Amber Bottles

I have learned a great deal in a few minutes of my life – minutes that are spread out, flattened by the weight of great color and experience, over decades from the time I was wearing holes in my “toughskins” to wearing out the seats in my Honda Element.

If those minutes were afforded me to learn, then what have I done with the rest of the minutes and seconds - the hours that gird the rest of the story?

For I am an expert in hate. And lets for the sake of argument and discourse say that when I say hate, I use that to umbrella all the sentiments of anger, rage, bitterness, malice and plain ole indifference that I store in an amber bottle (so as not to spoil the flavor) on a shelf in my room.

I leave it there so I will never run out – its there because its too heavy and powerful to carry around. Lets just say, it’s my thing.

But I have a picture of it that I carry with me, somewhat of a practical, laptop, explainable, usable version of the commodore 64 in my room (for those of you who don’t know what a commodore 64 is, I’m not even gonna try).

Per great counsel and strict conviction I have done a good job of not clothing myself with my portable hate. I took the picture of it out of my wallet and I stopped wearing “negative” clothing – things like “God hates gays”, “abortion is murder” and “Michigan sucks” (1 of the 3 I do really miss).

I even started to smile on a regular basis at people whom I really don’t have any business liking (FL plates in the mountains – don’t know what I mean? Come up to the mountains in a blizzard and drive with ‘em).

I have done a great job over my twenty-three years as a believer in Jesus of leaving home without my “hate”.

Two weeks ago, my cute little mountain house lost water and the week after that we lost heat. So life became real simple and I had to pack up and get ready for another move.

Tshirts, check. Dvd’s, check. Toiletries, check. Pictures, hmm (stall….)

Picture after picture, page after page, memory after memory and all of sudden I realized that I was having an allergic reaction of sorts.

My body became rigid and cold and this one little spot on the wall was moving like a freaking action movie (of my life). My life scrolled slowly in my front of my eyes – disappointment after disappointment, broken friendship after broken friendship, broken deals, broken words… oh, how I hate those who have disappointed me, left me, forsaken me. Their numbers are vast and their falsehoods immeasurable. Ugh!

How could I have loved such miserable people? It’s a good thing I didn’t have anything to do with it (tongue in cheek).

Lie(s), check…

See I told a friend, “its easy to tell the truth when you are so good at lying to yourself”. Kind of harsh, I know. But she needed to hear it and it was the truth. When you lie to yourself, you can become an amazing truthteller.

What’s the merit in being such a truthteller, in being such a stand up person in public when we just go home and get drunk on the things we stored up and hid on shelves in the back?

I am an expert in hate, an expert because I drink heavily of the things I have stored up on this earth. And you should see my shelves (well, actually – its better that you don’t. I want you to buy my CD’s and now maybe you’re starting to see what I did with all those hours).

We are moving into an era in the Church where the ghosts need to come out of the closet and we all need to come clean about our messes.

Yes, that has been true of the past but never more appropriate a plea for the immediate Church.

The “unchurched” and the “churched” alike are not going to fall for those who say, “Come follow me…but don’t get too close – just trust me from afar”.

Are we being baptized in public only to go home and submit to the amber bottles on our shelves? If I’m gonna be a hypocrite, if I have some freedom to pick which battles I lose, let me not lose that one. Let me not choose to hate, let me not choose to be a victim when I have access to an amazing lifegiver. Let me choose things that are better for me AND others.

I have a friend named Grant Knisely – he is an award winning videographer and documentary writer. I met him at a retreat in the US and the second time we met up was in Sri Lanka when he came to make a documentary with me.

He is not perfect, not by any means so I don’t mean to paint a picture like that.

But for some reason, of all the friends I have and the acquaintances I have made I think of him when I make this point.

He is so willing to travel light… in part because he’s carrying his video gear but also because its better for everyone else. (That’s not a plug for socialism but take it for what it is). He packs light, moves quickly and is extremely helpful and flexible. He displays a strange “lack of self” and the only reason I share that is to make this small point.

He seems to have traded in some of his amber bottles, the ones that are just for him, for some that can feed “the many”.

Hell, I got so many bottles on the shelf I need to see what’s in ‘em before I trade them in but it’s a step in the right direction for me to at least count them. Why am I so burdened when I live a good, honorable public life? Because I’m a closet drinker? It may be so.

So what of all these full bottles on these full shelves in our full houses? Break ‘em. Burn ‘em. Because in reality, all we have done is put a lot of poison in one place – a lot of sedatives on one shelf and a lot of indifference on our plates. And we have become fat from feeding on them in private.

Travel lighter, need less, bless more… do we really have the freedom to carry things that can change a life? I believe so… and maybe even “bring the dead to life” (to put a more “lord of the rings” spin to things, haha).

You and I may need to consider what we are packing for this next trip. We may need to rethink what lies we are comfortable with, how we steward the time that cushions our significant minutes. We may need to rethink from whom we will learn great truths and certainly we must consider those we intend to influence.

Because we’re not here long and we don’t really get to pick which minutes will be significant. We’ll be required to just take it as it comes so why not bless all those we can. I, for one, don’t want to miss out because I was in the back getting hammered on the old stock. If I have the freedom to choose – that will not be my legacy. Break the bottles.