Thursday, December 30

My reason for my seasons

"I have become a fool; you forced it on me. I ought to have been recommended by you, since I am in no way inferior to the "super-apostles," even though I am nothing." (2Co 12:11 HCSB)

It just gave God’s word to the seasonal theme of this time; not just the unemployment or the move to a different city or even the loss of someone that I truly loved but also the events that have carried me from that moment in October 2004 until now……bits and pieces of the work that He began way back in February 2004 until today that I thought were seasonal changes of my journey. As I sit here and stir the campfire in the dark echoes of the night, listening to the nocturnal creatures of its inky blackness, I have realized that there has been only one season since the end of the cold winter that began that February day. It has been a long journey and there are some who would say that I am no closer to the ‘goal’ than I was that October day in Chicago. Others would say I’ve become a ‘burden’ to the cause. Some will say I’m about as ‘godly’ as a addict or as ‘saved’ as a person drowning. Others, that quiet majority, have said that God is amazing in what He has done in my life, to this point, and the direction they perceive Him to be taking me on.

It has not been easy; this journey in the deepest heat of the summer past. It would seem for the majority of the trip so far, it has been through swamp and murky bogs….attacked by mosquitoes and pursued by bears. Always on the defensive, always working on wounds and new hurts and old recurring nightmares, grasping at peace and running to try and capture joy. Pursuing what I perceived God to be only to find that He was nothing like what I had thought. Seeking that direction to achieve the purpose He has set within my bones, that desire that seems to ebb and flow with the beating of my heart only to feel mislead by the directions and opinions of those who have come into my life. I have proclaimed the purpose He has called me to and been laughed at…..told to stop being foolish and do the ‘responsible’ thing. In several ways, by several people, for several different reasons.

I have been defensive in some of this season; fighting the perception of those both right and wrong, those who are lovers and haters and those who truly want what God is doing in my life, around me and through each of us. I have been offensive; fighting for the development of the purpose, seeking the ‘in’ to the ‘inner sanctuary’ though all the doors seem locked. I have argued, cajoled and calmly interjected. I have written, I have preached and I have volunteered. I have experienced the fullness of many opportunities and shied away from others. It has been a long, tiring and unrealized journey through this season.

And it boils down to what a friend said to me that I believe these verses speak from God’s own mouth. “I should…be…act…think…” has to be replaced with “God is” and that is enough. No longer, from the moment of my salvation can I expect myself to achieve, but (and he said this was from a seminar he went to) I have to consistently put myself in situations where if God doesn’t show, He’ll look foolish. In the absence of our own abilities and skills, where there is no rhythm or reason to the success of the struggle, the goal or the dream….in that the only thought that can be given is that God has done the work. We are merely the putty in His hands, shaped and fired to meet the requirements of the vessel for the Holy Spirit to fill.

I presented myself to the Church as a candidate of calling; there are those who have seen it and those who have not. There are those who, checking off the list of ‘requirements’ have forgotten the one sole requirement God has given to them…to disciple and further God’s cause in the call. The rejection of the Church has been a damaging wound to my life, but I have realized there was never a ‘Church-requirement’ of approval in the things that God has purposed me to do. Only my obedience and movement towards Him.

There are those who say I’m foolish to still dream, to still question whether or not God has called me to go into fulltime ministry……. If I am foolish for the impossibilities of God, then so be it.

So, now as the unemployment runs out and still no job on the horizon…..as the last of the money is poured into my gas tank for fueling the car…..and I face the coming New Year without apparent prospects, I wonder and trust in the provision of God for me and my family. I am awed by the questioning of my heart to pursue His big, audacious and hairy dreams for me or to sulk into a job to ‘just get by’ if I can.

As a pastor challenged his readers in an blog he wrote about “Daring to pray this prayer,” I can only bow my head in supplication and raise my hands in adoration…….and pray this prayer for 2011. For this is what God has taught me in the theme of this season…..He will have me where He wants me to be.

"Two things I ask from you; do not refuse me before I die: Remove falsehood and lies far from me; do not give me poverty or riches, feed me with my allotted portion of bread, lest I become satisfied and act deceptively and say, "Who is the LORD?" Or lest I become poor and steal and demean the name of my God." Proverbs 30:7-9.

It is my only resolution for 2011. What is yours?

Friday, December 10

Grasshoppers in the land of Nephilims

‎"To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them." Numbers 14:32b HASB

Men’s Fraternity, the Men’s ministry from Robert Lewis, broached the subject of life with the metaphor of a football game; the first and second halves and how to live a great adventure successfully in both. It is Lewis’ contention that men tend to live one or the other ‘well’ and looks into the Old Testament book of Numbers to find a biblical character who has lived it well in both halves to win the game of life.

Caleb, which means “dog” in Hebrew, but in Akkadian (an extinct Semitic language, part of the greater Afro-asiatic language family, that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia) it means “Loyal vassal of the King.” Lewis tells us that Caleb is a ‘half-breed,’ either by birth or adoption, because his father is Jephunneh the Kenizzite (Joshua 14:6). Kenaz, the ancestor who the Kenizzite people is traced, was the son of Eliphaz (eldest son of Esau) and one of the twelve rulers of Edom. The people were not Israelite, and by the patriarch’s history with Isaac (Israel), the Kenizzites were most likely enemies of the Israelite nation…it is known that they lived in the land of Canaan, the land which God had given to the Jewish people. Yet Caleb is becomes an example to God’s people. He advocates with Joshua, another one of the twelve spies sent into the Promised Land, that the people should take the land given to them by God, that the abundance and wealth can be theirs despite the inhabitants. They are almost stoned.

It is that phrase that is left at the end of that tale, given by the ten other dissenters from the encouragement of the two spies that hit me between the eyes today as I left the study. And it was one of the men there that caused it to ‘stick in my craw’ as I stumped down the stairs into the snowy ‘wonderland’ that Michigan is today. “Grasshoppers among Nephilims” Insects among giants.

The man in the group, younger than I by probably ten years, the head of a young family said that he respected me and the testimony I had, the fact that I was willing and full of a passion to mentor other men and pursue God even in the darkness. I was stunned, and as I thought of the biblical verses that we studied Caleb in today during the Fraternity, I keep coming across the woeful attitude of the ten…..grasshoppers among giants.

I am surrounded by good and bad Nephilims (in relation to the size) and the ‘good giants’ that I know don’t even know how small I am….and honestly, even with the good ones, I’d like to keep it that way. Usually when I bring notice to my size, I’m trampled quickly.

Be it the giant of Acute Depression, Financial failures, Unemployment, Wounded Fatherhood, Desperate Manhood….to name a few of the giants that haunt my landscape, I am but a tiny insect….unnoticed until I begin to disrupt the living of those giants and then I become a pest to be destroyed by the ruler of that land…beaten by the voices that echo the fears in my head before I can even sit in wonder at the bounty of the Promise that God has set before me……

Wow……

In my younger days, I lived with a Joshua….even though I didn’t know it at the time, for the giants were dominating even then and I have watched others in my life react like the ten…scared and in denial of what God has given (for I have lived life like them too). He was and is a powerful man, both in the spiritual journey God has taken him on and in the world, my brother Larry J Hutson. His wife and he are missionaries with the Navigators over in Germany, ministering to the troops of the Air Force that come through the base there. He is a Joshua, who came back from the spying expedition into the land of Canaan with the overwhelming report of “Conquer, it is ours” and he is the one who leads others into the Promised land. But I digress. With the holiday season upon us, I tend to be a bit reflective. I realize now that my brother wasn’t the Nephilim I thought he was in my younger days, but rather a Joshua who would’ve contributed so much more to my life than he was allowed.

The Father of Lies will get you every time.

Caleb, a young man, points his compass to the “north star” that God is and follows through with a ‘raw faith’ to claim the ‘promise life’, according to Lewis and in the ‘older days’ some 40 years later, demands the right to seize the ‘high ground’ with a ‘fresh faith’ rather than settle in the lower lands. You really have to read the story of Caleb in Numbers and Joshua to understand the parts of his life that Lewis talks of and go through the third year of Men’s Fraternity to see how it fits into a man’s journey…..but Caleb influences another generation by his life, and influences us as well.

Caleb and Joshua, enticed and excited by the land of Promise that God has shown them aren’t confused or frightened by the giants that stomp through the land. They are consumed, fully surrendered to the future, desperate to begin the claiming of what God had set aside for the people of Israel. It would take them many years to realize that, but they stayed committed. Forty years later, Caleb takes the high ground of Hebron and dwells there with his clan…..inspiring another to defy the giants of their life later.

As I look across the river Jordan into the Promise that God has set before me, being told by some I’m nothing more than a grasshopper facing the giants who shall surely finish me off like a pest, do I step into the process of being a Caleb…..empowered and enthused with God’s work that was begun in me and continues on the other side of this place or do I whine like the other ten and say they simply are too big and the land too harsh for me to continue.

Dare I be a grasshopper…….protected and empowered by the might of a giant God?!?!

Tuesday, December 7

Want

“People cannot live without hope. Everyone hopes for something; most people hope for things they can see, or, at least, have seen.” T. M. Moore writes. “ - a good marriage, a better job, more material possessions, a successful retirement, and so forth.”

I hope for a job, but not just any job. I want to provide for my family, but not just the material things. I can remember back when my children would ‘oooh’ and ‘ahhhh’ over the catalogs of toys that leaped out to them from the glossy pages. Christmas was filled with the joyful sounds of carols and music as people greeted each other with “Merry Christmas” amid rushing to Christmas pageants and plays…..and the “I need this” or “I want that” from the buried heads of my young ones. They couldn’t understand why, when they asked Dad what he wanted that ‘anything you make’ was more desirable than the latest “G.I. Joe” or “horsey.” What they ‘hoped’ for under the tree on Christmas morning would be a mixture of what they needed (clothes, etc.) and what they wanted (toys, electronic gadgets). I was the same way as a child, wanting the latest gadget or game to satisfy me.

This year, they have grown up a lot and understand that such gifting isn’t a necessary thing to celebrate the season, or the Christian reason behind the celebration. Oh, they have thrown out their ‘wants;’ a laptop, an IPOD touch and an Xbox….along with some ‘practical’ things like winter pjs and clothes. But they understand that there are more beneficial and worthy wants; a home, food, clothing and each other.

As I sat here, thinking about the needs of some friends that I’ve stepped forward to meet, the things I’ve done in the quiet of my community that hasn’t met the eyes of others (and never will), and the needs of a few organizations like www.homefronthugs.com and www.avets.org that are hoping for some donations to send our deployed troops some home loving during this holiday season they are once again (in most cases) away from home, I was hit by the realization of what we should really be intensely wanting and hoping for this Christmas celebration……and how often, in the discussions of the Church during this time, such is ignored.

Oh, we speak about the Christmas story in our pews and defend the use of “Merry Christmas” in advertisements and greetings. We put on elaborate plays or simple skits to bring in the visual learners in the crowds. Most church attendance swells during this time, or at least on the day of, as a country and a world come together to recognize the universal time of giving. Some of us have the additional ‘joy’ or ‘burden’ (depending on how you view it) of having a winter ‘wonderland’ of snow to help us in the memory department……though I don’t think Jesus and His family had to contend with snow in Bethlehem (so I don’t know why I have to…..). We have office parties with ‘secret Santas’ and family gatherings for gift giving with bountiful meals. We are lighter in the pocketbook during this time; not only for the family but reaching out to those who are struggling through this time. We smile as we ask our family, friends and co-workers what they ‘want’ for Christmas and calculate it in our head as to where and how much such a gift is…..balanced against the joy and pleasure of the smile that comes from obtainment….

I wonder what the ‘wants’ were in the beginning…..as shepherds lay watching their sheep and a world slept in a midnight clear. As the King was born in simple fare, being born into this world to the bleating of sheep and the chomp of the camels, I wonder what the dreams that danced ‘like sugar plums’ in the heads of the young ones and the practical wants of their parents. Was the wants of the Magi who travelled to ‘yon distant star’ more practical as well, seeking why a star rose in that spot or less ‘worldly’ in its scope? Israel was under the bondage of Rome, its national life dictated by the demands of a distant government with iron fists.

There were those, for sure, to prayed each night that the promised Messiah would come blazing across the early morning sky with a legion or two of Angelic host to bring the mighty Roman Empire to its knees like was done in the olden days to Egypt. The want for a release and dismantling of the yoke of slavery and oppression that dominated their lives even as they celebrated the Passover and other Jewish remembrances, surely these things were never far from the minds of those who thought them…..and not just for a certain season or day.

They wanted what something that they could handle, touch or use to wipe out the things that they had to deal with in this world. A Messiah to lead them to defeat their overseers, as we hope for the fulfillment of wants for a good marriage, job, home and other such things. We want what we can handle, to acknowledge that we are loved, cherished or at least ‘tolerated.’

In today’s economy, I know there are those who want to break the yoke of unemployment and the unwelcomed reliance upon the ‘handouts’ of the government even as there are those who want to rest of the laurels of others. There are those who resent those on unemployment insurance payments, some that are entering their second year. As Christians, we hope for that which we cannot see with our eyes or grasp with our hands. We hope in an eternal perspective for that which has been promised; a glory that defies even our more elaborate and glorious dreams of what we want on this earth. In this world, our wants are piety, self-serving and damaging layers of protection that serves as a salve between the pain of living with other human beings. The Israelites felt it back then, Christ paid the ultimate price for it, and we have learned nothing in the practice of celebrating the birth of our King in the years since.

What we should want every year under the tree that most of us put up in the living rooms, basements or lounges of our palatial homes (in the standards of the rest of the world) is nothing more than the simple picture of the glory that await us when the birthday boy returns…..a gift that far outweighs anything in this world and one that we, the celebrants of the birthday boy’s birth, could ill-afford to pay. But we are guided by lesser hopes, which are the wants of this world, and by the deception of the needs that aren’t really needs when they cannot be filled. We seek satisfaction in lesser things that cannot satisfy, demanding obedience and ‘improvement’ from those who we perceive are less engaged in the culture war of want and need.

That is what I want this Christmas; not presents for the kids, nor for myself. I have been blessed with more than I ever deserve by those who now seem to believe that their gifts were wasted on me. I don’t need the approval of those friends, though understanding would be a garnish on the tree that would shine in the dark. I don’t desire sympathy or pity from them either, for such offerings are merely a covering of their own insecurity over what they are judging me about. I want the hope secured that comes from the moment in time that began on a midnight clear in the little town of Bethlehem in a manger filled with swaddling clothes and the baby that lay within. That hope that was secured in the moment thirty-three years later upon a cross of wooden pain and torment. A hope that lies in my heart regardless of what my friends claim to know is right and what I believe is true. A hope that will be born out in my life for His glory, regardless of the circumstances.

Do you have this hope?

Thursday, November 11

Veteran's Day

“All the believers kept meeting together, and they shared everything with each other. From time to time, they sold their property and other possessions and distributed the money to anyone who needed it. The believers had a single purpose and went to the temple every day. They were joyful and humble as they ate at each other's homes and shared their food.” Acts 2:44-47a (GW)

I don’t often attend Veteran Day ceremonies. I am not one of the veterans who have seen combat nor am I one of the many who stay in the services until they retired. My older brother, Larry, did retire from the military and is serving as a missionary in Germany with the Navigators. My younger brother saw combat and just reenlisted again.

It is days like today that I wish I had spent my time in and retired from it. It is days like today where I realize what is the very essence of community and who does it better than anyone else. The community of veterans; those who served in combat, those who trained for it, those who were stationed in ‘hot’ spots and those who spent their time stateside developing the tools of war….this community takes all who wear the uniform and honors them as brothers and sisters. Today is not just about the fallen, because in this community the fallen are never far from the thoughts of those still alive. Today is about the living, the combat-seasoned and the trained, coming together to have a nation that they served with their honor and with their sacrifices serve homage to them, patriots who tend the tree of freedom.

Today at Concordia University, I was honored to stand next to a WWII veteran, a Vietnam veteran, a Persian Gulf (combat) veteran, a Afghanistan veteran and a Iraq veteran. Most of them from the Navy, but a few Marines to round out the group. We talked about our experiences, whether combat or not, and the camaraderie that existed between us flowed not because of our openness but our understanding of the ‘experience of the uniform’ that we shared….not because we’ve known each other before but because we honor the fellowship of the American military member.

It doesn’t take a gathering like the beautiful ceremony offered by Concordia today for Veterans to nod and shake hands, nor does it take a day to be honored by those who are fellow citizens. All it takes is the knowledge of the membership that is conferred upon each and every military member the moment they take the pledge to serve and step from the world of the civilian into the world of the military. Once crossed, you don’t ever go back.

Oh, you grouse and complain…..you bicker and grunt under the load of the environment of being in the military…you struggle to live in two worlds, one shrouded by the protection gained from the other….you worry in the combat zones of your loved ones at home even as they worry about you in the combat zone…..you aren’t asked to sacrifice, because it was asked of you when you pledged to defend the Constitution, to go where your country sends you and to obey the lawful orders of those in leadership over you……it is expected that you will honor your pledge, and you do.

In the end of it, some serve quietly and silently reabsorb back into the world that continues on even as a new class of military men and women take the pledge to serve…..some come back, broken and bruised, having experienced the worse of combat. No matter where or how, the military member comes home changed, for better or worse and they will never be the same.

Today is the day where the citizens of this nation come together and recognize those who have ever donned the uniform of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force or Coast Guard…. Active duty or Guard or Reserve. Today the fellowship of the Uniform is recognized under the flag of freedom by those who live under its shadow. Today, today….this nation gives back a little bit of what it took for the service rendered under the green, the blue, the white and the grey.

Today, my fellow Americans, is VETERAN’S DAY!

Tuesday, November 9

Uncomfortable mutterings...

“I will remember these things as I pour out my soul: how I used to walk with the crowd and lead it in a procession to God's house. “ Psalm 42:4a (GW)

I went to my blog today to add a blog of the Senior Pastor of Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, which I’ve interacted with on an occasion of serving the homeless shortly after I had returned from the Bowery Mission in New York with my-then girlfriend and ministry partner, Shannon, who led me to it. It was shortly before I moved to A2 myself with the family and so the city was totally new….but the ministry to the homeless, ingrained by the impact of the Bowery, wasn’t. Things have changed since those days of March.

In many aspects of my life, my faith and my direction.

When I arrived at my blog, there was a ‘unmoderated’ comment by a young woman from Virginia whom came across my blog posting of the Bowery Street Mission in Lower Manhattan, New York. That, in and of itself, is not new…. Somehow in the course of investigating various topics and interests there have been those who have been directed to a comment I’ve made or a blog post I’ve written. I’m not saying that to boast, it’s just the nature of the research engines to bring odd things to the surface as you search….or not, dependent on your engine and your ability/desire to dig. She had experienced the Bowery too, an unique connection that defies age, culture, and location. Once a Bowery-changed person, always a Bowery-changed person.

She left a nice comment and I went to her blog. After reading it, I posted it to my list of blogs and sites (renamed from Sites I visit). I recommend, even if I don’t always agree with what’s posted, these blogs….. we are a vast, unique and wide body within Christ’s family and I believe none of us have everything fully right except for the foundational truths that binds us together as brethren under the blood.

But that’s not the energy that runs through my fingers to write about today…… Not even the Bowery Mission, which is forefront on my mind each day as I sit down at this desk because of the apron displayed with the signatures of the men I met my first time there that my eyes fall upon as I ponder the Word, think about God, and feel for the direction He wants me to take in my humble offering called posts. Anthony Johnson……Marvin Campbell….Cuba Edy….some names written big, some small…..like the Constitution of the United States signature section at the end. A connection to a world that I skirt the edges of each and every day as the unemployment continues.

“I may have glanced in a mirror at the man who walked between those two red doors if I had but known that I would never see him again. Then again, I may have not.”

I think now that I wished I had, glanced in a mirror at the man who walked in the doors of the Bowery so that I could compare him to the one who walked out. I don’t know if I would’ve still willingly, though with some reluctance, walked in those doors because the course of my life was inalienably changed that week and even as I walked away from it with new feelings in regards to those I loved, those I was responsible for and those whom I would’ve counted strangers in the weeks before……I didn’t know the path I would be traveling and the havoc it would play upon my emotions, my feelings and my faith.

I walked in the doors of the Bowery uncomfortable because of the painful connection it had, even in its total newness to me, to my life that lay in devastation behind me……. I walked away from the Bowery uncomfortable in the perceived direction and emotions that lay exposed in my life….. and as I sit here in Ann Arbor, I realize in this moment as I think again and again of the past year that I have been unemployed, that I have never been comfortable since.

And I fought against it like a horse against the reins or a child against the rules. Which made me more uncomfortable, which made me more uncertain and which made me sit at the campfire in the darkness of this journey far too long because I didn’t want to answer the questions posed by the stirring of my uncomfortableness or listen to the only Truth that such questioning could bring. God has ebbed and flowed in this place, much like a faithful friend who coaxes you from the safe and the comfortable by walking away and comes back when such efforts don’t seem to move you. My beliefs have cried out for untapped boundaries even as my faith quails in failure to support such reaching….. I have been driven both by my human fear of the unknown impossibilities of God and my spiritual fear of God, the push and pull of the tide of my beliefs bringing me to the point of drowning in the immensity of God because the lifesaver of my faith fails to support the dead weight of my body.

I don’t believe I was meant to be single, but singleness is the only seemingly constant in my life……….

I believe I was meant to preach, but the inadequacies and impossibilities of such an endeavor seem to be insurmountable…..

God has called me to impossible heights of His glory and grace even as I realize that I am not worthy (and never will be) of such elevation……..

I want to be comfortable in the environs and community of the Family of God; to be respected, to be loved, to be a powerful force of truth and change even as I am changed by association. I want to be everything that I am supposed to be within His purposes and His kingdom………..the talents lay in my hands, the gift of my Master as He departs for home to prepare for His return…….

To invest those talents means to live on the edge constantly and forever uncomfortable even in comfort, joyful even in sorrow and loving even in the painfulness of community.

I remember those times when the world would wander away and God was real and present with me at the campfire……those times when the gifts given were used for Him in the immense uncomfortableness of doing what He has called and purposed me to do……..

In the duality of living for the King…….uncomfortable in the comfortableness of His embrace, working alongside Him as He prepares the world for His coming.

Wednesday, November 3

Bailing.....

“I will look to the LORD. I will wait for God to save me. I will wait for my God to listen to me.” Micah 7:7 [GW]

It grows closer and closer; not just for me, but for the wealth of America’s workforce that has been idled by the economic downturn that started years ago (whether you believe it was during the Bush era or started earlier with the Democratic demand of mortgage funding of high-risk is immaterial.) My year of UIA funds cease on the 13th of November and the future is as uncertain as the political landscape anymore. Many, frustrated with the big government and the politicians who promised ‘change we could live with’ failed in their attempt to convince us that their answers didn’t work. Now, many ‘non-traditional’ political candidates have gained entry into the political machine that has ground the future of this country into depravity. Whether they can redeem the system or become it’s victims remains to be seen but the American people for the first time in years, voted their displeasure at the typical political campaign of self-protected and demanded representation from the elected. There are those who, so disappointed with the process that they claimed ‘its broken’ and did not vote, that led to the victories of those who do believe and brought themselves to the booths.

The pundits say that the vote was made in anger; I would say it was made part in declaration and part in fear. Fear that those who are hanging in the job market and struggling to meet the increased demands in their positions because they fear unemployment will come knocking on their cubicle. Fear to become like those like me, struggling day to day to be a provider to their family and the frustrations of slowly sinking despite the bailing.

We demand from our politicians and our American way of life the assurance of being ‘entitled’ to the right to provide for our families in the manner we want to. We should be able to go to a job that makes the money that is necessary to provide the funds that pay for the utilities, the mortgage and the car with enough left over for the ‘fun’ things, the ‘development’ things for our kids and the ‘professional improvement’ for the job so that we can increase our material wealth to be on the ‘next tier’ of the tax bracket.

And we demand that from God also.

When such things aren’t provided, we reject that which hasn’t brought our ‘salvation’ from such depths of despair and seek to embrace the promise that is dangled by those who want [whether honestly or not] to give it back to us. We leave God on the sidelines when we do that, because sometimes the requirements of God don’t fit in with the rest of the package that comes with the ‘change.’

I know that I used to; clawing through the electronic ‘want ads’ and running around filling paper after paper for the employer of the moment. Discarding the dream of Seminary and getting that hard to obtain waiver for the pursuit of a Master of Divinity degree and/or pursuing some degree program at a college to get those ‘high-end’ jobs. Applying, as I have for the last six months, to anything and everything that comes close to what I know I can do, think I’ll be able to learn quickly to do, and some that I don’t even fully understand how to do. Bailing even as the water comes up to my neck, bailing because that is all I can do.

Except my mouth moves in rhythmic waves; speech they call it in the higher realms of the academic world. Prayer, sometimes desperate….sometimes joyful…..sometimes angry…….sometimes broken; prayer bubbling from my lips sometimes without conscious thought, communication to a God I believe in and have found my faith desperate inadequate to trust in even as the ocean laps against my chin and my shoulders ache from the constant bailing.

There is no illusion sustainable here.

The reality of the cold wetness of the water and the shivering of my body from the absent of warmth……the visual sight of the deck beneath the waves and the mast slack from the lack of air to move the sails. Nothing here speaks of a future, nothing here speaks of continuing. My mind locks into the rhythm of ‘stop, it’s useless to continue’ that wars with my heart’s declaration that God is here, He is on the horizon and He is even in the waves and I cannot give up because He’s promised me so much more of a future than this, promised me things to do to bring Him glory and has a plan for me which He has the authority and the power to deliver.

So even as the waves threaten to overwhelm me and I sputter with the occasional swallowed water, my prayers continue and my hope rest not in the overcoming of this disaster but in the ability of the Lord my God to do what He will even in this place…….whether I sink or swim, rise from the depths with the ship afloat with full sails or lie on the bottom of the ocean deep……even then, it is for the glory and honor of my God.

There’s a song in my heart awaiting to burst forth either way, as I hear the promises of my Lord and Savior and await His guidance.

Until then, I’ll continue to bail……

And bail well.

Monday, November 1

The year

"As I saw the ship staggering and plunging among these roaring caverns, it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance, or preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water; her bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Sometimes an impending surge appeared ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a dexterous movement of the helm preserved her from the shock." Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon.

I’ve tried for the last week or so to write this blog. For some reason, I get going on it and then look at what I’ve written and hit the delete button. I’ve done that often lately as I’ve tried to write for the blog…..if you are reading this and notice such things, my numbers have truly dropped off. It’s funny, with being unemployed for the last year, as of Nov 13th, you would think that I’d have all the time in the world to write and some people would say that’s all I’ve probably done instead of being hard-core job searching and willing to take anything to be employed again. As with salvation, the proof is in the fruit and there has been no fruit from the writing tree in months.

It has been quite a year.

I thought I had found a ministry partner and found out that ‘love’ is fleeting unless it is really true. I have watched two communities of believers react in different ways to the situation my family has struggled through in the last year since the call on the phone telling me that my job was no longer there. I have had friends struggle with the situation; not wanting to ‘enable’ me to be lazy but also not wanting to be cruel in their accountability of supporting me in the job search. I have experienced sorrow and joy, peace and discontentment and disillusionment with insight. And, it has (as in all journeys) brought me here. And, as in all things human and fragile, here is not where or what I thought I would be.

I love the sea. I think that it was part of my genetic makeup that went wildly out of control. My grandfather was a Navy vet of WWII. He had entered the service as an enlisted man and they commissioned him as soon as they discovered he was a Detroit Diesel Engineer. They put him in charge of a PT training squadron out of Florida. My grandmother said she would look out to the sea and see the squadron on maneuvers, knowing as soon as they turned into the canal that she could start dinner because he’d be home by the time she was finished with it. My father, a storekeeper, was in during the Korean war and served as a driver for the Director of Navy Intelligence in Japan. I served in the Navy myself as a Damage Controlman.

It has been a difficult year.

My image of myself; that core-ness of who I am took a devastating blow that November day last year. A shot amidships right at the magazine storage. And, despite my best attempts in the days that followed I slowly sank lower into the waves and took on water. No longer was I heading toward a destination but I was in a fight for my very survival. Far from land, far from assistance and well into the locker of Davey Jones……I truly gave up for a while. Oh, I floated up the dream of Seminary and finding the wealth of support that would get me and my family through the three years or four (max) that it would take to get my Masters of Divinity degree that would ‘legitimize’ my calling in the faces of those in charge of the human side of church. Or going back to school to get that degree that was the reason for my demise.

But in a world where my future was traded in the past for the moment of survival that I gained, such were only mere momentary measures that failed almost as soon as they were implemented. And, as each attempt was stripped away, the hardened ‘image’ of a visceral man who has survived for so long….even despite himself, was shaken and wiped away layer by layer. Soon, the young boy who had set sail so long ago in the passage of time was the only thing left.

Standing waist deep on the deck of the ship in the sea.

Love….a endeavor I was ill-equipped to undertake and a temptation that I thought was conquered that merely was forgotten in the dailiness of being upon the sea of this world. Community, that strange island passed on the port bow full of the rumors and tales of a strange people so outrageous that it had to be impossible. Future?, a mere moment-to-moment thing devoid of any grace or grandeur. Merely a teasing distraction to the water filling the cracks and crevasses of the hull, a temporary filling of the sails fallen to the deck and a fractional movement forward.

A boy standing on the water-filled deck facing the impossibility of overcoming the storm, alone, knowing that all that he thought was real was simply an illusion of his sinful and depraved mind.

Often, when we are faced with such complete and utter destruction, we beg whatever we have to and promise whatever we have to and grab whatever hand we see presented to get ourselves out of the situation at least for a moment so that we can breathe and ponder its immensity so that we can face what we have to do to never come to that place again. I know, because I have been here before and I have done the same thing.

Add to that the picture of the rest of the crew, incapable of doing the work themselves and relying on you to see them through……picking up on your fear and your isolation that causes them to pull away from you and cling to those who can give them peace in the troubling winds…… that moment comes when the house of cards that is you falls apart and scatters to the floor, trampled on in the urgency of the situation.

A boy standing on the water-filled deck up to his neck.

Not exactly the future I had envisioned staring out of the second story attic of the world of my childhood as the sounds of Johnny Horton extolling the tale of the Bismarck. Not exactly the man that I envisioned myself becoming in the glories and battles of the open sea.

There was no sudden ‘salvation’ on the horizon this year, no sudden insight that enabled me to bring about victory from defeat or a miracle born of ingenuity that would make you shake your head in the amazing simplicity of it. No, merely a little boy frightened beyond his days slapping at the waves that threat to overwhelm him and a deep-soul burden cry of disillusionment and fear shouted to the unseeing sky.

And in that moment of my despair, where I have realized that I cannot do what needs to be done by myself and the pride that once made my backbone so ramrod straight was imaginary and useless; then…….

We moved out of my family’s house that was stressing everyone and moved into a place of our own…….friends providing the funds to buy and renovate it.

We are settling into school and healing from the wounds we have caused each other in the dark of the storm………

And my faith, once that jewel that adorned my crown, has been discarded in the light of its uselessness……………………..

Even in the reality of being guided by the hand on the helm of my life, that God/Man that commands the seas to calm or rage, hasn’t shaken me as much as losing my faith.

It brings me back to the moment in time when I was strapped into a harness with a thin, two inch piece of rope wrapped around the metal mast of the ship and told to climb the 40 foot thin pole that was jokingly called a main mast to replace the top running light on the port side arm. With the sea tossing it in a two to three inch arc through the air. It took me a half an hour to do what the deck hands, the Bosun Mates, would’ve done in ten minutes.

Fear caused my limbs to freeze, the nearness of danger my heart to race and the impossible heights that I was called to go making me wish to be someplace else……..

That moment, each and every step I took or movement I made, where I overcame the fear, danger and uncomfortableness to reach the next rung, the next jump of the rope or to reach over dependent only upon the support I had judged inadequate……..that moment I am reliving today.

That moment in-between the flight of dreams and the reality of gravity……and the realization that you’ve reached it.

God is passing by and my eyes fear to look up, even if it is only to see His back…………

God has given me a bucket and the sheer foolishness of bailing the entirety of the ocean with a five quart bucket makes me want to cry……….

But I bail because I have nothing left but the reality of who God is and the promise that He has made to me and you………even in the neck-deep water that has washed over our gunwales………..

Whether the ship slips beneath the cold waves and disappears from the air of this world……..or some miraculous salvation comes over the horizon……..

I bail….

Because from the helm comes the chant of promise, the declaration of love and the eternal future……..

“I know the plans I have for you…..plans to prosper you and not to harm you………”

“Plans to give you a future and a hope….”

So, even as I bail the depth of my depravity and sinful temptations that have sunk me so low into the world……..

Even as I struggle to fellowship with the community of God and have those who are so inclined to walk alongside the truth in my life…..

My belief in God grows stronger even as my faith weakens…..and my heart sings……

"Make music to praise the LORD, you faithful people who belong to him. Remember his holiness by giving thanks. His anger lasts only a moment. His favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may last for the night, but there is a song of joy in the morning." Psalm 30:4-5 GW

Wednesday, October 20

Dreaming......

I sit in silence, encamped around the campfire in the wilderness of this journey in isolation and singleness. Nothing seems to penetrate this inky blackness that surrounded the feeble light coming in waves from the fire and the fuel upon which its consumption demands seems strangely absent…. As if it were fed by an eternal source rather than a secular one. There are no sounds in the darkness, no ravenous beasts lurking outside the boundary of light and no echoing cries of gathering among the creatures that dwell in the darkness waiting on the prey of lost souls and foolish mortals who dare to carry their torches into its jaws.

God is here. Whether in the darkness or the light, He is here. My eyes cannot discern His image in the flames nor in the lukewarm light that is cast from its swaying bulk. I cannot see beyond the boundaries of the circle of this light, flickering as it does. But I know He is here, even as my heart cries out into the silence for Him to come and my eyes strain once again as they scan the surrounding darkness and light. I know He is here, but where…. That I do not know.

I have been sitting here for much too long, so long that my dreams that have me walking into the darkness with sword and shield in hand to take on the beast of the enemy for the sake of the souls that are being consumed in the teeth of these things seems so real to me that it is like an electric shock when I wake from them and see myself still sitting by the fire and draped in the dust of immobility. The epic adventures of being a man of God, of being a husband, father and preacher all disappear like wisps of shadow that clear from my eyes upon waking. And my heart sorrows once more for the continuance of this place, this fire, this isolation.

But I know He is here…..I just don’t know what He wants from me.

Or do I?

Within this circle, crowded into this circle I should admit, of light is my tent, my cooking materials and my large backpack all stuffed with the things that I both needed for the journey and the things I have picked up along the way. All my fears, phobias, illnesses, and pains packed neatly within its bulk, so heavy that it makes its own imprint in the ground. The financial chains that have burdened me for so long still nicely wrapped around its body. The fear of humanity laced into the bindings and the agony of this world filling its insides for padding. My comforts, those things that I wouldn’t dare leave home without lie in my tent, it’s walls the assurance of keeping the weather at bay (mostly an illusion) and the comfort of the sleeping bag calling me to remain within its warmth and cushiony cocoon rather than coming out to sit by this fire again. Some days, I remain lost in its siren call….. but most days I escape with a sorrowful sigh from its embrace and come out to petition the God whom I cannot see. Have not seen for some time.

Companions come and go by this fire, most seem like fleeting shadows themselves…..I register their presence only after they are gone, their ability to sit in this place with me as temporary as my dreams. Whispers hang on the air until I sample them, unfamiliar images and words casting a vision that I cannot understand and therefore reject as real because of the unrealistic nature of their casting. Can I tell if they are of God, the companions that come and go, or the damaged parts of my heart that cry out in anger and woundedness for what they have never known but what they needed the most? No, I cannot tell where these words, these images, and visions come from. They sit there in the still, thick air until I touch them and then they are gone. The feelings of hope, trust and dreaming that they elicit fade just as quickly and I am left with the emptiness once more.

I sit in the filth of my immobility, caked in the dirt of my creation and the grit of my human sinfulness……. Even as the water that has washed me clean rains down from the heavens and cleanses me once more, wakening in me a desire to stand and go…..unburdened by the depravity of my humanity and unhindered by the chains of my consequences. A desire to grab the sword and shield and rush out into the darkness uttering from the depths of my being that battle cry that lies consuming my soul in the pit of my stomach. I want to be free of this place, doing glorious things for the God I know lies both in the light and the darkness and reaching to those who lie in the filth of isolation and despair like I have been, in the darker places without fire or provision. To be nothing ordinary but to be extraordinary in the purposes to which my hand has been matched and my heart written with.

To be a source of glory rather than a source of sorrow.

Yet, even as I stand and feel my heart beating harsh and strong within my chest as my hands grab the sword and shield at my feet and raise them high…… even as I look around this campfire and nod as if in silent goodbye…… even as I turn, feeling the war cry building in the depths of my being and bubbling up through my throat and tingling at the gateway of my mouth…… even then, the doubt lurks there and I wonder if this is yet another dream beginning to which I will wake in the morning sorrowful at its departure.

But even as the despair begins, I step out and into the vision cast before me.

Epic battles are fought in this twilight and glorious victories are surrendered before the King, my God whom I know is around me even as I cannot see Him. Souls are saved, mercies are given and hearts are transformed in the visions of my dreams, even as my humanity corrupts their continuance and beckons their end.

I awake once more cocooned in the warmth of my sleeping bag, the mist of the dawn which I cannot see dusting the walls of my tent. And I begin once again the battle to escape the embrace of the reality of a corrupt world and step out into the eternal truth of the God that waits outside the tent flaps for my obedient movement into the shadows where I cannot see.

One day I will step out into the new world that He has promised, complete and fulfilled by the promises that He has completed as He has assured me He would.

On that day…… on that day, I will be able to see His face.

Until then, I will continue to struggle to be that which I cannot understand and hope for the glories that are promised by my dreams.