Reluctant Faith

The power in my industrial park went out this morning, as it often does.  Jim, who owns the building next door to mine, came over to make sure that it wasn’t just his power that was out.  Jim is an enthusiastic talker, so I sort of groaned inwardly when he walked in.  He “got saved” a few years ago, and he loves to talk about it.  Today was no different, but I tried to listen with new ears rather than doing everything I could to end the conversation.  I’m glad I did.  After the usual chit-chat, Jim said, “I’ve got to tell y’all what God is doing for me.  I mean, I feel like I’m his favorite.”  Wow.  How cool.  What a blessing to be able to look at your life, with all of its warts and ugliness, and feel like God’s favorite.  Because, I mean, really, we all are.

My buddy Joel the Introvert linked to this blog, Stuff White People Like, today.  I have wasted the rest of my morning reading it.  It’s hysterical.  Have fun.

My good friend, Chris, wrote yesterday to let me know of his dog, Gib’s, untimely death. I have never met Gib, but I have seen pictures - a cute, fuzzy, Jack Russell Terrier with a mischievous gleam in his eye. I know that he took good care of Chris and Hope and their three kids, giving them all of the crazy, unconditional, uncontrollable love that only a dog can offer. He must have been a worthy companion on many summer adventures of the kind that can only be had by kids and their dogs. I’m sure he didn’t care that Emma, in her preteen female angst, said he was disgusting, or if Luke peed on him, or if Lydia pulled on his ears. All of those things were part of his duties as a dog helping to raise three kids. Those kids (and their parents) will always remember Gib and his love, and they will carry that love with them through their childhood, through all of the dogs to come, and it will help to shape some part of who they are.

In our dogs’ eyes, we see who we could be if we tried. Loving, playful, quick to forgive. Our dogs know that we don’t spend enough time with them, that we are easily irritated with them. They don’t care. They never tire of waiting for us to come home. Must be a little like God’s love.

Dogs take good care of us. Last Friday, I hung out with a guy that I hadn’t seen since middle school. In the process of catching up during the afternoon, many beers were consumed. So many that I don’t remember Clay (my friend) leaving. So many that Christie came home from work to find me passed out in the bed, and was unable to wake me up beyond some incoherent babbling. She says that, when she walked into the room, Sam, Henry, and Nikki were pressed up against me, and Nikki was licking my face periodically. She couldn’t get them to leave me. Nikki, who usually prefers laying on the couch with Christie over just about anything else in the world, refused to leave the room. She just kept standing over me, licking my face. Sam and Henry knew that something was wrong, and they wouldn’t leave me, either. They had a job to do, and they did it. They didn’t judge me for drinking irresponsibly. They just kept watch over me until I woke up, and were glad to see me when I did. If only humans evoked devotion like that in each other.

So Gib, job well done, buddy. You will be sorely missed. You can rest assured that there is a family that is a whole lot better off for having known you. The squirrels in heaven better look out.

I seem to write a lot about death in this blog.  So many people die so young, so early, before we are finished with them, and they us.  Christie’s friend, Mizuho Llewellyn, passed away in her sleep at 3:42 am on Sunday.  She was a resident of Hospice Atlanta, and died of lung cancer that had metastasized to her ribs, spine, and brain.  She was 33.  She leaves behind a husband, Jim, and a one-year-old little boy, Kai.  I never met Mizuho, but from reading her blog, I can tell that she was an amazing person, as is her husband.

Say a prayer today for Mizuho, for grieving husbands, and for motherless sons.

I woke up at 3 am this morning, thinking about worship.  Not corporate, Sunday morning go-to-meeting worship, per se, but worship in general.  What does it mean to worship?  I, for one, am very guilty of allowing my semi-regular Sunday morning attendance at the early service at St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church to count as the whole of my worship.  Not to speak for my wife, but I would imagine that she shares equally in that guilt.  I’m not sure that I really do much in my day-to-day life that could be considered worship, unless God feels honored by excessive beer drinking.  If that’s the case, then I’m on track for sainthood.  I would imagine, however, that God is less than impressed by my dedication to beer, so in the spirit of my friend Christine, here is a list of ways in which I think worship can be incorporated into everyday life.  Perhaps a portion of this list could be used as a Lenten observance.

1. Be intentionally joyful.
2. Give freely, even to those who don’t “deserve” it.  Very few of us really deserve the things we have been given.
3. Play with your dog(s), and share their unbridled joy at just running around and being silly.
4. Be quiet and listen for the still, small voice.
5. Listen intentionally when someone is sharing part of their lives, whether it be joy, sorrow, or brokenness.
6. Resist the temptation to talk about what someone else is doing, isn’t doing, ought to be doing.
7. Eat well.
8. Sleep well.
9. Exercise.
10. Buy fair trade/organic whenever possible.
11. Realize that tithing doesn’t just mean putting a check in the offering plate once a month.
12. Listen to really good music.
13. Play really good music.
14. Visit your grandmother more often.

This list is mainly directed at myself.  There are many things that can and should be added to it.  Any thoughts?

i’m not sure how much deeper should I dig,
searching for remnants of your life.
things by which to remember
to tell the story of you
so that the story won’t be lost.
sometimes i speak endlessly about the things you did and said.
the words flow and tumble over each other
in their rush to be heard before they disappear.
people listen very politely,
sympathetic, even.
but i cannot adequately convey
the story of you -
the story of which i am a part.
and so i dig for more treasures,
red georgia clay on my hands
sweat on my brow
fever in my eyes.
but the problem -
the problem is that,
even with all of these artifacts,
sometimes i can’t remember the sound
of your voice
the smell of your clothes
the look in your eyes

It seems that the previous post that occupied this spot was considered insensitive by some members of my friend’s family.  It was certainly not meant to be so.  For one thing, it was written immediately after I was told of Beth’s passing, and my mind and heart were reeling.  I needed to put something down in writing.  For another, I thought I had about five readers on this blog.  I was ignorant to the fact that I had made the blog accessible to search engines, so that anyone who searched for Beth’s name came across this blog.  What I wrote was not meant for mass consumption, and I certainly never thought that it would be read by members of her family.

So, to anyone who was hurt or offended by my somewhat blunt statement about the circumstances of Beth’s death, I am deeply, deeply sorry.  It sickens me to think that I could have added to the already immeasurable pain that people are feeling over it.  I wanted only to pay tribute to a beautiful person, one whose light was taken from us suddenly and senselessly.

Modern day Christian theologian Frederick Buechner writes, “A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, ‘I can’t prove a thing, but theres something about his eyes and his voice.  There’s something about the way he carries his head, his hands, the way he carries his cross - the way he carries me.”

The title of this whole blog thing, Reluctant Faith, describes perfectly the state of my spiritual life.  There are many times - more often than I would like to admit - when I don’t want to believe.  It would be so much easier not to.  The darkness would make so much more sense.  But then there are those small moments of grace that inevitably bring me, reluctantly, back to the contentious, fist-shaking, frustrating, inexplicably affirming relationship that I have had with God (Yahweh, for those of you who insist on eschewing thousands of years of tradition and calling God by God’s first name) ever since I can remember.  One of those moments happened this morning, when I followed a link from my fine friend Chris’s (one of the aforementioned eschewers) blog to his friend Bryan’s blog, and a link from there to this blog.  I’m normally quite averse to this brand of “let’s all hold hands and sing praise and worship songs and wear purity rings” religion, but this post called me on the carpet:

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.

Chase the lion.

As I was going out to get some lunch today, I was forced to turn around before I got to a railroad crossing about a half mile from my shop. There were the flashing lights of all of the standard emergency vehicles, news vans and cameramen, rubberneckers with their cell phone cameras. A train was stopped on the track. What was once a minivan was on the back of a wrecker. Someone, perhaps more than one, had lost their life.

Was it a mother with her children? Was it someone going to lunch at midday? I’ve noticed that some of the Hispanic construction workers around here drive those vans - maybe it was a carload of them. Were they happily singing along to the radio, causing them not to hear the wail of the train whistle? Were they upset, distracted? Whoever it was, they had a family. They had a story. They had a life. One that ended suddenly at noontime today.

Rest in peace, rise in glory.