A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 4

Trevor Turner arrived at Advanced Base Camp like Charlemagne, leading a procession of people and equipment so colorful and so expensive that it was hard to interpret it as anything but a claim to kingship. Turner was the most visible and most successful among a crop of Everest guides from New Zealand who enjoyed playing the mountaineering underdog. Their assertion was that, despite the starstruck claims of Europe and America, of Reinhold Messner and Alex Lowe and George Mallory, New Zealand was the cradle of mountaineering greatness. And all the knighthoods and accolades from the West only reinforced their zeal.

Sunlight broke through a week-long cloud as if to trumpet the arrival. From the uphill edge of camp, Aaron watched Turner shake hands with other guides and their clients, working the crowd like a politician at a black-tie fundraiser. It was the same job, Aaron thought; stealing loyalties, forging alliances, asking for "support" in the form of guide fees that rose to Himalayan heights. He wore red from head to toe, the most high-tech gear and clothing, splattered with the logos of climbing's biggest sponsors, and gilded by a sweep of wavy blond hair that framed his broad, skull-capped head. His gait was easy and even, almost floating across the jumbled tallus field, greeting and hugging fellow climbers, welcoming them into his exclusive fraternity of the mountaineering cool. Turner smiled his way to the communications tent — the only collection of shared equipment on the mountain and a sort-of command post for all twelve expeditions making their bid that year. When Turner ducked into the tent, his caravan was still appearing over the moraine ridge in two lines a quarter mile behind him.

It was May first. The best guides had been on the mountain for three weeks already, spending valuable resources on the invisible processes of planning and acclimatization, and waiting for the skies to clear. The forecasts called for clouds to move out in the next few days; that's when the ascents would begin. It had been an unusually wet winter and every expert was predicting a short season. By mid-May, the snow would be too unstable for an ascent. Two weeks to reach the top of the world. Two weeks to confront another of his father's killers.

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 3

The guest room was barely part of the permanent structure below it; more of a rooftop garden covered by corrugated metal and plywood. It wasn't plumbed. To pee, Aaron had to descend a cascade of wooden steps to a half-rotted platform that failed to hold level with the threshold of a metal bathroom door whose rust clashed viciously with its ochre paint. His room did have electricity, which is to say it had a single bare light bulb and a duplex outlet, half of which was permanently occupied by an electric space heater that threatened to set half of Kathmandu ablaze. Outside a small square window, the shadow of two buildings seemed to lean in toward one another as if peering in at Aaron's little nest. And between then, behind them, Aaron could see the sharpened, indigo peak where his father died.

There was a gentle knock on the door; Aaron jerked and spilled tea on his leg. He pulled an ice axe from a pile of equipment and leaned it beside his chair before he answered, "Come in!"

A tall man stepped into the light of the single bulb and let the door swing closed behind him. He smiled deeply, openly, without pity. His teeth shone brighter than his eyes which hid behind smudged walnut cheeks.

"Mr. Ghode?"

"Aaron. I bring you greetings. It is good for you to visit us," the man said loudly. He crossed the room faster than Aaron could stand so that his outstretched hand almost caught Aaron in the forehead as he rose.

"Please sit," Aaron said, studying his visitor carefully for a long moment while he levered his frame into a squatty wooden chair. The light bulb swayed narrowly above a metal card table and the two men. Aaron had only met the visitor once, years before, on his first visit to the Himalaya. Prenesh Ghode was a titan of Nepali industry. His "brokerage" (Aaron thought "slave market" might be more accurate) supplied more than three-fourths of all the sherpas on Everest. Though he had never climbed higher than the steps of his office building, he dressed the part of an explorer. He wore thick boots, wool slacks, and a down vest right out of an L.L. Bean catalog. Aaron sat and then remembered his manners. "Tea?"

"No, thank you friend. I hope you don't think me rude, but I cannot stay long. I have many men coming to the mountain this season. some arriving tonight."

"No worries," Aaron said and then waited for more. But the visitor only looked around the tiny room, taking inventory of its contents. Then, satisfied that he had cataloged Aaron's possessions, he turned his gaze to Aaron's eyes, as if taking measure of his thoughts. "I didn't expect to see you. How— how have you been?"

"No, I'm sure you didn't expect me," Ghode smiled. "I wasn't sure I should come but—" here he trailed off and resumed his study of the room.

"Why did you come?" Aaron asked.

"I heard you were in town and…and I'm sure you have heard about Dawa?"

"Yes. Terrible."

"Well, your arrival and his death coming so close together, I thought…I saw it as a sign. An opportunity."

"Oh? An opportunity for what?"

"To betray a secret.

Involuntarily, Aaron's left knee started to bounce as if keeping time with a rapid, barreling tune. He tried to respond casually, "Secret, huh? I'm all ears."

"Dawa Lob-sang was a dear friend. We worked together for many years. He was the best guide in Nepal."

Aaron remembered Ghode's habit of using the title "guide" for his sherpas, and the title "sponsor" for the foreign climbers charged with getting their increasingly unqualified clientele to the top of the world's highest peak.

"I was glad to see him once more before he died," Aaron said quickly.

"Yes. It's convenient that you were here when he did," Ghode paused again and eyed Aaron carefully.

"Why is that?"

"Dawa has left you an inheritance."

"What?"

"He was a frugal man with no family. After Aapti died, he had no one. His family was his fellow climbers…your father among them. He leaves you four million rupees."

Aaron was blank. Why would Dawa leave money to him? Out of guilt? A buddhist penance? And how on earth did Dawa Lob-sang have almost forty thousand dollars?

"There is something else; the secret," Ghode said.

"Tell me."

"Dawa was not there the day your father died. Your father climbed alone. Dawa refused to leave high camp that morning. There was weather and—"

"Bullshit! Dad would never have climbed alone. What the hell are you talking about?"

"I know it is hard to hear, Aaron," Ghode's tone was slower but no softer. "But it is true. They fought. And Dawa thought that Robert would not climb without him. Dawa thought he was calling a bluff. But Robert wasn't bluffing. He attempted to summit alone."

"Where are you getting this bullshit?" Aaron was standing now, looking down at Ghode with his arms crossed and his head canted aside. The light bulb lit his jaw and the steep slope of his chest, but left his eyes dark. "Who's telling you this? And why now?"

"Dawa told me on the day of Robert's funeral. He told me so I would allow him to work, but he swore me to secrecy in order to protect your father's name as a climber."

"That sonofabitch let my father die! He killed him! He made up a story so he could keep his job and you believed him?"

"That sonofabitch saved half his salary every year from that to this and has left it in an account in your name at Rastriya Banijya Bank. I have the account number," Ghode produced a slip of paper from a zippered vest pocket and laid it on the table.

"There were witnesses, Prenesh."

"Two. Trevor Turner and Sherpa Tonsing. Tonsing doesn't work for me. He refuses to discuss that day with me or anyone else. And Turner is…" Ghode looked at his unscuffed boots. "also not talking."

"And you've asked?"

"Not exactly."

"Because he's Western?"

"Kiwi. It's not wise for me to make trouble, Aaron."

"I see. Bite the hand that feeds you and all that, huh?"

"Something like that."

Aaron took his seat again and let his arms hang from slumped shoulders. He stared toward the window and fingered the tip of the ice axe still leaning against his chair.

"What, exactly, are you saying? Turner and his sherpa lied to cover Dad's ass?"

"I don't know their motives. And I don't know what happened that morning," Ghode said. "I just know it happened without Dawa Lob-sang. And I'm giving you four million reasons to believe me."

"So what am I supposed to do now?"

"That's up to you. You don't have to do anything, Aaron. Take your money and go back to America. I'll cancel your climb this year." Ghode wrestled himself out of his chair and put a hand on Aaron's shoulder. "But if you want to know how your father died, you'll have to ask Turner."

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 2

Aaron watched his dinner companion drink the poison, but it brought him no joy. Six years of plotting and seething were over. He had succeeded. And it was over so quickly, so casually. Just another drink like so many passed around the tavern that night, raised to smiling lips, drunk with hungry forgetfulness. Just another dead old man like so many others. Just another day in the shadow of the Mother Goddess like millions before.

The tavern was little more than a windowed closet on the upper floor of a dusty brick rowhouse along a narrow street. On the floor below was an office of some sort where men wore ties clipped to short sleeved white shirts and did their best to appear "professional" and "developed" despite the frequent sound of fistacuffs from the market across the street. It didn't matter, Aaron thought, looking down at the street through stained windows, trying not to watch too eagerly for the oncoming visitation from death. No one in the "professional" or "developed" worlds was paying attention.

The poison had been easy to get. The Nepalese version of the DEA, if there was such a thing, was apparently unconcerned with a myriad of mood-altering drugs being sold openly in bodegas, in street markets, and on street corners by bleary-eyed teens carrying their inventory in plastic milk crates on the back of scooters propelled by black smoke. It didn't take many quesions to lead from dealer to supplier to producer who could provide a drug that would alter more than one's mood. It was risin, or some Himalayan version of it. The druggist, whose shop occupied a cinder-block hut which jutted into the alley behind a butcher shop, had said it was odorless and tasteless.

Aaron's dinner companion sipped his tea slowly at first, blowing and casting stern looks across its surface as if he wasn't sure of its quality. But as the tea cooled, his consumption sped until he was gulping and calling for a second cup.

"It is so good to see you, Mr. Aaron. I am so glad you are here in Nepal. So glad to sit and have tea with Mr. Mann again, eh?" He raised his cup. "To your father."

Aaron felt a twist in his gut at the mention of the man whose death he was avenging, but he raised his cup and smiled. "Yes, to my father."

Aaron's companion was Dawa Lob-sang, a sherpa of legendary longevity with twenty-five ascents of Chomolungma to his credit, if anyone asked, which no one ever did; summit ascents were counted and congratulated by white men. Dawa was toothy and thin. His balding head shot forward from his torso and his shoulders were slender, bony and hunched. They looked pressed together as if some invisible giant were constantly squeezing him in an unwelcome hug. His face was vacant and joyful, punctuated by China teeth and a permanently-raised brow that made him look as if he was constantly expecting a punch line.

"I miss him," Dawa Lob-sang said, wiping the poisoned tea from his lips. "Your father was a good man."

Aaron Mann seethed at the guile of his father's killer. The innocence of his manner only made his feigned allegiance more vile. Aaron wondered if Dawa had been this calm when he cut his father's rope, or when he raided the tent, or when he created the cover story about a micro-blast. "A good man," Aaron repeated studying Dawa for a tick or downward glance that would betray his guilt. None was there. He turned again to peer through the grime on the window. In the street, one of the office workers was leaving loudly, shouting at someone in the office below and holding high two middle fingers.

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 1

Steely Dan was almost loud enough to drown out the deadening hum of the Airbus A320's engines. Aaron Mann adjusted his headphones and tried to close his eyes and see his father. This had been Dad's favorite album. He could see the elder Mann wobbling his head in rhythm with Walter Becker's guitar and the washboard road under the tires of their mud-caked 4Runner on the way to another weekend ramble through the mountains. Dad. And Steely Dan. And that rusted blue 4Runner stuffed full of rope and harnesses and a dutch oven with a broken handle. And the hum of the road like the hum of jet engines, only softer. Less angry. Less violent.

Aaron moved his hands to his lap to give Bill-the-accountant-from-Atlanta a turn with the armrest. He let his head fall to his shoulder and peeked through the window at the jumbled landscape below. The cataclysm punching those mountains toward the sky must have been enormous. The chain stretched beyond his view from forty-thousand feet, through Myanmar and into China. It was a squalid terrain where nothing living was allowed to stay, scraped by glaciers stained brown like the skid marks of nature, dotted with bitter peaks that threatened to claw the belly of the airliner. Up here, Aaron thought, it was all blues riffs and armrests, the dull drone of engines and sun-lit memories of his father. Below, it was all icefalls and tallus and spindrift.

And murder.

A Son Who Wants Love

When he was six, Sean held on to his dad's pants while the men talked and smoked in the dark on the front porch before they would all get into one car and drive away. Sometimes, his dad would turn aside toward the light of a window and check the roll of cash in his front pocket, squinting through cigar smoke while he counted. When his mother put Sean to bed on those nights, she would pray for her husband with a special earnestness that Sean didn't know what to do with besides notice.

---

When he was ten, Sean held a basketball in the driveway waiting for his dad to come home. He had promised to be home in time to practice before Sean's game. The ball felt heavy and useless in his hands. He realized he was afraid to bounce it, as if it would break into thousands of tiny orange pieces. He stared at it for a long time, wondering if it really was a basketball, realizing that the ball was growing larger and heavier and uglier, until his mother shouted that it was time to go. His father wasn't there. He wasn't at the game either.

---

When he was twelve, Sean held the door to his room closed while his father raged against the other side. He was asking about money, about where Sean's mother had hidden the cash. He wasn't drunk — Sean had seen drunk before — but he was panicked. More than once his voice broke. Was he crying? Who cries and begs for money at his son's bedroom door? Who was his father becoming, Sean wondered. Who was Sean becoming?

---

When he was sixteen, Sean held out his brand new drivers license for his parents to see. His dad seemed both proud and preoccupied at the same time. Sean wondered how a human could combine those two affectations at once. At worst, his father hated him; at best he was ambivalent.

His father asked him to go for a drive and Sean was more than happy to oblige. Maybe this was a turning point? Maybe the truth would come out? While Sean backed out of the driveway, triple-checking his blind-spots, his dad seemed overwrought. Sean expected him to make some kind of announcement.

"Sean, you're mother and I are splitting up..."
"Sean, I have to go away for a while…"
"Sean, you're a disappointment to the family and I never want to see you again…"

These are the fears of a boy on a drive with his unknown father. But all his dad said was, "I'm glad you got your license son. A car is a lot of freedom. I hope you don't misuse your freedom."

After that, they drove in silence.

What did that mean? Was that some kind of code? Was he supposed to know how to interprets dad-speak like this? Was it something every other teenage boy came by naturally, but he was missing somehow? Were other teenaged boys driving around with their dads, getting the same cryptic messages and knowing in silent understanding?

He started to ask, but his father said, "Let's go home. I don't want your mother to get worried."

---

When he was eighteen, Sean held his diploma in his right hand and swung the tassel across his cap with his left. He scanned the audience for his father, but didn't see him. Maybe he was in the back. Maybe he was proud of him even if he wasn't there.

---

When he was twenty-three, Sean held his bride's hand and smiled for the cameras. He felt sick. He almost wretched when he heard the photographer say, "Ok, now let's have the happy couple with the groom's parents." His mother stepped dutifully forward, and they smiled for the camera.

---

When he was twenty-six, Sean held Benjamin who weighed seven pounds, one ounce and measured nineteen inches long. Everyone said he had Sean's eyes. His mother said they had said the same thing about Sean having his father's eyes. He posted photos on Facebook. Three days later, his father liked them.

---

When he was forty-six, Sean held eight tickets to Paris. They were a family of six now; Ben had three sisters. He handed two tickets to his mother who said she would do her best, but he really shouldn't have spent the money already.

"Mom, you know as well as I do that I wouldn't have gotten a commitment from him. Besides, I'm a partner now. We're doing fine. I'm willing to take the risk."

It seemed a foolish risk though, another in a lifetime of risks taken, of putting his neck out or his hand out or his heart out only to have it ignored. His father had always wanted to see the Mona Lisa, his mother said. Maybe it would work out.

---

When he was sixty-seven, Sean held his father's head off the pillow so he could sip through a straw. The pale pink sippy-cup seemed an ignoble detail, but hospitals aren't places to worry about things like dignity. He lowered his father's head and sighed. There was little hope — for the cancer or for their relationship. Sean rocked on his heels a little, waited a beat in case there was anything else, then started to gather his things. The nurses had been adamant about a ten o'clock bed time.

"See you tomorrow," Sean wished. He wasn't sure his father would see tomorrow, and he wasn't sure he could bear to sit with him in meaningless silence again if he did.

His father grunted and shifted his weight.

Sean walked through the door and away from his father finally. The elevators were at the end of a long passageway lined with half-opened doors through which Sean heard wheezing old people and clicking machines. He punched the button and waited for the ding.

"Mr. Calvert? Excuse me, Mr. Calvert?" It was a nurse coming behind him down the hallway.

"Mr. Calvert, your father wants to see you."

"I just came from there."

"I know. I think he pushed his button right after you left. He's calling you back."

Sean wondered if that had ever happened before, his father calling him to his bedside. He looked the same when he got back to the room.

"What's up?" Sean said. He stood near the door.

"I want to tell you something."

"You told me before, dad. You don't want a ventilator. They aren't going to put you on one."

"Close the door and come here."

Suddenly, Sean was eight again, taking orders form his old man, hoping he wasn't in trouble. Hoping he would hear something that would give him footing, that would steady his little-boy world full of school yard bullies and enigmatic girls and unnoticed successes.

"Joseph is a fruitful vine,
a fruitful vine near a spring,
whose branches climb over a wall."

Sean looked at the monitor above the bed and checked his father's vital signs. He must be delirious. Didn't they say his mind might go in the final moments? He reached into his pocket for his phone. He needed to let his mom know.

"Those were some of Jacob's last words to Joseph."

"Who?"

"Jacob and Joseph. In the Bible. I read it this morning."

Sean chuckled and put his phone back in his pocket. "Since when do you read the Bible?"

"Since I've started dying, or at least started dying faster."

"Dad, you're going to be fine. Now go to sleep. I'm going to get in trouble for—"

"Jacob loved all his sons," his father said. Then he coughed and caught his breath. "But he loved Joseph most."

Sean couldn't respond. He wasn't sure what his father was trying to say. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He just didn't want the end to be any more painful than the middle had been.

"But Jacob failed his sons. He was a terrible father. Absent. Angry. Scheming." He coughed again.

"Look Dad. I appreciate your trying to get right with God and stuff, but I don't really want a Bible lesson right now—"

"Shut up, Sean. Give me a minute. I'm trying to do something here."

"What, Dad? And don't tell me to shut up. I'm a grown man. What the hell are you trying to do?"

"Bless you. I'm trying to bless you, Sean."

There was silence and for the first time in his life Sean saw tears in his father's eyes.

"I realize a lot of things now. This bed has made me see a lot of things. I've realized my regret can't change anything; it never has. I've realized you're a good son. I've realized you're a successful man, a terrific husband and a helluva good father.

When I was a boy, people used to talk about a beautiful death. If someone died peacefully at home with their family around, that was a good thing. If they fought death and cursed, that was undignified. I've realized I'm not going to have a beautiful death. Hell, look at all these damn tubes. And I've realized an old man's dying words aren't worth a lot but they are the only thing of any value I have left."

The old man lifted himself to sit up with a grimace so that he could meet his son's eyes level.

I was never sorry for failing you, Sean. I thought it was your mother's job to raise you. I was too busy trying to earn a name for myself than to think about giving you one. But now I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't give you a better start and that makes me more grateful for the way you turned out.

I'm proud of you, Sean.

And I love you."

---

When he was sixty-seven, Sean held a hymnal and looked up a stained glass window he had never seen before but seemed oddly familiar. The preacher had never met his father, but he told some recycled stories he had heard from the family the evening before, and did a well-enough job of paying such respects as were due, as due to all men, as due to an enemy killed in battle or an outlaw gunned town in the wild west or an inner-city crime statistic who never knew his father.

There were thirty people in the chapel, most of them hardly knew his father. Those who did were probably mourning a lost debt as much as a lost friend, Sean mused. There seemed a lot of regret in the room. But Sean held the hymnal and sang, "Twas blind, but now I see." And he smiled at all that regret, hanging about the room, draped across his father's memory like the flag of belligerent army. He smiled. And when someone asked him how he was doing after the service, he said, "I'm blessed."

Move Over, Bacon

This morning I read the account of Jesus casting demons into a herd of pigs. It was recorded by a first-century Jewish tax collector and it reveals something amazing and perplexing about Jesus.

When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”

Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”

He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.

The thing that struck me this morning about this story wasn't the exorcism or the gory scene of dozens of pigs splatting, splashing and drowning in the water. What struck me was what happened next. The very next verse says,

Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town.

That's it? He sailed all the way across the Sea of Galilee and then turns right around and sails back because the pig farmer asked him to? Wouldn't you expect him to press a little? Shouldn't he explain how the loss of their pig rancher's herd is less important than the salvation of these men? After all, he went there to preach, right? His leaving means there are lots of people in that region who won't hear the gospel because the pig farmer told him to go. This isn't exactly "setting his face like flint" to bring his message to the Gadarenes.

Is Jesus really so passive that he abandons his crusade the first time he meets with a disapproving audience? Or is he really so cavalier with the souls of people as to give up on reaching them so quickly? What about his rights? Shouldn't he be allowed to speak and let the marketplace of ideas decide whether he's the messiah or a swine-hating Jew out to destroy the local economy?

Jesus, apparently, rejected all of those aphorisms and simply sailed back home.

Maybe he knew the outcome. Either by divine revelation or common sense, maybe he could tell that his message wouldn't be well received and to deliver it would be a waste of time. Or maybe the whole exercise was to make a point about the antithetical nature of capitalism and gospel community, or Jews versus Gentiles, or those rich in wealth versus poor in spirit. We don't know.

What we do know is that Jesus, in wisdom, humility, courage and faithfulness, made a decision to honor someone's request to their own detriment and others'. Jesus was willing to be rejected. He was willing to take "no" for an answer, even when doing so affected others unfairly. And he was willing to do so without bitterness or slander.

What do you think of that? Does that sound like the Jesus you know? Does it sound like Christians you know? What more can we learn from this story?

Reflections On Reflecting

I'm such a product of my environment. I think we all are. I've been catching up on Breaking Bad recently and suddenly chemistry seems really interesting. I know this is not true. I know that chemistry is not interesting. It is, in fact, the spawn of evil science professors looking for a way to send students back home to live in their parents' basements. But, as Jesse Pinkman might say, Mr. White gots me trippin' yo.

The same thing happens to me when I get into a good novel or start studying any compelling story. I'm prim and proper when I watch Downton Abbey, restless and cold when I read Hemingway.

In a way, my soul is like a computer. I was in high school when computers were like Michael Bay movies: big, dumb and clunky. I had classes in "computer" where we learned a programming language called Basic. The fundamental principle I remember from those classes is this: garbage in - garbage out. That was a mantra to remind us that computers just do what you tell them to do. The code has to be clear and clean. If you write code poorly, you get poor results. I know humans are infinitely more complex than the Apple IIe I learned Basic on, but in some ways, we're not so different.

That reminds me of another computer term: icon. The Septuagint calls humans "eikons of God". We are meant to reflect his glory. But we are free agent eikons; we reflect whatever shines on us. If we expose ourselves to the light of scripture, we reflect grace and truth in our relationships, our work, and our daydreams. If we expose ourselves to the travails of a cancer-ridden-chemistry-teacher-turned-drug-lord, we reflect something different.

There's a balance here, of course. We aren't called to abstain from culture. We aren't all called to be monks. But I have to remind myself that I am always reflecting something — always showing forth what shines on my soul.

A Swimmer Who Wants Freedom

I want my writing to improve, so this summer I've been doing little exercises, sort-of creative writing calisthenics. I've been reading about the elements of story and I realized that the only two things you need to get a story going are character and ambition. So I devised a drill. I wrote down as many characters as I could think of — a butcher, a mom, a CEO, a killer, a pirate, a doctor, etc. I filled a page with them. Then I did the same with ambitions — power, love, escape, rescue, pleasure, revenge. Now I just play "spin the topic wheel." I ask my kids to pick a number and then I write about the character and ambition associated with those numbers — a son who wants love, a pastor who wants rescue, a mountaineer who wants to kill, etc. 

This blog isn't normally about fiction, but I'm posting this as a way to improve my writing and invite feedback. I hope you enjoy a few of these installments. 

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He topped sixty seconds for the first time in middle school. He did it on a dare and he nearly passed out. In high school, it became a sort-of parlor trick. 

"Hey Jimmy! Do it in the lake!" 

"Hey Jimmy! Do it in this plastic bag so we know you're not faking." 

He did it every time because it meant prestige. It was a platform for getting dates. Of course, he swam too. He wasn't the strongest body on the swim team but his ability underwater was unmatched. But it wasn't the girls or the letter jackets that drove him to do it; it was freedom. 

Jimmy started holding his breath when he was six. That's when his mom stopped living. They didn't bury her until he was eleven, but by then she was a ghost. She had retreated from the land of the living via pills and People magazine. She ate in her room. She slept in her room. Jimmy's dad didn't. One day, less than a year after she came home from the hospital looking grey and reduced, Jimmy realized he had gone a week without speaking to her. He had only seen her in glimpses through the bedroom door when she had called for pills. He topped one hundred twenty seconds sometime his sophomore year.

Jimmy's dad had parlor tricks too. He drank with sour men who raced miniature motorcycles in Jimmy's back yard and shouted obscenities over the whining motors until the neighbors called the police. Jimmy didn't trust his dad's friends. Once, two of them came to blows and the fight ended with one of them sitting on the other's chest with a handful of hair working it up and down until the back of his opponent's head was gooey and there was a little stream of blood on the driveway. The loser of that fight never came back to drink with Jimmy's dad again. Jimmy wondered if he had survived, but he was too afraid to ask. 

It started in the bathtub. Underwater, he was free from the noises his brain stored up during the day to torment him with at night. His father shouting. Doors slamming. Bottles clinking. His mother moaning. Glass breaking. Engines revving. The TV. The neighbor's dog. The whispers of hunched and white-haired old ladies whose dresses were pressed stiff to make up for the wrinkles in their furrowed faces at First Baptist Church where his father would drop him off on Sunday mornings on the way to the horse track. Underwater he was free from the noises, from the pressure, from time and disappointment. 

A month after graduation, he went with his high school friends to the lake. Most of them were leaving for college in a few weeks. Jimmy was staying behind. They were drinking Keystone and jumping off big rocks into the lake. The higher the rock, the deeper Jimmy sank, and the longer the silence lasted. Deep in the green nothingness, he was free. There were no sounds, no restrictions. Nothing to see or hear or do. By then, he was up to one hundred eighty seconds. 

For two months after that, Jimmy worked at a scuba shop renting equipment to people going on vacation, people with the means to leave their circumstances behind. He stole opportunities to assist dive instructors in the pool, but the little square tiles on the bottom of the pool grew more and more worrisome. There were the same little squares in his parents' bathroom, the room he never saw any more, just past the room where his mom was dying. Floating over those squares, the quiet was deathlike. He saw himself floating over his mother's domain, like a specter. He didn't want to haunt his mother and so he didn't want the job. He stole a weight belt and stopped showing up. 

The weight belt was for the lake. He was timid at first; he kept it tied to a rope that stretched out to a tree on the bank. When he couldn't last any longer, he would drop the weight, swim to the surface, and then retrieve the belt with the rope. He reached two hundred seconds. And he did it alone. No one was there in the blind greenness. No one was within miles. 

It was a late summer afternoon when Jimmy made his final escape. It was premeditated, but not in a hopeless or dramatic way. It was just the next step in his journey. A final step away from the haunting, a last step toward freedom. The shadow of the tree where the rope used to be tied stretched far out from shore. The afternoon light danced on tiny waves inviting him below where they would gently rock him to sleep. He stepped into the familiar, murky green, but it was clear. Everything was clear for Jimmy. He lasted three hundred seconds that day. 

And then he lasted forever. 

Eternal Community

My seven-year-old came home from church on Sunday with lots of new information about heaven. He told us he knew just what heaven was going to look like — gold streets, gates made out of pearls, no sun, no ocean. In fact, he was pretty accurate. Kudos to our friend Joy McDonald who teaches his small group.

One thing my little Bible scholar didn't mention, however, was heroes of our faith who would be there. Peter and John, Paul and Barnabas, Moses, David, Joseph, Abraham — it seems none of them were in his lesson about heaven. Doesn't that seem like a significant omission? Wouldn't you expect any description of heaven to include some mention of its inhabitants?

Imagine you're writing the heaven scene for a Hollywood production — the resolution where all the great men and women of the story are saying good-bye, or possibly hello, forever. Think of Luke and Han getting their medals from Princess Leah. Think of the newly-crowned Aragorn and Arwen kneeling with Gandalf and Legolas and all the others to honor the unlikely hobbit heroes.Think of Arthur and Lancelot and Galahad taking their seats at the round table. If you're writing these scenes, you include each hero. You appreciate each victory and each scar. This is their moment. They are the resolution. They are the characters who endure.

There is Legolas with his bow and Aragorn with his crown. There is little Frodo with his bare feet and his heart of gold. There is Gandalf in his beard and gown and wry, knowing grin. There is Chewbacca growling and Gimli glowering and Indiana with his whip and Forrest with his blissful smile and Atticus with his law books and William Wallace in face paint and Huck and Jim on their raft and a shirtless, bloody Rocky still wearing gloves.

But when John gave us the clearest glimpse of heaven ever recorded, he didn't write the scene that way. His Revelation isn't a Hebrews 11-style parade of who's who. In fact, there are no names mentioned, only a faceless multitude of worshippers. Even those smaller groups who are described in detail aren't identified. The four creatures and the 24 elders aren't named. Are they patriarchs and apostles? Angels? We aren't told.

What we are told is what those unnamed heroes are doing — worshipping. The glory of the One who sits on the throne so overshadows the heroism of any of our stories that John can concentrate on nothing else.

But there's another lesson here besides our relative dullness in the presence of God. In Revelation as in Acts, we common creatures have all things in community. Scot McKnight says of Revelation, "Alongside such visions, of course, is the obvious: humans themselves are joined in fellowship with one another. One is not treated to a blow-by-blow account of 'who sits where' and 'who gets to sit next to whom,' which was the foolish question of James and John. Instead, eternity is so corporate that individuals simply are unrecognized…"

The worshipping throng is so healed of its self-consciousness, so united in humility, so unconcerned with any sort of hierarchy that even the greatest heroes among them blend into the crowd.

I expect (and don't ask me to prove this) that we'll know David and Peter and all the rest when we get to heaven. I hope to spend many a sunset dinner listening to their stories. But I'm also grateful that heaven won't be an eternal episode of The Apprentice, jockeying for attention from the Big Guy. We will be equal with our heroes, not in elevated honor, but in unified humility before the throne which, my son will tell you, has a rainbow around it.

Unity and equity. Worship and joy. I'm so glad my seven-year-old is giving me a clearer picture of heaven.

Relational Eikons

How does your small group relate to Adam and Eve? This morning, I was reading some thoughts from Scot McKnight about the story of God and our place in it. Genesis 1:26-27 says this:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

The word for "image" in those verses corresponds to the Greek word Eikon. We were created in the image of God to be icons of him — incomplete but faithful reflections of a bigger, grander, more perfect being. But what parts of our being are Eikonic? That is, which parts of us reflect the nature of God, and which parts are just baggage? Just so much blood and tissue? And is it even possible to separate the divine from the carnal? Here's what McKnight says about that:

To be an Eikon means, first of all, to be in union with God as Eikons; second, it means to be in communion with other Eikons; and third, it means to participate with God in his creating, his ruling, his speaking, his naming, his ordering, his variety and beauty, his location, his partnering, and his resting…To be an Eikon means to be in relationship.

Of course, Genesis 1:26-27 is followed closely and mercilessly by Genesis 3. That's when conflict entered our story. That's when our enemy attacked everything it means to be an Eikon — our relationships with God, with one another, and with his kingdom reign. Now we are cracked Eikons. We offer inadequate reflections God's glory to a world at odds with his reign.

All that made me think of small groups. Our mission in Small Groups at IBC is to grow deep relationships that advance the kingdom of God in dark places. We are to be on mission together to restore little pieces of our universe that were ruined in Genesis 3. And it occurred to me this morning that those relationship we're building are, themselves, the kingdom. If being Eikons means being in relationship, and if what was cracked in the Fall was relationships, then the Missio Dei can be defined by restored relationships. To the extent that we bring light and health to our relationships with other Eikons, we are helping restore the kingdom reign of God in the world.

One other thing McKnight emphasizes is that this Eikonic restoration is prosecuted by the Holy Spirit. He is leading our charge — opening opportunities for us, revealing the cracks in our reflections, sending us to serve the broken world, calling us to deeper love. Our success in our mission does not correlate to our church attendance, the quality of our training, our allegiance to pastoral leadership, our copious sermon notes, or our agreement to any model of group life. Our success in the mission of God depends on our following the Holy Spirit's lead.

We may never bring Eden back, but if we'll allow the Holy Spirit to deepen our relationships, we can bring light to darkness, joy to despair, health to illness, and the kingdom reign of God to dark places in our world.

Rescuing Andy

My friend Trey did some work for this website called Yonder Journal which looks like what would happen if National Geographic met Field & Stream in an Alaskan hookah hut near the end of a long winter night that had left them both a little raw and vulnerable and … well … you know. In other words, it's awesome. I recommend it.

Reading through some of the stories there made me want to write about other adventures. I don't have many such stories to share (I live in Dallas for crying out loud) but here's one that's fun to tell.

/// \\\

In the autumn of 2011, I climbed a Colorado mountain, sat on the ground with my back against a log, and stayed there for nine hours in the snowfall watching for elk. I was camped with four other men — my father, brother, uncle and cousin. We were on a seven-day hunt in an area called Unit 80 near South Fork. We camped just below 9,000 feet and my predawn hump had taken me well up toward tree line. I watched for movement along the remains of a long-forgotten logging road and whispered a dozen prayers of thanks that my brother was still alive. Twenty-four hours earlier, that had been in doubt.

Unit 80 is a jagged swath of public land between South Fork and Wolf Creek in the Southwest corner of Colorado. Two tributaries of the Rio Grande descend steeply through its pines below sweeping meadows of alpine tundra.

My brother's name is Andy. On the evening before our first day of hunting, Andy had scurried to the point of a little rock outcropping not far from camp with a pair of binoculars. From there, he could see the length of a deep valley stretching at least five miles toward the south. Several parks on the far side of the valley looked like good places to take a stand and glass big chunks of land. That night around the campfire, Andy claimed his hunting grounds. Come morning, he was headed across the valley.

My father's name is Bary. That same morning, he and I left camp in the opposite direction via truck, toward a cirque at the top of the same valley. We had plenty of room. Our 10-mile radios couldn't always  span the distances we created; messages had to be relayed through Uncle Lynn who had stayed behind as camp cook. We stayed out all day. When it was too dark to shoot, we started walking back toward the road, and we started to hear radio chatter.

"Andy dislocated his shoulder," Lynn was saying. "He's stuck on a cliff."

7:45 pm
I catch up with Dad less than a mile from the pickup. He's standing at the apex of a bend in an abandoned logging road, holding up his handheld radio, trying to hear Uncle Lynn clearly.

"He did what to a cliff?" Dad is shouting. "You say he fell off a cliff?"

We get the message that Andy is safe for now, then we hustle back to camp for the rest of the story. Here's what happened:

Andy's descent to the valley floor that morning had been treacherous. He had to scoot down much of the slope on his butt, and that was with a good view for wayfinding. When he returned in the evening, it was nearing dark and he had trouble finding the same route. He knew he had descended somewhere in a narrow gorge cutting into the west side of the valley, but the farther he walked into the gorge, the steeper and more narrow its walls got…and the deeper became the shadows. He spotted a place where he thought he could scramble to the rim of the gorge. It was a climb of about 100 feet and it would be a challenge carrying a day pack and a rifle. He made good progress but then, 30 feet from the top, his right foot slipped. Because of his stance at that moment, most of his weight fell against his left handhold in a violent jerk. Andy has a bad left shoulder, an injury from high school basketball, and the jerk was enough to separate the ball from its socket. Frozen by pain and an awkward stance, Andy radiod camp and asked Lynn to send help. Then he waited, legs locked against narrow footholds and his good arm
— clinging  to a ledge above his head — quickly falling asleep.

Over his shoulder, Andy sees the valley below giving way to shadow. The sun is well below the horizon now. Twilight is fading. And Andy realizes he can't ascend the last 30 feet of gorge with his shoulder out of socket. He will have to set it himself, but he can't maneuver to a position to do that.


8:00 pm
The fifth member of our party is Whit, Lynn's son. Whit is 22 years old, six-foot-two, lanky and athletic. He is just arriving in camp when Andy's first radio calls for help come through. Whit had seen the gorge where Andy said he was going to descend that morning. He drops all his gear in the tent and races into the forest to help. It takes him only a few minutes to find the canyon rim above Andy. What he does next is remarkable. (Later, when the search and rescue team is unpacking ropes and harnesses to descended the same cliff Whit had, they are more than a little skeptical of his story.) Whit manages to clamor to a ledge just above Andy. From there, he lowers a length of "mule tape" which is, providentially, the only provision he happened to bring with him, to Andy whose clenched calves and forearms are shaking and weak with fatigue. Andy isn't sure he can hang on to the mountain much longer. Whit pulls him to the ledge and then hustles back up to the rim, but this time when he lowers the mule tape, Andy isn't biting. He tells Whit he doesn't think he can climb the remaining section. So Whit sits down to mark their position and wait for more help. Andy finally unshoulders his gear and goes about setting the socket. There is only the faintest blue light in the western sky.


8:45 pm
Dad and I arrive at camp with a lot of questions. Lynn has already called search and rescue. There is much debate about sending one of us (probably me) through the dark to find the other two men. Whit left without a coat and now that the temperature is dropping, he's getting cold. Luckily, he also has a radio. We eventually decide to wait for search and rescue, but since we can't risk losing their position, we tell Whit to stay where he is and tough out the cold.


9:00 pm
Andy settles in, sets his shoulder, and makes himself at home on the ledge. It's about the size of a sheet of plywood; if he sits with his back against the mountain, his feet dangle over the edge, but he can lay prone if he turns sideways. We radio Andy that a search and rescue team is on the way and Andy decides that's enough reason to give up on climbing. He won't test his shoulder again; he'll wait for the cavalry.


9:45 pm
A Rio Grande County sheriff's deputy arrives at our camp. His name is Russ. He seems only mildly perturbed at being called out late on a Saturday night. He cheers up considerably when offered a cup of coffee and some of Lynn's venison chili.


10:15 pm
Rio Grande County Search and Rescue is a volunteer organization and our campsite is remote. It takes almost two hours for the first of the team to arrive. Slowly, several others trickle in. One of the first to arrive is Bill, the group's leader. Bill steps over to a folding table under a tarp and lamp where we've spread out a map. Andy has given us his longitude and latitude which his GPS can pinpoint to within 15 meters. He has also given us a verbal description of his location. He has the same map we're using which is also helpful. Bill is impressed. Andy might have been foolhardy to attempt that climb, but at least he was prepared and he's managed to keep his wits. He's cracking jokes about helicopters and insurance over the radio which, it's obvious, is new to Bill's search and rescue experience.


10:45 pm
As his crew arrives and the rescue nears, Bill assumes command of the situation. There's another abandoned logging road that circles nearer Andy's position than our camp. Bill decides that's a better place to start the hike toward the gorge. The team members all get back in their vehicles and head to a rally point on the road. There are more than a dozen of them now. Bill turns to me and says, "I need you to come with us. I want you to be our radio contact with Andy. He's comfortable talking to you. We'll relay all of our instructions through you."

We leave Dad and Lynn at camp. I ride with Deputy Russ whose classic rock Sirius station provides a bizarre soundtrack for the whole bumpy drive.

The team stops at a wide spot in the road while Russ and I drive farther east. If we're right about Andy's location, we should be able to drive to within a quarter mile of him. We're hoping Whit will be able to spot the light bar or hear the sirens from Russ's truck. Russ and I drive until the road gives way completely to forest. No luck. Whit never sees us. He can hear the sirens but can't tell which direction or how far they're coming from.

This is bad news.


11:00 pm
The senior members of the rescue team gather around a map laid out on the hood of a Tacoma pickup. They are debating whether we have Andy's location correct. It's colder now; the other members of the team build a small fire and stand around it rubbing their hands. Somewhere to our east, Whit builds a fire too. He's wearing only insulated pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. But the wind is fierce across the rim of the canyon and Whit worries about losing control of his little fire. He puts it out and shivers.

11:15 pm
Our plan was to have Whit walk out to the road, then turn around and lead us right back to Andy. But now the plan isn't so simple. We ask Andy to fire a shot while we all watch and listen. The report seems to come from the direction we expected but it sounds much farther away than we thought. There is confusion among the team about where Whit and Andy are.


11:30 pm
Bill asks me to tell Whit to walk uphill to the north until he hits the logging road.


11:45 pm
Whit has walked for 15 minutes and seen neither us nor the road.


Midnight
Whit still hasn't found the road. He has no provisions save the radio — no water, no flashlight, inadequate clothing. It begins to dawn on the team that we now have two rescues to execute.


12:30 am
Whit appears. He gave up on finding the road and started heading west toward us, fighting blindly through thick brush and steep terrain. When he appears in someone's headlamp beam, he gets hugs and handshakes all around, from people he has never seen before. Whit probably saved Andy's life when he pulled him to the ledge. And he certainly saved himself; before he appeared, the rescue team was at a loss as to how to find him.


12:45 am
Andy is relieved to hear that Whit is safe, but there is bad news to follow the good. Bill leaves his huddle around the Tacoma and walks out into the dark where I'm chatting with Andy on the radio, trying to keep his spirits up.

"I've made a decision not to go after Andy tonight," Bill tells me. "I need you to tell him that we're delaying the rescue until daybreak. It's too risky for me to send my team out there in the dark if we don't know where we're going."

I can hear something in Andy's voice when I give him the news. Maybe it's fear. Maybe frustration. Maybe it's some of the self-recrimination that kept popping up and I would have to beat it back and tell him he made an honest mistake and we needed him to keep his head and not descend into despair or panic. His voice cracked and he asked about another scenario, but he knew Bill was right. Within seconds, he recovered and said he could tough it out. But when I suggest that we turn off the radios to save battery and just check in every hour on the hour, he responds with, "How about every half-hour?"


1:30 am
When an emergency call goes out, all the available volunteers are expected to respond. Tonight there are more volunteers available than usual. By the time Bill calls it, there are 17 of them stomping their feet around the little fire on the logging road. Bill selects four of them to perform the rescue and tells them to be at our camp at 6:00am. The rest he dismisses. Two of the select crew — a boyfriend and girlfriend who had driven all the way from Del Norte — head home to get a very short night's sleep. Bill and the other two accept our invitation to crash at camp. One of them takes my bunk, another takes Andy's, and a third sleeps in his truck. I lay a sleeping bag next to the campfire but only spend about 30 minutes in it that night, none of them asleep.


2 am
Andy has plenty of water and a little food. He has firestarter, but no fuel on the rocky ledge. He has the radio and GPS both with plenty of battery. Most importantly, since he has been out since early morning, he has warm clothing. All-in-all, he is well-outfitted to spend a night outside, which is good because the forecast is chilly. October at 9,000 feet is never balmy. I tell him the low will be in the teens, but no precipitation is expected.


2:30 am
Andy checks in. He has an update on his gear and the temperature. It's windy on the ledge.


3 am
Andy checks in. Doesn't say much.


3:30 am
I can't raise him on the radio. When he checks in he says he dozed off for a few minutes.


4 am
One or two words about the cold.


4:30 am 
...


5 am
Coldest part of the night. I remind Andy that we're an hour away from assembling the team.


5:30 am
Two of the guys wake up. Andy sounds more lucid.


5:45 am
The couple from Del Norte arrives early, which is remarkable since they couldn't have slept for more than two hours.


6 am
There's a faint light in the sky. Lynn is up making breakfast but no one is interested yet. Bill takes another look at the map and decides not to drive down to the logging road. We'll walk from camp following the route Whit took when he ran toward Andy the evening before.


6:30 am 
Seven of us set out — five rescuers, Whit and I. It's a relatively easy hike and we take it fast. Eager.

7 am
The sun has broken wide and warm over the mountains across the valley by the time we get to Andy. It takes the rescue team less than 15 minutes to rope up, rappel to the ledge, put a harness on Andy, and help him to the top. There are deep sighs and a few tears. We send the news back to camp via radio and Lynn invites the whole crew back for biscuits and gravy.


8 am
The couple from Del Norte are both uber-fit marathoners from Wisconsin. They have never had biscuits and gravy. Lynn shames them for this and piles their plate with enough calories to take them to Kona and back.

Andy is effusive. The team soaks up the gratitude as quickly as the biscuits soak up the gravy. Then we pose for a group photo, shake hands all around, and say good-bye.

/// \\\

No one got a shot at an elk that trip. Andy didn't hunt very heartily after that. On the afternoon of the day Andy was rescued, it started to snow, and by the time we broke camp, Unit 80 was buried under three feet of it. We sloshed off the mountain with broken gear, wet clothes and wasted elk tags, but grateful that the weather held, that Andy kept his wits, that Whit turned adrenaline-powered-mountain-goat for a few minutes, that God seemed to be watching over us, and that Rio Grande County Volunteer Search and Rescue comes through in a pinch.

Agency

In this story we are telling, we have agency. God calls us to be his intimate allies, his ambassadors in the world. But allies and ambassadors aren't just lackeys; they think for themselves. The common Christian self-image of a sheep, a servant or "clay in the hands of the potter" is incomplete.

Sometimes our churches work so hard to encourage obedience to law of God that they leave little room for intimacy with the Spirit of God. This week, I was reading Thomas Merton's treatise on spiritual direction for religious and came across this sentence:

We should not flee from responsibility, and we should not make such a fetish out of spiritual direction that, even though we are mature and responsible clerics, we refuse to move an inch without being "put under obedience" — in other words without someone else assuming responsibility for us. 

We have agency. It is not usurping God to use it; it is glorifying him. Like a son, it disappoints God when we don't rise to opportunities to reflect him well without being told.

For a nice, clean-cut church kid, this can be a hard lesson to learn. If you make a habit of obedience, you can also make a habit of acquiescence. You can live half your life without making a hard decision — college, major, job, home, even spouse can all be chosen from "approved lists", from a pattern of living up to expectations. How many coming-of-age stories have we heard about this? How many more must we hear to realize the importance of claiming agency?

The story worth writing — the Christian who is serious about his commission — takes initiative. He leaves Ur, risks death in the face of the giant, sails to Cyprus, dances before the ark. He takes actions that are his own idea and reflect his unique identity and calling.

It is not the mark of a mature Christian that he must always be told what to do.

Tour de Life

For most of this month, I was among the few Americans who paid attention to the Tour de France. On Sunday, I watched the 100th tour speed to its colorful finish under the iconic Arc de Triomphe, the sprinters hammering their pedals with superhuman strength and balance to win the final stage while the overall winner coasted smoothly across the finish line with his hands on the shoulders of his teammates, the yellow jersey spread proudly across his narrow chest.

The Tour de France is never won on the final stage. There are no buzzer-beaters on the Champs-Elysees. This year, at Briton named Chris Froome won. He did it with a victory on Stage 8 on a relatively obscure day to a seldom-visited mountain called Ax-3 Domaines. He did not win the Tour on the final day or on the iconic, pressure-ridden climbs of famous mountains like Alpe d'Huez or Mont Ventoux. When he peddled his heart out in Stage 8, he didn't know he was winning the Tour de France; he just knew he was doing his best.

I like that because I think that's how life is. We don't count it a beautiful or successful life if someone hangs around and goes through the motions for eighty years and then literally throws up a Hail Mary just before they run out of time. Life is won or lost in the middle, in the day-to-day, on the weekdays, under the weight and pulse of breathing and working and loving and eating and cuddling for a few minutes before you tuck the kids in.

This year, like almost every other year, the final stage of the Tour de France was more of a parade than a race — a victory lap with lots of smiles and photos and handshakes and champagne and pats on the back. That's how I want to finish. I don't want my last years to be a race to make up for lost time. I want to put in the hard work now, to win in the millions of little peddle strokes that happen in the mundane and obscure, so I can finish my ride with peace and celebration.

I'm a cycling fan. Thanks to Lance and the rest of the dope-heads in the pro peloton, I sometimes feel like I'm the last one on the planet, but I still love the sport. And I think it still has something to teach us about teamwork, fair play, and life.

Exclusive Love

I've been thinking about loving well lately. There are some people in my life who are hard to love. This morning, it occurred to me that love is exclusionary by definition, if not of people then at least of circumstances. To love is to place value in and have affection for. I do that to Christine to the exclusion of others. I love my kids equally, but I exclude other kids from the level of love I give to my own. Even if Jesus loves "all the little children of the world" he excludes something. He doesn't love poverty or injustice. In fact, the Bible says God hates those things. So there's an interesting logical loop —

God is love …
God hates injustice …
Love hates.

As with every other virtue, love is meaningless without its antithesis. You can't have love without hate. Christine hates cancer because she loves me; she hates cancer because it threatens her beloved.

This would be easy to live out if we could always separate the people God loves from the things that threaten their wellbeing, but of course we can't. We are a messy, idolatrous species; we marry our identities to things that destroy us. So to follow Jesus' example of loving others, do you love their addictions? Their character flaws? Their generational curses that they have come to see as as much a part of their identity as their own name? Do you hate the drunk as well as his bottle? Or do you love them both? And even if you can separate them, will he be able to?

Of course, there's another danger here which is summed up in that terrific line from Anne Lamott: "You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

What if I got really good at loving people? What if we all did? What would that do to our relationships? (Would deep love actually end some relationships?) What would it do to our churches? To our world?

Be Loved

In my last post, I said that the purpose of the Bible is not to stymie us with rules but to woo us with love. I think that's an easy distinction to forget. As Mark Matlock's message reminded me so powerfully yesterday, the purpose of any rule of life is to help us hit the target, not just to keep us from veering off course.

My reading plan had me in Revelation this week. There's an interesting sentence in Jesus' letter to the church at Philadelphia. At the end of all things, when Jesus comes to set all things right, he intends to include an awareness campaign about his love. Verse nine says:

"I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who cain to be Jews though they are not, but are liars — I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you."

At the end, the enemies of the church won't come and acknowledge that we were right, that our politics made sense, that we were smart or righteous or had the right answers. The thing about us that they will recognize — the thing that will identify us — is that Jesus loves us. That is your identity.

Think about that.
Let it sink in.

Your deepest, truest identity is that you are God's beloved. Whatever cinders you are raking, whatever kitchen you are slaving in, whatever clock you are punching, whatever heartache you are facing, whatever failure haunts your past, whatever worry darkens your future, those things do not define you. Your deepest and truest identity is that you are a child of the King and you are loved.

That's what the Bible is about. That's what I want to be about.

Polyester Piety

Stop the presses! Call the pope! The atheists discovered the "polyester clause"!

Twice in the last few days I've watched internet videos from people seeking to discredit Christianity by pointing at polyester-wearing believers and crying "hypocrisy!" Let me see if I can put this to bed.

The issue here is with the Old Testament verse of Leviticus 19:19 which says, "Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material." The YouTubers I watched read that verse and surmised that any Christian who wore clothing made of mixed materials was a raging hypocrite and therefore disqualified to speak on any other religious topic.

We'll get to some basic Bible interpretation in a minute, but let's start with the most obvious problems with these tirades. Does anyone really think that Christians would hesitate to rid their closets of polyester if they believed the Bible forbade it? Really? So Christians are willing to forgo sex, drink, gambling, and rated R movies. They're willing to be shunned and made fun of. Some in other countries are even willing to be beaten or martyred, but DON'T ask them to part with those polyester pants! Trust me, if an honest reading of the Bible even remotely hinted that wearing polyester was sinful, there would be churches and rallies and prayer vigils and all manner of crusading against such fabric evils.

Clearly, there is more going on here. That brings me to my second point. It's insulting to presume that someone's first reading of this verse could unearth a centuries long scandal in the church. Assuming Christians aren't just flippantly disregarding the word of God (Christians aren't good at a lot of things, but we're world-class at taking God seriously.) Then such a view assumes one of two things.

1. Christians have known about the polyester clause for lo these many centuries and have covered it up via Da Vinci Code conspiracies in a rebellious, Templar-supervised, campaign to keep hold of our wide-collar polyester shirts. 
2. Christians don't read their Bibles and don't know how ridiculous some of its content is. Again, hardly believable. What do you think we do in those churches every week? Trust me: Christians read their Bibles. We've been doing it for a looooong time. Some of the greatest minds in the history of the world (I am not exaggerating here) have spent their lives in pursuit of studying the Christian scriptures. Literally millions of scholars have poured over Leviticus down through the ages. We are not surprised by polyester. 

So what's up with Leviticus 19:19? If you're interested enough to have read this far, you must really want to know, so here goes. In the Old Testament, God gave the nation of Israel a LOT of laws. Really, it's staggering. There were laws about what to eat, what to wear, when to work and rest, what to sacrifice, when to sacrifice it, how to sacrifice it, what to call the sacrifice, yadda, yadda. In many cases, the Bible is clear about the reasons for the laws. Some laws are given for health reasons and the Bible says as much. (Ancient Israelites may not have known about E. coli, but God did and he protected them from it in the cradle of civilization; much like parents protect their kids.) Some laws were given for ceremonial purposes, so that Israelites would always be reminded of the greatness or holiness or mercy of God. And some laws were given on moral basis: don't kill. Killing is bad. (As an aside, the laws given on moral basis reflect some character of God. Killing is bad - life if good - God is life. Lying is bad - truth-telling is good - God is truth. Hate is bad - love is good - God is love.)

Many Christians and Jews alike believe that many of the health-related laws were meant for a certain time in Israel's history either as protection during a time of primitive health care and food storage, or as a testimony to surrounding nations about Israel's special status.

Christians also believe that ceremonial laws no longer apply because of the sacrificial death of Jesus. We don't kill lambs at church to atone for our sins because Jesus, the Lamb of God, serves as the once-and-for-all sacrifice.

But both Christians and Jews agree that moral laws still apply because they appeal to unchanging moral realities.

Now, here comes the tricky part: which laws are purely ceremonial and which are seriously moral? The Bible isn't always clear. Some cases (like murder and polyester) are easy. Others are murky. That's why intelligent minds have argued these issues for centuries and will continue to do so.

And that's the most important lesson in all this: the Bible isn't a rule book or a series of math formulas. It's a story: an epic, cosmic, fantastic tale of beauty and loss and deception and pain and redemption and joy. It's not meant to be easy to obey or even understand. If God wanted to give us a rule book and make us sit down, eat our broccoli and behave, he could have. Instead, he wants to woo us. He wants us to see him for all his grandeur and goodness. He wants us to fall in love.

And you don't do that by niggling over polyester.

The Price of Luxury

There's a car commercial that's been driving me nuts lately. Here's the script:

You wake up in your luxury bed and slide out of your luxury sheets. You get into your luxury shower and dry off with your luxury towel. You put on your luxury suit and your luxury watch. You grab your luxury coffee from your luxury coffee maker and add some luxury sugar. You step out of your luxury house and step into your luxury car…which makes everything else seem ordinary. Introducing the Acura RLX...

It's amazing to me that any ad agency was able to talk a client into producing this spot, and than any client was shallow enough to do so. I'm sure all the market research pointed to the fact that their target market loves luxury, but at what point do you say, "You know what? We're not going to give them what they want. We're going to appeal to the better angels of their nature. We're going to be that kind of car company."?

Maybe this commercial sticks out to me because of its similarity to an example I heard Donald Miller use recently. He suggested that we imagine our lives like a movie. We get to decide what kind of movie we want to make. Now imagine that our greatest ambition is to buy a nice car, retire early, and go snorkeling. Imagine watching a movie where that's the climax. The hero drives off the lot in his new Acura and the credits roll. Does that story move you? Does that story matter? Is anyone in the audience touched by that story?

No.

But we let ourselves believe that a little more luxury will bring us a better story. Instead, it just brings us a comfortable chair in which to live out terrible stories.

I know wealth is relative. I realize that I am more wealthy than 90 percent of the people on the planet. I'm writing this post on a $2,000 computer, for heaven's sake! So I see the potential for hypocrisy in decrying someone else's love of luxury. But I can't help but at least mention it, because I think our luxury is robbing us blind.

Our family supports a little girl named Sabrina in Tanzania through Compassion International. Here's what I keep hearing when I watch that Acura spot:

Sabrina wakes up in her dirty bed on the dirty floor of her dirty hut. She walks dirty streets to her dirty school. After school, she plays with her dirty doll. Then she washes down dinner with dirty water and flashes a smile at her grandmother framed by dirty cheeks.

The question is: which story is better? The Acura story or Sabrina's? And the surprising answer is: neither. Both are rife with poverty. Both are ruining lives. As World Vision President Wess Stafford likes to say, "The opposite of poverty isn't wealth. The opposite of poverty is 'enough'."

Conflicting Idea

Here's another way communication technology is hindering communication — it makes it easier for us to demonize our opponents.


This week I have had disagreements with political opponents and with my homeowners association. Neither disagreement happened in person. Neither included a handshake or a cup of coffee. And both have led to significant stress and tension. I just can't help but think that those discussions would have gone better if I could have sat down with the other party and looked them in the eye. It's easy to deny requests, suspect motives, and even call names when there's no relational impact to those actions, when you don't have to face the person you're insulting. Facebook, email, telephones, even postal mail are all poor forums for conflict.

So are passing lanes. I know a young man who lost his sight and almost lost his life because of the road rage of someone he had never met. Would that angry driver have shot someone who cut in line at Starbucks instead of on an exit ramp? Probably not. Like communications media, cars make us anonymous and therefore more easily "othered".

Maybe Jesus had it right when he said, “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you."

Resting

I love this description of Sabbath so I'm going to write it again: Sabbath is a reminder that we are human. Psalm 121:4 says that God never sleeps. But we do. We have to. Have you ever known anyone who never slept? I have. They were called architecture majors. They weren't human. But for the rest of us, we have to rest. Every night we get this reminder that we aren't God. And once a week we need to purposefully rest.

That's harder than it sounds. The age-old temptation — the one that tempted Eve in the garden — is to pretend that we are God, to behave like we don't have those limitations. So we work seven days a week. We work nights. We refuse to be quiet. We think, "I'll just get through this busy time and then take a break" while we ingrain the habit of ignoring our nature and God's design.

Sabbath is a discipline that saves us from that. Sabbath is codified humility.

What about you? Are you practicing sane rhythms or work and rest?

Underground, Overcrowded

My friend Shawn Small is a master traveler. He's so savvy, in fact, other people pay him to help them travel well. Last week, a shortened version of my most feeble travel story appeared on his blog. If you want insightful thoughts on God, travel and culture, you should follow Shawn. If you want an extended laugh at a travel novice, read on.

Some lessons are best learned in solitude. Some are best learned through failure. And some come most clearly while stranded in a dark subway tunnel under Paris. 

When Christine and I were 25 — still acting like kids and newlyweds — we made our first visit to Europe. We had a friend, Selena, doing graduate work at the University of Liverpool and we decided that was as good an excuse as any to visit the UK. Selena was also friends with Christine's sister Ellen, so we decided to take her along. Of the many mistakes that colored this trip, that was among the biggest. Do not go to Europe with your sister-in-law; I don't care how nice she is. You will find yourself watching other couples stroll romantic cobblestone streets in the City of Light while you eat at Chili's and carry extra bags. 

The second mistake we made on this trip was to overbook it. We should have been content with Liverpool and London. Instead, we crammed in Scotland and Paris. I would have traded all of the latter for more of the former, but it's the latter that taught me the lesson of this story.

A third mistake (the list of mistakes could go on for pages but I'll stop at three for now) was that none of us spoke French. Christine's French was the best among us but it was still shaky. We were staking our travel on the language skills of a 25-year-old who, when worried about making a flight on time, asked a cabbie, "How many minutes does the airport have?" 

On the penultimate day of our trip, a Sunday, Christine, Ellen and I awoke in the center of Paris, two blocks from the Champs-Elysees. Thirty-six hours later, we were supposed to be resting on our own beds. Between Sunday morning and Monday afternoon, we were scheduled to catch a subway train out of city center to a station named Laplace, transfer to an airport shuttle in the suburbs (we weren't flying from de Gaulle, of course, because we were 25 and trying to pinch every penny possible), catch a flight to London, ride a bus back to Liverpool where we could stay with Selena for free, and get up early for our low-fare-no-refund flight back to the states. If any of those transportation dominoes failed to fall in line, we would be stranded in Europe. Stranded in Europe with your vivacious young wife isn't a bad prospect. Stranded in Europe with your wife and her sister is completely different. 

Ellen has severe allergies and asthma, so Paris was hard on her. Our Sunday had an ominous beginning when she threw up in a subway concourse and had to explain it to police. We hadn't even touched the first domino in our journey home when we found ourselves huddled around a garbage can in an empty subway corridor, patting Ellen on the back and hoping not to be delayed too long. Just then, three men in fatigues and berets walked around the corner. Two of them were carrying assault rifles. I still don't know if they were police, military, or terrorists but they seemed to think we were a threat to public safety, or just Americans which, I came to believe, were synonyms to most Parisians. They asked us, "Is there a problem here?" We did our best to make them understand that we were only sick and weary travelers, a communication that failed until Christine, our language expert, used the universal sound and sign language for vomit, at which point they retreated. We managed to buy train tickets and hop aboard just in time. We were headed home. 

The streets and subway in Paris are largely vacant early on Sunday mornings. There was little conversation as our train clattered through its tunnel. Ellen was still feeling sick and the rocking of the train didn't help. There were only two other people on the train with us. At one stop, two stations ahead of Laplace, the doors opened, a voice made an announcement in French which we did not understand, both of our fellow travelers got off, and the train sped away again. It seemed like every other stop along the line. But then our train halted. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. In the tunnel. In the dark. Not at a platform. Turns out, that announcement we didn't understand was explaining that we had reached the end of the line for shortened Sunday service. Our train and its conductor were ending their shifts and we were stranded somewhere under Paris contemplating the very real possibility of hiking through dark subway tunnels in search of escape. Ellen barfed again. 

Apparently, thanks to previous traveling American idiots like us, or due to admirable French foresight, there is a rule in place for Parisian train conductors that they have to sweep their train for stowaways before they park it for good. We were in the last car and, eventually, the conductor found us, fidgeting and worrying next to our puddle of American vomit. He was unhappy. We got a tongue-lashing that I'm certain would have been offensive if we knew what he was saying, and eventually understood from him that we should not exit the train and walk aimlessly through the tunnels under Paris. We should stay put. He would take us back to the last stop. 

That was a help but not as much help as we needed. We were still two stops away from our transfer point at Laplace and time was ticking. In a mad rush, we read time tables to find another route to Laplace, dashed up and down stairs to the designated platform, jumped aboard, and hoped that this line, too, wasn't shortened for Sunday service. This was the long way — it would require an extra transfer — but we were back on our way to Laplace, and to Texas.

Our train was now above ground and we were happy to see the warm, golden hue of sunlight splashed against the graffiti-ridden sound walls that lined our new route. We made several stops, inching closer to Laplace and hoping to fell all the dominoes just in time. And that's when Christine's French kicked in again. We stopped at a station called Maison Lafitte. An announcement came on and Christine shot up from her chair. With a look of terror in her eyes she gasped, "He said…he said…it's-a-no-good!" Then she grabbed her bag and bounded off the train.

Christine had recognized an important word in the announcement; something that sounded like "terminus". Her communique, "It's-a-no-good!" was meant to convey that we had to get off the train or risk another delay and another tongue-lashing from an angry conductor. Ellen and I didn't interpret as quickly as we should have. We did our best to follow Christine's lead but Ellen was groggy from nausea and I was carrying my bags as well as hers. By the time we gathered ourselves and moved toward the exit, the doors were closing. There was a moment, forever seared in my memory, when I lunged my luggage-laden hands toward the doors, seeing my young wife on the platform outside, still with terror in her eyes, mouthing the word, "Noooooo!" 

Too late. The train was moving, leaving Christine behind. Through the windows, I managed to send her one final message. I pointed to the platform and shouted, "Stay here!" 

Ellen and I sped away toward the "terminus" which, this time, was an enormous train yard above ground. We knew the drill. The train stopped. The conductor ambled aft. We stood in the doorway of our car, rather proud this time to know our way around "terminus" and not to have soiled his train with the waning contents of Ellen's stomach. We had the pleasure of meeting two conductors this time — one ending his shift and another beginning his. The two stood on the ground next to the train and spoke in angry tones while making animated gestures toward us. Then they shook hands, said good-bye, and the new conductor mounted his train and drove us back to town. 

On the ride back in, Ellen and I did some math. We expected to get back to Maison Lafitte just four minutes before another train that could still deliver us to Laplace in time to catch the shuttle in time to catch our flight to London. From here on out, we needed everything to go right or all was lost. I gave something of a pep-talk, encouraging Ellen to fight through her nausea. 

We arrived at Maison Lafitte and saw Christine across the station. Now that we were in-bound, our train was on a different set of tracks, one removed from the platform where we left Christine. To get to her, we had to race up stairs, across a street, and back down to ground level. We had no time to spare. We shot up the steps and raced to the turnstile that guarded the steps down to Christine. This particular turnstile wasn't just the people-counter version you cross to get on roller coasters. It was a fortified gate built into a chain link fence. I slid my paper train pass into the automated turnstile, and it popped back out at me. The gate stayed closed. I tried again. Nothing. Ellen tried. Same result. Then it occurred to me that our tickets wouldn't work at Maison Lafitte because we were never supposed to catch a train here. Just then I looked down the tracks to see our train chugging into view. I grabbed Ellen's bag and threw it over the fence. I shouted, "Climb!" and started to hoist my sister-in-law over a chain-link fence in an effort to trespass on French mass transit. 

It didn't work. Ellen couldn't make the climb and I realized we were too late anyway. We watched the train pull to a stop and load several passengers who would have preferred to stay and watch the desperate American sideshow. Christine came to the turnstile, eyes red with tears, grabbed the bag I had thrown over the fence, and exited the Parisian train system for the last time, defeated. 

We had one final course of action and we took it. There was a cab stand outside Maison Lafitte and, even though we were far from the airport, we asked a cabbie if he could get us there in time for our flight. He saw it as both a challenge and an opportunity. I am certain of two things about that cab ride: we did not pay the standard fare, and we got to the airport in time. Thirty-five hours later, we were home. 

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from my experience in Paris. Probably the most obvious is this: Don't go to Paris. They speak another language there. Also, sister-in-law-vomit isn't charming even in the most romantic city in the world.

But the more subtle and more personal lesson for me had to do with my heritage. I grew up in a rural Texas town of 1,200 people. I like to visit cities and I can make a living in suburbs, but I am most deeply at home in locales where people are sparse. A week before the debacle at Maison Lafitte, Christine and I had enjoyed a lovely, relaxing overnight in Fort William, Scotland. We met some locals who did us a favor. We explored a highland walk dotted with sheep. We sampled haggis. It was quaint and pastoral with no drama and no angry train conductors. I'm not sure that the difference between our Scottish and French experiences can be attributed entirely to language (some of the brogue spoken is Scotland was as hard to understand as French). In France I realized my fluency in a language whose alphabet is solitude and whose grammar is neighborliness. In the immortal words of John Denver, "I'm just a country boy." It took being stranded in the Paris underground to learn that.