I don't trust your heartburn...

                                                                         image originally created by Cishore

During my latest stint at a shelter for which I sometimes volunteer I had yet another encounter that left me feeling uneasy. So let me begin by saying that by and large I am a rule follower- as long as I don’t find them morally bankrupt or a foundational impediment to my purpose. I used to interpret rules loosely when I was younger but now I am a rule follower.

When I was the campus minister at Northeastern University in downtown Boston I used to spend a lot of time in the campus center. Every morning I’d buy a small ice tea because it was free refills all day. I’d sit at a table and do my work, have appointments and generally hang out. I would fill up that ice tea all day long. However, I would not allow anyone else to use my cup and get themselves a drink. That would break the rule of “free refills” which is intended to benefit only the one who purchased the drink. I do not copy my CDs for others, I don’t purchase bootlegs and I never ever go through the grocery line marked “12 items or less” if I have 13 items. I follow the rules.

So during my latest shift at the shelter I was faced with a dilemma. The rules state that no one is allowed to go outside the shelter for any reason after 10 PM. If they go outside they cannot return. The reason for the rule is so that no one can leave to get alcohol or drugs and then return again. The shelter is a “dry” shelter. No one is even allowed outside for a smoke after 10 PM. Some might state that such rules infringe upon the dignity of the individual since we are dealing with grown men and not children. Decades of experience from those that run shelters might say otherwise. In any case it is the rules. They are meant to protect both the other inhabitants of the shelter and the volunteers. Back to my dilemma.

At about 1 AM a man got up and headed out the door. I told him he could not leave if he wanted to stay the night. He responded that he needed to go to his car and get his heartburn medication because he couldn’t sleep. He told me this without slowing down or giving any indication that this rule would deter him in any way. I also gleaned from the tone and language he applied that his mood was on the darker spectrum from my cheerful attempt at first contact.

Rules are rules. And yet… rules applied in a vacuum of context often create greater problems. I needed to improvise here.  On the one hand if he indeed simply needed his medication there is no reason not to help him in an already uncomfortable and somewhat humbling evening of sleeping in a homeless shelter with 25 other men. Then again, I had the other inhabitants and volunteers to consider if he wasn’t getting heartburn medication but some form of narcotic- which was my very true fear.

“Well I’ll need to walk you to your car then.” Unfortunately, he didn’t appreciate the situation I was in and threatened me instead saying he would do this or that if I tried to follow him. Now I am not a small man so I wasn’t concerned for my physical safety yet he rightly interpreted what was implied- “I don’t trust your heartburn.” Now there are a myriad of reasons I can give for why I should care less about what offense this offered the man not the least of which was that if he wanted to utilize the benefits of the free shelter, food and bedding he’d have to abide by some rules.  However, I get his resentment. Nevertheless there I stood watching him get his medication out of the car while cursing me under his breath.

In an unbelievable twist of fate I happened to be suffering from an awful bout of heartburn myself. I never have heartburn ordinarily but I had drunk a Mountain Dew earlier that day (which I had just put together was the culprit of any heartburn I’ve had in the last five years) and was suffering its effect. Despite the man’s rant I actually had the audacity- which I trace both to my morbid desire to see how radical variables can affect volatile situations and my general oblivion to the extreme emotions of others- to ask for one of his heartburn tablets. For some strange reason this actually seemed to quiet his discontent. He began saying “no” because they were prescription and cost him $15 a bottle but then stopped and said “Well… if you want one you can have one.”

Deciding that I probably shouldn’t be taking paid medication out of the hands of a man that was presently homeless, nor risk the chance that such medication might be something other than a normal heartburn prescription I declined with a “thanks”. A subdued peace settled between the two of us and back off to bed he went. I went back to the kitchen to make his lunch for the next day.

Yet, there I was making turkey sandwiches with the discomforting feeling that all dilemmas offer after they’ve passed. What could I have done differently? Somehow if Jesus was put in the same situation that man would have not only made a decision to change his life but would have thanked Jesus for their late night discussion with tears of devotion. Right? After a couple days of mulling it over I’m not so sure.

The reality is that there were times people wanted to kill Jesus even before his unjust demise. Most people chose not to follow him while some called him insane, gluttonous and even a demon. So sometimes there are simply “no win” situations within a given moment. The important part is to remain at peace with the person in your own heart. Much the way Jesus was with the rich young ruler who rejected Jesus and walked away. In that moment of rejection it says that Jesus loved him (Mark 10:21).

The unease I felt is the after-effect of where my own heart went as I tried to do the right thing both through following the rules of the shelter and by giving the man an opportunity to get his medicine. I had no real compassion for the man and instead was trying to fight down my angry impulses while he berated me. I did nothing wrong in action, yet it is where I allowed my heart to tread that betrayed my best intensions as woefully lacking. Despite what we may say or do it is what is truly taking place inside us- the heart as it were- that does the real communicating.

What an unbelievable pain. I consider it a task of monumental difficulty for me to find compassion for people. Yet there we go. It wasn’t in His style, rhetoric or even miracles that Jesus won people over. It was where he started with them. He was at peace with people and on that account many found, despite themselves, that they felt at peace with Him as well. It won’t be until I imitate Him in this that I will be free from the after effects of conflict and the inevitable and ensuing heartburn. 

Crowd Control

There are few things that give me the unique sensation of discomfort and low-grade anxiety like large social events. While I may be a social creature by design I do not love the crowd given my particular place in life at the moment. This is not the result of any kind of phobia I harbor but more likely because of some quirky weaknesses I will presently disclose.

To begin, I have a terrible memory when it comes to names. In other areas of life I find my memory to be astonishing; but not with names, or faces for that matter. Likely, this says something about me I don’t want to know. I imagine it means I am self-centered, egotistical and perhaps vain because I cannot remember the names and faces of others. I have thought about it a lot and the implications are not pleasant. Yet, that isn’t what I want to write about. Suffice it to say, if I’ve met you once, twice, three times or more and I still cannot remember your name please understand that I feel worse about it than you do.

I am terrified of offending someone because of this neurological hiccup. I have standard operating procedures that help bail me out of tight spots like introducing whatever person I happen to be with to the as of yet un-named individual- “Hi, let me introduce my wife Meegan…” to which the unnamed individual then introduces themselves to my wife. Still, it is a tight rope act. The point, however, is that this is a major obstacle when it comes to being in a crowd.

Add to that social disorder my acute incapacity to carry on small talk. I find that I care so little about the little things that I am a total bore.  I so easily zone out when discussing ice breaker type topics that once I snap back to the conversation I begin saying what first comes into my head like “wow, you have massive forearms” or “I watched this special on dung beetles last night and did you know…” or “my cat killed a mouse last night and all I found was its decapitated body this morning”. Not only does such rhetoric leave the person on the other end of the conversation with absolutely no possible response but they begin to wonder if I am on medication. I begin asking why I am not on medication.

Finally, and probably most importantly, one of my worst nightmares is that my wife or children will be kidnapped. While I don’t know anybody that has ever been kidnapped, whenever I see it in the movies or TV dramas it always seems to happen in crowded places where people seem to be very happy. I use to love anonymous crowds for the sheer joy of observation, but when I am with my family every stranger becomes a potential “perp”.

So I avoid crowds when possible. The last concert I attended was to see the Violent Femmes in 1994 in Chicago. I cannot stand the mall. I am grouchy and uneasy when my family goes to the local fairs or parades and while I love the Chi-town museums I am almost crawling out of my skin on the crowded free days.

So I get it when Jesus goes to the mountain after feeding the 5,000; or in other parts of the gospel narrative where he quietly withdraws from the crowds to spend time alone with his disciples. The challenge I face is to ensure I don’t medicate the draining effect of the crowd with the numbing effect of the internet, the TV, or (name your interactive medium).  It is to the mountain or the sea I must go.

Yet, it is usually a challenge for me to face God; to put knees to ground and pray. I fall short within the crowd so often I find it difficult to once again go to the Lord in my varying degrees of failure. I was of the notion that Jesus should send the crowd away, back to the towns to eat. And when Jesus tells me “You give them something to eat” putting aside the logistic impossibility of the thing is only the first obstacle. It is in the gracious service of the often bestial masses my heart kicks and screams. So going to the mountain to debrief the Lord in the failure of my love is often overwhelming. It is much easier to unwind in front of the discovery channel’s special documentary on dung beetles.

So the crowd represents not only a trial upon my heart but the looming mountain ahead. Though I have a gracious and compassionate understanding of God, it has not grown any easier to admit weakness and failure to Him especially as so much hangs in the balance. Yet, the great Counselor spurs me onward both to the crowds (I leave for campus soon to share my faith and lead a Bible discussion) and further ahead to the mountain (the inevitable prayer walk around the park following an afternoon on campus).

The Waiting Room

I hate going to the doctor. I HATE going to the doctor. No amount of wit or rhetoric will adequately convey my disdain. You would have to see my face, my eyes, my hands, and hear my voice to detect the myriad levels of loathing I have. I can point to life-changing misdiagnoses, painful and ultimately useless medical treatments, and bad (I mean terrible on the order of magnitudes) bedside manner to the sources of this abhorrence I harbor. Yet, one thing more than anything else really articulates the “why” of it all; and this is the waiting room.

In no other area of life outside of roller coaster lines and restaurants on very busy nights where I have no other choices do I pay to come on time to an appointment only to wait for an indefinite period of time for a 5-10 minute consultation which may or may not ever really help me. Often, one might be ushered into an examination room to give the illusion of progress toward an appointment to wait for another undisclosed period of time only to be surrounded by possible instruments of torment to mull over how they may be used to poke, prod, cut, and otherwise cause you discomfort in the name of responsible medicine. Please excuse me; agitation causes me to write in unwieldy run-on sentences.

Now, I know that it must be very difficult to practice medicine and to treat illness and disease on a best hunch and to do so knowing your patients expect exact and flawless treatment. Such expectations are foolish. Yet, it is often the medical field itself that propagates such fantasy. There are no definites in this realm of practical science- there are too many variables in each body, environment, and history for treatment not to only be the best educated guess that a $200,000 education can buy. I have no illusions about this. It is the waiting room to which I would apply my angst.

How is it that so much medical progress still cannot cipher the mystery of keeping an appointment? There are reasons- some seem reasonable and others have more to do with treating people as chattel or automobiles on an assembly line. It is insulting, degrading, and unnecessary. It goes against what any business would call good practices. However annoying it may be it exposes a personal trait of my own shaped by our culture, and it isn't pretty.

It betrays a general trend toward entitlement to allow the waiting room such leverage in my heart. As I sat in the examination room I contemplated breaking the equipment around me, writing a letter to the governor, and creating a lobbyist group to convince congress to enact laws against long delays in the waiting room. I updated my Facebook status so the world could know the injustice of my current situation. I imagined staging a coughing fit when the doctor entered so he would feel horrible about making me wait. “I don’t deserve this!” I said to myself.

How infantile.

Put aside the fact that I receive some of the best medical care in the history of the world and that my waiting time might be 90 minutes past my appointment but the reality is that such care is imminent and always at the ready. Forget about the fact that the flu bug will never really present any danger to me nor does a broken bone or the need for an organ to be removed. What is it that I am really complaining about? I am too important to wait. I shouldn’t be treated like this.

The waiting room brings out my ugliness.

 Are there things this particular medical group might do better for their patients? Sure. Yet, what is that to me? I still must conduct myself with gracious magnanimity because that’s what the redeemed do. Those who have held large debts and been forgiven do not beat the ones that are fractionally indebted to them. I am entitled to nothing but justice, and justice is not a friend of mine because I am guilty over and over again. It is unto mercy I have hedged my bets.  

When the doctor entered apologetically I smiled in a way that conveyed that I know what it means to have many people vie for your time with expectations that each one has your full and undivided attention. “One of those days, eh? No worries.” And 5 minutes later our consultation was done and I walked out with prescription in hand.

Then I called someone that had been ill lately who I hadn’t gone yet to visit. We set a time for me to visit. I will be on time and I will apologize for not coming sooner. They will probably be extremely gracious as usual.

On public speaking....

I have often heard that the one thing that some people dread more than death is public speaking. Now I am not a soldier, I don't fight fires nor am I an astronaut. My children, all of whom are boys, love race cars, star wars, and ninjas. What I do for a living seems somewhat boring by comparison. So when I hear that there is no small segment of our population that is more scared of what is part of my normal job routine than they are of death than I feel somewhat gratified.

Now there are many circumstances to which a minister might be called to do some public speaking that are outside the parameters of simply doing a sermon on Sunday. In almost any gathering of people you will likely be called upon, without prior notice, to be the bull horn- to quiet a crowd, to provide directions, to say a prayer, or perhaps to help introduce the mayor of Chicago. The latter may only happen once in your life but because it has I will include it among the repertoire. I have been asked- again, without prior notice- to speak at weddings, funerals, and large conferences. Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea about what I am communicating let me be clear; it’s an honor.

To be invested with so much trust as to be the communicator representing the wishes or convictions of the deceased, the newly betrothed, a large dinner gathering, or thousands of people together is a part of my life that will never grow old. It is truly one of my favorite aspects of the role I play. It is also a terrifying part of my spirituality.

Let me explain. What I am about to say is as honest as I can be, and I hope there are no repercussions from it. Every sermon I write, for the most part, entails a process for which torment is no small element. There is always a moment where I inevitably say to myself "this is the worst thing I have ever written" and I start again. At some point the words "why didn't I have somebody else preach this week" come out of my mouth and finally when I reach my lowest point I begin to question whether or not I am even a Christian. This is not that point of honesty to which I was referring yet.

There is usually, however, a moment where the angst disperses and the torture of trying to achieve coherence ends and I reach an epiphany where all my thoughts make sense. Finally, what lay before me is a stream of ideas, facts, and Biblical insights that form a narrative that makes sense and has a point. And what do I get for all this hard work? A lot.

I get to present my thoughts and ideas to a group of people usually eager to hear them and always gracious as an audience. Once a week I get applause and feedback that encourages and motivates me for the week to come. Oh yeah, and I also get paid to do it. While that is not nearly the entirety of my job it seems to be an important piece. I am now about to reach that point of honesty to which I previously referred. Here is what terrifies me: I am not someone that God chose to do this job because of my spirituality.

I am not saying I'm a heathen or living a double life. I am very moral if I don't say so myself. I just struggle to be spiritual. I look at the members of our church and I am consistently awed by their humble walks with God; working 50 hours a week, taking care of their marriages and children, turning down career opportunities so they can devote more time to God's fellowship, learning and listening to men much younger and less experienced, allowing their personal lives to be discipled... it goes on and on. And no one gives them applause at the end of the week. No one congratulates them. Honestly, most of the time no one notices because everyone else is doing the same thing. Their reward is yet to come, while I often receive mine in advance and again, I’m not even that spiritual.

I don't like to sing. I force myself to pray most of the time. Sharing my faith everyday is an act of will power often solely motivated by my desire to be obedient to God rather than my love for the lost. I don't read devotional-type books (sticking strictly to theology and commentaries) and I couldn't even tell you how to find a Christian radio station. I don't fast enough, I don't take notes when others are teaching, and I'd rather watch football than go to a worship concert. I am not very humble and I have the annoying habit of always believing I am right. If I wasn't married to a saint I would be ten times worse.

When the end of days does come, I know my place will be modest. In this world God has given me a set of tools and He uses them to His advantage. Along the way I am given greater attention as a result. There are many people in the Bible God used as His instrument out of no virtue of their own. Pharaoh was tool, and it didn't go so well for him. Now I know I am no Pharaoh, but I am no Moses, Jeremiah, or one of the many nameless prophets in the scriptures either. I am more likely somewhere between Samson and Hezekiah (at the end of his life). The point is that there are so many more devout, spiritual, and humble people that I know who might be more qualified to do my job. It just happens that it isn't their calling or gift set. It is my calling out of no merit of my own. This thought is chilling to me.

James 3:1 says, "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." That verse has driven me to my knees on many occasions asking forgiveness for any stupid thing I might have taught and not yet realized. I am humbled and terrified by my calling. Again, while teaching and preaching are not the entirety of my job, they have been a significant element to that calling.

So, on the subject of public speaking I have reservations of a spiritual nature. I love public speaking and while it makes me sick every Sunday morning because of nervous energy I hope I am allowed to do it the rest of my life. That said, I often wonder what it will mean for me at the resurrection. I have applied my gifts to a work of service for which there is great reward in this world (when you do a good job at least) and what could possibly then be left for me then in the next? It is a thought that will hopefully always keep me humble- something for which my wife often prays I notice- and honest as I try and run my own race.

Like Butter

I once interviewed for a job in high school to be a lumberjack. Well, the suburban form of a lumberjack, anyway. I was applying for a job with a tree removal company. I would be trained to climb into the tree tops and remove limbs and overhangs. I had envisioned a summer of flannel shirts, hanging out with men who were so tough they could eat glass and me becoming the most storied and daring tree climber of the crew they had no choice but to accept me as their leader and captain, young though I was. During the interview there was a series of questions I had to answer and I could tell that I was answering the way I needed to in order to obtain the job. Then he hit me with the last question "Are you absent minded at all?" I paused and then stumbled in my answer and in that little hiccup I lost the job. The man looked at me and said "Listen, last year one of my guys left the cuff unbuttoned on his flannel shirt and the sleeve got caught in the mulcher and pulled him in. He died quickly but it was a mess." He forgot to button a sleeve. Those blasted flannel shirts.

Every instance of my parents pointing out the fact I had on two different socks or shoes before heading out to school, every forgotten homework assignment or test, and every blown stop sign and narrowly missed car accident began filling my thoughts. I was one of the most absent-minded people I knew. Perhaps a job consisting of killer falling limbs and mulching machinations of death was not the right career path for me.

The man interviewing me knew it, and I both knew it. I thanked him for his time and I left. That summer I continued working at the pool as a life guard. Sitting in the sun on a chair and focusing on one thing only- that was more up my alley.

Today, however, I find myself dividing my attentions more than ever. Between being a husband and father to three boys, I have taken on more professional responsibility than I ever have in the past. Because of my personal limitation, therefore, things fall apart. I may not leave the house with two different pairs of shoes on but there are too many days where I enter a public restroom at three in the afternoon and come to realize that I never combed my hair. Which is lucky for me because there is only a margin of difference between my hair combed and my hair un-combed.

Beyond issues of neglected cosmetics I find too many tasks left undone for far too long. I cannot catch up. I am perpetually apologizing to one person or another for some thing that is still not completed. I can hear the response to these facts in the form of an answer that is not ever quite as simple as it sounds: delegation. In my life, I often find that delegation is sometimes more work than doing the job yourself because delegation often requires some form of training and teaching. While I believe in training through doing there are times where there isn’t time.

So I find Bilbo Baggins a compelling figure when he says within Tolkien’s classic trilogy “I feel thin, sort of stretched…like butter scraped over too much bread.” I have found it to be a monumental challenge to cover my slice of bread. I want to make it clear that his is not one of those “Don’t cry for me Argentina” moments; I am not trying to play the martyr. I am just trying to avoid the pride swelling defensiveness that ambushes me when some of my general incompetence is on display as things fall apart.

Here is the painful truth. Sometimes things must fall apart if they are to change as completely as they must. My limitations are perhaps an ingredient to that important process. Falling limbs and mulching accidents are the catalysts to greater safety and focus in the long run. It’s just that I hate being the lumberjack who forgot to button his flannel. Playing the part of the object lesson is an important, albeit humbling, role.

War with the world.

Even within the most recent context of my life I carried it as a badge of honor the ongoing conflict between me and the world. I saw myself, in what must seem like romantic idiocy on par with Don Quixote, as a fighter behind enemy lines. I walked out my front door swinging. Each human interaction became an engagement of invisible powers. Certainly such a narrative exists Biblically, but this was woefully applied by yours truly. The driver next to me is not mine to overcome, nor the librarian part of the horde, and finally the approaching retail associate does not carry the flag of my enemy. Even the most belligerent soccer mom or early morning jogger does not hide the seeds of my undoing. And yet... they are not with me. Right? Irrelevant.

The gospel in a moment of honest drama depicts a moment of observation by Jesus who sees the masses as something I never do; harassed and helpless (Matthew 9:36). It would only be condescension on my part to say that I understand this. I do not have the ability to see things as truly as Jesus did. To me the arrogance of the wealthy is not a cry for help nor the transparent symptoms of harassment. To me, it is what it is, the ugliness of human depravity. Which is why I am not Jesus. I would have to fake superior wisdom and magnanimity to say I see such people as harassed and helpless.

It is in this I suppose I've had to arrive at a different conclusion. I am little different from what surrounds me essentially. I too am oppressed by a nature I twisted for too long a time. I am afflicted by self-made affliction no different that of the unsmiling toll booth operator or mocking grad student with whom I just babbled a messy invitation to Bible Talk. Are they with me? What does it matter? We together belong to a community of sinking ships. Some try and bail water while others live those waning moments in revelry and others are paralyzed by the despair of it all. Everyone needs rescuing. We are with each other in that crucial fact.

It is only at a certain philosophic level, removed from real time interaction, I can view the world around me as harassed and helpless the way Jesus did. For that very reason I have no authority to deem who is and who isn't an enemy for whom I must wage war. So I am suitably removed from that horse and I must ask for necessary humanity to smile more often, remember more names and faces, and finally to join the PTA or Homewood Book Club etc. I have no war to fight with them. I am rescued from this ship and they cannot strip me of it. I can only hope to bail enough water that others will realize and come along.

Fresh from the woods

I recently returned from an annual backpacking trip I take. The point of this trip, for me, is restorative in nature. The adventure and beauty of being in a more remote wilderness is the inhalation the creative but somewhat asphyxiated mind needs. Yet, even beyond the respite (if one can call a 50 mile trek carrying 50 lbs on your back a respite) this provides lies something more primal I am convinced. It is a tired sentiment, yet no less true, to suggest that a man might need the wild. Risking the ridicule I probably deserve I can only nod in agreement and admit that I need the mud and rock and air and solitude and water that I find only in the quantity required when I seek the wilderness. This year that search was made in Algonquin, a park three hours north of Toronto. While it is no Denali or Glacier or Patagonia it is one of the closest things I can find in under a 12 hour drive. I walked each day in wonder of and infatuation with the world around me; to touch truck-sized boulders carpeted with moss, fallen pines made smooth by a running creek and midnight silence broken by the loon.

I asked to hike the last four miles of our trip alone. Those 90 minutes afforded me the opportunity to turn my mind back-forward; a week outside time displaced my need to consider any planning outside of water, dinner and shelter. I needed to take some time to consider real life before I left. To consider the future, yet within the context of this wilderness. So I walked and I attempted to put myself back inside of time asking what I might think about differently after yet another week in the woods.

This year the answer was joy. The gratitude which produces unreserved affection and laughter; the yearning attachment to my living blessings and the almost oblivious awareness of rewards yet to come. There is no greener grass, so to speak. I wanted more than anything to have only what I've already been given and to enjoy them as long as they were still mine to have.

However, there was a footnote to these last moments of solitude. A post script so that I'd not forget my own prayers during my time in the woods. To that footnote I will commit more time in my next entry, but in essence it was a particular personal trait I was able to articulate for the first time. I am always at war with the world around me and this needs to change. A truce of a kind must be made.