remember this

 All of a sudden, something from my past, speaks into the lives of those close to me. (ABOVE) my 1987 journal. Remember this, Karl.

In 1974 my dorm room is on the basement floor of Heppner Hall, my first year at the University on Nebraska, in Lincoln. I am 19 years old. On this day I remember being all uptight. Students were making jokes in our room that bothered me, but instead of saying something about it, I stuffed my anger down inside. As I sat on the bed I swung my fist against the wall. Later, after the students had left, my roommate Jeff Taebel said to me, "You need to do something about that." or something to that effect.

Fourteen years later, in 1988 I am taking classes at the Bible Institute of California in Anaheim. (ABOVE, photo standing by school sign with Hispanic class, photo of class in session) I have been taking part in a night class called New Hope, where I am learning about co-dependency, how unhealthy it has been to not feel my anger. I am learning to choose other ways of acting on my feelings. Letting go, letting God handle things that work me all up, let him be my peace. I am 33 years old. My wife and I went to visit my parents during Christmas break in Seward, Nebraska. (The following entry in my journal recounts the inner turmoil I felt)

"I feel angry at Dad for trying to control my life. I thought he had released me from expectations with my art skills. But today Dad opened the issue again. 'Why can't I market my abilities in the states and not end up going abroad?' he asks me. He still believes in what I can do with art, He sees himself as aggressive and me as laidback like Mom. He thinks if I wait too long, my ideas WILL NEVER BE FULFILLED. He sees himself trying - failing - succeeding in motion. And see me in a standstill - neglectful use of my abilities."

"The idea of my wife and myself going ahead for missions bothers him. I explained that he and I are two different people. His efforts work for him. But I am different. And it seems he can only see it from his method of working. And that, if I don't get busy producing and sending and marketing my stuff, that (I will be cursed, in a sense). I will have to suffer the consequences!!!" Immediately after that He controlled, by refusing to show a video promo he had earlier offered to show me. My Dad has to work out his own co-dependency. And I have to work out mine.

 "But I'm angry because I thought this issue had been resolved. Now it's like my peace is being shaken up all over again. It's almost like Dad wants us to be enemies again...I really appreciated my talks with Mom this visit. She's smart and is working out her co-dependency. Dad thinks she has the problem, but he misses his contribution and his own co-dependency. I feel Mom is right on track. I DON'T LIKE BEING CONTROLLED." (December 29, 1988)

Two years pass, my wife and I are still living in the trailer behind Betty Larsen's house in Gardena, California. Her son, Larry, is a classmate of ours at LBIC. (ABOVE, photo front of Betty's House, Betty, Larry, and a drawing of our trailer/home)
During chapel time today, a black five-member drama team from England called "The Acts" does some of their acting for the meditation.

That night, after school and after our jobs, we joined our friends from England back at Betty's house, where they are staying tonight. In photo ABOVE, Brenda and Lurissa from Canada. Jackie, Carol, Marva, Verletta (Mum) Malcolm from North Hampton. Maureen from South Hampton. Victor Gibbons, Karl Marxhausen, Jan Marxhausen.
    
It was during the prayer and singing time, that happens on Friday nights, that the spirit of God ministered to me as I lay on the floor. During chapel earlier today I felt a knot in my stomach. I asked for prayer concerning that knot. What happened as I lay on the floor, was that a tremor began in my stomach. It then moved up my body to my chest. Then I burst into tears and sobs. After a bit, a deep peace came over my being. I felt like I was sleeping on the bottom of the ocean, so still. Then after some time passed, the cycle repeated, with a tremor that began in my stomach, and which moved up to my chest. Again I burst out in tears and sobs. Soon, a deep peace and rest came over my whole body. And then, the cycle occurred again. The group prayer time had ended long ago. Everyone was off in the kitchen, while I was laying on the living room carpet all by myself. God was having his way with me.

These brothers and sister in Christ were witness to the work God brought in me. The recurring cycle of sobs and peace went on for THREE HOURS and ended around 11 o'clock at night. This was the SAME NIGHT my father Reinhold Marxhausen was making his second appearance on the David Letterman TV talk show (January 17, 1990) There was a sense that pent up grief was being poured out of my heart and was being replaced with joy and God's healing activity. (In the photo BELOW, my brother Victor Gibbons and me in Betty's kitchen.)

It is now 2013. The youth group is reading verses about people in chains and darkness in the book of Psalms. The verses seem like they are written for today. It could be us crying out from our own situations, where feelings are repressed, where anger is stuffed down and held on to, where bitterness towards others smolders. I am 58 years old. I share some of the anger I felt at Dad those years ago. Our group takes turns hefting up a potato sack with a heavy heavy stone inside, the symbolic weight of our own resentment. We talk about forgiveness, letting go, crying out for release, and being open to receive help from One outside our realm of control. We look at the artwork I brought tonight. Students describe what they see in their own words. (My 36 by 24 inch painting on tempered Masonite from 2000, BELOW)

We read verses of an anxious suicidal man in disarray who becomes clothed, calm, and in his right mind. I share how God made a way in my life. Releasing new feelings, songs of hope and joy. How destructive ways of thinking were broken off and his glitter sparkle matrix did something I was unable to make happen. (Collage, Airstrike, 1998, BELOW)

Marvelous, O Lord.
You are that strong. You show me the way to walk in forgiveness. A way closed off that You opened for me. Precious butterfly Holy Ghost. Releasing tears and pouring in peace and joy and altering my reality. Jesus, you, so kind, so able, so generous, yeses through You, You are making. Remember this, Karl.

zeal

    It's one thing to model creativity with youth. It's another thing to watch it flame up and take off.
    Word pictures are like that for me. Perhaps, it's like the collage I take so long to assemble, and then a song or a word of life comes to me and now that abstract collage says so much about the God who loves me and acts on my behalf. The activity of making becomes an unspoken cry or intercession or prayer. It comes back to me with a blessing that I could not have invented. It SPEAKS to me. The word of life that comes is from the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth.
    When these Epiphanies come, I jot them down in a prayer journal. On a day I am glum and depressed, re-reading these gems of light brings the activity of Jesus to mind and declares his concern and attention for one such as I. In Jeremiah 1 verse 12 the author declares: "For I am alert and active, watching over my word to perform it."
    This interaction is truly a marvel. It surprises me. It gets my attention.

     Sometimes I awake in the night to jot down a download of phrases.

     Something that took place earlier in the day comes into focus and it's like someone is beside me, reminding me, revealing something to remember, to latch on to, or celebrate.

    At four in the morning, I awoke and began writing down what came to my mind:
    Behold My hand, Karl. Behold My joy.
The download played back the images of my pastor in the youth room. On his open palms lay two wide cloth strips - he deep in thought - suddenly a flurry of motion. Faster than I have seen him move before, he had set up a folding chair, and was on top of it, pushing the ceiling panels up, and fixing to suspend the two completed efforts of the teenagers. His hands tying the cloth strips around the ceiling bars, figuring it all out on the fly, impassioned, taking the initiative himself, engaged. As I stood by aghast and still. He continued until the two student assemblages were hung up to his SATISFACTION.
      Another download came. A teen standing up, all smiles, holding the upper frame above her head, the long multi-colored cloth strips running down to the bottom frame. Her leg and arm slipping between the parallel strips, her mouth declared "STEPPING OUT OF JAIL." The next word that came to mind was RELEASE!! As in, being freed from bondage or set free from mental oppression.
    The next download was of a teen with many cloth strips tied end to end to end, stretched out, standing over by the room wall, looking at its length and wondering aloud: "I WONDER HOW LONG THIS IS?" He and the girl stretching the full length out to touch opposite walls in the youth room. The next words were curiosity - willingness - eager.
    Then, an older theme from 1998 flashed by and became a declaration or an affirmation of what the length of cloth strips meant. The Pleasantville vision (full text here). In a classroom the teacher explained that there was nothing outside of Pleasantville. The road merely returned back to where it first started. A student asked Bud what was outside of Pleasantville and Bud explained "the roads do not go in a circle but they go on and on." The Spirit of truth interpreted: "they go and on and on deeper in the Holy Ghost. In other words, falling in love with Jesus!"
     The next image was of Bud standing out in the rain, arms extended up, and declaring to the students huddled in the gazebo: "It's okay to come out. It's only rain." The Spirit revealed: "there is nothing to fear when it came to the Holy Ghost and the way he operated, his baptism, his healing, his involvement, the result was the same, he brought us close to himself."
     The notes he gave me on Pleasantville were about being transformed by the Holy Ghost into lovers of Jesus Christ. Where spirituality was expressive. You could use your own words to express your admiration to Him.
     The next scene was in the film where Bud told his TV father Wayne: "Don't you want to tell her she is beautiful?" And Wayne in tears nods his head. The Spirit said: "tell Jesus he is lovely. Go ahead and tell HIM."
     The download concluded. A sense that Jesus was showcasing His activity. Pay attention, remember, celebrate, he was doing something here. "Behold My hand. See My joy."
     By this time I was crying with tears. Grateful. In wonder. Praising the name of Jesus.

prayer journal entry on April 11, 2015
Carrollton, MIssouri
Karl Marxhausen


     Recently I found out that Martin Luther from the sixteenth century valued the rich words that came to him and directed him to his loving Savior. I would like to add that quote here, because I was happy and amazed that the Spirit of truth was sharing with him as well.

"Frequently when I come to a certain part of 'Our Father' or to a petition, I land in such rich thought that I leave behind all set prayers. When such rich, good thoughts arrive, then one should leave the other commandments aside and offer room to those thoughts and listen in stillness and for all the world not put up obstructions. For then the Holy Spirit himself is preaching and one word of his sermon is better than a thousand of our prayers. I have learned more from one such prayer than I would have received from much reading and writing."
     "If the Holy Spirit would come in the course of such thoughts [methodical preparation for worshipful prayer] and begins to preach in your heart with rich, illumined thoughts, do him the honor, let these rationally formulated thoughts, reflections and meditations fade away. Be still and listen for he knows better than you. And when he preaches note that and write it down. In this way you will experience miracles."

 Martin Luther

 From a little treatise, "How To Pray."         Luther's Works, Devotional Writings, Volume 43:193-211. (quote courtesy of God Is Faithful, David Dorpat, Creation House, 2008, p.264)