Yes, I am an a**hole

I've been under a bit of stress lately.  I got hired by a company that gave me very unspecific direction about "blending in" but also "helping to maximize the store" and "winning the hearts" of the staff.  So I've been doing my best to be the perfect employee at this tiny little cafe.  Problem is, it worked, and now, less than a month later, they want to promote me to be the manager at the cafe on Duke's campus.  I'm freaking out.  Inside.

[Side note: The other day I was trying to find Walmart to take back some sh*tty  piece of junk I bought there and I got lost.  And when I get lost, I. GET. LOST.  I was so lost that at one point I had to switch which side of the road I was driving on.  Hyuck. Hyuck.  But seriously, I was lost for about an hour and a half, I went through 6 different cities, and when I finally came back to civilization, I was so frustrated and mad and I just tried to bottle it, but it all came out the next day when I was supposed to meet Julie for *ahem* chapel.]

Julie told me to meet her at the chapel at 11 am.  Easy enough, right?  Wrong.  I get to Duke at 10:50 and can't find a place to park, so I call Julie.  She doesn't answer.  I drive all the way around the school. It is now 11.  I call Julie again, no answer.  Still can't find a place to park, it is now 11:15am.  She calls me, because she only just got out of class, and I'm pissed.  Everything from my expedition to Mars the day before is coming out, and I say something a**hole-like, to the regards of "YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO HAVE YOUR PHONE ON.  You disappoint me."  We have a number of miscommunications from here on out, and we get so mad that we don't go to chapel after all.  I would hate to have brought all that negative energy into such a place of peace!

I realized, after about 20 min of self-righteous anger directed at my poor wife (who just wanted to go to chapel with me) that I was completely in the wrong and I was just having a really hard time expressing my frustration at my terrible sense of direction and all of the stress of potentially being a manager had been building up-- and I decided I needed to get her some flowers and QUICK.

It's hard work discovering you're an asshole (sorry, I ran out of **s).  It's much easier to just think that you are always thinking of everyone else's best interests and that you are always good and kind and generous.  But now that I know that when it comes down to it, I still only think of myself- my need to vent and be angry at someone that has nothing to do with why I'm angry--  it's kind of pathetic.  Humbling.  The man I want to be would never have snapped like that. The man I want to be would have felt the boiling frustration early on- would have called it out for what it was, take a deep breath, and then speak to my wife in loving tones.  Sigh.

Thanks for hearing my confession.

Love,
Tim

"Hierarchy is the skeleton of the church"

I don't get the benefit of going to a nice divinity college like Duke because I am not smart enough to hack it.  I barely limped along as a Youth Ministry student at a small struggling Bible school in glorious Redding, CA.  But I DO get the benefit of being married to a brilliant scholar who is currently attending Duke's Divinity program.

Julie said she had a class that discussed the hierarchy of the church as being its "skeleton of love."  The hierarchy helps to focus our love- to retain it from "going out of control."  She gave an example of a time before the canon was formed in which a man who called himself a Christian wanted to scrap the entire Old Testament altogether and leave it out of the Bible.  To be honest, it might be a whole lot less confusing to only have 27 books to read and study instead of 66 (or 73 if you're Catholic?), but I guess I am glad that they punted that guy.  The Old Testament shows so much of the rawness of following God, the way God moves throughout different cultures in different lands, and the way He has stayed by His people despite the numerous times they have betrayed Him.

BUT MY POINT is that some people view a church's hierarchy as being one of gentle, loving, protection against heresy, and I do not find it as such.  Maybe on the sunniest of spring mornings, with the fresh smell of flowers and the angelic sounds of birds chirping in perfect harmony-- perhaps only then could I see a Christian hierarchy fitting that description.  On its more typical days, hierarchy is like a medieval knight of the round table's clunky suit of armor that constricts and limits any sort of true love or discipleship.

Granted, I am a West Coaster- we tend to be a little flighty, a little less distrusting, a little more "follow your heart", yada yada.  But I just can't seem to shake loose those scenes with Christ when people come up to him and try to get him to nail down a pecking order or a system of dogmatics or ANY SORT OF ORGANIZATIONAL THEME and he instead takes their mind for a spin.  Remember James and John's mother trying to get on Jesus' left and right side in heaven (he said no)?  Remember the whole "working on the Sabbath" fiascos (Jesus destroyed the contemporary church leader's rules)?  Remember all of those "The Kingdom of heaven is like ..." that mentioned nothing in the way of Elders or Bishops or overseers?  Or how about in the Old Testament when Israel wanted a religious King to lead them like the other countries nearby and God said, "No, you shouldn't do that" but they wanted it anyway and so God said ok and they elected Saul cuz he was the tallest and he basically turned into a raving lunatic that tried to kill his successor?

It is my humble and boisterous opinion that the hierarchies that Christian men and women have made for themselves have sprung up out of fears of the unknown and desires for control over one another rather than a "loving skeleton."  Love that is based off of a skeleton is just that: DEAD.  Too many good men and women have been trampled by these skeletons of hierarchy.  Too many children have suffered under its veils of secrecy and "don't question the Lord's church!"

The strongest argument against my views is someone who says, "yeah, but you're suggesting total chaos!  There has to be some kind of order!!"  And to that I nod and say, "Okay, here's an order that is approved by Christ: The last is first and the first is last."  The POINT IS THAT IT DOESN'T OFTEN MAKE SENSE, especially when we are focused on the wrong thing.  If we are serving side by side and witnessing the saving, redeeming power of Christ, who needs someone to say, "Yeah, but who is the servant who gets to tell all the other servants what to do?"  or "What happens when somebody doesn't serve as much as the others?  Who is going to tell him to serve more??"  These questions, as silly as they might seem, are very real fears of today's church and I say that they are merely instruments of Satan rather than the whisperings of the Spirit.

Hierarchy may be helpful in times of confusion, but more often than not it is confusing in God's timing and Kingdom.

A quick thought on the addition and subtraction of friends

I wrote this about 2 months ago, but didn't have the courage to post it until now.  Please read with a grain of salt.

------------------------------------

Math has never been a strong point in my life.  I appreciate it's simplicity... it's bold assumptions.  When you take away "This," you are left with "That."  It helps to clarify your situation.  But it never gives the whole picture.

Why did you take "This" away?  What are you supposed to do with "That" now that you have it?  How many new "This's" will you have to add to your "That" before you are healed?  Will you ever have a new "This"?  Will "That" ever change from here on out?  Will you change because of "That"?

I read somewhere from someone that if they ever thought for a moment that God was the one who took away his dearly beloved dead relative from him, than he would never believe in Him again.  I understand that sentiment.  But I don't share it.

Time changes things.  And it honestly doesn't matter who you blame.  Blame God.  Blame Sin.  Blame me, for all I care.  All it does is help you to manage your own feelings.  I get that.  Cuz our feelings (especially when loss is involved) are wild and crazy things.  People kill themselves when their emotions are too unbearable.

But that brings us back to me.  Sorry this has all been so lofty.  I'll try to put us back on the ground.

I'm about ready to say goodbye to some friends.  Jeff and Tracy and leaving for Spain.  Noah and Sara are moving North to Portlandia.  They've been the best friends I've had in a long time.  I couldn't have survived the great DC assassination without them.  But I'm trying to figure out how life will work without them in it.  And I know there's email and Facebook and blogging and the occasional phone call... but that's not relationship.  That's penpalship.  I'm sure there are others out there who can survive on penpalship alone, but I am not one of them.  For me, it will feel like I have only one leg, one hand, one eye for awhile.  And it's common, I know it happens everyday, but I still feel like blaming someone to help me cope.

Time changes things, and I want to be at peace with that.  God help me.  Thank you for this day and this life.

----------------------------------

Dear friends, I miss you terribly!  Please let's stay in touch!