Rolling into the next...

 This post has been sitting in the pit of my stomach for days now.  I look at my laptop and I think about opening it to push the words out of my mind and heart and I shake my head and I walk away, only to be greeted with it sitting there calling my name like some dealer promising me that this time the feeling will be better than the last, that getting the words out will make it better except...

That's the thing for someone that writes like I do to process things, and in many ways for at least a good chunk of my living, (those sermons don't write themselves you know) getting the words out, seeing them crawl across the page and then seeing the reaction from the people that consume them, good or bad offers a bit of , I guess the word is validation.  The problem that happens though is when those words are all a jumbled mess of angst, and sorrow wrapped into memories that, I'm told at least, will one day be soft warm places to go but that right now illicit an never ending torrent of tears. 

A few things that I am learning.  

• There is a never ending source tears.  My buddy Jim the Episcopal priest (no I don't know why I always call him that, perhaps it's because it's cool to me that my bestie turns out to be, well an Episcopal priest and anyone that can love and serve and all that and can also pull off the "uniform" every Sunday and look good doing is a whole other level of cool) anyway Jim told me the other day that there is a never ending source, you can deplete them sure but once you rehydrate, something we all need to do, they come back.
• No matter how much you know people are trying to help, sometimes you just want to tell everyone you know that they can take a walk into a herd of roamers while you watch the carnage.   Would you feel bad afterwards sure you may even feel bad while it's happening but at the same time there would be a sense that they would at least now have a partial answer to the how are you doing question.
• Knowing God is always there is not enough when he feels so far away from you.  Through this whole process there's the understanding that God is there, knows, cares, fill in all those blanks, and yet he feels light years away.  I'm told this will change, shoot I've told people this will change but right now this feels like a hollow promise at best.  
• There are responses that will forever be removed from my vocabulary when dealing with things like this.  No more it's all part of his plan, no more simple answers revolving around God, no claims of being able to empathize or sympathize for that matter, shoot most of the time it will be "I'm sorry and I'm here and then I'll sit there as long as the person wants and leave when the person needs to be left alone.
• Sometimes being alone is better than being with people, and sometimes you need to be with people but not people you know.  The thing is the people I know are great, they have been loving and caring and compassionate.  They check on us, they love us and it shows and that's an amazing thing to have.  But here's the part that's going to seem kinda odd.  When I'm with people I don't know, weather those people are at a store, or when I play a game on Xbox, or when I'm getting  gas, I can be somewhere else for those few minutes.  They don't know me I don't know them and while it's likely obvious that something totally messed up is going on and with my face in this kinda permanent puffy place, they don't look at me with the sadness that they feel on my behalf and that can be a good thing because for that small moment I can live in this alternate moment where the world isn't what it really is, where our reality isn't what it really is.
• A dear friend, who is part of this club that no one ever wants to be in, was right.  Sometimes I'm mad at you dear reader and everyone else that I see because you're doing life you're moving on you're having good things in your life, good feelings, neat firsts with your brood, a funny joke that posts to your social media, the sound of lawn mowers and the sight of bikes rolling by and all the every day things that people do is infuriating because don't you know don't you understand that the world has stopped turning and makes no sense and, and and...

All of these things I've learned along with a whole bunch more things and it all just adds up to a bunch of why, and while I of course know the "Jesus" answer to this question, that answer simply does not work, it doesn't fit, even if it's right. 

People deal with the jagged edges that things like this rip into their souls in different ways.  I can honestly say I don't know how I'm dealing with it.  I'm not taking a step at a time, I'm shuffling my way through, sometimes a second at a time and sometimes even in half second breaths.  

I've found myself driving the roads in Youngstown late at night wanting to find some rip in the fabric of the universe that I could drive through where none of this is true.  I've stood in the shower with my head leaned against the wall so that I can pretend the tears are from the water instead of from my eyes.  I've sat with J worried about what is going on in her head willing her to know that she's loved and that I would take every bit of the things she's having to do and deal with away, feeling helpless and like a failure because I can't.  I've taken all of these things and picked them all up and I do that because I don't know any other way to do it.  I know I have people there for me, I know all the things that I'm supposed to do in times like this and I'm doing as many of them as I can but lets be honest there are some things that no matter how much I know I just can't do them and so I have to realize that I'm going to be this way for a very long time and then a longer time after that. 

So that's it, a window into me.  Pretty messed up isn't it.  Thanks for listening, well reading not listening but you get the idea.

Not Okay

 It goes without saying that I process things through writing.  It seems like that's just the way my brain works and so here I sit on the 17th of May 2021 attempting to process the unthinkable. 

Back in 2011 something amazing happened.  Our family of four became a family of 5.  I've been blessed to get super amounts of quality time with all of my children when they were little.  Each of them spent time at my office with me, and I relished ever second.  Which brings me to 2011.  In 2011 we went from four to five.  I'll never forget the day, the amazement and the joy of adding this person that was all amazing.  

Lots of starts happened with the fifth Newell.  I started running pushing the stroller as I did so.  Time in my office in the swing was so fun, and then came the best part of that time.  Daddy Daycare was in full effect watching this bundle during the day and working on computers in the afternoon and evening.  Getting to live every moment with this person that was so just...there are no words.  

Sweet, caring, opinionated, giving, loving, accommodating, smart, fun, creative, sensitive the list that I just made is by no means exhaustive it pales to be honest but it's a start. 

Fast forward to 2021...the edge of double digits.  The creativity full and fun and amazing.  The servants heart that always said...I'll help, I'll do it, let me help you.  The time playing Animal Crossing, or Among Us or Mario Odyssey together finding each moon, and being excited about it, more excited than you will know.  The snuggles on the couch watching a movie or show.  

The jar of marbles on the mantle,   growing smaller by the day...now arrested never to shrink again.

We have joined the worst club in the world.   No one ever wants to join this club, and I can guarantee you that the people in it don't want any more members, and yet here we are.  This club takes a toll, sleepless days and nights, tears that wont stop and come unbidden out of nowhere except that's not true at all they come from this gaping hole that has been ripped not just into your heart but the very fabric of your being.  That place that is who you are, because lets be clear the ball of love and light becomes a part of you in ways that no one can really explain and to have it torn out leaves a mess.  

Age is an interesting thing.  Someting that always happens until suddenly it doesn't, when in a screech and a lurch all is stripped away and the hole is made you have nothing left but the pain and sorrow and hurt and anger...so much anger.  

"Dad wait don't leave me."  and so of course I waited, loading into the SUV heading to church, precious cargo in tow.  Only to now sit and pray that it's really Sunday afternoon and I'm in the middle of a nap and I'm going to wake up and hear all of them...but then that's not what it is...now I'm the one that's saying..."Josie wait...don't leave."  and there is no sleep...just this yawning jagged hole in my heart and soul, a jar of marbles on the mantle that will never empty, a family screaming at the gates of Heaven  please give her back....

Time to grow up.

But they did it to.. or but he did it too, or but she did it too.   When I hear these things coming out of the mouths of people that know better, or should know better I wonder at all of the rest of us.  What we are willing to allow, or put up with, or normalize.  

Most people I know, myself included wouldn't let a child get away with that as an excuse for their poor behavior, in fact the ever present if so and so jumped off a bridge or a cliff would you do the same, is a time honored missive given to children everywhere. 

We live in a world that worries about things being fair.  This starts when we are kids and never really abates not matter how old we get.  I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we confuse justice with fairness, especially if we are Christ followers, the thing is God never promised us things would be fair, just sure but not fair.  

Over the past few weeks and, unfortunately it continues. I've read a lot of posts from people that I love and from people that I don't even know that are saying the same thing over and over.  But they did it so since they did it then it's okay for us to do it.  It's funny and sad all at the same time.  Funny because it's such a childish thing, sad because it's grown ups that are doing it, well supposed to be grown ups.

I've talked about the pendulum effect with people I know.  This effect is evidenced in several places.  The church has been dealing with the pendulum effect pretty much from it's inception.  That place where we over correct or under correct.  Music, study, sermons, ministries in the church, even the way the church is decorated seems to go in big swings.  

This happens in politics all the time too.  One party changes rules to get what they want done, when the pendulum swings and the other party is in charge they go further and say...but they did it, then as the pendulum swings back the other way the party that just changed the rules begs the other one to not do what they just did.  It's been going on this way for more years than anyone cares to admit.  

The thing is, it's different this time.  I don't mean the pendulum part of it. Politics is politics, what's different and saddening to me is what I am seeing happen in the church.  I haven't seen this much bitterness anger and strife in the church over who sits at the resolute desk before.  

We as followers of Christ are not called to nationalism, we are called to sacrifice.  We are not called to defend ourselves, we are called to defend those that can't defend themselves, letting God give us the words to speak and defend us.  We are not called to be right, but to seek righteousness there's a big difference.  

I heard someting today that was really interesting.  If you as a Christ follower are being asked to hate, or condemn, or demean, or make fun of, or fill in the blank for all the words that denote hate your neighbor, no matter what flavor of Christian you are then you need to stop following, listening to and supporting the voice telling you to do so.  

One of the things that has caused me no small amount of sadness is the amount of vitriol that has seeped into the Christian narrative.  It is ugly, and that ugly is not reserved for any one side.  When I read the words of Jesus, when I study what Paul says about interacting with each other and the world, when I dig into the difference between being a Christ follower and being a American Christian I want to pull my hair out, unfortunatly I have to settle for shaving cream and my razor but you get the idea.  I will be honest, I had hoped that there would be a collective pause after January 20.  I guess I nursed this delusion that things would shift and peole would calm down, that somehow there would be this turning, for Christians at least, to an understanding that what really matters is what we do with the truth that we know, the bottom line foundational understanding that Jesus is not a party affiliate.  That our job as Christ followers is to be salt and light, to share the truth of the gospel, to pray for whoever is in leadership and to recognize this...

I don't know about you but lately it seems that American Christians have forgotten this, and that is sad.  If we remembered this, if we leaned into this and the rest of what this particular chapter in Hebrews says, we would do things differently I think.  

I guess what I'm realizing more and more is a sad fact.  Christianity and American Christianity in particular needs to grow up.  We have lost our way as we have substituted the enduring city to come with the temporal city of nation, party, denomination, ideology.  

I keep having this thought.  If the church universal, but more to the point if the church American began to focus on the truth of the gospel, on the importance of what it was told to do, of the ideals Jesus laid out in Matthew 23, the things he did that broke down the walls of religion in his day and focused on the truth of reaching, if we would be not a place of condemnation but a place of reconciliation all grounded in the truth of the gospel, the understanding that people will mess up, people will sin, and that sin of course has consequences but that our job is not to interpret those consequences for the masses but rather to show them that there is this person that has offered to walk with us through them, and that if we are going to claim to be followers of that person then we will walk through those consequences as well, supporting, praying for and encouraging. What would happen? Imagine if people could look at the basics of what Jesus said and when they cross referenced them with the actions of the person that claims to follow Jesus and say. Oh wow that lines up.  Imagine what would happen.  Imagine if we were grown ups.  What could be accomplished? 

We can do that.  For whatever reason God chose to have humanity be an integral part of the plan of redemption, and if that is the case, then the one that designed us knows we are capable of so much. Isn't it time for us to work towards that more?

ECHO...echo...echo...

 The last few weeks have been different things at different times for me.  See if you can follow my ADD addled train of thought as I attempt to free associate myself through the thoughts and feelings, the fears and convictions that have at times fought with each other for dominance in my mind and heart. 

Back in November there was an election.  Anyone, no matter what side of the political spectrum you sit on knew it was not going to be a normal election, people on the right were pre-conditioned to believe it was rigged if their man lost.  People on the left were pre-conditioned to want to say ha ha ha we told you so if they won.  There was not much hope of any real change, of any real coming together, or of any hope of any type of Bipartisanship.  That ship sailed a long time ago.

December rolled around and while all that political mess was still happening we all were also trying to come to grips with the fact that what was supposed to be the beginning of the end of this whole Pandemic thing looked more like the continuation of a very dense piece of literature.  Years ago I had to write a paper in my college English Lit class.  I had just watched The Last of the Mohicans and thought it would be a good thing to write on as I enjoyed the movie.  Tucking into the book itself I realized something.  The story is amazing and it's all there and I enjoy the story but getting to the story in the book was mentally exhausting, even now as I pull it up and flip through the digital pages my mind swims at once pulled into the story and at the next moment working at keeping my mind on task to find a quote that can adequately convey the denseness of the prose.  I said all that to say this, December rolled around and with it all the things that the Holiday's bring with it along with the realization that it would not look like what most people are used to.  I was one of those people that was so wanting to return to a sense of what things were, and yet that did not happen. All the things that make Christmas, Christmas for most people, were just not there.  Gatherings and church services and family traditions all got mixed up, and through it all was this ribbon of discomfort with what was happening nationally and internationally regrading COVID and the elections and all of it.

Moving into January and things didn't seem to slow down in fact they ramped up.  Then came January 6th and all that went with it.  This whole thing is horrid, you have a bit more than half the country chomping at the bit for January 20th to get here and just under half still not ready to accept the results of what happened all the way back in November with some insisting that on January 20th the current president will be inaugurated.  

Through all of this the different sides of me scream at each other.  The activist side says one thing, the church side says another.  I walk this line regularly, and usually it's not that big of a deal.  It actually brings a bit of debate into my world and I enjoy it.  I always have liked having those kind of discussions that make the people involved think. It really doesn't matter what I'm debating...a good theological debate, a deep historical one, a shallow which star wars movie is better...or a rousing political fight all bring equal happiness, at least they did.  Not so much anymore.  I have just lost the stomach for most of it.  The tight rope that people in my position walk can be precarious and after a while it's easier to not walk it.  To do what I said on January 6th on my Facebook page.  Pray...Pray...Pray.  

The problem lately, as I see it, is the whole echo chamber that everyone seems to find themselves in. The thing about an echo chamber is it's fun at first.  When you call out hello....and a hello that sounds the same as you comes back to you it makes you smile.   We all have done it .."HELLO"...hello..."ECHO"...echo..."I'M AN IDIOT"...you're an idiot...you get the idea we all do. The problem is if the only person you ever have to talk to is yourself there is no real growth, no chance for change.  

Jesus came into the world and pushed people to leave their echo chambers, especially leaders.  How he did this is evident with most of what he would say and most of what he did, think about what he says:

Matthew 5:43–44 (HCSB) — 43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

This wasn't a one time thing with Jesus. 

John 8:5–7 (HCSB) — 5 In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do You say?” 6 They asked this to trap Him, in order that they might have evidence to accuse Him. Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with His finger. 7 When they persisted in questioning Him, He stood up and said to them, “The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Jesus consistently pulls people, or tries to pull people out of the echo chambers that they found themselves in.  Wanting them to realize that a real relationship with God must by it's very nature transcend the way things always were.  Pulling and tugging us along into being more and more like Him.  Somehow in the last bunch of years Christ Followers have lost sight of that.  Where once we looked for common ground with other denominations, now we see walls, where once we would reach out to our community we now reach out to the parts that offer the best prospects for whatever our end goal is, and while we know what our end goal is supposed to be...

Matthew 28:18–20 (HCSB) — 18 Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

That's the goal, and yet the Church as a whole, and many times myself as an individual have forgotten that.  

If we really believe what we say we believe then this is what we should be about but also it's what we should cling too.  The last part of verse 20 offers us some pretty amazing hope.  "I AM WITH YOU ALLWAYS."  

Jesus pulls us out of our echo chambers, or tries to, so that we can actually do what he told us to do and to remind us that He's with us.  No matter what is going on.  No matter what the virus is doing, or who occupies the halls of government, or how many people we see sitting next to us or notice on the live stream.  He wants us to remember what matters...the fact that we have been rescued from the mess of sin in our lives and are called to throw out the rope of the Gospel to the world around us so that He can in turn rescue them from the mess of sin that is their life.  

2020 was a hard year...2021 seems to be starting off equally hard...or is it.  What if I choose to grip the hand of the son of a carpenter from Galilee and let him pull me from my own echo chamber into the world that he's talking about when he tells me to make disciples.  What if I start worrying more about that than I do about all the stuff that I'm "supposed" to worry about? 

See you next week...

 

 

Sharks and Dolphins

 It's been a bit...June actually not that anyone really is keep track of the months as much as we used too.  2020 seems to have taken time and all that goes with it stuck it in that ride at the carnival, you know the Rock and Roll ride that spins super fast while playing the hardest possible rock that they can get away with but with all the safety's off.  

As a country we lurch from crisis to crisis.  We move from lie to lie, from one hypocritical action to another.  Things that a few years ago would have made everyone say no way, have been normalized.  There is no calming force, coming from our leadership...and when I say leadership I mean from the top down.  It's no secret that I am not a Trump fan.  On the contrary I personally believe he is not just a horrid president, but also a bad person.   

All politicians lie, we know this, and yet the boldness with which this one does so is astounding.  The boldness of using the Justice Department as his own personal law firm is unprecedented.  The race baiting, gas lighting, all of it just, in my mind, reinforces the fact that he's a bad person, a very bad person.

Which makes what I'm about to say, or write probably seem like the strangest thing in the world.  

I feel bad for the man, and I pray for him. I pray for him because the Bible says to, but also because I feel bad for him.  

Here's the thing, as bad as Trump is, and make no mistake I believe he is very bad, his behavior is enabled by a group of people who are supposed to act as a check to him and in this situation are just saying nope lets watch this implode or explode. If we could jump in a DeLorean, take it to 88 mph and come out in 2015 and 2016, we would find a very different group of people, railing against the very man that they now suck up too.  Trump is a shark surrounded by a pod of dolphins that at any moment can turn on him and kill him without a thought.  One only needs to look at what McConnel, Cruz, Graham and others in the GOP said about him all the way up till his unlikely nomination.  You would be hard pressed to find anything positive about the man said by these men, who now seem to be his best buddies,  the difference is, these leaders have been in Washington for years, and years.  They could care less about Trump or his policies, they only care about how far he can take them in their grab for power.  The fact that he too craves power works in their favor at this point as is evidenced by their willingness to just ignore and do whatever he says.  

In Trump you have a picture of the Emperor with no clothes.  A leader that lurches from crisis to crisis, that has given so many alternative facts, that contradict what he has said in the past that is able to be seen and heard because of technology, the worst part about it, is that when it's all over, his new friends will forget all about their golf buddy and move on to the next person that they think will further their power grab.  The dolphins are circling and the shark just cant maneuver fast enough.

In the wild it's all down to design.  A shark is not like a Dolphin.  Sharks, are typically solitary individuals, they have a different type of bone structure to that of dolphins, they have a slower range of mobility as well.  A pod of dolphins will surround the shark and start confusing it, then one will dive deep and swim rapidly up into the underbelly of the shark with it's snout, sometimes repeatedly many times it kills the shark, and even if it doesn't, it will leave the shark with internal damage.  

For Trump there has to be a realization that he can't really trust the people that now are his "best friends, and apologists."  if not then I feel even worse for him.  

So why this post.  What's the point of it.  Am I breaking my political embargo?  

I am writing this post about this man because in truth, we all were and are bad people in some respect.  We all fall we all are messed up we all make mistakes, we all need forgiveness and grace and mercy. We all need to realize that.  We all need to understand that.  It doesn't excuse our bad behavior to admit it, it doesn't take away from the consequences of that behavior, it doesn't even give us an excuse to say well deal with it this is who I am.  What it does is let us all realize that it's okay to feel empathy for a man that is so far out of his depth, that is looking at a very sad and frustrating and lonely life following whatever happens in the next couple months and possibly years.  

Yes we should hold our leaders accountable, yes we should not and can not excuse his behavior. If you are not happy with his performance as president then it's incumbent on you if you can vote to go and vote accordingly to remove him from office. If you are happy then of  course it's your choice and duty to vote for him.  This post is not about that.  It's about the ability to realize that our personal feelings towards him, does not negate the fact that he is a shark swimming with dolphins, and at any moment those dolphins can and will turn on him and destroy him.  Is that destruction deserved?  Probably but it should give all of us pause.  It should make us all stop a moment and understand, because if we can't find empathy, even for the worst among us...are we any better than the shark?

 

Because sometimes you just have to say things...

As someone who talks for a big portion of his vocation, I also like to write a lot.  This post though is different.  This post is not going to be written, I recorded this today and am posting it to my blog.  I have always said that the Blog would be a no holds barred window into what I am processing and thinking and feeling, that is someting that will continue.  I am fully aware that there will be people who do not like this video, that will not watch till the end, that will shake their heads and write me off.  That's okay. Again I am sending what I feel I need to say at this time in life and in history.

Sanitizing Jesus

So here we sit in the middle of a global pandemic.  Many acting like spoiled children watching things blowing apart because enough was finally enough, one more black man was killed in the street by a bad cop....this following a black woman being killed in her own home by a bad cop, which followed the news of two white men hunting down a black man while a third recorded the whole thing on video.  We have seen white people systematically calling the police on people of color for no reason at all, from sleeping in the common room of a dorm that they live in, to going to the pool in the development that they own a home in, to walking through central park in an area set aside as a nature friendly area just for reminding a person that they are supposed to have their dog on a leash.  

We watch as protests turn violent and if we would watch and listen and realize we would understand that they have done so but not always for the reasons that many want us to believe.  The images on the news of people that have been attacked and tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets as they peacefully protest are beyond troubling.  

Last night one of my best friends was undone.  He is an episcopal priest, who happens to have been more than a small encouragement to me.  We worked in the same community in Baltimore.  He watched as the person residing at 1600 PA Ave. Had the police use tear gas, and rubber bullets to clear a group of protestors from the outdoor area in front of St. Johns Episcopal church, some of those individuals were clergy members and people that worked with and in the church.   The purpose for their being in the courtyard area was to offer water, medical attention if things took a violent turn at the protests and give people snacks, and a place of respite from the heat and the stressful situation that they all are finding themselves under.   Once cleared the church was used as a backdrop...a photo op complete with props.  My friend was upset...as was the bishop of the church, as are many other clergy members...myself included.  I am un-done and wonder so many things when it comes to my fellow evangelical pastors. I wonder how this act will be justified and then I realize that it will be, and my heart breaks even more, but that's not what this is about.  

As I have been scrolling through my feed, reading news, watching what people I know and respect are saying when it comes to all that is going on, the protests, the riots, etc.  I am seeing a narrative that is troubling.  There is what seems to be an effort to sanitize Jesus, and if anything this has made me realize how much the Evangelical church by and large has done so.  

When we read scripture it's easy to formulate how we would react in any given situation laid out in any of the stories we find there because we have the beginning, middle and end of the story.  It's easy for us to look at all that was going on in Egypt and the Exodus and the wandering in the wilderness and decide to judge the children of Israel for their screw ups because we have the end of that story.  We know that it took 40 years of wandering to get anywhere.  It's nothing to look at the book of Judges and wonder why the people kept screwing up over and over and over and why they had to be judged.  We look at things in the New Testament and we see the works that Jesus did and we see the people he healed and we forget that there was more to it.  American Evangelicals have a hard time with the parts of Jesus that fall into the pattern of the social gospel, because we think that all the ideals that are espoused in socialism are bad, or we see it as a bad word, and yet Jesus in addition to prayer and teaching also talked of and regularly hammered home the importance of the least the lost and the lonely.  

One of the things that really bothers me though is how we read and understand the human aspects of the one that saves us.  Realizing he was fully God and fully man matters, he is so other and yet he is so like.  

Where am I going with this?  People say that there is never a reason for violence, never a reason for that type of anger and angst.  What would Jesus do.  Someone then posted a picture of Jesus turning over tables in the temple and chasing people from it.  His anger and frustration obvious, the destruction of property visible, and I have to pause and re-think even some of what I understand about Jesus.  

John 2:15–16 (HCSB) — 15 After making a whip out of cords, He drove everyone out of the temple complex with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables. 16 He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning My Father’s house into a marketplace!”

We all do it myself included at times.  Forget that Jesus got angry,  Jesus at times acted in what we would see as irrational.  Cursing a tree that was not even supposed to have fruit on it because well it didn't have fruit on it.  When we find him in the garden before his death we see him asking to not have to deal with or go through this whole thing.  He was so anguished he was sweating blood.  This is what Mark says:

Mark 14:33–34 (HCSB) — 33 He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be deeply distressed and horrified. 34 Then He said to them, “My soul is swallowed up in sorrow —to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake.”

Jesus was distressed and horrified.  He did not float he did not just go to his happy place.  

Throughout his time on earth Jesus, the one that we claim to serve, the one that we want to be like, systematically spent time with anyone but the majority.  He not only questioned but called leaders out for their hypocrisy, he touched people that were not whole, he healed people that no one would go near, he forgave people that were supposed to be stoned, He fed people that would later turn on him.  He got angry, he got frustrated he acted in ways that don't fit the picture of gentle Jesus Meek and Mild and yet too many times that's all we want to do is point to gentle Jesus. 

I know some will think that this is my way of saying the violence and looting are someting we need to not just see and attempt to understand but condone.  That is NOT WHAT I AM SAYING. I don't know how Jesus was able to do it. How he was able to be angry and sin not, how he was able to pray the prayer not my will but yours be done and mean it, how he was able to turn the other cheek, or watch a man he loved and knew and spent time with betray him.  I don't know and I don't understand but I do know that to tell people that Jesus never got angry, that he never broke things, is equally wrong. 

So what's this all about.  I guess it's me trying to make sense of how I can best stand with the people I love  and care about.  How to stand with Rachel and her family, or Jim and his church, or Mike a guy I went to school with.  How to pray for Todd and Missy and Keith some of whom I have not seen for ages.  How do I as a white man, a minster, a father, and a god dad/uncle to some that have chosen me to be that uncle. How do I as a recipient of white privilege make a difference?  Is it even possible or do I just sound like some trying to be woke white guy that will never understand?

This is where I would guess a lot of us are.  And maybe that's the point.  Maybe we are starting to see what it feels like to be hopeless and helpless.  Maybe that's what it will take for us all to finally say enough and not just stand in the gap, but stand in front of...to protect to uplift...to show that people are people...and all people should be treated as they were created, equal!