About_Us
“They will kick you out. In fact, a time is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.”
- The Lamb Slain To Take Away Our Guilt
The year was 2016.
Some of my friends at the time came together to inform me of my guilt + shame. (It was a moral thing.) Problem was, I didn't understand their accusations. Worse, when I asked to talk about it, they interpreted me as being defensive and obstinate. "The problem is obvious!" they protested.
Yeah, and grass is obviously green, but not to a blind man.
They exiled me from the group. To the last moment, I tried to expose my mind so they could show me the errors in my mental coding; and they interpreted that as me obfuscating and changing the subject. "You refuse to listen," they decided.
Oh really now? The whole time, I was trying to help us all communicate. I may not have understood, but at least I didn't give up trying to!
In the words of an ex-murderer...
"You who condemn each other; don't you do the same thing?"
- Saul, also known as Paul
Don't get me wrong.
This isn't about "truth". You can have the truth and still be guilty.
So why do I hate lies and confusion? 'Cuz lies cause otherwise good men to condemn the innocent and excuse the guilty. Some folk see this and whitewash the problem, thinking a valid solution is to avoid condemning anyone at all.
But, uh, when antibodies stop killing viruses, the whole body dies.
Condemnation isn’t the problem. Deathbringers ain't problem, 'cuz some things need to die. The problem is oversimplification. When our cells refuse to die, that's called cancer. When our immune system can’t tell the difference between the body and an invader, that’s called an auto-immune disease. The solution isn't to get rid of our immune system (that’s called suicide).
No, the solution is to do what it takes to see all the nuances so as to judge rightly.
There's a quote begging to be made here ...what is it? Something something road to hell something something good intentions.
"Everyone does what is right in their own eyes."
- King Solomon
I'm the problem too.
These supposed friends of mine weren't entirely incorrect.
Sure, they were incorrect about me being a defensive, self-absorbed liar. But I was still guilty for other things. Eventually I saw where I was the problem (no thanks to them). How? 'Cuz I ignored their interpretations and carried on exposing myself — my innocence, my guilt, my weakness, my strength — to those who loved me enough to listen past their offense.
This is why I talk about myself.
In a US court of law, no matter how obvious a crime may seem, we examine the evidence. We freely provide a defense attorney. We do all this because there are circumstances when what appears obvious is actually a mirage. As it is written,
“The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him."
- King Solomon
So whether I'm the accused or the accuser, I expose myself to examine the evidence.
Too many folk settle for 'good enough'. They fight to maintain the status quo, to sustain their 95% success rate. In this way, they guarantee to carry on brutalizing the 5% (which honestly is closer to 20%). Meanwhile, vigilantes and the 5% are no better, setting out to enforce their own justice, only to brutalize a different 5%.
It's an ongoing cycle, because we're always relying on ourselves.
We're not okay with this.
Look, I could write ad infinitum here. So lemme get to the point…
Things need to change, but we don’t always know what things. Do you? If you're perfect in knowledge and power, please lead us! ...but, oh, you're not perfect? Okay. Carrying on then...
Our authorities are guilty, but so are we. Nobody on earth is wise enough or worthy to bring perfect justice, so we settle for erring on the side of either crucifying the innocent or showing favor to the guilty. (Then again, is anyone innocent?)
I am torn both ways. I have lived my life showing mercy to the guilty because I cannot bear the thought of violating the innocent — for I was one of them. But within me is an ancient monstrosity who demands repayment in blood. I am not foolish enough to condemn him. Hatred is love’s sword, wrath wielded against the oppressors for the sake of bringing wholeness to the oppressed. Pacifism is unjust. It ignores the demands of the weak. We cry out, and we are heard. But who knows enough to make no mistakes with the sword? Not me. Not you.
When you look around your kingdom and all the light touches reveals imperfection, then the only hope for perfect justice is in the darkness.
Don’t pretend like you don’t want perfection.
Uncontrollable,
Unyielding,
Dreadfully Beautiful Perfection.
As it is written,
In my distress I called upon the LAMB;
to his DAD I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.
Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and quaked, because he was angry [on my behalf].
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a holy monster and flew;
he came swiftly on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him,
thick clouds dark with water.
Out of the brightness before him
hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds.
He sent from on high, he took me;
he drew me out of many waters.
He rescued me from my strong enemy
and from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.
They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the LAMB was my support.
He brought me out into a broad place;
he rescued me, because he delighted in me.- King David
I have walked into the dark, but I have not come back as your blessed savior. No, I have come back as a monster — broken, but everyday a bit better — who has tasted the blessings of the Uncontrollable God. And I’m not here to stay. I’m not a fluffy goodboi, rolling over at every command. I am a gentle growl, teeth gleaming in the shade of the evening light as you pass, a horrible reminder that we have no right to remain in our guilt + shame.
But I won't be the one to devour you. On the contrary, my teeth are sharp enough to protect, if you want them too. But they are for surgery too. Will you endure it?
He will kill us back to life.
Here's the rub...
We have brutalized ourselves and the ones we claim to love. But while that is a problem, it's not the problem. Perfection is available to anyone who would chase him until they find are found by him, and then keep chasing him.
The problem is when we don't chase him.
There is coming a day when the Lamb will return as a Wolf, a Lion, a Dragon, the Eldritch God whom all our stories are but a whisper and a shadow. His Teeth will bring absolute vindication to the oppressed.
On that day, the oppressors will protest, "We didn't know what we were doing!"
From the darkness will come his reply, "Then you should've looked for me."
Many will further protest, "But we didn’t know you were real!"
And he will repeat himself, “Then you should’ve looked for me.”
“We tried!” some will say.
And he will simply say, “Then why did you give up?”
Lack of knowledge is no excuse for our guilt + shame, for we could always toddle around in the darkness, crying out to be found by The Innocent One, like kiddos in hope that a new Papa will adopt us.
Nobody hates God because they know him. They hate him because of their own imaginations. That’s why they won’t do what it takes to meet him and learn who he really is.
As for the rest of us, we don’t know what to do, so we ask him to come lead us. That’s why my depression is cured, among other things.
The end of the matter is this,
Soaring Sheep wields cross-media storytelling to promote a lifestyle of radical self-exposure.
Our long term vision includes animations, game design, unique apps, awesomer apparel, and more. We support content creators who tell stories where dad doesn't die, cops do what's right, and the characters are opportunities for the reader to learn how to meet God for themselves and bring wholeness to their communities.
We chase the Slain Lamb, exposing ourselves to him because nobody else is wise enough, powerful enough, and loving enough to cleanse us from our guilt + shame and make us worthy of the power we wield.
We expose our wounds to the surgeon so he can remove the shrapnel.
We come out of the closet so the solitary confinement won't drive us insane.
We show up with adoption papers in order to be dads to the dadless.
We affirm the bloodlust of the oppressed because that goes a long way in keeping us from rising up in bloody revolution.
The point of self-exposure isn't to say, "This is the way I should be." The point is to avoid hiding, lest we ignore the problem and allow the wound to fester. We stop exiling our enemies. We stop running away. We endure the terror of His Eldritch Majesty in order to taste what it's like to be safe in his arms.
Self-exposure takes guts (and it sure reveals 'em). It takes trust. It means deciding to expose yourself to somebody for the hope of a surgery that ends in perfection, even when you've been abandoned and destroyed 10,000 times before.
This starts with you. If you’re not willing to stick around long enough to see when you might’ve misunderstood your enemy, why should you expect your enemy to do the same for you? If you want a safe space to be yourself, start by being that safe space for your enemies.
As a good friend recently said,
"That is, I think, the most important thing: the security to be authentic without fearing that it will chase the other person away."
- Supreme Overlord Antonius