My brother is dying. He continues to battle with steadfast nobility and courage against one of hell’s greatest ploys – brain cancer.
It’s been 17 awful and sacred months since diagnosis and surgery. Most of the stories are too brutal and beautiful to find words that fit.
Last Friday he took yet again a significant downturn. Wisdom said, “get on a plane, again. Now. You are needed. This is your mission. Drop everything. Be alongside him and his wife.”
But then came the pause; the pause that I have been slowly cultivating over fourteen years of training…
Ask God.
Wisdom is helpful. But revelation is often the Divine Rescue.
“Father, should I get on a plane today?”
His response: “Take a day for your heart. Fill your tanks. You’re going to need it. Take a day with your family. Then go.”
I knew that filling my tanks involved getting into wilderness, so I grabbed one of my closest allies and we headed west, hoping to find our way into some rich elk and deer habitat and perhaps discover a treasured antler shed. At the trailhead before sunrise we headed as deep into the backcountry as we could get in one day…
First we found ourselves on well-worn trails, then eventually on an ancient game trail. Higher and higher we pushed until we were off trail altogether.
And then the moment every hunter anticipates, the gleam of ivory tips shining in the afternoon sunlight! We found a shed!
But it didn’t stop there. Divine Love had more planned for us. As we climbed higher and worked our way up the terrain and along ridgelines, we discovered more and more sheds! It was such incredible supernatural favor. I hunted for 5-6 years before I ever found even one shed and it was only about four inches long!
By days end we had discovered nine antler sheds! Four matching pairs and the elk sheds were the biggest either of us has ever found in all of our days. And all of this took place in a region that neither of us had ever explored before.
We looked at each other with a shit eatin’ grin, calling out whooping like two young boys who had found the hidden treasure.
Back at the tailgate we snapped pictures and partook of our ritual of smoked oysters and ice-cold beers. We exhaled… and enjoyed short yet timeless moments… a dance between conversation, reflecting on the bounty, taking in the beauty of the wilderness and the promise of early spring.
The next day it was a rich and deeply needed Sabbath with the family. We enjoyed our first big bike ride of the season with the kids riding their own bikes and reveling in the adventure and promise of Spring (not to mention the promise of ice cream at the half way point).
(Here’s a glimpse of the bike ride with Abigail wearing Lances lucky fishing shirt).
Two days of the Father pouring into me. Risking that caring for my own heart matters. Risking that I hear from God. Risking that our Father wants to speak if we will simply ask, and wait, and want.
As John has so powerfully reminded us, “We live in a love story set in the midst of a life and death battle.”
Now I’m on a plane, headed east. In many ways headed for war… to fight for the hearts of my brother’s wife and his family. To be with him side by side and help him to make the great Crossing Over into the Kingdom in full.
But I’m literally a different man than I was two days ago.
A mentor recently reminded me,
The 20s are for trying
The 30s are for practicing
The 40s are for doing
This decade is about practicing.
Practice asking God. It’ll save your life.
Ps. If God leads you please pray for my brother Lance, his stunning wife Francine, and for all the loved ones walking with us in this season. Pray that this truth would find it’s way into every heart in this story… the truth that, as Julian of Norwich suggests, “all will be well, and every manner of thing will be well.” Amen. To hear more about my brother Lance see www.Iwouldratherbeflyfishing.com. You can also check out an earlier blog
Here’s a suggestion for a date night. Or a night with your buddies. Or a night with the Father.
Watch The Company Men. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have. Every time, it’s another layer… Another layer unearthed in me. Another layer of repentance, of hope, of fear, of courage, of God…
Buechner wrote a phenomenal book called Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale.
In it, he does a stunning job of viewing the Gospel – the Larger Story in which we live – through three extremely different, yet true and enlightening lenses. For in the end, Believing is seeing after all.
Let me offer three lenses to see this film…
Lens one:: the story of a young, gifted, well-intended, world-changing man. Who, in truth, is a wounded, uninitiated, invalidated boy who’s in over his head. It’s the story of the fierce redemption of his heart… his validation and identity restored through the brutal and beautiful intervention of The Father in his life. What are the stages Bobby goes through in the redemption and restoration of his masculine heart? Where is the turning point? What is at stake? What makes the difference in the end?
Lens two:: the story of three men – all good men at their core. All men taken out. Men whose worlds have been utterly disrupted through corporate downsizing. Three different men with three very different responses to the hand they are dealt. Where does each man take his setbacks? How does each man answer these questions? Where will I find Life and how will I make it last?
Lens three:: the story of four women. Women whose men have been handed the gauntlet. Four very different women, living very different stories, who offer very differently to their men. What is it they offer? What story are they living in? What is their impact on their men? In the end, who offers femininity, with integrity?
I meet with a counselor every week. We’ve been sharing life together for just over six months now. It has been one of the top three most transformative experiences of my life.
My counselor has a striking resemblance to the Colonel of KFC. Thus he affectionately goes by “the Colonel” among my close friends. Last week when I met with him, I told him that I’ve begun to view the $85 a week as a “grandfather tax.” And I pay it gladly, joyfully. Something in my young heart as a man is learning through him what it feels like to walk through life with a grandfather.
He’s a giant. Outwardly he may appear older, maybe even irrelevant in a culture that worships “youth.” From a distance he may even appear frail. But make no mistake. When you are in his presence, he is an oak tree.
I find myself resting in his shade. He sees me better, more accurately, than I see myself. He’s not exhausted by me or pessimism. He tears up with a smile in his brilliant eyes at the man I am and leaps for joy at the man I’m becoming. I see dimly the man he sees so vividly in me. But it gives me hope. And through him, God is peeling layer after layer off of my false self. Someone new is emerging: the truest me.
I’ve been noticing “old” people more and more. It’s hard and sad to watch strength, vibrancy, and vitality ebb from their bodies like a passing tide.
Yet, I am keenly aware in these observations of one simple fact: as men age, they fall strikingly into one of two categories. One group of “old men” seems to be dead- men-walking. They seem to be shadows of their former selves. They seem sad, waning, and have little stature. The best parts of their lives are lived only in memories. Their best days are behind.
The second category is “old men” who are much more than meets the eye. At first pass, they may appear “old.” Yet take a closer and slower look and the hidden treasure is revealed. There is light in their eyes. Inwardly, there is strength. They are mighty oaks. They are fountains of wisdom. Beacons of hope. Laughter is true and easily accessible. There is a resting, settledness, and something that I can only describe as an eager expectation deep within them for what’s to come.
Just this week I encountered another giant. I cued up an hour-long Dallas Willard seminar on my laptop and jumped on the spinning bike. Five minutes into it there was so much substance, “weightiness”
(C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory), to his teaching that I had to turn it off and savor it, digest it. What I treated like some commodity – content to consume- I instead found to be a rich and substantive treasure beyond my years. Shade for me to rest me eager soul.ere is strength. They are mighty oaks. They are fountains of wisdom. Beacons of hope. Laughter is true and easily accessible. There is a resting, settledness, and something that I can only describe as an eager expectation deep within them for what’s to come.
Rob Jones, Dallas Willard, the Colonel, Thomas Keating, Eugene Peterson.
Whether I have met them in person, or only through their teachings, these men have become to me more than oaks even: they have become towering Sequoias.
I was in the great Redwoods of northern California this past spring. A native was sharing an interesting fact about these massive and glorious trees. There are varied causes of death for the Redwoods, but “old age” in not one of them.
I am a man in need of great giants whose lives are not diminished by age, but rather enhanced. I need their assurance. I need their laughter, their ease, their hope, their affection, and their camaraderie.
I wonder what I’ll be like as a grandfather. I watch the Colonel with me. And the Father fills me with hope and longing. Longing to be available one day to my adult kids and their spouses and children. I hope they will rest in my shade.
Proverbs tells stories of Wisdom being woven into the very fabric of all creation. And of Wisdom being the Craftsman at God’s side as He fashioned all of creation. (Proverbs 8).
One of the most accessible ways of experiencing that Wisdom is to slow down enough to be present to these great giants.
We must find these shading older men. They are rare. But they are available. Ask the Father everyday to bring them to you, until you have them.
Over the past year I’ve had the opportunity to sit around the table with some good men and share conversations on the masculine journey. This is part 4 of that conversation. Enjoy.
Craig McConnell, Morgan Snyder and Alex Burton talk about a weekend retreat for world changers in their 30s.
I used to be a golfer. It was another lifetime ago. It was a context where my heart was first opened to beauty- walking alone on late summer evenings during rounds on the local public course.
Now my golf consists of borrowed clubs and a round of best ball with a few buddies once a year or so. Heck, I don’t even own a golf shirt anymore!
So I was invited to play the Broadmoor, a world championship course, designed by Arnold Palmer and Robert Trent Jones. I was intimidated to say the least, as I’d be playing with three genuine golfers, two of whom I don’t know at all, and one who’s a new friend. I show up, borrowed clubs and the closest thing I can find to a set of shorts and a golf shirt (I think I was the only joker on the hole with buttons down the front of my shirt). I arrive at the first tee to find out that we are playing with caddies! Now I had spent years in high school caddying but I’d never been on the receiving end of that. Four beautiful Jamaican men walk over to us in meticulously cleaned white jump suits. It was like a scene out of a movie. It was like showing up to watch the US Open, and someone turns to you on the first tee and hands YOU a driver… it was completely intimidating.
And it almost got the best of me.
But I was rescued by eventually tuning into what God was up to.
The first tee, I can only describe as grace. The Father’s provision. Of our foursome, I was the only guy in the fairway. It was a stunning drive (and would turn out to be my only one of the day!). Did I mention the other three men were actually golfers?!
Second hole, the caddies are out 275 yards on the fairway’s edge! Are you kidding me?! If I hit a drive 275, I’d be jumping up and down. So here I am standing with a borrowed driver… did I mention we were playing from the pro tees? (sheesh)…
I hit a worm burner… like claws, the rough grabs all the power out of my ball and it lands gracefully next to the ladies’ tees. The other three guys are waving until finally the caddies realize I showed my true card. You can only imagine what the conversation was among them before Peter, my Jamaican brother, comes running back towards us to provide me with a rescue club.
And so the round unfolds, with me whacking away shot after shot. After about three holes each shot Peter would look at me with those intensely white eyes and teeth set in this beautiful black face (you have to picture Djimon Hounsou from the film Amistad) and say,
“Watch me.”
After that he would proceed to tell me how to play the shot.
If it was a putt:
“Watch Me. Inside. Left Edge. Against grass. Up hill.”
If it was a chip:
“Half” as he handed me a PW.
At first I ignored half of what he said. He pulled out what I thought to be the wrong club. “There’s no way I can get a six iron to that green.” He’d call a left to right break a foot and I swore it broke the other way.
And whether I listened to him or not, after the shot I realized he was right.
And I realized something else.
He actually cared about me. The best me.
He spent several holes learning me, focusing on me, watching me.
And then he offered the coaching, the guidance-one shot at a time- to simply bring to reality the best me that was available for that shot.
So about 12 holes into it, I finally got what God was up to. Peter was the incarnation of the Holy Spirit. Intensity that almost made you want to look away, and joy and personality that was magnetic. John 3:8, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” He was directing me with some invisible way. He was present to me and to one shot at a time. Offering me leadership. Offering me a path to life, the best life and the best me.
At one point we were on the back tees of a par three that I swear played as a par 4. I’m thinking, “Shit, there is no way I can get over that ravine and get to the green.” So without looking at Peter’s face I reach for my driver. Then I’m moved (mostly in shame) to look up at him and he laughs and shakes his head. So I say, “Fine, what should I hit?” And he pulls out a 5 wood. A club I hadn’t played the entire round (shoot, it’s a borrowed club I’ve never even hit before). I knocked it three yards short of the green.
After that, I started listening and making shots. And I can only describe it as supernatural. I intentionally stopped looking at the clubs he selected for me. I began to trust. And I started golfing.
At another point I hit a terrible chunker. I looked at Peter and said, “Have you ever caddied for a golfer as bad as me?” He looked at me with an intense smile and replied, “No bad golfers. Bad golfers don’t golf. You are golfing.” It was as though the words of a mentor from the week before came through this Holy Spirit of a man and said, “Son, you are on the path. That’s what matters.”
That was a long prologue to get to this point:
The Thirties is a decade of excavation. It is also a decade of establishing a bedrock foundation of intimate and personal relationship with Jesus, with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit.
I spent years cultivating a relationship with Jesus. But the Father was a totally absent category. I have now spent about five years living in the reality of the Father. And in just the past year I have begun to cultivate an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit. I’ve been asking for more of it. To know God, to relate to him, to live in his abundance and his Kingdom, through the Holy Spirit.
All three are available. And all three are essential to being, as Dallas Willard eloquently communicates, “an apprentice in Kingdom Living.”
“As Jesus’ disciple, I am his apprentice in Kingdom Living.
…I am learning from him how to lead my life in the Kingdom of Heavens as he would lead my life if he were I. It is my faith in him that led me to become a disciple. My confidence in him simply means that I believe he is right about everything; that all that he is and says shows what life is at it best, what it was intended by God to be. ‘In Him was life and the life was the light of men.’ (John 1:4)”
Being his apprentice is, therefore, not a matter of special ‘religious’ activity, but an orientation and a quality of my entire existence. There must be nothing held of greater value than Jesus and His Kingdom. He must be clearly seen as the most important thing in human life, and being his apprentice as the greatest opportunity any human being ever has.” Dallas Willard, A Long Obedience
Where is your personal relationship with Jesus? With the Father? With the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit is after seeking out “the best you.” In all his intensity and all his joy. Let him do it, one shot at a time. Let him do it today.
*Footnote: I thought that the Broadmoor must have some caddie program that recruits all their caddies from Jamaica. Later I found out they have only four. The Holy Spirit set me up for an ambush!
Over the past year I’ve had the opportunity to sit around the table with some good men and share conversations on the masculine journey. This is part 3 of that conversation. Enjoy.
I was caught off guard by the beauty. I had just driven out of the Miami International Airport (which could be the ugliest and most run down airport in the US). I picked up the rental car and pointed southwards to meet up with my brother and dad and to chase tarpon on the fly rod.
What pleasantly surprised me was the landscaping around the airport. It was teeming with tropical beauty. Big mature palm trees blowing in the warm breeze; flowering bushes in abundance.
However, as I looked closely, I realized that there was nothing truly “mature” about it; it was all new. When I took an even closer look at the “mature” palm trees, I saw that every one of these hundreds of trees had been newly transplanted and was at the mercy of three wooden stakes, artificially propping it up, serving as a makeshift alternative to deep roots.
“This is a picture of men in their thirties. Son, I’m inviting you to lay down the props.”
It caught me off guard. Before I could edit my hearing, I realized the Father was giving a picture of us as men in our thirties.
In this decade, life comes to us like a flood – a raging river bulging at the seams. One mentor put it this way: he said of the decade, “I found myself inexplicably on a massive roller coaster. There was no way off. It took everything in me just to hold on for the ride.”
The deepest questions of the masculine heart remain mostly underground. Who am I as a man? Where will I find validation in my deep desire to be loved? To matter? To become?
And so most of us in this decade dive head first, subconsciously, reaching for an answer to find validation for our deep heart.
We set out to make a name for ourselves.
To make a little money.
To get something going.
And before we know it, we’re a tree… more “mature” externally and contextually than the root system below the ground can handle.
We build kingdoms (companies, churches, missions, ideas, influences, homes, balance sheets) that don’t have the roots to withstand the storms. When all is well, they look stable. We turn a blind eye to the stakes artificially propping up our masculinity. We champion the application of leverage on many fronts turning a blind eye to the whisper of the sage bringing counsel from years down the road, with a gentler yet firm reminder; “You know, son, leverage cuts both ways. It’s a double edged sword.”
And all is well, until the winds turn to gale force. Until the floods come. Until the kingdoms come crashing down. Jesus promised that in this world we will have trouble. The storms will come.
What are your stakes? Where have you positioned a stake to artificially prop up the world you have created? What aspect of your world doesn’t have a root system deep enough to stand on its own true maturity? Remember there are no shortcuts.
The decade of the thirties is a decade of removing the stakes.
By way of contrast I was caught off guard last week by a remarkable and mature pine tree while mountain biking with some peers deep in the national forest.
What struck me about this tree were the roots and the life pulsing through the tree. Exposed by years of terrible erosion caused by a road poorly cut into the mountainside, this mighty tree had eventually suffered the consequences and fallen. Yet, it was still alive. And actually thriving. It was still providing life and habitat. And in a wild way, it was actually more beautiful, strong and true in its current form than it would have been standing tall. It was closer to death in one way, and in another, still teeming with life. And therein lays the great risk…. There is great risk for a tree to fall and indeed lead to a sort of death. And yet in this I find myself turning back to the counsel of our God:
Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal. (John 12)
I want deep roots. I want to serve and lead a kingdom that is proportional to my maturity and wholeness of heart and to lead it well. To lead in love.
This decade is a decade of excavation. It is a decade of tearing out hard and rocky soil and partnering with God to infuse good soil (Luke 8). It is a decade of establishing the deep roots that can withstand the storms that are building in the western sky.
Here’s to no stilts.
Let fall what needs to fall.
The peace that results is worth the pain.
And there is hope at the end of this trail. I am sure of it…
