When does adventure become selfish?

       As I’ve pondered this question I keeping coming back to one word: “escape”.  I think adventure becomes selfish when it’s an escape. Not that all escapes are bad. No, indeed there is a time and a place for escape and deliverance always feels preferable to provision in the midst. But that is not adventure. It’s something else entirely. And further I would distinguish deliverance from escape. Deliverance is about the action of God, escape is about the action of man. Which brings me to why I think adventure as escape is selfish- it’s about what I can do for myself. At its core I think selfishness is an attempt to provide for our needs apart from God. Escape is how we run from the work and heart of God. It’s too risky, too much, too far, too close, too fill-in-the-blank. But adventure, adventure is the way we run into the middle, the heart of what Jesus is doing because it’s the trajectory of our devotion. Is my adventure born out of devotion or self-preservation? It is not an easy distinction to make. But it is easy to flee and call it adventure. To hide and call it adventure. To shirk and call it adventure. To isolate and call it adventure. One of Merriam-Webster’s definitions for adventure is “to take the risk involved.” I think adventure becomes selfish when it is an effort to circumvent a risk rather than take one. I’m afraid of what’s in front of me so I travel around Europe for a month in an effort to avoid coming face to face with an invitation to risk that will dog me to the corners of the earth. That’s the other thing about adventure as escape- it will never work, but we keep trying and Jesus doesn’t fault us for the fact that we keep trying. Grace upon grace upon grace. Yet Jesus will never stop asking you to risk. So is your adventure the adventure of taking your particular risks, following your particular trajectory of devotion? Or is it a sham adventure elaborately constructed to avoid the risk Jesus calls you to? It may sound like I’m trying to turn adventure on its head and say, “True adventure is staying put.” I’m not. I’m asking what is your posture as you go? Are your eyes shut tight as you run out the door? Are you moving forward, but facing backward? Is your head hanging down? Or do you take a look around as you go, say goodbye, and look up? And are you willing to let it be possible that Jesus wants you to stay put for now? Is that possibility on the table? Is everything on the table? Or are there possibilities you simply won’t consider? Whatever you hold with clenched fists is most likely to slip through your fingers. The more you dig in your heels for your way, the more you feel the ground giving way beneath you. To give to God is to receive back in fullness. The desires I keep stay small, the ones I lay down before Jesus grow and are given back to me in such measure they cannot but be shared. So where is adventure born and where does it grow? Is my adventure born out of my need to find some semblance of control in a chaotic and broken world or is it born out of the kind, winsome, strong, risky call of Jesus? Does it grow in the shadows, behind closed doors or does it grow in the light of his sovereignty and the community he’s given me? Do I adventure as a defiant orphan, always on the run? Or as one adopted by God, also running, but running to instead of away? Adventure becomes selfish when it is about what I can get, instead of what I’ve been given.

Living Poems, Everything is on the Table

I’ve always secretly thought of poetry as a cop out. A way of not explaining what you mean and getting away with it. To me the worst way of communicating. I’m coming to see saying what you mean without explaining it, may be the only way to truly say what you mean. To own your words, your actions, your life without apology may be the most genuine and world changing way of communicating. So I am becoming a poet. I can say things like, “August tried to kill me.” And I don’t have to tell you why or what that means to me to make it true. Yet it will be far richer if you wonder what that means, if you ask how a month tried to take my life. Here’s the thing: poetry invites relationship in a way prose never can. Prose tells, poetry provokes. Don’t you wonder when you read my poem about the last year what it means that August tried to kill me or that I walked into October with my real self? If you engage with me about my poetry you will know me far more than if you simply read my prose. My poetry requires you bring yourself. My prose simply requires you absorb information. The ladder is not bad, but the former can change both of our lives. And of course I mean what I’m saying but to me the far bigger truth is a metaphor—how do I live, not just write, poetry? After a lifetime of explaining and defending, making my apology, I hear the call to let my words make music instead of sense, my life make music instead of sense. I can only make room for community by relinquishing the never ending monologue of my explanations and living in your sight in a way that doesn’t defend but constantly invites engagement. Everything is on the table every day. To God and to you. This is communion with God and this is communion with you. I want to live in a way that only works if Jesus shows up, that means my defenses are down and my hope is rampant. And I need you to show up too. I need you to ask questions. I need to know what you see. I want to be friends, not innocuous observers. Friends are not innocuous. Neither is poetry. I need you, not your approval. Everything is on the table. Jesus has to show up.

Words About a Year, 5 Months Later

A Reflection of 2013:

I didn't know January came.
February brought whispers of health in the midst of darkness.
In March I began to dream,
And in April I acted.
In May the cloud lifted.
In June there was a puppy and rest.
July ministered to me tirelessly with sunrises and oceans.
August tried to kill me,
Yet I lived to see a vibrant September.
I walked into October with my real self.
November was a gift.
And December? In December I was surprised by joy.

Thank you 2013. Welcome 2014 past and 2014 to come.

I Want to Drink Like Terracotta

I think one of the most brilliant colors is wet terracotta. Do you know what I'm talking about? The burnt red and orange all mixed into one as water meets near dust, baked earth. Have you ever seen rain fall on a terracotta roof? You know the exact shape of the first fallen rain drops as the water stays exactly where it landed. The terracotta so thirsty a drop of rain has no chance to spread. It hit something so parched it's outline remains. Yet it's absorbed so quickly you can watch the tile go back to dry red/orange. Ceramic clay. As it begins to rain harder there are vibrant droplets all over the roof in varying stages of drying. Then eventually it rains hard enough that all is wet. All has turned to the lushest color I know- wet terracotta. Maybe it's not fair to say that's the lushest color I know. Haven't I seen jungles with greens only possible when your in their presence? Yes. Haven't I seen gardens built for kings? Yes. But for me lushness happens in the desert. And for me terracotta will always be in the desert. In Arizona, in New Mexico, in deserts I haven't seen. It's lush because the color of wet terracotta defies everything around it.

I love the desert. I always have. And it's always surprised me. Why do I love deserts? What is it about arid, dry lands that makes me feel so full of life? I think there are two reasons. One is I live in extremes. Most of my personal work over the past few years has been learning to let Jesus redeem my extremity. The all in or all out extremes I navigated my world with were damaging me and others, yet God does not calls us away from extremity. Instead He calls us to our redeemed extremes. God moves in extremity. He shows up in extremity. It's all over His story in Scripture. It's all over His story in my life. Part of redeemed extremity is learning not to curse the middle. The in-between. The not sure. The not there anymore and not here yet. When my extremity is redeemed I can leave it and walk to the middle when that is the best way to engage myself, others, and my world. Unredeemed extremity is a prison, you can't leave. Isolation is it's fruit and chaos it's companion. Anyway, deserts are extreme and I love that. It's blazing hot when the sun is up and freezing cold as soon as the sun sets. The sky is so clear you can almost see that the earth is round when you look up. Everything lives on the edge of death.

The second reason I love the desert is because it's thirsty. Truly thirsty. There's thirst even in the way it drinks. Like terracotta. So porous it's entire surface area has to be watered at very nearly the same time for it to all be wet. And the water has to keep coming or it will drink it all up. This is the most inspiring part of the desert for me. It is not afraid to be as thirsty as it is. There are no pretenses about the water that's not there, and there is no lack of receiving when the rain comes. I want to drink like the desert. Taking in so fully without rationing what I receive in a vain attempt to plan for future lack. Terracotta drinks. You can watch it. Then it's dry again, but it unashamedly takes in what's before it even though it will be thirsty again. It will always be thirsty again because it's a desert thing. But still it drinks. I am made of clay. I know a Fount of Living Water. I want to drink like terracotta.

I'd Hold You By Your Shelves

If I really wanted to get to know you
I'd come and stand in front of your shelves.
I would gaze and run my fingers along the spines that formed yours.
The reasons you love this and hate that; the source of so many longings, connections and beliefs.
Your whys and hows.
I'd look longer at the decrepit bindings, the paperbacks betraying your awe wonder and worship with creased backs, thickened by dog-eared pages.
I'd ask why each single one. And when I got to the one where you said, "This one. This one is my favorite" and could not cheapen the why with words
That one I would read and so hold. So know. So love.
Your shelves betray you. Your depth. Your color. Your care.
I'd hug my knees to my chest. Sit against the wall. Not hearing fingers against page nor any noise so foreign.
Only the sound of having you close.
Because like Francie knows, holding and understanding are all rolled up into one.
I'd hold you by your shelves.
My book lover, I'd hold you by your shelves.

"I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding."
  -Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Like Leaves

I've never been responsible for a yard in the fall before. I've raked leaves before and understand the concept that all your trees lose all their leaves and the leaves have to end up somewhere but I've always lived where it was up to someone else. My dad growing up, landlords, and hired crews at apartments. Now I live in a house with trees. I used to like the trees before they started this nasty habit of losing their leaves, not all at once, but progressively for weeks. I thought about just waiting for all the leaves to fall and then taking care of all of it at once but I feel cluttered on the inside when I look out and see stepping stones, and chairs, and front steps covered in leaves. At first it's charming, a tangible sign that things change and seasons pass but then the leaves get old. They're not bright anymore, but brown, an ever growing pile to remind me that I'm behind. And if that's not enough the sound of my neighbor's blower haunts me, seeming to whisper in my ear, "You're behind. You're behind. Someone else is ahead. Show you can take care of it on your own." This is the real reason why noise pollution is such a problem...the lawn tools taunt all those in ear shot not doing yard work. I don't know why the leaves feel so significant to me. Perhaps they symbolize a greater question than they ask on their own. On their own they simply ask, "Will you get me up?" But I watch them drift to the ground and on the edge of the lovely spinning and twirling I hear the question that won't let me go, "Is it worth the work?" It gathers weight just like the leaves as they cover everything in ever greater numbers. I believe in soul work because I never really lived until I came to grips with the fact that I have a soul that is not bound by order, control, or accomplishment. Soul work is giving space to yourself, allowing your feelings, your grief, your joy, your dreams, your pain to grow to whatever height they will and living through the decline and inevitably the next coming incline. Grief and joy and everything in between come in waves which rise and fall with a rhythmic unpredictability. Soul work is letting the truths of our lives be what they are, to come when the come, to stay as long as they stay. Instead of cutting off our emotions, numbing our reality, or denying that we have a soul by our simple but profound refusal to feel. When I do soul work I invite, I gather, I listen, I sit. I allow my past, present, and future to inform each other reciprocally and I don't reduce my life to survival and circumstantial living without risk or mystery.

Here's the catch: I don't always do it, and often when I do I wonder, "Is it worth the work?" Here's where the leaves come in. Collecting leaves is daunting. There's a whole yard and one rake. In places there are lots of leaves and here it's easy to pile. You hear the rustle of leaves being piled together and you smell autumn in the quick accumulation. It's where the leaves are fewer that it is harder to gather them. You have to rake over clear ground for the one or two strays. You must cover a lot of ground for a small pile, but if you left those leaves you wouldn't be done. They are enough to need collecting but not so many to easily gather them. Even as you work more leaves fall around you. Sometimes you go back and get them as yet another one falls in your hair, some stem that just couldn't hold it's branch anymore. But eventually you come to grips with the fact that you can't go back for them all right now so you focus on the places you haven't been to yet. There's the neighbor who walks by saying, "You'll be doing this again next week." And though you know it was meant to be neighborly part of you wants to throw the rake down and stomp inside, nursing the wounds of futility. But there's also the next neighbor who says, "You're doing a good job with the yard." Seeing but not patronizing. God bless that neighbor. I don't want to forget him, especially as I carry the thousandth bin of leaves to the curb. You finally finish and look back over the yard. There are some leaves but it's clear that you've raked the yard. What remains is a lovely smattering, making your yard look like it could be the cover to a children's book about fall. You take a deep breath and lean against the rake and into the catch in your back. Good work. Well done. This is a good moment. In this moment it was worth the work. But then it begins to rain. All your work seems to be undone. In a number of hours the same amount of leaves or more are back on the ground as before you raked. First you feel surprised, then incredulous, then ashamed. "I should have known. I did know. Why did I think this work would matter? I knew, I knew there were still leaves on the trees and I raked anyway." But here's the thing we forget: every leaf we got to the curb needed to get there. Even if there are more. Even if the first neighbor thinks we are made the fool by the leaves that keep coming. Still the ones we gathered needed to be gathered and that work is not undone but the new gathering to be done. A yard doesn't look like it's being taken care of in the fall even hours after it's raked, but that doesn't mean it's not. That does mean it's hard to tell the difference between a yard that's being worked in and cared for and one that's not, especially if you're not willing to look closely. Not willing to look for the pile on the curb belying the work done. Especially if you don't know the yard. If you can't see what it would look like if it had never been raked.

This is exactly what soul work is like. It is so often dismissed as unnecessary because we are so afraid of being made the fool and aside from love nothing makes a fool like working without completion, working in the midst of work to be done. But this is what each of us is called to, to know there are still leaves on the trees destined to fall at a time somewhere past now and rake anyway. Rake even though the first neighbor thinks you're wasting time. Take a break sometimes. Go inside for lunch and bless your cursing of the leaves that will fall while you rest. Remember the second neighbor. Let his words wend and wind through you just like the leaves through the air. We have believed the lie that more work to be done discounts the work done, and makes present work worthless. It's not true. Every "leaf" gathered is an honoring of the soul God has made, no matter how many remain to be gathered or will fall from heights in the future. And yes, you could wait and do it all at once, but what a task. There is honor in the work amidst work, and a gnawing dread in waiting to begin the work until you know you can finish the work. So rake anyway, know blessing when you quit, know blessing when you keep going, know the frustrating glory of a God who calls us to work without completion...yet.

Surrender: The Art of War

"Surrender. Surrender to God."
Isn't that what we're told so often? I always tried but was never very successful when it came to surrendering to God. I think I know why: I didn't understand what it means to surrender. Some words implicate others. Meaning there are concepts that are inextricably linked. There is no one without the other. Sky. 'Sky' can stand alone. And so can 'car', 'table', and 'toy'. All these words mean different things to all of us and they illicit different feelings, smells, and stories from each life, but their definitions are not dependent on other words in the way some words are. 'Quit' must go with 'participating', you can't quit without having participated. 'Leave' must go with 'come', you can't leave without having come. 'Fly' must go with 'perch', you can't fly without having been perched somewhere. I suppose I'm just talking about the difference between nouns and verbs differently than we usually talk about that difference. Nouns are static, they can stand alone. Verbs are action, they cannot. Surrender is an action and it does not stand alone. Oh! but if it could. If surrender could stand alone I would be saved mess, injury, exposure, and these marks as telling as a sign on my forehead. Surrender implies, necessitates, calls for, and cannot even exist without...a war. Do you hear the militaristic theme surrounding 'surrender' in scripture? It's there. You almost can't miss it, and if you're looking you really can't. We serve a God who says, "Deal with me." Not religion, not your boss, not your sin, not your dad, not your spouse or your ideals but Me. God calls us to one on one engagement with him. To a battle where we do not know if we'll survive. Just as God fought Jacob he awaits the fight with each of us. Not that God is a warmonger, instead that God knows the complaint we have against him is worthy of a war. He calls us to truth, not denial, and he cannot call us to truth without calling us to conflict. Our truth is full of tragedy, shame, abuse, and trials of every kind- this is our grievance against God. He doesn't ask us to minimize the grief of living here, instead he invites us to deal with Him, and Him alone, as we grapple with this side of Eden. God wrestled Jacob and Jacob was changed, he left with a limp and a new name. Surrender is a limp and a new name. Anything less than a real fight and you haven't surrendered. God's justice asks for you to bring the injustices of your life before him and wrestle with your reality as measured against God's love. God's answer is not, "Because I said so" His answer is, "Bring all your grievances to me and demand from me answers. Deal with me. See what you find." Surrender without a war only leads to occupation, puppet governments, and a sham retainment of identity. Yet, as I said I often wish there could be surrender without war because the war requires much from me and the limp gives me away to an ever-peering world. When I go to war with God I must bring myself, I must know my grief, my rage, and my chaos. These are the weapons I bring and I never win. Never. But God does not break me. He brings me to a draw. He touches my hip so that even in healing there is injury, and yet now somehow the injury is glorious. I ask for a blessing and He calls me a fighter, His fighter.

My heart doesn't race, my stomach doesn't clench, my hands don't tremble, nor my head go empty when the phone rings anymore. We warred about that because the last phone call brought me two parents broken and bleeding and I had a grievance against God. The limp is this tender spot I can't hide for all who walk among cars, and all who've known brokenness from metal against flesh. It's a weak spot, a mark, a limp. But I have the blessing I asked for when I was too exhausted to fight anymore, and I fought against him so that I could fight with Him and for Him now. If I hadn't gone to war with God over this, if I'm not willing to do battle over it again and again as I grow and change then my 'surrender' would be a denial of the damage done, and it would turn toxic invading every native thing about me making me a stranger in my own land. Surrender without a fight brings bitterness, but surrender with a fight brings a costly, limping, glorious freedom.

*As in so many of my blogs many ideas here are thanks to the work and teachings of Dr. Dan Allender. Here particularly I have taken ideas from The Wounded Heart seminar available for purchase at danallender.com Thank you Dan for teaching me how to fight the good fight.