Merry Christmas

On this day after Christmas, i want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. The winter chill is in the air. My advent readings are reminding me that Advent is a time of waiting . A time of anticipation.

I'm still adjusting to sharing the kids at Christmas. This is my third year doing it. I'm still not entirely used to it. But i guess i'm getting better at it. We had a good time together. They were with their mom and her side of the family Christmas Eve. I picked them up around 11 on Christmas day. The biggest gift was the game Rock Band. At least it's something they can do together. Then we went to my mom's for dinner (which i brought). That was nice. Then to the movies to see Valkyrie (We wanted to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button but it was sold out). Over all a good Christmas in this new "normal" i'm living.

Advent

Today marks the first sunday of Advent. For the first ten years or so of my Christian life I didn't even know what Advent was. It was only after i finished a church history class that i realized that the church has historically used the calendar to remember Christ's arrival, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and future second coming. Thus while the rest of the world marked time by agricultural seasons, national holidays, presidential terms, and professional sports seasons, followers of Jesus have marked time by reflecting on the life of their Lord. How we mark our time shapes what kind of people we become and what how we view our world.

Advent is a time of waiting. A time of recognizing that sometimes God's promises come after what feels like a long delay. It's also a time to recognize that sometimes God's coming into our world doesn't fit our expectations. We expect God to come a certain manner, usually in a manner imprinted with our own agendas and ideals. But as C. S. Lewis observed, God is the "Great Iconoclast," continually breaking out of the conventional boxes we place God into. Perhaps this is also why the desert fathers preferred to speak about what God was not like, the via negativa, since that way resists the temptation to shape God into what we prefer that God be.

The last few years of my life, I've taken comfort in the liturgical calendar. That's an odd shift for a recovering "contemporary church, innovative, entreprenural" sort that tends to sweep traditions away like yesterdays news, in favor of the newest and the next. Maybe it's because i can hide behind the liturgy. When i don't have the faith to believe (which is usually about half the time), the liturgy speaks words of faith that i myself long to have but lack in the moment. Maybe because it's because in the liturgy roots me to a tradition that goes back beyond my lifetime and concerns. It roots me to a history, a story, that goes back thousands of years. Maybe it's just because i'm reacting against the kind of evangelicalism that I lived in for so long.
I'm reading through this Advent devotional guide. It's not your typical gude with pithy sayings and inspirational thoughts that are the equivalent of spiritual junk food. Instead it's filled with authors who have stood the test of time, people like Bernard of Clairvaux, C. S. Lewis, Kathleen Norris, Henri Nouwen, and so forth. So far so good as i prepare my own heart for the celebration of Christmas.

Apparently I'm Part of a Cult

At least that's the rumor going about some of the people at the church i used to pastor. That's a strange thing to me. It once again points out the power of words, especially labels that can be used to confine, define, and then dismiss. Here's one definition of cult:

"A group's cult status begins as rumors spread of its novel belief system, its great devotions, its idiosyncratic practices, its perceived harmful or beneficial effects on members or its perceived opposition to the interests of mainstream cultures and governments. Persistent rumors may follow relatively small and recently founded religious or non-religious groups when they are perceived to engage in excessive member control or exploitation."

The group i'm part of is more like a support group of recovering fundamentalists trying to keep their faith in Jesus and his kingdom. Yet because it's not part of the institutional status quo (that i spent 17 years defending) it's cultic to some. I think these kinds of words say more about the people who use them than it says anything else. People are afraid of things they don't understand. Labeling them helps them dismiss them, feigning understanding.

I think about the other labels i've used or that have been used of me:
Depression
Abuse
Victim
Narcissist
Anorexic
Heretic
I suppose these things can help insofar as finding patterns to cope with them that in the past have worked with others. But when a PERSON is reduced to a LABEL a terrible violence is done to them and the image of God in them.

God protect me from using labels to mask people. Help me see people in their full humanity, good and bad, sinful and saintly, evil and good, broken and whole. Lord help me resist the urge to dismiss people with the words I use to describe them.

Beauty

Saturday night I went to Newport Beach with a friend and watched the sunset over Catalina Island. It was gorgeous. It got me thinking about how I'm noticing beauty again in my life. It seems like three years ago my life went gray. Everything was another shade of gray. The brilliance of color vanished. The spectre of depression robbed the colors from my life. It reminds me of the lyrics of Grey Street by Dave Matthews:

And she thinks...hey

How did I come to this

I dreamed myself thousand times around the world

But I can't get out of this place

There's an emptiness inside her

And she'd do anything to fill it in

But all the colors mix together To grey,

and it breaks her heart

After the sickness we call depression visited my household, i read many books on the subject. One book called depression being caught in the present moment like there was no future. Just the present moment. Just the misery of how one feels at that moment. Feeling like it is forever. I could see this in my depressed wife. I could see it in myself as the sickness of depression began to affect me as well.
It's good to see colors again. It's good to enjoy a sunset with a friend. It's good to notice the briskness in the weather, the smell of freshness in the air, and the beauty of the world around me. I think this is a good thing.

Halloween

Last night i took my boys to the harvest party at the church i used to pastor. It's always an awkward experience, as i'm flooded with people wanting to tell me how much they miss me and wanting to know how i am. It's easier now that i have a job and i'm doing better. But it's still strange. People always feel the freedom to share their opinions about hwo things went down.

It was fun having all four of my boys there though. W was there with his girlfriend, and he was dressed like Garth from Wayne's world. His brother TJ was dressed as Wayne. They looked great together.

E was dressed as V from V for Vendetta, and spent most of his time giving people the creeps. He even made a kid cry! C first dressed with a hairy beard and a pot for a potted plant, telling people he was "Hairy Potter." But then it got to itchy so he got his face painted like the drummer for Kiss.

Despite the awkwardness, it was good being with my boys. I rode the mechanical bull on a bet that i would if TJ would. I played the gladiator game with E, tho he kicked my butt and i have a sore neck and back today from it.

Overall it was a good day. It's nice to have more and more of those lately.

When I feel alive

I feel alive when I'm riding my motorcycle. I'm not sure whether that means I'm in the midst of a midlife crisis or not. Really I guess it doesn't matter to me.

I was introduced to motorcycles when my mom and adoptive dad bought matching bikes when I was about 11 years old. We started doing cross country trips, first to Oregon, then to Washington. I remember being perched on the back of my dad's Honda 750 on Oregon roads with lush forests on each side. I remember picking raspberries in campgrounds we stayed at. They are very fond memories. Shortly after that my mom and adoptive dad divorced, and soon enough my dad had a live in girlfriend. She "inherited" my mom's motorcycle, and together they planned a summer long trip across the united states. The summer between 8th and 9th grade we left. Across the southwest, through the south, all the way to Florida. Then up the east coast, all the way to Niagara falls. Finally across the midwest, finally back to california. It was the trip of a lifetime. That would have been the summer of 1977. Each city is marked with memories of experiences I had, people i met, and trouble i got into.

That next summer i moved in with my mom and her new boyfriend, the man who would become my stepdad. I didn't experience motorcycles again until i graduated from high school in 1981, and my adoptive dad gave me that same motorcycle that my mom first owned and that his girlfriend had ridden on our cross country trip. It was a 1970-something Yamaha 650. Silver in color, it had the old vetter fairing and saddle bags. After a quick lesson in a parking lot, i was turned loose on the roads. I was only 17 years old and really had no idea what i was doing. That probably explains why i crashed the thing (in an accident that was not my fault) after three months. So at 17 my experience with motorcycles came to an end.

Fast forward many, many years. In my mid 30s I started getting the itch to ride again. I researched it, talked it over with my (then) wife, looked at my life insurance to make sure my kids would be taken care of in the event of something bad happening. Finally i found my motorcycle...a 1995 Honda Shadow VT1100C American Classic Edition. Once again i was flooded with the lust to ride that i experienced as a child . The wind in my face, the sun beating down on me, leaning into a mountain curve. The best way i can describe it is that in a car i feel like an observer of what's happening around me, but on my bike i feel like a participant. I feel connected to the sunshine, the wind, the flowers, the trees. It is a truly spiritual experience.

When i bought my bike it had 5,000 miles on it. It had been sitting in a guy's garage for a long time. Now it has just over 50,000 miles, and each mile has been a gift of grace. I've gone on group rides with clubs and in parades. I've camped from my bike alone. My exwife and i spent many times together riding. Each of my boys has fallen in love with the feel of riding. These days i don't ride as much as I'd like. I get to ride to work two days a week, days when i have no kids to drop off or pick up. Riding has become part of the rhythm of my life. And when I ride i feel alive.

Cucamonga Peak

Yesterday I celebrated my youngest son's 12th birthday by taking him on a 10 mile hike to cucamonga peak. It's a difficult hike with steep elevation gains and lots of switchbacks. In fact I've never actually done it in one day before; in the past I backpacked part way, and then day hiked the next day. In the back of my mind I figured we would only make it 2/3 of the way there and turn back. But we made it the entire way. Along the hike, in between water breaks, photo ops, cliff bars, and picking up sticks and rocks to keep as souvenirs, we talked. We talked about what it means to become a man, about life, about friends. We talked about what it's like to be in a divorced home and for dad to be dating. We talked about church, about God, about girls.

It was a hazy day but we could still see the whole valley below us. It gave us perspective in a way. My son told me he'd never seen anything like it. He kept saying again and again, "Thanks so much for bringing me here. This is the best birthday ever." I told him how much i look forward to him becoming a father someday (later rather than sooner!) and being able to take his children here. We talked about how different he was than his brothers, and that now he has achieved something that his brothers haven't.

For me it was a spiritual experience. Pushing myself in a way I could not have done three years ago. Looking down on the valley where I've lived the last thirty five years of my life...the places where I've lived, gone to school, worked, coached little league, performed weddings and funerals, the libraries I've studied in, the paths that I've walked, the stores I've shopped in. All of it was down below as i stood on the rocks looking down. My life is so different now than it was just three years ago. I am the same person...sort of. My values and beliefs are the same...kind of. I feel like I'm softer now...but in a good way. More empathetic, more in touch with the importance of emotions, more relational. Yet i also feel like I'm harder....more cynical, questioning, doubting. I no longer think that things will all work out in the end in life. I no longer believe that if a person does everything they can to honor God that everything will come together. I still believe in the basic Christian message...Jesus' gospel of the Kingdom of God. In fact I believe it now more than ever. But other stuff I'm not so sure. My views of gender roles and male/female relationships has changed pretty drastically. I now passionately believe that women possess full equality in Christ and could no longer associate with a church or organization that didn't. I believe that the traditional view of gender roles that I once embraced was a significant factor in the destruction of my marriage. I've realized that I don't have God figured out as much as i thought i did. I've accepted my own humanity and can really let God be God, wondrous, mysterious, faithful, unpredictable, loving. I have no urge to fence God in or figure God out anymore.

Anyways it was a great day yesterday. I'm extremely sore and tired, but it was well worth the effort.

A Flash of Insight

Ok, so my job gives me the opportunity to meet some big name pastors and speakers. Recently I met the pastor of a very large congregation that numbers in the thousands. He has a remarkable story, and is in many ways a very nice guy. But in another sense he was completely narcissistic. He talked incessantly about himself. He was as high maintenance a person I've ever worked with in my position. He brought his own entourage of people, who constantly told him how great he was. It was rather sickening really. But the saddest part of all was that he was completely oblivious to how self absorbed he was. When i asked him about his children he spoke with regret, as he explained that his relationship with his children is strained and that they had difficulty "sharing" him with the world.
Talking to this individual for 40 minutes was a deeply spiritual experience for me. It was spiritual because I saw myself. Not who i was, but who i was on my way to becoming. It was as if God gave me a kind of George Bailey kind of glimpse into what I would have been like had i stayed in pastoral ministry. And it was an ugly picture.
For the first time i can remember i experienced gratitude for not being a pastor anymore. For the first time i saw with a certain measure of clarity what a public life and persona was doing to my soul. It made me wonder if it was possible to be a successful pastor of a large congregation without being squeezed into that kind of mold. I realized how much more self aware i am now than i was then. It was a deeply spiritual experience.
As we parted after the event, this pastor told me if i ever needed to talk to a pastor to call him and he'd make sure i made it past his administrative assistant to meet with him. I smiled and thanked him, thinking to myself that he wouldn't even be on my top ten list of people to call should i need pastoral guidance. Before i would have been enamored with his position, with his prestige, and impressed. Now i was just sad for him and his family, and grateful for myself.
It made me think of this song by Dashboard Confessional
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WoJV4NLxqg

My Boys!
This is a picture of Wes and I on a backpacking trip to Cucamonga Peak two summers ago.
Next is a picture of Ethan last summer on a camping trip to Yosemite. Then a picture of Cole on a camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park in the Spring. Finally a picture of TJ after he caught a desert iguana on that same trip . They grow up so fast!








My boys!

Revisiting

I started this thing back in 2006 and then forgot about it. How much can change in two years. Two years older. Two years wiser...maybe not so much. I've lost 30 pounds, and then gained 20 of it back. Two years ago my life as i knew it was just beginning to crumble. The cracks were appearing and I was thoroughly convinced that if I just said the right words or did the right things I could stop it. Two years ago I lived the sedentary life of a middle aged pastor of one of the larger churches in our area. Now I'm no longer pastoring, though I'm still ordained. I'm in better physical shape than I was in my 30s. Emotional and psychological shape? Depends who you ask I think. I carry scars, but who doesn't? I think I see things more clearly now, but I've thought I saw things clearly in the past as well and have been proven quite deluded. So who the heck really knows?

My relationship with God was pretty sketchy for a while. Honestly I felt betrayed. I tried and tried, prayed and prayed, did everything I knew to do. Yet still things fell apart. Not that I didn't have culpability, because surely I did. Perhaps I hold most of the blame. Yet I really did try. I'd always believed that if I did my best, God would take care of the rest. But I've realized that isn't the real God. The real God cannot be domesticated to my whims, reduced to a formula, or managed to create my own happiness. I'm realizing that God is not completely who I thought he was.

My relationship with the church is kinda rough. A lot of betrayal, leading to a lot of cynicism. I describe people like me as those who have "seen behind the curtain" to use a Wizard of Oz allusion. We know how things work. We know how to move people with just the right song, how to motivate people to get involved, how to build a church. Yet we've also seen the dark side, both of others and of ourselves. We know that church is a place where most folks put a lot of energy into look a lot better than they really are. That takes a lot of energy I just don't have anymore. Truth be told, I still guest preach occasionally. I still attend occastionally. Yet i feel like a sojourner in the ecclesiastical world. Maybe that's ok. It has to be, because that's where I am.

As the great theologian Jerry Garcia once said ,"What a long, strange trip it's been."