The Beauty of Hitting Bottom

Many people in the church like to talk about the “Mountain Top Experience;” that place in their walk with Jesus where God is real and life is peachy.

God never meets me there anymore.

He used to, back when I was in High School and College. But either my faith has become dyslexic, or it’s matured to the point where God can kick me around a little and I won’t run away crying. Of course, lately, I’ve been tempted.

I’ll be losing my job in a couple months so I can stay home with my newborn son while my wife goes back to work. Of course, I’d rather have the job that supports us both, and she’d rather be the stay-at-home mommy. All hail God’s sovereign sense of humor. It just feels like everything in my life I would like to change is staying constant, and every constant I hold dear is changing. I’ve never dealt with change well, and to have my life become this tumult of chaos is dearly overloading my system. Have I mentioned I’m not really sleeping all that well?

These are the times when jokes about my sanity are no longer funny.

These are also the times where one begins to separate the truth that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear, and the absurd belief that God will not give us more than we can handle. Anyone who believes that tripe as never read Job, or the account of Noah, or Moses, or Daniel, or Elijah, or Joshua, or… or… or… The truth is that God gets a kick out of giving us more than we can handle so that He can swoop in at just the right moment and prove He’s big enough to deal with it.

He also likes pushing us to our limits, showing us how far we can go, and what we’re capable of enduring under with when we need to. My personal perspective of God, for the time being, is set in a boxing ring. God the Father is in the stands cheering me on. The Holy Spirit is standing in my corner shouting encouragements and counsel. Jesus is in the ring with me, and He’s kicking my ass. He’s not doing this to be mean, He’s simply working out my salvation. (Philippians 2:12-13) He’s changing me, molding me, pummeling flab, toning muscle, building endurance.

Of course, there are points in the process when I can no longer stand, and I’m feeling myself heading towards the mat. Not the mountain top with lush green slopes and a breath taking view, but the dried up riverbed in the lowest point of a desert valley. I’ve made this trip before, and last time Jesus was there at the bottom waiting for me.

He was there the time before that too.

He’s there this time; I can see Him waiting patiently as I finish tumbling down the rocky ridge.

When I finally land, I won’t hit the ground.

The trip down is like a visit to breath-takingly beautiful Yellowstone National Park, particularly from Denver. The memory of the eight hours you just spent driving through Nada, Wyoming, is quickly swept away by the view. In the same way, landing in the arms of Jesus is worth the bumps and bruises I collected on the decent. Even when it’s just catch and release. Even when it’s just a momentary reminder that He is still with me.

I hit bottom.

Jesus was waiting, right where He promised He’d be.

Catch and release.

Even Yellowstone doesn’t compare to this.

An Important Lesson from the Jedi Order

A thousand years before Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side, the Jedi fought a war with the Sith and defeated them. The Sith were not destroyed, however, and when the remnant reemerged a millennia later the stagnant Jedi Order fell.

Why?

Because for a thousand years, the Jedi were training themselves to re-fight the previous war instead of the war the Sith had in mind. They were ill-prepared and because they were unable to adapt to, hundreds of Jedi died before a handful of Sith.

A tragedy for the Republic and a warning for the Church.

More often than not, I see the Body of Christ reaching out to Cleaverville—young families with a single income, living in a house with their 2.3 children. To be more specific, the church seems geared for women raising children, or grandmothers. Sure, the men have their place too, doing this or that, but so much of church culture is targeting Cleaverville families.

That’s a great way to reach my parent’s generation, but not mine.

Like the Jedi Order training themselves for the previous war, I feel the church today is working at reaching a yesteryear community. Jill and I are not alone in getting married later in life, or in having children later into our marriage. Take a demographic of America today and you’ll discover that Cleaverville is not the norm. Singles, single mothers, childless couples, children with three daddies and two mommies, duel income families barely making rent on their two bedroom apartment… this is normal anymore.

Yet, these normals are slipping through the cracks in our local churches because they don’t fit the Cleaverville image. I’ve heard a number of Christian singles complain about being treated like there was something wrong with them in the church, almost as though the fellowship didn’t know what to do with them until they were married off.

That’s not adapting; its assimilation.

My own church is planning on starting a more contemporary service to reach out to the younger generation. My fear, however, is that the church doesn’t know who that younger generation is. What would my church do with an influx of young singles and single parents? I’m not sure they would be able to handle it.

I feel like I rag on the church a lot in this blog, and I don’t really want to, but I see so much that needs to be changed; so many ways our Christian Culture has veered from the teachings of scripture. For example, Jesus said go into the world, yet instead of leaving the church we try to get people in. Completely backwards. The Apostle Paul said it was better for a person not to marry because then they could better dedicate themselves to the work of the Lord. Yet, I know of a young widow in my church who was encouraged to remarry soon so she can bear children. Again, completely backwards. It’s easy to criticize the Pharisees of Jesus’ time for missing the forest for the trees. But aren’t we doing the same thing?

As I’ve said before, I have a great passion for the church. The vision of Hatchet Twain should speak to that. I’m just afraid that by the time we maneuver this great behemoth battleship into the fight, the war will be over.

Allergies, Coors Field, and my dear Anonymous

In the comments on "Collecting Heads" my dear Brother in Christ, Anonymous, offered me the marvelous admonishment to keep in touch with my local church and to seek meeting them where they are. To let the body be the body, and to allow God to work thorough it.

I wanted to write back and say that I am, but two things hindered me in this.

First, its a bit of an embarrassment to be an aspiring writer who's doing good to successfully turn his computer on and off. The fact that I even have a blog borders on the miraculous. I went to the comments section, but wasn't completely sure how to reply. In the words of Yoda, "Embarrassing. How embarrassing."

Second, and perhaps more to the point, as I sought to articulate that I am, that still small voice answered, "Are you?"

Coors Field rather helps illustrate this point, if to no one else but me. Go to Wriggly Field in Chicago and nearly everyone will be decked out in Cubs paraphernalia. Any day at Fenway Park would boast a plethora of fans proudly wearing red to show their support for the Red Sox. I won't even bother mentioning Yankee Stadium.

But go to Coors Field when the Dodgers or Cardinals are playing, and the stands are not covered in Rockies Purple. In the seventh inning stretch of the last game of the season, the fans shouting out, "Root root root for the D-backs," drowned out those of us cheering for the home team. This is the standard of practice at Coors Field, and with fans like this, I'm more proud than ever that my team made it to the World Series last year.

Of course, we won't mention last years World Series.

Or the number of Boston Fans who flooded Coors Field from out of town when local Rockies fans couldn't get tickets.

As if there weren't enough Boston fans already here!

Not that I'm bitter or angry about it or anything! Damnit!!!

But on a lot of points, Church and Christian Culture feels the same way to me right now. Everyone seems eager to cheer for bringing people into the church when Jesus was clearly about sending those in the church out into the world. So much Christian music can only be considered fluffy anymore, and if I hear another praise song that says, "I will bless the Lord," or "We will praise you," (as though there's something wrong with blessing and praising the Lord right now) I think I might lose it and start a counter tune of "Take me out to the Ballgame!"

Don't even get me started on the number of times I've gone to work in a dark mood and the dear Christian company I work for has smiled that plastic smile and said, "Just give it to Jesus."

I did.

He gave it back.

Again.

A friend of mine once said that she was tired of the Christian hullabaloo and that she just wanted Jesus. With this statement, I whole-heartedly agree. My wife and I stopped going to church over the summer to explore what it meant to live Acts 2:42. I lead a time of worship in our living room. We prayed for our fellow believers around the world. We downloaded a sermon from lifechurch.tv. It was a great time of encountering God--I mean really encountering God. We tried to do lunch with another Christian couple, but in this we didn't do as well as we hoped.

In short, the only thing we really missed about the church were the people. Yet, how many times has my fellowship asked how I was only to walk away before listening to the answer? I don't miss the organ. I don't miss the choir. I don't miss the emotionally driven "I will praise you" worship mix. I don't miss growling silently in the pew because I just want Jesus, yet all the grey hair around me is cheering for church the way it's always been.

I feel allergic to Church right now. I feel allergic to Christian Culture. And I think I've developed this allergy because today's ideal of Christianity makes me feel like a Rockies Fan at Coors Field.

My dear Brother Anonymous, I would love to follow your advice and connect with the local body in fellowship. But the truth is that my wife and I have never really fit the traditional mold and feel as though we've had to wrestle our way in, and make our own niche. This September we've returned to our church, but we're wondering if we really want to say. I'm saddened to say this, Brother Anonymous, but Jesus put a high value on being honest, and I feel I must.

Again, perhaps God is calling us to start a church of misfits; a congregation where young families and grandparents are the minority instead of the norm. All I know for the time being is that the more I go to church and try to work within the body, the more I'm convinced that this isn't what Christ intended Church to be.

Don't get me wrong. I still love my Church Family, and I would be there for any one of them in a heart beat. In fact, we're having a dear friend from that congregation over for lunch this Sunday. We're still plugged in, as you suggest. We're still connected and still active.

Yet, I feel my true church, as defined by Acts 2:42, is my multi-congregation men's Bible Study; a group that calls itself, "The Spiritual Fight Club of Our Lady of the Blue TARDIS." When Dr. Who is a prerequisite for membership, it should be easy to tell how seriously we take ourselves. Yet, my dear Anonymous, you should see us wrestle with Scripture, or stand in the gap for each other. I pray my local church will become more like my Brotherhood; anti-pretentious, obnoxious, committed to the Apostle's teaching, to each other, to common meals, and to prayer. This is living Acts 2:42. This is the passion behind the Hatchet Twain Carnival Company. If you live in the Denver Area, Brother Anonymous, I would happily invite you to join.

Again, sir, I thank you for your comment, your admonishment, and your excellent advice. Please pray for me that I'll be able to follow it.

Collecting Heads

To put it mildly, life is uncertain at the moment. Jill is about to have a baby in a month and a half. It also means I need to quit my job at the end of November to take care of Koen because my wife makes twice as much as I do. Expenses are going up, and our already meager income is going down. Not to mention the turmoil brought on by a new baby.

Need I also mention that the stock market is really starting to tank?

Jill and I are no strangers to financially hard times. My employment history is a testament to God’s sense of humor; I’ve bounced through nearly a dozen jobs in the nine years Jill and I have been married. And now to be losing my job again, albeit a dead-end job, is yet another jab at that wound in my soul that refuses to heal. The reason, of course, is a joy, but I still find myself battling with depression, and anger, and the seemingly inescapable conclusion that God is laughing at me.

Fortunately, I collect heads.

Seven years ago, right after we bought a condo mind you, I got laid off. I want to say it was a Wednesday. The following Saturday, we got a call from a couple we knew from Church who decided to move out of state rather suddenly. Problem, of course, being that they had food in their refrigerator and freezer they didn’t want to move across the country. In our current position, we couldn’t turn down anything that was free.

What our friends neglected to tell us was that this was one of those jumbo refrigerators, and the freezer was the monster unit in the garage. We were expecting a hand full of eggs and half a gallon of milk, not eighteen eggs, two unopened gallons of milk, and an additional four apple boxes of fresh vegetables, frozen home cooked meals, a variety of meat, pastas…

Weeks after that day, opening the refrigerator was an adventure. (And opening the freezer was dangerous!) Yet, for a good three to four months, our grocery bills were cut in half. We even bartered some of the meat for electrical work we needed done.

This is the giant we were facing in that particular time in our lives.

This is that giant’s head.

I got up one Sunday Morning to play bass in the praise band, and there was an envelope on my music stand with $100 in it. It was as though God himself left us a note saying, “Dudes, chill out. I got your back.”

Another head of a dead giant.

It was a year before I had something that resembled steady employment (“resembled” being the operative word,) and in that time, we never missed a payment on anything. Yes, we went without, and Christmas money that year went to paying bills. But whenever a need arose, God arose with that need and took care of it.

As a storyteller, I collect stories. Many of those stories are true tales of God’s provision in lean times. The heads of dead giants. I pray that as uncertain and lean times come, as they are indeed coming, Jill and I will continue admiring our collection in the hunting lodge of our glorious God.

A Ministry of Humiliation

Several months ago, I had the privilege of hearing one of my favorite authors speak at a downtown bookstore. Chuck Palahniuk was promoting his novel, “Snuff” (marvelous, by the way) and in the course of the evening, the conversation meandered to his infamous short story, “Guts.”

“Guts,” which appears in his novel, “Haunted” (also marvelous), is so disturbing that people have been known to pass out when it’s read aloud. It features three true stories of masturbation mishaps and at one particular line in the story, several listeners have lost consciousness.

The amazing thing, according to Chuck Palahniuk, is what happens after the reading is over. Get up and read a story that so completely humiliates the reader, and no topic, no secret sin, no buried wound is considered taboo. “Guts,” becomes Chuck’s unspoken invitation for people to share that part of their soul too shameful to voice. And they come. Women emboldened to share how they got trapped in the industry of pornography. Men, sharing their most embarrassing moments. All because an author had the guts (no pun intended) to write a story about the dangers of jerking off.

As a Christian author, I take this as a personal challenge. What if, by writing a story of deeply personal embarrassment, I could help another person find the courage to confront their own issues? What if every Christian author on the planet stopped writing safe, outward-preachy fiction, and started giving voice to their own fears, insecurities, shortcomings, addictions…? Would it help people along the path to finding personal freedom in their true identity—their identity in Christ? Is our closely-guarded, polished image actually keeping people in their own private little prisons because no one in the church culture wants to talk about their shit?

God has a way of turning that sort of thing into fertilizer, but not when His people refuse to lay it on the altar.

Sometime in the near future I hope to write a novel entitled “Burlesque” and have it deal with the theme of sexual abuse. I hope I have the courage to write the lines that embarrass me. I hope I’ll have the courage to offend, to shock, to liberate. I hope to have the courage to write it the way Chuck would.

If nothing else, it would be fun to cause a few porcelain, uppity, religious types to pass out.

The Vision of Hatchet Twain

Tales from the Cross is based out of the Hatchet Twain Carnival Company for a variety of reasons. First, and most obvious, I needed somewhere to stash an 800 year old werewolf who tells stories. Either I built him a traveling sideshow, or I stuck him in an underground lair, like an abandoned sewer for example.

Understandably, Juraeth voted for the carnival.

But then I started noticing that a carnival and the church have a lot in common. Both are ultimately just passing though, both are off-set from the real world, yet they invite the outside world to experience their reality.

Both have the stigma of being after people’s money.

As Juraeth has a passion for living parables, and he was moving into a carnival anyway, why not build a carnival designed to be a living parable for the church? And not just any church either, but the early church as mentioned in Acts 2:42—which tells us that each new believer committed themselves to the Apostle’s teaching, to each other, to common meals, and to prayer. The chapter goes on to say that God moved in such an assembly. I want to go to a church like that, and to have a carnival that embodies this ideal seemed like a great idea. But, of course, what self respecting lost soul would wander onto the lot of the Acts Two Carnival Company?

A few minutes later, I’d riddled out the pseudonym, Hatchet Twain, so that my passion for the Acts 2 church could remain hidden in plain sight.

I mention this because ever since I started building the show, it’s wanted to be something more. I’ve even entertained the thought of starting my own church based on the Hatchet Twain Carnival Company, proudly boasting, “We’re all freaks here.” (Created in the image of God; corrupted in the image of sin. The word “Freak” does come to mind.) As I contemplated this issue, God told me that Hatchet Twain was not to be the foundation of a new church, but an awakening of the old one.

Over the last year or so, my passion for the church has intensified, as has my anger. I haven’t been to too many other churches lately, but mine seems built for Cleaverville where young, single-income families bring their 2.3 children to mingle with other families of the same demographic. Working in a Christian company, I hear different complaints about other congregations. Singles often get singled out as though not being married is an issue for the prayer chain. (Again, Cleaverville.) I’ve seen more than my share of praise bands behaving like American Idol wannabe’s instead of leading the worshippers to the throne of Grace. Sorry, folks, but there is a difference between singing Christian songs and worshiping Christ. I digress, as this is another blog entry all together.

Need I even mention the politics of ministries jockeying for stage time?

Recently, my wife and I had a friend over for dinner, a single woman who doesn’t fit in the Cleaverville mold and sees too many others in her same position. Her passion is more for the church to step in and teach these young adults what they would have learned if the school system hadn’t axed home economics; finances, cooking, laundry. She also wanted to do a seminar on things like finding out who you are…

Like my vision, her vision called for a total overhaul of the church as we know it—a clue that God might be up to something. We agreed to pray about combining the two and perhaps starting an assembly of ten people wiling to commit to each other’s lives. Where is this going? Don’t know. But if God is moving, I want in.

I also want to add that in the vision of Hatchet Twain, I would like to see the different congregations start to intermingle so that they behave more like a single body than competing business. Imagine what would happen if thousands of fellowships became the Church of Denver, still meeting in separate places, but functioning as one. If anyone has a clue on how to proceed in making this a reality, I’m all ears!!!

Blah Blah Blah

In church this morning the pastor preached out of 1 Samuel 3, the first verse saying that in that time words from the Lord were few and far between. Why is that? Well, if you look at the previous chapters it suggests that no one was listening. But at this point the Lord spoke and offered me another insight.

I'll be honest; loquacious people annoy me. I don't want to interrupt them with my two cents worth, but that's the only way I can cut through the blah blah blah. More annoying still is that what I have to say might shed new light on their issue and help them work it through. It's happened before. So I risk it.

Yet, I'm one sentence into my insight and the blah blah blah kicks in again.

This happened a few weeks ago when I was talking with a guy in our parking lot who had a plethora of questions. I'd say I talked to him about Jesus, but I couldn't. He wouldn't be quite long enough to hear the answers. So he walked away not knowing where Cain got his wife, or where the "far away land" was that he went to, or what it was called, or... or... or...

I had the answers ready and waiting for the guy to take a breath.

But instead, blah blah blah.

In this same way, God told me that He doesn't like talking over people. He can; his voice formed the earth after all, and the psalmist says it shakes the mountains. But He chooses to use a still small voice, one that will only be heard by those who stop spouting religious prayers and rhetoric long enough to listen.

Samuel listened, and as a result the Lord stood before him and the two shared a lifelong dialogue. It's amazing what happens when we simply stop talking.

Can you repeat the question?

When I ran a puppet team at my local church, I used to ask my puppeteers what God has been doing in their lives. Ask me that question today, and I would answer with a smile, “Forty-two.”

For those who don’t know, in the Douglas Adams novel, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a super computer named Deep Thought is asked for the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything. Several million years later, Deep Thought gave the answer, “Forty-Two.”
Aghast, the creators of Deep Thought demanded, “What’s the question?”
Deep Thought didn’t know, and told them to build another computer to find out, and that computer turned out to be the planet Earth.

What has God been teaching me lately? He’s been teaching me that on this one point at least, Douglas Adams got it right.

As Christians, we have a book full of answers. I’ve even seen it condensed into bumper sticker format proudly proclaiming, “Jesus is the Answer!”

True. But what’s the question? Some Christians might consider this trivial, but don’t the questions give the answers meaning? What good is forty-two without, “What is six times seven?”

This was driven home for me a few weeks ago as I wrestled with issues of sexual abuse for a novel I’m planning to write entitled, “Burlesque.” After trying to wrap my head around the emotions, motivations, and issues of the various characters, I found myself exactly where I started—with the same hypothesis I had set out to prove or disprove, but forgotten about. I laughed at my own stupidity, for this particular journey nearly drove me mad. “God,” I said, “one of these days I’ll learn to simply trust the answers you give me.”

“This journey wasn’t about the answers,” He said in that gentle way of His. “It was about the questions.”

And what a powerful point that is! We can’t fully grasp the answer until we’ve grappled with the question, because only then, after testing those answers, can we fully embrace them and claim them as our own. Isn’t this what adolescent rebellion is all about? A challenging of the answers given to us by our parents? Even when they were right, we often need to discover these truths for ourselves.

Were I to assemble rules to live by, they would appear as follows and in this order of importance:
1. “Question Everything!”
2. “The Bible is absolutely true.”
3. “The best questions are spawned by the answers.”

Some Christians might argue that rule #2 should be rule #1, but I disagree. How can we know in our heart of hearts that the Bible is true unless we’re allowed to question it from time to time?

Am I suggesting we sin to test the scriptures? Not at all. Sin is dangerous, which is why God said to avoid it in the first place. Sinning the prove the Bible true is like drinking poison to prove it will kill you. It gets an “A” for effectiveness, but a definite “F” in the Thought Through category. Besides, aren’t there plenty of examples around us to prove that sex outside of marriage is a bad idea? Or that habitual liars lead messy and unnecessarily complicated lives?
I love watching movies like, “Saved!” and “Dogma” for the sole purpose of challenging my faith. Without this, how can I trust the scriptures to be true? Yes, at first we need to accept this by faith. But the more those questions prove the answers true, how much stronger will our faith be?

Let us not neglect rule #3. In “Saved!” for example, the characters asked, “Why would God make us all so different only to condemn us for it later?” It’s an excellent question, but it’s also fundamentally flawed. Part of those differences didn’t come from God’s creation, but from sin’s corruption. I’m not picking on gay’s here; we’ve all been affected by the Curse, and we’re all required to lay down an intimate part of our soul to walk with Jesus. Many in that movie needed to lay down their religious righteousness, which was just as intensely personal as a sexual orientation.

I know there came a point in my life when I had to do that.

What would the better question have been? Don’t know. But isn’t that part of the adventure? In adherence to rule #3, let’s begin with an answer. Someone far wiser than me once said, “Jesus loves us enough to accept us as we are, and too much to leave us there.”

I guess I look at it this way. To simply accept the answers and go no further is fine, if that's the way God wired you. Some people simply couldn't handle a Jesus who was anything more than a puring cat on their lap. The beauty of Jesus is that He'll met us where we are.

But discipleship--true discipleship as I understand it in the scriptures--means getting off the comfy couch of our save little cultured world and chasing a lion, knowing that lion will be molding us into His image; not the other way around. In grappling with the tough questions, we're grappling with Christ. This is the way we get to know Him. And what could possibly be cooler than that?