steps

Mickey was hunched over in his recliner, oxygen pumping into his nose.  His heavy New Yorker accent contrasted with the woodsy setting of his trailer.  He muttered responses to my questions, not sure what to do with a chaplain in the house.  And then I asked him how he had moved Asheville...

He started drinking when he was eight.  There were plenty of ways a young, fatherless boy in Brooklyn could get in trouble, and Mickey found all of them.  He dropped out of high school and was in and out of jail.  He fathered three children, but couldn't keep jobs long enough to support them.  He lived on the street.  Desperate for money to get his next drink, he accepted a bet to flash a group of tourists.  His friends thought this was a hoot.  But he got arrested for indecent exposure.  The judge was debating a 5 day jail sentence, but Mickey realized he would still be hung over when he got out.  This downward spiral couldn't last much longer.  "Help me", he said to the judge. His lawyer told him to shut up.  "Do you really want help?" asked the judge.  "Yes." said Mickey.  

"I didn't even realize it but I was making the first step in that courtroom.  I was admitting that I was powerless over alcohol - that my life had become unmanageable.  That kind judge sentenced me to a 40 day treatment facility.  It was there that I learned the next step.  I came to believe that a power greater then me could restore me to sanity.  And halfway through that detox process I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to God as I understood him."

Mickey left the home he had known for 25 years, to reconnect with his children and find steady work. It was incredibly hard to stay sober, to make amends, and to change his life.  His AA meetings twice a week became his church, his community and his life line.

"I've been sober now for 37 years. I am in contact with all my kids.  I'm at peace.  Not a day goes by where I don't think of that judge.  Guess he saw that I was desperate and willing, and he gave me another chance."

And Mickey took that chance, one step at a time, out of the ugliness and pain. One step at a time into the beauty of fresh starts and daily grace. 

extravagant welcome

At a picnic today, I listened to a man share how he and his wife had found their church.  After years at one church, they were looking for something fresh and different.  When a friend kept gushing about her church, they decided to check it out, even though it was an hour and a half from their home.  


Sitting in the new church the next weekend, this man listened to the pastor give a welcome.   "This is a church of extravagant welcome.  Whether you are old or young, conservative or liberal, gay or straight, happy or sad, every single person is welcome here."  The man turned to his wife.  "no way they are TOTALLY welcoming.  Bet you they will be preaching against someone in the next few weeks."  "I will take that bet" said his wife.  So they came back the next week.  And the next.  They have been going for seven months and have yet to find a contradiction in the weekly offer of extravagant welcome.


"It just opened my heart." The man said.  "The music is good, the preaching is interesting, solid and biblical, the people are warm...but it is the idea of extravagant welcome that was irresistible to me."


I totally got what he was saying.  Extravagant Welcome.  It fills me with the wonder of how God can be like that.  It also makes me want to kick open my doors a bit wider.  It reminds me of story after Bible story of Jesus.  It makes me feel loved and wanted and generous. 


In Karen Mains' book Open Heart, Open Home, she writes about the practices of being extravagantly welcoming in your home.  "In the dictionary the definition for hospitable is wedged between the word hospice, which is a shelter, and hospital, which is a place of healing.  Ultimately, this is what we offer when we open our home in the true spirit of hospitality.  We offer shelter; we offer healing."  


And Paul talks about how extravagant welcome happens in a spiritual sense.   
Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody..... You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.  Ephesians 2


It sounds like an adventure.  Who knows what interesting people and paths that might lead too.  I'm in!

shark shirt

Last week our elementary school hosted a Wacky Tacky day.  My boys were enthusiastic about a break from uniforms and a chance to show their creative spirits.  We combed their closets for clothes combinations that were truly disturbing.  They looked supremely tacky! (my camera phone does not adequately convey...)


Josh wore a beloved aqua button down shirt that is covered with navy sharks.  I did not buy this for him, and had successfully hidden it away for several months.  He paired with with a bright orange shark shirt, brown plaid shorts and black shoes. As we were getting ready to head out the door, Josh said "I really don't see what is tacky about this.  I think I look good!"  That is Josh in a nutshell for you.


Since that morning, Josh has worn the aqua shark shirt 6 times.  Today he wore it over a black basketball tshirt and blue basketball shorts.  He loves the way it flows out behind him when he runs.  He loves the sharks on it.  He thinks it looks cool.


Josh has always had a strong sense of personal style.  The problem, as Steve succinctly puts it - "He is stubborn and he is wrong.  A bad combination."  When Josh was three, he went through a year long phase where every outfit was topped with a baseball cap and several strands of colorful mardi gras beads.  We were more than relieved when he outgrew that.  Josh likes bright, casual clothes.  He likes his hair long and plastered straight down on his forehead.  He gets annoyed when his mother says something does not match.  He wants to wear his tennis shoes at all times so he is ready for any chance to play basketball.  


I don't want people to wonder if Josh has a mother.  I want people to see his beautiful eyes and warm smile, not be blinded by his loud color combinations.  But today I caught a glimpse of him checking himself out in the car window.  And smiling.  I love that my boy feels good about the way he looks.   So I let him wear his sharkish outfit today when we went out to eat.  I held his hand, and my head up high.   He will wear it again tonight, probably tomorrow too.


I read this wonderful Steve Jobs quote this week.  "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.  Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking.  Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice.  And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary."


Go Josh!  For beating your own drum.  For being your own person.  You inspire me.