Living Hazzardously

Little pieces of our journey with Jesus

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Life is always valuable

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Somebody once told me they thought everyone should work in a hospice care facility as a post teenager, they would learn the value of life… I wonder if that’s true… I think back to my wild youth filled days… I don’t think it would have made any difference to me.

 I don’t think I really understood the value of life until the day my oldest son almost died when a bumper fell off a scrap pile in Ramsey MN, missing him by maybe an inch. But the years leading up to that day were filled with some of the worst events I can imagine.

February 1991 My father passed away from cancer, born August 1 1920, he was still very young, but I had only seen him a few times and barely talked to him for years, not out of some rift, I just didn’t have “time”. Then my sister Laurie got hit by a train on a Cold September morning in 1993 at age 28, leaving behind two children. Only a few months later, Chris was born, and I almost lost him in childbirth…

That’s when I started to recognize how fragile life was. That’s when I started to feel the pain other people felt, it was the conception of my compassion… but not the birth. It was only a few years later I found myself holding a shotgun, feeling the rage and anger that was fully “justified”, an anger so strong over the violation of an innocent child… I probably wouldn’t have spent a day in prison, because it was fully justifiable…

God’s plan for my life was unfolding, I received into my life the gift of empathy. 

Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person, and to see things from their perspective. It involves experiencing another person’s emotions and thoughts, as if they were your own, while still maintaining a sense of your own distinct identity. 

Empathy is different than sympathy. Sympathy simply means you understand the pain… empathy means you actually feel that pain.

Many times I find I need to build walls and boundaries to protect myself from feeling the pain and suffering of others. You may not understand this, but there is another reading this blog that knows exactly what I mean. 

I can’t fully explain how and what I feel, I just know that when I see another person suffering, it can overwhelm my emotions and I can start to feel that pain as if it were my very own, as if the loss they feel is my loss, as if the joy they have is my own. It is weird, I know, I am not sure why I feel that emotion but I do, and it can be so exhausting that I need to find ways to manage this emotional stress so that I don’t shut down and curl up into the fetal position myself. 

If you know me, you know I always make a joke or speak a bit of sarcasm, or even dismiss a topic, it is a defense mechanism, otherwise I could short circuit and become a blob on the floor. Does this make me a “sissy” I don’t know, maybe from some perspectives its a show of weakness, but I really don’t care, I am genX… stick your opinion up your nose (just a bit of sarcasm for  you) I honestly don’t feel the need to prove my “manliness” anymore, I had that hang up in my teens, that is a different blog post from a while ago, Im sure one day I will revisit that mess. 

So, back to the value of life,

I have an event that scars my heart, a decision from years gone by, a choice that can not be undone, a pain so deep, it only can be touched by the best of human emotion surgeons, and even then, its so deep, the best can not truly find that scar. I remember that day so well, the day she decided to say she never wants to talk to me again… I can’t imagine the pain I caused her by not being there. What she doesn’t know about me will remain forever a mystery to her. She is fully justified in never wanting to hear from me, but I know she cant forget me, because I can’t forget about her… maybe that’s why God allows me to feel his emotional tie to every story I hear, maybe that is why I was given the cursed gift of empathy, because back then, I felt nothing for anyone.

I can’t undo my past, and to be totally transparent, I believe God has blessed my wretched existence with much more than I could have achieved on my own, I very much believe that in spite of my wretchedness, God chose me, and calls me his own, because apart from God? I was a pretty horrible, and a pitiful creature.

As I close this blog, please understand, life now is great, life then is what an ignorant young man thought was great, but that was total ignorance.

God took me and washed away that life, made me new, and He can do the same for you. 

Praise God He saves, and never gave up on a monster like me.

Charlie

The Smile, The Dash

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I remember seeing a photo, probably at the end of the war. A man hanging on the entrance to a train.  Looking at the platform. Another man held a woman in a firm embrace. Her feet in the air. A loving kiss. The man on the train had a genuine smile. The two on the platform reunited. A man and woman, in love. Welcomed home after what had probably been a few years of war overseas. 

Or the picture of a woman running to the waiting arms of a man. A hand made sign hanging outside reads “Welcome home Hector” A small boy close on the heels of his mother, racing to the loving arms of the man that would return home, changed forever, but home at last. A big smile on all three would be recorded forever. 

In times square, faces, faces and more faces all with smiles. 

A petty officer dances on the streets as a nearby gal watches with a joy filled smile. 

The look on a person’s face tells a story that words struggle to convey.  “A picture is worth a thousand words” pops into my head. 

For me? I don’t remember moments that made my generation dance in the streets, kissing a stranger in Times Square, or confetti flung from windows high above the streets as the “world celebrates” a single event.

Instead, I remember: 

Iran-Iraq War, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square Massacre, AIDS Epidemic, Chernobyl Disaster, Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Olympics Boycott,  Iran Hostage Crisis, Emergence of disco, Breakup of the Beatles, Elvis Dies, Ted Bundy, Watergate and the end of the Vietnam Conflict. 

That doesn’t mean we didn’t have things that made me smile. I honestly believe there was a better platform for my “boomer” friends. Don’t get me wrong, Boomers had their fair share of hard times… but gen X?  We had “World Hunger” & “AIDS” celebrations. We are the “Forgotten, Latchkey” generation. So what made us smile? Ask any genX about “MTV” and fond memories are almost always the response. Or say the words “Asteroids” and see a bit of a grin start to form. Or ask them what it is about the phrase “gag me with a spoon” Ask them if they knew any “headbangers” or maybe ask them about which of the “brat pack” they most identify with… 

Every generation has something to smile about, some are big events with streets of confetti, some are sneaking cigarettes and watching MTV before your friend’s dad gets home and tells everyone to get outside and not come home until the street lights are on. 

I see the smiles recorded in history on a train platform, in times Square, On a big screen watching the Breakfast Club… and I realized something… all those before us, all those after us and even ourselves, we all have a smile to talk about. We all have a fond memory, of something. We can all share something that was valuable… but, like so many before us, we will all pass into the land of memories. Collected in a shoebox, a hard drive. Maybe a slab of granite in some StPaul suburb, a mothers last effort to preserve that memory engraved into a headstone, forgotten after only a generation or two… a year connected to another year by only a small “dash”… a dash that represents all the smiles of joy, screams of sorrow, groans of discomfort and days of remembering. 

So many years before me, so many years after me, so many memories in my “dash” I want my dash to be one of joy to those I have influenced, I want my dash to be remembered for the next 40 years by anyone I meet as a memory filled with a smile on their face. I will be forgotten one day, one day I will simply be a picture in a shoe box that hears the words “Mommy? Who is this man? Is he my great, great grandpa? He has a nice smile!” 

I pray your legacy outlives your life and that your smile makes another person’s smile just a little bit warmer. 

God Bless, and “Rock on dude”, Charlie

I’m an odd duck…. Or am I a quack?

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When life gets messy, do you run and hide? Do you become hostile? Do you immediately switch into “damage control mode”? We all react differently in these situations and sometimes we regret the choices we have made in the past. As a Christian, what is the Biblical response to adversity? When things go south, what should we do? 

Peter in the boat cries out to Jesus who is passing them by, walking in the water… Peter leaps out at the first call from Jesus to step out in faith, but then he doubted his calling and sank.

Peter exclaims he would go to the place of death with Jesus on that fateful Friday but instead he hears the rooster crow, showing him how he failed again to have faith.

Jonah outwardly refused to do the will of God, but still ended up in Nineveh, to preach the word.

Esther complained to uncle Mordecai. Her uncle simply revealed if she didn’t do the calling on her life, God would raise another in her place.

Jess and I have been called to Sam’s Place, to serve those in need. When things get “messy” do we walk away? Or dig in for the hard push? Faith is one area God has gifted me. The truth is … it has topped my spiritual gift list for about 15 years now… prior to this it ranked in the bottom three.  I have no doubts about what Jess and I are doing.

BUT!!! This past week has put us both to the test. Let me tell you of some folks that could live at Sam’s Place. “Joe” had no family. Parents died years ago. Family is far away in a different state. Alone, lonely and tossed around from place to place. And “Bob” is a similar story as far as some aspects go… things got messy, I mean really messy, and it took a few days to get things worked out to get them better help, the system is the real mess. These two are humans that need a special kind of care… CARE!  The level of care we at Sam’s Place would love to offer but we are not set up for this level of care. We have to make decisions all the time to provide the right level of care… AND IT’S MESSY!! But we don’t quit. 

Let me tell you who we can care for: 

We can provide care for the lonely woman, living in the house or an apartment but struggling to keep the house clean, maybe forgets to take meds and would rather just stay away from people all day.

We provide care for the guy living with mental illness that just needs someone to monitor his mental health on a daily basis because he gets so busy with work that he forgets to eat or take his meds. 

We take care of the single mother that is trying to get her life together after her husband stops being part of her life, and she just needs help for a year or two.

That Vietnam Veteran down the block that looks out his window…  to make sure the kids are not coming into the yard to rip out the tulips he just planted.

That guy that’s always been an outsider in life, living in the trailer behind his mothers house when she was still alive.

The old guy that doesnt mean to make inappropriate comments but rather wants to say something nice, and always says it the most offensive way.

These are the folks Sam’s Place is looking to help, People made in God’s image, Messy people that you may not ever talk to because association with them may be embarrassing. People who may not always know what reality looks like and need a reminder that they can live a healthy and normal life, with a bit of help.

I’m reminded of Burl Ives narrating Rudolf the red nosed reindeer… Telling about the “Island of Misfit Toys” … The toys that are rejected by society for being old fashioned, odd in nature, not conforming to expectations… struggling to find a home, a place where they are just loved and accepted… A place where a Gal walks in and says “This is so much nicer than the places I’ve had to live” and she goes on to say, “Its clean!” Imagine, you just want a place to live that’s not gross! A place that’s not riddled with drugs and “drunk” smells. 

Give me your tired,

your poor,

your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free.

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

America is the biggest “dream land” in the world, folks are coming in by the 10 thousands, because it is the best place to live in all the world. It’s not a “fairytale” like Disneyland, it’s real, it’s messy, it’s home. Like America, Sam’s Place truly is the place of opportunity, for those we serve. 

Let’s get messy together! Let’s not worry about what someone “may say” . Let’s just make Sam’s Place the best community friendly, safe, loving and best place for everyone! Even if you don’t live or work there, you can still show love and compassion for the brother or sister, mother or father, uncle or aunt, veteran or orphan…

Serving others with love, sometimes will get messy. That’s ok. 

Charlie