http://www.Post_Santum_Depression.org Part I

A new support group I've been mulling over. Here's the thing: Christmas is a dreaded holiday for me. Somehow, I've become this extraordinary grinch with regards to this favorite of holidays. I don't know that there's necessarily one reason for it.

I tell friends that it's because Christmas carols were never written for the guitar.

That's true. Not a one.

There's just something about it that makes me so deeply skeptical- so uninterested and distant that I can hardly understand it myself. I think sometimes that it is the repulsion that I feel when I hear the vacuous statements of goodwill as money changes hands. You can hear the drool pooling on the floor behind the register.

And yet I feel entitled to blow my wad (such as it is) through the entire month of December. I was disposing of the wrappings and boxes, and was sort of disgusted with myself. And the thing is I didn't think we'd gotten all that much stuff for the boys. We really didn't. I think they each got 4 things from us.

I thought we'd been pretty thoughtful. We bought them each 12 punch balloons and a boppy for beating up (which they have, thoroughly). There was a Thomas the Tank Engine toy and a Cars toy. There was other stuff too, but I don't suppose that's the point. I guess Christmas is just a let-down for me somehow.

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I had a discussion with a friend of mine from college the other day. God has placed a great weight on his heart for the shamar of the earth: the mandate that God gave Adam and his legacy to care for and maintain His garden. He believes that our failure to responsibly fulfill that charge has come to a point of imminent danger to the entire planet. He believes that the human race has literally taken over the planet and consumed its resources to the point of pillage. And that feasible options for recovery are very limited.

I agree with him right up to the last couple of arguments. It makes me sad because he wants to put more limitations on the spread and growth of people. That doesn't seem right to me. But I understand his passion.

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At the shop I used to work for, there were a couple of guys that I just couldn't talk with. And they were alright with that because they simply couldn't talk to me. It just seemed like every time we tried to talk, somebody ended up pissed and it was middle school all over again. Didn't really matter what the topic was.

And that made me sad, because most of the time (I'm pretty sure) no harm was really intended. There was just a screen to our understanding each other.

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I have a big family. You wouldn't guess it necessarily. I don't really correspond with them much. I don't know if any of them read this blog regularly, so I'm probably going out on a limb talking about them. Some of them I have much stronger bonds with. Some of them... well, not as much. And it's not a big thing, we just haven't spent a lot of time together. Our respective ages run the gamut, as do our various stages-of-life. A lot of us seem to have only our genes in common. I don't mean that to be a slam. We just live our lives in different places. And they don't cross a lot. Does that mean I don't care. No. It makes me sad, because I know that people who knew us all would say that we are all similar to each other in mysterious ways. I know that all the guys sound pretty much the same. And there is a common laugh that always relaxes me when I hear it.

But it makes me sad when I think about how our whole lives are going by and we hardly talk.

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I wonder how many people practically kill themselves trying to please God. I know that I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to be perfect. Trying to say everything perfectly, to live with perfect integrity, wanting to search out the wisdom of the world, and the Word of God to come to the final flawless interpretation. It's gotten to the point where I can't tell if I'm actually interacting with the "real world" at times. I mean, Christian music, Christian friends, Christian literature, etc. You can live in two worlds pretty easily.

It makes me sad. Because I'm pretty sure that's not why Jesus was born.

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Over the last year I've been slowly turning away from trying to figure it all out. I haven't completely given it up, I've just allowed myself to lower my expectations a little. At least in that one regard.

I've been trying to push myself towards compassion more than teaching. Sounds arrogant, I know. Guess that's part of the sin-me that Jesus is scrubbing away.

You know I'll never be all the way clean, right? Not during this lifetime. I can hold the title of clean in my hands- He gives it to me as assurance that it's coming. But still he works. I suppose it's like the strap they used to put in a soldiers mouth while the surgeons worked on him. No morphine, just bite down on this. Ok, so the analogy is maybe not perfect. But I have a pretty firm grip on the title. And I seem to grasp it tighter when Satan's whisper gets louder, or when Jesus' brush really bears down.

Anyways... I think I've strayed from my point a little. Or maybe not.

One of my journey-moments is the ongoing deepening of my grasp of Jesus' invitation to the weary to come and take his yoke, his shackles, because the burden he offers is an easy one. That he comes to restore the easy relationship between Creator and creature.

I don't think that Jesus' is about peachy-keeny, sweet and saccharine mushy cushy feelin' groovy kind of spirituality. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But I also think it's stupid to think that my mind will ever fully grasp the full breadth of what "God wants"- that I will ever be able to grasp the profound depth of what covenant looks like when God is the other hand in the hand shake.

Paul says that the law came because of weakness. I sort of get that. How do I know that stealing is actually wrong unless I'm told. Otherwise, I might just think it's me being thrifty.

I don't know where this ends up, but I guess the thoughts that I have right about this time of year-- is just how profoundly we DON'T get Christmas. Sure, we know the story. We can sort of grasp it, as Paul says in another context, as though through a glass darkly.

But how tremendously important it must be to God to be reconciled to people. How profound that reconciliation must be, how broad, and deep, that God would forever and permanently relinquish the privileges of being in perfect relationship, in perfect form, in short, in Heaven, and become a baby. A screaming, poopy, colicky baby. And not born into wealth, or high society, but into obscurity. Into a town of 50 families maybe, so far off the beaten path that even the Romans didn't even care.

I think the thing I'm most looking forward to shedding in God's newly minted creation-- misunderstanding. Gack.

On the Way:

I've not posted for awhile. There are a lot of things I've not done in awhile. I won't list them all for you...

I've been reading in Exodus this last week or so. The early portions of Exodus are familiar ones to me. I've many times begun the book. Plus there is the TBS standard "The Ten Commandments." So, guess what I'm saying is, I know about "let my people go." Or I think I do.

One of my goals over the last couple years has been to give God's voice words. Seems generous of me.

I've many times complained that following God's way, doing God's will, hey- just KNOWING what God wants me to do in this situation or that one- would be so much *easier* if He'd just speak! Being the "philosopher" that I am, I extended the complaint with further analysis: Speaking is done by way of words. Words are understood and translated. What might qualify as "speaking"? As "words"? And dimly at first, then brighter, God's words became more and more audible. Not forgetting that "more and more" indicates a relative relationship: I'm not saying it's always Big Guy: "Thus and such; copy?" and Sean: "Affirmative, 'Thus AND such.' roger that, Lord, you're 5x5, loud and clear."

But it's getting better. Because I'm trying to get God's word to be God's Word. Get it?

So I'm trying to read the Bible as if it could possibly have some relevance to my life. But I also want to be careful not to "over spiritualize-a-fy" what I read by importing some kind of significance that is so far-fetched that even God would scratch his head. There's a problem.

What in the world does a pack of Jews wandering (NOT to be confused with a pack of Wandering Jews) the desert have to do with ice on the driveway and kids that are restless from being inside for too long (and it's not even Christmas!). What I mean is how does the record of Exodus speak to my problems today. My today problems?

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Here I must depart from my journey from Egypt to God's holy mountain. I leap into the future, about 2000 pages. I have to have hope. You can't accuse me of over-spiritualizing-a-fication, but feel free to point and shout "PROOF_TEXTER!"

Because Faith is hope for something that is unseen. Because how can I hope for something that I already have? but rather, I will hope for something which I don't have.

My point is this; I'll read Exodus today, and I'll read it tomorrow, and someday I'll be reading something else; James or Jude. As I expand my catalog of God's words, God's Word will speak into my current situation with greater clarity and specificity. And I have faith that as my mental catalog of God's words expands, God's Word to me will also expand; become more and more detailed. More and more instructive. More and more audible.

I've seen it happen. All I used to remember of Exodus was "let my people go" or else God'll hammer you clear into next week. But yesterday I read something: "and You will be as God to pharoah." Adonai was speaking to Moses out of the burning bush, explaining to him how he was to go out and free God's people.

Will Moses acquire some kind of elusive temporary deity card? Part time pass to the upper level of the Northwest SkyClub?

Oh man, it was pretty much a flashlight going off in my eyeball. God was informing Moses that he would represent God. He would be the image of God's authority. The local authority standing between the government of Egypt, the world's most prolific political power, and God himself.

Suddenly, I saw a new example of continuity between the "Old Testament" community of Israel and the "New" testament community of the Church. We (the Church) are called to be God to the world. For Moses that meant explaining that God was God-- not Pharaoh. It was a formal introduction of sorts.

For us, it is a ministry of reconciliation. No longer are the Jews alone invited to share with God in communion. It is no longer Moses against Pharaoh. Through Jesus' righteousness and sacrifice, the veil is torn, the doors thrown open. The legacy of Moses is now reaching out to the pharaohs of our world-- those who were once in darkness are called into light.

We are to be as God to the world... desiring that no one should perish, but that all should be saved.

Wow. All that from a pack of wandering Jews. I mean jews, wandering.

A New Scorecard, A New Scorekeeper ... part II

…for the backstory… A New Scorecard…part I

The trouble we had at our church was that for all the effort we put into reaching out to people our church didn’t really seem to be growing. At least as we could tell.

Our attendance was pretty much the same, or it would go up, hang out, then go down. The parking lot had a pretty consistent number of cars and the offering plate looked about the same from week to week. Business was booming in the preschool, it was expanding exponentially, and needed to turn people away. The Food pantry was doing good, which is sort of one of those things you don’t know what to call it. It’s good that we’re getting food to these people, but it’s NOT good that they need it. You know?

But one of our pastors began reading a book called “Missional Renaissance” and quickly brought it to the elder board and the senior pastor. Wasting no time, they all read it together. The man who wrote the book, Reggie McNeal seemed to be speaking right into our situation.

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My wife shakes her head when I explain that I sometimes feel like I’m not adding to the family like I used to. She hates it if I make comments inferring that this is her’s or she bought that, or whatever. But the truth is, even though she’s right to be upset, it’s hard to redefine your value so radically after, well, earning my own money for so long.

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We as a church realized that we were using a common system of scorekeeping. Problem was it wasn’t the kind that our Scorekeeper was likely using. Wanting to align ourselves to our Creator, we decided to trade in our old scorecard for a new one.

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The value I add, or that any stay-at-home parent adds to a family is in legacy building. It’s in establishing and maintaining the kind of environment that you could only hope your child takes for granted: safety, shelter, Truth, and opportunity. The problem is how you touch lives as a parent is totally unquantifiable isn’t it? You see how they handle relationships or make decisions as they get older, maybe as they become parents themselves. But, for now, how do you mark that? Maybe in how my spouse seems to feel?

She frequently tells me how at ease she is, how comforting it is, how happy it makes her just to know that the kids are in their home, with each other, and being nurtured. Constantly. She says it frees her to do better at work. Ok. She hasn’t said that explicitly, but I believe that she would agree to it. If she doesn’t, I’ll just not tell you. Ok?

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God longs for communion. He longs to heal. He desired so deeply to repair what you and I have broken that he himself became a man, putting himself in harms way as a baby, putting himself at the greatest inconvenience, having to deal with good tastes and bad tastes, good feelings and bad ones, sickness, homelessness, hunger, temptation and tiredness. When he called the apostles, when he gave his Holy Spirit, when he sent us out to the ends of the earth he simply extended the range of his mission. The Church is an institution for healing. It is an institution for the purposes of reclaiming the world. Not shedding herself of it.

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The struggle in this is similar in nature to the struggle that I myself have been working through: How do you quantify something like that? It would be easy if we could just say that every person effectively “touched” by the church responded to God’s call and became himself a part of the church, giving his life back to God. But that doesn’t always happen. It doesn’t even usually happen.

Jesus performed miracles, performed healings, spoke truth into many ears that simply turned away. Jesus fed many people, who went home satisfied, but probably got hungry again. Well, so does the church.

Jesus was counted righteous.

Could it be that if the Church faithfully fulfills God’s mission to offer repair to what’s broken (free of charge), heal what is hurt (without expectation of a conversion), feed who is hungry (because they’re hungry), she too will be counted righteous?

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I think the point that I’m laboring to make is that I’ve begun to understand the notion of success differently. God longs to save people. He longs to save their hearts, souls, minds and bodies---their entire beings to Himself, through the work of His resurrected Son. And that redeemed person is of inestimable value to God as an individual and unique creation.

But the path to that person’s salvation is strewn with the loving work of the Church. And that is also of inestimable value to God. All by itself. Because that is how he designed the entire world to function: acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with Him.

So success is no longer measured by cars in the parking lot, money in the plate, or butts in seats. Yeah, we still measure those things. It would be irresponsible not to know if the parking lot is adequate for our needs, if we are filling services to a consistent level, if we need to add services because we’re turning people away, etc.

We’re just not defining the value of our efforts by those things. We count families that come through our food pantry, families that are served in our medical clinic. People who are given the opportunity to experience the same love that God has shown us.

Hopefully they ask us why.

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I don’t make any money. I help us save the money we do make. I’m trying not to focus in on that, or define my value by my profitability. Because money is only part of the equation. I fully expect to see my value spelled out in about 15 or 20 years. By then the “interest” should make the wait more than worth it.

A New Scorecard, a New Scorekeeper... (part I)

“Worthless,” Elvis muttered, “I may as well be a cow.”

Great story. If you haven’t had a chance, check it out. It’s about “Elvis” the Rooster. He learns the magic words from a grub stealing, homewrecker peacock. In the latest installment, when the sun rises despite a hoarse Elvis the rooster, his local neighborhood don, Little Willie (also a rooster, but he has feathers in a lot of coops) helps Elvis restore his broken sense of usefulness.

Last spring, my wife and I came to a difficult fork in the road. We were pregnant with our 3^rd child, a baby girl. I was working full-time, thankfully, and she was working 2 ½ days a week, as she had been since our first was born. We had determined to keep our kids out of a daycare system for as long as we could, for several reasons, only one of which was financial. We had been paying down debt, keeping expenses down and trying to be fiscally conservative, with the long term hope of having a great enough margin to have one of us home full time.

It was time to decide.

I go to a midsize church. I love it there, but it’s been as much a trial as a joy. I mean let’s face it- the church is filled with jacked up people. I include myself in that category of course- I would usually assume that, but I think in this instance it is wise to be sure to make that clear. We’ve had our share of problems, as any living church will- but I definitely call it a blessing. The people I worship with are genuine and sincere. Parents and sons and daughters, friends, mentors and students, each trying to see how Jesus has called them and what that means.

We’ve tried as a faith community to have an impact in our community. We strive to shine Jesus’ light, and bring life to the lost. Our mission statement used to be that we wanted to “Help people Find Jesus, Love Jesus, and Grow in Jesus.” Over the years that has been refreshed, clarified, and revisted many times. It still lies near the core of our value system. But the vagueness and ambiguity of the statement allowed us the freedom to try many paths, many ways, many, many programs. I won’t say that we failed. I won’t. God has worked through all of those programs, all of those efforts. I mean seriously, if God waited for us to get it right before giving His anointing, we’d all be very, very screwed.

One of the programs that has been instrumental to our existence and identity has been a Christian pre-school/daycare run with in our church. It has been an independent entity that we have subsidized, housed and nurtured. Another has been a food pantry. The food pantry, I have to say, I think really distilled our mission.

So, Elvis wakes up, and struts up to the top of the chicken coop. As he’s waiting for the first hint of dawn to cue his crow, he opens his mouth and sucks in a big bug. AACK! AACK! COUGH!

Just looking at the numbers, it was quite apparent that we weren’t going to be living on my income alone.

To keep ourselves to the point, I’ll summarize the obvious. Suga’ Momma was “worth” WAY more than me in the marketplace. Period. We prayed, I agonized, she waited, we decided. I was going to give up my job at a booming company during a recession economy, and she was going to work. Her company, and her boss breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when she told them. I heard somebody actually wet their pants. I won’t say who.

Since then, I’ve been at home. Eating bon-bons, watching soaps and sleeping in has been pretty good to me. I go through slippers like crazy, but more than make it up by only wearing a bathrobe most of the time. So no more expensive jeans for me.

Watching my two boys destroy the house from my rocker has been quite informative too. I didn’t realize how much life I was missing at work.

My biggest struggle, since leaving the “productive world” has been knowing how to appraise myself. What am I worth? I used to be worth about 600, 700 bucks a week. Now?

“I might as well be a cow,” Elvis muttered.
Elvis was on the one hand amazed, but also tremendously dismayed that the animals and people, the plants and sun began their day--- without him or his crow.

Time & Distance, Fame & Glory... (part II)

for T&D, F&G...(part I)

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See, I’d started asking myself about motive. Did I want to write now to bring glory to God? Or was I in fact trying to sanctify megalomania?

But God is faithful and longs to communicate with His world. I’d been given an opportunity to go to a songwriter’s conference, and it was there, in the woods of the Blue mountains that God revealed two things to me. He showed me that I had misunderstood my place in the world—my perspective was too small in a sense.

Well, I was pretty frustrated. But I had to say that He was right. Again.

Too small a perspective? I came to see that I had underestimated the significance of the world I live in. What the heck does that mean? In a nutshell, I didn’t think the world around me, the world that I could actually reach out and touch, was important enough to matter to me.

Here’s what my problem is/was/will be. I am inundated with global reach. I have the internet and TV and news media, all proclaiming things happening around the globe. And as it relates to me, I see everywhere internet churches, global ministries, mega-super churches, some alive, some just … churching. But I can SEE the Holy Spirit doing amazing things, right in front of me. And my mistake is to believe that I am not being used by God unless He is sending my ministry out in the same way. In other words, blessing the church I go to, the church I serve with, the people I can actually pick up the phone and call, isn’t good enough, isn’t important enough, not to me, and not to God.

Except that’s totally bogus.

Jesus didn’t have the internet. Was He a failure? Paul didn’t have an online blog with a following all over the globe. Was He a failure? Neither did Martin Luther

The truth that God revealed to me as I kicked stones down the path on that Asheville mountain ridge was that He had me right where he wanted me, and that I spoke to exactly the right number of people that he needed me to. And that if that list was to grow, it would be because he caused it to be so. It would be because He wanted it that way. And that the only reason he would do so was because it would increase His glory.

Why do I love Paul Baloche? Because he seems like kind of a dork. And I kinda like those guys. Same goes for Mike Neale. Kinda dorky. Like the kinda guy I’d live with in a dormitory. But man do those guys know how to worship in front of God.

I said earlier that I had too small a perspective. Well, I’m sort of thinking that the smaller I get it, with my NEW understanding of it, the quicker I may begin feeling satisfied that I am doing everything I can do in service to the King.

Time & Distance, Fame & Glory... (part I)

Time and Distance, Fame & Glory… part I

Ok. So I’ve always had a bit of a preoccupation with being a rockstar. You could, if you wanted to push the boundaries of our relationship argue that it is more of an obsession. In my house, if something is indescribably beyond the most righteous and wonderful thing, it is “rockstar crazy.” When one of my boys is being exhuberant, joyful, and clever (ok, now, we’re talking about their behaviour pretty much ALL of the time), words like “charming” or “precocious” simply don’t cut it. Instead I prefer “rockstar.”

Getting the picture?

When I was nine years old, Mtv was rockin’ the boob-tube, and I was strictly forbidden from plucking that “fruit” from the proverbial “tv tree.” But as humans have proven before, the lure was too tantalizing. I saw that it looked good on the tree, was pleasing to the taste, and good for food. Mmmm. Adam Curry and the Top 20 video count-down. This is where I met ---- (wait for it) ---- Axl Rose.

Appetite for Destruction offended any reasonable person. “Welcome to the Jungle” was this heinous new sound, bred in L.A. and taking over the radio. Rage poured out of this little man with the leather pants. At first I didn’t know what to make of it. It made me uncomfortable. But I was drawn in, and soon I was running home from the bus stop to catch the last 3 videos of the count down. First it was the Jungle. Then it was “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” and then it was … a LIVE video---- “Paradise City”. Oh man. That white leather suit --- the huge stadium, Slash just rockin’ his big hair and top hat. It defied belief. Could ANYthing be cooler?

My aunt and uncle took care of my grandmother in their home in La Habra, California. My dad had lived in SoCal for a considerable amount of time, first attending, and then working at UCLA. And his best friend lived in Anaheim, so we visted southern California relatively often. That means probably five times (?) before I was 12 years old.

Most trips down there included a visit to DisneyLand, where Jerry was a maintenance supervisor or something like that. I always remembered that Jerry broke a rib or a wrist building the Pirates of the Carribean. Somehow that made me proud. Anyway, I remember being in La Habra when I was 13 or 14. I don’t remember what age I was exactly, but I remember that it was the summer between my eighth and ninth grades---it was the summer between middle school (psh) and … HIGH school. I was headed for the big time.

I laid in bed that night, listening to my walkman. Tape player. Yeah. I always went to sleep with music playing. One time, I fell asleep to Nirvana’s Nevermind, only to wake up later, completely disoriented by the hidden track at the end of the cd.

Ok, anyways…

So I’m listening to (c’mon, guess) Appetite for Destruction, and I notice that there are two different guitar sounds? And they’re playing different things that even though they are different, appear to somehow go together! I marveled at my discovery, and being a prideful person, believed myself to be specially gifted to have such depth of aural insight. I thought to myself, “it’s destiny! Next year, I’ll be in high school, and I’ll finally be able to hook up with some other bad-asses and be in a real-live, balls-to-the-wall, MTV-here-we-come rock-n-roll band.”

Several years later, I had realized that regardless of whatever talent I did or didn’t have, I was just too lazy. I know people who want it. And they go, go, go for it. It’s annoying they’re so persistent. And they’re my friends!

But there was still that persistent itch. That nagging fantasy. It looked a little different now. Well, actually it looked a lot different. I’d gone through (and thankfully come out the other side) of my hair band phase. My grunge-y phase. I took a long walk with the singer-songwriter phase.

Then I ran out of things to say about myself and the sad shape of this world without getting redundant on the one hand, and ridiculously self-absorbed on the other. Plus, it didn’t seem authentic to me anymore. I mean, I was married, very happily, so no misery on the love front to whine about. I had a home, and full-time job that were pleasing to me. So no tour-bus adventures of drugs, unknown destinations, or all night parties in nameless venues. And I had been given, and grasped onto, a sense of spiritual destiny that removed the existential fears that were the fodder of so many artistic trends.

By now, all I felt compelled to write about was my walk on, off, and around the path of God’s call on me.

Well, there’s never any shortage of material on that topic. And it is something that any person breathing can relate to, know it or not, as God has indeed made a call and claim on all things created. (So…what does this have to do with rock-stars? OR “time and distance, glory and fame? Get to it).

Well, it’s my blog, so I don’t HAVE to get to it. I can drag it out until the internet melts. But I won’t. Otherwise, how could I Facebook? Or Tweet? BTW, I think it’s awesome that “facebook” can double as a noun and a verb…

Did you know that there are “Christian Rock stars”? Sure you did. BUT, did you know that there are even celebrities among the genre of Worship music?! You actually might know that, because “inspirational” music is the fastest growing market share in the music industry. Nope. Not rap. Not RnB. Not Rock. Not Coldplay, not Train, not Eazy-E, not Chris Brown.

Church music rock stars. Guess what? I’d baptized my lifelong ambition to be a career performing musician. And it felt like a calling from God, not simply some self-aggrandizing ambition.

And maybe it is…(a calling I mean). Who knows the mind and plans of God? In time, He will reveal these things. But for now I'm awake and running today. So what do I do?

What the Heck?

Can I say that in this blog? I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been down for awhile. Ok. A LONG while. It's been nice, but I'm all caught up on my soaps, and I'm fresh out of bon-bons, so here goes. Besides eating and watching TV, we had a baby girl, bought a small farm, sold a precious home, met a great couple, moved, got pretty sick, passed a couple colds around, got used to a new LONGER commute, got used to watching 3 kids instead of 2 boys...well, and then there's the odds and ends of moving into a house that hasn't been lived in for about 3 years.

In my spare time, I like to read, have bonfires, guard my house from said bon fires with a weak , well-water supplied low-pressure hose because we live 7 "graveled" (read: muddied, pot-holed, deer-infested) miles from the nearest fire station (which according to my OTHER insurance company is a very, very L-O-N-G ways) take long walks through fields of unmowed grass, English thistles, flat thistles, abandoned fence posts, bed-pans (seriously, and not the cheap plastic kind, but really "nice" porcelain ones) felled trees, and hidden pock holes in the pasture left by long McDead'ed cattle just big enough to turn your foot *most* of the way. I'm guessing that if I were a horse, I'd a been shot for mercy's sake a long time ago. Probably a couple times. If that were possible.

I can still remember, very clearly my first August in the midwest. The heat was positively amazing. Having grown up on the rocky beaches of northern Puget Sound, I was more accustomed to the sort of humidity that actually blows into your face and makes everything cold and wet. That was a change. And the water---I was...pampered shall we say. Now, if you've lived on the plains your whole life, you likely have no idea what I'm talking about. And if you did you'd likely disagree with me. Hmph. Not much I can do about that that, except suggest skipping to the next section.

When I turned on the tap in my parents house, dew drops spilled out. Rain water, filtered by the icy glaciers on the peaks of Mt. Baker, drawn from the bubbling streams of the Nooksack river, and Whatcom Creek, tamed and contained, and piped into our homes, filled my glass. I can vividly recall the surprise and borderline sense of danger that I felt from my first coppery drink from a warm dormitory water fountain at the small private college I'd come the midwest to attend.

These things will stay with me, but one other thing---cicadas. I hated the sound of cicadas. I could hear them behind every discussion, every cd, every television show. They plagued my head. I couldn't sleep. BBBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZGGGGGRRRRGGGGGLLLLLLLBBBBBBZZZZZZZ

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzoff into obscurity, only to wind up again, and again.

That was 14 years ago. Yikes. My mind reels at the idea of "14 years ago."

...

When my wife and I first visited Timber Ridge (that would be this little farm), the thing that most appealed to me, besides the huge barn, was the sound. I could see cars moving on the hard surface road, a mile away, but I could *hear* the crickets in the unmowed pastures, the thousands (no joke) of small, quarter-sized frogs in the pond beyond the barn, the cows pasturing across the road, and the cicadas in the large oak and maple trees that spotted the acreage. I could hear the wind.

...

Well, we visited Timber Ridge several more times over the next 12 months. We moved in about a 14 months after that first visit. I love it here. I miss my hip urban neighborhood. I miss seeing the families that were growing up on that street. But, every day I look over to the field on the other side of the driveway, I watch my boys chasing each other around the yard, apples in hand, as they stand on the fences and yell at the cows in the next pasture, and I listen to the crickets, frogs, and cicadas----I'm *way* ok with all that.

Big Guy sightings...

Something occurred to me this week that I thought was worth remembering. Janet stood up and told a story that 10 years ago probably would have preceded an eye-rolling of such holy magnitude that you'd call a priest to come and exorcise me.

But today--I'd have to say my perspective is a little bit different. A little bit... changed.

...

My pastor has told the story in several different contexts before. He and his brother, Lynn, went out fishing one night. They were on a boat in the middle of some lake in northwest Iowa, and the sky was open and clear. Lynn, who'd gone off to college and come back "all fired up" was ready to talk. Jay must have been in middle school or high school. I don't really remember. But he cites being very affected by Lynn's new passion.

He tells us that he prayed a prayer, asking God to show Himself in a very specific kind of way. To answer the question: "Are You out there?" And he says that God showed up that night in a definitive way and that it changed the direction of his life forever.

He's very good at telling stories. He's got good timing. I love it when he tells that story because every time, I wonder... will he tell us?

And every time---"Now, I'm not going to tell you what I prayed for, or what I saw, but... "

Seems kinda counterintuitive, doesn't it? But I think I understand why...

...

I think it all has to do with how big you think God is. Or has to be to still BE God. Or how small you'll allow Him to be.

Ever thought about that? We have no problem accepting a larger-than-life God who is sovereign and transcendent. But we have to cognitively *allow* God to get small. To become real to us.

...

So Janet's story was simple. They were out on vacation, her and her family. They were fishing on some empty lake, and just catching nothing. So, if I remember correctly, her daughter says something like "I wonder if this is what the disciples felt like that one time they didn't catch anything ALL night." And Janet, not to let a teachable moment slip by, suggests that they pray for fish.

Ridiculous, eh?

Within 10 minutes, she says, she and her husband have quit they fishing poles because the 2 children are pulling in fish after fish after fish. . Right??? She says the fishing was like that every night after for the rest of their trip. Crazy? No-coincidence. Except here's the thing. Faith like a child.

I've never seen a person healed. That I am aware of. I've never spoken to an angelic creature. That I know of. But I've seen some stuff. I've seen coincidences that were too coincidental to actually be coincidental. All you have to do is allow the possibility that God actually *wants* to be visible in our lives. When I started to look, I started to see. I still struggle to allow God to work in such unimpressive circumstances. I think I've insulted God more times than honoring Him by failing to recognize the favor He'd poured out on me by "aligning" things just so.

I say look for the coincidences. Look for the small blessings. I say let God make Himself visible in the minutiae. The thing I keep thinking is that I have to allow Him to work in ridiculous places.

What's a God like YOU doing in a place like THIS?

...

I would tell you some of the most recent sightings of the Big Guy, 'cause He keeps showing up. Can't seem to shake Him. But I'm afraid you might start rolling your eyes.

Maybe next time I'll tell the story with a better, more detailed ending... you never really know...

A New Life---

I have a new daughter. It was a fantastic day. Witnessing a new life begin is always traumatic somehow-it causes waves to ripple out as the world changes one little girl at a time. I experienced a wonderful thing as she was born: pleasure. It was pleasing.

I felt what can only be described as a cacophony of emotions-and I can only really claim a small fraction of those feelings as being for myself, strictly speaking. Oddly enough, the strongest feeling I had was a sympathetic feeling for--well really WITH, my wife. I felt her pleasure at completing a trial-really a series of trials, culminating in this ultimate effort. She was so immensely satisfied because she wanted very badly to be done with the discomfort of pregnancy, but also because she knew there was a whole lifetime of new kinds of joy to be had.

I celebrated alongside her, because I knew how anxious she had been, when the midwife told her that there would be no stitches, and that her recovery would be swift and strong, and prompt.

I celebrate with her now, as I hear her say our baby's name over and over. She relishes the way the name floats out of her mouth, the way you might enjoy a butterscotch candy on your tongue. She plays with it, adding sounds, tagging it with new little endings, trying on new nick names, new special little names that she and the baby might share for the rest of their lives.

My wife adores her children. Two of them are boys, and will in time fall in love with another woman. On the one hand, she looks forward to seeing them grow up into mature men, and experience that love for another person that she and I know. But she also knows that this love will shadow her relationship and position in the lives of her two boys. She will go from being the Sun, to being the moon, and then as their families grow, she will become a distant planet, burning brighter than stars, but distantly, and periodically.

Now she has a girl. This girl will not leave her the same way her boys will. But this little girl will likely leave me, though, the way, the boys will leave their momma. There is that sorrow in an otherwise magnificent and beautiful week. But I will not dwell on that today.

She is immensely beautiful though, and I will make certain that she knows that. I will make sure that every person in her life knows that. And she will grow up into this beautiful sinister world. I can't wait. But I suppose, yes---I will.

I never would have anticipated this life. I certainly wouldn't have chosen it on my own. But I'm loathe to exchange it for anything else.

On Escalation to DEFCON 2

My wife, the venerated "Suga Momma" is pregnant. Really? you ask, amazed. When is she due? you ask, politely feigning interest... and I say, well, 2 days ago.

She's ready.

...

When this baby comes it will be our 3rd child. I didn't ever expect to be a father three times. I think I always thought that if I had children I'd have two. And in some of my culture studies, and even in some of my environmental studies courses, have been presented with the idea that perhaps only having 2 children was the most responsible thing to do-the argument being that living in a highly over-privileged society, where 5 percent of the world-population consumes 25 percent of the world's resources, we have a false sense of abundance and are not so much over populating the world, as excessively consuming it.

But I've heard more than one argument on that topic. And I am swiftly heading off of the one I started on. So... like a open-sea pilot, I'm going to finesse/muscle this love-boat back onto its original course without even spilling my drink(s).

...

I remember when my first son was born. It was amazing. We (me and the momma) were both on cloud nine. He was born beautiful. AND he looked just like me. I think his being an infant was what saved him. As time passed he's come to resemble his mother quite a bit, though because of his red hair and very fair skin, people first see our resemblance.

He was a little cone headed when he was born, because they used the vacuum/suction cup on his bean, but we put a little white beanie on him, and he was just stunning. He had a full head of fine orange hair, and was pretty quiet. I didn't know what to expect. Maybe that's why it hit me like a tidal wave on a penthouse balcony. I just wasn't expecting it.

...

I remember when my second son was born too. I was scared to death. Nothing like the first. I don't know why I was so scared. In retrospect, I think I'd become accustomed to the mantle of responsibility from being a parent for 2 years. And as such I recognized the myriad dangers that opened up before us, and being in a hospital was only a mild comfort. I knew now what I had to lose, I think.

But there was something else-what if he was born, and I didn't get the dousing that I'd experienced when my first was born. What he was freaky looking? What if I didn't feel the rush of... anything?

Well, he was born, finally, and all the nurses were exclamatory, but I think that's actually written into their genetic code. Because he looked NOTHING like what I'd remembered from before. He was a) HUGE b) Bob the Tomato. He was SO red it was sort of unnerving.

And he just looked like a baby. I don't know how else to explain it. He looked completely normal. Except for being 23 lbs and red like a tomato. Besides all that he was totally normal looking. No halo, no glow, no sound of heavenly host, no nothing. A little crying. I was totally shocked. I remember thinking afterwards, "Ok, now what?"

...

Well, he's over 2 now, and his older brother is 4, going on 8. And I'm so completely knocked out with both of them that words will simply not suffice. So I won't even mar the process by trying.

...

I realized, not sure, maybe 8 months? Maybe a year ago...I realized that #2 was getting the short end of the deal. It became apparent to me---and I can't remember how---that I was seeing him strictly as an accessory item for his older brother. He was always Tigger's little sidekick. The cog in my head slipped a tooth and I realized: though I had two sons, EACH of them only had ONE dad.

It's sort of like discovering that your best friend just used you to cover his own butt. I mean, not literally, but it was that sort of radical shift in paradigms for me. Here's what happened. I lost the central spot in my little world. Instead of being a dad with two sons, I WAS the dad to two sons. Does that make sense? "With" (personal possession) became "to" (relative to something/someone else).

And doors flew open. They slammed open. There were holes in walls from doorknobs, and the floor littered with the screw heads that snapped off door-jamb hinge-plates. Fresh, clean wind blew through my heart and I loved my son. I loved both of my sons, and became a dad that could be uniquely experienced by each of them in the way that they each uniquely experienced being my son.

I gained a son. And I have a very special love for him because it took me so dreadfully long to find it.

...

So I hear my Suga-momma in the other room. She periodically groans (ok, the truth is she's been doing quite a bit of groaning this last month or so) as she moves from one position to another. She's working from home. Partly because she's so uncomfortable, partly because BEING uncomfortable in public can make other people uncomfortable. We're hoping she goes into full on labor soon. She was induced with Tigger, and, well, let's just say things went significantly better with Mo, and much of it because she went into labor on her own.

So we wait. I'm not scared. Not like I was. Honestly, I'm really excited to meet this kid, and find out what God is doing in our family now.

...

unbelievable value here...

Well, we bought the farm.

...

Ok. Let's unpack that: we recently received an offer on our house, and came to terms on an acreage that we have had our eyes on for over a year. It's exciting, but daunting.

We've always had a small vegetable garden here but every year that we've had it, by September it's an overgrown mess of a jungle, and clear-cut logging is the only merciful option for putting that little plat of mismanaged, under-attended eco-disaster out of its sad state.

WELL, we think we can do better than that. So now we're shooting for entire acres of overgrown, mismanaged, under-attended eco-disasters. No more small time for us. We're going for whole eco-systems.

...

We moved into our current house from a small apartment. Probably, 600 square feet? Time sort of fogs, but it wasn't big. Most of our furniture was "re-claimed." In fact, I don't think we had a piece of "new" furniture until a couple years AFTER we bought the house. Our living room was entirely empty for a long while. We had lots of help moving, so we were doing like a bucket brigade down the stairs and most of the way to the curb. I think it took us 3 hours to load the truck at the apartment, drive to the house and unload it. Then it was pizza 0'clock, and we were happy. This time...well, I don't think it's going to be as simple...

...

We started packing this past week. Well, sort of. We actually started packing about 12 months ago. Then we started UNpacking about 6 months ago. Now, here we are, packing again. We started in the built-ins. That went pretty quick, because though there's lots of wrapping and paper and what-not, it just went easy.

Now it's the closets. Eeeesh.

My boys, especially the oldest, LOVE puzzles. Tigger has shown M-A-D puzzle skills and dominates on them over and over again. The younger...well, he thinks the puzzle pieces are cool, but on a more individual basis. He's more interested in their unique stories, and big on respecting their individuality it would appear, whereas Tigger is all about collective value and community. I guess what I'm sort of stepping around is that Tig puts the puzzles together. His younger brother...well, he just throws pieces into several small piles.

So we sat down and started separating puzzle pieces. Elmo goes here, Sesame street goes here, Spidey and his little X-Men friends go here, etc. etc. Well, we happen to have 5 Cars (c) puzzles. 4 come out of one box-a set of 4, and have similar size and graphics. Then there's this other one, that's different and has it's own box. But they're all Lightning Muh-'twween (as he is known in these parts). So as far as Younger is concerned, by virtue of all being Cars puzzle pieces, they all go in one pile. I thank him, and while he runs back to the main pile of puzzle pieces, I try to weed out the unique pieces of the 5th puzzle from the 4. He comes back, and dumps pieces from the 5th puzzle into a pile with the other 4, recognizes that I've separated some, and grabs those pieces and puts them BACK with the other 4. I thank him for his help, and recognize how ridiculous I had been to separate what has been brought together, and he goes back to work.

Yeah. Thanks. A-Lot.

...

Why do I thank him? Because I don't see any point in scolding him. Because he's enjoying time working with me. Because...he's trying.

Is he really trying? Yes. Is he really helping? No. Most definitely not. But I thank him anyway. In the end, the only reason I'm including him, the only reason I'm going out of my way to recognize his contribution to society is to reward him for trying, and encourage him to try again. Maybe next time he'll actually be of some assistance...

...

Have you ever met a celebrity? Maybe not like Justin Timberlake. Just a celebrity in your own mind will suffice-of course excluding yourself... I've had the opportunity to have conversations with people who in my mind are celebrities. They're not pop stars or regulars on "E" network programming. But they are in some way bigger than my regular life. And for the most part they've all been gracious, acting like their day has been improved by their meeting me that day, or our conversation. And I think that as "normal people" we all accept that as a token of our icon's graciousness, not of genuine edification. I mean, they haven't necessarily gotten much out of the meeting as much as they have learned over time that the collective value of those experiences keeps careers floating and dynamic. Right? And we expect that from our celebrities.

...

When I want to really think I mow. Sometimes, I just have to mow because the snakes are building towers to the sky in the tall grass, and I sort of resign myself to that fact by baiting myself with the prospect of some good "think" time. But I also have a rule that mowing deserves a beer if done thoroughly. Regardless of time. One mow=one beer. Period. So there's that too. Used to be One Mow = 3 cigarettes and 1 beer. But we quit smoking, so it's just beer. I guess that's still a pretty good deal. But I'm digressing. Again.

So there I am, mowing along the edge of my lawn, marveling at how the edge always stays long no matter how I track the mower. It just lays down flat and then I drive over it, and it sort of looks up to see that I've passed and begins to stand up and do it's thing again: look sloppy.

So there I am. And I realize how my boy's "helping" is both similar and different from how I am asked to partner with God!

I thank my boys for their help because I want them to feel like they are appreciated, and I do this in spite of the fact that they are actually slowing me down, and usually create MORE work to be done. So, the thanks I give is sort of like a down-payment on some future return of actual assistance that is all but invisible on the very distant horizon.

The celebrities in our lives thank us, they woo us, they tell us they "love us" constantly, but mostly because that is what they need to do to maintain a steady stream of cash. Or good will. or whatever. But I don't suppose they actually attach all that much value to those relationships. Do you?

But Jesus tells his disciples, "I call you my friends" as they linger on an after-dinner walk. He says that "there is no greater love is there than when a man lays down his life for his friends."

And that is all sort of secondary to the thought that I was having as I attempted to mow the long grass that lays down across my sidewalk. God attaches so much value to the work that we do that it actually has an impact on the holiness of HIS name. It is for the sake if HIS name, HIS image and reputation, if you can swallow that, that He causes us to walk in paths of righteousness (check out Psalm 23).

He attaches so much value to our work that He accuses the stiff necked of blemishing the value of His name to the gentile nations! Now stick with me for a second while I walk myself through that. He proclaims through the prophet Ezekiel that "It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone." (Ezekiel 36) This is a sort of negative example of what I'm trying to say, but what I recognized is this: What we do, how we live actually has an impact on God. In this example, it was more bad than good, but none-the-less, it made a difference to Him.

God intends our lives to be purpose-filled. We are made for special purposes. Whether we think they are special or not is sort of up to us, but to God, it's already been decided: We can do what he wants and actually bless Him, adding to His Kingdom and fulfilling our divinely ordained purposes. And He is genuinely pleased by this. Remarkable?!! I wrote in a prior post that sometimes I get that feeling-Who is man that anyone should give a damn? But God attaches value to my work. Astounding. So much so that it affects the sheen or tarnish on His very Name! His very Glory! Even as I write this I find it so remarkable. And yet it is what He says.

He leads me in paths of righteousness,

For His Name's sake...

the sacred and the mundane...

I had to say goodbye to somebody last night. Without being overly dramatic, I'll just say that sometimes life takes unexpected turns and the only thing that keeps a fella on the road is the guard rail. Anyways, he's taking a couple of weeks of vacation and then I think he'll decide what comes next. And me being the dutiful correspondent that I am thought I'd better say whatever I am going to say right now, before his vacation, because I might not see him again for awhile. And people need to be told things.

...

Apparently, I have a unique interest in telling people how I really feel about them. Sometimes it endears myself to people. Other times, well, it scares the crap out of them. I've had it go both ways.

An old college room-mate, who became one of my best life-time friends, told me that I was the first guy who ever told him I loved him. That same guy told me that the reason a mutual friend's ex-girlfriend wasn't talking to me so much might be because I head so directly into intimacy that she can no longer even talk with me. One guy I met pretty much jumped overboard on a new relationship because I told him that his skills and his passion, his character and his integrity thoroughly "excited" me. Yeah. I actually said that to his face.

Well, it was his face until it was the back of his head and the bottom of his running shoes. Running away.

(calling into the distant horizon with a hand cupped to my mouth) "Sorry! Didn't mean to SPOOK ya..."

He's a great guy, and I don't blame him a bit. I might have pulled the trigger on him a little early. Ah well. Lesson learned. Maybe (not).

I guess I just see so much ... insincerity in our lives that I feel the need to push back against it. Hard.

...

I told my friend last night that regardless of how he felt about himself, his successes or failures, that I had the highest regard for him and for his wife because it was their highest value to reach constantly for the sacred life.

From the look on his face, and the manner in which he put his hand on my shoulder, I know he understood what I meant.

...

I ask myself that question of myself often: Am I leading a life that is at every moment defined by sacredness? That strains towards God with each action?

The sacred life, as I understand it, is radical. The sacred life, as I understand it, is marked by a borderline myopic view of the cosmos, and its own place in it. The sacred life sees every decision, whether significant or mundane as being a decision of a "religious" nature. I use the term "religious" with a bit of reluctance, but wanting to be understood clearly, I'm afraid it must be done. By religious, I simply mean to indicate the spiritually charged-I don't know, the matters of faith. The matters of what we really believe, way deep down. The driving forces in our lives.

...

I want to live a sacred life. I want purpose. I want a reason. When the darkness encroaches, when my mood is thick and heavy, I think, "what is man that anybody should give a damn?" I think we all want to think that the blip on the cosmic radar that is our life should mean something, but just being honest, sometimes I look into my son's eyes and ask myself, how many generations of these little people (that would be *us*) have come and gone, and asked the same questions as we do, wrote the same poems as I have, sang the same songs that we do, and all of them expected to be remembered forever. By somebody. How futile.

And I don't know-maybe that's the destiny of a created being. Or, maybe it's just the whispers of a jealous angel trying to make himself like God.

I believe in God. I believe that He made everything, whether he did it by wriggling his nose and nodding his head, or whether He did it using apparently "natural" mechanical processes over eons of years.

I believe that He intended life to be something magnificent.

I believe that the magnificence of life was supposed to be an all-encompassing fullness of meaningful work, relationships of mutual and symbiotic dependency, and the victorious shalom of God's sabbath rest.

I believe that *all* people are beautiful to God. I believe equally that all people have defiled themselves by loving themselves MORE than their creator, such that God's absolute perfection cannot abide our slightest imperfection, and that Jesus was a sacrifice set up at the beginning of time not only to cover the acts of sin, but also the ontological state of sin-filled-ness that creation took on. And that he modeled the life that we should have lived but are simply unable to.

And his gift is not simply the negation of our sin-filled-ness, but it's also the gift of righteousness, the gift of being perceived by God as undefiled, and perfect. It's the promise of being restored to a life of purpose, a life of significance, and LIFE magnificent. Abundant.

Life that is good.

That is the sacred life, as I understand it. And that's the life that I want.

How I understand blessing...

So I don't know if I've every really said anything about this before. If I have, and you get bored, you are free to exercise your right to click out of here. But if you would bear with me, I'd like to tell you something that God has been explaining to me over the course of the last 2 or 3 years.

...

As I mentioned earlier this week, my bible sat too close on my desk to my text books, and through a sort of ambiguous, sort of metamorphosis, became another of them. Sort of like the borg: Resistance is futile, prepare to assimilate.

God's spirit put it into my heart that if I valued Him, it would show by my cleaving to his words. I had memorized songs, passages of plays, political speeches, but did not even recognize the words that God speaks! I started to think that if God spoke to me, I'd probably not recognize his voice for lack of familiarity.

So I began investigating the audio bibles. And I think that was the first step in a new direction for me. Who'd a thunk it. Ned Flanders, eat your heart out.

...

I have a remarkable difficult time accepting that I cannot work to earn my salvation. As time passes, and I prove it over and over again, I've gotten more at ease with the idea. I think that the role of the angry/disappointed Father sort of lolls about over me before the idea of the compassionate and understanding Father.

My dad was a good father. So I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. But he was, I fear to say, a human, and thus, flawed. He was an academic (hey, I'm not pointing fingers or anything, I'm just sayin...) and as such, usually made his appeals to me rationally. And as human nature goes, much of what I did as a young boy wasn't, well, very rational. He wasn't heavy-handed---but he would tell me when I had disappointed him, and point out to me what he thought the more reasonable action might have been.

He told me he loved me plenty of times, and my sibs would quickly bear witness to his affectionate side. But somehow, we note the insults and rebukes more...

Anyway, my relationship to God has obviously been shaped largely, to this point, by my relationship to my Dad. But blessing abounds...I must also note that my relationship to God has been impacted tremendously by ... yep, MY being a father.

...

My oldest son, Tigger, has for a couple of months been pretty consistently challenging the boundaries of my authority. He's been consistently testing my sincerity, as well as the strength and conviction of my word. In other words: He's been driving me crazy. Not just sometimes. Virtually every day is a struggle with the frayed end of a fragile rope.

But I can testify to the restorative power of sleep. Even 5 hours will wipe my memory clean, and I wake up, see his wide smile and scrunched up eyes and just fall further in love.

...

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

...

It has been passages like the one above that have taken on a new meaning for me. I'm sure you can understand. Even as Tigger is challenging me, even as he is suggesting that I'm an idiot (he doesn't use those words, exactly), I look at him and he is my own heart. And believe me when I say that I am capable of evil. Evil thoughts, evil deeds, good deeds veneering over bad motives, and yet I am also capable of greater love than I had ever imagined possible.

Jesus' younger brother asked rhetorically, can fresh water come from a salt spring? He was speaking about our mouths, our language, and the fact that blessing and cursing come from the same mouth. But I think the analogy fits in this case as well. Evil and Love from the same place? Indeed. This is a grace-given, broken but still operable aspect of our being created in the image of God.

He made us to love. It was the fall to depravity, though, which distorted that love, twisting it around so that rather than loving God, self and others in right proportion and order, we simply loved ourselves above all else...

I digress slightly...

...

But I've come to understand something greater. Something greater than the fact that love can surmount evil, or that mercy can be stronger than vengeance. Or even that grace can satisfy justice. I've come to understand that it actually makes God greater to bless me.

...

I can remember being reprimanded and taught to "be the bigger boy." The idea being that being bigger was equitable to being more mature, and that if I were more mature, I would be above whatever vengeance I had in mind, above whatever bait was laid out before me, above...how pithy and cheap it sounded to my young ears.

But as an adult, I find it in scripture constantly.

Now, nowhere in the canonized scriptures does it say, "And God was the Bigger Boy." Or, "For God so loved the world, that He became the bigger boy."

But I've read "He leads me in paths of righteousness, for His name's sake," and I've read "This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

...

Father, when you bless me, it makes YOU greater...

Make Your kingdom come to pass on earth, through me, through us,

Your mission of healing, liberation, and reconciliation,

between man and man, man and earth, man and self, and man and You,

such that it causes the entire creation to know and say You are God alone.

Put it into my heart that Your blessing or favor on me is

not a reward for my behavior,

But is Your provision

for Your salvation army,

advancing Your kingdom against darkness, lies, and the tyranny of sin and alienation,

and is evidence of even more grace.

And that as children are born into a family, the love increases, rather than being split

into smaller

and smaller pieces,

That Your grace

grows

and abounds

and increases

with Your every gift to us.