My wife has been asking me all week what I might want to do today … on Father’s Day 2022. She has been telling me that this is my day, she wants to honor me for being a great dad to our children and a great papa to our grandchildren. She wants to do something special, to treat me to something, to share an experience or a special dinner. I seem to be a difficult person to honor. I don’t really want to do much except to spend the day with her … something quiet. I like quiet.

Mostly what I’d like to do is take some time today to offer my gratitude that I am directly connected to other fathers, specifically the fathers of our grandkids, who are doing a phenomenal job of loving, encouraging and enabling the youngest in our families to be the best versions of themselves that they can possibly be. This is something you dream of when your kids are walking down their own wedding aisles. So today, the gift I get to enjoy is gratitude. I don’t want to ever take that for granted.

I understand how fortunate I am … especially in the city that I find myself in at this point of my life’s journey. My morning began by driving with my wife over to another part of our vast neighborhood to pick up the donuts for her coffee shop. Between here and there are very different realities … realities that I am very familiar with but, in the context of my own end of the neighborhood, not always in front of me on the weekends. These are the realities of addiction, mental illness, and living outside. I see this everyday and everyday it impresses on me something else about the human condition. Today, my own Fathers Day gratitude was paused by the reality of countless other individual’s experience. In the pause lives so many questions that we are often too busy or focused or naive or …. to consider.

Questions filled my soul like, “Is that guy a dad … where are his children … are they aware of what is happening in his life right now?” Questions like, “What dreams did their dad have for them that have gone horribly wrong?” Questions like, “Does their dad know where they are?” Questions like “Does he know where his kids are right now … Does he even know it’s Fathers Day … If he does, then does the realization cause more pain, more regret, does it cause him to want to climb up or dig down further?” Questions like, “Does the message on that church sign they are walking by about the blessings of fatherhood light a spark of hope in their soul or dump another bucket of ……… on their heads?”

Once again, I am reminded that these observations, begun with the greatest of intentions, deal more with Hallmark than humanity. Don’t get me wrong, I am all in favor of honoring those who are due honor … even honor on a sliding scale. What I hope for today, more than anything, is that these opportunities bring forth the realization of the human condition. I hope we can internalize that, on the day of our birth, there was promise, there were dreams, there were hopes. This is a nearly universal truth. On days like this one, while reminding us that they have been realized in some stories and not yet in others, may they also remind us more importantly of our common humanity and the value of each story we encounter.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a few quirks.  Well ok, I’ll be the second … shortly after my wife.  I have the ability, some would even say the preference, for thinking outside of the box, or never even acknowledging there ever was a box to be in.  While that is probably true in most cases, there are others where I can irrationally hold on to routines.  Some would say quirks … I would argue that they provide balance.  
It has been well documented in my family and close circles that if I change a schedule or routine it is entirely acceptable.  However, if my routine or schedule is changed by others, there can be a great disturbance in the force.  At times  I can recover, others not so much.  Sometimes it ends with me apologizing for being an irrational ass. Either way it can take a great deal of time and processing.  One of my current “routines” that gives me balance is the commute in to my office downtown. 
There are a few options one would have if commuting on the bus from my home to my office.  You could take a bus from the stop a block away from our building, do a quick transfer to another on the other end of our neighborhood, and end up just over a block from my office.  It is perfectly acceptable and some might say preferable … I do use this option on occasion.  My preferred method though eliminates the transfer and I stay on the same bus until I reach the downtown core … some refer to it as “the blade”.  It is a section not unfamiliar with many urban centers, where a good deal of bus traffic and transfers take place … as well as a good deal of dealing and generally acting out of behaviors associated with addiction and mental illness.  In a word, crazy.  I could write a book based entirely around what I have witnessed in that 2 block stretch of suffering and poverty.
So on my bus commute days, usually 3 each week, I get off there and choose to walk about 10 blocks through the downtown core towards my office on the north end of downtown.  I do this for exercise. I do this to relax. I do this to breathe. I do this to see.  I see desolation. I see restoration. I see hope. I see loss.  My wife and I , before pandemic days lived downtown for several years.  These streets were our home and quite familiar to us.  Many days I feel the loss deeply as I realize that nearly everything we loved about living here is gone.  I don’t know about your city, but ours seems to have suffered more than most during these past 20 months.  That is probably because our city leadership handled it worse than most.
My walking journey takes me past this and I emerge in the recently completed new land of Amazon.  The only think I can compare it to is that moment in “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy steps from the black and white of her farmhouse and into the technicolor world of Munchkinland.  The grit, grime and graffiti of what remains of downtown almost instantly transforms into the colorful, sterilized world of high rise office buildings, bike lanes, cafes, gathering spaces, shops and small businesses.  Just before entering this strange new world, my routine is a stop on the southern border of the realm in a Starbucks, created just for the inhabitants here, to grab a tall americano and my guiltiest of pleasures … a cheese danish. 
Upon leaving Starbucks and venturing into the land of colorful glass, concrete, and astroturf, I toss the pastry bag in the bin and I’m off eating and drinking my way through the promised land. This land was completed during the height of the pandemic and never really saw its potential. The shops and restaurants here are carefully curated for those who live and work here.  There is no graffiti, there are no tents, no one sleeping in doors, no one shooting up on the sidewalks.  Absent are the social ills and angst of a city ravaged by the effects of the pandemic and poor governance. What a difference a few blocks makes. 
A few more blocks and I come to my next stop and the central piece to this crazy scene.  It’s the famous banana cart … or it started out as just a cart … but here it has morfed into a retro airstream.  The point of this cart is to simply give out bananas, each and every weekday, to anyone who would like one … no conditions and no strings.  It began as an experiment of sorts and has endured over the years as a constant fixture.  It provides jobs to those who watch over and maintain the cart … sorry airstream … and it provides a healthy snack.  I don’t really understand the ideology behind it but I don’t want to either.  There are no questions in this realm, just possibilities … as demonstrated by the bananas. 
Leaving the bananas behind, the landscape begins to change again with the signs of a place in the midst of transitions … graffiti, fencing, cranes, hard hats are all common on this part of my walk.  I cross a main arterial and head into the park … the oldest in the city … where merely a year ago more than 100 tents and souls called this place home and were preparing to endure a winter of rain and cold … with only the assistance of some volunteer groups to help see them through.  The wisdom of city leadership feels that the humane thing is to leave everyone to their own devices, demons, and destructive behavior … a sort of “live and let live” gone off the rails.  One of my hats is to lead a group responsible for the park.  We are tasked with creating a safe and welcoming environment for all who call the city home as well as opportunities for all of those type of happenings that you might imagine when you think of healthy city parks.  That used to mean something entirely different to me just a few short years ago.
It is all quiet there now … thanks to the efforts of a volunteer group getting many housed or helped in whatever way they needed help.  Although in the language of city government one is not supposed to say “help” any longer.  Maybe that is why they are not really helping … insert eye roll. Anyway, with a great deal of effort and investment from the parks department, the natural environment has also been restored.  I thoroughly enjoy walking through here again with the holiday lights and the backdrop of leaf blowers.
Across the park and I’m at my building.  My task is to create gathering spaces and community.  It was such a different task just two Christmases ago.  What was once one of the taller buildings in the neighborhood, we now seem like the “Up” house.  All around are twenty to forty story towers being finished or being started.  It is so odd being here.  Like my space, all of this around me was envisioned years ago when people were pouring into the neighborhood and few places to house them.  Now there are thousands of units ready or nearly ready to be lived in.  All of this space and none of the people.  To see this all take place first hand … standing on the outside looking in … I can’t be sure if it is the epitome of optimism or sheer madness.  All of the routine I can muster hasn’t enabled me to gain the balance I think I need to see where this is all going.  But it is going … somewhere between bananas, the bus and the land of Oz.

“It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” GK Chesterton “Orthodoxy”

A month or so ago my wife was turned on to an app for amateur star gazers.  I have to admit that it is quite fascinating.  However, the difference between my personality and hers could easily be demonstrated by each our very different responses to using this app.  While I can appreciate all that this app unlocks for those curious about the layout of the heavens … she is over the top,  I’d actually term it giddy, at what this app reveals when opened and pointed to the sky.  She literally squeals and bounces like a preschooler on Christmas morning.  Much like her view on life in general, she wants everyone to experience this with her.  I will open the app and gaze thoughtfully on it and methodically search the darkening skies, taking note of the various and curious star names and trying to imagine who really thought that Orion actually had a belt fashioned out of otherwise indistinguishable points of light. 

She unashamedly puts her screen in front of anyone within sight and won’t be satisfied until they see what she sees. She believes that life is a party and everyone needs to be there … those on the inside and those on the outside … there are no margins for her.  On the other hand, I agree that life is a party, but I am of the opinion that you can come if you want to.

I’ll admit that this is not the greatest attribute to have if one is supposed to be considered an “evangelist”.  However, I never claimed that label so I don’t feel responsible to it.  To be clear, when it comes to faith and eternity, I do believe in the party with all my being and I would like as many of my friends and loved ones to be at that table of celebration with me … it’s just that I don’t believe in coercing, arguing, dragging, or guilting someone into being there.  I don’t want them there because of what I told them. We want them there because of what we showed them. I could be a great orator, I’d rather be a great neighbor. We would rather have people see our hope and faith through the way we love unconditionally, spread kindness and live with hope…. and prayerfully those we love will see faith differently than its being modeled in certain places.  For people to fully experience this is a slow and steady journey … just about 3 miles an hour to be exact. Walking, looking up, talking with neighbors, and in, the evening, pondering the stars and the one who placed them in the sky. And yes, If anyone else is within earshot, possibly shoving your phone in their face and have them help you find Orion.

“This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stone to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down.”  (Gollum – The Hobbit)

Did you ever feel that you’re the only one who cares about time?  Well I sure do.  Many of you would have to say “No, I don’t really give it much thought”.  That’s because it is people like you who make people like me feel this way.  While you live your lives in a timeless void, somehow I’ve been wired to consider chronic lateness a significant character flaw.  I’ll admit that this is almost totally a cultural thing.  I’ve been to other countries where time truly is a fluid concept … but the thing is, it is that way for practically the entire culture… time just really isn’t all that important.  However, this culture that we are living in is not that culture. Granted, we are becoming more diverse everyday … and because of that I could easily overlook an inattentiveness to punctuality… that is if were coming from my non-Anglo friends … but it’s not.  Those who I consistently and overwhelmingly find myself waiting on are the ones who can’t point to an ethnic heritage where time is optional. Back in the 90’s someone influential (whose name escapes me now) said that within the upcoming decades, time would be the most valuable commodity.  I’m pretty sure the prophecy came true and I’m also pretty sure that too many of us are literally stealing from people.  I completely resonate with this comparison because every time  it  happens I feel victimized. I am lost in a culture of time stealers. 
When I was leading a traditional church setting, Sunday mornings would drive me crazy.  I finally resorted to sitting in the front row and not looking behind me until I stood up to preach … and even then, halfway through a service, a part of my “flock” would still be wandering in.  I don’t have that same issue now.  In my current faith community our group begins each gathering with dinner … so there’s a little more incentive to be on time.  I’d rather not address how we were during our “Zoom” months though. In my Monday thru Friday role I have the blessing of working with contractors and architects who don’t have any problem stealing from me.  It happens nearly every week.  I have this practice that when we plan to meet at, let’s say 10am, I have already made sure my other issues are taken care of and I’ve cleared  both my calendar and my mind to be able to focus on them.  When they show up at 11, 11:30, or often later, I have literally sat waiting because I don’t want to take a deep dive into something else knowing that my appointment could and should be there at any minute.
Now I don’t know why I seem to have this overly anal attitude.  After all, most of my friends seem so much less anxious about it. Obviously many would say that I need to just get over myself.  I am working on it … not for the time stealers sake but for my own sanity. I will point out though while time is one of, if not, the most valuable commodity, it is also one that once it’s wasted, you can never get it back.  Money? They make more everyday … I’ve seen it being printed so this I can attest to.  Time? Once it’s gone, that’s it , you can’t even counterfeit it… and daylight savings doesn’t count.  Getting back one hour a year wouldn’t even cover one of my contractors appointments.
I am learning to let go and see time as more fluid.  You need to know though, I will be late for appointments and parties.  I will feel more comfortable with having people wait on my arrival.  I’m pretty sure I’ll learn over time that no one ever notices. I will take off my watch and ignore the time estimates on my GPS.  I have to … it is so much easier to change myself than to change the rest of the world … who has time for that?

“To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived – that is to have succeeded”  Ralph Waldo Emerson 

I’m spending some time alone in a crowd this morning.  That’s what soul care can look like for an introvert in a crisis of sorts.  The sun is out and blue skies everywhere, but I’m enveloped in a rather dark cloud.  A year long relationship with a therapist has helped me recognize when the clouds roll in I need to find or fashion an umbrella.  The umbrella for me has come in the form of creating  some alone time in a crowd.  I have a favorite place in each of my neighborhoods.  Today happens to be sitting at the window in Starbucks in the midst of a weekly downtown Farmers Market. From this seat I can see at least a remnant of what life was like here in pre-Covid times.  What little physical presence of the in-person Amazon workforce remains will be concentrated here for a few hours today as it is each Thursday.  I am, ironically, drawing comfort and peace from what used to honestly annoy me about this space.

While I won’t even begin to claim that my experience these past 18 months has been as devastating as it has been for many … I still have my job, my health, most of my friends, an incredibly beautiful, loving and supporting wife, family that I am endlessly proud of … I reluctantly need to admit that this season of Covid has kicked my ass.  I may be reluctant, but I feel that I need to own this reality … as do many others I am guessing.  In the earlier days of this chapter someone wisely reminded us that “We are not all in the same boat … We may be in the same storm, but our boats look very different”.  Some are yachts, some are leaky canoes, and some I fear are the broken door that Rose clung to in the last minutes of “Titanic”. Thinking of the boat in a storm analogy, I’m guessing mine has been a fairly sporty and swift ski boat that has lost its rudder.  I’ve come to understand that the rudder on my boat has been my purpose.  If you don’t know boating language, it will be helpful to note that a rudder gives a boat its direction. So one could imagine walking by my boat tied up in the marina and admiring its sleek lines and imagining it out on the water kicking up a decent wake while towing a load of fun behind it.  But you can’t generally see beneath the water.  The  surprise, and probably disappointment would come when the boat is untied and the motor engaged … boats without rudders tend to go in circles.  It may not have looked like it from a casual pass by of my life, but that is exactly what is going on beneath my surface.

“So you lost your purpose, what a shame”.  I have imagined this to be a sort of condescending attitude to my confession … and honestly it’s kept me fairly silent.  It’s only really been shared with two people (one of them paid)  I fully understand that losing ones purpose does not compare to losing ones life, a loved one, a job, a home.  I am just doing what I desperately need to do for my own well being … and maybe  it will encourage others who are playing my comparison game.  I am dealing with my own boat and riding the storm while trying to make repairs. See, my overall macro purpose can be illustrated by the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote accompanying this post.  But you really need a micro purpose that helps you more specifically lean into the larger one.  My first fulfillment of this was my calling out of manufacturing engineering and into 20 plus years as a pastoral artist.  I think I was pretty good at it … in the end, more people appreciated my existence than didn’t … so there’s that.  As time went by, I began to realize that more specific than pastoring, I was being called to be a creator of community focused intentionally on pursuing Jesus.  I don’t know about your particular church experience, but honest people will tell you there is plenty of mixed motives for being in a church and many have little to do with actually pursuing Jesus.  That part became exhausting.

So we left traditional pastoring and set our rudder on creating more intimate and intentional community in the midst of a relatively disconnected city.  Eventually all of my calling, experience, passion, and paths led to establishing a space in the heart of the city that broadly created a place for Jesus inspired connections and community … for cultivating the soul mere blocks from thousands of rather isolated residents.  Dreams of thriving faith communities, artistic expressions, cultural events, deep conversations and support groups all came to a halt in March of 2020.  How do you created community and spaces for people who can’t and or don’t have any desire to gather together?  And if you answer “Zoom” I will personally find you and relate to you why that is the wrong answer.  If your answer is “What till things get back to normal” I will also respectfully agree to disagree on that one. If you think that is the answer, I’d like to refer you to the thousands of pastors whose thousands of church attendees have mysteriously (or not) disappeared during the pandemic.  I am owning that things will probably never be the same, nor should they be. So I’m choosing to move on. I still cling to my greater purpose but, I’m not leaving the dock for awhile until I’ve fully addressed my rudder issue … it’s a work in progress.

All of this to say to you … people are in different boats and are dealing with the limitations and conditions of their unique vessels so:

• Be kind
• Be patient
• Be sensitive
• Be available
• Be self-aware
• Be honest
• Be safe
• Be

and may you all be able to fashion umbrellas when the clouds roll in and may you be able to find peace in the storm.

“Hey bus driver, keep the change, bless your children, give them names
Don’t trust men who walk with canes”. (Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street- Bruce Springsteen)

I’m a firm believer that one of the best ways to discover the soul of your place is to ride public transportation… yes I said  take the bus.  Here in the Seattle neighborhoods we also have street cars, a commuter train, light rail, water taxis and ferries.  My wife and I have become completely proficient over the years taking any and all of these.  In fact, for nearly 3 years we were willingly car-less … and we thoroughly enjoyed that season of our lives … even when we were labeled “un-American” for our choice.  As if lives hadn’t been sacrificed throughout the history of our country to be free to make such choices. There are certainly different levels of openness  to riding public transportation.  What I mean is that with many people I know, there are levels of acceptability.  Let me elaborate … Water based are fully acceptable, normal, even, may I add, admirable.  Here in Seattle, ferries and water taxis take us to “the islands” or “the peninsula”.  The train takes us on respectable commute trips to the burbs.  The streetcar shuttles us through neighborhood main streets … they are clean, modern  and attractive.  The light rail whisks us to the outer neighborhoods and the airport.  Taking these forms don’t really even constitute “public transportation” for many. 

However, suggest to some that they “could ride the bus” and the conversation often goes a bit sideways. I didn’t know this ahead of time but, apparently riding the bus is for common folk.  And that’s not really an aspiration for many… to be known as common.  The funny thing is that those who ride the bus don’t share that view… at least those of us in command of our wits and mental faculties.  I should tell you that there are many who don’t have command of those on any given day and on any given bus.  I have developed a theory that states, no matter how debilitated one is because mental illness or addiction, “crazy can always find the bus”.  Now to be clear, I am a huge advocate for mental illness and addiction interventions, so don’t post irate comments about how insensitive this theory is unless you are a regular bus rider or live by a bus stop and can honestly refute that this isn’t true. 

The reality that crazy can always find the bus is one of the reasons I think everyone should be open to and able to navigate the public bus system.  It’s also the reason that many never will.  I’ll be honest, during the height of the lockdown  it was a fairly intimidating place to be … Even for someone with my experience.  Most of the commuters were no longer going in to the office and for a time the fares were suspended and anyone could ride for free.  I rode a lot less, but I still would when I could.  If you’re a novice I would not recommend beginning this exercise during a pandemic. For those who aren’t familiar with the practice or live in an area without a decent level of  us service here are some things I’ve observed over the years:

• You can still be an American and not own a car.
• Buses aren’t for talking anymore… people only talk if they are conversing with someone that accompanied them onto the bus … real or imaginary (yes you read that right).
• Some people will look on you with pity if they know you “have to take the bus”.  If you really want to blow their minds, just tell them you don’t have to, you get to.
• Riding the bus let’s you see the things you might not otherwise get to or want to see when driving a car.  The only thing better is actually walking.
• Bus stops can be great social experiments.
• Get yourself a good set of headphones … but don’t always have something playing in them … let them act as decoys while you listen in on some very interesting real or imagined conversations.
• Be very aware of your surroundings (see above… don’t always have something playing in your headphones.
• And … like I said earlier … Crazy can always find a bus.

“I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was” (Toby Keith)

Yesterday was my birthday … I’ll just let that sit for a moment.

I’m not generally a fan of my birthday. I’m not one to celebrate a “birthday month” (There’s a reason that it’s called a birth-DAY). I really only entertain the idea of a party once every ten years. However, since I can’t stop the inevitable, I do try to make it profitable. On my birthday … and I don’t think I’m alone in this … I tend to stop for a moment and reflect some on the past year. At my decade intervals I look back comprehensively on the previous ten and then, with anticipation, imagine what the next decade might bring … for better or worse. I’ll not weigh in yet on this current decade, but lets just say that I’m needing to maximize these next two years to get somewhere close to what I had imagined.

this year my reflection is centered around my experiences this past year with what I’ll term as “the tension between more and less”. In no particular order, at 58 years of age:

• I have more hair than I imagined I would and less gray in it.
• The more I walk, the less I miss out on what God is doing in my life and neighborhoods.
• The more I drive, the less chance I have to refrain from non-pastoral language.
• I’d prefer more foam from my barista and less from my bartender.
• The more protests I witness over masks, vaccines, personal rights, and all the rest, the less confident I am of us overcoming this pandemic.
• The more I slow down and be present, the less I will miss out on key moments in the lives of those I love.
• The more I talk, the less interested people are in what I have to say.
• The more I act, the less likely people are to judge me on my talking.
• The more I recognize my own issues, the less I judge the issues of others.
• The more time I spend listening to Jesus, the less time I have for church nonsense.
• The more apps I load on my iPhone, the less memory I have to operate those same apps.
• The more resistant to change that I am, the less likely I will be leading anything during my next ten years.

There it is … a years worth of wisdom considered in an early morning hour on my couch. If you’ll excuse me, I have to put my mask on again and get on with the business of living this next year.

“Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread“ Bilbo Baggins

JRR Tolkien

 
When you are leading a neighborhood expression of a church, you understand that you can’t exactly phone it in.  The streets are your church, the rhythm’s of the neighborhood your liturgy, and your neighbors the congregants whether they ever step foot in your actual community or not.  My wife and I had the joy of launching such an expression in the heart of the city 8 years ago now. For 4 years we lived, loved, and walked the streets of one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in the country. Beautiful things happened, lives were changed and community built … until the socio-economic realities forced us out. Because of this time, a new opportunity emerged for me.

For these past 3 years I have had a daily commute back to our former neighborhood creating and curating a neighborhood gathering space. Early on, despite always having the pain and mixed emotions of no longer living here, things were relatively familiar for me in the neighborhood sense.  Relationships were still there with most of those who we had worked diligently to bring about the “prosperity of the city”.  But as I will relate in later posts, one of the unchanging things about neighborhood is the constant change. When you live in a place, although still difficult to navigate, at least you are in the conversation and can adapt more readily.  I have found that when your 9 to 5-ing it, you are quickly looped out of the flow and it becomes harder to adapt and adjust. Our residential life leaves little energy and focus for my professional life.  Sometimes it helps to just get out of my space and walk the streets again to reconnect. Today is such a day. Sometimes it breathes life into me. Sometimes it just reminds me how disconnected I really am. I’ve just finished such a walk and am processing these tensions within me.  I’m sitting in a space that I’ve spent hours over the years wrestling with all of what the neighborhood had to offer.  Honestly I’m trying to find the faintest connection to the passion and promise we once felt for this place.  What used to emanate from the very streets we walked, now takes so much emotional effort to try and recapture.  I’m still not even sure I can. I am feeling a few things very strongly though:

1. Remote working isn’t really an option.  What I mean is that you can’t invest in neighborhood anything truly  effectively if you don’t reside in the neighborhood.  I’m sure that will not sit well with many of my pastor friends who don’t live anywhere near their congregations.  Now if your church is an “attractional” model, that is if you are trying to get people to come to you, then this doesn’t apply.  If you are not seeking the well being of the community your church is located in by actually being part of the community, then live where you want to.
2. Many don’t understand this principle.  The organization that initially sponsored our new church work in this neighborhood never did.  They recommended we live in a more affordable neighborhood while trying to build community down here.  It’s not all that unusual a sentiment. Many (I’d actually offer most) church leaderships would rather the pastor move to a more affordable neighborhood than give them a salary that allowed/encouraged them to live where the church was.  Many pastors I know chose on their own to move to neighborhoods so they could buy bigger and better homes, some of them for very valid reasons, some honestly for ego.
3. It is possible to have influence in your professional space without living there, but it’s very costly and it will take a toll somewhere.  For the past year I’ve been connected to a counselor and this very subject takes up a great deal of our time together … without a great deal of resolution. I find myself mentally exhausted and uncharacteristically frustrated too often.

so there it is … I’m continuing to try to do what I see as inherently impossible. I’m trying to be the incarnational (read living/breathing) presence of Christ between the hours of 9 and 5 and preferably Monday through Friday. I don’t believe that it can really successfully be done …. so why am I even trying? I have no idea.

On an unusually overcast day that looks more like the latter half of October than August I am back with an old familiar friend.  It’s the first day of another mask mandate here, but sitting at the window sipping my medium roast, ferries slowly crossing the Sound in front of me, I get to keep mine sitting idly on the counter next to me.  I count this place as an old familiar friend because for the better part of 10 years I sat weekly in this space and processed life around me.  It was very much life at three miles an hour … at least it was for those walking past me each morning as I sat with this very same drink choice and my headphones. After moving away, I continued to write in a number of places around my new neighborhoods, but it was always special the few times I was able to venture back here.  Mostly I would make a trip over when I needed to somehow reconnect … sometimes in a rut … sometimes just needing to remember a bit of who I was. Even though we moved back two years ago … and this time to a place nearly overlooking this precious spot … I never really returned to this seat … for a million different reasons and no reason at all.  But here I am. I need this space now, quite possibly  more than I ever have.
When I was so much younger I spent a great deal of time in the mountains and forests of the Adirondack mountains.  Much of it was alongside my grandfather who taught me a great deal about observing my surroundings hoping to help me keep from getting lost.  He gave me my first compass … a vintage gem his father had left him from his time in the First World War.  I learned at an early age to always check for North when entering the woods.  After that, walk at a pace that gives you the ability to observe all that is around you…and stop once in awhile to take in the landmarks, the terrain, the position of the sun.  I developed a keen sense of direction that has stayed with me. I never considered the possibility that I could become lost, even in some of the most remote parts of the country.  No matter how unfamiliar the territory was after that, I never had to use it to find my way out… but I always knew I could.

For more than a dozen years my practice of writing had kept me in and around a pace that I could process all that I was experiencing … in my faith communities, in my relationships, in my neighborhood being.  It was an opportunity to stop for a moment, look around, connect with, and learn from my place.  I’m fairly certain it kept me from getting lost.  In May of last year, like much of life around me, that all came to an uncomfortable stop.  Suddenly there was too much for me to process even through writing. I wrote a post that was intended to be the first of a series on connecting within your neighborhood.  I never wrote another.  I couldn’t write another.  I had imagined the lockdown as an incredible gift of time to read and write prolifically.  I even imagined finally getting a decent jump on writing the book I had always dreamed of writing… and now I couldn’t even write a paragraph… or even a solid compelling and coherent sentence.  My internal compass had been lost and without it I had no idea which way North was.  What followed I guess was inevitable.  Fear. I became unusually fearful in a time and place where there was plenty of motivation to feel that way. I had always imagined that I could add something to the greater conversation … that my words helped lift up situations and turn them in my hands in different directions, allowing  different views and making room for differing opinions.  I no longer held that view. For the first time in memory, I didn’t feel I had anything to say.  When dealing with the volatile emotions of very young children, my wife has always been conscious of calling on them to “use your words”.  In the midst of all we were experiencing… all of the feelings, emotions, observations that I would have normally processed through using my words threatened to overtake me … or at least that’s how I felt.  She became my compass … encouraging me to establish a counseling relationship, leading out in spaces that I had become fearful of, and always encouraging me to use my words. 

So this morning, with her encouragement, once more I am back in a familiar space trying to process. This post is my showing up to write about what I see and experience when I slow down long enough to observe. The fear has dissipated. Surrounded by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, inspired by runners on the beach, envious of those gliding by on the ferries, amused by the dogs waiting patiently on their humans, I am once again remembering where North is.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

About 4 years ago I was introduced to a theology of God that in all my years of pastoral ministry I had never considered from a source that I had never heard of. In “3 Mile an Hour God” the Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama wrote “Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.”  

What resonated with me was not simply the concept.  The echo through my soul was the recognition that my wife and I had been inadvertently living this reality for most of these past 20 years.  We have lived as place-makers, as place-keepers, and as characters in the neighborhoods we have called home.  Our professions exist, our influence exists, and our relationships exist all because of a life lived at 3 miles an hour … continually on foot, pacing and praying for our place.  In a culture where bigger is better and “if you’re not first, you’re last”, we have come to understand that ours is an alternative lifestyle. The space we dedicate here through these writings is a celebration and acknowledgment of all that we’ve learned and continue to learn about life and love and grace at the exhilarating pace of 3 miles an hour.