My Bittersweet Long Walk

Enjoying Re:Train today. It's awesome to hear Justin Holcomb, Dave Bruskas, and Dave Helm.  They were very helpful.  I also had the privilege to give Peter and Amy a backstage tour of the Ballard Campus of Mars Hill.  They got to see how all the production gets done and the reason behind the way we do what we do.

But this week was an amazingly illuminating week:  I am selfish.

On Thursday, I officially handed off Church Cleanup to Skyler.  I have led the ministry since March of 2010.  Wow 18 months of leading the best group of servant leaders in Mars Hill.  I saw men and women go from shy first-timers to deacons, community group leaders, and Sunday team leaders.  Honestly discipleship was the best part of what I had the chance to participate in.  Pointing people to Jesus and seeing him transform them, it's the best.  People like Mike, Rod, Abby, Ginni, Woodstock, Red Bird, Fried Chicken, King Raven, Paper Crane, King Fisher, Blue Heron and all the rest (we used bird-based radio call signs).  They saw what worship looks like and they joined our little community to serve.  None of these volunteers will ever be put on stage and recognized for their selfless service, but they all deserve it.  I love these guys and gals and I was sad to leave them.  I desire for all of them to continue to make progress and grow in their faith. As much as I'd like to stick around, Skyler needs his space to own this ministry and serve these people.  I plan to be a consultant and serve him as needed, but now it's his baby. There were 33 people who came out to serve on my last night.  This is a great sign for our Fall push!
Every time I start a task, ministry, or friendship my goal is always to finish well.  I am so honored to have done just that in my conclusion to leading Church Cleanup (this is what my leadership told me, I'm not assessing myself).
I felt a desire to hold onto the ministry last night.  It's like I wanted to keep this role all for myself rather than giving it over to a great guy who loves these people.  I wanted to be selfish.

That same bittersweet night I also received a very gracious email from a friend who affirmed and redirected our friendship, yet again I felt a drive for selfishness.  What about me? To quote Pastor mark, "What about you?!"  I am really not that big of a deal.  God is a big deal, but I really think too much of myself. I mean who am I? Just another short brown kid from yet another broken home who grew up off food bank skim milk and the neighbors' extra peanut butter. God has brought Luke 22:1-23 to mind.  Pastor Dave Bruskas preached this section on August 28th.  Basically this section shows how Jesus' plan is better than my plans. Even if literal death (like the horrible death of Dave's little boy) or a figurative death is the next step.  His plan is better than mine. I am trying to believe this, but God will need to work more in my heart. I'm not saying that I am worthless and have no future.
I guess I'm just saying I need to be realistic and know my place.  After all, the definition of the word humility is literally "to know ones place".  Oh, but please don't think I'm in any way humble.  If I have ever come off as humble, just wipe that brief moment out of your mind; it was likely a deception designed to make me look pious.  Hmm, that might be the first and last time I ever use the word pious.

So with the misty feelings and fond memories being replayed in my heart, I walked all the way home to West Seattle. I put my trip into Google Earth and it said it was 11.8 miles.

I must have been walking slowly because it took me 4 hours 21 minutes to complete. I started at 11:03PM, after locking up Ballard for the last time. I just needed time to think.  Down near the Victoria Clipper, I stopped and watched a Great Blue Heron stealthily stalk fish and quickly swish in to make an amazing catch. Down past the China Shipping piers, I stopped again to chat idly to a feral cat with the foam of rabied maddness dripping from its mouth. I walked past no less than two dozen scattered homeless men and their assorted gunna. I watched a road crew clear out last year's collection of beer bottles and refuse from the little fishing spot on the Duamish River.  I walked around a gang of drunken men who had just come out of the bars and were starting to slur and sling arguments over whose motorcycle went faster.  My walk reminded me of a song by Atmosphere, Shhh:

This is for everyone around the planet
That wishes they were from somewhere other than where they standin'
Don't take it for granted, instead take a look around
Quit complaining and build something on that ground
Plant something on that ground, dance and sleep on that ground
Get on your hands and knees and watch the ants walk around

I love the patch of dirt that's mine, regardless of the hard stuff I need to wrestle with from time to time I've still got a hope and someone to talk it all out with.  But dang it! My selfishness is absolutely ridiculous.

So today I gave up the Church Cleanup set of keys to Mars Hill Ballard.  This ends my era. As I listen to some great Re:Train teaching, I must conclude that life sucks so hard and is really pretty fantastic at the same time.

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments ['cause life goes quick, you blink and you'll miss it]

It's After Midnight...How about a Post

So besides being a religious jerk this week, I hosted a German meal for 7 friends, I went to Community Group, and I worked on my "little slice of the promised land".

Please be kind.  I am a bachelor.  I live with two other bachelors.  I have actually never hosted, planned, and executed a party on my own before.  I had no idea what I was doing but Amy, Nick and Peter were very gracious and helped me in the food prep.  Nick actually built a sous-vide device for the bratwurst and it totally worked! His machine was amazing and a total success. My goal was to cook a German meal so that Peter and Amy could at least taste a little of home while they start their 13 month unpaid internship with Mars Hill. I kinda succeeded.  Well you decide. My meal consisted of:

• Bratwurst on Sauerkraut with Curry and Ketchup (don't ask it's a German thing)
• Broccoli with Cream Sauce
• Asiago Scalloped  Potatoes
• Plated Fresh Vegetables (cucumber, carrots, and red bell peppers)
• Fresh Fruit (mango and black grapes)
• Spaghetti Squash with Curry and Soy
• Pear Meringue Dessert (from Mora)

This meal could have totally used a woman's administrative touch.

I admit it really wasn't all that German...and my timing kinda sucked (I was 25 minutes behind schedule on getting all the food out). I would arrogantly call my little dinner party a low-scale success.

Oh well, at least we had great conversation; my friends Mora and Erik attended and Mora spoke high German with Peter and Amy.  Mirella and Josue also attended and seemed to have some fun.

Last night at community group, David our fearless leader, who just got his green card, led us to 25 minutes of silence to ask the Holy Spirit to convict and reveal our hearts in several areas. These are the questions and what I heard.

1. What is God's heart/will?
• God is Seeking Worshipers and he invites me to participate in that joyous task.
2. In light of Pastor Fairchild's vision to bring the whole Gospel to the whole of West Seattle, how does my life currently reflect this?
• I really have not pursued my little corner of WS in the 5 weeks I have been here.  I don't know my neighbors and what their needs are. Where is my heart? It is apathetic towards my lost neighbors.
3. How is Jesus calling me to repent?
• God's will is taht all my neighbors would come to have a relationship with Him. God wants my heart  to change from indifference to compassion so that I would respond to the Gospel by being intentionally pursuing them for friendship.
4. what are my skills/gifts/talents and how can I use them to pursue that vision?
• I am hospitable, organized, and a little kingly, and every once in a while I am generous so putting all these together, maybe Peter and I can invite the neighbors over.

I loved getting a little quite time in community with God.  We them broke into small groups to discuss what we had been praying about.  Jack, who as I have said before I look up to and want to emulate, spoke life into Peter, Amy, and myself in his fatherly way. We shared and prayed for each other; it was awesome.
And the last thing I have been doing is working on my house.  It is going well, I hope to start spraying paint tomorrow.  The siding company left all kids of voids in the caulking so I have spent several days correcting their work.  But as a pleasant surprise, I got to meet one of my neighbors!  I prayed for God to give me an opportunity, and he totally provided.  His name is Dave and he lives across the alley in the red house.  I learned about his struggle to fix up and fail to sell a house nearby and how he is struggling to financially get by.  He is a little older and lives alone with his wife.
When I have painted my house all of you are invited over...Well I am the only one who reads this, so I'll just invite myself over.  Maybe me and I can hangout and eat French Truffles and Drink Ice water while we sit out on the deck and hang out with Andy the neighborhood welcome cat. Gute Nacht!!

40 Years of Marriage? Really?

On Friday I had the high honor of attend a 40th Wedding Anniversary and Vow Renewal.  I have never been to such an event.  Bill is a Mars Hill elder and Julis is his amazing wife who just shines with kindness and grace. As an example, at Mars Hill West Seattle, I make coffee.  Who am I? There are 650 weekly attendees here, and I am just some random single man.  Julis gave me an beautiful invitation, with my name hand-written, to their celebration. Who am I?  They had PRIME RIB and Cabernet at the event!  And I didn't have to pay!  Who am I?  I received the grace of seeing two people who love each other even more than they did on their wedding day 40 years later. They spoke of sex and an all-encompassing unity and total connection that has been nurtured by Jesus over the decades in front of 250 people with no shame and no embarrassment.
I mean I am a kid from a family where unity never existed and the marriage exploded not even 9 years in, looking at Bill and Julie and hearing they obvious love for one another, seeing their three amazing kids and their 10 grand kids, hearing their candid explanation of the horrors they have weathered, and the incredible legacy of the hundred plus couples who they have loved and served as marriage councilors and pre-marriage councilors; I think how can this be?  How can a man love and woman and provide well for her and sacrificially serve her and be a good dad and be an exemplary yet imperfect man and an amazing grandfather and an elder in a church and a man who I deeply desire to emulate?  Again and again they pointed to one answer, Jesus.  They are God's grace to me.
Oh and Driscoll was there to honor them both.
Observations jotted down during the celebration:
-Julia's children rose up and called her blessed - just like Proverbs 31:28
-There is hope for me that my marriage rooted in Jesus can last for 40 years
-God please help me to eventually be a man like Bill
-He is such a strong manly man yet he is still broken by the honor of being Julia's husband
-She spoke well of him and showed him great respect
-When she had big strife with her family he protected her
-10 grandchildren and he will leave a legacy for all of them - just like Proverbs 13:22
-My response, tears and sadness (for my parents) and a yearning for something like that for my future
-40 years is hard but it can happen, in Jesus
-Josh, make sure you dance with your daughters at every wedding and every single special event with dancing - be like Aaron Easter
-Be okay with making an idiot of yourself for your wife, even in public

The real Alaska Day 7

Miles: 2,715.7
Average MPG: 19.3
Gallons: 140.71
Bears and Wolves: 12
Alaska Beards: 7
Miles Hiked: 22.6

Present Day:
So I was planning to lead a small tour of Seattle last night where Peter (not sure if I mentioned that I have a genuine German Mars Hill Church Intern living at my house...well I do and his name is Peter) and his girl friend Amy  (also from Germany and also interning at Mars) could be properly introduced to their new home of Seattle (for the next 13 months at least).  Yulia also agreed to come along as well, she has not spent much time in the city, so she wanted to learn about it too.
But in God's providence, my plans were smashed in a beautiful way.  God's plan was better.  Some generous person bought out the 345 section of Safeco Field and gave all the Tickets to Mars Hills Proxy.  So Amy decided to join them with Peter.  So at 1PM I looked for an alternative activity.  After chatting with Kelsey via Sidney on "FacheBuuk", I was given the amazing gift of two free tickets to the game.  Yulia hadn't ever been to a Mariner's game so it worked out. The four of us enjoyed the game, but Peter and Amy were still baffled by many of the mechanics and arcane rules by the end.   Baseball (don't get me wrong, I love to play and occasionally watch) is weird, it just is.  The whole game is between two guys and they take a lot of time staring longingly into each others eyes until every once in a while one of them throws a ball by the other who tries to stop it from being caught by another guy who is dressed up like Optimus Prime. It was a fun night and the conversation was great.

A few weeks ago...in Alaska:
Previously on "Alaska: a Josh's Road Trip Expeience"...
Josh drove a large SUV then didn't sleep, then he hit a bird, then he didn't sleep again, then he got on a bus, then he got off a bus, then he got back on a bus, then he got off a bus, then he bought some tickets, then he kinda slept...
Day 7 YEAH I GOT MY DAYS ALL MIXED UP, thanks Yulia for providing me with your notes about the trip!
So we woke early and Yulia, Nick , Tina, and I all packed up and distributed our gear and headed out:

We left Mirella and Josue at Reilly Creek for one night and two days (with a can of bear mace, 1 Tim 5:2) so the four of us could go backpacking in Denali!  Yeah actually going off the trail across country and camping in the last great American Wilderness.
We sat through the educational training film on how to not die in the back country, packed up all our food into two Bear Cans (designed to keep anything the bears might be interested in out of their grasp behind some stout black plastic), and got on the 2PM Camper Bus.  We were let off the bus at the Teklanika River Bridge in Sector 29 of the park.  We off-loaded our packs from the back of the bus and strapped up as the bus rolled away.  We were left on the dusty road with the roar of water and the whipping of the wind as the reality of our loneliness hit us.  Were were going to be on our own for the next 25 hours.  Remember that the day before we had seen 6 Grizzly Bears and 5 moose (which are more dangerous that the bears) just yesterday, in fact two of the bears we saw were within 4 miles of where we got off the bus.  In Denali, the average concentration of bears is about 0.35 bears or wolves per square mile in the sub-alpine areas.
I don't know if all that data went through Yulia, Tina, or Nick's mind, but it sure as hell went through mine. As an aside, I got a chance to sit down for a Thai lunch with Nate B, he is on staff with Mars Hill this Thursday.  We talked on many subjects, but one thing that came up when I switched seats during the meal is that I try to always see the door when I sit somewhere.  I find all my exits, and I evaluate each person who enters.  This is all automatic, I have just trained myself to process people and locations and evaluate danger.  I don't try to start any aggression, but I try to be ready to respond if necessary.
So I had SO much fun on the approx. 7.4 mile hike into where we camped.  No! Really! That's not sarcasm!  I really had a lot of fun scanning all visual quadrants for any sign of predators, pit falls, or other dangers.  I looked for tracks (I am NOT a skilled tracker, I just know some minor principles of the trade and kinda what to look for) and watched for "animal sign", umm "animal sign" is kinda a euphemism for poop. I don't know why, but it is.  I was just "on" the entire time.

We started on the left from the bridge and completed this circuit.

Anyway, we headed north parallel to the Teklanika and made good time on the sand bars.

Bear Print

Wolf Print

Caribou and Wolf Print

We turned off the river and entered the tree line.  In Denali, the trees are not large (the Pines top out at 70 feet) due to the brutal winters and paucity of winter sun light. We faced our first river crossing and all four of us escaped with dry socks.

We existed the line of woods and entered rolling hills over fresh Tundra. Its composition was 30% wild blueberries, 20% moss, 30% low assorted brush, 10% Crow berries, and 10% grass. Basically when you walk on tundra you are walking on top of plants,about 6-10 inches off the ground.  We crested three rises and gained our first territorial view of our goal.  We actually stopped a mile and a half short of our goal but day light was fading. Our conversations ranged wildly, and slowly waned as energy and terrain took its toll.

 The land was full the sounds of flowing water and the call of small birds, the smell was that of fragrant fruit mixed with fresh wet earth, the taste was that of delicate berries blended with moist clean air, the touch was that of soft ground and pliable flora with the brush of gentle leaves on the palms of my hands, and the sight, the sight was that of yellow purple peaks with blue green creeping forests yearning for the heights they will never achieve and the spring green tundra with blue tasty dots of delight as far as the eye can see.
In a too trite word, beautiful.
We made camp on a ridge in the wind and Nick and I lashed the lady's tent to our tent tying everything down tight.  We ate MREs and stored our food 120 yards away. I placed a branch on the bear can and checked it the next morning, nothing had been disturbed.
I slept for two hours until 11PM then lay awake until morning.  The others slept well and hopefully dreamed of wide open lands and lush hills rolling beyond sight, beyond mind, beyond every fear and every anxiety.

VERY special thanks to Ratatat's "Nostrand" for it's incalculable contribution to this poor excuse for a Blog post. Also Marshall you helped too, you better love Hailey with all that you are.

Confession of a Religious Jerk

Another break from Alaska Posts.
So I had a chance to go and wish my good friend Elliott farewell at a party in his honor.  He is one of my oldest friends, a gentleman and scholar.  He departs for Tierra del Fuego in two days in his anticipation of the end of the world (or perhaps merely the end of civilization as we know it) come December 12th 2012.  He will ride his bicycle from his home of Seattle down the west coast to and through Mexico and on to Panama where the road ends.  He will take a boat to South America and ride its spine to the end of land approximately 9,348.61 miles later.  Truly I say to you this is an Epic trip and Elliott is a man big in heart and strong in soul for such a feat.

Cheers to you mate!! HERE is his awesome blog where he will try to keep us appraised of his progress as Internet connections allow.

So at this party there were 7 people with whom I attended Garfield High School.  The rest were strangers or loose acquaintances. After chatting with Elliott and wishing him well, I settled into a chair under the stars next to Collin. We hadn't seen each other since the times we ran into each other in the UW weight room when I was in grad school. He had had a bit of bourbon and He brought up theology after I mentioned that I had recently completed a brief internship with the "infamous" Mars Hill Church. He mentioned that Mars had a good influence on his buddy who attended briefly but Collin didn't like Pastor Mark.  I asked if he wanted to hear my story of how Jesus got a hold of me; he said yes.  So I told him the whole crooked tale in about 2 minutes.  All the sin and the depression and the hopelessness.  He stopped me several times to say, "What the **** man?  I used to sit next to you in Band class, I switched chair so I could sit next to you and chat.. I didn't know you were hopeless and in that place."  I told him that appearances can be deceiving.  I finished up with my mountain top and Jesus grace.  I really don't like to share my tale, but the reactions are always priceless because it can tell you a lot about where a listener is at. Collin is a deist of a sort and sees Jesus as a good moral teacher, and his reaction to my tale was a nod, silence, and a deep swig of bourbon.
I caught up with Jared later and he told me that he respects Pastor James Harleman from Shoreline and used to attend the Ballard Church before other Mars Hills were started.
So as I sat around the circle of chairs I felt a sadness that these eclectic and beautiful people, from the phone sex worker to the computer programmer, gathered to enjoy Elliott and his adventure are lost and in need of help just like me.
So as I shared my story  with Collin, a gal across the circle overheard a sentence where I mentioned Christianity and said, "Yeah that's stupid." So my ego took a hit and I realized that my religious side was coming out.  Throughout the evening I found myself getting all arrogant!  Seriously?  How can I compare myself to these folks and be all like, "I've got my stuff all together? You need to clean up your act."  Apart from Jesus, I am living the same exact life as everyone else at the party.  The only goodness in me is from the hand of God; all my religious activities are worthless for salvation! My religiousness is always crouching the the door waiting to rule over me like Cain of old.  God please help me.
Each person was looking for saving grace in causes, in relationships, in intellect, in their own pursuit, in the approval of their mates, or in the cosmic consciousness.  Each of the 15+ different conversations I initiated and the 5 that others initiated with me all revealed that they know something in themselves, in their families, or in their world is broken and inevitably they theorized either directly or circumspectly a possible solution. Such a beautiful opportunity to share a little hope with amazing people. Random and likely pointless aside: Even the fact that I initiated any conversations is a grace from God.  Before Jesus grabbed me at age 20, I would only initiate a conversation with people I knew well.  No, liquid courage was not involved!  But my 107 Old Weller Whiskey on the rocks was enjoyable with Daniel's amazing cookies. Last night I knew that the party was not about me being comfortable or just relaxing, it was about the 25 other people, it was about Elliott, and it was about the Kingdom.
Two great conversations and good convictions and repentance, a nice night under the stars on any date on the calendar.

Oh yeah Peter, Amy, Ryan, Nick, Matt, David, and myself went into the woods. Nick and I had the privilege of sharing a little American Culture with two Germans and a former Australian Federal Police Officer. It's nice when you can convert a young lady from uneasy fear of firearms to a little bit of a gun nut just by letting her shoot a 12 gauge (with low recoil rounds, I take 1 Tim 5:2 literally, so I try to be considerate).
And here's a recent video with no context. (I did have a clean back stop) LINK