Category: thinking and stuff

The Thing About Loss

The thing about loss that’s tough for the people who remain is that they are left with little more than fading pictures clutched in desperate hands. Scents on a pillow. That last bit of conditioner in the bottle you don’t want to empty. We grip those memories with desperate fingers–so much so that it’s easy to get lost in the long ago “better times,” and drown yourself in a sea of sorrow.

You can’t really hold on that well, though, because pictures are made of paper, not the flesh we desperately long to hold. Their smell leaves. We remember what was, and don’t want to think about what is, which is getting on with things, which we also must do, even in the worst circumstances. Yet Ecclesiastes also assures us there is a time to mourn, so we need to do that, too.

This present loss of my niece is a little more remote for me, because we had not remained close over the years. Yet I remember times when we were–long ago summer evenings spinning out in gossamer threads of books, movies, laying in the living room watching TV, and time spent with my parents. I remember how much they loved her. she was really more like the little sister I never had. I think of what it felt like to be young and I remember that with wistfulness while I mourn.

When I remember you, I will remember what it felt like to be young, and strong, with little knowledge of the world to come. I will think of vacations, long days with many books, trips to Disneyland, rivers, and backyard pools.

I learned something really important from all this: love your family while you have them. You won’t always. Only God knows when the day and the hour will come. Forgive trespasses, and shortcomings. None of that shit matters in the end.

My niece would have been 45 today. I really wish she was here, even if we weren’t gonna celebrate together. She was a really important part of my childhood, and even though she had her moments (don’t we all, though), she will be missed terribly.

Thanks for the Memories

The last thing I remember doing with my dad is watching the season ending episode of Three’s Company back in May of 1984. The next day I got off the school bus and my sister was waiting to tell me he had a heart attack and take me to the hospital.

I don’t like that being my last good memory of him–watching some dumb sitcom. Neither of us liked the episode much. So I try to think of other things, like how strong he was. One time I saw him slide a dryer out of the back of his pickup with his bare hands. Heck, the day of his heart attack, he drove himself to the hospital. That probably bought him a day.

He loved to sail, and collect things, and listen to big band music.

I remember bringing him coffee on Saturday mornings, and running down to the little store around the corner to buy him a newspaper.

I remember he had a rifle in his closet that had a white stock, and a .22 revolver in a drawer.

He made me and my friends rubber band guns one time, and took 4 of us to see Jaws at the old Parkway Plaza theater.

I have two favorite memories of my dad that I cherish, and thinking about them now as I hold my 2 year old and watch Dora makes me realize how important it is I create memories for both of my guys

The first memory is this little routine we’d do as he went off to work (he was a cement mason). He’d say “see you later, alligator.” I would follow with “after a while, crocodile.” I loved that–it was something that was just ours.

The second was spending the night on his sailboat. We didn’t do it much, but when we did it was great. I remember the sound of the water slapping the sides of the boat, and the ding-ding of buoys or something out in the harbor. Then we would go to Jack-in-the-Box and get breakfast while it was still dark.

He might not have been Ward Cleaver, but he did what he could. I wish he could have met my kids–he was really good with them.

Anyway, I need to get busy with my guys. It’s Saturday, and we’ve got things to do!

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Egg the Fat Kid

I usually try not to respond to or write about things out of anger, but just this one time I’m going to make an exception. My friend Justine shared an article a little earlier that was about the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch and why he “hates fat chicks.”

The article explains:

“He doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people,” Lewis said. “He doesn’t want his core customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they’re one of the ‘cool kids.’”

It made me remember my high school years, when I was definitely not one of the cool kids. We were not well off at all, and my clothes were never designer, and sometimes not even new. It shouldn’t have mattered, but kids can be more cruel than the Marquis de Sade so it ended up kind of making things harder.

I was bussed from Santee to Grossmont high school, and I remember how crappy the kids from that neighborhood were to those of us who could not afford the trappings of wealth many of them could, and who didn’t look the way cool or attractive people were supposed to.

That was me for sure. Overweight by the in-crowd’s standards. Average-looking at best. Generic or used clothing, for the most part. The “fortunate” kids were always kind enough to let me know where I fit in the scheme of things.

There was one time in particular that stuck with me–well, two. The first was one day early in the school year. I remember getting on the bus and feeling like the clothes my sister had purchased me looked pretty good for a change, and my new Payless shoes looked just like Adidas. I thought it might make a difference.

I remember one kid when I got off deliberately stepping on my shoes and making them dirty, while another berated the “Kmart specials” I was wearing. I was utterly humiliated.

The other time I was getting out of my car at the Parkway Bowl theater about a year after my mom died and I was wearing this rugby shirt I liked a lot and a pair of actual Levi’s I’d purchased myself. A carload of high school boys (football players, by their jackets) drove up and yelled “egg the fat kid,” which they proceeded to do. Thankfully, their aim was much worse than their probably beer-impaired judgment, and they only hit me once, right on the chest of my rugby shirt.

Egg the fat kid, indeed.

So when I read that article Justine posted, it made me think of the careless cruelty of my peers when I was the age of many potential A & F customers. I so wanted what they had, because I thought I’d fit in. Maybe even get popular friends.

The friends I did have had nothing to do with how I dressed or the how much weight I carried. They still don’t. Maybe that’s why I never really cared much for brand clothes as an adult.

It might be worth adding that by all accounts, the A & F CEO is supposedly a bit of a troll in addition to his PhD in douchebaggery. It seems evident he is attempting to make up for whatever he feels he missed out on in his youth.

He’s going to fail, and no matter how expensive the clothes are he wears, in his heart he will always be the fat kid, or the poor kid, or the kid with buck teeth. There is only one way to find healing for those kind of wounds, and it is not through wanton buying sprees and callow and superficial attitudes toward people who don’t meet some arbitrary fashion standard.

If it weren’t for Jesus, I would still be trying to meet those standards and trying to please people who didn’t like me for who I was, and would never love me for who I wasn’t. It was and remains ridiculous.

I’m writing this on my phone and I can’t see all the stuff I’ve written further up, so let me just say in conclusion that I have never been in an A & F store, and thanks to this article, I never plan to be. it sounds like I wouldn’t be welcome anyway.

This CEO (who shall not be name dropped by me) can go take a flying uh…leap at a rolling doughnut.

On Marriage and Sanctity

Just finished reading an article about Starbucks and their vocal and financial support of gay marriage.

Something occurred to me just now: you hear people speak about this issue all the time, and those against it often mention that legalizing gay marriage threatens the sanctity of the institution itself. Does it, though?

If two men or two women were able to marry each other, would it make me any less married to Jenny? Of course not.

Would they actually be married, though?

It depends on what you believe. If you believe it’s simply the law’s recognition of the institution of marriage that legitimizes it, then making gay marriage legal is really simple.

If you believe that marriage was created and defined by God then the whole debate gets a little more complicated. For me, I do not personally feel my marriage threatened by whether or not those two fabulous guys down the street can tie the proverbial knot. I just don’t.

The problem arises, I think, when the possibility of Churches or individuals who perform (or can perform) wedding ceremonies, and who do not believe gay marriage is solely legitimized by the law are compelled by that same law to perform that which their faith and their God tells them is not legitimate at all.

I think that is a real possibility, and if it happens would be an affront to the religious freedom promised by the constitution of the United States, which was meant to protect states from favoring one religion over another.

So if we, based on law alone, attempt to force people to comply with the viewpoint of secularism over Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism (none of which recognize gay marriage), we are favoring one religion over another, because secularism taken to that level is very much like a religion. Even worse, we are denying the constitutional rights of Americans.

Here’s the other thing I was thinking about: what if what threatens the sanctity of marriage isn’t gay marriage at all?

Think about it. People cohabitate for many years and often do not marry. Society accepts that, and it is now very much the norm. Men and women also frequently approach marriage like they would contract negotiations for a house or car, and it’s no wonder there’s a 50% divorce rate. What else should we expect with such low expectations.

I think what threatens the sanctity of marriage is making marriage about law and only law, leaving sanctification out of it completely (sanctification = holiness). Soon, we will simply specify a desired term of marriage, sign a contract, and that will be that.

Marriages will fail, or never happen at all. Kids will grow up with single mothers (a single mother, by the way, is a noble thing, but they were never meant to shoulder that burden alone), and never have any idea what marriages are meant to be and can be.

I think the sanctity of marriage is also threatened when we make it a business or political interaction and not a covenant.

Should gay people be allowed to legally marry? The law will decide that soon enough, and it won’t be the death knell of the church at all. What it will be is a symptom of the decline of freedom, and the further separation of “church” from “state,” which is really sort of false.

It’s false because as I mentioned before, secularism has become very much like a “modern” religion (or anti-religion) and is being used like a cudgel to beat down those who do not agree with its precepts.

If you don’t conform to the secular status quo, then you’re a relic of a time not fondly missed. Or maybe just a “hater.”

Some Thoughts on Easter

For most Christians, Easter is like the Super Bowl. Not to minimize the importance of Christmas; Christ had to be born before he could be crucified. Most people agree Jesus was born, and lived and taught during the first century around Judea and surrounding areas. There is ample evidence available to support the existence of Jesus.

Where people veer off is when you start talking about the Crucifixion and subsequent resurrection of Christ. There is a huge segment of society who emphatically denies it ever happened, and that Jesus is little more than a benevolent bedtime story.

Then you have one of the world’s most practiced religions (Islam), which agrees Jesus lived and taught, but was in the end little more than a skilled teacher and (according to some) prophet. Here’s a great video that breaks it down:

40 Arabic Words

I am not here today to refute Islam, but it is true that without the resurrection, Christmas is little more than the noteworthy birth of a talented first century Rabbi who was really good with people.

I am also not here to “prove” the resurrection true (read Lee Strobel’s The Case for Easter if you want to do that). I just want to tell you what Easter means to me.

I believe in the death and resurrection of Christ because it is by that I am healed, and live and move and have my being. I can’t tell you anything now that will prove that to you if you don’t already believe.

I can just tell you that Easter changed my life, and has made everything that happened to my life over the past 13 years possible.

Easter took a tired, broken, depressed and addicted man who didn’t care about anything (including his life) and gave him a reason to live and a means to live by.

I guess the best way to explain it is that God took the torn fabric of my life and began stitching it up, along with the otherwise mortal wounds to my heart.

He’s the only reason I am alive today, and whether or not you believe me does not change the truth of that in my heart, bound by the gentle and strong hands of a carpenter.

Easter is important to me because it reminds me of why I’m here.

So it Begins

I’ve been getting a real sense of purpose about what to do with my…creative impulses over the past week or so. To tell you the truth, I’ve never really been afraid to write anything before, but I’m afraid of this.

The time commitment scares me.

The research scares me.

Potentially interviewing people scares me.

It all began with a post I retweeted from Rick Warren (read it here). It was extremely well done and not at all what I expected.

It made me think about a lot of things, not the least of which is how we who profess Christ represent him to the gay community. I wonder what they think of us?

What ideas do we have ingrained in our psyches about what gay men and women are like?

What are they like?

Where all this is going I don’t know, but when I read about Dan Cathy in that article it gave me pause about my own preconceived notions regarding LGBT people and how my personal interaction with them has been.

I realized I don’t know any gay people very well here, either at work or in my private life.

I realized the thought of gay people getting married does not make me feel threatened, and I’m really not sure how I feel (or ought to feel) about that.

I feel this issue and the controversy surrounding it is at least partly to blame for young people turning away from The Church (as a corporate entity) I don’t know what to do about that, and I’m not at all sure how this project will turn out in the end.

I only know I have to write it, and that as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Let Me Sow Love

I should be doing homework right now. I have to read this Ezra pound thing and write about it. I have a book I want to finish, and the other day I made a new character on Star Wars, the Old Republic I want to play more.

Right now, I can’t do any of that. I can’t think about doing any of that. I went literally from my knees to this chair in my hotel room and all I can think about is that Huffington Post thing I posted earlier about the prayer of St Francis–that ball started rolling last week when I watched this:

If you have a little over an hour to watch that video, I promise you, you will not regret it. Anyway, the shirt Nick is wearing in this video had the words “where there is hatred, let me sow love” across the chest. I hadn’t heard that before, and I wanted to know where it came from.

It’s from something called “The Prayer of St Francis,” which as the Huffpost article pointed out, was probably not written by St Francis, though he certainly lived his life in such a way he exemplified it. Before I go any further, here it is:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

So I was sitting here at this little desk in my hotel room and I was just idly looking at the Ezra Pound piece and I felt the uncontrollable compulsion to spend some time talking to God. It wasn’t really a question of whether or not I wanted to or if I had something I’d rather be doing, it was more like

nownownownownownownownownownownow…………………

So that’s what I did. At the end of that time the words of the Prayer of St Francis came to me again, and they seemed to me more valid than ever, and an aspiration each believer should hold dear:

make me an instrument of your piece.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Not the whole prayer, just those two lines.

Is that for me, God? I asked myself that as I returned to my chair and opened up this window.

How can I be an instrument?

How can I be used in the furtherance of your kingdom? I am not an apologist. I am not a pastor? I haven’t been to seminary.

I’m just a man. I’m a man that sometimes doubts, and occasionally goes for days without reading his bible. I lapse into old thought patterns and old sin patterns. I swear more than I should. I misuse my gifts.

How can I be an instrument? Don’t you have someone more qualified? Someone who knows what to say to people and what to do?

Where is there hatred that I can do anything about?

God showed me my own family. Sometimes the people I work with. Sometimes even the people I worship with. Yes, even them. Just because people go to church doesn’t mean they cease to have the same problems everyone else does, and respond to others while they’re deeply in the throes of them in a way which is often less than faithful.

How do I sow love? I love these people (love as a verb, that is). I love them in spite of their wrongs, real or perceived. I love them even if I don’t want to. I love them like God would love them.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…

Now I find myself in the position of beginning a task I am not comfortable with. It doesn’t matter that I feel there are other things I have to do. It doesn’t matter that I feel there are other things I am better or more skilled at than sharing love–sowing love–with others, others who need it most. Oswald Chambers says God cares not at all for our natural proclivities, and I think he is absolutely right. God doesn’t care what we’re good at, though he does bless us with talents. I think what Chambers is trying to say is that God doesn’t care if we think we’re good at something. He can and will still use us.

I can say I’m not good at talking to people about Christ. I can believe I’m not good at talking to people about Christ. I might not even be good at evangelizing people in the way others are.

Yet to deny that God can use me and use my story in spite of my shortcomings is to deny God himself.

Tonight I was given a glimpse of the task ahead, and it is daunting. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know how to do it. All I can think of to do right now is to pray these words, and trust God to supply everything else.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love…

A Prayer

Lord, I want so badly to sleep. I’m tired enough, but my mind is whirling like a light on a police car. The baby is asleep (finally), David is asleep and Jen is sleeping behind me right now.

I’m awake, though. I want my mind to quiet down, but Galatians 2:20 is on my mind

20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

and I am aware I need to ask your forgiveness anew, because dying to myself is no easy thing, not when I have to do it every day and my instinct is to live for myself.

I need to be forgiven, though, because it’s hard to forgive.

My discipleship is weak, and it needs to be strong. Forgive me my weakness and strengthen me.

Forgive me my impatience and quick frustration and speak your peace to my heart thirsty for it.

I’m thinking of this trip coming up for work and how easy it would be to slip into old patterns of thought and sin and addiction. But the thing is,

I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ living in me

and when I remember that, things make a little more sense.

But I still need your help, God, because like I said before, dying to myself is not easy. Not when I have this many shortcomings, and I feel like the 1st Lieutenant of sinners.

Forgive me my trespasses, and deliver me from evil.

And right now, God, Lord, Most High, I really just need one simple thing. Besides forgiveness, and deliverance, and strengthened discipleship, and so many other things, please just help me to sleep.

Tomorrow, well…today now, is coming really soon and there is much to do.

Stimulus and Response

When my older boy gets in trouble, he’ll go to any and all lengths to explain why it wasn’t his fault. He will happily throw anyone under the bus in order to divert any negative attention from himself. His mom and I are in the process of trying to teach him about responsibility (and accountability, for that matter).

What I’ve been thinking about lately is that so many people these days need to learn that lesson as well. God may well be creator, sustainer, beginning and end, but we have ultimate responsibility for our lives and the decisions we make.

We choose direction in our lives by how we respond to the circumstances that occur in it, whether they are positive or negative.

Concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl says:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

I think that is so true. I would also say that how we respond affects the lives of others and not just our own.

Frankl also says

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

That is also true. The other day I told my son about something that happened at work a couple years ago that very much could have affected our future, and certainly my ability to provide for my family.

I was driving to a remote test site down a dirt road, and I was last in a group of four or five trucks. Consequently, I was eating a great deal of dust. There was no wind and the dust just hung in the air. Everyone was also going very fast, and the main group began to pull away from me.

It was then several things happened at once. I realized I couldn’t see the sides of the road. I hit some bad washboards in the surface of the road and began to fishtail. I attempted to correct, overcompensated, and veered offroad, flipping my truck over and destroying a government vehicle.

That was bad. Had I not been wearing a seat belt, it could have been much worse.

I had to go before a review board and account for what happened. I could have tried to avoid blame and responsibility by blaming all sorts of things and people, but something told me not to, and I just told the truth: I was speeding, even though I couldn’t see well. How could I deny it was my fault?

I told my son (and I firmly believe) that what saved my job was that I accepted responsibility for my actions. The stimulus was the accident. My response was to be honest, even though I knew the cost could be great.

I’ve also been trying to admit to my son when I make mistakes, and to apologize when that is what’s needed. I think one of the larger problems these days is so many people have forgotten how to do that.

Rather, people blame their circumstances for things that happen in their lives, or to excuse the things they do. They blame parents, or teachers, or friends. They blame anyone rather than say, “Yes, I did it. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, please forgive me.”

We usually do not ask for the negative things that happen in our lives. We don’t have any control over the people that do or say hurtful things, or sometimes literally do hurt us.

But between the stimulus of what happens and the response we make lies a space…

We get to choose our response. With honesty and the acceptance of personal responsibility lies growth. With blame and denial lies stagnancy.

I think that’s where we are now as a society, as a generation.

Our place in life may not be our fault, and sometimes that place truly sucks. Or it could be completely different. Maybe everything is great.

It’s how we respond to those circumstances that determines the true course of our lives.

Life can and often will be so tough. Mine was, at times. I believe what brought me through it to the place I am now is the millennia-old sacrifice of a Nazarene carpenter a world away from Arizona.

I didn’t know much about Jesus at the time I was going through certain things. Yet when he brought healing to the person I am now he also brought healing to the person I was then.

Or think about it like this:

The stimulus was God saw what the world was becoming and had become. It was a fallen and often Godless place, and it needed something to change or all would be lost.

The world needed a savior (and it still does).

God’s response was to send his son as propitiation for the world’s sin and brokenness–for its fallen nature. That response gives us freedom.

If we look at the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalves as stimulus, I wonder how we will choose to respond?

Would that affect our willingness to accept personal responsibility for our actions (and reactions)?

I believe it would.

What would happen if we admitted our wrongs, or gave thanks for our “rights?”

What would happen if we were able to say “Yes, I did it. I’m sorry, please forgive me?”

Of Baptisms and Third Row Conviction

Sometimes young people just…amaze and humble me. Now that I’m old, I can say that with absolutely no irony at all. Since joining the FCC youth ministry, I have seen a lot of what seemed like apathy from the kids I teach. I’ve seen a lot of sleepy eyes and thousand-yard stares from across the table on Sunday mornings. Consequently, I’ve allowed myself to somewhat…expect it from them.

Then, something like this morning happens, and knocks me off whatever high horse or soapbox I happen to be standing on at the time.

Jen and I were sitting down front at church this morning, and two rows in front of us were a half dozen or so of our FCC college-age kids, all in a row. It seemed like a lot of them to be all together, all at once, but it was also cool they were sitting together as a group, so I just made note of it and then proceeded to listen to Jeff as he began his sermon.

After communion and offering, Kari announced a young man would be baptized, and I saw a tall, happy-looking kid of about 19 come down the stairs and into the baptistry. Typically at our church, the person being baptized just sort of stands there, and waits for the person doing the baptism to say their part and then do the dunking. Not this kid.

He said his name (Tim), and that his friend (whose name escapes me) was going to baptize him. He had a grin on his face that probably had half the people in the sanctuary smiling. I know it did me.

He made his declaration of faith, and then his friend baptized him in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit. When Tim came out of the water he practically leapt with joy, and literally raised a fist to Heaven and said “YAY!!” I wish I would have thought to take a picture.

Never have I seen a baptism where the person being baptized showed that kind of joy. It made me remember that the things of the world I often allow to consume me–no matter how great or terrible they might seem at the time–are nothing compared to the joy that can be found in Christ.

I made it a point of going up to Tim after service to talk to him and the very first thing he did was give me a big hug. He was still smiling so huge I thought his jaw would crack. There were several people waiting to talk to him, and they all got hugs and that same smile.

What a great, amazing young man of God.

I hope some of the high school kids were in there to see the baptism. It was a beautiful thing.