here comes...monkeywrenches

So, I was thinking about how many times I have planned things only to find in the end they aren’t even close to what I originally envisioned. Now, I can be a pretty spontaneous guy but for the most part I like a little order and control in my life. I wouldn’t actually classify myself as a “control freak” but I seem to need more structure and predictability as I get older. The bad thing is about that is I tend to play most things a little too safe. The bad thing about playing things safe and keeping your risk low is that it doesn’t really challenge your faith too much, if at all. If the outcome of something is predictable and known then it becomes boring. There are too many of us walking around in this condition trying to live a life that matters. We try to live like we matter, what we do is important, and become hypnotized and numb to those who are in need around us. I like to say we become the objects of our own attention and affection. Some call that self centered. I have discovered many times the more I try to create something on my own power and try to control the variables the more God throws a monkey wrench into it. I love that term of “throwing a monkey wrench” into something. If you throw a monkey wrench into the works, you ensure that something fails. It usually means something comes to a dead halt. God has thrown a lot of monkey wrenches into stuff in my life. I sometimes just imagine Him poised and ready, wrench in hand, waiting on me to try and launch my “next big thing” without Him. I still always act surprised when I try to do things on my own power and they fail or enjoy marginal success at best. God wants me to be completely dependent on Him in all I do. To do that is a difficult thing for almost all of us. I say almost because there are many people who do not have the luxury of having any resources to even try to do anything on their own. All they have is their faith. The homeless, the orphans, the widows, the hungry, the thirsty, and those suffering that live a day to day and sometimes minute to minute existence. When we become comfortable based on material possessions and that life we falsely believe we have created we become disengaged from those who suffer. We drift away from a complete dependence on God. And…when we drift away and become stubbornly insistent on doing things our way I can assure you that God is getting out His toolbox and looking for another monkey wrench…

heaven is...

My dad took me to work with him one time when he was in the army. I still wasn’t exactly clear what soldiers did even though I would see him come and go every day. I remember that there were a lot of helicopters there. I studied them and they seemed so big and scary. I was fascinated with how they possibly could fly being so big and heavy. My dad walked over and interrupted my reverie and said, “you want go up in one?” I can’t recall for sure but I think I might have squealed like a girl. The ground effortlessly floated away beneath me. I looked down at the place where I lived and it seemed so small now. I got it. I understood the pattern. I could see where the roads went, buildings and houses and understood there was a design here. Maybe this is how God sees things. He sees the big picture from up above and lets the little things handle themselves. Maybe there is this great big design of how things are supposed to work together like a jigsaw puzzle. I looked over at my dad. He had the faintest hint of a smile. He doesn’t really smile too much. He seemed to be lost in some really deep thoughts. I really wished that we could stay up here forever. I thought it would be nice to be able to fly just over the treetops and look down on the world below. Maybe that was what he was thinking about right now. Maybe this is what heaven is like…

"Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto"...

flight to safety...

Everybody needs a safe place. We all need a harbor, a refuge or a sanctuary. Everybody needs that place where they can go to escape from real or imagined danger. This feeling I felt right now was about as real as it could get. I felt an uneasy feeling in my stomach as I grabbed a few random clothes from my room. I had an unsettling thought before turning out the light, what if I can’t come back? What if I have to move again? What if I have to say goodbye again? I thought all that was over when my dad unexpectedly got out of the army. I thought the move here to my other grandma’s house meant I would get to be in one place for a while. Everything was being turned upside down again as we fled the danger into the night. My brother and I and my mom were setting out on an unexpected journey to the safe place. I couldn't’t help but wonder how long I would have to run away from places and people that loved me. I looked at my dad as we scurried through the kitchen. He looked both sad and tired. He pleaded with my mom not to go but her decision was made and her resolve was unshakable. I said goodbye to my dad as if I was going on some kind of normal little trip to go see grandma. But, this wasn’t normal. Nothing about how I felt right now was normal. Nothing was ever going to be normal again. I'm pretty sure of that...

fear of rejection...

“It is not rejection itself that people fear; it is the possible consequences of rejection. Preparing to accept those consequences and viewing rejection as a learning experience that will bring you closer to success, will not only help you to conquer the fear of rejection, but help you to appreciate rejection itself.”

I felt rejection from an early age. I experienced one of the worse rejections imaginable…a son being rejected by his father. I, many years later, finally decided that he never really sat out to intentionally reject me. He just decided to reject life and I unfortunately was a part of it. I can remember always being picked last for things at school, which a kid translated to mean…not desirable, not valuable, and not wanted. Those are tough things for a kid to carry around growing up. I think God designed our families to be places of acceptance, nurturing and unconditional love. When that all goes away for whatever reason we seek those things in other places and in other ways. This is supposedly one of the driving motivations in people joining gangs, clubs, and organizations. We have this primal need to belong and be accepted despite our faults and flaws. I never was a “joining up” guy or a gang member but I certainly had every reason to be. Statistically speaking I had every reason to be in jail or even worse, prison. The toll on society from boys who are fatherless is staggering both financially and culturally. There was a tremendous absence in my life when my dad decided to leave a son at the time a son needed a dad the most. Obviously he wasn’t thinking much about that. He was only thinking about his pain which still feels awfully selfish. As a result, I adopted an attitude that nobody would ever leave me again…no one would ever walk out on me. So, growing up I did the leaving, I did the walking and I did the quitting. Although I far from understood it at the time, for many years I took on a “victim mentality”. The regrettable consequence of this is you live your life with low expectations, low effort and always fear potential rejection in everything. In effect you imagine yourself unlovable and this affects every relationship you have. It affected my relationship with God. I ran away from Him. I was afraid. I didn’t feel worthy. Nobody wanted to pick me for their team. I was always the last guy left standing who got picked by virtue of being last. I didn’t think God was any different. It took a long time for me to figure out I was wrong on that one…boy was I wrong.

a really cold dinner...

My mom seemed to be unusually on edge as we ate dinner. There wasn’t a whole lot of talking going on around the table but there sure was a lot of looking. I lost my appetite and just moved my food around on my plate. I was on high alert now and watching every little thing going on around me. I watched the muscles in my dad’s jaw clench and release as he slowly chewed his dinner very methodically. I heard my mom’s foot tap nervously on the dining table leg. It seemed to be tapping out some type of primal sos message. My mom finally told me and my brother we could leave the table and that was a relief. We went into the living room, plopped down and stared blankly at the television. I could hear the soft mumbling conversation going on in the kitchen. I closed my eyes. I imagined myself to be anywhere but here. Anywhere. But, I was here and was reminded of that when the voices became a little sharper out in the kitchen. My mom suddenly pushed back from the table and jumped up from her chair. She came in the living room and said, “go get some clean clothes…we’re going to Grandmas.” I stole a glance at my dad on the way to my room. He was sitting at the table just looking down at his food with his fork in his hand. I knew that this trip to Grandma’s house was just another name for going to a safe place.

There is much suffering in the world - physical, material, mental. The suffering of some can be blamed on the greed of others. The material and physical suffering is suffering from hunger, from homelessness, from all kinds of diseases. But the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, having no one. I have come more and more to realize that it is being unwanted that is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience.

we were soldiers...

My dad was a soldier. I remembered that we always seemed to be moving around a lot. That was both good and bad for a kid because it seemed I was frequently saying goodbye to someone. I don’t actually remember how of if we were ever officially told that we were moving again. It all just seemed to happen so fast. The packers would come in, box everything up, load up the moving truck and away we would go. I really did get tired of saying goodbye. The good thing was there were always a lot of kids with dads in the Army at our new homes so we really didn’t have too much trouble making new friends. It was just that they never seemed to last. I was a loner. I gravitated to kids in my neighborhoods but not by choice. Mostly they just seemed to find me and they were in the same boat so it all worked out. I remember how hard my mom always tried to make and keep things normal as possible. I knew that my dad got up in the morning, went to where soldiers go to work, came home, ate dinner and then bed. Every now and then we did some fun stuff like go on vacation or go see grandparents. My mom would take me and my brother to church and insisted on vacation bible school every summer no matter where we were living. Vacation bible school was great. I learned how to make lots of things out of popsicle sticks. I learned about Jesus and His dad, God. I remember He didn’t seem to be much like my dad.

Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Injustice can be eliminated, but human conflicts and natural limitations cannot be removed. The conflicts of social life and the limitations of nature cannot be controlled or transcended. They can, however, be endured and survived. It is possible for there to be a dance with life, a creative response to its intrinsic limits and challenges. Resistance to oppression is often based on a love that leads us to value ourselves, and leads us to hope for more than the established cultural system is willing to grant ... such love is far more energizing than guilt, duty, or self-sacrifice. Love for others leads us to accept accountability (in contrast to feeling guilt) and motivates our search for ways to end our complicity with structures of oppression. Solidarity does not require self-sacrifice, but an enlargement of the self to include community with others.

our Father...

There were so many things I didn’t understand about that day. I certainly didn’t understand that there was a real big difference between my earthly father and my heavenly father. I must have said, “our father, who art in heaven”, dozens of times but I guess I never thought about the fact that He was really there, watching and protecting and intervening when necessary. Another thing I didn’t understand was that He was on as high alert as I was right now sitting in this car waiting and watching every car go by. I silently prayed in my own simple and unsophisticated way, “God don’t let my mom come by here.” We sat there for what seemed like an eternity to a couple of kids. It was made worse by the stone faced silent dad watching up the road for moms’ car. “Well, I guess we must have missed her” he finally said with a sigh as he started up the car and pulled back out on the road. As the house came into view, I saw my mom’s car sitting in the driveway. I could feel the breath being sucked out of my chest and the tears well up in my eyes.

To hope...perchance to dream...

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places -- and there are so many -- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.-Howard Zinn

Am I my brothers keeper?...

Am I my brother's keeper? ... Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe myself. It is when you have done your work honestly, when you have contributed your share to the common fund that you begin to live. Then, as Whitman said, you can take out your soul; you can commune with yourself; you can take a comrade by the hand and you can look into his soul and in that holy communion you live. And if you don't know what that is, or if you are not at least on the edge of it, it is denied you even to look into the Promised Land. - Eugene V. Debs

Dreamland...

It felt like a dream. I am sitting in the front seat and my brother is in the back. We are quiet, watching my dad for clues as to where we are going . He is staring straight ahead hands griping the steering wheel and driving very determined. I slowly rolled down the window. I felt really queasy all of a sudden and the feeling was made worse knowing I dare not ask him to pull over. It was clear we were on some kind of crazy predetermined mission. My brother sat quietly, staring absent mindedly out the window, as if he was out for a drive to the store or something. I still was searching through my mind for clues as the car slowed and my dad backed us off the highway and parked at the beginning of someone’s long country driveway. We were now sitting facing out onto the road that my mom would soon use on her way home from work. My dad sat rigid and silent staring straight ahead. He lit a cigarette and looked at me and said, “we’re just gonna wait for your mom to come by.” I just didn’t understand it until later, very much later, that Gods hand was on me that afternoon while sitting and waiting for evil to have its way.

Fear...

It was just a day. It was a day like so many other days. Totally unremarkable. Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast and go to school. But, this day felt different when I came home. There was a palpable tension in the air when I came in the house. Even a thirteen year old boy who is normally immune from the emotional weather in his house felt a big, a really big storm brewing. Even at thirteen you have a survival instinct that activates itself. I think it is Gods way to give us an ever so slight advantage over the devil. There’s this little voice we hear in our heads at times of imminent danger and we respond accordingly and most often automatically. My dad was sitting silently in the living room watching the television. I just got home from school and I started for my room and he turned his head and looked at me. It was not a look I recognized and it didn’t feel welcoming. The tiny voice in my head began to speak, ever so softly, “something’s wrong…time to go back out…”. I could feel my stomach flip as I scanned for clues as to what would come next. He got up, shut off the television and said, “Go get your brother, we’re going for a ride.” I am just standing there thinking that my brother was the smart one for not coming in the house after shool. “Ok, where we going?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. “We’re gonna ride up the road and wait on your mother to get off work”, he said. I started out to go and get my brother and that voice started up again. “You are going to meet your mother??” She has her own car I thought to myself. Then the questions really began to come rapid fire. There was a definite sense that something was not fitting together here and for the first time I actually felt scared of my dad.

The "least of my brethren" are the hungry and the lonely, not only for food, but for the Word of God; the thirsty and the ignorant not only for water, but also for knowledge, peace, truth, justice and love; the naked and the unloved, not only for clothes but also for human dignity; the unwanted; the unborn child; the racially discriminated against; the homeless and abandoned, not only for a shelter made of bricks, but for a heart that understands, that covers, that loves; the sick, the dying destitutes, and the captives, not only in body, but also in mind and spirit; all those who have lost all hope and faith in life; the alcoholics and dying addicts and all those who have lost God (for them God was but God is) and who have lost all hope in the power of the Spirit.

Mother Teresa

Chapter One...

“Whaaaack” The handle of the rake came swift and hard across the back of my legs. I am a little embarrassed to say this is one of the things I remember best about my dad. Yeah, he had a real bad temper. I never knew why or when it would come. It would just boil up like a storm on a summer day. The swiftness and the randomness of the triggering events were always hard for a son to understand. I was just a goofy little kid who wanted to be loved and make my dad proud of whatever thing I tried to do to please him. There was just no pleasing him, though. I tried to pretend it was my fault and that way I could least share some of the responsibility for my assorted punishments. But, even that gets old especially as you get older and start to be able to figure things out a little better. There is a lot of cause and effect in operation when you are a kid. You aren’t able to discern the intricacies of how a mind works and what could be the unspoken cause to get the back of your dads hand across your face. That’s probably the way God planned it so we wouldn’t entirely give up on our parents being able to love and protect us. We always came back for more, unfailingly and unflinching and just hoping. Our hope turns into stubborn determination as we get older and we believe that we can change them. We believe if we could find this elusive thing, just out of our reach, then we would be loved. So here begins the original faulty paradigm that I will operate out of for many years to come and that gives way to the paradox that becomes my life. That paradox, in a nutshell, is I have always been searching for something or someone external to ourselves for our sense of worth and happiness. This is such a primal lesson learned and we receive it in many different ways. Some of us are molested, devalued, dehumanized and abused in so many different ways. Where the conflict comes in, at such a basic level, is that someone who loves me is supposed to take care of me and nurture me and not violate my trust to do that. I guess I finally decided, after many years, some people just don’t have the capacity for that no matter how hard we wish or hope or pray.