We'll Be Right Back After this Message from God

God's country, right?

I don't know where we were. It was pretty. With friends at the wheel, I didn't pay attention. I was distracted by baby-white wildflowers which covered the landscape like a dusting of snow. We got out of the car and started walking a trail that reminded me of Africa -- red earth and green hills. But the horizon was pure Scotland, minus mortarless rock walls or yellow gorse.

Our Friends Chris and Patty provided the guidance and companionship. We hiked to the mesa and looked down at Millerton Lake and the San Joaquin River snaking into it. OK, now with my bearings secured I could imagine myself a Miwok seeing this scene for the first time. This isn't Scotland or Africa -- this is 30 minutes from my house and I have never been here. OK, 30 minutes plus two hours hike up hill.

Tina did really well. Her new hiking shoes worked out, and her sky blue hiking blouse danced up the trails wicking sweat away just as advertised. The afternoon sun illuminated her beauty and she glowed. It started to cool off on our hike back to the car, but the challenge of the trail soon made us stop to rest.

When people say they experience God in the countryside, it often makes us want to scream. God is in the face of an inner-city kid who is learning to read. God is in the alley that has just been cleaned. God is in the house that is being renovated by a hopeful couple. God is in the teacher who prays for her student who has to navigate gang territory to get to school. God is in the tired Dad who still goes to a community meeting because things are being discussed that affect his neighborhood. God is in the Mayor's boardroom, the prostitute's bedroom, the casino's back room. We don't have to go to the countryside, OK? He's in relationships, in suffering, in decision making, in the built environment, not just the created one. OK?

And OK, God is on the Mesa looking down at his handiwork. I needed the reminder. I need to do this more often.

800 Year-Old Words on Grief

Theologian Raymond Brown is famous for saying "All truth is God's Truth." By that he meant that if something is true, it doesn't matter who said it, whether Jesus or someone else. The spirit of Jesus lives in and expresses itself through people who have yet to discover the source of their wisdom. So, while I will always look first to the scriptures for help in dealing with the grief I feel over the untimely and tragic death of my pastor, I also pay attention to those who speak the language of the heart with insight and integrity. Such is the person of Rumi, the 13th century Afghani mystic. He wrote in Persian, often referred to God as his Beloved or Friend, and seemed especially in touch with the human experience. I could share many, many lines from his poetry that have helped me, but for now let me just leave this one short offering, there for any who would say the lines thoughtfully and prayerfully.

My heart, make friends with grief

And if you do, what luck!

Embrace it for your grief

Is the call your Beloved answers.

The Hebrew King David said something similar ...

the Lord is near to the broken-hearted.

So I am grateful for these simple, ancient affirmations, both from eastern cultures. One Inspired and the other Divine. Both consistent with Emmanuel -- God with us, in our time of mourning.

New shoes lead to new destinations

I have never been a backpacker. I did one major trip when I was in high school that nearly killed me, and ended a friendship with one of my buddies when we discovered just how we got on each other's nerves. Of course we were too ambitious -- tried to go too far on the HARDEST trail in Kings Canyon , carrying 65 pound packs.

When we started our family, Tina and I took the boys camping a few times, again in Kings Canyon (got to get back on the horse -- face your fears) but it never took hold as a lifestyle. I did get some good pictures of us frying the tiny fish we caught, and I pull them out occasionally just to remind our sons that I am not just some latte-sipping, art gazing, poetry freak of a dork. I am that, but I can stand by an open fire with the best of them, as long as I have fire-starter.

So when REI had an amazing sale, and after my sons fooled me into going by saying that REI was an art store called Really Expressive Impressionists, I went. OK, OK, it wasn't that bad. But I could not pass up a pair of hiking boots that were originally $200 on sale for $49.83. Which led me to buy another pair for an equally low price, because it was such a good deal. All for a guy who hasn't hiked in a very long time.

So we went hiking -- OK, walking really, but in the foothills by a stream, which makes it hiking in my book.

Which just goes to show that new shoes can lead to new destinations.

Which made me wonder, as I was rewarding myself with a latte, what new shoes does the church in Fresno need, that might lead to some new destinations for the gospel?

Boys Become the Teachers of the Man

As we all have tried to come to terms with the death of Pastor Jamie Evans, I have so often been at a loss for words. This is embarrassing for someone like me -- who lives by words. Embarrassing for a Dad, who would, eons ago, lay his hand on the shoulders of his sons when they were young, praying silently for just the right thing to say.

Because of this void during these sad, sad days, I find myself latching onto other people's words to stand in for me. A fellow leader says in times like this "we need to care for each other" and I repeat that to people who look to me for guidance. Another friend shares that depression is like a cancer of the mind and can turn a person into someone else at the end. This seems true, and as good an explanation of the tragic decision Pastor Evans made this week as any, and so I put it forth in candid conversations among people trying to make sense of such awfulness. These and many other words have rolled off my tongue like I knew what I was talking about. But in truth, my own mind is numb with the loss. There are no words. And so, I am grateful for those who are able to summon words of power in the midst of crisis. My son Joseph reflected on John Donne's taunting of death in Death be not Proud - -

for, those whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, die not

... and I was encouraged. The poet sometimes has an edge over the preacher in that the goal is not explanation, but consolation. That led me to the poet Dylan Thomas who said

though lovers be lost, love shall not; and death shall have no dominion

... and knowing he was referring to the resurrection passage of Romans 6:9 I was consoled. Death is not the end and will not rule. Then through some means which I don't now remember, my son Jameson reminded me somehow of the terrible hope in the midst of tragedy that sets the gospel apart -- that good can one day grow from this seedbed of pain. The right word at the right time.

So I have no words in this time. I guess I am OK with that. While it is true, as Kieth Webb sings,

I am like a mockingbird

I have no new song to sing

I just tell you what I've heard

I'm like a Mockingbird

... at the same time I realize its not always up to me to provide the right word. The words of others will do. But I'm not at a loss for them. Like colorful and soft gifts, they are dropping like blossoms on my shoulders. They have helped me work through my own grief.

The best of them have come from my sons. The boys have become teachers of the man.