beginnings

No more than five, I knelt on my blue comfy chair next to my window. Not sure who told me to kneel or why I did, but through the curtains I peered up, up to no where in particular – just a place outside of myself. No practice or echo, I just asked. He answered.

Dr. Fish brought the revival. I couldn't help but listen. Your life is a house in which there are many rooms. He walks through them, stopping at each one to discuss this aspect of your life. He stops at a locked door. Knowing whats behind it, I won't open it. Then I give up. His words rang true in my ears. In proper fashion, my surprised parents walked me down to the front. No one told me to, but tears flowed. People surrounded me as Pam congratulated my parents. I just wept, proof if was real.

My frail, nine year-old body shook in the freezing water. I had to swim to get my badge for the week. My dad left me there shivering. Half way across I couldn't tell the water from my tears. Members of the under-dock tapole colony became close friends that week. I watched them grow into frogs. My couselor threw them out because they reeked. The quiet, shy kid now stood atop a ping-pong table on new legs to greet his parents.

a dirge following a conversation and a Saturday

The rain outside echoes the tears of my soul
Thunder strikes every painful inquiry
Like David I plead -
Why so downcast o’ my soul?

A child’s hand rhyme, awry:

Here lies the church (RIP)
A lament for steeple
Open the doors
Oppression of people

The same to be said
To those outside the walls

Here lies the hurt
The sick, the feeble
Open the doors
Misguided people

My rainy tear-fears
Have one more query
Will you hand over keys,
Open the doors?

Fruit Fries or Faith, ma'am?

We got a new menu last week in the café. Needless to say, there’s been more than a little bit of backlash…

“I’d like the Turkey and Havarti sandwich.”

“I’m sorry, that’s not on our new menu. Would you like to try something else? We have many wonderful new items.”

“GOSH! That was like the greatest thing on your menu. I’ve had a horrible day and that was the only thing I was looking forward to.”

“I’m sorry ma’am. Your pitiful, empty and shallow morning must have been atrocious so as to allow a sandwich to disrupt your life. So just because your complaining cacophony has rung so loudly in my ears - I’ve decided to whip that sandwich right up just for you.” (would have liked to say it)

“Why did you take that sandwich off?”

“I just really hated it… But also, today – I hoped to crush your superficial, sandwich-satiated, barren, sorority-driven existence.” Then smile with a slight head tilt. (again – not said, but the smile was there)

She stares at the menu, disgusted.

“Well, if you’d like to fill out a comment card, they’ve already added a couple of items back to the menu due to repeated customer complaints.”

“Nah, that’s alright. I’ll just have the…”

I could recount numerous stories of ridiculous customers all day, but that isn’t the focal point of this post. It’s really the attitude behind the actions,

Or lack thereof.

There’s simply no initiative. She will complain (it comes quite easily to her), but she won’t do anything beyond that. Even Bruce Wilkinson appears to finally understand that you might have to do something besides ask for a blessing (tongue deeply in cheek). By the way, Billy Idol gets it, why can’t she.

I’ll admit it. I’ve done my share of complaining this year – from church leaders, to Bush, to friends, to money situations, to self-pity; I’m as guilty as anyone else. But I’m trying to do something about my problems, lots of which stem from being cornered within a spacious prison of physical walls...

The physical walls of the church, that left me spiritually segmented and deeply unsatisfied.

I could have complained about the church (and the church) forever, but rather than just sit on my laurels, I followed God’s call on my heart. I left… and it wasn’t easy. It took prayer and coaxing and encouragement and most of all – Faith. I never would have though that one of the greatest leaps in my spiritual journey came from leaving the Western-style church, of which I have been a patron most of my life.

Through that single step into the unknown and uncertain I have learned more about God (Jesus and the Holy Spirit of course, too), man, Church, culture, relationships, and love than any other time spent within the walls of a church, beside the beaches of a camp, during the songs of a worship service or from the mouth of a preacher. Complaining was only the beginning. I really wanted something to change within me, within the Church and within the world, and I could talk about it all day, but that wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans. So I took initiative. I stepped out into a new “promise land,” where I am uncomfortable, offended, misunderstood, mocked, and constantly searching for God’s reassurance and guidance.

Words like gospel and evangelism and sacrament have been given fresh meaning. Biblical authors speak to me in ways they never have before. Believers are a blessing, and not-yet believers are a delight. Stories, hardships and communities - both ancient and modern - exhale peace, peril, hope, grace, and life into my story and struggles. There are not enough words to describe for you or to you the magnitude of these past couple of months. Perhaps one day, I’ll just paint or dance or sing my joy to the Lord and you’ll be able to experience it with me… But maybe the greatest part of this faithful journey is that Jesus proves to be exciting, new, challenging, intense – and completely extraordinary every day.

I, I took the road less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.

the poetic life

The wall was white with a small poster on it – something about the harder you work the more successful you’ll be with some cartoons and such on it. All eyes focused on me, wondering if I would screw up, but not really listening to anything. I certainly didn’t want to look at them while I was speaking. I might forget the words. So I take a deep breath and begin…

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both…”

Though a mere lad in 7th grade, not much has changed now: Memorizing is not my forte. I tend to think visually so unless the words are really memorable in my imagination, they tend to just get jumbled up in my head. I know I’m not the smartest guy, but rarely do I forget a painting or a scene from a film or a beautiful sunset, or sadly scenes from scary movies. My mind runs away with images.

That’s why God made me a narrator and not a memorizer. It’s much easier for me to recount a hi-story than a timeline of events. I need characters to love, to hate, settings to paint, arcs that bend and break.

A Nazarene sweated in sandals, lingered at the wells, ignited synagogues, wept and washed feet, traversed roaring and calm waters with boat and without, spoke on green hillsides, remained silent before rulers, politicized humility, vanquished death…

“Jesus went there, did this, said that.”
The Character/conflict/culmination/catalyst in the story of God.
Incarnation poetically narrates truth for the world.

(and i'm working on that)

Intersections can be dangerous.

Boys fight. It just happens. When I was in the sixth grade, I got into a fight with Corey Robertson, a friend of mine for the past couple of years. To be honest, the details I don’t really remember – something about the basketball and football and then we pushed each other and took a couple of swings. It ended up that we were both in the nurses’ office apologizing to one another and crying because we felt bad fighting with each other – not because I had messed up his braces and he had bruised my face.

Corey just so happened to be black. As you know – I am white. Again, to be honest – that was the first time I remember consciously thinking something like this, “that was a black person thing to do. You wouldn’t have gotten so angry if you weren't black.” I only have a small idea how bad Corey’s home life was, that his dad owned a liquor store and his mom worked all that time and he lived “Stoney Crook,” the apartment complex where all the stuff stolen from my neighborhood ended up, but that's not the stuff you talk about at parties. Sadly – I remember hating fighting, but not really talking to Corey much after that one incident.

Throughout my perilous experiences at Richardson Junior High where race relations were less than cordial and even violent at times, the innocence of childhood Pangea broke into the continents of racial divide. The white kids sat with white kids in the band hall and the black kids played dominoes, the Mexicans spoke Spanish and the Asians kept to themselves. Sound familiar?

Today, I want to say that I’ve grown past racial discrimination, but it still haunts me. The thoughts of the black guys in junior high threathening me for my basketball shoes or the Mexicans beating up my friend Jimmy or the huge angry Asian kid picking on me – these images still shape my views of “other” races. I’m no bigot and rarely judge someone based on their color, but when I’m honest with myself a history of racial divide lingers in my past and affects my present thinking – and the same is true of most us who grew up in America, no matter what part whether it be an all-white suburbia, the urban barrio, or the rural west.

Playing on similar themes and bringing together characters from all walks of life in LA, Crash ignites the fires of deep-seated racial histories in a way few movies have before.

Take Magnolia out of upper-middle class white-ville, mix it with Law & Order, tie it up with a great script from the writer of Million Dollar Baby – and you get commentary on racial relations amidst an increasingly complex and diverse culture we call post-911 America.

The dynamic characters surprise us with their compassion, poise and patience as well as their anger, fear, and disgust while they react to one another against their personal backdrop of deep, racially-inflicted scars. As they cross paths with each other, these scars begin to bleed uncontrollably when their small band-aid of tolerance simply won’t stop the great force with which a history of racial wrongs hits.

Not only is this an excellent picture, but hopefully through it people will realize that all relationships, even those in passing, are important because the little relationships fuel the undertow of the greater culture. The film’s website says that “Crash boldly reminds us of the importance of tolerance as it ventures beyond color lines… and uncovers the truth of our shared humanity.” Though I respect and understand their reasons for making the movie, there’s got to be more than tolerance. Tolerance that ventures beyond color lines is like acknowledging that another racial continent exists, and instead of signing a treaty that pulls you closer, its like raising an iron curtain that furthers a stalemate.

Recently Donald Miller said that “I tolerate you” is one of the worst things you could say to someone. I’ve got to agree with him. I would hate it if my mom said that she tolerated me or that my friends just tolerated me, so why would we simply tolerate other people? Maybe its because that’s much easier than loving them. Despite everyone’s desire for tolerance among races and classes, tolerating each other only leads to passive-aggressive anger, which Crash artfully brings to the surface with an amazingly honest reality.

Crash articulates the divides I feel growing up in America, but fails to provide an answer for crossing the racial divide.

When people refuse to forgive, a history of anger and repression builds until it explodes on the wrong person at the wrong time for all the wrong reasons. There’s a scene at the end of the movie in which two characters hug, hooray! Miroslav Volf hypothesizes about the embrace as the opposite of and answer to all of our racial strife, wars, hate and “otherness.” Are we willing to celebrate what makes each of us unique as we live among one another? This is the only way peace will ever take place – a true love for everyone that sees beyond the surface, a Jesus-love. Tolerance simply shadows the chasms between us – covering over a dark history of pain. Embrace overcomes pain by greeting it head-on with tangible love.

We’ve Raced. We’ve Crashed. Embrace.

a young ruffian runs with hooligans

A crossroads comes and goes
In may different diversions
Of time and place, forest and plane
An inquiry remain
In which story shall one partake?
Where will this trail or that
Take or give meaning or insignificance
Or does one even get to decide
The one regarding:
Ring, 2.5, three thousand feet square
Ripe apple, stapler, grades, chalk
Nomadic frolic state to state
A loft, downtown bachelordom
Boot camp, barracks, bombadier
Street-sweeping dejection
Heads of state for dinner
Blue-collar dollars per hour
Fluorescent light day, pub-stupor night
Fire-fight savior
Sun-dried skin, plant-water-harvest
Each complete a game, set, match
Or simple choice regarding how
One lives in the liminal space
Between cry and silence
But a song that tops them all?
The most beautiful over all the land?
This simple poet dreams it so.
Peligroso niche in history
Completing the only mystery
An endlessly palatial trajectory
The small portion I play
Co-creating why the Way
The Divinely Dangerous Story…

shapes perfectly he she, you and me