God Knows

In a moment freeze-framed only in the electrical synapses of memory from nearly twenty years ago, I’m standing beside a professor’s desk at John Brown University in northwest Arkansas. The professor was giving his new pastor the nickel tour. Just above his desk, already overcrowded with work from the new semester, hung a plague that quietly whispered above the clutter, “Happiness is someplace to belong, something to do, someone to love.”

I’ve never been big on theology or politics that can be reduced to a bumper sticker or a plaque. That day, though, I was reminded yet again that something doesn’t have to be complicated or sophisticated to be true. Common sunsets and tiny green-breasted hummingbirds’ wings, the loving sparkle in my wife’s eyes and the joy in a friend’s voice, all announce the presence of incomprehensible and creative love, any day I’m willing to look, or listen.

Jack Dorsey never dreamed that his simple e-networking brainstorm with a very common name, Twitter, would, be worth $1 billion, only thirty-six months after his first tweet. All he’s done is find a way of marketing a product designed to address a need as old as creation. By the millions and counting, people are tweeting and facebooking proof that, no matter how big or complicated our world becomes, the greatest of human needs include belonging, doing and loving.

In the very first book of the Bible, just barely above the din of creation itself, God’s sentiment is poignantly stated in only nine little words. “It is not good that man should be alone.” Centuries later, Jesus’ response to the dilemma of human isolation was what is now commonly known as the “church.” Some have given up on the church because it’s too human, as though it could be anything else, as in “non-human.” Yet, despite all of its failings, that’s what keeps me coming back, the voice of Holy God speaking hope right into the middle of all of this humanity. Even my creator knows that I need someplace to belong, something to do and someone to love. That’s what keeps me coming back, specifically to the church. I know God knows that. I know God knows!

Moo-Moo

When Carol walked into the church office that day some twenty years ago, she had the misfortune of running into a very immature youth minister who had yet to learn that a man should never ask questions about a woman’s clothing, ever. We may have walked on the moon but in the entire history of the human race no way has yet been invented for a man to safely ask questions about what a woman is wearing or why.

Carol happened to be wearing a moo-moo that day, one of those tent dresses designed to cover everything without revealing anything of the form it’s covering. “I didn’t know you were pregnant,” I said to Carol, my mouth open just wide enough for my size 12 loafer to fit comfortably inside. “I’m not,” Carol said, rather plainly, staring right through me.

At this point, you’d think that I would know enough to shut up and look for a safe exit, both from the conversation and the room. Instead, like a snake disjoints its jaw in order to swallow a much larger animal whole, I opened my mouth even wider, enough for my other size 12 to fit comfortably inside, too. With both feet firmly in place, nestled next to my out-of-control tongue, I followed the first question with one just like it. “Then, why are you wearing a maternity dress?” I asked.

It’s a real witness to Carol’s maturity that all she said next was, “It’s not a maternity dress,” no expletives added for emphasis. It was a real witness to my immaturity that my judgment of her life’s condition was based solely on what I could see.

“The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7, NRSV). Very early on, most of us learn how to disguise what we’re thinking or feeling by changing our outward appearance, chameleon-like, depending on the crowd we’re with. Too bad that, just as early on, we don’t learn to see others as God sees us, from the inside out, not the other way around.

Super Glue

It wasn’t until after I dropped my Blackberry the third time that I finally learned that the devices aren’t made of rubber. When I went to holster it and it wouldn’t fit, I realized it was bent (read: broken) out of shape. It didn’t seem like there was anything wrong that a little Super Glue wouldn’t fix.

Super Glue people must assume that even an amateur handyman knows some basics. At least the $1.05 tube didn’t come with instructions. Like, about the value of punching a good hole in the end of the needle-pointed glue squirter before you squeeze. If you don’t, when squeezed, the glue will get out one way or another. If there’s no hole, it will make a hole wherever it wants, usually squirting out all over whatever fingers are holding the tube and all the while making a sound similar to a flatulent lawnmower that just won’t start!

After I had Super-glued my right thumb and forefinger to the tube, gotten a nice smear of the stuff on my desk pad and a healthy Super-glue thumbprint on the face of the phone, I finally got a drop where I needed it most. But, by the time I could free my thumb and finger and push the broken pieces back together, the glue was already set. My phone is fixed, sort of. Like my golf game, it now has an oversized handicap. It’s fixed, but it will never be the same.

A friend in another city is married to a man who broke their marriage badly. She’s trying but it’s already been years now and, to say the least, the marriage is terribly bent out of shape (read: broken). It’s just that marriages aren’t like phones. When you drop them and they break, you can’t just glue the pieces back together and then go on, as though nothing ever happened.

It’s been a costly lesson, and a painful one at that. Some things can’t be fixed (read: unbroken). They can only be forgiven.

Beau Dog

Beau died July 11. He was, among other things, a fourteen year-old, blonde, thirty-pound Cocker Spaniel-Golden Retriever mix. He was so much more than that though. Clichés aside, Beau was one of my best friends.

Whenever I doubted the presence of God in this world or in my life, a brief glimpse into Beau’s big brown eyes reminded me of our mutual creator. I made many confessions to Beau. When confession was too hard, he’d curl up beside me, rest his head on my chest and close his eyes, as though absorbing into himself whatever was hurting me. The presence of God, in a dog?

Beau gave no warning of needing to leave. So, I was taken aback early that scorching Saturday evening when I heard an unusual noise that included the violent shaking of Beau’s tags. I looked up to see him writhing on the kitchen floor, obviously suffering some kind of seizure. I rushed to him. Nancy was outside. I yelled for her so loudly that I’m sure someone in Des Moines heard it. I was praying that Nancy, being a nurse, might be able to do something to save our friend. It was not to be. By the time she could get there, Beau’s eyes were fixed. He’d already let out some kind of soulful wail, as though he knew he had to go and was saying goodbye. In no more than two minutes, Beau was gone, fourteen years of love slipping through my helpless, powerless fingers, just like that.

Standing over Beau’s lifeless body, I was reminded of the words of an older friend as he reflected on his own life’s fleeting moments. “We cannot hold onto life,” he said. “We can only kiss it as it passes by.” Just this morning, I read Martin Luther’s similar confession. “Many things I have tried to grasp, and have lost. That which I have placed in God’s hands I still have” (Jan Karon, Patches of Godlight, Penguin, 2002).

Later that evening, as Nancy and I laid Beau Dog on the doctor’s table, we bent over and kissed his soft, furry head one more time. Just as I have with all those who matter more than life to me, I placed him in God’s hands one last time, entrusting to God what was never mine to hold onto in the first place.

Taking Out the Trash

Somewhere in a shoebox, there’s a picture of me taken by my dad when I was about fourteen or fifteen. I’m standing in the kitchen, near the backdoor that leads to the alley. My arms and hands are full of sacks of trash, collected from all over the house. It was my chore to carry the trash out to the alley at least once a week or whenever the trash cans in the house got full. I despised that chore. Maybe it was stubbornness or teenage rebellion or laziness, or, all of the above.

I just hated carrying the trash thirty feet to the alley. I’d wait until I absolutely had to carry it out then load my arms and hands as full as they could get. I only wanted to make the trip once. Without fail, trying to carry out that much trash at one time almost always led to disaster. One or more of the sacks would rip and trash would spill everywhere. Then, I’d have to clean up the mess and still carry it out.

Dad absolutely refused to do the chore for me. It was my trash to carry out. Sometimes, he would actually stand there and laugh at the mess my pride and stubbornness could make of things. He told me more than once that, “if you’ve got to carry out the trash, it’s better to keep it up to date, every day if necessary. Sure beats the alternative.”

Our souls get clogged with trash. Unconfessed sin. Fear. Anxiety. Unresolved anger. Disappointment that God has not answered our prayers the way we thought God should. It all adds up. If we wait too long before we dispose of soul trash, disaster can result. Some of the saddest people in the world are Christians whose joy has been robbed by souls too full of undisposed trash. Sometimes, it’s just been too long since our last confession and the soul cleansing that always comes with it.

Now and then, hot tears coursing down my cheeks, tears that seem to have no reason, and a sadness of soul like low-hanging, dark clouds of winter, remind me of that picture my dad took so many years ago, and the lesson he hoped it would always teach.

Bird On A Wire

Now and then, I ponder a bird on a wire. It doesn’t take much to get me intellectually stimulated. It’s just always fascinated me how a little bird can light atop a high-voltage wire without getting electrocuted.

My new friend and fellow faith-struggler, Dwayne Blevins, is more knowledgeable of all things electrical. An engineer by training and instinct, he’s been kind enough to fill in some of the blanks in the more simple explanation that the bird lives to chirp the story of its high wire act only because it’s never grounded. Dwayne kind of lost me somewhere in distinguishing amperage from voltage. My ignorance of something I trust every day to power virtually my entire world is truly shocking.

Turns out that the bird is floating atop a wire transmitting anywhere from 1,200 volts to some 300,000 volts, depending on how far that point on the wire is from its source. If the winged wonder were to reach across a very small expanse and grab another wire at the same time, it would close the circuit and be instantly vaporized in a white cloud of pulverized feather and beak. Remarkably, all of that voltage/amperage leaves the bird totally unaffected, as long as it doesn’t close the circuit.

From time to time, the memories of painful experiences from the past haunt me. Over time, I’ve observed the fact that those memories cause more pain at certain times than others. Sometimes, they feel like a slow, dull ache, like a bad bruise yet to fully heal. Other times, they feel like a terminal malignancy, slowly but surely growing to choke out my very life, deadening my soul and destroying any opportunities for loving the only life that is mine, the one right in front of my face. What makes the difference in how much pain the memories cause seems to have everything to do with whether or not I close the circuit.

When the painful current of a hurtful memory enters my heart, I can close the circuit by demonizing the person who sent it my way. Anytime we call someone by a name other than the one God has already given, we reduce the worth of that person to nothing more than the sum total of how much they hurt us. What a sad, egocentric existence! As though our comfort or pain were the center of the moral universe!

That’s why forgiveness that is waiting on an apology must be particularly nauseating to God. Forgiveness waiting on a down payment of contriteness is a forgiveness that has usurped God’s place. Indeed, it’s a not-so-subtle form of spiritual prostitution, as in, payment for services rendered. Why would we demand of others something as an exchange for our mercy that God has not required in order for us to receive God’s forgiveness (check it out – Ephesians 2:4-8)? Forgiveness waiting on an apology is nothing more than an empty piñata, the shell of religious piety void of any true holiness and only masquerading as Christianity.

None of us wants to be remembered for our worst missteps. Yet, when the memory of some hurt someone else put on us comes again, it feels so very good to lay the blame for all of our misery at their feet. Blaming really does feel good, but, just for a moment. In time, we cannot demonize others without demonizing ourselves. The moment we call someone else by the name we’ve given our pain is the moment that we close the circuit of unforgiveness and absorb into ourselves the lethal current of judgmental unforgiveness. To put it another way, no one ever pays a higher price for our unforgiveness than we do ourselves.

Or, we close the circuit by accepting the judgment of others as the final word about us. For whatever reason, when another person curses us, all they are doing is naming us after their own unresolved soul-killing pain. The curse of another has no power over us, unless we close the circuit by accepting it as the final word for ourselves. Someone once said that a false god is anyone or anything to whom we assign the power to declare our worth to us other than the God who first gave us life. The curse of others wounds so deeply only because we valued their blessing too much. We only need the complete blessing of others to the extent that we are lacking a sense of God’s blessing.

At Grace Fellowship, we’ve been pondering Jesus on a cross this past few weeks of Lent. About the way he, in fact, closed the circuit between God’s mercy-judgment and our sin. He took the lethal blow, absorbing into himself the penalty that should have been ours (Ephesians 2:14-18). Before he did, he told his disciples that anyone who ever wants to follow him must be willing to do the same, to climb upon their own personal cross of suffering forgiveness. Forgiveness always hurts. Wherever forgiveness has been extended, someone somewhere bled to make it possible.

Jesus died to complete the circuit between God’s mercy and our dead souls. Why can’t we just let Jesus’ work be what it is, enough forgiveness for all sin for all mankind for all of time (Romans 6:9-10)? Otherwise, when we close the circuit of unforgiveness, well, we’re mocking the cross as insufficient and also dying a death God never intended for anyone, even for those who, like me, are still struggling to learn the Jesus way of forgiving.

A bird on a wire. Jesus on a cross. Something to ponder just before Good Friday – and the Easter that follows shortly thereafter.

Six Mexicans

After months and months of restraining myself, I finally created a Facebook account. It’s been interesting, fun and even frightening. It’s been fun and interesting to make connection with old friends from three decades ago. It’s been frightening as I wonder about whether or not I look as old to all of my friends as they do to me. Just to be safe, I haven’t posted a picture yet.

Most of my old friends have some kind of roots in West Texas, where I was raised in a small farming community southwest of Lubbock. It was a great place to grow up. We could ride our bikes all over town and our parents never worried about us being safe, even after dark. Neighbors helped neighbors raise each other’s kids. Teachers could paddle their students without calling an attorney first and even expect the parents to back them up. The worst and only incident of school violence I remember didn’t occur until my sophomore year when a kid pulled a knife and cut the boy he was fighting. There was no such thing as a metal detector in the hallways.

The good old days weren’t all good, though. Back in the 60’s, whites represented seventy percent of the population in our little town of 10,000. The Hispanic population made up most of the rest with the exception of a few blacks. We didn’t call them Hispanics, though. We called them “messkins,” a short, stunted kind of pejorative with not-so-subtle racial overtones. If you were using the word as a put-down, you could put a wicked spin on the inflection and say it with disdain. Some whites even referred to the Hispanics as “chili chompers,” belittling their diet as racially inferior or “wetbacks,” belittling their presumed country of origin, even if they’d been born north of the Rio Grande. It hurts me now to even write words I dared not utter in my father’s presence back then. To my parents’ credit, racial pejoratives were the same as curse words, punishable by the fear of a near-death scolding that blistered worse than any switch pulled from a tree.

The blacks and the “messkins” knew their place. If they were good at sports, they were respected on the field or the court. After the game, though, they knew where they belonged and invisible lines just weren’t crossed. The old courthouse still had separate water fountains for the whites and the “coloreds.” It was assumed, of course, that white was the standard color and anything else was a substandard and sad freak of genetic misfortune. A full century after the Emancipation Proclamation, most small town governments and even Deacon Boards hadn’t gotten the memo. We even had a “messkin” Baptist mission church in Brownfield. They still do.

I always thought First Baptist started the mission in order to reach folks who wouldn’t feel comfortable in our white church. It never occurred to me until decades later when I was able to demythologize some of my childhood memories that some of those who started the mission weren’t being altogether altruistic. They wanted to start a mission, in part, to keep the invisible lines clearly drawn; they wanted the “messkins” to remember their place.

In too many ways, nothing much has changed. In my former church, two miles from downtown Dallas in the 21st century, I once asked our Hispanic Director of Community Ministries to pray in our Sunday morning worship service. She prayed beautifully in her native tongue, the words I couldn’t understand sounding more like a symphony of praise than any prayer I knew. The next week, I got a call from an older white woman complaining that those who prayed in our church should only be allowed to pray in the language of the tithing people.

Aside from her, too many of those who made up the “tithing people” still referred to the non-English-speaking Hispanics as “those people.” I never dreamed I’d hear such profanity in the house of God. I’m so glad the tithing lady wasn’t there to welcome the first wetbacks who survived the Atlantic crossing. She’d have had to deport herself back to her very white Europe, leaving the American continent to the redskins who beat her and the other white skins to it through the Bering Sea back door centuries before.

The other day, I got an email from an old friend I haven’t seen in over thirty years. She was telling me about a friend of hers whose daughter was killed in a tragic automobile accident. My friend described how a “pickup truck with six Mexicans” came over a curb, striking the young lady and killing her instantly, just weeks shy of her graduation from a prominent university with a 4.0. My heart is broken for the young lady and her family, for a promising life that will never be.

My heart hurt, too, because of the way the accident was described. A pickup truck with “six Mexicans.” I couldn’t help but wonder. If the pickup had been carrying six whites, would my friend have bothered to make the racial distinction? I wondered, too, if she even realized she’d made the distinction. Was the pickup truck more lethal because those driving and riding in it were people of another color than hers? Did she hear what she was saying?

Old ideas usually die long, hard, slow and, even brutal deaths. Gandhi’s sandals, eyeglasses, bowl and watch were auctioned off last week for some $1.8 million. Part of what makes them so valuable is the brutal death Gandhi suffered, giving his life to help old and very profane ideas about people die.

Jesus died a brutal death, too, in no small part due to his trying to take profane ideas people have about each other to his grave with him. I wonder how long it will be until we never again refer to another person by the color of their skin, or their sexual orientation, or their political or religious ideology. Will we ever? Will we ever just refer to each other as what we truly are, brothers and sisters for whom Christ also died?

The way we treat people usually begins with what we call them, or how we speak about them in their absence. I wonder what the names of those “six Mexicans” might be, and how they felt about their role in a tragic accident. We know their skin color. Who knows their names?

Jesus loves the children. All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. The dark-skinned Middle Eastern Jesus who spoke Aramaic loves all the children of the world and when he speaks, he calls them by name, not by color. So should we.