davinci had a code?

"As long as there has been one true God, there has been killing in his name."

There has obviously been a lot of controversy over The DaVinci Code and, more recently, Angels and Demons.

Those are amazing movies. Some of my favorites.

It's a story. Fiction. So shut up and enjoy some great story-telling.

Not only are these two movies (and I hear, books) great mysterious tales, but they are full of absolutely amazing quotes.

Take the one at the beginning of this blog. I rarely hear words more honest. It reminded me of Blue Like Jazz (if you haven't, read it! That's an order!), where Don apologizes for the Crusades. Reading that made me what to go set up my own confession stand.

I'd tell them that we've fucked up badly. We've focused on the filth of man and refused to acknowledge the divine traits God has endowed each of us with. We've looked at the outward, and disregarded the heart. The wellspring of life. The core.

We've kept ourselves quarantined in our pristine churches and chapels and failed to go outside our brick-layed walls. But outside is where we are needed. Outside is where we are called.

Every Sunday we stand in our pews with either raised hands or hymn books and we sing. We cringe if the song-leader misses a chord. And somewhere out there there may be a teenage girl about to overdose on anything she could find. Across the street might be a man on the verge of raping a girl. Somewhere around the corner may be a needy soul who is crying out for someone. "Jesus, help me." But Jesus is paralyzed, boys and girls. Jesus has His hands and feet tied up inside the pristine chapels, the glass houses of the church.

"As long as there has been one true God, there has been killing in his name." And it's still going on.

I'm going to go as far as to say there's blood on my hands, on yours- on ours as a church. "Go unto all the world" was the command, not stay in your pretty manicured churches and listen to a man preach.

There is a time and a place. And we've gotten too much of preaching and sitting down and listening.

That's all we ever do, is listen. We don't act.

If we do, it's inviting someone to church, our social club, or telling them "I will pray for you, dear sister" and then forgetting her name. That's a "step of faith" and a "witness" to this dying world? Seriously? Grow up.

We're not little children any more. We shouldn't still be fed milk. It's time for the meat (says the vegan), and with meat come bones.

There is evil in the world, though sometimes I think there's more in the church. We have to come face to face with evil to do any good. Where light is, darkness is not- but they touch at the edge. They have met, and they have overlapped.

We have to get our hands dirty to cleanse our hands of the blood we may have unwittingly shed.

I for one can't stand the church as it is right now, at least the ones I've been to lately. I have to walk out. I can hear the cries of souls waiting to be loved, and yet I'm expected to sing some pretty little song about how Jesus saves. Jesus can save without us, but He sure could use our help. Jesus would move a whole lot faster if He had hands and feet, don't you think?

Don't shove a dollar in the homeless man or woman's cup, take them to lunch, hear their story. I bet it'll bless you. I bet they have an amazing story to tell. I bet they're wise beyond their life span.

Don't make a wide circle around the prostitute. Ask her if she's hungry. Tell her there's hope out there. . there are stars. They still shine. She doesn't have to sell her body to find her soul. There is love and it doesn't only exist between two sheets and two bodies who are struggling to breathe.

Don't dismiss the child as being a fool, because they are wise beyond their years. They understand things that even adults struggle to comprehend. Listen to them. Look at the drawings they draw for you. They care deeply and unconditionally. They don't know a straight man from a homosexual, they hug the body none-the-less, no matter what he chooses to do with his sexual orientation.

Please, please listen.

Love.

Come on.

You've heard me say this before, hear me say it again.

Jesus summed it up in this:
1) Love God. Love Him with everything. Heart, mind, soul, body. Love Him because He is worth and awesome and mystical.
2) Love others the way God loves you. Love them no matter their skin color, eye color, sexual orientation, hair color, clothing style or religion. Just love them. Love them the way you wish someone would love you. Bake them cookies. Make them mixed CD's of their favorite songs. Write them poems. Tell them they're unique. Most of all, tell them there is love out there for them, and it's true, and they can have it. It is reachable.
Hug them.

It's not that hard to comprehend, but it's hard to do. It just starts with trying though. If you don't try, you won't get very far.

Start by loving God. Don't love Him for His gifts to you, because that's selfish. Love Him because He is beyond comprehension and immovable, insurmountable, and a mystery.

God is love. We're supposed to strive to become like Him.

"We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out time and time again until we are called home." -Jamie Tworkowski

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