Daddy

My youngest son Matt (age 6) has days when he clings to me like I'd disappear forever if he wasn't in my presence!  Sometimes I'm working on my computer, or watching TV, and he'll stand beside me or snuggle up beside me on the couch, and just 'be' there...nothing more.  I may be about to go out the door just to check the mail, take out the trash or take laundry down to the laundry room...reliably, I'll hear his little voice "Can I go with you, Daddy?"  It's not as if he's not thoroughly attached to Shari, my wife and his Mommy....for him, there's just something deeply satisfying and comforting to be with his Daddy, even if there's nothing exciting going on in my immediate presence.

One night, Matt and I were laying together on the "big bed"...a night time ritual where he'll come in while I'm settling in for the night, and play on the bed until he's tired enough to either stumble to his own room, or (most often) be carried to his bed in a comatose state.  Matt asked me where my Daddy was...I told him that my father had passed away before even David (Matt's big brother) had been born, and that my mother had died just over a year before Matt was born.  It seemed inconceivable to him that I didn't have either parent alive and accessible, as he had, and that turned the conversation toward that inevitable someday when his own Mommy and Daddy would no longer be alive.  Matt was born when Shari was 37 and I was 40, which mathematically means that, unless both of us live into our 90's or 100's, Matt will have less time on Earth enjoying our company than his peers with much younger parents (which, as an aside, I'll insert that I'm thoroughly disgusted with people who spawn children in their 60's and upward...an incredibly selfish act, in my opinion).

As Matt pondered in his 6-year-old mind what it would be like to not have Shari and I immediately available, his mood turned decidedly sad and morose.  Realizing that the conversation topic was probably a bit premature for his developmental stage, I quickly assured him that Shari and I were going to be around for a long time and he had nothing to worry about, at least for (optimistically) another 40-50 years.  Eventually, his 6-year-old attention span relieved me of having to explain death further, and we moved on to happier topics. But it struck me afterward how deeply sad, almost hopelessly empty, Matt must have felt ever so briefly at the notion that he'd face even one day without us.

I miss my parents, particularly my Mom.  I remember being with her in her hospital room, along with my two sisters, the Saturday afternoon she passed away.  She last spoke to us through a strong Morphine-induced cloud the day before, and I'll always count myself fortunate that the final words between us were "I love you."  After that, she slipped into a comatose state and never became lucid afterward, probably a merciful thing given the advanced stage of her cancer.  Her breathing was labored and irregular toward the afternoon, as we sat around her bed, each of us doing our own thing to pass the time (I was busy on my first pass through Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" as I recall).  All of a sudden, Mom sat up straight on her bed, with her shut-eyed face looking off at the ceiling, almost as if she were about to get up off the bed and leave the room with Someone, and even cancer and coma weren't going to keep her in that bed.  After a brief moment sitting up, she faded back to the laying position, and shortly afterward took one last gulp of air, and then never breathed again.

Up to the point of her last breath, I'd always known that moment was going to come eventually.  Whenever I'd go visit Mom at her apartment, she'd usually ask me to go over to the mail room and retrieve her mail.  At the moment I'd turn the key in the mailbox, the notion would come over me that this potentially could be the last time I'd ever have to turn that key, if Mom were to pass away...it was a disconcerting thought that hit me every time.  The moments between the last gulp, and when my sister Carol looked up at us from checking Mom's pulse, and finally shook her head, indicating to us that Mom no longer had a pulse, seemed like an eternity.  I was reckoning with the reality that what I'd dreaded since I was a little boy (like my Matt) was finally coming to pass...I was without my Mom at last.  When the moment was confirmed, I exploded into tears like I don't recall ever crying before in my life.  No matter who else remained with me alive, Mom was gone and her unique place in my soul was now no longer occupied by her life.

Dad's death impacted me in a bit of a different way.  In the later months of 1992, Dad had taken a fall out of his nursing home bed, and hit his head somewhere on the way down (bed rail? floor?), causing a traumatic injury to the vessels connecting his brain to the inner lining of the skull and resulting in a hematoma.  Other health complications, including septic blood, took him down fast the following month.  As with Mom, Dad had a lucid moment for us to exchange words, and our final exchange between us was "I love you."  Mid-January, Shari and I were making a trip by rail out to Denver, so that I could interview for a graduate counseling program (an awful 20-hour nightmarish trip, it turned out!), and that morning before we left for the train station,  I got the call from Carol that "our father has passed away."  It was little more than news as I was hurriedly rushing out the door, giving me little more than pause as I wondered to myself why I wasn't more devastated.   I shrugged it off and kept moving.  Dad's death caught up to me about 26 hours later, as I was sitting in the office of one of the core counseling faculty at the school I was trying to impress, being interviewed for one of the limited few openings in their program.

To set the stage properly, Shari and I had just ridden Amtrak for 20 awful, miserable hours, mostly due to freezing conditions on the rails between  Chicago and Denver.  We had intended to stay overnight in a Denver hotel, so that I'd be rested and relaxed for the interview.  Instead, we "slept" sitting up with too little leg room in our train seat, being awakened every 5 minutes by the chain-saw snoring and gasping of some guy a few rows away with terrible apnea, or the screams of a tiny baby at the other end of the car, suffering from colic.  The school was gracious enough to send a graduate student from the program over in his own tiny Mazda, Subaru or some other micro, mini imported tin can, to pick us and our luggage up and take us to the campus.  After being dropped off (mostly comatose ourselves from little sleep and cramped bodies) we sat un-showered and un-fed in the lobby of the administrative building of this school, atop our pile of luggage, with me trying to recover some semblance of scholarly demeanor.  When I was finally called in, I sat down in a chair across from the faculty interviewer, comfortably seated with a massive hard-wood desk between us.  Groggily prepared for what I thought were going to be questions about my philosophy on all things counseling, I was smashed in the heart by his opening question: "Tell me about your relationship with your father."  There in my interview, I lost my composure, burst into tears, and sat and wept for 5-10 minutes...the interviewer sat without any demonstration of compassion or concern the entire time I grieved (maybe he thought I was putting on a show of sensitivity?).  I didn't make the cut that year, either.

It struck me years later that there was a profound difference between my grief over the passing of my Dad, and the loss of my Mom (and I use the differing terms "passing" and "loss" on purpose).  I was always close to my Mom, always knew she held me close to her heart, and that I was never in danger of losing her love.  Mom was at every high school basketball game I played; she went back to work my Sophomore year of high school explicitly so that I would have new clothes to wear, and wouldn't have to get "free lunches" due to our poverty; she published every accomplishment I ever had in the small-town local newspaper, proudly stating "Scott Knapp, son of Hazel Knapp" in the leading sentence (Dad didn't pay for the articles, she always said, so he wasn't worth mentioning, either!); I sat for hours and hours in her green formal living room chair, getting advice and perspective (a chair I inherited, kept in my counseling office for several years, and sit in now as I write); she conditioned me to eventually adopt her idiosyncratic phraseology, including "aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway" when transitioning from a talked-out subject,  and greeting my sister Carol on the phone (and now in email) with "Hello Sister" and ending in "Love, brother" because Mom always greeted me with "Hello, Son!" (something about re-stating the relationship moniker felt more meaningful than merely using a given name); ending every conversation on the phone and in person with "I love you"; and for thousands of other intimate, personal reasons my heart was knit to my Mom's each and every day I knew her.

Dad's connection to my heart was a bit different, less intimate than functional.  Dad was there, but not "there" for me.  Dad was 53 when I was born (Mom was 43), and probably had not planned on being a father again at so advanced of an age...and he often wasn't.  I remember a time Dad took me to another local town to wash his car, when I was merely 4 years old.  He gave me the money to go next door to the A&W Rootbeer restaurant (alone, no less) for something to drink, but when I didn't get done with my Root Beer and return in sufficient time, I stood there with my 4-year-old comprehension, watching his car pull out of the car wash and drive away down the street without me in it!  I remember crying to the lady behind the counter that "my Daddy just drove away" without me, and her promising to get me home herself if she had to...apparently he eventually came back to get me, but I really have few clear memories of the event, beyond the impression of emptiness and screaming alone-ness of watching him drive away.  That sense of abandonment characterized my relationship with Dad for the rest of the time I knew him.  About a year before my wedding to Shari, I went to Dad's apartment (Mom happily divorced Dad shortly after I left for college, thanks in large part to the sense of independence she'd gotten from going back to work, mentioned a paragraph earlier) and informed him I was engaged.  He deadpanned most matter-of-factly, "I doubt I'll be there...I'll probably be sick that day."  Dad was an uncannily accurate prophet on that occasion, he was.

I wept on occasion for several years after Dad passed away, wondering what in heaven's name I had to grieve over, until one day it occurred to me that I was grieving not over any love that was lost, but over the loss of opportunity for Dad to come to his senses, regret his colossal failure as a father (and husband, for that matter...but that's another story) and come back to make things right.  Dad's death meant I had to live with that unfinished business, business he created and never brought to a close; in fact, business he'd contracted to when he lent his sperm to my creation that he never followed through on by showing up personally.  I grieved primarily for what should have been, but never had been, and after January 1993 never had a chance of ever being.

Mom showed up.  My grief for Mom's passing was bitter and sweet; bitter for what would not continue to be experienced, sweet for the memory of what actually had been.  I grieved the loss of opportunity to continue being "with" my Mom again, I reveled in it so.  When I go out to my Mom's and Dad's common grave site and look down at the simple headstone, my attention always first gravitates to Mom's name and particulars, and after a few moments I notice Dad's are incidentally there, too.  The headstone is a reminder of the two very different responses I have toward either of them.

Right now Matt enjoys "being" with me and Shari, we make him feel sufficiently welcome and loved that he can't imagine the worth of living without us immediately there.  Some of that reaction is the result of normal childhood attachment and bonding with a "parental figure" and some of it is the result of my and Shari's choice to love our son's soul well.  I'm so in love with both of our sons, I can't imagine life without them, either, and I enjoy being a father to both.  At this point in Matt's life, that quality of relationship is fragile; there are so many things I could do through simple neglect to "be there" that would eventually erode his enjoyment of "being" with me, until one day the thought of me no longer being in his life would be more inconvenient than emotionally crippling.

As a father, every day I earn the way in which either of my sons will grieve my passing.  And that is what is so humbling about every time Matt innocently asks, "Daddy, can I come with you?" when I'm merely going down to check the mail.

Mercy!

"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.   'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.'  But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'  I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."   (Luke 18:10-14,  NASU)




Mercy has been on my mind lately, and not so much my need to give it but my desperate need to receive it (though the latter should produce the former).  There are few things like poverty to expose the need for help...and the slow coming of help to expose the utter desperation for mercy!  I've been unemployed only three (3) months now (I say "only" because I'm a relative novice at unemployment, compared to some I know who went for several years without gainful employment recently), and some days this state begins to tear apart my confidence at the seams!  I do have Unemployment Compensation coming in on a weekly basis, and by some miracle we've been able to pare our expenses to the point that our major needs are covered, and only occasional negotiation with creditors is necessary to keep them satisfied.  Still, most mornings I wake up experiencing what Thoreau referred to (for other reasons) as a state of "quiet desperation" that oftentimes these days makes the first thoughts of my mind a prayer to God, "Be merciful to us today God, and help me find work!"

When I was employed, I was not unsympathetic toward those who had lost their jobs; quite the contrary, I'd been there myself on prior occasions, and I knew the pain and frustration of being willing but unable to work.  Unemployment pain is something, once experienced, you swear you'll do everything within your power to never, ever feel again.  I saw my last vocational position as a bit of a personal test; I'd weathered a number of severe disappointments with my position and my employer, and felt I'd successfully proven (to myself, at least) that I had the "stick-to-it-iveness" to have earned a little job security...the freedom to "never, ever" face that ghastly, stomach-knotting emptiness of being out of work.  The circumstances that brought about my job loss were beyond my control, however...unfortunate collisions of past events and circumstances that caught up with one another and produced a unique circumstance under which my employer was not willing to keep me in their employ.  I have no regrets about how that came about...it was also an opportunity for this employer to show mercy themselves toward me, and for whatever reason they chose to not.  But it was not like I was gloating over having a job, then suddenly got my comeuppance...I really worked hard to justify continuing in that position and circumstances tore it away.

Continued unemployment has brought out an ugly side of me, toward my family at home, and toward God in my private thoughts.  Author Dan Allender, in his book "Bold Love," posits an uncomfortable thought when he offers that it is impossible to fully appreciate the mercy of God (which prompts us to love more "boldly") until we "unpackage" our deepest hatred of God for not ordering our worlds more to our liking.  "Hatred of God"?  Long story short, I'm realizing that the irritability and occasional emotional cruelty I show toward my wife for her physical frailty (she has a debilitating genetic disorder) and impatience I demonstrate toward my children at times, is rooted in my rage toward God for allowing the present physical and financial "infirmity" to come about...I rage at them because they're here in front of me.  Though being employed and earning sufficient income is not sufficient to make deep change in the soul, it would take some edge off by eliminating the worry about paying for food and medicine...but that's all it would do, take the edge off!  The ugliness of rage toward God would still be there, simply masked by present comfort.  Without suffering, it could never be exposed.  I've become comfortable with admitting that on a very critical level in my soul, I'm still stained with hatred of God...I take it only on faith in what the Bible tells me, that at my deepest level I'm truly in love with Him (and I suspect that this journey will eventually put me more in touch with that reality).

I am deeply, desperately in need of mercy...and even acknowledging that, most days I want mercy in the form of God giving me back my "cover" so I don't have to look at my ugliness any more.  "Be merciful by giving me a job once again!"  I will work again...I will have an income, we'll eventually get a house, and things will stabilize, and I'll rebuild our savings and my decimated 401(k).  But I've got only one chance to address this particular  test and come through with better character...and fighting against the internal craving for relief, I've decided I don't want to miss it, regardless of how long it must last.  I'm at the point where I'm "beating my breast" like the tax collector who had a long, hard look at himself in the Temple, and responded to God the only way that he knew was appropriate..."be MERCIFUL to me, the sinner!" 

Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!

Anyone who has ever watched Bugs Bunny cartoons (the old Warner Bros. version) on Saturday mornings as a kid would recall Yosemite Sam uttering the classic expression "jumpin' Jehoshaphat!"  It was years later that I learned that there really was a person named Jehoshaphat in history (and there really was an Albuquerque in New Mexico, at which point you could turn left).  Jehoshaphat was one of the "good kings" of Judah during a period of time after the glorious reigns of David and Solomon were over and the kingdom had split into warring factions (Judah and Israel).  Jehoshaphat was considered a "good king" in the sense that he fought hard against his people adopting the idol-worshiping ways of the nations around them, and took steps to nudge them back to faithful worship of the LORD, while he did his best to keep the Law himself.

A time came during his reign that three of the surrounding heathen nations decided to come and raid the nation of Judah, and this news arrived to the ears of Jehoshaphat and sent a deathly chill through him. He wasn't in a position to make war against these powerful nations, and  2 Chronicles 20:3-4 tells us that "Jehoshaphat was afraid and turned his attention to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.  So Judah gathered together to seek help from the Lord; they even came from all the cities of Judah to seek the Lord." (NASU)

The king and the people of Judah gathered at the Temple of the LORD to pray, lead by Jehoshaphat himself, seeking God's intervention into what most assuredly would be a national disaster if allowed to go unchecked.  In his prayer, Jehoshaphat reminded God that the nations  that were drawing up in battle formation to attack just happened to be the very people groups that God had told the Israelite forefathers to not drive out of the Promised Land when they came in a few centuries before.  Jehoshaphat cried out to the LORD for protection from these rogues, in as much as they seemed to lack a sense of appreciation for the fact that the nation they were attacking was the very one who let those nation's ancestors go on living!

While this was not the first time someone in the Bible was in dire straits and cried out to God for deliverance, Jehoshaphat's closing words of his prayer struck me the other night as I was reading them.  He said, "For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You  " (20:12, NASU).  What a humbling admission! We're powerless and we don't have a clue as to what to do about it!  Have you ever felt just that way?

I'm there right now.  I'm out of work and unable to find a new job.  The circumstances that lead to my unemployment were beyond my control and (frustratingly) beyond my capacity for remediation.  My budget is just barely covered by my unemployment compensation and my wife's fixed income (she is disabled).  Many days I feel depressed, frustrated and angry at God for not stepping in at any point along the way to fix the situation that eventually lead to my unemployment.  I loved my work and the clients I worked with, even though in retrospect I was in kind of a professional "rut."  I have several more severe limitations on my job seeking efforts than I've ever had before.  Most days, I feel powerless...and other than contact potential employers and field resumes...and pray...I don't know what to do to fix my situation.  And maybe that's where God wants me to be.

God knew centuries before that the Ammonites, Moabites and Meunites would eventually bring trouble to the land of Judah, yet He let them remain in the land, probably for that very purpose.  Jesus knew Lazarus was going to die before He arrived in Bethany (John 11), and He stalled his journey there to allow time for the situation to ripen, and Mary and Martha to come to their own point of saying "Lord, we're powerless and don't know what to do!"  No crisis situation that catches us unaware has ever caught Him unaware.

Jehoshaphat finished his plea with the words "...our eyes are on You."  How hard that must have been!  When Peter stepped out of the boat to walk to Jesus on stormy waters (Matthew 14), his eyes were initially on Jesus, but we're told "seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out,  "Lord, save me!"" (14:30, NASU).  I can't help but wonder whether, when Jehoshaphat prayed "our eyes are on You," there were plenty in the nation of Judah who's eyes were elsewhere: on the gathering armies surrounding them, and on the obviously helpless crowd of people gathered at the Temple, "...all Judah was standing before the Lord, with their infants, their wives and their children  "
(20:13, NASU).  I gather that Jehoshaphat was talking about "spiritual" eyes, perhaps the eyes that Peter stopped using when his physical eyes saw the wind's effects on the seas.  There are two sights, one that sees things as they are, and another that sees beyond things as they are.  I'm not using my second sight well these days.

The LORD responded to Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah through a prophet named Jahaziel.  He offered them a solution that must have seemed insane at the time (and often prophets speaking "in the Spirit" were perceived as insane, entranced or drunk), saying "You need not fight in this battle; station yourselves, stand and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.' Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out to face them, for the Lord is with you" (20:17,NASU).  Judah was instructed to put their best singers out in front of the armies, and sing at the oncoming enemies.  History tells us that God was true to His word, and that the enemies of Judah routed themselves...and when Judah's armies came upon their enemies all they found was thousands and thousands of dead corpses laying on the ground...it took three whole days for the people of Judah to collect all the plunder and spoil!

I don't know whether God is going to come into my problem with a mighty sweep and fix everything the way He delivered the people of Judah, or in the way He reached out and grabbed Peter.  He orchestrated  a tight, life-and-death situation for the people of Judah over a period of centuries, and swept in with a miraculous deliverance.  This same God, in the human form of Jesus, tarried before going to Bethany, so that the Father could get the credit for the miracle the Son did by raising Lazarus from the dead.  I have no assurance that He will necessarily repeat Himself on my behalf in this situation...but I do know that I'm helpless, I don't know what to do, I'm standing here before Him with my disabled wife and totally dependent children...and I need to know what it means to keep my eyes "on Him."  When you're not scared out of your wits, it's easy to come up with some theologically plausible-sounding answer to that question.  When your heart is pounding almost out of your chest, and the dangers around suck your eyeballs out of your skull...it would take a conscious choice of the will to refocus your attention ("eyes") on anything else.

I want to know what that means.  I presume this situation has been set up precisely to provide me the opportunity to find out!

Familiarity breeds contempt for those who are not as familiar

Can you become so familiar with a good truth in the Bible, so as to totally miss it's intent?

I recently was listening to a speaker deliver a sermon on a biblical passage in the Gospel of John, the story where Jesus went to visit a sick friend (Lazarus), but got there too late to save his life.  (You can find the story in John 11).

Lazarus had two sisters tending to him, Mary and Martha, and they'd sent word to Jesus to come quickly and offer a healing touch to their brother, appealing to the fact that Lazarus was someone "whom You love" (v. 3).  This particular Mary was a former prostitute with a deeply stained past as far a Jewish Law was concerned, and a woman who had been greatly honored by Jesus when everyone of influence and position had written her off as worthless trash...she had a deep connection to Jesus.  It must have surprised them greatly when He failed to show on time, and Lazarus passed away.  It must have been even more unnerving (maybe even enraging?) that Jesus finally shows up after the funeral was underway (by this time Lazarus had already been dead and buried in the cave/tomb for four days).  When word came that Jesus was finally on the scene, Martha went to meet him, and shortly afterward called for Mary.

When Mary came to Jesus, she'd obviously brought a few questions that she wanted answered.  Mind you, she still revered Him and loved Him in the purest sense (none of that stupid "Last Temptation of Christ" crap), but she was confused and hurting, probably as much by the death of her brother as by how long it took Jesus to arrive.  Her first words to Jesus were, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died!"  It's at this point of the story that John tells us that Jesus became "deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled."  In His empathy with those He made and loved, "Jesus wept," though He knew full well He was about to change the whole tone of the funeral by raising Lazarus from the dead (which He did).  The speaker made an excellent point that the true miracle in this story was not that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (life and death are the prerogative of God), but that He entered into the pain of His people and joined with them, Creator with creation.  I liked that point (and actually used it when I delivered the opening sermon at my Mom's memorial service some years ago).

It was at this point in the sermon that the speaker shared something that piqued my curiosity...and elicited a response from a few in the audience that made me wince.

The speaker shared that, on several occasions after speaking on this passage in the past, he'd been approached by a few folks who'd been unnerved or irritated by Jesus' seeming reluctance to act in a timely manner, thus causing Mary and Martha unnecessary grief (particularly if He intended to make things better later on).  The speaker related that one woman had met with him immediately after one of his sermons, and protested (rather loudly, I think) "Why did Jesus have to be so mean!"

Several things occurred simultaneously as soon as the speaker related this.  First, my mind went into action, and I wondered to myself what the response from this speaker was.  The woman asking this question must have made some personal connections with Mary's question...'Jesus, you had plenty of warning and knew bad things were going to happen, why didn't You do something!'  The questioning woman probably had experiences in her life when she asked God the same thing, and probably never received a definitive answer directly from God, so she posed the question (albeit, in what might have seemed like personally hostile tones) to this speaker.  That speaker's interpretation of the question and very next response had the power to nudge this woman on one of two courses: toward God or away from Him.  Jesus knew Mary was at the same juncture, and He tailored His response to what she needed from Him most.  He went with her to the tomb, and grieved with her..."Jesus wept."

The second thing that happened simultaneously with my pondering, when the speaker finished his sentence was this:  several in the audience snickered.

When you've grown up among the "churched", you become familiar with biblical stories and basic concepts.  Most of them we "churched' folks learned in Sunday School growing up, and saw illustrated on felt boards with cut-out felt figures representing Adam and Eve, and Moses, and Elijah and Elisha, Jesus and the Disciples, Paul, etc. (though no Sunday School teacher the whole time I was growing up illustrated anything out of Leviticus having to do with "sores that ooze pus", as much as I thought that might be cool!).  Most of us "churched" folks had probably seen this story illustrated on the felt board, too, and knew that Jesus had actually waited extra time before leaving to see His sick friend, because He knew that the Father was going to use this tragedy to strengthen the faith of those who observed the raising of Lazarus from the dead.  Sometimes, when you're familiar with the stories, statements like the woman in the speaker's example seem naive, silly, insolent, outrageous...and maybe on a strictly theological level, it was pretty uninformed.

But on another level, it said something more deeply (I think) about the ones who snickered...they didn't see the comment as anything more than an angry fist-shake at a sovereign God, though I think it could have been more properly taken as a cry for help and an expression of deep fear (even if it was worded more insolently).  The snickers seemed condescending, and I can't help but wonder whether the speaker set up the story to naturally elicit that response...I sort of got the feeling by his response ("Well, some people do feel that way" and "How are you defining 'mean'?) that on some level, he was snickering at her, too.  I could be very wrong, and have misread his intentions of telling this story...but he made no efforts to clarify his remarks after the snickering took place...I hope I'm wrong.  If the snickers were condescending, those folks missed the whole point of the first half of the talk...Jesus' miracle was that He, as omnipotent God, transcended into human frailty to experience the pain of those He loved, though He did not immediately do anything that was expected of Him to remove the pain.  That didn't seem to be the sentiment of those who were snickering.

I wondered still, where that conversation turned after this woman confronted the speaker with that challenging question.  "How could Jesus have been so mean?"  By responding "how are you defining 'mean'?", the speaker wasn't transcending into this woman's story...he was trying to fix her thinking so that it was more "correct," and perhaps he emotions would be less messy to deal with on the spot.  I wonder what that did to the soul of this questioning woman?  Did it reinforce her suspicion that Jesus really was that uncaring and "mean," using the pain of others to bring Himself attention in spite of the seemingly empathic appearance of grief?  Did it further reinforce her fear that the people of God were no more interested in the state of her soul than it appeared Jesus was, when she first started hurting?  This woman, I might add, is a responsible agent for her own thoughts and responses to God...but I wondered whether this teacher of God didn't throw an unnecessary stumbling block into this woman's path to finding God.  And had someone been waiting in line behind her to converse with that speaker, and snickered....

So all this rambling of mine begs the question: how would I have responded?  I won't say, how should the speaker have responded...that's presumptuous.  But here's what I hope I would have had the presence of mind to respond with, in the face of an angry challenge about the goodness of God: "I'm wondering whether you've had some experiences with God, that cause you to identify with Martha's and Mary's pain and frustrations.  Am I right?  This story often touches a raw nerve with folks who have, and I don't have a quick and easy answer for you...but I'd like to hear your story when you've got some time to share it with my undivided attention."  In counseling school, they called that kind of response a "door opener", an indication that the hearer is not "put off" by the way the initial message was delivered, that a more significant but possibly hidden message lay underneath the words that were initially used, and there was willingness to hear the real message borne out at length...not for the purpose of fixing anything (until the one sharing actually wants that kind of help) or relieving the hearer's discomfort, but to give room to the "tell-er's" full expression.  That's transcendence...snickering is condescension.  There's a huge difference: one gives life, the other kills.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

 - Proverbs 18:21, NASU

Confessions about something I don't do well...

Those who chase after God hear Him speak, occasionally in a rather pointed way.  This post is about something I'm pretty confident God was saying to me this week, and it's a confession of how poorly I've behaved and why He needed to draw my attention to it.  But first, bear with some digression....

For a number of years I've put the following quote at the bottom (or "signature") of my AOL emails: 

"I believe God made me for a purpose, for China.  But He also made me fast!  And when I run, I feel His pleasure!  To give that up would be to hold Him in contempt!"""" "    - Eric Liddel, "Chariots of Fire "


There are times God speaks, and His words distinctly convey He's taking pleasure in us right at that moment.  Sometimes attention might be directed to "This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I'm well-pleased!" (Matthew 3:17, 17:5), and at that moment we know He is speaking that over us; others have told me He's given them clear impressions of Zephaniah words, "The Lord your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior.  He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love,  He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy " (3:17).  God is more than merely happy to know us...He shouts and sings in a powerful Warrior voice! 

God was saying something much different to me this week...not that He doesn't see me as a beloved son, or does not love me so much he hums a tune with my name in it when he's happy...but He was pleased to massage a liniment into my heart the other day while I was doing dishes, that began to break up some rough, stoney soil...and here's where the confession begins.

Four years ago, about this time in fact, I graduated from graduate school in Philadelphia, and we were making plans to move back home to the Northwest Ohio area.  At that time, my wonderful wife Shari was in vibrant health and vigor.  We enjoyed getting out to the beautiful walking trailed parks of Pennsylvania, like Valley Forge, or Forbidden Drive in Fairmount Park in Philly...we were an active couple, and our sons had to work to keep up with us!  When we returned to Ohio, we kept active by walking in the lovely parks in the historic Northern Wood County and Southern Lucas County area.  Our sons became accustomed to making elaborate plans and jetting off, all within the span of 5 minutes!  We had boundless energy in every aspect of our marriage relation (including the one that discreet men wink about and smile).

Three years ago, my wife woke up one morning in awful pain, from head to toe but focused in her arms, torso, back and legs.  We thought she might have had a stroke, so we rushed her to the emergency room for evaluation.  After a week of tests and sedatives an muscle relaxants, nothing became apparent and she was released with a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.  Over the next year, she continued to work, but our activity became slowed by the pain... and the pain worsened over time, and didn't lessen as the medications became more potent.  Two years ago, she finally had to stop working altogether, and became "shut in" at home much of the time, in excruciating pain.  Relief came mostly when the pain spiked and we went to the local ER for stronger pain medication.  When local doctors could yield no explanations for this sudden and intensifying pain disorder, we traveled to the Cleveland Clinic, when a neurological specialist promised with his hand on my wife's hand that he would get to the bottom of this strange condition, no matter what.  Another year later, he finally diagnosed her with a very, very rare genetic disorder in the family of Mitochondrial Disorders, which apparently had lain dormant over generations and finally struck (for whatever reason) at Thanksgiving 2008, and built to the point of crippling her by August 2009.  In November 2010, her pain level was so high that pain management specialists at UTMC implanted a pump in her abdomen that seeps measured dosages of pain medication directly into her spinal column, so as to regulate the pain messages her muscles are sending her brain...and over time, the medication has had to be changed to something dramatically more potent than even Morphine, and the concentration and dosages have been steadily amped up. 

As her husband, I might have been labeled as "strong" at first, but as time went on I knew that was a sham label.  Over time, I began to resent the loss of my once vibrant, active spouse...and I became more sullen and withdrawn at home.  Eventually the US Government recognized her condition as a permanent Disability, but I had yet to come to terms with the permanent loss of an enthusiastic companion.  I was so focused for much of this time on myself and my own loss, I had great difficulty standing in my wife's shoes and grieving for her losses: the ability to walk in the park, to jump in the Jeep and go when she wanted to, the ability to play in the yard with our little man, or walk up and hug our big lug of a son...soon she lost a whole host of choices that most adults take for granted, and her limits usually included watching life through the windows of our apartment or through the screen of her laptop.  Fellowship with others in our social circles began to wane to nil...there were still calls and emails, but genuine "go out and have a good time" events stopped: we just weren't that fun to be with, given our limitations on mobility.  My anger grew into stewing rage, but I was able to keep it socialized for the most part in public; Shari, my wonderful, suffering wife, was experiencing me in my most ugly state at home.  I was there in body, but she was alone in her soul...I was elsewhere, mostly as an immature coping technique.

My freedom to use my job as escape came to an end 3/18/2011.  Through circumstances that are so bizarre that only God could arrange them to happen, I was forced to resign my position as a therapist doing something I absolutely loved...to stay home, care for my wife and sons, and look for a job...and look, and look, and look.  I tried to stay busy by keeping up on professional reading, applying to a doctoral program, applying for professional certifications, reading more, going out running, etc.  One by one, my excellent distraction techniques began to malfunction, and I was "forced" to spend more time in the apartment, staring my poor wife's increasing disability square in the face: I became injured and couldn't run, no one was (or even yet is) returning my calls for jobs, I was denied application to the doctoral program, and other plans for professional development were stalled out by an uncooperative former employer.  To occupy my time during the day, I was left with....my wife.  I became more sullen, angry and enraged...at whom I'm not sure exactly.  At her?  This wasn't her fault, but Shari was an easy target; at God?  He could make things better in an instant if He chose, and occasionally in the Old Testament He altered His plans....so there was a precedent, wasn't there?  I became more distant, my wife's soul was more crushed, our marriage was in shambles...and we were isolated from much of the world to stew in this unhappy state.

Tuesday, I was cooking mashed potatoes, corn and Salisbury steaks for dinner, and while I was peeling the potatoes, this verse slid in and camped in my brain for the rest of the night, and into my fitness walk the next day:
 
"You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered."   1 Peter 3:7, NASU

This has been a log blog post, and for you hearty souls who've hung in this far, I'm grateful.  I'm going to be meditating on this verse for awhile, and blogging about my impressions for what God would have me repent of, in the way I've been so poorly husbanding my wife over the last few years.  But for tonight, here are a few thoughts:

• "in an understanding way" intrigues me...what must I understand, and how will that new (or reiterated) understanding change how I "live" with her?  Certainly, in many medical and functional ways, my wife fits the bill of being "weaker", and requires a lot of anticipating and satisfying needs, something one can come to resent being responsible for after awhile.  What else must I "understand" to both "live" with her and "show her honor"?
• the sense in which a woman is "weaker" or as older versions say, a "weaker vessel" must in no way detract from the honor of being a "fellow heir of the grace of life," so I'm assuming it's a conditional aspect of being human, a temporary role that must be understood and honored; how often do husbands "understand" the "weaker sex" in a way that enables them to better exploit the weakness, and the whole honoring our "fellow heir of the grace of life" gets trampled under foot?  What if our "fellow heir" isn't making us happy?  Isn't able much of the time to actively make us happy, to reciprocate with equal vigor in terms of practical service?
• the more I isolated, the more of a lone warrior I began to envision myself as...moving on with the important things in life, regardless of the drag caring for my wife was becoming.  I thought that was strength...it really was cowardice!  Granted, seeking God became a challenge for my poor wife, as her pain and disability increased her enthusiasm for many aspects of life diminished, including seeking God.  I was adding to that diminished enthusiasm by adding to her emotional isolation...I didn't see her as my "fellow" any more than a nursing home aid sees the patients she serves as peers; they're people you spend time caring for and cleaning up and dressing...then you go back to your real life.  That was the kind of husband I'd degenerated to.

So last night, after the boys were in bed, I sat on the couch and shared these thoughts with my lovely, hurting wife.  She hadn't heard self-deprecating words from me much in the last few years, unless they were grudgingly given (a habit I hope to change as the stony soil in my heart softens).  We didn't weep together or experience any monumental shift...but something moved, because of my movement toward accepting responsibility for my sin and being open to let this passage re-shape my soul over however many more months and years we have together.  I've been thinking about it today, as I was out with my boys.  I discussed it with my older son at an appropriate level of detail, and explained that this is why his dad was wrong to be so grouchy and gruff with his mother (a habit, I'm sad to say, he occasionally emulates as he relates to his mom).  And I have even fallen back into old habits already today, and had to be reminded of the "Peter verse" by the woman I had hoped to be treating markedly better by now.  I'm an idolater who has watched his totem idol be burned to the ground, and now I'm called to a pure form of worship...to worship God by loving the woman he gave to me as He loves her...right now I suck at it!  If He has His way with me, I'll suck at it less as time goes on, and eventually begin to look like Him while doing it.

I will muse more about this topic, and that verse, in later posts.  If ANYONE else reads these things, you're welcome to comment on the theology of the passages, your own experience with this kind of struggle, or what God has done for you while you're farther ahead on the path to maturity than I am.  Thanks again, if you've lasted this long!  Love you all......Scott

Chasing "Normal"

Have you ever seen the movie "Chasing Amy"?  The main character, Holden (who is heterosexual) falls in love with Alyssa (who is homosexual, at least at the time), and they begin a romance.  Holden later discovers that he is not the first man Alyssa has ever been sexually involved with, and that her past is littered with some fairly raunchy experimentation.  Angrily, he ends the relationship with her.  Later he is counseled by a friend with the following story and advice: the friend had a love interest named Amy, whom he broke up with after discovering unflattering personal details about, but once he realized that everyone makes mistakes and he was truly in love with her, she had moved on and he was left out in the cold; from that point on, he could never forget her or forgive himself for his impetuous mistake, and in a sense he'd been "chasing Amy" ever since in his heart.  To save himself the grief, Holden should hold on to what he has, or else he'll be "chasing Amy" (or Alyssa, in this case) for the remainder of his days.

"Chasing Amy" is the obsessive, never-ending pursuit of that thing you lost or almost had or wished you'd had, that you presently think you can't live (or at least can't find fulfillment in living) without.  Usually "Amy" is no longer accessible or achievable, but "substitute Amy's" are usually the target of our passions, pursuits, goals, and the unspoken purpose of our style of relating to others. 

I have my own "Amy" I've been chasing most of my life, at least ever since I was aware enough of what I wanted but didn't have and thought I couldn't live without:  I'm chasing "normal."  Normal to me has always been to have a steady job with no more than two to three different employers for your entire work career, and to always have been steadily working up in terms of responsibility and authority; to buy a house shortly after marriage, and continually move up the "housing ladder" by expanding the size and square footage of home as income swells; to have a plenteous supply of adoring friends and well-wishers (so that that final grand sized home is filled to capacity with celebrants at your retirement party); to live happy, healthy lives all the way to the grave, with only momentary inconvenient pauses for bouts of ill health, anomalies at most; to pay each and every bill on time or ahead of time, to have a credit report that sings your utmost praises, and a bank account to add further credence to such lauding; and whatever "et cetera" you may want to add to the list of things that your American Dream defines as "normal".

I'm confronted daily with the fact I'm nowhere near "normal" by my own standard!  I have a host of varying and interesting jobs on my resume, each one contributing in its own way to who I am today in my eclectic conglomeration of knowledge, skill, ability and professionalism;  but it's far from the perfect linearly upward ascent I'd always thought of as "normal."  Professionally, I like who I am and how my experiences have given me much to think about as I apply my craft in the marketplace, but at age 46 it's getting harder and harder to sell that vision in an interview situation.   I owned a home from 1993 to 2004, but I've been an apartment dweller with my family ever since leaving the Toledo home to go to graduate school, and we've been longing to get back into a house ever since.  Lack of home ownership is certainly not for the lack of trying, but the opportunities have been elusive in the last few years, and we've (meaning me, my wife and two sons) been slammed with numerous disappointments and heartbreaks as several opportunities fell through for houses we thought we'd be able to buy.  My wife suffers from a debilitating medical condition that is genetic in origin, and thus not treatable or curable.  This has totally changed our habits of recreating, socializing and even worshiping. 

The question that confronts me these days is whether "chasing normal" is truly going to get me nearer to that happy state of normalcy (as I've defined it) or is it going to make me more miserable in the pursuit, and less content in the having, if I ever get there at all?  I suspect the latter.  Chasing "normal" also undermines one of my fundamental beliefs as a Christian: God uses all things to bring glory to Himself, and for my greater good. Whatever mistakes I've made in my career and relationships are unfortunate, but redeemable; whatever hellish circumstances I'm going through at the moment are tragic and something to be grieved for being far less than the Garden of Eden I was originally designed for (imago dei), but they're also useful in the Master's hand and redeemable for the greater glory of God and good for me and those I influence.

What I chase is ultimately what I worship, and I'm built to worship...built to "chase."  I wasn't built to "chase normal" in the way I've been taught and molded (and, in reality, chose) to define normal; I've been made to follow in the steps of the Old Testament love poem, "Song of Solomon", shouting to God Himself,

"Draw me after You, and let us run together...(I) will rejoice in You and be glad!"
- Song of Solomon 1:4

What are blogs for?

It used to be that if anyone wanted attention or acclaim for their skills at communicating thought with prose, he wrote a book.  Not everyone's writing is necessarily appreciated in his own time, so some have gone to lengths to personally fund the publishing of their own written work, in the hopes that the investment will lead to exposure, and exposure to readership, and readership to word-of-mouth recommendations, which will lead to more book sales, more exposure, etc.   Henry David Thoreau comes to mind when I think about that strategy.  His work was by and large ignored by readers of his day, and his published works were financed out of his own coffers, and he died with most of them still unsold.  Today a Thoreau first printing of Walden sells for around $40K at some rare book stores or at Christies auction, but what good does that do him now?

Today, we can muse about our thoughts and achieve world-wide distribution with no effort more tedious than a keystroke!  Blogging!  The poor man's way to fame (if he can promote himself enough) and fortune (if he can get enough of a following, followed by enough advertising space sold on his blog).  Blogging is the "YouTube" of the literary world, in which no publisher can poo-poo your work and deny you access to their presses.

Blogging...another form of exhibitionism?  Are there some who use blogging to reveal their thoughts and musings, in the hope that someone gives a damn?  I was reading the blog of a prominent Christian psychologist recently, and there was a response posting by a counselor, who listed his own blogsite along with his post (a form of piggybacking for promotion).  So, out of curiosity, I went to this other fellow's blogsite, and perused at a skimming pace some of his work.  It stuck out to me that at the bottom of each and every one of his posts was "Comments: 0"  He had numerous posts; it was obvious he was passionate and informed about what he wrote about, but no one else seemed inspired or moved sufficiently by his writing to even have a thought to post as a comment...and I hurt for him.  He was pouring out his mind and soul in prose, and seemingly having no impact on his reading audience (assuming he has one) whatsoever.

Men who prowl the streets in nothing more than trench coats, who leap out of dark alleys to frighten unsuspecting victims with a quick flash from an open trench coat before they flee back into the anonymity of the darkness, all seem to express later in therapy that they want one thing: a shocked look, provoked by the sight of their naked male form.  They want impact, and knowing no more well-socialized means of achieving impact, they settle for an anti-social, but proven effective, means of "taking" impact from someone they may assume otherwise would look right past them on the street if they were fully clothed.

Blogging for some (maybe even for me?) can be an attempt to impact the world from behind the safety of the screen and keyboard...our own dark alley into which we can escape and remain safely distant from those we hope will be impacted by our writing, our quick parting of our literary trench coats so that you can see the form of our thoughts and feelings.  Deep inside of us, God put a longing for impact, to do the things or be the persons who are responded to by others in ways that evidence that we've mattered for good.  If not for good, we've learned to settle for....something less noble, if not necessarily describable with precision.  Perhaps the predatory exhibitionist most deeply wants to use the strength of his masculinity to do good in the lives of others, who warmly welcome his entry into their lives and celebrate his having been present and potent for good to them.  When what he longs for most isn't offered, or opportunities seem few and far between, or to have this impact seems too remote, he settles for at least some impact over none at all.  He forces his masculinity, or at least the only prominent evidence he can summon, upon an unsuspecting victim, and demands evidence that he's had impact: a shocked look, a scream, even a pointing finger and an look of disgust is evidence that he's been successful at provocation.

But what about the counselor who pours out his thoughts and research and deepest musings onto his blog, and no one reads, writes or responds?  I suspect that receiving this kind of response over a lengthy period of time would become a bit depressing.  Is he really having no impact whatsoever on others because no one responds to his blog?  Or has he constricted the forms of impact he might have to merely via the Internet, and abandoned the other more natural forms of human intercourse (no pun intended) in favor of lurking in the shadows of his electronic alley? 

We blog for impact, but if this is the sole source of satisfying impact we expect to have, the more desperate we will become for exposure and reassurance that this strategy will work.  Woe to those who despair over their blogging having no impact...woe even more to those who succeed at it and achieve their wildest dreams of followership, accolades and praise, and even financial success from blogging; because then, who needs the real world and faulty human relationships any longer when the cyber world is paying off so nicely?