3:14

Exodus 3:14 "GOD said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.' Or rather, "I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE." This rather simplistic description of GOD Himself has confused me for most of my life. After all I am who I am, right? I don't think so.

As you look at the world, look at all the things vying to influence and change our opinions. I think at first most people will accuse politics and the press for being bigoted and unbalanced. While this may or may not be a fair assessment, these scapegoats are whipped too often and blamed for much of our intolerance. Rather, I think back to my days in elementary and middle school (painful as it were). I attended an elementary school where trend and fashion were closely observed. For a while it was pogs, another was surplus military berets, as well as Airwalks. I was never able to quite follow on these fashions quick enough. The only surplus store was in Brainerd and I couldn't justify a new pair of sneakers when my old ones still fit and had a full sole. But hey that's the point right. You're not cool unless you buy this product. I really don't have a problem with people purchasing products for their life and ensuring they look good. But, here's what happens, we create teams, us verses them. The OG's beating back the poseurs. Alienation for thinking differently or not adhering to collective thought. Heck, even thinking the same can be thrown in your face as a bad thing. Progressives being pissed that conservatives don't walk fast enough, conservatives irritated that the progressives move so fast. It all the same.

Here's the kicker, we revel in this steaming pile of crap. We celebrate it. We love it when two people bicker back and forth over something. Pretty much every network runs of this thought, from MSNBC to Fox News, MTV to ABC, any reality show, any comedian, any sport. It's all about bullying the other guy to see your point. You may say, "That's the way its always been, and always will be." If so, I challenge your faith in GOD and redemption. Case in point. If anyone calls me a "ginger" or tells me I "have no soul," I cannot be held responsible for what happens next. South Park has staked its success on telling people they are not ok. Christians, Muslims, interestingly not so much Jews (too many of them are lawyers), homosexuals, metrosexuals, and of course... redheads. Seriously!? I realize some people choose to believe certain things and others are trapped by tradition. I know there's a debate about whether or not homosexuality is a choice or genetic. But, people don't choose to be redhead, or blonde, or brunette, or white, or black, or Asian, Indian, Hispanic.

They are born this way.

They are who they are.

God telling us He is Who He is shows us how we should be comfortable and productive in the restraints of our bodies He created. I like to think I've been a free spirit most of my life, but I see the scars that it brings. I've been bullied and ridiculed, my self-esteem pulled from under me like a rug for others entertainment.

I once commented to a friend, "I wish I were normal." She asked why anyone would want that. I looked at her. She was pretty, popular, and quirky in that way that attracted both guys and girls to her, and I realized how she didn't understand the statement. I was uncomfortable with the me that was. The me that couldn't be taken off like a dated garment.

As we are asked to be like God by God, He says to us, live out of your heart not your closet.

And, "Be you who you are as 'I am who I am.'"

namaste

Vaya con DIOS

Keep Your Front Wheel

There are many maxims in mountain biking:

"Brakes make you faster"

"The faster you are downhill, the faster you'll be uphill"

"Momentum is your friend"

But the two that have taught me the most are: "Don't watch a tree," and "Keep your front wheel."

Both are about direction. Your bike follows your vision. Wherever you look thats where you will steer. If you don't want to run into tree, DON'T LOOK AT THE DANG TREE! A lot of it has to do with fear. Sometimes we look at the things we're afraid of most and wind up steering ourselves right towards destruction. When we take our eyes of the trail how can we expect to stay on it and ride clean and safe.

Keeping your front wheel is important. Your front wheel is what your front brake acts on. It is 70% of your stopping power. Oh, and your front wheel does the steering. Ok, I know I just said your eyes steer the bike, but your eyes tell the front wheel where to go. Now if you try to apply more than 70% brake to the front wheel you risk locking up the front wheel. Remember back in high school physics when we talked about friction, and how ABS is better than standard brakes because rolling tires are better than sliding tires. Alright, now when you lock up the front wheel on a bike, you lose the ability to control how fast you're slowing down, and where you're going.

Tonight, for kicks, I tried to lock up my front wheel. I don't have a rear brake currently because my rear tire is goofed. When your, front wheel locks up, imagine the direction you want to go in, and you will go in any other direction. The front wheel washes, and you go high-side, low-side (if you're lucky), or over the bars. But there is another choice: let go. Let go of the brake. Ignore the instinct to hold onto the lever for dear life. Loosen your grip and let blood flow back into your knuckles. The wheel will roll again and you will have control. You may be going faster than you want, but keep you eyes on the trail. The faster you go downhill, the faster you will go uphill.

namaste

vaya con DIOS

Life is Plagiarism

A few weeks ago (when I meant to post this) I attended a Saturday morning Bible study. Well, Bible study isn't the best term. The idea of the group is to allow the college guys to interact with men from Campus View and learn what it looks like to be men of faith. The advantages of this model are superb. Rather than a book espousing loose ideologies of what it means to be man, there is direct, rubber meets the road interaction of what happens when you are a working father, husband, spiritual leader, friend, brother.

Eric Johnson spoke with us, and didn't do the most of speaking. First, he wanted to know where we were in life, where we came from, where we were going. The second thing I noticed about Eric was his notes. Instead of the standard (for me) lists with subjects and bullet points, Eric had a map, a diagram. I still don't understand how he works from that because I think in orders, alphabetically, numerically. There was the standard guy talk stuff, find a woman you love and loves you, find a job you love and makes you feel like you've done something whether you make money or not, find God and hold to Him dearly. It's not that this time was boring or bad, but it pales in comparison to what happened next. In order to understand what this group was about, Eric asked the origins of the group's name, "Band of Brothers." He then recited from memory the quote from Henry V. Then, he told us each man should have a personal bible. A list of quotes that inspire you, or describe you station in life. That which makes you feel human, divine, sorrowful, joyful, passionate, triumphant.

I thought about this, and realized that all life is plagiarism. My life is based of the lives of those that have gone before me. The writer of Ecclesiastes lamented, and maybe rejoiced, there is nothing new under the sun. Everything I think has been thought, everything I do has been done. There is no originality. The Ph.D's of world add the volume of thought and inventors produce new products, but they stand on the shoulders of giants.

I like how the author of the latest book I'm reading treats this idea. Stephen Chalke writes in his introduction that he has given credit where credit is due for any idea not his own. He then wrote that any story or idea not credited, did not mean it was his, but he is only presenting it.

In my life, I hope people know that my ideas are not my own. I may claim them but any idea I have has been shaped, watered, and grown by those things I read, hear, experience. Even this blog.

namaste

vaya con DIOS

Tuesday...

Tuesday night was one of those nights that restores your sanity. When you read a lot of books, listen to a bunch of sermons, and interact with college students, you get the feeling that all the world is just a bunch of big ideas. You fret over whether you are a part of those big ideas or if you have found the right big idea. When that happens, I begin to get frantic. The pace of my life speeds up, and all the sudden I have less time than I can manage. The world begins to blur because you can't focus fast enough from thing to thing.

Tuesday night reminded me there's more to life than being successful. Life is: a run and dinner with your girlfriend, a haircut from a friend, a time to relax watching a baseball game, reading a book until you are too tired to keep your mind on the page.

Abbie had a wonderful talk. We neither complained nor griped about our lives, stayed mostly away from talking ministry, and focused on how each other was doing. Jim came home and inhaled a tuna melt, and I asked him for a hair cut. What followed was a mundane scene that struck me as hilarious. (Wes Anderson take note) We had a chair in the kitchen where my hair was cut. If you had walked in kitchen after that you would have seen me with no shirt, covered in my own hair clippings, trimming my goatee, Jim squatted like a frog cutting his hair, and an empty wooden chair. I don't know why, but that scene resonates in my soul as something that makes sense.

Maybe, life is not built on the big moments and ideas, but the little ones. We don't have relationships with people unless we spend time with them. We can't deal with life if don't have downtime. We can't impress others if we don't take care of ourselves. And, we will never dream if we don't sleep.

namaste

vaya con DIOS

Culture Shock

It hit me Sunday morning when the deluge from the shower head hit my back like a fire hose. It happens every time and I don't know why. It's as though I hold some self-loathing for those things that I have never had control over.

I rarely get culture shock from going to other cultures, its the coming back that gets me. In Honduras there was little to worry about. I knew I had to wake up at 6:30 in order have enough time to get ready for breakfast, morning devotional, and packing for the day. Each day was hot and filled with many challenges, among which were people yelling at me in a language I barely understood. But, I went to bed every night tired, satisfied, full of spirit.

It started when I got back into Hartsfield-Jackson. The worries I left in America hadn't disappeared, they just hadn't been able to get their passport in time. Slowly but surely, the worries of life and troubles that race through my mind returned. Sunday, I woke up heavy. Yeah, there was two-hour time difference, my bed was more comfortable, and I was dog tired, but I was worried about what would happen this week. As I walked up to the church building, a word escaped my lips that surprised me: "home."

It was strange, I've never thought of CV as home until now, but this is my family where I'm at. It changes the way I think of the members. In the Honduran church, everyone is hermano or hermana. There is a strong familial connection down there, even the gringos are hermanos. When I think of us as family it changes how I view individuals. Everyone has worth, regardless of what they can do for me. And, they have the right to challenge and change the way I think about and approach life.

Unfortunately, the culture shock is the uniqueness of this thought in America.

namaste

vaya con DIOS

The End of Things

Well, just finished the new D. Miller book and once again he has another hit that plucks the heart strings. I often find myself lamenting the end of a book. As a child, I was made fun of a lot and so I retreated to the company of books (thank God I didn't have motion sickness otherwise I would have had to sit very still on the bus, not reading). Books became my friends, they never laughed at me or ridiculed my growing girth and lack of athletic skill. So now, just a few hundred pages into a lovely friendship it ends, with a sweet note of resolution.

I could be melodramatic and say the end of a book is like the death of a friend, but I've experienced that too recently to know it isn't true. Rather, the end of books remind me of a friend I made in Blacksburg. Seth, Crystal, and I knew each other for less that 100 hours. We ate a couple of meals together, I helped them change all four tires on their car and played a little mandolin with them. They took me on a drive just to see the mountains in all their majesty. Later, we said goodbye with tears rimming our eyes and Seth remarked how it felt like we had known each other our whole lives.

Books tend to do that to me, make me want to be a better person. Even if it's about a farmer's family who loves him for being clever and imperfect. It makes me want to take risks I've never thought to do, and I grow sad wondering if I really do have the confidence, the courage to do all those things I want to do. I could start by not watching television, I guess. It gives you a story at it's pace, not allowing you to stop and reflect on the beauty of a sentence.

Eh, it's late and I'm getting sentimental. Gonna hang it up for tonight. I'm looking forward to traveling next week, maybe I'll write about that tomorrow.

Two Brim in a Pond

So, last weekend I went home to go to my great-uncle's funeral. I feel close to him even though we hadn't spoken much in our lives. This closeness is the result of the grace he showed to two young boys. When my grandfather was dying of cancer. Uncle Trin let Grandady (that's how Ralph spelled it), Ryan, and I fish at his pond. We caught two brim. Three weeks later my grandfather died. We received the mounted brim shortly after.

As we walked into the funeral home on Friday, my uncle told me I was getting into a hard business. Thinking I understood him, I responded that I was beginning to know that. I didn't. While I was thinking about the difficulties of campus ministry, and how hard my first year as an apprentice was, Uncle Bubba quickly clarified his statement. He said he didn't want to think of the number of family funerals he'd presided over. His first was my grandmother, his mom. Followed by many others, some kinfolk, some not, but never a wedding. We went to see Uncle Trin at Chirstmas, and before my uncle had crossed the threshold, Uncle Trin reminded him that Bud was to conduct his funeral...

We didn't think it would be so soon. When Grandady died, Uncle Trin and the brim were still there. When you're four you think someone who survives something like that, the world ending, you think they will live forever. And, as they age, they aren't dying, they don't even slow down, it's you that's speeding up. I guess I held onto that for the last 20 years and didn't grow out of it.

Everyone one said it was the best eulogy they had ever heard. Uncle Trin's wink and nod were recounted with best of memory. It was beautiful and poetic. It was homey and vintage without all the kitschy trendiness that pervades today's busy society that grasps for its rural roots. The age was real, not like the distressed furniture we have today, but an honest to goodness storyteller showing our favorite memories and thoughts of loved ones. Jack said it was the best eulogy because Uncle Bubba was a real storyteller with a real gift. I think that's true, but part of me wonders if he's had too much practice. Though, he did have good subject material.

Also that weekend, we saw the play 'Our Town.' The last scene shows a dead woman asking the storyteller if anyone really understands, really enjoys, really values the life they live each day. His answer was, "...the saints and the poets, maybe, some of them." The line is sad to me because it rings true. I'm not a saint, I'm not a poet. I watch people living their lives on TV, and read them in books. I think I get something out of life, but I don't get it all. I felt for her husband and motherless son. The girl who became the woman he married and mother to his child was now gone forever...

I don't want to die, not now anyway. During the eulogy, Uncle Bubba read those siblings (he had eleven brothers and sisters) who preceded Trin in death, and we realized as a family that those were the only times we had seen each other in last decade or so. I have a few really cool second cousins that I never knew about. One went to UGA, another teaches art, another is a Biology teacher, and another is going to be a doctor. There was talk of a family reunion that afternoon. It's hard to keep the Wootens down. There was a somber spirit about the place, but there was laughter about getting lost on the way to the cemetery, and how Trin always played jokes. One by one we left that day, Aunt Polly ultimately sleeping alone, missing her husband of 59 years who wrote such a great story.

I hope mine can be just as good

namaste

vaya con DIOS