the gospel, giggles and cuss words.

“...and it was even grosser and uglier than that.  The Bible says that he was beaten so badly, to the point that he didn’t really look like himself anymore.” We sat on the floor of our living room surrounded by enough chocolate and candy to satisfy a little army of children.  The sugar rush seemed to take hold instantly mixed with the releasing anticipation of Easter morning finally arrived.  My kids, as I imagine most kids, light up with excitement and a particular joviality belonging only to a few days positioned throughout the year: birthdays, holidays and the onset of summer.  I absolutely love it, too.  They are particular little celebrators who like to take in the moment and deliberately ease into the cause for grande occasion.  Routines, habits, traditions, all honored and revered in their little hearts.  It makes my heart sometimes rushed by responsibility and dampened by ‘reality’ slow to their pace and come alive similarly.  No rushing through presents or traditions or out of what they’ve waited as patiently as they can for.  

I especially love these moments with them.  Our time together in memories creating and lasting forever.  They’ll look back to our time together, when it is no longer just us, from a time ahead when they are doing the same with their own little families and draw from our experiences happening now.

And in the midst of celebrating holidays, all excitement, anticipation and happiness involved, I make sure to plant deeply and water the cause for such spectacle.  I try my best, at least.

This particular Easter morning we woke to skies clouded and rain falling, presenting the perfect opportunity.  After getting through the exhilaration of our morning egg hunt where no nook or cranny inside of the house was out of bounds or off limits and them finding new fishing poles laid out as family gifts next to their Easter baskets, we sat, ate more candy and talked a bit longer than usual.

“Easter is all about grace, God making everything wrong with us right and okay.”

Even though my daughters are young, they understand more than I often give them credit for.  This time the morning rested lazy and easy.  Rather than oversimplifying our conversation, I read more than two chapters straight from my Bible as they sat nearly spellbound despite sugar rushing through those little veins of my own.

They asked about the gory punishment inflicted on Jesus, sat still both captivated and horrified by the details of crucifixion, wondered aloud why people were so mean to him and wanted to know what happens when they do wrong ...if they keep doing wrong.  We’ve talked about grace before, but our morning conversation then presented a more concrete understanding.

A seed planted now being watered.  I pray roots dig deeply into their hearts and fruit of understanding and grace, action and choices, hangs ready on their growing branches.

“God wants you, and everyone, to go to Heaven.  That’s why he allowed Jesus to die for us, even though he knew we’d all make mistakes and do wrong.”

Grace :: favor rendered by one who need not do so; exemption; a reprieve.

I want them to understand grace deeply.  An infinitely important goal determined in my life as father to my little girls is to establish grace and acceptance in their lives.  I never want God misunderstood in their minds and unaccepted in their hearts as a distant judge somewhere in the sky just waiting for them to mess up.  He's right there in our mess.  He wants all to have heaven.  All to receive grace and everything wrong with us right and okay.

Grace and acceptance will mature only as I continue cultivate the soil of their hearts and nurture their stretching branches that will bear and hold fruit.  I think of parenting as I think of my own heart.  A garden needing constant attention.

As questions slowed and our conversation widened, my oldest asked, “What about bad words?”

“You know, the ‘sh’ word and the ‘b’ word,” she knowingly stated. “Gotcha.  And the ‘f’ word, right?” “Whoa, NO!!  That’s horrible, dad!!!”

Funny how kids zero in on what they deem the most important.  Not murder or cheating or stealing or lying, but bad words.  This is why I love these times so much.  They give time for their hearts to readily open and just pour out.

“Those are just words used to mean bad things.  The words themselves aren’t bad.  It is the way we use them and how we use them.  It all starts in our heart.  The words don’t matter as much as why and how we use them.”

So to further teach them, we read from Matthew 5:22 and talked about the power of how we use words.  To top it off, I said one of the cuss words my daughter alluded to out loud.

Deafening silence, eyes wide and jaws agape.

For me, parenting sometimes requires slight risks and complete honesty.  To ensure they understood why I cussed out loud, we briefly looked up the meaning and definition for a couple of the words.  They learned that those words actually do have real meaning, but due to misuse and bad intentions, those words hold bad meanings.  I explained that I don’t use those words because of how they are commonly used to mean bad things and because I simply do not need to, there are far better words to use.

My aim in this teaching was deep and far reaching.  It was a matter of beginning to set right understanding in their hearts, that Christ died for them specifically and grace redeems their hearts affecting their actions.  Not the other way around.  All too often, the mistake of our actions making us acceptable to God lingers and holds prominence over grace freely given and capably finding.

The only way to grace is through the mess.

“Any questions, girls?”

They looked at each other for a moment and then simultaneously burst into infectious giggles.  It will stand as one of the best conversations we’ve had to date.

crucifixus.

a splinter finds its way inruptured sky, once barren womb unknown man words land without home a seed in dry soil blood and water will give birth to the greatest mystery ever known and they will know

in the dust settled a bending water cleansing dirtied hands hearts stained, color of pride all run lost every hand helped push deep nails in wood through blood and bone you. me. them.

a bead runs slowly, blood and sweat, man and not racing the speed of love down the earthen beam to kiss the ground swallowing

the darkest dusk, eve of hopeless night they will all know their hearts cover their eyes for tonight death stands over all

et incarnatus est de spiritu sancto

Mark 15:22-25 Matt. 27:51-56 Rom. 5:6-8

be parenting.

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“What does kindness mean?”

My question hung in air between us for a bit as they knew exactly why I was asking.  Most nights seem to require at least a quick emotional melt down right before bedtime.  With consistency, it’s as if my announcement that bedtime has once again arrived is received by their ears much differently than my rather practical intent.  The message somehow jumbled and transmitted to their brain, “hurry up, fight, argue, instigate, you’ve only got a few minutes left in this day!”  

Little exception to this every evening phenomena.  Someone is bound to lose the race up the stairway.  No fewer than three times a week does one of them rush upstairs to lock the bathroom door leaving the other two pounding hard demanding in.

Some times tears happen, too.  Actually crying is relatively normal and at times, a rather dominant expressed emotional response.  Perhaps if someone uninvitingly rearranged the dolls I had taken 5 minutes out of my schedule free day to set up at a tea party in my room, I’d crumble into tears and pieces too.  Or maybe if my little sister didn’t really understand the pretend scenario that I instantly created, details lacking and changing, I’d take it deeply to heart and fall apart.  “You just don’t get it, Dad.”  My thought, “thank God I don’t get it.”  We’d be a fiery mess of emotion and tears if I did get what they get.

Maybe it would be weird if at least one of the girls didn’t have a good cry at some point in every day.  What amazes is how quickly those tears can dry.  They dry fastest when they get what they want.

I love my daughters and am utterly committed to loving them just as completely as I know how and can learn to.  But even with the assistance of my mom interpreting their often indiscernible emotion code, I’m lost in those little moments when tears fall quickly and emotions blare out.  I’m just not that emotional of a person.  Especially when I look at the array of quick emotions they can shift through.

I know that they love each other, too.  Siblings fight and argue as a natural part of establishing who they are and working through life as they grow into it.  As a man, I imagine it might be easier to break up a physical squabble between boys.  But I don’t have boys.  I am fathering three girls who only have a dad.  I’m learning how to relate and find my pace with them in these emotional times.

So back to our bedtime question, “What does kindness mean?”

“...love.” “...nice.” “...happy.”  (One guess at who this last response belonged to.)

“All good answers, girls, but not fully right.”

“Awwww!” said the one who answered ‘happy’ as she rolled around on the bed only half invested in the question.

“Kindness means being kind.”

One of the most important things to me as a father is teaching my daughters not simply about life, but precisely how to live it.  I want them to be thought of as kind because they are kind in the way they act and treat others.

Rightly connecting the information with behavior and action is the key that unlocks them.  Otherwise, I reduce myself only to an authoritative voice.  A parent’s place and opportunity in the child’s life is not merely authoritative, but more so as teacher and guide.

If I want them to be, I must be.

“So what can you do tomorrow to be kind to someone?  Pick someone, one person, who you will be specifically kind to?”

Their little responses were as seedlings opening up in the soil of their growing hearts.  Learning to live, to be, in little ways.  That defines and validates parenting for me.

there and someday.

“One day is worth a thousand tomorrows.” Benjamin Franklin

Now defines there.

Everyone wants to get there.  There, a place nestled away waiting in a future day.  When troubles have subsided and problems figured out and all that we need, we have.  What a glorious day when future arrives washing all worries aside and displacing every cursed moment!  All counted as well when we cross that line out of this moment grinding relentless and long into the next chapter of our lives.  Ease erases difficult and alleviates pains.  So we think and so we live for there and someday.

I strain through the day now to look ahead missing the details that are steps leading there.  Honestly, I don’t always want to be here now because being here isn’t always easy.

Book deadline, publisher to find, work projects due, blog schedule to keep to, etc., all floating around what truly matters.   I want to be there where things are better and resolved and inviting.

I find myself living this way.  I imagine the same holds true for you as well.

It is quite easy to let go of the day spoiling in familiar problems and nagging issues for something better ahead.

There is now, only matured and measured by days lived behind.  The settled idea of life ahead of us being better is the draw, but the reality comes crushing when days we live without seemingly getting one step closer only seem to pile high.

Two problems with getting to there.

The first and most telling of a person’s likelihood of actually reaching that day brighter in life, “What is there?”  Happiness swings unhinged, tossed always by circumstance and situations, by feeling, not love lasting and an idea of some glorious untouchable refuge waiting ahead.  “My marriage will be better when the kids are a bit older.”  Life will be easier when I get the promotion.”  In the well observed, ringing words of Christopher Wallace, ‘mo money, mo problems’.  If what your hands hold now do not give cause for happiness, lasting joy and satisfaction may very well always escape you, no matter the moment.  Life spinning in the day-to-day from one to the next all feeling the same.  All the while, hoping to get there.  Somewhere better.  A brighter day ambiguously floating in your heart.  That is the way to lose in life.  Living for there undefined.  Hoping to be rescued out of mundane circumstance, sinking today.  You must be working toward something defined.  Life is now.  Only so much can exist in the promise of something better ahead.

Now defines there.  What lies ahead relies much on how you live now.  Waiting will not get you there.  Wanting will not either.  There is found by those who live now walking toward something defined.  In each day, joy exists but often overshadowed by discontentment and wanting.  Many live with the illusion that today is not as worthy of living as tomorrow.  Waiting and wanting; living less, missing it all and never going to get there.  Not one day better is found by not living.  There and someday come to those consistent souls who push on through thick and thin and sinking moments with the sight ahead in view but not as worthy as now.  Life comes to those who live.

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” (Matthew 6:34, The Message)

fading into the narrative.

“...He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.”Mark 10:17-22

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Eyes slowly open.  Feel around for the snooze button ...again.  Roll out of bed, breathe in deep, sigh, feet on floor, morning.  New day.  From one to the following, every day a new day.  Grace.  The chance to wake to a blank slate, another try.  Restart.

Did you wake embracing grace, ready to start new, unbound to all behind or roll out of bed already tired, still reeling from yesterday or last week, behind pace, day running steps ahead from the start?

All of us continue into each day heavily influenced and shaped by our past.  What we value, our ethos and all that makes us and learned and accepted habits, we hold to them and honor them with how we live.  We find our way and navigate through life maintaining our narrative, recorded in days done and extending ahead.  Your narrative.  Mine.  All of us live in routine.

We nurture what we know, see the world and situations similarly each day as we look into the mirror each morning and see the same person.  Little change, only slight variances, but for the most part, no deviations.  Safely, we maintain what has carried us this far.  But to what end?  The gaze telling, always hinting at more buried in the forming lines on our faces and in our lives.

He looked into future eyes seeing the greatest deviance conspiring against all he held high.  The dry wind blowing between them, all history hanging.  Eternity inviting.  A man of wealth and worth and noble accomplishment, owning more than enough, but belonging to an emptying story lacking life meaningful.  Looking into the mirror, seeing the same man as the day before holding to what he had and all that he held, fading into the narrative, his, owning him.  Jesus’ reply welcoming him to deviate from his story holding, "There's one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me."

The man heavy in heart, fading into the narrative, walked away bound to a path of the past, locked on course always lacking. “He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.”

Your story is not yet complete.  That needs to hold high, defining value in your story unfolding.  Blossoming in each day is the opportunity to write your narrative based upon how you choose to live now.  History behind you supporting, not defining.  Define yourself by the words you write today.

i am not.

I am a mere speck, a glowing flicker, a passing moment.

Make much more out of it and the world gravitates around me.  My hands outstretch with expected readiness to receive all that life somehow and for whatever reason seems to owe me.  Me.  Diminish this truth to an ignorable, insignificant value as if I do not matter in the grander scheme of life unfolding, and no recognizable worth blooms.  Fruitless seed barren.  Miscarried dreams.  Me.  

The truth sets outside, apart from us.

In my life floating, freely successful by my account, God became more of a tame, latent, distantly ambiguous form in days mostly uneventful and unneeding of his activity.  Very simply, much of my life did not demand faith or trust or belief in anything outside of what I could control or withstand.  Each day unfolded compartmentalized and organized into a sort of list defined and measured by goals, expectations, desires, dreams, fears and so on.   Heaven a packaged, rationalized part of my consciousness.  I, the center, shaped my world with moral cues creating boundaries and cause and effect like expectations.

Do this and expect that.  Don’t do that and get this.  

A simplistic conscious driven mental eco-system influenced by Jesus, but mostly led by me.  Smeared footsteps in the mud of life’s decisions, predominantly mine, determined by what seemed right through my filtered, earthen understanding.

I AM. i am not.

I will never grasp the full depth of God’s continually active love for me or the width of grace with which he finds me.  Lying low in dust collecting old on the floor broken, mishandled by my own doing, lost again, a sight of sure pity, a mound of a mess ...again, his grace races deep all the way below me and rises.  Barnstorming straight ahead sure of conquer and success when the day is mine, my spine straightens with pride, eyes glaze confidently, my glass raises hastily, he waits knowing fully that I will need him soon completely ...again.

In his rescuing and reaching and my lifting and lostness, a shift occurred moving me from the center of all, me as the holder of life, to the peripheral of me, the beginning of God.  This is one of the main running themes in the book I am writing: God as the unmovable center faithfully maintaining, always unchanging.  Tragedy awakened me.  Love found me.  Grace did the lifting.  It was the shifting of God out of my life as ‘my god‘ and the re-entry of God into my context as the center and source of life sustainable.

Here is an excerpt from one of the chapters I am writing called, ‘Epilogue’:

If he is merely the god of my life, he is subject to accountability and my judgment.  If he is only my friend, he exists only for my comfort and entertainment.  If he is only ‘he’, then I am much more on my own in this universe left to fate and chance and a cosmic swelling tide than I ever imagined.  However, if he is indeed the God of the universe, if all is subject to his existence as the source and creator and author of life, then I am a piece of the fabric of his cosmic creation.  I am sustained as part of all that he is sustaining.  I am well taken care of no matter the terrors that threaten.

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you."  John 15:16

merging islands.

No man unto himself or within himself lives completely.

It took a long time for me to know I was okay.  Really okay, not only in moments lifting up, but in days going by and ahead.  Okay meant something simple but deeply telling.  The warmth felt as dawn swallowed the horizon cold and bare.  A new day slipping quietly into familiar calm rather than void.  Broken pieces magnificently laid into place.  Seams torn by tragedy joined fittingly together.  And all I did most of the time was watch in happy, joyful disbelief.  How can one experience happiness ...no ...joy true and pure in days overshadowed by death and loss of one loved?

I remember being lonelier than ever before.  All the same faces, but mine darkened.  I withdrew and stepped inward to make my life smaller.  Most days, I simply did not have the words to hang my heart on.  Some days, I had no idea what was going on inside.  I woke to each day in the same place, going much of the same way except much different.

These words I recently rediscovered turning through pages of my journal in months still young and a heart still reeling.

And so for me, being alone is really about independence rather than reliance.  If I am honest, being alone and independent is really about not being disappointed.  Lonely overprotects my heart from losing again.  It is a barrier that I preserve to keep people at a loving distance, close enough to be in my life, but not too close at the sake of being disappointed.

Nearly two years later after my wife’s death, I am different, my daughters are different.  Our lives are different.  I will always stand astonished in ways beyond the grasp of easy understanding how truly and deeply good the difference is.

Gratefulness births and nurtures joy abundantly in my life.

The sign signaling health and stability and strength anew and different, my heart opening again.  Some days it burst open in tumultuous emotion no longer containable for another second.  Other days I opened my heart purposefully, intent on letting those close see inside.  Whether it was my doing or not, in the mess and rupture of life, every time my heart opened again healing waters rushed in.

No man is an island of itself.  The brightest lights have been those lovingly charitable hearts who counted themselves responsible to the deepest depth of my sinking in clearing their shoulder for me to lean into their lives.  I needed them, to share my weakness and hold to their strength.  Merging islands holding and reaching in the tide pulling.  The greatest weakness is not the horror of tragedy or loss or death and the abiding loneliness, but independence valued greater and sought after more at the cost of relationship and life lived together with those whom your life both intersects and interacts with.

Simply put: you need those around you far more than you often give room to believe.  And they need you.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. -John Donn

Love bears all things, believe all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  1Corinthians 13:7