ALL FOR ONE! (and It’s All About Me)

Disclaimer:

I’m not a Democrat.

I’m not a Republican, either.

In college frat terms I’m a GDI – (PG version:  Gosh Darn Independent)

Another Disclaimer:

I believe people have the right to bear arms.

I also believe some people shouldn’t be allowed to bear arms.

I believe all have the right to happiness perhaps through childbearing.

I also believe that some people shouldn’t bear children.  Honey Boo Boo?  *eye roll*

For the last 15 days I’ve had to reconcile the best laid plans and Murphy’s Law about those same plans.  And, admittedly, it sucks.  I read an article the other day about a woman who thought having kids was the worst mistake she’d ever made.  She said, “Like parasites, they took from me and they didn’t give back”.  My inner voice does not resonate with this tackless outburst from this parent.  Matter of fact, my love for my little sickling has grown exponentially (geometrically – just for Jeff) over these past two weeks, like I’ve never imagined it could.  The feeling I have for my near 19-week old daughter-with-the-feeding-tube-but-getting-better-slowly far outweighs the meaning of a simple faaaantastic.

Yet I am disappointed at missing a good couple weeks of sabbatical leave.  Sabbath, a time for intentional rest, isn’t happenin’.  But, like I’d like to say to a some people I know, get over it, right?  Right.  Kind of like when people can’t wait for someone to show up to either finish or remove laundry from a dryer, so they just take it out and leave it an a damp heap on top of the dryer with their stuff running inside.  Nice. (I left a note…and the door to the dryer open, too.  Just kidding on the latter of the two.  An eye for an eye only leaves the world blind.)

I’m wrestling like Jacob with this sabbatical angel who really wants to know my name…who I really am.  I’ve begun to say that name, and just like Jacob, I’ll walk away with a little gimpy.

So life doesn’t circle around me as much as it used to.  Having a sense of this fact has helped me get a grip on my emotions for cancelled plans – two MLS soccer matches, two RV parks in Washington, one in Montana, and a whole 1,400 mile re-route yet to be finagled.  Water under the bridge.  Unless you’re in Grand Rapids, Michigan, right now where water flows over the bridges.

Interesting… Very interesting. Gun permits before ownership? What a novel idea.

In all of life we see similar instances of injustice on the self, only to be awakened to the reality that our own ego doesn’t like what’s happening to us.  For example, this whole debate of gun control is out of control.  It’s gone from understanding what it means to care for others to preserving the self…out of fear and in the face of all whose lives are fragmented by the devastation lack of gun control has left in its wake.  See photo to the left.

Having lived in an area for nearly 6 years which has little control over who buys and has access to guns and having seen, as a Volunteer Police Chaplain, the suicides committed via guns, I’m even more convinced that people are more concerned about being right than being safe.  After all, getting what I want, over an above the needs of others that live in this same world, makes sense to me! (Last sentence laden with heavy sarcasm.)

Gun control also bleeds into a form of religious control.

Hypothetical question:  “Can I make you angry?”

Now, the italics should give you the correct answer.  Truth is this – I can’t make you angry.  Having said that, I can sure push your buttons and provoke an answer out of you that would please me if I were that kind of a person.  Vise versa you can not make me angry.  Something you do or say I may choose to become angry with, but that my choice.

This is where religion loses its relevance.  If I’m unhappy with a pastor, I can simply get up without a word and go to a new church, perhaps one that reflects my beliefs and not those of a well-studied, even scholarly minister.  After all, my needs are more important than the rest of the world’s and that makes sense to me!  (Again…sarcasm)

Sadly, the line that begins, “A deeply religious…” speaks volumes.  Even sadder, Grand Rapids, Michigan is my home town.  No one should ever have to feel so bound by an errant view of “biblical marriage.”

So what happens if a pastor may have a different opinion?  What happens when a preacher goes into a church and, heaven forbid, asks them to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with (their) God when all they want to do is worship the organ, the hymnals from 1957, the un-padded pews, the memorials most everybody walks by without reading?

They leave.

What happens when a pastor preaches and encourages his/her members to work for justice for the marginalized, even though the sight of these people may make a majority of them squirm?

They leave.

All to easy any given member can get up from the pew, head to the nearest exit, and then bitch (because I can think of no other diplomatic word than the verb to bitch) to everyone in the neighborhood about how their pastor sucks and is a “false man of God,” because they know this for fact and they’ve all been through the rigors of an accredited theological seminary.  Oh, the pettiness of the Church.

Of course, I realize it’s horribly difficult to place an accurate meaning on scripture when it’s been so heavily scrutinized under a microscope for eons.  Still, Jesus’ prayer in John 17 paints a bigger picture – so that they may all be one.  Perhaps the writer of John left out that line filled with righteous indignation.  You know, the one that completes the verse with, “…unless you like guns, hate the preacher, dislike gay people…etc.”  But then the writer would have had to leave that out three times in the same passage.  Highly unlikely.

This two-week and one-day endeavor in hospitals has left me with a foul taste in my mouth.  Most of it from the pricey hospital food.  The rest of that foul taste is me getting over it.  And I will.

There are many things that life tries to teach us if we stayed and listened.  In this case, I don’t know what they are yet.  I’m not a big fan of the whole God-does-everything-for-a-reason theology.  If that’s the case, I think we’d have billions more atheists.  (Although, we are working in that direction!)

This face. I LOVE this face.
LOVE WINS.
(being in the UCC, I believe that is the only place a punctuation period should exist.)

Let’s start with love.  Love is a good starting point when trying to sift through life’s crap.  As Miracle Max said in the Gospel of The Princess Bride, “Sonny, true love is the greatest thing, in the world-except for a nice MLT – mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe they’re so perky, I love that.”

The Apostle Paul follows that with, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (Italics and bold are my own.)

Love is patient and kind.  And it endures.  To endure means you’re in for the long haul.  Are you?  I am.  Because it’s not all about me.  There’s another 600 Billion I think about.

 

Love Me a Good Roller Coaster

I love a good roller coaster.  I lived in eastern central Florida for four years, close enough to enjoy the amusement parks and their entry fees and long enough to realize you’d need to visit all the theme parks in Florida to equate to one in the midwest – Cedar Point.

Don’t blow your top.
A view of Mount St. Helens from the Hospital.

Universal Studios Island of Adventure has one or two.  Sea World has one.  Disney World has one or two.  Busch Gardens has beer… I mean, two or three good ones.  But Cedar Point is the end all, be all of roller coaster, puke-your-guts-out glory amusement.

I took a group of Coloradans to Cedar Point.  Meh, they first thought, we have Elitch Gardens!   I told them to just wait and see.  On the ride home from Cedar Point they wouldn’t shut up about how lousy Elitch Gardens had just become.  Cedar Point, HELL YEAH! became the motto for the rest of the trip.

Life presents itself in a variety of roller coasters.  Some are kiddie rides – boring, unless you’re 5 years of age when 30 feet in the air seems like 30,000.  Some are tilt-a-whirls – eat before you ride and you’ll be sure to lose your lunch.  Some are the heart-in-your-throat rides that you are glad you just had the chance to get off…until later, when you want to ride it again for the sheer thrill of it or the line is only 20-people long.  The others are like that except you don’t ride them ever again.  Cedar Point only has one of those for me.  That wooded one in the back.  The one that gave me an instant headache from the incessant shaking – like those machines that mix up paint.  I haven’t ridden that one again.  I don’t plan to, either.

I’m on one of those right now.  After 11 days in two hospitals and a doctor telling me there may be yet another week of hospital stay, I’ve got that headache that tells me I’m pretty much done with this ride.

If a lot of lava and ash was under St. Helens, what’s under the Hood? (Did you catch that one?)

Stop the ride.

I want to get off.

I’m going to vomit.

Of course, this is my own bowl of pits I’m spitting into.  This roller coaster of life hasn’t dealt me a blow like this before.

With all the serene beauty of this region and everything I’ve seen and experienced in this life, this little “kiddie ride” isn’t going to get me out of the amusement park.  There’s too much salt water taffy yet to be eaten.

My little girl is making baby step improvements.  For an impatient father, this isn’t going fast enough, indeed.  I’d like the doctors to prescribe something that propels healing into hyperdrive like the Top Thrill Drag Roller Coaster.  The ride lasts a whole 20 seconds long.  0 – 120 mph in three seconds.  ORDER UP!

What has helped keep me moderately calm are the virtual prayers, the family support of hundreds of immediate and distant relatives (hell, we’re all distant relatives, just ask Kevin Bacon), and the flashes of brilliant smiles my little girls shows here and there.

I keep thinking of the movie What About Bob? and baby steps.

Baby steps.  

Baby steps.

Cedar Point is big and the lines even bigger.  To wait sometimes 2 or more hours for a 20-second ride isn’t exactly efficiency, is it?

So, too, is life.  The thrill I’m seeking will come.  I do have to wait a bit, but I can handle it.  There are people all around me making sure I do handle it.  Holding my hand, praying, simply talking or listening.  They are all around.  Besides, Portland is a beautiful place.  Lots of great people and scenery to pass some of the hardest times, as you can see from the above photos.

Yeah, I’d like to get off this ride for its made me a little sick.  There are other ones I’d like to try.  Soon enough.

Soon enough.

(P.S. – for Portland roller coasters, simply attempt to drive the Portland area freeway system.  I understand building anything on the side of a mountain is difficult, but, holy crap, these engineers were either on acid or roller coaster freaks.)

Pan-handling in a Bust Town

Another beautiful drive yesterday.  Wow.  California 199 into Grants Pass, Oregon, is truly a site, in daylight.  At night, it’s like driving the old Saddle Road on the Big Island (Hawai’i)  – twists and turns at a rapid pace with a speed limit of 55 of which one has to wonder who, in their right mind, would actually drive 55 in that area other than reputable NASCAR, Formula 1, or Indy Car drivers.

This giant of a Redwood stretched at least 200 feet into the misty sky.

We drove along the Smith River banks, 10 miles of the pathway was a hard-packed, clay, old mining road called Howland Hill Road – right through an old-growth Redwood forest.  And I thought Sequoias were alone impressive.

I even claimed a little exercise riding my bike along a portion of Highway 101 on Tuesday and darn near fell over a few times due to a combination of under-inflated tires and my head careening upwards to view old redwood stumps…yes, looking upward to view redwood stumps.  Even the stumps are amazing.

The Smith River, as many rivers in northern CA and southern OR, run azure all year, a quality that comes from the unique minerals in the local area.

While the old-growth areas are beautiful and awe-inspiring, the Smith River is another feature of this drive that makes it worth-while.  The color was described to me as being azure, a color I’ve only names out of a crayon box – but it’s spot-on.  The Trinity River that runs beside much of Highway 299 is also the same color as is, I’m sure, the Klamath River which we’re going to view later today.  There aren’t words to describe the beauty of the color alone.  We’ve been to Hawai’i a few times in our short lives and have been in wonder of the deep blue sea that we’ve traversed.  This is a much different color, a beauty all its own.

A faster-running section of the Smith River, the azure color pops against the rock bed.

During our drive into Grants Pass to meet a former soccer player for dinner, I was inspired by a few of the smaller, more economically depressed towns we drove through.  The undercurrent of the movie Cars was about a small town called Radiator Springs.  A place that had been by-passed by the tourniquet of newer freeways, fast-paced byways that cut off the life supply of the smaller towns.  While Highway 199 isn’t located nearby a major freeway system (even I-5 is less imposing as a major freeway in some parts of northern CA and southern OR) these small towns have been impacted by a similar phenomena where the younger locals area drawn to more metropolitan areas.

Imposing beasts. And the less imposing beast (me) standing at the base of this monster.

I live in a similar town in northeastern Colorado.  Largely agricultural in nature and industry, many of our young folks aren’t carrying on the family farming business with exception to a few dedicated FFA youth who are inspired by their parents – an attribute I find quite virtuous.

I-76 runs right by Fort Morgan, Colorado.  It doesn’t drain the life from our small community but aids in its existence as passerby’s participate in our local economy.  Yet 199 travelers are going from “point A” to “point B”, form one place to another without batting an eyelash at the smaller local communities and their commerce.  I was such an example.  Its not that they offer much, I’d have to admit they are limited in their capacity to produce a wide variety of interests.  Even the down-and-out are even more down-and-out.  We passed a gentleman holding a sign that read ANYTHING HELPS on the corner of 199 and a small-town, impoverished and nearly-bust community grocery store.  Um, hey fella, you’re not going to have much luck pan-handling from this location.

From a fallen redwood many years ago, this stump was roughly 10-12 feet in diameter, about 6-7 feet tall.

As I drove by this unfortunate person I began to think, in my own perverse way, that this guy is really in the wrong place.  I’d help him, too, perhaps offering a ride to a high-traffic area for greater success if he didn’t also look like a stereotypical axe murderer.  I mean, if he were hitchhiking he’d have an even longer wait for assistance.

I began to think of a list of items that could help this guy improve his situation, only a few of which were actually practical, the rest were from my perverse line of thinking.  For example…

1.  Shave.  Look less like a vertically-challenged yeti (Sasquatch is pretty popular in these areas) and more like you play for the New York Yankees.

2.  Scent.  Deodorant.  Even the less-expensive travel size and a single swipe in each armpit may help.

3.  Smile.  The look of vacant emptiness (I know… that’s a bit repetitively redundant) in those eyes combined with a flat affect of facial expression are less attractive to folk who want to help.  Actually, they even frighten a few of us.

And this list goes on… Again, less practical and more useless, really, for a guy like the one on the corner.  For me, the above is even less pastoral than my calling suggests.  Still, what resources are available to guy like this especially in a near-bust town?

I don’t pretend to have the answers, but there must be one for each community – a niche in which a smaller community could build upon to thrive once again for those residing there.  Even if it begins with the thought of the traveller to intentionally stop in and say a kind “hello.”  At least that’s a start.

Me and My Itchy Trigger Finger

A cool mist rises up from between pines on HWy 101.

Well… It took two days.  But we’re here for nearly a week in Crescent City, California. Home to…um…well… a lot of rain.  It’s been raining since we’ve arrived and for a few hours before that – up till now it’s been roughly 9 to 10 hours.  Setting up in an RV isn’t fun in the rain.  Matter of fact, I’ll wait until tomorrow, or until the pond under the RV settles to place the leveling jacks for greater stability inside the RV.  Without those jacks people confuse our RV with the ones that have that bumper sticker that reads If this RV is a-rockin’ don’t come a-knockin’.  Really, as if.  We have a nearly 16 week old baby.  Do you honestly think anything like that happens here?

We’re parked about 30 minutes from the Redwood National Forest.  The drive here was mostly scenic route.  I say mostly because I mostly couldn’t see any of it.  I was too busy keeping the RV between the yellow median line and the white line of the shoulder.  If any of you have ever driven California 299 from Redding to Arcata then you know the hell of which I speak.  I’ve never seen a river that color before.  That and the evergreen that lined the river’s banks was purely breathtaking…at least, what I saw of it.

From Humbolt Lagoons State Park, looking north up the California shoreline.

Being a self-proclaimed amateur photographer my eye was more busy watching the curves than it was framing potential captures even though I spied more than a few, especially along the Trinity River – a rushing aqua-marine river that ran along the meat of the drive.  It’s not that I couldn’t stop and take a few shots, but the little camper we had in the car seat had only just fallen asleep.  Too risky to stop and wake the baby.

I did squeeze off a few rounds of shots, but it was only back on the Pacific coast of northern California, where the ocean sounded like it was raging mad.  We managed a stop and I walked to the shoreline in a cold-damp, blustery wind.  The sound of the waves crashing a hundred yards from shore and the wash between them and the beach was a low, rumbling that shook the sand beneath my feet.

There was a desire to stop the drive about every 100 feet or so to snap a photo.  If I had done that we’d still be halfway on the 299 with another 120 miles to go.

Waves of mercy, wave of grace… The power of water is not to be underestimated. The sound of the madness going on beneath the crashing waves is enough to let anyone know not to enter in.

For every rise of two to three-thousand feet of elevation there was an equal decline out of the low hanging clouds we had driven into.  Mist rose between rows of pines in seemingly spontaneous places.  An image of the Smokey Mountains came to mind.  Up and down, right then left, wipers on then off.  I kept the RV between the lines a whopping majority of the time, but my butt is still vibrating from the rumble strips I ran over that were carved into the asphalt on the side and center lines.

Life pushes onward occasionally forcing us to keep focused on the necessary but mundane rather than the beauty of life that passes by us as we move.  There was plenty of time on this trip to stop.  I should have.  Even if it woke the baby, I should have fired off a few more shots for the digital album.  Alas, there’s always tomorrow.  I’ll have to do some back-tracking.

Our GPS display at the Humbolt Lagoons. Freshwater Lagoon on the right, the mighty Pacific on the left.              (RV in the middle.)

This is the view from the shoreline of the Pacific, looking back to the RV. Right behind the RV is Freshwater Lagoon, part of the Humbolt Lagoons.

Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous

I was fascinated that with all the elaborate and intricate features of this massing home all Hearst could think to call it was “Big House” – Casa Grande.

There’s something interesting and disturbing, all the same, about Hearst Castle.  I was in awe over the architecture and the relics that reside on the expansive property.  With the simple name of Casa Grande, which doesn’t seem too original if not for the date of the historic build, the rather imposing structure of the home stands alone.

A eclectic collection of religious, particularly Catholic-based, paintings, tapestries, monk benches, elaborate ceilings, and stone carvings occupy the space in the grand rooms of the Castle.  It was William Randolph Hearst’s private collection, donated back to the state of California and its residents when financial woes became his reality.  Most of the artwork was from a particular period of time that Hearst was most fascinated with – thus the large amount of religious artifacts – because Hearst himself wasn’t big on religion.

These halls played host to the rich and the famous of the 1920’s and 30’s.  Charlie Chaplain.  Irving Berlin.  Movie and sports stars galore.

With such a rich history why does a place like this become a museum, or better yet, a mausoleum, a memory to that which has come and…gone?

Well… Money simply doesn’t last.

700 year old spanish monk seating – Used as ‘paneling’ for many of the grand rooms in the Hearst Castle.

Yet we still live like it does.

Does Hearst Castle exist to inspire us to do something similar?  Or is this Californian State Park  something through which we learn from past mistakes?

Either way, the State Park does serve a purpose.  It’s radically awesome to look at.

Close up or from a distance.

It sits high up on a grassy hillside hidden only from view when the spring-time fog off the Pacific veils her from view or during the drive up to the home as the driveway was designed to hide and reveal the castle over and over again.  The pathway is lined with cattle now, part of the Hearst Ranch that sits at the base of the estate.  However in previous years you’d see Zebra, some of which have become native to the surrounding area, giraffes, gazelle, and an assortment of other range animals popular to local zoos.

Believe it or not, that’s the Pacific ocean beneath all those clouds.

I can only imagine the view of the Pacific, deep blue and as vast as any body of water, would be spectacular to view from the various verandas embedded in a rainbow of colorful flowers.  This day wasn’t the case as that mist I mentioned earlier blanketed the entire ocean, making it look more like a soft downy-filled comforter across a king-sized bed.

Truth is this:  Things come and things go.  Memories fade with the passing of time.  History is only made when an event is published…or given, like the Hearst Castle.  Sure, when jolly old William became sick he could’ve stayed in his private Mount Olympus and withered away peacefully.  The entire estate could have simply been moth-balled or even bull-dozed…although, I’d hate to be that bulldozer driver riding that rig all the way to the top of this hill.  Yikes.

Hearst gave it back.  Whatever the amount he made off the folk that bought into his interests, he gave this piece of history back to them…and to their future generations.

As long as the estate went largely unaltered, the State of California Parks and Recreation service could have it.  Can you imagine the millions of people who have traipsed through the Hearst grounds?  Could you imagine, if William were still around, the smile on his face knowing these people enjoyed this place…even though they didn’t get to swim in either one of the pools.

The Neptune pool at Hearst Castle. Nice.

You’ve heard the saying you can’t take it with you.  You can’t.  So why not give a little piece of joy back to others?  I may not have much of an inheritance when I come to pass.  But I do want to give the world back something it can use.  A legacy of sorts.  I haven’t quite figured out what that is.  But according to my cardiologist I’ve got plenty of time.

Maybe I’ll leave behind a grand ool.  That’s a pool… just without any “p” in it.

Located out of general site, beneath the tennis courts, is the Roman Pool. Wow.

Climbing Out the Valley

The Santa Barbara Mission prepared for the Holy Week & Easter.

Another 40 days of Lent have come and nearly gone.  Another time of sacrifice and journeying coming to a close with the celebration of Easter and the entrance of a number of people who haven’t set foot in church since last Christmas Eve.

My own journey isn’t what it has cracked up to be.  To borrow a friend’s expression, it rather “crapped” up to be less than I had hoped.

I had wanted some real time in silence.  Some intentional time in prayer.  Some time spent on my own faith journey in reflection, other than writing blog posts.

It hasn’t happened.

That feeling of renewal I had hoped to experience this time of Lent hasn’t happened.

Maybe I’m to caught up in the travel to settle my own spirit down.  Maybe I’m too busy providing daddy day care to find time with God, after all, I did chalk up a good hour and a half nap today after one fussy ride into town and back.  And maybe I’m just not wired the way I had hoped I’d be.

I look up to a lot of spiritual-based people of the past, hoping to live up to those expectations and do something great – like, maybe, change the world or something.  Martin Luther King, Jr., Archbishop Oscar Romero, and so many other notables run through my thoughts.

At this point, the fictional Luke Skywalker sounds pretty appealing, too.

I think I’m right when I say, I’m just not wired that way.

If I can self-differentiate that over and against my own expectations, or even those who have expectations of me, then I’d be fine.  I’m not fine.  I am in this valley.  This valley shadowed with doubt.  Doubting myself.

While touring the Santa Barbara Mission, a beautiful historical site founded in 1786, I had a few moments to reconcile my own faith.

So here goes…

Listen, I’m not the kind of guy that’s gonna be remembered in 300 years.  For that matter, I’m probably not going to be remembered after 100 years except in old digital photos carried on by family and the occasional Rev. Larsen 8X10 hanging in a hallway of a church I used to pastor.  I’m not the kind of pastor that many think of when they hear that term, pastor.  I prefer to not wear a robe (I know, I’m a real trend-setter here), I prefer to step out of the pulpit and “talk” to the congregation rather than preach.  I prefer to not do a lot of things traditional pastors do.

I have a friend on Facebook who writes an awful lot about personal achievements.  I’d consider this person a scholar – smarter than your average bear…uh, pastor.  While trying to read this person’s posts I feel I’ve been dumbed down.  It seems like half the words this person uses are not in my vocabulary…all my literary slots are full.

Inside the Santa Barbara Mission

If I can’t understand him… well…

I’m a tell-it-to-me-like-I’m-a-third-grader type of guy.  A real keep-it-simple learner.  And doer.

I’m too broken of an individual to be in a spotlight.  The skeletons in my closet are enough to make any politician feel at ease.

There’s this statue inside the Mission that appealed to me.  It’s an image of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene after resurrection.  I love this for a few reasons…

First, the Son of God appears to a woman…first.  Not just any woman, but a woman that some think he may have been quite fond of.  And she was broken.

The image of Mary looking up, responding to a call from the resurrected Christ.

Second, and sounding a bit redundant, she was broken.  Quite the follower, though.  Stayed by when the others had left or even denied.  She was a cast-away, a marginalized of society…and yet loved.  Loved enough to be appeared-to first.

Third, whatever she thought she was she had left behind.  This is the absolute power of Grace.

My own memory prevents me from moving forward.  The faults of my past, and there are many, bitterly linger in my thoughts, only a second away from being reminded at moments notice.

This image of Christ holding out his had to Mary struck me silent.  I mean, aside from looking rather caucasian and being ripped – you could do laundry on those abs – there is a sincere look on his face that is replicated in Mary’s.

The way I see it, that is complete understanding.

Call it love, call it grace, call it whatever you want, there is this moment where the two understood each other.

I guess that’s all I want to be.

For my congregation members and my peers and my family, I just want that understanding.  The kind of understanding that says okay, I get it, you are who you are and that is more than okay with me.

I’d love to lead a large, mega-church style congregation.  I’d love to be published (I have a feeling my vocabulary will hold me back on that one).  I’d love to be admire in the field of Theology by hundreds…

But…and that’s a real big BUT…

OMG – The cuteness is overwhelming. Please God, don’t let me screw this one up.

I’m okay if it doesn’t happen.  I have to be.  Matter of fact, my focus is a little more on trying not to screw up the life of my beautiful 100-day old daughter than it is on the realities of practical ministry.  I can’t believe these little critters don’t come with Lego-style how-to manuals for us guys.  I mean, Ikea furniture does, why not babies?

All said and done, I am your average Joe pastor.  Not too much flare, but sincere, loving, grace-filled, and wanting to have an honest talk with those who want to honestly listen to something simple and obtainable – how to love one another.

Doubting isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Being an insufferable know-it-all may be to those trying to find a way in from the margins, for those trying to climb up out of a valley in shadow… for one like me.

I’m grateful for the sincere face holding out his hand…  This Lenten season I am reminded of that relationship of acceptance for who I am – me.

 

 

As Fast as You Can…?

I drove the minivan today on an 80-mile stretch of I-17 in Arizona.  I felt like I was of Richard Petty talent in a minivan race of NASCAR.  After driving the RV on interstate roads and local highways I’ve noticed a slight difference in the acceleration ability between our Honda Odyssey and the Jayco Greyhawk.  Just a little.

Kinda like my Odyssey… without Homer. Let that one sink in a bit.

It was difficult to keep my foot off the pedal and not go for broke – after all my minivan does have balls the size of church bells for a family sedan grocery-getter.  There (to Phoenix) and back again (not a hobbit’s tale) in about 3 hours with some heavy traffic on the return side of the trip – not to mention, two stops to plug the baby.  (She’s so stinkin’ cute, but she doesn’t hold on to that pacifier when it is just me in the car)

While in Phoenix I met with a good friend, the one responsible for this career in ministry.  Back in 1996 Pastor Ted, as I have known him, told me I should go into the ministry.  He said I had a ‘gift.’  I politely told him he was full of sh_t.  Four years later, I was in the ministry.  He was right.  I was wrong.

Pastor Ted is the kind of pastor I want.  The man exudes unconditional love – for all.  He and his ordained wife co-pastored a large UCC in the Phoenix area.  Notice the past tense.  He’s now off on a new-church start with a whole new set of perimeters that any established church would find too nonspecific.  But before I derail my train of thought, Ted is the person you’d find on all those, um…er… those TED talks – inspirational.  His laugh and his love for others is contagious.

The point is he and his wife are no longer there and not by their own choice.

Churches can be brutal.  They can be brutal in countless ways.  Any non-Christian may wonder why we worship a God whose symbol is an ancient Roman tool of torture and inevitable death – the crucifix.  I believe the answer is, quite frankly, that some Christians want to put it back into practice…on their own parishioners or even their own pastors.

Some will say churches have lost their significance.  Some will say the Church isn’t a relevant source of inspiration for their spirituality to feed from.  From the ‘Spiritual-but-not-religious’ to the agnostic to the atheist to even the regular worship attendee – they’re almost right.

It’s not that the Church has lost touch with the general population, but it has lost the ability to be unconditionally compassionate, empathetic, simpatico.  It’s exchanged unconditional love for self-righteousness, occasionally for righteous indignation.

If anything else, the guy is handsome.

Recently, Rob Bell, thought of as one of the leaders of the emergent church movement, made the news as being openly supportive of gay marriage.  To my dismay, a few of my colleagues started hating on the fella because he’s just now doing this instead of doing this back when he was the lead pastor of his start-up church in Grandville, MI, called Mars Hill Bible Church, not to be confused with Mars Hill in Seattle, a church that is far from proclaiming marriage equality.

Here’s my take: (And so glad you asked)  First, Rob has never preached against marriage equality.  In all his work and teachings, all I’ve ever heard from Rob, aside from occasional and appropriate satire, was a positive message about following Christ.  Boiled down into two words – love others.  That’s it.  Period.  I know Rob started this church on his own.  I know the first Sunday’s attendance was over 1,000 people.  I know that many of my friends and their friends were leaving mainline denomination churches in droves to attend worship in this converted, nearly-abandoned mall – yes, a friggin’ mall.  The place is gigantic.  I also know that my personal feelings toward this Rob Bell phenomenon were not pleasant at first.  I was just as pissed at Bell, calling their worship ‘candy store’ theology…until I attended a service at Mars Hill Bible Church…and learned something new and something about myself in the process.  In its heyday Mars Hill would see about 12,000 people file through its doors on a worship Sunday.  That’s A LOT of people.

Did you know, just off hand, that Ben Fold’s Five Song for the Dumped makes for an awesome prelude to worship?  Give me my money back, give me my money back, you… (they didn’t sing the lyrics, but the house band rocked it!)

Second, I belong to one of the most progressive mainline churches in America – the United Church of Christ.  Which, of course, is almost unapologetic in its progressiveness.  It’s known as The Church of Firsts – ordaining the first African American, ordaining the first woman, and ordaining the first openly gay minister.  Sweet.  Matter of fact, in everything the U.C.C. stands for it is about 20 years ahead of other mainline denominations.  Not bad for a smaller denomination compared to the Presbyterian Church, PC(USA) or the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), or, the overwhelmingly huge Catholic Church. (They are, by the way, Christians)

What bugs me about the U.C.C. are the following:

• It’s the UnitED church OF Christ and not the UnitING Church IN Christ.  It’s like we’ve hung the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED sign on all of Christianity.  Oops… not yet, people.  If anyone reading this has been to a General Synod of the United Church of Christ during its business meeting portion of the event then you’d know that being united  is harder than it looks in print.
• Because of their radical stance on social justice issues like marriage equality, the U.C.C. estranges people in their own denomination.  What?  How can that be?  Due to this beautiful and complex phrase called local autonomy, any local church can believe in a manner acceptable to their local church as long as they’re not going off the deep end, which, for the U.C.C., is occasionally hard to see where that ‘end’ really is.  Still, the faster it goes, the more people are left behind… more on that in a moment.

I live in a more conservative area of Colorado.  I preach there, too.  I preach in a church that considers itself “theologically diverse.”  I am also an advocate of equality for all the world’s people.  I also despise the use of the word queer to describe a people I find as beautiful as the rest of the straight world.  Doesn’t queer mean things like odd, strange, unusual, funny, peculiar, curious, bizarre, weird, uncanny, freakish, eerie, unnatural, unconventional, unorthodox, unexpected, unfamiliar, abnormal, anomalous, atypical, untypical, out of the ordinary, incongruous, irregular, puzzling, perplexing, baffling, unaccountable; informal fishy,spooky, bizarro, and freaky.  I think those that argue for and support equality for all people don’t find gay people to be any or all of the above…on the contrary.

In the communities to the east and west of our humble community there were two more U.C.C. churches.  Notice the past tense.  They now have joined another denomination – the Conservative Congregational Church Conference, a.k.a The Four C’s.  These two churches felt as if the national office of the U.C.C. were forcing upon them the belief of marriage equality.  For many local church members, and sadly, many local church ministers, the phrase local autonomy didn’t matter.  The national office stepped off the deep end of belief.

Now, I don’t believe words like conservative or  liberal belong in theological conversations whatsoever.  They only serve to cause division rather than, say for example, unite.  Oh… there’s a concept.  What if we had a uniting Church?

Even within the U.C.C. there is rabid division – you can be O&A (Open and Affirming) or Faithful & Welcoming (still recognizing homosexuality as sinful gig) or you can be…well…you can just be.  Kinda like the church I serve.

But then, I would be accused of not being prophetic enough.  So I should just risk it all and tell my congregation to accept gay marriage and “get over it” if they don’t.  At the same time, I’d lose a majority of my congregation by verbally pushing that social justice issue…all up-in-your-face about it.

What many of my peers fail to realize is how many Christians we piss off by telling them point-blank it’s my way or the highway.  In a denomination that believes, or so I thought it did, in unification of Christians, telling other Christians who simply can’t wrap their minds around an opposing view that they are wrong simply doesn’t fly.

I heard of a pastor in Stone Mountain, Georgia who did just that.  Told his congregation that marriage equality was they way they were going to go.  End result?  Nearly half of a 6,000 member church left.  And those that left were probably pissed.  Not just the members that left, but the children of said members and maybe even their children.  So, while advocating for social justice for all people (something I deeply believe in) that church managed to divide over one theological issue, sending thousands into the abyss of resentment, digging in their heels for a battle anytime a chance at unification may rear its ugly head.

Rob never told Mars Hill he was pro-marriage quality.  Why do that and risk angering 6,000 people who desperately need to hear a message of love?  Just because it’s the right thing to do or there’s no better time than the present?  For who?  Also, who decides when the right time is for such an announcement to be made for this particular environment?  There is more than one social justice factor to consider.

But there’s another way.  And this way takes time.  This was always takes time.

Ask yourself these questions:   Have you ever noticed social change on a day-to-day basis?  From today to tomorrow, do you witness change on a global scale?  What you look back on the past 20 years of your life (if you’ve lived that long), how has life changed?

Truth is, we see change far better in the rear-view mirror than looking at the pavement in front of us.  Yes, change does happen.  Mostly in small increments.  We could say that the State of Colorado signing into law a civil union bill is massive change.  But how long, again, did it take that to happen?  It wasn’t overnight.

I often sit this way when I’m on my throne.  Wait… is that too much information?

When the Israelites are in Babylonian captivity under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, the prophet Jeremiah wrote to them telling them to build houses and settle down there.  He told them to seek the prosperity of the city in which they now live, not just for themselves but for the sake of the city.  He told them that after 70 years God would come for them.  (Jeremiah, ch. 29)

70 years?  Why 70?  Why not just one?

How many generations of one family can you fit into 70 years?  Perhaps four?  One new generation every 20 years, for example, would make four generations in 70 years.  What happens when the ideals of one generation pass away?  Then the next?  Then the one after that?

Slowly with time and the quite literal death of old-shool thought, the world changes.  To change a societies way of thinking overnight, whether it be secular or theological, is nuttier than a Nutter Butter.

The methodology behind Jeremiah’s madness was to teach the Israelites to love their new digs.  To love those around them while maintaining their faith beliefs and practicing them just as they always had done before.  Keep doing what you’re doing with that LOVE thing, people! is what Jeremiah was preaching.  Love one another.  Regardless of their beliefs.  Even if they can’t change their mind as fast as the generation before them – love them.

To tell them they’re wrong, that the older ideals of theology just aren’t relevant anymore is to tell them that they aren’t relevant anymore.

I’m not willing to do that to anyone.  But I am willing to love all.  Unconditionally, no matter their speed of their faith, even if they never come to agree with me.

A good friend, April, wrote this.  I happen to admire this writing as it relates to this lengthy one of my own.

We are a society bent on winning, sometimes at all costs.  While we may believe it is all the right reasons sometimes it is just to piss off the ‘other’ party and set them back a decade in progressive movement.

It is okay to lose.  How you show love in the process makes the difference.

I don’t think we should drive as fast as we can to that final destination – we risk hurting others.  We risk hurting others who have faith, just a faith that’s lived differently than our own.  We should not forsake them.

I do believe we should keep on ‘driving’ per se, knowing it may take us 70 years to change.

Love… It really does win.  I have two of these stickers on my beloved RV – I may need to adhere a few more…

Oh, and Rob, thanks for your opinion, no matter when you spoke it, it’s all good!  By the way, I’m rolling through LA next week… can we meet?  Coffee?  A donut?  Some good conversation?  Please?

Go West, Young Man…

Once you’re past Grand Junction you enter… Utah… and many miles of barren lands.

So we’re here.  Well… Let me edit that.  We’re at our first stop.  Moab, Utah.  FAR from being ‘here.’  After 430 miles and a fill up 150 miles ago for gas (yes, mileage sucks.  No pun intended) we’ve arrived at a lovely RV just south of Arches National Park, where many a Dr. Scholl’s have trod (let that one sink in a bit).

The weather is mildly beautiful and, being 400+ miles from the eastern edge of the Mountain Time Zone, we had plenty of light to set up camp.

Now I can breathe.  Truth be told, I still drive tense – I had a muscular knot in my right shoulder that ached something fierce while navigating I-70 westbound and the lovely headwind that accompanied our ride.

Still, the journey has begun.  My head is filled with thousands of thoughts of what may happen during my sabbatical journey.  My only prayer is to save a tire blow-out for within a mile from home.

Actually, I have many prayers.  Prayers asking God keep us safe, and lead me to people in sacred conversation, and please, God, be a presence back home…at my church…that they may be lead to recognize your spirit and move forward in delight, just to name a few.  Rev. Mark Sandlin, a pastor in the PC(USA) in North Carolina, wrote in magnificent depth of his own sabbatical journey.  Another one of my prayers is to meet Mark when we journey through N.C. this coming May.  Many questions Mark asked then are my own today.

After five years of ordained ministry I am feeling the burn.  This journey, Lenten liturgical calendar timing be damned, is something I have longed for.  Our church has grown to a point.  We’ve received many young families.  A category most church-growth models show to me a less-than-dependable area of growth in the Church.  While I was excited about this our church has lived into that model reality.  Our average church worship attendance has trickled down like pee from a 12 and-a-half week-old baby’s diaper onto a clean pair of pants – takes some time, but eventually you notice.

So I figured we’ve made ‘members’ but not disciples.  There is this sense that people want a church to belong to but not a church to be.  What I mean is some people want a place of worship that’s there when they need it and so they can also tell their friends that they go this particular church or that unique church – but they can’t commit.  I’d say that less than 30% of our church members attend worship regularly.  That means that more than 70% of our church members hardly attend at all.

I was raised that going to church wasn’t an option.  I did.  Period.  No choice was given to me.  Even though I didn’t understand the pastor, even though I was bullied by other kids in the church, even though I’d rather stay at home a worship the almighty Atari I still went to church.  What that taught me was what I needed to be taught – Commitment.  And not just any commitment, but commitment with a capital C.  My parents’ level of commitment was passed on to me and for that I am grateful.

Now, instead of having to go to church.  I get to.  I long for this ideal to be the standard for all Christians.  A deep-seeded desire to want to be in church, to want to be the church.  Maybe someday that’ll happen.  But on we go.  Go west, young man… and then north.  And then back west before going east, south, north and back west again.

By the way, if you see me on the side of the road with a flat, kindly stop by for some friendly and potentially sacred conversation.  I’ll be waiting for the Good Sam Roadside Assistance to repair the dual-ie.

 

The Adventure is About to Begin

The countdown has started… about a year ago.  As a solo pastor of a church of over 300 listed members and roughly 50 more children-in-tow, ministry has begin to take its physical and emotional toll.  I lack energy.  I lack motivation to lose weight.  My ability to hold back on frustration is minimal… I am ready for a time of renewal.  

Three weeks from today we leave.  “We” is me, my lovely bride of nearly 12 years, my newborn daughter Sophie, and Melissa’s cat, Tink, who loves me best… dammit.  We’ve purchased a Class C RV, a 2012 Jayco Greyhawk and have made a few test runs to break her in before our adventure begins – 29 states, 9,800 miles (give or take a few more), towing our grocery-getter for three months.

Did I say I was ready for a “”renewal”?  What was I thinking?  

My journey will consist of daddy day care, spending quality bonding time with my daughter while my wife slowly works back into…work.  We’ll visit national parks, friends, and make some new friends while hoping to enter into some sacred conversation along the way.

3 weeks.  Let the adventure begin… Why don’t you come along for the ride… I’ll need the company.