Promises

Letters to my Adult Children - On Being Anti Death - March 2020

I live my life as a rebel for love. I fight death. But not mere physical death. For physical death does not have to be the enemy of love. No, the death of which I speak -- who is my enemy, and who will one day be completely destroyed is called, “Shame.” Shame is death by another name. It is always accompanied by “self-serving,” and, can’t be fought through the politics of power and control. It can only be defeated by love and self-sacrifice. It can only be defeated by a gaze that communicates, “You are valuable. You are loved. That won't change.”

For many years I've labeled myself “pro-life” even though I don’t always vote a “pro-life agenda.” I am pretty outspoken in my condemnation of the "pro-choice" defenders. People wonder how I can be against abortion, call myself pro-life, and not push for abortions to be illegal; and, I answer that though I label myself pro-marriage and think adultery is evil; I don’t think adultery should be illegal. And, that though I am pro-sobriety, clear-headedness, and relational connectedness; I do not think that alcohol or illicit drugs of any kind should be illegal. So, it follows, given my invitational nature — I invite people to the good, rather than to try to force them to it — that I can hold abortion to be an abomination and not fight for it to be illegal. There are too many evils like this to name — things that destroy people and relationships that I have no desire to outlaw. I believe people need to have the freedom to choose good over evil, rather than be forced to it. I’ve written about this to you extensively and don’t think I need to repeat myself here once again.

Within the last year or so, Tony Kriz and I were talking about the “pro-life” debacle — people who stand against abortion politically; who try to make the choice to abort a child illegal and who are also war hawks, pro-gun, pro-death penalty folk. Tony told me that he’d adopted the label, “anti-death,” for himself. I took it as an invitation. Slowly, I began to refer to myself the same way. I now say, “I am anti-death.”

Tony’s and my conversation occurred in the context of Paula and I walking this horrific end of life road with her parents. As you know, Miggy — “007” — is a brilliant man and nuclear engineer who is now stuck inside his body and his mind. He cannot speak. He cannot toilet. He cannot feed nor dress himself. Neither can he walk. We need to thicken anything he drinks so that he does not asphyxiate. This is not a life he would want or chose. He has a DNR that is incredibly strict. Mike would prefer not to be alive at this point. If we were a tribal people, he wouldn’t be. And yet he is. We keep him alive against his will. The life we give him is actually death for him.

Dementia and Alzheimers were your Gramgee’s biggest fear. She wanted to be dead rather than to live with losing her mind; yet, that is how she left the planet. I am beyond grateful for a doctor who cared enough to not to prolong her life any longer than she cared to live because while I am convinced her last months and years were God's great gift to her, she was miserable in the end.

When we got toward the end of Dad’s life we had a choice on how to proceed with his cancer treatment. We chose to attack the tumor aggressively. Weekly I took him to his radiation appointments. And, while the radiation wasn’t fun, it allowed him to maintain his quality of life. He and I still played and took short trips together. We still went out and enjoyed Timbers games, etc. But, the radiation was not a cure. The doctors thought that taking the tumor out surgically was the best medical course, so we followed their counsel. I would not repeat it, nor do I want it for me. For while we may have prolonged Dad’s life a little, we destroyed his quality of life. His last 9 months were miserable. He practically lived at OHSU. His life was sucked out of him. I wish I could have a mulligan on Dad’s end of life. We’d play it completely differently than we did. The choices we made during those days are some of my biggest regrets.

People often think me morbid to say I want to exit the planet on the back of my bike, but I want to die as I lived. See, death doesn’t scare me in the slightest. I told Thomas last night on a FaceTime that I am ready to go whenever. though I have no death wish. There is a lot of life left to live, I am content to exit whenever it is time to go. I would be lying to say that the process of dying doesn’t scare me though. It petrifies me. I certainly don’t want to exit the way Gramgee did, nor the way Mike and Char are. Waking in glory is my hope, suffering along the way is my nightmare. If there is a redemptive feature to it, it eludes me.

All of that brings us to a discussion of this incredible time period we are all experiencing right now. I have not lived through anything like it. There have been times like it in history, but none that any living person has ever experienced. The pandemic of 1918 and the Black Death of the middle ages were similar in the annuals of human history. But this is completely unique and new. It is as if a giant “pause” button was being pushed. We are being forced to live a year of Jubilee (See the Old Testament commands around this) even though we’d never choose it for ourselves.

I along with millions of others, are taking actions right now to ensure that you, in particular, Maggie — and the countless others like you who have health challenges — are not put into positions where you have to fight for lives not yet fully lived. For though I may be ready to enter glory at any time; and though, I may see the reality that Gigi and Miggy would prefer to stop breathing and exit this planet; I am not ready for you and/or TL to do the same. You both have lives to live. You are my greatest gifts to this world. And much h of the hope of life I hold is to leave you to the world when I exit the stage. There is no greater gift I can imagine giving the world than the two of you. No amount of money or profit; nothing I build or create can compare to the gift that you are to this planet.

I’m joyfully choosing to give up my ability to move around and enjoy my life the way I want in order to make sure others have a chance to continue breathing. Some don’t want to give up these freedoms. They are saying, “I want to live the way I choose to live. Don’t tell me how to live. It is my body, and my choice.” It is ironic how the catchphrase of the pro-choice movement is now being used to spread even more death.  And while one of my social media friends complained about that reality and attempted to deny any parallels to abortion saying this is a completely different thing; her arguments were inane, factually wrong, and harmful and hurtful.

For too long, the pro-choice movement has sounded the refrain, “My body, my choice.” Don’t tell me that I can’t live the way I chose even if it costs another human life. I shouldn’t have to have any consequences for my actions. Men, not wanting responsibility pushed abortion further. There was now another escape of responsibility; men became abortionists and began pushing a “pro-choice” agenda. There was an additional benefit to ridding the world of unwanted brown babies, now that machines and industry didn’t need their cheap or free labor — we truly could get to a place of survival of the fittest, the poor and the downtrodden could be controlled simply through population control, and a marketing genius made it all sound as if it was a woman’s choice.

Now the oligarchs have repurposed their slogan and are now arguing that “opening the economy” is more important that the health risks of 2% of the population (think of how many millions of lives that is!); that people need to be “free” to chose to live the lives they want rather than be held captive by a disease that threatens others’ lives. It is a similar refrain to the war hawks who are willing to kill thousands “over there” so Americans can have the kind of life we want to have “over here.” It is the kind of refrain that allows us to separate mothers from their children at the border, putting their kids in prison, so that we don’t have to worry about being overrun by brown-skinned people who may cost us a few dollars to feed and clothe. Why should we? They don’t even speak English.

The real issue, whether it is abortion, or war, or immigration policy is an insipid commitment to pursuing death rather than life. The death of which I speak is bigger than mere, “ending of breath.” Death is a commitment to self without regard for another. Death, as I am defining it here, is the denial of relationship. For there is no life without love. The mother who kills her unborn child by having an abortion must deny any relationship to that unborn child. The oligarch who pushes the politician to order a pilot to drop a bomb on the oligarch’s enemy; or a seaman to launch a missile to do the same, has to deny a relationship or connection to the families they kill when the bombs and missiles land, killing indiscriminately. The populist who says the parents of the kids at the border that we threw in prison, should never have brought their kids here in the first place, has to deny any kind of relationship to those brown-skinned children in order to throw them into those prisons. The Russian policeman who arrests the dissident to send them to the Gulag has to deny the horror to which they are sending them. We have to deny relationship to live the way we want. The tribesman who captures and enslaves one from a different tribe to sell him into slavery has to deny any kind of relationship to him. In order to perpetrate such evil, we have to first deny relationship and therefore humanity. In so doing, we create a culture of death. I will stand against that culture with all my being. It is why I stand as a rebel for Love.

 

Letters to My Adult Children: On Journeying Toward Death - Spring 2020

Maggie and Thomas,

This is the ride I signed up for; that I knew it was coming, and yet, it is still unfamiliar and passes through a canyon of death who provides echoes of the past that sweep over me as I ride through.

Late on the evening of July 4th, 2014 I asked Paula to be my wife. They set off fireworks to celebrate the event and they have on the anniversary of that date ever since. As we navigated what our wedding was going to look like and how we were going to pay for it, we needed to have a conversation with her folks where Paula got really vulnerable. Some of my first impressions of her Mom weren’t great; she was the power broker in the family. She was used to getting her way and dictating what was said and unsaid -- even what her family was allowed to feel. The day we had that conversation with her folks was the day my relationship with Char forever changed.

I don’t remember exactly what was said, but Paula's fears of the conversation materialized and she began to cry, racing from the room in tears. This made Char really uncomfortable and she demanded that Pabs stop crying. At that moment I did something she wasn't used to. I kindly but not nicely stepped in and spoke to Char in ways I’m pretty sure no one ever dared to speak to her. I loved her but also stopped her, putting up a boundary that needed to be erected, protecting my fiancé from the vitriol that never should have been uttered. Simultaneously, I made sure that Char knew I loved her, but what she was doing, saying and demanding was not OK. Without shaming her, I made certain she knew she was wrong. From that moment on, Char and I became besties.If I could lovingly stand up to her, I could create a safe space for her daughter to thrive.

How I grew to love that woman! We learned to laugh together and I loved to tease her. She always tried to tease me back and loved the playful banter we shared. I knew she was losing her marbles. All the signs were there. I had been here before. This was different but familiar all at the same time. I traveled a similar road with Gramgee when she transversed the Alzheimer’s plain. I already knew many of the tricks, and I quickly relearned them as Paula learned how to distract, and redirect; crack a joke and make Mom laugh.

These days, I try to get to see her between appointments; she is just up the street from my office, about a four-minute ride. It has gotten harder and harder though as she sinks lower and lower, disappearing into a pit of despair.

To her, I’m not nearly as funny as I once was, and she can’t understand why I simply don’t take her home to be with her pets. Her confusion is no longer simply forgetfulness, rather it is delusion and hallucination. She is living in a world crafted in the ecosystem of her anxiety and shame. This is a cycle of life I wish didn’t exist.

Our medical advances help us stay alive while internally we fade and die. We breathe too long these breaths of death that merely fill us with hopeless dread.

Two days ago, as I visited Mom, the TV droned on in the background and as usual COVID 19 was on the tongues of the talking heads. Mamma’s comment was, “I wish I could catch that.” She is so ready to be done. She is ready to find a resurrected life somewhere other than here where she isn't confined to a chair or a bed; where her memory doesn't desert her and leave her forlorn.

Bearing witness to Char is only part of the journey for me though, I also get to watch my wife wriggle in discomfort that refuses to let her go. She loses thoughts and ideas under the duress of having to grieve and heroically carry the weight of her parents’ journeys. She has sat with her Mom in the Pit of Despair for so long, that the despair has invaded her -- soul-sucking the light from her eyes.

This beloved wife of mine can find no respite. There is nowhere for her to run, nowhere to hide and escape. There is no drug that can make her well. There is no safety from the onslaught of a loved-one's slow and torturous death. I can’t lift the veil. Doing so would break the sacredness of her journey, so for now, I too have to grieve the temporary loss of my partner and friend.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, we find moments of joy together along the way. We are too good of friends for those to be taken from us. We function and make it through, but this journey my wife is on, though sacred, is taking her to the very gates of hell, and it is a slow burn. That burning of her heart sears my soul as well. These are painful days.

This is why I hope to go out on the back of my bike. But then again, your Gramgee told me that her greatest fear was Alzheimer's and it ended up being God’s good gift to her. I don’t want to be kept alive. If I wander off to die alone in the wilderness, please let me go, it would be a kinder death.

Though I have no intention of leaving the planet anytime soon; there is still too much life I want to live with Pabs and with you; I’ve been ready to go for a long time now. It feels like I’ve done what I was placed here to do and from here on out it is all gravy. It feels good to be at peace with my soul, with my God, and with His creation. It feels good to not have regrets and to be free to love and live without fear of messing up the future. It is a place in life I hope and pray you discover early in your lives and enjoy for as long as possible, for it feels like this is what we were created for. It is not free of pain, as you can see. Right now, life hurts like hell most of the day — but it is good and it is rich, and it is full, and it has meaning.

I think the reason Gigi’s and Miggy’s journeys are so hard to witness is it feels as if their meaning is being ripped from them. I think that is my fear for the end of my life — that meaning would be ripped from my chest and stolen from me. I have to choose to believe that what appears to be the case isn’t; that their lives and the number of heartbeats God has given them is pre-ordained and held in His hand. It is hard to believe some days… like today.

Thank God I'm Not...

Sunday, my rector preached from Luke 18:10-14

Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (NLT)

My rector's sermon was much like Jesus' story. It caught me. I've preached from this exact text dozens of times. And yet, this Sunday, the Holy Spirit caught me. For my rector pointed out that whenever we hear this story we tend to identify with the tax collector, silently whispering, at least to ourselves, "Thank God I am not like the Pharisee in the sto..." Oops...

Why did he have to preach this sermon at this point of our election cycle? It hardly seems fair.

My Democratic supporting friends are clearly acting just like the Pharisee. I read their posts every day, and the drive me nuts! (My Rep leaning friend's posts make me laugh in their unintended silliness, but they know enough not to play the Moral Majority Card that the Dems stole from their playbook.)

As I see it, the only trouble with their position is that Hillary's election is deadly. According to a Huffington Post article, written to support her, she wants to buttress our defenses and make our military's presence in the world even more deadly. Additionally, she is outspoken in her support of partial birth abortion and Planned Parenthood, which (despite their claims to the contrary) was created as a way to control the African American population. Unfortunately, they are doing a better job than any of their eugenically inclined founders ever dreamed.

Because she is running against a morally inept patsy, her own moral bankruptcy is overlooked. "It is not nearly as bad as his... nothing has ever been proven..." the argument seems to go. "If she had Trump's history as a woman, she'd be crucified." They are right about that last bit. She would. But it needs to be said, because she is a woman, to some she can do no wrong. She is, in essence, in many ways, the twin of Margaret Thatcher.

Returning to my rector's sermon; my trouble is, as soon as I point my finger at the Dems for being pompous hypocrites who hide behind a wall of intellectual snobbery and dishonesty; I join them in at the bottom of the outhouse... I judge shit. Just like them, when I claim "to be better," I become the Pharisee in the story. As evidenced by my belief that I have taken the moral high ground.

What I need to be doing is beating my breast, looking up to heaven and asking for God's forgiveness for being too proud to love, and judging those who judge fiercely and without empathy.

I'm sorry. I am wrong in my reactions. I am grateful to have a rector who cares enough to catch me in my sin.

 

Letters to my Children: On Being an Episcopalian

We are to pass on what we've been given. If we don't, we lose that which has been entrusted to our care.

A poignant memory for me is traveling through Sault Saint Marie, Ontario, Canada. Mum turned to me as we passed by an Anglican Church (Episcopalian Church) and said, "If you are ever on the road, and don't have meetings, and don't know where to go to church; go to an Episcopalian Church. It is always a safe bet, because no matter what else happens, the gospel is always present in the liturgy of the service." Knowing what I know now, the fact that mi Mum, a Bob Jones graduate, said that is rather remarkable, and I have never forgotten it. I pass it onto you.

You know that after your Mom and I split I ended up at St Matthews in Parkrose. I was there for three or four years. I still love those folk. I think (I hope) I left well. I certainly held no malice and left because of epistemology rather than theology. If you remember, I left to go to Evergreen. I wanted to hang out with Bob Hyatt, who I considered to be one of the most innovative pastors in Portland.

While I was at St Mattie's, I joined the church. To do so, I went through confirmation, rewriting the catechism as I did so. (I need to go back and look at it to see what I wrote and how I'd change it today.) So you know, the Catechism is the training that liturgical Churches (Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans (Episcopalians), Presbyterians, and Christian Reformed, to name some of the bigger ones) provide congregants who want to pursue membership in the church. Catechisms appear to be a series of questions and answers. Those joining the church memorize (or at least know) the answers to each of the questions in the catechism. In the old days they were tested, but not many churches test congregant's knowledge anymore.

At some point, we'll talk about the catechism (and why I re-wrote it), but for now, I only wanted you to know what it was. A brief Church history lesson will also help. Throughout the Church's history denominations form because they don't like something in the existing church. Because of this, you might say, each denomination is reactionary. Many times splits are doctrinal. But sometimes, they are not so much about theology (orthodoxy) as they are about behaviours and practices (orthopraxy). Anglicans (or Episcopalians) split from the Roman Catholics not because of theology but because of practice.

Henry VIII, the famous king who had eight wives by the time he was done, wanted a divorce from one of them. The pope wouldn't grant it, and so Henry ordered the Bishop of Canterbury to form a new church and called it, the Church of England. Though the Church was birthed under Henry, its future wasn't solidified for some years -- until after the reign of Henry's daughter, Mary, who returned England to Catholicism (killing a lot of people in the process). Mary's sister Elizabeth took the throne after Mary died, and she made the split final for political reasons. The Church of England's future was secure. During her reign, she commissioned a document called, the "39 Articles of Religion." Perhaps more than anything else, the 39 Articles defined the direction of the Church for the centuries to come. The document expounded 39 points of doctrine. A few are reactionary, while many confirm beliefs held by the Catholic Church. At this stage, the document is more historical than anything else. I agree with some of the articles and disagree with others, as do nearly all the Episcopal pastors I know. We probably disagree on which articles to discard, however. And we all probably read all the articles differently than the authors intended they be read. There is some hazy history, but it appears that it took nearly eight years for the Church to agree on the final 39 articles. This isn't that surprising. If you ever study or write theology, you will discover that it is more surprising that they agreed at all.

Many of those in the churches that I grew up in think that the Episcopalians are too liberal. They argue that many Episcopalians deny Jesus is God, that the Scriptures are the Word of God and are perfect and that Jesus is the only way of salvation. To the Church I grew up in all of this is heresy. Also, many argue that the church's refusal to condemn homosexuality and transgenders is an anathema.

I disagree with the Episcopalians teaching on some of these things. You know that I hold, with an open hand (in other words, acknowledging that I might be very wrong) that had people fallen into sin, there would be no homosexuality and no gender dysphoria -- that God's original creation was for eternal monogamy between a man and a woman. 

However, we don't live or love in that perfect world any longer. I know the life of heterosexual monogamy to which I've been called, and given my complete failure in that arena; I am not going to look at anyone else and tell them how God intended for them to live. It is simply not my place. To do so would be the height of hypocrisy. As I read Jeremiah and Joel (two Old Testament prophets) I need to allow people to work out how they walk before their God for themselves. I no longer claim to know how anyone else should behave in any of these matters. 

Denying Jesus as Lord is another matter. I could not be part of a congregation that denied the Trinity. Having said that, how Jesus saves is an open question for me. While I hold with a closed hand, grasping tightly to the fact that the Jesus' death on the cross is the only means of salvation, how the cross saves is beyond me. I was taught the only way that a person cold be saved was by saying a prayer, inviting Jesus into their heart. Not only is that extra-biblical (not found in the Bible), it is plain wrong. 

Though I've never said it to you explicitly, you may have noticed that I don't use the word "Christian" anymore to describe myself. There is nothing wrong with the word. However, I've chosen to refer to people like me who love Jesus as "Christ followers." Because for me, that describes who I am -- In all things, I seek to follow Jesus. A Christian is someone who cognitively believes Christian doctrine. A Christ follower is someone who attempts to obey and follow Jesus. I want to be the latter.

When you are at an Episcopalian Church you will hear more scripture than you do in most "free church" services. We'll talk about the free church later. It is sadly true that many Episcopalian people that I know, don't know their Bibles very well, they hear it in church more regularly than their Baptist brethren. I was raised to believe that the Bible was "inerrant" (or without any errors) when originally written. That last phrase was important because no one has any of the originals. As I look back, I realize that the church of my youth fought tooth and nail for inerrancy to fight for their interpretation rather than for inerrancy. The Bible clearly has errors. That is part of its magnificence. What is more, our understanding of it is flawed and fallible and when we think we have understood it, we most certainly have not.

This is an important piece of my journey and transformation. I need to write an entirely different post on Scripture alone so you can understand my journey on this all important topic.

Suffice it to say; I believe that the Bible is God's unique and divinely inspired word to us and for us. It contains all we need to know for salvation, and it is mediated (or revealed) to us by his Holy Spirit so we can have a relationship with the Triune God. It is worthy of intense study and scrutiny. It will not give life by itself but will be used by God to raise the dead, heal the sick, give hope where there is despair, and faith where there is doubt. There is no book like it, and no other writing compares to it. I think that most Episcopalians would agree with this paragraph and those who don't have a right to be wrong. 

When I go to an Episcopalian Worship service, I trudge a rhythmic path toward Jesus. I am invited into Jesus' presence, and hear his word proclaimed: First an Old Testament reading, then the Psalm, then a New Testament reading, and finally a Gospel reading. I am encouraged in my faith through the homily; am invited to pray for the world, confess my sin, and hear God's forgiveness given. With shame taken from me, I can fully enter into relationship with my neighbors sitting next to me, as we pass the peace one to another; and, finally, I am invited to partake in the body and blood of Jesus in the sacrament of the Eucharist. 

I need to stop here once again. As I grew up, I often heard preachers and pastors add to the Bible by saying, "This is a symbol of my body and blood." They did so because they don't really believe the Bible is inerrant. They believed their interpretation was inerrant. This is important because Jesus said, "Whenever you gather to worship, partake in communion together" (SGT, 1 Cor 11:25); and Jesus didn't say, "this is a symbol..." What he actually said was, "This is my body which is given for you..." and, "this is my blood, which was shed for you..." (SGT, Mt 26, Mk 14, Lk 22, 1 Cor. 11).

And this is the glory of it, so please catch it. Because he forgave me (and he had to forgive a shit ton of sin in me), I get to take communion. And as I take communion, I say, "I will enter into his death and give up my life for the world in the same way he gave up his for me. It may look like it costs me everything, but death always precedes resurrection, and resurrection is better than life!" When we are done with communion, we are sent into the world to be Jesus' body in the world.

These are the reasons that I am grateful to be Episcopalian. I realize I didn't address the things in the church with which I do disagree: The ecclesiology (how the Church is set up), or the right of infant baptism. Those issues, in practice, don't affect me and are easy to overlook. The things that make me Episcopalian far outweigh the things that pull me away.

 

Please help me get the 2 x 4 out of my eye

The new storyline that the Pulse killer was himself a closeted gay man changes this storyline drastically. It is wrong to call this a homophobic attack. Having said that, in some ways, it is much more devastatingly indicting of our current culture (I originally stated "American," but that is inaccurate. It is worldwide) or corporate psyche that pushes difference to the margins. Everyone pushes people away who are different (especially people that scare them or trigger their shame) to the margins of their psyches and physical lives. As we think about people who intimidate, frighten or repulse us, in our minds we have to make them small, ugly, repulsive,emasculated, and dehumanized. We make them "wholly other" to escape our shame and feel more powerful ourselves. For what we think we see in the one we hate is merely an image of our shattered selves that reveals the bits we or others broke off and would prefer stay hidden.

As a man, recognizing my tendencies to do this, and remembering doing it with homosexuals because of my insecurities, I relate to the above paragraph. All people do this, and not merely with sexual things (though sex is a powerful drive and it happens a lot in this arena). We do this with gender issues as well. Genesis 3 suggests that much of our misogyny is a result of this fear and is a resultant curse that drives men to "rule over" women.

Consequences and curses are nearly always connected to real life choices. Adam's chose to do nothing when the serpent tempted Eve. He was with her when she ate. The serpent didn't deceive him, and he still didn't say anything to try to stop her from eating. The only explanation I can find for his choices is that he was scared and so he froze -- a typical amygdalaian response. As men, we are famous for freezing. Our silence belies our fear. We are paralyzed by it and for a time, do not move or speak. When we ultimately do, if our amygdala is still in charge, we will most often act or speak violently. The level of our violence is directly related to the depth of the cortisol engulfing our amygdalas. At this point, we are hopelessly caught in a cycle that often becomes vicious and dangerous. I need to note here that though I am primarily speaking of men, women's brains are wired similarly, and though they may express violence differently, those acts are still sinister, kill, and destroy.

The reason the above conversation is vital to our understanding of this particular issue is that people live freely when fear is no longer a threat. What I realized this week is that as a 6'4" white male, who looks like he walked off the set of Sons of Anarchy, I don't know social fear like my gay friends. When I was much younger, I walked my dog Ashleigh -- a giant, gorgeous Gordan Setter -- down the north end of MLK in Portland late at night, greeting the prostitutes and drug dealers that used to hang out in my neighborhood. I was friendly to them, and they to me. Ashleigh made up her mind on a case by case basis. My lack of fear surprised those I encountered; many assumed I was a cop because I engaged them as humans who had worth without any fear. My wife never knew that freedom. I recently saw a meme about men fearing prison for the same reason women fear walking down the streets. My stature, my gender, and my race change the way that the world engages me. I have no fears about being physically attacked. My amygdala shoots into hyper-drive for entirely different reasons: creepy spiders and scary snakes, heights, or losing respect are what drive my amygdala crazy.

As a father of an attractive daughter, I'm aware that urban women live in a constant state of hyper-arousal and fear when they are alone on the streets. Fear accompanies them like a bad case of tinnitus. It is always in the background and never goes away. That is bad enough, but gays and transgendered people live not merely with a threat of physical harm, though this fear is all too real. They are forced to live with psychic fears surrounding their relationships as well, because who they are as people is not close enough to the center of other peoples' comfort zones. So they marginalize them. Not because they do or say anything; but merely because they've found freedom to embrace a part of themselves that scares others without that freedom to death. Ironically, their sexual freedom becomes their jailer.

My stature, gender, race change the way that the world engages with me. Police and authorities relate to me differently than they do people of smaller stature or people of color. My fears are not about being physically attacked. My amygdala shoots into hyper-drive for entirely different reasons. As a father of an attractive daughter, I've known that women live in a constant state of hyper-arousal and fear when they have to go out. Fear accompanies them like a bad case of tinnitus. That is bad enough, but gays and transgendered people live not merely with a threat of physical harm when they are out, though this fear is all too real. They are forced to live with psychic fear surrounding their relationships as well, because who they are as people is not close enough to the center of other peoples' comfort zones. They are marginalized, not because they do or say anything; but merely because they've found freedom to embrace a part of themselves that scares other (without that freedom) to death. Their sexual freedom, becomes their jailer, as others who do not know such freedom (because of their own shame)¹ push them out of the center to the edges -- away from what they consider normal.

Can you feel the bind? If one acknowledges this integral part of themselves, discovering the freedom that it brings, they place themselves in a societal jail of contempt; experiencing constant physical, emotional, and mental threats. On the other hand, if they don't acknowledge this core piece or drive, they are free societally --accepted and loved because they are part of the majority -- but they are bound internally, wasting away inside because they can't acknowledge a part of themselves that is very real and powerful.

Some people caught in this bind, are incapable of acknowledging it to themselves either because they believe their desire and their longings are morally wrong. If this is you, it is easy to understand why you get angry so quickly. Justin Torres poetically points out that, because of all these realities, the only place that the gay community experiences any true freedom is at the gay club. The club is the gay community's temple. It is the only place they know that they can go to be free together and play and release all the pent up tension that the hyper-vigilance of always protecting oneself creates. It is the only place for the gay community to release trauma together. He writes:

People talk about liberation as if it’s some kind of permanent state, as if you get liberated and that’s it, you get some rights and that’s it, you get some acknowledgment and that’s it, happy now? But you’re going back down into the muck of it every day; this world constricts. You know what the opposite of Latin Night at the Queer Club is? Another Day in Straight White America. So when you walk into the club, if you’re lucky, it feels expansive. “Safe space” is a cliche, overused and exhausted in our discourse, but the fact remains that a sense of safety transforms the body, transforms the spirit. So many of us walk through the world without it. So when you walk through the door and it’s a salsa beat, and brown bodies, queer bodies, all writhing in some fake smoke and strobing lights, no matter how cool, how detached, how over-it you think you are, Latin Night at the Queer Club breaks your cool. You can’t help but smile, this is for you, for us.

While that is an excruciatingly sad reality, It is the reality we've created (and by "we," I mean "us conservative type, white, apparently fearless males"). In so doing we have sinned greatly and owe a debt we can't repay. We can only ask how we can make it right; cause, the reality is we F**ked it up.

Jesus was clear that before we try to take the speck out of the other's eye, we need to take the 2x4 out of our eye. Because we like being at the center and holding the power, we keep refusing to do that. So before we about their "sin," we need to address our own first. We have put the gay community in an impossible situation, and we need to repent.

Dedicated to Jeffrey Tangeman, a college roommate that knew he could never be honest with me because of who I was rather than who he was. RIP, brother.

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^{1 I am not suggesting that everyone is a homosexual. I am suggesting that a high percentage of people have unresolved sexual issues. Relatively few explore and address issues surrounding their sexuality and that the shame that inhabits it.} 

 

Endings

Today is my last day taking classes at the Seattle School. I had the last class with the man with whom I came to study. This is the last time that I get to sit in class with my friends, learning from them. It is a day of sorrow and joy. It is a day where I need to embrace saying goodbye. I've spent three years in these hallowed halls. I've laughed and cried here with women and men that I've grown to call friends. This place has given me so much. There is no way to adequately express my gratitude for the men and women who've taught me:

Dan Allender is the man who drew me north. I don't know if I've ever met such a brilliant human who is simultaneously kind beyond measure. O'Donnel Day shaped my understanding of the basic construction of the human mind. She continually surprised me with gentle strength that helped me understand things that I thought were well beyond me. Roy Barsness taught me how to love my clients in life changing ways, and he redirected my theological metaphors so that they can give more life. Steve Call taught me to be gently curious and patient. His calming manner regulates entire rooms of people. Dwight Friesen daily revealed Jesus to me, and in so doing gave me a living example of who pastors are called to be. Chelle Stearns and Ron Ruthruff introduced me to new theological friends. They gave me the freedom to explore and helped me make interesections between theology and psychology. Stephanie Neil and Christie Lynk taught me ethics repeating nearly every week --  "Don't do meth and don't sleep with your clients and you'll be fine." No one teaches ethics like they do. And that is true well beyond their running joke. I've listed only the faculty that directly impacted me, changing and growing me. I haven't listed my classmates who challenged me, walked with me, and never letting me hide. They are who I will miss most. They are who have molded me the most.

If that isn't enough, next week I will say goodbye to all of my clients at my internship site. It is an abrupt and unexpected ending. It is not easy to tell them I am going, and their tears break my heart. I'm also saying goodby to staff and my supervisor and my fellow interns who have worked with me side by side. I have to say goodbye to the case managers and the chaplain who daily pour out their lives for these men and women who live on the margins of society. 

We're taught at the Seattle School, and I believe it to be true, that we need good endings to have good beginnings. Death always precedes resurrection. Life comes out of death. In this season, I am learning to end. It requires that I remember, celebrate, and grieve the life I've been blessed to live these past few months and years. I get to look ahead to the hope I hold and plan how that future might become reality. 

We don't know how to end well. Ending well is hard. May I do that which is hard, and finish well.

Ruth Grant, 30 September 1929 - 6 October 2007

I wrote this in the fall 2015, soon after All Saints Day. Recently it returned to my mind. Some will wince at what they feel is dirty laundry. My response is that I think that Mum is smiling, that for one of the first times in history, she can be loved, not for what she presented to the world, but because as a God's creation, she is an object of love.

I haven’t written or honored my mother like I have my Father. If you keep reading, you’ll understand why, and today it is time to change that fact.

As the Church remembered All Saints Day, my mind went to her. It is time to tell her story from my perspective. My remembrance is only one such story. It is mine, and mine alone. Thousands tell stories of her faithfulness and devotion. They have a different story to tell. This one is mine, and yet it is also a story of loyalty and devotion, and it is no longer a white-washed story. It is real; at least in my psyche

To hear her tell the story, her father was a school teacher in the Deep South that was forced to leave his profession so that the family could eat when the Great Depression hit. He became a dam builder - moving the family first to Hoover Dam in AZ and then north to Grand Coulee Dam in WA before moving to Vancouver Washington to work in the shipyards during WW2.

She was the youngest of four and felt unwanted. Her life reflected that truth. Having said that, she worshiped her mother, who by all accounts was an incredibly gracious and Godly woman.

Mom confessed that she always lived in the shadow of her drop-dead gorgeous sister who had the world by the tail. She never thought she measured up to a standard even she couldn't identify. As far as she was concerned, she was the unwanted, ugly one. To counter that belief she overachieved. She graduated a year early from high school and then went “back home” to the deep south to study Speech at Bob Jones University, where she excelled.

While at Bob Jones, she realized she was supposed to be a missionary and she got engaged to Stuart Bundy, a man that was also called to the mission field. The trouble was, Stuart was called to South America while Mom knew she was supposed to go to Europe. She remembered steaming out to Great Britain on the Queen Mary. Passing the Statue of Liberty with tears streaming down her face because God’s call was away from all that she knew and loved. Her God never had her best interest at heart. He seemed heartless and demanding.

Once in London, Mom became the first human to produce a weekly Christian radio program broadcast across Europe. Because of a dockworkers strike, the tapes of the American preacher she was supposed to use couldn't get through. The strike afforded her the opportunity to put Englishmen such as Alan Redpath and Martin Lloyd-Jones on the radio for the first time.

At the same time, she met a handsome English gospel singer who was taking the English church scene by storm. She would put him on the radio along with the English preaching sensations. Though they had a hit show, the American’s who were financing the program were not so thrilled. The show was intended to showcase the head of her mission to Europeans, not English interlopers. The mission decided to pull the plug on the show and end all she had created.

About that same time the handsome English singing sensation asked her to be his wife. She initially put him on hold, saying that she was in England for the purpose of producing radio, and she was not sure how her English suitor fit into God’s plan for her. Though completely smitten with him, she didn't think God would give her such a gift.

She could not find any other missions or radio ministries that wanted to do what she felt called to do, so she married the Englishman in the fall of 1952. They soon joined the Eric Hutching’s Hour of Revival Evangelistic Team where Mom took control of the sound and the radio broadcasts while her husband played emcee, led the choir and soloed for the team. They traveled the world, preaching, teaching and loving one another. It was a fairy tale romance, and though they were poor, this was the happiest period of Mom’s life.

In 1963, my brother, Timothy was born. While his birth slowed Mom down, she was still able to run the sound board and produce the radio with an infant in tow, by her side. There are some fantastic photos of her in the sound booth far above the mission's venue. When I was born, that all changed. Two children were too much. Mom went from queen of the studio (where her words were law, and she reigned over the sound teams), sought after as a teacher (indeed she preached better than my Dad), and traveling Europe and Southern Africa, to a stay-at-home mom of a toddler and an infant. She told God and whoever else would listen that she was no good as a mother. She was good at the other things, but not mothering. It seems now like those early days of my brother's, and my lives were the darkest days of her life.

After being a virtual single mother proved to be too much, the family moved to the States so that Mom could be nearer her family and not have to feel so alone. She hoped her depression would lift. The move proved not to be such an easy transition, however. All of a sudden, the family that everyone knew was known by no one. The celebrity was gone. And though Mom had family to help she was still alone with two small boys, feeling all alone, like a failure, unloved, and back in her sister's shadow.

As we grew older Mom found a few ministry opportunities for herself and was the administrative force behind what would become Grant Gospel Communications — my parents non-profit.

Somewhere during this time, she also began to groom me to be a surrogate and started sexually abusing me. It would be wrong to say more than that here, for she was broken and doing the best that she could, and she didn’t mean harm, and she needed to kill her pain — and I paid the price. I do not know what price my brother paid. I know it was steep, though.

As my brother and I got older and left home for college, Mom and Dad began to travel together again. Mom’s second golden age began. She would practice piano for hours so that she could accompany Dad during his concerts. She also began to write and perform again. And when I say, "act," I mean, "act."

She memorized Romans 8, and large chunks of Revelation, along with other sections of Scripture. She presented them as dramatic performances for hundreds, probably thousands of admirers and fans. She brought the Word of God alive for her audiences. She was good. People loved her, and she blessed them.

She also wrote Christmas fiction, designed to help listeners enter into the Christmas and Jesus stories in ways they hadn’t been able to before. She would memorize her narratives and present them as a one-woman show. I can even remember her challenging me to learn Psalm 119 faster than her. She was serious and I knew I couldn’t compete, so I turned her down. I don't know if she did it out not. It wouldn't surprise me, though.

Twice she battled cancer. The last time she was miraculously healed. That is its own story, and is so incredible; it is almost unbelievable. I know that I wouldn’t believe it had I not lived it. I was with Dad in New England when we made the call to Mom to find out what the doctors had said and hearing her, overjoyed report, “The doctor states, ‘There is a slight swelling of the lymph nodes, we cannot rule out the possibility of cancer.'” The tumour, about the size of my fist the doctor discovered only two weeks earlier during exploratory surgery was gone.

For the next 12 years, Mom and Dad rediscovered their love story, They made over 20 trips to India and Europe for ministry and mission. Side by side they labored. Then in 1999 the diagnosis that my Mom feared more than any other was given, “Ruth, you have Alzheimers disease. We can slow it, but that is all."

In 2002 on the heels of my divorce, my Dad asked me to move in with him again to help care for my Mum. He couldn’t do it alone.

Already she had proven that she was not afraid to interrupt my sermons with some embarrassing story from my childhood. Now her story grew darker. She knew that her deepest fear was becoming reality. As her mind left her, she began longing for home and wandering off unsafely, sometimes barely dressed. In 2006, Dad and I realized it wasn’t safe to keep her at home anymore. Of course, she didn’t understand a locked down memory unit. And yet, she would still say, no matter how bad it got, “I know one thing, I am a child of the King.”

Those last years, those last months, everything that gave her self-worth were stripped away from her. She was left with that simple statement, “I don’t know, but I know I am a child of the King.”

Mother’s Day of 2006 was the first day she no longer recognized me. I merely became a sweet man that visited her. Some days I was her brother, sometimes I was simply there. Never again was I her son.

Finally in October 2006 with family around her bed, Mom passed into glory. Finally getting to go home and see her Dad, the king.

I am so grateful for those last years. All her life, Mom worked her butt off to gain acceptance, to get out of the shadows of her sister, to be worthy, to be loved by her Dad. Then, in the end, she discovered that she was.

That is a story that needs to be told. I don’t tell it to besmirch my Mother’s memory but to relate her story in a way that I think she now wants to be told. She was deeply wounded, and she deeply hurt my brother and me, not from spite, but because she didn’t know how not to.

People on four continents know Jesus because of her faithfulness, I know Jesus, in part because of her brokenness. That story has shaped me, for good and for ill. It deserves to be told. My Mom was an imperfect saint, like every saint who lived before her. In the wake of All Saints Day 2015, for the first time, I remember her among the great saints of the church — perfectly imperfect; full of crap and glory; shit and magnificence.

I Believe

1. In the everlasting Triune God.
2. That he created humanity and individuals in his image for and out of love for the purpose of loving relationship.
3. That creation, human existence, and knowledge can only be properly understood through a lens of relationship.
4. That the Scriptures are God's unique written word to us and for us and are made alive by his Holy Spirit
5. That all creation chooses “self" over relationship and lives in shame, which is death -- the death of relationships and the death of self.
6. That sin is anything that violates love and relationship; and that it always leads to shame.
7. That shame necessitates forgiveness and that forgiveness requires death
8. That Jesus is the Eternal Son and the Living Word of God; conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary; was sinless; was crucified by Pontus Pilot for the sins of creation and that He rose bodily from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit.
9. That the primary metaphor to understand his death is efficacious substitutionary atonement.
10. That the cross created a moment in eternity where the perfect, loving, Triune relationship was forsaken and destroyed by the shame of the world which was absorbed and metastasized by Jesus.
11. That because of his resurrection, true life is possible  but not mandated for all creation and is found only in the furrow of death.
12. That the Church is the bride of Christ and his physical body on earth indwelt by the Spirit of God
13. That creation is on a journey of discovery of resurrection life offered in Christ.
14. That one day, all things will be restored and creation will itself be resurrected and given new life.

Celebrating Faithfulness

I first met Carson in the fall of 1993. He was in the second Arrow Leadership Program cohort, a year behind me, and yet, at the same time, so far ahead of me. In those days he ministered alongside a spiritual hero of mine, Bruce Milne who had come to the Lord through my Dad’s ministry back in the UK, and who wrote the wonderful book, Know the Truth. Back then, all of us in Arrow were a lot younger and I, for one, was a lot cockier. Springsteen might as well of been referring to those heady times as the Glory Days. And indeed, from a corporate perspective, those were my glory days.

Our cohort’s president described our class’ first meeting in1992 as a time where we measured one another up, wondering what the others had that we didn’t; and wondering what we had that they didn’t. After all, each of us had been hand-picked, recognized as being leaders of the next generation of Christian leaders; and indeed, many of us would prove to be just that, while others of us fell by the wayside, caught up in narcissistic sin and idolatry that destroyed us as humans, as pastors, and as leaders. Leighton’s vision to bring to bear the resources of the Kingdom to personally raise up a new generation of leaders who would “lead more like Jesus and more to Jesus,” was up and running. Those wonderful days were life-changing for all of us in one way or another. Much of what I learned over those eighteen months twenty years ago is still a part of my practice and my faith.

Back then I didn’t know Carson well. He was one of many, and yet he was different too. He was completely unassuming, quiet, ponderous, peaceful, and yet possessed a unique inner structural integrity I wished I knew in my own life. Even then this unassuming and, in many ways, unremarkable strength invited those who knew him into the presence of Jesus in ways that are rare and beautiful.

As time went by and our lives changed, I watched him transition to lead Arrow Leadership Ministries; and then transition again to pastor in the local church again. When I sinned and ended up in rehab, many of those I loved were nowhere to be found. One of my staff wrote to me while I lay broken in rehab, informing me that he wouldn’t come down to eat with me in the pig’s trough. Yet Carson always took my calls. Occasionally he even called me. He was always kind, gracious, encouraging and inviting. Fairly soon after my fall into grace, he invited me to an Arrow Leadership family camp held at Barnabas Family Ministries. While we were there he sat with me and listened, probably to a lot of garbage, as well as much holy desire. He never gave up on me when others did. He never looked down on me even though it meant he had to get pretty low to look me in the eye. He was willing to come meet me at the pig trough, if that was what he needed to do. He embodied Leighton’s call to, “Lead more like Jesus and more to Jesus.” I was... no... I am grateful to call him friend.

This past winter, like many of their friends, I received an email letting me know that Brenda, his dear wife who is a extaordinarily remarkable lady in her own right, had been diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer that had already spread to her brain and other parts of her body. I wept. Some things simply aren’t fair.

Many months have gone by and many of us who don’t live close enough get to walk with them via their Caring Bridge blog posts. Last month via a Facebook post and the First Baptist Church Vancouver’s website the news was published that Carson had stepped back from pastoring to care for Brenda. I wept again as I read, not because the church was losing a champion (It isn’t); but rather, because one of its champions was living faithfully in spite of an unfair world that is breaking his heart.

Carson is living out what Leighton called us to. Carson is being faithful. My faithlessness is not made up for in his faithfulness, and yet, his faithfulness calls and beckons me to redemption’s story.

Colin Gunton, the remarkable English theologian, reflected on the story of Abraham praying for Sodom. If you remember the story, Abraham gets God to promise that if there are ten good men in Sodom, He will hold back his wrath. Gunton goes onto suggest that perhaps our job as Christ followers is to stand for those who would encounter the wrath of God without their faithfulness.

I think, in many ways, Carson has done this for me. For while I will never be able to be faithful like Carson; I threw that opportunity away many years ago. I can live faithfully today because one of God’s champions is showing me how. Without knowing it, he is standing for me, so now I am able stand for others, who like me, need someone to stand for them.

Thanks for standing fast, Carson. Thanks for your faithfulness to Brenda – to you Lord, and to His Church. Brenda, thanks for standing with and for Carson over all these years I continue to pray for both of you. I love you both, and give thanks for you so very often.

Sex addiction recovery at its worst

When twelve step groups aren’t safe, what is? I’m angry and sad, and I don’t know what to do with my emotions. Since it is unsafe for me to carry them alone, I decided to write about it. Maybe it might do some good out here.

I just talked to a good friend who has historically struggled with sexual addiction. I called him because I heard he was back in the quicksand. As we talked, I heard part of the story I wish weren’t true. (Well, actually I wish none of the story was true, but it all is.)

In late summer, in the midst of some profound struggles and poor choices, he went to his sponsor to get some help. His sponsor felt incapable of “holding” his travails without putting his own sexual sobriety into jeopardy. So he “fired” my friend. My friend still hasn’t recovered. The actions of his sponsor sunk him even deeper into the cesspool of his challenged and warped perceptions.

In sexual addiction twelve step groups, members talk about their own sobriety being a priority. Newbies are encouraged by “old timers” to get rid of anything that gets in the way of staying sober (In SA that means "no sex with self or anyone other than a spouse"). New sponsors are encouraged to sponsor only insofar that their sponsoring another helps them stay sober-- not their sponsee. It is acknowledged that recovery is a selfish program.  This makes sense, if one’s life depends on sobriety (and for sex addicts it does) everyone needs to be cautious in holding or engaging things that may trigger their own personal demons to have authority in their lives once more.

The reality of what I just wrote leaves me wondering about my friend and recovery. Sexual recovery groups have power because members love one another not in spite of but because of their weaknesses – “It feels so good to know I am not the only one that struggles that way. I have someone to walk with who understands.” When groups can’t live out love, they fail in their purpose, laid out for them in the traditions: “Each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the sex addict that still suffers.”

Indeed, this should be the wonder of recovery(and I know I am “shoulding” on twelve step groups here): While a lone addict alone can’t make it. Together, they can. While one addict alone can’t contain and hold another addict's struggle, the community can. Together they are capable of far more than they think is possible. The majestic wonder here is that accepted weakness makes both the group and the individual stronger than they could possibly imagine so long as they walk together.

I just wish they had realized this in time to practice the twelfth step with my friend. He is in a world of hurt, and though he alone is responsible for his own choices and actions, the group must bear much of the responsibility for his current brokenness. I don't know if he will make it back from this one. It may be too late. I have to leave him in my heavenly Father's care (and that is easier said than done.)

I am angry that the system failed him. Though I want to blame his sponsor, I can’t. If I blame anyone, I blame his sponsor’s sponsor. He is the one who encouraged his sponsor to dump him (However, I want to fight this finger pointing tendency as I don’t think it is helpful at all). Whatever conclusions one reaches, it is a sad day for the recovery world, and an even sadder one for my friend, his wife and children.