Gettin' Clean

Clean - Day 1

Today is the first day of the Miller family's attempt to detoxify.  

2012 was a terrible year for my health.  My seasonal allergies just about killed me - weird symptoms: short of breath and aching chest (kind of like what I would imagine an impending heart attack), extreme fatigue, dizzy and light-headed, anxiety like I've never known before (racing brain, jumbled, incomplete thoughts, inability to concentrate, etc), cold, tingling extremities, sensitivity to light and general emotional malaise.  I spent much of the year just surviving - hoping no one would notice.  

It's Gotta Be a Person

Energy is Not Lovable

What is lacking in the theory that my life force - my soul, is part of a collective, un-named energy that I partake in whether alive or “dead” - what is missing is a personality.  I need an energetic relationship, not just energy.  Someone I know that I can trust and rely on when I have needs beyond myself.  

Thank You Ryan Woods

Thursday Brotherhood

My friend Ryan Woods took a short cut today.  After spending his rich life generously, graciously and with much humor and honesty - He left.  Too soon for those that knew him even a little.  He raised the bar for the rest of us and kept the angels laughing and scratching their beards.  I will miss him and I am terribly sad for Jess and their kids but God is good and he will love them well.  

Ryan laid it all out.  He risked nearly everything.  I’d just say he risked it all but I don’t know him that well.  It sure seemed like it.  In doing so, he secured all that was important and left behind a whole passel of people who at the very least are curious and at most are following him while he follows Jesus.  

How To Feel Jesus In Some Not-So-Simple Steps

It’s been a rough summer.  My allergies this year were weird.  I’ve had hay-fever since the summer of my fifteenth year - the year I worked at the Faulkenberg’s, stumbling under a five gallon pack of RoundUp and chopping thistles in the middle of yellow fields of hay.  My hay-fever normally manifests itself with watery, itchy eyes, violent sneezing and unexplainably large portions of uncontrollable mucus that end up spraying with the sneezes and nose blowing.  I’ve developed a skill with this that comes in handy during on runs and bike rides.  Plug a nostril, lean to the side while twisting my head and blow.  Usually snot is deposited where I intend. 

Why Don't We Heal Each Other

Why don’t we heal each other?  As my blog header says, I’m a failure.  While my failing has almost nothing to do with finances or position, the changes I’ve experienced are measurable in those ways.  I have less money and a lower position than I thought I would at 44.  I’m midlife, and typical midlife measurements say I am a failure.

I know, I know, it’ll get better, I shouldn’t worry, God is at work – and look at all the other failures I can minister to.  There is more to the story.  I’m not really being sarcastic.  At least within my sarcasm, I do acknowledge a different reality than what appears on the surface.  I get it.  It’s through the difficult times in life that we are humbled, learn to rely on God, grow in character, and stumble over the important truths we would never otherwise gain.  All that is most definitely true.  Seriously.

Ain't That Simple

It just ain’t that simple.  Life.  It’s complex.  Seriously, and I’m sorry about this, I know I often find some comfort in this effort, but - there really is no way to break life down into a few easy steps.  It’s not something we can wrap our brains around.  If I’m paying attention, really aware of all the different pieces of any experience, I can’t even wrap my head around one event.  In the end, even in the beginning, this is better.  Infinitely better.  Imagine if we really could understand – boredom would overwhelm us.

To illustrate complexity in a simple event, let’s take pounding a nail. 

A Productive Cough

Dear Neighbor,

This is not another quick and easy way to figure life out, yours or someone else’s.  Hopefully, you will not find a list of steps to achieve something or little clusters of tips and tricks in the margins.  If you do find them… beware – they are tricks (not mine).  I have no magical formula to offer and no quick fix. 

This is an invitation.  It is a challenge.  I am passing it on.  It was extended to us a couple thousand years ago by a man named Jesus who claimed to be The Savior of the World.  I believe his claim.  If you don’t already, I invite you to investigate.  Follow him a while; listen to him with your heart.  Watch what he does and how it affects people.  Work shoulder to shoulder with him.  See who he leads you to and what they ask of you and offer to you.  Experience his generosity, his restfulness, his mirth, mystery and his miraculous ability to live in exactly the right sized moments.   I promise, if you are willing, you will be amazed.  If you do believe his claim – do the same thing.  You’ll be amazed more and more again. 

Why I Read

I do not read only to learn.  I do not read to gather facts and information – to hold them and at earliest opportunity, regurgitate.  I do not read or study to capture the world in my mind and define it.  It would be a perverse limitation and I am infinitely limited for the task.

Burn Barrel

His rescuer dragged 

blackened remnants

of last ditch effort 

to the barrel

and stood

with a charred stick

gripped absently.

She pushed down

and down again

into the heat

staring blank

and dry eyed

waiting

for the fire

to rebuild.

Good Things for a Bad Person?

It is a scary place, this spinning speck of dirt caught between the tide of heaven and hell.  When my imagination brings some meaning to the information my brain is collecting, I am so relieved to know I am saved from the terror.  It’s scary to know I am so close and it is so easy, so regular to end up drifting in ignorance, rebellion and abject stupidity into the abyss. 

I am at odds with my base desires when I soften to the strong, quiet affections of Jesus.  But, oh, it is a worthy effort to let go and rest in them.

Is FB Like Coffee?

My two favorite non-eternally significant arguments are over coffee and running.  People say to me, “I don’t like coffee,”  or they say, “I don’t like running.”My initial, knee jerk (emphasis on jerk although I think the phrase is really punny in context) is to say, “well, fine, I don’t like you.”  I realize this is just my insecurity showing itself and I can usually find other reasons to like people even with such glaring character flaws. 

I Ran a Marathon

I ran a marathon.  Rather, it ran over me.  Why people volunteer for such torture, is difficult to explain.  I speak as one of the crazy people who did volunteer.  Though it produced some of the greatest physical discomfort I have ever endured, I would do it again.  I think I will do it again.  Maybe soon.  It hasn’t been that long (3 days) – I’m not ready to make any declarations.  I will do it again for many reasons.  It changed my life.  I will never again be a non-marathoner.  I will never wish I’d run a marathon.  I can stand in a group of skinny, tightly clothed people and nod knowingly.  I have a t-shirt.  Supposedly, we are the 1% (there were signs along the route that said “99% of the population can’t do this, you are the 1%).  I have my own stories of cramps, hills, other runners and murderous preparations.

Interestingly, and I heard this from runners around me on the course also, I don’t agree with the sign.

Internal Combustion 2

This is a grave and dangerous game I’m playing.  Trying again, taking on a project with hope that it will be more than it appears on the surface.  I am playing with gas – the risk of excess and failure – while smoking a fat cigar.  I’ve done things like this before and gone too far.  I’ve done them wrong and gotten carried away.  It is my adopted nature to receive a vision and run too fast with it.  Take it outside the bounds of its original intention.  To make it more risky, I’m involving other people, their hearts and healing.  But I know it can be done well.  I keep getting visions.  I can see fleeting pictures of transformation in my head.  I am reckless with my hope. 

Internal Combustion

My heart is damaged.  It is scarred by loss and disappointment.  The scars offer evidence of their presence with every beat in a complicated rhythmic pattern I have yet to keep time with.  I voluntarily gave some of what I’ve lost.  Some, less willingly, I either accepted or still resist.  I expect my off-beat tapping will improve with further acceptance.  My disappointment withers with the realization that what is replacing my losses is far more valuable to me, far more powerful and life giving than what I’ve given up.  This does not eliminate the scars or their pain, it makes them important, gives them a place of significance and hints to poetic lyrics being crafted into music.

Letter To Old Men

Dear Older Men,

We respectfully request the honor of your presence on the battlefield for our lives.  The tactics of the enemy are overwhelmingly successful.  It is evident that there is no longer hope for an immediate solution.  The enemy’s attack requires weaponry we are not sufficiently able to operate.  We are loosing this battle and many more will, according to the score of casualties, be lost by us.  It is now incumbent, upon those who are able and willing, to inspire the survivors and train the untested.  While this must be done with vigor and urgency, we believe it can only be done over time.  Please confirm.

Score Matters?

Monday Columbian sports page headline reads, “Score Is All That Matters.”  I call BS.  Since I have a BS degree, I can do this.  In the online version a less dramatic title headlined the article.  I like the print version better; it’s controversial, not just informative.  I think it comes from the journalistic confluence of art and fact.  The sports editor also wrote a commentative article entitled “Chance to Win Not Same As Ability To.”  I agree with these titles… in context.  But that’s important.  Truth spoken and agreed to out of context does more damage to faith and hope than any circumstance. 

Beginning Earl

A couple 40-something guys...

Earl

Yesterday, I began a partnership with a 38-year-old truck.  My daughter says he is an Earl.  It’s nearly as old as me.  My friend Brant discovered him after someone else found him languishing namelessly in a field, starved of fuel and rusting in the rain.  After working hard to be a benefit for his owner, who recently passed away, Earl found himself on the sidelines with muddy, flat feet and no where to go… Poor Earl.

There Will Always Be a Duck

My grandpa used to ask me, “What’s the difference between a duck?”  His bushy eyebrows would wiggle and his face would light up with the joy and mirth of this wonderfully terrible, incomprehensible joke.  I would say, “a duck and what?” with consternation and a hesitant contempt for this question.  I was never quite sure if I was missing something.  He always repeated the questions until I sighed, rolled my eyes and said, “I don’t know, what’s the difference between a duck?”  With fluent glee, he would nearly clap his hands and say,

Mind vs. Heart

A little morning sonnet -

Dreary in morning, my mind is bothered
My good heart waits for clearing in the fog
And remembers strength of who I’m fathered
Thinking right barely drags me from the bog

Facing the day, behind unopened doors
Waiting to try and knowing I’m artless
Alone I live safely, inside and bored
What is the key to avoiding darkness?

Surrender must come to life that’s given
Efforts to win are lost without substance
Giving up offers the soul that is riven
The hope on the road that’s laden with chance

Broken heart healed is the only promise
Myself solved in mind is only heart-less



Some explanation -

This is a consideration of where the energy, drive and capacity for full life really come from.

Crappy World

I used to wake up late almost every morning. I would slowly swing my legs over the edge of the bed and moan quietly but with vengeance at the cruel world, “crap.” Every day while I pulled strands of my mullet out of the crusty drool on my cheek I would complain about my sad life that was just starting that day.