Half Marlboro Man, Half Monk

I am half Marlboro man, half Monk. That may seem like a paradox, a mixture of oil and water. But I’ve come to know both these guys pretty well over the years. Mostly, Marlboro and Monk get along inside me without much scuffle, though sometimes they question each other’s validity. Here’s a story about these two characters.

Marlboro man was shaped in the crucible of the farm/ranch. The tractor and the saddle toughened him. Baling-twine blisters, dirt, sweat, blood and manure are his badges of glory. He sets the plow deep to rip open the soil and violently turns it upside down. He loves the power he harnesses from the tractor and takes pride in accomplishment. He does his best first, then trusts God for what he can’t control.

Monk man smooths the soil and tends to the plants. He loves the feel of dirt and knows there’s life and power in a seed. He trusts God first, then does his best.

Marlboro man fusses and frets over every calving event and uses chains and a jack to assist if necessary. Marlboro man and Monk man team up to rescue a newborn calf struggling for survival after a downhill slide from the birth canal into the creek. They carry the shivering, muddy, slimy calf to a safe straw-strewn shelter and watch in amazement as the mother-cow instincts kick in gear to lick and warm and feed this dependent critter. They’re amazed every time a newborn calf finds his legs and searches for a nozzle. They laugh every time at the hilarity of it, and are astonished because it always seems to work.

Marlboro man sways in the saddle while Monk man sings “I love to tell the story of unseen things above” just like his dad used to. Marlboro man is a loner. Monk man likes solitude. Marlboro man hates rules and needs wide-open spaces with few boundaries. Monk man hates legalism but finds comfort within structure. Marlboro man is a man of the world with his feet on the ground. Monk man feels set apart to something bigger and beyond what he sees today.

On a tractor or in a saddle, there’s plenty of time to pass. Marlboro man is a thinker and a planner. But, Monk man is a dreamer. In fact, he’s been known to look at a cloud from below, and then take a journey to the backside of the cloud to see what it might look like. Once he even traveled to the farthest star he could see just to look up in the sky and see what the rest of the stars looked like from there.

Marlboro man will work for weeks to fill a barn with hay. Then he joins Monk man, both with their chin held in their hands staring in wonder at the newborn batch of kittens taking refuge in the haystack.

Marlboro man wakes up at 1:30 AM to start the morning milking shift. Monk man rouses a few minutes later and joins the sparrows in the parlor singing praises. A pretty decent choir, actually. He comes to understand the meaning of “give us this day our daily bread,” as he sees the sparrows descend from the rafters to feast on spilled barley.

It hasn’t always been easy for Marlboro and Monk to live with each other, but they’ve learned to get along by appreciating each other’s differences and strengths, even covering for each other’s weaknesses.

I read a quote by a Celtic Monk from the 12^th century:

I can hear Marlboro man speaking as he says “Get in your boat, cast off and seek Christ.”

Then I hear Monk man chime in, “But don’t expect to find Him if He doesn’t accompany you on the way.”

Gaspeth

Psalm 143:6   I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul gaspeth unto thee as a thirsty land.

(From the Translation of the great English Bible, set forth and used in the time of King Henry the Eighth, and Edward the Sixth, in The Book of Common Prayer, 1662)

Gaspeth!  There it is! There’s the word I’ve been looking for.  In a snapshot, a word picture of what my relationship with God often looks and feels like.  It’s like a Deep Breath of Remember, only quicker.  More paralyzing.  Desperate.  Maybe without exhale.  What any good trusting relationship with God should look like.

We all have dreams about our good life.  Hopefully we get glimpses of the good life smack in the middle of hardship and suffering.  Paul did:

2 Corinthians 4:8-11  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.  For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 

Here’s part of a story, still unfolding, to illustrate my new found appreciation for an obscure word that gives voice to my soul.

My soul gaspeth…

It’s what I do when the criminal investigators invite my son to join them in their unmarked police car for a ride to the station.  They have a few questions.  It’s what I do when, out of curiosity, I pull up the online local newspaper and see a posting, “Police ask for help identifying suspected arson,” accompanied by a surveillance video.  I click >.  And there he is.  My beloved youngest son carrying a gas can down the hallway of the Christian School he’d attended.  The school my wife worked at for nine years as secretary.

It’s what I do when my pastor sits in my living room with a shocked mom and dad, listening to us groan.  Listening to our deep ache gushing forth in tears, questions, fears.  Stunned at our crumbling world.  He prays for us.  Prays for our son.  Reminds us of something I hadn’t thought about much.  Our core identity.  In God.  Beloved son – beloved daughter of God.

It’s what I do when the officers return and my son struggles out of the backseat in leg shackles.  A thick leather belt around his waist with one-foot long chains connected to his handcuffs.  He stands, quivering, trying to find a way to make it all go away with his final drags on his final cigarette that, because of the chains, he has to stoop forward in order to reach to his lips.  He had the guts to confess to the early morning crime.  And for good measure, also confessed to setting the same school gym on fire two years previous.  Now, no longer an unsolved mystery.

It’s what I do.  It’s what my son does when I speak redemptive words gracefully prompted by my pastor.  “My son, there’s nothing you can do to diminish the love God has for you.  There’s nothing you can do to diminish your mom’s and my love for you.”  I call these redemptive words because they bought us, delivered us, out of the grip of despair, hopelessness, shame.

My wife and I hug him.  Hug him hard because it feels like it might be the last time.  There’s a price to be paid, you know.  Hearings.  Pleas.  The slammer.

It’s what I do when, having bled a father’s grief watching television news flashes and front-page headlines, I sit staring in numbness out the window.  I witness the strangeness of black storm clouds roiling in the eastern sky suddenly burst into a blood redness as the sun sets.  Not red on black, or black on red.  But, red in black.  Like liquids mixing.  Suddenly redemption bursts into the story.  Blood redemption weaved into the same tapestry as life’s darkness.  Redemption’s bloody.  There was a price to pay, you know.  Hearings, beatings, nails, thorny crown, curse, death.

That very blood redemption story was carried by ministers of the gospel into the heart of the prison.  Straight into the heart of my son.  Along with a message from an entire Christian School, students, teachers, faculty, “We forgive you!”  More redemptive words.

Especially during times locked alone in his cell, throughout his years of incarceration, my son learned to hear and rely on that Redeemer’s voice that speaks, “My beloved son.”  His soul learned to gaspeth.

It’s what we do, years later now.  Time served.  Prison navigated, survived.  Mom, dad, son after a church service.  Gospel preached.  Redeemer worshipped.  My son turns toward us and says, “I need a hug.”  We hug hard.