Do or Die Moment

There are moments in our lives when we must place a stake in the ground, draw a line in the sand, and declare "This far and no further." This is it, the tipping point, the moment in time when you either look the monster in the eyes and come out victorious or lose everything that you've ever gained. You know what you must do - the longer that you fail to accomplish it, the further that everything you've ever dreamed of will drift from your grasp. Either the pain of doing it becomes secondary to the immense need, or the fear of the pain crushes even the knowledge of the need. In these moments, we must declare, "I am not afraid." The pain is worth it. I am not afraid.

I normally try to avoid copying other people's work, but sometimes something so immeasurably great gets done that it's almost a crime not to pass it around as much as possible. In the most crushing moments when I wonder if I can go on, this poem by Eliot Fitzgerald, a musician that I've only ever heard on MySpace, speaks volumes to me.

The wind is fun to watch from the confines of my room
A window forced into a wall like a hole inside a tomb
Watch the leaves go up and up and watch them slowly fall back down
Hear the clouds rush idly by, hear them crash into the ground
No noise could ever save me from the voice inside my head
From the nightmares in my closet and the monsters in my bed
Your name is the sound I sigh when I am forced to see my breath
During winter chills of loneliness and the knowledge that there’s death

You see since every man must live, I guess that every man must die
Young and old and in between every man must laugh and cry
But there is joy, and there is sadness inside of every human heart
And there’s a slave and there’s a free man and a chance to never start
It seems I’m living in an age where the good guys just as bad
Every bastard born in darkness with a thorn upon his head
I’m haunted by the memory of my mother’s maiden name
And the perfection that I promised at a time that never came
I know my parents love me, and I know I love them back
But I know my love ain’t perfect and I see that there’s a lack
Of consequences for my actions, compensation for my days
Been doubting everything around me, God vindicate my ways

One by one, I see them come, the monsters to be named
They stand and fall, they walk and crawl
Here I am ashamed

A cemetery looks the best when formed outside a church
Dirt filled with all the lonely people who had given up the search
Some gave up because they found it, some quit some, some never tried
Everybody pondered looking, some alone, some side by side.
Oh God I wish a could have been there the day that Moses hit the stone
A man blessed by holy heaven, a man courageous and alone
I’d love to watch him drink the water, while the people stood and cheered
Did he know the well his sin would bring to bear all that he feared

Forty years he cried for nothing but my unrequited love
For the land I’ve only heard of from all these thunderclouds above
And oh God, oh yes I love you but right now I’m mad as hell
I am your friend God please remember I’m your voice inside this shell
Of human frailty and misgivings about the promises of truth
I only know God, what you’ve shown me, apart from that, there is no proof

I see the stars in all their glory, I see the waves crash on the shore
I see the order and the chaos, and I wish I could see more
Of your abundance in the desert and of your man on the sand
Instead of seeds you never pardon in this dry and lonely land
I’m gonna trust you Lord, I love you, you’re my savior and my friend
Give me strength to bear this moment of despair that you did send

One by one, I see them come, these monsters to be named
The stand and fall they walk and crawl, here I am afraid

The night crawls through my window as I crawl into my bed
And dream of candles I left burning next to books I never read
Hear the birds no longer singing, I see a black behind the rain
I see the emptiness that’s filled with songs of birds and crushing pain
My name is no more than a sound my presence somehow seems to draw
Symbols scribbled on a paper to fulfill this nation’s law
Here’s my name, if I could give it, myself and etched into my chest
I am a man, I am a poet, I am redeemed and I’m a mess
I have joyful lips and tragic eyes on the same face that hides a soul
That lives to love a God whom death alone allows me to behold

One by one I see them come, these angels to be praised,
They stand and fly they never die
Here I stand amazed
In you I stand amazed
I stand amazed
I stand amazed
Are you amazed?

Christian Community Development

Go to the people, live among them, learn from them, love them, start with what they know, build on what they have, but of the best leaders, when their task is done, the people will remark, "We have done it ourselves!"

- heard a few years ago from Dan Reeve, EFCA

The People You Never Met

Over a few beers at my favorite bar in Dallas, a good friend posed an interesting question that I have never received before. He asked all of us at the table what one book we would write. I thought about it for a while before coming up with my answer.

Whether out of sheer coincidence or through some special deep relationships, I have had the good fortune to get to know various people at a deeper level than most knew them. Some are fabulous friends that I just know that well, and others are just people that I happened to be in the right place at the right time to see an unusual side of them. But regardless, I truly believe that most people are far deeper than what you would find out about them in a few meetings or even in a few years.

I don't want to divulge anyone's identity or anything, but I could tell you stories of hearing the raw realities that come out of people's mouths when you're talking one on one after the other person has had a half dozen beers. The ever-so-slight change in a person's demeanor that happens when a certain song comes on that makes you ask a relatively innocuous question that leads to a heartfelt discussion. The strikingly different personality that you observe when you see a person in a radically different environment. It's a beautiful thing. The people you might think were strong and tough may in reality be surprisingly close to tears when a certain topic of conversation comes up. The people you thought were drunken womanizers might have a remarkable quality of love and deep respect for one single female. The people you thought were simple, surface deep normal people might have a heartwrenching tale of emotional turmoil in their family.

And then you might have me.

Uncertainty

I feel like another period of transition is starting in my life. Not that I've ever really not been in transition, but it seems like new things are starting to happen and different questions are opening up that I haven't felt in a while. Some are simple - moving in just a couple of weeks and not knowing where I'm moving to. Others are slightly bigger - whether or not to apply to Dallas Theological Seminary in the spring. Others are essentially impossible - what direction to take my career. And there are more.

The Lord gave me an illustration some years ago that I've always chosen to apply to my life. I imagine that my life will forever be on this track, but I'm okay with that. My life is like a road up the side of a mountain. If you've driven up a mountain road before, you know the tedious switchbacks that you must take to slowly go higher and higher. You also know that you can never see around the turn of the mountain, but that never stops you from moving forward, because you know that you can already see the point from which you will be able to see around it. And if you want to know the final destination, you need only look upward.

Perhaps one of the most comforting things possible in life is the knowledge that God is in control. And I am continually reminded of this, despite the absurd level of uncertainty that I've grown somewhat used to. Even when I've gone dangerously close to the points beyond which I have no plans (and sometimes even beyond the point), the right path has always opened up, and in hindsight each situation has been the right one. Even though I've never yet balanced a budget in over a year and a half since graduation and have lost thousands of dollars in 2009, I still have money to pay the rent and incredibly fortunate investments have kept me alive.

I can say one thing with absolute certainty: God is in control, and my life is still on the right track.

What if.....

I am often captivated by the thought of how our society would be different under slightly different cultural norms or conditions. For example, in Lord of the Rings there is the Ent society of walking, talking trees - except that Treebeard explains to the hobbits that in Entish the words are very long and take a great deal of time to pronounce, and so therefore the Ents never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say. How would our society be different if it took only, say, twice as long to say everything that we currently say? Would we conserve our words more?

I met a young lady tonight who had spent a summer in the mountains of Peru among a people group largely untouched by Western civilization, and they had retained a long-standing cultural practice of children being raised by their grandparents, really mostly just their grandmothers. Basically, people married fairly young and had children, then almost immediately sent the children off to their grandparents and went about their lives until their own kids were old enough to be married and have kids. Consider the implications. Could people be more productive in the prime of their lives if their children are not in the way? Could children grow up with greater wisdom if they are raised by older and wiser members of society than their young parents? Who knows!

This is not entirely senseless philosophical theorizing. I believe that cultivating a "what if" mindset is part of not only an innovative society, but also a careful and deliberate society. We could, with more "what if" statements, come up with more creative solutions to problems. We could also recognize the longer-term implications of present decisions. For example, consider the case among the Samburu people of Kenya that a friend of mine was telling me about a few weeks ago - at one time the women of the village walked hours each day retrieving the family's water supply. Some missionaries came in and drilled a well, removing the need to walk so far. Wonderful! Except for one thing - without the hours being consumed in walking, the women of the village stayed home and made more babies with their husbands, creating a dangerous population spike.

Maybe we should all take more time out of our busy schedules for thinking....not just reflection, but also theorizing and dreaming.