Gift

Short thoughts today. It's the first full week of lent and I decided to start the morning doing a bit of listening. I grabbed a latte and Esquire. Ok...I know a Bible is the proper tool, but I had Esquire. I always enjoy a walk through this magazine. This issue is chock full of "bests" because it's award season. Page after page of good looking (and well styled) men and beautiful women and discussion of what makes them such. At the same time, there is a discussion at the table next to me about how "lucky" certain people are who can sing or play sports or other things while "the rest of us have to work"

Not, surprisingly, I disagree with popular opinion.

Clearly, then men and women in these pages are gifted with looks or talent or simply the resources to get their photo or story or opinion in the pages of an international men's magazine. But, in this writers humble opinion, it's not just luck. The men or women we become in our lives has to do with our gift, yes, but so much more to do with how we use our gift.

For fear of sounding arrogant, I've been gifted. I have a body, certain talents, a mind, and resources to use my life to add to the greater good. I, like anyone else, have a choice about how to spend what I've been given. I can squander them or use them to get bigger or go father or build higher. It's my pick. However, whatever I choose, I must also be aware that what I choose today gets whatever I get tomorrow. God, in his great mercy, gives me amazing things so that I can build on them.

I love the parable of the talents. Not your usual Lenten passage, I know. These three guys are given the resources of a king. They can do what they will. Two invested and became more. As a result, they were given more because they were worthy. The other, driven by fear and lack of ambition, did nothing. Buried it and lost it. He had it and he blew it by not being willing to lose.

The word for the first Monday in Lent then is simply this, work your gift. You have the opportunity to change the world. You can make a choice to let your gift go and spend the rest of your life in a starbucks explaining away other people's success in order to mask your own failure. Or, you can choose to risk. Get stronger, faster, and smarter. Challenge yourself. Risk something big. Love farther than you think you can. Do something amazing...and do it today.

I know the gifts Ive been given. They are many. There are physical resources that are will be cared for and made bett.. There are people who deserve the best version of me as I believe in them. There is my own spirit that deserves daily renewal and honor.

I'm just about halfway though this life and I'm just gathering steam.

Life is a great gift. Spend wisely.

Ash Wednesday

I'm sitting by a fire that I built on the property that I'll be calling home for the foreseeable future. My boys were a part of the building tonight...they found sticks for kindling and got, what I assume to be, their one-hundredth lesson on the concept of starting a fire.  (At least they will know.) Tonight's fire was more than just building a fire. There was much preparation. A season of neglect required that the collected dirt and debris be removed, leading to sweeping and organizing the entire stone patio on which the fire pit is built. We swept all of the leaves and sticks into a pile, put a couple of pieces of good seasoned logs on top, and made a pretty perfect fire. Fire is always captivating. We watched the large pile of wood slowly shrink into orange coals that became heat and light; leaving behind the ashes...the only unusable part of our fire. Before the next blaze, these ashes will be scooped up and placed in an out of the way pile where the earth can redeem them and start the cycle again.  It's Ash Wednesday.  I've grown to approach lent without the same kind of plan as many.  I don't give up chocolate or soda or tv or anything like that. I only resist doing that because for me it isn't much of a sacrifice...they don't rob me from my spiritual life (well...not so much anyway) For me, lent is always a journey where God has something specific to put in my life. It's always good...as His gifts always are...but I find they require me to give up things.  Lent has often been a season of loss for me...but loss so that my hands are open for the gift that the season will bring. As I sat by the fire tonight, I was wondering about the loss that might come and readying myself. I trust God. Everything that has gone in my life has been replaced with something better. Not easier (nothing truly good is completely easy) but always better. This has been a season of rebuilding and receiving.  This fire is in a brand new house...at least new to me...that is still in a bit of chaos from moving and rehabbing. I have often had the thought that I want to finish this house so that it can be filled with people to love.  Sitting by the fire on a clean patio, I got to teach the boys about a season of preparing. It dawned on me that it's my Lenten call.  I have to prepare my “house”...both real and spiritual...because God, as He does, has a gift for me. There are things that need to be organized, cleaned, and even set ablaze, so that I have the room. I want to make my house ready.  No spiritual journey is completely a solo one, but it's on me. There is a season of sweat ahead...but it's the right kind of sweat. I'm ready for the journey. 

Waking Dream

Today is Mardi Gras. All around the country, and very specifically in New Orleans, people will be celebrating the beginning of the lenten season with as much stuff that they percieve doesn't fit into the lenten season as possible. I'm not intending to write about the debauchery of Mardi Gras. Truth is, I love a good party and I think Jesus does to, but it does betray a bit of how we view God. I think we believe that somehow there is a huge seperation between the desires of our hearts and the life we are resigned to live. I wrote this piece last week and, while it doesn't match with the day specifically, I felt like it fit. Happy Fat Tuesday. There was a morning last week that I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t even really wake up. I was aware that I was asleep and that soon I would have to shake myself totally awake and start my day. It wasn’t that I was overtired or not looking forward to the day. I had had a great evening and I have a great life. It was a rare phenomenon that had me strapped to the bed this morning. It was a really good dream. I’m not the sort of person that remembers the events of my sub-conscious, so this was an unusual occurrence for me to be in a waking dream.  The details were clear and I was completely present. I was at a party. It wasn’t like a house party, but a party at a place. People were dressed well and there was dancing. I had a tux, but was alone at the party when in walked…her. I had been hoping she would come. She looked stunning as she entered the room. She walked over to me and I handed her a glass of champagne. That’s when we noticed the other woman wearing the same dress.  Now, I must admit that it’s odd that I had a “same dress crisis” in my dream, but I figured out why shortly after. See, she noticed her and felt the crisis. I don’t think it was embarrassment, it just means that something is being taken away from someone. I could see it in her face. That’s when I stepped into action.  “Come with me” She took my hand and we left the party…but didn’t get far. In the lobby of the…actually I don’t know where it was...let’s just say in the lobby, were some ruffians. It was classic and cartoony. There was a big guy in a grey suit surrounded by bigger guys in dark suits. They had a beef with me and had brought enough muscle to get their agenda accomplished. Or so they thought.  As I opened the proverbial can upon their derrières, I was able to subdue them, keep my tux intact, and exit with a 007-like dignity. I took the fair lady across to the dress shop where and enjoyed watching her try on new dresses. After buying her the one she chose, we exited the shop and opted for a table at the outdoor cafe (very Parisian), deciding that the party was far too boorish and our time would be much better spent enjoying each other’s company over lattes. It was. And my subconscious worked like James Brown to keep me in that world.  When I finally wrestled my way out of that space and out from undercover, I wondered about my mind’s reluctance to leave. I have a great life. Granted, there are few tux-worthy parties and I would be first working to talk my way out of a scrape (though I’d like to think I would at least give the guys a workout before getting my hind handed to me). I’ve enjoyed the company of the fair maiden and have been blessed with the resources to do good things. But in that moment, I was able to do all of those things, in concentrated form, and be the hero that lives in the soul of every man who listens to his DNA. I wondered about it because of what I mentioned before - I don’t tend to remember dreams. I wake with my mind ready to address the ball that is coming my way that day. That might be how I wake; my brain getting the day’s list out of the drawer and starting to read it to me. This day is was different. This morning my brain kept the list in the drawer because I needed to understand something about myself. The man in the dream was me. I think we, men in particular, love movies that look like my dream because there is a manhood that is too often unrealized. Why we ignore our call to be great and leave it to a rare few (or worse, a fictional few) is beyond me. Men have so dropped the ball on the centrality of their call that it makes me wonder why women take a chance with us to begin with. We aren’t that pretty. I’m the first one to admit - it’s hard being a man. It’s the best kind of hard. We get to daily reflect those attributes of God that are given to us by nature of our gender. I don’t buy in to the concepts of traditional male dominance, but what we have done is given up our soul. It’s not about who we control but about who we are in our heart. There are very few concepts I despise more than a man cave. When did it become OK for us to define our sex in terms of what we don’t do. We get a big easy chair so we can sit on our fat aft and watch other men do things on a big TV and fill our bodies with beverages that mar our ability to love and protect. We stuff our face with foods that stick to our immobile veins and ensure that our value will be lost to this world earlier than planned while gathering with other like minded souls to discuss the great acts of other men. It’s embarrassing. Let me bring you all into the huddle for a moment to tell you a secret. True men do great things, not spend their life watching other men do great things. I enjoyed my dream, and, instead of waking and wishing I could run back in and live in that world, I considered how I could act in the spirit of my soul today. My body needs some work so that I can have the physical ability to do whatever is needed of me. I’m going to get on that. I work daily on the practice and understanding of love so that the people I care about feel bigger. I read and listen so that my grasp of the world I move in becomes sharper with age and not in a steady flow toward dementia. I work to gain further strides in fiscal health so that not only I won’t have to depend on others nor the ones I love, but so I can pay forward the large debt of the investment that others paid into me.  In other words, I want to become everything that I was made to be. Our stories are meant to inspire, not give us an escape route from the dissatisfaction of our reality. I read and see the stories of others who go before me and it informs where I need to be going. It’s why Jesus told stories - it gave us a window into what we are made to be. My dream told me a bit more about my soul and told me the areas that still need focus. I have boys that need to see what a man can be. There is a fair maiden that, when she gets to walk next to a man who is fully realized, gets to feel better about believing. There is a world of people waiting to hear that they can be more if they just listened to the call that is screaming in their soul rather than believing it’s too hard or that the men who do it are “lucky”. I've got a long way to go, but I take each day as it comes and try and be just a bit more. I'm forming a team. I hope you will join me.

Valentines Day Indeed.

The sun inched it’s way over the trees and crept between my eyelids as it does every morning. Soon, I would convince myself to get out from underneath the blanket, go down and start the coffee brewing, take a shower, get dressed, retrieve the aforementioned coffee, and sit in the chair by the window and think about love.  I'm sure it's due to the fact that it's the day after Valentine's Day, but I woke thinking about love…a potentially dangerous pursuit for a man waking alone to be sure…but I knew it would be the topic of my morning meditation. 

I rose to meet my Maker.

Actually, that sounds awfully dramatic…but you know what I mean.

This month, love is stretched. It’s very definitions suspect. From celebrity breakups to church members who have lost their companion, to those very dear who are hurting, to my own feelings of loss and struggle; believing in love doesn’t come easy these days. As I watch magazines report one breakup after another, one wonders if love is real. As I carried a woman’s husband’s ashes to the front of the church, one wonders if the loss is worth it. As I see the pain in one I hold dear, one feels helpless. As I watch my heart packing to go, one doesn’t even know what to feel. 

It makes one wonder if love is worth it.

I’ll confess to being a trembling romantic.

I guess I’ve come to one reality in the season. Love has to be bigger than the potential results of loving. Yes, it’s true, love has the potential for big pain. I know I’ve given much to the act of love and, it can be argued, experienced a fair amount of suffering in exchange. I’m at a season of my life where I’m asking the question of worth. I wake everyday with just my own self. As the sun rises over the ridge outside my window I’ve often thought about someone else seeing this with me, but I have also learned to just enjoy the moment I’m in. When I turn the key at the end of a long day and there is silence instead of a voice of welcome or one who I, in turn, can welcome home, I wonder about love but again find that I am learning to exist in the quietness with my own spirit. I am finding that, at the end of the suffering and lack of having things “my way”, I am left with me and the heart I have.

And that heart is in love.

I would never be so arrogant to compare myself to God in any shape or fashion, except to say that I think I’m learning something about how He loves. So often our love is conditional - dependent on results. People please us and we give them love. They displease us and we withhold our love or take it away completely leaving broken hearts in our wake. God loves because that is who He is - it comes from the strength of his heart. I think He is perfectly happy all in Himself and didn’t create us because He was lonely. However, perfect love requires an object of celebration…something worthy of a perfect love. God chose the object of His deepest love and He is locked and loaded. His love is aggressive but never pushy, consistent without being pathetic, and committed without being naive. He doesn’t beg and keeps the door open because He loves. As St. John says: He is Love.

If we are made in His image, then our love can be like that. Clearly, He has much love that doesn’t ever get to be realized. At least that’s how I understand it to be. Love, realized, is one that is enjoyed between the lover and the loved - both exchanging roles and seeing the seeds of love grow more every day. It is love in it’s completion. It is love that is world changing. It’s love that can show up in various forms (friendship, partnership, familial, erotic, etc) but love behaves in much the same way. Love without exchange remains unrealized and may change form in order that the lover can maintain the good of their soul without injury, but if love comes from who I am, it doesn’t go away.

There are people in my life that, because of their responses to my love or my person, I have had to adjust how my love shows up in their life. There are people for whom I had great affection that, quite frankly, I struggle with having even a basic sense of humanity because of injury I received. It makes one question one’s ability to do it again. However, I have found that God gives grace to grow and that I am learning more about true love these days than I ever have before. I’ve learned that I have a capacity to feel quite strong in myself, but keep a space open for the object of my deepest affection. The love that is returned to me helps form how I love in a particular circumstance or with a particular person, but my love is just that…my love.

I’m grateful that, after having done it wrong for so many years, I’m learning to do it right. I may wake up every day and experience the sunrise solo and crawl into bed at night with little more than a book and the satisfaction of a day well done, but it will not change my love. My love comes from me and I hope that I get a little better at it with each sunrise. Do I wish for a particular someone who wants to be there watching the sunrise with me? Of course, I open to a relentless hope. There might not be someone who wants to be there with me this morning, but as I slip on my robe and go down to make coffee, I know I am wrapped in good love. I don’t miss that. And I also know that my heart loves the way it loves and who it loves. I can find peace in the fact that I loved well and gave all I had. There is a joy in that as well as I head down the road today and keep my eyes open to new graces.

So, I guess, at the end of the day, I still believe. I don’t think that some of what calls itself love out there really is - including some of the ways I’ve approached it in the past. However, I also know what it is to be loved without condition by a Person who loves the right way. He has sweat a ton, I’m sure, in His commitment to loving me and hasn’t always gotten the best of this deal. But I’m glad He loves me the way He does. Every once in a while I come to my senses and remember Him. He doesn’t seem to get bored of me. He is the kind of man I wish to be. His is the kind of love I wish to have. His is the kind of love that changes the world.

I don’t love without fear, but I love with courage. I’ve learned from the best. 

I was reminded as I ended this piece of the scene from The Princess Bride where Inigo Montoya has finally found the six fingered man. The man, seemingly has bested him with a knife to the stomach. Inigo, finds strength in his commitment to something bigger than the pain in his gut. Watching Inigo struggling to rise, the six-fingered man says:

"Good heavens! Are you still trying to win?"

Yea, I am. There is too much good in front to get stopped just shy of the goal. I have a course to finish...

And maybe I might be asked to be the next Dread Pirate Roberts.

You never know.

Stop it...

Just stop it.

Please...just stop.

Stop letting candidates with hateful views win primaries. Just stop. It is beneath us. We have come farther than that.

Stop creating stuff like "OneMillionMoms" because you are afraid of Ellen DeGeneres. It's embarrassing - especially when you only have 40,000 moms on board. But even that makes me crazy.

You are embarrassing yourself and any of us that hold, at least in name, to the same faith you profess...but even worse is the truth that you are actually doing damage.

Let me be clear. The gays are not gonna get you. Them choosing to marry or hold hands is not going to make your kid gay. It MIGHT make it easier for your gay kid to be who they are and not get beat up every day. Unless, of course, you are hoping that the jocks - especially the ones who are too afraid of becoming a social outcast to admit their own preferences - might beat the gay out of your kid since you haven't been able to.

Just stop it.

We all win when we love. If thousands of years of greed and pain and violence and loss haven't taught us that pushing one's agenda only results in darkness and loss, we are done. Keep in mind, that when the church had free reign to push whatever agenda they wished, it was called the Dark Ages. It required a bloody revolution against the church to usher in an age of art, music, democracy, and literature - not to mention reformed theology.

So quit it...I'm serious.

Let me be clear. Stop fighting your fear and give in to the terrifyingly big love of the One who loves who you hate. Jesus had an agenda of love - not of political change. It's why they killed him. The people were hoping that Jesus would change government so that it was easier to live their faith and traditions.

He didn't.

In fact, he seemed to go after those things that kept people from getting to God. The only record of Jesus getting REALLY pissed was when the temple courts had so many hoops to jump through that not everyone could get to God.

The message of Jesus is that everyone can get to God.

That means that everyone gets to enjoy what God has given.

And we get to tell them that they are enjoying it because they are loved.

And that goes for the mexicans. If you are afraid that they will take your job...work harder. Make yourself invaluable. You can't complain about them if you keep marginalizing them. Welcome them and make room. More workers should equal a bigger economy. Hire a few and start a company and go change the world. There is plenty of money out there.

So quit acting ridiculous. You represent the most powerful species on the planet, that means you are responsible for the good of the entire world - not just how good your lawn looks. There are people hurting, not because of justice, but because they were born differently than you.

I say this as a representative of the most powerful sub-group of the most powerful species on the planet. I am white, male, heterosexual, and have a few dollars. I do not directly benefit from gay marriage (i.e. I'm not planning on getting gay married) nor do the plight of minorities or illegals directly affect the fact that I get to sip a latte in my favorite coffee spot in the middle of the morning.

I could ignore you.

I can't ignore you.

If I ignore you, you might gain more followers because you sound right.

You are not right.

If we make the world better for everyone then we all win. If we fight for civil rights and put the social call back into the message of the gospel (which is simply the call to find our humanity - not a new religion) then the water level rises for the entire planet.

Imagine a world with no hunger. It's not a lack of food that kills 50,000 kids daily - it's the fact that we aren't sharing.

Imagine a world with no war. That would mean that we expect that people are seeking a fair and just agenda rather than one that puts them on the top of the pile.

Imagine a world with no bigotry. That would mean we accept people as they are and love the mess out of them based on their personhood and not the color of their skin or their economic status or who they find attractive.

It was acceptable, at one time, to believe that somehow if I spend time with an African American that the black would rub off and my race would be corrupted.

We know that is stupid.

It's as stupid as believing that the gay will rub off if Ellen DeGeneres shills JCPenney. JCPenney has one shot at keeping their company alive...take it, and godspeed.

Don't believe stupid things because you are afraid. The only things that rub off are love and hate.

Which one are you?