“You’re Thirty Years Old Living In Milton”

The quote in title, an unintentionally honest comment from a pious young woman, will continue to ring in my ears for decades to come. Scripture describes the word of God being “sharper than any two-edged sword,” but her romantic rejection came more like a hammer blow to my Mennonite worldview where spiritual was supposed to outweigh physical gain. I had patterned my life, up to that point, around a sort of practicality over flash and suddenly realized what I thought was an asset was actually liability.

I was reminded of these words again as my wife’s glowing approval of the monstrosity in my driveway, a Ford Explorer ST, still feels out of place for me. I mean, granted, I was not keen on transitioning to family life with a pedestrian option like a minivan or boring SUV. But I didn’t expect my always frugal—cost conscious—female counterpart to go along with it 100%. She was supposed to pump the brakes and did not. I’ve realized, in this, that every woman is happy with the nice things and won’t say no if you provide it for them. We’ve both agreed to blame the baby for our reckless financial decision.

So, back to Milton, a place I’ve since moved on from and to the higher cost town across the river. Up until the words from the mouth of this wholesome girl, I had thought having a little house completely paid off would be worth something—even attractive. After all she claimed to be interested in missionary service and what better place to get a start, right? From what I had believed, there are needs anywhere there are people and where better to start than a deteriorating industrial town? Milton is an example of the rust belt, a place of declining opportunities and costs of outsourcing production.

The phrase “you’re thirty years old living in Milton” was simply accurate conveyance of her underlying priorities. There’s always the difference between what we say we are and the actual truth. Even in the secular culture there’s a romanticization of the love of two impoverished people who stand together in desperate circumstances. And those raised in an environment where Christian mission is supposed to be first, living as one poor as a church mouse amongst common people would seem the ideal.

But it is not. No, this young woman, like the one who had rejected me for not pursuing a title of “missionary” or “pastor” years prior, was clearly after status. They will not say it outright, probably are not even aware, but it is a kind of glamour they seek in service. A call to some exotic location to impress their religious peers. Sure, a Bentley may not be status in a conservative Anabaptist church, but the ability to jet around the world (often on someone else’s dime) is thrilling where it is considered sacrifice. It is currency, a way to gain status in a community of faith or be seen as righteous.

Resources are showered on the ministry or mission. Sure, it comes with stress, my 9-5 does as well, but the payoff is proportional. And not talking about “treasures in heaven” or God’s favor. A pastor has access to the community resources. It is social power as much as it is a position of responsibility and there are always those who want to curry a little favor. Again, it also comes with more scrutiny as well, but most tend to minimize the costs when they set off in a particular direction. Besides that, for the Mennonite woman, this is for the broad shoulders of her husband to bear, right?

The high expectations of my wife have been a little surprising to me. To her credit, she has been putting up with a partly finished remodel of old house since marrying and moving in. But yet, despite coming from the Philippines, her standards are now close to that of an American woman. We comment about our son’s demands for what the other kids have, but often fail the test ourselves. I mean, is it at all coincidence that I decide to finally pull the trigger on a new vehicle after a Mennonite workmate showed up with his new truck? Probably not.

And that’s the bottom line here. We are all after power in different forms. Be it money, be it land, access to resources or just status in our peer group. What I’ve found is that a religiously trained (or ‘spiritual’) person is no different. No, all they do is give a righteous cover to their personal ambition. They live in a delusion. Materialism is bad, they will say, but they are fine with your donation of money so they can buy a bigger missionary compound in Southeast Asia. And, under the fluff of my own pursuit of love was the same sexual motivation of all men.

I hated when a physiatrist summarized my obsession with the impossibility as being a “sexual attraction” and dismissed it initially as a woman who knew nothing of my heart as a man of God. But now I realized this is undoubtedly the correct assessment. Men want sexually attractive women and women want high status men. This is an essential part of our nature—a matter of survival for our genes—a young healthy woman is able to bear children and a wealthy or connected man can give them much more than a thirty year old living in Milton.

I’ve moved on from Milton, but cannot move on from the reality I have encountered head on, we’re sexual creatures living in material reality and can’t escape this by denial. I had been better to learn this decades ago rather than cling to a naive notion of love where it ends like a storybook. But I am now living the best life available to me and hope that my wife is happy with her decision. She’s won my heart asking for the “simple and happy life” and now I want to give her that and everything else wonderful this world offers. The best thing we gained was the child born almost a year ago now…

It’s never too late to live the life that you should—which is more about perspective than what you possess—even if you were denied love for being thirty years old and living in Milton.

We’re Not Made for Paradise

Having overindulged in a stimulating activity more than once, I’ve felt the effects of the dopamine withdrawal. Trivia Crack, aptly named, consumed me for a few weeks as I moved up through the ranks of friends. The game played to my strengths and it became obsession after a little success.

The chemical rewards system of our body is hijacked by addiction. For me things will often spiral quickly when exposed to a new stimulant. Which is the nature of things in the social media and smart phone era, it is not restricted to location, the gratification of desire is instant, and the stigma is not large enough to restrain us.

What gives me new clarity about this is my good intentions for my son. He loves to be on his tablet, watching TikTok videos, and can do this for hours on end. Which is fine if his life is to be a consumer rather than a creator. The problem is there is no need of art or mastery, both of which require some effort end struggle. His entertainment will come at the expense of ambition.

The reason why I limit his screentime is to keep him directed towards development of talents. In the ‘real world’ you don’t actually get any where sitting on your butt glued to a screen. I mean, I do make a living this way, by clicking imaginary objects on a screen that others will fabricate into trusses using wood and metal plates. Still, this isn’t really as fulfilling as it would seem and certainly isn’t as rewarding as winning a hard fought basketball game after weeks of practice.

Whether by creation in an instant or through generations, the basic systems of our body are designed to seek out those things that we need to survive. And the rarer that these things are the more desirable they must be because this is what drives us. Essentially, free will is questionable when so much of our own behavior is governed by impulses we have little control over. Just try going without food for a day or two and tell me who is really in control of your actions.

The real problem is both excessive supply of things meant to be rare and the artificial replacements. Eat too much sugar and the results will eventually catch up in the form of weight gain and diabetes. If you wish to crush a man’s natural desire, the kind that is accompanied by productive behavior, then give him a unending access to sources of pleasure that aren’t tied to any work.

And this is the true sin of pornography and masturbation. It isn’t so much that seeing the female form and appreciation of those feminine assets is so bad, it is why men get married after all. However, it is when these things are satisfied in a way that does not produce the end that was intended. Sexual activity without relationship or commitment is certainly fun and yet equivalent to empty calories. It doesn’t build anything.

Which leads to the other problem of access and that being diminished returns. In other words, with the replacements, while killing natural drives, one must do more and more to get the same pleasure. No, maybe it isn’t good to enter the world always horned out or starved, that has it’s own problems, but some things are meant to be obtained via the traditional path. Men who always get what they want in life never develop good character.

Which is the paradox. We dream of having our desires satisfied. And yet, even if we had the real deal to indulge ourselves to the max, would we be happy? Was King David content with multiple wives? Did it prevent him from noticing what other men had and acting out in lust? The reality is most of us would be lascivious and bloated, like Harvey Weinstein, if we actually had the power to take shortcuts to our paradise.

We are not made to be removed from the limitations of our environment. But, beyond this, all triumphs are short lived. The point of our natural desires isn’t to ever lead us to contentment. If anything, accomplishment of our ultimate goals may be anticlimactic and a disappointment. That ‘perfect’ girl is going to fart in bed. She’s not going to look dolled up and sexy like the fantasy version of her suitor’s mind.

As a child I wasn’t much different from my son. I would draw my ideal world. And in one of these visions was a bedroom with an automatic pizza making machine and soda fountain. As an adult, I now know that this would be awesome for a week and not too long after that it would be disgusting. The same goes for almost anything when piled up in excess. Value drops with availability, which deprives is of satisfaction.

In the end, a Grand Theft Auto world, or one where we can simply take anything we want and is free of all consequences, would not be wonderful. This is what went wrong with sexual liberation and dismissal of the moral wisdom passed down. No, religious authority doesn’t accomplish the balance without wisdom, but it definitely can give a head start to the wise. We’re not made for heaven—only to strive for it.

North-South, East-West

One of my favorite love stories, the BBC adaptation of a Victorian era novel, North & South, features two very strong and compelling characters.

The first, Margaret Hale, the cherub-faced daughter of an English clergyman, is forced to move to the industrial North after her father’s resignation over a matter of conscience. The other is John Thornton, a mill-owner, a handsome man with piercing eyes, brooding and intense, and interest in the demure young woman.

Things started fairly well. But, that doesn’t last as the differences in their perspectives becomes clear. Margaret, compassionate and having lived a sheltered life, interprets the actions of John in a negative light and pulls away after witnessing his harshness towards an employee caught smoking. What she sees as just cruelty was actually Thornton’s concern for the safety and wellness of his workers given the extreme risk of fire.

It is in the last and final act where there’s a scene where the tension between the two finally disappears. Throughout the middle-act Thornton’s truly good character is slowly revealed. And, Margaret, having returned South, has reconsidered her own idealistic notions, now sees the merits to living in Milton, and decided to return North again. Meanwhile, John is going South, the two cross paths at a station near the midpoint and cue the music.

There is this wonderful part of the soundtrack in this climatic station scene, Northbound Train (listen here), that so perfectly accompanied the moment. It is understated and elegant, reflective, that builds in waves to crescendo and then slips away as wistfully as it came. Thornton’s steadfast devotion is finally rewarded with a kiss and happily ever after begins despite the painful struggle to get there.

When the Story Goes South…

During my pursuit of the impossibly (a preacher’s daughter, like Margaret) this story brought a little hope with the similarities to my own. It wasn’t that we were so terribly different in our desires as it was she never heard me. Her conclusions formed before the conversation even began. She had pronounced “you’re thirty years old living in Milton” (the actual name of the town) meaning, in translation, that I would hinder her big plans. And could not understand it was her boldness and ability to get out that attracted me.

My thesis then was that a composite of our unique strengths, seemingly incompatible, bound together by Christian love, would exceed what those of similar abilities could accomplish. My thinking outside the box combined with her represention of the Mennonite standard. And, while I’m never good at getting things started (hence being stuck in Milton) I’m extremely loyal and willing to sacrifice for the team. I knew my age and life experience was an asset. But she could not see my value.

Still, for the year or so following her initial rejection I believed. What a wonderful story we would have when all was said and done, right?

Anyhow, that music, Northbound Train, had seemed like the perfect bridal march. Partly in innocent faith, partly to bolster my failing confidence against the deluge of rational fears, this image of the impossibly walking the church aisle dressed in white. As would be the case in real life, tears would stream down my cheeks as the nightmare of the past decade was replaced by this wonderful dream of marital companionship and completeness.

The strong emotions that came with that gentle harp being replaced with one violin and then two, have now disappeared. The music is still beautiful, but my feelings of numbness have long replaced that panging desire for a well-defined conclusion to over a decade of struggle. What I got instead was a world more complex. The cynicism that I had fought tooth and nail was confirmed.

The sunshine through the clouds, endings sweet and perfect are not for everyone. And the reason we tell such lovely tales is probably because they’re so uncommon, the exception, and not the rule. Sure, we can see ourselves as the characters. But the impossibly will likely go on seeing me as the villain in her movie, her conventional guy as the hero, and has never once shared in my fairytale that love would prevail over our differences.

As Far As the East is From the West

It is hard to believe that nearly another decade has passed and I’m still alone. I’ve moved from Milton, left the religion of my childhood behind, even traveled to the complete opposite side of the world twice, and have changed from that guy perpetually unsure of how to find direction. No, I’m not a missionary, but I do genuinely love people and probably accomplish more of actual value than those duty-bound Evangelical types who see ‘the lost’ as their get-into-heaven projects.

More importantly, I’ve found another impossibly, a beautiful Filipina flower, a little lost sheep when I found her (struggling abroad, in Taiwan, to support her son back home) and now the one who keeps me strong despite our torturous wait. Unlike the Mennonite impossibility, we do not share a cultural or ethnic identity, our lives have been very different, yet we have our simple and devoted love in common—which has been just enough to sustain us through these past years.

However, after all I’ve been through, holding on to hope is hard. Could my visions of her arrival at the airport, on American soil, with Y-dran in tow, also be a delusion?

It has been over two years and eight months since we’ve held each other that one last time before we parted ways in Taoyuan International Airport. I had known the immigration process would be difficult, but could not have anticipated the pandemic and travel bans that make it nearly impossible to be with Charlotte. It really does start to bring those worries that I might be cursed to the forefront again and sometimes the despair does win.

The eternal optimism of youth wiped away by the rejection of the Mennonite ideal, now facing my rational fears and the fact that I’ve been hoping longer than Jacob worked for Rachel and without so much as a Leah in between, I can now fully identify with the wife of Job, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.” The frustration is real. How long does one go on dreaming? When is it justified to wither away into bones, with life never to return again?

As far as the East is from the West is an expression, in Psalms 103:12, used to describe an impossible distance that cannot be bridged. And it could seem that, despite the abiding love of my bhest to encourage me onwards, I’ve jumped straight from the frying pan into the fire. We have had a bit of good news since I’ve last published a blog here, the USCIS approved the application, and yet will this impossibly ever become possible?

I see the successful couples. So lovely together. To them it feels preordained, meant to be, a dream come true. For me, on the outside looking in, there is now more uncertainty than certainty, not everyone gets that music at the end.

What Wears Me Out

I’ve always been a sort of magical thinker, my hopes always far outpacing my realities, and to the point that sometimes when my dreams would finally come true the pleasure had already been exhausted.

I had so wanted a go cart growing up. On the school bus ride home my mind would start to wander into the fantasy realm. I would picture a shiny new go cart, like the ones in the catalog, waiting for me at the end of the driveway and would actually be disappointed when it did not end up being true when we would finally pull up to to my stop.

That’s not to say that I didn’t love the old go cart that my dad would finally weld up, using a rusted frame as a starting point, and an old lawnmower engine. Anything with four wheels, that ran on gasoline, that could be slid around corners, definitely scratched that itch. Still, my vivid world of make-believe did not always end with any fulfillment.

In my adulthood this tendency to be way out ahead of myself did not get any better. I’ve cried, on more than one occasion, thinking of my beautiful bride walking towards me up the aisle. And not in sadness either, it was in bliss having momentarily put myself in that wonderful place. Of course, given that I never even so much as went on one date with this young woman, I pretty much ruined that music.

The world between my ears can be a paradise. A place where there’s such thing as innocent love and anything is actually possible. I used this as an escape. My school years spent doodling and hoping for some kind of rescue from the mundanity of the classroom.

These visions were often grandiose. A child scaled B-17 would land in the school yard. I would run out to meet my faithful crew as the teacher and 5th grade class would watch in disbelief, stunned, as we revved the engines and were on our way to the nation (later a planet with two suns) that I benevolently ruled along with my brother Kyle and cousin Mel.

Truly, I had always thought that Kyle and I would always be together, build a house with a chimney in the center, like the ruins that I saw on a Civil War battlefield. I’m not sure why, but it didn’t seem possible then (despite our fights) that we ever be separated, let alone hours apart, and I really can’t claim to have gotten over that disappointment yet. He moved on, it seems that I could not.

And I have lived a sort of Peter Pan existence. Holding on, hoping that some day the love that had eluded me, child-like and innocent, would finally magically arrive to rescue me from my torment for having failed to achieve. I long overstayed the youth group. Until I had my happily ever after, what choice did I have? Get old by myself and alone?

Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy and I lacked the necessary social tools to approach an attractive young woman—let alone convince her to date me.

Years would go by, where I would convince myself, “this time will be different,” and end up leaving the church retreat no closer to my goals and disappointed. These beautiful wonderful thought going in would slowly morph into a nightmarish reality as opportunity would pass me by and I would be left with only my profound loneliness again.

It was only in my mid thirties that this optimism would crack and the pattern of hope followed by disappointment would finally overwhelm me. Brimming with outsized expectations, I would arrive at the weekend, and suddenly shut down. The wheels came off, I would collapse into the nearest couch, curl up, unable to push myself to try again—eventually ending up a sobbing mess.

The pressure had become too much. The difference between my hopes and reality too insurmountable.

Sure, I could entertain my delusions, the right one was going to finally arrive, we would look at our feet, shy at first, we would talk, she would smile at my earnest thoughts, I would finally be at ease and soon enough we would be walking hand in hand out the back of a church. But the chances of that were as good as Gatsby somehow being able to turn back the hands of time and Daisy would be his.

My collapse from exhaustion came at the tail end of decades of forced optimism and sweeping aside my rational fears. I did not want a world where my being 5′-8″ tall and rather unathletic disqualified me. Love, to me, especially pertaining to my female religious counterparts, was supposed to be something transcendent. Unfortunately, what I got instead was a brick wall of rejection.

Life is especially cruel to those with a high ideal. If I were less able to see the marvelous maybe I could have more easily moved on to more practical aims. But I could never get my head out of the clouds nor was I willing to acknowledge the harsh truth about romance. The young women were also chasing their version of perfection and that perfect man wasn’t me.

Somehow, despite a mind that could span universes, I ended up being thirty years old living in Milton and thus ineligible for that kind of love. How does a dreamer, still holding to those childish notions of escape, ever recover from that terrible pronouncement?

They don’t.

It wears me out thinking about it.

It makes me think of another novel and protagonist, Ethan Frome, an injured ruin of a man. His house reduced in size as he limped, painfully, through what remained of his life. Not even granted the merciful end to his suffering of that suicide pack those many years before. Perhaps my life would have been better had my secret world been a little more stark, desolate and devoid of life?

When To Give Up?

The past few weeks have been painful. I had a bad toothache on top of my chronic neck issues. Sleeping and eating became extremely difficult. Like a city that still hasn’t been able to repair the flood walls after the last devastating storm, it did not take much time before waves of despair washed over me.

Yes, I knew that eventually this round of suffering would likely end. Antibiotics did finally do their thing for the infected root after a few days of excruciating pain. But I’m also more keenly aware than ever of my own deteriorating condition. I have gone to the gym faithfully for years, live a generally healthy life, and yet it is all simply a matter of time before I’ll succumb to old age.

It’s been a rough year, maybe even a rough decade, as the strong have fallen and yet another romance seems to be up against impossible odds. The death of Uriah, despite my best efforts to prepare for the outcome of the terrible prognosis he received, is still difficult. And now the unexpected circumstances of the pandemic are a real threat to my most successful relationship.

It has been over two and half years, early January of 2019, since Charlotte and I have been physically together. I had visited her over the holidays two years in a row and might have done the same had a contractor, remodeling my house, not overstayed their welcome. So, thinking the immigration process would soon be underway, I had promised Charlotte that I would visit the next year if she was not here.

Unfortunately, as December of 2020 approached, it soon became very clear that I would not be able to keep my word. Travel into the Philippines, for a foreigner like me, had been banned. It was, to say the least, a huge disappointment. And, obviously, having not come through, my own credibility also took a huge hit. Sure, I could not have known, but then how do you assure of anything in times like these?

I’m still not allowed to visit my love and there’s no end in sight to our wait. The Philippines is unusually strict as far as allowing noncitizens into the country and the immigration process, already arduous, has slowed to a crawl in the current pandemic era. In any year prior to 2020 there’s a good chance that we would be buying plane tickets right now for her and her son. Now everything is uncertain.

It is torture. What has remained of my hopes is being severely tested. Sure, the first step of the K-1 Visa process may soon be underway (we submitted our paperwork at the start of the year) yet the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) hasn’t even started to review it. The estimated start of processing is 6 to 8 months, we’re on month 8, and they could deny our application. And that’s just the start, then it moves on to the US Department of State.

Very recently I’ve heard that the Embassy in Manila isn’t even doing the interviews right now and, if true, this would mean a tremendous backlog of cases. They’ll likely force Charlotte and Y-dran (her son) to get the experimental vaccine or at least make it exceedingly hard otherwise. I’m not completely comfortable with that and yet what choice does one have? They basically have us over the barrel. Even with full compliance we’re looking at possible years of additional waiting.

It is so completely unnecessary that Y-dran has to wait even longer to have a father in his life, so absolutely unfair that Charlotte’s patience continues to be punished with one more year of waiting, and that’s not to mention my own distress trying to decide what is best considering the circumstances. It seems every path I try to ease our suffering is met with a new obstacle.

Just today, as I further explored our options to visit or meet somewhere, I found the ticket prices for my go-to airline have about tripled from last time that I looked and are pretty much prohibitively expensive. I do not even mention that sort of thing to her right now because it is too depressing too talk about. Maybe I’ll do a GoFundMe to raise funds if there is actually an option for us to see each other.

At this point nothing else in my life matters besides my obligation to Charlotte and Y-dran. If it weren’t letting them down, it would be easy to jump off of a bridge given the current outlook. I’ve been stuck in this nightmare of having my most sincere romantic hopes be dashed by things unforeseeable for decades. I’ve already endured complications that extended our seperation for years and now this.

Prior to the pandemic we would likely have everything processed by now and would be purchasing tickets. Now it is perhaps foolish to believe that we’ll ever be together or at least not for many years. Which, given our current ages, and the ticking biological clock, could mean that we never have children. At the very least, I’ll be even older and in less favorable condition than I am now, which is a very hard pill to swallow for both of us.

I’ll admit that my resolve is being strained to the max. Given my physical battles and my history of seeing everything possible go wrong in pursuit of happily ever after, there is this nagging fear that the past couple of years have been wasted on a lost cause and that I’ve dragged down to other people with my own delusional faith. I know Charlotte could find another man. Am I selfish to hold on? How long do you keep dreaming before giving up?

The problem is, if I give up, I’ve given up on life and love—I have let cynicism win.

Then again, it does feel that the odds are stacked up against us. Why would this all happen right now, when we already had such a tough journey? We’re up against the world, a cold-hearted system that doesn’t care about our story nor our love. Those making these decisions, processing our paperwork, can hold out indefinitely without feeling an ounce of our pain. We’re not giving up although maybe we have picked a battle that can’t be won.

No, Your Faith Will Not Spare You…But God Is Still Good!

There are many things largely forgotten in history, one of them a horrendous tragedy that took place on June 15th, 1904, near “Hell’s Gates” on the East River, which would forever change one ethnic community in New York City, and that being the General Slocum ferry disaster.

What had started as an annual church excursion of German-Americans, mostly women and children, from their community in the city’s East Village to Long Island, ended with terror and over 1000 deaths. The poorly maintained boat caught fire, while underway, fire fighting equipment failed and the wooden craft quickly became an inferno.

Helpless mothers, unable to swim themselves, especially not in the heavy clothing of the time, put life preservers on their children only to see them sink like rocks into the river as the cork in the flotation devices had degraded. The Captain, likely trying to avoid causing a more devastating fire on shore, decided to head for some islands, into the wind, which only made the wooden ferry into a blow torch before it fell apart.

The result of this hell on earth was the eventual dissolution of the German-American community in New York City and one can only imagine the personal torment this left for the survivors and the fathers and husbands left behind.

My worst nightmare is not being able to help those whom I love. I had, in casual conversation with a psychiatrist, been told that I showed symptoms of PTSD after the unexpected death of Saniyah and judging from my current awful feelings and tears right now, from writing this, I would guess that they were right in their analysis.

If only seeing someone I loved deeply wail the loss of their daughter could rip the fabric of my being to such an extent, I can’t even begin to imagine what seeing them roasted alive would do. Lord have mercy!

My Covid-19 Mini-Crisis

Being raised in an American culture that too often confuses health and prosperity with God’s favor, the idea that someone that I love could be felled by a virus seems obscene. But, faith, right? Shouldn’t faith prevent my family members and loved ones from dying prematurely from a virus?

But it seems that the truly Orthodox have no such delusion. True, Fr. Seraphim expressed his belief that one cannot become sick through their participation in the body of Christ. However, even still, that does not preclude the possibility of our becoming sick during the fellowship and interactions afterward, does it?

It was in the contemplation of father’s words that I ran across the story of early Christians who, unlike their pagan neighbors who fled, deliberately went into harm’s way to attend to their plague suffering neighbors. They attended to the sick, taking the illness upon themselves in many cases and succumbing in as much agony as anyone else.

How could this be?

Did their faith mean anything at all?

My own thoughts continued an ongoing internal discussion about the evidence (or lack thereof) for a God that actually cares. In my American-tinted perspective, they should have been protected from disease to prove God’s sovereignty over all of creation and show the truth of their Christian testimony, that’s only logical, right?

I can’t claim to understand. All I know is that many of them died, yet the stories of their extraordinary faith spread throughout the Roman world and you can still read of their testimony even in Foreign Policy articles published in our time. They died and yet they also demonstrated an example of love that has lived on to this very day and have defied my own logic in that.

We have but one life to live, all people die eventually, yet it is said that all people have two deaths: The first death being their physical death, when their body is put into the grave. Then a second ‘death’ at some point in the future when their name is said for the last time. And, I would argue that, in that light, those who, in faith, sacrificed their lives for their neighbor’s sake have actually outlived those who fled in fear.

It turns out that the Christ of Christianity only ever promised a life of suffering for others to those who would follow him. The ‘faith’ of those seeking health and wealth is shallow and will fall apart in times of crisis. But true faith lives for the good of others, despite uncertainty and fear, the proof is not in their own health so much as their faithful and lasting impact on the world.

No, your faith will not spare you, but if you live in love you will find God waiting on the other side of your suffering.

Crisis averted.

How I Have Seen God At Work

This may be a strange way to make an announcement of sorts, but I’ve never professed to be anything other than strange. I mean, I’ve tried to act normal, yet it never seems to work out for me. And so I guess I work with what I’m given, right?

Anyhow, I mentioned a bhest in past blogs, including my last blog, and haven’t really explained what bhest really means.

Right now, on the opposite side of the world from where I am currently writing, lives a beautiful flower, her name is Charlotte. I found her in a moment of great faith, when my life remained consumed in my Mennonite identity and struggle with the father of a young woman, and had agreed to participate in her life as only an encouragement. She had moved to Taiwan, from her mountain home in the Philippines, as a means to support her son and secure an annulment from the father of her son.

Given her marital situation (along with my Mennonite and purity culture priorities) and my continued faithful pursuit of the impossibility, I told her that our relationship would have to remain platonic (which is something she allowed without any protest) and offered to be her encouragement. My commitment was to show her that someone still cared about her life, despite her being separated from family and not having anyone else to turn to at the time. At the time I was also on the road, away from home, so I understood the loneliness that comes with separation from family and friends.

There was a bit of a pattern that developed. I would be her faithful wake up call, to wish her a wonderful day, but later (with the stress of a high-pressure work environment and conflicts with coworkers) she would come back online with the crying puppy emoticon, which was my signal to get to work, and I would make it my mission to cheer her up again. Soon, by whatever miracle, I would have her laughing and smiling again.

At some point, pretty early on, she asked me if it was okay if she would call me “Bhest” and (after a momentary hesitation to consider the potential damage of letting her use a term of endearment in our context) I decided to give her permission. It is a term that I had no idea what it meant really then and still am not entirely sure. But, eventually, it felt dumb to let her be alone in using that term, there was no term and thus she too became my Bhest.

Bhest, according to Charlotte, meant this: “the very best best person, who is my friend, who is always beside me, to pray for me, advise me, cheer me up and who really shows care for me.”

Bhest, best explained, is a word mystical in meaning, has become a sort of joint identity and not something my words can easily explain. But I do know that it stands for a commitment to care. And, when my own road reached an end in the Mennonite church, like hitting a brick wall, it was the hand of my bhest reaching through, telling me in a moment of suicidal darkness, “if you go, take me with you,” and demonstrated a level of commitment to me even greater than my mother. It was then that I decided to stay to serve this lost sheep that I had found and if only for her good.

Charlotte’s happiness, I decided, was worth my suffering through another day of this life. The seed of faith that I gave to her months before, in my pure concern for her, grew into a limb that I could hold onto until my own feet again. She was the one who told me to “be strong for her” and gave me the courage to walk through the doors of Holy Cross, in Williamsport, on the road to my Orthodox conversion. And it was Charlotte who finally gave me that reason to no longer be “thirty years old living in Milton” (as the faithless alternative explained) and compelled me, months later, to board a Boeing 747 headed for the other side of the world.

Bringing This to the Present

There is so much I could say about Charlotte and her son. So many moments, from profound moments of sadness together (after the murder of her uncle Roland) to those of our greatest joy and many others somewhere in between. Her family has embraced me, reposed uncle Roland especially, welcomed me with open arms, and made me feel right at home twelve timezones from my current residence. I honestly felt like I had experienced a taste of heaven in Baguio City and in our various excursions.

Now that country, like my own, is experiencing the same Covid-19 lockdown (albeit stricter than my own) and our hopes for the future are overshadowed with even greater uncertainty than before. But at least Charlotte is stranded, for once, with her son Ydran, whom she loves deeply despite being separated from him for years. He’s a real handful, a biter when I met him (who learned quickly that, unlike his grandma and aunts, I bite back), and has since matured to a bright (while still completely energetic) eight-year-old. His wide smile always welcomed me and I’ve missed him since our first meeting.

More recently, due to his history of illness, and a recent bout with pneumonia (he’s still coughing), along with the spread of Covid-19 worldwide, along with my own struggles due to some history of my own mentioned earlier, it has been exceedingly difficult for me to rest easy and trust God in this moment of chaos.

In one of my silly, more romantic moments, after Charlotte watched one of my favorite movie classics, “The Last of the Mohicans,” I recited to her the words of Hawkeye, “You be strong, you survive! You stay alive, no matter what occurs, I will find you! No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you!” Which was a promise said with a little smile and laughter, nevertheless pretty accurately represents the commitment that I’ve made to her. I’ve nearly had to make real on that once when she called me after almost being abducted by two men, while in Taiwan, and our current situation has left me wondering what extreme measures might be necessary to bring her here to my side, with her son, our son, Ydran?

As of today, upon the request of Ydran (a shortened version of his full name, pronounced Eee-drun) himself, that I will begin to call Ydran my son. I had worried a few months ago whether or not a young Igorot boy, with his own biological father, would ever accept this goofy overwrought religious refugee American. But we hardly even speak the same language yet (although he was actually using sign language today and will likely learn English far quicker than I learn Tagalog and his tribal tongue) and yet he has asked me if I could be his father. *gulp* I really didn’t know how to express all my excitement, he had completely preempted all of my preparations for the future where I would need to explain this, where I would have to walk gingerly to avoid undermining the man that is his biological father, and now I do not have to worry about that.

Prayer answered.

And, speaking of prayer, unprompted, Ydran, after all that, requested that I lead the prayers before he went to bed. So, being as Orthodox Christian as I know to be, I gathered myself and my phone, we went to the prayer corner of my house and led in the Lord’s prayer before praying for our future together, that it may come quickly and that he can remain healthy until then.

Dreams and Prayers

I have big dreams of what to do as a father with his son. But I also have a fear that hangs over me. My own life has been full of hopes ripped away from me right at the time when I thought things were in the clear. Now, before I can have my happy and simple life, with a little broken and repaired family, there is this monster called Covid-19 lurking in the darkness. I have full awareness of the terrible tragedies that have cut down the faithful and heathen alike, sometimes on a bright sunny day, like that day those German-Americans boarded General Slocum before their final hellish terror.

However, come hell or high water, I am determined, as determined as I am to pursue impossibility in faith, to not live my life in fear. I believe that God exists and that God is good because I have not alternative. I believe in God because without God there is no good. Logic and reason cannot explain away the feelings I have for my precious Bhest and her livewire son. Even if we are cruelly kept apart for many more years, due to legal nonsense or plague, I know we will be together again and someday soon.

May God have mercy on us!

Only will tell if my dreams for this life will ever come true. It is easier for me to predict a global pandemic than to know if my next few days, weeks, or years on this planet will be happy or harrowing. Maybe my battered faith will finally meet its match, in something awful yet to come, and my hopes finally drown in a sea of despair. Nevertheless, as long as I’m alive, let my hymn be this: “Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, as we have set our hope in Thee.” And, in the perilous days ahead, may I cling all the more to the words of St Paul:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35‭-‬39 NIV)

P.s., Y-dran, like his father, is also a fan of Dunkin donuts, which they do have in the Philippines, so the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree!

My Tumultuous Transitional Decade

It is hard to believe that another decade has already come and gone. This past decade has been one of many transitions for me, from the launch of this blog in 2014 to a big change in career a few years later and, on top of all that, a departure from the only religious identity I had ever known for another.

It was a decade marked by an extreme of faith, the high-water mark of my spiritual life, leading to the most profound of disappointments and suicidal despair, all followed by a rise again from the ashes. If there is such a thing as living a second life, a life after death, then I am living proof of that concept despite the scars.

Delusion, Disappointment and Divine Humor

This blog was started, mid-decade, to be a record of my journey and also a story of the triumph of faith within a Mennonite context. However, things did not go as anticipated, my enthusiasm was not shared by those who had the power to make a difference, and my misplaced faith ended up being fully exposed by the end of it all. That was the lowest of lows for me.

However, even in my lowest moments, in the midst of that, there was a moment of levity where my sharing my disgruntlement with the impossible Mennonite marriageability expectations went viral. That remains my most viewed and shared Irregular Ideation blog to date (and recently vastly eclipsed by a blog on another blog I curate) and my proof that God does indeed have a sense of humor.

Somehow, surprisingly, my influence within the Mennonite denomination would peak with my candid expressions of frustration with the religious culture that came with my departure. A couple of my serious blogs, decrying fundamentalist influence and another discussing the role of ritual and tradition, even found their way into Mennonite World Review and an Old Order email group.

It would be hard to give that up. And I knew the newfound popularity of my blog would likely suffer once I formally announced my departure from Anabaptism—which does seem to be the case as traffic has diminished since then—but that is also the kind of sacrifice that a Christian commitment requires:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26‭ NIV)

For the first time in my life, I had left the comfort of the Anabaptist fishbowl for something bigger. Who knows what that will bring?

Dramatic Changes and Delicious Ironies

The move to Orthodoxy has been part of a huge paradigm shift and was pretty much the only option that I had left. It was a refuge to preserve the little faith that survived the collision with a terrible reality of my misplaced hopes. I certainly didn’t go to replace what had been devastated in me. And there are all of the problems found in every group of Christians from those recorded in the book of Acts onward—all of the silly squabbles and turf wars included.

Nevertheless, the beauty of Orthodox worship, the focus on Scripture and glorifying God in our song (rather than human emotion, etc) along with a simple (and timeless) Gospel message, helped me to move forward. Orthodox worship centers on our Communion together with God and (unlike the traditions I was most familiar with as a Protestant) they do not attempt to explain the explainable. At some point, we need to let go of our own understanding and embrace the mysteries beyond our comprehension.

Moving on from religion to real estate and other miscellaneous items, I started the decade paying down my debt for my first home and driving cars that probably belonged in a scrapyard. But then, in 2014, spurred by my other and disappointments, I bought my first new car, paid cash for a handsome black Ford Focus—my best purchase to date. In fact, I was so pleased with that purchase that I sold my prized (but high mileage) Jaguar XJR and bought a brand new Shelby GT-350 two years later when they first came out—an extravagant purchase which also led to some very meaningful friendships.

Anyhow, having reached the pinnacle of automotive excellence (at least for a working man’s salary) it was time to rest comfortably, save my money and relax a bit. Or, rather, that had been the plan…

But somehow (possibly working in an office with a bunch of restless Amish investors rubbing off on me?) I ended up buying a second property with the thought (at the time of purchase) that I would move in to and sell my old place in Milton. But suddenly that plan didn’t make sense anymore, why not rent the new house and build some equity instead? Needless to say, my ideas for a comfortable existence went out the window and, only two years later, now I’m working on house number three. Not exactly a business empire, yet more than calculated risk than I’ve ever taken on before.

In the time since my blinding hopes ran into a young Mennonite woman’s all-consuming ambitions, my feet have landed in three different countries (read more here and here) and all on the opposite side of the world. As it turns out, despite my self-doubts, all that I really needed was a good enough reason to go. I had started the decade thinking that I was incapable of finding my own direction in life, that I needed to hitch myself to someone else’s ambitions to get anywhere, and yet here I am moving on. Yes, very soon, echoing the central complaint of the young woman who rejected my offer of the impossible love, I will no longer be thirty years old living in Milton.

Where False Devotion Fails, True Love Prevails

I was wrong to hope to find the kind of love that is only possible with faith within the Mennonite context.*

That said, I was right about one thing: It is only that kind of love could ever motivate me to do anything worthwhile with my life.

Truly I did nothing, over the past few years, on the strength of my own effort. No, I’ve needed physical therapists, family, spiritual fathers, sisters, and brothers. Not to mention those friends on the road who made my loneliness bearable, also those who know my name at the various establishments that I frequent, my generous current employer and the many others who have positively impacted my life over the past decade. To all those people I owe a debt of gratitude.

However, there is one who has been there for me unlike any other, the one who didn’t lose hope in me despite my delusions and attachments to Mennonite dogma; the one who told to be strong for her, to get out of bed and go to church again. Everything I’ve done over the past few years would not have been possible apart from the investment of faith that she has made in me. She, as a person who has experienced her own personal misfortune, showed more love for me than those who claim to travel the world as a display of their Christian love.

In this coming decade, I plan to spend far less time trying to please the falsely pious and proud, who can’t be pleased and are obsessed with their own image, and more time with the downtrodden and truly humble.

That is the vision behind FACT, an organization of one, so far, that has already given me some hope that my seemingly divergent strengths and interests can finally be combined into something useful and good. I hope the vision of FACT will soon grow into concrete steps towards truly meaningful actions and compassionate solutions for OFWs and their families. But that, of course, will take more than my own personal efforts and I hope there will be others willing to put aside their doubts and help those who are already doing all they can do to better themselves.

*Mennonites, like people of all established religious traditions, are really good at carrying out their own particular programs and denominational prescriptions. Similar to their Anabaptist cousins more known for their barn-raisings, Mennonites love to help in disaster relief projects. They will also dutifully staff and fund their own private schools (or homeschool if they are more trendy) and now even travel the world as missionaries. All good things, I suppose. But all those things do not require any real faith on the part of Mennonite individuals, they are a cultural inheritance, a good way to find a romantic partner, an acceptable path to rise through the ranks, and are not truly sacrificial acts of faith or love.

Entering Into A Strange New World

In the past decade, my plans got turned upside down. I gave up on old dreams and, from the wreckage of my hopes, found some new vision. Had anyone said, ten years ago, that I would have three properties, traveled to the opposite side of the world, and converted to Orthodoxy, I would have probably laughed at them. But here I am, having started a journey to the impossibility and ended up here, perplexed.

We started the decade with a president who would seem more comfortable in a lecture hall and ended it with a persona built for professional wrestling, reality television, and trolling on Twitter. Yet, contrary to popular opinion or at least in contrast to the fears of half the population, the earth has not fallen from orbit nor has the moon disappeared from the night sky, life has gone on. Albeit, my assumptions, the idea that our political decisions are rationally based, had to change overnight. Scott Adams has persuaded me.

My identity, my religious and political paradigm, has changed very significantly in the past decade. I’ve witnessed the passing of my last remaining grandmother in 2017, one of my dad’s brothers also died in a logging accident mid-decade and then, uncle Roland, a man who had helped to facilitate my stay in the Philippines, was murdered.

Over the same time, I’ve been processing the battle with cancer of a younger cousin and good friend, who just finished college and plans to marry soon, who already sacrificed a leg (in the past year) and now has new growths in his lungs.

So the fight will continue for him as it does for all of us.

One day at a time.

None of us knows what trials we will face in the next decade and yet need to continue to live in faith. I hope to be done with my inventory taking, soon break free of the transitional time I am presently still in, and finally have some of those long-awaited triumphs that have eluded me in certain areas of my life. But, at the end of it all, I can’t really tell you what this next decade will hold, whether Trump will win in 2020 or if there will even be a year 2030.

There is no point in getting stressed out about what we can’t know. Our life is a vapor, it appears for a little and then it is gone. So make the best of the time you have and don’t worry about tomorrow!

Sowing Ideas, Sticking Up For the Underdog and Getting Started

Have you ever wondered how organizations like the Red Cross or Salvation Army got their start?

You can watch this video about the Red Cross for details. But the short version of almost every organization is that it always starts with an idea and an individual willingness to take initiative. A person sees a need to be filled, takes action, tells others and the effort continues to build momentum towards a solution.

Or at least that’s how it is supposed to work.

It doesn’t always work out. Sometimes an idea fails because it was poorly conceived. Other times the person with the idea lacks the motivation to see it through and loses interest themselves. Still, on some occasions, there may be times when the person with the right idea arrives at the wrong time, fails to make the necessary connections, and the thing fizzles on the launch pad as unrealized potential.

Soil and Seeds of Faith

In the context of ideas, the parable of the sower Jesus told comes to mind:

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” (Matthew 13:3‭-‬9 NIV)

The interpretation of the parable is provided later on in the same context. Jesus is referring to his own message, that of the kingdom of heaven, and how the growth potential of this seed depends on the receptivity of soil. Bad ideas oftentimes spread like weeds while the good news is trampled underfoot by the disinterested masses. But we sow should sow good seeds, all the same, knowing that some will find the right soil.

And so it goes with any inspirational idea, even the best ideas die where there is no faith. Many ideas fail when they are faced with a challenge and the commitment is shallow. Other ideas are drowned out in the marketplace of ideas—their appeal is drowned out by the better positioned and yet inferior aims.

You get the picture.

We are both soil and sower. We can allow ideas, good or bad, to take root in our hearts, and from those ideas spring actions. Sometimes it is a seed someone else plants, sometimes we are the distributor of the seeds, but the mystery is in what causes the seed to grow. St Paul speaks of this in trying to explain who should get credit for the spread of the Gospel saying “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.” (1 Corinthians 3 NIV) And that is the mystery that is perplexing to me.

Sticking Up For the Underdog

I had always been a bit undersized for my age. Not sure if it was a result of my premature birth or if I was out-competed at the dinner table, but on my first license (at 16 years old) I was just 5′-3″ tall and weigh only 112lb (50.8kg) as a senior in high school.

But I never lacked for grit and determination. My name, at least according to the placard that had been placed under my baby picture, means “strong-willed” and I’ve always done my best to prove myself worthy of the description. Mom called me her fighter for my surviving a traumatic start to life and that resolve, for better or worse, is a defining part of my identity and perspective of the world.

That’s why I’ve always been on the side of the underdog.

I’ve always been interested in the person who has more to overcome than others, the one who works harder than the rest and still does not necessarily come out on top in the end. It is easy to recognize and celebrate the winners. But if the effort could be measured, then the underdog is the one who has put forward the most effort and has shed the most blood, sweat, and tears. In any context or conflict, I’m always cheering for the one in the game who has to overcome the most disadvantages.

I suppose that is why I had a deep respect for a particular classmate, a Filipino-American who stood about 5′-5″ tall and yet was the starting point guard on the high school basketball team who would put up 20 points some games. He had incredible ball-handling skills and could score in the paint, in traffic, against the trees like our own version of Allen Iverson. For someone who always thought of his own stature as standing in the way of athletic success, this was inspirational.

And maybe that is the reason why the Philippines has intrigued me?

Finding the Right Cause

I’ve always been cause-oriented or at least as far as causes pertaining to people that I care about. I have plenty of passion. But passion alone is not enough, passion needs direction and too often—given my chronic difficulty with focus—I’ve struggled to know what direction.

Some of my pursuit of the impossibility was in search of finding that thing that I lacked as far as a specific mission.

I did not find that direction where I had hoped to find it. However, in the aftermath of that severe disappointment, something did rise from the ashes and provided a path where none had existed before. With the stability brought about by a committed relationship, it gave me a reason to travel to the far reaches of the world and with that came some thought about the potential. I had first traveled to the Philippines and then a year later had an opportunity to spend time in Taiwan.

It was in that travel experience that I became well-acquainted with the hardships faced by overseas Filipino workers (OFW), began contemplating the economic reasons for this unfortunate circumstance and the potential solutions. Many seek work abroad because they have no other good options available and despite the stories of exploitation and abuse. Many become victims themselves after having borrowed money to travel to their new employer only to find things are not as promised.

I actually wrote out the strategic vision for an organization months ago. But I got caught up in the details of how to do it the right way (was thinking of getting a special website made) and it ended up on the back burner where it stayed. It was a story about an OFW “domestic worker” who had jumped out of a window and broke both of her legs to escape her captivity that finally drove me to take action. At that point, the particulars didn’t matter so much, the idea needed to be put out there, it was the right cause and something worth my fighting for.

My hope is that the idea sown will find good soil to grow in, that others will join me in this righteous cause and that eventually, we can help to bring OFWs home. My hope is that someday those in the Philippines will not have to decide between gainful employment and their families. I especially want to make it so that fewer young women put themselves in situations where they are easily exploited. If the effort only helps one or two that is a success as far as I am concerned, but there is great potential.

So, all that said, you are invited to join me at the newly launched Filipino American Coalition of Trade blog site or the accompanying Facebook page.

Loose Ends, Long Waits, and Second Acts

The only thing I hate more than loose ends is multiple loose ends. Loose ends represent instability and uncertainty, they are the fringes of the chaos and confusion that perpetually threaten to overwhelm the necessary stability and order of our lives.

There are several big projects in my life right now, well under way, some years in the making, and all of them various stages of incomplete. My ability to handle pressure has always been a big question mark and the past few months have tested the strength of my resolve.

I’ve sometimes felt as if I’m a person at the edge of functional, who kept things together mentally or otherwise by careful management of his resources and emotions. But in the past few years I’ve determined to sail beyond my safe waters, beyond the established boundaries of my known limits and at the risk of failure.

Am I built for this?

My new career is the first part of this stress test. I definitely have the basic aptitude for truss design and have become reasonably proficient at using the engineering software. However, with my proficiency, and changes in the truss market towards residential, the expectations are high and the workload has ballooned.

More recently it has become a make or break it moment as the construction season wraps up and a new prospective customer has piled on, who refuses to give the information that I request and seems to have very little respect for my time. He wants a “conference call” after every small revision and email, every conversation with him is circular and I’ve reached peak frustration in dealing with him.

However his project does promise to be one of those signature projects, if it ever gets underway, and the truth is that I really want him to be pleased with the work we do. It’s just that right now it is impossible to know if he’s just going to be an endless hassle, who tries to micromanage every part of the process or if he’ll become more cooperative and less doting as things progress. I’m not holding my breath.

There are days where I could be tempted to turn back, return to the proverbial Egypt of truck driving, and not need to deal with the pressure of always having to get things perfect. In trucking, a few spilled beans is just a few spilled beans. But, in this job, if I enter my numbers wrong here I could have the truss equivalent of “Galloping Girtie,” a very costly disaster and would need to bear the shame of my failure.

Of course, then again, an accident, for a commercial driver, can be a felony offense and especially if they can prove that you were distracted at the time. So maybe I’ll stick to the possibility of big financial losses for my company and potential of losing my job over sharing a cell with Bubba because the dispatcher needed answers and a silly “four wheeler” decided to use the same exact moment to check my reaction time?

I’ll stick with tapping the keyboard where there is less chance of me dying trapped in the burning wreck of a big rig, where I can be home at night despite a long commute, and my coworkers are Amish and awesome people. My hope is that eventually that will grow to the point where they can justify a second designer, so I can breathe a little and at least have the possibility of a day off or even working from home. It is a work in progress.

When will it be finished?

In the midst of everything else, I am (with the help of a more construction qualified friend) preparing a place. For many years I’ve lived comfortably in a small house, my bachelor pad, but for various reasons have decided that it is the right time to make a move.

First, the opportunity presented itself in the form of a “for sale by owner” sign along the path of my Saturday Dunkin coffee and donut routine. It was an upgrade from my current residence in terms of square footage and yard space. But it was also in severe need of a remodel, with cracked plaster, evidence of past leaks showing on the ceiling tiles, and other blemishes.

So, with the bank on board and price being right, after consulting some contractors, I went forward with the purchase.

Obviously, being that this is not only my own money involved and every month I wait to move in is a loss of a rent check plus the cost of utilities, there is a strong desire on my part to get the job done. That said, it will also be my own personal residence, the future “bhest nest” for my loved ones, there is also an equal desire to get it right the first time and thus speed was not the only concern.

As such projects go, we are behind schedule and threatening to go over-budget. But, at the same time, I have confidence we are doing it right and not cutting corners. For example, the old “knob and tube” wiring could have simply been covered up, spared us that extra week or so of work and the added cost, yet this is the place where I plan to sleep, keep my accumulation of things, etc.

I’ve also decided that working with a contractor is preparation for a having a wife. They don’t spend money like I do. They seem to see my wallet as being a spigot from a bottomless well, spending a thousand here and two thousand there is no big deal, whereas I’m keenly aware of every dollar spent and who will be slaving away to accommodate their excess. I’ve never told them no and they still call me tight—perhaps a warning against hiring (or marrying) friends?

Oh well, I’ve been every bit annoying as the customers I would complain about, I’ve made frequent visits, had things reworked midcourse to suit my preferences, and fussed about the lack of progress. I’m sure we’ll both be relieved once the travails of a major remodeling project are behind us, at very least the pressure will be off of me once I’m moved in and temporarily not hemorrhaging cash like a politician trying to buy votes. Ultimately, the best kind of project is a finished project!

Building towards that simple and happy life…

The bhest is yet to come. Everything up to this point I do and will be made worth it all when the big moment finally arrives. At this point I’m just getting all the pieces into position for something far greater on the horizon.

It has been a sort of an intermission period, with one act over with the next act yet to begin, and he waiting for the curtain to open has been my grueling, seemingly impossible, task as of late. There is much anticipation of things to come, but also as much anxiety about how things could go wrong (as so many did in act one) and I’m simply ready to get started with this next significant and very long awaited stage of life.

I had once wondered how Jacob could have labored so many years for the woman he loved. But now that I’ve surpassed his fourteen years, I’m not so much impressed, that’s puppy love. Besides that, he had a companion for half that time and also knew what was waiting for him at the end. I never had a Laban in my life. I’ve never had a father who let me prove myself or work for the love of his daughter nor any reason for hope other than my own stubborn refusal to quit.

In fact, I longed for something definite, some kind of clear path towards the Promised Land, and always ended up staring into an uncertain future. It is easy to fight dragons when you know that the princess is waiting for you in the castle. But it takes real courage and character to continue to fight despite the fears that a more profound loneliness and more terrible depression could be the only reward waiting at the end of your struggles.

Just an undefined waiting time is bad enough. It is the thing I hated the most about driving truck. I would much rather be told a specific time, even if it is a long period of time, than a “we’ll tell you when we’re ready” or some other non-committal response. I mean, how do you plan for an indeterminate period of time? Do I crawl back into the sleeper only to be woke from my sleep five minutes later? Not knowing confined me, it limited what I could do, and did not allow me to prepare.

It remains to be seen how the lingering conflicts of act one will be resolved. Questions still remain that I hope can soon be put to rest. But right now I must focus on tying up the loose ends, working through the stress of the interim, being patient and trusting that the right answers will come in due course.

Will the impossible be made possible?

Stay tuned!

When the Truth Threatens Our Way of Life

Recently I was asked what books were formative for me. Two books immediately came to mind. The first being F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, “The Great Gatsby,” a tragic tale of a man who got ever so close to his dreams that had haunted me since high school as it seemed to be a repeat story in my own life. The second book, written by Peter Hoover and far less known outside of a particular religious circle, compared modern-day Mennonites to their Anabaptist forebearers.

Hoover’s book, “The Secret of the Strength,” drew an interesting parallel between the disruptive and defiant (and, dare I say, irrational?) early Anabaptists and the Old Testament character of Samson. This exploration of the secret of their strength lay dormant in me for years, but eventually helped define my longing for more than the conservative Mennonite status quo (including the doubled down version of the same old Mennonite priorities rebranded as “Anabaptist” by some) and this put me on a collision course with the religious culture that had been my identity since birth.

Anyhow, my own religious radicalization aside, I’m fascinated by patterns and especially when it comes to Biblical types. These patterns and types can be easily missed by the casual reader and yet are unmistakable once discovered. And, if we look closely enough, we may even see ourselves and our own patterns in these various characters. As you read, consider your own life, what defines your experience? Are you defining the future with your faith that goes beyond the status quo or are you simply defending a way of life?

Two Men Who Threatened the Status Quo

One thing interesting about Samson is how his story so similar to that of Jesus. These two men, as different as they appear at first blush, have many intriguing parallels. Their births were announced by angels, they were sanctified in the womb, they were deliverers of Israel (old and new, respectively) and free their people of oppression, and the list goes on (click here if you want to learn more), but there is one parallel in particular that I would like to explore and that is how their religious peers responded to their exploits.

First up is the account of Samson and those who decided to confront this Hebrew Hercules:

Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?” He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.” They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.” (Judges 15:11-17a NIV)

Here we have Samson running roughshod over the Philistines. And yet, these three thousand men of Judah, rather than join him in overthrowing their oppressors, decided to capture Samson and turn him over to their enemies. By their faithless reasoning, Samson was a greater threat for “rocking the boat” than the occupiers who had corrupted them with ungodly fear and turned them into cowards.

This reasoning in regards to Samson closely mirrors the discussion about Jesus, in the Gospel of John, and the threat he represented to the established order:

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (John 11:47-50 NIV)

The discussion above takes place directly after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Can you imagine that? A man is literally bringing people back to life, they claim to believe in a God that defeated powerful Egypt, and yet their concern is with what the Romans may think?

The men who turned Samson over to Philistines and the leaders who conspired against Jesus were both guilty of moral cowardice. In both cases, the concern was about the fallout. They feared what others may think, anxiously fretting over the potential for negative repercussions, and that fear led to a moral compromise. The three thousand who went to capture Samson were willing to side with the enemy for sake of political expediency. Likewise, the religious leaders who would eventually have Jesus put to death were more willing to sacrifice a little truth for an imagined greater good.

Samson and Jesus both presented a dangerous threat to the status quo. These moral cowards, more imprisoned by their own inner fear than they were by external oppressors, reasoned that it was better to hand over the heroes of faith, the very men who offered both them and their people a path to salvation, rather than to risk losing their own lives or privileged positions.

We like to think about them as the bad guys. But be honest, what of your cherished positions or most treasured things would you willingly sacrifice without carefully considering the consequences? Would you truly put your own Issac on the altar, the one thing that you value most in the world, and trust God or would you cling to your own reasoning and come up with an excuse for moral compromise?

Good Stewardship or Love of Money and Moral Cowardice?

The failure of Christian Aid Ministries (CAM) to act appropriately in response to sexual abuse caused me to think anew about my own experience.

This organization is basically the flagship of the conservative Anabaptist missionary effort. It is one institution that represents all stripe of conservative Anabaptist more than any other—with their shared German work ethic and careful management of resources.

From early reports, the primary concern seemed about “good stewardship” as it pertained to finances. Faith that does the right thing no matter the cost, apparently, in these initial discussions, taking a back seat to the advice of a lawyer and protecting their image and material assets.

This sort of damage control approach is not unusual in worldly institutions. However, it feels completely out of place for an organization that is supposed to represent a religious tradition of those who would rather face torturous death than to compromise ever so slightly in their commitment.

Indeed, it was Jesus who said, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Matthew 16:26a) Does an approach focused on avoid liability, punctuated by fear of consequences, the response one would expect of a political campaign, really represent Jesus Christ?

Whatever happened to “let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil” (Matt. 5:37 KJV) and simply telling the truth regardless of cost?

One defining characteristic of CAM’s response is that it is reasonable and not unlike that organization’s general approach to missions. Unlike the disciples, whom Jesus sent out with nothing besides the shirts on their backs and the Spirit of God, they go in on the power of their own resources. It is a reflection of modern-day Anabaptist culture. They are reasonable and rational, not at all radical. Sure, some of their youth might be risk-taking and adventurous, but as a reflection of modern thrill-seeking culture. However, when it comes to really taking a step out in faith, doing what is right even if it means giving up everything, most retreat back to their comfortable religious lifestyles and token sacrifices.

It is really no surprise, then, that there is a tendency towards moral cowardice and “circle the wagons” when a leader needs to step up and take personal responsibility for the mess. I mean, these are men with families, the reputation of something they’ve built over many years to protect, they have something to lose and it is perfectly reasonable that they may hesitate to be open in a way that could expose them legally. Don’t most of us act the same when it comes right down to it? Is there anyone in our time who would actually volunteer to be hung up by their thumbs. It is really easy to advocate doing the right thing when it comes at no personal cost.

So there is definitely some sympathy to be had for those three thousand men from Judah who decided to hand over Samson. It is also reasonable that the religious leaders would choose to sacrifice one man to spare their nation from potential Roman destruction. Samson and Jesus were a threat to the established order in the same way as those who bring hidden sins into the open in our own time. There are many today who would rather “kill the messenger” and bury the prophets so they can continue on as they always have and remain in denial of their own hypocrisy and faithlessness.

Finding Faith Where It Is Least Expected

My blogging over the past couple of years (although less so recently) has focused on the failure of the religious culture I was born into. But that had not been my intention for the start. My writing in this blog had started in anticipation, as a means to share how faith had triumphed within the conservative Mennonite culture.

However, that is not what happened.

What happened is that my friends, my family, and those whom I had admired most, decided to side with what was most rational and sane over my delusional hopes. My hope against hope could not overcome their cold calculation and cynicism. How could it be that people who claimed to take the Bible literally and that Jesus walked on water suddenly turn to statistics and rational arguments as an answer to my pursuit of impossibility and faith? Do they really believe that “all things are possible” as it says in the verses they recite?

They travel around the world, earnestly trying to convert others to their Mennonite understanding, and then revert to “it is what it is” fatalism and insist that hearts can’t change when something comes up that threatened their own status quo. It was this double-mindedness that tortured me for those few years—the impossibility herself recited, “with God all things are possible,” (the theme of my faithful pursuit of a beautiful vision that nobody else could see) while she walked past my discouraged husk one evening and, when I was about to give up, it actually gave me the reason to keep on in my quixotic pursuit of true expectations-defying faith in the Mennonite context.

In the end, I was betrayed, like Samson and Jesus, by those whom I most dearly loved. Also, like those two men, my own bride will come from outside of my birth religious culture. Samson, by divine plan, married a Philistine. Jesus married his bride, the Gentile church… because there was more faith found among them than where it would have been reasonably expected. Like Jesus finding no greater faith in Israel than that of a Roman Centurion, I had to go outside my denominational understanding to find a Christian tradition not mired in modern rationalism and fear of change. Mennonite love could not span prejudice and preference.

The Christian tradition I now am a part of, while not free of the problems of other churches, has provided a fresh (albeit ancient) perspective of faith and, despite the defamatory caricatures I’ve heard in warnings against them by ever defensive Biblical fundamentalist Protestants, have as much vibrancy to their worship and signs of true spiritual life as I’ve found anywhere else. In fact, if it wasn’t for one of them my faith would have foundered—crushed forever against that unforgiving brick wall of Mennonite cultural expectations.

Those Who Try To Keep Their Life…

Speak the truth and you will be maligned. Be truly radical and you will be resisted by all, treated as a threat by those who should be strong allies, betrayed by those whom you trusted as dear friends, and abandoned by the crowds seeking their own ease in your hour of most desperate need.

The same patterns and types exist today as they did in Biblical times, (albeit in a different form) and we need to choose to live in faith and for truth rather by our own understanding and in our own strength. We must stand strong even when those supposed to be our leaders shrink back in fear and urge reasonable compromise.

So, anyhow, whatever did become of Samson?

Samson, after getting an agreement from the fear-fueled Judeans that they wouldn’t kill him themselves, allowed them to restrain him to be brought to the Philistines:

So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock. As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. (Judges 15:13b‭-‬15 NIV)

Samson, even in being handed over to the enemy by his supposed allies, saw an opportunity and seized upon it. He snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, literally, using a jawbone, and (filled with the Spirit) singlehandedly dispatches one thousand Philistines. Those men from Judah had to feel a bit silly after that, they had clearly picked the wrong side, the moral cowards that they were, and missed the opportunity to share in the victory with courageous Samson.

Likewise, had those who condemned Jesus to death been a bit more courageous, as a group, they might have saved their cherished temple and their beloved identity as a nation. Instead, through their faithless choice, they actually brought the “or else” of Malachi 4:6 upon themselves. The destruction of Jerusalem came as a direct result of the religious leaders picking their course of action based on fear of Rome rather than faith in God. However, the effort of these morally corrupt leaders to save their way of life by killing Jesus clearly did not pan out.

Faithless leaders end up destroying the way of life they so desperately try to preserve through their own diligent efforts. Religious cowards miss the chance for real and lasting success. As Jesus said, “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.” (Luke 17:33 NIV) That’s a paradox of faith and pattern of Scripture, those who courageously face down giants end up winning despite the odds against them and those whose cowardice leads to moral compromise end up losing everything in the end.

Jesus, like Samson, turned what appeared to be terrible defeat into a stunning victory and made fools of these religious experts who condemned him for going against their customs. Those who rejected Jesus, despite their rational calculations and reasonable compromises, lost everything they were fighting for and missed out on something much better than the lifestyle they clung to so bitterly in their faithless ignorance. They thought they were wise and were really only fools blinded by their own prejudices and preferences.

The good news is that it is never too late to repent, step out from underneath the false security of cultural conditioning and live in the light of the true substance of faith. Change is inevitable and death too. So, live recklessly, selfless, in love for those who need it most, as one with nothing to lose and everything to gain, because that is what praying “on earth as it is in heaven” is all about! Faith means leaving behind the prison of our fears and breaking the bonds of love-limiting expectations.

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