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.”

the loss of effective parenting.

I see their smiles now easy and free.  Peace quiets worry at this sight. And joy fills my heart in the deep of night.

Most days lived under our shared roof sprawl out without much difficulty.  Comfort and security exists again.  I remember the days burning hot and dry when we lived a million miles from one another exiled to our own island on fire.  How unending those days felt!  How unrelenting those waves beat against our shore while offering no respite.

The days, weeks and months following their mother's death, my wife then, will forever be immortalized as a graceful metamorphosis on the timeline of our family, the grand redesign of us now, then and ahead.  For nearly 3 years now, we have been learning life again, finding joy in mundane free from extraordinary ordeal.  Finding joy in day unfolding with boring, unassuming regularity; that’s how you know your heart is beating alive and not a shell of yesteryear.

To be clear, happiness is what we pull from the sky, the smiles we try to wear as long as we can bare, but joy ...joy finds us as the sky falls to find us.

Joy swells in white flags waving and in the end of the pursuit of happiness.  It glimmers rebelliously amidst darker days blanketed by fear, worry, doubt and is the praise of screw ups who know better than to trust the feeble strength of their own hand.

The light in each of their eyes dims, their faces hang in heavier moments, and I’m reminded again close to my chest I have no guarantees.  Nothing promised apart from the breath drawn right now; not even the next day as I once believed.

Belief, that’s all we have and the only choice ever really needed to be made.

And that’s what fuels joy: belief.

The folly of the proud is self-reliance, but the triumph of the humble is joy despite all things, anything, independent of day, night, struggle, ease and especially fairness.

Maybe you’re like me in that I worry often as a parent.  I push hard into most days and try to squeeze as much as I can out of it because there are no absolutes or guarantees that my effort put into my children will produce well - adjusted, loving people whose hearts belong to God and affections to the life given soon to them.  I know as many parents who do everything as right as one can do who sit up late at night wondering what went wrong as the others who stumbled about aimlessly trampling inconsistently in selfish and ignorant circles whose kids end up running an honorable bid for sainthood.

There are simply no guarantees in life as there are in parenting.  “Train up a child in the way he should go”* . . . and he may in fact stray.  He may return one day to God’s grace and goodness, but maybe he won’t.  No one saves, save for God.  That’s why we must only believe.

Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?"  Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."**

And so in our quest and effort as parents, we must courageously believe in God’s love and plan more than our pocketed strategies and parenting techniques said to tame the heart of the unruliest, liveliest little child.  For when we trust in God’s ability in their lives and despite our parenting, we transcend human effort of dust trying to cover dust and allow Eternity to shape, form and guide into all ahead.

As a dad to three little beautiful girls, my heart winces a little more with each increasingly complex conversation.  I do good in my own effort as their dad, but soon we’ll travel hand in hand to an impasse where my foot will slip and my hand not able to hold.

Right there my heart better be ready to let go and grab hold of God’s grace and ability.  Right then, my heart must be able to believe or all that I’ve done is try diligently to look capable for as long as I could until my hand could hold no longer.

:::::::

“The law says, ‘do this,’ and it is never done.  Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done.” -Martin Luther

Believe in the future already owned by the One who purchased a day unable to be bought by impoverished hearts.  Be free.  Belong.  Trust.

image found @ www.ronitbaras.com  ||  *Proverbs 22:6  ||  **John 6:28-29

together, out of good.

Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of they blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, they Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Easter-Even, The Collect.

None of us are good.  No one one is.

As we approached the darkest of this shared season of Lent, we touched the deepest, most intimate wrong buried in of our human hearts.  Good, the lie that we are okay, can make it out on our own and all we need, all we want dwells within us.

The serpent hiss, perverted benevolence ringing in hearts rooted in choice.

We are all okay, good from beginning, innocent - a diseasing lie eating us.

Their eyes widened a bit and ears tuned in to words undoing us.  No good in us.  There is brooding wrong within each of us demanding surrender, lording desire; a problem sitting heavy on the chest of mankind.  Sin that won’t leave us alone and a scab that we won’t quit picking at.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  (Romans 7:18, ESV)

An illuminated reality in my role as parent has become apparent: just as I accept that there is no good within me, there is no good within them either.  None.  Their hearts live just as displaced as mine always choosing that which the heart wants rather than what it needs.  My daughters lie to protect themselves, hate when their offended and hurt, take what’s not theirs, whine, complain, grumble and ignore others in need for the sake of comfort.  Despicable hearts dirty in sin no matter how we pretty the outer.  We stink the smell of offense.

And this particular realization and confession delivered us properly to the darkness of Lent, the eve of redemption evermore.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  (Romans 6:3-4, ESV)

My approach as dad now broadened focused on uprooting good from their hearts to give way for grace properly, set but then, that night when our Lenten discussions crescendoed well to redemption, the release held greatest importance.  As our devotional book closed, our hearts opened floating free.  Their little heads bowed as if looking dead into their guilty hearts and with quiet words Grace displaced good.

Like the good thief hanging guilty next to Jesus, grace and forgiveness found them readily and easy.  With gratitude and solemness we looked ahead to the remembrance of Good Friday and the promise forthcoming on Easter morning.

Praise the Lord, grace has come.

together, in the branches.

 

Nothing beats late nights with amazing friends meandering through conversation of all that was, is and hopefully will be.  Of equal irreplaceable delight is waking up late into morning with family and those friends to another day of snowy mountain adventure.

And this is vacation; a definite break from busy, from striving and reaching and worry about not being formidable enough for the dreams swirling inside.

When we leave the Colorado mountains, nights return to earlier endings and my alarm sounds annoyingly before dawn waking me to another day, I will be rested and ready after more than 2 weeks of vacation and time away to reset and heal.  But for now, I write into a quiet morning beside a steaming mug of chai tea awaking me even more, all while lost in the view of snow capped mountains whispering adventure both now and into life ahead.

:::::::

As we continue together into Lent, discussions of the heart deeper unfold.  Words of challenge and grace fill our conversations together throughout our days away in the mountains.  I anticipated a break.  In the weeks leading up to vacation, we followed a pattern of reading and praying together for grace to help us engage in giving up of conveniences to grasp a greater understanding now of God in our day to day.  Instead of our pattern completely vanishing in the snow and easy days, each of the girls asked how and what we would fast and more importantly, when.

In their asking and reflecting of our togetherness in this Lent journey, a conversation from before the mountains, snow and rest, returned to me; a conversation of heart and words with Elizabeth, my eldest daughter.

There we sat.  The two of us words hanging in grace sheltering our weakness and covering our mistakes.  The greatest erasing of wrong leaving no sign except what we redraw in our effort earning unbelief that God could possibly be that good and undeservingly accepting of our human hearts.

She sat in sadness judged by her own heart, tangled in thought.

“Dad, ...sometimes I get so angry and frustrated at life.  I feel confused and lost.  Sometimes I say bad words in my head, really, really bad words, Dad.”

I allowed for the pause between us to encapsulate the moment, her helpless sinking knowing that scripture reading, prayer and conversation all shared together had been raking over her heart ...and finding her.

“What words do you think when you’re angry?”

“Uhh ... really, really bad words.”

“I see.  They must be really bad if you don’t want to say them.”

I sped up our conversation out of her lingering words suspended in guilt with a hopefully lasting image lifting her sinking.  Often I describe our life together in terms of journey, a landscape of rising mountains, descending valleys and sometimes treacherous impasses.  This image lifting her out of guilt and mistakes was one of a towering tree stretching substantially over us.

Grace like a tree shelters us from guilt striking down from darker skies and together we are safe in its impenetrable branches.

“Um, what?”

All three of my daughters deal with my words dragging romantic and descriptive.  They are used to just staring at me until I’m done and I’m used to their blank looks lost in words loaded with meaning.  I like our conversations that way.  Questions are sure to ensue giving way for their ownership pulling understanding into little hearts.

I pulled back the curtain a bit and assured Elizabeth that emotions exist very real in our hearts and our responses, even the bad unrepeatable words, don’t separate us from God’s fierce love.  To her surprise, I told her that often those words, even the worst offenders launch from my heart, too.

“...and that’s okay, Elizabeth.”

Grace’s strong branches will always hold us up and cover us wholly.  As a parent, no greater gift can be given than the assurance that all will be well and all, despite emotion and weakness of heart.

Grace given. Grace received.

...all in the branches together.

*image copyright inmenlo.com

together, into the undoing.

Another step down into the hazy, deeper, covered parts of our hearts where words are better to be whispered intently as to let them escape into normal conversation.  This is new, hallowed ground for all of us to be treading together. Grace like a scandal frees hearts held unknowingly in much more than innocence - in ignorance.

Child, you are not free.  Since our eyes first witnessed life and day, sin holds both you and me.  Liberty, a mirage vanishing in the heat of day burning hot and older.

As we moved into the second week of Lent together as a family, I read aloud a story in Scripture that moved my daughters’ hearts (Luke 7:36-50).  In the story, a man named, Simon, who was a righteous man known by good deeds and effort invited Jesus into his home for dinner.  Jesus accepted and reclined at table as Simon’s guest.  Upon hearing of Jesus’ presence at Simon’s house, a woman enters into the story and not with little disturbance.  Her affection interrupts Simon’s dinner conversation as she kisses Jesus’ feet washed in her tears and expensive perfume and wiped clean not with a towel but with her own hair.  

In judgement, Simon, the right doer, reduces the woman to a dirty sinner unfit for their company and Jesus to a disproved prophet fooled by the woman he allowed to care for him.  How could this woman share a table with Simon who deserved a seat with Jesus?  Why wouldn’t Jesus correct her and send her away?

He must not be all that He claims to be, not by my standard or god I know.  This is what raced through Simon’s right doer mind.

How often we judge right and wrong by our own hand and effort. And how wrong we are with repetitive regularity.

Last night we read through this story again and the question still hung between us.

“Dad, did she really kiss Jesus’ feet and use her hair to dry them?  Why would she do that?  Seems kinda inappropriate.”

And maybe that’s the best description of grace: inappropriate.  Appropriately, we should be accused called guilty for the sin we harbor within - the anger, the hatred, the lust, the lying, the selfishness - but we are not.

Together we talked about the gift of God, grace, and like the shameless woman, our response to God’s inappropriate love of us.

My challenge as a parent is to lead us into the undoing of our hearts bound by sin and marred in two dimensional right and wrong; to allow grace room enough for its roots to press deep down and break heavy soil loose and free.  For my daughters to know God as a plenteous giver of grace and acceptance is to set their hearts free ready for their days ahead.  One day they may find themselves marginalized by their decisions, dirty in their doing, cornered in by mistakes and rejected by all right.  Grace will be there and I want them to recognize its fearless reach.

::::::: He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. [Psalm 1.3]