Legends

Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear.
Such people become crazy, or they become legends....

So begins the film adaptation of Jim Harrison's novella Legends of the Fall. I have long been drawn to this film. When I bring it up in "favorite movie" conversations, people either say "I loved it" or "I didn't get it." There seems to be no middle ground. I loved it from the first time I saw it; I'm only now beginning to get it.

The story (and Harrison's novella is a wonderful read) concerns the lives of Colonel Ludlow and his three sons: Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. Alfred is the brooding, first born; Tristan is the wild, middle child; and Samuel is the virginal, youngest son. I've watched it for years as the story of three men; however, I've recently begun to see it as the story of one man, everyman. I'll hit the highlights here. For those of you familiar with the film or story, you'll know what I'm talking about. For those of you who are not familiar, I hope it will compel you to at least see the film.

Against the convictions of their father, the three sons go off to war and after only a short period of time, young Samuel is killed. And in a very real way, the rest of the story deals with the conflicts and tensions between the two brothers that remain.

At some point and time, and it's usually a very distinct moment, every man's "Samuel" dies. The young, innocent boyish part of us encounters the world as it is, harsh and unyielding, and the innocence ends. Maybe it's a cutting word from our fathers, an apron-string-strangling from our mothers, a sexual wound at the hands of a trusted person, a father or mother walking away in divorce...the possibilities are endless. But you know deep within yourself that the innocence is over. Everything is different now. And who remains is Alfred and Tristan.

You're left with the duty-bound, rule-keeping Alfred within yourself and you're also left with the devil-may-care, feral Tristan part of you. You may not agree with that, but I'll stake a claim there. Every man I've ever met has those two brothers within; one may overpower the other in personality or appearance, but they're both in there. I know they're both in me. And we spend the rest of our lives trying to discern what to do with these two. We move into the stability of wife and children and are awakened one night by the lonely cry of a coyote and find ourselves turned toward the wall, weeping for some unknown but recognizable feeling. Maybe we walk away from family and friends and all that is familiar and dive into wilderness, only to soon find ourselves pining for a woman's touch, the laughter of children, and a roof over our heads. We do all we can to stay in line at work, knowing full well the weight of the responsibilites we carry, at the same time trying to hold on to some measure of individuality in a world that, regardless of what commercials say, rewards conformity. We have tatoos beneath our Ralph Lauren shirts.

It is hard to tell of happiness. Time goes by and we feel safe too soon.

Maybe we climb Mt. Hood or ride cross-country with buddies on Harleys and return home with "it" out of our system. We come back like those City Slickers, having "found our smile." Things go well for a season, we're satisfied and happy, we coach soccer and lead Bible studies, and then one day the sleeping bear rouses and we realize it wasn't enough, not even close. We begin acting strange and talking even stranger and those close to us keep asking if we're "o.k." and we inwardly cry out, "O.k. was never my goal." Our marriages assume a "cranky elegance" (Harrison's words) and our parenting is spotty at best. We try and stay under the radar at work, always wondering if anyone can really "see" us. Some of us are visibly repulsed by men who've sold out to the Man, who have no sense of wildness in their lives. Yet we envy their vacation homes in the Tetons or their Bavarian motorcycles in the garage. Others spend the entire time in their vacation home in the Tetons checking email or figuring out how to sell the BMW motorcycle because it hasn't been ridden in years. And we hate that about ourselves. Absolutely hate it.

I won't follow the whole thread here, but the brothers also fight over a woman, Susannah. Interestingly enough, Susannah cannot have children, she cannot bring forth life. She is this lush, wonderland of a woman, yet both brothers do not find in her what they seek. She eventually takes her own life. And then there's the father, Colonel Ludlow. And One Stab, the old Indian who mentors the boys as they grow up. And one cannot forget the landscape, the mountains of Montana, a home by a stream where the Colonel hoped "to lose the madness." Yet it followed him. As it does us.

I don't want to dissect the film too much; dissecting something always leads to its death. But I'll tell you, men, this one's a deep vein. Watch it or read it and see what you think. My caution is I believe you'll see yourself. Or maybe that's why I want you to see it. Or read it. Naming those inner voices within ourselves is the first step. Listening to and living by them follows. I'm not talking about listening to a parent or your pastor or some elected official. I'm talking about stilling yourself enough to listen to what or who is inside. If you do that, there's a good chance you'll become crazy. But there's a slim chance you might become a legend...

It was a good death.

Morning - 6 September 07

So pay attention to what is in front of you
and what is hidden will be revealed. Day 6 - Gospel

"The conquerers and looters refused to participate in a reciprocal and balanced exchange with life. They were unable to receive the best gifts of land, not gold or pearls or ownership, but a welcome acceptance of what is offered...These actions, all of them, must be what Bushman people mean when they say a person is far-hearted. This far-hearted kind of thinking is one we are especially prone to now..."
- Linda Hogan, Dwellings

"Twice in my life, not once, I have heard the wild wood duck call her hatchlings down from the tree nest. God is lavish."
- Mary Oliver, Long Life

"He talked on, said how the Reverend Biddle talked of Creation as though it had been a mere seven-day investment, like putting up a barn, a task with a beginning, middle, and a definite end. Not so. 'Look out there,' he said in a voice that suddenly demanded attention . 'Creation is forever. Not made, boy, but being made, always. Does that sound silly, an old man's madness?..'"
- Harry Middleton, The Earth is Enough

So pay attention to what is in front of you
and what is hidden will be revealed.

Loving the Dark

There's another disadvantage to the use of the flashlight: like many other mechanical gadgts it tends to separate a man from the world around him. If I switch it on my eyes adapt to it and I can see only the small pool of light which it makes in front of me; I am isolated. Leaving the flashlight in my pocket where it belongs, I remain a part of the environment I walk through and my vision though limited has no sharp or definite boundary.
-Ed Abbey, Desert Solitaire

I left the house this morning about 5:30 to run. It's still dark at 5:30, although it's getting a little lighter each day. This morning's sky was coal black and liberally sprinkled with stars. Big, beautiful, shiny stars. I'm just about to embark on the trail and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a shooting star. The arc of this thing was huge. I did make a wish, but I won't tell you what it was. I did tell God though.

I've been doing this pre-dawn running for several weeks now. And I love it. For the most part, I can't see a thing. I don't know if there's ogres laying in wait for me or piles of steaming horse manure strategically placed in my path. Folks really do ride horses on this trail. I'm not sure about the orgre thing. But I've got to tell you, my senses are on full alert. Something practically ran across my feet the other morning (I think it was a rabbit) and my heart rate went through the roof. Of course, little petey rabbit encountering my size 12s no doubt set in motion a pre-dawn cardiac arrest as soon as he got clear of the trail.

And even though I can't see, I can see. Sounds strange, but Cactus Ed's quote above reflects my experience. When a car's headlights or the halo of suburbia hits my eyes, I'm blinded; totally isolated, save for those lights. But with the lights off, I'm a part of the trail, a part of the darkness. I'm humbly a part of something much larger than myself.

Jesus said something about men loving the darkness rather than the light. What if Jesus was being cryptic there? What if Jesus knew, and I'm certain He did due to the whole "created everything" status He holds, that some light blinds you and some darkness allows you to really see? What if Jesus meant that we love that artificial light, that stuff we create on our own or conjure up somehow, that illuminates but also isolates, which is a darkness of the worst kind? What if Jesus was hoping that we'd spend a little time in the pre-dawn hours occasionally and truly exegete what He was saying? Allow ourselves to be limited but unlimited at the same time? Experience some of that "cool-of-the-day" walking like Adam and Eve?

There is a darkness that gifts you with sight. And there is a light that cripples you with blindness. About halfway through my run, there's one of those Narnia lamp-posts that's my turnaround landmark. Just as I was turning around, guess what I saw? Another shooting star. I kid you not. But I almost missed this one because I had that light in my eyes. The lamp allowed me to see where I was going, but the shooting star allowed me to see what was going on. There is a difference, my friends.

But I have cut myself off completely from the greater world...the desert and the night are pushed back - I can no longer participate in them or observe; I have exchanged a great and unbounded world for a small, comparatively meager one. - Ed Abbey

I have faith in the night...

Tell them...

Tell them the things that you have seen and heard.
That the blind can see and the lame can walk;
that the deaf can hear and the lepers are cleansed;
and the poor have heard the good news;
that the dead have come back to life.

O.k.

I have a good friend who couldn't quite see what the future held; blind, if you will. But this week a job offer came in and he's taking it and excited about it. It will mean moving somewhere closer to home. He sees the Lord's hand in this.

Another friend has been trying to get custody of his boys for a long time. He's been lame without them, hobbled, couldn't walk the true walk of a father. Something happened last week and he's now got custody for a pre-determined time and most folks are telling him, "If you've got 'em for that long, you've got 'em." He's walking tall, casting a close shadow on his sons.

Yet another has been trying desperately to listen for the Spirit in relation to job/work issues. Just yesterday he heard boatloads of affirmation from his peers and their sincere desires to make sure he stays around. His time and effort and loyalty to the company have not been in vain. It's as if the scales fell from his ears.

Still another has been working with metaphorical lepers lately, people on the outside due to their "conditions." He's been involved in the cleansing process. It's an ongoing thing, but there has been some clean-up. It's still a long journey for them, but he's wants to see them clean. Slowly, the sores are going away.

And I know some people who felt like their efforts lately have led to nothing but death. Maybe not flat-line death, but definitely close. But a couple of days in the sunshine last week and their hearts have been renewed and they've partnered with an up and coming voice who brings life to people with his message. There's a good pulse there now.

And me? the poor have heard the good news.

Tell them the things that you have seen and heard.

O.k., Lord. I did.

Now go,
Go in peace.
Go and let your light shine.

Namaste

Namaste - "The part of the living God that lives and breathes in me bows down in reverence before the part of the living God that lives and breathes in you" - Namaste

I have a friend who signs all his letters with this word - namaste. One of our favorite tv shows, LOST, has a very minor character who always signs off, "Namaste." I can remember being arrested by this word the first time I heard it, such was its beauty. It's pronounced NAHM-AH-STAY. It has that eastern religious sound to it, a word wrapped in the saffron robes of monks, punctuated by the sound of a bell. Namaste.

But words mean things, right? And this one means something significant. If I were to namaste you, I would clasp my hands in front of me, much like a child's prayer posture, and then gently bow to you. I would not attempt to keep eye contact; I would "bow down." And in the bowing, the Holy in me would be reverencing or honoring the Holy in you. It's a gesture that is full of humility. And I like that.

We were watching a television show last night with the kids where one of the actors turned up their noses. The kids, sponges that they are, caught it and mimicked it for us. Essentially, they did the snoot. The snoot says that there is apparently nothing in you of value, at least for the moment, and obviously there is much of value in me, so the best thing I can do is distance myself from you and I'll start by raising my eyes to the skies while closing them and showing you the expanse of my nostrils. I snoot you. There's a harshness when you pronounce the word, as if it's wrapped in the fashion of ego, punctuated by the weight of an attitude. There's no humility in that word. I hate it.

And while I'd love to tell you that namaste is my middle name, it's not. It is something I pray for, but it is usually not who I am. I am snoot. And unless I'm really off here, we are snoot. Now this is much more than all of us joining hands and singing, "We are the world" or something. This is much more than "agreeing to disagree" - whatever that means. This is an act of the will; I decide to greet and goodbye you with humility. In a way that can be seen, I will bow to the image of our Creator that resides in you. I don't see alot of that, do you? I see a lot of exasperated snoots and the always popular swollen middle finger, but not much bowing.

I read somewhere that our best guess for the cave where Jesus was born has an entrance that requires namaste. It's so small you have to get down, almost on your knees, to enter. The sermonic application point is obvious: as we approach the birthplace of the King, we do so humbly, on our kness, bringing our gifts, pa-rum-pa-pa-pum. We don't have any problem doing that, it makes sense. Or does it? Jesus does not reside in a hollowed out cave somewhere in the middle east. He dwells in the human hearts walking toward us, working around us, driving behind us, and sleeping beside us.

Father, forgive me my snoots as I forgive those who have snooted against me. Make me namaste. Amen.
Dedicated to Brother Murray

This and That

"There is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything were dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started the work." - Mother Teresa, 1953

Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk is the director of the Mother Teresa Center and the driving force behind the efforts to canonize her. He's also publishing a collection of her letters that reveal a different Teresa than we've known. At times she refers to Jesus as "the Absent One" and her own smile "a mask." The good reverend argues that the depth of her spiritual sufferings increases her saintliness.

My dad told me about this over the weekend and Sunday's paper had a second page article on it. Dad had read my post on "The Way Things Are" and basically said, "John, you're not alone. Check out Mother Teresa."

"If there be God - please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convincing emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul...How painful this unknown pain - I have no faith."

Evidently, her dying wish was that these letters be destroyed, a wish that was not granted. Revelations like these throw a confusing light on the people we hold in high esteem. We thought they were this, but we find out they were that. The truth seems to be that we can be this and that, a "bundle of paradoxes," as Brennan Manning would say.

I believe "this" and "that" scares us though. We still hold up consistency as a paragon of the virtues. So-and-so always acts this way or candidate X always votes that way. Emerson said that a vain consistency is the hobgobblin of little minds. And maybe that's what our culture is - a bunch of little minds, always trying to be either this or that, when we all know, deep inside ourselves or deep within our private journals, that we're both. And maybe that's a good definition of a saint; someone who's a little of this and a little of that.

A Post With No Name

"I told him that I was not of any particular religion. So tired of churches I could roar, is what I wanted to say." -
Rick Bass, Winter

So I’m driving back from lunch and the urge for a little AM hits me. I love AM radio. Especially the easy listening stations. The one here in town plays everything from Peter, Paul and Mary to Glen Campbell. But at this particular moment, they were playing the old Abbot and Costello “Who’s On First” routine. You’ve heard that one, right? Classic comedy. I found myself laughing right along with the crowd.

The more I listened, the more the broadcast began to resonate with a conversation I had over lunch. A true friend and I were discussing church, preaching, community; you know, all that stuff. He had mentioned a congregation that had taken intentional steps to become a missional church. However, full-on into the shift, the lead pastor scrapped the whole thing. “Forget this missional thing. It’s as much of a program as the one were trying to escape from.” Smart guy.

Missional. Purpose-driven. Authentic. Organic. Multi-site. Ancient-future.

Who’s the real church? Missional. But what’s the real church? Organic. I thought organic referred to cereal. Nope, it’s the church. So where’s the real church? Oh, multi-site, definitely. Is it missional? Maybe. Well, when’s the real church? Ancient-future. Organically? No, that’s what the church is. And why’s the real church? Authentic, man. Authentic. In a multi-site kind of way? Heavens no, that’s where the church is. Well then, how’s the real church? Purpose-driven. Are you sure? Authentically. (Cue the laughter from the new monastics)

I may be alone in this, but I don’t give a flying fig newton anymore about those designations. I’m so tired of them. We keep grasping after the straws of the next thing, which we frame as the “real thing” in order to not be labeled as consumers or something, and we end up sounding like the Abbot and Costello routine. We just keep going round and round and round. We’re biblically convinced we know who’s on first, but we don’t. And the audience out there (if they’re even still listening) is bent over laughing. At us, not with us.

We’ve got folks hell-bent on justice and mercy endeavors, quilting the globe with relief projects and mission trips. We’ve got people filling the Joel-dome every Sunday to find out about their best life. Now. Some meet in houses and try and live out the Acts 5 model. And many discover, to their chagrin, that the Acts 6 model always soon follows. Are the red letters of Jesus the real stuff? Or, as Rich Mullins said, will we be surprised to one day find that the red and the black should have been underlined?

I'm pretty sure my friend and I had CHURCH the other day over the lunch hour. The two of us, sitting in a booth at a wonderful mexican place, sharing our lives over incredible chips and salsa. We started the meal with a prayer. Affirmed a few things. Questioned a few more things. Confessed a little. And capped it off by extending the peace of the Lord to one another.

Was the salsa organic? Nope. Was it authentic? Yes, yes it was.

The Way Things Are

I’d been thinking about an exercise a good friend told me about. He encouraged me to draw a picture of “the way things are” – an attempt to render what my life really feels like right now. Not what I think I want it to feel like or what others may think it's like; no, the way things are. I got my picture yesterday a.m.

I went for a run about 5:30 out on the trail. I immediately noticed the wind at my back. Nice. Establish a good pace and let the wind carry you on. I usually run to a turn around point and then, obviously, turn around. Not nice. As I turned, it was like suddenly being harnessed to a covered wagon full of women and children and supplies and a dog with a bum leg. And then it hit me. The way things are.

That’s what I’ve been feeling most of the summer and even today; running into a headwind. I have a strong desire to finish, but my legs and lungs and heart are screaming for me to stop. Yesterday, I tried everything I could think of to try and finish. I tried to zen-run and focus on my breathing, tried singing some songs (put one foot in front of the other and soon you'll be walking out the door), even tried whipping up some anger to boost me the last leg (thought about televangelists and such). Try, try, try. About half a mile from the house, I had to stop and walk, I couldn’t finish running. It was just too much. I hate that, feels like failure. I had even prayed, about 100 yards prior to that stopping moment, asking for some assistance. Jesus, please help me. But it didn’t work. I wasn't praying for a personal best or anything, just the strength to finish.

On the commute in to work, I put in an Ennio Morricone disc. One of those wise people that everybody quotes says that only pain and beauty can transform us. I was hoping that some of his haunting music would crack me open; I had noticed a hardening ever since the run. Actually, for days. I listened to the music from the films The Mission and Once Upon a Time in the West. And the rock cracked. And water gushed forth. I began to weep.

Weeping for how damn hard it is some days or weeks or months and how heavy the weight feels and how much it hurts and how sincerely I want to finish. Weeping for how hard I try and put on a happy face and steel myself against the way things are and answer, "Fine. How are you?" when people greet me. Weeping for words like Jesus and please and help and how empty they sometimes feel.

I’m not sure anymore about the prayers of a righteous man availing much. I know, I know - the Word says, but those words are losing all their letters by the time they reach my heart and lungs and legs. It seems all I've got right now are the tears of a marginally righteous man. I don't write this for your pity - ohmygod, John's losing heart or man, you're depressed - you should see somebody. I write this to say this is the way things are, for me, for now. I'm walking. I've cracked a little. I'm weeping. Maybe that avails for something. Not much, but something.

Who's In Your Six?

A writer is careful what they read, because what they read is what they will know, and what they know is what they will write. - Annie Dillard

We are not what we eat, we are what we read. - Robert Benson

I've done something randomly that I am now going to pursue more carefully. I'm going to try and read everything a particular author has written. If there's a chance we are what we read, then this is what I want to be. My goal right now is to read through the works of six writers.

SIX:
Robert Benson - Robert writes books that are small, but intensely deep. He knows and lives the rhythms of prayer.
Rick Bass - Bass first wooed me with his book Winter; he is a man who truly loves the land and all the creatures that walk upon it. And he grew up in Texas.
Robert Capon - An Episcopal priest who consistently knocks me over with words regarding the grace of God. He espouses a sacramental theology. And so do I.
Kent Haruf - His novels Plainsong and Eventide are two of my most prized books. He writes about small towns and trouble and redemption.
Annie Dillard - I first read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek over fifteen years ago. I realize she's the only female in the list, but if you're going to invite a lady, for pete's sake invite Annie.
Wallace Stegner - Someone called him a "secular saint." I call him probably the best writer I know. Angle of Repose sat on a shelf in my parent's home as a decorative, lightblue hardback, alongside other lightblue hardbacks. One day it said, "Take, eat." And I did. Lord, what a meal. I never gave it back to my mom and if she wants it, she'll have to pry my cold, dead fingers from it.

There they are, my six. They have already nourished me in many and varied ways, but I now want to be intentional about my diet. How about you?

Getting to know me

We're back from a weekend of tent camping with friends. Friday afternoon found us driving toward The Crags, an area on the backside of Pikes Peak that is one of the most popular hikes in CO. There's a fairly primitive campground surrounding the trailhead and we secured two fairly primitive campsites there. Our friends have four girls, we've got two girls and a boy-morphing-quickly-into-something-larger, so that makes four adults and seven kids. The oldest was me (40) and the youngest was our friends' little one (3).

I've read these spiritual gurus who say that the best way to really get to know someone (build community) is to go camping with them for the weekend. Here are a couple of things our friends learned about me and my family.

When it comes to building a fire, I ain't no purist. Now if the sun is shining and blue birds are whistling dixie on the branches, then yep, I'll gather little twigs and dried grasses and squat down and basically give mouth to mouth to those first few embers, coaxing them into a roaring dance of heat. But, if it's been raining all afternoon and all I had for lunch was a couple of packs of those round peanut butter-n-cracker combos and it's way after 5pm (eating time) and I'm needing to start a fire? Well, if your grandma's favorite apron has one of those flammable tags on it, I'll fight her for it. I'll use whatever is available to get the fire going. There are times when doing it right gives way to getting it done; not always, but sometimes. Our friends now know this about me. And they seemed to be o.k. with it.

The other thing they learned about us is our taste in fine lit-tra-ture. They discovered this after dinner the first night, when my youngest daughter said, "Daddy, let's read the Stephen King book." I've been reading King's memoir on the craft of writing, On Writing, and I took a few after-dinner-moments last week to share several edited excerpts with the kids. I thought they were utterly hilarious and my kids (and girlfriend) agreed. Stuff about babysitters and farting and eating way too many eggs and yarking all over the floor; you know, highbrow reading like that. Later that evening, the other dad and I were walking down the hill to track a moose or check our email or something, and he said, "John, I don't know that I've ever heard a kid ask to have Stephen King read to them after dinner." "Well man, that's us."

We really had a great time and when we got ready to leave, the consensus was, "Let's do this again soon." So I guess we passed the community-building test. I do wonder, though, if in the stillness of their tent Saturday night, an exchange like this didn't take place between our friends: "You know, I bet Stephen King would use anything, ANYTHING, to get a fire started. Doesn't that make you a little nervous?" "Yeah. Let's be real nice to John. I'll be glad to get home."

Leap Day

Just four weeks ago, they were knee-deep in summer. Today, they start back to school.

Big kids, that's what I've got. No longer do they drink from sippy-cups or sit in a car seat or watch Clifford. Well, sometimes they still watch the big red dog. Now they listen to Hannah Montana and play gamecube and laugh at adult humor. Whew! Too fast, too soon. I think they're ready for this day, but I'm not. But I'm partly to blame.

The doctor let me cut the umbilical cord on all our kids. I released them into this world. Blake has some words that always went through my head as I was handed the scissors: My mother groaned, my father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything and I always encourage expectant fathers to do the same.

I'm going in to work a little late this morning; my cutting skills are needed again. They needed to be released from the warm womb of summer, set free into the rhythm of the school year. Their mother will groan. It's hard this year as well, because our youngest starts kindergarten. And she's the last one. Their father will weep. I'm not sure if it'll hit me there on the playground or not. If it does, I'm just gonna cry, masculine etiquette be damned. They will be leaping into the dangerous world yet again and I want to be there when they jump. You see, I'm partly to blame.

Is it a dangerous world? Yeah, it is. We still sit in the floor and play Uno, but there are registered sex offenders in our area. We still kiss and hug everybody before bed, do the tickle monster some nights too. But there are also men and women dying daily in Iraq and Old Navy blue jean commericals that have nothing to do with blue jeans. They'll spend recess on the swings many days, but they'll have friends who think they're too big to swing and want to do other things during recess.

God of backpacks and lockers and new tennis shoes and first days of school, please watch over my children this day. They are leaping into it once again. I believe You go before them in all things, from language skills to lunch. It is a dangerous world you've created, Lord. No doubt. But it's also a beautiful world. Maybe You felt this way when Adam and Eve leapt into the land east of Eden; Your kids, going off to school. As You stood there, hands blood wet from cutting them loose, I wonder if You wept? I wonder if You felt partly to blame?

No Path

Guide our feet into the paths of peace, that having done Your will this day, we may, when night comes, rejoice and give You thanks....

Oh, be careful little feet where you go....

Are there "paths of peace" or are there paths and we are to walk them peacefully? Are there specific places where little feet should or shouldn't go or are little feet to go where they go with care? And what if you wear a size 12?

These prayers, these songs, can be approached in different ways. If you'll really look, the normal approach seems to hold a thread of fatalism in it. If I miss the path of peace or get off of it, for some reason, and go somewhere that little feet should not go, then when night comes, I will not be able to rejoice and give thanks. If I take a wrong turn, then I'm really screwed. And if, for some reason, I don't quickly realign myself to "the" path, I could spend the rest of the day compounding my folly, and the Father up above, Who is looking down in love, would be quite frustrated with me and I would lay me down to sleep both joyless and thankless.

"A path is something that can be followed, it takes you somewhere. 'Linear.' What should a path stand against? 'No path.' Off the path, off the trail. So what's off the path? In a sense, everything else is off the path. The relentless complexity of the world is off to the side of the trail. For hunters and herders trails weren't always so useful. For a forager, the path is not where you walk for long. Wild herbs, camas bulbs, quail, dye plants, are away from the path." - Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild

As these size 12s go out into this day, O Lord, keep me aware that my feet and their steps proceed from my heart, as do my thoughts and words and hopes and dreams. Grant me courage of heart, so that my feet may follow the flight of Your Spirit, the Wild Goose, who often veers off the prescribed paths. Remind me that my life was not fashioned to be prosaic (getting somewhere in a straight line), but poetic (circuitous, off the path, off the trail). I want to experience the "relentless complexity of the world" this day, so that when night comes, I will lay me down to sleep breathlessly wide-eyed, pockets full of herbs and bulbs, my size 12s mudcaked by the back door, rejoicing and giving thanks to You, O Lord, not so much a Father-up-above, as a Father-just-a-little-ahead, urging me deeper and deeper into Your wilds.

Who We Are

"I know Christians. They are the people who swallow God."
- a Hindu man to Ed Farrell (Living Prayer by Robert Benson)

The most important aspect of worship for me these days is communion. I could probably skip the music portion and be o.k. And sermons? Well, that's another post. But communion? The Lord's Table? The Great Thanksgiving? These days, that's what keeps me coming back.

I had a difficult time "getting into" worship yesterday. True, I was tired and distracted, but it was tough nonetheless. In fact, when I got up to make my way to the front of the church for communion, I felt heavy, solid, rock-like. But the second I cupped my hands together and extended them to receive the body of Christ, broken for me, I felt light, permeable, fluid. And as I stepped to the left and approached the chalice server and she said, "John, this is the blood of Christ, shed for you," I remembered why I woke up, got myself and the family ready, and drove twenty minutes downtown to attend church. Communion. It always leaves me undone. As it should.

As I returned to my seat, I looked at the long line of people, standing, waiting to swallow God. A beautiful mother with her newborn, a family with seven kids, a couple in their fifties, college students wearing what college students wear, a white haired lady shuffling her feet. Maybe they're like me. Music? Take it or leave it. Sermons? Sometimes. But communion? That's why they keep coming back. And they're willing to patiently stand and wait in line for their piece of God.

I read a lot of people who constantly criticize our consumerist society and the consumerist church, in particular. "Well, people just come to church these days for what they can get out of it, what they can consume." Some of that's fair. But some of it's too easy - cheap shots. We've always been consumers and we always will be consumers. The question is, "What are we consuming?" I firmly believe that life begets life. And I desire life. So do I come as a consumer on a Sunday morning? You bet your sweet cheeks. I want to consume that which truly satisfies, that which melts my frozen heart, that which leaves me undone. And I believe that's why we all keep coming back. Too often, we live the week nibbling on the world's crackers and we're hungry, starving. Sunday morning, we show up as meat and blood consumers. We want life. That's who we are. Christians. The people who swallow God.

Have a catch?

I remember that scene at the conclusion of the movie Field of Dreams where Ray and his dad finally get to go out and "have a catch." The impression of that scene is that mounds of healing will take place as a ball is thrown from son to dad and back again. With each connection of rawhide to glove, sins are forgiven, amends made, the past healed one throw at a time.

My son had a hard moment yesterday when something didn't go the way he wanted. I could describe it, but it's really his story and one day I feel he will make of himself a writer far beyond my skills, so I'll leave those details for him. But I can tell you mine.

After the incident, I couldn't find him. I went outside and he was milling around the garage, not quite sure what to do with his frustration, disappointment, even anger. Dear God, how many times have I not known what to do with those emotions; in fact, sometimes I still don't. He walked over to his baseball glove and said, "Dad, would you play catch with me?" Most questions in my life these days, I do not have answers for. That one, however, got a quick response. "Sure. Let's go."

We didn't wander out in a corn field and throw while the sun baked the side of a rustic barn and our golden hair swooshed in the wind and Randy Newman music filled the spaces between oak branches. No, we just walked out in the street and threw a ball back and forth while the sun slowly submitted to the majesty of the Front Range and our hair stuck out of caps we both had on and the soundtrack for our time was the voices of neighborhood children. "Here comes a fly ball." "O.k." "Now, a grounder." "Got it." "Keep your eyes on the target. When you look away, that's where your throw will go." "I'll try." "Great throw!" "Yeah, I think I'm getting better."

This metronomic grace of pitching and catching between a father and his son went on until dinner was ready. We went in and joined the rhythm of a domestic Saturday night. Later that evening, as I prayed over my son and kissed him goodnight, he said, "Dad?" "Yeah, bud?" "Thanks for playing catch with me. It helped me work out my stress. It's still there, but that helped alot." "You bet, man." Most days, I feel like I constantly miss the ball of fathering. But sometimes, I make a decent catch.

You know, we didn't talk about his disappointment as we threw the ball to each other. We didn't verbally process the incident, sit in a circle, hold hands or any of those things usually sought out as steps to working out your stuff. I started to tell him that it's not good for the sun to go down on your anger, but I didn't. Maybe it's not good for the sun to go down without fathers and sons "having a catch." For in this somewhat ancient and simple act, wounds are healed. Sins are forgiven, both of omission and commission. And our stress, whatever that looks or feels like, is worked out, if just a little. And we're able to return to home and family a little better, a little easier, a little more like the boys and men we hope to be. Maybe playing catch is an act of framing and building something, a structure for healing. And if we build it, grace will come.

I'm sure there's still some frustration residue from that incident which will find it's way into our day today. But the gloves are nearby...and the sun's just rising.

For my son

stay together
learn the flowers
go light
-Gary Snyder

I came home yesterday to find my son and a friend standing around their bicycles, talking and passing something between their hands. They saw me and hopped on their bikes (stay together) and rode down to the end of our street, a cul-de-sac, then off their bikes and up a lonely pine that grows there. I could see their feet scrambling up the low, squatty brances until they found a roosting spot (learn the flowers). There they sat and talked.

I went inside and my girlfriend and I prepared dinner. "Why don't you go call the boys in?" "O.k.," I said. I walked to the edge of the driveway and gave my best dad-to-son-call: "Will, come home." The boys heard me, scrambled down the tree, mounted their bikes, and rode home. As they dismounted, I noticed pocket knives in their hands (go light).

He told me later (stay together) that they were talking, looking at their knives, hanging out in the three. They also found a bottle of vodka with a little left in the bottom. "You guys didn't drink that stuff?" "No, dad. We threw the bottle down the hill." (learn the flowers)

Thanks, Lord, for my son and friends and bikes and pine trees with low branches and pocket knives. And vodka bottles that were thrown away, for now (go light). Amen.

Desert Spirituality

A good friend just gave me a copy of Carlos Carretto's Letters from the Desert. It's one of these spiritual classics that, unfortunately, I'd never heard of. Carlos was a prominent Catholic activist, who at age 44 was summoned by a voice that said,"Leave everything, come with me into the desert. I don't want your action any longer. I want your prayer, your love." This from the intro:

The heart of the Gospel, he believed, is to make of ourselves an oasis of love in whatever desert we might find ourselves.

Wish I had a dollar for every time I've found myself seeking an oasis of love instead making of myself an oasis of love. Don't get bogged down in some semantic gnat-straining; Caretto and I both agree that it's God that makes us whatever we are. The emphasis here is on being something rather than seeking something. Being love rather than always seeking love.

Adopt that shift in perspective, what Caretto calls "the heart of the Gospel," and a job that feels like a desert is not to be resigned from, but rather watered by the love of Christ flowing through me. A marriage that resembles miles and miles of burning sands is not to be run away from, but given over to a greater love, that of Christ in me or you, the hope of glory. A church experience where you're not getting anything from the sermons or music is not a reason to seek out another local expression of worship, but...

Wow. I'm not sure I even believe all that. Or maybe I do and it scares me. Maybe I feel, deep within my 40-year-old bones, that another forty-something guy found a truth in the desert of North Africa that speaks to the core of what difference the life of a thirty-something god/man, who came to a desert world and made of his life an oasis of love, really makes in my life.

I may wear my sandals today...the forecast calls for hot, desert-like temps.

The World Needs a Man's Heart

Gretel Ehrlich once described ranchers as “midwives, hunters, nurturers, providers, and conservationists all at once. What we’ve interpreted as toughness...only masks a tenderness inside.” I thought about this yesterday as I was reading yet another "man-book" proposal; what it means to be a man, etc. We usually think of ranchers or cowboys as toughness incarnate, but Ehrlich suggests a tenderness that we've seen many times, but may have been hesitant to point out.

I've followed what has been called the men's movement for quite some time now, in both the christian and secular realms. I've read the required reading texts in both. I truly believe, as one writer says, "that the world needs a man's heart." But trying to pigeon hole that heart as tough, always and forever, troubles me. The proposal I was reading was advocating a toughness that can always take the punches, anything life throws at you. Now to be fair, this "toughness" is based on a faith in God and the requisite humility before Him - but it still had the be-tough approach in perspective. And I'm afraid that's all some folks hear. And even more afraid that it's all some men hear.

The men who have influenced my life the most have been tough and tender. I just remembered that's the name of a cleaning solution my wife uses on our counter-tops to kill off germs and such. Anyway, these men have been tough as nails. I've walked with two men out of the Grand Canyon, from the river to the rim in one day, and we were all dehydrated and hallucinating (the Virgin Mary and Pat Sajack kept appearing in the rocks), but these men kept putting one foot in front of the other. And we eventually walked over the edge of the rim back to our pickup as the Virgin and Pat waved goodbye. Toughness.

One man I know would spend every summer camping in the same place on the same lake. One summer, a few years ago, someone tried to get his lake view. It came to blows. I kid you not. He called forth his inner-pugilist and boxed the other guy's nose. His opponent did get a swing in that left a black eye on him for weeks, but he didn't get his camping spot. Black and blue badge of courage. Tough. Crazy, but tough.

But these men, all of them, have a tenderness that's just as accessible and obvious as their toughness. They don't hide it or try to work it out in counseling or anything. It's part of who they are - men. Men who can put you in your place one moment and cry at a Hallmark commerical the next. Men who can get up and go to work everyday and come home and still find the strength to play Barbies in the floor with little girls. Men who can stalk an elk for hours and then, as they stand over the kill, pause and thank God and the spirit of the elk for giving himself over so that a family can have meat in the freezer for a year. Men who are quite content using a car key for a q-tip and are just as content opening the door for ladies, not in some let-me-take-the-power-position-from-you way, but in a God-made-ladies-and-I'm-thankful-as-hell-He-did-so-I-respectfully-let-you-go-first kinda way. Men who can literally scream at the way folks drive on the I-25 and men who literally cry when the pastor says, "Who gives this woman?" and he peers into his little girl's eyes and says, "Her mom and I." Then he peers into the grooms eyes with toughness. Men who can't take everything life throws at them, so they have to ask for help or depend on other people or God or both. Men like John Walton, from that beautiful tv production by Earl Hamner. Or ole' Gus, from the Lonesome Dove scriptures. Or Wendell Berry or Sam Keen or Rick Bass or William Stafford or Father Rohr. Men like Mark and Mo and Bo and Joel and Don and Tommy and Thomas and Coyle and Richard and Huey and Randy and Ron and Rob and Cory and Xan and Steve and Sam and Todd and Shawn and Robert and John and Winn and Robert and Brennan and Fil and my dad. And Jesus. And on my better days, a man like me.

We're men of our convictions, call us wrong, call us right. But we bring our better angels to everything. You may not like where we're going, but you know where we stand. Hate us if you want to, love us if you can. With thanks to T. Keith for those lyrics.

Memory

Two weeks ago now, my brother and his family made the pilgrimage out of CO to visit. We spent a few days around town and then headed for the mountains - Grand Lake, to be specific. It was a great week with a lot of memories made. Memory. Now that's a word, eh?

I heard a Jewish rabbi last week speak on memory. He stressed the point that anger keeps memory at arms length. If I'm angry, I can't remember, and if I can't remember, then I'm not grateful; a kind of cycle that works against remembrance. Based on personal experience and some reading I've done, I firmly believe that most anger in men is really sadness. One of the poets (I cannot remember his name, but I'm really not angry about it) said "you think him cold, when he is really sad" or something very close to that.

Not much to be sad about when you're in Grand Lake, CO for the week with your family and your brother and his; therefore, not alot to be angry about; therefore, lost in the dance of memory. I remember all of us squeezing into one vehicle just before dusk and heading out to see if we could spot a moose. We didn't. But on the way back into town, somebody got carsick and did what kids do when they get carsick. I had happened to throw my ultra-cool Patagonia running top in the car before we left. It was the closest thing to my wife when our youngest got sick, so in order to save the car's interior, she grabbed my shirt. It would have been a long car-ride back to TX for my brother and co. if the interior of their car had been bathed in kidthrowup. I spent the rest of the evening running my ultra-cool running top through the washing machine. Everybody laughed about it. Even me. My brother and I laughed about it quite a bit. I'll gladly trade running a little less ultra-cool for the memory of my brother and I laughing on a porch as night crept over a grand lake and aspens quaked nearby.

Maybe when our kids are older, they'll decide to get together for the summer with their cousins. And they'll sit on a porch somewhere, maybe in the mountains. And they'll say, "Hey, do you remember uncle John's pretty-boy running shirt getting hosed that night in Grand Lake?" And my youngest will say, "Yeah, I did it!" And they'll all laugh and possibly even cry a little and say, "Man, that's a great memory. Didn't we have a good time?" And they'll all say, "Yes."

By that time, I may be in assisted living quarters or something, possibly sitting in a wheelchair out on a screened-in-porch with photographs of mountains on the wall. Maybe my mind will be all but gone. But at the exact moment when those beautiful, grown children on a porch in the mountains say, "Yes," there will be a quaking of the aspen tree planted in my heart. And memory will be stirred across the miles and the old man in the wheelchair that I may be will stand and face the western skies and cry out in a most lucid voice, "Yes. I was there. I remember too." And some silly twenty-year-old assisting nurse will walk by and say, "Mr. Blase, sit back down now. Everything's o.k." And I'll defiantly refuse and keep standing, if just for a little while. Standing for me. Standing for my brother. Standing for our wives. Standing for our children. Standing for a running shirt's early demise. Standing for the absence of anger and sadness. Standing because I remember. The little nurse will walk up to me and take my hand and say, "Your wife has had her bath. She's waiting for you back in your room." And I'll sit in the chair and she'll push me back to my room. I could have rolled myself, but I don't remember the way...

The beginning of loss...

For sin had made its entrance long before the serpent spoke, long before the woman and the man had set their teeth to the pale, stringy flesh, which was, it turns out, also quite without flavor. Rather, sin had come in the midst of an evening stroll, when the woman had reached to take the man's hand and he withheld it...
Scott Cairns, "The Entrance of Sin"

I heard this poet give a reading last week. He did a fabulous job. This poem, in particular, seemed to catch my attention as he read. Yes, there was this fruity moment of transgression where the man and woman disobeyed the express intent of God. However, WHAT IF ("what if" - a very important aspect of midrash - the Jewish reading of the scriptures) "sin" was there before the apple, or whatever type of fruit it was? What if sin first slithered across the world with dew still on it in a stolen moment, when "the woman had reached out to take the man's hand and he withheld it"? That would make the apple moment just the next logical progression in a pattern of turning your back on beauty, allowing yourself to be separated from another and The Other.

As I think about the sin in my life, this seems to ring true. There are specific actions or words that one could classify as "sin-full," but they are usually a result of some prior turning away, either from God, someone, or even myself. Withholding. And a taste of withholding leaves you wanting more, and a little more, and so on and so on. And eventually, I find myself in a position to speak harsh words or entertain violent thoughts or indulge in self-hatred; these are but the fruits of a tree called death.

The poem concludes with these lines:
The beginning of loss was this: every time some manner of beauty was offered and declined,
the subsequent isolation each conceived was irresistible.

Dear God, how many times is beauty offered to me and I decline? How many opportunities are there in a day when someone makes eye contact with me, searching for someone just to notice them? How many moments when those I love most reach out to me and I pull away, not having time or the desire or both? How many seconds tick away when my children say, "Dad, play with us" and I withhhold myself from them because of work or weariness? How many fractions of moments of facets of seconds when my wife seeks to share her heart with me and I go quiet, declining her beauty and the possibility of communion? Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have withheld my love, my affections, my touch, my attention, my forgiveness, my smile, my affirmation...myself.

We keep focusing on the fruit, when the problem is with the root. So, my two or three gathered at the Shame, when beauty is offered to you this week, don't decline. Don't withhold. Don't turn away. Resist the irresistible seed of isolation. For once the seed is planted and watered, sin comes forth. And death and hell follows. We have focused so much on saying "no" to the things of this world, that we've declined to say "yes" to the beauty of this world. Repent and turn while there's still time.

Like a country song...

I just returned from a week in Santa Fe, NM, where I attended the Glen Workshop. It's an artists conf. put on by Image magazine - big faith and arts shindig at St. John's College. I submitted a fiction piece and had it workshopped by other fiction writers and our teacher for the week, a fiction writing prof from LSU. They liked my work and my prof said it read like a country song. Dang.

Thursday afternoon, I headed out to Christ in the Desert monastery to tour the place and hopefully, to sit with the monks in one of their services. My compadre, Rich, had been there for a week not long ago, so he was the perfect tour guide. We arrived a little early and so we had time to enter the chapel before service time. The crucifix (shown above) was on the stark wall and I spent a good deal of time reflecting on it. The monks came in a little later (Sext) and each bowed before the cross and took their seats. Some did so very respectfully, while others seemed annoyed to have to stop what they were doing to "come to church." I liked that. If they'd all come in there with angelic smiles on their faces and took their sweet monkish time bowing before the Lord, I would have felt less than, like these were otherworldly creatures, they in their monk's habits and I in my cowboy boots. But no, they are men, as I am; men full of charity and humility and impatience and greed and lust, as I am. We stopped in the middle of that day and focused on this man of sorrows and what he means to our lives, whether in the desert or in the suburbs. We paused and cried out to him for strength and courage in the face of noontide demons. We took a few moments from the normal rhythm of work and fiction writing and aligned ourselves with saints all over the world and even over time (I believe) and added our voices to the chorus of others saying the psalms of King David.

A young nervous moving monk rose and rapidly rang the bell, ending the service. He seemed particularly eager to get back to whatever or wherever. At first, I thought he might have been in his cell, translating scripture, pouring over Romans or something, but then I thought, maybe he had to pee. Maybe he sat through Sext, focusing on the Lord and saying the prayers, but beneath those routine movements lay his real prayer: "God of heaven and earth, the earth is full of your glory and my bladder is full as well. Forgive me for I am about to be on ringing that bell like ducks on a junebug. But Lord, I gotta go." I liked that thought. It kinda sounded like a country song.

God in the InBox

"Miracles do happen."

Opening line of an email I received this morning. It was a correspondence from a wonderful friend who does a horrible job at writing. I am usually the initiator and he responds, but this time, this day, a miracle happened - and he wrote first. It was truly a gift to hear from him. I miss him so. If you don't really appreciate the use of the word "miracle" for this experience, then fine. I understand the need to keep the word pure. But this time, this day, I'm o.k. calling his note miraculous.

I guess the miraculous thing about it is that he was thinking about me. He's halfway around the world on a vision-quest of sorts. Much has and is going on in his life, his work, his marriage. There is much he has to sort through and wrestle with and figure out and talk over before he comes "home." So, for me to cross his mind and then for him to act on that prompting by writing a note? Miracle.

God's got a lot going on too. He's all over the world, and in it, and through it. Much is going on. Wars and rumors of wars. President Bush has got colon tests. The Harry Potter book is out. Missionaries held hostage over there. School'll be starting soon. My vision of God is not one of a nervous Nellie, though; wringing his eternal hands in anxiety over all that's to be done. I really believe he's in charge - pulling the wagon (E. Peterson). But in all of that, he's thinking about me. What is man (John) that you are mindful of him? It's a day that I feel very small in the scheme of things; humbled, if you will. But God has me on his mind. I've wondered lately if he remembered me. And he sees me. It's felt like his face has been hidden a little. And he knows. And he cares. He prompted me with that truth by way of a friend's email this morning. I'm not planning on walking on water today, but I'll leave the house shortly walking on air. The medium for the miracle concerns me not. Just that it happens. Today, this is my story, this is my song.

OUR Father...

Our Father who is always near, Emmanuel - God with us,
Hallowed/Holy/Healing is Your name.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done
Here on earth, in our lives, in my life, as in heaven.
Give us bread for the day. And the eyes to see it and the courage to take and eat.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have, are, and will sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the one who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy.
Your's is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever.
Amen.

If you've ever wondered what you were signing up for in this thing called the Christian life, well, there it is. The Lord's Prayer. The disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray," which really means, "Lord, teach us to live." And Jesus responds with these words. I believe Jesus said, "Huddle up, boys. Here's what the journey into God is. This doesn't cover all the details of the trip, but it gives you a framework for what "following Me" is going to look like. Can you pray it? Can you live it?"

The very first word in Jesus’ prayer is OUR - that little three letter word that always filled that lower spot on the right-hand side of the grammar grid we learned in school. There is me, my, and mine and then there is we, us and our. The kingdom life is an invitation to a journey among plurals – OUR.

Jesus has no interest in a single man; he wants men and women and boys and girls and uncles and cousins and engineers and dental assistants and Harry Potter fans and people who still love the Dixie Chicks. His choosing of the disciples is illustrative of this. He needed Peter, who would display rock-like faith, the kind you build churches on. He also displayed a cowardice that would have to later be redeemed by taking up the bucket and feeding the sheep. Jesus wanted John, who would one day care for the heart-broken mother of God. But a sweet, almost feminine John this was not; no, he and his brother were known as "sons of thunder" for a reason. Jesus desired Thomas, whose eyes would see the wounds and hand would touch the pierced side of the risen Lord. Thomas, usually looked down on as a "doubter" but who actually stood with a courage most of us covet: "Show me." You cannot get past the first word in Christ’s prayer without being clearly notified that the Christian life is an our/we/us adventure. Any view to the contrary reveals that we may be praying a prayer, but it’s not the Lord’s; we may be living some version of religion, but it’s not the Christ-life. And it won't be a group of sinless, smiling folks singing praise choruses. No, it'll look more like the vanload in Little Miss Sunshine.

True, there are some moments when we'll make solo jaunts. And those are necessary. But the journey is we/us/our...

Thoughts

I contacted a mentor of mine the other day. We hadn't talked in over a year. He responded and informed me that he lost his wife to ovarian cancer three months ago. She was 58. She had been sick for some time and about a year ago, they began asking God to let her live until this spring so she could see her daughter graduate from college. This humble, strong, godly, loving mother missed her little girl's graduation by a month. Instead of accepting her diploma and running into her mother's arms, this young lady clutched a photograph of "mom." A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it doesn't hold a candle to a hug from the one who birthed you into this world.

My mentor friend has been writing through his grief. I read some of his notes today and was deeply moved by the depth of his emotional honesty in the presence of God and the assembled witnesses. Some of his friends are concerned about him. They're wondering if he's really doing o.k. And they're unsettled by some of his questions and feelings. He just misses the rose of his heart like the dickens.

I've been reading a host of book proposals these days. Many of them have to do with the church. How the church is screwed up. How the church is consumer driven. How the church has hijacked Jesus and missed his core message, substituting it with some kind of something else. How Western Christians are self-absorbed and shallow. Most of these accusations are fair. I'm not the biggest fan of church these days either. But I find myself put off by these proposals. Maybe I'm getting older and crankier. Maybe. But it seems to me that the work of helping one another be born, grow, live and die is the stuff that life is made of. And when some of that "stuff" goes south, as in a 58-year-old mom missing her daughter's college graduation, we're there to sit and listen and cry and groan and pray and hope and trust and cry a little more. And not be unsettled by questions or doubts or if someone is o.k. If I can find someone to do that with, I'm not sure I give a flying fig whether they're consumer driven or not. Or if they've got all their theological ducks in a row or not. Or if they're a little self-absorbed. Just a little.

The point is that the church is screwed up, always has been. It's made up of flesh and blood who live in a screwed up world. Flesh and blood who keep coming together on some level to look to the skies for The Day; the time when he will come again and reunite daughters who graduated and mothers who died. And sons and fathers and friends and mentors. And he will wipe away all tears. The shallow ones and the deep ones. And on that day we will see him as he is. We see through a glass darkly now; we've always hijacked the holy one. But on that day, the brilliance of his glory will set us aright. Until then, we groan. And go on to graduate school with mom's photo in our hands. And go to bed alone on a mattress made for two. And wait for him.

Multiple Conversion Personality

"The last experience of God is frequently the greatest obstacle to the next experience of God. We make an absolute out of it and use it to strengthen our ego, to self-aggrandize and self-congratulate. Then, of course, nothing more happens. That's why Jesus repeats the admonition to conversion. We need to be converted again and again. We aren't born again. We are born again and again and again." - Richard Rohr

I grew up in a faith tradition that stressed the doctrine of "once saved, always saved." The core of that doctrine emphasizes the trusting stance that Jesus' grip on me is stronger than my grip on him. But I now see this doctrine as possibly being an impediment to my spiritual growth. "Impediment" - good grief, who uses that word? I now see this as possibly screwing up my journey to God. If I've done it once, then I'm good - right? Or could I need to be, as Rohr suggests, saved again?

I also grew up in a tradition that stressed the rehearsal of one's testimony, that place and time when you met the Lord. And, if you were a reprobate prior to that, you would share the pit out of which Jesus pulled you. I was six when Jesus whispered my name. Wetting my pants every once in a while was my only vice. I still believe holding onto that spot and minute to be a beneficial thing; a landmark of sorts. However, I also now see it as keeping God boxed into whatever form it was when I first experienced him. If I'm always trying to get back that lovin' feeling, I'm cutting myself off from the other feelings that God wants to introduce or convert me to. How about that suffering feeling? Or that liberated feeling? There's always that gratitude feeling and that hot-blooded feeling and that scared-to-death feeling...

I used to look down on folks who were constantly going down the aisle and getting saved again. And again. And again. Couldn't they get it right, just believe and move on? I'm sorry for those feelings. I now wonder if those multiple-conversion-personalities might not have had it right? Maybe they kept bumping into new experiences of or with God and they wanted everyone to know about it. I used to think their testimonies shallow and flighty. I now see that they were really deep and wide. Deep and wide. Unless you're born again...

Where I've Been and What I've Seen

I just returned from the International Christian Retailing Show (ICRS) in Atlanta, GA. It's an annual event where the entire spectrum of christian wares are peddled. Everything from the latest book by that grinning preacher from Houston to socks and ties with Hebrew writing on them to something called "the oil of gladness" in Alice-in-Wonderland bottles. I kept thinking that Jesus would storm in at any moment, knock all the oil of gladness onto the floor, and cry out, "A house of prayer is what my Father had in mind!" But Jesus never showed. Maybe he was waiting for me to do it.

I don't ever want to poopoo on something that Jesus might use to awaken someone to the beautiful light of grace. But venues like that make me nervous; something about that just isn't right.

I did have two wonderful experiences which actually took place before the ICRS began. Sunday afternoon was spent listening to and riding back to the airport with Brennan Manning. The ragamuffin did a stellar job of taking oil-of-gladness theology and pouring it down the drain. If you've never heard Brennan speak, you've missed out. He hands out grace, pure and simple. And you can either drink it down straight or cross your arms and huff. The room I was in drank it down straight. After the event, I escorted him back to the airport in a limo - with the Lord as my witness, a limo. A coupla' boys that Jesus loves to pieces, riding in a big shiny grace tank complete with leather seats and surround sound, just soaking in the mercy.

Later that evening, I shared a meal with Robert Benson. I had seen where Robert was going to do some signing at the ICRS and so I wrote and invited him to dinner. He wrote back and said, "Love to." And so we did. I immediately felt affection for this man due to his wiry beard and pony-tailed hair. It just got better from there. We talked of books and food and kids and Buechner and lovely wives and idiots who think they can write books on raising children. We dined at the South City Kitchen in Atlanta. If you ever have the opportunity to eat there, please do. It was splendid. I'm pretty sure Robert and I were suckled by the same she-wolf and separated soon after birth. It's good to be reunited to family.

The other experience I'll share happened on the last day of the ICRS. I don't know that it was wonderful, but it definitely made me stop and think. We were meeting in the Georgia Convention Center. As I walked into the building on Wednesday, I immediately noticed people who did not look like ICRS-ers. ICRS-ers, well, let me describe the men at least. The males either had on suits and ties (with Hebrew writing on them) or they had on those starched camp shirts, untucked and accompanied by pleated khakis with nifty leather shoes. Conformity with a capital C. The people I saw on Wednesday did not conform to those dress codes. These men, women and children had on all the trappings of the Middle East. Oh, there were a few suits to be seen, but most everyone had on beautiful robes and headwear. Their skin was that dark-olive skin like Jesus must've had. Their hair and eyes and eyebrows above were crayola-black. And they were everywhere.

I stopped at the info desk and said, "Just out of curiosity, what event are all these people here for?" The nice info-lady said, "They're here for a celebration of the Muslim faith. You're about the 5000th person to ask me." As I continued to walk cross-stream to those about to celebrate the Muslim faith, I looked to see if anybody with an untucked camp shirt whose hair was sprinkled with the oil of gladness was stopping to talk to these beautiful Muslim people. I didn't see any encounters of such a close kind. The ICRS-ers just kept walking one direction and the Muslim people just kept walking the other, exchanging nothing more than glances. I wasn't hoping to find anybody sharing the four spiritual laws; in fact, I was praying nobody was doing that. But I hoped to find at least one who was saying, "hello" or "hey, be sure and eat at the South City Kitchen while you're here." Since Jesus hadn't emerged on the show floor to kick over the tables, maybe he had walked upstairs and was sitting in the common area. And maybe he was watching all of us Christians walk right past the Muslims and was wondering why that was so awkward for us. And maybe he was crying because we wouldn't stop and speak or at least grin and wave. All that Jesus-stuff down the escalators created to bring glory to his name and share the good news with the nations and when the nations (at least one) showed up, we had nothing but silence. And ties with Hebrew writing on them. And smiley preachers from Texas. And bottles of gladness with spill proof caps. Then again, maybe I never saw Jesus on the floor of the ICRS because he hadn't arrived yet. He came in on Wednesday for the Muslim celebration of faith. Then again, maybe my scripture socks are too tight. I'm sure a little oil of gladness will loosen them right up, eh?

Spiritual Experiences

So I'm driving on I-40 today on my way back to CO and I notice an exit sign for Groom, Texas. I had never heard of this place before. Immediately after the town-exit-sign, there is a big white billboard announcing the presence of the largest cross in the northern hemisphere. The billboard invites you to exit and have a most significant "spiritual experience." The photo I've attached shows you the big cross. Well, I didn't take the exit, but I did slow enough to see a parking lot full of cars and trucks and their drivers walking around the base of the big cross in a "stations" type arrangement. Although I was quite some distance away, the best I could make out is that they were having a spiritual experience.



A little further down the road, I come upon a feed lot. This photo is not the greatest, but hey - whaddya expect at 75mph? This was a fairly significant enterprise with cows everywhere and white-pipe fencing keeping them, well, fenced in. And if you weren't certain whether or not it was feed lot, then rolling down the window would confirm your intuitions. Cows walking around, bumping into each other, probably performing cow-apologies: "Hey, I didn't see you there standing there making a cowpatty. Sorry for walking right into you." "Look, no problem. The way everybody acts 'round here, you'd think it was a feed lot or something."

These two images stayed with me for miles - the northern hemisphere's largest cross and the feed lot. One promising a spiritual experience and the other promising your cows are fed. I've gotta tell you that the feed lot won out over the big cross for sheer spiritual experience. Why? Well, I believe that anything truly spiritual, as in Jesusy-spiritual, is going to have an earthy element to it - in other words, it'll be incarnational.

The big cross was all white and purty and huge. It reached up toward the heavens and towered over all the little people at it's base having a supposed spiritual experience. It reminded me of a missle, about to take off for, well...heaven, I guess. It was so out of place along the highway there. Now sure, I believe that the cross never "fits" but this thing had no desire to fit; it was totally other by design. On the other hand, the feed lot make me think about earthy things - cows, fence, hay, feed troughs, watering tanks, and manure. It fit the landscape hand-in-glove and had no aspirations of pretense. No, this was cows, a bunch of 'em, just cowing around. Seeing those cows and smelling their aroma caused me to remember my granddad, which caused me to think about my dad, and that made me tear up and thank God for his goodness toward my life. Seeing that cross didn't make me feel any of those things. I just kept wondering how high it was and who constructed it and who would get sued should it fall over and crush those folks below having spiritual experiences. The whole thing miffed me, to say the least, because it perpetuates this crazy notion of spiritual experiences always being big and transcendent and otherworldly and nice and white. I believe most spiritual experiences take place among stinkin' cows and crying babies and struggling to pay your bills and getting teary-eyed over fireworks on the fourth of July and paying over $3 for a gallon of gas and kissing your wife goodnight and sleeping in your socks during the winter months and hugging your parents good-bye after a brief visit and kids farting in the minivan, forcing you to roll down the window and then lo and behold, you smell the feed lot and thank God your kids aren't cows. That big, shiny cross didn't make me think of any of those things.

RockTalk

After two nights in a mountain cabin, doing absolutely nothing productive, Meredith and I finished up our anniversary weekend with a hike to The Crags - it's listed as one of the top 10 hikes in Colorado. She clicked this photo of me sitting atop the trail contemplating something...probably the holiness of the rocks around me. As we went back down the trail, you could hear folks in the distance. One young man's voice was clearly heard talking about the ancient practices of the Celtic people; however, he was pronouncing it "seltic" - like that basketball team from Boston. "Yes, the Seltics even honored groves of trees as sacred and holy," he said. I about laughed up a lung. And he just kept on yapping. A few minutes later, this young linguistics professor passed us, with a wife and baby in tow, still talking. The missus was intensely plodding ahead like some Indian scout, while ole' Prof had junior in one of those nifty, seltic backpacks with a lid on the top to prevent extreme exposure to the sun above pop's head. This guy had a hiking pole in each hand and an intensity on his face that made this Anglo nervous and would probably have unsettled most Selts. The poor kid was strapped or better yet, trapped, in and had no choice but to go along and listen. Professor Druid, Mama Bustamove, and Little St. Pat strode by on a mission, single-minded and determined to reach the peak and discuss Seltic mythology along the way. I can only hope that the Prof reached the peak and sat down on the same rock I was perched on, put down his poles, told mama to let down her hair, liberated his son from pack-tivity, and shut the hell up. If the people will be quiet, the very rocks will cry out of the holiness of God. That's something even the Seltics knew.

Survival Training

I finished up Elizabeth Gilbert's The Last American Man. The main character, Eustace Conway, is this magnetic personality in buckskin and beard and muscle. He has gradually purchased over 1000 acres of pristine Appalachian forest and turned it into Turtle Island - a primitive working farm and learning environment for folks of all ages. About 90% of the people who apply for apprenticeships or intern-stints drop out. About 10% hang in there. The reason for the crazy percentages? Eustace Conway. For all of his mythic masculine stature, he's also a task-master in the truest sense of the word. There is usually one way to do things and it's Eustace's way. His justification? He's earned the right to authority - his wisdom and relationship to the land has been hard-won. And he doesn't expect anything from his workers that he doesn't expect from himself. The only problem is Eustace Conway is this archetypal man; they don't make very many like him.

One of his 10%-hang-in-there, star pupils was a kid named Christian Kaltrider. How did this kid survive? I'll let him speak:
"It was my intention to learn, and that was all. Eustace would teach me something, and I'd go off and do it. I didn't spend any time talking - just listening and watching and doing what I was told. Of course, he had control over me all the time, but I didn't let that frustrate me. I told myself, 'I am letting him have this control for the purpose of my education. And he is in control only of my education, not of my identity.' That's a subtle distinction. Are you giving yourself to Eustace, or are you letting him take you? I made the decision to give myself over as a student, and that's why my experience was so different from the experiences of many others who come here...not mindless obedience, but mindful obedience."

Did you catch that "subtle" distinction? Eustace was in control of Christian's education, but not his identity. The book's a good read, but that paragraph alone is worth the price on the cover. Letting or allowing someone to have control over you for a purpose; however, that purpose is not connected in the least to identity. About 90% of the other teens, college kids, and young adults dropped out of Eustace's program because they let him define their identity. He told most of them they sucked, they started crying, and they quickly caught the next bus home.

Identity. Hold that tightly within yourself and you can submit yourself to horrendous indignities - dumpster diving for food or picking up roadkill for dinner (such you would experience at Eustace's place). But you can keep your "self" intact. But if you hold your identity out there for someone else to define? Well, life may be nothing more than continually catching the next bus to the next place for the next person to say, "You suck." Of course, they could say, "You're the best thing since sliced bread." But the chances are just as great they'll tell you, "You suck." If you want to roll those dice thru life, go ahead. But in that game, the house usually wins. Better to nail that identity thing down. You'll be in the top 10% of the class.

Us

June 30th, 1990 - 17 years ago...

I stood at the head of the slanted line of men in black. I was clean shaven. I had a stylish haircut, long on the top and bowl-short on the sides and back. My brother was my best man and four other friends stood behind him. We were all boys. The air was heavy, the sun shone brazenly through the church windows. We had followed the old rules: Don't see the bride on wedding day. The organ music began and her maids commenced their procession down the aisle. They finally reached their appointed marks, creating a reflection of the boys on the other side. There was one empty spot at the front of the church - we were waiting for her. Her.

The white church doors opened, just like in those movies. And then she appeared, holding her daddy's arm and smiling. I had seen the dress hanging lifeless on a hangar. But now, it was full of life, her life. That tightness grabbed my throat and the eyes pooled up with tears. I couldn't help it. She looked so incredibly beautiful. And the person she wanted to stand beside on that day was me. Me.

He led her down the aisle as I will one day lead my girls. At least I hope it works out that way. He led her one last time. From now on, he was trusting me to lead her, guide her, love her in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, 'till death did us part. He joined our hands and then sat down, he took her as far as he could. It would now be up to us. Us.

Her. Me. Us. We both said, "I do" on that Arkansas afternoon. I'm pretty sure neither one of us had the foggiest idea what we were agreeing to. How can you? It's all words on such a day. Empty words. And what we agreed to was filling those empty words up, together. And how did we fill them up? With sickness (the flu, pregnancy, crutches) and health (running 5ks and organic peanut butter), with richer (glass screen doors purchased by a tax-refund) and poorer (a wooden porch swing purchased by a tax-refund), and weekend trips to B&Bs and a son and a daughter and then one more daughter, and churches and steeples and look at all the people, with cars and vans and ski trips and the fourth of July on Arkansas lakes, with disappointments and successes, with tears and anger, with risky job-quitting and dream chasing and snow and Colorado. Those and so much more are what we filled up those empty words with. Our lives. And we're not finished yet. Her. Me. Us.

Of Boxes and Circles

"The ancient people understood that our world is a circle, but we modern people have lost sight of that...Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes. They wake up every morning in the box of their bedroom because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into a box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken up into lots of little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to their house boxes and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they get their food from a box, they keep their clothing in a box, they lives their lives in a box! Does that sound like anybody you know?...Break out of the box!...You don't have to live like this because people tell you it's the only way. You're not handcuffed to your culture! This is not the way humanity lived for thousands and thousands of years, and it is not the only way you can live today!"
- Eustace Conway, in Elizabeth Gilbert's the Last American Man

I had read about this book several years ago in a review in Outside magazine. It received high marks and definitely piqued my curiosity. But something happened, probably sneezed or something, and I forgot about it. I was with the kids the other night on our weekly trip to the public library. They made their selections and offered Dad (me) a few minutes to browse. I began to scan the shelves, eyeing each title and spine. And there it was - the Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert.

The book tells the story of Eustace Conway - he left his comfortable suburban home at seventeen and moved into the Appalachian Mountains. And he has lived there for the last twenty years, making fire with sticks, wearing clothing he makes from animal skins, and eating what he traps or catches. Animal skins? Locust and wild honey? Sounds biblically familiar. He emerges from the woods quite often to preach his gospel to schoolchildren and one of his consistent sermons concerns boxes and circles.

Challenge: Think of the boxes in your life. How many can you come up with? Handcuffed to our culture, aren't we? Repent, repent, for the kingdom is at hand. And it's not in a box.

There Are Men Too Gentle To Live Among Wolves

I was pondering a self-descriptive line to add to my blog and the line came to me - "too gentle to live among wolves." It is from one of my favorite poems by James Kavanaugh.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men to gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant's profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant's world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world,
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

The Quest

(The "Difficult Splendor" thread is going off-line for a few. But it will be back...)

I wrote my dad a note on Father's Day telling him how much I love and appreciate him. I also raised a few questions in the note - not as in "please answer these and get back with me," but rather, "these are some things I wonder about, dad."

When you were 40, in those still moments of the night, when you couldn't sleep, did you -
*Toss and turn over where the money was going to come from to pay your bills? Did you want more money?

*Wrestle with being a good father and husband? What did you use to evaluate yourself in those areas?

*Consider quitting your job and taking off after some dream? Walk away from the church and raise horses?

*Ponder whether your marriage would last? Did you look across the bed and wonder who this other person was?

*Work tirelessly at something, only to see it fail? Did you shrug it off or did it paralyze you for months?

*Feel connected to your sons? Did you want to enter their world, but didn't always know how? Did they scare you?

*Dream about other lives you might have lived, had you made different decisions? Did you ever tell anybody about that?

*Notice your body growing older, thicker, slower? Did you look at boys in their 20s and wish to be young again?

*Need to ask questions about God and faith and providence and sin? And if so, did you ever ask them?

*Want to get in a fight - just to feel what it felt like?

*Wonder whether other women noticed you?

Yeah, I know - these questions say a lot more about me than they do my dad. However, unless he's some alien from another galaxy, there must be some common ground there, some flesh-and-blood feelings and questions that all men ask of themselves. There is a part of me that wishes I'd have been interested in these things in my teens or 20s. But there's no way that would have been possible - I hadn't lived long enough for those questions to have any substance. They would have been asked prematurely and the answers would have been a mere exchange of information. In your 30s, you're so damn busy with getting started with job, wife, children, car payments, mortgages, exercise, etc., that questions like these hover around you like flies, but you swat them away. Ole' rabbit from the Pooh series - "busy, busy, busy."

But things begin slowing somewhat in your 40s, on several levels, and you start really pondering things. At least I am. You've had enough time to disappoint some people, betray some friends, lose some things dear to your heart, switch jobs, sire some kiddos, and really start being married. In other words, you've got a context for questions like these - they are much more than just letters and words. They're questions, with the emphasis on "quest" - the search, the longing.

I guess a bottom-line here is that I want to know more of my dad, maybe in hopes of knowing more of me. Because as different as we are, we're not really that different. Mike and The Mechanics sing a favorite song of mine entitled "The Living Years." One line especially haunts me - "I wasn't there the morning when my father passed away. I didn't get to tell him, all the things I had to say." Dear God, I want some time with my dad. Not to tell him all the things I have to say, but to ask him a few questions and listen. And hopefully, learn. I wonder if he wants the same from me?

A Difficult Splendor (5)

We had wrangled over the issue of tent-or-no-tent in the our planning. There was a certain pull in all of us to just sleep out under the stars. If the weather decided on a storm or two, then so be it. But that pull was tempered by some experiences we'd had on several trips when we were supremely glad we'd brought a tent along. One night, back in Arkansas, we awoke to wind and rain off the charts. That night, a tent probably kept us alive. So, discretion being the better part of valor and all, we brought a tent along on our hike through the Grand Canyon.

Now when I say tent, I mean tent. This was no ultralight, one a half man bivy sack...no, this was a full-out shelter. We're not huge guys, but we are big guys. Remember that one night in Arkansas, when the tent saved our life? One of the guys had brought a two-man megazoid or something and although it provided a balm in gilead for us, it was by far the most uncomfortable half-night of my life. In fact, as soon as it stopped storming, I got the heck out of Dodge and slept out by the fire with the walking sticks and spiders. Based on that one experience, we decided to bring along a three/four man tent that would accomodate our frames and packs and egos. And we figured one of us would carry it one day, another the next, and so on and so forth. It was that "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ" stuff.

Well, that tent quickly became a beast of burden. Our packs weighed in at around 50-60 pounds a piece and that's a heavy load. Add anything, and I mean anything, of substance to a back already weighted down with that kind of load and the pace slows considerably. My buddy (M) carried it in on the descent and about halfway down, his knees started giving him fits, so much so that we had to stop several times. My other buddy (R) and I looked at each other and knew that M needed some relief. His knees were not in great shape anyway and this was just the first day. So, we unstrapped the tent and R hitched that wagon to his star. And it wasn't too long on down the trail and R handed the burden to me.

I had trained for this trip - ran my four miles a day, used the off days for weight lifting, hydrated myself so my pee was clearer than sprite and had even dabbled in contemplative prayer. But when we strapped that tent to my pack, good-hella-mighty, it was like hoisting a draft horse on my shoulders. After my first step, the phrase "son-of-a-bitch" stumbled out of my mouth with perfect diction. My buddies looked over their shoulders and said, "Yep. That's what she is." And that's what she was the entire trip. The bitch.

Those psychologist-types tell us that if there's something big and hairy underneath your bed, then you should give it a name and in the process of naming it, you take some of it's power away to scare you or make you pee your jammies. We named that tent, but I swear it still stayed as big and hairy and heavy as ever before. It kept scaring us. And I, for one, probably peed my Ex Officio zip-off pants more than once while carrying the Bitch.

There's always something, huh? You plan and prepare and hydrate and center down in a Brother David Stendall Rast kind of way, and then you have to strap something extra on, something you didn't really prepare for. About all you can do, if you want to continue the hike, is cinch it down tight, mumble a few "son-of-a-bitch's" under your breath, and keep moving. We had to make our intended destination for the night because it was near the source of life in the Grand Canyon - water. If you start whinning about a bitch or a monkey or anything else on your back and stop every five minutes to rub your feet and prompt your comrades to say, "Well, bless you heart" - well, you won't make the campsite and you won't be able to replenish your water supply and you'll probably keel over in some rock formation and start singing hymns of the faith while the buzzards come and pick your heart out and you're foaming at the mouth like some rabid dog and your last moment of consciousness is seeing your lifelong buddies eyeing your toes like they're vienna sausages or something. No, we made the decision to carry the tent and a part of this journey was doing whatever it took to make it. I do know this - I couldn't have made it without my friends. Folks quote Philippians 4:13 all the blessed time, they put it on everything from flip calendars to screen savers. But very few people know that after ole' Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" - he added, "But I sure am thankful for your help as well." I believe Paul knew a thing or two about carrying a Bitch on his back. And he knew it's nice to have a brother to pass it off to when you just can't go another step.

A Difficult Splendor (4)

We each looked at each other, winked, and stepped over the edge. And then we saw them.

As we were just stepping over the edge, they were coming up the trail, about to finish their trek. There were five of them - one older guy (25-ish) and four jr. or senior high age boys. And they looked like hell. These boys looked like lost souls out of some modern day Dante flick, doing penance for a litany of sins. Hollow-eyed and weary, sweat-ringed and dragging their tails. I'm not sure what kind of trip they were completing. The older guy brought up the rear, doling out minimalist shouts of encouragement: "Come 'on, guys...almost there." The boys never responded.

As we passed them on the trail, our eyes met each one, but never a word was exchanged. I tried to read their eyes, much like we'd read the eyes of the rim folks. Although not for certain, my gut told me these boy-eyes were saying, "Turn back now, while there's still time. Beyond this point, all hope is lost." As I said, I don't know what kind of trip these boys were on. Were these troubled teens on an introduction to nature trip? Were they pampered rich kids sent by their parents on a toughen-'em-up weekend getaway? Were they young christians, led by their youth minister, and they'd been out communing with God? On some level, it felt like they were a combination of all of the above. Young, pampered, troubled christians, led by an older guy, with an intention on toughening them up and showing them a little of God beyond skateboard parks and the food court at the mall.

As they passed us, I wonder if they could read our eyes? Could they tell that we were a little older, pampered, troubled christians, led by an unseen force on a trip through the canyon, with the intention of finding something we felt like we were missing in our lives? I kinda doubt it. The only thing they were focused on was the rim, getting back over the top to whatever life they'd left however many days ago. There are those who hike the Grand Canyon and remain unchanged. It's just a notch on the belt, something to brag about with friends back home, as in, 'Yeah, I've done the Grand." It's a trophy, of sorts. That is the attitude of the young boy. Trophies. Whether it's canyons, deer, or girls, the goal is to conquer it and put it on the wall or joke about it in the locker room. We were a little further down the man-road; we had no desire to conquer it. We wanted this place to swallow us up, conquer us, put us on the wall, or leave traces of our lives in the rocks to whisper to future travelers.

The first mile was a winding combination of chalk-like ground and the shade of pines. A few spots of challenge every now and then. But then we were greeted with a landscape straight out of the Old Testament. Rocks and heat and lizards and sand. I fully expected a hoary John the Baptist to emerge out of the rocks and exhort us to, "Repent, for the kingdom is at hand." Our upright postures quickly lowered to a hunched-over scrambling, using hand-holds to stabilize our steps; we'd gone from hiking to boulder-hopping. We immediately felt like some prophetic angel had taken a flaming sword and shoved it into our knees.

I've mentioned that the men on this trip included myself and two friends. But I've not yet spoken about the fourth member of our team, someone/thing that began as supposed friend, but quickly turned enemy. It's name was the Bitch. And it followed us our entire trip. And it gets it's own post...