perspective

Characters

The site is wondering, if I could be a character from a book or movie, which one would I be?

Well, I have always wanted to be Superman or Luke Skywalker. And, with the terrific portrayal in the MCU, I can add Captain America. Those are who I wanted to be, and as I look at them now, they are characters with very little conflict. They’re squeaky clean and always good.

That’s why Star Wars fans had such a problem with The Last Jedi, the avoidance & moral ambiguity of Luke Skywalker tainted his reputation. The film is my favorite of the bunch, mostly because, as I get older, I recognize that everyone has those gray areas. Captain America keeps most personal things a secret and is a horrible friend. Superman… well, if you would call sleeping with Lois before marriage a moral flaw, that might be the only one, but he is Superman.

When I read High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby, I could see myself in Rob, the record store owner with relationship issues. I still can, in lots of ways. I will sometimes get my priorities mixed up, misplacing pop music and culture much too high in the hierarchy of values. I can receive too much of my worth in the way others perceive me, too. But he’s also funny and cool and loves (people, art, and things) easily. I feel like, in real life, we’d really like him.

I can happily also see me Kung Fu Panda’s Po. I’m fairly paunchy, hate cardio, own action figures, love violence and noodles. I have studied my own dragon scroll and have found there is no secret ingredient in me, either. I am just me, and have found that absolutely, wonderfully freeing. But I also make a mess and eat too many cookies. 

In the Bible, there’s a disciple named Peter. He speaks quickly, without thinking, and is often wrong. He’s zealous and excitable, he probably talks too loudly and too much. There’s a moment when Christ is transfigured, and Peter is one of three to actually see it, and instead of being present to this sacred glimpse of the Divine, he wants to build altars to His God and this space. He wants to do something, fix something, explain something. He wants to prove himself through what he can/will do, through his devotion. He fails in big spots, chooses the easy, comfortable way, and likes things to be his way. He also loves Jesus with every ounce of himself. He wants everybody else to love Him, too. He is the rock upon which Jesus can trust to build His Church. After the resurrection, when he sees Jesus, he jumps right out of his boat and swims to the shore. I’d like to be a rock Christ can trust…but otherwise, I can certainly relate to this person in a Book.

I guess that’s the difference between a boy and a man. I can see me in Rob, Po, and Peter – the good parts and the bad. I can hold the different sides of being human, I appreciate their flaws, and love them deeply anyway. Maybe this mirrors our own journey. We want to have superpowers and win all the time, so we can’t look too hard at the cracks in our self-created images. But now, as a grown up, I can see my bad, aged skin from a life lived, and I don’t hate that skin anymore. This skin is mine and tells the story of me, then, and me, now. It tells the story of God’s creation & grace: in spite of the mess I’ve made (and continue to make) of His work, He loves me desperately anyway. He sees tremendous value and beauty in that skin, in me, so maybe I should, too. 

I wanted to be superheroes and Jedi knights when I was young(er), I don’t want to be them anymore. I don’t really want to be anyone other than who I am, only who He’s created me to be, anymore.

A Delusion

We talk an awful lot about a 2 Hands Theology, right? That just means the human experience is complex and complicated. Almost nothing is just 1 emotion. To look at one example: When you have a baby, it’s amazing, exciting, hopeful…AND… it’s terrifying, overwhelming. It’s also the end of that stage of your marriage, where you could pick up and go anywhere, anytime, without days and hours of planning and a packed diaper bag. It’s the best. And this monumental life change is also the loss of who you both were before. It’s a great change, but all change involves some sort of loss, and every loss must be mourned. To ignore either hand is to eliminate half of your life, it’s pretense, and it’s pretty unhealthy.

Now. Every day holds this same invitation into an authentic, engaged life. Your friends move, people pass away, relationships end, you’re promoted, your book comes out, the doctor calls, and on and on. It’s a BOTH/AND life that we lead, and we are wonderfully present.

But sometimes, it’s a lot, isn’t it? Sometimes, it feels like the hand that holds the pain, sadness, and overwhelm parts is heavier than the joy & celebration. Sometimes, it seems the scales tip, our shoulders slump, it feels like an anchor is attached to our hearts, dragging them underwater.

Most people run from this darkness, pretending that the clouds are not just lined with silver, but made of gold. We pretend that the sadness is a lack of faith, a dismissal of God’s goodness & sovereignty. It isn’t, it’s honest, overflowing with a faith in a Creator that would be big, awesome, and loving enough to take it all with us. In His mercy and grace, He weeps with us.

That’s what we often do, run from the suffering. And other times, we fall into the delusion that the dark side is winning, that the hand that holds the pain IS actually heavier. This isn’t true, either.

In much the same way that 1 negative comment can eclipse 15 positives, the pain is loud, intense, and obsessive. But that doesn’t mean the other hand has disappeared. And that isn’t natural or healthy. It’s a 2 Hands Theology, very very rarely only 1.

So, when it’s raining and feels like it’ll never be sunny and dry again, how do we reclaim our full perspective, that is faithful, beautiful, and authentic? The answer is the same as when we skip through the streets in a monsoon, pretending we’re not wet: we open our eyes, look up, look around. And in the opposite case, when it might be tempting to fall, we look to the other hand. Because simply because it seems that the scales have tipped and the anchor is permanently fastened to our soft, lovely hearts doesn’t make it true. The hand that holds the wonder of each other, the blooming flowers and blinding sunlight, the abundance of gifts and blessings, is still there, hasn’t gone anywhere. We just need to notice, and say thanks. Gratitude is the antidote to despair, it always was, and it always will be.

God doesn’t take us out of the rain, He holds us in it. But He also doesn’t say that it’ll never stop raining. The resurrection tells us that there’s a day coming when it won’t rain, when there will only be 1 hand (and it’ll be His.) But until then, He’s there with us, loving us, not for our myopia or our faking, but for everything we truly are.

Both Trash Collectors And Hoses

After service, a brilliant woman who I am thrilled to call my friend said to me, “we’re garbage collectors, picking up the trash on the road to Jesus, then becoming the hoses that wash it down.” How great is that??!!

Of course, this makes no sense, if you hadn’t been there. In the last few months, I’ve made 2 specific analogies. The first is that we are conduits for the love of God. He provides the love, filling us, transforming us, then we become hoses that His love flows through, getting all over everyone. The second, last week’s illustration, was of a path to a door. God has built the house, set the table for the feast, built the door, then paved the road to that door. We don’t do any of that, He does. But, as we’re studying in Paul’s letter to Titus, it is our job to partner with The Spirit to clear away the obstructions that we so often set on this path to Him. We set up this spiritual obstacle course, in so many ways, then we are tasked to remove them. I like my analogies, but the picture she painted, tying the 2, was so good, I badly wished I had made it.

I’m telling you this story for a few reasons. 1. Our small community has so many fantastic talents, it never ceases to surprise. This is a testament to the abundance of God’s blessing. The leap is not a huge one to assume that we all are overflowing with gifts, just sitting, waiting to be unlocked and taken out of the package and played with. That’s what I have always guessed – it’s nice to be affirmed in every interaction & conversation. 2. We are a nation, a world, a galaxy, a Church, of priests. I happen to have a position called ‘pastor,’ but I am absolutely not the only minister. All of us together, using our individual, unique interests, passions, gifts, skills to reach others IS the walking, talking, living Great Commission. I don’t, can’t reach all people – as you know, I am not for everyone. Maybe this woman isn’t, either. Or you. But all of us together… It’s like the outside of a Venn diagram, where a number of circles overlap in the middle, signaling a shaded area of similarity. All of our separate circles, millions of them overlapping in many places (sex, color, hometown, taste in music or pizza, etc) – the only big overlap, as The Church, is Jesus – create an enormous mosaic/flower-type shape that covers the entire human race.

I use movies and songs and dead lifts and baseball to connect us. This woman connects these concepts easily, using her wild creativity to make it easy and memorable. You should be me for a Sunday, and hear the incredible insight I do as people are leaving, sharing their thoughts with me. My sister gave me the analogy of going out past where the ocean water turns from light to dark, where you can’t see the bottom – can you even imagine how many to whom that will make the perfect sense that starts them on a journey that leads to that feast? A very good friend works with numbers, another with flowers, others use guitars, voices, dance, organization, fabric, my mom makes the greatest lemon meringue pie this world has ever tasted.

Sure, all of these celebrations make me appreciate and love you. I pray you know how great you are. It’s a great pleasure/privilege to notice them everywhere, in everyone. But it makes me appreciate and love this God of ours even more. I see His attention, care, and love in each of us (I can now even say, “including me”), my mouth hanging wide open in wonder and awe. I am grateful, 100%.

We simply need to open our boxes and play. To paraphrase everybody’s favorite singer, Morrissey: Trash Collectors and Hoses of the world, unite and take over!

The Security of Inadequacy

This is the 2nd post this week, and that’s fairly unusual, but so is the Bible passage I read this week. These posts are like the concept of tithing for me. Give 10%, but you can give more. It isn’t a ceiling, it’s more like a floor. I post once a week. I only have one entry on my to-do list that says “Bridge Post,” but that doesn’t mean the internet police will break down my door if I open this app for the 2nd time. (Actually, it’s quite the opposite, the internet – and especially this app – wants me to post EVERY DAY!!! We’ll call this a compromise.)

In 1 Chronicles 13, David tries to transport the Ark of the Covenant, in the way he figured was appropriate (but was not according to the specific laws of the Torah.) The Ark teeters, Uzzah reaches out to steady it, and is immediately struck dead. David is angry, and very afraid. Now what? In chapter 15, they transport it again, according to law, without incident. He even says, “we failed to ask God how to move it in the proper way.” No excuses, no blame. This was a natural consequence of transgression. There was punishment, but not from an unhinged, wrathful God, this punishment was meted out by the sin itself.

Sometimes, I eat lots of cake and, as I’m doubled over with a vicious belly ache, wonder why God is so mad at me.

When my boys were small, I’d say, “If you hit your brother again with that bat, you’ll lose it and have to have a timeout.” Inevitably, they’d lose the bat and have timeout and ask why I was so mad at them, why I wanted to punish them. It wasn’t really my decision, it was theirs, wasn’t it?

David is called a “man after God’s heart,” and that is always such an interesting conversation, because it’s not like he was perfect. The Scriptures are very clear about his shortcomings and poor decisions, and remain clear about his standing as a faithful follower/friend/person of God. We often think God is holding a clipboard in His arms, noting our missteps, looking for reasons to be mad at us, when the Bible seems to show a very different God; One who has destroyed the clipboard and is, instead, easily forgiving, and filling His arms with us.

What made David so extraordinary is obvious in this Ark situation. His heart is contrite in his error, he’s humble, repentant, teachable. He offered no justification. Yes, he was angry, but he never pretends to be more than human. I wonder who/Who he was angry with, God or himself? Maybe even Uzzah. Anger’s best characteristic isn’t it’s logic. David was angry when he was angry, afraid when he was afraid, then did the next right thing. How do we move this Ark? Then, he did that.

The Angel and I used to have arguments, BIG arguments, and I’d forget the beautiful picture we were painting. I’d only be able to think of the piece in front of me. I couldn’t apologize, I had to win. I’d show her. You would not have used words like “humble, repentant, contrite, teachable.” You also wouldn’t have used careful, patient, or particularly loving. You wouldn’t have called me a man of God. You wouldn’t have called me a man, at all.

You WOULD have used stubborn, prideful, myopic, small.

So, we still have arguments, but we now aren’t so caught up in proving our right-ness, that we can’t write a chapter 15, “I’m sorry. I am/was wrong. We/I failed.” What a cool, free-ing place to be. Where we no longer have to build our résumé’s to defend our worth. Where we can simply rest in who we are, put it down, and take the next step, do the next right thing.

I heard a sermon once where the big phrase was, “you don’t have to live like that anymore.” We don’t have to live with the insecurity of inadequacy. The Bible (in this story of David, and countless others) testifies to the peaceful security of inadequacy. There is a bigger masterpiece at work. We don’t have to be right, or do it our way. We just have to move the Ark.

Opportunities

I am an excitable sort of man, running hot and cold. Like with most things, it’s both the best and worst thing about me. Over the years, I have learned to, first, reluctantly accept this characteristic, then drop the ‘reluctantly,’ and finally mostly loving those parts of me, even when they hurt or causs a great deal of tension or misunderstanding between us. Yesterday, even I was a little surprised how high my emotions were running.

I’m not sure I should have been surprised.

What I see all around us is division and incivility. Battle lines have been drawn, and, as Gandalf commands the Balrog in The Fellowship of The Ring, “You shall Not Pass” over these lines. Nuance and complex, complicated positions have been thrown out with manners, we point fingers, call names, and race to see who can dehumanize the other first. [I started to write, “Outside of the church it’s even worse.” I thought it was a clever twist, a way to shine a light on our own behavior, as we all assumed the characteristics were, of course, about them. But I realized I wasn’t clever, I was just wrong. It’s not worse outside of the church.]

In this environment, I can’t help but feel the crushing disappointment of our (as yet) squandered opportunity. In the Scriptures, the followers of God are commanded to be “set apart,” to think, look, and act differently. Different from who we were, but also different from the rest of the culture. We’re called to carry packs 2 miles, wash each other’s feet, and love our enemies. These examples are shocking behaviors, totally counter to the rest of the culture. They will know us by our love, right? But I’m more and more convinced they won’t know us at all.

Of course, I don’t agree with everybody. As a matter of fact, we might passionately disagree. I have strong, big opinions, principles, positions that I hold. Do you remember all of those conversations we had about the concept of “weight?” Not our bodies on bathroom scales, but the weight of priority. Essentially, we will surely reach a place where we have to choose between things, and the only criteria is the value we place on those things. Will I (1) rest on the Sabbath OR (2) rescue my donkey, which has fallen in a hole? Will I (1) stay up late tonight, sleep in tomorrow OR (2) go to bed so I can get to the gym early tomorrow morning? Do I (1) save my money OR (2) go out with my friends? And on and on, a million times a day.

So, let’s say you & I don’t agree. We could fight out loud, shake our fingers/fists, stop talking to each other, you stop coming to the Bridge (or wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you sit next to), and you can tell your other friends that I’m dumb, uneducated, and heartless. I’ll tell my other friends the same thing about you. That’s 1, and it’s the preferred method of our current situation. Corporately, we’ve decided it’s a good path. We like it.

Or.

We could ask each other why we think what we do, and actually listen to each other (because we love each other), we can try to understand (we don’t even have to change our minds, just hear the other), continue to sit next to each other in front of the cross (because we love Jesus, and because we love each other), worship together (because we love each other), we won’t tell our other friends anything nasty about the other (because we are choosing to continue to love each other). That’s the 2nd.

I think if we choose the 2nd, cats and dogs living together under God, it would be so wildly new and radical, we would stand out like neon lights in a field of total darkness. We would draw others, like mosquitoes, who would seek our light, and then, we would point them to the only light we know, the source of the light we’ve seen & experienced, the only light that could bring something so new and wonderful, which is Jesus, who can (AND WILL) breath neon light into everybody. It’s a gigantic opportunity to change the story, to cut new paths. We can go a different direction, but it’s still the same old roads. We desperately need new roads.

Messy?

So, what I’m thinking, after several weeks of relational discord and the nagging sense that “things are not as they should be,” is that I might not agree any longer. Maybe things are exactly as they should be.

First, of course they aren’t. We have been made for eternity, made by a loving God for shalom in paradise, walking with Him, filled by Him. We are living in times bathed in tears, our own and everybody else’s. There’s war, hate, and on and on and on, we are covered by a general blanket of anxiety, rage, suffering, and unworthiness. The idea of sin simply means “missing the mark,” which implies that there is a mark, this is not it, and as long as we are missing it, everything cannot be “exactly as they should be.”

However. We have a trinitarian God, 3 in 1 – this God expresses Himself/Themselves in perfect community, a divine dance, selflessly giving and receiving, Each pointing to the Other; Father, Son, And Spirit. One of the most interesting implications of this wildly unfathomable Trinity is that, being made in His image, we are made to be in relationship. This is clear in the Garden, before the fall, when the man alone was called, “not good.” Eden is not Eden without relationship, without others.

But, then, given that fact, what do we do with the fact that other people are awful? We think that we could really follow Jesus, really give ourselves to Him, truly offer all of our mind, body, and soul to Him, without the mess of our neighbors. (We all know loving our enemies is almost impossible, it’s hard enough to love those who live in the same house!!!) It would be easier for you to maintain pure thoughts without my dumb jokes and bad decisions, wouldn’t it? (Imagine how hard it is to live with me.) If politics is just the science of the way we organize ourselves in a society, the absence of people would mean we have no need to organize a society… wouldn’t it be much more reasonable to be peaceful, patient, and disciplined without politicians? And we could all breathe like monks if there weren’t any other cars/drivers on the roads, right?

When the refrain of a social life is “messy,” it rings like a lament. Messy, messy, messy. Like milk spilled on the floor, out of order, disruption. But the more I see & experience of God, the more I see that a life without brothers & sisters or enemies or politics or getting cut off on the road, or even my dumb jokes, isn’t following Jesus at all. It’s just another way we “miss the mark.” [A full life is marked by periods of intentional solitude, rest, and communion with God – but a life built on solitude is absolutely contrary to this amazing creation. It’s not good to be alone.]

Withdrawal isn’t an option. We are made to be a blessing to a world in pain, even as we are a part of that world in pain. We are made to be agents of healing, even as we are sometimes the ones inflicting the wounds. This is all part of the human experience. Jesus asks us to be peacemakers, this implies that we will be living in a world that is not at peace. And sometimes, we are the ones who upset the shalom. All of this is true.

And if being human is inherently messy… If all of our relationships, even the best of them, are messy, at times… Maybe it’s ice to start looking at the mess not as something to be eliminated, but to see it as what it is, life. A full, beautiful, present life IS messy. It has always been. Maybe it was always supposed to be. Maybe it’s the primary vehicle for our sanctification. Or to put it another way, how do we learn patience if not for those who test our patience? How do we learn the loveliness of difference if not for the different?

Yes, we are awful. And yes, we are the greatest. One day, this creation will be totally redeemed, no more tears, hate, or pain, but until then, instead of trying in futility to rid our yards of grass and dirt, maybe we could just lay down and roll around?

Fresh Eyes

Everybody needs a fresh word, sometimes.

Here are some of the lyrics from a song, “Fresh Eyes,” written and performed by Andy Grammer: I got these fresh eyes, never seen you before like this. My God, you’re beautiful. It’s like the first time when we opened the door, ‘Fore we got used to usual…So suddenly, I’m in love with a stranger. I can’t believe that she’s mine. Now all I see is you with fresh eyes, fresh eyes…

There isn’t really any subtlety here, as far as I can tell. He wrote this to his wife. How deep does the phrase “before we got used to usual” cut? We all can point to the things that, once, changed our lives, and now are just…ordinary. I can remember driving to the Angel’s apartment at college to pick her up for our first date, wondering what I’d do about the birds (much larger than butterflies) in my stomach, scared if I’d have to pull the car over to throw up. It’s now 25+ years later, I no longer drive to see her, I see her every day – she’s the first one I see in the morning, the last at night. I kissed her goodnight when I’d drop her off, when we were dating, now I kiss her goodbye at her car door in the morning, and hello at the front door after work, and every other time I can. Like Andy, I can’t believe she’s mine. She’s out of my league, but that’s her problem. When it comes to her, I am grateful to have never lost my fresh eyes.

So, this song is about our wives, but it’s also about everything else. I have these orange flowers next to the pond just outside of my back door that are so beautiful, they could probably knock you down, and I almost never go outside to see them, or even stop to notice them when I bring the groceries inside. They are “usual.” There is a song called “Brooklyn Bridge,” by Alex do Leo (the hook is “come on, won’t you kiss me on the Brooklyn Bridge,” and it’s consistently surprising anything could sound that good) that is absolutely perfect. I’ve heard it 5,000 times and can hear it anytime I want, and rarely do, anymore. It is usual. I could list many more. I wonder how many “usual” things are in our lives, “usual” simply because we forgot how extraordinary they actually are.

And what about the stories of our lives? We can forget how beautiful we are, how talented and full of promise we are. We get trapped in rote cycles of behavior, thinking/believing, and lose our hope & imagination. These lives (overwhelming gifts from a Loving God) become obstacles to be endured, instead of experienced with breathless joy and wonder. Why is that? When did we get so used to usual???

Last Sunday, I was sitting in the front pew at the Bridge before anyone else arrived, reflecting on what we’re building in our community. Do we ever forget? And treat it like it’s an obligation or “have-to?” Like it’s the usual that we’ve gotten used to?

Flowers, songs on the radio, church services, family meals, laughter, phone calls, basketball games…these explosions of the divine are everyday miracles, certainly not the mindless routines we so often take for granted. Just because we’ve held that hand for so long doesn’t make it any less awesome than the first time. If we’re totally honest, it really makes it more awesome.

Sometimes we need fresh words to see the truth of our reality, of our promise, of our story. And sometimes we need to speak those words, bringing new worlds into focus. And to speak them, we need to see them. We need fresh eyes. This may seem daunting, but if we learn anything from the resurrection and the redemption/renewal of all things, it’s that nothing is ever just ‘what it is,’ dead bones can live again, and everything can be new again. Then, “all we see” will be Jesus, the Gospel, you, me, us, them, all of this, with fresh eyes.

The Homework

Sunday morning was especially life-giving for me. We asked a million questions, and those sorts of messages are always my favorites. The idea that we will actually spend any time during the week to consider them is so hopeful, because it’s there, in the search & discovery, that our lives begin to take the shape they might become. The very best a church service can do is to send us into His presence. In the study, prayer, application, wrestling, praise, pain, relationship, and on and on through the beauty of The Church and the local church, there is the invitation into Who He is and who we are, in Him.

The verse in Titus that prompted the homework was this one: “To the pure, all things are pure,” and it’s opposite: to the impure, every one can be the vehicle for impurity. Vehicles like food, career, money, sex, desire, ambition, progress, study, knowledge can drive us to His feet, in worship and community, or down wide, smooth paths to the sad, lonely altars we’ve built to ourselves. Into His arms, or into temples for religions created for just 1, the high priest and only congregant is the same person: me. We drive these vehicles, they go where we steer them.

Where are we driving? That’s the choice before us. And like those road trips that require recalculation, u-turns, and backtracking over wrong turns, our lives are constantly asking for evaluation. Is this where we want to be? Is the destination still the same for us, or have we changed our minds and decided to go somewhere new? And my favorite question: NOW WHAT???

How do we chart a new course for these vehicles of ours? The simple truth is the same as most everything. We connect to Him. We ask, seek, knock. We hold His hand and follow where He leads. Yes, simple, but not at all easy. We’ll have to stop some things, start others. But it all starts with The Ask. Where have we allowed our vehicle to be driven by another, who might not have our best interests in mind, who wants to drive as fast as possible toward & into an inevitable crash?

So, we ask, and when we receive our answer, then there’s that next decision to make. Will we take the wheel back and give it to Him, so we can turn around, because as we do that, these things (food, career, etc) are recalibrated to see their inherent purity, and become, again, holy. We eat with purpose, with gratitude, and not mindlessly shovel down as much as we can while we’re driving to the next box to check. We work with character and integrity in beautiful service instead of to stack dollar bills, building bigger barns to store our ever-growing mountains of what some marketer has convinced us is the new solution for what ails us. When we ask, we get tingles and goose-bumps. That is possibility that we feel. We can take this world back, give it to the One Who made it, and us. All questions have the same answer, ultimately: Love. And in those 4 letters, there is eternity.

But it all starts with a question, on a Tuesday morning in February.

The Honesty of Authentic Presence

10ish years ago, my sister and I had a fight on the Ocean City boardwalk. I don’t have any idea what we were arguing about now, but it made everyone uncomfortable and the rest of the family all wished they were somewhere else. Or probably that we were somewhere else.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but last night, my youngest son had his last high school basketball game. I’m not going to go into details about that game, (or any other game, for that matter), or my feelings for/about him. But this is the sort of event that can make a man like me very sensitive, mushy even, for quite a while.

Studies show that human beings generally recognize 3 emotions: happy, sad, and mad. Of course, this isn’t anywhere close to enough, and it’s not that we don’t feel different emotions, we just lack the vocabulary to accurately communicate those emotions. Last night was bittersweet. I was proud, disappointed, joyful, overwhelmed. I was happy, sad, and mad, at different times. Sometimes at the same time. It would have taken 1,000 hands to hold everything I was feeling.

Several times during Sunday morning’s sermon, I realized & acknowledged (in my head) my tone and my turbulent spirit. As I taught about the second chapter of Titus, I realized how much of these moments were colored by this game, this program, church dynamics, politics, relationships, how I slept, what I ate, even what shoes I was wearing. Everything comes to the party, and it should, because everything matters.

Our services begin with a silent prayer, where we come as we are, bringing what we carry, to the feet of Jesus. It is embarrassingly misguided to pretend that we can come any other way, as if we are blank slates unaffected by the world around us. The prodigal son’s words to His Father land differently after you have children. The story of Israel is different from opposite sides of empire.

And I think that’s an absolutely intentional requirement of a life of faith. One of the most important observations I learned in seminary that totally changed my life is the honesty in every word of the Scriptures. Whether it’s in Lamentations, Habakkuk, Psalms, Titus, or any other book, God doesn’t want our sacrifices if they aren’t real. He has no use for fake plastic hypocrisy. He doesn’t want our pretense and our loud, grandiose assemblies if He doesn’t have our hearts.

He has mine. And so do you. Sunday morning, you get my awe, my reverence for the God Who rescued me, my study, prayer, interpretation, faith, AND my broken, confused, euphoric, sometimes wildly contradictory spirit. My careful conclusions and my dumb jokes. My cold, broken hallelujah.

Last night, I was disgusted at the basketball program while I wept for the people in it. I never want the season to end, and I’m so happy it’s over. I think there are lots of things that Jesus needs to transform in me, and I know He loves me in a way none of us can fathom, as I am. I get so many things wrong, and I am forgiven. I don’t want to stay this me, but I really like this me. Last summer, I told the baseball players I coached that I was finished, and I was relieved & thrilled to be done, and so sorry I thought I might crumble.

Being fully present, authentically ourselves, in true relationship with Our Creator and each other means all of this.

I chose a picture for this post. It’s last week’s senior night. I’m happy and sad, proud, hopeful, and he might be holding me up because I love him so much I might die. What it is, really, is a picture of gratitude. God gave us each other. And to stand next to for all of it, this God gave me the Angel.

I told you about Ocean City because, while everybody else wished to be somewhere else, I didn’t (and I bet my sister didn’t, either.) To be as close as we are requires us to bring everything we are to this amazing party. I’d love to go back to that night, when my boys were 5 and 7, and it was summer and the ground wasn’t covered with ice, but I don’t need to, I was there, then, fighting with my sister, loving every moment of this beautiful life I have been given. And if I could/would go back, I wouldn’t have been there last night, and I wouldn’t have missed that for the world.

The Value of Things

In the 2nd chapter of Titus, the word sober-minded was used, and that doesn’t sound like too great of a catch phrase. No one is probably getting a “sober-minded” tattoo, or using it on their dating profile. We don’t throw it around easily in conversation, it seems like an adjective that was used often in the late 1800’s, and not much since. See? The Bible is hopelessly outdated, right?

But the term, as it was written, suggests a person that “knows the value of things,” and as I look around, live and breathe, I can’t think of a characteristic that is more necessary and less common.

Have you ever reached out to someone about something that is heavy, that is taking a toll on your heart, that is painful or wildly significant, that we aren’t meant to carry alone? It’s an unbearably vulnerable space, and we wait. Then, the person, obviously uncomfortable, makes a joke. Or answers their phone. Or changes the subject. Your authenticity is discarded and disrespected. That person, who made you so sorry you reached at all out and especially sorry you reached out to him/her, has no idea of the value of things.

Not only do they not know the value of the circumstance you entrusted to them, but they do not know the value of your open heart, not do they know the value of a human being. This last one is, sadly, the real loss. We treat each other as disposable, as means to ends, as items to be used, for what they can bring to us, instead of recognizing who they are for no other reason than who they are. We are, to each other, too often, tools.

We have things to do and boxes to check. We have been sold the idea that our productivity is more important than our relationships. We have lost the value of things.

When I see people show up to weddings in t-shirts (a more and more common occurrence), I always shake my head. I speak to my boys of “time and place,” and now I know that I actually mean, “sober-minded.” A wedding is different than a ball game is different than bedtime. When we go to the gym and go through the motions, we have forgotten how extraordinary it is that we have been made in such a fantastic way that we are able to do these amazing things with our bodies. Instead of worship, it is a torturous obligation. When we kiss our wives or hold another’s hand without thinking, as simply routine, we have missed the value of this shocking intimacy. What could be more wonderful than the soft, slow, unhurried kiss of your beloved? Or more loving and trusting than another person offering their hand to you, searching for care and closeness?

Right. We’re, of course, talking about Genesis 28:16, “Surely God was in this place, and I was unaware.” When we lose the value of things, we are consistently unaware.

Last night, we drove an hour to what is likely to be the very last away high school basketball game for my youngest son. Do you know how many away games we’ve traveled to? A lot. Do you know how many times they were a nuisance? If that answer is equal to or greater than 1, we were ignorant of the value of things.

I think the concept of “ordinary” is the language of a culture that does not know the value of things. Maybe Paul’s letter to Titus is exactly what we need. Maybe we need more “sober-minded” tattoos, so we can all remember kisses and away games, remember to be grateful, so we can remember to stay present and wake up to our lives and the overflowing blessings all around us.