The following article uses some quotes from Donald Millers new book,  A Million Miles and a Thousand Years.

“I have a hope, it’s that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means that you matter, and that you can create with in even a I have created you. ( p. 59)

For a long time I have had a dream about the Last Judgment. In this dream I stand before the throne and a voice asks me, “Well what do you think?  About your life, how was it?” Sometimes in the dream when I have been feeling depressed I give it a thumbs down sort of like the guys you see on TV doing the movie reviews. “Two popcorn boxes out of ten. Definitely not a must see.” At other times I am all excited and full of thanks and wonder. “A ten, definitely, a ten!!” In my dream when I pan the movie that is my life I feel guilty and sheepish. When I give it thumbs up I am happy. It’s a good dream. I’m not sure my dream is prophetic like Jacob’s Ladder or Peter’s bed sheet full of formerly forbidden foods but somehow there is quality about it that always makes me take notice. I don’t like the dream but I suspect that the frequency of its coming to me is a message from on high. I’m treating it that way, in any case.

Last year a number of things happened which, by all rights, I would have given as “thumbs down.” But as awful as the experiences were, there somehow was the sense that I was in an adventure that ultimately would turn out OK.  And it did. In brief, last year I wound up in a job where I was a complete failure. I had never failed completely in a job. My marriage was having difficulty. That was no fun for either of us. My relationships at church became strained because of my difficulties at work and I no longer felt like I could attend there. That was really hard.  Everything was looking pretty disastrous and yet in the middle of this came the invitation to attend a retreat in Virginia and become a Franciscan Monk. I had been a Novice studying for some time. I always have been fascinated by monastic living and had become involved in a “third order Franciscan and Benedictine” group on the Internet called The Company of Jesus. At the time of my invitation things in the rest of my life were looking pretty down. My movie was looking like a “2” and yet this rather intriguing invitation came. After some struggling within myself and the commensurate “ I really shouldn’t because I need to be at work” excuses I decided to go.

I’ve wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don’t want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. (p. 59)

After some difficulty I got to the retreat in the Virginia mountains. The weekend came and went. I honestly can’t say I remember a whole lot about it except for the fact that someone there sat down with me at lunch and asked a whole lot of personal questions and I spilled all the beans to him and, rather than put me off, he volunteered to walk with me though this experience that we called the desert time and to explore with me the places where God might be present.  Quite an offer. Sort of the Godfather, “Make him and offer he can’t refuse” sort of thing. Later that weekend I made a profession of vows to be a Franciscan. If you know anything about St. Francis you know that he embraced suffering and responded to it by serving others. The more suffering, the more service. He was one of the happiest guys that ever walked the face of the earth because somehow his suffering and the suffering of others connected him with the suffering of Christ. “If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me” he said in his own way. As of that evening service my discomforts in life had a meaning. They connected me in some mysterious way to Francis and he was connected to Christ. It all took on a new meaning.

Well I can’t tell you that when I came home all was rosy or that all of a sudden I had a beatific outlook on life which made me take on the Sermon on the Mount with glee. No, I still stunk on the job and eventually was let go, my wife and I continued to struggle (though she didn’t let me go, thank God), the money was still short and everything I left in Havelock was still waiting for me in the driveway when I came home. But more and more this movie that I call my life moved from being a dark tragedy to being an adventure. I ceased to be just a schmoo struggling along with pointless failures but became a sort of Indiana Jones searching the desert for things of great value. My friend and I continued to talk each week as I told my continuing story and we explored the plot weekly as one event or another opened up. There were opportunities that presented themselves and I found more and more people to serve and, like my hero Francis, began to experience some joy in it all.

If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. (p 68).

That’s it. Transformation or Formation as the term is used in seminary. Transformation does not happen because the story gets easier or that the mountain one needs to climb mysteriously disappears. As a matter of fact, the view from the top of the mountain is an endless panorama of more mountains. The point of life is to live through the challenges not to somehow retire from them.  Francis discovered the answer to one’s burdens is to take on someone else’s. The answer to despair is faith which knows that the challenge is not the end but just the opportunity. Because Jesus triumphed over the most desperate of circumstances and defeated in his resurrection the most daunting challenge of all, death, in Him we can go forward undaunted.

And if story is derived from real life, if story is just a condensed version of life, then life itself may be designed to change us, so that we evolve form one kind of person to another.”

I think Don Miller is right. If our story has no challenges it does not have the possibility of  change, of transformation. If our story is secure and predictable we stand no chance to be formed by faith in Christ. It is precisely in sharing Christ’s sufferings that we may become transformed by Him. Francis is right and I thank Jesus for those “two thumbs” moments because they are they are the material for a really great life movie.

Br. Ed (COJ)

(The following article uses some quotes from Donald Millers new book, A Million Miles and a Thousand Years.)

“I have a hope, it’s that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means that you matter, and that you can create with in even a I have created you. ( p. 59)

For a long time I have had a dream about the Last Judgment. In this dream I stand before the throne and a voice asks me, “Well what do you think?  About your life, how was it?” Sometimes in the dream when I have been feeling depressed I give it a thumbs down sort of like the guys you see on TV doing the movie reviews. “Two popcorn boxes out of ten. Definitely not a must see.” At other times I am all excited and full of thanks and wonder. “A ten, definitely, a ten!!” In my dream when I pan the movie that is my life I feel guilty and sheepish. When I give it thumbs up I am happy. It’s a good dream. I’m not sure my dream is prophetic like Jacob’s Ladder or Peter’s bed sheet full of formerly forbidden foods but somehow there is quality about it that always makes me take notice. I don’t like the dream but I suspect that the frequency of its coming to me is a message from on high. I’m treating it that way, in any case.

Last year a number of things happened which, by all rights, I would have given as “thumbs down.” But as awful as the experiences were, there somehow was the sense that I was in an adventure that ultimately would turn out OK.  And it did. In brief, last year I wound up in a job where I was a complete failure. I had never failed completely in a job. My marriage was having difficulty. That was no fun for either of us. My relationships at church became strained because of my difficulties at work and I no longer felt like I could attend there. That was really hard.  Everything was looking pretty disastrous and yet in the middle of this came the invitation to attend a retreat in Virginia and become a Franciscan Monk. I had been a Novice studying for some time. I always have been fascinated by monastic living and had become involved in a “third order Franciscan and Benedictine” group on the Internet called The Company of Jesus. At the time of my invitation things in the rest of my life were looking pretty down. My movie was looking like a “2” and yet this rather intriguing invitation came. After some struggling within myself and the commensurate “ I really shouldn’t because I need to be at work” excuses I decided to go.

I’ve wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don’t want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. (p. 59)

After some difficulty I got to the retreat in the Virginia mountains. The weekend came and went. I honestly can’t say I remember a whole lot about it except for the fact that someone there sat down with me at lunch and asked a whole lot of personal questions and I spilled all the beans to him and, rather than put me off, he volunteered to walk with me though this experience that we called the desert time and to explore with me the places where God might be present.  Quite an offer. Sort of the Godfather, “Make him and offer he can’t refuse” sort of thing. Later that weekend I made a profession of vows to be a Franciscan. If you know anything about St. Francis you know that he embraced suffering and responded to it by serving others. The more suffering, the more service. He was one of the happiest guys that ever walked the face of the earth because somehow his suffering and the suffering of others connected him with the suffering of Christ. “If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me” he said in his own way. As of that evening service my discomforts in life had a meaning. They connected me in some mysterious way to Francis and he was connected to Christ. It all took on a new meaning.

Well I can’t tell you that when I came home all was rosy or that all of a sudden I had a beatific outlook on life which made me take on the Sermon on the Mount with glee. No, I still stunk on the job and eventually was let go, my wife and I continued to struggle (though she didn’t let me go, thank God), the money was still short and everything I left in Havelock was still waiting for me in the driveway when I came home. But more and more this movie that I call my life moved from being a dark tragedy to being an adventure. I ceased to be just a schmoo struggling along with pointless failures but became a sort of Indiana Jones searching the desert for things of great value. My friend and I continued to talk each week as I told my continuing story and we explored the plot weekly as one event or another opened up. There were opportunities that presented themselves and I found more and more people to serve and, like my hero Francis, began to experience some joy in it all.

If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. (p 68).

That’s it. Transformation or Formation as the term is used in seminary. Transformation does not happen because the story gets easier or that the mountain one needs to climb mysteriously disappears. As a matter of fact, the view from the top of the mountain is an endless panorama of more mountains. The point of life is to live through the challenges not to somehow retire from them.  Francis discovered the answer to one’s burdens is to take on someone else’s. The answer to despair is faith which knows that the challenge is not the end but just the opportunity. Because Jesus triumphed over the most desperate of circumstances and defeated in his resurrection the most daunting challenge of all, death, in Him we can go forward undaunted.

And if story is derived from real life, if story is just a condensed version of life, then life itself may be designed to change us, so that we evolve form one kind of person to another.”

I think Don Miller is right. If our story has no challenges it does not have the possibility of  change, of transformation. If our story is secure and predictable we stand no chance to be formed by faith in Christ. It is precisely in sharing Christ’s sufferings that we may become transformed by Him. Francis is right and I thank Jesus for those “two thumbs” moments because they are they are the material for a really great life movie.

Br. Ed (COJ)

Several weeks ago I was riding behind a pickup truck full of fishing rods, beach gear and all sorts of things dedicated to a relaxed time at the beach. On the tailgate the words “Just Married” were printed in a hand painted script that was already beginning to fall prey to a few showers and time in the sun. It looked like a marriage well along the way to leaving the honeymoon stage and heading into the day-to-day state. I hoped they had a wonderful time and I could see through the window of the truck that they were sitting close together, probably holding hands and were still in that dream state that all honeymooners must some time awake from and do things like getting up in the night to put out the dog or eat cold cereal on the way to work or balance a checkbook that someone forgot to record a check. You know, regular things. Not so much handholding after a day of smooching and fishing on the beach of the Crystal Coast.

A newly married friend wrote me a note which brought this memory of the “just marrieds’ back. It was a slightly wistful note about discovering that some of the letters on the back to the pickup truck of their marriage was beginning to show a small bit of weathering. It’s a place all of us old marrieds have gone and feels a little like it used to feel a couple of days before the end of summer vacation; sort of a mildly sickening feeling in the stomach. It does not put you in bed but it does take the fun out of another hour on the swingset. When I saw my friend’s note and remembered the newlyweds’ truck I thought of the words Just Married.

Just Married when announcing a new marriage is exciting and hopeful and makes sentimental women (some men too, perhaps) tear up and say things like, “Isn’t that sweet?” For a day or a week the new couple are the Prince and Princess of the universe and everyone smiles and wishes them well. Another “just married” is the sort that reveals a sense of tired resignation. Sort of like, not only have I been there, done that and bought the T-shirt but now the tee shirt is worn out and my belly sticks out around the bottom. No one says “Isn’t that sweet” at this Just Married. I suppose they will on the couple’s 60th anniversary as the celebrated couple gum their wedding cake and ice cream and everyone fawns over them for a few hours. The fact is that both of them know that there has been a whole lot of stuff that is not very sweet that has happened to get them there to that point. There was a whole lot of “just married.”But I think most of them understand there is a sweetness unavailable to the newlyweds and most others who have not had the experience.

While I think there are times that we all feel “just married” in the everydayness of our relationships they do have the potential to take us places where we otherwise would not have gone. Marriage is difficult and when it becomes clear that the person we married is not really the person we thought we were marrying there comes a sense of disappointment and betrayal that for some is the beginning of the end. But if we, somehow, through prayer, tears, angry words, forgiveness and Grace work through this we find that the person we married is far better and far different than our weak imaginations ever could have provided for us. We not only marry the other person but we have the benefit and carry the burden of their pasts, parents, successes, failures, exes and all of the stuff that makes them who they are. We do not discover these things on the honeymoon. It is only available over time and experience.

With patience, determination, a dearth of options, and Grace we also may find that we are not who our imaginations told us who we are. We may find that we are far more childish, unattractive and selfish than we ever imagined. But we also may find that we are truly heroic, generous, forgiving and more talented than we ever would have believed. Our experiences together gives us the ability to trust in the other persons behavior in a situation even though we may not like it. For those of us who like a little control in life the predictability of another is a sort of comfort. Even when our spouse’s responses are preditably goofy or just wrong. On good days we are able to laugh about it. On bad days, at least we were able to see it coming and hold a sense of pride in our being prophetic.

My wife and I were looking at a horrible news story the other day about a guy who hit his wife in the head with a hammer. “If you get mad at me, please don’t hit me in the head with a hammer,” she said to me. She knows I wouldn’t. I had taken a picture of her holding a boa constrictor in school recently I told her I might take Bobo the boa and freeze him and club her with him and then the evidence would thaw and slither away. We laughed. Both of us are secure. She might get mad at me, scowl, say something I don’t like but I can trust her. She can trust me. We are just married. There is nothing worth upsetting that for.

God calls us into a perpetual “just married” trusting state with Him. We know his history in scripture. We get to become a part of His very large and dysfunctional family. We get to live and grow in this adventure of relationship and become formed by it. It is seldom easy and often frustrating, for all parties concerned, I am sure. But it is the best game in town. Just as in my own life spent as a single person I never had the opportunity to learn the truth about myself, without this relationship with God I could never learn the things this relationship means in my life. The nice thing about this relationship with Him is the fact that he will never “pack His bags and go home to mother.” NEVER. He will always be there and will always pick up where we left off. My earthly marriage is a model of that and, while fragile and sometimes even painfully ordinary, it is a gift. Marriage is sacramental because God is present within it’s ordinariness in the same way He is in the ordinary water of baptism or bread and wine of the Eucharist.

I think “just married” is a great bumper sticker for couples old and young and for the church.

P.S. In a future blog I want to explore “Just Married” from the perspective of marital relationships. How indeed can we live justly within our marriages? What is justice within the context  of Christian marriage. Need to think about it though.

Another precipice lies right in front of me. As a matter of fact my toes are dangling over the edge. I don’t like heights and find that standing close to the edge makes my breath short and choppy and my mind sort of goes blank. No matter how often I have stood in such places the feeling is the same. Sometimes I reel backward only to be drawn again to this edge. Sometimes I just jump with wild abandon not sure if the jump was to experience whatever new awaits or whether I am jumping just to alleviate the anxiety of facing the cliff.

Tomorrow will be the last day of full-time work for me. After more than forty years of working life I am getting ready to retire. Tomorrow, in fact. For the most of that time I have been a teacher in public and private schools, in community colleges, at church, in my day to day encounters in life. I teach. That is what I do. I am called to that and somehow cannot do anything else. In a way I feel like the only thing that will happen is that I won’t be getting up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready and head out for class and I won’t be getting paid. These are significant things. The sleeping in part I can handle. The not getting paid part, I am not so sure.

Currently I am teaching in a group home for youthful offenders. The job is challenging but no worse than public school teaching now-a-days. Afterall every one of these kids sat in someone’s classroom last year until the rest of their lives caught up with them and the court system directed them this way. It is a great job. I work with fewer than ten students, they are a captive audience (literally) and I have a staff of counselors and others who stand at the ready to help out when problems arise. (They do, every day but, unlike public school, the problems are solved and the kids move on from where they left off.) There is a kid in the hall right now in crisis. She washed her hair last night and it is frizzy this morning. She is distraught because she is out of “hair grease” and has to go on a field trip today and be honored at a luncheon. She is out of sorts and near meltdown. The problem will be solved. She will be at lunch and things will be fine. I am constantly aware of the fact that if I won the lottery I could not go to Broadway and buy a ticket for some of the drama to which I am priveleged  to see every day. I am serious. It is great and yet tragic in that in another setting this girl would be so out of sorts that she probably would wind up getting expelled or arrested if she were not here. It is a Godsend and torment at the same time for them. That’s what I mean. I love all this business but I am tired. I need a break and need to find a way to better use my gifts and yet not abandon these kids. I am tired and need to be re-tired. Not the sitting around, watching The View every day and then taking a nap kind of retired but the sort of retired where you take your experience and your gifts and use them in a way that maximizes resources and energies for the best effect. I am not sure what that looks like exactly Like I said. I am standing with my toes hanging over a cliff. The air below is so foggy, I can’t see if the drop is three feet or if it is the Grand Canyon. It makes me nervous and feeling a little guilty.

If I were a spiritual director I might want to explore with this person why they were leaving and what God seemed to be saying in this situation. I might ask what passage of Scripture or Biblical story might speak to this. I might ask the person if there were a Psalm that spoke to the situation. In a way I feel like Abraham as he gets ready to leave a perfectly good neighborhood in order to move to another one not so well known. I relate to Abraham because he was so human. He was not beyond telling a good lie to further his purposes and to protect his butt. He wanted what he could not have and acted… well, human. I relate to that. I feel called to go on a new journey and don’t even have to completely clean up my act beforehand.

The place where I work has accepted a proposal that I have made to be an “educational consultant” for them. I will plan lessons, help to train staff to be teachers of sorts, tutor the kids, and handle the grading and other duties which wear teachers down. I will plan field trips and educational activities outside the home and will lay the groundwork for getting them tickets to the theater and museums and restaurants and all the things their impoverished lives never afforded them.  I will be able to do things for them that I do not have the time nor energy to do now. I will meet with friends whose life has been blessed and twist their arms to help these kids out. I will take time to study and pray and to see what God has in store for me. I will blog. I will spend time in a new community and will grow by what they have to share. I will learn.

As I stand on this precipice, knees shaking and not too entirely sure that I have heard the voice of God say “go” I look out into the fog with hope, desperation, joy, fear and expectation. One, two, three, Geronimo!!!

This is a new blog and I am a very new blogger. Please pardon my lack of knowlege and experience. I hope you will bear with me and will respond and help me become better at it. I believe I am drawn to this medium not so much because I have something to tell you as I am from the prospect that there is something I have to gain from hearing what you have to say. So, lets start the adventure and see where it goes. CrossPeace Community is just that; a community of people brought together in peace by doing the best we can to follow the way of the Cross.

God Bless You

Br. Ed