Field Notes On The Jesus Way

When I was a kid we had a Brown Swiss milk cow named Suzy Q.  My dad chose her because that particular breed was known for an amazing ability to produce a high quantity and quality milk.  And for a family of six that was important.  In fact, Suzy Q produced enough milk to raise a calf AND provide milk, cream and butter for our family.

Ever thought about milk and how it is made?  An animal, in this case Suzy Q, would graze in the pasture, and feed on the hay and grain we would provide.  After grazing for hours she would often find a piece of shade and lay down and chew her cud.  I will not explain that process for you right now because I have just finished lunch, but it is a very important part of the digestive process in a bovine.

After the grass, hay, and grain had been digested and Suzy Q took from that process all she needed for her own health, she would produce enough milk for her calf and our family.  But if you just think about it, all milk is a secondary post-digestive food product.  Nothing wrong with it, in fact, in Suzy Q’s case, very rich and nutritious secondary food.

Milk is food that has passed through someone else’s body and been made palatable for another.  It is good and necessary.  I enjoy milk as an adult.  Nothing goes better with chili and chocolate chip cookies than a tall glass of cold milk.

But no one would begin to suggest that a person’s diet as an adult or even as an older child should be exclusively one of milk.  If a child or an adult only drank milk, eventually that person would suffer physical consequence of that diet.  At some point a child needs to move on to solid foods.  That is an indicator of healthy progression.

Often what is true in the physical world is also true in the spiritual world.

The writer of Hebrews is very concerned about his church.  They should have moved on to solid food, but they are still craving milk.  This has stunted them and they are okay with it.

Every week I do my best to prepare a sermon rich with spiritual and biblical nutrients.  But at best all I produce is milk.  It may be whole milk, more often than not it is probably skim milk, but it is still milk.  It is God’s Word that I have fed upon, chewed on and it has passed through my spiritual digestive system to produce a secondary spiritual food we call a sermon.

Every week folks come to church to take it into their spiritual lives.  But it is and always will be a secondary food.

Until the folks that attend church start learning to feed themselves on the Word of God, they will never mature into the fully devoted apprentice of Christ God intends them to be.  And their malnourished soul will be on full display during good times and bad.

Honestly, it is easy to spot a milk-drinker.  They are usually finicky about what they eat and they whine a lot.  You can’t rely upon them to do their fair share of the chores and they are quite petty and impetuous. They make messes they expect others to clean up.

Milk is good, but it is not the ultimate source for a maturing believer.  Learn to feed yourself.  You have at your fingertips any number of ways to feed on the meat of the Word on your own.

I have a lot more to say…but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk when you should have been on solid food long ago!

So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art.  Grow up in Christ. Hebrews 5:11-13, 6:1-2 (MSG)

Determine that you are not going to be THAT guy or gal who lives out their spiritual lives as a stunted Christian.  Take responsibility for your spiritual growth and learn to feed yourself.

One of the great sorrows which came to human beings when Adam and Eve left the Garden was the loss of memory, memory of all that God’s children are meant to be. ~~Madeleine L’Engle

Blood Diamond  is a powerful movie in which an African character named Solomon Vandy has been in constant pursuit of his son, Dia, since he was kidnapped by R.U.F. guerillas several weeks earlier. Solomon himself was enslaved by the R.U.F. and forced to work in the diamond fields. He finds a rare diamond worth millions and decides to bury it, hoping it will help him “buy back” his son.

Meanwhile, Dia’s kidnappers, the violent militia known as the R.U.F., have brainwashed Dia and turned him into a killer. He is even given a new name, “See No More,” and is lied to about his family. His captors have conditioned him to be a ruthless killer. The R.U.F. has made him commit terrible atrocities, to the point where he cannot even remember his former identity or family.

After his escape from slavery, Solomon chases his son across the continent of Africa, risking his life time and again to save his son. There is a powerful scene when this father is face to face with a son who hardly remembers the life they once shared together.

The father looks up to see his son pointing a gun at him.

Solomon Vandy says, “Dia. What are you doing?! Dia!! Look at me. Look at me!! What are you doing?”

Walking towards his son very carefully, he continues, “You are Dia Vandy of the Proumanday Tribe. You are a good boy. You love soccer, and school. Your mother loves you so much. She waits by the fire making plantains and red stew. And the new baby…. The cows wait for you, and Bakwu, the wild dog who minds no one but you. Mmm? I know they made you do bad things. You are not a bad boy. I am your father, who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son…again.”

Dia lowers the gun and then they embrace.

Without the voice of the Father we can forget who we are and in our “lostness,” we often do unspeakable things in this world.

Part of what it means to be a Christ-follower is that we are on a life-long journey of remembering who we were when we lived in Eden with our Father.

In Genesis 27 there is a sad story of how Jacob tricked Isaac into giving him the family blessing instead of the older twin and favored son, Esau.  He did it by cooking Isaac’s favorite meal, wearing Esau’s clothes and even putting the hide of a goat on his hands, arms and neck to simulate the hairiness of Esau.

It worked.  Isaac was fooled and gave the blessing of belovedness to the unintended son and the family was fragmented beyond repair.

Jacob went to great lengths, took enormous risks in order to get the blessing of belovedness.  But what he would not do was stand before his father as himself.  He had to dress up and pretend to be someone else in order to get the blessing. Most everyone I know is pretending to be someone they aren’t in order to find approval and the blessing of the beloved.  I have spent years trying to be ____________________.  You can fill in the blank.

Only when I stand before my father and say,

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

It is there at that cross I find the great exchange.  Jesus became cursed so that I might be blessed and when I receive that blessing I find my way home.

I’ve discovered that in counting my blessings and claiming them, my own blessedness always leads to a deep desire to bless others.  As the “blessed ones,” we can walk through this world and offer blessings.  It doesn’t require much effort.  It flows naturally from our hearts.  When we listen and count…

One night on the Pacific Crest Trail a retired police officer from L.A. began telling us cop stories.  They were profane, vulgar and even racist in some ways. At one point I asked him what all of the carnage he was witness to did to his soul.  He looked at me blankly.  I said, “All of that evil and hatred, pain and suffering—it went somewhere inside you.  Where did it go?”

Again a blank look.

Then he asked, “What do you do when you aren’t hiking the PCT?”

“I’m a pastor,” I said.

“Oh, #@*&!”

He hemmed and hawed a little and said something about gallows humor and that he felt God protected him and changed the subject.

The next morning he and his son and three other hikers were sitting at a table drinking coffee as I was walking across the parking lot towards the trail head.  I waved at them, tried to catch up with my hiking buddy.  Then something told me to go back.

I turned around and walked back towards them.  They watched me approach—smiling.

The cop shouted, “Forget something, Rev?”

“Yes,” I said as I got closer.  “I have something I want to give you.”

I stood before them and raised both hands, palms out towards them and said,

“The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,

And give you peace.”’

The cop looked at me slack-jawed and then they all said in unison, “Amen.”

Listen to the voice of your Heavenly Father and see if you hear the echo of Eden in these words:

I know that sin has made you do bad things. You are not a bad person. I am your father, who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my child…again.” 

If you hike the Pacific Crest Trail long enough, you will meet people who have trail names.  These folks are usually “Through Hikers” which means they started in Mexico and are headed for the Canadian border.  Then there are “Section Hikers” and these are folks who have subdivided the PCT down into large chunks like Oregon or Washington or large sections of California.  After this there are “destination hikers” and “day hikers.” I was a “Section Hiker.”

Almost all the “Through Hikers” had trail names.  Like “Bear Cow,” “Kindergarten Cop,” “Peanut Butter Platypus,” “The Bee Man,” “Skinny D,” “Roger Dodger,” and “Sweet Jesus.”  A few “Section Hikers” had trail names, but mostly it was the “Through Hikers.”

Most of those names originated, as most nick-names do, from some memorable event.  “Bear Cow” got scared of glowing eyes at the edge of the firelight one night, convinced he was being stalked by a bear only to find out it was a cow.  “Peanut Butter Platypus” thought it would be a good idea to carry peanut butter in a camelback bladder.  “Skinny D” is short for “skinny dipper.”  “Sweet Jesus” is a kid who had long hair and a beard like….Jesus.

In case you are wondering if I had a trail name, the answer is yes.  When the ex-cop from L.A. learned I was a pastor, he started calling me “The Rev.”   When some of the folks had spent time and miles hiking with me and, in jest, I started deliberately living up to the stereotype of preachers and pronouncing things as “Right” or “Wrong” one hiker said, “Rev, are you judging me?” And I said, “You bet.  I am a world-class judger. Don’t you know it’s what Christians in general and preachers in particular do best?”  So, from that time on I was “The Judge” in that group.

So, I’m “The Rev” and/or “The Judge.”  On the trail, as in other arenas, one of the first small-talk questions asked are “What do you do for a living?”  It is one of the ways we identify ourselves.  I’m a pastor.  I’m a policeman.  I’m a teacher. But is that really who you are? Is that really who I am?  Down at my core, is that the ultimate truth about me?  Am I what I do?  What happens if I stop reverending/pastoring?  What happens if I stop judging?  Who will I be then?

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1:9-11

Listen to those words.  “You are my…Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  You are the beloved of God.  Don’t those words sound wonderful? Do I dare hope that voice might be spoken to me? Haven’t you heard that same voice?  Haven’t you wanted and wished it to be true?

Be still for a moment and see if you can hear a Galilean accent in these words…

“I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my beloved, with you I am well-pleased.

I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace.

I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step.

Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you.

You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover and your spouse…wherever you are I will be.

Nothing will ever separate us.  We are one.  For you are my beloved.” ~~Henri Nouwen

I spent the first week and some fifty miles hiking solo from Ashland, Oregon to Fish Lake Resort.  I picked up the first re-supply package that I had mailed myself two weeks earlier.  It was filled with Ramen, trail mix, and various and sundry backpacking stuffs.

The resort manager told me where the designated PCT hiker’s camp was. I was foot-sore, dirty, hungry and a little lonely.  With my pack on my back, I carried my re-supply box the two hundred yards to the camp.  There was a picnic table there and I sat my box down, took my pack off and stretched out under a canopy of fir boughs on the picnic table.  I was almost asleep when I heard the heavy footfall of what I assumed was another hiker.

A tall, lanky, gray-bearded man came lumbering up.  He bowed low and with open arms said, “Welcome, sir, to your new home.  We are all family here and anything I have is yours.  Let me know if you need anything. On the trail they call me ‘Smoke.’” He stuck out his left hand to shake mine.  We shook, he kissed two fingers on his right hand, bumped his chest over his heart twice, pointed at me and walked a few yards away and crawled into his tent.

Over the next 24 hours while I was there I learned he was not a hiker.  He just hung out at the PCT camp because he had no place else to go.  He would pick up trash around the resort and sort out the hiker box, where backpackers left foodstuffs they didn’t want to carry was stored.  I think he ate out of that box.

He never completed a sentence when I talked to him.  He often would finish a story or conversation with lines from movies or lyrics from ‘70s rock songs.  His favorite rock and roller was Bob Seger.  I told him that my favorite Seger song was “Turn the Page.” He said, “Thank you.”  Whether the gratitude was from entering into his passions or giving him credit for having good taste in music, I couldn’t tell.

Smoke found a discarded, toy fishing pole that was broken.  He brought it back to camp and began to work on it. After an hour and a little of my duct tape, he felt it would pass inspection.  He then went around to every older resort member he could find asking them if they had kids or grandkids so he could give the fishing pole to them.

One time he asked me what I did when I wasn’t hiking.  I knew this was eventually going to happen.  When I tell people that I am a pastor, they change.  Smoke smiled—ear-to-ear.  He and I had long discussions about the Bible as I took a rest day at this resort.  Smoke would talk and talk and talk.  But he didn’t speak in linear ways.  He would start down a line of logic and split off and chase a different topic like a beagle that has jumped a rabbit, eventually coming back to the trail, but you didn’t really know where he’d been in the meantime.

He asked me to baptize him in the lake; then he changed the topic and mentioned it was his 83 year old mother’s birthday and he had no way of calling her.  I offered him my cell phone and he called someone and wished them a happy birthday; I assume it was his mother.

The more you listened to him the more you knew he was a kind and gentle man.  He wanted nothing from anyone, offered what he had to anyone who came along.  He wrote me a three page letter confessing sins, a life a drug abuse, and rambling lyrics from old songs, sprinkled with clips of verses from the Bible.

When I packed up to go he was talking a mile a minute and I turned to him and said, “Smoke, would you mind if I prayed for you?” He said, “I would count it a privilege if you would just remember my name from time-to-time down the trail, pastor.”  I said, “Smoke, can I pray for you right now?”

He nodded his head.

I asked him if I could put my hand on his shoulder.

He nodded his head.

I began to pray and Smoke tilted his head back just slightly as if basking in the last warm rays of the afternoon sun.  When I said, “In Jesus name, Amen” I looked and big wet tracks of tears were flowing down his pock-marked cheeks. I placed my hand on his chest and said, “Smoke, you have a good heart beating in this chest.  God loves you very much.”

He smiled and said, “Pastor, my name is Gary.”

My niece, Jayme, was styling hair in her Sumner, Washington salon when a worried woman came into the shop with a frightened look on her face.  The elderly woman said she was picking some things up and was waiting in Tacoma for a ride when a guy she didn’t know picked her up and was threatening her. He drove her to Sumner where she only now escaped from his car.

She apologized for any danger she might be bringing into the shop.  Over and over she spoke her name to my niece while looking over her shoulder to the street where a car was parked at the curb, engine running.  A man sat in the driver’s seat.

She had a couple bags filled with various memorabilia. She was a little disoriented so Jayme asked her if it would be okay if she escorted her the block or so to the police station where she might feel safe.  The woman allowed that would be a good idea.

They stepped out of the shop and took a few steps in the direction of the police station and the woman, with purpose, would not look at the idling car on the curb with the man sitting behind the steering wheel.

As they crossed the street she asked my niece, “Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

“No, it hasn’t,” Jayme said.

The woman said, “Me neither. And I am twice your age!”  (My twenty-seven year old niece said she was more like three times her age.)

As they made their way step-by-step to the police station, the car that had been parked at the curb with the man in the driver’s seat slowly followed them. The driver put the car in park, got out and asked my niece where she was taking the woman.  “To the police station,” my niece replied.  The man smiled and got back into his car.  It was then that Jayme felt convinced it was a person familiar with the woman and breathed a sigh of relief.

The main entrance to the police station was locked so they went around to the side entrance. The woman saw the car again and slipped her arm into the crook of my niece’s arm and said, “Don’t look at him and pretend you know me.”

The man put the car park and waited with patience outside the police station.  My niece remembered the content of the bags the woman carried. One had a photo album in it and was white and kind of glittery like a wedding album.

With the woman safe in the care of the police, Jayme walked back down to her shop and finished her day.  When she got home her husband was asleep, but she woke him up with tears flowing down her face. She told him the story and asked between sobs, “When I’m crazy will you, will you take care of me?”

Groggily he said, “You’re already crazy and I take care of you.”

What a great question!  When I’m crazy, will you take care of me? Sadly, that won’t happen for some who read these words.  That man in the car patiently waiting outside the salon in Sumner had made a promise and, for God’s sake, he was going to keep it.  That’s old school, but that’s good school.

Our souls can never reach full maturity with only the shallowness of “young love.”  There’s something about old love that has gone through decades of battles, misunderstandings, heartaches and tragedies and yet emerges as a mature love that is eternal.  God-like.

Somewhere right now a kind and gentle man is thumbing through a white photo album with the bride of his youth and trying his best to help her know—though now confused—that she is safe, secure and deeply loved.

A long-ago promise kept.

God-like.

Grace.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.  1 Corinthians 11:26

Do you know what Jesus is going to bring with Him when He returns?  Some believe He will bring wrath, death and judgment.  One popular talk radio host says that we are living in Biblical times and in the not too distant future things are going to be so bad that people in our country will resort to cannibalism.  He is basing his beliefs not on the Bible, but on the Book of Mormon.

I am not a Latter Day Saint.  But I will concede that when Jesus returns to this earth he is bringing a meal with Him.  A wonderful, sumptuous meal that will satisfy every human longing. (Revelation 19:7-9; 21:1-5a)

When we get to the new heavens and the new earth, it is a Supper!  And you know what?  There will be no more pain and suffering, crying, death and sorrow.  There will be no hunger, longings, and emptiness. It will be all gone.  And in its place will be joy, unspeakable and full of glory.  There will be delight.  There will be dancing.  There will be full-throated laughter.  There will be full stomachs. There will be complete and utter satisfaction.

So, what are the elements: the bread and the cup?  These are the appetizers of your future bliss.

When you take Communion, God is whispering in your ear, “Feel the texture of this bread, it’s the body of my son.  Taste the tang of this cup on your lips, it’s the blood of my Son.  I am unconditionally committed to getting you home.  There is nothing more I can say. There is nothing more I can do.”

In the book Lord of the Rings there is a siege of the great city Minas Tirith.  One of the hobbits, named Pippen, is scared.  He hears the battle drums of the Orcs and Trolls.  He feels the vibrations of the siege machines rolling towards the walls.  He is convinced that he is going to die along with everyone in the city.  The evil hordes begin to beat on the gates, scale the walls and invade the city. And just when all seems lost, he hears a distant horn.  The blast of the battle horn of Rohan resounds in the valley signaling a massive army of men to attack from the flank of the besieging army of Orcs.  The battle lines are broken and the city, Pippen and everyone is saved.

Tolkien then tells us that for the rest of his life, Pippen could never hear a distant horn without breaking into tears. Why?  Because the sound of the horn was an audible reminder of his salvation and when he heard it, he relived his salvation and it connected him to his past.  He remembered the sacrifice of the people who died to save him.  And no matter what kind of foul mood Pippen might be in, he couldn’t stay grumpy when he heard the horn, because it reminded him that every single moment of the rest of his life was a gift of grace.

Take, eat and listen.

Sometimes you hear a television reporter interview a celebrity asking if they have any regrets in their life. I am always astounded that without hesitation most celebrities say no, that if they had to do it all over again, they would do their life the same way. How can that be? Have they never made any mistakes?

I talk to plenty of folks that assure me everyone who lives in the real world has regrets. The question is: how do we live with them?

Some pretend they don’t have any. I imagine this is the way of the shallow celebrity or professional athlete. They allow that any minuscule mistake really only contributes to the larger mosaic and milieu that made them the artist they are.

Another strategy is to let our regrets define our identity. You see this sometimes in those in recovery.

“Hi, I’m Joe. I’m a regretter.”

“Hi, Joe. Welcome to our meeting and thanks for sharing, Joe. Cookies and Kool-Aid will be served after tonight’s meeting.”

There is no daylight between who they are and what they have done that deserves their regret and remorse. It is a permanent scar that disfigures their soul. Their regrets are a calling card to gain them some street cred to talk to and ostensibly help other regretters. It takes a regretter to reach a regretter is their mantra.

At the risk of simplicity, I want to ask if there is a third way. Is it possible to live with regrets as a contributing part of your life without those same wounds marking your identity in such a way that others are not put off by your scarlet wounds?

A Beautiful Mind tells the story of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician whose career and life was crippled by schizophrenia. Nash taught at MIT until schizophrenia and delusions took over his life. After years of struggle, he began teaching at Princeton and went on to win the Nobel Prize for his theory of the dynamics of human conflict as it relates to economics.

In the film, there are three characters that support Nash in his struggles in life. One is a roommate from Princeton. A second is a little girl who is his niece whom he adores. And the last is William Parchment who is a top-secret government operative. All three of these characters are integral to Nash’s view of reality. The only problem is that they are not real. They are delusions. They certainly seem real to John Nash whose greatest strength is letting him down: the beautiful mind.

Toward the end of the movie, Nash is invited into the professors’ lounge by a man who has just told him he’s being considered for the Nobel Prize. Nash is uncertain of how he should respond; he wonders if his mind is fabricating a dream. He even asks a student whether the man is real or a hallucination. When Nash is convinced that the man and his invitation are genuine, he still resists, feeling unworthy of the exclusivity of the professors’ lounge. He never enters this lounge, aware that his episodes of psychotic behavior are well known by faculty.

As the messenger from the Nobel Prize committee strolls with Nash to the faculty lounge, they engage in an awkward conversation as to the stability of Nash’s mental state . . .

The awards are substantial. They require private funding. As such, the image of the Nobel is…

I see. You came here to find out if I was crazy? Find out if I would… screw everything up if I actually won? Dance around the podium, strip naked and squawk like a chicken, things of this nature?

Something like that, yes.

Would I embarrass you? Yes, it is possible. You see, I…I am crazy.

I take the newer medications, but I still see things that are not here. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I choose not to indulge certain appetites. Like my appetite for patterns.

As they have this conversation, the three characters, Charles, the niece, and William Parchment, all walk in pace with Nash and the messenger from the Nobel Prize committee, but off to the side like distant shadows. He glances at them, but he doesn’t engage them. They are a part of who he is, but he is defined by something that transcends those ever-present delusions.

That’s what I choose to do with my scarlet regrets. They are always with me, but I choose not to indulge in the appetite of self-pity. I choose not to be identified by my regrets. I choose, instead, to live in the light of a transcendent reality: I am a favored son of the Most High God. I am an heir and joint heir with Jesus Christ.

Nash walks warily through the gothic entrance and sits at a table. Unexpectedly, the professors begin to walk over to John’s table and lay down their pens in front of him. This is a tradition Princeton faculty use to honor highly esteemed colleagues. One by one, the professors acknowledge their love and support for the troubled man who, despite difficulties, stayed the course: “It’s an honor, John.” “It’s a privilege, John.” “Congratulations, John.”

One day I will be allowed entrance into a great hall and sit at a table and the King will say,

To him who overcomes I will give him…a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.

So long, regrets.

Then Pilate asked Him, saying, “Are You the King of the Jews?” He answered him and said, “It is as you say.” So Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no fault in this Man.”

But they were the more fierce, saying, “He stirs up the people…”

My faith claims that Jesus of Nazareth is King of the Universe. Part of me hates that idea.  It forces me into an “all or nothing” decision. If He is King of kings, what does that make me?  A subject, that’s what.

If Jesus were just a teacher pointing the way to a better life or a way to God, we could debate the philosophical merits and logic of his arguments.  But He says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  (John 14:6)  You can’t be neutral about that.  Either it is true or He is a liar or a nut job. We cannot “like” Jesus as if He were a Facebook comment. You have to dismiss and attack him or fall on your knees and call him King.

Earth is on the outer edge of the Milky Way. Light from stars on the opposite edge take 100,000 years to reach us. That is fast. Our sun is one among 200 billion stars in our galaxy. Yet our galaxy is only one of 100+ billion galaxies in the observable universe.

In the constellation Aquarius one galaxy is believed to be 12 billion years old. That means it was born a relatively brief 2 billion years after the Big Bang. By comparison, our own solar system is quite young at 4.5 billion years old.

If you believe Jesus created all of that, you don’t invite Him to be your assistant when life gets too messy.  Jesus is not and never will be your life coach, helping you achieve your life goals. He is King.  And what do you do for a King?  Kneel.

I can’t kneel now because of cartilage trauma.  But before that I struggled with kneeling because of a hard heart.  So do you. Ever see fingerprints around a Wet Paint sign?

Something inside of us does not like anyone telling us what to do.  At the core of our hearts, something says, “Nobody tells me how to live!” If Jesus is just a teacher, I can weigh whether or not to receive His teachings.  But if He is the third person of the Trinity, if He is the Creator-God, if He is King, well, then I must do something altogether different.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

Look upon a little child;

Pity my simplicity,

Suffer me to come to Thee.

That’s a nice children’s prayer, but there comes a day to put away childish things and as a full-grown man bow my knee and pray, “I will follow You the rest of my days, my Brother… my Captain… my King.”

He doesn’t leave another option.

My wife loaded up the compact car already full with two 6’3”grown men and we set out to tour prospective colleges with our son Clinton.  Ten hours later we found ourselves in a high desert ranching community in Montana.  I have had a romantic attachment with Montana for many years and that only intensified with the epic and Pulitzer Prize winning novel Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry.  It is safe to say I vicariously hoped my son would land in this mythic place of hope and rugged beauty.

Clinton has wrestled with church since his days at a private Christian high school.  The idea of attending a large gathering of people who emote during praise songs, weep, and clap to the beat of bubble-gum Top 40 type tunes is tortuous to him.  It gets worse when a talking head at the front of the room moralizes about how a person is supposed to live when that speaker does not even know the person to whom he is speaking.  Add to that the incongruent behavior of many Christians he knew in high school and the increasingly influential impact his non-church-attending friends have on his world view, it is safe to say that Clinton has not exactly been warm to faith in conventional ways for a long time.

But on this day in Montana, we were going to find a church for Clinton, dadgumit.  So we looked up a few churches to scout out.

After a breakfast of stale cinnamon rolls and a bowl of cereal at the Days Inn, we set out to find the churches in time for worship.  If we didn’t like the looks of one, the town was small enough to quickly find the others and be on time.

We drove by the Southern Baptist church first, because, well—it’s what we are.  We drove into the gravel parking lot slowly, taking it all in.  It was a cute, little brown faux log cabin building.  Only six or eight cars were parked.  As we made a turn to exit the lot, we noticed an open upstairs window. Faces were smiling and arms were waving at us.  It felt creepy to be honest, like they were stranded on a deserted island and were waving at a passing search plane.  They seemed a little too desperate for attenders.

I didn’t mean for the car to spin gravel back at them when I accelerated out of the parking lot.

Next, we went to the other Baptist church in town.  The parking lot was full of pickup trucks with a few cars here and there.  A full parking lot was a good sign, right?

The music had begun; we could hear it as we approached the front door.  It had a marching band cadence and rhythm.  The greeters wore polyester suits and ties and—cowboy boots.  Okay, we’re in Montana after all.

We thanked the men for the bulletin. They opened the door for us and the staccato rhythm of the hymns almost pushed us back out the door.  They were singing full-throated as if to yell the devil back into the abyss.  We found a place on the back pew and stood—because they were standing—and tried to sing along.  Even though my wife and I had been in the church all of our lives, we didn’t recognize the hymn.  We three stood stoically, eyes darting furtively around at the polyester clad congregation.  I leaned over to Clinton and said, “Walmart must have an outlet store in this town.”

About that time a stern looking man pushed a smile up from the corners of his mouth and thrust an open hymn book at me.  I’m not sure this was an act of kindness or an effort to get us to conform to the collective and sing.  I took the hymnal and nodded at the man.

The song ended and the man at the front of the room called, with a military clipped voice, “Jonathan Jacobs, do you have song for us this morning?”  It wasn’t a question.  A man about four pews away stepped out into the aisle and made his way to the pulpit, cleared his throat and shouted out, “Number 378!”  The piano began to thunder the same tempo as the other songs we had heard.  I looked at my wife as if to say, “Do you know this hymn?”  She shook her head.  I looked through the hymnal to see if I recognized any titles.  Not a one.

I holstered the hymnal into the rack on the back of the pew.  Someone across the aisle noticed we weren’t singing and brought us an open hymnal again.  I took the book, nodded sternly and when they turned to go back to their seat, I leaned over to Clinton and said, “Let’s get out of here while we can.”  I grabbed my wife’s hand, who looked scared, and we made our way to the exit.

As we filed out robotic heads turned and plastic faces watched us leave.  I wanted to say, “You can come too!”  But the blank faces seemed to have lost all interest in doing anything but shout their songs to the front of the church.

Two men followed us out the door, bibles drawn.  I told Clinton we had to protect our women folk.  He and I turned to face the polyester proletariat.  One of them said in a high pinched voice, “You can’t leave before the pastor preaches!”

“Get your mom and get in the car, Clinton,” I said.

The men took a couple more steps toward us. Standing as tall as I could with a stern look I stamped my Keens and said, “You shall not pass!”

Clinton pulled the car around and I dove in while he squealed the tires.  Nette and I watched the men standing at the edge of the parking lot, hands up turned and spread wide as if pantomiming a message of, “How did you slip through our fierce love?”

“Can we just go to Subway for lunch?” Clinton asked.