Confessions of a Tainted Saint
CONFESSIONS OF A TAINTED SAINT
Brother and Sisters
Let us bow a knee to pray
Today we ask forgiveness
For all the sins that we forgot to say
We are the Silent Stones
We are the Tainted Saints
By now Sodom could have put us all to Shame
By now Gomorrah could have gone in through the pearly Gates
Chorus:
Lord we ask for all the mercy
We have forgotten to hand out
Lord we ask for understanding
For all the mornings we used this pulpit just to shout
We are the Silent Stones
We are the Tainted Saints
Lord we ask for all the mercy
We have forgotten to hand out
We have forgotten to hand out
-These oaken pews in the arena
Turn our thumbs to the gladiators down
These dusty Bibles are on the bookshelf
Turn the t.v. preacher volume up when we hear the cries for help
-Have I become a better man than I once was?
Or have I just become a better showman on this stage?
Have I become a bearer of better fruit than yesteryear?
Or have I just pushed the bitter roots down into the ground?
Chorus:
Lord I ask for all the mercy
I have forgotten to hand out
Lord I ask for understanding
For all the mornings I used this pulpit just to shout
I am the Silent Stone
I am the Tainted Saint
Lord I ask for all the mercy
I have forgotten to hand out
I have forgotten to hand out
-By now Sodom could have put us all to Shame
By now Gomorrah could have gone in through the pearly Gates
We are laughing from our monitors
Where we watch your world as it burns
We are throwing the Stones at our Reflections
We are the tainted Saints drug out to the City Gates
- Lord I ask for all the mercy
I have forgotten to hand out
I have forgotten to hand out
Confessions of a Tainted Saint is the last entry in this book, I believe it was directly given to me by the Creator as the last entry. After wrestling for weeks with which lyric to choose without having written anything new in months, this came to me strongly and boldly after a prayer for the final entry. Confessions of a Tainted Saint is about that point in your spiritual journey where the sins of yourself consume you with more indignation than the sins of others, when how you have hurt others if more of your focus than how they have hurt you, and the shame of the good you have failed to do is more of a present thought than the honor of the good than you have done. There is also a point in which the Creator’s Mercy towards you is more delighted in than the Creator’s judgement on others, though we are to seek and even ask for justice we are not to delight in the punishment of our enemies or to forget that we too are likely candidates for the gallows. It is not about self-condemnation but instead about an honest reckoning of the measure of our days and of our ways. How much of the time we have been given was consumed with people’s choices and situations and attitudes that we could not control, to the neglect of our own choices and attitudes and situations which we can?
“So I sent some men to fight, and one came back at dead of night. Said he had seen my enemy, said he looked just like me. So I set out to cut myself and here I go. I’m not calling for a second chance, I am screaming at the top of my lungs. Given me reasons but don’t give me choice because I will just make, the same mistake, again.” James Blunt
After we development the habit of self-examination we learn that usually we cannot do good even if we tried. We may often do acts that look good, that seem good, but upon closer examination they were motived not by their goodness but by our need to maintain our reputations, or do our “Christian Duty” just to make sure Saint Peter calls our name or to do penance for some sin of the past, or just to avoid guilt or shame or some other emotion whose avoidance compels us to charity. We also learn that we still struggle with what the Jews call Yezter-Ra (the Evil Inclination) or the “Law of Sin” as Rabbi Sha’ul of Tarsus (better known as the Apostle Paul) called it in the Greek Translation of his writings. The Yetzer-Ra is that self-preserving, self-advancing, self-promoting monster inside each of us that just can’t get enough of doing what we want to do at any and all cost which makes us less instead of more, acting like the apes and beasts the evolutionists say are our ancestors instead of the Children of Abraham and Sons of Elohim. Those who claimed to be “good people” are usually the ones who have never wrestled with it because their circumstances or upbringing has kept it on a leash. Given enough time and enough fear and enough pain and enough opportunity, it always breaks loose and then we are faced with the strength of what is really inside us.
“What have I become. My sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away, In the end. And you could have it all, My empire of dirt. I will let you down, I will make you hurt” Hurt performed by Johnny Cash, lyrics by Trent Reznor.
Many of us “good people” judge quickly those who have been in circumstances of fear and pain and survival that allowed their inner beast to break free from its leash. We view them are sometimes cursed, sometimes as bad people, sometimes as weak because of their struggle with the darkness inside but the judgement is premature because we only see that the alcoholic struggles not to drink, the wandering eye struggles to stay faithful, the gossip struggles to keep her mouth shut, the greedy struggles to give and the fearful struggles to have faith. The problem is that we are judging people by their struggle and not by their outcome. Giving in to the darkness is an entirely different statement about your character than struggling with the darkness, and having never faced your darkness is an entirely different matter than having innocence. It is better to honestly struggle with the beast inside and to wear those scars than it is to nap by a hungry lion who was left inside an unlocked cage. That is when the really terrible things come out of people, when they consider themselves so righteous and holy that they forget to guard no only what goes into their heart but also what wanders out of it into the world as well. Perhaps this is how the Inquisition (which was composed of Jesuit Priests) managed to murder over 50 Million Christians without losing a wink of sleep over their charred ashes.
“When the days are cold And the cards all fold And the saints we see Are all made of gold. When your dreams all fail And the ones we hail. Are the worst of all And the blood’s run stale. I want to hide the truth I want to shelter you. But with the beast inside There’s nowhere we can hide. No matter what we breed We still are made of greed This is my kingdom come This is my kingdom come.
When you feel my heat Look into my eyes. It’s where my demons hide It’s where my demons hide.
Don’t get too close It’s dark inside. It’s where my demons hide”
Demon by Imagine Dragons
The Apostle Paul spoke of this extensively, the man who murdered Christians and drug them from their homes in the middle of the night while children screamed for fathers he was taking away from them forever, who would later be a spiritual father to the ones he made fatherless. Paul struggled perhaps more with his identity and goodness or lack thereof than perhaps any other man who has been referred to as “Saint”. His conclusion is that once the Creator has given you a new heart with His Instructions written on that heart, then you are no longer the beast that is inside you, the beast is a different creature entirely. It may be Inside you but it is not of you. Once the Light is your Master the Darkness is no longer your Master but is instead your Enemy within.
“14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the Torah, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the Torah of Elohim, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?25 Thanks be to Elohim through Yeshua Messiah our Adonai! So then, I myself serve the Torah of Elohim with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
Rabbi Sha’ul in his Letter to the Congregation in Rome. Chapter 7 Verse 14.
Confessions of a Tainted Saint is the confession of my life the past few years. There is an interesting and poisonous fruit produced when a bitter person finds Truth without finding Change, when they find Knowledge without finding Revelation, when they find out about God but they don’t learn how to really walk with God. The fruit of that is especially poisonous because it doesn’t look rotten at first like the fruit of Spirit of lawlessness (taking pride in Outwardly Rebelling against the Creator’s Instructions), just rotten just squished and stinky from a mile away and they are clearly a mess to everyone they encounter. The fruit of the Spirit of Legalism (taking pride in “Technical” Obedience, or Inward Rebellion to the Creator’s Instructions) is different, you have to bite down deep into the fruit of legalism before you realize how bitter it really is. Most often you have to be its younger brother or sister (as the oldest child often sprouts that fruit while the youngest harvests lawlessness), or sit in a pew beside it, or be married to it, or watch it walk right by you from the view inside your cardboard house. They are both a rejection of the Creator’s Instructions, one is just outwardly and knowingly, the other is inwardly and unknowingly.
There are usually one of two reactions when someone realizes that they have the bitter fruit of legalism, some will abandon the truth and the knowledge and often blame the bitterness on the truth and the knowledge instead of on the bitter soil, while others through much pain and loss and hardship and being deeply humbled by circumstances and fruitless efforts will come out with a much sweeter fruit because after the humbling their knowledge can been shined down upon by Revelation. When this change in season occurs, they become the most vigilant guardians against both legalism and lawlessness, if they manage to survive the circumstances that are required to break off the attitudes and pride and self-righteousness which were part of their journey. They develop what the Japanese called “Bushi No Nasaki” (the Compassion of the Warrior), the courage and strength that comes from going through things other people have never experienced or did not survive and the mercy that develops for those who are vulnerable or unable to fight for themselves.
When you realize that what you have survived makes you different or brought out your difference and you have a duty of mercy for those who have not been in the fires of battle or who did not make it through the battle. You don’t despise them, you protect them. When they don’t understand, you don’t hold it against them. When they are ignorant, you don’t bear over them with knowledge. If they fall under the weight of their burden, you use your strength to help them back up instead of pushing them down further. You also overlook many things that others would not, as the saying goes in Africa “A Lion does not bother to turn around just because a Dog barks”. You learn to forgive because you have been through far worse. You also don’t allow others who are stronger or more experienced or more battle hardened to do that to them either. If Providence has graced you enough that you went through the fire without becoming an alcoholic, or a drug addict, or a womanizer always seeking to validate your masculinity, or a girl hopping from bed to bed to validate her beauty, or a walking target for false teachers and prosperity preachers or cult leaders or politicians because you have to fit in somewhere and have someone else make your decisions, then you owe those people mercy instead of indignation, because mercy was given to you that prevented you from becoming them or being where they are. And that mercy can be retracted at any moment as well.
9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed[a] thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:19
The aim of so many of my years was to not be like my birth father, to be less impulsive, less macho, less angry, less of a workhorse for those who are just taking advantage of me, less of a fighter and definitely to be far less of a “Redneck” for lack of a better word (still hate trucks, football and the taste of beer to this day). But this is the opposite of how life is supposed to work, where you become a better you than you were the day before, instead of less like someone else. It is also the opposite of how life is supposed to work where you model yourself after someone noble instead of simply being the opposite of someone you have no respect for. My changes in life that made me look “Religious” weren’t because I wanted to prepare myself for ministry or was intent on personal growth at that time, I just really hated my birth Dad that much and believed that his oldest son refusing to continue his legacy would be the best vengeance I could hope to extract from a dead man (he died when I was 20). He turned out to be more noble than I was in many ways though, while I am a fairly lazy person who only does the minimum most of the time he was often described as being the hardest working man even some of the older rednecks in town had ever met (when he was sober). When he cut the grass at Church for free it wasn’t because he hoped to be in ministry one day or he wanted to make a clear separation between himself and his father, he just wanted to somehow pay the people back that were feeding his kids after he drank away all of the money from the S.S.I. Check their dead mother left them. Or maybe he just wanted to do something for God to make penance (still more noble that trying to prove you aren’t a “Typical Newman” to everyone you meet). He definitely had nothing to gain from cutting the elderly lady’s giant yard whole lived up the hill by the lumber yard, but me, I always had something to prove and had a reason for everything I did for years. The noblest of those reasons would be to “earn” forgiveness or to make a “penance” of sorts, or after I had been a believer for a few years, to prove to myself and others that I wasn’t the “me” that I use to be.
I often wanted vengeance to be done on my father on behalf of my mom, but as I got older, I hope that others don’t want vengeance on me for what I have done to them. And now like Mel Gibson says in the “Patriot” film which is all about honor, “I pray that my sins never come to knock on the door of my children “and that is my prayer as well. Begging for vengeance is a sign of bitter or immature fruit, asking for mercy is an indicator that you may have finally started to grow after all of these years. The only way I can prevent this is the confess the crimes instead of whitewashing them. To break the chains instead of denying them. To have a public funeral for the skeletons in the closet (this book) instead of letting them rot there until everything stinks and few know why and then everyone eventually knows why. The horrible things we humans have to do to keep anyone from opening the door to that closet. Justice is what she should ask for, the 5 Fold Return of all that was Lost, but not for Vengeance (punishment on the Thief) and only then after we have asked Forgiveness for our own Thievery.
We never rarely see Yeshua (Jesus) instructing the Disciples, “Go observe some drug addicts, and prostitutes and some Gentiles, and then do the complete and total opposite of whatever they were doing so you can be Righteous.” We didn’t see that because it is what the Pharisees were doing and it led them to a lot of hate but not to a lot of love. They weren’t focused on growing “towards” being a people like Abraham, they were focused on growing “away” from the Gentile Nations around them. Being the opposite of broken or confused or selfish or sinful or even wicked people doesn’t make you Righteous, being exactly like the only whole and clear and selfless and righteous and truly holy person who ever lived does. You can’t do that in your own power however, you have to give up all power, and He does it in you and for you if you let Him. But you do have to ask Him, humbly, with no agendas.
“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,[a] it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” Matthew 18:1
All that I described above has been part of my journey, from painting my fingernails black in my girlfriend’s bedroom listening to Smashing Pumpkins, to whacking people with my Bible, to seeking to keep those I love and those who are called by the Creator’s Name from falling into the pit of either Lawlessness or Legalism. Both are deep and dark and deadly but with Lawlessness at least you know you are going down into the pig pen while those who fall into Legalism actually believe they are climbing up instead of falling backwards into a whitewashed tomb. Lawlessness may take a few ignorant or broken or unsheltered souls down with it, but Legalism will block even the strong and noble from the Gates of Heaven by hypocrisy. No matter how Lawless or Legalistic we begin, His Mercy changes not just our decisions but also our motivations. Mercy compels mercy in you, compels love in you, compels compassion in you. There is no compassion without passion and no mercy without truth, so on the outside compassion may look like legalism or lawlessness but love and truth are the difference.
Then time will change you (hopefully, unless you are Israelite level stubborn), pain will change you, lack will change you, shame will change you, divorce will change you, saying goodbye to your children after every other weekend will change you, and even praise from those who don’t know you well enough to withhold their words will change you. It’s like a chisel striking a piece of granite, the removal process of all those things hurt like hell but once all the mud and gravel is gone then whatever was good and strong on the inside in visible. We think demanding vengeance and “standing up for ourselves” and looking down on other people makes us strong, least it makes us feel strong, but it just makes us weak and ignorant and very, very easy to deceive and manipulate. They make us especially easy to deceive if we are sitting in a hard backed pew or marking a box in a ballot booth, the puppet masters know this.
At the end of the day, after years of trying to be Knowledgeable enough, or Respected enough, or Kind enough or Persevere enough to be used by The Creator in way that would mean my life was not totally without meaning, the simple is all He was really asking of me was Availability and Honesty and Transparency and Humility. It’s all He asks of you as my friends.
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.[g] 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.[h]25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant[i] fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii,[j] and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers,[k] until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” Matthew 18:23
This has been my “Lyrical Healing Journal” as chronicled in these thirty-one “Letters to the Radio”.
Shalom to your Homes and to your Hearts.
Prayer for The Other Tainted Saints
The Great Forgiver and Only One Who Is True
We have little left to Say
Except that we are Sorry
We have Tainted Your Name to the World
While pretending to be Saints for our Neighbors
We have stained the Truth
We have Painted over the Lies
We have broken our Covenants
We have made a Show instead of making a Change
We are your Tainted Saints, we are your Prodigals Sons and Daughters, playing Older Brothers
And You, and You are the only Way we can be made Whole and Clean
And You, and You are the only Truth we have to Share, that they can still Believe.
Please Help Them to Still Believe.
“Woe to you, Torah scholars and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.”
Matthew 23:27 Tree of Life Version
Resource: “She Must And Shall Go Free”
Album by Derek Webb
Timothy Keller “Doing Justice and Mercy” Sermon
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