Everything

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “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. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

The Gospel of Luke, 14: 25-34

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Dear Kate,

Sunday night my family was talking about July already.  Yesterday at work people talked about barbecue in June.  I'm walking to work now, dictating this letter to my phone, looking around me.  Everything growing.  Everything dying.  Who is to say anything about tomorrow?

Last night--no, this morning, I had the weirdest dream. I don't want to be setting you up for disappointment, but that's how I felt it and knew quite sure the moment I woke: This is so totally weird cos it totally makes sense!  Intriguing strangeness speaks about a revealing familiarity, not nonsense.

The dream was an action movie.  The mise en scène was clear, but I didn't know the exact genre when it was happening.  There was a sense of doom, smell of apocalypse, evacuation of the city, lots of commotion, military moving people around, and for some reason the group that I was with needed to be left behind.  I needed to do my fair share of lying and sneaking around in dark and narrow passages to make sure when the city is evacuated for the final battle with a hitherto unnamed evil, I'll be staying around for some just as unknown purpose.

I'm glad the dream did not end before the final payoff, the way dreams as such often would.

And it went like this.  My faceless leader asked me and my group to go across a street and he specifically named it "Willingdon," one of the biggest streets in my neighborhood in real life.  He told us the Evil One will show up in a café across the street and what we'll need to do now is to cross the divide and meet him.

Immediately the Evil One appeared, very uneventfully, dressed in rain hat and mackintosh, looked like Rorschach from "Watchman" but with a twisted yellow smiley face full of pain and sorrow, walked into the café and sat down.  Our leader led us across the street and went in. He moved towards the man as we stayed afar, giving witness like the rest of the Creation, holding our breath.

Then Leader went up to the Evil One and pulled out a box of...muffins, and said, "Here are 100 muffins we've made with the best poppy seeds gathered from our neighborhood, and we've done this in your name.  May I share with you two of them, and in your name we will give away the rest to those in need?"  Upon hearing the voice of my leader I finally realized he was my church pastor.  What happened afterwards though was not poppy-seed-muffin-eating.  What I heard my pastor said was not what he proceeded to do.

He went up, with a characteristic smile on his face, and gave the Evil One a neck massage.

The man moaned.  The whole creation winced, cowered.  Breathless silence.  The massage went on. Pastor still smiling.  I woke for my morning pee.

I don't know why I am telling you this or what the dream has to do with the cost of discipleship Luke speaks about in today's quote.  I am no Daniel.

I will tell you this much though: 1) Willingdon is the street I walked on with my pastor last Monday; 2) The story might have to do with my disdain for some cruel rendition of "atonement theology"; 3) The Evil One is a small man, small enough to sit in the throne room that is our heart; 4) The anti-climatic non-ending is not unlike the one in The Book of Revelation, certainly no "Infinity War" or "Endgame" or other billion-dollar-making retraditioning of wet dreams about petty Greek gods.  I remember saying to myself at the end, still in the dream, This movie ain't gonna sell...

On that note, I am quite sure my dream was a superhero movie, one that I have a poster for already, a picture of my pastor picking up garbage and used needles at our church front, Sunday after Sunday, weekdays too, superhero weapon in hand.  He didn't pose for me or ask for the photo-op.  I was too shameless to ask for permission.

That particular Sunday I saw the sun coming from behind him and was touched by the grace of it all, permeating everything.  My sort of superhero movie, I said to myself, and seized the day.

Yours, Alex

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Dear Alex,

What if giving our all to God has more to do with His giving a hundred folds to us in reversal?

For the past 2 weeks, Spring seemed sleepier in southern Oregon. The sun squinted timidly behind cirrus clouds, thawing the chilled cuticle of land by noon. From there to nowhere, I drifted between lanes and fences in conversations and traffic, a vexed shadow in roaming.

Flaccid hope, thoughts in acid. I have been seeking for a breakthrough from my troubles but the brakes on my path imposed more breakage on me. I could not nail down a solution to crucify my troubles. My kid has been sick.

Then a few tender texts seeped through my phone screen. I had just met her at a small gathering last weekend. She offered a shared meal in her home. Another stream of words trickled in from two new friends of the same group in prayer for me: “Do you want to come? For sure we will come over. It’s good to try...”

With these morsels of promise, I felt my throat gaping to catch the sound of joy. I could give out my pinch of self and a dash in trust without issuing a transaction. The happiest gift comes in the faintest ripple of change.

This evening, change filtered through doubt in the shape of a question from my kid: “Can I walk out for 5 minutes?” The sun was playing peek-a-boo between gauzy knolls and woody knots. Through the door she joined the wild and wind, a spirit crying, song in flesh.

Half an hour later she returned with a sticky smile, her eyes blooming in discovery. It was not her plan to visit Linda, our senior neighbor, but curiosity convinced her to knock on the door.

“Is that you? I was thinking of you.”

“I have just thought of you too...”

She showed me Linda’s hand-knitted treasures for her: rainbow scarf, apricot beret. Her mouth and heart warped in wacky wiggles, wobbling in nascent change. She would revisit her friend later to learn sewing and crochet as a gift of handiwork for neighbors in need. A new venture is breaking through broken hands and feet.

The glory of giving is receiving beyond our grandest expectation.

Yours, Kate