first things first

"More than to be understood or be known is our undeniable need for forgiveness" - Charlie Peacock

The novelist we were reading as a group painted a striking picture. The main character was on a walk with God to the place where, he believed, his prayers of being able to bury the body of his murdered daughter were to be answered. As they got to a desolate place, the travelers sat on the large stones that characterized this lonely place. This is where the most difficult task imaginable was revealed. Before he would be able to retrieve the body of his little girl, he would have to forgive her killer.

I asked our group if that was an unreasonable request of our fictional God to make, especially if it reflects the heart of the real deal. What we concluded is that forgiveness is not so much about the object of my forgiveness getting off Scott-free, but of me releasing my self-assumed right to be the executioner and letting go of the past.

It was discovered that our inability to experience joy or to love well or to progress is rooted in our inability to forgive. Whether it's by holding a grudge, or wanting something to be the way it "was", or by us not being able to forgive ourselves, we regularly give up large chunks of our soul's real estate to our injuries. Those with the inability to forgive cannot be themselves, cannot enjoy others, and end up more isolated as more ground is given to pain.

When we let go of our own hurt and forgive another person, we release ourselves from the prison of our pain and find that love can flow.

It's no different with God. He could hold a grudge and be all wrath-filled and pour out righteous judgment on all mankind. He would be considered righteous, but God would be righteously lonely. He would be alone with his justice. He would have no one to love.

But that's not how He rolls either.

Forgiveness means I come to grips with the fact that, no matter how hard I try, I will never have a different past. Forgiveness means I pick up the pieces of my broken heart instead of waiting for the one who broke it to do it for me. Forgiveness means I take a step forward into new grace and stop picking at the scabs of wounds overdue for healing. Forgiveness means I decide to live here, now. Forgiveness means I'm willing to love again.

I choose forgiveness

good morning

As I write, I'm standing alone on a beach preparing to give a sunrise service. Of course, it's not really sunrise. It's nearly 7 o'clock. The sun has risen, but it's hard to get people to come earlier. Sunrise comes too early. We like to sleep.

I was considering sunrise as I read the text for today. The account reads that the women came to the tomb early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, and found that He was already gone. This was no sunrise service either, but Jesus didn't wait for the sun. Sabbath ended at sundown, and He got up well before the morning.

The thought that Jesus got up with little fanfare, somehow makes it more meaningful to me. I can picture His father entering the tomb to wake His son. I've got boys of my own, i can relate to His excitement. It was just father and son for hours. The angel, so the story goes, didn't come until daybreak, so they had some time. Soon people would be coming, and the world would connect the sunrise with the resurrection, but God isn't about to waste any time getting His son.

Sabbath had ended at sundown.

It was time to get up.

Jesus doesn't waste any time. He's awake.

Ready.

He is risen indeed.

a day without me

It's burial Saturday. I know, it's not the official name, but I feel like it should have a name. Today is a day, as a wise pastor put it eloquently, we sit shiva for Jesus. it's raining. It's a day of quiet and mourning.

It's a day without Him.

Life in a post-Easter world means we don't ever have a day without Him. He is with us "always, even to the end of the world." But today, the disciples, for the first time, are alone.

Sometimes you don't realize what someone meant to you until you don't have their presence anymore. The important people in our lives are easy to take for granted, especially the ones we are used to always being there and supporting us. Then they go and we have to stand on our feet and feel the wobble in our knees.

I live in the belief that everything Jesus did was very intentional. In other words, He could have died on a Tuesday. giving His life on Tuesday means He could have risen on Wednesday before coffee. Jesus' friends wouldn't hurt for very long until they got to experience the joys of Easter morning.

But Jesus chose to allow some space.

The space allowed these people to consider themselves. They were alone. They always counted on Jesus to clean up and fill in the gaps. They never thought He would go; thus feeling the freedom to abandon Him in His darkest hour.

Today, they spend the day leaving the childhood of dependence and move into love.

They find, locked in the upper room, that they miss their friend. They don't miss Him because of the free lunches or the notoriety of being one of His disciples. They just miss Him. That's why they gather. At least in each others' faces they can still see Him

One of the great gifts that He ever gave the ones He loves is a day without Him.

I wonder if during some of the times that I feel God just isn't listening or that He has left that He is teaching me some of the same things. I find that in a day without Him that I can stand on these legs that He told me were strong or that I can love with this heart His spirit has healed. I can move forward in the way He has shown me and live the way He has shown me.

And, as I move, I find that I become a man who loves the one who loved him first. I find that, at the end of the day, I just want to know Him.

Today I give thanks for the lessons learned when the heavens are silent.

Lenten Walk Pt 2 - Marks

Today, I went for a walk through the woods in back of my home. It was my first solitary walk, and the farthest I had explored since I moved in last month. Until last week, much of the property had been underwater; the result of spring rains melting the record snowfalls of our harsh winter. It was frustrating to look out across the field that led to the woods that were mine to explore and have to wait to lose myself in them.

Today was my opportunity.

As I walked through the woods to the river bank, I could still feel the ground squishing beneath my feet, leaving perfect imprints of my boots in the softest parts. However, I was committed to this trek. I wanted to see how far this trail would take me. I paused to watch the sunlight dance on the flowing river that marks the end of my property. The setting sun was at just the right angle to make the water seem electric. I was tacitly aware of the sound of birds around me, eventually noticing that I was surrounded by a flock of robins. I’ve never seen more than one or two robins, much less a flock, but there were at least six, all singing together a song announcing the end to a winter that was far too long. I was grateful for their companionship along the trail. It is on these walks that I reflect on my life and spend some time in prayer. I’m not so good at formal prayers. Well, that’s really not true. I’m quite good at formal praying, offering weekly prayers in my role as a pastor. People are often led closer to their own spiritual voice when I pray in public, but these are not the prayers I pray when I’m alone.

Alone, I begin a dialog with God. There are conversations that offer thanksgiving, confessions, questions, and requests for the strength and wisdom to do the things that are in the path in front of me. Today was no different. Only today my thoughts flowed, like the river in front of me, to where I was going.

I thought about how far my “trail” has already taken me. Setting out on a journey is always filled with anticipation as to what one will find on the road, especially if one knows their destination. All I’ve ever known is that I have my sights set on living and breathing in such a way that, as Thoreau said,  I would not, “when I came to die, discover that I had not truly lived.”  Along this journey I have learned a great deal about myself, God, love, and what it means to walk. I have also lost a great deal along this road. Behind me are relationships and comforts that simply could not come with me, not if I am to achieve the goal for which I set out in the first place.

As I walked, I considered the path in front of me; endless options of how to live. In many ways, like most of us, I’m a mosaic of a man. I’m a pastor, writer, lover, father, friend, handyman, speaker, listener, and child. I have a heart that looks less like an ocean and more like a delta, a maze of tributaries that all flow together to make up the soul that lives in my skin. Some of the parts of me don’t seem to fit with some of the other parts, and I’m still working on reconciling those things, but every man has to have a core and on this walk I began to ask questions about my own. I wanted to discover my illusive bottom line.

As the sun set, I made my way back through the forest, making sure to note the parts of the ground that were more than just a little squishy. I noticed that the place where the water had been only weeks before could only be described as: wrinkled. I know it’s odd to describe the earth as wrinkled, but it looked like a child’s fingertips after soaking in a warm bath. I understood that what I was seeing were little creek beds, ruts in the earth that the water had cut in order to return to where it belonged. The flood had altered the landscape and I considered my life.

This lenten season, I feel I have been led on a spiritual journey of discovering the “essential facts of life”, if I may borrow again from Thoreau. My life had, in the past, become filled with many things that were simply not life. In the losses of my journey there has been extraordinary simplification as I have spent many days (and nights) without the creature comforts to which I had become so accustomed. I have found myself on a fast that was not of my choosing, but from which I could begin to see my own soul.

As I considered the marks in the landscape, I thought about what I am trying to accomplish in my life. There is a greatness locked inside all of us that is begging not to be muted by the mundane. I’ve often translated that greatness in what I could accomplish or build or experience or obtain.  We all want to leave a mark, a legacy, the question is how. This river didn’t build or plan to make a dent on my property. This river did what rivers do; the river flowed. The river took what it was receiving and carried it along, working to get all the water where it needed to be, and changing the world as it went.

I want to do that.

I considered the journey of Jesus. The most extraordinary acts of this great man were done in relative obscurity. He never built a church, founded a hospital, overthrew a government, or even travelled outside the borders of His tiny home country. He never wrote a book or recorded a song. In fact, there is so little record of His life that there are thinking people who argue that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. The man on whom the world’s largest religion was founded had three years of active ministry that began strong, but slowly dwindled down to a handful of adherents. Before His execution, performed as a trade for a political dissident, he had, by all estimations, accomplished nothing.

Except, He left a mark.

Jesus did what came natural to Him. He taught about the things He had discovered in His own life journey, He healed people, and He performed certain acts that were evidence to the people who observed them that He represented God. But He was not the only miracle-working teacher who had walked the roads of this country. The acts themselves were not what was extraordinary. It was the love He left behind that altered the landscape. 

His capacity to love is what changed the world.

He was a man who lived, truly lived.

As I traced along those ruts with my boot, I asked God for the grace to walk as Jesus walked. I want to, when I come to the end of my journey, to be known as a man with a great capacity for love. I want to live in such a way that I leave a mark. I don’t need my mark to be a building or organization with my name on it. I don’t need to be on television or have my name in lights. In fact, if it’s only a handful who even remember my name, it’s okay by me. I just want the world to be better when I go. I want people to have known what it is to be loved, truly loved, because I was there, and know what it means to love others as a result. Doing this might mean I find all of those marks of fame and success as well…but they won’t be my legacy.

I’m praying you are.