When I write, I occasionally think of a day when I'm gone. I picture my sons rifling through old articles I've written to better understand who I was and how I thought about life. And one big thing I'd like them to know - who I became - how I came to think about life - had far more to do with how I came to navigate the challenging people in my life than it did with how I came to navigate the 'easy' ones.
There are a few lessons I've taken away from challenging people that I couldn't learn anywhere else. One: to someone - and for many of us - to MANY someones - we are all challenging people. I went through a lot of my life believing challenging people are challenging because of who they are. Then one day I started realizing some of that challenge had to do with who I am. Eventually, I started realizing that had A LOT to do with it. And because of that, who I was started to change. And still changes. Two: challenging people have challenging stories. I have come to realize this thing I find challenging about someone didn't just happen overnight. Someone's belief or habit or vote or church door they walk through is expressed in the right now. But there are years and often decades of experiences that contributed to that right now. We often find challenging people challenging because they are different from us right now. Well they are different from us because they've experienced life differently than us in the past. Understanding that is often a better starting place than immediately declaring someone an enemy. And finally: there's a fine line between finding someone to be challenging and regarding them as an enemy. But once you cross that line, once you start making enemies out of the challenging people in your life, no one becomes more challenging for you to live with than you. I guess that's why Jesus made that line such an important one in our lives to understand. I guess that's why he made that line one of his final lessons. When a group of Roman soldiers hung Jesus on a cross, he found them to be pretty challenging. But still, he said, Father forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing. He was saying, they are challenging because they don't know what I know, and they don't know what I know because they haven't experienced what I've experienced. Jesus modeled putting understanding first. Jesus modeled a lot of lessons. Maybe he saved the most important one for last.
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6/25/2022 0 Comments Life After BirthBefore I get started, I need to declare that I am pro-life. I also need to declare that, in my opinion, the Supreme Court made a destructive decision Friday. If you find tension in that, I completely understand. But please know up front, I don’t feel any. So I won’t be trying to reconcile that.
I am here, really, for one reason. And maybe just for one audience. I’m here for people who know and love God but feel like maybe today God loves them less because they didn’t find a reason to celebrate yesterday’s decision. I am here to encourage people who may be tempted to feel deserted by God for an opinion, when I believe that is not the case. In the aftermath of yesterday’s decision, I saw this scripture frequently shared by folks who know and love God the way I do. The scripture is Proverbs 21:15 – and it says, “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.” I did not find joy in yesterday’s decision. I did find terror. Whether anyone reading this finds me to be evil or not because of that is of no concern to me. Mainly because in my heart – and in my soul – I felt a shared terror with the God who inspired those words. A God that I personally don’t believe equates birth with life. A God who sees no reason for a victory dance in mandating birth while so many people continue to lack an opportunity to live. A God who did not race back to his mansion in heaven to celebrate a decision while hundreds of millions are still fighting for their right to life on earth. Fighting for life every day in a system that is every bit as reversible as a 50-year-old Supreme Court ruling. The only thing missing is an authentic pro-life movement. Because the fight to guarantee every child access to birth does very little to guarantee every human access to life. During his ministry, Jesus went town to town, into the lives of people who had been granted the opportunity of birth but were being denied an opportunity to live. He did it with love and not laws. He did it with personal sacrifice and not a ballot. He did it hanging on a cross and not hanging on a decision. Yesterday’s decision required little personal sacrifice from supporters in the name of life, while mandating sacrifices of others in the name of birth. A decision that attempts to mandate breath while taking no measures at all to support living. None. I listened to a sermon last week. The sermon was about loving our neighbor. More specifically – it was about defining who our neighbors are. Who is the neighbor in the law Jesus called the one true law - the law that calls us to always - without exception - love our neighbor? The pastor defined neighbor as any human who needs our help. Jesus modeled that definition. He went town to town hanging out with people who were breathing but were struggling like hell to find a way to live. He lived his entire life seeking out humans who needed his help. I won’t pretend to know what Jesus thought about yesterday’s decision that many are celebrating as a victory for our unborn neighbors. But Jesus lived a life devoted to showing us how he feels about our living neighbors. He lived a life showing us that his pro-life movement considered all neighbors – every human being that needs our help. I guess I just want you to know – if you’re pro-life – and you didn’t celebrate yesterday’s decision, I don’t think you’re an evildoer. And in my heart, I just don’t think Jesus does either. I think Jesus wants you to know there is so much work to be done when it comes to offering life to those who are struggling to find it. Work he didn't vote for; work he died for. I think he wants us to know we have a lot of work to do when it comes to loving our neighbors without exception. Work that makes it way to soon to be celebrating. As part of the training I lead this week, I asked two colleagues to lead an activity for the group. I gave them a little direction in terms of what I hoped the activity would accomplish, but the rest was up to them.
What they came up with was more than an accomplishment. It was one of the most beautiful and impactful work or life experiences I've had the chance to participate in. The first few stages of the activity were all about making the group more curious about one another. Those stages lead up to the concluding activity that will live with me forever. In this final activity, we broke into smaller groups of 4 people. The groups then went somewhere in the park and talked about a memory or some part of their life they were more aware of as a result of their surroundings. My group settled into rocking chairs on the front porch of a building overlooking the lake. One person in my group talked about how rocking chairs reminded her of how peaceful life is when her and her family slows down and sits on their porch at home and just rocks. Another shared memories of working in a garden with her grandmother. Another talked about growing up on that very lake we were looking at. It reminded her of just how beautiful her childhood was. I myself talked about how the woods feel like home without me ever having to call the woods home. After a half hour of sharing stories with one another, the four group members then picked a partner for the final piece of the activity. The whole group gathered back together. We sat in a big circle - all 20 of us. And we introduced ourselves as our partner. We introduced ourselves as our partner's story. And for at least a moment, we WERE someone else's story. So there I was - introducing myself as a young lady who grew up on the lake. Smiling about the idea that everyone around me was actually visiting a part of my childhood home. As others introduced themselves as someone else's story, there were tears and smiles and laughter - and even hugs. It was literally a circle full of life: all walks of life - all emotions of life. An no one in the circle seemed to be wishing they were anywhere else in life at that moment. As part of the activity, we had to draw our partner's story on a blank puzzle piece. When the circle was over, the puzzle was put together with all of our stories. We were literally forever connected by our stories. I've never walked away from a training with a more meaningful gift. When the activity was over, I made a couple of personal observations. One, the activity felt very awkward at times in the beginning. Connection IS awkward sometimes. It's why we often choose superficial conversation. It's why we often find it easier to find ways to disconnect. But when you finally enter into a place of getting to know who someone is - there's something beautiful about that. Even comfortable. I also expressed doubt that we would have ever gotten to that place if we had started with "what or who do you believe in" or "where do you stand on this or that issue." It's more likely that would have been a circle of elbow throwing than hugs and smiles. And love. There is something amazing that can happen in life when we put curiosity about someone else's story before our instinct to judge where someone else fits within the framework of our own stories without knowing theirs at all. I assured the group that many of them probably think and believe very differently about some things than I do. But none of those differences could break the connection we formed. Because those connections formed at who we are, not at what we believe. 6/19/2022 0 Comments Father's Day 2022For the first four decades of my life, I was never quite sure of what I wanted to be. But I was sure of one thing I didn't want to be.
I didn't want to be a dad. Yesterday, I took this picture of the boys standing on the North and South Carolina state line inside the Carrowinds amusement park. As I did, it occured to me. The two things I wanted least in life are now the two things I can't imagine doing life without. Sometimes, when it comes to blessings, God disregards our feelings. He disregards them because he sees blessings within the greater picture of our whole life, not in the tiny boxes within which we try to live and store life. Thursday night, I was standing out on my balcony taking pictures of a thunderstorm that was rolling through. I looked over, and Elliott was standing next to me taking pictures as well. Friday morning, we were driving to pick up Ian. Elliott said, I got some cool lightning pictures after you went to bed last night. I said, "that's awesome - I love that you love storms. Maybe you could be a stormchaser someday." Elliott, being just as serious as a teen can be, said, "I don't think so. I saw the movie Twister - that looks like a dangerous job." He went back to doing what he was doing, like we'd just had a meaningless conversation. I went back to driving, my heart and soul full of life. We were driving home yesterday. Ian asked me, how far are we from home? I said, we probably have about three hours, why? He said, I have to pee. And I said, well I guess you're happier than anyone that we are almost home. He looked at me for a second - puzzled - but then started laughing a laugh only Ian can laugh. And he said through his laughter - half joking and half threatening - I will pee my pants!! I went back to driving (and looking for a rest area), my heart and soul full of life. How backward did I once see life when I believed being a dad would rob me of life, when in reality, today, being a dad is what gives me life. On Father's Day, I'm reminded, God breathed life into the world so that life could breathe life into us. Sometimes we miss that - sometimes life robs us of life - when we try to breathe in the air our own life and not the breath of God. I'm also encouraged this morning by the truth that I fill my father God's heart and soul with life. I fill it with life when he is standing on a balcony taking pictures of a storm with me. I fill it with life when he's in the front seat with me laughing about bathroom breaks. The thing is, God always wanted to be a father. He always wanted me to be his child. And now, more than ever, I completely understand that. 6/15/2022 0 Comments You Are standing in your miracleI grew up on a farm. When I was a kid, by early August we'd get lost running in between rows of six feet tall corn stalks. In the middle of those rows, it was easy to forget there was a day those stalks weren't always six feet tall.
There was a day, in fact, when that field was nothing but an endless square of black dirt. Kids don't spend a lot of time thinking about that as they run under the cover of rows that disappear into forever. As an adult, though, looking back on those days, I spend a lot of time thinking about that. I need to. Those memories are more than memories now. They are lessons. There are days I find myself standing in that endless field of dirt. Looking around and wondering, where the heck is the corn? Then I'm reminded - it's only June. The miracles in that dirt - the miracles of June - they are still untapped. But August is coming. I've run through enough corn mazes in my life to know that for sure. August is coming. I can lose sight of that. That the miracles I am in have been raised from the miracles of where I've been. To lose sight of that is to miss the chance to feel a miracle under the weight of waiting. If you stare at dirt long enough it can begin to look barren and lifeless. But if you think about it - just how miraculously untrue is that? Exactly how much life - how much miracle - has to be going on beneath that season of dirt to transform it into a sea of six foot life? If you feel like you are standing in the middle of a field - lost - please know you are not. You are standing in the middle of a miracle. Some miracles are easier to see than others. Maybe the idea isn't to always see them, but to always know they are there. I didn't know that - lost in the middle of those corn rows. I know it now. And I'm thankful for that. It's been almost 20 years ago now I guess. We were sitting in a leadership team meeting. I was the director of the camp at the time and leading the meeting. We were brainstorming ways to honor one of our employee's upcoming work anniversaries.
Let me tell you a little about this employee. We were a year round wilderness program for kids with various struggles in their lives. They stayed with us for a year while they fought and screamed and cried their troubles away. Or - at least - gave it their best shot. This was almost entirely outdoors, living in structures they built in the middle of the wilderness with their counselors. It was a challenging job for everyone. But rewarding. I am just now - two decades later - beginning to experience the kind of fulfillment in my work I experienced back then. Mom Gus did the laundry for the kids. Every week she cycled through the bedding and clothes of every student in the camp - 60 of them. You can only imagine how dirty laundry can get under the wearing of kids living in the wilderness. Mom Gus was very particular about how and when this laundry was to arrive and be picked up. And she had a way of making sure you knew it. You could say Gus had a bit of a grumpy side to her. Actually, it's more accurate to say it was quite the blessing when you caught a glimpse of Gus's pleasant side. You always had the feeling Gus was living out a bit of a tough life. But you also kinda had the feeling we were the family that made up the part of her life she'd call good. Even if she didn't always know how to say that to us. That's true of some people, you know. They sometimes don't treat you the way you think kindness should look because they really haven't ever seen kindness look the way you've seen it look. So anyways - how on earth to honor Gus on her big day? Let's name the laundry house after her, I suggested. Everyone around the conference room table nodded yes. A few may have shouted yes. It was clear we had the right idea. Then someone suggested that we don't actually own the buildings at camp. We lease them. And maybe we aren't allowed to name buildings after people. Maybe we're not, I said, but we're going to. And we did. Our Business Manager had a beautiful sign made. It said, 'The Mom Gus Laundry House.' I'll never forget the day we presented that to Gus in front of the whole camp - staff and kids. Her smile. And even tears. She saw kindness that day the way some of us are blessed to see it all the time. Gus saw love. The camp has been gone now about ten years. All closed up. Gus has been gone about as long I guess. Yesterday, a young man who'd been at the camp just before it closed went back to visit. He must be in his late 20s now. No longer a kid, he roamed through the woods. Reminiscing. I'm sure replaying some of the childish scenes that played out while he lived there. He shared pictures of his visit. As I scrolled through them - as I did my own reminiscing - I was sad. Sad to see the wooden structures all collapsed into splinters now. The brick ovens - nothing but mounds of debris. The neatly manicured campsites all overgrown with vegetation. This was nothing like I remembered. But then came the picture of The Mom Gus Laundry House. There was that sign. Still fixated to Gus's house. In an instant I remembered Gus's smile that day. I remembered those happy tears Gus had. I'm in my own tears now. The woods can fall down - but the memory of a smile never will. Especially when you imagine it was someone's biggest smile. I got to thinking. We live in a world where people make million dollar donations to get their name on an arena. Or a dorm. I wonder if any of that means as much as The Mom Gus Laundry House meant to Gus, who didn't give a dime. Gus gave the only things she had. Her blood. Her sweat. And her tears. And more than any of us probably knew it - her love. Yesterday, I found myself thinking, I don't care if I ever have a building named after me in this life. But oh how I want to name a few more after the people in my life. Maybe we should all do that. Maybe it's the garage. Maybe it's the shed. Maybe it's a room in the house or in the church or at the office. Maybe it's a chair or a table. I just think we should go around hanging big frickin signs that say this is yours. And - maybe hanging them most for the people who see themselves as worth so little. We are hanging this because we see you. We see through the struggle. We see how hard you fight through it every day to see us. Here's your sign. A sign that outlasts a whole lot of collapsing. And maybe a sign that heals a lot that has already collapsed. I remember the first time one of my boys told me they hated me. I told them, hey, you don't know me well enough yet to hate me. 🤷♂️ Then I promptly offered up the mandatory parenting sermon on why we don't hate anyone.
I stand by that sermon. I don't think hating people is a good thing. But I think we can be so dedicated to our 'don't hate people' sermons that we forget hate can have a healthy place in our lives. I used to drink too much. It was a problem. I hated what it did to me and who it made me, but I loved how it made me feel for brief moments in time. When I finally changed, it was because I hated what I hated more than I loved what I loved. Years ago, I took up running. I didn't much enjoy it. Many days I still don't. But I did it often enough that eventually I grew to hate the feeling I had when I skipped my running more than hated any of the feelings I experienced while I ran. These days, I'm trying to lose a few pounds. I know the devil in that pursuit is carbohydrates. Always has been. The problem is - I love them. But I hate how callous those carbs can be toward my desire to feel a little more freedom in my pants. I know I'll start dropping weight when hate finally wins. There are bigger picture applications to this idea as well. A few years ago, I went to Honduras with Soles4Souls. I went there to help the organization fight poverty because I genuinely love people. Fighting poverty seemed like a loving thing to do. Even if - I'm being honest - back then my actions and advocacy weren't always in line with someone committed to fighting poverty. I've been more committed to that fight since returning from that trip. And when I go back there in August, this time it will be because I hate that people I love have to live in poverty more than it will be out of a general love for people. It's Monday. And with Monday often comes the commitment that this will be the week. This will be the week I change this or that in my life. I want to encourage you. Don't focus on how much you know you'll love the feeling you'll have - the you you'll be - when you make that change. Focus on how much you hate how it feels when you don't make that change. Focus on how much you hate the thought of coming back here next Monday loving the idea of making that same old change you still haven't made. I do believe love wins. But sometimes, doing the loving thing for ourselves and for one another, sometimes that starts with a healthy dose of hate. I never thought I'd come here on a Monday encouraging you to hate. But here I am. Spend a little time this week focusing on something you hate. And then change it. There's a story in the bible in the book of Luke (8:40-56).
Jesus is on his way to heal a powerful community leader's daughter. A large crowd surrounds him. As they slowly move along, a woman is fighting her way through the crowd, believing if she can only touch Jesus' robe, she will be healed. The woman, the bible tells us, had been hemorrhaging 12 years. She'd spent her life savings on doctors, but none of them had been able to cure her. And so she fights on through the crowd... Until she gets within reach of the robe. And then touches it. When, the bible tells us, at that very moment - she is healed. Jesus didn't see her touch the robe, but he felt power come out of him as she did. So he asked, “Who touched me?” His disciples tried to downplay it. Keep Jesus moving along. They told him, look around at this crowd, Jesus - it's hard to imagine how many people have touched you. It could have been anyone. But Jesus insisted - no - someone touched me. I felt the healing power discharge from me. The woman knew she was busted. So she fell before Jesus. The bible tells us she was trembling - so she must have felt like she was in trouble. Even so, the bible tells us, while she was kneeling before him - she told him her story. Her entire honest story. And Jesus said, “Daughter, you took a risk trusting me, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed!” You know, that is the only place in the bible when Jesus directly called someone daughter. And it makes you wonder if the whole reason Jesus wouldn't just let it go - wouldn't follow the disciples' nudge to just keep moving - there's a little girl dying for crying out loud!! - it makes you wonder if Jesus needed to delay THAT healing for the chance to call THIS woman daughter. The bible says he told the woman you are healed AND whole. That is a HUGE and. Because in it, Jesus acknowledged that the woman wasn't just sick, but that she was broken inside. How many doctors had given up on her? How many continued to take her money but offered nothing? How much of her inner circle of family and friends turned their backs on her as she wrestled with her brokenness. Just how broken must she have felt? "Daughter" - Jesus called her. I wonder if it was the touch of the robe that healed the woman, but it was actually hearing the soft and loving voice of Jesus calling her daughter that made her whole again. I wonder if it was knowing Jesus would NOT let her go until he COULD call her daughter that made her whole again. She'd been broken for 12 years. I wonder how long it had been since she'd been called daughter. And oh how beautiful and encouraging it is knowing that Jesus knew that. That Jesus KNOWS that. Because some of us are broken. Some of us don't know where to turn. Some of us have tried everything. Some of us feel lost in this crowd of life moving on from you to tend to others. This biblical story of healing did NOT need to include Jesus calling this woman daughter. It did NOT need to include Jesus stopping in his tracks to find out who had been healed. He could have kept going - going on to tend to others. But he didn't. He didn't for her. He didn't for you. He didn't for me. And I want to encourage you. If you'll fight through the crowd. Fight through the noise of your years of pain and suffering. If you'll find a quiet place and close your eyes and imagine yourself touching the robe - I'm telling you - you can hear "daughter" - you can hear "son" - you can hear "friend" - you can hear "Keith" - you can hear the name you've been longing to hear. The name that says I'm here to tend to you. The name that says I know you don't feel whole, but you took a risk, you trusted, and now you are whole. Now go live well. Live blessed. My sweet and precious daughter. Tapping out of tension. Oversimplifying thoughts and feelings. That describes a lot of people, I think. It sure described me for a long time.
I suppose it still describes me some days, even if not nearly as much as it used to. None of us like tension. We're much bigger fans of peace. Tranquility. The thing is, much more than many of us know - or admit - our greatest tension comes from the battles we fight with ourselves, and not the battles we fight with others. Sometimes it's hard to see those battles in ourselves because we are inclined to tap out of them. We get thoughts and feelings that point us to things about ourselves - long buried emotions - that don't feel good - that we'd rather not meet up with - so we run. We run to booze or sex or scrolling or eating or maybe even the literal act of running itself. We tap out of the risk of knowing who we really are and into something that allows us to pretend we're someone else. For a moment that feels peaceful. Long term, though, that only builds the tension. It only builds the risk of one day breaking you before you ever have a chance of knowing you. It's crazy to suggest, maybe, that it's a blessing to be able to get mad. To think angry thoughts. To think them and not run from them. But it is. Especially when you do that in a safe place, with a safe someone, who will get around to asking you what on earth you're so angry about. Someone who is curious about the answer, and not judgmental. It's a blessing to hide life so hard close enough to someone that they see right through the hiding. Because one day they will ask you what you're hiding from. Why so much shame? Why so much guilt? These are all questions and answers hidden beneath the tension, beneath the thoughts and feelings we perpetually try to tell ourselves are nothing. When in reality - they are everything. They are us. They are the us we risk never getting to know. They are the us the tension will eventually not tolerate - and it will break us. I didn't break. And I won't. Because never again will I tap out. I don't want you to tap out either. Wrestle with those thoughts and feelings. And when they get exhausting, wrestle with them some more. Find someone to share that exhaustion with, someone who will accept you in it and not discard you because of it. A counselor. A friend. A partner. I want you to discover that you've been tapping out of the chance to get to know a beautiful person. The thoughts and feelings you have - they aren't ugly, they just sometimes have sort of an ugly way of introducing you to you. Don't hold it against them. Because you aren't ugly. You just aren't. So don't tap out. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
February 2025
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |