Slater, Philip The Pursuit of Loneliness Beacon Press Boston, MA Copyright ©  1970 & 1976 by Philip E. Slater.

Timeless truths from a classic in sociology. It’s rather amazing to me how prescient Slater truly was. Many of his observations remain (fortunately or unfortunately) accurate today.

One of the major contributions of this work is Slater’s coining of the term “The Toilet Assumption.” He defines the concept as follows:

The Toilet Assumption, for one – the belief that social unpleasantness, once flushed out of sight. ceases to exist-remains cenntra1 to American culture. P. xii

Our ideas about institutionalizing the aged, psychotic, retarded, and infirm are based on a pattern of thought that we might call the Toilet Assumption – the notion that unwanted matter, unwanted difficulties, unwanted complexities and obstacles will disappear if they’re removed from our immediate field of vision.  P. 19

Slater’s characterization of economists still causes many to smile in acknowledgment of his accuracy in the following:

Economists – “But it would be hard to find a field more fraught with mystification than economics, partly because it figures so strongly in political disputes. Most people feel a vague but insistent skepticism about professional economists, the certainty of whose predictive pronouncements varies inversely with their accuracy. Government economists tend to take the position that the public is just naïve, ignorant of the complexities of economic processes. The fact that their own superior knowledge rarely leads them to agree with one another doesn’t seem to distress them. Nor does the fact that our economy has become progressively sicker in response to their ministrations.” P. 169

There’s so much to this book that requires one to ponder, to ask questions, to become befuddled as to why many of the social problems Slater delineates in the 70′s remain unresolved in the second decade of the second millennium.The following is one that rings so true:

There’s probably no more important task ahead of us than finding a way for people to make a living being useful to the community. P. 165

Contemplating or studying American culture? This particular book provides an essential perspective thatone does not often encounter.

Like I said, an American sociological classic.

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

Words Cannot Describe It

When I stand on the beach watching a pod of Porpoise, I’m at a loss for words. Yet, the reality of the experience becomes indelibly etched on my brain. It’s kind of like Suzie Marie Pena. Yes, Suzie Marie Pena. Have you heard of her before? After you read this, I hope you never forget her.

Suzie was buried during the summer of 2005. She was nineteen months old. She was gunned down on July 10^th 2005 by a bullet from the LAPD during a standoff with her father in Watts, who held her in his arms as a human shield as he fired upon the police. Her dad died in the gunfire as well. The police officers involved have lost part of their souls. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said: “This is a time for mourning and reflection. Our entire community is going through an inexplicable pain. Words can’t describe it.”[i] It was a terrible accident; a tragedy beyond anybody’s ability to imagine that life would hold such horror.

There’s so much to life that occurs where words cannot describe it. It’s unintentional. It happens. It’s inexplicable. Nobody purposed it. Honestly, there are no answers. We arrive at a place where we must surrender amidst the powerlessness of our humanity and cry; “I don’t get it God!”

Christians and Christianity do not have all the answers that can be expressed in words. There are some things that simply defy explanation. One of the most powerful things a Christian can say to a person overwhelmed with the inexplicable in life is absolutely nothing. To sit with the wounded in the midst of their mourning is a sacred privilege. We need to learn to shut up. When confronted with situations that words cannot describe, we need to do just that; stay speechless. There is a depth and dimension of beauty that God’s Spirit is freed to display when we confess, “I don’t have a clue.”

The authenticity of the Christian witness to one another, the world and our God is compromised by the infernal propensity to have all the answers or know where to find them. It’s time to embrace humility. We must move beyond the superficial, surface level exhortations we so readily distribute to one another and a wounded world.

Sometimes, the stuff of life makes me numb. It’s beyond me to comprehend. Occurences like this make my moral, emotional and intellectual seas boil. It’s almost as if the rocks are attempting to cry out with the pain, sadness and astonishment that such a tragedy is even possible in life.

One thing I am dedicated to is that when I meet God face-to-face in heaven, I’m going to have far more questions for Him than I have answers. One of my questions will be, “Where’s Suzie?” I’m going to find her, hug her, and go for a walk together. I want her to show me her favorite place in heaven because, I’m certain, words cannot describe it.

NOTES

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

Are You Threatening Me?

The only time I’ve been threatened by a Porpoise was when one popped up next to me while I was floating on my boogey board in the ocean, waiting for a wave to ride into shore. It startled me. God startles people too. We should expect to be startled by God.

One day we were at a gathering with friends. The only thing out of place with the setting was the presence of a middle aged black man, hunched over and disheveled, sitting in a corner of the gathering. My friend Brian introduced me to “Jerald.” This guy STUNK!…I mean STANK! I shared a few surface niceties with Jerald and then quickly meandered off into the crowd, delighted to escape the stench.

As the gathering was about to break up, my friend Brian asked me to do him a favor. Brian said he was going on vacation for 2 weeks and that he had been giving Jerald a ride everyday from a convalescent center to his doctor each day. Brian asked me if I would do so for the next two weeks while he was away. I looked over at this guy Jerald and said to Brian, “Sorry, you’ve got the wrong guy.” Brian took me to the side and looked directly in my eyes and said “it’s about time you did something for somebody else without expecting anything in return. If you refuse to help this man, our friendship is over.” I looked at Brian speechless thinking, “Are you threatening me?”

That evening, I drove Jerald back home to the convalescent center. I was “ticked” as I was really cooperating with all this against my will. Jerald said “thank you” as he shuffled to get out of the car. He looked down at the ground and muttered “you gonna pick me up tomorrow?” I said, “yes I will.” I picked him up the next day and took him to the doctor. I drove him back to the convalescent center afterward. This went on for two weeks.

Something amazing happened to me during those two weeks. The “hardness” that inhabited my heart began to melt. The time I knew I didn’t have to give to this man seemed to appear out of thin air. Jerald and I called each other by name. I made him laugh. He made me smile. We didn’t go directly home from the doctor, we stopped for meals and chatted with each other. I began to introduce him to my other friends. I started to develop a deep affection for this guy. I began to schedule my worldly affairs around the needs of Jerald.

Brian returned from vacation and asked me, “How’d it go with Jerald?” I replied, “If you don’t mind, I’ll continue to assist him.” Jerald and I were on our own. I introduced him to my wife Jacki, our children Liz and Andrew and our black Lab Seymour. He loved my family and was very much a gentleman around them. Jerald adored Seymour and it was reciprocal.

We learned that Jerald had become warehoused in a white, upper class convalescent center through a special grant available through the Department of Social and Health Services in the State of Washington. Jerald required medical attention and daily medication as he had seizures quite regularly and couldn’t drive. He wobbled when he “walked.” He had been hit by a Metro bus in the skid road district of Seattle a year earlier. The accident had left him with head, leg and back injuries from which he would never recover. He had no living relatives, friends or family that he could recall. We incorporated Jerald into all the activities of our family. He couldn’t even read. I helped him try to get better at it.

One day, I picked up Jerald and he was very sad. He said his residency was about to be up at the convalescent center and he would be moved to another facility “somewhere.” Jacki and I spent the next several weeks obtaining the authorization for the state to release him into our care. Although the State said this was “impossible,” within three weeks, Jerald was living with us.

Jerald became a member of our family. The seizures he would have, arriving home to find him unconscious, sprawled out on the floor of our living room, having lost control of his bowels and vomited on himself, just became part of living with Jerald.

We live in a world filled with threats. We’ve even got them color-coded now for the entire country. Jesus Christ is the single greatest threat to ever walk the face of this planet. As a newborn, Jesus’ mere existence threatened King Herod. Heck, Herod never even saw Jesus. Herod simply heard of his birth and wanted Jesus found and brought to him to be killed.[i]

My initial reaction to Jerald was the same one I had one day while paddling my boogey board, when I observed a Porpoise fin above the water line about twenty yards from me in the ocean. I was threatened. I was desperate to get away from it as quickly as humanly possible. Unfortunately, today many people react to the image of Jesus and/or Christianity in the same way. They move away at the sight of the fin and never take the opportunity to become familiar with the wonder of the blessing. I like what theologian Brian McLaren says about this: “When the fervent furnace of religion kindles sparks of fear in people’s hearts, a dangerous wildfire can rage out of control, and a lot of people can get hurt-especially the people who have been characterized as threats.[ii]

Jesus and Jerald have a lot in common. Jerald was “not our idea.” We didn’t choose him. As I said above, I really met Jerald against my will. If it were my choice, I would never have picked this fellow to come into our lives. Let’s face it; Jesus was not your idea anymore than he matched up with the expectations of a Messiah by the first century Jews.

Jerald taught us the value of doing something for somebody else without expecting anything in return. This man was developmentally disabled, helpless and homeless. We did what we did for Jerald because we learned to love him, just as people in our lives learned to love us. I think that’s what Christianity really boils down to anyway; a group of people doing something for somebody else without expecting anything in return, simply because God loves us with a love that must be shared with the people we encounter on our journey in life.

Just like Jesus, Jerald taught us that the Lord sends His miracles and messengers in forms and in circumstances that we cannot anticipate. He doesn’t ask our advice when delivering His blessings to our lives. They seem to pop up above the surface of life, just like the Porpoise.

Jerald changed the lives of far more people than just my family and me. I think we can all agree that Jesus has always and continues to do just that. God has an uncanny knack for using the powerless, the vulnerable and those most deeply wounded for His most powerful displays of life changing power. These displays of power and blessing are not always convenient and on-demand.

Today, we find it interesting to be able to tell you truthfully that Jerald is one of the most powerful, life changing human beings that we have ever had the privilege of interacting with in our lives. We hope you think about this the next time you see somebody socially, economically, developmentally, psychologically, medically and/or physically disabled. Somebody who wobbles when they walk, slurs when they talk, looks different than the rest of us, might smell distinctly different as well, spills coffee as they attempt to lift the cup to their mouth, is unable to drive because of a medical condition or read because nobody took the time to teach them. We hope you think about this if you call yourself a Christian and have yet to meet your Jerald. It’s not likely that you will meet people like Jerald within the safe harbor of your present, daily routine. You will meet them out on the open waters of life; those uncharted waters where you have been reluctant to explore. As one author puts it, “Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory.”[iii]

In American society, Christianity has become moored to the dock, the physical building of the church where we go to worship God. Christianity was never intended to be tied up to a pier. There’s no Porpoise in these places. Another author writes, “If our theology is to be an authentic reflection and witness to God who is revealed in Jesus Christ as the God of the excluded, then we need to embark on the often painful journey to meet with Jesus the Christ outside the camp, among the excluded. Such a journey will leave us uncomfortable and displaced in the carnivalesque, post-modem world.” [iv]

Christianity in American society has suffered because of the lack of people like my friend Brian. People who are willing to confront you when you’ve become satisfied with your lot in life (moored to the dock), and are courageous enough to point out that you must embrace change. People like Brian are rare, but can be found if you pray that God will put them in your life. This may mean that you have to get off the couch and seek them as well. People like Brian are folks who are willing to tell you the truth even if it hurts your feelings or risks your friendship.

In the Christian life, there is a supernatural beauty hidden behind many of the perceived threats we have come to define in this world. We’ve got news for you; if you move beyond the notion of being threatened and get close enough to befriend people like Jerald, you’ll find some very powerful messengers of God disguised just like him. I promise you, God will change your life through them.

If you get to heaven, look up Jerald. You can’t miss him. He will be the strange looking, middle-aged black guy seated on the ground with Joseph and Brian, laughing his fanny off, while rolling a ball back and forth to a giggling infant named Suzie Marie Pena. There will be a black Lab barking at all this, wagging his tail next to Jerald. His name is Seymour. He won’t bite. Don’t be threatened by these folks. Join them. On the other hand, why wait to get to heaven?

NOTES

[ii] McLaren, Brian A Generous Orthodoxy, Zondervan Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI © Copyright 2004 by Youth Specialties p. 246

[iii] Nouwen, Henri J.M. The Wounded Healer- Ministry in Contemporary Society, IMAGE BOOKS DOUBLEDAY, NYCopyright 1972 by Henri J.M. Nouwen p. 77

[iv] Rieger, Joerg Opting For The Margins – Postmodernity and Liberation in Christian Theology, Oxford University Press, NY, NY © 2003 by The American Academy of Religion p. 59

Gasping For Air

As I watched the Porpoise, I realized that they broke through the surface because they, like me, were built to breathe. Sometimes they would disappear beneath the surface for several minutes only to reappear for some another breath of fresh air. That’s the way most people in my life seem to live. We submerge ourselves in life but are required to come up for air. As I watched the Porpoise, I decided to hold my breath while one of them was submerged until he/she breached the surface again. I don’t recommend that you try this as Porpoise are sometimes under water for a couple of minutes. You’d probably pass out face first in the sand, gasping for breath. I almost did. This experience reminded me that this life is filled with times when we come up gasping for air.

Air is a weird thing. You can’t see it, smell it, hear it, feel it or taste it on most days. Frankly, you rarely ever even think about it, except when you can’t seem to get a breath of it. As I write this, Pope Bendict XVI remarked that the church in the West is dying. He said “the West was a world that is tired of its own culture, a world that has arrived at a time in which there’s no more evidence of the need for God, much less Christ, and in which it seems that man alone can make himself. This is certainly a suffering linked, I’d say, to our time, in which generally one sees that the great churches appear to be dying,” he said, mentioning Australia, Europe and the United States.” [i] It sounds like the Pope is saying that the Christian church is gasping for air.

Saturday April 23^rd 2002 was a beautiful day in southern California. One of those days filled with sunny, blue skies and seventy-degree temperatures. I played racquetball with some guys in the morning, lunched, read a book and took a nap in the afternoon. I went downstairs after my nap where my wife shared gleefully that “Niki’s on the way to the hospital!” Our daughter Nicole was about to give birth to her first child in Corvallis, Oregon. We prayed together.

All the arrangements had been made. Niki and our son-in-law Brendon had our cell phone numbers. The cell phones were on and charged to the max. There was no need to sit at home by the phone. We decided to go ahead with plans to attend a dinner party with friends.

On the drive to the dinner party, a strange sensation overwhelmed me. I blurted out, “Amanda! Amanda is going to arrive tonight.” My wife smiled and said “So that’s what you think her name will be huh?” Like I said, for some strange reason, I was absolutely certain about this, even though we had never discussed a name for the baby amongst ourselves, with Niki, Brendon, or anybody else.

During dessert, my wife’s cell phone rang. It was our daughter Niki. Amanda Shelby Kelley had arrived in this world about 30 minutes earlier. She was dead on arrival. She never had the opportunity to enjoy even one breath. We got up from the table and left for home, comforted by the attempt of well-meaning friends who uttered words we never heard. We were gasping for air.

It was during this time in our life that I realized that ours is the God of more. Just when I think I have this Christian faith thing figured out, something in life occurs that leaves me gasping for breath. It causes me to grow, to challenge what I think I know, to desire to learn again, to throw myself at the feet of Hope in Jesus Christ clinging to the only thing I know; He is with me. He is with me retching and balling His eyes out at the horror that is wracking my wife’s soul as she soaked another pillow case, with tears of incessant, uncontrollable sobbing. He’s with me during my inability to come up with words to describe the terror that is racking my life. He’s with me during the unthinkable.

We never received a card, a call, or a visit from anybody at our church during this time. However, we did have relationships with people who had a distinct appreciation for the necessity to need God in this life. These are people who had embraced the reality that life will serve up suffering the likes of which no person should attempt to handle alone. They are friends who live contrary to the Pope’s observation that people in the West live as if man alone can make it by himself. When you’re drowning beneath the unfathomable in life, the hope that God can and will reach down and pull you to the surface is indispensable. This is my Jesus. This is the God of More. He is there beyond the surface of it all.

Don’t expect some animated, supernatural demonstration of Divine power to display itself in front of your eyes like the scenes you are familiar with in today’s action-adventure thrillers. Our experience is God uses ordinary people to assist Him in his compassionate care for those He so desperately loves. When you’re drowning in life, it’s essential to have some people close to you who are floating on the surface, splashing the water so you know which way is up. These are people who can grab your attention to kick for the surface because they too have been where you are, submerged in the depths of despair. They are people who are willing to descend to where you are, grab your hand and drag you to the surface when you’ve lost the ability to kick for it.

For most of us, the concept of God is a weird thing. Just like air, you can’t see Him, smell Him, hear Him, feel Him or taste Him on most days. Frankly, for most people, you rarely ever even think about Him, except when you can’t seem to get a breath from Him, whilst suffocating in the circumstances of life. My prayer is that you will seek to become more familiar with my Jesus, The God of More. Kick for what He has for you beyond the surface of what you presently know about Him. Kick to know Him. I’m convinced He’s the One the Porpoise celebrate every time they breach the surface, gasping for air.

On September 14^th 2004, Samantha Ellen Kelley was born, two and one-half years after her sister Amanda. Samantha is healthy, happy and full of life. She is living proof that the God of More is with us.

If you get to heaven, the little girl throwing the stick in the river for the black Lab named Seymour; that’s Amanda. Jerald is standing next to Joseph holding Suzie Marie Pena. If Seymour is all wet and looks like he’s gasping for air, don’t worry. He’s doing what he’s always dreamed of. He’s living eternally with people who are enjoying the reality that “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” [ii] Just like the Porpoise.

By the way, you don’t have to wait until you get to heaven to live like this. Take a deep breath and ponder this for a few minutes.

[ii] Job 33:4

People Are Strange

As I watched the Porpoise from the beach, I wondered what they thought about people like me hanging out on land. I figure they think my presence on the beach is about as odd as my feelings about their life in the ocean. When they leap above the surface and get a glimpse of the people on the shore, I’ll bet they think “Wow! There’s one of those strange creatures again.”

In the book of Matthew, the first guy Jesus ever met was a very strange dude named John. He was born to his elderly parents who died while he was very young. John lived in the desert by the Jordan River. He wore clothes made of camel’s hair and a leather girdle. He ate large grasshoppers and honey. [i] I saw people dressed like this in west Hollywood last week. It didn’t take reading the Bible or a song by the Jim Morrison and The Doors to enable me to figure this one out. Hey, people are strange. Christians are even stranger.

My wife called me one evening while I was in the middle of a meeting. This was unusual. The person who delivered the note to me wrote “Wife on Phone – URGENT” in big bold letters. There had to be something strange going on.

Jacki said she answered a knock at our front door. There was a young man we knew named Erik standing there sweating, shaking and wild-eyed. He asked to come in and speak to us. Jacki told him that I wasn’t home. Erik begged her to come in and talk with her for a minute. He also told her he needed to borrow a drill. Jacki consented. Within two minutes, she was calling me.

After returning home, I threw Erik in my car and sped off to the Emergency Room. The nurses loaded Erik on a gurney and paged two doctors over the intercom. I took a seat in the waiting room. About twenty minutes later, an ER physician came out and called my name. He told me Erik was in critical condition and could die at any moment. He did not expect him to make it. He said I could see him and should get in touch with his next of kin immediately.

I pulled the curtain back and sat down in a chair at Erik’s bedside. His eyes were bugging out of his head. Torment and horror scarred his face. He was trembling, sweating and his eyes were darting uncontrollably around the room. He had an IV in his arm and was hooked up to a monitor that kept making distinct, eerie, alert noises every few seconds that only added to the insanity of the situation. I grasped one of his hands, prayed silently and left.

I found a payphone in the lobby and called Erik’s parents. I had never met them. I introduced myself by name and quickly went on to describing the seriousness of the situation and the need for them to come down to the ER immediately. “We don’t know him!” his dad said forcefully. “I’m sorry. Do I have a wrong number?” I asked. “Nope. You just need to know we gave up on Erik a long time ago. Thanks for calling.” I heard a click and then a dial tone.

I stood there with the phone in one hand, staring in the direction of where Erik lay dying. My mind wandered to a passage in the Bible where Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River. This weird guy I mentioned above named John, John the Baptist, did the honors. When Jesus emerged from beneath the water, a voice from His father was heard to say “This is my Son, Whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”[ii]

Porpoise are fortunate. They are unable to hear the cruel things we humans say to one another. I wondered how many wounds Erik’s soul was perforated with by years of verbal jabs by his parents about not measuring up, by being different, by being strange. I pondered the question about the relationship between that sort of verbal abuse and Erik’s struggle with cocaine, an attempt to cope with something very deep within the wounded soul of this young adult.

Most people make the mistake of translating the experiences they have in life into a sense of what God is like. It’s the same process Erik’s parents imposed on their son. They created a box for Erik and when he didn’t fit in it, they ridiculed him, chastised him and progressively excluded him from their lives, callously unaware of the pain this rejection was incurring in their beloved. Nothing grieves the human heart more than this strange distance between a parent and a child, the Creator and you, His creation.

The drill that Erik wanted to borrow — he just wanted to release the pressure pounding inside his head. He was absolutely convinced that a few holes drilled in his skull with the drill he had seen in my garage would relieve his excruciating pain. As I recall this day in my life, I am compelled to ask the question: “Who really had the holes in their head?”

As you ponder this story, what is your reaction when I ask you to hear the voice of your Creator say, “This is my child, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased.” If His voice is contorted by voices from your past akin to Erik’s parents, you have boxed God inside some strange confines within which He was never intended to reside, nor can He be contained. It’s time to blow up your God box. Sound strange? There’s a term for this, it’s called reaching out in faith, knowing that there is more to the God of More than you have crammed into your cranium. As one author says, “There’s a word for this reaching out in confidence and hope beyond our current understanding: faith.”[iii]

Throughout His live on Earth, Jesus hung out with the strange one’s, frankly, the strangest of the strange. Guess what? You’re one of us. If you don’t think so, stop a few strangers on the street and ask them the same question Jesus posed, “Who do you say I am?”[iv] You’ll get the answer from the look on their face as they scurry by.

Pray with me for Erik’s parents that there will be someone sitting by the side of their deathbed, holding their hand, whispering, “This is my child, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased.” If you’re wondering whom the God of the Christian faith is, the One who asks, “Who do you say that I am?” He’s the one seated beside Erik’s parents’ deathbed when nobody else on Earth showed up because they were too strange.

In some curious way, those Porpoise swimming out there speak to me. It is unspoken yet, it is understood. They remind me that my God, my Jesus, is the One who is constantly whispering to me, “You are my child, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased.” My apologies if this sounds a bit strange. God’s like that.

NOTES

[ii] Matthew 3:17

[iii] McLaren, Brian D. The Church On The Other Side – Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, Zondervan Grand Rapids, MI., © 1998 and 2000 by Brian D. McLaren, p. 199.

A Crying Shame

I’ve walked the beach on some days hoping to catch a glimpse of the Porpoise. Nope. Not today. No matter how deeply I yearned to see them, it simply was not in the cards for this particular day. I felt like crying.

Jesus had similar experiences during his life here on Earth. When Jesus saw Mary and her friends mourning the death of Lazarus, Jesus wept.[i] It’s incredibly comforting for me to know that Jesus is equipped with all the emotional responses that I am. Who would be interested in a God who couldn’t relate to what you’re feeling? The Bible says we’re created in His image.[ii] It says that our journey is intended to provide us with the opportunity to become more like Christ.[iii] Yet, when you look at the research results about Christians in the U.S., they indicate the following, “We witness a born-again population that is indistinguishable from the rest of the nation – and has very little credibility when it comes to promoting genuine Christianity…At some point, poor products come back to haunt the producer. Welcome to the haunting time.”[iv]

Most Christians don’t like to talk about the quote from the research results above. It makes them uncomfortable, self-conscious and insecure. It’s seems like the current day research results are asking, “Hey Christians, where are you?” We people have been trying to hide from God since shortly after He created us. God asked the same question of Adam in the Garden of Eden, “Where are you?”[v] This was after Adam had eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After Adam blamed the deed on Eve, God turned to Eve and asked her a different question, “What is this you have done?” [vi] As they say, the rest is history, or is it?

We Christians try our best. Yet, we get it wrong. The problem with Christianity has never been the truth about Jesus. History reveals that the crying shame of it all is located with the people who claim His name as Lord and Savior of their lives. “One of the moral diseases we communicate to one another in society comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask.”[vii] For those who claim the name of Christ and refer to themselves as Christians, one question must be: “What’s wrong with us?” I believe we have to return to the third chapter of the book of Genesis to appreciate how long we humans have been grappling with and attempting to avoid this one. What are we afraid of?

We received a call from a Pastor at our church that asked us to come down to meet a mother and her son. The son had just been released from prison on parole. The mother had no place for him to live as she was imposing on a friend, living temporarily in cramped quarters and had no money to put him up anywhere.

Greg was in his early thirties, about five feet tall and completely embarrassed about standing in the foyer of a church with his mom publicly blubbering on a Pastor’s shoulder, waiting to meet two people from the church his mom happened to attend at the time. As we introduced ourselves, Greg kept cringing and looking around at other passersby, as his mom vomited her despair all over the lobby for everyone to hear. I made eye contact with Greg, pointed to his gear on the floor and motioned with my head toward the door, as his mom continued with her unrelenting emotional hemorrhage.

Greg became a part of our family. We became friends. Honestly, he became a son to me. I learned to love Greg as if he was my son. Greg adored our family and especially our black Lab Seymour. Those two were inseparable. Greg’s diabetes was out of control most of the time. He had liver and kidney problems as well. All this was from years and years of drug and alcohol abuse. His doctor said he only had a few years to live.

Greg, like most people with a lifestyle like his, struggled with getting his feet moving in a new direction. After about six months of going back and forth hanging out with the wrong people and getting into the same fixes he said he wanted to avoid, his behavior started to match up with his intentions. He became honest, dependable, hard working, trustworthy and fun loving. He began to laugh. When Greg laughed, it was contagious. You didn’t care what He was laughing about. The sheer joy expressed in his laugh caused you to spontaneously erupt in a similar outburst.

Greg became ravenously curious about God. We spent countless hours together exploring the Bible, praying and thanking God together. When Greg would pray, it was like listening to a child talk to Jesus for the first time. There wasn’t any apprehension or pretentiousness in Greg’s prayers, just blunt, bold, childlike honesty. Every time Greg prayed, I was refreshed. So was everyone within earshot. He was a blessing.

It was a typical Saturday night in our home. It was around 9:00PM and we were laughing with friends in our living room. The phone rang. Greg was dead. He had been found naked on the floor of an apartment in the area. He died of an overdose.

For the next two years, the lights in my life went out. It was dark, lonely, confusing. I was angry. I was afraid. I was ashamed that Greg had died while in the loving care of my family. I shouldered all the blame. It was awful.

It was during the end of this period in my life when I began to hear God’s voice meekly, gently whispering, “Bill, where are you? What is this you have done?” I started to ask myself the questions, “What’s wrong with me? What am I afraid of?” I began to realize that Greg’s death was about the insidious power of shame. The same shame that Adam and Eve had experienced when they attempted to hide from God in the Garden of Eden. Greg’s return to the use of narcotics had killed him because he could not overcome the shame of returning yet again, from his failure to avoid it. Greg became a fatality of shame.

Today, the voice of God can be heard calling out to you saying “Your name where are you? What is this you have done?” When you hear that voice, what do you really hear? Does it sound like a thundering, condescending, threatening, accusatory voice? If so, it’s not the voice of God. It’s the voice of shame attempting to keep you trapped in the vicious cycle of your own limitations. It’s an ongoing effort by the evil one, the same evil one that deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden, to get you to continue to cover up and attempt to hide from God some more.

One day, I realized that God’s voice asking me, “Bill, where are you? What is this you have done?” had a face. The face of Jesus had tears streaming down his cheeks. The tone of His voice was one of unconditional love, sincere, heartfelt and intimate concern. He wasn’t cursing or accusing me for where I was at in my life. He cares! His question about “What is this you have done?” was really “What are you doing to yourself? Take my hand. Let’s move on.”

One of the unfortunate and avoidable aspects of Christianity and Christians today is that we have a tendency to be deceived back into the shadow of shame. We try to cover it up. We conceal our questions, doubts and confusion. Everybody can see the falsehood in it. As one author writes, “Those of us who follow Christ in this culture will never achieve all that He desires for us until we are willing to open every nook and cranny of our own behavioral house for remodeling and cleaning. Only then will we begin to live the kind of lives that others will find intriguing and distinctive.”[viii]

If you get to heaven, you can find Greg by listening for his laugh. Trust me, it’s unmistakable. Greg would want me to tell you that you don’t have to wait to get to heaven to enjoy laughter like that.

NOTES

[ii] Genesis 1:27

[iii] 2 Corinthians 3:18

[iv] 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.128.

[v] Genesis 3:9

[vi] Genesis 3:13

[vii] Merton, Thomas No Man Is An Island, Published by Barnes & Noble, Inc. New York, New York by arrangement with Harcourt, Inc., Copyright © 1955 by The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, Copyright renewed 1983 by the Trustees of the Merton Legacy Trust, p. xiii.

[viii] Burchett, Dave. When Bad Christians Happen to Good People, WaterBrook Press Colorado Springs, CO Ó Copyright 2002 by Dave Burchett p. 5.