Legacy

13 years ago, I asked God for 20 years of significance. Not significance in the sense of honor or being lifted up, but significance in the sense of doing my best work these last 20 years of service. I have seven years left.

How does someone measure whether they’ve done better or have become more effective in the use of their knowledge and skills? As I’ve reflected on the past 40 years of ministry, I’ve chosen three intertwined stories that seem to speak for themselves. I have gotten permission from all three participants to share this insight.

 

Bryan…In the late 80s, in Garden Grove, California, at the Garden Grove Seventh-day Adventist youth group, I met Bryan. He was an athlete, outspoken, funny, and willing to dig in and help. He was part of the older crew that helped out with driving kids around, showed up for adventures, and made the time spent more fun.

 

He was rather biblically illiterate but super interested. He had a full time job delivering sheetrock through out the Orange County area. And he was divorced with two awesome daughters. He chose to start building a life on Bible insight and became a significant influence in our growing youth group. He asked hard questions and mulled over even harder answers.

 

He became a good friend, although I tried to keep a professional edge. I was young enough to be unsure how transparent I could be with my own God walk and personal challenges. In 1995, I took a job up in Portland, OR and over time the distance made it easy to minimize effort and I let the relationship dissipate. In my ” Free Range Cage Free ” wanderings I found out that Bryan had married, had three kids and modified his work life. I assumed he was doing well and left it at that.

Place a hold, here.

 

Josh…I met Josh in 1995/96. He was 17, tall, funny and girls around high school/ college age acted a little goofy around him. He was friends with a local youth pastor ( which is how we met ), loved music and playing the guitar. He lived up in Vancouver and would come into Portland to listen to this fabulous guitarist, Tim Ellis, play with the Craig Carothers Trio at a little Lebanese place, Al Amir.

 

Tim ended up giving Josh lessons. His dedication to his crafted dream started to unfold. Worship music was a launching point into other, more culturally relevant, styles of music. His vocal abilities followed suit as the bands he stepped into needed vocal support as well as a fabulous guitarist. Sometimes we would be on the same worship team. Sometimes we would meet at Al Amir. Sometimes we would find a Starbucks, sit outside and meander through deeper things.

 

Over time, he outgrew me:-) My quaint theology of grace, transparency and transformation lost it’s luster compared to the electric siren song of beautiful groupies, drugs, alcohol, the stage, ego and some subtle ebbings of mental illness. Always friendly, always happy to connect and yet, our lives were moving in what seemed like opposing engagements but the reality is that we were just getting prepped for The Deepening…that place where life crashes together all our inner wounds, broken dreams and faulty egos…allowing us to regroup with fresh eyes, a new heart and a desire to be useful rather than a user.

 

20 years go by. I went from being an Adventist bible teacher to a non-denominational jack of all trades to a Free Range Cage Free pastor, wandering amongst 30 plus years of clientele…sharing a beverage of choice and talking about living an intentional life. Here’s where the deep reconnection started to take place. Tuesday mornings I invited a handful of musician friends to come and play music with me in the church sanctuary. Josh came several times and then slowly started to evaporate. Finally his drive towards self-isolation took over and he disappeared.

As I worked through the process of faith journey and self redefinition, Josh stayed in orbit, tethered by 20 years of music and friendship. Neither of us were quite prepared for the shadowland that stretched out before us. It would prove daunting and useful.

Place a hold, here.

 

Casey…Casey was 15 when I met him in 2010. While working for a small non-denominational church I felt the urge to start a home school co-op. Heartlife Imagineering Home School Co-op was an educational experiment combining character education, tradition learning, the arts and up to a month of travel. Parents with expertise were encouraged to teach. The size of the school ranged from 10-25 students.

 

It was into this fairly regulated structure that worked hard to facilitate self motivation, accountability and self reflection that Casey was immersed. He was a good athlete, smart, academically unmotivated and looking for his identity. His one year at Heartlife was tough. He had moved up from Arizona so had little local connection. He didn’t take kindly to women in authority. Nothing he had done before prepped him for the level of work and responsibility required to get the respect he wanted.

 

I remember one day where Casey left school in a huff. He had been calling a female teacher names and when confronted had decided he’d had enough school for the day. He takes off walking down the street, knocking over garbage cans…I’m walking after him, having a conversation about moving forward. He runs and hides and proceeds to walk home. Yet, for all his bluster, he and I developed a good relationship.

 

He finished the year and headed off to a local high school. It wasn’t long before he was out of school and running the streets. He learned where to steal, how to avoid the police ( mostly ), how to negotiate for the drugs he wanted…he made Milwaukie the wild west.

 

During these several years, me and a friend ( Al Mendenhall ), who had a history of recovery, were always willing to meet Casey for the 4 C’s…Conversation, Coffee, Cigarettes and Christ ( He never really got the last one 🙂 ). Sometimes he showed up sober, sometimes not…but it didn’t matter to Al and I. We were going to be there. When Casey got locked up, I’d pick him up afterwards and buy him a hot meal and ask if we were done, yet? Numerous times it was back to the streets.

 

One day I got a call that Casey was in the hospital. High, walking in a cross walk, he got hit by a truck and his leg was broken. This single event became so important. His mom flew up from Arizona and they decided he should go home. Unfortunately, that broke his parole and so he couldn’t come back. He didn’t have enough criminal activity to be extradited and he didn’t have enough common sense to change his behavior.

 

Please understand the level of investment. While Casey was still living in Portland he had an opportunity to get into a sober living environment. It was going to take two weeks to get the drugs out of his system and he needed a clean urine screening. He couldn’t stay at my home because there was a time, when he was high, that he threatened me with physical harm…and my family felt unsafe. So I arranged for Casey to be my wingman for two weeks…he tagged along through my daily life and then we crashed in the youth room at the church every night. 10 days in our friend, Dan Walsh, gave me a reprieve for a night. It was nice to be in my own bed. We got through the two weeks and got a clean drug screening and he got into the program. We were hopeful but he wasn’t ready to hang up his addictions.

 

Stretching forward, Casey gets home and his mom nurses him back to health. He reconnects with old friends and old habits and even though he has a job, a car and a place to live…he doesn’t have a change of direction. His leg heals, his mindset doesn’t and it’s not too long before a rap sheet starts to develop that he won’t be able to escape from.

 

He ends up in jail. There’s a whole list of offenses in Arizona and Oregon. He’s burned a lot of bridges and is going down in flames. This is where the broken leg comes into play. He get’s an insurance payout which allows him to hire an attorney and pay a bail bondsman to get him out of jail. As the wheels of justice slowly move towards accountability he gets a year out of jail to hold a job, build quality relationships and show that he’s mostly ready to build a life.

 

The courtroom was packed with friends from town and out of state in support of Casey. We all wanted to testify on his behalf. The folks arrested with him all had their sentences run consecutively…adding up to over 15 years. IF Casey got that, he would be out in his mid thirties. As the judge saw and heard the support for Casey, something shifted…Casey’s sentences would be run concurrently…so he got 5 years instead of 15 plus.

 

During those five years I kept in contact with Casey over the phone, visited him in prison in Tucson and helped clear up his outstanding accusations in Oregon. He’s been out of prison a few years now. It hasn’t all been easy, but it’s been mostly good. He has a beautiful girlfriend and a brand new daughter who has given him a whole new perspective. When we talk on the phone, he sounds happy and optimistic. Unfortunately, Al…his other Oregon mentor…passed away a couple years ago. Where Casey is at would have made him so proud.

Hold that thought…

 

Josh…When Josh disappeared from the Tuesday jam sessions I was sad. I spent a bit of time talking with his mom and found out he was clinically diagnosed as bi-polar with ADHD. She bought him a trailer and moved him up closer to where she lived, at the base of Mt. Hood. The fear is that he would derail and get lost within the homeless community. Mom’s can be tenacious.

 

I visited him a couple times in his new digs but he only wanted the company of his dog, Memphis. While visiting I got more insight into his day to day reality. His bi-polar struggle is that he might be up and highly engaged for a week or two at a time and then crash and burn for a couple weeks. Over time, his mom used her retirement to buy him a home in Estacada, got him on permanent disability and kept praying he would find the right medication and application to move forward. She was a trooper.

 

Fairly early in this process I decided to press in on Josh’s time. I would drive out to his house, knock on his door and then sit on the front porch. Sometimes it might be 30 minutes, sometimes it might be an hour or two. Eventually he started letting me in. He would go back to his couch, I’d find a chair and we’d chat and watch different kinds of videos together. Sometimes movies, sometimes music reels, sometimes politics, sometimes religious stuff…it was always about stretching time and community.

 

I got to witness the bi-polar phasings. Kitchens got destroyed and partially rebuilt. Fireplaces got taken out. Bathrooms got reconfigured. The ideas were cool but there was never enough time in the high energy phase to finish before the energy collapse would hit. And yet, over time, he kept moving forward and I got added to the very small list of ” who could visit “…basically, his mom and I. It was heartbreaking to see someone with such genius capabilities ride the waves of psychological highs and lows.

 

One of the areas in which Josh pressed in, despite the high and lows, was musical production. He became a fabulous studio engineer, writing hundreds of original pieces of music and producing them, partially. Nothing was ever good enough to be shared in the real world, but it was really, really good.  Which lead to our next big breakthrough. We had a common friend, also a fabulous musician, who had been working on a project with me and it had kind of stalled. So, the three of us moved into the house and started re-crafting the project together. And it was fun watching Josh invest in someone else…his overall demeanor brightened.

 

That was about five years ago. We spent about three weeks, highly connected, laying down instrumentation and vocal tracks. That has spread into more musical relationships and connections. The house is almost done…the kitchen looks great and now the yard is in process. Josh is releasing some of his own music, helping young musicians create theirs, he’s back to playing for church and is now taking on clients from a bigger swath of his past life. The trajectory has stabilized and the anxiety, so present in the past, has been constrained, still present at times, but he has different tools to manage it.

Hold that thought…

 

Bryan… Facebook reconnected us. His life had taken a turn towards darkness. He was driving truck, cross country, from Sunday through Thursday. At home he was sleeping on the couch and drinking his way through broken relationships with his wife and three kids. In our reconnecting, the pain just spilled out. Last November it all came to a head. Through a series of misunderstandings he lost his job.

 

It was as if someone had stolen his identity. Who was he if he wasn’t a provider? He took his last paycheck, found a motel room and started drinking. At first he was cagey with what he would share. He was drinking some, the cockroaches were obnoxious, he was going to be fine. It was all fabrication. At $100 a day, funds started drying up and the anxiety rose. In the state he was in, his family didn’t want him to come home. We talked long and often. The outlook got bleaker as the truth came out.

 

Finally, as his bowel movements took on the consistency of tar, he got scared. He got his wife to come over and take him to the hospital. He got checked in and waited to die. I was in Glendale, AZ for a men’s retreat that I started over 25 years ago. I kept checking in and he kept answering the phone. On the day he was going to check out, it happened to be the day I was coming into Loma Linda. His family was still not interested in having him come home.

 

I showed up at his hospital room. Medical personnel wandered in and laid out the process for leaving. I booked a hotel room up near Beaumont for two days. That night we had dinner with Mike Bennie, a mutual friend, and wandered down the aisles of hope that desperation can navigate. Bryan and I chatted about his ability to be alone, committing to being honest about desire and opportunity. I didn’t want to care more about his sobriety than he did.

 

The next day I had a meeting with the head of the ER that had ” saved ” Bryan. Brian Savino was a student of mine from Portland Adventist and it has been so much fun to journey with him as he manages his own life. So Bryan, Brian and Kevin had breakfast, shared stories of grace and hope for a promising future. Over the next two days Bryan’s family agreed to let him return home with some thoughtful provisions.

 

Over the past 8 months there has been some dark days. Days of recovery and days of relapse dancing with the promise that Jesus never leaves us…that failure is quitting, not missing the mark. Bryan is now weeks away from getting his own place. He’s got a great job with Amazon. He talks about how ” now ” is all he can invest in. The past is for learning. The future is for hoping. Now is for living.

 

I chose to share these stories because they highlight what I am trying to accomplish through Inner Anvil…availability and presence…support and encouragement…grace and thoughtful self reflection. I am far from perfect but I am serious with intention. I’d like to be like Jesus…I’m not going anywhere and always up for a beverage of choice, a meal, a chance to share heart space and if we blow it…we try again.

 

I never wanted to be a preacher. I’ve always wanted to cast influence for His kingdom. This style of engagement, slow and steady, ever ready, makes room for love to leak in. And then the Spirit moves and we wait.

 

If this is the kind of service you see as valuable…perhaps you would consider donating $10 a month using the link below. Perhaps someday, we’ll get to work in the fields together.

 

https://www.inneranvil.org/support-or-donate/