"Laughter is carbonated holiness..." Anne Lamott
Been thinking about the word holy. Something in me gets uncomfortable when that word gets thrown around. You hear it all the time. There's even "holiness movements" where you can imagine a bunch of people gathered together renouncing any type of "wickedness" from their lives by depriving themselves of any human desire. You get my point.
For some reason, the word "holy" seems to equate to being narrow minded, uptight, boring, extremely serious, and angry all the time. I remember talking with a guy, and I mentioned how "God is love", and the guy responded, "Yes, but He is holy too." And I thought to myself, "Well, DUH!" So I was thinking, "Is God's love and His holiness totally separate? When we say "God is love" and "God is holy" are we really saying "God is love, and He is really ticked off!"??
Yesterday was Father's Day and I saw reminders of holiness throughout the day. I remember going outside and seeing my wife Mica park the car and carry grocery bags to our house for a get together she planned for me on Father's Day. Man that totally warmed me inside. I thought, "Man, that is a holy act of kindness. Wow, she really thought of me." Then my mind was flooded with images of other holy acts.
My son giving me a handmade Father's Day card that almost brought me to tears.
My grandmother making me a shrimp salad without celery, because I hate eating celery.
Giving love to someone who (in your mind) doesn't deserve it.
Hugging a homeless person who's breath smells like whiskey, and clothes smell like piss.
The list can go on....
I'm not saying the people that do these are holy themselves, because we're all broken. But the actions sure give me a reminder of what's holy. Take those examples of kindness, multipy it an infinite number of times, and there's a glimpse of Jesus.
Holy, He's holy indeed.
5 comments:
man, I didn't want to read this post, cause seeing the word "holiness" gives me the heebee-jeebees as it does you.
Yet I've come to know you some through keeping up with your blog, and sure enough you expressed the ad nauseum way Followers are (mis)using the word.
There's a lot of misconception, I think, in holiness. I think the Body gives the impression holiness is in a marble-floored mega church building, or in the gold karat-encrusted studio of Christian television.
I doubt we'd ever see Christian tv bring one of our homeless friends on the set, yet a truer accounting of raw faith who could find.
Christian tv is too into the suits and pinnache (I don't know if I'm spelling that right, but I'm sure they know how to spell it. heh heh)
Anyway, your bringing up hugging a homeless person reminded me of a recent holy moment.
I recently picked up a guy thumbing a ride on the side of the road. He didn't have the money for a bus ticket, and was heading 1400 miles across the country.
It just so happened I was going 900 miles in that direction, so we spent the next twenty hours journeying across the U.S.
Curtis shared his life with me. Our lives had different dips and curves, but he and I had met the same Man along the way, and we enjoyed speaking of Him.
At one point Curtis mentioned some bible verses, and he grabbed a bible from the floorboard to find them and read them.
Curtis dressed well for his journeying, wearing a layer combined of a long and short sleeved shirt to keep protected from the sun. He also wore a fishing hat to protect his dome.
When he found the verses he wanted to read, he paused, and took off his fishing hat.
(If I'm wearing a hat when I read the bible I don't take it off, but it was cool in an old-school kind of way how Curtis did it. He wasn't doing it by rote. It was a reverence which is not my style but it was neat to see.)
Taking in his genuine respect for God was cool, but then I noticed something. As Curtis read the Bible, I saw a tear flow down his cheek.
There's a glut of man-induced hype and fake charisma in the American Body today, but what transpired in that moment was not the fake b.s.
You want to talk about 'holy water'. Friend, that tear was.
"man, I didn't want to read this post, cause seeing the word "holiness" gives me the heebee-jeebees as it does you."
You probably thought I was going to list a bunch of the "we need to be's"!
"We need to be more committed"
"We need to take a stand for righteousness"
"We need to be more holy"
"We need to bring America back to the holy nation when ye forefathers established it"
"We need to 'witness' more"
We need to be, we need to be, we need to be...........
Ugh!!!!
That's why I usually cringe when the topic of "holiness" is brought up.
How easily we forget that Christ makes us holy through faith. And HE expresses Himself through us, as Jeff said. We don't make ourselves holy.
But there are those times when a little "holy water" leaks out of our broken "jars of clay". Giving a hug to someone who's in pain, letting someone know you understand their struggle, giving grace to someone you think is a real ass, etc, etc. It's like you're bringing them a glimpse of His Kingdom,here and now.
Love that story bro.
dude, don't even get me started on the "take a stand for righteousness" thing!
That's one of the leading causes of train-wreck Christianity around.
We'd rather be "right" (aka, take a stand) than love people.
We'd rather shoot a poison-tipped arrow of righteousness back at those who fired at us first (or not) instead of just letting their arrows fall to the ground without a response.
Funny how we claim to follow Jesus, yet we don't follow how many times He defended himself, the radical paradigm or awkward words He spoke.
After reading one post I feel like I know you. Strange. And I feel like your brother--shrimp salad, celery and all.
I love your thoughts and attitude on holiness. I wish we could somehow reclaim some of these words like holy and glory and praise and worship and church... I wonder most of the time that they're not too far gone to ever use again. But we can try.
Holy: I doubt there is any way to be more holy than to be yourself.
god could turn what has become this chronic demand by me now into an act of kindness or selfless love--thus, something holy, through you (on your part, according to your willingness...you need to be more willing...or obedient if you want this to work)...anyway, i'd like to wake up one day with a totally spotless stove/oven (throw in the microwave and fridge and the sink and the whole kitchen counter with its floors; i think you could group them as one right? right. and the bathroom? ok, next time for that one.)
i know, those are included in my chores but it would be nice and i'd certainly thank god for it til my next demand/complaint comes up. or you could just surprise me without worrying excessively about obedience. then, you might discover that it was god who worked through you with his grace all along. that would be so delightful. we might even be further blessed with a nice dinner prepared by me--nicely baked salmon drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and lemon zest, warm brown rice, crisp spinach, with my company in great spirits, and without celery. i hope this works subliminally, if direct successive requests hasn't. oh well.
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