Bittersweet

Exploring Grief and Loss in Finding Neverland

2006-07-13T14:59:00.000-04:00

The following is an excerpt from a recent review for one of my grad classes.

Dealing with grief over the loss of loved ones is a major theme running through Finding Neverland.  The movie focuses on Peter’s response to his father’s death and his discovery that his mother is terminally ill.  Peter has gone through a transformation since we first met him in the beginning of the movie.

He responded to his father’s death by becoming emotionally distant and “growing up” beyond his years.  He has no time for silliness and seems to be a very serious and very sad young boy. James (a playwright who has befriended Peter’s mother and family), however, has a gift with people and develops an almost mystical relationship with Peter, inspiring him to dream again, to hope again, and to trust again.

In a key scene, James and Peter’s mom sit down outside James’ country cabin to watch a play that Peter has written. As the scene progresses, we see Peter introducing his play and his cast (his brothers and sister).  As the play develops, Peter’s mom begins to cough until the coughing is uncontrollable.  The play stops, the doctor visits, and Peter finally expresses his emotions in the form of anger.

We are alerted by the sound of glass and watch as James goes outside and finds Peter destroying the set that he created.  Instead of stopping him, James sits down and gives Peter the precious space he needs to express himself.  Peter explains how his mother “lied” to him about his father’s health, telling him and his siblings that his father would be ready to go fishing in a week.  Instead, he died the next day.

Peter’s mom has been telling him that she has a chest cold and that everything is okay.  Peter knows that everything is not okay, but no one will entrust him with the truth.  Instead, they minimize the severity of the situation and he responds by saying, “I won’t be lied to.  I won’t be made a fool!”  With that, his mother comes out and tries to console him, saying, “It’s only a chest cold,” which further infuriates him.  He pulls himself away from her arms and runs off.

This scene shows a stark contrast between how people allow others to experience the pain of loss and to join them in grief.  Peter’s mom wants to shield him from the pain and elects not to tell him.  She grieves the loss of her husband and her own terminal illness independently.  In essence, she models independent grieving (or the seeming lack of grieving) for her children, of whom Peter is most negatively affected.  Peter needs to know how to grieve and longs for his mother to tell him the truth, no matter how painful she thinks it is.  By not telling Peter the truth, she keeps him at a distance from herself – the very person he longs to be near.

On the other hand we have James who sits in the chair and allows Peter to vent.  He does not try to stop him or shield him from the pain of the situation.  Later in the film, James encourages Peter’s mother to allow her children to grieve with her –anticipatory grief – by telling them the truth about her situation and being emotionally present with them.  The painfulness of the situation cannot be avoided and James helps the family live and love through the pain. The film ends with one of the most beautiful, bittersweet scenes and provides the family (not to mention the audience) a way to grieve and celebrate life at the same time.

Believing is Seeing

2006-07-10T12:11:00.000-04:00

I’m becoming more and more convinced that believing is seeing, especially in the realm of faith.

In today’s “empirically proven” world (which I greatly appreciate), I think we have put to the test realms that do no qualify for such testing, like faith.

All too often, I hear people trying to prove God’s existence so that others might believe.  Now, I think that we should apply our minds and consider the evidence, but I’m fairly sure that is not a prerequisite to faith for most individuals.   In other words, I don’t think it is accurate to say that seeing is believing.

Perhaps the evidence is pretty clear in the first place, but people don’t see what is right in front of their noses because they don’t believe.  Seeing isn’t enough.

How many people walked in the footsteps of the Nazarene, watched the miracles, witnessed his death, and witnessed his resurrection?  How many saw and did not believe?

Consider his words, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”   The Nazarene inspired belief by taking himself into their midst, re-initiating the relationship. What is necessary is working with people to help them deal with whatever is getting in the way of seeing reality, whatever is getting in the way of the most significant relationship in their life.

For example, imagine a person locked in a dark room with their eyes shut.  Now, I could talk to that person about the outside world, all there is to see, and I could work through the latest research to prove the existence of the outside world to the person.

The world is waiting for the person, but the person has to choose to open his eyes and walk out of the dark room.  In essence, faith/belief will precede his seeing the world. I think my work is to help others move into an area of life where they are more likely to utilize their faith.

If belief is the window for seeing what is real, does this mean that we can believe anything and see anything?  Does it mean that if we believe something, then it is necessarily true?

Not at all.  If, for example, I choose to believe that my Moleskine journal will give me unlimited satisfaction, that it’s the only thing I need in life, that it’s the true key to happiness, I would soon find out that my belief was inaccurate and that which I wished to see I could not see because it does not exist in the realm of reality.

Belief then becomes a sort of test of reality.  Go ahead, test God with your belief :).  Or test whatever it is you’re interested in right now.

The balance is being honest enough with ourselves to let go of beliefs when they’re clearly not in alignment with reality, not healthy for others, or not healthy for ourselves.

People Powered

2006-07-07T10:53:00.000-04:00

I am people-powered as much as I am solar-powered.  I get a charge out of being in the light and being with people.

Tonight, I decided to take a walk around our neighborhood, inwardly hoping to meet some of our neighbors.  I am working from home these days and could feel my people-powered tank running on fumes.

So, I set out on my own and felt unusually self-conscious about being a man walking around by himself in a new neighborhood.  In short, I felt like an outsider as I walked past people talking to each other in front of their garages.  I tried a few weak “hi’s” and “hello’s”, but didn’t get the responses I was looking for.

Getting to know people is hard work, even for people who like to do so.

And it’s risky.  We risk rejection when we attempt to befriend “strangers”.  There are myriad reasons that people don’t get to know the people 15’ from their front door, but I’ll venture to guess that one of the primary reasons is the fear of rejection.

In fact, as I walked around, I noticed other people outside and from their behaviors I picked up that they, too, were looking for relationships.  They weren’t just out getting exercise; they were hoping to connect with other humans.

And that desire for connecting with others is one of the most powerful of human drives.

Just think of all the things we do to keep ourselves from feeling disconnected, except taking the risks necessary to connect.  Almost anything can qualify and most of the “diversions” are fine and healthy in and of themselves.  But when we use them to avoid the pain that accompanies the process of relationship building, then we have gone awry and we cheat those who would benefit from our friendship as much as we cheat ourselves.

Thankfully, my walk had a happy ending. I was nearing our home and saw one of our “unmet” neighbors pull up to his garage.  I had to slow down to get his attention, and I had to make it obvious that I wanted to meet him.  But it was a positive encounter and the uncomfortable work of first meeting is now over.

Then, as I walked away I noticed our “unmet” neighbor-next-door standing outside as she talked with a friend.  This time it was she who initiated the greeting and I spent 15 quality minutes talking with her, her husband, and her friend.

I walked into our home fuller than I left, and it was the simple meeting of human spirits that provided the spark of energy.  Love it!!
Selah

Self-Appreciation

2006-07-06T17:16:00.000-04:00

I don’t know about you, but I somehow adopted the belief that it is not okay to appreciate yourself.  Rather, it is better to put yourself down, consider yourself as unworthy, a “sinner”, in need of grace, or whatever the lingo – the message is the same.  Now, I’m not talking about narcissism, just a healthy view of self.

We are not all bad.  We’re not all good, either.  We’re somewhere along a continuum, and I think we are worse when we think we are.  In other words, when we think of ourselves as bad and subscribe to the doctrine of self-deprecation, we tend to be what we think we are.  And if we are not, but believe we are, then we live trapped in a world of condemnation and confusion.

I’m subscribing to the principle of healthy self-appreciation.  I don’t need any help finding my flaws.  I’ve had plenty of practice and others are more than likely to help with the job :).  I do need a bit of help finding the good.

I think what I’m saying is that we need to learn to love ourselves.  The less we love ourselves, the less we love others.  I believe there is a direct correlation between self-love and others-love.

If you read the words of the miracle-working, self-loving, others-loving, healthy-living, prophesying, preaching man named Jesus, he promoted self-love prior (or at least alongside) others-love.  He’s recorded as saying that men should love each other as they love themselves.

One of the basic principles of life is you can’t give what you don’t have.  And sometimes you can get what you don’t have by trying to get it.  I think there has to be a balance.  I have experienced a growth of self-love through acts of service/love to others.  The truth is that we have a lot to give.

One of my roles as a counselor-in-training is to help clients see what they do have.  And I believe that there are times when you have to give what you don’t think you have in order to discover that you have it.  Sometimes you do not feel capable of giving love, but upon attempting to give it, you find resources that were untapped and unrecognized.  Through this, self-love grows.

So I am not advocating self-love that simply loves self, because I don’t think we can really love ourselves if we are not loving others.  The two are inextricably linked.  I am advocating both and see self-deprecation as eliminating both.

Power of Perception

2006-07-05T18:02:00.000-04:00

I’m not certain that perception is everything, but I know perception powerfully influences (if not shapes) my beliefs about the world, myself, others, and on and on goes the comprehensive list.

Perhaps the power of perception sheds light on the principle “don’t judge each other”.  I believe our judgments are so flawed because of our limited perception of reality.

Recently, I harshly judged a loved one – based on my perception of his life, behavior, and circumstances.  After spending time with him, I understood more and my judgment lost its severity; in fact, my judgment lost its meaning if it ever had any.  As my new experiences yielded more clarity about what was really true about the situation, I felt less and less of a need to judge and more and more of a need to comfort and encourage.

How many of our broken relationships, interpersonal conflicts, misunderstandings, wounds, wars, and scars have their roots in judgments based on limited perception?  When will I learn to leave judgment to a higher power with more perfect perception?  When will I learn to be present with others and accept my lack of understanding as part of being human?  When will I learn to be helpful instead of judgmental?  What worth is my judgment?

Again, more questions than answers.  But the pursuit continues!

Selah

Bob Ross and God

2006-07-01T10:07:00.000-04:00

Remember Bob Ross, the eccentric (at least he appeared so to a farm kid from a red state) artist who took a blank piece of canvas and transformed it before our eyes into a scene of inviting beauty?

This morning, I watched the sun rise again– a habit that is forming now that our bedroom window faces the eastern sky – and I watched as a relatively unattractive horizon of blurry shapes gave way to spectacular light. A blank canvas (well, not exactly, but work with me :) transformed into the beauty in which we all live. Amazing!

Send/Receive

2006-07-01T01:44:00.000-04:00

I’m an Outlook junkie – I admit it.  Yes, I’m one of those guys who can’t wait for the automatic-check-for-mail feature.  I constantly hit send/receive just in case someone wrote me during the 12 seconds since I last checked.

So I’m doing my Outlook thing today and registering for my Fall classes on the side, if you can call that much $ per credit “on the side”.  New housing costs, a trip to Turkey, and just day-to-day expenses have put a bit of a crunch on the old pocket book and I was beginning to wonder where we would come up with some extra dinero.

As I finished up my registration and attached it to an email, I simultaneously brainstormed ideas for extra money (legal extra money) and thought about what country Emily and I are going to visit next year.  Such ideas are not necessarily friends, and were in fact competing for brain space.

Truth be told, the more stressful of the two ideas was winning out and I began to do that little internal sweat thing that happens when I am moving toward inward anguish (even if to observers I look like I just took a sedative).

The registration is now finished, attached, and the email is written to the appropriate contact at the school.  I am thinking about how much money we don’t have and I push Send.

Now, one of my favorite sights each day  is seeing my Outlook Send/Receive Progress box with the message “Receiving 1 of 1” or “Receiving 4 of 4” and watching my Inbox label change from normal to bold text.

Well, as my registration is being sent, I am also receiving a message.  I hurry and click on the inbox and see a note from a company for which I do a bit of work.  The note was actually an invitation to work from home on a special project and make money.  Pretty amazing, and I don’t believe in coincidences, so decide what you will about the timing.

Love it!

And I know that I switched tenses several times and I would like to say it was intentional and creative and significant, but I really just tired of the past and decided to go present.  Hmmm…Go present.  I like that.  Go present.  (Present with the “s” sound not the “z” :).

Good Times!

2006-06-30T09:58:00.000-04:00

Ahhh – Good times! I just wanted to commemorate our first family dinner at our new home. Yes, the guy in the corner has a hamburger buns bag on his head :)! And the bowl of cherries – hand-picked from just down the street. A neighbor had a “Free Cherries” sign in front of his yard, so we went down in a wind storm and pulled cherries off – great fun! Such a good day. Such a great family!

Thankful

2006-06-29T09:04:00.000-04:00

I awoke this morning feeling overwhelmed with gratitude.  For me, such moments come all too infrequently!  More often than not, I’m thinking about what I don’t have instead of all that I do have.  Perhaps my adrenaline-like dose of thankfulness this morning is partly influenced by Emily and my recent return from Turkey.  The experience was overwhelming and it is going to take a good while to sort it all out, but in the wake of our time there, I think I realize how much I/we have.

How easy it is to look around our neighborhood and want a different house, newer cars, a boat, jet skis, and the list goes on and on.  And how easy it is to forget that these things are all luxuries, not necessities?!  We have an amazing home, cars that are paid for and still run, investments, cell phones, computers, jobs, and all sorts of appliances.  And I haven’t even begun to mention the important things – a wonderful marriage, friends and family who truly care about us, health, neighbors, freedom galore, purpose, ambition, libraries :), and free internet – for now.

Life is good!  Yes, that is certainly a relative statement, but perhaps it is even more powerful because it is a relative statement.  There is always some good to be found, even in the worst of circumstances.  How often are we attracted to tragic stories in which a golden strand of hope is beautifully woven?  This is life.  We can always find something wrong, something bad to think about.  But, we can also always find something right, something good on which to focus.

Why is it that I feel the need to point out what is wrong to the degree that I love something?  (Talking to a friend who sees our house for the first time) “Yes, it’s beautiful, but ….” Why do I feel I need to qualify, to raise the issues before anyone else can? (Receiving praise for a presentation) “Well, I really didn’t have much to do with it.  The people running the program are really the ones to be congratulated.”  Am I afraid that things will fall apart?  Of course they might, but even if they do, I can stay together, I can find the hope, I can be a source of hope to others.

And so I’ll just say, “Thanks!”  It is a wonderful life and I love living it!!

Selah!

Reflecting in Indi

2006-05-21T23:00:00.000-04:00

Just finished presenting/consulting teachers at an institute in Indianapolis.  I love working with teachers.  I always count on the first day being one during which teachers vent their frustrations and shoot a couple of arrows at me – the messenger.  But I don’t take it personally and I try to create a calm and safe presence in the room by modeling it myself.  I need to be anchored during those times; otherwise, I will take their comments personally and begin to become anxious, irritated, and frustrated myself.

I decided early on in my teaching tenure that I would refuse to treat others in an undignified manner, even if that is what they demonstrated and possibly expected in return.  I believe that paying back someone’s negativity with negativity is a way of degrading their humanity, and it says something about me.  All humans have dignity, even if they don’t believe it.  I think that the Christian symbol of the cross is all about God demonstrating His belief in their dignity, even when they did everything they could to prove otherwise.  I want to mirror that perspective to others.

After a first day of really tough teacher attitudes, at least 5 of my participants came up to apologize for themselves and their peers, and to thank me for my patience.  This was the worst possible time of the year for us to come to them.  They are only a week away from major tests, 40% of the teachers in their district were just informed that they may not be coming back (including some of those attending), and they have come to see professional development as just another way their district chastises them for not doing their job.  As a whole, they were demoralized.  They love teaching, they love people, but many of them have lost sight of those things because of exhaustion, disillusionment, and unfulfilled expectations.  On that first day, they just needed a space to be real, to be honest about how they were feeling, to vent without being chastised.

And after that, many of them found an inner guide directing them to find solutions, to make the best of the situation, and to do what they could to make things better.  For those who were less in tune with that inner guide, others in the group voiced such guidance.

By the second day, participants were able to move on and what appeared to be a tough situation turned into my favorite group of participants.  I really miss seeing them today as I sit reflecting in a Starbucks outside of my Indianapolis hotel.  We went through some rough waters together and by the end of our three days we had grown close to each other.
I left absolutely energized!

I also became more aware of my passions.  I love working with teachers, encouraging them through hard times, and celebrating with them when they come through the tunnel.  Teaching high school and middle school students was exhilarating, but I can see that one of my niches is working with adults.  I absolutely love the challenges adults bring to the table and I love walking beside them as they struggle to find a positive resolution.  Teaching and guiding is what I was created to do.  I am people-powered as much as I am solar-powered.  Put me with people and I am in the right place.  Add the sun and I’m in the perfect place!!  My heaven is going to be SO full of people and sunshine.  Not that I can’t be alone or that I don’t like being alone.  However, I realize that alone time is something I need as it relates to recharging for people time.  On the other hand, people time recharges me for alone time.

One of the highlights of the institute was a 62 year-old teacher named Jim.  Jim came up to me after the first day and said, “Dave, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve never been a workshop guy.  In fact, I’ve never enjoyed a workshop in all of my years of teaching.  But I have thoroughly enjoyed this workshop.  I will never forget your presence with this group.  I won’t remember the name of the Embedded Whatever It Is but I will remember the essence of what you modeled for us.”  And then we talked about pedagogy our philosophy of education.  It was invigorating to see someone in their 30th+ year of teaching still absolutely excited about teaching.   On the third day, he reiterated his first-day thoughts and said something I will never forget: “Dave, I’ve got to admit that I have allowed myself to get beaten down. I’ve moved my students out of groups and put them in straight rows. I have removed many of the relational elements from my classroom in order to try to control the classroom. I have lowered my expectations and become somewhat disillusioned. But the past three days have been an awakening and I feel truly inspired to go back into the classroom.  Thank you!”  Talk about humbling.  I’m 28 and perhaps know 1% of what Jim knows.  He has been a coach a master teacher and an inspiration to others throughout his career.  I count it a privilege just to have gotten the chance to meet him and his colleagues.

Along those lines, I expected great things of my participants.  And they showed greatness.  They showed parts of themselves that have been dormant or suppressed. They came up to me afterwards and expressed thanks for giving them space to vent their frustrations and encouragement to move through those frustrations.  They left with an increased sense of dignity and encouraged my own. Truly, it was a spiritual experience for me.  I love what I get to do with this life!  Give me people or I will shrivel.

Desires and Lent

2006-02-28T15:26:00.000-05:00

Being Fat Tuesday, a lot of people are giving in, chowing down, indulging, gorging, and satisfying certain desires that they will keep in check for the next month.

Tomorrow, we will greet the season of Lent and many of us will give up something.  Why will we give up something?  What is the purpose?  I am proposing that one of the purposes of Lent is to help us reconnect with our True Desires.

When speaking of desires, I am talking about all kinds of desires.  The following are some of the questions we might ask as we delay gratification and are forced to listen to our true selves.

What am I looking to find?  What am I “thirsting” for?  What sparks such a fire inside?  What desire is seeking satisfaction?  What will truly satisfy that desire?  What was designed to fulfill the desire?  Can the desire be fulfilled here and now?  Should I try to kill the desire?  Should I seek to understand the desire, to make some sense of it?  Should I ignore it and try to keep moving?

I think we are filled with a sense of strength when we choose to listen to the voice that speaks through us as we voluntarily delay gratification.

Think of your strongest desire – maybe one that gets the best of you and keeps you from reaching your potential.

I usually blindly give in and do my part in the line of falling dominoes.  Always, there is the initial spark that sends a fire through my body.  Always.  An image.  A sound.  A thought.  A feeling.  A smell. Something triggers something within me that wants to be fulfilled.  The next step is a conscious decision to satisfy the desire now, plan to satisfy it later, deny it, ignore it, or seek to hear what it is saying.

I think fasting (food, TV, music, alcohol, smoking, etc.) is one of the ways that we begin to listen to what our desires are saying instead of just giving in to them in the way we know how.  The way we fulfill our desires is diverse, and the affects are diverse.  But, fasting – especially the season of Lent – can remind us to listen to those desires and to seek to understand how to fulfill them or how to live in the here and now without fulfilling them.

Change in Perspective

2006-02-28T13:09:00.000-05:00

Taking a bit of time today to give my mind a break from house-hunting.  Emily and I have been researching homes in Boise and we decided to use today to clear our minds.  For the past couple of days, I have been consumed by houses and as Emily and I were talking last night, she pointed out that it might be good to take a mental break.  I’ll come back to it tomorrow, but for today I’m going to focus on other tasks and consciously push away house-related thoughts.

I hope to gain a renewed perspective as we resume our search.  Before we started looking at houses, we verbalized what we wanted and didn’t want.  We want to live in an area where we will be forced to interact with our neighbors – a neighborhood!  And we want to live in a relatively modest home.  We want to own the house.  We don’t want the house to own us.  We want to determine our lifestyle.  We don’t want our mortgage to determine our lifestyle. We want to be able to buy a house on one income.  We don’t want to be trapped by this purchase.  We would like to live in a culturally and economically diverse area.  We don’t want to live in an area where everyone looks like we do.  We don’t want to buy out of fear.  We want to feel a sense of peace and purpose about the house we buy.  We don’t want to be unavailable to others because we are so occupied with our house (working to pay for it, etc.)

By the time I stopped looking for houses last night, I was drooling over a beautiful house that was about $80,000 out of our price range. Now, the truth is that we could potentially afford such a house.  But we would have to sacrifice other goals and values to get that house.  Em finally took the computer away and shut it off.  I needed that.  I needed her to remind me of our priorities.

Today, I am taking some time to review those priorities and Em and I are going to take some time to pray together about this house.  Granted, buying a house is not the most important decision in our lives, but it might rank in the top 10.  We want to be good stewards.  In the end, none of what we have really belongs to us.  We’re just taking care of it and using it – hopefully, wisely.

I needed to be reminded that we are just stewards.  This decision is about more than what we want.  What we want is part of the equation, but we also feel a greater responsibility.

I’m looking forward to tackling the housing market with a renewed perspective.

Quoting Carrey

2006-02-23T16:28:00.000-05:00

“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.” Jim Carrey

A Bittersweet Remembrance

2006-02-23T13:44:00.001-05:00

Today’s edition of the Washington Post featured a front-page article about the neighborhood Emily and I live in – the Shaw neighborhood.  After reading the article, I began to rethink our decision to live here.  The article is entitled “A Bittersweet Remembrance” and highlights the gentrification of the neighborhood, from the perspective of black residents who have lived here for generations.

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

“They [featured black residents] are among the many homeowners who have lived in Shaw for decades – through the 1968 riots, the crack epidemic, black flight.  They are there now for the rebound.  Their homes have mushroomed in value, and they are adapting to new neighbors, many of them white and more affluent.”

One of those interviewed, Moses Lofton, “recalls an encounter he had one afternoon when it was still warm, an encounter not unfamiliar:  An African American woman stopped for a red light and called to him as he swept the sidewalk in front of his steps.  Was he the owner?  He nodded.  Don’t sell, she said.  No matter what they offer you.  Pass it on, keep it in the family.  She drove away, Lofton said, but the message stayed: Keep the neighborhood as it was.  Keep it black.”

“[Lofton] has no problem with whites…and he appreciates Shaw’s new-found diversity.  He’s just sorry blacks are leaving.”

“[Norman Wood] had hoped for a diverse community, but the free market has overwhelmed his vision: Developers have converted rentals into condominiums, forcing African Americans to move; and black homeowners, enticed by rising property values, have sold and left for the suburbs.”

“Until a few years ago, said [Harry “Sonny”] Brodgins, 54, the area was entirely black, and a perpetual street carnival.  ‘Like Mardi Gras,’ he said.  In the bad years, yes, there was drug dealing and violence, like the night his brother was shot twice in the leg.  But it still was community.  ‘I knew everyone,’ said Brodgins.  These days, he said, an old friend greets him as the ‘last of the Mohicans.’  Whites live up the street, down the street, in the next block.  They are mostly young professionals.”

“When Brodgins steps outside these days, the stoops are empty, the sidewalk is barren and there is no one to talk to.  He finds company around the corner where people still congregate outside the shuttered Howard Theater, under the rusting blue ‘Jimmy’s Golden Q’ sign, a vestige of a long-closed pool hall.”

“Brodgins’s new neighbors seem to be in a hurry, he said, often checking him out warily, if acknowledging his presence at all.  ‘They’re the strangers,’ he said.  ‘I’m here.  I got here before you got here.  Why can’t you at least be cordial?’”

---

When Emily and I moved to DC, we looked for a place with diversity, a place that might feel like a community.  In less than two years, four of the six remaining black families on our block have moved away.  Some moved because they couldn’t afford the taxes on their property. Some moved because they couldn’t pass up the money.  Honestly, the people who left are just about the only people on our street who would take the time to talk and be neighborly.  The neighborhood is leaving and being replaced by affluent individuals who like to be left alone and seem to post an unwritten sign: “By invitation only.”  Whereas sitting on one’s stoop is like posting a welcome sign, the doors on our street open and close quickly, and social gatherings take place behind those locked doors, keeping the “unwanted” away.

Perhaps Emily and I moved to the area for different reasons than the people moving in now.  We wanted to get to know the people who lived there, not push them away.

Months ago, I helped rescue an elderly woman from a burning house.  She happened to be black in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood on Capitol Hill.  As I waited with the woman for the paramedics, a man commented that he was glad the house burned because now the drug dealers would leave.  The fire was helping clean up the block.  I was incredulous and irate.  And even though I am a pacifist, I wanted to do him bodily injury.

True, the man’s words were harsh. But how many people moving into traditionally black neighborhoods are just waiting until the blacks leave, or at least until the “undesirable” blacks leave?   I don’t want to be part of that movement.  I don’t want to be the guy who buys a house in a run-down neighborhood and waits for all of the “trash” to leave so home values will increase.  People are not trash, regardless of income, race, culture, etc.  People are not problems.

I know neighborhoods change and go through cycles, but I resent those who profit at the expense of others.  I resent those who disregard others.  How do I channel this passion in a productive way?  How do I criticize by creating?  Maybe I should sit on our stoop.

Office Space

2006-02-23T13:44:00.000-05:00

I love the idea of having a multi-site office. Currently, I am working from my office at National Cathedral. From my table and chair on the 7th floor, also known as the observation gallery, I have an amazing view of the city, not to mention some impressive flying buttresses in the foreground. This is one of my favorite offices because it gives me a different vantage point, above the streets and houses and buildings and other stimuli that crowd the mind. Someday I’ll have to have a “real” office, but for now I’m enjoying the flexibility. Maybe I’ll find a way to do multi-site counseling. Not sure how that would work, but I’ll probably try it.

Don't Be Put Off

2006-02-22T21:03:00.000-05:00

Don’t be put off or offended when people reject you.

If I could just learn this and be okay with rejection.  Honestly, most of the time I reject people, it has nothing to do with them.  It usually has more to do with me.

To go along with intentional intrusion, I just wonder how many amazing opportunities and meaningful relationships I miss because I am too easily offended.

Keep loving.  Keep serving.  Keep seeking.  Keep calling even when the calls aren’t returned.  Keep asking.  Keep on.  And remember to always err on the side of grace.

How to do this? I don’t know.  Just do it.  At least try. I’m going to make a point of it.

Intentional Intrusion

2006-02-22T20:49:00.000-05:00

Intentional Intrusion: the act of pursuing others’ best even when they don’t ask for it.  Do we care too much?  Or, not enough?  Life in DC is very different from life in the west for myriad reasons, but one of the most striking differences is the distance people put among themselves.  Personal bubbles expand when you enter the District and a smile and “hello” when meeting someone on the sidewalk will likely conjure up negative ideas: What does that guy want?  Why did he look at me?  Please stay out of my world!

Granted, this is a stereotype, but I also live this reality every day.  In fact, I’ve begun to think like someone who has lived here for two years.  I am suspicious of kindness and my personal bubble has expanded.

What’s the problem?  Expanding personal bubbles = more lonely, isolated people.  Sure, it’s easy to find lots to do and to surround yourself with people.  But much of DC is about networking and relationships often begin and grow based on network net worth.  Happy hours abound as do social gatherings, but how many people distract themselves to avoid feeling lonely?  I don’t know the statistics, but I do know that burnout comes quickly in the District.  Wells run dry and people look back and wonder at what happened to their lives.

How many people feel truly known?

Have you ever had someone ignore your personal bubble?  Sometimes this can be negative.  For example, you are in an elevator making your way to the 10th floor.  The elevator stops at the 5th floor and a gentleman walks into the elevator.  The doors close and you are the only two people on the elevator. Now, elevators are not exactly the easiest social settings to maneuver, but imagine that the gentleman makes his way to where you are standing and brushes up against you.  Imagine if he stood in front of you and looked at you.  Yeah, creepy and wrong, but you get the point.

However, negative personal-bubble-intrusion aside, I think there is a place for invading people’s lives.  Is it okay to watch a friend walk into the depths of depression, even after s/he has told you to get lost?  Is it okay to watch a friend make a life-altering decision without intervening?

I think the intrusion must be customized based on the nature of the relationship and type of problem.  This can easily become an excuse to “stay out of their business” or “let them work out the problem themselves”.  But I think there is a lot of room for increased interest in our relationships.  How much do we care about the people who are close to us?  Are we willing to share the truth along with the grace?   Are we willing to put ourselves between them and costly mistakes?  Are we willing to be uncomfortable and uncertain?

I think this is a deeper love, a passionate pursuit for the hearts and lives of others.  A pursuit for the best in others.  It’s really not okay to watch as others flounder.  It’s really not okay to be put off by personal bubbles.  It’s not okay to just leave people alone.

I know personality comes into play and I haven’t thought about all of the ramifications, but if you have ever had someone intentionally intrude in your life – for your best – then you know what I’m talking about.  After you weather the storm, rather, after the person weathers the storm with you, a bond will form unlike any other in your life.  It makes a difference when someone stands up for you and pushes through for you.

How many movies and songs echo this theme, where the hero/heroine won’t take no for an answer and inspires the best in those around him/her?  Often, this is played out in the relationship between lovers.  Someone in love will not take no for an answer.  They keep seeking for a way to win the heart of their beloved.  Something pulls at our heartstrings when we see this kind of love, this intentional intrusion, acted out before us.  And it is a gift that only you can give because no one has the relationships that you have, and no one can make the difference you can make in the lives of those around you.

Listening to Our Souls

2006-02-22T15:05:00.000-05:00

Life without TV.  Okay, I didn’t think it would be this hard.  In lieu of my recent decision to give up TV for four days, I am realizing that I rely on TV to keep me going.  TV has been part of my mental health plan.  I used to wonder how the Long Beach students I worked with could listen to music day and night.  Literally, they intentionally ran sound waves through their head at all times.  They were very uncomfortable with silence and would do just about anything to avoid it.

Today, the silence of our apartment started to creep into me.  I needed some noise.  Why?  I used to be able to be alone and learn from the silence.  Now, the silence is intimidating.  I’m not sure what to do with it.  I have to relearn the art of listening.  When we listen to others, we have to create a space that allows for communication.  What about communicating with ourselves?  What kind of space do we create to listen to our heart, our true selves?  Why do we resist the voice of what we might call our soul?

There is a psalm in which the writer expresses his desire to be searched and known at the deepest level.  Am I willing to be searched and known, or will I run from the settings where this is likely to occur?  It’s crazy to think how something as simple as turning the TV off has reminded me to listen to my soul.  I have a lot of catching up to do!!

Writing it Through

2006-02-22T14:54:00.000-05:00

I’m wired for writing. My wife processes information most effectively when she talks it through with others. I like talking it through, but my preferred modus operandi is writing it through. I am most effective and most “me” when I take the time to write my mind. The past few days of writing have reminded me not to neglect the act, even when I don’t feel like making the effort to do it.

Writing helps me think. Writing helps me move through problems and into solutions. Writing opens my mind. Writing takes me down cognitive roads that I don’t otherwise travel. Writing makes me more alert to others. Writing often serves as the conduit between my head and my heart. Writing is my way of inventing.

Life Reformation

2006-02-21T17:11:00.000-05:00

Life Reformation. I’m not sure why, but last night I felt the need to do a little bit of spiritual reformation.  By this morning, the idea had morphed into more of a Life Reformation.

From the Online Etymology Dictionary, I found the following:

reform (v.)
c.1300, "to convert into another and better form," from O.Fr. reformer (12c.), from L. reformare "to form again, change, alter," from re- "again" + formare "to form." The noun is 1663, from the verb. Meaning "to bring (a person) away from an evil course of life" is recorded from 1413; of governments, institutions, etc., from 1432. Reformed churches (1588) usually are Calvinist as opposed to Lutheran. Reformed Judaism (1843) is a movement initiated in Germany by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86). Reformatory "house of correction for juveniles" first recorded 1834. Reform school is attested from 1859.

I love the idea of converting into another and better form.  This week, Em is away in Atlanta and I have decided to dedicate a chunk of my time to life reformation tasks.  I’m not sure what these tasks include, but I know that in order to convert into another and better form, I’m going to have to make some changes.

One of those changes revolves around the three electronic boxes interspersed throughout our apartment.  Yes, by a strange turn of events, we have three TV’s, all hooked up to cable.  TV has been consuming my life, influencing me, and changing me into another form.  A better form?  I think not.

So, I’ve already begun to cut TV out of my life, at least until Friday.  I actually lived for about three years (during college) without watching TV.  Looking back, those were some of the most productive, exciting, and challenging days of my life.  After a meeting this morning, I returned home and found myself subconsciously reaching for the remote control.  I stopped myself just in time and realized how “connected” I am to the TV.

I think part of my life transformation is going to include mixing things up so that I can begin to see life differently.

Part of my plan for this evening is to read, yes, read.  And I’m focusing in on some spiritual material that I would like to see become ingrained in my life.  Who knows who I will be by Friday!

Defining Words

2006-02-21T16:44:00.000-05:00

I am letting myself be excited about the next step in my life. One of the aspects of NNU www.nnu.edu that inspires me is their philosophy. I think it is a necessity for organizations/institutions to be intentional about the words they use to define themselves. Here are the words that define NNU:

Christlike Character: To demonstrate ethical behavior, love others, respect others, and represent Christ to the world.

Academic Excellence: To demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of the liberal arts, expertise in a major field of study, and professional growth.

Creative Engagement: To apply natural gifts and gained knowledge to respond creatively to life: producing original works of art and inspired solutions to problems – in the home, workplace, church, and greater community.

Social Responsiveness: To be faithful stewards of knowledge, skills, and resources, encouraging social justice and God’s mercy.

I love the idea of Creative Engagement. One of the aspects I most appreciate about our church home in DC www.theaterchurch.com is the redemption of creativity. Other churches, such as Mosaic in Los Angeles, are also emphasizing creativity in the lives of their people. Our pastor, Mark Batterson, writes and talks about criticizing by creating. What a positive way to solve problems. I want to be on the creative bandwagon, and I want to be involved in revolutionizing this world through words – words inspired by the Word!

Accepted!

2006-02-21T16:13:00.000-05:00

Accepted!  Yesterday, I received notice from Northwest Nazarene University that I have been accepted to their Counseling program!  This is the culmination of four of planning and preparation.  One of the amazing things about yesterday’s notice is that NNU doesn’t begin their application interviews until early March!

Emily and I have been overwhelmed at how accommodating the counseling program has been.  I interviewed them in November and fell in love with the professors and the culture of the program.  After that, I sent in all of the application materials and asked them when they might be able to give me a decision.  Because NNU has a competitive program and an extremely in-depth  admissions process, they explained that I probably wouldn’t know until the middle of March or later.

I explained to them that Emily and I were confident enough about this next step in our lives that we had already given notice to Emily’s job and I didn’t take any more classes at the graduate school I had been going to.  Basically, we felt that God had guided us to the decision to move back to Idaho and it was our role to follow his lead.  Couldn’t they let us know a bit earlier?  Or, would we have to just wait?

To make this story shorter, the first admissions committee decided to let me do a phone interview about two weeks ago. Even so, they said I wouldn’t know their final decision until mid-March (their admissions committee doesn’t meet in February).

Last week, about the time that Emily and I felt peace that everything was going to work out, I found out from the counseling program’s secretary that they had called a special meeting for the admissions committee to make a final decision!  Yesterday, on President’s Day, I received official notice welcoming me to the program.

It certainly feels good to be accepted, but the truth is that I was so sure that I was supposed to be at NNU that I had already come up with a plan to petition in case of rejection.  I was going to prove to them that I am supposed to be there.  Looks like I won’t have to, now!

"Good morning, lad"

2006-02-16T11:06:00.000-05:00

“Good morning, lad! That’s a happy face your wearin’!”

This is how I was greeted as I sat down in the Quiet Car of a Philadelphia-bound Acela Amtrak train. The encounter was pleasant and inspired me to wear a smile more often, for the sake of others if not for myself.

I’m now traveling well above the speed limit for automobiles and the weekend’s snowfall has created a white blanket for the blurring landscape.

Today is my first “real” train ride. Sure, I’ve been transported by D.C.’s, NY’s, LA’s, Chicago’s, and London’s train systems, but there is something different about traveling above ground for over 100 miles. I feel like a little kid today, and even though I’m traveling for work, this feels like an adventure. I’m learning a lot of new things, doing something I’ve never done before, and seeing Philadelphia for the first time. I’m really enjoying life and feel overwhelmed by gratitude to God.

Plus, it’s sunny today and if anyone was every solar-powered, it’s me. I am a sun-worshipper as well as a Son-worshipper! I love light, especially natural light. And I love blue skies. I made sure to find a window seat, and not just a window seat, but a seat with a full window. The first seat I sat down in only had half a window’s view, so I made the move and I’m loving it. Wow!

I really love traveling and moving around. It’s in my blood. I love adventures. I love learning new things and meeting new people, like the Irish (?) guy with a cane who called me “lad” and now sits across from me.

Glory! That’s what my friend Zaden from bible college would say when he was overwhelmed by God’s goodness. And I’ll echo that! Glory! Glory!

Know Me

2006-02-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

Last night I couldn’t sleep.  Em and I stayed up to watch the Duke Blue Devils defeat the North Carolina Tarheels!  I have to admit that I live vicariously through J.J. Redick.  I love that guy – really!

After watching the Blue Devils squeak out the win, I was unbearably restless. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I grabbed a National Geographic and headed into the living room.  Once there, I couldn’t concentrate and found myself trying to validate my life.  J.J. Redick is living my dream.  I wanted to go to Duke and work miracles like J.J.  Instead, I didn’t play a lick of organized ball after high school.  To this day, I wonder, what if?

Movies like The Rookie bring tears to my eyes every time I watch them.  In fact, I often sob.  Something in me is unfinished.

So, last night, unable to sleep or read, I opened up the doorway to the past.  In the back of our entertainment center are several tapes from my days playing high school ball.  I grabbed one and watched with anticipation.  Why with anticipation?  I mean, I played in those games.  I knew how they were going to end.

Even so, I found my way to a 1995 District Tournament game versus the Murtaugh Red Devils – our bitter rivals.  We ended up winning the game and only needed to win one more game to secure an automatic bid to the State Tournament.  Murtaugh ended up working their way through the loser’s bracket to play us again.  We started well and with only 6 minutes left in the 4th quarter we led by 7 points.  Then it all fell apart.  In the closing minutes, I went to the line twice for one-on-one opportunities.  I missed the front end twice.  Being a high 80s, low 90s free throw shooter, I expected to watch myself make the free throws.  It was agony watching those shots rim off into the hands of our rivals.  Several missed jumpers later and we were done.  We ended up losing to the Red Devils again and watched our State Champion hopes fade away.  The year before, I broke my arm in the District Championship game, and the year before that we lost in double overtime in a game that would have secured a State Tournament birth.  There would be no next time.  My dream would remain unfulfilled.

As I sat staring at the television last night, I could again feel the pain of coming up short.  In lieu of the recent Super Bowl, I’m sure that I have no idea how bad coming up short can really feel, but I know something of it.

And I want to do something about it.  I want to play them again. I want another shot.  I want to be somebody.  I want to win.  I want to be known as a winner.  I want to know I am a winner.  Am I watching too much Sports Center?  I know we all make fun of Napoleon’s uncle Rico who is living in the 80s, but how many of us are living our lives in the shadows of unfulfilled expectations?  Broken promises?  Dreams deferred or out of reach?  We may not talk about our days in high school, but when we are left alone with ourselves, when our deepest desires well up within us, how many of us feel the ache of not reaching our goals or achieving our dreams?  How many of us fear that we have not lived as we could?  How many of us wonder if it is too late?

I wonder.

It is easy enough to just push the desire away and take care of business – work, start a family, pursue relationships, etc.  But will I ever be able to dull the ache?  Will I always be haunted by what might have been?  Is it enough to rationalize the past as part of a greater plan?  Or, can I resolve this?  Should I resolve this?  Should I let it go?  Can I let it go without killing a part of me?  Can I be me without pursuing this part of me?  What does pursuing my own heart look like?  Can if find peace through something else?  Someone else?

I still wonder.

Trailblazing

2006-02-03T10:36:00.000-05:00

I’ve never thought of myself as capable of being “bored”. In fact, I’ve always disdained the word. I can always think of a thousand things to do to occupy my time. But, occupying my time may just be a guise to avoid “boredom”. Being busy – occupied – distracts me from listening to my heart, which often cries out for more meaning, for adventures, for trailblazing.

I am most alive when I am in the wilderness. A recent trip to the Bitterroot Mountains in western Montana reminded me of the effect of nature on my persona. I was driving over snow-covered roads (if they can be called roads) through the mountains and my heart started racing. What would I see around the bend? What would I see in the dense foliage? What would I discover? And my heart ascended in praise to God. It just happened. I didn’t plan it, but I found myself communing with the Lord, expressing my thanks for His creation.

As good as I felt, I wanted to share the moment with people I loved. I called my wife and other kindred spirits, inviting them to join me in celebration. I felt like I just had to tell someone about what I was seeing. It was too good to keep to myself.

This experience awakened something inside of me – a yearning to live more fully, to engage each moment, to live in the here and now.

Honestly, I am itching to get to Idaho because I feel like life is really going to start once we get there. But life is happening right now and I don’t want to miss divine moments because I am preoccupied with future plans.

Nothing happens next. Everything happens now.

The only place I can be is right here, right now, and regardless of what I am doing, it has immeasurable, eternal worth if I bring God into the experience. Instead of occupying my mind or getting busy, I can view even menial tasks as part of a much larger story, a story that I see unfolding but don’t know what is on the next page or how it ends. That’s exciting. That’s trailblazing!

Preparing...

2006-01-23T15:16:00.000-05:00

Em and I are preparing to leave DC and move to Boise, Idaho.  Our estimated time of departure is late April/early May.  Because we know we are not going to be here in DC forever, we have become intentional about how we spend our free time.  Two weeks ago, we traveled to the Outer Banks (North Carolina) and took in the beauty of the Atlantic Ocean as well as some amazing history – Kitty Hawk (Wright Brothers’ first flight), Roanoke (The Lost Colony).  Pretty amazing.

Even more amazing have been the times of connecting at the soul with each other during the drives.

We love taking road trips because we get a chance to focus on each other while going on adventures with each other.

We’ve also become quite addicted to podcasts, especially those of Mosaic, a culturally relevant church in Los Angeles led by Erwin McManus. Check out the podcast at http://mosaic.org/podcast/feed/.  It’s free and can be downloaded via iTunes or iPodder at http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php.  iPodder is now called Juice for some reason.

This past Saturday, we went to Annapolis for the day and actually stepped into the room where the Treaty of Paris was signed and where George Washington made the critical decision not to remain the leader of the army if he was going to be the leader of the country!  We also walked down to the bay, ate at Chuck and Ruth’s Delly (yes, Delly not Deli (), and checked out the Naval Academy.

While we sat on the dock at the bay, we had one of those “update” conversations – not update in the sense of catching up with each other, but update in the sense of downloading the latest version of the software of the soul.

Months ago, after prayer and fasting, we decided to move back to Idaho.  However, after spending Christmas at home in Idaho, we both returned to DC with some dark clouds of doubt and uncertainty looming over our souls.

Questions such as “Why are we moving back?”  “What does Idaho have for us?” “How does moving to Idaho fit into our passions?”  “Did we just decide to move back to Idaho, or did we really hear from God?”

The last question, “Did we hear from God?” came to the forefront via a McManus message we had listened to on the way up to Annapolis.  He emphasized the living voice of God, speaking to us, prompting us to act in obedience.  He encouraged his listeners to move on what God has already spoken and actually to refrain from praying for thing for which we will not offer up ourselves as the solution.

Em and I really did hear from God and neither of us will forget the flight out of Boise in September when we both knew that we were to return.  It was uncanny, supernatural, special.  And neither of us can really describe it very well.  It’s almost as if we know it best when we relive that moment in silence together.  Words cannot communicate the depth of that moment.

Back to the dock.  While on the dock, we talked about how disconnected we have felt while living in DC.  Why?  Is it simply the culture of the city?  The transitory nature of relationships in a place where many people’s jobs are determined by terms of 2-4 years?  Is it our lack of service in our church?  Is it our lack of investment in our community? Why do we think things will be different when we move?

In asking these questions, we found ourselves identifying our passions.  One of our deepest shared passions is helping others, especially youth who are on the fringe.  Both of us have a heart for befriending those who don’t necessarily fit in or who refuse to do so at the expense of violating their own conscience.  Some of our most fulfilling moments as a couple have come during times of serving a couple of young boys in Long Beach, California.  They needed us, and we found that we needed them.

In the past, our involvement with youth came via our involvement in our church, but our current church doesn’t have any youth (80% of the church is single and the remaining 20% have very few kids ().

While we have greatly appreciated our time at the church, I think we have also gained some insight as we prepare for our move to Idaho: know your passions, know the things that bring you life and energize you, and then find a place where you can pursue those passions.

I’m not saying we ended up at the “wrong” church, and I don’t think we are limited to serving in one capacity. But life is to short to live on the fence, which is what we ended up doing.  (By no means is the situation as simplistic as I’ve presented it – we’ve moved three times in the last 5 years and are possibly in the final stages of recovering from burnout, but the application stands).

God has given us passions for a reason.  Pursue them.  If you’re not in a place where you can do so, find a place or create a space for doing so where you’re at.  Feel His pleasure as you do so.

Dreams

2006-01-23T14:16:00.000-05:00

Had an interesting dream last night.  I’m not sure what to think of dreams at this point in my life journey.  Are dreams the voice of our unconsciousness - our hidden desires, wants, needs?  Are they prophetic?  Are they the voice of the supernatural, speaking to us when we are most unguarded and vulnerable?  I’m not sure, but my hunch is that dreams are all of these things and more.

Last night’s dream:  I was in a jungle, a dense jungle filled with indigenous folks who were hiding from something.  They had fled to the area to escape some evil, but now the evil was upon them again.  The terrified face of an elderly man peering at me through the leaves greatly troubled me.  You see, I wasn’t hidden.  In fact, I wasn’t really there except as an observer.  I didn’t feel the danger like the people felt the danger.  I only knew the danger because I watched the people reacting to it.

Besides the elderly man in the leaves, others were also hiding.  That is, they were hiding until one of their own – a younger version – came hopping and shouting into the open area close to where I was, or, at least, where I had a sense of being.  He laughed and paraded around the area, calling into the jungle to his people, calling for them to join him.  Over time, his excitement permeated the dense jungle and light began to shine where he was standing.

Those in hiding slowly revealed themselves and with some hesitation joined the jovial youngster.

The youngster shouted and chirped all the louder when the people came into open spaces.  The people forgot about the danger.  But now I began to feel that danger was upon them.

Darkness was close by.  I wanted to warn the people to silence themselves, to hide for just a bit longer.  Something in the dense green vegetation was seeking to destroy them, and they were advertising themselves.  Clouds of grey overcame me and I longed to reach out, to shout out, to warn the people who were now smiling and happy, unaware.

The jovial one then broke into song and dance and called the people to follow him into the jungle.  As if in a drunken stupor, they followed him and vanished into the sea of green.  Their laughs and shouts of joy continued and I followed them with my ears.

Without warning, the shouts escalated into something other than joy, but only for a part of a second, only long enough to reveal that they had been betrayed.  My mind reeled and the trees began to spiral.  The ground rose above me, my eyes closed, and my heart wept for the people.

I awoke from this dream wondering if it had any sort of significance.  Do you ever have those times when it feels as if the blinders have been taken off and for the briefest moment you see the world clearly?  Upon waking, I felt a sense of clarity that, of course, I can’t describe very well now.

For some reason my mind went to the many people who have been/are being victimized by violence.  I prayed for them.

And then my mind rested on the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  I’m not sure why, but the first picture in my mind was of the three of them in the furnace, fire blazing and enemies gazing at their anticipated destruction.

Interestingly, God didn’t make a move until they were in the furnace, until it looked as if all hope was gone.  And why did he allow these things to happen to such godly men?  Why didn’t he just destroy those idolatrous, violent men who were set against Him and all who followed Him?

Because He loved them.  Because He wanted to reach them and chose to do so in the midst of an act of violence.  Too often, I think of God wanting to destroy all the “evil” people.  Instead, stories like the fiery furnace demonstrate that God will do just about anything to reach those bent on doing evil.  Amazing that God has the ability to turn even the worst, most hopeless situations into opportunities to declare His love for all men.

What happens when someone, like the jovial one in my dream, betrays me?  Do I offer that person up for God’s wrath or ask for their heart to be turned?  When will I give up my desire for vengeance and accept God’s way of love and forgiveness?  What kind of trust does that take?

Made for Greatness

2005-12-10T07:32:00.000-05:00

You were made for great things. God has a purpose for your life. No one else can fulfill your purpose. You are unique.

These are common themes emphasized by spiritual leaders. And often the focus is on “doing” and “vocation”. However, I think these themes have as much or more to do with “being” and “relating”.

I think “what we do” is less important than “who we are”.

Yet, when I hear a message about God’s calling, my first response is to think about what I am doing and what I could be doing for God. I compare myself to the men and women in history who have made a difference, who did great things. And I want to do great things for God.

There’s definitely nothing wrong with healthy ambition.

However, I think that I miss something when I think only in terms of “doing”. I miss what is perhaps most unique to me – “being” me in relationships. No one on this earth can be me to another person. It’s just not possible. And no one else can be you to another person.

Your greatest assets are not your abilities. Your greatest assets are the things that make you you. No one on this earth has the relationships you have with other people. No one else can relate to your mom like you can. I’m not saying you have a great relationship with your mom. I’m just saying that no one can take your place in her life.

No one else can fulfill your purpose in your relationships. In this, we are all unique. In this, we are all made for greatness.

God's Heart

2005-12-02T10:22:00.000-05:00

A glimpse into the heart of God as spoken through Jeremiah:

I want to forgive.

I satisfied your deepest needs, and then you went off.

Your bad behavior blinds you.
Your sins keep my blessings at a distance.
You have no conscience.
You stand for nothing.
You stand up for no one.

Even then, as bad as it will be, it will not be the end of the world for you.

Toward Spiritual Health

2005-11-26T09:26:00.000-05:00

We hear a lot about God's love in our day and age. But what is His love and how does He act it out? Where does our response to His love play a part? How responsible are we for what we do? Won't God just forgive us if we stray? His love is boundless, right?

Listen to what God told one of His messengerss to relay to Israel:

Turn back, fickle Israel. I'm not just hanging back to punish you. I'm committed in love to you. My anger doesn't seethe nonstop. Just admit your guilt. Admit your God-defiance. Admit to your promiscuous life with casual partners, pulling strangers into the sex-and-religion groves...If you want to come back, you must really come back to me. You must get rid of your stinking sin paraphernalia and not wander away from me anymore. Then you can say words like "As God lives..." and have them mean something true and just and right. And the godless nations will get caught up in the blessing and find something in Israel to write home about. (Jeremiah 3-4).

First, I want to emphasize that God's love is boundless. However, we may not understand His love and we may not feel loved even when God is demonstrating His love toward us. Second, we do have a responsibility to get our lives back in order. This is practical obedience and there just isn't a substitute. No one else can obey God for you. This is one of those places where God looks at us as individuals who have the freedom to exercise choice. We can choose to hold on to sin paraphernalia, but in doing so we cannot come back to God. Third, God has conditions that we must meet if we are going to be with Him. We don't hear much about this, but if we're going to be part of God's family, we have to abide by His rules in the same way that we have to have a healthy diet and exercise if we are to be physically fit. Sound harsh? I'm not talking about gaining God's acceptance or earning His love. His love and acceptance are givens. However, we have to respond to His love and acceptance - an active response, not simply a passive acknowledgment. The consequences of doing our own thing are deleterious, individually and corporately. Practically speaking, when we don't follow God's guidelines, we suffer physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We are designed by Him and for Him. When we set out to live for ourselves, we begin the journey toward self-destruction.

Finally, the effect of coming back to God is that others around us will get caught up in the blessing! God wants us to admit where we are, leave the things that keep us from being present with Him, and join Him in living the abundant life we were created for. As we do this, the quality and overall health of our lives will attract those who are living for less. They will be drawn to God and get caught up in His blessings simply through their relationships with us. Love it!! Too often we think of evangelism as some separate compartment of our lives, but evangelism begins with living healthy lives - on God's terms!

Cultural Pulse

2005-11-23T07:59:00.000-05:00

Have you read through Jeremiah, lately? Wow! Why is it that the only verses quoted out of Jeremiah are the positive ones, like, "I know the plans I have for you...Plans to give you a future and a hope"? That's not exactly where God started with his message to his people!

Reading through the text, I am finding many parallels between our culture and the culture that God was condemning - yes, condemning. I'm all for being positive, but I'm equally "all" for being honest. See if these words ring a bell:

A long time ago you broke out of the harness. You shook off all restraints.

You said, "I will not serve!"

And off you went, visiting every sex-and-religion shrine on the way, like a common whore. You were a select vine when I planted you from completely reliable stock. And look how you've turned out - a tangle of rancide growth, a poor excuse for a vine. Scrub, using the strongest soaps. Scour your skin raw. The sin-grease won't come out. I can't stand to even look at you!

How dare you tell me, "I'm not stained by sin. I've never chased after Baal sex gods!"

Well, look at the tracks you've left behind in the valley. How do you account for what is written in the desert dust - tracks of a camel in heat, running this way and that, tracks of a wild donkey in rut, sniffing the wind for the slightest scent of sex. Who could possibly corral her! On the hunt for sex, sex, and more sex - insatiable, indiscriminate, promiscuous.

Slow down. Take a deep breath. What's the hurry? Why wear yourself out? Just what are you after anyway?

But you say, "I can't help it. I'm addicted to alien gods. I can't quit."

Just what are we after anyway?

Last night, Emily and I went to Barnes & Noble to do a little Christmas shopping, part of which included checking out periodicals. If you want to get a feel for the climate of our culture, as portrayed by the media, head to the periodicals section. But warning! Men, do this with your wife or, if you're single, take a bro with you. It's kind of crazy what has crept into mainstream society as "acceptable" and "normal". Don't get me wrong, I don't think our culture is more depraved than cultures concurrent with or preceding our own. Mankind keeps making the same mistakes and falling into the same deadly traps.

However, because of man's aptitude for making a mess out of even the best of situations, I believe that we must fight against desensitization. One of the ways to do that is learning from the past. What did the Israelites do that was so wrong? Can we avoid making the same mistakes? Are we now making the same mistakes? If so, what can we do to make amends? What has God done in our behalf that we need to respond to?

These are helpful questions to ask not only on a cultural level, but on an individual level. God referred to Jeremiah as a "one man defense system against [Israel's] culture". Why not join Jeremiah in our day? It might help to remember some of God's promises to Jeremiah from the first chapter of the book:

I'll tell you where...
I'll tell you what...
I'll be right there...
I'll back you up...

Love it!

I truly believe God is calling each one of us to defend our hearts and the hearts of his people against cultural influences that are toxic. And I truly believe that we must understand the culture and be "culturally relevant" if we are to be heard. God had his finger on the pulse of Israel's culture. He knew where they went, what they listened to, what they said, how they spent their time, how they thought. And he helped Jeremiah put his own culture in perspective, seeing it through God's eyes.

Father, help us see our culture, our lives, through your eyes. And remind us to fight for the hearts of the captives.

Freedom from Causality

2005-11-22T07:57:00.000-05:00

Causality is defined in three ways: 1) the relationship of a cause to its effect; 2) the principle that everything that happens must have a cause; and 3) the action that causes an effect. As humans, especially those in the helping profession, we are very interested in causality, believing that if we can determine what is causing negative effects, we can work to prevent the causes. However, causality can become a trap, especially for those of us who only know enough to be dangerous.

For example, I am currently working through some research on Parental Acceptance and Rejection Theory (PARTheory) and child abuse. Initially, I set out to show that parental rejection increases the risk of child abuse. However, there is absolutely no research that shows causality. Parental rejection is related to depression, behavior problems, and substance abuse. In turn, behavior problems, depression, and substance abuse are risk factors for child abuse and neglect. So, there may be some connection, but not necessarily.

It is the ability to say that "such and such may have something to do with such and such" that brings freedom to the researcher. In addition, being willing to allow for some ambiguity takes intellectual honesty and a certain amount of humility. We most often go wrong when we're sure we've got it right. In fact, the National Research Council's Panel on Research on Child Abuse and Neglect has gone away from simple cause-effect models because of the limitations of such models (Bethea, 1999). The models limit themselves by asking too few questions about personal characteristics of parental abusers. The models also fail to account for the occurence of different forms of abuse in one child. Lastly, the models do not explain how to weigh the value of various risk factors in child abuse and, as a result, they were not very accurate in predicting future cases of child abuse. Now the panel is replacing the old static model with an "ecologic" model that considers the origin of all forms of child abuse to be a complex interactive process.

Isn't that what we are all about? Humans are simple, on the one hand, but absolutely complex on the other. We have to be honest and humble enough to admit that we're never going to completely figure out who we are and why we do what we do. Seems to me all the more reason to be in contact with the Designer in whose image we are made. As someone entering the helping profession, I need all the help I can get! He knows us better than we know ourselves, and He knows the way out of the mazes of the mind.

I'm back...

2005-11-21T21:04:00.000-05:00

After a multi-month hiatus, I'm stepping back into the blog cosmos, but with more of a purpose. I want to use this blog to chronicle my journey as a counseling student, consultant, and husband: three threads that I'm currently trying to weave together. That being said, I want to share some dreams I have that encompass my various roles - dreams that I scripted the other day while I was feeling particularly inspired.

1) To have four children (I will now note that these are my dreams, not necessarily those of my wife) :)
2) To work alongside Emily (my wife)
3) To share passions with Emily
4) To be surrogate parents to kids who need us
5) To start my own counseling clinic for the underserved
6) To teach at a university and train counselors in the university/clinical setting
7) To write books that help people
8) To start a consulting firm that specializes in training consultants
9) To watch our families love on our kids (no kids, yet - these are dreams)
10) To be present for our families. To share birthdays, holidays, etc. with them
11) To buy a ranch for my dad
12) To be part of the Jones family revival - it's coming!
13) To coach basketball - high school and even college
14) To leave a godly legacy
15) To train missionaries in cross-cultural counseling
16) To work internationally to train others how to counsel those in need
17) To believe God for anything - anything!!
18) To be Emily's biggest fan and advocate. To help her thrive
19) To nurture our marriage so that it might be worthy of imitation and give others a glimpse of God's love for his people
20) To open a retreat center for underserved families

Pacified

2005-07-12T02:13:00.000-04:00

Long Beach, California.

I wish I could transport every one of you to a series of incredible moments I had while kayaking Monday with my friend Paul.

What began as an introductory kayaking excursion through the Naples canals led to a breathtaking, yes breathtaking, exploration of the Pacific Ocean!! In case you don't remember from that high school history class, the ocean was first given its name, which means "peaceful" in 1520 by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan.

Paul is an experienced (at least more-experienced-than-me) kayaker. Earlier this year he went on an exploratory expedition of the Amazonian interior with a group of his friends. To prepare for that trip, he had to figure out how to use a kayak.

Thankfully, Paul was my instructor, because as we pushed our kayaks into the water and began paddling, my arms were getting sore after a few strokes! Paul looked back, saw what I was doing, and proceeded to demonstrate how to sit in the kayak, how to hold the paddle, how to push instead of pull, and how deep to put the paddle into the water. It took some practice, but after 30-45 minutes I felt like I was getting in a groove.

We had originally planned to use Monday's kayaking as an introductory course for me, in preparation for an excursion to Laguna Beach later this week. But as we paddled through the Naples canals we rounded a corner and there it was - the Pacific! It was breathtaking. Less than a mile of paddling would take us out of the canal, past the rock barriers, and put us at the mercy of the ocean's swells.

Well, we couldn't resist. We paddled forward, taking in the beauty, feeling the increasing force of the swells. My kayak surged up, then back down again. Paul had told me that I would feel the power of the ocean when we entered it.

Exhiliration. That best describes the sensation as we moved past the rock barrier and paddled into the vast horizon of seemingly endless water. We continued out for a small distance and then sat back to let the ocean take us.

Ahhhh!

Somehow, the world felt right while floating on that small piece of plastic on top of the largest body of water in the world. All my problems began to seem smaller, less overwhelming, and only a small part of a much larger picture. A much larger picture: excluding adjacent seas, the Pacific Ocean represents 45.9% of the world's oceans and covers 64,186,000 miles² in area! That's amazing! The average depth is over two miles - 12,925 feet! Across its greatest length it measures almost 11,000 miles! And I was being moved along by this magnificent force. Wow!

Paul and I continued to float and I felt, well, pacified. At least, until I saw guys paddling their surfboards out to where we were drifting. Now, there is only one reason they would paddle so far out, and it wasn't to talk to us:). The waves had begun to break farther and farther away from the shore - closer and closer to where we were! While riding waves with kayaks sounds exhilirating (we're actually going to ride waves at Laguna Beach), these waves were heading right into the rocks! Only a skilled surfer could ditch the waves at the right time.

Being neither a skilled surfer nor a skilled kayaker, I requested that we paddle away from the breaking waves.

But I will always remember the absolute serenity of those moments of being lifted up and dropped down by one of the most powerful forces on earth.

I am now thinking about the most powerful force, who is not simply a force but the being we call God: He who reveals Himself through the restrained strength of the Pacific and all of nature, through the words we call Scripture, through the Nazarene, through the church, and by that which speaks to us but is not us - His Spirit. And I am finding that when I trust Him with my life, I am truly pacified.

Unentitled Beggars

2005-07-09T07:18:00.000-04:00

As you may know, I've been reading Under the Overpass (2005, Multnomah Press) by Mike Yankoski. This quote stood out in the D.C. section where he documents his homelessness in the nation's capital:

"In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning writes, 'We are all equally privileged but unentitled beggars at the door of God's mercy" (62).

I love the juxtaposition of privilege and unentitlement. We are privileged even to be allowed at the door. We have no rights, no entitlements. It is God's mercy that draws us to His door and His mercy that greets us and satisfies us when we arrive.

See more quotes from Under the Overpass at http://bibliosblog.blogspot.com/

Meet the Author...

2005-07-08T11:36:00.000-04:00

Check out these thoughts about the transaction between reader and writer: http://bibliosblog.blogspot.com/2005/07/george-muller-ch-3.html

Anticipation...

2005-07-08T10:36:00.000-04:00

Recently, I ordered an iPAQ from costco.com, after weeks of researching PDAs and finding one that had all the features/tools I was looking for at the right price. Costco.com has a feature that allows you to check your order/shipping status as often as you like. Well, I've been checking my order status at least twice a day, hoping that there would be a shipping miracle and I would get my iPAQ earlier than expected. But every time I checked, the status remained the same: "Delivery date: July 7".

Now, yesterday was July 7 and like a little kid I was excited when I awoke because I knew that my new toy (I mean, tool:)) would soon be in my hands.

The only problem is that the UPS delivery in our area seems sporadic and you never know when they're going to show up. I needed to sign for the package, so I had to be around. That being said, I didn't trust that the delivery man wouldn't just set the box out to be rained on or stolen.

So, after a ministry mentoring meeting in the morning, I came home to read, write, etc., in a place where I could see when the UPS truck pulled up. I even made conscious decisions not to run some errands so I would be available.

I waited all day, and even though I was busy with other things, my eyes kept going back to the windows and my ears kept listening for the sound of the delivery man opening our gate. I was really excited and I wasn't about to go somewhere or do something that might keep me from getting my package.

Around 4 o'clock, after checking the order status 27 times, I was getting a bit perturbed at UPS. I mean, don't they have any consideration for my time? Didn't they know I had to leave by 5:30 for our softball game? Do they even deliver packages after 5?

5 o'clock rolled around, then 5:30 and I had to leave for the softball game. I even waited in my car, looking down the street for that brown truck, but nothing! Just in case the delivery man came to the house, I left a plastic sack by our mailbox in which he could put the package, especially since we were expecting a downpour.

Well, we got a downpour and played softball through the storm at the base of the Washington monument - amazing venue!!!!

The whole ride home I was thinking about...yep, that stupid iPAQ, and it was all I could do not to run to our mailbox. Instead of finding a box, though, I found an "InfoNotice" left by UPS informing me that I missed the delivery!!! I was ticked. I mean, I had done everything I could to be there when they came, but I missed them and would have to wait another day, going through the same anticipation.

As I was trying to get to sleep last night, I thought of how earnest and prepared I was, and all for an electronic device. A question leaped into my consciousness: "Are you anticipating My coming?" My quick reply was an honest, "No." In fact, I don't remember the last time I thought about the fact that this earth is temporal, that these bodies are temporal, that all I see is temporal. Another question interrupted my thoughts, "Are you ready to meet me?" Again, my answer was an honest, "No."

I have spent the hours since that brief conversation thinking about what I have invested in that has drawn me away from my Lord. Why am I anticipating the wrong things? I have some answers, not all of them, but enough to get started: 1) I haven't been spending time communing with Christ; 2) I have not been spending time praying; 3) I haven't been reading the scriptures. In general, I have been very undisciplined spiritually, and I am seeing the effects in my spiritual life, which is interconnected with the holistic me, whether or not I like that fact.

I want to anticipate the Lord like I anticipate getting my iPAQ. I don't. Not yet, at least. Such anticipation doesn't come from trying to manufacture feelings, but from doing the things that lead to such feelings: spiritual disciplines. My excitement for my iPAQ increased greatly as I researched the field and found just the right one. I want to research God with the earnestness that I research other things in this life.

And I want to be ready when He comes. I want to have the light on and I want to be awake, full of anticipation!!

Dead Squirrel Removed

2005-07-07T15:12:00.000-04:00

In an effort to educate the public about proper dead squirrel removal, I have provided a brief photo documentary of yesterday's series of unfortunate events.

(Preparing for the job, bags in hand)

(Yes, the late Mr./Mrs. Squirrel)

(WalMart bag comes in handy!)

(Don't forget the Raid!)

(Waiting for trash pickup)

I've been dying too long...

2005-07-07T14:57:00.000-04:00

"I've been dying too long." These are the words of an addict named Peter. A man who spent 30+ years of his life addicted to drugs. I think I've been dying too long, too. It's time to start living, really living. Check out my book blog for more context: http://bibliosblog.blogspot.com/ (Under the Overpass - Denver).

Dead Animal Removal

2005-07-06T15:30:00.000-04:00

Just minutes ago, I was enjoying my time watering the plants in the front yard when something next to the fence caught my eye. I happened to be aiming the water hose in that direction and realized that I was drenching a squirrel! A squirrel that wasn't moving! Aye de mi!!!! Somehow, this squirrel didn't make it to the next tree and fell to its untimely death - dang! I mean, I was feeling really bad for this squirrel.

Then I realized that I had to figure out what to do with the squirrel. It's hot and humid in DC today, so that squirrel already has some friends helping out on the decomp process :((. Yeah, not a pretty picture and it is right by our front steps, so this squirrel is going to start stinking up the whole neighborhood.

So what do you do with a dead squirrel in the city? I'm not really afraid of touching the thing - I grew up on a farm and dealt w/ a lot of dead organisms. But dead squirrels in the city are another story. I wasn't going to bury the squirrel, and God knows that you shouldn't just throw something like that away. I mean, think about the journey that squirrel is going to go on w/ the rest of the garbage! Aye!!!

I finished watering in a hurry, then I sat down at my computer to do some google searches:
dc dead squirrel removal
dc dead squirrel
dc squirrel removal
dc dead squirrel removal?
dc dead animal removal

The last search proved to be the most fruitful and led me to Department of Public Works' Dead Animal Removal page http://dpw.dc.gov/dpw/cwp/view.asp?a=1203&q=518101.

Phew! I felt much better.

I read through Helpful Tips:

Be sure the animal is dead. (Check)
Cover the animal. (Check)
Pour bleach or ammonia to eliminate further destruction by other animals. (Check)

Things were looking good. All I had to do was call the number and request the service.

I dialed the number and immediately was connected to a customer service representative. I told her about my problem and she asked for the location. When I gave her the address, she said, "Is this a public space?"

"No. It is in our front yard."
"I'm sorry, sir, but unless the squirrel is in a public place, we can't come and get it."
"What? You mean that you're not going to come get the squirrel because it is on the wrong side of a fence?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then what should I do?"
"Well, sir, I'm not sure, but we can't help you unless the animal is on public space."
"Okay, so I'm going to go out and throw it over the fence onto the sidewalk."
"Okay, sir, as long as the squirrel is on public space. But we can't come get it if it is on private property."
"When could you pick it up?"
"Within the next 48 hours, starting tomorrow morning."

Now, I wasn't about to throw that squirrel over the fence onto the sidewalk. What a mess! It would continue to decompose just a few more feet away from the house. I imagined myself carrying the squirrel to the neighborhood park, but it just felt wrong to put a dead squirrel where kids were playing.

"Ma'm."
"Yes."
"I'm not going to throw the squirrel over the fence or move it to a public place. What else can I do?"
"Well, sir, you should just throw it away."

She said this without any sort of enthusiasm or concern.

"What?! You've got to be messing around. There's no way the city advocates people throwing dead animals away."
"Sir, that's what everyone does. It's easy. Just put the squirrel into a plastic sack and throw it in your trash container. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Serious? You, an employee of the DPW, are telling me to throw a dead animal in with my empty cereal boxes and used paper towels?"
"Yes, sir. If there's nothing else I can do for you, have a great day."

And that was it. And now I'm sitting here putting off the inevitable. The view from my window reveals the dead squirrel, awaiting a proper burial and something feels very wrong about just throwing him away, but I'm out of options. Plastic sack, squirrel, trash can - it's time to meet each other! Good thing it's trash day tomorrow!!

Vows

2005-07-06T14:21:00.000-04:00

Here are the vows I made to my beauty over five years ago:

I, David, take you, Emily, as my lawfully and spiritually wedded wife
I promise to forsake all others
and cleave only to you
I promise to love
honor
comfort
and spiritually edify you
I take you from this day forth
for better or for worse
in riches and in poverty
in sickness and in health
till death do us part
I promise to pray for you
to live with you in an understanding way
to grant you honor
as a fellow heir of the grace of life
and to forgive you
as God has forgiven me
I promise to give myself to you
as Christ gave Himself for us
to fulfill my duty to you
and to be your spiritual leader
Therefore, I receive you
as God’s precious gift to me.

Today, in reading another blog, I was reminded of the power behind words, specifically behind our vows to one another. In spite of all the nonsensical chatter about "cheap talk" and the "weakness of language/words" I'm staying in the camp of word lovers!

True, we may never be as good as our words, but who says we should stop saying them and meaning them and striving toward them?

I'm inspired today to maintain the romantic zeal/ideal embedded w/in the words of our vows - words which we laboured and prayed over - in the face of a very critical culture where most marriages find their end in separation/divorce.

I think of William Faulkner who once said, "Words are my music - all that I need."

I love the music of words in this dance called life!

New Book Blog...

2005-07-06T12:18:00.000-04:00

Okay, so maybe I'm getting carried away with blogging, but it's proving to be useful.

I've started to blog my way through books in an effort to digest more of what I read and have an orginizational system to revisit quotes/reflections. Check it out at http://bibliosblog.blogspot.com/. If you want to join in this blogging venture, I'd love to link your own book blog!

I also found a site/tool/network that allows you to blog your novel (one that you are writing or thinking about writing) w/ some helpful pacing and feedback. It's too late to register now, but you can ask them to send a reminder to register for the October session. Here are the links to the National Writing Month and to the Novel Blogging websites: http://www.nanowrimo.org/index.php ; http://nanoblogmo.blogspot.com/ . Good stuff!

Under the Overpass

2005-07-05T14:40:00.000-04:00

Just heard about a book called Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski. The author is a college student who spent five months of his life on the streets as a homeless person. Here's a review of this out-of-the-box book:

Under the Overpass

"Clean, comfortable, and well fed? Have a cup of coffee and a couple of cookies to hand and ready to receive a nice little blessing? Well, think again. You are likely to choke on those cookies. No nice little blessings here, but rather some big, thought-jerking lessons leading to deep, maybe even uncomfortable, convictions.

Upper-middle class college students Mike and Sam answered God's call, purchased very used back packs and sleeping bags and, for several months, joined the ranks of the homeless. This adventure was not an easy decision. Receiving much advice from Christian mentors, making sure they had prayer backing, these two guys started in Denver and by the time they hit Washington, DC, they knew what kind of hunger makes you eat out of trash cans.

With a guitar and a modicum of talent, they sang gospel music on the streets to raise a little cash. Sometimes they ate 99 cent hamburgers. How long does it take for cement to become a comfortable bed? Where do you find washing and toilet facilities when businesses chase you from theirs? Just how dirty and smelly can a human become, and how fast? How do you handle sickness, injury, rampaging feelings? Which are more predominate, Christians and churches who ignore, chase, denigrate the grungy hopeless, or those who emulate their Lord by helping them? Are there Christians in dire need out there on the streets? What does it really mean to depend on the Lord for absolutely everything? Mike Yankoski knows the answers first hand.

Not a missionary, nor a theologian, although he keeps in the Word, he shares his experiences in absolute simplicity with gritty, deep truth, never shielding us from the smells, hurts, shocks, and fears. With ruthless honesty, Mike, and Sam through him, share their homeless victories, tragedies, and despair. He compares Pharisaical Christians and Christ-like followers. He presents the homeless people they met on the streets: drug addicts, drunkards, families, couples, dog-owners, Christians, pagans, old, young. We might think of them as scum. Mike and Sam learned to know them as people, fearing some, loving many, praying for them all. Under the Overpass provides many suggestions for working with these people.

Maybe God is calling you to do something that comfortable Christians consider unusual; Under the Overpass will encourage you immensely and help you set parameters for your adventure. Whether read individually, or for discussion in a group, middle school age through adults will gain through reading this book." - Donna Eggett, Christian Book Previews.com

The Lincoln Diner Principle

2005-07-02T09:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Emily and I traveled to Gettysburg, PA and watched the reenactment of the first day of the Gettysburg battle. We didn't know we'd be seeing the reenactment when we left our place yesterday morning. In fact, we thought we were going to be helping out a friend for most of the day (near Frederick, MD) and then we were just going to cruise up to Gettysburg and take in the sites.

As it turned out, we awoke at 6:30 in the morning only to find out that the plans had changed. Our friend no longer needed us to help her, but we were up and ready. So, we decided to head to Gettysburg earlier than later.

On the way, we decided to grab some breakfast. Emily was in the mood for some "pink-box" donuts - the kind you get from the Cambodian donut shops in Long Beach, CA (where we lived for 6 years). They're pink-box donuts b/c they come in a pink box :) - for those of you who were trying to make the connection. The problem is that Maryland doesn't have pink-box donuts! We drove all over the place trying to locate those tasty treats, without success.

As much as Em was in the mood for pink-box donuts, I was ready for some wholesome McDonald's breakfast :) ! The problem is that McDonald's shuts down their breakfast menu at 10:30. After spending a good bit of time driving through the streets of Frederick to find pink-box donuts, we decided to head to Gettysburg - of course Pennsylvanians would have pink box donuts (what were we thinking? :) )

Since we wanted to eat our pink-box donuts and clog-your-artery McD's together, I had yet to get my clog-your-arteries treat, and 10:30 was fast approaching. We approached Gettysburg on Highway 15 and took the Taneytown exit, which indicated that the nearest McD's was only 3 miles away. In other words, "keep hope alive!"

Well, the McDonald's could have been 30 miles away, because it took us about an hour to get to it. And, of course, we didn't find any pink-box donuts while driving down the streets of Gettysburg. By the time we got to McDonald's we were both starving, and Emily had decided that she would join me and give up the donut quest.

As we pulled up, our clocks ticked closer and closer to 10:30 (we pulled up around 10:29!). But we had made it! Or so we thought!

We waited in the drive-thru line for awhile and picked out our favorites (if you can have a favorite McD's food item). When we got to the window to order, it was about 10:32, and the lady at the window informed us that breakfast is no longer being served. We pleaded with her, telling her we had been in line at 10:30, but she wouldn't budge.

Now what?

This was one of those moments that can make or break a day, depending on how you react/respond to it. Would we get frustrated and let it get to us? Or, would we adjust and make the best out of the situation? From the perspective of task-oriented, efficient, time-conscious folks, this day was not going well. We got up way to early on a day off, drove all over Maryland in a fruitless attempt to rescue pink-box donuts, and missed breakfast by a nanosecond!

But all of that was only to lead us to discover/define the Lincoln Diner Principle.

Instead of getting miffed and dismissing the first 4 hours of our day as worthless, we decided we didn't want to eat a McD's lunch at 10:30, and we moved out of line and headed down the road, back into the heart of Gettysburg to find another option.

We ended up at an amazing breakfast joint called The Lincoln Diner. And we made it there about 5 minutes before they stopped serving breakfast! The hostess was a motherly sweetheart to us and treated us like we were her children (not quite McD's service). And the homemade, unbelievably tasty food cost just about the same as we would have spent at McD's. Moreover, Em and I had just a great time laughing, talking, and making some sense of our morning.

We talked about how grateful we were that we didn't get to eat at McD's. Look what we would have missed? Instead of eating greasy food in the car on the go, we were sitting at a comfy, local diner eating the best breakfast in town. Things didn't turn out the way we had planned. They turned out better/different than we had planned! Our part was to trust the process and make the best of our present place and time. We had to be willing to let go of our expectations and live fully in the moment. We decided to call this the Lincoln Diner Principle: letting go of expectations and living fully in our present place and time. That means letting go of resentment, anger, regret, disappointment, etc.

While our time yesterday wasn't monumental in terms of what we did, it was monumental in terms of learning/beginning to learn a principle that can have a profound impact on the way we live our lives.

Imagine what our lives would be like if we lived fully in our present place and time. How often do we miss out on life now because we are focused on how life then didn't work out the way we wanted?

Our time in Gettysburg ended with us watching a reenactment of one of the bloodiest days in Civil War - a sobering, incredible experience, especially for a couple of people who grew up on the West Coast and only dreamed of actually seeing Gettysburg.

Driving home, we listened to great music and took in the sunset-illuminated scenery with awe.

God, you sure are amazing!

Guarding Love

2005-06-30T06:38:00.000-04:00

Emily and I are reading through a book called A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. Last night, the following passage struck a chord:

"Why does love need to be guarded? Against what enemies? We looked about us and saw the world as having become a hostile and threatening place where standards of decency and courtesty were perishing and war loomed gigantic. A world where love did not endure. The smile of being in love seemed to promise for ever, but friends who had been in love last year were parting this year. The divorce rate was in the news. Where were any older people in love? It must be that, whatever its promise, love does not by itself endure. But why? What was the failure behind the failure of love?

On a day in early spring we thought we saw the answer. The killer of love is creeping separateness. Being in love is a gift of the gods, but then it is up to the lovers to cherish or to ruin. Taking love for granted, especially after marriage. Ceasing to do things together. Finding separate interests. 'We' turning into 'I'. Self. Self-regard: what I want to do. Actual selfishness only a hop away. This was the way of creeping separateness. And in the modern world, especially in the cities, everything favoured it. The man going off to his office; the woman staying home with the children - her children - or perhaps having a different job. The failure of love might seem to be caused by hate or boredom or unfaithfulness with a lover; but those were results. First came the creeping separateness: the failure behind the failure" (36-37).

I'm not sure we can do anything better than to love our wives, to demonstrate the sacrificial, complete love of Christ to a world that knows little about such love. More on this idea later...

Sunbeams for July...

2005-06-29T10:01:00.000-04:00

My father-in-law gave me a subscription to The Sun this past Christmas and I have been loving it! One of my favorite sections of this literary magazine is a section of thematic quotes called "Sunbeams". Here are a few of my favorites:

"Fame is vapor, popularity an accident; riches take wings. Only one thing endures, and that is character." Horace Greely

"Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other." Erma Bombeck

"It's like, at the end, there's this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me? I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth what I paid?" Richard Bach

"Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Sometimes snakes can't slough. They can't burst their old skin. Then they go sick and die inside the old skin, and nobody ever sees the new pattern. It needs a real desperate recklessness to burst your old skin at last. You simply don't care what happens to you, if you rip yourself in two, so long as you do get out." D.H. Lawrence (Check out http://blog.theaterchurch.com/2005/06/dead-skin.html for Pastor Mark Batterson's comments on this quote).

"No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our lives are made. Destiny is made known silently." Agnes de Mille

"If you cannot be a poet, be the poem." David Carradine

Shake off the Haters

2005-06-28T08:49:00.000-04:00

I used to teach high school English in inner-city Long Beach, California. While there, my students taught me some of their colloquialisms, but one of them sticks out.

My sophomore class had been invited by our District Representative to participate in a Lord of the Rings project. All my students had to do was read the free LOTR book they had been given and then write a paper about their purpose in life. The reward? They would be the first people in the area to see the world premier of the second film The Two Towers. My students were struggling readers, so we used class time to read the text and work on the paper. One day, as students were brainstorming ideas about their purpose in life, Timothy (one of the craziest, funniest kids I've ever met), asked us if we wanted to know the purpose of his life. Well, we knew we were in for it, and we sat back to take it in.

"First," he told us, "I want to be the President of the United States... (pause) so I can turn the White House into the Black House! (fits of laughter :-))." After the laughter subdued, Timothy said, "Nah, that's not really what I want to do. I think my purpose in life is really to shake off the haters! (fits of laughter again). You know, a lot of people be hatin' 'round here. Maybe not for you, Mr. Jones, but people be straight hatin' on the West Side (more laughter)." My students knew I lived in the same neighborhood as they, and enjoyed playfully jesting that I was only using the address and really lived in posh Orange County where I belonged. Perhaps they also really thought that I was immune to the "haters" they faced every day.

In the world of counseling, there is a therapeutic technique called psychodrama, in which "an extemporized dramatization is designed to afford catharsis and social relearning for one or more of the participants from whose life history the plot is abstracted." Basically, if you were part of a psychodrama, you would be asked to play a role from your past or someone else's as a means of dealing with the pain of past. Or, in Timothy's vernacular, you might play the part of a "hater". These sessions are intense and reality and roles can be blurred.

In an effort to "unblur" and clarify, participants go through a physical process at the end of the psychodrama where they stand, and literally wipe off the role that they were playing, saying things like "I am no longer (fill in the blank). I am me." And so on. It's a relatively quick, but extremely important step, so that people don't keep you in a role and so you don't stay in a role. In essence, you're coming back to reality. You are cleansing yourself of the role. You are wiping away the past. You are shaking off the haters.

What happens when the haters from our past still feel real? When they feel attached to our very being? When a smell, a thought, a noise, or a feeling sends us back in time to relive the experience as if it happened only minutes before?

In a sense, Timothy had it right. We need to shake off the haters in our lives - those people who have wounded us, violated us, abused us, condemned us, etc. But how do we do it?

Recently, in a counseling session, I was coming to face to face with one of my "haters" and it felt terrible. My therapist recommended that I "shake off the hater" (not the phrase my therapist used:-)) by physically wiping/brushing off the person's attempts to invade my space, violate me, etc., and vocalizing my identity, my individuality, my stance.

And so I did. I stood in our living room and while shaking off the haters, vocalized reality - the reality of who I am, my rights as a person, my convictions, my boundaries, my identity, my self. I also think of Jesus standing with me, applying healing balm to the wounds that come from living with other people who sin, too. I visualize his presence and listen for his voice to tell me who I am and what is real. Selah.

Perfection and Writing

2005-06-28T08:11:00.000-04:00

Emily recently received a book titled Being Perfect by Anna Quindlen. It's a great, short read that we can all relate to. At one point, she talks about the concept of lockstep :

"What perfection requires is a kind of lockstep. Look at that word; imagine it in your mind's eye, the forced march of the fearful, the physical opposite of the skip and the jump. Doesn't it sound like something to avoid at all costs?

Lockstep is easier, but there's another reason why you cannot succumb to it. Because nothing great or even good ever came of it. Sometimes I meet young writers, and I like to share with them the overwhelming feeling I have about our work, the feeling that every story has already been told. Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason ever to write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time ever has. That is her own personality, her own voice. If she is doing Fitzgerald imitations, she can stay home. If she is giving readers what she thinks they want instead of what she is, she should stop typing.

But if her books reflet her character, the authentic shape of her life and her mind, then she may well be giving readers a new and wonderful gift. Giving it to herself, too."

I love that last paragraph! It frees us to write, to teach, to counsel, to doctor, to live! We have something to give to the world that only we can give. What a marvelous, liberating, invigorating thought. And I think we truly know who we are as we focus not on ourselves, but on the One who made us. Through the process of knowing Him - concentrating on, serving, worshipping Him - we find out who we are. Now, if we will do it! Set the world on fire!

Roots

2005-06-27T07:32:00.000-04:00

Back in Idaho, we have a certain type of tree that acts more like a weed than the deciduous organism it is. The tree comes up looking like any other tree, but then it grows at an accelerated rate and invites its friends. Soon, you have 20 trees where you only wanted one. So, you decide to chop it down. "Ha!" the tree says. "You can chop me down, but I'll be back." And so it does come back, with even more friends! My mom actually liked (note the past tense :-)) these trees until they took over her yard. At the point of relocating the house so they could make room for more trees, Mom had enough. So, she got busy cutting trees. But she had learned that just cutting the tree wouldn't make it go away. Instead, she had to go down into the earth, to the root structure, and dig and cut and completely remove the root system. Once she removed the roots, the tree problem stopped.

I think of this in terms of my life. Yesterday was not what I would call a day I'd want to repeat. I spent the entire day thinking about/stressing about and wishing away unwanted "trees" in my life. By the end of the day, all I could see were trees and I had grown despondent, depressed, and even angry. The trees seemed overwhelming, even though I have been tirelessly hacking away at them. But they just haven't gone away and there seem to be even more trees now than there were when I started getting rid of them!

What a terrible place to be - hacking away at problems and seeing little or no results. Spending energy on "bettering" our lives and ending up worse. I mean, what's the point of that? I consider myself an optimistic person, but even the most optimistic personality glimpses reality when reality has emerged as a very dark cloud.

How much time do we spend on our problems? How much energy? How much of our passion is drained because we are cutting down trees that inevitably come back? Shouldn't we just give up, let the trees take the house? What's the alternative?

The alternative is dealing with the real problem.

If you had asked me at 5 PM yesterday what my problem was, I would have given you a huge list. I had gone "global" as a friend of mine used to say, and nothing in life seemed to be going right anymore - my work situation, my marriage, my relationships w/ friends, my car getting bombed by berry-eating birds (you get the picture :-)).

But then something extraordinary happened! I had an amazing, yes amazing, conversation with my wife. We talked about all of the problems and how we could fix them, but something still didn't feel right. So, we came up with some different angles on the problems, some different solutions. Still, it didn't feel right.

Then, almost as if we were sharing a brain, it dawned on us that we hadn't gone to the root system. In fact, I had been so busy hacking away at the problems that I forgot that they are, in fact, stemming from some other system. I had lost focus. My life has become a spiritual vacuum. Sure, I have enough Scripture memorized and my theology is right after years of walking close to God and countless hours of sacrificial studying at Bible College. So, I can look good and even fool myself. But, if I treated my physical body the way I've been treating my spiritual self, I would be emaciated and hanging out in the ICU!

At the root of the problem is the fact that I am spiritually malnourished. As a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual being, it makes sense that other parts of my life are starting to suffer because I am starving a big piece of who I am. And that leads to problems, big problems. In fact, of all the areas we need to nourish, our spiritual lives are most important. When it is all said and done, the physical part of us will dissipate. We are spiritual beings. We will have big-time problems in the rest of our lives if we are not spiritually healthy. Yet, how often do we talk of spiritual health? Why is it one of those woo-woo areas for Christians? We certainly take note and come to the rescue when we see someone physically disabled/dysfunctional, but do we maintain the same (or greater) level of care when someone has gone into a spiritual funk?

I think that we don't. Why? Because we are not self-aware of our own spiritual health. There are those few people we know who have connected with their spiritual selves. They have gone ahead of us and they can show the way. They invite us into conversations about spirituality, about the mystical aspects of the faith. They invite us deep into our hearts, and suddenly the world begins to make a lot more sense. Problems lose their power as we gain spiritual perspective.

I want to be that person. But, you can't fake spirituality, not authentic spirituality, which I define as seeing ourselves/the world/others as God sees us/them. It comes in the school of prayer. It comes at the table where we consume the Word. It comes in the closet of silence and solitude. It comes in the bonds of brothers and sisters who have fellowshipped with Jesus. It comes through our mystical connection with Jesus, a connection that affects every area of our lives. And through that connection, we work with him to excise the roots of problems as he guides our hands and gives us strength.

"Bittersweet" Examined

2005-06-23T09:40:00.000-04:00

In case you were wondering about the title of this page, I'll do some backmapping for you.

The idea of "Bittersweet" came out of this prayer time on April 19: "Father, I so desperately need your help. I need courage to face the fear of the unknown. I am not in control, nor can I ever be. I cannot secure the good times. I neither deserve them nor anything else. The good and the bad are relative. Help me to accept that this life is simply bittersweet."

This prayer was birthed out of a really tough day of counseling. Here is what I wrote in my journal at Caribou Coffee:

"Dr. B and I talked about my reluctance to succeed and be happy, even my subtle efforts to sabotage good things in life. We talked it through, and I see how at the heart of such behavior is an effort to control life and protect myself from pain, disappointment, failure, etc. If I am happy or things go well, I honestly get scared of how hard the fall will be when the good times are over. So, I try to prescribe my own times of pain, failures, etc. and limit the good things so that I won't hurt when something bad happens. Dr. B. talked about how God is very aware of the pain/suffering in life. He is not surprised, so why should we be surprised when sorrow mixes with joy? That is how this world functions. Utopia does not exist here. We need not fear bad times - they are coming. Jesus even promised they would come. And He also promised that our joy can be full through Him. Nor do we need ot fear when we succeed. We do not deserve, or not (not) deserve those times. In fact, they often have little to do with us. Dr. B. mentioned the man in the New Testament who was crippled from birth. When the Pharisees asked who had sinned - the man or his parents? - Jesus responded that neither had sinned. His condition had nothing to do with him. Thus, when good times come, we should enjoy them and be thankful. When sorrow comes, we must find joy even as we embrace the sorrow. Call it joy, or call it Jesus, but it is the center we must seek in the midst of all our lives, in the midst of our bittersweet lives."

And then it happened - an epiphany! I was writing all of this when a veil lifted and I envisioned the following: "I will write a book by this title (Bittersweet). The journey of a reluctant warrior who loses his way for a season because he can't accept/deal with life as he sees it. A story we can all relate to in some way. I'm in the middle of a chapter, now. Readers are waiting to see if the protagonist will blindly continue to fall in the same traps or find his way out. They can see the whole terrain from their vantage point. Yet, as dramatic irony goes, they cannot interrupt the characters or even influence decisions. They must be content to continue reading. They are enraptured because his end may be their own. They rejoice when he moves forward and they weep when he cowers stupidly from mere shadows of evils."

That's the beginning, or the middle, or the end. Anyway, it is a start on something I have wanted to do for a long time - write a book.

More thoughts:

If we do not accept life as bittersweet, and if we do not look to Jesus for meaning, we will undoubtedly become dysfunctional. By design, we need Jesus to function in this world. He is to our spiritual lives what oxygen is to our physical lives. When we see the world as it is - a mixture of good and evil - we have to make a decision. Will we choose to truly live in this world? Or, will we try to escape and write our own reality? It is in attempting to redefine reality that we become dysfunctional. The protagonist in my story is unwilling to accept the reality of his world. Perhaps he was willing to accept the reality at one point, but was unable to deal with reality on his own. Thus, he came up with ways to deal, to cope. In a sense, he began to medicate himself to deal with life. In doing so, he strays from the center, from reality, and loses his way. But only temporarily! This story has a redemptive thread running through it. A sliver of light that reveals hope is still in reach!

So that's it - bittersweet!

Crunching Numbers

2005-06-22T16:06:00.000-04:00

I've spent a good part of today working on finances - filling out expense reports, paying bills, budgeting, etc. To be honest, I put off doing this kind of stuff like I put off going to the dentist (by the way, it's been over five years since I last saw a tooth expert!). Yet, like many things I dread doing, once I got started on the pile of paperwork, it wasn't so bad. I'm always surprised by how much I end up enjoying working with numbers/figures. While working, I even started thinking about people who do such work full-time and I think I can understand their mindset, even if I don't want to follow their career paths :)!

I think it's important to be holistic, breaking free from categories and labels. I'm not discounting individuality, but how many of us actually need to spend more time being individualistic?! Instead, we have a lot to learn from each other and from the host of experiences available to us. What am I avoiding that may help complete me? Who am I avoiding or discounting? How many opportunities and relationships do I miss out on because I have created a comfortable, predictable box in which to operate/live? What are some practical points of action that have remained points of inaction? Who are some people that I could invest in and learn from, even if it means giving up some of my own "individuality"? Asking and answering these questions can help us be intentional about expanding our box :)!

Mortality

2005-06-22T07:01:00.000-04:00

Not often do I think about my own mortality, but this morning I awoke to a stinging sore throat. Not exactly a death sentence, but when I thought about praying away the sore throat, I wondered, "Does God even care about something as small as my sore throat? I mean, people are dying. Wait a minute! What if I've got avian flu? What if I'm dying? What if I don't awake tomorrow?" That was my thought progression, and suddenly I began to doubt my immortality. It's such an unnatural thought - to think of dying. I think it's an unnatural thought because we weren't designed to die. We were designed to be immortal.

Yes, I actually believe that I am immortal - in the sense that this body is going to stop working at some point, but my soul, me, the real me, is indestructible and will live on. I might be indestructible in the presence of God or away from His presence, but I will live on. Even if I get avian flu, I'm not going to cease being. I will simply cease being in this body. I will certainly be somewhere. I think it is the idea of annihilation that we sometimes confuse with physical death. Annihilation is unnatural and unreal. We don't see it in the physical world, and Scripturally you can't make a good case for it in the spiritual world. We continue. We are immortal. The question is where we will spend our time once these bodies cease to hold our souls - immortalized in God's presence or away from Him?

First Thoughts...

2005-06-21T19:43:00.000-04:00

I've finally joined the blog scene! Feels good to be broadcasting thoughts that otherwise stay in a journal or in a computer file.

Today, I've been thinking about the idea of obedience. Here's something a bit entertaining: imagine if I just did the right thing! I'm not talking about a life of perfection. I'm just talking about living according to God's set of instructions, as revealed in the Old and New Testaments. All I really need, I have. Why not act? What would it take? Simple Faith.

I usually don't do what God instructs because I don't trust that He has my best interests in mind. I don't trust the sometimes messy, painful, unclear, confusing process of obedience. Fear, doubt, impatience, expectations, etc. pose as obstacles to simple faith. In our times, one is even considered "foolish" for such faith :-). Simple-minded. However, the mind connected to the mind of Christ is the most liberated, open, complex mind of all. It is a mind enlarged. A mind connected. It is a mind that is centered, at home. A mind able to accurately understand our times.

It is time to entrust my life, more of my life, to God, to the process. That trust is revealed as authentic through action, through active obedience.

While I know that addictions are not simply moral issues (obedience issues), the process of recovery does require active obedience, active trust. I have done a lot of work to uncover the roots of my own addiction. I am now at a place of faith. Time now to step out in faith. Step - active obedience. Obedience - the positive pursuit of that which is good and healthy (spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically), not the absence of sin/evil. Obedience is a good thing, a powerfully positive force of change. It is the life of Christ. It is all that is love and loving. Not the mere action, but motivation working with action.