Satisfied

Jesus and his disciples had been in the car for over an hour. Peter's small car had every seat filled and a few of the guys had fallen asleep in the back seat as soon as they left Waycross, and they had been out ever since. Peter wished he weren't the one driving. They left in a hurry and didn't eat much of a dinner, so this late night drive was a mission in getting back to Jacksonville and getting some food as quickly as possible so everyone could go to bed.

It was almost 1:30am, so their options were getting fewer and fewer. McDonalds. Taco Bell. Maybe some other fast and cheap place with a drive-through that was still open. He just wanted to be asleep and not be thinking about food.

They passed through downtown. Union Street seemed to go for miles, but he knew they would be through this area pretty quickly. The streetlights lit up just enough of the sidewalk to show a few people walking around by themselves - some with bundles and bulky coats, despite the muggy night.

Peter glanced over at Jesus in the passenger seat. His eyes were wide and he was looking around attentively.

The light turned red at Main Street and Jesus unbuckled his seatbelt.

"You guys go find some food and come back to get me. There's something I need to do."

He opened the door and jogged across the street toward a gas station nearby, slowing to a meandering walk when he reached the edge of the parking lot. The light turned green, and Peter slowly pulled forward, keeping an eye on where Jesus was headed and noting the street names so he could find him again. After all the time Peter had spent with him, it still surprised him a little when he just took off by himself.

"Where did he go?" John said sleepily from the back seat.

"Who knows?" Peter replied. "Let's go get some food and we'll come back for him."

------

  

LaToya walked as slowly as she could. He was the laziest man she had ever known. She had to be up at 6:00 in the morning for work. Reggie could sleep all day and not be missed. So why was she the one walking 5 blocks in the middle of the night to go get his lazy ass more beer?

"He better watch himself," she said under her breath. "Don't he know I can do better than him?"

She walked through the empty gas station parking lot when she saw a man start to walk up toward her. "He better not ask me for money," she thought. "Everyone is always asking me for favors."

"Hey, would you grab me a bottle of water when you go inside?" he said to her.

"You seriously asking me for favors right now, cracker?" She snapped. "I don't know you."

She never broke stride, but as she passed by him, he said, "But if you did know me, you would have asked me to get you a drink, and I would have gotten you the best water you ever tasted."

She stopped and whipped around.

"You ain't got no money! That's why you're lurking around here askin' for favors. Some attitude you got. How you plan on buying anything when you don't have no money?!"

She realized she was overreacting and yelling at this bum for no reason, but she was already tired and irritated. Everyone keeps pushing her and demanding more from her.

"If you go in there," he said. "You'll buy a bottle of water and drink it tonight. But when you wake up tomorrow morning, you'll be thirsty again. You're always thirsty again no matter how much water you drink. But if you drink the water I have, then a river will start flowing from inside you so you'll never be thirsty again. You would live forever."

She laughed. This guy wasn't even worth her time to be mad at. As she turned around, she said over her shoulder, "Yeah, you go get me that magic water, big guy! Walking here is a pain in the ass so it would save me the trouble!"

"Go get your husband and come back," he said.

She stopped.

Something in her stomach turned and she felt sick. Some old bitter feeling made its way into her bones and her throat tightened.

"I ain't married," she said flatly.

"That's technically true," he said slowly. "In your entire life, you've had sex with 6 men, and the guy you're living with now isn't your husband either.

That number. She had never been honest about that number with anyone. There was one - the first one - she had tried impossibly to forget.

"Each man you're with, you think he's going to be the one to make you happy and satisfied. But every morning you wake up, and that old sadness and thirst are still there. You keep getting thirsty over and over again because the water you're drinking won't ever satisfy you, no matter how much of it you have."

"You talk like a preacher. I'm sick of hypocrites and liars tellin' me how I'm supposed to live and be good. If God is real, he sure ain't in no church."

"When you were in church, God was a stranger, so talking to him didn't make any sense to you. But God isn't interested in you being inside a church. He's interested in being inside that part of your chest where you keep your old sadness - that part of your heart where the thirst is. That's the only place where worship happens - not inside a church or on a mountaintop."

"If God wants that so badly, why doesn't he just come down here and introduce himself?" she said quietly.

"I just did," Jesus said.

-----

Peter turned the corner and saw the lights of the gas station ahead. They found a McDonalds a few blocks away and the guys in the back seat had already eaten most of their share.

Pulling into the parking lot, they saw Jesus standing near a dark corner of the parking lot, talking to a woman. The two were standing very close to each other and no one else was around. 

"What's he doing?" Philip said from the backseat. "This really doesn't look good." 

As they parked, the woman started backing up, still keeping her eyes on Jesus. Then she turned and ran in the opposite direction. The disciples got out of the car and Jesus walked up to them. Everyone waited to see if he would explain what he was doing, but he didn't say anything. He just leaned against the hood of the car and looked up at the night sky, smiling to himself. 

Peter and John exchanged looks, but neither of them would say anything. John grabbed the McDonalds bag and held the burger out to Jesus. Jesus didn't look away from the stars - he just hummed to himself and smiled. 

"We saved one for you," Peter said. "You should eat before it gets cold." 

"I already ate," Jesus said with a sly smile. 

John and Peter exchanged glances again, asking each other with their eyes if the other knew what he was talking about. Neither did. 

Jesus' eyes lit up as he looked at them both. "God gave me a job to do, and seeing it done fills me up! It's better than food to me!" He sprung forward and turned back to the disciples, teeming with energy. He seemed to be like a wild animal about to break out of a cage. 

"People say 'plant the seeds and wait for the right time.' But look around you!" He swung his arms and raised his voice. Peter and John looked around nervously. "The right time is right now! There are souls all around us ripe for the gospel, so why do we wait? Someone else planted the seed in their heart decades ago, and now it's ripe and we get to be the ones to bring in the harvest! Other people worked so hard to bring them this far - you and I are here right now to bring them home." 

As he was still talking, the woman returned and she had around her several confused, but eager and curious people. She pulled on the arm of a man and pointed at Jesus. 

"There he is! This guy told me everything I ever did! Everybody listen up!"

Jesus walked over to meet everyone, arms open. Peter smiled and shook his head. Turning to John, he said, "You know what this means, right?"

"I think it means we're going to be here a while," John replied. 

"Anywhere else you'd rather be?" Peter asked. 

"Not on your life," John answered. 

Writing Massive Checks

Imagine writing any check for any amount and knowing 100% that it’s going to cash every single time. Tell a child to think up the biggest number they can imagine, and then picture standing in the checkout line, seeing that number on the screen, and swiping your debit card, entering your pin, and knowing 100% that it’s going to go through because the funds are there.

It’s no surprise that there are people who emotionally fill us and people who emotionally drain us. Steven Covey talks about this in terms of relationship equity - that sometimes people make withdrawals and sometimes they make deposits into the relationship. He encourages you to make sure you have the relational equity with someone before making a withdrawal - that you’re not bankrupting those in your life.

Caroline and I were talking about grace this weekend and this topic came up. There are people you’ll interact with who will primarily make withdrawals - and not too many deposits. The obvious feeling around these people is to feel drained, spent, exhausted, and so on.

But here’s the thing: I’m a Christian, so I believe that I have been given grace by God and I’ve been asked to re-gift that grace to others. In a way, God gave me access to his checking account of grace and then told me to give as much away as I possibly could in my lifetime. When I write a check of grace to someone else, it always clears and it can’t make me feel drained because it’s not coming out of my account. If I feel drained, it’s because I’m trying to cover their withdrawal from the wrong account.

The next time someone slights you, cuts you off in traffic, insists on their way, doesn’t take your feelings into account, puts themselves first again and again, think about this. Imagine that action is them demanding grace - a lot of grace. Imagine taking out your checkbook, writing the entire sum they’ve asked for with no questions asked, and handing it to them, knowing that God has asked you to give away as much of this stuff as you possibly can in your lifetime, so this amount is fine.

Imagine that withdrawal is being taken out of oceans and oceans of grace that God has poured out for you, and that even if you tried every day of your life to giveaway as much grace as you could, his supply would still be brimming and overflowing off the edges of the world.

The withdrawal isn’t coming from your account. There is nothing to feel empty or drained about. He put you on his account and any check you write will clear. So give it freely and know that God has supplied far more than you will ever need - for you and for anyone you pass it on to.

Be an agent of grace, looking for any and every chance to write that check.

As You Can Imagine

I recently found out that I am someone else’s imaginary friend. As you can imagine, this was a bit of a shock to me.

For me, it all began one rainy afternoon, when Charles wasn’t allowed to play outside. This should have been the first sign I suppose. The only children who still want to play outside are the imagining types – the ones prone to thinking up people like me. Any other kid wouldn’t have even noticed it was raining unless it made the power go out. But Charles was a boy of an older kind of cut. He didn’t need much to be entertained, because he brought all the adventure with him wherever he went. Why, with him, I have seen an ordinary doctor’s office become the crow’s nest of the largest and most frightening pirate ship you have ever seen, only to transmogrify into the very desert island our ship had struck, complete with thousands of miles of thick, Caribbean jungle.

One of my fondest memories that we shared was digging for dinosaur bones in the Sahara desert. Past bottle caps and pieces of Solo cups, we dug and dug, bent on finding the bones of the mighty T-Rex. At one point, we stopped and wiped the sweat from our foreheads, parched from the heat and sand. It was just then that our assistant, Mom, came out to the dig site with a glass of ice cold water. Charles was thrilled, but immediately asked why she brought only one, when I had been working just as hard as he had, and was certainly just as thirsty. Mom was usually a meticulously careful person, and not prone to such oversights. But she made quick work, and soon enough, another glass of water (though not as cold as the first, I noticed) was procured.

We sat there, drinking in the rewards of our labor, when, with one last trowel turn, Charles uncovered the greatest find in our professional careers. Our assistant was quickly called to verify the find, which she classified as the bone of a “Stick-a-saurus.” Though neither of us were familiar with this particular classification, she assured us that it was a highly sought after artifact, and that she was sure there was a museum that would be interested in purchasing such a rare bone. In fact, after splitting the commission for the find, we each went home with a hefty twenty-five cents each – a sum that any professional archaeologist would have been proud to have, we were told.

But now, after all these years, it has become clear that I am nothing more than his imaginary friend. And you might think that this would disappoint or upset me. After all, I never existed. I am just the product of the imagination of a child. Some people might be upset if they realized that they don’t exist, but not for me at all.

You see, I was with him through every high seas adventure, every leap over the tallest building, and every fight with every henchman. I always had his back and came through when all hope seemed lost. I was thought of in his moments of greatest joy and greatest pain. There was no grounding severe enough to put us in separate rooms. When there were no other friends around, I was still there.

I was the cohort, the adventurer, and the best friend of someone in need, and this is something that is not true of many people, despite all their “realness.” At the end of the day, I have the greatest honor that can be bestowed on any creature – real or otherwise. I was seen as a hero in the mind of a child. And I wouldn’t trade that for all the Stick-a-sauraus bones in the world.

Excerpts from Sunlight & Shadows

Below are some excerpts from my recently released book, Sunlight & Shadows, now available on Amazon. It features pieces of short stories that are in the book and pieces of some of the poems that are there as well. I hope you enjoy, and as always, shares, comments, reviews, and purchases are always appreciated.


Pine Needle: 

"Somewhere in an office building in the heart of Chicago, there is a pine needle, laying along a narrow, carpeted hallway, occasionally being stepped on by the passersby. In the evening, a janitor named Phil will come along and vacuum it up, as he listens to an audiobook his sister’s husband gave him last Christmas. Phil doesn't know how the pine needle got there, and he will not lose any sleep by not knowing. It doesn't concern him any more than it concerns you.

But it does concern you. Or rather, it ought to. Because stories often have stories behind them – and it’s those quiet, unassuming, unnoticed stories that are always the most interesting, once they are actually known."

Stirring: 

My sadness is a winter animal,

hibernating through the summer heat.

Only stirring when the weather changes,

invigorated from extended sleep.

Only then, in late September,

do I suddenly remember

that a part of me is broken

and doesn't want to go back home.

Remarkable Man:
"Thomas swung his door open and stepped out, and I struggled with the handle again before getting it open and stepping out. Thomas had already grabbed the can and set it down by the pump on my side of the truck. I swiped my card, internally being grateful that they took credit cards at all. We both worked in silence – me filling up the two-gallon can on the ground, and Thomas effortlessly holding up the silent gravity he seemed to carry with him. 

I looked down at his boots, which were old and rugged and caked in dried mud. Then I looked at my brown dress shoes, spotless and clean, and wished I weren't wearing them. Thomas looked rooted into the ground wherever he stood, but I couldn't help but feel dried out and weightless."


Sunlight Intoxication:

"The sky is a great tumbler,

and God is the Bartender of the cosmos.

Each day, He crafts new recipes

to intoxicate the mind of His creation."

Forgotten: 

"Suddenly, the room, the people, and everything around him melted away in one quick instant, and he found he was standing outside, in an open field. Blinking, he looked around, wondering how and why he was suddenly standing here. Just moments before, he was – well – what was he doing? For some reason, he couldn’t quite remember where he had been just been, even though he was sure it was only seconds ago that he was there.  The harder he thought about it, the less he remembered.

Almost right away, he noticed that this field was not empty. Scattered around in no particular order, were large, white, words. They stood about chest high, and looked as though someone had dumped a bag full of charades words and had neglected to pick them up." 

The Beauty of Frost:

"A poet makes you breathe more deeply,

linger longer, speak more sweetly,

wonder wildly, love completely,

pause more often, live less neatly."

Summation of the Gospel

At the end of it all, the Gospel of Christ is this: God will give you what you really want. If you want to be with Him, Christ broke through the power of death and has Satan’s power bound and gagged. You no longer have to be a prisoner to death. He made the way for you to be with Him, where previously, it was barred by sin and the grave.

But if you do not want to be with God, he grants that as well. Many people think it’s cruel that “God would send people to hell.” Let me assure you, God does not send you anywhere, but calls you out of death and into life. God does not send you to hell any more than the sun sends you inside your home. The fact is simply that to be inside your home is to be out of the sun’s rays, and to be outside of God’s presence is to be, in the strictest and undebatable way, in hell.

But you now have the ability to be in the sun’s rays, fully and freely. Many people complain that God is not very loving, because he does not accept us the way we are, but demand that we change into what He wants us to be. The sun must also be unfair then, because when I spend time soaking up its rays, I too am changed. The fact of nature is that the power you spend time with will change you. The things you love will always change you to be more like them – this is why the things you watch and think about and listen to should not be carelessly chosen. Over time, you always become like what you love.

So this is the gospel. We were in a room with no doors – a prison. Outside, the sun was radiant and beautiful, but we could not enjoy it. We became pale and sickly, held against our will. When Christ came, he walked into our prison, and made a door in the wall for us to escape through. Like fools, we say that it is narrow minded to believe there is only one door in the prison. But prisons always only have one door.

So now, we are faced with a choice. Do we choose to stay or do we choose to go? Once outside, you find that there are actual places to go in the world. There are adventures and people and light and love. You will also find that your time in prison has left you sickly and damaged, not fully able to set out. But the first step is to walk out of the prison into the light of day. After time, you will find yourself becoming changed. This is the Christian idea of sanctification – it’s like a spiritual tan – the effect of spending time in God’s rays.

So it is not unfair to say that Jesus is the only way to God. What is unfair is to blame God for you not going anywhere, while you stay inside the prison of your choosing. 

How to Be a Man

I just finished ordering a coffee at Starbucks, and was a little disappointed that the barista did not ask me if I wanted room for cream as she was pouring my dark roast coffee.  I would have said, with a slight air of nonchalance, that I did not want cream in my coffee, but that I drink it black.

This is because take a level of pride in drinking black coffee - it feels more manly.  Like, when someone offers me pre-cut firewood, and I say, "No, I got this" as I swing my ax onto my flannel-covered shoulders and head out into an unmarked forest in the dead of winter.

This creamer thing got me thinking about what else I do, just because it fits into my idea of what a man should look like.  So, here is a list of things that I find in myself that tell me how to be a man.

• Drink black coffee.  You don't have to do it every time, but you should be able to without too much fuss.  
• Be able to drive a manual transmission car without any trouble.  If you learned a long time ago, but haven't done it in a while, it might be time for a refresher course.  If you are being chased by international terrorists, and you jump into that Ferrari to get away, and grind the gears down the runway of an airport, it loses a certain level of cool, and telling that story later on will be tricky.
• Tie your own tie.  This includes bow ties, and half and full Windsor knots.  It's just one of those skills you should know.
• Appreciate old things.  Learn to love old books, old cities, old people, old music, old movies, old boats, or anything else that has figured out how to survive time.  
• Be able to read a book without pictures that aren't novels.  Stories are great, but figure out how to grapple with tough ideas in black and white books.  
• Know how to read and fold a newspaper.  They aren't irrelevant just yet, so maybe don't think of a newspaper as a tablet made out of paper.  The creases are there for a reason.
• Be able to sit and be quiet.  There is no inherent need in the heart of mankind that needs constant entertainment or stimulation.  Learn to just be.  We are human beings, not human doings. 
• Be able to start a fire without too much mess.    

And the most important one on the list - be secure in your own identity even if you don't know how to do any of the things on this list.  

What it really means to be a man is the same thing that it means to be a good human being.  And it boils down to this:

Love God as devotedly as you can, love people deeply and honestly, work as hard as you can, have personal integrity, make your word mean something, never cheat or take a shortcut, don't compromise your soul, love others more than you love yourself, and above all, stop putting creamer in your coffee and learn to read a book.

    

A Person Who Interests Me

This past Christmas and New Years, my wife Caroline and I went to Bogota, Colombia to visit her family down there.  To pass the time on the plane, I brought a recent gift from my sister-in-law, Sally - a book called "643 Things to Write About."  This is a note book, full of 643 prompts, ranging from things like "You are a pirate.  Describe your perfect day" to things like "A tree from the point of view of one of its leaves."  I love this book so much, and had fun writing on the plane.

When we arrived, Caroline's Uncle Juampa saw the book and started flipping through it.  Jokingly, he marked the prompt "Choose a person who interests you.  Write about the following person home" and slipped in a note that said "Uncle Juampa!"  Never one to let a challenge go unmet, I decided that before we left, I would do just that.

Not surprisingly, by the end of the trip, he genuinely interested me and I grew very fond of him.  So here is the bit that I wrote on Uncle Juampa - the examples below are experiences we had while we were there.

"Few people have the distinction of being known as a walking experience.  A simple walk with this kind of person will leave you wiser, calmer, and happier than you would have thought possible.  You wonder how this person sees the world, and wonder if it's a nicer world than you've seen.  A walk home with this person would cover classical Greek, Spanish grammar, local geography, and personal poetry.  It is in the nature of this person to bleed the perfect gifts - at just he right moment, generosity strikes and makes you wonder why you don't think of doing the same for other people.  This person is not too proud to talk to a homeless man telling jokes for money, and doesn't care if you are a king - you are a person.  You exist.  And this is enough for Uncle Juampa's time, attention, and love."



Here's the bottom line - Do good, create, have fun, and Life will beg you to dance with it.  Try cooking, try dancing, try learning.  And above all, love tensegrity.