The fondness of God

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I’ve made a habit of rephrasing the line “God loves you,” and instead of making it about God, I make it about the object of God’s relentless affection – us.  So, throughout “The Shack,” Papa would say, “I am especially fond of her or him.”  There is a world of difference between saying “I love you,” which is about me, and saying “I am especially fond of you,” which is about you.  Both are correct, but the latter somehow pierces the disquiet of our souls and says, “Yes, I know you love me, but do you know me and do you like me?  You love because that is the way you are, but is there anything about  me that is worth loving?”  Do you ‘see’ me, and do you like what you ‘see’?”

          Wm. Paul Young

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We constantly say God is love.

And we believe it,

Kind of,

Mostly.

 

But we struggle to believe that God’s love

Trickles down

To us

 

Personally

I can believe God loves humankind

But I have more trouble believing God loves

This particular human

Stephen

 

There is that nagging doubt.

And that insidious belief that God loves me

If

 

If I am good enough

If I accomplish enough

 

I might believe God loves me for what I can do

Or have done

“Have I been good enough”

 

But I struggle to embrace the reality

that God just, simply, loves me

With all my flaws,

With my history of bad choices

 

If God really knows me

God can’t really love me

Love me abstractly perhaps, because

The Sacred has no choice, right?

But like me?

 

If I met God face to face, would God say,

“I am particularly fond of you?  You are my favorite child?”

(We are ALL ‘God’s favorite child’, just as my children are ALL my favorites)

 

And what does it mean,

If I cannot accept the compassionate, grace-filled embrace of God

 

For me, it makes me insecure.  It makes me feel less.

Empty

Unloved

 

And it causes me

To hide behind certainty and competence

Behind answers that I sow like seeds.

 

It causes me to create a wall that keeps people at a distance

It forces me to prove myself (which makes me appear arrogant, when really I struggle to believe I am really OK)

 

It can be worse.

It can force people to make others less so they can be more.

It can cause people to inflict pain on others to numb their own pain,

It causes people to believe that enough is never enough and become bloated with power and wealth.

 

The more power, the more influence we have

The more damaging it is to fail to believe that God is fond of us.

 

Poor Donald Trump.  And Pete Hegseth.

If we look at their behavior, we must see it as a sign

That they are terrified

That they feel unloved.  And unlovable.

 

So they must force those around them to respect and admire them.

Look at my arch!

Watch me do pull-ups!

 

And they end up walking through life spreading pain and hate

Division and destruction.

 

My friends, God loves you.

More, God is especially fond of you.

And me

And, yeah, Donald Trump

 

We can hate, perhaps despise what people do

We can hate ideologies of hate

But we can’t hate people (OK, we do, but we probably shouldn’t)

 

Because hate will not solve anything.

Hate engenders hate

That is why Jesus on the cross refused, even then,

To hate the people who had put him there.

 

Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

Honestly, I couldn’t have done that

Or if I could have uttered the words, “Father, forgive them,”

I would have ended with, “because they are idiots, stupid.”

 

Thank you, God

That you were especially fond of Pilate, and those men at the foot of the cross;

And that you are especially fond of those I think are spectacularly dangerous and wrong;

And that you are especially fond of me.

The inevitability of self reflection

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There comes a moment in your life when you realize that no matter how hard you try, you're never going to be fluent in Spanish. Or go hike in Norway, or do so many things you have dreamed of.  Or be as excited as you used to be about catching fireflies in Nebraska and grandma’s house.  You will not be famous.  A big name in a big pulpit.

 

You are never going to be able to recapture the moments with your kids and grandkids you failed to have because you were too busy, trying to do “all of the above.”

 

While I believe I have done good things in my life.  And while I have had some wonderful adventures.  I realize, here at 75, how many times I made mistakes that kept me from having the influence I could have had.

 

I look back at the paths that I've trod, at the things that I regret, the mistakes that I've made, and at times they seem to overwhelm the good.

 

Yes, I can call it regret, for all the things I could have done, but never quite did, yet

And all the things I should have said, but held back in fear

And all the chances that I missed, year after year

To be my best self.

 

I have been from my earliest days, an anxious, uncertain soul

Needing to be liked and affirmed.

Needy people do not relate to others well

Even those who have skills, talents, and abilities find those attributes

Dimmed by insecurity and need

 

I have tried too hard to prove myself, to myself and others.

I have been a workaholic.

For a period of my life, I was terribly dysfunctional, seeking to deal with my

Inner turmoil in unhealthy ways.

 

And at times all that comes rolling back.

My life narrative leans into my failures and not my success.

 

My biggest regrets center around my relationships with people.

To put it bluntly, I have been almost impossible to get close to

I have had friends, but rarely were those friendships deep or resilient, or persistent.

 

My ego fears got in the way

My need to impress

To be important

To be right

Caused me to seem arrogant and radically opinionated

When mostly I was just uncertain and longing to be valued

 

This may sound like low testosterone babble

Sorry

But I’ve thought about this a lot.

I am not going to blame anyone for where I landed

My parents did the best they could, and it was pretty damn good

I landed here anyway.

 

I was thinking the other day about my greatest failure.

As a pastor, a therapist, a friend, a parent, and a spouse

 

It is this.

My inability to step out of my own brain and listen well to others.

Kind of a big handicap for people in the roles I have been in.

 

My brain goes 1000 miles a minute.  It is like there are 100 TVs in my head.

And they are all on the same channel

My brain is nimble (mostly, still) and creative

And when people start to talk, it goes into hyper gear

 

And I, instead of listening with patience, knowing that I might miss something important

If I don’t keep my mouth shut,

 

Jump in

 

Over-talking, ending other people’s sentences

I have no patience, because I need to get my thoughts and MY ideas out there.

To all of you who read this, whom I have talked over the top of….  Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa

 

To those who have felt me pushy and arrogant.  I am sorry.  Please forgive me

To those whom I have made feel “less.”   I  am sorry.

 

For those who wanted to get close but got tired of talking to a wall,

Who found me unapproachable.  I am sad.

 

You would think with all my education, training, and experience I could have done

Better than this.

 

But, alas

 

This is my life, for better or worse.

 

But the God I believe in came and was available

And that God allowed the Empire to kill him

To remind me that out of even death, life can emerge

Out of failure, new beginnings.

 

I have no illusions.  I am 75.  Change will be hard.  Is hard

But this day, and every day

I will try to let the God who wants to fill me with joy, love, and hope

Do just that

 

And I will try to calm down

And listen

And shut up

And let God be with me, both in the Holy Spirit

And through the Spirit in the people around me

Who have wonderful wisdom to share and gifts to give.

 

The alternative is too grim to bear

 

Amen?

 

“So this is it ⎯ what cost me all that time. A man who turned out to be old, a house that turned out to be empty.”

― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

Dealing with things that cannot be cured

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I have done what was mine to do.  May Christ teach you what is yours.

St Francis of Assisi

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

Friedrich Nietzsche

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday

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Old bones creak

The pain is moderate, but unremitting

The lilac on the porch

Nursed through many a summer’s drought

Looks dead

My country is gone, washed away by a flash flood 

of abused power, corruption, hate, racism, and greed

destroyed

the pain in the world is no moderate, but is unremitting

the grief in Nepal and Tibet, where over 6000 souls

are dead or missing

and communities lie buried in mud

destroyed

while the world moves on, already forgetting

forgetting as they also forget Gaza

and the tens of thousands killed

as they forget the 20,000 children gone

As they forget the children killed by the US

In Iran

And the children in Ukraine

My pathetic sufferings are nothing.

Nothing

Nothing

Compared to the pain caused by those

Addicted to wealth and power

As the devastation created by those empty shells

Who cannot figure out

That more money and more power will not ease their soul pain

Which is unremitting

Trump, Hegseth, Putin, Netanyahu, Kim

And there are others.

Smaller tyrants

Abusive spouses, rapers, 

The corrupt rich like Russel Vought, Peter Thiel, Howard Lutnick

I suspect their pain too, if they allow themselves to feel it

Is greater than mine

And pain, untransformed

Is transmitted

Passed on

So what do I now do

With this life

What is mine to do?

Do I shrivel up, like my lilac

Do I let the hate defeat me, and make me small?

Trump small?

Hegseth small?

Or do I believe in spring?

In resurrection?

In love?

What is my job?

Perhaps, perhaps,

It is to create a free and friendly space

To be a person who passes on

Not the hate and the need for domination of MAGA

But the love of Jesus (the Christ)

A love that extends to all

A love that transforms

That seems foolish and puny.

Even as I write it

But then Jesus on the cross

Seemed foolish and weak too

God’s ways are truly not our ways.

So let me live this day,

Not angry, not cruel

Not filled with hate

Not retributive

Not hopeless

Let me live hope

For hope is only truly hope

When it is lived (thank you, Mitri Rahib)

For that is what

That is perhaps all

I can do