Don’t be an *…

A recent online advert caught my eye when I read, “Use steroids. Get caught. Be labeled. Don’t be an *.”

How do my life stats look? I see the celebration of the end of the year and recognize that for some of us there is significance to 12/31/2008. But I am confident that if the Lord wills it there is a 01/01/2009 just across the face of the clock. So life goes on as do those things that make us who we are because of whose we are.

Still, there can be haunting memories that lurk in the rearview mirror. Re-reading Windows of the Soul – Ken Gire (a Fort Worth guy) prompted me to send out some Meatloaf lyrics to a few coworkers. "If life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car, and objects in the rear-view mirror may appear closer than they are." I know that as we examine our memories of this year or past years, there are those moments that we might just as soon forget. However, they are just a glance away in that rear view mirror and always seem to be glancing back at us. Is this for the benefit of self-examination?

I had hoped to live a life that was * free but it seems under re-examination that there could be several *s in my life stats. So tell me, what’s a man to do? Does he stare, eyes forward, straight through this New Year and straight through the people whom he meets? Is there a good that comes from not acknowledging self and therefore closed off to the *s in the lives of our family, friends, co-workers, people we see in the larger community?

There is no good in ripping off the rear view mirror from the windshield of life just so we won’t be reminded of our past. As painful as it may be to look back at some of our memories, there is a good, a deep goodness that comes from the process. I am not proposing we make any large announcements or hold a press conference. Most of our stuff is very private and should remain so. But in the processing of our stuff we find moments of strength and vantage points on which to stand where we can view other low spots and see the path that lead us through them. I have found out so much about life when I have taken the time to look around the * that was blocking my view and by processing the path that lead me to that moment. We may even be uncomfortable with the extra spacing and apparent disorder or asymmetrical look when we acknowledge the *s in our life. (shhh, listen to my whisper…) Could it be that my life is not in the correct format of the commonly accepted style? And if that is true then could it also be that other people see that already? And if so, what effect does this have on my identification?

What’s a man to do?

What are you going to do with the *s in your life stats?

I used to be...

This morning as Corban was receiving massage therapy the therapist was watching the DVD I had put in to coax Corban onto the table. Third Day Christmas Offerings was playing out before us and the therapist said, "I like this group better than the other one you've had on before." I sat on my hands so that I wouldn't run the risk of flipping him off since the "other group" was my beloved Hillsong. I said, "Yeah, they are good." Then I quit talking and started listening again. The story began to come out from the therapist that growing up in their church, you would never have heard this kind of music before, especially with the instruments. Growing up in their church did not allow instruments or dancing or a lot of things and at 17 years of age was the final time that the hypocrisy cup reached the full mark. This 50 something therapist had not given up on God but had any kind of church. I kept listening. Mac and the Third Day kept singing and it felt like I was interrupting a sermon. Finally I said that I thought more people would give God a chance if other people didn't get in the way. (How profound...haha)

Hurting people are just an elbow length away from us. I love to listen for the pain and offer it an outlet.

The Stand...

On Saturday morning, an hour and a half before sunrise, a thief attacked my boy in his room. It was 5:30 am. The Brinks alarm did not recognize the intruder.

For several years, eleven years on December 9, 2008 to be exact, I have stood watch over my son Corban. When we began, he was in mom and dad's room where he was close to us. When he moved to his room there was the wireless monitor that created our ability to interpret sounds and discern those of joy from those of need. It was Corban's neurologist that finally suggested we turn the monitor off and try to get some rest ourselves which came after years of light sleeping. But there is a need that goes deeper than self preservation I think.

On most nights I will simply open his bedroom door and look in, listening for silence and even a sense of smell comes into play that I won't go into as you may be eating while you read this. A small lamp with a log cabin base and a vanilla shade with the silhouette of a moose and pine trees glows from the 15 watt bulb and gives enough light to burn all night and illuminate the room enough to see my boy sleeping. In his outdoor themed room hang a few deer heads that his daddy has taken and they are turned toward his bed in frozen stares that seem to be watching him. I know that may not be your thing but it is mine and so it has become Corban's as well. So every night, I and the herd stand watch over him in order to be alerted to anything that seems out of place. Oh but our reasons are valid and there have been no less than three times of heart stopping surprise when I have looked into my boy's room. After the third gran mal seizure, I learned to stare the others down. But it is less than easy.

So it happened that on this past Friday night when Corban crawled sleepily up beside me on the couch and we pulled the afghan over our legs that we both went to sleep sometime after 9 pm. Several hours later I woke up and carried us both into his room. Scooting him over, I crawled in bed beside him since mom had an early seminar the next morning. I wanted the chance to sleep in while she would be getting her morning routine going. It was 5:30 am when the first sound of the intruder woke me with gasping and the jerking of Corban's arm was followed by eyes fixed open and stiffness like a board in his neck and shoulders. The intruder had crept in undetected and was trying to take something of great importance away from me.

And so it goes on most nights this watch that I stand over my boy and the knowledge that there may come a time when the thief will come when least expected. And there is nothing I can do but trust in the one who made my boy and made him the way that he is. We are all made in God's image, right? That was a tough one for me to process. I process other tough things now and I am grateful. I am grateful to the one who made me and my boy who looks so much like me. We both have our weaknesses, our respective disabilities, and the similarities. The most glaring similarity is that our identity was given to us by default though the journey we are on to discover that identity is a journey everyday and it is earned.

Will you stand with me over my boy? Do you stand over your children or those of others? How about yourself? The only phrase that seems to make sense is this, "Abba, I am yours and I belong to you." For some reason that phrase helps me see through the blindness of life and I hold onto it with everything. I stand. Will you stand with me?