I Love Beer More Than Jesus

April 24, 2013 — 39 Comments

“How deep do you want to go?”

These were the first words spoken by a jedi-knight of a counselor to my close friend as he embarked on a five-day counseling intensive. Their meaning is simple and yet profound, and the answer isn’t assumed. The counselor needed to know because my buddy’s response would be the primary factor in shaping what God could do in the next five days.

In that same spirit, I didn’t engage that intense fast I mentioned in a previous blog to stay in the shallows. If the Spirit were asking me, “How deep do you want to go?,” my response would be “the whole way.” I want more; I need more.

And it was in those deep places that I unearthed this truth in my heart:

I love beer more than Jesus.

It’s humiliating to name it. But several weeks into this fast, it’s time to be honest.

While I’m being honest, I’m finding out there are a bunch of things I love more than Jesus:

-sugar, chicken wings, caffeine,

-relief

-control

-self comfort

-my reputation

Before you laugh, I wonder what your list really looks like. If you feel like you are coming up short, grab a copy of Gerald May’s Addiction and Grace.

In his opening chapter, May suggests that “we are all addicts in every sense of the word”(3).

Yet through the course of his book, he explains that our addictions can be conduits of profound grace, for in facing them, we come face to face with our Jesus and the depth of His love for us.

First, we must face the reality of our addictiveness, how prone we are to attach (literally “to nail”) our desires to specific objects…We nail our desires for love, comfort, validation, impact, creativity, power, satisfaction, pleasure, fascination, greatness and intimacy to so many things, from our careers to our children, from our bank accounts to the Starbucks drive-thru…

And yet, right here Jesus loves us. Right here in our propensity to attach our desires to so many things other than relationship with Him, He loves us. Being honest with ourselves and with Him about our attachments gives us the opportunity to take a most remarkable risk of faith: “believing that God is good and that God does love us unconditionally” (Addiction and Grace 169). Or as Brennan Manning discovered through a life-long, never-fully-resolved addiction to alcohol, “God loves us as we are, not as we should be.”

Jesus, there are places in my heart that much prefer to entrust myself to the immediate comfort of beer more than I desire you. I bring the truth of who I am to the truth of who you are. And I receive your love for me right here.

Facing our addictions is also a massive step to reclaiming our sincere desire for God. Our very tendency towards addiction reveals spiritual hunger that is itself a treasure map leading straight to our Father’s heart. What if we could relate to our fundamental restlessness, this nagging sense of un-fulfillment and the pain of being hungry and unsatisfied with utter compassion, recognizing that these symptoms are signposts of our spiritual hunger which is “a most precious gift from God” (180)?

It is this very spiritual hunger that points us back to our Father.

About a week ago I was walking following my well worn path of walking toward the fridge yet again, but this time with a newfound pause:

“Jesus, you are my beer.”

The words came out before I could edit them.

I still can’t even explain the theology of it, but it’s true. Two weeks without beer and I can still feel the restlessness after work and the discomfort of the inability to escape that restlessness. It turns out that this fast for me is much more about my addictions than my food allergies, about what I have attached my heart to other than God for my source of life. Now, it’s become part of my daily prayer: “Jesus, you are my beer. You are my freedom, life, healing and breakthrough. More of you is available. Today. I want the more, Jesus. I want more of you.”

What do you love more than Jesus?

You might have to take a more direct route to get to the honest answer to this question.

Where have you taken your desires for God and attached them to people, places and things, demanding that they come through for you in a way they never can?

I love beer more than Jesus.

But I love it a little less and I love Him a little more than I did just weeks ago.

And I’m not stopping here. There is too much at stake.

For me.

And for you.

Father! I want to want you more! I ask first for your compassion to course through every cell of my body, your compassion for my propensity to attach my desire to so many objects in this life. Father, I receive your compassion. Now, Father, I confess my fear to you. My fear of being hungry. My fear of being unfulfilled. My fear of being restless. Father, come into my fear…

Holy Spirit, come, shine your right here, right now. Reveal to me the particular addictions that you would like me to face in this moment. Expose the people, places and the things I have given my heart over to in a desperate reaching for life.

And now, Spirit, I am asking for your liberation. I ask that your power would fall on me, that you would cut the chains of bondage that ensnare my desire, and that you would deliver my desire back into freedom… Father, I ask for all the freedom that you have for me in this area…

Jesus, through your life I am asking that you would detach my heart from all of these trappings and attach it more deeply than ever before to you. I believe that all my heart needs to love, to be loved and to move ever closer to the source of love can be found in you. Meet me in this vulnerable and young place. Make a way where there is no way. I choose you.

In Core Beliefs, excavation, Spiritual Disciplines beer jesus addiction and grace fast

Monday Morning – How Not To Become a Statistic

April 21, 2013 — 10 Comments

Tree with roots exposed

Statistically, there are more heart attacks on Monday morning than any other time in the week.

I’m sure you don’t have to hear that statistic to know the truth behind it; we’ve all tasted it. Monday morning can be a treacherous outcropping with merciless waves of overwhelming responsibility, pressure and stress crashing in hard; along with the insidious temptations to “just get our shit together” and “make life work” for us and everyone depending on us. In other words, the messages are these: you are alone, it’s up to you, and you better not blow it.

Those temptations draw their power from our deep need for validation and identity.The pressure of a Monday morning tempts us to stay in (or revert to) an identity of orphan, making us vulnerable to the lie that we are alone and its up to us. The answer for how to “make life work” for the orphan is self-sufficiency and self-mastery. The other identity toward which the pressures tempts is that of a slave, making us constantly afraid of rejection, humiliation and blowing it. The emotional reality for the slave is fear, intimidation and bondage.

It doesn’t have to be your story.

There is another path.

Father, on this Monday morning I choose sonship. I declare that you do not despise my need for you to affirm my identity and validate me afresh. Father, you say it is your delight to feed me daily bread. You created my need; you delight in meeting my need. Father, today I receive my identity from you. I receive my validation from you.

Who am I? I look and listen to you alone to answer my question.

Where does my worth come from? I look and listen to you alone to answer my question.

I receive a spirit of sonship over this week. I name it, and speak it over my family today. Over me, my wife, our union, over our children, our home, our property, our vehicles, our finances, the fullness of our domain.

I speak these truths over me:

It is NOT up to me. It is up to you, God. You are the hero of this story and I belong to you.

I am NOT alone. You are my true Father and you created me for intimate, daily companionship with you. You promise that I can hear your voice and that you will lead me. I do NOT need to fear “blowing it.” You are my affectionate and loving Father. There is nothing that I could do to cause you to reject me or remove your affection from me (Romans 8).

I am loved. I belong to you. I am yours.

I choose to be fed by you and not by the inbox.

In the name of Jesus, my brother, who models for me today, yet again, what it looks like to live as a son.

Amen.

A bunch of men could have heart attacks today. Many of those heart attacks will be the result of living for years under a false identity and drawing validation from the wrong well. You don’t have to be a statistic.

There’s another path. A narrow path…

You are a son and your Father knows you need His Fathering today.

It’s yours if you want it.

(For more you might enjoy The Decade of Sonship or How Have You Learned the Father)

In Fathering, Sonship, Uncategorized Fathering, monday morning, sonship, Tree Roots

Exposure and Surrender

April 9, 2013 — 33 Comments

Pizza

No wonder why the Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit the Wild Goose; to follow Him is to invariably be led on an adventure that we would mostly never choose on our own.

Recently, He took a wild, maddening turn in front of me through a great friend’s trip to the ER (thank you, Jon). In the aftermath, we were praying for God’s healing to come to Jon’s body through an intense fast/cleanse diet the doctors were requiring of him. In the middle of the prayer the Holy Spirit snuck up on me and whispered, “I want you to engage the same cleanse/fast for 21 days.” I was thrown off. It was unlooked for. Unwanted. And it’s worth mentioning that fasting is one of the spiritual disciplines that has never worked for me.

So it began… For 21 days the plan was to eliminate every known food allergen from my diet along with all alcohol and caffeine. You name it, it’s now taboo for me… no beer, no sugar, no beer, no wheat, no gluten, no dairy, no beer, no soy, no peanuts, no eggs, no citrus, no coffee, no beer… you get the picture.

It’s basically like a vacation for the digestive system. And as I contemplated saying yes to the Holy Spirit, it occurred to me that after 36 years of abusing my digestive system with chicken wings, nachos, and unnameable ingredients listed on labels I’ve insistently ignored, it was time to give it a rest. After all, I thought that He was just after a cleanse… kind of a spring cleaning.

Yet as I headed into it, I felt a quiet impression that the Holy Spirit was after something even deeper and more comprehensive than my digestive health…

And was He ever… He was after my heart.

Speaking of the “cleanse,” my buddy’s wife (who joined us in this divine experiment) put brilliant words to the erratic bundle of emotional responses we each experienced during the first week (thank you, Amy!):

Day 1: “This is awesome. Why doesn’t everyone do this? It’s so easy and I love vegetables.”  Later in the evening, at the movie we went to for my husband’s birthday (I LOVE movies almost as much as food) and I always, always, get popcorn and a Coke): “I hate this stupid diet! Why do we need to be healthy anyway? I just want a huge tub of buttery popcorn and a Coke!” I enjoyed the movie, but struggled with being distracted and sulked a lot of the time.
Day 2: “This diet isn’t so hard. I’m so glad I’m doing this.” (We went for a hike and then my husband cooked curry for me)
Day 3: This is the day I got cocky and was all… “I got this. I am disgusted by those other humans out there who don’t choose to do something like this for their health.”
Day 4: “This is the dumbest thing ever. I HATE this @$@#&*! diet. I will stay faithful to it, but I REFUSE to be happy about it.” This is when I started having detox symptoms, as my body started dumping all the toxins I normally eat out of my system. My kidneys hurt, I had sciatic pain, headaches, blah.
Day 5, 6, 7: see day 4 =)

As Amy articulated so well, the first week was a roller-coaster of emotions. And for me, the Holy Spirit used this first week to reveal my utter dependence on food and alcohol for comfort and medication, pleasure and mood-control. He revealed with so much kindness my use of caffeine to “cheat” the system, using it to borrow energy from tomorrow and pay a serious interest rate in the process. And so much more…

This revelation was exposing, humiliating… and saving.

In his teaching on fasting, a mentor Mike Bickle remarks that one of the most excruciating realities of fasting is that it reveals at first how little intimacy and substantial daily relationship we actually have with God.

“When all the crutches are taken away, you realize that what you and God have at this point just isn’t all that great… yet.”

And so it begins.

But something else has happened. By day three, my energy grew enormously. In the evenings I’ve been forcing myself to put down the book, leave the fireplace and get to bed, even though I don’t feel tired. I still don’t believe it. “I’m not an evening person.” That’s what I always believed. “It’s just my drivenness that leads to exhaustion.” Maybe in part, but not in this case.

Cherie still catches me staring at the beer in the fridge – sometimes just hoping for some osmosis or supernatural impartation. But each day I do it more loosely…each day I feel myself surrender just a little more into the possibility that God desires to be my food and my drink, to be my comfort and the lifter of my mood. I have a long way to go, but I am keenly aware that I am in the middle of one of the holiest seasons of my life so far.

And I thought it was just a “cleanse.”

Where is the Holy Spirit inviting you to “detox,” “cleanse” or fast? Take a moment to ask Him to reveal any false comforters that He longs to replace with Himself.

If He asked, would you hear Him?

If you heard Him, would you do it?

Jesus, come. I am desperate. I am raw. I am exposed. I need you. I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am lonely. I am tired. I am uncomfortable. I am restless. I am in need. Come, beautiful, kind God. Come. I need more of you or I am not going to make it. Come.

In Discipleship, excavation, Spiritual Disciplines amy dale, fast, Holy Spirit, jon dale, pizza

Good Friday

March 29, 2013 — 22 Comments

Steelhead in Pennsylvania

I took this picture of my youngest brother Lance on an ice laden stream in the northeast, just minutes after I helped him take his daily dose of chemo. In that moment, and in many others Lance became a giant in my heart. Dan Allender said of a remarkable wedding he attended, “In the end, we all need a friend to serve as a witness to the triumph that is our life.” That day and many others in his 18-month decline and eventual Crossing Over, I served as his witness.

It was a year ago we were doing around the clock hospice.

It was a year ago today I served him what would become, unbeknownst to us, his last meal.

Today, in the early morning hours of Good Friday, I feel something akin to what the disciples must felt.

Death wins.

I feel it at my doorstep.

I feel it as a noose.

I feel its gaze.

I smell it’s stench.

I am disoriented by it’s spin.

Yet.

Deeper still.

Something more.

Rises.

George MacDonald said that “Every sunset speaks of his death and every sunrise of His resurrection.”

I gaze on the Colorado mountains basking in yet another sunrise.

I wonder if it’s true.

The Resurrection.

Deeper still.

Hand over hand I crawl in to the scriptures this morning… Not unlike a narrow escape from a burning building; crawling low, through debris. Smoke filled lungs, eyes watering, excruciating heat.

I crawl.

I find Jesus.

But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:

Death swallowed by triumphant Life!

Who got the last word, oh, Death?

Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?

It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God! (1 Corinthians 15)

I choose to believe beneath my tears.

Heaven is real. Death is a lie.

Heaven come today.

(Footnote: For more on the story, you might find some nourishment below:)

A Eulogy

Asking God

On Suffering

In Uncategorized

Vacation – Why We Can’t Afford Not To

March 27, 2013 — 34 Comments

Vacation One

$824.00 for Disneyland.

I thought $90 a week for a kick in the nuts (counseling) was a rough go… But to shell out $824 for a three-day family pass just to have close proximity to a Galactic Gobbler or the not-sure-why-it’s-famous cheesesteak…?

Grandma Snyder I don’t know if it’s mentoring from Dave Ramsey or my old Jewish Grandma, Claire Snyder, (yes, her real picture)…but I pride myself in not paying full retail for anything but a wedding ring, a honeymoon, and a microbrew.

It was a mentor, Reese, who brought the disruption to my category of “Vacation” and the eventual rescue… When I turned thirty and began to ask questions of older men, he brought this counsel that would forever alter my assumptions:

“I would’ve spent more money and taken more two-week vacations.” – Reese

As an idea it’s great. But as a reality, it felt like a near impossibility. Thankfully, we’re in a season of a bit of margin beyond living “month to month,” but still; with trying to build up an emergency fund, put some extra toward the mortgage and prepare for braces, luxurious vacations aren’t exactly in the budget, especially the emotional budget.

When I find myself at an intersection between what I am pulled to do (by culture or by fear) and what my heart believes (barely) is life, I need to risk and I need to listen: to my Father in Heaven and to the counsel of those who have gone before me and whose wholeness and impact is a light upon my way (Psalm 119:105).

So we rolled the dice.

We chose to listen to Reese’s counsel and risk taking a longer vacation than felt “reasonable”. We chose to spend the money. We shipped it. A few days at Disneyland and beyond. Two weeks off the grid. Thirteen years before, Cherie and I planned a seven-day honeymoon because we had never even heard of taking a “vacation” for more than seven days. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had developed the rigorous assumption that a seven-day vacation was the max for a “responsible human being.”

And yet here we were, so different now through a decade of spiritual and emotional formation by God’s spirit, our mentors and friends, heading out for a two-week vacation. By way of confession, it was the first “vacation” we had taken with just our little family in three years. We were pulling the tubes of the IV-technology-drip out of our bruised forearms, pulling the kids out of school, throwing up the wheels and taking off…

And what do you know? Reese was right. The very spaciousness of this vacation became the sacred container for some of the best moments of my life.

Vacation three The name we spoke over our vacation was “Operation Soil Replenishment” (Aaron: thanks for your intervention in my downward spiral last fall; you helped me believe that Jesus makes the impossible possible). We prayed as a family every morning for FAVOR, declaring that we were all the sons and daughters of God and that our Father delights in bringing gifts for His kids. And He did, oh did He ever… I wish I could sit with you around a campfire and share my stories with you and listen as you share yours with me…

Vacation two

I found myself in tears of gratitude so many times over the course of the two weeks. Father snuck up on me again and again and again with His goodness, playfulness, nearness, beauty and joy. It was not without battle; everything from sickness to warfare to threatening weather. And yet, deeper still, it was soil replenishment. It was intimacy with my children. Spontaneous play. Hours without a schedule and with all kinds of room to follow the nudging of the Holy Spirit. No agenda except to be present to ourselves, each other and to our God. It was lingering conversations with Cherie. Flowing Laughter. Questions back and forth with our kids, prayers, worship, playing, fasting and feasting.

It was a context that facilitated limitless connection as a family that simply isn’t available in this degree of concentration in our day-to-day life.

“Context is everything.”

The Colonel used to tell me this in just about every other session. And it has finally sunk in. It is. If we take the proverb to heart: “Above all, guard your heart, for from it flows the wellspring of life,” then we must ask what context lends itself to a heart overflowing with abundant life, life that we can then offer back to our God, to our families and to our world. And God seems to entrust a big part of that “context” to our care and discretion. We get to shape the context to facilitate our own intimate connection with God and His life and then in turn help actively shape a context for our family’s intimate connection with Him as well.

What if “Vacation” is an essential context to the narrow road?

Especially in this decade.

The kids change every day. “The days are long but the years are short.” A dear friend said it too well.

Vacations can provide a taste of the Kingdom of God much differently from what we taste in the daily context of our 40 hr (50 hr, 60 hr?) work week and the often conflicting schedules of each member of our family.

And “visits” with family can be remarkable… we’re blessed to have many of those on our calendar. But I want to suggest that “vacation” is different. A chance to simply be with your little family unit in a lifegiving location, “doing life together” with no other goal than to connect, refresh and rest with each other and with God.

Decisions have consequences. And vacations aren’t free.

It’s easy to list the reasons why I can’t afford a vacation.

But it’s holy to list the reasons why I can’t afford not to.

Father, I give the category of Vacation to you. Expose what stands in the way of me risking that the very thing I need, and my family needs, is the very thing you love and are longing to provide. I choose to lean into your counsel through older mentors who have offered it….

Where would you have us go? What is it our hearts most deeply need as a family this year? How will you provide that? I open my heart up to the possibility. I agree that Jesus makes the impossible possible. And that you love to lavish gifts on your sons and daughters. I stand against the thief, the accuser and everything of the kingdom of darkness that is set against the vacations you have intended for me and my family. I give you my Yes. I ask that you would come and show us what you have.

In Discipleship, Off The Grid, Parenting, Thirties budget, Dave Ramsey, Disneyland, vacation

Become Who They Will Become – Proverbs from the 2012 Intensive – Volume XIII

March 21, 2013 — 1 Comment

Rock Jump 2

a·rise/əˈrīz/ v. come into being; emerge

When fathering your children, father them as God fathers you… Model for them how to RISE UP as true sons and daughters of God. – Allen

Who do you want your children to become?

Who are you today?

Become today what what you want your children to one day be.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within… That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

~Romans 8 The Message

In Fathering, Proverbs, Sonship, Uncategorized

How Have You Learned the Father?

March 14, 2013 — 14 Comments

man laughing

How have you learned the Father?

This is one of the most central questions to our spiritual formation. It’s a question posted by George Macdonald as he unpacks Sonship in Unspoken Sermons. It’s a question that has stopped me in my tracks.

If we were to dive deeply into this question, become fully aware of our operating beliefs and then consider setting them aside in order to relearn the Father as He truly is, most every other struggle would be wiped away…

Ask this question: how have you learned the Father? Search your heart until you know that you know that you know how you have learned Him. Then, lay down all who you have learned him to be and ask the Him to come to you as His son, and reveal Himself as He truly is.

More and more I find myself drawn to men who have learned the Father as He truly is. I’m devouring books from Brennan Manning and George MacDonald. I can’t get enough time with Tim Thornton and Matt Toth. Men who know the Father as He truly is are strong, good and filled with joy to overflowing.

Dallas Willard defines Christianity as the process of more of me belonging to more of God. This is my prayer: Oh my Father, Pappa come! Come, that more of me might belong to more of you…

Here’s an an example of on place I’ve been relearning the Father as of late:

Will Reagan Live at the Banks House. I’ve been cranking up the worship music and soaking, staying, receiving and meditating. I hold the picture of the parable of the lost son(s) on my heart… I see the older brother far away trying to earn his father’s love only to destroy his own soul in the process. I see the younger brother far off with the pigs… tired, weary, desperate… I see me in both of them… then I see the younger son as he realizes his poverty and his need. I feel his heart turn back to the father and move. Move toward his father and his home.

I then see the father on the porch of his house as he catches the first glimpse of his lost son the horizon, making his way home. I see the tears of joy course down his ancient, weather-worn cheeks. I hear him whistle and call out to his men, “kill the fattened calf! Start the music! We are going to celebrate!” Then I see him run… almost awkwardly as he vaults himself down more steps than he should at his age… sandals awkwardly flailing. His robe swinging back in the wind. Then youth is returning to the father. His gait is that of a young, strong man. He is ageless. And he’s running toward me. unencumbered. without reservation. overcome with joy.

I’m filled with excuses, regrets, explanations, but somehow the tears pour down my face: my weary soul more deeply responsive than all my rational thinking, and it’s all washed away. I move toward him but can’t outpace His pursuit of me… He reaches me, His face luminous with affection and his own tears of joy. He picks me up, and spins me around like I’m a child all over again. It feels new and familiar all at the same time… I am home.

“Father, I have learned you wrong. It would have been better to not know you than to have learned you wrong. I want to relearn you. Who are you? What is your heart? What is your way? What is your way with me? What is the love language you have between us? Father, daddy, this is all frontier. But I choose this day to give more of me to more of you. I choose to stay and stay and stay again until I have received your heart for your wandering son.”

Believe He is coming.

Believe He is near.

Choose him. Find him. Search for him. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.
The disciples were desperate with ache and longing to have the LIFE they saw in Jesus. What was the Source of this life they experienced in Him? They had to know.

They turned to Him in desperation and hope and asked in all sincerity: Teach us. Teach us “how to pray.” In other words: Jesus, we want your LIFE. We want what we see in you.

And so Jesus begins, and in his first word, every other need is encompassed.

“Father…”

I want that. I want that for me. I want that for you. “Father, Abba, Daddy-God, Papa…”

Worship. Find songs that are anointed to bring the heart of the true Father. Music like that on the album Will Reagan Live at the Banks House. Like Mud Song and How He loves us or Pete Ohlin’s Majestic Rain, an anointed instrumental album that will invite your heart to soar with the Father.

Sit at the feet of men who have tasted the Father’s love. Read Brennan Manning. Read George Macdonald. Read John’s Fathered by God. God willing, maybe even some of my teaching on Sonship might give you a nugget or two (use SONSHIP as a code to receive the mp3 for free).

He is jealous for you.

He is coming.

For you.

Receive. Make room. Make way…

In Discipleship, Fathering, Sonship, Spiritual Disciplines, The Decade, Uncategorized, Validation father, how he loves us, learned, mud song, prodigal, reagan, tooth, will, worship

Kingdom Carpool – More than a Minivan

March 12, 2013 — 24 Comments

minivan and monster truck 2

I pulled out of the carpool line at the kids school today and felt a blog rising up in my heart. Rather than write it I sensed the Holy Spirit’s nudge to record it as an audio. Never did that before but hope it’ll be good nourishment for you today. When you have a chance to pause for about eight minutes, enjoy the recording and let me know if it’s helpful.

Click to Listen

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

(If you can’t see the audio player in your feed or email, click here)

By way of reference, here’s the centerpiece of the Daily Prayer – Carpool Version that the kids and I pray out load together:

We put on the armor of God…

We accept your acceptance of us.

We choose to live in the present moment.

We ask for a wise and discerning heart.

We unite our hearts with your heart.

We choose to listen to your voice.

We ask you to Father us today.

(Some more on parenting, visit Be There, an earlier blog.)

And for some levity, just remember it could be worse. You could be Jack Butler. Check out this scene…

(If you can’t see the video player in your feed or email, click here)

In Fathering, Parenting audio, carpool

Listen More – Proverbs from the 2012 Intensive – Volume XII

March 7, 2013 — 2 Comments

lis·ten/ˈlisən/ v. give one’s attention to; hear

Talk less, listen more.

Why is it so important to make your point?

Why is it so important to be right?

~ Dave

Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction;
pay attention, gain understanding.

Listen, my son, accept what I say,
and the years of your life will be many.
I guide you in the way of wisdom
and lead you along straight paths.
When you walk, your steps will not be hampered;
when you run, you will not stumble.
Hold on to instruction, do not let it go;
guard it well, for it is your life.

~Proverbs 4

In Proverbs

A Drama of Strenuous Impotence

February 22, 2013 — 17 Comments

Fridge Motor

What a phenomenal title. I wish I could take credit from it, but I borrowed it from a chapter title of a much better writer than myself, Matthew Crawford, in Shop Class as Soul Craft. I strongly recommend reading his book. One of the most formative of yet for me on the masculine journey.

Recently, I received this text from my tenants at a rental property we own (or better said, a rental property that owns us): “The refrigerator is making some very loud, very strange noise. Can you please come take a look at it?”

Shit.

In the past, what would have unfolded could have been described as a drama of strenuous impotence. My inner thoughts would have spewed forth in some combination of “Why does this always happen to me? If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Why’s life have to be so damn hard?” All of these responses rising from a tonic of broken beliefs, agreements with lies, and misperceptions of the story swirling madly in a place of Fatherlessness way down inside.

This time was different, however.

After an instantaneous waive of the old scripted reaction, I shifted to an alternative response: “Father, what’s this about? What do you have in this? How should I proceed?” In our home, we’ve cultivated a culture of “take it apart, get dirty, learn some things. We’ve become the Father’s apprentice as He teaches us.” But this renegade refrigerator was in a little townhome that I rent to a great couple and their newborn baby. Tearing apart their refrigerator and playing appliance repairman in the middle of their kitchen/living room didn’t seem very wise.

So I called a technician. And here is the moment of decision:

I need to lean into his expertise, but not surrender my masculinity. How do I do this? The beauty of free will is that whatever the set of choices in front of us, the option of dignity and masculine restoration is ours to yield or to engage.

Father, I want to engage. Better said, I choose to engage. You, Father, are not an interruption.

Help me engage. Hold the places in me that are not fully initiated as a man. You are my validation. Contain the temptation to pose. Open my heart. Help me receive you in and through this moment. I choose to be true.

So John and Nick show up from Appliance Repair. A father/son duo whose division of labor I quickly pick up on: Nick, the son, does the work while John, the father (picture motorcycle gang senior guy), boisterously tells the stories. And with my eight-year-old-son, Joshua, right alongside me, we join Nick behind the fridge and jumped in shamelessly with all the questions we could think of: “Are there other panels in there? Does that motor run the freezer and the fridge? How long should we expect this machine to last? If the compressor is going to go out, when would you guess it would go and how would we know that problem was the compression?”

As our questions and engagement escalated, I could see apprehension rise in John’s eyes: “If you learn how to do this, we’ll be out of a job,” he said.

I smiled and said,

“Don’t worry, John. What I want to teach my son isn’t necessarily how to fix the fridge; it’s how to be a man.”

Jim Aschwanden, Executive Director of California Agricultural Teacher’s Association, makes this observation:

“We have a generation of students who can answer questions on standardized tests, know factoids, but can’t do anything.”

Side by side, father and son, now both as sons, Joshua and I seized the opportunity to learn how to “do something.”

We kept the worn-out part (for Joshua to joyfully destroy later with a hammer) and looked up the cost of its replacement online: 27 bucks and free shipping. Even though the lesson cost a 168.00 repair job that took John and Nick a grand total of fifteen minutes, we no longer felt like victims mired in incompetence, but like sons who just spent the afternoon with their Dad.

In the end, I explained to Joshua that we paid John and Nick $27 for the part and $141 for a Man Scouts workshop (our household term for God’s initiation and validation of our hearts as men).

And that was money well spent.

When something breaks and we don’t know how the hell to even begin diagnosing the problem, how do we interpret our role in that narrative? Are we victims who vault to rage or are we sons who need our Father’s counsel? Must we concede our masculinity or can we risk getting dirty and failing in order to jump in and receive Father’s initiation? What does it look like to reclaim some competency over the machines in our domain? What would it look like to face the mocking voice of our enemy who tells us we are shamefully incompetent and turn instead toward the truth that we are beloved sons of a Father who is unendingly dedicated to teaching us and equipping us as men?

How do you see?

Father, help us to see you. The masculine journey is always frontier. And it’s not discounted. Father, I’m in for full price. I want more.