to myself in a day beyond only now.

April 29, 2015

Remember this:

Society is set upon freneticism. Most move around unsettled, constantly adjusting to life as it unpredictably tosses around like a raging sea.

A man may be measured by what he unashamedly gives himself to. But if this is, in fact, the case, then the inversion must be counted true as well. We are all the sum of our days lived. Stated plainly, those who know us know us for who we reveal ourselves to be in and out of each passing day. But some are more than sum totals and calculative patterned behaviors. Those who find stability and constancy are those who’ve discovered Something much grander than their brightest moments and more lasting than earned by the sweat of their own brow. Due in whole of this discovery, they are much more than ever imaginable.

Here, a man may lay claim to infinite.

A Common Call to a Joy (Invincible)

March 13, 2015

NO MORE VULNERABLE OF LIFE do we experience as when all comes apart, twisted and mangled askew, the collateral damage of insensitive circumstance, of life going the way it will go. We float as ghosts belonging to the past – a time when life made better sense and all stood undisturbed – who cannot find rest in the present day dislodged and changed by loss experienced. And that loss can be just about anything. Loss is not exclusive to dramatic tragedy, but rather, any happening which redefines normality – loss of a job, a friendship, a home, a marriage, and so on, as well as a relocation, loss of time, possession, etc. The list can grow on and on to an innumerable length of experiences, events and occurrences in which we lose our sense of what is normality in relation to our rhythm of life and expectation. Whatever loss incurred, we suffer through seasons of difficulty. Some seasons stall lasting longer than expected, as a hurricane slowing its pace at landfall as though hungry for all destruction and upheaval that can be had.

Such are the worst kind of sufferings in life encountered: when you least expect them and their wake, they leave the worst lasting damage.

This Day, Suffering and my Next Book

February 20, 2015

NONE OF US COULD ever make such a bold claim as to own more than the day now. As a matter of fact, this day now, this hour current, the minute passing and yes, even your breath now drawn could not possibly be claimed by you or me. For though we assume ownership of our lives and livelihood, in that we choose careers, build homes and make our lives in the context of happiness, lasting possession, quite simply, is not our own. We busy ourselves, yes, but in the business of building our lives, we mistakenly lay our hand to heavy on all that we claim, “Mine”.

Not so. Not ever.

When tragedy or calamity strike and cut into the intimacy of our lives, we raise our hand to the sky, not in reverent acknowledgement of He who does truly own life and lives, but in curse-filled rebuke demanding reason for a violation. Every man, no matter his theology, admits what he knows but forgets in his business of life and ownership – life is not ours to have and hold, as we will. Ask the mother who lost her child, the husband lost without his wife, the little child swallowed by grief. Ask me. I would tell you a tale of a man moving through life undisturbed who mistook his fortune and happiness for God’s goodness, was profoundly wounded in losing his spouse and lost all that gave cause for security in the life he thought he owned. His hand, too, rose to the sky.

Adventure in the City of Angels

February 04, 2015

TO INCITE ADVENTURE, to chase boundaries from their dreams, to hold open their hearts and guide them into the world all around, that is the whole of my heart as a parent.

Our bags await, packed and readied, for tomorrow we write an adventure together – just the two of us this time.

For months, I’ve listened to her little heart fizz with excitement as she dreamt up so many things for us to do together. I can’t help but think she’s more ready for this than I am. She always is. Today can barely hold onto her at times, especially when she loses herself in daydreams of a future she’s convinced can’t wait for her. She may very well be the fiery adventurous one of the three that leaves our home the moment she’s able to. I think she will. I love this about her – the adventure and hunger bound within her heart.

When the Idea of You Means More than You, or Mistakenly Dying Young

January 22, 2015

EVERYDAY AGED THE SAME, a barren terrain flat and inhospitable, even for the most hopeful of visiting moments. The problem wasn’t days going by, but them going by as one fluid movement absent of the peaks and valleys we come to recognize as life in the form of night and day, joy and sadness, success and failure. All the things and such of living, breathing and dying a bit each day. One monochromatic slow fumble into the next moment paced my movement through a string of indistinguishable days. And all the while, I thought it was me who meant the most.

For days the sofa floated me amidst a sea of indifference, even in the warmth and open possibility of the sun shining. My family hovered like ghosts droning messages surely meant for me, but I was lost in a preoccupation too small for all of us together. With me nearing closer to forty, maybe this is life grown up – words lost in the bigger context of responsibility and flatter sensibilities. Perhaps the adventure should give way to handrails and slower slopes with the rise of age and the lessening of time. Everyone finds their way to who they’ll be, whether it be by discovery or surprise. Once I believed discovery was my path to finding it, but floating then and there I would’ve been just fine with surprise.

Every man must wrestle the idea of meaning and his place in time. My fumbling had all to do with dislodgment from both.

Dr. King and knowing what you know.

January 19, 2015

WE ARE CAUGHT in an inescapable network of mutuality.

Those words. That knowing. His dream, informed by another, subservient beyond bounds right to what was true always, led him there and elsewhere. Most men care far less leaving them safer and justifiably right. Dr. King, indeed an intelligent man, will never be remembered for what he knew alone. Others knew as well and more, yet his dream moved him far beyond knowing alone. With the life of Martin Luther King, we should remember more than the icon, see race, but beyond, and deeper than the quotes of his oratory genius, to hear and learn what he knew – that it is not enough to know alone.

In Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King’s response to fellow clergymen he deemed were “men of genuine goodwill” do more than immortalize a man who changed history. No, much more. Look and see. With his words he shows care to ensure his fellow clergymen do not mistake him to be the leader of any sort of justice movement. Instead he joins himself to a collective of outcasts who’ve cried from centuries past of Gospel freedom, a lasting freedom that no oppressor of race or economy or sex or name can ever truly rule over. For in Christ we have freedom, and in Him, we are freed indeed, now and forevermore. Dr. King knew this, which is why from the confinement of a jail in Birmingham he could be nowhere else.

An Ode to Resolutions, Or As Our Youngest Calls Them, Revolutions

January 07, 2015

LAST YEAR, our first together as a family, we set the snare and expected our catch to be plentiful. The snare: goals listed for the twelve months lying unlived ahead. The expected catch: months filled with progression and growth and satisfaction at the sight of a better us. Each of us a more matured improved compared to the previous year’s version of ourselves. The girls colored and decorated their lists with exuberance and maybe even proper expectation. A brunch toast was offered to the effort that would be given in the year ahead. Our family would be better because of our planning, our desire and our resolute labor. Celebration ensured and we were sure of the year ahead. Our resolutions all held the promise of a better version of ourselves. We taught them the snare was good – good to be caught and had. And so their lists, made with care, were fitted to each of their closet doors to serve as reminder to be better, or else apparently. So goes the bait set into the snare.

Resolutions. Each year we see an improved, more desirable us waiting on the other end. We will be better, stronger, healthier, smarter, more interesting and so on and so on and so on. Our resolutions will be faithful and take us there, if we will only follow through.

While nearly half of our population casts forth resolutions, the doorway to a better them, eight percent of those who make resolutions will follow through and achieve their goal.1 Quite an attrition rate. So what should be made of resolutions and those of us who make them? Is it not a noble aspiration to want to improve yourself, to progress and change?