Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to camp I go...

Monday morning I leave for camp. This is a new experience for me. This year I'm speaking and I've never done that at a camp before. I'm excited because I really don't have to focus on anything except connecting with the kids and sharing what I think God wants me to share. I'm looking forward to it as a real recharge time. I don't have a lot (any) real requirements of me other than to speak and lead or help with a breakout time. What I require of myself is to figure out where these kids are at, and hopefully help build a bridge from where they are to where God is.

The theme is "Outside the Box: God is everywhere" and the camp verse is Romans 1:20. The more I go, and especially lately, this is what it all comes down to. When I feel far from God or just disconnected, it's because there are spaces in my life that I haven't let Him into. At some point there was a moment that I didn't invite Him to come change, and I missed Him.

I have spiritual ADD.

The thing is, what an amazing trait of God... that He would let Himself be missed. God is more humble than I am. There's something to ponder. So I feel like I'm going to camp this year on top of my game. When I was a youth worker, the weeks leading up to camp were so hectic, that I was frazzled when I got there. This year, I feel like God's been revealing Himself, I'm starting to see Him in places and ways I never have before. Despite having a new little boy, I feel rested and refreshed. I honestly think it's a credit to the whole Isaiah 40:30-31 thing.

So when you read this, when you think of me this week, pray that God will use me. Pray that I don't get in the way of myself, and pray that in some way, something that comes out of my mouth connects with these kids.

Thanks God for this opportunity.

What did you expect?

Jesus and John the Baptist. First cousins, united in mission, purpose, and calling. One was the forerunner. One was the One. In the end, John fell headless into eternity. Jesus hung, died, and woke. In our college gathering, we've been looking at John the Baptist: Barbarian. Shamelessly pilfered from Erwin McManus, it's the clearest picture of what my heart beats for me... and for this amazing group of potential radicals that gather on Monday evenings.

One particular story I love, and am disturbed by. John asks Jesus, "Are you the One?" Jesus response is, "you go tell John all that you see here. Also tell him that those who don't lose faith because of what I do will be blessed." Translated: I'm not coming to get you John. This is your path, and you must walk it. Of course from outside of history, knowing that Jesus was on a death march of His own makes it a bit easier almost to read some understanding, maybe even pity in Jesus' voice. At the very least, a knowing familial sadness that things aren't working out like John wanted them to.

Then Jesus turns around to the masses and does something beautiful. In a rhetorically stunning teaching/barrage of questions, Jesus eulogizes John with pride (good pride), compassion, excitement, and clarification of exactly who and what John is and was. "Among tohse born of women, there has not arisen anyone greater than John. Not Moses or David or Isaiah or Jeremiah. Just John.

But Jesus frames the conversation with the question... "What did you go out to the desert to see?"

That' s the question I think we all have to come to with Jesus. What, exactly, did we go running after. I think I knew when I started. My "experience" was dramatic and, in my context, Road to Damascus-ish. In the moment of my beginning, Jesus made no other promise or claim except that He was the Way. It was enough.

Along the way, though, I picked up on things and added things to the point where I can get disappointed with this Rescuer. I'm like the people of "this generation"

"It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out ot hte other children and say,

'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we sang a dirge and you did not mourn...'"

Jesus doesn't dance. He won't be deterred from what He's doing. He only gives me the option of following and being a part. The question of what I went out to see is worth sitting with for awhile. If I get that question wrong, the implications are far reaching. The reality is that the revolution of grace marches on. In my quiet nights, when I remember well, I know what I went out to see. It's only in the cloudy moments of disillusionment, when Jesus doesn't dance for me that I lose my perspective.

I love that I follow a man who isn't swayed by my whimpers and moans. I love that I follow a man who doesn't let me stay too long in my pissing and moaning, but continually calls me forward. With an amount of grace that I can't begin to imagine... He calls me forward.

What did you expect?

Uncivilized

Last night in our college gathering, we wrestled with the idea that Jesus didn't die to make us nice people. Not that He doesn't care how we treat others (quite the contrary actually) but that Christ's death was more about rescuing us from ourselves and infusing our lives with meaning and purpose than it was about making us good American citizens.

My challenge was to look for ways to show people that God loves them, and to do it anonymously. Our gathering is called Underground because our goal isn't to build a huge gathering with lots of people talking about what God could do... it's to be a group of people who are living in hope of the promise that God's Kingdom will endure and to give our hearts and our lives to build that.

I hope to see lots of comments and posts on here of how these amazing, called out students find God in the ordinary moments of life. My prayer is that God will burst out of the boxes and confines that we've built for Him, and explode into our every moments. Here's to life lived on purpose, with passion and conviction. Here's to our very big God.

Knowing & Doing: Making sense of life, death, and consequences. Or not

So is the experience the only thing that matters?

I would say... yes and no. I believe that most recently in history, experience was sacrificed on the altar of reason. We don't need to necessarily experience it, it's enough to just believe it. I've got the right info in my head, so if it doesn't always show up in my life, that's alright... because I believe right.

But what happens when we make reason (or belief) the most important thing (more important than experience) is that whoever shouts the loudest, talks best, or is most convincing, can alter reality. When we base everything on what we "think," then we're in trouble, because I think differently today than I did yesterday. So simple "belief in", or "reasoning to" something can't be supreme.

But, if we make our experience our God, that leads to the worst kind of irresponsible pleasure-seeking-at-any-cost. If experience is most important, then whatever feels the best, IS the best. If my boss pisses me off, then I'm outta here. Unfortunately my wife and family are the victim because they're the ones who live in the house my job pays for. So simply chasing around what feels best can't be supreme either. What's the deelio?

Like I said earlier, I'm a big fan of experience, but what I'm a big fan of is "QUALITY" experience. I'm a big fan of making an educated step toward the very best experience possible. For me, that means choosing the thing that will yield the best possible results for the most possible people for the longest possible time. I used to follow Phish around the country. I had a blast. At the same time I was failing out of college. It was a trade off. At the time, I traded the "experience" of school for the "experience" of Phish. The problem was I didn't take into consideration the quality of my life as a result of each decision.

By choosing Phish, I was choosing to extend my college career. I was choosing to take out more student loans. In effect, I was choosing to saddle my lovely wife with $60,000 in debt before I even met her. Now I'm grateful for the Phish shows I saw. Honestly, I wouldn't trade them for anything. I learned a lot from my experiences there. But the reality is that my experiences cost me something that I desperately wish I COULD get back. I'll be wishing I could get those loans back for the next 10 years or so. Again, the best for the most people for the longest time.

What happens when you consciously decide what experiences you are going to subject yourself to is that you take as much control of your life as a person can have. If you rush headlong into whatever experience pops up, or whatever feels best now, then you're a victim of whatever consequences those decisions throw your way. But if you choose wisely, you still will have consequences for your decisions, but they become badges of honor, because you decided what, when, where, and how.

It's easy to see that we've killed "Experience." Equally sad would be to kill "Knowledge," in the same way. Better would be to Learn to make the "Knowledge" and "Experience" work together. Grab both. You choose. Life is coming one way or the other. You can choose where you go.

Yin ~ Yang. Carpe Diem.

Here's to you Jimi Hendrix

I've really wanted to start writing lately. I think I'd like to write the story of my time on the road (I couldn't call it On The Road though, that name's already been taken). You learn so much during times like that, when your whole life centers around something like a band and being at a place... it's very experience-centered, which is cool. I think experience is highly underrated, and should be sought out far more than it currently is.

I think what makes that time in my life so cool is that it was probably the very first time that I stopped just thinking about experiencing things and started to take steps to do it. There's a difference between "knowing about" experiences and "being experienced."
Jimi Hendrix had an album... Are You Experienced? The idea is that we've all got some knowledge of things that happen in other places or at other times, but we're not all experienced.

I'm an all or nothing type of guy. Literally years before I went and saw Phish for the first time, I thought, read, talked about them, I collected their music and on and on and on... I could have told you 1000 things that you didn't know that would have made you think I was a raving maniac... but I wasn't experienced.

Then I went to Austin in 1999, and Houston, and Big Cypress, Alpine Valley and on and on and on... I was experienced. All the knowing and the knowledge in the world couldn't have given me what I only got from being there first hand.

So maybe I'll call my book What Jimi Hendrix Taught Me About Life except that it will have very little to do with Jimi Hendrix... actually nothing at all.

Note to self... work on the title.

No rest for the weary

Metaphor is deep. Metaphor conveys meaning in layers, so cursory glances reveal truth and extensive meditation reveal still more truth. Sometimes, though, metaphor frustrates and creates longing because the reality (rather than simple knowledge) of the intended meaning is elusive.

One of my favorite passages in the bible centers around David. I love stories about David. He seems tangible to me. I love his passion and his on-again-off-again excitement/enthusiasm/belief/reliance on God. I love that the ageless God told Samuel that he was going to anoint a man after His own heart while David was still a boy. I love that David surrounded himself with a ragged group of outcasts who became his mighty men of valor -warriors of the highest skill and magnitude. I love that David was the kind of guy who the down and out were drawn to and followed. I love that David was courageous enough to step into the ring with giants, and humble enough to be dissuaded from killing a man by a contrite woman's offering. I'm encouraged by Old Testament typology, because David gives me a handle to wrestle with the humanity of Christ. Not in his egregious sins, but in his loyalty, his passion, his heart...

One day David was contemplating how he could serve the Lord. The young king David filled his days with dreams of how he could do something for this God who had set him apart and called him out.

"I know," effuses our boyish monarch, "I'll build him a house!!" For the Lord of heaven had chosen to dwell in a tent. The creator of stars and galaxies, the dreamer-maker of Leviathan and the majestic cedars of Lebanon had condescended to live among His people in a purple tent so that He could be near them and hear them when they cried in the night. The guileless David, innocent and pure before God, somehow understood that such a great majesty deserved a home, a true, beautiful, elaborate home. An edifice that would speak of the grandeur and glory of the God who was among His chosen ones. But alas, David could not be that man. For he was a man who had spilled blood. A home and a temple for the God of the ages couldn't be built by a man with destruction in His past. (aside: this bothered me for awhile. Especially as a young man, David did God's bidding. He killed the enemies of God at God's behest. It seemed a cruel twist of fate that God would somehow hold this against David. As we find out, God makes it up to him.)

Through a trusted friend and God listener, God passes the word on to David, "I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have destroyed all your enemies. Now I will make your name famous throughout the earth..." God honored David.

David responds in what seems like the only appropriate way, glorious in its authentic simplicity. Samuel simply notes that "David sat before the Lord..."

In light of what God was doing, in the presence of God's denial of David's dream and implantation of one far greater, David sat. He took a posture of rest and adulation.

I've never really understood the idea of resting in the Lord. I don't know how to rest and move at the same time. I don't know how to be on a mission, and hide in the shadow of His wings, yet I'm confronted with just that charge. My constant tendency is to be on the go, figuring that I'll get what I need as long as I'm heading the right direction... so sitting before the Lord is a luxury that I haven't often enough afforded myself.

But with a new baby who doesn't sleep much... I'm captured by this metaphor of rest. I have dreams for my little man. I dream that he will someday be like Samuel when the scripture says, "The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground." There's not much that I can do to further that purpose right now. Jackson's still more at the puke on my hand as I burp him phase. But in the morning hours, when my heart hurts with the lack of sleep... I find myself being drawn to the stories of people sitting before the Lord.

I'd like to sit with the rest metaphor for awhile. I need to spend a little bit of time in the shadow of the wings of the Almighty.

"Resting in your presence, is all I really long for... and I, want to be more like you."

- Rita Springer, "Resting"

Surprising Surprises

Alright, I have to admit... when I started this whole "surprise me" bit, I expected something totally different than what I'm getting. I expected every sunset to be a tapestry of pastels where the houses and development would disappear and the horizon would be clear and beautiful into infinity. I expected the blue jays to whistle amazing grace outside my window and be random $100 checks in my mailbox every other day just because God is so cool and sweet and wants to bless me... SURPRISE!!

Boy, am I stupid sometimes.

Of course, in the midst of this journey has been the best surprise I can imagine. My son Jackson came, and my life is different forever. But that's the segue to the greater surprise... I'm not really that different at all. In fact, where ever I go, there I am. That's what sucks about the surprise.

The greatest surprise for me so far (I'm calling this day 4, but mostly because for the previous 10 days I've been totally oblivious to everything but the baby. I'm holding to the theological position that my 30 day surprise me experiment doesn't have to be 30 literal days. Maybe 30 epochs. You understand I'm sure) has been how graciously and relentlesly God pursues this holiness thing. Today I'm surprised that it's not just the physical holiness of doing all the right things, but emotional spiritual holiness as well.

A great indication of how this is borne out is through this new college gathering that's starting to gain a head of steam. Monday we had our first gathering of the summer at a coffee house. There were 16 students there and I was amazed at their hunger. I borrowed heavily from Kyle Lakes telling of the story of Cornelius and Peter. My point (different from Kyle's) was that both Cornelius and Peter were doing the things that they did (Cornelius was being the devout gentile, Peter was being the kosher Jew) but the hilight of the story was God's infusion and reworking of those things. Cornelius' piety wasn't important and Peter's diet wasn't important, what was important was the way God infused himself into those things and reworked them. My challenge to them to step back and evaluate their "things" and when the last time God infused Himself into those things. If they've been infusion-less for a little while, perhaps (probably) the problem isn't with God.

The surprise came in the hours since. I've got this gnawing sense that I'm heading the right direction, but that I'm trying to lead these kids to a place I haven't gone. It's been easy to talk about paradigms and experiments and radical God-lives. I've also been blessed with a certain amount of charisma, so I can make those discussions exciting and challenging and people may leave ready to take on the world.

But how many of my own faulty, outdated, even archaic God-ideas are gathering dust unchallenged on the shelves of my brain. Truth be told, my theology is too much theory. I need a God-infusion too. The sense that I get is that God won't "let" me be the carrier of this message if I'm not fully immersed in it.

So I'm realizing that surprises require more of me that I expected. God wants to show up in my life, but He doesn't want to show up and leave things as they are. Surprisingly enough, these dawnings in my brain are the most exciting spiritual musings I've had in a long time. These are God-infused moments for me. The implications are exciting. As I walk through these ideas with these amazingly passionate, talented, enthusiastic kids... it's truly a journey together. God's given me a chance to truly be a part of a community of people who are walking with me... right along side of me. That's surprising in its comfort.

Thank you for not just being a God of appeasement. Thank you for not glossing over the uncomfortable things. I need a lot of help, because some of the stuff that's surfacing is hard to look at. There are things that I can't imagine you would want any part of. That's scary because I think that if you don't want those things, then you won't want the package they come in. Help me be honest with you, and give you the things that even I don't want. Let me not miss your call to holiness, just because I'd rather think about your grace & mercy.

What can I say?

I love language. It excites me to think of new ways to say old things and I love it when old ways of saying things are the most clear, concise... the best. So there aren't many times when words elude me. Occasionally there are times when I say it does, but then I typically follow it up with explanations and... well, words.

This time is different. Every time I hold my son, something happens to me and my brain just shuts off. There aren't words, there aren't evaluations, there aren't even thoughts, there is just him. This little miracle. And even as I read that (he's a miracle) it sounds so trite and overused, which makes me wonder (in the state I'm in) if that might be one of those old sayings that is most concise and clear.

So I won't try and tell you how I've felt. What I do want to do is put down some of the ways this whole experience has started to impact my faith. There was a lot of really ugly stuff that came out in the process of my little man being born. I questioned things like why we should pray if the most urgent prayers of the day and moment (in the midst of a grueling 37 hour labor and a very long sleepless night) go unanswered. I wondered what I was supposed to do when what seemed like a hopeless situation truly did get worse, and I didn't have any of the "peace that passes understanding" that was supposed to abide when I'm not anxious and I ask God.

I didn't get answers to those questions. There was a moment - at about 3:57 in the morning after 9 hours of sleep in the last 4 days when the baby is not crying but screaming like his ass was on fire - when I felt like God was enjoying my misery. I thought of God as the cosmic drill seargent, only caring about how He can whip me into shape and make me a good soldier.

He never answered those questions for me. He didn't swoop down and wrap me in His cosmic arms and quote Jeremiah 29:11 into my ear and tell me that all things were going to be beautiful. He continually put me into situations where my son was crying, screaming, peeing, yelling, eating, and doing every single one of the things that I desperately didn't want him to do at the time. And I had to be there to hold him, clean him, feed him, comfort him, console him, and try to get him to sleep. And with bleary eyes in my mother-in-law's house (we're staying for awhile to get adjusted to being parents) I just held this little spastic person who will grow up to make choices and somehow, for better or worse, leave his mark on the world. I love him so much... the speechless kind of love that even now brings tears to my eyes... The kind of love that doesn't make rational sense and makes me not want to make sense ever again... the kind of love that finds me in a hospital room pleading with God not to let me make any mistakes with someone so wonderful and pure. I love this kid absolutely more than I ever knew I could feel or do anything. Up to this point in my life, Jackson David is the sum total of all the good that's come from me.

And at this very moment I am nothing more to him than a diaper changer. I am a bottle holding, binky replacing, blanket wrapping, butt wiping force of nature that is more blurry shape than anything else. He has no way to comprehend that I love him. He doesn't even have a way to comprehend anything but whether or not he's in a messy diaper. I want him to look at me and know, "my dad loves me and he'd do anything for me." But he doesn't think that. No where near that and he won't for many many many years to come. When I have to change his diaper and he screams bloody murder because he's cold... all he wants is to be covered up, and he knows I'm the blurry guy whose not letting him be warm.

So I realized that I want God to be my problem solving, crisis ending dream guy who swoops in and saves the day. When one of those things happens, I shout of his love. But when they don't, I question. The reality seems to be, God's up there with his hand under my chin, trying to burp this convulsing little heap of a man whose barely a week old on the eternal calendar. I can't comprehend that kind of thing. But every once in awhile I get a glimpse of it.

So I sit in my mother-in-laws bedroom typing away. My little man is covered up in a receiving blanket in this little baby papasan chair trying to sleep as dad pecks away. My prayer is that someday he'll have the ability to understand why I have done the sometimes crazy things I do... because I love him.

God still does things I don't like. But I guess that's his prerogative. I wasn't given the option of running the universe. More than anything it bothers me that I'm still so immature in my faith. It bothers me that I still so easily equate physical comfort and well being with God's blessing (especially in light of reading the blog about the trip to Africa). But it helps me to think of Him up there, desperately wanting me to get it. Desperately wanting me to see that there's love wrapped everywhere. The problem isn't with His presentation. The problem is with my perception.

God, more times than not I don't get it. I hate that feeling when I rant and rave and toss accusations at you, and then come back a day later sheepishly having to admit that you were right all along and you knew what you were doing. Thank you for knowing what you are doing. Forgive me for those times when I speak foolishly. Thank you for my son. Thank you for letting me see you in Him. God, there aren't words. In the days and weeks and years to come, may I find more moments where words aren't enough to convey what I want to say to you. Thank you for your grace. Take care of this little guy. Take care of his baby too.