This lyric is from Ben Harper's new song Never Leave Lonely Alone from his amazing new double CD Both Sides of The Gun released last week. I was rocking this CD my whole way up to Wisconsin this weekend, including the three hours I spent trying to make it into and out of Chicago. I highly recommend Ben Harper and his new CD. Check him out by clicking the title.I was headed to a retreat this weekend in Wisconsin and finishing up my preparation in my car on the way. I was already running late when I hit traffic from an accident on the Indiana Tollway, then the same traffic at the next tollbooth, then the same traffic at the entry tollbooth to Illinois, then construction on the Dan Ryan Expressway. I came to these conclusions:
We need some civil engineers and city planners stat! I might start encouraging kids to go into these fields. Chicago driving requires a great deal of faith, not just to survive, but to guess which way you're supposed to be going. They have onramps to the expressway that give you 500 feet to make it to the next lane merge or offramp, sometimes both. I have never been so stressed/pissed/bored/stiff in my life. It took me almost three hours to make it through Chicago.
Somebody told me that a few years ago, to prove a point about how horribly concieved the Dan Ryan was, a few guys drove their cars five wide through Chicago going the speed limit and backed up traffic for six hours. I don't know if that's true, but the fact that it could be leads me to further call for civil engineers and city planners-stat!
The only two places I find hotdogs appealing are near campfires or in Chicago. Those two locations are about the only times they sound appetizing, and in those two places they are extremely appetizing. Have you ever had a hotdog from a fire? I suppose most of the people I know are as redneck as me and that's a yes. Well imagine if that hotdog tasted as flavorful, but without that the burnt, gasoline scented coating on it and a better bun and selection of toppings and that's about what you get from a good hotdog stand/establishment in Chicago.
(For the record the only topping I allow to be placed on my hotdogs is ketchup. Once my buddy bought me a hotdog at a baseball game and put mustard and ketchup on it and after I nearly vomited I politely told him there was 'no way in hell' I was going to ingest that! And ladies, if you eat mustard I will not kiss you that day and if you fail to disclose such information I may never kiss you again and I'll know. It might as well be garlic to a vampire or cryptonite to Superman.)
So I stopped for a hotdog with ketchup on it and nothing else for reasons I feel we've covered here sufficiently.
I also love the Chicago White Sox. I even thought about going to their game on the way back through Sunday, but was pretty zonked and tickets were pretty expensive. they raised the World Series banner Sunday! That would have been cool to see. But I'm a guy on a budget coming off back to back weekends that kicked my ass a little. I wanted to lay down in a bed by myself. (I'll explain this in a minute.)
I got to drive past the Sox ballpark and that was exciting. They had a banner reading HOME OF THE WORLD CHAMPION CHICAGO WHITE SOX hanging on U.S. Cellular.
Ofcourse, when I made it to the North Side I could actually feel the anticipated sadness in the air as the baseball season approaches! It made me smile.
I'm considering cheering for the Houston Astros in the NL. The jury is still out.
Oprah also lives in Chicago. I have much to say about Lady O, but I am saving that for a creative spark and a blog of its own. Much to process. Feelings conflicted. I'll say this picture doesn't help her cause with me.
As I spent this time driving and sitting in Chicago, with Ben Harper's new CD providing the soundtrack I began to think about the person I really am. You know the one that exists without effort. He's the one who drives eleven hours alone and keeps me up at night. He has all of my dreams, and all of my fears, all of my strength and weakness, but with no filter. He is my unprocessed thought, my gut reaction, my instinctual self and we all have one. I think this is the version of me God created and I think he loves me this way. I think he loves me in all ways, whatever version of myself has the reins. But I can't help but feel strongly that this pure version of me is complete somehow. It is the version of me with the rawest exposure. Every facet of my being is accentuated and balanced in this state. Even my weaknesses balance one another: I am both self concious and egotistical.
When I finally made it to Wisconsin I was both tired and motivated. I wanted to talk about this revelation and connect with people on the level their true self emerges. I saw mine later that night as I lay awake thinking and again Saturday when I took a walk in the woods and back round a lake. How do we communicate with our truest selves? And how do we come to accept his existence as a perfectly created imperfect creation?
The kids were totally there, willing to acknoweldge and confront themselves.I shared a room with three other leaders and a bed with my buddy Jeff, who is big like me, so pray for the box springs in that room. We had a group of about 40 and added another group about the same size to our worship that we just happened to meet at the camp. They had this very cool leader who looked like the exact opposite on first glance. Damn book covers!
I have spoken a lot lately about spiritual infants and spiritual adults. On some level this is an overly simplistic and not very useful way to think about faith. There is no moment we have reached maturity in our faith, nor transcended childish thoughts. But in a way, this weekend I got to see toddlers start walking or adolescents get their first pimples, and that was moving.
The weekend flowed somewhat spontaneously through the leaders and seemed to really provide a safe place for all of us to do a little growing. I learned this about myself-
I am a profoundly deep thinker about extremely superfical things. I can find God in a pop song, in a lyric or line of poetry. I can find God in a story someone tells or a joke I heard, a movie scene, a game, an inanimant object, almost the whole of nature, even in the mutual frustration of a traffic jam (is that how God feels waiting for us to move sometimes I wonder), but I am always struggling to find God within myself. I don't know if it's my imperfections or my desire to be perfect that holds me from finding God inside. I know I can see him in others. I know others see him in me. But when I'm drifting to dream I am afraid I am a fraud, conning the people who value my words. And it isn't that I don't believe, it's that it hasn't changed the man I am. When I'm stuck in traffic or temnpted by mustardless ketchup red lips, when I'm alone and the only voices in my head are all mine, and when I am being honest with myself I lack discipline. I lack perseverance. Because everything in my life has been so easy!
Perhaps that was by design as well. I was not spiritually mature enough to deal with plodding before the last few years. I was not capable of discipline before very recently. I was feeling pretty inadequate.
I drove home through Madison, Wisconin and decided to catch a worship service. I stopped at a massive Lutheran church downtown for the 10:45 service. There were maybe 400 people there and I bet the church sat 1200, so I felt alone though I wasn't. I checked out the two girls in front of me and thought about gettng another hotdog on the way home. I mostly was bored by the service. Lutherans are basically Catholics aren't they? I mean I couldn't see much difference. Catholicism (and apparently Luther's crew) always makes me feel guilty. This day I didn't need any help. I was feeling pretty convicted already.
And then the Pastor/Priest/Reverend/Whatever (I know more than I'm letting on, but I liked the rhythm of that phrase) got up and read one of my favorite passages of scripture, Mark 12: 28-34. You know, love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself. I was excited to hear someone else's take on this passage. But his sermon sucked. he told this dumb story and then just rambled. I'm not sure he even prepared a sermon in fact. I wanted him to illumine the verses for me, but after a good seven minutes of his pointless story I started trying to guess the ages of the women in front of me. One had a weird pantsuit that either meant she was trying to look older or younger, and I couldn't tell so I stopped trying to figure it out. The other was right in front of me so I had to imagine what her face looked like and I was quite wrong about it I found out when we went up for communion, and so then the whole time I was recieving communion I was thinking about how much her face didn't match her body. I was probably too tired to worship. I had had such a profoundly spiritual weekend I should've just driven to Chicago, had a Sunday hotdog and went home.
As I headed out something that I think the Minister said hit me. This commandment is Jesus' reminder to us that we can never be wholly spiritual. Loving your neighbor is a physical, earhtly, worldly act that requires we get our hands dirty and come to terms with our own humanity. We can also never be wholly physical, that leads to some problems as well, and you can imagine those yourself. We were meant to be held in this balance. Our faith in God is what holds us there. For as we 'love our neighbors' as ourselves we admit to our own imperfections and take compassion on others' imperfections. We love God because we are his creation. We love other people because they too are God's creations. I'm ceratin the Minister didn't say all this, just alluded to it. And I found peace for a few miles before I hit traffic again headed into Chicago.
I am content to be the person God created me to be, flaws and distractions, and temptations and all, because I know the obstacles God has placed in my path are a part of me now and forever and the only obstacle I must overcome is myself. That journey never ends, no matter what stage of maturity we reach. I am both physically and heavenly bound, that I know. Regardless of my spiritual age.
I know have work to do, but it is the work he has appointed me to, and most of it lies within.
I think Southern Baptists need to find some happy thoughts. 
