CONCLUSIONS: PART 3

“These ideas have brought me liberation”

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This goal to write for 17 days through the questions posed by Anthony deMello at the beginning of his book, Wellsprings, is one example of taking smaller bites in order to accomplish something bigger. We all want to be better people. We want to love more. We want to be more grateful, change portions of our life, make impacts. We grow discouraged after attempting those things for short time. The reason is because we never determined smaller, more accomplishable steps in those directions. If we wanted to be more grateful, for example, we might have taken a smaller practical step of writing down one thing each day for which I am grateful. 

When I am prompted to think of ideas that have brought me liberation, I tried to think of specific steps or challenges I have given myself to move in another larger direction. 

The liberating idea that immediately came to mind is Bryleigh’s Bible. It was an idea I got from a couple other men, but I have engaged mine for a much longer process. I have a wide margin NASB bible I am reading through entirely while writing to Bryleigh things I hope for her to know in the margins. I plan to give her the bible when she turns 18.

In 2011 I embarked on a story between father and daughter. I began on the inside flap writing: This is the story of a Father who has always anxiously awaited every opportunity to be with and near his children. It is the story of a Father who promises and protects his children even when they do not understand; even when they outright abandon him. It is a story of an outrageous love that will do crazy and drastic things. This love of a Father will do things you never thought possible or even necessary at times, but make no mistake, this Father's love is real. It is not a fairy tale or piece of nice fiction.

It is a Father's love that could not wait for his children to be created. It is a Father's love that was pained when his children turned away from him. It is a Father's love that always protected and shielded when it could. This is a Father's love that offers the greatest gift ever given to anyone.

My hope for you is that you will always know this Father to be near you. I hope you will know a love for you that is so tangible you could taste it. I hope you will always remember this love through your life as the one truest love that cannot be debated or shadowed. I hope you know this love and trust it even when it is hard to understand.

This hope of mine  will require of you trust and risk; risking enough to trust in such an outrageous love.

This is a love for you nobody on earth will ever be able to match, including me, and I love you more than you will ever understand.

This is a large and long (eternal) story, but each piece will make a bit more sense if you remember the Upper story of a Father's outrageous love for you.”

This entire process has been very interesting and freeing. It makes me look at the Bible through an entirely different lens. I have read through the Bible a few times, but this time has been so new. It has made me focus on the things I want and hope my daughter will take away from it. It has made me slow waaaay down as I read through.

It has caused me to place my parenting in question along the way as well. I see Bryleigh every day, NOW, as a 5 year old, but I realize she will not read any of this until she is 18. I am writing to a ‘future Bryleigh’ whom I do not know yet. Will she be a follower of Jesus? Will she have been a follower of Jesus, but drifted away? Will she be highly devoted to being a follower of Jesus? I do not know these things, and it makes me question just what to write to her NOW. 

I have been encouraged along the way from parents of older children. On the basic level, I am told it doesn’t matter whether or not she is following Jesus; she is going to love having something from her dad, written in her dad’s handwriting. My brother-in-law lost his dad at a young age, but one of the things he still has is his dad’s Bible with his random notes in the margins. I remember my BIL telling me its one of his cherished possessions for that reason. So I trust that just my handwriting and thoughts will be cherished.

I also trust that as I write these things to her in the margins, I am also living out the things I write. I am challenged to determine what things I really believe and trust. I am attempting to guide my daughter in her mind and heart, because these things deeply matter. I want her to take these things very seriously, and I want them to matter to her. So they absolutely have to matter to me NOW. These are steps I can take now toward something that will be 15 years from now; an adult daughter I have raised. There is freedom and liberation in remembering I have 15 years to help teach and challenge a girl who will become a woman of character, integrity, and wisdom. I have 15 years to learn new things and fail at others. The best ideas are not grandiose explosions of immediacy, but they are the ones you allow the time to develop and grow. 

CONCLUSIONS: Part 2

“These experiences I have cherished”

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Poetry got me married. My sophomore year of college I was in a social club, which was essentially a fraternity without the beer, and even some of them disregarded even that stipulation. I was a member of the group called Novus Dux, and our greek letters were Alpha Upsilon Omega.  We were a group of guys dedicated to service and various other things.  We had a sister group entitled L’Amifidel. Their letters were Alpha Pi Epsilon. 

There were a lot of things we did together with L’Ami (as they were affectionately called).  The connection between Novus Dux and L’Amifidel was pretty strong.  As a result, we would periodically have days set aside in Novus Dux that would be dedicated to serving the L’Ami girls.  We’d ask that all of the girls would wear their T-shirts as there were more than 50 of them, and we didn’t know ALL of them.

The goal throughout the day, whenever you saw a L’Ami girl, was that you would do something to serve them in that moment.  Most of the guys would resort to the easy way out by doing things like opening the door for them or taking up their bright orange lunch tray.  I chose a more interesting path…more creative…more….???...tenacious.

I went to the library and checked out a few books of sonnets and various other poetry and went out to The Valley. The Valley was an area about the size of a football field with rolling hills and green green grass and converging sidewalk pathways that generally got you to anywhere on campus. I would sit in a patch grass with my books at hand, and whenever at first glance of a L’Amifidel T-shirt, even if it were the length of the valley, I would recite poetry from the books in my most dramatic fashion.

At one point, I looked up and saw a stunning blond girl walking toward me in a blue T-shirt with the yellow greek letters Alpha Pi Epsilon on it. I saw her from a distance, and I flipped quickly to “a good one”, and knelt down and screamed as loudly and dramatically as I could. I didn’t even know her name. She gave a wry smile and eventually a hearty laugh at my idiocy that was both ridiculous AND charming.

Years later, that stunning blond would be my best friend until my 5th year of college where we started a dating relationship for a year before getting engaged to be married. Our friendship and relationship in college was included candlelit taco bell dinners and driving until we were purposefully lost.  After I was married to her, we would be asked frequently the common question, “Where did you meet?” It wasn’t on a road trip with friends.  She would be sure to let you know it was on a day when he read me poetry loudly and inanely in The Valley at Anderson University.  Poetry got me married!

Another memory is sitting over coffee with my hero, Brennan Manning, and sitting over hotdogs a few years later. We can say we know someone by reading all their words, but there is something different that sets more concretely when you sit across a table from one another. Brennan would not have remembered our conversations, or me but those are two experiences I will not soon release. I can remember asking him what books he recommends, as I was accustomed to recommending his books to everyone. It was before I had a phone in my pocket to write down all the recommendations, which meant it was left to shitty memory, which means I’ll never know what he told me that day.

The most cherished moments in life are the ones, which set a person (or group of people) in your heart forever like drying concrete. My entire life has been so full of hard-drying moments like this I cannot help but leave very important moments and highly cherished people out of the list.

CONCLUSIONS: PART 1

CONCLUSIONS: PART 1

Anthony DeMello begins his book, Wellsprings, with: “I imagine that today I am to die. I ask for time to be alone and write down for my friends a sort of testament for which the points that follow could serve as chapter titles.” He goes on to list 16 questions or categories to consider and write on. 

Number 1 is:

“These things I have loved in life:
Things I tasted,
looked at,
smelled, 
heard,
touched.”

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The first time I went to the Happiest place on earth, Chicago, I was brought to Gino’s East. Before the pizza came to our table, I remember being elated to see a picture of David Letterman eating pizza on the wall. There were so many other people pictured, but I was only impressed and enthralled with David Letterman. It was the first time I had Chicago style deep-dish pizza. I would not have it again for several years during a spring break in college. 

Just one friend and I went on this spring break together. We chose to go north to a frigid Wisconsin for our spring break. It would be a week of journaling and drinking coffee. It really wasn’t bad at all. There came from it a couple crazy stories. One of those is going through the tolls just over the state boarder into Wisconsin. It was a time when you threw coins into a basket to make the wooden arm go up. We came up on the basket but the car in front of us hadn’t not put in exact change. We put in our full amount to make the arm go up and attempted to follow the cheapskates through the arm, and through the arm we did go, breaking it clean off. We both looked at one another in a silent panic, and one of us said, “GUN IT!” So I’m a criminal.

Also on this trip, there was a day spent in Chicago. We went to a lot of the spots everyone goes to, and we wanted to be certain we had pizza before we left. We walked everywhere we went. On our way to Gino’s, we came across a homeless man who had asked for spare money we would not give him if we HAD it. Instead, we asked him how to get to Gino’s East and if he wanted to grab some pizza with us. He warned us no place was going to let him in, but we insisted. 

I can still feel the encrusted hand shake my own. At some point, we realize what you throw to the side in order to make a marginalized person feel like a person. His hands had more than dirt and germs swathed within them. His hands held loosely memories of family and a childhood lived somewhere. With a simple handshake, you have to feel all these things below the grime or this man never becomes a person.

Not many sounds come flooding back to me from that day, but today I can hear the naivety of two college guys who realize this man they sat with had already known the years we knew plus some. This meant, two college kids were unaware that his “condition” could have easily been their immediate future. They just thought they were doing something so incredibly noble and loving. 1 out of 2 ain’t bad. 

The noblest and most loving thing we can do is to humanize the people we walk past every day, even if it means looking below the grim encrusted on the outside.