What I'm learning

What I'm learning in the months and years that go by is how little I really know.  This should come as no surprise to anyone, and it really doesn't surprise me.  It's just becoming more and more pronounced as the days, weeks, and yes years go by.  I am so often forced to ask where time has gone. 

Memories are things that I have eluded to countless times in the blog, and they are for the most part so very real, fresh and vibrant to me.  They come in dreams, or in the early hours before anyone else stirs.  They come late at night when everyone in the house has fallen asleep and I'm left staring at the wall or ceiling, they come during my morning routine, or when I'm reading and talking to God.  I have decided to not call it prayer for the simple reason that many times prayer to me seems a self serving act.  To unburden myself of weighty matters, and then to make requests, threats and demands.  Talking to God at least to me seems a different proposition all together.  If done right talking to someone has give and take, and while I've never really heard God audibly speak to me, and quite frankly as I'm learning more and more about myself I don't think I want to, I at least like the idea that I'm doing more than just filling up the space between here and heaven with words.  

Anyway back to the idea of these memories, some are good some are bad, some bring joy many bring sadness, or self disappointment, or fill in the angsty word you may have.  I think memories are there to teach us, I think they are there to sustain us,  I think they are there to warn us. I know that they are not supposed to be a crutch or excuse.  That's the thing about memories, each and every memory is the result of a choice, and just as those choices can be good or bad so are the memories attached to them.  

Memories are teaching me a lot these days, and while it's hard to articulate exactly what those things are, it's equally difficult to just ignore what is happening. 

This all came to a head this morning sometime between 3:45 and 4:15, Jocelyn was awake again and J asked if I could try.  I picked up my daughter and started to pat her back speak softly in her ear and just hold her close, I then moved to the chair that we have and pushed it back into a semi reclined position.  It took about ten minutes but soon she was fast asleep on my chest, fully comforted by the fact that Daddy had her.  I dozed off and on, waking to help her reposition and soothe her back to sleep.  Around 6 AM  I gave up on sleep entirely and just looked at my daughter, and wept.  Not blubbering tears, not hard to breathe hiccuping as can happen when you're totally wrung out, in fact there was not a tear on my cheek.  I wept inside, because as we all know I don't deserve what I have, none of us who are parents do.  The pain and misery of years past much of which my choices have caused means I don't get to have this life any more, at least it should.  I have a beautiful family, I have a wife who loves me, for me in spite of and including my faults,  I have three little girls who look at daddy, for now at least, as the coolest guy in the world, who try their best to impress me, who draw me pictures and say hey dad look.  I have so much and deserve so little.  

It comes down to this,  what I'm learning is grace, the only problem is I'm not learning it from the places your supposed to learn it from, nor from the places that I wanted to have teaching me.  I'm learning it at 6AM in the chair holding my youngest, weeping over all that I have lost because of my own anger, bitterness, resentment and desire for others to get what they deserve.  Because as I sat there this morning I recognized that I haven't gotten what I deserve at all, not by a long shot,  I have gotten so much more.  

Memories have taught me, or is it something better, is it God finally getting through to my thick skull.  No he hasn't sat down next to me and started talking in some Bruce Almighty moment, or has he.  Has he been through my memories, and my family, and my friends, and yes even my enemies?  

As the morning wore on I put Jocelyn back in her crib and went through the morning routine, and when I looked in the mirror after the shower I saw a much older guy than I remembered being there, and for the first time in a long time that was okay.  

Would I change things in my past?  Of course, we all would, but I wouldn't want to lose the things that I have learned.  I wouldn't want to miss out on the people who were part of my life some for a day and some for a lifetime, no matter who they are.

Grace, who knew it would be more important to me than all those fundamental truths that I crammed into my brain.  

 

 

What's Next

Easter is over as is the Newell Family vacation, and I must say while there were things that were greatly enjoyed, I am glad it's over.  I always wondered why people would say that they needed a vacation from their vacation, but that is how it is.  I actually find being in my office a welcome break. 

A lot has happened in the past few weeks and months in the Newell house.  One of J's colleagues at work stated that our life should be a TV show with all the things that have happened, just in the past four years or so, and while I completely agree, I also have to say that those things  have made us different people, I hope and pray they have not just made us different, but also that they have made us better, or I should say they have made me better.  The person I have become is infinitely more suited to life and work and ministry than the person I was.  I often times wonder why it is that it takes years to learn things that would have helped out at the beginning of things. more than that I wonder why I learn the hard way, even when I tell others it is so much better to learn the easy way or the first time. 

It is very good to be home though, and even better to be sitting at my desk writing and working on plans for our Spring outreach.  Going Green is our theme, the plan is to find people in our congregation who would like to plant and weed and get their grounds in shape for the summer and fall season but are unable to.  If they will supply the material we will take our tweens in and do the work.  Which brings me to this other point or thing that is going on right now. 

I am in the middle of reading a book by an agnostic who decided he wanted to see what it would be like to take a year of his life and live Biblically, not just abide by the moral laws, not just pick and choose like so many of us do, but actually live an entire year following the Bible exactly, or as exactly as is humanly and legally possible in today's world, it may be hard to stone someone or cut off some ones hand in our country if they steal, and I'm fairly certain he didn't dig his eye out when he caught himself looking at that Victorias Secret model a bit longer than was necessary, anyway you get the idea, and while I don't think it's an experiment I'm going to sign up for any time soon, there is something to be said for living more of what I profess. 

For a long time now I have been more and more convinced that Evangelical Christianity has lost touch with the world, sometimes going so far as to condone such actions by using scripture out of context to assuage their guilt. I am increasingly convinced that Jesus was much more left leaning than Evangelicals care to admit.  Socially at least I'm sure this is the case.  Which brings us to what we are doing,  literal planting in the hopes that some figurative, spiritual planting can take place.  In addition to working with our church family, I am laying the ground work to partner with Habitat for Humanity they have a great Junior Build program. 

One of the most refreshing things about being in a Methodist Church is the ability and encouragement to get involved with already begun initiatives in the community, not having to recreate things that have the churches stamp of we made this on them.  We can reach into our community and help people, be salt and light through channels that are already set up.  I'm not saying that other churches we have been at would have not allowed this, but I do feel that this was not the most desired way to do things,  It seems to me that churches prefer to be more homogenous than they do collaborative, even after giving lip speak to the idea of helping. 

Anyway the next step would seem to be actually finding out what it would take to become full fledged Methodist.  I have put feelers out but I really feel that it's important to make the connection, and really identify with the body that I am now working in.  If I really am a Pastor, which it seems to be I am,  If I am called and if God has not let that calling go away even when asked for it to, which He hasn't well it may be time to take the proverbial plunge. 

Cross your fingers for me.  I know I am.

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