Ten Thousand Steps of Ordinary

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Everyday is one of ten thousand steps taken without a thought. Unless you have gout or something like it. Once, I was afraid I might be getting gout. This was probably because my oldest brother had already had it. And he carries a gun. For some reason this made the possibility of me getting gout more possible. Because I don’t even know anything about guns. Looking back I know they are not related but fear does weird things. So I thought, “Wait, If my brother who carries a gun can get gout, I can get gout, even though I am much younger and I have no idea what gout feels like.” I didn’t have gout. But for a few days just putting one foot in front of the other was not so ordinary.

We live as if the only steps that matter are the ones, which take us across the threshold of our destinations or the false ones, resulting in twisted and swollen ankles. All the others are ordinary, forgotten because they are numbered among the many steps never noticed. Now don’t get me wrong, we take sharp objects away from those who we find taking notice of every step; careful that each one is taken properly. Or we videotape them and then change their diaper and give them a bottle.

You know the question, “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” Your Sunday School teacher is wrong, some questions are dumb. And that is one of them. We tend to think that if we do not see something, hear it and so not notice it, then it either did not happen or if it did, it was inconsequential. So the tree does not make a sound.

But what if all these small things we do, like taking a step and blinking and buying bread were no less exceptional simply because we have called them ordinary? Simply because we have not noticed them. Simply because they are numbered among that which we must do daily.

And yet these are our days. For most of us our days are full of this stuff. Each twenty-four hour period is a mass of the ordinary. Even the most exceptional people must be involved in the ordinary.

My wife went to lunch with a lady at our church today. So I was at home with my 2 sons. My daughter was at school. My wife was enjoying soup and sandwich at Panera. It was just us guys. So we got loud.

One of my kid’s favorite toys was also one of my favorite toys: measuring tape. You know the kind with a button. My fascination as a young boy was in the form of light sabers. I am not sure what it is for my kids. But they love these things. We buy them crazy nice toys and they want to play with measuring tape. Go figure.

So, Knox (4) and Dylan (18 months) and I are playing with measuring tape. We have it stretched out with one boy holding each end and one holding it in the middle. And we just shake it so that it is so loud, you cannot even hear our collective. I look over at Dylan and he is so happy, his smile is taking over his face and drool is pouring over his naked gums. He stands there so beautiful in his jumper with a dump truck on it. And while I am thinking about this, I start thinking about it. I’ve done this sort of thing many times and not noticed the wonder of it all: the wonder of a father and son, the wonder of a child smiling at such a small thing, the wonder of his wanting to do this with me.

What if I had not noticed it and just done it?

Would it be any less wondrous?

Are these moments ordinary only because we do not notice them and then forget them in the chaos and conflagration of all that is being a parent?

The irony is we need the perspective of God while realizing we do not have it. (Hang on. I promise this will make sense.) If we acknowledge there is a God and he knows and notices everything, then even the little moments of ordinary matter. We need to realize this. But we also need to realize that we are not God. We do not see everything. Heck, I have trouble seeing beyond my own nose most of the time. And I do not have an unusually large nose. At least I don’t think I do. I…we cannot see the ends of all things and cannot the glory in the ordinary. Why? We are not God. We are limited created beings. So we may not be able hear the tree falling in the forest but this is no reason for us to think it did not thunder.

The Lives of Celebrities As Conversational Footballs

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I suppose I never thought about it till I saw Notting Hill. I never really thought twice about the feelings of celebrities. They were conversational footballs to be kicked around and thrown and caught.

I never thought about the fact they were people. Real people with hearts that break. Heads that swim in the confusion of life’s difficulties. Lives that deal with pain, sickness and death. They have parents, who they love and are grieved when their children are mocked for the world’s insecurity. Sisters in the shadows. Brothers serving overseas. I never thought about how they must look in the mirror and see themselves as less beautiful than we do, wishing we would like them for who they are and not the parts they play. And ironically, wanting to be liked because of what they do, because it is what they must do.

I never thought about how they must feel, knowing we talk about their marriages and divorces with less than the gravity and care we show towards the parts they play on the screen. I never thought that the laughs we effuse at their expense were callous and unkind. It was as if such concerns were off limits. When was the last time a parent said, “You should not talk about her that way” and they were talking about someone who is famous.

The most common thing coming out of my mouth while reading or watching a news story on the newest escapades of the jet set stars and starlets is, “What an idiot.” And while this makes me feel better, something tells me it isn’t what should be coming out of my mouth. Or my heart, for that matter.

Why do we feel that we should be pursuing our enemies with love and yet ridiculing the famous? Why is it  we can feel so bad for so many sins and not really be all that bothered by the way we talk about celebrities? Maybe we think they have such a wealthy deposit of money and attention, our debt of kindness is not worth mentioning. Maybe we think their sinful behavior deserves the jabs, gossip and laughter heaped on them? Maybe we think, “That’s what you get for being famous!”And perhaps we really think we are better than they are.

I wonder if our image-driven celebrity culture has made it all but impossible to see celebrities as those who are made in the image of God. The bright lights blind us to this reality.

When Your Best Friend Is An Encyclopedia

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My best friend Jonathan is smart. When we were growing up he would help me with my homework even though he was 3 years behind me in school. And when I say ‘help’ I mean ‘practically do it.’ And then we would go outside and I would own him in basketball. He was short and I was tall for my age. And yes, it made me feel better.

He is now a doctor. I can actually remember him telling me he wanted to be a doctor when we were just kids. He was probably 5 or 6 at the time. Whenever I think about him telling me this, I picture his Fisher Price doctor’s kit sitting in the floor of his room. Sometimes I would find him reading encyclopedias in that same spot. I’d be watching Scooby Doo and then realize he was not around. So I’d go looking for him and there he was in his room reading the letter Q.
“Do you know what a quid is?”
“Be quiet!”
“Why?”
“Umm, I don’t think you should say that word so loud while your mom is here in the house.” 
I don’t think he ever studied. He went to what is probably the most academically rigorous High School in the area and I do not have one memory of him ever saying, “I need to study.” So, we have this in common, neither one of us studied in High School.
I can remember hanging out on the weekend and we would be driving around Birmingham aimlessly and there are these vivid memories of Jonathan getting really quiet and then I would realize he was reading something. Anything.
“Hey man, you’re reading and we are out cruising.”
“So what?”
“It’s weird.”
And then he would give me this sheepish look and then shrug his shoulders and go back to reading the car’s manual or a Sports Illustrated from 90 weeks ago. It was weird. I mean, girls existed and that was one of the reasons we were out and about. But it’s paid off because now he is a doctor and makes a lot of money and gives some to me because I am a poor pastor.
But walking around with an Encyclopedia has it’s advantages. Because sometimes you wonder about things no one else would know about like the amount of water in a watermelon. Jonathan has a brain like a sponge, so he would be able to answer questions we did not even know how to ask. So if we saw the symbol for pi, he could tell us what that was, its history and the square root of it. And the whole time he was explaining this, we were thinking, “mmmm, pie.”
Every now and again, I would assert something and he would say, “Actually…” and then correct me. I am sure there is someone out there with the spiritual acumen that makes it possible for them to like being wrong. Those people are dead to me. It was difficult to be corrected by one who had yet to hit puberty. I resolved from then to stay away from all discussions involving quantum mechanics. This was around the time I resolved to no longer play Monopoly with him. Or Risk. Or anything where my height and strength did not give a distinct advantage.
However, I did know more about Duran Duran than he did. Rock on Doogie Howser. Rock on.
But see, here’s the thing – my friendship with Jonathan is not because of his smarts or in spite of it. But it is one of the reasons I love him. It’s what makes him who he is. Some friendships may exist because of very dramatic events people have experienced together. But my guess is that most friendships are the result of dozens of little pieces of relational minutia. All mundane under the microscope. But in the aggregate they form an extraordinary picture of friendship. That’s why, 31 years later we are still friends.
You should also know, his knowledge of the Bible was crazy. My favorite verse was probably John 3:16, the only one I knew more than a day after Vacation Bible School was over and the tokens for Showbiz had been used that I earned memorizing a verse each day. His favorite was probably always something from Habakkuk or Lamentations.
“Jonathan, that’s not even a book in the Bible.”
“Yes it is, it’s in the Old Testament. Look, here it is.”
“Let’s go play basketball.”

That Day

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We were living in St. Louis so I could attend Covenant Seminary. I remember walking out of the classroom in the library and Mark Winton telling us. Kirk Adkisson might have been with me. Mark didn’t get all the information right but he was mostly right. The fact he was an Army Ranger made it feel more serious in all our present ignorance. He could snap us like a twig. And he looked scared.

Classes were suspended. Or maybe I just left. I just wanted to be with Bethany. I called her. Bethany was being sent home. We only had one car so I went to pick her up, listening to KMOX all the way. It was time for Rush Limbaugh but I do not remember him being on. We got home and immediately turned on CBS News because we did not have cable. For better or worse, Dan Rather is a huge part of that day’s images.

We cried long and slow tears that day as we silently watched the footage of planes colliding with steel and glass, flesh and bone. Newscasters were not able to contain their emotion. That may be the thing that told me this was different. Different from anything I had seen before.

I think I smiled once while watching the footage and Bethany asked why. It had nothing to do with happiness. It was the smile of a boy seeing something new and different and a thing of awe and horror. I can no more explain it than I could explain physics.

We sat there for hours before we decided we needed to get out. Late in the afternoon we put our bikes on the bike rack and drove west of the city and rode the Katy Trail for miles. It was beautiful and possibly the best thing we could have done. The silence and solitude, replete with late summer and early fall’s collision calmed us.

The phrase, “This changes everything” was constantly with me.

I’m Thinking About Dying

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I’m thinking about dying.

Not suicide. I like living. And that is why I’m thinking about dying. I guess it happens to everyone around my age. I’m 38, which isn’t old but I do turn 39 this year. And that feels old. Actually the only thing I really don’t like about getting older is the dying part. And diapers, which I actually fear more than death, itself.

Getting older has many advantages. The distance between now and High School is ever growing and for that I am thankful. Wisdom does come with age. And you have money. People call you ‘sir.’

But dying is the hard part.

When I was a youth pastor, I was into dying. You know, making kids feel bad because there are martyrs in China and “all you want to do is drink beer and play ball.” I probably said that. So we talked about death a lot. Dying to self. Dying to sin. Dying one day soon…”sooner than you know.” I probably said that too. All these are important subjects but I was obsessed with the idea. And I admit it was because it got their attention.

Driver’s Ed was the coolest non-class I ever took. Not sure why, but there were two teachers and I guess they gave us grades but I remember mostly sitting in the classroom teacherless and some guy flicking pennies at me. This hurt but I preferred this treatment over a real class with work. And a teacher. I do remember driving around in an American me-maw car with a brake in the passenger floorboard and then going through drive-thrus of fast food places on Roebuck Parkway. I liked fast food.

The creepiest part about the ‘class’ was the pictures shown to us of mangled teenagers in mangled cars. Polaroids. Slides. Flannelgraph. Blood was the common theme. The point was to scare us into driving slower and more careful and without alcohol. But the teachers seemed to love this part of the class the most. I remember boredom on the part of the instructors being the consistent tone. But when they brought out these pictures the room was electrified…like driver’s ed porn.  Maybe it would have scared kids from the suburbs in the ’80s but all my friends were watching Faces and Death by this time. Most of the guys were not grossed out or freaked out in the least. They were entertained.

I was the ministry equivalent of the driver’s ed teacher in High School.

So I used videos and stories from books about martyrs who put the paltry faith of my hormonal teens to shame. It worked sometimes. I kept their attention. They were even entertained a little.

But back to me. I know Paul says dying is gain and all but something inside me tells me that I should not be in a hurry for it. I like it here. When I wake up in the morning and my wife is beside me…well, that’s what I want to happen everyday. Death is the end of that. I know we have the promise of something greater. But, I’m mot sure I am supposed to want it more than waking up next to Bethany.

For many, I have just finally proved to be a carnal person. But, I mean, if we are supposed to just want to go to heaven above all things, how come we eat? Wouldn’t it just be OK to stop feeding our bodies and then eventually die? I know it sounds painful but we are also supposed to move toward suffering too, right?

I think that cover on the spare tire of my teenage next door neighbor’s jeep is right. Life is good. And Death is not good. No one celebrates cancer and heart attacks and strokes and fatal car wrecks (well, my driver’s ed teacher really liked showing us those pictures). We may be glad someone has gone on to be with God. That’s certainly pretty great. But death? It’s a reminder of how bad things really are.

Death should revolt me, and not only because I don’t like the idea of someone else marrying my wife if I die sometime soon. If my neighbor’s tire is right and life is good, then death is a problem.  It ends marriages, friendships, puts holes in communities. It creates fatherless children and mothers with holes in their hearts the size of a toddler bed.

So my thoughts about dying are not the romanticized notions they once were. There is a lot to leave behind. Sure, I know God is greater than life. And I know the promise of the gospel is that death has been conquered. But he gave us life and he placed me where I am for a reason. He’s smart that way. Guilt should not be the result of being in no hurry to go. We all have those folks in our life who can utter, “I’m ready to die and be in heaven.” And they mean it. I always feel guilty on the inside because lunch is coming and I like lunch. But I nod on the outside and I make that sound all Baptists learn at an early age to show we agree with something really spiritual and profound. You know, the sound you made a few paragraphs back.

So there’s a tension. We should live while we are here. Be present and faithful where we are. All the time recognizing that Death is not the way things were meant to be. But also realizing that death has no more sting. It is now because of Another’s death, death is the next great adventure. Either Dumbledore or Gandalf said that. I can’t keep the two apart.

Awkward Daughters

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My daughter is awkward. Beautiful but awkward. I know, she is only seven and has just entered second grade. But if you ask anyone who has been around her for any length of time, they will most likely agree. Perhaps the apple does not fall far from the tree. I remember feeling awkward when I was little and trying hard not to be. But I do not even think she notices. The experts say she has a severe case of ADD to the point she struggles to finish sentences. We can see some improvement but a parent will worry.

We worry about friendships. I worry more about her not having any than how well she does at school. On the first day of school she made a friend, Lilly. When she told us, we were skeptical. But then we met her mom and her mom was glad to meet the parents of “Emma R.” I could have taken on the world that day. It’s just one of those things you never expect to have fears about till you are parenting that age.

She is beautiful. And tall. My wife tells me that being tall and female can be hard as she grows older. Her legs stretch from here to Homewood. I assume she will be easy to find in all her class pictures. My hope is since my wife had to deal with the same, my daughter will be cast into her mold.

I say all this because I sat in the library yesterday preparing to teach a Bible Study focused like a laser on our call to love one another. And as I sat there, I watched this one girl walk by. She was not pretty.

She had a severe overbite and walked with a hitch in her step. Her hair was stringy. Attention to what she wore, seemed to be only in the utilitarian sense. Actually, her shirt and jeans were not worn as much as they were placed on her body. She would have had to gain a great deal of weight to fill them. And she carried a Bible. But not a pretty one. No, this was the kind you might see in a pew. The gold lettering betrayed the sacred book had not only been around since the early nineties but it had been used a lot.

Now there is still enough of the mean little boy and hormone-laden teenager to be disappointed in what I saw. But within seconds I thought of my daughter. And my desire for no one to look at her with such disappointment overcame the young boy within. For she was also someone’s daughter. Most likely loved. I imagined a father who longed for her to sit in his lap and laugh and cry like those days which were so long ago and went by so quickly. He probably sees nothing but beauty and love and reasons for affection. He probably has high hopes for her and wants her to know she will be loved regardless of where she ends up.  Her tender kisses upon his whiskered cheek are worth the world though he would trade nothing for them. He is glad she carries a Bible in hand.

If I were more capable there would be some great profound lesson attached to these thoughts. All I know is yesterday not long after I watched this girl pass in front of me, I held in my arms a breathtakingly beautiful newborn girl. It reminded me of my awkward daughter and the spellbinding grip she had on me from day one. And the love. And the wonder. And the fears. And the hopes.

Is Dissent Good for the Church?

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“The reality is we need dissent. Without dissent society would come to a halt; we wouldn’t change or create or innovate,” says Carsten de Dreu, a professor at the University of Amsterdam who specializes in the role of dissent within organizations. But “these dissenters are despised or ignored or persecuted by the majority.”

A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me an article.  It is called “In Praise of Dissent.”

She said she thought of me.

Dissent is tricky. In others, it is usually only laudable in hindsight…after they been shown to be right. And I rarely even like my own dissent. Sometimes I wish I could just get with the program. And the guilt of feeling outside the circle of assent when holding tightly to a dissenting opinion is rarely pleasant.

However, the whole time I am reading, thoughts on the need for dissent in the church, local and Universal are flying through my mind with sonic boom inflicting speed. Not because the dissenter is always right. But, for the very reason, we pastors could easily fall victim to seeing dissenters as only troublemakers. Blinded by our visions, dreams and possibly groupthink, ignoring dissent becomes the shortest distance between two points. Veering off this line extends meetings and derails progress.

So what do you think? Is there a place for dissent in the church? Where? What are it’s limits? Dangers? Benefits? Do you have any stories where dissent was helpful?

10 Albums More Than Albums

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Over one thousand albums. Granted I don’t listen to all of those albums regularly and still less very often at all, if ever. But there are a few, a precious few, which I go to often. To call them favorites, would not do. They are more. They are the warmth of a couch and a cup of hot tea on a snowy winter’s day. They are the first warm rays of spring which tighten the skin on into cool night’s laughing with friends. They are the smiles of Christmas and the tears of Good Friday. They are far more than albums of music, they hold memories and heat and light and ideas and thoughts and concerns and moments which echo through the notes…they are not entertainment.

I am sure there are more. But below I have listed ten.

1. Billie Holiday, Jazz Masters 12 – Some realities defy the ability to be explained. Billie Holiday’s effect on me stretches back 10 years and feels like the grip of a warm embrace. My favorite voice, this album is the reason it is part of the furniture of my mind. It starts with “What A Little Moonlight Can Do” and then you’re taken into the depths of the American heart.

2. Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago – Some albums, you listen to, others you swim into the depths of. This album never gets old. Of all my albums, it sits in winter solitude. I cannot listen to it without feeling the whiteness of Wichita snow. There is no album like it.

3. Van Morrison, Hymns to the Silence – Many nights were spent driving through the hills and vales of Birmingham as a young single guy, listening to this album. Gas was cheap then and I would just drive around for hours, for solitude and release. Van was a regular companion. Emotions will get the better of me, if I’m not careful, when listening to ‘On Hyndford Street.” A friend of mine speculated that Van was after beauty like many were after fame and money. This album is full of what he was looking for.

4. Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A’Changin – The first time this album hit my ears, I was driving down highway 31 in Hoover…not far from where I now live. Usually you don’t want to turn up just a guy and a guitar and a harmonica. But he sings with such power, volume feels right. If this was the only album he ever recorded, he would still be a favorite. As it is, I named my son after him.

5. John Coltrane, A Love Supreme – While I was studying in St. Louis, Jazz got a hold of me. Previously it was interesting, but then I started to go deep and wanted to hear more and marinate in most of it. I remember calling a number of stores before I found one which carried this album. So we drove up  170 and when my wife saw the cover of the CD, she wondered why it cost so much for 3 songs. We drove straight from there to Kirk and Debbie’s and listened to it as we ate and drank and laughed. A wonderful album.

6. Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska – It’s an album of novels, full of americana grit and glory. Stories of what was, is and could never be told masterfully. You can feel the midwestern winds pelting your face on deep Winter nights among the words. When no other album suits, Nebraska more than does.

7. Diana Krall, The Look of Love – All my favorite albums involve a place. My wife gave me this album  on my 30th birthday week. It was a rainy, cold, late October Sunday morning. When she sings these Bossa Nova inspired songs, I can close my eyes and see my wife sitting next to me in our Honda as we drive to Church listening. The title track is mesmerizing.

8. Patty Griffin, 1000 Kisses – Another album I bought with my wife in St. Louis. We listened to this till we knew the silence in between the songs by heart. Patty could sing the phonebook and I would buy it. Almost all of my papers in Seminary were written with her angelic voice coursing through my headphones. When she toured supporting this album, I headed up her street team when she came and played at The Pageant on Delmar. Lush, like a southern mountainside in the throes of Spring, no notes should be ignored. “Be Careful” is one of the most powerful songs I’ve ever heard.

9. Andrew Peterson, Love and Thunder – I’d have never bought this one if I had not seen him in concert supporting it. After at least one hundred listens, I can safely say, there are no albums by believers which move me like this one. When he sings, “You sent that telegraph to tell her that you missed her…” geez, there are no words. ‘The Silence of God’ and ‘After the Last Tear Falls’ may be the most appropriately juxtaposed songs I have.

10. Emmylou Harris, Spyboy – One hour for lunch spent at a used CD store on highway 31 in Hoover yielded a copy. When I returned to my work, I put it on and I remember as she began to sing, putting my head down on my desk because it was so wonderful. My wife knows I have a kind of crush on her and she is OK with that. OK enough to wait outside the Ryman in an alley hoping and then procuring an autograph. This is my favorite live album. Period.

OK, so what are some of your go to albums?

Going ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ on ‘Blue Like Jazz’

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Update: Don actually contacted me through Twitter and thanked me for the post. He was very gracious, which is not surprising. My goal was not to have contact with him but to truly apologize to him and get a little closure on something which had haunted me. His kind reply did the trick, for which I am thankful.

(The following should be read in light of yesterday’s post…)

“Crap, I’m going to have to apologize to him. Publicly.”

My particular sin of choice is to be wrong, know it and then not want to admit it. Call it insecurity. Call it self-protection. I am not sure what it is besides that ancient fortress of the human soul, pride. I hate everything about it. Well, not everything. There is that liberating moment of admitting when I admit I am wrong. You know, when you finally say it out loud. Wait. That feels pretty good and really awful…in a John Cougar “Hurts So Good” kinda way.

All the young people I had discipled in youth ministry were reading Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. Them and their parents. Their Dentists and their Hair-Stylists. And everyone for that matter. I could not go anywhere without hearing about this book. This could not be good. Because he was not endorsed by those I read the most, is how I knew, thank you very much. So I decided I did not like this book long before I even set my eyes on a physical copy.

The first time I saw a copy, I was spending some of my book budget on Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, Vol. 1. As I walked up to the cash register at the small independent bookstore in the small Mississippi town in which I lived, there it sat.  It sat there in all it’s best-selling non-Reformed, wishy-washy theological glory. Without a doubt, it’s proximity to the cash register would cause unsuspecting shoppers temptation to spontaneously buy such claptrap.

So I bought it.

Why did I buy a book I had already gone “Green Eggs and Ham” on?  I couldn’t very well write a negative review of a book I had not read. So I had to read it. And then put it on my “bad book” shelf. I can actually remember the guy who sold it to me, asking me if I had read it yet, and though my answer was “no,” I wanted to make sure he knew I was not interested in how much he liked it. I was also mad because I loved the cover and the title. But Hell’s Bells, Brian McLaren defaced the back cover with his recommendation. How could I, for the love?

So I read it, having already decided to hate it. Green eggs and ham, man. Green eggs and freaking ham. But deep down, even as read it and found reasons to not like it, a seed took root. I could not ignore how well-written it was. There was so much to like. Full of humor and honesty and great sentences, I read it quickly. If I had been fully honest, I would have admitted how wrong I was. But I decided to blog on it, anyway.

Sadly, I do not remember everything I said. More sadly, the internet and the ‘2nd most popular blog among Christians’ do remember the salient points. Go ahead. Take a look…. Hopefully everyone thinks that Matt Redmond is the worship leader.

Humility-coated arrogance wants me to think it does not matter. He probably has not seen it and even if he did, he would not care. But the fact is I committed a grave error doing what I did. And the error/sin is no less real even if no one ever saw what I thoughtlessly wrote. I not only prejudged him and his book, I also reviewed it for anyone and everyone to see after doing so. What is worse is that I never acknowledged the seed. Deep down I knew it was a good book and have known so after years of thinking about what he wrote. I have grown to like it a lot over the years though it was just 2 days ago I picked it up to read again.

The only way Don Miller would know I exist is most likely by reading that post. But here it goes anyway…

“Don, I am sorry. For all the reasons above, I apologize. Please forgive me.”

There. Now I feel better. In a John Cougar sort of way.