SOME MEN WERE BORN INTO IT.

Bird in a Box

2010-08-12T10:59:00.001-07:00

I may have made a big mistake. I started playing golf, and like any good American, because I started playing golf i felt the need to own a set of golf clubs. So, because Orangeburg is not the epicenter of golf equipment stores, I bought online.
The trash is picked up on Wednesdays in my neighborhood; my golf clubs came on Monday. Because golf clubs come in big boxes, and the trash was already full being it was Monday, I was forced to leave the box on my porch.
On Tuesday a mother wren moved into the golf club box, and by Wednesday morning had laid her eggs. Knowing that the trash dump is no place to hatch bird eggs I felt obligated to not, in effect throw the birds…to the birds. You must know that I grew up outside…with no shoes on my feet, a coon’ skin hat atop my bushy head of hair, and a BB gun in hand. If there’s one thing I have learned about birds it is that if you get your human sent on their eggs the mothers wont take care of them anymore, and you will be running an small egg orphanage in the back of your garage for the next few weeks. So, for the last few weeks there has been a bird in a box on my front porch. That is until today. The box is now vacant, and honestly I’m quite sad. The box is empty and finally ready for the trash truck. Life had taken up residence in that box, at least for a time, and that makes it something much more than just a box.
I hadn’t been able to put my finger in on, but I know now why I have such an issue with the idea that Heaven is about escaping this planet, and from a disembodied spiritual world, watch as the world goes to hell. Its not because this seems in our human minds just, and right, and even Biblical, but the truth is the world is not just a box, its where life happens, and that makes it so much more valuable.
Praise God that the Gospel is not one of escapism, but one of resurrection and renewal and newness, of final victory over death and corruption, of hunger and homelessness, of rape and war, and murder, even over the devil himself and all his demons…Hallelujah…. Praise God that we do not have to adhere to “just a box theology”. He has risen! Indeed!

Forget

2010-08-12T10:58:00.001-07:00

Forgetting always seems to be the easy part for me…life drips freely from the space between your fingers no matter how tight you squeeze. Memories fade, names dissapear from my memory, and faces slowly slip backward in my mind. My faith seems to be the same way, I grasp a moment of trimphant enlightment only to find myself learning the same months later. Sin never seems quite so violent as I have to squint to look back to it. If I’m not careful, just moments after prayer it can all seem ludacris and meaningless.

Forgive me again, and haste the day…

Moments

2009-04-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

The Dogwoods are in bloom. And again, I have missed it. The birds haven't, it is their wonderful drama of flight and chorus that has drawn my eyes to the dogwood. I am left flustered and wondering. Their must be a moment, an instantaneous second of movement from expectancy to birth, one moment where life burst from the bloom, and the glory is revealed. Still another year has passed and everyone was seated at the table save one.

I wonder why I miss so many of these moments. I suppose it could be my life, too busy, too bored, too blessed. Or I supposed it could be that I am just not conscious of the moment at hand, I'm elsewhere in the future or past, across town or the next room.

The simplest truth is, I miss so many of these moments waiting for them, never satisfied, always seeking, ever expecting. Anni Dillard said it best “Because how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

My prayer is this. "Father that I would live each moment, with the same expectations and energy I have assigned for a lifetime. and that you would bless me with many. Amen"

Another drive...another movement

2009-02-03T19:19:00.001-08:00

Driving home from Newport with my best friend Callie after just spending one of the best weekends of my life with the cutest baby in the entire world and the cutest puppy in the entire world, the stage was set for an eruption of my heart all over the canvas of my ideas. The sun was just setting and the blues and oranges of the western sky were becoming more beautiful with each mile. A simple glance to the left and there it was, a single stream of water pouring out of the side of a mountain that had just been cut into for an extension of the interstate lanes. Another glance and I saw smoke rising from the ashes of what appeared be be a small brush pile at the foot of the mountain below. The smoke swirled up and leaned into the rugged mountain, like an old man laboring to his feet, after a long spell of sitting on his rocker. As it ascended the smoke met the horizon in unison with the evening clouds rolling in over the ridge, and I was moved. It was in that moment that I realized that the God we serve is persistent, and patient. He will sit atop the mountain and say, "you can carve roads through my mountains, and I will make waterfalls spring out of them, and you can burn my leaves, and i will use their smoke to draw attention to the clouds. It makes me wonder just how beautifully God will use the burned, carved up, wretched humanity we have all so willingly accepted, and turn it into His bride.

2008-07-26T18:29:00.001-07:00

When will I stop worrying so much about who I am influencing and start worrying about who I'm effecting?

Lessons from Trains

2008-06-12T12:02:00.001-07:00

I hate making up my bed. I think it is the most pointless act known to mankind. I used to say, "I will do all of the other house work in my home if my wife will just not have me make up the bed!" Lately I've been having company over more often in my apartment so the making of my bed has happened much more frequently. As I made the bed this morning it hit me that, I only have to make up one side of my bed each morning on account that I am a relatively heavy sleeper so I don't squirm much, which leaves one side of my bed relatively untouched.
I think I would like very much to make up my bed each morning, if only I were making up both sides. I know this has nothing to do with trains, but this is just one of the lessons I'm learning in a relationship in which late nights with trains passing by are surpassingly important. =)

2008-06-08T21:56:00.000-07:00

The most important thing anyone ever said to me was, "I love you," The second was "No."

2008-06-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

We will spend the majority of our lives trying to convince each other that our life is something special; and when we die those closest to us will faintly recognize the extraordinary process it was. I can imagine God, lounging in an old dark leather chair, atop a studio apartment in the old part of some English town in the late 1800's, sipping from His favorite coffee mug, stirring into the wee hours of the night, pen in hand, weaving a story together piece by piece, feeling every twist and turn as if they reached out and grabbed Him, carefully placing each character and event in their perfect pose, and as the pages fill slowly before His raised eyebrow and slight smirk an epic flows out of his fingertips and into his feather and slowly seeps dark into pages. I can imagine as He pens the final words that tears would probably well up in His eyes and fall from His cheek and upon the words sprawled out in front of Him. Then, slowly he would gather his work and sit in front of it reluctantly for a moment, and then from somewhere deep inside joy would spread across his face as He lunged forward with outstretched arms, grasped His work and embraced it as closely as He could.
It will be much easier in the funeral home to cope with death if we ignore the supernatural story life really was, and how death was its tragic end, and wonderful catalyst.

Everything Hurts

2008-05-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

Have you had one of those terrible moments where for a split second everything in your body hurts? It starts right around the middle of your chest and spreads deep within your soul, right where feelings seem to make their home. Quickly it jolts out to your fingers and toes. Then, all of the sudden your eyes fill up with tears and you knees buckle? Ever had of those moments? I have. I'm noticing more and more that the only people who wield that kind of power over you are the people who have every single bit of you. The kind of people who know you're inside more than they know your outside. The kind of people that are on your mind at that time of night when you stop moving, and begin to look back to see how far you've come today; The kind of people who you weigh and measure everything by and the people that you feel a personal responsibility for. It makes me wonder that if broken, messed up people can affect me in way that brings my life screeching to a halt...what kind of impact can a perfect man make with that same kind of power? Am I ready for that kind of life changing relationship? I hope so, because here I go...

2008-02-06T07:34:00.001-08:00

I've noticed when I am typing, and I'm not sure how to spell a word, I always end up capatalizing it.

Why is it we put more weight in things we dont know, than the things we do?

Book Store

2008-02-06T07:34:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I finally filled up the last page of my manly leather bound journal...so today was "New Journal Day." I usually always make my purchase at Barnes and Nobel, so as I made my way through the huge doors, and past the fake mahaghony anti-theft system, and into the wisdom emporium know as the main floor my nose is filled with smells of coffee beans, baked goods, and unopened book pages. This may be the greatest place on earth.
I usually take a couple of seconds to just stand and bask in the glory of all that is a books store then I slowly make my way to my destination. So as I am searching through all the different selections of leather bound journals, pink ones, red ones, ones with zebra print, ones with words like "think" or "journey" on them the whole time I am up and down and all around the book case, sometimes on my feet sometimes on my knees, and as I am sitting on my knees with three or four different journals on the ground around me, I realize that if someone who didn’t know anything about a book store or what a journal is were to come in right now they would think I was a loony. But as it is people are passing me on every side and not thinking twice about my posture, because I am "looking for a journal."
I wonder if when the Bible says things about kneeling in front of the Lord, or being prostrate in front of Him, or every knee will bow...if its not saying more about shaking us from the normality of our lives, because I can be on my knees with journals in front of me in a book store and be worshiping God and no one would ever know it, but if I got down on my knees in the middle of a highway and raised my hands do you think people would notice? I don’t even know the point of this I'm still processing, but it makes me think that when Jesus talks about doing things, maybe its not so much the process of what we do like, read the Bible, pray, give thanks, but maybe its that He wants us to break away from the normality of life, and see Him.

In the morning...

2008-01-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

I have this friend who got married later on in life during his fifties. This was his first marriage and honestly I think it may have been the only woman he has ever had an intimate relationship with. The first chance I had to to talk to him was a week after his honeymoon and if you have never had the "I just had sex, and you know it" talk with anyone, be grateful because it's extremely awkward. So inevitably with two guys talking on the phone about weddings, and honeymoons, and beach resorts or mountainous ski getaways the conversation turned to romantics. We were both very discreet and to the point, but amongst the silence and awkward laughter that comes from this kind of conversation my friend said something that has really resonated with me lately. With a strain in his voice like when when your nervous and your throat closes up and all your drool goes to the back of your mouth he said "Heath, I was excited about a whole lot of things that would happen that first night....but I was the most excited about waking up in the morning and knowing she would still be there."
I want to be that kind of person. The kind of person who doesn't get excited about the feelings of the moment but the after effects of my actions. I want to love my wife the way my friend does, to be more excited about the mornings after...than the nights of. I want my heart to beat faster about the way she looks cooking breakfast than the way she looks in the dark. Don't get my wrong I am super excited about sex with the woman that I love...but I don't want that to be the only thing that counts. I know my heart is changing...I see sexiness in more than swift moves across a bedroom. Morning after love...that's the heart I want to give.

The Puppy Memoirs

2007-12-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

...I have a permanent travel partner for my long trips over the mountains from my home in Lexington, SC to Newport, TN where I grew up. His name is "Cash" and he is my 6 month old chocolate lab. Cash usually spends the time catching up on his Z's all except for two very distinct times during the trips. The first is just as the trip begins, though he has made the trip dozens of times now, you can see in his small brown eyes that everything is new, its exciting, and he is determined to not let anything get passed him. So many times I find myself in the exact same position as Cash. I am shook from the normality of my lifestyle and I am thrown into a fresh area, in a daze of confusion...though a slight familiarity to the whole thing. With my new surrounding my antennas are up and my eyes are keenly aware of the surrounding. Inevitably though, the new wears off and Cash ends up sulking slowly into the passenger truck seat and with a few gentle strokes behind his ears and the melodies of some Coheed and Cambria, or Mayday Parade he is off to puppy dream world. Sound familiar yet? So, my little brown friend spends the majority of the trip shifting and turning his self, mostly unaware of what is happening. Then it happens...always the same spot and with always the same enthusiasm. We crest the top of a mountain somewhere between Ashville and the promised land (Newport) and Cash jolts up out of his seat with a whole new kind of excitement. Now I don't know if it is that he can smell the finish line or if it is the massive amount of water in his small puppy bladder, but he is now completely focused in on the road in front of us. Its not like the first awareness though, that was excitement and this is something more basic, its...a yearning, an urgency...He knows the end is close. It was about this time that right beside my truck pulls a small SUV with a rather cute, yellow, slightly older female lab in the passenger seat. With as much force as I could I placed my hand over cash's head and pointed his nose straight at this lovely specimen. In his urgent state Cash's only response to my intrusion was anger. Why had I pulled his eyes away from the prize? what could possibly make me distract him from what he knew was the end of the trip? Did I not know that we were mere miles away from the end? I fought with my boy for about thirty seconds and then gave up as the yellow lab slowly drifted back behind us. During this whole ordeal Cash's total attention was on my hand in front of his face pulling him away from his focus. Okay...snap back to humanity...just like Cash the newness of my Christianity has worn off now and I'm so done being asleep at the wheel. I'm beginning to wake up and though I know the final destination, I finished with the modern Christian that presents an attitude that we are just riding out this world to the end. No, I am not going to be aggravated by the hand that's turning my head to the world around me, I am going to see where it is pointing...I'm done focusing on end because I already know it has been set. My focus is on the hurting, perishing, hopeless world around me...the one that Jesus came to and healed sick people, and helped them walk, and brought them back...to...life. I mean to say that this is our essence, it is who we are, it is our destiny? I'm stepping out of today's nominal thinking and daring to explore that maybe heaven isn't so much a place in the sky that our spirits all end up, but something we become as a person...a people...but more importantly a kingdom. Jesus says in John 17 that this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. What is it that is passing you by in the passenger seat of a small SUV somewhere between Earth and Heaven?

Missing people

2007-12-15T21:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got to spend all day with the two greatest roommates in the history of the world, Nick and Trevor. Most of the day was filled with digging holes and moving furniture for Trevor's parents, followed by some zombie butt-kickin' action, done mostly by a dog named Samantha, but sometimes by Will Smith in the winter blockbuster I AM LEGEND! ( I think Samantha should be the legend not Will Smith). It was the car rides and water breaks between all of of the business of the day that, without a doubt, has become one of the highlights of my tenure at 282 Roberts St. Spending all day outside the house with those boys (or shall I say men) really meant something to me, I felt invested, I felt honest, I felt healing. I can't really explain the feeling in words, but it's like the first time in math class that you really understood something, I mean you really got it.
Okay I know, I'm getting on with it. Heres the point, yesterday I saw things in Trevor and Nick that I couldn't have seen before, thing that can only be seen on day long missions back and forth across Lake Murray Dam. And, so it makes me wonder, what other sides of Trevor and Nick have I not seen? is there a "Backpacking Trip Trevor" and a "Road Trip Nick" that I have not seen, and if there is can I really say that I know these guys?
With all of that on my minds is started to picture the people I pass everyday. I quickly see, analyze, categorize, and move on, all in a matter of seconds. The question: is a dirty homeless man really just homeless, or does he have stories to tell? Is this really just my professor, or is something BIG happening in his life? Or is the teller at the grocery store really just the woman that hands me my change, or is she a catalyst for change in hundreds of peoples lives every day with simple words like "Hello, how's the day?" and "Hi, welcome to Wal-Mart." I guess my point is, are we missing people? If in one day I can uncover a few intracasies about the two guys I live my life with, how much more is out there for us to dig up, yet were just letting it run through our fingers?

One for the ages

2007-09-12T13:49:00.001-07:00

This is my new blog for Leslie. It is profound, insightful, challenging, and grammatically correct. Thanks for the inspiration.

Getting my voice back

2007-07-17T06:23:00.000-07:00

So, this week was the annual beach camp trip for the youth here in Newport. Awesome, awesome week I must say. David Crowder Band, Leeland, Vickie Beeching, Stuart Hall, and David Nasser. I sang so loud and so high for so long that it literally hurts to talk. Losing your voice is a mysterious thing, it's not like your voice is literally gone its just sounds different, less audible than it usually does.
Loosing my voice made me start to think about the things that I do in life that make me figuratively "loose my voice". Here is what I have decided; when I go so fast, and so hard, for so long I start to lose my voice spiritually. Life becomes something other than my relationship with Jesus, it transforms into this dirty mix of breathing in and out with no real importance on anything other than my survival and I start to disconnect from my spirit, and my God.
Here is the worst part. In my ministry, even though I've worked as hard as I can, and gone as far as possible, I have ignored my God for so long, I loose my voice with the people who surround me. They all sit in awkward silence, they don't ask the hard questions anymore, because they know that my voice is almost gone. The only cure, is to rest my voice, don't talk, don't sing, slow down and have some tea, "come to me all you who are heavy burdened and I will give you REST." - Jesus.

Men's Room

2007-07-01T20:32:00.000-07:00

So I had just gotten back from a 14 mile backpacking trip with a group of guys from Newport. It was honestly one of the best times I have had with that group of guys, and we decided that it would be cool to stop at Cracker Barrel for a good ole' fashion chow down. We of course pick the hottest Cracker Barrel this side of Asheville and so to pass the time the porcelain heaven was calling my name. While in the men's room I started to realize how men change when they enter a bathroom. Like the guy who just gave you the redneck head dip a few minutes ago becomes an over friendly, pain asking about your t-shirt size and what not. Or the old man in the rocker who glared at you on the way in becomes the single fastest paper towel grabber in the history of the world. If you ever get the privilege of meeting the man who sat you or is your server in the restroom don't expect much. All bets are off in that room, and everyone is on equal ground, the only guys working for tips in there have cologne, or are just SCARY! Why i wrote this is probably not evident and I guess its maybe a little awkward, but I am slowly realizing just how different men are and how irrelevant our churches are today to the needs and feelings of men. For one we have a discounted idea that men have no feelings, and we have forgotten that most of us don't respond to words on a page, or the air-conditioned room with all its bell's and whistles, will call it "The Sanctuary". No, I think God is in the air we breathe that isn't conditioned. I think he's in our male bonds and codes like ripping on each other is cool, but being there when some other guy gets jumpy with your boy, that's manhood. He is in our sexuality, aggression, passion, heart, the way we cant shake a good story, and the times when the girl you love arms are exactly what you needed or reminiscing on lessons you learned as a kid from your old man. I think He is in grease and sweat and blood, and scars with cool stories. He's in the jealously of a good wound from a sport like Rugby that someone else gets and not me. (ROB JEFFCOAT) We are created to be a way, we were not created run away from the way we are. If we want the church to be relevant to men, maybe it should go back to the way Jesus intended it, relationships, friends, family, community, living life together. A mountain screams GOD! to me way more than a choir robe, and I see the love of Jesus much more in a hand held out to help a brother off the court than a cheap smile in the middle of pew on Sunday. I see the Spirit of God in the fear and smallness we feel when we really see God for who He is, stripped away from the box that urbanity has put Him in, and His raw power is shown in the smallest breeze. That's the God that changes people, that makes men's hearts melt away, and makes us strive to be different. Jesus never went to church, He was church.

Ughhh

2007-07-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

I sin too much

Wrecks

2007-06-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

Wrecks

I really want a dog thats name is wrecks. So when you call him it sounds like you are saying Rex but really only you know you are saying "wrecks". Well you and the vet.

Love

2007-06-26T05:55:00.000-07:00

God is making it more and more clear to me that my love for Him is not nearly as significant as His love for me.I used to think that what made me significant as a Christian was that I chose to be one. It was my choice to love God and because I did, I was something special. I am beginning to understand now that its not very significant at all for someone to love the only things that gives them any hope. More significant is the fact that God in human form (Jesus) would love someone like me. Even after all the stuff that I have done, even after all the times that I have slapped Him in the face. True love is not that you love someone who is good to you, we as humans are really good at that kind of love. Can we really even call that love? No, love is this, not that we would love God, but that some how, some way that He could find it in Himself to love us. My only response is humble thankfulness and worship. God loves me, and that simple fact sustains me from day to day, because if it was my love for Him that I banked on to sustain me I would weather and fade day by day like the tides. God loves me, thats enough.