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When God Doesn’t Care That We Are Perishing

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“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

* * * * *

I cannot fault those who look at the pain and ugliness of this world and doubt the existence of God. How can I fault them, when I have the same doubts? Look around. Every day, more human beings drown in the Mediterranean, fleeing cruelties and nightmares I can barely imagine. Every day, more people, trying to live a simple life, lose everything. Every day, people of color in this country !the land of the free and home of the brave! suffer under racism, sometimes unto death.

Even in my own small patch of life, it too often feels like the storms will consume me along with those I love. Cancer, finances, divorce, failure, sickness.

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Too often, it doesn’t seem like he does.

* * * * *

Jesus on land? I would have loved to follow that Jesus. On land he preached beautiful sermons and climbed mountains and turned water into wine. Yes, please. Party on and pass the Merlot.

On land, Jesus fed 5,000 people with a little boy’s lunch box. On land, Jesus overturned tables of injustice and put self-righteous religious leaders in their place. I especially would have loved following him while he did that, when he told those judgmental old roosters where they could shove their rules. You whitewashed tombs! You maggoty graves!

I would have been right there behind him, nodding my head, maybe even giving him an “Amen!”

But Jesus on water?

The Jesus who scared the bejeezus out of his followers by appearing as a ghost on the water, the same Jesus who asked ordinary men to get out of the boat and walk on the swells? The Jesus who suggested, after an entire night of fishing and nothing to show for it, they throw their nets on the other side?

The Jesus who fell asleep while at sea, a storm threatening to destroy them all?

If I would have been a disciple of Jesus in those days, at some point I would have stopped following him into the water. Jesus is heading for a boat? So long, guys. I’ll be the one over here giving up everything I own as long as I can stay on dry land.

But they did follow him out onto the water, time and time again. And, surprise surprise, he was sleeping when the storm arrived. Which led to the disciples asking that poignant question, the one I want to ask so many times:

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

* * * * *

Those of you who visit this tiny part of the blogosphere know better than to expect any easy answers from me. But this week at church, Father David challenged us to sit with that verse, and that’s what I’ve been doing.

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

And no answers have come.

Except I did notice something. When the disciples woke Jesus up from what was probably a perfectly good nap, he did not rebuke them – he rebuked the wind and the waves. And while their question struck right at the heart of his identity, calling into question his very love for them, he did not get upset. He didn’t even answer the question. Instead, as he so often does, he replied to their question with two of his own.

“Why are you so afraid?” he asked them. “Why do you still have no faith?”

My focus shifts, and I sit with those questions, the kind nature in which they were asked. When I ask the question the disciples asked, I suddenly realize Jesus is asking me the questions he asked them in return.

Why am I so afraid? Where is my faith?

These are not questions I can answer easily, but they are worth pondering.

Why am I so afraid? Where is my faith?

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Into the Silence

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My Father’s Day gift from Maile this year is 48 hours of silence. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time now, get out into a cabin without my phone, without my computer, without any books to read or things to hide behind. I’ll take a journal and a pen, some hiking clothes and some food and a sleeping bag.

I want to watch the leaves rustle in the summer heat. I want to see the sun come up. I want to walk a trail and then stop and sit there for thirty minutes without checking my phone. These phones! These distractions!

Have you ever taken a moment to see what everything is distracting you from, what’s behind these facades we put up without even thinking?

I need this right now. I need to unplug and go into the silence. I feel that at some recent point in time I lost my writing, I lost my purpose. There was a period in my life when I spent time every day sitting in silence, and it was so refreshing. I learned so much about myself, often scary things, like the fact that I stuff a lot of anger down or that there are people I’ve never forgiven (not you). But there were good things, too, truths about myself, truths about what I wanted. Sitting in silence, removing all the distractions, allows these things to float to the surface.

What comes in the wake of silence are moments of true peace. Letting go. Opening up to God and finding myself moving with the natural rhythms of life instead of trying. to. force. open. every. door.

48 hours isn’t a very long time, in the grand scheme of things, but I’m hoping it will prove to be the first strikes of a wrecking ball that might just bring down the parts of this crumbling house that need to go. If I come to mind at some point in the next few days, pray for me?

See you soon.

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When I Made My Dad Cry (or, Stopping Time)

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Legend has it
my dad (who was the age I am now)
dropped me off at college
then cried the whole way home
watering the length of the overpriced
Pennsylvania turnpike with his
salty tears

While that is probably
an exaggeration
or perhaps he was weeping
at the price of the toll
there is still something about
your children growing up
that causes a deep longing
for the days to stop

When Leo takes halting steps
across the kitchen
I want to rise up
stand on my chair
and call out like Joshua
in the hopes that doing so
will keep the sun from moving

These days are gifts
the kind that wear you out
the kind that leave you exhausted
and drinking large mugs of coffee
at four in the afternoon
but these days are still gifts
the kind you want to hold on to
and sip on a little later

But no good comes of stopping
time or trying to reign it in
because these days will grow cold
if we don’t drink them down now

So once again I walk peacefully into
the river the water the current
and it carries me along
to a place where time is nothing
more than one moment after
another

or perhaps time is a road
where the toll we pay
is a heavy one
and there will be some mile markers
that we water
with our tears

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Sirens and the Weight of a Boy at 4am

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i’m stretched out on the floor
at 4am and the almost-one-year-
old on my chest bears a particular
heaviness the weight of a life
the weight
of a moment that is here
precisely
when it should be

his lips are thin and soft
his closed eyes pale ovals reflecting
the night light on the wall
behind us        his breath is warm
and slow and heavy and so
crucial
to everything
crucial
to every moment

outside on james street a siren
rises from a distance        closer
closer
screaming through the window
screen through the rain through
the two of us and even through
the small curls that form locks
around my son’s ears     then the siren
fades
carries someone’s moment away

leaving me there
on the floor at 4am in the yellow
burn of a night light
my small son sleeping on my chest
and i’m wondering how i got here
in this very moment

i think
on these things and before
I can disentangle myself
from that moment
that life
that universe
the rain starts up again
heavy and deliberate
and i

i

i am sleep
once
again

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Seven Things You Should Know About the Sequel to “The Day the Angels Fell”

cover010-e1416195041963Sometime this week, I’ll do it.

I’ll open up the Scrivener file for the sequel to The Day the Angels Fell and I’ll start the next round of revisions. Of course, I still have normal, paying projects to work on so I’ll be doing these revisions in the early or late hours of the day. But I’m really looking forward to it – I haven’t even glanced at the manuscript for a few months. It will be fun to be back in Deen (and New Orleans, and…the Edge of Over There) with Abra.

For those of you who enjoyed the first book, here are some things about the sequel you might want to know:

1) The title is The Edge of Over There.*

2) Right now it’s hovering around 80,000 words, which is pretty close to the length of The Day the Angels Fell.

3) Abra and Sam are no longer close friends. In fact, Abra kind of steals the show in this one. Which my son Sammy won’t be happy about, because his standard comment about the first book was, “And guess what? I’m the main character!”

4) I’ll be independently publishing and offering the book for preorder through Kickstarter. I decided to use Kickstarter again for a number of reasons: the Kickstarter campaign for the first one was so successful (you guys funded it in two days!!!); it’s a great way to cover the publishing costs (which, if you want to put together a professional book, isn’t a cheap proposition); and it’s one of the easiest ways I can, as an independent publisher, offer the book for preorder.

5) I’ll be looking for folks to help me launch the book later in the fall. If you’re willing to help with that (basically by helping me spread the word with your friends and family and total strangers on the internet and in person via email, FB status updates, Twitter, and megaphone shouting in the subway), let me know in the comments or by clicking the Contact button at the top of the page and sending me a short message to that affect.

6) If you support the Kickstarter campaign at a certain level (I haven’t decided which one yet), you’ll receive a short-story that reveals some VERY interesting information about Sam’s mom. And Abra’s mom, too. Listen folks – they’re not who you think they are.

7) I had so much fun writing this book. I can honestly say, along with John Steinbeck, “Even if I knew that nothing would emerge from this book, I would still write it.”

So there you have it. I hope at least a few of you are looking forward to the sequel as much as I am.

Here’s a question for you…what are your thoughts on me using Kickstarter to release the sequel? Does it feel okay to you? Does it feel icky in any way? Is it something you’d consider supporting or are you all like, “Um, yeah, already gave you money Smucker so hit the road…” Comment on this in the comments section and I’ll send out a free paperback copy of The Day the Angels Fell to one lucky winner because I’d really like to know your honest opinion.

*I initially announced the title for the sequel last week in my newsletter, the one I email out every couple of weeks. If you’d like me to let you know about that kind of fun stuff (newsletter subscribers will be the first folks to see the cover for the new book), you can sign up for the newsletter at the top right of this page. It’s painless. And you can unsubscribe anytime if it starts to feel spammy.

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The Problem With Being Born Again

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It seems to me that if we are going to go around calling ourselves Christians, we have to wrestle a bit more with this whole idea of being born again. While I do not remember my own birth, I’ve seen at least five babies enter the world, and let me tell you: being born is not something I’d like to have to go through again, ever. No one seemed to be entirely happy with the situation: not the one being born, and not the one giving birth (which makes me wonder how much pain we put God through while undertaking this whole process, but that’s a different post for a different day).

When I was little, I equated being “born again” with going up front and giving my heart to Jesus, because that’s what good little boys did in our pentecostal evangelical church. I felt pretty good on the way home from those revivals. Something felt cleaner, like I had gotten a new start.

The thing is, I went up to “get saved” way more than once. Again and again, in fact. And in the past I’ve credited that continued visitation to the front of the church as a reflection of my fear of going to hell. Maybe I got saved so many times because I wanted to make sure it stuck. Now? I’m not so sure that was the reason.

In fact, I think childhood Shawn went up front so many times, not because of a fear of damnation, but because I couldn’t quite believe that was it. I couldn’t quite believe that all Jesus wanted of me was a short walk to the front of the church. And as I’ve grown older, that conviction has strengthened. I’m not talking about getting into heaven anymore; I’m talking about the answer to the question, “How now shall we live?”

Because I think when Jesus spoke of being born again, he was talking about a journey that included much more than walking from the back of the church to the front. I think he was talking about much more than saying a simple prayer. I’ve seen births. I’d imagine Jesus saw one or two during his day. There’s nothing easy, nothing painless, about being born the first time – why would a second birth be any less challenging?

If you’re a Christian and you feel like there’s more to this life, that’s because there is. God doesn’t want us to only say a prayer or walk through meaningless rites of passage. No, he wants to introduce us to a new life, a kind of life we can’t even imagine right now. Can a baby envision the world as we now know it while it’s still swimming in amniotic fluid? Can it imagine the colors, the sensations, the smells?

The passage will be difficult. The new life terrifying. The separation from our old ways will be alarming. But it’s not called being born again for nothing. It all reminds me of the question my son asked me right before he went up to be baptized.

“How long will they hold me under, Dad?”

Sometimes it feels like that. Sometimes it feels like God is holding me under. The main question is, what kind of a creature will I be when I emerge? What kind of life waits for me on the other side of the birth canal?