an elephant has fallen through the roof.

There are those people in the world – they seem to make up the vast majority, if you ask me – who, when something significant or out-of-the-ordinary happens, ask

“what do we do about it?”

“how did this come to be?”

and other logical, pertinent, practical type questions that are expected of humans who are busy developing, understanding and moving forward.

But, living among these logical, practical, expected humans are another breed entirely. Those that ask less-expected and (to them) more important questions, like

“what does it mean?”

“could it be?...”

"what if?..."

I am one of those people. I can’t help it -  it’s the way my brain wanders.

I’m reading The Magicians Elephant, in which, after an elephant crashes through the roof of an opera house and lands on a woman, the town of Baltese is alive with all sorts of expected questions like “what do we do with this elephant?” “whose fault is it?”

But there is one policeman who, as he walks home and watches the lamplighter bring the city into warm ambiance, wonders 

“where is the elephant’s real home?” 

“why did it come here? Does it have a mission?” 

“Could it be that he will bring his friends and soon a whole zoo will drop through the opera house ceiling?” 

His mind races and swirls and dips, diving through the imaginative possibilities of this elephant’s arrival.

I think there will be those people who scoff at my book because there is a great deal of it that deals with simple wonder. What if Jesus was like this? What if Heaven is like this?

To some people, these seem like silly questions because they have no answer and they do nothing to solve the more important issues at hand:

“what do we do about it?”

“how did this come to be?”

But, if you ask me, when it comes to things like Jesus, Eternity, Salvation and Grace, there are the things we know:

Jesus died so we wouldn’t have to.

Eternity can be spent with or without God.

Salvation is free and everlasting.

Grace is the best thing that has been extended to us and that we can extend to others.

An elephant has fallen through the roof.

And after these things, there are not many more solid facts to uncover. The majority of the people in the world will spend their days asking logical and practical questions about these simple, unalterable facts, filling up books and conference halls, never getting much closer to an answer than the generations before them.

But the poets among us, the wonderers, the dreamers and the children will ask:

“What will we look like in Heaven?”

“What was Jesus like when He was tired?”

“Are there whole other galaxies of people who worship God in completely different ways than we do?”

These questions don’t get us any more answers than the logical, practical questions of the vast majority do. But they point to a God who is more majestic, breathtaking, fascinating and beautiful than our logic and practicality can contain. They evoke a sense of wonder. 

And I’ve heard it said that there is no better worship than wonder.

So I think it will be ok if there is some scoffing. I think we need both types of people and both types of questions. 

caleb.

this excerpt (from chapter 15ish) is very special to me (for obvious reasons). i debated on whether or not i should share it but i finally decided to because i need help with a new chapter and was hoping this one could serve as a template. i'll explain more at the end. 


i cut out some parts that wouldn't have made sense out of the context of surrounding chapters, so just bear with the randoms analogies that seemingly have no reference. 


i incorporated a previous posting "moths. gag." into the book, so you'll recognize the first few lines...

.........In the same vein, I know there are a lot of people who think of Christians and want to gag. They’ve been traumatized by a series of bizarre and probably stupid encounters and now want nothing to do with anyone who calls themself a Christian. They come up with complicated maneuvers to avoid these people. But what if they met JUST ONE Christian or had ONE ENCOUNTER that didn't make them want to run in the other direction? That would be their Gandalf Moth. Maybe it’s a someone, maybe it’s a feeling…maybe its JESUS.

So instead of running from my Damascus Road and my consciousness, instead of giving in to the perplexity, frustration and seeming impossibility of trying to find Christ among the Christianity, I search for the exception. Something that defies my urge to abandon, something that pulls me back to fight for what’s important. Something to hold on to.

For me, it’s Caleb.

When I feel like running, Caleb is what brings me back. Caleb makes me fight. Caleb’s story makes me believe in church and makes me want to keep burrowing until I find more and more pieces of Christ.

.......

Sometimes I think I catch glimpses of Him, in moments of beauty, stillness and awe. Sometimes it’s the really terrible things that call Him to visit.

The most beautiful and the most awful thing happened at my church. Baby Caleb died – that’s the awful part. He was the first baby born into our tiny congregation for as long as I could remember. We all loved him and secretly pretended he belonged to our family and sat in our row of chairs. He was a laughing baby and had big brown eyes and ringlets. When he died, nobody knew what to do. It was like our small church and our small town were paralyzed. Nobody expects babies to die and when they do, there’s not really a protocol in place. My mom was there minutes after they found him and she said even the firemen were frozen.

The beautiful part happened after all of the awful stuff- the tiny casket and trying so hard not to look at his mom, shaking and shaking. The first Sunday after the awful parts, Caleb’s mom called my mom to say they were going to skip church – they couldn’t bear to be in the place where Caleb would be so obviously absent. They were going to stay home and try to pray. Pastor Jim stood behind the pulpit and couldn’t even speak – the empty row in the back glowed in the corners of everyone’s minds. Finally, he choked out what every person was thinking- “what are we doing here?” Everyone got back in their cars and caravanned to the house where the awful things happened. Cars bumpered up the street and filled the front lawn. Crowded into in the living room, everyone shared hymnals and Bibles and God’s family worshipped Him in the house where He took Baby Caleb home, making sure everyone had someone to lean on.

In something as beautiful and as awful as Baby Caleb’s story I sway with a jolt of understanding and then spend the rest of the week scrambling to hold on to it before my eyes cloud over again with theology, culture, false prophecy and my own humanity. For the most whispering of a second, thousands of years seem to fall away and I see what God was doing. I understand Church. I believe in Church. Then the hair starts to grow back and I lose sight of that beautiful bald naked plan we are all chasing after.

so my question to you, average-of-18-hits-a-day-on-this-blog, is:

what is your Caleb?

we all know that the church is messed up - it's inevitable. we're only human. but when you feel like throwing up your hands, what makes you stay and fight? what makes you believe that this is all worthwhile? what reminds you that under all of these shenanigans, there is a God of truth and peace and purpose? 

i'd love to hear your stories. i'm hoping that the chapter after caleb's can include similar reminders and i only have so many storytelling friends :)

-and to clarify, i'm talking about CHURCH stories. i have no doubt God does amazing things in your life. He's not the problem - we are. (no offense, humans everywhere.)  

comment or email me at majecla317@gmail.com