Why I Like Craig Barnes

Glad Lonely Anger 

This is some of why I'm reading everything I can get my hands on by Craig Barnes:

"To live with absence in the midst of our gardens means that the deep yearnings of the spirit are part of what makes us human.  Most important, our need always provides the opportunity to renew our dependency on the grace of God. What we call need or 'defect' can become our greatest altar of worship."

"Of course, to be in the hands of the Creator is rather frightening.  Who knows what He will do?  To be dependent upon Him for the creation of our life is never a passive process. To receive His grace means we will spend most of our days struggling with God and agonizing over His intentions as well as rejoicing over the good creation as it takes shape.  Thus, the confession what we are unable to get the life of our dreams is the first step toward authentic spirituality. As it places us in the position of dependency upon the grace of God, it guides the rest of our steps into spirituality as well."

"There is no one for whom God's refusal to be captured by His creation is more intolerable than those who think of themselves as religious."

"We cannot be dependent upon God yet capture Him through spiritual disciplines. What we can do is look to the thirst of life as a humbling opportunity to worship God, who alone has the waters of eternal life both for us and for the anxious world around us."

"Undertaking Christian discipleship is not a way of getting life right. It is a way of confessing our inability to ever get it right, and that without the grace of God in Jesus Christ we would have no hope of leading meaningful lives."

"Doubt is not the enemy of faith, but its constant companion.  The great biblical models of faith all had doubts about God's goodness. These doubts never betrayed a lack of faith. Actually, these men and women's faith in God's goodness was so strong that it had to take seriously the questions that seriously challenged God's character.  If there had been no faith there would have been no struggle, only the nihilistic resignation of 'so it goes.' Faith is the prize of those who pass through deep waters and strain for a deeper understanding of their God."

You can find "Yearning: Living Between How It Is And How It Ought To Be" here on Amazon.com for almost the price of shipping.  

50th Birthday. Best Gift I've Ever Received.

Glad Sad Lonely

When my dad died I don’t remember shedding many deep tears.  By deep tears, I mean those tears that feel like they start in your toes and seem to gather with them every part of your gut and your chest before eventually pouring themselves out like buckets of water falling from your eyes -- those kinds of tears.

When my dad died, I was sad.  But mostly sad for what never was and what I would never have. I only knew the absence of my dad, so in his death, I could only grieve the loss of a presence I never knew (and could only imagine).  I remember an odd feeling of relief when he died that there was a finality to the decades of pretending, excusing, hoping, imagining, longing, denying, and wishing. 

I’ve been to my share of funerals, and what I know is that you can’t stand there staring at a dead body forever, wishing life would once again animate what is now a lifeless shell that once carried around who they were.  You close the casket, lower it in the ground, cover it with six feet of dirt, and keep living.

That’s what happened when my dad died.  Except for me, his physical death merely marked the end of four decades of standing over a dead corpse wanting in vain for it to live.  My dad passed away when I was in my 40’s, but he mostly died when I was only three years old. 

I got letter from one of my kids for my 50^th birthday (he shares about the writing of it in his blog:  http://jayschulte.blogspot.com/).  I wept uncontrollably when I read the letter he wrote to me.  Deep tears of gratefulness . . . as deep as I think I’ve ever cried.  

“My son will grieve when I'm gone,” I thought.  “Not the grief of what he never had . . . but a deep sadness that honors the loss of something very valuable that he HAD and from that day forward will miss . . . even as the gift that is our relationship stays with him long after I’m gone.”  

Nothing I've done in this life will be as eternally significant as the giving and sharing of my heart with my kids.  NOTHING.  I've known this in my head since becoming a dad 21 years ago.  But I knew it deep in my heart on the occasion of my 50th.

"Bring me the books, especially the parchments . . ."

Glad Sad Lonely

If I died today, I’m not sure where my body would be buried. 

When I bought a house on Studer Rd. in Little Rock, I said to my friends, “You can bury me in the front yard because I don’t plan to go anywhere.”  When I moved to Nashville fifteen years ago and bought a house in Hidden Valley I said to my friends, “You can bury me in the back yard (I liked the back yard of this house better than the front) because I don’t plan to go anywhere!”   I live in Alaska now and I have NOT and will NOT make that statement again. 

Six years ago, a mentor said to me, “Jeff, you’ve been looking for home your whole life.”  When I told Al Henson I felt “homeless” he said, “You’ve tried your best to make something here on Earth feel like home, but Jesus is your home.”

There is much I’d like to blog about this topic. In fact, my heart and mind are boiling with thoughts as I write this.  But today, I want to introduce you to my new favorite author:  M. Craig Barnes.

Before our big move to Alaska, I gave away 1/3 of my pastoral library – hundreds of books piled to the ceiling of the entire back of my 1994 red Toyota 4Runner.  If I had to cull my books again (and I likely will), there are only a few I’d not want to part with.  Included in that number would be my collection of Craig Barnes.

The following is the first couple paragraphs from Searching for Home: Spirituality for Restless Souls.  

"The sun was shining hard on my father’s coffin as it lay perched above the hole in the ground where he would finally stay put.

We were standing in one of those stark cemeteries that don’t have any trees.  The grave markers were tarnished little plaques that lie low on their backs just below the grass line, so it wouldn’t be hard for the guys who mow the brown lawn. Dad had spent most of his life in the shadows, so I knew he would hate this place and be eager to join those hiding under the ground, protected from the revealing light.

He spent the first part of his life trying to be at home in the respectable places.  Not only was he the head of our home, but he was the head of our home church, serving as the pastor.  But failing at all of that, he left when I was a teenager. For almost thirty years I never knew where he was as he abandoned all who loved him.  He abandoned every notion of home to roam about as a tourist through life.  He died alone on Thanksgiving 2000.  At the time he was living in a raggedy Airstream camping trailer parked at the “Mobile Home Village” somewhere in the middle of Florida.  We buried him a few miles down the road.

If it were up to him, and for the first time it wasn’t, he wouldn’t have shown up for his funeral. But there he was. So dead, and yet finally so present.  It was the one last pathetic irony in the life of a father known mostly through absence. 

I was never sure about where home was for my dad, but I knew this wasn’t it.  Burying him 'a few miles down the road' may have been the perfect symbol of his meandering life, but it was still a lonely one. We imagine that our loved ones will one day be placed under a large oak tree on a grassy knoll not far from the family homestead.  That way even their graves will tether us to the home where our souls are always nurtured and our identities renewed.  But my father is now resting near the highway somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Standing beside that barren grave, watching the dry wind toy with a piece of litter along the road, I wondered if this was the identity to which I was tethered.  I had never thought about home much before that afternoon, but since then it’s been my great passion.  What is home?  Where is mine? And how do we conduct lives that amount to something more than getting a few miles down the road to nowhere special?"

Growth

Glad Angry (passion) Lonely


A year ago Interlinc called and asked if they could interview my oldest son Jay for a ConGRADulations DVD they were creating to give High School students across the country as a graduation gift.


When Jay did this short interview (a cheap camera sitting on a table with one take for each question) none of us had any idea what the next twelve months of his life would look like. 


I remember thinking as I watched him answer these questions, "Where did this kid come from?  How did my boy become such a man?  When did that happen?" 


They say in Alaska that there are four seasons:  winter, winter, winter, and winter.  


That's really not true.  There are two seasons.  Summer -- about 3 months.  And winter -- nine months.  Fall lasts about a week and Spring lasts about a week.  They happen so fast you can't even call them a season.  


In one week the trees can be full of leaves and a week later they are bare.  In the Spring when the trees start budding, they go from bare to fully leafed out in a week as well. 


When I lived in Tennessee, Fall lasted from September till November (3 months) and the Spring lasted from late February until May (3 months). 


Life is like that I think.  Sometimes growth is so slow we barely notice it's happening. Sometimes it happens so fast, we can't catch our breath.  


Here is the interview with my then Senior in High School giving himself good advice he'd need to hear a year later . . . now a freshman in college.  


God doing for Jay what Jay could not do for himself. 


http://www.interlinc-online.com/news/article_784.html

GROWTH.

Home Alone

Lonely Sad Glad Fear

In addition to my normal work and life schedule, in the past two months I have:

• Sent my oldest son off to college in New Hampshire.
• Put my oldest daughter on a plane for a semester in England.
• Flown to the Philippines for 12 days to train, equip, and encourage the Compassion International Filipino staff and 700 Palawan pastors.
• Recovered from a 4 week illness (a parting gift from the Philippines) that shed almost 20 pounds from a frame that can’t afford to lose that much weight.
• Preached messages in 9 church services in the USA.
• Spoken at a men’s outreach based upon the movie Courageous and facilitated the four week follow-up.
• Undergone an endoscopy (camera down my throat into as far as the camera would go) for a still undiagnosed illness.
• Planned and hosted a dinner/auction to raise funding for what I do with Sage Hill (a 501c3 non-profit).
• Video taped 4 ½ hours of Sage Hill content for a Men’s Fraternity (men’s curriculum) remix.
• Led a weekend retreat for a “who’s who” of young leaders in a L48 city.
• Attended two board meetings in the L48.
• Met with influential leaders from a country where living out your faith in Christ can be a life and death proposition to plan my next trip to their country in January.

As I write this I am about to board a flight home (at least headed that direction) after two days of airline mechanical failure and weather delays.  (It’s gonna take three different airlines to get me home and I haven’t seen my luggage in 48 hrs).

When I see this on paper it looks crazy. 

Rather than write about the insanity that was behind this, I'm contemplating the impact of it.

I’m lonely for me.

These past eight weeks have been about survival . . . in my mind pushing into and out of each opportunity or challenge (mostly good stuff) knowing that I’d have a couple days coming at Thanksgiving to get my breath and recharge my batteries.

That’s how I used to live when my life was out of control. Pushing and pressing through life like a camel surviving the desert until the next oasis.  But it’s not how I’ve lived, or learned to live, for the past six years. 

I’ll always work hard, but this isn’t about working hard.  It’s about having myself and being myself in the work vs. riding myself like a beast of burden to get the work done . . . not being human . . . not acknowledging the neediness of my humanity and my hunger for relationships that feed my soul.  My relationship with me.  My relationship with God. My relationship with my family.  My relationship with a few friends.

My 17 and 14 year old daughters saw it.  They attributed it to me being sick for a month.  “Daddy, you’ve not been yourself.”  But it wasn’t my digestive system that was sick, it was my heart.

As I think about going home today, I’m mostly thinking about “going home.”  Brenda misses me.  My kids miss me.  I’ve got a few friends who miss me.  Again, not because I’ve been traveling some, but because I’ve not been “home” in my own heart for awhile.  Going home today means going home to me first.

And if I’m not at home (pre-occupied, distracted, motor running, surviving, getting it done, checking the box, mentally in the future and emotionally not present), it doesn’t matter if I’m sleeping in my own bed in my own house in physical proximity to my family and friends, I’m still not home.  

If I’m running so fast and so far ahead of myself . . . if I’m not paying attention to my life and the living of my life . . . if my life is in the doing more than in the being . . . if I’m not answering God’s question, “Jeff where are you?”  I’m not here. 

No wonder my wife is lonely for me. My kids are lonely for me.  My friends have told me they are lonely for me.  If I don’t have me, they don’t get me because I can’t give what I don’t have.

Get you.  Have you. Give you.

I’m going home today.  Then I’ll go home.

Mirrors from Jay Schulte

Glad Sad Lonely

When I dropped Jay off at the airport a couple weeks ago I held him, cried, prayed for him, and sang a blessing over him.  I saw the sadness in his eyes.  Even some fear as he held Brenda for what seemed like forever (not long enough for Brenda I'm sure) and prepared to leave.  

But then as he turned to walk away, I saw something else.  I saw a smile break over his face and a light come on in his eyes that seemed to say that even in the sadness of leaving family, he knew he was walking into the adventure that is "his" life.  Always our son -- but now more than ever -- his own man.  

He checked three carefully packed suitcases and a box, yet MOST of what he needed he took INSIDE of him.  When he got to Dartmouth 16 hours later, I got a text from him:  "I'm home."  

I've been tempted to share Jay's blog several times this summer but didn't want everything I blog about to be what's going on with sending Jay off to school -- even though that's taken up a huge part of my thoughts in the past couple of months.  I just read his most recent post and want to share it with you.

I'm 49 years old and still learning what he writes about here.  Glad I'm learning this.  Sad I'm still having to learn this.  Fear I'll spend the rest of my life learning it.

Mirrors

I am sitting in my dorm room with the window open, listening to the sound of the wind rustling the trees and the occasional door shutting or brief conversation from my classmates outside. It has been two weeks. A lot can happen in two weeks.

I have met hundreds of DIVERSE people from around the world, spent hours with some of the coolest people I've ever met. It is to the point that i know people better than I know their names. My mind has been flooded and I have been back peddling to catch up, spinning out of control. But in the midst of this, my resolve on one thing has become concrete, no, granite. 

Before I was even born, it was His plan that I end up here. 

Dartmouth was my fourth choice. I felt a deep loss when I finally committed, a deep seated failure...I looked out at my future and saw only fog. I could not see beyond the next thing, nor was I capable of understanding what exactly God had for me. Since the day I got here, he has done nothing but confirm that this is where I was born to be, that it was divine intervention that landed me here instead of somewhere else. 

Like most freshmen on any school campus, loneliness is my most present companion. I am reminded of treasured friends from home often on my daily routine. In the distance that separates me from those I love, my life has become my own, not my parents, and in that, it has become fully His. I know what I want out of college, and I know what I want out of life. I have become resolute. Firm. Resolved. 

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." 1 Cor. 13:12

www.jayschulte.blogspot.com

Leaving

Sad  Glad  Fear


Two days ago my oldest son Jay was walking out the door heading to work.  This summer he started a business here in Anchorage called "The Grass Guys."  He was standing in the laundry room heading out the door dressed in his lawn cutting gear (everything with a tint of green from all the grass he's mowed this summer).  I looked back at Brenda who was standing in the kitchen.  She was crying so I asked, "What's wrong?"  


She answered, "I'm gong to miss him so much."


It hit me.  I can spend the next two weeks keeping busy at work and filling my schedule with the million details that are screaming for my attention.  Or I can slow down and "see" Jay . . .  and in the seeing, grieve the goodbye that is right around the corner.


When I asked Brenda what was "wrong," her answer reminded me of so much that is "right."


In the past I would have stayed busy and allowed the urgency, even "importance" of my work to crowd my heart and my mind allowing me to skirt above the the deeper currents rushing inside me.  Today I am not refusing my sadness -- a sadness whose depth honors the rich relationship I share with him and the unbelievable joy he is to me.


Last night Jay and I sat up until very late.  I reminded him that he would not be alone on the Dartmouth campus.  I shared with him about the time when I was 28 years old and realized that there wasn't anyone "thinking about me" and there never had been . . . at least not like a father thinks about a son.


"Jay, in that way, you will never be alone.  There won't be a day that you are walking across that campus that I'm not thinking about you.  There won't be a day where you get in or out of the pool (he's swimming for Dartmouth) that I won't be thinking about you.  You won't be alone!"




We both cried.  I saw him.  And he saw me.

Taste

Anger Sad Glad


It's been over a week now since my taste buds went on strike.  They won't work. They don't work.  The only time I even get a feint glimmer of what it used to be like to taste my food is the millisecond after I blow my nose.  And even then, all I get is a fleeting moment of aftertaste.  I don't have a cold so I'm not blowing my nose so I can breath.  I'm blowing my nose every couple of minutes while I'm eating just so I can have this short moment of taste.  I'm a pathetic sight sitting at the dinner table with my box of kleenex, wishing for more.

I can't taste anything.  NOTHING. 


I've found myself working the food over in my mouth trying to get some sense of satisfaction from the texture.  A couple times I thought I was actually tasting what I was eating but quickly realized I was "tasting" a memory of what I knew it tasted like from having eaten it before.


At first I ate normally.  I even had a few deserts.  There is a half eaten ice cream bar in the freezer.  I've taken a few bites out of it, but I'm saving the rest for when I can taste it.  Otherwise, what's the point?


Each time I sit down to eat or grab something out of the fridge, I am hoping my taste buds will kick back into gear.   I'm pretty discouraged by it all.  I don't look forward to meals.  Utilitarian.  I eat because I have to, not because I want to.   


One refrain has repeated itself over and over again in my mind:  "WE WERE MADE TO TASTE."


We were made not just to eat our food, but taste our food . . . not just nourish our body to keep it alive, but feed our hearts so  we'll actually live.  And feel the living.  God did not create us for "have to."  He created us for "want to."


There was a time in my life when I could not taste anything spiritual.  I put plenty of food in my mouth -- even good food.  But I was not able to taste any of what I was eating.  Some who walked closely with me during this season in my life recognized the desperation in me.  I was so hungry.  Not because my stomach was empty, but because my taste buds were so dead.  Desperate to taste, to live, and to feel.  Reaching for anything that would remind me I was alive.


Psalm 34:8 says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good."


I've heard this verse a million times.  But it makes more sense to me when I read it in the context of the rest of the Psalm. 


How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him . . .


Who is the man who desires life . . .


The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry . . .


The righteous cry and the Lord hears . . .


The Lord is near the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit . . .


The Lord redeems the soul of His servants; and none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned . . .


And the words create a flavor explosion in my mouth when I read it in the context of the past six years of my life.  


The following are some journal entries I penned in the summer of 2005 . . . the last time I remember not being able to "taste."  I can still feel the darkness of my words scrawled in a notebook.  I can still remember crying out to a God who hears and who comes near to those desperate to live.


"Father, my heart is cold. . . and its been a long time since I've really tasted the joy of my salvation.  Is it possible for what feels dead (my heart) to come back to life again?  Spirit of God, breath life into these dead bones.  Not by anything I can do to earn it, but because of your GREAT mercy."


"I cant stand the pain and disappointment.  I just want to be numb.  But where do I go?  There is nowhere to hide because the pain and disappointment and fatigue and expectations come storming back.  My head hurts.  My heart is numb."


"I can't handle being told more of what to do . . . what I should be doing.  What I'm not doing.  I don't need more how to's.  I'm dealing with issues of my heart."


"Lord, by faith I would rather lose all I have than to miss YOU in this life.  DO WHAT YOU MUST."


Last week (six years ago to the very day) I wrote this:


"I remember highlights from my old life that are now just OK compared to the life You (God) have given me.  You have loved me and been gracious to me.  You have sat me at a banquet table!"


"Taste and see that the Lord is good."  Yes, taste.

Size Matters!

Structure is meant to serve life.

Organization is meant to serve the organism.

When I was planting a church in Nashville TN, and we were growing at a rapid pace (doubling almost every year), I would often quote Peter Drucker who when questioned about the whether a particular organization had gotten too large replied, “The skeletal structure of an elephant is sufficient!”

Size was never the issue to me.  Whether we were 40 people or 4000, what mattered was whether there was sufficient infrastructure (or organization) to support the life.  Too little structure and the organism would become a lifeless blob.  Too much organization and the structure would crush the life of the organism it was created to support.

I’m no longer convinced.  Size does matter.   Organizations are by nature inefficient and the structure created to support most organisms seems to inevitably feed upon the very LIFE it was created to support.

People become a means to an end to serve and support the organization.  The good of the organization becomes a higher value than the good of the individual (not necessarily a mutually exclusive proposition).  An inordinate percentage of resources are allocated to sustain the organization justified by reasoning that the perpetuation of the organization ultimately serves the individual (also not a mutually exclusive proposition).

Size does matter.  Small is not necessarily good. Bigger is rarely better.

Case in point:

Last week some of my good friends helped me repair the aging deck on the back of my house.  Since it was not a new deck, I didn’t think I needed a permit from the municipality.  Upon finishing the project, I was informed I DID need a permit.

Over the next three days:

• I made three trips to the Anchorage Municipality. 
• I met with twelve different people from four different departments.
• I signed my name seven times.
• I drew building plans for a deck that was already built so I could get approval to build it. 
• Three different people from the city made visits to my house. 
• The first person who came to my house came to inform me that I indeed needed a permit.
• The second person came to make sure the picture I showed them of my completed deck was in fact my deck on my house (30 second visit and $105). 
• The third person came to make sure the plan I showed them and the pictures I presented to them were not photo-shopped (two minute visit and $295).  The only question he asked me, “So how come there aren’t any dandelions in your neighborhood?”

At one point when I was at the Municipality offices being informed about who needed to come to my house and how much all of this was going to cost me,  I asked, “Can’t the same person who comes out to make sure these pictures are really my deck be the same person who verifies that this plan you asked me to draw up here in your office of the deck that is already built is the same deck?” 

Answer:  “No.  That’s zoning.  We’re codes.”  

If I had not seen the mother of one of my kids classmates working in the zoning department, the whole process could have taken up to ten days.

I kept thinking to myself, “THIS IS JUST A DECK REPAIR!  How does anyone get anything significant done in this city?”

Grand total paid to the city of Anchorage (not counting the cost of my time, gas, or the three trees cut down to create all the papers signed, copied, stamped, and filed):  $400 U.S. Dollars!

The skeletal structure of an elephant is sufficient only if you are an elephant.  

The New Testament describes a significant but limited role for government.  As it relates to the local church, it's no surprise to me that the New Testament says so little about the organization of the church but says much about relationships and the life of the church.

Being w/ my boys . . .

Glad Sad

I did a men's retreat last weekend at Kenai Lake talking about "Intimate Male Relationships" and later that week was able to go back to spend the night with my two youngest boys at the cabin where we did the retreat.

Carving walking sticks.  Skipping rocks.  Talking about what it means to be a man.  Having tender conversations about how their bodies are changing, marriage, adoption, sex, life, manhood, their stories, God's love for them, my love for them, why their legs burn when hiking a steep incline and how that makes their muscles grow.  (I'm talking about the time with my boys --  not the men's retreat!).

Laying there on a big bed in the cabin with one boy on each side of me, heads nestled under each arm, each trying to get as close to me as they could . . . I had to walk into my own sadness and loneliness as I observed them drinking so deeply from an emotional, spiritual, and physical closeness with me I never experienced with my own absent dad.  It was rich and wonderful.  Sad and lonely.  Glad.  

We hiked . . .

We talked about what it means to persevere as a man when you want to quit . . .

We rested . . .

We explored . . .

We ate the food of being together . . .

And we celebrated!