Daddy’s Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car

[Friends, this is a text from a sermon I Preached a couple of weeks back. It's about grace.]

American Idols, pt III
Luke 15:11-32


There once was a father who had two sons. Both served him well until one day when the younger of the two sons came to his father and said, "Father, I wish to have my share of the inheritance that will come to us when you die."

The Father, shocked as he was, agreed and divided his estate giving the younger son the customary one-third of the estate that was rightfully his under the current laws and customs of the times and culture. The younger son received what he believed was his even though he was rather certain that he should have received more. The father sent him on his way.

The boy was industrious even if he was rather ungrateful. He moved to the city and wisely invested his money and took a job. As time went along he prospered. His bank account grew and eventually he had saved enough to open his own business. Shortly after he opened his business he got married and eventually he had a couple of children of his own.

And he forgot all about the life he once knew…the life at his dad’s business, working hand and hand with his older brother. In fact, he became so successful that he forgot entirely about his family—but then, being so successful, he had no reason to remember. He had no need of going back. He had all he needed in his self-sufficient world. It is said that his father died one day while sitting on the back porch looking off in the direction his son had gone when he first left.

Simone Wiel once wrote, "It is to the Prodigals…that the memory of their father’s house comes back. If the son had lived economically he would never have thought of returning."

CS Lewis wrote in his book, the The Problem of Pain, "The dangers of apparent self-suffering explain why our Lord regards the vices of the feckless and dissipated so much more leniently than the vices that lead to worldly success. Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger."
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In a word, I think, grace is ridiculous. In another word, it is absurd. In yet another word, it is frightening. Someone else wrote, "It is scandalous, irrational, and revolutionary." (Stockman, 114) Philip Yancey says that grace is an unnatural act. I say that for all intents and purposes grace is outrageous.

I confess, it makes very little sense. Just think about yourself because only you know about yourself and what you have done, and who you have been, and where you have been—who you are when no one is looking—just think about yourself and tell me honestly that grace makes sense. I can scarcely look myself in the mirror with a straight face and think about grace. If the Bible insists that grace ‘comes to people free of charge, to people who do not deserve it…’ it also insists that ‘without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.’

Grace is the divine ability to take those things which we consider misery, ugly, and make them spectacularly beautiful. If you really think about it, grace is hard to get in our grasp. Consider this story from Matthew 20:

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. "About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. "He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ " ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. "He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ "The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ "But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ "So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

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There once was a man who had two sons. They both worked hard for their father. Then one day, the younger of the two sons came to father and said, "Father, you have worked hard all your life. You have everything you need. I need to have a go at it, dad, and I need to have my go at it now. Uh…I…uh…was thinking…uh…maybe…I could have…uh…my share of…you know…my inheritance…uh…today."

The father gladly agreed to do exactly what the younger son asked. The father was a wise man. He knew what the young man was up to but he gladly gave the young man everything he wanted because he fully expected that once the young man saw all there was to, so to speak, he would come back home. You see the father valued the young man more than all the wealth in the world—of which he had plenty in piles. To let the son have his pittance was nothing to him. "Gladly, my son. We will make the arrangements this very day." And they did.

The next morning, the younger son left home. The father never saw his beloved son again. The son, doing exactly what the father knew he would do, went out and spent, and spent, and spent. "He went out there in search of experience, to taste and touch, and to feel as much as a man can…" He raised parties. He hired dancers. He bought only the best booze and only slept with the finest looking women…or men. He did whatever he could and whatever he could buy. Nothing was above or below his appetite. He whored himself around to anyone who was willing. Time went on but the money did not. His once bottomless checkbook gave way and he sank into disrepair. He turned to a life of crime in order to support his habits. He got in trouble day after day with the law.

He often thought of home. Oh, that warm house and clean clothes. There’s enough there for everyone. But he thought that all that was far beyond him. He could not go back. "My father would never accept that I had done this to his money, his reputation. I have brought shame upon my family…here I am in rags, disease-ridden, filthy, addicted…" and he wept and wept. But he never returned home. He never returned home even though, day after day, the father would stand on the porch looking, watching, waiting for his beloved, bedraggled son to come walking down the road…to return home to all he had to offer.

"Therefore God gave them over in their sinful desires of ther hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised." (Romans 1:24-25)

"My father is a rich man, he wears a rich man’s cloak. Gave me the keys to His Kingdom, Gave me a cup of Gold. He said, ‘I have many mansions, and there are many rooms to see.’ But I lefte by the backdoor, and I threw away the key." –U2 The First Time, Zooropa

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Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame.
Removes the stain.
It could be her name.
Grace, it’s the name for a girl
It’s also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything.
…
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings.
Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things.
Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.
--U2, Grace, All That You Can’t Leave Behind

I wonder about this grace…this irrational behavior that God demonstrates towards us feckless and obtuse creatures is beyond comprehension and so we ought just to accept it and be done with it. It is so easy to take advantage of grace, so easy to forget it, so easy to misunderstand it. Grace makes it almost too easy to be human and yet too hard. For if the Bible says we are saved by grace it also says we must repent. And who has time to repent when grace abounds?

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

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There once was a man who had two sons. They both worked hard for their father. He was a stearn man. He worked hard, but he was fair and just. One day the younger son came to his father with an important question: "Father, I’ve been thinking. I’m of age and I have worked hard for you. I’d like to set out and see a little bit, try my hand at business, give it a go on my own for a while. I think I’ve earned that much of an opportunity. What do you say?" The father thought for a moment or two before finally agreeing with the younger son. Later that day he had the appropriate papers drawn up and by the next morning the son was on his way—camel under his butt, money in his pocket, dreams and ambitions all out there in front of him.

All was going well but he was growing wild. His new wealth had brought him a cornocopia of friends from varying places in his new community. He suddenly realized that he had a certain pinache for throwing parties and so he began to throw them more and more frequently. He began doing drugs and drinking a lot. Eventually, he fell into bankruptcy and all his friends abandoned him. He looked and looked for a job before settling for collecting garbage. But it was of no use. He was so far in debt that he was barely making interest payments on his loans and soon after was eating from a dumpster.

One day, he had a revelation. "Even though my father split the money between me and my brother, I am sure there is still enough for me to go back home…I could ask dad for a job at the shop and I’ll work off my debt. Dad will help me out. He has to, after all I’m still his son. What dad would turn away a son?" He set out that instant. And, as he thought, his father was waiting for him…as if he knew he would be coming. But, to he was shocked by what he heard. "Ah, there you are. I’ve heard about your condition. I’ve heard of all that you are into. I’ve heard about your debt. I’ve heard you eat from dumpsters. I’ve heard you wasted all of my money on wine and women and parties. And you still have the nerve to come back here? What for? See your older brother here? Look at him! Has he wasted all the money I have earned? Has he squandered away my life’s work on worthless adventures and schemes? See the ring on his finger? See these fine clothes I have given him? Do you think you have any part of this? Go! Leave! Don’t come back! You have no share in this family."

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

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Henri Nouwen pointed out, ‘God rejoices, not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, not because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children who was lost has been found." (Yancey, 47-48)

Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

"When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

"The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

"But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

"Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

" ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’"

The prodigal knew he could go home to daddy, but he was, I believe, unprepared for the welcome he received. This was something not expected, not dreamed of, not even hoped for it was so far beyond the realm of possibilities. And yet there it was; there it happened. The old man making a fool of himself in front of everyone. He sees his son coming from afar and starts dancing, and jumping, and rejoicing. He had let the son go, but he rejoices that he has returned.

You can almost hear the sounds of voices, "This irresponsible reprobate! How can he let this son come back. Jesus you have it all wrong that is certainly not how this story should end."

"That boy was a poster child for sinners worldwide. He should be judged. Jesus no man in his right mind would act that way. And no Righteous, just God would either."

"Jesus, I don’t know who you are or what you are about, but that is not the God we serve."

"Mercy for one such as that child? A warm-hearted response? A tender grasp? What are you about Jesus? That story is ridiculous."

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Philip Yancey comments, "Obviously, Jesus did not give us the parables to teach us how to live. He gave them, I believe, to correct our notions about who God is and how God loves." (What’s So Amazing About Grace?, 48)
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You’re a precious stone, you’re out on your own.
You know everyone in the world, but you feel alone.
Daddy won’t let you weep.
Daddy won’t let you ache.
Daddy gives you as much as you can take.
Daddy’s gonna pay for your crashed car.
…
He gives you the keys to a flamin’ car
Daddy’s with you wherever you are.
Daddy’s a comfort
Daddy’s your best friend.
Daddy’ll hold your hand right up to the end.
Daddy’s gonna pay for your crashed car.
Daddy’s gonna pay for your crashed car.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday…

Waking Up

At 6:00 o’clock in the morning
My alarm clock sounds the warning
That if I do not rouse my weary eyes
And face the morning’s dreary skies
My day will soon waste away.

At 6:00 o’clock in the morning
The sheets and blankets are so warming
That I’d like to stay and rest my eyes
Instead of facing the still black dawning skies
Where the heat of day is on the rise.

At 6:00 o’clock in the morning
The thoughts of living are so thickly swarming
That I wish I could just go to sleep
And dream of things not quite so deep
Where I run, and laugh and play.

At 6:00 o’clock in the morning
My alarm clock sounds the warning
That it’s time for me to think of time
And all the stanzas of life’s little rhyme
Of which I might be a verse or a reprise.

At 6:00 o’clock in the morning…

Saying Hello

Hello. I will be posting again in October. Hope you will come back soon.

Jerry

Creatures

Here are some fun photos taken in my side-yard. The large spider was photographed in the Prince William Forest in Virginia. The next day she was spotted inside a urinal in the the bathroom. Strange. The spider is huge.

Jerry

Another View

Friends,

I am simply astounded how often I see butterflies now that I take the time to look for them. They are everywhere, and they are beautiful. Here is another view of the previous picture.

Jerry

Just Today!

This gorgeous creature was photographed just outside my house today, July 23, 2005. It is resting, feeding, on an echinacea flower. Simply stunning!

Jerry

Mowing & Shaving

"Then we reel out love's long line alone toward a God less loveable than a grasshead, who treats us less well than we treat our lawns."--Annie Dillard Holy the Firm
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We go through it at least once per year, sometimes more. Heat. Very hot, suffocating heat. The sort of heat that causes one to sweat even when standing still.

Heat so hot even the breezes sweat,
Hot so hot even dry is wet.

That sort of heat. I'm sitting in a snowstorm in my study. It melts into rain; vanishes into steam. Humidity is on the rise and there appears not to be a cloud in the sky.

Chicago, a place where I am not, is suffering too. A report from San Antonio, Texas, reported that Chicago residents are 'suffering' through another day in the mid-90s. The article then goes on to remind the reader of the 'killer heat wave' that claimed more than 600 lives in the mid-90s. (I'll bet most who suffer are in their mid-90's.) Then, as if the sun were not in the cloudless sky, the article reminds us, "Chicago has had five warnings for unhealthy levels of ground ozone pollution since June 20." Seems fair: Clean up or you will have more dead citizens on your hands.

Seems fair enough, right? Ground ozone pollutants. Warnings. Ignorings. Death. It seems a simple path. But here is what is profoundly interesting, the next paragraph: "Residents were asked to restrict driving and lawn mowing although the drought has turned many lawns and city parks brown." Maybe all of us should all be in politics; this can't be made up, it must have come from a politician. Or maybe we should all become writers for the press because who would not want this essay on their resume? (If you care, http://www.woai.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=02FB7187-81B9-42C5-99BF-58DD96746878)

I know the first thing I think about doing when the heat index rises is going to the shed and breaking out the mower. Do they even have grass in Chicago? I wonder if the grass at Wrigley Field or Comiskey Park is brown or if the Cubs or White Sox players will skip showers after their games tonight? Are fish being asked to cut back on their intake?

This has nothing to do with the sun. I'm concerned about cutting grass or mowing lawns, and even that depends on which side of Chicago you happen to hail from.

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"All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass whithers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever."--1 Peter 1:24-25

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Grass is doomed to sun stroke or blade stroke, but either way it is doomed.

We practice mowing down all our lives. It starts when we are young. One of my sons asked just the other day, "Dad, how old do we have to be before we start shaving?" Once you start, you never stop. I remember the first time I was asked to cut grass. The grass has not stopped growing and I have not stopped mowing. I shave every day.

Every year, I suppose in an effort to make shaving a more erotic experience, razor companies add blades to their disposable skin-scraping devices. They say it is to make our skin feel smoother. Why not take off our faces? One blade used to do the job, but now it will not. Then if you had two blades you were considered wealthy. Three blades, now four blades; how long before there are five? And yet if you go to a barber, he still takes out one long blade, sharpened on a leather strap, and scrapes it across the fully exposed face and neck of a very trustworthy man.

Grass has always needed cutting. People used to have goats and cows. Now we live in suburbs and need fancy lawn mowers. And there is no room for those old push mowers that consist of exposed curved blades rotating around a hub. No longer. Now mowers are self-motivating and hardly have to be touched. I have even seen mowers that are mere robots. Turn them on and they go--cutting grass all day long without so much as a drink.

Then there are riding mowers and electric razors. Why has no one invented the riding razor? It won’t be long.

We are like grass. Maybe some cosmic razor is scraping across the earth today. Maybe the grass needs cutting or mowing. Maybe we simply don't want to admit it.

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If we are like grass standing in the sun, at the mercy of powerful steel blades, where is the best place to be, to grow? Nestled around a comfortable rock? Right out in the great wide open? Hidden under a short tree where there is shade and protection? Growing out the side of a cliff, precariously, over a fast flowing creek? Where is the best place, as grass, to embrace the struggle? If I care for my lawn, does God care any less for His?

The grass never complains. It just keeps on growing. And for as much as I have shaved over the course of my 35 years, my face is still here. I have not managed to scrape it away entirely.

In the Backyard

I found this happy chap standing nicely, proudly, in the backyard of a friend's house. It looked wonderful, standing in the sun, not sweating. I wonder if toads really rest their feet on these beauties. I would.

Cecropia Moths in the yard

Friends,

These gorgeous creatures were photographed outside my house. Cecropia moths are seen here. I read somewhere that the only purpose the adult serves is to mate and lay eggs. That is to say, they cannot even eat and, worse, do not even have an apparatus with which to eat. It looks like I caught them at just the right time. I feel blessed beyond reason that these two creatures chose my 'hotel' (read: Backyard) with which to fulfill their purpose in life. What beautiful, magnificent creatures these are!

Jerry

Red Bird House

Friends,

Now that I have figured out how to post pictures I will be having too much fun. Here is a shot I took with my digital camera. The picture was taken at my Mom and Dad's house. The bird is roosting on a small birdhouse that my sons and I made for my mom two Christmases ago. I wish I could take clearer photos, but I'm just learning to appreciate what to snap and when. Later I'll learn how.

Jerry

Blue Butterfly

Friends,

Here is a picture I took this spring of a Blue Butterfly. It was resting thoughtfully on the ground in my backyard. This is one of several shots that I took of this glorious creature.

Jerry

Out and About

Friends,

I've not posted for a while, but I will hopefully have some more time in the coming days. I have not forgotten; I have been reading. If you get the chance check out Eugene Peterson's newest book (2005) Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. It is worth the money and the time. Also, a classic Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard should be required reading.

I spent some time watching
The moon creep across
The sky,
Wishing that I
Were too.

DG

Lions, Bullies & Frightening Days & Nights

Well, I have been doing some thinking lately about my childhood. I do this sometimes. Psychologists would probably say I do so because I want to feel sorry for myself. I think it is a trick of the Enemy, that ancient serpent called the devil. Someone said, When the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future. That might be to slander celestial beings which is forbidden, but it is somewhat humorous.

I have a collection of three short (first draft) poems that I wrote this past Saturday evening that I want to share with you. I hope you enjoy them.

The Lion's Share

Why can’t you just leave me be?
What do you care?
Does it make you feel stronger,
When your hand’s in my hair?

What is so fascinating
About the way that I look,
That you’re always in my face?
What’s so fascinating,
About the things that I have,
That you always seem to want them?
What is so fascinating,
About the places I go,
That you always seem to be where I am;
As if you’re following me.
And what is so fascinating,
About the things in my mind,
That you always need to know?

You’re hot breath reeks.
The rage in your eyes
Says more about you than me.
I’m in control because you hunt me—
I determine where you go.
I determine what you say.
I determine what you think.
And you cannot stop thinking of me.
I can make you run to places
You’d rather not go.
Because you think I am weak,
Because you don’t understand the meek;
I am in control.

Your only fear is someone bigger than yourself.
But still you fear.
And who looks the fool?
Me because I take your beating?
Or you because you are stronger
Than the bleating?

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Some Circle

I remember the day
When the lions breathed down my neck,
When they chased me through the grass,
When they hunted me in a pack.
Today it seems so long ago.
Tomorrow even longer.
I remember the day
When dogs and lions swarmed
Against me, waging an attack.

It seems so long ago,
And yet the hurt and shame still linger.
It seems so long ago,
That I was weaker than
My father’s little finger.
And maybe that is why today,
In the present, so close,
I am afraid to let
My weakness show.

It feels like only yesterday,
That I ran towards the swollen creek.
The water ran fast, and deep
I was singled out: the weak.
The lions—those fierce beasts
Hungry for blood—don’t weep
For their prey; they eat.
They drink. They be merry.
I swear they laughed.

Oh God this hurtful thought
Still streaks across my mind.
The lions chasing me once again—
Searching through my pockets,
What will they find—
Lord will you make them go away?
It’s always the weak who suffer,
Who hunger and thirst.
Here all these years later—
Lord, I will not be a hater—
My heart still breaks.
But not for myself.

Lord my prayers you hear,
My petitions will bend your ear.
What lions can I hunt?
Better, what lambs can I protect?
What small ones require
The strength of an angel,
In the weakness of the flesh?
Lord, my heart breaks for the weak,
Because yours does too.
And, Lord, let me be an instrument
Of Thy peace. And mercy. And grace.

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The Lion Hunter

I will be a lion hunter,
Not a lion tamer.
Lions need no cage,
But a coffin of earth and dust.
Let them circle back around,
And fall to the ground.
Let them be consumed
By the worms they tread upon.
Let them be laughed at
By the fawns
That walk before their hard,
Empty, dry lifeless eyes.
I will a lion hunter,
A slayer of the slayer,
A killer of the killer,
A destroyer of the destroyer.
Only you, Lord, raise the dead.
Only you, Lord, give life to the
Weak.
Just speak.
And I will hunt.

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That's all. Try not to think about these too much. They were unguarded moments at around 1 or 2 AM. I was thinking about why God put me on this earth and what my experiences mean in the greater context. That's all.

DG

Ode to Youth

(Friends, I'm still working out some kinks in my poetic form. But I offer this preliminary glimpse at something I have been working on for a couple of weeks. It is rough, and I am sure it needs work. JH)

The fountain of youth at the end of a knife
Scars the soul, but lengthens the life.
Skin without blemish, a mark or a mole
Hides all the flaws but uncovers the soul.
But oh to stay young, have youth,
And be gay;
And live with a soul like Dorian Gray,
Only someday to learn, young
We died,
That hate kept on growing when
We tried to hide.
So bring youth silver, gold and applaud
This mighty, this powerful, this
American god.

Youth in a bottle, a needle, a jar;
Or a truck or a face or a shiny new car.
But youth has a secret,
On the surface, in deep,
Youth cares little for his sheep.
He’s no poet, one who smiles
In summer, or warms the cold hand that shivers,
Compliments beauty,
Or that captive delivers.
He’s no mother hen gathering chicks;
He’s no Panglos, full of wit and surprise,
Offering wisdom and pie in the skies.
More is he—this fiend and friend—like Judas;
Just like Brutas, full of shadows and lies.

Youth—that Dantes before his Dungeon and loss,
That baby wrapped in Swaddling,
That Christ upon my cross—
Dreams of freedom and never greets
The morning knowing freedom is in reach.
Youth is naïve, not foolish, not dumb,
But true to its nature is wasted on the young.
By the time one is old enough to know
Just why the sun shines and the winds blow;
Birds fly to the South and why humans cry;
Why humans live and why humans die,
Innocence is lost on living and mirth
Somewhere between our death and our birth.

DG '04

Lament for the Loss of Personality

(Use caution when approaching. This beast is ferocious and frightening. It may bite if you are not careful.--DG)

Should I be David, king and messiah,
Or Paul, preacher full of fire?
Should I be Peter, a mouth full and free?
Or, do you think, perhaps I could be me?
Should I be someone you admire
Or someone you despise?
Should I live so you open
Or so you close your eyes?
Should I set you aflame?
Should I light you afire?
Should I bring you to the depths
Or lift you ever higher?

Whom shall I be today so that
You may smile for a moment?
Shall I make peace with myself
Or a riot foment?
Shall I make you smile on
Your sad, sad day?
Are you offended if I make you blush
Or if I lead you astray?
You tell me who you want me to be
Because you seem to know better
What’s inside of me.
You know to the letter
What others need to see
And how you can happy
By setting me free.

I’m play-dough.
I’m clay.
Make me into cookies,
Make me into hay.
Whatever makes you smile
Or strikes up your bands,
I’m all you can imagine
A pen in your hands.

DG--'04

The Personality Series, pt. 2

The lyrics to the song are very simple:

It’s the beauty of simplicity,
That brings me down to my knees.
I praise you for eternity.
We love you Lord.
We love you Lord.
We Love you.

Those are not in order, but it is the gist of the song. There is something about simplicity that thrills me and eludes me. I am only about a third of the way through Anna Karenina and I have already decided who my favorite character is. It is a man named Levin. He is a farmer, although in 19th century Russia the term ‘farmer’ has a much different meaning that it does in 21st century America. He is wealthy and owns a lot land, but he is not above going out into the fields and working side by side with the peasants. He enjoys talking with them, eating with them, and working with them. He sees himself among them and envies their lives. Tolstoy writes of Levin,

Levin felt envious of this health and mirthfulness; he long to take part in the expression of this joy of life. But he could do nothing, and had to lie and look on and listen. When the peasants, with their singing, had vanished out of sight and hearing, a weary feeling of despondency at his own isolation, his physical inactivity, his alienation from this world, came over Levin. (251)

The peasants dance and sing and enjoy their work. They have each other and enjoy each other. Life is simple, in Levin’s eyes, for the peasants he employs to mow his fields. He longs for their life and joins in the mowing of fields. In other paragraph, Tolstoy writes,

Often Levin had admired this life, often he had a sense of envy of the men who led this life; but to-day for the first time, especially under the influence of what he had seen in the attitude of Ivan Parmenov to his young wife, the idea had presented itself definitely to his mind that it was in his power to exchange the dreary, artificial, idle and individualistic life he was leading for this laborious, pure, and socially delightful life. (251)

Levin concludes that he will make an effort towards the simple life,

All the thoughts and feelings he had passed through fell into three separate trains of thought. One was the renunciation of the old life, of his utterly useless education. This renunciation gave him satisfaction, and was easy and simple. Another series of thoughts and mental images related to the life he longed to live now. The simplicity, the purity, the sanity of this life he felt clearly, and he was convinced he would find in it the content, the peace, and the dignity, of the lack of which he was so miserably conscious….All my old dreams of home-life were absurd, not the real thing…It’s all ever so much simpler and better…” (252)

I won’t give away what happens, but something happens before the end of the chapter I quoted from that is disturbing. Nevertheless, I get it. I understand Levin’s thoughts, the emotions running through his mind, the terrible struggle to understand how to make a go of a world where everything is so damn complicated. He longs for simplicity and I long with him.

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I watched a little bit of Mike Wallace’s 60 Minutes interview with former NFL running back Ricky Williams. Ricky walked away from a contract that would have paid him $5 million dollars this year. Personally, I did not buy a lot of what Ricky was selling because I think that Ricky just wants to get high from smoking pot—a fact that he admitted to in the interview. But the interview also revealed that he spent some time living in a tent community where he woke up every day and read books. The interview pointed out that Ricky wanted a less complicated life, but that less complicated life is afforded him by the millions he made before he retired from the NFL.

Still, aside from all the dope smoking and yoga and ‘searching for the self’ crap that he was spilling, I get it. I understand that desire, that longing, that yearning for something simpler. (I still think Ricky wants to smoke dope and hated that the NFL prohibited him from doing so.) I imagine a life that is uncomplicated by the use of hatred, unfettered from the grip of money, and unrestrained by the chains of ecclesiastical boredom. I want a life that is undiminished by the tired reasoning of people who think they are my parents—as if I need more parental supervision—and believe they need to save me by making me into clones of themselves or worse. I don’t believe that life is meant to be as complicated as it is. And, to clarify my point, I don’t think religion is meant to be as complicated as it is. I desire what Paul wrote should be our desire, that is, ‘to live quiet and peaceful lives in godliness and holiness.’ I want to do my work, and, frankly, not be bothered by people who dislike the way I choose to go about doing it.

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In the personality series, pt 1, I wrote about my hatred (read: extreme distrust and fear) of things like doctors and barbers and optometrists. Sometimes, I want to simply be left alone. I want to enjoy the wife of my youth, my quiver full of sons and every now and again I want to enjoy a good book. I don’t think that is too much to ask. Let me explain a few things that complicate this.

The first thing that complicates my life is religion. Please don’t misunderstand me or take me out of context. I love God and I love Jesus. I serve God and I want to ‘practice my faith’, whatever that means. My worldview is very much Scriptural and I am skeptical of all things that diminish, contradict or belittle the Scripture or my Lord. I am a Christian and that will not change. I am a preacher, and that will not change. But, I don’t even like the word religion and there are quite a few Christian people that I would just as soon not know, for example, faith healers. I could do without them. I could also do without so-called ‘prophecy experts.’ I could do without mean people in the church. These are the ones whose intentions are so pure that their soul shows through, but they don’t have a clue. They criticize and backbite all in their effort to maintain the purity of the church. Children must not run. Children must be quiet, and it is their job to tell children to be quiet always and ever. Children must be just like them: never smiling, never laughing, and never raising a hand in worship. I could do without busybodies in the church. No, I have no use for them. And yet, for some reason, these, and a few others, are the very people who make up the church. You know what? I have no use for myself in the church. I love Jesus and I am a member of his church, but I would just as soon be salt and light in a way that is somewhat detached from the mess that we call church.

Therein is the problem, Jesus has made it pretty clear that we need each other. If I was ever to quit church, though, it would not be because of Jesus, but it would be because of some of his people. Unfortunately, that will not happen, that is, I could never leave the church. For all my angst, I am part of the church, I am a part of the problem, and I am a part of the solution. I cannot say to the arm, ‘Go Away, I have no use for you.’ And to leave myself would be to commit spiritual suicide. No, I need the church and I am needy enough to admit it, but the church does not need me. I think the Church would be better off if more people had that idea about church: They need it, it does not need them. I learned that lesson when I was a senior in high school and thought for certain that the high school band needed me. I was really surprised when the band director told me that the band would get along quite well without me.

Many people do not believe they need the church. Many people think they need to shape the church. I say the church is what the church is: A collection of misfits who fit in nowhere else in the world. We are broken, sinful, flawed creatures who have no business in the church and, considering the way we treat each other at times, we scarcely understand the grace that brought us into the church in the first place. And yet, the church is. I think we need to learn to be the church and understand that we are all there by the same grace.

Another thing that complicates life is wealth in the Church. Truth be told, I long for the sort of Christian practice that does not involve what Americans believe to be important: gadgets, large buildings, fancy stuff, big staffs of employees that conduct daily and weekly staff meetings, and a whole bunch of technological garbage. I am interested in a simple church, a poor church, and bankrupt church that has nothing and no one but Jesus. In my opinion, wealth has not helped the church, but hindered it. People think they can drop a pretty penny in the plate and that is the Christian service or Christian duty as if the poor people in their community are not. Churches should not be deciding what to do with millions of dollars and churches should not be building buildings worth millions of dollars. Churches should be simpler and less complicated. I understand why Jesus said, “You will always have the poor among you,” because even if that perfume had been sold for the poor someone would have decided that a better way to spend it would have been on a building or a program that needed employees. However, this again is where the people think that the Church is simply a place to go and not something that they are. No, the money would not have been spent on the poor, but on the church. The church is far too self-centered to ever think that we could eradicate the problem of the poor. Wealth is far too complicated for the church; I don’t believe we are as good ‘a stewards as we think we are.

For some reason, my personality is not only afraid of wealth in the church but utterly despises it. I wonder what people thought was worse: The fact that Catholic priests have been labeled as pedophiles (which some are) or the fact that the Catholic Church literally has millions of dollars to pay off the victims? Personally I find reason to be both afraid and hateful of money in this situation because if they can pay off something as heinous as pedophilia, I begin to wonder what else they have paid off or what else they can pay off with their millions. I know people will argue, but money—oh, that we were like Peter who said, “Silver and gold I have none, but what I have I give you, in the Name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk.” But I fear that now we would rather give people silver and gold because we don’t have a Jesus to give them let alone a miracle in His Name. It is a vexing issue with me and one that I don’t suppose I will ever be able to make more public than I am doing just now.

Still another thing that complicates life is technology.

I’m not like them,
I can’t pretend
The sun is gone,
But I have a light;
The day is done
I’m having fun.
I think I’m dumb,
Or maybe just happy.
I think just happy.
I think I’m just happy.
--Kurt Cobain

I must be too; dumb, that is. I want to enjoy simple things in life, but I confess that I am dumb and I cannot pretend that it doesn’t bother me. It does. I like simple things like books and music—it doesn’t even have to be music on a CD or DVD—vinyl works for me just the same. I appreciate a good harmony and a cunning melody. I don’t mind melodrama in music nor do I mind monotony. I enjoy music. I enjoy books. Books are simple. They unfold in the hands and take the mind into worlds that even Steven Spielberg cannot take us. Books are multi-dimensional and live without constraints or limits. Books involve all the senses: one must feel the page, smell the salty air, see the horizon, hear the crashing waves, and taste the juicy peach and let its juice run down their face. Of books the Bible says there is no end. I think that is the very thing that I love most about books. I could never hope to exhaust the world’s supply of words. I think I happiest when I’m reading books because then I don’t have to answer to anybody for the way I feel or react or respond to what I have read. I don’t have to fake it; I can just be.

I enjoy writing. I use a bit of technology to write, but if I had to I could do without it too. Before I became rich enough to afford my own computers and things I used to simply write in notebooks, many of them. I have saved them all, too. I have them stored in a file cabinet in my office. There is the history of my life concentrated inside the pages of spiral ring notebooks. I used to keep it to myself, but now I use technology to publish it for the world. Writing is a simple pleasure, and I confess that it is in writing that I am least opposed to the use of technology. Reading and writing go hand in hand. I read so I can write; I write so others can read. It is impossible and selfish to have one without the other. Technology, unfortunately, I think, has softened our taste for literature—real literature, real literary effort. Now I think we hunger simply for the fantastic, the story, the package. Case in point? How many read Tolkien, or even hear of him, before Peter Jackson made his books into movies? And the marketing of the stories is not to spur interest in the books, but to make money on the merchandise. I’m not disappointed the books were made into, faithful and wonderful, film versions. I just hope the books don’t fade away and become dust within a couple of years.

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So far the Personality Series has taken me in directions that I was not quite certain I would go. In part 3, I hope to explore some more of these things that complicate life. I’m not unhappy about these things, but I am seriously trying to figure out a working theology. I am interested in a simple life. I’ll leave off part 2 with the words that Tolstoy used to describe his hero, Levin:

Long before, Levin had felt dissatisfaction with his own position in regard to the land. He saw where his boat leaked, but he did not look for the leak, perhaps purposely deceiving himself. (Nothing would be left him if he lost faith in it.) But now he could deceive himself no longer. The farming of the land, as he was managing it, had become not merely unattractive but revolting to him, and he could take no further interest in it. (293)

I suspect that inside of us all there is a struggle for this balance. I’m still struggling. Would that the simple life were just so simple as to wake in the morning and say, “I Love you, Lord,” and lay down at night and say, “Thank you, Lord.” Would that.

Dancing Down Penn Avenue

This was also posted at the Daily Devotions portion of my church website.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about worship. I wrote about bees dancing in their hives. I wrote about soldiers worshipping in fighting holes in the sand floors of Iraq. Worship has been on my mind because it is always on my heart. I make every effort to use every waking moment of every day as an opportunity to worship. It makes no difference if I am writing a devotion, singing along with a CD, reading poetry to my sons, or praying—I believe that worship is not only something we offer, but it is an attitude in which we approach each moment. As one songwriter says, “I’m free because I’m living hallelujah.” (Sarah Kelly)

I’d like to contrast two pictures for you today. The first is in an advertisement I pulled out of the Church mailbox just a few minutes ago. The advertisement is a large newsletter type publication from The McKnight Group. The McKnight Group specializes in ‘design, architecture, and construction.’ They bill themselves as ‘church health specialists.’ I know very little about them save for what I have read in this publication. The newsletter I received focuses on a certain church that partnered with McKnight to construct a new building to meet the growing needs of a congregation that had an average attendance of around 700 people.

There are several pictures of the new facilities. There is a ‘new Gathering Place,’ and the worship team ‘appreciates their spacious, adaptable platform.’ There is also a picture of the ‘Great Hall’ which is like a giant foyer with a reception desk that looks like something out of an airport. A picture of the auditorium is captioned, “Services are enhanced with a state of the art sound and light booth.” All this is wonderful.

Don’t get me wrong. I think technology is cool and useful in the advancement of the Kingdom. I just think sometimes entirely too much time and money are spent on such edifices, such monuments to human ingenuity and ‘vision.’ Don’t get me wrong. I think humans do some cool stuff; however, I think it is merely a sign of our love of all things shiny and new. We construct big, shiny, technologically advanced buildings in the Name of God. And we enjoy them immensely. “The Most High does not live in houses made by men.”

I contrast this with a short excerpt from An American Childhood by Annie Dillard who found herself caught up in the moment one afternoon when she was a child:

I was running down the Penn Avenue sidewalk, revving up for an act of faith. I was conscious and self-conscious. I knew well that people could not fly—as well as anyone knows it—but I also knew the kicker: that, as the books put it, with faith all things are possible.

Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had. Dad after day I had noticed that if I waited long enough, my strong unexpressed joy would dwindle and dissipate inside me, over many hours, like a fire subsiding, and I would at last calm down. Just this once I wanted to let it rip. Flying rather famously required the extra energy of belief, and this, too, I had in superabundance.

…

I ran the sidewalk at full tilt. I waved my arms every higher and fast; blood balled in my fingertips. I knew I was foolish. I knew I was too old really to believe in this as a child would, out of ignorance; instead I was experimenting as a scientist would, testing both the thing itself and the limits of my own courage in trying it miserably self-conscious in full view of the whole world. You can’t test courage cautiously, so I ran hard and wave my arms hard, happy.

Up ahead I saw a business-suited pedestrian. He was coming stiffly toward me down the walk. Who could ever forget this first test, this stranger, this thin young man appalled? I banished the temptation to straighten up and walk right. He flattened himself against a brick wall as I passed flailing—although I had left him plenty of room. He had refused to meet my exultant eye. He look away, evidently embarrassed. How surprisingly easy it was to ignore him! What I was letting rip, in fact, was my willingness to look foolish, in his eyes and my own. Having chosen this foolishness, I was a free being. How could the world ever stop me, how could I betray myself, it I was not afraid?

…

I crossed Homewood and ran up the block. The joy multiplied as I ran—I ran never actually quite leaving the ground—and multiplied still as I felt my stride begin to fumble and my knees begin to quiver and stall. The joy multiplied even as I slowed bumping to a walk. I was all but splitting, all but shooting sparks. Blood coursed free inside my lungs and bones, a light-shot stream like air. I couldn’t feel the pavement at all.

I was too aware to do this, and had done it anyway. What could touch me now? For what were the people on Penn Avenue to me, or what was I to myself, really, but a witness to any boldness I could muster, or any cowardice if it came to that, any giving up on heaven for the sake of dignity on earth? I had not seen a great deal accomplished in the name of dignity, ever. (107-109)

I think we build big, impressive shiny buildings because we are embarrassed. We think that our God is too dignified to worship in small, brick, badly lighted buildings without all the technological advances of the 00’s. Or that He is too dignified to be laid in a manger or take on human flesh. Or maybe we are too dignified. Maybe we don’t like worshipping in small, badly lighted, old places. Perhaps…perhaps, we need to lighten up a little.

“David said to Michal, “It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel--I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.”

The Other Day: Thoughts on Winners and Losers

The other day I watched a televised professional sporting event. I don’t remember if it was NASCAR, the baseball championship series’, or NFL. At this time of year there is plenty to watch, plenty to enjoy, plenty to see as it relates to professional sports. It is a shame that I spend so much time watching professional sports when the leaves are turning into rainbows. It is a shame that I spend so much time watching professional sports, televised, when I have a yard still full of blooming flowers. The marigolds are still in full bloom, spectacular. We still have sunflowers that bloomed late rising into short air. I think the seeds fell out of birdfeeders and realized they only had a short period of time to grow before winter arrived. So they did. There are also mums in abundance: Red, white, yellow. We have mums everywhere thanks to a most excellent gift from a friend; they are glorious in their color.

We have other flowers blooming around the yard. I wish I knew the names of the flowers. There is a light wispy purple flower that sort of likes an Echinacea flower. There was one purple flower that looked like a Jamaican with a lot of short, tightly compressed dread locks, but it seems to have died now or at least faded away. There were some yellow ones that appeared the same way. I should take the time to get to know these flowers personally. Perhaps spend some time with them, enjoy a drink of sunlight together, sit and talk about the weather for a spell. I imagine most flowers disliking the nearing cold much more than I do. If I could, seriously, I would dig every single flower out of the earth and bring it in for the winter.

Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. I would like to see them again next year. Next year I will spend some time with them. Richard Dawkins, eminent scientist, ardent Darwinist, passionate atheist, believes that flowers exist merely for the sake of their own DNA—they are selfish. That seems to me to be rather short sighted. Flowers have so much more to offer, maybe not for me or us, but at least for the bees that like to sleep in their soft beds get high on their pollen. (I love watching bees gather so much pollen they can hardly fly and when they do it is sort of like a drunken stagger—if one can fly a drunken stagger.) Flowers have to mean more than DNA. Do flowers serve DNA? Or does DNA serve flowers? Dawkins opts for the former; I opt for the latter.

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When I started, I was telling you about a sporting event that I watched the other day. At the end of the sporting even there was a winner. The winner cheered and smiled and jumped and acted as if he had just been awarded life eternal—I couldn’t think of anything that would rival life eternal, well maybe for the atheist non-existence. I sat and watched the winner jump around for a few minutes; I watched him being mobbed by his teammates; I saw the jubilation in his eyes—jubilation that only comes from winning. There is certainly no comparable elation that comes from losing. Losing adds weight to the heart, the soul, to the shoulders of the loser. Losing is crushing, humiliating and downright shameful. Winning lifts weight and gives wings to the winner. Who does not want to win? Who wants to lose? No one likes losing, no one likes a loser, and no one wants to spend time on a losing team. Winning, someone said the other night, is the cure for all ills. It is a tired mantra, to be sure, but it is true nonetheless.

Why is winning so preferable to losing? Why do we avoid losing as if it were some sort of plague? Some professional teams have caught this plague and have had it for a while, wonderfully. (By the way, why have children’s games been made into professional money making machines?) They cannot shake it no matter how many antibiotics they consume, inoculations they receive. The only cure for losing is winning. There is no magic drug, no amount of money, no particular person who will cure losing. It has to be cured by winning. Why is winning so preferable to losing?

Even in the games we do play as or with children or that children play among themselves winning is the priority. The object of playing a game, monopoly, for example, is not the enjoyment of being together with others who also enjoy playing, it is winning. Anyone who has ever lost at Monopoly will tell you that losing that game is the worst thing on the planet. They will never admit that they had nothing to do with the way the dice fell out of their hands and bounced on the table. Dice are fickle. How many lives have been interminably altered by the roll of a die or the tumble of the dice? Dice have an uncanny way of choosing winners and losers (think of Queequeg in Moby Dick). This is especially true when playing monopoly. I roll a five instead of a six and end upon New York Avenue with a hotel instead of Free Parking; I pay $1050 instead of collecting ten rounds of taxes and fees in the center of the board; I go bankrupt instead of becoming a thousanair. Dice are strange that way. I don’t think my mother has ever lost a game of Monopoly in her life. She has dice that prefer her hand instead of anyone else’s. Frankly, I enjoy playing Monopoly; I hate losing Monopoly. Still, anyone who has ever played knows that if you get stuck with Mediterranean and Baltic you are not going to beat the one who holds Park Place and Boardwalk. “If winning is not the object, why keep score?” Or, as in the case of Monopoly, “Why count the money?” Something tells me that winning does matter.

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The Red Sox beat the Yankees tonight. They came back from a 3-0 deficit to win four straight games en route to the World Series. Those were 25 of the happiest men on the face of the earth tonight. Try to tell them winning does not matter.

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Winning is a way of life. Personally, I hate losing, but I suffer it. I’m not a very good loser. I don’t fail well, but I have spent the majority of my earthly days losing. I have lost so often, succeeded so infrequently, that one might think I am a master at it, that I have written books about it. Sorry. I never played for a winning baseball team as a kid. I never played for a winning basketball team in high school. I lost every 1 mile race I ran in high school track and I still have no idea why the track coach let me do the long jump. I never played football in high school, but my high school team hardly ever won. I played soccer in the 4th or 5th grade; lost there too. I have been the minister of three different churches since college: failed, failed, failing. Somehow I have the idea that failing is equivalent to losing. I play golf sometimes and every time I play I lose to a man twice my age. I never made it to Eagle Scout like my dad. I did not last in the Marine Corps like my brother. I bailed on graduate school before I finished my first semester. At one of the churches I ministered to a friend had a nickname for me: Loser.

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In this world, we have a penchant for making a competition out of everything. Television networks compete for viewers and ratings. I just started reading a book about 9 men who made a competition out of racing sailboats around the world. The Red Sox beat the Yankees the population at large received many assurances from radio personalities that they would not, could not come back. I think the sun and moon are in competition with each other too. Light and dark are waging a war. War is a competition: who will win? Competition is about who can do the most, the best, or the quickest. Children are constantly racing or battling or in competition with one another over the most, it appears to adults, unimportant things imaginable: who can finish dinner first, who can take the quickest shower, who can race to the top of the steps the fastest. They compete over everything. Adults are not much better as is proved by noting the line-up of television programming available each day. I have recently become rather interested in a television show called Iron Chef, a Japanese television program about a competition involving, what else, cooking. At the end of each show, the voice over says, “Whose cuisine will reign supreme?” I have to laugh at the corny English voice-overs. And the cuisines may reign supreme to the tasters, but to me the cuisines look like something I scrape off the bottom of my shoe and discard in the wastebasket. The competition is, nevertheless, interesting to watch.

There are other competition shows on television too: The Great Race, Fear Factor, Survivor, Big Brother, the Swan, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?, America’s Next Top Model, The Price is Right, Millionaire, Jeopardy, and a whole host of others to numerous to mention here. The object of every show is the same: come out on top, be the winner, be first. There’s even a show on now about who can lose the most weight. I think the most obvious competition going on is between the networks: Who can come up with the stupidest new competition and call it ‘Worth Watching’ or ‘Must See TV’? I have no use for any of that garbage.

Why the preoccupation with winning? Why does winning matter so much? Why am successful if I win, and, pejoratively, a loser if I lose? I made it this far did I not? I mean, there are hundreds and thousands, perhaps millions, of species that did not survive this long on the evolutionary ladder, or stair, or slide. I could have been a large wooly mammoth that slipped on a banana peel and fell through the ice only to be trapped like a fly in an ice cube. I could have been a too dumb dinosaur that looked at the pretty rocks falling from the sky and decided to go on eating instead of seeking shelter. I could have been one of the poor citizens of Pompeii trapped in the plumes of Vesuvius’ belch. I could have been a small child skipping rope on a sidewalk, unaware of the airplanes heading my way, and unaware of the rush of heat that would soon overwhelm Hiroshima or Nagasaki on an August day in 1945. I could have been. I could have been that gnat that I crushed against the table a while back, this past summer. Instead I am me. I could have been a Jewish man, or woman, or child, or dog living in Europe during the 1930’s and 1940’s. And of all the times I could have lost I did not. I could have been one of the several million sperms that did not reach my mothers egg. I could have been the object of a woman’s ‘choice.’ I guess one could say that since I made it this far I am ahead of the game. My selfish genes have given me new hope, although tomorrow someone’s car may take it away. Then, all the selfish genes in the world will amount to little more than dust and bones to be scattered into the breeze. Genes don’t help much when 2000 lbs of twisted steel and shattered glass are crushing bones and shredding muscle, tissues and cells.

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Winning is not all there is to life. Who wants to one of the Jurors that declared O.J. Simpson a ‘winner’? For that matter, would you want to be the sort of winner that O.J. is? Who wants to draw the shortest straw? Are there any real winners when it comes to war? Sometimes winning comes with and at a terrible price. I would hate to be a winner in a draft lottery. I would hate to be the winner of an early retirement decree. I’m not certain I would have wanted to win the draw for who would pilot the plane that dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I wonder if the pilot of Enola Gay had any misgivings about being chosen the 'winner' of that contest? I would hate to be the winner of a dead pool. I would hate to be the winner of a ‘let’s see who can fall to earth the fastest without a parachute’ contest. My point is that there are some things, however absurd they may sound, that it would be better to lose. Although, a ‘let’s see who can fall to earth the fastest without a parachute contest’ probably involves quite a few losers, and not nearly enough winners. But I digress.

I like winning and I hate losing. I have done very little of the former, and a great deal of the latter. I cannot say that I am particularly thrilled with the way things have gone so far, but I don’t have much choice in the matter. CS Lewis lamented that he was not very athletic or interested in sports as a schoolboy; he was no loser. I am very interested in athletic competition; I am no winner. I would hate to have been one the millions of intermediary, deformed, species that did not make the last great leap into evolutionary survival. There was a bunch of losers. Can you imagine being the intermediary species between an early Trilobite and a later mole, or an early form of sponge and a later homo sapien? Can you imagine being one of those awkward species that lived sometime between being a giant, lumbering, flightless brachiosaur and a tiny, soaring sparrow? That must have been tough. Those intermediary species that scientists have been telling us must exist must have been strange looking things. Imagine for a moment the duckbilled platypus. Now, imagine the intermediary species. What gene would be selfish with that? That was definitely a Blind Watchmaker. I wonder sometimes if perhaps I am an intermediary species. It would make perfectly logical sense: I am a loser.

I looked out the window today. I walked through the yard too. I am interested in the multitude of flowers that are still growing and blooming in my back, side and front yard. Mums. Marigolds. Sunflowers. Xenias. Echinacea. Four O’Clocks. Bachelor Buttons. And several others that I cannot name. Even my garden pepper plants are still working, making blossoms, producing fruit. In my book they are winners. They have survived. They have held out through the wind, the rain, the fluctuating temperatures, the night, the day, the light, the dark, the animals, the droughts and the floods. They started as mere seeds smashed into the darkness of the soil. Then, through a cataclysmic event, they burst out of their seed pods, up through the soil, and took their first breath of air. They are the winners. They started as small seeds and grew into enormous trees that the birds and bees and grasshoppers and spiders nested in and perched on all summer long. They reproduced. Now the reproduction phase is over—the bees are quite gone for the year—and I suspect that they are lingering in the flower stage simply for the enjoyment of not having to work any more. Now it is their time. Now they can be beautiful for sake of beauty. I think we are winners when we no longer compete to win but to simply enjoy the thrill of the race, the heat of competition, the applause and songs of praise that come from the gallery: Bravo! Hear-Hear! Hooray! Go! Or, if you happen to be a flower: Beautiful! Gorgeous! Spectacular! Wow! (But this should not be construed so as to mean that we quit trying to be the winner. It is always good to crush the opposition under and unflinching, internal, compulsion for victory. Darwin or one of his clones called it Survival of the Fittest. As if the unfit could survive!)

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My day is nearly finished. I don’t know that I am entirely enthusiastic about it being finished. I could easily enjoy 10 or 15 more hours so that I could read or write. As it is, right now, I am watching and listening to my son as he plays a video game and tries to win. Winning! I beat a game tonight too, although, to be sure, I really lost: at the end of the game the cumulative time a player spends playing the game is flashed across the screen. I am not sure I am a winner for having spent that much time playing a game.

Some people that all there is to life is winning. They have a misunderstanding, I think, about the nature of losing. I believe that both are necessary to bring about a healthy human and both are necessary to bring about a healthy society. Many people are winners every single day. Many are losers. What I am trying to learn, and what I am trying to instill in my children, is that there is such a thing as being a good loser and being a good winner. Winning certainly matters or ‘they’ would not keep score. Losing matters too. One of them comes to us naturally; the other has to be learned. And if it has to be learned, then there must be a teacher.

The Personality Series, pt. 1

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

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I have not publicly written of the issue that I must write about today. It is a sensitive area for me, one that I am not even certain at this point I wish to discuss. Nevertheless my heart is heaving inside of me and I feel especially compelled to write a few thoughts down and share them with you.

You may not want to continue if you feel a place of compassion for sexual predators or perverts. You may not want to continue reading if you don’t want my take on the issue. You may not want to continue reading if you think it is funny. For the record, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, funny about sexual deviants: not catholic priests, not Michael Jackson and his ilk, not serial killers, not pornographers, not any single one of them individually or collectively.

I write this first person because it is about me. It is part of my story. It is not all of it, but it is small part that I hope to expand later. For now, this is enough. I write this because I need to, I want to, and my heart is telling me that I have to. You don’t have to read this, like this or agree with this--so don't write me telling me how wrong or stupid I am for my opinions on my weblog. But here it is nonetheless.
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I went to the optometrist yesterday. I have to go at least once per year in order to keep my contact lens prescription valid and operational. I have to confess: It is a terribly traumatic ordeal every time I go. I hate it. I hate it because the optometrist has to sit about 2 inches from my face. Then he has to sit right in front of me and lean into my ‘personal space.’ I am not one for modern psycho-babble, but I get very uncomfortable when he climbs out of his box and into mine.

I hate going to the dentist. I hate going to the doctor. I hate going to places where there is simply no avoiding being touched, probed or in someway violated by another human being.

There is another place, or person, I absolutely refuse to visit. It is the barber. To this day I don’t go to the barber for a haircut. When I was younger, I hated going too: I let my hair grow long. Now I am older: I keep my head shaved. It was a barber that did me in, one (two, three, four, five, etc.) time (s). Who knew any better? What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to defend myself? And now I have to live with it every single day; it never goes away.

It had something to do with that large, white apron that the barber used to wrap around my neck, drape over my body, and cover over my soul. To me it was sort of a death shroud, and to be sure, I died a little more with each visit. The drape was not so much, as he claimed it to be, a protection against falling, snipped hair that would make me itch, as much as it was a camouflage, a concealment, of his own clandestine activities. For me it was no redoubt against the tiny filaments of dead flesh that were trimmed from my skull. He always looked me straight in the eye when he talked to me. I hated the way he carefully wrapped that drape around my neck—being ever so careful not to pinch my skin or choke my throat—“Is that too tight?” he would compassionately ask. His kind, soft eyes that betrayed no hint of corruption and jealousy always melted away any inhibition and fear in me. Isn’t that what they were meant to do? But his hands knew exactly where they wanted to be—it was as if he detached his mind from his hands—and what they wanted to do. He was careful not to cut me with razors or straight edges or hack off a hidden mole. He made certain that his clippers never snagged my hair. He always gave me Juicy Fruit gum when I left. Those scars I could live with, easily.

I despise going those places and to those people even today in spite of the fact that those I go to now had nothing to do with my war then. It is an internal fear of being vulnerable and under someone else’s power. I despise that weakened feeling, that insipid distrust of all things flesh and not my own. How can I trust anyone? Who has earned that trust? Has everyone been painted black because of the sin of one or two?

Here I am thirty four years old, afraid of barbers and spreading the angst, however innocently and inadvertently, to my own children by not taking them to the barber. The responsibilities of cutting hair are mine. And I never use that long drape that wraps tightly around the neck and spreads like a tarpaulin over a pile of bones. I hated that drape and cringed at the thought of being tightened around my neck. I still cringe even at the mere thought of that drape being ‘adjusted’ or ‘situated’ or ‘fixed’. I still fear those eyes. I still fear anyone who speaks in a sing song voice as if his life were merely a song he were singing, as if each breath were merely a note to be hummed, as if each step were merely a downbeat in some sick, twisted, deviant score of hatred and disease.

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I don’t think God put me in a place on purpose so that I would be molested. What sort of God would do that? But He has taken an otherwise traumatic and devastating experience and redeemed it for his purposes. I did not go searching for a pedophile nor was I hurled by divine fiat into his chair. However, I will not allow myself to be destroyed because of it. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, I am able to help those who are in need. I can protect children, my children, any children, from the likes of those who would seek to devastate their lives. God not only redeemed me; He redeemed everything about me too. I would be a sinner if I did not protect the children God has entrusted to me.

I become physically ill, spiritually disturbed when I hear of or read of some human being that has taken advantage of a child’s innocence, or vulnerability and corrupted or violated him in such a way as to produce scars that will remain beyond this life and run deeper than the flesh. There is nothing funny about that female school teacher who raped her young student. I don’t understand, first of all, and I cannot keep from becoming somewhat enraged, although my rage is closer akin to profound sadness than to real rage. Imagine being so angry that you wish you could reach into the television screen and choke the life from the violator and then realizing that you can do no such thing. That sort of approximates the feeling. It is the same feeling the child has too: helpless and powerless like Edmond Dantes who, after being thrown into prison, ‘passed through all the degrees of misfortune that prisoners, forgotten in their dungeon, suffer.’ He, it is written in The Count of Monte Cristo, “…dashed himself furiously against the walls of his prison, attacked everything, and chiefly himself, and the least thing—a grain of sand, a straw, or a breath of air that annoyed him.” Hopeless rage.

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Sometimes, in my voyages, when I was a man and commanded other men, I have seen the heavens become overcast, the sea rage and foam, the storm arise, and, like a monstrous bird, cover the sky with its wings. Then I felt that my vessel was a vain refuge that trembled and shook before the tempest. Soon the fury of the waves, and the sight of the sharp rocks, announced the approach of death, and death then terrified me, and I used all my skill and intelligence as a man and a sailor to escape it. But I did so because I was happy, because I had not courted death, because this repose on a be of rocks and sea-weed seemed terrible, because I was unwilling that I, a creature made for the service of God, should serve for food to the gulls and ravens. But now it is different. I have lost all that bound me to life; death smiles and invites me to repose; I die after my own manner, I die exhausted and broken-spirited, as I fall asleep when I have paced three thousand times round my cell. (Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo)

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There is also the idea that in order to minister to people properly, one must be close to people. One must be willing to touch, feel, and be close to others. This is something that I find practically impossible to do. I waffle on this very point of ministry. Ministry is necessarily about being up close and personal with people. John describes how ministry with Jesus meant touching, hearing, seeing—employing the senses. The essence of pastoral ministry is being among the sheep—knowing the sheep enough, even more, to call them by name. It means the allowing of abstract emotional upheaval to play a role in the concrete plains of ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ I have a difficult time with emotions which is one reason why I suppose I am not well suited to ministry in the pastoral sense. I can hardly deal with my own emotional turmoil let alone that of others.

Again, I point to the ministry of Jesus who came down and tabernacled among ‘us’. He put on this filthy madness we call flesh and bled, and sweat, and belched, and probably had some kind of funky middle-eastern body odor. John relishes this as a blessing: That which we have seen with our eyes, and touched. The Son of Thunder delighted in this personal, pastoral presence—His touch. When he wrote the Revelation, one of the most poignant scenes is when John is afraid and Jesus puts his hand on him and encourages him to not be afraid. I would have a hard time being Jesus or John in that situation; I have a hard time being Jesus or John in my situation.

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I’d like to think that I have mastered my life, but I have not even come close. I have not even failed well.

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I don’t understand how a human being can see a child—the beautiful innocence and boundless joy and creatively imaginative and perfect soul—and want to destroy it. Why turn these tiny plants into flowers that will ‘blossom in a puddle of mud’? Why hurt them? Why ruin them? Why corrupt them? Why view them as mere objects of personal satisfaction instead of as God’s gracious way of saying, “Life shall continue.” Humans fail to hear the voice of God, but then again, there is not too many who are listening. Humans fail to see the grace of God, but then again, there are not too many who are looking. But when a person sees a child, how can that person not see the face of God? And if they see the face of God, how can they dare approach it with such contempt, arrogance? Jesus correctly pronounced: “Woe to those who cause these little ones to stumble. It would be better for them to have a millstone tied about their neck and be cast into the deep.”

It is unlikely that I will ever approach a comprehension of this aspect of humanity. I can understand, while certainly not approving or condoning, stealing. I can understand, while certainly not approving or condoning, speeding. I can understand, to a certain extent and in certain circumstances, taking the life of another human being. (But please understand that my view of murderers is not rosy, and, to be sure, they are not far removed from pedophiles.) But I cannot, under any circumstance begin to even come close to understanding the mind and heart of a human that would even think of violating a child in any way. That is probably a run-on; but how else to make someone understand how perfect is my disgust and contempt for such people?
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Now that I have vomited, I can explain one last aspect of ministry necessary in such situations. It is called grace. Someone must show the grace of God to such people. Someone must minister to them in the name of Christ. Someone must teach them the Redemption Story. Someone must cut off their hands so they can at least enter the Kingdom maimed for that is better than to continue on in their way and enter Darkness with both hands.

Some reading this may think I am well beyond my area of expertise here. They may suggest after such a reading that I am clearly a lunatic, that I clearly have no idea what I am talking about, and that when it gets down to brass tacks I ought to forget about my contempt and my compassion. Trust me when I say that it is highly unlikely that I am the one who is being called or sent to such contemptible people. That is one group of swine that I cannot cast my pearls before. However, this is not to say ‘they’ are beyond the reach, the touch, of Christ. There is, obviously, someone who does have the heart and the courage and the love to say to the sinner, “Thou art loosed.” After all, who among us is not a sinner? Who among us has not fallen short of God’s glory? Who among us has attained any sort of perfection? Who among us would not be going to hell if not for a person who said, “There is a swine I will cast my pearls before?” In this sense, grace is available and there are, without doubt, some beautiful feet that will carry God’s message of grace to those lost souls who were probably mere children at one time in their own lives.
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That’s all I can say for now. It is hard for me to write these thoughts; harder for me to post them for someone else to read. All I know, and believe it or now there are a million and one things crowding inside of my mind, is that I wish my life had seen different experiences. I cannot look back on this with favor and say, ‘Oh what a grand lesson I learned.’ However, I can make it my goal in life, with my every waking breath, to protect other children from the ravages of predators whose smiling faces and glistening eyes welcome us into the safety of their world—where in the darkness they slit our throats and eat our souls.

God have mercy on them because it might be simply beyond my ability to do so.

Blobs of Dirt

Hey friends here are some things I was thinking about the other day. I have a long post to put up here, maybe even today, when I can get it burned to a CD. Enjoy.

What will become of this death
lingering on my street?
I hear his voice sing sweetly
in every person I meet.
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Where is the darkness, the
hatred I feel?
ANd what is this disease
I work so to conceal?
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Why is my heart heavy
inside of my chest?
Why, when I know better,
will I not welcome rest?
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This place is a hive of
sound wave festivity.
Where fingers and minds
are shaped for creativity.
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My mind is all twisted
Contorted and shy.
Like the rain diseased clouds
that hide the sun from my eyes.
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Every now and again
I want to say, 'shit'.
And throw a temper tantrum,
or girly hissy fit.
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There remains an element of mystery in this world. Do we need to know everything? Do we want to know everything? I have a simply explanation that goes like this:

He revealed more than we can understand.
He revealed less than we desire.
He revealed enough to make His point.

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My happiness is not the chief end of life, not the main objective of God, and not the constant thought of the universe.

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Marigolds transformed my yard into a small place of delight. They are gorgeous, beautiful and deserve to be the pavement we walk on in the New Jerusalem. The blosssoms remain for a long time and seem unperturbed by the cold, heat or drought.
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In the desert gold is without value. Water is priceless.
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"I feel obliged to admit that I believe not because of but in spite of miracles." Teilhard de Chardin
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We should take time out of each day to describe the clouds.

More later.