Peace Treatments

I'm sitting in a dorm room at RRU in the 2nd residency of my master's program, taking a break from endless readings and assignment outlines. What a crazy journey this has been, getting from "there to here". The irony is that RRU is in my old neighborhood, where I grew up, where all the things that tried to interrupt or even destroy me, happened.  In fact, I walked up to the old neighborhood today, stood in front of both houses, and felt this really tangible sense of triumph.  If I wasn't so dignified I would have danced a jig and sang  "na na na na boo boo!"  From a violent, abusive past to drug addled high school drop out, to master's level student.  Somewhere in there I  got to find, almost lose, and then salvage a marriage to a wonderful man who, 29 years later, I still love with all my heart;  raise up in a "hit and miss, did the best I could with what I had, but no excuses" sort of way, two absolutely incredible, intelligent...

Baylor University did a study of couples in conflict, and found that spouses stated that they would rather see their significant other give up power than apologize.  And when asked to define what giving up power looked like, spouses reported that they perceived their other as having given up power if they were to accept blame or responsibility, acknowledge harm, and work collaboratively towards solution...in other words, things that don't involve lording it over or typical "I win - you lose" scenarios. It got me thinking...isn't apology really about accepting blame, taking responsibility, acknowledging the effect or harm and then working collaboratively to solution which might be another way of saying making amends or fixing the problem? If apology was what it's supposed to be, then apology is synonymous to giving up power. But apology isn't what it's supposed to be...it's been cheapened and diminished by culture, cop out, and self serving mot...

It seems to me that the most intimate relationship we can have is with Jesus.  He knows everything there is to know about us, including those things we don't know about ourselves, and that makes it pretty intimate.  There is nothing I can hide from Him.  There is nothing that I want to hide from Him.  There is nothing that I hope He doesn't see.  That's not to say there is nothing that is down right selfish, or self serving or sinful in me, only that I hope He always sees it so He can always redeem it...a sort of rescue me from myself kind of thing.  I love Jesus.  I want Him to be my be all and end all, and I want to grow even closer and even more intimate and authentic in relationship with Him.  And this morning, while standing alone (Jim was ushering) in my 4 campus "mega-church",  being led into the intimacy of worship by a leader I do not know, sitting next to fellow worshippers I have never met, and being taught ...