Who Cares About the Details?

I don’t often write much about Faith on this blog, not specifically anyway. It’s hidden in the trees if you look for it, but often times, I want to write in a way that gives the reader the opportunity to interpret what the words mean and feel to themselves, rather than try to always put a certain spin on things.

With that, I cannot say want I am feeling this morning without first saying that I operate from a Christian belief and perspective, so take that as you will as you read.

Today, as there is everyday, there is peace in the world, even when it doesn’t feel like it. There is peace in the hope that one day, we’ll be in God’s perfect House - a House set at the perfect temperature, with the best views and where nothing breaks. A House where there’s no striving to fix things, be anywhere else or do anything. A House that’s, essentially, just being in God’s presence all the time, which relieves guilt and anxieties and replaces them with assurance and rest.

God’s House is going to be the best House because God is in the details, and God cares about the details. Ever since He communicated how to build an Alter and a Tabernacle, with all of the acute measurements and materials, He has cared about the small things, and I can only imagine how legit His house is going to be when I get to step inside it because I know he cared about every inch of its construction process. And like this, I hope I can remember He cares about the small things in my own life and in your life, even when life’s problems feel anything but small. The God who created everything cares.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Is there really anything considered ‘too small’ for a God that is so big?

Chasing a Hero

As I sit here trying to calm down, relighting the incense, and feeling the burn of a mostly-finished glass of bourbon in my throat, I think to myself, “Why didn’t you click save when you wrote this post the first time?”

And also, “Is this really what you thought life would be like?”

Right now, I’m flustered, sitting up here in my garage apartment alone, trying to re-write thoughts I’ve already written, watching the incense burn down once again, and the thoughts aren’t the same. The flow is gone. The words have changed. The passion absorbed by frustration, and the desire clouded by “I should probably just go to bed.”

But I’ll write.

Yuh see, when I moved into this apartment, I was chasing one of my heroes, so I thought. Donald Miller is his name; Blue Like Jazz is his fame. I moved here with goals and dreams, wanting to be just like this hero of mine. I wanted to live above where cars slept, work a day job that allowed me to save my creative juices for writing sessions in the morning and at night. I wanted to become a published author by the age of 28. That’s what Don did, breaking into the New York Times Best Seller list at a super ripe age. He could do it, why couldn’t I? After all, Don and I are similar guys. We’ve practically lived the same sort of life, both intentionally on my part, and unintentionally.

I too moved away from my Bible-belt buckle of a hometown to the great Pacific Northwest to get as far away from the culture I grew up in as I could. I too left with questions about Faith, what the world looked like around me and why a Coors Light was enough reason to be sent to the Place They Don’t Serve Breakfast In (that’s a Newsboys reference for you kids at home). I too was a player, having gone through my fair share of relationships and leaving a trail of destruction in my wake. I too was a writer, a storyteller and a guy who tried not to take life too seriously. Aren’t we the same, Don and I?

Except I got a day job that allowed me to save my creative juices for writing sessions in the morning and at night, but I haven’t been very good at using those juices. Except I’m not a published author, and I’m definitely not anywhere close to selling anything in New York. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure I still have the same sort of boldness for adventure I once had that would take me to New York on a whim of Faith that I once learned from my hero.

It feels funny to write (and rewrite) these words at a table that I’ve written thousands of other words at. Words that have always been full of hope, honesty, transparency and aspiration, but are now outnumbered by thoughts that are full of doubt, fear and uncertainty. Is what I really wanted only going to amount to that? I’d like to think not.

These days are the days when it feels like I’m becoming less of a person I’ve been chasing and more like someone I’ve been running from. Finances are tight, words are few and winter is on its way, dragging a looming number 29 right behind it. But I’m writing.

Writing.

And while the incense is nearly gone and the bourbon long gone, the words are not. They will someday turn into a page, and hopefully, that page will turn . . . into something I’ve been chasing for a long, long time.

Cheers to the heroes.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Chase a hero, you might not catch em’. Heroes are fast; that’s why they’re heroes, and that’s why they’re worth chasin’.

If Fear Leads to the Dark Side, Am I A Sith?

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting on a bench on the west side of Guthrie Green Park in Downtown Tulsa. This happens to be the same bench that I ripped a hole in my pants on nearly a year and a half ago- a hole that ripped down the entire crotch of my pants in the middle of my work day on my lunch hour.

At that time, I was new to Tulsa and didn’t really have anyone to go to lunch with, so I swung by Jimmy Johns on my own and thought I’d head down to the park to eat my sandwich because what better place is there to eat a sandwich (sadwich?) by yourself? Anyway, as soon as I got out of my truck and went to sit on a bench to enjoy my delicious Turkey Tom, my pants ripped, sending me on an emergency run to Gap for a new pair of khakis and sending me back to my truck to eat my sandwich in the confines of closed doors because that’s what you do when you have a hole in your pants that’s the same size as the hole in the ozone layer.

Not much has changed since that afternoon a year and a half ago; however, at the same time, so much has.

-This same bench is still sitting here, and I’m still sitting on the same bench.
-I still don’t know many people in town.
-I’m still pretty shy and nervous about what people will think of me eating alone.
-I’m still dressing the same( though I try to buy sturdier pairs of pants).
-I still like the same food, same music and same sports teams.

All of those things seem the same. But at the same time, my entire world looks different.

I’m not wearing ripped pants, and I don’t have that same truck that sheltered my holy pant shame a year and a half ago. Come to think of it, I don’t even have those replacement pants. I have a new job, live in a different house and have covered my body with a few new tattoos to remind me of where I’ve been and why. I have a few new friends, and I’ve sadly lost a few old ones, and each one of these small, but big things, really has the scenery around me looking differently than I ever could have imagined it back then.

Since the last time I sat on this bench, I’ve made a lot of mistakes- most of which everyone around me is aware of, yet at the same time, I’ve done a lot of things to try to fix those mistakes and make sure they don’t happen again. Through some counseling, accountability and growing up, I’m a different person than I was then, and I’d like to think so for the better. But what if I’m not. What if I’m just a different person?

-Last time I sat here, I was more confident.
I was more confident because no one knew my mistakes.

-Last time I sat here, I was more sure of who I thought I was and who I thought I wanted to be.
I had goals, and those goals were shaping how my world looked.

Now, I lack confidence, care astronomically more about what people think about me and about what I create, I have almost zero goals, and did I mention I care way too much about what people think of me? It’s the soul reason I haven’t written a blog in 8 months, haven’t posted anything related to my personal life in more than a year on any social media outlet, and honestly, the reason I spend so much time behind a camera rather than in front of one- you can’t see me. Fear is the root. What you see (or don’t) is the stem. I don’t want to see what kind of plant that could bloom. 

Everyone says perfect love casts out fear. All my Christian friends say that if you know God’s love, it’s perfect, and therefore, I shouldn’t fear. I guess maybe I’m still trying to understand that love because Lord knows, I’m still living in a lot of fear- At least over ripping my pants, anyway  

In the mean time, it’s nice to write again, folks. Cheers to you.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Writing without fear of judgement feels great; do it more often. 

Why Can't I See God?

Biology was always a difficult subject for me in school- specifically, microbiology. I was always pretty good at other sciences, but when it came down to the study of microscopic organisms like bacteria, protozoa or fungi, my mind seemed to meet its match. There's just something about my my mind trying to comprehend something small and formless that doesn't work for me. I'm a visual learner, and when I have to try to visualize something that I can't even see, it doesn't usually work out in my favor. When I can't picture something in my mind, like something microscopic or something without form, I have a hard time grasping its reality, and when I have a hard time grasping its reality, I have a hard time focusing on it and learning more about it. 

Cue: God.

Today, I was reading in the book of Deuteronomy (that's a sentence you don't see every day), and there's this passage where Moses is reminding the Israelite people that God has no form, so they should never try to give Him a form. Moses reminds them that they saw no form when God spoke to them out of a fire, and that, because of that, they need to guard themselves from turning 'corrupt' and making an image or carving that could look like anything in natural world around them that they might try to assign God to. 

God has no specific 'form.'

Cue: My struggle and the struggle of many of trying to grasp the reality of God.

I believe there is a God, and I believe that there's a spiritual realm to life that's far above any of our thoughts or ideas; however, just because I believe it, doesn't always mean I understand it or can grasp it. I can't see God- just like, in a roundabout way, I couldn't see micro-organisms in microbiology. I can't see Him, so I have a hard time comprehending His existence at times, but then again, that's also the point. 

We shouldn't be able to comprehend all the things of God. What would the point be of worshipping something you completely understood? You'd get bored. I mean have you ever been in awe of something you completely understood? I haven't. If God had a distinct form or was Someone/Something completely understandable, like a statue or a bull or something, we would get bored. There wouldn't be any depth to that kind of relationship. 

God is not confined to a building, a book or a cloud. God is not white man, and He is not a cross- God has no distinct form. He is God. He is in Heaven above, He is on earth below, and He's the only God there is. 

-Cliff

Cliff's Note: "Seeing isn't believing, but believing is seeing."