Last week I hiked up into the heart of the Pecos Wilderness with my dad and some old friends. It had been over a decade since I’d truly backpacked, not counting my winter hunting trips. It was great to set up the tent, cast the rod and catch some fish, and to renew old friendships.
So I don’t wander off in this blog, like my dad and I did on our trek up to Stewart Lake, I’m going to graciously trek right to the point. Though fishing was great, hiking was breathtaking, and reforming friendships over conversations about faith and serving in our own community was refreshing, what really hit me was the weather.
Yep, I’m going to talk about the weather. Okay, I promise that my next blog will hike back into the realm of backpacking and what a joy it is to wander, especially when discovering challenging conversations of faith and community.
I want to talk about weather, because I want to talk about grace. As my dad and I hiked up the sun slowly baked us. It was hot, and it stayed hot all week long. The last time we’d been up in the Pecos Wilderness it had rained non stop. I remember it being so wet we had a river in our tent. Not this time.
It was weird that it didn’t rain. I really didn’t mind the lack of rain, but it just felt weird.
As we hiked 9 miles down out of the wild it was so hot my feet started to burn. I had to walk on my toes so my heals wouldn’t blister up.
What little water I had left at the end of the trail I dumped on my head just to cool off. It felt amazing. A little water can really be gracious on a hot day.
The water dripped off my bare head and shoulders onto the dry ground, evaporating immediately.
It wasn’t until we drove out of Las Vegas, NM that we felt the first drop of rain. Or at least the Nisan Titan felt the rain. The rain clouds looked like hands dragging their long fingers along the dry mesa tops as if they were scraping for last crumbs.
It was gorgeous. But inside the cab I still felt parched. We’d brought along two Dublin Dr Peppers for a celebratory drink at the end of the hike, but, as they’d been sitting in the hot truck all week, we were forced to wait until they could be cooled down with ice. As we sep north on I-25 I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I popped open our two Dublin Dr Peppers. They were ice cold. As I swigged down the real sugar drink, I knew I’d just broken my sugar fast, but after the dry hike it was worth it. Mine tasted phenomenal. Probably as good as rain does after a long dry summer.
As we drove through Pueblo, Colorado the rain was coming down in sheets. I was thankful we hadn’t faced this type of rain on our trip, ’cause now I was safe inside the cab of the truck with the AC blasting and no need for rain to cool me down.
Inside the cab we were listening to U2’s album All That You Can’t Leave Behind and as the rain died down the album came to a close. Bono was singing about Grace.
Grace, she takes the blame. She covers the shame. Removes the blame. It could be her name.
It hit me, not like the soft rain we’d driven through in New Mexico, but like the drowning rain in Pueblo, we need grace just as we needed water on our hot hike. I had to press repeat on my iPod so I could listen to it again. It made me think, am I showing grace to the people around me or am I like the hot dusty trail I hiked on?
Am I a thirst quenching Dr Pepper or am I a hot pair of boots rubbing blisters?
Bono says, “Grace finds beauty in everything. Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.”
If time heals all wounds, do you think all the wounds have been healed? This, the morning after, a decade later.
Many of the students I taught at the Inter-American School in Xela have never known a world with the Twin Towers. One student, Sebastian, a squirrely little boy who would rather make his classmates laugh than kick in the winning run in kickball, was born in Canada on the day of the 9-11 attacks. His life will always be strangely connected to the attacks. He came into the world as so many were taken away.
Last year, as he celebrated his birthday at IAS, I asked his mom what it was like for her on that day. She told me the doctors didn’t let her know what was going on and that for her the day had been a true blessing. Sebastian, is a true blessing. His laugh and the myriad of nicknames he dumped on me always made teaching him PE enjoyable. Life has gone on. But I know many of us cannot forget what happened.
10 years later and many of us are still wondering how we move forward from here.
September 11th, 2001 started like any Tuesday for me. I was a month in to my new school at Battle Mountain High School, my new life in Vail, Colorado. I was lonely but I didn’t want to make friends, because I figured I would just move off in a year for college. I had built up a hard shell of isolationism. The move from Tulsa to Vail hurt me deeply. The loss I felt when I left the friends I had known almost my whole life redefined who I was. I was no longer the leader at my church. I felt like a nobody. I felt weak. The move took away my confidence and sadly I didn’t want to find it again. I felt I was just okay floating along until college.
As the day unfolded on the televisions, which were tuned in to the news in all of my classes, our identity as a nation changed. We were once independent and indestructible. As the towers crumbled, I knew we’d never be the same. I knew I needed people, sadly a knowledge I didn’t act on right away. And as the months passed I believe the entire nation realized it needed one another as well. The hard shell of our nation was cracked, if only just a little, that day. As we mourned the loss of so many people, we came together. We were hurt. And we changed.
September 12th, 2001 was the day we all picked ourselves up and began to move forward. We started to change, but what change has really occurred?
Maybe you were one of the first responders. Maybe September 12, 2001 was your second day digging through the rubble of the collapsed buildings. Maybe you were one of the first to enlist in our nations armed forces. Maybe you were one of the first to be deployed overseas to Afghanistan. Maybe you were one of the first to march into Bagdad and liberate an oppressed people. Maybe you were one of the pastors who comforted those who lost loved ones. Maybe you were, like me, just a student who stared at the television and watched the world change. I watched and watched and watched. I was drawn in by the stories of loss, horror, and hope. By nightfall on the 12th, 82 people had been confirmed dead and 11 people had been rescued. I believe we’d realized that sometimes you can’t make it on your own.
U2’s lead singer, Bono, wrote the song Sometimes You can’t Make It On Your Own while dealing with the loss of his father, but as it seems to happen the words speak to a deeper truth.
Tough, you think you’ve got the stuff
You’re telling me and anyone
You’re hard enough
You don’t have to put up a fight
You don’t have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonight
Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don’t have to go in alone
And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own
We fight all the time
You and I… that’s alright
We’re the same soul
I don’t need… I don’t need to hear you say
That if we weren’t so alike
You’d like me a whole lot more
Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don’t have to go it alone
And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own
I know that we don’t talk
I’m sick of it all
Can, you, hear, me, when, I, sing
You’re the reason I sing
You’re the reason why the opera is in me
Hey now, still gotta let ya know
A house doesn’t make a home
Don’t leave me here alone
And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you that makes it hard to let go
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own
Sometimes you can’t make it
Best you can do is to fake it
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own
If time really does heal all wounds, I think 10 years later we would all be fine. But people still hurt. People still see today, ten years after the first day after, as if September 11th, 2001 was yesterday. 10 years later I hope we all know that we are not alone. And together, unified, is the only way to move forward.
But is being united truly enough?
Over the last ten years I moved forward. I broke out of my shell, graduated from both high school and college, and then moved to Guatemala. For me Guatemala has been and will be the most definitive time in my life. As I lived outside of my home country, away from every comfort I’d grown up with, I realized how much I needed God in my life. And I found out that God has something for me.
I believe God has something for the United States as well. On September 12th, 2001 he began the healing. While we were all in mourning, while we were all being led away from whatever was normal just 48 hours before, God was busy working. Over the past ten years, while we came together as a nation, we have all been in a form of exile. Being an American has been something different, our indestructible identity is gone. We are still proud, as we should be, but the pain of being attacked still lingers, maybe in a way no one thought it would. I believe the biggest change we have undergone as Americans is not knowing how to be who we are, Americans.
Do we love? Do we realize we need each other? Or do we stand apart? Do we mourn alone-wrapped up in our own fear? Do we stay in exile, confused about who we are and what God has for us? Or do we come back to our foundations? It is a new decade. It is time for us to realize that God has a plan for us all. As he said to the exiled Israelites through the profit Jeremiah, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Whenever seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart.”
Are we going to be a nation that finally turns its eyes to God?
We have fought to defend ourselves. We have strengthened our defenses. Can we lay our weapons down when it matters? Can we love when love is what is needed most? On September 11th we were all hurt badly. It has been ten years and one day. Let this be the first day we love first instead of hardening our hearts toward everything that might hurt us. How long must we sing this song of hurt and pain? Not another ten years. Not another day.
We must wait on God and seek him out with our whole hearts the way King David did when he wrote Psalm 40 because he will bless us with something new.
Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I’m sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
Sick of pain
Sick of hearing again and again
That there’s gonna be
Peace on Earth
Ten years ago, poet Paul David Hewson penned these words about heaven. You might know him better as Bono, of U2 fame. The song is entitled “Peace On Earth” which you can watch in the video above.
Strange—all too often we become so satisfied with the world we live in that we tend to forget about heaven…until people like Bono, Rob Bell, or Harold Camping remind us of its significance.
Do you ever long for heaven, I mean, really long for it? Centuries ago, negro spirituals brimmed with hope for the hereafter. Life as they knew it was so difficult that the African-American slaves looked forward to the day when they would experience relief from the pain and frustration of this present life.
To be honest, I don’t long for heaven near like I should. Sometimes I find myself quite satisfied with my life…until something bad happens. All too often, life must get so difficult that we give up placing our hope in the present.
Perhaps that is partly the purpose behind our pain—to remind us that this earth is not our home. At least not in its current form.
In Hebrews 11, we read a description of the great men and women of faith as people who admit they are “foreigners and strangers on earth” (Hebrews 11:13). Perhaps that’s what made them great people of faith: they refused to make this present earth their home, preferring to focus on the treasures of heaven.
So what will heaven be like?
It will be a beautiful city—think the Emerald City from Wizard of Oz, but better! (Revelation 21)
No one will grow old because the tree of life will be there to give us food (Genesis 3:22; Revelation 22:2). Gray hair, be gone!
Eventually it will descend to its permanent location—earth (Revelation 21:2).
Jesus will live there with us (Revelation 21:3).
Boredom will be no more (Psalm 16:11).
No more death, pain, tears, sorrow, sickness, hospitals, operations, tragedy, disappointment, trouble, hunger, or thirst (Revelation 21:4; Isaiah 33:24; Revelation 22:3; Isaiah 65:23; Revelation 7:16).
No need for naps because you won’t get tired (Isaiah 40:31).
Life will resemble our present lives here on earth—but without the bad stuff (Isaiah 65:21-22).
As much as we might like our lives, they pale in comparison to the real thing.
Have you ever found something you weren’t looking for? It happened to me a few years ago when I accompanied a nine year-old boy on a search for his lost glasses, despite that he couldn’t remember exactly where he lost them. I went only to quell my guilt for not searching when we would inevitably go purchase another pair. On the upside, this particular nine year-old was a delight to be with even when searching for a needle in a haystack.
We parked my truck near the last place he remembered having his glasses—a long, winding walking path decorated with large river rocks and landscaping bark. The boy had lost his glasses on the way to–or at–or in the universe near–the new skateboard park that was about a mile from our house. I knew the path well and was naively picturing the most likely places to search. But the path had only served the boy as a touch stone, a tether to which he loosely tied himself while looping, wending, and winding to the park. But I didn’t know that at the time so I clung to the path searching every inch of its pavement.
“I didn’t walk that way,” the boy told me shaking his head.
“Where then?” I shrugged.
He pointed off the path to the rocks he had climbed and vaulted from. I searched the bushes around those rocks. Next we left the path entirely and hunted around a statue of a flying horse he had investigated. Then cut diagonally through a parking lot. But even that was not direct. He showed me how he had climbed over the sidewalk railing and dipped behind the dumpster and sauntered through a restaurant (I asked them if they had seen his glasses) and out the back door that let us out on the path again.
I shook my head. His route was truly random!
Back on the path, we peered under every weed in the spot he claimed he had stopped to chase a garter snake.
“I bent over to look at it and I bet my glasses slid off without me knowing,” he said.
I agreed and engaged in the search earnestly. But we came up empty and continued by scouring every dink and dodge he took off the path until we finally reached the skate park.
All the while, we had a fun conversation about snakes and any other nine year-old stuff that came up. He had definitely not taken a mathematically precise power walk and our search therefore, was not systematic. I observed even now, trying to be serious, the boy didn’t so much walk as bounce, light and airy with his feet only touching the ground for the fun of it. He taught me the names of various skateboard moves and I saw the familiar walking path as if for the first time. We spooked another garter snake and marveled at how fast they are. We talked about likely fishing holes in the river. We wondered what fun things we could do with the $70 to $100 his new glasses would cost to replace, if we found his old ones.
Reversing the Apostle Paul’s meaning “I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child” and I enjoyed every moment of it. Being a nine year-old ain’t so bad.
Maybe that’s what Jesus tried to get us to see when he called the children onto his lap and told his adult followers to have a child-like faith. Maybe the “kingdom of heaven,” as Jesus talked about it and lived it, is more than a “straight and narrow path” defined by rules and systematic searches and time lines and well-defined adult perceptions and ideas. What if the freedom Jesus promised his followers is better illustrated (and lived!) by a young boy turning his search for his glasses into another adventure? What if our pursuit of meaning and Jesus himself became a fun and loopy path? What if we never find what we are looking for because we are looking in the wrong ways?
On the way back from the skate park, empty-handed, I had pretty much given up the search. I was not surprised. I had begun the search thinking I would not find what I was looking for (to paraphrase Bono) anyway. So, as I walked, I looked down at the ground only occasionally, just because I should.
Then, nearing the point our search had begun, I glanced down and spied my nine year-old companion’s glasses sitting in the landscaping bark folded neatly as if someone had purposefully placed them there.
The boy saw them too.
He squealed; his face beamed; we high-fived. We danced around as if we had found Jesus’ “pearl of great price.”
“I was just praying we’d find ‘em,” he said. “Jesus dropped ‘em right where you were lookin’.”
Immediately my adult mind found a more plausible explanation for how the glasses ended up neatly folded where we had already searched. I wish it hadn’t.
This year Bill Gates weighs in as only the world’s second wealthiest person. His personal worth is $53 billion. Carlos Slim Helu beat him out by a nose, a mere $500 million. Warren Buffet staggered in at a paltry third place, earning only $47 billion this year.
With that much money, there is nothing Gates and Buffet need. They are not losing sleep over the recession the way we do. They do not have to drive on balding tires, climb under the sink to fix a leak, or worry about their kid’s future. They want for nothing!
But in rock ‘n’ roller Bono’s words, they still haven’t found what they are looking for. Is this why both branched out and begun using much of their time, energy, and money in philanthropic ways? Gates started The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 and recently, with Buffet, challenged other billionaires to give away half of their wealth. Outside of being good, generous people, why would they feel the need to make even more of a difference in the world than they have already?
“Unlike the animals, who seem quite content to simply be themselves, we humans are always looking for ways to be other than what we find ourselves to be,” writes Eugene Peterson in The Message in his introduction to “Ecclesiastes.”
Solomon, one of the richest men in the world in his time, said it this way, “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
Eugene C. Scott joins Mike in writing A Daily Bible Conversation twice a week.
2 Corinthians 6:1-13: Paul’s main claim to fame is that he was a formidable theologian. But Paul also had a heart. Many times in his letters he expresses his love for the people he worked with and ministered to. “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians,” he wrote, “and opened wide our hearts to you.”
Obviously, for Paul the gospel is as much about relationship as about information. The two cannot be separated.
Paul was also a poet. 1 Corinthians 13 is poetry straight from the heart of God. In today’s passage Paul describes his love for the Corinthians poetically: “through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown . . . ,” Paul expresses theological truth dripping in love and encased in poetry, what a concept!
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THE WORD MADE FRESH
As I read today’s selection in Ecclesiastes, I pictured Solomon in a white lab coat, holding pen and clipboard, surrounded by test tubes and steaming beakers, with beautiful women holding piles of money in trays. Strange, I know, but this first section reads to me like a report from poetic researcher, who has set out to discover the meaning of life. Solomon has tested it all: “money, sex, power, adventure, and knowledge” and found it all wanting (Peterson, The Message). Now he is filing his report. “All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
Unless.
My sister-in-law once tossed me a very hard question. “Is it eternally profitable?” she asked about some activity I was about to engage in.
That is Solomon’s question too. Then he leaves us dangling as to the answer. Solomon tells us that without God giving meaning to any and every aspect of our lives, “all things are wearisome, more than one can say.” But he does not tell us how to add God’s meaning to our daily routines.
I’m glad he doesn’t. It’s too crucial and complicated a question for a human to answer. I believe Solomon–and God–intended to leave us swinging in the wind. Because, only in our fruitless chasing and not finding, might we eventually run straight into the arms of God. “He [God] also set eternity in [our] hearts,” Solomon writes.
That’s why two of the richest, most powerful men in the world (Gates and Buffet) are still striving to make a difference, and as Bono and U2 tell us, still haven’t found what they are looking for.
Because it’s not here. Whatever eternity is, it’s too big, too beautiful, too grand to be contained in “money, sex, power, adventure, and knowledge.” Whatever eternity is, can only be found in the hand and heart of God.
What do these for passages share in common?
Can theology be expressed in poetry? Why or why not?
What passage spoke most to you?
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Last year our online community read through the Bible in a year. If you’re interested in reading through the Bible again (or for the first time), you’re welcome to dig through our archives. Last year’s calendar is located below.
This year we’re taking a slightly different focus as we explore the intersection of faith and life. So pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and join the conversation.
The Neighborhood Café 