Oh Dear...
I got internet at the office (FINALLY). This is what I come home to. That is the Pastors face photoshopped over Shay. My thought bubble says "I'm so happy to have the internet!" Freakin hilarious. I need to put a deadbolt on my office door.
Somewhere Between Here and There
Another return flight. It's somewhat amusing thinking that up until 15 months ago I had only been on one round trip flight in my life. Now I have been on 7, three of those coming in the past two months. It's amusing thinking that two months ago I was actually quite content being single and remaining single. My heart remained in Colorado and I had no intention - or desire - to relocate.
Two months. I piss on two months. Two pages from a calendar. I have youth group plans through June. Two months is nothing. But it has changed my life. Actually my life was changed the day I discovered Shay - and I knew the moment that I saw her. This two months has been the beginning of the result of that change.
I asked for her parent's blessing to marry Shay. Her mom had a mom moment, and dad said, "Right on," like a classic child of the 60's. Within hours there were SIX pictures of Shay and I up on the fridge, another in front of the computer, and one next to mom's bed. That got me thinking about the significance of ceremonies in our culture. I talked to the parents out of respect and formality - nothing else. If they had said, "No," bummer. Guess they don't want to be involved in the lives of their grandchildren. I knew what they were going to say going into the evening. Yet there was something significant about that event to all the parties involved. Mom was thrilled. Dad (I believe) was thrilled. Brother and sister were kinda like, woah... And for Shay and I, we simply looked at each other with a goofy grin. For some reason it became more real. Nothing explainable changed. My commitment to her is still the same. My love for her is still growing at the same rate - more with every moment. And our intentions together are still the same. But that was a significant milestone in our relationship.
What is it about the significant ceremonies in our lives that hold symbolic meaning? Things like weddings, baptisms, or funerals. They don't make the people involved any more in love, religious, or dead - but they are the milestones that mark the meaningful events in our lives. I certaintly don't understand it - because one would logically think that the cause of the event is the significant moment. Perhaps the ceremonies are vehicles of translation from head knowledge to heart knowledge? What do you think?
Well - my heart may be in Minnesota, but my head needs to be here. Youth group starts in four hours, 26 minutes - and I'm cruising at 36,000 feet somewhere over Kansas.
Reminders for the Heart
I'm officially here in Minnesota for another fabulous five days with my beloved. God bless flexible youth ministry schedules!
I have been thinking about how to write about this since Sunday night. I still don't know, but I'm going to try anyways. The topic of identity was tackled at pierced Sunday night. It is so challenging for many of us to accept our identity from God the "Father" due to the connotations that it raises with our earthly fathers. It is pretty hard to think of God as a Father when the only father that I knew abandoned my family and myself and then committed suicide. The sermon took the avenue that we all know - that God loves us more than we will ever know, he will never let us down, there is nothing that we can do to make him love us more or less, blah, blah, blah. We have heard it all before. I could have written the sermon notes within the first sixty seconds of the introduction.
But I still cried. I knew what was coming, and I still cried.
How often do we neglect and take for granted the core truths to our lives, because we "know" them? I think that so often our heads know these truths - but our hearts are good at forgetting. It's so important to remind our hearts of these essential truths more often than we do now.
More tough topics
My students and I wrestled with the topic of "What does Jesus think about homosexuals?" this past Sunday. Special thanks to JR Briggs for his teaching notes from a couple months past.
It has been fascinating going through these tough topics with a small group of high school students. I have a sign up in the youth room that says, "No Sunday School Answers Allowed." They have done a fine job of adhering to that rule. So when we dive into these tough topics, they open up - and oftentimes the discussion takes an avenue towards the core issues that they have questions about.
High school boys. Talking objectively about homosexuality. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. Their favorite response to anything that they don't like in the slightest is, "That's gay." You could hear a pin drop in the room when I delivered the big point of the study. "Homosexuality is wrong, but it is just as wrong as out judgmental, unaccepting, and unloving attitude towards them." I really hope that it hit home for some of them. I cannot imagine what it must be like for them (homosexuals). Put ourselves in their shoes for a moment. Take your deepest struggle in your heart and turn it into a social taboo. For simply having a struggle you have become outcast from society. When I think about it like that, and I think about the homosexual friends that I have, it definitely brings those thoughts home.
This week I tackle drugs and alcohol. Should be interesting as well. A couple of months ago in a game of "I've Never..." I discovered that at least a third of my students have drank before. That one goes directly to my heart - because I don't want to see them walk down the road that I have already traveled.
On a lighter note, I am flying out to Minnesota to see Shay in 36 hrs, 11 minutes. I'm very much excited - except for the cold of course. I've been wearing sandals and Hawaiian shirts here in Colorado for the past several days - weather that the Southern California boy in me has no desire to leave. Speaking of no desire to leave, several months ago I would have told you there was no possible way that I would be leaving Colorado any time soon. I even considered the possibility of a woman - and my conclusion? She would be moving here. Period. I was wrong. Funny things we do for love.
Men, Women, and Answers
"In this book I do not directly address the question of
why men and women are different. This is a complex question to which there are many answers, ranging from biological differences, parental influence, education, and birth order to cultural conditioning by society, the media, and history." -John Gray, Ph. D:
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
No it's not. It's a simple question with one answer. We were designed differently. Men carry the masculine traits of God and women posses the feminine traits of God.
But that answer does not work for science.
Have you ever noticed how close science comes to explaining so many things while completely missing the point? All those influences listed by Dr. Gray are completely valid - but the miss the root of the issue.
Every Sunday morning there is a "Children's Sermon" which more often turns into "Congregational Entertainment." Before Christmas in one of these the kids were asked what they would like to see under the tree. One boy answered, "A machine gun!" The body burst into laughter as the mother hid from embarrassment. The father was not very involved in the boy's life - I can GUARANTEE you this wasn't a product of "parental influence". Shortly thereafter a girl answered "A pretty dress." Now we know where cooties came from. What a stark difference in these children from the earliest points of childhood!
We in the emerging church talk often about communicating the greatest story ever told to a postmodern culture. We have the answers to questions that society lacks. Yet in the past generations we have lost the power of the story. We ourselves are active characters in the metanarrative of this world. How do we, as emerging leaders, bring life back into this story so that it again captures the hearts and minds of a relativistic culture?
John
Today as I was leaving the office John vaporized in the upstairs hallway of the church. This took me off guard in the first place because the church is locked up during the day. I introduced myself, and saw something in his eyes that I haven't seen in a long time. Hurt. We went downstairs to find Matt the senior pastor and the 3 of us talked for about 40 minutes.
It was interesting seeing and hearing this man. He got hit with a number of unfortunate incidents that sent him from living well to rock bottom in a matter of weeks last November. None of it was his fault. He had needs; food, rent assistance - but he talked about this stuff first to get it out of the way. What he really wanted and needed was God.
He asked
us to pray for
him.
John had a need - he was at rock bottom - and he went to church. He had never been to the church I work at before. It was very encouraging to me - seeing that glimmer of hope that there is somebody in this society that still desires to seek God in their times of depravity. Our need for God is written onto the tablets of our hearts and programmed into our wiring - and it breaks my heart that so many people fill the void with whatever it is that will make them feel happy - and they always come up short.
Pray for John - pray that he finds community and love that leads him to God.
Who are you?
Adam Cleveland, a member of
Planet Emergent recently used this idea with his blog. I love it. I would love to hear from those of you who I know and don't know and see what sort of community we have in this place.
Name:
Age:
Profession:
Location:
Why in the world do you even read this blog?:
If you could take over Campfire Stories for a day, what would you change? (design, content, etc.):
The topic you'd like to see me cover next on Campfire Stories:
Amused...
I find it amusing that I put up the most intense, open, and vulnerable post yet, and the commenting dies. We really don't know what to say when people get deep and serious. Think of those moments. You're driving in the car, and somebody turns the conversation to a deep level. You know those uncomfortable moments? When the discussion dies, and isn't broken until somebody says something along the lines of, "So, Anyways..."
Interesting, eh?
Good luck exploring the infinite abyss...
"For the first time in our lives, lets just let ourselves be whoever we are - and that will be better."
Why do we hide as humans? Why do we live our lives as thespians pretending to be somebody who we don't understand? Why do we wear these masks of happiness or neutrality regardless of what emotion our visage is currently portraying? What went wrong in our culture that made it not okay to be real?
We have been told a lie. We have been deceived into believing that we are in fact normal and there really is not anything special about us. We idolize those precious few individuals in the world who look like they have it all together. We see the people in our lives and we try to be like them so much that we forget the all important matter of being who we ourselves are. Why? Why do we do this to ourselves?
I don't know. I do it to myself.
When my father left in September of 1997 I became numb. I was put through a time that no individual should ever be put through and I didn't even know it. The only way that I could possibly respond was by becoming numb to everything around me. So when he committed suicide on August 10th, 1998, it really didn't matter to me. My dad had died when he abandoned my family. I lost my ability to feel. Numb not only to the pain, but I dulled my senses to the point that I disallowed myself to experience any of the joys of life either. I never let myself get close in any relationship. I bounced around from group to group to group in college. I had many friends, but nobody has ever
known me. I simply wouldn't let them. I didn't want to be vulnerable to the kind of hurt that I endured again, and thus I closed myself off to living life.
How much do we do this as human beings? Have you ever noticed that when somebody begins talking about something so deep and personal to their heart that the conversation dies? Nobody knows what to say! When we really experience life and relationships and love and closeness and intimacy in a community nobody knows what to do. In some aspects we actually shun the vulnerability. These statements are dismissed with comments like, "Wow, that's crazy," or, "Guard your heart, man." Where did we go wrong?
Life is an adventure. Every single precious human life is an adventure. Sometimes when I am driving I will see somebody in the car next to me and wonder what their story is. I bet it is amazing. I drive by a house with a sign that says "For Sale" and a new sign above it that says "Sold!" What is their story? Why did they sell their house? Is it a family? Are the moving somewhere to embark on a new chapter in their life? Is it a single man, 42 years old, brought down by the struggles in life, numbed by the pain of living to the point that he looks back wondering what happened to it all? Every story is amazing. Every individual has a story so unique that no person in the world can truly understand where they've been and what they have experienced. How much different would our communities be if we stopped hiding behind the walls built around our hearts, brick by brick after heartache after heartache added to the mortar until the shadows cast upon our faces hide us in the darkness of isolation? What if we broke down those walls, bore our hearts to people recklessly to that we could experience not only the pains of life but the beautiful moments that come along that make our toes wiggle with gladness?
In the past two months my life has changed. I have met somebody that loves me absolutely unconditionally. Shay is the only person in the world that knows all my ghosts - and she still stands beside me and says "I love you." I don't understand why. But through her I have experienced a taste of what the love of God must be like. The love of a perfect father. The love that we can do nothing to add to or subtract from. This is the start of something big - this is the start of something that transcends my understanding to the point of tears. I don't get it - but there is not a moment that goes by anymore that I am not thankful for this change.
Yet, why when I share things like this, why when any of us share experiences like this are people sometimes skeptical? What if I am wrong? What does it matter? But the walls around my heart are broken down. I pray that out of this scrap lumber and brick and mortar that once made up a protective barrier around my heart built so high that I no longer saw the sunshine of life, something beautiful may come. Not a tavern, but a temple. A home for the core of my being. A home for my soul - my heart.
Our lives are an infinite abyss of adventure. We never really know what will happen in the next moment - and that is the beauty of it all. Let's tear down the walls that guard our hearts. Lets allow ourselves to experience both the highs and lows of life once again. Lets live like Adam and Eve did before they knew right and wrong - completely naked, bare, exposed, and vulnerable. Lets change this world one heart at a time, starting with our own.
All these thoughts came from the movie that I watched tonight:
Garden State. You must rent it. It is a story about life - about hearts - about people being real.
Toward the end of the movie, in the middle of their scavenger hunt adventure, they meet a man named Arthur. He lives in an old boat at the mouth of an unexplored chasm with his wife. He has been hired to protect this vastness and make sure that nobody enters. He said, "I like to believe it has an infinite depth." But he says that no matter what happens, as long as he is with his wife and his daughter, life will be okay.
That is what I want. I want my life to be about love - about the other people and hearts that we come in contact with in the various wrinkles of our lives. I want the walls around my heart to come down. I want people to see me. I want to, for the first time, let myself be whoever it is that I am - and I hope that they see a temple built around a heart that contains the love of something bigger than anything on this Earth - the love of a God that surpasses our understanding.
I want to live.
Quest for Resources
I finished writing my Spring lectionary for youth group today. I will be springboarding off the questions that the students raised as well as addressing some other tough topics. Here's the list, and I want to ask that if any of y'all come across resources that would be appropraite for these topics (articles, books, ideas for object lessons, etc.), will you pass them along to me? Thanks!
Why do bad things happen to good people?
What does God think about...
... Homosexuality?
... Pre-marital sex (and sex in general)?
... Drugs and alcohol?
... Appearances and self-esteem?
What about other faiths like...
... Mormonism?
... Scientology?
... Eastern religions?
... Other denominations?
What is postmodernism and how does it affect our culture?
What is evangelism...
... and what are we supposed to do?
... What are we up against?
... How do we respond?
Lemme know what y'all have/find. Thanks!
The tough questions...
I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth:
And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.
Amen.
We often forget how old our faith is. This creed, the Apostles Creed, dates back to the 4th century, with this exact text dating back to the 8th century. It is the one universal statement that spans Catholic and Protestant, conservative and charismatic. It contains all the essential beliefs and tenants of the Christian faith.
About a month ago a student says to me, "Wait... Jesus descended into hell?"
I hate a smart kid. Just kidding.
I never try to make up the answer. I said I don't know, but I'll get back to you - planning a series to start now tackling all the tough and confusing issues that come into play with our faith.
Basically, the word "hell" should rather be something along the lines of "the place where dead people went". There is no English word that it translates to. The Hebrew word is "Sheol", and the Greek word is "Hades". William Barclay says this:
They believed that the souls of all men, or rather all men themselves, went to Sheol which was a grey, shadowy land, in which men moved like ghosts, in which there was neither light, nor colour, nor joy, and in which the shades of men were separated alike from God and from their fellow-men. Sheol is simply the place of the dead, with none of the connotation of torture and punishment which the word hell includes.
This is further backed up with many scriptural references that talk about Jesus descending "below the earth". Acts 2:27, Phil 2:9-1, and Rev 5:13. Then, the part that really boggled my mind, there are several scriptures that talk about Jesus
speaking to those who were in Sheol. John 5:24-25, 1 Pet 3:18-20, and 1 Pet 4:5-6. Woah! This is where it all comes together - why it is part of the creed.
I had always wondered what happened to those who died before Christ. David was a man after God's own heart, but he didn't have an opportunity to know Christ - so, what happened? According to all this, they went to a place called "Sheol", like a dead guy waiting area or "lobby" as one of my kids described it, and that's where they waited for Christ, 2000 years ago.
Barclay writes again that "
this doctrine means that in this life or in the next all people have a chance at hearing the gospel of Christ." It is not until after a decision is made that they pass either to heaven or hell.
There is so much to this that I cannot even begin to comprehend - Jewish cosmology, Jewish and Greek beliefs regarding Sheol and Hades - you get the idea. This raised up the next interesting point - what about people who die nowadays - post Christ, who never
really had a chance at accepting or denying Christ. I don't know - that is to be wrestled with at a later date. To close up the evening, I asked my students to write down any questions that they had. Anything was fair game - and I promised to teach on those topics in the coming months. It will be a great series, that's for sure. Here is what my students came up with:
Mormonism, Scientology, and other sects/denominations
The idea of people dying without having an opportunity to decide for Christ
Why do bad things happen? (The tsunami has raised much conversation in this topic)
"Hola" - I have no idea what they meant by this.
Lastly, I want to hear from you. What are some other good things to wrestle with in the coming months? Theresa, it's about time you commented on my blog.. :)
Phew! I sure wish CS Lewis was still alive to write a book about this topic. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Hurting Those We Love - Why?
I cannot believe it... in my own house even. Another male kissing my girl.
I have been thinking about the collateral effects of Shay and I's relationship over the past few days. For some people, they have been reminded of when they fell in love - and it has been a source of fresh encouragement in their relationships. This has also been very encouraging for Shay and I - to be affirmed in our relationship when so many others have told us we're stupid. Most of the people I've talked to are pretty skeptical. They know that I've been excited about girls before. They see that we haven't even known of each other's existence for two months yet. We met on the internet. She could really be a psycho (she
is a little weird...). Yet the bottom line behind it all is that nobody has taken more than five minutes to hear my heart. This is especially true for the few that have taken to animosity from the issue. There are several people who are quite upset with me primarily as a result of the last month and a half's happenings. I cannot help but ask myself why.
"I'm only saying this because I love you." Those are the words that people always fall back onto. Sweet. I genuinely appreciate your concern and love. However, why don't you simply hear my heart? Hear where I am coming from? Because I would love to tell you. Explain to you how my spirit rejoiced the first time I saw her. Explain how I have never let myself be so completely vulnerable with anybody since my father bailed on my family 7 and a half years ago, and she has responded with unconditional love. She is the only person alive that truly knows all my skeletons. Yet she has simply loved me more.
So what if I am wrong? Why is it so important for people to tell me how they feel (or not tell me and have discussions about how lame I am when I ain't around) even after I have said thanks for your concern, but no thanks. Is it really that important for us to be right? Why can't we simply love the individual that has fallen down? Why must we be so obsessed with our pride and being right that we push away those who we "love" in the times that the individual only wants support?
I'm sorry if I am ranting here but it hurts when those who are closest to you forgo attempts at understanding you and instead talk about the mistakes that you are making. It sure makes me lose desire to enter into community. It reinforces the wound that I received from my father - you really can't trust anybody. How does that work? In the same season that I am unconditionally loved by somebody outside my family for the first time in my life I get pushed deeper into my hole of solidarity. Why do we as people so often hurt those we love? Why do we hurt people when we have no intention of hurting?
So sorry for throwing up on y'all, but it's been on my mind - and I believe that it is something important for all of us to think about.
Amazing Holiday Times...
Wow. What a couple weeks. I am so overwhelmed and completely stoked on everything that has happened.
I suppose I'll start back before Christmas. Time with fam was awesome - it was good to wear Hawaiian shirts and rainbow sandals again. On the way in from Vegas Shay and I are talking on the party line with Derek and Katie - the 1st Youth Specialties couple. They also met on the forums and share a very similar story as Shay and I. Katie lives in So Cal, about 15 minutes from my mom's house. So before I go home, Katie is at the Wal Mart just down the street from where I grew up and I ambush her there. Never met her in my life. It was fun - goofing off at an overly crowded Wal Mart with somebody who shares a similar story as myself. God bless the connections of the spirit and within the community of ministry.
Christmas was good. It was fun telling family about Shay. (Can you see a recurring theme in my thought processes?)
I left Cali the afternoon of the 26th with an old friend who is like a sister to me. 6 and a half hours later we arrived in Vegas. Within an hour of that my old roomie from college Dave Torstensen, Kristin, myself, my brother Jared, and my buddy Casey were getting into a stretch excursion limo in front of the Sahara. Dave lives in NYC and was home in Nevada for Christmas. We went to the Ghost Bar on top of the Palms (gorgeous place) where Kristin (literally) ran into Kevin Spacey on the patio overlooking Las Vegas. Later that evening I peed next to him. Sorry ladies, I have no further information. A very much fun and random evening.
We made it back to Colorado Tuesday night the 28th, I had more money in my pocket than I left the Springs with a week earlier (thank you Vegas :), and the weather is absolutely perfect. By this point I am counting hours until Shay lands in Colorado. Kristin, my buddy Matt and I drive up to DIA to pick up Shay at 8:30am. We're all planning on heading up to Boulder and goofing off up there for the day. I am at the closest point that I can be to see Shay as soon as possible - and when I watched her come up the escalator from the concourse train, it was magical. My heart was once again complete here in Colorado. We all head out to my car, and... crap. It don't run so hot. So bad that we barely make it out of the airport to a gas station. The estimate comes to $850. My car's barely worth that. Eric comes up and picks us up, (Thanks Eric!) the tow truck gets my car, and we're back in the Springs. Exhausted. Carless. Grrr. We tow the car to Jimmy's house, one of the coolest guys I know, a member of Gateway. We tinker with it some, and eventually he says, "take my 4 runner, we'll work on this later." So we go home, try to nap, and eventually find ourselves at a New Years Eve party. Us, being the old farts that we are, leave the party at 10:30. Ok, maybe we were exhausted, and maybe some other things were going on... but it was awesome to spend the first minutes of the new year with the love of my life.
Saturday we drove all over Southern Colorado - it was a perfect day, and mentally I got ready for Sunday. I preached at Gateway. It was awesome, intense, crazy, and unbelievable all at the same time. Somehow the Spirit used me to communicate a message to a community that on average is twice my age. Simply further reinforcement that God is in fact in control, and I am not.
So here I am on Tuesday night, glowing in the fact that USC just won the national championship, but very much bummed that Shay is no longer here. I absolutely loved spending time with her. Of all the things that we did together, my favorite parts were the mornings together. I would sneak into my room where she was sleeping, crawl into bed with her, and we would share moments together. Eventually we would be up and about, I would make breakfast, we would sip coffee, and simply be together. It was perfect. I am in love with this woman in a way that I never thought possible. I had a dream for the perfect woman. She doesn't even come close - because my dream falls short of who and what she is. And now she is gone, and all I can do now is count down the days until I get to see her again (21) so I can be reunited with the missing piece of my heart.
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