Affirming the Awkwardness

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Much of what Jessica and I have been invited to live into with regard to cancer and community is the task of affirming the awkwardness that necessarily exists between us and you.

Huh? Am I calling you awkward?

Well, yes, kind of. And no, not really. The whole thing, to be honest, is hopelessly awkward.

When you stop me and you say “Ryan, how are you?” we both realize that this is an awkward question without a good response. ‘Cause we both know part of the answer, “How am I? Oh, I’m just dying of cancer, that’s all. How are you?” or I could just go the polite route, “I’m great. How are you?” which leaves both of us fully aware that we just had an incredibly superficial dialog that was wholly useless. How am I? What you’re really wanting to say is “Ryan, I care for you. I want you to know that I care for you but I’m not quite sure what to say or how to say it.” but saying that would be equally awkward now wouldn’t it?!

And so we rest in the awkwardness of there being very little to say–very few appropriate things to say for such a time as this. Good MRI reports often make it easier, it gives us positive content to focus on. “I heard about your good results! Congratulations!” or, in other words, “Hey, I’m so glad we’ve got something to talk about that feels more socially appropriate than death!” and you’re right. Death is awkward to talk about in a quick casual conversation.

Sometimes I like to enter death into the conversation way before it’s socially appropriate. Sorry. Sometimes it’s just funny. Sometimes it cuts the tension in such a way that I just can’t pass it up. Sometimes I seriously simply forget what’s normal.

What is normal though?

 

Happy Father’s Day Papa Bear*

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I like my dad, I do.

A lot.

I’m even going to publicly say that I love him! I do.

A lot.

It’s a strange thing, though, we don’t share many hobbies. At all. My dad’s an artist and I am not. I grew up playing basketball and my dad wasn’t much of a baller. We never had that “one” activity that was ours together—fixing cars, working in the garage, sports, etc. But it didn’t matter, it’s never mattered. I grew up with a dad that always took his children out on dates. Sometimes it was the three of us kids together, but more often than not it was one on one dates. My dad would take me mini-golfing, out to breakfast, bowling, or to a movie. He was always intentional about spending time with us kids and making it both something special but also something incredibly normal. It’s just what he did. He was careful to pay attention to us, to value what we valued, and to take interest both in who we were and what we found interesting. We didn’t necessarily need a sport in common, it didn’t exactly matter ‘cause my dad always loved us and wanted to be with us. I feel very lucky to have grown up with a dad who first and foremost truly loved us kids for who we were. Period.

Surprisingly, as I’ve grown older my dad and I have started to have more in common. Namely, we’ve become partners. As a general rule you shouldn’t go into ministry with family—especially church planting. Ministry is hard and church planting (I believe) is even more difficult. To go into church planting together is asking for family baggage to be painfully drawn out and thrown into the already public and messy ministry world. It’s just a bad idea! And yet that’s exactly the context that we’ve found ourselves for the last seven or eight years. And it’s been glorious. Seriously glorious. I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor, for a better context to screw up in, to learn, and to explore. Dad I am indebted to you for the trust that you put in me, for the life that you spoke into me, and for the imagination that you developed inside of me over these last eight years. Thank you.

You see that’s just the kind of person that my dad is. He’s always more willing to trust than to judge, he’s always wanting to give an individual a chance rather than vote them off the island. My dad sees the good in people, he’s always able to see past even an incredibly grungy veneer to discover that beauty that lies within each and every person. As a leader he invites people to journey with him, seeing himself as the chief participant more than the commanding leader. I love that and I want to emulate it. I want to see the beauty in people as he does. It’s a wonderful thing.

On a less mushy note, did you know that my dad can create anything. No joke. Give him a picture and he can paint it. Give him three pictures and he’ll combine them into one beautiful work of art. As him to make a birdhouse and he’ll go to Goodwill and make one out of an old clock, a shoe horn, and a broken tire iron…and it’ll be the coolest bird house you’ve ever seen. I’m not kidding when I say that he can create anything. His creativity and ability to see things that are not and make them so makes me jealous. I love and hate it ‘cause I wish I had more of it. As a kid growing up it was always cool to know that whatever crazy ideas we had: building a chicken coop, repainting a bedroom, creating a costume, or creating bb gun targets my dad could do. And what was especially important (and connected to what I said about ministry) is that he always invited me to participate. He rarely took over and made my project his—it was always ours and we were always in it together. So, actually, I guess I should take back what I said earlier. The hobby that we had in common was just that: partners. We’ve always been partners. Partnership doesn’t demand a hobby, just relationship and trust.

Thank you dad for being someone that I’ve never had a hard time trusting. If I were to pick one word to describe my dad’s identity it would be the word “integrity”. My dad has always been an amazing person of integrity—always going above and beyond to be a person who can be trusted and who is consistent in who he is no matter who is around. Thank you for that dad. I hope that integrity is a word that my kids eventually use to describe me too.

Did I mention that my dad’s funny? Ok, maybe a few of his best jokes I’ve heard repeated a few times over the years but I don’t think that renders them no longer funny…just familiar. Ha! Seriously though, I love to have come from a funny family, from a funny father, and to have clearly developed into quite the funny person myself. Thanks dad, I think we’ve achieved something special here. Whatever we do lets not stop being funny—we’re pretty good at it.

Ok ok, it’s getting to that point where I understand that if I write much more content on this blog it’ll only be my dad and I who finish it. I could seriously write on and on. The last two years have been rough, they’ve been different. Not only have we all fought through my sickness, not only is there always extended family stuff to journey through, but we also ended our ministry partnership as I was sent downtown to start a new work, dad also started working a second job as a bus driver, and oh so many other changes. For a guy who does life in a pattern, with routine, and consistency it has been so inspiring to see how my dad has adjusted and maneuvered through the messiness of these years. It’s been inspiring to see him stepping up in how he cares for my mom, how he functions as a grandparent to my kids, how he sincerely checks in on my wife and I, how he’s become more and more available in his neighborhood places, and how this has all revealed itself through him as a leader of the Renovatus church. I’m inspired and challenged by you dad. You continually invite me to be a better father, leader, husband, and lover of people. What more could I ask for? I’ve always felt loved, cared for, and special. I’ve always and forever known that you were proud of me–how could I not when you’ve said so often? Thank you so much dad. I love you.

 

*  if my wife or daughter sees that I’ve used the term “papa bear” I’m dead meat. Luckily I don’t think either of them reads my blog…

The Gift of Good Test Results

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This morning I invited everyone to pray for us and the MRI test results that we’d receive later that day (Wednesday).

Well, for the first time (as far as I can remember) our MRI scans actually provided some good news! Turns out that the original larger tumor that splits my spinal cord in two (as opposed to the cancerous tumor sheath encasing my whole spinal cord) has shrunk by a little over a centimeter. The doctors were all shocked and very pleasantly surprised by this news because it’s fairly unexplainable. There is not much precedent for the drug I’m taking to have such an effect.

Where does this leave us? Well, honestly, we’re still one tumor growth spurt away from death or major paralysis but we’re also hoping that this develops into a new trend that will continue. This leaves us in a holding pattern that’s much better than the one we were holding onto last week.

My children’s responses truly capture the tension that exists within me regarding how to respond to this very good news. When we shared with them the results India excitedly exclaimed “Yay! I’m emptying my whole worry box! I’m opening it up and letting out all my worries forever! Up they go into the sky. Pop…pop…pop…” Whereas Jones’ retorted “I’m not letting go of any of my worries! They’re all made of steel and they’ll never go away.”

One part of me wants to let go, celebrate, and feel like everything has changed while the other part of me wants to hold on, not get my hopes too high, and stay in reality (that my back is still filled with cancer). It’s that tension that I briefly wrote about this morning–what does living by faith look like?

For now we’ve been given the gift of good news. It may only last a month, it may last longer. We’re still operating on a 3-6 month time frame, but oh man is it good to hear some good news from those blasted MRI scans!

Praying for Results

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I woke up this morning with an old hymn stuck in my head. Its lyrics include these words:

I care not today what the morrow may bring,
If shadow or sunshine or rain,
The Lord I know ruleth o’er everything,
And all of my worries are vain.

 

Refrain:
Living by faith in Jesus above,
Trusting, confiding in His great love;
From all harm safe in His sheltering arm,
I’m living by faith and feel no alarm.

 

Though tempests may blow and the storm clouds arise,
Obscuring the brightness of life,
I’m never alarmed at the overcast skies—
The Master looks on at the strife.

 

I know that He safely will carry me through,
No matter what evils betide;
Why should I then care though the tempest may blow,
If Jesus walks close to my side.

 

Our Lord will return for His loved ones some day,
Our troubles will then all be o’er;
The Master so gently will lead us away,
Beyond that blest heavenly shore.

Today we find out the results of my last set of MRI’s. And I find myself wondering: what does living by faith look like? What does it look like right now, in this moment, today?

I’ve been told by some that I’m healed, that the tumor is gone. I’ve been invited by them to hold onto this truth—that I’m cancer free and to live into that reality until I experience it. Does living by faith mean that I hold onto this reality fully and completely without wavering and without hesitation? Am I not living by faith if I do not hold onto this truth? In other circles I get patted on the back when I ‘bravely’ say that I’m ok with dying, that I don’t fear it, and that I know that death is not my ultimate end. Is that what living by faith looks like?

I want to be healed. I want to be done with this shit. I want miraculously clean MRI results today. Please pray with us that this is what we’ll see later today. But, again, (as I probably say all too often…and probably for my own neediness than for your benefit) my hope is in Jesus, for who he is and not for how he can fix my temporary body…but a nice tune up would be welcomed.

My Friend Chris is Choosin’ Jesus

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It was about seven years ago that I first met Chris. He was responsible for unlocking the gymnasium where Renovatus met for worship as we prepared to launch as a new church. He was a nice guy, he usually helped us unload our trailer that carried all our sound equipment, lamps, pillows, and other random things we hauled into that gym to make it feel cosy and worshipful. Through hiking adventures together, him and his girl friend volunteering at some of our community service events, playing basketball, etc. Chris and I eventually became good friends. Our relationship solidified as he and his girl friend fiance asked me to perform their wedding ceremony. Doing weekly pre-marital counseling with them and my wife proved to be a very special time together as we got to know each other on a much deeper level. Couple that with Chris and Chrsitie committing to help us start a new discussion group focused around spiritual dialog and our friendship was in the bag. We began to know each other’s stories more fully and to walk through life together as much as we could figure out how to do so. Over the years Chris and I have grown closer together as we’ve worked through the messiness of life in pretty real ways. Eating lunch together almost weekly and being in a consistant and fairly high-commitment small group together has helped to develop our friendship into something unique and deep. I’m grateful for Chris and what he’s taught me about generosity, about intelectual honesty, and  what it means to be a friend.

I will not attempt to capture Chris’ spiritual journey very fully here because so much of it is internal and I fear misrepresenting him. What I can say is that when I first met Chris he was actively working (or was he just actively talking about it?) on writing a book about why Christianity was wrong and why God did not exist. As a staunch atheist he found Christianity to be lacking on many levels–though one of his biggest pet peeves with my tribe was the fact that we’d sit around on Sunday mornings talking about Jesus and telling him how awesome he was instead of actually doing what he said. One Sunday morning we even invited him to share with Renovatus about the incongruencies that he saw in the church. To this day I still remember his words–challenging us to talk less about Jesus and to actually do what Jesus said. Over the last seven years and over many many lunch dates Chris has asked lots of good questions about Jesus. While he’s always thought Jesus was a good guy, a man worthy of being respected along the lines of Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and MLK, he never believed Jesus’ claims of being God.

I cannot really capture any sort of process or movement toward Jesus in Chris’ story as it has been played out over the last seven years of friendship and dialog. It was more reminiscent of a slowly dripping faucet than anything else–but the faucet was almost always running. There was no question over the last seven years that the faucet was running. I occasionally (and somewhat jokingly) told Chris that if he ever chose to follow Jesus we’d better all watch out ’cause Chris doesn’t do many things half ass. He’s either all in or all out, he’s either going to do it well or not do it at all, he’s either an obsessive freak about something or he could care less. Besides laughing at me when I told him this he also communicated clearly that he really wished he believed. He wanted to believe but he didn’t, he couldn’t, and he wasn’t going to fake it. Chris also knew that I was with him regardless of his belief, that we were doing life together regardless of whether he eventually chose Jesus or not.

His wife was a believer and Chris saw the benefits of believing, but he hadn’t yet had any kind of “aha” moment that had pushed him over the edge into belief. He talked often of an “aha” moment–that intangible ‘something’, that unexplainable moment that would draw/force/invite him into belief in a way that nothing else could. And so we all waiting for an “aha” moment to happen.

Well it was while I was in Orlando back in April that I got an email from Chris telling me that he’d had his “aha” moment. Within the context of the messiness of life Chris felt invited to embrace love as a verb–to understand and accept love as something you choose. As he thought about my death (among other things) he grieved the fact that he was losing one of the people in his life who was helping him draw closer to Jesus. But why follow an apprentice (of Jesus) when he could follow the real thing? Why keep me in his sights when he could place Jesus in the forefront instead? If love is something you choose, then he could choose Jesus. There’s more that needs to be said here, but I hesitate to tell other people’s stories.
Chris knows that I love him regardless of whether he chooses Jesus…but that doesn’t in any way mean that I’m not absolutely giddy about all of this! Seriously, when I found out that he was ready to take this next step in his journey I awkwardly sobbed like a little baby. I mean, I shouldn’t have been surprised ’cause in many ways it just makes sense–this isn’t an out of the ordinary or surprise thing because it’s just the continuation of what God has already been doing in and around Chris. Neither does this mean that Chris has “arrived” or come to some kind of spiritual end–he doesn’t see this as something where he’s secured his place in heaven and signed some dotted line to avoid hell (in fact, he talks freely of not being sure what he thinks about all that stuff). No, Chris just sees something in Jesus that he wants more of and he’s willing to risk his life on it. It’s simply his next step in his journey…albiet, a very huge next step!
So in a few weeks we’re going to party. Hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, and the cool rite of passage that the church has embraced called baptism.  I get to dunk my friend under water to symbolize both the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and the choice that Chris is making to die to self and embrace the new life (resurrection) that Jesus offers. It should be quite the party, quite the celebration…and what better thing to celebrate than this?
Love you man.