Intimacy---Sometimes I Say Things Trembling

My wife has seen me naked-emotionally.  We’ve shared card we’ve held close for a long time.  There are two sides to intimacy.  Ideally there are two people (at least).  It opens doors to closeness.  Used against you it will rip you right open.

Marriage is an intimate institution.  It’s difficult to get around that.  You’re going to see stuff; you’re going to share stuff.  In my first marriage I shared too much.  Being honest; seeking intimacy only lent fuel to the fire.  Sharing flesh and bone; one doesn’t expect the same sinew to be used as a weapon.

In this, my second marriage, God has flipped everything that was wrong with my first to be as it was intended.  Sharing intimate secrets and being vulnerable (not always intentionally) have brought greater intimacy and depth.  Safe and secure in commitment allows us to go deeper.  Don’t get me wrong—it’s still scary as heck.  Sometimes I say things trembling.

Relating to God should be intimate as well.  He already knows my every thought, right?  But how do I live that out?  When I’m stumbling in darkness, when my thoughts cause me shame---I can share with God.  When food or sex or life makes me laugh—I can share with God.  I delight in that intimacy.  It too is a safe place.  Though yes---sometimes I say things trembling.

We live in a guarded world.  So much time is spent shining the outside of the container while inside, Jesus said, its full of rot and death.  To live honestly means we live intimately.  The problem is the same as my first marriage.  This world is not a safe place.  I don’t know how to do it apart from Jesus.  Heck; many followers of Christ play it safe and fake too.  Christ makes it possible.  Though it still takes an act of will.  He is steady-I lean on Him.  Though yes, sometimes I say things, and oh, oh, I’m trembling.

Wine Growing In Community

“On that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine,
and the hills will flow with milk.
All the dry stream beds of Judah will flow with water.
A spring will flow out from the temple of the Lord,
watering the Valley of Acacia Trees.”

“…the trees said to the grapevine, ‘You come and be our king!’ 13 But the grapevine said to them, ‘I am not going to stop producing my wine, which makes gods and men so happy, just to sway above the other trees!’”

Wine doesn’t flow from rivers or drip down from trees like maple syrup.  Producing good wine is an art form; an intricate process beginning with grape stock and ending in the bottle on your counter.  Wine Folly identifies five basic steps in the process: pick the grapes, crush the grapes, ferment the grapes, age the wine and bottle it.  They leave viniculture out of the picture altogether although without the vineyard these five steps won’t happen.  Beyond all this---without a gifted vintner cultivating in community---quality wine doesn’t occur.

Wine makers along California’s Central Coast continuously cite collaboration as key to the final product.  How do you do it?  My wife and I asked the same question at different wineries.  The surprising answer was that each relies on the talent and gifts of others to bring together their desired wine.

Wine producing is crazy expensive!  There’s the cost of the crop, the harvest and publicity---to simply name three.  A 2007 article “estimates are that it costs $70 to $275 per acre to machine harvestgrapes (not accounting for the cost of a machine, which can range from $150,000 to $300,000). Picking by hand, which takes much longer, can run to $750 per acre at super-premium properties.  A fascinating article on mechanical harvesting states, “For a used self-propelledmachine with gentle picking rods the unit costs are between $85,000 and$200,000.  There is a transportation cost to deliver the unit; and a trailer to transport the harvester will need to be purchased.  The height of the harvester requires a special drop trailer that can easily run $10,000.  In addition to the purchase costs, there are also annual costs.  It is assumed 300 acres would need to be harvested in order to reach a pay-back position on the unit.”

A winery owner in Avila Beach shared with us that they co-op with other wineries to pay for and use the Harvester.  Another owner (from a group of owners invested in one winery) communicated that for some of their wines they use portion of someone else’s vineyard---which they have complete control over---rather than having to own the entire vineyard.  Finally, the wineries on Highway 46 in El Paso (46 East) have banded together to promote their wines in a number of creative ways that gains exposure for all of them.

One of the most god-given drinks (We will drink it in Heaven) is often created by vintners working in tandem with so many other players in the wine-growing community.  Why do so many other businesses neglect this type of beneficial network?  And in our individual lives why are we so intent on going Lone Ranger?  Something to contemplate this winter?  Perhaps in discussion with friends over a bottle of wine.  And as you lift that cup think about what it took to bring it to you.

The Lead Singer

You know I’m a fan of the band Third Day.  They downsized in 2008 when guitarist Brad Avery left the group.  With the loss of Brad they lost an edge.  He was only one of their guitarists; not their lead singer.

Hawk Nelson did it.  REO Speedwagon, Journey and The Newsboys all did it with great success.  The Christian band Sanctus Real will probably let us know today.  Each of them has changed lead singers. 

In so many ways the frontman is the band.  Quick think Maroon 5!  You thought Adam Levine, right?  Queen?  Freddie Mercury.  The Stones?  You get it.  Each of these lead singers imbued the band with their unique sound.  Beyond the sound their worldview and personality saturates each melody the band plays.

The gestalt is the musical group.  How that comes together is driven by the lead singer whom is usually also the lead songwriter.  Listening to Jars of Clay; beauty and angst have their fulfillment in the voice of Dan Haseltine; but it’s the individual pieces that create the whole.

Finally it’s the sound.  When I hear Peter Furler I know it’s The Newsboys (okay, okay he’s done solo stuff—but you know what I mean).  When you hear U2, the guitar rhythm and Bono are unmistakable.  It’s a whole package.  Until you change it.

I’m glad Sanctus Real will keep performing and writing music.  It just won’t be the same without Matt Hammitt.  Perhaps they could call themselves Sanctus Real Part B (Sanctus Real the flip side?)

Wanderlust: Blessing or Curse?

Is wanderlust a blessing or a curse?  I don’t understand the lack of hunger to explore.  It extends beyond that; music and the arts; museums and live theatre.  Why am I so hungry to plunge into these when others have no interest?  I envy their contentedness—at a shallow level.  I find I am most content when I have calendared the next seminar; get-away or road trip!  Sometimes I wonder if the problem is me and not them.

Am I looking to be filled?  Does adventure equal ego?  Is it all my flesh looking to the next new thing?  Is it topographical ADD?  Certainly there is some synchronicity of personality involved.  It maybe that this tangible want for more is just one side of the coin.

Here’s the flip.  It’s that same wiring (good or bad) that keeps me from being content with the status quo.  Here’s a short list of things that the wanderlust fallout impacts: my hunger for God (“Like the deer pants for the water so my soul pants after You…”), my performance at work (good service should mean pushing for better) and how I date my wife (wanderlust drives me to creative dating.)  Those are some positives. 

So what purpose then?  At the core is the desire for stillness, peace and worship.  Perhaps this is best typified through the words of John Erastus Lester, a reporter and visitor to Yosemite in 1873; 

“To attempt to describe the grandeur of this scene (from Inspiration Point) would be folly; to tell of the feelings of awe, of humility, or reverence, which are here aroused, is all that can be done.  He who tries to believe there is no God is here at once converted in the twinkling of an eye; and his feelings of reverence and veneration, blended with love and beauty force him to a worship at once pure and creedless.”
 

The partial answer---and perhaps the answer in full---is that the quest for beauty is the quest to taste of Heaven.  In the end it remains C.S. Lewis that said it best; 

"These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,breaking the hearts of their worshippers.  For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” 

 

Christmas Is Being Known

I would be dead without hope; “If your Law had not been my delight then I would have perished in my affliction.”  This is why Christmas matters.  It is all of Christ and all of hope made tangible.  I realized early on that I was capable of good things; I have lofty goals and a romantic disposition.  Beauty causes my heart to soar.  A brisk wind stirs my soul and music makes me sing.  I want the best for humanity but I am not deceived.  I do not expect world peace.

I am capable of great evil.  Christ constrains me.  Without hope hedonism becomes my god.  I will feast on food and flesh and never be sated.  Never.  Knowing this about myself at times leads me to despair.  And the world we live in; let’s not even begin.  So much dark.  Which is why Christ living here as a man makes Christmas of bedrock importance to me.

I feel awkward and out of place.  I don’t fit in.  This is my normal experience.  God gave me my wife, daughter and some close friends to make it through.  Christ knew loneliness.  You’re God living in flesh; pitching a tent among humans.  You know what not fitting in feels like.

Christ put up with all the junk that I do.  The selfishness of men and the unruliness of individuals; poverty, hunger and sickness experienced all firsthand.  I live with my brokenness.  Christ sees into the heart of man.  Wicked governments?  He was crucified by them. Sin his stripes. Whores his best friends---you think they didn’t share their torment, shame and anger with Him?  I am reminded of the song by Rich Mullins, ‘the whole world rests on the shoulders of a homeless man; He had the shoulders of a homeless man.’

Christmas is being known.  It is that beautiful mystery; ‘For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are; yet without sin.”  For He is the image of the invisible God…by Him all things were created…all things have been created by Him and for Him…He is the beginning and the end.  Christmas is all about hope.  Being fully known I’ve been bought by the blood of Jesus.  He is with me in my struggles here where I don’t fit in.  He has reserved me a place imperishable and undefiled.  Finally home fully known.  Entering into rest and realizing hope.

This Isn't A Call To Walden

My phone died.  The whole weekend without being stalked, followed, liked or texted. I didn’t wake up to my phone; didn’t check it before bed and went a whole night without beeps telling me someone cared.  My Saturday night was restfully quiet; I went Sunday morning without screen time.  This experience isn’t that unique.  I’ve had a Smartphone for a month.

This isn’t a call to Walden.  There is visual and visceral delight in seeing your life flash in Instagram.  How tremendous to be followed by people you’ve never met; and who cares why they’re following you?  Putting your family photos and activities out there is a sane safe thing to do.  Truly---I’m borderline addicted.  And Facebook is a great mix; pics of kids; prayer requests and political posts.  The knee-jerk is to respond to every half-baked post.  Wrestling with that; grace and light are good; inflammatory repartee---perhaps not.

I’m seeing my phone’s death dimly through this grid (call it a life app) I’m working through.  When all the information and data stream in unfiltered its overwhelming.  Adrenaline flows and stress mounts.  There is no peace.  Doing the things I enjoy (the things that make me come alive) restores my passion.  Life posted and pictures ‘liked’ in Instagram is positive.  Monitoring my walks on Strava ties me to technology while I’m walking up hills I’ve not seen; praying prayers I’ve prayed before.  Tying technology to my life is good.  Getting tied down by it isn’t.

Like Moses-Wandering and Waiting

I’m waiting for my own burning bush.  Like Moses this is my wilderness period.  Moses’ wilderness season is set in motion by his slaying an Egyptian.  My season is due (loosely) to a change in management.  Murder or management God is sovereign over all of it.

Certainly we are all as qualified as Moses, David and even Paul to accomplish some great spiritual work.  The Haystack prayer meeting is said to be responsible for launching the great missionary movement in the early 1800’s: 

“It was Mills' custom to spend Wednesday and Saturday afternoons in prayer with other students on the banks of the Hoosack River or in a valley near the college. In August, 1806, Mills and four others were caught in a thunderstorm while returning from their usual meeting. Seeking refuge under a haystack they waited out the storm and gave themselves to prayer. …Bowed in prayer, these first American student volunteers for foreign missions willed that God should have their lives for service wherever he needed them, and in that self-dedication really gave birth to the first student missionary society in America."  Kenneth Scott Latourette, the foremost historian of the church's worldwide expansion, states,  It was from this haystack meeting that the foreign missionary movement of the churches of the United States had an initial main impulse."

Moses, King David, and Paul; all murderers and David an adulterer on top of that.  We delude ourselves believing it was because they were brave and bold.  Not true.  Moses excused himself on grounds that he was, “slow of speech and slow of tongue.”  Paul’s testimony to the Corinthians was that he was “with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.”  On these grounds I am more than qualified for a fruit-bearing season.  

It’s the disruption, the waiting, the life upheaval that is the most difficult.  Yet Gods’ desire, His purpose, is wrought as much in the forty years of shepherding as in the forty years of wandering and waiting for the Promised Land. 

My own burning bush won’t be leading a nation or nailing thesis to a Wittenberg door.  It may be greater platform for my writing or greater opportunity to minister to my neighbors.  Meanwhile Midian is a harder place to live than the kings courts in Egypt.  I just have to trust in the loving kindnesses and sovereign care of the King.  Through it all I hope to gain the heart of Moses who “left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.”

The Father Wound, Freud and Gods Promises

“The message delivered with my wound…was simply this: You are on your own, John.  There is no one in your corner, no one to show you the way and above all, no one to tell you if you are or are not a man.  The core question of your soul has no answer, and can never get one.”---John Eldredge, Wild At Heart

A change in my role at work, from running a department to being an employee in one has escalated my anxiety to significant levels.  I needed to lose fifteen Lbs. but not this way.  Day after day I make the drive into work.  Physiologically I feel it.  Each mile and each minute closer to work causes some level of anxiety which I am not used to.  This isn’t normal.  I know God’s promises; I recite Philippians to myself---“Be anxious for nothing.”  I tell my soul, “God is with you.”  The feeling does not abate.  Where does this come from I ask myself?

Freud was convinced that a father was responsible for the development of principles, rules and values of society within a child, if the father was missing; the child’s view of his position in society was askew. (Lynn, D.B., 1974).  God makes it clear that a father is so much more than that.  Our earthly fathers impact our view of Father God.  Like Eldredges’ dad mine went missing for most of my childhood.  I don’t know what its like to have a dad that is accessible, supportive and, yes, huggable.  My dad was distant for a chunk of my childhood.  An invisible parent for part of my formative years.  So when God says, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand,” I can’t relate.

There’s much in the mix; Eldredge says part of the yearning of the male heart is the yearning for validation.  You can see that in the father picture, right?  Validation is in a dads’ job description.  When I look at God’s promise in Isaiah 41 I can’t relate.  That big protective, passionate papa that I have in God doesn’t square with the father I had.  I suspect that’s true for most of us. 

I think that is a piece of the puzzle that’s missing.  I am having trouble assimilating the truth of who God is as my father.  When we are frightened sometime we fall back to early belief and experience.  That isn’t always a good thing.  Much better to fall into and rest in that which is true.  The Father I have now is a perfect father; accessible, supportive—and, yes, someday huggable.  Til that day comes I learn to hold tight to who He says He is and let go of that which never was.

Private Lives, Social Media

Lazarus didn’t post his resurrection on social media (‘Puppy is glad master returns to life’). A small circle of friends knew of his sickness.  That same circle grieved at his death, a larger circle was aware of Jesus raising him from the dead.  Still it was a very private and personal event affecting primarily Lazarus, his family and close friends.  We see the world through a private prism and close friends walk with us through our experience.

This prism is uniquely my prism; the way I see the world not perfectly balanced, my fear, paranoia and personality color my perception.  Lazarus had his sisters---and Jesus in the flesh.  His acquaintances may have seen him weeks before he got sick and maybe a month later.  “Hey Laz, you’re lookin good.  What’s shakin?  Anything new?”  Not being in the close group they missed his brutal sickness, his slide into death and his resurrection.  His close friends knew---they were there through all of it. 

The more things change the more they stay the same.  In an age of social media we still connect with others as we always did.  Sure I like knowing what your cat is up to.  But what impacts me—and you---is the time and work we put into personal connections.  The phone calls we make to each other, the hour sipping coffee with one another mid week, the texts that we shoot to each other to find out if we’re still shining in the midst of the encroaching darkness.  That’s the point.

Though my prism is unique; God made you my friend because you see and understand my viewpoint.  Sometimes you grieve with me.  Often you come alongside like Jesus in the flesh; to comfort me or question me---making my perspective more reasonable and realistic. 

The prism can imprison too.  Tempting to pull into myself and give into my view.  That too is why I invest in relationship with you my close friend.  I may need you to pull me back from the abyss.  Its reciprocal.  One day I will be there for you as well.  Meanwhile: you should see how this girl trained her dog to do circus tricks!

Have You No Scar?

“I’m sad to say that my marriage did not survive, and that’s been part of the unmaking that God’s been working in my life. He’s been so kind to me in helping me understand that crisis and disaster and personal failure and sorrow do not have to be something to be ashamed of or be hidden….” Nichole Nordeman in an interview with World magazine.

This priceless treasure we hold, so to speak, in a common earthenware jar—to show that the splendid power of it belongs to God and not to us. We are handicapped on all sides, but we are never frustrated; we are puzzled, but never in despair. We are persecuted, but we never have to stand it alone: we may be knocked down but we are never knocked out! –2 Cor. 4:7 Phillips

When I was a new believer there was something that happened in church.  We called it “conviction.”  The pastor taught the Bible and I recognized that there was a gap between the life I lived and the way God wanted me to live it.  Sometimes I made easy course corrections.  Long term issues like pride and arrogance still spring up like weeds in a garden.  There have been some issues of deep moral brokenness that took me many seasons to realize affected me---and years of struggle to get a grip on. Group counseling was immensely helpful in coming to terms with sins committed in my brokenness; as well as confession and accountability to other men.  “A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again,” says Proverbs. 

The conviction I mention above happens because I believe that the Bible is God’s inspired word. Therefore it has authority over how I live out my life---and the choices I make.  My first marriage ended in divorce.  When dating my second wife we committed to doing it God’s way; so much so that we enlisted accountability partners---primarily to keep us out of bed.

We yearn to know Christ so we embrace His word.  My heart breaks today.  Friends who are Christ followers are unwilling to make Biblical choices which will wound them in the short run.  They choose saving face over deeper grace.  They choose shallow happiness over the abounding deep joy found in clinging to Christ.  Yes we slip and stumble; but we are raised seven times through Christ that He might ever more be magnified in us.  In the words of Amy Carmichael;

Hast thou no scar?

No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?

I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,

I hear them hail they bright ascendant star,

Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?

Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent,

Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent

By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned:

Hast thou no wound?

No wound?  No scar?

Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,

And pierced are the feet that follow me;

But thine are whole: can he have followed far

Who has nor wound nor scar?