my little pastors

So…why I thought I’d be able to head out into the rekindled warmth of summer’s approach up here in Portland, and not be completely deterred from my agenda of afternoon homework in anybody’s guess. I’m a sucker for good weather…and for me, especially being up here in the Pac. Northwest, good weather is defined as almost anything not consisting of gray sky.

So, toss a little sunshine in the sky with white billowy clouds floating free and alone; throw some worship around my neck as I walk draped in guitar, and…and this really is what does me in forever and again…sprinkle some runny-noses and smiles running at me with awkward wonky 3 year old legs…(sigh)…and watch me melt.

The house just across the street from my Seminary apartments is often teeming with kids…literally escaping out the doors. The Mom there, along with the Dad, run a day-care of sorts for the better half of the neighborhood, providing much needed care for Seminary parents who otherwise would have to have their kids play tag along to work…no fun for anyone.

Today it was Jade, Josie and Eva, although there were others, who bid for my attention. I might as well have walked up with a circus act in my hands because these kids just flocked to the music coming from my guitar. I have to admit, I felt like the pied piper a bit…and then as if confirmation came down straight down from heaven itself, my friend Ben turned the corner a good ten minutes into my children’s sermon/worship session and said…”Hey, there’s the Pied Piper.”  

My Irish dream come true…

So…ever since I was very little, as far back as I can remember remembering anyway, I have been taken with Ireland. Call it an infatuation, being smitten, or being sweet on her, but whatever the description, Ireland has been my heart’s tryst…a firelight to my heart ever since I began dreaming of adventures outside of all that my eyes called familiar.

It will be my birthday in two days and while I have had some amazing birthday gifts from Loving friends and family…one very Irish-themed one now that I re-call (Jeanine, that day was perfect)…let this one sit among the very best. For this year I was handed  a gift that has been 15 years longed for; my very own violin!

My delightful friend Megan, who is the best pianist I have ever heard (and I’ve heard some very talented professionals before) gave me her darkwood violin to borrow for more time than I could have ever deserved. She has given me a gift with more hidden blessing than I think she’ll ever know. As long as I’ve intimated Ireland in the deepest parts of my heart, so to there has been the fiddle…in fact, I think I’ve always referred to the violin as an “Irish-violin.”

So, I will hopefully very soon start my professional, and thank you Lord, free lessons with a very talented violinist here on campus. I will be learning to play and thinking of my dear friend Chris the whole time, who left us to dine at Heaven’s feast forever more.

Thank you Megan for making this childhood Irish dream…come true.

The Irish part of Heaven

It came so non-chalantly, in an email wrapped in one of my dearest friend’s names, thought possibly to simply be a well awaited hello. But fateful words have a way of carrying the weight of heaven with them…you read them, and unlike almost anything else, you feel your heart go.

My dear friend Chris Gaston, whom I met while in Scotland last semester serving at Re:Hope: Next Generation Church, died yesterday.

I found myself mingling in and out of tears of both joy and lament. But if there is one thing that I will never forget about Chris…other than the Irish kiss he gave me square on the lips/cheek for my going-away party in November, it will be his matter-of-fact sense that life ought to be enjoyed. He overcame more than most of us will ever deal with and harbored a Love that we all felt priviledged to take refuge in from time to time.

You could always be yourself with Chris…and you liked who you were…you felt at peace with who God made you to be when he was around.

He will forever be in my heart…my good friend, the guy that kissed me (teary cry), the Irishman I first dreamt out loud with…today I celebrate his life…for where he peers down from right now is a place my heart can only glimpse during my time here on earth. I confidently confess, as I shared in life with him for a few month’s time, I glimpsed what he now calls home…for through Chris, heaven looked back at me and smiled.

I can’t be in Glasgow to be with all those he had to leave, teary eyed no doubt. But if I were there I would fly straight over to N. Ireland and give him the simplest and dearest of benedictions my heart could conjure…after all, if you knew Chris you would agree, he  was so very easy to Love. I suppose in this way he was often thought of as a heart’s constant companion, which I imagine is why such an event as his parting takes us all by  tears.

So…from Portland, Oregon I offer Chris this Irish benediction in remembering a life well lived. I expect to see you again my dear brother in Christ…smiling and ready to Love through your infamous hugs as usual.

We do not stand at his grave and weep,
For he is not there, he does not sleep.

We do not stand at his grave and cry.
For he whispers agog…

“I am not there, I did not die!” (in an Irish accent)

1 Corinthians 15…We declare…‘Chris’ death is swallowed up in Christ’s victory! If this is not true death then tell me, where is your victory over him as he looks on from heaven’s vantage? Where death is your pain and sting you confidently sought him with?’

You have failed death, and you have been long abandoned and found wanting…for Chris was marked and set aside long before you plotted against him. He was branded royalty far before you ever thought to reach for him…and now…He looks on, saved, strong and with every tear you ever brought his way having been dried.

For Christ wiped away every tear from his eyes. He stole back what was always His, His Chris, and he has taken Chris and his heart and new body to a place we can only glimpse this side of salvation…that is if we’re blessed enough to have someone like Chris staring back at us. 

And so, in true Irish fashion…stirring up the blessed Gaelic roots of old, I send Chris a hello from of us all…on this day when we celebrate his life and his Love…we send him a hug…the same hugs he so freely gave to us during his time here…a hug that we know confidently makes its way all the way to the Irish part of heaven…

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Oh the pipes were calling…but one day soon we will all meet our blessed Boatman to ferry us back to our carrickfergus… down the mountainside…back to you.

I Love you Chris, I did not deserve to have you grace my life for even as short a time as we shared, and I will see you again, in all the splendors of heaven…expecting a hug. 

 

a heart-shaped martyr

Ah yes…Valentine’s Day…also perfectly celebrated alongside National Singleness Awareness Day. There are way too many cynical inlets to run at full speed with this day, and besides, if any holiday is going to be endeared and not just recognized, may it always be a holiday surrounding the ideals, dreams and pursuits to and of Love…even if a Love that culture defines. One can only hope Christmas inspires such a romance.

The story of St. Valentine is of a man who notoriously went down in history for being martyred for marrying off people underground who, in their government’s eyes, were not sanctioned or privvy to marrital rights. What he did unfortunately placed him in such comparative company as the Elvis impersonator standing guard at the many eloping alters lining the city of “Lost Wages” (Las Vegas).

I think it’s funny and ironic that we celebrate him so…seeing that he was in many ways a terrorist, just like William Wallace, in that he defied his government’s decrees for his own personal understandings of rights and wrongs. But hey, who doesn’t Love Wallace…and so, it´s little wonder why we ought to be able to find a spot in our heart for the guy synonymous with the symbol of it. 

an End to a beginning

I just finished a conversation with a loving brother in ministry, Scott (from Scotland). We spoke of how a year ago around this time we were involved in sustaining and leading a church plant alongside my now mentor, Brian Luse. The church was called Phos Hilaron.

It was warm, thorough, honest, young, met in a pub, and never boasted more than two dozen in any service…but… it did mighty things for His Kingdom nonetheless.

Certainly uncertain…

Naturally, we are inclined to be so mathemathical and calculating that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing…Certainty is a mark of the common-sense life; gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are certain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation.

                                                      – Oswald Chambers

 

 

I can’t begin to tell you how many times, over the past two years especially, I have had the all too familiar conversation regarding my future plans. Sometimes it’s with the parents, sometimes with friends, sometimes with extended family, and sometimes with out-of-blue aquaintences I knew from way back when.

Sometimes I’ll find myself calling my future “plans” by other names. I call them “steps” or speak about “seasons of life”…all of which is an effort to hopefully tweak some of the semantics in order that everyone would understand that not knowing exactly what you are going to do next is so very okay…and in my estimation, so long as their is genuine seeking after what His will is for the next, it’s a better place to be.

In the first and second chapter of Matthew we see a pretty extreme example of someone living obediently within uncertainty. We all know who Joseph, Father to Jesus was…he’s the guy we put behind everyone else, cattle included sometimes, in our nativity scenes…which by the way is odd because the wise men went into their “house” to meet the newborn King, and did so two years or so after his birth…so yeah, the whole fresh-out-the-womb depiction, wise men gathered round at his moment of birth…more anachronism than anything else.

Anyway, we see in Matthew that Joseph was confronted in a dream by an angel of the Lord. It was here he was told that Mary bore a child of the Holy Spirit, of whom would save all the world from their sins. I bet he was thinking something along the lines of…”what the crazy!”