I have seen it.
There is some disagreement in the middle of the bed, so each in the couple picks their side and retreats there. Where they stay. Until even the tension there, they at their own sides, is too much to bear, at which time they will retreat to their own ends of the house. And then their own ends of the county. Retreat until there is no longer such a thing as a middle. A middle so long forgotten neither would have any idea how to get there even if they had the desire. And so a divide leads to total disappearance. I would suggest that is where most interpersonal relationships end. In the escape from the middle. The escape from the messy and imperfection and tension. But isn't that where transformation happens, in the tension? It makes me wonder, is love the total lack of mess, or the capacity to navigate the nature of the mess - the middle - the tension - together? There is a scene in the bible. In the Christian world the scene is the physical introduction to eternal life. So it's a biggie. In the scene, Jesus dies on the cross and then in three days rises from his grave, bringing all who choose the hope of it all a hope in an earthly life that will never succumb to death. But here is the thing about that cross scene. Jesus is not alone. There is a thief hanging on a cross to Jesus' left, and another on his right. Jesus is in the middle. Why would the author of this scene draw this particular plot detail into the story? This Jesus, not dying alone, but in the middle. On one hand, I guess it was the perfect ending to Jesus' ministry here on earth. A Jesus who was always standing in the middle. In the middle of the lawless and the self-righteous. Between the Zealots and the Herodians. Between the Pharisees and Sadducees. Between the Jews and the Gentiles. Between God and Humanity. It was the perfect ending, I guess. But maybe it was also the perfect beginning. The perfect beginning, an introduction, to how Jesus wanted us to live among one another upon his departure to heaven. Not just unafraid of the middle, but bravely willing to go live there. I am afraid of this great escape from the middle. I am afraid of it in friendships and marriages and in churches and in our society. I am afraid of our instinct to disengage from one another to protect ourselves at the expense of engaging in the middle where healing begins. And ends. Jesus died on a cross. In the middle. Where he always was and where he still stands. In the middle. Calling us all. Maybe in our escape from the middle we no longer hear him, but he is still there. There between you and me. There between you and me and God. There. Calling.
0 Comments
I have been through some hard things in my life.
So have you. The biggest risk of those hard things, for me at least, isn't the impact they might have on my future, the biggest risk of them is how easy it can become to forget that God has shown up in the middle of every one of them. I can get so focused on how hard life is that I forget how frequently God has shown up in the hardest parts of my life. Which is every time. There's a story in the bible. The disciples are fretting among themselves about forgetting to bring bread along on a trip. And they start worrying that Jesus might be upset about this. Jesus, overhearing this, says: "You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?" I wonder how many times God says that to me, "do you still not understand?" I wonder how many times I get so focused on just how hard life is that I forget there's no explanation for me being here experiencing my current hard times outside of Jesus showing up in every hard time before this one. I wonder how many of my hard times are hard for that reason alone, that I've forgotten Jesus. Hard times can make us anxious about what's going to happen next. Maybe that's because hard times can make us forget we already know the answer to that. Five loaves fed five thousand. Seven loaves fed four thousand. Divorce resulted in financial hardship; God showed up with financial opportunities. Alcohol nearly destroyed my life; God showed up and showed me the path to talking to people about the destructive nature of alcohol. Relationships have been challenging and at times destructive in my life; God showed up and opened my eyes to his healing centered design for relationships. The disciples thought, oh no, we forgot the bread. That made them anxious. But for them the real problem wasn't that they forgot the bread, the problem was they forgot Jesus. If your like me, you're prone to that same forgetfulness. Maybe this week if you get anxious, like surely I will, we can encourage each other to ask, am I anxious about what is about to occur or anxious because I've forgotten who has always shown up in what's already occurred. Jesus said, "do you still not understand?" Help me Lord, this week, more often than I am prone to saying it, say yes Lord, I understand. There's a story in the bible in the book of Mark. The disciples are in a boat with Jesus when a furious storm breaks out, waves roll over the boat, nearly swamping it.
In the midst of the storm, Jesus was nowhere to be found. The disciples eventually find Jesus asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat. The disciples wake him and ask, "teacher, do you not care that we're all about to drown?" Jesus got up. Stretched. Took a look around and then said, "Quiet! Be still!" The storm immediately subsided; the seas became perfectly calm. Jesus said to the disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” The disciples were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” The bible tells us the disciples were afraid of the storm, but they were even more terrified of the answer to the storm. Yesterday, I had a bit of a meltdown. It's been a long week of travel, I'm fighting an illness, there have been some challenging relational struggles the past week, and then yesterday, the crowning blow, the online narratives about the election results, of which there was no shortage. Those are not meltdown excuses, but for my own wellness I've gotten better at trying to understand my meltdowns. The triggering event was definitely the election narratives that directly or indirectly spoke to the idea that God had sent a human to take back our country and to restore hope in individuals struggling to find it. I am always leery of folks who seem to know which events and which people God is and is not using to fulfill his story of salvation and hope; I'm leery of people who can see God fulfilling his story in circumstances they agree with, but somehow spend their time looking for God to reappear, to take reclaim goodness from circumstances they don't agree with. The disciples woke Jesus in the storm looking for a human answer. Can you do something with this boat to protect us from the storm, they begged? But Jesus woke up and gave them a Godly answer. Jesus skipped boat repair and went right to the storm. The disciples were merely afraid of the human answer. The Godly answer on the other hand, the one that proved to be THE answer - well that answer terrified them. As I processed my meltdown yesterday, as I re-read my words, I recognized my own hypocrisy. Which, by the way, I am never afraid to find my own hypocrisies; they often point me in directions pretending I'm not a hypocrite would never take me. It is true. I don't find God in one political party more than the other. I can't begin to reduce God to that. The minute I put God in a box, God is suddenly not much bigger than me. And that's a scary notion for any God followers. I truly believe one of the great surprises of humans who enter heaven will be discovering just how little attention God pays to CNN and Fox. Just how little God understands our electoral college. I think we will be shocked to find how much time God has spent campaigning for us to lovingly elect our neighbors while we've been obsessed with electing the right presidents. Yet, there are many areas in my life outside of politics where I look for human answers to solve divine problems. There are many areas in my life where I feel much more comfortable waking Jesus up and asking him, are you not going to do something about this, yet remain terrified of the power and control he wants me to yield to him in my storms. Yesterday, in the midst of my meltdown, my human instinct was to abandon a very human social media platform. In my mind, the human commotion emerging from that platform was making a mockery of the divine God who has done miraculously divine things in my life. But then, as I had friends respond, many of whom I have never met in real life, reminding me that the words I have spoken into their lives have had meaning, words that are never mine but words God has always willingly and divinely put on my heart, I heard God clearly ask me, who is doing the mocking now? I heard God ask, who is feeling compelled to lean on their own human responses to a divine challenge, now? Who is fearfully trying to wake Jesus up for assistance with the boat, yet terrified of fully trusting what the wide awake Jesus wants to do with and through your own storms. Who is trying to divert the divine path already put before them in favor of a human path that feels less terrifying. Because that is what makes the divine path so terrifying some days, it doesn't feel as simple to embrace as the human path. I had a friend whom, as I was writing this, unexpectedly reached out with a message that said: "I don't just read your words and move on to the next thing. I suspect I'm not alone. I take them to heart. I look for how I can apply them, and you have made a real difference in my life. The way I see and feel things." Those words were from a dear friend whom I have never met. But more, they were from a wide awake Jesus, rising from his sleep, walking right past me and my fears and my meltdowns, walking right into the storm of my life and saying, "Quite. Be Still." Jesus is not interested in fixing the boats in our lives. Jesus is focused on calming the storms. Rarely, if ever, do our human systems and human responses have the power to calm the storms; they are almost always focused on the boats. I'm not suggesting we don't have a need for boat fixers. We sure do need them. But when we go all in on boat fixers and run terrified from the calmer of the storms, we are always more at risk of a meltdown. We are always more at risk of drowning. Many days I see the value and opportunity in social media. Many days I do not. Many days I see the opposite. Today is one of those days.
Maybe today will finally be my last day here. I honestly can understand how yesterday's election results feel like an assault to some groups and the way they want to live their lives. And I honestly can understand how yesterday's election results feel like a gift to some groups and the way they want to live their lives. But the heartbreak to me, the challenge, the strong pull away from here that makes me feel like I no longer belong, is the story being told by many Christians about this election result. Not all, certainly, but my many. It's especially heartbreaking to me because at the heart of why I show up here every day is to point people to the hope that has buoyed me though some of the most agonizingly hopeless moments of my life, and that is Jesus. The Jesus who has literally saved my life. So to hear many suggest that God showed up yesterday to save our country, to me that minimizes the day that God showed up and once and for all saved us all. No election result has ever or will ever add to or take away from the nails, from the suffering, from the excruciating torture Jesus took on for every person and every country so they would never have to worry about being saved again. Oh, how I bet Jesus wishes saving a country would have been so simple as an election. And on that cross, Jesus promised there will never again be an ebb and flow of hope. I get why people who don't follow or depend on Jesus feel more or less hopeful today, I do. But I do not understand at all the narrative that suggests, from Christians, that today is a day to be more hopeful than yesterday. Jesus is no more or less dying on a cross today. And it breaks my heart that we, as Christians, knowingly or unknowingly, directly or indirectly, send the message to the hopeless looking for a story of hope they can lean on, be sustained by, can trust, that there are life experiences or events that bring a hope to them today that was not available yesterday. On the cross. The hope of Jesus is never dependent on the outcomes of this world. The hope of Jesus is never dependent on the outcome of an election. The hope of Jesus never has the time or interest to differentiate between any of the ways we ourselves differentiate each other as we hand out hope. And so if I never come here again, which feels entirely possible, I want to leave you with this pointing to the hope that is available to you any day, any time. It's the hope that died on a cross, to save you and me and every country and municipality once and for all, a hope that rose from the dead so that we would never be fooled again by what the true nature of hope really is - the power to overcome everything that looks and feels like death in our lives. No election has that power. Nor does any human. They never have and they never will. Yours will be the only name that matters to me The only one whose favor I seek The only name that matters to me Yours will be The friendship and affection I need To feel my Father smiling on me The only name that matters to me And Yours is the name the name that has saved me Mercy and grace, the power that forgave me And Your love is all I’ve ever needed ~Big Daddy Weave Oliver Burkeman says, "worry, at its core, is the repetitious experience of a mind attempting to generate a feeling of security about the future, failing, then trying again and again and again - as if the very effort of worrying might somehow forestall the disaster."
We are rapidly approaching election day. Both sides are getting louder and more desperate with their warnings; disaster waits with a vote for the other side. Here is what I know about this election. Two sides are equally worried about what happens if the other side wins. Here is what I also know about this election. Once one side wins, the victors will immediately go to worrying for four years about keeping what they've won, the other side will get to worrying for four years about how to dismantle that before the next election. This isn't a prediction, this is history. This is the 14th election I've been eligible to vote in. I won't swear that I've voted in every election; I believe I have. But this I will swear to, that I've seen both sides win over the course of those 14 elections, and never once did it result in a country no longer worried. It's the nature of elections. And our politicians know it. If you look at the campaign ads from both sides, they all attempt to drive home what we have most to worry about if the other side is elected. Winning elections has always been built on convincing us the other side winning should scare us to death, making the logical vote the one that makes us believe we have nothing to worry about at all. Only, that has never been the result. In fact, because we have so many platforms from which to fuel worry, and so many additional loud voices willing to preach worry from those platforms, the spin cycle of worry has only intensified. Politicians are getting much better at stoking fear than alleviating it, because sadly, stoking has proven to be a more successful campaign and re-election strategy than alleviating. So what is the answer? I really don't have one other than the one I use to alleviate my own personal worries. I look to the book of Matthew in the bible. In it you will read: Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life ? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Interesting that over 2000 years ago Jesus was addressing the laborious and self-destructive spin cycle of worry. And offering guidance. His guidance is to put our focus on that which isn't elected in our lives every four years. Look up at the birds as a reminder we have a higher power in our lives constantly watching over us and guiding us; look to the flowers as a reminder that if we are rooted in the soil of that which has a heart for growing us and not stoking the fear in us, we have no need to worry. For me, that focus is my God and creator. Maybe for others that isn't the case, but maybe they can find alleviating in family and friends, nature itself, a higher power in their lives that isn't necessarily God. That's a choice left for us all to make. I just know, based on history, if we are looking for our grandest fears to be alleviated by our election cycles, chances are you will find only more and more worry. Because more and more, that's the goal of politics. Worry. It seems to be a winning strategy. For politicians. As for us, well, that's clearly up to you. 10/30/2024 0 Comments You are not aloneBefore a training yesterday morning, I took a hike with my friend and workmate Marrin. It was one of the most spectacular visual experiences I've had in a long time, and in turn, one of the most spiritual.
I recently heard Steven Furtick say, "there are some things in your life you need to stop stressing about at a level that assumes you're going to have to do it alone." My eyes heard the echo of Furtick's words in this scene yesterday. My eyes heard God say, "you are not alone." There is a scientific phenomenon known as 'restorative environments.' Essentially what this phenomenon tells us is what we allow our eyes to see can directly influence our mental state, and even our capacity for hope and connectedness. This seems to be especially true of our natural environments. Additional scientific research tells us that filtering positive imagery through our eyes enhances our mental resilience. Intentionally choosing what we focus on, it turns out, can shape our mental health and outlook on life. We also read a lot about this in the bible. In the book of Matthew we read, "the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light." And in the Psalms we read, "I lift up my eyes to the mountains - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." Is it possible life can get to feeling like I'm going at it alone because my eyes are pointed at environments, people, places and things, that are telling me stories of destruction and not restoration? Is it possible life can get to feeling like I'm going at it alone because loneliness can leave my eyes prone to drooping to the ground and not pointing at the beauty of the natural world around me? Is it possible life can get to feeling like I'm going at it alone because I long to see a more hopeful future but I'm filling my eyes with images of a hopeless past? If you're feeling like you're going at it alone today, I would encourage you, consider what you're allowing your eyes to see. And hear. I often say I go into the woods to hear God. People will sometimes look at me a bit skeptical when I say that. They have their doubts, and that's okay. Because when I once again look at this breathtaking image from yesterday, I am left with no doubt what my eyes have heard. Like a beautiful hug they have heard and felt the words I so constantly long to hear. They have heard indeed, you are not alone. I recently found myself wondering, what if life isn't as much about changing as it is about discovering. What if this pursuit I'm on to become who I'm made to be is standing in the way of me discovering the beauty of who I already am.
It's funny, I say it about my boys all the time. I say I have no picture at all of who I want them to become - because I truly don't - I just want them to discover the gifts God has planted in them. I think me pushing them toward something that's in my mind stands in the way of them discovering something that might already be in theirs. The process of me discipling my kids isn't me pointing them toward something OUT there, it's me helping them discover what God's already put IN there. I once had a conversation with a friend about peace. I asked, have you ever felt peace? I asked it because I had. I remember where I was. I remember the trail. In that moment I was overwhelmed by this feeling that I was free to be me. Free to think and say and be all things that were truly me. Free to be things I'd spent a lifetime hiding from, believing those things couldn't possibly be a part of me. I remember saying - in that freedom - this is peace. Maybe that is what peace is. Finally discovering who we have been all along, because God didn't create us for hiding. Remember when Adam tried to hide from God? And God gently called, where are you Adam? A life spent chasing down this person we think we're supposed to be at the expense of resting in the person we already are often looks and feels like turmoil. It looks and feels like writing the story of the world we think we're supposed to see instead of sitting down and writing the story of the world that lives in us. The world out there - it pressures you to write a story about the world. It pressures you to believe the world is the leading role in that story; you are just a supporting actor or actress. The world constantly challenges you to re-write your character description in a way that makes you deserving of a role in the story. Sometimes we simply need to quit re-writing. The story is you. You are already in a leading role. The secret is removing the world from your story long enough to get to know the beautiful character you already are. You don't need to re-write your character description. You just need to discover the description that was written long ago. You are a beautiful story. Take time to read it. *(re-written from an article I wrote in 2021) I found this definition of stupid:
Actions driven by impulsiveness, ignorance, or stubbornness - essentially the opposite of wisdom. That particular definition could serve as the biography for large chunks of my life. But increasingly, my biography has become God saying, "let me show you what I can create from stupid." If one were to ask me to list the reasons I have a relationship with God, I wouldn't get far down that list before I got to all the things God has created from my stupidity. In fact, that list might become so all consuming that I'd never get back to the original list. Is it possible that the final destination for all of us in this world is supposed to be wisdom, and that all roads to wisdom run through stupid? Is it possible that God is far more interested in our transformation than our perfection; in our transformation than our happiness? If the answer is yes, then it makes sense why forgiving our mistakes comes so naturally to God. Because while we are spending time beating ourselves up for impulsive or ignorant choices, God has already gone to work creating transformation out of them. I mean, really, if transformation is God's goal, what use are we if we walk around believing we have nothing to transform? Tomorrow, I will deliver the keynote address at a conference in Marion, VA: Reviving Hope in Our Backyard, Addressing Addiction and Trauma. The title of my presentation is, "Unravelling the Roots, The Link Between Childhood Adversity and Addiction." I have spent the better part of the last decade unravelling the roots of so much destruction in my life. And the deeper I unravel, the more I discover God. Because there is only one reasonable explanation, to me anyway, for me standing on a stage with the darkest days of my life not only having meaning, but beauty. It's symbolic, in many ways. Symbolic that I have spent so much of my life giving stupid center stage, accompanied by all the self-hate and shame and guilt that tag along with it, and yet tomorrow there that same stupid will be, center stage, only it will not look or feel like self-hate and shame and guilt, it will look and feel like God. Like transformation. Like wisdom. If you are giving stupid center stage in your life, please know that God is getting ready to steal that stage. While you're beating yourself up, God is creating. While you're imagining the kind of life you would have had without all the stupid, God is creating beauty that couldn't have been created without it. The final destination is wisdom. Wisdom is born out of transformation. And transformation often runs through stupid. The goal is never stupid, it's not our desire, but when we encounter it, it's healing to know stupid is often the beginning, not the end. Thank God and amen. 10/17/2024 0 Comments Making god more than an accessoryThis memory popped up of something I wrote 7 years ago today. In reading it, I can't help but feel the peace in how much my relationship with God has grown in that time. How God has become far more the car than the accessory in my life since then.
We have a long way to go in this journey, me and God. But with each passing day, God becomes much more than the stereo in my life. What I wrote 7 years ago: I remember our cars back in high school. None of us had fancy cars. Few of us did anyways. We had hand me downs and cheap fixer uppers. What we tried to do, though, was turn those ordinary cars into classics by wrapping fancy leather around the steering wheels, hang cool things from the rear-view mirrors, and add loud, window rattling stereos. Stereos were huge. The biggest jalopy in the school parking lot could instantly become the coolest car there with the right stereo added to the mix. I've been thinking about God that way this week. How I think sometimes I reach for God as an accessory, an add on, to make my life look and feel better. I get to thinking I can turn this old jalopy of a human being into one that looks and sounds better, one people will like better, if I just add a little God to my life. Add some church here, a prayer or two there. Maybe go all out and wear a cross around my neck. You know, accessorize me with some of the good God stuff. I'm reminded this week that's not the role God longs to have in my life. If anything, God wants to be the car and wants ME to be the accessory. He wants me to pile in and let that car take me where a God car just might go. God has no desire to be that thing we wildly reach for in the fruitless pursuit of a better life. Because his desires aren't confined to us having a better life. In fact, I wonder if God will spend any time at all today trying to figure out how Keith can have a better life. No, God wants to be the vehicle I climb into in search of a deeper longing to make His world a better place to live for all, and a life that's not a product of my hopes and dreams, but his promise of eternal life. 10/15/2024 0 Comments Great Strength Can be found in not yetI had the day off yesterday. It was a holiday. I was also under the weather. When you're under the weather on a holiday, is it a holiday or a sick day?
I'm off on a tangent already; totally not the point of this article.... The point is I had a free day. And I used the free day to watch, for the very first time, Gladiator. I know, trust me, I have already endlessly heard the shame in this 24-year theatrical gap in my life. I think some gaps are meant to be, though. This movie is packed with themes that would have meant little to me 24 years ago, plot lines that would have totally escaped me. One of them being the relationship between Maximus and Juba, two enslaved gladiators. I loved how these two men wrestled with their spirituality. Together. Juba reflecting out loud on the hope that his long lost ancestors were watching over him and would see to it that he'd once again get to see his family that was still alive, while Maximus reflected on the hope that his family was waiting for him in the afterlife. These two men, beautifully held together by a belief in "not yet." I suppose that resonated with me on two levels. One, the sweet vulnerability between these two men, who could openly share their deepest pains and their deepest desires. And wrestle together, out loud, with the questions they shared around that vulnerability. There's a scene where Maximus talks about seeing his wife and son again, both who'd been murdered by the folks who currently held him captive. Maximus said, "I will see them again." And in a vulnerable response, Juba says, "but not yet." It was a very human mix of statement and question. Not yet. It was a very human mix of I want to believe you but also, can I believe you? Two men, wrestling out loud. Together. I've come to know, much later than that scene 24 years ago, that I long for that kind of vulnerability. I've worked toward it. I've come to know that many of us long for it, and that we are wired to need people in our lives with whom we can wrestle out loud with these sorts of vulnerable questions in our lives. It was in this connection, in this relationship, that these two men found strength in "not yet." I found that beautiful, really. I reflected on the days that "not yet" didn't offer me much peace. In fact, it was often torture. It often felt like a betrayal on God's part. Why not yet, God? These days I get it though. My own spiritual wrestling has led me to a relationship with God that fully trusts his not yets. All of them. I fully trust that there are things in my life that I long for now, things that are not yet in sight, I know they are on their way. I know they are, just not yet. At the end of the movie, when Maximus dies after winning freedom for Rome and for Juba and all the gladiators, Juba, in this sad scene, buries the figurines of Maximus' family. And he says, "Now we are free. I will see you again... but not yet...not yet." Juba had such deep questions around that 'not yet' the first time he and Maximus wrestled with that statement of faith. But now, in a difficult moment, he finds such sweet assurance in it. It's the kind of sweet assurance often only found when wrestling and struggling together. Life's answers are not always clear, but they are often made most clear in our connections with the people closest to us. People willing to entertain our doubts and questions while together arriving at answers. People who offer us and create space for - vulnerability. I have goosebumps, really, thinking about it. How the question 'not yet' became the beautiful closing scene answer. "But not yet...not yet." In the end, it was a beautiful day off, sick or not. Maybe one I should have taken 24 years ago. I think not, though. 24 years ago I wasn't ready for this movie. It wasn't my time for it. Not yet.... |
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
November 2024
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |