Tall Monastic Guy

Beyond Familiarity: a para-form spirituality

In the 2004 comedy, Saved, Mandy Moore plays Hilary Faye, the zealous teenage Christian and upstanding leader of her high school christian sub-culture. There's this particular scene of the movie that sticks out to me as simultaneously ha-ha and haunting. 

Upon kidnapping her friend Mary - the girl who got pregnant by her former boyfriend who is actually gay - Hillary aggressively attempts to fix her "backsliding" friend. Toward the end of the chaotic intervention, Hillary shoves Mary in the back then literally chucks the Bible at her angrily shouting, "I am filled with Christ's love!"

Beyond Fight or Flight: reflections on Pine Ridge & the communion meal

As a kid I ran from brokenness. Whenever a fight broke out at school while some excitedly gravitated toward it I’d subtely turn tail and literally walk away in the opposite direction. I remember doing this often. Whenever I found myself in proximity to deep hurt, sickness, or wreckage my sensitive psyche wanted nothing to do with it so in my fear I’d flee.

I still feel that same compulsion and sensitivity now but at some point in the growing older I turned a corner and began moving toward the wreckage with an innocent and perhaps sometimes arrogant desire to rummage through it searching for redemption. Reactions to brokenness tend to vacillate between fight or flight feeling as if situations, relationships, and people are either fixable or beyond it.

Irrelevant Christ

Christ hanging there outstretched cross.

Christ hanging here in shame and loss.

 

Christ unproductive just needs a job.

Christ no english only a nod.

 

Christ ever thirsting for next drink.

Christ turning tricks. Seductive wink.

Tasting Dust: Resurrection's Sister

“If your heart stops, do you want us to try and bring you back?”

The disturbing nature of the question sent Poss into momentary flashbacks of all the near death experiences he’d endured. After arriving back to the consciousness of the moment, he responded with a resounding, "Yes, I want to be brought back!”

Poss made it through the surgery and is alive and well today. Seemingly resurrected, he's been sober since August 23rd of 2011 and now housed in his own apartment after roaming the Mile High streets for years.

Poss tasted the dust and now lives with the aftertaste of resurrection.