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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?

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The Boy Who Woke Up (or, How Ann Voskamp Ruined My Evening)

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Last night, I woke up.

Not literally. Maile and I had just left a graduation party for my wonderful sister where we stuffed ourselves with delicious food and arrived home with four fewer children than usual. My parents had graciously swept in and offered to keep the older four overnight, so the home we came back to was quieter than normal, less scattered. Normally, if we arrive home after eight o’clock, I’m shouting “Brush your teeth!” and “Get your pj’s on!” and “Sammy, seriously, brush your teeth!” Last night it was just silence, and there was a spirit of peace. I felt like I had walked into Saint James Episcopal Church, alone.

I opened the windows and put a fan in one of them. Cool, muggy air swept through the house, along with the sounds from James Street, the sound of cars swishing along wet roads, the sound of a world where rain had just fallen. It was a welcomed respite. A reprieve from this life that has somehow spiraled out of control lately with busy-ness and running here and there and chasing something, always chasing something crucial. I can’t always remember what we’re chasing, but we keep at it because that’s the Responsible thing to do.

Those things, that busy-ness, it will do to you what you least expect – it will put you to sleep. It will close your eyes to the things that are most important in the world. It will put you on a track of ever-shrinking concentric circles until all you’re doing is turning inside of yourself, like Gollum turning his ring over and over.

I sat on the sofa and sighed, tired from all the chasing. Maile took Leo upstairs and fed him, put him in his crib. She came downstairs in her pajamas and went to the kitchen for something to drink. Finally, a night where we could breathe. Watch a movie. Zone out.

I turned my eyes to my phone, as I tend to do these days in an ever-increasing search for distraction. It’s the cycle: Chase, Chase, Chase, Distract, Distract, Distract. Ann Voskamp posted something, something about those trying to survive ISIS, something with “Please read this!” attached, and because I was in distraction mode, I read it.

And it woke me up.

Please read it. Please read it in all its horrific detail, all its everything. I had tears in my eyes from the moment I started reading it until twelve hours later when I still didn’t know what to do and so I read it again. Maile and I sat in the living room and read parts out loud to each other and cried some more. Then we woke up this morning and, because the kids were still at my parents, we read it again.

I feel suddenly awake to the world. I want to do something to help, something, anything. I don’t know what. I hope I can figure out what to do before I go back to sleep again. I’m scared about that. I’m scared that the bills and the activity and the Busy-ness will put me back to sleep. I’m awake, for one screaming day, and it hurts, you know? We don’t create these little sleeps, these little distractions, for no reason – they anesthetize us, make us feel good, help us to forget. These activities and jobs and television shows keep the days spinning by, and soon the kids are in college and the house is paid off and we’re looking into retirement packages because we’ve worked so hard, you know, and now we deserve some rest.

But every once in a while you wake up and you feel it. You get a sense, such a small sense, of the pain the world is feeling, and it scorches you, moves straight for your heart, leaves you gasping. My initial reaction is to pull away from that pain, to drown myself in this chasing, this busy-ness. I want to fade away, to binge-watch a new show on Netflix or maybe one I’ve already seen. Breaking Bad was good the first time – I could probably get another three months’ worth of distraction out of that one. I want to focus on paying the bills, working a few more hours, getting the kids to their lessons and their grandparents’ house and keeping them distracted, too. Lord knows we don’t want our children to wake up. Heaven forbid.

Now that I’m awake, part of me wants to go back to sleep.

But not now. Now I’m awake, and I want to do something. I send out a message to everyone I know who works internationally, and that’s what I say. That’s what I try to shout. “I want to do something!”

But it came out as only a whisper. It turns out I haven’t used that voice for a long time. Too long. It’s dry and parched. I drink in Ann’s article again and I try to shout.

“I want to do something!”

And I wait.

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That Thing I Love About My Church

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I am new to this mainline church experience, this liturgy, this Book of Common Prayer. My children and I still gawk at the stained glass on Sunday mornings when the sun explodes on the other side of those angels and saints. I take the wafer every Sunday with a little bit of nervousness, a little bit of uncertainty. I still hold the cup like an egg that might break.

We have been at this wonderful place, St. James Episcopal Church, for almost a year now. And there’s always been something about it that I liked but couldn’t quite verbalize.

Until Holy Week.

We talk a lot about the problems we have with The Church in general, but this week I’m heading up a series over at The High Calling about what our churches do well. In the rest of this blog post, I reveal one of my favorite things about St. James Episcopal Church – you can read that HERE. (Stay tuned next Sunday for my absolute favorite thing.)

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Can You Believe You Will Not Crawl Away From This, But Fly?

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Photo Credit: “Chrysalis to Butterfly (#3 of 5)”, © 2012 Sid Mosdell, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

And just when I’m struggling with this in-between phase of life, images fall around me like raindrops.

Maile shared this beautiful one with me the other morning:

“Are caterpillars told of their impending resurrection? How in dying they will be transformed from poor earth-crawlers into creatures of the air, with exquisitely painted wings? If told, do they believe? Is it conceivable to them that so constricted an existence as theirs should burgeon into so gay and lightsome a one as a butterfly’s? I imagine the wise old caterpillars shaking their heads – no, it can’t be; it’s a fantasy, self-deception, a dream. Similarly, our wise ones. Yet in the limbo between living and dying, as the night clocks tick remorselessly on, and the black sky implacably shows not one single streak or scratch of gray, I hear those words: I am the resurrection and the life, and fell myself to be carried along on a great tide of joy and peace.”

– Malcolm Muggeridge

I was sitting at my desk when I read that one. I stared at the book for a few extra moments. Outside my window, the sounds of the city. Normal sounds. Mundane sounds. Certainly nothing that would herald the kind of transformation Muggeridge is talking about here.

If told, do they believe?

Because that’s really the question. I’ve been told that this death, this darkness, will always come before a resurrection, but do I believe it? Do I believe that this cramped space will suddenly open up, that this discomfort is not something I’ll crawl away from but something I’ll fly away from? Do I believe that I can be remade, not just into a better caterpillar, but some new creature entirely?

If told, do they believe?

I believe. Help my unbelief.

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When You’re Self-Employed Without the Employed Part

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It feels like an in-between time, and I have to be honest: I’ve never been good at these. Give me the excitement of something new, just beginning. Give me the long, hard work that comes between the start and the end. Give me the ending, the sadness, the victory, whatever.

But this time between the ending of something and the beginning of something else? This stalled-out floating down held breath, I could do without it.

We sort of saw this coming from a little ways off, when all of my existing projects started ending. I’m still wrapping up a few things, but with nothing new in sight, life feels very stalled. You know? When you’re self-employed but the employed part is sort of waning, it gives you a lot of time to wonder.

What’s next?

* * * * *

We were supposed to be on a grand book tour right now, but because of the lack of projects we’ve had to really scale it back. My wonderful friends Kristin Potler and Andi Cumbo plus the folks at The Corner Coffee Shop, the Pequea Valley Library, and Aaron’s Books have hosted some great events for The Day the Angels Fell, and I’ll be hitting Albuquerque soon, plus maybe a few other cities. I’ll be doing a two-Sunday series for our church forum at St. James on April 26th and May 3rd.

But the main question still remains. How will we make a living in the coming months?

We’ve been here before, Maile and I. We know how it feels to tighten the belts, reign in the expenses, hunker down until the next spate of work arrives. We know what it’s like to get creative in order to make money. I recently started a bakery stand and Maile’s applied for a job at a local organic market. I actually don’t feel worried at all (that’s what worries me sometimes – my lack of concern). We know it’s time to settle into this strange place of trusting God, waiting, believing that things will come around, as they always do.

* * * * *

So what have I been up to in this time of waiting? Here’s a short list:

– Listed Building a Life Out of Words for free on Noisetrade Books and gave away 750 copies in exchange for email addresses.
– Reached the 1500-copies-sold mark for The Day the Angels Fell!
– Finished painting The Bookshelf.
– Finished writing the first draft of the sequel to The Day the Angels Fell (tune in Monday to help me narrow down the title options).
– Answered a few questions over at my Goodreads Author page.
– Dropped off more copies to sell at Aaron’s Books in Lititz, PA.
– Got my first 1-star review of The Day the Angels Fell (but then I looked at the person’s profile and they gave All the Light We Cannot See 2 stars, and that was a brilliant book, so I felt better).

* * * * *

I guess what I’m trying to say in way too many words is that even though life is a little hard right now, and things aren’t clear, and I sometimes feel stuck in between…life is still good. I look at my wife and my kids and this cool house we’ve got and the mini-garden we’re trying to grow and I think I’ve been given way more than I deserve, way more than I ever could have imagined. And I know the work will come in when the work comes in. And I know the money thing will be fine.

Seriously.

Take that into your weekend with you, if you can. Know that it will be okay. Whatever it is.

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When Sam Washed His Little Brother’s Feet (or, Rediscovering a Kindness That Brings Down Barriers)

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Have you ever washed someone’s feet? Have you ever poured water over someone’s soles, felt the callouses on their heels, dried their feet with a clean towel? Have you ever put your shoes on after someone else has washed your feet?

On Maundy Thursday, we were invited to come up as a family and wash each other’s feet. Nervous shuffling ensued. The kids went first, gentle and uncertain. Then Maile and I. It’s a strangely intimate experience. There’s a tenderness there, and barriers are lowered, barriers that you aren’t aware you even have as you go about your normal life. But when you take off your shoes and someone handles your feet, your stinky, dirty feet, I don’t know. Walls come down.

I looked over as my five-year-old son Sammy washed the feet of his younger brother, nine-month-old Leo. Sam was so eager, and he grinned the entire time, spilling the water, looking up at us for approval, looking up at us to make sure he was doing it right. On the wall behind him, a painting of the crucifixion.

* * * * *

 “Jesus poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

* * * * *

Kindness, so often seen as weak or insufficient, is sorely missing from the Christian community in this country. We insist on our rights…to own guns, to have one’s opinion heard, to refuse service, to retaliate.

We demand to have what’s coming to us! What’s rightfully ours!

But the voices we use to fight for our own rights are too often louder than the voices we use to speak on behalf of the hurt and suffering people. Those whose voices are overlooked. Those who need us to speak on their behalf.

What I see in that beautiful passage where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples is a kindness that is blind to its own rights, a kindness that serves first, a kindness that makes less of oneself in order to bring down the barriers between individuals. Jesus had every right in the world to ask his disciples to wash his feet, and they would have fought each other for the honor.

But he didn’t ask them to wash his feet. He asked them to let him wash their feet.

* * * * *

Believe me when I say that my little son Sammy is the king of demanding his rights – he has to be. He is number four of five and would probably be overlooked a lot if he did not speak with a loud voice. But what I saw in his eyes when he washed his younger brother’s feet was a beautiful timidity, a soft kindness, and an eagerness to serve.

Somehow, we need to rediscover this. Kindness needs to be resurrected here, in all of us.