Working at "not regretting the past..."

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

August 17, 2003. Atonement Lutheran Church, Overland Park, KS. My final Sunday at my home church - my sponsoring church - before I left for seminary at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC). Dozens (if not scores) of people coming up to me, congratulating me and wishing me well. And pushing cards into my hands...

Prayers for guidance. Prayers for success. Prayers that the sender would live long enough to see my ordination. "What a wonderful preacher you are." (Lord, God, who were they listening to? I've had 0ccasion to HEAR some of those sermons since then...yeesh.) Oh, and my favorite: We so appreciate your openness, honesty and candor about your past life, and how God has worked in you. This, to a man who lived a lie as a deeply closeted gay Christian so he could go off and serve God in a dog-collar....

There was a moment today, re-reading all those cards, that I really just wanted to run off screaming into the corn and disappear. I haven't been involved in a church for a year, and haven't been in any kind of church-based ministry for more than 3 years. The people who I thought were the most unlikely to be ordained - the self-righteous, the control-freaks, the people who are only telling the truth when they are asleep - those are the people who The Church in Her wisdom ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament. And here I am...

I almost wrote, "and here I am....vegetating, rotting away," but that would be a lie. I've worked hard at my work - a large part of which has been unofficial Morale Officer and Cheerful Charlie (along with Universal Fix-It Guy). I've continued to stay sober; I go to meetings, and I share my experience, strength and hope to anyone who will listen. I help out on Gay Christian Network, financially and online (when I can). And I've taken the time to get myself involved in a very vital and beautiful relationship, for which I have absolutely no regrets at all. I think I have been a good friend to some of my fellow advisors in DeMolay. So it has not all been a loss.

But the voices in the back of my head keep talking, anyway. After all, I came here to help, two years ago - and there are days when it surely looks like nothing I have done has borne any fruit whatsoever. My sister and brother-in-law still lost their house; my sister has never gotten any substantive kind of rehabilitation or therapy for her injury; my brother-in-law is still trapped in a dead-end job. I'm as broke as I ever was, and all of the money I've invested in any of these situations (as my British brothers would say) hasn't done a dickey-bird.

In the two years I've been active in the AA community here, I've only half-assed-sponsored two guys, neither of which really gave a rat's ass about staying sober. And I tried to help out my friends in DeMolay; the chapter has apparently ended up in worse shape than when I started supposedly helping them out, sixteen months ago. A month over five years ago, when I left town, there was a farewell party at work, a farewell party at the AA hall, and a farewell party at church. When I leave for Illinois at the end of October, I'm not sure that anyone outside of my family and those few very close friends will even notice....

Part of me knows that this is nothing more than seeking significance in the eyes of others, which is always doomed. But part of me is self-centered and human enough to want all this to have mattered for something. I don't think that's such a sin, but on days like today, I really wonder. About all of it.

So I go back into left-foot, right-food mode, and just keep on truckin'. Which is what I'm gonna do tonight.

So finding these greeting cards - and all the hope and promise and "God's got your back!" that went into them - has really put me into a phase of "what's it all about, Alfie?" How could I have been such an inspiration to so many people, and have my life seemingly have gone so far wrong?

...Update...the morning after....

Back story: so, about a month ago, I had gotten into the car a little too fast. My considerable bulk hit the back of the reclining bucket seat a little too hard, and something went crack. The seat seemed considerably wobbly in the back, and I resolved to get it fixed...

Then, getting carefully into the car on Friday, I leaned this way when I should have leaned that way, and whatever was cracked broke clean through - and the reclining portion of the seat flopped back like a visual-gag in a teen-aged make-out movie. I discerned (you learn things like discernment in seminary...) that this was a clear sign from God that the seat finally needed to be fixed.

So Chris lovingly got up early today (working nights, he almost NEVER sees two nine o'clocks in the same day) and drove me to the condo to work, and took the offending seat wreckage over to a welding shop in nearby Neapolis. On the way. we stopped at our favorite Blue Creek Coffee Shop for a Mud Turtle (chocolate, caramel and peanut butter in a blended iced coffee base - should be on an Index somewhere as way too sinful).

And somehow, life just looks better today.

Yeah, it could be the sugar-rush from the Turtle. It could be the caffeine kicking in. It could be hearing "Walking On Sunshine" on the radio. It could all be artificial, like the stock-market roaring back on the faintest hope of something bailing them all out. But I don't think so. I think life just looks better today.

I don't doubt that the doubts will be back; I tend to be a Pushme-Pullyou, looking backwards and forwards at the same time. Maybe this is the faint echos of whatever call I heard five years ago, telling me that whatever I heard is still not fulfilled. I know at least part of it is the recurring feeling of having failed the people who supported me from Atonement - and not being in a position to repay them yet. And maybe it's part of "letting go of the past, and not wishing to shut the door on it." Or at least getting there...

I would not have written the script this way - but I know that I am here for a reason. (I almost wrote "I have been put here for a reason," but that would be a lie. God did not teleport me here - I am here because of my choices, and my responses to the choices of others. For however it worked out, I am responsible for being here.) I am going through this sorting-out / downsizing / shedding of unnecessary stuff for a reason. The loss of this beautiful place is happening for a reason. I may not know it until well after the final trumpet sounds. But the direction of the movement has to be forward, that much I know is true.

At the top of this page, in the blog masthead that my friend Penni made for me, there is an image of a winding path - a picture I took at nearby Wildwood Metropark. It's there to remind me that I don't get to see around the corner very far to what's ahead - but that I have to keep moving forward. Someone Else is in charge of what's around the bend. I hear the truth of that quite frequently in meetings...

We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us... See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.
(the closing to the text Alcoholics Anonymous, page 164)

Not quite getting it right...

Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
who finds great delight in his commands.
Wealth and riches are in his house,
and his righteousness endures forever.
Even in darkness light dawns for the upright,
for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.
Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely,
who conducts his affairs with justice.
Surely he will never be shaken;
a righteous man will be remembered forever.
He will have no fear of bad news;
his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
His heart is secure, he will have no fear;
in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.
(Psalm 112:1, 3-7, NIV)
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My sister, brother-in-law and I are going through a rough patch right now. Health issues, finances, trying to make it with radically reduced incomes...then the car breaks down. The 12 year old TV rolls over and dies. A sprained ankle causes a lost day's work. Things which used to be "little things" now seem like "big things."

So I went to this coming Sunday's lectionary readings, looking for strength, consolation, or solace. But when I turned to this passage, I heard a much diferent message - that a truly GOOD person, a righteous person, will have wealth and riches, no fear of bad news, a steadfast heart, and no fear. And my first reaction was, "Well, I guess that's pretty convicting, 'cuz that's exactly NOT what we're getting!"

Now, I know - I'm no saint. Never have been. And I trust in the Gospel, that all who believe and are baptized will be saved. But it's hard, at times, to recognize that it's at least partly my failures at truly righteous living that have brought me (and those I love) to these kinds of impasses. And it just hurts a bit when it's the Bible rubbing my face in it.

I know that elsewhere in the Bible, it tells me that "there are none who are righteous, not even one. there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God" (Romans 3:10). I know that there is much of our current condition that has absolutely nothing to do with my unrighteousness.

My head knows this, even as my heart struggles with it. It seems that when I'm down, the old tapes can start playing, and I can become the Steve-of-old who heard "the good news," but was still waiting for the one Bible passage that would "vote him off the island..."

In the rooms of recovery, I frequently hear someone say "Why is this HAPPENING to me?" The answer frequently is, "Buddy, it's just HAPPENING - it's not specifically happening TO YOU..." I know, in my heart, that there's lots of people with troubles, and we are hardly unique in our struggles.

In the end, my help comes from another Psalm - the 23rd - and I remember that no matter how dark and terrifying the road I walk (even through the valley of death), God is with me. I have a Shepherd who loves and cares for me - rich or broke, homeless or living in a penthouse. As a friend often tells me, "It's not like anyone gets out of this life alive, Steve..."

So I keep on keepin' on, and I trust that God will be with us, even when it seems like the rest of the world might be against us. That's what I understand "faith" is all about, in the end.

God of mercy and lovingkindness, remind me that no matter where I am, you are there with me. Sometimes life just seems overwhelming, and hope seems far away. That's when I need to be reminded that my hope is in you. Amen.

Real life, real hurts

You show me someone with significant pain, and no signficiant grace, & I'll show you someone who has withdrawn from the human enterprise in one way or another. And if you show me someone with signficiant grace, and no significant pain - no scars whatsoever - I'll show you someone so slick, you wouldn't buy a used car from 'em. (Eugene Lowry, "Jazz & Christianity")

My virtual brother-of-the-heart, Rick Luoni, has a great post over at a new life emerging about Joel Osteen. In Rick's typical, gentle way, he doesn't slam Osteen - but he points out how sugary-sweet, "life is GOOD!" stuff may sell books and draw folks, but it just ain't real life. Not to him, and not to me. His post led to my comment, and I couldn't help but post it here as well.

Joel Osteen, and folks like him, always call Gene Lowry's quote to mind. People who are just full of honey and vanilla simply creep me out...even though there are people who are good, kind, and seemingly loving folks who are that way. They may be honest, open, caring folks - but they sure as hell don't live in my world.

The first pastor I ever really listened to was the first person in a collar who I ever, ever remembered admitting doubt from the pulpit. (That story is back here, if you're interested...) The folks whose spiritual journey speak the loudest are the ones whose scars show the clearest. I'm so glad that I found life in the church and life in the community of recovery at the same time - because I needed both of them to find God.

Interestingly, Pastor Tom's wife was one of those sunshiney folks to me, for quite a while. It just seemed that nothing could faze her. Later, as I got closer to her, I learned that nothing could be less true - it was just her faith kept dragging her back to the sunshine side of the street. But she struggled with Tom's illness, with her mother's dementia, and with her church's stumbling toward faith. (To be honest, though, her faith witness looked a lot more real to me once I saw her struggles.)

My buddy Dave G. is one of the very few co-workers I have shared this blog with (because I understand the term Dooced). Though he is less than half my age, and I've only met him a few times in person, we've found a neat "virtual" bond across the miles, it seems. He sent me an instant message yesterday, saying he had gone back and read some of my older posts, which touched me (though I told him he really needed to get a life...). His comment made me smile: "You've had a hell of a life."

It's true - and yet I hope that even through the "hell of a life," he also saw signs of heaven, for there has been much of that. It is that balance that Gene Lowry talked about, between pain and grace...a balance I don't always maintain, but always strive toward. Even as I struggle with work, and what direction to take (and the willingness to take it) I have to admit that there is sunshine in the midst of all the mudslinging and sewage. If I'd not been at this job, I'd not have touched a whole bunch of folks - and I've had that reinforced time and time again since my hospital stay. So it seems I'm still very much "in the bonus round."

I am very much the doubting Thomas - even though Jesus is not here for me to touch his wounds. But when I see my sisters and brothers in Christ, and find just enough of them who are willing to show their scars, I can find my way back to the One whose wounds saved me.

Perhaps, that is an answer I have been searching for to the question I have struggled with mightily of late: "Why even go to church at all?" Perhaps it is simply to go and be a part of something... to sift through the flawed humanity, the politics, struggle, hypocrisy and rituals in order to find those folks who can show their wounds, and through their wounds find Christ in them. (That's something to think about a lot more, later...)

Fact is, the world is painful. The world hurts. If you are unhurt, then I'd guess you are probably unengaged with the world. Jesus came to earth - even though he knew in the end it would kill him.

You won't hear it from Joel Osteen, but you will here it from Jesus:

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
(John 16:33, NIV)

Now that will preach.