The Shape of Hope...

Hope is almost never predictable. I guess if it was, we would be continously waiting for an event we are certain is coming, therefore no need for hope. Yesterday as I was driving in the evening I saw something that gave me hope. It was a random
event. I didn't even get out of my car. As I drove on, I realized that the unpredictability of life is God's certainty. ( No, not predestination: it's wrong to play God and it dosn't work anyway.) I'm talking about those events that you only understand in retrospect. What did I see ? I saw two people talking. I stopped my vehicle momentarily ( at a stop sign, no one behind me ).
I saw a two people talking to each other who looked as if the world could fall down around them and it wouldn't have mattered. Their gestures and eye contact were positive, focussed, respectful, and encouraging. I didn't stay long enough, but one would assume they would have parted company with a sense being heard and known . They were real , they connected...

The War that Rages Within...

Do you ever feel as if you are a soldier who is lost on the field of combat ? You are with the right army, but the regiment is
all wrong. You look at who you are, how you are equipped, but you are on the wrong mission. Yeah, you are fighting, but you are missing in action from your unit who wears the same uniform . Longing for the right mission, you still live with passion,
but you are never quite in the right place...

Evil's Best Tool : Cheap Intimacy

At the close of World War 2 the allies found very few Gestapo ( Nazi secret police ) records intact...except in Wurzburg where they were salvaged completely intact. What the allies found was a chilling testament to the darker side of human nature. There were only 8 gestapo secret police in Wurzburg. In fact in all of Nazi Germany there far fewer gestapo agents than the
allied forces had thought . The record showed in Wurzburg that the secret police knew that they could rely on the fact that people had a frightening need to be deemed with approval by a higher authority; evil or otherwise. Their records reveal people taken away to concentration camps because they snubbed someone on a special occasion or they did not fit the mold in the workplace.
One BBC documentary followed a young woman who was quiet and not social enough with many people who perceived it as a snub. She was gassed in 1942 as a threat to the state. There was only a need for enough secret police in Wurzburg to write up documentation and information about people who told secrets and lies about other people to gain status with the authorities and to gain "cheap intimacy" with others. yeah, you know: gossip ...In other words " I don't know you, but if you are "important" I will tell you things about other people and I will gain your intimacy and protection" ....There are checks and balances in our society today that ensures that a government will not put people to death based on a whim or lack of social acceptance. BUT...check out any workplace, school, church or institution today that involves hierarchy. There is a constant pressure ( especially when weak or imperceptive leadership exists ) to weaken and even damage others for the sake of the twisted approval of a select few... This is what makes New Heights an unusual place of solace for all. The very awkwardness and difficult process we experience in embracing so many people is the lifeblood of the place. This acceptance is a bulwark against the kind of thing in humanity that was exploited in Wurzburg. Those who sent the many away to camps from Wurzburg were strangely missing and silent when the glare of true justice exposed the real culprits through the Gestapo records. It is so with many institutions today .````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` ```May the Jesus who accepted me, pound my heart into submission when the whiff of "cheap intimacy " catches my nostrils and shows me an easy status to be gained.

Getting Back to My Roots...

Many years ago ( almost none of you know this ) I was married once before. Her name was Nancy Duffy. It all ended so suddenly. In a whirlwind romance ( so typical of those times ) we were married at 1 o'clock and it ended at 6 pm.
It ended because...her mother called her in for dinner. We were both six years old. But we had life figured out.
Despite all of the needs that children have, there is a certainty about children around 6 years of age that is strangely comforting. I remember being six and I remember when my kids were six. Even now when I hear from a friend of mine about their son who is around the great six year marker. I am still amazed at the way he sees the world. There is a wonderful
transparency and honesty to them that gives hope to those who watch them grow. Yes, they will learn to " hide their cards" from a hurtful world. But at some point the best pieces of their character that were only clues when they were six years old are the same things that draw people to them now. One the many programs that talk about the psychology of human relationship suggested that the intuitive aspects that make people seem attractive to each other in appearance, personality
and ways of communicating come from the childhood years. Should we all act like six year olds then ? Perhaps not. But Jesus indicated that we have to come to him as children in order to understand what He is all about. He also got pretty ticked at his own disciples for getting in the way when the six year olds ( children ) tried to get to Him. Charles Dickens was one of the few writers in Victorian England who wrote about and observed the poorest, most down-trodden families in the worst neighborhoods of London. Upon looking at a new baby born amidst the ugly squalor of one of the overcrowded tenements, Dickens declared "this baby is beautiful because he is fresh from God" . If that is true about childhood, it would do me well to remember my roots...

I need to: Simplify, Use God's eyesight, and Thrive...

I am inspired by a friend and others to clean up my language, grow in the joy of my offspring and sleep well knowing that we are loved. The return on this is that I would encourage anyone who has adrenal glands like mine that tend to overwhelm
my reasoned self-talk... to take stock. Most often the first lie I believe when someone has hurt me or even unfairly critisized my personal competence is that I am alone in this. Not true, if someone appears unusually persistent in their zeal to accuse me, it is very likely that others have suffered the same fate at the hands of the same bully . Secondly, despite my negative self-evaluation under the onslaught, these people really don't know me, my life, or the best things I have done with my life. Finally, the perceived need to gain revenge or vengence on the Bullies in this life is truly wasted when , despite the hurt,
I begin to see that the " bullies" we experience are often poor in spirit, impoverished in honest self-evaluation, and dangerously ill-prepared for personal tragedy. It is similar to King David's writings in psalm 73 " For I was envious of the arrogant...They are free from the burdens of men, neither are they plagued like other men...They scoff and speak with malice. In arrogance, they threaten oppression. Therefore their people return to them and they drink up waters of abundance. Surely in vain I have cleansed my heart...For all day long I have been plagued and punished every morning...When I tried to understand this, it was too painful for me. Until I entered God's santuary and considered their latter end ...As a dream when one wakes up, so Lord when you awake, you will despise their fantasies...For my soul was grieved and I was embittered in my heart...nevertheless, I am continually with you. You have held my right hand. You will give me your counsel..."
This is amazing stuff. Written 1000's of years ago, yet David is such a contemporary, heart on the sleeve kinda guy ( are you sure he wasn't Irish ? ) He was a murderer, adulterer, rejected by his family and sold by his own brothers into slavery...yet he learned so much from his hurt . He truly lived because of what he discovered as he changed in this foolishness, suffering, and passion. The Irony is that we are in much better shape than those who bully us. They must create a world around them that dosn't have the flexibility we have grown used to. The stiff branch appears strong without storms, but when the wind blows hard, the branches that can bend will survive and the stiffer branches will crack under the onslaught. I must admit that despite knowing all this, it is still tough to be the Jesus that has compassion on these people. Until I arrive in that heartspace, I will acknowledge God's love for them in the belief that I will understand them someday with the same compassion God has shown me in my worst moments.

My Friend Will Know...

I have a friend that I haven't been in contact with for a long time. I am worried about my friend,
But...I have been praying that God will be there in a way that I can't. I know my friend well enough that God will reveal his
presence and reassurance in the simplest of things...In fact as I write this, it may have already taken place...In the past, it was things such as a piece of natural surroundings impossibly out of it's range, or the simple scent of something special.
Regardless, the Author of our lives knows how to key into our hearts in a way that touches us for the better.
At times, all manner of forces seem to be trying to destroy us from within and without , then suddenly the fog clears and God reveals himself in some way, and through our tears, the open wounds in our lives slowly begin to heal...

God's Messengers Unaware...

Have you ever gone through a difficult time and in the midst of it you saw something, or someone said something and it
told you that you are going to be O.K... My mother and father lived a marriage that could only be called a Torrid Irish love affair for 37 years. It pushed them to pack the most into every moment of their lives and it produced some unusual children by any stretch. But, the first night my mother slept alone ( as with so many we know who have lost someone ) she said it was a night of emptiness, loneliness, blackness, and no sleep that resembled Hell itself.
As the light dawned at 4;30 she told us later that she was sure she would lose the very grip on her mind the rest of her days.
At 5 am that morning an old friend of my fathers from his war days phoned my mother and told her he knew he had to talk to her about their mutual loss: Ross Greenshields. The only people who share anything close to the intimacy of a man and a woman of for 37 years are two men who share the intimacy of time spent together during the war. He began to speak to my mother about his friend Ross and what a great companion he was and how through those difficult, dangerous years they had meant so much to each other as men in arms of common purpose despite their fears, youth, and dreams of a brighter future.
My mother told us that this particular comrade had not spoken to herself nor my father for many years and that his call and timing appeared to be "out of the blue". But it quickly dawned on her that this call was so much more... She got down on her knees and gave thanks to God for giving her back her sanity This friend was an answer from God amidst the madness and blackness that the death of her most cherished one placed upon her. That was when she was 62 years old back in 1983 and Mary Greenshields ( nee Cooper of Belfast ) died just a year and a half ago. Strangely, ( despite a son's bias ) many said she shone when he was alive and as much or more when he passed away. She spoke freely of him into her 80's as if he had left yesterday afternoon. When asked why she never married again, she repeated the question " where would I find another man like your father ?... We squeezed more life into those years than anyone I have known ... we taught each other how to live "
I experienced this sense of darkness and personal questioning on a much lesser scale just before the end of the school year. I was made to feel that all the passion and time invested of what I believed and did in terms of working with adolescents
was for naught. That is, until I spoke to a friend of mine on the phone. His call had nothing to do with my present life circumstance that was pushing me back to another time of questioning my existence or... at least my relevance. He unknowingly spoke of a similar life circumstance he had, related back to me that I was O.K. and somehow relayed to my psyche that I was needed in what I do. This man is not a Christian. But tonight he was God's Messenger Unaware.
If you get an urge to call someone and believe for some reason and timing you don't understand, that they need to hear from you. Make that call. If you think someone might need your encouragement. Make that call. If there is someone who pissed you off, but you heard something else in their voice. Make that call . Don't hand me that crap about whether you fit the bill. None of us do...and all of us do. Just make the call. God will look after them whether you do it or not, but wouldn't it be good to be part of it ?...

My Human Grace; a line on the paper

I have come to realize ( or been shown by others ) that my sense of grace for others is only as wide as the lines on this paper ( one of them )
Years ago as I drove down the road with my father as a " confident" 17 year old, I told him I was amazed and disgusted with a decision a mutual friend of ours had made.
My father looked at me, pulled the car over and said, " I have known that man for a long time and for what he has gone through in his life, he is in better shape with God than you are " Wow, perspective. Suddenly, this guy's lifestyle, language, actions could no longer be judged by me. I have been shown numerous other times that what appears as a " Gray " view of God's acceptance of people reacting the way they do is really his absolute certainty of his love for them. It helps me to see the illustration of a narrow and wide path in life in another context; God's love for me ( us ) is wider than any road I could imagine. I need to learn to live with a sense of God's grace for others that is wider at the very least than the lines in this blog...