Monthly Archives: October 2011

hey jude

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Social media is buzzing right now with news of the Cardinal victory. I have seen more status updates related to the World Series than I have ever seen before. For some this World Series will go down as one of the greatest ever played, for others, well they could give a rip.

Although I am always intrigued by baseball and especially those games played in October, when my team doesn’t make it, I tend not to care all that much. Only this year I feel a little slighted. Although the Cardinals won with determination, I’m not sure game 7 was as fairly called as it could have been. This is one of the most wonderful yet frustrating things about baseball, the lack of a replay system. While the Rangers failed to score after the first and it was the home run that made it 3-2 that really was the deciding factor the subsequent runs scored by the Cardinals were less than fair. Watching replays of a 3-2 pitch called a ball clearly showed it was a strike which loaded. More blown calls led to another run and the rest as they say is history. I am not saying you can or should blame the umps for the game. Texas had more than enough opportunities and the Cardinals fought hard and won that game, but it makes me wonder what the game would have looked like if that pitch had been called as it really was, a strike.

It always makes me wonder as I look back on the events of my life if I had changed one decision here or there if it would have ended up the way it is now. Take for example my decision to leave the seminary in St. Louis. This is by no means a small decision. Had I stayed my time in seminary would likely be ending in May rather than December. I wouldn’t have to worry about the potential colloquy process. And while there stands a list of things I wouldn’t have to worry about there is an equally impressive list of things that never would have happened. I wouldn’t have worked for Whole Foods or Apple. I wouldn’t have ended up at a great internship congregation. Friendships I have made here at Northern would not exist. Yet they do, and here I am.

I am always amazed at how life seems to change directions whether I like it or not. Sometimes it is as a direct result of my decisions, other times it isn’t. Regardless of my culpability, change cannot be avoided. Surely people try to avoid it though. Even if the means and opportunity are there some would rather sit back and stay put, often times because it seems like the easier thing to do. However, sometimes the cards are stacked too high against someone to see the possibility of change. Sometimes the means are not there for it to take place. And even in those situations where change seems like an impossibility it rears its ugly head whether we like it or not. So the question then is not how can we avoid change but how do we react to it?

Different people respond to life differently. Not an overwhelming statement I know, but one that needs to be restated. Just because I do things one way does not mean it is good or right for someone else to do things the same way. I may be ready for something you are not and vice versa. So what? Who cares? Why talk about it? Because so often people get caught idealizing a response to a situation and that ideal paralyzes them.

Take the example of Luther for one. As Protestants everywhere remember Martin Luther and other Reformers this weekend they often view those examples as ones that cannot be imitated or duplicated. Martin Luther stood up to too big of an enemy how can I do the same thing? Is it even possible. And then there are others who see that example and feel it is incumbent upon them to do likewise and stand up for things even when nothing actually needs to be stood up for. But what people forget is that Luther was a guy who lived life his own way. Sure history remembers him a certain way, but his life is no more important than mine or yours. His life is no more important than the child starving overseas or the homeless guy down the block. His life is no more important than the person battling those inner demons of self deprecation or the one battling cancer.

Therein lies the point, no one life matters more than another yet we often act as though it does. We look up to sports heroes, shapers of society, and archetypes of altruism in an effort to teach ourselves how we should live because these people apparently had it right. Sometimes we don’t even look in reality for heroes. My childhood heroes donned jumpsuits and proton packs and battled a demon named Gozer and a Carpathain madman named Vigo. In fact their examples so impacted my life that during college I was asked to write a world view paper and that world view was based off what I learned from Ghostbusters.

I wasn’t the only one who reached back to something from their childhood to define a worldview either. My dearest friend, next to my wife of course, wrote about a song that had shaped his life. Hey Jude by the Beatles. “Take a sad song and make it better.” That sad song my friend knew was the one about his own life, a life similar to my own. Divorced parents and financial struggles. Self image issues and self deprecating attitudes. Yet he found a way to make a sad song better when he married his best friend. Even now, as struggles continue and new ones pop up I know he can adapt to them, not because of the heroes of his past, but because of who I know he is and who surrounds him, whether he sees it or not.

Yet the struggles don’t go away. Not for him. Not for you. Not for me. Not for any of us. We are often caught wondering how life would have been if this or that had not happened. We wonder what we could have done differently. We pretend that we now know the best course of action and if we could only get back to that moment that changed us we could fix life as we know it. Only theres one problem with that, it won’t happen. We cannot change the past. Apart from wild dreams and imaginative movies we haven’t figured out how to go back in time to right the wrongs or fix what was broken. All we can do is look forward.

As I survey the situation in life I am in right now I know that at any minute all of it could change. I could lose it all. And even if that happened I know I can make it through. Not because of the great examples of others, but because of the presence of others in my life. It’s amazing how much we actually do matter to each other whether we recognize it or not. Those great examples we look to often have others whom they relied upon and gained strength from. So rather than reach for those examples we should reach for those around us. Even more so, we should reach out to those around us to make known the love and support they might find if they need it.

Even now as I sit back and think about how life is always going to change, sometimes for the very worst. Even now as I think to myself how great it would be if we all realized how interdependent upon one another we really are. Even now as one day comes to a close and another is about to begin I am reminded of those words that talk about taking a sad song and making it better. Sure we can try to do it on our own, but we don’t have to. In the end that might be what taking a sad song and making it better is all about.

we’re blood brothers

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This Tuesday morning started off as any other I have had in recent weeks. After seeing my wife off to work I sluggishly moved back to bed to get an extra hour or two of sleep before I had to get ready and leave for Starbucks. Tuesdays are the days I meet with my internship supervisor and those meetings have been a real highlight for me. While its obvious that there are some differences in our approaches to things, I have never once doubted his care and support for me and for his congregation. Also at our meetings is another person integral to my internship and she as well has been nothing but supportive and kind to me as I continue my journey through seminary.

As we sat down this morning with our coffee in hand we began to discuss the suggested topic for the day, faith. I was taken aback by my inability to answer the question about my own faith. I certainly have the vocabulary. I know the text book answer but so often, as was the case today, I find it lacking. I can’t really find the right words to explain my faith and the role it plays in my life apart from tying it to specific experiences. I wonder though if thats the point. If faith can only be understood through experience. It’s easy to sit back and codify an answer based on varying texts. It’s easy to rely on the words of others to describe the concept of faith. But when it comes to painting the picture the only colors I can really use are the ones I have found in the experiences of my own life.

Personal experience is a powerful and authoritative source in life. It can build up or it can tear down. It doesn’t matter what it is actually building up or tearing down only that experience, perhaps more than anything else, does just that. While it would be nice to insert an example here sans any sort of actual application I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about why this Tuesday, although starting out the same as any other with that meeting, didn’t end the same. But in order to go further I must first go further back beyond today to over a year ago.

In July of 2010 my wife and I were newly married and wondering where it was life was going to take us. I hadn’t begun working for either Whole Foods or Apple and had not even entertained the idea of going to sem. Instead we were hoping that my wife would get a call to be a teacher at a school and we would move to wherever it was she received the call. Well in July as we vacationed with her family in New Hampshire my wife received a phone call from a pastor letting her know that the committee had decided to extend to her a call to be a teacher at St. Namehasbeenchanged Lutheran Church and School. After much deliberation and with sadness in her heart we actually turned that call down and in doing so our lives took on another direction. While we can look back and say that the direction it took is a fantastic one full of opportunities and joy we never thought that church and school would ever come back into the forefront of our thought. But today it did just that.

During my meeting my internship supervisor told me a story he had read about a pastor being caught in a prostitution sting. He was arrested and released and has since been removed from his position as pastor of that church. When he told me the name of the church, that it had a school, and the location I knew it was the same place we turned down a call to just over a year ago. Now let me make clear that I am not writing this as if to gloat that we made the right decision but rather because this scenario is a very real one that is affecting the lives of people we actually know. Not only did my wife and I go to the same college as the man who was the associate pastor and is now the sole pastor of this hurting congregation, but my wife actually grew up with him. Needless to say this story hits close to home.

So why bring it up? To condemn? To gloat? To show what happens when people make bad decisions? No. Not in the least. In fact although some of these may be tempting or have possible beneficial examples down the road once the pain has subsided,  the reason I bring it up is because this experience is shaping the lives of people in ways that were never imagined. This experience is redefining relationships and galvanizing people, hopefully for the better although surely it is possible the opposite is true too. What then should we do in the face of such a life altering and perspective defining experience? To be sure now is not the time to point fingers and wonder why. While hurt and pain are obvious on all sides of the equation perhaps the best thing one can do right now is come alongside those who are struggling and offer support as best you can. You may never know why he was in the position to be apprehended by the police but in the aftermath of such an experience we need to rise up in support of those who are hurting. Sure we can’t all run out and move to the location of this incident, but in an effort to honor and support that church we can do what they asked and pray for them during this time.

As if this incident were not enough I would be remiss if I didn’t speak to something else going on in the lives of some very dear friends of ours. To make a long and complicated, though no less interesting, story short I will simply say that those friends of ours are losing their home and place of employment because the directors feel a need to hang on to wealth. Now in both cases leadership has let down those who have been placed in their care. Whether it’s through personal choices to seek other avenues of companionship or through a misguided desire to possess all that has been given to them peoples lives are being shaped and defined by these difficult circumstances.

While it would be nice to think that all will come out of this unscathed the truth is that pain and suffering abound right now. I know it doesn’t take anyone long to look back into their past to find a time when they too were suffering. When one’s own life was being shaped by a difficult and painful experience. Personally I can think of a slew of experiences ranging from abuse to homelessness that have defined my own perspective on faith and life. And it is in having the ability each of us do to look into our past and find those skeletons in the closet that we are reminded of the fact that this world is, that we are, broken.

I suppose this post could have been a lot shorter than it actually is and I still could have come to the same conclusion. Thats the problem. In life there are no shortages on difficult and trying experiences. This world is a broken and hurting place and in the face of that we have a choice. We can become embittered by our experience  thinking that the world or God is out to get us. We can deny the experience is or has happened and like dust sweep it under the rug. Or we can confront them. By them of course I don’t just mean our own experiences, I mean the experiences of others. In trying times you and I always have a place, right beside the one who suffers. We may not be able to fix things. We may not be able to right the wrongs and heal the wounds but that does not mean we have no part to play. In fact, one might say it is the most important role one can play, a brother or sister standing side by side another. Because outside of the reality that we all live in a broken world is that we all live in it together, sharing the air we breath and the blood that runs through our veins. The question is, will we allow that reality to be the one that shapes our experience?

for the craziest one of us all, Steve Jobs…

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Many of you know that I spent near a year of my life working for what I consider to be the best company, ever. Never had I felt so valued by those above and beside me and never was I so full of purpose that every day I came to work knowing I was going to change lives. The time I spent at Apple contains some of the greatest memories and friendships I was ever privileged to cultivate. Even though its been a couple of months since I was last lucky enough to pull on that shirt and lanyard todays news hit me at a deeper level.

I never met him. I never knew him. I never came close. But being a part of the Apple family made me feel like he was the patriarch of our clan. The one we were all somehow connected to and the one we all looked to for the next big thing. And although he stepped down six weeks ago and the torch was successfully passed to Tim Cook, he was always the one we looked to fondly for inspiration.

Being a part of the retail section of the company came with its struggles. Launch days aside, it seemed most days we never had a free moment. Busy as busy can be and even then some. Feet hurt, voice almost gone, but we still pushed on. Helping people, repairing relationships, and creating new ones so that someones life might be changed. It was what we did. Its what Apple does. Its what made Steve who he was in the minds of all of us who have been affected by him.

And now he’s gone. Like everyone else eventually will, Steve has passed. As the world began to mourn the loss of one who irrevocably changed it, a friend of mine posted this on his Facebook. “Steve Jobs was an inspiring man and I loved his products. But I think it there is something telling about hundreds of thousands of people tweeting and status updating him in memoriam with their expensive Apple tech while daily thousands die hungry, cold, homeless, lonely, Godless, amidst war, terror, famine, and strife, having never made a buck, much less millions, or a popular impact. But the question is: Should they need to do those things in order to garner our blood, sweat, and tears?”

At first I was a little frustrated because of the connection I felt to him. The connection I know others who have or still don that blue shirt feel. But despite that frustration I knew he was right. People die every day. Young. Old. Rich. Poor. Death happens every day to those who know its coming and to those who are surprised by it. And although I am not one to romanticize death and pretend it doesn’t suck I have to admit that sometimes I feel one death matters more to me than another. But it shouldn’t.

John Donne famously penned…

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

This quote has shaped me in ways I cannot begin to explain because it recognizes that we are all a part of this broken thing we call humanity. We are all involved. Steve Jobs. Matt Borrasso. The guy on the street. The kid in the mansion. All of us. And when one of us goes, a part of us all goes with them. Its easy to forget the masses that die each day because they often perish away from news cameras and social media outlets but their deaths are no less tragic.

One of the hallmark ads of Apple was “Think Different.” That famous campaign epically changed the landscape of Apples image and launched it into the next decade. But for me its not the computer that makes the ad powerful, its the notion that there are crazy ones. There are those who think different and they are the ones to change the world. So the question is, if Steve did it, if MLK did it, if so many others have irrevocably changed the world why can’t I? Why can’t we all?

The world will never become a utopia. It will never be the idealized society thought about by many visionaries and philosophers but that doesn’t mean it can’t change and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. We may never be able to end abuse but we can make a difference in the lives of those who experienced it. We may never be able to end world hunger but that doesn’t mean we can’t feed those in our neighborhood who hunger. We may never be able to end poverty but that doesn’t mean we ignore those who don’t sleep under a roof or have a computer to blog from.

So often I think its easy to be blindsided by the big picture. Problems are too big for me to handle. The situation is too far gone. Its a futile effort, after all we are all going to die anyway. And speaking of death, I’m so afraid of it I can’t actually get past the idea that life isn’t about me. That fear is paralyzing. That fear that we won’t be remembered. That once we draw that last breath its all over so I need to get the most of my life that I can. That fear that reminds us the problems are too big.

Perhaps its is best then to return to the man that I started writing about, to Steve. In his address to Stanford in 2005 Steve spoke the following, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Death and fear are not something to run from, but something to confront. That is truly what thinking different is all about. Knowing that life is going to throw you more curve balls than you can hit. Knowing that problems are too big for one person to handle. Knowing that in the end I might actually be forgotten and choosing in the face of that to change the world is truly revolutionary. But it isn’t easy. Its going to take the crazy ones. The square pegs in the round holes. Those who defy conventional wisdom. The ones who think they might actually be able to change the world.