, the syndicates, that are luring His kids away from Him. Think of this as Papa using the R.I.C.O. Act. 

When Jesus was in Jerusalem, He had a full tilt conniption in the temple when He seen that the only currency allowed to purchase items for temple worship was a currency that the religious leaders considered stable enough for use.  Unfortunately, this coin (from Tyre) had the image of a pagan “god” on it. The religious system of the Temple (which was also the governmental, social, and economic system of Jewish life) had gotten to the point where you couldn’t properly worship without enlisting the aid of idols. So, Jesus literally turned that system upside down.

When the apostle Paul was in Thessalonica, there was another incident. After Paul spent some time preaching there, his opponents got a bunch of “…evil men from the marketplace…” who formed a vigilante mob and attacked a new believer named Jason, vandalizing his home and dragging him to the rulers while accusing him of “…turning the world upside down…” This included accusations of insurrection against Caesar simply because he let Paul crash at his house. All this because Paul, who wrote “…wherever possible, live peaceably with all men…” and “…honor the king…,” was a perceived threat to the System.

We all know what happened to these systems. Jerusalem was utterly thrashed by Titus, and Thessalonica, along with the rest of the Roman Empire, are nothing more than ruins that tourists visit to see what once was. And as these systems fell, the Church thrived. For a while at least.

Over many centuries, we began to build our own systems. Rather than simply love one another as Jesus loves us, we began to establish rules and regulations, do’s and don’ts. Sure, we need structure and order, as Papa created this world with structure and order, but we created walls that not only kept people out, but also created divisions and factions against ourselves. We became entrenched in an Us vs Them mentality and began seeing those who only agreed with us 98.5% of the time as our enemies, and not our brothers. These new systems became the excuse (and often the cause) of many wars, as our critics correctly like to point out.  

We have no business creating systems that keep people out. We have no business dividing Papa’s children. We are not here to break up families, including our own.

We also have no business destroying systems. We are not the ones mandated to “…turn the world upside down…” although we may be accused of that.

Nobody likes an upside down sticky mess of a donut.

What our business is, is to influence the culture. The culture will then influence and reform the systems organically. When Martin Luther nailed his big 95 on the door of the church, he was not trying to overthrow anything. He was merely trying to start a discussion, but the system wernt havin none of that. Rather than have an honest discussion, the powers that be retaliated against a perceived threat, and a lot of people were hurt in the process.  

We influence the culture by acting like who we are: Sons and Daughters of the Most High.  This means BEING the love of God to everybody, including them that’s difficult to love. Our actions need to speak much, much louder than our words, including not only signs, wonders and miracles, but showing compassion, feeding the hungry, and caring for the widows and orphans in whatever way we can.  This is how trust is built (and after some of the stunts the church had pulled over time, that trust needs to be built back). We need to be authentic in all parts of our life.  People have become jaded. There are so many scammers out there these days that people are wary.

We need to draw people to Jesus by being who Jesus told us to be.

The Church of the Locked Door

And here I am, on another out of town gig.

Last night I took a walk down to the lobby of my hotel to grab a cup of coffee. (Remember coffee? Coffee is my friend.) As I walked by one of the meeting rooms, I saw a sign on the door: “BIBLE MEETING, 7:30.” It seemed to me it would be a good idea to discreetly slide in, hang out in the back, and decide what to do from there. I went back to my room, grabbed my bible, came back downstairs, came back to the meeting room, and tried the door. It was locked. I lightly knocked. There was no response. I stood at the door and knocked again, this time a little louder. Still no response. I stood and knocked one more time with the same result, so I walked away.

I have no idea who these people were. I have no idea why they locked people out of their meeting.  There are many possible reasons. It could be that there was some sort of crisis amongst the group that necessitated privacy.  It’s possible they had disruptive and unruly people from the hotel invade their past meetings. It may be that there are one of these groups whose system sees the world from an Us vs Them perspective. I don’t know. I’m in no position to judge. What I have been doing is pondering this since last night.

The Kitchen Table

What I do know is this, we all are Papa’s children, whether we know it or not, whether we deny it or not, whether we like it or not. As with any good father, Papa wants to be around His kids. He wants us to not only visit, but He also wants to just hang around with us. He wants to know how the day went, he wants to hear the stories we tell about our kids and grandkids (although He knows them already).  He wants to have us over for dinner (not just on Sunday’s and holidays), and he wants to come over to our place for dinner (and not just on birthdays). He absolutely loves it when the whole family, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, grandkids, nieces, nephews, in-laws, all gather with Him.  He totally looks forward to the precious time we spend one-on-one at the kitchen table having a cup of coffee and discussing whatever we are discussing.

Having access to somebody’s house is important.

Just about anybody is somewhat welcome on the porch. Being invited inside to the living room is less accessible, but a gesture of hospitality.  When you are invited over for dinner, and everybody sits together in the dining room, it is a place of honor where you can be considered a friend of the household. The kitchen table, however, is the very heart of the home. When you can just traipse in and sit at the kitchen table, fix yourself a cup of coffee or whatever (and you are expected to clean up after yourself), you are family. Papa’s table is always open.

Thanks for letting me take up some of your time.