Thursday, June 14, 2012
A Beautiful Life... Well Lived...
I hear people say “life is short” all the time… Short? Really? Life isn’t short… in fact it’s the longest thing we’ll ever do. I know that might sound silly, but stop and think about it. We’ll live a while, think we are smart and then fall on our face time and time again, but a lot of times we end up getting it right, even if we don’t feel like it.
When I was growing up, I had a grandiose idea about how things worked in the adult world and I just knew I had it all figured out when I was 5 years old. I knew daddies worked, and momma’s stayed home and kids played until the yard light came on down by the barn and Santa was real and he always seemed to know he had to show up at our house on the 24th, but we never saw him because strangely enough, we were always at the store with my dad buying cigarettes when he arrived.
I grew older and things became a lot clearer through the years. Not a whole lot changed but I will always remember the Easter Sunday we woke my mom early, all excited about the Easter bunny showing up. Dad was working in Nebraska and she was still in bed. I don’t think she was happy about waking early and she wasn’t in the mood for the official hiding of the eggs so she opened the drawer on the nightstand next to her and threw a bag of candy out on the bed and began to spill the beans about Santa and the fabled bunny… I was crushed to say the least. I freaking lived for the Easter Bunny man… I sat there and took it all in and I knew she was right somehow, but what a blow to a kid, you know? I tried to keep it hid that I was sad, but the water in my eyes was all the evidence my sister needed to chide me for the next 12 years.
My little mind had romanticized the whole Easter Idea and I had looked so forward to it, but it was such a letdown that year. I guess I eventually grew out of it, but I still remember being angry that life had suddenly become more complicated now and it probably would have been easier to swallow if I had received the news more gently, but the fairy tale had died, right there on a queen size blanket with a bag of individually wrapped candy, like a pet dog that had been run over in traffic. No remorse, no sympathy, nothing…
With each passing day now, my life is slowly ending and sometimes it keeps me up at nights. I mean, here I am, in my early 40’s, I know how to invest money, I can rebuild an engine on a car or the inner workings of any faucet set in the house and I am keenly aware of when to plant okra, but I gotta tell you, the more I learn about life, the less I have figured out. This whole Easter bunny and Santa Clause business is confusing enough to anyone just starting out honestly, but if you throw in a 401K, the concept of throwing the perfect curveball or the ever changing fall television line up, then all of a sudden, you have a life that is a struggle to figure out.
I have found so far that not many things in this life actually do make sense, but I think a life beautifully lived is like a fine work of art. It might look messy and lack detail at first, but when the artist adds each brush stroke, the good parts start to look even better. The artists have to go back and erase some of the bad stuff sometimes, so it’s best not to sweat the problems in your life… they will eventually work themselves out for the best anyway. Wisdom seems to come after we experience failure, heartaches are often the best roadmaps to triumphs and you have to shed a few tears before you can really smile. Yeah there’s guru’s out there who can give you steps to take and draw up the perfect guide lines for living a quality existence, but I think it’s easier than all of that…. I have found that if we Obey God, love our families, and laugh… a lot, then we’ll probably end up writing a pretty great story that our children’s children can tell and retell for years and years to come.
I guess I have to admit that I no longer have things figured out like I did when I was 5. I mean this life is definitely confusing to say the least. Maybe my grandmother was right when she said that Melba toast and hot tea were the miracle drug for anything…. Okay, so she never said that, but if I ever get the opportunity to go on record? It’s something that will probably sound really cool to say when I’m old… ; )
Saturday, January 7, 2012
There are no atheists in the Texas Oil Fields
If you know me or have known me for very long at all you know that I live an odd life that is different than many of the people I know and admire. Sometimes my friends who know me best have suggested I write a book of some sort to tell my stories because frankly the craziness of the life I live does capture people’s attention. It’s interesting when I sit and tell my stories to someone who’s never heard them to watch their face contort in pain and I often imagine they are saddened by the foolishness of my decisions or maybe the hurt I’ve endured because of the choices I’ve made.
My writings are not some nutty narcissistic plea for attention, yet on the contrary they are my humble offering to relate to hurting folks who have made some of the foolish mistakes I have made myself and to offer some sense of a life that is hard and painful to many who’s cheese seems to have fallen off their cracker before it’s time. Since the time I got saved on July 24th 1988, to this day I have been on this insane walk of life that looks similarly like a reverse journey of sorts. I left a life of success and propriety to my current situation of what some would and honestly could describe as obscene madness at times. I’ve lost everything I ever owned, looked for life and hope in every type of dead end situation from money to the love of another and I wallowed in a muddy hole of undeserved shame and pain till it nearly brought me to the edge of madness. I’ve finally arrived at a place of understanding the calling I felt from my earliest days of my life is not the walk of a wealthy righteous standing man who is above reproach and of stainless integrity who attends a conservative church and wears dark grey suits with a comb over and a Jesus loves me pin for my lapel, but that of a Ragamuffin, a rough and tumble man scarred and bruised from a life of trying to fit his squarely called self into the round mold the rest of the world says a minister has to look like.
When you get into the meat of the message of the gospels, you learn Jesus was not a man who was from well known, rich people. He wasn’t a handsome man or someone we would have been attracted to because of how he looked, he was a guy who was raised among what the rest of the world would label “trash” and because of such he never had the dream or aspiration to minster to others from a level of accomplishment or pity. Which I find is exactly opposite of how most of the church looks when they appeal to help those “less fortunate” in the world. To him, the people who were hurting on the street were just people. People just like the folks he worked with everyday as a carpenter with his calloused hands and dirty apron. They hurt, they were sad, they were lonely, they were addicted, they made poor choices, they were ignoble slobs of the world whose entire presence caused the affluent to want to wipe their feet and walk away.
We all know people who espouse Christianity and sit on pews during Sunday service only to walk out and not give it another thought for 7 days. These same people are as intelligent about their Christian beliefs as anyone. It’s not a matter of ignorance for them as they know and understand what they say they believe. I have as much or more head knowledge than most of the folks I meet about what I believe or claim to believe. I studied in seminary for several years have tons of education and have read tons of books memorized verses of scripture and I often times think to myself… “to what end is all this madness”? Am I going to meet someone someday whose sole purpose in this life is the need to listen to some of my wisdom?
I don’t think so skippy…
Recently, unless you live in a hole, you have heard me squealing like a pig under a gate about my newest position. I have taken the job of a roughneck in the oilfield in Oklahoma/Texas area so I can provide for my family and everyday becomes an experience I can write some of my most fascinating stories about. I get ridiculous dirty every day. Everything where I work is covered with mud, diesel or oil base chemicals and my clothes get destroyed just from walking around on the site. I use my hands and strain muscles I didn’t know I had. We work in a place without pomp and circumstance. We don’t have music, photos on the wall or flowers that enhance the overall quality of our work place or give some extra sense of appreciation for being there. The work we do has lots of machinery and is very dangerous and at any given time something could break loose and fall or catch fire. A drilling rig is a working structure that is a cross between a building and a machine. Every part of this thing is made for a specific purpose and just looking at it conjures up images of the Millenium Falcon and Han Solo describing the speed at which she travels versus the beauty of its design. We drill a long deep hole in the earth for one single purpose, the discovery of oil/gas for the necessary means of production. Our company is contracted to an oil/gas exploration company who funds the operation and pays handsomely for us to reach the vital resources we use to power our cars and heat our homes.
In the oil field, as in other industries I am sure, the “F” word is used as a means of communication to form verbs, or nouns or prepositional phrases. If a tool is not working properly, the correct response is to assume the tool’s mother was not a properly married woman and address it accordingly. The speech is rough, the days are long and work is very dirty. The men I work with daily are hearty, and hardworking. Most of them it seems have no form of higher education than high school and are not concerned with impressing anyone with any accreditations they may have earned in their past. They are honest and do not profess to be anything other than willing to do something for a living most wouldn’t even consider. These are men who are made of muscle and bone and respond to adversity and emergency situations with a great haste. They are deliberate men who act quickly and responsively with purpose. There are no committees to draw up and think about things before a decision to act is made, they see a need? They fill that need. No one has a single job title that only that one guy can do for the most part. If there is something menial that needs to be done, everyone is willing to do it and usually responds without the thought of whose in charge and whether it’s “my job” to do it or not. I am amazed at the amount of respect they earn among the ranks and the way they respond to each other with kindness that you would see given by a worker at a day care. The driller’s family will call and I have seen him shift from hard nose boss to complete smiling kind father as his daughter has his ear on the cell phone. Everything I have ever been told about this line of work is wrong and deserving of my complete respect. These men all have wives and families and the discussion of perverted subjects of any nature or marital unfaithfulness are never brought up. The topics they love are how their children are fairing, and how their “old lady” got up at three to prepare a meal for them and sent extra to share with the others. I have never worked on a job where the workload was shared so equally and the comradery ran so deep. I was pondering this sort of thing as I walked about one day emptying trash. I was bemoaning my very existence and complaining to God fully about having to pick up someone else’s stinking trash and how only 12 months prior I working in a position where I had been placed in charge of a 50 million dollar project as the boss and today I am in charge of a 15 dollar trash can. The lack of esteem in what I was doing was overwhelming and I began to think to myself how when I was the boss in charge of the project, the workload of 95 other men was my responsibility to keep up with but today for the same actual pay and less time, I was responsible for whether a Sprite can fell out on the ground as I was dumping trash in a trailer. I was worried about a great and many meaningless things, and not necessarily the importance of what I was doing. I think it was on that day that God began to show me the basic character of my heart. He showed me how I was pissing and moaning about comfort and he was more worried about the condition of my heart towards others as opposed to my comfort and the emotional state of affairs about how much pain was coming from my feet due to my body weight because I have a total lack of self control when cream filled donuts were present. He wants me to see that no matter what he is in charge, he can provide when I use a pen OR a shovel but even more than that? I was missing the most important fact of why I was here. God wanted me to see that the men I was working with were exactly the kind of men he called from the fishing fleet to start his ministry and turned the world on its ear some two thousand years ago…
In the eyes of some of these guys I can see Simon Peter or James and John, the Son’s of Thunder… fiercely loyal and brash but quick to act and capable of leadership. Loyal men, sun hardened and strong, with character and quality and have integrity and take pride in the job they do everyday and are quick to fight to the death about what they believe. I found myself sick to my stomach at how many of my Christian friends came to me quietly telling me how they felt God had called me minister to my co-workers when they found I was taking this job. Oddly enough it has become quite clear that my mission is not to be the guy who is sent to convert anyone, but to be the guy who is converted by them. I have cried out for some sort of change in my position and I hate the physical challenge this job presents for a man of my age with the physical ailments with which I have been stricken. Others have vowed to pray for a new line of work for me and I would now laugh and tell them thank you for their kindness but not to waste their breath as God has a purpose for all of this madness and I finally know the purpose for my new found direction.
My higher learning is definitely “on the job training” these days and the wisdom I am obtaining is not to be found in a book or some seminary school. God desires change in our way of thinking and longs for people who will act and live out what they believe. He is looking for folks who are real and have nothing to hide. Who understand that his desire for them is not to worry about how things look but to be results oriented in their need to accomplish things for the kingdom. I have been weighing out MY thinking about people and how belonging to a certain church, wearing certain clothing or belonging to the correct social standing groups is such a waste of time. I know we all agree with these thoughts cranially but are we really willing to put them into practice. I am asking myself hard questions about what I believe about who I am. I have been one who makes fun of the way people dress when they shop at Wal-Mart, the less affluent and the frustrated folks who are shifting the weight of the bags of this life from hand to hand. Among those who are affluent and Godly? I am the very least.
I have had to take a very hard look at who I am lately and I have to say that the character of who I am is found lacking. I am knowledgeable but there is so much that needs to be found in me to become the man God has called me to be. People are hurting in our world. I don’t ever really recall thinking of myself as better than anyone or knowing my education had place me in a role of being better than anyone, but apparently the God of heaven and earth has decided I need to see how he took a band of men with calloused hands and big hearts and changed the world as opposed to men of higher learning and degrees. You see for all my big talk and my posts on Facebook and my grandiose thinking about who I am, I have found myself to be still be at the center of my world and for about 85 % of my day the thoughts in my brain are centered around the comfort of my stomach and when I can sit down next. I have longed to be the man I believe myself to be in my head but when I am real and honest I am no where near that zip code. God can take a few fishermen and a collector for the IRS and bring about healing to people who had no clue they needed it.
What I have written is a real story about my everyday life and how God is using my circumstances to mold my heart. I pray you see this is not a hobby of mine for the purpose of your entertainment nor do I need others approval to feel secure about myself. I am very transparent about my life in an attempt to present the gospel of Christ without preaching from the pulpit about things in which most can’t relate. My fingers ache from the use of a shovel from this past week as I type this out this morning and I pray you find the real purpose in the message the way I have in that God’s heart is to heal broken and hurting people and he can use common hard working vessels to accomplish his purpose without fancy clothes and religious ceremonies..
My writings are not some nutty narcissistic plea for attention, yet on the contrary they are my humble offering to relate to hurting folks who have made some of the foolish mistakes I have made myself and to offer some sense of a life that is hard and painful to many who’s cheese seems to have fallen off their cracker before it’s time. Since the time I got saved on July 24th 1988, to this day I have been on this insane walk of life that looks similarly like a reverse journey of sorts. I left a life of success and propriety to my current situation of what some would and honestly could describe as obscene madness at times. I’ve lost everything I ever owned, looked for life and hope in every type of dead end situation from money to the love of another and I wallowed in a muddy hole of undeserved shame and pain till it nearly brought me to the edge of madness. I’ve finally arrived at a place of understanding the calling I felt from my earliest days of my life is not the walk of a wealthy righteous standing man who is above reproach and of stainless integrity who attends a conservative church and wears dark grey suits with a comb over and a Jesus loves me pin for my lapel, but that of a Ragamuffin, a rough and tumble man scarred and bruised from a life of trying to fit his squarely called self into the round mold the rest of the world says a minister has to look like.
When you get into the meat of the message of the gospels, you learn Jesus was not a man who was from well known, rich people. He wasn’t a handsome man or someone we would have been attracted to because of how he looked, he was a guy who was raised among what the rest of the world would label “trash” and because of such he never had the dream or aspiration to minster to others from a level of accomplishment or pity. Which I find is exactly opposite of how most of the church looks when they appeal to help those “less fortunate” in the world. To him, the people who were hurting on the street were just people. People just like the folks he worked with everyday as a carpenter with his calloused hands and dirty apron. They hurt, they were sad, they were lonely, they were addicted, they made poor choices, they were ignoble slobs of the world whose entire presence caused the affluent to want to wipe their feet and walk away.
We all know people who espouse Christianity and sit on pews during Sunday service only to walk out and not give it another thought for 7 days. These same people are as intelligent about their Christian beliefs as anyone. It’s not a matter of ignorance for them as they know and understand what they say they believe. I have as much or more head knowledge than most of the folks I meet about what I believe or claim to believe. I studied in seminary for several years have tons of education and have read tons of books memorized verses of scripture and I often times think to myself… “to what end is all this madness”? Am I going to meet someone someday whose sole purpose in this life is the need to listen to some of my wisdom?
I don’t think so skippy…
Recently, unless you live in a hole, you have heard me squealing like a pig under a gate about my newest position. I have taken the job of a roughneck in the oilfield in Oklahoma/Texas area so I can provide for my family and everyday becomes an experience I can write some of my most fascinating stories about. I get ridiculous dirty every day. Everything where I work is covered with mud, diesel or oil base chemicals and my clothes get destroyed just from walking around on the site. I use my hands and strain muscles I didn’t know I had. We work in a place without pomp and circumstance. We don’t have music, photos on the wall or flowers that enhance the overall quality of our work place or give some extra sense of appreciation for being there. The work we do has lots of machinery and is very dangerous and at any given time something could break loose and fall or catch fire. A drilling rig is a working structure that is a cross between a building and a machine. Every part of this thing is made for a specific purpose and just looking at it conjures up images of the Millenium Falcon and Han Solo describing the speed at which she travels versus the beauty of its design. We drill a long deep hole in the earth for one single purpose, the discovery of oil/gas for the necessary means of production. Our company is contracted to an oil/gas exploration company who funds the operation and pays handsomely for us to reach the vital resources we use to power our cars and heat our homes.
In the oil field, as in other industries I am sure, the “F” word is used as a means of communication to form verbs, or nouns or prepositional phrases. If a tool is not working properly, the correct response is to assume the tool’s mother was not a properly married woman and address it accordingly. The speech is rough, the days are long and work is very dirty. The men I work with daily are hearty, and hardworking. Most of them it seems have no form of higher education than high school and are not concerned with impressing anyone with any accreditations they may have earned in their past. They are honest and do not profess to be anything other than willing to do something for a living most wouldn’t even consider. These are men who are made of muscle and bone and respond to adversity and emergency situations with a great haste. They are deliberate men who act quickly and responsively with purpose. There are no committees to draw up and think about things before a decision to act is made, they see a need? They fill that need. No one has a single job title that only that one guy can do for the most part. If there is something menial that needs to be done, everyone is willing to do it and usually responds without the thought of whose in charge and whether it’s “my job” to do it or not. I am amazed at the amount of respect they earn among the ranks and the way they respond to each other with kindness that you would see given by a worker at a day care. The driller’s family will call and I have seen him shift from hard nose boss to complete smiling kind father as his daughter has his ear on the cell phone. Everything I have ever been told about this line of work is wrong and deserving of my complete respect. These men all have wives and families and the discussion of perverted subjects of any nature or marital unfaithfulness are never brought up. The topics they love are how their children are fairing, and how their “old lady” got up at three to prepare a meal for them and sent extra to share with the others. I have never worked on a job where the workload was shared so equally and the comradery ran so deep. I was pondering this sort of thing as I walked about one day emptying trash. I was bemoaning my very existence and complaining to God fully about having to pick up someone else’s stinking trash and how only 12 months prior I working in a position where I had been placed in charge of a 50 million dollar project as the boss and today I am in charge of a 15 dollar trash can. The lack of esteem in what I was doing was overwhelming and I began to think to myself how when I was the boss in charge of the project, the workload of 95 other men was my responsibility to keep up with but today for the same actual pay and less time, I was responsible for whether a Sprite can fell out on the ground as I was dumping trash in a trailer. I was worried about a great and many meaningless things, and not necessarily the importance of what I was doing. I think it was on that day that God began to show me the basic character of my heart. He showed me how I was pissing and moaning about comfort and he was more worried about the condition of my heart towards others as opposed to my comfort and the emotional state of affairs about how much pain was coming from my feet due to my body weight because I have a total lack of self control when cream filled donuts were present. He wants me to see that no matter what he is in charge, he can provide when I use a pen OR a shovel but even more than that? I was missing the most important fact of why I was here. God wanted me to see that the men I was working with were exactly the kind of men he called from the fishing fleet to start his ministry and turned the world on its ear some two thousand years ago…
In the eyes of some of these guys I can see Simon Peter or James and John, the Son’s of Thunder… fiercely loyal and brash but quick to act and capable of leadership. Loyal men, sun hardened and strong, with character and quality and have integrity and take pride in the job they do everyday and are quick to fight to the death about what they believe. I found myself sick to my stomach at how many of my Christian friends came to me quietly telling me how they felt God had called me minister to my co-workers when they found I was taking this job. Oddly enough it has become quite clear that my mission is not to be the guy who is sent to convert anyone, but to be the guy who is converted by them. I have cried out for some sort of change in my position and I hate the physical challenge this job presents for a man of my age with the physical ailments with which I have been stricken. Others have vowed to pray for a new line of work for me and I would now laugh and tell them thank you for their kindness but not to waste their breath as God has a purpose for all of this madness and I finally know the purpose for my new found direction.
My higher learning is definitely “on the job training” these days and the wisdom I am obtaining is not to be found in a book or some seminary school. God desires change in our way of thinking and longs for people who will act and live out what they believe. He is looking for folks who are real and have nothing to hide. Who understand that his desire for them is not to worry about how things look but to be results oriented in their need to accomplish things for the kingdom. I have been weighing out MY thinking about people and how belonging to a certain church, wearing certain clothing or belonging to the correct social standing groups is such a waste of time. I know we all agree with these thoughts cranially but are we really willing to put them into practice. I am asking myself hard questions about what I believe about who I am. I have been one who makes fun of the way people dress when they shop at Wal-Mart, the less affluent and the frustrated folks who are shifting the weight of the bags of this life from hand to hand. Among those who are affluent and Godly? I am the very least.
I have had to take a very hard look at who I am lately and I have to say that the character of who I am is found lacking. I am knowledgeable but there is so much that needs to be found in me to become the man God has called me to be. People are hurting in our world. I don’t ever really recall thinking of myself as better than anyone or knowing my education had place me in a role of being better than anyone, but apparently the God of heaven and earth has decided I need to see how he took a band of men with calloused hands and big hearts and changed the world as opposed to men of higher learning and degrees. You see for all my big talk and my posts on Facebook and my grandiose thinking about who I am, I have found myself to be still be at the center of my world and for about 85 % of my day the thoughts in my brain are centered around the comfort of my stomach and when I can sit down next. I have longed to be the man I believe myself to be in my head but when I am real and honest I am no where near that zip code. God can take a few fishermen and a collector for the IRS and bring about healing to people who had no clue they needed it.
What I have written is a real story about my everyday life and how God is using my circumstances to mold my heart. I pray you see this is not a hobby of mine for the purpose of your entertainment nor do I need others approval to feel secure about myself. I am very transparent about my life in an attempt to present the gospel of Christ without preaching from the pulpit about things in which most can’t relate. My fingers ache from the use of a shovel from this past week as I type this out this morning and I pray you find the real purpose in the message the way I have in that God’s heart is to heal broken and hurting people and he can use common hard working vessels to accomplish his purpose without fancy clothes and religious ceremonies..
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
How Superman Got His MOJO Back...
Not long ago I wrote this in a post I was writing and I have thought about it quite a bit lately…
“I told a friend recently that I think the child I was would be kinda let down with the adult I have become. I promised myself I would have more fun than I do. I am serious and worry too much. I remember when I would look at my father and ask… wonder when it went away for dad?? I realized years later he never had the gift to be a dreamer; he was just trying to make a living”
That part about me letting myself down as a younger kid… I’ve thought about it a thousand times lately I swear… I heard the song “Billy the Kid” by Billy Dean recently and as I heard the words I was stopped dead in my tracks. There is a part of the song where he describes himself as a kid remembering when he was a boy wearing six-guns and holsters and riding his bike through the neighborhood. I was thrown into a crazy memory of who I was. I had six guns and a hat and a black bicycle from sears and I was the baddest dude in all the neighborhood. I feared NOTHING… I rode my bike on every surface, sometimes I rode, sometimes I fell and had fun and chased cats and was very ornery. I liked ME then. I liked knowing that I had fun at every turn and as I thought about it… I remembered WHO I was…
I know its ignorant sounding maybe, but I have spent the last 10 years in a place of being changed from the inside out. The guy I was has been thrown in a sack and wrestled to the ground so many times that I have bruises and cuts from head to toe. My circumstances have changed so many times and I have allowed them to define me by letting me find my identity in what everyone and everything said I was. I found myself in a bad place of letting every woman I was attracted to define me. I found my identity in my job title and I spent many of the last 10 years sad, and depressed and kicking against every wall and authority within reach of me. I tried to find identity in being married, trying to re marry and find approval from every woman I came into contact with. I wanted each one of them to speak to me and encourage me but I have finally realized as of late that its NEVER going to work like that… so? I started seeking help from professionals several years ago, and let me tell you… I met some real kooks but I finally met a woman Dr. who broke it all down for me at her office about 6 months ago. She told me I was looking for everything and everyone to fix me. Yeah I have problems that stem way back from both of my parents and honestly? Most of you know a lot of what I endured and I could bore you with the history of it all, but I am choosing to move past it because emotional maturity doesn’t come from pointing fingers at anyone. All I can tell you is I was looking to others for their approval and attention to give me value in my own life... The issue came up about my Facebook and me needing to see myself as someone of value and stop looking for anyone and everyone’s approval. I’ve walked away from it couple of other times, but honestly? I was so frustrated with not having that outside contact that I never got to the bottom of myself… But recently… I walked away and I began searching and praying to figure some things out about myself… I thought it was going to take years and lots of work to figure myself out. I started a job that took me away from the world of people and gave me the opportunity to see myself for who I am. I was taken out of the world of titles and given a role of working for people half my age and using muscles Id forgotten I had, so to say it was humbling? It was a huge understatement for me. I don’t for one second think I figured out anything in 7 days, but I will tell you that it was the final straw of a 10 year process of beating the stuffing out of me that caused me to have that pinnacle “light bulb moment”. On my 8 hour drive back home, I had plenty of time to think about me and my life and when I was an hour from home at mile marker 217… I pulled over and I wrote some stuff down… it hit me like a load of bricks while I was listening to the radio…
(not to sound like Kasey Kasem but…) The answer for me was just a song away… I heard the song about Billy the Kid and it hit me… that’s ME. I am that little kid. I am STILL that little kid… the problems with my circumstances are not who I am… the issues I am facing? They are not WHO I am… who I am is a great big guy with a tender heart, a love for fine things, yummy food, wine, great music and a passion to love everyone, and you know… there’s nothing wrong with that. I am still ornery, still fun and still all boy but yet, I like my tunes, I like my hair and my ability to dance in the aisle at the store and no one not even Sandra Bullock or Paula Deen could waltz into my life and change one thing about me… (Okay, if Paula started talking… I’d probably melt a bit...but…). I finally remembered WHO I was. I remembered I am the one who has made all the mistakes I’ve made, not other people. I am the one who has made the decisions to be where I am. I am the one who can make or break my own situation. If you honestly want to know what happened? I began to find that I just really like myself…a lot. I like who I am, and I’m okay with all of that. I would like to change some things but I want to change them to benefit me… not someone else. I never want to do another thing because someone else says I should…Yeah it was good for me to shut off my FB for a time, but you know?? I like to mess with my friends on my FB. I don’t want their approval…I just like having fun. I don’t care to have anyone’s approval… I KNOW WHO I AM... I know what makes me happy and it’s not a woman or someone else’s approval… it’s mine… I like me… I’m a really great guy. I guess you can say Superman got his Mojo back…
Now please understand me… If you are a private person? You wouldn’t have written this to share or post. You wouldn’t say anything and I respect that… but as of late? I’ve had several friends talking to me about this very issue. Good friends who are beautiful who worry about how they look, who they are and honestly? Who in the hell am I to help anyone, but if I am not open and If I am not transparent, who will be? If God has a calling on my life? Up until now I would say he’s called me to be a boogerhead. But if part of my calling is to share parts of my life so others can work out stuff for themselves as well? Then I’ll be as foolish as I have to be because like I said… I don’t give a damn if you like what I wrote… I’m the fool dancing to “Footloose” over in frozen foods, I just love people and if you needed to hear this today? Then for me it’s better than a hundred sermons I ever preached…
“I told a friend recently that I think the child I was would be kinda let down with the adult I have become. I promised myself I would have more fun than I do. I am serious and worry too much. I remember when I would look at my father and ask… wonder when it went away for dad?? I realized years later he never had the gift to be a dreamer; he was just trying to make a living”
That part about me letting myself down as a younger kid… I’ve thought about it a thousand times lately I swear… I heard the song “Billy the Kid” by Billy Dean recently and as I heard the words I was stopped dead in my tracks. There is a part of the song where he describes himself as a kid remembering when he was a boy wearing six-guns and holsters and riding his bike through the neighborhood. I was thrown into a crazy memory of who I was. I had six guns and a hat and a black bicycle from sears and I was the baddest dude in all the neighborhood. I feared NOTHING… I rode my bike on every surface, sometimes I rode, sometimes I fell and had fun and chased cats and was very ornery. I liked ME then. I liked knowing that I had fun at every turn and as I thought about it… I remembered WHO I was…
I know its ignorant sounding maybe, but I have spent the last 10 years in a place of being changed from the inside out. The guy I was has been thrown in a sack and wrestled to the ground so many times that I have bruises and cuts from head to toe. My circumstances have changed so many times and I have allowed them to define me by letting me find my identity in what everyone and everything said I was. I found myself in a bad place of letting every woman I was attracted to define me. I found my identity in my job title and I spent many of the last 10 years sad, and depressed and kicking against every wall and authority within reach of me. I tried to find identity in being married, trying to re marry and find approval from every woman I came into contact with. I wanted each one of them to speak to me and encourage me but I have finally realized as of late that its NEVER going to work like that… so? I started seeking help from professionals several years ago, and let me tell you… I met some real kooks but I finally met a woman Dr. who broke it all down for me at her office about 6 months ago. She told me I was looking for everything and everyone to fix me. Yeah I have problems that stem way back from both of my parents and honestly? Most of you know a lot of what I endured and I could bore you with the history of it all, but I am choosing to move past it because emotional maturity doesn’t come from pointing fingers at anyone. All I can tell you is I was looking to others for their approval and attention to give me value in my own life... The issue came up about my Facebook and me needing to see myself as someone of value and stop looking for anyone and everyone’s approval. I’ve walked away from it couple of other times, but honestly? I was so frustrated with not having that outside contact that I never got to the bottom of myself… But recently… I walked away and I began searching and praying to figure some things out about myself… I thought it was going to take years and lots of work to figure myself out. I started a job that took me away from the world of people and gave me the opportunity to see myself for who I am. I was taken out of the world of titles and given a role of working for people half my age and using muscles Id forgotten I had, so to say it was humbling? It was a huge understatement for me. I don’t for one second think I figured out anything in 7 days, but I will tell you that it was the final straw of a 10 year process of beating the stuffing out of me that caused me to have that pinnacle “light bulb moment”. On my 8 hour drive back home, I had plenty of time to think about me and my life and when I was an hour from home at mile marker 217… I pulled over and I wrote some stuff down… it hit me like a load of bricks while I was listening to the radio…
(not to sound like Kasey Kasem but…) The answer for me was just a song away… I heard the song about Billy the Kid and it hit me… that’s ME. I am that little kid. I am STILL that little kid… the problems with my circumstances are not who I am… the issues I am facing? They are not WHO I am… who I am is a great big guy with a tender heart, a love for fine things, yummy food, wine, great music and a passion to love everyone, and you know… there’s nothing wrong with that. I am still ornery, still fun and still all boy but yet, I like my tunes, I like my hair and my ability to dance in the aisle at the store and no one not even Sandra Bullock or Paula Deen could waltz into my life and change one thing about me… (Okay, if Paula started talking… I’d probably melt a bit...but…). I finally remembered WHO I was. I remembered I am the one who has made all the mistakes I’ve made, not other people. I am the one who has made the decisions to be where I am. I am the one who can make or break my own situation. If you honestly want to know what happened? I began to find that I just really like myself…a lot. I like who I am, and I’m okay with all of that. I would like to change some things but I want to change them to benefit me… not someone else. I never want to do another thing because someone else says I should…Yeah it was good for me to shut off my FB for a time, but you know?? I like to mess with my friends on my FB. I don’t want their approval…I just like having fun. I don’t care to have anyone’s approval… I KNOW WHO I AM... I know what makes me happy and it’s not a woman or someone else’s approval… it’s mine… I like me… I’m a really great guy. I guess you can say Superman got his Mojo back…
Now please understand me… If you are a private person? You wouldn’t have written this to share or post. You wouldn’t say anything and I respect that… but as of late? I’ve had several friends talking to me about this very issue. Good friends who are beautiful who worry about how they look, who they are and honestly? Who in the hell am I to help anyone, but if I am not open and If I am not transparent, who will be? If God has a calling on my life? Up until now I would say he’s called me to be a boogerhead. But if part of my calling is to share parts of my life so others can work out stuff for themselves as well? Then I’ll be as foolish as I have to be because like I said… I don’t give a damn if you like what I wrote… I’m the fool dancing to “Footloose” over in frozen foods, I just love people and if you needed to hear this today? Then for me it’s better than a hundred sermons I ever preached…
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Don't Blink
I was watching the movie “The Shawshank Redemption” the other day for like the 30ll millionth time. I can’t get enough of Morgan Freeman’s voice as he narrates the story about a man wrongly convicted of murder and serving 20 years of 2 life sentences before he escaped the prison. The turning point of the movie (in case you live under a rock and haven’t seen it) is when the star is told his case for getting out of prison is overturned by the warden and he is placed in solitary for 2 months. He gets out and has a memorable scene with his friend about his life. His quote “get busy living or get busy dying” is hanging in the air when the movie concludes and he escapes and goes to live in Mexico with the warden’s money. The movie speaks of a guy who finally gets the big picture… He sees life for what it is. Figures out who he is and finally accepts what he has to do to make it work for him. Some people I suspect do this at very early ages. Some I suspect have to wait till they are a little older.
If we spend our time in our lives living at our jobs, taking care of children, with our heads in our Facebooks, living in our minds, we somehow miss the beauty of life. We spend our lives formulating a routine and doing what’s necessary until we wake up and our back hurts and our eyes aren’t as strong as they used to be and we decide that we have missed a big portion of what we were supposed to be doing previously. One of my favorite authors is a guy named Donald Miller. He wrote a book called A Million Miles in a Thousand years. I guess I’ve read it through about 3 times now because I keep finding more about what he was saying the first time. I didn’t really miss the point, but I did find new things to add to what I could retain. The main point of his book is about living life; writing a great story with your life that will inspire people and give you great memories to remember. I’m pretty sure I used to have the desire to try and please everyone I came into contact with, but I just am learning to ignore that barking dog in my psyche these days and just realize I might not have the 40 or so years left and I have got to put some ink on the page and stop staring at a blank canvas.
So I’ve deleted my Facebook account and I set my alarm early and I am running outside and not in the gym these days. I have a little internet and no cable T.V. (which btw I am not suggesting to anyone of you reading this) but I am making some small changes so I can focus on my work when it’s time to work, live more in the moment with my children and challenge myself to make an adventure out of life. 48 inch waistlines and early detection of heart diseases are not products of fly fishing on the Big Thomson in Colorado. A mini van is not a Jeep and The Grand Canyon was not a gift given to us to see in photographs. Life is greater than last night’s episode of American Idol, and our cousin’s posts about their colonoscopy on Twitter. Letters and cards from friends or relatives with real live stamps and time out of their days to tell you how important you really are to them are a thing of the past. If we invest in our life and the lives of others, we will find we enrich the days we have left with passion and a sense of purpose. Get busy living…or get busy dying… Damn right…
If we spend our time in our lives living at our jobs, taking care of children, with our heads in our Facebooks, living in our minds, we somehow miss the beauty of life. We spend our lives formulating a routine and doing what’s necessary until we wake up and our back hurts and our eyes aren’t as strong as they used to be and we decide that we have missed a big portion of what we were supposed to be doing previously. One of my favorite authors is a guy named Donald Miller. He wrote a book called A Million Miles in a Thousand years. I guess I’ve read it through about 3 times now because I keep finding more about what he was saying the first time. I didn’t really miss the point, but I did find new things to add to what I could retain. The main point of his book is about living life; writing a great story with your life that will inspire people and give you great memories to remember. I’m pretty sure I used to have the desire to try and please everyone I came into contact with, but I just am learning to ignore that barking dog in my psyche these days and just realize I might not have the 40 or so years left and I have got to put some ink on the page and stop staring at a blank canvas.
So I’ve deleted my Facebook account and I set my alarm early and I am running outside and not in the gym these days. I have a little internet and no cable T.V. (which btw I am not suggesting to anyone of you reading this) but I am making some small changes so I can focus on my work when it’s time to work, live more in the moment with my children and challenge myself to make an adventure out of life. 48 inch waistlines and early detection of heart diseases are not products of fly fishing on the Big Thomson in Colorado. A mini van is not a Jeep and The Grand Canyon was not a gift given to us to see in photographs. Life is greater than last night’s episode of American Idol, and our cousin’s posts about their colonoscopy on Twitter. Letters and cards from friends or relatives with real live stamps and time out of their days to tell you how important you really are to them are a thing of the past. If we invest in our life and the lives of others, we will find we enrich the days we have left with passion and a sense of purpose. Get busy living…or get busy dying… Damn right…
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Weird
I want to share something with you I recently read.
I am in the middle of re-ingesting (for the 3rd or so time) a book titled The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus by Brennan Manning. Brennan is by far my favorite author to date. He is the Author of The Ragamuffin Gospel which I love dearly, however; many will bring to light how his message on Grace is dangerous and irresponsible. I of course disagree, because of what I have experienced. Most who disagree with me are those whose lives have never dipped into poverty or experienced anything less than a successful lifestyle. I am gracious so much with those as they have not walked where I have walked and they haven’t experienced the ridiculously painful places in life that would allow them to share my compassion.
In the Foreword of this book, Dr. Larry Crabb is telling of the two times in his life that he has experienced Brennan in such a way that it changed his life. The second experience is this:
The second encounter took place on the balcony of a ninth-floor hotel room. Brennan and I had just finished speaking to a pastor’s convention and we were enjoying a brief moment of quiet before leaving for the airport. “Where to next?” I asked innocently. “I start a seven-day silent retreat tomorrow,” he replied. “I’m not leading it, I’m taking it.”
“Brennan, help me here. I know you’re into that sort of thing. How are you different after getting away for a week with just you and the Lord?”
Without conscious intent (I think), Brennan gently cut through my American pragmatism when he answered, “I don’t know what it does for me. I’ve never thought much about that. I just figured God likes it when I show up.”
I walked away from that encounter more thirsty to experience the Father’s fondness for me.
Imagine if we just longed to be in his presence because we thought HE enjoyed it and not so much because we were making time for HIM. (I was completely convicted of my narcissistic view of myself with this whole story)
Thirsty… that is the word Mr. Manning uses to describe “Mystics”. He says they are not Eastern religion types who live in the dirt and experience visions. They are folks who share the experience of the unending thirst for more of who Christ is in our lives.
When the Lord told me he would make me “weird”, I thought he meant in comparison to the World. I never dreamed it would be in comparison to my brothers and sisters as well…
Experiencing this week first hand Jesus words in Matt. 5:3 “blessed are the Poor in spirit”. The death to myself in all things in my life because of my frailties and faults for my hurts and shortcomings have always haunted me and caused me to bemoan my walk with Christ because I’ve felt hindered as I am not like “healthy” people. Today for the first time I feel as if I have experienced my failures as blessings as they cause me to embrace the cross of Christ wholeheartedly… I am undone because of my need for him as my ONLY source of life. If we ever spend one moment thinking Christianity exists for our lives to benefit and be expanded then we have missed the message of the Gospel. We have been called to share in his experiences. To come and die…period. Not for the sake of suffering or death, but for the sake of warfare and reveal to the world that the love of money, possessions, vanity, power and yes the love of life itself has no power over us.
It was not only Christ’s death that was the most powerful story of the gospels, but his resurrection. We become like him and we die to not just sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but to anything and everything this world uses to hold us down. It is a mystery that is only unlocked as we transform the grip of this life and die of self. It is unexplainable foolishness to those who do not follow him. We DO become weird for we rejoice in the wrong places in the story. We give praise when we are not perfect, we are excited when we experience trials and when we are persecuted for these things the bible tells us we should rejoice because Christ will be exalted even more.
Today I rejoice in the fact that I am becoming more like him. The joy’s of my life are not those shared by the rest of the world and the peace I live in daily cannot be purchased, taken or taught… it is the direct result of suffering and shame and sorrow at the slow death of a life I once pursued. The life I now live is not my own and I have uncovered one of the greatest mysteries ever revealed. As weird as it sounds, I pray that I be found even more bizarre as my days unfold before me.
Brennan Manning, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus(Grand Rapids Michigan: Revell, 2004) 9-10
I am in the middle of re-ingesting (for the 3rd or so time) a book titled The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus by Brennan Manning. Brennan is by far my favorite author to date. He is the Author of The Ragamuffin Gospel which I love dearly, however; many will bring to light how his message on Grace is dangerous and irresponsible. I of course disagree, because of what I have experienced. Most who disagree with me are those whose lives have never dipped into poverty or experienced anything less than a successful lifestyle. I am gracious so much with those as they have not walked where I have walked and they haven’t experienced the ridiculously painful places in life that would allow them to share my compassion.
In the Foreword of this book, Dr. Larry Crabb is telling of the two times in his life that he has experienced Brennan in such a way that it changed his life. The second experience is this:
The second encounter took place on the balcony of a ninth-floor hotel room. Brennan and I had just finished speaking to a pastor’s convention and we were enjoying a brief moment of quiet before leaving for the airport. “Where to next?” I asked innocently. “I start a seven-day silent retreat tomorrow,” he replied. “I’m not leading it, I’m taking it.”
“Brennan, help me here. I know you’re into that sort of thing. How are you different after getting away for a week with just you and the Lord?”
Without conscious intent (I think), Brennan gently cut through my American pragmatism when he answered, “I don’t know what it does for me. I’ve never thought much about that. I just figured God likes it when I show up.”
I walked away from that encounter more thirsty to experience the Father’s fondness for me.
Imagine if we just longed to be in his presence because we thought HE enjoyed it and not so much because we were making time for HIM. (I was completely convicted of my narcissistic view of myself with this whole story)
Thirsty… that is the word Mr. Manning uses to describe “Mystics”. He says they are not Eastern religion types who live in the dirt and experience visions. They are folks who share the experience of the unending thirst for more of who Christ is in our lives.
When the Lord told me he would make me “weird”, I thought he meant in comparison to the World. I never dreamed it would be in comparison to my brothers and sisters as well…
Experiencing this week first hand Jesus words in Matt. 5:3 “blessed are the Poor in spirit”. The death to myself in all things in my life because of my frailties and faults for my hurts and shortcomings have always haunted me and caused me to bemoan my walk with Christ because I’ve felt hindered as I am not like “healthy” people. Today for the first time I feel as if I have experienced my failures as blessings as they cause me to embrace the cross of Christ wholeheartedly… I am undone because of my need for him as my ONLY source of life. If we ever spend one moment thinking Christianity exists for our lives to benefit and be expanded then we have missed the message of the Gospel. We have been called to share in his experiences. To come and die…period. Not for the sake of suffering or death, but for the sake of warfare and reveal to the world that the love of money, possessions, vanity, power and yes the love of life itself has no power over us.
It was not only Christ’s death that was the most powerful story of the gospels, but his resurrection. We become like him and we die to not just sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but to anything and everything this world uses to hold us down. It is a mystery that is only unlocked as we transform the grip of this life and die of self. It is unexplainable foolishness to those who do not follow him. We DO become weird for we rejoice in the wrong places in the story. We give praise when we are not perfect, we are excited when we experience trials and when we are persecuted for these things the bible tells us we should rejoice because Christ will be exalted even more.
Today I rejoice in the fact that I am becoming more like him. The joy’s of my life are not those shared by the rest of the world and the peace I live in daily cannot be purchased, taken or taught… it is the direct result of suffering and shame and sorrow at the slow death of a life I once pursued. The life I now live is not my own and I have uncovered one of the greatest mysteries ever revealed. As weird as it sounds, I pray that I be found even more bizarre as my days unfold before me.
Brennan Manning, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus(Grand Rapids Michigan: Revell, 2004) 9-10
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Shadows of a Father
The clock on the desk tells me its 6:07 and the biting cool of the morning air is nipping at me still as I entered the house. It seems odd this time of year as I have to turn off the air conditioner because its cooler outside than it is in the house. Its weird you know? Like someone flipped a switch and just sent the hot air away like it was all a bad dream. Last week it was 89 degrees as I left the house to go running, and today a guy would almost need a jacket. The only downfall to this time of year is the allergies the cool weather seems to bring with it. I almost feel like a trumpeteer running in the dark with a handkerchief and honking for the right of way as I go along. It is kind of fun to watch the cats as the jump out of their skin from a dead sleep somewhere along my route.
My second oldest son Jonah runs with me every morning as we seemed to be joined at the hip these days, and that is quite okay considering the amount of time I spent in Kansas these past few years. Its quite refreshing too because the time we spend together he is non stop questions. This morning he asked me everything from repair time on old cars to gasket replacements to grass and lawn care to questions on our heritage and why MY father acted the way he did when I was young… That tends to be a topic we discuss regularly. Questions like “when you were my age, did your dad ______________? Are quite common in our day to day exercise routines. I always try to explain and model the greatness of my father so my son will know his grandfather was just that… grand. I told him recently of my memory of working for him as a pipe fitter the summer after I graduated and the entire 4 months we spent daily working together and how hard he was to live with, yet how giving and kind he could be during the off hours. I remember looking up and seeing my dad who was well into his forties by that time coming down off a scaffolding in his blue shirt and denim jeans that always seemed to serve as the main uniform he chose to wear everyday. “He wasn’t as heavy as he is today” I told Jonah. “he was still 6’5” and he weighed in around 250 lbs and it was muscle and bone in those days and I knew there was nothing he couldn’t do. I remember watching him lumber across the concrete at a breakneck pace because my dad went at everything he ever did like a mad man with his hair on fire. I remember being in awe that morning thinking to myself “My dad is huge and there isn’t anything I’m scared of when he is around.” I was about 6 foot then and a whopping 200 lbs. “My dad cast a larger shadow than any man I knew.” “But wasn’t your dad hard on you and Aunt Shana when you were young??” Jonah said. I replied “Son? Of all my friends I don’t know of anyone who’s dad could raise as much hell and throw more fits when things didn’t go his way, but I don’t know of one single father who had a bigger heart and loved his children more during the fun times” “So he as a lot of fun?” Jonah asked. “yeah Jo Jo… he would tell us stories of his childhood and his dad and mom and keep us in stitches for hours about the things he pulled and jokes he had heard, he was fun” I replied.
Honestly, its very interesting how I began to deal with my emotions about my dad as I became a dad and have been perfecting the dad thing. I’m not good at it, but our fathers usually give us a pattern or mold to work from as far as how we are to treat our own children and we move from there to a place of taking what we know and adding to it.
So this morning we were jogging along in the dark through an established neighborhood where the trees were 30 to 40 feet tall and the morning housing lights still had not been turned on because it was so early. We ran under the street lamps which seemed to be so dim during the dark hours of the morning but still they gave some comfort to be able to see the asphalt that was passing so quickly under our feet. As we approached each lamp our shadows would disappear until we were passing the lamp and our shadows quickly grew out of no where on the ground beside us and began to run along in front of us and grow with every step we took. I noticed my shadow was quite a bit larger and longer than Jonah’s and as we reached the center distance between the poles my shadow was about 20 some feet and I could see the young teenage boy in me still and yet I could also see the responsible leader who is the provider and high protector of my young brood of cubs in the same shadow.
A dear friend of mine recently said to me “Humility is being confident in knowing what you are and knowing what you are not”. I thought of that this morning because I realized I AM a good dad and a friend to my children and I haven’t gotten so big for my britches in life that they can’t ever have fun with me. I thought of that because I also know that I am NOT the epitome of confidence my father was at my age. He seemed to always have a plan, to always be prepared and to have things under control. Most days I can’t even get lunch together and yet my children still have no problem trusting that I’ve got it all together, which does give me that deep seeded feeling of humility. I’ve got nothing to brag about but they still will have the same stories to tell their children one day.
I hate the idea of “selling” God. It’s NOT my quest nor mission to do so. You either get it or you don’t… plain and simple..and brow beating others to become Christians is about as bad advertising as screechy TV preachers with hankies and a demand for money to support the ministry. But as of late I have learned a great lesson in just living out what you believe instead of trying to be something you are not. When I do that? It’s just not explainable but God simply makes the necessary changes.. he just tells me to put down the remote and the cell phone and pick up the ball glove and play. Its that easy… just play.. Cause he just wants to play with us as well…
I realize that’s not the kind of theology you’re gonna hear from the pulpit maybe, but in my book? It’s the essence of cool.
As we were finishing our run? I couldn’t stop looking at the stars… there were millions of them this morning… I was amazed. I told Jo… look brother, its really cool.. Cause I think God does that just to dazzle us. He said “I never thought of it like that. I figured they are stars and planets etc” I told him I’m sure they are, but if it was just me and Jo on this Earth? I think he would have done it all over again and again… just to wow me and keep me amazed at how amazing he is. He woo’s us by being amazing and revealing his creation to us when we aren’t expecting it. I can’t explain it really but just being caught off guard by a sunset or a mountain landscape or seeing a beautifully colored bird and realizing that you have seen something like that a thousand times, but today for some reason Its like you were looking at it for the first time. I long to be a good father. But God is an amazing father and when I think of how his love for me covers up my inadequacies I am completely undone. God knows what I need when I need it and he always provides everything in its due time.
My second oldest son Jonah runs with me every morning as we seemed to be joined at the hip these days, and that is quite okay considering the amount of time I spent in Kansas these past few years. Its quite refreshing too because the time we spend together he is non stop questions. This morning he asked me everything from repair time on old cars to gasket replacements to grass and lawn care to questions on our heritage and why MY father acted the way he did when I was young… That tends to be a topic we discuss regularly. Questions like “when you were my age, did your dad ______________? Are quite common in our day to day exercise routines. I always try to explain and model the greatness of my father so my son will know his grandfather was just that… grand. I told him recently of my memory of working for him as a pipe fitter the summer after I graduated and the entire 4 months we spent daily working together and how hard he was to live with, yet how giving and kind he could be during the off hours. I remember looking up and seeing my dad who was well into his forties by that time coming down off a scaffolding in his blue shirt and denim jeans that always seemed to serve as the main uniform he chose to wear everyday. “He wasn’t as heavy as he is today” I told Jonah. “he was still 6’5” and he weighed in around 250 lbs and it was muscle and bone in those days and I knew there was nothing he couldn’t do. I remember watching him lumber across the concrete at a breakneck pace because my dad went at everything he ever did like a mad man with his hair on fire. I remember being in awe that morning thinking to myself “My dad is huge and there isn’t anything I’m scared of when he is around.” I was about 6 foot then and a whopping 200 lbs. “My dad cast a larger shadow than any man I knew.” “But wasn’t your dad hard on you and Aunt Shana when you were young??” Jonah said. I replied “Son? Of all my friends I don’t know of anyone who’s dad could raise as much hell and throw more fits when things didn’t go his way, but I don’t know of one single father who had a bigger heart and loved his children more during the fun times” “So he as a lot of fun?” Jonah asked. “yeah Jo Jo… he would tell us stories of his childhood and his dad and mom and keep us in stitches for hours about the things he pulled and jokes he had heard, he was fun” I replied.
Honestly, its very interesting how I began to deal with my emotions about my dad as I became a dad and have been perfecting the dad thing. I’m not good at it, but our fathers usually give us a pattern or mold to work from as far as how we are to treat our own children and we move from there to a place of taking what we know and adding to it.
So this morning we were jogging along in the dark through an established neighborhood where the trees were 30 to 40 feet tall and the morning housing lights still had not been turned on because it was so early. We ran under the street lamps which seemed to be so dim during the dark hours of the morning but still they gave some comfort to be able to see the asphalt that was passing so quickly under our feet. As we approached each lamp our shadows would disappear until we were passing the lamp and our shadows quickly grew out of no where on the ground beside us and began to run along in front of us and grow with every step we took. I noticed my shadow was quite a bit larger and longer than Jonah’s and as we reached the center distance between the poles my shadow was about 20 some feet and I could see the young teenage boy in me still and yet I could also see the responsible leader who is the provider and high protector of my young brood of cubs in the same shadow.
A dear friend of mine recently said to me “Humility is being confident in knowing what you are and knowing what you are not”. I thought of that this morning because I realized I AM a good dad and a friend to my children and I haven’t gotten so big for my britches in life that they can’t ever have fun with me. I thought of that because I also know that I am NOT the epitome of confidence my father was at my age. He seemed to always have a plan, to always be prepared and to have things under control. Most days I can’t even get lunch together and yet my children still have no problem trusting that I’ve got it all together, which does give me that deep seeded feeling of humility. I’ve got nothing to brag about but they still will have the same stories to tell their children one day.
I hate the idea of “selling” God. It’s NOT my quest nor mission to do so. You either get it or you don’t… plain and simple..and brow beating others to become Christians is about as bad advertising as screechy TV preachers with hankies and a demand for money to support the ministry. But as of late I have learned a great lesson in just living out what you believe instead of trying to be something you are not. When I do that? It’s just not explainable but God simply makes the necessary changes.. he just tells me to put down the remote and the cell phone and pick up the ball glove and play. Its that easy… just play.. Cause he just wants to play with us as well…
I realize that’s not the kind of theology you’re gonna hear from the pulpit maybe, but in my book? It’s the essence of cool.
As we were finishing our run? I couldn’t stop looking at the stars… there were millions of them this morning… I was amazed. I told Jo… look brother, its really cool.. Cause I think God does that just to dazzle us. He said “I never thought of it like that. I figured they are stars and planets etc” I told him I’m sure they are, but if it was just me and Jo on this Earth? I think he would have done it all over again and again… just to wow me and keep me amazed at how amazing he is. He woo’s us by being amazing and revealing his creation to us when we aren’t expecting it. I can’t explain it really but just being caught off guard by a sunset or a mountain landscape or seeing a beautifully colored bird and realizing that you have seen something like that a thousand times, but today for some reason Its like you were looking at it for the first time. I long to be a good father. But God is an amazing father and when I think of how his love for me covers up my inadequacies I am completely undone. God knows what I need when I need it and he always provides everything in its due time.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
God.... and Forrest Gump
“Have you found Jesus yet Gump?” said Lt. Dan. Forrest replied “I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking for him Sir”. it’s a very funny couple of lines from my favorite movie of all time. Yes, you read that right… Tom Hanks portrayal in Robert Zemeckas’s 1994 Hit movie is still light years out in front of all the other movies I’ve seen to date. I love Braveheart, Star Wars, Fight Club, When Harry met Sally, and those would round out my top 5 but by far, Forrest is still my fan favored pick.
If you know me? You would know it’s not a stretch as it’s a movie about a simple man, longing for the love of one woman… which is my life in a nutshell. It seriously is… its funny when I see God dealing with something in my life and as of late it’s the woman thing. It’s coming to a head soon and you will probably find me in the corner with a sticky note on my forehead that reads: If found return to… followed by my address… I love the way the Lord moves and is such a gentleman when he deals with us, but he is and I am glad… and so is the rest of the female population J .
Lately I’ve been hanging out in the book of Song of Songs in the bible and if you have ever read it, it will make you blush with some of the language, but as any strong married couple can attest, the emotions shared by the lover and beloved in this short book are right on and true and cannot be denied. It is a depiction of the Lover who we can correctly assume is the Lord and his Beloved whom we know is the Church and the love affair they share for one another and as anyone can assume it is a depiction of how he woos us and calls out to us to love him. The most manly among us will testify that when the lord calls us to him, we are eager to love him and worship him for who he is and to find him as the provider for our lives and the comforter of our souls. If you have ever found yourself in that desperate place of longing for Him for your very breath of life, you will know exactly what I mean. If not? You will find my words to be nonsense right now.
I sat down to watch Forrest Gump again last night and as usual, I tear up like a little girl all through the movie and I realized today why exactly I do such a thing. I noticed that the parts where Forrest is reunited with Jenny all through the movie, I found myself with tears streaming down my cheeks, and for most that would be foolishness, but I think its so much more than just the happy scenes or the scenes about love for me. I realized something amazing… Forrest is like God in this movie. Always disciplined, always doing the hard thing, because it is right. He is faithful to his word and continued to maintain a single love for ONE woman….. Jenny. His Jenny was so lost and sad and heartbroken and corrupt and dead to his affections and love. Jenny is a depiction of the world. Robin Wright plays the role masterfully in the movie and in the times she is running from everything that is true in her life (Forrest) she is lost and whores herself out for any attention from other men (other Gods) so she can feel complete. Forrest writes letters to her, and they come back unread. He confesses his love to her. He does his best to woo her in his simple charm that isn’t attractive to Jenny as she longs for so much more than he can answer or give to her. He remains steadfast and he is never bitter. In fact every time he is with her all throughout the movie he says the same line “Me an Jenny were together again just like Peas and Carrots… and IT… was the Happiest time of my life.” That part struck me very hard like a frying pan to the side of my head.
God desires us even when we are whoring ourselves out for attention from the world. He desires us and is never ever evil or angry when we reject him. He hates our sins and that is a known fact of many in the church but so many throw out the baby with the bathwater and assume God wants to punish us for walking away from him. That’s JUST not the case… in fact, like Forrest.. When we return to him every time, he woos us all over again and he wants to settle things and Marry us and keep us for his very own… and like all the times in the movie, we as the church love on him until we decide his love is just too much and we run away. Isn’t it JUST like the Father to allow us to get to a place where we are sick, or ill or hurt or wounded and we seek him out again, just like Jenny did with Forrest and he just didn’t become ugly or angry.. Once again he accepted her and welcomed her back and gave of himself to her over and above what she could have ever dreamed. He’s not flashy, he’s not a quick fix…. He is simple and his love for us is real and honest and its overwhelming and it simply wants to give itself away to us. I love the movie but my favorite part is when Jenny writes to him and they are reunited and married and she is sick in bed and she says “ I wish I had been with you all those times” and he replies “you were”. We are ALWAYS on his mind… he is ALWAYS thinking of how he can woo us and love us and keep us and show us HIS love. The love of our Father is so real and so alive and so amazing and completely and totally loyal. We are his ONLY object of affection…. He is a jealous lover and yet he won’t condemn us is we run away from him, but when we return… He is like Forrest.. He is totally lost in his love for us as his beloved bride.
As of late my God has wooed me back to a place of walking with him. Just like in the movie, the love of the world and the affections of women are tempting? But I am dancing in the living room to Sweet Home Alabama when the rest of you aren’t looking. My needs are being provided and I am literally the apple of his eye right now and I desire nothing more that can take the place of such peace. “It is the happiest time of my life” and me n God are like Peas and Carrots again…. And I am praying for each of YOU, every day to experience the same… I promise you there is nothing that can rival this… And that’s all I got to say about that….
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