broken bride, broken friend

A naïve young girl fair and fine
Stole the heart of a friend of mine.
I loved her too and did my part-
Thinking she could do nothing wrong
Until the day she broke his heart.

I’m supposed to say something nice,
Be a chum and ignore the vice
Of the woman his only bride.
I’ll admit she’s simply stunning;
This makes the blemish hard to hide.

I’d rather tell of my friend’s love
For the broken he calls his dove
(And a million more cheesy names.)
After mortgages, kids and debt
He’s shown true love that’s more than games.

He’s aware of her darker themes,
Cleans up after her reckless schemes,
Owns her sin like it was his own.
He’s the better man, most wounded
And from whom the most love is shown.

Still his good true friend I would be
For love for her is love for me-
Try to help her love him better,
And helping him mop the messes.
Soft hearts bleed blood that is wetter.

Christian Suicide Bomber

I thought I'd showcase my artistic skills today.

Sometimes Joe Heathen gets mixed messages from us. Which one do you think he's going to pay attention to?

Jesus, and other Unexpected Friends

It was all she could do to control her breathing. Images of an impending doom flashed across her mind like a 1960’s nuclear film, and she wrestled to stay in control.

This was my mom dropping me off for my first day at boarding school.

Anyone who has met my mom knows that she is completely groovy. She is the ‘cool’ mom. One hundred percent real and always ready with an encouraging word or practical joke.

That being said, she is still a mom and is always ready to protect her kids. It was this maternal attribute that she was trying to rein in when she strolled around the corner and walked into my dorm room.

My roommate had already moved in and was in the process of decorating. War photos ripped from the pages of Time lined the walls. A confederate flag was draped over the window, and cast an eerie shade of red over the monochromatic stills of embattled soldiers and trench warfare. Heavy metal music played softly in the background.

I thought it was ridiculously cool. If my roomie didn’t disembowel me before my first REM cycle that night, I knew we’d be fast friends.

The coming year would bring a lot of changes to the landscape of my life. First French kiss. Lost my nerd status. Parents got a divorce. Did my own laundry. Hitchhiked to a nearby city for a crazy weekend that almost got me kicked out of school.

Grade eleven. Good times.

Oh, and I got the Shanghai Flu. Nasty little bug. I don’t remember much about it, so I won’t embellish, but I want to tell you more about my roommate. I was lying in bed sick when he came back to the room after school. I did not want to talk. I did not want to move. So I pretended to be asleep. Maybe he’d just leave and go to the dining hall or something.

He did leave.

Then he came back two minutes later, and with me still pretending to sleep he took a cool damp cloth and gently wiped my feverish forehead.

What kind of self-respecting adolescent tough guy does a thing like that?

Answer: the best kind.

He and I are still friends, as are our wives. I go to church a bit more than he does. He has more tattoos than I do. You could say that the Christian establishment has left a bad aftertaste in his mouth.

But I have hope for him, because when I was a sick, scrawny kid he reminded me of Jesus: often showing up with love and true friendship in dark, unexpected places.

Worm Resuscitation

My daughter Alyssa, like many preschoolers, has made a habit of demonstrating to us the vastness of her intellect.

It has astounded me at times. You can get lost in there, thus it is not territory that one approaches with frivolity. In fact, like her mother’s purse, my daughter’s brain is a place that I explore only when absolutely necessary.

Just the other day we let her go by herself to the end of our cul-de-sac to get the mail. Watching her from our front window, Karen saw her suddenly stop and bend down. The mail was all but forgotten as Alyssa skipped back to the house cradling a dead, dried worm in her little palm.

“Look Mommy! A dead worm!” she called from the porch. Then she carefully backed up a couple steps and as gently as she was able laid her immobile friend on our parking pad. The desiccated fish bait broke in half. “I’ll just put it here so that when the rain comes the water will make it alive again.”

I told you, didn’t I?!

Astounding.

My other daughter Kaitlyn just started grade one, and takes her role as the more educated sibling very seriously. Noticing that the shriveled Lumbricus terrestris hadn’t moved due to days of hot, dry weather, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

This is where the water hose comes into the story.

Kaitlyn gave that little worm… well… let’s call it a healthy squirt, and it disintegrated.

They both shrugged and walked into the house for a snack.

Lesson for this week:

I come across a lot of people who, like Alyssa and Kaitlyn, seem to have the mysteries of the universe all figured out. Their Bibles are nothing less than fifty pound cosmic text books, and their creeds are immobile massifs of ancient meditation.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be sure of some things, or that Truth is all subjective. Not at all.

What I am saying is that the most important subjects should be approached with the greatest dose of humility. We can only breathe and think and love according to what we know today, but the hues of tomorrow’s light might paint a clearer picture.

I’m creeping up on 40 years old. After roughly another forty years I plan on graduating from this preschool. All of us do, eventually. I believe that’s when the real learning begins.

Sharon Irving at Willow Creek

Well... life happens... and this week it happened without me sitting down to write about it. So instead of my ramblings, today I've decided to post this video. I found it unique and profound. See you next week!

Pants-Around-the-Ankles Vulnerability

It hits the fan.

She needs to get hers together.

His doesn’t stink.

You’re full of it.

It happens.

When one is being ushered through “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland you never hear about it, but what really brings us together is what we produce about 15 hours after we take a bite out of an apple (more time for pizza, less for prunes?). The president of the United States of America may use more T.P. than the average Alaskan, but the fact is that they both have daily moments of pants-around-the-ankles vulnerability.

As do you and I.

There are other things we have in common too. There are dirty little secrets and lost opportunities. We share times in life when we have to pass through spaces way to small for our hardened hearts, and we come out pinched and squeezed only to be flushed down the pipes of eternity.

I wish there was a more sanitary metaphor for life, but there isn’t. Life is a nasty business.

But what if there is hope? What would it look like? Could we find some? Who sells it? Do they have a monopoly; is it a pyramid scheme?

Help me out here. There are a lot of us looking for answers that we haven't found in the lastest edition of 101 Easy Answers by Joe Church.

Let me know what you've found.

Water and Other Things Jesus Stepped In.

To the tune of the children's song Jesus Loves Me.

Jesus loves both me and you,

'cause the Bible told Him to.

I fear if He had a choice,

He'd just scream and lose His voice.

Would Jesus love me?
Could Jesus love me?
Or am I really
just lost and all alone.

Everyone knows that Jesus walked on water, but is this the only behavior that we’ve come to expect from the Son of God? Ten minutes of research in a coffee shop can uncover the fact that many view the Christian God as lofty, squeaky clean, and personally inaccessible- a God who carries hand sanitizer in His pocket. This is not an accurate portrait of the historic Jesus.  It’s time to get reacquainted with the God who saw the world for what it was, knew that it really stunk, and jumped right in up to His nose-hairs.

Yes friend, Jesus loves you. He understands that your life is a steaming pile, but He's totally prepared for that. Try to remember that He was born in a barn.

There's Still Work To Do

William Wallace vs Bill the Ass

In Junior High school a teacher told us that we should sign our work using our proper names and middle initials. The advice stuck, so I recently found myself signing "William R. Scarrott" to a book proposal I’m putting together.

My wife is my first editor, and she pointed at the hoity-toity signature and raised an eyebrow. “Is that how you want it?” she asked. It was very diplomatic of her, and unearthed some nagging doubts that I had been trying to bury alive.

I’m proud of my name. You’ve certainly heard of William Wallace. Well, I’m Scottish too. And we mustn’t forget William the Conqueror, William Tell, Prince William and the illustrious William Shatner. Yes, I stand a little straighter in the company of such men.

What caused my wife confusion is the fact that she knows me. (It’s a common, though not universal problem with marriage.)

It’s not that I don’t possess some good qualities. Let me get Karen over here to fill in some blanks…

…Hi. This is Karen. For the record, Bill is a great kisser, an amusing freestyle dancer, a thorough and passionate lover and has a rockin’ manscape. Oh ya, did I mention his great muscles? Hmmm ya…

Okay, Bill here again, and for the record that is the last time Karen gets on this computer. Goodness gracious, honey, we're trying to keep it in the vicinity of PG-13. I’m moving to the friggin’ basement.

ANYWAY, what I would like to point out is that she called me Bill, not William, as is the case with anyone who really knows me. This fact was not lost on my friend Troy when he first read The Lord of The Rings. He gleefully pointed out to me a little known character in J.R. Tolkien’s manuscript who went by the moniker of Bill the Ass. If the shoe fits, right?!

The lesson here is that we need to quit trying to be who we’re not. People need to see Jesus before He puts on His stage makeup.

Bill the Ass? Fine- at least he was a donkey for the good guys. He carried his friend’s burdens. I can only hope for such a legacy when my chapter ends.

Final Score: 25-0

A guest post by Mike Cala

I couldn’t believe it. I had just had my butt handed to me by my 12 year old son. 25 – 0? How did he beat me so easily? Granted, I hadn’t gone into the game thinking I could actually beat him, but I had hoped to make it close . . . sorta, maybe, kinda.

He had played the game before, I hadn’t. He does have ninja-like reflexes and some mad game skills; I’m more senior-citizen-like in my reflexes and am still trying to figure out which button does what when I play any HALO game.

BUT 25 – 0?!!! I believe I was actually down 20 to -1 at one point . . . I didn’t even know -1 is a score you can get!

I looked over to my son, who was grinning from ear to ear, face flush with the beat-down he had given me, somehow gloating and beaming a cherubic smile at the same time. He walked over, patted me on the arm and said quite sincerely, “Good try Dad!”

My gut reaction was - That’s it, you’re going down little man!!! I had to defend my status as the alpha male! I had to show him that Dad was still the biggest, the baddest, the best at all pursuits and things manly! There was no way I was gonna go out like that  . . . but then I saw the look of pure pleasure and joy he had on his face. He had beat Dad at something. Sure it was just a video game, but to him it meant everything.  He and his father had spent some time together doing something he really enjoyed and . . . he had come out on top! It just doesn’t get any better than that for a young boy. So I pushed down my manly pride and and simply said, “Yeah, you kicked my butt”. I think his grin got even wider at that point. 

I lost, but I also won. And won big.