Jason's Blog

One of our daughters is preparing for state standardized testing these days, and they are teaching her how to write.  They have this scorecard where they evaluate 5 writing rubrics:

• focus (does this make sense?)
• organization (is your paper organized?)
• depth of development (how much detail do you use?)
• voice (is your writing original and with personality?)
• conventions (can you spell? use good grammar, etc.)

This scoring scale reminds me a little of the discussion of J. P. Prichard’s “Understanding Poetry” as quoted in the Dead Poets Society (1989).  Blah!!!!!!!!

But to their credit, the model encourages young writers to focus on details.  Without details, our ideas are stale and forgettable.  We need concrete adjectives and surprising turns in order to hold a reader’s attention.  Otherwise our words are cheap and hollow.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

When God wanted to communicate with us, he didn’t use an abstract idea.  Jesus came in the flesh.

• He was born of Mary.
• His stomach growled as he spoke with a woman from Samaria.
• His sweat dripped down in his eyes under the afternoon sun.
• He was so tired that he could sleep in moving boat.
• His crucifixion and death was deep physical struggle.

God is definitely into details, and the truth is that we can– in our flesh and blood– be changed into the image of Jesus.  This is what discipleship is all about.  We let the incarnation of Jesus drip into our bodies.

A friend and I were recently talking and he described how he was letting the Holy Spirit gradually drip into his body like a cancer patient does when they are hooked up to an IV.  Drip. . . Drip. . . Drip.  It may take a while but the drug makes its way down a tube and into our veins and our being.

The Word becomes flesh.  Can that Happen to you?  Will you give God permission to be IN your life?

“In an age of information overload, when a vast variety of media delivers news faster than most of us can digest- when many of us have at least two e-mail addresses, two telephone numbers, and one fax number– the last thing any of us need is more information about God.  We need the practice of the incarnation, by which God saves the lives of those whose intellectual assent has turned as dry as dust, who have run frighteningly low on the bread of life, who are dying to know more about God in their bodies (Barbara Brown Taylor, Altar in the World, HarperCollins, 2009): 45. “

How does this happen?  How can we let more of God’s truth reach into the deeper places in our lives?  It doesn’t happen by a mathematical formula.  It won’t happen by accident.  The place to start is prayer.

Father,

You are our rock and shield and deliverer.
Fill us with mercy and concern.
Give us hands to serve.
Feet that walk in peace.
May we come to know Jesus more fully today. – Amen