Snow Day

Last night before we went to bed Jenn and I made the assumption that due to the snow that school would be closed. We were right. Now, normally a snow day is a bit of a cause for concern for us because just because Howard County shuts down their schools does not mean that my office or Jenn’s office will close. It also means that one of us is usually left holding the proverbial bag of kid-watching. However today we were both already on vacation so it was no big deal. In fact while normally I’m kind of a grump when I get “stuck” home watching the kids all day I am taking this time to relax, enjoy the time around the kids, and make a concentrated effort to maybe be a bit less irritable; almost like a resolution of sorts. So today I will try to enjoy my day, I will spend time happily with the kids, I will relax, I will not go to the gym, and I will indulge in one last day of vacation and on this last day of vacation I resolve that I will live with more compassion to my family. Because if there is one thing that I learned in 2013 it is that I lack compassion in so many areas.

This lack of compassion has been an overwhelming theme in my year. Although things started out pretty tame it was about the time that we moved back to the U.S. that just about everything began to grate on my nerves. And unfortunately that grating had the most impact on my wonderful children and wife – those who have suffered the most of my impatience, my surliness, my bursts of seemingly uncontrollable anger, and my general disdain for all things fun. Many moments this year I have had to force myself to enjoy things that should have been considered fun: Trips to the County Fair, traveling to see relatives, playing games with the kids, and other moments that I should have been cherishing I instead had to grit my teeth, slap a smile on my face, and try to enjoy them. There were very few times this year when I was honestly joyful. Most of the times I had to work extremely hard at maintaining the appearance of peace and joy and many many other times I failed miserably.

At many points I had long conversations with myself about this as I was mostly aware of how unbearable I was being. I tried to reconcile my actions with my feelings with the feelings of those around me and I never could. I always came back to the realization that I was being a jerk and that I had to work harder and sacrifice more of my time, energy, and money in order to keep peace in the home. That was my solution: sacrifice more in the hopes that my heart would soften. I had hope that seeing the joy in my kids and wife would bring a little joy back to my heart and then I could get back to being a “good dad.” So I sacrificed more and I grit my teeth harder as I smiled wider. I spent more money that we didn’t really have in order to spend more time with the kids. I gave up personal time that I felt I needed in order to spend more time with my kids. I prayed FERVENTLY that I God would increase my personal resources so I could pour more of them into my family. Additionally I spent more time with the kids trying to help them with their homework, more time assisting Jenn in running the house so she could have time for her job. I was sacrificing and that was what I told God: “I’m sacrificing, God. Just like Jesus did on the cross. I’m living a Christian life so could you please help me out here? I’m running out of Schlitz and I need your help.”

Those were hard, hard days when I was doing everything right and I was working so hard and I just didn’t feel or see anything coming back from the big guy. My talks with Jesus were decidedly one-sided and on more tangible level I was failing miserably. My temper got shorter, my voice got louder, my patience got thinner, and my heart got harder. I stopped writing not for lack of ideas but for lack of will to put those ideas on paper (or digits as is the case). My inspiration was gone and my willingness to even TRY at being a “good dad” was gone. I continued to make sacrifices of my time and effort “for the kids” in the hopes that with enough repetition I might find joy in the habit but for the most part I knew that I needed something else. I had no idea what that “something else” was but I knew I didn’t have it. I was also losing at being a “good dad” and settled for the “I hope he’s not as angry tonight” dad. So in one of my more… ahem… spirited discussions with Jesus I may have possibly kind of yelled and swore and got all self-righteous with the God of the Universe.

Now, I’m not saying that my approach was correct (in fact I’ll humbly remind you all that I am the sinner of sinners and the product of an inexplicably deep fountain of grace) but I did get an answer. Jesus, in his best Jeremy Clarkson impression called me an idiot. More specifically he hit me up with Matthew9:13. Usually this passage is used when someone is trying to illustrate how Christians are urged to love others more and correct others less. But in this case it hit me hard because much like the Pharisees I had been sacrificing many things in the hopes of a good relationship. They had been doing it with God and I had been doing it with my family. Jesus reminded me that the best way to be a good dad was to show mercy and compassion to my family and worry less about sacrificing for them. Because sacrificing time and money and even energy is relatively easy. That’s the path that the Pharisees chose and the path that Jesus avoided. Jesus calls us to empathy and understanding in order to bestow mercy and grace – arguably much more difficult tasks. I realized that all my sacrifice was building resentment for those whom I love the most and that I was “doing it wrong.” For example I was so focused on driving the girls all over Columbia in order to get to their dance lessons that I missed the fact that they LOVED the extra time we spent together (when I wasn’t swearing at the other cars on the road and was instead just talking about life or music or funny stuff). Another example is that I was so focused on sacrificing my time helping Lena and Sujin with their English homework and struggling to help them get perfect that I missed the fact that both girls’ behavioral issues were rapidly eroding away and that I was closer to them as a father than I thought possible in only a year.

So in this New Year I am consistently seeking to know the hearts of my kids and wife. I want simply to understand their point of view and work less on sacrificing for them (outside of the love and empathy required) and more on showing mercy, understanding, compassion, and grace. I firmly believe that Jesus’ actions in the gospel – the ones that caused throngs of people to follow him, believe his words, and inspired them to try to act like him – are the same actions I need to embody in order to lead my family. The people of Jesus’ time did not follow him because He sacrificed for them. They followed Him because He loved them, He taught them, He showed empathy and compassion for them, and He truly had their best interests at heart. So let that be a lesson to me and to you.

Asymmetric Spiritual Warfare

     While I was growing up I was introduced to Christian Rock by some friends at church. There were quite a few different styles all equivalent to some of the mainstream artists of the day to include Steve Taylor (Weird Al), D.C. Talk (Beastie Boys), Amy Grant (Belinda Carlisle/Tiffany), Michael W. Smith (Peter Cetera), Carmen (Henry Rollins post Rollins Band), Tourniquet (death-metal) and my all-time favorite Petra (pick your hair band). My dad (who reads this blog and will either chuckle at this or shake his head and sigh deeply) still referred to all of Christian Rock as “the screams of Satan” even though it was Christian because electric guitars and hair band metal were not the way he was raised to praise Jesus – but I digress. I had a couple favorite albums by Petra but the one that I automatically think about when I hear “Petra” is the Album “This Means War.” In fact in a fit of inspirational genius I just purchased the album from iTunes and am currently rocking out to it. It is so fantastically hair band awesome I know why I liked it so much. The whole album is about, you guessed it, spiritual warfare in quite the literal sense.  That album sings and plays on numerous different themes we hear in church on a regular basis: Put on the full armor of God; be prayer warriors; be available to God’s call; we each fight the good fight in our own ways; etc. So I grew up wanting to be a warrior for the Lord, in fact I had the t-shirt and everything. Somewhere along the way I must have gotten my wires crossed because I ended up enlisting in the U.S. Army as opposed to God’s Army and in 2005 I found myself in Iraq… yes folks, it’s time for some war stories.

Very important qualification that I want to make up front: This post is not about Lieutenant Galstad. This is an allegory. The fact that I am in this story is completely inconsequential to the message I’m trying to convey. I am DEFINITELY not trying to put myself on a pedestal because as you will see this post is quite self-deprecating. As my friend most eloquently stated once: Jesus Saves. I’m no Jesus. On with the war story…

     When we arrived in Ad Dawr, our first area, one of the first things we did was go for a little area-familiarization tour. And of course that tour was interrupted by excitement so I spent my first day on the ground doing exciting things like shooting locks off houses with shotguns, clearing rooms, and running over donkeys with armored Humvees. The unit as a whole started off driving around in tanks, setting up checkpoints, and generally trying to keep the peace. Since I was one of two assistant intelligence officers it was my job to identify and find the bad guys and then send our Soldiers out to get them. After a couple weeks of getting acquainted with the area our intelligence shop got pretty good at finding the bad guys. Meanwhile the Squadron Commander started to change things up a bit. He started to really truly engage with our local hosts. He started to invite them onto the FOB, talk to them, find out what they needed, go visit them at their houses, and promise and deliver money to them for projects. There was a distinct lack of talk of finding bad guys and I also took issue with giving money to the local leaders because they were all corrupt and that money would them be used to fund operations against us… and me. But I was very junior and was not in any position to argue with the boss so I saluted, moved out, and continued to find the bad guys while the boss was out dealing with the local sheiks and civic leaders.

     Eventually our unit, due in no small part to the excellent intelligence section, had calmed our first area of operations. We had found our #1 bad guy, attacks were way down compared to the rest of the theater, the local Iraqi Army unit was getting better, and there were other places to use our expertise. Our unit was ordered to move and as a farewell gift my boss put together one last project for the local leaders: he turned our entire base over to them and gave plans and money to turn it into a factory to create jobs for the local community. I thought that was a pretty decent going away gift. We said goodbye to everyone in Ad Dawr and headed to our new assignment, Muqdadiyah, one of the most unstable and violent areas in all of Iraq at the time. Muqdadiyah had it all, Sunni on Shia on Kurd violence; lots of attacks against the Iraqi Army; regular mortar attacks; corrupt government; areas that if entered would guarantee a firefight; basically Iraq 2006 in a nutshell. There was also, as we would discover, a then-quiet minority who were actively seeking to stop the violence.

     Once again we took a little time to learn the area but right away I noticed that the Squadron Commander took no time to start getting to know the leaders. From the beginning there was a shift far less “find the bad guys” and a lot more “let’s work on building this area back up,” despite the fact that there was roughly 1000% more attacks and violence in this area than in our previous area. I was still working the “find the bad guys” angle of all of this and we were EXTREMELY busy with ongoing operations so the boss consorting with the enemy (as I saw it) was of even less concern to me than before. However, one morning I was providing intel support to one of the units out rolling around the battlefield.

     The unit called in on the radio that they were at a Sheik’s house and that the Sheik’s name matched that of a name on their target list. I tried to find the target packet for the Sheik but I couldn’t find it. The Intelligence Officer (remember, I was only one of two assistants) was out of the headquarters and my counterpart had just gone to bed after an 18 hour shift and none of my Soldiers knew the answer to the question, “should we arrest this Sheik?”. The leader on the ground was losing patience and I made the “safe” decision to have the unit arrest the Sheik and bring him in. Wrong answer, Lieutenant. Not only was the Sheik not the same guy as the name on the list, but this particular Sheik had been working with the Squadron Commander on the “calming the violence” campaign. We now call that campaign “The Sunni Awakening” and it was that initiative that I, single-handedly, almost aborted. And I almost aborted it because I was stuck with the “kill or capture the bad guy” mindset while my boss was desperately trying to get the unit into a true counter-insurgency mindset. It was only after my boss apologized profusely and ate a lot of humble pie that the Sunni Awakening continued in Muqdadiyah.

     Welcome back from Iraq. We’re here in 2013 and now I’m going to talk about the Christian church and our propensity to go to war against sin – and consequently against sinners. Our boss Jesus is desperately trying to get the message of his love and forgiveness of sins out to people and a lot of Christians, to include me, get stuck on eradicating sin and seem to miss the fact that for most of his ministry Jesus was focused on healing, loving, teaching, and preaching about how Pharisaical Law (there he goes with the Pharisee thing again) was not the way to God. We preach to and teach our kids that the way to be a good Christian is to be abstinent, stay away from drugs and alcohol, and try to live a good life instead of focusing on helping others and loving the unlovable. There is nothing wrong with encouraging our children to abstain from sex because sex has the remarkable power to make a young person lose their ever-loving mind and make some bad bad life choices. An easy goal to identify (yet very unreasonable) is to wait for marriage but at a bare minimum we should make them aware of the real and life-altering consequences of unprotected sex and even sex using protection. We should encourage our kids to be EXTREMELY cognizant of the addictive power of drugs and alcohol and make sure they understand the types of possible negative outcomes that they are dealing with. But we fail miserably teaching these things because it’s HARD to get all that info in a 90 minute youth-group session. And there are a lot of hard questions and awkward silences and maybe even some terrible revelations that might get out like, “Mr. Galstad didn’t wait until he was married to have sex! O. M. Goodness.” And so we simplify things.

     But during the simplification process the message is getting lost and we’re teaching our Christian youth that they are better than the other kids because they are Christian. We don’t mean to do this but we’re giving them an attitude of superiority and we are setting them up to go to war against sin and the sinner. And then those youth grow up to be adults who teach their own kids those same terrible terrible lessons. As Christians we tend to look at other people like single parents, drug addicts, the poor, and other less fortunate folks as sinners caught by sin. “You see, that’s the consequence of bad decisions, right there. Now be more like Jesus or you too could end up pregnant at 17/addicted/poor/whatever.” Everything becomes a morality play and a lesson and a modern-day Christian fable and the idea of compassion is relegated to the potential chance-encounter on the road like the Good Samaritan.

     And meanwhile Jesus weeps because that’s not what he came to do. Jesus was a counter-insurgent against sin. He went to the people of the world and even though they were tainted with sin he gave them his love, his hope, his healing, and his everlasting life. He did not separate himself from the people and drive around in his armored tank of holiness. Instead he walked amongst the people, ate with them, loved them, showed compassion to them and pissed off the Pharisees to no end. Jesus did not call on us to put on the full armor of God in order to attack our neighbors. No, in Ephesians 6:12 we are told specifically that we wear that armor not against our flesh and blood neighbors but as spiritual protection. Our war is not with our neighbors our war is with sin and we defeat sin by acting like Christ which is by loving our neighbors; doing nice things for them; helping them in their time of need; wrapping our arms around them when they are sad and offering solace; rejoicing with them when they are joyful; and being there to answer their hard questions with a spirit of gentleness, love, and care. Leave the eradication of sin to the Holy Spirit because that is its war.

     Our war is one of compassion on a daily basis. Our daily prayer as Christians should be to live with compassion and love and understanding. Because here is the reality: we are all saved by faith and by grace. That’s it. We are all one bad decision/moment of weakness away from tragedy. I grew up relatively poor in small town in Minnesota and I turned out OK but only by the grace of God. I was one moment of passion too long; one drink too many; one credit card charge too much; one choice of the wrong drug away from terrible life consequences. So I encourage you all to remember that Jesus came not to condemn the sinners but to save them and I encourage you to do the same. Jesus waged war on sin and saved the sinners through compassion, healing, love, and sacrifice and we are called to do the same. That sounds like an Army into which I would enlist.

Why Billboard?

I just got back from a back-and-forth trip to Minnesota from Maryland. So before anything else I want to say “I miss you” and “Thanks” to my Mom and Dad. Now that the formalities are out of the way back to the posting.

During my trip across the country I saw ALL manner of billboards, bumper stickers, and advertisements and a couple of them really got me to thinking. “Lion’s Den Adult Emporium” made me think “Really? There’s a market for huge porn stores on the interstate in 2013? I thought those all died with the advent of readily available broadband internet.” Apparently not, since there are at least 4 outlets for that chain located along two different major interstate arteries. I also saw an old school multi-sign reminder to support gun rights. There were 5 signs with 1 line apiece with a little poem about a criminal breaking into a house and the owner stopping the robbery with a gun. Rural Indiana looks to be an NRA stronghold if that little display is any indicator. I also saw any number of anti-abortion advertisements, defense of traditional marriage billboards, lots of anti-porn billboards (oddly enough they were located right after the ads for the Lion’s Den), and any number of other ads supporting one side or the other of various divisive issues. And I started to wonder about what would possess someone to spend a lot of time, money, and effort to design, pay for, and erect a billboard to broadcast their position.

Since I was on the road for almost 36 hours over two days without a traveling companion with whom I could speak I had plenty of time to mull this question of “Why Billboard?” over in my head quite a few times. The simple answer is “because they feel really passionately about that particular subject.” I respect that answer and it adequately explains a single aspect of the question “Why billboard?” but since I’m of the scientific persuasion and I had the time I started to look for the ULTIMATE answer to the question “Why billboard?” and not the PROXIMATE answer because the answer of “passionate feelings” begs the question of “where do those passionate feelings come from?” And the answer I came up with was “from church”. Notice that I said “from church” and not “from Jesus”. [Good Christians that are reading this article, kindly pause right now and put aside your righteous indignation and finish reading the blog before you blow up my comments section. Thanks.] That distinction is VERY important to me for a number of important reasons. Let me list out those important reasons for you:

1. The homosexuals
2. The atheists
3. The women at the well
4. Assorted “sinners” of the world

Those particular people are very important to me because those are my friends whom I love. I love them dearly and see a clear tendency in “Christian” circles to attack my friends. This particularly angers me because, and read this carefully, JESUS WOULD NOT ATTACK THEM. I’m so sorry to break it to you but I can’t see Jesus gay-bashing, I can’t see Jesus slut-shaming, and I can’t see Jesus – even though he is GOD – indulging in elitism. And every day I see “Christians” all around me do those exact things and even have the gall to justify their actions with the Bible.

And because of those actions by “Christians” I have the hardest of times sharing the Gospel with my friends whom I love. Because every time I bring up “Jesus” my target audience goes into super-religious defense mode. It’s like they are battle-mechs with a big red button that reads “Wingnut Protection System” instead of “Missile Defense System”. That means even when talking about my reasoning for adopting my daughters – a relatively safe topic – I have to thread the needle very carefully because the moment I mention “it’s a Jesus thing” my friends’ hackles go up, missiles and chaff are deployed, and the conversation is very much in danger of being aborted.

This is because my well-meaning “Christian” friends have erected billboard-esque arguments that directly attack my beloved non-Christian friends’ lives.

“Homosexuality is an abomination” 

“If she wasn’t such a slut she wouldn’t be in that situation” 

“Atheists are stumbling blocks placed in the paths of Christians by the devil.”

In response to years upon years of being judged and hated my non-Christian friends rightfully are a more than a little skeptical anytime someone brings up the big “J” or “G”. In fact the more scientific-minded of them have already formulated a fantastic plan. That plan is to instantly throw up every single scientific, logical, and well-researched argument as fast as they can in the hopes that the crazy right-wing evangelical will go away. And it works all too well. Congratulations, Christians, we have taught the world to hate us. “But Greg, in John 15 Jesus says that the world will hate us, so we must be doing something right.” Wrong. If the world hates us because we are loving the people around us, healing the sick, feeding the poor, and bringing comfort to the masses I would agree with you. But THAT is not the reason we are hated. We are hated for being intolerant, hypocritical, and arrogant pricks and for being modern-day Pharisees.

We as a Christian church have become as legalistic as the Pharisees and religious leaders of the pre-Christian era Hebrew synagogues. We have exchanged the love and openness of Jesus for the legalism of Paul. We have stopped eating of the fruit of the Spirit and indulged in practicing the judgment of Revelation. And all of my non-Christian friends know it and that breaks my heart.

And we do it because it’s easier than loving our neighbor. This is the real ultimate answer to the question of “Why billboard?” It is easier to classify and judge our neighbor and then justify our actions than to reach out to them. “Gay sex is icky and I don’t like or understand it” is not a palatable answer in today’s world so instead we say, “Jesus forbade it” which is false. We write off the atheists as enemies of the faith instead of embracing them with love, joy, perseverance, and GENTLENESS. We are so scared of our daughters and sons growing up and being damaged by drugs, alcohol, and the very real fear of an unexpected child that we cloister our children and teach them that those other kids are on the pathway to hell and that our children are to be “in the world, not of the world.” That’s a polite way to say that we’re teaching our kids to avoid the very people WITH WHOM JESUS WOULD HAVE HUNG OUT.

So do not write off my statement of “We are hated for being intolerant and arrogant pricks and for being modern-day Pharisees,” as hyperbole or exaggeration. Go read the Gospels with a critical eye and substitute “Pharisee” with “Stereotypical Christian”. “But Greg, you said ‘stereotypical Christian. I’m not…’” Yes you are and so am I. There are stereotypes for a reason and as soon as we wrap our heads around the idea that we’re not perfect, we’re not the exception, and we’re not acting like Jesus the sooner we can start to undo YEARS of hateful religious dogma. Notice how I used the word “religious.” We’ve been religious and it’s time to stop. It’s time to start acting like Jesus and I think I have a plan to do just that. Project Mayhem.

With many apologies to Chuck Palahniuk I exhort all my Christian brothers and sisters to start an insurgency within their own churches. I’m not talking about creating yet another denomination. I’m talking about subverting your current church to start acting more like Jesus and talking less like a Pharisee (I see you squirm when you read that word. I’m not going to stop writing it.) I have no concrete plan, no tracts, no 3-step path to restoring the legitimacy of the Christian church in the modern world. But you can start by guiding discussions away from the “don’ts” (Don’t listen to rock music, don’t drink alcohol, don’t wear skimpy clothes, don’t watch Harry Potter) back toward the dos (Love your neighbor as yourself being the big DO, here). When your Christian cohorts start to say things like “I love my gay friends I just can’t accept their lifestyle” I want you to think really hard about how that sounds to someone who is truly in love with a member of the same sex. And then I want you to realize that JESUS WOULD NEVER SAY THAT. Look in the Bible. Find an example of Jesus saying something like that – ANYTHING like that – to anyone but a Pharisee. You won’t because Jesus, despite being God didn’t really judge the sinners. And he certainly did NOT gay-bash – and non-acceptance of the gay lifestyle is gay-bashing. (No, really. Imagine your friends didn’t approve of your hetero-marriage and reminded you of that each time you saw them. How long would you remain friends? It’s gay-bashing. Stop it.)

Outside of the church in your everyday life I encourage you to truly love your neighbor. Do kind things for them, love them unabashedly, help them out when they need it, take care of their needs, be wise and gentle in answering their hard questions. Instead of judging, comfort them. Instead of moralizing, rejoice in their happiness. Allow someone who is broken hearted to simply cry on your shoulder because you truly love them and empathize with them. This is Project Mayhem – teaching your church to love the unlovable, take care of the needy, feed the poor, and generally both act and preach LIKE Jesus and trying to do it yourself. It’s revolutionary.

This subject is of particular interest to me because of those four people groups I mentioned earlier. Notice how I used the term “beloved” and “love” when describing my friends. That is because the homosexuals, the atheists, the women at the well, and the “sinners” of this world have brought so much joy into my life. I love them all dearly not because they are in need of my saving message of Christ’s love but because they are simply some of the most fun, most intelligent, and most lovable people in the world. I want to spend eternity with them because they are just that cool and unless I can undo about 400 years of dogma-damage I’m not going to get that chance. I truly love my neighbor and want to see them in heaven and the way of getting them there is not to judge them, not to convince them with your bullet-proof theological argument (my atheist friends will SOOOOOO eat your lunch so do not even try), not to convince them of the error of their ways. The way to get my friends into heaven is the same way that Jesus convinced me 2,000 years ago: through his unending love and his absolute joy in ministering to the people around him. So help me out and be more like Christ. I have a lot of cool friends.