here we go again...

in my short life i've demonstrated a penchant for kicking the proverbial bee's nest.

it's always played out in my life as a bit of the "contrarian" gene
at least, that's what ben redmond calls it
he claims my first response is to poke holes in everything i see or hear or read

anyway,
sometimes i begin to get so bothered that i can't stop thinking about something
especially when things don't add up the way they should

like about tithing, for instance
or the popular notion that christians are supposed to hate the world
or that the phrase "chasing after the wind" is supposed to be really meaningful (in its ironic meaninglessness)

or this whole schtick about genesis being a kind of recipe for how god made the world

for several years i've just ignored this itch
content to think it about it later
but then i couldn't stop thinking about it
ever
and i just kept studying and studying
and, before long, i realized that it certainly wasn't a recipe

which sated my irritation for a while
i had the satisfaction of knowing that there was more there than we're truly unearthed as of yet

but
as time went on
it began to bug me

i mean
it couldn't just be a poem, could it?
that would suck
that would mean it was one of the most oft-misunderstood and ultimately powerless pieces of the biblical text
which - for the very reason alone that it is at the very beginning - just didn't sit well with me

so i began to dig
and dig
and dig

and then it popped.

huge

smashed me in the face
changed my life
changed my mind
changed my heart

the love
the wholeness
the healing
rushed into me over and over again
and i came into new life

because it has great meaning
because it has great power
power to change
power to see
power to bring about reconciliation

and so...here we go again

i do my best to approach this with humility
but i feel myself crackling with enthusiasm
and i don't want to diminish the latter for fear of subduing the former