38 Years

There is a story found in the Bible’s Gospel of John about a lame man, a man who had been paralyzed from the waist down for 38 years.

In the story, the man is found laying beside a pagan healing pool, waiting to be put into the water to be healed of his ailments, but he has no one to put him in the water and no one to show him compassion.

After his 38 years of pain, Jesus, the Christ, shows up at the pool and sees the man. After the Christ sees the man, Jesus asks him whether or not he wants to be healed, a strange question, and one that could even sound insulting to the man, as if he had not been trying his hardest to be healed for nearly four decades.

The man tells Jesus he has no one to put him into the water to be healed, and that’s when Jesus tells him to pick up the bed he had been laying on and walk. Jesus heals him.

But Jesus does not heal the rest of the“crowds of sick people - blind, lame or paralyzed.”

He leaves the healing pool and disappears into a crowd, leaving the healed man behind in awe, wonder and joy.

But what about all the others? Why not heal them, too?

This story raises questions for me, as I’m sure it does for you too, especially if you do not practice the Christian faith. It raises questions not only of what and why, but also of how. Questions that no one specifically knows the answers to.

It’s not an answer, but an observation. Jesus saw a lame man and healed him that day, but Jesus also saw everyone else, too. He saw their pain, smelt their neglect and felt the hard ground they had to lay on. And as one who hopes in Jesus as God in Flesh, I am reminded that God sees all of us. And while He may not heal all of us the moment He sees us in our pain, He has His timing in this lifetime and the next, whether it’s 38 years or beyond.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: What is time to a God outside of it? But what is pain to a God who has felt it?

Some of God's Promises

“You are blessed because you believe God will do what He said.”

That was a verse from the book of Luke that I read this morning in the Bible. It struck me with a question, “How often do I really believe God will do what He says, what He promises?”

Often times, God’s promises feel far away and bigger than intervening with the individual moments of everyday life, which is possibly why it’s been hard for me to focus on believe God’s promises. His promises consist of things like saving the world from sin, bringing Heaven to earth and making all things new - all very big promises. All very important and beautiful promises, but also ones that don’t feel like they can be a part of our everyday provision. It’s hard to focus on those promises. The ones like taking away our anxieties if we cast them on them, or that He will clothe us better than fields of flowers and provide for us, more so than He does the birds. Those are the promises I often times try to take on doing myself, rather than relying on Him. Maybe that’s why they are harder to remember and harder to belive.

-Cliff

-Cliff’s Note: Take all things to Him who provides all things.

Character Arcs

Over the past several weeks, my wife, Sarah, and I have watching all of Marvel’s ‘Avengers’ movies in chronological order, which is quite the task; each movie is 2+ hours long, and there are always several story lines happening within each film.

One of the most interesting characters in their cinematic universe is Tony Stark. He’s interesting for several reasons, one, of course, being that he’s Iron Man. Another because he’s essentially Marvel’s version of Batman - a wealthy person who doesn’t have super powers by nature, but rather has money to create technology that gives him a skillset. However, the biggest reason Tony Stark stands out to me is because of his character development. From his first appearance in Iron Man one to his last appearance in a film I won’t tell you the name of because of *spoilers,* his character arc grows significantly from the selfish, wealthy man we see in the beginning to the sacrificial, giving person we see in the end. It’s dramatic and true.

It makes me wonder what it would be like if we could see our own character arcs.
How dramatic would they be?
Would we change for the better or for the worse over time? Maybe both?
Where would the timeline stop?

Maybe that will be a piece of Heaven (or Hell?), getting to watch your life on a big movie screen. In Heaven maybe there’s popcorn, in Hell, there probably wouldn’t be. Either way, I can only hope my arc goes up.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Continue to learn and grow in wisdom, compassion and sacrifice.

Giving

This past Sunday was an uncomfortable day for the pastor at our church. It was a day that he had to talk about giving & tithing - two things I’m sure pastors feel like they never talk about, but two things that I’m sure congregants feel like they talk about too much. It also seems to never fail that churches have more visitors on days when the sermon is about giving the church, which is uncomfortable for everyone, and with all of those facts in mind, yes, this past Sunday’s sermon was about giving.

I’ve always thought the giving can look like a lot of things, money being one of them, obviously, but also time.

One of my friends, John, is in medical school, and he has always believed in tithing his time, especially while in school and taking out loans. He has the conviction that he can’t tithe money while he doesn’t have a job and by using student loan funding, so he goes above and beyond to serve, which I have always respected.

On the other hand, I have a friend who’s a devout atheist, and he’s creating a nonprofit business based on giving back 11% of all proceeds; that’s 1% better than the 10% mark that the Church often instills as how much one should tithe. I respect that business model as well, and how he wants to put into practice the idea that one doesn’t have to go to Church to do good things in the world.

Then, there’s my wife and I, both with jobs, both going to Church and both giving back. But how much is enough? How much is not enough? Both in time and in cash. It’s a question that is different for all families and all individuals, and it’s one we talk about often, but I always wonder - will it ever feel like we’re giving enough? Just as I wonder - will it ever feel like I have enough?

Two questions. Opposite ends of the spectrum. Never clear answers.

-Cliff

-Cliff’s Note: Even though there are questions in giving, give gladly.

Uncontrollable Words

What do we all have that is both seen and unseen, used for good and evil and that we all both have control of and lack control of?

Words.

Words have been on my mind a lot lately. Not the words on this screen, but the words that come out of my mouth, the words that seem to be on the tip of my tongue without me even knowing it.

Like yourself, I’m often unsure of where the words that I speak come from. Sometimes I say things I promise I’d never say. Sometimes I say good things that I never knew I understood. But mostly, I find myself saying things to please people, things that I wouldn’t normally say or subscribe to, but things that I know will make the person I’m talking with happy.

I was listening to an ancient piece of text the other day, and it said that all kinds of animals have been tamed by mankind, but that we have still never been able to tame our tongues. It said that our mouths are restless and have poison in them.

And I can’t help but believe that’s still true, even these thousands of years later after that text was written; we still. have trouble controlling what we say and speak.

Maybe one day we’ll get a grip. Until then, I’ll keep trying to catch the words coming out of my mouth before they come all the way out and admit I’m wrong for the ones that escape that shouldn’t.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Words are like a wine; they can be good when the time is right, good and served among friends, but they can also be bitter, toxic and spilled, ruining a moment and your shirt .

Life Chapters

Recently, i’ve been reading stories about King David from the Old Testament in the Bible - his Mighty Men, his victories and failures and his ruling kingdom. He was quite the guy, a ‘man after God’s own heart.’

And in reading all about him, I wonder if he knew that one day, 2,000+ years later, people would still be reading of him and all he’d done, the good and the bad. That has to be one of the downfalls of being a king, in my opinion - everyone reading all the details of your life, most of which lack context.

There’s also the story of David and Bathsheba, probably David’s lowest moment that’s recorded. But the funny thing is, it’s only recorded in one of the oracles of his life, not the other. In fact, it gets nearly a full chapter dedicated to it in one book, while the other book doesn’t mention it at all.

It got me to thinking about my own life and what people would read about it in old journals and hear told about it from old friends and family. Would the bad things come up, or just the good? How long before the bad is forgotten and the good remains or before the good is forgotten and all the bad, damaging things we’ve left behind are all that remain?

Much like yourself, i hope the good things remain, that I’m remembered for good. For loving, for teaching, for sacrificing, for wisdom, patience and goodness.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Each day is a chapter written. I’ll try my best to write the good, unforgettable ones.

Clouds

Clouds cover the city skyline this morning. Not fog, but thick, dark blue clouds.

It looks as if it might storm, but the sun rising in the east pushes an orange glow across the deep blue thunderheads, reflecting the light and making the sky question whether it will rain or not.

I like these types of clouds, these types of days. They’re dreary, but they’re also peaceful and carry promises.

They carry rain.
They carry rainbows.
They give us shade in the heat of summer.

All good things. All beautiful things. All counteracting the storms they also carry.

So today sits and waits for the storm that may or may not come, and today enjoys the promises that already have come: light, warmth, beauty and the hint of a rainbow tracing the tail end of the sky.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: See the clouds, smell the rain, hear the thunder, feel the electricity and taste goodness.

Tape Measures & Rope

I’m looking outside the back window of our house this morning as I write. There’s a big, beautiful tree that shades most of this side of the backyard, and when it has all its leaves, the tree creates a sense of serenity. Except one part of the tree.

One part of the tree has a long, yellow rope hanging from it, falling down from way up high in the tree’s massive branches, too high to reach. There’s something about this rope that is off putting. Sure, it stands out against the rest of the tree and hangs there with no purpose other than to dangle in the wind. But it also feels like it symbolizes negativity. It resembles a noose, which I don’t love, but it also looks like a long measuring tape, showing me just how long it is and just how far from the ground it is. And it always reminds me of measuring myself. Just how far off I am from the things I want to achieve.

That’s a lot to take away from a long-forgotten rope hanging in the backyard, but it goes to show, we (humans) will take self-measurements from anywhere. From the people around us, from social media, from television and books, and apparently, even from the inanimate objects placed around us that the voices in our heads use to tell us lies.

What are you measuring, and what’s measuring you?
I hope they are true.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Measuring yourself compared to others is no way true way to measure.

Youth Games

Growing up, I went to youth group at my local church. We’d meet on Wednesday and Sunday nights, and each meeting would always kick off with a game led by our youth pastor. Sometimes the game would involve everyone, like dividing up into teams and seeing who could duck tape the lightest person on the team to the wall fastest. And some games would involve individuals, like blindfolding a volunteer and having them identify all the Chick-fil-a sauces by taste only.

I always wondered what the point of those games was, and I do even more so now as I’m tasked with coming up with games on my own. Were the games simple ice breakers to get students used to the environment they were in and talking with one another? Were they to help get their energy out? Or was there always something deeper than that? Could there be something deeper than that?

I don’t want to waste time, much less a kid’s time. I know when I was that age, I didn’t want my time wasted. So how can we make the most out of games, out of simple interactions?

I think it’s through intentionality. Learning someone’s name. Looking someone in the eye. Encouraging someone. Laughing with someone. Empowering them to succeed. All things we need. All things kids need.

So today, how can we do that?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Encourage in the Simplicity.

Beauty & Neglect

The sun shines high on a man standing on the corner of a street. It’s a warm day, but not too warm. The temperature sits right around 70 degrees, and there’s a slight breeze in the air coming from the south that hits him at just the right moments, wicking the sweat from his brow each time it begins to form.

The man has no home, and he’s looking for marijuana, at least that’s what his cardboard sign says. There’s pain on his face. Physical pain based on the scars you see. Emotional pain based on the cars you see passing him, not offering the help he needs.

But still, the sun is shining on this man on this warm day with a warm breeze.

And isn’t that the irony?

That there can be such such beauty and relief happening to a person, while such pain and neglect are happening simultaneously to the same person.

And in that moment, as another human being, I too feel the beauty of the warm and the pain of the neglect, while also wondering, what would this man see when if he looked at me?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: “If we experience God’s blessings, we must accept trials as well.”

Truth(s)

I care a lot about unity. Unity that is real, not the marketing buzzword that lacks the reckoning and grace people deserve. But caring about unity raises questions.

Does Truth matter?

Is riding the fence an okay option?

Must we always pick a side?

I do believe Truth matters. I believe riding the fence is compromise that we must make sometimes. I believe picking sides is like picking teams - people get hurt, and sometimes you end up on a side you don’t want to be on.

The other day, some friends and I were discussing some of the day’s hottest political issues when I began to start processing how subscribing to a truth can immediately create division. Truth is necessary. Without it, life would be in limbo. But Truth is also problematic, which leads me to another question: Can there be more than one Truth?

Aside from two truths and a lie, most people would say, ‘no.’ Whether it’s based on personal circumstances, experiences or convictions, most of us subscribe to absolute Truths, whether we admit it or not, and when we’re met with opposing beliefs, we tend to unsubscribe, myself included.

But what if we didn’t? What if we were okay with the world holding more Truths than the one we hold so tightly to? What if that Truth in itself was one we subscribed to?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: True or False questions are harder than they appear.

Failure. Escape. Acceptance. Relationships.

Today’s question I ask to myself: Does every beginning need a beginning?

In the past, every time I’ve sat down to write, I felt like I had to explain why I had stopped writing previously and why I’m starting to write again.

Maybe it was because I felt the need to explain myself to the few people who read my words. Maybe it was because there had been so many large gaps between each writing session that I feel like a new person compared to the person who last wrote. Or maybe maybe it was a way of forgiving myself. 

Either way, here I sit, having started down the writing journey again with a new goal, not to write a book but to become a writer. Not apologizing to myself or apologizing to you, the reader, for not writing, but making a promise that I will become a writer, that I am slowly but surely becoming who I want to be, that I’m pushing past fears.

Past unspoken fears have led to unspoken thoughts, and those fears have driven my do’s and don’ts, my words and my silence. It’s a reason why my writing process takes so long, why it’s taken me years to fulfill promises I’ve made to myself. FEAR. 

Failure. Escape. Acceptance. Relationships.

All things that scare me. All things that motivate me.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: A prayer: While my words are not solutions, may they be a nightlight, a friend and a reassuring, ‘It’s going to be okay.'‘

The Healing Process

What does it take for you to heal?

Personally, the more I go through life, it feels like healing only happens through more pain.

I’m not specifically talking about physical healing here, although these thoughts could apply there as well, but I’m talking about emotional pain. Spiritual pain. The kind of pain that you can’t see on the surface, but that wrecks havoc internally, under the surface of your veins, organs and insides. The pain that you hide, that you mask, that you bury, that eventually turns into a numbness but rears its wounded head every chance it gets, often in new and improved ways.

That’s the kind of pain I’m talking about healing from. The pain that seems hardest to heal from. What is that process for you, and is it important?

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot, and for me, writing is processing. Processing is where I’ve begun to think more about this healing process because processing has been causing me a lot of pain. It’s been turning up a lot of memories, thoughts and experiences I haven’t addressed in years, and with that, it’s revealing pain that I haven’t seen rear its head in quite some time. I buried those memories. Pretended they never happened and grew a thick skin over them to number the pain, hoping to never think about them or feel them again.

Not healthy, and I wouldn’t recommend.

So, here I sit. Addressing old pain in a new way. Almost talking about it with myself. And I’m honestly not even sure if that’s healthy, but It’s better than what my process was before.

That’s why I ask you, what does it take for you to heal?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: We all have unaddressed pain. Search for healing.

A Gas Station and an Answered Prayer

A few years ago, myself and a group of friends were coming back from a road trip to Portland from Seattle when our 2002 Jeep broke down at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. We felt stuck, since know one new anything about cars, and we were still several hours from home. It was late at night, and we knew the likely hood of getting one of our friends in Seattle to drive down and fetch us was slim to none.

So, what did we do?
We prayed.

Yes, the most cliche of Christian answers to solve what seemed like an extremely minor worldly problem, in the grand scheme of things. But we prayed.

Not 30 seconds after we finished our prayer, we saw the door of the truck stop diner up the street fly open and a burly, bearded man walk out - a typical trucker if there ever was one. He looked at us from the door and immediately started walking our way. When he reached us, all he said was, “You guys look like you’re having some car trouble. Why don’t you try inserting the key into the outside, driver’s door lock and locking and unlocking it a couple times?”

As we all looked around at one another thinking, “There’s no way this works,” sure enough, it worked.

Immediately after the engine roared back to life, the guardian angel turned around to leave with a low-key, “Looks like that did the trick. Y’all be safe.”

It’s this moment that I hold onto as a pivotal anchor to my faith. A small, but truly answered prayer in the heat of the moment. Both unexplainable and explainable, but a moment that I refuse to chalk up to circumstance.

Event when it feels like God isn’t listening, shouldn’t listen or has better things to hear, He hears us.

-Cliff

Tim’s Note: “Even when it feels like God is absent, He is with us. He is always working, turning the world’s bad to His good.” - Tim Keller

Good Friday Questions

Today is Good Friday, and I have some questions.

God,
What did You feel on Good Friday all those years ago?
Did You feel angry?
Did You feel sad?
Did You feel reckoning?
Did You feel justified?
Did You feel love?
Did You feel hope?
Did You feel victory?
Did You feel loss?
Did You feel pain?
Did You feel anything at all?
Do You feel?

Christ,
What is it like to care so much that You sweat blood?
Did You feel scared? If so, why?
Did You know what you were going into?
Did You feel angry?
Did You feel let down?
Did You feel alone?
Did You know you would win?
Did You see good in us, despite our bad?

Spirit,
Where were you this day all those years ago?
Did you abandon us?
Did you give us strength?
Did you pray for us?
Did you ever leave Jesus?
Did you see what happened?

These are some of the questions I have today. Some are old, some are new. One day, maybe they can be answered because today happened, all those years ago.

-Cliff
Cliff’s Note: Ask God.

For When People Let You Down

People let you down.

This is one of life’s great truths that gets harder and harder to swallow the older I get, probably because the older I get, the more trust I build with people.

All to have it torn down in an instant.

And it’s not always the people that we’re closest to that let us down the hardest; it’s quite possible that those who are far from us that we put our hope in who can let us down event harder. I’m talking about those we follow, idolize in the media or trust in faith - our heroes.

It’s these people, who have no knowledge that I (or you) even exist, who can turn our worlds upside down at the drop of a hat. It’s happened to me multiple times with different writers and musicians. I follow their art, taking it in and trusting it, building certain aspects of my own life around things they have taught, and then what happens? They change their mind, their faith or their thoughts entirely, shattering everything I ever thought about them and what may or may not be true.

And that feelings sucks.

This recently happened to me again, and I’m still figuring out how to handle it when it happens because it will undoubtably happen more throughout my lifetime. For now, I’m going to try not to take myself too seriously, along with others I put hope in, and I’m going to try to extend more grace. More grace because we are all human, and we all let people down, every day. And as I let those down around me, I can only hope that grace upholds us all.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: People let you down. Grace builds you up.

Caregivers

I once saw a homeless man give a business man $2 to pay for his parking meter, and I sat in the irony of that moment thinking about how caring for one another, as humans, flows two ways.

We all have something the other lacks, and watching moments of care like unfold seems rare, like seeing a moose in the wild. The moments must be captured, remembered and reflected upon.

I think these moments happen more often than not in-person. They happen in circumstances where we can see one another’s faces and engage with the entire human experience. Our emotions, our bodies, our minds and our spirits, all interacting with one another at the same time. So much more than can be experienced through a device in our hand where we can hide our faces. For when we hide our faces and others’ faces are hidden from us, we cannot see or show our emotions, our bodies our minds or our spirits. We can only write them down, type them out and send them off to the virtual world where we don’t have to look someone in the eye when they get hurt, wounded or upset by words written.

We were made flesh and made to be caregivers. This is where I believe we can truly be who we were created to be.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: The human experience is more than what we see on the devices in our hands.

Matching One's Greatest Joy with the World's Greatest Needs

Sometimes, life hands you lemons, and you make lemonade. Other times, life hands you gourds, and you look back at life and ask it, “What am I supposed to do with these?”

At some point or another, my Creator, the God who assembled me together, inside and out, added a spark into the primary engine of my spirit that kicks on when I watch people connect and work together. And oddly enough, I can remember this spark being there since I was a kid. Back then, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what it was about watching two friends from two different friend groups hit it off and get along that made me so happy, I just know it did. It always has, and it always will; however, what do you do with that feeling?

Growing up and watching your friends’ passions develop is a fascinating process - how these passions evolve and influence the trajectory of life is amazing, and it carries people all over the world. From friends passionate about athletics and pursuing professional sports to friends passionate about politics and pursing careers centered on social justice, it gives one a feeling of pride to stand back and say, “Hey, that’s my friend. Look how far they’ve gone.”

But what was I going to do with this weird passion I had of convening people and watching them form friendships out of those introductions? I certainly wasn’t going to pursue a career in match-making, but surely there had to be something out there ‘where my greatest joy met the world’s greatest need,’ as the great Frederick Buechner said. After all, I highly doubted the world needed another match-maker (although Bumble and Tender turned out to be pretty successful), but surely, the world needs something that allows me to do what I love?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Match your greatest joy with the world’s greatest needs is a journey, one that cannot be given up on.

A Balled from Hate & Disagreement

This morning, I wrote about disagreeing. More specifically, I wrote to try to answer the question, “Which comes first, hate or disagreement?” Which honestly felt a lot like trying to answer the question, “Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?”

I found myself writing in circles trying to answer the question and come up with an origin for one or the other (spoiler, I didn’t), but the one thing I did keep coming back to was love.

Love and creating an opportunity to love seems to de-escalate hate within disagreement.

Take for example your friends and family. Can you think of anyone who has ever completely agreed, 100% all the time, with their parents? Much less all of their friends? I don’t think I can, but if you do, please let me know.

When we disagree with those we love, it seems easier to agree to disagree, move on with life and then go get dinner afterward. Compare that to disagreeing with those that we don’t love, or better yet, those we don’t give ourselves the chance to love or opportunity to know and understand, agreeing to disagree becomes much harder, while disagreeing and moving toward hate feels easier.

Again, I still don’t know what comes first, disagreement or hate, but I do believe that taking the time to get to know those we disagree with more might just help evaporate some of the world’s hate.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: To know is to love.

A Song from 1995

“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the the world.” 

I grew up singing this song nearly every day at daycare when I was a child. It was a regular part of our ‘choir’ portion of the day from age 3 to 7 or so. We sang it so often that I still know all the lyrics by heart, and I can still picture our teacher standing at the front of the class leading us in it, chorus after chorus, mouth along to the words so we could learn them as we went. 

I also remember that there wasn’t a single child in my class that was any color but white.

For some reason, this song popped back into my this morning, followed by the thought above. It’s never occurred to me before that at a young age, I was learning that in God’s eyes, we were all loved and equal, but while we were hearing that message, nothing in my life replicated any friends or kids in my class of any different race, nation or tongue. 

That’s not anyone’s fault; it’s just a bit ironic.

At the time, it felt easy to sing a song about how God loves everyone, all over the world, no matter what anyone looks like, while not seeing anyone from any different background other than my own in front of me. I wasn’t exposed to anyone red, yellow or black, nor was I exposed to anyone from any different part of town. Granted, I was only three years old when I was singing the song, but it still makes me think.

I’m grateful to have been taught that message, but what can we do to ensure that we’re not only teaching, but doing, experiencing and living.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Keep singing those songs in your head.