a note to fathers, and one for me to remember.

Unpack.

Unload.

Give up. Stop.

There is One who's valiantly walked a sorrowful path our feet could never belong to, who's shoulders bore burden alien to our own, who's heart swallowed life and death, fear and frailty, strength and worry and owns belonging both now and forevermore.  The role of hero forever defined in victim so there would be no more standing alone, no more holding the skies from falling, balancing plates spinning or attempt at making life better.

That role is taken, and dad, that is not yours.

Sweat of your brow, brawn of your hand, both feeble at best; wrong at worst.

The struggle to a better life is not in your own effort.  In fact, better life is not real but a fallacy we strain for measured in possession, power and position.  The more we acquire the smaller we become, dwarfed amidst maintaining all we own.  We forget value and what really matters.  Your family doesn’t need more.  They need you.  And the best of you.

Sure, we must work with diligence and effort, but God does not bless your hard work.  God blesses the humble of heart, the man whose hands lay open before Him with full awareness of limitation and broken heart.  Effort will never earn you anything in God’s eyes.  He recognizes humble hearts who confess their need for rescue, for help.

The most effective move you will ever make as a father is to stop the struggle and in holy pause, learn how to follow the path Christ pioneered for us all.

Your family needs a leader; one who leads fearlessly and follows close.

Give your family a better life, not in possession piling high and then forgotten, but in grace realized, love practiced and peace reinforced.

Start by letting go of the heavy day you know, the one that owns your time and affection.  Open your hands calloused by the ineffectual strain of earning a better life to a new way of dependence and reliance and following.

The happiest of Father’s Day to you as you rest in His immeasurable ability to give you all that you (and your family) need.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17, ESV)

(image credit: unknown)

worry and wonder in Oklahoma, life broken & beyond || A DEEPER STORY post

 

Night stretches thin,

black,

like a stare seeing clearer than yesterday but maybe more lost than then when night felt contained by good warm day.

Not so.  Maybe not for a while.

Definitely not during those nights now and ahead lingering lonely, not able to be chased away by the brightest of memories and the strongest of smiles.  No, they will hurt and break and not belong.

The world will move on without them and they will float carried by tears that feel like waves and questions that feel like fire.

And always, why slivers in.

:::::::

Those are brothers, fathers, mothers, sisters and friends in Oklahoma, just as they were in Boston, here in Texas and in every breaking moment around the world.  Tragedy comes close, so close that it sometimes breaks through disrespectful of words like promise and safety and goodness.

. . . continuing this post at A DEEPER FAMILY

(image credit: Flicker, Big Grey Mare)

3 ways I know myself well.

I am worthless.

Thirty six years into days given as free opportunities and I’m still tripping over clumsy steps, breaking promises faster than they have room to actually settle in place, speaking dishonest words, doing dishonorable things and managing to mess up with fervent regularity.  Left to myself, my actions and intentions cannibalize my heart into fragmented pieces consuming life selfishly, reducing me valueless in those moments to anything but my own desire.

Like a moth to flame do my actions draw to mistake.

I am weak.

One would think that after 432 months survived, strength would be an aged virtue.  There’s no virtue in these bones.  Strength invades in losing moments when unfortunate circumstance boasts victory, but I don’t really know strength any better than I know magic.  I am not strong.

Like a treeling bent in howling winds does my heart run ground low in adversity.

I am not good.

After 13,148 days deep into the life given me, I am no more good than the babe I started as.  In fact, maybe I’m worse the older I get, tangled in what I think wise and noble.  My heart breeds contempt for all holy.  It doesn’t fit naturally.  My heart is incompatible with the good illusion I project which reveals just how undermining it really is.

Like a peddler selling something his hands didn’t create nor own, I hang my life in the day hoping to convince onlookers and passerby's.

And here is mystery softly rebirthing me in moments broken and fractured by my own worthlessness, weakness and badness - love.  In each creaking day leading me to 36 years old, I am loved completely.  Never can I outrun it; no where can I go to escape its reach; nothing I can ever do to cancel it.  God’s incalculable, immeasurable, confusing love inverts the reality of what I know to be true in my heart - the worthless, weak, bad - to hold and own a new value to the measure of exact opposite.  He loves me to worthy, to strong and to good.  His love regenerates me leaving me someone new ...again.

I stand readied for all ahead by God’s love that only consumes the evil of my heart in all of its brooding and repetitive evil.  More than these 3 ways in which I know myself so well, I’m learning one, God’s love, which masters them all in my receding and allowance of that Love owning me.

Another year.  Amen.

[meditate::John 3.16-21]

Featured Artist :: Art House Dallas

I don't think of myself as an artist.

I should say, I don't always think of myself as an artist, but I am accepting of myself as an artist more and more these days.

I think it's because I haven't always thought of myself as a real writer.  Maybe a hobbyist at best, a pretender at worst.  Even half way through writing my first book, I'd tell others at art events, those who'd ask what I did, that I was in sales.  My response was a downplay, a deflect of attention.  After all, who wants to fail or come up short despite all effort given?  So I'd work tirelessly, part privately, on the manuscript of my first book while not admitting to being a writer - an artist.

Realizing (and admitting to) the value in my art and dream of being a writer began to surface after introduced to Art House Dallas.  Suddenly, I felt connected to plenty of other artsy folk who learned to not merely hear the echo of dreams within, but learned to esteem creative dreams within and wield creativity realized for a greater purpose.

A forged statement repeated often in the community of Art House captures its heart and meaning: "Cultivating creative community for the common good — encouraging everyone to live imaginative and meaningful lives."

I'm both thankful to be part of that community and honored to be this month's Featured Artist.  Read the Featured Artist interview below where I discuss my creative process, habits and upcoming book, "Earth & Sky."

:::::::

What is “Earth & Sky: a beautiful collision of grace and grief,” all about?  What inspired you to write it?

In a word: life.  The book is a memoir recounting the sudden, unexpected death of my wife nearly 3 years ago.  Far more than a somber story remembering a life passed in the wake of inexplicable tragedy, Earth & Sky journeys into the heart of grief, grace guiding into a new day.  The correlation of earth and sky lies in the connection between and interaction of human frailty (us - earth) with faith (God - sky).  Sinking in deep loss, God pursued me into the darkened depths of my heart wasting away in grief.

This story is not mine alone.  It belongs to my three little daughters as well.  One life that we knew together suddenly ended with no warning and left us dislodged from any sense of familiar belonging.  I was widowed and they were motherless and half-orphaned.  Both the story and journey belong to all four of us as we learned to live life anew and rediscover happiness, joy, meaning and reason. The inspiration to write Earth & Sky sprung up in desire to chronicle our path together through grief.

Writing about loss is obviously challenging.  C.S. Lewis', “A Grief Observed,” is a sometimes excruciating classic in the genre.  Were you influenced by any such works? Did you even plan to write a book at the start?

Lewis’ words echoed a strong sense of familiarity in the writing of my book.  Regarding pain, Lewis poignantly wrote, “It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.”  His words had a way of speaking life into my soul in the words giving witness to the dark treading through his own rebel heart.

I wrote as a means of bleeding out restless emotions swirling about my heart and head.  Initially, I captured raw emotions in poetry which gave me generous boundary lines to explore and confess darker fears, thoughts and prayers without worry of much sensible literary structure.  Many of these poems are built into the prose of the book.  The poetic spillings served as a cathartic exercise so I continued to write as I began to shape the content into story arch.

The most helpful influence in not only writing the book, but in healing and moving forward revealed itself in Kubler-Ross‘ book, “On Grief and Grieving.”  I found purpose in crafting my story after spending time in this particular book where she and David Kessler expand on her model of the 5 stages of grief.

// CONTINUE READING AT ART HOUSE DALLAS

known and found together in NYC.

Our feet made similar stride patterns on streets ringing old with history and ambivalence. We were later than we wanted to be and rushed to capture the night earlier lost to slower moving crowds and tourists like us staring at all the lights and glamour that New York City boasts.  This weekend was to unfold perfectly.  Just the two of us trapped in time and space by our own accord and agreement.  

We happily wanted to be there together but had different ideas of what being there was all about.  Plans were set months before for us to set out on our own for the first time.  A new family tradition set in place with full eager agreement as she approached her 10th birthday.  I proposed we escape to an adventure of her choosing, just the two of us.  I did it for memory’s sake, but more so as one of the wisest investments I’ll ever make.

More than her never forgetting this adventure, she will always remember it.  After all, that’s really what parenting is all about, isn’t it?

. . . helping them to remember who they should be and not forget.

Every time we tossed around ideas and plans for our trip to NYC, a smile graced her growing face and reminded me of her younger.  She was not younger any longer - she is not.

Our weekend planned for just the two of us had to be perfect in my mind.  Never before had I been so careful to organize a trip.  We made a list of all she wanted to do and set a plan on how to get it all done.  I’ll be honest and say that I felt like quite the parent in the days leading up to our daddy-daughter trip.  In being further honest, I should also say that the idea is not mine originally.  In the book “Love Does,” I read about a simple, astounding father in Bob Goff as he wrote about this approach with his own kids.  Still I staked claim in my parenting genius until we actually set foot in NYC.

We landed a bit later, the cab ride from the terminal took a bit longer and our room was a bit further from our first stop had to be made prior to dinner at the enchanting place of her choosing.  After 14 city blocks and hundreds of slow moving tourists, I noticed a silence hanging between us.  I checked in with her a few times asking if she was okay.  She met my concern with a simple and unconcerned, “yeah, I’m okay.”

The distance sensed between us began to set uneasily in me.  I had envisioned long walks to magical places enveloped by deep conversation welling from her heart.  Silence wasn’t anticipated.  Block after block, 5 to be exact; I kept count, I wondered exactly how she hurts, what thoughts plague her in the aloneness of her mental space - the feelings she doesn’t always know how to put words to - how those thoughts resolve, if they resolve or just keep ringing with no clear space to land and so on into and through meandering thoughts about her thoughts held to herself.

She just hoped for a weekend to explore a city bigger than she’s ever known with her dad who is often busy with all 3 to afford this much time to only 1, her.

And so, again, the student becomes teacher or maybe more precisely, the teacher learns to be a better student.

My daughters don’t need a father constantly looking and finding ready set to rescue them from anything and everything.  They need a dad who knows them because of days and time actually lived together - there in the moment, learning who they are stride by stride.

Parenting is living today in spite of and because of fears presently founded in tomorrow.

boys, dating - mistakes, driving - misuse, college - goodbyes, career - security, purpose - meaning and belonging, family - heritage, God - wholeness

Leading children into tomorrow is a daunting task unfit for those unwilling to learn better.

This is the lesson I learned better walking down Park Avenue her hurried stride matching my longer one: she wants to be known more than found.

The little girl, Elizabeth, I’ve come to know as Lizzie - remade in the months and years following her mother’s death into a young girl transcending tragedy with a learned lean on God’s mysterious grace - walked more than spoke and with every step I knew her more.

An hour later than I planned for, we sat at our little window table surrounded by more pink and frilly things than I’d like to recall.  Her little face flashed a smile as she took it all in, the glory of her moment together with me living a dream playing in her mind.  We talked about all sorts of things serious and simple and ridiculous.  Mostly the ridiculous won out though in snippets of jokes traded and adopted.

Gratitude and humility found me warmly there.  It was I who needed to be found most, and found I was by God’s simple goodness.

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love, its leaving and infinite sadness || A Deeper Story

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break. - William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Maybe, William, but maybe a heart broken isn’t all bad.

I’m one of three given to my parents.  Two of us remain and one lives forever.

Today, here, he would have aged to 39.  I was 5 years old when he left this life, three years his younger.  I often speculate life uninterrupted; to be fully sandwiched between siblings, not just in thought, dream and memory but in aging days shared.  Heated arguments burning selfish, fights against each other proving strength and stubbornness, fights alongside each other ending those set to prove themselves against one of us, long days lost in the woods, dares given and challenges accepted, our younger sister’s boyfriends enduring the intimidation of both not one of us; in life together, pocketed and adorned jointly.

A sadness crawls still aging in his stead.  Hearts broken, mended and torn open again in days aging.

I know my family still grieves today in every one of its passings. And now so do my daughters in their own terrible way of losing their mother.

continue reading my monthly feature at A Deeper Story . . .

on Boston, babies and tomorrow.

when will the day rest and settle soft, one day quietly leaning into another

fear forgotten  ...love remembered

words spoken gentle and without pay

lunatics, come home to a place forgotten in flames of somewhere once over-trodden set still, cease picking at scabs inherited leave dreams burning mad, and only you

    judgers listen to the sound of more than seen     Otherworld melody disturbing our peace carry lyrics that read like prayers of         repentance ...for both us and them     something so wrong, so horrid, so haunting, so hateful and treacherous     owning those to be brothers and fathers sold by fathers

sorrow whispers, all is not well Otherworld lowers itself more into our world bleeding out of control. on lonely streets crowded all remember at the hand of hatred,     no, all is not well.

. . . and the future cringes at today fast approaching; a Son bends low yesterday, spits in blinded eyes wanting to see yes son, the blind can still see.

:::::::

“There’s so much wrong in the world today.”  

It seems each generation says this with more emphasis and groan.  I listened to my grandparents talk about evil in the form of wars and armies fighting wicked men starved for control.  Men demonized because of their lust for power and domination stopping at nothing to reach for it.  I heard my parents talk about some of the same, but the enemy became some of them turned inward.  Wanting all they could get in independence and personal freedom, homes eroded to kingdoms abandoned by those who should have been kings.  Divorce rose common giving way for children devaluing home altogether while longing for what they never could have or keep.

One generation echoes the one before: so much wrong present today.

Quickly, we rally to hurt with those in Boston and pray for healing and safety reset again.  We ring bells of alarm, disapproval and judgement in the Gosnell trial screaming, “monster” of man's damnable, predatory and atrocious acts against humanity.

And rightfully so, on both accounts.

I simply stand in your crowd, shoulder to shoulder together, but what’s on our collective mind connects us familial.  There’s so much wrong swirling.  When will it end?  Does it end?  If it doesn’t, how deep will it go and how close can it reach?

Friends, that is what frightens me and strips any apathy right off of my warm back.  Evil’s reach right into my world and closer - right into the world of those names I know, those necks I hug and hearts I love.  I pray for people I never knew compassionately and with a lonely pity, but fear and evil continue to billow out there in the distance away from those I love most.  It can be a fearful thing to raise a child in today’s savage context.  Evil lurks, broods and advances close seemingly with no fear of repercussion or boundary to stay it away leaving little safety or sacred in our lives.

Today a city wakes to a new day bathed in grief and unanswered questions.  Within its borders, right near its center, bombs exploded ripping not only through life and limb, but tomorrow.  And today a nation watches horror continue to unfold in the trial of a doctor who severed the heads of babies and performed late term abortions quietly for years.

I contemplate my position, pray for mercy and grace and gather myself to stand correctly.  If judgement be my only response, then evil possibly only begets evil.  The atrocious and ugly, the unholy and unjust, the wrong and evil - as a whole is much too large for me.  My responsibility is not to right wrong, but to hurt with those hurting, plead for safety and justice with those needing it and sow love, goodness and beauty in every opportunity given.

Within my family, I can fight to eradicate the generational echo of so much wrong in the world today.  Though I fear the world my daughters will stand to face and raise their kids in one day soon, I must remember that this day is theirs and trust that good will continue to buffet evil no matter how dark its clouds.  Above all and in the end, good will swallow evil and God will redemptively make all things new and somehow right.

The big struggle is His to manage and bandage for now.  Mine is to live these days given; to trust and live in response to trust in Him.

Much work needs to be done in each day grooming my daughters for all ahead.  How they see me respond to my days, the good, the bad and the ugly, will largely influence the days belonging to them and how they live them.

As evil distorts and dismantles future's still waiting day, I affect culture as a parent living and building little lives now; speaking into days ahead, “there will be those who stand ready to love in darkness growing until all returns to rest and peace.”