Haters

Why all the violence? We are a violent people, it is our very sinful nature. We live in darkness and disorder, jealousy and confusion. We love a tragedy. We eat that stuff up, just as long as the tragedy has happened to someone else. That is the very reason the news at night time brings nothing but the negativity of the day. It is far more interesting and attracts viewers to watch the entire show, waiting for that moment they identify what happened to that little kid or that liquor store clerk.

We like reality TV because it simulates real life conflict as if we just cannot get enough of that in our own lives.

Here are some observations:

The internet:
People use cyberspeak like they use liquid courage. It is easier to break up with a person in email. We don’t even have to see their faces or the damage we have just done. Same principle apply to the things we say to each other over wires. I cannot see your sly grin to tell me you're are being sarcastic when you are insulting me. I can’t tell if your joking, so I will assume the worst. No, I never have to see you face to face if I don’t want to, but does that give me permission to say murderous things and walk away as if it hurts less to be cut by your computer than your blade. A cut is a cut.

Work:
People suck at work sometimes, because they don’t want to be there. When I don’t want to be somewhere, but have to go, it puts me in a foul way. I get annoyed and frustrated, so if I have to put up with showing up and working, I certainly am not going to put up with you stepping on me or taking the last candy out of the bacteria infested community dish. Go ahead, throw away my lunch I left in the fridge for a couple days. You can rip down the flier I put on the bulletin board for my car sale too. It doesn’t matter what a person wants to do to you, Christ is clear about our behavior in return.

Traffic:
Keep your fingers in your holsters. That finger sends a message telling that person to do a very bad thing. It isn’t even related to traffic, usually. Driving up beside a slow driver and staring at them with stink eye blazing will not make them realize their terrible mistake of driving too slow. They probably will not even notice you looking because they were on their phone.

At restaurants:
Sometimes we act like we are royalty. We sit there lounging and since we are paying for our meals, we act as if we entitled to the best possible service. Good service is great, but if we don’t get it, how do we react? Less tip? A severe tongue lashing? The people who serve us are not rich. They are normal people who need their jobs. We should give them a break.

At home:
A terrible trait about human beings is when we give the worst of ourselves to the people we are supposed to love the most. The people who see us as their heroes.

I write these observations because they are what I have observed in many ways in my own life and hate them. They are natural. Hate flows off the tongue and through the fingertips like we were born to do them. We were not. We were born to love each other and radiate Christ to the world. We don’t do that very well when we hate on each other. We can’t show Christ to a waitress on a Sunday morning or afternoon when we leave her a crappy tip or a cheesy, useless tract. We hurt our testimonies when we sport a Calvin peeing on the Darwin fish and a flaming middle finger. Our kids don’t learn grace and meekness on the mornings we didn’t get enough sleep and they got ready for school really slowly and we blow up, wrecking their day right along with yours.

It takes practice to not be a hater.














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Migrate.

Smile

I love this picture because we meant our smiles.















Sing.
Migrate.

Tomorrow

Life is lived in isolated moments stored in our memories. Some of them are buried so deep, you would never even know they were there until something comes along and connects them to your consciousness, and they rush back as if you just lived them again. The scent of the night pouring through your screen, blowing open your curtains like a ghost. The way it rained and small droplets of mist landed on my face beneath the window. The sound of the train whistle 3 miles east and the shriek of the steel wheels across the iron track. I got up early that morning. I never even slept. It was dark outside and absolutely nothing was moving. I would have known the time if the alarm clock weren't blinking midnight eternally. I wanted to to see the sun rise one more time over Horse Island. Alone. I wanted to watch the geese huddle together in the channel and chase each other under the bridge. I threw on a shirt in the darkness of my apartment and followed the tracks we made a thousand times to the place that we would retreat to. I put my line in the water, hoping not to catch anything. I had the best seat in the house to watch the fire rise from below the horizon. I wanted to see it one more time. We used to often spend the night out there and watch it become tomorrow. Tomorrow never gave me anything to look forward to. I think I smoked 2 packs of cigarettes that night as I listened to the water collapse against the rocks, then rebound like the sound of my heart beating through fluid.

The sun came up and it became today and I could not be any more grateful for the grace of God to keep me in His hands. I was going nowhere and now I am here. I am still nowhere, but quite a distance from where I was, with millions of miles to travel ahead.

I think this is the source of my nightmares. I relate what Will did, to what I tried to do. The thoughts and emotions mix together with my own memories and experience. I hurt because the outcome that I got was not the same as his. He should be here with me, hoping for tomorrow. With me.

I am gonna let go soon. I am holding on so tight my knuckles have turned white. My hands are weakening and I can't keep this up. I have to let go soon because it is the right thing to do, even if it rips me apart. I have to forget about all the guilt I feel for the way things happened and for missing all of those chances. I have to let go of all of the anger I hold on to with all my might. I am holding on to this branch and God wants me to let go and fall. Not to the ground, but into His arms. I am afraid. I am not afraid of more pain, I am afraid that letting go will make me forget everything. I know it isn't true. It is irrational. When did anything about suicide seem rational to anyone, especially to those who feel deleted.

Those years are not erased or wasted. Set em up for the Dead End Kids.














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Migrate.

One Of Those

You know what it means when a guy asks you if you are one of those "Once saved, always saved" people? It means they are about to label you a heretic and an idiot, so they can walk away feeling bigger than you. I was in Taco Bell last Wednesday with my students. An old man asked for the guy in charge, actually he asked one of my girl staff members who is above her as if she could not possibly be in charge. I came over and spoke to the guy and he asked me plenty of theological questions and challenged some of the ways that my church does church. He asked if we were one of those liberal churches. It is never a good thing when someone uses the word combo, "One of those." It is never followed with a positive comment. I asked him to describe a liberal church. He said, "One of those that eat in the service and stuff." In that case, we are not a liberal church, but only because there are no food or drinks allowed in the school auditorium. He spoke with a long and drawn out southern accent and for a guy his age, he still carried a certain bravado and confidence. He told me to watch that these kids didn't drag me into the world with them and asked me with pomp in his voice whether these kids were pretty messed up as he noticed how they looked. AHHHHHH! I love it! I love it folks! I love it when it all comes back to how we look. I love it when people ignore the whitewashed tombs comment Jesus made. I love it when people actually think that God prefers a Men's Warehouse suit over a JC Penney one. He would have had a heart attack if he saw what some of us actually wear to church. I love it because it gives me a chance to share with people what the gospel means to me. Not that he wasn't saved, I don't doubt his sincerity. But I love to share the gospel as I know it, even if that story is offensive and doesn't make a lick of sense.

Like when Jesus ate and drank with sinners. They called him a drunkard and a glutton.

When Jesus went to the house of a tax collector. He was a common criminal.

Like when He cast the demons out of that wild man. They asked him in fear to leave the region.

Or when He defended a woman caught in the act. We all know the act. They walked away ashamed, but instead of change, they plotted His death.

The world needs to learn that the Gospel is much bigger than sweat box churches with arm pit stained preachers screaming. (Tongue in cheek because my arm pits sweat like the MGM Grand fountain) The Gospel is accessible.

I used to go to lunch at a local deli when I worked at a factory some time ago. Every day, a local pastor would eat there and keep looking at me. He looked like Fire Marshal Bill to me, so his staring would kinda creep me out. Well one day, he approached me and sat down next to me. I studied body language for a spell for reasons I will not share today. He came at me in dominance. He took the head of the table between me and the door. He shook my hand, turning mine over, exposing my palms so he had the upper hand. He looked at me straight in the eyes without looking away, which in some cultures is aggressive, in others it is sexual. I hope it was just aggression. He looked at me and began his speech about Jesus. I was a believer, willing to die for my faith. I stopped him when he got to "Do you know who Jesus is?" I said yes and explained that I was a believer. He looked at me, then down at my arms that had tattoos covering my epidermis. If he would have read what it said, he would have seen, it was a quote from Ephesians 2. If he read my t-shirt I was wearing, he would have seen that the very same verse was printed on the back of it. He couldn't see past his judgment. He denied I really believed. He wasn't so sure I really understood the Gospel. So I explained it to him. I explained that I believe that Jesus paid for all of the world's sins. That He demands belief. That His Spirit changes us and seals us for the day of redemption, when we are made perfect. I explained that the Good News was that you didn't have to look perfect or never make mistakes to be forgiven, that the work of forgiveness for me was already done. That made me one of those, "Once saved, always saved" types. He looked at me and still did not believe. So I apologized for not looking the way he would expect a Christian to look and walked out the door and back to work.

It made me sad.

I saw this same guy in the mall last weekend wearing a Tapout shirt, which made me laugh until I peed in my heart, which probably would have made the Holy Spirit angry being it was His home if he weren't laughing too.















Sing.
Migrate.

School

My postings here will be inconsistent for a while. I have started nursing school in a highly intense accelerated program. I am not wishing to stop pastoring for those asking questions, I am searching for something I can fall back on in case of emergency and also broadening my skill set to serve my God. Things have been busy, but good. I have been feeling OK, but I think that is because I do not have the time or option of thinking about much of anything other than work and school, so I guess this is a welcomed side effect to dreaded school. I hate school.

Here are positives from the past week:
1. I met a couple of guys in my section in school who are pretty cool and will be my study partners and friends throughout the program and maybe longer. One loves to cook and was a former chef turned casino dealer. Today, he made this walnut/pretzel/caramel thing that was really good. The other likes the same kind of excure music I do. That is a blessing because in a female dominated program in a female dominated profession, it is good to have a couple dudes around.
2. I am ahead in my testing.
3. Youth group has been so awesome!
4. Church has also been awesome!















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Migrate.

Aevry's Birthday

My little girl on her 4th birthday. It is so hard to believe she is so big already. She is so different from Caeden and Laura and I still cannot figure out who she gets her attitude from. Laura blames me, I blame her. But I love it all the same.

Yesterday, church was so good. I believe God was speaking to my heart throughout. I have been working through the process of moving out of misery. Choosing not to live in my sadness, but experience it, then fall before Christ, helpless. This will be my goal.
















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Migrate.

Age

I look at old people and think about what they were like when they were young. I see these wrinkled, frail people sitting in chairs with wheels staring off and it is hard to picture them as they were. I see pictures of these people and they were beautiful in their youth and it reminds me that beauty is fleeting. Youth doesn't last forever. One day (God willing) I will be in that chair with wheels, staring out some window. I don't care if I can communicate as long as I still have my memories. If I don't have them, someone drop a toaster in my sponge bath please.

Old age seems cruel. I think it is the worst part about the curse of Adam and Eve. I don't think anyone should have to see or feel their bodies degrade slowly. It sucks.

On a positive note: Aevry had a great birthday party today with her girl friends. They went and got their hair and nails done, then went for pizza and a tour of the pizzeria. She played the birthday card for several days and now the time of getting her own way is over. Makes me sad. Not really. I do the same thing. I like to have a birthday week. Not so much anymore (See above paragraph) but I used to. I will post pictures soon, she was so pretty.
















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Migrate.

Scars

When I was 9, I somehow contacted Tuberculosis in my right neck gland. It swelled and swelled until I had to go to the doctor. My pediatrician was a doctor in the army during WWII. He had seen his share of TB. He knew it right away. I was hospitalized and my neck cut open to expose what was the disease that threatened my life.

My mother and I share this in common: We both become belligerent when exposed to anesthesia. I woke lying naked on the bed and was indignant that I was not covered. I was exposed for all of the lady nurses to admire...or so I imagined.

I laid in bed for a couple of weeks until the stitches were ready to come out. My mom had a nurse friend come over to remove the huge bandage that had fused to my neck and nape hair. She tore it out with a fury that cannot be matched by the angriest wolverine. I was in pain. Real pain. The kind when you shrill.

I have a scar.

My doctor told me that my scar would heal stronger than my regular skin because of my fear that the wound would reopen. He was right. I have a scar on my neck, but it has never opened up to expose my jugular once. Not even once.

Maybe when we get any kind of scar, it heals like that. Maybe when we are torn to shreds and left in the cold for the world to laugh at, we heal stronger than we were before our injury. I pray this is true. I pray that all pain leads to strength. I hope to be able to handle anything when the worst of this is over. I still feel I have the worst yet ahead of me, but if it will serve to make me much stronger, I will endure with a smile on my face. If not, I will just endure. God does the work right? He gets us to the places we need to be, whether we think we can ever make it or not.

The scars will remain. Forever. But that doesn't mean they can't show the war God has carried me through and show others that even if you are beaten up, we will end up on top. Once again, I believe without seeing this yet. But I believe because I have seen a worldly hell before and watched this same God lift me out of the flames.















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Migrate.

Trivial

I really don't even have words. I just need to write something. Every night, I stare at this same illuminated screen and wonder what to write to convey life as I know it. I don't have anything. I am blank for words. I have all of these feelings, but no way to describe them. God is so good, yet I long for Heaven so badly. But still I fear it. It isn't the ideal way to feel, but it is something right? Feeling something is good. Without that we have stagnant memories. God gave us the ability to feel things for a very good reason. He knew that our perception would mean everything to us. The ways in which we experience life would define who we are going to be.

It isn't about right and wrong. Holy and unholy. It is about the sacrifice Christ made for us. He knows our pain and fears. He knows what we are up against and it isn't good.

I was sitting today thinking about my life. The good and bad of it. I sat and thought about my little brother Joe and how much I love that guy. I have known for as long as I have known God that I was here in his life for a reason. I have always felt compelled to pray for him and give myself to him. So I bleed from the same vein as him. I would walk through the fire and smoke for him. I would have for Will. I understand why I have been put in his life. I just wish I understood what it is I can do to help.

















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Migrate.

Light

Whatever your views on the Michigan smoking may be, and mine are mixed, I have to enjoy sitting in B-Dubbs working without the stench of flaming lungs revolving around my head. I am more productive sometimes if I can get out of my usual atmosphere and work around people for a change. Visual noise can be very comforting. I put on my headphones and people are quietly bustling around me. Makes me feel alive in the world. At home sitting in front of the same walls I did the night before can be alienating and make you feel like you are on an island. I know some are reading this and you punch a clock every morning and hate having to fight the traffic and all of that other garbage and you hate me for complaining. You are right! I have it made! I remember the days when I would go in to work early in the morning and push that time card through the machine, then stand in front of a press and flip a switch up and down for 8 hours. That wasn't what I always hoped to be doing.

God is doing cool things in me right now.











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Migrate.

It Rains

It rains. It rains. It rains.

Sometimes the rain is beautiful. It can give me the comfort to put me to sleep, and it can twist knives into my heart. It rains right now: And it rains hard. After a muggy day, there isn't much more refreshing than the rain running off your face. It was raining on Christmas, which was kind of cliche. It figures. My favorite day and my most comforting thing. Ruined.

I was driving all of the kids home today (All of Will's and all of mine. In my heart, Will's have become just like my own). Connor asked to hear some of my music I have written over the years, so I played him some from various bands I have been in. As we were listening, he asked if I had anything that had his dad in it. I did. I played him a song that had his father singing mostly back-up, but had this part at the end where he was singing alone. I looked back to see if the boys were listening and watched his tears fall like glass to the ground. I could barely keep my own composure to comfort him. They are wonderful and precious kids and it makes me mad at Will for underestimating his worth to them. He was their hero. Caeden reached over the back seat to rub Connors bald head, only to weep himself when Connor left the car.

It is one of those days where you want to question things. Where you want to rebel. I have to remind myself that God did not do this and it hurts Him much more than anyone else.

So these are my words into space: If God will let you hear. I hope you are so happy. It brings me joy to know how happy you are right now. I hope God will not allow you to see any of us right now, because that would steal your joy. I hope you realize that God will never allow me to give up on your kids, I love them like they were my own blood. I see you when I look at them, and I think it works vice versa. I miss you














Sing.Migrate.™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

It Was Worth It

Is life just a series of chance happenings or is it something orchestrated by someone divine?

We will never know in this skin why some things happen, but would you change anything if you could? I feel like I would change one thing. But I am not sure it would have made a difference.

I believe life is designed by our Creator. I believe that all major events in one's life happen for a specific reason. I believe God is much bigger than our minds allow for. What we cannot see can be the things that define us in the end.

I would take back the last year and do it again if I could. I don't think it would change a thing. God does what He does and allows what He allows. Who is the pot to ask the potter why we were made? But I will say, God is always perfect and faithful. I trust Him as He has given me everything.

So I will think about things that are holy and lovely. I will think about how much fun Will is having right now. I will think about his laugh and how that is all he can do right now. Even if I weep, it means more to me that he laugh. Because his laugh could make the whole room laugh.

I will tell you this: Even if I knew the ending, I still would have embraced him as my brother. He brought me joy and for that I will be eternally grateful.














Sing.Migrate.™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Take It

What is the difference between sadness and misery?

We were talking in our small group about it as we studied Ecclesiastes. Some are sad for a time, then fight to get out of it and smile again. Others choose to live in that dark place. We set up camp there because it is where we are most comfortable. Misery is choosing to live in that dark place.

I met with Will's mom for lunch the other day. It is amazing how God is working in her. He has given her the desire and inclination to give all of her anger and sorrow to God. In speaking to her, I have realized that I have not really done that. I have prayed and asked God to pull me out of this. To lift me up as I cannot walk. But never once have I asked God to take it all on Himself. To fight the battle for me. I haven't really given over my anger and rage or my misery and guilt to Him...The only solution to it. So I am doing so now. This is my prayer: Take my heart as it bleeds. Take my anger because it's fire burns as hell burns within me. Take my guilt because I cannot go back and change a single thing I did or did not do. Take my sadness because it is much more than I could ever bare. Take my grief because what the world has lost is greater than what it deserved. Take it all. I don't want it anymore.

I want to have good memories of Will and smile instead of feeling my heart sink and my world crashing down. I want to do the things he never did, but always wanted to do because that is what he would want me to do. I want to play music again. I want to hold on to the wonderful person who filled my life with laughter and love, not the guy that suffered so much.

Through so much loss, I have gained though. Jo Ann helped me see that. I have gained a mother, a father, a sister, cousins, and a deeper love for me brothers. I realize the things that are important when before I lost my way.

So take it all God. I don't want it.














Sing.Migrate.™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Amazing God

Something has been stirring at church lately. God is active and alive. I have been praying and concerned over the past couple of years that our little gathering has become stagnant. Lately, God has been moving in powerful ways. I was on the praise team this morning and as I played guitar, I felt compelled to put that instrument down and lift up my hands to Him. I did not because I fear it would have distracted from the Body's worship. I could not play that instrument well or hard enough to equal the joy of lifting my hands and falling face down on the ground to my Savior.

God is so good. I may say a lot of negative things and preach a doctrine of sadness often here, but the truth is that God is amazing. Not the amazing that current culture has defined, but amazing in it's true definition. God makes me stop and stand still. I have no words, only an overwhelmed tremble in the presence of God.














Sing.Migrate.™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Vision

We are studying Ecclesiastes in my small group Bible study. It is depressing. It brings to light just how careful we should be when asking God for wisdom, because ignorance truly is bliss. If we do not know, than we are not accountable for it. But what kind of life is ignorance? No one wants to be the fool who has no idea what is going on right in front of them. It may hurt a lot to know the truth, but I think in the long run, it hurts a lot more to be ignorant of it.

To be in the dark is confusion. Just try to get up and pee in the night with all the lights out and obstacles everywhere and you wind up hurt and cursing, or peeing in the closet. God allows mistakes in part to help us learn what the mistakes are, so we won't be in darkness. He drags us kicking screaming sometimes into the light. Us and all of our miserable sin get's exposed, and we are forced to make a choice: Will we repeat, or walk away in another direction. To repeat is foolish and common. To walk away is the beginning of understanding.

But do we really need to know the truth?


I don't know.

I wanted to know who my father was, what he looked like, and if he thought of me. I spent so many years searching. I found him. I contacted him three times without even a note in the mailbox in return. So I stupidly went for my sister and cousin. Only to be rejected as a misinformed sad soul. I was pitied, but turned away. I knew the truth, yet was written off as ignorant. Solomon would call this a "Chasing after the wind." "Meaningless." He would be right.

But at least now I know. I put myself out there like a fool to be rejected and the worst happened. I had these delusions of spending holidays with my new family that, after a grave mix up were so glad to have my family as part of theirs. Instead: Reality. I was sent kicking the can again, for the final time. The upside is that at least I know what kind of person my father really is. He is proud and he is a coward. He is the fool. He is left with no excuse. God gave him three chances and he ran every time, as if God did not know he was lying and weren't going to hold him accountable. The Bible says that a person who doesn't provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever. Enough said there.

I don't think we always end up happy once the truth is made known to us, but I think we do get a sense of peace and closure in being able to see straight.














Sing.Migrate.™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Winning

You don't need to win.

I tell myself that every day. As I battle many different things at different times, I do not have to win all the time. I am too competitive. I have needed to be throughout my life. I have needed to be a fighter. I have needed that little voice inside that tells you to get back up and fight. I tell myself I am better than this. I have more heart. I have been through more, and it has helped me to survive. But now, it has become a way of life; to compete against the world. Me against you and I am taking me.

This causes problems. Why? Because we can't always win. We lose sometimes, everyone does. We need the fight when we are crippled and down and are barely breathing, such as right now for me. We need it to subside when we take too much pride in the fight. We were meant to lose some. Without lose, victory isn't sweet at all.

Yet, I don't shave much anymore. I trick my body to get out of bed. I pretend to still love the hobbies I have always loved. I am here on autopilot and my mind is somewhere in space, floating around, bouncing between pain and regret. I need the fight right now, but have given up most of it. I am down and continue to lay there barren. My God lifts me up and I fall back down again. It is my fault I cannot keep my legs straight. I am too weak.

I miss the time I would light up at the chance to compete. I was always the underdog in my mind, I made it that way because I was better coming from behind, when no one expected much from me. I remember in basketball, I would size up the other team, find their best player and go for him. I would beat him up physically and mentally until he broke. I won. I had heart. I miss that fire. Something has been taken from me. Someone. It isn't coming back. But God, who is faithful and allows us pain has something better on the horizon. I can't see it now, and I can't feel it, but I know it's there. He allows this pain for a better ending.

But for now, I will sit at this computer and open all of my pictures of him and weep. Because it is all I can do. And crumble into the arms of Christ, who is the only source of strength.














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Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

The Death Of America

Guy on Maury: "I am 150% sure, I am not Devin's daddy." "I never even slept with the girl."
Maury: "When it comes to 2 year old Devin, Darryl, you are the father."
Crowd: "OOOOHHHHHHH.""OOOOOHHHHHHH."
Guy: "Oh man, I knew it."
Mother: (Standing in the guys face) "I told you. I told you. What! What!" "Whatchu got to say now?"


This is television. It is hard for me to imagine bringing something so private and important in front of 100 people in a studio, cheering and booing. Millions on TV watching. The camera backstage fixed on the little kid that has no father no matter what happens with the test. This kid will get to watch this episode over and over again and remember being exploited on his worst day in front of everyone. It makes for entertaining TV, but it is a horror show for the kids. It always is a horror show for the kids when an idiot dad takes the ultimate walk of shame. It is pathetic and weak.

What makes a man a man is the way he takes care of his family. In this culture, walking away is encouraged. "Walk away from marriage, the laws make it easy now." "Walk away from the kid, just send the checks, or we can make it easier and take them out of your pay for you, so you don't even have to write that little piece of paper." "If it is hard, just quit." "It isn't cowardice, it is looking out for yourself, being smart." This has been the death of America.

This is why we are falling.











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Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Purgatory

The whole house is sleeping. Caeden and Aidan (Will's 7 year old) are sleeping peacefully in the basement after a long night of laughing. Aevry and Laura are right down the wall. Aevry is breathing heavily as usual. The windows are open and the wind is blowing the drapes forward and filling the living room with cold air. The microwave clock is 4 minutes fast and keeps telling me to go to bed. The heater is on my lap fighting the draft with every watt it drains from the earth. I am sitting on the couch surrounded by life in repose. Again.

It has been a tough week. Things have been hard for me. Even the simple tasks have taken their toll. I can't get my mind off of Will. My dreams have been filled with oddities and strange happenings. I have angry thoughts and can't shake them. Thoughts that remind me that I am not a very forgiving person lately. This is a condition of my attitude that must change soon. Anger hurts only yourself. It doesn't matter if I am right and they are wrong, they don't care and I am the only one thinking about it. So it hurts only me.

The street lights are out in front of my house, making it too dark to make out the small shapes that pass beneath my front window. Probably stray cats the crazy cat lady has forgotten about, roaming the streets when everyone is sleeping. When the lights are out I feel alone. No one else seems to be doing the same thing I am, and that makes me sad; or happy depending on the night. Sometimes I want everyone to see me struggle like I were a fish in the bottom of a boat, flipping around and gasping for air waiting for the knife to separate me from my bones. Other days, I just want to blend in and be the clown, performing the circus tricks that make everyone laugh and have a really nice time. It is a toss up lately which of the two I will be that day. Sometimes I want to stop traffic and make everyone mad at me, just to remind everyone that I am here, and other days I could crawl into a small box on a boat in the middle of the ocean and just exist alone with no one but God to listen to my ramblings. Loneliness can be a really loyal friend if you embrace it.

I love to listen to the second hand tick like a metronome, cutting the silence 60 times a minute, taking that much time off of my life. I often wonder what I can do in all that time I have been sitting here, if given to me at the end of my life. Is life Purgatory? Are we just waiting for Heaven?

I refuse to sit and wait. Living life with a mission is what life is all about. I may be in a waiting room, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't stay busy.
















Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Why I Do Youth Ministry

I have spent years trying to put into the right words why I do youth ministry and why I do it the way I do it. It is hard for me to figure out. I attract a certain kind of kid I think. I may be like the pied piper of dead end kids or something. Or I could be exactly who God is making me to be. My youth group isn't like any I've been to before. There isn't much flashiness to it. The sound system sucks and we don't have a sound guy to make sure things are mixed properly. We meet in a gymnasium of another church, but before that we were in basements, bowling alleys, music halls, Falcon Halls and even in a park. We wander around running a vagrant ministry to vagrant kids. The vast majority of the kids have little to no family to speak of and a good portion of them have been kicked out of school. If I shared their stories with you, you would never believe what some of these kids have been through, things you didn't think really happened in the real world. Things you would see on the news and cringe and shake your head at. We gather them together in a little gym in Wyandotte and work on it. We work hard and progress is slow moving. Our staff is realizing what it means to live in their worlds and go to great lengths to be someone in their lives. But when the smoke clears, we look around and see real progress. Kids loving Jesus in practical ways and sharing it with each other. If we want to gauge whether our ministry is working, meaning God has us right where He wants us, we just watch teenagers living in misery bringing with them more kids living in misery. This means they are seeing hope here. This means Christ is chipping away.

My mom really is one of my models of youth ministry. When we were kids, she bought a big van, mostly held together by duct tape, pulled most of the seats out of it, and used to drive around the streets of River Rouge and Ecorse picking up kids and bringing them to church. She did all of these silly antics to keep them there too. She even resorted to buying a clown suit and acting a fool to make them laugh. The kids rarely had shoes on, and their faces were always dirty, but my mom saw Christ in them, so she chipped away. These were street kids, who were willing to pile into a clown's van and sit inside of a church. To me, that is a pretty amazing feat.

God has gone to great lengths to keep us a humble, grass roots ministry. He has made sure we always had just enough. Nothing more, nothing less. We get by borrowing peoples cars, meeting at their homes, and begging for free help. We are blessed to function this way. Because it reminds us that there was nothing glamorous about what Jesus did when He came here. He took a beating from the religious who hated the people he spent His time with and didn't run a flashy ministry (Unless flashy to you means basically spitting in a blind man's eye and making him see again). Jesus got His hands dirty and didn't need to wow anyone to show people what love really is. I think resources can get in the way of real love. Resources are great to have until you covet them, then they become a hindrance to the point of what we are doing. Get enough resources in student ministry and soon you will have a ministry thats god has become entertainment and sugar coated lollipops. We do what we can to keep the kids excited and their attention on the right place, but in the end, it is about showing them what real love is and how to spread that love out to other people. This is a backbreaking task and runs staff right out of here.

I have to remind myself every so often that what I am doing is what God wants me to do. If I forget that, I will loss my mind and burn up with all of the static from every force pushing against us.












Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

The Dead End Kids

We were the dead end kids. We knew that none of us were getting out of here, at least not for very long. I think that was always OK with us. We had each other. I didn't mind driving the same streets over and over again wearing out the pavement every day. Some people complain when they move away about how everything has changed when they return. All of their hiding places are gas stations and strip malls. We got to watch it happen. We would share in the levity of the moment when our childhood places were demolished. Those that remained, we returned to often, just to tell the same stories over and over. We would scratch our names in the walls to remind everyone that the dead end kids were here. Will worked on the rails and would spray paint his symbol on the cars.

We had a direction that would correspond to each of us. I was South, Will was East, Joe was West, and Jeff was North. We had matching Eskimo hats with our directions written on the label inside. We would wear them to Horse Island to ice fish beneath a blanket of bitter cold.

We practiced shotgun rules, always. Will had an Escort ESP, which had no back seat, just a hatchback area to lay in. The rules were, you had to call shotgun within sight of the car while we were leaving. If you were ever caught crying, you were in the backseat for a week, and if you "Busted," meaning fell down, it was also a week. Will was the driver, so it was usually me and Joe who would cast the lots to lay in the hatch.

I miss Will tonight. To the point that I can't breathe again. I miss the lobster fork he kept stuck in his dashboard when we were kids. I miss arguing with him over trivial things for hours, he could never handle hypotheticals, he was too mechanically minded. I miss the way he ate steak, cutting off a small piece, then dipping it into the butter jug and pulling out a chunk twice the size of the steak. I miss the way he always tucked in his undershirt to prevent his butt crack from being exposed. I miss the little money change bags he would sow from old flannels. I miss his loud snoring. I used to hate when he fell asleep first, because I would be stuck making music in my head below his bed to the beat of his breathing. Right now, hearing him snore would be brilliant. Most of all I miss his stained and greasy hands, ripped and cracked from the work he loved so much.

I still pick up my phone to call him when something funny happens. It hurts to remember he isn't going to pick up that phone. The battery is dead.

In Vegas, I set my mind to forgetting what was at home as much as I could. I focused on my little brother Andy and my wife. I had such a great time with them and for a few moments, I wasn't back here. I got on a plane to fly home and it began coming back. All of it. We landed and got home and I snapped at my wife for absolutely no reason at all. It just all came back so fast and I was right back where I was before I left and I was frustrated and angry about that. One day before I was standing in the beauty of one of God's most beautiful Creations, the next, I was staring in the face of death again. Watching our ghosts move from place to place under the rolling street lights. It isn't at all fair. No one said it would be.












Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.