Of Hot Dogs and Growing Up.

I love this place.

It’s called Woofies, and it’s in Overland, St. Louis, pretty close to my old hood. They’ve been around for decades, serving their brand of “The Hot Dog With Dignity.” It may seem like an audacious claim, but with pure Vienna beef, electric-green relish and a hot sport pepper, the dogs live up to it.

My dad and I have been going here once or twice a year since I was about 8 years old. We try to treat each other on our birthdays, but lately it’s been whenever we can. Last night, we headed down there for a summer treat, making up for the past year of missed birthdays.

I ordered the “Big Herm,” a 1/3 pound monster dog with four pickle spears, shovelfuls of onions and relish, and three hidden sport peppers. They used to serve it on an inadequate standard-sized poppyseed bun, but at nearly a foot long, the bun looked like a comical accessory to the beef stagehog. They evidently upgraded; I opened up the box to find the dog resting on a bed of not one but TWO buns, still attached end to end. I love it.

The best part, of course, is that I never eat them alone. Since childhood, my dad and I have talked “man to man” over Woofies dogs. In these, and many other times, my father chose to “call the heart of a man out of me,” as Fred Stoeker writes in Tactics. He essentially was saying, “I am considering you a man. You and I are men together.”

Rarely, however, does a teenager fully appreciate the significance of his parents, especially not a headstrong, cocky teenager like me. I knew everything there was to know; what could my Dad teach me? Dad was irrelevant, incapable of relating to me, and frustratingly out of touch with “my culture” (as though my generation were experiencing angst for the first time in history).

But you know what’s crazy? I’m noticing that my dad knows more and more the older I get. Suddenly, in the span of the few years since high school, he’s learned how to relate to me as a peer! Wow!

Simultaneously, as I grow up, I know less and less. The more experience I gain, the more I’m aware that I don’t know that much. Funny how that works.

Socrates was deemed the wisest of all men by the Oracle. He claimed in Plato’s Apology that this was because he was the only man alive who knew he wasn’t wise. This, according to him, was the only thing he could claim as wisdom: that he knew his ignorance. I think I’m learning my ignorance, and consequently learning the merits of listening to people, my dad especially.

I’ll keep going to Woofies with my dad, I’m sure. I’ll be a married man the next time we go, and I’ll have a whole new awareness of my ignorance. (I’ve never been a husband.) I pray God keeps me humble enough to learn, no matter how much I know.

Riding by Thumb, and Pick

I hitchhiked to Arkansas yesterday.

I carried my guitar with me for the first time, and I’m glad I did. It not only gave me something to do while waiting, but I have a feeling it made people pick me up a little more readily. In two instances, I know for a fact that it got me further. In the first, a red pickup with two construction workers stopped for me. The driver, Dan, said, “You wanna work today?”

“Yeah, why not?” I replied.

“What can ya do?”

“Framing, drywall, painting, mowing, plumbing, and electrical.” I only lied a little.

“How about minimum wage to mow a lawn? We’ll take you to Carthage.”

“Sounds great,” I said, and put my bag and guitar in the back, next to a lawnmower and a haphazard pile of tools. Carthage was good hour away, so I was excited to get on the move.

When I got in the crew cab, the second guy, James, asked me what I played. I thought for a second, then said, “Uh…rock?” Dan slammed on the brakes and sighed. “Get your guitar,” he ordered, seemingly exasperated that I hadn’t brought it in the cab with me.  I obliged, hopping out and grabbing Clementine (my black Fender).

“Now play and sing. C’mon, we’re burnin’ daylight.”

So I played. And sang. I ran through the Beatles, OCMS, Delta Spirit, and some of my own stuff. I took a short break when Dan asked me a few questions and talked for a bit, but other than that, I played nearly the whole way. When we arrived in Carthage, Dan looked at me.

“You’d really rather not work today, huh?”

“Truth be told, no. I’d like to get on the road.”

He looked at James, and sighed again. “Well, I guess you’ve earned your ride by playing for us. Just promise to remember ol’ Dan and James when you’re famous off that voice of yours.”

And just like that, I got my ride for free, thanks to the guitar. My very next ride was a beat-up white Nissan driven by Kat, the manager of a modeling company in Joplin. She about thirty years old, with tattoos and an eyebrow piercing. When I thanked her for picking me up, she said, “Anything for a fellow musician.” She pointed behind her. “You do play that thing, right?” I said yes, but she wanted proof, so I launched into some of the same songs. After the third one, “A Girl Like She,” which I wrote for Kelly on Valentine’s, Kat said, “Hmm.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I just wish I had money for gas. I’d take you all the way to Arkansas just to hear that the whole way.”

So, I gave her a few bucks for gas, and she drove me right to John Brown University, two hours out of her way. With the windows down, driving over 90mph on 71, I played and we sang most of the way. It was a beautiful drive on a perfectly sunny day.

Moral of the story: Take your guitar with you the next time you hitchhike. You never know where it might get you.

Quote of the Night

From Nick Ferguson again, naturally:  

Best Choice Strawberry soda is like the Gospel — it’s SO good, but don’t nobody know about it.  

There you have it.  

All my food has this logo on it.

 

Are You In A Fantasy World?

Nick Ferguson, on one of our nightly walks down Prospect, had this to say to a man named Donald:

I may be speaking out of ignorance, and I probably am, but all this — being on the hustle, selling drugs, or the women selling themselves, whatever — it all seems like a fantasy world. Like it’s a make-believe system, where people pretend it’s the way things have to be…I think it’ll all fall down when there’s a movement of people who realize it could be different, when their lives are changed by the gospel. They’ll realize they need each other.

How often are people enslaved by a “fantasy world”? There are systems everywhere that tell people things have to be a certain way. Need proof? Talk to the fraternity brother who struggles to repair his lack of joy with drunken parties and sex. Talk to the religious person who holds herself captive by her checklist of what she must do to please God. Talk to the recent college graduate who has that panicky feeling that he must find that perfect job, the one that allows him to be upwardly mobile and financially successful. Talk to the middle-aged man whose security has been rocked by a recession – and we’re not just talking about financial security. What about the repression, hidden and sinister, that offers dismal possibilities to many American blacks? Do you think that’s a natural order? No! No more than the lie that sex is love, that religion is God, that money is success.

These systems are imaginary! They’re just agreed-upon perceptions, almost like group hallucinations, that we consistently reinforce. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, friends, and it is dismantling these machines one bolt at a time. Be a part of the destruction! Actively break down the fantasies you live in, and see yourself and others the way God sees you: broken, sinful, and in need of the Savior he’s provided. And then reveal the illusion to the world.

The Gospel will tear this whole thing down.

Reborn

Me and my sister, Renee Easterwood, in 2007.

Names mean a lot.

Two nights ago, Nick and I passed a woman on Prospect who didn’t want a sandwich or soda. She seemed in a hurry, but I stuck out my hand anyway and smiled: “My name is Nathan,” I said. Nick did the same.

“Renee,” she replied.

I kind of exploded. “No way!” I shouted. “My sister’s name is Renee, and she’s one of my favorite people in the world! I love that name!” She seemed a little embarrassed, but she smiled sheepishly before turning around and continuing down the street.

Last night, we ran into her again. “Hi, Renee!” I said, greeting her when we got close. She seemed pleased that we remembered her, and she was a little more trusting of us. She took a sandwich and a soda, and let us pray with her. We both hugged her before we left.

Renee, Renee. I repeated the familiar name in my head, trying to remember why my parents had given it to my oldest sister, and what it meant. I knew they hadn’t chosen it lightly; all our names had significance. I couldn’t for the life of me think of the meaning, though.

This morning, waking up late after sleeping through two classes, I remembered it: reborn.

Renee, my sister, has been born anew. The love of our Father has radically redefined her. He has shaped her into a woman, wife, and mother who shines His Love through every pore, through her huge smile (a genetic trait that we share), and through a tender heart that breaks for the lost.

I have this hope. It’s crazy, but I can’t shake it. Could God take Renee, the prostitute from Prospect, and give her a new birth? Could he redefine her through His own Work?

God’s in the business of rebirth. So we’re praying for it, in earnest.

Innocence.

I was on a playground last night. There’s a nice one right behind my apartment, usually covered with gleeful, laughing children during the day. It’s a really pleasant sound when I’m cooking dinner or taking an afternoon nap. I was alone last night, though; it was 3am, and very few parents take their kids to playgrounds in the fourth watch of the night.

I had just gotten back from night #6 of the street ministry Nick and I started last week. We’ve committed, rather accidentally, to bringing food, coffee and Christ’s love to prostitutes every night until God directs us otherwise. So, we’ve been meeting up around 11pm every night to pray fervently, praise God, make sandwiches, brew coffee, then hit the streets around midnight. There is no “normal” night; it’s really hit-or-miss. We saw very few of our friends on Troost, and after walking for a half-hour and praying, we headed over to Prospect.

At a particular corner on Prospect, we ran into a familiar group of hustlers and addicts. We’ve seen some of them a few times now, and they know what we’re about. We gave everyone a sandwich, and I poured a few cups of coffee. One guy, Craig, skeptically watched me sip the coffee to prove that I hadn’t laced it before he took a cup.

“Craig, would you mind if I prayed for you?” I asked.

“Nah, man, I already got my prayer today. I’m ’bout to pray for this bitch, though,” he slurred, pushing past me. I hadn’t noticed until then that Shay was standing off to the side of the small crowd, her hands on her hips. Craig leaned down to say something to Shay, and they disappeared around the side of the abandoned building. My attention was pulled back by Donald’s rough voice, pleading with Nick. “C’mon, man, lemme have another sandwich.” Nick stood firmly on his ground, despite Donald’s entreaties and even demands. He eventually gave up, and headed behind the building to join Shay. We ended up praying for Casey and Tony, before saying goodbye and heading back south.

“That’s all our sandwiches,” Nick said out of the side of his mouth. We were still in earshot of the dealers’ corner.

“Are you serious?!” I said, incredulous. We had made extra that night. “Oh well. Let’s get outta here.”

As we walked back to our parking spot, a half-mile away, we saw Tony on the sidewalk in front. He was shuffling slowly along, wobbling a bit and using the fence to steady himself. “Tony, my man!” I called out. “Where you headed?”

“Oh, jes up to ffirty-firs an’ Paseo’,” he mumbled. That was about a mile away.

“You look a bit tipsy, bro. Are you gonna be OK?”

“I ain’t tipsy,” he said, in a slow-motion version of a retort. “I’ve jes’ been usin’ these feet for fitty yearss, and I move a bit slow.” His words were coming out at a ludicrously slow pace.

“OK, well, be careful, Tony.”

“I’m…jes’…gonna…sit…here, for a bit.” He eased himself onto the bus stop bench, and sat motionless with his head down. Nick and I walked on in silence. My heart felt heavy with despair.

When I got back to my apartment, I climbed to the top of the playground slide and stared numbly at the profile of the city on the horizon. I imagined the sounds of a dozen kids playing tag on the rubberized ground below me, or squealing in delight as their fathers push them higher and higher on the swings.

It struck me that everyone we talked to on the streets that night had once been a kid, and they had played on playgrounds like this one. As children, their eyes full of wonder and curiosity, they never dreamed of having the life they have now. When Shay was six years old, swinging from the bars of a jungle gym, she never imagined that she would be giving $5 blow jobs behind an abandoned building at 2am. When Tony was four, chasing other giggling kids in a game of tag, he never imagined he would be drinking himself blind and passing out at a bus stop after standing on a corner all night, hustling rock. They weren’t made for this. They were made for Love.

The reality is that every human being was made for Love, and we’ve all experienced just the opposite. Our sin has separated us from our intended purpose, and only Our Redeemer can restore us. Lord, save this dying world. Bring us back to Love.

We were made for it.

We Do Some Stupid Things in the Name of Love.

Last night at about 11:30pm, I was making sandwiches. Kelly, who is on a surprise visit from Arkansas, was making a pot of coffee, and Nick was also assembling sandwiches and placing them in a lunchbox cooler. Now, I know I do some weird things, but picnics at midnight are not common for me. You see, these sandwiches weren’t for us (although the coffee was), and we weren’t going to a park – we were going to Kansas City’s East Side, to the workplace of prostitutes, bearing food and the Gospel.

In the name of Love.

We had met in Nick’s apartment a half-hour earlier to pray. “The best prayer comes from a deep inward necessity,” and so it was. We prayed with intensity, finishing each other’s sentences, helping each other to put on the armor of God. I was humbled by the Power that met us there. And I was nervous, too. I knew we were dealing with a stronghold the Enemy holds very dear: the distortion of human sexuality. He doesn’t give that up easily. We felt a real sense of spiritual conflict, even before we hit the street.

When we finished making sandwiches, we grabbed our Bibles and clambered into Kelly’s car. We drove north on Main, planning to then cut south on Troost.

As I drove, I recalled the conversation I had the previous night, the one that started this crazy idea. I had been riding my motorcycle south on Troost after the Cru planning meeting, when a prostitute hailed me from the sidewalk. Standing in a ludicrous imitation of Hollywood seduction, her hand outstretched to me, she called out, “Heeey, baby!” I nearly cried on the spot. I thought for a bit, prayed, then doubled back and pulled into the empty parking lot south of her. Her name was P*. When she realized I was neither a cop nor a customer, she relaxed a bit and allowed me to pray for her. “Strength,” she said when I asked what she needed prayer for. When I finished, she was crying, but she turned quickly to leave. I called after her, “God loves you, P. Have a good night.” Then I broke down and wept.

We were turning south on Troost now, driving slowly, but not enough to look conspicuous. Occasionally Kelly or Nick would breathe out a short prayer for guidance and power. I felt tense. Finally, we pulled to the side of the road and got out, walking towards a woman standing by a closed storefront.

“How are you doing?” I asked when we got close enough.

“Ohmigod, ‘how are ya doin‘?’” she fired back in an affected, Valley-girl parody of my greeting. Didn’t expect that. I continued.

“I’m Nathan,” I said, extending my hand.

“I’m Kelly.”

“Nick.”

She shook our hands but didn’t return the introduction. She looked a bit confused. I pressed for her name. “I’m T*,” she said, all trace of the Valley-girl voice gone. I explained that we had made some sandwiches, and that she was welcome to have one or two if she hadn’t had dinner. Although she said she was, indeed, hungry, she refused the sandwiches. “I don’t take no hand-downs.”

Then Kelly, filled with the Spirit (Acts 4:8), spoke: “This is just love.” No other agenda, she said, no non-profit organization, we’ve just received an incomprehensible love and we’re sharing it. As Kelly spoke, T began to cry. Kelly extended her arms and gave her a huge embrace. Kelly began to pray with her, almost too quiet to hear. I was distracted, anyway, because a KCMO patrol car was pulling up to the curb. As Kelly continued praying, I stepped into the silent street to speak with the officer. ”Is everything alright?” she asked me, her face friendly but concerned.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re just giving a friend some dinner and praying with her. It’s cool.”

“Oh.” She was a little surprised. “Are you with an advocacy group or something?”

“Nope. Just some friends, sharing some Love.”

“OK.” She seemed ready to say something else, but stopped. “OK, well, be safe out here.”

We talked with T for another 15 minutes or so. She continued to slip in and out of her over-the-top, parodied voice, occasionally mocking us and always suspicious of our smiles or laughs. She was high on a stimulant of some kind, and admitted it. We offered a ride back to her apartment, but she said she needed to work some more. “In a half-hour, we’ll be right back here to take you to your place,” I said. She made us promise to return, then took a sandwich and walked across the street.

We got in the car and drove north, then east to Prospect. After passing five or six women in a ten-block length, we turned around and pulled over near 25th street.* It was now about 1:15am. We crossed the street toward a woman walking awkwardly on the sidewalk. Her appearance was, to be honest, frightful. With short-chopped frizzy hair, one eye squinted almost shut, her feet shuffling crookedly and unevenly, she extended a huge hand to me with fingers contorted and twitching nervously: “I’m B.” She hadn’t eaten, either, but unlike T she only put up a momentary resistance to our offer. Then Nick jumped in. “Can we pray for you?” And so, on a darkened corner of Prospect, at 1:30am, we bowed our heads and Nick prayed for a drug-addicted, mentally ill prostitute: “You love B, Lord. You made her beautiful.” We all hugged her, as tears welled up in her good eye. Nick held her the longest, and as we left he said over his shoulder, “You’re beautiful, B.!”

When we returned to Troost, T was gone. I think she had no intention of coming with us.

It was nearly 2am when we dropped Nick off. “Tomorrow night,” I said as he got out of the car.

Love demands this. (Matthew 25:31-46)

-

*Names and places are deliberately obscure, for the sake of privacy.

Ready…Break!

I have a thing for deserts. I’ve only been to a few, and all those were on the Great American Southwest Road Trip of last summer, but I think I fell in love. They are forbidding places. Take the Painted Desert, for example. We pitched our tents on the alluvial fan of a typical “badlands hill,” overlooking a vast, empty plain. In the morning, I woke up with the sun and took my watercolors to the edge of the small step. It was uncannily quiet. The usual morning sounds of birds, or at least the visual blemishes of bugs flying around, were nowhere to be found. Everywhere I looked, I saw rocks, eroded rocks, sand, and petrified wood. The only living things I could see were a few scrubby plants on the valley floor below. It was stark, desolate, and, to me at least, breathtakingly beautiful.

This weekend, I am driving with Derrick and Eric to Canyonlands National Park. At 527 square miles, Canyonlands is a huge chunk of protected desert land in southeast Utah. We will be backpacking in this wilderness for 3 days, filtering our water from creeks and snowmelt, and camping in a vast, pathless area called “The Grabens” (Old German for “grave”, no joke.) With miles between us and the nearest humans, we will be totally on our own. It’s gonna be legit.

What the Heck is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism?

Every single time that I’ve taken the initiative to share my faith on campus at UMKC, I’ve asked questions like these, to get a feel for where the person is at spiritually:

“How would you describe God?”

“Why do you think Jesus came to earth?”

“If there’s a heaven, how does one get there?”

And you know what? I’ve gotten a surprisingly similar set of answers. Students describe God as an impersonal force, Jesus as a good teacher or a moral example, and heaven as a place where generally good people go. (Everyone I’ve talked to is going there, too.) Even in Costa Rica, on summer project with Campus Crusade, these were the primary responses. It became obvious to me that there was a trend going on, but I never had a name for it.

Last week, though, I had an aha! moment when I listened to Michael Horton’s diagnosis of this folk religion. Through an analysis of studies done by sociology professor Christian Smith, Horton agrees with Smith that the dominant understanding of spirituality among American young people could best be termed Moralistic Therapeutic Deism:

• It is moralistic because good people go to heaven, and really bad people go to hell. (He also notes from the studies that nearly everyone thought they were headed to heaven.)
• It is therapeutic because religion and spirituality exist primarily for your own benefit. God’s primary function in your life is to provide peace of mind or help you through problems.
• It is deism because God has limited involvement with humanity, except for therapeutic intervention or the occasional miracle. In other words, he’s there when you need him, but he’ll stay out of your business for the most part.

This is revealing for a few reasons. First, it shows that for the first time in literally hundreds of years, the basic concepts of the Gospel are culturally foreign in America. We need to be aware that people will not plug in basic Christian presuppositions to our Gospel message; we must be exceedingly clear! Secondly, we can see that most people have little or no awareness of a deep spiritual need in themselves. The belief that people are basically good, and religion is designed to make them better, eliminates the need for a redemptive, substitutionary Savior – with the theoretical (and actual) result being the reduction of Jesus Christ to a moral teacher.

Friends, read this carefully. The above evidence suggests that you may never have heard it said with clarity.

• You, as an imperfect human being, are incapable on your own of achieving the perfection demanded by a righteous, perfect, eternal God.
• Your sins (yes, outdated and quaint vocabulary but eternally relevant!) have made you a deserving object of the wrath of God (are we allowed to say that anymore?). Eph. 2:1-3.
• BUT God, who is rich in mercy (another quality lost when we lose an understanding of wrath), poured out the punishment you deserved on His own Son. (Eph. 2:4)
• In this way, in the only possible way, God’s attributes of justice (perfection, righteousness, “God-ness”) and of mercy (love for humanity, greatness in mercy) were BOTH satisfied!
• This, the gift of salvation, is freely offered to you, and is a reality for all who accept it.

And that is Good News! Because it frees you from trying to make yourself a better person. It releases you from all the silliness that people go through to appease their own consciences and justify themselves, no matter what form it takes: bringing awareness to this cause or that cause, giving to the poor, regular church attendance, being involved in Cru, justification by recycling, etc. etc. It takes the burden off you and places it on Jesus, whose death accomplished everything needed for your salvation. Just rest in that! Your deeds will not save you, and they’re not sustainable on their own, as anyone who has tried to “just do ministry” has figured out. When we lapse into Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, we find ourselves in a trap of trying to feel good about ourselves by doing enough, and using religion as therapy to soothe our stinging consciences. But you can’t do enough.The motivation and source of your deeds must be a knowledge and a resting in the finished work of Jesus. If not, then you don’t have the Gospel.

And that’s bad news.

Watch the interview here.

Maravendra’s Search

You already have the highest thing.

–Maravendra, Spiritual Teacher

Yesterday was a lovely day. About 60 degrees, sunshine, and no wind. It was a welcome relief from the bitter cold we’ve had this winter, so I took advantage of it by spending part of my afternoon in the quad, on the back steps of Scofield Hall. I was there for a few hours, relaxing and writing in my journal. Every now and then, someone I knew would walk by, and would occasionally stop to talk with me for a moment or two. It was quite pleasant.

Around 3:30pm, I saw a man in a tan jacket, walking across the quad in a very deliberate manner. I recognized him from my time in the caf earlier, when he was walking around handing out literature on meditation and mysticism. I didn’t have the chance to speak with him then, but I had plenty of time now, so I waved him over. He approached me, smiling.

“Maravendra is my name,” he said, shaking my hand and looking intently at me. “Born in America, trained in India.”

“I’m Nathan,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“Are you interested in a spiritual realm beyond this physical world?” he asked. I thought about that for a moment, then replied,

“Well, yeah, you might say that I am. Highly interested, actually. What is it that you’re promoting?”

At this, Maravendra took a step backwards, still smiling, and said, “I see that you are a Christian, and that you’re happy with your path. Have a good day.” He began to leave.

“Wait, come back!” I called out. He turned around. “What is it that you’re all about? I want to hear your story!” I implored him.

“No, no, friend,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t need it. You have Jesus, and therefore you have God Himself. That is the highest thing. Some people are not ready for such heightened paths of enlightenment, and need to begin with meditation or other lower paths. That is what I teach. But you already have the highest thing. I am happy for you. Goodbye.”

With that, Maravendra resolutely turned and left.

I was blown away. As I sat back down on the steps, I tried to process what had just occurred. Running through the conversation in my head (which, though intense, was very short), I could think of no indication I gave that I was a Christian, much less that I was “happy with my path.” If anything, I conveyed the opposite by calling him over to me so I could hear what he was all about. And yet, with only one statement from my lips (“Well, yeah, you might say that I am. Highly interested, actually.”), he discerned a spiritual reality about me that is not physically apparent: that I have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Maravendra, in tune with spiritual things, could see that in me, and realized that he had nothing to offer me.

Even more amazing, though, are the statements that he made about the nature of that relationship. He called it “the highest thing.” In this statement, he reveals an incredible truth about human longings: we want a relationship with God more than anything. Our attempts at religion or spirituality or mysticism are just indicators of that intense, God-given desire for Him! When Maravendra said that I have the “highest thing,” he recognized that humans were made to know and be known by the Infinite-Personal God. (Francis Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent).

There is nothing better than God Himself. Inner spirituality will not suffice, as the problems lie within the self. I praise the Lord that I have the highest thing. Pray that Maravendra, too, finds it.