#15 - The Decision (Guest Post)

by Jenny Martin

It’s late; scary late. The only people awake at this hour are criminals and new mothers.

I happen to be the latter.

My newborn drives a pretty hard bargain; if I don’t feed her she screams, so there is really no getting around my current state of wakefulness no matter how wrong it feels to function at this hour.

I’m not sure what it is about this particular time of day, but apparently the people who run television believe that 2:30 in the morning is the perfect time to sell fitness equipment and cooking utensils. I hate bad TV and infomercials are the worst, but I have to watch something to keep from falling asleep. So, I suppose ordering a new set of steak knives for just three easy payments of $19.95 is inevitable.

This isn’t the first infomercial of the night. Some supermodel/actress/dancer tried to sell me a new fitness program half an hour ago. I’m still thinking about it. Not the program; I seriously doubt her body was achieved through a unique combination of belly dancing and Chai spiced tea. No, I’m still thinking about the word fitness.

 What is fitness?

Is it being able to fit into stretchy yoga pants? Is it being able to climb my staircase without getting winded? Is it running marathons in those embarrassing little runner’s shorts? What is fitness? And why do I have to be fit? There are a lot of people who have to be fit. Peyton Manning comes to mind. I’m sure being able to throw a football without jiggling triceps is probably written into his contract somewhere. Kelly Ripa looks pretty buff. Heck, even Superman needs to rock a nice pair tights, but me? Why does it matter if I’m fit? Does God really care?

I mean He’s got a lot going on; God- not Superman (well maybe Superman, but that's not the point). Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure world peace occupies most of God’s time and I’d like to think he’s working on America’s national debt in some way, so what does it matter if a married mother of two can’t get physically fit?

Oh, right. He’s God-he cares.

He cares about it because deep down I care about it. I care about more than I want to admit. I care about it even when I tell people I don’t care about it. I care about it every time my diet fails. I care about it when I don’t have the energy to play with my toddler. I care about it every morning I get dressed and nothing fits. I care about it when my doctor tells me I have high cholesterol and am headed toward type II diabetes.

I care, but I wish I didn’t.

Because if I didn’t care then I could go on being fat without thinking about how my weight affects the people around me. But it does affect them and that changes things.

 Change.

I have to change. I have to fix what is wrong about my health and that means work. Hard work, if I remember correctly. I used to be fit. Once upon a time I was an athlete. It was in high school, but still, it counts even if there isn’t a trace of that girl left. I remember what that girl had to do every day to stay fit. I remember what she had to eat. I remember what she had to drink. I remember sweat; lots of sweat, and muscle pain, and green leafy vegetables. And when I think about all of that I get scared. I get scared because I know it is impossible for me to get back to that girl. At least it is impossible if I try doing it by myself.

However impossible it seems I must find that girl again and perhaps take her out for coffee. She and I have to get reacquainted and then we have to have a conversation with this God that cares too much about me to let me fail.

He’s been there all along prompting me about my health, waiting for me to involve him in the process, and I’ve been running. Not literally, of course, that’s part of my problem. No, I’ve been avoiding God and this conversation for a long time, and it would appear that I’m out of excuses. He’s here. Asking. Knocking.  Waiting. And I have to open the door.

#14 - 127 Hours

by James Baker

It’s not for the squeamish, but if you want to feel better about your own circumstances, go watch 127 Hours.  For those not familiar with Aron Ralston, the protagonist of the film (played by James Franco), he is the true life wild-eyed and nervy adventurer who had his arm pinned to a rock face by a dislodged boulder while climbing through Blue John Canyon, Utah in 2003.  I’ll spare you the gory details (the broad description is bad enough), but Aron frees himself by breaking the bones in his forearm and severing it with a dull multi-tool penknife.  As the closing credits rolled, the thought occurred to me that my overdue oil change sticker didn’t seem quite so pressing.

I thought about Aron’s agony, his impossible decision.  “Do I live?  Or do I stay intact?” Amputation certainly wasn’t his first choice, and became viable only after five days of rigging various ropes, slings, and pulleys.  Five days of pushing, tugging against, chipping on, and screaming at the rock.  You see the resignation in his eyes when he realizes the price of survival.  I wondered if I would do the same.  Perhaps a better question is, will I do the same?  As Christ followers, we might not be called to sacrifice a limb – but make no mistake, there is a cost to the life we’ve chosen.

And if your hand – even your stronger hand – causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. – Matthew 5:30

My dilemma is, I want to be rid of sin, but I don’t want the pain of extraction.  I have reached a point in my life that, by and large, I have become repulsed by my own wretchedness.  I hate that I get jealous.  I hate that I tend to wallow in self-pity.  I hate that I’ve screened my wife’s phone calls because I’m not ready to reconcile last night’s argument.  I hate that I hate.  Unfortunately, I don’t hate the familiar comforts of a boat that would rather not be rocked.

The putting off of our old life is messy.  It’s ragged.  It’s removing splinters with hedge trimmers, using a chain to stitch the wound.  But here’s the obvious truth that constantly eludes me:  Of course it will be difficult.  If it were easy – if it were clean and tidy – I don’t believe God would have used such violent imagery.  He’s not asking us to shed excess pounds, or get a haircut.  He’s asking us to give up something we consider essential.  For me, the questions become very simple.  What do I love most?  Myself?  My routine?  My seemingly innocuous sin that surely doesn’t affect me like it does the other 6.8 billion people on earth?  Or am I willing to sacrifice the soft life, in order to find real life?

These days, Aron Ralston does not pass the time with Sudoku puzzles and Judge Judy, lamenting a life that could have been.  Post accident, he has scaled Denali.  Mt. Kilimanjaro, too.  In 2005, he became the first man to have ascended all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000 ft. peaks….by himself….all in the winter.  Would he like to have his arm back?  Sure.  Would he want it back if it meant withering away in a desolate canyon?  I assume not.

After his ordeal, Ralston was quoted as saying that there are times to take action, “…even if it means making a hard choice, or cutting out something and leaving it in the past.”  There are things I want to leave in my past.  I wonder, though, if I’m a little too squeamish.

#13 - I'm a Good Dad

by James Baker

The title is not intended to be sarcastic.  I love being a father, and – seeing it as clearly as I can – I believe I’ve done my job well to this point.  I don’t mind getting on the floor with my daughter to play a little ‘Green Eggs and Ham’, or do a puzzle, or just sip some invisible tea alongside an overpriced American Girl doll.  I can talk to my 14-year-old son about anything ranging from the best way to blow up blocks of ice with mini-dynamite to the somewhat more sensitive subject of pubescent lust.  I can readily appreciate and encourage the imagination and artistry of my daydreaming middle son.  I try to show them what is pure and noble and right and just, without beating them over the head with too many teachable moments.  So I say with both humility and confidence, I am a good father.

As I sit by the fire, gently stroking my child’s thatch of curls and reflecting on my own benevolence, however, I am reminded of other times.  Different times.

Maim ‘em

Like the time I was plastic-sword fighting with Patton (my eldest) when he was maybe three.  He got a little too swashbuckling, and swiped his sword across my lip, which had roughly the same pain level as amputating my big toe with no anesthetic.  Without so much as a second’s worth of good judgment, I raised my sword far behind my head and swung it at his leg as if he were Al Qaeda.  I hit him so hard, my sword broke in half across his calf (it was actually a somewhat flimsy retractable light saber…not trying to minimize the offense, I’m just sayin’.).  I truly believe he was more frightened than injured, but he screamed until his lungs bled.  Good day for me, that was.

Shame ‘em

Same son during a little league game.  His grandparents had come out to see him play, and I was pretty excited to showcase his prowess on the diamond.  Early in the game, he hurt his wrist while attempting to corral a sharply hit ground ball.  I knew it wasn’t serious, but I saw him wincing as his team came in to bat.  He was due to hit in the inning, but really wasn’t interested in playing the rest of the game – hard to swing with a tender wrist, as you can imagine.  I, however, could not.  I went over to him in the dugout as he was pleading his case to sit out the rest of the game.  Our conversation:

Patton:  (with watery eyes) I don’t think I can play anymore.

Me:  Where does it hurt?

Patton:  (holding his wrist)  Right here.

Me:  Is it broken, or maybe just a little sprained?

Patton:  I think it’s just sprained.

Me:  Well you know, Nana and Huddy are here.  They drove across town to come see you play.  It’d really stink if you couldn’t finish the game.

Patton:  Yeah.

Me:  Maybe you should just give it a go, and see how it feels after your at-bat.

Patton:  But it really hurts.

Me:  Well I saw you fall, and it didn’t look that bad to me.

Patton:  I guess I could I try to go up to the plate.

Me:  You sure?  I don’t want you to do it just because they came all the way out here to see you play.

Patton:  Yeah, I guess I could try it.

Me:  Good job, chief.  Way to hang in there.

Rest assured, any time I refer to you as ‘chief’, it probably comes with a load.

Just forget ‘em

And then there was my coup de grace.  After leaving a going-away party in my honor preceding a month-long trip to Africa (because I’m just that compassionate), I was rushing home with a jeep full of neighborhood kids that had gone swimming at the party.  I was in a rush because I was hosting a nine-player farewell poker tournament in my living room (because I’m just that contemptible).  Once in the driveway, all the kids piled out and I ran in to count out chips before the rest of the crew arrived.  An hour into the game, I heard my 3-year-old daughter crying in bed.  I, of course, was in the middle of a hand and in no way could go check on her, so I gave my wife that ‘do-you-mind-looking-in-on-your-daughter’ look that I’ve mastered over the years.  She goes upstairs, and I hear her yell, “She’s not up here!”  She runs back downstairs panicked.  In fact, we’re all panicked.  Everyone takes off in a different direction trying to locate the source of the crying, but she is nowhere.  My wife darts outside, thinking she might be on the back porch.  I remember thinking how stupid it was for her to waste time checking outside, because it would be impossible for my daughter to have gone outside.  Which, of course, I was right.  She had not gone outside.  She had stayed outside. 

Still in the jeep.  Strapped in her car seat.  For an hour. 

I still thank God that it happened it at night, when the jeep top was down, and she had slept most of that time.  Otherwise, I would have been one of those self-absorbed buffoons you see interviewed on the ten o’ clock news, when you scream at the TV, ‘How could you have possibly let that happen?’  Still self-absorbed, mind you, just without the film crew.

As I clutched her tight in my arms, pacing back-and-forth in front of my house, I kept telling her over and over how sorry I was that I had done that.  After the tears dried up (hers and mine), I wasn’t sure she knew exactly what happened. Still needing to assuage my guilt, I asked her, “Mia, do you know what daddy did?”  Expecting a light-hearted, let’s move on-type of chuckle, she straight face replied, “Yeah, you left me in my car seat all night”. 

All night?  A little dramatic, don’t you think Mia?  But nothing that an extra dose of Benadryl won’t help you forget.

So which is more accurate?  The doting father willing to play tea party and shape his children into the likeness of Christ, or the rage-induced, scheming, narcissistic guy that makes you want to call CPS.  Ward Cleaver or Homer Simpson?  Both.  And neither.  You see, I can be either of those dads on any given day, but I suppose the truest thing that can be said of me is that I’m just a guy trying to work it out.  Loving but failing.  Sacrificing, but unable to break free from my own selfishness.  I am neither hero nor goat, no matter how much I long to be one and convinced I am the other. 

I am not deluded enough to believe that my failures won’t be some part of defining who my children become.  There are always consequences.  But my prayer is that they remember more sweet than sour; more tea parties than car seats.

#12 - But What About His Life?

by James Baker

You would think that being a part of putting together worship services that illustrate the wonder, the splendor, and the reality of Jesus would necessarily mean that I’m flush with the spirit of Christmas; that I’m able to see through all the tawdry commercialism and plastic well-wishes that rain down from Black Friday on.  Not true.  It takes work - more than it did when I started working for the church - to consider the implications of the advent season.

I have brief glimpses of perspective throughout the month, but am most dialed in around 12:03 am, December 25^th, minutes after the last Christmas Eve service ends.  A moment when the work is done, save for some last-minute Santa labor, and I stop to reflect on the birth of our Savior.  But I wonder if I’ve got it all wrong.  Or at least incomplete.  The phrase, ‘birth of our Savior’, sort of bookends Christ’s life into a manageable mantra, but misses out on so much of who Christ was.  He wasn’t just born, and He didn’t just die. 

Of the 89 chapters that comprise the four Gospels, only 23 detail the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection.  The rest deal with His life and teachings.  But like Ricky Bobby, I’ve gotten comfortable with the “eight pound, six ounce newborn baby Jesus”.  The one that coos in December, and marches to the cross in early spring.  If I can reduce him to a symbol, rather than God manifest, then I can keep Him from invading the parts of my life that I like to keep in the ‘Jesus-free zone.’  It’s pretty easy for me to condemn the materialism that surrounds Christmas, but look past my own brand of glittery, cinnamon-stuffed theology.

Please don’t misread me.  This is not some veiled attempt to disparage our traditions and suggest that if we get choked up during ‘Silent Night’ we are somehow shallow or a heretic.  But for myself, I have to ask, “What happens next week, other than the fact that I dare venture back on to Bay Area Boulevard?  Am I to all-of-a-sudden celebrate the adolescent Jesus?  Is the ‘reason for the season’ still a reason for January?”

Here’s my aim this Christmas:  Consider Christ.  The whole Christ.  The One who existed before all things, born of a virgin and visited by Magi on a cold winter’s night that was so deep.  The one that was hunted by Herod, and fled to Egypt.  The one that was tempted by the devil.  The one that exposed hypocrisy and forgave taxmen and prostitutes.  The one that taught what it means to follow, give up, stand strong, and love with reckless abandon.  The one who sweat blood.  The one who was scourged in my stead.

A blessing and a curse, things have to fit for me.  They’ve got to make sense in the larger narrative, and I can’t make myself merely worship a baby.  The birth of Christ was not an isolated event.  Jesus does not live in perpetual infancy, making an annual appearance before being socked away in the attic for another eleven months.  He is the complete package.  Child.  Man.  Teacher.  Companion.  Lord.  Savior.  Like me, He has depth and He has a story - a story that will continue on December 26^th.  Unlike me, He is worthy of my full consideration.

#11 - The Inexplicable

by James Baker

A friend recently sent me a link to a YouTube video of a group of musicians that were playing for a relatively small gathering.  The group included Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Neko Case, and some guy named Jesse Winchester.  In the video, Jesse sings a solo folk-ish love tune called ‘Sham-a-ling-dong-ding’ with nothing but his acoustic while the other artists look on.  I have watched this video at least a dozen times, even though the music doesn’t particularly capture me.  What captures me is the reaction.  It is fascinating to watch the other musicians, as well as the panning crowd shots.  Some are slightly swaying, but for the most part, everyone is stone-still.  You can see it in their eyes; they are taken to another place.  There is some sort of worship going on, but not of Jesse.  It is through Jesse.  Near the end of the song, Neko Case (another indie artist) has a tear running down her face.  When Jesse finishes, the place erupts…not so much a raucous applause, but more like an exhale.  I find the whole thing to be absolutely beautiful.  Even though the music doesn’t speak to me, the experience does.  I know that feeling.  I just can’t explain it.

For one friend of mine it is geese.  Not the snarky domestic ones you find in city parks, but real ones.  The kind that fly.  This crazy mix of awkward and grace.  These bulbous creatures that look to have all the fluidity of cold oatmeal, yet pound the sky with force and rhythm; honks that are both ridiculous and stirring.  For another friend it is a U2 concert.  Another it is tangling with a redfish.  My wife can be absolutely consumed with fear, but when she takes in the chocolate murk of Galveston surf lapping the shore, her soul finds rest.

For me, it’s different things.  Sometimes it’s watching my kids laugh.  Or sleep.  It can be a well-told story like Shawshank, or even the mindless brilliance of The Office’s Creed Bratton.  Sometimes – and I know this is weird – it can be an abandoned, run-down barn, or burned-out warehouse. Or like the time I was swimming with my boys in Barton Springs in Austin, a natural spring that rarely gets above 70 degrees.  I dove in, opened my eyes, and the deep blue-green that lay beneath that surface haunts me still.  It is how I picture eternity, as impossible as that is.  Sometimes it is merely sadness, which I find holds a beauty all its own.  Whatever it is, it is fleeting – gone before I can fully appreciate it – and almost never reproducible. It is a shadow.

A shadow.  That is what these sublime treasures are.  They are a glimpse into something richer, yet elusive and without construct.  Perhaps a more talented writer could paint the picture, but whatever words I can muster all fall painfully short of describing these times that pierce my soul.  It is these times – more than doctrine or theology – when I know that God is real.  Real, and wholly inexplicable.  Because if I could explain them, they wouldn’t be worth writing about.

#10 - November 21, 2010

by James Baker

Dad & me

I’m having a hard time remembering the details, but I think his last coherent utterance was about the Aggies.  Dad was happy they were doing well.  He liked the new quarterback.  I agreed.  I told him if he didn’t quit talking, the nurse was going to make me leave, that he needed his rest.  Standing next to his bed 12 hours later, holding his hand, watching him gulp for air, I scoured my past searching for anything new – some undiscovered treasure that I could hold on to as I watched a man die.

James Wallace Baker lived for nearly 80 years; through the Great Depression and WWII, through two marriages before my mom, through the death of his first son who died as a toddler, through nearly two decades of alcoholism that chewed up relationships and jobs alike, and through my childhood that was riddled with conflict and chaos.

I hesitate to even mention these things, for fear I’ll be accused of trampling my father’s grave.  But I believe there is no honor in reducing a life on this earth to a handful of warm & fuzzies.  Whenever I hear a man eulogized as if he were the lovechild of Paul Bunyan and Snow White, I think to myself, “Really?  Why are we so afraid to pay proper homage by being honest about who this person really was?”  We love to speak of redeeming qualities, but redeemed from what? 

The truth is, my dad had his warts, but he ended his life well.  He was blessed with an uncommon self-deprecating humor and endearing humility.  He adored my mother, never once speaking poorly of her. He wasn’t shy about how proud he was of all his kids, and he always made my wife feel like a movie star.  He believed in God.  He prayed daily.  And he had made great efforts over the last 20 years to restore our relationship.

Unfortunately, I have spent far too much of my own life refusing that restoration, and it cost me intimacy with my father that I’ll never recover.  I am ashamed to say that, until recently, I did not fear my father’s death.  I feared I wouldn’t care.  By the grace of God, I’m no longer hostage to those resentments, and I’m living a new storyline.  The jaded, unforgiving, ‘nobody gets me or understands the depths of my pain’ character had gotten pretty annoying – at least to me.

Standing at the foot of his deathbed, that definitive memory remained elusive, and all I could muster was a few good-natured scenes:  playing airband together at the opening sequence of the 70’s sitcom, Maude; or walking in from school, and seeing a penny stuck to his forehead (always an unspoken contest…a win for me meant that I wouldn’t acknowledge the oddity of coin stuck to his head before it would fall; he must’ve sweat glue, because in 18 years I never won – not once); or even taking turns jumping off the diving board at the lavish Ramada Inn motel pool in San Antonio, practically a mecca for our family during every middle-class summer vacation.  These were all pleasant.  Great, in fact.  But not weighty enough to give me context for this man’s life.

I stared at the vitals on his monitor as his heart rate went from 90, to 65, to 40 beats per minute.  I think he squeezed my hand.  He took another couple of breaths, and then….nothing.  Those few minutes have both plagued me and provided me with some strange fondness.  A fondness, I suppose, because I was privileged to be in the presence of my father as he left this earth, 9:20 am on November 21^st – my birthday, no less.

As the doctor turned off the monitor and informed us, “He is dead”, I collapsed in a chair, buried my head in my arms and wept like I’ve never wept before.  My wife clutched my neck, sobbing.  My mom stood looking at her best friend of 44 years and holding his still-warm hand, tears streaming but with a slight smile.  No one said anything for a long time, because, what do you say?  After everyone left, I leaned over, kissed his forehead, and was struck with a realization.  I had been looking for a quintessential memory, but what I got was far more profound.  Not a specific time, but the very thing that was threaded through all those times. 

God had unexpectedly given me the greatest birthday present I’ll ever receive.  The reminder that I, indeed, loved my father.

#9 - The Want-To

by James Baker

A few years ago, Santa brought a couple of acoustic guitars down our chimney; one for me, and one for my oldest son, Patton.  I had a brief fantasy that we were going to be the male version of The Judds, but promptly discovered that my 40+-year-old hands were a little too crispy and I didn’t have a cool performer name (like Merle or Justin or Gaga).  Combine that with the fact that I couldn’t get the whole ‘note’ and ‘chord progression’ thing, and my CMA ‘Entertainer of the Year’ acceptance speech would have to be shelved.  My interest was waning by the second, and after a few lessons and a discovery that Santa didn’t save his Guitar Center receipt, dad’s half of the musical duo made its way to the closet with all of the rest of his dead hobbies.  Patton, however, has persevered, as it just seems to be in his maternally-given blood.  I asked his guitar teacher how much natural talent was needed to have any modicum of success.  His answer surprised me. “Anyone can pick up guitar.  What you can’t pick up is the ‘want-to’.”  To his point, Patton and I started with the same skill level (zero), but I dropped out shortly after mastering the “e” chord, while Patton now has ‘Smoke On The Water’ down pat.  He will spend hours plucking his way through Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC, and even a little ‘row, row, row your boat’ for good measure.  Simply put, he wants it. I don’t.

When I was newly married, I had a mentor that was teaching me what it meant to have a Christ-centered marriage.  The first time we sat down, he pulled out all sorts of pamphlets, papers, charts, and books and began to lay out the principles of all things husband-dom.  After about an hour, he woke me from my glassy-eyed stupor with something I’ve never forgotten.  “You know, all these things are just tools.  They’re meaningless unless you have some desire to use them.  The question is, do you want a better marriage?  And don’t answer too quickly, because your honest response will determine the success of your marriage.”

The question was not lost on me.  I mean, yeah, of course I wanted a better marriage…it’s not like I wanted a worse one.  But at what cost?  Was I willing to sacrifice, to put my own selfishness aside for more than five minutes, and do the necessary work it took to love my wife well.  In short, did I have the ‘want-to’?  The answer, for the most part, was – and still is – yes.  But sixteen years later, I still have to ask myself the same question.

And it applies to most everything I consider essential.  Sure, I want to be a better writer, but do I really want it?  Am I willing to come into the office two hours earlier, stare at a blinking cursor for half that time, then bang out a page of muddled blather – just to get a sentence or two of something that seems readable?  I want to be a better dad, but how badly?  Enough to forgo a re-run of ‘The Office’ that I’ve seen fifteen times already, and dive into a round of 20 Questions over some James Coney Island with my boys?  I desperately want to hear the raucous applause when crossing the finish line of the Houston Marathon in January, but do I want to hear the barren echo of feet pounding the pavement at 5 am in July?  (actually, that one’s easy to answer)

I can say all day long that I’m a well-rounded individual with tons of great hobbies; my closet would suggest otherwise.  I can also tell you that I love God with all my heart.  That I would lay my life down for Him and His cause.  That I am willing to go wherever He leads me and love whomever He puts in my path.  But what would my work ethic say?  My bank statement?  My neighbor?  I’ve long ago made peace with the fact that I am not equipped to be a great man of God.  But I have to ask myself, “Do I have the ‘want-to’?”

And I can’t answer too quickly.  Because my response will determine the success of the only thing that really matters.