L.A. Native-ish

Arriving just a couple weeks before Christmas 1975, my first breath in this world was on Ventura Canyon Rd, Panorama City. Southern California welcomed me with open arms on a mild 60 degree winter day. Twenty miles in from Santa Monica and just a short drive south to Disneyland, I landed in the sunny San Fernando Valley. The heart of L.A. beat proudly in my chest as a City of Angels native…..for about a month until my mom packed up and moved my older brother and me to Klamath Falls, Oregon. We traded the beach, Hollywood, Mickey Mouse, and SoCal sunshine for a tiny, cold, high desert town in the mountains. We had family there, and my mom needed a fresh start and help raising two young boys, so we made the move and never looked back. Do I tell people I’m from Los Angeles? Technically yes I guess? I was born there but left while I was still breastfeeding and pooping in a diaper, so does that still count as being an L.A. native? If I ask someone who is truly from there, the answer is probably, “Nope”.

My wife on the other hand was born right here in Southern Oregon, where we live and have raised our family for the past 31 years together. She came home from the hospital to a big white house just a few blocks from our current home. The old schoolhouse where she went to kindergarten is right across the street from our front yard, and she still stops to chat in town when she sees her elementary school teachers. She is from here. We can hardly go anywhere without running into someone she grew up with or has known at some point in her 50 years here in this small valley. Truth be told, even if I did know as many people as she does, I likely wouldn’t go out of my way to say hello. Somehow she seems to never forget a name or a face, and will often re-introduce herself to someone she hasn’t seen in a few decades. She thrives off of making connections with people and acknowledging them. It’s really quite incredible, actually. Not at all the way I function. If I don’t have your contact in my phone and we haven’t seen each other in more than a couple years, chances are I’m just gonna keep on walking. Maybe you’ll get a head nod or a, “Hey! Good to see ya,” but that’s about as far as it’s going to get. But that’s a whole different issue altogether that I’m working through.

Sometimes the narrative about where you come from is more complicated. For me it has contributed to identity issues, feeling isolated, and questioning where, or if, I “fit”. I don’t know my biological father either, so that has sometimes added to the confusion and gaps in my own identity. Learning a bit about my heritage has helped me to mentally put some of those pieces together and not feel quite so fragmented. I’ve also had the blessing of being adopted by my step-dad when I was a kid, and he has taken me as his own son and truly shown what the spirit of adoption is all about. I better understand the depth of love that is described by being “adopted” by God because of the way my own adoptive dad has loved me. Over the years I have taken on many of his mannerisms and characteristics, often having people tell me, “I sure can tell that he’s your dad.” Maybe it’s just the matching bald heads, but something tells me it’s more than that.

What’s your origin story? Do you know both your parents and your family heritage? Did your family bounce around a lot so you had a difficult time putting down roots anywhere? Maybe your family history has been lost due to estrangement, slavery, or some other tragedy. For some of us, the narrative of our own origins is difficult to think about at all, let alone talk about it. Regardless of what your story is, where you came from, who your parents or grandparents or great-great-great grandparents were, you are here now. You are present in this life right now. You are loved, seen, and important right now, where you are, with all the brokenness and baggage that come from life on this planet. If you are reading this today, it means you are alive. You have the opportunity to live, to breath, to have joy and hope and laughter today. Your past doesn’t define you. Your origin story doesn’t define you. You, I, all of us who have accepted the offer to be adopted by God and call him Father, have an identity that nothing and no one can take away. We are given a new heritage, a new place where we fit, a new place to call home. God says, “I have called you by name, and you are mine.” I may not be a true L.A. native, but I have a new origin story. How about you?

Suns and Moons

August of 2017 here in Oregon was an absolute frenzy over the total solar eclipse. Vacation rental prices skyrocketed as everyone was taking full advantage of the excitement, with people traveling from all over the world to experience 9 minutes and 3 seconds of the sun being temporarily tucked behind Luna, the lonely and humble moon that smiles it’s old face toward the earth. Two nights ago, as we drove home I noticed the same moon, which had once blocked out the sun completely now appeared as nothing more than a sliver. Same sun, same moon, but different perspective. Interesting.

A couple years ago, I walked through the hell of deconstructing faith. I looked around at the church, I peered inside my own dark heart, and reflected on the motivations behind my life choices. It’s one thing to make a dogmatic profession of what you believe, but when I asked myself why I believe what I believe, that’s when some things started to boil to the surface. Like bringing out the impurities of gold, sometimes you have to turn up the heat, burn it all down, and discover what’s real, what’s true. In my desperation to live in authenticity, I proceeded to strip away the paint, the walls, and all the façade that I depended on to give my life a nice appearance but was lacking in substance. I had to tear it all down to the studs, question it all, and see what was left. It was like walking through the valley of the shadow; scary and threatening. Like a total solar eclipse, it was dark when my perspective was blocked and I couldn’t see the brilliance of the sun past the overshadowing silhouette of the gray.

Deconstructing faith has stolen the joy and life of many beautiful souls if it refuses to proceed beyond the eclipse. Getting stuck behind the dusty moon, we can forget that there is a radiant light of truth and faith and beauty outside of our current darkened state, but we have to be willing to seek it out and be open to receive it. Deconstruction can be a wonderful thing if and when it leads us to reconstruction. Rather than remaining in a state of disillusionment, kicking all the good and true things to the curb, and forgetting the faithfulness of God in your life, reconstruction pushes through to get out of the shadows and be rebuilt brick by brick. Deconstruction is the easy part. It’s the natural thing for our own selfish hearts, racked with fear and insecurity to doubt in the darkness what we’ve seen in the light. Reconstruction takes work, and guts, being willing to consider that which we cannot see and allow ourselves the humility to have faith in a God who is too big for us to fully understand.

You may be in a place of total eclipse, feeling like the light of your faith has gone completely dark. Or maybe there’s just a sliver of the moon appearing in your dark night of the soul. Either way, it’s just a matter of time before the fullness of the sun comes back to illuminate your world. Just don’t close your eyes. Keep your eyes wide open, looking up, seeking and asking. Deconstruction is not the end of your story or the final chapter of your faith journey. The moon, whether bright and full or completely absent from the night sky, is simply a matter of perspective, as it is only able to reflect the light of the sun from it’s current position above the stratosphere. Asking questions is not the thing that keeps us from the knowledge of God; it’s not asking the questions or being too afraid to accept the answers. Either way, know this: You are loved, right where you are, with all your doubts, questions, and fears, you are loved.

Make peace

We fight who we hate. We hate who we fear. We fear who we don’t understand. We don’t understand who we don’t know. We don’t know who we turn away from. And, often times we turn away from anyone or anything that is different than us. Those who look different, speak a different language, practice a different religion, live by a different worldview or set of moral standards. We are quick to label someone based on certain traits or practices that allow us to dehumanize them in our minds, and see them simply as a ______________ (fill in the blank). Perhaps you have been guilty of this like I am. I think we all live with some forms of implicit bias that shape our perspective of people and society. Are there specific groups of people that bring a negative mental picture or bad feelings just thinking about them? As much as I hate to admit it, and hate even more that it’s true, for me the answer is yes.

Where do these biases or negative feelings derive from? Are we born with them? Do we learn from our parents, teachers, friends, or systemic traditions? Does life shape our perspective through our own anecdotal experiences, through pleasure and pain teaching us to expect good from one or bad from another based on some arbitrary standard? I don’t feel qualified or confident to say exactly where these come from, as this has been debated for centuries by people much smarter than I. Or is it “much smarter than me“? (One of my daughters got her Masters degree in English. I’m sure she can tell me which is correct). Anyway, regardless of the cause of these implicit biases that live within the dark corners of our hearts and minds, there is a commonality in how they manifest in our lives. It’s the opposite of love. Not necessarily in outright hatred, spewing evil and slander toward someone or physically attacking (although these things do happen far too often). It’s a bit more subtle, subversive, and I would argue actually more sinister and self-destructive as well.

This is the root of war, the “anti-peace”. When we begin to view people as anything less than a heavenly inspired, divinely created being made in the image of God, we miss the miracle of our diverse humanity. Wow, that was a messy sentence. Maybe my daughter will correct that, too. The fact is, however, that we are all a reflection of the good attributes of God. Love, kindness, generosity, patience, virtue, acceptance, joy, justice…..and the list goes on and on. We find these characteristics of God in the people that he created in his image. So all those people that you or I turn away from are missed opportunities to experience the hidden traits of God that he has tucked away in the heart of every human being. Are they perfect? No, not by a long shot. Neither are you. I know I sure as hell am not even close! But that’s the beauty of God’s love for us. It’s not based on our perfection at all, and our love for each other shouldn’t be either.

Hacer la paz. Make peace. Each of us has the opportunity to make peace in our own lives. It won’t just happen naturally, but requires intentionality and effort. What you post on your social media has the power to make peace or make war. How you treat the grocery clerk, barista, and your neighbors will flood the world with love, joy, and peace, or can bring anger, bitterness, and hatred. Make peace wherever you go. Be kind. Extend grace and be patient. Honor the diversity of other cultures and beliefs. Don’t view people as a threat to your personal comfort or as a problem to solve, but see them as opportunities to learn from and develop a deeper understanding of God’s love for them and for you. Peace begins with one person at a time, choosing to be a peacemaker in a world at war. Let’s make peace.

Crooked Sticks

A couple months ago, in the dead of winter while we were just hunkering down waiting for the sun and warmth of Spring to come back, the snow started to fall. It was thick, wet, and heavy as it started to pile up on the streets bringing our normal, every day to a screeching halt. It was officially a snow day! Sledding, snowball fights, and hot chocolate replaced the usual classrooms, meetings, and emails for several days. It was fun at first, until it wasn’t. As the beauty of the white snow on the roads turns to a dirty, icy hazard, the magic of the snow day fades as we all just wait for the sun to come out and melt the frozen boundaries that have kept us from normal life. A particular difficulty with an accumulation of snow is the damage it does to the trees that just aren’t used to holding that much weight. One tree in our backyard lost nearly all it’s limbs under the strain, and thankfully just missed our house as several large branches came crashing down. Just one more checkmark on my list of reasons we should be living on a tropical island somewhere, but that’s a whole other issue.

As the sun poked itself out through cracks in the gray skies, the snow eventually disappeared enough that I could go out back and start the clean up. I’ve spent hours out there cutting limbs and still have a mess of twisted up branches that need to be separated and cut just so I can haul them away. It’s interesting looking at my piles of branches, and I notice this to be true in nature…..nothing is straight. Not one branch or limb is perfectly straight. Walking the trails just outside of town, I’m surrounded by literally thousands of examples of the warp of the natural world. Winding streams, jagged mountains, and crooked sticks are everywhere. Looking deeper, I notice that both myself and every other human being I come across fit into this same category. We are twisted. We are broken and jagged. We are crooked.

That doesn’t feel very good to admit. If I’m honest with myself and with you, I’ll admit that I don’t really want to view myself as crooked. Typically in my life, and perhaps you are the same, I try to show my best self to the world. I want people to see the good in me and be blind to the bad. I want people to think I’m a good guy, and to see honesty and integrity in me. Well, what do you do when the façade is exposed and the world gets a glimpse behind your mask and realizes you’re just another broken, crooked stick? Is that it? Is that the new identity you carry for the rest of your days? In a recent conversation with my wife, I implied that in some ways that the failures of my own past define what I can and should do in the future. Her response was both direct and profound. “That’s a lie,” she said plainly. And you know what, she was right. Martin Luther once said that God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines. The truth is this: We’re all a little bit crooked. In our own natural state, we are flawed and twisted up versions of what we were intended to be. And yet, God somehow chooses to use crooked sticks. And we, recognizing our own failures and twisted up nature, are pulled into humility when we see God use the crooked limbs of our life to draw perfectly straight lines of grace and unconditional love. He doesn’t love us because we decided to be perfect little Christians that don’t eff up anymore. While we were yet sinners, before we gave two pence about God at all, he gave himself on our behalf.

Remembering this, the simple and profound truth that it never was and never will be my own “straightness” that qualifies me to be either loved or used by God, this is what brings humility and gratefulness to my soul. It’s in this place that I acknowledge my own brokenness, my crooked and selfish heart, and begin to scratch the surface of understanding the love of God who runs toward the brokenhearted, embraces the mud-soaked son who returns home hoping to just be a servant, and welcomes him as a son. I don’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve fallen down or walked away. Don’t live in shame of your crookedness, but know that as you surrender it to God he can and will bring beauty from your ashes. He will begin to use the brokenness of your own story to draw straight lines to show you that, in his hands, you are perfect. You are redeemed. You aren’t broken after all, but it’s your very crookedness that demonstrates God’s unconditional love for you.

The Art of Welcome

My daughter once told me in regards to the church, “That which you love, you hold to account”. Therefore, it is in great and deep love for the church, that is, the people, the followers, the disciples, the broken and redeemed whose faith and trust is in Jesus that I write this today. Myself included, as I am convicted in my own heart that I have tried to fit the enormity of God’s love for the world into a small and convenient box of my own level of comfort. The church is us; we the people who have believed and accepted the forgiveness of Christ and are called to live upside down and backwards to everything we learned before. Where there was pride, we pray for humility. Where there was greed, we develop a heart and practice of generosity. We are called to be servants, to love God and neighbor, to forgive rather than seek revenge or fight for our own rights, and instead of sowing division and exclusivity we practice the beautiful and divine art of welcome.

“The Lord entrusts to the Church’s motherly love every person forced to leave their homeland in search of a better future …”

Easter is a day for us to celebrate resurrection; the incredible, miraculous event of Jesus rising. There is no resurrection with a death that precedes it, and this year we are reminded of that reality as the world mourns the passing of Pope Francis. With all the human flaws within the ecumenical church as a whole, there was something beautiful and simple in the life of this man. Beyond all the formal rites and rituals, the political power and wealth that distract from the message, Pope Francis was a Pope for the poor, for the oppressed, for the brokenhearted, and for the immigrant. In a message he gave in 2018 for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Francis said, “The Lord entrusts to the Church’s motherly love every person forced to leave their homeland in search of a better future….” This is echoed in the words of scripture that tell us time and time again to welcome the immigrant (foreigner, stranger, etc) and to care for them like a brother. “Every person forced to leave their homeland in search of a better future.” Immigration policies are in place for governments to manage all the logistics of that, but our job, as men and women whose greatest commands are to love God and love people, is to have a heart of welcome that manifests itself into action on their behalf.

“In this regard, I wish to reaffirm that ‘our shared response may be articulated by four verbs: to welcome, to protect, to promote, and to integrate.'”

Pope Francis went on to explain how this responsibility of entrustment should look. It’s not enough for us to simply stop hating on immigrants; to stop trash-talking, stereotyping, and dehumanizing them. Every aspect of faith requires action, and in this spirit Francis continued, “In this regard, I wish to reaffirm that ‘our shared response may be articulated by four verbs: to welcome, to protect, to promote, and to integrate.'” There is a biblical command for “Mishpat”, or justice, that we are to extend, specifically to the orphan, the widow, the poor, and the immigrant. It doesn’t stop there as we are to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly” at all times, but God’s heart of compassion and concern for these specific vulnerable groups is clear and it’s not something we can ignore.

With all the fear-based rhetoric coming from both sides of the political aisle, our role, if you are one who would consider yourself to be a believer and follower of Jesus, is simply this: to Love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Let’s not get caught up in the crossfire of hate-speech and division, but may we be ones who welcome, protect, promote, and integrate. This is the message of the gospel. It is not exclusive. It is not a respecter of race, nationality, gender, political party, or anything else that we tend to divide over. Immigration papers are not a prerequisite to the good news of God’s love applying to every living, breathing individual on this planet. In the spirit of Pope Francis, and even more in the spirit of Jesus who loved us and gave himself as a ransom for all, may we learn to paint masterpieces in the beautiful art of Welcome.