1977 Was a Great Year to Be a Kid

What are the words that describe who we are? What are those words that describe who we were created to be and cause our hearts to burn whenever we hear them said out loud?  Think about words like courageous, powerful, and tough.  Think about names like Hercules, St Patrick, and John Wayne.  And what about nicknames like tiger, doctor, and the boss.

These words can fuel and drive us.  I get a rush every time someone from our town calls me “Coach.”  I have been coaching soccer teams for many years now; and to be recognized for that gives me a great ego boost.  I feel a lot of pride as well when I see my former players excel at the High School.  So being named “Coach” holds a lot of power over my life.  It attaches me to my community and connects me to the people around me who I care about.

But these same words can also cause us great shame and guilt.  I may be a good soccer coach, but I still have my bad days.  I can still get mad at my players when they goof off in practice and yell at them.  And when those moments of failure come, I don’t like being known as “Coach”. 

The world will also seek to name us for good and evil purposes.  Names are used to build up; but names are also used to tear us down.  And the world can be so cruel when it lashes out.  They see things in us they don’t like and they will twist and turn them to condemn us.

And don’t forget we have an enemy who will use everything in our lives he can to separate us from God.  That’s the rub isn't it?  We have three major powers working against us trying to keep us from being the man we were created to be. 

Deep inside our hearts is written the origins of creation.  The same Creator, who breathed life into the world, breathed life into us.  And we were created to live in Eden, a place of spectacular wonder.  We not only bore the image of our Creator, but we shared life together with Him.

Consider the number Pi.  Most of us know it as 3.14, but some may know it as the string of numbers it is.  Never repeating this string of numbers goes on and on.  My son Gabe can recite Pi out to the 42^nd decimal.  It is an amazing little trick, but he practices and he is really great with numbers to begin with.  Scientist using computers have taken the number out into the trillions without finding any repeating sequences.

Did you know that in the number Pi is every phone number, every social security number, and every birthday?  Every number that could define us is hidden in that simple number we know as 3.14.  And just like this number, that only the Creator could fully know and understand, in your heart has been written an amazing code that makes you unique and special.

From the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verses 26 through 31:

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’  So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’  And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.  Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food’, and it was so.  Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.  So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

We were created to share in the growth and building of the earth.  We were not designed to destroy; we were designed to bring increase.  That is the joy of Eden.  God and Man sharing in the creation process together.  That is our joy as well; God and us creating a beautiful world full of wonder and grace.

I was seven years old in 1977.  What a great time to be a kid.  Our world was changing and excitement filled our days.  Sure the adults at that time were facing all sorts of evil and horrors in the world, but we didn't know.  We were riding bikes and playing “Kick the Can.”  Star Wars came to the theaters and I still can remember the goose bumps I felt then as I watched the opening crawl scroll down the screen.  Later the film titled “A New Hope” was not just a title for the movie, but it was the call to me and my friends.  Our world would never be the same.  We had hope for our world and our future.

I lived and breathed everything Star Wars.  Over the next six years I followed Luke Skywalker’s journey to manhood.  I watched him struggle to find his Man Card.  And ever since then, I have been walking a path similar to his.  Although, some days I feel more like I am walking the path that Darth Vader was on.

So much of my life I thought that the way to get my Man Card was to prove myself worthy by acting like a hero in desperate times.  But the truth is that I am not a Jedi Knight; I am just a kid from Missouri.  And I don’t always do great things in the desperate times.  I make mistakes and I fail.  I struggle, as you do, with being a man in this world.

I have seen hundreds of movies, but the journey of Luke in this series is one I relate to the most.  I can feel the pull of something great out there in the universe.  Calling to me and wooing me to come out from the mundane and to discover the spectacular.  I look at the stars at night and dream of worlds millions of miles away full of wonderful landscapes and people.

I say to you that we can find Eden again.  I think too often we get caught in the science of creation and we loose what is really important.  Honestly too me, I don’t care about evolution versus creation.  How God created the world is not as important too me as why He created the world.  Science will never destroy my Creator; but loosing my connection to the Creator will destroy me. 

I have heard so many times from men saying that they are less than other men because they don’t hunt, fish or drive a truck.  I have heard others proclaim that the only real heroes are military men.  The concept exists in our world that if you don’t look or act like Conan, Rocky, or John Wayne, you aren't a real man.

But, the truth is you don’t have to fish in order to enjoy the power of a river.  You don’t have to hunt to connect with animals or the woods.  You don’t have to climb mountains to experience their majesty.  You don’t have to be an astronaut to know the glory of space.  And you don’t have to be a caveman to know the mesmerizing power of fire.  We cannot allow ourselves to buy into the model of manhood that the world sells us.  Being sensitive and emotional does not make you a woman.  Loving classical music does not mean you are feminine.  Rambo and John Wayne are horrible stereotypes and not the true model for manhood. 

Remember that being a man is not about what you do.  Being a real man is about being connected to the one who created us and living in the purpose He gave us.

As a boy we can experience all of these things because we view the world as something to be explored.  Luke Skywalker longed to explore the stars and space.  And as men we are still called to explore the spectacular wonders around us.  Oh how I long to discover the beauty, the power, the glory, and the wonder around me in this world.  It doesn't matter if I look like the world’s standard for a man.  I feel the power of the Creator when I stand in His storm and embrace the wind and the rain.

Soaring with Evel Knievel

I gun the throttle and hit the jump.  There I am up in the air flying across the yard.  I feel like I am soaring with Evel Knievel across a canyon.  The dirt bike and I come down and I have just a split second to make the sharp turn to get back onto the driveway.  The gravel beneath the tires sprays out into the yard behind me as I continue to turn the bike to safety.  But gravity and force are getting the better of me; pulling me into the wet grass on the other side of the drive.  And before I know it I am down.  As I slide across the grass away from the dirt bike something doesn't feel right.  I come to a stop.  My breathing stops.  My heart stops.  I roll over and look up at the grey clouds in the sky that had recently poured rain onto the bike trail.  And then as I take my first breath, pain washes over my body and I realize that something was indeed not right in my world.  I lift up my hands to my face and see the fingers out of place.  Pain seizes my hands and I shout out for my son to come help me.  The grey clouds turn white as I feel myself try to slip away in the anguish of pain.  I look at my broken fingers once again and shake my head to wake myself up.  I get up slowly and stare at my hands just hanging there at the end of my arms.  “Well,” I said to myself, “that’ll leave a mark.”

I honestly believed that once I got older that I would get to an end of all the stupid things I have done in my life.  But, every year seems to find me in a position where I have to say, “well, that’ll leave a mark.”  It’s a big deal to me as well, because I don’t want you to think of me as stupid.  I have worked hard for the majority of my life to convince everyone that I am fine, and that I have everything together.  Everything is great.  My marriage is great.  My kids are great.  My life is great, great, great.

Do you relate at all to this?  Trying to hide your weaknesses and failures from others so you look better.  We have to recognize the heart of this issue if we are going to be true.  It is a selfish thing to wear a mask.  Call it self-preservation, self-protection, self-centered; it doesn't matter.  It is from a selfish heart that this comes.

I love the line I have played in my head and actually spoken to my wife; “I was just trying to protect you.”  Bullshit.  I wasn't trying to protect her.  I was protecting my own butt.  If I truly cared about her and our marriage I would have fallen face first before her and exposed my true nature.  I would have shared my weaknesses.  I would have told her of my previous failures.  All of these truths being shared would have been about protecting her.  But no, I hid the truth from her so that I would appear better.

The first aspect of this is the concept of us getting our validation from our spouse.  And that is the most dangerous thing we can do.  Marriage has to be more than that selfish activity.  We hide our true sinful nature because we need our spouse to affirm that we are great.  But when we hide ourselves from others it is a false validation.  They are only validating the impostor and not the real us.

The other aspect of this is that for us to be open and honest with others, we have to be able to trust them.  And trust is hard to come by these days.  Is it even possible to trust others?  We have been hurt so many times by those that claim to love us.  And so I am to trust these people with my brokenness?  Most days we say “no thank you.”

So I trudge along year after year keeping up appearances.  And every year I get more tired playing this stupid game.  I am so worn out trying to live as the “Mythological Liar”.  Because when we get down to it, life isn't always great, and we aren't always fine.  We struggle, we fall, and we break.  So we throw ourselves into another set of “Rules to Live By” and hope for the best.  We convince ourselves that if we would just be more “Christian” everything would be fine.  Tell me, how did that work out for you?

It didn't work for me.  Every now and then, my mask would slip and the real me would be exposed.  People would catch a glimpse and I would have to deal with the outcome.  They might embrace me, or they might reject me.  Whatever it was, I just had to deal with it.  And that is a hard place to be when you don’t think highly of yourself.

I can hear some of you now.  “What, Brian, you don’t think highly of yourself?  How can that be?  You are boastful, arrogant, and sometimes a royal jerk belittling others.  What do you mean you don’t think highly of yourself?”  Or some others of you may be saying, “But Brian, you are compassionate, thoughtful and always giving to others.”

Yes, my impostor is boastful, arrogant, and a royal ass.  I am also compassionate, thoughtful, and giving.  My impostor can be whatever I need it to be in the situation.  I do that as a defensive measure to protect from getting hurt.  Because I know the real me; and I don’t like the real me very much.

And I would assume that I am not the only one like this.  Some of you may be thinking about the different masks you wear to hide from others.  Can you name them?  Can you see them?  Picture yourself pulling your mask off and hold it in your hands.  What do you see there?  What do you think others see there in that mask?

Let me finish the dirt bike story.

We make it to the hospital and I get the news that I knew was coming.  I had broken my pinky finger on my left hand; and I had broken my ring finger and my pinky finger on my right hand.  My pinky fingers, really.  That’s it.  Evel Knievel would have broken more than that.  I longed to have broken my arm, my shoulder, my neck, anything but my pinky fingers.  But there is more to the story.

You see, that dirt bike I was on was a kid’s dirt bike.  It wasn't some massive 400cc king of the dirt hills; no it was a little 70cc kiddies bike.  How do I look to you now?  How do you feel about my story when the mask is down and the real me is revealed?  Still sexy?  Still heroic?

And this is where the fantasy and realty collide.  Me, goofing off on a kid’s dirt bike, dreaming that I am Evel Knievel, and I lay it down and break my pinky fingers.  What a sight I am.  But I have nothing to be ashamed of.  I have nothing to fear or hide, because no matter what others think of me I know the real me.  And as much as I don’t like the real me; I love the real me.  And everyday I am learning to love the real me more and more.  Everyday I am learning about grace.

Can you give the real you the grace you need to live?

It’s a risk to live in a realm of grace.  These masks are really good at protecting me and I don’t know if I could trust others to be kind.  Is there some hope that a life free of the impostor is possible?
I believe there is hope for a life without the impostor.  I believe we can experience safety in the realm of grace and live there.  I believe that there is someone who loves the real us, no strings attached.  I do believe in grace.  And if you are like me, then you are tired of living this life without it.

If you made it this far through these wandering words, I thank you.

For guys, there is a group of men who will be gathering on Wednesday nights in Columbia, Missouri starting October 1st to talk about this Grace thing.  If you would like to join us, then please let me know.
So, here is a chance to come together with a group of men who are struggling, falling, and breaking.  A chance to find out that you are not alone in life and that there is “Grace” that will bring you from a life of pretending to a life of living.  This is a chance to stand with Jesus and face the curse of this world; instead of searching for another mask to wear to hide from your failures.  This is a risk.  Grace is a risk.  But, it is also a glorious adventure that will lead you to the great heights of what it means to be a man.  So if you are interested, then please come join me on Wednesday nights starting the first of October as we seek “The Cure.”

Genocide, Suicide, Racism and Josh Groban

Twitter and Facebook are blowing up with posts about all the horrible news going on in the world right now.  It seems like finding any good news is like going on a treasure hunt with Indiana Jones; hard to find and someone is probably going to die along the way.  But man, that Holy Grail is something else.  And every piece of good news is something to be treasured and valued. 

The Royals are in first place.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!  But my heart grieves.  Darkness surrounds me.  I should be laughing, singing and dancing, but I just want to hide in my room and cry.

The thought of war in Israel; children dying in Iraq; race wars in St Louis; one of my soccer players battling bone cancer; and the one actor who through my whole life continued to inspire me to be greater, goes and decides to end the war of depression raging inside him.  But the Royals are in first place.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, so what.

And there is more going on then just these events.  It seems like evil has decided that we have been too complacent and we need to be challenged more.  “Is this not enough?  Do we really need to face more than this?”

So we in turn respond on our favorite social media sites with the proper amount of outrage to inform all of our followers that we have chosen the right side of the struggle.  All of us have our say, and join our voices with the popular opinion of the moment.  We puff up and show our support so that all of our followers know where we stand and how our hearts are in despair.  We use our outrage to posture ourselves into deliverers of truth and justice, heralds of the correct order of life.  And depending on the responses we can then decide if we need to post more propaganda, or just begin un-friending the unbelievers. 

Now, before you go and un-friend me for being arrogant and condescending; let me finish my short dialogue here to explain my position. Take a look with me first at the word outrage and let’s explore what it means.  This definition is from Dictionary.com.

outrage

n

1. a wantonly vicious or cruel act

2. a gross violation of decency, morality, honour, etc

3. profound indignation, anger, or hurt, caused by such an act

vb (tr)

4. to cause profound indignation, anger, or resentment in

5. to offend grossly (feelings, decency, human dignity, etc)

6. to commit an act of wanton viciousness, cruelty, or indecency on

7. a euphemistic word for rape¹

[C13 (meaning: excess): via French from outré beyond, from Latin ultrā]

outrage - The true etymology of outrage has nothing to do with out or rage—rather, it is a borrowing from French outrage, "insult, outrage," based on Latin ultra, "beyond," and -agium, a noun suffix; outrage first meant "lack of moderation."

I like the original meaning of the word, “Lack of moderation.”  Another early translation I saw said it was defined in French and Latin as “beyond the reasonable measure.”  And so I believe we need to think about our outrage in that sense.  Are we going beyond reasonable measure?  Do we lack moderation in our response?  And if so, then what good are we doing the situation.  Yes we need to be offended when evil strikes us.  Yes, we need to defend the innocent and stand in the darkness with torches and shine grace, love and light.

But what really is going on with all the outrage we read about on Twitter and Facebook?  Is it us standing against evil, or are we posturing so that others will think more kindly of us?

Genocide is a topic we cannot take lightly.  The mass execution of a group of people based on ethnicity or religion is a horror that should grieve all of us.  To go to the point of inflicting this destruction on innocent children is as ugly as one can get on the sin-O-meter.  My heart is torn more by violence against children than any other atrocity I have seen or heard of.  If you want to see me turn into the Hulk, than hurt one of my kids.  I will show you a rage that would make the devil shudder.

When I see the outrage on social media regarding the situation in Iraq I become quite concerned.  Wars have been going on for thousands of years.  Children have been used and abused by men in their quest for blood and glory throughout that entire time.  But is my concerned focused on the truth of the events happening and the actual people that are in the midst of those situations and their well-being; or am I using social media gossip to allow me to posture with a stance of justice and call for the other side to be murdered?

I don’t want Christians to die at the hands of Muslims.  I don’t want Jews to die at the hands of Muslims.  But I also do not want Muslims to die at the hands of Christians and Jews.  We have to get beyond the posturing and find the truth of who we all are and learn to live in community with one another.  There is a way to peace; but my post on Facebook about killing terrorists is not a part of that way.  The one I follow, would never use social media that way, so why should I?

Robin Williams has always been one of my favorite actors.  I first saw him in “Mork and Mindy” and I have seen almost every movie he has made since then.  His movies “Hook” and “Dead Poets Society” are absolute must sees in my book.  Great truths about humanity can be found in them, and Robin delivers it perfectly.

Suicide is not something I take lightly.  I first experienced it in elementary school when a friend of mine tried to hang himself in the bathroom and I was one of the kids who found him.  I then met a great musician back in 1992 and had numerous conversations with him about life, music and grace until he took his own life just before the Christmas of 1993.  And I currently have learned a lot about the subject of suicide from someone close to me who has battled depression and suicide most of their own life.

But before I way in with my opinion on Robin’s life, his work, and his battles, I want to know the truth.  I want to know about the demons in his head and what they were saying.  I want to know about the nightmares and the fears that locked him up.  I want to know about his family and what they feared; what they dreaded every-time there was any silence from Robin.  Because, until I know all of that, I can be shocked and disappointed, but I can’t be beyond reason and measure for any good purpose.

And this plays into how we are treating those around us.  Are we really listening to those people closest to us?  Do we really know what is going on inside them?  Or do we judge their moods and call them selfish and immature?  It’s great to post about suicide and depression, but what is the purpose of these posts?

I have battled bouts of depression in my life.  And a kick in the pants, or the ability to pull myself up by my bootstraps was not going to get me through.  Sunday school answers don’t work all the time, and sometimes they cause more harm then good.  But standing with someone, holding onto them, and loving them because of their weaknesses, brokenness, and beauty always does good.  Sunday school questions are meant to lead us to Jesus, not some magic formula.

Racism is also not something I take lightly.  I know that I fight my own prejudices.  I will admit it.  I see a large group of black men downtown and I still get nervous.  I buy into the lie that they want to harm me.  It’s one of the stereotypes that we teach each other in our society that cause us to fear.  We thrive on fear.  It raises us up and puts others down.  We measure ourselves against others to prove that we really are something of value.  And only if the flower next to us can be judged to be a nasty weed, do we actually feel like the beautiful rose we were created to be. 

I know that in Ferguson Missouri tonight there are people on both sides of the protest line using stereotypes to justify their outrage.  And that is wrong.  Until we can get past that and look into ourselves and find the truth, we won’t heal.  We don’t need another Facebook post about bad cops or thugs.  We need to get to the truth of the prejudices we all have and find out that we are all racist to some degree.  We then need to find out that in spite of our broken ways we all can live in community and love one another.  We can go beyond the norm and be great.  As Doctor Who would say, we have the potential to be fantastic.

So the question that comes up in my head every time I read another Twitter or Facebook post is this: why is this person saying this?  What is the point they are trying to make?  I don’t mean to be judgmental.  Honestly I can’t help it.  It is a part of my broken nature.  It is a part of me that needs to be fixed.  I want to move beyond being critical and find grace in everything.  So that now leads us to Josh.

My son Gabe’s favorite song right now is “You Raised Me Up”, as sung by Josh Groban.  He plays it constantly.  He sings it all the time.  We could be in the middle of the grocery store and all of a sudden, Gabe looks to the sky, raises his arm and starts serenading the lady stacking the cucumbers with, “you raise me up, so I can stand on mountains, you raise me up, to walk on stormy seas, I am strong, cause I am on your shoulders, you raise me up, to more than I can be.”  And yes, I am not sorry that song will be stuck in your head for the next 24 hours.  Welcome to my world baby.

But, in spite of the weird looks that Gabe gets from the veggie lady and his sister, he has something right.  Gabe is seeking out the good in others that is inspiring him to be better.  He is finding the grace in our world and using that to build community.  In a sense he is calling for all of us to rise up and love one another.  Gabe is doing what Jesus would do.  He is looking past the brokenness and pain and simply listening to their story, loving them and letting them love him for his story.  That’s it, nothing more, nothing less.

If you need to un-friend me, I understand.  I know the real me, its okay, I really understand.  

When I read the hundreds of posts and tweets out there my response is to challenge the outrage.  Mostly I want to challenge myself and my own outrage because of the impostor in me I fight everyday of my life.  It's me trying to get the whole log and speck thing right.  So when I post something on social media am I posturing or am I seeking truth?  One will bring more violence, and one will bring grace.  One will bring division, and one will bring community.  One is beyond reasonable measure, and one is fantastic.

I truly believe that we can be fantastic.

What Would You Choose: Justice versus Grace?

Looking at all the horrible events going on in the world right now makes me angry.  I am disgusted by the absolute insensitivity that people are pouring out on others.  I look out and see people dumping shovels full of fresh cow shit on the heads of their neighbors.  If you look different you are condemned.  If you act different you are condemned.  If you believe different you are condemned.  And each act of judgment is another shovel full of cow shit dumped out on the head of someone else.

You know, there really is no other way to say it.  I apologize for the language but I have spent my whole life around cows and I know shit.  I have stepped in it; I have shoveled it; and I have had the unfortunate opportunity to taste it.  So I know it well.  And what I see people in this world handing out is nasty, smelly, shit; a waste by-product intended to cause harm and humiliation.

Think about all the wars going on right now in our world: Christians versus Muslims versus Jews; Republicans versus Democrats; Straights versus Gays; Creationists versus Evolutionists; and of course Real Musicians versus Justin Bieber.  And in all of them I see nothing but a bunch of selfish idiots standing in a cow field with shovels.  Well, maybe the anti-Bieber folks are right, but the rest of us are throwing cow shit.

And why do we go to war?  What do we have to gain from warring with our neighbors?

I do believe that we can find truth in this world.  I do believe there is right and wrong.  And if I am honest I would tell you that what I believe is absolute truth and if you disagree with me then you are wrong.  Really, I am that selfish.  But why do I go to war with you over what I believe?  Why must I let what I believe get in the way of us sharing life together.  There is something deep there that is at work against us.

It could be pride at work.  It could be arrogance rising up.  It could be brokenness raging inside.  More than likely it is a combination of these and many other issues.  But I know my rage, and I know where it comes from.

Every one of us is broken and wounded.  There is no escaping this in our fallen world.  The curse is real, and we have been bit by the snake tempting us with the apple.  And how does a broken wounded child react?  With a screaming rage that causes everyone in the store to turn their heads to see who the parents of this tantrum throwing child is. 

You know the scene.  You are in the grocery store and you turn the corner to go down the cereal aisle and there you see lying on the floor a red-faced, three year old, kicking the tile and screaming out how horrible the offense is being committed against them.  And my favorite ending is when the Mom or Dad bends down to the child and asks calmly, “Where are your parents?”  Then they grab the cart and race away while the stunned child looks up in disbelief.  

But that is how it is in most of these world wars.  The child wants Fruit Loops, and the parent is only willing to buy Cheerios.  And they are not even willing to buy the name brand cereal; they buy generic.  We want everyone to look like us; act like us; believe like us; and if they don’t, then we react like that offended child.  The child wants everyone else to be hurt and wounded just as they feel inside.  The child demands justice for their wounds.

I want it.  I demand it.  I see someone getting a raise they didn't earn; I want justice.  I see someone getting a new house, or a new car that I can’t afford; I want justice.  I see someone abusing a child and I want justice.  I see someone humiliating another and I want justice.  The rage inside me explodes and I scream out to be heard.  Aren't we all like that at times?

But how can you choose to live a life of justice?  Always calling for and seeking to see those who have what you want, those that rape and murder, those who steal and torture come to pay for the wounding of your heart.  To do so means you must live according to the law.  Nothing less is possible.  Nothing less than perfection and holiness is permissible.  To live a life of justice means that you must be just yourself.  Because if you are not just, you are condemned as a hypocrite.  To be the one to call for the vengeance of God to rain down on the masses who sin means that you must be more Godly than the Creator of the universe.  

Who of us can stand in that place?  We are all hypocrites.  We are all impostors.  And do you realize that to try to stand in that place shows an arrogance that is as great as the arrogance of lucifer himself.  Remember that to call for the vengeance of God to rain on the unjust is to call for that horrible vengeance to rain upon your own head.  So what then is our choice?

To live in the realm of grace is our only hope.  There we don't have to be perfect.  In this realm we don't have to be healed.  We can walk through this world showing grace to ourselves and grace to others.  In this realm we come to understand that everyone on this rock is in the same condition.  We can all be walking wounded.  Our scars can be badges of honor showing the glorious nature of Jesus who walks with us.  So we are able to seek out and call forth Grace to flood our hearts and the hearts of those in our communities.  We can choose to live a life of love instead of vengeance.  We can live a life of freedom instead of death.

How would our world be different if we washed the feet of those who were different than us?  What peace would we find if instead of seeking justice and separating ourselves from others, we showed them love and invited them to share life?  Our differences are what make us beautiful.  Our scars are a part of our story and that story needs to be told.  We need to stop fearing others and learn to embrace others.  This doesn't mean that you have to give up what you believe.  It means that you don’t let what you believe get in the way of showing the world love.

We have been given the opportunity to live a life of communion.  A life of grace is a life alive.  Yes there is pain, yes there is suffering, but this life is real and full of joy.  A life of justice is really just a zombie life, and those who dwell there are just staggering through the world until their flesh is buried six feet down.

It’s your choice, justice or grace.  It cannot be both.  You can only live in one realm.  So which do you choose?

The Death and Birth of a Man

When people ask me about my life and the process I went through to becoming a man I have a simple little response to give them.  “Being a man is torture, But!”  These are five simple words I have found that hold a lot of meaning to me.  I don’t say them flippantly and I don’t intend to be discouraging when I say them.  I have actually found a lot of comfort in these words.  Let me break it down for you.

Take the first three words, “Being a man”.  You see I believe that manhood is not something that we do.  Manhood is not something that we can become.  Either you are a man or you aren't.  The test of manhood is not whether you can build a log cabin and kill a bear.  These are stereotypes that destroy men and manhood.  We kill the boy before he ever has a chance to become a man.  We set the standard so high that no one can ever reach it.  When the truth is that we are already there.  My manhood is not based on what I have either; my possessions are just things and they do not measure my manhood.  My manhood is based on the simple fact that I was created to be a man.  The true experience of manhood is about “Being” and not about “Doing” and especially not about “Having”. 

Now look at the next part of the phrase, “is torture”.  Being a man is hard stuff.  There is nothing easy about it.  The struggles that men face today are overwhelming.  I like to use the word suffocating to illustrate these trials.  Trying to live up to the standards that this world has established is almost impossible at times.  You are judged for every failure, every weakness, and every wound you expose.  Over my short forty-four years I have come to find that torture is a very accurate word to describe trying to live as a man.

And finally lets look at the word that saves me and you from hell; “But!”  One of the most glorious words you will ever find.  I could talk to you for the rest of my life trying to unpack this word and not even get close to telling you everything it means to me.  Every time I see the word in scripture I know that something great and majestic has occurred to rescue me.  And that is the jest of the word as I know it.  I am a man because that is what I was created to be.  This world creates a hostile atmosphere for me to try to live as that man.  But the one who created me will not leave me to suffer in this alone.  He has delivered me from death and brought this man to life.

Four years ago tonight was the last time I was able to talk to my Dad.  Dad’s cancer had come back with a vengeance and he was failing fast.  So Mom and I took him to Boone Hospital to die.  After we got Dad into the room and situated I told Mom to go home and rest.  She had spent the previous week in the hospital with Dad in St Louis and she needed to get a real night sleep.  So Melissa and I settled into Dad’s hospital room to watch over him.

Sometime close to three a.m. my Dad woke up and was restless.  He asked me “Brian will you take me into the living room so I can sleep in my chair?  I can’t sleep in this bed.”  I raised the head of his hospital bed up and said “Dad, we aren't home right now, so we can’t go to your chair.”  He said “Okay” and went back to sleep.

The next morning when Melissa and I woke up my Dad was close to the end.  He wasn't able to talk anymore.  How funny is it that the last words my Dad spoke on this rock were about sleeping in his favorite chair?  Later that afternoon I noticed he was sweating a lot.  So I got a cool wet wash cloth and went over to wipe his head.  The previous three and half months I had done many tasks a son is burdened to do like giving him baths, wiping his ass, feeding him, and dressing him.  So that afternoon I was wiping the sweat off of the face of a man that I had loved and hated.

I had never felt close to my Dad.  He was not an emotional, touchy, feely, father.  Not to me at least.  He didn’t tell me he loved me.  He didn’t tell me he was proud of me.  He was always quick to judge and condemn me and my faults.  But he was still my Dad and I longed to love him and be loved by him.  

My Father/Son stories are the same as his though.  He was trained to be this way by my Grandpa.  It was the old Irish way.  We were trained that all you needed was to work hard.  You don’t need someone to make you feel good.  You go into this broken world and you fix things by working harder than anyone else.   That’s why you’re here.  You don’t need love, you just need to bust your ass and get the job done.

And there we were that afternoon; he sweating from the heat of the cancer war that his body was raging inside him; and me there with a cool wet washcloth wiping his face.  I was tenderly wiping this face that for forty years had been my image of a man that I could never equal or be good enough for.

It was then I realized that I had a choice.  I could live my life bitter and tortured by this dying face, or I could open up and let grace fill my heart and heal my wounds.  I could send the man behind this face into eternity knowing that I was still that wounded and scared boy or I could let him know that I would not live my life the way that his father had taught him to live.  There in that moment I knew I had to choose so my life would be different.

So I leaned in close to his face.  I listened to his labored breathing for a few moments.  And then I spoke.  “Dad, I love you, I forgive you.”  I pressed my lips against his forehead and kissed him.  And while I kissed him he took his final breath and my Dad died.

My Dad was dead, but I was re-born.  I knew that life could be different.  I finally knew that I didn't have to be him.  I didn't have to try and measure up to a standard that didn't work.  I could live a life exposed as broken and wounded and it would be a great life.


Now be sure I still get stuck in those old ruts all the time.  But just like every July 31^st is a reminder of my Dad’s death; every July 31^st is a reminder of my birth.  And God faithfully pulls me out of my ruts to keep going forward on this journey called manhood.  So, being a man is torture, but it is also a life filled with love, joy, beauty, mystery, grace, freedom and wonder.

The meaning behind the title

So what is a Wandering Mystic?  What is a Mythological Liar? 

I don’t know.  I had to come up with a title for this blog.  And unfortunately that was the first cool sounding set of words I could come up with.  But honestly, I believe there is something deep inside my soul that connects with these words and that is why they came to be here in this place, at this time.  So I may as well try to unpack them so we can go on with our lives.  Cue the lights and start the music.  I have a feeling this could get overly dramatic in a hurry.

I am not home and I have never felt like I have been.  I am just a poor wandering soul on this rock.  I’m not homeless by any means.  I have a place to stay, a bed to sleep in, and a roof over my head.  I’m one of the lucky ones.  But that is different then being home.  I have never really connected with anywhere that I have lived.  I can feel just as connected in a hotel room in Aspen, Colorado as I can in the house that I own in Hartsburg, Missouri.  While sleeping under a million stars in Copper Canyon in the middle of desolate Mexico I have felt more connected than I have in my own bed.

Am I crazy?  Am I stupid?  No, I am just not connected.  Part of that is I have a hard time with relationships.  I recognize that aspect of myself and I am working on that.  The lack of strong relationships with those around you will cause you to experience a huge disconnect with where you are.  People keep you grounded.

But also a part of this equation is that I just know that I am not home yet.  I dream about living in Ireland, but that is not my home either.  That would just be another map point on this journey.  I have an even deeper longing for a world that I have never seen.  My heart yearns for eternity.  You may not believe in eternity.  There are days I struggle to believe that there is more than what I see and feel.  I know that someday in the future my soul will get off this rock and I will be home.  It really doesn’t matter where my feet walk, and it definitely won’t matter where you bury my body.  And until that point, I wander.

I know that a lot of people don’t like the word mystic.  Many of my traditional Christian friends especially don’t like the title.  But I love it.  To me, God and Heaven are not things that I can easily explain.  I can’t sit down with you over a cup of coffee and lay out the infinite characteristics of God and all of the wonders that He has created.  To me, God is mystical, magical, miraculous, and so much more.

And I call myself a mystic because I am simply just a wandering soul who searches to discover the beauty and power in the mystical nature of God.  God can never be put into a box.  In truth, a god in a box is no god at all.  And our God has given us so many signs and wonders to point to who He is.  All we have to do is allow ourselves to look and see what is there.  If we will search the Bible and search His creation we will discover and see His glory.

One of my favorite essays by a Christian theologian was Jonathan Edwards’s writings on spiders.  Here is one of the greatest thinkers in all of Christianity and he spends his time in a field looking at spiders.  That’s my kind of theologian.  That is mystical.  And that is who I am.  I am the guy staring at the fire.  I am the guy staring at the stars.  I am the guy who loves walking through forests, and up and down mountains.  I love to watch water flow down a river.  Because in all of those things I can see the one who created them.

Everything in my mind is bigger than reality.  I am the guy who caught the three foot catfish when I was twelve.  That was thirty-two years ago.  Was it really three feet long?  It seemed like that when I was holding it up to show my Granddad and my Great-Uncle.  My Uncle Walter had talked about that catfish in his pond for as long as I could remember.  And that one summer night I was the lucky kid to haul it onto the bank.  My Aunt Becky grabbed the fish from my Uncle, who wanted to throw it back into the pond so he could try and catch it later, and she cooked it up that night so we could feast.

Now when I tell the story in person you would think that the fish I was describing was the killer whale from Free Willy.  The fish is mythological in its representation and in my presentation.  My wife tells me all the time that I am being too dramatic.  I don’t tell my kids to wash the dishes; I unleash a Shakespearian soliloquy upon them to render their hearts and minds useless in resisting my decrees.  So yeah, I am mythological in nature.

And last but not least I am a liar.  I don’t mean that the story about the fish wasn’t true.  I really did catch a catfish at my Uncle Walter’s pond.  And it was big, and we did eat it.  What I mean is that I don’t want you to know my true self.  I am scared to know the truth of what you think of me.  I place a lot of my own personal value on what others think of me.  If others think I am great, I feel great.  If others think I am worthless, I feel worthless.  So I do my best to deceive you to protect my heart.

It’s not so much that I lie, as much as it is that I hide.  If you don’t know the real me, then you will like me and I will feel valuable and experience meaning and purpose.  But that is the real lie.

You see, we all are wandering mystics on this rock.  We are searching for our connection to the great mysteries of this world and it’s Creator.  We all want to experience the glory and the power of eternity.  Deep inside we long for it and that is why we struggle and feel miserable when we don’t satisfy that longing with the material things of this world.

And to some degree we are all mythological liars.  We make ourselves and our deeds bigger than truth in order to hide our failures and weaknesses.  It’s human nature to do so.  We need to have purpose and meaning in our lives.  We need to feel valuable.  So we create a reality around us to satisfy those needs.

I will say this; it’s nice to live exposed for who I really am.  I am a Wandering Mystic, and a Mythological Liar.  To live without the mask and to just be what I am is a great way to live.  As Popeye would say, “I am what I am and that’s all that I am”.  I have found a lot of grace as I open up and expose my true nature.  I pray that you will experience that as well.

Risk and Adventure

I was raised to never take a risk.  Every time I went outside my Dad's comfort zone I was punished.  He taught me to sacrifice my dreams for the harsh reality of survival.  It's about making it to the finish line.  It doesn't matter how much you hate your life or despise what you have become; as long as you survived, you won.

This leads me to count my days.  I check off each day of the week as I work my way to Friday and my next paycheck.  Every week is the same stressful game of hustling through this life to get to the next event.  And over time I have come to feel the earth spinning faster and faster beneath my feet.  Time does not march, but it races through space like a run-away rocket, hurling me to my death.

I don't experience pleasure.  I eat too fast.  I drink too much.  I consume as much as I can, as quickly as I can.  My haste with the pleasures of this world is because I fear that I will not live long enough to enjoy them.  So in my rage I devour the goodness of this life like a vulture picking at a dead dog; all the while watching over his shoulder for the next car to come racing down the highway.

I thought that moving out to a farm would force me to slow down and finally breath in the beauty that God has created.  But that didn't happen.  I filled my calendar with event after event, searching for something to give my life meaning and purpose.  So instead of finding that my life IS filled with purpose, and that my life DOES matter to this world, I am still racing from day to day.  I wake each morning to scour my list of must do's that will help me survive to the next deary day.

It is a miserable life really.  Don't worry, I am not suicidal.  At least with my beating heart.  But I do want to kill this game of survival.  It is no way to live.  It is not how I am suppose to live.  It is not how you are suppose to live.  I long for a great adventure.

So I am creating a new game.  I am going to find the things that I am passionate about and I am going to learn to savor them.   I am going to learn how to feel the delicate touch of my wife's hand in mine. I am going to sit and engage people and listen to their stories and learn how to celebrate them.  I am going to learn how to slowly sip that $50 shot of whiskey so that everyone of my taste buds screams with delight.  I am going to learn how to live out of my heart and let that be enough.

And that's the kicker there.  To live out of your heart and let that be enough.  To trust that God really will take care of me and my family.  How am I going to let go of all of the little things of this world that I can't control anyway?  I have worked so hard my whole life to be in control.  My job, my finances, my house, my family, my church, my soccer team, my friends, my, my, my.  All of these things that consume my days and wreck my life.  I have no control over them.  But they control me.

So once again I come back to my new game.  I am going to learn to live out of my heart, and let that be enough.  "My grace is sufficient for you," Jesus says to us.  Over and over and over again He speaks to us.  "My grace is sufficient for you."  It's not some cheesy line to help us survive.  It's to let us know that He's got this.  All the little day to day checklist stuff.  He's got this.  And we can just rest in Him and enjoy the goodness that He has created.  He's got this.

Well, wish me luck.  I am sure that I will struggle.  We all do.  But I can find peace in the friction of this life.  Because, I am reminded constantly, that I am not here to just survive.  I am here to live.  To truly live is the greatest adventure.  And the greatest risk is to not let yourself take that journey.

Brian Wm Marshall
07-14-2014