The Man in Me

As I have celebrated four years with my amazing wife, I have been considering and mulling over in what's left of my brain, the entire institution of marriage. When I call my wife amazing, I try my hardest not to merely pay lip service to her. That's just disrespectful. But, I do mean "amazing." I have put her through the ringer, and yes, I do take a considerable amount of, rightful -- credit for her emotional devastation. She, partnered with Jesus -- takes a lot of credit for stressing me out, giving me migraines, and day by day -- growing my immature ass up.

So, the question begs to be answered, "Who gives a fuck?" You don't, probably. I know I didn't, which is precisely the reasoning behind all the consideration of this institution of marriage. I also take pause to notice that all my buddies are either divorced, separated, or seriously considering divorce. The other interesting part, and the reason I actually give a shit, is that all these dudes are professing "Christians." This is troubling because there's this thing about Jesus that in a two-handed fashion bothers me and brings me peace. It's this fact that Christ gets in the shit with you as a Christian. Once you say "Jesus, I trust you," Jesus says, "A'ight, let's do this thing." This is regardless of all your dysfunctional bullshit that keeps coming up. I, personally, have a gigantic laundry list of stupid bullshit that Jesus is still dealing with. He endlessly, tirelessly, relentlessly pursues me and gets into it with me. This is not something I have pursued. Time and time again I have shouted "Fuck you, dude," and got outta dodge. Then He shows up, tells me He knows my shit, and he's gonna keep on walking with me.

This has astronomical implications on the state of marriage. Seriously? Five years and you're out? When Margie and I started this thing, I really had no idea how this was going to play out. Mainly because, I had/have so many bat-shit-crazy issues. I was always wondering how Christ was going to redeem this mess, but he is. He's teaching me how to love my wife. I still suck at it, but he's taking me through it. If you're a christian man, your wife is probably put there by God to teach you a bunch of shit you suck at, which is probably everything.

I'm troubled by dudes who proclaim Christ and abandon their wives. My dad did that. I'm scared shitless that I'm going to do that. I need Jesus to help me stick around and be a better husband. I need so much grace, and constantly.

I'm troubled for my brothers and myself.

Boundless Grace

So I haven't written anything in awhile. I've been too busy updating everyone else's blogs. I'm not complaining. I've been blessed with more work than I can handle. I'm supporting my family by writing. I could do worse. I have a hard time with being grateful. I'm never grateful for anything. I'm learning to give credit where credit is due, and no one I know deserves any credit for anything. God has been so gracious to me, and he has proved it over and over again.

For instance, two weeks ago before my wife and I left San Francisco (yes, I moved again. What a surprise! We lived in SF, and moved PDX a few weeks ago) I got on the wrong bus out of San Francisco's Portola District, and oddly so did two policeman. I'm riding this bus into what was quite possible the worst 'hood I'd ever stepped foot in, and the bus drives to the end of this completely fucked-up neighborhood, turns off the engine and shouts "End of the line." Me and the two cops look at each other not knowing how, or why we got in this bus. I step off of the bus platform, and the two cops follow closely behind.

As I'm walking through this really, really rundown area, the thought occurs to me that this is a very, very bad situation. I see windows with bars on them, which is not an uncommon thing in San Francisco, but they are bent to hell. Bullet holes in almost every window, and shattered glass everywhere. I see kids running around with no shoes on yelling "Po Po Alert! Po Po Alert" every five seconds. I slow a bit, and I turn around and ask the cops where the nearest bus stop is. They tell me that they'll walk with me. They tell me they've shared nearly 80 bullets between the two of them in this little neighborhood alone. They also tell me that all of those bullets made their ghastly appearance in broad daylight. As I'm hanging with them we talk about where we're from. I tell them I moved to SF from Seattle. We talk about how the commonality of shitty sports teams in SF and Seattle. We talk about coffee, rain, cigarettes, microbrews and the infestation of strip clubs in SF's chinatown. They also tell me that they accidentally got on the wrong bus, and that they had no idea why they followed me out here. They both shake their heads in annoyance and disbelief. Then we part ways at the "safe" bus stop. I thank them, and the go on their merry ass-kicking, gun-slingin way.

After the cops leave, I start to shake a little bit. I become overwhelmed by this feeling of fear, gratitude and this newfound safety. It was otherworldly. It became clear in that moment that Jesus "had" me. He brought me to a place where I could have lost my life to show my the boundless length of his mercy. I could have went there alone and got served up a heavy dose of baseball bat economics, or worse, I could have been killed. These cops who work in this neighborhood reminded me over and over how "lucky" I was.

Here's the thing, I'm not lucky. I repetitively get into the shittiest situations imaginable, and God pulls me out of them to demonstrate His grace to bring me to repentance. I eventually acknowledged that from time to time, even if I was forced to acknowledge it. But this, this was Jesus in pursuit. This was God saying, "I'm going to show you how much I love you, even though you will probably tell Me to fuck-off when you go home and snap at your wife for asking a simple question." This was the Holy Spirit calling me out, "Stop your bullshit, NOW!!!"

I'm still in shock. I'm still trying to humbly just keep my middle finger in my pocket. I'm praying that all my middle finger's will snap under the weight of His boundless grace.

Declare Love Not War: Part 2

Do I feel some false sense of responsibility because I gave him someone's interperetation of the bible that clashed with his own worldview? Not really. I think my old friend made a series of decisions that led him to the conclusion that God doesn't exist based on a series of circumstantial events (rejection, bad sexual experiences, isolation, depression, etc) that he had pinned on the God he served. Many would argue that he was never a Christian in the first place and that is assuming that one could actually "become" a christian at all but that's another post entirely. That's not what this is about. This is about making blanket statements about things to big to be covered with a blanket and basically calling that good. "If you DO this, then it WILL yield THIS result. Or if you DON'T do THAT then THIS is the consequence." In my life experience, it's never been as cut and dry as that. My life has been "Here is a list of hundreds of things that CAN possibly happen if you pursue This option and the same thing if you choose THIS option but there is NO way of gaging what THIS outcome will be."

Let's go back to my gay friend, I was told by a spiritual authority that if I had given him hell, fire & brimstone accompanied with the message of Grace & Forgiveness that he might not respond today to "God's call" on his life but one day he would thank me for "speaking the truth in love." He never did and he probably never will. Mainly because it's too paradoxical an ideology that eternal torment and damnation works hand and hand with grace unabounding, no matter what context it is communicated in. At the very core of my discussion with my friend, he wanted to know if God would accept him, even if he was gay and there was nothing he could do about that, and my answer to him was, "No!"

I want to make it clear that I'm not merely writing about homosexuality as a sin, nor am I making an argument for or against the "christian homosexual" (maybe I will in the near future). What I am pursuing is a discussion on how we arrive at such a mass generalization or judgement of pieces of our culture that will never experience God because "believers" have in large part excluded them not really from the community but rather from the grace that we claim to partake in. Rather we declare war on the deepest parts of humanity. Are we ok with that? I'm not sure if I am.

Left and Leaving: A Confession

It seems as though I'm always departing from or going to some place. Usually, it's because I have devastated the tranquility that comes with "living" somewhere through my selfish pursuits. This has, for a long time, been the pursuit of art in all it's many forms. It's not only art that I've pursued, but the idyllic posture of being involved and living in the culture of those who create. Then I got married.

In 2004, I started dating Margie. At this point in my life, I was a self proclaimed agnostic. Mainly because the God I served, did not serve me (this could be another 15 blog posts so I'll just leave it at that). We started talking on the phone, and then we never stopped. We started to weave this tapestry of ideas and detailed plans for the future. We'd live in NY. She'd be a filmmaker and I'd be a writer/musician. We both loved Jawbreaker. She turned me on to The Magnetic Fields and phone sex. The romanticism is enough to make you wanna puke. But this was a dream. I had convinced her that I was this successful person, that I wasn't. I convinced her that I was a laundry list of things, that I actually wasn't. She was taken with me. She lived in Virginia and I lived in Olympia at the time. We announced our undying love for one another and then I hopped on a greyhound and took the almost 5 day bus ride to Norfolk, VA.

I was enamored with Virginia. I thought it could be a beautiful mecca to help nurture my self-proclaimed artistic genius. Little did I know that it was a hell-hole. Or rather that I was a hell-bound asshole. She had talked me into going to Church. We found a church in Virginia Beach, VA called Crosscurrent and then began the tumultuous beginnings to what would amount to us proclaiming faith in Jesus. We lived through my many a jobless state, being carjacked and kidnapped at gun point, and then on June 9th, 2006 in the classic Zeke & Margie impromptu fashion, with my friend Nik Safos as a witness, we went to the Princess Anne county Courthouse and we got married in front of Nik and a justice of the peace. Six months later, we packed our bags and left for the west coast.

After our 4 day drive we arrived in Portland. I think Margie immediately realized how much she would hate it, and how hard I would try to be cool and make it work. I worked a plethora of jobs once again, with vague promises of stability that I could never capitalize on. I pressed forward, and she grew more and more frustrated. A year later, it all came to a financial breaking point and I accepted a job in Seattle. After all that was where I always wanted end up anyway. From the day I met my wife, all I could ever talk about was Seattle. So we left Portland and moved to Seattle.

Upon our arrival in Seattle, Margie was completely taken with the city, as was I. I was so happy to be in the most beautiful city I have EVER been. We continued to struggle. I went from job to job. Margie's frustration continued to escalate. I still made excuses. "Babe, I just haven't been given the right opportunity" or "I'm the victim here." She believed it for awhile, until she noticed the one constant throughout all of our turmoil: Me. She came to a tipping point. I heard things like "you're a fucking coward" and "you are ruining our lives." All I could do is nod in agreement. What could I do to convince her otherwise that I am a responsible man? Nothing. Then she dropped the bombshell on me. She says, "God told me to marry you and to stay by you no matter what."

For those of you who are not familiar with my wife and for those of you who do know her, it will come as no surprise that she is an honest, forthright, generous and unconditionally loving woman. For those of you who know me or don't know me, I am a miserable, sarcastic, condescending, prick. That's not self deprecation, that's just an honest look at who I am. What my wife showed me in that instant where she reminded me of all the shit I inevitably put her through, is the fact that through her, God has shown me Grace unmeasurable. Margie, should have left a long time ago. She had many opportunities, many a betrayal and many a sin committed against her.

Closing in on our third year of marriage I thank Jesus for her. I thank Jesus for the Grace He has given me in a Godly wife who loves and pursues me. I thank Jesus that He is making me into a man that loves, pursues & leads my wife who has demonstrated the Gospel to me.

Romans 5: 16-17

16And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For(B) the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought(C) justification. 17For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness(D) reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ7