Everyone knows an
author is the person or being who writes the book.
A narrator tells the story.
An author exerts considerable control in a story unless…
Unless her creations rebel. Or his.
If that happens all heck can break loose. And by heck I mean hell and by hell I mean it. Burning fire and all.
Narrator is cush. Cush as in cushion. Friendly. Not friendly, third, second, first person. Narrator doesn’t care about perspective. Narrator just says real quiet-like, let’s move this along.
I say all this about shoes and burgers because I wish she had a Clarence.
Don’t get me wrong. The girl ain’t no George Bailey. She is more of a pain in the badunkadunk, but that is the point.
Now, from a safe-ish distance I watch her chew people up and spit them out and I can’t help thinking of the pre-k teacher I never met in person who told me that Honey Bunch seemed to be focused mostly on the snacks, less on playing well with others and eye contact.
Sounds like Honey B.
Clarence, where are you for a girl like Honey? What would you tell her about the missed opportunities? Broken relationships? Bite marks on the hands that fed her?
George Bailey needed to see how important his life was to others. Honey needs to see that all the friends, family and kind strangers she has kicked to the curb were the angels.
Poor Clarence. If Honey’s favorite word for “mom” is b!+ch, what’s she gonna call you?
Today I saw her trash a kind woman who was the victim of abuse.
And I was ashamed. Ashamed, angry distraught.
I thought, honey, I know a piece of you is still that scared angry little girl, lost in your own skin.
But there ain’t no excuse whatsoever for that kinda cruel.
Put your big ol’ pants on
Woman up
And face the cold hard fact
Of you.
Being cool.
It was the first illusion I left behind 14 years ago when I became a foster parent. There is no way to be cool when a small irate child is freaking out in your direction.
Now that she is older my adopted daughter’s preferred term for women is b!t?h. When she was mad at me as a child it was bad mommy.
No way to look cool when a small red-faced human is screaming that atcha.
But the truth is: cool is an illusion. Sure you can look great in skinny jeans. Sure you can own a hot tub. Sure you can buy a car, house, watch that defines you.
But make no mistake. Cool is an illusion.
There are no cool ICU patients. No cool nursing home residents. No cool corpses.
We humans are frail, helpless and bound to our mortal ends.
Cool is an illusion.
So if you love cool, if you crave cool, remember this:
There was a guy once who was cool. He was that Guy, the one who said–
Matthew 5:5-7 (NIV)
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. [6] Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. [7] Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Nothing cooler than Jesus.
Because let’s face it. It is easy to say,
greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friend
Easy to say it. But if you can do it? If you did do it? If you did it for me?
Freakin’ cool.
Because it cost Him everything
And He didn’t even blink
So. Being an army brat; homesickness was a big issue. Nothing in the routine ordering of life’s calendar evokes greater nostalgia, more intense pathos than the hoopla of American Christmas.
It can make us feel homesick.
But none of it is real. All the flashy lights, saccharine music, bubbly party dresses in the world cannot begin to fill the void of the solitary manger.
We need that baby.
We need Him because He is hope. He is the inexplicable star in an inky dark sky. He is our Ransom.
And all we do to “celebrate Christmas” can make us feel that much more shipwrecked if we don’t cut through all the noise and plastic.
And push toward the quiet winter manger. What God in His right mind puts His Son in the arms of a girl in the smelly dark of a stable?
Jesus was born homeless
Because He is our home
And we are sick without him
I truly believe Christmas is the hardest season of the year. It is a characteristic of humans–our ability to make the most joyful event in human history into a frenetic, stressful, lonely race for the trappings of glee without the core of joy.
So this month I am giving myself the gift of stories.
My favorite storyteller was my paternal grandfather whom we called Papaw. My favorite thing about Christmas was his stories, his kitchen. For a nomadic military brat, his house, his kitchen was home.
Flawed, aging, ordinary home. But something about the combination of warm food aromas–coffee, pinto beans, brisket, pies–still comes back to me through all these years.
Home. The very place Jesus left to save us.
It is a simple enough word
Cover
A blanket over me
The cleft of a rock
A bit of plastic tenting
as the storm blows in
.
These angels,
Fierce angels
Stretch wings of splendor over our history of blood
Turn your head to the side little girl
To the past where we both came from
And imagine for a minute
A world without cover
The shadow of majesty
Passing over us
Leaving us all
alone
Once a very wise person lost a child. Maybe children. He mourned because he loved them. so he came up with a plan. Put fire in the sky to guide them at night. Put smoke in the sky to guide them by day. Give them rules on something durable to keep them safe. Tell them from the beginning that you have a plan. Don’t worry, a plan of love.
Send messengers to remind them. Send someone like a son to find them. Document who you are and who they are. Leave a record of your love. Do everything because they are everything to you.
Understand that the story they are told about you may not be all true. Understand they may not want you in the end. Understand that no matter what no matter where no matter how, you will always love them. Because you are their dad. Because it is your nature.
Oh yeh, and write a book. Tell them in the book how much you love them. Pray they read it. Because it means everything.
If what i do ever seems a little crazy, remember that I am following that guy, that Wise Guy, so that one day I can tell my daughter face to face…
I have always loved you.
We do the parable of the king who invites people to a wedding feast for his son. People ignore the invitation so he finds street people to come. There are some messengers hurt and killed in the process.
When the indigent dudes get ready for the clambake (uh, wedding) one is wearing his beat up, stinking work clothes. The king asks why he has not changed into the provided wedding clothes.
He was oppositional defiant and didn’t feel like it.
So he got kicked out into darkness with “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
We talk about the messengers–prophets who told the truth and got hurt for it.
My daughter, who was five when we discovered and stopped what was happening to her, begins to tear up as she talks about the church and friends and family who could not handle our story.
We cherish those who did.
It is a hard thing to tell the truth and lose your community.
It is a harder thing to lie and lose your soul.
I don’t go to church. I should. I used to speak in church. Also teach aerobics, Sunday school, and youth group. It was like a one-man band.
The reason why it was like that was the apathy at the heart of that church. It was a social club, not a place of worship, a fact that became quite clear when I went to the leaders about a self-confessed pedophile.
Church is not a building
Church is not good coffee
Church is not the offering plate
Church is not babysitting
Church is the cathedral of the world, built by God not man.
Maybe you are like me–so burned by the wolves in the sheepfold that you don’t want to risk yourself on God or His messy people.
If you feel burned by it all, you probably have a good reason.
So try this–
Ask Him to show you His love
Falling leaves? Squirrels? Snow? Your children?
The world is full of signs of Grace. Look for them.
Then try Jesus. He is church–the strong tower of love. Open the books of Matt, Mark, Luke, or John and read a story –a verse, five verses.
Then listen. Find a quiet place and listen.
He loves you.
That is church.
(God loves us so much that He sent His only true soul’s child to scoop us out of despair and the hells we make for ourselves and give us hope, love and a place of sanctuary close to his motherly heart)
Church.
Built by the hands of Love
I went to Cape May once, Atlantic City twice, New York City a handful of times. Places of national iconic memory as well as personal.
I have also survived hurricanes. I know about their massive deadly power, the way they stir the sea. When you are waiting for a hurricane you pray two prayers–God, keep people safe and God, not us.
Most people don’t like to admit to the second one. It is a selfish prayer, a prayer of survival.
I think of the Krims. Their perfect storm was providing kindness to a stranger they thought they knew. The waters will recede, cleanup will restore the streets of New York, but each minute of each day will be a terrible hurricane of loss for an ordinary American family.
My prayers remain, just as I pray for all those who struggle to survive the violence of loss, another kind of fierce and deadly storm.
Carrying Light 