Jul 21 2012
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learning to live, what they are teaching me

until you can’t breathe

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and
endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded. + R. W. Emerson

I remember distinctly being 17 years old, sitting in a  Wendy’s with a buddy. The comment went like this: “You know how sometimes you start laughing so hard you can’t even breathe?” He replied that he couldn’t remember laughing that hard.

“That’s the only time it counts. It only counts when you laugh until you can’t breathe,” i informed him.

I think since then, unlike most seventeen-year old know-all conversations, that has become one of my lines to live by.

And I can think over and over again of times I have laughed until I couldn’t breathe.

Last night was one of those nights.

Laughter and breathless tears.
The kind that leaves you sweating.

After incredible appetizers where the comment heard over and over was, “This is delicious? Who would ever think of it together, but it’s delicious” down to the cinnamon dulce dessert with cream cheese ice cream that had me craving the entire container hidden in the freezer, the meal set the artful stage in an already artful atmosphere for the holy kind of dinner and after dinner conversations that end, over and over again, in tears.

Now added to the stayed seventeen-year-old proverb will be the value of landing in a place where you laugh so hard you cannot breathe with people you don’t really know. It speaks to a letting go of circumstance and pomp, letting go of first impressions, and acting as you act with good friends. Perhaps in the acting, something actually changes.

My stomach this morning hurts from laughing till I was breathless and teary-eyed, and it reminds me that while the world goes not well, the kingdom is coming.

djordan
Napa Valley

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Jul 20 2012
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learning to live

blanching

The way green beans
fresh from market
are thrown into boiling water
until just the right moment
then crash into the icy cold bowl
cooking stops
just right

The way we are taught to move
from hot, swirling, bubbling water
sitting, standing, as long as we can
before we must leap from the hot
into the crispy clear coldness
of the other pool
It’s all shocking
in just the right kind of way

Like a trip in the middle of the week
from bustle and hustle
selling and signing
talking and listening
writing and designing
And then the crash
poolside
mountainside
vineyardside
conversationside
chilled out

remembering the labor is
both the gift and the offering
and the harvest isn’t the point at all

and so making time for rest

djordan
Napa Valley

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Jul 17 2012
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grief and trauma, what they are teaching me

apparently still and incredibly crisp

floored again in dialogue with a client today
the incredible resilience following him into the room
ignored by the very person living under so much
withstanding, but still struggling
struggling with real and reasonable and incredible grief

and still holding it together
hair on, face on, courtesy on, honesty on

the wrestling only barely under the surface of
otherwise apparently still and incredibly crisp waters
all hiding
all hoping
no one notices what a mess
we all show and tell each others stories

and in hiding and hoping no one notices
we all ourselves fail to notice
our fighting resilience as the only thing stronger than our struggles
and the only thing strong than our fight to hide our struggles

until we see it through a dark mirror
that we all look much the same
and we are all incredibly resilient as we float over
otherwise apparently still and incredibly crisp waters

djordan
Pine Tree

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Jul 14 2012
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poems, Quotes

half ready. half afraid.

We watch as the jets fly in with the power people and the money people, the suits, the budgets, the billions.

We wonder about monetary policy because we are among the haves, and about generosity because we care about the have-nots.

By slower modes we notice Lazarus and the poor arriving from Africa, and the beggars from Central Europe, and the throng of environmentalists with their vision of butterflies and oil of flowers and tanks of growing things and killing fields.

We wonder about peace and war, about ecology and development, about hope and entitlement.

We listen beyond jeering protesters and soaring jets and faintly we hear the mumbling of the crucified one, something about feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, about clothing the naked, and noticing the prisoners, more about the least and about holiness among them.

We are moved by the mumbles of the gospel, even while we are tenured in our privilege.

We are half ready to join the choir of hope, half afraid things might change, and in a third half of our faith turning to you, and your outpouring love that works justice and that binds us each and all to one another.

So we pray amid jeering protesters and soaring jets. Come by here and make new, even at risk to our entitlements.

+ Walter Brueggeman, “The Noise of Politics”
from Prayers for a Privileged People 

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Jul 13 2012
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Quotes

long road to wisdom

When we were younger we thought
Everyone was on our side
Then we grew a little bit
And romanticized the time I saw
Flowers in your hair
It takes a boy to live
It takes a man to pretend he was there

So then we grew a little and knew a lot
And how we demonstrated it to the cops
And all the things we said
We were self-assured

Cause it’s a long road to wisdom
But it’s a short one
To being ignored

+ From “Flowers in Your Hair” by The Lumineers

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Jul 03 2012
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learning to live, poems, the calendar

at a high top table under low light

corny jokes to the server
hospitable laughs in return
at a high top table under low light
clinking glasses and eating crumbs
conversation about
faith
fury
family
funnies
fortitude
fears
watches watched, but only barely
because it’s only a monday evening
realization that what we
beg for
clamor for
whine for
fight for
pay for
sing for
hope for
long for
is waiting for us on Monday evenings
at a high top table under low light
clinking glasses and eating crumbs.

And is waiting on Tuesday mornings.

djordan
Pine Tree

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Jul 02 2012
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on, poems

compared with the task | on luke 4

the sharp contrast of common ambition
compared with the task of announcing the kingdom:

I’ll give you a feast;
I’m here to tell the poor their day has come.
I’ll give you authority and prestige and power;
I’m here to talk about letting the jailbirds loose.
I’ll prove you can do whatever you want and still be safe;
I’m here to announce the time has come
for those on the bottom,
for those who are poor,
for those who are blind,
for those who have been victimized,
for those who have victimized,
it is the time for God to make them his favorites.

The sharp contrast of common intention
compared with the task of announcing the kingdom:

he rolled the scroll back up and sat down.
“Today, you are watching it happen…”

djordan
Pine Tree

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Jul 01 2012
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art and photography, learning to live, Quotes

as mad as a hatter

I try to believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast. + Alice
There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger! Some say to survive it: You need to be as mad as a hatter.  Which luckily I am. + The Mad Hatter

The more I think about it, there is incredible power in a kingdom imagination. Weighted down by constant thoughts of what we could and couldn’t and should and shouldn’t do, our conversations twist and configure to make the kingdom about our own personal pious behavior or lack thereof instead of the whole of redemption and all things new, including our little selves…in the context of the big kingdom.

And this morning, I woke up thinking of the Mad Hatter’s words: There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger! Some say to survive it: You need to be as mad as a hatter.  Which luckily I am.

When Mom and Dad would go somewhere and find a little something they thought we would enjoy, whether a bag of coffee or a cd or a book or whatever, they would return and inform us they had brought back “a little happy” … an unrequested, unsolicited, undeserved, unneeded little something that only is a little happy because it hits the spot.

These are my little happys (little happies? who knows…) this morning. Enjoy.

I insist on following Christ with a holy imagination into the kingdom, but even to imagine such a place requires me to be crazy. And luckily I am.

djordan
Pine Tree

 

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Jun 30 2012
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on, Series: Divine Proxy

divine proxy | intro to a series

The notion is not a new one, but it appears to be one seldom discussed explicitly, unless I am missing the entire conversation altogether (please let me know if I am). I want to spend a few posts on the idea of divine proxy. I hit the concept in “Congregation as Expert; a New Way Forward” during the “Culture and Crises” lecture series. It’s something that lurks behind practitioners in the helping fields, especially those practitioners who are Christians, as we falsely imagine that we are the changing force in the lives of our clients.  It’s something that lurks in church offices and behind the desks and efforts of those who try to help and change situations being faced by others.

Today, the idea itself could use explanation, however brief.

Divine proxy is the idea that when someone is speaking from authority, whether professional or religious, whether self given, institutionally given, or transcendently given, they are then interacted with, heard or perceived as becoming the official voice of the source of the authority.

So, …

a therapist who speaks on matters of relationships can become the final authority on a specific relationship.

a pastor who speaks on matters of moral or spiritual issues can become the actual voice of God on specific matters with individual people.

So, …

if a therapist has a misguided view, or is offering a personal, cultural or biased view on someone else’s specific relational situation, the someone heeds the advice as fact, and acts accordingly whether or not everything in them says otherwise and the result is damaging and more disabling. Or maybe they do heed advice even though they feel otherwise, and it is helpful and healing and the person comes to know that to be true later. Or, the person finally hears what deep down he or she knew all along about the situation, and they are set free because the professional speaking offers a more authoritative voice than the person views his or her own voice as being.

If a pastor has a misguided view, or is offering a personal, cultural, or biased view on someone else’s specific moral or spiritual issues, the someone heeds the view as fact––from God rather than from the individual––and acts accordingly whether or not everything in her or him says otherwise and the result is damaging and more disabling. Or maybe the advice is heeded even though the individual feels otherwise, and it is helpful and healing and the person comes to know that to be true later. Or, the person finally hears what deep down he or she knew all along about the situation, and finally freedom is experienced because a pastor speaking offers a more authoritative voice than the person views his or her own voice as being.

We can quickly see how the influence of authority gives incredible weight, whether someone turns a back and walks away from the perceived authority and the authority represented forever, or someone follows the authority because it is seen as direct from the authority source, and therefore should be heeded.

While it may sound pointless or semantic, the issue quickly becomes incredibly personal and incredibly immediate. I think about people who experience great healing because a pastor sees the presence of divine proxy, and takes great caution to express anger and action toward injustice and evil.  I think about the latest story coming out of a megachurch about a spiritual abuse and misogyny that is only headed because the pastor has an unquestioned direct link to God, and questioning is called disloyalty to him…and God. I think about other church experiences where people continued to go home to abusive homes because the pastor says the wife should act more like Jesus to make the husband come around.

So it’s not pointless, and it’s not semantic, and it’s worth the time to consider, even if it’s only mine. So, the first time for a series on mosthopeful.com. We’ll see what happens.

Next up: divine proxy | stories of the phenomenon

djordan
Pine Tree

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Jun 29 2012
2 Comments
guest post, the calendar

roasting dad | sailing in a new direction

Dad was roasted today, his last official day at Rainey Kizer, by the firm and partnership he has been a part of since I was born. He is beginning (continuing) a career as a professor, and today he was roasted by the firm, and his two boys, in celebration of his leaving Rainey Kizer and moving forward as professor. Here are my brother’s words, which I read since he couldn’t be there, as well as my own.

From James

  • He somehow managed to sit behind a computer for the last 35 years and never learned how to type.
    • 8-year-olds can type.
    • He taught himself Greek.
    • He put himself through law school.
    • He taught himself guitar and bass in a very small and impressive amount of time.
    • Can’t type.
    • And refuses to learn now, for some reason.
    • He’s like a duck: capable of graceful, migratory flight, but holds up traffic to walk across the road.
  • For a man with such an organized mind, able to hold fast an organic thread of truth and draw it out of anyone in a legal setting, he’s almost completely devoid of social discretion.
    • He spaces out during conversations, then chimes in with something you just said like he thought of it himself.
    • He stares at cute babies until everyone’s uncomfortable.
    • At a restaurant, try to discreetly point out someone behind him: “Okay, Greg. Don’t look yet, but—“    “WHERE!”
    • And my personal favorite: when he unwittingly says something impolite and then goes, “OW! Someone kicked me under the table!”
  • He once challenged me to a foot race when I was 15. He claims to have won in a “photo finish” (of which there are none). Whoever won, at least my back wasn’t messed up for three days.
  • He used to ask Donald and I for fashion advice. We always agreed his pants should ride a little lower. And he would always say, “This. Is where. I wear. My pants.” Whether he thought he looked good and just wanted someone to agree with him, or he was teaching us a lesson about what it’s like dealing with teenagers who don’t take your advice, his pants were always too high.
    • For further evidence of untaken fashion advice, wander casually around our home and you’ll find beach photos of shorts too short riding too high, compensated by gym socks pulled to their utmost length.
    • You’ll also find an almost infinite number of outdoor photos where he’s wearing sandals and socks.
  • He used to say, “Be careful,” every time I left the house, as if I might not think to do that otherwise.
  • I looked out the back window once while he was working in the yard. He was silhouetted against the setting sun holding the weed-eater above his head with both arms. Then he smashed it on the ground.
  • But he’s a great guy, and we all love him. Here’s to Dad. Cheers.

From Donald

We’ve never wanted to dress like him, but we’ve always wanted to resemble him.

We’ve never wanted to tell jokes like him, but we’ve always wanted to laugh often like him.

We’ve never wanted to drive off-route on the way to the beach to find some arm from the civil war buried somewhere in the woods, but we’ve always wanted to learn and keep learning like him.

We’ve never wanted to become lawyers––no offense to everyone in the room––but
we’ve always wanted to grow up to be like him.

He’s one of the only two people I know who––as he gets older––keeps getting younger and younger, and cooler and cooler.

We love you Dad. Congratulations.

***

While it’s always a gift to have a father whose reputation of integrity, gentleness and generosity precedes him, I will never forget what it means to turn 60 and decide you have something new to do and a new way to play to enjoy meaningful work. Thanks, Dad. From both of your boys.

djordan
Pine Tree

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