my life

If Only More People Knew This Jesus

By in Personal, Religion, Spirituality Tags: , ,

I wish more people knew this Jesus.

On Sunday I went church — a local Greek Orthodox parish called Saint Paul’s Greek Orthodox.

I was there to receive a check. I am an advocate for children in foster care and am President of a global organization that works directly with thousands of children of neglect, abuse, and abandonment. 

St. Paul’s is a church with a mission. This year, part of their mission is to help children who need help.

I have attended Saint Paul’s before. Maybe 6 times, on days where I wanted the deepest richness of liturgy. Have you ever attended an Orthodox service? Growing up Roman Catholic, I thought I knew everything about what some might deem “boring church.”

Roman Catholics sit and stand and kneel during their roughly one-hour mass – pretty boring. Reformed churches (non-traditional) make standing optional, but lots of people stand during the worship. You sit and watch during the hour and twenty minuteish service. And they have rock bands and cool videos and techy stuff. Way less boring. 

In the Orthodox churches, you stand — basically for two straight hours. And there’s all this chanting and incense and robes and you feel like you are Greece or Turkey or places like that. 

***

The Orthodox church was created in the 11th century. There was a split between the western church (Rome) and the eastern church (Constantinople) — the Great Schism. Previously, dating back from the time of Jesus, there was one denomination: the “Catholic” or “Universal” church. 

We don’t hear about Orthodox churches here in the west because they are predominately eastern; the Roman Catholics, primarily western. 

Today there are thousands of Christian denominations; the largest is Roman Catholic, then Orthodox, then the Anglican.

I am an Anglican (known in the U.S. as the Episcopal church). Sometimes the Anglican church is called The Church of England. They split from the Roman Catholic church, in the 16th century, for a bunch of reasons, including a divorce. You’ve probably heard that story. 

***

Many pastors and theologians, for centuries, have argued about the purpose of church. The traditional churches (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist) think in terms of the power of incarnational worship — in certain mental respects, getting your body involved, as a way to lure in your mind and heart. Lots of symbols, and the involvement of your five senses. 

After the Reformation — when Martin Luther, a Roman Catholic priest tired of Roman antics — basically anything that resembled the Roman and Greek churches were ditched. Sola Scriptura became the main idea and it basically means traditions don’t matter – all that matters is the Bible. 

***

I stood and stood and stood and stood with chants and incense and dozens of signs of the cross. My back started to hurt. (My lower back does that when I stand for too long.) But my Roman Catholic roots run deep, and appreciation for the virtue of sacrifice (i.e., pain) kept me on my two feet. 

My friend and mentor Wayne stood to my right, and my youngest son Elliot stood to my left, and I wasn’t about to shame myself in front of them.

I didn’t want to run the risk of dishonoring God, either. I’m not even kidding I still feel guilt like that because of my upbringing.

***

Your mind is bound to wander during any two-hour liturgy when you’re standing basically the whole entire time. If I’m honest, I wanted to shuffle out of there a couple of times. But again, Wayne and Elliot.

But when that happens your mind attaches onto your senses: the sights, the smell, the sounds. That’s what Locke wrote about. The tabula rasa — our blank slate brain that is informed — shaped — by our senses.

The large domed ceiling. That color blue. I didn’t know whether to call it teal or turquoise. I toyed around with chartreuse for a few seconds but concluded that chartreuse was more like a pinkish color. (I’m still not sure, though.)

 I’m not very good at naming novel colors. 

I felt relieved that the Jesus on the ceiling didn’t have blonde hair. 

There were the dark brown wooden pews with no padding.

The lady and two daughters sitting behind us, all dawning black dresses, all looking entirely foreign.  

Most of the people in the dark brown wooden pews had darker hair. 

The walls upfront seemed painted with gold. 

For some reason, I thought about Christmas mornings attending Sunday church (Anglican) at Westminister Abbey. 

The Jesus being baptized in the Jordan wall. I decided to take a photo of him.

I wanted to check my iPhone like a hundred times. 

***

Then I thought about all the rubbish I’ve heard over the years — Roman Catholics aren’t, somehow, Christians. Neither are those who practice rituals. 

It’s the “You don’t worship like us so you can’t possibly be a Christian” bile. 

I was frustrated. I sometimes get frustrated with ignorance.

In my mind I say, “Think about it, for nearly 2,000 years, Christians have worshipped this way. And, today, the vast majority of Christians worship this way.” 

I don’t know who I was talking to – I guess those who think their brand is the only brand: the tribalists. 

***

I listened to the name of Jesus proclaimed countless times by the worshippers at Saint Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church. “Jesus” over and over and over. 

The service was all about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. 

***

Then the priest read from the words of Jesus, from the Gospel of Luke. A few minutes after that, Holy Communion. 

Then the liturgy stopped. Two women came to the stage and invited me to join them.

In front of hundreds of faithful Greek Orthodox worshippers: On behalf of Saint Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church, we are honored to bless RFK with a check in the amount of $43,150 to help children in foster care.

I almost fell over. 

***

I don’t remember how I thanked them, but I mentioned Jesus’ words in Matthew 25: “Inasmuch you have done it for the least of these, you have done it unto me.”

It doesn’t get any more “least” than being a child.

Then being neglected.

Then being abused.

And then abandoned. 

Imagine. 

Family induced childhood trauma — we must help those children. 

Saint Paul’s Greek Orthodox helped those children.

Proclaiming and confessing the name of Jesus. Giving to the least of these. Studying scripture. As far as I am concerned, that is about as Christian as it gets. 

***

I will be back in Saint Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in Irvine. 

I want to go to an Orthodox church in Greece, too. Or, Russia, but I’ve been advised that it wouldn’t be safe for me to travel to Russia because of this.

Please read these words for the Gospel of Luke; they are the most important words on this page. 

If only more people knew this Jesus: 

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

“What Do You Do?”

By in Personal, Relationships, Spirituality Tags: ,

“What do you do?”

I travel often. And I meet strangers on airplanes and restaurants, often. Curious people. And I always get nervous when they say, “What do you do?” I’m a CEO and I’m educated and I’m 54 years old — and I consider myself pretty confident — and I still get nervous when anyone asks, “What do you do?”

Business people are supposed to have a nice tidy “elevator speech” prepared for this question. Besides the fact that I was taught that it was rude to ask people “What do you do?” I refuse to prepare and memorize an “elevator speech.” Here’s why.

First, INTP/Enneagram 5 wing 4’s like me think too much. We overthink everything. And we possess this innate desire to be different. Besides all that, I don’t like the idea of memorizing some lame 30-second line to describe, me. Elevator speeches are stupid because there’s no possible way to summarize what anyone does in thirty seconds. Unless you are a barber or student or brain surgeon or something like that. But I’ve never had normal jobs like those.

You probably think that’s stupid and non-strategic for me to forego that elevator speech. All the management experts say you need an elevator speech to quickly hook someone into your business. I don’t want to hook anyone tho.

Second, I’m into authenticity. Elevator speeches just seem fake to me. I’m not saying that if you use elevator speeches that you are fake. I’m not even saying even that at all. I’m just saying that to me they are fake. Again, you might think I’m too idealistic or whatever but, there you go – elevator speeches seem fake to me.

Third, INTP/Enneagram 5 types are prone to stumble over our words. Hard to describe this phenomenon. Between the (overthinking) brain and the movements of my tongue and cheeks and jaw is this kind of delay thing that happens. People often tell me I seem “serious.” I think part of the reason is that when I speak I have to concentrate super hard on making sure that what is “in” my brain and the words I speak, match. It’s not easy – I’m telling you, it’s not.

And since I don’t memorize elevator speeches, I’m left to, extemporaneously, answer the curious people question, “What do you do.”

I usually say what I end up saying, with pauses and “ums.” It takes a while — more then 30 seconds. I get nervous. And even though it’s not a typical elevator speech, and I stutter a bit with “ums” and it takes a while, people always respond by saying something like, “That’s so amazing what you do for those children, and that you are giving back.”

Then I tell them that I don’t really get to work directly with the children in the way our volunteers do – that as the CEO I meet with donors and government leaders and stakeholders in our organization. Then they say, “Yeah but still you are helping people.”

That makes me feel good. (I do get to, once and a while, visit some of our programs and interact with the precious children. In the summer I did visits in Sacramento and San Diego and Dallas and Pennsylvania. And last week I did a visit to Poland.)

Anyway, I’m not sure elevator speeches are necessary. Maybe they are, I don’t know. But I’m going to continue to just give a non-rehearsed answer when the curious people ask, “What do you do?”

It goes something like this.

“I lead an international non-profit organization of 16,000 volunteers. Last year these amazing volunteers gave over 2.6 million hours toward working with children. Not just children, victims of neglect, abuse, and abandonment. We work alongside the government. Social Services locates the children for us, children in foster care. Our volunteers provide direct one-on-one mentoring, guidance, trauma-based interaction, fun, self-esteem activities, acceptance, structure, and most of all love.

“We work with the most at-risk population there is – minor children whose guardians, the ones who were supposed to love and nurture them, hurt and abandoned them, instead. We are an organization made up of Christians, but our goal is not to convert the children in any way. We just want to love them.

“We have a small staff – for every paid staff member, there are over 1,000 non-paid volunteers. We are committed to helping confront abuse, change lives, and transform communities. Because, statistics tell us that the way to prevent academic failure, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, sex trafficking, homelessness, incarceration, and rehabilitation, is to prevent it before it happens.

That’s what I say. But it’s not exactly that, of course.

You can learn more if you want here: www.rfk.org

She Cried And I Cried.

By in Blog, Life, Personal, Philosophy Tags: ,

Last week I trudged through Terminal C at Dallas Fort Worth airport. Our plane broke down. We were headed to DC. We sat in a 95-degree airplane on the tarmac, for three hours. They returned us to the gate. I rushed to see if I could grab another flight; I had an important meeting on Friday morning. The lady at the gate — head down, typing — mumbled, “Go to American Airlines Customer Service at C25.” 

I am rushing to C25. I’m zig-zagging through hundreds of other stranded travelers. I looked up and I saw this woman, crying. Not just kinda crying — like, crying. I first noticed her when she was about 15 feet in front of me, walking in my direction. She had dishwater blonde hair. Shoulder length. Wearing a black blouse, she looked to be in her 40’s. 

I got that “I wonder what’s wrong?” thought in my head. You start feeling sad inside; it always happens when you see a person crying in public. If a baby is crying it can agitate you. But when an adult cries, you just immediately feel for them. You know what I’m talking about.  

It would have been completely awkward to ask her what’s wrong. Especially given that we are all rushing around a hot airport. We were all going somewhere. It’s not like she was alone on a park bench or something. Even then, it would still be weird for a 54-year-old man to interrupt some woman, crying alone on a park bench. But not as weird as it would be in a crowded airport, while she’s rushing to get somewhere.  

After I passed the crying lady, and while I was feeling that “I wonder what’s wrong?” feeling, I thought about this yoga class I took a few years ago. At my studio, after class ends, you lie in savasana. You are instructed to be quiet. You are instructed to lie still for a least a few minutes. (I always stay longer than anyone else, for at least 10 minutes, because when else do you ever get to lie on your back in a public place in total silence without people think you are a freak, unless you are at the park or the beach or something?) First I heard just sniffles. Then you could hear really soft crying. Then, that sound of someone holding back tears — it’s kind of a gasping holding your breath sound. Deep breaths. Clandestinely, I peered out of the corner of my right eye. I saw her. She was on her knees, in an upright position, facing the front mirror. I watched the whole thing. Then, she started this slow, pathetic sob. I don’t mean that she was pathetic; I just mean that deep sobs are such a sad sound that it can leave you feeling pathetically hopeless. Especially if you’re in the same room alone with heartbroken woman, but you are a 50-something male and it would be awkward to interrupt and try to help.

I passed the crying lady in the Dallas airport, and then I just prayed a little prayer for her.

Physicalists would like to reduce crying to a physiological state of affairs, in the same way they do with pain. “No such thing as pain” — there is only the firing of c-fibers. To the physicalist, everything reduces to the physical: only atoms exist.

But crying and pain must be more than mere physical activity.  Maybe physicalists want to reduce all human emotion to physics because they are afraid (another phenomenon they reduce to physics lol) of the powerful reality of human emotions. 

We all feel sadness. We all feel pain. So, sometimes, we cry. That subjective experience of ours — itself — cannot be explained, scientifically.  You can’t view the experience of feeling sadness under a microscope. 

My flight to DC was canceled. I arrived the next day. Took 27 hours to get from LA to DC. I missed my Friday morning meeting. I went for a run.  I ended up standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. 

And I cried. 

I cried because he stood for truth and justice. I cried because our nation today doesn’t seem like it stands for truth and justice. 

I’ve been told that I seem aloof or hard on the inside. But I’m a crier. My mom was a crier. Her father was a crier.  

My father seems hard on the inside. He is a crier.  

I don’t know why crying should be embarrassing.  

You don’t really ever see men crying in public. You really don’t really ever see men cry at all.

Throwing Mom In The Trash.

By in Parenting, Personal Tags: ,

I don’t go to Starbuck’s too often. I do when I travel, though. I think because Starbucks feels familiar.

It felt familiar in Saint Louis last week.

It felt familiar in Louisville and Fort Collins and even in Sydney a few weeks before.

And don’t know of any coffee houses for locals that compare to my local, Kean Coffee.

I think Kean has the best coffee you can find. The owner, Martin Deitrich, was awarded this distinguished coffee lifetime achievement award. From the International Guild of Coffee. (I’m not sure if that’s the name of the guild but his award was a really big deal and he told me they’ve only given like 9 of them, ever.)

Anyway, I don’t want to write about coffee right now. I want to write about… waste. And guilt. And ethics — what should one do?

I hate wasting stuff. But not as much as mom. My mother has a scarcity mentality. Or, she had it before the stroke. She spent her life trying to save and conserve stuff. She didn’t waste anything. I’m not even kidding. She would rewash those cheap plastic cups. She saved those wires they put on bread bags. Her mother, my Nonna, would rewash those cheap paper plates —the white ones that always had stains on them after use.

Mom was always walking around the house turning off lights in every room.

One time I walked in and found her on the dining room table. Literally standing up — a 70-year-old lady swaying around — removing half of the bulbs in the chandelier. To “save electricity.”

She could have killed herself.

I’d hate to live that way if I’m honest. I am most certainly a conservationist, but not her version. I don’t lose sleep over the fact that Americans are the most wasteful people on the planet. I think Mom did. I even think her scarcity mentality about waste could have led to her stroke.

A few years ago, she was doing a wedding. She was a florist. As a part-time thing. And she had all these white five-gallon buckets for the flowers. Like 20 of them. And after she made all the bouquets, there were all these empty buckets in her garage, half-filled with water. I saw her carrying one of them into the back yard. They were pretty heavy. Each one probably had three to four gallons. And one gallon of fresh water weighs over 8 pounds.

So I ask my 70-year-old mother who’s lugging this 30-pound bucket of water, “Mom, what are you doing? Do you need help?”

Mom didn’t ever really like help with things. She was kind of a martyr in a way. So I just jumped in to help her because I didn’t want her to break her back.

In her garage was a sink. So I grabbed one of the buckets. I went to empty it (in the obvious place where anyone would empty a bucket of water). Mom intervenes: “Don’t waste the water, you can use it to water the plants in the back yard!”

She was serious and emotional. Scarcity mentality does that to you. I’m not even kidding, it can make you almost crazy.

Three to four gallons of water costs way less than a penny. And there was no drought; we were past that. So I’m like, “Mom, seriously, a gallon of water costs about $.001 cent!” I can be pretty logical sometimes and as I get older I’m realizing that sometimes emotion can dwarf logic. But I wasn’t thinking about that, I just didn’t want to carry all these buckets to the back yard to save an entire penny.

And then she, in the martyry way of hers, grabs it out of my had, “Fine, I’ll do it myself,” and she starts lugging it away so she could live by her scarcity mentality

“Okay Mom, I’ll conserve that water!” I didn’t have to, but the thought of watching her would have made me feel really guilty and I hate feeling guilty, especially when it comes to my mom. I think most sons don’t want to feel guilty for letting their moms down.

When I go to Starbucks, when I travel, I always ask them to not give me a plastic lid. But it’s not not in the spirit of my conservationist mother. I like to drink coffee and everything else out of the glass or cup. Those lids get in the way. I don’t use straws. Not because of my mild conservationist proclivities and mom’s indoctrination, but because I just prefer to sip out of the cup. It tastes better.

Last week in Saint Louis, I told the barista, “No lid please,” but then she quickly slipped one of these sleeves on the cup. I almost inturrupted her effeciency. But she pretty much had it already slipped on so I didn’t want to be one of those kinds of customers that’s always so picky about every little thing.

But while I was drinking my grande latte with an extra shot and whole milk (why would anyone ever drink nonfat milk?) I kept thinking about that sleave.

And the Starbuck Lady on it.

And I felt the Starbucks Lady’s eyes were Mom’s eyes — glaring at me, with that guilting look of hers, the one she used when I didn’t want to save her that penny.

Don’t you dare dare throw away this sleeve.

I stressed for 10 minutes about this utterly insignificant first world problem — or not so first world problem. Me and my overthinking — or not over thinking — about this shred of recycled paper.

Two simultaneous thoughts — “Don’t disappoint mom who is staring at me and “This sleave is utterly insignificant to the issue of global waste.”

I finaly stand. I returned the sleeve to the barista: “I won’t need this anymore.” She shoots me an “oh brother” look.

I felt I did the right thing, the barista did not.

But mom matters more.

More Poor Amongst The Rich, And Rich Amongst The Poor.

By in Parenting, Relationships, Religion, Teenagers Tags: , ,

I’m in a meeting with Royal Family KIDS’ National Directors from around the world: Ghana, Namibia, Poland, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, the UK, Australia. All work with children of trauma.

The stories I’m hearing of neglect, abuse, and abandonment. Orphans living in Lord Of The Flies institutions with teen ringleaders bartering young girls like chattel to get drugs.

In some countries, there are no child protective services to keep the children safe. Refugee children living in tents. Children walking hundreds of miles with parents trying to seek asylum in safe countries. Four-year-olds wandering the streets.

But in the midst of hearing these realities, my mind drifts back to my own home.

Mostly what I’m thinking about are the millions children of privilege, “protected” by parents believing them too good to fail, stressing external success at all costs, shielding them from the painful realities of the real world. The facade of the “top university.”

Making sure their children stay away from “problem” children whose poverty or lack of education or broken home or blue-collar parents won’t lead them upwardly toward “success.”

Making sure their children spend more time on teams or with tutors or with coaches or in safe church youth groups — “safety,” versus the danger of a holistic life. Worse, the parents who will at all costs give their hight schoolers free reign to alcohol as long as they secure their desirable university.

Keeping them away from the poor kids. The neglected, abused, abandoned.

I once had a choice to send my own children to the local public school where 70% of the children were English learners from south of the border. Poor kids. The other choice was protecting them through homeschooling, or the local private school with all the children of rich white families.

I went to an expert for advice: A professor friend from UCLA who was on a panel of the UC Board of Regents, dealing with undergraduate education in the UC system. He was educated at the most elite private schools in France and did his Ph.D. at Oxford.

“Send them to the PUBLIC school. The diversity and dissonance and culture and language and the diverse sociological and economic standing will educate them far more than anything else.”

We obeyed; we tried the public school.

For one whole month.

Then I chickened out.

In any case, off they went to private and charter schools.

It could have been because I liked the status of sending them to the “better” schools, if I’m honest.

I was guilty, too. I wanted everything to be certain. Especially the well-being of my children. I want to “protect them,” too.

But I’m realizing that what we think is best, often isn’t. The brokenness of humanity and close proximity to pain and grief is perhaps the greatest education of all.

Richness has a poverty about it, poverty a certain sense of wealth.

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