Rocky Soil

From the Parable of the Sower:

Image by: georgeparrilla

"A sower went out to sow his seed....

...seed fell on the rock; when it sprang up, it withered, since it lacked moisture....the seed on the rock are those who, when they hear, welcome the word with joy. Having no root, these believe for a while and depart in a time of testing." Luke 8:1-15 (HCSB)

A couple of posts back I was talking about 'Character Over Kingdom" which leads to a simple directive: wait.

Connected to this thought is another great line: Excavate Rather than Build.

The parable of the sower describes a kind of believer who 'has no root' - in other words he is shallow and therefore unable to withstand difficulty. It's the same basic image as the guy who builds his house on the sand instead of the rock.

As I've walked through the last several years I can't tell you how many times I've been in a conversation where somebody winds up saying something like "You're different - I've never met a 'deep' Christian." I don't take this as a compliment to me or other Christians but instead a reflection on the likelihood that a LOT of Chistendom is living in rocky soil.

I suspect that all of us, at basically every point in our lives, are not characterized by any one of Jesus' soil metaphors but by all of them at the same time. Parts of my life welcome God gladly but thwart deep roots. Other parts are plagued by crows and still others are so sun baked that nothing gets through. But I'm just thinking about the rocky soil right now.

The thing about a rocky filed is this: there is good soil under there, it just takes hard work to get to it. Rocks need only to be noticed, lifted and moved out of the way to reveal what was always there, waiting to be put to good use.

Building 'depth' requires work, patience, and humility. I suspect many who stay shallow their whole lives do so out of ignorance more often than laziness though no doubt both come into play. Still, I think the biggest enemy of clearing stones is our addiction to comfort.

What you see is NOT what you get.

Let me bring in another image - the iceberg.

I think it was Craig who I first heard say that when you meet a man (or woman I presume) the entire thing we call their personality is really just the exposed part of something is driven by experiences, hurts and motives that are far, far deeper than any of us realize.

John Eldgredge says something similar that a man's personality is typically just a very elaborate fig leaf designed to mask what he is desperately afraid of - being known. I suppose that's not the entire thought - most men would kill to be truly known by just about anybody. What they fear is being 'exposed' where their worst image of themselves is revealed to be actually true.

The iceberg image is used to make a point about all of us - our lives are profoundly shaped by things that go on way beneath the surface, often so far down that we can't even see them in ourselves. For many, many people this reality is never understood and they go through life confounded by the things that seem to go wrong over and over and over again. In the context of this blog and The Intensive the iceberg is an invitation to deliberately go deep into our hearts to see what really lives there - to ask the tough questions and not walk away until we have answers.

• What are my real motives for being in this job?
• Why do I get so angry when she says that?
• Where did my passion go?

Knowledge is power. Understanding our own motives, desires, and fears can be absolutely pivotal in the way we go forward into a better future.

But 'soul work' is hard work.

Very

hard

work.

The iceberg is an image of what's really happening in our lives an in everybody's life. It's also an invitation to go deep into our hearts to look around. The rocky soil is a picture of the alternative, of a life 'unexamined' as Socrates would say.

Both images imply this idea of work to do, things to see and understand about ourselves. And yet - so few men take the time to try.

"God will give you everything you need for free. But everything you want - you'll have to work for." - Bill Johnson

I've found that all of the good stuff, all of the stuff that changes faith from a Sunday club to a full-throated crazy-talk adventure ride, is just beyond the veil of convenience. 

So I for one want very much to be 'good soil' where God's words, every thought, every murmur, every sigh, has a place to land where it can take root. I know that will take effort and perseverance and sacrifice but seriously - is it even remotely possible that it wouldn't be worth it?

The Power of Sonship

Jason Upton has a song called Sons and Daughters that always stirs me at a profound level. I think I first heard the song around 2006 (plus or minis a year or two) in a season where my understanding of God, and particularly the Holy Spirit was growing in big, punctuated steps.  He sings in another song "breaking off rejection with the spirit of adoption" and I gues the whole idea of son-ship is kind of a recurring theme for Jason.

I'd obviously heard the idea before, that I was God's adopted son, that we've been grafted in and all that but I never felt it. In point of fact I actually am an adopted child in this world too. My bio-folks, as best as I can tell, were young and when bio-mom got pregnant they set up a closed adoption before I was ever born. I was handed to the people who in my mind are my real parents, when I was only a few weeks old. Mom was very open with me about the topic and for as long as I can remember it was an open subject with no weirdness, no bias, and no judgement. In fact I used to joke with my sister that mom and dad picked me but they were stuck with her. I have one brief, unaccounted for, memory in which a woman in a yellow blouse with long straight dark hair is leaning over me with a smile. I suppose that image could be just about anything- a nurse, a social worker..my other mom. Anyway, I've always said that my adoption was a total non-issue but more recently I hear the Spirit whispering that perhaps that's not true, that deep down is a reef that I'm only barely aware of shifting the flow of my life in deep but mostly imperceptible ways.

Maybe because of that experience the subject of adoption took on a certain coldness, a subject that I sensed was supposed to be delicate and managed carefully because bad things lay just below the surface. Perhaps I picked up on the subtle notion that the polite, hoped-for response of a well-adjusted adoptee was to act as though everything was just fine.

Going back to Jason Upton, when I soaked in that song, something I found myself doing often, I heard something in his voice that made me laugh and cry simultaneously.
Jason felt it.
He somehow knew he was a true son of God and it infused his words with passion and affection and came off like a cat purring on someone's lap in front of a fire. He sung contentment and safety and a belonging that I certainly didn't feel and only barely comprehended. It was so joyful and rich and intimate but somehow open and public and it made my heart long for that kind of experience with God.

Something Morgan said first when I heard him in January but also at the Intensive was that if a man could truly live in that identity as a son that he would be 'Unstoppable.'

Unstoppable?

It sounded kinda cool. The man in me likes the idea of being powerful and effective and capable of overcoming any obstacle but it seemed like such an odd thing to say given the context of sonship. Like a non sequitur  or a mixed metaphor. But the thought has kept rolling around in my head looking for a place to land and I think its just starting to gel.

There's a persistently bent place in my heart that clings to a notion that I'm something like an employee for the Kingdom or a volunteer in 'The Army of the Lord.' What's under those is a fierce independence that is not fully healthy. It's my 'you're not he boss of me' thing. But I am simultaneously aware of the truth that I am fully dependent on God. The problem is that those two ideas have an oil and water quality for me. On a good day I can keep both fluids in the same vessel but what I lack is a stable synthesis of the two - I think that synthesis might rest in the idea of Sonship.

I just saw Darren Wilson's new movie Father of Lights and I had one of those experiences where you've heard something many times before but today it sounds totally different.

It is a Father's joy to see His son succeed.

Suddenly I saw that dependency on my father was not the same as weak or hobbled or 'dependant' in the way we describe someone in a wheelchair. Jesus says 'I can do nothing of myself...' and yet he does  CRAZY STUFF! Jesus only did what he saw his father doing and yet he was...

Unstoppable.

With my eye on this topic I'm realizing that this idea has been circling around me for years and slowly working its way into my heart. To be honest it looks as though I've been resisting it but God has been patient, drawing me toward his heart through a kind of emotional back door. Jason Upton and Kim Walker keep singing about it. People like Morgan and Bill Johnson keep talking about it and I see now I've ben the frog in the slowly warming pot, but in this case it's a good thing...a really, really good thing.

To put the plane on the runway as Bill Jastram would say, the way I understand and cope with the challenges that inevitably come against my life and my calling changes dramatically with how I understand my position with God. If I'm an employee then it's important for me to be 'productive.' If I'm his son then it's important for me to be simply present. If I'm an orphan, even a well liked one, then I'm like Oliver asking 'please sir can I have some more' but if I'm a son then I know that everything in the refrigerator is partly mine and from there, with the Pridogal's father's words in my mind that "Everything I have is yours"... From there, 'unstoppable' doesn't sound so odd after all.

Character Over Kingdom

One of the key refrains of the weekend was "Character over Kingdom."


At the heart of that phrase is a deliberate rejection of the kind of ambition and drivenness that men can so easily get caught up in. Or, more specifically, an assertion that one would value integrity over power. And while it could apply to a wide variety of things its primary focus in this context was on work and our careers.


We have this image in American folklore of the Wunderkid, the 20-yr old millionaire. It's everything wrapped up in the "self-made man" but at a young age. It's Michael J Fox in The Secret of My Success, Tom Hanks in Big, or Mark Zuckerberg in...well, in real life. It suggests that if you're smart enough, motivated enough or just lucky enough that power and money, fame and fortune are available without the need for really 'building' anything.


It may be one of the most destructive concepts we ever encounter as men.


Stepping back just a bit from this particular thought is a broader one that my modern mind both accepts and rejects simultaneously: Life has stages. We progress from one stage of life to another throughout our years and discerning the purpose of each season is of critical importance.


On the one hand is a part of me that lets loose a deeply felt sigh of relief to even hear such an idea. It feels like such a burden lifted from my shoulders. It tells me that 'acting my age' is in fact proper. Now that might sound a little strange coming from a 40 year old. After all, I'm not 18 striving to seem older. Nor am I 60 trying to look younger with my comb-over. But there is a constant song that calls us all to be something we aren't - perhaps younger, perhaps older, but always 'other' and following that song is utterly exhausting. But on the other hand - I love that song. I don't generally want to progress through life, I want to arrive at my goal. I don't want to grow and mature and learn - I want to have my way. Working my way through the ranks, paying my dues, climbing the ladder, learning the ropes; screw all of that. I'm in a hurry.


...which leads me back to the thought at hand.

The temptation to arrange for my own kingdom, as quickly as possible and with as little work as possible, typically comes at the cost of integrity or character. At the very least, it costs me my peace and it always comes at the cost of my ability to live in the present moment - the only moment where God actually lives.


As he phrase 'character over kingdom' rolls off your tongue it feels like a no-brainer. Of course I wouldn't compromise my good name for a quick buck! At the very least I think the value of the idea is self-evident  even if we're not certain of our own moral fiber. But really the concept is much, much deeper and much, much more expensive upon close inspection.


Going back to the Wunderkid archetype. The idea contains several hand grenades. There's the notion that young success is possible and there are just enough stories in the world to make the idea seem believable - kinda like the lottery. But 'possible' quickly turns into 'should' where each year that we're still not rich starts to feel like failure which leads to desperation, resignation, or both. It also suggests that wealth and fame are the proper reward for the gifted or the lucky. If I fancy myself gifted then every year asks where my natural reward is and "what am I doing wrong?" or 'Where is God now?" If I'm not so vain to think myself gifted then I sure long for luck and I start to envy and covet those who got a lucky break while I busted my ass. As I'm young, Zuck's story seems inspirational in a 'if he can do it...' kind of way but as the 20s become 30s I will cross a tipping point somewhere and Zuck is now the image of what went wrong with me. I might blame him, or God. I might blame my wife or myself, but the Wunderkid's effect over time is to keep my eyes of of now and I spend decades wearing myself down.


Its always in weariness that we are most vulnerable and when success has seemed elusive too long I start thinking I might sacrifice a little character for the sake of the kingdom that's being kept from me. Of course, it doesn't seem that way at the time. Instead I think my situational ethics to be 'wisdom.' After all, seeing things as 'black and white' is a sign of youthful naivety. So no - its not a bribe, its a fee. Yes my assistant is a DD 22 year old former Ms. Ohio, but she's really organized and it's not like I'm sleeping her (outside my mind).


In The Masculine Journey (I think) John says something like 'anybody who actually wants to be a king doesn't know how to be a good one.' When we strive for and arrange for our own kingdom, our own power and influence, we are falling to vain ambition.


To choose character over kingdom is this: to wait.


To take Jesus' advice about the lowest seat at the table very literally and reject power until it is cast upon you*. It's a decision to forgo the striving, the ladder jumping, the short-cut-seeking to money and power that is embedded in the image of the Wunderkid. It's not in any way a rejection of gifting or the child prodigy or to diminish talent - it's not even to say anything negative about Mr. Zuckerberg. It's a reflection on the power of these stories to make us try to force something to happen in our careers and how easily that can cost us our souls.


The alternative is to wait. To live in this moment, and this moment only. Working toward excellence but not striving for it. Building with wisdom and discernment, but not giving in to ambition. Waiting for God to be a man of his word who says 'humble yourself and I'll exalt you in due time.'

"...Time is the school in which we learn, 

Time is the fire in which we burn."

(Calmly We Walk  Through This April's Day)

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* There's a dark side to this thought too - the way in which we can far too quickly give leadership and authority to anybody who shows even a hint of ability way before they're ready...but that's another topic.

The Intensive

The Intensive was a four-day men's retreat held up in the mountains outside of Colorado Springs at a camp called Bear Trap Ranch. It was led by Morgan Snyder who did the bulk of the teaching but he was backed up by several other folks from the Randomed Heart team including Bart Hansen and Craig McConnell.

On its surface the topic was the phase in a mans life roughly of his thirties. It's the phase of life typically characterized by a marriage that is past the 5-year adjustment "honeymoon" period, often with young kids and typically at the front part of what might be called a career.

It's a phase in life where most men find that life got very busy, and very challenging very fast. The challenge of balancing work with family with faith with everything else is daunting and feels overwhelming. We're drawn to make a name for ourselves, maybe make a little money and, as Morgan put it, "get something started."

More importantly, it is a phase in life that can easily be badly mismanaged and the bitter fruit is divorce, disillusionment and in time some really bad agreements about the nature of life, the heart of our brides, and worst of all the heart of God. It's when this phase goes sideways and uninterpreted that men check-out of the deep things in their lives. It's an understandable survival technique to prevent more pain and frustration but in time that only comes out as an affair, a new convertible, and that man now finds himself needing to come to Boot Camp just to find the heart that he lost in his thirties.

Morgan invited about 40 guys between late twenties and early forties to be the students or attendees or guinea pings or whatever. I was among that group. In his words, we were "world changers" which I took to mean folks who he know with fire in their belly. It was indeed an honor to be invited though I didn't really understand what was happening at first. In addition to us, he also invited 15 generally older gentlemen who he called "sages." I reckon they ranged from early 40s to maybe 70 or so. Their stories were from all walks of life: business, ministry, military, medicine, etc. I didn't talk to all of them (I tried) but honestly, the breadth of experience in that group was stunning. These men were asked to act as mentors of a kind, but in a very informal way. There was no sense of rank or anything like that, just guys with some extra miles on them and a willing ess to share what they had learned.

We walked together for four days, we learned a lot, we prayed a lot...and I have a LOT to think about.

The Arrival

To be perfectly honest, the invitation to Morgan's Intensive didn't particularly grab me when it arrived. That had nothing to do with him or any expectation, it was just a particularly busy and financially challenging season - I was distracted. That's not to say I didn't care, I told Morgan I would think and pray about it, and I really did, but looking back I just had other things on my mind and didn't engage at any deep level. On its surface that sounds both shallow...but also pretty typical for the way our over-stressed lives play out. I'm tempted to feel guilty about it, but in hindsight it may have been part of God's plan all along.

My busy, distracted life continued right up until three days before The Intensive. By that time a major deal had finally got off to a good start and I was able to catch my breath. In the weeks preceding most retreats I find God talking to me about what's coming in one way or another. I find myself being prepared or taught or challenged but in this case the only thing I had was a subtle awareness that something big was coming up slowly and from behind. It was if I was calmly kayaking with some massive glacier at my back. Its patient but inevitable motion imperceptible to me until the shadow of the calving iceberg suddenly crosses my bow. That sounds rather threatening and I don't mean to imply any sense of danger, quite the opposite in fact, but it's the best metaphor I can come up with right now.

In the 48 hours prior to camp I did have some long-missed time to decompress, get some writing done, and basically unwind which was good preparation. I smoked my pipe, I read articles in the hotel room and I caught my breath. Driving up to Bear Trap Ranch is in interesting drive. Moving southwest from Colorado Springs you drive up into a pretty fancy neighborhood, past a swanky golf course and the directions are to keep on driving. A gentle slope gives way to a steep hill and the next thing you know a hairpin turn puts you on a dirt road.

The road climbs quickly through 2000 feet of altitude with several ridges and valleys disappearing in your rear-view mirror. At last you dive down into a sharp sided valley and you're at Bear Trap Ranch - a self-contained little village in the cradle of a hidden canyon.

I parked the car and started walking down toward the main camp with a little high-altitude buzz when the first zinger of the weekend came on strong. It was something between a memory and a vision where I 'saw' Boromir getting off his horse as he arrives at the Council of Elrond. The image came out of nowhere really but hit me with significant punch and immediate meaning - somehow this weekend was more than a few dozen guys hanging out. There was gravity here, something serious. Later that night I would share a dream I had about two years ago where I was a knight riding my horse at full speed through dense woods, hell-bent for...somewhere. I was mostly alone but from time to time I could catch  a glimpse of other knights through the trees, all of us traveling in earnest. Once or twice I'd come to a small clearing and a small handful of knights would take just a few moments to greet each other, bang shields, and then take off galloping again. In the end I came to a pavilion set up in a larger clearing and maybe 50 or so knights were gathering here - and that's about how it ended. in some way that I'm still chewing on, The Intensive was a realization of that dream.

This is the first post on a blog that I hope will grow a lot over time so I want to resist the impulse to go crazy and talk about all of it even though I have so much on my mind. For this I just want to convey one thought: that in one way I totally failed to apprehend the power of this event, and yet in some other subconscious or spiritual way I've seen it coming for a long time. As poignant and new as some of the topics were, many of them came as different angles on things God was also speaking to me about for some time. I take that fact to mean that Morgan is tapping into something deeper than a really good analysis of current trends - he's tapping into something that's on the father's mind. In which case, there's much to be discerned here.

On Thursday at 3:45 I was just minding my own business, happy to be in such a beautiful place but oblivious to what was going on. By 4:00 I'd caught a glimpse of what I had been invited into and we were off and running. Unless I'm very wrong, The Intensive will turn out to be as formative, or more, than my first Boot Camp...and that's saying a lot.