She had an adult haircut, wore adult clothing and had an adult figure-but her face was that of a 16 year old wishing she were 18. In the high school I attended, she would have been a cheerleader, or the prom queen or on the homecomming court. More than likely, all of that.

Her midriff was bare and her shorts were too short, showing juvenile flesh no one should be privy to for at least a few more years. A flock of boys hovered around her. She relished their attention, but acted aloof. This only encouraged them.

“Excuse me”, I said.

She turns and looks at me, something of a smirk crosses her face and she turns and walks away. The boys look at me as if I have disturbed them, then they too turn and follow her.

I wanted to tell her that this was not the way. For I have been 16 and know what those boys are thinking. I know the thoughts they think, the late nights lying in bed, the solitary explosions while thinking of her, or rather their objectification of her. To them, she is a life support system for their fantasies.

“Don’t smirk at me, kiddo”, I want to tell her.

I remember what it means to be 16 – to have all your life in front of you, to believe whether you get asked to the homecoming dance will have eternal implications and to not yet know what heartbreak truly means. It is an age where you are yet to watch the things you have given your life to be destroyed by false friends, bringing on long cleansing cries in the shower.

Yes, to you I look like some random middle aged guy with a bad haircut and no sense of fashion, but I know things you do not, little girl. I know things you will not know for many years, and some things I know, I pray you need never learn.

Or maybe I know nothing. Hell, if I were you, I would probably smirk too.

How To Be Alone

This is beautiful. (via Abby)

Doc was a huge man, at least in my memories. He wore black shoes and Dickie work clothes (blue or brown) and, when outside, a worn, frayed straw hat. His hair was close cropped and woolly white over watery blue eyes that always held the beginnings of a smile. Well, they always did for me.

When he retired from farming, he bought a few acres from our family and built a small house for his wife, Montaree (we called her Montie) and him. There they planted a garden, raised a few pigs and taught me everything an eight year old needs to know about life.

Tell the truth. Plant your watermelons after the full moon in May. Stand up straight. Don’t interrupt. Always shake hands. It helps to take a nap after lunch. In the heat of the day, find a shady spot and talk to your neighbor. Always carry a pocket knife. Most shows on TV are useless. Do one thing at a time. A Milky Way candy bar tastes better if you share it with someone you love. There is value in sitting in the shade and listening to the mockingbirds. Everything is better if you can eat wild plums while you do it.

Every so often, we would go outside, he and I, and climb in his old Chevrolet truck. A mile up the road was the small store where my Grandmother had worked before she died. The purchase was always the same- a handful of penny candy for later and a Milky Way candy bar for now. We would sit on the store’s front porch and eat the Milky Way before it had a chance to melt. Never has a candy bar tasted so good. We would sit there, in the shade of the porch, an elderly man and a small boy. We didn’t say much to each other while sitting there. Some things are just too important to talk about.

It has been 30 years this summer that he has been gone. No one else looms so large in my early childhood memories. I am who I am, largely because he was who he was. And sometimes, I wonder if, 30 years from now, anyone will think of me, now, in the way I still think of him, then.

Low points are not encouraged in the motivational field. Probably has something to do with the corporations that pay the trainer’s paychecks. After all, if you are feeling down, depressed or miserable, you are not out ther closing deals, making connections, moving product. And have no doubt – that is the goal. Gotta do more, gotta be more.

Feeling blue? Well, act as if you weren’t. Don’t know what to do? Well, if you did know, what would you do then? Depressed? Depression is an avoidance activity, an excuse used by people who cannot hack it in the real world. Not able to close this deal? There is a name for people who cannot sell: We call them employees. I was told once that there were no problems I would have in my life that selling more product would not solve. And I bought into it, and the paycheck was good.

Until I was not selling product any more. And I decided that if what I was doing was so repulsive to me that the only way I could face the day was to stand in front of a mirror and chant over and over again that I was a winner, maybe I would be happier doing something else. Or pretty much anything else.  And so I did. And I am so very happy with my life, and my career and my friends.

Except when I am not.

When faced with a crisis, there are, I think, two kinds of people.²

There are those who process it outwardly, writing about it on their blog, talking about it with their friends, sharing it with their therapist and thus, through their friends and community, find their way out and back to wholeness.

I am the other sort of person.

When I feel things are out of sorts, I retreat inward. I hunker down and pull in the shutters. I go inside and pick things apart, look for patterns, seek to find the problem and work on it. By myself.

Which, if you know me, is weird, because I process almost everything by discussion. I have often said I don’t know what I think about something until I can talk about it. But, if I can process it as failure in any way, I shut up, and you will never hear about it.

I just do not have the tools to publicly deal with negativity. With things not going right. Because be damned if I am going to stand in front of a mirror and tell myself to fake it till I make it.

So I withdraw. Go inside. Batten down the hatches.

I realize this is not healthy. But there it is.

So, you may have noticed that there is exactly one blog post in the last month here on this blog, and on my other one, there have been exactly three, all written on the same day in a burst of activity.

I have been slightly more active on Twitter, but not much. I submit that when 140 characters takes too much energy, maybe something is wrong.

Several of you have asked, and I am ok. By some measures, I am doing great. My marriage is fine, I love my job and the people I get to minister to. I have some of the best friends in the world.

But by other measures, I am not so hot. I feel lethargic. Listless. Depression is not the right word – but it is close. Very, very close. I feel overwhelmed. Out of control. Like I am sinking, and just dont have the energy to swim.

Not all the time, mind you. But sometimes. And somedays, the whole damn day.

Just because I work on it internally does not mean I am not working on it. I am. I have a few trusted friends I have begun to share it with. I have two interns over the summer that are helping with a lot of the office work that was overwhelming me. I have tightened some of my boundaries. I am back at the gym, working out my salvation with fear and trembling.

And in August, I am going on a week-long retreat at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. A week of silence and reflection: no cell phones, no email… sounds a lot like heaven to me.

I am not writing this as a way of asking for pity, or sympathy or even solutions². I am just trying to move beyond what is comfortable for me and share my pain. Trying to throw open the shutters and come out into the light. I desire to be as honest with my failures as I am with my successes.

Thank you for listening and journeying with me.

{finis}

¹ The second largest purchaser of motivational training is the US Military. Apparently, we need more motivating to sell insurance than we do to invade foreign cultures and kill them.

² There is an old joke that says there are two kinds of people in this world -Those who think there are two kinds of people, and those who don’t…

³ For the love of Christ, please don’t tell me to go see your therapist. My having to explain to you that, despite my being 38 years old, I can afford neither the therapist or the medication would do nothing at all to improve my self-concept right now.

Also: a few weeks ago I got a new cell phone. With a camera. Just like it was 2005 or something. Anyway, I have decided to try to capture at least one photo a day and post it over on my moblog (mobile blog). If that is your thing, you ought to check it out. Especially this pic of my cat Felix, playing dead.

For people who are interested in what I do, who are interested in the peculiar type of ministry I work in and who want to know more about the philosophy that under-girds our work, there is no better source for that than to sign up for my little newsletter.

If you do sign up, no one will spam you, no one will harass you for money and no one will ever share your info with anyone else. I promise.

We are gathering missional practitioners on the East Coast to learn from each other and to mobilize others for forming new missional communities.

Whether you’re a pastor, prospective “church planter,” or simply interested in finding out more about transformational missional communities of practice, this gathering is designed to inspire and equip you to go and do likewise!

Anyway, Renee and I rode the train (Love the Amtrak) and to keep the cost as low as possible, stayed with our friends the Merritts in Arlington, just over the river. They were incredible hosts and went out of their way to make us feel at home. Thanks so much, guys!

On Saturday, I spoke on a panel, along with my friends Reverend Vince Anderson, Angela Harms and Kathy Escobar, on being “Missional at the Margins”. In short, we talked about reaching out to the people who often get looked over in church planting plans.  I thought it was going to be recorded, but, I was wrong. (I really need to get a digital recorder like this one so I can always have a copy of my talks.)

My friend Kathy had the keynote address at Transform, and she was just incredible. She held the audiences attention and at least six times during her talk, I wanted to shout “Amen!” If you are at all interested in the “Missional Church”, this is a must watch.

Her overall point? That being faithful to the Gospel is a path of “Downward Mobility”. And that this Jesus thing is really, really hard.

NB: Due to the craziness that is Ustream, I tried and tied to highlight only the clip of her talking. Alas, I failed. Or maybe Ustream did. In any event, her part of the video starts at 32:10.

So much happened at Transform I would love to talk about, but honestly, I just do not have the time right now. However, it will probably inform several blog posts in the days to come.

Now, I have nothing against prayer. I pray. Some of my best friends  pray. But I must confess that some of the most vocal people who are talking about prayer leave me confused.

For instance, on September 25 of 2009, 50,000 Muslims gathered on Capitol Hill to pray to their God, but the religious right was not happy that these American citizens were exercising their constitutional right to assemble and pray. Yet, today, Christians want that same right, as American citizens, to assemble and pray to their God.

This, despite the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (the ostensible founder of Christianity) who said:

And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ¹

So, if I get this straight, it is ok for Christians to assemble and pray and draw attention to themselves, despite the fact that their founder clearly said not to. It is, however, wrong for Muslims to do this.

I am not sure why this would be wrong. It cannot be that the government should not allow it, because the government is prohibited from preventing it. And it cannot be that they are concerned Jesus would be upset about it, since they decided it is OK for them to do the same thing, when Jesus clearly warned against it.

But then again, this is one of many reasons I find myself confused about Christianity as it is practiced in America. But maybe this somehow makes sense to you. If it does, please explain it to me, would you?

¹ That was in the Gospel of Matthew, the 6th chapter, the 5th and 6th verse.