Kickstart

Bean Hollow State Beach; Pescadero, CA

Okay, this is my canvas to test things and throw stuff at the virtual wall, so hear me out; I’m playing with something here…

Knowing the bigger context, I can respect what St. Paul says in Romans: “Nothing good lives in me.” I’m proud as any Lutheran of my low anthropology. But plucked out of the broad swoop of the Gospel, if I’m not careful, I can grab this passage like a rubber hose and flog myself with it. And then, to get even more twisted, I can start to feel oddly great about how much I suck. (Maybe you’ve been there.)

I don’t know if this - in and of itself - is a proper diagnosis of the human situation. If nothing good lives in me, well… That would make God a pretty awful creator, wouldn’t it?

I’m starting to see whatever is “in me” (which is a whole other conversation) as less ‘flawed’ or ‘ungood’ and more… incomplete. Like an incomplete part of an electrical circuit that fails to conduct a current.¹ When I go it alone, I can try like mad. And it might feel productive to my ego. But man, is it a slog and an empty endeavor.

God completes my incomplete circuit of self. But not just God in the abstract. Not the unknown God I ponder or hear about in Bible stories and tall tales. God completes the circuit when God is given TO ME and FOR ME in water, word, wine, bread.² When that Living Word settles into the depths of my being and takes root.

Sometimes it doesn’t take root.
Sometimes, I’m like, pssssht, who cares? What does that even mean?

But when it really hits me that God chooses me and loves me (and even likes me!) as I am right now in the middle of the muck of my life…
I’m made complete again.
Fully human.
A live wire. 

That’s the loop, it seems. Not just me. But God for and with me constantly speaking me back into being as God’s own beloved. 

That, right there, is what kickstarts the heart.

1. Or maybe God IS the whole circuit, and I’m the conduit. Maybe that’s the imagery here. I dunno.

2. I can experience God’s for-me-ness in the rustling of leaves, the unconditional love of a pet, the gaze of a newborn, or an impeccable sunset. But I’m slow on the uptake and often need the words of someone stating the direct promise of God in Jesus as I receive whatever elements I receive this Living Word in.