My book – by the same title – is available on Amazon Kindle.

1 Corinthians: 8:2

The man who thinks he knows something

does not yet know as he ought to know. (1)

It’s all about us…God, you and me.

Welcome to The Porpoise Diving Life. You don’t need to stand on the beach gawking at those who claim to have God figured out any longer. This book is an invitation to get in the water and swim with me as we as we explore beneath the surface of what you have been hearing, watching, and living. It involves the adventure of discovering new ways to see God, experience Him, and consider joining a pod of people just like you, who are perplexed by the same, unspoken concerns. I’m not going to attempt to sell you a bunch of beliefs. Those who claimed to have religion down pat consistently annoyed Jesus. His focus and compassion were always primarily directed toward those who were excluded and marginalized by the mainstream religious establishment…the people who live The Porpoise Diving Life. My desire is to liberate you from the aquarium and restore you to your rightful place in the open seas of life, free to pursue a relationship with The God of More. The rest is up to Him and you.

Just because your journey through the seas of life does not match up with the current mainstream promises of evangelical Christianity (peace, financial security, prosperity, always happy, loved by everyone, loving toward all, protection from disease, misfortune and the unexpected) does not mean that you are not loved by God just as the purveyors of these promises claim to be. News-splash! It’s all about us! “God doesn’t reveal himself to us just to make us happy or deliver us from loneliness. He also comes to us so that we may be conduits of his presence to other people. He invites us to join him in making things down here the way they are up there.”(2) “I’ve come to the abrupt realization that a life that is all about me is not even important enough for me to give my life to. I don’t need my life to be all about me. I don’t even want my life to be all about me. But I desperately desire something important enough for which to give all my life.”(3) It’s about God, you and me. “It is time that we demand more of ourselves as Christians. We are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, and if the world is going to see, feel, and touch him, it will have to be through us.”(4) It’s all about us!

How could you possibly desire a relationship with an invisible, all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, supernatural entity where the end game is to make that entity happy? How would you know if you are actually succeeding or failing? Maybe there’s more to God’s desire for your life than what everybody has been telling you in the name of Christianity. The good news is that we have written this book for you. You’re not alone.

Life would be terribly boring if your everyday experience was truly predetermined by your Creator at birth. Why even get up in the morning? I guess we have choices that impact what actually happens in our lives. I’ll never die skydiving. Why? Because I am neither brave nor dumb enough to jump out of an airplane with a nylon sheet strapped to my back that was put together by some guy I’ve never met named Charlie. It just ain’t gonna happen. If your life is like mine, choices make a difference in what happens in life. I’ve made some poor ones, some good ones, some that I regret, some I wish I could forget and countless others I can’t recall. Predetermined by God…fat chance.

Maybe you don’t feel that your purpose in life has been predetermined like a bullet fired from a gun headed for the target…there’s not much you can do about the trajectory of the projectile after your Creator has pulled the trigger at birth. Perhaps your life experience has been more like a ricochet, bouncing off one experience into the next. You’re not an exception.

Maybe you don’t feel driven all the time by some sort of burning passion, the need to succeed or a distinct sense of unwavering purpose. If this is the case, relax. You have loads of company.

Perhaps it’s time to get real. Sometimes, life sucks. There are periods when life seems like an accident rather than anything anyone would have thought up and thrust upon us on purpose. At other times, something incredibly wonderful occurs in life. It’s like you need to pinch yourself to make sure you’re not dreaming. You might even feel like you don’t deserve the good fortune that has come your way. On occasion, a sense of gratitude wells up within you. You feel like you’re floating. At other times, you experience days that are dreadfully boring. You feel like pulling the covers over your head and taking a long nap or pressing the fast-forward button to get beyond the drudgery of it all.

Let’s face it. There’s stuff in life that hurts, is frightening, incredibly joyous, humorous, tedious, boring, hazy and confounds our ability to understand it all. There’s even more about daily living on this planet that escapes trite, formulaic explanations. Let’s be honest. Life gets confusing and overwhelming. When my life gets this way, I go for a long walk on the beach. It’s what happened to me during one of these walks that prompted me to write this book. It’s about the reality for the rest of us, picking up where the purpose-driven perspective some people are peddling peters out. It’s The Porpoise Diving Life.

Jesus dove into life. I become unsettled rather quickly when I hear people speak about Jesus as if He floated above it all during the time he lived with us on this planet. One central truth that permeates the life of Christ in Scripture is that He had his ups and downs, good days and bad, joy and distress, clarity and confusion, contentment and frustration. I adore how one author describes this undeniable aspect of the life of Christ: “I discovered a man who was almost continually frustrated. His frustration leaps out of virtually every page: “What do I have to say to you? How many times do I have to say it? What do I have to do to get through to you?” I also discovered a man who was frequently sad and sometimes depressed, frequently anxious and scared. A man who was terribly, terribly lonely, yet often desperately needed to be alone. I discovered a man so incredibly real that no one could have made him up.”(5) Jesus lived The Porpoise Diving Life.

Just as the horizon swallows the school of Porpoise, I wonder if we have fallen prey to the tendency within our existence to treat Jesus as we have the Porpoise: Out of sight, out of mind. Perhaps it’s time to embrace a new posture. Is it time to go to new depths with Jesus by diving in and breaking through some of the notions that have precluded us from the intimacy that He so desperately desires with each of us? It is my premise mainstream Christianity has fouled the waters with notions that are precluding millions of people from enjoying a vibrant relationship with Jesus and reflecting that to the world. Forget what you think you know about God, Jesus Christ and the Christian faith as you read this book.

I deeply appreciate reminders to breathe spiritually. Yes, the momentum and velocity of my life unwittingly keeps me submerged in the ebb and flow of daily living far longer than I would prefer sometimes. Frankly, it becomes downright unhealthy on occasion. Sometimes I tumble through life, seemingly unable to find a breath of air beneath the pressure of the pounding surf. (In southern California, we call this ‘pounding’ being inside the washing machine; tumbling around underwater beneath the breaking surf, temporarily incapable of determining up from down. This is a literal experience of the verse in Psalm 42, “all your breakers and waves have swept over me”(6) . When I’m able to break through to the surface, that first breath of fresh air is incredibly precious. Just like the Porpoise, my life has been one where I grab a breath and dive beneath the sea, carrying out my ordinary course affairs. Need oxygen? I kick for the surface and burst through to inhale the gift of essential sustenance that only He can provide: The gift of The Porpoise Diving Life.

As I stand on the beach watching a school of Porpoise, I realize that I cannot hear them. Their beauty within this sea of silence mesmerizes me. I challenge you to do the same thing as you read the Gospels. Read everything except anything Jesus speaks. Absorb the boots on the ground reality of how Jesus moves through life, how others respond to Him, how everyday life confronts Him. Through this, I have garnered a vastly deeper appreciation for who Jesus is and how He lived versus what did He mean? It is here that I find the Jesus that nobody could have made up.

To illustrate the beauty of this reality, let’s take a moment to look at four out of the eighty- nine chapters of the four Gospels. See if you can relate to the following from the life of Jesus on earth contained within the first four chapters of Mark:

He experienced times alone, by Himself. He was confronted by evil. He was tempted. He encountered wild animals and nutty people. He had a friend imprisoned. He walked. He observed and interacted with those around Him. He moved both toward and away from people. He was revolted by evil. Others misunderstood him. He visited and assisted the sick. He chose to go to a solitary place and pray. Others wondered about Him, talking behind His back. He shared His opinions with others. He was compassionate. He physically touched other folks. People showed up in His life, invited and uninvited. He threatened people. He could sense what people were thinking in their hearts. He questioned the status quo. He challenged prevailing thought and cultural norms. He ate. He slept. People’s opinions about Him varied. Others watched his behavior. Some judged him. Folks gossiped about Him and falsely accused Him of committing unlawful acts. He became angry and distressed. He restored defective things. He became stressed about people crowding His space. He had to back off from the pressures of everyday life. His dinner was interrupted. His own family described Him as being out of his mind.

Based upon the above, can you relate to what Jesus experienced during His life on Earth? Of course you can. Are there any similarities to your life? Absolutely. This reality has always been the undeniable attraction for me to Christ. Nobody could have made this God up. Yet, the conversation I overhear most often about Jesus today is distinctly weighted to His deity, the Divine dimension of His being. Furthermore, Christians are encouraged to cram our heads with a bunch of knowledge and beliefs that do not reflect either the love or lifestyle of Jesus in our daily lives.(7) Finally, far too many of us rail at the world and then stand around wondering why people don’t want what we claim to have, or become what we claim to be.

The resistance to becoming a Christian in the developed, western world is militant and permeates cultures across continents. The willingness of non-Christians to engage in an open-minded discussion of Christianity with evangelicals can be characterized by two hormonally imbalanced adolescents brawling in a schoolyard. The point is, everybody’s losing. The Christian species is under siege. The decline of mainstream denominationalism within the species is well documented. Predictions of extinction in the next fifty years are at hand. As one author suggests, “Making a few adjustments here and there will not help. If we simply do better with what we are presently doing in our old wine vats, we will continue to be irrelevant and, in time, extinct.”(8) Species don’t become extinct overnight. It’s a gradual process. They peter out.

The question becomes, why do species peter out? Answer, they fail to adapt to environmental changes around them. The species continues to resist the reality that we must change how we interact with our world.

The apostle Peter consistently petered out. That’s where this term originated. He fell into the sea when he took his eyes off of Jesus.(9) He denied he knew Christ three times,(10) after he courageously proclaimed that this would never happen.(11) I’m reminded of a story about Peter in the book of John.(12) Peter was tired. He and his buddies had been fishing all night, using the same methods they had always used. Their efforts had produced nothing. They’d given up. They had petered out. Jesus shows up and asks, “Hey you guys haven’t you caught anything? Throw your nets on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did what Jesus said, their nets were so filled with fish they couldn’t haul in the catch. The point is, maybe it’s time to start fishing of the other side of the good ship Christianity.

God has an uncanny way of stepping in when things look like they’re petering out. It’s at times like these that God provides a glimpse of a new reality for the rest of us. Just as He did with Peter, His intervention is characterized by forgiveness, mercy, grace, restoration and a Spirit empowered witness to the world that only He could imagine. The way forward is filled with uncertainty and risk. As one author says: “Sure, it’s dangerous and murky. The answers aren’t always simple and clear. If you want simplistic formulas, try another religion. Most real living requires risks. Without risk, our lives peter out in dead-end streets.”(13) I can assure you that God has not petered out. We have.

Today, the world is drowning in an ocean of notions about Christ, Christianity and Christians. You can hear the term know everywhere you go today. The following statements are a few I hear quite often: “I know that! Did you know? I knew it! Do you know about?”

Know what? These notions floating around about being in the know have led Christianity to a place where we have succumbed to belief that we’ve finally arrived at the ledge…the end of the road. I call it the know-ledge. It’s a destination where we stand perched atop a vantage point, triumphantly gazing out across the vast expanse of history, the present, and the future and proudly proclaim, “We’ve made it! Our present position resting atop the summit of the know-ledge precipice places us in a very precarious position. We stand in one place admiring our surroundings and ourselves while the kingdom we were sent to serve in love burns beneath us. We’ve petered out. Heaven help us!

As Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger state in their book, Emerging Churches – Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures:

“Emerging churches utilize the kingdom as a tool to deconstruct all aspects of life, including virtually all church practices. They understand that the kingdom gives rise to the church, not the other way around. Forms and structures of church are variable in emerging churches, especially in comparison to new paradigm, purpose-driven, and seeker churches which keep most of the traditional structures intact. Utilizing the kingdom of God paradigm as a tool of deconstruction, emerging churches dismantle many forms of church that, although viable at one time, increasingly represent a bygone era.“(14)

At this juncture, the verse from the Apostle Paul on the title page of this chapter provides the startling truth we require to be roused from our complacency, “The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.”(15) I have a sneaking suspicion that the wisdom of what we know is less than what we require. As the Scripture says: “Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.”(16) It’s not that we require more knowledge, we require more intimate relationship with Him. It’s time to yearn for what’s beneath the surface of your relationship with God. It’s time to leap from the know-ledge and dive in! Just as Jesus said to a petered out Peter, His invitation to us today is follow me. (17)

Leap from your ledge. Dive in with me as we journey together navigating the sea of real life (mine), insights from other authors and relationships with real people, enabling us to burst through the surface of the notions that separate us from one another, God, and the ability to serve the kingdom we were created to love. May this book bless you and change you, drawing you near the God who created and lived The Porpoise Diving Life.

Notes – Prologue

(1) 1 Corinthians: 8:2

(2) Ortberg, John God Is Closer Than You Think, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI Copyright (c) 2005 by John Ortberg, p. 176.

(3) McManus, Erwin Raphael UPRISING – A Revolution of the Soul, Nelson Books, A Division of Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN Copyright (c) 2003 by Erwin Rafael McManus p.26.

(4) Perkins, John M. Restoring At-Risk Communities – Doing It Together & Doing It Right, Baker Books Grand Rapids, Michigan © Copyright 1995 by John M. Perkins, p. 12.

(5) Peck, Dr. M. Scott Further Along The Road Less Traveled, Simon & Schuster New York, New York. Copyright (c) 1993 by M. Scott Peck p. 160.

(6) Psalm 42:7

(7) Barna, George The State of the Church: 2002, Published by Issachar Resources, a division of Barna Research Group, Ltd., 5528 Everglades Street Ventura, CA 93003 Copyright © 2002 by George Barna p. 63.

(8) Easum, William Dancing With Dinosaurs – Ministry In A Hostile and Hurting World, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN Copyright © 1993 by Abingdon Press, p. 14.

(9) Matthew 14:27-33

(10) John 18:15-27

(11) Matthew 26:33

(12) John 21:1-6

(13) Frost, Michael Seeing God In The Ordinary – A Theology of the Everyday, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA Copyright (c) 2000 by Michael Frost, p. 137.

(14) Gibbs, Eddie and Bolger, Ryan K. Emerging Churches – Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Copyright 2005 by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger p. 96.

(15) 1 Corinthians 8:2 -

(16) 1 Corinthians 3:18-19

(17) John 21:19

I Never Expected It

Jesus was unexpected. His arrival on this planet, His life on this earth, His departure from it, and His enduring presence, are all unexpected. I never expected to see the Porpoise frolicking in the ocean the day I went for a walk. Yet, there they were. We live in a world that viciously attempts to eliminate the unexpected. Christianity has succumbed to the same superficial attempts contained in volumes of books populating your nearest bookstore that claim to provide step-by-step formulas that will allow you to avoid, overcome, control, eliminate and deny the unexpected.

God created the unexpected. If that were not the case, everything would be predictable, could be anticipated and the outcomes certain. That’s just not the way He created this life. For that matter, that’s not the way He created us. He expects us to do the unexpected. Take the story of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father for example.[i]

Joseph and his girlfriend Mary, were pledged to be married. Pledged means something comparable to a modern day engagement with the exception that a divorce was legally required to break it off. Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant. He has never had sexual relations with her. The guy had to be devastated. She claims to have had sexual relations with no one at all. Put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. Imagine what’s going on in your mind. (“Say what? Uh Huh…Yeah right!”). Even if you know you are telling the truth and you don’t doubt the veracity of her story, how are you going to explain this to your family, her family, friends and your nosy neighbors?

Joseph decides to do the expected. He nobly chooses to divorce Mary quietly, so that no public shame will be cast upon her. (It might just be me, but most the men I have known would be far more concerned about their own reputation from the repercussions of the dissolution of an important relationship like this one, than they would for how this might play out for the woman). How you do this quietly, is only something the mind of a man could come up with.

Enter the God of the unexpected. God sends an angel to Joseph who makes it clear that Joseph must accept and cherish the blessing of the unexpected. Joseph is to make Mary his wife. He is to accept the fact that the child in her womb is immaculately conceived. It will be a boy, He is to be named “God with us,” and He will save people from their sins. Joseph awakens from the dream and does a one-eighty. Jesus is born.

You can recognize God, the One who created the blessing of the unexpected, because He always provides a new direction, and the birth of new life. What about the unexpected that occurred to little Suzie Marie Pena, her dad and those police officers? The only truth I know is that type of unexpected occurrence in life does not come from the hand of the God. Christians must renounce the tendency by some who attempt to glorify our God, my Jesus, through tragedy. They have fallen prey to the deception that attempts to explain the inexplicable by making the unexpected predictable, explainable, and eliminate the possibility of uncertain and unfathomable outcomes.

The story of Joseph reveals that even the birth of Christ required that mortal man change his mind about the expected. Joseph trusted God with all the inexplicable reality that surrounded Him. He exchanged his best thinking about the expected for the uncertainty of trusting God, the Creator of the unexpected. Like Joseph, the unexpected was revealed to me by the appearance of the Porpoise in the ocean during my walk on the beach: I was refreshed by Him. New life was breathed into me that day. A new direction was somehow restored to me. In hindsight, I’m sure glad it happened. Honestly, I never expected it. I’ll bet Joseph feels the same way.

When I get to heaven, I’m going to find Joseph. I’m going to ask him to take me and Suzie to his favorite place in heaven where he exclaimed in absolute astonishment, “I never expected it.” We’re going to celebrate the unexpected together. Just the three of us.

NOTES

You’re All Wet

Porpoise are all wet. Take away the water and all you have is a dead fish in a dry hole. People are like Porpoise. There are certain things that are absolutely fundamental to our survival. People and Porpoise have two essentials in common: You take away air and water and we’re both sunk. Yet, when I think about it, I don’t know of anyone who has suffocated from lack of oxygen or died from dehydration. Then again, maybe I do.

Our friend Kevin never seemed to fit in anyone’s box. He was short, hyperactive, hyper-verbal, fidgeting all the time, a chain smoker and a dreamer. He’s the kind of guy who likely vibrated as he attempted to sleep in his bed each night. He was a starter-stopper. The sort of person who is always expounding cool projects to accomplish, assembling people to get them done, then backing away without accomplishing much of anything.

Over the years, I witnessed dozens of people become alienated from this young man, including his family, a wife, good friends and a myriad of acquaintances. He couldn’t hold a job for any length of time and became financially unstable. Relationships with others became foreboding for him. He began to perceive people as threatening to him. His ability to maintain focus on anything was impaired. People began to avoid Kevin and he avoided them, becoming somewhat reclusive.

One day Kevin showed up at our home and shared his dream to make a film. He had some experience as a bit part actor in a few films (he was a condom once in a B movie) and worked as a grip on the set of a half dozen film productions. He had written a script and asked me to read it…now! When I was done reading he asked me what I thought. I told him it was actually very good (because it was). He proceeded to ask (beg) me if I would help him raise 1.5 million dollars to produce the film. I told him that we would be unsuccessful in such an attempt, as neither he nor I had ever produced a film. I suggested he cut the budget down to what he could handle through monies he either raised from family, or could obtain through donations (I knew he couldn’t actually work and save this kind of money). I encouraged him to stick with his dream. I told him he needed to do this for him. He needed a win, to fulfill a dream that God had planted on his heart. My parting words to Kevin were, “You can do it.”

Eleven months later there was a knock on our front door at about 9:30PM. It was Kevin. After embracing, he came into our living room and sat down on the couch with his backpack. As he slipped his hand into the backpack, he said, “Bill and Jacki, I wanted you two to be the first to see my film.” He pulled out a videocassette tape that was labeled and had a great photo on the front denoting the title of his film. “I did it!” he said proudly. My wife and I burst into tears, stood and had a long, sloppy, blubbering group hug.

Over the next 35 minutes, we watched the most important film that my wife and I have ever seen. We wept the entire time. Kevin had refreshed our lives with some sorely needed fundamentals for human existence.

During the years leading up to the completion of his film, we witnessed countless attempts by people to mold Kevin into their box by every method known to man…explanations, rituals, interventions, 12 step programs, prescription drugs, therapists, church groups, pastoral counseling and the like. People who claimed to speak for God inflicted the most numerous scars and deepest wounds on Kevin’s soul. He was a guy who would invariably question whether or not there was more to God than what he was being told to “believe this and you’ll be just fine.” Kevin felt as if he had been somehow locked out of God’s love, mercy and grace, an exception. This was a young man who had been told that he was all wet throughout most of his life. The result of all these efforts was a young man who became a dead fish in a dry hole. People had sucked the air and water out of his existence.  One author characterizes Kevin’s experience appropriately in the following:

“This is what Jesus saw in the Pharisee’s of His day. They had God in a box of rituals, laws and explanations. There was no more to be unearthed, revealed, or discovered. Spiritual fulfillment that led to no questions, no new mystery and no new promise. Jesus rejects all this not just because of the hypocrisy or because of the lack of love, but because you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven.“[i]

Hope and encouragement are fundamental necessities in the spiritual life. Yet, I have met far too many people walking around selling God boxes full of rituals, laws and explanations that seem to suck the life out of folks, creating casualties like Kevin. The next time you have the urge to open your mouth and set somebody straight that’s all wet, remember, “Words are never mere words — they convey spirit, meaning energy and truth.” [ii] Our words can also suffocate others, sucking the life out of them. Add a little hope and encouragement to what the world has deemed dead fish in a dry hole, and it’s amazing what God can restore to become all He intended it to be. “You can do it.”

NOTES

[ii] Peterson, Eugene Eat This Book – A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, MI/ Cambridge U.K. © 2006 by Eugene H. Peterson. P. 50.

What’s it all about?

Washington State has a ferry system that transport cars and people across the vast bodies of salt water that surround the northwestern region of the state. I spent a lot of time on those ferries, going back and forth to Seattle, Edmonds, Kingston, Clinton, Mukilteo, Winslow, Vashon Island and Bremerton. Some of my favorite memories are the times when I would be on the second deck toward the bow, watching the Harbor Porpoise riding the bow wake. The experts say that Porpoise truly enjoy this activity.[i] They sure look like they do. Anybody who watches them seems to enjoy it as well. The Porpoise would always draw crowds to the railing of the ferry when they decided to do a little bow wake riding. People would ooh and ahh and say stuff like “Look! Look at em mom! There’s another one!”

We had forty-seven people over at the community pool at our home in southern California one gorgeous August afternoon. It was the end of summer fiesta for our friends and their families. There were 4 white people at the party (me, my wife and two friends) and forty-three Hispanics of all ages. The Hispanic moms had prepared a feast and we were barbequing carne asada. Incredible aromas filled the air blending with the laughter of the kids playing in the pool, when all hell broke loose.

The enraged, white, red-faced, middle-aged, fat bigot flew threw the gate that surrounded the pool, pushing people out of his way as he made a beeline for me. “Get them out of here!” he screamed, as he waved his arms wildly, pointing to our Hispanic guests all around the pool. He escalated the tirade with the following barrage, “What do you think you’re doing? They don’t live here! They’re not one of us! I don’t pay several hundred dollars a month (homeowners association dues) to live in a third world country! Now, get them outta here! Right now! If you don’t, I’m calling the police!”

Needless to say, I was talking to four police officers in a matter of seven or eight minutes. After the police met with the bigot, they realized who was really nuts here. We offered the policemen a plate of food after I explained what we were doing. They politely declined, referring to the fact that it may cause the onlooking bigot to have a heart attack and die right on the spot. They didn’t want to bear the responsibility for that.

I thanked the police as they departed and turned to face our guests. I can recall thinking, “what’s it all about anyway?” I’ll never forget their faces. It was the face of them. I was staring in the face of people, precious people, God’s children, who had just been raped of their dignity by an angry, ignorant, self-righteous, racist bastard. I wanted to die. Now, several years later, I physically shudder as I recall this horrific occurrence. I’m sure our friends and guests do to.

Humanity experiences its worst moments at the hands of well-intentioned creations, particularly those filled with hearts of self-righteous anger. The worst moments/eras for Christianity seem to occur at times when we define them and proudly proclaim that they are not of us.

I remain amazed at the amount of dialogue that goes on about why Christianity in the developed western world continues to struggle mightily in terms of its’ waning impact on people’s lives. Perhaps we might consider ridding our vocabulary and hearts of them. Maybe we might be guided by the fact that “He is a Savior who is at work in the world today trying to save the world from what it is, and make it into a place where people can live together with dignity.”[ii]

The Porpoise and the people on the ferry, well, it just wouldn’t have been the same — one without the other. Those memories remind me that we are created for one another. There truly is a reality for the rest of us…God, you, me. He has created everything to remind us of this truth on a daily basis. It’s all about us.

NOTES

[ii] Campolo, Tony and McLaren Brian D.  Adventures in Missing The Point – How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered The Gospel, Zondervan Grand Rapids, Michigan © Copyright 2003 by Youth Specialties, p. 105.

Ideas Have Consequences

Some species of Porpoise feed at night. This happens to be the time that fishermen set their driftnets and gillnets for salmon, squid and herring. Thus, man using these fishing methods kills thousands of Porpoise each year.

Josh was one of the young adults in our youth group. He was large for his seventeen years. He towered over the other kids. He spent most of his adolescent years playing video games at home in his apartment. He had been kicked out of high school for lighting off firecrackers when school was in session. He never finished high school and spent his nights skateboarding with the younger kids in the barrio. Josh was basically harmless, in my opinion. He had a big heart and would help others whenever they needed help. Josh approached me one day and confided he needed to find a job but didn’t have a clue how to go about it. (Truth is, his parents were sick of him hanging out in the apartment all the time).  I gave him some pointers along with the essential encouragement.

Three days later Josh was on the phone. He had landed a job opportunity with a major retailer as a cashier in their home improvement department. (Admittedly, I was baffled and wondered how a guy who was used to sleeping until noon everyday was going to be able to get out of bed on time to get to work). All he needed to do was pass his drug test and provide the potential employer with one letter of recommendation. Of course, as the leader of his youth group, I was the only human he could think of who could a. write and b. write persuasively c. write anything positive on his behalf. Well, I wrote it. A few days later, Josh called. He was floating. He got the job! (I almost dropped the phone and couldn’t stop trembling). Josh asked me to come over and pick him up so we could celebrate. The celebration turned out to be a trip to a local department store where I bought him two pair of pants and two white shirts that he was required to have to begin training the next morning. “I’ll pay you back with my first paycheck. I promise!” He said.

After two weeks, Josh graduated from training. He had not been late or missed a day of work. I was so amazed and overjoyed, I forgot about the fact he owed me the money for the work clothes. Over the next couple of months Joe began making appearances after work in the neighborhood sporting new threads. Then came the new devices: The newest, coolest CD’s, Gift DVD’s for friends, a new, portable DVD player, a digital camera and a mini video camera. Every time I would see Josh  he would scream “Bill! You gotta see this man!” He would play his most recent recording of the guys that he had captured on his mini cam (I thought for a moment that I could be witnessing the birth of the Hispanic version of Steven Spielberg). The visual display of the fruits of Josh’s employment had created a dialogue about getting a job amongst the neighborhood guys that were his age. “This is fantastic!” I thought.

The phone rang at our place unusually early one Saturday morning. It was Josh. He was calling from the confines of the Costa Mesa jail, where he had been afforded free room and board since early Friday evening. He begged me to “get me outta here! Please! Now!” I drove over to the neighborhood and picked up two of Josh’s friends (this is something I didn’t want them to miss). I lied to the Officer at the main desk of the jail, telling her I was Josh’s pastor and wanted to see him. (I have been a layperson all my life). She immediately called the tombs to have Josh escorted to the Visitors cage. As pastorally as I possibly could, I inquired with the Officer about what “young Josh” had done. He was charged with several felony counts of grand larceny. He’d been helping himself to a consistent portion of the daily receipts from his employer, that he had been responsible for counting out and depositing in the vault before closing. Furthermore, store security had been videotaping his misdeeds in action for the last couple of weeks. “Slam dunk!” the officer said, shaking her head in amazement at the stupidity of it all.

Josh’s eyes were bloodshot from crying most the night. He was trembling and said he hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast the day before. “I refuse to eat the crap they serve in here,” he said defiantly. (I thought “Hunger strike? Already? They’ve got you on videotape you idiot!”). Over the next 20 minutes, Josh confessed to it all, expressing deep remorse through the heavy sobs, mixing tears with the snot that now dripped from his nose. (They don’t provide Kleenex on the prisoner side of the Visitor’s cage in the Costa Mesa jail. Come to think of it, there isn’t any on the visitor’s side either).

Then, the moment of truth that every Youth Pastor dreams of seemed to unfold right before my eyes. Josh asked me to pray for him. He wanted to accept Christ into his life. He was done with all the other stuff that had been preventing him from making this life-changing decision. We prayed together and Josh was saved. I floated out of that jail, sharing the triumph of this momentous event with Josh’s two buddies who had to wait in the lobby. “I wish you could have been there!” I told them.

A week later, after arranging legal representation gratis through a buddy of mine (Yes, he really was an attorney), Josh was a free man. I sat smugly victorious holding the hand of Josh’s mother, weeping tears of joy, in the courtroom, as Josh agreed to the sentence of community service, repayment of the stolen money, and other terms of probation.

A year later, a warrant was issued for Josh’s arrest. He hadn’t done one damn thing he agreed to do in that courtroom. This time, he showed up at my home with his mother (still weeping). I got my attorney buddy again (whose only motive was to salvage his professional reputation with this particular judge) and the four of us went down to the courthouse to “turn ourselves in.” The judge granted a ninety-day reprieve allowing Josh to complete all the terms of his sentence. I shadowed this kid for the next 90 days. I even picked him up at his house and dropped him off at work release to get on the bus to perform community service.

Change is a messy business. It’s filled with starts, stops, steps forward, backward, falling down and getting back up. Josh’s story troubled me for a long time. He let me down. I felt used. I thought of myself as naïve. I felt like a Porpoise unwittingly entangled in a herring net…I should have see it coming.” After I stopped blaming him, a new perspective began to unfold in my heart. Why had I expected a deeply wounded young man who was socio-economically, developmentally and psychologically impaired to somehow instantly become a brilliant, upstanding citizen of this world, simply because he cried out tearfully, “Jesus, I need you! Please! Come into my life!”

The answer is that is what I wanted. I yearned to see the visible, end result of the transforming power of God displayed in one, just one, human being at the initial utterance of a cry for His entrance into their life. I wanted to see the end result of a lifetime process following the moment the initial event occurred. Frankly, I probably wanted to take credit for it as well. (God spared us both from that). I desperately wanted Josh to be a poster boy for the other kids in the neighborhood (and the friends of mine I could share this story with, taking pride in the fact that God had used me in the process). My ideas about this event had a consequence: It wasn’t Josh who was all messed up. It was Bill!

One of the things we human beings have a habit of doing is transforming our ideas into expectations. Our ideas about God, His nature, and the way He works or should work in our lives is no different. We develop expectations about God. How the real world stacks up against those expectations can become consequences…particularly when we impose those expectations on somebody else, and their behavior falls short of the mark. What happened to me with Josh (I’m not alone) occurs to millions during their faith journey: We become presumptuous, as characterized in the following:

“The most annoying religious believers I have been around, of any faith, are those who presume to have an exclusive copy of God’s script for their lives, and the lives of others, in their hands. They pontificate with surgical certainty about who is in with God and who is out. They preach about what real righteousness is. They wag their fingers at popular culture, detailing what, when and how God will deal with our wicked world and our failed organized religious and humanitarian endeavors. All this is done in an effort to prove that they have gotten to know God so well that they now speak exclusively for him. What presumption.” [i]

Presumption blinds us to the perils of the idea to rush headlong after others guided by a specific set of end-result expectations. In these cases, we are typically driven toward danger by a desire to somehow please God and/or satisfy our own selfish cravings. Unfortunately, the consequence is that we end up, as I did, ensnared in the net of our own making, along with the people we’ve been pursuing.

Restraint is a difficult habit to develop for many in the spiritual life. This is particularly true when it refers to darting off in a certain direction, pursuing the wounded herring God places within our field of vision. I’m still learning to pause and examine my motives, methods, and expectations when the opportunities to act in these situations present themselves. Regarding the conversion event Christianity has emblazoned on my soul as a primary responsibility, I’ve begun to appreciate the fact that it’s the ideas that preceded my actions and my expectations about the results that God is acutely concerned about. The results are His, not mine.

NOTES

On Porpoise

Most Porpoise have a lifespan between 8 to 20 years. They can reach maturity around 7-12 years. Porpoise have it made. They never have to consider stuff like getting good grades in school, selecting a vocation or a field of study in higher education, finding a job or paying bills. On occasion, I have admired the beauty of the perceived simplicity of their lives.

I’ll never forget my daughter Nikki’s high school graduation several years ago. There were a few hundred students in her graduating class. As each student’s name was called, they stepped up to the microphone on the podium and shared what they intended to do after high school. Looking at the sea of graduation caps seated below me on the floor of the auditorium, I glanced at my watch and signed because missing the Yankees-Red Sox game was now a certainty. Preparing for an extended period of boredom, I took out a pen and made a chart, logging the responses of the students into rows and columns by college, trade school and occupation. Most of the students indicated they were going on to a specific college or trade school. Others said they were going to work for a year or two. Some had specific jobs they were going to begin.

A few days later, I reviewed my chart. There were 12 students who claimed they were going to be astronauts. Today, the population of the United States is said to be around three hundred million. According to NASA, there are 100 active astronauts who are qualified to be pilots, mission commanders and mission specialists.[i] The chances of those 12 students becoming astronauts, even one of them, is infinitesimal, to say the least.

There was another column on my list that seemed to stand out in stark contrast to the column that contained the 12 aspiring astronauts. There were three students who described in two words their immediate plans following graduation that really grabbed my heart. They said. “No clue.” (I’m sure their parents probably buried their heads in the graduation program, pretended to be asleep, or reached down to tie their shoes).

In April 2005, I read an interview with Rick Warren by CNN’s Paul Bradshaw, as recounted by Amit Bhatia.[ii] The content of this interview intrigued me. Warren was asked, What is the purpose of life? He responded, “In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity…This is the warm-up act, the dress rehearsal.” I thought to myself, “I wonder what those 12 students who aspired to be astronauts would think if they had been surrounded by folks all their lives who had been telling them “the purpose of this life can be contained in a nutshell? This life is a just a drill for something that is gonna go on forever. Exactly what that looks like, we can’t tell you. It’s gotta be better than this experience here on planet Earth. This life is just a dress-rehearsal, a warm-up act.” I questioned whether those 12 prospective space explorers would have even made it to graduation surrounded by well-intentioned folks espousing a worldview like that?

Later on that afternoon, I read something by authors Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren that seemed to challenge Warren’s position: “When we talk about Jesus, we must make it clear that he is not just interested in our well-being in the afterlife.” [iii] It appeared to me that there were some folks out there, just like me, who were pondering the possibility that maybe, just maybe, this life is more than a dress rehearsal. Perhaps the “purpose of life” (if there is solely one) is not intended to be reduced to the confines of a nutshell.

My thoughts wandered back to the three “no clue” students. I began to appreciate the guts it takes to stand up in front of an auditorium jammed with hundreds of strangers, your family and peers and say, “I don’t have a clue.” I wondered about the challenges ahead for the 12 driven astronaut candidates. Are they going to be able to have the flexibility to navigate through the storms of life, the riptides and currents we all face that weren’t on the charts. Maybe the “no clue” students had learned an important lesson that the aspiring space explorers had not. Perhaps the authenticity of “no clue” is symptomatic of one who possesses the fundamental flexibility and willingness to remain an inquisitive explorer at the age of seventeen, rather than boldly proclaim a certainty about becoming a member of an elite, celebrated occupation.

Maybe characterizing life as “purpose-driven” makes some folks feel comfortable. It might provide them with the sense of knowing something important and feeling safer within the predictability of those beliefs. Perhaps “Our world is populated with domesticated grown-ups who would rather settle for safe, predictable answers instead of wild, unpredictable mystery. Faith has been reduced to a comfortable system of beliefs about God instead of an uncomfortable encounter with God. Childlike faith understands that God is as capable of destroying us as he is of saving us. Risky curiosity breaks from the safety and comfort of a tame faith and ventures into the terrifying presence of a “not so tame” God.” [iv]

Maybe the “no clue” students are the one’s who are actually better prepared to live life on Porpoise. Is it possible that these are the students who will be the one’s who appreciate the unpredictable mystery of life, yearning for God to reveal more of Himself to them, diving beneath the surface of what we think we know about the meaning of this existence on Earth? Maybe, just maybe, this graduating class will include the risk takers who will live lives that express the simplicity and adventure of living a life of faith On Porpoise, as described in the following: “Being a Christian isn’t just believing in God and being good.  It involves a commitment to change the world.  Christians are expected to be part of a movement that will make the world that is, into the world that ought to be.”[v] Will it happen in my lifetime? I don’t have a clue. I sure hope so. I guess the phrase ought to be is important too.

NOTES

[ii] http://www.southasianconnection.com/blogs/18/Interview-with-Rick-Warren-by-Paul-Bradshaw.html

[iii] Campolo, Tony and McLaren Brian D.  Adventures in Missing The Point – How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered The Gospel, Zondervan Grand Rapids, Michigan © Copyright 2003 by Youth Specialties, p. 105.

[iv] Yaconelli, Michael Dangerous Wonder – The Adventure of Childlike Faith, NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO Copyright © 1998, 2003 by Michael Yaconelli, p.40.

[v] Campolo, Tony.  You Can Make A Difference-High Voltage Living in a Burned Out World, W Publishing Group Nashville, TN Copyright 1984 by Anthony Campolo, p. VIII.

Namesake

Halfway through the effort of researching and writing this book, I stumbled upon my namesake. A guy named William Dall is credited with discovering the Dall’s Porpoise. Yes, I certainly did experience a few moments when the hair stood up on the top of my head, startled by the strange coincidence of it all.

Bernie was a fourteen-year-old kid who lived in the neighborhood. Whether you actually know the Bernie I’m talking about or not doesn’t really matter. You’ve seen him. Most every neighborhood has one. He’s the kid who suffers from adolescent obesity. He’s loud, obnoxious, rude, sneaky and craves attention. He’s huge. He sweats profusely and wears XXXL tee shirts that are an attempt to disguise his girth. (Even the tee shirts he wears everyday characteristically have some detestable saying emblazoned across the chest). The Bernie’s of this world usually perform poorly in school, routinely avoid organized sports, always have pocket change and are vigilant about searching for and/or creating opportunities for fun.

Bernie was hanging out on the sidewalk with a group of his friends one hot summer night. A local gang-banger happened to drive by and stopped in front of them shouting, “Wanna go for a ride?” Of course, Bernie piled into the passengers seat. Less than two hours later, Bernie was being fingerprinted in the Santa Ana jail. He was charged with auto-theft, leaving the scene of an accident (they had side-swiped a parked vehicle) and gang affiliation. He was released on his own recognizance to his dad.

One of the neighborhood kids called our home and asked if I would come over to meet with Bernie and his dad because they couldn’t understand the paperwork they had been given. When they opened the front door to their one-bedroom apartment, the stench of urine hit me in the face. Lying on a foldout couch in the living room was an elderly woman hollering something in Spanish. They explained that this was Bernie’s grandma, his dad’s mother. She had a stroke several months earlier and was bedridden. Bernie’s mom and dad were divorced and were the only caregivers to grandma. Bernie’s father worked six days a week, twelve hours a day, at a car wash. Bernie had to come directly home from school everyday to feed and change his grandmother. I read and explained all the paperwork from the Police department to Bernie and his father (Bernie had to translate).

The next week, I happened to be walking down the hallway of the Orange County courthouse in Santa Ana, after attending a meeting with the Probation Officer of another student. I glanced to my right as I passed another corridor jam packed with people. I stopped as I recognized Bernie seated on a bench being handed a clipboard by a woman in a rumpled business suit. I walked up to the two of them and asked Bernie, “What’s going on.” He shrugged. The public defender asked me “who are you?” I lied (again). I told her I was Bernie’s youth pastor. She asked Bernie if she had his permission to speak to me about his case. He looked up and nodded his approval. The public defender explained that she had made a deal with the prosecuting attorney whereby Bernie would plead guilty, be sentenced to two years confinement in a juvenile detention facility and then be on two years probation, until his eighteenth birthday. She told me that this was the “best that I can do” and simply needed Bernie to “sign here” so she can move on to the next case.

“No deal!” I said. “I’ve known Bernie for several years. I know his family too. This young man has never been arrested previous to this incident. He has a bedridden grandmother he cares for 7 days a week. They have no medical insurance. His dad works six days a week. He is not a gang member and he has no mother or relatives in the immediate area.” I went on to explain that he is basically a good kid who made a very poor choice. Befuddled, the public defender said, “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared through a door into an adjacent courtroom, returning about ten minutes later with a tall white guy. “Are you Mr. Dahl?” he asked. “Yes I am,” I said. “Are you Bernie’s youth pastor?” (Needless to say, I lied again for the second time in eleven minutes). “Let’s talk over here,” he said. We walked ten steps down the corridor where I recounted for him what I had told the public defender. They amended the sentence and Bernie was fitted with a home detention ankle bracelet for 30 days, two years probation and one hundred hours of community service. Instead of spending the night in the juvenile detention facility (and the next seven hundred twenty nine nights thereafter), he went home to feed his grandma, change her bedding and her clothes.

Was it a coincidence that I was walking down the hall of the courthouse and spotted Bernie, bewildered, sitting on a bench with a woman who was attempting to sell him the best deal she could come up with on his behalf? I don’t know. For many reading this story, they’ll be appalled that I admittedly lied on two separate occasions. They’re right. I’m not advocating lying. I repent. However, over the years, I have become increasingly convinced that “It is difficult for a Christian to walk through the mud without getting dirty.” [i]

I wonder what my namesake William Dall would think? I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent countless days away from his family studying Dall’s Porpoise. Maybe, Dall’s passionate pursuit of learning and understanding drove him to a new appreciation of God, people and the environment. I hope Dall marveled at these Porpoise as if they were God’s creation, the same God that created the seas he explored and the One that created him. Every once in a while, I’ll bet that Dall had a thought about children like Bernie, who would have the opportunity to learn about Porpoise in school. Perhaps the following is what my namesake and I have in common: “Too often, we’re taught to ignore or excuse the pain inflicted on the distant and not-so-distant children of others.  To be sure, we’ll always listen most attentively to our own children’s cries.  But if we don’t heed the cries of others’ as well, America will be lost, and we’ll risk losing our souls.”[ii]

NOTES

[ii] Rogat Loeb, Paul.  Soul of a Citizen-Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, St. Martin’s Griffin, NY Copyright 1999 by Paul Rogat Loeb, p. 184.

Feet first

Porpoise calves are born tail first from the safety of their mother’s womb into a frigid, unfamiliar environment. They surface immediately to breathe.” [i]

Serena showed up on the front porch of our home one night. She was living with her sister and brother-in-law in the area and had been attending a local church. Things weren’t working out very well at all for Serena. She didn’t fit in with the squared away folks at her church. She was driving her sister’s husband nuts. Their marriage was starting to suffer because of Serena’s dysfunction (Yeah, right…like these people had it all together before Serena ever began living with them). Out of desperation, Serena’s sister began calling around in an attempt to identify a group of Christians that Serena might fit in with. She found us.

Serena had been in a near fatal car crash several years earlier. The accident left her with a permanent neurological impairment. She suffered from what is now referred to as a head trauma. This condition caused certain emotional imbalances to cope with as part of a cognitive deficiency. She was prone to anxiety attacks, memory deficiency, grossly misinterpreting communication from others, and the inability to exercise logic and common sense. Over a period of several years, Serena had exhausted a few dozen psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, social workers and vocational rehabilitation professionals. She had huge trust issues. After the accident, a caregiver raped her. Friends from her church group borrowed from her. Truth be told, they stole Serena’s insurance settlement funds that were intended to provide for her ongoing medical care. She had a new job as a maid in a senior convalescent center. She was terrified about the prospect of failing in the eyes of her employer.

Serena’s impairments had the capacity to dominate a gathering of people with the sheer depth of her wounds. The various reactions of people to Serena always befuddled me. Some people would be immediately drawn into her brokenness, authentically empathizing with her. Others would just stare at the ground; silently wishing “I wish she would shut up and leave!” Still others would take a more spiritual approach. These people were the one’s who had met Serena typically for the first or second time in our fellowship group. They were absolutely convinced that Serena’s difficulties were wholly due to the fact that her beliefs about God were in some way deficient. After our gathering ended, these well-intentioned folks would open their Bible’s and spend the next hour going through an itemized list of tenets of faith that Serena would eagerly acknowledge. They would pray with her and leave. Typically, they wouldn’t return. After witnessing a few of these scenes, my wife and I decided to run interference for Serena, when another well-intentioned approach was obviously forming for her benefit. Jacki and I would head off the folks who were obviously about to pounce upon Serena and take her to the side to have her say the sinner’s prayer again, insuring her position in God’s family and verifying whether or not Serena’s beliefs and faith were sufficient to return her to health.

The purveyors of the biblical worldview have based its valuation on the gold standard that you must believe before you belong. You must buy into a certain number of component beliefs before you are really one of us. If you actually possess a nickels worth of these beliefs and claim to be a dime like the rest of us, you’re five pennies short of where you need to be. That’s the way Serena was treated by far too many Christians.

We’ve even developed some nice names for folks whose lives don’t seem to match up with the promises of a biblical worldview like notional, nominal, deficient, church hopping commie, seeker or just plain lost. If you don’t verbalize that you buy into all of the life changing tenets of faith that make up the biblical worldview, well, They’ll pray for you. Maybe you’ve memorized the ideas that comprise a biblical worldview. Well, more bad news, as Donald Miller says, “I don’t think memorizing ideas helps anybody understand the meaning inferred in the expression of those ideas. I think ideas have to sink very deeply into a person’s soul, into their being, before they can effect change, and lists rarely sink deeply into a person’s soul.”[ii] Then again, what do you do with folks like Serena who have a neurological deficit that has impaired their ability to remember much of anything?

Serena’s story taught me, my wife and a whole host of others some very important lessons. One of which is, “Sometimes belonging must precede believing.”[iii] Have you ever walked into a gathering of Christians and get that eerie feeling from one of the first people you meet? You can literally hear their mind asking that infamous question, “I wonder if he/she is one of us…if they believe the right stuff?” Man, I sure have. I know I’m not alone. It’s akin to greeting someone aloud by saying, “Hi! Clearly, your beliefs are deficient in some way you don’t quite understand yet. Don’t worry, we’re here to fix you!”

Perhaps it’s time to move toward a new way of living whose value is a more authentic reflection of Christ to the world that says, “what I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.”[iv] However, why we do some of the things we do to wounded people in the name of Christ is, for me, despicable. Why some of God’s creations are born head first, feet first, hatched or otherwise, I don’t pretend to understand. I do know this; He adores the wounded child just as much as the healthy one. It is a responsibility and privilege in this life to invite, embrace and experience the gift of the wounded among us. Perhaps we must move toward a deeper appreciation for what it means to become people equipped to live compassionately, as stated in the following: “Just as courage takes its stand by others in challenging situations, so compassion takes its stand with others in their distress. Compassion is a virtue that takes seriously the reality of other persons, their inner lives, their emotions, as well as their external circumstances. It is an active disposition toward fellowship and sharing, toward supportive companionship in distress or in woe.”[v] The people you might think were born feet first just might be the greatest teachers of the Gospel you have ever met. Just swim with em. Christianity in the postmodern world just may have it backward. Instead of diving in head first, maybe we need to wade into life of faith feet first. Perhaps we are the head-injured. Not Serena.

NOTES

[ii] Miller, Donald Searching For God Knows What, Thomas Nelson, Inc. Nashville, TN, Copyright 2004 by Donald Miller, p. 57.

[iii] McLaren, Brian D. More Ready Than You Realize – Evangelism As a Dance in the Postmodern Matrix, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI. © Copyright 2002 by Brian D. McLaren p. 84.

[iv] Miller, Donald, Blue Like Jazz – Non-Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, Thomas Nelson, Inc. Nashville, TN, © Copyright 2003 by Donald Miller, p. 110 & 111

[v] Bennett, William J., The Book of Virtues – A Treasury of Great Moral Stories, SIMON & SCHUSTER, New York, NY © 1993 by William J. Bennett, p. 107.

You What?

“Dare I let God be to me all that He says He will be?”[i]