Promises

An Open letter to Maggie, Thomas, Sam and Alex

My Children,

The trip to Florida to get Sam triggered all sorts of emotions and thoughts in me. I’m not going to write anything here that you haven’t heard me articulate to you face to face. I really pray that these things will become a part of you though because they will help you so much as you travel your own life roads.

After the divorce in 2002 you know that I made some new friends that were willing to walk with me when all my old friends decided they didn’t want to (or couldn’t) walk with me anymore because of the bad choices I made which triggered the divorce in the first place. My new friends and I began to walk through life together, sharing each others’ burdens, loving one another unconditionally, the way people in the church are supposed to love each other but oftentimes don’t or can’t.

All of us in this circle of friends knew we were completely broken humans. We knew we needed God in our lives if we were going to have any hope; and we knew that He (God) most often revealed Himself in and through relationships to others. We also knew that we needed to give up being selfish, arrogant, ego-centric and childish if we were going to have any hope of obtaining the lives we wanted; and that our best efforts to do so always failed. God was going to have to take all these bad things in our lives away. The only way He’d do so was if we were entirely ready to let Him.

Guys, I believe with all my heart that we can’t fix what is wrong with us without help: help from God and from our fellows ( I know I can't). My best efforts to do so led me into a lonely and isolated life that ended in divorce and brokenness, hurting you.

Among my friends, I found a couple of guys (Dog Mike, and David – you know them) that had a bunch of stuff in their lives that I wanted in mine and who had been walking the path longer than me. I asked them to mentor me, passing on the stuff that they had picked up along the way . THey said they would and so now I get to tag along with them.

Dog Mike passed on three things that have become foundational to how I live. They are the three legs to the stool I sit on. You’ve heard them all and I list them in no particular order:

1. If I am disturbed the problem is in me.
2. What other people think of me is none of my damn business. And the corollary: what I think of myself is none of my own damn business either.
3. If I spot it I got it.

When I can remember these things, keep God in the center and lean on He and my friends (Including Michelle) I am OK. Nothing can touch me. Throw me your worst and it won’t really matter. I can deal with any amount of pain. I can make it. I can do what's asked of me: love God (by expressing gratitude to Him for all that is coming my way) and love those along my path that day. Let me go through each of them again for you, because I really, really want you to get a hold of these things, long before I did. You will live life so much more fully when you get hold of these truths. The grass will e greener. The sky will be bluer. The joy will be deeper, the pain more intense, the laughter more frquent, and the peace beyond aything you have ever known.

“If I am disturbed the problem is in me.”  

If this isn’t true we get tossed around on a stormy emotional sea because other people in our life have too much power. They can make us feel stuff. They have power in our life that no one but God should have.

This means that even when there are disturbing events around me: a fight with Michelle, or my boss doesn’t like the way I am doing my job, or money isn’t there for basic things that we need or want, or anything else you can think of – the part of the equation I can address is inside of me. Is God still in control? Does He still love me? Can I still trust Him? Am I doing my best? Doing the next right thing?

If the answer to those questions is, "yes," then I can rest because I can let go of what is going on; giving it up to the care of God. I can cease fighting to get the outcome I want and simply rest. If the answer to any of these is no, the solution is to change things so that the answers can all be “yes.” And since God doesn’t change, the problem lies in me and needs to be addressed.

I no longer can say, “If only that were different…; if only I had that…; if only they would… then I would be OK.” No, now I have to say, “God, what has to change in me so that I can be OK in spite of the way the world is coming at me? Help me to find gratitude for all this shit!” (Go ahead, say, "shit" when you pray. If you can't say it to Him then probably you shouldn't say it at all.)

“What other people think of me is none of my damn business… and the corollary: what I think of me is none of my damn business either.”

Since other people other than you guys are reading this, some of them might be offended y the word, “Damn”. I’d apologize but in this instance the word is used correctly. When I make what other peoples’ opinion of me my business I damn myself. As  a pastor it is what I did for thirteen years. I pastored as much out of fear of peoples opinions of me – of my positional sense – that I lost sight of caring what God thought of them or me.

By default, if I am caring about what people think about me, I am not caring about them. How can I love well when I merely want to make them happy? I can’t. How do I discipline you guys when I know it is going to make you angry with me? How do I say “no” to things you want to do when I know it will only serve to upset you and make you angry with me? I do it because I love you and want what is best for you. What you think about me is of little consequence. Love is all that matters. I have to do the next righ thing.

This makes sense if we really believe that “If I am disturbed the problem is in me. Too often I live for others approval. I’m a good Dad the moment I stop trying to look like a good Dad and start loving. When I try to look like a good Dad, I become a fraud. Every day I have to surrender my right to care what other people (including you) think of me. I surrender my right to look good. I surrender my right to not look bad. I surrender my right to succeed. I surrender my right to not fail.

For too much of my life – all of my first marriage – I put most of my energy into “being somebody”. This meant that energy that belonged to love was absorbed by self. While it appeared to others that I was loving (because I figured out very early that “looking selfless” made me look good) I was really doing good things and saying loving things out of selfish motives. Love wasn’t the motive. Self was the motive. Because of this I ended up broken and alone. I don’t want this for you. Fortunately for me, my God is a God of resurrection. Death always precedes real life. I needed all of the pain, and all of the brokenness to be someone that has any love to offer.

Did you see that I said, “Everyday I surrender my right…” it is because I am human and I forget. Jesus said, “Take up your cross, daily…” It is not a one time event. For me it is much more frequent event. That is why you often see the bumper sticker, “One day at a time”. It is the only way that many of us have found to live, “Surrendering, one day at a time…” I am not capable of much more than that.

If I spot it I got it…

People hate this one. Do you know though that when you spot something in someone else it is because of some shadow memory in you that causes you to see a similar shadow in someone else? Typically, we see something in someone else that bothers us. The reason this is true is because we are seeing our own shadows cast across the other person. The truth of this statement doesn’t take away from what may be true about the other person, but really what I need to worry about is where it is true in me, because “If I am disturbed the problem is in me.” (not them)

Let me point out that sometimes we see good things in others that need to remind of us of the good in us. If we see someone else growing we can rejoice because we are growing enough to recognize growth in the other. If we see kindness in another, it is because there is a measure of kindness in us. If we see giftedness in another it is because there is giftedness in us that recongnizes it.

This comes in handy when others say hateful things about us. If we are really connected (and this is extremely hard to do) we end up praying for the other because they are really telling us something of themselves. Once again, it doesn’t mean that we don’t need to pay attention. We may need to pay attention to the deficits they are pointing us to without being overcome by the accusation. It is not in our best interest to care what they think about us. But it may be in our best interest to look at ourselves and our deficiencies so we can give them to God and not stress them. This is different from caring what the person thinks about us. It is being willing to be honest with ourselves and listen to what God may be saying to us about how we need to change.

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So there you have the three legs of my resting stool. I forget them all the time. I have to be reminded of them all the time. It is why I hang with the friends I do, because they remind me of what I need to do to live moving toward God and love rather than away from him toward loneliness, isolation, and outer darkness. I moved that direction for a lot of years and so I have a long road ahead of me (the rest of my life actually) to move back to the center; back to God; back to love.

I don’t want you to have to walk as far into the darkness as I did. You deserve better than that. And so I write, loving you with all my heart; you being the reason I breathe; reminding myself as I type of the truths I need to remember to love you well.

Live and love well, guys. Love as I’ve loved you. Love as God loves you. Offer grace where you want to hate. Offer forgiveness instead of justice. Give up your need to be right. Cease fighting anyone and anything. Take up your own crosses daily. Physically get on your knees

as you get out of bed every morning and pray something like, “God, I give myself to you today so that you can do whatever you want with me; growing me however you want to (even if I don’t like it, help me trust you.) Please help me get over myself and my own selfishness today so I can love the way you want me to. Today will you deal with all my problems so that other people will see your power and your love, trust, and follow you too. I want to be absorbed in love today.”

 

CD Liner notes: Prayers for My Children

I wanted to burn a CD for my kids and call it “My Prayers for You”

Here are the songs and the

Icecream Theology

Saturday we needed our kids help as we tried to move out of The big family house into a temporary rental. Thomas asked if they could get ice cream after. I told him that it depended on how well they did. Both Maggie and thomas worked, but Maggie took some breaks and didn't quite work to the level that her brother did. On the way to icecream I informed them that Thomas had earned a medium (a rare treat) and Maggie would get the small. Maggie had a fit. It wasn't fair. I explained why and told her that it wasn't favoritism but wages earned. I explained that the harder one works the bigger the reward. She wanted no part of it. Despite her meltdown in the dairy Queen, screaming that she didn't want anything, I got her a small sundae.

What struck me was Thomas' response. When we got home to our new rental, I gave both kids the freedom to do whatever they wanted. Thomas though, in a show of gratitude said, "No, I want to help..."

This is how it is supposed to be with God. We respond to his grace by surrendering completely to him. We don't surrender to him to achieve his grace. We obey cause He loves. We respond in kind to the love that he gives us.

Michelle and Abraham

I didn’t understand; there was no way I could understand. Shell had heard from God and He hadn’t told me what he told her. It didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t make sense to her, but she did what she was told. The cost is immeasurable; the faith required, obscene.  And Shell is “Standing fast”.

Tomorrow we fly home to Portland without Sam. He is staying with his Dad, a non-recovering, self admitted bi-polar addict. It was Sam’s choice to move to his Dad’s Michelle merely made possible what he wanted. I’m not sure I have the faith to do what she is doing. It takes nearly all of mine to simply love her in the midst of the struggle in which she is engaged. Her current story reminds me of an old story I grew up hearing:

A long time ago, a man was given a promise. He was going to father a great nation. It seemed impossible to him because both he and his wife were too old to have kids… she’d gone through menopause. But God made the promise. He and his wife tried to make god’s promise into reality. His wife, in an act of love that is far beyond my understanding, told him to sleep with her servant so the servant could bear him a son. He did, and she did, but the child born wasn’t who God had in mind to be the promised seed. As a matter of fact, in the years since he and his wife took matters into their own hands the servant’s child and his offspring caused a great deal of problems for the son God did have in mind. God wanted this man’s post menopausal wife to bear him a son. He would be a truly miraculous baby.  And she did, and he was.

That was cool until one day, God told the aging man to take his son and offer him up to God as a human sacrifice. (Sometimes I don’t get God.) But God spoke and the old guy listened and took his son on a three mile back pack trip to the mountains so that he could offer his son as commanded. He bound his son, laid him on the altar, and had a knife ready to kill him when God stopped him and told him that there was another sacrifice waiting to be offered. His son went onto to have a couple of sons and then the younger of those sons had twelve sons. They too had lots of kids and the nation of Israel was born, born of obedience and faith.

My wife has that kind of faith. She heard God, she listened, and now, she is offering her son – not unto death – but to a life of challenges and roadblocks. Still she is trusting. I wonder what God has in mind for Shell and Sam.

Football for Fifth Graders

    Thomas is trying football this year. He is playing for a good team that has been established and has long time coaches that generally are concerned for the kids and their growth as humans. TL and I have had multiple conversations about his playing. He is trying it out to see if he likes it.

    I let him know that I had concerns about the swagger and the pride that go with football. I let him know that the whole anger thing worried me and wondered out loud if he was angry enough to be successful long term. I let him know that I was concerned about the price his body would play if he played football long term. I also let him know that if he was going to play he was going to have to get mean and explode through people.

    I didn't let him know that many football coaches have god complexes and that there is a machismo that goes with football that is almost grotesque at a fifth grade level. I left his practice today disgusted by one older coach in particular who really seems to want the kids to view him as God. 

    I want Thomas to succeed. I am trying to find ways to help him succeed. I want to get a pad for his sore right wrist and get to practice early enough to tape it. I want to explain that football is a game of intimidation and hurting people and he can shoose either to be the one intimidated or the intimidator. I want to spend some time with him helping him learn how to explode through his opponents. I want to teach him to slide his head and shoulder to the correct side depending on the direction of the play. I want to help him get better, and I want him to figure out early on that he shouldn't respect coaches that demand worship. I want him to be strong enough to say. I need water, I am going to get some now, even if the coaches don't agree.

    In short I want him to be a good human before a good football player... and what I saw today makes me think the two are not completely compatible. That is sad.

God's Way

It isn't often my way... I don't often get it... I'm learning slowly to cease wrestling with him cause he tends to cheat and throw my hip out of socket...and he normally always has a better way than I do...

If only I could remember that when I seem to be living in caves hunted by a King that wants to kill me... if only I could remember that when I am tending sheep in the dessert after running away from Pharaoh cause I killed one of his captains... if only I could remember that when I am rotting in jail cause I refused to sleep with my bosses wife... if only I could remember that... when my brother lays dead cause Jesus didn't show up like he could have... if only I could remember that when I am on a three day hike knowing that my son is going to have to die at the end of it...if only I could remember that when I do exactly what God asks of me and still end up exiled in Egypt cause the people don't like what I have to say... if only I could remember that when God tells me to go get my wife back who has repeatedly left me to be a prostitute...

God's in charge... right... I need to remember that...even when the judge plays a fool and acts outside the law and I realize it will take thousands of dollars to appeal. I need to remember that when jobs leave to go to china leaving financial hardships and broken dreams. I need to remember that when the police van takes my picture cause I'm speeding. I need to remember that when people are disappointed because I can't get everything done. I need to remember that when I let people down because I am not God and cannot meet their needs. I need to remember that when my love for my wife can't erase her pain or fix her world.

I guess I need to pray more.

Looking Ahead

    Michelle and I think that God is pointing us in a specific direction. I hinted at this earlier, but could not give details. Here they are. We are excited to see how God works it all out:

• We want to be part of a church plant that is "recovering addict friendly". We believe in bi-vocational ministry teams rather than full time paid pastors (That is simply our thing. We don't think that all full time paid pastors are bad – or anything like that – we just have a different vision of what God wants for us.) For this to happen we see at least a couple of things needing to happen:

• Stephen needs to go back to school. We are moving toward him getting an MSW. This will allow him to work with recovering addicts and their families. It would also allow him to use some of his counseling gifts and actually get paid for it.

• The right pastoral team needs to begin forming soon to pray and plan together… indeed to begin living life together – this will be a community thing.

• The new "Shop to Earn" Business needs some attention to become another stream of income.

• Michelle needs to continue to build her client base with AAB Jewelers. (Michelle is the North American Sales and Program Manager for them.)

• We want to begin taking teams of people to India for "missions". The difference here is that not everyone on the team will need to be a Christian. Construction people can come and build. Medical personnel can come and heal, etc… The idea is to serve the Indian ministries and gear the trip in such a way that those that go that don't know Jesus yet, will be exposed to him in the best possible light.

• Down the road we want to open a house for people suffering the fallout from sex addiction to find refuge, safety and recovery. We are not looking to open a half way house for sex offenders but rather a short stay house for men who need some space to heal, or a place to stay after their wives quite rightly kick them out for a time. We are looking for it to be a place where families can find resources for healing and recovery. This is a long range dream. However it too requires that we have it in mind as we take the next steps in our life together.
  • We need to find a house that we can sell at a profit in six-eight years, so we have money to invest. This means that we not only need to find a house that meets our immediate family needs, but also meets them "with eyes on the future." This means that we spend a lot of time praying, and have to believe that god has something up His sleeve that we don't see. We have been taking a lot of encouragement from the Barnabas Family Ministries story.
  • We need to begin looking at what other people have done – what they have done well and what we would change.

Its all Gonna Burn

    I'm sitting watching the "stuff" of my childhood and adolescence walk out the door of our house during the first of two estate sales. We're selling items for a fraction of what they are worth because that is the nature of estate sales in today's economy.
    I'm realizing, as memories walk out the door, that it really is going to all burn someday. My parents spent over 60 years collecting the stuff that we are selling. They shaped the comfort of our home and their hospitality using the china, the crystal, the kitchenware, and the furniture. The lives of hundreds and thousands of people were shaped because of the words in hundreds of books that we are selling today.
    The memories that go with the "stuff" can't be sold. Those are indelibly burned into my synapses and neurons. They will go with me into eternity. The stuff. It is all gonna burn. My attachments have to be loose. Some things hurt me as they leave, but I can wish the people that are buying the "stuff" as much joy as they gave us and bless them and gain far more than I am loosing.
    This weekend is a great reminder that I need to  be about the stuff of Heaven rather than the stuff that is gonna burn. If I am not, I end up slowly dying a spiritual death that hurts far more than watching stuff march out the door.

Cancer Again

Dad is following in my Mum's footsteps. He has a rather large lump on his back below his shoulder. The biopsy showed that it is cancerous. Today he goes in for surgery to have it removed.

At church last night I prayed that just like with Mum's cancer many years ago, the cancer would vanish before they cut him open. Now that would be cool...

Teaching Our Children to Lie

My daughter went to a friend's birthday party. They went to Ka Nee ta on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation and had a great time. It wasn't until a couple of weeks after the fact that I heard the Mom of the birthday girl asked the girls (all of whom were 11 & 12 to lie and say that they were 10 so that she would only have to pay $5 for their passes to the resort. What a great lesson for my daughter to learn from a parent of a friend. It breaks my heart and I am still wondering how to cope with it.