"Give me Your Money"

I’m walking in downtown Portland and this homeless guy stops me on the sidewalk. They call it aggressive panhandling. He obviously doesn’t have anything beyond a bundle of stuff that is lying beside the road. A bunch of his buddies are leaning against a building.

He’s got long hair, a longish beard, and is wearing not only sandals, but this old robe that looks like it might have come from a monastery or something. It’s got a couple of holes in it and the hem is frayed.

I smile at him, a little nervous, and run through a quick calculation of what is in my wallet, how much I really need today, and come up with a sum that is generous in my circumstances.

“Excuse me, sir...” he begins. (At least he’s polite.)

“...I haven’t any money for something to eat. Can you spare a few?”

“Sure,” I say, and reach for the wallet in my front pocket (I keep it there ever since I had my wallet stolen when I was 16).

I hand him $6.

He looks at me with sharp, clear, brown eyes, piercing eyes.

“This isn’t enough.”

I’m more than a little surprised. It’s more than I usually spend on my own lunches, and it is pretty nervy of him to ask for more when most folks would have pulled out the change in their pockets and left him looking at 62 cents in his palm.

A little offended, I ask him how much he needs.

“All of it.”

(WHAT?!!!)

I look beyond him to see if there is a cop or someone of authority in sight.

“Pardon me?”

“I want it all.”

For a moment I think about it. Maybe I could skip my own lunch. He probably needs it more than I do. This almost seems like some kind of test, so I pause, I consider. I reach into my wallet for the last $3.

“That’s not enough,” he says.

Now I am getting a little uncomfortable, and maybe a touch more than a little testy. I size him up. He’s about three inches shorter than I am, but he looks wiry, strong.

“Just what is it you want from me?”

“I want it all. I want your wallet, and your car keys....

“I want your pin number for the ATM...

“I want your house and your job, and your kids, and everything.

“I want your life.”

____________________

We had a meeting at our church and we voted to build a new and better church out of the ashes left from the night my son played with fire.

It is going to cost an additional $800,000 over the insurance settlement.

During the meeting there was a lot of discussion about how we can come up with that money. It was decided we would ask ourselves to pay for it out of our own pockets, without a loan. Sacrificial giving.

There was a suggestion that we learn what churches in surrounding communities charge for folks to rent facilities similar to the one we are going to build, you know, for weddings and such.

I loved the response from our elders and pastors.

“No.”

This building is on us. We will pay for it, somehow, and it will be an asset to our community. The use of the facilities will be free.

Church is supposed to be a place where the world is welcomed into our lives. A church building is the foyer to God’s kingdom. It isn’t a business.

I’m not sure how two or three hundred people are going to raise that kind of money, but the fact that it is challenging gives us the opportunity for Him to work through us.

____________________

I’m giving everything I have to the man with the long hair and sandals.

Violets

A loud moan woke me from a restless sleep.

Brenda was trying to scream from the depths of a bad dream; only a strangled gurgling sound came out.

I placed my cheek against hers, woke her with soft words of safety and encouragement. I prayed over her, stroking her hair, holding her close.

I can only partially understand the psychological demons that plague her subconscious. I can only partially understand the spiritual demons that plague our home. I can grasp a little better the emotional, financial, and physical demons that prowl the edges of our life together.

I love this world.

Really... I do.

This terrible place where babies are born dying of AIDS, where land mines amputate children at play, where bombs fall from the sky, and placid oceans rise up and sweep away villages.

I love this world.

From where I am sitting I see tiny violets blossoming in my lawn; the mower will crop them within a day or so. They grow where they cannot survive. Ephemeral, beautiful.

I love this world.

Brenda asked me how a good and just God could let evil things happen to a child.

That is the central question to the Book of Job. How could a good God...

I can see in my mind’s eye the photo of two years ago, a Haitian child making cakes out of dirt and lard to feed herself and her little brother.

I sat on a rock the other morning. It was good. I went back that afternoon. And again the next day. I watched the river flow.

It is very beautiful. A heron glided in, landing in a tree across the river. A coyote yipped, startling the deer by the trees a hundred yards away. The river swirled below me, dark and swollen from an unusually wet winter. In places it flowed the wrong direction, a backwater sweeping foam through the clutching branches of trees that, for this year, this season, find themselves standing in dark water.

The Willamette River flowed past my perch, almost exactly as it did when Jesus let men stretch him out on a roughhewn post and drive nails into His body.

I love this world. This place that is so painful, so hurtful.

I love this world that has me confused and searching for steadiness where all is swirling in ways that do not seem to make sense.

I love this world filled with things of beauty destined to be mowed.

I love this world of confusion and choices.

Our choices. My choices.

Place my desires first, or follow His commands?

It’s freedom. Freedom given us by a God who wants us to love Him and each other because it is a choice.

He lets us have our way for a century, give or take a few years, so we can have choices.

How could a good God? Because He wants us free to choose to not think of ourselves first.

We can choose to follow a difficult path, or we can bail. (So many bail. So many hurt and hurting.)

This freedom means there are people who become monsters, hurting children, and there are people who run into hallways where bullets fly, pulling children to safety.

Tonight our church is voting on the architect's plan for rebuilding our church from the fire my child started. The cost for the new building is $800,000 more than the money received from the insurance company.

Tonight I will worry a little about my home, my children, my wife, my finances, my spiritual growth... and the oh so many questions and emotions that churn within my heart, and I will ask Him once again to show me the next step on this shadowed path.

Tonight I will try my best to set aside my fears for my family, my strange mix of emotions regarding the fire, and prayerfully, worshipfully, make choices about that new building, just as anyone else in the membership will do.

Tonight I will approach this meeting with thoughts about my wife’s nightmares, and the fears still hidden in the hearts of my children, torn from horrors and placed in my home, and the apprehensions about my work, and the repairs my home needs, and the lawyers sniffing around for assets, and the rashes on my hands, and... and...

And I love this world.

You see, in this place, this world, I am learning what cannot be learned in Heaven. I am learning the difference between being a naturally selfish man and a servant of the God who wishes so much we didn’t hurt and cry and ache and moan in our sleep.

In this place I can leave crowded cities and walk in woods and watch herons fly and sit on a rock above a confused river.

In this world I can stop and pick the violet from the grass, and lay it on my desk while I type a blog post, before the mower comes.

Sitting on a Rock

Dearest reader:

Please pardon this very rough post.

I am just plain tired. I'm drained. Physically, emotionally...

I want to write something of beauty, but I’m tired.

So I am going to let my mind drift along a bit and see what flows out. I’m not going to go over this post and change the words slightly here and there, or edit, or go through two or three rewrites. I’m going to go gently down this stream, listening to some old folk music, and see what will come.

It has been a long haul of late. I’m not complaining. I am following my Lord and there are lessons in the events of my life which will lead me to a place that is good. But I would like to find a rock to sit on and watch a few clouds drift by.

Did you know that hunter-gatherer societies have the greatest amount of leisure time?

They do a little hunting. They eat some fruit. They nap a lot.

Sounds pretty good.

I stopped by my church on the way home. I prayed for a while. I drew a little.

I have found my artistic talent again, and I’m exploring what that means.

The current picture is of a torso. It is all colored pencil and scribbles of variously colored Sharpies. There is a heart-shaped stone rolling aside, revealing a brilliantly glowing heart with light streaming out from a white cross. There is a hint of of a long-haired, bearded face, and a swiftly flowing river in the background. Swirling around the heart and the torso are scriptures about redemption and the story of the prodigal son.

You see, a friend of mine has been praying for a very long time for his brother, a homeless man. There is a tremendous story behind this man who found himself once again surrounded by family and opening his stubborn heart to the Lord.

I want to write more about this tale that has touched my heart, but I need certain permissions first.

I have been experimenting with my artistic talents this past year or so. I have drawn and painted other things as well. Perhaps I’ll write about them.

Sometime...

Listening to Judy Collins...

...And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them" ...

I’m not sure what the song writer meant by that... but it makes my heart ache a little...

...He spent a long time watching from His lonely wooden tower, and when He knew that only drowning men could see Him...

We are all drowning, aren’t we?

Life is too busy. The busyness of life interferes with opening our hearts to Him, doesn’t it?

I think that is what is wrong with me right now... I need some quiet.

It is all good. But it might be too much. I would like to share about some of the troubles I see in children’s lives. Drugs, poverty, divorce, hunger... But I can’t. It isn’t my place. But I wish I could love them all they way they deserve to be loved. Every child should have a loving home, a place that is safe.

I think of that Yanamamo Indian in his hammock somewhere along the Amazon... I love my comforts too much to want to join him, but I think that his life is closer to the life God had planned for Adam than the life I have.


Ah, dearest Lord... I could be much more spiritual, I could love You deeper, sing Your praises with passion, if I could spend a few seasons sitting on a rock counting sheep and watching the clouds glide by.

Sweet Lord, my master... life is so busy, I ask just a few small things, Lord. Lord, first and foremost, grant me the ability to see where You would have me go. Make clear my path, provide me with the wisdom to guide my family and make the choices You would have me make. Also, Lord, please grant me the wisdom to care for my students and my children in a way that honors You. May the actions of my life show that I have a master that dictates me to be more than I could be otherwise. And lastly Lord, I ask that You permit me the real sense of Your presence as I walk through my life. Grant me the peace and serenity that comes from knowing that You are near. --Amen.


I think I will get up early tomorrow... go down to the river before work... sit on a rock... and pray a bit.

Writer's block

I have started two posts. Neither grabbed me.

I usually try post every Sunday afternoon and a time or two through the week.

Please come back soon. I'll see if I can find something to prime the writing pump.

If you are hankering for some writing from weird Will, you might check out the last story I put on my other blog last week. The blog is Willzilla.

Echoes

She held her little boy’s hand as best she could. The five-year-old squirmed and pulled. She was talking to her neighbor, a sixty-year-old gentleman who lived a few doors down in the same boarding house.

Leukemia would take her within a few months. She hadn’t any money. It was 1916 and she could barely do her job at the laundry. The mining explosion in childhood had burned her hands so badly she couldn’t fully open them, but they gripped laundry well enough. Now they struggled to hang onto a little boy.

Who would take care of little Albert?

Robert looked down at his neighbor’s child.

“I’ll do it.”

“You will?”

“Yes. I’ll do it. I’ll marry you, and Harvey will be my boy. I’ll take care of him. I’ll raise him.”

So, the little boy, Harvey Edstrum, son of an occasionally drunk, occasionally abusive father, became Harvey Greenleaf. His mother died. He grew up, working with his dad as a migrant farm hand. He married, and 18 years later, divorced. He moved in with his son, my father.

He taught me how perseverance at an ice cream machine crank paid off. He taught me how to tip a waitress for a morning cup of coffee (leave a nickel under the saucer). Grampa bought me cherry Mountain Bars at the cafe on the way to kindergarten each morning, and a Squirt soda and maybe a box of Cracker jacks (with real toys) on the way home.

He moved out before I finished kindergarten, bought a grocery store in Paradise, California. He married a woman with three teen sons (one of them broke my bike). A couple of years later those stepsons got drunk, argued, and killed him.

That’s all I know about them. I don’t know my great grandmother’s name. I don’t know her first husband’s name. I failed to learn and remember little more of my family history than a few paragraphs, a faint echo of their lives. In less than a century the struggles and achievements of a life are forgotten.

-------------------

We want people to know who we are. Today. Forever. We want them to love us, respect us. We ache to be noticed. We are born needing constant attention. If we don’t get it we will die. We demand to be fed, to be held. It doesn’t stop when we learn to feed ourselves.

It’s more than a physical need. It is a soul need.

Something deep inside wants attention, craves it, needs it.

Why write this blog? Is it a personal exploration, or to help others, or is it a cry for attention? Am I crying into the darkness, into an empty spot deep inside and shouting “Look at me! Hear me! Think of me! Look at how I string words, thoughts, together! Let me affect you! Let me show you truths and in doing that you will see me. Then I will know I exist.”

Why do I get upset when my wife is a little controlling? Because I want to be recognized for being the man of the house. Because I want to be respected. I want to be king.

Why am I irritated when a student interrupts me? Because I want to be the source of authority. Because I want to be respected. I want to be king.

I want to be important. I want to make a difference, I want to be remembered.

I want...

I want to be loved.

-------------------

What is the point in raising children? Those who cannot have biological children learn something about the need for them that others often miss. When the children don’t come, when the heart has moved beyond sex and is forced to consider children in and of themselves, something deep inside begins to throb, to ache, and the heart and the mind start casting about for a way to grasp the source of that ache and fix what is broken.

I used to think children were about reproduction. I thought they were about the need to replicate ourselves, to create an echo of ourselves. To pass on our insights and ideas and views and attitudes. To do such a good job in raising children that in someway we would survive. It was about leaving a legacy.

Today I am wondering... maybe the act of raising a child is an echo of something else, something more real.

Today I’m wondering...

I sense a spot in my soul, not in my mind, or in my spirit, or in my body, but in a part of me that seems eternal, that longs for something magnificent. I sense a spot in my soul that longs to reach out, to reach up, to see my Creator and pull His face towards me.

I think that is the truest part of who I am... a being who yearns, who longs, for his Creator to look at me.

Perhaps the raising a child is about that longing, that relationship.

I feel something when I look at my children, it is difficult to describe. As I think about my feelings toward my children that spot in my soul throbs.

I think that spot has a name. An inadequate name, but a name that touches upon the yearning, the longing, the “father thing,” and the stuff Jesus tried to explain. I think that spot is called “love.”

I was created with a soul, a part that is above the mind, beyond the body, a connection between my spirit and eternity. In that soul there is a place that is designed to plug into God, where I am supposed to be getting instructions. I am supposed to be connected to something bigger than myself. I’m supposed to be in the presence of the source of all things. It is something that will tell me who I am and what I am for. That spot is called “love” only because we haven’t words to describe the thing, no, the person, that makes us complete in a way that being a husband, or being a father, cannot do.

I used to think that I would be someone great. That I would leave a mark in the world. Now I know that billions of people have lived and died, struggled and achieved, struggled and failed, and their great grandchildren didn’t even remember their names. Their echoes faded away.

I’m not concerned about that anymore. And I’m not concerned if anyone is reading this blog. I like it of course. Just as I like being a husband, a father, a teacher.

But I am more concerned about what is supposed to be in that spot. I want to reach in there, like it is some hole into another dimension or something, and grasp the hand of my creator and have Him pull me through, to turn me inside out and have that hole become my skin, to cover me and not carry it on the inside, but spread it over all that I am and let it fulfill me.

I think the longing I feel, especially at this time of year when I prepare my heart for Easter, that empty spot throbs harder, louder.

I think that in my craving to love and be loved I am echoing the throbbing I hear when I listen closely to what is coming out of that void. I think my whole life, in trying make my children an echo of who I am, is all about trying to amplify that deep throb inside.

My failures in loving those around me as my Lord commands is really a failure to echo clearly the voice of God who is speaking into my own void of sin.

When I try to make a mark on my world, whether it is in doing what is right, such as raising my children, or doing what is wrong, such as being impatient with my wife, whether producing a cable tv show, or creating a video for my church, it is all about shouting who I am because I am having trouble hearing who He is.

How trivial will my efforts seem, my shouting to be heard, when that void is one day filled for all eternity.