While Nodding Off In Unprogrammed Worship





The other day in unprogrammed worship, a significant thought (word from God) emerged in my mind. As I sat with the thought, actually it was a spiritual analogy; I sensed a prompting and the freedom to share it with the gathered community. What’s funny about it all is that later as Miriam and I were talking about what I had shared, she told she had opened her eyes a few minutes before I shared and had seen my head nodding. I sort of remember nodding off some, but not really. I have often wondered if I’m more open to God speaking to me when I’m half asleep and half awake. Maybe my ego is more relaxed and my defenses are down.

Anyway, I got to reflecting on Wednesday nights when I take my five year old grandson, Abram, to the swimming pool. He loves to go swimming with grandpa. Now this is an interesting experience. Abram has had some pretty negative experiences related to swimming. My guess is that he was forced to do some things before he was ready to do them and it created a lot of fear in him related to swimming. He loves going into the water and in the community pool we go to, in the more shallow section, which is still about three to four feet deep, there is a shelf on one side of the pool. This shelf sits about two to three feet below the surface. Abram can stand on that three foot wide shelf and frolic in the water. He stands on the shelf and I stand in the deeper water and we play all sorts of games together.

From time to time I invite him to hop on my back and we venture out into deeper water, but Abram always is clinging tightly to my neck. In fact, he almost chokes me he hangs on so tightly.

One of the reasons I think Abram likes going with me to the pool so much is because he knows there is one unspoken rule. Abram calls the shots. We do what Abram wants to do. For my part, I am very subtlety and consistently inviting him to work on learning how to swim and encouraging him to try new things, but as soon as he says “No” to something, that’s it. We immediately stop. Abram has the ultimate say-so.

What has been the effect of that? Abram loves going to the pool. He loves the water. He loves playing in the pool with grandpa. And slowly, very slowly, hardly noticeable at all to the casual observer, Abram is making progress. In fact, I would suggest that Abram doesn’t even notice the progress he is making, because that’s not where the focus on our time together is at. The focus is on us being together, enjoying each other and playing in the water. He is learning some things and as I watch him, I see him look out at other boys and girls in the deeper water and I think I see a desire in him to go do things he sees them doing. But we don’t focus on that stuff. The focus is on grandson and grandpa playing together.

So I’m prayerfully reflecting on all of this in unprogrammed worship and I start to think about how God relates to me concerning my fears. I started wondering if that is how God interacts with me, if beyond my wildest understanding, God is letting me call the shots. God is continually inviting me to deeper waters, continually encouraging me to try new things I’ve never done before, to face into difficult issues I’ve long avoided, but as soon as I say “No,” he backs off, says “Fine,” and we keep frolicking through life together. And slowly, very slowly, I’m changing. I’m growing. I’m healing. I’m becoming more Christlike.

What really hit me was this. So often I mentally beat myself up, I mean I really do, because I’m so fearful about certain things, things God has been working on in my life for years. But I’m wondering if it’s that big of a deal to God. Now this is really running against all of the emphasis I’ve taken in and placed on others to lead a radical life for Christ. But I’m starting to wonder if all the guilt, or maybe its shame, I have for not doing things I think God is calling me to do is self imposed.

Here’s why I’m wondering this. I know that for me, it would break my heart if the whole time Abram and I were at the pool together, all Abram would be aware of is that grandpa thinks he’s a slacker. That grandpa is frustrated with him because he’s not out in the pool swimming on his own. That grandpa’s object of focus is on what Abram isn’t doing rather than on who Abram is. It seems to me that what that would essentially do is take all the joy out of our time together.

There is no doubt in my mind that Abram knows I think it would be great if he would work on learning to swim in the deeper water and that I have hopes for him that he’s not ready to explore. But I also believe that Abram thinks that grandpa really likes being with him at the pool and that, in fact, that’s the important thing, we’re together having fun. How sad that would be if Abram’s and my relationship was just all about what he’s not doing, how far short he is falling of grandpa’s hopes and expectations.

So I’m wondering, I’m suspicious, that this might reflect God’s attitude toward me and my fears. “Yeah, Paul, there are some amazing things you could be doing, and you’re even fully capable of doing them. But for whatever reasons (of which God is fully aware, unlike me and Abram), you’re not ready to go there. Don’t beat yourself up over that. I’ll keep gently inviting you to those places, the invitation will never stop coming, and someday your deep, deep longings to go there will finally win out, and then we’ll celebrate together. Until then, let’s keep enjoying being in each other’s presence, frolicking and playing together, and oh by the way, have you noticed that you’ve picked up some new things in the midst of our being together. Did you know you’ve changed. Hmmm…I guess some thing is going on. And hey, did you know I love being with you and love I you deeply.”

And all this surfaced from the depths while I was nodding off in unprogrammed worship. Weird, huh?

Where Gratefulness Might Lead




Richard Rohr has jump started my thinking again. In his book, Job and the Mystery of Suffering, he talks about how good life is, that we’re surrounded with goodness. This is certainly true for me. My life is totally saturated with goodness, when I stop to think about. Yes, I have a nice house. Miriam and I each have a car, so we can travel separate directions when we need to. I love my backyard and the beauty Miriam and I have created there. I have all the food and clothes I could want, an incredible wife and wonderful family, a more than adequate income, meaningful job, good healthy…and then we get down to the details, enjoyment of music, hands and feet that work, eyes sight, being able to feel a spring breeze on my face, smell a plum tree in full bloom, and taste buds that allow me enjoy Mexican food. I could go on and on and on.

My life is full of goodness for which I should be and I am very grateful. However, Rohr suggests that we come to expect goodness so much we are surprised when something bad happens to us. The bad stuff is so unexpected because we are so accustom to goodness and take goodness so much for granted, that when something bad happens it feels like an injustice has happened to us.

So I’m thinking about that and that seems true to me. Think as simple as traffic lights. I think I get to most traffic lights when they’re green and I sail right through them without much of thought. Everything is right in the world. But when I come upon a red light it jars me and I feel like I’ve been wronged in some way and I grumble that the people who installed the traffic lights didn’t come up with a more synchronized system that would allow traffic (translate “me”) to keep flowing along uninterrupted. That’s a simple example. When something even more interruptive enters my life, I can really get bent out of shape.

Where this is leading me is to the realization that I have not just come to expect goodness in my life, but I also protect the goodness that I have received. I want a pain free life and I’m willing to work to keep it that way. What this means is that when Jesus invites me to join him in a situation that has the potential to create pain, suffering and sacrifice of good things, I am resistant. I heard a speaker the other day quote Mother Teresa as saying (doesn’t everyone quote Mother Teresa?) something like, “We’re not called to do good things for other people, we’re called to love well.” Jesus invites me to love others well. My sense is that that involves sacrifice and suffering, but I’m so caught up in enjoying all the goodness I’m so used to experiencing, that I am resistant to entering into loving well. Loving well is crazy time.

Here’s the other thing it got me thinking about. There’s this quote by Fredrick Buechner that lots of people quote about vocation or call. Buechner says vocation is, “The place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” Whenever I’ve heard this quoted by a speaker it’s like this corporate sigh goes up from those listening as they resonate with the truth of the statement. But there’s something that’s bugging me about this statement. What is my deepest gladness? Do I really know it? And what’s more, do I really want to know it? As I’ve confessed before, I am a fearful person, and could it be that I am actually afraid of my own deepest longings, because if I actually acknowledged them and started to live into them, there’s a good chance I could end up suffering, losing some of the good things I’ve been given. I wonder how often I go around calling more surface longings my deepest longings, when in reality I have hardly begun to explore what would create in me the deepest gladness I could know. Jesus says, “I’ve come that you could have life and that abundantly.” Crazy time.

Then there is the other side of Buechner’s cute formula. What is the world’s deep need? Again, do I really want to know? Except by the grace of God, can I even go there? I think I know what the world’s deepest need is, but I’m beginning to think I am being very persumptous.

Instead of thinking how great this definition of call and vocation is that Buechner offers us, I’m actually confronted with the limenal experience of listening to my deepest gladness or longings and the world’s deepest need. Do I really want to listen to all of that?

Rohr also suggests that there comes a time when joy and suffering merge and a person really doesn’t know one from another. I don’t know that I’m that familiar with that experience. Whenever I am invited into sacrifice, it feels like an invitation only to suffering and loss. Of course, I’ve had those experiences when joy and gladness came. The other day Carleen was having a hard time with my five year old grandson, Abram. They had both had a rough morning and Abram was currently in “time out.” I could tell Carleen was tired and frustrated. I suspected that the time out was as much for her as for Abram. I was headed out to enjoy doing some highly anticipated yard work, which I love, when the invitation came, “Go offer to take Abram outside with you.” Oh great. That means that nearly as much yard work would get done. Long story short, I pulled it together, made the offer and had a wonderful time with a loving and curious grandson in the backyard. That’s a “good” story. I could tell you many times when I said, “No,” and went my merry on my way protecting my good things.

My spiritual director tells me the need is for us to see the good things in our lives as what he calls “transitional objects.” I should be continually grateful for the good things in my life, being mindful of my thankfulness again and again during the day, until I move beyond being thankful for the good things, and thankful and deeper in love with the giver of the good things. Crazy time.

God, have mercy. By your grace, may I grow in thankfulness to the point where I can hold the good gifts loosely, more focused on the giver of good gifts and willing to let go of good gifts you’ve given me in order to follow you into something deeper, more joyful, with greater gladness, suffering or not.

Mom




My mom, actually she’s my step-mom, is in her eighties. She became my step-mom when I was ten, when she married my dad. Both she and my dad lost their spouses by death. Trudi’s (my step-mom) husband died of a heart attach. My dad lost my real mom to liver failure, a.k.a. alcoholism. So Trudi is my mom. Trudi did everything a mom is suppose to do. She loved me like a mother loves her son. My brothers and I always called her Trudi as I was growing up, but during a time of enlightenment in my thirties the reality of all she did in my life finally hit home and I’ve been calling her Mom ever since. She loves it when I call her that.

So like I said, my mom is in her late eighties now. She’s still in Denver, where I grew up and where my two brothers live. A year or two before my dad died, which has been a couple of years ago, we started to notice that Mom was losing her memory. Now four years later her memory is hanging on by a thread. If my one of my brothers takes her out the night before, she can’t remember the next day when I ask how her evening was. If I ask her what she had for breakfast that morning, she is clueless. She has no idea what the weather has been like that day. Last fall my wife, son and daughter-in-law went to visit her. Mom remembered Miriam, but Eric and Carleen were strangers to her. “I’m his grandmother?” she said. I think this hurt Eric quite a bit, even though he understood. He loves Mom deeply and has wonderful memories of all the grandmotherly things she did for him.

So how does this connect to a leminal experience right? Where’s the crazy time.

I call Mom about once a week. Sometimes a week goes by when I don’t get her called. On good weeks I’ll call twice, but that’s pretty rare. On almost a daily basis I think about Mom and tell myself that I need to call her. The only days I don’t think about needing to call her is the first couple days after I’ve called her.

So I called her tonight. The usual call goes something like this. Her caregiver answers the phone and goes to get her. When she hears that it’s me calling, she’s excited. We say hi and I ask her how she’s doing. “How are feeling?” “Good.” “Are you sleeping well at night?” “Oh sure.” “What have you been up to?” “Oh, I don’t know. Not much?” “Have you seen John and Jim recently?” “No.” I know for a fact that she has. And that’s it. She has nothing more to offer. I can’t ask her about anything else, because she can’t remember anything. If I try to prod her, she gets confused and scared and can’t remembers words she wants to use.

So to ease the situation I start to tell her about what’s happening with me and our family. She listens and says stuff like, “Oh, that’s good.” “Oh, that’s bad.” “Oh, that’s good…isn’t it?” “Well, I bet that was exciting.” “That’s nice.” Half the time I’m fairly certain she really doesn’t understand what I’m talking about because I’m telling her stuff about her grandsons or great grandson, or things were doing in Oregon and she really doesn’t know who or what the heck I’m talking about. When I run out of stuff to tell her about, I tell her I love her, she tells me the same, and we say good-bye.

Crazy time. It’s so hard talking to this person that I love so deeply, but know she does not comprehend most of what I’m telling her. It’s painful. I usually go away from our “conversations” feeling like I’ve been a dutiful son, but also feeling very sad.

So for a couple of days I feel good that I’ve recently called Mom, then the guilties start to creep in and before I know it it’s been a week and I really need to call her. Doesn’t sound very loving, does it. Most days I feel torn, I want to call, but I don’t want to call. I feel like all I have to offer her is shallow, meaningless conversation.

I don’t know what my mom’s experience is of our calls, but I clearly feel that they are meaningful to her on some level. One thing she regularly wants to know is when I’m going to come visit her. That’s something that she doesn’t forget, that she wants me to come and visit.

So the fact of the matter is that talking to my mom is crazy time for me. It’s hard. Uncomfortable. Very sad. But I think my mom needs those call and what’s more, I need them. I need to learn to love my mom in a whole new way. I need to trust God to fill those conversations with mysterious grace and show me how to be present to her in those few minutes. I need to go there as often as I can and stay there as long as I can.