Snapshots and Synapses

Said the Vulture to the Lark: "I sense within your lonesome heart     a longful sigh         troubled Lark. "A sor'ful insight to your life     desires left hanging,     causing strife. "A world that dangles out of reach,     Ethereal,         yet still you stretch. "So what I recommend is this:     relinquish heaven,         find our bliss." copyright ©2011 Mitchell Malloy ( http://mitchellmalloyblogspot.com/ )

I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those [in America], and for all who have not met me personally... See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ... Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day... Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind... Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence... Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things... When Christ, who is your life, appears, then...

I discovered some years ago that being “nice” was not the same as being “loving”. We can be nice: avoiding arguments, telling people what they want to hear and being generally pleasant. Or, we can be loving: willing to confront, telling people what they need to hear without fear of any lash back. Sometimes, I believe, it’s impossible to avoid conflict and still show love. I personally believe that “nice” is overrated, but still, it has its place. Just because “nice” isn’t always loving, doesn’t mean that “loving” can’t try to be nice. In the past, I have at times been far too willing to confront. Now, I have never entered into confrontation easily, but I rationalized that any confrontation was okay so long as it brought out the truth. After all, when we know the truth, we are set free, right? (See John 8:32) So I don’t doubt the motivation of people who, like my younger self, are willing to walk into the fire for the sake of someone else. However, I’ve discovered that an action m...

Somewhere between my birth and the present day (a LOOONNNNGGGGGG time if you ask my kids), churches started to adopt marketing disciplines. Now, I have nothing against applying wisdom and truth to church administration, and I believe that all truth is God’s truth, whether it’s written in scripture or discerned through scientific method. Finally, to be completely honest, I tend to like marketing. It’s a powerful instrument, but like any tool: it can be misused; it can be applied to promote good; and it can be used for bad purposes. So having a little bit of knowledge, I’ve observed a few things over the years and have developed some opinions about what happens when churches apply marketing principals. Now any organization that has not matured in its marketing practices tends to be internally focused, and when it’s a congregation, it can be rather cliquish. However, as an organization starts to understand marketing, it becomes “market driven”. The organization promotes activities and p...

Right is wrong and Wrong is right    and all throughout the land is night. The sweet-sick words of lying mouths-    have taken hold of wandering moths So off into the fire they fly;    determined creatures, they flit to die. My children, beloved, how far you have strayed,    thus now as a Harlot, I cast you away! Away with your stupid, your foolish delights!    Away with you, creatures, and out to the night! But yet to My Remnant do I still proclaim:    Right is still right, and day is still day. In you, My last Remnant, do I still delight.    Continue to search Me and bathe in My Light. copyright ©2011 Mitchell Malloy ( http://mitchellmalloyblogspot.com/ )

In Sympathy for the children who cry, with tantrums and screams and yelling out, "Why?" I simply shrug an indifferent shoulder and allow my fires of warmth to smolder. With empathy for the people who dream while mothers with bloodied children scream, I rationalize: "This has always been." But realize my own great sin. In anger against indulgence and waste, which seems to penetrate the human race, I urge the sluggish to quickly make haste and sometimes wonder at my own disgrace. My passion for the dignity of man and my belief in God's majestic plan Sometimes falls prey to that which's despised and perceptions of Truth mingle with Lies. I pray for my soul in this storm -- stand strong, and my faith in the Light everlasting long, and that compassion and passion, like tides in a day, evolve into currents which never change. copyright ©2011 Mitchell Malloy ( http://mitchellmalloyblogspot.com/ )

My life seems a whirlpool; a tempest of terrible torrents which assails my senses and assaults my soul. In wondering amazement I turn with jarring twists and stumble onto pastures green I would otherwise not see. copyright ©2011 Mitchell Malloy ( http://mitchellmalloyblogspot.com/ )

“You can’t legislate morality.” My friend stated it as if it was a well accepted fact. “I believe that abortion is wrong, but it should not be made illegal… Women will have abortions and we should make it safe… creating laws is an attempt to control people… creating a law against abortion is controlling and judgmental.” Where to begin? First, this is NO condemnation against the woman who found herself in the situation where abortion seemed the best option and chose that option. I do not condemn you or your decision. Life is hard and God, your Father, loves you and wants to stay in relationship with you.  He wants to wash away your sorrows, and He has a plan to bring good from every situation. When we draw close to Him, we start to join Him in that plan for our lives. So while my friend and I both desire God’s goodness in the lives of ourselves and others, we have not been able to agree on how we should join Him in His work with respect to abortion. Now, my friend would say that t...

In 2004 / 2005, the Lord started speaking to me about some changes. He gave me this picture of fallen leaves, where the leaves were people and where trees represented churches. The leaves fell from all sorts of trees. They were different sizes and shapes, having come from different church trees. But they all had at least one thing in common: they no longer belonged on the tree. In some cases, the leaves were no longer attached to the tree, even though they remained on the tree for a period. The visions stretched out for months and were echoed in the circumstances of my own life in the church; I had become a “fallen leaf”. The visions stretched out, beyond the present to times in the future, some of which I see happening now, and some of which are yet to occur. Now the fallen leaves in my visions did not fall to the ground, dry up and crumble to dust like the leaves we typically see. These leaves drew their nourishment directly from the ground, remaining supple yet turning coppery in c...

Years ago, as a freshman in high school, I landed the title role in the musical “Oliver”. I was excited about the part, but as opening night approached, my voice started to change. The shortest kid in school, I had anxiously awaited for puberty to arrive, but it came at such an inopportune time! One of my solos was a song entitled “Where is Love”, which I sung to an audience that heard one cracking note after another. On stage, I was smiling, but inside I was totally embarrassed. My response at the time was an inner vow to not sing a solo in public again, and for nearly ten years, I was silent. I didn’t think of it at the time, but “Where is Love” was really an appropriate title for the moment. In reality, love is something that we strive for, and yet despite our best efforts, we can’t always hit the right notes. Life’s twists and turns sometimes cause us to sing off pitch or to crack on the high notes so that the intended melody results in relational discord. With the painful memory ...

I did a search at biblegateway.com for the phrase: “This is the day which the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” I hear it so often in Christian circles that I expected it to be scattered throughout scripture. But unless I did something wrong in my word search, I only found it listed once: Psalm 118:24. I started searching for this phrase because I hear it frequently enough in Christian circles as an admonishment to rejoice in each and every day. But I see a lot of suffering going on around me, and I can’t honestly say I rejoice in each day. Let me give you a few sound bytes from my past week: A friend’s nephew, a young adult, is in a coma other friends of mine are close to being evicted from their home I hear a phrase repeated in the workplace “Pick your ‘O’… overtime or out-of-work!” So I did this search to get some context for what it means to rejoice and be glad in “this day”, thinking that it’s probably found in multiple places. I wanted context to underst...

I often feel as if Father’s Day is forgotten in our society. We are careful to remember Mother’s Day, and we should – it’s a big deal! Parenting is hard, and mothers play an indispensible role in the lives of their kids, but so do fathers. Annually, I’ve observed church services recognize mothers, recognizing their role and giving them the credit they are due. But a month goes by, Father’s Day comes, and… nothing. Now, that’s not the case everywhere and every year, but I think Dads need a little more recognition. I’ve talked to other Dads and they’ve had the same impression. I’m not trying to promote another victimized special interest group, but I wonder why Father’s Day doesn’t get equal recognition? Perhaps it’s because so many households are lacking fathers. For various reasons, kids are growing up without a man in the house. Or perhaps we don’t have a vision of what a good father looks like. Men are different from women. We think differently, we act differently and we have di...

This past week I’ve had several perturbations, which as I write the word, it sounds like some physical activity that would inspire a teenage boy to snicker. So making sure I have the right word, I looked it up in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary: perturbation noun 1. the action of perturbing : the state of being perturbed 2. a disturbance of motion, course, arrangement, or state of equilibrium; especially : a disturbance of the regular and usually elliptical course of motion of a celestial body that is produced by some force additional to that which causes its regular motion ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perturbation ) Yep. That’s the word alright. Per-tur-BA-shun. I started a new job… and the kids - being kids - are on their way to adulthood… and the frenetic activity that accompanies parenthood has had me a bit perturbed. The job is going fine, and I work with some great people, but it’s different from consulting and I’m still getting re-acclimated to corporate...

“You mean to tell me God became a baby… and that he was born in a sheep stable… And then after becoming a baby, he was raised in a blue collar home? He never wrote any books or held any offices, yet called himself the Son of God… He never traveled outside of his own country, never studied at a university, never lived in a palace, and yet asked to be regarded as the creator of the universe… And this crucifixion story… he was betrayed by his own people? No followers came to his defense? And then he was executed like a common junkyard thief… And after the killing, he was buried in a borrowed grave… And according to what’s written, after three days in the grave he was resurrected and made appearances to over five hundred people… and all this was to prove that God still loves his people and provides a way for us to return to him … Doesn’t that all sound rather… Doesn’t that all sound rather absurd?” “Yes. Yes, I suppose it does sound absurd... “ How absurd to think that such nobility woul...

"Illegitimi non carborundum is a mock-Latin aphorism meaning 'Don't let the bastards grind you down'". ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimi_non_carborundum ) When Jesus started His ministry, He knew his target audience: the lost sheep of Israel. The church of His day was sick in many ways, reflected by the fact that His only words of criticism were for the religious authorities: “Listen to them but don’t be like them!” He warned. (Matthew 23:3) How much is this like the church in America? We usher in new converts to build a work-force that can be used to further increase church numbers, justifying the “fruit” of the ministry by statistics that validate and promote the value of our organization. The growing crowd shouts: “We’re building the Kingdom!” But is that really building the Kingdom or is it building a program? Some years back, I was initially excited to take a group of kids to a youth conference. I was struck by the professionalism of the first few s...

February to February is not your typical time to do a “Year in Review”, but I’ve never been labeled as typical. In fact, I’ve often joked that the only thing truly consistent about me is my own inconsistency. So since I’ve been in this atypical mode all my life, I’ve decided to write a longer-than-usual blog that explains why I am not planning on planting a church. I journal, usually daily, in the cheapest, small notebook I can purchase. You’ve probably seen them in the store: manila cover, thin-lined and about half the size of a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. I’ve done this for decades, and while the nature of my journal has changed through the years, it serves as a reminder of what God has taught me in that time period. My current notebook started in February 2010 and was completed on 2/27, so following my habit of the past several years, I’ve reviewed the contents… reliving some of the trials and victories of the past 12 months. It’s been a hard year, but a good year. So long story shor...

How sad when the Church fails to reflect Christ… and by “Church”, I mean the collection of people that make up the universal church, not a specific person or denomination. Without going into a lot of details, shortly after I started getting more involved in my local church, I discovered that the church could be every bit as exploitative as the world. I found out that oftentimes: a person’s value in the church was proportional to the time, talents or money that they contributed it was okay to gossip so long as you put it in the form of a “prayer request” in practice (or should I say “malpractice”), accountability and submission to authority were often control techniques freedom and grace could be used to excuse a rebellious attitude In reading Scripture, I’ve noticed that the only words of criticism Jesus had were for religious authorities. But I also see that one of His ending prayers was for these very same people: “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” So as ...