On My Worst Day

by John Lynch

  Still twisted and gasping, he strides even with Burton. And with one more shockingly fast stride, he leans forward—

  … And hits the tape first.

  The crowd around me is wild with stunned delirium! Stacey, next to me, is moaning a crying yelp, blended with a guttural howling. I look over at her. We both are crying. I scan over to see my father. He’s three rows in front of me. Instead of taking in all the whoopla in front of him, he turns back to stare at me. I have never before seen him make this openmouthed, stunned, ear-to-ear smile.

  Late in the night, with everyone asleep in our Tucson hotel room, I lie in bed with our video camera propped on my chest. In the dark, I am watching the race over and over—to make sure it still actually happened.

  John, there is funny and then there is you under those bleachers. One of the perks of my job is I get to see wonderful moments no one else does. And I get to create moments like that frozen stare between you and your father. That too, was prepared from before the world began. I have many more such moments coming. This life is hard. It will get harder. But my extravagant love does not begin in heaven. I love you in the now.

  Oh, about Caleb. You know he wasn’t supposed to win that race, right? Ninety nine times out of a hundred, he wouldn’t have. But what he said to me on the backstretch; it overwhelmed me. I am undone at such daring trust.

  2003

  Bob Ryan and I are in Tempe this evening. With three hundred others, we are packed into a bar named Gibson’s, waiting for the concert to begin. Bob and I have cowritten most of the scripts for Sharkey productions over these years. He’s become one of my closest friends. He’s the most gifted writer and songwriter I know. Brilliant, well-read, and exceedingly funny, he may understand Flannery O’Connor and Bob Dylan better than they understand themselves. In the seventies, his folk-rock band was being groomed for a contract with Asylum records, until drugs did him in before the band could make it into the studio. He can sing all the harmony parts to “49 Bye-Byes” and still writes and records exceptional music informed by that era.

  He tells me the truth about my preaching. He has cared enough to call me out in my nonsense. He enjoys and understands my particular gifting as much as anyone I know. He has stayed close to me when I have run others off.

  … And he is an absolute mess. He has lived for decades with a deep, abiding faith in Jesus and carrying a heavy backpack of compulsions, obsessions, and addictions. He represents millions. Maybe he represents all of us. I know there is an entire strain of Christendom which teaches such dissonance cannot exist in a “real” believer. But I will choose to walk with his deeply dependent faith over a crowded, shiny ship full of pietistically, self-managed strivers. So will God.

  As a young pastor, with no small Messiah complex, I used to believe I could help “fix” Bob. I couldn’t. I can’t. Eventually, in some ways, he will probably be more of my teacher than I will be his. Bob has clumsily trusted God for any health he carries. Such is the astounding beauty given to those who stay in community long enough.

  Awakening: All untested religious answers get tested over time. Only what is from love remains.

  This is when the wisdom of dependence and humility begin to reign. Friends stop posturing and become real to each other.

  He and I have gone through so much there is very little pretense anymore. Ten years from now, when I set out to write this book, it is his voice I will first need to hear. We will set aside several days and go north. We will be sitting on a cabin’s deck, overlooking the forest surrounding Prescott. I will ask him what he thinks of my idea to write this book. He will puff slowly on his cigar and say:

  “John, you’re not nearly as good a writer as you are a speaker. When you speak, you have this supernatural God-presence thing. When you write … not so much. You will have to be you. Don’t write to make a point you think you should. Don’t bully people you disagree with. Sometimes, on your blogs, you go after an enemy I’m not even sure exists. Write what you want to write and only that. If you don’t represent these truths with the natural, unforced story of your life by now, you probably haven’t believed it anyway. Tell your story. Don’t prove anything. Who knows? Maybe some of the stories will be salvageable to perform on the road. That’s where you’re best.”

  See what I mean?

  Anyway, this evening, we are seeing Bruce Cockburn in concert. Bob introduced me to his music ten years ago. If I could see only one more concert before I leave the planet, it would still be Cockburn. He’s a Canadian with a slightly better following than retired bull rider Bobo Gleason. He’s spanned five decades, playing a combination of folk and rock which seems created exactly for me. He’s angry, while profoundly and tenderly hopeful.

  He’s a God lover. You wouldn’t catch it by much of his music. But some of the most transcendent words about Jesus I’ve ever heard were penned by him. For me, with few exceptions, those considered “Christian artists” carry some measure of synthesized feel to their music. I know that sounds smug and immature. But what Bob told me about writing is true about music. Those who aren’t trying to prove anything prove the most. How many lines are better than “fascist architecture of my own design”? Or, “You tore me out of myself alive.”

  Cockburn will play this song in the next few minutes. He wrote it back in the eighties. I will stare—transfixed and closer than usual to my place in the universe. The song will be the anthem for the rest of my journey.

  Fascist architecture of my own design

  Too long been keeping my love confined

  You tore me out of myself alive

  Those fingers drawing out blood like sweat

  While the magnificent façades crumble and burn

  The billion facets of brilliant love

  The billion facets of freedom turning in the light

  Bloody nose and burning eyes

  Raised in laughter to the skies

  I’ve been in trouble but I’m okay

  Been through the wringer but I’m okay

  Walls are falling and I’m okay

  Under the mercy and I’m okay

  Gonna tell my old lady

  Gonna tell my little girl

  There isn’t anything in the world

  That can lock up my love again

  2003

  It’s February 16. I’m sitting on a stool on the back patio at the Encanto restaurant in Cave Creek. Stacey has been planning this fiftieth birthday party a long time. I have chosen to celebrate my birthday by taking this occasion to list and describe the hundred greatest influencers of my life. Many of them sit around these tables.

  It will be the last time I will have this large a gathering for a birthday. I am as much in the middle of community life as I will ever again be. I will be known much more outside my little world not long from now. But I don’t yet realize how deeply I will miss this group, which will change and grow smaller over the next decade.

  I’ve asked for there to be no affirmation time tonight. Such has been done for me, in astonishing measure these last twenty years, more than for anyone I know. My friends have each come with written notes that I will cry my way through before bed early in the morning. Tonight is to affirm them, to affirm our community, our way of life. I am in the middle of a predestined moment—to bless not only those at the tables but all who have been part of this improbable journey to grace. I am fully in the moment, fully made for this moment, fully apart of it, fully undone simply in the affirming these lives who have helped save my own.

  Stacey has arranged for Steven Larson to share a hilarious piece he has written, mocking my every idiosyncrasy. He is one of my all-time favorite humans, and perhaps the funniest person I know. He won’t let up. All of us are laughing like hyenas, filled with helium, gasping for breath.

  At some point, a song is played. I look around the gathering and get lost in this thought:

  You took this chameleon, who never felt known, and you let me be known. With no pretense, no props. These people have se
en the worst and best of me. They value me, and allow me to influence them. How do I thank you for this? This evening feels about as good as this life will ever be able to give. You saw this too, didn’t you? You put this together, with all my tastes, desires and favorite moments. You knew exactly what I’d want.

  Drink it in kid. I’m sitting in the back, watching every moment. This is what I could see the evening Arlene broke up with you. You have no idea what your seventieth birthday will be like. Oops! Shared more than I probably should have. “Waiter, another glass of Syrah, please.”

  2003

  Amy and I are sitting in my car, up on the mountain again. Same pattern each time. I buy her a chocolate shake from Wendy’s and we drive, north of Lincoln and Thirty-Second Street, until we are overlooking the city. I ask a few questions. She gives short, begrudging responses. We sit some more. When I realize it’s not going anywhere, I drive us back down the hill. This is drive number six.

  I’m not sure what else to do.

  Amy’s been hiding her life from us—going to bed when we do and then slipping out later to the computer, entering conversations she knows we’d fight her on. She’s becoming more closed off. She’s been fighting everyone’s protection of her and hiding communications from a world she doesn’t want us to know about. Now, she’s pulled away. I never wanted this in my family. I thought I’d done everything to prevent it. I find myself going into “cop” mode, where I make ultimatums and threats of loss of privileges. I hate this. I never wanted to be that dad.

  I think she’s not opening up to me because she’s not sure she can trust me. I’ve been pretty absent for awhile now, buried in my own aspirations. Amy pays the most of anyone for the absence of my emotional presence. She’s forced to figure things out herself, to come to her own conclusions, formed in isolation.

  I am only now seeing it. I’m desperately trying to earn my way back into a trust that can protect her heart. She wants it so much but does not want to be fooled again. She can’t tell if my sudden attention is because I’m doing the good Christian dad thing, or because I adore her with everything in me.

  Today’s approach is different. I have no agenda. I want my daughter to know my sorrow, my apology, my commitment. I am tired of fighting her. I want back in, so badly. After a few minutes of silence, I blurt out:

  “Amy, I don’t know if you believe me yet. But I would give up everything I am or can do. I’d move our family to Grass Valley and deliver mail to convince you of my love. I don’t have anyone in the world I love more. No one. I will do anything to convince you I want to be your fan, your protector, your hero. I will not lose you, my daughter. I’m so sorry I’ve been so self-consumed. You needed me, and I wasn’t there. It will not happen again.”

  That day she melted. She believed me. She opened up and poured out her sadness. She let me back in. For the next year we will meet almost every week for coffee before school. We will go through Proverbs, 1 Peter, 2 Timothy, John. Mostly, we will talk—about everything and anything. She is listening to me in a way I have never been listened to. I am listening in a way I’ve not listened before. I am getting to be a father in a way my father longed for with me.

  One afternoon, months later, I ask Amy for her keys so I can put her new registration form into her car’s glove box. I open the door and there, taped all across her dash, are 3-by-5 cards, with verses and quotes from our times together. I stand, transfixed, at that dash for a long time. … My daughter has been drinking it all in all along. She is wanting to live out the life her father is trying to describe.

  I come into the house, not knowing what to say. She’s sitting on the couch, staring at her laptop. Had she thought about me seeing those cards when she gave me her keys? I choose to not say anything and she doesn’t seem to be waiting for my response. I sit near my daughter, smiling, as I thumb through a magazine.

  Awakening: My children desperately need me to own my failures.

  … It allows them to trust me so they can express their own pain, vulnerability and best moments.

  2004

  “I’m going to do it this time. I’m going to quit. I’m quitting Truefaced. I’m not pretending.” This has been the theme on my last thirty or so walks with Stacey. She knows me so well. Anymore, she nods her head and smiles, “That’s nice, dear. Tell them I said hello.”

  Nobody’s taking me seriously. But I will do it. I mean it.

  It’s been too much. If I don’t take a stand, nobody’s going to advocate for me. I’m working half-time at the church as the preacher and half-time with Bill and Bruce speaking and writing for Truefaced. Two halftime roles are turning out to be three fulltime roles.

  I’m seething, feeling taken advantage of, not sufficiently appreciated. So I write up my resignation letter.

  I’ve done this all my life. When things get hard or strange, I become a free agent and give myself permission to make all my decisions, in isolation. Then I move on, thinking I’m thriving for awhile—until the next conflict.

  I call Bruce and ask for the two of them to meet with me. I say something cryptic like: “It’s very important. It’s about my future and stuff.”

  I walk into the room the next day to find them both at one end of the table. I sit at the far other end. Before anything can be said, I dramatically slide my letter of resignation toward them. Bruce picks it up and both of them study it with serious intent. They speak quietly for several moments. Then, Bruce looks up at me and says, “Bill and I categorically reject your resignation.”

  “What?” It takes a moment for me to process his words. “You can’t. This is America. I can quit if I want. You can’t reject it. It’s not your call.”

  It gets quiet.

  I glance up to see tears in Bill’s eyes. He says, “Of course you can resign. And we could not stop you. … It’s just … that I don’t want to do this without you. I guess I thought when the time came it would be because we all had a chance to talk it through and agree it was the best thing. John, I’m intentionally tied to you. I committed myself to you. And I’m not sure what to do now.”

  It gets quiet again.

  “Would it help if instead of giving us this letter, maybe you could let us hear what we’ve been doing to hurt you and maybe we could work together to correct it? You can quit at any time during the conversation. But we might be able to correct this and get to be together for a long time. Would you like that?”

  “… Yes, I guess I’d like that.”

  It’s what I wanted all along. It’s what I’d wanted all my life. I’d just never found a place where such was possible.

  Awakening: When leaders stay long enough to work through pain, hurt, and disappointment, those who walk through their doors innately sense something real.

  That day we talk and listen, apologize, forgive, and playfully mock each other. Later, I tell God I want to never again unilaterally declare an independence from my commitment to either of them again.

  I don’t think I have sufficient words to describe what the commitment and friendship of those two men standing by me has meant to me, to my family, to the expression of everything I’ve longed to do with my life. The three of us, for many, many years have been trying out an experiment of faith tens of thousands are now risking, all over the world. We are believing we are better together. The power of us in relationship is truly more profound than what I can do alone. Giving a gospel of anything less misrepresents what God is after.

  Awakening: When we give another a safe and authentic place to be known in their failing, we protect them from true failure.

  John, this will not be the last time you run. You will try to run again. And again. But you have learned something today which will guide you and protect you for the rest of your life. You realized you are not a free agent. You have loved and are deeply loved. This love creates a responsibility and a commitment. You are no longer as free to run. You may all agree one day to disband ministering together. But you will not disband your friendships. You are no
longer free to do life independently. You are no longer free to let expediency and opportunity run roughshod over commitments of love. This is much of what it means to be owned by love. It is what many have hoped for but not seen in action. As clumsily as you do it, it gives majestic hope to others watching it.

  2008

  It’s been several weeks now since I returned from the eleventh annual “Ernest Borgnine Memorial Music Appreciation Society” weekend. A long way back, about fifteen of us, all good friends and addicted lovers of music, decided we would get together several times a year to share our favorite pieces with each other. We needed a name. Someone tossed Ernest’s name into the mix. It seemed to fit. An actor, who’s been in film and television for over half a century. I think we liked the name, and the fact he seemed to be such an affable, approachable personality. So, for over ten years we’ve been getting together, each of us usually arriving with CDs burned of thirty to forty-five minutes of music representing our lives.

  To begin each event, we play the theme music from McHale’s Navy while a giant smiling placard of Ernest sits in front of us. On our turn, we each usually give some introduction, explaining how we’re doing, often including extensive printed packets of lyrics, pictures, artist biography, or our own written reflections on why we picked our particular music. It’s a sacred and sometimes absurdly wild time. We pray for each other. Someone usually plays their own music. There’s always great food, cigars, and a featured wine pairing by the resident bartender. During each man’s “set,” no one gets up or speaks much at all, respecting each other’s offerings. Last year was the culmination.

  Several got the idea of writing to Ernest and letting him know what we do. We knew we risked freaking him out—seventeen grown men playing music in front of a placard drawing of him.

  But we thought it worth the risk.