#kc brown

[butterbeerandlemoncakes]

Sherlock’s Veiled Secret--KC Brown (Based on the story by KC Brown and Arne Zaslow)

I only made it through the first scene of this play. Frankly, I thought the whole thing seemed just terrible. The plot didn't interest me, and the dialogue was just boring, from what I had seen. I wouldn't recommend seeing this, but then again, I didn't finish it, so it may turn out to be decent in the end. But that's for you to decide. 

[thaaartist]

Memories

Vaguely they dance In the back of my mind The images of a happier time A endless moment But a end it became The uncertainty of it all And the small details detained I hold on to every word, time and place Hoping to recreate it In my lonely space Reaching out for what it once was And wishing for another us Nothing but the captions Taken by my eyes

[thaaartist]

Revenge

I want to kill it With kindness Let it bleed Until it's lifeless Provoke the power And drive me mad Smile while fire fills my hands Inside I scream Giving me more As it rises Until I strike This view ignites the dark light

[risenchurch]

Lent Day 31: Still Bleeding

Guster - Come Downstairs and Say Hello

“Come downstairs and say hello.”  This is an extremely common command that we seem to give God all the time.  At least I do.  “Lord, come fix our problems and make things right.  Help me.  Save me.  Give me.  Etc.  Etc.”  Where is God when we really need him?  Where is he in our times of suffering?  Why didn’t he simply get down off the cross and start making things right?

Wendell Berry would say that Christ “hasn’t because from the moment he did, he would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be his slaves.”  While I don’t really agree with that, or at least the tyrant part, I think he raises an interesting question: why does Jesus continue to suffer alongside the world?  People are sad and lonely and poor and hurt and hungry and yet his wounds are still bleeding.  The people he set in place to care for his creation are increasingly abusing his it and yet his wounds are still bleeding.

One of my favorite moments from The Royal Tenenbaums shows Richie coming home after a suicide attempt to find his sister Margot in his “room”.  He shows her his wounds and even tells her why he did it.  He also tells her he loves her.  There are so many times when I, like Doubting Thomas, just wish Jesus would walk into my room, show me his wounds and lay everything out for me.   I just need so much damn handholding.

The scene eventually cuts to Richie walking down the stairs carrying a stuffed boar’s head, which is sort of a symbol of the family’s faded glory.  He hangs the head on the wall in its former place and continues on down the stairs.   This where I see us entering into the story.  I think Jesus continues to suffer so that we might have the absolute joy of participating in his story; so that we might actually have a part in setting the world right.  He remains upstairs (for now) and asks us to be the ones to mend the broken hearts and befriend the strangers and feed the hungry.  We join in his suffering and we join in his work and we join in his joy. 

I don’t know when Jesus plans to return, but I do know that he is glorified when his image bearers do his work.  We should feel incredibly grateful that we have the opportunity to be participants in his Kingdom, both as sufferers and as doers.  Any time we feel the urge to ask God to come downstairs and say hello, we should know that he is asking us to come with him.

[risenchurch]

Lent Day 31: Still Bleeding

"Truth nailed upon the cross compels nobody, oppresses no one; it must be accepted and confessed freely; its appeal is addressed to free spirits."

- Nicholas Berdyaev

[risenchurch]

Lent Day 17: They Took My Lord Away

“I don’t want to feel like this anymore.  I don’t want to go to sleep like this.  I want to speak.”  This is the cry of Jed Bartlet, the President on the show The West Wing in one of the show’s finest moments.  Somewhere along the way in his Presidency, Bartlet has lost himself.  He has forgotten what he was really there for.  He has cast aside the man that he is supposed to be in favor of the safe man, the comfortable man.  I do this all the time.  Only, it is the Lord that I am casting aside in favor of a version of myself who seems to prefer going at it alone.

This version of me tends towards the selfish, cynical and pretentious.    He doesn’t naturally serve or seek to help others.  He loves, but not fully, and not without strings attached.  He gets lazy.  He gets greedy and jealous and mostly wants to get what he can get from any situation.  He gets busy and caught up in minor details and misses the big things.  Usually when I am wearing the clothes of this me, I don’t realize it.  I don’t know that I have cast aside the real me, the one who trusts in the Lord and walks humbly and loves deeply and puts others before himself.  I don’t know that I have cast aside that which is most precious to me, the Lord.

Thankfully, however, at some point something always forces me to look in the mirror at who I have been, and in moments of clarity, I can recognize that I am not the real me.  When I return to the place where I left the Lord, He is there.  Always.  I stray as far away as possible and put on the clothes of as many imposters imaginable, and yet as soon as I come seeking my precious cast away, I am me again. The real me looks transformed and changed all the way through.

In the show the President asks Leo, his Chief of Staff, if he has any ideas of how to get back to the place he wants to be.  Leo writes down on a piece of paper the phrase “Let Bartlet be Bartlet.”  In other words, be the man that you really are.  I know this phrase has become part of the lexicon over the last few years, usually to characterize goofballs doing goofball things, but when I first heard it eight years ago, it hit me like a rock and has become something of a rallying cry to remember who I am really supposed to be.  Be the man whom God has created you to be.  A bearer of his image, transformed and called to be a witness.  Be a servant.  Pay attention to the people around you.  Look out for the people who need a friend or an ear or a meal or a dollar.  Love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind.  And love your neighbor as yourself.  This is what it looks like to be the real version of myself.  To let me be me.

- KC

[risenchurch]

Lent Day 17: They Took My Lord Away

"Christ is at home with you, he is at home within you, and there is the nearest way to find him."

- From They Took My Lord Away, by John Donne

[risenchurch]

Lent 2013: Waiting for the gift of sound and vision by KC Brown In response to "In Mirrors", by Walter Wangerin

The Lent season is always characterized by waiting.  Waiting for the Passover.  Waiting for the Crucifixion.  Waiting for Easter.  Waiting for Lent to be over so we can go back to eating meat or drinking alcohol.  We are always waiting and remembering the fact that things are not as they should be.

With that being said, my Lenten season this year is going to be marked not by a time that needs passing, but by a gift that needs receiving.  I am waiting for the gift of sound and vision.  At this point you may ask, “is that a Bowie lyric?” Yep.  You may also ask, “didn’t Beck recently cover that song for an advertisement for the Lincoln Motor Company?”  Yep.  But I would say that the gift of sound and vision (or if you really need me to translate it into the Christian vernacular, ears to hear and eyes to see) means hearing and seeing the Lord everywhere, and most certainly includes advertising stunts by the Lincoln Motor Company (I also happen to love Beck, so that made it that much easier).

I plan on spending the next 40+ days seeking out what the Lord is saying and seeing what he is doing.  How?  By slowing down long enough to try.  By listening.  By looking.  It sounds simple but sadly it isn’t and we are not very good at it.  At least I’m not.  I move too fast trying to get stuff done.  My prayers are full of my own words rather than those of the Lord.  My eyes set themselves on what they want to see rather than on what God is revealing.  Listen.  Look.

This morning, in particular, is about vision.  If every person is made in the image of the Lord, then we are, in effect, looking into a mirror with every face we see and casting new reflections with every action we take.  Most of the time we look into the mirrors of our choosing – the things we like, our comfortable habits, the people with whom we are familiar – but surely Jesus has so much more for us to see.  Surely he wants us to see the world the way that he does, with eyes wide open, ready to see hurting and ready to witness miracles at any time.  I am never going to see the fullness of the Kingdom of God with human eyes.  Only as I seek the Spirit’s prompting to truly give me eyes to see will I see the face of God reflected everywhere.

Lent is one of the few times of the year that we actually band together with a common purpose.  The individual goals we set and sacrifices we make are varying, but our singular desire to remember what the Lord has done and wait for his return is incredibly powerful, motivating and hopefully, empowering.  Ultimately, when Easter comes, we want to be transformed.  It’s going to take a lot of work and a great deal of patience, but, as the song says, “I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision.”