"Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling"...

One of the best books I've ever read.

A MUST for any teacher, parent, student, or person concerned with humanity.

Have you ever felt inconclusive? Unable to synthesize, or tie-up a thought? Here I stand. And mind you, I was never one of these people. Especially in writing, I’ve always been able to begin, body and conclude a work quite easily. Not anymore—in writing, or otherwise. The Lord has brought me to new frontiers, where bearings and clarity are yet to be told. So take the following two entries for what they’re worth—unfinished and undone in many ways, but believing, by faith, that Sight is coming.

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Behind the Sunglasses and Script

Hope. A word overused, yet underrated. Four letters capable of taking a life, or letting one live.

I’ve never allowed myself to attach to hopes as I have this semester. In the same breath, however, I must say I’ve never gotten comfortable with the blind risk of such doing.

I’ve intentionally hoped in a lot of things lately. And doing so has forced me out-of-control, a haven I’ve rested in for far too long. But what do you do when your hope doesn’t respond? When your heart’s longing doesn’t pan out? I liked a boy. I hoped it would work out. It didn’t. I hoped my drug addict friend would find shelter, security and a Savior. To my knowledge, she hasn’t. I’ve hoped in various decisions, grades, mirrors and what felt like monologues with God lately, to no avail. I’m still waiting. Still “hoping” in the dark. Believing in a seen hopelessness. There may not be a more crazy phenomenon.

Hope never fails and yet hope never promises. It never ceases to exist, and yet never shoves its existence. It’s a choice. A surrender of sorts. To what though? To a desire …to an end…to God? Where is hope leading and where does it come from? And how much deference can a hoping heart take?

I’m writing this in a posh coffee shop in Beverly Hills (Peets, if you’re ever hoping for the best latte known to man). I don’t get to this part of town too often, but I always seem to learn a lot when I do. In a matter of minutes, I’ve been confounded again by the hurry, the hiddeness and the hurt exposed by this population. They’re no different than the rest of us, really, but seem that way due to exaggerated investments in sunglasses and sullen faces sealed with masks and masking agendas. Their hope in the next deal, or the next distraction, diet, or dream is just as deep as ours—just more glamorously displayed.

Everyone wants to look like they’re going somewhere. Like they have a purpose in walking through the door. Everyone hopes they’ll look the part—they’ll hide the fact that in actuality they’re a big act. They’re not the real deal. Everyone hopes they can keep the lie covered—the lie that they’re not the person people think—they’re not the put-together persona that people assume.

But what if people found that out?

What if people realized we weren’t what they thought? We weren’t what they hoped for? Could we stand it? Could they stand us?

To hope that no one ever sees ‘the real us’ is to hide from life. And to hide from life is to die.

Leaning into hopes and hoping into what feels like pure desire—and then seeing hopes and desires fade, or take-on rejection, hurts. And hurting feels bad. It needs help. It’s tired. It cannot do life alone. But as we mentioned above, no one wants to take-on such an existence, so we hide behind sunglasses and scripts. But what I’m starting to see is that hurting holds just as much Life as healing. Pain carries just the same weight as pleasure. Neither can ultimately exist without the other.

The death and resurrection of Jesus was one movement. They go hand-in-hand—one doesn’t work without the other. To die in Christ is to be born again. And to live in Christ is to continue dying. To continue hoping. Hope can wait, but it never fails. Hope can hurt, but it never dies.

Lord, help us keep hoping—help us keep believing Your end as the primary mover of every hoped for beginning.

The Lord has brought me on a journey of purging this year—purging through minutes and months of sought after pleasure that used to hold me—but now don’t. Used to keep me full, but now do quite the opposite.

Why would God do such a thing? Such a purgation?

Well, I can’t answer that question in full quite yet, and maybe won’t ever be able to on this side of heaven, but what I can say is this—the stripping that has taken place and that which is in process, or in denial, is right. It’s true, valid movement that I wouldn’t change for anything. That said, however, it’s been the hardest of my life. Not because I moved to California (surfing is fun), or fell into a community that ushers me toward knowness like never before. Such “externals” have been sweet. Internally though, by far, it’s been the most stretching of my life. But also the truest, deepest and maybe first in which I’ve actually lived “alive.”

Life to this point had been a series of experiences and exposures where I discovered a great love for loving people and a greater love for doing so in the name of God. Whether through relating, discipling, writing, serving, or performing, I learned to love and “let be loved” a “saved” Abbie. (In case that’s not as clear as it needs to be, I didn’t need Jesus to love or be loved…I had “been saved” and was thus attempting function out of that position). You can see then, that most of my love was out of, or into, a hiding space, a space of strengths and outward ability.

A lot of that has died this year. Some by choice and some by the grace of God’s stripping. I’ve died to a lot I thought I knew—knew about my self and the world and my self in the world. I’ve died to a lot of habits—habits I knew were bad and habits I thought were good. I’ve died a lot of prides, positions and presuppositions. And I still have a lot of dying to go—a lifetime, in fact. But the irony here—the Greatest irony of All, I think—is that in choosing these deaths, I’ve started to live. By Grace’s allowance encouraging me to die, I’ve actually started to live. To truly be with people—to behold the weights of friendship. To truly be and be alone—in its wholeness and its state of sorrow. Only a Divine Spirit can shadow these risky landings. Only a Savior can hold them. I need the saving grace of Jesus if I’m going to live today. No longer do I spend days medicating with gifts and identities done with excusing masks that’s it’s, “for the glory of God.” Rather, in learning to cry-out for a Savior, I’ve been able to be weak—to embrace my given nature of weakness and need. To laugh. To cry. To be scared, to be hurt and to be helped.

Don’t let me get off this easily though—the last month, in particular, has found me running back to old ways of coping—old wavelengths that separated me from my self and others. I will go to a lot of extremes to avoid the Truth. To avoid being known, loved, liked, or seen. I will empty my life for another, in order to avoid letting another see my emptiness. My imperfection. My confliction. My desperation. But what I cannot negate is that I have tasted truth this year. I have tasted enough of a freedom in weakness—a peace in surrender, that I at least know it’s ‘there.’ It’s willing, if I let It.

The choice, then, remains one of my will.
Am I willing to choose God, when He cannot be felt?
To choose Him, when His ways are yet to be seen, or certainly understood?
Am I willing to trust God?

LORD, moving into these final weeks of school, help us be mindful of Your perspective.

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"The Faith to Persevere"
Oswald Chambers: My Utmost to His Highest (May 8th)

Because you have kept My command to persevere...—Revelation 3:10

Perseverance means more than endurance— more than simply holding on until the end. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, "I can’t take any more." Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God’s hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).

Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of your life— throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.

God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him. There are areas in our lives where that faith has not worked in us as yet— places still untouched by the life of God. There were none of those places in Jesus Christ’s life, and there are to be none in ours. Jesus prayed, "This is eternal life, that they may know You..." (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.