Thank You Fast Eddie (From the mouths of babes)
by Roberto Esponja on Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 12:09am ·
Tonight
I spoke to Jed briefly, and told him I was going through some old stuff
I had written. Being ADD I have this junk scattered all over the house
and the internet, in boxes, envelopes, drawers, various blogs,
everywhere...and I thought I might find some value, if only nostalgia,
in compiling it.
In the course of our conversation, Jed asked if I had seen much change over the years in reviewing some of my writings.
I was embarrassed and saddened to honestly answer,"No, not really..." I paused for a moment and I continued, "I don't know if it's a calling of sorts, or just a sensitivity to certain issues, but the same things seem to come up over and over in all my writings."...I was truly stumped.
I've read plenty, I know and talk to lots of very intelligent and well educated people, I had certainly pondered and found many answers to life's issues over the years, and yet there it was in black and white, the same things over and over. I was bummed to say the least.
So, I went back inside the house, and began to look over even more of my ramblings, to disprove what I feared to be the case. That's when I came across this long forgotten little piece (Originally Posted on July 24, 2009), and I felt that my continual awareness/sensitivity to certain things, well...maybe it isn't really all that bad.
Maybe certain issues, will always be issues, and it just may be, that the bigger problem is when they cease to be issues to us at all. d(-_-)b
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Before you go on, allow me to give you a little background about what's going on here.
Eddie was a kid (at the time) in the youth group I was helping to lead. He was kind of awkward in both appearance and social graces, but clearly a very sweet natured, compassionate young man. During the time I had known Eddie, he had for the most part remained silent. He was more of a listener. When he did choose to speak, (and it always seemed a very conscious choice for him) he had a very soft and gentle demeanor that was clearly conveyed. I had known Eddie and his brothers since they were little kids, and although I could always see the gears turning in Eddie's head, I never really knew what he was thinking. Maybe he was just too self conscious to speak up, I don't know.
As Eddie grew older, I began to realize that he was in fact a very deep thinker, quick to listen and slow to speak, (Traits I wish I had more discipline in!) and he had a very unique perspective to offer. I like that in a person, and so as he began to speak up a little more often, I found myself actually listening to him more and more.
On this particular night, Eddie seemed to be deep in thought, or perhaps even troubled by something, I couldn't tell. I approached him a time or two, but he would not immediately share with me. Later that night however he approached me, when I was kind of away from the other kids...this is how it went, and just how deeply a simple question can resonate...
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
…and so he asked me,” Dave, do you think God still speaks to us?” and without hesitation or any real thought I answered,”Yes, He does.”.
“How?” he replied, “What does that sound like?”
And, in a moment of great irony, I asked God silently,” Well, How?! What does it sound like?!”
I’m sure He must have laughed before answering the words which I relayed to Eddie...
“God calls himself our Father, and if that is the case, we are his children.
I have four children, Eddie, and I don’t speak to any one of them quite the same in any given circumstance.
I have one child who seems to need to learn through her own experiences and no amount of speaking or discipline seems to matter. She has to figure it out.
I have another child, that if I so much as look at her cross, she cries, and so I speak to her very differently. The same is true for the other two.
So, I guess that God must speak to each of us in the way we need him to, in order to be heard and understood.”
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
I have since thought about Eddie and that evening, many, many times. I have replayed that moment in time over and over, with fondness, but also with wonder. Why was that simple question so profound to me? I knew there was something deeper to that whole situation, but what?
Then this morning it hit me, we (I) do not seek our God with the faith of a child, The sort of faith you need to have, to ask as question like that. We (I) most often approach God as though we might discover some great fraud or fault. That he may be less than perfect, unable to meet all our needs, or that our faith may have somehow been misplaced and where would that leave us?
So, we try to at least give the appearance of believers, especially to other believers, but I think deep down we fear what it might mean to live out that faith.
We find ways to work around our tough questions, afraid to ask the simple questions, we don’t dare expose our own short comings, insecurities, or weaknesses, for fear of judgment, ridicule or some strange exile that leave us alone and humiliated. We fear to seek the relationship with God that we were created to have, and so we begin to create God in our image, making him just like us.
It seems so obviously wrong to me, so why do we (I) do it?
Because, it is too easy to have have the flower of our faith trampled by the wheels of religion and the ungrace that it contains.
We become hesitant to trust the love that once cast out all fear, and lead us to a pronouncement of faith. Like someone in an abusive relationship, we flee the true and perfect love we were made to experience for fear of the unknown, and we settle back in, to suffer the security of the abuse we have always known from the world, and worse yet from the church.
I think the whole world, fears this perfect love, the love of God as exemplified in Jesus. (This includes you and me both.) I’ll explain…
This sort of love demands changes, and action, and it demands sacrifice of those it calls. Now, with that I think we might be able to live, because that alone allows us to remain in our pride, without bruising our egos. It becomes our strength and our accomplishments. A badge of nobility we can earn and can show proudly.
In short it allows us to remain focused on ourselves.
If this were the end of it, we might be OK with that, but what scares us is that what this love requires, before and more than anything else, is surrender.
Some of us might even be alright with certain surrenders of sorts, but at the heart of what really scares us is that this surrender, is that of our will, in exchange for the promise of something greater. It asks of us a level of trust and vulnerability we have not known since childhood, and have not given since the first time we experienced the crushing disappointment of its violation.
This level of surrender, (or faith) is deep but not complex. Most of us understood it once, even if we don’t remember that time. Our struggle is to return to that point. To work against, and shed every instinct and defense we have carefully trained ourselves in and to regain perfect trust without fear. To understand that all is and will be, OK, because your Dad is here for you and always will be. That he loves you, and that in itself is more than enough.
I am learning.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
…and so the he asked me,” Dave, do you think God still speaks to us?”
Yes Eddie, he does, and today it was through you.
Thanks.
d(-_-)b
Originally Posted on July 24, 2009 @http://phreshwater1.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/thank-you-fast-eddie/
In the course of our conversation, Jed asked if I had seen much change over the years in reviewing some of my writings.
I was embarrassed and saddened to honestly answer,"No, not really..." I paused for a moment and I continued, "I don't know if it's a calling of sorts, or just a sensitivity to certain issues, but the same things seem to come up over and over in all my writings."...I was truly stumped.
I've read plenty, I know and talk to lots of very intelligent and well educated people, I had certainly pondered and found many answers to life's issues over the years, and yet there it was in black and white, the same things over and over. I was bummed to say the least.
So, I went back inside the house, and began to look over even more of my ramblings, to disprove what I feared to be the case. That's when I came across this long forgotten little piece (Originally Posted on July 24, 2009), and I felt that my continual awareness/sensitivity to certain things, well...maybe it isn't really all that bad.
Maybe certain issues, will always be issues, and it just may be, that the bigger problem is when they cease to be issues to us at all. d(-_-)b
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Before you go on, allow me to give you a little background about what's going on here.
Eddie was a kid (at the time) in the youth group I was helping to lead. He was kind of awkward in both appearance and social graces, but clearly a very sweet natured, compassionate young man. During the time I had known Eddie, he had for the most part remained silent. He was more of a listener. When he did choose to speak, (and it always seemed a very conscious choice for him) he had a very soft and gentle demeanor that was clearly conveyed. I had known Eddie and his brothers since they were little kids, and although I could always see the gears turning in Eddie's head, I never really knew what he was thinking. Maybe he was just too self conscious to speak up, I don't know.
As Eddie grew older, I began to realize that he was in fact a very deep thinker, quick to listen and slow to speak, (Traits I wish I had more discipline in!) and he had a very unique perspective to offer. I like that in a person, and so as he began to speak up a little more often, I found myself actually listening to him more and more.
On this particular night, Eddie seemed to be deep in thought, or perhaps even troubled by something, I couldn't tell. I approached him a time or two, but he would not immediately share with me. Later that night however he approached me, when I was kind of away from the other kids...this is how it went, and just how deeply a simple question can resonate...
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
…and so he asked me,” Dave, do you think God still speaks to us?” and without hesitation or any real thought I answered,”Yes, He does.”.
“How?” he replied, “What does that sound like?”
And, in a moment of great irony, I asked God silently,” Well, How?! What does it sound like?!”
I’m sure He must have laughed before answering the words which I relayed to Eddie...
“God calls himself our Father, and if that is the case, we are his children.
I have four children, Eddie, and I don’t speak to any one of them quite the same in any given circumstance.
I have one child who seems to need to learn through her own experiences and no amount of speaking or discipline seems to matter. She has to figure it out.
I have another child, that if I so much as look at her cross, she cries, and so I speak to her very differently. The same is true for the other two.
So, I guess that God must speak to each of us in the way we need him to, in order to be heard and understood.”
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
I have since thought about Eddie and that evening, many, many times. I have replayed that moment in time over and over, with fondness, but also with wonder. Why was that simple question so profound to me? I knew there was something deeper to that whole situation, but what?
Then this morning it hit me, we (I) do not seek our God with the faith of a child, The sort of faith you need to have, to ask as question like that. We (I) most often approach God as though we might discover some great fraud or fault. That he may be less than perfect, unable to meet all our needs, or that our faith may have somehow been misplaced and where would that leave us?
So, we try to at least give the appearance of believers, especially to other believers, but I think deep down we fear what it might mean to live out that faith.
We find ways to work around our tough questions, afraid to ask the simple questions, we don’t dare expose our own short comings, insecurities, or weaknesses, for fear of judgment, ridicule or some strange exile that leave us alone and humiliated. We fear to seek the relationship with God that we were created to have, and so we begin to create God in our image, making him just like us.
It seems so obviously wrong to me, so why do we (I) do it?
Because, it is too easy to have have the flower of our faith trampled by the wheels of religion and the ungrace that it contains.
We become hesitant to trust the love that once cast out all fear, and lead us to a pronouncement of faith. Like someone in an abusive relationship, we flee the true and perfect love we were made to experience for fear of the unknown, and we settle back in, to suffer the security of the abuse we have always known from the world, and worse yet from the church.
I think the whole world, fears this perfect love, the love of God as exemplified in Jesus. (This includes you and me both.) I’ll explain…
This sort of love demands changes, and action, and it demands sacrifice of those it calls. Now, with that I think we might be able to live, because that alone allows us to remain in our pride, without bruising our egos. It becomes our strength and our accomplishments. A badge of nobility we can earn and can show proudly.
In short it allows us to remain focused on ourselves.
If this were the end of it, we might be OK with that, but what scares us is that what this love requires, before and more than anything else, is surrender.
Some of us might even be alright with certain surrenders of sorts, but at the heart of what really scares us is that this surrender, is that of our will, in exchange for the promise of something greater. It asks of us a level of trust and vulnerability we have not known since childhood, and have not given since the first time we experienced the crushing disappointment of its violation.
This level of surrender, (or faith) is deep but not complex. Most of us understood it once, even if we don’t remember that time. Our struggle is to return to that point. To work against, and shed every instinct and defense we have carefully trained ourselves in and to regain perfect trust without fear. To understand that all is and will be, OK, because your Dad is here for you and always will be. That he loves you, and that in itself is more than enough.
I am learning.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
…and so the he asked me,” Dave, do you think God still speaks to us?”
Yes Eddie, he does, and today it was through you.
Thanks.
d(-_-)b
Originally Posted on July 24, 2009 @http://phreshwater1.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/thank-you-fast-eddie/
- Eddy LaBounty and Veronica Vanessa Vonk like this.
Roberto Esponja Thanks Jed, and Eddie. I hope you don't mind me sharing. d(-_-)b
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