In Exchange for Yours

Thought I'd try my hand at a worship song. Playing on the themes of exchange found in Christian doctrine and the irony of finding through losing. If you listen closely to the beat, you'll hear I used the same hip hop rhythm as I did on "Olive Tree". Just love the bass. I also tried my hand at the garage band organ and found it to be pretty slick. I'm dedicating this song to my friends, Kevin and Suzanna who have cheered me on for years and made me believe in my own music. They were a major reason I recorded the album, "Olive Tree" in the first place. Thanks guys!

lyrics

I give you my righteousness
In exchange for yours
I give you my big ideas
In exchange for yours

You hold me now (2x)
Jesus I am yours

I give you my plans and dreams
In exchange for yours
I give you my everything
In exchange for yours

I give you my very best
In exchange for yours
I’ll give you my dying breath
In exchange for yours

Bridge:
And you will bring me back to life, to life (4x)

And you are bringing me to life! (4x)

My Daughter, "Hanging On" to Bitterness. Seriously?!

There are two things you should never discuss on the internet: gay marriage and parenting. But I've never been too clever so I'll push that assumption aside for the moment and share my parenting moment from tonight and hope the trolls don't come out to tell me what I should have done. I'm not saying it was my finest hour as a parent. I'm just relaying what happened. So. Here we go...

My daughter loves rules. She soaks them up, thrives within their parameters. She is someone that genuinely believes she follows the rules nearly 100% of the time. She even told me one day, “Daddy I’m not as bad as Adam and Eve. In fact, if God told me not to eat one kind of fruit, I wouldn’t eat ANY fruit in the garden so I wouldn’t eat the wrong one on accident.” So when she gets punished for some wrong thing she’s done, she feels deeply and personally wronged.

Several weeks ago, she got a time out that infuriated her. After all, stalling on doing a chore wasn’t really against the rules was it? So she sat there, pride and shame brewing up a perfect storm of traumatized obstinacy until Debra let her out on parole and they worked happily together for almost 2 hours.

I’ll be honest, I’m grumpy today. Depressed, tired, despondent, isolated, and irritable. But one of my beliefs is that good parenting must go forward in spite of my mood. So when Annabel spitefully elbowed me in the face tonight, I responded swiftly and firmly. I admit I was extra snarky with her tonight in challenging her new belief that height is the sole determiner of age... but the elbow was not cool. Time out. 

Drama ensued, an apology was not forthcoming, and I gently explained that the alternative was a spanking. At that point, she melted down, sorrowful panic filling her big adorable eyes. Through heaves she said something that stunned me coming from a 4-year-old. “I’m just… I’m just still holding on to the other time! I’m still holding to the other time you gave me a time out!” Ah, refreshing, frightening, little-kid honesty.

A sudden flood of sympathy. I almost lost it myself. “Annabel, can I just hold you for a minute?” A pitiful nod as she crawled into my lap and unleashed several minutes of forlorn, angry sobs into my shirt. Where did this toddler come from? This tiny adult with the complex emotions that debilitate her so thoroughly at such a young age? I’m consistently awed not only by how multifaceted she is, but by how deeply she feels things. She seems to have all the complexity of an adult with none of the coping mechanisms.

I’m not vouching for this, but in the moment, I went with my gut to not do the spanking and instead forced her to walk the top edge of the couch for her consequence (which made her grin) followed by ferocious wrestling and tickling.

So did she “let go” of her anger about her past punishments? Or is she “still holding on” to it? To be honest, I don’t know. And that’s okay. But at least we were laughing, and talking, and rolling around together by the end. I guess that’s a start. I'd love to draw a spiritual metaphor (they feel readily available). But dude, it's almost midnight. So. Draw your own.

The Analyzer, the Heart-Giver

There’s an old story about an ex-prostitute who poured a bottle of perfume all over Jesus’ feet and wept while drying his feet with her hair. Judas stands by thinking, “what a waste. That could’ve been sold to benefit the poor.”

Of course, Judas really just wanted to fill the money bag so he could help himself (as was his habit). But maybe in that moment he had convinced himself that his heart was of little consequence. And anyway, he was right wasn’t he? Wasn’t his analysis correct that this perfume represented a year’s wages and shouldn’t be wastefully poured on the ground? Shouldn’t someone stand for truth? Here was nothing more than an absurd emotional charade. Surely an objective, thoughtful analysis would lead to a better decision on how to use this precious stuff.

Heavy. That’s how I feel when I type those words. Because neither I nor my coreligionists have improved much on the example of Judas these 2000 years. Maybe it’s a guy thing. (Maybe not.) We still value analysis, truth, and wise decision-making that feed into strategic objectives. Spontaneous outpourings of lavish affection arising from faith? Not so much.

The amazing thing is that Jesus seems to say, “let’s assume that you’re approach is right. Your filters stink. Your beliefs are wrong. You think I’m nothing more than a philanthropist magician. You’re not going deep enough. If you’re going to analyze this woman’s behavior, then consider this analysis: her actions are far more valuable than a year’s wages. Unbeknownst to her, she has prepared my body for burial and identified me as the Christ who must suffer and die. But furthermore, you assume that truth is truth and your heart is of little consequence. But I see what’s in your heart. I see that you’re a thief and it matters a great deal.”

My heart is deeply and uncomfortably intertwined with the ways I process and speak truth. Yet somehow I’ve bought into the modernist myth of the objective analysis. Frankly, it doesn’t exist. Self-deception on the other hand is very real and very powerful. It’s SO easy to ride my truth horse into town, to make my stand, to take control, to sweep out the filth, and to leave feeling proud of my own courage. But I’d be dead wrong. I’d be Judas-wrong.

So Jesus comes in and says, “That might be a good idea if your truth didn’t stink so bad. See, if you knew me, you’d still get up on your truth horse and ride into town. Except the horse would be a donkey. And you’d come not to clean up the filth but to live among the filth. And the way you’d make your stand is to lay down to die.”

When the Pharisees objected to Jesus healing on the Sabbath, it’s amazing that he didn’t just say, “Ah, come ON guys! RELAX! I’m Jesus okay? You don’t have to be so strict all the time!” He says, “alright let’s talk about the law then. Since you value it so much, why don’t you follow it? Furthermore have you considered that I might be the Lord of the Sabbath?

Jesus engages analyzers on their terms, giving them better assumptions with which to form a thoughtful analysis that will lead to heart-felt christlikeness. Jesus helps the thinker think in better ways.

Jesus engages heart-givers on their terms, giving them better assumptions upon which to give their hearts in ways that will lead to thoughtful christlikeness. Jesus helps the feeler feel in better ways.

I just think it’s really cool that Jesus is a person and not The Force. As a person, he can relate to people in the ways they feel most loved. Jesus relates to me by giving me lots of intense and undivided attention. But for another person, it may look like his presence showing up in quiet moments to say, “We don’t have to talk. Let’s just be together.” Other people might feel like Jesus is always dropping little presents into their life or protecting them or helping them process reality.

But the end goal is always the same: to pull me—mind and heart—into a close relationship with him and to make me a mature person: Not the untouchable sage I think of when I hear the word “maturity” but a right-thinking, right-feeling, always-loving person. Ya know… like Jesus.

Duluth was "just fine". YAY!!!!

Ahh... April in Minnesota...

I’m sitting before a toasty fire in the home I grew up in. Duluth, MN sits under gray skies and a heavy blanket of snow here at the end of April. True story. I’m here for a missionary conference at the church I grew up in. In the past, it was tough returning to the religious institution I grew up in. So many familiar smells, memories of sleeping in the pews, and a lot of familiar faces. So many things look the same. Just as I remember them. But I’ve changed.

I’ve come full circle. Now instead of doodling in the pews, feeling mildly bored, listening to preachers and music leaders… I WAS the preacher (twice!)…. AND the music leader.

Music is comfortable. Preaching is not. See, I have a specific image of what a preacher says and looks like and does; how he grins and tells fishing jokes and then quickly becomes really serious and theological… how he can drive home his message in three easy points with clever mnemonics. I’m not that person. Never will be. Uninterested or incapable? I’m really not sure.

On the LAST flight, Levi slept
sitting up with his seatbelt on.
So awesome!

So I thought I might share my own story and be real about my own growing edge and why I believe the stuff I do about God. So looking out at a couple hundred wrinkled faces etched so well into my memory, I talked about love… Love as the only valid reason and motivation for any kind of Christian missionary effort. Love that is first of all received on an ongoing basis from the wildly loving God that Christians are crazy enough to call “Father”. And then, love that is contagiously hospitable to those outside our little groups and religious enclaves. Love that doesn’t care about talking anyone into anything. Love whose own agenda is agenda enough. Just love.

I think it went well. At that’s what my mom says. (Thanks mom.) To be honest, I think the response from the adults was a touch on the tepid side. Plenty of “nice job’s” but not a ton of specific feedback. The response from the high school kids however was bubbly and energetic. “We loved what you said! You were so real and we totally understood everything. It was so refreshing.” Well, I think that’s a good sign. When the kids are excited and the adults just kinda shrug… I’ll take that any day.

Some time ago a person whose instinct I trust implicitly suggested I could be a pastor. The thought was laughable at the time as I envisioned myself stuttering my way through a sermon full of flopping jokes and over-serious idealism. But as I drove away from Duluth yesterday thinking about the sermon, I was surprised by an internal change. I wasn’t deeply enamored of myself. And I didn’t despair that I was a failure either. I genuinely think I did… just fine. The familiar pride/loathing pendulum did not swing so wide this time.

And that for me is a HUGE sign of growth.

I realized that, sure, I could be a pastor, a preacher, whatever. I could passably lead 10 or 10,000 people if God led me there. I would just be a really different kind of pastor. I would be a pastor who cared about authenticity over polish, who led by sharing my journey, who didn’t care much about exegetical preaching, or running tight ships, or big giving campaigns for the next big thing. I would just have to be myself. And if I could do that, I think I’d do a fine job. Not spectacular, but fine.

One of the kindest things anyone ever said to me was “you did fine.”

The same guy who told me I could be a pastor took me to Houston a few years ago, stood me in front of a room full of high-powered spiritual leaders, authors, and theologians and told me to do something that, well, pushed me a tad outside my comfort zone: listen to God on their behalf and tell them what I heard.

When I wasn’t gagging on my own esophagus I choked out a few words I thought God was saying for certain strangers. Some of it was probably legit. Some of it probably wasn’t. And when we piled into the van, my pastor/torturer turned to me, gave me a tepid look, and said, “you did fine.” Deep sigh of relief. I had done “fine.”

Maybe we do each other a disservice when we give shotgun compliments. “You were amazing! You have nothing to worry about. You’re so special, talented, attractive, good…” I love to give and receive encouragement but only when it’s thoughtful and not pandering. Because at the end of the day, I don’t need to be special, uniquely talented, wonderful, the cream of the crop. I just need to be acceptable; to God and to myself. I need to be loved not because I’m amazing but because I’m human and God chose me “just because.” I don’t need to be great. I just need to be “fine.”

Slowly but surely, I see myself progressing from stupendous/horrendous toward just fine and that encourages me a lot.