Genetic Trojan Horse

Way back in the first memories I have of school I can still remember this incredibly curly haired girl. I remember she had red hair, which even back then signified and inspired all thoughts Irish to me. I remember she talked about being a doctor one day…along with about everyone else in our class. Everyone wanted to be a doctor, a fireman, a nurse, a police officer, or some professional at some sport…so, why Shannon´s confessed dream of a doctor stood out to me is anyone´s guess…except for the fact that she seemed like she could already have been one. You see, I remember while I was off mis-using big vocab words that even stumped the teacher, and the rest of the class was playing in the world of Playdo, Shannon was studying anatomy charts for fun. I mean, let´s be honest, I don´t know how much she retained, but, she was pouring over them nonetheless. So, that was Shannon.

I met with this amazing girl and still wonderful friend just a few days ago for some coffee at a local Peetes. I wonder if you can guess what this girl is now doing…hint…

A season apart

It’s the Friday before the beginning of a long, quiet summer here in Portland. An energetic warm wind carries this quiet campus around like a sun-blasted kid aboard for a piggy-back, darting in and out of it’s once normal semester sounds, now opting for a milder laughter…one that can he heard on the air, not simply in it. 

Most of the undergrad and many of the Seminary students have either already packed up and headed back home, or are doing just that come tomorrow afternoon. It’s a beautiful thing to think that God lovingly scatters this campus, these lives, these kids (myself included) for a season…a kind of intentional, tailor-made season of exodus from the familiars of life…in this case school. God does this for a number of reasons, most of which are so draped in His will that I will never fully understand their depth and grace. But among the reasons, I feel it is done in an effort to grow us all apart from one another. Just Him and us.

Ironically as I listened in to a number of people’s prospective summers, they might be filled with more obligation, less rest and even more chaos than the semesters brought. Even still…it is a chance to be challenged in chaos, have your life made into parable as your sift through endless obligation, and perhaps conquer exhaustion’s ceaseless pull…all alongside God’s particular getaway with you.

As we started scattering this afternoon I started to think about all we might do this summer… We will sit beneath His sun this summer for hours, letting His healing warmth snug our skin. We will find grass and shade and take in the sheer smells of the Gospel. We will be blissfully uncreative and find 21st century watering holes, either as pools, lakes or oceans, and just wade in the wisdom of His perpetual wave and wakes…being nothing more than spent far beyond ourselves. We will be awakened by glorious undertones of summer’s heraled passtime as sunflower seeds, baseball and naps once again slow us down in all the right ways. Some of us will get sunburned…

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. 

The Killingsworths…

Ecclesiastes 3:11

“He has made everything beautiful in its time…”

I spent time with a family tonight who call themselves the Killingsworths.

Their best kept secret, all though it’s not well kept, seeing as how you know it as soon as you see them together, is they are all friends! I usually take delight in smattering people and places with flattering rhetoric, in the hopes that I can capture and describe how amazing they are. The problem however with being elocute about someone or something is that, as any good person knows, the very best people in life don’t need unending rants to describe their greatness…often it’s best said in a word…after all, the gospel is as simple as it should be, and not any simpler! And so, the Killingsworths,
quite simply, are Christlike.

This family makes me believe that families can actually simply enjoy one another as friends, and not just sporadically as the familiar faces that you share bathrooms and holidays with.