The massive amounts of unwarranted self confidence today’s leaders possess, is impressive and terrifying to me. The situation only gets worse as you pair this egotistical mindset with an inflated sense of identity and dreams of legacy/grandeur. Leaving us all at the mercy of these self proclaimed dragons, and their narcissistic whims (to space, to politics, to sport, to rule, to devour, etc ) as they sit upon their hordes of gold – looking down from their perches with greed; an all consuming motivator spurring them ever onward, never satisfied. Yet the strangest element of our story, is the bizarre behaviour of the terrorized peasants. They stand and applaud the winged beasts, as they watch their farms burn to the ground and giggle as their agency is stripped from their backs. As they seem overjoyed to embrace the farcical dreams of becoming a dragon themselves. Call it mythology, call it metaphor, call it just the way things are but the truth is: to whom much is given, much is required and our leaders have conveniently forgotten what that means. So we the people must hold them to the fire, and I will act the spark.

The downward spiral that is my life, is akin to a painfully slow but unavoidable car crash or an incremental but almost imperceptible descent into the abyss: “the dark night of the soul” they call it, I call it “life”. Much like Dante before me, a deep sense of loss and grief has been my portion; though I have fought it with all that I am, a steady diet of that will leave even the most faithful servant crestfallen.

Though we can visit our memories and cast our vision to the future, I don’t believe it is a good idea to live in those places for any length of time. Unless of course, your goal is to turn into a pillar of salt or to be anxious over things that may never be. I say this because the truth is, we are not the same people, we were yesterday, and tomorrow is unknown. So, we must conclude that we were designed to live in the present moment. “Obviously, a small child could have told me that, Kyle! We move and live in linear time, what’s so profound about that”. It is only special in that this very moment, as you read my words, is where you have agency and can act. It is in this gifted/privileged place where you are able to utilize the lessons of the past and the hopes of the future to impact your own growth and the growth of others. Yet how do we orient our growth towards the light, towards becoming something good? Especially when we are spending less time feeding our obsession of what could have be or what will be and are just riding the wave of life!

There are many options: Is it through pure moral sweat? Herculean efforts of self improvement? Laying out our offerings and sacrifice to buy purity? Stringent rule keeping to earn our way to our goal? No, I believe it’s much easier and harder than that. Faith, seems to be the only real answer. 

My brothers and sisters,

It is fairly simple, we have all fallen short of living purely and fully as God intended by breaking God’s Law. You know what I am taking about, the ten simple commands given to us by Moses and carved into our moral compass from the beginning of time, outlining what God desires of us… or if it suits you better, the contract that we all signed by accepting life from the creator. Even the best of us, in all their spiritual exercises and moral efforts have never been able to remove the stain of willingly or unwillingly choosing to joined the original rebel, following his path into sin over righteousness. Now, we may have all kinds of beautiful justifications for our wrong doings but the divine judge isn’t impressed by such things. He won’t be swayed by our mental gymnastics or blame shifting. Instead, he looks straight at the heart of a man and woman, then weighs the truth out and makes his decision with no partiality. Which unfortunately leaves us all under the penalty of both a spiritual and natural death for our criminal acts against our maker.

So what do we do? When justice must be served and all we can declare is, “I am guilty! It was my choice and I chose poorly!”

The journey towards God has been a very isolating and lonely path for me. I have family and friends, like anyone else but I have never managed to find my tribe. You know a group of people more aligned with ones goals and aspirations. In this case, to better understand the nature and character of God. Don’t get me wrong, my people will humour me yet nothing is more disheartening than watching their eyes glaze over as I speak passionately about Jesus. I invite them into the feast, they hear the teacher from Charlie Brown. Its difficult to watch your love have no effect but I shouldn’t be surprised as scripture always plays out… Only the Father is able to draw people to the truth, and unfortunate I believe the same can be said of Christian Community, only the Father can give such a gift. Man’s forced attempts from my experience, aka the institutionalized church seems to continue the practice of making a house of prayer into a den of thieves.

If there is one thing I have grown to learn in my 15 years of chronic illness, is that people love to go out of their way to kick the broken hearted. I can hear you saying, “what are you on about Kyle? I have never seen anyone do that! Such a thing doesn’t happen in the civilized world”, well I would argue you have actually put the boots to a few people in your life time. I know I did when I walked upright with boundless energy, only knowing wholeness until one day that all changed.