Promise Your Presence

Dear Jacob,

Today your grandparents are celebrating their 49th year of marriage. It think they were 20 or 21 when they got married, younger than Dad and I were, which means they've been married about two and a half times as long as they ever lived as single people. This is pretty uncommon.  While divorce is currently on the decline -- thankfully -- there are still, for whatever reason, only 6% of marriages in America that make it to their 50th anniversary. So today is remarkable and marvelous.

I used to make them cakes when I was a kid. They would go out to dinner for their anniversary and my brother and I would stay home and while they were gone I'd take out a box mix, follow the directions and bake it.  The first time I ever did that, the cake was chocolate and I didn't have any frosting.  Of course, it never dawned on me that there was a way to actually make frosting. I carefully took the cake out of the pans, stacked the layers and dug through the cabinets for some stencils. When I laid them over the cake and shook powdered sugar designs across the top, it turned out just fine. I think my mom liked the gesture because the next year when they went to eat, she left a box mix out on the counter for me.

One day you'll have to sit down and ask your grandparents what their secret to a long life together is. I've never even asked them myself. I've just been the beneficiary of their commitment.  I have eyes; I can see what keeps them together.  I see that they honor one another, that he lets her lead when she's passionate about a thing and she lets him lead when life chaperones them into his place of interest and skill. Sometimes I'm wrong about their passions though. I grew up thinking Dad was a lawn guy and a tree guy.  But it turns out that Mom is less comfortable with long lawns than Dad is and Dad is also willing to cut down a perfectly good tree if it stops being as useful as it can be. I'm a mix between the two.  I love a fresh cut (short) lawn and I don't think there's ever a reason to cut down a tree.  I speak for the trees.  Leave. Them. Alone.

There's all kinds of great things about their marriage. I could get all technical and say that they brought in their own vulnerabilities that when faced with stressful events endured an adaptive process that contributed to both their marriage quality and stability.  Or I could just tell you what I see. They have fun together and I think that one of their strengths is the fact that they're just the best of friends. They do funny little spontaneous things and now that they're retired they're just so social, like I don't even know why they own a home because they're never there. They think the best of one another which, as you know, is a great indicator of love. And they share a faith that is long and vast and deep and open to that great word called forgiveness.

Grandma and Grandpa keep their arguments to themselves which means they don't let them get out of hand, don't call each other names and don't get heated and insulting. I remember a couple of times at the dinner table while I was growing up that my mom would say something and my dad would respond by saying, "Oh, TRISH!" which meant he was exasperated because I heard him do the same thing to my name plenty of times. It also felt like a bit of a signal between them that they would take that conversation to another time and place because the public argument simply stopped there.

I remember a few times when they'd be seriously discussing something and I'd yell out, "Stop fighting!" and they'd stop and look quizzically at me.  My mom would get a positive lilt in her voice and declare, "We're not fighting, we're just talking." She was right, of course, I just had to learn that a good deal of adult conversations involved sincere tones and tough decision-making. Of course, if you're curious and calculating and you want to see them get tense, have Grandma help Grandpa back up the trailer. That's pretty much your only chance to see any negativity come out between them.  Then again, you try backing up a camping trailer without running it askew the first time and tell me how much positive mojo you can muster.

I think that your grandparents have a good relationship now because they determined to do so way back in their beginning.  If you're going to love someone for over two thirds or even three quarters of your life, you're going to have to make a definite decision to do so and then stick with it. You can't know how you'll respond in every situation, but you have a lifetime to figure it out and you'll find that you just keep adding "Do's and Don'ts" to your relational checklist.  Dad and I have a few of those that we've learned over time.  Dad doesn't volunteer me for things at church and I don't hang out with him while he's fixing the car. Dad doesn't tell sexist jokes and I don't ever suggest that he take out the trash.  The toilet seat is a non-conversation for us.  Ask Dad why.

When Dad and I were engaged, he was rounding up groomsmen to be in our wedding which meant that he was reconnecting with some of the friends he'd grown up with. We each had six attendants standing with us at our wedding, largely in part because Dad wanted someone with him from every era of his life:  his brother Doug, his long-time best friend Phil, his college friend Jon, his high school friend Chris, his childhood friend Greg and his future friend, Uncle Scott. It was a nice gesture. Me, I'd have been fine with two or three friends, but your wedding day is about both of you not just the bride (tuck that away for the future, Son).

He called up Greg one day and found out that Greg was still in touch with Dad's old best friend, Scott. This was an interesting discovery for Dad. He and Scott had been friends for several years. I mean, if you wanted to find out stories about your dad, you'd need to track down Scott and ask him because he'd be equally culpable in all their near-criminal antics.  Yet, at one point Dad and Scott had a falling out and it was kind of a big deal.

Dad was dating a Girl whom I shall very nicely say, wasn't the best match for Dad.  However, Dad loved her and she was pretty though bossy (which I'm allowed to say as long as I say it nicely).  They went to church together and she cooked him steak in the microwave. So I can totally see why he dated her. Needless to say, Dad learned some things about healthy and unhealthy relationships while he was spending time with her. I don't know who broke up with who, but there came a time when they were decidedly no longer together. Pretty soon after that Scott came knocking on Dad's door and broke the first rule of The Brotherhood; he asked to date Dad's now-ex-girlfriend. That move was pretty much anathema in Dad's book of etiquette and it broke their friendship apart.  And then Scott married her quick-like and lascivious, which hurt Dad even more.

Fast forward about two years. Dad and I are engaged, planning a wedding, and he decides it's time to see about closing up this hole that's in his life from losing a best friend.  We bravely set up a triple date with Greg and his wife and Scott and the Girl. And, yes, we were very nice.

During the evening, she asked me my plans for our wedding ceremony and we compared notes on things like flowers and locations and the best places to buy dresses. It was very cordial and dare I say I was having a pleasant time.  But there were moments when she'd stop behaving and something would slip from her mouth, some criticism of her husband, some little comment that let me know the real Girl was trying hard not to let itself out.

I said something to your dad while we were mid way through our mini-golf game; something like "Thanks, Babe, " or "Yes, Sweetheart, " or another affectionate name and she actually guffawed. If she'd have had Coke in her mouth, it would have spewed out her nose. With a loud air of pretension she announced, "Oh my.  Just wait.  In six months, I promise you, you'll be calling him Butthead."  Your dad and I exchanged a glance and in that moment we declared to one another with the fire in our eyes that we would never, under threat of death or dismemberment, ever call one another Butthead.

You know what?  Twenty years later, we never have.

You have to make these choices ahead of time.  Choices to treat one another with respect and reverence. Choices about what kind of humor is appropriate, what hills you're willing to die on, what is forgivable and what is not (hint, everything is because Jesus shows us how). When you find that girl that you want to marry, you decide right then and there that divorce is not an option, that this is the person you're going to grow old with, lose your hearing with, sit next to when you get diagnosed with diabetes, build houses with, settle estates, experience baldness and survive raising adolescents with.  You decide to be glue.

When you vow your love to someone you are promising both present and future love. You're promising that you'll be attentive to and considerate of that person your wife will be busy about becoming during her 50 years by your side. You vow all your vulnerabilities to her care. You adapt because you choose to.  You forgive because it's her deepest need. And you disagree without disengaging.

Your job isn't to change her. It's to love her while she changes. Once you discover her never, ever stop.


Love,
Mom

Journey Even So

Dear Jacob,

After our first anniversary, Dad came home with a great idea. He said, "Let's go to Zion National Park and hike The Narrows." I think he had seen a photo of The Narrows hanging in my Aunt Bettye's house the day Granddad had passed away. It's a picture that would pique anyone's hiking affections: soaring striated canyon walls, a glint of sunlight on the shallow creek below, clear water running over tumbled rocks sometimes ankle deep, sometimes higher. The Narrows was a strange and wonderful sandstone gully that seemed to be the seat of serenity.

When he spoke it aloud, all his creative forces began to compose a trip that we'd never forget, as if he were God on creation day three.  Dry land + water + trees.  Done.  We went on a shopping spree for a cooler and hiking packs and water shoes as we grew more excited for our shared experience. When July 27th hit, we gassed up Dad's truck, took off toward Vegas (In N Out!) and made it to Zion by mid afternoon.

Two thunderstorms came rolling through that first night. The first was full of lightening and thunder and we laid in our little two-man tent and counted the seconds between them. We debated what the rule for lightening was: do you or don't you want to be under a tree?  The second storm was just a quiet rain that went on and on and on, proving our tent's watertight newness. While the rain didn't leak through, the condensation inside was dripping on us by morning which sent us to the campground laundromat after sunrise.

After we reset our camp, we ventured out hiking nearly a thousand feet up in the Hidden Canyon Trail. We descended, shared a lunch and then prepared for what we'd come to do. It wasn't until after lunch that we drove up the Riverwalk Trail and finally hiked into The Narrows. This was the anticipated trek of our trip. We'd waited months to stick our feet into the Virgin River, to feel the refreshing air rushing to smooth the walls. The weather could not have been more perfect. The sun came out but we were cool moving through the fresh water, working over slick sandstone. In the end, it was a walk through a beautiful canyon, but the going was slow and slick and it made my feet hurt. We were glad to have done it, but three hours later we were glad to be done.

After an evening enduring bee stings and a finger burned on the lantern cover, we awoke on the day in which we hiked into the unexpected. We chose a trail that wasn't in our itinerary, we'd only read about it the day we arrived and noted one particular word:  strenuous.  It might have been more suitable to begin this one at day break, but by ten o'clock we were on our way to Angel's Landing.

At an elevation of about 5,700 feet it was pretty demanding for we, the coastal newlyweds. It drew us in with its gradual shady beginning, but once we were invested it wasn't just hard, it was vertical. We stopped and dug out lunch and trail mix from our packs, trying to conserve our water. At this point, in the heat of the day, we considered turning back. We had far to go, but we determined to press on and were discouraged to discover that the summit was a false one. When you arrive at the top of Angel's Landing, you haven't actually arrived.

I stood from what was actually Scout Summit and gaped at the final leg of the hike, a narrow, uneven trail with chain-holds directly over a sheer cliff drop. It has probably, at some point, been the hazardous setting for some madman like Bear Grylls.  Dad was the brave one. I sat at the summit with all the other chickens and prayed for his safety, but Dad has a spry confidence and after about 40 minutes he returned unscathed.

The thing that drove us to Zion was a cool hike through a river where we could touch smooth sandstone aged by the wind. We went seeking a tranquil, playful hike where great photographers capture light and depth and contour and curve. We didn't go seeking challenge. We went seeking peace and joy in the midst of God's wonderful world. We found what we were looking for and it soothed and satisfied us.

But the hike that changed us was the one we weren't expecting. The experience that we most remember was the harrowing one, the unbelievable one, the one with danger written along its edge. All these years later, I discover that the one I wrote about in my journal wasn't the long anticipated hike into a river wonderland.  The one I gave the most space to was the hard one, and that's still where my amazement remains.

When Dad and I took you boys to Zion a couple of years ago, we started to venture into The Narrows. Forgetting just how far from the trail head the actual canyon is, we turned around at your request without ever showing it to you.  But you all could clearly could see Angel's Landing from the window of the car, that place where your parent's fears were confronted, our confidence tested, our endurance proven.  It was the place where I saw great steadiness in your dad and where my respect for him grew in mass.  We'll never forget it because we'll never be the same.

You'll make plans for a cushy kind of a life, but it will never turn out like that. Even that beautifully prepared hike left me with pummeled heels, nagging hips. Satisfaction in your life won't come from the easy occasions. Fulfillment won't be handed to you on a breezy perfect summer day. The sense of being who you've always been designed to be comes after years of following hard after that image in your head, the one that's grafted onto your heart, that speaks from within. The days of labor will produce the sentiment, not the days of luxury. The surprises shape you.

Plan to experience beauty. But tell the hard it's beautiful too.

Love,
Mom

Begin with Friends

Dear Jacob,

When we determined to plant this church Dad and I made a mistake.

Our first move was to instantly provide teaching and shepherding.  Because that's who we are.  Because that's what our friends needed.  Because that's what we knew how to do.  We set up church in our backyard for a month.  We set up church inside our home at Christmastime. We heard people's expressed needs and we met them. It doesn't sound like a mistake at all.

What we did was set ourselves up to be providers of religious goods and services. We offered a way for people to come and get something, instead of empowering them to give and become something. We kind of floated on the crest of a wave we had just come from and surfed it all the way to the beach.  But we almost ended up in the rocks.

Something has to happen before you call people a church. There has to be a foundation.  There has to be a commitment to unity, to the story you're telling, to the mission you envisage. There can't just be content and experience, subject and sense. There are plenty of churches that just offer content and experience. Maybe there's a service that teaches crucial themes, maybe there's music that moves the heart in a space that motions the soul toward God. That's a great assistance to people, but it's not a church.

So we revamped. We listened to our partners. We set ourselves in a more vulnerable place. Instead of inviting people to a thing, we've invited them into a relationship, into a friendship that forms a family. Which, of course, means that instead of using our strengths we are beginning by building up our weaknesses.

I tend to be a leader of relational extremes. I adore being around people who are the healthiest version of themselves, who need nothing from me, who can laugh at the world and give me some grins right along with them. But if there isn't an entertaining person in the room, I start to feel like I have to become her.  I also love being around people who are unhealthy versions of themselves, who need something sincere and candid and perceptive from me. I start to get nervous when I can't identify an unhealthy person in the room because then it assume that it must be me.  I tend toward taking and then I swing toward giving.  Balancing the two is where I feel exposed.

Because I'm always seeking out the amusing or the aching, engaging with the people in-between all of that leaves me in a peculiar gray area we call friendship.  In-between all of that there are the relationships that entail both give and take. Of course, it's the in-between where you find your truest friends, the ones who can take your junk and your joy and not unequivocally define you as either thing. Friends are the people who can give you space and not take it personally thinking that your need for space is really your need for space from them. Friends are the people who can live with that tension that gray simply is.  It's not sunny, but it's not cold; it's not full, but it's not empty. Friends flex.

As we establish this church we're developing a core of trust before we move into evenings of rich teaching and spiritual experiences. We're making space for a community of friends to open themselves up to one another, to the laughter and the letdown, to the abundance and the scarcity, to the hope and the doubt. There's been dog-sitting and kid-swapping. There's been private dinners and meals all-together. We show up for one another, when we have a sadness, a birthday, a day to go skiing, a tough encounter, a marital question, a new business venture. In time, they'll be the people who are the guests at a thirteenth birthday, a law school graduation, and a some-day baby shower. These are the people we'll live life with for a while.

Friendship isn't the only thing that makes a church a church, but it's the ultimate level of living a missional life. Friendship isn't pity, isn't altruism, isn't fixing someone, isn't even following someone around because you see God at work in them. Friendship is a side-by-side refusal to objectify a person and to simply see them for what they are: image of God and human flesh.  It's a grace-giving mutuality. It's a provision of hospitality. And hospitality is the context for the gospel.  See where this is going?

Without these relationships our idea of planting a church would be an empty, task-oriented endeavor.  Some churches are focused on their program, or their reputation or their evangelistic number-counting.  All of those  focuses have the potential of shipwrecking a faith and a fold. We want to be a church that's centered on love, on talking to one another with depth and grace, on being God-bearing restorers, on growing together. We have to begin from a place of trust.  We have to begin with friends.

You will undertake many things in life that will require all of your breath and hope and strength.  Hard things. One day you'll start your own business, court a wife, and even settle my estate. Don't begin from a place of producing.  Begin from a place of listening.  Don't begin by thrusting your wares on a wary culture.  Begin by learning the language.  Don't begin with a structure, begin by investing in relationships that will carry you and stretch you and cast you out into the best rendition of who you were made to be.

When we lean on friends that we trust, support, respect and accept, we're using our strengths to build up our weaknesses because we'll break that trust, we'll be a fool, we'll forget to listen and we'll need to be forgiven. This is the building block for everything good: whatever you begin, begin with friends.

Love,
Mom

Invest in Your Community

Dear Jacob,

Dad took his truck in today to see why it's wobbling a little. It turns out the tires aren't fully circular.  I think that means we're getting four new tires. This makes me cringe and yet smile. I cringe because I know that's a big price tag and we're living on savings a bit right now.  But I smile because if that's the way God wants us to spend his money, then that's just fine. I could have thought of something more exciting, but I'm not going to argue with God about his spending habits.

Right after we moved here one of our cars had its own version of elevation sickness and one day it just stopped working like it had a migraine and it wasn’t going to even attempt to go out that day. We had a chaotic evening in a gas station lot trying to figure out why in the world more gas wouldn’t solve its problem, stuffing sub sandwiches into the back seat for you guys and finally having to trust the tow truck driver’s recommendation for his friend’s tire shop. You never know what you’re getting into on a stranger’s suggestion but when he has your car chained to his truck bed, cigarette hanging from his bottom lip and the only people you can think to call are the guys you moved here to work with -- from whom you’ve already requested 200 favors over the friend limit -- you just go with it. It turned out, according to the tire guy, to need a small adjustment. I mean, he literally turned a greasy screw and changed our car’s life. I think we paid him $30 just because it seemed right that we should give him something and we were on our way. 

I have tried to live this past decade with a local mentality. I keep my business in my neighborhood.  Meaning, I won’t drive to North Denver so you guys can play flag football even when you were scholarshipped for a free session. I don’t ask friends for their recommendations for dentists, pediatricians, salons or bakeries because they’ll suggest them all over the map and for me the very best one will be no more than five blocks away. I choose to shop at the grocery that’s closest (even if there’s more “rif-raf,” as one unenlightened friend put it) because it’s close, yes, but they also hire people with disabilities to bag the groceries. I go to the little local libraries and trust inter-library loan to do its job when I need something they don’t carry. The rec center, my dentist, your first eye doctor are all at the east end of our neighborhood along a wooded bike trail.  

We moved to Denver from Portland, Oregon just about the time Denver was rated the 49th best city to live in in America. It's not like Portland though. One of the things we loved about Portland was its commitment to community. Driving through the Alberta Arts district or Sellwood or Rose City you see little storefronts with fruit stands, eye doctors, Pho, bike repair shops and dog washing hotels. You don’t have to wonder how they stay in business because it’s inherent in the culture that those neighbors will give them all the business they need. They’ll learn their names, talk about their kids and invite each other to their passion-of-the-moment lectures. Portland taught me to be a good neighbor and that if I had to drive eleven miles for the very best coffee shop then I was really missing the point of being a Portlander.  So, I still try to still be a Portlander. I just live in Denver.

We're in this position frequently enough, taking the cars to the shop. As a result we got to know our mechanic, Jim, who owned a shop on the next street over through the neighborhood to the north.  Because Jim was seriously a block away it was very easy to put these beasts in neutral and push them over there when we needed to; Dad would push and I would steer. Which is what we did the first time we had a real problem. And what we did a year ago, twice, when the motherboard in the van fried.

I think he knew that we were coming to him with every little windfall check we received -- escrow overages, insurance refunds, tax returns -- they all seemed to have Jim's name in the memo line. When money drops out of the sky we don’t fool ourselves into thinking that we can get ahead or that we can send you kids to something snazzy called college. We look at where our boat is leaking and plug the hole.  Jim helped with this.  He was the kind of mechanic that wouldn't fix something unless it really needed to be fixed. Breaks are squeaking? Don’t worry about it, there’s enough left on the pads yet. He could fix that other thing, but it really doesn’t need to be done yet. And you might think about replacing the tires in the next few months. No rush. 

I appreciated that about Jim. He really seemed to want to help. I remember we'd take the van to him in the morning and then walk to our coffee shop to work on school while we waited for it. One time, when Jim was done with it, he walked over, ordered himself a coffee, sat down with us, handed me my keys and said, "So, how's life?"  Jim was a true dude. 

Dad left this morning with his truck and our tax return and my instruction to try not to spend all the money. He called me a little later saying that it just was what it was and we'd need to spend more than we thought. I’ll take it and claim “abundantly more than we can ask or imagine” anyway.  However, today he didn't go to Jim because Jim is gone. 

The last time Dad took a car to Jim it was to fix our intake manifold, which had some nasty leak and was somehow connected to why I didn’t have heat for about a year. Dad first thought it was a thermostat issue and spent $10 replacing that himself on a cold day in mid-winter Colorado. I adore him for trying so hard to spend our money well. But I just might love him more when he assents to letting the mechanic diagnose and repair the problem. At least I do when my hands are freezing to the steering wheel. The intake manifold turned into a whole host of problems in the cooling system and we pretty much spent that winter at Jim's shop, to visit our money.

At the end of that process Dad called me one day and sad, “Jim’s gone. He sold the shop.” And then he unfolded a wonderful story that sounded an awful lot like selling everything and following Jesus. As far as I know, Jim is currently in Texas helping others build and rebuild things. He put what he had into an RV and took off to be a light in the world. I’m amazed that a guy my age could manage to do something so heroic and I'm so honored to have been a patron for a guy with a heart like that. 

I'm also pretty satisfied that our commitment to community, in part, funded his passion that in turn rekindled my commitment to keep investing in this place where God’s planted me. When we go out to eat, I try to stay close to the house. When I call for your orthodontist consultation, I'm going to call the guy who's in the same building as my dentist. And the coffee shop behind the house will forever be our second office. 

The new shop owner’s name is Joe. Joe isn't exactly like Jim and so we've priced some jobs out to other shops as a result.  But I know that if something goes really wrong, I can slide the van into neutral and get it to a shop that has a legacy of leaps of faith, risk taking adventure and community care.  That's something I can get behind.

Pay attention to the kinds of things you're supporting. It matters to lives that are other than your own.

Love,

Mom