gratitude

Benediction

It’s a little later in the week than I typically like to post. I write on Mondays, when the message is fresh and I’m refocusing on the week ahead. It’s a cool way for us to connect – I reach out to you right away and you have the rest of the week, if you decide you want to check in at all.

I heard this kind of communication is actually one of the characteristics of modern communication that has far-reaching consequences. When we are face to face (or even on the telephone), we send messages (verbally, physically, and countless other ways), they are received and reacted to immediately. If I say something that hurts your feelings, I see it, and we both have the opportunity/responsibility to address the hurt right now. You don’t really get the chance to hide it or pretend, because if I’m present and paying attention, your cues give you away. We both build all kinds of interpersonal skills through this synchronous dance. Nowadays (do I sound like somebody’s grandfather???), we send texts or emails and they are responded to sometime later. The receiver gets the chance to edit their responses, and the sender may not ever know the wound he/she inflicted. We lose so much in this asynchronous communication, it’s like the medium creates AND requires a disconnectedness.

This affects our ability to be present in situations and especially with each other. I am writing later in the week because I have chosen this week to be wholly present at home with my youngest son, who returns to college this week. (Really, it may more accurately be stated that I have chosen to be wholly present all summer. You may have noticed this, in any number of ways.)

I just want to share a few thoughts with you, and then give a sort of benediction. A benediction is the end of a church service where someone gives a parting thought, a blessing. It usually begins with “May you ____” At the Bridge, ours is always taken from the book of Numbers (ch. 6, v. 24-26, ending with “[May] The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”)

I often talk about a 2 Hands faith. This means we are invited to hold all of the emotions that come with living a completely present human life. Being an actual authentic human being is complex and complicated. We can be lots of different things, experiencing wildly different emotions from one second to the next. They are all ok, all welcome, and integrate into us (sometimes not so easily) making us fully aware and empathetic.

A great example and the one that I am swimming in right now is bitter-sweetness. “The bittersweet side of appreciating life’s most precious moments is the unbearable awareness that those moments are passing.” Marc Parent wrote this. I have no idea who this is, but it came to me through Brene Brown’s brilliant Atlas of The Heart book.

My son and I are very close, I love him dearly, am so proud of him, and really enjoy his company. He is absolutely ready to leave, start his adult life and change this world. I want him to go, I’m excited for him to go, we are celebrating – he loves college, is responsible, and will be able to fly – and I’m heartbroken. This kind of heartbreak has its roots in the richest, most wonderful soil of gratitude. I don’t want him to stay, I want him to become all he’s been created to be, and I will be his biggest fan and admirer as he goes.

And it hurts like crazy.

I don’t ever pretend it doesn’t, because to pretend otherwise is to introduce dishonesty into this sacred space, where it most certainly doesn’t belong. We have been given these gifts by The Creator of The Universe, He’s given them in love, why would I hold back anything? Why would I hold back joy? How could I possibly put dimmer switches on my gratitude? He gave me this great big, soft heart, He gave me this boy to love, to raise and to let go, and asks me to hold all of this out loud, so that is exactly what I’m going to do.

We’re playing games this week, shopping for school/dorm stuff, eating meals, disc golfing, and laughing. 2 nights ago, we played basketball in the driveway, like we always have, and the old man soreness I feel is 1. Not that nice, and 2. The most beautiful ache. He plays video games in the next room and I can see him while I writes to you, and that brings us to the benediction…

May we be courageous enough to enter into these relationships, and be present to the kind of searing pain that comes with such a deep, wide love. May we experience all the fullness of emotion that comes with the blessings of these human lives. May we be torn in gratitude.

What Brings You Joy?

“Describe one habit that brings you joy.” That’s the hosting website’s writing prompt for today, and I wanted to pass it along to you. What is one for you? What brings you joy? What brought you joy today?

[I opened my computer to write about something else entirely. (Maybe it’s not so different, we’ll see.) Yesterday, as an aside, to illustrate the “requirements” of falling in love with & following Jesus, and the relationship between salvation & sanctification, I asked my oldest son what he’d do if I bought him a Lego set. He said, “Thank you, and build it.” Our response to His gifts are just like that, we are grateful, say “Thank You,” and we live full lives of love, joy and peace. Those are the “requirements.” The Angel wasn’t in the service, and when I told her that our son absolutely preached, it was more and more simple and profound. And I wanted to talk about it again, here. But now we have a new question to consider…]

We are often confronted with some variation of this question: Where do we find joy? It reminds me of the feeling I have when I read the story where Jesus comes upon a blind man who is calling out to Him. He stops, asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” Now, in this story, the man asks for his sight, so Jesus gives it to him.

I don’t think we’d do the same, necessarily. Faced with Jesus, I think we’d be afraid to ask for anything, hedge our prayers, feel some kind of way asking for something so personal, and instead ask for a new cane or sunglasses to better deal with our blindness. Or, worse yet, if Jesus asked us what we want, what He can do for us, and we couldn’t answer Him because we didn’t know. I get to ask this question to quite a few people, in vulnerable places, and it is crushing when they can’t answer. They usually answer after a long pause through watery eyes.

What brought you joy today? Anything? Or everything? (Maybe that’s a lot to ask. Work on a Monday morning might not be the most joyous experience.) What if we don’t know? What if there hasn’t been any joy today? What if there hasn’t for days and days? Weeks? Years?? Then what?

[Now, as I suspected, these 2 thoughts aren’t unrelated at all.]

Are we spending so much time obsessing about what we have to do, about the “requirements,” that we’ve forgotten what we get to do? And what if they’re the same thing, with the only difference being our perspective? We often don’t know what we need, and we often become so blind to the shine on His gifts that we lose the joy of the simple, beautiful response: gratitude and building.

Maybe that guy’s response to Jesus is ours, too, because usually, the only difference between joy and emptiness is our ability to see. Maybe He can give us our sight, so then we can finally see what (and Who) has been there all along.

Stables

Sometimes, I reference the writing prompt that the hosting website suggests. They can be interesting and thought-provoking, they’ve even been so good that I abandon the initial reason I opened this computer to discuss the site’s question. Today, it’s “If you could bring back 1 dinosaur, which one would it be?” They are not all interesting.

In our service last Sunday, I brought up the many prayer requests in our circle. Our individual circles are huge, because we are all so cool. In a Venn diagram, the overlap is the Bridge, but the way I figure, that connects each of the circles to each of us. We are all ‘members’ of the Bridge family.

But some people drift closer to the shaded, shared section. Our close friends have close friends that become our friends, too. One of those friends, a super-sweet man we all knew from a yearly party, (it would have been impossible not to notice him, know him, remember him, and be affected by him, even seeing him on such an infrequent basis), passed away suddenly, at far too young an age, last week. It hurts and leaves a deep wound that will become an obvious scar that we carry forever.

There are many others, who sit near the overlap, who are in need of prayer, struggling through medical procedures, surgeries, distance, isolation, and on and on. For a small community, we have these beautifully massive pools in which we each, in which we all, swim. These pools carry great joy, fulfillment, celebration. But they also carry pain. We get to go to the best parties, and the most crushing funerals. We get the phone calls for very good – and very bad – news. The weight is heavy and seems overwhelming.

Proverbs 14:4 says, “An empty stable stays clean, but no income comes from an empty stable.”

In times like this, when our friend is gone, we might really like an empty stable. Or at least one that’s not quite so full. Right? A prayer list where I don’t have to turn the page to continue.

We’ve all thought it’s better to not have loved, than faced the devastation of love lost. In that moment, in this moment, we might make the trade.

There’s a BRILLIANT science-fiction movie where a man chooses to have his ex-girlfriend erased from his memory, the suffering is simply too painful for him to bear. Most of the film takes place in his mind, as she is being eliminated. It unfolds in reverse, the first memories to go were the ones from the end of the relationship, and they seem to be easy to bid farewell. But as we move backwards, the beauty, the intensity, the meaning, the love… they go, too, and he decides that the empty stable he thought he wanted has a cost that is way too high. He begins to fight to keep the memories, fights to keep her, in his mind and his life.

This makes me think about our friend, and the very good friend who brought him into our lives. She is awesome, and you can see his fingerprints all over her life. She is a better person in every way because he was there. The income that came from her dirty pen is impossible to calculate.

I was thinking of this friend this morning while I was thinking of my son. He goes back to college in about 3-ish weeks, and even now, I’m seeing my screen through watery eyes and a very real pain in my heart. He considered an internship which would have kept him away for the summer, but he was here, instead, and now I get to send him off to school again, for the 2nd time. Maybe it would have been easier if he had not come home for these 3 months. Maybe.

Maybe an empty stable is clean, with less texture, less laughter, less hugs and gallons less tears. But the income is what makes life so wonderful. An empty stable has infinitely less beauty, too. And less passion, less love, less of everything that matters. My summer has been really fantastic, I haven’t missed it, I am deeply deeply grateful we are here.

My friend’s tears – and mine and yours – from her circles are really offerings of gratitude. The income is a full, awesome life. As Vision says in the WandaVision series, “what is grief but love persevering.” The pain my friend feels is directly proportional to the love they grew and experienced. If we’re blessed, very very blessed, we can know this terrible, beautiful pain. This is the gift and the curse of the Church, of a present life. We will be connected and full. We will have purpose. We will have hearts that are so big and soft you can see them from 100 miles away. And yes, we will hurt, mourn, and suffer. There’s never a way around the pain, only “through.” The thing about that, though, is the promise that we’ll have hands to hold and arms to fall into, for the “through.” And that is more than enough.

1’s & 2’s

Yesterday’s Bible In A Year New Testament reading was in Romans. Not that you asked, but I think, probably, Romans 2 is one of the most difficult and important passages in the Bible. And the consequence of continuing to ignore it is seen everywhere we look. It’s the cause of nearly all of the division we are experiencing and have experienced, from the garden to today.

Paul begins Romans like we would, like we do on Facebook. Look around, look at how bad these people are! They do this and this, they are like this and this. Can you believe how dumb, immoral, deceptive, how awful they are? There are Psalms that detail prayers asking God to destroy “the wicked.” Romans 1 reminds me of those prayers, the righteous passing their judgment on the wicked…“us” passing our judgment on “them.” It also reminds me of the Pharisee, who said of Jesus, “If this Man were a Prophet, He would know who was touching Him. He would know what kind of woman she is.” You can hear his condescension and disdain, she’s not even human. Neither are those “wicked” people. Nor the “others” of Romans 1. We stand here pointing…them…they’re the problem.

But then, in a brilliant twist, after we’re all on his side, feeling very superior talking about what’s wrong with the world, Paul says, “yeah, you ARE them!” (That’s my translation. Actually, he says, “You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. 2 And we know that God, in his justice, will punish anyone who does such things. 3 Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things? 4 Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? 5 But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself.”

Now, what if I make it a bit more personal, to reduce the narrative distance of reading something someone wrote to someone else 2,000 years ago? I’m just as bad, with no excuse. I condemn myself, with each cutting remark. I’m stubborn, refuse to turn from my sin, and am storing up terrible punishment for myself. God is kind and patient with me, and I do not extend those same qualities to others, it means nothing to me.

Ouch. We like Romans 1 much more than Romans 2. It makes us feel good, better than, it makes us feel right, but this is a delusion that we sometimes never expose. We like pointing. But this means we are also standing outside of the party.  

This is a reference to the Prodigal Son parable, where the King welcomes the son, who has been away squandering his inheritance, and throws a party. The older brother of the prodigal, who has always been there, is indignant at his brother’s welcome, and the parable ends with him standing outside with choices to make. The older brother likes to point at the “bad” brother, feeling like the “good” one, the one who listens and behaves. He is the one missing the party, too. He’s classic Romans 1, lying to himself while the King knows everybody is Romans 2 and has a great big eternal party for those 2’s.

If we think we’re so awesome, The King can’t really do too much for us, we won’t allow it. Step 1 is admitting we have a problem, admitting we’re the 2’s. We can’t accept the rescue as Romans 1 because Romans 1’s believe they can do it themselves, looking down incredulously on those pathetic 2’s inside at the party.

When Paul pulls that rug from under our feet, we are shaken into finally seeing that we are all 2’s. That is the reality we don’t want to face. But once we do, everything changes. There’s only 1 kind of woman/man: loved, forgiven, redeemed, accepted. There’s no one less than because there’s no one better than (well, there’s only One better than, and in Him, we live and move and have our being, in Him we find ourselves and our tremendous worth), so we can stop being so scared thinking we have to prove our value and earn the space we take up by knocking another down. We can just live into the divine economy of grace and love, and we can start to truly give the overflow of that grace and love to everybody else.

In other words, we can all come into the party.

Who Is Jabez?

Sometimes, the site prompt is unbelievably deep & searching, asking questions we might not want to explore. Today’s is: “What could you let go, for the sake of harmony?” Doesn’t this sound like so much of what we’ve been discussing in the epistles of Paul? When do the (perceived) slights and disrespect get so big that the relationship between us would be harmed? IS there a line, where it’s simply too much? Or is harmony to be defended at all costs, and we are to let everything go? This was not something I intended to think about today, it’s just a gift to lead us into ourselves, a place where we can consider what it is that we truly believe.

The prompt that got me to open my computer this morning did not come from the hosting website, it came from 1 Chronicles, chapter 4. Verses 9 & 10 read, “There was a man named Jabez who was more honorable than any of his brothers. His mother named him Jabez because his birth had been so painful. He was the one who prayed to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and expand my territory! Please be with me in all that I do, and keep me from all trouble and pain!” And God granted his request.”

So, who is Jabez? An honorable man who too a risk and made a BIG ask of God – not only bless him, not only give him a lot of land, not only presence, but keep him from all trouble and pain!! ALL trouble and pain?! And, in an extraordinary move, God granted his request! What made Jabez so special? Did the fact that he was honorable ‘earn’ that unbelievable yes? Or was it the faith in a generous, loving God to ask? It seems like there should be more than 2 verses in a book no one really reads given to such a man, such a story. There have been many books written, many gospels based on 2 verses, surely there must be more to learn about this story.

Does God give us what we pray for? In Mark 11:22-24, Jesus says, Have faith in God…Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” If I believe that a mountain will throw itself into the sea, and it will because I said so, then maybe the prayer of Jabez isn’t that big of a deal at all.

But, then we have Matthew 11:2-6, “When John the Baptist was in prison, he heard what Jesus was doing. He sent his followers. They asked, “Are You the One Who was to come, or should we look for another?” Jesus said to them, “Go and tell John what you see and hear. The blind are made to see. Those who could not walk are walking. Those who have had bad skin diseases are healed. Those who could not hear are hearing. The dead are raised up to life and the Good News is preached to poor people. He is happy who is not ashamed of Me and does not turn away because of Me.”

John lived his entire life for Jesus, paving a way, devoted to the coming Messiah, and found himself in prison. We can forgive him for asking, “Um, are you the One?” Maybe he had Jabez in mind, thinking if we’re honorable & faithful, things will go very well for us. Jesus answers in an unusual way, essentially telling him he wasn’t getting out of that cell alive, but he shouldn’t turn away from Him. So, what’s up with this? All of the disciples had horribly tragic deaths (except John – a different John – who had probably only wished he died several times), the prophets didn’t exactly live cushy lives of material comfort. In fact, it seems like Jabez is the exception.

God’s blessing isn’t an exception. God’s generosity isn’t an exception. God’s grace & love aren’t exceptional. It’s only an exception that, in thsi case, His Divine Blessing looks so much like we want it to look, with easy living and loads of land and money.

What do we make of this? First, I can’t remember many prayers I’ve read or heard that sound like this. I wonder how many of us have prayed so boldly, so honestly, so un-self-consciously. I haven’t. Do we think it’s selfish or somehow wrong to ask for what we’d really like from the only One who could really give it to us. Maybe we don’t ask because, what if our answer is like John’s. Maybe our faith isn’t quite built to withstand a “No,” for whatever reason. Maybe we’re afraid to be so open with God, as if He doesn’t know what we’re holding back, leaving unsaid. What does this say about our perspective of God?

This morning, my sister told me a story about how she called a coworker to ask if she’d switch shifts with her. Now, I’m thinking about the vulnerability of that, but also the faith. My sister is likable and great at her job, she’s honorable. But she’s also perseverant, if that coworker says no, I bet she’ll be a little like the parable of the persistent neighbor, asking for bread at midnight over and over until she gets the bread. She asks for what she wants.

Maybe Jabez got what he wanted just because he knew the character of God enough to ask. Right now, if you ask me (and I suppose nobody actually has;), I think these 2 verses are about the heart posture of prayer, and our reverence and child-like belief in Our God. The act of asking says, 1. He loves me. 2. He wants to give me good gifts (even if I might not always know what He would call “good”). 3. I am human, He’s created me to be His child, He knows me, inside and out, so I’ll ask Him. But also, 4. I love Him, I’m grateful, I trust Him to know what I need, so my entire faith doesn’t hang on the thread of His giving me everything I want. I don’t need Him to be my vending machine to love and/or follow Him.

The Bible isn’t always easy to understand, and sometimes the deeper we get, the more mysterious it gets, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome.

Grading The Kings

The Old Testament readings lately in the Bible-In-A-Year plan are quick, glancing blows about the kings of Israel & Judah. They simply give the name, how long he ruled, and whether or not he did what was “pleasing” or “evil,” “in the Lord’s sight.” Sometimes, they spent many years in power, and still, only one thing seems to be important. (Of course, if you want to read more, the author repeats, you can look that up somewhere else.)

[Violence is always present. Some of the kings assassinate their predecessors, then are assassinated by successors. Some win wars, some lose wars, against the same enemies. This is the insanity of human beings, the story of Samson (in the book of Judges) on a loop, where only the names change. Samson does something (what he does doesn’t really matter, but someone gets offended and/or killed), then the Philistines retaliate, then, “because you did this to me,” Samson raises the ante, then, because he did that to them, they retaliate. Both sides think they’re right, obviously, only paying back evil for evil, an eye for an eye (or a head for an eye), but the story is one of an unquenchable vengeance and bloodlust. No one knows who started it, no one cares, really. At the end of the story, Samson and a building full of Philistines are all dead in the ruins. And then, the next ‘Samson’ and ‘Philistines’ believe that this time, it’ll be different. That we (whoever ‘we’ is) can bring peace through victory, but it’s not peace – the shalom of the Bible – and it isn’t lasting. It’s strange how we don’t like to read about the violence and war in the Bible, while we perpetuate the story generation after generation. Anyway, that’s not what I meant to write about today, it’s just a momentary digression.]

[Speaking of digression, we’re about to move into a few chapters in 2 Corinthians that scholars refer to as “The Great Digression.” Isn’t that awesome??]

The kings are graded on just one thing: did they do the things, govern the people, in such a way that it would please God or not? That’s probably enough to think about, but that is also not what I want to get into. What I do want to get into is another familiar refrain in these chapters (and I’ll specifically use just one example, from June 29, The Angel’s birthday, 2 Kings 15:3-4): “[Uzziah] did what what pleasing in the Lord’s sight…But he did not destroy the pagan shrines and the people still offered sacrifices and burned incense there.” Good kings, pleasing in the Lord’s sight, often leave pagan shrines and/or asherah poles, behind. This is fascinating to me. Why would they stop? Why would they leave such an offensive symbol of disobedience and idolatry standing? And how are they still considered “pleasing” to God?

The Bible leaves a lot of questions unanswered, doesn’t it? That is on purpose, by the way. The idea is that we enter in, wrestle with it, turn it like a diamond with many facets, discover ourselves in the story and then notice as the characters we are change with subsequent readings.

What do I notice? I was a bad king for much of my life, following in the footsteps of the culture around me, walking the roads that have been smoothly paved over hundreds, thousands of years, leaving so much damage (to myself and others) behind. Then, as I fell more and more in love with Jesus, my eyes began to open and I started to see new ways, take small steps from that wide path onto a new, narrow one. I was a king that might have followed some of the Law, might have followed Him a little, one foot on each path. I’m moving in a direction, growing, becoming. It’s that passage, Uzziah’s epitaph, that disturbs me. He was pleasing, but…

Where are the pagan shrines, the asherah poles, in my life? I wonder if all of the kings even knew they were there, I wonder if Uzziah could see all of the altars. Do I? Do I even want to know?

Uzziah left them, and was pleasing anyway. This is the message of grace, I think. We are new, redeemed, and we still leave some of the past standing. The old us still hides in tiny, secluded caves in our land. We still carry that “but…” but maybe the sentence gets reversed in Jesus. We may have, so far, left the pagan shrines, BUT we are pleasing to Him. We are loved anyway. We keep living these ridiculous loops of Samson, but… We keep going back to the wide path, even if just for a second, but…

When we read the Old Testament, it can be maddening. Why do they keep doing this?!!!? Why don’t they get rid of the shrines and poles?!!!?It doesn’t take much awareness to realize that we are them, and once we see that, we see the exile and the return (we see all of these stories) in a whole new Light, through new eyes of tremendous, overwhelming gratitude.

Sirens

“Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.” That’s the site prompt today, and I sure like it. We should do this, and tell someone. And probably, if we don’t have simple things like this, then we should get one immediately. You know I do puzzles, listen to songs and sing along loudly, lift weights, watch documentaries, write these blogs, read books… I am a simple man, so it just stands to reason that I’d have a life full of simple things that bring joy. I bet there are so many who would call my life unbearably boring, and I am more grateful than I can tell you for my simple, boring, wonderful life.

This morning, I woke up to the sounds of sirens. There were many and they were so loud. As it turns out, a bar in our little town was burning. It’s the second time this business has been ravaged by a fire in 7 years. 2 adjacent apartments were affected, displacing residents. One of the families in one of those apartments has 5 elementary school-aged children (I knew this early because I happen to be married to a school employee, but I would know this now because it’s all over the news). They have lost most of everything they own.

The Angel and I cried together, separately, this morning. We also were victims of catastrophic disasters that stole everything we owned. And now I see this prompt about joy and gratitude, and it seems connected. (This isn’t surprising, because everything is connected, if we only have eyes to see. But the connections between some things are easier to notice, even without “eyes that see,” aren’t they?)

There was recently a pretty massive disruption that swept through our family, and required days and (probably) weeks of recovery. It was full of broken hearts and drama, tears, relief, uncertainty, hope, and pain. Today, when I hear these sirens and see this news, our terrible time feels smaller, in comparison.

But we don’t compare, do we? Our pain is our pain, and should never be minimized or de-valued. The people who remind us that our hurts are smaller than another’s are not our friends. Instead, they’re tone deaf and are woefully lacking in empathy. Rather than climbing into our pain with us, their uncomfortability forces them to act out of their own selfish interest to “cheer us up,” so that they don’t have to feel any darkness.

However. This morning’s tragedy does bring new perspective, like a sledgehammer. Our drama was awful, but doesn’t require us to rebuild our entire lives. We had to process human behavior, brokenness, and loss with our sons, 19 and 21 years old. But we didn’t have to hold small children, and each other, soothing them, assuring them that we were there, still together, badly emotionally and physically wounded but intact, we would mourn and we would rebuild, heal. (I remember those exact conversations like they happened yesterday, my heart still aches for my boys and my Angel.)

I guess the true thing is that we are all in this, all tethered by our spirits and The Spirit. Our pain sure isn’t magically smaller in another’s (often, people would say to us, “if it makes you feel any better…” then give a story of their loss – and it never made us feel better. Why would it??), but it does connect us in ways we could not artificially manufacture. Our eyes open (they take vital steps towards those “eyes that see”), we are jarred out of our own stories, and compelled to enter into new stories. We move to help, to carry, to pray, to hold. Our hearts grow through the pain, as we become more and more empathetic.

The site prompts like today’s are important, because we constantly return to our joy, our blessings, our gratitude. And so is our inevitable pain, our certain loss & tragedy. Sharing this human experience, all made in Our Creator’s image, invites us to acknowledge the truth that we are all His, so similar in so many ways. When we are grateful, and when we are broken, these are the times we stop looking through these lying, deceptive lenses that tell us otherwise. There aren’t divisions between neighbors and enemies in ruin, only brothers & sisters.

The End.

As I read through this, I realize that it might not be as coherent as usual, it might be messy, chaotic. That might be on purpose. I am not as coherent as usual, I am messy, chaotic. Life is complicated, with many conflicting forces all working concurrently inside of our heads and hearts. We’re just trying to make sense of all of it, but sometimes, there isn’t any “making sense of all of it.” Sometimes, it’s just trying to survive, in the midst of catastrophe. Other times, we’re so grateful we could explode. And then, there are times when both of them are absolutely real and noisily, confusingly coexist. And we (all of us, all of you, all of them) are always there, beautiful gifts from a Loving, Living God. And that’s enough.

25 Years?!

[I wrote this on my other blog, and thought I would share it here, as well. It’s about a specific pop song, but it’s also about marriage, and the blessings we can sometimes miss. Maybe you’ll like it.]

What does “having it all” mean to you? That’s what the site is asking, and it is actually a pretty revealing query. It certainly tells more than most of these prompts. Maybe I’d care to dive into this another day, but not today, hosting site, not today.

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. The Angel has been married to me for a quarter of a century. I’ll get all mushy at the end of this post, but something happened this morning that perfectly illustrates what a healthy marriage is, and how to get one. (I don’t have all the answers, obviously, but when I do happen to come across one, I like to pass it along to you. I don’t only want me to have an A+ 25-year marriage, I want everybody to have that. Incidentally, I am not particularly special or unique, what I’m about to write about has nothing to do with me, it is open to all of us. Also incidentally, I used to think this A+ healthy marriage had to do with finding the Angel, and that blessing had more to do with her being a unicorn rather than any principle or idea. I don’t, anymore. That unicorn has everything to do with my marriage, but she is not the only avenue for anyone to have a beautiful relationship.)

Anyway, this morning on the way to school (through some turn of circumstance, I take her to and from work nowadays), I chose to listen to an Amazon Music playlist titled Rediscover: 90’s Alternative. The first song was the classic “Wonderwall,” by Oasis. I knew she’d sing along with me once the first word of the lyrics “Today…” started up. It’s also an awesome love song – “I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now…Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me, and after all, you’re my wonderwall.” Perfect beginning to a great day, right? Except she says, “I’m happy I’m getting out of the car.” Whaaaat???? The she explained, she doesn’t like Liam’s voice or the song or the greatest era of music, either. 

We had our first date in 1998, got married in 2001, and have been together almost every day since. How could I have possibly not known this? Before this moment, it had never ever crossed my mind that anyone would not absolutely love this song. I told my son, later, that “it was wildly overplayed, think “Shake It Off” (by Taylor Swift) levels of airplay, and still, it wasn’t enough.” Everyone loves “Wonderwall.” The fact that my wife doesn’t is impossible.

So, here’s what I learned… You marry someone, you learn all about them, who they are, what they dream of and care about, where they come from, what songs they love, and then they grow and change, and you learn those things again and again and again. I am not the boy she married, and I will not be the man I am now in 10 years. She is not the same woman who sat across from me in that restaurant in 1998. We are dynamic creatures by nature, made to move and evolve. (Sometimes we forget and stagnate, but that is not our design.)

My experience has been that relationships crack and break apart when we stop paying attention, stop learning each other, when we think that we know who the other is, that there are no more surprises or amazing revelations. We get bored. But we are very wrong. The harsh truth of that is, we’re not bored with them. We’re bored with ourselves, we checked out of our own lives and never came back. We’re the boring, uninterested & uninteresting, apathetic, pathetically incurious ones. 

Imagine if I believed the Angel was the college junior I met those many years ago? I would have missed countless wonderful (tiny and humongous) transformations. She looks the same, gorgeous as ever, but now she has some gray hairs and they are absolutely fantastic, adding a level of texture and interest. Imagine if I stopped looking at her so closely, so intently. Imagine if I expected her to look like a 20 year-old. I would have missed this wildly better, even more beautiful, version entirely. 

After 25 years, I’m married to the Angel, but the Angel is different, new, stronger, deeper, both more open and more assured. She’s cooler than I thought, and she’s everything I knew she was. She drives me crazy – in all the good ways as well as the bad. Of course, there have been growing pains, but they are also growing joys, growing pleasures, growing wonders, and growing peace. We have discovered each other in terrific new ways, and in not so terrific ways (like the “Wonderwall” tragedy). We have loved each other, and will continue to do so, for as long as we are given. 

I’ll never know why she wanted to be married to me for one day, much less 25 years, but that’s her problem, not mine. As for me, I’ll keep looking & listening closely, dreaming, learning, I’ll keep growing and moving forward, and I’ll stay forever grateful that I get to do it with her, whoever she becomes, and whatever horrible thing I might learn in the car, tomorrow.

Conflict

Today, the 4 of us (the Angel, my 2 sons, and I) sat down to play a board game. While the game isn’t too important to this post, it was called Hues & Cues. The board has 150ish color squares. One person draws a card with one of those squares on it, then that giver describes the color on the card first in one word, then the players place pieces on the square they think corresponds to the clue. Then, the giver’s second clue is in 2 words, then the players place another piece. (For instance, I had orange and I said “church” because it looked like the orange of the Bridge, then my second was “favorite color” because it’s my favorite color.) The guessers get points for how close they can get to the actual color, the giver gets points for how close the guessers are. It’s super simple and fun. Elisha won, The Angel complained about the game for the entire hour, then came in a close second. I was last by a mile, which makes me wonder if I my vision or my memory is a problem. (That’s not exactly true. I have won before, so I’m probably not broken, just had an off day. Maybe I told them I let them win.)

Before we played this game that I lost in spectacular fashion, we engaged in some serious conversation, and I was faced with a wonderful reality.

We have not always discussed/argued/disagreed/fought in totally constructive ways. Voices have been raised, offense has been taken, words have been said that deeply wounded those closest to us. But as was obvious today, we have come a long way in learning how to communicate through very difficult circumstances & topics. This may not always be the case, but it is today, and I thought of 3 observations.

First, our transformation usually occurs over long periods of time and is often unnoticeable from moment to moment. It’s like when you lose weight. You lose a fraction of a pound at a time so it seems to you like there’s no change, but when you see someone who hasn’t seen you in a month, you realize there has been change and it is striking. So, we keep moving, walking the path, with very few signposts that point out how far we’ve come. Today was one for us. When we are lucky enough to have a signpost, we must stop, look around, and feel (and express) our gratitude. It’s nice to grow, it’s important to appreciate the work and ground we’ve covered with the Holy Spirit.

Next, conflict isn’t awesome. With the exception of a very good friend of mine, nobody likes it. But without it, there’s no catalyst for movement. It requires honesty, grace, and love. If you didn’t care about the relationship, you wouldn’t wade into deep water, you’d just find a new pool. We open ourselves in the giving and the receiving and the ties that bind us grow tighter and tighter. Everyone the gets the opportunity to break free of our expectations and become more and more like the new creations we are.

And last: Mostly, when we are offended and respond in our offense, it’s because we are feeling insecure and/or inadequate. We are feeling some kind of fear, so we are hurt and lash out. We cannot accept any challenge to our fragile ego, anything that might suggest that we are not perfect and always right threatens our idea of our own value (based wholly on our performance) and that is terrifying. I believe what happened today was, 4 people operated out of a deep sense of worth, not tied to anything, with no conditions. 4 people knew they could be vulnerable, could receive criticism, fail, and consequently, were free to learn and evolve. Our identity is only found in God, not in our best or worst moments, not our behavior, our achievements, and not in our board game proficiency.

Maybe that’s what it means to find freedom in Christ. Or maybe it’s just a step in the path to that beautiful freedom. Either way, I’m thankful for who we are now, and who we are becoming.

    Jairus

    In Sunday’s service, I stated a relatively simple but heavy truth that the Church almost always grows (in both width & depth) in times of oppression…but in prosperity, not so much. This has been played out and proven over history, and probably, our own lives.

    In the book of Luke (8:41-42), “a man named Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with Him to come home with him. His only daughter, who was about 12 years old, was dying.”

    It’s not hard to vividly picture this scene in your head. He “came and fell,” “pleading.” His daughter is dying and he’s broken-hearted and broken, he’s poor in spirit. There’s nothing left to do, so he comes to a certain Rabbi, of whom he’s heard rumors. Who knows if they’re true, but he’s at the end of his rope. Imagine his face and footsteps. I don’t think he ran – maybe he did, but the word ‘fell’ brings images of heavy feet and slumped shoulders to me, of barely getting to Jesus before collapsing under the weight of such intense loss. He pleads, begs, cries, wails. “Help her, Rabbi, please help her!!” It’s 2 verses that are absolutely, totally devastating.

    Now, maybe Jairus was always following Jesus, maybe he was one of the first followers. Maybe he knew Jesus, maybe he believed. But maybe not, and that’s what I imagine. If he knew him, believed, he would have come sooner. The Jairus in my head was skeptical, fell right into line with the Jewish teachers and Pharisees in his circle. Or maybe, even, he was decidedly not a believer. Instead, maybe he thought this Rabbi was a dangerous threat to his God and his religion.

    But pain and suffering, oppression, lead us into some very uncomfortable spaces, right? We say & do things we might never say & do. We’re much more open minded, less likely to close any doors, more likely to open already closed doors. Jesus is a trouble-maker, but when her daughter is dying, what if it’s true??? What can it hurt?

    Jairus asks. He seeks, He knocks. He cries out in his broken-ness. And God answers. When Israel is in Egypt and cries out, God answers.

    When things are great, clicking along, the bills are paid, the sun is shining, we have a great tendency to forget. When we’re being promoted at work, we think we deserve it, we’ve earned it, we’re capable and strong. We know what to do. But when we’re fired, we’re lost, afraid, weak, and have no idea what to do or where to go. When we cry out for Help, God is far more apt to rescue us, than when we think we’re in control and so awesome we could never need/use any help from anyone.

    To tell you the truth, as I’m thinking about it, Levi (Matthew) is a much more exceptional story. He was a guy who had a good job, power, lots of money, and when Jesus said, “Follow me,” he left that all behind. We’re probably way more Jairus than Levi.

    Today is a gorgeous day, I slept great last night, and now I feel good and got a bunch done in the yard and my closet. I ate terrific pizza with my son for lunch. The Angel will be home in a minute. Today is a very good day. And I didn’t think of God too much, today. I said Thank You a few times, fleeting and quick. Sunday, I had a headache that woke me up out of sleep in the middle of the night, ibuprofen didn’t help, it was agony, and I spent hours in prayer.

    The idea is that, whether we have everything or nothing, whether it’s sunny or sleeting, whether our bank accounts are overflowing or empty, whether our hearts are overflowing or empty, God is still God and loves us exactly the same. I bet this is the “secret” Paul talked about, except it’s not really a secret at all, it’s the secret practice of turning our hearts toward Jesus not only on Saturday, when it hurts, but also on Sunday, when we’re healed.