I was just sitting here thinking about that.  I keep coming face to face with this idea in my daily events and I think its a profound and blessed contradiction, one that separates the Christian faith from most other religious systems.

“But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.” (1 Corinthians 8:3)

I find this verse very interesting.  It’s this little verse in the middle of a paragraph of scripture.  Probably overlooked a lot.  I’d never conscientiously stopped on that verse and ruminated on it.  Seems an obvious verse to some extent.

But when I stop and reflect more fully on the verse’s implication, I realize that rarely does this idea permeate my relational awareness of God and other people.

If I love God (or am supposed to love God) primarily because He KNOWS ME/HE LOVES ME, then I live much of my life WAY off the mark.

Don’t worry, I’m not sitting here writing to spiritually self-deprecate.  I did that in my last blog

I am just observing the fact that I often make choices that reflect a search and desire TO BE loved, instead of making choices that reflect simply BEING loved.

Living that way is living in a ‘cause’ not ‘effect’ mentality.   My choices, good or bad, do not forge a resolution of love/not love, like an equation.  More accurately they reflect an awareness or unawareness of divine identity, a saint who remembers or has briefly forgotten his sainthood.

Behavior is nothing, and everything also, because that awareness is essential to personal growth and development in the faith for we cannot live on milk forever, right?

And living in a ledger state of mind communicates something about the Divine that is relationally inaccurate.  This causes people we encounter to ask wrong questions, questions that hurt and damage faith.  People asking the wrong questions can be worse, in some ways, than simply getting the wrong answers through the perception of how we live an engage with those people.

But the right questions come when people begin to love from a new and unique perception of first being loved! It is the glorious example of Christ and the commission for which we exist, to love God and love people, simply because He first loved us.

In conclusion, I think I will cuss less and be nicer.

There goes that ‘quarter in the jar’, ‘Daddy love me’ talk again.

Damn it…I mean, dang it!

Swear Pig is getting awfully full, people!!

Here’s the deal though, I’m not a jerk about big things, you know the kinds of things where you see someone being a jerk about those things you go, “Wow, that guy is a jerk!”

It’s not in those big things, those things where people are watching.

It’s in the little things, the little moments behind closed doors, when no one is looking, where I can’t be accused of being a jerk.

Scenario – I’m walking my sweet dog this morning to The Pearl Cup, my local go-to for a quality cup of Joe, and down the street walking the opposite direction of me is a sweet, homeless Hispanic man. He is slowly pushing an old grocery cart full of who knows what, just his things I guess. He is approaching.

Truthfully, I didn’t see him until he was right up on me, probably because my mind was consumed with the plight I was in, that my coffee jar was running on empty and I urgently needed to fill its tank.

Anyway I look up and he is there standing in front of me.

“Excuse me, sir?” – Why does he call me, sir? I’m like 25 years younger than this guy. I mean, I know that ‘sir’ is polite when you don’t know someone but this is different. There is a tone to the word ‘sir’ in this instance, a hierarchical tone…

He continues, “How are you this morning? Is there any way you could spare a shot of coffee this morning?”

What Michael wishes he had said – “Actually, I’m going to a coffee shop now. Follow me and I’ll get you a cup.

What Michael actually said – “Sorry man, no cash. I’m just walking the dog.”

Two lies are present in this statement.

1. I had money.
2. I wasn’t just walking the dog. I WAS GOING TO A COFFEE SHOP!!!!!

Best part of the story – I’m walking away and I hear, “Walking the dog, huh? Cool. God bless…”

I turn back and there’s no one there. I’m alone again on the street with my dog and my own self important quest.

No one there…

I’m not suggesting that this guy wasn’t real or something. But I am left wondering whether the words ‘God bless’ came from him or from that other nudge living and moving quietly in the deep.

It doesn’t matter though, does it? They are the same:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

Jesus wanted coffee and I told him to suck it.

I’m a jerk.

It’s interesting, the way I live my life sometimes, as if there is ‘no one there.’ It’s a different way to think of the phrase, “Can’t see the forest through the trees.”

We’re surrounded by people everyday. All sorts. We’re all a part of this thing whether we like it or not and I think it’s important to open our eyes. Stop worrying about all the stupid crap that keeps us from engaging with our fellow fellows, crap like, ‘I’m to busy to talk’ or ‘homeless people make me uncomfortable’ or whatever.

I could spend 10 minutes listing reasons why I didn’t buy that guy a coffee. All of my reasons are shit and they don’t matter.

“Do you love me?” “You know I do.” “Feed my sheep.”

That seems really simple. So why is it so hard…

Grad School – Going well.  Just finished the semester, with A’s!  Oh yeah, high five!  I’m very much enjoying the subject matter of my study which is interactive art and aesthetics.

From The Branch – We’ve done a couple of gigs this year, one in Georgia and one in Arizona.  So fun!!  We always love getting out there and hanging out with our friends across the US of A.  (Shelly and Brian, I’m talking to you specifically)

First Time Home Ownership – Whew!!!  This one is a doozy!  The 2nd day I had a mini-panic attack.  I think all first time home owners have this moment.  It’s that moment where you realize for the first time that you don’t know how to do anything!!  For years, I’ve simply had a phone number.  This number is a security blanket.  When such-n-such breaks, I call the number and things magically get fixed, POOF!!  Oh the land of renting…the land of blissful ignorance…

As of move in day, there is NO MORE NUMBER.  If something breaks, it’s my problem.  But!!!  I’m handling it, slowly, one minor headache at a time.  And the truth is, I love it! It sucks and it’s great. We got the Washer/Dryer today and that’s a blast!! We’ve got some furniture coming Sat so you know, we’re getting there.

BABY – As most of you know, we’re not finding out the sex until delivery.

We’ve opted for the maximum amount of emotion velocity in the delivery room.  We might even wait until she’s at 6 centimeter’s before we head to the hospital just to crank that velocity up a couple more notches.  You know how we do. But we’re rocking along on the nursery.  Lots of Yellows, greens, neutrals.  Personally, I can’t wait to meet this kid.  He/she is going to be a blast (with crazy dark hair)!

Hey look, it’s two progress pics of the house…

1. The Den – the TV is too small for the space and won’t fit on the mount provided… darn

2. Who loves a nursery?

WOW!!  It still feels weird to say that!!

It’s not that saying that bothers me, it’s just weird.  For some reason I had a perspective that I may not ever have kids, based on my age (not that I’m old, People!!) and Court and I’s career choices, choices that to some extent make having a family difficult.

Or, let’s not say difficult.  Let’s say challenging.  Cause let’s be honest, people like challenges far more than they like difficulty, though they are often the same thing.

But now, we’re four months along and S_%T is starting to get real…

Today for the first time, I spoke to our baby.  Through mama’s belly, of course.  According to Courtney, Little Bear can hear us now…oh, brief rabbit trail:  That’s it name at this point.  Little Bear.  Story – when we had our first sonogram we were surprised by the unusual view we got of this peanut-sized bundle of joy.  Most folks get the side view, or what I call ‘The Dinosaur’ because of the little tail thing at the end.  But for some reason, our little ‘guy’ gave us a full frontal and as such it appeared to us that it had four little paws!!!

Needless to say, the first thing out of Courtney’s mouth was, “OMG!  Look at that Little Bear!!”  So now, it’s our Little Bear.

Anyway back to belly talk.  So Court and I were talking and I leaned over and said, “Hey Little Bear, it’s your dad.  Don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m here.”

I don’t know if you can here me…but I’m here.

In that moment, something new kicked in.  Some new catharsis about myself, my identity.

I am a Father

I am a Son.

I am a…husband.

Oddly similar, don’t you think?  Now, before you reach the conclusion that I’m referring to myself as God, hang with me!!  That’s not what I’m saying.

Many dad’s my argue with me here, but I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that that similarity is not a coincidence.  What an example the Fathers love of the Son is in understanding the role of ‘raising up’ for those of us about to embark.

To understand what it means to, “love the child” we can look directly at the model of the father’s love for us.  And HOW OFTEN does he whisper, “I don’t know if you can here me…but I’m here” to me.  And how often do I ignore him, or pretend that I can’t hear?

I’m beginning to think that I am an infant in the womb of the world.  God whispers to us through the shell of this life to say, “I’m here.  I’m your Dad.  I love you.”  And through the screaming and twisting and pang of birth, the passage from sleep to life, He is never far.

And neither can I be.

That is something I’m sure one cannot understand until those words come from your mouth for the first time and you realize that above all else, love the child, the way that He first loved us.

To be continued…

Sometimes that’s a very shocking revelation.  In fact, I would say that marriage is a shocking revelation.  Think about it.  For some reason, you find yourself attracted to this person (who is this person?).  At first it’s all kittens and rainbows in your tum-tum.  Newsflash!!  That’s cause you don’t know anything about them!

Take Courtney and I for example, but I warn you, we are CLICHE!!!  We met in that oh so well known spiritual incubator, summer camp…as counselors…SICK!!!

CAMP RELATIONSHIPS!!!  YEAH!!!

Here’s the thing about camp relationships.  When you meet your soul-mate bestie with a side of forever in that kind of environment, you fall into what I call the holy spirit “we could be like this forever” love fest.

It’s that time in your budding camp romance when you use spiritually self-manipulative phrases like, “Friends with spiritual intention.”  Translation: “We really wanna make out but can’t cause we’re at camp.”  Come on, people.  Be honest!!  You all know it’s true!!

And of course the problem with camp love is that it’s a frozen moment in time, a beginning repeated over and over, with no middle or end.  So when you leave camp, suddenly you find yourself in relationship amnesia.  Suddenly you can’t remember why you thought this person was so spiritually hot-to-trot.  You see them in real, everyday life and you go, “huh?”  And the relationship usually just fizzles out from there.

Approximately 98% of camp relationships end within the first three months of post camp life.

That’s a wikipedia fact so you know it’s legit.

All that said, it’s a freaking miracle that Courtney and I survived.  How?  Lord knows…I mean literally, only the Lord knows.  People always say we look like brother and sister and that we’re “like, so alike!”  But the fact of the matter is, we’re not alike at all.  We both love to travel and discover new foods but beyond that, we are very dissimilar.

The thing with Court and I is that we need each other.  We counter balance each other’s life obstacles.  For me, I can be narcissistic from time to time.  Without Court’s humility and servant heart, I would be an arrogant mess.  And Court?  She’ll tell you that she’s a people pleaser and sometimes insecure.  My confidence (in her) pushes her forward.  The point is, I think we challenge each other in the ways that count, at least I hope so, and that is why we fight about what we fight about and why we fight about those things the way we do (in front of people).

Every fight Court and I have is a battle for our marriage.  We know that in fighting with each other, we are really fighting for each other.  And that creates the safety and security needed to communicate effectively.  As a result, every fight is an affirmation of the miracle of marriage.

I’ve been thinking about the miracle of our relationship a lot, especially in the season of miracles.

The miracle of Christmas rests in hope, the hope of a child, the hope of a saving.  It’s no wonder Christmas comes at the end of the year, the end of the line, the end of strength, tears, pain, heartache, laughter, whatever.  It is the time of renewal, the time to say we made it here, despite us, and we’re hoping for a miracle.

The beautiful thing is, we got one, two thousand years ago.

And when the hope of the child lives in us, we can live a Christmas Miracle every year, every day, a New Years ‘resurrection’ of sorts, a new year, a fresh start, a clear perspective.

That is my prayer for 2012, that we would see the world anew.  It’s a time of change in the Cleveland household and with that comes new joy, new challenges, and opportunities, unique to the season that they are in.

As we venture into the season of 2012, let us not forget that the miracle of Christmas and mystery of a new year don’t have to just occur on one calendar day a year.  They can live in us and they are renewable everyday.  Everyday is a new beginning, a new chapter, a new mystery, a new miracle, because of a child.

Happy next 365 days of Christmas.

Ho, Ho, Ho.

God bless…

I hear people say this all the time.  But what does the phrase, “be realistic” even mean?    Living by some doctrine of “Realism?”  Well what the h-e-double hockey sticks does that mean?

I consulted the handy dandy online dictionary and here’s what I found:

noun

1. interest in or concern for the actual or real, as distinguished from the abstract, speculative, etc.

2. the tendency to view or represent things as they really are.

And certainly the opposing phraseology is not used:

“Hey mom, I can’t come to the normal activity of dinner.  I have to be surrealistic.”

(Although, it would be humorous if some overly eloquent teenager actually said that to their mom!!)

Okay.  So, if you are realistic, then you are simply real, simply alive.  So how has the phrase “be realistic” come to represent standing still, sitting on the sidelines, and missing the train?

A friend and I recently had coffee and he got me thinking about this issue when he said and I paraphrase, “Pregnancy is a dose of realism.  When I found out my wife and I were pregnant, first thing I had to do was let my dreams die!”

Now of course he was joking to a certain extent, but underneath the laughter I sensed a thin thread of seriousness.  And I have other friends who’ve made similar claims about music careers and theatre careers and all of the more “colorful” professional industries.

I’ve also heard the expression used for simple things like, “I can’t start a blog because…”

“I’m just being realistic” = The death of dreams

Dreams are the stuff of magic.  They are the sticky, gooey, perfect creamy center in the Twinkie of life ( or ding dong…or zinger…pick your own sugary metaphor people)!  And to destroy your own dreams with weapons like “get real” or “be realistic” is to undo the fabric of hope in a world that’s “more than this.”  And that hope is what drives and challenges us to be truly real, to be truly alive in a world filled with dead things.

Now, please understand, I am not suggesting that a person say to himself, “Screw my job and my family!!  I’m gonna go fly experimental helicopters in Jamaica!!”  It’s not that that’s unrealistic, it’s just that it’s stupid and irresponsible.

Which brings me to my next point: When does dreaming become irresponsible?

I think this is a crucial question to ask because you have to look at both sides of a coin.  Certainly one can become irresponsible in living a dream.  When following a dream begins to hurt others or hurt you in a physical, emotional or, for that matter, spiritual way, it’s time to reevaluate.  And you do have to account for the people in your life who are counting on you on a daily basis.

So what does all that mean?

Here’s the thing.  The reasons behind phrases like “be realistic” and “get real” aren’t necessarily bad.  In fact, many are quite valid.  Having a good job and/or a family is a great thing.  In fact, that is a dream for many people.  What I think we need though is a change in language and a change in the way we approach our dreams.  Having a realistic conversation about life or dreams creates a feeling, for me at least, of either/or, black and white, one or the other.  And I don’t believe that dreaming about our own possibilities is that simple.

Instead of have a “real” conversation, why don’t we have an “honest” conversation.  Those are two VERY different things, getting real and getting honest.

Getting real says, “Here’s why I have to avoid attempting to accomplish XYZ in my life.”

Getting honest says, “Here are my dreams and here is my situation.  How can I diligently approach both and make them work together in a way that’s fulfilling to me and people who depend on me in the pedestrian world that we all live in everyday?”

The outcomes of these two statements are very different and the former, frankly, is the irresponsible one, irresponsible because by the nature of the statement you are forfeiting the possibility of real life.  And that’s a tragedy, that’s a death.

So, go get honest with yourself.  And then go accomplish something.

And then go eat a Twinkie…(sick!)

-

This post is dedicated to Brian and Shelly – Thank You

-

Here’s a dreamer for you…

“Ancestor” by Michael Cleveland
(Based on the painting “January, okay” by David Anthony Harman)

The sun bursts from the lips of the land

From the teeth of trees and the salve of seas.

Backward and forward.

We are moving backward and forward.

Rhythm and history meet

In the soul and on feet

On sleepy feet.

The feet of those who show up

The feet of those who grow up

And down.

Backward and Forward.

We are moving backward and forward.

We race back, toward the last lights

On the footprints of those who began

Through dark and womb and creation.

We groan and dig in

Dig deep and dive down.

We lose air, as in the days before air.

Eyes flutter and we strike the bottom,

Base cracked – Oh, the dust of shale!

Lungs burn and scrape at the port of breath.

The weight of history impels the shoulders down.

But we rise up!

We rise on knee

We rise and reach

And we take hold of the Ancestor.

And from an archaic mouth and dirty hand

She deals out her life and sends life forth from the depths,

Toward the sun, as it bursts forth from the lips of the land

From the teeth of trees and the salve of seas,

And climbs above the blacktop road laid out before us.

The world is white and there is snow.

Falling, falling, falling.

The world is now an ember.

From the fire that scarred and lingered.

And so the world holds hands.

because it will never understand,

But for fingers and sweat searching for those we lost.

Those to whom there was no cost

in holding hands, finding hands reaching, and hands scraping

To understand.  But they cannot.

But the world has an old soul

And the world is white and there is now light.

Light rising to the heavens.

Light rising from the water well,

And the woman at the well,

The child at the well,

The man at the well,

May drink deeply and hold hands and remember the snow falling,

And together they all begin to rise.

Rise.  Rise.  Rise.

Remember,

And rise…

No joke.

That’s what a new teaching job requiring a 5:15am wake up every morning will do to you.  For the last eight years I have worked from home so as you can imagine, this is a BIG shift for me.  I have a completely new perspective on the weekend now!  God Bless Saturday.

At the same that I’m adjusting to being a teacher, I’m getting used to being a student again.  In August I was accepted into the Master’s of Humanities program at the University of Texas, Dallas.  I’m taking one class this semester, a class called Ritual Performance.  The professor, Tom Riccio, has dedicated his life’s work to studying indigenous ritual and performance traditions in the world.

One of the themes of this class, and ironically enough, a theme that is a part of my own cadre of perspective, is the idea of ‘cosmos from chaos,’ order from disorder, the coming together of something that is ‘not.’  This is an inherently spiritual idea, though the class is not religious in a traditional sense.  There are four of us in the class and I’m pretty sure half the class is Buddhist.  We generally talk about religion in terms of ritual tradition, including Christianity, and through this ongoing discussion we begin to see the cultural history of religious movements through gesture and pattern that identity participators of any particular movement and the ways in which we as people and seekers of the divine deify or make iconic the action of ritual, festival, and various other religious acts through ritual performance itself.

I wrote that last sentence in the language of graduate humanities students. That is the way we all talk and it makes me laugh really hard.  It would be much easier to say, “We look at religion and ritual from a social and cultural standpoint to see if there are any ways that we make Gods out of religious actions and activities.”  But of course that sentence isn’t complicated enough for a grad student in humanities to consider using in class.

Shoot me.

As funny as the way we all talk in class is, it has gotten me thinking about that idea, ritual in religion, ritual in my religion.

When I hear the phrase ‘growing spiritually,’ a few things come to mind:

QUIET TIME – A set aside time each day (15-20 minutes, preferably in the morning because our Lord got up early that one time to pray and because that’s what the pastor does) for reading scripture and/or doing some kind of Bible Study.  I’m always interested in what 1st century believers did for quiet time.  Did they even have that term or were their lives lived in a posture of ‘quiet time,’ humbly seeking the Lord and his grace in all action?  I don’t know.  More than likely, that phrase came around in 1950’s suburban America to help put structure around people in the church but I have no official proof of that.

SMALL GROUPS – Now I do think this was probably going on in Jesus’ day in some form, considering that there was no ‘church’ or bible at that   point, just OT scrolls and word of mouth.  Small groups do make me laugh though, simply because of the way people are with each other.  I don’t think I need to explain that any further, especially for any of you who are in a small group.  You know what I’m talking about.

CONFERENCES – Conferences!  Conferences!  Conferences!  Because Lord knows (or maybe just the Christian cultural machine that is the conference world knows) that we need resources!  And give aways.  And tee shirts.  And spiritual inventories of our leadership skills.  And at least one push to either feed children or dig wells, as though we wouldn’t know there was starvation and thirst in the world if we didn’t have conferences.  Good thing they let us know. 

I guess my point here is how many of these actions, good as they are, become more worshipped than the truths they are trying to point us toward?  In a world of mega church and Christian media, are we beginning to worship American church culture, ritualizing the action of church and the industry of Christian spiritual growth?

As I sit here and type, I wonder if I’m a part of the white noise.  Can blogging too much about the problems we see in the Church world become its own form of ritual?  Do we think we’re somehow more spiritual because we choose not to participate?  Haven’t the Christian writers, bloggers, and speakers who battle against the traditional ritualistic mentality simply paved the way for people to follow them and create new rituals?  That doesn’t seem to solve anything.  Just perpetuate.

You know, I think at the end of the day, we need ritual.  To fight against the gestures and patterns and rituals we place around ourselves is to deny something that makes us innately human.  The path of ritual is the search for God.  It is the medium through which we give ourselves sure footing at the apex of existence, a way to stand in the space between Earth and the Heavens, in a way to become the conduit and mouthpiece of the mysteries of Christ.

Many of the rituals in the world today, sacred and cultural, have their roots in the ancient, archaic peoples of a time long past.  Participation in these rituals give us an opportunity to reach back to the beloved moment of Creation when gesture and movement and alter were practiced in the name of a God who went before us in a cloud by day and a fire in the sky by night.

May we live in ritual, not because we’ve forgotten what we worship, but instead to not forget who we worship.  In churches across the world there are six words inscribed somewhere on or near the alter.  These words are a call to ritual, a call to remember, a call to worship.

This Do In Remembrance Of Me.

Ritual done well.

I need to go do my quiet time.

What are some humorous rituals and traditions you’ve seen in your church or social circles?