September 2, 1993 – Fremont, Ohio

It was the last day I would ever live in Ohio.  I had been there for 18 years of my life, and now sat at a crossroads.  My dad would be taking me to Florida the next day for college, so I sat on Hayes Ave at a party with some of my closest friends.  They each wrote a letter to me in a notebook (it was pink), sharing with me the hole my exit would leave in their lives.  I still have the notebook and read it every once in a while.

Jon Weber, my math teacher was there, along with Eric, Melinda, Tony, Marci, and Kelly.  Stephanie made an appearance too, though I hated that she showed up. She was the first female to ever hurt my heart.  I had never felt that before and would have preferred it to never happen again.  She wrote a nice enough note in the book, but still.  Then Angie surprised us all with her attendance too.  Angie worked with my best friend Clay and I at Pondegross-a (formerly known as Ponderosa).  She sported an amazing smile and also happened to be the local public schools homecoming queen.  Though we were not very close with her, Clay decided to do me a favor and invite her to my “going away” party.

I was thankful, and it also made me feel better about Stephanie being there.

Angie and I exchanged new addresses and she promised to write me soon, which she did. (pre email, or even cell phone)  I wrote her back.  She returned the letter with another which I swore held a hint of Chanel #5.  I never returned the letter.  I was never very good at letters.

And of course, Clay, Mark, and Carrie were there too.  We were minus another of our best friends, Jeremiah, who had already shipped off to the Marines.  But these were the closest people I had in the world, and you could see it in their eyes that they hated that I was leaving.  They wrote amazing, wonderfully sappy notes and though happiness maintained its place in my emotions, I understood my leaving would indeed leave a hole in the lives of the people in whom I had made an impact.  But I was doing the leaving, and as I learned that fall, doing the leaving is almost always the easiest when it’s on good terms.

This week I found out that two of my really close friends are moving away from this area to another place, which will allow for more opportunity and a different path.  I find myself getting emotional just thinking about it.  I am happy for them and for the lives they will lead, and yet there is an instant hole that I know will be left inside of me.   I wonder if I’m getting old because I almost want to cry thinking about it.  So what I’ll do is remember the time I drove away from Fremont, Ohio, seeking a different, even better story for myself, and praise God for new technology.

The journey from face to face chats to Facebook begins.

I drove last night and thought to myself that there are more Christmas lights around where I’m from than in years past.  They look beautiful and they display brightly that the holiday season is upon us once again.  Yes, the Christmas spirit has come again and hope is rising.  Not hope in politics or vague change that never really shows up, but hope based on the idea that God will make all things right.   I like to think that this is the reason people put up all those bright and shiny crystals of the yuletide season – to demonstrate the hope that Christmas brought into the world (okay, maybe not the exact date) those many years ago.  This is what I love about the Christian faith too.  Not that someday I will get to go to heaven away from all the bad people.  I feel strongly at this point that this outlook is flawed in many ways, not the least of which being opposite of what Jesus exemplified.

But the thing that I love the most about faith in Christ is that God will eventually (and only He knows how and when) make all things in heaven and on earth right. This is what we can rightly place our hope in as we work to restore the world to how He created it by being the hands and the feet of Christ. And this makes me want to put up Christmas lights this year.

Who’s with me?

I have a friend who hosted Thanksgiving dinner at his house last week.  After the dinner when his and her entire family sat sprawled out on their couches and chairs, half-heartedly peering at the ‘good-for-nothing’ football games that take up airwave space on T-giving, his wife got the idea to take this opportunity and pick names for the upcoming Christmas swap.  So my friend rounded up the names of everyone present (pun intended) and they all joyfully picked a name of the family member to whom they will be giving a gift.

After the cheery fun of picking the names had commenced, my friends wife walked sheepishly over to him and said, “Honey, I just thought of something.”  “Yes?” He answered inquisitively.  “I already bought all the gifts for everyone in our family.”

After much thought, they came up with a solution:  They would give their family members they had picked the gifts they had purchased for them, and they would sell the other gifts to the people who had picked the recipients of the gift they had purchased.  That way they wouldn’t really have to pay for everyone’s gifts, which is the reason for the swap in the first place, and the other people wouldn’t have to sacrifice to go out amidst the hustle ad bustle of the shopping world and get a gift for their pick.

Aaaaaahhhh the joy of Christmas and the spirit of giving.

The people who get things done for God are people who take risks.  I believe He actually created the world to be this way, and our selfish nature fights against that by putting comfort first.  And when comfort gets put first, the irony is the world becomes more broken, more empty almost, and it takes more sacrifice to rebuild that once whole, then broken world.

What do you need to risk that you would rather keep?

My wife! – She’s gotta be the most amazing woman of all time anywhere.  But maybe that’s just me.

What God did in the lives of the FC ladies this weekend. – Susan (a lady in our small group) getting baptized in the lake on Sunday morning!  Very cool!  Katie has some amazing pictures here.

My present and future.  (actually my past too, but I don’t live there)

Next weekend at Fellowship Church and the marriage vow renewals that will be taking place.

The opportunity to be a light to the people of Worcester County by serving them now and in October during Servolution 2.

Steve Blumer‘s ordination at Fellowship Church on November 1st.

What Jesus is doing through His church!!!

More later.

whether or not you are content with the work that you do on a regular basis?
Home or office?  Student or employee?  Boss or self-employed?

Why or why not?

I have been pressured many times in my life to head to another stage of life prematurely.  I think driving was the first .  “I bet you can’t wait until you’re able to drive, can you?”  This was the first and only pressure situation I agreed with, probably because of my immaturity.  The ones that followed – not so much.

After I left college, I was asked time and time again when I was going to get married.  Over and over for the next 10 years people asked me that question, much of that time I was doing my part for the kingdom of God.  “Good pastors have good wives,” I would hear adult men and women say.  In my head I would respond, “Yeah, a lot of bad pastors have good wives too,” and “a lot of good pastors have horrible wives as well, what’s your point?”

But my clearly negative reaction to the questions never stopped them from coming.  Who cares what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7, our culture says that pastors have to get married so they don’t burn (I think that’s in the Bible, right?), so it doesn’t matter who you marry, just do it quick!!!

Praise God for Carie!  I don’t know how many more questions or accusations of being gay I could have taken, but when I finally found the woman who was perfect for Martin Jon Holman, unbelievably the kidding and questions stopped…

for about 6 months.

(guess what the pressure is all about now?)

This house - the inspiration for this story

The 83 year old man looked out of his upstairs apartment window wishing it would stop raining.  It seemed like that’s all it ever did anymore, and he couldn’t go out when it rained like this.  His cane probably wouldn’t hold up, and he would slip, or fall.  Either way, it wasn’t a satisfying image rolling around in his head.  Today he would be content to peek out at sheets of rain coming down in waves on the roof of the silver Nissan driving below his Brooks-E. Mountain St corner window view.

Days like this tended to bring back memories of his wife of 58 years.  Equal in age and life wisdom, she quadrupled him in energy and “spunkness” – the description the kids had given her when they were younger – until she left him for another life.  One he  never believed or hoped in, until that day.  The day of the car and the lights…and the rain.
“Why the hell did she have to drive all the time?” He thought to himself, feeling the new found flushness of his face.
“Because I still can,” he could almost hear her saying back to him, as smug as she always was, and as cute as she always would have been.  A tear emerged from the inside of his right eye.

Just as he was getting lost in his thoughts, that boy came around the corner again, the one that lived in the house next door, but was constantly walking over toward his house, and moving towards his entrance.  He knocked at the window, waving the boy away.  This was not a loving gesture by any means from his point of view, but the boy waved back, as if to say, “I don’t really care if you’re being mean and waving me away, I’m still gonna hang out here where you can’t come down and see me anyway.”

“Dumb kid” he muttered to himself, certain that he was quite clear as to what he wanted from the boy.  And even more clear that this generation of kids would ruin the world as he knew it.

It wasn’t like it used to be, for him or the world.  The world used to be so simple, and he used to be so loved.  She loved him.  He didn’t know why, but she did.  She always did.  Through their young adult life and through his career,  the kids and the bills – she loved him through all that.  And now, she was gone.  Sure the kids were still there, and their kids and even some of their kids, but about 3 months afer she left (he preferred to use this term), he realized their visits had been about her and not him.  Love seemed to be no more.

Despite the bumping and movement he heard in his hallway, he was tired and wanted to take a nap.  Tomorrow the senior agency would come and pick him up for his weekly appointment to “some kid doctor who couldn’t tell a cold from a cat” he would lavishly share with anyone who would listen in the waiting room.  He needed his rest.  “Damn noises in my hallway,” he spouted off, walking slowly away from the noise and towards his bedroom, where he hoped not to wake up.

In about two hours of napping, he dreamed.  Dreaming always takes so much out of you, and he was never a fan, but this time it was no use.  He couldn’t stop from dreaming.  He dreamed he was at a party.  The party must have been at his only daughter’s house.  She was so beautiful, though he never told her so, preferring to leave the “mushy” stuff to his wife.  It seemed that the party centered around him – they were celebrating him.  Whether it was his birthday or anniversary, he could not tell.  But he did see the sign that said his name, and for once his family all centered around him, smiling and laughing about his life.  He decided that he would take the opportunity during a quick lull to ask them all a question.  After all, they were all there, and he wanted to know.
“Why did you stop visiting me when she died?” He asked his room full of family members and friends.  Immediately their smiles turned to scowls, and they turned away from him, one by one.  Unsurprisingly, he opened his eyes in a cold sweat, and the daytime rain had given itself over to a nighttime drizzle.  He took a sip of the water sitting at the side of his bed.

“Finally, the son decides to show its face,” the 83 year old man thought, smirking to himself as he peered out the same corner window he gazed at .
“What?” the man watching TV in the other room asked, deafened by the volume of old reruns of Miami Vice blaring from the speakers.
He ignored his son’s question, only to ask one in return.
“Why are you here again?”
Begrudgingly, the man stood from his father’s favorite seat and said, “I told you dad, I am going to take you to the doctors office today.”  The younger man shut off the television and asked his dad if he was ready to go.
“Don’t rush me, I’m putting on my coat.”  The man reacted a bit more harshly than he should have, the son thought, and responded, “You okay dad?”
“I’m fine,” came the predictable response, with an unpredictable tag along.  “I just don’t understand why you people don’t love me.  No one loves me…like  she did.”  The last 3 words trailed off, but the meaning was clear.

Silence in the room for the next 5 minutes as the man readied himself for the doctor.  The son eventually broke the silence.

“Dad, who did you have fix your apartment door and paint the hallway?”
“No one.” The dad responded, looking at his son like he was an alien.
“Someone did it.  And did a great job too.  I asked your idiot landlord how much that was going to set you back, and he said he didn’t do it, and you didn’t ask.”

“Nope. I did not ask.  And if I did, he would have waited until I got in a damn car accident to do it.”  The words stung himself  more he thought they would.
“Well, someone must love you, because the walls didn’t paint themselves and the door didn’t fix itself.”

His son opened the apartment door for him, walked him slowly across the freshly painted hallway, and towards the newly-fixed front entrance, as a beam of sunlight shone through it’s window and splashed on the old man’s face.

How does a phenomena that reaches the many reach one heart?

A song that becomes popular resonates with me so strongly that I can feel the pain or joy of that song?

A movie that thousands, hundreds of thousands and in some cases, millions of people will see brings me to tears and laughter like it was about me?

A book or series of books that hang onto the bestsellers lists makes me want an 7th sequel when it stops at the 7th book.

It’s simple really.  The reason a phenomena reaches out and affected me after it’s touched the many is because it has affected  me.  And I am more alike with someone who lives in Orange County, or the boroughs of Louisiana, or downtown Tokyo than sometimes we’d care to admit.  There’s not a lot, but there are some things that speak to us universally.  Why?

Because that’s how God made us.

I am friends with 3 of these people on Facebook. I have occasional facebook conversations with one of them.  But in 1984, these people were a major part of my life.

At some point I had to make an adjustment.  I had to be able to meet new people, say hi even when I didn’t feel like it, and open myself up to people even when it wasn’t comfortable.  With the meeting of new people came opening myself up to new ideas.  New ideas were not looked on positively by the community I was a part of in 1984, but they were important for my growth.

I think we grow fastest and best as people when we separate ourselves from our present communities for a time, and then come back to it for a time, like hopping back and forth through the middle of a river on rocks,  each side bringing a new and fresh perspective of the entirety of the river.

I grew up in Fremont, Ohio and have lived in Tucson, AZ; Pensacola, Fl; Atlanta, Ga; and Massachusetts. Each community bringing its own fresh perspectives and the ability to help me see things more clearly (and sometimes less clearly) as I continue on in life.

Sometimes I’m thrilled to have lived in all of these places and known all of these people and gathered all these perspectives, and sometimes I just want to be the little boy again.

I had way more hair back then.