Pursuing Your Giftedness. We Got This!

 “Risk is essential. It’s scary. Every time I sit down and start the first page of a novel I am risking failure. We are encouraged in this world not to fail …  We are encouraged only to do that which we can be successful in. But things are accomplished only by our risk of failure. Writers will never do anything beyond the first thing unless they risk growing.”---Madeleine L’Engle

“I’m not good at this; Why bother?” Before butt hits the chair and fingers start typing the thought is there. All of us have heard the whisper. It’s not specific to writers. Every artist, counsellor and teacher is familiar with it. Comparing my craft to others makes it obvious I’m not the best. But I am unique. Is that a reason to do it? Why pursue art? Here are some convictions to quiet the clamor.

You may as well rip off one of my arms or legs. I can’t not write. This is a parameter not a proof. I’ve no desire to be the zoo gorilla flinging feces. You need not venture far to find samples of people without gifts that think they have them! I once wrote 50 Sydney of Australia* stories and sent them to a tour group anonymously! The burning is an indicator.

Hear what the voices outside your head are saying. And yes, could be everybody’s too nice to tell you the truth (see gorilla analogy). Are there objective comments? Early evidence of giftedness? (thanks for the encouragement mom!) All art connects the artist and the aesthete.

Art is (per L’Engle) the small stone tossed into a lake. We contribute beauty to a world in desperate need of it. The biblical picture of donating the widows mite; the talent invested and not buried. Sure, I want “fame and fortune and everything that goes with it.” Conversely though, my soul, and hopefully yours, is fed through every small pebble I skip out onto the water.

To quell the whisper I entertain these other voices. The shout of my writing heart. The satisfaction of the perfect skip of the stone on water; fulfillment of my giftedness. At small risk to self, beauty framed and displayed.

*superhero very loosely (the women especially) based on the Batman genre

Photo by Y S on Unsplash

How Bad The Fall

                                                  

How bad the Fall must have been. If the first cut is the deepest; how great the gash that severed all flesh. Angel and flaming sword separating us. The tale sung in aeons. Angel Eve, can you bring us back to Eden? So sweet and simple we were. Freely tasting all we were offered; unashamed by the wetness on our lips. Flowing as one.  

Why call it a fall at all? Simple bite of the forbidden? So it’s portrayed. No, rather a spit in the face; fist flung in the air. As lovers encompass one another; so we were encompassed by our Lover. Was it the flesh of the fruit I wanted so badly? Oh to know good and evil! How did we not know how safe and secure we were?

Though I love my fellow man it is easy to see the cracks and fissures emanating from that first fist flung high. Broken at every juncture. It’s genetic or it’s the way we were raised. Self-soothing every way. We can barely connect with ourselves. Our children at war to find their selves. The line of good and evil flows into our progeny. Children born bereft of innocence. In search of the perfect meme.

The voice of Abel’s blood crying out, “Can you bring us back to Eden?” the line stretches down the ages as another cries out. How great the fall that even perfect blood in perfect sacrifice didn’t set all right again. Certainly death the most horrible. Yet how harrowing the expulsion.

Aching pain, unrelenting emptiness and a reaching out only to grasp nothing. This is the pain of the first break up. Producing the fear of ever giving yourself away again. Not surprising then how difficult to let ourselves be loved. Though the destination is future we fight healing in the present. We are scarred visibly from that first encounter. No wonder that we do not give to the Scarred One unreservedly.

How bad the fall must have been. Eden awaits. We have run from Eden even as Eden was wrung away from us. Now we are living in this present place. How easy that first laugh; embrace, and release of self. Bending to believe it was all about me. How much work to learn to love. To give of self to another. To come out of darkness. To be loved by The Lover. The fall was great. The adventure into fulness; reclaiming what was lost; the greater adventure.

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

Beauty Saves Me

 I am going to tell you a dark secret. One that’s touched my sister, my daughter and myself. Through us it’s probably touched you too though you may not be aware of it. We have a bent toward depression. By grace we don’t meet the full clinical definition. Often it hovers. Some days it lands. “With a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather, a quiver in my lips as if i might cry, by the force of will my lungs are filled and so I breathe.” I dislike mornings. Daytime motivation comes hard sometimes.

My dad was 5150’d. Late in his life, angry seventy-plus years of it. When he was released, I asked him if he’d thought about God. “No,” he said. “I thought about nothing for the whole time. Nothing.” That darkness, that ‘nothing’ wasn’t ever talked about. Seems he would just disappear. I think it would be easy to spiral, spiral, down. Beauty saves me.

It's why Spotify is a constant stream I drink from. I suspect it’s why I’m an extrovert. I seek your companionship. Call it selfish. It’s your beauty I choose to bask in. Your laughter that brightens the dark. Your shared Instagram memes crack me up. Your insights, crafted-ness and God-given perspective that cause me to gasp in wonder and awe. Silly and authentic. My sober guard comes down and darkness flies afar.  

“I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets,” wrote Buechner. Authors asking questions of the human condition. The Buechners, the Dillards, the Yanceys and Mannings whose anchor chains and mud hooks keep me moored to hope. “Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human.”

Hope In Cracks and Crevices

 Sitting on our couch in a dim, dingy apartment, surrounded by boxes, my wife cries. We are scared and disappointed. The apartment isn’t the one seen on our video tour. We feel trapped; crushed and defeated.  It looks as though there’s no way out. This is a tale of getting out from a temporary tenement apartment and monetary pressure. This is a personal story not national one. Escape through the cracks and crevices of a man-made system.

Dark wood and bad lighting set the mood as we entered in. Dust and dirt in the pantry, a microwave set in its space at a downward slant. Bathtub knobs black from dirt and rust, bathtub bottom porcelain chipped rendering it unusable. A toilet loosely bolted to the floor so it moves when you sit on it. Dark and dinge creep into hearts. Ceiling ringed with water damage and one or two black spots. Mold? And yes, there were bugs. At night. One is too many; more than one in a new apartment is not acceptable. But backing out of the lease was costly. How much money would we forfeit? The painful but difficult answer is two-and-a-half month’s full rent on top of the initial month and down payment.

From my computer in our delightful, bright new apartment, I type. Finding the management company information online I send them a request to waive all rent based on their bait-and-switch. Upon the third email I found out that the property had been sold to another management company. More research. More emails. No answers. We go back to the previous leasing office.

“Nothing we can do. Talk to the previous management company.” They use completely different systems. We are not in they’re system. While the previous leasing company keeps saying it’s no longer their responsibility! Through this all we have got no bills; no closing statement and the system online shows zero balance. We have fallen through the cracks! What a providence! “We can laugh, and we can cry, and never see the strong hand of love hidden in the shadows.”

Lavish Libations

 

Once outlawed, always American with a tinge of sweetness! No single sip started our pursuit. The adventure began on a couch. Streamed, not sipped---Neat, the Story of Bourbon. Novice noses already used to experiencing rich nuanced flavors of coffee, wine and beer. As the saying goes, ‘If life’s not a great olfactory experience, then it’s nothing at all.’

Sonic slushy sweet it isn’t. I once grew corn in my backyard. Fresh corn isn’t like grocery store corn. Flavorful but still corn. Bourbon isn’t only corn, it’s 80 proof, maybe 100. There’s a burn, a bite that bursts in the mouth and coalesces in the gullet. Corn is the key to bourbon, but whiskey is a wider road.

The wife’s becoming connoisseur of the Old Fashioned. I’m finding I lean toward a rye. Friends, waiters and whiskey flights are good exposure. So came my introduction to Skrewball’s peanut butter whiskey! As a man addicted to all things peanut this had to be in the arsenal. Water or no water? Cocktail? Or neat; pure and at room temperature.

What about that whole Christian and alcohol thing? Say ‘speakeasy.’ I’ve fallen off both sides of the horse. Christ followers walk in this tension. Legalism is a list of rules and regs, do this and don’t do that’s. Liberty is an emphasis on freedom in everything. Grace is the over arching principle that we are all screw ups and Christ alone has covered our sins.

Upon dedication of the temple Hezekiah called for whole-burnt-offerings and lavish libations (2 Chron 29). One author aptly states that Israel celebrated with whiskey and barbeque. Paraphrasing the Poet Preacher, “Enjoy bourbon! This is your reward in life and in your toil.” Enjoying the piquancy of whiskey adds accent and highlight to this life. For mood or season, straight or on rocks it flavors life. For the rest of life’s course, always grace, always ‘neat.’

Photo by Edgar Moran on Unsplash

So You Are

 For her and Him who gave her

Not one to dive in I wade in slow. The water is always too cold. Slow step by slow step. Easy misstep on green fungus or teetering stone. So you are. Jagged rocks had left a scar. Still you beckon. Slow swirl outside the mainstream. Wooing. Escape from the summer heat. Selah.

Sliver sun betwixt Birch. Rustling wind, shining silver. What’s around the bend? Quiet? Snow topped granite grandeur? So you are. Moving forward; both impetus and reward. A biting wind blows. To be alive!

Salt burns eyes. Burgeoning heat; the monsoon builds with no release. Heart pounding. Tympany beat on tympany beat, body jarring.  So you are. Breathing escapes me. Air-won’t-satisfy. Gasping. Rock steps pound knee and drive hip upward every stinking step. I’ve been here before. Reward will come.

Time tried, water formed, forged in fire. Standing white; river sentinel. Elements have etched a hammock in igneous. Shelter from biting wind; heat that’s been borrowed from the sun. Stretching out, safe and secure. So you are.

Pursuing Passion

Central to Blue Bloods main character, Frank Reagan, is a poster of Teddy Roosevelt on his office wall. Frank’s key strength, affirmed by Blue Bloods 12 seasons, is conviction that, “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…” Its 6.11 million viewers give nod to the quote. To find your life you must lose it.

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen,” as Brene Brown shares. Scary stuff being seen; being known. I have caverns that conceal all kinds of dark. Fantasies I don’t share. Arrogance always. Ah, Pharisee. Funny thing: when I am vulnerable it deepens relationship. 99% of the time when sharing a struggle others admit their own.

The one percent? My previous marriage. Being seen was used for blackmail. All of us have wounds. Hence the call to courage. We desire depth. With God, with friend. All of us yearn for passion. We won’t get there without pain. “From silken self, O Captain; free thy soldier who would follow thee.”

“Who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming…” I get in the way. There are days that my love and passion for my wife are blurred by selfish acts and stupid detours. My daughter tells me I didn’t hug her enough growing up. Don’t give up-press in! Do what it takes; get counselling, cry out to community, cry to Jesus, cry period.

The story is told of a man who hired a guide to get to the top of a beautiful mountain. The guide told him he could take little to the top; only himself and his courage. But the man said, “I am bringing with me blankets, I am bringing chocolate. I’m bringing fear and shame.” Along the way to the top were scattered all these things. The man never made it to the top. He stopped in the plain half-way up and pitched his tent. Many pitch their tent on the plain. And the plain is so very full of tents.

“if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Jagged Scar On The Perfect Face

That Dodge Dart was everything wrong with my childhood. Powder blue, almost muscle, vintage 70’s. Not blocking garage or front door, parked on the cement driveway under a sturdy, old Pine tree. Ladder for those branches you couldn’t reach when climbing. An easy way up. Sap stuck to your hands wash after wash. Season after season it sat. Dad didn’t drive it. Mom couldn’t abide it.

Pine needles piled up on it in the fall; fine yellow dust falling on her with every Spring breeze. Sitting silent in the periphery. Was it ever discussed? “Hey, what should we do with that car?” I’m guessing dad meant to get to it ‘one day.’ Take her to a mechanic maybe? One day. Money was tight. One day. 

The black mark on the white wall, jagged scar on the perfect face. Deep green dichondra lawn, winding white cement driveway bordered by berry and bush. Mom spent hours in the front yard; mowing, mulching, mending, pruning. Beauty from chaos. Eye is drawn to the scar, the entropized car in the corner.

It wasn’t about memories of family trips in the Dart. No recollection of sis breaking it in with barf on a road trip. I wanted to drive that car. It wasn’t a Camaro or Chevelle sure. More muscle in it then the white AMC Hornet I ended up with. It disappeared with a small chunk of me.

They cut down the pine tree. Too tall, old and close to the roof. A hazard to the house. The Dart vanished. Undiscussed when under the tree, no discussion upon its sale. Obvious in the driveway but not talked about. Hazard to the home. My childhood motif. 

The Cure For That Deep Dry Ache

                                                        Photo by Nikolay Dukov on Unsplash

An internal ache. Same as when I threw my body, rocking self to sleep as a child. An awareness that tangible physical reality can’t  touch the deep heart of me. Propped on a pillow as a teenager I searched books. Of men praying peyote prayers that held no hope. Some self-proclaimed prophets with poetic prose that increased hunger but provided no spiritual bread.

The foray into the spiritual oft meets with meditation. Trying to connect with the jumbled perception of who I thought God was. Damaged and trying to get repaired. Unaware of that at the time. Sitting in quiet with crucifix as focus. A short phase that brought me no closer to satisfaction. Understanding crashed in later.

Driving through the canyon, to find solace at the ocean. How strange to find comfort in that contrast between a sea so immense and self so small. For You fit the oceans into the palm of your hand and hold heaven in Your fingers. Those same years taking long walks on the track at a local college. Praying as Canadian geese fly overhead. Prayer soaring, prayer heard.  

There will always be this hurt for heaven. “Hunger stays,” as the song goes. Bodies ache for water. The hidden face of God is normative in season and circumstance. “I stretch out my hands to you; My soul longs for You, as a parched land.” The spiritual and mystical need not be cracking hard soil. We are promised streams in the desert. Lovingkindness whispers to us in the morning. There is always a deep dryness. It can forever be filled from an everlasting fountain.