The Long Haul

Well, here we are one more time, folks. Dicphoth with stories to make sense of it all. Chapter 18 in the book known, and this is how it begins. But Ruth replied, don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God, my God. That's from one of the best Hebrew short stories ever written, according to some scholars. You find it in what we call the Old Testament book of Ruth. Here are my comments on the long haul as part of what covenanting is. I was whining and it wasn't pretty. To pause in the conversation, my friend had said, I'm on you like ugly on an ape. He had listened eyes on me as I poured out my frustration over the dynamics at the institution I was trying to lead. I told him that I just felt like leaving, running, getting out of dodge. Part from the animal reference, I was touched by his intensity. He quietly said, well, you can certainly do that, but I'll hunt you down. I'll find you then gave the ugly on an ape part. Wasn't that he wasn't busy, he was busier than I, but as I said, I will give you whatever time it requires to be your friend in this valley. His commitment to me and our friendship was deeper than my dark mood. It was hound of heaven like. One never forgets that. The issue here is commitment to another's well-being for the long haul. When we see a relationship where the baseline is, I'll never say quit. It's raw power. Nothing tests the tenacity of a committed relationship like sickness or tragedy. How often do you see a parent pushing a special wheelchair down a store aisle and in the chair as a teenage girl with cerebral palsy or a young man brain damaged in a car wreck? The time and commitment required for the care and feeding of that child is enormous, but the parent made a commitment. I marvel at that love and care. We see that kind of love lived out all around us. None of us would choose it out of hand, but if we were on the receiving end of the tenacity, we would have a whole different view. I watch a young wife help her veteran husband from an SUV. He stands close as he takes small steps on a prosthetic titanium leg. The covenant he had sworn to his country took him to a place of death and destruction. He didn't die, but he lost a part of himself. The covenant she made to him at an altar three years before keeps her close, and it ends up with not just the wounded warrior taking small steps. They take small steps together. Not long ago, I was asked what one quality was most helpful among individuals in organizational teamwork. In my head, I ticked off preferred competencies, vision, initiative, communication skills, flexibility, listening, commitment to growth, and so on. Finally, I said, follow through, staying with it, in a flippant culture where narcissism wages war with commitment. The very idea of tenacity in a relationship takes it on the chin. Four magic words are the life's blood for any true friendship. Those words are, I'll never say quit. The idea can be debated and dissected, but the truth remains, many times relationships endure and grow, because they have to, they're forced to it, given no options. A culture of convenience implicitly decries that principle as heresy. The trinity of immediate pain relief, instant gratification, and self-expression sees tenacity in a relationship as archaic, not profitable. In truth, real friendship requires steadfast commitment. In the words of Lewis Smiths, we get to be best friends by kind of grafting at a growing together as we learn to trust each other, feel safe with each other, understand each other, admire each other, maybe even envy each other, and simply expect each other to be there to do things we especially like to do together. We commit ourselves to each other in snippets, in all sorts of little ways, over a long haul. Looking back at the story of the gracious father, or prodigal son, as you might have known it, everything hinges on the father's willingness to stay with it. Without his tenacity, there is no forgiveness, there's no redemption, reconciliation, there's no hope. Tenacity keeps the ball in play. Tenacity lays the groundwork for every possibility. Tenacity is the hallmark of a whole new story. The son will never forget that when he left his dad stayed. When he was lost, the memory of his father's house found him. When he gave up on life, his father never gave up on him. That's the story he would tell his children and grandchildren about their grandfather and great grandfather. This is not just the saga of the forgiving one. This is the saga of the tenacious one. You can't discourage him, you can't shake him off, you can't shake him loose. Tenacity comes in a variety of flavors, childhood friends, parents, siblings, high school teammates, college roommates, and so on. The story I heard in Weimus, Mexico many years ago ranks at the top of the list of what tenacity looks like for me. You don't just happen upon Weimus, Mexico, you have to want to go there, perched on the edge of the state of Sonora, the city sits on the Gulf of California. Christmas of 1965, we went there with a group of high school students to work with kids in the desperately poor barrios. Pastor of the local church we partnered with was a stocky smiling fellow named Jose Garcia. He was full of joy and compassion, not the same man we came to find out that he once was. Jose Garcia was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and in his growing up years he fell in the bad company and worse trouble. The age of 19 he was arrested and Los Angeles in charge with multiple counts of everything from armed robbery to kidnapping. He spent 11 years in California's penal system and in a doubt in San Quentin. His mother was a believer, a lover of Jesus. She was in no way wealthy, but she scrimped and saved her money so that once a year she could travel to visit Jose. On one visit Jose asked her, if you're Jesus is so great, why doesn't he get me out of here? Then he told her not to come again. After 11 years the authorities deported him. They took him to the border and in so many words said if you ever come back here again we'll put you back in prison and throw away the key. With nowhere to go and at the end of himself he wandered the streets of Tijuana, finally stumbling into a little church. It was there that the tenacity of his mother and her lord got him. He gave his life to Jesus and was transformed. That's the Jose I met in Wymus. The tenacity of a love that would not be put off or pushed away got him. Ten years after that meeting in Wymus Jose came for a visit to Urbana, Illinois where we lived at the time. He was excited to tell us about the halfway house. He was building in Mexico a place for pearl prisoners to find their feet in their way with Jesus at the center of the program. It was a place for a second chances. It was a place where the people who helped you wouldn't quit. He recounted to me an incident in Insonada, Mexico when he had been invited to participate in a television talk show along with a businessman and a psychiatrist. They wanted to talk with him about his new life and new work. When the cameras came on, the businessman instantly attacked Jose saying, why don't you tell me about this God you can't see? Then he pulled a comb from his pocket and said, I need something I can touch and see like this. Jose said, my knees were knocking together under the table as I thought, Lord, how am I going to answer this man? So I just said, Mr. are you from around here? He said no. I said, do you know my story? He said no. I said, you don't know me. Lots of years ago, I escaped from a jailed two blocks down the street. I was a madman. They used to call me El Changa the ape. I spent 11 years in prison for doing some very bad things. But when I got out, I met some people that I thought were crazy, but they pursued me. They said I needed to trust Jesus and finally I said, why not? I've tried everything else. Jesus changed my life. The man you're talking to now is not the same man who shot a man and escaped from that jail down the street. I looked at that man and said, Mr. you want to see the love of God? You want to touch it? Then I extended my arm and said, here, touch me. Tenacity grabs us. It carries the possibility of loyalty without obsession. In simplest terms, it says, I'm not leaving. I'm staying close. Recently my friend Bob Goff was passing through here and called to see if I was free for lunch. I'm almost always free for lunch, especially with Bob, one of the most creative thinking men I know. Always outside the box, he looks at things from new angles. As we talked, he mentioned that many folks had asked if he would hold them accountable as part of their friendship. Bob's thought was, I just can't do that. I've neither the energy nor inclination to do that, but what I will do is hold you close. That provides its own kind of accountability. Staying close is at the heart of tenacity. In 2013, Northern Colorado suffered major damage from another flood of the big towns and river that flows from Rocky Mountain National Park down into the high plains where Fort Collins, or Greeley, Alt, Eaton, and dozens of other smaller farming communities, are located. The rescue residents cut off by flood waters. In the mountains, triggered the largest air rescue effort in the United States since Hurricane Katrina. The Red Cross designated Timberline Church in Fort Collins' headquarters. They had space and were willing to help lead the charge and caring for all the displaced families. More after hour, air national guards, Chanook helicopters landed on the north lawn of the church, faring people to safety, more than 1,000 in all. But it wasn't just people, it was extended family members, dogs, and cats by the dozens. People were sheltered inside the church while their pets were fed and bedded down in cages in the outside courtyards. Loyalty, devotion, intensity, was fascinating to see the reciprocity of caring. One other dog story, if you will, in Burst, Scotland, is famous for a story of a dog and his owner that expresses devotion and tenacity and equal measure. A story began in 1850, when John Gray came to the city to be a gardener, unable to find work, he joined the police forces and night watchmen. To keep him company through the long nights, he would take his small sky terrier named Bobby, with him on his rounds. He became part of the living landscape of the city night after night for years. John later contracted tuberculosis and died in the winter of 1858. He was buried in Gray Fryer's Kirkyard. What happened next became legend in the city. Bobby, the sky terrier, would not leave his master's grave. Except for accepting midday meals from the kind people in the area, Bobby stayed there day and night with his master. The caretaker tried on many occasions to evict the dog, but to no avail, finally, he provided the little dog with a shelter by the grave. When the city passed an ordinance that all unlicensed dogs would be destroyed, the Lord provost of Edinburgh, William Chambers, purchased a license for Bobby and had a collar and grave for the little dog. Until his death, fourteen years later, the citizens cared for Bobby while he guarded his master's body. If you walk today to Gray Fryer's Kirkyard, you can't miss the statue that stands across the street. It's a sculpture of Bobby, with these words inscribed on the base. Gray Fryer's Bobby died 14th January, 1872, aged 16 years, led his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all. There is something about loyalty that is intuitive in us. We know it's good. We need to give it and get it. Adolescence should get it. That Clark and his seminal work on adolescence hurt 2.0 inside the world of today's teenagers. Talks about the practice in high school of forming groups called clusters. Loyalty is at the center of those close knit groups. A cluster is familial. These are chapswords. A cluster is familial in that once it is formed, there's a strong implicit agreement to remain loyal and remain intimately and regularly connected to the members of the cluster. Because a cluster is formed out of an internal need for safety and belonging. Loyalty to those with whom one is chosen to align to himself has the highest value. What a picture. I love it. I wonder what stories those teenagers 30 years from now will tell their children about the value of tenacious loyalty. Testimonies to tenacious loyalty inspire us to want to do better. In the magnificent Old Testament story I mentioned earlier of Ruth and Naomi, both women walk into an arena of uncertainty spawned by personal tragedy. But the love Ruth bears for her mother-in-law shows up in a powerfully tenacious moment. When I hear Ruth say to her mother-in-law, I'm sticking with you. You lead, I'll follow, your people are my people, where you die, that's where I want to die. Where you're buried, bury me there. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand. Her tenacity had a profound reward. In God's great generosity, Ruth bore a son, Obed, who in time became the grandfather of King David, the greatest King Israel would ever know. In a thousand years after him, another end her line, Jesus of Nazareth would say something that sounds very much like Ruth's words, and behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. Well, that's it for today. I would encourage you to think about what tenacious means in your life this week. Think of the people who have been tenacious with you in the very best sense, those terriers that grab onto your pant leg or ankle-biteers as people as a friend of mine calls them. But just that capacity to stay with it, what a gift that is, I pray that for you. That's it. I'm out. Bye-bye.