goodbye Joseph

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Praise Him all creatures here below

Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

I’ve actually had days in which I’ve felt like I had it all figured out.  I’ve had days in which the full gamut of scripture fell into place.  I thought I could see God’s plan from beginning to end – or at least the outline of it.

I’ve considered myself wise.

It didn’t last long, though.  My insight, my wisdom, my grasp has been fleeting, at best, entirely imaginary, more likely.

Life gets out of the places I put it.  Death happens.  My perception of God gets pushed, prodded, poked, and punched.

God must be bigger than I’ve imagined, and found in smaller, and less obvious, places.  God is grand, and granular.  God is beyond me, in me, and through me.  God must be stubborn and amazingly gracious.

My kids sold oranges, lemonade, and rocks from a table at the end of our driveway last week.  That’s also beyond my grasp.  They made a buck, including tips.  I don’t think they sold any rocks.

The point is, I’m easily confused.  Maybe it all makes sense to sensible people.  Maybe they can get it together and keep it that way.  I can’t.  I keep losing it.

“For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.” 1 Cor. 4:20

Words:  blah, blah, blah.

Power:  Renee loves me.  Jesus loves me.  I’m stirred by him.  I feel him pushing, prodding, poking, and punching.  I’m taking action.  I’m doing stuff.  Jesus is leading.  I’m following.  I’m not sure where we’re going, but I’m sure it’s the right way.

Let’s go.  You up for this?  I think we’re actually doing it.  Slowly.  We’re doing it.  We’re going.  Together, we’re moving.

Goodbye Joseph:  http://prayforjoseph.blogspot.com/

so predictable

It’s Monday night, and I’m at home getting ready to put the kids in bed.  After that, I’ll be working for several hours to meet a real work deadline for a meeting tomorrow.  If I had started this task on Friday, I would have been finished long before now.

As I’ve mentioned  before, I’m a procrastinator.  However, not working on Friday was only partially my fault.  I’m blaming God, and all of you, for the other part.  (How much blame goes to each part is TBD somewhere in eternity, probably.)

I was disturbed, as you can tell from the previous post, meeting notes, which were the actual meeting notes I took on Friday morning.  (I can show you my notes page from my planner if you don’t believe me.)  Of course, after that meeting, and all of the daydreaming brought on by the book I’m reading, Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol, I was unfit for work.  Whose fault is that?

Anyway, the point is that you all are so predictable.

Renee and I have noticed that no one ever comments on my more serious, faith-based, scripture-based, or just weird philosophical posts.

I get the most comments on my “life-is-fun” and “children-are-cute” posts.

So, I didn’t get any comments on the Friday post.  So predictable.

I can tell you’re looking at them.  The stats indicate that you’ve been visiting.  The stats don’t lie!  I’m an accountant.  I know stuff.

It’s okay, though.  Renee didn’t get it either.

That’s what she said when I got home on Friday:  “I read your blog.  I didn’t get it.  What was that about?”

So, you’re predictable, but you’re off the hook.

If I didn’t have a bunch of work to do tonight, I’d write another post about my cute kids, so you could all have a chance to comment.

By the way, I also have 3 times the number of visits to the blog on the days when Renee tells you she has new pictures.  I’m pretty much convinced, now, that you all come here for the pictures.

I’d lament that and feel sorry for myself for a few hours tonight, but I have work to do, since you made me miss it on Friday.

Love you, too.

meeting notes

Something worth fighting for

Cogitations in lieu of active participation in Demand Forecast meeting from 7:30 – 9:00 this morning, and since:

The power:

• is it real?
• what difference does it make?
• ideas?
• illusion of control?
• Waste!
• Fight!
• Stand!

“For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.” 1 Cor. 4:20

• Is it real?
• Is it apparent?
• Should it be?

South Bronx:

Poorest congressional district in the U.S., walking distance (running distance) from the 7th wealthiest district. 

Children:

• POVERTY
• ABUSE
• AIDS
• DRUGS
• ALONE
• DE-VALUED
• NO ROLE MODELS/LEADERS
• UNLOVED
• HOPELESS
• ORPHANED

Budget Inputs for 2009:

• Headcount changes
• Travel – non-billable
• Outside services
• Capital expenditures

Desire frustrated, passion unfulfilled, anguish, restrained.

Limited?

Focused?

Held at bay.

Confused.

Certain.

There is a physical substance to this anguish manifest in an ache in my bosom reminiscent of the groaning of a broken heart, unfulfilled longing, and fervent resolve.

So, I ask you, how does the power manifest itself in our worlds?  Does it continue to have tangible expression?  Does seeking first the kingdom and His righteousness have practical implications?  Does it even have relevant spiritual implications, beyond modern, post-modern, emergent theology and contemporary Christianity?  Is it possible for those of us in middle-class, American suburbia, to engage the power of the spirit while simultaneously engaging the need to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, give hope to the hopeless, compassion to the prisoner?  Can we make a difference?  Can we really make things better?  If we give all we have to the poor, but have not love, does it matter?  If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around, does it make a sound?  If a church exists in the world, and doesn’t have the power of God, does it make a difference?  Do we care?

What should we do?  Will we do it?  When?

a walk to remember

What does a family do in honor of the last Wednesday without a commitment for the next 9 months, and the last week before school starts?

A 4-mile round-trip walking excursion with my wife and eight of our children, including two strollers, with no particular destination in mind.

It was Renee’s idea.  In years past, with a smaller family population, we’ve done that sort of thing.  Maybe it was nostalgia.  Maybe it was too many hours in a small house with a herd of children.

We ended up eating most of 3 pizzas and a vegetable tray at the deli inside a grocery store, then topping that off with 34 cinammon rolls from CeCe’s while sitting on the patio outside Starbuck’s.  I think Will consumed eight of them.  I feel like I had that many.

It’s late.  The kids are tired and grumpy, and sticky from cinammon sugar.  Meghan’s shirt could stand up on its own.

Katie and Will had a long, rare conversation.  Maybe they’ll actually enjoy each other’s time someday.  Noah, Madeline and Ellie played some game which required running in patches of grass along the sidewalk, picking up random items from the ground and grabbing leaves from bushes and such.

Old neighbors from Renee’s childhood who happened to be in the grocery store offered to shuttle us home.  Renee declined.

Renee wishes she would have worn her walking shoes rather than her sandals.  I wore my fancy running shoes, and my feet hurt anyway.

People look at us funny.  One woman on a bike laughed at us and said, “Wow!  That’s a batch of kids.”  The pizza man in the grocery store gave us free drinks and giant chocolate chip cookies.

Life is good.

Pizza and sodas for 10?  $29.95

California Rolls and Veggie Tray with dressing?  I’m not sure.  Katie bought them with my credit card.

40 cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven?  $11.34

Tall Americano with room?  $2.02

A walk to remember?  Priceless.

apologies

I’ve already apologized to five different people this morning for various things, and that doesn’t count all of the apologies I had to make yesterday and those I’ve thought that I should make over the last few days, so I thought I’d just go ahead and make it official.

This is my official Apology Day.

I apologize.  Please forgive me.

I apologize for miscommunicating, misunderstanding, misjudging, misspeaking, misgivings, mistakes, and just generally missing the mark.

Though my intentions are frequently good, and my desires are hopeful and loving, my ability to meet those objectives falls short more frequently than I recognize or admit.

As I’ve struggled over the last few days to keep up with this spinning globe and thought of all the people who have been shortchanged, I’ve recognized that I’m consistent.  I’m consistently falling short.  I know that sounds pitiful, but the recognition of this is actually a good thing.

So, in honor of official Apology Day, please accept this word of caution related to our future interactions and ongoing relationship:  get used to disappointment.  I really can’t be consistent at a high-level of performance.  I’ll let you down, eventually.

So, I highly recommend, that on this day, especially, you respond to my apologies and shortcomings in a similar way to the way I’ve responded to the recognition of my inability to meet even my own expectations:  run to Jesus.

Somehow this crazy Christian thing works out so that in my weakness his strength comes to bear, and when that happens all of us are better off.

somebody’s always dying

It’s Tuesday.  I’m more exhausted, and farther behind, but the weekend is closer, and I’m sure I’ll get everything caught up then, and it will all work out somehow (see monday).

So, I decided to celebrate by having a cup of coffee and checking my email.  I was pleased to find my weekly message from Relevant, and even more excited to see the article was about coffee, and direct-trade coffee at that.

After reading the article and being slightly fascinated, I googled Tim Taylor at Coffee Ambassadors and found their site:  http://www.coffeeambassadors.com/home.  Intrigued further, and craving coffee, I happily clicked around the links on the pages until I found “Nate’s Page”.

My perusing was interrupted by a coworker who started a conversation about policy documents (aaaggghhh!), but then transitioned to the news, presented with red-face and teary-eyes, that her father-in-law was put on life-support yesterday and is not expected to survive this latest bout with multiple physical issues.  She and her husband spent most of last night on the phone with her husband’s mother and his 10 siblings.

“Nate’s Page” presented a cute family picture of Nate (Tim Taylor’s brother), his wife, Lauren, and their newborn son, Jack.  The links from that page beckoned me to a deeper story on Lauren’s blog and explained why Nate needed a page.  He died just after Jack was born when his boat capsized on a freezing lake during a Thanksgiving-weekend fishing trip with a friend.

Now, my Tuesday procrastination-celebration day has been soaked in tears.  (Read Lauren’s The Ripple Effect page to put an exclamation on that point.)

Back at the Coffee Ambassadors’ site, preparing to order coffee and planning to change my life to join Tim’s mission, I found another link titled Memorial Fund.  I thought it must have been about Nate, but when I followed that link I discovered it was about Carlos and Edwin and Juana.

Carlos was the manager of the coffee plantation in Guatemela from which Tim gets the coffee he sells through Coffee Ambassadors.  Carlos, and his 17-year-old son, Edwin, were killed last February by bandits while climbing the mountain back to the farm with supplies and payroll money.  Carlos’ wife, Juana, was left with their eleven other children to raise.

Suddenly, Tuesday, is filled with concerns bigger than financial statements and procrastination.  It’s filled with tears and stirred emotions and questions.

Now, I’m reminded of the video I watched with Renee last night of Steven Curtis Chapman’s family on Larry King last week discussing the recent death of their adopted 5-year-old daughter, Maria, after she was struck by a car driven by their son, Will, in their driveway.

I have a Will, too, and he’ll be driving in a few years.  I have a 5-year-old girl, Ellie, too, and I adore her.

I’m reminded of Carla’s son, Zachary, and Hunter’s brother, Carson, and Laura’s husband, Jeff, and Gary’s son, Spencer, and Julia’s daughter, Meghan, and Angie’s father, Frank, and Trina’s grandfather, Grandpa G*******, and my own father, Papa, and countless others.

While I’ve typed this, many fathers, their children, mothers, wives and grandparents, have died.  I’m not even aware of them.  Somebody’s always dying.

Why?  Is all this death really necessary?  Death is the enemy, right?  The power of death has been destroyed by the resurrection, right?  Am I just misunderstanding some elusive concept of natural vs. spiritual death?  Am I just misunderstanding death?  I know everything can be redeemed by the grace of God.  I know God can make stuff we call evil turn into what he calls good.

What can I do?  I want to help widows and orphans.  I want to fight.  I want to hold somebody I love really close.  I guess that’s the ripple effect and the redemption in process.

For now, I’m just ordering coffee, and leaving a comment, and making a donation, and day-dreaming Tuesday away.

(My coworker just came in to say through tears that her father-in-law is gone.  She’s leaving for the day, maybe longer.  Dear Jesus, help us, please.)

monday

It’s so cliche, I’m embarassed to mention it, but the truth is Monday’s are the bane of my existence.

Another confession that explains the last:  I’m a serious, world-class procrastinator.  In fact, right now, I’m writing this rather than getting the work done that I promised myself I would perform diligently so I can get home at a decent hour tonight without heart-stopping stress levels.

I put everything off to the weekend and then each weekend is so full that I need 15 weekends to get through one of them.  I actually believe it’s possible, though, and when I realize it’s not, I just lie to myself and say, “it will all work out somehow.”

So, now it’s Monday.  I’m exhausted already and behind on everything and I didn’t get finished with a tenth of what needed to be done over the weekend.

Instead, I spent 2 hours at coffee with friends, spent 5 hours with 50 volunteers getting an elementary school dressed up for another year (while 200 other volunteers from local churches worked at 4 other schools), fixed 3 sprinklers in my yard, had friends over for dinner, ran 15 miles, worshipped against the back wall of the church while my daughter slept in my arms, attended a wedding reception with my four sons (after we missed the wedding because we left late and got stuck in the worst traffic jam ever), talked to friends and watched my sons dance the night away, then fell asleep at 11:00 while watching the first few minutes of the movie my wife wanted me to watch with her at 8:00.

Monday . . .  back with a vengeance and the debts are too high, the bills aren’t paid, the letters aren’t written, the sprinklers are still broken, the house is falling apart, the kids aren’t educated adequately, the cars are junk, the lawn isn’t mowed, the garage is a wreck, the bosses are in town, the week ahead is jammed full of work and activities, and most of my friends think I’ve forgotten them.

I can’t believe I spent my weekend on all of that silly stuff and didn’t get anything done.

This week will be different.  This is the week I get it all together and keep it under control.  First, though, I’ll get another cup of coffee . . . and check my email.

pulling at my feet

In the recorded conversation that is part of the final two tracks of A Collision, the album I mentioned recently (trying to make you sing) from the David Crowder Band, David Crowder dramatizes a telephone interview with some unnamed writer/critic.

The topic of their conversation relates the difficulty the writer/critic is having understanding the album content and especially the final track called The Lark Ascending, in which the Lark is leading us to new heights in song and worship.

The writer/critic is attempting to characterize David Crowder as the Lark, but David resists the idea, saying he doesn’t feel like the Lark much of the time.  David says, just before the musical crescendo launches, barely audible under the pounding rhythm, “but the ground pulls at my feet.”

But the ground pulls at my feet.

After a beautifully busy weekend, like a box full of the glazed doughnuts of fun activities with friends and family, filled and oozing with the raspberry jelly of Jesus conversations, finishing with the indigestion of weariness and family feuds punctuated by my own temper, Monday came like a Mack truck and left me with a physical and mental hangover.

But the ground pulls at my feet.

Thank God for my beautiful and patient wife who never ceases to forgive me and care for our children with grace and tough love.

Also, thank God for my mother, who joined me for lunch and poured out her heart, which is always overflowing from her constant searching of scripture in the wee hours, reminding me of the music of heaven, the soundtrack for life.

While writing this post, sitting on the loveseat in our living room with children leaning against my sides, brushing feet away from the keyboard, relishing in the beauty of God’s investment in our lives, as evidenced by the simple and fun meal I just shared with 11 of 12 family members present, I had to jump up to intervene in a sibling tiff and correct some weary kids who can quickly bring my temperature to boiling at this time of night.

But the ground pulls at my feet.

Ayda is crying at my feet.  Meghan is laying on my left arm, slurping an empty bottle, squirming to find a comfortable position.  Ethan sucks his thumb against my right shoulder while holding an army recruiting brochure from some unknown source and repeating, “be army strong,” which someone has read to him from the brochure’s title.

I’m going to go now . . . I’m going to enjoy the music playing in the background of life as the Lark ascends to its source, while the ground pulls at my feet, confident that being pulled between the two is the right place to be.  The tension is bearable.