:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

My father-in-law’s picture of the back yard with the water rising.

I had a couple evacuation plans in mind, but I didn’t think we would use them. I knew where we should drive our car or what order we needed to pack things if we needed to escape the flood.

The water started to rise in the late morning on Sunday. The creek started to overflow its banks near my in-law’s house, our temporary base before our move to Columbus, OH. Most days you can jump across some rocks on this gentle creek. On Sunday the creek filled up its streambed and then filled the hay field behind the house.

We noticed water creeping into the field and thought, “Wow, that’s unusual.”

An hour later we were worried. The creeping creek became a roaring river. It filled the huge field right up to the 3 foot high stone retaining wall around it. It lapped over the sides of the wall and flooded the basement. We had electricity for most of the day, but the water pump was knocked out early in the afternoon.

Soon water poured over state highway 103 at the end of the road.

As we watched the water rise, we learned that other towns in the state were devastated. One home we used to rent in Arlington was severely flooded. Another home that we used to own may have been damaged from what I know of the flood plain nearby.

Towns where we used to go for dinner out had water rushing down their main streets. Brattleboro, Wilmington, and Manchester were all familiar haunts during our time in Vermont, and all sustained flooding and damage to varying degrees.

It’s a strange thing to be in the middle of a potential flood evacuation and to learn that many of your favorite towns are sitting under three feet of water, only to find that the rest of the world is moving along as if nothing is the matter. I could hardly handle Twitter yesterday.

The flash floods around us attacked my simplistic, easy-going approach to most days. I usually try to post something on Twitter about my writing, a humorous rabbit story, and then a few retweets of my friends’ stuff. I usually try to work on my writing and read something constructive. When you’re afraid of waters rushing into your house, the present crisis adopts a kind of urgency that overrides everything else.

For part of the day I could only watch the water rise, trickling over the ridge that separated the house from the river.

Perhaps the thing that made me stop and look for so long was the realization that our lives are such fragile things. We get these reminders from time to time when we see an accident or watch a loved one struggle with a life-threatening illness.

I’m not talking about the fragility of electricity, water, or internet access. I’m talking about a day when you wake up, brush your teeth, and watch a raging river pour toward your house. Big, terrible, things can happen to us any day. And yet so many days, they don’t.

I’m grateful that the only casualty to the flood among us was the hot water heater. Some people lost their homes or businesses. Life is fragile. In an instant, our investments can be washed away. It’s a not-too-subtle reminder to invest in the things that cannot be washed away in a flood.

“A few years ago, I realized that I’m more of an introvert,” I said during lunch with a few friends.

“Oh, I could have told you that,” my friend Kerick said.

How could I have missed that for so many years?

There were a lot of things I didn’t realize about myself for quite some time.

I don’t like very many kinds of beer. I’m not a leader. I’m never going to be a traditional pastor. I’m a Philistine when it comes to musical taste. I really like history. I enjoy writing fiction.

Part of these realizations have led to some concrete actions steps.

I started to sample beers and found a few that I like.

I sold all of my leadership and church-related books in order to fully embrace my calling as a writer. 

I out-sourced my musical tastes to my brother-in-law who knows about these things.

I check out history books for my leisure reading.

I’m trying to write a novel in the midst of my other writing projects.

I spent years, years I tell you, trying to cram myself into the molds that were designed for other people.

I measured myself against pastors, church planters, and leaders.

I felt insecure about, well, everything it seemed.

I worried about what I was going to do with my life while my little writing spark flickered unnoticed.

The maddening thing is that the only way forward was a lot of trial and error.

I’m not a black belt in spiritual discernment, but I do remember praying quite a bit about my direction in life.

I had to hit dead ends, face forks in the road, and trust God when new opportunities arose.

God uses our frustrations and failures.

I don’t know how it works. One day I felt like I’d hit a dead end, and then another day I began to hear God’s voice clearly. As I heard God’s direction for my life, all of the stuff that went caput began to make sense. Roads had been closed off because he was opening other paths for me.

The time between a closed door and a new opening can be terrifying, but there’s no short cut. I had to face closed doors and wait for the next thing—frustrating though it was.

I spent so much time trying to cram myself down one path or another, when all along I was supposed to head in another direction. The wisdom of God is awe-inspiring when you look back at the ways he provides and directs. I’m grateful for closed doors, failures, and missed opportunities each day because God has had better things for me in the long run.

I grew up listening to the Star Spangled Banner before every hockey game in Philadelphia. Some wide-eyed local opera star was shuffled into the smoke-filled Spectrum in a silly red cummerbund in order to sing about 2 minutes of a song that’s basically about kicking some British tail in the War of 1812 during the battle of Fort McHenry.

A limp British bombardment and ill-conceived charge gave Francis Scott Key all he needed to write a song that future generations would sing for many years to come… off key.

Wars are such complicated things. If you know anything about the history of British colonialism, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to understand why the Americans who founded our country felt like they needed to break free from the mother ship. That being said, wars do not guarantee justice or freedom and certainly dehumanize all sides involved.

Whether or not you believe our nation’s most recent wars in Iraq or Afghanistan were just, the high suicide rate of returning soldiers and PTSD should certainly remind us that war is never a black and white matter of good and evil. Even the “victors” suffer loss in some regards—a point that should give us pause before we send our soldiers into any armed conflict.

As we celebrate the independence of America and all of the wonderful things that have happened and will continue to happen because of our freedom, I think it’s helpful to remember that freedom doesn’t always have to be won by fighting for it.

We can also pursue freedom and peace through nonviolent means.

In other words, Jesus wasn’t full of it when he said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” There really are blessings and benefits that come from not fighting.

When we take steps away from violence and conflict, we may be just as likely—possibly even more likely—to preserve freedom and peace. That isn’t to say that war is never off the table in a sinful world—that’s a matter I can’t even begin to address here.

However, we do ourselves a grave disservice if we only associate freedom and liberty with fighting.

Acts of nonviolence and demilitarization are equally important in the preservation of our freedom and liberty.

Many African Americans enjoy equality today because the Civil Rights Movement pursued freedom through nonviolent means.

Women enjoy the right to vote in addition to many other commonsense rights because many of them took to the streets to peacefully demand their rights.

While the Cuban Missile Crisis was a rather complicated affair, I think it bears mentioning that Kennedy chose to not escalate the conflict after a US spy plane was shot down.

While the American Revolution may have won independence from British colonial rule, there are plenty of other examples of freedom being preserved by those who bravely chose to not fight with weapons. These lovers of freedom left the world a better place, though they suffered much.

As we watch fireworks tonight, let’s remember that bombs are not the only path to freedom, liberty, and peace. Radical love can be explosive and powerful. If we forget that, we may be less free than we think.

We’re moving this week, and I’m giving my full attention this week to the process of getting ourselves packed up and out of Connecticut. I’ll be keeping a light presence on the blog and on social media, and I thought this would be a perfect time to talk about the ways my blogging and blog reading habits have changed so that I can recommend some sites to read this week.

I started blogging right after finishing seminary in 2004. A close friend set up the site originally as a place where we could both write about the things we were learning about God, and I took to it like a lifeline at a time when I was leaving certain trappings of my conservative roots behind in search of the essential elements that defined what it means to be an evangelical Christian.

Unpacking that last sentence would take writing a book. That being said, I began blogging about Christianity and culture.

Just like 5,000 other white guys going through seminary or Christian college.

I don’t think I had too many unique things to say since we were all reading the same books and the same blogs, but I needed this blog to help me process stuff for 3-4 years until I had my head on straight—or straightish.

I’m really grateful for my time in seminary because I learned how to think critically but with a level head. I wanted to write about the ways theology impacts us in everyday life, but in the course of attending seminary and reading gobs of academic books, I think I forgot how to write for the average Christian. It’s something I’ve been working on remedying since 2008 when I began writing the manuscript for Coffeehouse Theology.

Before I published Coffeehouse Theology, I read the blogs of mostly white male theologians, with a few exceptions. At a certain point I felt like I was living in an echo chamber, and I needed to branch out a bit to some folks who wrote for a more general Christian audience without necessarily writing about the ways my family sorted out intensely personal conflict or tapping out pseudo poetic reminiscences of shopping at Whole Foods.

As I searched for writers who were grounded in both theology and in daily life, my reading list of blogs became increasingly female, and even a tad more culturally diverse, though I still need to work on that. I still read a few theology blogs, and I love me a good Homebrewed Christianity podcast, but as I move toward figuring out following Jesus, joining the mission of God, and living in God’s Kingdom each day, I crave to read posts by folks who are applying these things to their work, their family, their daily financial decisions, and the people they serve.

I have been steadily adding new names to my blogroll on this site so that it reflects what I’m actually reading these days, though I will be adding some others in the near future. That being said, have a look at the following blogs this week, and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Halfway to Normal by Kristen Tennant: She deftly writes about her daily life without making you feel like a voyeur, while packing in some hefty theological punch. Her blog may well be the best kept secret among Christian blogs, though she has a strong following of loyal readers.

Rachel Held Evans: There are few other writers today who have a better grasp of the left end of evangelicalism than Rachel—though she appeals to a broad group of readers. Her post titles alone make me wish I’d thought of them.

Tamara Out Loud: Consistently one of the funniest and smartest blogs I read. Her post about the pole-dancing turtle is among my favorite blog posts of all time.

Black Coffee Reflections by Tim Ghali: Lots of future pastors dig into theology at seminary and then struggle to thrive in the day to day realities of youth ministry. Tim strikes me as the kind of level-headed, honest, and generous youth pastor everyone would like to have.

Jamie the Very Worst Missionary: I probably didn’t need to list this blog because it’s taking off big time, but I can’t resist listing it because Jamie lays her heart right out there. This blog digs into the daily realities of following Jesus, while still being the person God made her to be. Jamie shatters our narrow perceptions of who or what missionaries are, and reminds us that missionaries like a good innuendo just as much as the next guy—extra points if you can find the awesome post I’m referring to.

Students of Jesus by Ray Hollenbach: I’ve linked to Ray before, so I’ll just say that I appreciate the way he consistently keeps his readers pointed at Jesus. That is Christianity.

Faith Barista by Bonnie Gray: Bonnie is the master of writing succinct, yet powerful posts that somehow manage to tell complex stories and explore deep concepts in a matter of minutes.

Keep an eye on the scrolling blogroll in the right column for other great sites to read this week.

We have been sorting through some old pictures as we try to downsize our boxes before moving next week. I’ve flipped through albums that were literally nothing but shots of Flyers games. We had pretty good seats, but I still can’t believe I thought that each picture I took would look all that different from the twenty others I had snapped.

Other pictures document parties in high school, family vacations, and odd college outings such as our disco bowling night. A lot of these pictures feel kind of awkward to me, perhaps digging up memories of insecurity, uncertainty, and turmoil in my family.

It makes me glad that I didn’t have a digital camera that would allow me to take 80 pictures of every single event and then shared with hundreds of people at once on the internet.

I catch myself in a kind of retrospective self-loathing when I look through old pictures.

That’s when I didn’t understand how to listen to Julie.

That’s when I judged people for listening to secular music.

That’s when I was stupid enough to have a crush on a girl who was completely wrong for me.

That’s when I didn’t feel accepted.

There’s a temptation to hate myself when I look back. If I’m not careful, it can creep into the present as well.

Heck, I may as well dread how awful I’m going to be in the future while I’m at it.

This self-absorption in my self-perception is a never-ending downward spiral that will not only make us miserable, but will also alienate us from others. It’s not rooted in reality, even though I’m sure I was sort of a tool at times.

As I look back on my friends, I don’t remember any of them as terrible people. Even the ones who wronged me have been forgiven—we’ve moved on and made new, better memories. I have grace for my friends, and therefore I’m pretty sure that they have grace for me.

OK, maybe there’s still someone who has it out for me. It could happen!

By digging up my memories of the times I was terrible, I’m acting like someone who can’t forgive and forget. I have to keep digging up the terrible stuff from my past in another doomed attempt at making things right. I have to remember what kind of person I really am.

I can’t forgive myself some days. And yet, God is fully capable of forgiving me.

God takes the terrible out of us. He has conquered the power of sin and death, and that includes the guilt of our past and the dread of the future. He rewires us by lavishing his love on us—and I don’t use a potentially cheesy word like “lavish” lightly. This is the firehose of God’s love (UHF reference).

To not only know but to experience the depths of God’s love is to experience radical acceptance that will not tolerate excuses or caveats. The past is healed, and the future is hopeful.

I can still bury myself in those old photo boxes and lament that I’m a terrible person. I can move away from God’s love.

However, his mercies are new every morning. He takes terrible people again and again. For those who are willing to sit in his presence, to wait for his deliverance, and to walk throughout their days mindful of him, there is love, peace, joy, and the end of all that is terrible.

When we abide in God, we can remember that we are loved people.

I grew up among conservative Christians, and between the radio and various things I heard from others, I developed a sense that the world is somehow full of dangerous liberals, both religious and political liberals, who wanted to somehow destroy our nation and my religion. That fear was followed by anger and a kind of hostility where I just wanted “those people” to leave us alone.

Life was simple. I knew who the “dangerous” people were. I feared their agenda, and listened to people who acted as watchmen, protecting me, my country, and my faith.

Yesterday I realized that the tables have turned quite a bit in my mind.

Today I think I fear extreme conservative Christianity and politics a lot more. Why do I fear them? Because I believe they’re dangerous, though for a different reason. I have fallen into the same exact trap as before: developing an irrational fear that a whole segment of America is “out to get me.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about who is actually out to get us and whether everyone around us is really all that dangerous.

Read the rest of this entry »

While in college I called my Dad and told him I was dropping my English major in favor of Biblical Studies. By the time I hung up the phone, he had convinced me to stick with English and to add Bible as a double-major.

He didn’t raise his voice or tell me what to do. I remember him spending more time reminding me of what I liked.

By the time I stumbled out of seminary unsure of what to do with my life since a career as a pastor wasn’t an option, I was really grateful to have that English degree. If anything I understood the jokes in Prairie Home Companion about the Professional Organization of English Majors.

However, during that fateful phone call, my dad saw something that I should have seen all along. Writing and books are important to me.

My teacher in sixth grade assigned free-writing activities every week in our notebook called an “Anything Book.” I filled up every scrap of white paper in my Anything Book. My imagination went crazy, even spilling stories into the number charts on the back cover.

During seventh and eighth grade, my friend and I would toss around a football after school and then sit down at his MS DOS computer and rewrite fairy tales with a twist. The one that stands out had something about the big bad wolf being framed by those horrible pigs.

In high school I moved away from fiction and toward more academic forms of writing with lots of research. I thought that writing was just a nice thing I did in addition to my other work. I also had no clue about what to do with my life. I didn’t know how people found jobs or selected careers.

The post-college world was terrifying to me. Books and writing always made sense, and I’m thankful that my family never questioned my English major in college. The English program in college became a safe haven for me until I thought that I had another path figured out as a pastor.

My dad wisely persuaded me that I shouldn’t toss away all that I’d already invested in studying literature and academic writing. Even after sticking with the English degree, I’m writing stuff today that I never pictured myself doing.

Today I help pay the bills by writing for blogs and websites, while I plug away on a novel that most closely resembles the zany stuff I scrawled in my Anything Book in sixth grade.

It’s fascinating to see that our parents can’t tell us exactly what to do. There’s no way my Dad could know that I’d end up writing for websites or I’d love writing fiction so much. However, he tried to keep me faithful to what he’d seen of me so far.

Parents aren’t perfect, but I’m grateful for the times when they keep us pointed in the right direction at the right time. I couldn’t have asked my dad to do anything more, and I’m forever grateful for that conversation.

Read more Father’s Day themed posts at Faith Barrista for the Thursday Jam.

Soldiers ask the hard questions civilians can avoid if they so choose.

They have to face a fellow human being and decide whether or not that person represents a threat that is worth killing.

They have to leave their families behind and live in the unreal world where death could be waiting behind every corner.

They have to believe in their mission each day, even if they have their doubts.

They return home with the memories of the war alive in their minds.

Soldiers Who Doubt

I read a lot of history, and I’m always struck by how many veterans from the Second World War returned home with a strong commitment to peace.

I also read and listen to the accounts of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and if you read enough of them, you’ll find that many soldiers over there are wondering what the heck they’re doing over there. While some are quite certain about these wars, there are many who are afraid to voice their doubts.

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I like to remember my semester in Israel as a magical time where everything was perfect. The streets of Old City Jerusalem were my home for a little over three months, and I could pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or the Western Wall any time. Best of all, I met my wife while studying there.

With our wedding day serving as the perfect climax to my Israel story, it’s easy to forget the tough parts leading up to the day she walked down the aisle.

I often forget that my allergies went insane during my first month in Israel. My throat always felt scratchy and dry, which is the last thing you want in a hot, dry climate.

While Julie and I were getting to know each other, I struggled over how fast to move. Part of me wanted to be really careful about not moving too fast because I didn’t want to risk hurting her. Another part of me was certain that I could very well marry her one day. I sat on a stone wall outside of the old city in a secluded area to pray each afternoon, and she was the subject of many of those prayers.

If I take time to really think about that semester, I have a more accurate picture of conflict and uncertainty before a happy ending.

It’s like almost any movie out there. Conflict and difficulty precede happiness and resolution.

We all want to arrive at the happy ending, but we forget that the middle part usually sucks.

If I had to write a “happy ending” for my life, it would probably include publishing some more books and writing for a variety of websites and magazines. I’d be able to write what I like for a good bit of my day, earning enough to keep us financially stable.

I was hoping I could reach that happy ending in about a year.

I’ll add a pause here to let you laugh at my naiveté for a moment.

Sometimes life doesn’t work out as we plan. We set goals and work toward them, hoping we can reach them as fast as possible and then act surprised when we get bogged down in the conflict in the middle.

If I can’t even remember the struggles of that first month in Jerusalem, what makes me think I can accurately imagine what the future holds? We’re so good at stuffing away the hard times in the past, that it’s almost a super-human act to honestly face the conflicts and struggles that await us in the future.

Two Questions to Ask About Struggles in Life

There are two questions that I’ve been asking myself about my struggles and conflict right now.

Am I at the end of my dream, which didn’t work out?

or…

Am I in the middle of the conflict on the way to fulfilling my dream?

There have been different times in my life when I’ve said yes to both of those questions. In one case, I had to let go of my dream of ever being a pastor or church planter. God didn’t call me to be either.

However, as I’ve discovered how much I love to write, I’ve also had to face struggles and conflicts that cause me to doubt. Am I pursuing the right course? Should I just give up on this dream?

From what I can tell, I’m just in the middle of this story—one that I hope will be a long one. I’m in the middle of the conflict and struggle with some great victories along the way. It hasn’t been a steady stream of disappointments by any means, but I still haven’t achieved my goals.

I’m OK with not arriving at my happy ending. It took me some time to reach that point, and perhaps my happy ending won’t involve everything I’ve dreamed about. God may still need to change some things for my future.

If you’re disappointed, discouraged, or stuck, I encourage you to ask yourself those two questions and to pray about them. Finding out you need to find a new dream may mean a tough transition, but it may be the most freeing thing for you.

On the other hand, you may not want to admit that you’re in the middle of the conflict, but the sooner you can see what you’re up against, the better prepared you will be to face it.

Happy endings are never cheap in the movies, and the same holds true in real life. Perhaps the conflict we face along the way is what makes our endings that much better.

While setting up the projector for my writing course at a local community center last fall, a high school student was cleaning up an art project she’d been leading with a group of children. Seeing “Ed Cyzewski: Freelance Writer” at the bottom of my slide, she asked, “What’s a freelance writer?”

While one of her co-workers attempted to give a traditional answer, I replied, “It’s a nice way of saying you’re unemployed but work occasionally.”

I was joking, but also a little serious.

I try not to play the poor old me card here on the blog. Believe me, my small group hears enough about that. However, when I began trying this freelance thing out in August 2009, I had no idea what I was in for. It was like launching a brand new business where I needed to build long lists of clients and contacts.

It has taken longer than I’d expected to get established. I thought I was starting off in good shape back in 2009, but things only started to click in the fall of 2010. At this point now, I can actually use the word “busy” on occasion, while still looking for new editing, web site copy, and magazine article work.

I feel very blessed right now.

We hear a lot about the struggles of freelancers and also about the guilty pleasures of freelancers—though I’m not one for spending the entire day in my bathrobe and slippers. Freelancing is either bad for me because work can be irregular, or it can be great because I make my own schedule and can work anywhere I want.

However, there’s another side to this. Freelancing can be good for our friends and family. I can work anywhere, and therefore I can pick up my “operation” and relocate to the side of a friend in need. I’d honestly never thought about this aspect of independent freelance work, but it’s truly exciting.

I’ve been so focused on what’s good or bad for me in this career move to write full time, that I’d forgotten how persevering through the past year and a half also benefits my friends and family. I’m grateful for these moments when I’m reminded that this really isn’t all about me.