Dare to break wind in the face of the cultural norm.

We are a reforming people when we dare to break wind in the face of the cultural norm. Luther did it 500 years ago when he turned his backside to Rome and let it rip. But that was then and this is now. So how do reforming people take on - that which is valued in our culture - that which keeps things just as they are - that which is anxious and then afraid to the point of persecuting some for what is considered the welfare of all others? We break wind. We speak up. We question. We stand in the way. We let ourselves defy all that is considered sacred until the wizards of the culture have the veil pulled back so that more and more people can see how we have fallen for piles upon piles of - well - crap.

Am I talking about religious crap - yes. Am I talking about cultural crap - yes. Am I taking about political crap - yes. Reforming people are not anarchist or revolutionaries - they simply break wind and make people turn around and wonder - what just happened - why does all this life around us beginning to smell? We are all a part of the family system of our culture. There is no way to rise above it or be detached from it. We are a part of what smells. As reforming people we own it and begin to ask things like: What does it mean to be right in the middle of all that is demonic (all that stinketh) and yet stop to acknowledge how vile it all smells? Systems always smell and if we do not speak up or break wind in the face of the norms around us we will and we have ventured more deeply into the violence and brokenness that piles up more and more until it is revolting - quite literally revolting. Reforming people do not fall for the more putrid smell of the violence of revolt - we expose - we unveil - we fall for it no more.

Reforming people are always living within the line of the prophetic - the ones who see that which stinks - the ones who name that which smells - the ones who are willing to be shunned for breaking wind and exposing the condition of our culture/religion/politics. I am too often afraid to be such a reforming person. And then, I hear others disturb the air around me. When I hear and see such life, I begin to wonder if I can face the stench of that in which I have let myself live - and begin to expose it all. That action is often called confession. Reforming people are empowered to admit to the violence - the fraud - the economic and political gaming that we have let define us as though nothing smells.

For a coward, that is difficult. For a coward though - it is necessary. I often use the words of Spirit - Holy Spirit - to remind me that as we are inspired to face the truth about us - a new day is available to us. It may still be full of the stench of the culture in which we live - but reforming people keep making note of it all - we keep owning our part of all that smells - we make ourselves vulnerable like nailing items for discussion about the things that smell - on the door of a church in Wittenberg - but we do it today - we do it everyday. Prophetic words and actions come out of the bowels of reforming people whose acts of truth-telling may create a stink in the culture at hand - but it also brings in a breath of fresh air.
TRRR