The Good Farmer

I see why gardening and farming metaphors are in the Bible and other great works of literature. I have been trying turn my two acres of pasture and weeds into a homestead. The stuff I learn in this endeavor is often instructive in many of areas of life.

There’s something that happens when I try to apply farming knowledge I’ve acquired by reading to my untamed pasture that’s kind of magical. I think the slow pace of gardening, the hours of sweat preparing and planting, sets you up for lessons that aren’t soon forgotten.

One afternoon this summer, after days of frantically breaking up soil and trying to pull sod and weeds out of it, I realized I wasn’t going to be “finished” with it any time soon. Like usual, I was in a hurry. I had been laboring under the belief that if I could just get part of my property ready in time, I could plant a large garden. I was intoxicated with the potential reward I could reap. My head was filled with visions of our field brimming with healthy, beautiful, organic produce that would provide the basis for many bountiful, delicious meals.

But my heart sank as the truth set in: At best, I was at the beginning of long process. It would take years of nurture to realize the potential our soil holds. And I was beginning to see why farming is a road less traveled.

The frenetic and seemingly boundless energy that had been driving in my avocation that I hoped could someday be my vocation me suddenly left. I pushed the rototiller in the shade and sat down. Heat waves danced off the field taunting me. I scooped up a handful of dirt, ran my thumb through it, trying to see if I actually have the strength, patience, passion and commitment that this kind of work requires. Should I move to nice old house in town, I wondered.

As I looked over the dried weeds, grass and countless rocks, I thought, “This soil is like my heart.” My field holds amazing latent potential to produce the cornucopia I envisioned, but it’s bound up under years of grass, weeds and boulders. Sound’s a lot like my heart.  To realize the potential of my field, someone would have to breakup up the soil, clear out the weeds, grass and boulders, and continually add compost, lime, bone meal and whatever else it lacks. What a monumental, epic effort!

My heart, like my field, is brimming with potential, but most of it’s locked up under years of disappointment, lies and misunderstandings. To unlock it, someone would have to lovingly break it loose from its bonds, heal it and nurture it. I believe in God, but to see myself as a field and Him as The Good Farmer begins to give scope to the work of redemption.

Then I thought about my children, as I often do. For a time, I have a hand in “cultivating” their hearts. But somewhere along the way they take chare of their own lives, partnering with the Good Farmer in their own fields.

I like farming, or my version of it, because it feels right to take an active role in producing wholesome food for my family. And it’s fun, in a very deeply satisfying way. At it’s root, it’s love for my family and a general feeling of well-being that drives my efforts. And the Farmer that redeems peoples hearts, freeing them to flourish, loves his work in a way that dwarfs all others.

Here’s to the Good Farmer, whose passion and commitment completely overwhelms me.

Gorilla warfare, and other misunderstandings

Ignorance, they say, is bliss. But it’s not. It leads you down dead end alleys and into wastelands of emptiness.
When I was five, for example, I didn’t know about homonyms. I had no idea that the words gorilla, the fascinating primates at the zoo and, guerilla, men in camo with machine guns, are pronounced exactly the same despite their very different meanings.
Back then my ignorance of homonyms ruined what should have been a nice family outing for me. One night my parents took my brother and I out to dinner to celebrate our first night back after an extended visit with relatives. As we drove along, they quizzed us about our trip. Then my dad turned on the radio.

Shock and dismay paralyzed me as a news announcer spoke of guerilla warfare in a place called Vietnam. What my parents didn’t know is that during our visit someone had taken us to see a The Planet of the Apes, a film that depicted militant gorillas who had taken over the world and were especially brutal to humans. When I heard the news story about guerillas fighting U.S. troops, I was sure they meant gorilla warfare, and that the movie was more of a documentary than a fictional story.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I pictured my little brother with an iron collar around his neck in a filthy loincloth subserviently serving tea to militant orangutans, yet we drove merrily along. I couldn’t believe we were heading out to a restaurant while such madness was taking over the world.
Needless to say, I was elated to learn the truth about homonyms.
Ignorance in other areas of life has cost ne just as dearly. The problem is, you don’t know what you don’t know. You discover your blind spots as your shins bang into coffee-table reality. So,  here’s to grace, mercy, forgiveness and love as we navigate life’s twists and turns with limited knowledge.

Waiting for SuperDad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A friend of mine recently said that she hoped to save her young son from all the many things she’s been through in a given area of her life. She said it in a joking sort of way, but I think she was only kind of kidding.

 

I feel the same way.

 

I wish I could save my kids from certain kinds of pain I’ve endured. When my kids were little, I thought that, because I had asked Christ in my life, I had good reason to believe that they would make the “right” decisions later in life. I knew they’d probably make mistakes, but, overall, I believed that their lives would be characterized by the integrity that comes from a heart that is at peace in the important ways. I somehow believed that God would lead them so as to spare them from life’s silly, humiliating and dangerous pitfalls. I thought that, perhaps they’d be spared because they had been pointed in the “right direction” for the beginning. All this, combined with hard-won wisdom I’d gained through the many things I suffered from make lots of bad decisions growing up, I believed, would be more than enough to get them on the “right track” and keep them there.

 

I was banking on these truths.

Then came reality. One of my kids turned 18, moved out with her boyfriend, and forced me to rethink these beliefs I held. I didn’t sleep well for a few years. I’m not complaining because I now know this kind of thing can be, and often is, part of being a parent. But during my nocturnal vigils I had lots of time to consider a good many things. As for the idea that my kids would benefit from my wisdom, you can only keep sticking your finger in the same philosophical light socket for so long before the resulting shock is too much. At some point I began to surrender.

 

Just what was amiss is back then is still coming into focus. I guess raising children is a lot like faith. They’re both journeys The idea that I had about my kids starting in a “better” place than I did implies that there’s a destination, the same destination, we’re all headed toward. Hmm. I don’t have this all figured out yet, but there’s something wrong with looking at either of these journeys with a Thomas-Brothers mind set. There’s no accurate map for either journey, other than the heart.

 

The notion I held (and sometimes still seem to believe), of saving my kids from the things I’ve suffered, was and is an ill-fated idea for me. It sets me up for more heartache than I have coming when I think this way. And I think the whole thing is fueled, in part, by the evil specter of the dark past. I don’t want to revisit that brand of suffering. Ever. I’d eradicate it from the universe if I could. But I’ll damned if I let my kids go this stuff. It’s natural to want to protect our children. If only it worked that way

 

I guess the thing I’m getting in this muse is that our hearts are somehow wrapped around our children in some kind of invisible force field. I am not sure this entirely healthy either. No one has seen the force field I’m talking about, but we all feel it, don’t we? When our kids fall, we feel it. When they succeed, we soar to new heights with them. They get to make they’re own choices and we share in the consequences. Love never fails. The tricky part is that it sometimes feels like love never quite wins either. But in the end it always does. Love is so much stronger than the funky curveball family whirls at us and it outlasts all of wild hairs.

 

So, here’s to living well and loving deeply, as we workout the past in the present so there can be an amazing future.

 

Cleanliness isn’t always next to Godliness

My alter ego

Johnny Cash once said he was actually two people, John R. Cash, a decent fellow, and Johnny Cash, a drug-engendered nightmare of person. We all have two sides to us—one that means well and one that doesn’t. This is why we hurt the ones we love so deeply. They’re the closest to both sides of us.

I surely don’t mean to hurt my family and friends, it’s just that, every once in a while, people drive me crazy.

Like the man in black, I am part nice guy and part train wreck. I try to be a great husband and a good dad, but I’m an untrained Jedi, susceptible to the dark side. This dark side comes out in several ways, of which my family calls a “the cleaning Nazi.” Over the years, I have learned to censor, if not completely ignore, this part of me.

But I need refresher courses from time to time. One Sunday afternoon the Nazi was barking his cacophonous propaganda in my head. It was after a really nice day at church. The worship time was fantastic and sermon was probably just what I needed to hear, but none of that helped me against what lay ahead.

At the time, my wife and I were in the middle of remodeling our downstairs bathroom, so the house was a bit of a construction site. Also, in my defense, the work involved left me very tired. Drained. Knowing this, I wisely decided that, instead of just saying what I was thinking, a satirical tirade on putting stuff away after you use it, I would take a nap.

However, instead of waking up refreshed, I woke up in a tizzy because the chaos in our house had multiplied at an alarming rate.

“Just walk outside,” I told myself, knowing I was in peril of starting a family feud.

While I was walking toward the door, my then 13-year-old son, Nate, stopped me to ask a bunch of questions. I couldn’t even focus on what he was saying because I was beginning to hyperventilate. Emmett, my 10-year-old son had three or four packs of plastic creatures spread out all over the place; my 4- and 7-year-old daughters had thrown dress up clothes all over the floor and were playing cards; My wife and sixteen-year old were enjoying a cup of tea together in the kitchen. Then, the cleaning Nazi started screaming in my head.

Sadly, I was overcome. Flooded with a kind of panic, I began barking at the kids to pick their stuff up off the floor. Then I grabbed the broom and began furiously sweeping the few parts of the floor that weren’t taken up by dragons and mystical creatures.

Next, my wife, Stephanie, and I had a bit of public discussion. She was trying to defend the kids, but I was in no mood. While we were “talking,” Ana, my then 16-year-old, stood by. I noticed her waiting to jump in to the conversation when I turned toward her. My eyes were burning coals of red.

“You think this is Debate Team or something?” I growled.

“I just had something to say…” I bore my fangs at her as she said this.

“But, never mind,” she finished, retreating to her room.

Grrrr.

Abruptly the quarrel ended.

I went outside feeling exhausted and sad after my fit of rage. My dark mood was in sharp contrast to the beautiful day. Birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the sound of children playing echoed through our neighborhood.

I decided to take a walk down the street to see if a change of scenery would change my mood. Just then I noticed my then four-year-old daughter Tessy outside by herself. I asked if she’d like to come with me. She bounded through the bushes and ducked under a branch of the Fir tree in our front yard, beaming at me as if I were God himself asking her to join Him for a walk in Garden of Eden during the cool of the day. She grabbed my hand and we headed down the road.

“I’m sorry Mommy got so mad at you Daddy,” she said, looking up at me through her curly locks of blond hair.

“Actually, I was the one who got mad. It’s my fault that me and Mommy were talking so loud, sweetheart,” I confessed.

“I’m still sorry Daddy, and you are very cute,” she said. This cracked me up. It felt good to laugh. I thought of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. I could feel my heart growing. It was because I love her so much. I love her all the time, but sometimes, like after you’ve just verbally blasted your whole family, you really get in touch with how much you truly love them. It’s like you’re seeing your life from a different vantage point, and you realize how much it all means and how delicate you really are, and how strong love really is.

Tessy proceeded to tell me about how she was going to buy a Chihuahua when she grows up and that she’s going to name him Husky, or maybe Chopper. She also told me that the donkey that lives down the street from us must be sick because he never comes out to “talk” to us anymore. She asked if we should call 991 for him.

By the time we were home I felt like a whole new person. I thought about the mess the kids had made in the living room. Then I thought about the mess I made in the living room.

Love is stronger than the cleaning Nazi. And God, knowing that I’m part cleaning Nazi (and a couple of other worse things too), still puts all these amazing people in my life because I need them to anchor me to more important things. There’s an amazing connection between all of us and God. It’s called the Kingdom of God. And it’s the magic that keeps us connected and interdependent. The cleaning Nazi, is a punk that manifests when I’m over-tired or unable to figure out what’s really bugging me.

Though I am not truly the cleaning Nazi, I frequently need forgiveness. I wish I had a really neat way little chestnut of wisdom to share about how to avoid being a jerk, but I don’t. I try to see the true person my wife is moving toward becoming, and she tires to see the same in me. Sometimes I make it hard. But, forgiveness is so sweet.

Ch-ch-ch Changes

Ana, my 20-year old daughter is getting married at the end of August. Somewhere in my head I knew this would happen someday. And, of course I’ve been in the loop on this, but it’s still catching me unawares.

A few days ago she moved out. Again, I knew it was coming, but knowing about something and experiencing it are two different things.

I find a strange mixture of joy and grief  in the process.

Recently I flashed back to a scene when I first began dating Stephanie my wife. The three of us, Stephanie, me and Ana,  were learning how to be together. Stephanie was driving her white VW Jetta. It was dark outside. I can’t remember where we had been, but we were headed back to Stephanie’s apartment.

As she drove along, I reach across and put my hand on her shoulder. Though I couldn’t have articulated it then, it was the best expression I could come up with to say how lucky I felt to be part of this growing, beautiful family.

Ana must have understood my language because from the back seat a little voice issue this command: “Move back.”

I smiled and put on my arm back at my side. Lately, however, there have been many times when I wished I could have said “Move back,” or more like, “Everyone hold on here a minute.” But no one could have talked me out of marrying Stephanie, so I know I’ll just have brace myself as this rollercoaster screams down the ramp.

Ana and Jake Bradley, in the photo above, have begun their own story. There’s about a thousand things I wish I would have had a chance to say, but I guess if I haven’t said them over the last almost 20 years, then they’ll have to go unsaid. Besides, sometimes words don’t clearly convey what’s in the heart.

I pray that Ana and Jake, make their story a good one, choosing what they know is right in their hearts, despite the cost, at every turn. And I believe they will as the life’s choices unfold before them.

What kind of story do you want to live

Seeing someone in their element, where their individual aptitudes and personal passion come together, is contagious. I recently spoke to Blake Mycoskie, founder and Chief shoe giver of TOMS Shoes (www.toms.com). Mycoskie, 33, is a serial entrepreneur who has started five other successful businesses. He established TOMS shoes, however, as a heartfelt response to a need, rather than a venture to capitalize on niche in the market. The impetus came while visiting Argentina and seeing scores of shoeless children, many of whom had to walk miles for water with sores on their feet. TOMS Shoes exists to supply children in need with shoes, what those in the world of philanthropy call a social enterprise. The plight of the children he saw in Argentina was the catalyst for Mycoskie to combine his entrepreneurial bent with his life-long desire to make the world a better place.

As I listened to Mycoskie explain how his visit to Argentina altered the course of his life, I couldn’t help musing about how I might use my talents, as a writer, and my other skills, and mostly my heart, to respond to some of the problems I see in the world.

Perhaps Santa Monica, where TOMS headquarters is located, was my Argentina.

My big, fat idea

Like Mycoskie, I want to help poor children know how much they matter, but the thing that has been on my radar for years is a little different: I want to learn, and teach others, how to become less of a consumer. I believe this is vitally important because it’s a big step in helping people come truly alive. Each time we learn to sever a tie with Corporate is a true departure from the toxic part of American culture; it’s a step away from the limited socioeconomic templates into which we are shoved since birth.

I am increasingly alarmed at how much of our lives we’ve given away to industry, becoming more and more like the sad, blobby people in Disney’s Wall-E. We’ve let clever (and not so clever) marketing folks tell us what to wear, what kind of house to live in, how and where to eat, and how to spend our free time.

And the more I talk with people about this, the deeper, and often times more disturbing, levels of influence I see this has over us. To me, the saddest thing about all this  is that Christianity in the U.S. is just a part of our consumer culture for the most part. It’s hard to find another route in life.

Swimming against the tide

I’m not completely sure how to reclaim our lives, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with learning to value family, community, social justice, ecological sustainability, and other aspects of our lives differently. I’ve read about families who say they live really rich, full lives on a limited budget. I want to learn to do that while most of my five children still live in my house. I’m interested in pursing a life of passion, one of interdependent community, where skills and resources are pooled, where the economy is more about bartering of goods and skill that buying products and services, where acquiring skills matters more than hiring professionals to fix everything, and where honest conversation rather than theater-style preaching, prevails.

For my part, I’m experimenting with learning to farm vegetables and raise chickens. I also hope to raise grass-fed beef and share garden space with like-minded people on my 2 acres in Snohomish, Washington. I’m beginning to dabble in bartering goods and services. Also, for the last couple of years my family hasn’t attended a traditional church. Instead we’ve been meeting for large, lengthy and scrumptious  dinners with two other families. We eat, drink, and talk about all kinds of things. Lots of toasting and celebrating life.

Forces to contend with

But there’s lots of challenge before me on this path. Most of my property is currently a thorny wilderness. I’m afraid to even think about leaving the comfort and security of my paycheck, with its health benefits and retirement plan, from my corporate job. Most of my like-minded friends don’t gel together, which makes working together difficult. I’m also afraid of really connecting my natural aptitude with my passion, as Mycoskie has, because then there would  be no excuses. Yet when I so much as dip my toe in those waters, I feel alive and vital, like what I do really matters.

Help along the way

And I hope to win a spot at Donald Miller’s Live A Better Life seminar (www.donmilleris.com/conference). Why? I write in a journal all the time. That’s how I’ve always been, carrying around a binder and scribbling. I only seem to learn by writing. This habit led to a career in writing, though often I write marketing-oriented materials. But I want to transition my writing career. I want to write about my real stories, and the stories of others, that emerge from actively choosing to live better stories, that is to dare to discover what inspires the best parts of us and to beging acting on them. I think Miller’s seminar can help me because Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles have been real turning points for me because of their honest look at Christian spirituality, and because, even though he’s nine years younger than I am, Miller has spent more time in these waters than I have.

I tried to embed a video of Miller’s seminar, but was unable to do so, but here’s a link to it. Click this and Don himself  will tell you about the fantastic seminar.

http://vimeo.com/12011394

French Roast afterglow

What’s the difference between going to church and gathering together to share a meal in Christ’s name? Is one a more legitimate spiritual expression that the other? My favorite thing about the meal expression my family and two other families have been experimenting with is that everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, has a voice. And if someone dominates the conversation, it’s not to difficult to opt out, by speaking with the people sitting near you instead.

The above photo, however, depicts a potential drawback to the meal expression. It’s what I call French Roast Afterglow. You’re done eating and you’ve been talking a while, only it’s summer, so it’s like 10pm, but it feel like 7. Then you have cup or two of delicious coffee. You’re up all night, but you’re all alone.

I’m enjoying learning about authentic community

Coffee at 10pm? Sure man, "Bring it on!" I was up all night and a zombie the next day.

A good story

A good story is one in which you see elements of your own life unfold before you. A while back I watched The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I went into it with low expectations. Truth is, I only watched it because my son Emmett, 15, loves quirky, low-tech films, and I like him. If I have to endure some bad films to share some time and space with him, it’s a small price to pay. Besides, I am often surprised by the wonderful creativity of the films he loves.

Though I had my doubts about how fantastic The Fantastic Mr. Fox would actually be, it was great. It’s quirky in a good way and the low-tech animation was so well done that it sort of made it’s own little world. But it was the story that pulled me in. I saw elements of my own life beautifully portrayed. Most guys in the middle of raising a family probably saw elements of their lives played out on the screen during this show. For me, it’s a little easier to see my hubris portrayed anthropomorphically by an articulate fox.

One of the themes, a struggle between Mr. and Mrs. Fox, really hit home. For years Mrs. Fox’s need for stability had taken a front seat to Mr. Fox’s innate wiring for adventure. Sound familiar? In this story, however, after many years of working as a reporter, Mr. Fox finds himself moonlighting in the vocation that is his avocation: Stealing livestock (and other consumables). While he’s stealing, he’s in his element. All his intelligences come alive and he’s doing what he’s best at. But, it’s a risky trade. It offers no medical, no dental, and if he makes a mistake, he’s likely suffer and untimely death.

While not all of us have a history of stealing cider and chickens (though I might attempt it if my leg were in better shape), most of us have felt a little constricted by the career choices we’ve made at times. This story is about how Mr. and Mrs. Fox reckon with this struggle.

Here’s to all of us couples coming out on the other side of this, and all the other myriad conflicts, better for having faced them.

Two things about this week

I was supposed to be in London this week, but a volcano whose name I can’t pronounce erupted in Iceland, wreaking havoc on travelers and creating sensational front page news for BBC and other news sources for nearly a week. Just goes to show you that you truly never do know what’s coming down the pike.

Now for something completely different:

I read the following quote this week from Sir Ken Robinson’s The Element, which I raved about in my last post. Here Robinson is telling a story about another man named Robinson. I’ve thought a lot about this story this week because it is so powerful.

When Jackie Robinson came to play major-league baseball in Brooklyn for the Dodgers, he experienced levels of abuse and hardship worthy of Greek tragedy from those who believed a black man shouldn’t be allowed to play in a white man’s league. Robinson bore up under most of this, but at one point, things got so bad that he could barely play the game. The taunts and threats rattled his concentration so badly that he faltered at the plate and in the field. After a particularly bad moment, Pee Wee Reese, a Dodger shortstop, called a time-out, walked over to Robinson, and offered encouragement, telling him he was a great ballplayer destined for the Hall of Fame. Years later, during Robinson’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony, he spoke about that moment. “He saved my life and my career that day,” Robinson said from the podium at Cooperstown. “I had lost my confidence, and Pee Wee picked me up with his words of encouragement. He gave me hope when all hope was gone.”

I’m thinking Pee Wee Reese deserves some kind of hall of fame induction for knowing what “time” it was in Robinson’s life. The time-out he called might be mentioned in eternity. In any case, I hope I can look past the immediate game in my life, who’s on first and all that, into the bigger, more important picture. And I hope someone can do this for me too, when I need it. Even when we think we’re just going through a routine day, this suggests that we’re part of something bigger. Here’s to learning to live with our heads in the right game, so to speak.

Into the element

Sometimes what you think you know gets blown out of the water, and sometimes you’re glad to say good-bye to the status quo. I’m in the middle of reading The Element by Ken Robinson (http://sirkenrobinson.com), a self-professed academic. The book jacket says he’s a leading thinker and speaker on creativity and innovation.
The Element discusses gaping flaws in the one-size-fits-all approach that we in developed countries have on education. He is able to explain the inherent problems with the way we tend to view and measure intelligence and aptitude. Thankfully he talks a lot more about how to think about individual intelligence and aptitude than he does ranting about what’s wrong with the current system of education.
If this were a Christian book, he would be phrasing the ideas he puts fourth with words such as “spiritual gifts” and “walking in one’s calling.” The book is full of stories about how people— scientists, artists, mathematical wunderkinds and people from all kinds of other walks of life—connect with their natural talents and passions. My favorite stories so far have been about how Mick Fleetwood, drummer for FleetwoodMac, and Bob Dylan discovered their passions and in so doing found an essential part of themselves.
I’m reading a part of the book in which he talks about how people sometimes find their way into the element, where an individuals passions and talents combine, though like-minded people. He refers to this as finding your “tribe.”
I can’t agree with him more. The times in my life where I’ve functioned in the most confidence and efficiency are when I’ve been around people who speak my language and believe in me. In those settings I’ve felt more at home in my own skin. I play music better in those settings, share ideas more freely and live with a knowledge that I brings something of value to each setting. Conversely, when I’ve been with groups of people with whom I can’t connect, I wither. I can’t come up with any good musical ideas in a setting of tension and apprehension and sharing creative ideas is extremely difficult in those settings.
So, I just want to say thanks to the people in my tribe, who have affirmed me just by being themselves. This happens around fire pits, while fishing, over cups of coffee and glasses of wine and in a myriad of other settings. My wife is my chief source of inspiration, but I wouldn’t have made it without friends. Here’s to us all walking with greater confidence in who we truly are.