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.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.”

 

Theology and the Fourth Step

Note: This is a really long post. I am sorry for that. I hope it proves helpful though. I quote extensively from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous Here. 

I don't think many people other than alcoholics really know what AA, and other fellowships which have followed in its footsteps, teach. This is meant to begin to remedy that. Bob Seger kicks it all off with Lock and Load off "It's a Mystery" released in 1995:

Faithfulness

It was a fluke; really… at the last minute my daughter requested we change up churches on Sunday (we were planning on being back at Evergreen).

 I called an old friend and found out what service he and his wife attended and showed up at some ungodly hour (9 am) with Thomas and Maggie in grudging tow (it was too early for them too). I wasn’t really ready for all that followed.

I need to share some history here. My old friend used to take care of my brother and me while our parents traveled. He was perfect for us: an Englishman studying at Multnomah, Timothy and I loved him. He helped us set up our slot car track. He played Risk with us. He went to Portland Timber games with us. He and his brother really became a part of our family, even going on vacation with us.

As everyone got older we drifted a part. He got married and joined the leadership at Community Bible Fellowship. He had two little girls. Then tragedy struck and his wife had a series of strokes and other medical issues that left everyone wondering if she was going to survive. Through it all my friend loved. I don’t know much of his story from this part of his life. His daughters are now 20 & 23. He is a lot greyer and wears the wrinkles of a hard life.

Connection

We are created for relationship and yet we so often live our lives in fear-filled isolation. We are fearful because we neither know who we are or if the world we inhabit is a safe environment in which to figure it out. As a result we hide and we react, often poorly, to others living with the same paralyzing fear. We end up incapable of truly loving because our fear holds us hostage. We are powerless. Our “growing up” is about learning how to get a long (some would say “get ahead”) in a world we daren’t trust. Living in such an environ seems to demand our own dishonesty.

Into this cacophonic fearful universe bursting inside our hearts and minds, a voice cries out: “Whoever wants to save their life must lose it.” It is a voice we don’t want to heed. And yet in order to live, we have to let go of our own need to control. Trust ultimately is about this one thing –trusting God enough to let go, give up control, and do what He says.

Again, His voice interrupts our thoughts, “How can you say to me, ’Lord, Lord!’ and do not do what I say?” Many decide this merely means we are supposed to obey God’s laws, forgetting that it includes, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” That is a lot more intrusive.

Last night my daughter asked my sons to turn down the computer so she could hear the TV. She actually said, “Can you turn down the TV?” They of course, being my sons, informed that they could, and did absolutely nothing more, having answered her question. This of course upset her, so she yelled at them to turn down the computer. At this point they should have turned down the computer – they had won after all, but now they wouldn’t, because she was out of line and they weren’t going to “lose face” in a battle with a girl – especially one they were in a battle for supremacy with. In a blended family there are so many nuances to relationships that it can leave a parent’s head spinning.

One son saw the nature of his sin and was willing to make amends. The other was unwilling to do so. He felt justified in his actions. He was “just being a man,” after all. The idea that “being a man” is really about knowing who you are so it doesn’t matter how people treat you was a brand new concept to him. That is a sad commentary on the role men have played to this point in his young life.

As we grow older and become more scarred by the trials of life and growth, our sin grows more insidiously hidden. We become afraid to ask for help for fear of rejection. We fail to reveal to our spouses the depths of our paralyzing fear of intimacy. We simply give up trying for intimacy because it is too much work. It is to frightening. We resolve our fear by not asking for anything, so we don’t get hurt. Meanwhile, Jesus weeps. We haven’t understood why He came after all. The concept of creating a new Kingdom patterned after the image of the Trinity itself was lost in transit and we end up no better than any other religious sect who has no Trinitarian pattern to imitate – with no Holy Spirit to empower them to give up “life” so that true life can be found.

Many years ago I started teaching that “sin was anything that violates a relationship.” Sin is sin because it violates the very nature of God, and God is perfect relationship. As the years have passed, I like the definition more and more, because it grows with me. It answers the unasked questions of my children, “How am I to treat my siblings.” It answers the questions of the man afraid to reveal the darkness of his soul to his wife, or reach out to another man for help. It answers the questions of the Trinitarian community that is too busy to really care for one another. It answers the questions of the child trying to figure out what it means to be truly alive.

But more than that, for me on a personal level it also answers the question of why I spent so much of my life as a pastor choosing to hide through revelation. I was hailed as a wonderful, honest communicator because I would talk about my struggles and reveal my weaknesses. I knew however that the reason I did so was really to hide. I trusted no one – no one knew all of me – not even in God – at least that’s what I subconsciously told myself. I had the greatest mentors in the world, (they stuck by me when those that should have deserted me) but they couldn’t really help me where I longed to be helped because I refused to let them in until it was too late.

If sin is a violation of relationship then holiness is quantifiable by the quality of one’s real connection both with one’s fellows and with one’s Creator. I am glad that I have connections with men who really do know me. I am glad that I don’t have to hide or try to pretend to be something I am not. I am glad the secrets have all been revealed. I am glad that I am walking proof that if you want to save your life you have to lose it. I am glad that so many of the walking dead don’t know what to do with me and that I have found a community that empowers me not to care what the walking dead think anyway.

Gifts

In the last two days I've been given gifts worthy of mention... both surprised me...

On Sunday our family tradition is to watch the Amazing Race together. This Sunday we were all hoping a couple would be eliminated. Shell was saying neither was likable.  I said that though I couldn't partner with him, I thought I could have partnered with her. Michelle said, "Only because you are a saint..." We've been married a month now and she still thinks I am a saint... wow...

Tonight, a group of us gathered to say good bye to another friend who is moving away. He brought us each gifts. They were small things that he thought would act as reminders of lessons we learned together, or things he'd like us to remember. It was amazingly cool...

He got me a compass to which he had glued a magnet so it wouldn't work. He reminded me that I am at my best when I have no idea of what direction to move and needed to totally trust God. He gave the group the mandate to get me ballet slippers because I am big and need to move more gracefully through life.

I have a wonderful wife and good friends. God gives me gifts through them as we journey together... I am grateful

Overcoming Resistance One Day at a Time

I was sitting with my best friend at Starbucks today. We were talking about Buddhism and Christianity...

Kiwanda

    I'll post the photos as soon as I find my USB cable to my camera...
    The kids, Natcharee, and I headed out on a glorious Saturday to Tierra del Mar, Cape Kiwanda, and the Oregon coast...
    It was about 70 degrees Fahrenheit with a light Northerly wind. We drove down the beach to the cape and backed in. Elton and the Eagles were on the stereo. The fire crackled behind the Jeep and the bar-b-que was set up on the luggage rack. It was a perfect day, and wasn't long until the kids headed up the giant dune toward the para-gliders that were waiting above us high on the dune. Maggie went up to admire them, and one of them told her that if I was agreeable and she was willing to go get his tandem pack he would giv e her a ride. She had two rides, Thomas had one. My kids got to para glide (a $175 value for each ride) and we made some new friends. John came over to eat with us a little later on. To watch these guys is truly remarkable. They are the next generation of hang gliders. For about $7k anyone can outfit themselves, get training and then go float on the wind whenever they want. Quite a hobby for a one time deposit.

Maybe after buying a motor bike and paying off some debts I might look to learn. It would be a great and soothing hobby.

After the flights and the meal Thomas got out his kite, Maggie and Nat headed up to the tip of the cape, Thomas led the way up the dune. I had to follow, and it was steep. We made it to the very top. The run down was fun, Thomas nose dived and ate some sand but came up laughing. Kiwanda is a great beach.

It was  a perfect day...

Pics will follow

Content

    I was talking to a friend and he said, "You seem to be in a good place right now." He is right. Life is good right now...

Confused and praying

My friends say I am much more humble when confused. They like it when I'm confused... I'm confused now and so I am praying hard... My confusion keeps me close to God...

I'll get back to themes...how bout insurance

So I finally have a product that I feel comfortable selling, even to my best friend. I really love what I have to offer. The trouble is getting people qualified...