The myths with which I’m at war in this rule:

• That life is a “choose your own adventure” story.
• That we can “win” by becoming something other than what we are.
• That a false self can be a real self.

The terms in the rule:

• Hero: a person who is applauded for sacrificial behaviors born from deep personal convictions.
• Tyrant: a person who governs by oppressive, dictatorial, and ultimately selfish means that are rooted in a basic conviction that the person being governed is inadequate.
• Cruel: harsh, unkind, merciless, bringing about pain.
• Priest: a person who serves as gatekeeper or purveyor of God or a person’s most profound yearnings.

What I’ve learned.

Heroes don’t choose to be heroes for the sake of being heroes. They make their choices because they love something beautiful with a passion that inspires great response. The rule I try to live by is this: if I tell the story of a hero, I draw attention to the beautiful thing the hero sees – not to the heroic behavior.

To put a finer point on it, what made the firefighters who died on September 11^th heroic was not that they died. What made them heroic was their choice about what constituted a life worth living. To them, there was a beauty and honor in radical service that was worth pursuing, and worth the cost. Dying doesn’t serve anybody – but living with the sort of passion required to be a firefighter benefits everybody.

When people tell stories of heroes for the sake of inspiring particular behaviors, they hold up an example that communicates a type of dare for the audience. They communicate, in effect, “if you do something like this, you will be a more valuable human being.” This communication also draws attention away from the beautiful thing that inspired the original hero, and promises the would-be hero that they can have glory – not from following the beauty, but from forcing the behavior from themselves.

We’ve all known people who strive to be like their heroes. A few of them see beyond their heroes to get a glimpse of the beautiful things that held their heroes’ attention, but very often they strive to model their own behaviors after the behaviors of their heroes. This way of life slowly saps their confidence – and their authenticity – as they shape themselves into mere copies of a noble original.

It’s a natural process, of course. Kids want to grow up to be firemen, or cops, or teachers. Children aspire to be like their parents or older siblings. A dose of this – examples that inspire a person along a course for a time – is part of what living in the company of other humans entails, and it’s a big and good part of how societies are shaped.

Things get perverted, though, when the priest gets involved. In the straight religious sense, Jesus is the ultimate hero and example so long as his example does what he said he was here to do – facilitate connection with God. Jesus is a great example if his example points a person to the beauty (intimacy with the Father) to which Jesus was devoted. Jesus becomes the ultimate tyrant, however, when priests (literal priests or anyone who would speak as gatekeeper to God) intervene and hold Jesus’ behavior as the standard by which others should be measured.

There are heroes and priests in every segment of our lives – not just the religious ones – and they’re all tied to deep and meaningful parts of us. Every person is of fantastic worth, and what we do with our lives is hugely meaningful. There is no such thing as a secular moment. The heroes may take the form of business role models, and the priests may show up as mentors, investors, or bosses. Heroes may show up on The Biggest Loser, and the priest may arrive in Spandex, yelling at you.

What priests ultimately convey is that until your behavior measures up to the behavior of your hero, you are less than your hero, and the distance between your hero’s standard and your own behavior is the measure of your inadequacy. And so long as your inadequacy exists, so too will the pressure to be something other than who you actually are. And so long as you strive to be something other than who you actually are, you will be tempted to cheat, will prioritize poorly, and will remain dangerous and jagged to the people around you.

Priests, whether they’re motivated by good intentions or by a drive for power, want you to reshape your behavior, but they are not oriented to having your “graduate” from their influence because you get a clear view of the beautiful thing heroes see. Priests want zealous sheep, conformist managers, and skinny clients…who still need shepherds, investors, and trainers. The difference between a priest and a friend is the clarity of their view of the beautiful thing, and their desire to have you love it as well.

You cannot sanctify (consecrate, bless, purify, make holy) a false self. It is not a real thing. A false self – when set to become a hero, and successful at achieving behavior that only looks like heroic behavior – is only capable of stealing your life for a false cause.

You have a true identity, and it is wrapped around a gift born within you for you to offer the world. It takes work to chisel away the marble to uncover the sculpture within, but it is there. You are already a hero. The secret is in grooming your passion for the beautiful thing that will draw easy and automatic heroic action from you.

Marketing (just as a lot of church programming) loves to leverage heroes – because marketing is about generating a response by whatever means are required to create responses. It’s extremely difficult to be a good marketer without falling prey to Machiavellian temptations. Marketers are almost always priests – to their customers, teams, and their brands. Marketing without a solid identity and a clear view of the brand’s passion could hardly be anything else.

Until you discover the passion for which you are willing to live, the best you – and your brand – are likely to do is run, or send others, into collapsing buildings thinking dying is the point. And, it is worth noting, the more dying seems like the heroic thing, the more cowardly a sane person will become (which only makes the pain of the tyranny, and the sense of separation from God or the beautiful thing, that much worse).

So tell your hero stories carefully.

This is a personal thing for me. But it’s also a conviction that applies to the branding work we do at KA+A. What’s true for individuals happens to be true for organizations. In fact, we’re finding that people tend to join organizations that share their root passions and vices, and that as we work with leaders, we reshape brands, and as we reshape brands, the organization influences lives…and heroes are emerging. If this line of thinking appeals to you – personally or in terms of how you relate to your business – I’d love to hear from you.

Not the sound, but the feeling. Like there was a mood around my house, in my neighborhood, that needed someone to see it, to say “Amen.” This morning I was the one chosen to say “Amen” to the rain.

It’s ten minutes later, and I’m at my desk at the office, which is dark except for the light of my monitor and the wet grey of the morning sighing through the open balcony door behind me. It’s a perfect day for robins and cardinals, whose deepest “Amens” repeat and repeat above a bed of less distinct chirping from the little birds who merely made the chorus.

Birds in the misty sky outside my office balcony

Do the birds sing from worship, from acknowledgement of wonder so great that the song is simply drawn from them by rightness? Or are those sort of “Amens” left just for us?

And what of the “Amens” themselves? What do perfect misty mornings value in the word that they’d wake a man to have it spoken?

I think our words have power. To bless and to curse. To note or to disregard. To celebrate or to condemn. Perhaps, even, our lives make the most sense in light of how we choose and use our words. As God made the world, He took the time to call each step “good,” and us He called “very good.” Then He gave Adam the task of naming things. When He called the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, it was to gather to worship.

It’s not just misty mornings that crave a word from us. All of creation, and even the Creator, anticipate and receive our blessings.

We bless in response to blessing. We love in response to love. We give thanks in response to what we’re given. Could it be that our greatest joy is found in saying “Amen” to our role as agents of blessing?

Is that not what I do when I click the “Like” button beside your photo or your comment on Facebook? Is that not what I do when I retweet you? Do I bless you when I make a point of really seeing you, really listening? Do I play the role of my own greatest joy when I convey my respect, my love, my wish that your life would be filled with good things?

The “Like” button is easier, for sure. There is little risk. Telling you I love you is harder. But there is a way to share a deeper blessing with even less risk than the “Like” button.

I pray. For my co-workers, for my employer, for my clients (some of whom actually share prayer requests with me now, even though prayer and my sort of faith is not their thing – I think maybe our desire to be blessed, and the rightness of being blessed, is a deeper thing than the way we ascribe to our various religious vestiges). In my prayers, I explore what I love about each person, and a certain vision for them, a good desire, takes shape. A quiet morning rain awakens something in me on their behalf, draws me into it, and after I feel it for a bit, I say “Amen.”

I’m not sure branding is much different from prayer, by the way. And I don’t think I connect the two just because that’s my approach. After all, what else is a real branding engagement but a choice to truly see a person or a company (which is just a collection of people gathered for a purpose), to move quietly into the mist of their morning, to note how their particular instance is worth celebrating, to muse a bit upon the beauty of what is there – which is always the reason why we choose the brands we choose – and to invite a shared “Amen” from anyone who’s inspired by the same misty morning?

The noise and the heat and the bustle of the day come later. Tactics follow on. Marketing plans and sales meetings and financial forecasting and product development are all part of the mix, and sometimes they get loud enough to seem like the important stuff. But within every company, every campaign, every person, and every day, there is a quiet morning rain, and enduring “Amen” to something blessed, and blessable.

How cool is that the world is set up this way? How blessed are we that we get to be people who bless a world that revels in our blessing?

I love that I was awakened earlier than I’d wanted this morning – I love the reminder of how good it feels to say “Amen” to the wonders of this life, and to the people and challenges in it. Today I will focus on my words, on the misty morning wonder in what I encounter, and I will choose my own delight by speaking blessing into this place.

May a similar delight be yours.

“Totally. Lately I’ve really hated myself for working here,” she said.

That sucks. Hating yourself for being part of something that gives people what they want.

I get it, though. Selling lottery tickets to people buying with coins. Cigarettes to wheezing geezers. Beer to people who’ve been sleeping outside. Ice cream to fat guys. Each customer shows up with rationalizations to cover their own irrational destructive choice. Each customer with a specific sort of shame and careful defense. I get how, after a while, the cashier would pick up on the irrationality, the destructiveness, and the shame, and would feel complicit in the choices of the customers – her “sin” is simply being part of making the choice possible.

But man, to hate herself for working there. Clearly her defensive rationalizations weren’t in place yet. Her honesty got me thinking.

Is it this way for all of us? Do we all end up with images of ourselves that we derive from the choices we see and foster in other people? Is this how we’re wired to be? If so, what do with do with this reality?

I do think it’s how we’re wired. I’ve been in the crowd for a Colts loss. I’ve watched the news feed as mob mentality celebrates the death of an impersonal enemy. I’ve heard financial reporters talk about the “mood” on Wall Street. My bet is that all Americans carry a certain emotional burden about the fact that “we” are at war…and I would bet that the burden has particular flavors and emotional shaping powers depending on how good an idea a person thinks our wars are.

The way I see it, life – especially life in business – is a street lined with quite a few convenience stores. The easiest path, even if the prices are higher and the products are destructive, is the commonest path exactly because it’s the most convenient option. And convenience – a vice in itself – tells me that I’m important, worth catering to, and that maybe the choice to pay the premium price is a way of saying my time is really important too.

Whole Foods is a longer drive away. And the prices there are just as high. The difference is that shopping at Whole Foods forces me to be intentional and to choose some bigger, less immediate goal – like health, civic/environmental duty, broader experience – as my motivator. Ultimately, shopping at Whole Foods is even more about me than shopping at the convenience store is, but it’s about a better me, where the convenience store caters to a lesser me.

I don’t know. Do cashiers at Whole Foods hate themselves for working there?

Designers and people who tell brand stories for a living know that people influence each other. What inspires one person will inspire another. And how a thought is shared shapes the value and impact of the thought itself. We’re the applied artists, the ones who see the world of people and motives, and who specialize in the use of tools that shape lives and cultures. We have choices to make about how we invite people to experience their worlds, and we also help define what those experiences mean.

Business is easy for the convenience store designer or communicator. Junk sells. And if you can build up your calluses so you don’t hate yourself for working there, the money is pretty easy. Of course, it’ll come in the form of coins from people you won’t enjoy spending time with, and who have no interest in you or your success, but there are certainly worse hells than that.

The thing is, though, that maybe our gifts are intended for something better. Something that shows the beauty of this life. The joy of it. After all, the dark and nasty stuff sells well, but what’s truly remarkable is that light and love and kindness and passion and beauty and delight exist in this world. That’s the stuff that shapes people into people who are fun to be around – that makes them into people who care about you and make your own world better. That’s the “Whole Foods” alternative.

What if it turns out we’re all contagious, and we’re all shaped by whatever other people around us carry?

What if some of our clients come to us worn down into thinking of business and life as a convenience store, but we help them see the goodness in their work? What if we help them fall back in love with what used to inspire them, and we help them share that contagious inspiration with others?

What would it look like if your clients loved the work they do? How good would it feel to help them get there again?

If you were able to play that role in their lives, how would you feel about your own job?

Rituals developed, and certain rules. For example, when we first arrive at the cabin, nobody sits down until everything gets unloaded from the truck and boat and put away inside. Or, no matter what the weather or what time you go to bed, you’re still getting up at the butt crack of dawn, eating breakfast, and going fishing. Dinner dishes are washed by whomever catches the fewest fish (which is a scam for my youngest brother, who goes after the schooling – and boring – Walleye, while I like to cast and prefer the more elusive bass and pike…and yes, I’ve done my share of dishes as sacrifice to this better way of life). The sons had tasks, but Dad always took care of two daily duties in particular: getting breakfast started so we’d wake up to an expression of his love, and making sure the boat battery was plugged in and properly charged the next day, so the trolling motor would work and our time on the water would be more pleasant and effective…an expression of his desire that we would all enjoy our time together.

The last time I went fishing in Ontario was a few years ago, and my brothers had other obligations, so just my dad and I went. I love my brothers and definitely prefer having them along, but I’m really glad that I had the experience of being there with just my dad. The rituals were exactly the same, except that because it was just the two of us, I experienced each ritual, each choice to do something in a certain way, as an act of service, of love. It was like that all week, both of us had done the stuff enough times that we just knew what to do and did it, offering the gesture and receiving the gift of the other man’s gesture. I don’t know if the details of how we do things are the best way (I would assume they’re not, actually), but they’re the way we’ve done them, and now our behavior and way of doing the week means more than ideas of “best way” or something like that. What our behaviors feel like now is something closer to my dad saying, “I love you in this choice I’m making to serve you right now,” and my response being something along the lines of, “I choose to receive your love in the way you offer it, and I choose to respond in kind.”

And at some point, the word “sacred” stuck with me.

No matter what life choices I may make, or how our differences may show up in the rest of our lives, there is something very sacred about life in the cabin with my dad and me. The sacredness has to do with a few things, I think. The first is that the time and space has been claimed as different, a ground for relationship unto itself, where all that is invited – or at least dwelt upon – is who we are at root, not what things we attach to or clash over at home. The second is that the cabin is a very real expression of my dad’s love – a place to which he invites his son(s) to share time together. The third has to do with what a father’s love also provides – namely boundaries and protection. My dad welcomes my choices and preferences while we’re on our fishing trips, but he also jealously guards the time, the environment, and his role there – certain music or technology wouldn’t fit, and it seems to be right for both of us that he be the “host” and the head, even though I am fully welcomed there and pay half the bill. Part of how he jealously guards the week has to do with who else is welcomed. I wouldn’t even think of inviting a friend (though I would certainly be open to inviting my dad on trips I took with friends). And if some stranger from another cabin were to show up at our door, we would both help the person, my dad would be the one who set the rule about what sort of help and what level of welcome we’d extend. In fact, the only person who’d be welcomed on the trip would be my bride.

And that’s us with the Father and the Son, I think.

I think of capital H, true and ultimate Holiness as being the Father’s fierce and protective love for the Son – He will keep the rules and He will maintain the sacredness of the space – holiness is an expression of love, always. We are welcomed into the space that exists within the embrace between Father and Son the way my wife, Christine, would be welcomed into the fishing cabin. Christine is welcomed because I love her, and because my father loves me.

Here’s where the “living sacred space” title of this post comes in.

What would I have to do to prepare Christine to fit in and love the week fishing with my dad and me as much as I enjoy it? And what things get in the way?

Certainly one thing that would get in the way would be an obsessive focus on her part about trying to get everything right – especially if she tried to practice and memorize the “rules” before we ever arrived at the cabin. What if I told her we don’t really listen to much music when we’re up there, but what we do play is mostly Eagles, Jimmy Buffet, and Chris De Burgh (because several years ago my dad loved the “Lady in Red” song and my brothers and I humored the replaying of the album so many times on the drive up that it became part of the fishing cabin soundtrack), with occasional doses of what my dad may or may not intentionally screw up when he asks for “Tom Petty and the Mindbenders.” (Crap, now I’ve heard it so many times that I had to Google to make sure I was swapping out “mindbenders” for “heartbreakers” correctly.) That little bit of information would get in the way for Christine – maybe she’d start listening to the music here so she could appreciate it there, or maybe she’d brace against the music she wouldn’t like, or maybe she’d just see the existence of an established soundtrack as an imposing and uninviting lame law.

Man, that’s just music, which does translate. There’s no way she’d be game for a discussion of dacron vs. monofilament vs. braided nylon fishing line, or Mepps vs. Daredevil lures. There’s a world of practical knowledge – still experience-based and preference-driven – that only makes sense when you’re on a boat in Ontario. How much more with God?

You know what would make a fishing trip attractive to Christine (though I’ve probably poisoned the thought with years of details and stories now)? If I told her that when we’re in Canada we spend a week in thorough enjoyment of our surroundings, our activities, and the working of love between us.

Wouldn’t be a bad summary for evangelicals to consider, either, I suppose.

So, if I were to tell Christine about a week of thorough enjoyment of love working between us, and she were to come along, then what?

I would not tell her a bunch of rules. I would live the rituals and welcome her participation if she asked how she could jump in. I would let her receive the benefits of the love working between us – because I love her and would love to be a benefit to her, and that would be my father’s heart for her as well, because he loves her on her own, but also as an expression of loving me. I would welcome her thoughts and ideas and questions – maybe there are better ways to live the week…and if she had good ideas, my dad would say, “That’s really slick” (because that’s what he says about all new ideas he likes) and wouldn’t think twice about adopting an improvement – the rituals are expressions of love, and they only matter for their ability to convey the love…upgrades are always welcomed. And if Christine did things differently – even annoyingly – she’d still be welcomed, and her Chris De Burgh contribution would become part of the soundtrack, too. (That’s just an example, Dad – De Burgh is still awesome.)

If I wanted Christine to experience something of what I experience on my trips to Canada, it would be important for me to “hold space” for her – to welcome her without demand and to see if she discovered aspects of the trip that felt like love to her, and inspired her to offer love into the mix. It would be important for me to protect her freedom to join in as she felt comfortable doing so, and not to scare her off by rushing, ridiculing or reprimanding her choices on the trip. There are situations of risk while we’re in remote water – there are ways to make expensive errors (my dad’s got a pretty comprehensive record of expensive learning experiences from his 30+ years of fishing) and there are ways to die, for sure – but because Christine would be with us, she’d be okay, so there’s nothing to fear when it comes down to it. My job would be to guard and protect the space for Christine to experience fishing in Canada, and what love looks like from my dad and me in that context – that’s what would make it sacred.

I want to be more like that with other people and in more and more of my life, too. Especially when it comes to issues of living with God. There is a deeper reality than “belief” that bonds us together – the person of the Lord is real and present, and really the point of faith is about how we engage life remembering that. Christine could learn all she wanted about my dad’s “rules and ways” on fishing trips, and she could even show up on the trip and ride in the boat with him, convinced she knew he’s a fan of the braided nylon, and why, but it would be a kind of silly focus to have when the living guy is right there, liable to ask the now famous question, “So, if you were a rock, would you rather be above water, under water, or half-way?” Because, seriously, once you’ve communicated your love for someone and are hanging out in a boat just enjoying their company, who cares what you talk about?

I want to hold space for people. I want to treat their souls as sacred. I want to pursue my Father and love Him in response to His love and His presence. And I want other people to receive the benefit from my efforts. And maybe, at some point, they’ll taste the love too, and jump in. That would be cool.

* Oh, and as to where the Holy Spirit is in this whole metaphor. He’s the one who shows me that breakfast is love, that a charged battery is pursuit of enjoying me, that a GPS is an expression of the value perceived in my life, that an invitation to go fishing is an invitation to spend a week in the shelter of my father’s heart. The Holy Spirit is the one who adds Chris De Burgh to the playlist, who inspires me to respond to love with love. And the Holy Spirit is the one who causes me to take note of how incredibly wonderful a week in a cabin with my dad can be, and still say, “the only thing that would make this better would be if my brothers were here – I would love to share this with them, too.” That’s Him at work, in Ontario or on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon saying a prayer for people who may read my blog.

One of the trade-offs is autumn. I feel the chill in the air, see the leaves starting to turn, and a sense of dread comes over me – it will soon be gray and cold for months, and I will notice how bare trees look like raw nerves reaching into bitter skies (an example of a thought matching a mood, there). When I’m in the mood to let melancholy have its way, autumn feels like the end of a good thing, a sigh, a dropping and sweeping away of the detritus of an exuberant summer. I feel myself bracing, and I start wondering where I packed away the light therapy lamps and the space heaters.

I have the capacity to run with my moods like this for extended periods. This summer was a case in point. The emotion I was trying to avoid was sadness – grief, really – and fear of vulnerability I experience in life. A woman who had become a sort of spiritual mother to me died of stomach cancer a couple of days after we said goodbye on the phone – I remember the scent of lilacs wafting through my office windows as we spoke and she prayed that I would abide. My wife and I knew that her job would be going away at some point (it’s taken longer than we expected, but is now imminent) and there is a sort of grief and dread that has come with the pending change. My mother was diagnosed with a lyposarcoma, which led to surgery to remove a football-sized tumor from her stomach. The tumor was non-cancerous, and her recovery has been amazing – with no further drugs or treatment required – but she and I talked about how if she died, it would be okay…and on the day of the surgery my brothers and father and I lined up to hug her goodbye in case the surgery didn’t go well. My dad’s best friend of 35 years, the one who taught my family to fish, died suddenly while alone at his summer house in Michigan. He was alone because his wife was here in Indianapolis for his daughter’s wedding shower. Her uncle walked her down the isle in September. The day after my dad’s friend died, my dad and I drove up Michigan to gather his things, his dog, and his car. The day after the friend’s memorial service was a Sunday, and I remember not wanting to wake up because I was afraid of what the day might hit me with (and I’m somebody who always wakes up in a good mood). There was a text from Daniel Rassum saying he wanted to talk because he was going to turn himself in, and risk facing life in prison. The next day he had his wife drop him off at the jail – I spoke with her as she drove home. His jacket is still hanging on our coat rack, waiting for him. The day after that, my dog with the bad leg had her other leg go out. I made the call to the vet, and the next morning he came over and they put her down. I held my hand over her face so Christine wouldn’t see that I the dog’s eyes wouldn’t close and her tongue wouldn’t go back into her mouth.

I’d felt the squish of surface tears, and the gripping in my chest, from the other sadnesses of the summer, but I didn’t really touch grief until I walked back into our kitchen and heaved sobs into Christine’s shoulder as the vet loaded Abby onto a stretcher and took her body away.

Grief, for me, seems to be the key to my joy. And I never knew it before.

I was so present with Abby’s death – she was looking into my eyes as she went, and I was spooned against her, petting her in the grass – that there was no place for me to hide. The reality was stronger than my habitual tendency to shape experiences with my moods. She died, and I chose the time and place and means, and I held her leg as they put the needle in. I made the right choice, but it was a horrible choice to have to make, and all I could do was let the reality of the moment slam into me.

I was terrified of the grieving. Christine promised me that it would be okay, and that I should let it come. “Don’t put a clock on it,” she told me, “let it do it’s work.”

I’m crying just thinking about the dog, and about the summer. My other dog, Emily, loves this and is licking my salty tears.

Is all of life like this – one dead dog and one sweet living one?

I’m starting to think it is.

Grief denied leads to a bitter sludge in the bottom of the tank of my soul. It leads to memories and resentments groomed and tended and leveraged – to sourness and a persistent story of victimization. It leads to fear and fear’s paralysis because the person who cannot grieve will never learn how durable they are, and how good a gift this life really is. Instead, people like me choose to focus on moods, internal things, feeling very aware of their vulnerability. People like me tend to dwell on the dead dog, however kind we may be to the living one curled beside us.

So, to autumn and the rusty passion-sapped suicides fluttering to the ground like so many latte-soaked emergents at a Pepsi Refresh conference. It’s a choice between the primacy of mood and the primacy of reality. At least for me. Which will determine my day? In which one will I find life?

Yesterday I downloaded the Omnifocus app for my iPhone. It’s my new spiritual tool. It’s a task manager, and a life-line connecting my moody self to the living world (in which grief plays a huge role). Today my list includes: Bible reading, journaling, chiropractor, brushing my teeth, a weekly trim of eyebrows and nose hairs, washing the sheets, drinking 120 oz of water, “core” muscle exercises, working out, solving the clogged pipes in my bathroom, 30 minutes of “soaking” in worship music, writing this blog post, two Twitter updates, walking the dog, buying Christine’s birthday gift, buying this week’s flowers, a trip to Whole Foods, buying Luther’s 3 Treatises, making my daily “check-in” phone call with two friends, preparing for my men’s group that meets at my house Monday nights, recording my feelings, recording my eating, recording a short gratitude list, cleaning the upstairs bathroom, and beginning the outline for a new book. These things happen in reality, and if I choose to live in reality as well, I am likely to remember that I love autumn for the brisk air, the beauty of the colors, the sound of the high school football game’s PA system and marching band carrying all the way to my open windows on Friday nights, and for the walk I will take in the woods with Christine tomorrow.

And seriously, that puts me in a pretty good mood.

His real name is Gary Sibley. He’s been going by Daniel because he’s had outstanding charges against him, including one that could shape up as a felony, and he wasn’t ready to turn himself in before.

About two months ago, he was finally ready.

He was exhausted from the pressures of being on the run – or at least he was exhausted from the pressures of the fear he felt about how quickly things could go very badly for him. After much soul-searching, some tearful discussion with his ex-wife (with whom the relationship has been reconciled – as has also been the case with his two adult children), Gary had his wife drop him off at the jail in Greensboro, NC. He had two smaller charges to face there. Those charges resulted in a 120-day sentence (of which he’s already served half) and probation. When he finishes the remainder of this sentence, he will be transferred to a nearby county to face charges of auto theft.

This is the bigger deal. Because the car was worth more than $1,000, it’s a felony. And because Gary has done time as a “habitual felon” in the past, he’d be looking at a “third strike.” He calls it “The Bitch.”

But there is reason for strong hope. The way he tells it, the owner of the car gave Daniel the keys. Apparently he was starting some sort of recovery ministry and said, “You don’t think anybody will trust you – but I’ll trust you. Look – here are my car keys, take them. I trust you.” At least that’s how I’ve heard the story. The miscommunication had to do with how long Gary could use the vehicle. Apparently, the owner giving the keys to Gary makes it unauthorized use, not theft. If the owner’s statement indicates this, Gary may not be in too much hot water.

If you would, please offer a prayer about all of this.

Gary (I keep typing “Daniel”) has had an amazing life change in the past two and a half years. He’s also 55-years old and is now a mellow grandfather whose music and ministry touches people deeply. He’s been leading Bible studies in the jail, and it sounds like he’s become quite a father figure to some of the men. If he ends up in prison, he’ll thrive and serve well there – no question. But he’s a man who found freedom when he finally came to admit that his personal prodigal story would end on the courthouse steps – that his Father would meet him there – and free men can thrive and serve anywhere. He’s done so much work on himself, with intimate relationships, and within a very large circle of friends and fans that the best course for his life is surely to be on the outside, moving forward in those areas…singing.

Yesterday I was reading Dwell magazine. An article about “rethinking your bathroom.” They’d highlighted sentences for me, and had several callouts of “fun facts.” All I read were the highlights and the factoids. So I’m part of whatever problem I’m about to address.

Thought 1: most worth while data, insights, or truths boil down into 140 character blips (see my “fortune cookies” section at pulptheology.com for examples).

Thought 2: fun facts or insight blips flatten our world – giving us a breadth of data, with very little cohesion for the building of worldviews.

If we live in a world of trivia, triviology would include the study of the worlds we build upon trivia blips.

If I have a ton of “fun facts” in my world, each like a playing card, I can arrange them in any order I want. There is no need for them to be placed in any particular sequence. In our triviological world, we play the hands we’re dealt. (And our lives may feel like a house of cards…and when you build a house of cards, it doesn’t matter which cards you use.) When dealing with a deck of shuffled cards, the only meaning we encounter is the meaning we ascribe to the cards – the rule of the game we’re playing.

In my world of insight blips, there does not need to be any objective meaning – I can arrange the data as I see fit. Ultimately, reality becomes a reflection of whatever we choose to call it – which rules we want to use in the game.

While this is great for killing dead structures, it seems like it could have real consequences for relationships. I am who I am, and you don’t get to decide who I am, right? But if in your world you’ve grown accustomed to getting to label and define things of all sorts, and I don’t fit in or play your prescribed role for me, I won’t be a desirable relationship. I’ll be a card you’ll discard according to the rules of the game you’re playing.

That’s okay when there are so many other people – so many other cards – left in the deck. Okay in the sense that it works out. If you aren’t the voice I’m looking for, I can throw you back and draw another card. If you don’t behave or love me or give me quite what I want according to the blip-based description of the world I’m living in, I can find someone else who will be exactly what I want them to be. In many circles, this is called setting boundaries or “taking care of yourself.”

Addicts live to feed on this reality. (And by the way, I believe we’re all addicts.)

But what about God? There’s only one God card in the deck. And while He meets us where we are, and while He mingles with anything and redeems it, He is who He is – especially in the sense that He is a distinct being.

In a blip world, does grace become a blank we fill in – an “I get to be this and He has to call it good because I am the definer of what is real.” (And remember the verse about whatever you bind or loose on earth will be bound or loosed in Heaven? So this naming and labeling and creating of reality must be real, right?)

And if in my other relationships I get to make the rules (or a social quorum votes the rules of my world into place), and when people don’t measure up to those rules, I get to set a boundary that discards them, will I inevitably do the same with God?

How much harder is it to meet a person and get to know who they are in our trivialized world? How much harder to meet and get to know God? How much harder to meet ourselves and get to know who we really are – not just who we want to be or what stories we want to invent for our lives – when the trivia, and life, gets sorted where it gives us the neatest quick tickle?

What do you think?

But outside it was beautiful. 73 degrees. Sunny, with the sun angling to the west and buttering everything in its light. I drove with the windows down. West, into the sun. I was angry about my life, frustrated with my wife, and generally feeling the pain of non-control. I felt God asking to be the one to whom I’d turn, but in my heart I half-grumbled about feeling like He’d just reject and ignore me, too. I didn’t quite say that – instead I pretended He wasn’t asking for me…that way I wouldn’t have to risk an honest response to Him.

I ended up driving out of town until I decided to stop at the Mount Tabor Primitive Baptist Church west of Zionsville. Christine and I attended there once or twice when we were first dating, and I knew I’d be able to sit and watch the sun set.

I’d forgotten they had a graveyard. I parked the car and decided to walk among the headstones – always good for perspective.

There was a sunny rise with a large headstone facing west. It read “John Leap Revolutionary War Soldier: 1735-1845.” That was an old man, a long time ago. I sat down.

The headstone had soaked in the heat of the sun all afternoon, and it radiated warmth that was actually greater than the fading sunlight in my face. It felt like a welcome. Maybe even an embrace. A “there, there son – sit with me for a bit.” How much hospitality must grow in the heart of a man buried and silent for 165 years? I want my headstone to be warm that way for someone someday.

So I sat. And I knew that for as spun up as I’ve been, my anxieties about my life will be among the very first things to burn. So I let them slip from me, and I received the warmth of the sun and of Mr Leap’s headstone.

A mosquito buzzed in my ear, and I brushed it away.

“Let it feed.” I felt something or someone suggest.

A moment later a mosquito landed on my crossed leg, and I let it plunge it’s needle in and drink. What a short and meaningless life a mosquito has. And how little blood it took.

The mosquito, puny and brief and asking little. Me, puny and brief and able to spare the blood, feeding on the warmth and the comfort of the headstone in a quiet and well manicured country graveyard. The headstone of John Leap, basking for years in the light and heat, and the cold and rain, under the sun and heavens of a God who smiles the same upon us all.

Two robins policed in parallel nearby, eating the worms that eat the bodies. Earth to flesh to wings in the heavens.

We all feed, and upon us all are fed.

It would be a simple enough “circle of life” moment if ours were truly a circular reality. It isn’t. There is One who is the Alpha and the Omega. He feeds us all. And for His delight.

“Feed my sheep,” is the command. And lately that’s felt heavy to me. Confusing. Draining. Depleting. And so long as the best I can come up with is the “circle of life,” the best I’ll find is the comfort of resource management. But I’ve not been called to feed as the offering may please me or be well-managed.

I’ve been called to offer myself up. To be fed upon as He will choose for me.

And I’ve been called to feed upon Him. His flesh and His blood – offered wholly to me.

I left the house today with a common burden – the desire and sense that I need to make something of my life. That it is my life to shape. That it is my story to control, to edit, to spin and to celebrate. It’s a popular notion, and deeply heretical.

I think there’s something much better.

The joy set before me – before us – is the same as the one offered to God’s Son. We may pray, as He did, for the cup to pass, but our stories are “written,” offered to us as gifts…perfection upon which we will never improve.

And journey as we may, strive as we may, our lives and stories belong to Him, and He will determine their greatness and the blessings He’ll bestow through us. And for whatever other rewards we may seek along the way, the best we can do – and the greatest joy we can know – is to offer ourselves to one another.

I returned home with new clarity – and I believe with a new business model that I’ll share in another post – and I looked up John Leap, the man upon whose grave I rested this evening, and this is what I found. Tell me he could have come up with the blessing he gave me today, or the reminder God may have for you in this post.

From the writings of Jacob Leisle:

JOHN WESLEY LIEB 1735 -1845: “John was born on the river Rhine, near Mannheim Germany, He was one of fifteen children. In his early teens he began his education to become a Catholic priest. During his education he secretly read the Holy Bible which was a rare thing in that country. However, when he was 24, he renounced the Catholic faith and was conditionally exiled from his mother country, either having to be burned at the stake, die beneath the guillotine or leave the country.

Traveling by night and hiding by day, the tall lanky youth left the county we know as Germany now and make his way though Holland crossed the English Channel into England. In April 1757, in Plymouth Harbor he boarded a ship laden with glass and so was bound for America as a stowaway. When he was discovered hidden in one of the small boats on the Vessel, the captain immediately issued orders for Leep to be thrown overboard. Other officers objected so the angry captain allowed him to work his passage doing odd jobs. John arrived in Baltimore, Maryland in June 1757. John settled in what is now eastern Virginia and became acquainted with the family and parents of George Rogers Clark, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, James Monroe, and other prominent families. He became the foreman of a large tobacco plantation. He was a skilled musician and played the violin for some of the social gatherings.

John joined the American Army in September 1775 as a private in the 4th Regiment of the Pennsylvania Militia, and later was made a Quartermaster General under General George Washington. He spent the winter with Washington at Valley Forge and was one of the parties that crossed the Delaware. Able to speak seven Languages, it was Leep, who on Christmas Eve, “tipped” the general regarding the Hessians at Germantown, New Jersey, for he knew their customs and knew they would spend Christmas Eve drinking and dancing. Washington acted on this advice and swooping down on them, captured that position and many prisoners. John served in companies under Captain John Jameson and Captain Arch McIlroy and was given his honorable discharge at Morristown, New Jersey at the end of the war. During his service, John was at the siege of Boston and witnessed the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

John was fond of telling the story that while in the Army he headed a detail, which brought back a stack of hay from an Old Dutch farmer. Finding six big rounds of cheese in the hay where they had been left to ripen, the soldiers took the booty back to camp where their comrades quickly devoured it. The next morning the irate Dutchman made complaints to Washington, who ordered Leep to pay for the cheese.

In 1768, John married Margaret Crow and moved to Mannheim Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In 1775, the family was living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. After the death of his first wife in 1799, John and his children moved to Lancaster County where he married a French lady, Sarah Deleow. Soon after, his new wife and children moved to Greene County. In 1808 he went to Indiana to prepare a place for his family to settle in what is now known as Switzerland county, Indian. In about 1816 John Leap Sr. moved with his second wife and younger children to the new land. In 1832 the family moved again to Boone County, Indian to live on a farm near Fayette.

The older children of John Wesley Leap moved to Virginia. Gabriel and John Wesley II reached Monongalia County just after 1810 and are listed on the 1820 census there. By 1840, part of Monongalia County became Tyler County, and by 1846 part of Tyler County became Wetzel, Wood and Wirt Counties. Both Brothers and their children are listed in the 1840 and 1850 census.

Discipline had been severe in his father’s household, and John Leap would make no changes for the freer life in his new country. In 1812, in Moongalia County, Virginia, his son, Gabriel Leap, went to court to gain gentler treatment for the children. John was always close to George Rogers Clark and as a settler in southern Indiana, he makes two or three trips down the river by horseback to visit his old friend.

On his 100th birthday, his wife found him lying in the garden between two rows of cabbages shouting “Oh Mother, I was never so happy in my life. I want to be baptized in the Baptist Church right now.” So insistent were his demands that a messenger was dispatched and the Reverend David Keaney came by horseback to baptize John in the little stream of White Lick almost within a stone’s throw of the place where his remains now peacefully repose. The next year, John walked the twenty miles to the meeting of the General Assembly at Indianapolis to address them on a subject in which he was interested. Later he made the same trip several times to meetings of old soldiers, again on foot.

John Leap was 110 years, 5 months and 1 day old when he died on 16 September 1845. (Another source says he was 112 years old at his death.)

On 4 July 1898 the citizens of Boone County erected a large gray granite marker to the memory of John Wesley Leap.”

I live in a flood plain, and frankly I’ve always thought floods were sort of cool – like I’d just swim or wade where I needed to go, and maybe it would be fun to canoe down my street. But on Monday evening, back home in Indianapolis, a thunderstorm rolled in, and I felt fear…after a lifetime of loving thunderstorms.

God gave me a pretty big brain, and a pretty loud voice. And I have built up a big body. I also have enough ego, enough vision, and enough determination that I tend to think big and strive for big things. All of this, this bigness and the feelings of control that come with it, was pushed hard last week.

Really, what’s happening is some more of the truth is coming into focus for me. God wants me to pursue “the little path.” I’ve talked before about my books not selling like I thought they would, but part of that is tied to my not feeling right about pushing too hard with them…I’ve known that being “big” would be bad news for my soul. Same deal with money in many ways – I used to think too much money would ruin me…but what God’s been showing me is to be content with less. There are blessings that come with littleness.

Of those blessings, the biggest seems to be intimacy with God. (I say God instead of The Father, Jesus or The Spirit right now because this week I feel so tucked away within the sanctuary of their love that I feel equally close, relationally, with all three in one. It’s a good feeling.) When I turn my attention to Him, and see my life reflected in Him, rather than facing my world as though it’s mine to make big or manage, I find a peace that is greater than the thrill of bigness. The little path is a good path. At least for me.

And now there is a new sadness within me, from the flood and from the feelings of littleness I experienced last weekend. But it’s okay.

I chose to start this post after reading, and being stopped to cry about, Ezra 3:11-13:

And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

Our community of men in Nashville (and in several other cities, now too) has been going through big changes in leadership, in relationship, in posture regarding God, etc. For some, what once existed is gone. For some, what once existed is being rebuilt. For some, the community seems to be on a path of simple progression. For some, the progress holds a deep bittersweetness. Having the place where we’ve traditionally held the weekends be wiped away holds all of the same emotions. If the place is rebuilt, it will be good news, but it won’t be the same, and while some will shout for joy, others of us will still hold the sadness, and we will bring that layer, texture, and memory as our gift to the community.

Whatever happens, much like in Ezra, it will not be the old people who rebuild. It will be young people. New people. People who may feel like interlopers to some. Isn’t this the way in all of creation? The young lion who drives the old lion away from his pride. The young sapling growing brightly – full of brash freshness – from the bier of a fallen elder. The human race is really only one generation wise, isn’t it? Maybe that’s true of all of creation, too. And there is a beautiful sadness in the turning wheel of time, but if we choose it, we can soak it with love. We can weep unashamedly, and let our weeping mingle with the shouts of joy offered by people who are still learning the lessons of their littleness.

Today I will be little. And sad. And lovely. And today I will find shelter in the embrace of my Lord. May His peace be upon you as well.