I was pondering these last few weeks about the interesting similarities between the pre-presidential election season and pregnancy…the main difference being that I wish the pre-presidential election season only lasted 9 months!

It seems that each year the political season gets longer and longer…names are thrown into the running so much earlier than in years past. In a way, it seems to me, that the last two years of a reigning president’s term in office can be a rather pointless one. If the president was planing on a second bid, his energies are diverted towards the campaign ,and off of the leadership our country and world actually elected him to accomplish. If the president’s term is coming to an end, or if there is not a second bid in the works (I know, that’s beyond rare), they become marginalized. Our elected officials in Washington vote and speak out in attempts to gain party favor, and our loyalty, for the next election rather than negotiating on what needs to get done today.

Now, I know that is too broad-brushed for all elected officials, but much of that rings true, yes?  Right now, at this point in the process , various candidates are tossing their hat in the presidential ring, is much like the newness of pregnancy. There is excitement in the air…new possibilities…freshness…new hope.

The candidates are for the most part unknown. We see many faces and read about many names that we know very little about. This shrouds the candidate in mystery and potential. I remember when Amy and I found out when our babies were to become a reality…man, what a mind-blowing time. The newness, the unknown kept us preoccupied and living in the now, not really thinking about what lay ahead, or what changes were coming down the pike…none of that really mattered, we were going to have a new baby!

Right now, the political scene has that feeling to it…there’s a new baby coming, name after name crosses the airwaves and we wonder who and what the next president will be like…That is phase one eh?

The second phase of pregnancy is when reality slowly creeps into the process. In the election contrast we also experience the reality of the candidate and the process slowly materialize. Every person promises to run on their platform, and vows to withhold from the temptation of political slander against their opponent.

As this season begins, we begin to see the differences or similarities between party candidates, and for the most part…I say that slowly…the candidates keep to the issues, and we begin to think and contemplate the various running platforms. This phase in pregnancy is very much the same. You have the ultrasound and begin to see the new life forming inside of mom’s belly. Mom and Dad are still excited and hopeful, but reality unmasks itself as they see the future baby moving, stretching his/her hands and fingers, and moving their head around in-utero.Thoughts begin to quickly contemplate the reality that a new life is joining the family, and there will be change in the near future.

Phase three is when the candidates are feeling the heat, and the possibility that they will not get the party nod, so the heat turns up, the promises of a clean campaign miraculously vanish and the television is filled with pictures of opponents that look like they were edited in hell. The floodgates are unleashed and the ugly side of politics is unleashed upon us.

You wonder what happened to that smiling face that was kissing babies in front of the camera and making promises about integrity and honor. Of course, they say, they had no idea and would never have approved those ads…right, sure, we know, call me a cynic but a presidential election is to big to make those kinds of mistakes. Humanity is capable of incredible darkness and has a brilliant  ability to justify the means as long as it reaches their ends.

In pregnancy this might be the time when you get some ugly news that came from the results of the ultrasound. What was previously all joy and hope, enters a world of fear and anxiety as you saw deeper into the womb of life. I remember with Emma, my daughter, when the doctor called to say there were some results from the AFP test (alphafetoprotein) that were a concern and we would need to talk about our options.

The doctor told us that the test gave indication that our baby could possibly have Down Syndrome, so if we wanted to abort, now would be the time. Man, talk about the wind getting kicked out of your sails. Amy and I prayed. We questioned God. We questioned our ability to handle this. The dark side of pregnancy had visited our home.

Our hearts told us to move forward, life offered us the possibility for some refining decisions, but to us life is life, and it comes from God, so with fear and trepidation it was forward ho. The fear didn’t go away, but the reality that God was with us in this carried us through the worries. I remember cutting the cord, holding Emma in my arms, and the whole process of days filled with confusion and anxiety were gone. As it turned out, Emma was fine, but God had given us a pop quiz in the midst of the journey.

Even in the presidential-election season, God is giving pop quizzes to see how His people, and our candidates act with honesty and integrity. Sometimes we have done well, other times we see the dark side of politics and humanity.

Of course the final phase for both areas is often the most painful! There are commercials every 10 seconds where the final candidates shred each other, shred the other party and move to the birth process of the final election!

The last two major elections I have been in Africa. Being an absentee ballot kind of guy, I watched the news from a different perspective in a foreign land. Just as an aside, being a man, I can enter into the experience of birth only so far…my wife has a much deeper insight and connection into the process than I do. It was great to be there, but there was something going on at a much deeper level with Amy. I can’t enter that zone, but to see it and sense it is like a glimpse into the divine. In an election, there are many life experiences, teachings, and traditions that consciously and subconsciously form a persons choice, and those experiences are also something that I cannot totally understand. But when I open the dialog and enjoy the conversation, there is a deeper connection and understanding that transpires even if I can’t completely enter their journey.

The birth process involves alot of pain. I am amazed at the strength that a woman has for the life-giving act! I remember being so proud of Amy with both births. Birth exacts a toll on the mom and election night exacts a toll, and alot of pain too. Maybe the nation should get an epidural before tuning in to get the pole results!

It was interesting being in Africa, surrounded by a large number of people who were against the person I had cast my ballot for. I felt uneasy, unsafe to express my position, yet they sure felt fine with theirs! A life of integrity is forged in moments like that…when we choose to listen and not retaliate…to hear even when unheard. Jesus dealt with encounters like that almost daily!

Regardless of which party line you vote, if your candidate loses, there is often a sick feeling that morphs in your gut.This is only natural because you have become invested ideologically, theologically, and sociologically in a person. I know that feeling myself, and I am sure at some point, so have you.

The pain though, is the portal to the joy that comes after.

My heart’s desire is that we would learn to walk in community with integrity in the days ahead. No matter which lever you pull, or which chad is hanging on your election ballot. I pray that we would chose to walk with honor. There will be a candidate that wins and one that loses. Within your community of faith there will be people for either candidate. God will be giving us all a pop quiz in the season ahead to see if we will seek Him and keep the unity of the community of faith first…above losing our integrity by shredding each other, whether in the pews or in the papers revealing the dark side of politics or the painful journey of birth.

Right now there is the joy of anticipation and newness, but in the days to come there will be the beginnings of the dark side…it will come.

My challenge then is, may we live in such a way that God is honored, and we all pass His pop quiz of integrity instead of someone asking…"man, I think that baby needs a diaper change!

Illuminate Deo,
Monty

On the second Saturday of every month, there are men from my community of faith who gather together to pray. 

This month we had groups of men on three different mountain tops…strategically timed to summit together, pray, share communion, and just simply enjoy being guys!

This group of wild men are sitting on top of Mount Si, doin’ some hang time on the haystack. You know, in this day and age, it seems that men have abandoned the incredible God-adventure that they were created for, and have instead, traded that adventure in for the mundane, or at best for a few, the religous.

What pumps me up about the men I hang with, is that they are engaging full force, with every ounce of testosterone in their bodies, into the adventure that God has for them. No mere behavioral religion will do…no these guys, like me, long for more…yearn for more…and are out there on the edge with God experiencing more!

It’s not about climbing or any one thing, but rather about realizing that playing it safe is risky…it’s risky for your faith, it’s risky to your relationships…and it’s risky for your heart. When a man ceases to engage His God with all that he is…and plays it safe, doing the 9-5 bit with a soccor game and maybe a church service thrown in for jollies…the result is a shriveled heart, a bored mind, and an apathetic life.

I am proud of the men who found their way to the top of Mount Si…Rattlesnake Ridge…and Snoqualmie Point…Not only did they step out, but they sought the face of God for other men who are trapped in a world they were not made for…men fighting for men to be free. The heavens are
exploding with praise!

Illuminate Deo,
Monty

We are a culture of disenfranchisement…or to put it another way, we live in a culture of discontent…or yet another way to look at it is that we are a culture of complainers. We complain about everything from an internet connection that takes to long to a Fast Food drive through that took more than 30 seconds to get me my food! We hear it in our spoken and unspoken words of cultural competition with our neighbors. “Why don’t we have one of those…I can’t believe what they did to their yard…when can we get a better car…the Smith’s got a new car, when can we get one?”

Our disenfranchised state stems from a disease I’ll call homosapienmyopisticsm-syndrome…or translated…It’s All About Me-itus.  When things don’t go our way, or when our confidants, soul mates or great dates don’t have that Houdini-esk ability to fathom the depth of our minds and answer our needs and wants before we have actually articulated them.

Let down after let down, and broken communication after broken communication have lead to a self imposed wall of expectations that would cause even Gandhi and Mother Theresa to blow it! We seem to forget one massive point in all our expectational living…we are merely human, prone to drop the ball and prone to think you heard her say “Where’s little Eddie” when in reality she said, “I’m all ready!” for which a clash of  misunderstood words were volumized as the search for little Eddie began, and you notice a haze of confusion slowly shrouds her face into a contortion of wrinkles and lines around the eyes asking the unspoken question, “Does he/she ever “hear” me?”

Soon we become the Eeyores of the philosophical world espousing a belief in doom and conspiracy that leaves us lifeless and always wondering if Aunt Bertha is really who she says she is…or why no one seems able to simply “Get It.” This creates within the heart a superhighway to disenfranchisement, often resulting in abandoning the quest that God placed within your heart.

The spiritually disenfranchised live another reality. Have you ever been living in the land of spiritual atrophy? I have, it isn’t fun, pretty, or easy to figure out. Generally, you have no idea how you crossed the border into this new realm, and there is absolutely no road map showing you the way back to Kansas, all you know is that Toto looks frantic.

Our thoughts begin to wonder (and complain if we are honest) about God’s apparent vacation from our earthly reality, and that maybe the world needs a “Mighty Smiter” again to right the wrongs so visible to us as we cocoon against the forces of an out of control culture.

If we are afraid to vocalize or admit to God that we have thoughts about how well He is or is not doing His job (by the way, He already knows what you think) it all internalizes, germinates, sprouts some wicked wings and leaves you stuck in no mans land. Maybe life has dealt you a serious blow…maybe a spouse walked out with no warning…maybe there was a company shift at work that left you without work…whatever the situation, if we don’t feel safe to approach God in raw honesty, we really do not have an active relationship with Him, but one of fear, denial, lack of honesty to keep a supposed peace…in other words, the kind of relationships we are probably experiencing on the human level which has left us dazed, confused, and scared.

This reality tend to magically grow suction grips on our hands as well tenaciously hold on to, clutch, strangle or grasp anything that seems to give us meaning, purpose, or a medication from the reality that life is not flowing on the outside or the inside the way our hearts and minds believe it should be progressing. And guess what? These behaviors are generally a huge reason there is a relational disconnect in our lives vertically with God and horizontally with others.

The symptoms are not the reasons, they are a result of the spiritual disenfranchisement which has a deeper root which is a struggle with God. The way out is closer than you think..The Kingdom of God is so close. The move to realign is so close, but it takes courage!

The incredible thing is that when we get here…an honest, raw, incongruent, confused place…religion goes right out the window. Often we try to figure out the problem through religion (sometimes religion is the problem!), but what God desires is truth in the inmost place of your heart…He can handle your thoughts, struggles, doubts, anger, pain, blame-shifting…

Courage leads to honesty…Honesty leads to integrity…Integrity leads to peace…Peace increases our faith…Faith reveals the infinte!

I love what Paul said to young believers who were once an anathema to Israel and cut off from the heart of God:

Ephesians 3:8-13
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

The disenfranchised have two options: 1. Lose heart and lose life, or 2. Boldly enter the reality of God with all your questions, concerns and cares. God will meet you there, He will never be unavailable for you, He will never be on an extended coffee break. Your call will never get lost in transfer…

So perhaps part of the quest and part of the journey is to enter the realization that on many levels we are all spiritually disenfranchised at varying degrees. Interacting with and identifying those areas are part of the Sovereign plan to open the spiritual eyes of your heart illuminating the infinite. Denial eliminate the infinite, it only hurries the finite, and you were made for so much more.

Let’s end this with some higher thought from Paul, who experienced life in all it’s fullness…mountaintops and prison cells…yet through his honesty, his disenfranchisement drew Him into the heart of the One who caused him and loved him.

Ephesians 3:14-19                                          
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Wow eh?

Illuminate Deo                                       
Monty

I just saw Pixar’s latest release "Cars." Besides the great animation, and the ability to make a Hudson Hornet not only look and sound like the original, but also like Paul Newman, there was a layer of real life navigation throughout.

A young and talented race car, (slip in the name of a bright ego-centric up-and-comer here) named Lightning McQueen has been taking the racing world by storm. As a result of his incredible ability to think only of himself, he finds that he is very lonely…no crew chief, nor pit crew left will work with him due to his arrogance.

On the way to the big "Piston Cup" Lightning accidentally rolls out of the back of the team semi while he was sleeping, and gets stuck in a small town called Radiator Springs on Route 66. After doing some damage to the town, the young race car is sentenced to rebuild the road he destroyed…and this is where the journey of discovery begins.

It seems to me that all the stuff we go through in life captures us in the moment, and causes us to believe that the moment is all there is. Unable to see beyond and dazed from the events of the past, we get stuck. In the movie, all Lightning wanted to do was to get unstuck, to get out of Radiator Springs as fast as he could. He was so self-focused that he didn’t see the story he had fallen into, the stories that surrounded him, nor the help next to him that he so desperately needed.

That is so much like us yes? Our moment is all there is… Our self is our consumption…Our location exists only to move beyond…Our dreams are always someplace else…

Since Lightning was stuck in Radiator Springs until he fulfilled his court ordered civic duty, he had to slow down enough to see the story that surrounded him. The entrance of friends, lovers, mentors, partners…authentic community in the most obscure place.

I think God gives us many Radiator Spring moments in life…moments where He has sovereignly orchestrated a dead-end, or a seemingly purposeless stop along the journey that is anything but purposeless or accidental…it is divinely inspired to slow us down enough so that we begin to experience His story that is unfolding around us all the time. Then, we enter into the stories of fellow travelers, who here-to-fore we didn’t even know were on the road.

As we slow down and enter into each others journey down Route 66, God gives us the ability deep within to move beyond ourselves…this movement unleashes within us a capacity to choose differently…leading to a different outcome than we had previously been experiencing. From self-centeredness to selflessness…from pride to humility…from serve-me to let me serve you.

As Lightning enters into the lives of those around him, he receives a mentor that will ultimately help him with his dream. Before, the mentor seemed nothing more than an older car who knew nothing about the world, but as Lightning learned his story, he was open to be taught from someone who had been right where he was at. He also experienced the joy that comes when we overlook the quirkiness of our traveling companions, and how they complete empty patches of our soul.

Perhaps what caught me the most was the choice Lightning made a the end of the movie…with the Piston Cup firmly in his clutch, he sacrificed his "dream" to go back for a car that had been forced off the track, and pushed him across the finish line…

The Radiator Spring stops of life help us make the choices that matter. Winning isn’t everything…how you win does matter… and how you define winning will either transform you into a person that is contagious and influential or merely a trophy collector.

What is it within us that causes us to cheer on and applaud the one willing to sacrifice what we are all striving for…on the outside it doesn’t make sense…we all want to win, we all work to win…we all long to hold the trophy and stand receiving the glory in the winners circle…yet when we experience Lightning stopping at the finish line to do the right thing,  we draw in more breath, our eyes widen ever so slightly and the endorphins of joy scream through our body! Why?

Because built within us is the greatest story of sacrifice the world has every known…This story is the why of our soul. it makes every Radiator Springs moment of life ripe with meaning and hope. It is the cosmic Meta Narrative that God loves you and was willing to loose all to gain you…humbling, mesmerizing…confusing.

Make the right choice not the convenient choice. Make the Godly choice not the me-centric choice. Make the sacrificial choice not the path of least resistance choice…you become a creation of the choices you make in life, good, bad, and other. Everyday God gives you divine opportunities to choose wisely…to do this we need to slow down enough to see the story, our story, their story, His story…that battered up old car that you may think has no value just might hold the keys to unleash God’s plan in your life, and those quirky friends along the Route will carry you ac cross the finish line of life.

So, are you trying to get out of Radiator Springs? Maybe you should take a look at the surroundings and see what God is saying to you…there are no accidents in life only opportunities! After all, when you win that "Piston Cup" all you have is an empty cup.

Illuminate Deo,

Monty