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.

One of these kids is doing their own thing...

I live with a low-grade, ongoing paradox steeped deeply within my paradigm; the lens through which I interpret life. I am at once a Federalist and Anti-Federalist. My wife further endeared herself to me when she invoked these terms to describe a planning dilemma as it relates to our large congregation in Chicago.

I love team sports. I love being on a team. I am loyal by nature in many ways, and I have always tended to side with "team" agenda over "individual" agenda. I believe this is the method that gets the team furthest fastest and is also the best path to personal development. Sit on the bench and root for the team, even if you're not playing. Let the coach call the plays and then run them perfectly. Be a good soldier.

I have a million allegories to back up these principals- some of the best in my arsenal. There is something moving about knights who pledge themselves to their good king and do his bidding at risk to their own lives without hesitation. Even the unofficial motto of the postal service- "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” -inspires me. There is something that cannot be duplicated in the selfless devotion to a team, creed, or ideal that is greater than the individual. The beautiful and lofty dreams of The Federalist.

And yet...

I often find myself standing on the other side shouting down "the man" as an inefficient and plodding pathfinder toward actual progress because it stifles the creativity, ingenuity and problem solving ability of the individual to find solutions for the whole. And what is the world or our church or our family but the sum of individuals? What was the prophet but a man that most often stood alone "to raise up or tear down the nations" (Jeremiah 1)?

I owe no small part of my successes and victories to minor rebellions, revolutions, and a bit of anarchy that have guided some part of my past decisions. I actually find conflict extremely uncomfortable and yet it brews within me at all times as ideas, plans, and schemes rage within travelling counter to the road on which the "team" walks.

In an effort to synchronize the strengths of the Federalists and the individual the business world has coined the term "flattening". Flatten an organization- Less bosses, more creative freedom, more peer leadership, less hierarchy. Interesting thoughts all, and while perhaps not all wholly practical there is a principal that guides the thinking that I affirm completely. There is great opportunity in corralling individual thinking and initiative. The individual has to have a place to rant, think aloud and be heard, apply personal theory and fail while still holding to the goal and direction of the whole.

Listen, Elijah took his hiatus, Moses negotiated with the Lord, and a myriad of other heroes broke from convention testing impossibly stupid schemes while evoking the name of the Lord in faith. Yet, the "good ones" never broke from God's covenant. In the end they all bent their will to God's and to his blueprint. Who knows what David could have done with the Israel if he had simply usurped Saul as soon as the Lord anointed him the new king instead of waiting a decade for the process to take place? He didn't usurp Saul because it wasn't in the "team" plan. He ranted and cried out in the Psalms, but he submitted in the end.

We all need space to experiment, create and plot- yet in the end we must submit to the greater need, plan, team etc. We expect the same when we lead others so we'd better provide great spaces for the same need to explore and push the boundaries for our own constituencies. The balance between the Federalist and individual is crucial, as God created us each unique and yet required we exist in family. Striking the right balance is the most efficient pathfinder to where God wants us to land as individuals and as a church.

Silence, bad planning and heroes.

So, this blog looks a lot like the journals I've kept over the years. Stops and starts with long silences in between. I pick up and put down until I get things to fit correctly. In my mind I have tried to see this as a kind of virtue and not a glaring symptom of integrity deficiency. Certainly the Holy Spirit Himself comes and goes like the wind, at least from what our limited human capacities can glean of it. Yet, it would be foolish to draw any comparison there. Allow me only to say that this is not a responsibility I have abandoned, but more like a project with which I choose to fiddle now and then. As it becomes more developed so will my sense of commitment to its completion.

And why now return one might ask, if one actually read what I am writing (which no one yet seems to do). I might turn again to Elihu himself who sat in great silence for a long period before speaking to Job and then fell silent again as God responded. Certainly Elihu spoke again, though it is not recorded. In the same vein, the last 6 months has brought much change to my life, some of it dramatic, as God speaks through circumstance and through occasion. So, it is time for me to begin writing I feel.

It is to faith I draw my attention today. It is to Jonathan's armor bearer (1 Sam. 14) who when faced with his masters idiotic plan to attack a military outpost strategically placed to repel frontal assaults replied without hesitation "I am with you heart and soul." It is such an enigmatic quality to believe in victory through foolish and derelict plans, and yet we have in the Bible seas dividing and then folding upon armies, walls falling through marches and trumpet calls, armies fleeing at the site of foxes with scorched tails, and so many more improbable stories of success. I have been, by and large, the prophet's servant that needed his eyes opened in order to see chariots of fire and angels shouting down baser voices whom I believed would carry the day. Too often, I see inefficiency and badly conceived ideas.

Today though, I will embrace every dumb notion and plan conceived with childlike faith in a God that has used men and women to destroy the morale of armies with jaw bones, with slings, and with tent pegs. What do I know about plans that change the world? Mine are boring, methodical and ordinary by comparison. God makes heroes of men with insane schemes and faithful hearts.

table for two

table for two
Originally uploaded by jami~

My wife and I are going to have breakfast together every Monday morning from now on. We drop the boys off at school and then sit down and talk for a couple of hours. There is no one I enjoy talking to more than my wife. There is also no one that can make me more unease with myself more than my wife. She is a formidable human being- I am to a large to degree what I am today because of her influence in my life. Sure, if you were to meet her you would immediately take a liking to her- everyone does. She has that quality of a person that makes you feel as though they feel there is nothing in the world more important than what you are saying right at that moment. Of course that means you absolutely cannot be false to her either.

In any case it’s a date written in stone- her, me, and the McDonald’s Playland where our two year old can occupy himself while we discuss marriage, the upcoming week, the larger future, the concept of eternity, Pauline eschatology, the Red Sox, or weather my writing pushes the boundaries of grammar and syntax or simply contains run-on sentences.

Perhaps you might say to yourself, “What’s the big deal? So you get breakfast with your wife, everyone does that.” Yeah, well…not everyone apparently. When we had less children and no children we spent that sort of time regularly but the advent of a more complex life rendered such times immensely difficult to maintain. However, with concerted effort and unshakeable commitment I will once again stare at my wife over a coffee table and look her in the eyes for more than 30 seconds without the distraction of aerial food assaults, endless questions of Star Wars lore, or general whining- every Monday at 9:30 AM.

"on the bright side..."

My oldest son (above) is a brooder like me. Last night I realized a mistake I had made in scheduling an event for the church. What had begun as a well executed and communicated plan was falling apart in front of me as I realized this very simple yet somewhat dramatic miscalcualtion. I was visibly upset. I stomped through the house for a little bit before I decided to go take a walk and gather myself. As I walked to the door mt oldest son, who was awake way past bedtime because his spring break had begun, walked up to me and said "Daddy, I am just like you right now. I'm not on the bright side either. I lost all the guns to my Clone Troopers." There is no end to the delight I take in my son misquoting age old catch-phrases. I immediately calmed down and told him I would help him find all his clone trroper guns.

I wasn't on the bright side. It was evident and my seven year-old related. His lost toy accessories amounted to the same degree of importance as my event planning disaster. He is right of course if we consider all things- life, death, eternity etc. How many withered vines am I going to lament (Jonah 4:8) and flown breezes will I madly chase? It is far better and more constructive to be on the bright side. 

Homeless Shelter Faux Pas

Shelter
Originally uploaded by elliejay08

I volunteer at a rotating homeless shelter. My particular shift lasts from 2:30 AM until 7 AM. It is a jarring experience each time I wake up in my own house and drive over to the shelter where the smell is palatable as soon as I'm inside. It is the quietest part of the night when I arrive. Around 4 AM the men start to get up. By 5 AM almost all of them are awake. We make them breakfast and hand them packed lunches for the day.

Most mornings go smoothly; today was a bad morning though. Nothing dramatic happened except that I did something to offend one of the men and he went off on me. We are given a set of rules we're supposed to follow as volunteers. One of them is that we aren't supposed to give out toiletries and socks in the morning. All of it was supposed to be passed out the night before. This ensures no one doubles up or takes more than they need, or tries to sell their surplus. It also ensures the shelter doesn't run out of supplies.

This morning at about 3:45 AM one of the guys asked if he could get toiletries. I asked him why he didn't get any last night and he told me he went to sleep before they passed them out. I reluctantly gave him a pack of supplies. Then he asked for socks. In my only defense, it was 3:45 AM and I wasn't as sharp as I normally am. I told him that they passed out socks last night and asked why he didn't get any. He got really upset and exclaimed he already told me he went to sleep. He began berating me. I knew I had a choice at that moment but I made the wrong one. I reasoned to myself that I was coming here to volunteer my time, not to be scolded by an ungrateful and judgmental man who, after all, had asked for my help. So I fired back and things escalated. “Do you want the socks or not?” I asked. After firing some expletives my way he answered “Yes.” I looked at him and said “Then just answer my question next time.” He began arguing with me but I just handed him some socks and walked away. I almost left the shelter.

I am normally a diplomatic human and faster on my feet than that moment would indicate. However, I realized that I was so bothered at being dressed down by someone who couldn’t even feed himself much less house himself that diplomacy wasn’t in it for me. Of course my thoughts weren’t that conscious but in the end it is no less true.

The fact is, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have asked twice. I didn’t even realize that I really had because I didn’t care that much about how it would make this man feel to be questioned. I would take anyone else at their word for the most part; but not this man. I was assuming he was taking advantage of the shelter. One cannot, in many ways, help such assumptions when one is given static rules to follow, but if I’d cared about the man’s pride I would have found a more discreet way to deal with the issue. As it was, I simply disrespected his word. And because his response was so inappropriate I wrote it off.

I felt angry when I left the shelter. It took me the entire day to get to a point where I was willing to admit my culpability in that scenario. It shows me how much I still stratify the people worth my best energies and empathetic impulses. Once I made the mistake of asking again why he didn’t get the supplies everybody else got last night and once he began laying into me I should have simply stopped him and said, “Listen Arthur, please excuse me. I shouldn’t have asked again. We have rules they want us to follow and in the process of adhering to them I have forgotten my manners. I’ll get you those socks right away.”

American Journalism

I have become somewhat addicted to TED.com and here is why: some of the most intelligent and creative minds in America and beyond give their best and most poignant insights into what they see as most important. There is much to disagree with in these short monologues but there is no other forum like that I know of today. If this were ancient Greece TED.com would be the place sophists held court. In this particular clip a formal criticism is made against American journalism. It is short but insightful. The same night I watched this clip I took an informal survey of the 4 or five cable news channels I have access to. My purpose was to sample 20 straight minutes of their news information and find a ratio of what could be considered "positive" news stories against what could be "considered" negative news stories. My I had hoped to either legitimize or debunk the notion that our news outlets were "fear mongering" or catering to the public's oft cited insatiable desire for dirty news. I could not produce an actual ratio because in those twenty minutes there were no "positive" news stories between all the networks and various local news reports I witnessed. The point I make is that our news media has a needs intervention. The commentary of Alisa Miller in this video is far more revealing than my mean little survey but they both say the same thing- American journalism is not a window to the world at all- it is a bigger window into what interests Americans. I think we can all agree that this is not a capstone upon which we should make choices as to what should or should not be in the news. 

Why Elihu?

I suppose the most appropriate place to begin this blog would be a brief explanation as to its title. I will not, presently, plunder the rich historical context of the name as of yet but will instead explain its meaning as it relates to me and why I chose it. Elihu was a friend of Job most likely; at worst he was a contemporary and neighbor. He is regarded ambivalently by most on account of his long and prickly monologue of four chapters in the book of Job. He is indignant with everyone and perplexed with the obvious dimness by his present company and their inability to see the truth that he has so readily grasped. An important fact is given to the reader in that he is young- so young he waits to speak until everyone else has had their say.

 

While he makes some valid arguments in his speech he does little to distinguish himself through the haze of his self-righteousness and misguided diatribe as to why things happen. Yet, he redeems himself somewhat in the end during his powerful description of God. He gives a moving and elegant charge to the company of friends to see God as He is and it gives levity to the situation at hand. As he closes God then takes up the reign of dialogue and goes on to describe Himself in a similar vein to that of Elihu. In the end Job is redeemed, his three friends are rebuked, and Elihu is noticeable absent from the narrative again.

 

I believe that Elihu was very much in the wrong for his explanation of Job's condition and his reliance on the logical causality of iniquity equals hardship and hardship stems from iniquity. He is brash, judgmental, and unsympathetic. Yet, with that said he had an unwavering and poetic notion of God's "rightness". I think it is why God lets him off the hook in the end.

 

I relate to Elihu. I am often narrow-minded and harsh in my outlook of things. Yet, I rejoice in Elihu's confidence in justice. I also rejoice in his willingness to join the fray and ensure the weighty perspective of God’s nature into the conversation. He is confrontational, he is often wrong, and he lacks judgment- He also has a view of God that will guide him in his pursuit for truth. I see myself in Elihu. I am tempered by his story.