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Friend and co-worker and sometimes preacher Kelly Clark talked about the fourth commandment at our TXT3 worship service tonight, and since you’ve read the title, you can probably recall what that commandment commands, but, if you’re still not with us, here it is, from the source (Exodus 20:8):

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

We used a few videos that get to the heart of this rather strange command:

Yeah, it’s that simple, but actually making it a part of your life? I still don’t know what it means for me. I’ve “worked” on Sundays for a long time now, but the Sabbath doesn’t have to be a Sunday. I’ve tried (um, not really) to make Fridays a Sabbath, a day of rest, but I still get lost “going my own way” (see Isaiah 58:13-14), resting, but not exactly making it a day of spiritual rest and renewal. But at least now I’m thinking about doing so.

Kelly gave a few suggestions on the reality of remembering the Sabbath: if your job requires constant mental focus, go do something active; if your work is physically demanding, do something for your mind. If you’re always logged on (and I don’t think he was pointing at me when he said this), then log off for a day. Disconnect. The internets will still exist tomorrow.

But really, it’s different for everyone. So I have two questions for you.

Do you consciously observe a “Sabbath?”
If so, how does that look in your life?

After reading this post many months back, and being familiar with Mike Mason from another of his books, and being in a phase of life where I’m asking big questions, I started to read a chapter or two per night of Mason’s The Gospel According to Job: An Honest Look at Pain and Doubt from the Life of One Who Lost Everything, his personal commentary on the entirety of this ancient and often confusing book. Chapters are just two pages, but they’re worth traveling through slowly, allowing time for digestion. Last night’s reading is worthy of sharing here, now (in which I’ve emphasized a few parts that spoke to me):

What Job realized, in his own way, is that there is no progress in the spiritual life except through the cross. Naturally we are forever trying to avoid the cross, either fleeing from it or else searching for some way around it. But with the cross there is no way around and no going back. We must go through. In fact, every step we take forward as believers must be through the cross. There is simply no other way of advancing. That is why we must learn never to leave the cross, never to take our eyes off it. Daily we must pick up our cross and die to ourselves in order that the power of Christ might rest upon us. For the truth is that we do not die all at once but little by little, and every time a little part of us is nailed to the cross and dies, immediately the grace of the Lord Jesus flows into that dead part and renews it. This is how we live by grace. The power of grace is activated through the cross.

Too many Christians are looking for graceless, fix-it solutions to their problems, and to the problems of others as well. We forget that one of the great mysteries of the gospel is that God did not fix us when He saved us. By grace He simply saved us, warts and all.

- Mike Mason, The Gospel According to Job, pg. 174

I cannot fathom the lasting devastation in Haiti. I cannot understand the earth itself moving for a minute-and-a-half in Chile. These things, at their scale, are too vast for me to comprehend.

But I know what it means for the ground to shift beneath your feet, changing your world in a heartbeat, crumbling foundations you always thought were secure. You see, I’ve been divorced for six months. I’m not sure why I’m telling you this, here, now, but it’s something I have to write about, and I’m tired of pretending as if the thing didn’t happen, or that it hasn’t deeply affected me.

While this divorce doesn’t define me, it’s left an indelible mark on me, it’s part of me, it’s changed me, and as the walking wounded in the scarred cityscape of my life, the words I etch onto cracked walls are sometimes the only things that keep me sane. Someone walking in the wreckage of their own life might, somehow, stumble across this and see that they’re not alone, the same way many others were there (and are still there) to help me.

I’m not to the point where I know how to articulate my experiences without divulging too much personal history. I don’t want to write to blame, but I do want others to be able to learn from my failures. I’ve experienced much personal and spiritual growth over the last year, in spite of going through an ordeal that nearly suffocated my faith in God, almost snuffing Him out like so much unsettled dust obscuring the sun.

But I’m still here, sand in my teeth, digital charcoal in hand, with an enormous amount of things to be thankful for. And even though I can’t fathom what Haitians and Chileans have to go through day by day (a constant reminder that helps me put my own life in perspective), an apt metaphor erupts from this broken ground.

In the wake of major devastation, they were brought back to the very basics – food, water, shelter – and they were incredibly happy to receive those items. While I am nowhere close to their level of physical need, I was brought to the same place spiritually through my recent past, broken down to realize my desperate need of the very basics – faith, love, hope – and I’m incredibly happy to see these abstract ideas become solidified, even if their shape is amorphous at best on some days, or in the slow process of becoming fully real, if that’s even possible this side of the Great Beyond.

In this city of ruins, where the cracks run deep and hope is scarce, there is much to be done, even though I’ve covered many miles already. What I write, I hope, will chronicle that journey, digital charcoal scribblings for all of us, because we are all too acquainted with brokenness.

We are all walking wounded; some are just more aware of it than others.

…the promised update isn’t coming today, but, there’s this, a nephew that cracks me up. I just wish the cameraman wouldn’t have been laughing so hysterically and going all Bourne Identity with the cinematography.

I’m starting to write more, as in things that other people may actually want to read. This is a good step. More news on that front to come, hopefully, in the next week or so.

In coming to grips with the need to make writing a habit, I’m to the place in my life where I can start blogging more regularly, sharing both personal stories as well as the things I find in life or on the internet that amuse, startle, or confound me.

I desired this post to be more of a personal update; however, it’s not going to be because I spent roughly the last two or three hours updating this website. Ironically, you wouldn’t be able to tell just looking at it, but there was a lot of backend work that needed to be done. It took a mysql upgrade, some gzipping of exported wordpress posts, and some prayer. But things seem back to normal, and I needed to get this site up to par if I’m going to make more use of it.

Speaking of backend work, a co-worker and myself have a weekly habit of eating at the Catfish Parlour (be sure to go on Tuesdays for the corn fritters and any day for the leg lamp). They have incredibly bad jokes on all of their receipts, which, college-educated as we are, are often able to deduce. Today’s had us stumped: What happened when the butcher fell into the meat grinder?

Aside from being a horrendous image (that made me think of Steve Buscemi), we just didn’t get it and had to ask for the answer: He got a little behind in his work…

Additionally, since this is turning into a funny post, I saw this a few weeks back. I’m glad to see the Muppets are staying with the times:

Finally, don’t watch this if you’re easily offended by bad takes of hymns or spiritual songs. Otherwise, in my research (no, really) at the church today I ran across this gem:

So, apparently today was funnier than I gave it credit for.

Tomorrow, words from the heart, or as close as I can get to there.