1. I wish I wasn’t so encouraged by the random encouragements on my running apps. Sad.

2. You know that person that says complaining doesn’t do any good? I can’t stand that person because so much of the Psalms and the Prophets are the blues.

3. When people ask for help on writing, I tell them to read Hemingway. If they aren’t willing to read Hemingway, it is hard for me to believe they could ever be a good writer.

4. I heart pizza.

5. I have an interview tomorrow. So if you’re the praying kind…

6. I was told that if I became good at my job, I’d like my job. That has not happened.

7. I artery pizza too.

8. It is painful to say “Stay gold, Ponyboy” to someone and they don’t know what you mean. 

9. I would never be able to take seriously the opinion of a person who does not at the very least think Planned Parenthood should be investigated because of that video. And before you tell me it was edited, there is an unedited version also.

10. There is so much joy to be had. This is why the debris field of our broken-hearted moments is so hard to walk over. We see in those shards things as they ought to have been. Could have been. But things are not as they were created to be. And so a dream unfulfilled here, a failure there, and life cut short at your feet. You’d kick at the pieces in anger but something inside sees a beauty when the light turns just right on the jagged edges. You remember, it’s not over yet. If there can be dancing in a valley of dry bones, then all these can too be made new.

1. The most punk-rock event in all of history was the Son of God hanging bloody on a cross and saying, “It is finished.” Sid and Nancy got nothing on the homeless Nazarene.

2. I took a spiritual gift test and it conclusively said mine was putting leftovers from dinner in a tupperware seven times larger than is needed.

3. I normally wish I was at home all day with Bethany and the kids but I’m really feeling it today. I can’t imagine the difficulty for those who are miserable at work and at home.

4. I’m not sure guys like Ken Rosenthal understand that the All Star Game is about what players are doing in the present and not what they’ve done in previous seasons. That’s why it’s an – wait for it – *annual* game. By every metric, Carlos Martinez deserves to be in the contest over Kershaw, even though we all have a mancrush on the 3 time Cy Young Award winner.

5. Why did I wait so stupid long to buy The Gaslight Anthem’s Get Hurt? Because God knew how great it would be to have it on vinyl.

6. The most counter-cultural thing you can do in our day and age is stay married to someone of the opposite sex.

7. One of the unexpected joys of writing a book is hearing from people and getting to sit down with them and hear their story. But there is some fear too. Will they like me? That question buzzs in the background. I assume this is just a fraction of what goes on in the head and the heart of the truly famous. It’s probably terrifying. Can you imagine what it’s like for stars who have lost their luster? They were so well-liked and then forgotten. And they realized it wasn’t them so well-liked actually. Gotta be hard for them.

8. Is there no accountability among those who package bacon? The reckless disregard for those of us who just want the package opening experience to be reasonable continues unabated across brand lines. Which presidential candidate will stop this madness?

9. Tomorrow we will be home-owners again. Much thanks to my in-laws and my parents, who are still providing for us after they have gone on ahead.

10. Remember those summer nights when you were young and dusk hung in the air like heavenly kisses and the fireflies lit the yard of freshly cut grass and your dreams were bigger and brighter than the mirror-ball moon hanging among stars you pretended to throw into the night sky? One day. One day, my friends. It will come with no end. And our parents in all their strength will lay down their newspapers and their dish rags and join you in the joy as the screen door slams shut behind them. The ice cream churn will hum and the smell of the community pool will shine thick upon your sunned skin and it will crave the breeze traveling like the trains you hear down in the valley. It will come with no end. And the tears of cancer and the tears of Alzheimers and divorce and all the broken hearted moments will end and give way to an unending string of those moments that taste like that memory of dusk unending.

 

This morning I woke early. I’ve had nightmares all this week. None have been the kind you laugh off later in the day. Each has been the kind of nightmare only a parent who has watched their child hooked up to machines can understand. You wake up and know there is no more sleep to be had.

An early run, I thought. But rain was falling in sheets. And there was more thunder than I thought was tolerable. So I waited till the rain slowed. I figured if I couldn’t run between the raindrops, I could run between the storms.

Yesterday I read that a young mom from our church is now in hospice care. She will go on ahead of her young husband and young daughters. Into what we only see through a glass so darkly.

The nightmares and that reality were in the passenger seat on the way down to Star lake where I run. And this morning, in a cruel rain.

On the way down the mountain I heard what I could only call a hymn. I’ve listened to this song by Bill Mallonee a hundred times but this morning the words snuck in through the broken parts.

 

Well, I think we’ve got time for just one more
Before that bartender counts his tray
There’s a million reasons to walk out that door
But only one to stay

Through the glass darkly
I’m just hoping to make it to
To that place where we’re all made new
When it’s all over and through

Are you listened to when you call in the night?
Are you held inside your dreams?
Is it something like an anchor in the raging storm?
When the world turns cruel and mean?

Through the glass darkly
I’m just hoping to make it to
To that place where we’re all made new
When it’s all over and through

One more round for the round of confusion
Its always dogging our steps
One loud hosanna and a victory cry
Shouted while you wept

Through the glass darkly
I’m just hoping to make it to
To that place where it’s all made new
When it’s all over and through

Through the glass darkly
I’m just hoping to make it to
To that place where we’re all made new
When it’s all over and through

The world may feel like things are out of control. But that is not so. And sometimes it just takes a reminder through familiar terrain that The King still reigns. Sometimes we forget because of what is happening in the news. Sometimes we forget because of the work-week. Sometimes it’s a rebellious child. The death of a loved one. Maybe our toys are broken and have left us unfulfilled. But he still reigns with undiminished power, honor, and glory. So we can pray as children:

Hello Daddy!

We want to know you.

And be close to you.

Please show us how.

Make everything in the world right again.

And in our hearts, too.

Do what is best—just like you do in heaven,

And please do it down here, too.

Please give us everything we need today.

Forgive us for doing wrong, for hurting you.

Forgive us just as we forgive other people

when they hurt us.

Rescue us! We need you.

We don’t want to keep running away

and hiding from you.

Keep us safe from our enemies.

You’re strong, God.

You can do whatever you want.

You are in charge.

Now and forever and for always!

We think you’re great!

Amen!

Yes we do!

– from the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones

Just a few though…

1. So basically I’m a bigot if I think ridding the world of the “Confederate Flag” is a bad idea. And I’m also a bigot if I wholeheartedly disagree with what is now the law of the land on same-sex marriage.

Got it.

2. It is amazing to me that so many “Christian artists” are veiling their faith in obscure lyrics that could be about anything. But Leon Bridges, the young soul artist is singing explicitly about his faith.

3. I am not afraid of the law of the land. But I am even less afraid of being associated with the “religious right.” That will happen anyway. There are worse fates.

4. Every time someone complains about Calvin’s Geneva, I reflexively want to pick up The Institutes.

5. Redefining words affords no one any dignity.

1. Have you registered your outrage yet? What about your disapproval?

2. My wife…man, how the he…wha…I mean…so glad, though.

3. There is no end to Progress. It will insist on more.

4. Hear me now, believe me later – Leon Bridges’ debut album will be the album of the year.

5. I learned early on, you cannot love pizza and still be a supermodel.

6. The cross is the end of our illusions of the need for progress.

7. I’ve thought about going back to school but how does one afford it? I’d sell my soul, but well, how much can you get for a crushed one?

8. What do you think next week’s outrage du jour will be?

9. I thought I could not love Billie Holiday’s music more than I did. But I just read the newest biography of her and now so much more. So much more of that voice.

10. If you didn’t give a damn about something last week and now this week you are calling for it to be banned and arguing about it on social media, you may need to quietly deal with something inside you. You’re like the Calvinist who had never read Calvin and then after a Packer book, you now question everyone’s salvation who has not rededicated their life to the Genevan reformer.

 

A year ago today my mom swung from star to star silently into secrets unknown. Yesterday, I thought about calling her for about a half a second. A half second of forgetfulness. Habit. Another family lives in the house to which I would call. The number going nowhere anyway.

The thing I remember the most from that night was my white knuckles on the drive home from the hospital.  I guess I was hanging on to that steering wheel for dear life after spending a few hours in an ER room with the lifeless form of my mother.

On my drive home from work today after one of those days when you wonder if the spirit once crushed can repair, I thought about her death. She died and none of us were with her. We had been with her throughout the day, but we did not expect her to go on ahead so soon. So we were all at home, my brothers and I. And then my oldest brother called me and I knew this was the beginning of feeling like an orphan and picking up the phone and no one to call like before.

Of course, she was not alone. The truth that can seem trite when the sadness is thick like fog, is still true. She was taking holding of Life. And she was moving toward life more than those of us standing there watching her lie more still than she ever had since she first drew breath.

1. It is no easy thing to have a skill for which people will praise you to no end and yet not pay you for. There are harder things, but still.

2. The church is not afraid of wealth like it ought to be. It is an enterprise of capitalism in that all it sees is opportunity to progression forward. The warning of the King go unheard.

3. The framing of a story is important. Follow the money and where the power can be had by the narrative, when listening to the story. When you cannot follow the money, listen a little closer.

4. There is so little mystery anymore.

5. People are always looking for heroic saints. Jesus looked for weak weak sinners.

6. My wife has been reading and enjoying Hannah Coulter which means I have watched a beautiful person hold a beautiful thing often over the past week.

7. Social media is starting to become a place of advertisements and marketing as much as it is anything else. There is good there but the good is being crowded out by increments.

8. The disappointment of going to someone and asking for help and not getting help is deflatingly unique. I suppose there is grace enough for that too.

9. We have it in our head all the big pronouncements and events will make the difference for others and ourselves for good and else wise. This is an error of imagination.

10. I am no feeling entirely well right, fighting something off, which or may not be affecting the tone, if not the content of these posts. But possibly not.

1. Any issue for which you cannot ask questions that have a hint of dissent are not mere issues, but sacred cows fat for the slaughter.

2. Tonight, Bethany and I will go see Love and Mercy, a biopic on Brian Wilson, that swirls around his production of Pet Sounds, the only album for which a movie is worthy.

3. (deleted thought)

4. This morning I drove down the mountain to Star Lake where I run and the air was perfectly sweet and the sky clear, the company of ducks and geese just what needed.

5. I am cynical. And if you are paying attention, you would be too.

6. People of Wal-Mart is funny until those are the people you spend time with and you have to look in their eyes. When its still funny, I have a problem.

7. Be skeptical of repentance for which applause is given.

8. Am I wrong in thinking there’s an, “I’m famous, you’re famous, let’s not criticize each other” thing going on in evangelicalism?

9. The Rachel Dolezal story is the gift that keeps on giving.

10. Friends, it’s okay if you have not read my book. I haven’t either…

 

(This is a repost.)

I had not planned on this post. But there were enough requests to get me thinking. A few guys were encouraged by the Mother’s Day Post so they wanted one for themselves. But I just wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to do one for Fathers that was unpopular. Or worse, was seen as  trying to capitalize. And to be honest doing one for Fathers felt self-serving.

And then it turned out to be so.

For whenever I lacked imagination, I just inserted myself in, and voila. I’ve been doing this whole preaching-the-good-news-to-myself thing for so many years – as my pastor asked me to so long ago – that I figured I might as well do so here.

Further, as I thought about this, an irony struck me. It is less acceptable to feel condemned for men than for women. (I could be wrong about that, sure. But I’m gonna err on the side of being right here.) It reveals weakness. And weakness is social kryptonite for men.

Then you must add this overlooked reality – failure has a weight, a weight with all the pressure of a culture which pushes relentlessly against the soul of a man. The net effect of wanting to be Superman as a boy is not just dusty comics in moldy cardboard boxes pushed into the corner of attics. There is also the failure to become one. Whether unconscious or not, the reality is Fathers want to be super and seen as being so, if only by those citizens, plucked up out of harms way, residing within his own home. But deep down, the weakness is known to be there, like a scar needing to be covered up.

Fathers are more likely to brag on the scar than confess their displeasure with it.

I’ve no wish to create a movement of weepy men, though Jesus did weep over a friend. And I’ve no wish to guilt Fathers into being more in tune with their weakness. To share it, even. Mainly because the guilt is already there, residing. It’s feet are propped up on the coffee-table and it knows where the silverware is in the drawer.

I’m calling it. The guilt is real and it’s there whether I say anything about it or not. It gnaws like mice and slithers through veins like an asp. It feels like poison. It feels as if it’s thieving life from under your very nose. And sometimes the taking of a deep breath is as the death rattle.

And when the dust settles and the echo ceases to bounce around inside your skull and the night is still, more than anything the Christian Father is faced with the specter of condemnation. An accusing finger rises up and points at his heart and says “condemned” for one thousand failures. Or worse, one in particular.

So Fathers need to also hear the message that in their God-given calling, they are not condemned. The following is not the only sermon that could be preached for Fathers. But it’s one.

Romans 8:1

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Thesis: Fathers, if you are in Christ Jesus, you ought to have no fear of condemnation because of your standing of righteousness because of Christ’s work on your behalf on the cross.

Fathers, even though you may feel you are…

You are not condemned because you cannot take your family on a dream vacation. Or on any vacation at all.

You are not condemned by the sins in your past which haunt like unsatisfied ghosts.

You are not condemned by your need for rest.

You are not condemned by your inability to fix all the broken things.

You are not condemned by your lack of promotions.

You are not condemned by your child’s lack of abilities in comparison to others.

You are not condemned by the obscurity of your job.

You are not condemned by the check engine light.

You are not condemned by a dwindling savings account.

You are not condemned because you are divorced.

You are not condemned by your son’s lack of interest in what interests you.

You are not condemned by a lack of desire to play with the kids after work.

You are not condemned by your failures as a father, that repeat themselves like the days, themselves.

You are not condemned by your wayward daughter.

You are not condemned by being fired or laid off.

You are not condemned if you find it difficult to talk to your children.

You are not condemned by not being able to afford to throw the birthday party of the year for your kids.

You are not condemned by the size and state of your home.

You are not condemned by your introverted personality.

You are not condemned for not living up to the standards of your Father or Father-in-law.

You are not condemned by the debts hanging over you like death itself.

Fathers, even though you may feel condemned, if you are in Christ, you are not condemned. This is the real reality.

You are not condemned, because if you are in Christ, your identity…your righteousness is Christ alone. Therefore, enjoy the unending love and affection and acceptance of being a son perfectly loved with an unwavering love that flows from your Father in Heaven.

And to all those who are not Fathers…do nothing to diminish this reality. Nothing.