Identity

I am starting to figure out that some days I just wake up angsty and/or philosophical. I don’t know when or why this started, but it has been occurring a little more frequently lately than not. This morning my mind has been tracking down a path I am not too familiar with—the path of identity development.

For some reason the question of my mind this morning has been something along these lines: How did the high school version of myself become the person I am today? It sometimes seems the person I’ve become bares little resemblance to that particular version of myself. Which calls to question, was I ever that perceived version, or is it some mirage I cling to, to make myself mourn something that never really existed?

Before we go any further my friends, let me say this: this is not a call for attention like, “Hey look, I am going through crisis,” or “Oh, woe is me, I have lost my identity and the only way to gain it back is to move back to my hometown and reestablish everything about my former life.” What this is instead is trying to put to words what I think many of my friends and family are going through/have gone through.

I think there just comes a place and time where one day we wake up and discover we are a bit emotionally detached. I assume it is pretty universal. There are enough movies about it, and heck even concept albums and songs. Some people recognize what they are going through, some people can simply identify that something isn’t right, and they don’t know what to do about it. I think I lay somewhere between those two camps.

I can tell you right now that I wonder how the sweet, compassionate kid of 16 became a man who is nearly entirely impossible to please. Sure, outwardly not a lot has changed. I still speak kindly and train myself to be courteous to everyone. I force myself to remain empathetic, but I find it harder by the year to naturally be kind. But it is a struggle well worth fighting for. Kindness. Kindness. Kindness.

Kindness is lacking today. In a world that has grown accustomed to spouting off the first thing that comes to mind we have become judges and critics that look for the right to freely express themselves. Now, for those of you raising the alarm in fear that I am going to denounce that freedom of expression is important, hold your pretty hats. We do need these outlets of expression, but my observation about that is this: freedom of expression has become less about self-discovery and expression, and more about permission to rail and critique anything that we aren’t pleased with.

Think about advertising lately. There have been a couple that have really bothered me lately. The reason? The premise of the entire campaign was product shaming. I think particularly about the one that bashes iPads and another one that does the same with some luxury car. Now if you notice, I didn’t mention the products…because I can’t recall what they are. I namely recall that they were bashing Apple and a competitor. I can’t tell you a single positive thing about the product because I can’t even tell you the name of it.

Those types of advertising feed into the way I approach my life. When people ask how I am, more often than not I express some displeasure in something. I don’t focus on how great it was to work from Atlanta for part of a week; I focus on getting stuck in the Snowpocalypse. I don’t tell someone about an artistic pursuit I am currently undertaking; I tell them about a relational woe that I am going through. And folks…that’s just not who I remember 16-year-old James being.

I remember that dude being insecure, but to overcome that he tried too hard to do things that would impress people instead of focusing on the negative things around him. When things weren’t going well he put forth a little effort to make them better instead of finding ways to explain away deficiency.

All of that said, what I am missing is the segue. What took place to change me? I often think about character transformation as evolution. Much like successful species, those who successfully acclimate to today’s culture are those that evolve; they change with each new presentation of society’s standards.

But this morning, I wondered if that is an inadequate metaphor or description. Maybe what I have gone through is a series of little deaths and rebirths. That would account for the distance between myself now and a kid who upon finding out he inadvertently hurt Leslie Bizzell’s feelings went out of his way to let her know he never intended for that to happen, a kid who changed seats on the bus so he could have that moment with her.

The problem, again, is not who I have become. Honestly, there are facets of myself I like way more than that younger version of myself. But there are parts that I hang onto, and I wonder if I should. In the process of becoming the 35-year-old version of myself things obviously had to change. That is the nature of the beast. But here comes the turn.

What I find myself doing today is mourning a version of myself that I don’t know exists outside nostalgia. It reminds me of Zach Braff’s Garden State. He says something along this line: Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place. And I think the same idea rolls over to identity. I wonder if development of character can be seen along the same lines. Maybe the things that we miss about ourselves are fiction…and that fiction keeps us from being able to accept who we are. Maybe critiquing the fire out of ourselves is our way of maintaining a beautiful existence that never actually played itself out. Maybe we just don’t know how to accept ourselves as we are, and these little games we play remind of us when we were a good person, because we don’t think we are anymore.

I don’t really have the answers, but I know this: I like parts of who I am today, and I don’t like parts of who I am. I also know this: there are things I miss about my remembered self, and parts I would never want to live through again. But as Albus Dumbledore once said: It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.

So, in other words…maybe I should get out of my head and onto living my life.

Uncle Leslie

Words seem woefully inadequate to describe a man who lived his life in the actions of love. How do you tell with your lips what you have felt in an embrace, a smile, a helping hand or a friendly word? But in moments like this, we rely on words to somehow capture what we experience in our relationships. So, here are a few of my words about Leslie Taylor.

On Christmas Eve I called Uncle Leslie and asked him if he wanted to grab coffee with me. He said he didn’t drink “that stuff,” but I should stop by and see him. I drove into town, grabbed my coffee, came back and sat down with him. It took me a while to pick up that he was getting ready for his kids and grandkids to come by for Christmas festivities. But Les was always like that; he was always welcoming. Whoever you were, you were certainly not an inconvenience. We talked for a while, but more than the words I remember looking into and at his face. I don’t know why. That is not a normal thing for me. I don’t typically notice the contours and lines of people’s faces, but as we talked, I noticed things I hadn’t really seen before.

A day or two later I went to see my cousin Emily, to get her to cut my hair. One of the first things she said to me was, “Wow! You are starting to look a lot like the Taylor men.” I shared with her my experience of looking at Les’ face. When I looked in his face I saw things I had forgotten, I saw people who have been gone for a while, namely my grandfather. I think losing someone like your grandfather at a youngish age you don’t take notice of things like what he looked like. He simply was. I remember him being tall. I remember that he kissed me every time he saw me. I remember that he farmed and ran a gas station/automotive shop, but I could not remember something as simple as what his face looked like. I have these vague pictures of what I seem to recall him looking like, but Christmas Eve with Les I remembered. I saw his face like I haven’t been able to do in quite some time, it was right there in those lines on Les’ face.

I was reading yesterday and came across something I have read many times over, but never jumped out at me like it did in that sitting. I found it appropriate to share this morning. Psalm 17:15 says:

As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness;

I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake.

I think when Uncle Les awoke to the face of God there were these vague recollections of something. He knew he recognized something familiar, but as Paul so cleverly penned, until that moment he had only seen through a glass rather dimly, but now he sees face-to-face. If I were to venture a guess that recognition gave way to understanding of a love that until now he could never fully comprehend; that which still holds deep mystery for you and me, is now his ever-living reality. The veil has been lifted, the glass has been removed and Uncle Leslie has seen the One who has whispered his name his whole life.

As I thought about Uncle Les and how I remember him several thoughts came to mind, but on Wednesday night as I spent time with family four characteristics in particular seemed best to share today. First, is he was so welcoming, and Sandy amidst everything she is going through continued that. She invited us into her home. She welcomed people in the midst of the chaos of everything going on around her just as Leslie did.

And then I thought about his determination as I looked in Tina’s face. Leslie accomplished whatever he set about doing. Tina is the same way. She is a fighter and will make a way even where there is no way just like her father did. There is not one thing that will slow her down when she determines what needs to be done.

And then I thought about how Leslie approached and viewed people. As I stood in the kitchen with Alan and heard about the way he engaged workers that he supervised I saw Uncle Les. Like Les, Alan accepts people as they are, not as they should be or even the way he would like them to be. He simply accepts you as you are in this moment.

And finally I thought about a trait that is often overlooked in today’s culture…kindness. Uncle Les has always been exceedingly kind. And whenever you see Mark with Parker and Bradyn you see that same kind look in his eyes that you saw in his father’s. I always remembered Mark being a sweet and sensitive kid, and seeing that turn into his father’s kindness is such an amazing legacy.

As I wrap up my part of the morning, I want to share a Scripture that immediately came to mind when I heard I would get to share. The Psalms have become a refuge for me in the past few years and this Psalm particularly always catches my attention because of a sentiment that we don’t think about often. Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.” We often talk about God comforting us in our grief. I think we sometimes limit God to that action in regards to the one’s who are left behind, but here in this Psalm we are reminded that God continues to love us through the transition of our passing. He abides with us as the end of our earthly days becomes the first of our heavenly ones, because even in death we are precious to Him.

Though I can’t begin to imagine what it looks like, or how it happens, I believe there exists this moment between God and His saints of dim recognition becoming clear reality. The God that Leslie sought all of His life cares enough to take notice of His passing and seeks him in return, or as Eugene Peterson translated this same Scripture:

When they arrive at the gates of death,
    God welcomes those who love him.

And He has and that gives me great peace.

Let us pray:

Harry Potter and Advent

So, I think there is a character more important symbolically than Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore or Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. So, you may be wracking your brain with thoughts of Cedric, Lupin, Sirius Black, Dobby, Hagrid or many other characters. To which I would say, “Good job…your HP knowledge is pretty awesome.” I think those of you who know me best would probably assume it has to be Neville Longbottom. But, though Neville is my favorite character in all of the series, I am actually referring to Fawkes. Fawkes is central to the relationship of Dumbledore and Voldemort, Dumbledore and Harry and ultimately Voldemort and Harry. How so? Most of you know, but Dumbledore owned Fawkes, who gave two feathers for wands, one being owned by Voldemort, the other by Harry. Ollivander says this in the very first book when Harry buys his wand. As a side note Ollivander is probably the creepiest character in the entire series. Others may be more slimy or inconsistent or evil, but none as creepy; well maybe Barty Crouch, Jr. could give him a run for his money.

Neville? Is that you buddy?

But here’s the deal with Fawkes being the symbol of the series (in my eyes) – Harry Potter is ultimately not about magic…it’s about life and death. I think The Deathly Hallows makes that clear. So the opposite of Fawkes would be not just Nagini, but all the horcruxes. When you juxtapose Fawkes and horcruxes here is what I think Harry Potter is all about – death, true life and hope in true resurrection versus fighting to maintain every bit of life you can in this life. That sounds like more of an Easter message, but here is how I see it in terms of Advent.

Fawkes is a phoenix. Phoenixes are known for several things, chief among them, they burst into flames and are reborn amongst the ashes. Again, great Easter message James, but we’re talking Advent and you said don’t crucify baby Jesus the other day on Facebook. True, but like Fawkes, Jesus’ entry into the world was the end of something and the beginning of something new. Depending on your understanding of two things—God in the Garden and Melchizedek—Jesus’ birth was the first time God took on flesh. It was the first time that Christians would say God incarnated in the world. Before this God came in Spirit or in voice or sent heavenly beings to speak in His stead.

For Jesus then, this was a rebirth. Gone were the days of being entirely God. Woah, James. Watch your heresy there bud. I know, it toes a thin line, but what I mean and am trying to communicate is that Jesus experienced being human for the first time…not that He become less than God. Jesus experienced the limitations of flesh (think His temptations in the desert or even His death on the cross), Jesus felt all sorts of crazy irrational emotions (think the Scripture that said Jesus experienced all things common to man). In other words, Jesus’ experience was completely new, because he had this thing we call flesh added to what He was in spirit. Gone up in flames were the days of divinity alone. Again…not trying to be heretical or limit the power of Jesus. Just communicating that Jesus now could fully empathize with humanity because He experienced life from their vantage, okay? Good. Now please don’t report me to the council that decides I could be burned at the stake for heresy after you finish this. Still maintain as the Church has for a long time – fully God, fully man.

Many people may not realize this, chief amongst them Protestants and Evangelicals, but Advent starts the calendar year. So, this year, the Church calendar started December 1. That is opposed to January 1 or approximately August 15, or July 1 or April 16 or many of the other calendar years that we mark as the start of some kind of calendar. What we celebrate in the Advent is the start of new things. To carry on the symbol, the phoenix burst into flames on November 30, and was reborn in the wee hours of the morning December 1. Advent is celebration of new life, not from the perspective of resurrection, which is of ultimate importance to our faith, but from incarnation.

As I watched the first 5 HP movies the last few days (and would have finished 6-8 had I not leant them to a friend) I started noting the importance of Fawkes. I think Fawkes subconsciously leads the way for Harry to give up his life at the end of the book. I find it akin to one of those moments that we observe someone who doesn’t know we are watching them. For instance one time when I saw my neighbor Chandler playing in the back yard with his kids. He was just doing his thing, not thinking anything about who was watching. He was just loving on his kids, and it taught me a little bit about how God cares for us…His kids. Or like the time in high school where Mr. Futrell caught me telling a lie. He didn’t get up in my face at the time. He let it slide. Then at a teachable moment he confronted me, not with accusation, but with the truth of, “When I hear you lie, how I can trust you are telling me the truth later.” That was more powerful than yelling, “You liar” in the moment. And those observations were a bit more subconscious than they were lessons taught in a classroom. They weren’t important in the moment, but after something else triggered the lesson later in life.

Somehow my little Thanksgiving marathon of Harry Potter stirred my heart for the upcoming Advent season. It helped me see that opposed to fighting to make every moment matter in this life, and worrying that it won’t, I can instead fully live into the moment I am in now. That doesn’t mean every moment has to be a crazy adventure like climbing Mt. Everest, it just means that having coffee with a friend is the moment it should be. I’m not wasting my life with that cuppa joe…that is my life. It helps me to remember that every moment is new birth. At the end of my days I want to be in loving reminiscence or even still seeking new adventures as opposed to regretting what I missed. Fawkes shows me a bit about incarnation, and sure, a lot more about resurrection. But as we celebrate the incarnation, remember that December 1 your life began anew. You are already emerging out of the flames into new experience and new life. And as Bob Goff writes over and over…live that new life whimsically.

Thoughts on Interior Dialogue

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. - Mark Twain

 

 

 

 

 

I am in the process of introducing a young fellow to meditating. I am also learning more about meditation myself and in a book I am reading, Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird, this quote opens a chapter. I was showing this guy the book and that was the first thing he read. He immediately looks at me and says, “I have no idea what’s going on.” I, without the context of this being a Mark Twain quote, try to explain about what Laird calls inner videos. Laird describes a process most of us live through on the daily where we play a scenario back through our head of what happened. Then we add our commentary on things…then we add the motivation of the other person…then we add our response…then we add and we add and we add until there is this entire imaginary commentary on an event that maybe occurred over the course of three minutes, but we just mulled over for about 73 hours.

Fast forward to lunch with a buddy this week. We are talking about some things I am currently dealing with, and no…I’m not going to share them. These are some inner-James issues that reflect the videos I just talked about. So, no…no one REALLY hurt me, no one intentionally was jerky, but because I allowed some of these inner videos to play in my head, I allowed this space of pain…so, no need to drag someone’s name through the mud here. But…as I was saying, we were talking about some of my struggles and he related back to a similar situation and said something I found quite profound: “Sometimes I lose track of which conversations I really had with (said person) and which ones I had in my head.” That is a pretty great discovery. We sometimes get so caught up in our mind that we forget and confuse reality from the fiction we have written.



I was surprised by how positive being your own hero is on the web.

And the problems grow from there. For instance, how many times have we sat by a phone waiting for someone to call and apologize for an offense that person never knew they committed? Think about it. How many times have you avoided a person and they simply asked where you have been, because they were so preoccupied with, you know, living their life that they never noticed you were intentionally avoiding them. The problem is explained well by my pastor Jon who frequently reminds people, “Everyone is the hero of their own story,” or as your mom or dad probably told you more than once: “You are not the center of the universe.”

But truth be told, as much as we acknowledge that with our mindgrapes, we don’t let the truth submerge to the heart. And so our emotions are screaming, “Why haven’t they noticed?” whenever someone has wronged us. It is much easier for someone to admit their wrongdoing when they know they have done something wrong. That may be the most obvious statement in the world, yet we live in such a way that we expect people to read our minds. We expect people to figure out what is wrong.

It reminds me of a typical fight we see played out on movie or tv screens:

Husband: Is something wrong?

Wife: No.
Husband: Are you sure? You seem upset.
Wife: You’re quite observant…NOW!
Husband: What did I do wrong?
Wife: Well if I have to tell you then you really don’t deserve to know.
Husband: Was it the trash? Did I forget a kid at a school? Really I don’t know.
Wife: Well I’m not telling you. Figure it out.

This isn’t a diatribe against women…really there are plenty of irrational people no matter their gender (and since this is 2013…their non-gender?). But it is quite telling of how many of us live our lives. In this scenario the wife has built up this entire story of how her husband has wronged her. It may have started as something as simple as the husband saying he would pick up something from the store and he forgot. It may be that he forgot an anniversary. But whatever the starting point, what has happened to this woman is the downward spiral of inner dialogues that the husband was never privy to. He doesn’t know what he did, he doesn’t know the conversations that have taken place for hours upon hours inside his wife’s mind…but she expects him to. (And just to reiterate…plenty of crazies across all genders!)

And so that brings us to the turn. What is to be learned from this? There is no reality in the inner dialogues that we have. Nothing is solved. They actually make things worse…but we continue to have them. These conversations are pure fiction in a biographical world. I have recently made this critique of myself: I have just enough understanding of psychology and counseling to be helpful in a pinch, but not enough to really help myself in the day-to-day. I know when I am being irrational. But at times I can’t stop myself going down that road. I want to, but I just get overwhelmed. I feel like my irrational thoughts are a Mac Truck running down the highway of my soul. It seems like to stop them would wreck me. And what that means is…I’m scared to stop them. The truth is…they don’t hold that kind of power. I just allow them to.

We have within us, Christians or not, the power to prevent and stop inner dialogues or videos. Some of it is actually quite simple. For example, “I am really quite miffed at so and so. Instead of lingering on it I could work out, hang out with a friend, cook dinner, go out to dinner, watch a movie, read a book, mow the lawn, rake the leaves, shovel the snow, paint my toe nails, paint my dog’s toe nails, stalk the cat, stare at my gold fish. I really have a lot of options here.” As a Christian we have a lot more options too. We just have to learn that the fictions we write about our actual life are not an open reality for others to access. We cannot expect and demand for other people to understand all the chaos going on inside us.

So…let’s try to stop that Mac truck. Let’s never let it build up momentum. Let’s actually live our lives in such a way that the videos don’t taint reality. There is not a single one of us who can answer for conversations they never knew they had…so why should we demand it of them.

Thoughts on "I'm just not myself"

Look at that handsome devil Joe Purdy.

One of my favorite singers is Joe Purdy. I think I wrote about him when I was trying to explain “melancholy joy.” Listening to Joe is akin to an emotional journey. There is this dissonance between the music and the lyric. The music for the most part is hopeful; it is happy. The highs of the mandolin and even the piano create a place where your heart is contented and even joyful. But the lyrics…well, I’ll let me Aunt G explain the lyrics: “James this is depressing.”

So, that is kind of my genre of music. I like songs where the music and the lyrics are perfectly contradictory…which actually describes one of Joe’s shows that I went to in L.A. Joe had recently had a car company pick up his song, “Can’t Get it Right Today” for one of their commercials. This couple I know heard I was going to see him and asked to tag along. So, I of course agreed, excited to have someone go to the show with me, and we were all excited to hang together.

The show started late. This couple got tired, I was a little tired, but I was excited. The show was at The Roxy. Those of you familiar know that means there are no seats…it’s all standing. So, you factor in getting there an hour early, standing through an opening act, standing through intermission. It just made for a long night. Joe finally played the song this couple came to hear…but he completely changed it. Instead of the melancholy joy I describe the band turns it into a full on dirge. The couple looks at me, a bit disheartened and asks, “Can we leave? If you think he’ll play a happier version of the song we can stay. But we’re tired. We have church in the morning and really want to leave.”

This did not make me a happy camper. I paid good money for the tickets. I drove into Hollywood (not my favorite thing) and I was excited to see Joe, but these two were obviously miserable…so I left. But that song is resonating with me this morning.

I was having a conversation this morning where I caught myself about to say “I’m just not myself today,” but I stopped. For some reason I had one of those “apothecaries” (epiphanies actually, but that is a private joke with someone, I just can’t remember who, so whoever that is…I love you!). The epiphany was this: even when I’m not feeling well, even when I feel like ripping someone’s head off…that is still me. No matter what the mood, it comes from a place within me, and as such I need to own it.

What it made me realize was what we mean by “I’m just not myself today,” is actually, “I’m going to be a jerk to you right now, but you have to deal with it, because I don’t feel like making the effort, heck, I don’t even think I CAN make the effort to be congenial in this situation.” Harsh. I realize this, but the person I am slapping around most right now is me. The truth is “I’m just not myself” is an excuse to behave the way we want to behave. It allows us to do and say things that would be unacceptable in any other situation.

 

It reminds me of an episode of The New Girl when Nick keeps screaming, “Dead dad pass.” He was using the grief of his recently deceased father (which is a totally legitimate process, and are totally legitimate emotions) to get away with behavior he knew was unbecoming. It is actually a great picture to explain the phenomenon of, “I’m just not myself,” and I think that is what the writers were going for when they wrote that story line.

The truth of the matter is, when we feel out of sorts there are all sorts of legitimate things going on. Some people have chronic pain. Some people have seasonal depression. Some people have more on their plate than they should. Some people are working 70-80 hours a week to keep food on the table and being chastised for not being a better parent/friend/child. Every single one of these are legitimate problems that have the ability to steal our identity from us…because that is what we are saying. “I am working two jobs right now, so those jobs have stolen my identity” is what we communicate when we say, “I’m not myself because work is just too much right now.” And sure, what we are actually doing is just grabbing a common accessible phrase that communicates round about what is going on, but the problem is we believe it.

Why is it a problem to believe it? It causes us to be like the person in James 1 (the Bible, not my autobiography). We are people blown and tossed by the wind of our situations. When we believe that grief allows us to act irrationally and without accountability, we let it take over. Are you going to be irrational when you grieve? Absolutely. But…we, especially those of us who call ourselves Christians, should not allow ourselves to be overtaken by any situation.

And I will be the first to say this is a tricky balance. Many of us grew up in situations where we were taught, “Good Christians have to smile and be happy through every situation.” We were taught, “Someone died…let’s celebrate; you lost your job…let’s celebrate; you miscarried your baby…it was the Lord’s will, put on the big girl panties and move on.” And what has happened to a lot of us is this jaded response that rejects that form of Christianity and moves toward a place that says, “Surrender yourself to every ounce of that pain. Let yourself feel every emotion of it,” but we stop there. We don’t say, “Let yourself feel every ounce of that pain, and bring it to Jesus because He cares, and He will actively demonstrate His love for you in that place.” It’s like a marriage…it takes a long time to figure it all out, but you work toward that.

And so I end with this: I am reading Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird. He talks a lot about emotions and feeling things. The big message in this book on meditation is that we come to a place where we acknowledge what we feel, but are not overcome. Grief is a reality, pain is a reality, but they do not dictate the center of who we are…they are simply a part of who we are. We meditate, we reflect and we acknowledge what is going on, but we do not give ourselves over to the internal videos that we play and build and direct. We instead look past these things toward what I would call God. We don’t ignore pain…we look through pain to see God. This isn’t the Christianity that ignores the problems we face…it’s the faith that says we are greater than what we face, but what we face is indeed very real. And that is something I can get behind. Something that says there are things in this life that are great; there are things in this life that are small, and we don’t have to ignore either. Instead we learn to find the One who helps us put these things in their proper perspective so that we do and say the things that we know we should, because they are a reflection of the true self that emerges through our trials.

Thoughts on Memory and Nostalgia

So, I recently had a little flashback of sorts. I don’t know how or where I came across it, but somewhere I heard this little piano riff of seven simple notes. All it took was those notes, not even a full chord, and I saw her: Alice Gonzalez—the most beautiful girl in the world. I stopped. I couldn’t believe that even now, 20 years later, I could recall her face just by hearing a song.

It’s strange the things that cause us to stop and remember things long past. It’s also strange the people and places that we remember. Alice Gonzalez is not an important person in my life. She never has been. She was a passing crush between my freshman and sophomore years of high school; she lived in a city over 3 hours away. I danced with her once or twice at FFA Leadership Camp and saw her elected as the State of Texas FFA First Vice President. Yet, even with so few interactions, Alice will always be that beautiful girl every time I hear…and this is embarrassing…Mariah Carey’s “Hero.”

A quick side note, where did I hear this song? Why is anyone still playing “Hero” in their rotation? Was it 90s day? Was the person listening to greatest hits of pop divas? I really have no idea, but it gave me pause. I remember the silliest details about certain things, but there are important, formative moments I can’t recall. There are moments that were pivotal in my understanding, faith, family and learning to love that are gone, but a fleeting crush can still come back after twenty years.

I know, I’m not a parent, but this makes me think of having kids. Saturday night I got into the Bama-LSU game for free. I sat between the parents of Terrence Magee and Vadal Alexander. Yes, Bama fans, my free tickets were in the LSU section, but they were free and I was on the row 16 for most of the game and row 13 for the rest. Before I invited Magee’s dad to sit next to me, because his row was crowded and there was literally three open seats next to me, I was sitting next to this young couple and their, I would guess, three year old. And the little guy did great in the hour before the game, but when it came time for kickoff two things happened. One, everyone in the stadium knows…it started raining. The second was little guy wanted daddy to hold him.

 

Maybe if Les had some grass to eat, the second half would have went better.

We smiled and instead of saying, “You should cherish this. The age is soon coming where he won’t want this,” I smiled and said a typical man thing: “That’s how it always happens, isn’t it?” I doubt dad nor son will ever remember that moment where they held onto one another for the opening quarter-and-a-half, but there may be some innocuous moment that one of them does like when the band played Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and that crazy LSU frat daddy pulled out his hidden Jack Daniels, faced the parents and drained it. It’s just one of those things we don’t dictate.

So, we’re about halfway through today's post and I find myself wondering, “Where does this turn; what direction is this going?” And I think this is where we’re headed today folks: memory and nostalgia are good places to visit, but terrible places to live.

Let’s start with the first part of that thought: memory and nostalgia are good places to visit. I actually believe that. If you come around the Love household on any given holiday there are going to be stories about Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles and even relatives we have never met. For instance, I never knew Aunt Molly, but I can tell you how she used to eat onion and mustard sandwiches, which made her belch really loudly. I myself tell stories like the time I took my friend Joel to meet my Uncle Dick in the hospital and warned him, “You can only believe about ten percent of what he says,” to which Joel responded, “How do I know what ten percent,” and I quipped back, “I’ll tell you after.” These stories are good. We need to be rooted in the past. We need to come from somewhere…it normalizes us, it stabilizes us, and in certain cases it keeps us together. Growing up in Florence, Texas, there were not a lot of people like me. I’m just quite different than most of my peers, but our common stories keep me rooted. Because of the things we went through there is this deep well that allows us simply to be with one another and feel okay.

Look how young Portman was in Beautiful Girls!

But the second part is this : Memory and nostalgia are terrible places to live. There are numerous film examples of this: Lauren Holly and Matt Dillon in Beautiful Girls, the mom from Requiem for a Dream; William H Macy in Magnolia. Living in memories, basing your emotional satisfaction on nostalgia leaves you a shell of a person. Memory and nostalgia are perfected thoughts on imperfect events. For instance when Alice was elected First Vice President she was running against Glen Rosenbusch, my FFA teacher’s nephew. It was really kind of awkward supporting Alice while my peers and teachers looked at me like I had betrayed them. Yet, what I remember is Alice giving the best speech in the world while looking impeccable. In other words my memory did not reflect reality…it reflected a projected perfect image that didn’t exist…and that is why memory can be good in the healing process, but a hindrance when reflecting on how perfect your life was then, yet how terrible it is now.

I end with this: Alice Gonzalez was, and probably still is, a beautiful woman. But the truth of the matter is, in my reality she is fiction. Sure, she really exists, she is out there now living life, probably a mom, maybe a lawyer or a teacher…she is very much real. But, in my reality, she is fiction. She is a story that my mind created based on events that didn’t happen the way I remember them. And that’s okay when kept in the proper perspective. We need those moments; we need to be able to walk down memory lane, but the truth is, after that stroll we need to heed Mason Jennings, and “Be here now…no other place to be.” These moments, some of which seem dreadful, will be those future memories if we allow ourselves to fully live into them and not grasp for our fictional pasts.

Thoughts on Orthodoxy

So, as has been a frequent occurrence of late, I was thinking about John MacArthur. And two things pretty foreign to my normal disposition began to occur. First, I want to hug Mark Driscoll and buy him a beer, and second, I kind of, maybe, a little bit, possibly, in the slightest regard, but probably not actually, understand where MacArthur is coming from.* So, let’s first turn our attention to Mr. Driscoll.

 

No, Driscoll's not punching MacArthur...that's Piper.

So, apparently Marky Mark and his fresh bunch showed up at the Strangefire Conference. Rumor had it he was kicked out. That made me reconsider my thoughts on Driscoll for a brief moment. So, if there is a "-10 to +10" chart of friendship, I’m now a full point closer to bff-hood with Markus! But, as often happens, truth was exaggerated; Driscoll wasn’t really kicked out. He was asked and then physically forced by security not to hand out free copies of his book to attendees, because it wasn’t on the “approved book list.” Apparently John thinks 1984 and Animal Farm should be more strictly adhered to than is current practice.

 

I kept reading and found that Driscoll went so far as to invite MacArthur to his conference. He offered to pay for travel, cover his honorarium, the whole shebang. And on top of that he said (in the James Love translation), “I understand you think I’m an idiot, and probably feel like this is some sort of trap, so I invited Wayne Grudem to have the conversation with you instead of me, because you say you respect him.” All-in-all a generous proposal by Driscoll, so if I happen to run into him somehow in the month of November I shall high five him, offer a Vanillaphant to him and maybe part as partial bros, or to borrow a term from the Catholics, separated brethren.

 

Now that my little love fest for Driscoll is solidified in writing, let me talk about the one thing that I think I get about JM. To do that I need to introduce (maybe reintroduce, or just define what I mean to some of you) a couple of terms that inform this discussion: orthodoxy and heterodoxy.

 

To use a food metaphor – orthodoxy is like butter, gravy or jelly on a biscuit. It is how things are supposed to be. It is accepted as the standard or norm. It is, in theological terms, the approved version of how we believe things to be. Heterodoxy is kind of like the color gray on the wheel. It, in varying shades and luminosity, separates black from white. It has varying degrees of acceptability and accuracy, but as a general rule, it’s not out-and-out wrong. To go back to food, it’s like seeing someone but nutella, chocolate spread or vegemite on a biscuit. Well, maybe not vegemite. That might cross the line into heresy…unless you come from the land down under…then I’d cut you some grace.

 

So, thinking about heterodoxy today made me feel a little bit like I understood JM. Do I still think the dude is incorrect, harsh and kind of a jerk? Most certainly, but I can understand his hesitation. I can understand if this thought crossed his mind at some point: “When I look at them (Charismatics, Pentecostals and Catholics) I don’t see my faith. I’m searching through their beliefs and I just don’t see anything that looks like what I have been taught.”

 

I get that. The first day or so in the Abbey of Gethsemani I thought some similar thoughts. I thought, “I just don’t recognize this. Therefore I don’t understand how it fits into my understanding of God and the Church.” But here is what separates myself from JM…I recognize that heterodoxy is reality. I don’t jump and say “That’s Orthodox. That’s blasphemy.” In other words, I recognize gray. It reminds me of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. That chapter is great on love, but also reminds us that now we see through a glass rather dimly. It’s kind of like those of you, who like myself, wear glasses. Suppose you are at work and you take your glasses off and someone chooses that moment to come into your office. You have roughly a good idea of whose blurry outline that is. If they speak, your auditory memory confirms it, but you see no details. And here is the point where I get in trouble with a lot of people…so of course, I am going to set it apart as its own paragraph to emphasize it, and knock off Rob Bell a bit:

 

When we see and think about God…we see the blur, we don’t see the details.

 

Part of our life’s work is working toward that blur, becoming more in focus through relationship with Jesus and others. I caught myself typing “others in the Church,” but then deleted it as there is a modicum (yes…I am going to cash in on that word today folks) of understanding and revelation of God found in all people and all things. My relationships with atheists guide my understanding of God. My interactions with Hindus inform the way I see God. Now, those within the Church may provide more reliable information, but any religious tradition that becomes so internal that they exclude general revelation is already at risk of some serious craziness.

 

I have probably said this before, but will say it again. I am comfortable understanding that when I stand before God at the end of my days I may say something like, “God. I really didn’t understand that,” or “Wow, I can’t believe I missed that and got it totally wrong.” The reason I’m comfortable is I can say with complete sincerity, “But I tried. I devoted my life to seeking after the truth. And I think that pleases you more than being right.”

 

And that is my thought of the day folks. To steal a phrase, we need to be “lifelong learners.” We need to be humble enough to allow firmly entrenched beliefs to be challenged. Because sometimes those firmly entrenched beliefs are actually shaky pillars that are more about covering some fear or inadequacy than building a firm foundation.

 

I end with this illustration: My friend Allen Corben is a cool dude. We share a common faith, and I believe a common seminary degree. However, he and I do not line up a lot theologically. Allen is way more open and liberal than I will ever be. But the deal is, at the end of the day he and I can go sit down and break bread with one another because we allow room for the gray. He understands my conservative upbringing in Texas influenced me more than four years in SoCal. He also understands that the issues we are divided on are things fine under heterodoxy. They aren’t the essential matters…and there are essential matters. But if there ever came a time where Allen needed to be corrected because he wandered outside the line of even heterodoxy into heresy, or vice versa, the way we would handle the situation is more like Driscoll than MacArthur. We would invite conversation and not say, “You’re a bunch of idiots and going to hell.” The reason why? We’re actually about our brother and his salvation, and not being right.

 

* Probably, not actually, but I just kind of want, a modicum of understanding and an excuse to use the word modicum appropriately in my blog. Modicum. Also, Marky Mark, consider that your invitation for a free beer if you travel to Alabama to share it with me. Valid only through the month of November unless you do something else amazing soon.