the weight of it all

I know I keep dropping the ball, here.  But, it’s so heavy sometimes.

You know what I hate about lifting weights?  They’re heavy.

Especially on a Monday, too.  I know, I know, Monday’s so stinking cliche, it’s ridiculous for a grown man to even bring it up, but still.

Everything seems heavier on Monday, or on any other day that acts like a Monday, and so many of them do these days.

The weight of things, life things, is heavier on those days. 

I’m rambling, but it’s been a while since we just talked.  I’ve had a lot on my mind, heavy stuff, and I’m sure you understand, even though we don’t really talk about it.

Like, why is it that no matter what ungodly hour a kid wakes us up on Sunday morning, we’re always rushing at the last possible minute to get loaded in that bus we drive to get to church?  How is that possible?

All of those kids are so cute and cuddly at 7am, and such monsters at 10am.  How does that happen?  Maybe it’s the cocoa puffs.  Maybe it’s just me.

Anyway, lots  of people were reaching for the Kleenex on Sunday as our pastor talked about caring for the orphans.  I just wiped my nose with my fingers then wiped them on my pants.  But it’s the same effect, I guess.  It was a weighty topic.

We had good conversations with friends afterward, relating some pretty deep things that had transpired in our lives – Renee and me – in the last week, and it felt good in the context of the weight of that sermon to share the load a bit and invite a little help and some understanding.

People’s hearts shift in such settings, I think, and mostly in good, though deeply disturbed, ways.

Obviously, though, our response shouldn’t just be limited to the emotional.  The seeds have to go deep, and that’s more than a Kleenex or a shirt sleeve should be able to wipe away.

Beyond that, though, it’s just the life stuff that gets heavy, don’t you think?  I mean, it’s nearly suffocating sometimes, the weight of it.

Somehow, that weight must be a sampling of the burden that Jesus carries and has carried on our behalf.  Like the way he looked at that fig tree and cursed it for not bearing fruit when it was needed.  That’s a sad story.  So many things are needed.

I think it’s important for us to carry our share of that burden.  To hear the groaning in the hearts and tears of our communities – the people with whom we share life – and to just let the weight of the burden do its work on us and in us.

Not that it should be depressing us or crushing us.  God knows we can’t do this alone and we can’t carry much.  We’re wimpy and we need lots of breaks and lots of help.

But we can do some things, and we can do things beyond just the obvious.

Some days, like Mondays, I just wish we’d get ahold of the idea that Christ is in us.  Whatever that truly means must be more than we’ve taken it to mean.

In the moments we do feel that, we ought to act on it, and maybe that looks like listening intently, and maybe that’s like saying the words that need to be heard, and maybe that looks like crossing the false boundaries our friends have erected in defense of their little facades, or maybe those are our own.

Either way, it’s heavy.

So, in my Monday morning staff meeting, as I tried to believe the events transpiring were important and worthy of my attention, I failed and got distracted, and wrote this in my day-planner:

weight of it all

weight of glory

weight of condescension

weight of existence

weight of obligation

weight of dis-unity

weight of weariness

weight of overwhelming need

weight of the cross

I’m not sure what that means, but I just thought you’d like to share the load.  It was like a Monday morning weight-lifting session, if you know what I mean.  It can be exhausting.

Hannah told me tonight that she read my last few posts on this blog today, and she thought they were kind of sappy, “but in a good way.”  I’m not sure what that means, but I suppose she would say this fits in that category, too.  Next time, maybe we’ll talk about football or something.

on the brink

From here on the brink, the cool, clear water,

gently lapping at my feet and the earth beneath,

draws me sincerely into its shallows

and still beckons me come deeper.

 

I am loath to follow,

for in the midst of the rushing water is a torrent of lost control

from which the overwhelmed struggle to upright themselves,

though the hearty welcome submission to the mighty flow.

 

As the flood meanders its too-seldom-mapped course

and rushes to an unknown but surely glorious abode,

endlessly drawn by love unfeigned,

those taken by the wiles of the ever-widening and rising way

undulate through the ebb and flow of ecstasy and desperation in the pools and the foam,

some even finding a way of escape to the imagined freedom of the shallow edge.

 

But those who through unworldly perseverance find peace in the arms of the current,

ever directed by the sovereign and invisible majesty of this winding tributary,

find themselves at the last precipice of wonder

with fear consoled wholly by the destiny’s splendor.

 

That place is where the water falls,

with those carried by it,

beyond the rock to a depth unmeasured and unseen by those entered before,

where the fate of vessels yielding to its call is only truly known by those beyond,

and here we woefully attempt to comprehend the inexpressible glory.

 

Yet here I stand,

confounded in vanity by questions unworthy of response,

nonetheless unable to betray the power of my love.

 

The deep, the Deep, Oh! the Deep is my home,

and how I long for grace to go where the blessed hearts find Him.

sunrise

What, then, ought we to think, seeing that the darkness comes at the end of each and every day to fill the vacancy left behind by the departing light of the sun?

The earth turns its face, my face, to the rising of the sun each morning, to soak up the warmth and allow the light to bring clarity to the way through another day.

The contrast is overpowering.  The world performs with graceful inspiration under the spotlight.  Anything is possible in the full light of day.  Confusion hosts a drowsy fear in the limited visibility of the deepest moments of the night.

What, then, ought we to believe, knowing the world turns, and the dizziness and disorientation will come with the motion, and the light will fade then burn bright again, and fade?

Perhaps, maybe just perhaps, we ought to be resigned to the ebb and flow, seemingly more ebb than flow, knowing the sparks that fly, bringing inspiration and assurance of hope, will fade into the powder of ashes.  Perhaps.

Perhaps, the nagging doubts, the ever-encroaching darkness of the unknown, certainly coming to disperse fragile certainty, indicate open-minded intelligence, full consideration, rational thinking, leading the way to a higher ground of moral certitude and enlightened spiritual depth.  Perhaps.

A transcendent light shines, though, outside the night of my turned-away face - cooled by the shadow imposed over me.

The light shines.  If my perspective will allow for it, look for it, pursue it.  The darkness cannot prevent it.

“If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.  Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day:  the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.”  Psalm 139:11,12 (KJV)

“Then I said to myself, ‘Oh, he even sees me in the dark!  At night I’m immersed in the light!’  It’s a fact:  darkness isn’t dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.”  Psalm 139:11,12 (MSG)

higher education

Katie goes to college

Just for the record, I’ve never really been the father of a college student before.

I’m not sure how this is supposed to go.  I’m not sure how I’m supposed to act.

We’ve had some difficult conversations as we’ve wandered through the ideas about Katie leaving home and finding her way in life beyond us.  How, where, when, why?  Questions simultaneously bitter and sweet on the tongue.  Answers weakly discerned and hardly articulated.

Most of the difficulty comes from my own dying.  Kids are good for that – helping parents with the dying.

Plenty of me still to go through the dying.  Dying to live, dying to live.  More of him, less of me.  I hope.

Life fights to get out through the dying.  I die a little and life bears much fruit.  Like giving birth, I suppose.  Renee knows.

Like Katie going to college.

So, we visit six schools in five days, far from home, and cry a little and laugh a lot and try to see the path designed for a girl old enough to go but too young to go, searching for the light, the voice, the best cafeteria food, and the comfort of the inspiration.

We grow weary, and use harsh words, feeling the desires and fears, and speaking only the mumblings of the pain of stress and anxiety and the dying.  But, we’re bound to each other, bound to the purpose of finding the way together.

So, we don’t stop with the dying, we have to push through to the living.  So we dig deeper, discovering the feelings and the real words to describe, and to understand, the struggle, knowing its fountain is life.  The muddy silt, stirred by our intrusion and disrupting our vision, will settle again as it flows.

Finally, we get back to the bottom line; the ultimate measure of a college, a life, beyond the pressure of deadlines and tasks, of emotion and dying.

Finally, with tears and weariness, at the bottom of the hole, standing on something firm again, we get back to this:  “Honey, please, push everything out of the way, give yourself some space, tell the world to go away, and just find Jesus.  He knows.  If you find him, if you’re with him, it won’t matter if you know, or if I know, of if you go, or if you stay, or where, or how.”

We say “thanks” and “sorry” words, and “love” words, and “please” words to each other, working at going places we’ve never been before.  Our hearts surge and fail, then surge again.

It’s the dying we see and feel and express most often.  But it’s the living that matters.

Only the living matters.

I’ve never really done this before – being the parent of a young woman in a far away pursuit of higher education.  I’m not sure I’m fit for it.

handing out tent poles and starting bonfires

Today, I’ve been imagining people entering a place of worship with large, sagging blankets draped over their heads.

I know.  Pray for me.

Pray for me, though, as you follow me in this little metaphorical adventure.

(Tonight, and several nights recently, I’ve entered my home to find piles of little moving blankets just inside the front door, with all kinds of strange noises issuing forth from under them.  This is a pleasant way to have your patience tried when you’re just home from another blah day and your hands are full of heavy things, and Ayda just wants you to hold her, too.)

Imagine growing up and learning to cover up (yes, like I posted about Ayda) with one patch of a quilt at a time.  We start handing kids quilt patches every time they sport something that embarasses or inconveniences us.

“Here, kid, stop acting like such an idiot!  Here’s your patch.”

It’s cute for kids.  “Ahhh, isn’t that cute, she has a little blankie.  Ahhh.”

Then, as we grow up, we sew the quilt patches together – it’s just more convenient.  Giant squares of learned vanity and superficiality.  Some of us are far better at quilt-making.  Some of us have very attractive quilts.  Some of us have given over caring to futility.

Heck, by the time you’re my age, your quilt is hanging over your head and dragging all around you, with the corners and ends stained with forensic evidence of everywhere you’ve ever been – adding to the stigma.

We seldom stick our heads out from under the darned things – it’s bright and cold out there.  Ewww. 

People get more used to seeing the shrouded look and we seldom show our faces.  We just don’t know how, much less why we’d bother – and everybody’s doing it, anyway.  The air under there is stale, moist, stagnant and causing our skin to become pale and clammy.

So, we enter our selected worship facilities each weekend, sporting our fashionable bondage blankets like so many ghosts of Christmas future, all hunched over from the weight of it and hoping no one notices the most recent additions.

Okay, pause the metaphor for a second.

We need freedom to worship.  We need to be free to respond to Christ with open hearts.  We need space.  We need to be looking for opportunities to give each other that space.  We need to exalt God, in spite of the garbage.  We need a large space.  We’ve got to thow off the junk of self-consciousness.

Okay, back to the metaphor:  We need to throw off the dirty, heavy, wet, suffocating blankets of garbage, at the very least when we enter the courts of the King, for crying out loud.

Somebody’s got to hand out tent poles – at least if we’re going to stay under our blankets, we could get a little room to move.

Somebody’s got to start a guilt/shame/vanity/crap-blanket bonfire.

Somebody’s got to exalt Jesus to his rightful place among us and in us and through us.

We need room, and when room is provided, when space is aplenty, we’ve got to take advantage of it.  We need to sing loud and long, we need to dance in the rain and dry off in the sunshine, and we need to worry less about who’s watching and what they think.

We need to allow our hearts to be caught up into the power and truth of Christ in our midst.

We need fewer blankets over our heads, and we need more tent poles and bonfires.  We need big-tent revivals.

What would the world be like if God’s people really gave themselves to Him, if we really believed all of that stuff he says about how we’ve been made free, and if we really lived like we mean it?

Let’s try it.  Want to?

joining the same old song and dance

My soul is singing a bit today.  I’m pretty sure I overheard the angels singing these words as the sun rose.  I just thought, maybe you’d like to join us.

You dance over me, while I am unaware.

You sing all around, but I never hear the sound.

Lord, I’m amazed by you.  Lord I’m amazed by you.  Lord, I’m amazed by you.  How you love me.

How wide, how deep, how great is your love for me.

(by Jared Anderson, Vertical Worship)

naked I came, naked I go, but in the meantime

Ayda doesn’t understand that it’s not acceptable to go about the community naked, acting like she has no shame and nothing to hide.  To her, the only practical purpose for covering up is for warmth, though a cuddle in Mom’s lap adequately meets that need to her mind, even without clothing.  She has no bearing on what others think of her blatant exposure.  On occasion, she has even been discovered dancing, singing, laughing and generally frolicking without a stitch of clothing, much less inhibition.

Don’t worry, we’ll straighten her out.  We’ll teach her propriety.  We’ll teach her to hide that stuff.  We’ll make her understand.  Thanks for your support and prayers in this endeavor.

incomprehensible

Oh my Lord.  Oh my God, can you hear us?

Who are you?  Where are you?  What are you like?

With so much ascribed to you, can you possibly meet that, be like that, exceed that?

You are our answer to every “why” question that we can’t answer.  You answer the mysteries of “how” questions.

We see and do not perceive.  We hear and do not comprehend.  And all of those areas get filled in with you.

Some of that is not you.  It’s our own accepted, unchallenged ignorance – willful ignorance.

We attribute our weaknesses and consequences to you.  We attribute everything beyond the boundaries of our subjective knowledge to you.

All of that is not you.  Some of it is.

If anything is you – if you are anything – some of that must be you.

If that truly incomprehensible is you, how very incomprehensible you must be.

I can nearly inexhaustibly argue for you in those spaces – it is easy to argue for the incomprehensible, as if it is all “make believe”, just trying to make someone believe.  As Katie says about Alice in Wonderland:  logic within the impossible.

I can also, though I haven’t really, nearly inexhaustibly argue against you – also seemingly with logic within the impossible.

So, which are you really?  Who are you?  Where are you?  What are you like?  How are you?  How is it between us?

I want to know you, Jesus.  Truly know you, beyond knowledge, beyond the comprehensible, beyond the logic.

Will I ever?  Are you to be known by one such as me in such a manner?

It’s incomprehensible.  I know so little.

lifted higher

Perhaps, after just finishing the audio book, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, as part of an agreed upon reading program which Will and I are endeavoring to complete, and then watching the movie tonight with Hannah, who might consider it her favorite, I’m just a little romantically overloaded, but I’m feeling a desire to be a bit vulnerable.

I experienced a few moments of authentic worship this morning in a unique setting, and honestly, upon reflection, I’m a bit surprised and refreshed by thoughts of it.  Somehow, in the midst of such an experience, the incessant noise of questions and doubts and busy-minded distractions, which have haunted me, more so in the last several weeks than I would have desired, fade into nearly imperceptible mid-day shadows.

I’m not sure of the title, or the writer, or the publisher of the recently popular chorus we sang We sang a song from Hillsong, called Stronger, led by my sincerely inspiring sister-in-law, Angie, and at this late hour, I certainly won’t be so diligent and proper as to look it up for you, but and the chorus goes something like this:

You are stronger, you are stronger, sin is broken; you have saved me.  It is written, Christ is risen.  Jesus, you are Lord of all!

Then, the bridge simply repeats these phrases:

Let your name be lifted higher, be lifted higher, be lifted higher.

Somewhere, in the midst of the first time through the words of that bridge, standing there in the wonderfully crowded, beautiful new setting of Zoe’s coffee shop with a couple hundred acquaintances and near strangers singing along nearby, with Meghan held tightly to me in my left arm, with my right arm raised to the ceiling, and with the sun shining through the giant skylight above my head, emotion overwhelmed me.

My voice cracked, and tears began to fall from my eyes.  I was forced to stop singing while I regained my composure enough to rejoin the chorus, and meanwhile was able to hear the voices of others fill the room from floor to ceiling, and beyond, I’m sure.

Even now, just in rehearsing these thoughts for the sake of this glaring, objective computer screen, the flood wells up all over again.

Why is that?

So let your name be lifted higher, be lifted higher, be lifted higher!

So let your name be lifted higher, be lifted higher, be lifted higher!

Oh let your name be lifted higher, be lifted higher, be lifted higher!

I’m not sure I can articulate the why.  I’m not sure I want to translate the why into English.

I’m not even sure I like that song.  I’m afraid I’m getting old and losing control of my emotions.

Here, you try it and see how you feel:

I am entirely sure of something, although it’s surety may also defy words:  There’s something about that name.

I need Jesus.  I’m desperate for him; driven to him; thirsty for him, disregarding all of the seeming piety such phrases might carry.  And, somehow, I believe that as that name, His name, is lifted, and magnified, and exalted, and given it’s utter due . . . well, everything is different.  The answer to it all is in there; in that name being lifted.  Somewhere in there.

It’s like the faint cry of hope that does not disappoint from a manger, and a baby named Emmanuel.  It’s like a voice in a burning bush saying, “I’ve heard the cries . . . and I’ve come down to deliver them.”  It’s like . . . well, maybe it’s like what heaven ought to be and would be if only we could keep ourselves from trying to explain what it’s like.

Maybe it’s like the deepest kind of soul-satisfying, overpowering love discovered so reluctantly by Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, in spite of their pride and prejudice.

Maybe this is a just an emotionally inspired, sappy, awkward memo I’ll regret in the morning.  Maybe.

i stopped sucking my thumb

After being sent to bed with a promise I’d be there to tuck him in, Ethan pops back into the kitchen in his Spiderman pajamas with a big smile on his face, a twinkle in his eye and a bounce in his step.

“Ummm, hey, Dad?”

“Ya, buddy, whaddaya need?”

His eyes shift and his forehead tightens.  He is squinting and looking away as his mind works to remember what he has intended to say and to string together the correct words, then they grow again and the smile brightens as he finds the right expression.

“I stopped sucking my thumb today!” 

His feet won’t stay still and he dances a little jig with one hand on the end of the counter top and the other stretched to the corner of the table.

“Wow!  You did?  That’s great, buddy!  That’s really good.”

We’ve had this conversation before.

“Yep!  ‘Cause, I have to stop.  ‘Cause, when I get bigger, my teeth will get messed up, if I don’t stop.”  He dances a little more and nods, then his chin juts forward and the smile returns.

“That’s right.  That’s what the dentist says, huh?” 

He nods.

“That’s really good, Ethan, I’m proud of you!”

Mission completed, he skips from the room and heads back to his bed.

A few minutes later, when I finally make room to keep my tucking-in promise, Ethan is there, turning his head toward me in response to the sound of my footsteps, lying under his Spiderman blanket on the bottom bunk of the crib-size bunk beds I built when William was a baby.

The other kids in the room have already drifted off.

I kneel down beside Ethan’s bed, bending to kiss him on the forehead, and whisper in his ear, “say your prayer.”

He pulls his thumb from his mouth, and begins to mumble the words quickly and quietly:

“Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  Thy love be [or, I love you] with me through the night and keep me ’til the morning light.”

I add the ending, “Amen,” then follow his prayer with my own, whispered into his hair.  “Dear Jesus, thank you for keeping this boy safe and healthy.  Please, Lord, fill his heart with courage and strength; stir a passion in his heart for your kingdom.  Watch over him and keep him.  Please, Lord, watch over him.  We trust in you.  Amen.”

Another kiss to his forehead, then, “Good night, Ethan.  I love you.”

As I stand and turn to walk out of the room, he pulls his thumb out of his mouth again to say, “Good night, Dad.  Love you!”