"It's Hotter in Hell"

A few weeks ago, Joy and I were driving around and saw this church sign. I was instantly appalled, annoyed, embarrassed. I have to wonder what goes through the mind of the person deciding on posting something like this in front of their church. They probably think they're so clever, as witty as they come. I'm a Christian who believes in hell, and I find this sign terribly disturbing. It makes me want to make my own sign that says "I'm sorry" and stand in front of this sign. I have a hard time imagining Jesus going to the woman at the well saying, "Yeah, you want some water do you? You're not gonna get that in hell you know!" Perhaps what's the best (worst?) about this picture is the wonderful "Visitors Welcome!" right below the message. I don't think I'd feel welcome walking into this church, and can only imagine how someone curious about Christ might feel.

Rest

Isn't it crazy how the days fly by? It's already the end of July, and I feel as if I haven't taken a breath in months. Wait...that's not true. I take deep breaths here and there, glorious moments when life slows and I rest in its slowing. But entirely too rarely. I'm always looking forward to the next break. In the fall semester, I was doing my practicum alongside a full load of classes, so certainly the spring semester wouldn't be as busy. During the spring semester, I realized I had 6 big classes and took on an additional project for a professor, added a client or two, and then I think that summer will surely be time to sit on the porch, relaxing in the morning shade while drinking coffee late into the afternoon. Now summer seems just as busy as the last semesters, and I have a feeling the pace won't easily slow for the next forty years. Unless I stop it.

Right now I'm eager to jump into the next academic year, honest-to-goodness excitement. I have a good internship lined up, and while I'm nervous as heck (do I really know what I'm doing?), I think I'm prepared for the challenge. I've got a list of schools to which I'm applying for Ph.D. programs, and it's thrilling to have no idea where we might be in a year. I've also lined up some research opportunities at two schools in Chicago: Northwestern and DePaul. The reason for this was simple: Ph.D. programs look for research experience, and I felt like I was lacking in research experience. So I contacted some professors and researchers about volunteering in their research labs, and after some "No's," I got two "Yes's." That's exciting for me, and while again I'm terrified (just how long will it take the professors to realize I know practically nothing about research?), I'm ready to jump in. Might as well get used to looking dumb now, since it'll probably happen a lot in the next few years if I do go on for more schooling.

And while I'm happy with all of this and think it's fine and dandy, I still want to rest: walk slowly through the leaves rather than rush to my car, spend an hour or two over dinner with Joy rather than throw food down my throat while I look through the mail, look through old photographs, write a note to a friend, stop at the children's lemonade stand. If I'm not living life and resting in its pleasures, looking for beauty amidst the pain, loving others as I love myself, then any research experience, any Ph.D. program, any brilliant technique I use in a counseling session will be pointless.

With this said, tomorrow morning Joy and I leave with some wonderful friends to spend some time at a cabin on a lake. I've looked forward to this weekend desperately, five days of reprieve amidst friends and nature. Nothing is better than that, absolutely nothing. Waking up after breathing the woodsy air. Strolling out onto the dock, maybe throwing a line or two just to see if the fish want to bite. Walking back to get a book, or my wife, or just sit off the edge of the dock looking into the water and sky. Afternoons of laughter and fun, water skiing and wake-boarding, falling asleep on the boat. Evenings of campfires, board games, more laughter, maybe a tear. Five days with no need for a watch, phone, or computer.

"Nature's teaching is a healing. And although we must indeed be taught, it is the healing that we need most. We have been fractured. We have been broken off from the nature of our world, broken away from the nature of one another, broken apart from our own nature. The pain of this breach is so constant that we have become accustomed to it; it feels normal. The pain is with us every day, when we browbeat ourselves and others, when we struggle for control, when we draw circles around ourselves that shut others out, when we long for a connectedness we cannot find, when we try to help one another and it's never enough, and, perhaps most of all, when we go outdoors and feel that Nature is something different from us." (Gerald May, The Wisdom of Wilderness, 2006, p. 169).

"Raising Cain"

Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson are both psychologists who work extensively with boys. Their book "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys" is a bestseller, and it deserves being read outside of the counseling and psychology world. In fact, I had a client read portions of this book as he discussed issues pertaining to being a father of boys and also as he processed some of his own boyhood. Without taking away the need for responsibility and the necessity of consequences, Kinlon and Thompson seek to explore the too-often hidden emotional lives of boys. You read about father-son relationships, mother-son relationships, and problems related to depression, suicide, drinking, and drugs--all four common among adolescent men.

In my limited experience as a counselor, I can testify that the emotional lives of boys desperately need to be cultivated. Emotional literacy is rare among men, where we expect anger and hostility, but never tenderness, grief, fear, or any other possible emotion that might be seen as weak. The authors write: "What boys need, first and foremost, is to be seen through a different lens than tradition prescribes. Individually, and as a culture, we must discard the distorted view that ignores or denies their capacity for feeling, the view that colors even boys' perceptions of themselves as above or outside a life of emotions" (p. 240). This lack of emotional expression and understanding makes it tremendously difficult to be in real relationship, whether with friends, spouses, and eventually, children. While men are different social creatures than women, I have no doubt that many adolescent men are busy with friends, sports, girlfriends, and other activities but are painfully lonely: "Crowded or empty, I walk these city streets alone" (Over the Rhine).

A Friend Like Jonathan

I’ve been reading through the Biblical books of 1 and 2 Samuel recently, and while you often hear about the friendship between David and Jonathan, it’s hit me more deeply as I’ve read through the texts on my own. In 1 Samuel 20, you’ve got the drama all set: Saul, Jonathan’s father, wants to kill David. When David tells Jonathan this, he’s in shock and disbelief and makes a plan with David to find out if this is true. Well, as Jonathan finds out, his dad really does want to kill David. I would think that this would put Jonathan in a tremendously uncomfortable position. Do you help your friend escape your father, or do you remain loyal to your dad and surrender your friend? Yikes.

Jonathan helps David escape, and even binds himself in a covenant with his friend: “And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself” (1 Sam. 20:17). We all like to think we love others as we love ourselves; I am certain I never actually do. Pride gets in the way in both obvious and subtle ways, and as soon as I think I’m being selfless I must recognize that that is a pretty prideful thought. This verse I just mentioned doesn’t say that Jonathan thought he loved David as himself or that he tried to love David as himself, but that Jonathan straight up loved David as himself. That’s some serious friendship. And it doesn’t stop there.

Later in the same chapter, Jonathan and David have to say goodbye to each other, not knowing if their lives will intersect again. As they say farewell, “they kissed each other and wept together” (v. 41), and then Jonathan reminds David that “we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of our Lord” (v. 42). First, you have two grown men crying together, something rarely heard of in today’s culture of no-vulnerability-masculinity. Then, you have a reminder of that covenant of friendship. Do we see friendship this way today? To have a friendship bound by covenant in front of God is pretty serious stuff, and in today’s socially-mobile culture, I wonder if we ever consider how friendships can be a covenant relationship similar to marriage, the Church, or one’s relationship with Christ.

I don’t want to spoil the story, but we find out that Jonathan has died at the beginning of 2 Samuel (and David’s compassion and graciousness toward Saul is certainly worth noting, but is not my current focus here). As David is mourning the news of his friend’s death, he states: “I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women” (2 Sam. 1:26). Now that’s some emotive vulnerability, and I’ve thought about this verse quite a bit recently. In no way do I wish or intend to detract from the love found within marriage or across genders, but I think David is making a very important point about male-male friendships (and much could also be said about female-female friendships).

I love my wife deeply and she grows me and challenges me all time, but there is a unique love I have for my male friends. I have the privilege of having many very fine friends, and it is because of my male friendships in particular that I am who I am today. Emotional vulnerability is horribly lacking in most male friendships, and this emotional chasm is devastating to not only these friendships, but unavoidably affect wife-husband relationships, father-son relationships, and one’s relationship with self. I have had some terrific male friendships that continue to influence my life in powerful ways. In fact, I would be nowhere near the husband that I am (which really isn’t that great) without the male friendships that were consistent in my life during the years prior to marriage. These are the aspects of male friendship I believe David knew so intimately. I have many Jonathans in my life, and indeed, their love is wonderful, as is my love for them.

Joy: Proud To Be An American

Happy 4th of July to you. Last night, July 3, Joy and I went into the city with some friends to watch the fireworks with a few other millions of people. This morning we were up nice and early to go to the Arlington Heights parade and tonight we're having a little grilling gathering. But back to this morning. As Joy was in the shower and I was still in bed, I heard her start to sing a patriotic medly: Star-Spangled Banner, God Bless America, etc. Well, I was able to get out of bed and find my camera just in time to videotape part of the last song. To my delight, when I looked in the bathroom, I realized there were some hand motions too. I think you'll enjoy this...

To clarify, although it may be hard to believe, Joy had no idea I was taping this. As if you can choreograph this stuff. Here we go...

Carried Into Forgiveness

Last night, Joy and I went to Chicago’s 1st Annual Pizza Fest. This is our second 1st Annual event in Chicago this year (Looptopia!), and the reason we wanted to go to Pizza Fest had nothing to do with the pizza. You see, Over the Rhine was playing at the event, and Over the Rhine just happens to be my favorite band (Joy and I even met them after the show!) I’ve seen them play a few other times and it’s never disappointing. While they’re not a Christian band, that doesn’t mean they avoid theology, and they are fine theologians. So fine, in fact, that their songs usually enhance my worship exponentially more than the music in most of the church services I attend. One of the songs they sang last night has been a favorite of mine since it came out on their disc “Ohio” a few years ago. The song is called “Long Lost Brother” and here are the lyrics:

“I thought that we'd be
Further along by now
I can't remember how
We stumbled to this place

I loved you like a long lost brother
On a bad day maybe I thought why bother
I've seldom seen so much anger
In a face

I wanna do better
I wanna try harder
I wanna believe
Down to the letter

Jesus and Mary,
Can you carry us
Across this ocean
Into the arms of forgiveness?

I don't mean to laugh out loud
I'm trying to come clean
Trying to shed my doubt
Maybe I should just keep
My big mouth shut

More often than not
When it comes to you
You want whatever's not in front of you
Deep down I know this includes me too

So tell me your troubles
Let your pain rain down
I know my job I've been around
I invest in the mess

I'm a low cost dumping ground
Trouble is I'm so exhausted
The plot, you see, I think I've lost it
I need the grace to find what can't be found”

There are several lines that sink into my depths and long to be acknowledged. Don’t we all have bad days where we think why bother? Don’t we all want whatever’s not in front of us? Don’t we all need the grace to find what can’t be found? I know I do.

And then there’s the chorus crying out for forgiveness. “Jesus and Mary, can you carry us across the ocean into the arms of forgiveness?” Doesn’t it so often seem that forgiveness requires getting over an ocean, an ocean we can’t possibly cross on our own? An ocean that requires us to relinquish control, relinquish hatred, relinquish pride, relinquish self, and be carried.

I can remember when I was a child, and I would try to stay up late watching TV with my parents. I’d drift in and out of consciousness, but I would usually hear my parents turn off the TV and begin to get ready to go upstairs. I wouldn’t move. I’d lay on the floor or the couch, hoping to convince my parents that I was more out of consciousness than in. If my plan worked, my dad would swoop me up in his arms and carry me directly to my bed. I loved those moments, the tremendous love I felt as I was delicately picked up with my head against my father’s chest, my arms and legs falling off into varied directions. Then my dad would move up the stairs, down the hallway, and put me softly into my bed. It is a wonderful thing to be carried, filled with vulnerability and tenderness. It’s this tenderness and vulnerability that I think best allows us to receive both grace and forgiveness.