Sarah Nyhan

You want the Truth. I do too. But the Truth isn’t in calling people out.

They actually love that shit. They can’t get good-enough attention. So they revel in messing anyone else up so much as to take up any space in another’s mind. You give them glee when you address them publicly.

No, that isn’t the Truth. That’s getting caught up in the trap.

Enough people already know what’s up. The others don’t want to see. Even if you showed them to their faces, they’d still make excuses.

Sad. Sad is what it all is. As much as it is maddening.

I don’t fall for the rhetoric. The talk of all these Goliaths.

It’s not that these terrible things happening doesn’t matter. Of course people being hurt matters.

But what’s the bigger picture?
What’s the bigger point?

If it’s us versus them then we’re caught up again. Just on a different side. Or a different level.

That can’t be it. That can’t be the story.

As much as I wish it was. Because that would be so simple. So cut and dry. Just swing the axe and cut ’em all off at the knees.

But Who do we REALLY worship?

I’m not saying have no boundaries. Boundaries are so important. As is discipline. It’s not Loving to enable someone’s demise. On either side.

But what is the language we’re using?
And more importantly, our hearts?

For healing? Of ALL?

As if we really are one body?
The head being Christ.
As we suppose.
As we claim we preach?

I find it very interesting that Jesus said the only sign we get is Jonah. Jonah of all people.

Jonah whose people were also decimated.
And then what does God ask Jonah to do?

That’s us. If you need an us.

I wonder if God sent Jonah on that mission BEFORE Jonah’s people were restored. IF they EVER were restored.

I thought of John the Baptist this week. How did his life end?

John cried out to Christ.
No deliverance came.

I bet those disciples who were martyred also cried out in Jesus’ name.
Just like we do.
But they weren’t delivered here either.

Jesus showed up for some.
He raised some from the dead.
But those He kept closest took some pretty brutal falls.

What does it all mean?

This is that stumbling block: Christ crucified.

Versus Christ in a three-piece suit speaking to a sold-out crowd and social media. Collecting donations to buy a big ol’ mansion, a Land Rover, and trips to the Maldives on private jets.

Would Jesus tell Epstein that He Loves him? Of course. And frankly it pains me to say that. But it’s true. Hitler, also.

Without a change in behavior. Without paying for what they’ve done. As in restoring to those they stole so horrendously from.

Of course I’d rather not say that.

Even more difficult when it’s those that tore through and ran over me.

And you.

And so many others day after day.
Flagrantly.
Without much reserve at all. Seemingly never losing sleep or skipping a beat. Not an eyelash batted as they launch artillery after artillery our ways.

Is that all? For ever?
Does this story ever end?
In a way we can look forward to? Genuinely. Without abandoning our God-given intellect.

All I hear in my spirit is: God tells me no all the time. And judgement begins in the house of the Lord.

For those of us who insist, despite His warning, that we have something to preach to others. Of course we’re going to be first. We prayed for this. “Refine me, Lord.” And then there is heat and fire.

Oh, my bad – you expected the Americanized version of some spiritual spa vacation? That’s not your Messiah, honey. That’s not the type of sheep we’re working with here.

Did you forget the whip across His back? The thorns shoved into His head? The nails slammed into His palms? The rough and terribly heavy Cross He had to carry up an incline while being jeered at, mocked, spit upon, and probably whipped and beaten the whole way?

Did you forget how His whole body was suspended naked in the air for all to shame? His feet pierced by how big of a spike? Have you ever had someone stick a spear in your side to see if you were still alive?

This is no pink and rose-gold supper club where we take group pics with coordinated journals, sisters. Which Jesus did you actually sign up for?

The Jesus that challenged you to also pick up your cross? Is that the Jesus you really want?

I have to ask myself these things.

And yet, where is the line between enabling abuse and ending up with your head on some rich sick bitch’s plate? To be laughed at. As if this Jesus couldn’t have knocked them all out with a hint of a breath.

I now hate when people try to assuage all my fears by categorically saying Jesus will save me. Where is your evidence for that? Be honest. There’s a lot of proof otherwise. A lot of people die every day without being redeemed or rescued here on this earth.

Again, I ask You Jesus, what joy was before You? Because I believe You, but I don’t see it.

And I need SOMETHING to make sense these days. I need SOMETHING real to hold onto.

I guess the answer is and always will be The Cross. That we have NOTHING to be afraid of when it comes to You. And that is enough even if I don’t understand anything else. You clearly Love(d) me. Just in that.

So how many more crosses am I going to ask You to jump on before I Live as if You really are I AM?

How many more times am I going to ask You to prove Yourself to me? To us?

When maybe what we really need is to prove ourselves to each other. Stop waiting for divine intervention when there is so much we could be endlessly busy with in the interim.

Now Love in action might actually be worth associating with Jesus’ name. Even if we start with just Loving ourselves.

Be sure that I’m the last person, now, to approve of abuse in the name of Jesus. That to me is sacrilege. That to me is anti-Christ. Absolutely blasphemy of the worst kind. To associate abuse with Jesus who Loves the little children – without being a perv about it. (Or else I pray there is no God. Yes, of course that serious.)

I go back again to: God tells me no all the time.

So it isn’t Loving to give people permission to run all over us. To create little monsters, little demons by gloryifyng cowardness.

But where is the line between that and then getting our heads chopped off because we thought the point was calling people out over even legitimate things?

The point isn’t who is in and who is out. That can’t be it.

I still think the point is healing. But we’re already 5,000 years in at least probably. And still I see so many that behave as if they are worse than feral. Is God really that long-suffering?

I’m scared if our fate is just to have our spirits recycled here until we get it. Until we learn the lesson.

Not just for ourselves. But for the whole planet. Until every last little bit is back to the Garden of Eden. By our own hands. Sans the “miracles” we’re always waiting for.

What if we fast-forward a few thousand MORE generations. And almost all of us have been restored by then. If actual healing is the point and plan.

But there’s that one last soul. Say even Satan to make the point.

And ALL of humanity hears about that one last spirit who just hasn’t turned the corner yet.

But we all get it. And instead of rushing to chop them out of all the equations, instead we have learned and all rush in like doctors when an emergency code gets thrown. We all rush in with healing.

Not the kind of symptom-suppressants that pass for the lowest standard of care in order to raid the taxpayers’ coffers. But REAL care. Actual healing.

Would even the worst be able to resist the whole world coming to Love them back to that kind of wholeness?

I’m not talking victims locked in the horribly destructive false guilt of trauma bonds. Although whose to say a truly healed victim might not have the most to say?

But just bring it back to the basics. What if someone, for example, was a serial killer. And instead of the whole world doing what they do now, in some super-future there is a healed majority that rushes in like doctors to a baby going code blue. Even for a serial killer. And we throw them on a stretcher and run them m through all the available modalities until there is healing. Without end, Amen.

What would a world like that look like?

What if THAT is the joy set before Jesus?

That not only do the prodigals never get abandoned, but maybe their self-righteous brothers need them to keep fucking up until we decide we’re completely tired of being on this same damn hamster wheel?

Would I ever blame us for people being abused? No, it can’t work that way. Or else this is all very sick.

The only way I can stomach a God who allows all this is to think maybe what’s on the other side pales in comparison.

Or maybe in some horrible nightmare none of this is thankfully even really happening. That’s a hope. Not so much a simulation. But us being so deep in a nightmare that all THIS actually isn’t happening in a physically real way on the cosmic scale.

Not to invalidate anyone’s pain. Obviously. Just to try to make sense of somehow a God “allowing” all of this pain to go down day after day, eon after eon. It would be a great grace if this all was just an experienced illusion of some sort. Our minds existing here while at least our spirits are able to travel back and forth from here to wherever is on the other side.

But what keeps me awake at night is that we very-well may only get one time here. One chance to make the most of it. And then what do we have to show for ourselves? “Yeah, God – I spent a lot of years just watching commercials on television.”

What if saving everyone is all up to us? For everything. From ourselves, to the greedy CEO, to the last little squirrel in the forest. And then even every leaf. Every living cell in the whole Earth. And even the Cosmos.

Because God has given us more agency than we’ve ever been told. So this Life actually could be better if we’d all just get on board.

But how many will have to continue to suffer before we collectively decide we’ve had enough?

What if we’re never getting off this ride until we decide to approach this ALL as a body to be put back together rather than repeatedly torn apart?

It scares me. To think that I am you. And you are me. So whatever I wish for you is exactly what I am wishing for myself.

But what if that’s reality? What if none of us gets out of this until we all come to that conclusion? Terrifying.

It makes sense to me. In a dreadful way. Would God co-sign a person who engages in self-harm? If your theology requires you to take every last word of a collection of religious texts literally then maybe you’re part of holding us all back. But me, I see things quite simply: the common sense you so diligently resist. That God never lets me off the hook in terms of giving up on myself.

So why would I think Trinity would co-sign on any of us giving up on each other?

I don’t think the point is some pie-in-the-sky get-out-of-jail-free card. I don’t think we’re that “lucky”. I think Trinity has way much more respect for us and all of Creation than that. Unfortunately – if you’re hell-bent on resisting that.

Look at Moses. God let him wander around and around and around. As many laps as it took. He supposedly saw God face to face. And HE didn’t get off the hook. He still didn’t get to enter his rest because he was so stuck on misrepresenting God to His kids.

That’s what stops me dead in my tracks. The “sign” of Moses. That if we’re sending any other message than God Loves even those that hurt us – then here we go for how many more rounds around the desert? Insisting until our bodies give out on this side? Just to have to come back and do it all over again?!?! Like nothing. What if the heat is turned up even more the next time? Whose betting on those chances when it comes to God? The majority apparently.

But again, Spirit doesn’t talk to me about them. Spirit is patient with however long I want to take. In getting to the point.

Being honest – that’s a requirement. Healing doesn’t happen through performative acting. This isn’t like those employment personality tests. Where you get the job just because you know the right answers. Again, a very American approach to The Creator of everything Living, and not, as far as the eye can see or imagine.

All this and my words are naught. Bible babble as my biological father likes to throw in my face. Maybe so. But I guess you gotta start somewhere.

Weeping and gnashing of teeth. I’d rather do it on this side. Than spend my whole time here just to… on the other side. Or worse: all over again back here.

House always wins. I don’t believe in a literal fiery hell. But I believe there is a lot worse fate to be considered. In terms of suffering. When the whole world delays debridement until the wound is so infected that everything is put on hold just to bring us all back to something that looks like REAL Life.

Which side will we choose? Leaning in? Or drawing it out as long as possible?

All my words are foolishness when I have so much action to catch up on.