Show Me Whats Real

2009-08-02T05:14:00.000-07:00

A few thoughts concerning 1 Corinthians 1:

To attempt to find God through my own internal thought processes without attempting to convene with God himself is foolishness. Where will this take me and to what end does it serve? So the question becomes, where is God and how does he wish to be found?

2009-05-07T07:38:00.000-07:00

Another Vignette:

As my friend and I walked down the busy streets of downtown Vancouver, we encountered the Chinatown district. Stepping over wilting vegetable leaves of a foreign variety on the sidewalk, we pass the produce displays and enter into a market of sorts specializing in a vast array of dried sea creatures. The smell, while horrendous, tells of a cultural divide that goes mostly unnoticed. We browse the market, commenting on various outlandish products and then exit into the bustling streets once again. A few steps down the sidewalk we hear before we see a woman standing over a crate of live, squirming prawns, yelling at the top of her lungs in her native tongue. She’s a woman of enterprise dealing in the tastes of china, plucked fresh from the seas of the Pacific Northwest. A few more steps down the street we pass the mouth of an alleyway in which a small group of young Asian boys are threading dowels into the folds of a colorful kite. A crate of identical kite kits sits on its side spilling its contents into the alley behind them. These boys are servants of commerce also just like the market worker and the prawn saleswoman. The life that is sustained within this web of trade is as different as anything I’ve ever experienced yet no less profound.

2009-05-06T13:33:00.001-07:00

A Vignette:

The used book store is musty and old in its smell, intimidating in its vastness. It’s one of my favorite places. What other place in the world can Elizabeth Bennett, Aslan the lion, and Jean Valjean reside just an arm’s length away from one another? As I enter the store, older children in tow, I usher them to the kids section, and then head straight for the fiction section myself. While in this place, enclosed within a veritable wall of literary cast-aways, I conjure my inner adventurer and smile. I know I will be contented. The book titles converse with me; the covers present the tease. Shall I depart to a medieval castle and become the royal assassin’s apprentice, or shall I flee to an underground safe-haven to fall in love with a girl as we conceal ourselves from the terrible Third Reich? The setting of the book store fades into opaqueness to make way for a new locale that exists within my imagination: a place where I am not myself yet more me than ever. As I continue to leaf through, I recall my love for the literature that leaves me impervious to boredom, slaked in rich imagery, and wealthy of character.

2009-04-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

I have had plenty of time to get used to being a dad. I have three children ranging in age from four to ten, but I’ve never made the connection between their childhood and my own until recently. My oldest daughter, Halle, just turned ten last week and it struck me more than any other birthday that my children have had to date. Ten, being a nice round number, is not anything particularly special to me but it’s the first time that I took a moment to reflect on Halle’s growing up with a recollection of my own childhood. I can actually remember being ten years old! Generally my memories of childhood are somewhat opaque and I can’t attribute that to any specifically traumatic moment in my life. A lot of head shrinks might tell you that an adult with little to no memories of early childhood is suppressing something terrible and unable to recall most events due to a few bad ones. For me I’m not sure that’s true but still, I just don’t remember much from that period of my life. However, I can clearly recall being a ten year old. At ten years old I was, not unlike Halle, a fourth grader and a kid on the cusp of finding himself. Halle shows many of the same signs that this is true for her also. Halle is taking piano lessons right now and she’s learning quite nicely. She is also very much enjoying her first celebrity crush and listening to music that I think is crap. She’s coming into her own. For most young kids their taste reflects that of their parents. They listen to mom and dad’s music and wear the clothes chosen for them by mom and dad. Halle is growing out of this. Each morning she spends several minutes in front of the mirror to make sure that her hair is parted on the side just so to achieve that hair-in-the-face effect. It’s ridiculous really but it’s all Halle. She also spends countless hours of time curled up on the couch or chair or bed with her nose in a book. When she’s in this state and I ask her a question, her response in comprised of all vowels. She’s her own person now, not just my kid. *sigh* I wonder what’s next.

2009-01-10T23:24:00.000-08:00

I think that I’ve had an epiphany. I’m not a man of faith. As much as I might like to be, it just seems that my faith, or whatever you want to call it, just isn’t normally a driving force behind most of the things that I choose to do in life. Don’t’ get me wrong, I believe in a sovereign God that can, ultimately, be in control of every aspect of … everything. I just don’t feel that everything about me, or rather, the way I operate on the most basic of levels, should necessarily be so wrapped up in a spirit of mysticism.

I might compare it to a recent concert experience that I had. By recent I mean within the last few years or so. Some friends and I went to see my favorite musician play a show in Austin. I had decided before hand that I was going to bootleg the show so that I would have a video/audio reminder of the experience that I could keep and cherish and share with others. So I sat there in my seat with a camcorder in my hand. I essentially watched the whole show through a camera lens. So now I have a video/audio memory that is very tangible and neat. I can look back on it whenever I choose. I can dissect it and try to pick small details out of the musical notes that I hadn’t noticed before. But I wonder, did I enjoy the full experience of that concert? Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy two more concerts of the same artist. This time I didn’t record them. I just sat (or stood) and enjoyed the sounds and the overall experience of the show. It was great. And my memory of those shows is sufficient.

I guess you could apply that to anything in life. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy taking pictures of my children and family and having them to look back on later, but where’s the balance? If I spent all of my time starring at a camera screen snapping pictures of my kids, wouldn’t I be kind of removed from it all at the same time. Almost like I was just observing life instead of living it. I think the same applies to spirituality for me. If I were to spend most of my time pondering different spiritual truths or theological theories, what might I be missing out on? I understand that some people choose to spend a lot of time thinking about stuff on a deeper mystical level and dissecting things in an effort to understand where God stands in it all, and i think that's fine, necessary even, it’s just not for me.

So what does this mean for me and my spiritual man (or lack thereof)? I don’t know. I just think that I’m probably not one of those guys that will struggle his whole life trying to understand God or spirituality or whatever. Does this mean that I’m a bad person? I don’t think so. Does it mean that I’ve given up on the living out of a Christ centered faith system? Not at all. For some reason, I’m comfortable with the idea of being an individual that is living life and loving others as if God were in control of it all anyway. Why sweat the details? I'm okay with saying "I don't know." Does this mean that I’m done talking to God? No. Does it mean that I’ve learned everything that I have to learn about God? Certainly not. I just don’t want to fight with myself anymore about who I am and what type of Jesus lover I’m supposed to be. After all, God made me this way.

2008-08-21T03:20:00.000-07:00

At work the other day, I decided to take a few minutes to go across the interstate to fuel up my car. As I passed under the bridge at about 3am or so, I noticed two homeless guys asleep under the bridge. As I passed by, one of them raised his head up and we made eye contact for a split second. I can’t describe what happened there except to say that it was like I was able to take a glimpse into his life in a way that went beyond just seeing him lying there on his pallet. I felt like I had just felt his hurt. Deep hurt. I don’t know any of the details that led to his misfortune, but I felt like he had somehow let me feel his heart. It’s likely that he’s afflicted with some sort of mental health issues or possibly an addiction of some kind, but it didn’t matter in that moment. All I saw there was a man. Not a bum or a junkie or a victim but a man. And as I parked my car and pumped my gas, I couldn’t stop replaying that quick moment in my head.

…I look over and see those eyes….

…I look over and see those eyes….

…I look over and see those eyes….

And it hit me. Who was he? That was Jesus lying there.

I didn’t know what I could’ve done to love that man, but I knew that I did love him. I loved him deeply. I wanted to lavish my love upon him. I wanted to help him up and then roll up his dirty pallet and place it in my trunk and then take him to my home and introduce him to my wife and kids. I wanted to offer him my shower and fix him a bowl of cereal. I wanted to tell him everything about my life and learn everything about his. I wanted to….. Click…. The gas tank is full… And then I got back in my car, and I drove away; drove back to my life that is conveniently rich with a comfortable house and plush mattress and no hurts that could even begin to compare to the ones I saw in those eyes. The ones I felt in that heart.

…..oh Jesus…. How many times have I passed you by without even noticing.

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'" Matthew 25:40

2008-06-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

2008-05-23T06:15:00.000-07:00

Once, when I was a kid, about five or so, my uncle and cousin and I were at my grandparent’s house in Plainview, Texas. I think it must have been my cousin’s birthday or something because he had gotten a new toy and the three of us were in the front yard with it. The toy was one of those nerf frisbees that was all floppy and made of this thin rubbery stuff. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing and I wanted to touch it so badly just to see what it felt like. As the three of us stretched out in the yard forming a big triangle to pass the frisbee, my cousin threw it to his dad and my uncle threw it back to his son and this went on for some time. I’m sure that I was being somewhat obnoxious because I was just dying to have a turn. Finally after several minutes I asked my uncle “Uncle Doug? How come you don’t throw it to me?” To this he replied “Because you’re not my son.”

It’s weird to me that I remember this because, after all, it was just a stupid frisbee. But this memory has stuck with me now for over twenty years and it’s still pretty painful. At the age of five my father had only been dead for about three years and my grandmother had an aneurism and was very sick. She died within the year. It was a very hard time for my family. I think that that’s why I was in Plainview, because my mom was with my nana in the hospital and I had been staying with my cousin’s family for a while. I was too young at the time to understand the ramifications of these deaths that my family, specifically my mother, had endured in such a short span of years. Both deaths were very traumatic in their own ways, as all deaths are I guess, being that my father had taken his own life one night and left us very suddenly and my nana had gotten very sick and died slowly in front of our eyes. My mom was close to the same age that I am now and I can’t imagine what it must have been like to lose two of, perhaps the two, most important people in her life. But it has taken many years for me to make that connection. I didn’t see it back then and, to be honest, I have little to no memory of the details of that time of my life other than that stupid frisbee. I think that the frisbee incident was the first time that my young mind was able to really grasp the fact that I didn’t have a dad. To grasp the fact that my cousin, Nathan, had a dad but I didn’t and never would. Since then my relationship, if anyone can call it that, with my uncle Doug has never been much to speak of.

I read a book a couple of years back about growing up without a father. In the book the author said that man was not made with the ability to father another man’s child and I have to agree with that to some degree because I think that it’s possible that I wouldn’t make a very good stepdad. But, I have another uncle named Gary Don who married a woman and adopted and raised her two sons like they were his own. I don’t think that anyone would doubt that those boys are his sons and he loves them very deeply. As deeply as I imagine my father would have loved me. His sons are older than me and they have kids of their own now and Gary Don loves his grandchildren as deeply as any grandfather can love a child.

In some ways I think that growing up without a dad has served me well. I’m not talking about the ‘what if’ questions like if he had lived would we have moved to tyler and would I have met my wife and would my kids have been born. When I think about it on that level it was totally worth it. I’m more thinking about how I grew up with a single mother and as an only child and how that has served me well. I had a lot more adult type interaction as a child and I grew really close to my mom because we were all each other had. Somehow that helped me develop into a more mature minded young person although I still did a bunch of dumb stuff. As a child, I was still very interested in boy type stuff. I guess that it was just in the DNA but I think that I’m also pretty well-rounded when it comes to feminine things, you know sensitivity and all that kind of crap, because I spent my entire childhood and a good portion of my adult life surrounded by women. After I moved out on my own, I got married and had two daughters. My other family that I married into is also comprised of mostly women. My mother-in-law is also single and she has two daughters, my wife Amy and my sister-in-law Jennie. So you see, I’ve been living in ‘lady land’ for most of my life. I think I can credit my keen fashion sense to this. You know, which flannel (winter time) or t-shirt (summer time) goes better with my blue jeans and sneakers and that sort of thing. I can also credit my strong foundation on the feminine fundamentals to this, such as my extensive knowledge of hair conditioners and how they can make my beard look nice and shiny and full.

I have a son now. His name is Noah and he’ll turn four years old soon. The other day I had a very important fatherly talk with him about the two ways that one may wear a ball cap. Frontwards or backwards. (Every time I see someone with a ball cap on sideways I have this overwhelming urge to walk up to them and tap them on the shoulder and say “Excuse me but, did you know that your hat is crooked? You’re welcome.”) It was a very proud moment in my life as a dad. I imagine myself in years to come showing him how to get in front of the baseball to field a grounder. I’ll teach him how to round first base so he can keep his speed when he’s hit a double. I’ll show him how a real man shakes hands, firm and confident and looking the other person in the eye. I’ll teach him to always say yes sir or ma’am and no sir or ma’am. I’ll teach him to always open the door for a lady and to compliment her on how pretty she looks. I’ll teach him to work hard. And when the time comes, I’ll teach him to shave with the grain unless of course he wants a beard and then I’ll show him the correct portion of conditioner to use to make his beard look superb. I’ll teach him to always throw the frisbee to his sister’s kid. And most important of all, I’ll teach him to love Jesus.

2008-05-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

I remember talking to my grandfather one time. We had somehow begun a conversation about religion and I, as usual, was trying my hardest to say the holiest things I could think to say while still remaining at least marginally relevant to the topic. This was a difficult task for me as I have a very limited arsenal when it comes to my ‘uber-christiany face-melting remarks’ stockpile. It’s like I was trying to drop an a-bomb with every statement I made. I imagined myself saying something that would leave him speechless. And then I would jump up and do a little dance and yell out the words of Ricky Bobby saying “What does that do? Does that blow your mind? That. Just. Happened!” Well, I didn’t drop any bombs but I felt like I had held my own up until I let slip a statement criticizing a rather well known (at least in the dirty south) televangelist. You know, the kind that struts around on a giant stage in the middle of a stadium while callin’ down fire and brimstone and sweating profusely on his three-thousand dollar suit as the five gallon collection buckets are making their umpteenth round. The kind of guy that peddles the self gratifying edit of the gospel by reciting the scripture that best serves his purpose while leaving out the rest. He’ll say things like “remember friends that in all thangs… Gawd… works for the gooood… of those that luv hiiim!” Notice how he leaves out the “and are called according to his purpose” part. Yeah, I let slip something along the lines of “that guy’s full of it…he’s probably laughing all the way to the bank, bouncing to some Jay-Z in his stretch lex.” Okay I took some artistic license just then but you get the picture. So I said something along those lines to which granddad responds “I think that anyone who says that he’s a phony is on the verge of blaspheming the holy spirit!” Whatever the hell “blaspheming the holy spirit” means, I have no clue but I’ve been told that it falls under the unforgivable category. At any rate, that shut me up pretty good.

I’ve thought back on that conversation many times. I guess I’ve tried to dissect the words and figure out what either one of us was talking about in the first place. As I think about it even now it occurs to me that we were just trying to one up each other. It was all totally selfish and laced full of self-gratifying motive. Essentially a ‘who’s the better Christian’ contest. Or more likely a ‘who’s the better grandson/grandfather’ contest. I felt bitter because I’ve always felt like I could never do right by him and, who knows, maybe he has the same thoughts about me. Either way, both of us were looking for a little pat on the back. Looking to feed the addiction. I’m talking about self-addiction.

Come to think of it, I’m sometimes afraid that my entire life, all the decisions I make, are fueled by the same ulterior motives. Almost as if my entire faith is just one big fix. It’s like I email God ever so often saying “Okay God, come on down here and lay a blessing on me. I’ve attached a list of options for you. Any of them will do fine. Thanks!” I mean, what is it that drives me? Cause it’s obviously not the overwhelming success of my plans so far. Am I really so stupid as to believe that I’m steering this vessel? I sometimes think that these selfish motives are the driving force behind almost everything that almost everyone does.

Now I want to start off here by saying that I really do believe that ‘it’s all relative.’ I can’t understand what I can’t relate to. It makes me think about the presidential candidates, past and present. I ask myself “Why the hell would anyone want to be president?” Mostly I say this because I believe that legislation can’t really solve any of the world’s big problems. And if that’s true, why would anyone run for president? Probably because they’re working some grand plan of theirs that will eventually lead to what they believe will be a great life. Do you ever wonder if Bill Clinton had it all figured out? He woke up one day and the light-bulb came on and he said “You know, if I can get elected president then I could probably drum up some great publicity that’ll pay off big in the end. Maybe I could get some intern to blow me and then when the country freaks out over it I’ll just play like I’m all remorseful and sex-addicted. Then some day I can write a book about it all and make a killing. Who knows, maybe there’s even a political career for Hillary in it too. And the best part is it’ll only take eight years tops and I’ll get a few blow job’s outta the deal. It’s gotta work! Bill you good lookin’ son of gun you are a goddamn genius!” Okay, well maybe that’s a little far fetched but it still makes me wonder. Why do they do it? If these candidates really cared about the issues they would just lay it all out there instead of dancing a jig and trying to get us all to fall head over heals, right? I don’t know.

Is anyone sincere? What’re their motives? What’re my motives? At my job I’m supposed to be focused on serving the students of the university. Am I really focused on the service? I’m definitely not doing it for the money. But why am I doing it? If I was truly focused on the students maybe I wouldn’t get all worked up when I feel like I’m being mistreated and screwed over by all the political bullshit that we’re all drowning in. It’s just another area of my life where my self addiction is having its way. There’re a couple of people that I work with that I think might be sincere and possessing a true servants heart. But then again maybe not. After all it all revolves around business. It all goes back to money. More money, bigger salary, climbin' the ladder.

So what are the ramifications of all this on my spiritual man? I’ve been thinking a lot here lately about the word “precepts.” In his book ‘Blue Like Jazz’, Don Miller says “I lay there under the stars and thought of what a great responsibility it is to be human. I am a human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan. God is reaching out to me to rescue me. I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved.” Oh Lord, how I want to trust. How I want to be preserved. How I want to live by your precepts.

2007-05-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get this feeling that haunts you for a brief moment. A feeling like 'someone' decided that you should know of this notion at this time and place and forget it the next. A feeling that is so bitter but at the same time so sweet simply because you assume that it couldn't come from your mind or heart, as if you could discern between the two. A feeling that you somehow believe to be true even during a moment where truth itself doesn't seem real. Even during a moment where truth, real or not, doesn't matter anyway. This feeling where you notice for the first time, as far as you can remember, that you are not profound or unique in any way. This notion that tells you that you are a tiny minute being embedded in something so vast that you are barely necessary. In the same way that you notice rain but never an individual drop. And if you did, you might see the similarities. You might think of how that drop was formed independently of the others. Formed from the same source and elemental makeup but still completely alone and without remorse it falls from the same source in the same way. It looks the same and has set out with the same idea of what it's purpose is. It accomplishes the same goal and goes to the same place afterward. But it was never a part of anything. This is a painful thought process. And after you've finished staring at the soil where there was, just seconds ago, a rain drop that symbolized this feeling, you can look up again having already forgotten it all. You walk away with just the gladness of knowing the 'someone' that made that rain drop. Knowing that 'someones' love.

2007-02-08T16:35:00.000-08:00

Psalm 4

Did you hear me? Have you nothing to say? You’re good, I think, and I want to hear from you. I worry a lot these days, but I know that you have rest to give. Do you see my anxiety? Can you sense the tension between you and i? Please Lord, won’t you respond?

Sometimes it can seem like the people around me don’t want me to prosper. Or maybe it’s because they don’t want you. They worship all this stuff as if it’s real and lasting. When will they see? I’ve heard it said that we, your children, were chosen. If that’s true, does it mean that there are those that you have not chosen. I want them all to be yours. To belong to you. I want them to know that I am yours. That you have chosen me and adopted me as your child. That you have brought me into your home and I am safe and prosperous, yes prosperous, here because of you. We talked just this morning, you and i. I rambled on and on about a bunch of junk that must seem pretty trivial to you, but you were listening. I want them to know of this. I want them to search themselves. To be able to take a step back and see themselves as your creation. To see themselves as they choose to act foolishly. To come to know what it is they seek, or even that they are seeking it—seeking you. I want them to find a home in you. A home where they offer themselves for its prosperity.

I believe that they are searching for you. They lift every stone, every earthly stone trying to find goodness. I believe that you are that goodness. Don’t hide yourself. I remember when you revealed yourself to me. Since then, you have flooded my entire existence with that goodness, the goodness that is your son. I know him now and he knows me. He is so much more than any illusions I ever found under any rock. I’m secure now. Safe in your house where I rest.

2006-12-19T15:27:00.000-08:00

Birds on the wire.
Birds on the trees.
Birds are all over.
Everwhere i sees.

2006-11-29T16:28:00.000-08:00

Silent in the stillness, i heard the sound of a distant freight train.
It always makes me think, when i hear that sound, that somehow,
You are with me. And not just in that moment, but always.
It's usually when i'm tired, or stressed, or depressed
or angry that i find myself within earshot of that train.
I sit there in awe thinking "You're doing it again", and i take a moment to breathe
while You remind me that i'm alive and loved because of You.
Thank You for the train.

2006-11-22T15:42:00.000-08:00

Tell me who you are. Show me what's real.
Something thats solid, stable and bigger.
Since i can not see, i have to trust you.
Since you are not me, i feel like you don't know.
But you must know something. Because you are still here.
I can not see you. Show me what's real.