this tree doesn’t smell

i sit here in my living room, sitting in a chair that was given to us a month ago.  my feet are kicked up and all that would make this better would be a cup of coffee within reach.

this year we inherited a christmas tree.  it is pre-lit.  i’ve never owned a pre-lit tree.  i have always liked the idea of a pre-lit tree.  but as i sit here with the lights of the tree illuminating the keys of my laptop, i fell a little sad.  my house doesn’t smell like an evergreen tree.  honestly, i sit here less than 10 inches from the tree and if i close my eyes there is no trace of that tree entering my senses.

i don’t know why it struck me.  we grew up using artificial christmas trees, and i loved our tree.  so, it isn’t a sentimental yearning.  i think that perhaps, at least in part, it is the fact that only one year in my memory have i put up or sat near a real christmas tree.

it makes me feel distanced from nature and from the past.

_____

this wednesday in our teen guys’ class we began a study.  for this study we are reading the book “wild at heart” and the intro of the book lays the foundation for the rest of the book.  the foundation: ae are fundamentally different (men and women) and the core of that difference is this wild adventurous spirit that lives in the heart of every man.

we started the class by sharing memories of our own great adventures.  i shared first after silence filled the room when we asked for stories from the students.  and after i shared… more silence.  then finally a couple of pseudo-adventurous stories, more silence.

after class, back in my office, mr. mike came in and wondered out loud whether or not these boys had been on any adventures.  after all, they have grown up in the city with fairly limited access to the kind of freedom mike and i each experienced growing up in the country.  i can remember spending hours away from the house exploring and letting my imagination running wild.  the danger and the thrill of it all still make my heart race.

i wonder how you get that when you grow up with houses on each side of yours, one more past the fence in the back yard, and one more across the street.  with asphalt roads and concrete sidewalks.  with no open fields, old barns, overgrown woodlands, creeks, or ponds. running around with bb guns and a canteen to share can’t happen in a back yard.  ropes and a pocket knife, a tree house or a fort, large stones piled in a row to dam the creek – the tools of the trade for exploration and adventure.

my memories are of looking down from the tops of cedar trees, and crossing creeks on bare feet to keep my shoes dry.  my memories are of gathering muscadines for lunch and rationing the beef jerky we gathered out of the kitchen at zack’s house before we headed out.  my memories are of walking through spider webs and stepping on a twig whose snap gave away our location.

_____

i guess what i am saying is that sitting here next to a tree that doesn’t smell makes me feel very far from the adventure of my youth.  and i wonder how many there are whose youth is void of such adventure.  i wonder what growing up is for them.

hmm.  i am feeling a little disconnected from my audience now.

opened eyes

i was talking to my wife last evening.  i don’t remember what we began talking about, but the conversation wandered around to a discussion of my lack of writing lately – and by lately i mean the past year.  i sit down pretty often and open up my account here at wordpress.  i click all of the right places to bring me to this page that i am looking at now add a new post.  and then i sit here.

i feel like i am just out of words… out of ideas.  i feel like i have nothing to say.  not that there is nothing that i could say, but that there is nothing worth writing.  when i try to push something out onto the screen, it is forced and stale and cliché.

now and then i find a voice inside of me that needs to be heard, but that is the exception these days.  and i began wondering why.

i don’t know why.

but it may have to do with life.  it may have to do with busyness.  it may have to do with loss.  it may have to do with a disconnection from the centered place from which i love to live – a place where i feel that God is very present and so am i.  it may have to do with the fact that i let every little thing capture my thoughts, emotions, and energies.  it may come from the face that i have begun going through life much more often than living life.

in general, i feel like i have been walking around with my eyes opened to very little.

today, i am opening my eyes.

today, i start looking for the blessings in the little things again and not the frustrations.

today, i return to seeing the precious souls around me for their worth, and not their performance.

today, i start living intentionally in the flow of God’s blessings so that i can help direct that flow into the lives of the people around me.

today, i am opening my eyes.

Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”  Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains. – John 9:39-41

two strangers

yesterday i met two strangers.

i had my day planned, and i knew how it was all going to play out.

i was going to have a nice relaxing morning with two cups of coffee and an extra bowl of cereal.  i was going to play with my dogs for a while, throwing the ball in the yard.  i was going to get a shower and be at the office in time to meet a friend for lunch and a nice visit afterward.  i was going to buy a few groceries and cook up something tasty to bring to the holiday party at 6:30.

i woke up late and decided that feeding the dogs would suffice.  after all, they have had alot of attention lately and would not suffer from missing out on some extra play time today.  so i had only a small breakfast and then headed to the office to check emails before lunch.

i left the outer door unlocked because I was only going to be in the office for 20 minutes or so.  i sat at my desk and began to check my emails when i heard a knock at my door.  i looked up as it pushed open.  i saw a face that i recognized even though we had never met.  it was the son and brother of a family that i knew.  he was around my age and was ready to leave as soon as he came in, afraid that his presence wasn’t welcomed – afraid that i didn’t have the time or desire to hear what he had to say.

after some reassuring he came in and sat on the couch in front of my desk.  his life flowed out into the room.  his pain spilled onto the floor with each tear that fell from his face.  his worry, his sorrow, his fear, his feelings of helplessness and hopelessness grew like shadows – like great storm clouds blacking out the sun.

his story was one that i knew a little of, but one that he had lived, and one that he had forced others to live as well.  it was a story for which there is no easy cure – a story where the answers don’t come easily – a story whose ending will not come without alot more pain.

he needed someone to listen.  he needed to be heard.  he needed to have a safe place where someone would listen as he poured it all out.  he needed somewhere to keep him from wandering back into a place he didn’t want to go.

and so i listened.

my lunch meeting moved to late afternoon, and was a good one.  one of the guys of the youth group and i spent most of the afternoon hanging out, talking about life.  some of that hanging out required a car.  and it was in the car, at an intersection that we met the second stranger.

he was standing near the curb holding a piece of cardboard,

“cold

hungry

anything helps”

he was wearing two coats, a couple of shirts, blue jeans, sneakers through which you could see the toes of his right foot.  between his left shoe and pant leg… an aluminum pole.  we passed by him, pulled through the intersection, and turned left. “if i had any food i would give it to him.”

and immediately i felt horrible for saying that, for justifying to one of my teens why i was exempt from helping that man.

i pulled left into a parking lot.  i pulled a notecard out of the glove box that has the church’s address and phone number on it.  i scribbled instructions, “call monday to make an appointment to come by tuesday morning and we will give you a bag of groceries.”

i pulled back to the intersection, but he was gone.  i looked left and then right.  there he was headed up to a busier intersection.  i pulled up and turned in and pulled to the side of the road near him.  he came to the window.  i handed him the card and said, ” the church building is just two blocks up that way.  call monday and come by tuesday and we will give you a bag of groceries.

the man leaned in almost putting his head in the car.  immediately the air of the car was difficult to breathe.  the smell of days without shower or change of clothes.  the smell of sleeping outside huddled near a fire for warmth.  the smell of exhaustion and fatalism.  the smell of a man’s life filled my car.  blocks later with the windows open it was still pungent.

my friend and i pulled into a parking lot, walked into a shop, and paid $7 for two cups of coffee – one venti peppermint white mocha and one iced vanilla latte.

i just can’t feel right about that.

sleep

there is something about sleep that i just don’t understand.

it is something that we need obviously. and it is something that we want more of, as witnessed in my life by my grumpy disposition in the morning as i attack the alarm clock and hit snooze.  [and i know i am not alone in that]

but at the same time it is something that we avoid.  staying up late, loading up on sugar and caffeine to stay awake.  we watch one more show, read one more chapter, eat one more snack, … and it starts early.

there is an occasional exception, but for the overwhelming majority of children nap time and bed time are a fight.  the crying, the begging, the fit throwing.  all because we want to stay awake.  we don’t like sleep.

there are a thousand reasons why.  we might miss something exciting.  we have more work to get done.  we don’t want the day to come to an end.  our sleep is tormented and haunted.  our bodies are restless…

but then again we love sleep.  we have entire rooms devoted to it.  we plan for it: bedtime, our sunday nap, watching the ballgame or the race.  we find a blanket and doze off.

it’s just funny to me how we treat sleep and how we live in this tension between loving sleep and avoiding sleep.

it reminds me of sabbath – of rest.  and i suppose that i will have to come back and write more about that soon.

until then…

sleep well.

a cold, cold morning

so this morning, like every morning, i rolled out of bed after glaring at the alarm clock and hitting snooze twice.  i threw back the covers and winced as the cold, cold air flooded my senses.

“ugh” escaped my lips as it does every morning as my feet hit the floor.  i staggered to the shower and turn it on – hot.  then this morning, like every other morning after the first frost, i stood there with the hot water running over my neck, wrapping me in soothing warmth, protecting me from the bitter and painful cold of the bathroom air. then finally i turned the water off and steped out of the shower, grabbing a towel and dry off as fast as i can to try escape the sharp sensation of cold, cold air against my wet skin.  once dried, i am ok and my morning moves on.

my wife says that i have sensory issues.  something she learned about with her early childhood education and training.  she says that there are some people who respond to all sorts of stimulus in a way that is… not the norm.  in fact, it can be the source of great distraction and even behavioral issues among preschool children.  usually by the time children grow to elementary age they have learned to cope with it… for them, it is normal.  that’s me: i love the taste of bananas but the texture renders them impossible for me to eat, most soft stuffed animals feel like dry dusty chalkboard to me when they touch the palm of my hand but soft when i stroke them with the back of my hand, i like to drink whole milk because it is thick and i can not drink milk when it feels like water, it is why when i wear athletic shoes i have to have them evenly laced from toe to tongue and tied so tight that a pair of laces rarely lasts me 6 months, you can touch me almost anywhere at all and my first physical response is to jerk back because it tickles – and tickling hurts to me – alot.  and that is a snapshot of me.  so that you can understand that for me throughout the winter it is a battle for me to just get out of bed every morning.  i literally hate it.  and it is because of the cold.  it is paralyzing.

so then i drove to work, thinking about class last night and how well the series seems to be going.  when i got in to the office i checked a couple of emails.  then the phone rang… and it was my wife.  she said, “hello.  i’m cold.  its 53 degrees in the house.  i think the heater is broken.”

funny thing is i didn’t remember it being any colder than it normally is on a winter morning.  but it was in fact 13 degrees colder than most mornings.  for me, it was just bitterly cold.

so i started thinking…

“is the thermostat turned to heat?”

“yes”

“what is it set on?”

“66″

right answer… “the fan is set to auto?”

“umm… yes”

“ok”… more thinking.  then i remembered that yesterday the contractor who had built the house 2 years ago had been over to check out a problem and had been in the attic.

background: when the contractor built our house he installed a switch at the top of the pull down attic stairs to cut off power to the central heat and air so that anyone coming to work on it could just cut the power there and not have to be going up and down to the breaker box to cut the power.  the switch is actually a light switch.  and i have on occasion went up the stairs and flipped that switch trying to turn the lights on in the attic.  (the attic light switch is in the garage just behind those pull down attic stairs.)

“you said that andy was in the attic yesterday?”

“yes”

“well, i need you to go pull your car out of the garage, pull down the stairs, and check to see if that switch at the top of the stairs is up or down.  you can see it by looking up there.  you don’t have to go up the stairs to check.”  (my wife does not enjoy stairs)

“ok.  i’ll call you back”

and a few minutes later she called back, and i was right.  it was the switch after all.

so, what’s my point?

my point is this: the man who designed and built my house surely knew what that switch was for.  after all, he put it there – in the blueprints if not on the wall itself.  also, it was one of the features he told us about when we looked at the house.  he was proud of that switch.  and still, two years later he climbed the stairs and flipped the switch looking for lights to come on.  he had forgotten his own design.

i’m glad that our designer and creator doesn’t forget.  he knows how he built me and he knows how it all fits together.

he knows my body and mind and soul and spirit.

he knows my struggles and he knows my strengths.

he knows my thoughts and how i fit them together.

he knows and he will not forget.

he’ll never flip the wrong switch.

he will never leave me shivering in the cold trying to figure out what is wrong with the heat.

and i like that.

i like that alot.

how great is our creator!

how great is our God!

highest calling

question:

no wrong answers… just looking for what you think.

of the following, what is the highest calling (or priority) of the christian?

meaningful worship of our Creator

living a righteous life

acts of service within and without the body of believers

telling God’s story to those who don’t know it

whole again?

will i ever be whole again?

will i ever find the bottom of this pit inside me – this whole that is never filled?

it seems that no matter what i do or how i try i can never seem to escape its emptiness.  it refuses to be filled, it cannot be covered, it will not be hidden or ignored.

just when i feel that life is settling back into a grove of normalcy (whatever that means) the smallest and most insignificant moment or smell or sight or sound sends me reeling.  the carpet is yanked out from under my feet – and not only the carpet, but the floor and the foundation, even the ground itself is gone and i am plummeting.

and it is happening more frequently with time, not less.

it is crippling

it is joy killing

it is life sucking

it is confusing

it is depressing

it is unfair

it is ugly

yet it is part of my life

i am never without this void.  as if it had a life and will of its own it stalks me – it haunts me.  life feels like a night terror – a horror of horrors played out in restless sleep… only, i am awake.

it is as if every song i sing only reminds me that i am empty

as if every picture i see reminds me that i am without

as if every old friend i talk to reminds me of my loss

every sermon i hear, a failed attempt to comfort

every day i live and every night i lay me head on my pillow…

and i am left wondering, will i ever be whole again?

wannabe

this past sunday a few of us took a group of 5th and 6th grade students to hike pinnacle mountain.  it was quite a fun group of students, and i really enjoyed the time we were able to spend together driving out to the park, hiking around to the back side of the mountain, climbing, hanging out at the summit, and descending back to the cars again for the drive back to the building.

the weather was perfect for our adventure.  the sun was out, it was warm, and the heat of the summer sun was nothing more than a memory on this late september day.  there were more than a few mosquitoes hunting for a meal as we hiked the skirt of the mountain.  for much of the summer this area was wet due to the unprecedented rain we received this year, and the mosquito population had adjusted appropriately.

we were a little later than planned getting back to the parking lot after the climb, so we would forgo the traditional mcdonalds run on our way back to the church building.  instead we would arrive just in time to catch a breath and find a seat (preferably one with some distance between our group and those who had not been sweating all afternoon).  i texted my wife as we headed back toward the building and asked her to grab me a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that i could change into.  i have to at least keep an appearance of professionalism at the workplace.  (i think both of you who read my blog surely know, but for those who may stumble into reading this blog unaware: i am employed as a full-time youth minister.)

so my wife made it to the building with my change of clothes, and we both darted into my office so that i would do one of those clark kent / superman phone booth changes.  after the quick-change i headed down the hall for a sip from the drinking fountain.  i crossed through the front of the foyer and caught the eye of two students from our high school program.  tyler asked me where our devo would be that night.  then bradley looked at my shirt and said one word, “wannabe.”

I looked back at him a little confused, and I guess he could tell because he explained – kind of.  “did you play baseball for harding?” he asked with an obvious expectation of my “no.”  at which point he pointed out that i was wearing a bisons baseball t-shirt.  i explained that being a fan doesn’t make one a wannabe.  nor does receiving and wearing a free t-shirt.

but it got me to thinking…

and that lead to the change of topic for the devo that night as well.

when bradley accused me of being a wannabe i was immediately defensively.  i’m not a wannabe.  i done wanna be a wannabe.  i know who i am and i know where i am headed with life and i know that i don’t like being thought of as or called a wannabe.

i have that shirt because i like the school it represents.  i like the way the shirt looks.  i put on that shirt because my wife brought it to me.

but there is something else i have put on.  there is something else that i wear.

consider the following verses:

romans 13:11-14besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. the night is far gone; the day is at hand. so then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

galatians 3:23-27now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. so then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

colossians 3:12-17put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. and be thankful. let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

the first two passages tell us (within their separate contexts) that we should put on Christ, and in fact that those of us who are Christians [that is, those of us who have been baptized] have put on Christ.  the third passage explains what that looks like.

i got to thinking…

i looked at my shirt.

i imagined myself wearing Christ.

if my shirt instead of plastered with a collegiate mascot and ball team were plastered with Christ, what would that mean?  how would that change the way people see me.  how would it change the way i looked at other people looking at me.

but why should that change anything?

why should it change anything if i were wearing a Christ-shirt?

shouldn’t that be obvious? shouldn’t it be undeniable? shouldn’t it be glaring to everyone who sees me that i have put on Christ?

yet, all too often even the people who see me every day don’t see Christ in me.  they see something else.  and that something changes.  and that something isn’t always a bad something.  but anything that gets in the way of others seeing Christ in me is something i need to re-place.

after all, i want people to notice.

i want people to see that i have put on Christ.  no, that’s not enough. i want people to see Christ and not me.

i wanna be more and more like Christ.

i never wanna settle for anything less.

i wanna see people like Christ sees them – beautiful, and broken, and longing to be made whole again.

i wanna minister like Christ ministered.

i wanna touch people’s lives with pure motives.

i wanna be like Christ.

i am wannabe.

and i am ok with that.

in fact, i am great with that.

i am a wannabe.

11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.Romans 13:11-14 (ESV)

beauty

it amazes me what beauty is found in simplicity.

a hard lesson

my wife and i have 2 dogs.

trouble is our 3 year old weimaraner… actually he is closer to 4 now than 3.  he is a very good boy and he listens to me.  he minds me to the point now where i can ask him to do just about anything and he will obey.  his favorite thing to do? fetch his green ball.  life is simple for trouble.  i like that.

stinker is our 7 month old chocolate lab – weimaraner mix.  he is not a bad boy, he is just very much still a puppy.  he loves people.  something about us just makes him go crazy.  he has been learning not to jump on us, and he is doing a good job of restraining himself.  he also loves to lick people – don’t ask me why.  and it doesn’t even have to be skin.  he will lick our pants, he will lick our hair, he will lick my gloves, pretty much anything that is connected to us… but he prefers skin.  sounds kinda weird, i know.

but there is a distinct difference in their maturity and their understanding of what i am asking and expecting of them.  take for instance staying in the back yard.  trouble understands that his place is in the back yard except when i invite him out of it… for a walk, for a bath, to go to the vet, to work in the front yard.  he understands where i expect him to be.  i can even leave the gate open while i am going back and forth between the front and back yard, and unless he is invited out of the back yard he will not come through the gate.

stinker is… less understanding.  he loves to be out of the back yard.  if the gate is cracked he tries to run through it.  if the back door comes open, he wants to come into the house (a place he is never allowed to be).  somewhere along the way he even learned that he can take things into his own hands (paws would be more appropriate i guess) and let himself out of the back yard by digging under the fence.  he has become very adept at performing this feat.  i have tried everything to keep him from getting out.  i have filled the holes back in.  i have punished him.  i have filled the holes with gravel.  i have filled them and then put his feces on the top of them to keep him from digging there again.  i have whooped him (non abusive correction, just like the kind my children will receive one day).  i have stretched an electric fence along the bottom of the fence.  currently i am laying pavers over the places where he has dug.  for now that seems to work.

you see, there is a big difference in their understanding of what i am asking of them.  trouble doesn’t even try to get out of the back yard because he understands that i have asked him not to.  stinker for some reason just has to cross the line.  and it’s not because he wants to run free.  when he gets out he doesn’t run off.  he just sits there and barks at trouble to try and get him to join him in his emancipation.  he isn’t digging out in order to go anywhere, rather he is digging to simply be out of the yard.

i think i have been going at this all wrong with him.  i have been looking at the rule, “stay in the back yard” and have been setting up boundaries to keep him in.  the fence didn’t work so i filled the holes with gravel.  the gravel didn’t work so i put up a charged wire.  the electric wire didn’t work so i am laying down pavers.  it is like i believe that if i can keep him far enough from the fence he wont be able to get under it – create enough obstacles and he will give up trying to get out of the yard.

the trouble with that is that it doesn’t work on a level that will change his mind.  i can pour concrete over the whole back yard and boarder the yard with block walls to keep him in, but he will still long to be on the other side of the wall.  what i need to do is change his mind.  i need to help him to understand what i am asking of him and help him to value that expectation.

i wonder why it took me until now to realize why my effort were not working.

i wonder why it was only today that i saw the parallel of stinkers behavior in us.

===== the parallel =====

so often we see what God has asked of us and we try to set up walls or hedges to keep us from crossing the line.  it is a healthy practice in training us not to cross the lines i guess, but if we are not careful they become crutches that actually weaken our motivations and thwart our maturing in faith.

we become fixed on removing ourselves far from the line so that we won’t cross it, but in our hears we are living just on the other side of the fence.  all to often we find that we have actually managed to crawl over or under the hedges and walls and are caught on the wrong side of the promises.

you see, at the end of the day the truth is that until we fix our heart and mind the walls will never work to keep us from sin.  without transformation, the list of self imposed barriers and rules are futile.  until we learn to listen for the voice of God and the truth of his requests and expectations, the modification of our behavior is vanity.

God emancipate us from vanity!  teach us to love you.  teach us to long for you.  teach us to listen and hear your voice.  amen.