“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.” ~Richard Bach

“We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – you can blame anyone but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it is always your fault, because if you wanted to change, you’re the one who has got to change. It’s as simple as that…” ~Katharine Hepburn

Several years back, I got a phone call from an older relative. He knew that I was good with computers and he hoped that I could help him resolve a problem with his computer over the phone. Apparently, someone else allegedly had downloaded something naughty and/or malicious and it was causing problems. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, and, due to his technical ignorance, he wasn’t able to articulate to me what he was seeing, let alone the actual problem. After several minutes of frustration on both ends of the phone, I was able to walk him through shutting down the computer and then starting it back up. He had no clue what he was doing but I could hear the computer making the shutdown and startup sounds so I know he was pressing the right buttons even if he didn’t. Once the computer was started up again, I knew that there were no other programs running so I had a better idea of what he was looking at. I paused, took a deep breath, and asked again “What do you need me to help you do, exactly?” To this he said – clearly for the first time – “I just need help turning the computer off.” I laughed out loud and then walked him through the first half of the procedure we had just walked through. He informed me that the screen was blank and that the box wasn’t making any more noises, but he wasn’t sure if it was actually off or not. I assured him that it was. He was very grateful for my help.

I share this story just to say that we all have different levels of aptitude and experience when it comes to computers. Some people use computers only when absolutely necessary. Others have developed a sort of relationship with their computers. Countless nerds, myself included, actually name our computers.

As anyone who has ever spent much time with a computer knows, the longer a computer is used and the more it is used for, the more quirks it develops. It starts behaving oddly. E.g. shutting down unexpectedly, making funny noises, and doing everything very slowly. There are four possible solutions to what I call “quirk buildup”: 1) Endure the quirks the best we can. 2) Provide temporary fixes as problems appear (e.g. reboot the computer when it freezes). 3) Wipe the computer clean and reinstall everything. 4) Abandon the old computer in favor of a new one.

Personally, I have used all four approaches to deal with computer problems. Depending on how you look at it, in terms of both time and money, there is an increasing cost as you move through the four options, option 1 being the cheapest and option 4 being the most expensive. But you must also consider the time required for each option versus the time wasted if you don’t do anything, etc. Furthermore, the reason why most people will choose one of the first two options (enduring the quirks or fixing each symptom as it appears) is that they have invested a lot into their computer and wiping everything away could mean losing all that and starting again from scratch. I know some people who are still running Windows 95 and experience problems daily, but they know all the workarounds required to get through each day. Other people, however, strongly prefer the last option (getting a new computer) because they have little to no commitment to the old computer and they like the excitement and glamour that comes with a younger and sexier computer. I think I am one of the few people that actually prefers the third option. It has, by far, the biggest time commitment plus you have to have intimate knowledge of computers or else you risk ruining everything. Even worse, the computer and the services it provides like access to the Internet are completely unavailable during the entire process, so your whole daily routine might go out of whack for a while. To me, this relatively short-term anguish is worth the long-term gain. When the process is done, I still have the same computer with all of my personal files, but it runs better and isn’t cluttered with all the old software that I stopped using a long time ago.

To me, everything I have just said is a metaphor for marriages and other worthwhile relationships. When things get bad in a relationship -when the quirks start building up- we have four basic fix-it options: 1) Endure the relational quirks the best we can. 2) Provide temporary fixes as problems appear. 3) Wipe the relationship clean through a serious retreat, series of counseling sessions, etc. (“reinstall everything”). 4) Abandon the old relationship in favor of a new one.

When it comes to serious relationships, I have used the first three options and have been seriously tempted to use the fourth. In America, far too many people prefer the fourth option. We all want the latest and greatest. We want things that are younger, faster, better. As soon as the honeymoon period of a relationship is over and the troubles begin, it’s time to jump ship. “Till death do us part” has little meaning anymore. Although we don’t say them out loud like this, the traditional American wedding vows have become “…in good or bad times… but only if there are a lot more good times than bad times, in sickness or health… but only minor sickness, for rich or poor… but not too poor…till death or irreconcilable differences do us part.”

To be honest, the first two fix-it options aren’t much better than the fourth. In fact, they often lead to the same premature ending. It just takes longer to get there. I know a couple that has been married for over 50 years. That by itself *is* amazing. I give them props for that. However, they have gotten to a point where they often act as though the other person isn’t there. They often have simultaneous unrelated conversations with a third person as though there is only one conversation. Think about that for a moment, one person trying to listen to two people at once and those two people being seemingly unaware of each other. A person can go crazy trying to keep up! I am not one to say how much love remains in that relationship, but I do know there is certainly room for more mutual respect. That being said, I think that what they have is still better than being old and alone. I believe this couple has more fulfillment than the person who never commits to anyone and who hops from one relationship to the next seeking that next great thrill, a kind of thrill that never lasts.

In the interest of proper disclosure, I am divorced. She left me due to “irreconcilable differences”. Regardless of who left whom, I can shamefully admit that for a lot of my life I subscribed to the notion of “till the-relationship-seeks-to-be-satisfying do us part”, even if I never would have said that out loud. This isn’t entirely my fault, mind you. I love my parents and grandparents and I have lots of good things to say about them. However, they have all been divorced at least once, and between them they have a total of six divorces (nine divorces if you count them as individuals instead of couples). In other words, I haven’t had the best role models in this area.

When I was younger and my parents were still together, we would regularly go to my cousins’ house for large family gatherings like Thanksgiving and Christmas. My aunt and uncle have seven kids and I don’t think that I have *ever* seen my uncle without a beer or a cigarette in his hand. During those family gatherings I don’t think that I ever saw my aunt outside of the kitchen. She was always prepping, cooking, cleaning, or serving in some way. My uncle cussed at my cousins a lot. My parents never cussed. It was after an incident wherein my uncle cussed at me that I thought to myself, “Wow, I am so lucky to have my parents. They will never get divorced but my uncle and aunt are doomed. I feel sorry for them.”

My parents got divorced over seventeen years ago. My aunt and uncle are still married. Not only that, my aunt and uncle are happy. How did they do it? Well, only they and God could properly answer that question. However, from my vantage point, I see that they have taken fix-it option three. Instead of simply enduring each other, simply fixing symptoms as they occurred, or abandoning each other, they have opted to wipe things clean and rebuild from scratch, more than once. Of all the things I could share about them, this is my favorite: Like I have said, my uncle drinks and smokes a lot. My aunt didn’t. My aunt did things around the house, with the kids, and with the yard. My uncle didn’t. Today, she rides a Harley with him to the local bar, and he is involved in house work and his now-grown-up kids. Furthermore, they like it! It’s not out of obligation, but love. Yes, they have sacrificed this and that and put forth a lot of work, but in return they have something meaningful, something worth bragging about, something worth waking up for in the morning.

Someday I want to have what my aunt and uncle have. When I make my purchase, so to speak, it won’t be with the expectation to upgrade in a few years when the current model is made obsolete by a newer, younger, sexier model. No, my commitment will be for a lifetime.

All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Proverbs 14:23 NIV

May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be captivated by her love.

Proverbs 5:18-19 NIV

He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment.

Proverbs 12:11 NIV

On most Saturday mornings you can find me at a church downtown hanging out with people who are less fortunate than I. I dare say that the people I prefer to associate with most on these mornings are the people that mainstream society would consider to be the least worthy of my respect. Diseased. Dirty. Smelly. Degenerate. Castaway. Untouchable. Hopeless. These are all words used to describe this particular class of people. And not just by the whitewashed aristocrats. These people often see themselves this way. And it’s no wonder. Once you’ve heard something enough times, you begin to accept it as reality.

A few weeks ago, I met “Ms. Annette”. Ms. Annette is actually a man whose real name is Kenny. When I first approached Ms. Annette, she was all done up. Make up. Hair. Nails. As I tried to sit between her and someone I already knew, she politely said with a subtle southern accent, “Oh honey, you don’t want to sit here. We be talking ’bout things that are too much for your sensitive ears to handle.” I sat anyway. Moments later she was showing me family photos and reminiscing about her days as a showgirl and a prostitute. When Ms. Annette and I made eye contact from across the room this morning, she smiled and waved at me. So I went and sat with her and her friends. Just like the first time, she warned me that the current discussion topic was too much for my sensitive ears, but a few moments later I was showing her my family photos and she was sharing her favorite food recipes. On both occasions, without any prodding from me, Ms. Annette volunteered one of those quotes I used above: “I know I’m going to the good place when I die. I’m a good person.”

Ms. Annette and I have different views about right and wrong. Also, I am sure that society as a whole sees us as being very different types of people, one being “better” than the other. By whose standard? God’s? The Bible says all have sinned and that by having done so we have all failed God’s judgment. We have all failed. Society’s standard? What does a society that has abandoned absolutes know about right and wrong? What I do know is that there is a standard of right and wrong that I am accountable to and that I consistently fall short of that standard. Ms. Annette may have a standard that looks different than mine, but I am sure if you’d ask her that she’d be the first to admit that she falls short too.

The Bible lays out high standards of morality that no human is capable of fully achieving. More to the point, these standards did not originate with me nor is it my responsibility to impress them upon others outside of my immediate family. To oversimplify, my role in this life, I believe, is to strive for perfection in my own life, accept my own failures as inevitable, and to love others unconditionally. It’s this last point that is the most important here. My job is to love others regardless of whether they are “good” or “bad”. My job is not to condemn or shun them for their sins. That is God’s job. I have enough sins of my own to work through.

If you disagree with anything I have just said, that’s okay. I won’t judge you.

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” ~Albert Einstein

“I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.” ~Herman Melville

There’s a scene in the movie “Rudy” where a pretty female walks up to Rudy and his friend D-Bob (played by Jon Favreau) and says to D-Bob, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I just have to ask you… have we met somewhere before?” D-Bob’s response: “…” His mouth opens but no words come out. D-Bob is shocked that such a woman would even approach him, so Rudy, who is too focused on other things to get nervous or insecure about women, has to do all the talking for him.

Anyone who knows me from back in the day knows that I can relate to D-Bob. I often locked up around certain girls and was prone to stumbling over my words. I wasn’t exactly a casanova.

Anyone who has met me in the last two years or so probably sees me as being more like Rudy. With all that I have going on in my life, I have little capacity to get nervous about females. In fact, I am always around pretty ladies. We smile, joke, play games, go out for coffee, dance, etc. Here’s the kicker though: when I am interested in a woman as just a friend, I act much like Rudy. As soon as I become interested in a woman as more than a friend, I start to feel and act a lot more like D-Bob! Guess how many non-romantic, completely plutonic dates I’ve been on with ladies in the past two years? … I don’t know either, but it’s a lot. Guess how many romantic dates I’ve been on? Hmmm… let me add them up in my head. 1…2……I know. Zero. Not one. I’ve been perpetually in the “Friend Zone”.

Very recently I found myself in the “friend zone” with someone and I tried to get out. Let me just say that I tried too little too late, messed it up, and then tried to fix it in a way that actually made things worse. During and after that whole debacle I decided that I needed to rethink my dating, or should I say non-dating, philosophy.

Now here I am, again, having feelings of “I don’t want to be in the friend zone with this person.” The thing is that I don’t know exactly how to do that. Either I never did or I’ve forgotten. In any case, romantic dating, for me at the moment, is like being in a foreign country.

Regarding the woman I am interested in at the moment, we are around each other on a rather consistent basis. With many of the ladies around us, I smile and joke and more. With this person, I virtually lock up. I am often organizing groups to go out dancing at clubs, but I’ve never invited her! More than once, she’s been right next to me when I invited someone else! Ugh! I’m like D-Bob, with my mouth open and no words coming out. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but I have stumbled over my words several times around her. Also, on multiple occasions, I have experienced total short-term memory loss in terms of dance moves while dancing with her. Total disaster. When I get around her, my brain goes, “Uh… uh… What do I do now? Do I smile? How long should I look her in the eye? Do I tell her how pretty she looks? Do I compliment her dancing abilities? Is now the time to ask her out? …” Talk about being indecisive.

As far as I know, I haven’t messed things up yet. But if I stay in this state of indecisiveness, she’s gonna lose interest… if she has or had any to begin with.

I went to a Halloween party a few weeks ago. The whole night, there was an attractive woman who was trying hard to get my attention from across the room. Her face repeatedly and very loudly said, “Come talk to me. Ask me to dance. Something!” I considered approaching her but never did. At the end of the night, she went upstairs arm in arm with a man dressed as Buddy the Elf. She “accidentally” bumped into me at the bottom of the stairs as she passed and then looked back down at me with a spiteful expression that said “Looks like you missed your chance, chief!”

On the dance floor and in the dating world, you can’t be indecisive. You have to know where you’re going. In social dancing, part of the man’s responsibility is to lead the woman. If he doesn’t do that well, she can’t do her part. And, eventually, she’s probably going to look for another partner. In both cases, I’ve got my work cut out for me.

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” ~Lewis Carroll

P.S. I often stumble over my words while trying to dance and talk at the same time with anyone, but that has to do with focusing on too many things at once, not (necessarily) nervousness.

When I was in the fourth grade my family of five moved in with my grandma, into a two-bedroom house. Naturally, there wasn’t much room for all six of us so plans were made for us to add more rooms onto the house. Due to money constraints the project took nearly two full years to complete. It was a very slow and painful process to say the least. First, our backyard was transformed from a small green orchid to a brownish trash heap. Then one side of our house became like a slice of Swiss cheese. For a long time several walls of our home were made of large thick sheets of clear plastic. We lived in a windy desert, which means extreme temperatures and lots of dirt. Imagine trying to sleep in a 90 or 50 degree room! Also imagine the frustration of perpetual dusting and vacuuming. Not fun. The bright side was that I got to see many of the oft-forgotten elements of a house being put into place. I saw the plumbing, the wiring, the air ducts, and the placement of things like heaters and bathtubs. Our house was not so much a home as much as it was a construction site. It wasn’t until the painting and flooring were complete that it finally began to look and feel like home again. Before that, I and others in my family had numerous moments of “F%$# all this! I’m so done with this stupid house! I don’t even want the extra rooms anymore!”

For the past few weeks I have been taking dance classes. Before moving from California to Texas I had virtually no interest in structured dancing. My second week in town, though, some new friends invited me to go country dancing. I had no clue how to country dance but had nothing better to do so I accepted. I danced exactly one dance and was horrible. That night I mostly just stood and watched as guy after guy walked up to a seemingly random lady, asked her to dance, danced to one song, said thanks, and then repeated the process with a different lady. As I stood on the edge of the dance floor (on the outside looking in, so to speak), I thought to myself “I have to learn how to do that”.

One of my dance instructors told me today that the patterns (also called “steps”) of a dance are like the tools used to build a house. When the house is complete, all you see is the finished product. You don’t see all that went into it. Likewise, with a good dancer, you see the finished (or at least highly refined) product. You don’t see the patterns she’s learned and unlearned, all the partners she’s had, the toes she’s stepped on, etc.

I am still in the early stages of learning to dance in a structured way. For me, for now, I must focus on the patterns. These are my building blocks. To bring it back to my original story, patterns are for me what the plumbing, wiring, and ventilation were for our room addition. Once the room addition was completed, these things were still there, but you didn’t see them or even think about them.

In the past couple of months I have stepped on toes, said “Oops, I’m sorry”, and stopped mid-dance countless times. I’ve also had many moments of “F%$# all this! I’m so done with this stupid dance! I don’t even want to learn it anymore!” You could say that while I am on the dance floor my wires, pipes, and ducts are all showing. I am a bit of a mess, a work in progress.

Our family’s room addition project was eventually completed, years went by, and I all but forgot about the misery we all endured during the renovations. I forgot the clear plastic walls, the gray stuck-o, the raw wood, and the wires. It became just a house, the place I called home.

Someday, I will forget most of the patterns, the toes I’ve stepped on, the partners I’ve tripped, and how ridiculous and frustrated I’ve felt through this whole process. Someday, I will just dance, and someone might stand on the edge of the dance floor and look at me and say “I could never do that.”

“Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.” ~Booker T. Washington

“Every noble work is at first impossible.” ~Thomas Carlyle

Sunday mornings were a whole other story. Every Sunday we all had one place to be at 11 AM. We needed one car and one driver and we had plenty of time to get ready. Yet, somehow, at least one person was always lagging. Most of the time, it was my mom. I have countless memories of us three boys and my dad sitting in a car with the engine running in the driveway impatiently waiting for my mom. We’d all shout stuff like “Come on, mom!! Hurry up!!” with a nasty impatient tone, even though there was no way she could hear us. My dad would honk the horn a few times and us boys would eventually resort to punching each other to pass the time and to vent our frustrations. Eventually, my mom would rush out the door, still trying to apply that last bit of make-up or attaching that critical piece of jewelry. My dad would pop the clutch into gear just as she shut the car door and she’d have to buckle her seat belt while also fighting the inertia of the accelerating car. Needless to say, by the time we were all in the car and on our way to church, we were in anything but a good mood.

Our family attended church every Sunday, said a prayer before every dinner, and tithed consistently. Although these things are all good and I think everyone should do them, I feel, now in retrospect, that on the whole we did these things as more of a chore than anything else. It was like we had a checklist: Feed the pets, check. Shop for groceries, check. Go to church, check.

There was consensus among us boys that church, prayer, and tithing were not things to get excited about. They were duties. If my parents hadn’t made us go to church, my older brother likely would never have gone at all, and my younger brother and I might only have gone because we had friends to hang out with there (or girls we wanted to meet).

Looking back now, it’s no surprise to me that when my parents got divorced while I was in high school this is exactly what happened; My older brother permanently stopped going to church and I only continued going because my friends and pretty girls went. Once I got to college and I started losing touch with my high school friends, I stopped attending church altogether.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons I began attending church again, but in a lot of ways I can relate to the younger son in the story of The Prodigal Son as told in Luke 15. I had experienced the far country, realized the error of my ways, and returned home.

It’s kind of laughable to reflect now on the hard parts of my life back then. My parents were loving and respectful to us and each other. Apart from the car-in-driveway incidents I just described there was almost no yelling in our home. We always had food on our table. My parents drank alcohol but only in reasonable amounts. There was no drug use in the home. No physical or verbal abuse. I could go on, but my point is that my “hardships” usually had something to do with the style of clothing or brand of shoe I had to wear to school. – I once wore hand-me-down bell bottoms with metal rivets in the shape of a star on both side pockets because I had nothing else to wear! Also, I have owned exactly one pair of Nike’s my entire life. – My life was good, but I wanted to explore, got myself in minimal trouble, and ran back to church and God.

I certainly have my share of challenges in life, but since I have always had a place to rest my head at night, have never been sexually abused or raped, have never been in jail, and have never had a drug problem, I consider myself to be pretty fortunate.

Church and things of that nature could easily be an afterthought for me. It certainly is for a lot of the people who surround me here in this wealthy part of the world. For many in Orange County, church often is an afterthought, an add-on, a duty. They attend church as long as it’s convenient and entertaining. If church time were moved from Sunday morning to the time of their favorite T.V. show, they wouldn’t go. If church services were relocated to Watts or Mexico, they wouldn’t go. If the funny church pastor was taking a break that weekend in favor of a guest speaker, they wouldn’t go.

With all this in mind, I absolutely marvel at what happens every Thursday night on Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood! Every Thursday for the past five-plus years, a small team of young people (many of whom are white college students from affluent homes) has assembled on a street corner in the middle of the night, prayed publicly, and then went and mingled with the prostitutes, drug dealers, addicts, transgenders, and other outcasts of society. Over the years I have seen this team range in size from as many as 35 people to as few as just two people. I have been blessed and honored to be a part of this team for the past three years.

I have witnessed countless illegal transactions and scantily clad boys. I have been spit on and cussed at. I have been solicited by dealers and prostitutes (not to mention horny drunk gay men) and have been harassed by security guards and the police. But I have also seen lives changed. More than once, I have seen someone become pleasantly surprised when they learned that the enjoyable conversation they were having was not with a fellow street person but with a Christian who drove 40 miles (each way) in the middle of the night just to show them the love of Jesus. I have a handful of stories I can tell of real growth and restoration that has occurred in the lives of these people that society wrote off years ago.

Keep in mind that we encounter many people on the streets and it’s not like they just decided one day to have a sex-change operation, start snorting cocaine, and begin selling their body to strangers on the boulevard. Every person has a unique, and always sad, story about how they came to be who and where they are. Most were abused or abandoned at a very early age. Many people we encounter are bitter and resentful. They gave up hope long ago and don’t want any pity or help from us. They do their thing and we do our thing. It’s a minority that accepts us and talks with us. They talk into our lives just as much as we talk into theirs. It is this minority, and the prompting of the Holy Spirit, that has kept us coming back each week.

Last night, I went out to the boulevard for one of the last times before I leave California at the end of this month. There were just two team members last night, me and Holly. I drove 40 miles from Orange County, picked up Holly on the way, parked, and walked to the regular meeting place. Holly and I stood in the Del Taco parking lot for a few minutes and reminisced a little about our week as well as our past three years of serving together on the streets. Then we prayed and headed out to mingle.

As we approached the local donut shop, I thought I saw a familiar drug dealer. The moment I reached out my hand to shake his I realized that, although he was (most likely) a dealer, we had never met before. We shook hands anyway and then I apologetically told him that I wasn’t interested in buying anything. Oops. Holly and I quickly went inside the donut shop and bought some drinks. Shortly thereafter, we began seeing some people that we did know. We talked to various people about recent family issues, recent deaths, recent stints in prison, and more. One guy who I’ve hung out with before proudly introduced me to his sister. She and I had a lengthy and enjoyable chat. Holly and I made a point of inviting at least three people to our midnight church service and we did so loudly enough that everyone around got the invite as well. One guy heard one of my loud announcements and drunkenly turned to me and asked “You guys gonna have pizza tonight? I haven’t eaten in days.” We didn’t have pizza last night but I promised him donuts if he came.

No one wanted to follow us, so Holly and I walked down to where the church services are usually held, bought a dozen donuts (at the other donut shop), and proceeded to sit on a window sill and make small talk. We didn’t pray like we often do when no one shows up, we didn’t ask God to send people to us for the sermon, and we didn’t fret about what to do. On the contrary, before the night had even begun, we had already given the entire night over to God. We had already agreed that if people came we would have service, and if not we would return to the street after a while and just mingle some more.

I should mention that although Holly and I took a break from actively inviting people to join us for the church service, someone else was still very much at work! Forty miles away, in Orange County, a team of about five pray-ers was meeting in someone’s apartment to pray on our behalf.

After Holly and I had been chatting for roughly ten minutes, a group of people rounded the corner and approached us in the parking lot. There were six people. We smiled and greeted them and asked if they came for the donuts. Four of them said, “We came for donuts and to hear the sermon.” The other two said, “We came just for the sermon.”

We all gathered in a circle, held hands, and prayed for the food. Then everyone sat and I gave a sermon. As I often do, I left the sermon open for discussion. In the middle of it, one guy asked who wrote the Bible and another guy mentioned that his favorite book of the Bible is Revelation. Two people in particular reminded me of elementary-age kids in a Sunday School class. They added their thoughts to the lesson and wanted to make sure they answered every question I asked. They were proud of their involvement, excited even.

This last point brings me back to my opening story. For me and my family, church wasn’t exactly exciting. It wasn’t something we invited our friends to. And, sadly, it certainly wasn’t something we would gloat about. The six people who came to the service last night left with an air of accomplishment, a bit of a glow even. They had learned something new and seen old things in a new way. A part of them had been cleansed a little such that they were refreshed.

Allow me to put all this into proper perspective; most people who linger in our area of Hollywood do so in order to buy or sell drugs or buy or sell sex. That means that it’s highly likely that at least a couple of these six people put off making financial transactions long enough to come and hear a message about God. When was the last time you left your cubicle, your shopping cart, your check stand, your desk, or your place in line to attend an impromptu church service? If someone approached you next week at your place of work or while you were out shopping and invited you to a 15-minute Bible study in a parking lot, would you consider that an inconvenience or an opportunity that’s worth putting everything else on hold for?

Only God knows what’s going to happen to these six people and what exactly was going through their heads last night, but one thing is certain. They felt that the word of God was worth forgoing all else, at least for a moment, in spite of any temporary inconvenience. They thought to themselves, “I may not be ready to commit my life to Jesus, but there is something special about Him and these people that come here every week to talk about Him, something special enough that I want to know more.” I highly doubt that’s exactly what they were thinking but I am sure it was something like that. In any case, their thought process was nothing like what most of us think when we are considering going to church on a Sunday morning.

Shouldn’t going to church be a joy? A reason to celebrate? Shouldn’t church be a place that is so enjoyable that we invite our neighbors and co-workers to it? I mean, shouldn’t learning about our Creator and singing praises in His honor be a positive thing? Shouldn’t having a conversation with the Creator of the heavens and earth be a reason for great delight? I confess that sometimes I don’t see church this way at all. Other times I do. Once a month, Rockharbor Church in Costa Mesa has something called Third Wednesday. It runs from 7pm until about 9pm. We sit on the floor. We do a mix of singing, praying, talking, and listening. I think the proper word to describe it is “fellowship”. I love Third Wednesday. It’s something I get excited about. Afterward, I feel refreshed and invigorated, ready to cheerfully face the many troubles ahead that life will inevitably throw at me. I think that all church services should be more like Third Wednesday.

I think that attending church should be a reason for joy.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. ~Matthew 13:44 NIV

My son is an outfielder for a local Little League baseball team. Twice this year, we had a team party at the house of one of the coaches. I’d like to think that I am not materialistic, but as I surveyed the driveway, garage, living room, and backyard, I found myself being a little envious. A lot actually. Jacuzzi, pool, R.V., flat screen TV, ATVs, pool table, hybrid SUV. Yup, they had all that.

I kept telling myself that I didn’t really want any of it, that it would be fun for a while but that the fun wouldn’t last. I am sure this is true and I am sure that once the fun ran out I would just want to go and buy more stuff. Still, though, I wanted at least some of it. A taste, anyway. A better car, perhaps, would be nice. As my grandma used to put it, “Just a smidgen.”

A few days after visiting said home, I found myself on the streets of Hollywood sharing my money woes with a security guard I have befriended there. We talked about a lot of things, but one remark he made was a bit of a slap in my face. He described his financial situation by saying that he has $30 per paycheck left over to spend on himself. $30! That’s 10 cups of coffee. That’s half of a PlayStation game. Then I thought of the homeless people I know. … Just tonight, I talked to someone who lives in a garage.

When I compare myself to the folks in the garages or on the streets and to those who eek out $30 of expendable income each month, my situation is not so bad.

This weekend, I set up a play date such that my son went to the home of a family that has seven children. Seems like it should be the other way around right? Since I have just the two children? In any case, I took my son to them. I will call them the Jones family. When I arrived, Mr. Jones was in a lawn chair while four to six of the kids swarmed around him. With the garage open, it appeared to me that each child had his own scooter and his own bike. The house was big enough that it might have had one room per child but I am not sure. When I left, my son and the oldest boy were in the backyard watering the giant pond.

When I came back to get my son, he had loads to tell me. Apparently, he and the two oldest Jones boys went over to play at a neighbor’s house where there were two more boys their age. (Five total.)

Are you familiar with the Neverland Ranch? You know, the mini-amusement park that Michael Jackson built, complete with coasters? No, the boys didn’t go there, but somewhere just like it! (I was assured there was no “Jesus juice”.) My son said the house was so big that he got lost in it. Here’s a short list of features: an indoor movie theater, ATVs, marble tile in the 10-car garage, a giant swimming pool with five water slides, a soft-bullet field (think paintball… bunkers, trees, and other obstacles, but with less mess and slightly less pain), and an indoor boxing ring. Mr. Jones pulled up the property via Google Maps to show me how enormous it is. He used his iPad to show me.

As I write this, I am in my studio apartment above a garage. When I go to bed, it will be in a bunk bed. Tomorrow, I will drive to work in my two-door hatchback whose driver-side window can’t roll down. It may not make much sense, but I am okay with this. I am okay not having the pool or the ATVs or the indoor boxing ring. I could be worse off. I could be living in the garage. I would like an iPad, though.

My “rough patch” came to a formal close, at least for now, last Wednesday. Since then, I have been processing my feelings and considering my options for life moving forward. My feelings have mostly been a mix of sadness, frustration, anger, and joy. My options have focused around my kids and ministry. Even as I write this, I have many things pending a resolution. It was a little bit of a surprise then that I received an email yesterday morning from Antquan Washington, the leader of Broken Hearts, encouraging me to deliver the sermon that night on the streets of Hollywood. He specifically suggested that I share something about what I have been experiencing these past few weeks. It wasn’t long before God and I had worked out a rough outline including scriptural references for the sermon I would give.

The title for the sermon we came up with was “The Voice of God: Shut Up and Listen”. One key verse came from the book of Psalms:

“Be still, and know that I am God;” (Psalm 46:10a NIV)

I was the first member of our team to arrive at the intersection of Santa Monica and Highland last night and was joined a few minutes later by Antquan. Apparently, the remaining members of the team were either not coming or were running late so Antquan and I prayed briefly and then headed across the street to the Donut Shop to mingle. I didn’t recognize many people and most people we met were stoned and/or drunk. I wasn’t sure how to initiate a conversation or with whom (yup! even after all these years, I still lose my tongue sometimes), so I prayed, repeatedly, “God help me. What should I say? Who should I talk to?”

While praying, I observed the comings and goings around me. Among other things, I watched one man sell $5 worth of “medicinal” marijuana to another fellow who immediately stepped outside to smoke it. At one point, I took a break from praying to ask no one in particular how the Lakers game had went. I got several replies but that also instigated a minor scuffle between two Celtics fans and everyone else. Right in the middle of it all, one man pulled out his pocket knife, waived it around, and said something like “We’ll see who’s really boss around here.” At that, I went back to praying.

In time, I found myself deeply engaged in conversation with a man I will call “Fletch”. My conversation with Fletch began with sports, basketball specifically, but soon turned to politics. We differed on certain key points like Republican versus Democrat, but we agreed on a remarkable number of issues. At around 12:15, roughly 25 minutes into our conversation, we got interrupted because I was late getting to the makeshift church service where I was due to give the sermon. Fletch was startled, to say the least, when I casually told him where I was going and that he was more than welcome to join us. He said he would join us shortly but never did. What I loved about that final exchange of words, though, was the expression on his face. His face seemed to say, “You mean I have been having this great open-minded conversation with one of you Christians this whole time AND you are welcoming me to your meeting to eat pizza and read the Bible?!” His face was not unlike those I have seen in a number of movies where a human is personally invited onto an alien spaceship. Although Fletch did not follow through and join us, his face glowed with gratitude for the invite.

Despite the late start and having only four team members present, we managed to gather a group of eight people total for the service.

I always tell stories in my sermons, so as per usual, after introductions and prayer I began to tell a story. I was no more than a minute into it when a young drunken man stumbled over to our group and began asking questions about what we were doing. One thing led to another and soon he and one of our friends from the street were going toe to toe over being respectful to God at our makeshift church service. The two men stood between me and everyone else. I started to do something to break it up, but at Antquan’s prompting I backed off. Then I stared at the ground and prayed, as did several other members of our team. Eventually, the drunken man’s friends appeared and literally pulled him away. They apologized for his behavior, shook some of our hands, and left. Everyone else settled back down.

My sermon was about being quiet and hearing the voice of God. I had intended to tell a personal story involving chaos in which I had various options as to how to process it or not. As the scuffle defused, I chose to use that as my example instead. Frankly, I think it made my point about the chaotic-ness of life far better than any story could have told. I then went on to read a passage from Luke that concludes with “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” (Luke 5:16 NIV) I did later tell some of the story I had originally planned and concluded it by telling how I, at one point, turned off my car radio and said to God, in essence, “OK, what is it that you want to tell me?” to which God replied by showing me the unresolved anger and frustration that was still in my heart.

I already mentioned that even after two-plus years of doing this, I can still get tongue tied when initiating conversations. Not only is that still an issue for me, but also I have a really hard time concluding sermons well sometimes. I often just call up Antquan or Jorge to wrap things up. Last night, however, was different! Last night, I painted a picture about what it looks like to be still and listen for God’s voice, and then I asked everyone to do it! Right there in a parking lot on Santa Monica Blvd! As I was giving instructions and asking people to bow their heads and close their eyes, a crowd of drunken people walked by and caused a lot of commotion. This caused some heads to dart back up. However, the crowd passed and heads bowed again. Then I went silent …and so did the street. No cars. No people. No buses. No helicopters. There was virtual silence on the Boulevard for about 30 seconds! I was hesitant to speak again but I knew the silence wouldn’t last anyway so I interrupted everyone’s quiet time and invited Antquan up to close the group time. Immediately after Antquan had finished, one of our friends from the street who I will call “Matt” looked Antquan dead in the eye and said, “I need to talk to you. … I feel like God has been trying to tell me something lately…”

Jorge Angulo

The first time I ventured out on the streets of Hollywood with Broken Hearts Ministry, I was nervous, terrified, and excited all at the same time. In many ways I can liken my emotions on that night to many of my experiences on those big roller coasters at Six Flags. They call them “thrill rides” for a reason. The second night out with Broken Hearts, I sat with several others on a sidewalk outside a laundromat as we listened to Antquan Washington preach a 15 minute sermon. In many ways I thought it all to be totally absurd. “Preaching to addicts, prostitutes, dealers… waste of time but bold nonetheless.” It didn’t take long though for me to see positive results from Antquan’s preaching and the rest of what the Broken Hearts team was doing.

The more I witnessed positive results from the street preaching, the more I admired Antquan. Since he stood and we sat as he preached, I looked up to him more and more in both senses. Antquan had and continues to have a passion to bring the healing truth of the Gospel of Jesus to the broken and hurting. You could say he was and is on fire. Likewise, you could say that his fire spread onto me too. It wasn’t long before I began considering preaching too. My gut reaction though was “Shu! …Right! …As if! …Like THAT will ever happen!” I can’t remember the specifics of how it came to be but after some time I gave my first street sermon, then another, and another… I’d like to think that I am pretty good at it now.

I got a gentle reminder a few months ago about how I basically sucked when I first started preaching. Antquan saw that I had a passion to preach even if I lacked the skills and natural talent. So he continued to allow me to preach despite my flaws. Unbeknownst to me at that time several people loathed my preaching. More than one person approached Antquan privately and pleaded that he would stop permitting me to preach. One person said once, with a tone that was less than enthusiastic, “What?! Jeremiah is speaking again?!”. I think if I had known what was being said about me in private back then I would have been crushed and would never have spoken in public again, anywhere, ever. Knowing what I know now, I am forever grateful to Antquan for seeing what many others couldn’t see.

This brings me to the point of this story. The reason Antquan brought up that ugly past is because history is repeating iteself with someone else, Jorge Angulo. The only negative things I have heard about Jorge’s public speaking ability have come out of his own mouth. He is his own worst critic. But otherwise his story is nearly identical to mine. He doesn’t have some of the natural talents that society expects in a persuasive speaker, but he does have the same passion that Antquan and I have.

Last night, Jorge gave his first parking lot sermon. He was supposed to deliver it last week but because of the bomb scare he got another week. That’s roughly two weeks to prepare and to dwell on the emotions that come with public speaking. …On a bit of a side note, although I have been preaching for a while now, I have never been the person who does the intro. Getting multiple people to focus on one thing is a daunting task on a busy Hollywood street. Frankly, I have been too timid to do it and Antquan is really good at it. Last night, I did the intro for the first time ever. So, there were two firsts last night.

When Jorge stood up to speak he was noticeably nervous. He kept his arms close to his side, clenched his Bible and notes, and was barely audible over the sounds of the passing cars. One of our friends from the street was standing next to him and another was sitting near me playing with a ball and thinking out loud about pizza. Jorge’s audience consisted of five members of the Broken Hearts street team, the two men I just described, and one more person. It was plainly obvious that Jorge was anticipating a different audience. He even hesitated part way through his sermon and told us so. He continued to struggle forward with the sermon he had planned for a few minutes before Antquan, no joke, pulled Jorge’s Bible and notes out of his hands and said with a smile, “Continue.” Jorge faltered for a few seconds and then it was as if a switch had been flipped inside of him. I don’t remember his exact words but they were something like this: “…Let me tell you what’s really been on my heart to share.” At this, Jorge’s voice rose several decibels and his arms began to move freely about. He went on to preach to us, the Broken Hearts team, about how we are missing the call of Christ to take up our cross daily, to sacrifice our “life” for Jesus’ sake. I had to hang my head and stare at the sidewalk as I listened because everything he said was true. There are many things in my life that I cling to instead of Jesus.

But that’s not all. As Jorge preached to us everyone shifted. Other team members responded like I did, but just as importantly, our friends from the street shifted too. The man who was standing beside Jorge sat down to face him. The man with the ball stopped talking about pizza, put the ball away, and focused solely on Jorge’s words.

When Jorge had finished sharing his thoughts, Antquan stood up and tied up some lose ends with scripture references, led us in prayer, and then broke us into groups for discussion. I bee-lined straight to Jorge. The first words out of his mouth were “I was horrible, wasn’t I? … I was rambling all over the place and I am not sure that I made any sense!” I couldn’t have disagreed more.

Antquan in the Parking Lot Church

I like pretty women and I really enjoy talking with them. Angry drunk men on the other hand are generally not quite as enjoyable for me. It should come as no surprise then that when I encountered two such drunken men last Thursday night I didn’t think my evening was getting off to a good start.

When I arrived on the streets of Hollywood last Thursday to meet up with the rest of the Broken Hearts Ministry team I quickly encountered a drunken man stumbling down the sidewalk toward me. He was so wobbly that he had to use the wall of the buildings to his left to keep from falling. I made eye contact with him as we approached each other and he seemed to have enough sense to fall onto a windowsill before I passed, presumably to avoid falling on me. As I passed him we made eye contact again and I smiled but we did not exchange words. After I had passed I heard him shout something angrily at me but I could not make out his words over the sounds of the rushing cars. Seconds later I met up with the team… who was being told a thing or two by a second drunk man.

The second drunk man, whom I will call ‘Mike’, was having a mostly one-way conversation with Antquan, one of the leaders of our team. Or so it seemed. Although Mike was closest to Antquan and Antquan was the only person who seemed to be acknowledging Mike, Mike was actually shouting his opinions and such to everyone within earshot. Eventually, Antquan had to break from Mike in order to lead our small team through a brief discussion and prayer before we split up and headed onto the sidewalks. That, apparently, was the first indication to Mike that we were some sort of religious group. Letting Mike know that we were a religious group was like dumping kerosene onto a campfire. In lieu of trying to do a play-by-play of everything said, let me just say that Mike has a lot of anger directed at a lot of people groups, but most of his anger is reserved for religious people and wealthy white men.

Antquan politely excused himself from the conversation with Mike but Mike was not interested in being quiet. Antquan tried to get us organized and lead us into prayer but Mike’s shouting made it extremely difficult to focus on anything else. Eventually, I broke from the group and tried to lead Mike away to talk with just me. He wasn’t interested in an audience of one though so he sidestepped and otherwise ignored me. Then one of our friends from the street, one of our regulars, helped me out by standing directly between Mike and the group. Mike continually sidestepped him so that didn’t last very long, but it did seem to work as a deterrent so I tried the same thing with varying effectiveness. At one point Mike stepped directly into the center of the group and I gently tugged at his shoulder to nudge him out, to which he reacted with a swift turn and an angry “Don’t touch me!” That was the last time I touched him, but I never stopped trying to maintain eye contact with him.

In case you are wondering, standing face to face with an angry drunk man in a parking lot late at night is just as scary as it sounds. My heart was trying to escape my chest nearly the whole time and at certain points I thought perhaps that it had succeeded. The whole time, though, I prayed. I prayed for safety, discernment, and wisdom. In trying to keep Mike from disturbing the rest of the group, I continually insisted that if he wanted to vent he should direct it at me because I was ready to listen. After several minutes of our sidestepping game of cat and mouse, he calmed down and had a seat on some nearby grass. I followed him and postured myself as if to say “Okay. Here I am. I am all ears.”

Before Antquan and the rest of the team dispersed, Antquan came by and invited Mike to join us for pizza later. My immediate gut reaction to Antquan’s gesture was, “Are you kidding me?! Have you already forgotten the last 20 minutes of madness?!” But then that internal voice went away and a softer but firmer voice said, “God loves this man just as much as you and everyone else. Regardless of what society thinks, no one should be excluded from God’s love. Everyone is valuable.”

So I spent the next twenty to thirty minutes sitting with Mike on the grass hearing some of his complaints. I also listened to some heartbreaking stories. After a while he felt guilty for some of the things he had said and done moments earlier so he said, “I don’t really hate God and I am not an atheist. I have just had a lot of bad experiences with church and religion. I wouldn’t say I love God, though, either.”

When midnight finally came around, I tried to wrap up the conversation and reminded Mike of the invitation to join the group for pizza. As he stood up, though, his personality seemed to shift. He insisted he needed a cigarette and after being denied by a few nearby club-goers he resorted to picking up used cigarette butts from the asphalt. Then he started shouting at the club-goers, the same remarks he had shouted at us earlier. As we slowly made our way down the street, Mike shouted at every single group of people. I felt like a parent with an ornery toddler in a grocery store. I was a little embarrassed.

In addition to shouting at every group we passed, Mike seemed to waiver about whether or not he actually wanted to join our team for pizza. He wanted the pizza and wanted to express himself but he was hesitant to get involved with a church group.

When we did finally approach the team, the make-shift church service was already in progress. Mike spotted everyone and seemed to shift into automatic. Can you guess what he did? … He quickly walked away from me and straight to the group where he started right into another one of his rants about how rich people suck and how our group, by extension, is personally to blame for all that is wrong with society. My thought as I witnessed this happen before my eyes was “Oh no!! What have I done?! I have brought a curse on our group!”

Some folks from the streets had joined the team for the church service and some of them shouted angrily back at Mike. One even got up and approached Mike. I thought for sure that something very bad was going to happen… but it didn’t. Mike realized how outnumbered he was and he went away. I was then able to join the team, for the first time, for a calm discussion.

Almost immediately after the group discussion ended and we broke up into smaller groups, Mike returned. This time, Antquan took on the role of listening to Mike’s rants but he also offered him some pizza and since there was no large group to disrupt he did not try to push him away. I meanwhile had some two-way conversations, including some with pretty women.

Frankly, only a small part of me saw much hope with Mike. Although there was that period where he had sat and entrusted me with certain secrets from his past, he had switched gears moments later and became “angry Mike” again. In my limited-capacity mind, I thought, “Once a drunk angry man, always a drunk angry man.”

Fortunately, that night, I acted in accordance with my hopeful self. I acted the way I felt God wanted me to act. I listened and I empathized with Mike. I truly felt sorry for him and I know that my face expressed that to him. In fact, moments before we approached and disrupted the church service we stopped on a street corner and I faced him while he ranted. His complaints were totally legitimate. We maintained eye contact and I connected with his pain. My skeptical self, the part of me that would have wanted nothing to do with Mike, took the night off.

Eventually, at 1:30 AM, I went home. When I left I think Mike was sitting on the sidewalk next to the table where the pizza had been before it had all been consumed. In other words, he was still with the remnants of the team.

The next day I received the following message from one of my teammates, Michelle. I will close with this because I believe it speaks for itself.

Jeremiah- the time you invested in Mike last night, God really used, in a bigger way than we will ever know. I know God used all of us in his life last night. He continued to hang out with us on the street till we left at around 230am. He asked us “why did you guys give me the time of day, and listen to me? No one listens to me. Why did you want to hang out with me?” We just said “because we love you, and God loves you even more.” He teared up and thanked us.