Why do 25,000 normal-looking people run to the point of exhaustion?

It's 6:15 am, the air is crisp, the glow of a sunrise is stretching across the sky, and a crowd is gathering. They are pacing, stretching, or munching -- no doubt the odd remnants of a well-planned nutrition regimen.  They are dressed in all sorts of ridiculous outfits that you normally would not wear in public.  Many are chatting excitedly like elementary kids before a pageant. But they are not kids, these are adults, 25,000 of them to be exact, who have paid good money to run their guts out for 13.1 miles.  I am among them, and I can't help but think, "Why do we do this?"

I have heard it said, "Americans nowadays are lazy." Its hard to "get people to do things." As a non-profit leader, I am always trying to get people to do things, donate money, work hard, attend workshops, enroll in training, etc. etc., and it is not easy.  We add all sorts of incentives, work the networks, craft our pitch, and maybe we get 100 or so if we are lucky. Churches are the same way.  We have full time staff dedicated to recruitment and they struggle to fill 50 seats on a Sunday morning.

But here I am, with 25,000 New Yorkers, who are volunteering their time, making great physical sacrifice, committing to months of training, getting up early, giving every muscle in their bodies in search of a little medal that has almost no monetary value.  How can we make sense of it? Are Americans really lazy, or are they hungry for something we are not giving?

Since I am one of these 25,000, I asked myself that question. Why am I participating in this arbitrary and odd social phenomena?  What am I hungry for?

1. Difficulty. It is seen as a hard thing.  One sign I read among the cheering crowd said this, "If it were easy, we would be doing it."  Doing something hard makes us feel good.  To put everything you have on the line is a sort of spiritual experience that I can't quite explain, but I know it is real.  We are hungry for something that requires a lot of us. 

2. Community. There is a close community of support.  When you talk to another runner, there is instantly a bond and plenty to talk about.  The vibe is always positive.  Rarely if ever have I encountered another runner who made me feel like my target time was pathetically slow.  You might compare target paces but it is not really a competition with others it is a competition with yourself, and there is nothing but positivity toward each other as runners.

3. Care for the body.  We are obsessed with health and fitness.  This certainly is part of the equation, but there are quite a few easier ways to achieve our fitness goals.  So, I make this a minor point.  Still there is something meaningful about listening to your body and caring for it.  Something inside tells us we were made for  care and dominion over physical obstacles. 

4. Clarity. My generation has been hurt by post-modernism and self-esteem trophies.  We have been pummeled with the message, "Just be yourself, just be happy," and that is something hard to achieve when everything around seems underwhelming.  A race, however, is primal and clear.  It is 13.1 miles not 13.  There is a precise start line, ending line and route. We can see exactly how fast we ran, and we know exactly if it was faster or slower than last time.  The clarity of a race is psychologically soothing in its own way.

5. Inclusion. My generation has been hurt by modernism also.  In spite of the move toward inclusion and acceptance, the world still pretty much operates on a survival of the fittest mentality in the tradition of modernism. Regardless of the sector, there are constant rankings and comparison.  There is a top 10 list in almost anything you can imagine. On this race, there may be competition toward the front of the pack, but for the most part the focus is on supporting each other.  The goal is to finish well, not necessarily to beat the next guy.

6. Assurance. Finishing is a given.  Even though I always desperately want to quite.  I have never quit mid-race. I have slowed to a walk, but the idea of actually not making it never really seems like an option.  I have a bib number.  I have sponsors. I have the shirt. One way or another I am sure that I will cross the line.  There is no real doubt.

7. Reward. It may only be a piece of plastic with a ribbon, a bag of refueling treats, a little after-party and a selfie, but finishing a race is like no other feeling in the world. What felt like it would never end is suddenly over. The eternity of steps between me and the finish line all of a sudden blurs into one little experience.

So there you have it. A few simple concepts, but they go deep, and when you experience them like I have over and over again in my body, well, you just sign up again.  If I can sum it up, its like the race offers a story to be in.  It reminds me that I was not made for the sidelines. I was made to be included in the company of the finishers.

The race feels like a microcosm of life, a little model of what life was meant to be.  Difficulty, Community, Care for the Body, Clarity, Inclusion, Assurance, Reward, maybe this is what we were meant for.  What would happen if our real lives had more of these things?  What would happen if our Faith included more of this?  I am not sure, but we just might wake up at 5 am, just so we don't miss something.

What kind of good deeds are good?

In the Book of Matthew in the Bible, Jesus tells a bizarre story of judgment day at the end of time.

Folks are divided into two groups, the sheep and goats.  The "sheep" are said to have fed, clothed, visited Jesus himself and the "goats" are said to have ignored him. I have always thought of this story as a firm warning to be sure that you feed, clothe, and visit people or you might get the axe on judgment day.  That is certainly the most obvious point, but the other day I noticed how strikingly confused both groups were  The goats are incredulous.  "When did we not do all those things to you?"  The sheep are similarly confused. "When did we do all those good things to you?"

There is an irony in goodness.  It is not well-suited to measurement and verification.  Even those doing good are confused about the relative value of what they are doing.

Like so many of Jesus teachings, He seems to be trying to confuse the score keepers.  We want to measure our good deeds against our bad and make sure we are on the positive side of average at least. We are very invested in keeping score even it is sub-consciously.  Have we made it?  Are we winning or loosing?  Jesus throws this line of thinking on its head.  Most people who are good don't even know where they have been good.  It appears to happen almost by accident.

Similarly, I have often found that my most loving deeds are mostly done for wrong reasons.  I want to be noticed, recognized or at least thanked.  If nothing else, I want the satisfaction of feeling I had made a difference.  As the saying goes, I want something to "justify my existence." It seems the true sheep barely noticed when they had done something good or at least did not see the great significance in it.  Perhaps that's because it wasn't about being noticed in the first place.  It was just more of a spontaneous action springing from feeling accepted.  The goats on the other hand were disappointed to discover that the "castles built on sand" were all washed away.

This is not an isolated teaching.  Other Scriptures talk about the importance of your good deeds being done in secret (Luke 17:10, Matthew 6:3).  Its as if Jesus knew that self-satisfaction would drive many good deeds.

What is the way out of this dilemma?   Picture yourself in a moment when you were most in love.  What did you act like during those times?  You probably opened the door for random strangers.  Maybe you tipped better or stopped to pet a dog during your commute.  When a person is overwhelmed with love, the goodness just sort of randomly flows out in all directions -- not in a clear transactional or strategic way.  Certainly, you don't keep score. Thomas Merton just said it so well, "The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith to believe that one is loved."

Forgive me if I sound harsh, but doing good for any other reason is an elaborate psychological mechanism to use the less fortunate to feel better about myself. I am sorry to say I know what I am talking about on this.  I am an expert at it actually, but this is not the way of the sheep. 

What do you do when life doesn't turn out the way you planned? (A fable of three voices).

Final exams were done.  It was finally summer vacation, the end of my sophomore year of college and I was finished.  It was one of those years that all students would like to put behind them. My impeccable grades came crashing down.  I needed 300 hours for my internship, but I couldn't find my time sheets, so I only had 220.  My girl friend broke up with me.  She said that I wasn't focused.  She needed a man that she could trust to provide for her and be the spiritual leader. My dad had a stroke and moved down to Virginia to be closer to his family.

With no real place to go or thing to do, I decided to empty out my checking account and grab a couple of credit cards and head for the open road.  Hitch hiking out west had always been my dream and this was the only thing I could think of doing.

The first ride I got was from a nice gentleman in a respectable sedan.  

"Where you headed?"  

"Portland, OR" I said as if I actually had a destination set. 

"I am headed to Lincoln, Nebraska for the National Bar Association Convention. You can ride with me that far if you like."

"Thanks . . ."

"Call me Vinny," he interrupted.

"Great," I thought to myself.  This is going to be easier than I thought.

Over the next 400 miles, we got to talking about my year.  How I felt like nothing went right, how my dreams about college and marriage had all kind of fizzled.

"That's horrible," the gentleman said, "you are a fine young man -- articulate, smart, insightful. You would make a great attorney.  To be honest, I think that college screwed you over.  You should write a complaint to the American College Liberties Union."

"Honestly?" I said strangely encouraged.

"Yeah, and that girlfriend, you could tell her a thing or two.  My ex-wife was like that, always a load of unrealistic expectations.  You can definitely do better.  You really just need to stand up for yourself.  The world is yours for the taking."

"Nice guy," I thought as he dropped me off at the hostel just outside Lincoln. "He made some good points."

The next day, was one of those clear, summer days you dream about during mid-terms in March.  Clear, 80 degrees, nice breeze.  I smiled as I slid into my seat at a truck stop.  "I will take the Hungry Man's breakfast, I said to the waitress."  Her name tag read, "Charlotte." 
She looked like she may have been working there for 40 years or so. 

"You really should think about the vegetarian omlet," she suggested. "I see men come in here all the time and order that Hungry Man's breakfast but they go waddling out like they are 6 months pregnant  -- all that sugar and fat in their gut."

"Uh, sure," I said, taken aback a little.  I knew she was right.  I feel horrible when I eat sugar for breakfast.

"Where you headed?" Charlotte added when she brought back the omelet.

"Oh, I don't know.  Far away from Expectation University that's for sure."

"You can't run from things, you know.  That's all millennials do nowadays.  I have a grandson who has gone to three different colleges and hasn't graduated from any of them. Now he signed up for some kind of Peace Corps thing.  He's trying to change the world, but he can't even change himself."

"Uh, . . . " I didn't really know what to say.

She brought a refill for my coffee and kept going on like some kind of antique wind up toy, "I think men really have issues with commitment these days.  Whatever happened to love?  You know the kind of love that is steady and strong and not distracted by the Miss Universe contestants.  If men really knew how to love, we wouldn't have all these fatherless children and mothers on welfare."

Thankfully she got distracted by some new customers.  "I think I like Vinny better,"  I muttered to myself.

For some reason that day, people were not noticing hitch hikers.  By 11 am it was 85 degrees and, I just gave up putting my hand out and just walked beside the highway.  The words of Charlotte kept playing through my head.  Maybe she is right. Maybe I am just like every other millennial out there, rootless, unfocused, unable to commit to anything. If I could just get organized, I could make it, but it never happens that way.  I start a new plan, and it just ends up not working out.  The last words my girlfriend said came back to me, "I just need someone who knows what they believe and where they are going in life.  I am sure you will find someone else." I guess idealism doesn't mean much when you never finish a book or stick to something longer than a few months.

About 4 pm, I heard a rattly, clunking noise behind me.  I turned to see a Ford pickup -- maybe from the early 80's.   It sounded like it hadn't received an oil change since 91.

"Where you headed?" a raspy voice said from the driver side through the open passenger  window.

"I don't know," came from my mouth -- the first honest thing I said since I left that pristine university campus.

"Hop in" the old man said.

I am not sure how it happened, but as we clunked down the road I told the old man everything.  How I had always wanted to do something great.  How I was the first in my family to go to college, but I was failing out.  How I wanted to make my dad proud, but I couldn't forget the time I overheard him talking to his buddies about me,  how I should go to college because I couldn't put a nut on a bolt without stripping it.  I told him how I used to run down to the river and watch the leaves fall from the trees and go floating on down to the little log jam where they all got stuck.  I told him how excited I was to join that presidential campaign last year.  I was sure we would really make this country better.  Maybe I could get a job in government after that. Finally, this country would be a place of fairness and peace.  I would have been a real part of it!  I told him how alive I felt when I started dating.  How amazed I was when she said, "yes," and I had a real girlfriend!  How I wasn't sure what had happened.  How I felt like rolling my eyes at every professor as they went on and on about the amazing properties of such and such when all I could think about was that I had no property at all. I spoke about how I dreamed of being a great father and how everything went wrong over Christmas break, how my girlfriend said an abortion was the only real option.  Guess I am not "real" then.

After about 6 hours of this, we pulled off the highway and took a couple of streets and then entered a long winding gravel lane.  Not sure why, but I didn't ask where we were going.  I didn't much care. Eventually, we started to climb up a long hill and turned the corner to a rocky ridge then into a little clearing in the trees.  We came to a stop in front of a beat-up house trailer nestled in the tall grass. A make-shift porch swing sat out front just where one could see back down the hill.  The wooded valley stretched out below.  "I'll be right back," the old man said as I settled into the porch swing.  Moments later he came out with a couple of cold Pepsi's and some left over potato salad with two forks stuck into the deli container.  "Hungry?" he said.  "Sure," as I took a fork and began eating out of the container.

"You are a wanderer," the old man began. "I was too once.  I have children in Vermont that don't care about me. I worked in investment banking for twenty years.  My wife said our kids needed fresh air.  All I could see was the next payout.  She got her fresh air all right.  It just didn't include me.  I began to self-medicate.  I had a doctor friend who was a client.  I did his finances, and he would write me prescriptions.  Pretty good deal we had going.  'Till the night my body couldn't take it anymore.  I ended up in the ambulance driving up the West Side.  That's the last thing I remember."

"I woke up the next week with nothing.  As soon as I could walk, I took a flight to Boise and haven't been back since.  That was 30 years ago."

I listened in silence as I ate the last of the potato salad.

"You know, 'Not all who wander are lost.'" he added. "Truth is you are all those things that Charlotte said, and more. You thought you could do it all and be it all.  You can't. I thought I could, but I found out the truth the hard way.  Big surprise, I know, but you aren't all those things you wanted to be.  Honestly, you sounded a bit grandiose. And isn't it true that you also tried to mold your girlfriend into your image.  She didn't fit your fantasy.  No wonder she couldn't trust you. All of those things are true, I can't sugar-coat it for you.  

"This may come as a surprise, but I know your father.  He and I were buddies back in Vietnam.  He knew you were heading out this way and gave me a call.  He said that you have always had a special place in his heart.  There was this sparkle that he never quite understood, but he knew it was the seed of greatness.  He is actually in a nursing home in Virginia now.  He said you never call him, so I don't expect you to know that, but he watches your posts every morning on Facebook.  They are the highlight of his day.  He said that he still can see the sparkle, and he knows there is important work for you to do somewhere."

I couple tears softly dripped into the empty potato salad container on my lap.  The sun had slipped behind the horizon in the valley.  What else could I say?

"Yes, I am a broken, directionless, accomplish-less man," that is true, but somehow I also felt like I had made it home.  How could it be that my father still loved me and was paying attention to my life?  Could it be that I really have a good future?

As I lay awake on the couch that night it occurred to me that I had been given three choices, three voices, vindication, shame, and brokenness.

Vindication says ...

If only the world would discover my talents.

If only she would know how much she hurt me.

If only, they would say sorry.

If only people would know the truth about what happened.

If only the guilty would pay.

If only I could start over, I could make it work if I had another chance.

Shame says ...

There is no hope for vindication.

It would be better if I disappear.

My voice doesn't matter.

My only hope is to escape, far far away.

Brokeness says ...

Its actually much worse than I even thought. 

Not only am I bad but I have done many things good with wrong motives.

Vindication is unrealistic in this life and wouldn't heal me anyway.

Shamful withdrawal into the safe shadows is not safe.

There is no redemption short of exposure.

Why are you surprised by your inability to make life work?

Why do you think failure is final?

There is healing.

There is nothing to hide.

There is forgiveness.

You are loved.

You are free.

I drifted off in a peaceful sleep. For some reason, making it to Portland didn't seem very important any more.

Here's a song I like.

Is there no balm in Gilead?

There is a question that I keep coming back to. Is there balm in Gilead? The question comes from the ancient Hebrew prophet, Jeremiah, sometimes known as the "weeping prophet." In chapter 8 of the book that bares his name he says,

"Since my people are crushed, 
    I am crushed;
I mourn, and horror grips me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
   for the wound of my people?"

I ask the question because I really want to know. Is there a path to healing? Is there a road to redemption? In the middle of not meeting expectations, is there a way forward, or is there just a "well, you should have known better." 

From Washington, to Syria, to Cypress Hills, to my church, to my family, -- the world feels like it is full of open wounds. I am guessing you have some wounds of your own, and do you ever find that your efforts to right the wrongs only cause more wrongs? Trying to fix  things often makes things worse.  You try to have that critical conversation, but it goes bad. Is there truly any balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician here? 

As any good Christian, I can give you the right answer. I can quote the four laws or some rote prayer about justification and sanctification, but at times it doesn't compute. It sounds like the same "try harder" message.  Throughout my adult life I have often felt like a sharecropper sitting in the decrepit, "for coloreds only" section of a pristine Southern Baptist church in the 1880's. The theological words about Jesus don't add up. Regardless of what you say, I am pretty sure that if the White, American Jesus you are talking about showed up here he wouldn't like me.   

Often the wound is denied or covered with superficial words.  Earlier in the same chapter, Jeremiah writes,

"They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.
'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace."

What we need is not just more nice words or positive thoughts.  What I long for is true salve for the wounds of me and my people.  The world seems to be run by "eye for an eye" folk.  I am afraid as the saying goes, "soon we will all be blind." It happened again yesterday at work.  I was trying to facilitate reconciliation between staff on an issue.  One said, "Well, when you act right, I will act right."  This is not balm that we need.

Gilead was in Israel. "God's people" lived there. It was the holy land, a politically weak nation for most of its history but a place that was suppose to be a "blessing to all nations."  Soon after Jeremiah wrote those words, the land was conquered.  The people were taken to a foreign land.  One of them was a promising young man named Daniel.  He was neutered and forced to serve a pagan king all his life. In his elderly years, he was faced with one last test, a death threat actually.  Would he face Jerusalem and pray out of his open window or would he hide and live?  He chose to pray.

It struck me that Gilead as he knew it didn't exist by that time. If he was asked, "Is there balm in Gilead?" I think he would have said, "There is no Gilead. There is no temple, there are no priests, there is no country, but . . . there is a balm, so I will still pray." 

We think people and institutions should persist. When you are a child, you think your parents will last forever.  You expect your church to stay the same. You expect your friends to remain. You expect that people you look up to continue to live up to those expectations.  You expect your house to still be there when you get home. You expect your job to last. On this fourth of July, I think many of us expect America to last indefinitely.  It won't. 

This last week one of my favorite "institutions" crumbled.  What I thought was an invincible fortress -- gone.  

Through the tears, while I was sifting among the ashes, I heard a still small voice, clear and unshakable.  It was the kind of voice that speaks words that are truer than everything you see and touch. It said, 

"There is no more Gilead, but, yes, there is a balm."

Here's a video of a song I like on this theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fcMxI_6xsk

What is wrong with the world?

I used to think the world, the flesh, and the Devil were more or less synonyms. I used to think all the dimensions of evil could be captured in one photo of a Las Vegas crime scene.  You have the scantily clad ladies, the casino owner with a big cigar, and a couple of pimps in the shadows.  There you have it. That's evil.

This view of evil is clear. It is also convenient because all you have to do to avoid evil is stay off the strip.  One simple rule fixes it all.

But the other day I was thinking about an old cliche I used to hear in sermons, "the world as referenced in the Bible is the world system."  That never made much sense to me.  What exactly is the world system?  Is it the Vegas strip or is it something far more subtle?

For the last thirteen years, I have spent my life deep in the world system. My profession and the profession of my closest associates is to look deeply at the problems in the world and try to fix them. Solutions are offered that involve politics, business, churches, neighbors, anyone at all. We try to pull it all together and make the "system better."  So what is this world system that is so bad?

This is what I see.  Everyone trying to make rules for other people, so things can be better.  We call it a lot of other things -- clear expectations, best practices, protocol, policies and procedures, and they are all so good but they are often built on the core worldly notion that there is clear cause and effect, and I can reduce what is expected of me to simple behaviors that I can achieve. If I can just get everyone else to follow, things will be better  --and I will consequently be on top because I picked rules I can follow.

It happens in subtle ways.  Every time I go to Manhattan to one of the city or state offices, I hear some semi-frustrated Quality Assurance Officer say, "I need you to tell your staff to get me a copy of Form 2393439 on time! It will make your program better." Hmmm

Whenever there is a crisis -- like a shooting or robbery, I hear the chorus of protocol lovers.  We need to have more policies and procedures.  There certainly is a place for preparation and clarity, but what I really sense is that we want a system of rules that will save us.  Last week a 15 year old came with a loaded gun to one of my sights where we have English classes.  Fortunately, no one was hurt, but it wasn't the policy and procedure manual that saved us that day.  It was good people doing good things -- compassion mixed with courage.

I used to hear it preached that the world is lawless, but I see quite the opposite.  The world system is brimming full of laws. Everyone's got an expectation for everyone else. There is a rule or policy for everything, and everyone is slightly frustrated that others won't listen.  It is morphing into a giant, global murmur of "should's"

At work, we are trying to make Fulton St. a more inviting beautiful place to be.  Some of the merchants purchased beautiful new awnings and signs.  They were promptly fined by the city and forced to take them down because they did not have the proper permit and somehow did not meet the specifications.  The sign can't hang over the sidewalk more than 4 feet!  Apparently, 5 feet would create a safety hazard (eye rolling).

The tactic is not new.  Job's friends were men of the world system.  If you do X, then Y will happen.  Period. So stop doing X, Job, that's all there is to it. God provides an air-tight system of rules and rewards.  Sowing and reaping is all there is to it. What a convenient world view.

This view is very useful and seductive because it is partly true.  With the cause and effect world view, you can do a lot of things.

You can put people in their place.
You can clearly identify who is in and who is out.  
You can make the world more predictable.
You can blame the victim for their own problems. (i.e. people begging are lazy)
You can blame the victim for your own problems.  Like my neighbor who won't let his kids play with Spanish kids.

If life runs on a clear cause and effect rubric, a system of levers and buttons, you can be in control.
You don't have to be dependent on anyone else's good graces.
You can get what you deserve.
You can be sure of a good outcome.
You can be successful.
No need to be poor in spirit, meek, mournful, or hungry.  All you need is discipline and clear commitment to the cause and effect principles in God's Word.  You can be in the driver seat of your own faith. 

You can also make yourself feel like you are actually fixing things -- like you are bringing much needed law and order.  We even call Job's friends "comforters."

Job instead cries out for a mediator to plead his case in the heavenlies.  Isaiah pleads that God would rend the heavens and come down. The Israelites gratefully looked to the serpant on a pole.  Salvation doesn't come from protocol. 

"In repentance and rest is your salvation" (Isaiah 30:15).

"So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins." (Romans 8:3b) NLT

What is that ache inside? What do I really, really want?

Today I had an ache. It was a little whisper actually that felt like it was coming from deep inside somewhere.   Because I had no other distractions -- my phone was charging and I wasn't at work -- I stopped and listened to the ache for a minute.

The more I listened, the more I recognized it.  I had felt this before. It is the ache for home.

What is it about the longing for home that feels so essential, so primal?  It's as if the very DNA of my heart was reaching out for its resting place, like the urge in the Pacific Salmon that swim upstream hundreds of miles to find the place they were born.

What is this home that I longed for today?

It might be just the family and place of my birth, but I don't think that quite captures it. It is more than a place or even people.  It is a feeling.  We say that we "feel at home," so what is that feeling?  If I could describe the feeling, perhaps I could find my way there.  Perhaps you could too.

Home is . . .

. . . where you are understood.  You don't have to publish a paper and site references to get your point across at home.  Sometimes you don't have to say anything at all.  People just know, and they get you -- or they are at least ok with not getting you.

. . . where you are safe.  You kind of know what is going to happen most of the time, and it is not going to hurt you.  Life is a bit more predictable at home. A horn isn't going to start blaring behind you for some unknown reason.

. . . where you can feel things.  It takes a certain environment to move from the frantic focus on actions to actually notice what you feel and what others feel.  When you feel at home, you can feel.

. . . where you can be creative.  Earlier today we celebrated my son Liam's birthday.  He had a perfect Liam day. One good friend, good food, lots of jumping and sunshine, a relaxed father, and of course creativity emerged.  I found him at the end of the day building something outside with his friend. I think this is true for men as well.  Just ask to look at a man cave, you will see come creativity.

. . . where work becomes play.  I don't have to tell my son to play with legos.  I don't have to tell him to build an amazing rocket ship that looks like a dinosaur.  He "works" for hours not because he has to but because it is his.  That's kind of the way I feel on a Saturday around the house.  I don't feel that way around your house.  Something happened when I signed on those closing papers 7 years ago.  My life savings went into 108 Jerome St, and now I just love to tinker with it.  Sure there are times when home management becomes work, but that is just part of the cycle.  I didn't exactly enjoy putting my hand in a sewer pipe last Saturday, but, oh, the joy I felt after the pipe was fixed and the toilet was reinstalled and everything was all cleaned up.  I think it rivaled Trump's fabled golden toilet!  Work is deeply satisfying at home.

. . . where you have choices.  Should I read a book or get on Facebook?  Should I eat some celery or stuff myself with Oreos?  Should I stay in my work clothes or get into jammies?  There are abundant choices at home.

. . . where you have a role to play.  At home, I am not just an anonymous worker.  I am dad, husband.  I do the finances and make pancakes on Saturday mornings -- and fix sewer pipes from time to time. I have a place that matters to those around me.

. . . where you have a history.  There are memories, lots of memories. Yesterday, Logan said, "Remember when we first moved to this house and we thought it was so cool to jump off the porch railing onto the porch?"

I am sure the list could go on. Home is a lot of things, but the picture is emerging for me.  Home is a kaleidoscope of nuanced features and feelings that can be elusive.   Funny how I look for home in lots of places.  I find it -- sort of -- so I keep going back to certain places.  I found a bit of it last night on the biking trail. I found it this morning in Linda's smile over coffee.  I find quite a bit of it at work. But home is hard to find, even when you go to the place you call "home." How many of us have traveled many miles back to the place of our birth in expectation of this feeling of home only to have the roast burn and Uncle Fred pontificate about politics ad nauseum?

Maybe it's hard to find home because it doesn't quite exist anymore.  Maybe the home I ache for is the Garden of Eden.  Come to think of it, my list here matches Eden pretty well.  In Eden there was a job to do, options, creativity, safety, relationship -- it was all there.   Maybe I am longing for Eden after all.

At the start of the new year, I began a new practice of spending time in dark silence each morning. The coffee is warm and the family is fast asleep.  The first wisps of morning are appearing in the eastern sky.  I ask God the same question every morning, "What do you think of me?  Am I ok?"   What I have really been asking is, "Can I be at home here with you?"  Its been a hard question to ask. Waiting in silence for the answer is harder still, but I have been hearing answers.

I think it is the first step toward home.

Why is love hard?

I will never forget the time I sat in a group of a dozen or so church-going men.  I asked the question, "How many of you have trouble experiencing the love of God?"  Nearly all the hands went up.

Ironic. I thought the love of God is the easy part of the Gospel. Obedience, self-discipline, I thought these are the really hard things.

I wonder if maybe the love part is the hard part.

Look at a loved person, someone fully overwhelmed with love -- the fiancé moments after a marriage proposal, a child wrapped in towels after bath time.

What do these people have in common? 

No self-consciousness, no strategy, no sense of their own accomplishment. Love turns you to mush. 

I saw it happen in my life.  I don't give money to pan handlers in NYC.  I feel like I have a good understanding of the systems that create poverty, and passing out cash on the street is not the way I fight those systems.  But the other day, God met me on the West Side boardwalk.  I knew His love for a few seconds -- moments later I saw a pile of blankets on a park bench.  Something supernatural forced me to break with my routine.  I didn't know exactly what would come out from under the pile, but I was willing to stop and see.  When I am loved I am a different person.  That I know.

Love leads to vulnerability.

Religion on the other hand is our effort to avoid the vulnerabilities of life. Everything in me avoids love.  I want to be sure, first.  I want to have all my theology clear.  I want to be confident in my own obedience because God requires obedience.  To love is to keep His commands (John 15) right?  So what could be wrong with just following all the rules?

Love is also hard because I want to win. The social and political struggles in this country are real.  I don't really want to let down my guard.  I want to push for victory against the bad guys.

But what if there is something more important than victory?

Brennan Manning says that at the end of time the question God is really going to ask is "Did you believe that I loved you? And is your life a response to that love?"

I can't really say for sure if that is right, but something in my life tells me it is true.

So here is my New Year's resolution, to ". . . know and rely on the love God has for us." (I John 4:16b)

Our Christmas Letter

Christmas 2016

Dear Friends,

Sometimes life is pretty ordinary.

Today, is a lazy Saturday. We just ate breakfast.  Logan made pancakes and eggs.  We shared jokes.  I explained my fitness plan for the New Year.  I am going to a nice restaurant and ordering mussels.

Linda worked at the community garden again this summer.  Planting things, watching them grow, and helping the 32 gardeners feel comfortable – ordinary stuff common to the human race since Adam and Eve negotiated where to plant the next pomegranate tree.  We’re thankful for the ordinary beauty and simplicity of this special plot in our community.

I, Lowell, had a chance to work with local employers to form a business association.  We are expanding our job training program to include other business services.  As part of the project I participated in a leadership training course during which I reflected on my leadership style.  I found myself coming back to ordinary things like character and just doing the next right thing.   I sat with other community leaders like someone from the Times Square Alliance, the Downtown Alliance in Lower Manhattan (where the World Trade Center is), and other world class neighborhoods.  I on the other hand represented Cypress Hills, a somewhat forgotten neighborhood tucked in a far corner of Brooklyn.  All we have is a long row of small businesses with an average of 4.2 employees each.  Small businesses with emphasis on the word small – scrappy, immigrant-owned, mom and pops where folks work 14 hr. days to keep the laundromat, or take out restaurant, or barber shop open.  These are ordinary sort of folks, and I am blessed to work with them.

The big event of our autumn was sending the boys back to Followers of Jesus School.  Somehow this ordinary routine repeated by millions of families across this country seemed to be an accomplishment for us.  Starting a new normal with unpredictable tweens proved to be a feat.  Linda began an ordinary job as middle school part time teacher, and I volunteered to teach PE.  We are now very familiar with teenage eye-rolling.

Yesterday was an ordinary, brisk day.  I walked 2 ½ blocks to work and stopped in at a local merchant, Juan Diaz’ corner store, one of the participants in the business association.  I found him opening the business like he does every day.  Looking closer I saw he had stitches in his lip and forehead.  He had been robbed the evening before and spent most of the night in the ER.  I asked why he is at work after such trauma. In his thick Dominican accent he said, “I had to take my son to school, so I came on in.  It could have been worse.  I am grateful.  There is no sense him missing school because of me.  That is what America is all about.  You keep working to be successful.”  An ordinary man doing ordinary things like working every day and taking care of his family.

I couldn’t stop thinking of Juan all day.

It turns out there is a fine line between the ordinary and the extraordinary.  Juan reminds me of another ordinary/extraordinary father,  “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).  Could it be that the Father has ordinary feelings of compassion, pain, and thankless sacrifice?  I am not sure if anyone noticed that Juan had his store open again less than 24 hours after a gun was put in his face.  Did anyone notice his gutsy, painful, vulnerability?  If it were not for the angels, would anyone have noticed the Father’s own ordinary-looking sacrifice on the first Christmas? 

I pray that we can all notice the ordinary/extraordinary gift of God this season in the middle of our ordinary lives. 

How do I live a life that matters?

Three years ago today, we were getting ready to fly North in a snowstorm for the funeral of my father, David Herschberger.  I can't think back to that day without reflecting a bit on what makes a life that matters.  Like many of us, my dad's life was one of big dreams and "small" accomplishments. He never quite did what he dreamed of doing, but ironically some of this greatest accomplishments came in the middle of his deepest pain.  Dealing with his own hurts helped him to enter others' hurts.  Isn't this the irony of Christmas as well?  Big events in small stables.  Amazing love among common people.  I pray I can live a life like that, a life that matters.

Here's an excerpt of the Eulogy I wrote 3 years ago.  Perhaps it will be an inspiration for you today as it was for me. 

David’s life was one of service.  As a young man he served briefly in Chicago, Arkansas, Germany, and Austria before settling in Northwestern Ontario where he served as pastor, counselor, and bookstore manager for 49 years.

Several months ago, David said he would not consider himself to have been a successful person.  He always had dreams far beyond what he accomplished. By some measures, he was not successful, but I think he was a great man. His greatness was not in buildings, or money, or organizations. After having worked on David’s life story this past Fall, I am convinced that David’s greatness was in his brokenness and his response to pain. He did not run from shame, hurt, guilt, and loss. He didn’t try to distract himself or blame others.  

He was pushed by his pain through brokenness all the way to the Gentle Healer. He learned who alone could bear the full weight of his heart, and he allowed many of you to be God’s agents of healing in his life.

It happened over and over and over again.  

Beginning with abuse, mental illness, and spiritual emptiness in his childhood, his first 18 years included much brokenness.  His father told me that sometimes David would just lie down and cry and cry as a child. In his pain, he became hungry for God and began seeking spiritual wholeness.  While he was working the night shift at a mental hospital in Chicago, he read all types of Christian books.  After that, he knew he wanted something more.  He traveled to several different states until he found God in a little band of Christians in Northern Indiana. This led to his first stint of Christian service in Arkansas, and that is where he was truly discipled for the first time. His brokenness had led him to the Healer.  The core message of grace that he found there would become the mantra of his life.

Several years later when his dreams of church planting seemed to fall apart, he felt broken again and wanted to give up.  Amazingly, God met him in his little cabin north of Lac Suel. “That was where it all happened,” he told me once.  The Gentle Healer arrived and showed him a glory that surpassed all of the brokenness.  Soon afterward, a dear friend went with him to attend the Canadian Revival where he could continue his journey to wholeness.

At age 60, he went to college.  “I have a good twenty years left in me,” I remember him saying.  Now, over 20 years later, we know how right he was.  Once again, though, this journey brought a lot of pain and revealed brokenness. He almost didn’t graduate, but, again, his pain pushed him closer to the Healer, and, in turn, he became a conduit of healing in the lives of others.

Then on a cold night in January, all his plans came to a crashing halt as Esther passed away.  He wanted to give up, curse God and die, but again he didn’t cut corners. He walked the valley of the shadow of death, and again, the Gentle Healer brought healing and love into his life again.

On my last visit, Dad said that he was working on one more message.  He said that Jesus died to forgive our sins, but the way that He died illustrated how he wants to heal our shame.  He was spit on, publically rejected, and exposed -- a death of shame to take away our shame.  The Bible says, ^“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows . . . with his stripes we are healed.”

For dad, those words weren’t just nice words for a song or liturgy.  He had been to the bottom. He knew pain, shame, loneliness and hurt, but the Gentle Healer had come and that was what made all the difference. 

Why do I grieve for this election?

I have never cried over an election before.

It sounds even odd to write it, but it is true.  I cried.

Why?  Because I am a bleeding heart liberal? Perhaps,but the number that really got to me was that 80% of my white evangelical brothers and sisters voted for him.  That's not even close.

What do white evangelicals see?

My tears come from what they do NOT see.  Like this . . .

• The three young immigrants who started in my job program last week who expect to have their eligibility to work revoked on January 20. 
• The young black man from my church who walks in the rain because if he ran he might get stopped and frisked by the police or worse still.
• The LGBTQ teens who are 2-3 times more likely to attempt suicide.  
• The infant death rate in minority communities for lack of good prenatal care.
• The thousands who will die when we "carpet bomb ISIS" 
• The sparrow who falls or in this case entire species who we were commanded by our Creator to care for.
• The young women who dismisses threats of sexual assault as "just locker room talk" until it is too late.
• The millions around the world who confuse the "Christian" label with imperialism, a point of confusion that doesn't seem much like confusion when you have centuries of hard evidence behind it.
• The meager life that welfare brings in spite of the persistent caricature of the "free loader" who is living well at other's expense.
• The host of really smart, well-developed programs that lift people out of poverty only to be dismissed as "big government" and defunded in favor of tax breaks for those making more than 250K.
• The 200 hate incidents ranging from swastikas and physical threats that occurred in the week after the election. (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/11/12/bad-year-for-minorities/93637192/)

And this might be the biggest issue for me. I grieve that the white church doesn't see the black and brown churches, that us whites don't stop and think that maybe our brothers of color have some spiritual discernment on issues of politics.  The voting patterns incidentally are almost reversed among churches of color.  Why can't we see that there are two sides to the issues in our culture, and Jesus was clear that, if anything, the marginalized have generally better Spiritual discernment than those "rich in this world's goods."  White folks cling to six or seven isolated verses that support their political position, while the world roles their eyes.  Christianity is being laughed at or feared in dark blue places like NYC.

I will concede that God is not on the side of either particular candidate.  Is it too much to ask that the church would listen to each other, and start being the conscience of society rather than just a reflection of the racism and polarity.  There has got to be a better way!

Why is rest so hard?

There are regular moments when I feel like no one believes in stopping. Survival of the fittest seems to be the law of the land. Life feels like a maze designed by a stone-faced researcher in a long lab coat  and I am the mouse.

But this is not one of those moments.

This is a moment of rest. It's the weekend after a full week. Ahhhhh

Ever wonder why God commanded the Israelites to rest one day in seven?  We need this. How ironic that the Pharisees created a million rules to govern Sabbath rest? They turned rest itself into work.

So why am I resting now?

Because I am weak. Ironic, isn't it?  

A complex array of challenging issues at work today culminated in a conversation with leaders saying to each other essentially, we have to support each other. We are weak leaders. Moments later, I debriefed with another staffer as we reflected on a 5 1/2 year project that appears to be going up in smoke. We reminded each other that there is goodness in the process. Loving, listening, sharing hard truthes -- these things are never wasted even when the outcome is not what we had hoped. It was still good work.

Yes. The perfect word to end a weak week.

And there is another reason I am resting now.  Last night I set a foolhardy goal.  I am training to run a half marathon, and I want to do it well this time. Last night was my first attempt to run the whole thing, all 13.1 miles of it without ever breaking my stride. I decided to go real slow but try to never stop for any reason.  To keep a long story short, I over did it.  I have been limping ever since.  Last evening I could barely climb the stairs.  So now I am resting because I am weak. 

Maybe that's why God had to command us to observe a day of rest. He knew we wouldn't do it. We wouldn't do it because rest and weakness feel like synonyms.

Most of us are petrified of our own weakness. We run ourselves ragged to avoid that feeling of weakness. We even do lofty things like run marathons when we should be resting.  But God comes for us just like he did 6,000 years ago.  He calls us in the garden at the cool of the day or on the running trail. He writes in stone from the fiery mountain because sometimes a command is the only thing driven people hear. He has to really get our attention. "Rest, regularly, you are too weak to do anything more!"

So, Father, tonight, I embrace my weakness and Your rest.  I will accept reality as it is not as it should be. I bow my bruised body and fall into the rest prepared for me. There is simply nothing better.