The Darkness

We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light. -Abrahan Joshua Heschel

The darkness, the distance, we sometimes feel from God can offer a much needed balance to our relationship with God. Maybe this distance is self induced, or a divine corrective due to our worship of that which is not God. There are times that we allow good and valuable things to step out of their rightful place in our lives and give them a place of prominence only rightfully reserved for God. So our journey in the wilderness is one that often comes from our own misguided trust in that which is not God.
If God were to immediately pluck us out of these situations we may never have to fully trust in God for direction, because there would be little consequence for us in following our own way. So the stuckness that we often experience is not necessarily divine judgement for our stubbornness or stupidity, but rather Grace working deep within us to bring life from that which would otherwise suffocate the faith within us.

In Search of Me

So have you ever done a search with your name? I did recently, both on a social networking website and through a standard search engine, and found it to be rather interesting. First, there are actually a lot of people with my name, which is kind of scary (what if one becomes famous for serial killing or something) and also a little cool. Since I have never actually met anyone else with my name I’ll have to take this on faith and cast aside the voices in my head that try and tell me this is all a plot against me and there really are no other people with my name. Second, the good news: I’m not the dumbest, ugliest, geekiest, red-neckiness, loneliest, twisted, alcohol consumingiest, of the lot. Third, the sad truth: I’m not the buffest, best looking, smartest, wealthiest, most popular, or artistically talented either.
I even found some guy with my name that died in 1814, whose will was online. Wow, that shows how behind the times I am, I had no idea that the Internet existed before his death that he might post it there. Among the interesting things I was able to learn about this fellow, was the tragedy of him being a slave own (one Fanny and daughter Nancy, whom he left to his wife), that he didn’t seem to like his son Isaac much (whom was left “the bottom that he sits on”), that although he died in Virginia well after the War of Independence he still willed all his money out in pounds, and that he felt it necessary to will his soul to God (as if God required the proper legal documentation). I have no reason to actually believe that I am related to this man in any way since to the best of my knowledge my lineage doesn’t go back that far in the states.
Some British bloke has very selfishly snatched up all the domain names with my name with the various endings such as .net, .org, and .com. The sad thing is they are all the same really lame website, and he isn’t doing anything particularly interesting with them.
In addition to doctors and lawyers, and cops, my favorite find of those that share my name was a photo of an infant, with the caption “Our Little Ladybug.” While I find this somewhat humorous, and I have no problem with parents having daughters play with trucks and son’s with dolls, I think it might be in the kids best interest for someone to give me a slightly more dudish nickname.
Overall, I may never be the best Matthew French at any particular thing, I must still be faithful to doing the best with what I’ve best giving. Maybe that will end up on a website someday, oh wait, now it is (this blog was the 33rd result of over 10 million at the time this post was written, wow). Those Matthew French’s are some insightful people.

The Love of My Life

I’ve been thinking a lot about Jesus lately. Not that this is unusually or anything, I think about and talk to him a lot. More specifically I’ve been thinking about why it is so hard to talk to others about him. Jesus is so important, such a central part of my life, he is the only thing that is more important to me than my wife, and yet I find it difficult to talk about the one that I am so intimate with. In some ways I can make connections to my marriage, while I am willing to talk about my relationship with my wife with others, 99% of those conversations are about superficial things: Angie and I went here, we watched such and such, we did this. It’s not that I’m sharing about our intimate conversations, or the special moments that I treasure in my heart, or other deeply private things that we share. And that is the sort of relationship that I have with Jesus, and since he and I don’t go to the movies, grab coffee, or go on vacation together (we actually do, but that would be another article and it would be hard to get into the theological depths of that truth in a casual conversation about how Jesus and I ate at Subway together without people thinking I was nuts and making Jesus look that much less appealing to others), so it is hard to share what he means to me.
This really hit home for me a couple weeks ago when while at work I over heard a conversation where people were making fun of Jesus. Now I realize that they were actually making fun of Christians and the silly things that they say about Jesus, but still they were demeaning the most important part of my life. If they had been making fun of my wife I have no doubt that I would have stood up for her. But instead I said nothing, partly because I was not privy to the entire conversation and had no idea the context so I wanted to avoid seeming reactionary, giving further ammunition to some people that had obviously been turned off to Jesus by others that had talked about him in the past.
For me, sharing Jesus isn’t about me being right. It’s not about defending his honor because I don’t think he’s up to. It’s about my deep desire to have others know him and have their lives transformed by him in the same way that he came into my life and turned it upside down by his love. I need to be more confident about this passion and not get hung up on turning others off, when in humility and love I just might be able to introduce others to this Jesus, the love of my life and the one that already knows and cares about them more than anyone they will ever meet in their lives.

Coffee Advice

OK, I have worked professionally in coffee all that long, but as a long time coffee lover I think I’ve been able to take my coffee knowledge and passion to the next level rather quickly. Much how like Ang and I only date for six months or so before we got engaged because we had been friends for so long and knew each other really well already. Anyway.
First off, if you just like to dump a bunch of cream and sugar in your coffee don’t bother reading this post. Save the time and do something else, honest you probably really don’t like coffee you like sugary, creamy things and won’t get much out of this. I do have advice for you though if you’re in that boat, it doesn’t much matter where you get your coffee, you probably prefer a milder brew so just go where it’s cheapest. That may not be totally true, I’m doing some research one how coffee farmers are treated around the world and will post once I learn more about that.
So for my fellow coffee lovers here is my number one piece of advice: go out and get a French press. Seriously, you have to do this. There are relatively inexpensive ($20-50) and will make the best cup of brew that you’ve ever had. I have the top of the line jobber, which is stainless steal and insulated, which means that I can brew it and keep it warm for a while, but if I had to do it over again I’m not sure it’s the one I would get. The glass ones are actually much easier to use because they have lines to direct you how much grounds to put in and then how much water in relation to the grounds. The most important thing is to have your beans ground for a French press, which would be a very coarse grind. Also, be careful about slamming down the last sip of the cup, even with a coarse ground you often get a little sludge in the bottom of the cup. By the way, Starbuck's policy is that they will grind beans that you buy anywhere as long as they aren't flavored. The flavoring process leaves behind stuff in the grinder that would affect other beans natural flavor.
Why is the press such a good method? The oils that are present in coffee give each bean it’s characteristics after roasting. It doesn’t matter how good your electric coffee maker is, the paper filter will retain a lot of these oils. Of coarse there are metal filters, but your looking at big buck there. Also, anything that keeps your coffee hot with a heat source is actually killing your coffee’s real taste anyway. Also, keep your grounds at room temperature regardless of how you’re brewing. Refrigeration or freezing your beans will not prolong their life, it actually will wreck them quicker. This also has to do with the oils in coffee which get messed with big time when get them cold.
If you’re hard-core enough and have the resources to do your own espresso try some different roasts. I’m really loving shots pulled with Italian Roast right now. Depending on who you buy your beans from Italian Roast should actually be a little darker than Espresso Roast, but it has a slight sweetness to it that is different from the caramelly characteristic found with espresso. I have other customers that enjoy some other roasts too, so have fun with it.
If you’re really scared of espresso, but want to check it out, you should try a con panna. It’s an espresso shot with whip cream. I don’t do them a lot, but there are really yummy.

Pastor Guy

So it’s official, I have been accepted back into the ordination process in the United Methodist church and have been recommended to the cabinet to be appointed as a local pastor. This has been a long road to come to this decision, but I think that process has been beneficial and necessary that God might have me where I am. There are no guarantees that I will be appointed to a church this year, but I’m hopeful. Not only am I one of the low people on the totem pole, but we have asked to stay in Rochester, which limits the options.
I know that I am gifted for pastoral ministry and I’m really excited about it, but I also know what a huge responsibility it is and I have a healthy fear of that. I was frustrated with how poorly I communicated to the district ordination committee about how I see my call to pastoral ministry in the United Methodist Church and my call to Gen X being connected. It’s really quite simple, I think the best way to provide spiritual leadership to Gen X’ers is by having a healthy church of people that love Jesus of all ages. There is a lot to be said about gathering multiple generations together in a local church that meets the deepest needs of God’s children and better equips them to honor God with lives of worship.
If I do get appointed to a church it will be this summer at the earliest. There is something kind of cool about having a time of preparation before I take this step, but there is also the practical side of things as well. And that practical side of things says that 30 hours a week at just a little over minimum wages doesn’t pay the bills. I’m in the process of trying to pick up some more hours in addition to the coffee thing.

Year In Review

I’ve always like December. I remember back to age 5 or 6 and watching Entertainment Tonight, or so some show like it, and being excited about the year-in-review type story they did. I found it fun to look back over the year and see if I remembered certain things, and that continued especially during the years that I was really into MTV and they would do the year’s top 100 video countdowns and such. Outside of a top-movies-of-the-year list I don’t necessarily look forward to December for entertainment remembrance, but I do like to take the time to look back over my life for the past twelve months this time of year.
2006 has been the toughest year of my adult life. While I certainly had an inkling that this year would be hard before it started, there was definitely a part of me that secretly thought that everything was going to be very easy and my new life changes and choices would be a huge success. But that’s not to say that any of this took me by surprise either. When I stepped out in faith, believing that God was calling me out of youth ministry mid-2006, I was ready to accept that things might not work out in a “happily ever after” fashion. That being said, I guess it wouldn’t necessarily be any easier to breath if I were told in advance that I was going to have the wind knocked out of me.
Even at this point my life is still very much up in the air, but I have a peace about the direction that I am now heading. With some direction, the assurance that I should be in pastoral ministry, I feel good about 2007 and what it will hold for my wife and I. I’m excited about being appointed somewhere and settling in for a good long tenure as a young pastor somewhere. I’m finally at that point in life where I feel like I have enough experience behind me to speak into other adult’s lives, but with so much still to learn and experience. It will be cool to learn in grow in the context of a community where my role is pastor.

Little Pieces of You

Lately I’ve been reconnecting with people that I haven’t had contact with in a while. Mostly through signing up on Myspace and reading what old friends are up to, some in random meetings. This reminds me of experiences and moments shared with these people; happenings that at one time were central to who I was at the time. And while much has happened since then this process of reflecting on the past has reminded me that I am a sum of my many experiences. Those experiences weren’t just events, but shared events that are a part of the people that I was with at the time. I think it’s cool to see how many of us who shared very similar lives at one time have gone in so many different directions. I certainly don’t claim to have played major roles in all of these people’s lives, and I don’t pretend to hold influence on where they are or who they’ve become now, but I do feel a connected in some way.
Our feelings of independence and self-reliance are largely lies. We are deeply formed by our experiences shared with other people. I so often forget this. I think it’s our selfishness that makes us what to believe that we make ourselves, that we can go it on our own.
It might have been a deep friendship that time has faded, maybe it was a passing comment remembered by no one that started us in a direction of thought that ended being essential to who we’ve become, it could even be someone that we deeply disagreed with or even disliked, but it was our interaction with that person that caused us to more passionately believe something. Regardless of the level of interaction, if we are honest we cannot disregard the impact that others have had on our lives. We are not alone, we do not exist as islands, we are not strangers passing blindly in the dark night. We are exactly that… “we.” Me is only an unique collection of the shared us. So to all those that have shared in making me who I am thankful (except for maybe all the crap that makes me a crazy jerk, but I’m not beyond taking responsibility for that).

Because of...

Grace. It is grace that comes into our brokenness and wraps around us like a healing balm. It softens the rough edges and creates a safe barrier between the sharp barbs of our souls and those that surround us. As I’ve struggled to find who I am and what God is calling me to during this time of transition, I have misheard his whisper, the one that gently guides us in the right direction. This has shattered my confidence, not in God’s ability to speak, but in my ability to hear. In the brokenness that results from this paralyzing fear there is love. That love is the grace that mends and brings wholeness where there is none on our part, where in our souls only emptiness is felt, yet grace makes us complete even as we lack. This grace does not always lead to the sensation of wholeness, but we are full nonetheless.
I don’t pretend to understand either the depth of my brokenness, or that of the grace that fills in the gaps. While the perspective that time and fuller views of the bigger picture will bring will help me to comprehend what has happened in this time of my life, and what it is that I need to take from it, I don’t think my understanding is the point. There are deep changes happening in me right now. Undercurrents that were so heavily defended or hidden, that only such raw disappointment and hurt were going to get through into the far reaches of my soul. It is these places that grace needed to find its way and yet, consciously or not, I would not permit it to be there. I do not claim that God caused certain situations in order that I might learn new lessons. However, I do know that grace will not pass up opportunities to more deeply move into the innermost areas of our being, and there are times that only in our being broken is grace able to penetrate to these depths. This is not because Jesus is not able to reach these places, when in fact he is already there. But Jesus will not force his influence where we do not allow for grace’s entry.
Behold, he stands at the door and knocks, and while we may call out with the invitation to enter we hardly mean it. Then something happens to rock our homes to the foundations, and the doors are thrown off their hinges and our muffled cries for Jesus to come in are met with his gentle touch of healing. The gentle touch that is… grace.

Back and Jacked

Okay, after a few very strange months I'm back. Let's just say the insurance sales thing door to door was not at all me, no big surprise there. But trying to make it work really threw me off my game for a while, something that I'm still working on. But after a few weeks of looking for work I am once again gainfully employed. The new position is a much better fit with my passions and personality. To avoid any legalities, we'll just say that I work for a large coffee retailer at one of their local stores, the one that happens to be done the street from my house. It is all the caffeine that has me jacked by the way.
No longer working for the church fulltime continues to be a huge adjustment, which was needed, and I am starting to see how this might pan out. I don't think that doing just the coffee thing is the best possible solution as far as finances and using all my gifts, so I'm contemplating what else I might do in addition and how that might play off each other. I think it would be awesome to be doing something else in the city as well. I love Rochester.

Life or Something Like It

It's been a really crazy last few weeks, and there isn't any significant let up in the near future. The nice thing is that I at least have some down time this afternoon and this evening, which is a change over recent weeks. I am no longer employed as a youth pastor and have been in licensing school to become an insurance agent in the state of New York. I can't believe that I'm actually excited to say that as of this morning I am now licensed to sell insurance in the state of New York. Now that I've got that done I get to do sales training for the next week and a half, but I don't start that until tomorrow.
While I'm in this process of training for this new career that has the potential for making a pretty good income I'm also reading this book about the "Simple Way" in Philly. It's a great perspective to keep in front of me while I'm here in Albany for three weeks.
I miss my wife. I miss my dog. I miss my house and my city. Can't wait to get back and figure out what life as an agent looks like for me.

"Why do people like my name?"

I'm nearing the end of my journal and bought a new one tonight. I decided to go back and read some of the one that I'm about to finish. I started it in the fall of 2003 and it's really neat to see the beginning stages of how I got to this crazy place where I am about to leave full-time youth ministry to go and sell insurance. As interesting as that may or may not be, that really isn't what I want to post here. The follow is from my journal, dated October 23, 2003:

"As I sit here drinking coffee and reading Romans at the Wegman's Cafe, I can't help but do what I do so well. I over hear a conversation. It's between a mom and her son, and as they catch a late lunch I can tell this boy is wise beyond his five or six years. It doesn't take long to hear where his wisdom comes from. He asks his mom, "Why do people like my name? It's just Br-ian." This is what his mom said, "It's not the name they like, it's the boy named Brian. 'Cause he's smart, he's funny, and they like to be around him." The love of his mom will take him far in this life."

I have been thinking so much lately about why it is that God loves us. I know that he doesn't love us because of what we do or don't do, but what does that really mean. I think this mom has a sense of it. God loves us because of who we are. He is the parent that knows how immensely gifted we are. Like Brian, maybe it's our humor or intellect, or it could be any number of things. The point is God sure likes being around us because of who we are. It seems that it would serve us well to try and figure out what it is that God sees when he looks at us.

Packing Day Emotions

Today was a really rough day. I packed up my office at the church after almost six years as youth pastor. I’m on this crazy ride of trust that has been rolling since last summer when I knew God was leading me away from full-time youth ministry into something new. Some days have been harder than others, and today was definitely near the top of the list.
As I packed up my books it hit me that I won’t be going to that well of knowledge regularly like I have so often in the past. I love to teach and the act of searching the things of God and trying to put his truth into understandable bits that others might apply to their life is so exciting to me. And here I was packing up these tools. Sure, they’ll get unpacked at the new home sometime soon, but not for regular use. I felt like I was boxing up a part of me to store away for this season in my life. This sucks.
I’m excited to see where grace leads from here, and I know that I won’t be sitting on my knowledge and teaching ability forever, but this all hit me rather hard. It is so final, my walk as a youth minister is just about over. I wish I could say I leap into the next part of my journey with more enthusiasm, but I admit I have a hard time believing that this next step is one that I will be very comfortable with. But that’s part of what this current adventure is about for me. I have let my faith get too small, I have put God in this box that works very well for me and is very safe and comfortable as I work behind my desk at the church and hide behind the title of pastor. This new life out in the open without that protection is scary. But my trust should be in Jesus, not my job title.
All this is still growing on me and I’m sure I’ll have more days of back and forth on this all. But if it were up to me I would be calling churches in the area today begging them to hire an associate. I have been faithfully led this far and I cannot start doubting that God knows best know. What a lovely day to walk on water.

I have entered this new world.

Well, here I am in the blogosphere. I'm sure in time I will post very exciting, deeply intuitive, and provocative thoughts, but for tonight I will not. If your reading this I would love to know how/why you found me.
Because of Grace