Luke Brasel Counseling

Blog

  • Coffee and What We Want

    Coffee and What We Want

    Last Tuesday I walked out the door yet again without taking my vitamins. With coffee in one hand, lunch in the other, and my briefcase on my shoulder, I used a leg to swing the door shut behind me. With my hands full and the clock ticking, I remembered the vitamins in the back of the refrigerator, largely untouched for two years. I shook my head in dismay and mumbled something about the pace of life. When is life going to slow down? There’s just not enough time in the day!

    Then I looked at my coffee mug. Coffee can do a lot of things, but speak truth is rarely one of them. But my coffee confronted me.

    Every morning I spend careful minutes to grind fresh beans and pour boiling water over them. Before I became a coffee snob, I slept those fifteen minutes.

    When I walked out in a rush, I saw the truth: I choose what I want over what I need.

    While my vitamins sat untouched, I made coffee. I abandoned the very thing my body needed most for the aroma and hazelnut taste I wanted. The pace of life and busy schedule had nothing to do with my failure to take vitamins. It came down to my choice to prioritize what I wanted over what I needed.

    How often do we choose what we want rather than what we need? And even worse, do we have the awareness to realize the ways we mask these choices?

    Sadly life does not always allow us to know the cost of our decisions, either. I have no way to know how my neglect of vitamins has affected my life. Better sleep? Less sickness? Happier moods?

    The external provides metaphor for the internal: In terms of your responsibility to care for your heart, where do you drink coffee instead of vitamins? How do you choose wants and miss the pursuit of needs?

    I hide rather than tell the truth. I leave my own life to fantasize about another. I choose an evening alone when I need to call a friend. I let the demands of my calendar blind me from my marriage. I skip time with God to check an item off my to-do list.

    Each sentence starts with “I” because I have a willing participation in all of these, whether I am conscious of it or not.

    It is quite scary, actually, to consider God gives us the freedom to pursue our wants and bypass our needs. He has made us so incredibly needy. Yet our indulgences keep us happy enough that we forsake the needs of our heart: To belong. To love. To sacrifice. To connect. To surrender. To fight. To live and relate humbly. To live freely. To be loved. To seek God and find Him. To live in the real over the fantasy. To stay present in our story (read more here).

    I am so needy and dependent that I barely function without water and food. My thirst and my hunger scream loud enough that I answer almost immediately. But the needs of my heart too often go unseen and unheard because I pursue what I want rather than what I need. And perhaps this is the greatest fear of all- we do not always know what it costs us to neglect the needs of our heart, the very needs God has wired into our soul. In the freedom he offers, he allows us to fool about and get by with the frothy life we want even as we neglect soul nourishment.

    Our heart, like our taste buds and stomach, wants the easy way out. Our first impulse will always be toward the sensually pleasing rather than that which nourishes us.

    So if you are just finishing your cup of coffee like me, let’s drink to this: To watch over our heart we must seek, discover, and pursue our needs. Only then will we grow, mature, and find life to offer. Only then will we live the story for which we are written.

  • Inner Workings

    Inner Workings

    My kids love stories. I do, too. I am grateful for the stories I never would have discovered without their invitation. Frozen changed our lives two years ago. That soundtrack proved a CD can never wear out from too many plays. This year, it’s Moana. We saw it over the holidays, and it again reminded me no one does story like Disney. I am still using the story to explore and interpret my own. If you’ve seen the movie, you know a seven-minute short called Inner Workings precedes the feature film. Inner Workings alone is worth the price of admission. I searched the web and could only find a preview (click here). Since I cannot show you the short film, I’ll just have to narrate and share.

    An ordinary man named Paul sleeps until the obnoxious intrusion of his alarm clock. As he struggles to awaken, we meet the main characters of the film- his internal organs. Brain, Heart, Lungs, Stomach, Kidneys, and Bladder wake up. All organs take their cue from Brain who holds the reins. As Paul sings in the shower, Heart dances along because Brain allows it. Then he imagines slipping on soap, and Brain foresees his sure death and burial. An imagined priest conducts his eulogy for comic relief. Paul concludes his shower peacefully.

    As Paul walks through sunny California in the 1980s on his way to work at Boring, Boring, & Glum, he has three short encounters which reveal the heart of his whole life story. First, Stomach salivates as a couple eats pancakes dripping with syrup and melting butter. Brain adds up the calories, and we again see the priest give a eulogy at Paul’s grave. Paul continues his trek to work when a surfer practically runs him over and simultaneously invites him out into the waves. Heart envisions the thrill of the waves until Brain calculates sure death at the jaws of a shark. Again the priest presides over his funeral. Paul walks on.

    He passes a woman selling sunglasses, and Heart catches vision for love and romance. His story repeats: Brain overpowers Heart in the name of safety and survival. In three short scenes, we understand Paul’s whole life. You and I, too, can read our lives through small scenes. It only takes a few. If you do not know the deeper parts of your story, sometimes it merely takes examination of a scene or two. Our heart has learned a secure way to engage life and relationships, so we repeat our story. Another way to say it is this: Our story follows us. When I sit with people in story groups, men and women pick a scene from their past to write and tell. They are often surprised to learn one short scene tells their whole story.

    In short, no pun intended, Paul has not invited Heart along for the journey. Brain holds the reins and rules the show. That’s not to say our intellect should be abandoned in favor of our heart, either. Paul’s head wisely warns of the consumption of too many calories and the dangers of sharks. I just saw a shark swim by my kids at the beach last year. I will think twice next time before stepping into the sea. But Paul’s narrative illustrates a fear which silences the heart. Unless we invite our heart along for our journey, we live divided, half-alive, and we never jump in the ocean.

    Additionally, when we don’t invite our heart along, we end up staring at others and wanting to live their story. Those who live with heart entice us to dream and hope, just as Paul stares longingly at the breakfast couple and people on the beach. In moments of envy, we either listen as our heart speaks hope for ourselves, or we dismiss desires in effort to survive like Paul.

    Standing at the entrance of Boring, Boring, & Glum, Brain yet again defeats Heart, and Paul enters to sit at a desk. He joins the chorus of monotonous employees who simultaneously punch data into computers. Paul punches a key and checks the numbers. He punches a key and checks the numbers. He punches a key and checks the numbers.

    If the story ended here, we’d call it tragic. So many human stories do end here. Dreams die never to be rekindled. Hope fades. Survival wins out over full life. We would not be drawn to this short film if we did not know this tragedy ourselves.

    Brain lives in resistance to Paul’s fear. Clearly he defines a successful story as keeping his job and the avoidance of death.

    When Paul’s watch beeps signifying lunchtime, Brain does some math and computes the trajectory for the rest of his life. If nothing changes and Paul continues the same story, he will walk to his grave an old, tired, and lonely man with little story to tell. Brain watches as he literally surrenders to death by stepping into his own coffin. At this thought, Brain shares the reins with Heart.

    Heart erupts with joy. Paul abandons his office and races out into the ocean. There the ocean sprays him as it welcomes him to life. In his tie and work attire, he jumps and splashes and Bladder pees its way into salvation. His bladder empty and his heart full, Paul makes his way back to work. Only this time, he sits down with bright sunglasses on his head- bought from the lively woman Heart always wanted to meet.

    Then the unthinkable happens: thanks to Paul inviting his Heart to work, a party breaks out. His joy overflows and seeps contagiously into his co-workers. They dance and work and sing and work and laugh and work. Work becomes play. The elder bosses, drained from a lifetime without heart, emerge to witness the euphoric office. In shock they drop their jaws and coffee mugs and join in the party.

    The story needed to end this way. I feared the film would end with Paul leaving his job, and he could have. I kept waiting for him to exit the office never to return. But it was far more powerful that he stayed. His heart, not his job, was the problem. His unredeemed story needed attention. Scene after scene revealed a man who chose survival over life, and it killed his passion. Until he confronted this part of his story, his story would follow him through life: job change, marriage, parenthood, divorce, vacation, or moving to Mars. Until we confront our story, it hovers like a shadow.

    Culturally we live in a world where the general notion is one must find the job which brings them the most joy. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, and I’m glad I do. But so many people hate their jobs and believe the path to recovering heart starts with finding their calling- aka dream job. Worse, we joke about the millennials as a generation whose cause must be connected to their work or they won’t work at all. While this does not characterize every millennial, the joke brings laughter for a reason. Calling is not synonymous with occupation. Sometimes we have to pay the bills, and we do not get to choose how we do it. This does not mean we’ve missed our calling. We forget the apostle Paul made tents because no one thinks of him first as a tent maker. Calling has more to do with how you bring who you are to where you are rather than what you do. Finding your heart is not leaving your life. The process of recovering and living with heart does require action, and at times this means leaving a job. Primarily, though, recovering heart starts with paying attention. Paul shows us the way as he learns to live connected to his Brain and Heart.

    Process:

    Fear always tempts us to live in resistance, and it ends up writing our story.
    What does your anxiety define as a successful story?
    What fears write your story and define your relationships?
  • I Don’t Have a Problem

    I Don’t Have a Problem

    Resistance: To fight against someone or something

    I often remark to myself that I struggle with many of the same things my clients do. Much of this writing on resistance formed through working with someone who struggled to create momentum toward growth. As I read over my own thoughts, I am confronted with truth: while I may counsel professionally and hang a degree on my wall, I too stare at the same resistance I encourage others to face. As different and unique as we all are, we can never escape the humanity which defines us. In our depths we are all struggling against forces within which tempt us to hide rather than be seen, stay safe rather than risk, and submit to resistance which dares us to abandon our hearts and live small stories.

    There are two ways in which people approach counseling: 1) with the goal of resolution and 2) with the goal of maturity. Actually, we approach life in either of the same ways.

    The Goal of Resolution: Presenting a problem which needs solution; doing everything one can to accomplish that fix
    The Goal of Maturity: Awareness and commitment to the process of the heart; to live with the humility that one has not arrived and will not arrive this side of heaven

    Popular belief seems to define counseling as really only for the crazy, dysfunctional, and diagnosable people and thus only appropriate for you if you have a serious issue you need to work out. For people with this line of thinking, the counseling process becomes an impatient search to fix a problem. This makes sense- once you fix your problem you are no longer in need of a service for “crazy” people.

    We want resolution, and we want it now. People who fall into this category are often the ones who do not want anyone to know they are in counseling. They will say, “If anyone found out I was here…” Sometimes they lie to friends and family about where they go every week at the same time. The shame of sitting in self-reflection and feeling their pain keeps them from living freely, or at least entering the process. Shame and fear become the enemy.

    I hear many times: “I feel better. I don’t really have anything else to talk about.”

    This is sure-fire talk for either resistance to the process of maturity or unawareness that the heart has bumped up against the potential for growth.

    Here are a couple truths you can adopt about yourself:

    • I have issues, issues worthy of processing.
    • I need to look at my story. Not once, but regularly because I live it and replay it every day.
    • My family, however great they are, is broken and flawed.
    • I want to avoid my feelings.
    • Regardless of the self-work I have done, I am not fixed, cured, or healed.

    Great news, right? However you feel about the truths does not change the fact that they are true. All of them are true. Right now. For you.

    You don’t have a problem. You have problems. And that makes you…drum roll, please…human. Not crazy. Just human.

    So long as you hold onto the toxic-shame which perpetuates flight from your humanity, you will be unable to receive grace. In our acceptance of our humanity, we find the strength to accept grace.

    When it comes to hardships in life: Are you after resolution or maturity?

    Specifically when it comes to counseling, it is not wrong to begin with a presenting problem. The process needs to begin somewhere. Marital strife, an addiction, an affair, or a relational pattern that will not go away. Whatever it might be, your crisis has value. As you walk the road of life, though, gauge whether your heart demands resolution or longs for maturity. Resolution will attempt to rid your life of the above five truths. Maturity will embrace the truths as par for the journey.

    Process: How is resistance allowing you to run from what God might have for you?

  • Live 2017 from the Inside-Out

    Live 2017 from the Inside-Out

    …Love others as well as you love yourself… -Mark 12:31 (MSG, italics mine)

    I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I stopped a long time ago without a reason. I figured out why when Michael Hyatt recently quoted a University of Scranton study which said only 8% of New Year’s resolutions succeed.

    8%.

    I believe it. Every January the parking lot at the gym fills with cars, and I freeze as I walk a mile to reach the front door. Three weeks later I have my pick of the workout machines. People who resolved to get healthy fall back into old patterns. A ministry leader told me the same dynamic occurs in churches- the first Sunday of the month looks like Easter but attendance decreases by the end of January.

    As I thought about 2017, I decided to set goals rather than make resolutions. Maybe it’s just semantics, but there feels like an inherent difference at the core of resolutions versus goals, and it has everything to do with shame.

    Shame tends to drive New Year’s resolutions while desire motivates the healthy goals we set for ourselves.

    Consider these common resolutions:
    Get fit and Stay Healthy
    Eat Better
    Spend Less and Save Money
    Quit Smoking
    Enjoy Life More

    While none of these are bad things, any worthy self-evaluation starts with the heart. What occurs inside of you as you make your resolution? Most resolutions start with an unspoken, “Here are the things I don’t like about myself…” I don’t like what I see in the mirror. I don’t like what I see on my plate. Essentially, we use our self-contempt to motivate our heart toward change.

    The number on my scale should be lower, so I will buy a gym membership in the coming year. I should pray more and be more spiritual, so I will start going to church. Do you hear the contempt in these statements? Our self-contempt can be blatant or subtle, but always it lacks kindness and self-compassion.

    Most resolutions are built on toxic-shame, the feeling which tells us we are not enough and unworthy as we are. Thus we build on a faulty foundation. Here’s another problem: Toxic-shame only breeds more toxic-shame. Even if you lose the pounds or clock more hours in church, neither invites you to love yourself. And if you cannot love yourself, you will struggle to love others.

    Until we love ourselves as God and others love us, we will rarely make strides toward maturity. Grace always precedes genuine growth and change.

    This isn’t to say toxic-shame motivates all New Year’s resolutions. As in all things, the heart underneath tells the real story. When I look at the resolutions I’ve made in the past, all of them stemmed from things I wanted to fix about myself (which is really a subtle way to say the things for which I held myself in contempt). Resolutions break down because the human heart does not respond well to fixing. If you need any proof, tell your wife she needs to lose some weight or inform your husband he needs to make more money; then watch shame erupt.

    Resolutions attempt to fix, but the heart longs to desire. Goals tend to grow from a heart which wants more out of life. Consider the difference between resolutions and goals in the questions we ask to get there:

    Resolutions start with: What do I need to fix about myself?

    Goals begin differently: What do I want?

    Can you listen for the voice of desire? What rises up in your heart when you ask yourself, what do I want? Linger enough with the question. Don’t rush through it.

    What do you want?

    A heart that answers from healthy desire likely beats to this tune: My self-worth is intact whether I meet this goal or not. Still I want to pursue it and learn about myself in the process.

    To whatever extent your heart cannot voice this statement reveals toxic-shame. Even as I wrote that sentence, my own shame began to resist the process of dreaming and hoping. It is too dangerous. Too risky. Better to minimize my desires and stay comfortable in my shame. Better to set an unattainable or impractical New Year’s resolution than plan written steps toward a goal.

    In order to set goals, we must first love ourselves enough to validate our desires. The more favor and grace we find for ourselves, the freer we are to assess our abilities and opportunities. A heart led by desire is also willing to grieve and reassess when goals fall short.

    As you dream about the coming year, what do you want? And if reality does not meet your hopes, how much will you like and love yourself? The heart work you do on your shame will far outweigh whatever behaviors you attempt to change. After all, the journey from toxic-shame toward healthy shame has little to do with accomplishments. Resolutions work from the outside-in. Goals move from the inside-out.

     

    A few extra thoughts on resolutions and goals:
    New Year’s resolutions often lack practicality. Take “Enjoy Life to the Fullest”. What does that even mean? How can one work toward it? This is not to say you cannot, but enjoying life to the fullest is tough to measure. Your shame loves to make resolutions like this. It’s actually sabotage. If I make a resolution which cannot be measured, how can I blame myself for failing to accomplish it? Then shame gets to comfortably continue its self-disgust.

    Resolutions can be dramatic. Another contemptuous ploy would be to set the bar too high for yourself. Next year, despite not having been to the gym in 2016, I am going to workout out 365 mornings. Making dramatic resolutions helps us avoid our felt shame in the days leading up to the new year, but it simply won’t last. If the resolutions you make are dramatic in proportion to the rest of your life, check the spirit of your heart. Again, our toxic-shame lives to set us up for failure.

    Goals deserve and require a plan. They must be believable and accomplishable. This isn’t to say dream small. Rather it is to properly assess yourself and circumstances before launching into a goal. Too many resolutions fail for lack of preparation. How many people fail to establish a workout habit because they get up an hour earlier but fail to go to bed earlier? The resolution lasts only for a week because they added to the daily routine rather than changing their schedule. Similarly, you won’t save money without changing the budget. All additions to your life come at a price.

  • A Christmas Journey

    A Christmas Journey

    For four weeks I’ve been looking for Christmas. We put up a tree and filled it with ornaments. We play Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God album while preparing dinner. Amazon delivers packages to our door almost every afternoon. We braved the cold on a run from the parking lot to visit the lights at Opryland Hotel. Starbucks allowed me to drink Christmas with a Peppermint Mocha in a red cup. My family fights over who gets to light the candles as I read an Advent devotion each night. And we drive through the neighborhood to enjoy houses and yards bedecked with lights. If Mary only knew that her likeness would one day sit inflated as a lawn ornament along with balloons of Joseph, Jesus, and stable animals.

    This festivity only carries the soul so far. Eventually, I end up where it all started, with the simplicity of the story.

    The Christmas story is about a journey. Actually it is a story of journeys- one long passage by two young and scared parents-to-be, another longer course by three gentiles bearing gifts, and yet an even further journey by Emmanuel. As I stare at the cast of characters in our nativity scene, Joseph and Mary gaze at Jesus. I see the animals my children continue to reposition so as to get a better look at their Maker. The Magi currently stand in the other room as they travel from afar. But there is one more character present yet often forgotten as I behold the manger scene: Me. This story of journeys invites us to consider our own, and in fact we miss Christmas when we neglect to bring the truth of our own story into the light.

    How does your own journey intersect with Christmas? You can take this question as an invitation to consider the hustle and bustle of December, or you can look even further back into your life. While many celebrate Christmas and many do not, all paths intersect in Bethlehem. In the depths of our heart, all of us must decide what to do with this baby. Whether your path winds toward the manger or instead follows the easier road around town lies with you.

    If we let it, the serious business of Christmas confronts us all. As Buechner says, “at Christmastime, the one who confronts us with ourselves and with this truth is…God who is a child”.

    As the Christmas story tells us, Joseph and Mary responded to the intervention into their stories with fearful yet trusting hearts. God disrupted their lives, and they surrendered to his process. The Magi, too, uprooted themselves from their normal routine to desire, seek, and worship.

    Of course, the Christmas story also has everything to do with a man who wanted to make the journey for all the wrong reasons: Herod. Some scholars suggest Revelation 12:4 uses a dragon to represent the heart and actions of Herod as he trembled upon hearing “It’s a King!” His rage, induced by fear of losing his throne and power, made him the first anno domini enemy of God. Herod used the Romans to secure his power, killed family members and associates in attempt to keep that control, and finally committed infanticide to ensure his throne. Easy, we say, to call him an enemy of God. We know of no one driven by such selfishness, can’t even imagine it outside of perhaps terrorists. Surely no one that sits on your pew or lives in your neighborhood or stares back in your bathroom mirror. But when we look closely at Herod we see a familiar reflection. His eyes look eerily similar to the ones we possess that covet our friend’s wife. His hands take the same contours of our children that swipe the last cookie on the family plate. Surely our complacent indifference to the world’s least of these isn’t quite as bad as his binge of control, right?

    A friend texted me and a few others on Thanksgiving to let us know he appreciated us. Another friend replied all, “I could care less about you guys. Yet I love you more than I could ever imagine.” He wasn’t joking. The latter half I expected. The first part however revealed truth in the depths of you and me that rarely surfaces. Deep down, our initial instincts always center on ourselves. In dark and common moments, I care only for me and myself. I sail in Herod’s boat, a ship with “Enemies of God” painted boldly across the stern. My alliance with Herod keeps me on the lookout for ways God may interfere with my story. I, too, want the Magi to return and warn me when and where God lurks so I may thwart Him and protect myself.

    Yet God does not sink my boat. And by that grace I journey toward the manger.

    Wherever we journey from, it is this baby who deserves to be our destination. And when we find Him, He confronts us with the reality that, in our brokenness we are far worse off than we could ever imagine, and yet at the same time far more loved than we ever dreamed. This is the Christmas story if we stop long enough to take it seriously. It is a story we cannot tell enough, a story that welcomes us even when we struggle to believe, a story which intersects our own, and a story which invites us to the truth of ourselves, always.

    So we travel toward Bethlehem. In the dark of night and in the even darker soul, we listen for the cry of a baby, and we journey to behold the Truth and the Light.

  • The Stories We Tell

    The Stories We Tell

    “Well, at least you have a good story, “ Dane said as he smiled.

    I looked down at my thumb, finally healing after ten days of Neosporin and multiple Band-Aids. Dane was right- I did have a good story. I’m just not sure it was worth it.

    A week and a half ago, storms threatened to roll in at 9 PM. Not a problem, except my Christmas tree sat tied to my Jeep. At 7 PM I left Shannon to get the girls ready for bed while I rummaged through my tools to find a saw for the base of the tree. Softly at first, a pitter patter of rain serenaded from the roof. Two hours early. I flashbacked to a year ago when it took no less than forty-five minutes to cut through the base of the tree with my butter knife of a hacksaw. This could get ugly.

    Fighting against time, I raced out to cut the tree loose. The rain fell steadily now. Rather than work in the storm, I dragged the tree onto the covered back deck and heaved it onto our glass top patio table. Great. This might actually be fun. I hate sawing the tree with a dull blade, but at least I’m dry and the rain adds ambiance. Classic Clark Griswold speak before the fall.

    I started to saw. And saw. And saw. The term “chipping away” might be appropriate here. I was the kid who asks “are we there yet” two hours in on a drive from New York City to Los Angeles. An hour later and only halfway through the trunk, I realized I had all but missed putting the girls to bed. I invited the family to read their bedtime stories on the porch swing.

    Now I had an audience. Lightening flashed in the distance. The harder the rain fell, the harder I sawed. I turned into the big bad wolf. It was time to huff and puff and snap this trunk off. I changed my strategy to short, thirty second bursts with the saw. A blister broke open on my hand. The girls needed to go to bed. This night needed to end. I gave the trunk one final violent pull and drag with the saw.

    Crack! Not thunder, but rather the glass table which responded to my efforts. It folded underneath me and shattered all over the deck.

    My arms burned, my hand bled, and forty-five minutes of glass shards awaited clean up. Worst of all, I easily snapped the end of the trunk off, meaning I likely had no need for the last charge.

    My night was the glass table, broken and trashed.

    In hindsight I wonder: Would I do it again? Would I change the story? Would I trade in my tale to tell for an unbroken table and a peaceful yet forgotten night?

    I don’t know. The new piece of glass, or likely replacing the whole table, will cost me far more than a Christmas tree is worth. I missed a quiet evening of reading to my kids and relaxing with my wife. Neither of which would likely have amounted to anything out of the ordinary. But such is the way of good stories. No one wants to read or tell ordinary. We want to live ordinary. And yet we don’t.

    Over Thanksgiving I picked up a book called Cutting For Stone, a novel my wife described as one of the best she had ever read. Those are high compliments from a women who reads a book or two a week. I fought through 250 pages before the story picked up. All the while, I stuck with it only because Shannon esteemed it. But the endless medical terminology and scattered stories of a boy’s childhood bored me. Finally halfway through, I lost count of the pages and fell into the story. But you know what made it engaging? Fear. Anger. Danger. Cost. Sacrifice. Grief. Hope.

    All of the things I encountered on the back deck with my Christmas tree. These and these alone made my night worth telling and retelling.

    Was the pain and money worth the experience of telling a friend a story? Again, I don’t know.

    Dane originally asked about my tree because he saw the white string attached to the roof of my Jeep. “Did you get a Christmas tree?”

    If it had not been raining that night…If I had bought a better saw…If I had not shattered the glass…all I would have had to answer would have been, “Yes”.

    Process:

    What stories do you tell?
    What makes them worth telling?
    Are your stories worth living?
  • Like Dandelions

    Like Dandelions

    The Christmas commercials are back. They snuck their way into mid-November and fully interspersed themselves throughout Thanksgiving football games. If I see that boy open his present and yell one more time…

    Yes, it’s that time of year again. While Santa is making a list and checking it twice, most of us are formulating our own lists. Have you started your Christmas list yet? While I haven’t actually written anything down, I can take a lawn mower and a blue North Face pullover off my list. I own them because they both belonged to dead men.

    The lawn mower belonged to my wife’s grandfather who passed away. Another one of her relatives died of Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS). How do you put to words the feeling of wearing someone’s jacket that faced one of the most painful and lonely exits from this world?

    “Humbling” is not sufficient. As I zipped the jacket up, I looked around the room at my other stuff. Ghostly names began to appear on everything- names of the people who could own my things when I’m gone. Juxtaposed with the idea of receiving Christmas gifts in a few weeks, the idea brought perspective if not wisdom.

    What if your Christmas list had two columns:

    Things I Want From Santa                                             Person Who Will Get This When I Die

    Our things will scatter to others (or the landfill) like the dandelion seeds in the spring breeze. Be honest: Which do you spend more energy envisioning- The empire you want to build with your life or the inevitable yard sale of your posthumous belongings? Like fools we fantasize a personal legacy certain to surpass the glory of ancient Rome. We craftily deny our mortality.

    James warns us, “But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.” (James 1:10)  Similarly Isaiah proclaims, “A voice says, ‘Cry out.’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ ‘All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.’” It’s even more sobering to realize that in ancient Palestine, grass stayed green only a few weeks.

    I don’t intend a dreary message with this blog, though rarely do we characterize death as anything but dark. In the Christmas season of giving and getting and amidst a lifetime of building things, we do our heart well to live in the truth of our mortality. The reality of death humbles us like nothing else. And in that light, the assurance of death becomes a merciful opportunity to surrender before the God who made us like grass yet cares about us down to the root, loves us wildly while we wither, and offers us hope for restoration worth far more than gifts or empires.

  • Giving Thanks

    Giving Thanks

    During a week popularly devoted to giving thanks, I am reminded we can only give thanks well to the extent we have grieved well. Like it or not, suffering paves the way for thanksgiving. We will never come to grips with true gratitude until we reflect on the possibilities of what was, what is, and the gap between our hopes and reality.

    Giving thanks is about living in this tension.

    Tension between despair and gratitude remains presently before us in every moment.

    Even now as I write, my kids continue to interrupt me. “Hey Dad, I’m hungry.” “Hey Dad, can we watch a show?” “Hey Dad. Hey, Dad. Hey, Dad.”

    On one hand, I want to throw my computer through the window. No wonder writers rent an isolated cabin for a month to finish a book. Despite obvious social cues, headphones in my ears and my face buried at the keyboard, my kids will not leave me alone. But in the same moment, I am deeply grateful. I have a computer on which to write. I ate breakfast this morning and enjoyed a good cup of coffee. And I love the kids who interrupt me. Nine years ago doctors told us we would likely never have children. Now, we have two.

    Thanksgiving offers us the invitation to experience gratitude while simultaneously honoring the losses of our heart.

    What tension will confront you this week with the opportunity to process both loss and gratitude?

    If you pay attention, you will discover your tensions.

    My wife, girls, and I will spend Thanksgiving with my wife’s family. I love them. I recognize many people do not look forward to holidays precisely because of family. Nothing stirs up feelings like blood and marital ties. Knowing this gives me a deeper gratitude for my in-laws and extended family. And yet, the week ahead will not all be smooth sailing. My wife lamented as we packed. “I miss Grandma,” she said. Seeing her family will confront her with the lingering truth that life takes loved ones away from us. Though the years have softened the absence of her grandmother, memory lingers, and sadness accompanies it.

    Sadness guides our heart to engage a world of loss. It allows our heart the chance to say, “I’ve lost something or someone I deeply valued.” In times of grief, the extent to which we are sad informs us how much we valued that person, thing, or dream.

    In a world of loss, the only way to maintain or recover heart is to learn to grieve well. Those who grieve well live well. It is the only way to keep your heart intact. If you want to give thanks, you must first confront loss.

    Listen to your heart this week. Whether it shouts or whispers, it speaks the truth of what hurts and what there is to be grateful for. This is what it means to live in tension. This is what it means to give thanks.

  • Welcome Home

    Welcome Home

    It has been awhile. Almost a year, in fact, since I have posted a blog.

    How has the year been? If you are like me, it has been busy. In the past eleven months, I have moved office locations, coached a 7 year old softball team to an undefeated season (we didn’t actually keep score), coauthored a book, and worked with a friend on redesigning this blog and website.

    If you are new here, welcome. For returning readers, I plan to mix in some past blogs with new ones as I rebuild the archive on the new website. If you haven’t signed up to receive posts by email, check out the Live with Heart box above.

    This post is mostly a welcome home to myself. I imagine a blog something like dog. And not just because they rhyme. I do not have to feed or walk my blog, but he’s always at home. Waiting. Regardless of how long I take to come back or whether anyone else cares, he remains loyal and awaiting my return, albeit without a tail to wag. Best of all, an abandoned and neglected blog does not leave a mess on the floor. Good blog, boy.

    Here in Tennessee, fall has finally wrestled the keys away from summer. As the leaves continue to turn, I hope to take a few breaks from college football, work, and family (hopefully not in that order) to post more.

    In the meantime, please check out the new book, Inviting Intimacy.

    The legend goes something like this: In January of 2015, Marian Green emailed me from somewhere in Colorado. She had a story, and a rough draft book proposal.

    Her story revolved around a past of promiscuity and a heart which longed for a restored sense of intimacy. She had brought this story into marriage, and like any honest relationship, things got messy. And God worked in the muck. Over five or so years, she wrote about it. In the process of crafting the book, she desired a clinical voice to accompany the story. She emailed me, and nineteen months later, we have a book.

    You can read the first chapter for free here.

    I’d love your thoughts on the book. Even better, would you write an Amazon review?

    We want to get the word out to women who hope to rekindle desire, heal and rewrite shame, and connect intimately.

    Marian has quite a story. You might just discover your own through reading hers.

  • Trying to Fix You, Chris Martin

    Trying to Fix You, Chris Martin

    I published this blog almost four years ago on another site. Some things have changed. For one, Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow are no longer married. Still, the story is worth retelling.

    Recently a local morning radio show interviewed Coldplay’s lead singer, Chris Martin. The questions ranged from life in the band to his hobbies to his marriage to Gwyneth Paltrow. He handled the initial questions with the composure typical of rock star pedigree. As the questions became more personal, however, Chris interspersed his responses with patches of silence. The radio show hosts pleaded with him to talk more with passive-aggressive pleas. Silence to a radio anchor is like a BP oil spill to a marine biologist. The tension built as Chris tried to respond to questions about his wife only to sputter like a kite without wind. Finally Chris replied in his British accent, “I apologize guys. I’m just not very good at answering these kind of things.”

    The anchors rushed to the rescue, “Oh you’re doing great. We think you’re doing just fine.”

    More silence.

    One anchor threw another cast with more bait, “Can Gwyneth’s career be intimidating at times as it’s taking off?”

    “I just….(silence)….I’m not sure….(silence)….I can’t do this anymore.” And rock star Chris hung up on live radio.

    Even over the airwaves, I could see the anchors’ jaws hit the studio floor. I envisioned their disbelieving eyes staring blankly at each other, speechless and dumbfounded. I almost screamed. Their handling of Chris’ heart grated on me like nails on a chalkboard.

    Immediately the anchors sought counsel from the resident therapist in the booth. She attempted to analyze Chris and his issues. I wished she had a mirror.

    There was no attempt to care for Chris. No genuine interest in helping him make the decision that was best for him. I can’t speak for what the hosts felt, but I know what they wanted: Information. They attempted to know about him without knowing him. Like a jockey that pushes his horse past exhaustion for the sake of victory, they glorified the show over Chris’ needs. The anchors’ presence overwhelmed and suffocated his.

    Our presence speaks. In the interest of learning to know one another, it would be wise to listen. The rhythm of our heart plays to the tune of two questions that drive every human interaction. If handled well, the answers become a compass and map for any communication between two or more people, whether it is a radio interview, a teacher and student, or a fifty-year marriage.

    1. Where are you?
    2. What do you want?

    I know that I live in a fairy tale world (Note: a client told me this week I live in a land of unicorns), but I wonder how different the result could have been had the anchors answered these questions for themselves as they conversed with Chris Martin. Though the show likely would not have produced the inside scoop on a celebrity’s life, I would surmise that all ten of us listening at 5:30 AM would have started our own day asking those questions for ourselves.