The Ear of the King

 

For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. 2 Cor 5:13

She dances on the corner, boom box in her grip,

Grape-Crush carton she wears as a cap,

Folks think we’re like the former, when prayer is on our lips,

As bent-kneed we stand in the gap.

Hard not to feel crazed like that,

To believe that prayer has clout,

Pleading for the church in Nigeria,

Or healing for grandma’s gout.

Don’t try calling Elon or Billy Gates,

They don’t give a damn,

Instead try Him who purchased you,

Who sits at God’s right hand.

You get that call, the tests come back,

It’s cancer rattling your bones,

There is one who calls you friend,

Yet sits on Heaven’s throne.

The failure you face-it’s so bad,

You’d rather amputate a bone,

If a child asks her father for bread,

Why would he give her a stone?

We wonder if He’ll answer, still we persevere,

A beggar’s cardboard sign on a string,

It’s a post-modernist age, “You do you, maybe He’ll hear,”

But we have the ears of the King.

Let Us Be Deliberate

 Getting sliced open for spine surgery is much like Adams’ experience in Eden. You both are put to sleep not knowing what waits for you post-op.  You both wake with less bone. Adam gets the perfectly paired partner and you got eight titanium screws. The big picture outcome for both operations is a flourishing life.

No nature or nurture debate for these two. The opportunity for Adam and Eve was for exponential development. Basking in God and nature the world was theirs. They could be their full selves. We on the other hand (thanks in part to those two) struggle to integrate soul and spirit. Increasing in soul formation and personal flourishing is always a battle.

“We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land,’ is a chorus from Godspell. The ground for growth is always available. The internal decision to flourish or atrophy (life on cruise control is an illusion) is one made minute by minute. I’m entering into a season of that choice now. Some days I don’t work the croft and the crop suffers.

In the face of death let us be deliberate. The seasons come with challenge; children, money, sickness, depression, celebrations, birthdays and weddings. Flourishing means showing up for surgery. Searching for openings and walking through them. Per Pressfield,  “We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become.”

Photo by Wim van 't Einde 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.”

Wisdom For Taking The Next Step

Many a questioning, many a fear,

Many a doubt, hath its quieting here.

Moment by moment, let down from Heaven,

Time, opportunity, and guidance are given.

Fear not tomorrows, child of the King,

Trust them with Jesus, do the next thing.

My brother-in-law is in crisis. Flying in to sit with his mom in hospice. Seeking space from his impending divorce and dying dreams. Sharing with him thrusts memory back to my own divorce and the dying of my parents. The question he asks: What to do next? The short answer—do the next thing. The next right thing, though, doesn’t happen in vacuum.

Knowing the next thing to do requires a framework. In pain, with raging emotion ranging down-up-and down again, clear thinking is hard work. In the anger I felt at my wife for forcing me out of the house, for breaking trust, I could have made terrible decisions. Framework saved me. I’d cultivated a handful of deep male relationships. I had vowed to live in biblical context; to seek peace, hope and joy. Framework is crucial.

Process and planning aid in the process. Some days “doing the next thing” meant getting out of bed and going to work. I wanted to roll into a ball or spend the day brain dead with eyes on a screen. Mercifully windows of peace and sobriety would open up for hours or even for days. Those are good times to translate framework into planning. However you best do it; excel spreadsheet, pen and paper, text messages whatever works; do it!  What are the next steps necessary to get a job?  What can I do to communicate commitment to my loved ones. Do I need to (figuratively) take an axe to anything (this question is best asked in a sober, peace filled frame of mind). Taking this step may shorten the periods of despair. 

Let people speak into your life. This requires humility. Telling them to take a hike negates this step. Go back to step 1. Not everyone gets to give counsel.  Only those you trust.  Those friends and professionals you’ve given access to your soul and guts. Listen. Process. 

Gaining traction in crisis requires work, fortitude, perseverance. Doing the next right thing is not easy. We all know that soul that took short-term shots without looking at the big picture; no framework, no process, no community. The ship-wrecks, train-wrecks, the Breaking Bad. Coming through victorious requires more but starts simply: do the next thing. 

Photo by Gabriel on Unsplash

Burning Bushes, Revival And Rest

Vacation week couldn’t come fast enough. I arrive at this week tired of working.  Tired of people.  Tired of me being tired of people. Tired of all the little things that bug me when they shouldn’t.  But they do. Road-tripping to Utah. Leaving humid beach-cold for dry summer hot. Hoping God would speak. Looking for revival.

No burning bushes. In red rocks, in rushing water, slot-canyons and slick sandstone God’s work is evident. My soul finds rest in nature as always. Replenished joy in desert driving; long talks with the wife. Coming alive through stair-stepping hikes and slow-river walks on slippery rocks upstream. Heat feeling good. Invigorated but not energized for work; for people, for little-foxes that spoil the vines.

Home through arid one-grey-colored desert to attend the sons’ Indian-themed engagement party. To see on my newsfeed that Anthony Bourdain is dead. A post on Facebook tells me cancer took a high-school friend. The miracle of dating; the dire end of depression.

My father had his dark days. He once told me that sunrises motivated him to live. I am fortunate to delight in sunsets (sunrises come too early) and the glories of nature. Laughing with family and friends is a well of the purest water for me. This confluence wets my tongue for more of life.  No burning bush?  Perhaps the fire was there all along.