So Much Easier for Everyone Else

Some of the things I write may come off as cynical or harsh.  For example, in a previous post I mentioned how I am someone who cheats on his wife and works so much that he pushes his kids away and I don't even have a wife or kids.  

I don't write these things to be facetious or to overstate my point, but to illustrate how deep our sin, my sin, actually goes.  The actual manifestation is not what is important, it is the severity of our state that I hope to communicate.

I will try to explain...

I look around at the people around me and I only see a fraction of their life and know even less of the thoughts that go through their heads and hearts, yet I make judgements and come to conclusions about those people.  Their marriages and relationships are so together and wonderful, their jobs are what I really want to be doing, their lives the ones I really want to live. Everything is so much easier for everyone else, but that is only because I am privy to all of my history and all my thoughts, so I know how hard this life really is.

I don't realize that there are others looking at my life and saying the same things..."man, I wish I was single and free like him," "his job is such a cake walk," "that is the life I want to be living." I am very talented at covering over the things I don't want others to see.  I am a master of misdirection and deception.  I don't even have to try, it just comes naturally.  So we look at one another and think, "I wish I was more like them," because on the surface things are always pleasant and happy and easy.  How else can we idolize and try to immitate the experience of countless celebrities who are in rehab, in their fourth marriage, and have kids with names like Apple?  The further from actual contact with real people we are, the easier it is.  It is the story of my life, of our lives.

The problem is that we live our lives deep down inside where no one really ever gets down to see.  If they did, they wouldn't stick around very long, would they? That is where we live, that is where the troubles of a difficult life really lie and we want to escape, we want to be free and we are trapped.  

I am, by nature, an object of wrath.  I can cover most of it up, but it is there.  The deep dark cravings of a sinner...but because of his great love for us, for me, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions - it is by grace that we are saved. (Eph 2:4-5) Amen!

On a Recent Jaunt Through "Our Town"

I thought I would share a quote from Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town." 

This is a scene from Act II. George is about to get married to Mr. Webb's daughter Emily and they are talking about marriage.

Mr. Webb:

George, I was thinking the other night about some advice my father gave me when I got married. Charles, he said, Charles, start out early showing who's boss, he said. Best thing to do is to give an order, even if it don't make sense; just so she'll learn to obey. And he said: if anything about your wife irritates you-her conversation, or anything-just get up and leave the house. That'll make it clear to her, he said. And, oh, yes! He said never, never let you wife know how much money you have, never.

George:

Well, Mr. Webb...I don't think I could...

Mr. Webb:

So I took the opposite of my father's advice and I've been happy ever since.

Ordination Charge

Below is the charge given at the end of the sermon at my ordination. The sermon was given by The Right Rev. David C. Jones, Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of Virginia. I am proud to be ordained and to serve in The Episcopal Church.


Kris, will you please stand.

You are called to exercise the office of priest in the Church of God.

As you go about this ministry, keep your heart and your mind on Jesus. Pray for his strength and power. Know that it is Jesus who will empower your ministry.

Let the Bible will be your guide and your inspiration and the source of your strength. Read your Bible. Mark your Bible. Love your Bible and the Lord of the Church.

Remember that your ministry will extend far beyond your congregation. You are part of the ministry of bringing Christ to all nations and peoples – that the name of Jesus may be known above all other names.

Prepare every day for ministry and the Lord will go before you and follow you. And at the end of the day when you go home, go home and entrust your ministry to the One who gave his life for our salvation.

So, as you move from altar to sick bed, from funeral home to wedding reception, from a baptism to sermon writing, and from a vestry meeting to a grieving person, know that you are about the ministry of the Lord, Jesus himself. In Him, you will find ultimate satisfaction and joy.

A Sense of Life

One of my fellow priests came into my office just now. He is a retired priest with over 50 years in the Priesthood. He recently decided to scale back his responsibilities at the church and is looking to thin out his library. This is someone who has collected and read more books than I can even imagine and he feels it is time to pass a lot of them along and wants me to take a look at what I would like for my young collection.

It was a short friendly call about some old books, but it struck me. I have been a priest for a grand total of 4 days now and I am just getting started. Here is a man who has been a part of the ministry for more years than I can wrap my head around and his visit made think about what things must look like on the other side of things, where our lives are coming to a close and we can look back over decades of life lived, both good and bad.

I find myself feeling like I have lived a lot of life, but only have 10 or 15 years to really draw upon, but mostly I am looking ahead to what will happen in the future. Where will I be serving in 10 years, 20 years. Will it be in Pittsburgh? Will I be married and have kids? I want to have a family, but I don't even know if that is going to happen. It feels like all of life is still in front of me.

I think this and then I remind myself that I am in my life right now. It is all too easy to forget that very simple fact and instead fall into the trap of living in the future or in the past. It is a danger we all face at every stage in life...the temptation of "something else." If I can just... If I could have only... Why did I do it that way? Next time I will do it differently.

These questions will always plague us, but in the midst of it all my hope is to be able to celebrate the good, mourn the bad, and simply live life as it comes knowing at tall times that I am loved by a graceful and merciful God.

As Is

I was sitting with a friend, excited to share what I feel to be one of my favorite songs by Ani DiFranco. I don't like it because the music is so great (it's catchy, but nothing unusual), but because in this simple song about accepting someone "as is" I find the encouraging words of God to us. This is not the intention of the song, but the reality of what it holds. A portion of the lyrics are copied below...

You can't hide behind social graces
So don't try to be all touchy feely
Cuz you've lie in my face of all places
But I got no problem with that really

What bugs me is that you believe what you're saying
What bothers me is that you don't know how you feel
What scares me is that while you're telling me stories
You actually believe that they are real

And I got no illusions about you
Guess what I never did
And when I said
When I said I'll take it
I meant
I meant as is

Just give up
And admit you're an asshole
You would be in some good company
And I think you'd find that your friends would forgive you
Or maybe I am just speaking for me

Chick Flicks

I recently watched "P.S. I Love You" and loved it. I cannot say it was a particularly good movie, but I really enjoyed it because I enjoy all movies that romanticize love. I think it is because I know how bad at loving I really am and for two hours at a time I want to believe that I am different. That I am like the guy on the screen who loves the leading lady the way I want to love.

I want my dysfunction to be cute and funny like it is in the movies. I want all my fights to be only silly misunderstandings that we can all look back on and laugh. But they're not. My dysfunction comes from years of insecurity and sarcasm, from broken relationships and loss. My fights are because I can be a very mean person when I am hurt, because I want to win and be right so bad it is all I can focus on sometimes.

I am the one who leaves the dishes in the sink, and cheats on his wife, and works so much that his kids don't even want to see him anymore. That is who I am and so I enjoy disappearing into the cute and tragic world of Holly Kennedy and her late husband who helps her grieve his death...because one day I want someone to love me so much that their whole world is destroyed when I am gone.

It is this very same desire that draws me to the Lord, that makes me wake up everday and rejoice that I am a priest. Because I know that there is a God who loves me so much that he could not stand living without me. Even though I rejected all his advances and insisted that I was better off on my own, as my own god, he sent his Son to die for me that I might live.

Moving On...

This week I handed in my resignation from a church called Three Nails. Three Nails has been around for five years. I was there when the idea of it first popped into existence and I will be there next week as its faithful members decide to close the doors.

It is times like these that a mixture of emotions swell up: failure, relief, frustration, but most of all, grief. The passing on of anything is hard, it is sad, and we usually want more than anything to try and reverse the process. I think this is why deciding to close a church is so difficult, there is always something to hold on to and always something worth fighting for, but when do you stop and accept that it is over.

This is where we have come. Some will say that we should not do this or allow this and a big part of me will agree. I think there have been, and still are, some great things about Three Nails that you don't find too many other places, but it is time.

To Mom and Dad...I Love You

It is a typical Saturday night for me, winding down before I turn in early for a 6 a.m. start to my Sunday. I have recently finished my preparations for tomorrow and my mind can freely wander without quickly returning to what I am going to say in the morning.

This evening my thoughts turn to my family, my mom and dad in particular. I am finishing a glass of apple cider that isn't very good, but I appreciate all the same because mom and dad gave it to me. It was probably something left over from a church function that they didn't want and so sent home with me, but that doesn't matter. It is just one tiny example of the care they have taken in raising me as their child and tonight I find myself nearly in tears thinking about how thankful I am for them and how dearly I love them.

At one point this evening I thought about some of my friends who have lost one or both of their parents and my stomach ties in knots just thinking about being without them. I am a pretty stable person, with a good job, and a small army of loving friends, but I fear that even still I would barely hang on right now without them. Of course, like anyone else, I am sure I will get along without them when the time comes, but my world will be a little bleaker on that day.

I spent a lot of my life giving little credit to them and all the credit to God. It is not that God does not deserve the credit for my health, stability, and capability, but I would not have any of it without his gift of an incredible family. I have had all the opportunity in the world because of them and I will never come up with words to thank them strongly enough.

I cannot even imagine what life without them will be like. When I don't have the house I grew up in to go home to whenever I like. A place where I know I need worry about nothing. Home is an important concept for people and I know it better than most because I have a place where I will always be welcome, where I can always turn, where I will always belong.

This may be sappy and seem like something that does not belong on a blog for the world to see, but the thing is it isn't for the world, it's for them and this is the best way to send my love and my thanks...thank you mom and dad, I love you.