Author: Christopher Laird

Ash Wednesday marked the beginning of the Lenten season leading up to Easter.  I have been looking for a little inspiration/instruction to aid me in my participation of the Lenten season.  Thankfully,I came across a little article in a devotional anthology, “Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter.”  It provided me with the “entry point” that I was looking for.

The title of the first entry, “Repentance”, is written by Kathleen Norris, a teacher who teaches parochial grade school.  Ms. Norris, in seeking to expose her students to the spiritual and poetic wealth found in the Hebrew Psalter, gave her class the assignment of writing their own personal psalm.  One psalm in particular stood out to Kathleen. It was the psalm of a little boy titled, “The Monster Who Was Sorry.”

“He began by admitting that he hates it when his father yells at him: his response in the poem is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck the whole town.  The poem concludes: ‘Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have done all that.”

I just love that little poem.  Why do I love the poem of the little “monster” so much?  I love it for the same reason that Ms. Norris loved it. I love it for its honesty, “the emotional directness”, and I love it for the subtle yet powerful lessons that it teaches us about repentance, an often misunderstood spiritual practice.

There are several lessons from “the psalm of the monster” (not surprisingly these lessons are found in the biblical variety as well).  First, it teaches us that people who practice repentance have this defining trait: they are “messy.”  The problem of course, is nobody wants to be “messy.”  Why do we have such a hard time with this – the fact that in God’s economy it really is okay to be messy?  This should be obvious: only “messy” people need to “clean up”.  Doesn’t the Bible say something like, “for all of us are messy and no one is clean, no not one”?

The second lesson from “the monster” is that it’s not enough to just be messy – you also have to be honest, and not just with yourself.  People who practice repentance are honest with themselves and with at least one other person (the monster wrote a poem for others to read).   Repentance is a process that begins with an honest assessment, which leads to a confession – “I’m angry”, “I’m hurting”, “I’m tired of living with the pigs.”

The third lesson on repentance comes from the closing thoughts of Kathleen Norris who writes, “If that boy had been a novice in the fourth-century monastic desert, his elders might have told him that he was well on the way toward repentance, not such a monster after all, but only human.” Like Aslan in, “The Silver Chair”, Jesus doesn’t give up on his children even when they turn into “monsters”, but like Aslan with Eustace, Jesus comes to the rescue of the boy trapped behind the “scales of the dragon”, and he patiently works at setting him free.

Repentance does not erase our sins, for only Christ can do that, but it does help us to recognize the “mess” we are in.  We are so easily deluded by our own assessment of things and confession breaks the spell of our denial, our delusions and our “blind spots.”  Confession puts us on the path of discovery, where we discover that if our room really is “messy”, perhaps it could be cleaned. Perhaps it could be a room we could be comfortable sharing with others . . . maybe even with God.

Here’s to all you “monsters” out there – Have a happy and penitent Lenten season!

C

If you’ve read any of my recent blogs you know that this season for me at New Wine is one of coming to terms with some “loose ends” in my soul.  Just this past weekend a friend of mine, who happens to be a gifted therapist, offered me some help with one of those loose ends when he asked me a piercing question, “Chris, does Jesus understand your plight?” I’ll admit, I was caught a little off guard by the question. I didn’t see it coming and it certainly wasn’t on any of my mid-term exams.

Since my conversation with Guillermo I have taken that question to prayer two or three times now. Just yesterday I was feeling really pinned down, really discouraged and I eventually made it to “the closet” for some heavenly dialogue.

“Lord, do you understand my plight?  I feel so pinned down by my own ‘wrongness’ and there is no where to go?  I feel trapped!”

Just then I had this thought  that I needed to press further with my question – I needed to press the point until I had expelled every last bit of bile and angst from my soul.  I framed another question for God. 

“Lord, are you the one behind this?  Are you the one pinning me down?”

With each question I went deeper down into the chasm, the chasm which exposed the “badlands” of my soul but there was still yet one more question to be asked.  One more question before I reached the bottom  of the chasm . . .  

“Lord, will you be my ‘wrongness’?   Will you be my ‘rejection’?”  

With that final question I knew that I had put it all on the altar and this was my “bottom line” with God.  And though I didn’t see or hear heavenly “thunder and lightening”, there was an unmistakable sense that I was being heard. No sooner had I finished asking , “Lord, will you be my ‘wrongness’?” I immediately knew the answer to the question.   I knew it like the Slumdog kid knew the answer to those first eight questions.  The answer was so simple and yet so totally mind-blowing. 

“That’s who I am for you.”

Until that moment in the closet, I knew that Jesus was the one who “takes away the sin of the world” but I did not appreciate how he does it – and how he does it for me.  I have come to discover that Jesus doesn’t bear our burdens from a remote location as though he was operating some kind of ‘cosmic crane’.  Jesus Christ does not deal with us in the abstract.  Jesus deals with us personally and therefore,  when he “takes away” our sin and our sorrow he does it by “taking it on” himself.

“Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows.” Isa. 53:4 

My desire in sharing this experience with you wasn’t to provide you with a “sweet devotional” but rather toopen a dialogue, “Who is Christ for us today?”  Biblical scholarship is a gift to the community of faith but thankfully, you don’t need a theological degree to care about this topic or engage this thread (thank God!).  You no more have to be a theologian to care about God than you need to be a botanist to enjoy flowers.  So for you churched-unchurched-lapsed-devout-mystical-skeptical-biblical-W-loving-Obama adoring-politics-loathing-young-middle-age-seniors out there, jump in and extend the thread even if it’s just a short phrase.

In my last post I sought to explore the question of identity and “usefulness.” The comments were great and I was comforted by the discovery that I’m not alone in the struggle. I would like to continue along those lines but from a little different angle, from the perspective of “privilege and power.” The following is another reflection from my personal memoirs a.k.a. “The things I think but do not (should not?) say.”

My wife and I recently watched a news show that took us “Inside the White House” – a day in the life kind of expose on the Obama’s and their staff. It was really interesting but there was this one interview that stuck with me and it wasn’t with the President or the First Lady. It was with a woman who worked in Michelle Obama’s personal office in the White House as her personal secretary. I don’t recall her name but I remember her story. She explained that while the Obama’s were campaigning in her home town she was one of the many volunteers who assisted Mrs. Obama and taxied her around town.

The woman in the interview went on to describe the day she received a phone call from Michelle Obama, who was now the First Lady, asking her to join her staff. It came as bolt out of the blue and with that one phone call, her life magically transformed – she had been given a seat in the most powerful and prestigious institution in the country, the White House. This show happened to intersect me at a unique time and forgive me for not giving more background but here was my un-edited reaction to what I just described:

“Hey Lord, I have been part of your election campaign since the day I met you. I’ve given you my best time and energy for decades now (I just turned 42). I’ve helped organize, set up and break down countless rallies and events for you. I have made thousands of phone calls, held hundreds of grass-roots meetings in my home. I’ve donated money for the cause; I’ve even traveled to other countries as your good-will ambassador. And after twenty years of working the campaign trail for you I’ve got to ask you…

How come we never win? I’m getting the feeling that you don’t really care about getting elected. But you see, Lord, the problem is I was kind of counting on it. I was hoping that after your landslide victory that you would remember me and all the hard work I’ve put in for you. I guess I’m a little burned to see that lady sitting in the White House office after just her first campaign run. I guess I’m getting tired of working the trail and never attending an inaugural ball. I guess I was hoping that when you finally took office that you’d give me a cabinet post in your administration and a seat at your right hand…I guess I was wrong.”

(I’ve had some time to reflect on the above and I’m still in the process of working it out but I just had this thought – I’m certainly not the first one to struggle with Jesus’ political power choices. Didn’t the people want to take him by force and make him king? And weren’t the disciples jockeying for position in Jesus’ administration. Love to hear your thoughts…C)

I’m new with this group – like about a week new.  I haven’t really been part of a “small group” of fellow Christians for several years now so I feel little out of my element.  My last experience with a formal group of Christians was a church that  I had planted and led for about seven years – that was a few years ago now.  

Oddly enough, the challenge for me in coming on board with New Wine has not been meeting new people – that’s actually been the easy part and the people in New Wine have been really great to me and my wife.  Being part of New Wine feels refreshing and hopeful but it also feels a little bit like déjà vu and vertigo. I’ll need to explain.  

 When I left LA in December ’07 I left it all behind…    

 I left my hometown of 40 years. I left my remodeled four bedroom house with a Jacuzzi bathtub (I now live in a little house with pealing paint). I left my circle of friends (my band of brothers), my family members including our youngest daughter, and my neighbors of ten years.  And with all of that I’ve left, I confess that the hardest thing I’ve had to leave behind has been my identity, “Pastor Chris”     

Since moving to Portland I have struggled deeply with these issues surrounding identiy, belonging and usefulness and I have been haunted by these questions:  “Will I ever be good again?” “Am I of any use?” 

I recently discovered that I am not the only one struggleing with these issues of work and soul and in fact, I’m presently sharing this foxhole with two of my new Portland friends, Jeff and Johnny.  Despite the fact that both of these guys are very skilled in their fields, Johnny and Jeff have been working for months now under the stress of impending corporate layoffs and the uncertainty of finding work in this fragile job market- John has been with his company for twenty-five years!  We have a saying among the three of us, “This affects us all, man.” 

With the help of some wonderful people, God has been gradually weaning me off a “Pastor-Chris Driven Life.” He’s teaching me to look elsewhere for my significance and identity and He’s teaching me to let go of things that I once thought I couldn’t live without. It’s a totally different way of life for me – it’s like I’ve moved to Mars. There is a haunting scene in the movie Schindler’s List that really captures the essence of what I’m talking about. I identify with the man with only one arm who is defending not only his job but his very life as he pleads with the SS officer, “But I am useful!”  (But wait, isn’t our “reason for being” as humans to serve God and be “usefull” to his kingdom?)

This region of soul I’ve just shared with you is not merely “personal” (not just for me) but it’s relational.  You see, as we continually allow God to re-orient our “reality”‘; as we learn the difference between living from Love instead of for Love; and as we learn to recieve our identity from a place of “rest” (very counter intuitive isn’t it?),  we will inevitably be confronted with this question: 

Will I now learn to love others…even the ones who don’t appear to be of any real “use” to me?  

 Your thoughts?