A Bit Between The Ears: Messes of Men

Messes of Men by mewithoutYou
Listen to the song.

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist,
Sailing in our separate ships and from each tiny caravel.
Tiring of trying, there's a necessary dying,
Like the horseshoe crab in its proper season sheds its shell.
Such distance from our friends,
Like a scratch across the lens,
Made everything look wrong from anywhere we stood.
And our paper blew away before we'd left the bay.
So half-blind, we wrote these songs on sheets of salty wood.

Caught me making eyes at the other boatman's wives,
And heard me laughing louder at the jokes told by their daughters.
I'd set my course for land, but you well understand,
It takes a steady hand to navigate adulterous waters.
The propeller's spinning blades held acquaintance with the waves,
As there's mistakes I've made no rowing could outrun.
The cloth low on the mast, I say I got no past,
I'm nonetheless the librarian and secretary's son.

The tarnish on my brass, the mildew on my glass-
I'd never want someone so crass as to want someone like me.
But a few leagues off the shore, I bit a flashing lure,
And I assure you, it was not what I expected it to be!
I still tastes its kiss, that dull hook in my lip
Is a memory as useless as a rod without a reel.
To an anchor ever dropped, sea-sick yet still docked,
Captain spotted napping with his first mate at the wheel.

Floating forgetfully along, with no need to be strong,
We keep our confessions long, but when we pray we keep it short.
I drank a thimble full of fire,
I'm not ever coming back...
Oh, my God.

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist,
While watching sink the heavy ship with everything we knew.
And if ever you come near, I'll hold up high a mirror.
Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as you!

****

Some songs seam to speak into a moment in life. Songs about a kiss or a date or a battle or a game -- all songs that are about a moment. Messes of Men always seemed to stick out as a song that was not in any moment, but was an autobiography.

The band, mewithoutYou, have been one of my favorite bands for a few years now. I just love how complicated the lyrics are. They're like a puzzle that, as you start to solve it, reveals something bigger to you.

This song, in my eyes, seems to hit the nail on the head when it comes to depicting the lifelong struggle that is to be a man in this world. Read the lyrics over and over and you'll see that in this complex rhythm of nautical metaphors, you get the biography of the average man.

He is unsure of himself. He is a loner with no real deep relationships. He is lusty. He is dissatisfied with life no matter which side of the fence he stands on. We wrestle with guilt of things past. We also ignore our pasts. As we age we become unsure of how to handle our aging bodies -- a species that prides itself on physical ability, when we begin to break down in age, we fear we are losing our dignity. We float through life, half-paying attention. Sure, we say we have direction. We want our careers and our possessions to go in a Northern direction, but we don't pay attention to the people around us. We are passive when it counts and aggressive when we're foolish.

This song is biography of most men. The more I hear it, the more I fear this song is my biography.

****

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist.

You know, I can remember being a pretty good, rule-following child. I never really got in trouble. I erred so poorly on the side of safety and not rocking the boat, that I missed out on a lot of great childhood experiences that can really only come from bending the rules. My self-worth was tied up in not getting in trouble and not experiencing shame.

I do remember a few times when I would do something bad. Maybe I threw a ball in the house or hit my brother. I can remember that, in those times of guilt, I just so badly wanted to disappear. I just wanted to vanish; be erased and come back in another life. I can remember, doing something that wasn't awful, it was just not a good choice. I hadn't committed murder at 5 years old, I had spilled milk on the floor. Yet, they were one and the same for me. I knew I had rocked the boat. I knew I had done wrong. So, tears streaking down my cheeks, I did the only thing I knew to do in those situations. I'd close my eyes, rock my body to and fro, and wish that I could disappear.

Here's a twist on an old verse: Do you remember the story of Adam & Eve? You know, the two nudists who were eating fruit from the forbidden tree. They ate the fruit, realized they had done a terrible thing, and immediately hid in the bushes. Then God comes strolling through the garden of Eden -- which is an odd thing to imagine, the Lord strolling. I can imagine him floating, but never walking. I almost feel like it's beneath Him.

Well, God is walking through the garden and, knowing that Adam & Eve are hiding, He says "Where are you?"

Two things: 1) God knows everything. Why is He asking? 2) If God knows everything, why are Adam and Eve hiding?

****

I'm 26 years old. The Lord has blessed me with a mouth large enough for my feet and has provided me many opportunities to do so. Weekly, I will say something incredibly insensitive or sarcastic. My tongue is always trailing my heart for weakest part of my body, but not by much.

The thing is, no matter what dumb thing I spew out of my mouth, the afterthought is always the same.

"You idiot. You numbskull. You did NOT just say that. Why did you say that? You aren't here. This isn't happening. This didn't just happen. You are not here. You are not here. You do not exist right now."

Q: So what exists and doesn't exist at the same time? A: Nothing.

****

Pretend for a second. Pretend you are Adam or Eve (depending on which accessories you're packing).

You've just broken the law. THE law. You have committed the first sin ever recorded in the history of -- well, you're the first people, so there's no history. But you just made history.

You just broke the rule of the all-powerful, triune God. A God that spoke everything into existence. This guy could kick you in the grapes so hard you cry Legos.

You have just done something that wouldn't technically happen until Sodom and Gomorrah: "You screwed the pooch".

What do you do? You hear footsteps coming. Maybe you hear whistling coming your way. Dogs don't whistle. Deer don't whistle. You are nervous. Maybe you invent two or three four-letter words as you try to find a bush to hide in.

You crouch down under the leaves and berries. A stick is poking you in the butt. Eve's elbowing you and standing on your toe. You are hiding desperately.

Tears streaming down your face you think to yourself: "This is not happening. This is not happening. This. Is. Not. Happening. I do not exist right now."

****

Men want to be in charge. We want to dictate our lives. We want to drive our own destinies. We want to be the Captains of our own ships. We tell women what to do. We tell our children what to do. We tell other men what to do. We say with our actions, recognize me as being great. The more people who respect me the better. The goal in life, the secret in life, the key to life -- is being respected and revered. All the greatest men who ever lived commanded respect.

Whether we admit it or not, men want to be seen as MEN. Tough, strong, bold, blah blah blah...just look at ANY advertisement aimed at men. They all say:

• Do [blank] and women will sleep with you.
• Do [blank] and you will be cool.
• Do [blank] and you will be bold.
• Do [blank] and you will be successful.
• Do [blank] and you're family will listen to you.
• Do [blank] and you will leave a mark on this world.
• Do [blank] and you will be a man like no other.

It's all crap. We want to choose how we exist. We want to edit our own stories. When we die, and people look back at our lives, we want all the typos and smudges to be erased. We act as if we exist when it makes us look good. We choose to act like we don't exist when we screw up.

I'm single. For me, I only want to exist in a way that makes me look appealing to attractive, single women or people who are friends with attractive, single women and have the power to set me up. Given my propensity for making an ass out of myself, I exist for roughly 5-10 minutes a week.

But when I screw up. When I miss a deadline. When I say something dumb. When I am having relational friction between myself and a friend...I choose not to exist. To exist would mean to acknowledge life as it's really happening. To exist means I don't sugarcoat. To exist means that I apologize. To exist means that I must repent when I mess up. To exist means that I must seek counsel and community and prayer to face struggles with substance abuse or porn or pride, etc. To exist means that I don't wait for somebody to bring up the issue I don't want to talk about, but that I bring it up myself. To exist means that I realize I can't drive my own ship and that I need God. To exist means that I acknowledge when I have failed to love, to serve, to care -- and that I go to those people to ask for forgiveness.

When do you choose to not exist? When do you choose to ignore the issues at hand? When do you choose to hide in your competencies instead of being humble in your brokenness?

****

This song is meaningful to me, because it's been my modus operandi to minimize myself. I don't want to exist at times when I need to speak up. I don't want to exist at times when I need to admit I'm hurting. I don't want to exist at times when I need to admit I'm sinning.

To exist is to see things as they really are. To exist to begin to move towards removing the things that kill your soul.

Finally, to say you exist is to acknowledge that you need help. To say you exist is to acknowledge that God does exist and to invite Him to teach you how to really live.

A Bit Between The Ears: Leaving to Stay

This week I'm started a bit late on the blog. The weekend was chock full o' festivities and I didn't get to set any time aside to write, but so it goes sometimes. This week I want to write about 5 songs that have stuck with me over time. Not stuck with me in a -- Right Said Fred, Britney, Chumbawumba-type of nightmare, but songs that have stuck with me because they prodded my heart a bit.

I think we can all agree that music is a very powerful thing. I mean, who doesn't have a specific song that pulls up a certain feeling or memory. So I don't expect you to like these 5 songs, but if you give them a listen and let me expain why I like them, maybe you'll like them too.

Part 1: "Leaving to Stay" -- Jonny Lang

Listen to this song on YouTube.

I can't believe in what I've seen

I been forsaken. I been deceived

Cast aside and left behind

I can't believe my own eyes



I been waiting for the glory

Of the coming of the Lord

I heard a lot of stories

But all my prayers have been ignored

I been waiting in the wings

Between the ocean and the shore

But this time I'm leaving to stay

I'm walking away



I seen the red sky in the morning

I seen the low tide slipping away

I do believe I'll take warning

Taking my leave to stay



Like an angel afraid to fly

Like the last lonely rose hung on the vine


****

I was in a pawn shop in Harrisonville, Missouri -- probably around 2003 -- with my brother and a friend. We had never stopped in and we decided to peruse whatever goods may have been in this little haven of ill-gotten booty. We found this table that had CDs for sale. None of the CDs had cases, they were all just collected in black binders and priced at about a dollar each.

I love music. I love to collect new music. I love to listen to things I've never heard before. So for me, these black binders had the potential to hold real treasure. I flipped through each of the books: junk, junk, country junk, hair band junk, rap junk. There were soundtracks to awful movies and some CDs that I would rather be forced to eat than listen to. You know, it's a pawn shop, so I shouldn't have expected anything great.

I found, tucked in the back, a copy of Jonny Lang's 1998 album, "Wander This World." I had heard of Lang because of a cameo he had in Blues Brothers 2000 -- one of the ill-thought out plans that came with Y2k.

I picked this up and a couple of other CDs that had no words on them, but the artwork had caught my eye. I figured if nothing else, they'd make nice coasters.

I honestly do not remember the vast majority of "Wander This World." I've heard that it's one of Lang's best. As soon as my ears caught the song "Leaving to Stay" though, I stopped listening to any other track on that CD. I would put this CD into my walkman and just listen to this track on repeat, over and over again. I couldn't tell you why it struck me, but looking back, I think this song defined me for much of my early adolescence; especially between age 14-20.

Lang, covered this gospel song when he was an unbeliever. It wasn't until years later, that Lang would find Christ. (If you want to hear that Lang, the Lang who is alive today, you can check out his last two albums "Long Time Coming" and "Turn Around". ) This song was a song about a man who was leaving his faith. Lang had grown up in the church, but due to an increasing amount of unanswered questions and bad experiences with Christians, Lang left his faith.

I think this song hit me so because, I too had "left faith". I hadn't been raised in the church. I didn't hardly know anything about Christ or the Bible. I was always teetering back and forth between being an atheist and an agnostic; and I was proud of that. I was proud that I had "beat the system." I wasn't going to succumb to some superstitious religion with no practical application to my life or a false faith that was full of hypocrisy. Besides, I felt like I had seen enough of the world and enough of people hurting to know that, there was no God. There was no plan in this universe for any of us. Christianity was a joke and I had seen the punchline coming like a telegraph.

I was proud of the fact that I wasn't going to be one of them. Just like Lang, I was leaving religion to stay true to myself. But...the funny thing was, that Lang's song sounds like a declaration of independence from religion and superstition, but it didn't sound or feel like Lang was celebrating a victory of rationality or the mind...instead, Lang sounded...sad. I must have listened to this song 200 times before I really understood that.


I can't believe in what I've seen

I been forsaken. I been deceived

Cast aside and left behind

I can't believe my own eyes


I felt this. I had seen enough of TV news and had been to funerals to know better than to believe there was a plan. How could I believe that A) There was a God and B) God was good? "Cast aside and left behind," how could I believe that if there was a God, he had any good intentions for us? After all, I'm so small, what would a God care about me?


I been waiting for the glory

Of the coming of the Lord

I heard a lot of stories

But all my prayers have been ignored


When I was a kid, all I ever dreamt for and hoped for, was a better life for my family and I. I was a skiddish, weak, outcast who just didn't function well in society. My family didn't have a lot of money and my parents -- like all parents at some time or another may do -- fought. I was terrified of this world. I learned as all people do -- at a young age and from a hissing voice in our heads that has no good intentions for us -- that I wasn't wanted, I wasn't loved, and that all I could ever be in this world was hurting. I dined on despair, fear, and anxiety for breakfast, lunch, and diner. There were no cool waters for me to drink at. I had no Abba to comfort me. There was no light to be seen at the end of the tunnel. "I had heard a lot of stories, but all my prayers had been ignored."


I been waiting in the wings

Between the ocean and the shore

But this time I'm leaving to stay

I'm walking away

...

Like an angel afraid to fly

Like the last lonely rose hung on the vine


Have you ever felt marginalized? Sometimes, when life is tough and you don't have anything real to rely on, you feel like you are the most lonely person in the world. It's as if there's nowhere for you to belong. "Where is there room for me?" you ask yourself. You feel as if you are stuck in limbo...maybe between the ocean and the shore.

I was tired. I was tired of trying to believe in a God and a Christ that didn't give me what I wanted and didn't lift the pain from my heart. I left the search for God and decided to stay put in my lost world. What else was there to do but give up?


"Like an angel afraid to fly. Like the last lonely rose hung on the vine."

Years later, after finally finding God where I least expected to (in college) and finding a community of friends to love me as I continue to periodically strand myself between the ocean and the shore, I look at this song in a completely different light. Lang may too.

This song, for me, is not longer a sad enigma. It's no longer a song that barks "freedom" as it shivers in the cold...now this song is monument. This song, more than any other, helps me remember what it was like to be lost. This song helps me remember what it was like to not be in relationship with my God and how cold that felt. This song reminds me of the sadness of not knowing Christ and not feeling joy and hope.

This song is also a reminder that there are still lots of people who feel like that last lonely rose left to hung on the vine; lots of people who have heard a lot of stories, but their prayers have been ignored. They are looking for a God that's real. They are looking for a home to rest in and to rest their hopes in.

This time, I'm leaving to stay. I'm leaving myself to stay with my Abba.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 5: So When Is a Deer Not a Deer?.)

Part 5: Achievements are useful if you plan to die today.

I once owned an electric guitar. I never played it. I have a senior picture of me holding a guitar that I didn't know one note on.

I was in the marching band, but I always had trouble playing complicated saxophone parts while I was also trying to move up, down, across, and diagonally on a football field. When the parts were simple, I was a marching sax player; other times I was just a guy walking around on the field.

In fifth grade I was a football player. I took the field once, got laid out by a kid twice my size, and hid on the sidelines as I nursed an "injured"wrist. Was I still a football player or a lethargic cheerleader?

Sometimes people introduce me to others as a "good writer" when, secretly, I haven't written anything in months. Didn't Einstein say time was relative? If that's true, I still consider myself a football player.

Technically, at specific moments in my past, I have been a guitarist, writer, football player, marching sax player, skateboarder, dancer, good Samaritan, employee-of-the-month, and on three separate occasions, a cross-dresser. Technically speaking, at some point, a lot of us have been a lot of things, but in reality, we were just in a phase or pretending. We would consider ourselves stupid if we went around saying that we were something that, in fact, we hadn't been in years.

With the exception of writer (if I stretch the truth), I don't consider myself to be any of the things I listed earlier. I dabbled in them. I tried them out. But I can't say I ever integrated any of them into my identity.

"So when is a deer not a deer?" When it's dead meat.

In my life, I have known a lot of people who were married. I knew very few who had a marriage. Now, I have voiced this before to one of my married friends (one whom I consider to have a marriage) and he said, "You can't judge a marriage from the outside. I respect anybody with the guts to get married and stay married."

I've thought about that and I do agree that you can't judge a marriage from the outside. I can make observations on your marriage. I can even attempt to draw some educated conclusions if I get to know you two enough, but I could never judge the quality of the marriage because I don't know what happens in your home when it's just the two of you. I don't know what your hearts are toward each other.

But I do disagree with my friend that you can get married, stay married, and then call it a win. The people I have seen who have a pulse in their marriage of any kind, are people who are constantly working on their marriage 3 years, 7 years, 15 years, and even 30 years after they get married. They work on communication,. They work on showing love to each other. They get into fights and resolve them by seeking truth and compassion and grace.

You got married? Who cares? Anybody can get married. Ike Turner was married. Hugh Hefner has been married multiple times.

Oh, you're still married? What's so hard about that? I knew a couple who were married for 20 plus years, slept in separate bed rooms, and hated each others guts. Let me get you a medal.

Don't get me wrong -- if you are married, you should feel very blessed; but you have to understand that the difference between being married (an act that occurred in the past) and having a marriage (something that you intentionally take the time to grow daily) is the same difference between owning a hammer and building a house.

If you want a hammer, you just go get one: a red one, a blue one, a classy, trophy hammer, or a cheap, crotechety, old hammer. Some people own several hammers. Some people get a new hammer every couple years. Just be careful, I knew a guy who had a spare hammer on the side and his main hammer found out and bludgeoned him.

Oh, but to build a house with that hammer! To take the time to draw and redraw the blueprints. To have a vision of where the rooms will be -- and not just where they will be, but to scout the land and to see where the sun will rise and set and what the light will be like on the inside of the house. You sketch out what the view from the bedroom window will be when you wake up in the mornings. You plan and design what you want the center of your home to be -- the focal point -- the living room, the kitchen, the garden?

Then to build that home, to take your tools and to construct and build and tear down and rebuild. Over and over again, you just tear down and rebuild until it is perfect. And this house doesn't just go up in a month, or a year, but this is a house you are working on and tweaking until you die. There will always be windows to fix, creaky boards to silence, and other normal wear and tear repairs to make. But even more so, you have the chance to turn this nice little house into a home, filled with memories of joy and, yes, some hard times too.

****

There are two things that I pray for for my both my friends who are building a marriage and my friends who are building other kinds of houses: a passion, a ministry, working toward another goal...I pray for them that God would give them perseverance and diligence.

I think that next to God's will for us in those areas, perseverance and diligence are two of the biggest blessings we need when we try to move from "having done something" to "doing something."

Perseverance and diligence are huge traits that I've seen in marriages that aren't just states of being or legal statuses for the parties involved, but are marriages that are alive, and adventurous, and have this contagious ability to make the people around that marriage want to live as well.

***

You know, we always make fun of the guy who was the star football player in high school and can't let go of that. You've maybe met people like him. I have. He's the guy who's 20 pounds over weight and just can't let go of the past. He still follows his Alma Mater football team and complains that the conference was so much more competitive back in his day. We make fun of him because he lifts up this achievement from 20 years ago like it's central to his identity.

Truth is, we're just like him most of the time.

You had a spiritual awakening in college. You went to some church events and got saved. You spent the next year in small groups and reading every Christian book you could. You did devotionals every day. You prayed before every meal. You bought all of David Crowder Band's albums.

But now it's 6 years later and you still go to church every Sunday, but you haven't read your Bible in a year. You still listen to K-Love Christian Radio, but you haven't grown spiritually. You got saved, so you are a Christian, but you don't talk to Jesus much anymore.

You got married. You fell in love hard. On your honeymoon, you and your bride spent the whole week in bed just getting to know each other's touch. Now it's ten years later. You watch a lot of TV together, you see each other every day, and you still make love occasionally, but the passion is gone. But so what? That happens to everybody.

Every morning, you wake up next to a woman you married long ago, so you have a marriage, right?

****

I end this series with this: You husbands and wives out there, you have it hard. You wake up with rich blessings hopefully, but you also have terribly difficult challenges ahead of you.

Please, persevere.

Please, be diligent.

Sons and daughters are counting on you.

Future couples who will need you as an example of how to do it God's way are counting on you.

Your spouse is counting on you.

You have much to teach the singles of this world.

Don't half-ass it.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 4: Winnie the Pooh Has No Nose.)

Part 4: The Missing Pieces

"That yella, no-good, pantsless, honey-eating sonuvab--"

"BENJAMIN," my mother interrupted.

"Well It's not my fault. This thing is stupid," I snapped back as I threw a cardboard lid against the wall. It landed face up with a short -thuck- sound as the lid trapped the air under it. Upside down and condescending, a ginger-tiger hung upside down with his curly tail sticking up like the middle-finger of life. Next to him a dainty pig and what appeared to be a cross between Snuggles the Downy Bear and a pre-Shield Michael Chiklis were silently mocking me.

"BENJAMIN [middle name deleted], you better pick that up before I count to 3 or you're gonna be in the corner," mom said.

"But his nose is missing," I protested.

It was no use. She was still 2 1/2 feet taller, outweighed me by [weight deleted] pounds, and had an extra 12 inches on her reach. Even if I landed a jab to her kidney, she would've pulled me in and choke-slammed me into the blue trunk that held all the afghans.

I picked up the box and started to take this 50-piece Pooh puzzle apart, but stopped before I got the first corner lifted off. I bent down and started crawling under tables, chairs, and a coat rack hunting for the missing nose. I searched for a while and then gave up. I was pulling up the pieces of the puzzle and putting them in the box handfuls at a time. First came up the tiger. Then the pig. A tree and a honey pot. Then finally the bear. as I pulled him apart -- legs first, then torso -- I swear I could hear him whisper: I win.

I stuck the box of 49 pieces into the bottom of my brother and I's shared closet. I knew at that moment, that unless a miracle happened and I found that piece, I would never pull that box out again. Late at night, I would lie awake and sometimes, if I listened carefully, I could hear Pooh just barely say, "You puzzle like a b---h."

****

I think that if I had to compare marriage to any movie, it would be Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Did you ever see it? It was the very last Indiana Jones movie.

But, Ben, I thought the Kingdom of the Krystal Skull was last Indiana Jones movie?


No. You're wrong. That movie never happened. Ever. Don't ever mention that name again.

...anyway.

In the Last Crusade, Indy and his father are racing against the Nazis to find the Holy Grail. They end up in a cave in Egypt or Utah or some desert place I think. They find the Holy Grail and as they do, the cave starts collapsing everywhere. The earth is splitting open. Nazis are falling into chasms. Sean Connery is taking a nap. It's all just chaos.

As everything is just going to hell, Indy is trying to save Elsa, a Nazi who had deceived both the Jones earlier in the movie by trying to seduce them and pretending she was on their side. She falls into a chasm and is clinging to the side of the rock. Indy is above her reaching down trying to save her. Even after all the treachery and lies, Indy is trying to be the good guy and save the damsel in distress. But Elsa isn't reaching up to grab Indy's outstretched hand. She's clinging to the rock and she's staring at the cliff next to her -- where the Holy Grail is sitting. If it falls off the quaking cliff, it'll be gone forever; engulfed in lava and fire.

If only she can save it. She stretches. She stretches. Indy pleads with her to grab his hand; leave the Holy Grail to it's fate, he pleads. Of course, she doesn't listen to Indy. She needs the Grail. she can't live with out it. For Elsa, the risk of dying is worth the attempt to get her Grail; the thought of living without it terrifies her. How could life be complete without it? So she reaches. She plummets. She dies.

****

Not a lot of my friends, but all of my friends at one point or another looked at marriage the same way as Elsa looked at the Holy Grail and the same way a child may have looked at Winnie the Pooh's nose. "When I find that pudgy quadriped's schnoze, my puzzle will be complete. It will be finished. I can finally rest."

As Elsa lusted after the idea of the Holy Grail, so we all tend to crave the thought of marriage. "If I can just get my hands on it. If I can just possess this thing, my worries will be gone. Everything will be OK. Everything will be the way it should be."

What's funny is that I've put together lots of puzzles in my life and what did I feel after? Nothing really. Maybe I thought, "Cool, this is done. Maybe I'll go do something else now."

I didn't feel transformed. I didn't feel completed. I didn't feel perfect. I felt a couple hours older, a little bit hungrier and maybe a little bored. For a long time marriage has been my Holy Grail and thus far, it seems to be trapped down in a fiery chasm of lava and sulfur -- BUT I begin to see why I might be behind the curve in life compared to many of my friends. I have benefited from seeing the people I love fall in love. I have begun to learn something as a bachelor that some of them didn't start learning until they were husbands and all of them are continuing to learn today still:


Becoming one with somebody doesn't make you whole.

That's a key thought. The Bible says that we will leave our parents and cleave to another. We will in spirit and emotion and sexually, become one in imitation of the Trinity that is One. We meet a woman, fall in love, and become one; sharing life, resources, thoughts, emotions, hearts. Take warning though: we may become a more complete person, but we will not be a complete person in marriage.

Too many times I think that we build marriage (or sports or careers or whatever idols are in our heads) up as this last piece of the puzzle. We think, "If I can just get [blank], I will be happy. I will be there."

But then we get married or we get the promotion or we have the kids, etc and we still feel like we fell short. We still feel this ache in our hearts or this loose screw in our heads that rattles around and reminds us that things are not complete and things are not perfect. We can never seem to put our fingers on it, but I believe God has put it on the tips of our tongues that something is not quite right in this world. I think God baits us with insecurities like these because he wants to draw our attention to the one thing that will make us complete: Him.

Our creator. Our crafter. Our designer. Our potter. God wants to bless us with experiences that we can share with Him. And I think marriage is one of those big experiences that God gives to some (not all, but some) and says, "Through this experience, if you invite Me into it, I will bless it and I will make you complete. I will give you what you seek, though not always in the form you seek it."

At some time or another, I've heard all of my friends share this thought: they got married thinking that they would no longer feel unloved, undesired, or unknown and yet here they are, in a blessed, loving marriage, and they STILL struggle with feeling unloved, undesired, and unknown. And sometimes they feel these insecurities deeper in marriage than they ever did as bachelors and bachelorettes. Marriage didn't stop the insecurities. At times it enhanced them.

Marriage, as they say, is not for making a man happy, but for making him holy. What better way to bring a heart to God than to draw it out into the open and into the insecurities that make it long for something more?

Ask yourself these questions:

1. What is your missing piece of the puzzle, your Holy Grail? What is the thing(s) that you think will make you complete or make you happy?
2. What is the area of discomfort that God might be drawing you into to awaken your heart to the bigger things?
3. When those things have you let you down because they didn't make you feel complete...did you take it out on somebody else? Have you failed to love your wife because it hasn't been what you expected? What about family? Friends? Neighbors? How can you begin to repair those relationships so that God can lead you to completion?

For me, right now, the foggy field I need to be led into is my writing. When I write, I feel more complete, but I also feel great dread at the idea that I am just awful at this. Writing will not make me complete, but letting my writing become a venue for me to speak my heart to God and to people helps me become more complete. It helps me to pick up the blessings God has laid before me and challenges me to focus on Him and not my comfort.

I am not complete today. I will not be complete tomorrow. When my body is dead and I am risen next to God, then I think I will be complete.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 3: Family Game Night)

Part 3: A mudslide of enlightenment.

So it had been awhile since I was drunk. Actually, it had been about 2 1/2 years since that rough night my senior year of high school. Now I was a junior in college -- of legal age -- and I hadn't meant to get drunk. It just happened. I didn't even like alcohol at the time. Frankly, I was terrified of it. I thought that alcohol essentially led to something similar to the film, Reefer Madness.

The night had started with a friend inviting me over to his house to smoke cigars. He had recently realized he was in love with the girl he was dating and he wanted to marry her. Tonight, he wanted to have a small, private get-together with some cigars and maybe a couple drinks. Nothing too wild.

I got over there and there were four of us. We started smoking cigars and my friends broke out a couple beers. The host of the evening offered me one and I declined; I didn't like the taste of beer. It made me gag. (It would take me almost another 2 years to develop a taste for any beer.)

"That's OK," he said. "I have some stuff to make mudslides. It tastes just like a milkshake, but with some alcohol in it."

I said I would try a little. "Not a lot," I emphasized. "I'll just have a little glass."

So he hands me this martini glass that has, what looks like a chocolate shake in it. I smelled it. Didn't smell too bad. I dabbed it with my tongue. A little sour for a chocolate milkshake, but not bad. So I took a sip.

"Hmm," I thought. "That's not that bad at all."

Three glasses later, I was informed that I was actually drinking a mudslide mix, and that the host had intended me to dilute it with ice cream. Since I hadn't diluted it, I had essentially done about 5 shots of vodka over the course of the previous 80 minutes.

"I see," I calmly said. "That explains why the walls are spinning."

I started my fourth glass (no sense quitting while you are already behind) and sat on the couch as the host started talking about what he looked forward to most with the girl he was planning on asking to marry him, his bride-to-be-to-be.

"I can't wait to have somebody to wake up next to and to experience life with and, of course, to have sex with."

At this point, the mudslides granted me great intellectual and philosophical powers -- (I know this because the next day my brain felt as if it had been working extra hard the night before.) -- "WAIT," I chimed in.

The other three looked at me, waiting to hear what gems of wisdom I'd spout out.

"S-sex is dumb. It's stupid. Lame. That's not the point of marriage," I said not knowing what I would slur next. "The point of marriage is the little things. Watching TV together. Playing board games. Family game night. That's what I look forward to."

"Ben," the host, obviously touched by the wisdom I had spoken, said. "You are drunk. You're also spilling mudslide mix on your shirt. Also, I don't think you know how sex works."

He was on to me.

"Ben," the host continued. "Family game nights are boring. I think I will like the sex better."

Rebutted and desperately clinging to a couch that was doing 360's at a faster and faster pace, I thought about what my friend, the host, had said. Maybe I didn't get it. Maybe the physical aspects of marriage were the best part.

Years later, I still hide on that mountain from time to time. I'm not willing to die on the mountain of Family Game Night, but I like to visit it every once in awhile. See, I get that there are certain adult activities and tax provisions that make marriage seem worth it, but I'd like to think, foolishly, that the best things in marriage live in the mundane.

I make dinner for myself and I wonder what it would be like to make it with somebody I care about that doesn't have a wiener.

I sit in bed and stare at the ceiling and wonder if a spouse would think the stain above me looked like Edward R. Murrow too or if she would say I was being naive, that it was really Chubby Checker.

I watch movies and wonder what it might feel like to have a spouse agree with me that this movie sucks and we should turn it off and go out for ice cream but she needed to take her lact-aid pill, because dairy just doesn't sit well with her.

I stand in front of the wall of pasta sauces at the store and dream of a time when I can get into a heated argument about Prego vs. Ragu so that one of us can storm of crying to the cereal aisle because the other one said we were "as italian as William Wallace."

I wonder what it would be like to say, "That's what she said." And to actually have a specific "she" that I was referring to.

Yeah, there's other stuff about marriage that is nice I'm sure. But I'm pretty low-maintenance.

After the mudslide incident, I'd have other discussions about marriage with those guys. Sure enough, I tend to get dismissed with comments about "Family Game Night" or "Chocolate Mudslides." I've probably earned that. Sometimes, when I get a few drinks in me, I just say some plain, old, stupid stuff.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 2: If You Aren't Willing to Get Hit By A Car, You Probably Aren't Suited For Marriage.)

Part 2: Marriage ain't no sissy's game.

You know somebody's married and in love when they want to die.

Sure, plenty of people I've known have been dating and wanted to die, but they were just being over-dramatic. You know a guy is deeply in love with his wife when he's ready to commit seppuku on himself.

Now I'm a cry baby. Of all my friends, I cry the most. I cry when I drink too much. I cry almost every time I watch the movie Big Fish. When my friends wives say their husbands need to get in touch with their emotional, feminine side, they call me. I walk past entire groups of women and hear, "Oh shizz, it's about to get all estrogen up in here!"

So as I'm sitting across from one of the manliest men I know, tears streaming down his face because he had emotionally hurt his wife, I'm thinking, "If I ever ever get married, I'm screwed."

I think, before I had married friends, the idea of marriage to me was a happier idea than I see it now. Not that I'm a complete heartless creep and think marriage is an abomination -- that's far from the case, I think marriage looks like a great adventure -- but marriage definitely looks less "sunshine and roses" than what I naively thought several years ago.

I remember another buddy who got married when I was still in college and I hadn't seen him for a few months. We met up and I asked him how married life was. He replied, "It's good, but everyday I'm learning how selfish I am."

I was more than a little stunned when I heard this. I thought that the way it worked was that you found a cute girl, conned her into thinking you were cool, and then fell madly in love to live mildly ever after. Instead I got into a conversation with a friend who led me to believe that marriage was more like taking a flight across a beautiful ocean while watching a beautiful sunset--and then the wings fall off of the plane.

But I left that conversation thinking -- "Well that's just his opinion. Surely marriage doesn't ever make you feel bad."

But then, sure enough, over the next 5 years, I watched more and more of my friends get married and every single one of them flourish and flounder. I watched every one of my friends experience some of the most beautiful, intimate, grace-filled moments and I've seen every one of them have their guts ripped out through their face. I've seen married men on cloud 9 and in the 9th circle of hell. I've watched them be tender with their wives and also restrain themselves from burying a phone book in her skull. Marriage is an odd, bipolar thing.

Marriage isn't for cowards. I know nothing about marriage, but I know that. If you want to get married, if you want to be a husband (or even a boyfriend), you have to be willing to see ugliness revealed both in you and in her. You have to be willing to crucify this false image you may have of who you are, who she is, and what a romantic relationship is intended to be.

I say crucify and not kill, because crucifixion was a slow, deliberate death. Any sins you have in how you relate or treat your spouse (or anybody) are never quick kills. They take a long time of deliberate rebellion against sin and a deliberate hunt for God's grace.

Any coward can sit across from their friend and say, "Marriage is teaching me that I am selfish and that I don't know how to love my wife." It takes a brave man to say, "..but I am going to wrestle with this and with God on my side, I'm going to learn what it looks like to be selfless and to truly love."

I think too often we look at marriage as this happy-go-lucky thing we are entitled too. As if we were so awesome and so lovely that we deserve to get married and we deserve to live happily ever after. I mean, don't most girls plan their wedding starting at age 5? Don't they dream of that day as if it's the only reason they were born? And to some extent, guys do too. Girls start plan their weddings out as soon as they are born. Guys start planning their wedding nights out as soon as they hit puberty.

We think marriage is this awesome gift -- and it is -- but it's a gift with a rattlesnake in it. And it will bite you in the face and you will pass out and piss your pants if you aren't paying attention.

Cowards tend to get bit by snakes more than the brave because snakes smell fear. The divorce rate (among secular AND "christian" marriages) is about 50% I believe. That tells me that there are a lot of cowards who go in thinking this will be easy, then the mistakes and injuries start piling up and they bail. Now, I know some divorces happen because there is physical or sexual abuse, but a LOT of these are happening because men and women both just run away with their tails between their legs because one or both of them wouldn't communicate or because one or both of them couldn't stop worshiping themselves.

Another thing I've seen from my friends is that marriage is a lot like giving a person a loaded gun, having them point it at you, and trusting them them not to shoot you. I have ticks, fears, neurotic ideas, and worries that I don't feel comfortable telling myself and in a marriage I'm supposed to share them with a woman and feel loved? Yeesh. Again, cowards can't do that. It takes brave people to expose themselves, to share themselves with another; to give that person a chance to hurt them, but to trust them that they won't.

In this country, we love to popularize stories of people going into war or into a hostage situation and saving the day. We love to hear about strong men and women who fight the bad guy and rescue the kids and save the kitten. We are in awe of Navy SEALS and Marines and Firefighters and Jedi Knights.

But we don't hold this same awe for a couple who not only stayed married for 30, 40, 50 years--and not just stayed married and met the status quo, but actually grew together. They grew softer and lovelier over those decades of marriage. We think, "Oh, that's cute. I hope they don't still have sex. That'd be gross."

What if we actually held people who did marriage well -- did it the way God intended -- on the same level as a superhero? What if we looked at that marriage and saw it for what it was: flawed and rocky at times, but always trending upward. It wasn't a perfect marriage, but when they screwed up, they repented, and when they did well, they were humbled. They never gave up. They never gave in to settling for "good enough." They knew what was at stake if they didn't do all they could to love each other and to push each other toward greater things. They took hits and scars; they hurt each other and betrayed each other, but always found a way to show each other grace.

They were brave. They hung in there like underdogs and fought it out. He wasn't a coward. She wasn't a coward. They did well. So can you.

5 Things My Married Friends Have Taught Me (Part 1: The F-Word)

This week, I'm attempting to do a series, so there's a 90% chance I won't finish this. This week I'm writing about what my married friends have taught me. Before reading these next 5 posts (if I actually do them) read the following:

• I am not married. Therefore, I know nothing about marriage. Don't be surprised if something I say doesn't gel.
• The names of anybody in these columns have been changed to protect my friends. Plus I figure being married in its self brings more than enough shame to fill a lifetime.
• If you believe something I say is erroneous and wish to talk to me about it, you can call me at 867-5309 (ask for Jenny).
• If I find that you think something I wrote is heartfelt or cute, and you turn my post into an email forward, I will laugh at you. Then I will vandalize your home.

Part 1: If you are married, you are finite.

I'm a selfish person. Kind of like Gordon Gekko. But whereas Gekko was a smooth operator in life, I'm more like epileptic disco dancer. Gekko moved through life like his buttery, slicked back locks and I move through life like Vlad Divac after his fourth bottle of pre-game Pepto Bismol.

When I was a kid, my brother and I would play with action figures all of the time. We would set up my fold out Wayne Manor/Bat Cave combo playset. It would be team Ben versus team Jake. Being the oldest, I would divide the action figures among Jake and I for maximum fairness. I was always willing to make sure Jake and I split the cool action figures. So I usually set the rosters like this:

Team Ben -- Batman, Robin, Wolverine, Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Snake Eyes, the four Ninja Turtles, and the gorilla Alien from the film Aliens.

Team Jake -- Supergirl, Marty Jannetty, Cyclops, Ted BiBiase's man-valet Virgil, battle-damage Connie Chung, and a can of Campbell's condensed Tomato Soup.

Now Jake complained a couple times that I hadn't divided the action figures fairly, but I always reassured him that I loved him very much and that I was OK with taking some of the lesser-action figures so Jake could have more fun.

Fast forward about 15 years (forgetting a few moments during summer breaks when Jake and I would bust out the toys for nostalgia's sake) and I'm sitting at a friend's house with the table's slightly turned on me.

Fifteen years later, I don't have little plastic action figures anymore, but larger flesh and blood action figures that think on their own, move on their own, and if I try to throw them at a wall, they will throw me right back. This time, I'm sitting in a living room with a friend and his wife trying to talk the friend into coming out to hang out and to do something adventurous. His wife is trying to talk this six-foot toy into staying home, watching a movie, or having a conversation.

Note: Women are always worse at playing than men. Men want to blow stuff up. Women want a tea party. Women want to play dress up. Men want to punch each other in the nuts.

As bad as I don't like to share my toys, I'm worse at sharing my friends. When I was in college, it wasn't as big of a deal, because there wasn't any competition. I didn't have to worry about Tom or Tim or Todd getting clearance from a spouse first before going out to eat late at night or taking a road trip or even just hanging out and having a beer.

And it's different sharing a friend with other guys versus sharing a friend with a wife. A wife is equal to 10 male friends from what I've seen. Now this isn't wrong, it's just how I've seen it. It does create tension though.

We are finite people. We aren't omnipresent like God is. I imagine it's hard for a man who is used to being able to do whatever he wants and go wherever he wants, whenever he wants, to find him self leaving his old ways behind to cleave to a woman. Beforehand, the man only had to see if what he was feeling at the time was compatible to the opportunities in front of him.

"I'm hungry. I can do mexican, chinese, or pizza." Choose.

"I'm bored. I can play video games, go to the bar, or hit the driving range with the guys." Choose.

But it changes when you marry a woman. Suddenly you aren't just looking at your feelings and the opportunities in front of you, but you are looking at your feelings, the opportunities in front of you AND the impact it will have on the woman you love.

"I'm hungry. I can do mexican, chinese, or pizza. I wonder if my wife would like to go out or cook together?" Discuss.

"I'm bored. I can play video games, go to the bar, or hit the driving range with the guys. What would my wife say?" Discuss.

I'm standing in a mall and I'm wondering where I'm at. I go to the mall directory and I see a big red dot. The sign says that I am the dot and I am here. I look down at my feet. I don't see a dot, but I am here nonetheless. I find that I am in a sea of married, reproducing men and women.

From the dot that I'm standing on I can go three possible ways:

1. Blend in -- get married. Sounds tempting, but I like doing my own laundry and a woman would just f--k it up.
2. Flee -- find single friends. Again, sounds tempting. But it took me a quarter century to find quality friends like these and I'm fairly lame, so I'm not sure if I would want any friends who would want me.
3. Adapt -- Learn to share. Forgive your friends and yourself for being finite and be there when you are needed.

I'm selfish. I hate to share. But I also hate to see my friends in pain. I hate to see my friends stagnant. I hate to see my friends not moving closer to Christ.

If I want to see my friends thrive...If I want to see my friends flourish...If I want to see my friends move full-steam ahead towards Christ I have to realize that those things may start inside of their marriage. Whereas at one time I was the best friend, I must now be demoted. I must be willing to step down and let my friend become a husband. I must let my friend become a father.

Friends are for seasons. A wife is for life. Ultimately, I can be around to challenge and to encourage, but my role becomes less the coach and more the grizzled quarterback with the bad hip who stands on the sidelines and tells his friend, "You run like a sissy. You can do better." The wife doesn't become the coach. God is the coach. The wife is like a cheerleader, but not a trampy cheerleader. More like a classy, soccer-mom cheerleader. But less annoying. Actually, a soccer-mom would have nothing to do in a football game except for sit in the stands and gossip or plan out booster club meetings --

-- I'm not sure where that metaphor was going.

To sum up, we are finite. We are limited. We only ever get 24 hours in a day and when you take out work, sleep, meals, bathroom breaks...well, that doesn't leave you with very long left. So what should you use it for? Spend some time with your wife. Love her. Encourage her. Challenge her. If you have kids, your time becomes even more difficult.

All that we ask -- we, the second-string friends waiting to get into the game--all we ask is that you don't forget about us. That you give some time; maybe a couple hangouts a month where we can be immature and dumb and just have fun.

Oh, and we also want you to see if your wife has any hot friends with low-standards.

The Spiritual Gifts of Sunday Morning Hermits

I've been noticing a peculiar habit of mine.

It started as I was having my morning coffee. If you've ever had the coffee at Shoal Creek Community Church you'll notice that 1) It's flavorless, 2) It's odorless, 3) It has enough caffeine to kill a small horse.

Number three is why I love the coffee at SCCC. It's not great coffee. It's often too hot to drink for the first 10 minutes after you pour yourself a cup. The saving grace of our coffee is this: if you ever find yourself trying to avoid Freddy Kruger, our Joe is top-notch.

So my routine on a Sunday morning goes like this:

1. Arrive at about 8:30 a.m.
2. Drop my stuff off in the SCCC Panic Room a.k.a. the Triangle a.k.a. the Media Booth.
3. Walk down stairs and get a cup of coffee from the break room.
4. Go to the triangle and pretend to know something technical as I manipulate sound for the webcast or quarterback the video board.
5. Head downstairs during half-time (between both services) and wander around looking like a toddler who just found himself holding on to the skirt of somebody other than his mom. (I don't actually grab skirts. This was a metaphor for my lostness. I did however have an awkward experience with a man in a kilt once, but in my defense, I've never seen smoother calves.)
6. Repeat steps 3 & 4.
7. Perform the obligatory "Stand Around In the Auditorium with Friends for 15 Minutes" which is only trumped by the "Go to the Restroom for 15 Minutes as the Morning Coffee Rips Through Your Digestive Track like a Battle Axe."

That's my typical Sunday Morning. Granted, there are variables to that, but most of them revolve around any arguments, debates, conversations we had in the Triangle. Before you fool yourself into thinking we had a serious theological debate in the triangle, know that we spent much of this past Sunday morning in a heated argument over whether or not one of us could take professional, female, mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano in a one-on-one UFC-style fight.

Now there are pros and cons to what I do on a Sunday Morning. Pros include: helping to try and create a good Sunday morning experience for the internet, learning about technical video production, & not having to wear pants in my serving area. (Kidding. But I always wonder...)

Pseudo-Spiritual Gift #1: Hiding

The Con of what I do is that it feeds into what I often think of as my 3 greatest spiritual gifts.

I don't think there are many Biblical references to hiding being a spiritual gift, but, I mean David hid from people trying to kill him, Moses was hidden in a basket in the reeds to escape death, and Joseph was hidden by his brothers which ultimately led to Joseph living a pretty neat life. So hiding can be a positive.

But then, of course, I'm reminded of the original Hide-and-Seek enthusiasts and very-well tanned people--Adam & Eve. They hid because they were ashamed of a sin they had committed.

So why do I hide in a windowless room with my friends on a Sunday morning? Nobody is trying to kill me and, in fact, I face more risk of bodily harm in the Triangle where my friends are bigger than me, love to wrestle, and nobody can hear me scream behind 8 inches of brick.

I hide behind serving in church for the same reason I hid behind serving in college. Which is the same reason I hid in my dorm room for the first year of college. Which is why I hid at home during high school. Which is why I hid behind books throughout my life. Which is why I hide behind jokes and a rude, sarcastic demeanor today.

And it's why I'm beginning to think that Adam and Eve were hiding on that awful day in Eden so long ago.

I think Adam and Eve hid because they didn't think that anybody (and at this time, God was the only "body" around that wasn't an animal. And no, this wasn't a Disney movie, animals didn't talk in Eden.) would/could/should accept them. When they sinned, they knew they had done something bad. They may not have had a word for it, but they knew it was bad to have eaten from the tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil.

I wonder if they knew that God was omnipresent; that He could see everything, everywhere. I think they hid much like a child hides under a blanket. If a razor sharp monster wants to make you into dinner, a blanket doesn't do jack squat. But a child hides anyway because even though success is a longshot, it's better than doing nothing. Maybe Adam & Eve were afraid of what God would do to them when He found out what happened.

Often things happen in life and they aren't good things. They are maybe things that happen to you or things you do and you feel shame or guilt or just tainted. You don't know what to do with those things, so you hide. You hide behind confidence or behind sex. Maybe you hide behind hard work or even kindness.

You think, "If I do these things, if I act this way, I won't be noticed. I WILL be noticed, but the person I want others to see in me will be noticed. The good me will be noticed. I can hide the rest of me--the shameful, stubborn me--behind this shield of hard work, kindness, beauty, religion, etc"

Me? I hide behind humor and pessimism. I make myself unattractive on the outside of the car so that nobody will peak into the trunk of the car. I hide physically too. Sometimes I love to sink into the corner of a room and just watch people mingle. I avoid people a lot.

Especially on Sundays for some reason. Hundreds of people gather on Sunday mornings at Shoal Creek to worship together, to ask questions about Jesus together, and to seek the Trinity together. It's odd that I feel a need to hide there at what should be a hub of grace and understanding.

And as a side note: I've never been to a community as warm and inviting as Shoal Creek. I love my home there quite a bit. But even in their own home, people hide. Until I learn to trust God with my mess, I will always be a boy pretending to be a hermit.

Pseudo-Spiritual Gift #2: Telepathy

I remember my freshman year of college. I had guys on my dorm floor who wanted me to go out with them on weekends to parties so that I could experience college life. I went a couple of times, but...I have this other weird gift--I think I can read minds.

Now read that carefully. My gift is not that I can "read minds." My gift is that I "think I can read minds." My gift--that has caused me as much difficulty in life as hiding--is that I have this uncanny ability to assume what people think about me.

So when a normal person enters a college party, what happens in the first 10 seconds? They scan the floor and say, "There's the beer. There are the ladies. There's the bathroom. OK, go."

What happens during the first 10 seconds when I enter a party? I say, "That guy wants to punch me. Those girls are all laughing at me. The party just lost 100 fun points because I walked in."

How do I do this? How am I able to read minds so accurately? I'm not sure. Like I said, it's a gift. I'm psychic.

Psuedo-Spiritual Gift #3: Misreading the Data

If you have noticed, Pseudo-Spiritual Gift #1 is fed into by Psuedo-Spiritual Gift #2. Let me show you what feeds into PSG #2.

Maybe my greatest gift is an ability to feel unwanted wherever I go. Like I said, it's taken me 4 years of my friends trying to convince me over and over and over and over and over again that they legitimately want to be my friend. Which makes no sense to me given the data. I'm not cool. I have no talents of use to anybody--actually I take that back. I make a great wing man because I can scare women off like no other, but that's beyond the point.

I hide in the Triangle, mostly, because I see all of the people who come to Shoal Creek on a Sunday morning and I think, "Wow. God is doing amazing things here." And then I about 2 seconds later, I think, "Wow. These people are going to think I'm the worst person they ever met." So I hang out with the people that it took 4 years to believe they weren't completely annoyed with me.

When I think about this outside of the context of myself--meaning I think about my place in my fear as opposed to how I feel about it--I realize that God has blessed me in a huge way and I kind of just push it away.

My whole life I have longed for a place to belong and to feel less like myself (awkward, geeky, bland, etc.)...and God has granted that. Shoal Creek is a place where I honestly believe that I can be real and authentic and I can ask hard questions about God and have people point me back to God when I stray. God has given me a place where he says, "Here, you can be you..the you that your sinning has made you into and the you that I am redeeming you into." Continually, God shows me examples in the lives of people who didn't think they would be accepted in a church, but they come to Shoal Creek and they feel accepted. (Others churches do this phenomenally well also, so don't think I believe we have a patent on this.)

God gives me the gift of an accepting community and I say, peek through the mail flap on the front door and say, "Thank you God. Just leave it on the step and I'll get it when it's safe."

I misread the data of who I am and who God is. That causes me to assume I know what's going on. That makes me want to hide. Maybe if I spent less time trying to justify what God is offering and spent more time just trusting Him, I'd be less of a hermit.