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!