Breakfast Cereal

"When the toast is burned,
And all the milk has turned,
And Captain Crunch is waving farewell,
When the big one finds you, may this song remind you
That they don't serve breakfast in Hell"

I am a new Newsboys fan.

During the worship concert tonight, Lindsay and I headed towards the front. When we got there we were about 20 feet away from the stage. After some pushing and shoving, we were leaning on the stage.

May I say, that it is difficult to hear lyrics when you're surrounded by screaming hordes of people, and about a billion amps of sound are knocking you an inch, with every strum of a bass guitar. So I was a little confused when the Newsboys finished, and the crowd started to chant something that sounded like "Breakfast."

My confusion only intensified when a fan held up a box of Captain Crunch. And when Peter Furler (Thanks wikipedia) started to pour captain crunch all over the guy standing next to me, all I knew was that it was awesome.

I am sweaty, I am exhausted, my ears still ring, and I've got captain crunch in my pockets.

In a Kutless song, the line comes out "Let them know that a smile is not beyond us." We're Christians, people. Not only should we be loving people above all else, we should be having a blast with life. If we honestly have the maker of all things walking with us every day, we should be caked in Captain Crunch every day, in a different way. We should laugh, we should dance.

I cried tonight, because none of this is happening. I fell to my knees. I put my face to the ground, and I yelled my prayer as loud as I possibly could.

"How can we say we have the fire of God?
Behind a whisper of God is the power of a billion nuclear bombs.
How powerful is his fire? And yet how cooly do we burn?
Too many smoulder and blow out in the pews of a church.
Too many never bring the fire of God as a torch to the world.
Too few ignite other souls for you, and allow the world to feel the heat of your love.
Let me burn so hotly. Let others burst into spiritual flame by looking.
But let me get close enough to ignite them with genuine love.
And send me someone to love with such intensity.
Send me a partner, so we can burn together.
Freind or lover, it doesn't matter.
Give us all pyromaniac hearts."

The prayer was alot less eloquent, and shouted at the top of my lungs, between soul-shattering sobs. I suspect some of my freinds don't read my blog because it's too "religious." I just hope these people understand one day that what I have is certainly not Religion. Religion justifies hatred, and spreads nothing usefull. What I have is the love of a God who came to earth to do two things.

To save: God cannot stand evil. And yet we are an evil race. He hatched a plan, so that he would send his son, to become everything that he hated: the sin of the world, and die with that sin. Bring that sell way the hell down. It's like a body slam. Jesus took that garbage, and buried it in the mat. But being oh so much more powerful, he came up, while the sin was laying defeated on the ground. He did that because he loved us too much to see us all stay away from him.

The American church has made God a judgemental being who takes great pleasure in stamping "heaven" on the people who tell the world what they're doing wrong. But that is ... in words C.S. Lewis might use ... "Damned nonsense." He loved us too much, to see us all flounder, trying to be perfect. He sent the perfect one down to us, the first and only sinless man ever, to become sin for us, and die. Jesus was more evil than Hitler, Stalin, or anybody else in history, because he died for EVERYONE, including them. The sinless one took all that human crud, and became the most wretched person in existance, became the thing he hated most, so that we could be saved, and live the full life he has called us to.

To relate: Being all-knowing, and omnipresent, we could have just said "God knows what you're going through," and be absolutely right. But that doesn't do much for me. Jesus could have easily gone from heaven to the grave, and back to heaven again in three days, and everything would have been good. But he took thirty three years, to live as we live. To be tempted, to feel alone, to deal with all the crap of the human experience. Not because he wanted, or needed to experience it. But because this broken humanity can't take him at his word.

He suffered for us. So we would know for certain that he knows where we are. He knew what it was like to doubt, to struggle. Every cruddy thing that's happened to me, he knows what's on the go. He did all that, just because his creation is too stupid to take him at his word.

I've been thinking lately. Earth must be God's crown jewel, in his creation. He's spent so much time, and effort on it, and it's so beautiful.

But from our artful orb, in God's gallery, we get to see his other work. It appears he enjoys abstract art. Have you ever looked at a nebula? Have you ever sat and stared at cosmic gasses? Nobody can create anything as beautiful, and nobody can fathom anything as huge.

I leave you with my favourite of the bunch I found the other day. The Eagle Nebula:

And a few others, because they're just so incredible ...
Above: Doesn't that look like a morning sky?
Above: The Horsehead Nebula. I lost my closeup picture, but you understand where it gets it's name ...
Above: I think this is the result of a supernova or something. It looks so intense.
Above: The Hourglass Nebula. Tell me that "eye of god" is not freaky. Is it just me, or isn't it ironic that in one of "God's art pieces" it appears as if God is watching us? Earth? The eye looks straight at us. He admires his work.

I can't understand why sometimes. Look how we've messed it up.