Painful thinking

Today I received a phone call that disturbed me in many ways. It will take several hours to recover from this call. The caller asked for the singles minister because he had some questions about Christianity. I let him know that I was the only staff person and would be happy to answer his questions. He quickly let me know he was not interested in talking to the pastor of any church.

We did talk for probably about 30 minutes, maybe more. Probably more. I honestly lost track of time. Most of it was about everything that was wrong with the church, especially pastors. I listened to the well-rehearsed and deeply felt opinions of this gentleman regarding the financial racket on which the church is built. I answered his questions about my ministerial experience and background, the grounds for which I left all my other previous ministerial posts, etc. Throughout this conversation, it was clear to me that I would not be changing his mind on anything. In fact, when I agreed to enter this conversation with the caller, I knew it would end with me confirming everything he believed about the church, and especially pastors. And it did. I finally chose to end the conversation and did what he told me I would do in the beginning - I hung up on him.

After hanging up the phone, I waited for an immediate callback, even though I knew it would not come. I had already proved his point. Then because of some things that were said, I spent a considerable amount of time in prayer, trying to clear my mind and settle my emotions. Lest you think I hung up in anger or had to take a chill pill, that was not the case. Without any better way to put it, I was disturbed. Deeply disturbed.

It was clear in the beginning of our conversation that I was talking to someone who had been deeply hurt. He even gave me a count - eight times he had been "burned" by the church and pastors. He did not give me any details and I would not share them with you if he had. I have some guesses as to what may have happened. This much I know. This gentleman was carrying around a significantly sized wound that had turned into a rather ugly scar on his emotions. And that scar was preventing him from actually being able to receive the healing he so desperately wants and needs.

I later determined why I was so disturbed. Underneath all this guy's pain was evil. There was something in his voice that rang out evil. The caller was not evil. Nor do I believe him to be a particulary bad person. But his pain was evil. It was caused by evil. And evil was taking up residence in order to ensure his pain never left and forever kept him crippled.

Why do I tell you this? Because we live in a world where things sometimes go wrong. And they go wrong in the church too. Despite being the Body of Christ, the church itself is made up of fallen creatures who have been redeemed, who are in the process of being made perfect but aren't there yet. That is still no excuse for any of the atrocities that have been perpetrated by the church or its leaders. But is the reality.

Why do I tell you this? Because we live in a world where things sometimes go wrong. And there are a lot of casualties out there. The journey to healing is a faith journey. It is a journey to and with the source of ultimate healing - Jesus Christ.

Some of you may have scar tissue building up right now. For whatever reason, your pain and suffering, in whatever form it has taken, has become so familiar to you that it is easier to hold onto than it is to let go. The pain you know by keeping it is preferable to the pain that might come and you don't know if you try to let go of it and seek healing. My prayer for you is the same as my prayer for the caller - God, I pray that the power of your healing will somehow sink in and penetrate beyond the hurt. God let them find healing.

I don't usually use this space to blatantly "push Jesus" on people. I created it to provide a place for people to find a connection to their own thoughts and experiences. I always hope that connection leads them to Jesus and that they see him as the journey itself. But, if your thoughts today are painful ones, bitter ones, thoughts that keep healing away, I think you should know about some of your options.

Just a thought . . .

Just no thoughts

I have nothing profound this week. I tried to get my wife to be the guest host and write something. "I'm not a writer," was her response. I said, "You don't have to be a writer. You just need to have a thought." She then replied, "I don't think. I'm a mom." I gave up.

I've reinstituted part of my exercise routine. I've begun jogging again. I've even revived my almost 30 year old goal of running a marathon. I made a public statement the other day that I will run a marathon before I turn 40. That gives me a little better than two years to go from an overweight, out of shape desk jockey to a plain old desk jockey.

I forgot how much I like to run. My mind sorta shuts down while I run. Thoughts and ideas run in and out of my head. I'm somehow able to process them without allocating any storage space to them. When I finish my run, those thoughts are all gone. Yet I'm sure that later that day or that week, I will act on the basis of one of those processes.

On most days, I just move along on my faith journey without any great divine revelations or major crises to deal with. My mind is sorta shut down. Lots of thoughts will run in and out of my mind and I can process them from a faith journey perspective. I usually don't make any major conscious decisions regarding my faith and how I interpret the world around me. At least not on a day to day basis. But somehow, as a result of the offline processing, new understandings or affirmations of prior ones get stored in my mind. Then on those days when I do need to make an important decision, interpret an important event, or even deal with a crisis, part of the work is already done. I can summon from mental storage my understanding and belief on the matter, then make that all important decision.

One nice thing about shutting down is getting to just listen. When I'm out jogging, leave the iPod at home and I listen to the bugs, the birds, and even the traffic. Going offline on my faith journey with no particular issue to deal with allows me to just listen to voice of God. The lack of noise from everything else, especially my own thoughts and agenda makes it easier to hear him. I can process his words and put them away for later use.

Maybe having no thoughts is the best way to just have a thought.

What about Faith?

This morning I planned to comment on the movie Glory Road but as I quickly scanned the news headlines when my home page came up, I felt moved to do something different. Today's the 5th anniversary of 9/11. It's something that for the most part I think is "forgotten" by the American public at large. It's more like something we view as a historical event event, akin to Pearl Harbor. We know it happened. We know it was devastating on many levels. We know it deserves recognition every year, but our day to day lives are mostly untouched by it. Those of you who fly on a regular basis or who may work in the industries associated with national security may feel differently. But Average Joe American leads a life untouched.

I'm Average Joe. It was not mentioned in my church yesterday. I'm the pastor so that was an oversight on my part. I even made myself a note last week and posted it in a spot where I would see it on Sunday morning to remind me to acknowledge the effect 9/11 has had on our country and the lives of its victims. Yet in the course of the average Sunday morning service it was forgotten.

My life has been untouched. Until this morning. I had turned on the news to get the weather forecast and I saw a live shot of the many people and officials lined up at the Ground Zero memorial. My oldest son asked me what they were doing. I simply replied that they were commemorating 9/11. He proceeded to ask why. When I asked if he knew what 9/11 was, he knew it had something to do with planes and buildings blowing up. Despite having factual knowledge, he could not comprehend the implication such an event had on our national security or just our sense of feeling safe.

So I stood there, wondering just how deep to go. How much do I share about the reality of 9/11 and shatter my son's feeling of safety in the world around him? How much do I educate him on the reality of bad things happen in the world around us and many times there is not a lot we can do about it? How do I explain the reality of war while trying to provide a proper description on valid uses of it without getting into the minutae of our current political situation and whether it fits into that matrix?

My life has been touched by 9/11 in a way I never imagined. As I stood with my 8 1/2 year old in the living room, I assure you I had more than just one thought. "How do I protect my son?" "My children are growing up too quickly." "What do I really believe about the war in Iraq?" "Why does the world have to be such a scary place sometimes?" are just a few.

Honestly, I'm not sure how to relate this to our faith journeys, which is the real reason for this blog. There are lots of paths I could follow. I could address the problem of evil. I could address the reality of you never know when your life might end, so live each day to its fullest and make sure you are ready to face life after death. Those seem too easy, too simple, too much like pop theology or bumper sticker fodder. Today I am hit with the gut-wrenching reality of real life, led by real flesh and blood, that has real responsibilities in the here and now for not only my own life and ideas, but for the lives and ideas of others. My family is the most important set of others. I have a certain level responsibility for even more - for those people who call me "Pastor". If a faith journey is all I say it is, then it has to apply to THIS reality.

Actually I know to relate it to my faith journey, but not with hard statistical data. I know how the mystical side of me experiences peace I don't always understand. I know that I sometimes possess wisdom that cannot be accounted for on the basis of my knowledge or other experiences. I know that life is sometimes complicated yet it can be fairly easily figured out by following the mostly simple guidance of how to live it found in the ultimate faith journey guide - the Bible.

Sorry for the unusually heavy thoughts this morning. I'm sorry that some of you will be disappointed that I didn't give you a sufficiently explained tie-in. I can only respond to that by saying isn't a faith journey supposed to be about faith? Sometimes we aren't going to have the answers. We're just going to have our lives before us. Just a thought.

If I Had a Hammer

I have a hammer that is of immeasurable value to me. There's nothing particularly fancy about it. Just a standard hammer with a soft rubber like grip of some sort on the handle. It's covered with paint and caulking. The hammer is at least forty years old. It belonged to my great-grandfather, Poppy.

I once thought I had lost that hammer. I nearly instantaneously vomited at the thought. That's how much it means to me. Someone needed to borrow a hammer one time. Luckily they said, "Do you have a hammer I can borrow?" instead of "Can I borrow your hammer?" I was able to answer truthfully and without selfish guilt, "Sorry. I don't have a hammer you can borrow."

I'm not a carpenter. Just your average family handyman. I use that hammer for all my hammering needs. Occasionally I will use one of my kids' hammers if I need something light because of the nature of the job. I once used a hammer in the toolbox I keep in my wife's car for emergencies. It just didn't feel right. I have Poppy's hammer and it works great.

Poppy was a boat builder. He built wooden boats the old fashioned way in his backyard (which was my front yard). He even lost two of his fingers doing it. So the hammer is a sacred relic that connects me to my coastal heritage which has no contemporary manifestation. Sometimes I can hold that hammer and I swear that I can smell the sawdust as Poppy cuts and planes those juniper planks. I smell the paint and varnish used to help keep barnacles from growing on the bottom once the boat was put overboard. I can even smell his sweat and the sweet smell of Red Man on his breath.

Sometimes I hold that hammer and I think of Poppy's celebrity. The big town newspaper from Raleigh, The News & Observer, did a couple of stories on him before he died and his dying vocation of boat building. (I was even in one of those. I'm the cute four year old sitting on the bow of the boat.) He was in a book written by a journalist who traveled down the Intracoastal Waterway by boat. Somehow, this guy ended up on Harkers Island and met Poppy. There was even a picture of him in the NC History textbook used by many of the elementary schools in our state with a caption referring to his use of natural resources. When that book came to the schools back home, it generated quite a buzz.

I think a lot of just who Poppy was. Even though he died thirty-two years ago, there are still quite a few people back home who are old enough to remember him. And every single one of them have nothing but respect and good things to say about Mr. Stacy.

Right after I graduated from college, my father gave me Poppy's hammer. He gave it to me in part because I simply needed a hammer and had no tools to speak of. But he also gave it to me as an exercise of trust. He made me keeper of the flame. I'll never forget his words. They were few and simple. "This is Poppy's hammer. Don't lose it." and that was it. We both knew nothing else need be said.

Last fall I sorted through my deceased father's tools. My boys called him Poppy. My Poppy and their Poppy had a lot of similar character traits. My dad was an civilian aircraft mechanic at a Marine Air Station. I took some old ratchets and sockets and divided them up into two groups. At Christmas, I gave each one of my boys a set. I gave them these simple words. "These were Poppy's. Don't lose them."

Some things are too important to not pass on. Faith, character, and values are at the top of the list. Poppy passed all these along to my father, who passed them to me. Hammers and other tools follow close behind in importance. Arlo Guthrie (no relation, but quite interestingly an appropriate reference) sang, "If I had a hammer, I'd hammer all over this land." Well, I've got a hammer. I intend to use it everywhere I go.