It’s time to clear the air. To let the cat out of the proverbial bag. I’ve carried the secret, along with a select few other people, for long enough. Integrity demands that somebody, after 30-plus years, say something. I guess it’ll have to be me.
Okay, deep breath, here goes:
There is no Earl Trimbley.
Okay, exhale. I’ll pause here to let that sink in… I know it’s a shock. Now here, the late Paul Harvey fans (not his real name, either), is “the rest of the story.” [click to continue…]
Awards season is in full swing. The Golden Globes, Grammys, and Emmys are history. The Oscars are approaching. That can only mean one thing:
Michael Minutoli is probably close by.
Michael Minutoli is a party crasher, and without a doubt one of the best. For more than 15 years, this man has boldly gone where few of us would dare, and he never had a ticket. You could find him at movie premiers, awards programs, concerts, and backstage parties. Have tux, will travel.
He moves with such congruence, he blends right in. And he has the pictures to prove it – more than a thousand of them. You can find disposable camera prints of Michael with his arm around the likes of Harrison Ford, Katie Couric, Britney Spears, Paul McCartney, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, President Bill Clinton, Jack Nicholson, Sean Connery, Madonna, and Bruce Willis. Just to name a few.
Jan is a mother of four, two each from two failed marriages. This morning, her 19-year-old lost his temper and verbally crushed his mother with a flurry of profanity and rage. Jan wanted to die, literally. I got the call.
Last year, at the tender age of 44, Bruce became a husband for the first time. Less than a month later, his bride, this time blushing with anger, ordered Bruce out of the house. Their divorce was final last week.
Larry introduced himself to me by telling me how he was betrayed and fired by his corporate board. Then he faced the most insidious wound of all – the church wound. After months of being ostracized, the victim of church politics, Larry finally realized the need for a change. “When your wife has to take a tranquilizer on Sunday mornings just to go to church,” he said, “it’s time to do something different.”
All these people share two things in common. First, they’re living in the Land of Nod (see the previous post). The age that’s given us instant gratification, disposable everything, and technology-on-demand has elevated revolving door relationships to an art form. The people I just introduced you to are Exhibit A.
Thank you for taking the time to share your heart and concerns with me last week. I respect your honesty, and am frustrated that you have experienced so many disappointments and hurts in your church relationships. While I can relate to many of them, only you know how savagely this has impacted your life and the life of your family members.
I know it has to be a bit surreal to always feel as though, in your words, “you kept missing the memo” about what was expected beyond a simple faith in Christ. And to be caught in between two conflicting women “leaders” had to have felt like a no-win situation.
I still don’t understand what the whole turf war stuff was all about. But I do understand the tension between trying to show grace and love to someone in deliberate sin and yet not approving the lifestyle. I guess until Jesus comes, we’ll still be arguing about that one. [click to continue…]
(And other lessons learned from The Senior Ladies Exercise Club)
I couldn’t help but overhear.
The way I figure it, the whole block could have overheard.
I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year, but I did make a lifestyle change (hey, I’ve done it three days in a row – that ought to count for something). Yes, friends, I’m back in the gym.
I’m still trying to figure out the best time of day to work out. I think people like my associate, who works out at 4:30 every morning, need to work on a different kind of health, if you know what I’m sayin’. So yesterday, I show up about mid-morning, to find the parking lot completely full.
Not a good sign.
Well, maybe they’re all in a class or something, I hoped to myself, as I headed to the cardio room to resume my Couch-to-5k training schedule. To my chagrin, the place was packed. Every treadmill taken. And it was only when one became available and I nabbed it that I realized – I’d been sucked into the vortex of the Senior Ladies Exercise Club. They probably have their own name for it; that’s just my name for the Twilight Zone I was in.
The last time I was this surrounded was when I was asked to speak to a room full of women-only about Things Husbands Wished Their Wives Understood. They were a great group, really sweet and highly motivated. Didn’t matter – I was scared to death.
Anyway, there were three ladies on treadmills to the left, and what seemed like 93 to the right. [click to continue…]
Somewhere in the back story of the drama that is your life, you are rehearsing a Cinderella story. One that transforms you from zero to hero, from reject to regal. You imagined it as a kid in ways that were unique to you. This dream may have been fed by caring parents, or it may have been an escape from the harshness of your world.
Simply put, you dreamed of glory.
Not vainglory, mind you. Something more. An image that said you mattered. Belonged. Were wonderfully adequate for the role you’d been chosen – for your quest.
Then came the collision. Dreams were broadsided by disappointments. You never quite figured out how to translate that high school stardom into a career or a destiny. Or worse, you actually found your place in the world, but stared in the mirror at a fraud. Maybe you got what (or who) you’d always wanted, and you bombed. Maybe you just settled into paying the bills and keeping house, and woke up a generation later wondering what happened.
Sometimes I think our greatest fear or vulnerability isn’t the evil we’re all capable of. What we most dread or most grieve is that we’re just so ordinary.[click to continue…]
A couple of weeks ago David Hayward, a pastor and gifted artist/cartoonist, posted this picture on his blog site, in a post titled “How I’m feeling about the church lately.”
(Used by permission)
I can relate. For more than 30 years, it has been my privilege, my headache, my joy, and my nightmare to work with broken people or broken churches. Prior to launching Turning Point Community Church in 2003, three of the four churches where I was senior pastor had experienced major divisions, open conflicts, forced termination of my predecessor, or some other kind of grief or pain. Some had lived with the crud for so long, they’d arrived at the conclusion that this was somehow supposed to be normal. “I’m sure it’s like this everywhere,” they’d intone. “Oh, no it isn’t!” I’d scream inside, all the while smiling on the outside.
The brokenness isn’t limited to the organization. David’s cartoon reminded me of something we used to proclaim loudly here. Underneath the doorway leading into our rented facility, our church used to hang a banner that represented a passion and sense of calling for us. Every Sunday, every worshipper at Turning Point walked under its message:
A Place to Begin Again.
I roughly estimated that for a long season, 80 percent of the people who arrived at Turning Point for the first time came here to heal. Some came from broken marriages; others from broken lives of addictions or economic messes. Many came bleeding from the most insidious wound of all – the church wound. [click to continue…]
It’s time to clear the air. To let the cat out of the proverbial bag. I’ve carried the secret, along with a select few other people, for long enough. Integrity demands that somebody, after 30-plus years, say something. I guess it’ll have to be me.
“Something’s wrong with your work.” The conversation eventually landed there.
Awards season is in full swing. The Golden Globes, Grammys, and Emmys are history. The Oscars are approaching. That can only mean one thing:
Jan is a mother of four, two each from two failed marriages. This morning, her 19-year-old lost his temper and verbally crushed his mother with a flurry of profanity and rage. Jan wanted to die, literally. I got the call.
Dear Daniel,
