Don't leave the wounded behind.

"God's best soldiers are grown in the fields of affliction (and rampant error)...and as I'm learning...again and again...don't leave the wounded behind...even if they fight you...your are a true friend...and some people just don't (or can't) get that."

-- affirmation from a friend

This was my favorite of many really interesting responses to yesterday's message on failure in loving. I think that subject hit a chord with many. As a result of this well-timed and inspiring wisdom, I have this to say to anyone out there who has ever felt damaged by, disappointed in, disconnected from, or disenchanted by me or my love for them, in all of its perfect imperfection, but who still feels desperately hurting, isolated from all encouragement and support in their lives, and too wounded to ask for help: "I am here for you and love you completely, and I would lay down my life for you, even if I have hurt you before in ways I couldn't see or understand at the time." In other words, even if I am or have been a totally unintentional source of some of your pain (friendly fire, so to speak), I would gladly circle back and lend a helping hand, if needed, and we all need each other way too much for hurt feelings, pride, or resentment to get in the way of His plan for our total unification. There are days when I need this, and I am learning to ask for it when I do, and there are many days I stand ready to provide it, and will walk a very long way to do so, even if I've been totally exhausted on the battlefield.

This feeling reminded me of a message from two years ago about the impossibly difficult, yet essential nature of love:


Building lovers out of the fire of hate and resentment (October, 2007)

"Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided (even amidst the chaotic mess) by great feelings of deep love."

-- Che Guevara

"Just as 'believers' are a dime a dozen in the church, so are 'activists' in social justice circles nowadays. But true 'lovers' are hard to come by. And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, knowing them deeply behind their masks, and who actually know the faces and hearts of the people behind the issues they are concerned about. We are trying to raise up an army not simply of self-righteous street activists but of genuine lovers - a community of people who have fallen desperately in love with God and with suffering people everywhere, starting right here in our own midst, and who allow these difficult relationships to disturb, rattle, and transform us."

-- Shane Claiborne, in The Irresistible Revolution

"Harsh judgement, while we're swept up in our bitter self-righteousness, actually feeds the evil that is attacking our brother or sister, and it is spurred on by the pride in our own hearts. But humility births intercession that responds to the needs of our brother or sister by 'becoming the solution' to his or her problem through prayer saturated in redemptive love. Redemptive love is radical; love that is not based on experiences, but on the unconditional love of God. This kind of love is revolutionary, in that it is calling us to overturn our own ego's conditions, expectations, and needs in the matter. He is calling His people to be radical, revolutionary lovers. Radical, revolutionary love destroys the works of darkness in the lives of others. It causes us to love in spite of how we are seen or treated! Radical, revolutionary love is simply loving as Christ loved, who gave His life for those He loved. 'Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends' (Jn. 15:13). This kind of love responds to offense with redemptive intercession, not with accusation or judgement. It does not take offense personally, but looks past the faults of others and sees their needs, compelling us to become a part of the solution, not the problem. This is the 'greater love' that God is calling us to walk in. This is the radical, revolutionary love that God had for us that moved Him to send His only Son to redeem and save our lives. And surely Jesus came to save the world, not judge it (see Jn. 12:47). We are called to do the same in our own worlds!"

-- Victoria Boyson

It is time to answer the call most emphatically, knowing we will not get it right, and we will likely make fools of ourselves. And what a blessing and joy to be a fool for love. I share this message with great encouragement, enthusiasm, and joy, and on behalf of all of us who sometimes feel called to judge first, and love second, and only as an often fake and mustered-up feeling so as to check the box of "looking good." Leading with our egos, and the angry bluster and puffed-up pride that generally characterizes them, is death for all. This is not an invitation to fake it so as to look good, pretending there is no ego, while faking kindness, selflessness, all while seething inside. No, that is a sick joke that never works. The answer: Die to your ego in the inner revolution best described as "self-crucifixion," where your anger and pride is offered up in all of its hot, steaming stench as a holy sacrifice to God, love, family, and friendship. Don't fake love, or be overwhelmed by hate; instead, BE LOVE as a phoenix rising out of the ashes of your "hate burned down," for all to see. Expect to be misunderstood; expect to be resisted; expect to surrender; expect to be transformed through your continued willingness.

Wounded Ministry

"For the true minister of his time is called to recognize, clarify, and recontextualize the sufferings of his time, however unconscious and vague among the many, to bring those sufferings into fine focus in his own heart, and to make that distilled refinement of understanding the starting point of his message and service work. Whether he tries to enter into a dislocated world, relate to a convulsive generation, connect with a couple in bitter crisis, or speak to a dying man, his service will not be perceived as authentic unless it comes from a heart wounded deeply by the exact and very personal (however ubiquitous) suffering about which he speaks, and it's not about his clearing or mastering or solving of it, but his complete and utter surrender to it as an indelible mark of his humanity and the only way of liberation and freedom."

-- Henri Nouwen, in The Wounded Healer


"What is to give light must endure burning."

-- Viktor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning

I have discovered, on my own deeply personal journey, that there is no hope so dangerous as false hope, and that there is only one real and true hope, and that is of total acceptance of one's current condition as perfect on the journey home to eternity. And perfect does not mean pain-free; it means even the pain is perfect, and the work is to accept and endure. Hoping to act better, be better, feel better, get better, look better, pretend better, succeed better at some future point in this lifetime, for example, based on the creation or existence of "happier," less painful external conditions, is an empty and self-limiting hope, if it does not include this total acceptance/endurance/pathway-to-eternal part.

Accepting that this human life on planet Earth is filled with all kinds of pain (that just gets more sophisticated and subtle in its dangerous impact, the more we wrestle with or try to manage or eliminate it), we get the incredible opportunity to learn how to transform the experience of - rather than eliminate - the pain, in such a way that human (whether physical, emotional, or psychological) "suffering" (vs. the pain itself) is first limited and then eliminated, allowing for the bold spiritual "choice" of joy in the midst of the worldly experience (even the most intense pain), which is the only doorway to the rich and full experience of "freedom" in this lifetime. All others are false advertising, dangerous in their subversive plot, which first claims to make things better for you here, built upon a paradigm that something is wrong here.

When the foundational paradigm underneath a given process claims that "something is wrong," all that will get produced in that process is first a very fleeting high of "now it's right," and then further longing for things to get "even more better," because, after all, "something is wrong" sits in the engine room of your thought patterns, then competition sets up to demonstrate and argue how "right" mine is and how "wrong" yours is, and away we go. It is a self-perpetuating death march, feeding the process and its associated machinery, not you, built upon your bitter and often very subtly hidden (because, after all, we have to "show" that we're "winning" this game) "discontent." When the foundational paradigm shifts to "everything is exactly as it has been perfectly designed," the process shifts to producing acceptance, collaboration, dialogue, enjoyment, exploration, inquiry, sharing - in other words, freedom.

"Don't aim at or strive for success -- the more you aim at it and make it a priority target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause far greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a faith or mission or person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to allow it to happen by not caring about it at all. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run -- in the long run, I say -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it. By relentlessly and tirelessly choosing your mission, you are free to choose the joy of your surrender to it, no matter how it feels."

-- Viktor Frankl

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

-- Patanjali

And this happens with the "choice of" and "surrender to" a sense of higher (and eternal) calling or purpose, as well as seeing the surrounding circumstances (including any associated pain) as perfect, by definition and design. In the process, not only is "suffering (vs. pain) eliminated," but "joy is heightened" in the "choosing to see it."

In the end, we are all like Michelangelo, filled with both agony and ecstasy, and to find our ecstasy and surrender to it is our call and our destiny, if we so choose, or we could simply live small, meaningless lives of quiet desperation. Oh hum. I don't think so.