"I keep work at work!" I needed to laugh tonight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRHk1xY8GMI&feature=related

JIM GAFFIGAN ON RELIGION....THIS MAKES ME LAUGH....No deep thoughts tonight...just laugh!

I THINK JESUS LAUGHED A LOT!!!

Isn't it a pity?

PLEASE! Copy and paste this in your browser and listen to a beautiful song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDhbLZosFmQ

ERIC CLAPTON singing the Harrison song "Isn't it a Pity?"

Isn't it a pity

Now, isn't it a shame

How we break each other's hearts

And cause each other pain

How we take each other's love

Without thinking anymore

Forgetting to give back

Isn't it a pity

Some things take so long

But how do I explain

When not too many people

Can see we're all the same

And because of all their tears

Their eyes can't hope to see

The beauty that surrounds them

Isn't it a pity

Isn't it a pity

Isn't is a shame

How we break each other's hearts

And cause each other pain

How we take each other's love

Without thinking anymore

Forgetting to give back

Isn't it a pity

It's a pity when we act in any way less than loving to strangers...it is a TRAGEDY when we act unkindly to those we say we love...those to whom loving should be our default setting and grace our way of life.

Someone I love wants to know how to believe in a God. I am torn. There is no "how-to" book about it. No "Six Steps to a more God-Believing You" book from Oprah to share.

I can tonight, however, say that the ONLY way we know we have fallen short of perfect love...or being able to love another perfectly (thus "Isn't it a pity?") is to have an objective perfect love to hold all others up to.

Bible scholars or not, we all know there is something out there that has to be what we fall short of.

How can we even moan and whine about those who don't love us perfectly if we have no idea of what they fall short of? We do. God's love. There can only be one example of perfect love to hold ours up to and compare it to.

It is the love of the Ultimate Parent. Not the jerky, deadbeat one that many deal with. But the standard.

We can say there is no God but our desire for perfection in our lives and loves argues that there is one.

Ultimately, I have nothing more to argue for God and His perfect love other than my sincere and yet flawed reflection of it and Him in my own life...in how I love others.

I love you. And the very best times and expressions of my love for you are only a tiny hint of God's perfect love.

The love that says I would rather die for you than not live in you.

SCARY NEWS FLASH: Jesus is God in the flesh and He died for you and rose again...and yet I'm the best most wonderful chance for you to see Him as real. Isn't it a pity?

I'll let you down. I'll say the wrong thing at the wrong time (mostly because I never stop talking do I?---will he ever shut up, you must think so often) Isn't it a shame?

I'll try too hard and fail and you will say, "If Chris can't convince me after all his years of 'God stuff' than I guess no one can."

It's a pity and shame but I will just have to say "I'm sorry...I will do my best"

And love you.

There must be a God of some kind that, by the definition of God being perfect and loving, has provided us instinctually with the knowledge of right and wrong. Only "intellectuals" have the balls to say that everyone makes their own rules...that "what's right for you might not be right for me"...sounds politically correct and all but what happens is that we find if we are honest that certain things are "true for all of us"...such as rape being wrong, or uncaring fathers and mothers, or hurting the helpless...you see, THEN we are saying that there MUST be SOME things that are always right and always wrong. In that situation we must be intellectually honest enough to see that we are all so messed up that there is no way we came up with the concept of "good vs evil"...it had to come from OUTSIDE the system we live in. A being outside of the universe and it's failings as we know them, must be that God.

Now...I believe that God showed us about His attributes and self through the Bible...and through Jesus. Look at them...Read the Gospels. Did Jesus act and speak in a way that would be consistent with what we want to believe is the best? Is God? Give Him a chance.

We’re attempting to convince the world how good Jesus is by how great we are. This is precisely how Madison Avenue sells toothpaste...

CHIRS: HEY! Here's some more from Mike Yaconelli. THIS IS FOR ALL THE PEOPLE LIKE MYSELF OUT THERE WHO NOW OR AT ONE POINT OR ANOTHER BEEN OVERWHELMED BY OUR FLAWS...for one friend in particular...

It’s not about perfection; it’s about our intimacy with God, or our connection, our relationship with God. Once we get through that, once we realize that we can be imperfect, flawed, broken; those kinds of things are the ingredients of spirituality.

We’d like to have it all neat and orderly. We want to be able to measure it and control it, but the reality is that Jesus is a mystery. The Christian faith is a mystery. The disciples spent their entire time following him going, “Uhh, what the heck are you doing? We don’t understand what you’re doing and we don’t know why you’re doing it.” And when he would explain why he was doing it, they still didn’t get it.

I am beginning to understand that faith is not the way around pain, it is the way through pain. Faith doesn’t get rid of the opposition, it invites it over for dinner. Faith doesn’t give you the winning point at the last second, it ties the game and sends you into overtime. Faith doesn’t give you the solution, it forces you to find it.

The power of the Church is not a parade of flawless people, but of a flawless Christ who embraces our flaws. The Church is not made up of the whole people, rather of the broken people who find wholeness in a Christ who was broken for us.

I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

For the Christian, there is no distinction between the sacred and secular. Everything a Christian does is an expression of his faith. He does not make choices based on the religious significance of the alternative. As a Christian he makes the choice that is a logical extension of the values he has derived from his faith…

We’re attempting to convince the world how good Jesus is by how great we are. This is precisely how Madison Avenue sells toothpaste, automobiles, and underwear. People don’t need any more images of success, wealth, and power; they’re surrounded already. What they need are their sins forgiven. What they need is healing. What they need is love.

The tragedy of modern faith is that we no longer are capable of being terrified. We aren’t afraid of God, we aren’t afraid of Jesus, we aren’t afraid of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we have ended up with a need-centered gospel that attracts thousands…but transforms no one.

Some great thoughts from Yak

Chris here: Mike Yaconelli was an amazing man. He "ungrew" a church from 100 people down to 30...by being who God made him to be. I guarantee those 30 people were more real and full of God's grace because Mike always left people with permission to be messy as well as loved. Most of us just focus on our messiness. Mike was my kind of guy.

Here (and in the few days ahead) I will be sharing some of his great perspective on life and the God who gave it to us!

The grace of God is dangerous. It's lavish, excessive, outrageous and scandalous. God's grace is ridiculously inclusive. He loves fallen pastors, hookers, cheaters, drug addicts, porn watchers...apparently He doesn't care He loves! He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends. Or who He calls His church. How cool is that?

I go into churches and everyone seems to feel so good about themselves.

Everyone calls themselves a Christian nowadays. How dare we call ourselves Christians? It's only for Jesus to decide whether we are Christian or not. I don't think He's made a decision in my case, and I'm afraid that when He does I am going to be sent straight to hell. I don't feel I can call myself a Christian. I can't be satisfied with myself. We all seem to be pretty contented with ourselves in church and that makes me sick. I think all this contentment makes Jesus nervous.

My life is a mess. After forty-five years of trying to follow Jesus, I keep losing him in the crowded busyness of my life. I know Jesus is there, somewhere, but it's difficult to make him out in the haze of everyday life. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a godly person. Yet when I look at the yesterdays of my life, what I see, mostly, is a broken, irregular path littered with mistakes and failure. I have had temporary successes and isolated moments of closeness to God, but I long for the continuing presence of Jesus. Most of the moments of my life seem hopelessly tangled in a web of obligations and distractions. I want to be a good person. I don't want to fail. I want to learn from my mistakes, rid myself of distractions, and run into the arms of Jesus. Most of the time, however, I feel like I am running away from Jesus into the arms of my own clutteredness.

I want desperately to know God better. I want to be consistent. Right now the only consistency in my life is my inconsistency. Who I want to be and who I am are not very close together. I am not doing well at the living-a-consistent-life thing.

I don't want to be St. John of the Cross or Billy Graham. I just want to be remembered as a person who loved God, who served others more than he served himself, who was trying to grow in maturity and stability. I want to have more victories than defeats, yet here I am, almost sixty, and I fail on a regular basis. If I were to die today, I would be nervous about what people would say at my funeral. I would be happy if they said things like "He was a nice guy" or "He was occasionally decent" or "Mike wasn't as bad as a lot of people." Unfortunately, eulogies are delivered by people who know the deceased. I know what the consensus would be. "Mike was a mess."

When I was younger, I believed my inconsistency was due to my youth. I believed that age would teach me all I needed to know and that when I was older I would have learned the lessons of life and discovered the secrets of true spirituality. I am older, a lot older, and the secrets are still secret from me.

I often dream that I am tagging along behind Jesus, longing for him to choose me as one of his disciples. Without warning, he turns around, looks straight into my eyes, and says, "Follow me!" My heart races, and I begin to run toward him when he interrupts with, "Oh, not you; the guy behind you. Sorry."

I have been trying to follow Christ most of my life, and the best I can do is a stumbling, bumbling, clumsy kind of following. I wake up most days with the humiliating awareness that I have no clue where Jesus is. Even though I am a minister, even though I think about Jesus every day, my following is . . . uh . . . meandering.

So I've decided to write a book about the spiritual life. I know what you're thinking. Based on what I've just said about my walk with God, having me write about spirituality is like having Bozo the Clown explain the meaning of the universe, like playing Handel's Messiah on the kazoo. How can someone whose life is obviously unspiritual presume to talk about holiness? It makes no sense. Unless. Unless! Unless spirituality, as most of us understand it, is not spirituality at all. Sadly, spiritual is most commonly used by Christians to describe people who pray all day long, read their Bibles constantly, never get angry or rattled, possess special powers, and have the inside track to God. Spirituality, for most, has an otherworldly ring to it, calling to mind eccentric "saints" who have forsaken the world, taken vows of poverty, and isolated themselves in cloisters.

Nothing wrong with the spirituality of monks. Monks certainly experience a kind of spirituality, a way of seeking and knowing God, but what about the rest of us? What about those of us who live in the city, have a wife or husband, three children, two cats, and a washing machine that has stopped working?

What about those of us who are single, work sixty to seventy hours a week, have parents who wonder why we're not married, and have friends who make much more money than we do? What about those of us who are divorced, still trying to heal from the scars of rejection, trying to cope with the single-parenting of children who don't understand why this has happened to them?

Is there a spirituality for the rest of us who are not secluded in a monastery, who don't have it all together and probably never will?

Chris here again: Mike had an annoying habit of saying things that make us uncomfortable...in the days to come you will see that God is real an d His real-ness is attested to by the real way we can't seem to believe He could love us or even that he is...well...just that His IS. Don't read my blog anymore if you have answers to the questions being raised...you should just skip ahead to the front of the THEOLOGY LINE and collect your prize while the 99.999% that are left behind struggle with the gap that is between who we are and who we wish we could be.

The attack of the killer "Journey" songs

Well there i was...having a great time.

We all are laughing and singing and someone grabs the karaoke mic and begins to belt out "Don't Stop Believin'" It is, like, the 387,416th time in a week that I have heard a Journey song....I had gone years happily avoiding Steve Perry and friends' powerfully simple lyrics, thunder-ballad anthems, and bar-band arrangements.

Honestly, perhaps that was their appeal as a band in my youth...Journey had a way, from the start, of sounding like an only slightly better-than-average Journey cover band. Which is a little like when Charlie Chaplin came in 5th in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest at the height of his world-wide popularity.

Anyway...I thought, since I can't seem to get away from these songs (they attack me in my car, in the grocery store, on the toilet--don't ask.) and since I have yet to hear if I have been granted a restraining order against "STONE IN LOVE," I thought I would take a moment to look at some of the classic Journey tunes.

"DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'": Ok...It's a song about "Streetlight people" ....not to be confused with "street people" or "people of low body weight"...Streetlight people by the way, often become "zombie, brain-eating-type people" in some of your better movies. Either that or they become something even more nebulous in meaning...."Community Organizers."

There's one Streetlight Person (SP) who takes a train and is clearly not concerned about the destination of said transport....Now, I've been DISTRACTED sometimes...even wanting to just Esc4p3 (sorry...had to!) from life but, don't you think that when SP got to, say, Boise and they got on the train in Vermont, that they might panic a little? no? Probably not...because they were listening to "I'LL BE ALL RIGHT WITHOUT YOU"...."YOU" being all their earthly possessions.

My favorite lyrics come at the end..."Oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on..." So, we now know that the singer is a dad and has been tricked into seeing "Diary of a Wimpy Kid!"...which explains the title of another Journey hit "Who's Crying Now?" ...well duh....Dad is. Buck up, Dad...at least I won't be commenting on "Oh! Sherrie!" and make THAT nugget of classic Americana stuck in your head all day tomorrow....ooops!

Next up: "LOVIN' (They like those words with the apostrophe at the end don't they? ...or they hate the letter "G" ...hey Journey! Don't be hatin' everythin' ...that's not goin' to help anythin'!) TOUCHIN' SQUEEZIN'"

Little-known fact: Steve Perry wrote this after a particularly rough night involving intestinal distress and 2 bags of White Castles. Thus, "it's tearin' me apart..." repeated throughout the song. Another note of interest? The famous "na na na na na "....(times 270) lines at the very end not only broke copyright laws set in place years earlier by "Hey Jude," but the song also paid for Paul McCartney's divorce from Heather Mills and bought her a prosthetic leg made totally out of Neal Schon's melted down platinum record displays. I'm just "kiddin'!"

Let's take a quick and fairly painless look at "LIGHTS"

About a guy that wants to get back to his favorite city by the bay. He seems to miss his girl too....(I'll give him the benefit of the doubt there even though it's set in a city by the bay)....overpowered by raw romantic waves of emotion, he says what any of us would say:

It's sad, oh there's been mornings

out on the road without you
Without your charms
Oh ooh oh oh, my my my my my
Oh, oh, oh oh

Well..what any of us would say who had recently had their hippocampus speared by Steve Perry's nose.

By the way, ladies...the appropriate romantic response to the above poetry is of course, "na na na na na na...na na na naaaaaa na! na na na na na na na na naaaaaa na naaaah!"

Probably better off to "BE GOOD TO YOURSELF" and go your "SEPERATE WAYS."

Ok...all that said, I guess I must come clean. I like Journey. There! I mean, it could be worse....they could be fronted by Celine Dion!

Song of the Week: Mr. Blue Sky

"Hey you with the pretty face...welcome to the human race!! A celebration! Mr. Blue Sky's up there waiting and today is the day we've waited for!"

Well...after my previous blog had all the frivolity of Leonard Cohen dressed as Eeyore at a wake, I thought perhaps something light was in order. Electric Light (Orchestra) to be specific.

Why not share a song about sunshine while we wait for Spring to be sprung?

"Mr. Blue Sky" is special to me for a lot of reasons. Here are just a few:

• Blue is my favorite color...it makes me happy. I even wrote a song about it called "Be My Blue"
• Next to the Beatles, ELO is my favorite group. Yes, this ages me, but that is acceptable when one is age-ed.
• The song (and others by bandleader, Beatles and Tom Petty producer, and Traveling Wilbury Jeff Lynne) has enjoyed a resurgence of late, recently even being voted the "Official Song of the Midlands" of Great Britain (Jeff, like my boys from Duran Duran is from Birmingham, UK)
• It makes my son sing around the house which is fun/funny to hear and it makes my girls dance which is a joy to watch.
• I can't hear "Hey you with the pretty face..." and not think of someone in particular

The song is off of the huge hit double album (side note to younglings: "Albums" were kind of like CD's but much larger and darker and without them, the only people who would ever get paid to stand around and "Scratch" anything would be Major League Baseball players.) "Out of the Blue" from 1977.

Jeff wrote most of the songs for this 2-ablbum set in a 2 week timespan in a rented swiss chalet. It had been raining most of the time he was there, so when he walked out one day to see a beautiful blue sky greeting him it inspired this bouncy, happy song.

The video link is to a performance from a few years ago at a concert in LA that I actually had won tickets to through my persuasive essay....I didn't get to go because I couldn't afford plane tickets and couldn't get the time off to drive there and back. :( I could have been in that crowd AND had won a backstage pass to a meet-and-greet with Jeff Lynne and the band.

No big deal to you, perhaps, but to ME? I would have had to wear an adult diaper with a backup in some sort of man-purse if I had gone because I would have wet myself with excitement! Nice mental image huh? Everyone take a moment to poke out your mind's eye....better? Moving on...

Note as you watch the video that the drummer get his "clanking" sounds after each verse by hitting a mounted fire extinguisher...just like during the recording in the mid 1970's.

And for the uninitiated, Jeff Lynne co-wrote and performed (and produced) the Tom Petty hits "Free Fallin'" (which I cover on my CD "Blame it on the Moonlight") and "I won't Back Down" among others.

He is also connected as a musician and friend with such legends as Eric Clapton, Joe Walsh, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Petty, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker and Aerosmith to name only a few.

So...here's the link and I will post the lyrics and you can take a few minutes to have a little optimism breathed into your day. I know I can use some :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Ncxw1xfck

Sun is shinin' in the sky

there ain't a cloud in sight

It's stopped rainin'

ev'rybody's in a playin'

And don't you know

it's a beautiful new day

hey

hey

Runnin' down the avenue

see how the sun shines

brightly in the city on the streets

where once was pity.

Mister Blue Sky

is living here today

hey hey

Mister Blue Sky

please tell us why

you had to hide away for so long (so long)

where did we go wrong? x2

Hey

you with the pretty face

welcome to the human race.

A celebration

Mister Blue Sky's up there waitin'

and today is the day we've waited for

hey

hey

Mister Blue Sky

please tell us why

you had to hide away for so long (so long)

where did we go wrong?

Hey

there

Mister Blue

we're so pleased to be with you

look around

see what you do, ev'rybody smiles at you x2

Mister Blue Sky

Mister Blue Sky

Mister Blue Sky

Mister Blue

you did it right

But soon comes Mister Night creepin' over

Now his hand is on your shoulder

never mind

I'll remember you this

I'll remember you this way

Mister Blue Sky

please tell us why

you had to hide away for so long (so long)

where did we go wrong?

Hey there Mister blue (sky)

we're so pleased to be with you (sky)

look around

see what you do (blue), ev'rybody smiles at you.

(choir singing)

Mr. Blue Sky why?

Retiring from Ministry: Anonymous Confessions of A Lunatic Friend

One of the things that makes my life hard is that I don't suffer fools gladly and yet I still have to live with myself. -- C. Atkinson

With that said there really are some things in life that are inescapable and one of them is that you simply have to do some things in life to make things work for the one person you can never get away from...even if you aren't a big fan of that person. For me, that meant retiring from youth ministry. Actually, it may have meant retiring from "formal" ministry for good...only the Big Cochise knows that and He's not talking. Not about that anyway. Not to me for certain. (Or am I not listening...hmmm...)

The French revere Jerry Lewis. (How was that for a non-sequiter?) They get a lot of flack for that for that and for their general lack of boules in almost all international matters (plus who can forgive them for mimes?). Personally, when it comes to Mr. Lewis, I think it may be their only redeeming quality. In his1963 film "The Nutty Professor" the protagonist has found out that one might as well learn to like ones' self. After all,

"think about all the time you're gonna have to spend with you."

I personally wouldn't go that far. As a Christian, I am called to find my personal value in the fact that I was created in the image of God (what that might mean is a fodder for another blog...but it definitely involves a "who is the pot to argue with the potter" aspect), as well as the fact that the ONE that crated everything would rather suffer humiliation, pain and death than to not be with me.

I get it.

It's Amazing.

And Gracious.

And then there's reality.

I'm a creep. A lot of people like me that shouldn't. I only know one that is almost honest enough to admit that their life might almost be better without me in it...but can't quite get there. As far as I know.

But then again, we all have some crazy stuff inside us. Theologians call it "sin." Church people (even leaders...ESPECIALLY leaders...as I know from many examples large/small/indie/and Methodical) are great about pretending that they have it and are "forgiven"and are "just like you can be" Then they go home...maybe turn on Sports Center or lose themselves in their busy work...but they can never really escape it. That feeling that maybe they are a little worse than your "average sinner" and thus better take an extra drink or dip into the bottle of muscle relaxants from last summers' ouchie-boo-boo to buck up so that tomorrow no one can see inside into the torrent.

Kinda deep huh? Not you, you say? No...never. Me? Yep. My hand's in the air. I'll "fess up.

Bryan Duncan once wrote about the Anonymous Confessions of a Lunatic Friend. How we all would LOVE to tell you about this OTHER GUY/GIRL we know (not us of course!) that could really use some help. His lyrics say, "You see he's been accosted by the local self righteous vigilantes in the name of God...and he believes (in God) but he's not sure who his friends are and if they'd still be hanging around with him...boy, if they ever really knew! I guess I'm looking for some understanding for my 'lunatic friend.'"

That's me...recently even. Except I gave up after agonizing over if fellow Christians were who they said they really were and if I could actually find some real understanding...or if I should just walk away. So...I walked away.

Ooops. Did I say "me?" Did that sound kinda genuine? Genuinely painful? Then...it wasn't me. It was my lunatic friend.

The lyrics go on: "Sometimes I wonder if there's any help for my lunatic friend. Sometimes I cry for the love he's abusing."

Abusing. Jesus' love. The love of family and maybe the love of a friend or two..a real one if there are any. Here's a secret for you. Maybe not for the best of the best ministers, but I've been doing this long enough to know that the MAJORITY of real ministers ...if they were honest with you and themselves...have a level of friendship that is needed in their lives that is rarely met. Not that you aren't their friend. Not that you aren't their good friend. But...there's always going to be an ultimate barrier that only one or two in a lifetime of a minister will ever get past. And...chances are...you're not it. Sorry. It's not personal. It's actually our fault as pastors. At least it's mine in my case.

Where was I again? LOL. One of the things my formers won't miss about me is my lack of focus.

So. Years of pouring into kids and their families and the kids' friends. And the church members. No complaints really....I loved serving people. Deaths, hospitals, suicides, teen angst, my angst, births, marriages, power-crazed deacons (I believe they will inhabit their own level of Dante's Hell next to "obnoxious mothers-of-the-brides" and "fiddle" players), camps and retreats...all part of the journey.

Of course there's also years of never getting to leave work at work. Not having patience for my own son because FRED parents let their boys treat authority figures like dirt ....and all because I never developed a decent enough pathology to be able to (1) passionately stand in front a a group of kids and simultaneously tell them "Jesus adores you" while (2) marking the hellish little mooks on the forehead with "6's" thus tagging them for post-FRED retroactive birth control.

Ahhhh...that felt good!

I just can't do it. Not any more. Here's the deal. My deal at least. Youth ministry for over 20 years. All those years of putting on fronts. Of putting other kids' lives in front of my own and having my family act proud that I did it.

Gone.

My demons?

Still hanging around, smoking clove cigarettes and hiding the Smirnoff Ice (grape, if you please) under the M & M's and Homemade Ice Cream (legal/moral self medication, thank you very much!) in the Wallyworld food trolly just in case one of the hundreds of pairs of eyeballs from the local Chapter might be watching.

Am I seriously the only one that can relate?

Do I care at this point? Actually...I do. Dang it. That's the other problem I have. Although I'm a sinful son of a motherless goat I'm a Saint of Christ and at times quite an amazing chap, ...I just said so myself!

"Do I contradict my self? Very well then! I contradict myself! I am large! I contain multitudes!" -- Walt Whitman

I care about what damage I may do or may have done to Christ and his image. I don't want to see my spiraling psyche hurt anyone more than I have. I may not have wanted to go out like Elijah, but leaving like Rich Mullins wouldn't have been bad. Last summer's motorcycle accident could have tied things up nicely in some ways but I'm here and I have to live with that, so to speak.

Now I am the best type of theologian I think. an unemployed one. One that has hundreds of books and thousands of hours of deep study (I know it was just Cincinnati Bible College but I graduated with honors...right ahead of the mascot...a 75 year old blind turtle named Mort with a club foot and a secret addiction to "nose candy"...but I digress...) and no one to impress. No one to put on a show for on Sunday morning. No one to hide from.

I take that back. I do hide. I actually enjoy being places in town and not being recognized. Not being a jerk here. Just telling you the truth. I like being normal.

I was always normal. Probably worse than any of you in some ways but you patted me on the back because I could sing and play a few instruments (I'd say 97% on stage was where I was most free to be me and to really honor God...I do miss that) and I was a loyal worker bee and I cared about you and your kids (I really did....still do just not in the same capacity)...

And I am one jacked-up person that you can be glad was replaced by a talented young Johnson guy who will likely not frustrate anyone with a messy office (he really is an amazing guy...you all got blessed....don't hold the JBC thing against him!)

My job now is not what I will be doing forever. I lost a lot of income when I gained my freedom from the roundabout of ministry and I'm still trying to find something that will come close to where the good folks at the Chapel had me.

If you read this...be free to leave any kind of response at all. I can take anything after what I've been through lately...I mean anything.

But be nice (as I know you will be) to Cara and the kids and her parents as they come to live at the house as things are changing wildly.

And if nothing else, maybe in some way I did one person out there some good by opening up. I want no pity or or hugs (I'm actually kind of in hermit mode for a while). I just want you to know....

God loves you. He's got enough "perfect" to go around so it's cool if you're not.

Jesus is real...He is amazing. But walking with Him isn't easy. It hurts like mad sometimes. But I guess it beats walking totally alone.

Life is messy. As the saying goes, "Life is a hell of a thing to have happen to a person." Let's all be glad that at best (Biblically) down here Got capped us at 120 years and that the good stuff w/Him is forever. Outside of time. With Him in some kind of Eternal Now. No more tears. Johnson Baby Shampoo for the Soul.

So...you ask...Was my service in Youth Ministry enough? Am I a quitter? Did I not finish the race? A couple of my co-laborers said when I announced my leaving, "What?...What are you...what will you...how could you?...how? HOW? How could you leave THIS?" Maybe meaning ministry in general or possibly mine specifically...I think they genuinely believe that the things going on inside the walls of the local church are the highest calling there is. And...I suppose, that's what you want your pastors to believe ...right?

I don't believe that any more so it makes sense and seems the honorable and honest thing for me to do to have left and opened up a space for a servant to come along that agrees with those in that leadership. Me? I just get to wander around confused now LOL! But it has it's moments.

I guess my best answer is..... I love you. LOL I love you and it's none of your damn business if I failed or not. Go away. Follow your own call. "Be extraordinary" like a Dead Poet.

Me? Even now, as I look for the next chapter I find myself going to the far west side of Indy...entering a school of TEENS...teens who are hurting and hopeless and who wouldn't sit still for a Crossing message if it was only 15 minutes long and crafted by the Lord HImself.

And I'm really good at it. and I'm still a jerk. And I'm still conflicted. And I'm still messy.

Godspeed and good luck on your journey.

And if you made it this far in your reading...no....this isn't even close to the whole story...but if I told you the whole thing, ...well....ELBERT HUBBARD SAID... "If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate." ...but you might be tempted to hate. So we'll stop right here.