High

Everett.

Your name means brave and strong like a wild boar.

Everyone talks about your hair. I must say, it's pretty impressive. The other thing folks notice about you is your size. You're a big boy.  Like, really big. Like, 90 percentile big. 

Your eyes. That's what gets me. You have this ability to look deep into me. You don't do it all the time. In fact you're not great at eye contact (we'll work on that). When you decide to look at me though, you really look at me. It's almost as if you can see my soul. 

Your mom and I are almost high on your existence. Not all the time. Sometimes you suck. BUT most of the time we look at you until our hearts nearly burst. We love you. I love you.

I love you more than I ever knew I could. 

It's a beautiful comparison to read the blog entry before this one. One of hope and blessing. It makes me all the more grateful for your little life. 

Low

The last time I wrote on here was May 30th of last year. That was the month Kristin and I started trying to get pregnant. I'm assuming there's a connection to my lack of writing and our lack of positives on the pee sticks. It may be a stretch, but the coincidence is unavoidable. We are not pregnant yet. Those 5 words pack more than a punch at 905 Irwin Rd. Those 5 words hang like cobwebs in the hallways of our home. They loom over us. We found out that it's me. My count is low. I had surgery Monday to hopefully correct that. We will know in a few weeks if it helped or not. This isn't the point. The point is that I am trying less and less to figure it out. What is figuring it out worth anyways? So, you end up with an answer. What do you do with an answer? Put it in the slot and pull the arm to hopefully end with smiley faces across the middle. I was reading an article that my friend Ace recommended. I like Ace by the way. He is the smartest guy in the room, but he pulls it off. It's a 'smart' that comes from paying attention. Ace pays attention to me. To everyone. He is a good friend.... So, this article was about TED talks and how they aim at 'good ideas' that give clinical solutions to problems, when in reality some of the truly 'best ideas' pose a problem rather than a solution. It got me thinking about another friend of mine, David. He isn't alive anymore. He had a lot of broken places within him. He had a good idea that posed a problem. It went like this; let the bones within you that God has broken cry out with gratitude for their brokenness. It's a good idea. But it poses a problem, because the bones in me that are broken don't want to rejoice. They want to wallow in self pity. And shake a fist. And say "why me?!". And avoid. And leave. And run. And fix themselves.  My broken bones want answers. But after all, what is an answer worth anyways.

When you spend a lot time around hospitals you hear the word "results" quite a bit. Everyone is measuring results. Results from this test or that procedure or this drug. We've spent a lot time of getting results. Most of them have been low. Low progesterone, low sperm count, low mobility, low hopes. This is the point- we are low, but we are near each other. We are near Him. We want to be home more. We want to be with Him more.

I needed a laugh.

My dad came by yesterday. He said, "One day you're going to have a child. And that child is going to piss you off. And you're going to remember all you went through in this season. And you're going to want to say to that child,  "listen here you little shit..." ."

I got  my laugh. It nearly burst my stitches open. Thanks Dad. I needed that.

The Garden

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."

                                                                                                              -John 15:1-2

This is a little excerpt from a wedding I did over the weekend for my good friends Ryan and Maggie.

In John 15 we are invited into this beautiful but difficult imagery of a Garden. The scripture says that God is the Gardener and we are like a vine that is growing in the Garden. The vine, us, has many branches. Some of those branches, some parts of us are creating life for us, but some parts of us are producing death. Those parts are our old self or our false self. While we live in this fallen world there are parts of us that need to be pruned. Parts that need to die so they don’t destroy us all together. 

The world started with a wedding and it ends with a wedding. And the world started in a Garden and it ends in a Garden. God made man and woman and he placed them in a Garden. I think it is very safe to say, that God was telling us something. Marriage is a Garden. It has to watered and tended and paid attention to.

At times you will love this marriage. This Garden that God is giving you to live in. You will love it because it will cause you more life than you ever thought possible. It will make you feel such joy and such fullness. And you will feel this life giving abundance because that’s what happens in a garden. Life and fruit are born there.

At times you will also hate this marriage. This Garden that God is giving you to live in. You will hate it because it will cause you more pain and more suffering than you ever thought possible. It will make you feel frustration and emptiness. You will feel this painful groaning because that’s what happens in a Garden. Weeds are picked and dying branches are pruned. God will use this marriage to prune you both. He will use it to make you more holy. So, remember in those moments when you’ve slammed a door and you sit in separate rooms wondering all sorts of terrible things… In those moments remember that you’re being pruned. Although it is very painful pruning causes us to come to life. And Gardening is all about creating space for things to come alive. 

The Gardener

The Gardener is at work
pruning and cutting

Some need tender care
Some need to be removed

Some lush green.
Flowering. Blooming.

Some steady yellow.
Not dead. Not alive.

Some dull brown.
Withering. Wilting.

I have many branches within me.

How do you know what needs to live
and what needs to die?

The Gardener knows.
I am not the Gardener.

A weed is a plant living where it does not belong.

Separation

Holy Saturday
Silent Saturday
A terrible silence
The silence of separation.

A daughter
sprawled across a motel bed
thinking of the clean sheets
in her parents home.
Would they have me back?

A man
perched behind his desk
considering the distance from the 18 floor
to the pavement.
Could she take me back?

A mom
standing outside his bedroom door
remembering when her affection was
all he knew.
Will he want to come back?

A boy
lying in a ditch, deployment near end
daydreaming of the cheers
as he walks down the airplane steps.
Do they need me back?

Holy Saturday
Silent Saturday
endured that separation would not be
my stories name.

Separation He lived that our
separation could die.

Jesus

Pilate gave the crowd what it wanted     -Mark 15:15

Naked

When  I was younger I had a recurring dream. I would be sitting in class and I would suddenly be overcome with fear. I would break out in a cold sweat and my eyes would fill with tears. I  would realize that I was naked. I had gone to school naked on accident. It was the absolute worst feeling ever. No embarrassment could top it. That recurring dream lasted almost until high school and best I can remember I think it was my first experience with shame. It wasn't real shame. I never actually went to school naked but the feeling was real. The way shame felt was real. When God made Adam and Eve and put them in the garden, it says they were "naked and unashamed". I suppose that's the way naked was meant to feel - shameless. It doesn't though. Not anymore. When your clothes are off you are exposed. The good. The bad. And the ugly. I have a singer/song writer friend. He says he can't stand singing in front of people without his guitar. He says the guitar gives him confidence when he's good and hides him when he's not. I don't sing or play the guitar in front of people, but I do hold onto things to feel confident. I do hide behind things. I do hold things out in front to keep from possibly feeling ashamed. To keep from really being known. Because people might see something they don't like. People might see the things you don't like about you. Or the things I don't like about me. Being seen is scary. It's vulnerable. It's naked.


It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus.  Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.  John 13: 1-5


As if it wasn't enough that he took of his Godly outer clothing to come and live among us. As if it wasn't enough that perfection himself stepped out of his Holy robe and put on skin. He goes even further. He now takes off his human clothing. Abandons his rights. His entitlements. Leaves his dignity and steps into humility. The God who breathed life into our noses. The Dreamer who dreamed us. The Beginning. Jesus. Undressing. He becomes the least in the room. The smallest. Under his robe, he would have been wearing a tunic. In this modest culture, a tunic was as good as naked. It was the lowest dressing someone could wear. It's what servants wore when they washed their master's feet. It was as if he was saying, I want you to really see me. And I want you to see where I am. Undressed. On the floor. Kneeling in mud and spilled water. If we want to see God we are going to have to start looking underneath things. Because he's lower than we'd imagine. And he's smaller than we'd like him to be. And he's quieter than we'd think. God is in the mess. He's at the bottom of things. Maybe that's why he says we're blessed when we are at the end of our rope. Blessed when we are at rock bottom. At our lowest. We are blessed there, because he's there. Waiting on us to remove the things we've covered up with. Waiting on us to loosen our belts and drop our egos. And our entitlements. And our money. And our power. And our fame. Sometimes we do this on our own. Most of the time life knocks our clothes off for us. The hard part is seeing that as a gift. Seeing that we didn't really need our outer garments the way we thought we did. We didn't need our guitar after all. What we really wanted all along was to just be seen. To be known. To be seen by the Dreamer and to realize that beneath all our jackets we are the beloved after all. There is nothing I want more than to be really known and really loved. He is knowing more of me these days. If only I can keep from putting my clothes back on...