Cars. I grew up with a “car guy” brother. His name was Buddy, and he was my ticket into transportation or in teen terminology, independence, and freedom. Looking back, he was a car geek or in 1960s lingo, a “grease monkey.” Today he would likely be called a “car enthusiast.”

Buddy was my older brother by 2 years so the journey to my first car was well oiled. He had tested and tried everything with a motor so when my first car came, it was less an arrival and more of an acceptance. While I am not quite sure when and how the 1966 canary yellow Pontiac Bonneville convertible showed up on the street beside our house, I slid behind the steering wheel and began my first car driving experience.

As indicated by the picture, it was long, large, and loud. I don’t remember when we got the “canary,” but my memories were more fear than freedom when I drove it. One story, however, lingers, . . . lingers being the operative word.

Honestly, I can’t remember if this story happened to Buddy or me, but I distinctly remember “someone” in our family taking their driving test and while doing the parallel parking part of the test, that long, large, and loud Bonneville actually got caught on the “pipe” that acted as a curb between the parked cars on the driver’s test site. One of us, and this is where it seems almost impossible it was either of us because I distinctly remember passing my test the first time and yet Buddy was by far the best driver in our family. However, one of us backed up on the edge of that pipe and had to end up using the car jack to lift the car off that metal pipe.

Can you imagine the embarrassment of having the Kentucky state police officer get out of the car and walk back to the testing site building to inform the next person waiting to test that there would be a delay? I can’t imagine that . . . so why do I seem to remember it so well? Could it possibly have been me?

Well, that is the problem with writing about our memories. We remember things we have conveniently forgotten. Maybe I passed my test the second time I took it?

I know that sounds dramatic, but it is nevertheless true.

However, the life of this book would have died on those first yellow, legal-sized tablets stuffed in a folder, or in the leather-bound faded journals at the top of my closet or on the processor of my first Apple Powerbook Duo Dock computer, if my story wasn’t also your story.

My story is your story because we all live with an acute awareness of relational pain and our first and strongest response is to run. And I did. I ran and ran until I was utterly exhausted.

That exhaustion challenged me to put pen to paper and finger to keyboard where I learned to “Stay in the Room” long enough to negotiate both the work and wonder of truly satisfying relationships.

Ask yourself, does your mind wonder and ache from the weight of runaway relationships? They start as a promising and hopeful walk with an acquaintance, then a friend, and become a slow, almost accidental step in the other direction. Initially, the distance is small and unacknowledged, but soon it becomes deliberate and disappointing. Finally, there is nothing left but a whimpering regret filled with empty questions:
• What did I do?
What did I not do?
• Why didn’t they understand me?
Did I really not understand them?
• Why did they change?
Did I change?
• Why did they give up?
Did I give up too soon?
• Is it really over?
Can we start over?

We all deal with damaged and broken relationships. When those first moments of disagreement and frustration surface, we either pretend, hoping the differences will disappear, or pout, expecting the other person to read our minds. As the distance grows, misunderstanding leads to analysis, then anger follows with a desire to “win,” resolving nothing.

Typically, this is when we put on our running shoes. We want to run from this person who doesn’t understand us, who has unreasonable expectations of us or worst of all, has betrayed us. So, we run away from the confusion and the pain and start over, pretending that it will be better next time. Only it isn’t and it won’t be until we learn to invest in “Stay in the Room” relationships.

After decades of living, listening and loving people into what I call “redemptively reconciled relationships,” I invite you to put away your running shoes and find a soft chair and a cup of coffee. I invite you to dig deep into your relational regrets and uncover a set of personal principles that will both clarify your past and steer your future. I invite you to experience what can happen when you embrace authenticity, define boundaries, understand compatibility, develop discernment and build enthusiasm.

The coffee is on. The chair is waiting. Come and stay.

The words came after days of fumbling through my silence. Not a good thing for someone who weekly weaves words. I am a preacher of all things sacred and soulful, so thoughts, words and spiritual observations are my trade.

I am writing this blog only hours before our nation observes the quadrennial practice of swearing in a president. My friends know my struggle over the past four years and before you stop reading, a struggle much less about politics and more about personality. It is less about governing a country’s resources and more about managing an individual’s character.

I fully recognize that much of my struggle with this president is due to his political base, but I am not talking about Republicans. I am talking about evangelicals, people who have a faith in Jesus Christ and believe that they can be “born again” through faith in Christ. These are “my people,” or at least, I used to think so.

My prompting to offer words during this consequential time in history is due to my journey as a pastor these past four years. Never in my 40+ years as a pastor, have I ever had to lower my head, clench my teeth and hold my breath when a president’s name was mentioned.

While we certainly had policy differences, for me, it was never just about politics. It was his personality. For the record, I am not talking about his personality profile (natural inclinations). I am talking about his personality behaviors (daily choices). For followers of Christ (evangelicals in its purest sense), we believe our “rebirth” allows a choice of our will and a surrender of our heart, to be a “new creation.” In the modern words of The Message translation, it goes like this:

“Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges!

“Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing.

“We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.”

Need I say more? Heralded into the office of the presidency on the shoulders of evangelicals, this president made a mockery of the miracle of the Gospel, that anybody can be “reborn” by the grace of God through faith in Christ. While I have no desire to list all my grievances with this president, the two that cause me to hold my breath include a refusal to tell the truth and demeaning anyone with whom he disagrees. I honestly even wondered, did Jesus watch this behavior and perhaps lower his head, clinch his teeth and hold his breath? I hear again those seven words of Jesus, “You will know them by their fruit” (Matthew 7:6). The apostle Paul’s declaration of the fruits of the Spirit roar in my ears: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22).

Now, I have said what has been grinding in my spirit for years. Why? Well, “I just want to breathe again.”

Recently, I discovered a song by an unfamiliar artist, Juwita Suwito. The chorus goes like this:

I just want to breathe again
Learn to face the joy and pain

Discover how to laugh a little, cry a little
Live a little more
I just wanna face the day

Forget about the woes of yesterday
Maybe if I hope a little Try a little more
I’ll breathe again

Yes, I just want to breathe again.

Memories flow like running water when Father Time turns the page on a New Year. While we struggle with the words, we do not miss the sentiment swirling around our annual rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.” Each year we bid a simultaneous farewell and greeting to what was and will be and within that tension of reminiscent hope, we pause, or at least, we should.

We pause to listen for a heartbeat. It is that rhythmic contraction of the heart that unconsciously allows us to be at the very least, conscious and reflective and, at the very best, self-aware and discerning. Each year on this day, unlike any other, we are invited into the challenge of self-awareness.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that we live in a time of ever-weakening self-awareness. I call it the age of “shameless blame.” Perhaps now more than ever, I long for a healthy sense of shame. Honestly, I never thought I would say that.

But then again, I grew up listening to Merle. Country legend, Merle Haggard’s music was a prominent part of the stack of vinyl 45s my mother regularly rotated on the spindle of her stereo. His hard-driving, no-frills Bakersfield (California) Sound not only shook the Nashville establishment in the 1960s, but his music also displayed a rugged authenticity needed for times like ours.

I am reminded of Merle today, January 1, 2018, as I read the story of Johnny Cash’s first-ever prison concert, tenderly dramatized in the movie, Walk The Line. On this day in 1958, Merle is a 20-year-old San Quintin inmate serving a 15-year sentence for burglary. He later identifies the concert by the “Man in Black” as the turning point of his life and career.

I grew up listening and living Merle’s brand of music through my mother’s enduring admiration of his hard-living anthems. On the eve of this New Year, I find his songs of the 60s are a roadmap to the rugged authenticity needed to escape this weak and worried age of “shameless blame.” Just review some of the words from his classics in the 60s:

1965 “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers”

“From now on all my friends are gonna be strangers
I’m all through ever trusting anyone
The only thing I can count on now is my fingers
I was a fool believing in you and now you are gone.”

1967 “Loneliness Is Eating Me Alive”

“And honey you’ll have to hurry or there’ll be no reason to come home.
‘Cause this loneliness is eating me alive.”

1968 “Mama Tried”

“Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading, I denied
That leaves only me to blame ‘cause Mama tried”

1969 “Workin’ Man Blues”

“Sometimes I think about leaving, do a little bummin’ around
I ain’t never been on welfare, that’s one place I won’t be
Cause I’ll be working as long as my two hands are fit to use”

1969 “Silver Wings”

“Silver wings, Shining in the sunlight
Roaring engines, Headed somewhere in flight
They’re taking you away, And leaving me lonely”

1969 “Okie From Muskogee”

“I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all”

Reverberating off the walls of our meager home on Decoursey Avenue in Covington, Kentucky, Merle’s words unwittingly settled into the texture of my adolescent consciousness. I felt my loneliness in his, I saw his Mama in mine, I worked my first job with dogged determination, and I sensed the substance of small town living as well as the pride of wartime patriotism.

Through the years, I re-acquaint myself with Merle’s music through the digital music streaming services he likely never imagined. But it is a story I read in Rolling Stone magazine not long after his death that offers my final, favorite impression. While his fans knew Haggard’s hardened, gruff image as displayed in his music, his real-life persona was different, especially as he aged. He was polite, reserved, but intensely curious, especially about current events. He became a news junkie and was politically outspoken, often taking positions unpopular in the country music world.

In 2010, he received a Kennedy Center Honor from President Obama and made news describing him as very different from the media perception. “It’s really almost criminal what they do with our President. There seems to be no shame or anything. They call him all kinds of names all day long, saying he’s doing certain things that he’s not. It’s just a big old political game that I don’t want to be part of.”

Now, let’s practice that pause I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. If you were feeling warm about my reminiscing of old Merle and suddenly went cold because I mentioned a former president that may not be your favorite, a pause for discernment is crucial.

In a plea for “self-awareness,” take a moment to reflect. Why are we so incredibly polarized? Why do we so easily vilify someone with whom we disagree? Why do we blame “the other” person, party, or circumstance?

May I say it again? We blame because we live in a time of ever-weakening self-awareness. We live in an age of “shameless blame.”

We can do better. We must do better. May it start with you and me!

I am in Boston to see my son, Nicholas and his beautiful bride, Stacie, and there is Halloween revelry bubbling around me.  Our Stacie is dressed as Garth Alger, the character played by Dana Carvey, of the 1992 movie, Wayne’s World.  It is a unique time of the year.

“Tis the season of Halloween . . .

ghosts,

goblins,

things that go bump in the night
children in costume
gathering candy
neighborhood pranks
. . . sounds like good clean fun.”

Or is it?

Every year it happens and every year there’s a least some misunderstanding. For the record, Halloween was not originally a time of revelry and festivity. It was recognition on the eve of All Saints Day (which is November 1) that we build our world and our lives upon the foundation laid by the saints who have preceded us.

Hence Halloween, or “all hallows (saints) eve” was a time to reflect on those whose lives had been influential to us, and a time to sense their continued influence in our lives.
So, think about the saints—and remember that a saint is not so much a person who realizes that he or she possesses virtues and sanctity as one who is overwhelmed by the holiness of God. Or, as the boy said who was asked to define a saint, upon looking at the stained glass windows in his church with pictures of Saint Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, “A saint is someone who lets the light shine through.”

Continue your celebration of “Hallows Eve” this week and let God’s light shine through!

I don’t cry easily. Maybe someday I will. I am not proud of it. I do not think crying is a weakness. I just don’t cry easily.

Charles Dickens, in his classic Great Expectations, helps with my tear dilemma: “Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before—more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”

So why do I need to confess about crying? Let me explain.

My recent tears arrive most unexpectedly, both in place and in power.

I am on the beach, my favorite place to relax. Then without notice, streams of steady tears begin, my eyes unable to contain the flow.

I am reading a book, something I do most everyday of my life. In this particular case, I am reading a book written by a friend. While he initially identifies it as a “novel,” I am relieved to discover these words in the preface: “This story is based upon (such) a memory for me, the true story of the intersection of strangers.” I am relieved because for me most novels die somewhere between fate and folly, dreams and drama.

Maybe I cry because I know the writer and hear the heart cry of his memories. Maybe I cry because the writer is skilled at his craft and weaves a tale of bittersweet reality. Whatever the reason for my tears, they come as “rain upon the blinding dust of earth” when I read the last paragraph and look up to discover my wife has “caught me in the act.”

Disguised as a Trojan horse, the book enters the city of my soul and captures me unaware of the power of my missing brother.

I tell you all of this because I want to warn you to read the book. I want to warn you in the way that a town crier alerts the community to upcoming opportunities.

I want to warn you “memories matter,” people are precious and life is faithfully fleeting.

The title of this book is An Intersection of Strangers and Paul Heagen is the writer. It is a story of two teenagers whose intersection in life is timely and timeless, opportune and enduring. It is a story of cars and kids, parents and music, wars both foreign and personal, fate and faith, living and dying.

I can’t promise you will cry when you read it, but I can hope you will.

P.S. You can contact my friend Paul on his Defining Moments website (www.definingmoments.me) or call 513-260-8330. Or simply go to Amazon to purchase.