Innocence Lost In the Garden of Love

When I was in first grade I loved Jennifer Shust. I composed the most brilliant message to her with all the prose and wit a first grader could muster. 

"When we grow up, do you want to marry me. Check yes or no."

Moved by the powerful words and declarations of love and perhaps my penchant for "John Denver" shirts and smooth dutch boy haircut, she said yes. We made an appointment to kiss in the play log cabin during recess. Said kiss was intercepted by Mrs Loomis who had heard through the rumor mill of our engagement. 

True love could not be stopped, however. On the way home from school I kissed her on the cheek and she kissed me on the cheek. Blushing was in abundance and love was in the air. It was that simple. 

In time the engagement would be forgotten and we were too busy being kids to put the proper work into the relationship. There was never a formal breakup, we just were distracted by shiny objects. Hell, we drifted apart but there was no heartbreak and there was no drama or hurt.

The garden of love was fresh and innocent. The soil was ripe, the weeds were scarce, the young seedlings were in good soil and tended by gardeners known as parents. Love was easy. In our innocence was also an ignorance that helped preserve the innocence. 

We grow up, though. We get lied to. We get hurt. The words love are used as tools to control, to own, to manipulate. Things are done to us in the name of love and we sometimes do things that are not loving and speak words of love. 

As we grow and mature and our ignorance decreases, we become aware and the innocence is lost. We learn that gardens have weeds. We learn some flowers or plants do not thrive well too close to others. We learn that there are predators who will see the garden as a feast to devour and destroy. We learn there are negligent gardeners, or even worse, gardeners that fertilize other gardens while ignoring the very one they planted. These facts are simple realities, but when it is our garden, they can frustrate, hurt and destroy us to the very core of our being,

Some find love in this awareness and embrace it with another when they are younger. Together they tend and care for the garden and the fruit is beautiful and vibrant and good and as long as they continue to maintain it, it is good.

Others find their garden destroyed from neglect or abuse again and again and again until there seems to be nothing left save some parched land and browning weeds. Gardening becomes frustrating and good gardens cannot possibly exist. There is the dream of a lush and vibrant garden, but it is just that, merely a dream. Those may even look at other gardens and wonder when the weeds will choke the life out of those and the bugs and vermin will trample them to ruin just like what has happened to theirs. 

When you are shoved in the dirt and covered in shit it is hard to believe that the garden of love can thrive. The awareness has replaced the innocence. We all too often settle for what is there knowing that weeds have the life giving nutritional value of sawdust and we waste away grieving. 

So should someone equally hurt see a seed shoved in the dirt and covered in shit, they may see the beauty of soil and fertilizer where something just might grow?

But how do you trust that gardener? How do you look at light and rain and tending and trust it? It always starts off with promises and enthusiasm, right? It always starts with the promise of the garden to be. When the words are just words, then that is all there is....words.

These gardens are harder to tend. But that lack of ignorance has a brighter side, the knowledge of what is needed and the patience to allow the seed the space it needs to grow along with the invitation to truly get some dirt under the nails and sweat on the brow. 

It is hard work, especially in the early going. The soil needs to be turned and uprooted so the weeds can be exposed and gently removed, even the ones with spikes and thorns. The soil will need the nutrients of love and light and honesty and constant presence. Curious predators will try to revisit the garden they once devoured and have to be shooed away. But with the right effort, the right time, and with sore knees, sweaty brows and calloused hands the seed will sprout from the earth it was shoved and the garden will begin to grow. 

There is a book in the Bible that makes no mention of the divine, but does express the divine love and passion between between two people. That book is called Song of Songs or Song of Solomon. It is poetry. Love poetry. 

In it, it speaks of the gardens. Here is a sample

Come my beloved let us go out into the fields
and lie all night among the flowering henna.
Let us go early to the vineyards
to see if the vine has budded,
if the blossoms have opened
and the pomegranate is in flower.
There I will give you my love.
and at our doors
is rare fruit of every kind, my love,
I have stored away for you.

...of pomegranate trees heavy with fruit,
flowering henna and spikenard,
spikenard and saffron, cane and cinnamon,
with every tree of frankincense,
myrrh and aloes,
all the rare spices.

You are a fountain in the garden,
a well of living waters
that stream from Lebanon.
breathe upon my garden,
let its spices stream out.
Let my lover come into his garden
and taste its delicious fruit.
I have come into my garden,
my sister, my bride,

I have gathered my myrrh and my spices,
I have eaten from the honeycomb,
I have drunk the milk and the wine.
to see the new green by the brook,
to see if the vine had budded,
if the pomegranate trees were in flower.
And oh! before I was aware,
she sat me in the most lavish of chariots.

I could go on, especially to the bits about feasting in the garden together all night until the dawn comes. 

The only way we will ever get to truly taste the fruits of the garden of love, the more work and tending in neglected gardens we will have to take. It comes with risk. It comes with dangers. It is full of weeds and predators and the soil has been damaged from past events. But it is worth it.

Does our lack of ignorance make the prospect of the garden more difficult than we thought when we were innocent? Of course it does. However, the awareness and wisdom can also serve to make us better gardeners and produce the sweetest fruit and most luscious garden you have ever imagined. Then you can delight in the garden you dreamed of in innocence because you helped create it with someone who shared your vision and got the joke. 

Now, if you will excuse me, I have some soil to till. 

Taking Chances In Love and Death

I am up way past my bedtime. I just finished a mixed day filled with wonder, some conflict, and then lessons that ended on a good note because love's compass calibrated the map again as love tends to do.

Now, that is not the story for this blog. The day just got me thinking about new territories and risk. In my life I have prided myself on taking risks. However, as I analyze those risks I realize something. Some risks I have taken because of love and other risks I have taken because I did not care if I lived or died.

When I was a boy, my dad left me at a young age. From the age of 4 till the age of 13 I would not see him. Yeah, I got letters when he was driving a taxi, but that was the high point of our relationship until we got to rebuild. Then I got a step father who was a very cruel and abusive man. It was pretty extreme. But I had good grandparents who grabbed what was left of me and took me in. But there was that still nagging thing in me that believed for a time the lies told me. That I was nothing, worthless, and only good for abandonment or abuse.

This led to some of the risks of not caring if I lived or died. Here is an example. The high school I went to was the next town over. Every day on the way to school I had my friends, Dan, Todd and Mary in the car. I would take the back farm road full of potholes and poor repair and bury the needle on my '73 CHevy Laguna. Rust and bondo and paint would fly in a trail behind me. I was always driving like that. It did not matter if I lived or died. One day, my Sr year, I was zipping through a residential area and I saw a dad grab his kid close to him and yell at me to slow down. I did not see or hear anger on his face or in his voice. Worse. It was fear. Fear for the safety of his child. I slowed down and stopped driving like a dick. Love compelled me. His love for his child made me realize that my actions affected others.

Now, also in HS, there was a friend who called me. She was at a party at a college with another girlfriend. She thought her friend had been slipped something and she was not feeling very well herself. I took a risk. I went to DeKalb Illinois as fast as I could, walked in the middle of a frat party and got them out. There was conflict, but I loved my friends and I was not gonna let anything happen to them despite the fact I was outnumbered and scared out of my mind.

In the name of love I took a risk and started a youth outreach called YASO (Young Adults Speak Out). We had kids who were addicts, GLBT in a town that did not welcome that, rape and abuse victims, and even victims of human trafficking. We had other issues too. In the name of love, we made a difference in a big way.

Later I would go through a divorce and make some mistakes after that divorce and my give a fuck broke again. I took a sales job and for the first time in my life in sales, I goose egged every day. My heart was not in it because my worth was for shit. Then I took the job, after trying to find another job for months as the bank account dwindled to nothing, as a taxi driver. The deeper into the night I went, the more risks I took. Anyone who read my book knows that some of those risks were in the name of love. But there were other risks that were born of a place of not caring if I lived or died. Those risks were more violent. That is all I will say about those risks. One, in particular, damn near took my life and the full weight of that was a wake up call. Because in that moment of life and death I realized that love mattered and that was the risk worth taking. I also thought it was too late.

So now, here I am, for the first time in a long time, taking risks seeped in love. But it has an interesting pendulum swing to it. I have lost a lot in this life. In the year I became a taxi a driver I saw three drivers die (Gary, Tully and Johnny). My dad died. A homeless friend died. A victim of human trafficking I knew was butchered to death. A regular passenger of mine that I took to dialysis died from health complications. The year before that I faced the loss of dreams and hopes and friendships as person after person let me down in what we were trying to preserve and keep alive in YASO. The year before that I saw my marriage crumble and became a weekend dad and made some mistakes I had to face. I faced my own health dwindling from poor diet in the taxi, long hours, no medical care access and other matters. In other words, never before in that time of not caring about living or dying had I lost so much in so short a time in so many different arenas of life. There was never time to mourn one loss as I moved on to the next one.

So when I did wake up and return to a life where the better risks, the risks for love was in play, there also came with it a fear of more loss and due to the brush with death, a need for a better and longer life that makes safer decisions...but also a fear of death...which is healthy in some respects, but can sometimes get in the way.

Wanting to hold on to the things that are precious are good. Wanting to live a long and healthy life is good. But even that good thing can become bad when we forget what the Buddhist teach us about attachment. They teach that the source of pain in attachment. Learning to let go of that new found attachment is a process, that unfortunately, does not happen overnight. You learn, you identity, you take action and make better choices as you learn. Interesting side note. I did not realize the source of the attachment until I started writing this damn blog post and that is a good thing because it helps me move forward better.

Anyway, there is an upside. The risks taken now are in the name of love. Love for myself, love for others. Love for an us and in all things...love.

We are told to take things safe and that is the pragmatic path. Honestly, love is a risk and it can never happen well without risk. In walking in love there will be new frontiers and territories to navigate. That walking into the unknown is not a bad thing. It is good and necessary, but it is a risk.

Look, this can apply to any act of love from starting a new charity like a food bank all the way to a couple in love.

The couple has to do the crazy thing and say....I like you. I like you back. Now what?

The 'missionary' has to do the crazy thing and say....I want to start something in a poor and dangerous area that helps people.

The couple has to learn about each other and invest time and patience into laying the groundwork for love.

The missionary has to learn about the needs, find a place and work out the logistics to lay the groundwork for love.

The couple will have to, after falling in love, deal with the new territories of life together. What that means with families, friends and other pockets of life.

The missionary will have to, after falling in love, deal with the new territories of life in mission. What it means with the clients, the volunteer, the donors and the community.

In each of these steps, there is a risk. The risks could ultimately lead to loss. But if you are too attached to the fear of loss and the fear of death and morning, they will hold back the better and more lovely parts of the risks.

In life we learn to take a fall before we can learn how to take a punch and we need to learn to take a punch before we can learn to fight for the things worth fighting for.

In any risk, there is no promise of success. That couple may end up deliriously happy and never have to fear that kind of loss again and that food pantry may feed an entire community and bring attention to the plight of the ones in need in such a manner that there will be no more need. There is also the possibility that the couple may not make it and the food pantry may never come to life or last very long.

Actions of love contain risk and the negative things we attach ourselves will reduce the odds of a happy ending.  We need to let go of the things that hold us back and hold us down.

The risks we take when living and dying do not matter. Those are nothing more than a numb person looking for an adrenaline rush. It is nothing more than self medication in the hopes of feeling life as opposed to numb.

The risks of someone with nothing to lose because they care about nothing is far less noble and worth chasing than the risks made in love where, you or others may very well have nothing, but they have everything to gain and more if they pull it off.

The point?

Risk for love, not death. But when risking for love, do not fear death.

Navigating the Chasm Where Love's in the Crossfire

When I wrote my book, one the lessons I learned that inspired me was how alike we are in our differences. A Christian would say we are Imago Dei  (the image of god concept is universal in Judaism and Islam as well), one in an Eastern religion would say we see Namaste in all, a Buddhist will say we are all Buddha and atheists will say we are all made of the same common star dust.

At the core of all these mindsets we are made of the same stuff and therefore equal. In all of these mindsets people celebrate love. They marry, they court, they reproduce, write poetry, sing songs and have ceremonies and rituals that express two people (or more) have become one in harmony.

All of that equality seems to go away in the wake of tragedy and it is getting worse in the land of social media. People who have grown up together, are related and have spent lifetimes loving will say the most horrific things through memes and repetitive talking points. We shame and never take the time to see the other side. We demand that those who do not react the same we do are less.

We vilify and we destroy and we dare to say we are better than terrorists. We spread fear and hate for those not in our tribe. We sometimes assault those in our tribes for thinking differently than the party line in whatever line we may have drawn.

We are made of the same stuff, but we do not live like the other is like us when we are put to the test.

We are always so afraid and so angry. We spread that fear throughout humanity like a virus with no antibody.

I watch helplessly in the chasm while people I love are lobbing accusations and vilification at each other. As I sit here I think of our children. I sometimes see people in horrific relationships or marriages where everything is broken, loveless and abusive and when they have kids my heart breaks because I realize that this is what they have taught their children by life example, what is acceptable under the banner of love. They endorse every day what love is not and claim it is. They certainly do not want this life for their kids, but they are so lost they continue the chain of codependency.

With every tweet, post, re blog and flame war we show our children that there is no Imago Dei, namaste, buddha or common stardust. There is only us and them and they are less. We are more. In that moment, we become what we claim to be against.

Refugees, France, Isis, racism, homelessness and on and on. These are scary things that have more nuances to resolving them than memes can do. To even hope to resolve these things, we are going to need to see each other as equals. To do any less will have us where we are now...reducing the tragedy of hurting human beings to memes to be used as tokens in our need to be right and superior.

When I speak of love, I am not speaking of woo woo where we hold hands and sing kumbaya around a fire after smoking a joint. I am speaking of something that is very difficult. The road to love is a hard road. It forces us to pause, see the other person as an equal and then try to identify or at least understand their mindset as opposed to dismissing it (and them). What I speak about love is a road that leaves us vulnerable, humble, changeable in our views and forces us to take actions for the common good as opposed to selfish interest.

It is the harder road. It is the better road. It is the only way we are getting out of this alive.

Join the lovers. We are in the chasm you created avoiding crossfire while trying to keep as many as we can from drowning. We have no weapons. But we have the strength and conviction and courage to love well even when we do not have answers that fit in a tweet.

The Truth Of The Troubadour

When I was twelve years old, I went to my first Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin. As one of those Dungeons and Dragons kids (before geek culture was cool), it was pure magic. Archers, jousters, costumes, jugglers, people in character. I enjoyed all of it.

There was a man standing beneath an oak tree wearing a poet shirt, a vest and loose velvet pants playing a lute and singing. My family wanted to see other things and eat. I promised I would stay right there and they could bring me back a ka-bob or a turkey leg. I did not really care. I was transfixed by the music. The songs he sang were songs of courtly love. They were poems set to music. Sometimes they were heroic, other times funny, a little dirty, or even a little sad. In them all was the love between two people.

I do not know how many songs I sat there for. I listened entranced. My family came back and my uncle handed me a turkey leg dripping with bbq sauce that ran onto my hand and forearm. He told me that it was time to go see other things. I asked if we could listen to one more song. I could not believe the front row seat I had to this oak tree performance. Most people would stay for a few moments and move on. I pleaded for one more song. The man looked at me and asked me my name. I gave it enthusiastically. This musical genius addressed me! In character, he said, "Master Patrick, this last song is for you, lad."

15 years before Loreena McKennit would set the poem to music, he played his lute and sang, "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes. For the first time in my life a poem and a song would make me cry. The landlord's black eyed daughter and the highwayman died horribly with their love incomplete and unfulfilled, but their love was true. The injustice of it all burned in my throat and left a hole in my heart.

For the rest of the day, I was less interested in the swordplay and more interested in the stories of the jousts and the fights as a true knight would fight for the honor of a lady. The love story mattered more than the dragons. My mind thought less of hit points and 20 sided die and entered into a world where love was what we should fight for.

As we were nearing the end of the day, the man under the tree was walking about. He saw me and smiled as he knelt before me and said, "Master Patrick, I was hoping I would see you again. I have a gift for the young troubadour."

He remembered my name! "What is a troubadour?" I asked.

"A troubadour is a traveling musician who sings of courtly love, Master Patrick. Some believe we started our craft in the south of France and others think we are much more ancient than that. We remind people that love is the most important thing in the world. It is splendid and divine. The philosophers think too hard and pride themselves on frivolous matters, the bishops and priests would have us not think at all and kings merely want blind obedience. But love. Love, Master Patrick, when it is true, when it is right, is a force that can make men and women stronger than they realize. It frees them no matter how strong their binds. It can also destroy us when it is lost. It is something that only the lovers and the poets can understand. It is the troubadour's calling and mission to remind the world to love."

"Wow!" was all I could think to say. I was in wonder that there were people who had such an important task.

"Master Patrick," he said, "I was going to get you a pan flute, but I am but a poor troubadour and you must be Irish. I've never met an Irish troubadour or a joglar, but I am sure he would use a tin whistle." With that, he handed me a cheap tin whistle. He told me that I was charged with the task of learning the art of the troubadour and gaining a mastery of language so I could tell people the importance of love. He mussed my hair with his hand, stood, and walked away.

The tin whistle stayed with me until I was 30 years old when it, among other treasures, was lost in a house fire.

From that point of my meeting my first troubadour, my love of music had taken a new direction. I gravitated to lyrics that were poetic and sang of love. I fell for the artists who were storytellers as opposed to a clever hook. I learned the troubadour would also sing of history and the truth of us all. They sometimes held a mirror to us to show us the distortions we have become and through love, what we could be.

My first Walkman was magical. My first book of poetry was dog eared. I was that kid that made mix tapes and memorized poems. I even competed in poetry and prose in my high school's speech team.

There came a very dark period where I stopped living in the belief that love mattered. I was a shadow of my former self. I was angry. I was dead. I was rage or numb. I was almost lost when life sent a slicing blade that would cut through the living death I was in and remind me that for years I had also heard the song of a trobairitz. I just did not listen.

Now, in my mid forties, I have the heart of the troubadour. I am not much of a singer. I can do a few chords on a few instruments, but I will never be a composer. However, I have the heart of the troubadour. The man under the tree changed me. On my Facebook page I likely irritate or confuse my friends with what I call hymns. They are songs from you-tube. They are mostly songs of courtly love. True love. Lyrically, they are as poetic as we can be in this age in a music industry that has no idea what they are supposed to be anymore. I share the songs of the troubadours that I can find. I share them with the world, but I also share them for more personal reasons in the same manner that I email, or even recite them, to the one that has awakened the troubadour's heart and reminded me that love is the most important thing we can do. Love can awaken dead hearts, save lives, free slaves and inspire the courtly love that drives couples to be amazing together.

The truth of the troubadours are always there. Be they under a tree, on a stage or sitting across from you having coffee. Look to the truth of their love stories and be lost in the lesson of their song. Their song and their truth is out there, we just need to listen.

And now abides faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The Story So Far And New Beginnings

I have some regular readers that have known me for a long time and there may be some new readers.

So here is the story so far and reasoning for this new beginning.

Writing began in 2004. I was an advocate/brand ambassador for desktop Linux. When I had pissed off an executive of two software companies, he called me nothing more than a high brow software pirate. I thought it was cool being a pirate so I rolled with it.

In 2006 I felt a call to return to ministry (I was a minister from 1992 through about 1998). I started a new blog at that point called "From Highbrow Pirate to Hometown Pastor". It no longer exists, but in that time I discovered a passion for writing and story telling. I did not know how personal that story would get.

I was guest blogging here and there and by 2009 I started writing in the local paper my church was. It was a monthly column that gave me 700 words to express my thoughts on humanity, god, society, human rights and so much more.

Life was pretty good. I had a church that was making a difference. I had a kid that was (and is) amazing. I had a family. I was in leadership positions in the Emergent Village Cohorts, the Outlaw Preachers, The Progressive Christian Alliance, the Order of Franciscan Servants and even the local Clergy Alliance and a missional resource center. I was also trying terribly hard to be a big deal.

That was when it all fell apart.

Divorce, church fracturing, child was going through hell, I lost my apartment and had a few relationships that were disasters.

I found myself driving a taxi and I wrote about my adventures in a blog and even wrote a book.

The stories are good, but I need to be honest about life in a taxi at night. The darkness consumes you. Average driver in the Chicago metropolitan area works 13 hour shifts 25 out of every 30 days for less than $5 an hour. It is a long story how that is legal, but it is even worse for those in Uber and Lyft vehicles.

Living that kind of life. Working 72 hours a week for about $12,000 a year does something to a man while facing the darkness of humanity, getting ripped off, beaten down and shit on. Your faith ebbs away. Not just in the institution of religion and god, but humanity, government, society and yourself.

It is a deconstruction into nothing. You no longer care if you live or die because you are in a constant state of numb. At least, that was true for me.

I was angry all the time and lost in the woods. People who used to be brothers and sisters in arms became the brunt of my anger. Those who were not the brunt of it were afraid of becoming so. The few friends I had were stolen moments of light and an oasis in the midst of a personal hell. There was one very special oasis that took place a few times a year at Starbucks. Of them all, it was my lifeline and almost a guilty pleasure. I was me again for a few brief moments, and then I would go back into a nightmare that would make Dante' wet himself.

Then something happened that I am not ready to talk about yet because it is too personal. I will say this. The ultimate result of consuming hatred and anger and bitterness is death. When faced with the literal power of that death, I realized that I cared about life more than I thought. I also realized I no longer liked being angry and numb. It was exhausting. I wanted to live and to love.

So I did just that. I live again and I love again. I told the coffee oasis that I love her. I made sure my child knew he is loved. I stopped being angry online and insulting everyone and everything.

But I learned something else. Love without anger and a jaded edge earns you a lot less likes and shares on social media than angst does. I am happier and less popular. I can live with that. I feel and live again.

I have to believe that there are others out there who love matters for. Who are tired of anger and see good in all things.

In this blog I will tell the stories of my own love and life. I also want to find the other Outlaws of Love and tell their stories.

So. If you are interested in sharing this new chapter, please do. If not, that is fine too.

I have nothing to sell. I am not trying to lead a charge. I just want to tell good love stories and stories of life. I want to tell our story. Stories of those who had to lose everything to gain life. Who lost faith only to find new things to believe in.

Hope you keep reading. Hope I explained the point well.

Share. Comment. Love. Live.