hoping for transparency

journal 1-31

2012-01-31T18:52:00.000-08:00

So I don't really consider myself a blogger. I don't think I am hip enough, just the fact that I just used the word hip should explain it all. Especially since I don't believe anyone is checking this it makes it feel more like a journal than a blog. I feel like blogs are places people go to learn things or feel connected with other people, maybe they are carthatic for different reasons. Regardless, of the reason I find myself writing tonight, I am writing.
I feel like in may ways I am at, maybe have been at a crossroads in my life. What's next? What is the next direction, the next turn, the next life decesion? I honestly don't know. I feel a little out of sorts. You know if I think about it I have a beautiful family, a job that I am successful at, a friend or two that I care for deeply. So I guess life is good. I guess....
Is it bad to look back at a different time in your life and crave the intimacy that existed then?
The friends in my life now are great, but they are a lot of work. The friends I used to have were easy, we knew each other inside and out, we had history, we shared victories and failure together. The friends I have now, we share life circumstances and common likes.
Life is just so busy. To find time to have a minute of one on one conversation with my wife is hard enough let alone be intimate. What does intimacy even look like or mean when you have two full time employed, full time parents, volunteers, etc. I honestly have no clue anymore.
I see my family rarely, I have meaningful conversations with them even less. I mourn friendships loss to life circumstances or simple inattention.
I don't think I am really depressed, maybe just a little lonely. Like I said at the beginning I am blessed. So I guess the question is why am I not content in what I have? I ask that question of many around me, "why aren't you content with what you have? ". In many ways I am sad because I feel like there is more to life than what I am experiencing and then on the other hand I feel guilty I feel that way as I look around and see so many who have it much worse than I.
Is the transition from 20 something to 30 something always this full of transition and emotional rollercoasters?
So i don't see my high school and college friends that often...
So my wife and I are rarely in the same room alone when one of us is not working on computer or phone or sleeping...
(The last time we were alone for more than two hours outside of our house was probably at a wedding in 2010 where we went back to hotel and worked and watched tv and feel asleep.)
So my friends now don't know me nearly as well as my previous friends...
So somedays I feel so small, like it doesn't really matter to anyone, for the most part, if i am here or not....
Tons of people only see their families on holidays, weddings and funerals....
Here I sit in a warm and beautiful house, with two nice cars in the garage, two beautiful daughters sleeping and a lovely wife inside and out putting them down. I am employed, doing something I feel called to and is rewarding. I have a flexible schedule and am about to get laser surgury on my eyes. My instinct is to say WTH man, get your #$%^ together. You have it made! Then why do I feel so.................. not sure how to end that question.
The nice thing is that no one will read this, and I think I will end it before I say something I don't want on cyberspace for eternity.

The Way We Pray NYWC Version « Videos « The Skit Guys

2010-01-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

The Way We Pray NYWC Version « Videos « The Skit Guys
(just click on watch preview)
Hey I am researching prayer and seeking how to have a conversation with teenagers about it and I ran across this video by the skit guys. I am using Sunday, but I thought I would share it here as well. How often do we get mixed up about prayer by the folks around us, what it is suspoesed to be, what God wants from us, what the Bible says about it. This rings so true to me in my own prayer life and relationship with God.
Another great skit by them is titled God's chisel, we used it last week at a new service we are opening up to the Holy Spirit.
God bless.

the greatest evil v me, your going down!

2010-01-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

Interestingly enough although it has been several months since my last post I haven't had much to post about or at least the words to post those thoughts in. Today I find myself with some words so here goes.

I have begun reading again, it is funny how that practice in my life accompanies fresh thought within me, I forget that my brain is a muscle as well, not that I am exercising my other muscles much, but whatever that is neither here nor there. I think that I went on a maternity leave with my wife, as my previous post talks about, we have another beautiful daughter in our family and even though her beginning was rough we have begun to plane out a little. Maybe we are just getting used to this life where we are playing one on one or are out numbered depending on how many of us are home. Now on to the reason for being here.

I have recently read two things that struck me and I wanted to write about them here. The first is PRIDE. CS Lewis calls this "the greatest evil", and I had coffee with someone this morning and as I was filling him in on my life over the past decade and a half, I thought how much of my life has been guided by this character flaw. Entitlement, overconfidence, superiority, false humility are some of the ways that the author explains for pride can rear it ugly head. Ouch, you know the first few I could explain away, but that last one...... I can't tell you how quick I am to do this, to 'act' humble, partly b/c of the christian sub culture I grew up in where you weren't supposed to take credit for good things, but also b/c I became so used to saying that I was nothing in order to gain encouragement or credit from others. I learned early in life if I did something good and then underplayed it, people around me would heap the praise on all the more. I can literally say that I have lived a large portion of my life trying to avoid credit so that I would reap the grander benefits eventually. I can remember hurrying to get things done so people wouldn't catch me.
I mean I tell people one of my downfalls or faults is pride because that is what your supposed to say, but really. Unfortunately, yes I live a life where I expect people to walk up to me and tell me how great I am because of how humble I am, what is that. As I write this so many things are clicking in my head and my heart, when I give my wife a gift I talk it down, even though I may have spent months squirreling money away or planning the reveal for just the right moment. I don't tell people just how big of a deal a few hours away from my home disrupts things. I play down the hours or days that I spend planning an event or evening, hoping that they will find out from a co-worker. In fact, I have found myself contemplating talking to people who I know will leak information back to someone, who I feel did not get just how awesome I was. Who is this person?

Yet, in the midst of searching for pats on the back or other forms of thanks, I have actually learned about true humility. Partially because I think this is how God created me and that is why this is the form pride takes in me, as I lean towards this naturally. Partially because I have become really good at not taking credit for things, so good in fact that people actually do completely miss just how awesome I am, routinely. Not sure how that could happen!

It is ironic that the me that God created to be used for His glory can so easily be taken over and used for evil or selfish gain. It amazes me just how intimately Satan knows me, or at least recognizes these qualities in me, that if fruitfully employed would manifest themselves in God reaping the credit and glory He deserves. Yet, I am so easily distracted, like making my daughter laugh when she is in the middle of a rant or tantrum, it feels good so she goes with it.

To segue very abruptly into the other thought that has been rattling around inside of me is the idea of not becoming a dead end and living life with God's eyes in play in my head, I hope. This sounds so obvious as I write it, that as a Christian, as a minister that I would live life trying to see the world around me through God's eyes and what he is trying to teach, show and have me engage in. One of the things that I think people in my generation and the folks coming behind me is the calling to engage in human rights and poverty issues yet not knowing where to start or how to decide what to do and thus get overcome with options and possibilities that we become paralysed into inactivity. One of the things that I am doing with my youth group kids is trying to help them see the things that God is doing in their world, I use the world perspective, but it could easily be called "seeing the world through God' s eyes. This is how I am trying to live myself, using the things that are happening right where I live to learn from God and hopefully as I have my head up I will see where He is active and calling me to engage.
I believe we all live a life surrounded by parables, we just need to 'see' them. For instance, my office door is directly next to a preschool drop-off and pick-up and I normally close the door so my focus is not lost to the crying or exuberance of the young children reacting to their parents, yet yesterday I walked in right at pick-up time and these kids were pouring out of the door and yelling "Mommy!" as if they had been stranded on a desert island for months instead of just playing and learning for 2.5 hours. Maybe I was acutely aware of this as my wife has had a tough week of returning to work after several months of being a full time mommy or maybe it is b/c we have been discussing preschool for my daughter or hopefully it was just because I had my God radar up. I couldn't help but think of Jesus' conversation where He said we must be like the little children. I thought is this how I go through life waiting in anticipation to see God come through the door, waiting to throw my arms around Him and hear those words "I Love you, Ben!" I also, cannot help but share this one. My daughter and wife have this new tradition that is beautiful and heartbreaking all in one. Robin was talking about going back to work to prepare Avary for this and was a little sad, Avary said, "Don't worry Mommy I will give you a hug and a kiss when you go to work so you won't be sad." This thought brought to mind a book that Avary and Robin maybe haven't read in a while, or perhaps Robin has brought out recently(which is probably more likely considering what a thoughtful mom she is), but it is titled , The Kissing Hand. The idea is that the child and mommy each deposit a kiss on the palm of each others hand and if during the day they miss each other they press that palm to their cheek and this is their secret little reminder that "Mommy loves me." or "Avary loves me." I watched them do this the first morning amidst the tears, mostly from Robin that morning as Avary was still waking up. Then, watched as Avary pressed her hand to her face repeatedly throughout the day, shouting the words "Mommy loves me." Yeah, touching, heartbreaking, and a wonderful testament to their relationship. This is how I want to live with God, carrying Him with me throughout my day, and as I go about my day knowing that He is thinking of me at every moment, and wants a detailed explanation of my day and more than that wants to be a part of every moment in that strange sort of back of your/front of your mind way.
He created me to use in the everyday moments: to bring joy to people around me, to have an empathetic ear and heart to the emotional current that surrounds me, to serve in a selfless way simply for His glory, to notice the way that He is active in our world and then not only engage but tell other people and bring them along for the ride and experience of playing a role in God's story. If you are still reading this, do me a favor and comment about the parables in the your world today or this week, I would love to hear about them.

Stella Janae- the star that God has answered our prayers with.

2009-09-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since my last blog and this is not a rare thing as I blog sporatically at best, sometimes that is because life is not changeing and somtimes that is because i can't keep up wit hthe changes enough to process them here. The latter is the case this time. We have a new daughter stella janae, she is a miracle, now I know all parents say that, but she literally defied modern medical knowledge to get to the earth breathing and with her heart beating. Recap: issues with getting pregnant, do ivf, pregnancy test positive:YES!, then 12 week ultrasound looks good, YES!, then 20 week U/S oh no, rupture "she isn't going to make it, you have to wait for her heart to stop beating then you will deliever her" Doctor quote. 23.5 weeks U/S "well you still have pockets of fluid and she is continuing to grow, let's check you into the hospital." another doctor quote. Cautiously optimistic. Then 7 weeks and a long summer of driving back and forth to hospital later get a call at 3:50a.m get to the hospital okay, roar to hospital throw jumpsuit and booties on walk into OR tying facemask up still and here is your daughter. Offically sshe was born at 4:46 aug 26th, which is 10 weeks early. Yep 10 weeks.
She is doing great she has moved from the nicu to NIm and she is starting to bottle feed and grow. We still are driving to the hospital and we long for the day when we are all under the same roof, which will come soon enough, but for now she is where she needs to be.
Wow yes a miracle baby, not that every baby isn't a miracle, but if you can qualify or quantify miracles this was a big one or a extra special one. We feel blessed to be blessed by another daughter, we had come to a point this spring when we were going to be a one daughter family and that was going to be good enough, but God had different plans and here we are. I still am a bit behind in the processing, so maybe I will put some thoughts out there at later date but for now Praise God and our God is Good.

Jesus' Joy

2009-07-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

So I follow a blog from one of my old...friends, leaders, mentors not sure how to qualify our relationship, I am posting a quote from him a confession.
"I spent some time with some people who believe in God last night. For most of the time, we just admitted to each other how we were failing God. “I could do this better.” “I don’t ever do this.” “I know there is so much more that I should be doing.” I started thinking, “What kind of a God do I believe in?” Would he be one to point out all of my deficiencies, which I happen to be very adept at doing? Is that what he would spend his time talking about with me? Yet each of us in that room, seemed convinced we were failing God and his perspective toward each of us would be disappointment. Is that how you feel? Do you think that is how God feels when he looks at you? Disappointed? "

As I was reading this my first reaction was pity, as in I feel sorry for him b/c I know him and he is a good man. Then as I stepped back that emotion echoed within me, who am I to pity him, b/c this is not his emotion or just his confession, it is mine as well. Every time I try to put my eyes onto God, place my feeble emotions into Him, narrow Him into my experiences. I cannot help but think that if God who knows everything I think, everything I desire, every way that I actually respond inwardly and outwardly that God has to dread hanging out in my mind, He must look at me with eyes full of hurting tears, must shake his head at the lack of devotion I show him. Disappointed, yes, brokenhearted...sure.
This is painful....right now as i write this I am struggling with this reality, because there is a voice within me screaming no. Grace, peace, hope, love.... when I see you no matter the stain, you are clean. I have read a couple different places in scripture lately about Jesus' joy. His greatest hope for His disciples was that they could experience His joy.
It is not my place to humanize God, to try to limit His view of me to my feeble comprehension or vantage point, to listen to the voice inside me saying that I should give up because it is not worth the guilt that this relationship causes. Lie, deceit, compromise, etc.
The God that I love does not love like I love, incomplete and with pretense, as hard as that is to admit, He loves and cares for me in a complete and unconditional kind of way. Even as I write this it baffles me, that even though I am me, He loves me. This is what people mean when they say the greatest love story, when they talk about the greatest gift. As this truth continues to saturate my being I am reminded about a conversation I had with God this morning. We had a moment of silence at church for confession as we prepare for communion next week, and I was running through the laundry list and all of sudden I felt peaceful, not b/c I had these things off my chest, but b/c a thought occurred to me, I believe this was from the Holy Spirit. The thought was this, I am loved, full of faults but loved, everyday is a battle not to earn love, b/c that is one of the only constants I have in my life, God's love. Every day I wake up and go about my day making choices, some good, some bad, some good with the wrong motivation, sometimes I am just paralyzed or lazy, but God made His choice long ago and it is irrevocable, He loves me, He died for me, He hopes that I will continue to realize that His joy is what life is all about, but whatever my choices He loves me. In my world the inevitable end of hope is disappointment in so many places, eventually hope yields disappointment, so this is how I think of God that as He hopes for me, He is constantly disappointed, how could He not be, but to God hope doesn't end, it is not quantifiable, God is love and hope is a part of love. This is good news and these thoughts are me starting to be ready to see the glimmer of Jesus' joy in my daily life.

Hope remains...

2009-07-16T10:14:00.001-07:00

It has been almost one month exactly since my last month and as I was rereading before posting this some strange feelings bubbled up inside of me. First off, we wnet in for our follow up check up with the specialists, had our U/S and he informed us that we have a fully developed 23 week old baby, that all her parts are measuring on pace, that she has lung tissue, that she was still alive and growing. Amen. Then he asked Robin if she had packed her things b/c he was admitting her into the hospital until this baby makes it appearance. So, how do you respond to news like this? Obviously we were overjoyed to have our doc tell us that her development and progress was an answer to prayer. We were mostly shocked to hear this, b/c i think we had both obviously prepared ourselves for the worst news. Now Hope remains.
Modern miracle, answer to prayer, God's will, prolonged time before the bolder of pain drops on us, what is the reality of our situation? The possibilities are vast, but the polar opposites are so very tangible right now. We had almost abadoned hope, we were expecting to be justified in our belief that this was going to end badly and yet we were hanging on to the possibility, to the thread of faith, prayer and hope. I don't really know our destination, our task for now is to live today, in a passionate pursuit of the joy God offers no matter our circumstance, while leaning on Him when the moments of grief, sadness, doubt and lonileness creep in. I am not sure that our prayer from a month ago has ended, we stiil want God in control. I hope that this feeling never ends, I pray that at the end of this like David of the old testement we would rely on God for our daily breath, for our protection, joy and completion not only to the end of this situation but to the end of our lives.

Beyond that Robin wil have been in the hospital one week tomorrow, baby is still doing fine, they are monitoring her twice a day(the baby), Robin is on bedrest, she may only leave the room in a wheelchair. Our family(Robin, Avary and I) live a fairly unique life in this world, between our work schedules which are unusually open to our home life which operates in a way that works great for us, but is contrarey to the popular norms. So this having us split up thing has been rough, Robin desperately misses Avary, Avary misses Robin, Robin and I miss each other. One of the things about this time has been an awareness that has sunk in to me, that as caught up as I am in myself in the day to day humdrums of routine living, Robin and I are desperately in love with one another, our personal boundaries have melted into each other. I guess I hadn't really noticed that, now that we are torn apart, my heart longs for her, in the tender everyday sort of way. Our house is so quiet at night, our bed feels empty, the dinner table has grown, the house itself feels larger for some reason.
But, I know God is in control, He is providing me with the strength and guidance, as well as a quality fleet of people whose love is all around us. So here is to today and not trying to grab the imagined power of my influence, and simply resting in God. Amen

sad but peaceful

2009-06-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

June 19th

From my last post things in my life have changed a bit. Robin and I found out this week that our baby is not going to make it, we went in for our 20 week U/S and there was something wrong, there wasn’t enough fluid around the baby. We went to a specialist and he proceeded to confirm our worst fears that Robin’s sack has been broken and the amniotic fluid is leaking out and b/c of the timing, pre-18-19 weeks the baby most likely will not survive the near future. I guess the question that is lurking near the surface today is why? Someone asked me how I was doing last night and I had a problem answering, I guess the best I can do is that I am crestfallen, heart broken, befuddled and confused. We have received this type of news, found out that our baby had not survived, this marks or 3rd failed pregnancy, however in the past it was done, this time, the baby’s heart is beating, we know she is a she, we have seen her moving on the U/S, but we know that barring a modern miracle, she is doomed. So we wait, with Robin looking 20 weeks or more pregnant, feeling sick and tired, we wait for the baby’s heart to stop beating, so then we can go and deliver her. Talk about crappy news, with a side order of crap.
I have been doing some pondering, a few folks that we have talked to and have walked this journey with have said, this isn’t fair and you would think that God would have thought you would have dealt with enough. We talked with the specialist yesterday and he mentioned how the fact that we live in an imperfect world, from the vantage point of people who will and do cherish the children they have or don’t, can’t get or sustain a pregnancy and they had a 14 yr old who was in a car accident that even though she insisted she had never had sex, was pregnant.(As least what she defined as sex.) He also mentioned one of the results of sin going all the way back to genesis, was the pain of childbirth, and much more than the actual physical pain of the moment of childbirth, the emotional, mental, and spiritual pain of death and these types of situations. (He was very good and kind man, who found out we shared a faith is God and he proceeded to love on us, talk our language and pray with us.)

As I have taken this all in along with the concept of where is God when it hurts type of questions and thoughts. Robin and I have landed in a place that I feel ‘good’ about and I believe that transcends some of these issues and brings us to a place that I believe is the best we are going to do right now. We have decided to pray that we don’t want to be involved in any more of the decisions with this pregnancy, we are pleading with Him to enact His will and we will follow along and exists in His peace and presence. I guess that this is probably how we should live every day, more than that I think that we fool ourselves when we believe that we are the ones who are driving the car. I think that sometimes we get so self important that we think that we know better or maybe that we assume because we aren’t getting what we want that God has somehow abandoned us.

I think that before I hit any more tangents that I will just sign off, needless to say there is a lot going on inside of me right now, most of it is tinged with sadness, but also peace which is hard to explain unless you have felt it.

june 1st

2009-06-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

June 1st 2009
Today is monday and Robin is about 18 weeks preg. sick and tired. Avary is good, a joy, yet she is two and potty training, so she is also precocious and trying at times. The class of 2009 has left the halls and moved fully into the weird transition that this summer brings for so many of them. My 'little' brother has turned 30, hoping that this year he will emmerge out of a year that has been hard and an existence that has been tough, yet I can see him searching for meaning in his life. I hope that he finds this in the hearts of his children and in the Giod who created him with that holy spark, the one that causes people to smile when they see him, not b/c of the beer in his hand but b/c of the twinkle in his eyes and the joy that he takes in greeting and talking to people.
Today, marks the beginning of a summer for me that is strange, one where I hope to grow professionally, grow as a husband, grow in my patience in parenting, grow.... I guess today marks a season of growth, or at least hoped for growth. I pray the life inside my wife continues to grow healthily, I pray that my brother grows into the person God created him to be, I guess that is my prayer for me as well.
If you read this, this is a journal entry, for myself to express the fact that I am raising my head above the surface to breathe, to seek a landmark. I have felt that these last few monthes...years...have flown by and I have had my head down, nose to the grind stone. I look up to try to see my wife through calmer, less selfish eyes, I try to see the people in my life with a little more grace and little less condemnation. I look up to see that I need God in my everyday life, not b/c of my job, or b/c of my life struggles, but b/c that was how I was created. When I get stuck looking down I miss things, they fly past, around or over me and I might sense their existence but don't get to experience them, don't get to enjoy them or share in them. I have been so focused on a certain aspect of my life that the tunnel vison I was using on it has caused some disruption, a disconbubulation, to quote my daughter, of my priorities and life. I write this here today confessing that it is so much easier to pick that out in others than myself, but that I am unwilling to let that slip by as my excuse anymore.
John 10:10 He has come like a theif in the nigt to seek and destroy, but I have come to give you life and life to the fullest. What does full life mean to me, I know it doesn't mean where I live, or what I drive, or what I wear, or what kind of toys I have or how big my TV is. But does the way I live, are the choices I am making reflecting that knowledge?
I ask a question of myself, and maybe to those around me if they feel so lead, to answer the questiona great teacher asked his students, "who do you say that I am?"
I guess who your students say who you are is the greatest mark of a teacher. Is that what I am?

trust and faith

2009-04-20T13:25:00.001-07:00

So for the last few years my wife and I have been on a journey, one that has been filled with elation and tragedy, tears of sorrow and joy, one that brought us our daughter Avary and now we have come to what is hopefully the terminal end of that part of our larger journey. We are overjoyed that as of today we are 12 weeks along, yes that is right 'we' are pregnant, I claim that simply as a state of announcement and celebration otherwise I say 'Robin' is pregnant. The pregnancy has been going great. We are allowing ourselves to get excited and have a due date in early November and will have a C-section the last week of October. I have posted about this process and thought about it in so many different ways as this journey has so many different emotions that follow along with it. The thought of this coming to an end in a form of celebration of new life and not the dissatisfaction of hopelessness seems to good to be true. We offer this journey up to God, as He has been our constant companion and all honor and glory are His. We now value the miracle of life and the unimaginable facts of creation to a level beyond knowledge and into faith where it belongs. I am so thankful that we serve a God that is good and faithful, but moreover is beyond thought, beyond imagination...so Holy. And yet, b/c of faith and sacrifice He is accessible and we are able to make it through an experience like this not only intact but better off than when we started. Which in the midst of pain and hopelessness was hard to comprehend. We now see the world through different eyes, we understand pain more, we understand not ignoring loss and comprehend there is little we can do to assuage this in someone else's life, beyond offering a shoulder, an ear and a thought and prayer not in pity but in pain. We understand having God involved in our every breathe and heartbeat, and understand our nature to run from that or turn to ourselves when things go well. We are better parents, not that we weren't created to be good parents, but it is easier to make the selfless choices in the reality of this journey, we hope this doesn't fade.
Our tag line for these past 12 weeks has been faith and trust, we hope that this never fades from our lives. It is hard to feel honestly thankful for pain yet that is definitely among the emotions that I feel. Now on with the pregnancy!

The flip side and more

2009-03-25T06:21:00.000-07:00

Okay the flip side of the coin to my previous post is when someone asks me that question and I really don't know what they are talking about, not that they are judging someone, but that they are talking about something that they are so intimately connected to and I don't have any idea what they are talking about. And instead of just saying, "No I don't know what you are talking about, can you explain that again because obviously I am to dense to have figured this out from our previous conversations?" I want so badly to be 'in the know', I fight it with gossip, but that is easier for me because I have set up this semi secure barrier about me and people who know me well know not to bash people around me because I don't want to hear about it. But this not understand what someone is saying drives me nuts, I find myself reading differently depending on who I think I will be running into that has also read the current book I am reading. For some I am looking for specific ways to critic the ideology, for others I am looking for the story of hope and compassion or greater truths, for others it is something all together different. Why???
I have been on this kick lately, I call it a kick but I hope it is a life trend, as if recently I had the sheet pulled back a little and am seeing things a little clearer and hope it sticks around. I have been finding that I am praying for God to sustain my every need, not want, need. As in Father help me realize that my pride, my sense of joy, my sense of self, my life needs to exist in completion in you. That whole you complete me thing in that Tom Cruise movie is crap. I don't say that to rip on my wife, we have a great relationship and yes we do rub off on each other in positive ways, but I don't believe that I, or she, needs me to be completed by the other. That is just romantic movie crap, my existence, my completion should be fulfilled in God. For those of you reading this thinking oh no he must be struggling in his marriage or not feel loved by his wife, that couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, that is opposite from the truth, for the most part I have never felt more loved or felt like my marriage was healthier. Can it grow sure, should it absolutely, but that was not the motivator here. I am not sure what was, I think that like many things in my life it was not brought about by one circumstance, but several, not one space in time but over time this bubbled up and now it feels so much like truth, like the truth I have heard repeatedly in church service, in sermons, in hythms, in the Bible, etc. It always sounded weird to me that a God, who I cannot see, who I cannot touch, who is beyond my imagination, beyond my space and time, could sustain me, it always sounded like that was for the people who didn't have good families, or good friends, or a good marriage, or etc. But as I said this is starting to sink in, what this could look like. I think another fear of this way of living at least for me is that I would become exclusive or stop wanting to be around other people, you know like that friend who you spent so much time with until they found a girlfriend or boyfriend and then they were no where to be seen. But that is not happening, in fact the opposite is true, I find myself drawn to people around me more, I have found myself in a much healthier place, where I am quieter more at peace, able to listen better b/c I am not trying to suck my needs out of people around me that much anymore. I spend a lot of time around teenagers and one of the things that continues to amaze me is that a group of teenage girls can sit a table and all talk at the same time, I don't mean all have a conversation, I mean literally they are all speaking at the same time. I sit at this table or watch from a distance and I am amazed. But I get it, they have a desire to be known, they are self conscious of the choices that they are making, they are worried about what this or that person is saying or thinking about them. They are trying to be known, to get their needs and desires filled by these outside sources and they form these ties that become so strong because that is the assumption that they are working from. This group of people gets me, they help me define me, they are providing for me in ways that are so important, I cannot live without them. I get that, and did that to a point, but I struggled with who I was for so long. Sometimes it was because the people I was hanging out with so clashed against who I felt like I was that the way that they were trying to define me felt like the blatant lie that it was. Other times it was just that I just didn't know, or wasn't willing to go there yet.... as if I had more investigating to do before i was willing to accept who I am. I have felt insecure, unstable, under attack, ignored, also encouraged, held up, supported, loved. I wandered for so long, I hope in the midst of my wandering and wasting time ignoring the truth that exists in my every particle, that I did more good than harm. I look back now and it is hard to see past the hurt that I have caused. First 'love', abandoned friends, irresponsible leader, incomplete commitment, inexcusable outlook, etc. Now before you think I am falling into the pit of depression, I want to say that the opposite of that is true as well. I am happy and content. I have regrets about my past, not the people I have known, spent time with and loved, but at the times when I was not strong enough. The times I gave in, gave up or let down.
I will finish with this as this may be the longest post ever, and I am afraid that this last statement is going to come off sounding arrogant and absurd. I am a dutch man, and so naturally humble and self doubting so it is hard to say good things about myself, but I think that this is a big part of this journey. I have been a great friend to many, I have served humbly and without hope of acknowledgement, I have sacrificed, I have sought to please, I have tried to love deeply, I have listened intently, and in the midst of that where as I don't consider it loss, I know that the previous reality of betrayal, pain and confusion that I have caused, were never intentional, yet they all happened. And in order for those parts of me that I am proud of to come into fruition I need to allow(seems like a weird word here, like I have power over God, but i do have the choice) God to fulfill me so my selfishness does not abuse my selflessness, basically so my nature of being self obsessed can be overcome and overrun by my nature as it was intended by God. I guess I am starting to learn the answer to the questions, who defines you,, who completes you, who do you seek in pain and confusion, who do you run to in joy? My answer is begining to be God. I have much more fleshing out of this to do but it is sinking in and every bit of me is shouting out that this is truth and also about time.

Sniff, sniff.....You stink!

2009-03-23T20:40:00.001-07:00

I can't tell you how many times I have been in the middle of a conversation and some one says,
"You know what I mean, right?" They say this with an almost omniscient head bob, like we are both on the same page here, or we are both in the know, it is a statement of shared superiority or at least the illusion of it. I often find myself on shaky ground, because so often I don't, 'know what they mean', or worse I do and inside I am screaming, "No, I couldn't disagree more, you moron". But the temptation is almost impossible to deny, I respond with a similar omniscient head bob and say something brilliant like, "Yep." The fact that this conversation that has been so redundant in my life, so reoccurring in the conversations that I have, bugs me. That I am being included in this aire of superiority or judgementalism or racism, etc. bothers me. The fact that I have consistently bent to the temptation to this feeling of needing to keep the peace, of this need to feel included really bothers me. The fact that I feel the need to write this here, similar to a confession, drives me batty.
What kind of aroma am I giving off to the people around me that they assume that the mixed up version of the world that they see is the same one I am looking at? What choices am I making in my life that would cause a person to look at me and see their reflection in this ignorant way that they look at other people. I say ignorant because to stand on the outside of some one's story and look at some small piece of them and then deeming yourself worthy to pass some sort of all encompassing judgement on who they are is just that. It is similar to trying to see some one's whole apartment by looking in the peephole from the hallway, you get a blurry, upside down vantage point.
I AM DONE, DONE STANDING IN THE MIDST OF THESE CONVERSATIONS THAT HURT MY SOUL. I AM DONE ALLOWING OTHERS TO INJURE ME BY TRYING TO DRAG ME DOWN TO THEIR LEVEL. NO MORE!
I confess as I shout these words in my head, there is a smaller voice that is rolling his eyes. I may not turn into some conversational Rambo, but if you see me excuse myself from a conversation or change the subject... I am refusing to go there. I do hope that I find the tact to have conversations with people, I have already started to rehearse my response to this question when I get it in the future. I hope and pray that God grants me the courage to say them and the clarity of mind to follow them up with a redemptive and graceful conversation. Because another small voice inside of me is saying, "You are just judging them back and what makes you better than them?". My struggle will be to follow the right small voice and trust my heart as it seeks to protect itself from the pain I have allowed others to inflict, that when my heart cries out, I will know the right voice.
I will not stand by while someone hangs their toilet paper on me again, my aroma will be a pleasing scent.

Armchair artist sipping lukewarm water.

2009-03-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

I have just finished reading a book that I highly recommend, unchristian, by David Kinneman and Gabe Lyons. These are two young and talented men and I am tempted to put their credintials here to validate that fact. But I think that the fact that took several years talking to thousands of people to put together a book based on ressearch from the real world speaks volumes about them and their calling.
This book talks about the image problem that Christianity has. When I first heard about this book I balked at reading it thinking here we go two new voices to jump on the christianity/the church sucks bandwagon. However, after speaking to a couple of people whose opinions I trust I read it. This is not another ranting session on how the christian faith is full of heritics, this is a very well written market research report. I truely believe that instead of some big mega church calling for this sso they could market themselves better in their neighborhood that this was motivated by God through these two authors.
They talk about several hot button topics in the christian and 'outside' culture. The chapters are organized around these themes: Hypocritical, Get Saved, Antihomosexual, sheltered, too political, judgemental. They dive into what the world see when they look at the church, when they interact with Christians. If you would like more info read the book it isn't that long.
But what they do at the end is intersting the last chapter is titled moving from unchristian to Christian- where they line up a set of marching orders, basically the book is about how we Christians have lost our true north, we have allowed some of our crap to get in the way of who God calls us to be in the world and it has gotten so entrenched in what we believe that we are starting to be known for those things instead of our passionate and compassionate pursuit of Christ and the people around us in love. To kind of put a exclamation point on the book they asked some of the premeire christian leaders today what they thought christianity would look like in thirty years.
One of the things that both the author and Rick Warren (one of the many christian leaders they tapped for introspection) said in their closing statements is, 'I hope and pray and more than than that, 'we must' begin to make the switch to being known for what we are for than for what we are against. This is not the first time I have heard this, nor the first time it has sounded so true to me. It thas become one of the lens that I look through as I try to continue to understand Jesus and His interaction with the Hebrews and with me. It seems to me that he was basically saying this everytime he told a story or tried to encourage his disciples.
The world gets so caught up in this drawing lines, seperating things, defining both sides so explictly. Let me just mention a few what if statements that I try to live out. What if we were for adoption, instead of against abortion, what if we were for healthy, undividing marriages instead of against homosexuality, what if we are for seeing the best in people and their capability to be Christ followers instead of being against the actions of so many(read judgemental).

How about a video if I can get it up here, from a new author I have found recently reading a new parable. Hopefully this link works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY8UEaIJAN0
This is a story that talks to me about who we....I have become. The idea of an armchair artist being neutered, until we....I take up my cross and get involved changing the world for Christ can I really call myself a disciple of Christ or even a Christian for that matter!

look out

2009-02-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

As a man begins to cross the street, a car comes screaming around the corner heading straight for him. The man walks faster, trying to hurry across the street, but suddenly the car changes lanes. Even with his increased speed, the car is still bearing directly down upon the man. Frenzied, the man turns around to go back, but the car changes lanes again. The man begins to panic. The caris extremely close. The man becomes so scared that he just freezes. He is frozen right in the middle of the path of the oncoming car! The car gets even closer. But then, just in the nick of time,the car swerves and screeches to a halt right next to the man. The driver rolls down the window. The man is puzzled at the odd appearance. The car is actually being driven by a squirrel! The squirrel says to the man, "See, it's not as easy as it looks, is it?"

As we sit on the outside of someone's story and judge the actions they make or the words they use, it is impossible for us to be in there shoes, to know what is on their minds to know what happened to their hearts. I hope and pray that I can continue to be the person who does not judge, does not pick apart, but approaches everyone with the same amount of grace that I hope that they approach me and my family with.

2009-02-12T10:43:00.000-08:00

I am putting below an excerpt from an article I read today that I think is spectacular. Something that really resonates with my experiecnces in life with all people. This particular article is written to an audience of peeople who work in youth ministry, but the relationships that have been successful in my life have almost all started with me trying hard to take the advice offered here.

Are you listening

doug fields

"I was recently at Weinersnitzel eating one of America’s finest meals—the tube steak kabob…affectionately known by connoisseurs as a Corn Dog. As I moving to my seat, I see a high school student reading the Di Vinci Code. I asked him, “How do you like that book?” Honestly, I thought that it was a very easy question and I would get a very quick response! That’s not what happened!
I expected this guy to say, “It’s an interesting read… not as a good as my chili cheese dog with onions. Have a nice day. Go about your business. Don’t you know this is Southern California(or West Michigan) and we don’t really want to talk to strangers here?”
Instead, this 17 year old perks up and says, “I love it. I believe it. The church is corrupt. Priests and pastors are all a bunch of phonies—you know that big church down the street? All they want is your money! You know which one I’m talking about?”
Well, I knew which church he was talking about—the one I where I’m the pastor to students—kids like him. Interesting perception. Our church looks good on the outside and I can see how he connected money with the look. He’s not the first to perceive it that way and he won’t be the last.
I said, “It sounds like you’ve got some pretty strong feelings about the church—where do those feelings come from?” For the first time in a long time, I asked a pretty intelligent question (a lot of times I say, “Uh…what school do you go to?” and think I’m a relational giant). Once again, this intellectual didn’t shrug off my question with a teenage grunt. Rather, he talked about his feelings about the church.
I listened. And listened. And listened. This kid had a story! A wild one. A sad one. One that has not only turned him off from church…but also from God.
One of the areas that I’ve been trying to grow as a youth worker is to be more blunt and upfront with my questions and equally as assertive with my listening. I’ve really been learning that kids want to talk about their spiritual stories and feelings (especially those outside the church) but few people (especially adults) care enough to ask. (italiacs Ben's)
I want to challenge you to ask some deeper questions if this doesn’t come naturally to you (it didn’t to me). Ask them this week. Ask a probing question and then listen to their story. As you listen don’t have an agenda. Just listen.
After you listen, you might be able to share some pieces from your own spiritual story and shed light on God’s amazing love story. Probably, somewhere between those three stories is an intersection of faith. "

I crave to be known, I did in high school and do now, and I think that is one of the things that I share with the world. I think that this is how God created us, as he created us in His image and he wants to be known, to be loved. His very essence radiates this. The fact that he is one, but three. (reading the book the Shack, gave me a unique viewpoint of this, it was fiction but it helped me think about that differently.)

I hope that I take that knowledge with me everywhere I go, seeking to allow others to be known in valid ways.

I am addicted...to perfection?

2009-02-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

So I was going over my last post a little and where as that seemed very relevant a couple of weeks ago, now not so much. I think that it was good to be there and I am old enough now to understand that pain is a part of life, the circle of life if you will. The one constant in any journey is time passes and change happens, so onto the next thing.
I have had a few interesting realizations recently, one that isn't new and another that seems to lurk around the fuzzy edges of my existence and I guess that one isn't new either but I don't like it as much. So first one is that I feel very called to Hamilton, the community as a whole, wasn't sure about that at first 3 years ago, kind of out in the sticks, far away from friends and family, mine anyway. But the things that God has done in my life to continue to reaffirm this is incredible. Recap, just as I was feeling the urge to move on from my first job and ministry a position opened up I didn't even know about that was a great fit for me in Hamilton. We moved there. I joined and fit right into the football coaching staff. I wasn't sure about the community seemed kind of close knit and not exactly accepting, kind of my experience with small towns in the past. Then we had Avary and the $$$ started calling along with the temptation to abandon my call and fall into the expectations of society and my own opinions as well. Thanks to a crappy economy coupled with being setup rather poorly and very inexperienced, that adventure was short lived and my eyes and heart were reopened to what lead me to Hamilton in the first place.
Now I am here again and diving into the community, I feel like I am part of something here, I feel like my existence has purpose and meaning beyond my own backyard, that my job and input into this community has the opportunity to change lives for the better. And God and this community are helping with that, I recently was hired as a youth pastor here part time which was a good start but being a necessary contributing part of the income of my family, I needed some sort of extra income to supplement the part time job salary. So as of last week I became a bus driver for Hamilton schools as well as a substitute teacher. Talk about a nice fit, and an answer to prayer.
Now onto the fuzzy thing that I am not sure I like so much and am continuing to investigate. Ever since I can remember I have been on the outskirts of groups. Present, but not fully engaged. I think part of that is that I was involved in several different places, so I didn't have the time to completely buy into one thing. Even back to high school this was true, I was in marching band, but never did anything outside of the organized things really, I was involved in YL, but never fully engaged, the closest I probably got to being fully in was football, but even there I wasn't involved socially with most of the players. In college I hung out with a friend's friends for the most part. Then pretty much beginning in college I have been an authority figure in some way shape or fashion, which has many constraints no matter where you are. So what am I saying, I guess it is just that I have the same need that I tell kids is inherent in their lives, I have the need to be known and to know the people around me in deep ways. Something that I have always struggled with, which is the part of this issue I am talking about outside of time, is being bold and confident. It is so much easier to not take charge, to not be the one putting it all out on the line, yet I feel more and more that is what God is calling me to in my life. Boldness..... what does that mean in my life? What does that look like? How can I overcome my shy nature, my dutch heritage and my sheltered upbringing to accomplish this calling on a daily basis? How can I be bold and not go too far? When is too far? How will I know? How do I start? I think this is my cross that I need to pick up at this point of my life, because it will be hard, exhausting and frustrating, yet I think that is where I am being lead, maybe clearer than I have felt lead in a long time.
So stop thinking about what it could look like to be known and get out there and get to know people, which in turn will get to know me in the midst of the journey. Be bold in who I am, in my character, my integrity, my will, my thoughts, my heart, get it out there let the control go. Ah yes there it is, the control, not many people know this maybe noone. I am a control freak, when it comes to how much I allow people to know about me and how far I let people in. Which sounds funny considering my job, yet it is true. Part of it I understand is a side effect of this job, b/c when people know that you are a pastor of any kind, they immediately get a mindset in their heads, a box, a set of rules and expectations. I know that box and I don't fit it very well sometimes, and I know in my brain that is okay and maybe better than that it is good. However, sometimes it is frightening to let people in far enough to see the real me, b/c that is not the Jesus I want them to see in me. My name is Ben and I am addicted to appearing perfect!

Why pain?

2009-01-14T12:38:00.000-08:00

How do we manage pain in our lives? How do we manage helping people through their painful situations? What's with all the crappy pain in this world? It seems like in my life I have been privileged enough, if you can call it that, to be privy to and walk alongside of many people dealing with some painful situations in their lives. I have also dealt with a little in my own life, emphasis on little in my mind, but maybe not. Regardless, their is no clear cut path to deal with or walk alongside of someone in pain. I mean there are the stages of grief.
1. Shock and denial
2.Pain and guilt
3.Anger and bargaining
4.Depression, reflection and loneliness
5.The upward turn
6. Reconstruction and working through
7.Acceptance and Hope

That is all well and good and I have walked through those stages as I look back at the moments in my life when I suffered from some painful event of loss, but knowing that isn't enough. Not really anyway. I mean just being their doesn't seem like enough, I want to do more, I want to help, I want to turn their pain that I feel into anger become like the punisher, doling out justice on deserving parties and pain inflicter's. As tempting as that sounds, what good would it do, just perpetuate the circle of loss and pain that exists in this world. I think the best way to deal with this is hope, prayer, presence and empathy. Which is great and yes it does work, but ,and we all knew there was a a but coming, that doesn't help. It still sucks, I still hate the feeling of helplessness that I feel, when I hang out with people and they are no better off then when we started. I guess that is where the hope comes in, in the midst of hurt, grime, betrayal and junk, the hope remains. I think I would be better off saying the Hope remains. Because in my book Hope is a God thing. I don't have hope because everything is going come out smelling like a spring meadow in dew, but to know that there is wholeness and renewal in God in the midst of pain, or maybe on the heels of pain.
I guess there isn't an answer that ties everything up with a bow, because life is messy and pain is a part of life and the mess spills over our neat little bowls that we try to contain our lives in. Someone I was hanging out with recently said that they had been trying to hide the hurt and the mess, in their bowl and what they didn't know was that no one was fooled. Everyone around them that loved or cared enough to notice could tell. Someone else who lost a daughter tragically
recently shared that they were being ignored by people because they didn't know what to say and avoided the topic of their daughter altogether which they hated.
Acknowledgement of pain, not in order to judge or collect some juicy piece of gossip, but purely to mourn and join that person where they are is so.... I guess the word is holy.
Right now it is 10 degrees outside and I am sitting in a patch of sunlight, I think it is an appropriate metaphor for pain and someone coming alongside of you, the cold isn't gone, and this moment might be fleeting, but it just feels like ahhhhhhhh for a moment.
I hope and pray this is the way that I do life. Being there, not avoiding the difficult moments and bringing a little sunlight into people's lives.

What if?

2009-01-06T20:28:00.000-08:00

I have begun to take my life back again or something to that effect. I spent several monthes being miserable and doing something that I despised, the positive side of that is I now have much more respect for salespeople, especially in a down economy.
But in the process of doing that I was so focused on doing that well and dreaming about what it might look like if I caught a break that I let the things that I love and am passionate about slide. I began to watch lot's of TV, sitting alone in a hootel room doesn't give you many options beyond that. I spent most of my time alone, and the time I spent talking was mostly to voicemails, receptionists or people trying to get rid of me. And nw I am starting to get a grasp of my life back.
What I mean by that is I have been reading several books, I have been having good conversations with people who aren't trying to get me to shut up and leave(for the most part), thinking more in general, and listening.
I was thinking about doing a new years thing here and maybe I still will, but I think for noww I jusst have some qquestions to throw out there, if you read this don't worry about answering just food for thought.

What if we could only watch 3 hours of tv a week?
What if we didn't watch tv at all?
What if everyone we were friends with on facebook or read our blog's had to have coffee with us at least 4 times a year?
What if we really captured what it meant to be selfless and fleshed that out in our relationships daily? Admitting our faults yet still perservering on in love?
What if we all read the sermon on the mount in Matthew and lived according to these priciples, minus the litteral cutting off of hands and gouging out eyes?
What if we really put every effort into being excellent in our jobs, but refused to sacrifice our families in the midst of that?
What if we all spent less than we made, didn't own a credit card, and were aware and in control of where our money was going?
What If???

leprosy and Christmas

2008-12-23T07:06:00.000-08:00

I was reading in Mark today and a verse that I have probably skipped over often struck me, Mark 1: 45. Jesus had just healed a man with leprosy, a ugly disease that cut off people from the community according to Moses' law. Jesus asked the man to go and not tell anyone except the priests so he could be pronounced clean and rejoin his community as a clean/whole man, yet he goes and blabs it all over the place. I have thought much about this disease in the past and this man what he must have felt, how overwhelming it must have been to be healed. But the sentence that struck me this morning was this. "As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places." My knee jerk reaction to this sentence is sorrow, for the humanness of Jesus. This man with the world on his shoulders, became famous not for who he was necessarily, but what he could do for people. The what can you do for me now attitude towards God has been around forever I guess. People have been looking at God through our sinful eyes and even in the midst of the humblest worship we will still see our God incompletely, partly b/c of our limits and partly because of our choices. I can't help but think of myself when I think of this man, how many relationships am I in where my sense of fulfillment in the relationship is based on what they can do for me. This makes me sad. I know that not many are reading this, and I don't say this for anyone specifically to read more just to say. I am sorry that I am not more selfless, that I haven't brought more to the table to my friends and family.
But beyond me, I think of Jesus, who started in this world with enemies, poor by worldly standards, born in the dirt and manure of a stable, which I learned recently would have been a cave and the manger would have been a piece of stone hollowed to hold food and water for animals, so a better idea of what it was would be a trough. The more I learn about Jesus, about God and the times that he choose to come to earth continues to befuddle and amaze me.
What is unclean, what is dirty, what is shameful, what is embarrassing, what is humbleness, what is rich, what is poor, what is meaningful, what does it mean to love, what does it mean to be selfless, what does it mean to follow God, what is blessing? What if how we define those things now are all wrong? What if the stories that pull on our heart strings this time of year, should not be seasonal stories, but daily experiences.
My Christmas wish this year, is for healthy relationships, not happy go lucky ones, but healthy ones. That I understand what 'healthy' means better, and know that all that I bring is incomplete and misunderstood. I hope for a non-transactional view on the world, that I don't see the world as a balance sheet, if I do this then I should get that. I want to learn how to give of myself freely. I pray for ears to listen to those around me, especially God, I want to be an active listener who pursues this skill with passion. I hope that I can stop spewing thoughts without wisdom and sentences without pause. I want to pursue more knowledge of God and Jesus, formally as in books and informally as in the daily dance with Him as He ebbs and flows in this world. Understand that my influence is greater than I will ever know and my level of control is smaller than I will ever want to admit. I dream for dreams. Pray that each day I will pursue my wife and daughter with a clean slate, passionately giving without looking back or forward.

What do you wish for? What if.......

A Christmas letter

2008-12-18T19:02:00.000-08:00

Christmas has always been special to me, I have two sisters and a brother and we grew up in a home where Christmas was a big deal, we didn’t always get the biggest and best, but it was always special. As I look back obviously the presents were great, I remember the year my brother and I got Nintendo and stayed up all night with my dad and cousin playing the original Super Mario Bros., but except for a few presents like that one the stuff I remember are the things that happened around that season. We had a tradition of making peanut butter balls and dipping them in chocolate on Christmas eve, we would stay up late and go to the 11 p.m. candle light service at our church. On Christmas day we would get up and the first thing we did was eat breakfast together, orange danish rolls fresh out of the oven and smoky links, right after we snuck a peak at the tree to see what Santa brought us of course. Then we would get dressed and wait patiently, yeah right, to head over to my Grandpa and Grandma’s where we were always the first family there. Then we would watch the parade, everyone walked in with presents and food, the smells and the visions were unbelievable to experience.
I had a good relationship with my grandparents, and being one of the oldest grandkids I began to help my grandpa wrap gifts, he did it in a creative way, he would get plain white paper and wrap each present and then he would draw pictures and decorate each gift personalizing it for that person. I loved sitting at my grandpa’s kitchen table brainstorming and helping with this, while my grandma made lunch and brought presents out from all the hiding places. On Christmas day he would have them stacked up on the couch a tower of Christmas presents that existed from a labor of love. With these and all the present everyone would bring there was barely enough room to sit. We would all wish each other Merry Christmas, hug, and share a bite of food that my grandma had sitting out while we waited for everyone to show up and then it would happen my grandpa would get everyone’s attention, we would get in a amoeba like circle and hold hands and pray, and then sit down and open gifts. We took our time, we relished this opportunity to spend time with each other, to watch each person open gifts, to see this tangible form of love poured out to each other. I usually played Santa, passing gifts out and in a strange way participating in everyone’s gift giving and receiving. Then, the kids would be excused down stairs along with an older fun uncle or two and we would play, sometimes with our new gifts, usually just dark tag or hide-and-go seek. The adults would sit upstairs and breathe, enjoying each others company, and rescuing/comforting the crying kids that would inevitably climb the stairs before running back down to rejoin the festivities. After that we would eat lunch and then individual families would peal off to visit the other side of their families, with hugs and thank-you’s being strewn about.
I hope you have gotten the idea that Christmas has always been special to me, which is why the 10+ emails I get a day, the commercials on TV, the ads on the radio, the umpteen pieces of junk mail and catalogs we get in the mail daily are so annoying to me. It seems like this year there has been more pressure than ever, almost like if I don’t go out and spend a ton of money that the economy might fail and it would be my fault or some crazy thing like that. Now don’t get me wrong I love giving and receiving gifts, the look on someone’s face when you get them that gift you know the one, or the look of anticipation on the gift givers face as you open the gift they took the time to think of, shop for, and wrap just for you. But it seems like we get so carried away now a days, kids are disappointed if they don’t get the $300 cell phone, the $300 ipod and the $600 gaming system. I remember the year that my brothers favorite present was a bag of lettuce… literally that’s all he thought was in a little Ziploc bag, so he said,
“Ohhh Lettuce!?!”
when he looked closer there was a gecko, small lizard, in there too. But I digress, my Christmas wish for us all is that we get that no matter what is under the tree, or stacked on the couch, that the importance of Christmas cannot be wrapped up, it is experience, it is love shared, given freely and received with joy, it is taking a moment from our busy lives to notice the pain going on next door, to open our hearts to the needy, to look to the God who wants our lives to be like this all year.
Can you imagine watching someone you love going down hill fast, maybe addicted to drugs, hanging out with bad friends, caught up in something that makes them into someone they are not? Whether you know it or not, this is all of our stories, some of them play out more tangibly than others, but this is the reality that God lives in, daily watching the people he loves travel down a rode that causes pain, causes loneliness, that makes us into someone we were not created to be. He spent hundreds of years trying to help us see that, that is what the Old Testament is all about, and then he did it. He decided to stop telling us and show us. I get that, one of the best ways I learn is by someone physically showing me how something is done. He did life here, he gave up all his Godness, which isn’t a word, but there isn’t one so this will have to do. For a God who doesn’t have boundaries, not time, not space, not knowledge to give that up, sounds like a movie. You have heard that he came hear to dissolve the gap between us, which is beyond anything anyone, anything, it is just beyond. But, he also spent 33 years here loving, teaching, living day to day, he was born in a cave with dirt and animal poop on the ground, he lived poor, he worked with his hands, he was two. When I stop to think about this and not just know it, like I know George Washington had wooden teeth, it boggles my mind. I wish part of the Bible talked about Jesus, the younger years, like did he fight with him brothers and sisters, did he deal with those awkward growing stages and the feelings that come with them, was he worried about what that girl saw when she looked at him? Then, I think okay maybe I do know this stuff because he dealt with everything I deal with, he lived in a different time, but there are emotions that as humans we all feel. Are we good enough, am I better than him/her, do I belong here, what does my future hold, am I loved, what does love mean, what makes me important, who am I? Now I don’t, can’t, know how this happens, with Jesus, being fully God and fully man, and I am glad about that most days because who wants to worship a God that you can understand, that would be like worshipping money, power or sex, I get that, I get the beginning and the end of it there is no mystery there. But what does ring true to me is that Jesus did what we all fail to do, he saw himself through God’s eye’s, through his heart. He aligned himself as His child, His student, His….just His, and through Him he did amazing things, lived perfectly without failure not because he wasn’t tempted but because he chose God and his path over temptation, performed miracles, healed sickness, eventually was raised from the dead after all of our sin was heaped upon him through a gruesome death and unfathomable torture and pain at the hands of Satan, all of this was done for us, as a gift, so we could understand God’s love in a tangible form.

What does it all mean? What should I feel on Christmas? Should I be guilty that I am getting all of the gifts that the generous people who love me will get me? Heck no, I would suggest that you suck it in, that you remember that Christmas is a wonderful, magical time because people tend to pause and think of others before themselves, think of giving first instead of receiving, think of giving anonymously just for giving’s sake. And, after the food is eaten, and the presents opened, the thank you’s given and received, the hugs and awkward kisses from relatives you barely know are done. Then, remember that the stuff that makes this season special are the reasons behind the gifts, the love, the sacrificial love, for you and from you. Know that you have unsurpassable worth, you are so special that God choose to become human and then death so you could love and receive love as it was meant to be. The magic in Christmas is not reserved for two weeks every year, but given freely for us to embrace daily. I am so looking forward to continuing down this path with each of you, continuing to work out what this looks like on a daily basis. Enjoy your holiday, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, I hope that you have many opportunities to wear a smile, to breathe in love from those around you, and remember that no matter what is under the tree you have already been given the greatest gift ever all you need to do is to pick it up and open it and you will never look at life the same again.

32 and blessed

2008-12-04T09:28:00.000-08:00

So I am 32 now, to tell you the honest truth I don't feel any different than I did a day ago, in fact not much different than I did a month or a year ago. But another year has passed and that tends to at the very least place me in a reflective mood. I worked at a job last night that requires little to no brain power, so that allows my thoughts to wander. I began to consider my blessings, they seem almost too numerous to list but I think that it is worth the time and the space here.

1. A working relationship with God, a messy one, good not in spite of that but because of that.

2. A beautiful, talented, tender hearted wife. (Maybe I will list all the things I love about her, but not here I am not sure if blogspot has a limit but I would most certainly exceed it.)

3. A daughter, beautiful, coming into her own, big soft heart, big blue eyes, and in the phase of sponge)

4. A family that nourished me, physically, emotionally, spiritually growing up and continues to do that now.

5. A job that I feel called to, one that I feel I was created for, one where my gifts will shine.

6. A group of friends to love, not always see that often unfortunately, but to love nonetheless.

7. A nice community to live in myself and my family.

8. An inherited family whom loves me and who I have have grown to love in return.

9. An unique story, full of bumps and bruises, mostly self inflicted by poor choices, some as a result of how I was born.

10. Living in the reality of Hope. Hope for the future, hope for the present, hope that the lessons learned in the past stay with me.

11. Love...in all it's different forms. As in all the different Greek words.

12. A healthy perspective... on things, money, and assets, for the most part.

13. A heritage with which to learn from and live up to.

14. the outdoors, God's creation in every and all seasons.

15. Having a God who choose to empty himself of his Godness to come here and not only experience life through my eyes so I could know him better, but also to make the ultimate gesture of love to me and all of us. (I need to clarify that, i don't mean death, although obviously that was the most beautiful, tangible gift. I mean emptying himself and choosing daily in the midst of how we were treating him to stay human, to remain fully human. I think I get caught up in the betrayal, punishment and death, when except for death God had experienced all those things daily since the first fateful choice and much more. I know that God came here to die and erase the desert that we were trapped in that was keeping lost and stranded from God. But he also came her to show us how to thrive here and how to relate to him. )

16. People who have walked side by side with me in encouragement and inspiration.

17. Pain, hurt, anxiety, fear... without these things i would value health, joy, contentment, and safety nearly as much.

18. will power or robin power. I have overcome many unhealthy habits since meeting my wife. Some have been directly related to her, as in she has gotten upset with me when I participated in one or the other of them, and some have been because being in a relationship with her makes me want to be a better person.

19. The comprehension that it is the people you are with not the place that matters

20. No matter my future or destiny, it exists in the grace and peace of the love of my God.

There is 20, I am sure I could continue but I am going to stop. Amen.

2008-11-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

Why are some conversations so hard to have, even with the person that you feel the closest to? It seems like in this world there are topics of conversation that just make us squirm a little. I know I have a few, some of them are just because they are taboo like sex, masterbation, personal politics (not in general but what I specifically feel), money, persoanl religious beliefs or doubts, etc. I believe that we were designed to be in open, honest relationships with people and this includes having the easy conversations and the hard. I think that I avoid certain topics of conversation because of how talking about them out loud will make other people feel. It will cause us to go to a place together that may be uncomfortable. I have seen this with racism, it has gone underground, but it is everywhere, some people don't even know they are racist, but in the jokes they tell and the perspectives they have do the defining for them. I have seen this in trying to talk to people about sex, whether that be teenagers, college age folks, engaged couples, married couples, it seems that it comes with all this baggage no matter the person, they carry their own definitions and their own expectations and their own comfort levels. I am extermely comfortable talking about many topics, partly b/c I am an open person, partly b/c I have had many of these conversation and know that they take the relationships that I am in to another level and I like depth in relationships.
So why is it hard to have these deep conversatiosn because it causes us to flesh out things that we hold onto very strongly, we might even think of them as truths, but I know many times I am worried about what another person might think if they found out what was really going on inside my head. To be that open to another person is tough, it forces us to relinquish control over that part of us that we share because once it is said it is out there for all to know and judge.
I recently rekindled a friendship that has been based on this kind of openness in the past and I hope will continue in the future. This is such a vibrant way to communicate wwith another person, without fear of rejection or judgement, just sharing so you can be known and know the other person.
I pray for all of my relationships to go deeper, to be available to listen to someone bear their soul and to respond in love and in the same emptying way. I pray that because of these relationships and conversations that we will both grow and be examples for those of us around us that continue to struggle in this silence, lonliness and perceived safety.

Thanksgiving...

2008-11-26T20:35:00.000-08:00

so my last post caught me in one of my cynical moods, they sneek up on me from time to time. Tonight I am feeling more like talking and thinking about the better part of this season and not rant.
Thnaksgiving has always been an interesting holiday for me, there has always been lots of family, food, church, and laughter. I have been thinking about being thankful lately, partly because of the season but for a couple of other reasons too. I have noticed some common sense things about thankfulness, it is much easier when your expectations, good expectations, are met. Conversely, it is so much harder to be thankful when you are in the midst of pain or suffering. When my wife and I were struggling with infertility and were praying every night we started to lack the feeling of thanksgiving, we were hurt and felt lost, the only thing we could muster was thank you for loving us. I think of this in reference to hope, and know that even when life was hard and it felt like it was starting to crumble around us, we still had hope still could cling to our faith. Even though there were lots of questions about our situation, we still had a foundation. One of my favorite blogs in the postsecret project blog, and a huge secret for folks is about suicide, I think that this must be what happens when you are in the misdt of lonelyness, pain and sorrow and get to the edge of that precipice without hope or faith. I get that.
So this season I am so thankful for hope and faith. Faith in a God who created me, unique, who loved me before i was born, and loves me without boundaries. Hope that there is nothing in the world that can seperate me from the God that I love and who loves me.
I heard a story about thanksgiving tonight from the beginnig, Plymouth Rock where it all started, they began a tradition that before they served the meal that they placed 5 kernals of corn on everyone's plate. Before the first harvest by the pilgrams this was their daily food allotment, 5 kernals of corn. This story made me think, how blessed I am, I think it altered my perception of reality. Maybe my expectation of life is not the way I should judge whether or not I feel thankful or blesssed? How many things if I stopped and truely thought about it could I be thankful for. I knoww that I am not thankful for everything that has happened to me, but I hope that I can be thanful in the midst of my daily life no matter the circumstances. I hope and pray that I continue to have eyes to see the silver lining in the moments of struggle and pain and that I continue to bless my father for the great moments.

Black what?

2008-11-25T19:34:00.001-08:00

black friday is almost upon us, and dare I say it I am actually going to venture out into this crazy day of shopping for the first time. I find some solace in the fact that it is for a worthy cause, a christmas present for someone. But what am I doing thinking about driving over to a retail center when a perfectly good marsh is just south of me waiting for me to venture in and enjoy a sunrise with friends in a duck blind. But oh well, such is life, I will standing in line with the crazies long before the sun rises to get a door buster ticket for a present. I believe the sacrifice is worth it but what has happened to my life. It seems out of control, I despise consumerism, yet am a huge part of the problem. I have a hard time time walkinbg through meijers and not throwing in the deal on the endcap that is just to good to pass up. I try very hard not to exceed the list of items I left the house in search for, yet usually the things that jump out in front of me are those items that I think my wife will enjoy, that cheap bottle of wine or the deal on the 2 liter of Dt Coke, or those 2 20 ozs. before I check out. Yet this is just feeding the beast within, one more thing here and there and a deal that I just can't pass up.
Robin told me a story that sunk to my soul and woke me up a little about this season, of distributing lists of wants to all of the people who want to show me love by purchasing some presents. The group she is a part of at work adopted a couple of families and bought them Christmas presents, they had a wrapping party at work and she got a tear in her eyes thinking about the little girl she was wrapping these two dollies for. She was thinking that this was going to be their only present and they were going to just love this present. There are so many stories like this going on around this season. I am taking kids to the mall is a few weeks to christmas shop for families in this spirit as well. It makes me think about Black Friday, cyber Monday, and all the ads on tv, on my computer, in the mail and everywhere that are feeding this beast inside of us all. How can we balance the giving and receiving gifts from the ones we love and not buying into this over consumption, consumerism, etc of our society?
I am not sure, but I am still going to be standing in line in the freaking cold waiting for a store to open at 5 am to SHOP, AHHHHHHHH!
I hope the 3 people that are reading this have a great thanksgiving, I know I will.

pain?....

2008-11-18T06:11:00.000-08:00

So I am following this read the bible in a few months schedule and the book it had me read after Micah was Job. To go from the passing down of God's judgement to a man sitting in the midst of pain. Pain he doesn't understand, pain his friends are blaming him for, pain he can't deal with very well, which is understandable when you reread what the man went through. I can't say that for the most part in my life I have understood pain very well, I have lived a blessed life. I guess I could talk about being born with a birth defect and how I struggled with that and blah, blah, blah. But, for the most part besides being a little more self conscious than normal, and dealing with some of the physical pain, I don't think that I dealt with much pain around this. And the rest of my life has been grand, happy family that loved me and told me I was great. Good friends, good relationships, found a best friend to marry, have a beautiful daughter, a career that is rewarding to me that I love and feel good about doing.
But, I have had to sit in pain recently(i.e last few years), my wife and I have dealt with infertility and have had several miscarriages. And this pain is real, this gives me a vantage point on Job's perspective a little bit. When you deal with pain and have no way out, no grasp on why, you start to want to find out a why. As in why me, why my wife, why our family, why this life growing inside my wife, why do you see fit to punish us. And this book Job helps me get that the pain I feel does not originate in God, that pain cannot originate in Him, only Love. This is hard to understand when you are in the middle of pain, but when I look at my daughter I love her beyond myself and even though her life will contain pain and short term it may seem as if I am the cause of that pain, i.e. punishment or withholding something, the fact of the matter is she cannot understand, does not have the perspective to grasp the way the universe works and may not be able to see to the love that I cannot help but feel for her.
I know how the book of Job ends and it is one of my favorite parts of the Bible, you cannot fathom my beginning or end, and who are you to question me and my ways. I love that the God I love, the God I believe in, the God I talk about with my daughter and hope to introduce her to one day is this kind of God. Beyond my understanding, beyond words, beyond beginning and end, and thus his kind of love is beyond anything I can imagine, beyond my warped view of love that comes with authority issues,control and whole lot of other crap. His love was best personified in Christ that was the best example he could give us in our language and our comprehension, a parent sacrificing his child for me. I am grateful, and I think even though I have experienced pain now, I cannot help but feel grateful for his example of love and who Jesus was here as a model for me to follow and who the holy spirit is today as it leads and whispers to me. Pain exists and is real, but the source of pain is not God, but one more consciquince of choices to leave His side, to go it our own, and try to live by our ideas instead of his.
These issues are so weird to comprehend: pain, love, anger... of how I long for wisdom beyond my own to continue to understand them even more.

Anger v Love

2008-11-12T05:55:00.000-08:00

So I just finished reading a little book in the old testament, Micah, and it has been awhile since I have read this book, but as I was reading it I was starting to get blue, ya know sad. This book is short, but full of warnings of God's wrath. When I think about God in this way I get frustrated. I think it is because of the picture that I hold in my head of God, more times than not I would like to see God as this teddy bear or maybe better neutered bull. Okay, what does that mean, when in the world is a neutered bull a better explanation of God?
I think my temptation is to think that because of Jesus, God has given up on the whole anger thing, you know He is full of grace, He is Love, He is compassion and all those good things. But just because God sent Jesus, or just because Jesus joined our story in the way He did doesn’t undo God’s Godness .(That’s confusing too, but our language doesn’t have a word nor our brains a comprehensive term for God so this will have to do.) It is good for me to sit in the midst of God’s anger today, not because it feels good or because I am caught up in some specific tragic sin, but because this is my creator and He wants more and in love He continues to be disappointed and gets angry by the opportunities and the potential of His creation that continues to go unfulfilled. My mind wants to gloss over this, as I said above God is good and love and etc., but this part of Him is real. And I seek to have a relationship with God, not my god, the god I created or neutered as the metaphor allows. But the real God, the one without beginning or end, the one I can’t understand or wrap my head around, the one who isn’t a happy cartoon character.

This could come off as a rant, you might imagine me sitting here at my computer fuming at the world and what they have done to God, or the church and what they did to me so I would have this incomplete picture in my head. But the truth is I am calm,, I am a little sad about the reality I am sitting in it is uncomfortable, but I am not preaching I am not hoping the collective ‘you’ will read this and be transformed by these words. I am merely hoping for transparency (unsubtle title reference). Hoping that writing these words here will help the reality of them to sink in more to my being.

Towards the end of Micah (6:8) he offers these words this hope, “He has shown all you people what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” There is a song that instantly jumps into my heart when I read these words and I am thankful for that, but what I am more thankful for is that this makes sense to me, this continues to help my feeble mind grasp this conundrum of Anger v. Love. Because in the midst of anger there is love, there is hope, there is grace. They don’t diminish each other, but they exist. I think that anger is born out of love, which makes sense to me, because I believe that everything comes from God and if He is love then in order to have anger it must come from love, come from a loving being, come from one who cares enough to have this anger.

I get this because this is how I am, with the people I care about the most I get the angriest, I get the most disappointed, I feel the most crestfallen when they make bad decisions or are in the middle of a ugly consequence for a choice they made. This helps me ‘get’ God more, this old testament God, who is the same toady as He was, Jesus came to help us understand better, not diminish God but help us engage in ‘the’ story better, help us ‘get’ him better, help us understand He cannot be anything but love, this is His beginning and end, so whatever comes originates in Love.

I have to say that there it is again the temptation to give my mind’s eye the furry, big doe eyed version of God, just because of hope and love. What have we, I , done to hope and love that instead of bringing up visions of sacrifice, worship and humbleness, it brings up superiority and authority issues.

(The pic is a representation of how I think this might work and I guess more for me, in my head and heart, but if you are a parent I hope you get the visual reference of the concept.)

Hope for......

2008-11-10T10:59:00.000-08:00

I have offcially started my new job and so far I have had several firsts. But as I sit here in my office I am thinking about the past and hoping for the present. I have been thinking back to great relationships that I have had, life changing relationships, one's where God taught me so much and I hope managed to teach the other as well. I think back to past mistakes and hope that I am wiser and better for them and I don't make the same one's again. And the one's I do make can be moments of humility and lessons learned. I hope for leadership that is managed with a healthy balance between friendship and authority. I hope that kids meet Christ, I hope that they get to know the God who loves them to the end and from the beginning and all the way in between. I pray that I am inspired enough to create quality lessons, brave enough to stand behind them and prepared enough that they do not bomb. I hope that the church I am at continues to surround their youth with love and support and that God raises up another female to come alongside the girls there. I thank Him for the call that he has placed upon the lives of the leaders there and hope that they grow as well.
I guess in all new jobs we hope for the best, but I know that as I sit in hope that the best will not alway happen and I pray for God's wisdom and guidance in those times. I know from experience that the best is not always the best in God's mind, or at least my perception of the best. I guess in the end, or in this case in the beginning, I hope for God vision and guidance, for ideas to flow to me, the leaders and the kids so conversations can happens, and lives can change.

Today

2008-10-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

I am reading the book unChristian and it is striking me as truth. I have been struggling for quite some time with the relisgion of Christianity I have placed words like hypocritical, marginalized, greedy, selfish, uncaring, unChristlike, etc. and I am a youth pastor and have been working at a church or for a ministry for 10 years now! That strikes me as slightly insane, yet here I am. I think that not unlike the history, the story we have alavible to us, in the Bible we continue to not allow Christ, God, His Spirit guide our lives and instead continue to provide legalistic and exclusionary practices guide our relegion. I have come to the idea years ago that it is not religion that I am involved in, but faith. Faith in the people around me are struggling just as much as I am, yet we continue to work out our salvation together, that is the 'church' I want to be a part of. Not the one I work for or the one with four walls here or there. It is everywhere. A quote from this book is, "Every human being struggles with imorality, because at our core is our heart's rebellion against God." That rings so true to me, beyond bible, brain or instinct it just reflects us as a race. This is the mirror I believe we all stare into on a daily basis. This is me and I believe thisis you. It is why judgement on another person rings so hollow to me, I cannot seek to judge anothers story, anothers journey, anothers success and failure just as I hope they don't condemn or praise me based on incomplete, unobtainable, knowledge. We are all struggling, there are days when we get closer than others, there are days when we stop and jump in the muck and the mire. But that is all they are days. Just a snipet in my journey. If I were to look at my life as photographs in a photo album, there would be one's I would want to parade around, and there would be one's I would want to slide under a rug or find some better hiding place, yet they all have had an effect on me. I have learned from my successes and my failures, I have misunderstood many lessons and needed to learn them again and again and I continue to do this. Yet the thing I hope for is that people look at me and say there is a fellow journeyman, I don't want them to see some fake facade I place before them. Today is halloween, and reformation day my granddfather would remind me, but the fact that we a day that is a struggle against itself, one celebrating the fact that we as humans don't have it firgued out and the struggle that we live in can't be hidden but that it is real. And also a day we celebrate masks we wear, pretending to be someone else.
Today i hope for transparency, that you may see through me to the faith that I hold, to the joy that I see in those around me, to the fact that I know Christ has redeemed me and continues to do that on a daily basis.