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.  

Why You Shouldn't Go To Church - And If You Are... Stop

The institutional Christian church has nearly always been a mess.  I assume there were a few weeks or so after Pentecost where God’s spirit was so powerfully received and the people’s understanding of their (juxtaposed) depravity and blessing was so poignant that they just could not help themselves and they truly lived in love and grace without regard to each others failings.  However, for the most part, from the time people began gathering on a regular basis to practice religion, they have been doing it wrong.  I myself have experienced primarily Christian church so I’ll be speaking from that perspective.  But as far as I can tell, the same issue haunts nearly every religion known to man.  

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 Be A Neighbor - Another Coffee Metaphor

Coffee that truly represents the farmer’s intentions goes through a careful, intentional process.  You may have seen stickers about direct trade on bags of beans (they are actually cleaned, dried and roasted cherry pits).  The claims these stickers are making refer mostly to treatment of the laborers that harvest and process coffee.  Most of the coffee growing, harvesting and processing... process takes place in parts of the world where employees are not required to pay good wages or offer working conditions that we here in our comfortable country would tolerate.  These are poor countries full of poor people.  The idea, particularly of direct trade is that the coffee buyers such as Stump Town Coffee work directly with the farmers to ensure both good pay and working conditions for laborers.  This is reflected in the cost of their coffee and absorbed by all the shops who serve it.  When you pay a bit more, you are sharing your wealth with those who worked to provide that hot, delicious cup.

There is however, another element of the harvesting process interesting to discuss as a thought provoking metaphor. 

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.

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. 

What I'm doing

To friends, family, neighbors & people wondering why I spend so much time in coffee shops but still have calluses on my hands,

I recently accepted the role of Partnership Developer with Go Connect.  I am more excited about this opportunity than any other for many years.  It seems like much of my life has led me to and prepared me for this assignment. 

I am working with another local missionary, David Bilby, on a project called Neighbor LinkUp.  It is an interactive, Internet database that connects volunteers with the people and projects that need them.  Our mission is to fight against all forms of isolation, illness and poverty by connecting generations relationally to meet practical needs. 

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.

Top 5 things that make you a legit "runner" (besides running)

Running Alone - better or worse?

1.  Tell Injury Stories: 

a.  Find logical places runners congregate.  This can be nearly anywhere except buffet restaurants. 

b.  Look for shoes and race shirts.  

c.  Meander over and stand around in your running gear looking nonchalant.  If running gear is unavailable, try to look like you have a low heart rate and a high VO2 max. 

d.  When congregating occurs, blend in with group and nod sympathetically when they start telling training injury stories.  Don’t worry; you won’t have to wait long for this. 

e.  Now this is a critical move that requires preparation.  It may be best to practice in front of a mirror while recording on your iPod.  When a break comes, chuckle knowingly and launch into your injury story.  Word of caution, you must tell the story as if happened in the distant past.  Whether you say so or not, you must leave story-telling buddies with the impression that you healed and learned from your training mistakes and everything is now back to normal.  In fact you are stronger.  Do not expose current weakness – they are like jackals!  You will be de-legitimized faster than you can open a tube of Gu.

7 Great Sayings?

Consider well...

Just joking.  What I really think is that these are seven common sayings that could use a bit more consideration. 

It can be observed that, sometimes, these statements are not true.  In the great and wonderful created world we live in, someone set up some rules.  They are always true.  According to this logic, if something is true in part, it will be true as a whole.  If it is false in part, it is probably false as a whole.

Most of these statements are not rules, they are assumptions made regularly with less consideration than warranted.  Rather than ranting on my soapbox and incurring wrath for my overly dramatic treatments, I have a question to follow each.  Just consider them a bit.  Maybe they aren’t that obvious. 

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. 

Non-Profit?

My daughter asked me yesterday what to tell people when they ask, “what does your dad do?”  It’s not the first time she’s asked that.  It was an easy question for most of her life.  He’s a contractor… slot filled, box checked, identity neatly secured.  If I trained her right, and I did, her answer might even produce a lead for a job. 

For the last few years, no one really knows what I do.  Including me.  I have been busy enough.  I think I’ve avoided apathy entirely and hope I’ve dodged lazy and good-for-nothing.  It’s just that my answer to, “what do you want to be when you grow up,” has been inconveniently interrupted by the growing. 

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.

Shoe Armor

 It’s all about the shoes.  At least for me, this time, the shoes were the critical factor. 

I am a runner.  I am not a fair weather runner.  I am not a competitive runner.  I run to be outside, to pray, to live well, to think clearly and to know that I can run.  I catch myself, sometimes, watching my feet change places rhythmically - hypnotic forward momentum.  It’s amazing to watch my body adapt to longer faster distances.  I love country roads and the frogs croaking, crickets chirping while the trees turn dark against the wide color changing sky.  It makes me chuckle and holler with unbridled, happy energy. 

A while ago, I got a new pair of wrong shoes.

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.

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.

A Moment Finally Came

A moment finally came, ending the anticipation and cleaving my old life away in a violent chop.  For months, dread grew within me, eating at my soul and generating an insatiable hunger.  The odor of this coming moment had stunk up the air around me as I struggled against the inevitable.  I kept busy producing checkmarks for the mundane.  I expended myself with heroic efforts to ward it off.  Sometimes it enveloped me at my desk or in my truck.  Even outside, slinging words through the phone in the clear fall air, it cascaded over me like a deluge of wet, sticky sludge and pooled in a chunky, rank pile of demise causing goo.  It immobilized me.

Quitter

Quitting.

Adequate if not ideal fodder for Monday morning considerations before stumbling from bed. Quitting that is. Quit the demanding and uncomfortable exercise program since it means I have to get up RIGHT NOW. Quit shaving, showering and perhaps brushing my teeth in the morning for the same reason. Quitting my job so I have more time for exercise and Facebook and then it doesn’t matter when I shower or what my breath smells like. For me, it’s not an issue of cavities – I’m genetically resistant and I eat a lot of spicy food. I’m safe. Its just halitosis I’m concerned with. If I stay in bed long enough, everyone leaves except the dogs and the smelly breath playing field is pretty level.