A Time to Forgive

Not that it terribly matters, but I have a “preliminary diagnosis”, that is, a “name” for my pattern of social cluelessness. I’ve known for some time that my son, Brian, has been “diagnosed” (read “labeled, for Special Education funding purposes”) with Asperger’s Syndrome. He has also been “found to have” Attention Deficit Disorder. That I also once had ADD is unremarkable; it is known to run in families. AS, it seems, also tends to run in families. It may also account for my cluelessness.

The way it’s been explained to me goes something like this: Less than one-fourth (some researchers claim it’s less than one-tenth) of what people communicate with one another consists of the words they speak. The rest consists of gestures, facial expressions, emblems (things like a stuck-out tongue, a flipped bird or shrugged shoulders, that are supposed to mean specific things), proxemics (how close communicators are to one another), posture, eye contact, and the like. Apparently, while I’m exceptionally good at verbal communication, I’m exceptionally bad at nonverbal communication.

How I impress people in social situations can be compared to how others impress me in driving situations. To put it mildly, I’m one persnickety S.O.B. when it comes to traffic etiquette. Such behaviors as tailgating, turning without signaling, driving too fast or too slow for conditions, stopping too suddenly or changing lanes too frequently have been known to provoke me to anger or even rage. There are rules for driving, they’re all written down in a book, and people are not supposed to operate vehicles on highways until and unless they have demonstrated that they know and can abide by these rules. If I’m sitting in the middle of the roadway with my turn signal flashing, I expect people to take note of my flashing light and pass me by. If they cue up behind me as though waiting for me to drive straight ahead, and then start making rude noises behind me, I’m apt to think them rude. Similarly, if a person across an intersection from me has no signal flashing and makes an impromptu turn in front of me as I drive straight ahead, I’m liable to be pissed.

Unfortunately, there are no written rules for social communication. Further, because of how my mind works, it is next to impossible for me to carry on a conversation with someone while looking at his or her face. I need to look at “white space” or just not focus on any object. This allows me to think about what I’m saying rather than think about the person’s face. If that person is trying to communicate something to me nonverbally, I won’t see it because I’m looking somewhere else. Even if I were looking at him or her, however, I probably wouldn’t notice it. I don’t often know what to look for.

I remember one incident that occurred in the neighborhood where I grew up. I was learning to drive and had just taken my mother to the supermarket in her own car. As I had to make a left turn into our driveway, I turned on the signal and then sat and waited for the traffic to clear in the oncoming lane. Meanwhile, a large truck that was pulling a large trailer carrying an even larger earthmover came rolling up behind us. As he had to round a blind curve just before arriving in front of our house, he had to fairly slam on his brakes to keep from rear-ending us. By this time, all of the traffic had gone by except for a kid on roller skates who had paused by the front of our car to say “your blinker is on, Mister”! Had the kid understood the meaning of the turn-signal light, he might have just waited for me to turn in front of him, or he might have just gone on by without stopping to chat. In any event, I’d have already made my turn before the truck came along and my mother and I would never have been in danger of being rear-ended.

In light of what I’ve recently come to know about myself, it occurs to me that I shouldn’t simply assume that people who play their stereos too loud or have unsilenced exhausts on their vehicles are out to piss other people off. Sure, they seem rude. I’m sure that some of them are intentionally asinine. But, judging by the number of times I’ve been fired from jobs for social faux pas of which I was unaware, chances are that at least some of those people are simply so self-absorbed that they don’t realize how much they’re hurting other people with their behavior. I know that I would benefit from someone calling me aside and pointing out the impropriety of my behavior. Perhaps I should try that instead of flying into a rage?

While I was at Kumeyaay Lake with the guys last weekend, I asked Pastor Mark to take a walk with me and tell me frankly what he had noticed about my behavior. This was after I told him that I had prayed to God about my Asperger’s and asked Him to take it away. He said no. He wants me to rely on Him, not on a constitution free of disabilities. So I asked Mark whether it was like that for him: did he know where he was going and what he was doing, or did he have to wait for God to “spoon feed” His will to him. He replied that he has both long- and short-range visions for the church and that God has been faithful to provide them. So I asked him why, in his opinion, God would not heal me of my affliction. He replied that God does what He does for His own reasons and that we shouldn’t question that. However, he also said that he has noticed on several occasions that I not only don’t “read” others’ feelings in a situation but that I seem to expect them to know mine even though I don’t indicate them. He noticed that I had grown frustrated when trying to communicate a value to his young son at a church gathering.

When I was a teacher, I experienced a great deal of frustration when my students failed to “shift gears” with me when I moved from a serious subject to one of levity or vice versa. Now it occurs to me that I may be just as bad at “sending” nonverbal signals as I am at “receiving” them. Perhaps my pupils were just as consternated as I was, since I expected a certain response from them without “giving the proper signal” first. That would explain the Scoutmasters’ and the Scouts’ responses to my teaching at the summer camp as well as my subsequent dismissal from my position there.

Now, I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time reflecting on my life and all the situations in which I failed to read or express value or emotion when interacting with others. I’m beginning to compile quite a list of people whom I should either forgive or ask for their forgiveness. I’m beginning to feel a bit like that guy, “Earl” on TV. I’m also beginning to wonder whether he is really a recovering asshole or he simply has Asperger’s Syndrome.

God Is Good--All The Time

People who desire pity rather than growth, or escape rather than responsibility, often blame God for their failures. While I sometimes blame those who have maimed me for the limitations they have placed on my native abilities, I never blame God. He made me perfect, whole and good. He told me so and I believe Him. Other people have hurt me and I am less for it. However, that is on them and not on God.

God has also told me that He will allow nothing to happen to me that I cannot survive. He may allow me to be murdered but I will rise and live forever with Him. Not only that, but He has told me that He will allow no temptation to beset me that is greater than I can bear, that is more than those common to all human beings. I also believe this is so.

What has caused me the most sorrow I have ever endured is not being imperfect, being hurt, being maimed, or even being killed. What has caused me the greatest sorrow is my seeming inability to find my proper place in the world. Striving first to be a duck, and then a swan, and then a fish, and then a bat, and then...discovering that no one will accept me in any of these roles, I am worse than an Ugly Duckling; I am a Nobody. No, says God, you are Somebody You Don't Know.

Okay, I never strove to be a bird, a fish or a beast. I did strive to be an entertainer, a counselor, a teacher, a technician, a builder and a hundred other things. I kept being fired from jobs. I tried with all my might to grow, to change, to improve. I went to college. I went to trade school. I earned certificates. I found jobs or they found me...and then I got fired. Every time.

"What is wrong with me?" wailed the Ugly Duckling. "Why do I have this long, geeky neck? Why do I have this stupid Unibrow?" "Because," God replied, "you are not a duck at all but a swan."

Okay, I say, so I'm not a singer. I must be a teacher. Okay, so I'm not a teacher. I must be a counselor.

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I have a basket full of talents. I put them on the ground, one at a time, to try to fit them together. First the ones with corners, then the ones with a straight edge. Try as I might, I can't seem to define a space within which the puzzle must come together as a cohesive whole. I've got all these parts, and they don't fit together! Someone at the factory must have f***ed something up! What other explanation could there be? No, I never blamed God. Someone sabotaged my kit--that's what happened! Somewhere along the line, when I wasn't looking, someone switched some bastard parts for the ones I was supposed to have! I was supposed to be better looking; I was supposed to have different feet; I was supposed to be hip, not clueless; I was supposed to have good breath. At least, I was supposed to be interested in doing the sorts of things that I'm good at (or good at doing the things that interest me)! Someone f***ed me up for a joke, and the joke's on me!

In truth, Someone did f*** me up--Satan. First He did it to my ancestors, Adam and Eve, then He did it to my other relatives, then He did it to me. And the joke's on all of us. But God didn't do it. He's not to blame. And neither are we.

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I suffered a painful blow when my job at the Scout Ranch ended. It hurt a lot. I'd held out such a fervent hope that this would be a successful effort and that it would yield a bountiful harvest of job offers or referrals. Instead, it yielded only thorns and further rejection. I was bummed.

Then, I suffered a second blow. My computer died. A capacitor on the motherboard blew out and the Ghost in the Machine went bye-bye. Such is life. I had backed up some of the files, but only the most important ones. The rest--like my drivers, etc.--are "history". Not only was I unemployed; my chief avenue for job searches was kaput as well. (Expletive deleted.)

This past weekend, I suffered yet another blow. That one sent me careering over The Edge of What I Can Stand. A niece of mine, whom I have always liked a great deal, got married. (No, that part is fine. A woman should marry.) She invited practically the whole town. (That's fine too; her folks are rich and she's popular, so why not?) She specifically excluded me (and my family) from the guest list. (Ouch!)

The computer was just a booger in the nose of convenience: neither good nor bad, just one of those events that tends to eliminate (as opposed to "illuminate") history. The other two events, however, fit a pattern.

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"Even in the midst of rejection and sorrow, there is grace." I wrote that in a letter to a friend. Whether I quoted someone else or made it up, I may never know.

These are the "pricks" that God used to ventilate my durable film of denial. For decades, I have striven to obtain, maintain and retain jobs for which I am not suited. God promised me long ago that, if I put Him first in my life, He will give me the desires of my heart. He didn't promise me what my heart desires; he promised that he would give me the desires. First, though, I have to put Him first in all things. That entails prayer; that prayer entails asking for those desires.

I lost the job at the summer camp because I am tactless in dealing with Scouts and their adult leaders. I've lost countless other jobs for similar reasons. My niece didn't want me at her wedding because I have lavished unwanted attention on her and ignored her hints that it wasn't welcome. Frankly, I was oblivious to the fact that I was offending anyone. That, I suppose is the whole point. Anyone suited to the sorts of careers I have pursued--whether entertainment, or sales, or human services--would not be oblivious. S/he'd be aware. Very aware. "Hip" as we used to say. I'm not hip. I'm not even "hep". I'm clueless. I need to rethink my entire game plan. I can't work with the public; I'm going to piss people off.

So where is the grace? It's in showing me the ugly truth about myself that I couldn't or wouldn't see before. It's in saving the really hard stuff until now, when I could deal with it. It's in making sure that I had people around me to keep me together and spare me the sure consequences of my own oblivion in an unprotected world. There is grace all around. God is good...all the time.

D'Oh!

Three weeks into my Summer of Redemption, I got the axe. It seems that my foibles outshone my virtues once again. Really, I thought that I had grown enough in Christ to teach capably and without trying to control my pupils. However, the criticisms from adult leaders were too many and too frequent to ignore. The Directors’ directions were clear: shape up or ship out.

First came a week of Staff Development. I seemed to finish that with flying colors, except that I hadn’t filed my lesson plans. Then came Webelos Week: a week of Cub Scouts. The Directors’ consensus: I was too firm. I communicated a “Can’t Do” rather than a “Can Do” attitude. So I lightened up. I stepped up. I changed my attitude. I still had not filed lesson plans for the upcoming Boy Scout weeks, however. At week’s end, I was told that I was improving steadily. So encouraged was I after one week with Boy Scouts that I went out and bought camping gear for my Rugged O.

When I arrived at camp for Week Two of Boy Scout Camp (Week Four of my contract), I was called into the Directors’ Office. One of the instructors on my staff had quit because I had failed to provide him with adequate leadership. In fact, he wrote, I had been negligent in my treatment of the Scouts in my care. He was careful to state that he had never witnessed any instance of physical or mental cruelty. My sins were not of commission but of omission. I was immediately and summarily discharged. Fired.

I was numb.

I had stepped up. I had left my Comfort Zone. I had greeted each challenge with a smile and a “will do” attitude. And still I was fired! If God’s “handwriting on the wall” hadn’t been clear before, it sure was now! I will never be a teacher. Not the kind I’ve always wanted to be, anyhow. When I was so busy trying to learn the skills that I was to teach the Scouts, I would tell them what to do and scold them when they were ill behaved. God spoke to me then. “Don’t teach by preaching; teach by example. Embody the Scout Law. Obey. They will follow you if you follow Me.” This is still what He tells me about my family. “They will follow you if you follow Me.”

Having left Mataguay Scout Ranch, I profoundly miss the other staff that I’ve left behind. Even when I was working alongside them, I felt tremendous admiration for these people. Most of them are in their twenties; several are in their teens. Less than half my age, they are nonetheless mature and capable. This is what a life of Scouting does for a young man or woman. This is what my son, Brian, has to look forward to. I’m so glad that I pushed him into joining a Webelos den when I did! Today he is an Arrowman, well along on his path to Eagle. With any luck, he will never endure the life trials that I have. While I wish that I had been a Scout, I realize that nothing I do now can ever change that. However, I can encourage Brian.

So now I’m stuck with looking for another job. I’ve been home all week—and into this weekend. I haven’t gone to visit my parents, which I’ve done every weekend since I started. I can’t bear to tell them that I’ve gotten fired from yet another job. First, I need to find a new position. Then I can tell them that I’ve switched jobs, not that I got canned. I just can’t tell them that anymore. That refrain has become too worn and predictable.

I’m not looking for anything where I’m in charge of other people. I’m not looking for anything where I’m caring for children. It may not be where God’s leading me but it’s definitely the message I’ve received. I’m instead focused on finding a job that pays enough to provide my family with a decent living and health insurance: where I should have been focused all along. This time, it’s not about whether I feel “fulfilled” or as though God is using me for a “higher purpose”. It’s just simple economics.

I had the unshakable feeling, going into this summer camp thing, that God was going to do something in my life this summer that’s truly radical and life changing. Now, as sad as my termination has left me feeling, I’m certain that He has.

Here We Go, Again!

Is it really only arrogance that allows Western people to dismiss the philosophies and traditions of their Eastern neighbors as foolishness? Certainly, our Scriptures do not inform us with regard to such alleged phenomena as reincarnation or kismet. Is that because they don’t exist or because it wouldn’t matter to our relationships with our Maker if they did? While it may well be true that we pass this way but once, we do so in a circuitous fashion that often resembles an auto racetrack.

The Upanishads, an ancient volume of Indian wisdom, say that lives take on many forms. They say that a person may be a grasshopper in one iteration, a goat in another, and a woman in yet another. Their message is not so much that all life is interconnected as it is that life is about success. [Eh? How’s that? I’m going to grow up to be a hellgrammite? Doesn’t sound much like a success story to me! No wonder that lot worships sacred cows! Old Bossy might be Aunt Matilda with a new dress on! I knew her boobs were drifting south but that’s udderly ridiculous.]

Spiritual success, according to the Hindi, is to be found in “getting it right”. That is, by discovering our true and proper relationship to the rest of creation and living it out. Isn’t that pretty much what we Christians consider to be the point of life? Are we really that different in our beliefs?

This past weekend, I began to experience what can only be described as a déjà vu encounter. Once again, I was a student teacher receiving instruction in pedagogy. I was learning, as though for the first time, how to let kids be themselves and discover for themselves the experiences that I had arranged for them beforehand. I was learning how to protect them—and myself—from the color of suspicion that seemingly forever ended my work with children two decades before. As the ancient Hindi put it, I was “living this life over and over again until [I got] it right”.

Will I finally get it right this time? Will I finally manage to set aside my indignation, having realized that all (myself included) have sinned and fall short of God’s glory? Or will my hurt at being considered a potential abuser of children—and hence as much in need of the Youth Protection Guidelines as anyone else—once again lie down in my path to trip me up? I’ve got all summer (well, seven weeks of it, anyway) to find out. Just between you and me, this traffic circle is getting a bit old. I’m ready for a change. Maybe this will be the year that I finally break free and break through. I hope so.

When I went to Mataguay Scout Ranch in Santa Ysabel, California to volunteer my services as an arboreal assistant, it was simply to support my son’s troop. He had candidated as a Counselor in Training (CiT) and was required to participate in ranchcraft activities. I went along because he needed a ride to the ranch and participated because, I figured, it beat sitting in the car for seven hours. Impressed with my strong work ethic, the Directors offered me a summer job. Having been out of work for over a year, I jumped at the chance to be employed again.

Having wanted to serve as an Outdoor Education teacher at a sixth-grade camp when I was younger, I asked about doing that. The Directors told me that those jobs were pretty much filled already. What they were looking for were some responsible, older people—like myself—who could help run the camp. Specifically, they needed a Business Manager, a Shooting Sports Director, a Project Ranger and an Outdoor Skills Director. Asked for my first, second and third choices, I then asked what each was responsible for. I decided to make Project Ranger my first choice, Business Manager my second, and anything else they had my third.

At my interview they made it clear that they didn’t really want me to be a Project Ranger since someone younger could really do that job. I sensed that these two men were Agents of God, pushing me out of my Comfort Zone! I began to panic. I hedged a bit, saying that I am really not much of a businessman, having failed in business twice. Then I let on that my only experience with firearms was in the military and that I’d never even handled a shotgun. It didn’t seem to faze them; they cared much more about my maturity and character, they said. I nearly broke down crying as I told them that I’d been a total failure as a human being and that my only apparent vindication was my son, who was due to receive his Star Scout ranking. However, everything I said—that I thought should have persuaded them that I was unsuitable for any but the most menial job—only seemed to convince them that much more solidly that I was precisely the right man for the Business Manager job.

I thought for sure that I would be hired for that—so sure was I that I told some of the fellows at my son’s troop meeting that I was the new Business Manager. When I reported for the first Staff Weekend, I found out otherwise: another, more experienced candidate had been hired. However, they were committed to placing me on staff for the summer. Again, I began to panic. Not only had I failed twice in business, I had failed as a teacher. No, I had failed miserably as a teacher! God, I thought, where are you? Why aren’t you letting me stay in my Comfort Zone, at least until I get my confidence up a little? His answer was swift and clear: “I want you confident in Me, not in yourself.”

Another thing I told them during that interview is that I wasn’t trying to talk my way out of a job. I just didn’t want them to expect more than I could deliver. I told them about when I had been a student teacher and had told my master teachers to grade me as they truly thought that I had deserved. They had been prepared to give me top marks in all areas; I asked for their honest opinions—then I got less-than-sterling marks. What I probably should have borne in mind is that most master teachers give their cadets top marks unless they really screw up. Actually, I’d been an exemplary cadet in many respects. However, I had a discomforting image in my mind.

Years before, I had seen an episode of The Flintstones in which Betty and Wilma had concocted an amalgam of their respective husbands, Barney and Fred, into a sort of larger-than-life superhero. They had done that in order to enter a breakfast-cereal contest for a trip for two to Hollyrock, USA—the prehistoric version of Hollywood, CA (forgetting for the time (then) being that the USA wouldn’t be founded for another ten thousand or so years). When Fred arrived on the set, they went down the list of feats that Betty and Wilma had said he could perform in their letter and made him perform them! I reasoned that, if the Directors were anything like the director of that cereal commercial, they’d figure out that I was a fake, a flake, and a failure. I just wanted them to know, for real, what they were—and weren’t—getting in me. That way, while they may not be completely satisfied, at least they couldn’t claim that I’d sold them a bill of goods that didn’t materialize on delivery.

Ever since I discovered that the Directors had selected me for a teaching position, I’ve been boning up on my technical know-how. I’ve done pretty much everything that the boys under my tutelage will have to master but I did them ages ago. My sister, who is not a believer, made what I think is a very profound statement: “It’s the people skills and not the technical ones that will bring you success in this kind of job.” I believe she’s right, which probably explains why the Directors were so anxious to hire me in the first place. Now, if I can only “get it right this time around”, maybe I can finally graduate from this job-preparation merry-go-round and awaken in a real career.

A FRESH LOOK

For the past several months, I have been endeavoring to nail my wretched Self to a cross of obedience and so attain my destiny. Alas! I fail. I am as much alive—and as dead—as I was when I embarked upon this endeavor. I remain a receptor of slights, insults and injuries; I continue to experience hurt and such emotions as serve to cripple me when I would reach outside of myself in order to minister to those around me who are less fortunate than I am. My quest to die to Self and so rise to Christ—a selfless saint, living entirely for God—has been a farce; I am not Christ but me.

Perhaps I endeavor amiss. Maybe I need to re-examine Christ Jesus’ person, conversation and life. Perchance I have erred in my perception of the Savior. Indeed, it occurs to me that my Model is every bit as much a Self as I am. Rather, it is His response to others that is selfless. Did He not weep when His friend, Lazarus, had died? Did He not mourn over Jerusalem when she chose to play the harlot with other gods rather than cleave faithfully to Him? Apparently, He experiences the same full range of emotions as do all sons of Adam. However, when it comes to responding to those emotions, He invariably chooses to obey His Father rather than exercise His own will. Perhaps I should focus my efforts in that direction.

In future posts, I will examine Jesus’ example, as recorded in Scripture and as commented upon by the various New Testament authors.

FEELING SORRY FOR MY SELF

Earlier this year, my wife, Suzanne, informed me that the Census Bureau, which had employed both of us briefly for the 2000 Census, was again accepting applications for census workers. Since that time, I have contacted the necessary people, scheduled an application appointment (“app app”), and taken a placement test. If my background check works out okay, I’ll be called for an interview sometime in the next four months.

Today is Sunday. This Friday, a month will have passed since the app app. I’ve spent the interim taking care of my dad, visiting my mom in the hospital, going to church, writing the occasional article, looking for work, getting sick, getting over being sick, and agonizing over the prospect of once again facing that tribunal that is the Job Interview. One more clue that my Self is alive and well is the pain I experience when anticipating applying for employment.

Someone recently told me that I should not be so hard on myself. “You’ve just been unlucky,” he said. “Look: You’re part of the Baby-Boomer Generation—the biggest bolus of humanity to pass through the American economy since...well, ever. You’re not the only one who has had a rough time staying employed! Just keep trying. You’ll get something.” Well-intentioned words, no doubt, but are they true?

Using the figures provided by that very Census Bureau that I want to employ me, I can sketch out a rough version of my circumstances: The highest unemployment rate at any time during my life—from 1953 onwards—was 11.4%. That was between 1990 and 1992, admittedly a rough patch for many...including me. Even when troops were returning from Vietnam in 1975, the unemployment rate rarely topped 10%. That means that, most of my life, 90% of my peers had jobs when I did not. Okay, so a few other guys didn’t have jobs either. Did they even want them? Were they always the same people?

I know that much of the time I spent without work it was by design. I would get a job just to earn enough money to go back to school and finish my degree. When I could afford to attend for a term or two, I’d quit my job and attend college full-time for a year or so. When I ran out of funds, I’d drop out of school and look for another job. I never looked upon any of those jobs as anything more than temporary employment: a sort of stepping stone to something better down the road.

Only that something better, once I got “down the road”, was never there. “‘Last hired; first fired’ is the story of my life,” I once said. Well, it may not be the whole story but it’s a big part of it. Every time I would finish a course of study and then go out into the wide world in search of an application for my newfound skills, I would find one of two things: either the demand for those skills had dried up while I was acquiring them or they nearly had. It never occurred to me to settle for less and just get a job. I wanted a career. So, undaunted, I’d go back to college to pursue yet another certificate—only to discover, when I’d gotten it, that there was no market for that skill either. There’s a lesson here somewhere, if I could just figure out what it is!

There were jobs along the way that paid fairly well, and that would have lasted a while if I’d have let them. Only I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted them to last. After all, I told myself, I wasn’t really cut out for them. I was just faking out myself and everyone else into believing that I could do them—just long enough to get to the next rung of my competency ladder. Except I never got to the next rung. I’m frozen on the First Rung—probably for life.

So it is that, every time I go out to look for a job, filling out an application feels like regurgitating a decades-long litany of failures and excuses for marginal living. It is the sharp pangs of chagrin that I feel at such times that demonstrates to me—in no uncertain terms—that my Self is alive and well. After all, if I weren’t Self-ish, why would I care? Why would I feel any shame or chagrin when looking for work is the right thing for me to do in God’s sight? Why would I feel guilty for having coasted as a fake, a flake and a failure when He has already forgiven me for all I’ve ever done?

But I am Self-ish. I must be.

Only a Self feels shame or chagrin when in Truth there is only Victory; only a Self feels guilt when in Truth there is only Justification. In Christ, my past has been amputated and is no longer a part of me—all that remains is the lingering pain of a phantom limb. I need to keep telling my self that, if I’m ever going to truly divorce him.

Just the same, I feel sorry for my Self. I see him writhing in agony as he anticipates feeling the lash once again for his past sins. My soul cries out for mercy: “Can’t you see he’s in pain? Is this really necessary? Whatever happened to ‘do unto others...’?” Even now, I wonder: does he really need to be crucified? Wouldn’t a euthanizing shot of morphine accomplish the same end?

Honestly, God: I’m waiting for an answer. It must have torn You to see Your Son treated like a shish kebab. Was it really necessary for Jesus to die like that? Couldn’t a whack up beside his head with a sledge hammer have done the trick? Hemlock was good enough for Socrates; why not for Christ? To tell You the truth, I want more than anything to rise with Christ—I just don’t want to die with Him: not if it means enduring such gut-wrenching torment.

Only now am I beginning to appreciate just what my Love must have been feeling as He plead with You that the Cup of Suffering might pass from Him. Only now do I begin to see what it means to be a partaker with Him in that Passion. Please forgive me for wanting to escape my own. I will yield to You, with Your help. May Your perfect will be done!

UPDATE: Today is Monday. The Census Bureau called today and hired me to be an Enumerator once again. I will have a job for anywhere from two to eight weeks. Thanks, Dad.

TO SEE WITH NEW EYES

Three events have contributed to this post’s title: first, at the ripe old age of fifty-one, I got laser surgery to correct my long-standing handicaps—myopia and astigmatism; second, I saw a collection of M.C. Escher’s drawings; third, I rewrote my comments on a chapter of a book.

With the LASIK, I saw for the first time what others had always described as “normal” vision. I could rise from my bed, having seen the alarm clock’s face from across a room, without first fumbling around for my misplaced glasses. I could scan a grocery store’s aisles for the products I wanted to purchase by simply reading the signs from one end of each instead of reconnoitering on foot to read them at arm’s length. I could drive a car without wearing corrective lenses. I could play sports while casually aware of my surroundings on all sides—not just the one framed in my glasses.

Having seen such woodcuts as Escher’s “Sky and Water I”, “Ascending and Descending” and “Waterfall”, I learned early—long before my LASIK surgery—the importance of seeing what is before one and knowing what it is. What made Escher’s drawings exceptional wasn’t their originality. He drew things that many others had drawn before him. Rather, it was his understanding that all drawings are two-dimensional renderings of three-dimensional realities. If one can create an illusion of depth while drawing one thing, why not extend that illusion to two or three separate depths? Why not draw several things, each with its own illusory depth, and juxtapose them for effect? This is, of course, just what he did—over and over again—with tremendous success.

Finally, having written a commentary on the fifth chapter of Thrall, McNicol and McElrath’s The Ascent of a Leader, I found I had to rewrite it. That chapter, “The First Rung”, is about taking the first step in ascending what the authors call “the character ladder”. They define that step as “Trust God and Others With Me”. As I am wont to do, I paraphrased even that little phrase: Trust God and Others Near Me. I was about halfway through the chapter when it suddenly dawned on me that my paraphrase did not sum up what the authors had intended. They had phrased their title as they had because of what they’d intended to convey. I’d read in it the meaning I did because that’s what fit in with my thinking. To me, “Others With Me” meant “Others Near Me”; to the authors, it was about “Trusting Others” with “Me”. Put another way, they could have called the chapter “Trust God and Others with My Self”.

This kind of trading of one referential frame for another has come to be called a “paradigm shift” and is precisely what is needed by anyone who would follow Jesus Christ. Our Lord’s POV is so radically different from anyone else’s that, without such a shift, it would be impossible for any of us to understand anything He has said. This is what He meant when He said “no one puts new wine in old wineskins”. Another way of saying that might have been, “no one explains a new idea with an old paradigm” or “no one tries to fit a new hypothesis into an old theory”. However, that would have been incorrect; people do that all the time. What people don’t do—or, at least, didn’t in His time—is put new wine in old wineskins or patch old fabric with new.

God has been showing me a “new” idea that requires that kind of paradigm shift: He doesn’t want the tithe; He wants the whole. Moreover, He doesn’t want just the whole; He wants the tithe and the whole: 110%. He might have said in a sermon, “You have heard it preached in your churches, ‘Bring in the whole tithe; give until it hurts.’ But I say to you, bring in all you can; give until it’s gone, and then give some more. For God has given to each what He would have him contribute to the community—no more and no less. Therefore, give what you have been given to give, and trust God for what your neighbor has been given to give.” If each member contributes his (or her) 100%, and trusts God for his (or her) neighbor’s 10%, then each will—in effect—be giving 110%. If, in a congregation of 40 members, each member contributes 110% of what s/he has been given to give, that will be 44 incomes contributed, not 4.

If you haven’t managed to follow this argument, let me try to explain it another way. The first 100% is you. All you have; all you are; all you do; all you say; your home; your cars; your income; your investments; your crops; your family; your friendships. The remaining 10% is what you stand to benefit from your membership in the community. Many people refuse to contribute to society because they fear that, in the words of the old Frankie Lane song, they’ll “live a life of regret...give much more than [they’ll] get”. It is true that we live in a fallen world. Most people are selfish. Out to get what they can and give the minimum in return, they’re inclined to ask, “what’s in it for me?”. Contributing all you are when your neighbor isn’t contributing anything hardly seems fair. On the other hand, Jesus dying for the whole world’s sins when no one else died for anyone’s sins isn’t fair either. God’s economy isn’t about being fair. It’s about unlimited, unconditional love.

If the Old Testament had Ten Commandments and required 10% of your profits, the New Testament has Two Commandments and demands your all. The two new-testament commandments are: Love God Completely and Love Your Neighbor As Your Self. Bearing in mind that “the remaining 10% is what you stand to benefit from your membership in the community”, if you begin by foreswearing your right to be loved by your neighbor, you’ve already satisfied the tithe. But remember, if your neighbor hates you, you’re only getting what you deserve: you’ve already foresworn that right to God as your tithe. Further, as Jesus told His disciples, the World hated Him before it hated them. Taken together, investing yourself and all you have—goods, kindred, life—and foreswearing your right to be loved by your neighbor are 100% + 10% = 110%.

MIND OVER MATTER

I read a bumper sticker (yeah, I do that sometimes...bad habit) that read, “Mind over matter: If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter!” At the time, it seemed nonsense to me—just another stupid platitude someone had made up, probably just so that s/he could put it on that bumper sticker. However, God taught me something the other day that keeps that “stupid” saying ringing in my head.

As the recurring theme of this ’blog, killing my Self so that Christ may be born in my place has been my goal for some time. Yet, things happen each day that, taken together, seem to demonstrate that my efforts so far have been in vain. Then, once in a while, something happens that clearly demonstrates that I am succeeding...wildly. One thing that happens a lot involves vehicles: someone else drives in such a way that endangers the public. More to the point, someone drives in a way that endangers—or, still more to the point, annoys—me. Then, I respond with moral outrage, indignation, anger, etc., which proves once again that I—as a recipient of insults—still exist.

Something I have to keep reminding myself is that, even in my most redeemed state, emotion is not bad. Feelings are not my enemy. I can experience loss, grief, sadness, anger—and even seething hatred—without sinning. God does these same things. Jesus wept when his friend, Lazarus, died. He expressed hatred toward the Nicolaitans in his revelation to John. My problem is not that I feel angry when people put my life—or the lives of my loved ones—in danger. My problem is that I respond to that anger by either wreaking violent revenge upon them or fantasizing about doing so.

Yesterday in Sunday school, we were talking about stress. We were exploring the ways insults—whether physical, mental or spiritual—can accumulate over time to cause illness. We learned that the vast majority of ailments are not rooted in those insults; rather, they are rooted in how we respond to them. The boom buggy that pounds away at our bones with 130-decibel blasts may well shatter feeble old bones. However, it is the churning resentment we bear toward its driver that will push our levels of blood pressure and nervous tension beyond health. The insult injures; our maladaptive response to the insult magnifies that injury and prolongs its effects. The initial insult to our systems may be confined to a particular intersection where the offending child parks his weapon behind us while we are stopped at a traffic signal. It may last only a matter of minutes. However, it is what we do when the light changes and we make good our escape from that insult that will have a much-longer-lasting impact—no pun intended—on our overall health.

As my son, Brian, and I prepared to turn into our street from the “main drag”, something happened that affirms some progress in my Christotic quest. A vehicle passed us on our left side. Had I turned a split second earlier, I may have been killed. That guy didn’t even slow down; he barreled on by as though it were the most natural thing to do. I thought—yes, thought; I didn’t have to fight an urge—about chasing the guy down and educating—yes, educating; I had no desire to beat him up—him about traffic safety. Amazing. It wasn’t until I had gone home and debriefed Brian regarding the incident that I began to stew about how that inconsiderate so and so had put our lives—and the integrity of my minivan—in jeopardy. Still, I didn’t get angry. Instead, I resolved to call the Public Works department on Monday morning.

I just got off of the phone with Maria of the Public Works department. She told me that there is a six-week backlog of cases and that complaints are handled on a first-come, first-served basis. If no one is injured or killed in the next six weeks, I guess that will be fine. I told Maria that I have had, to date, four near head-on collisions at that intersection. I went on to say that the striping on the pavement is very clear—albeit a bit faded—and that I have no problem whatever reading it. “It’s my stupid neighbors who drive on the wrong side of the street and nearly collide with one another,” I complained. “I think you need to add redundant signage to knock them over the head with instruction on how to negotiate the traffic-control indicators.” She replied that Giselle would investigate the matter and get back to me...in about six weeks.

Have I backslidden? By calling my neighbors who can’t—or won’t—drive properly “stupid”, have I given back to the Enemy the ground that I gained by finishing my turn instead of chasing down the idiot who nearly got us killed? I don’t think so. I was only calling them what they are: fools. God does as much many times in the Bible. Calling a fool a fool is not a sin. Getting mad at him for being a fool—and calling him “airhead”—is a sin.

From victory to victory, glory to glory, the journey continues.

NO PITY PARTIES!

“Don’t bother scheduling a pity party,” Jesus said. “No one will come anyway.”

I had just woken from a dream. My eyes were wet and my nose was beginning to feel stuffy.

“Get a grip,” I told myself. “Once you start weeping, your nose starts plugging up. Next thing, you can’t even breathe.”

So I settled down, becoming gradually aware of my pillow, the covers, and the still-silent cell phone that I use as an alarm clock on the edge of the headboard.

I had been riding in a car with some other teachers. I felt the urge to urinate but we hadn’t yet parked, so I held it. We were headed for the teachers’ lounge at our school; paychecks were being doled out. My son, Brian—whom I didn’t yet have when I was teaching, so the circumstances of the dream were a bit off—was with me. When I got to the lounge, there were two doors opening from it, one on each side. One, with a sign upon which was emblazoned the silhouette of a person wearing a dress, was clearly the women’s restroom; the other, with a similar sign bearing the silhouette of a person wearing pants and a jacket, was just as clearly the men’s restroom. We entered the second door.

Once inside the men’s restroom, there were two more doors. Each led to a separate stall within one of which was a urinal and within the other of which was a john. I went to the first; Brian went to the second. As I was peeing, the teacher who had been driving the car called out to me.

“Mike? Are you in the restroom?”

“Yeah,” I responded. “Brian’s in here with me.”

“With you?” He sounded incredulous. “In the bathroom?”

“Well,” I hedged, “Not in here. I’m in one stall, peeing and Brian is in the other...doing whatever he’s doing, I suppose.”

“Oh.”

I heard some doors opening and closing. At length, I finished my business and apparently Brian finished his, for we emerged into the common area of the restroom to wash our hands. My colleague who had been driving the car was also there. Considering our earlier dialogue, through closed doors, I began to regard him with suspicion. I turned to Brian.

“Did this guy show you his wiener? Did he show you that he doesn’t have a wiener? Did he show you his tattoo? Did he touch you in any way that didn’t seem wholesome?”

Brian’s answer to each question was ‘no’; I wasn’t so sure he was telling the truth. He tends not to speak up in the company of adults with whom he isn’t completely comfortable. Sometimes even I am included in that group.

Now my colleague was eyeing me suspiciously. “Are you all right?” Now he looked as incredulous as he had earlier sounded.

“It’s just the way you...” I began but abruptly stopped. “Never mind,” I said. I just wanted to drop the whole thing. But my colleague didn’t let it drop.

“Just the way I what, Mike? Just the way I asked about Brian? In my place, wouldn’t you have asked?”

I thought about that. If Bob had been with his own son in the men’s room, no, I thought, I wouldn’t have asked. People don’t molest their own children, I thought. Or do they? I wasn’t sure. However, my sense of fairness won out in the end.

I replied, “No, I don’t think I would have. Brian is my own son. I wouldn’t do anything improper to him. I love him. If you had been in here with your child, son or daughter, I would assume that you were helping him or her to go to the bathroom and I wouldn’t suspect you of anything.”

“So why do you suspect me now?”

“Because you raised the question by sounding suspicious when I said that he was in here with me! Why did you do that?”

“I was just trying to show you what I’ve been telling you all along about the Color of Suspicion.”

Then my mind went back to when I had been a teacher’s assistant at a local high school. Then I remembered being an instructional aide at a junior high school in another town. Finally, I thought about when I had been a learning-disability specialist at yet another middle school in yet another town. In each place, the administration had warned me about being alone with children. They had warned me about the Color of Suspicion. I had never taken their warnings to heart because I knew that I would never molest a child, and I figured that no child would ever accuse me of so doing. I guess I was wrong because I was eventually let go and after that I found it impossible to find another teaching position.

I recognized the territory. Jesus Christ was taking me on a sort of travelogue through my life. He was showing me what had gone on before by way of introducing me to what may happen next. I couldn’t or wouldn’t believe back when those people had warned me not to be alone with a child, especially a girl, at any time. I protested my innocence but they always rebutted my protests with this “Color of Suspicion” thing. What had they been trying to tell me?

Now I knew. The Lord showed me a girl, whom I never touched in any way, cringing as I passed her in a tightly confined, somewhat darkened corridor. She wasn’t cringing because I was doing anything to threaten her. She was afraid of me because I am tall. Tall! Not guilty, just tall! Like I can help being tall!

“What are you trying to tell me, Lord?” I was once again on the witness stand, pleading my case. “That I lost my career in teaching because kids were afraid of my stature? I can’t help being tall! I didn’t ask to be tall! I’ve never felt tall! I was a good teacher! I cared about my students! I loved them! They knew I loved them! Did I lose all that just because of my height?”

I was crushed. I’d wondered for years why people had blacklisted me from the teaching profession. I’d wondered who’d fingered me. I’d assumed that it had been some vindictive bitch who didn’t like my choice in literature or the kind of car I drove. It had never occurred to me that a girl whom I’d never even had in a class would accuse me of making her “feel uncomfortable”! Yet, isn’t that precisely what the New Age counselors were telling kids in those days? “You have the right to tell someone when another person, whoever that person is, makes you feel uncomfortable. You have the right to say ‘no’ to any touching or any other behavior that makes you feel something is wrong.” Apparently, my being too tall and in too tightly confined a space had made that girl uncomfortable. She had told her counselor, and I had been placed under a Color of Suspicion! I hadn’t done anything wrong; I was just too tall!

This was when my eyes began to moisten. I was feeling sorry for myself. Apparently, I was very ‘works oriented’ in my concept of justice, for the essential unfairness of it all was what I couldn’t get over. I began to wonder what other innocent people had suffered similar fates. I recalled the trials of the McMartin and Buckey family members whose Manhattan Beach preschool had been shut down by court order after a disgruntled parent had made allegations of misconduct, all of which were eventually proven false. However, by then many family members and other employees had been imprisoned, property had been confiscated, and careers—and lives—had been ruined. Then there were my friends, Dale and Sharon Akiki. They had been falsely accused—because they had mental and physical disabilities—of being “monsters”. They had been accused of doing such things to children that anyone who knew them well would never believe them even capable of doing—physically or mentally—because of their disabilities. Yet, accused they were. Dale spent over a year in county jail, awaiting trial. When he was at last tried, he was found innocent of all charges—the charges against Sharon, to whom he’d been married only a month or so before his arrest, had since been dropped—and his lawyer, who had served him pro bono, sued the county for damages including gross miscarriage of justice. She won, and Dale and Sharon were awarded over two hundred thousand dollars. That was the last I ever saw of either of them.

Then, as if to drive home His point with final authority, Jesus reminded me that He had been crucified for crimes that He had never committed. He was innocent of any wrongdoing, yet He was crowned with thorns, beaten, scourged and then nailed to a cross to die.

“You said that you wanted to share in my suffering. This is how the world treats the innocent." That word, “innocent”, drew my mind back to yet another episode. I had fallen in love with a woman a decade my junior. She was not particularly beautiful in a classical sense; she was beautiful to me, though. She asked all the right questions and she loved God. That I could tell. On top of all that, she was a student nurse! I loved nurses! They helped people feel better. And her figure made me feel worse and better all at the same time. Her cheeks were so soft and smooth, and her hugs were therapy for all that ailed me. I wanted to marry her and I told her so. However, Nancy—for that was her name—had just broken up with a boy to whom she’d been engaged to be married for nearly a year. When I told her how I felt about her, after having known her for only a few weeks, she sat down and penned a letter. In it she told me, among other things, that I was “sweet and innocent”. I had scoffed at her words, thinking myself to be worldly and experienced. Yet today, looking back at us, I can see what Nancy Elise Sunday had meant. I had been sweet and innocent and I was led as a lamb to the slaughter.

“I planned your life precisely as it has progressed,” Jesus confided. “I needed you to be equipped for what comes next. A person who had not endured such heartache earlier in life could never withstand the trials and tribulations that still lie ahead for you.”

He showed my friends, Randy and Laura Wion, and their son, Jonathan, with whom I’ve been sharing burdens of late. Then, he showed me my wife, Suzanne, whose health woes may eventually bankrupt us as a family. My tears flowed anew. Suzanne has long derided the fact that I am not stably employed in some profession or other. She thinks it a particularly bad witness that I am dependent upon my parents for income when they should be able to depend entirely on me at this stage of their lives. If she knew that I was kicked out of my profession for no fault of my own, would it make any difference to her? To have her believe in me as I have always believed in Jesus would be immeasurably precious to me. But we live in that kind of world. People are blinded by what is before them and they do not see things as they are. Suzanne is not stupid. She is merely blinded by her emotions. What seems odd to me is that, when she is in the presence of a person she’s never met in her life, she can discern the spirit of that person. However, she has lived with me for more than fifteen years and raised a child with me, yet she doesn’t know me as well as she does complete strangers! That’s weird. Outer Limits weird!

“No one will notice the good that you do apart from a few close friends and your Father, who is in heaven,” Jesus continued. “Yet you will have ample opportunities to serve Him, if that is what you really want. You will share in My suffering more than you’ve ever believed—or now believe—yourself capable of doing. At the end of it all, you will be crowned with immortality and righteousness. You will share in My glory as you now do in My suffering.”

Yesterday, just before I went to Kaiser Hospital to visit my ailing mother, I sat in a friend’s house, holding our Pastor’s daughter. At two years of age, Julianna Miller is a precious little bundle of life. She reminds me of the daughter that Suzanne and I lost to miscarriage about a year and a half before Brian was born. Holding her sleeping form in my arms and feeling her sweet head rest on my shoulder, I was in heaven already. I had somewhere to go and something to do, so I was ready to relinquish her care to her waiting mother. Had it not been so, I may have protested her desire to go on sleeping in my arms. It is in such moments of grace that I catch a glimpse of eternity. God will never make life easy. He will always make it possible. I was ministering to Julianna by providing her with the refuge that her parents were then unable to provide, being busy with their respective jobs. At the same time, she was ministering to my need to share in that grace that only a baby girl could provide. That’s the way God’s kingdom works. That’s what we all have to look forward to.

Welcome to His adventure!

WHAT GOD SHOWED ME THIS MORNING

What God showed me this morning is that no person—not my wife, nor my president, nor my child—can fulfill the demands of his or her office. I therefore should not lay my needs or expectations at their feet. They will respond defensively because, in their hearts, they will always feel the sense of inadequacy: being “not enough”.

For my needs, I need to rely completely on God. He alone can meet my needs. My wife cannot; she is only a woman. My son cannot; he is only a boy. My neighbors cannot; they have lives of their own to live. My pastor cannot; he is only a man, as I am. My parents cannot; they are old and feeble. My elected officials cannot; they are only politicians, not gods. I cannot; I am only a man. Only God can meet my needs, therefore I must rely completely on Him for those needs to be met.

And what of my family? What of my church? What is their role in all of this? They are each to contribute what they can to the overall success of the Body. If they have physical limitations or mental or spiritual ones, what difference does it make? They can only do what they can do. Just as I can only do what I can do. Yet, with God all things are possible. He can do everything, just as we can do everything when He strengthens us.

Where my loved ones are concerned, my role is to love them and to be grateful for the richness they each bring to my life. Period.

What else God showed me this morning has to do with tithing. My wife, Suzanne, told me some weeks ago that she believes our family to be under a curse because I accept subside from my parents. She said that my inability to find suitable work is a direct result of my accepting money from them instead of looking full time for a regular job. For the past two weeks, I have been considering her words and praying to God for insight into the matter. Of course, I want to take care of my parents; they are old and feeble and thus at the mercy of whichever person cares for them. Suzanne’s grandmother had so-called “home-health nurses” that lived with her, prepared her meals, administered her prescription medications and did her housework. They also stole everything from her that wasn’t bolted to the foundation. Could they have figured it out, they might even have stolen the title to her home. My parents can at least trust me not to rob them. Even if I do require some financial assistance, that security is likely worth its “weight” in gold. Of course, in an ideal world, I would hold down a good-paying job and take care of my parents. However, we do not live in a perfect world.

At the end of it, God showed me that we are under no such curse: it is part of His plan for us that I should care for my parents and so witness to them. However, it is also His plan for us—as it is for all Christians—to tithe: one-tenth of all income from all sources, “off the top”, before taxes. One-tenth of all unemployment insurance, one-tenth of all sweepstakes winnings; one-tenth of all gifts; one-tenth of all earnings; one-tenth of all the subsidies that I receive from my parents is supposed to be donated to God’s kingdom and its economy. Further, we are to tithe a second tenth of all income to our savings account. Then, by His grace, we are to live on the remaining eighty percent of our income. If it doesn’t “stretch” far enough, we are not to go looking for more income. Rather, we are to start looking for ways we can waste less and make better use of what remains.

Living within one’s means is a requirement for all people, regardless of how much or how little income they have. Living beyond one’s means, and griping about how little one has compared with someone s/he perceives as “better off” is a sin. It’s called covetousness. We never know how “well off” anyone is. We never know what challenges they face, only how big a house they live in or what sort of cars they drive. They may be terminally ill or living down heartrending grief because a loved one is terminally ill, dead or in prison. It could be that they are relying upon material wealth—or the illusion of it—for the courage to go on living. If so, they are desperately poor in spirit and much worse off than any Christian, even one living in the humblest of circumstances. I know from bitter personal experience that God has not equipped me with the sort of talent that “living large” requires. I am a terrible materiel manager. For this reason, while I sometimes wish that I could afford to buy certain toys or travel to certain places, I am wise enough to not covet my brother’s lifestyle. He lives as he does because wealth and comfort are his gods. Were they mine, there is no question that I could be “rich” as well. Because YHWH is not my brother’s god, there is some question as to where he will spend eternity. Because He is mine, my eternal destiny is assured. To me, that’s worth—literally—more than “all of the money in the world”.

These two insights, if I prove wise enough to make good use of them, will yield a bountiful harvest of growth in Christ, both for me and for my family. If they are any indication of what is to come in 2009, we are in for one fantastic year.

BEST WISHES FOR A NEW YEAR

Although it can’t help feeling cliché, one has to offer one’s best wishes for a new year. If only because the winning attitude is that which looks forward to triumphs and possibilities while erasing the past from one’s focus—if not from one’s memory—in order to address future opportunities instead of dwelling on one’s history, the tradition has value. So it is that, despite my cringing dislike for traditions that I deem empty of any real meaning, I come to this ’blog with that emptiest of all secular greetings, “Happy New Year!”.

A.D. 2008 has been a year of tremendous change and of tremendous challenge for my family. A lot of things have happened that no one foresaw and that, had we foreseen them, none of us likely would have faced with much optimism. For one, taking care of my parents has become for me a full-time job. Instead of pursuing a regular career, I clean their home, do their shopping, maintain their property and run their errands. About the only things I don’t do for them are prepare their meals (which my father still does) and take them to their doctor appointments (which my sister-in-law does). Also, Suzanne has developed some health-related challenges of her own. In July, it was determined that her jaws are out of alignment with one another. More recently, it was determined that the therapy needed to correct the condition will cost us tens of thousands of dollars. Brian, whose school grades and Boy Scout advancements provide his parents with no small amount of pride and joy, has been diagnosed as anorexic. We have to force him to eat enough to stay healthy. While Brian arguably qualifies as Poster Child for Anorexia Today, Suzanne and I continue to fight the Battle of the Bulge...a battle I may well be losing. In addition to the foregoing, I continued in ministry with a church that I had only begun to visit—while in search of a new home—and that, this past fall, was kicked out of the Church of God and forced to meet in parishioners’ homes.

Yet, as the old saying goes, “when God closes a door, He always opens a window”. Suzanne’s health woes, and the growing realization that—barring a miracle—we will never be able to pay for their remedy, are inexorably leading her to the realization that only God can rescue her from her current predicament. Indeed, as I have long suspected, most of her ailments are rooted in bad faith. By this, I mean that she invests her faith in hedges against calamity rather than investing it in the One whose grace can obviate calamities altogether. Now, our weakening finances are forcing her to trust Him with those things with which heretofore she has proven unable to trust Him. By spending so much time caring for my aging parents, I have had ample opportunity to witness to them regarding my faith. Now, as they grow ever more dependent on my care, I have even greater opportunities to demonstrate the practical aspect of that faith. At the same time, since the job is frequently more than I can handle alone, I have had opportunities to hire people to help me with those tasks that I cannot complete alone. Those people—such as Jon Wion, John Campbell, Andy MacLeod, and others—have shown my parents that my judgment in making friends is unquestionably sound. Since they are now largely defenseless and so at the mercy of any they admit into their home, this is a source of no small amount of security for them.

Lest my reader suppose that I suffer from delusions of grandeur, or that I am an unfortunate who lives amid squalor of spiritual blight, allow me to point out that both Brian and Suzanne possess a wealth of virtues as well as the relatively few faults that I have here enumerated. My reason for focusing on their shortcomings is that I was writing about challenges that we are facing as a family and the grace that God has shown us for dealing with them. By contrast, my reason for focusing on my own virtues is that I feel a need to suggest that I possess some virtues along with the many faults that provide most of the subject matter for this ’blog. Also, I desired to chronicle the progress I am making with my parents (in particular, my father) in demonstrating that I indeed possess the wherewithal to “succeed in life”, a fact which they have openly questioned.

Indeed, God has reprimanded me several times this year for focusing on my and others’ shortcomings rather than “think on” such things as are “pure, just” or “...of good report”. He has similarly exhorted me to control my emotions: “Don’t let your heart be troubled or afraid; I leave such peace with you as the world cannot give.” I confess that, in 2008, I have allowed my heart to be troubled and afraid. I further confess that I have not allowed His peace “that surpasses all understanding” to rest on me. Instead, I have depended on my parents’ support and chastised my wife for failing to affirm my good qualities when she was only picking up on the fear and disquiet that I was telegraphing to her from my own lack of faith in God.

Enough of last year’s failures’ already! Looking forward to 2009, let this be the year that I get my balls back! Let this be the year that I man up and take on the demons that are holding my family in bondage! Let this be the year that I not only prophesy buy pray to the full extent of the talent God has given me! Let this be the year that I muster the courage to get up in front of other people and sing the songs God has placed in my heart! Let this be the year that I stop making excuses and pursue the theological education that will enable me to write knowledgeably and authoritatively about spiritual issues in the power of God’s holy Word! Let this be the year, to make a long prayer shorter, that I start to walk the walk that I’ve been talking about for the last three decades. Let this be the year that I actually begin to “faith” in Jesus Christ instead of simply preaching to the choir that I believe in Him! Let this be the year that Michael Patrick King becomes a Christian! Amen!