a few weeks ago, max and i were on oak island, in north carolina (where i was speaking at a great camp). the shoreline of the island is a sea turtle sanctuary, and there are signs posted about the stiff penalties for messing with the turtles or their nests.

we had a rare opportunity to see two baby sea turtles make their trek across the beach to the ocean. it was an experience of god’s creation max and i will never forget.

a little background info (which we got from the turtle rescue peeps who were present):
- mom sea turtles come on shore in the middle of the night, dig a hole in the sand, and lay their eggs — dozens of them. then mom buries the “nest” and crawls back to the sea.
- the babies have a 1 in 1000 chance of making it to the ocean. even if they hatch, and do so at a time when others are also hatching (which, collectively, gives them the ability to dig up through the sand to the surface), foxes and other predators really like them some baby turtle num-nums. and, even if the baby turtles make it up and don’t get munched, they can easily get lost, head the wrong direction, and not make it.
- once the boy babies make it to the sea, they will never again set foot on land. the girl babies will only set foot (or flipper) on sand again if they make it back to lay eggs. but only 1 in 10,000 make it back to lay eggs.

so you can see why, with all of that up against them, it makes sense that there are volunteer “sea turtle rescue” folk who help the process along. they walk the beach every morning, looking for new nests (which they can find because of the track made by the mother). if the nest is still intact (and hasn’t already been assaulted by a fox or some other predator), the volunteers put a cage around it to protect it. every evening, other volunteers check the nests. and, after the appropriate gestation period, the volunteers assist the babies in making it to the sea.

now, they can’t just dig up the hatchlings, and carry them to the ocean. just as helping a butterfly out of its cocoon will rob it of the strength it needs for survival, baby sea turtles must make the trek to the ocean on their own. so the help the rescue people provide is in setting up a little runway of sorts — side rails to point the way, and smoothing out the sand. when max and i were watching, most of the eggs had already hatched, and the volunteers were doing their final step of digging up the nest, counting the hatched and unhatched eggs (which they report to some university), and seeing if there are any hatched babies who didn’t make it to the surface. they found two of these little ones when we were there, and set them at the beginning of the “runway”.

one of the little guys (or girls) got disoriented about halfway to the ocean, turned around, and started heading in the wrong direction. the volunteers explained that you can’t shine a light (or use a flash), as it will damage their eyes; but a red light will not hurt them, and they’ll head toward it (hmmm, baby bulls?). luckily, my little iphone flashlight app lets me change colors; so i set it for red, and the volunteer held it close to the sand on the ocean side of the disoriented hatchling. he quickly turned around and scurried in the right direction.

they are SO tiny — about 2 inches long. and they will get so freakin’ huge. watching them scuttle along the sand is an amazing snapshot of god-given instinct, fragility, and — particularly — persistency. it’s a little hard to describe why this would be so emotional to watch. the best word i can come up with for it is BEAUTY. it was not a significantly different feeling i have than when i have stood in front of the monet water lilies in paris, at the musee l’orangerie; or when i looked at my own perfect little babies; or when i stared into bryce canyon this past summer. there’s something about true beauty, in whatever its form or presentation, that both reflects god’s values and creativity, as well as connects with an image-of-god-part in me.

when the babies reached the smooth, wet part of the sand, they took off. they were already moving quickly (for their size). but with the scent of the ocean in their noses, they seriously busted a move. the remains of a wave, gliding with its last few inches of momentum, caught them in a half-inch of water. and their little flippers took off in hyper-swim mode, as if to say: this is what i was made for; even though i’ve never been here, i know this is my home.

i almost cried when they swam beyond my sight — propelled way more by the receding current than by any effort of their own. i swallowed hard, and wore and irrepressible smile on my face.

beyond the experience of seeing such a rare and stunning beauty, i think i connected with this experience for other reasons. you don’t have to look very deeply into this description to see all kinds of allegorical connections to our human experience. bottom line: i am that baby sea turtle over and over and over again.
i have so many natural predators.
i have so much opposition, and need help.
i can so easily get lost; and without others to help me dig out of the nest, i’m in trouble.
when i’m provided a runway, it sure is helpful, though i’m likely unaware of its provision.
i benefit from help, to be sure, but need to struggle myself if i’m ever going to learn and grow.
i can sense ‘home’ (my core identity, in christ, and joining up with the kingdom of god) when i’m close to it.
when i get caught in the trailing edge of the surf of the kingdom, i move more fully into my intentional design, whether i fully realize it or not.
when i’m in that zone, i usually think i’m mostly moving under my own locomotion, and am rarely fully aware of the “intentionality” of the surf.

anyhow. i have thought of those little sea turtle babies many times since i was given the gift of meeting them. helpless, really, but destined for a large and long existence of non-rushed swimming in the ocean. mmmmm. i want the kingdom-of-god allegorical equivalent of that.

my good friend brian berry (also the youth pastor at my church) has been wrestling lately with time, balance, priorities and future. it’s a good wrestle (even though it may leave his hip out of the socket, as good wrestles can do). he and i chatted at some point of the importance of not only looking at to-do lists, opportunities and responsibilities, but starting from a place of values.

brian took a swing at this and developed a stunning summary of his values that blows me away. seriously, i got a bit choked up reading it the first time (and have read it several times since), because it’s so beautiful. i encouraged him to post it, as an example to others. he’s done that, with the title “who i want to be“.

brian came up with five core values, then created a short list of actionable clarifications under each one. his five core values are:

PLEASE GOD, NOT PEOPLE

TAKE CARE OF MY SOUL AND MY FAMILY BEFORE MY MINISTRY

BE A LEARNER

BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT MY DECISIONS

WORK HARD TO BE AND DO THE THINGS GOD HAS CALLED ME TO

i couldn’t more strongly encourage you to read it, and consider something similar for yourself. i think an exercise like this is so critical in our goal-obsessed american church culture.

several years ago now, a few guys and i started meeting once a year for something like accountability. i say “something like” because i’ve found, over the years, that there’s a very limited sense to anyone’s ability to hold someone else accountable. maybe it would be more accurate to call this group a “support group”, or a “kick each others’ butts group”.

we fashioned ourselves, originally, around an older group of men we were aware of who met in a similar fashion. they called themselves the notorious sinners (yaconelli was in this group). so, we called ourselves the ‘young notorious sinners’. these days, we usually just refer to it as ‘yns’, since the youngest guy in the group is well into his 30s.

our format depends completely on each person’s willingness to get honest about what their year has been like, what areas of life they’re struggling with, and what areas they’d like input on. each guy shares for an hour or so, and that is followed by a time of questioning, and finally by recommendations. we’re pretty ruthless with each other, but it’s all done in a context of complete safety and encouragement.

we usually have 8 guys, but 3 couldn’t make it this year, which really sucks. but the 5 here – we’re in a funky rented home in desert hot springs, california, out by palm springs – are a unique, wonderful and mixed lot. one is a film-maker from toronto, one a internet start-up guy from atlanta, one a musician and episcopal priest from cleveland, one a marketing guy from san diego, and, well, me. all 5 of us have been in the group for a number of years, so there’s history and a deep understanding of each person’s themes and struggles. and, while we stay somewhat in touch through the year, there’s something very cool about meeting once a year, and reviewing where we’ve been and where we’re going.

so i’m here ‘til friday, and expect lots of laughter, some shared pain, a few tears, and a healthy helping of insight.

the other day i was thinking about my lay off from youth specialties (really, from zondervan, in reality), which i don’t do as often these days. i happened to be looking at my calendar at the time, and thought about how it was october 19 when the shoe dropped. and, i was struck by the realization that today is 6 months. already. that surprised me.

it feels more like 3 months.

i spent a little time with current ys-staffer adam mclane last night, and, as is normal, we talked about ys and what’s going on in that world. they’ve moved offices (again – we’d moved to a new place last june). and there are only a handful of people there. and, i was once again struck by the reality that this new, or different, ys is moving on.

and so am i.

there’s no question that i miss so much of my old role. i miss the people i worked with (and am so lousy at that staying-in-touch-when-life-is-busy thing). i miss the buzz of a busy workplace, hearing laughter, wrestling with things together. i miss the working-together collaborative way we were trying to do things around there, particularly with the ys leadership team. i miss being part of a team, and leading a team. shoot — i even miss meetings (because our meetings were usually fun, even when we were dealing with tough stuff).

but here’s what i know today: if i were offered my old job, i wouldn’t take it.

in my first month, all i could really feel was the pain of what felt so horrible. there was anger and loss and anxiety and insecurity and sadness all smashed up into a nasty little ball of mush. but the dominant emotion was hurt. i could go into my head, and look at the piece-parts that added up to the reality, and knew that i wasn’t a failure. and i knew that the people who really knew the whole story didn’t see me as a failure. but my emotions still screamed, “FAILURE!”; and i was awash in a mostly inescapable feeling that the world out there was screaming the same thing.

but that feeling, once i got past the initial shock and pain of the corporate process in which i was let go, slinked away and was replaced by a combination of hope and sadness of loss. hope, for sure; but combined with a reality that i was losing people, experiences, and things i loved that would never return, never be the same. in the last few months, i’ve been charging forward on many new projects and opportunities. and it’s deeply good. other than some ongoing anxiety over whether or not what i’m currently doing will be sustainable in the coming year(s), i’m generally excited about what’s on my plate, about being home, and about the diversity of stuff i get to play in these days. even my increased travel has not been an issue (as it was in the past), since, when i’m not traveling, i’m home (and not going to an office for 10 hours a day). i occasionally feel a bit lonely and isolated, sitting here at my little desk; but i realize it’s the flip-side of the “i just need some time alone” feeling i used to have. and my relational tanks are pretty full these days, with the great people-stuff i get to be involved in.

i’m feeling a little melancholy today, particularly as i write this. but that’s rare these days. mostly, i’m pressing into what the week has to offer. in the last 10 days, for example, i got to speak to parents about teenagers, teach youth workers in guatemala, spend a day at home getting caught up, which included writing a couple magazine columns and a book chapter, conduct a 1:1 coaching time with a youth worker, connect with a non-profit i’m doing some consulting with and move that project forward, spend two days with the 9 youth workers in my youth ministry coaching program, and travel with my son to baltimore to speak to a couple hundred junior highers. what a freakin’ great week!

i’ll be coming to both youth specialties conventions this fall (in san diego and nashville) and doing a few seminars in each. i know the time there will be awkward for me at times, and i’ll feel a bit lost at times. but i also can’t imagine a place i’d rather be. well, other than, like, a beach in tahiti or something, or, ya know, heaven.

i’ve noticed something internal recently; something at times strange, and at other times beautiful. it has felt like a spiritual softening, or a spiritual awakening. the best words i can come up with to describe it are: i think jesus is slow-brewing a mini-revival in me.

it’s not that i’d lost my faith. not at all. but i do think i’ve spent many years intellectualizing my faith. and recently, i’ve been feeling my faith.

maybe it was the pace of the last decade (and, particularly, the last few years). i certainly believe, and have often publicly said, that busy-ness is the arch-enemy of intimacy with god. even though i’ve taken wonderful quarterly silent retreats for the last few years, there hasn’t been much emotional connection to what i believe to be true.

i’ll probably get slammed as being on a theological slippery slope for what i’m about to write, but… i’m re-finding god (or god is re-finding me) in experience. i need an experience of god to sustain, and possibly grow, my faith. knowing about god is good; understanding things about scripture is helpful. but i don’t experience god in knowledge and understanding. i experience god in worship, in serving, when i’m utilizing my gifts with an awareness that they are gifts, and when i feel.

some of this is likely due to the emotional work i’ve done this year (mostly in my coaching program with john townsend). i’ve stopped dishonoring my emotions (or, at least, i dishonor them less frequently). when, this past easter sunday, we were singing matt maher’s amazing song christ is risen (“christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death, come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave”), my heart and throat clenched. tears formed in my eyes. and it was almost impossible to keep singing the words i so wanted to sing. and this has been a recurring thing for me in the last 6 months — even growing in regularity.

certainly, the emotional rawness of my experiences last fall play into this also. but the uniqueness of this journey, i think, is not just that i’m feeling, but that i keep sensing — over and over again — god’s presence in the midst of those emotions.

and here’s where it goes way beyond psychology and emotions: all of these moments of experiencing god are growing my faith. i actually believe more. in those moments, and more and more often in-between those moments, i am aware of god’s realness, and of the loving gaze of jesus. this “more belief” thing is starting to infiltrate various arenas of my life, and i find myself meditating concurrent with whatever i’m busy doing; i find myself seeing god in others more; i find myself fueled in the work i have before me.

there’s an insecure part of me that is afraid of even naming this, like it’s a butterfly that i’ll never quite be able to hold onto, even though i’m enjoying its beauty for a few passing minutes. i realize that’s not logical. but none of this has much to do with logic. i don’t want this to be a phase, merely due to the emotional neediness of the last year. but i also realize that the suffering and neediness of this past year is part of the reason i’m here. it’s tempering my natural inclination to want comfort and ease.

a few weeks ago, in my church, someone sang a song i’d not heard before, by addison road. the words and tune and — something more… spirit? — washed over me and rang with a feeling of truth (it wasn’t a cognitive ascent to truth). the line, “what do i know of holy?” didn’t feel like a “what a loser i am, i’ll never get it” condemnation; it felt like an encouragement. somehow.

“what do i know of the holy?” by addison road

I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all No
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

(CHORUS)
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

(CHORUS)
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

(CHORUS 2)
What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life “its” name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?

(CHORUS)
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of Holy?

i posted, a few times, about the day we were surprised to find people dancing in the streets of port-au-prince. but ian robertson, our videographer, just finished up a little video of that day. and watching it, all the emotions come flooding back: surprise, joy, longing. i pray that the people of haiti are still finding reasons for hope and joy in the midst of their ongoing pain. i pray that we americans (and canadians, and brits, and others) will not forget them, or get weary of hearing about their need.

go.

(blog note: i’m going camping with my family today, and a few other families, in yosemite. we’ll be there until thursday. i’ve not “spring camped” before, and am nervous about freezing my butt off. today and tomorrow are supposed to be ok, with highs around 60. but by wednesday, it’s supposed to be raining/snowing with a high of 38 and a low of 25. that’s not tent camping weather in my book. sorry, i don’t have any blog posts lined up for while i’m gone — so none ’til i get back. later!)

as our haiti team videographer, ian robertson, passed along two more videos from our trip, i was struck by how they captured the suffering/hope dynamic i’ve written about here so many times since the trip. they only take a few minutes to watch, so i’d encourage you to catch a more visual glimpse of this suffering resulting in hope reality than i can paint with words.

suffering:

hope:

i keep hearing from youth workers and other church leaders who are putting together trips to go. and that has me stoked. i’ve become firmly convinced, in the last decade or so, that our best missional living occurs when we find where god is already moving, and join up with that movement (rather than trying to create our own). one way you can do that is by checking out options with adventures in missions, here.

the church i attend was in a sermon series called “god-o-nomics” (a play on freak-o-nomics), really about what faith looks like in financially difficult times. days after i returned from haiti, i was chatting with our teaching pastor, ed noble (who i’ve known for more than 20 years, and was my boss in omaha a couple decades ago). after hearing some of my stories, he had this sense that what’s happening in haiti, and what i experienced there, was a hyper-version of the topic for the final sermon in the series, which was about “both struggling and being ok.”

so ed gave up 20 minutes of his sermon time to interview me about our trip, and how it connected with this topic.

people really connected with it, and i was pleased with how the whole thing connected with our own experience in tough times (even though the magnitude is clearly very different).

here’s a link to the mp3 of the sermon (my part is the first 20 minutes or so). and here’s ed’s blog post about it.

one of the many moving moments of our haiti trip was this one. we’d spent some time with pastor christian, a 74 year-old wise and humble pastor of 11 churches totaling 10,000 people. later in our trip, he hosted a pastors meeting for us attended by 260 pastors, representing about 1000 churches. this is the cross-denominational group adventures in missions is hoping to work with for hosting groups and developing church partnerships. but this moment, when we asked him to pray for us, and he started singing… well… i just started weeping. you won’t be able to understand the translation, but it’s hardly the point.

i haven’t blogged about this yet, but i’ve teased it a bit in my facebook status: i’m going to haiti in a couple weeks.

my reluctance and reasons-not-to-go are just barely shy of the sum total of factors that mush together into my compulsion to go.

some reasons not to go:

- i like comfort. i like my bed; and when i travel, i like staying in a hotel bed.

- as confident as i seem, and — to be honest — often am, i still have plenty of insecurity about many things. included in those are “what people will think of me.” in this case, i’m uncomfortable with the fact that going means some will comment here telling me i shouldn’t go (or, at least think so), that some will think i perceive myself as a little messiah. and i’m uncomfortable with the possibillty that i’ll be an inconvenience to the team i’m traveling with, either because i can be a whiner, or because i can snore like a mutha, or for a hundred other (not really legitimate but still oppressive) notions about what people will think.

- i cannot stand — really, deeply — hit-and-run missions, missions that’s really tourism, or missions that’s really about making the participants feel better about themselves for a short period of time. a big reason for my pickiness on this is that i’ve been taking teenagers on missions trips for a very long time, and i’ve made some of those mistakes (and i’ve seen even worse).

- i think that short term missions, done poorly, creates an even greater us/them divide that objectifies the “recipients” and has very little to do with the kingdom of god.

- my family has given money, and we will certainly give more — so, is it arrogance in me that causes me to think i should go, rather than just sending the money it will cost for me to go?

- oh, and one more, for now: i’m a rookie when it comes to really feeling things. i don’t think i deeply felt anything until yaconelli died. and that was only 6 years ago. i’m on this crazy love/hate journey with trying to honor god by being present to and honoring my emotions — but i suck at it, and i hold them back all the time. i know that if i go, i’ll wrestle with this in hyper-reality; and i’m not sure i want to.

but then…

- i was stunned, as we all were, by the news as it started to pour in. very early on, i had this sense that god was telling me i should go. but i didn’t have a means, and i completely dismissed it.

- i starting working with an organization i love and trust, an organization with an amazing track record of responding in ways i find both theologically true and culturally sensitive.  i was working with them to put together a group of youth workers to travel to haiti — kind of a small “representative sample” of the youth worker community i love so dearly, to go on our collective behalf to both serve, as well as assess how other youth workers might be able to respond.  and, somewhere in the midst of this — never thinking i would be part of the group — i realized i was actively ignoring that heart-tug from god.
 
- i talked it over with my family.  it had big implications for them, because the trip ended up falling on a week when my kids have a week break from school, and we had tentatively planned to do some fun family stuff that week.  but when max (12) looked me straight in the eyes and said, “dad, you have to go!”, i was a wreck.  god spoke through my son.
 
- ultimately, i’m going for two reasons:  i sense god is in this, and i think i can actually do more for the people of haiti and the kingdom of god by going than by not going.  i hope and pray that my broken heart, my service, and my reporting to all of you, will have a greater impact than a check alone (i’m not skipping out on the giving part, btw).
 
so here i am — 2 weeks and 2 days out from my departure date, which is february 11.  i’m terrified and energized, second-guessing myself and confident all at the same time.  in the days and weeks to come, i’ll blog several more times about the team i’m going with, the organization we’re partnering with, the work we’ll do, and all kinds of other stuff.  during the trip itself, i hope to post stories of pain and beauty, stories of the kingdom of god breaking through.  i hope many of you will join me on this journey, by praying for me and praying through this journey for the people of haiti.  and i hope i’ll be able to offer practical advice to those who might think about going, or taking a group, as so much help will be needed in the year(s) to come.

(btw: i was having internet probs when i first posted this, and the last 1/3 was cut off, and somehow comments were turned off. all fixed now.)