The Vision

I was going through some old papers, and I found some pages from an old Summer Excitement notebook. The pages were an exerpt from a book, Red Moon Rising: How 24/7 Prayer is Awakening a Generation. As I looked through them, I realised why I had kept those pages: it really was incredible writing. I don't know how many other people from Summer Excitement liked it, but for me, this was a facinating two page dream. What do you think?

So, this guy comes up to meand says, "What's the vision, What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this...

The Vision?
The vision is Jesus--obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are free from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.

They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind; they belong to the nations. They need no passport… People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.

They are free, yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.

A million times a day its soldiers
choose to lose
That they might one day win
The great "Well Done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead, they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again:

"COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making,
Foundations shaking.
Revolutionaries dreaming once again.

Mystery is scheming in whispers.

Conspiracy is breathing……
This is the sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them?

Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays

Like a dying man

With groans beyond talking
With warrior cries, sulphuric tears, and with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24-7-365.
Whatever it takes, they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mold them. Hollywood cannot help them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.
On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their lives--swap seats with the man on death row--guilty as hell.

A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fearless days, they pray as if it all depends on God, and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses Jesus. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centers.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdos! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here comes the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass, it will come easily, it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking, great "Amen!" from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself.

And He is the Original Dreamer, the Ultimate Winner.
Guaranteed.

Yeah, I know it's been a while

Well, I’m guessing you’ve figured out by now that my idea of blogging everyday didn’t quite happen. I was so sure that I’d do well, and stick to the plan. I’d write everyday and then post my ‘brilliant’ thoughts on here. Of course, it would only take a nice hour of writing after supper each night to come up with something worth posting, and it would be relatively easy. Ha! I’ve got to say I only believed that would really work for about 24 hours. Then I really started thinking, and I’m now of the firm belief that people should only blog when they have something worthwhile to say. For me, this translates to “If I’m even somewhat diligent and/or inspired to write, I’ll still only post about once every week or two.” Sorry. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I have not fallen off the face of the earth, and I will be posting something at the end of this week, or early part of next week. (I am working on a nice long end-of-the-school-year post.)
Cheers!
Lauren

couple of things

A while back, I heard a comedian say that all he has to do to come up with funny or strange stories is look around. All of his material was based on what he has seen and his experiences. As I was thinking about that, I realized that lots of columnists and journalists do the same thing. All they have to do is look around, there is so much to write about. I hadn’t really thought about this until recently, and I have found it very interesting. I have been in a weird adventurous mood lately, and today I decided to try to challenge myself. Starting today, I will write every day. The catch in my challenge: I must write about things that concern many people - issues/problems, history, etc. This way, I force myself to look around in a new way; what’s really going on in the world? We’ll see how it goes.

~

I’m a list person; if I need to focus on getting something done, I’ll most likely make a list on the best way to do it. That’s just how I think. For my project, I decided early on that I need to make a list of issues that are at least somewhat pressing or that are not subjects that most people know a lot about. The thing about my list is that I know that there are probably many issues that are really major, but I don’t know about them. That is where you come in. The following is my list, so please read through it, and if there is something that you think I should have added, drop a comment in the comment section, or if you don’t have a google account, facebook or e-mail me.

food
water
AIDS/HIV
clothing
houses/shelter
homelessness
slavery
abortion
comfort/things taken for granted
education
diseases/sickness/health issues
abuse
drugs
orphans
widows/elderly
teaching people things about agriculture so they can get more out of their land


That’s all folks! I hope I was clear, and didn’t ramble too much. Thanks for reading!

Cheerio,
Lauren

I haven't decided yet

Hello, probably no one! :)

I have several options at this point. I can make this into a blog only about my project, or it could be just random but 'finished' writings, or it could be just a journal. At this point, I'm just figuring things out, and today I'm going to use it as a journal and post what's on my mind. That said, here's a few paragraphs about what's been on my mind today. :)

A friend of a friend posted a question on facebook to the effect of "If God is in control of everything, why would he allow things like Hurricane Katrina?" I am not involved in the conversation, but I started thinking about it and decided to write what I think on the subject. (I think more clearly when forced to write out my thoughts.) Here's what I came up with.

God didn't create evil. He created all things good, but then he gave us free will - giving us the option to either follow his will and live in a perfect world, or create evil and suffer the consequences. We chose the latter. The consequences of choosing evil over a perfect world were that although he does care about us and hear our prayers, we must 'lay in the bed we made,' so to speak. Meaning we now live in a fallen world where God will not stop every bad thing from happening.

That's all I had time to come up with, and I hope that it makes sense.

Cheerio,
Lauren

Project idea. (First time put anything down on paper about what had been going through my head.)

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking and praying about how God can use me to make a difference. I’ve come in contact with a lot of groups that are making a difference in the world, and I want to do something too! Unfortunately, I’m not quite like the people that I’ve heard of in one crucial way. I’m not extremely passionate about one issue. I have heard staggering numbers about things that are going on in the world like there are 27,000,000 slaves in the world right now. Or that one well in an African village can cut the death rate in half. These are issues that can and should be changed. But I just don’t have a special passion about one issue. Then I realized that I do have something that I’m passionate about! It’s the fact that people, (Americans specifically) are so clueless. We are one of the richest nations in the world, yet so many people either don’t know about the issues, or they don’t know how they can help, or both. We could make a difference if we wanted to.

So, how can I change that? I’m just a kid. I’ve never really traveled, and I don’t know people in high places that could help me. I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way for me to make a difference is to start a website. My idea for the website is that it would become basically a go-to for people that want to get more informed on current issues. (Like poverty, food and water problems, malaria, AIDS, slavery, etc.) There will be articles on the issues that are really pressing that a lot of people don’t know about. Since I obviously can’t do all that research and writing on my own, I’m going to contact groups that focus on specific issues and ask them to write or just provide an article about the problem, and what they are doing to help. Have an issue of the month/week and then give lists/articles of groups that are making a difference. The main purpose of the website is to have one place for people to go to where they can read up/inform themselves on current issues and if they feel called to help, show them how. So many people just don’t know that they can make a difference.