Expecting to Lose

I have struggled with who I am, how I am defined. Throughout my life, I would give myself to certain interests and seek to be defined by them; whether it be dinosaurs, football, music, girls or even drugs. I would devote myself to be filled with every tidbit of info I could find about these interests and would find gratification in the search. But I have also felt a common thread through each of these things, I would lose.

Football has been the clearest example of this losing for me. My high school team lost 29 straight games during my career and went on to lose 20 more after I left. To be the captain of that team and to love something as much as I loved football, that hurt. I can't even give words to how it felt to lose so much or how demoralizing it is to think we never had a chance. And to add to this, the team that I gave my attention to, the South Carolina Gamecocks, were perennial underachievers. The first time they ever won a post season game came 100 years into their experiment with football back 1995.

We've flirted with success here and there but only to find our hands empty. After a while, you just expect to lose. I have realized that the one word that best sums up my self-opinion is 'loser.' Football seems small compared to the failed relationships, the drug abuse, practically flunking out of college, and severe depression that became my story.

God has this thing for giving new names. The great persecutor of the early church Saul, rode the meager christian out of town and into death, but God defeated him and gave him a new purpose and a new name, Paul. He would go on to write 2/3's of the New Testament and was almost single-handily responsible for bringing the faith to all of Europe. And yet he never forgot his first name, 'chief of sinners' and because he never forgot, the power of his new name was unsearchably immense.

God is giving me a new name too. Once a loser I now find myself living under the moniker of 'victorious.' Its a hard pill to swallow. Even though I sobered up, made it through college with honors, and have the greatest relationship of my life with my wife, I still am scared that I will lose it all, that I will lose even my new name.

And it was in the midst of this fear and uncertainty that I watched the Gamecocks win a second consecutive baseball national championship. And not just win it, but do it in style. Pulling off near-miraculous plays when all seemed lost, breaking the all-time records for consecutive tournament wins, to do it against near-insurmountable odds like your best player playing with a broken wrist. And best of all, I kept expecting them to lose and I was so wrong.

This team comes from a place that knows nothing of winning. The schools athletics seemed so doomed to lose that the local papers refer to the 'chicken curse' as stifling all the opportunities for victory. But this group of self-proclaim nobodies won in way never seen before. And while most simply enjoyed the spectacle, I was floored with the sprig of hope these gamecocks were bringing me.

I am not destined to lose.

Life has thrown me some wicked curve balls, I've had my share of brokenness but my expectations are changing with my name. I am beginning to believe that I might just win. And that, my friend, is the greatest hope I can imagine.

All of Your Chains

As we turned East into a little box canyon nestled among the San Juan Mountains in Southwest Colorado, we found ourselves transported and perhaps transformed. The glowing groves of aspen trees lined the snow-capped peaks around us with an overwelmingly green bed skirt and drew us into the town of Telluride a bastion of beauty seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Our favortite phase soon became, "look!" We were like three year olds going to the zoo for the first time, bewildered by the scenery. There are a few times in life when you forget about all the pain and suffering that dominate not only our lives but all of creation itself, when you see or experience something so beautiful that it hides all the ugly. Jesus spoke about such things as the light and that the light shines in the darkenss and the darkness is compeltely overwhelmed by the light. This weekend I saw glimpses of that light and for a few moments the darkenss trembled and ran.

I don't want to over sentimentalize my experience, but my life like so many others I know has been filled with little but darkness and even the beautiful things around me have been hard to see. I have begun to doubt that the light will actually overcome and yet it often finds me in the strangest places. When my faith is dragging God has a way of showing up at just the right time although He often seems late or out of place. So in a sea of hippies, missing a shoe, listening to something akin to bluegrass music, I found God again and it was beautiful.

This trip was just a chance to get away and have some fun but I found my expectations lacking. Absent were my girls, my wife and daughter, and consequently my sanity. I struggled to survive camping on a baseball field in the town of Telluride. I found myself during some of the rippingest music I've ever encountered wishing they were there with me. I battled inwardly about whether I deserved to celebrate life when so many in the world were deprived of the very basics of life. But the reality is that life will not die, the light will overcome and when it breaks through we must dance.

In a weekend full of highlights and special moments, one stands out clearest. at a side stage in the midst of what amounts to a yard off of main street Telluride we saw one of my favorite acts, Abigail Washburn, perform an impromptu acoustic set five feet from me. As I sat on the grass and soaked up the surreal moment, tears welled up in my eyes as Abigail sang "Chains." As the wind gushed through the park the band delivered a cry for freedom, a cry that my heart longed to utter. Devoid of amplification, stripped to their rawest, I saw my soul reflected in the honesty of that moment. Life was passing me by. I was chained to darkness by my fears and for a split second the light of hope burst the chains off me and my soul lept to its feet to dance.

I could hardly wait to return home, both literally and figuratively, to start living life instead of merely watching it pass by.  Below is a video of the actual performance detailed here captured by the guy sitting beside me, a stranger, but forever a friend for grasping this spark of light.



I pray for the light to shine, for beauty to grasp us and free us. I pray that we breathe in deeply the aroma of life and give ear to the melody of God. I pray we dance.

Telluride to Come

Well, I'm back. Telluride was such a blast, I needed a vacation from my vacation. So I took two weeks off, sorry about the extended absence. I will have new posts this week detailing my trip and the discoveries and adventures that a bluegrass festival in the San Juan mountains provided, I will publish part four of "Bound to Ramble" and other random sprigs of hope. Thanks for reading!

In the mean time, enjoy part three of a series on stillness and silence I am republishing on The Neighborhood Cafe, our church's blog. You can read it here: http://bibleconversation.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/be-still-hurried-thoughts-on-silence-part-3/

Taking the Week Off

Here is part one of a five part series on Stillness. This series of blogs are an adaption of a sermon I wrote in 2009. I will not be blogging this week due to a lovely trip I am taking to Telluride, Co for some bluegrass. See ya'll next week.

http://bibleconversation.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/be-still-hurried-thoughts-on-silence/

Reconciliation in Rwanda

Watch the full episode. See more Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

In April of 1994, The world turned its head away as Rwandans killed each other at a rate of 10,000 per day. The wounds of that terrible genocide run deep, far deeper than few of us in the West can ever begin to imagine. And yet something miraculous is happening in Rwanda: Forgiveness and reconciliation. Please take a few minutes and watch the video above of the amazing story of healing that is taking place in Rwanda.

Bound to Ramble, part 3

It'd been five years since Harold left that place he once called home. Five years since he's seen his family and five years since he's been happy. He wasn't sure just what he would find on the road but he thought maybe he might find what he lost back home. However, life hopping rail cars and working odd jobs just so he could eat wasn't near as glamorous as some of the old songs had made it out to be. Yet pride ruled in Harold's heart and he set his mind to believe he was bound to ramble.

The trains had taken him all over Arkansas. But today he found himself somewhere unexpected. He found himself in the very same delta where he first picked on that old cigar-box banjo. He had hopped off the train the night before on a whim, not knowing where he was just that he wanted to settle for a while, try and find his legs again. The sights and sounds of that old delta town were once like a nightmare to him but today they held a promise. It was here that he had found his voice, found what he once thought was his true calling: to pick the banjo.

He found that old painted house they used to crowd all those summers. It had seen better days, he wondered if anybody had set foot in it since they left. Harold stood on the road side and just stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. He had always envision that the road would lead him to the next step in life not back to where it all began. With a great fear, Harold took his banjo Verne and set foot inside that old beat-up shack.

The place was bare, not a piece of furniture in it, there were signs of someone making a few nights rest here, but that was it. The house was like a picture of Harold's soul, once so full of promise and now so empty. He sat down on the dirt floor and began to pick Verne. And something happened that day that had not happened in a long time. Harold forgot, no, better yet, he overcame all his worries for just a moment and felt himself transported to that place like heaven. It lasted only a moment and the fall from that place hurt worst. He sat there in the silence listening to the echo of his picking and tears began to fill his face. It was almost a cruel joke to get that close again only to wake up and realize it was all a dream.

As Harold lay weeping, he was startled by the door opening. Despite his shock, Harold could hardly fell anymore and just lay there. The man in the door called to him, "Howdy."

Harold didn't respond. the stranger walked over and admired his banjo. "You play?"

Harold nodded.

"Well ain't that something. I sure love some good banjo music. I play a bit too myself, wanna take a go with me?"

The stranger's voice seemed oddly familiar. When he spoke it sounded like he had gravel in his throat. You could hardly make out his lips for the forest of beard hairs that had undoubtedly gone unchecked for decades. and even though the stranger spoke kindly, there was no denying the sense of deep sorrow behind every word.

Harold looked up at the man, "what's your name."

"I am who I am, nobody real important, just an old wayfaring stranger. but about that picking, you wanna play?"

Still reeling from his fall from grace, the last thing Harold felt like doing was playing. " I just ain't got it in me anymore."

The wayfaring stranger stared at him a bit, then he sat down beside him. This was the first time Harold had noticed his hands, they were hands like his dad's. Deeply wrinkled and calloused, they had seen hard days, but they also a gentle sense to them. Harold began to wonder what those hands could do. The stranger noticed Harold's glances, "they may not look like much, been to hell 'n back with these here hands. But I been to Heaven n' back too, play with me, just a song."

Harold's heart sunk at the mention of heaven. He knew that when he left home five years ago, that all he really wanted was to go there, tot hat place his banjo had once taken him but he doubted he would ever find it. And now, in the place he first found heaven and where he flirted with it today, this stranger promised to take him there again. "Heaven, huh? I been there too, now I'm not so sure there's even sucha place." Harold wondered aloud.

"Sure there is, its always just a note away. Its hard to find sometimes but a friend can help. Let me help you."
And with that the stranger pulled out a beautiful Gibson f-style mandolin. It was prettier than gold and then the stranger began to play 'Arkansas Traveler.' He closed his eyes and his fingers seemed to float on the double-strings of that mandolin. Harold thought he had met Bill Monroe himself, and the tears he once cried in mourning were replaced with new tears, tears of promise. The song demanded he do more than listen, that he feel it and ultimately, that he live it too. He picked up Verne and joined in and for the first time in five years, he was free. The two played near all night

Finally his fingers could take no more and with a smile he hadn't smiled in what seemed like forever, Harold asked  the stranger, "where you headin?"

"I'm going home"

They both sat there in silence. The moon poked its head in through the window and shed a bit of light across the floor. Harold lifted his hand to look at his shadow.

"Come with me." the stranger asked.

Harold looked at the bearded man , his face full of sorrow and joy. The man's eyes were robust and seemed to peer into his soul. Harold had found what he was looking for, the promise of heaven. He would follow this stranger home.

Rejoice in the Simple Things