Waiting On God (And A Yellow VW Squareback)

I am an impatient person.  I hate being on hold, am an habitual speeder on the road and have been known to leave an entire shopping cart of groceries if the store is missing a key item.  Compounding my impatience is my addiction to distraction.  The four person wait in line at a store is taken up by scrolling through Facebook, ESPN, The New York Times and whatever I can find to soothe my irascible soul.  Like any addiction, the distraction becomes habit and has seeped ever gradually into other areas of my life as I squander our most precious resource, time, binging shows and story-bouncing down the rabbit hole of internet only to look up and find the clock much further ahead than I had intended.

Where in this ecosystem do I therefore find the time to wait on God?

Much is written in Christian circles on seeking God.  On cultivating your journey with Jesus.  And I spent many years investing the majority of my spiritual time seeking Him, His will and my purpose in life.  It’s only been here, in my later years, that I have discovered the sacred value in simply being found.  “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) has resonated with me these past few years and in those rare moments that I have accepted that invitation I have been struck dumb by the experience.  I have reflected on it and the story of the Prodigal Son keeps calling to me for an entirely different reason.

My reflections on the Prodigal have always focused on a couple of different aspects.  The first is the response of the younger brother’s indigence and his father’s explanation of grace.  The second has been the father’s response to the wayward son, the extravagant display of celebration at his return as a guidepost to God’s response when we turn to him.  But what has taken me of late is the idea of the father running toward his Prodigal.  We often used that in Young Life talks as a way to explain God’s fervent desire to be reunited with us, His creation.

What has caught me, though, is a more subtle thought on that simple act of running.  Who knows if that Prodigal would have walked through that gate if his father hadn’t run to him?  Would he have simply stood and stared at what he had squandered, covering himself in a blanket of shame and simply wandered back out to the wilderness?  What strikes me is not the act of running as desire.  It is the act of running as remembrance.  Running to that wayward young man reminded the son of what he had always known in his soul: his father was seeking him, always.  All he had to do, really, was stop his endless distractions in gambling and excess and wait for his father to find him.  That he made the effort to find his way home was an added bonus.  His father running to him was proof that if he had simply stopped and been still, anywhere in the world and sent note to his father his father would have found him.  As the old hymn says, “I once was lost, and now am found.”  Not finding, a verb, but found, a noun.  Not a doing. A being.

So if we can know that God will find us if we will only wait on Him, why do we find it so difficult to do that?  We can blame our world and its endless distractions or blame ourselves for our endless well of impatience.  But those are the symptoms, not the disease.  And I think the disease comes down to trust.

Can we trust that if we are still and wait on God to find us, will he make the effort?  For far too many of us the answer is no.  That no is rooted in the failings of the people most important to us in our most vulnerable moments of development.  

For me, the picture I draw in my mind’s eye is of an nine year old looking out the window on a Friday afternoon.  My parents were divorced when I was six months old and it was acrimonious.  My father’s own childhood background could be its own book, but suffice it to say he was not equipped to be a father of three children and even less equipped to pursue those children as a weekend dad.  By the time I was nine my older brother and sister had long given up on him as an active part of their lives, but I yearned for that connection.  323-6880.  That was his home number.  543-2210 was his office.  I called those numbers enough times to remember them as I approach 60 by heart.  This was in the days before answering machines, so the phone would ring and ring and ring and ring.

On those occasions we would connect, I would work out a weekend that worked for him for me to come down from Everett to his home in the Montlake District near the University of Washington.  There wasn’t much to do there.  Dad and his wife, Judy, were into galleries and organic food and plays.  Snore.  And there was only one kid on the block my age, Dimitri, and his parents were divorced as well so finding that was a lottery, too.  But simply having time with Dad was its own reward, so I pursued those weekends with the effort I now use to pursue new clients.

So, to that nine year old on the couch, looking out the window, he was waiting for his dad’s yellow VW Squareback to meander down the road to his house to pick him up.  On more occasions than once, it never arrived, the light of an early spring afternoon gradually fading to dusk and with the onset of dark the stark realization that a weekend so anticipated was now dissipating into the pain of unintended but very real rejection.  The phone call usually came late on a Saturday morning, a work trip went late or a big project had appeared.  Maybe the weekend after next.

Is it any surprise that we have a difficult time waiting on God, when for so many of us waiting brought us only pain?  That the life lesson we drew from this and hundreds and thousands of similar and equally devastating disappointments was that we were on our own?  That to find joy and happiness required relentless effort to pursue?

In this light it’s no surprise that the seeking of God is what is so attractive about Christianity for a group of us.  We know only that that which we seek, which we scrap for is what we can hope to receive.  And yet at its core, this belief in seeking really runs counter to Luther’s founding concept.  We cannot earn God’s grace, it can only be received.  It is only in these later years, after the brushing and bruising and wearing and tearing that life inevitably brings that I have truly understood this concept of grace.

So here I sit, like that nine year old looking over the back of the sofa through the window to the road, waiting.  Trusting but not knowing that my God will find me.  All I have to do is want and wait.  He hasn’t disappointed me, yet.  He doesn’t always work on my schedule, but He works. If only I am patient and understand that the value is in the stillness as well as the knowing.

Here Comes The Sun (Hopefully)

I was sitting one morning in my office, where I should be working, instead reading Alan Watt’s “The Wisdom of Insecurity” over a cup of coffee and enjoying the view of downtown Buckhead in Atlanta.  My AirPods were in ear, a playlist of classical guitar rolling through song after song of veritable white noise for reading.    

I am beginning Watt’s book as part of some rabbit-holing I’m doing on two of my favorite authors, Richard Rohr and Clay Christensen, cite.  I know, odd pairing, a monk and a Mormon business guru, but that’s for a different story.  The foreword of Wisdom is a treatise on the difference between belief and faith.  Belief, Watt’s says, is a clinging “where the believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes.”  Faith, he counters, is a letting go, ungrasping of preconceptions.  “If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run.”  Restated, to have “running water” you must let go of it and let it run.  The same is true of life and of God.”  Reread that last bit.  I did, four times before the levity of the truth began to sink in.

As I pondered this fathomless truth, an easter egg appeared in my AirPods: a classical rendition of George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun” performed by Pedro H. Da Silva and the Academy of St. Martins in the. Field.  

It was a revelation. 

George’s masterpiece of modern pop music appeared unadorned of his mournful, hopeful lyrics and it was a revelation.  The true genius of the music he wrote was revealed.  The lyrics are all about the promise of a new day, a new season, a new hope:

Little darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter 

Little darlin', it feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo

Here comes the sun, and I say

It's alright

And yet the impact of Harrison’s studies in his newfound faith, Hare Krishna, can be found in the chord progressions throughout the song.  The song is built on a pentatonic scale, five notes per octave and ascend from E to C# as the song begins.  Hope in the flat pick of Harrison’s guitar.  You can hear the sun rising above the ocean on a cloudless day on a sandy beach.  So in accord with his hopeful lyrics.  But the revelation comes in the bridge which is an ascension from C to E7: as surely as the sun rises, it will set again.  The entire composition seems to be written as an ode to his faith that as surely as the sun rises, it will set.  And as surely as it sets, it will rise again.  However this is a faith in the surety, not a belief.  The syncopation, the chord progressions are at once assuring and mildly disconcerting.

Much as Watt’s argument for faith over belief is disconcerting.  And assuring.  Life is too big to be bottled in beliefs.  Because beliefs become certainties and certainties always lead to tragedy (I could spend pages on how this occurs, but simply ponder our government’s certainty that there were WMDs in Iraq and start doing your own rabbit-holing on how certainties lead to tragedy).  Religion of any kind loses its way when it clings to doctrine instead of having faith in the God it worships.  For me, the God in whom I have faith came to earth in the form of Jesus.  But it is only faith that I have in the hope Jesus brings.  Not certainty.  Hell, I’m not even certain any of it is true.  But my experience seems to largely match what the Man said, so I’m choosing to have faith.

Yet most of us, well me, spend our lives clinging to a belief that the future in this life can be made certain and it is most decidely not.  Tragedy happens.  I know that all too well.  My son was born with a disability and died tragically, choking on aspirated food, when he was 22. And  yet and still I attempt to construct a life that guarantees me happiness.  Watts argues, rightly, that my construction is in vain.  My search for a God that will ensure me a certain life full of only gifts and never tragedies is a myth.  C.S. Lewis captured it in a children’s book:

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

As long as we cling to certainty, we cannot find faith.  Certainty cheapens faith.  It conjures a world where every tragedy has an intended purpose, denying us the reality of what is truly in front of us in the now.  Our mortal coil indeed has an end.  Our parents, our friends, our children die and are longer with us.  It stings, it aches, it itches in a place that nothing and nobody can scratch.  And to salve that with a bromide that “don’t worry, they’re with God now” only goes so far.

Which returns us to Watts, who seems to be urging us to face life in the now.  Don’t avoid pain, embrace it.  “For whosoever would save his soul will lose it”, Jesus tells us.  We struggle with this verse as it hits at the motivation for our tendency toward religiosity: control.  We cannot save our souls, only God can. 

That is a painful realization.  Bad things can and will happen.  We can’t stop them.  We can’t validly explain their purpose and frankly attempting to explain them is just a way of avoiding their pain.  Every attempt to avoid that pain is an attempt to save our own souls.  And paradoxically, we cannot truly know joy unless we’ve known pain.

Pain and joy: they are like the rising and setting of the sun.  We can only truly appreciate the rising of the sun when we’ve seen it set and lived through the dark night of the soul.  And we can only truly appreciate the setting of the sun if we have a faith that it will indeed rise again.

They are like the ascension of chords, only appreciated fully by the hearing of a descension.  They are like the Resurrection, only appreciated fully in a truer understanding of the Crucifixion.  More on that in a different post.  Meanwhile…

Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo,

Here comes the Son, and I say

It’s alright

A Story Of A Tree

In the middle of a dense forest there was a clearing. In the center of that meadow, truly the center weather stepped off or measured by laser, stood a tree. To the untrained eye it wasn’t especially unique other than it stood by itself, separate from the other trees. It’s leaves were a brilliant green, much like the other trees leaves were in spring. And as the wind blew leaves flew around that tree just as the other trees did during a breezy day. If one were to visit that meadow more than once in a year, one would notice that this trees leaves never changed. As the leaves in the forest turned red or yellow and finally a brown that is nearly black this tree’s leaves remained a radiant green. The leaves in the forest would gradually lose energy, separate from their branches and fall gracefully to the earth from which they sprang, molt and die. After many visits one might begin to notice that the brilliant green leaves of the tree in the middle of the meadow never quite fell to the ground, rather circling the tree in a delicate dance. In fact one might notice that as the tree grew leaves didn’t spring from its branches, rather the leaves circling the tree would, one by one, reattach themselves to the tree. Suddenly this tree would seem not only unique, but remarkable. And if one made one’s life a pilgrimage to that tree, one might begin to notice that they themselves are a leaf, circling that tree. And in this awareness one might begin to gradually stop studying the tree and start to enjoy the feeling of fluttering in the wind, the worries of the world that one brought to this meadow in a dense forest would fade away. If one looked around as one fluttered, one would feel lost as the forest through which they tromped is no longer there. And in that moment they might begin to feel very small, yet more important than ever. Even vital. If they leaned into the fluttering and made it their sole purpose, they might begin to notice that they aren’t fluttering at all, but ascending toward that newest branch. And they might even notice the other leaves fluttering beside them, also ascending. They would begin to notice the size and scope of the tree, seeming to have no beginning or end. The tree would feel both surprising and familiar in the same breath. Your fluttering would become your purpose, worrying not at all about the ascent or descent as you would know from where you came and where you are going. And in this knowledge, you would know who you are. You would know that you are not important, your life away from the tree is limited and your destination is simply back from where you were separated. This is the story of tree. The story of you. And the story of me.

The Cold Gray Dark Of Dawn

In the cold gray light of the pre-dawn hour, I awoke from a dream.  Griffin was a toddler in body but a man in spirit.  I was holding him by his arms and he was moving his legs to convince the doctor that he could walk if only he could will his unwilling limbs.  He was pleading that his will was strong enough and with the doctor’s trust in his will it would be so.

I waited in bed, half asleep, recalling a dream as it unfolded.  I tried to will myself back to that place where I held my child by his hands as he walked as a man while still a boy.  Back to a place that was real, but never existed.  A place where I was giving him that which he never received.  But it was gone.  So my eyes finally opened and I was back to my reality.  I wept quietly, somewhat embarrassed.  That cold gray light, where colors are absorbed into nothing, and everything, is where I awoke.  And where I live.

There are moments like a dream, where the world unfolds in all its shades and shapes and I am fully alive.  And so is he.  I grasp at those moments like Jacob grasped at God in the tent, trying to wrestle that glimpse of paradise into submission so it won’t ever go away.  But it does, as it always will until the day we are truly named.  

And there is no blessing from God like Jacob received, simply the blessing of knowing that wrestling with God is the journey and the path to receiving our true name.  And also the blessing of knowing that what we see as light and color and fulness today, the now and the present is only the cold gray light of the pre-dawn hour before heaven and earth become one.  There our dreams open our eyes and we see what is and was always real.  That our fulness comes not from our conquests and our triumphs, but rather from our wounds.  Wounds that are, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, the cracks that let's the light in.;

The Space Between

There is a space between 

the taking and the letting 

of each breath drawn cross our lips.
Our chest filled with air,
we don’t hold the breath
as much as pause
and ponder that
each life begins
with an inhale.
An each life ends
with an exhale.
And between the two
Is a space
just large enough for God to fill,
whether over the whole of life
or just one single breath.

Breath

Life begins for each of us with an inhale.  And it ends, for all of us, with an exhale.  They are, biologically speaking, involuntary responses from the autonomic nervous system.  In between those two breaths we have choice: we can allow our autonomic nervous system to control our every breath, or we can, from time to time, take control of our breath and become aware of the miracle of breathing.  

We can feel the coolness of the air passing into our nostrils and the warmth of our body as it passes back out.  We can feel our belly rise and fall.  We can sit in wonder as we picture that life giving breath filling every capillary in our lungs, providing oxygen to our blood.

Most of all we can simply pay attention to our breath, slowing the pace of our racing thoughts to a crawl and then a standstill.  And in the silence of our own being we can for once, be.  And we can experience the wonder of a breath taken.  The miracle of a breath released.  And if we pause in between for just a moment between inhale and exhale, hold that involuntary response to release, we might just find a space as large as eternity and as small as that moment.  A space that is just large enough for God to reveal himself and small enough for us to understand his love.

Breath.

The Great Before

This is a photo from the great before.  We four were at a Braves game on Family Night, the guests of an incredibly proud Griffin.  My work affords me front row seats right behind home plate, in front of the Braves batting circle with a gourmet buffet.  But as we waited out a rain delay and took our hot dogs and beers to sit as far from home plate as you can get in Truist Park, we were sitting in the best seats in the house. Griffin’s gift to us.

That’s the thing about great befores. They’re nostalgia.  Nostalgia is a Greek word formed from two words: nostos, meaning homecoming, and algos, meaning pain or ache.  The word was coined by a 17th century physician to describe the homesickness Swiss mercenaries felt when they were hundreds of miles away from home.  In the wake of the great before, nostalgia is the pain of a wound that won’t heal because somebody you love isn’t coming home.  And the only healing of that pain is when finally you’ve come home to them.

It's hard to believe that we are more than two years past my son’s death.  And the pain, if anything, is more intense than it was in the days and weeks after his passing.  The difference is only my ability to stow away those feelings just long enough each week that life can move forward.  And then there is the moment the photo appears on a screen saver and I look past the four people in the photo and remember the fifth in our family who isn’t in the photo, or in our lives except in our memories.

This was the great before.  And now we live with the pain of loss with only the hope, the belief in the great hereafter.