Fatherhood...

I was probably 5 years old.  I remember a scene vividly.  Leaning up against the wall while my mom was sitting in front of her mirror putting on make-up I asked, "When am I gonna get to be a daddy?"  She responded "Not for a loooong time..."

Consistently the theme of "Fatherhood" has been spoken, prayed and prophesied over me for a long time by believers and non-believers alike.  No one knew that it was my dream.  I didn't dream about a career, money, power or possessions.  I only dreamed about family.

I never really gave a whole lot of thought to the theme beyond personal family.  I knew the thing was bigger than that, but it felt so distant. Definitely, when Rivers was born, I was reminded that I was stepping into a role that I was gifted and wired for.  This process of stepping into the new role was different than I expected.  I thought I'd feel more of an arrival than a feeling of self-sacrifice.  It was hard.  I was tired.  I lost a lot of freedom... freedom which I enjoyed.  I can't describe the love, value and appreciation I had for my new son.  I cherished every moment, glance, giggle and fit from my little buddy.  But coupled with it there was a gut wrenching feeling of personal loss, which I'd never heard anyone talk about before.  I could no longer do whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted.  My relationships changed.  My marriage changed.  How could this dream come true, this prophetic destiny coming to fruition be this difficult?  Maybe I'm weird... Maybe I'm the only one.  

19 months later... Day by day it is easier.  Day by day I'm getting the hang of it.  I'm feeling the joys more and more without the company of the feeling of loss.  Maybe the caterpillar is bursting out of the cocoon looking a little bit different.

Recently I heard the Father speak that it's time for my "Fatherhood" to bloom, not just a father to my family but to an orphan generation.  I felt it around the time of the miscarriage.... I don't understand it.  I don't fully know what it means.

Today I defined a father as: protector/provider, a present model for living, one that speaks value and destiny into the child and a giver of a good inheritance.

That is how I see the "Fathering" theme in my life.  Its a piece of my inheritance from my dad.  I can build on and give away to another generation...  I think it speaks to the greatness of my dad that as a child and beyond my dream was and is to be a father: to tickle my kids until they can't breath, to look into their wide eyes as I make up stories, to throw them to ear-popping-altitudes in the swimming pool, to be ambushed by hugs when I walk in the door and to kiss away tears and turn them into comfort.

Intro to a memoirette in the works...

My name is Jason White But This Was the Year of the Dub

The Nickname

   It all began the final day of my freshman year at the University of Oklahoma.  I was beginning my 1 and a halfish hour drive down I44 to my parents home in Sand Springs and stopped for gas on my way out of town.  It was a hole in the wall gas station on the corner of Flood and Main and it would be the last time I saw the place.  When I returned after the summer break it had been partially demolished.  The corner would be vacant after the pumps were uprooted and the land cleared for 8 years in a struggling downtown until MidFirst Bank began construction and filled the its spot.  The station was a dying breed with no pay-at-the-pump option.  I probably fake cursed under my breath thinking that I didn’t have any options to pay-at-the-pump picturing the next two stations I would cross paths with. They had the same set-up.  Flood Ave/US 77 -  the last stretch of road within civilization to discover convenience.  
   “Better get this over with I thought”.  
   The whole prepay system stresses me out in a strange way.  Walking all the way into the store and estimating how much gas to get feels wrong to me.  It should be easier this day-in-age.  I try to minimize anything that resembles a chore, which includes my stops for gas so I want to fill it all the way up.  The more gas in the tank; the longer I’ll go without another stop, but the prepay system makes me play it safe and I feel like a weiner.  Hopefully the pump works.  Stations without prepay don’t have reliable pumps and can be lazy with their signage or plastic bags over the pump nozzles.  Take care to not go over your specified price too.  You never know if the pump has a system of automatically stopping at the agreed price or if a slight mistake will leave you digging under your car seats for spare change or scanning your check card for 3 more cents to make up the difference and a long walk of shame back into the store.  In my mother’s case it would be writing a check for the difference.  She cannot be convinced that a bank card is better.
   The bell rang as I opened the door, my fingers crossed at my side.  There were two older men in the store, the kind of guys you’d expect to be in a place like this without prepay.  They were country guys but the sprawling suburbia had enveloped them over the years and they refused to compromise.  One was behind the counter with a newspaper and the other in the corner with a cigarette.  They were talking about OU football.
   OU football is important.  I believe this.  Most everyone in the county believes it.  And a huge chunk of the state believes this  OSU once had Barry Sanders but that was about all they had going for them.  These guys believed OU football was important.  Spring practices had been in full swing.  The team had just come off of a suprise National Championship, one to remember.  Our Heisman runner-up stud quarterback Josh Huepel had graduated and the race was on to fill the chair.  Nate Hybel (no relation to Huepel) and Jason White (no relation to me) were in a tight race.  Hybel was a blue chip recruit from Georgia and a NFL style quarterback, an accurate pocket thrower.  Jason White was from a local small town and was known for his scrambling.
   I approached the counter.
   “I don’t know what to think of this quarterback race?” said the man in the corner his ash slowing crumbling to the floor.
   The clerk looked at me.  “15 dollars on 2 please,” I said.  I put my check card on the counter.  Gas was cheaper then.  These weren’t quite the glory days when a gallon of gas was cheaper than a small bottle of water, but they were close.
   “My votes are all on Hybels,” said the clerk. “This... what’s his name,” looking at the paper again, “Jason White, he don’t have what it takes.  Quarterbacks need to..”
   He abruptly stopped as he had looked at my card and had seen the name Jason White on it.  He scanned it and returned it to the desk in silence with his eyes down.  I retrieved it.
   “Thanks guys” I said as I exited and chucked to myself as much as a guy by himself can laugh.  I gassed up without going over and couldn’t wait be among a crowd to tell the tale, the first of many stories to come until the weird world I lived in could put a face to the name.  As I drove I wondered: how embarrassing was it for that guy?  Was he ashamed?  Would he consider it his “Most Embarrassing Moment”?  I pictured him sharing the story with his next customer, or at a church potluck.  I wondered if his wife would scold him to keep his opinions to himself around customers.  I was sure, though, that he would use the phrase, “I ‘bout soiled my drawars” when talking about it.  I imagine as well that he remember this as the moment that jinxed his business to all but ruins in a matter of weeks.

   Nate Hybel won the starting position but it turned out that he wasn’t quite all he was hybelled up to be.  He didn’t do well under pressure.  If he was chased out of the pocket which happened often, he was a disaster.  In an early non-conference blow-out (which would have a new definition in a few years) Jason White came in to finish the game.  “He’s got wheels!” was my first thought when I actually saw him play.  My game-day crew and I quickly became Jason White fans.  “Put in Jdub! Put in Jdub!” we would chant watching Hybel sacked again and again.  
   Jdub.  It had a ring to it.  Did I make it up?  I think so.  Good one, Jason.  I’ve always wanted a good nickname....  Something other than JC Panties which Scott Norvell named me as a kid, Dodo from my little sister who could not pronounce Jason for a few years, Jas, the lazy man’s Jason, or simply J, the worst one of all.  J could be anything, Jeremy, Justin, Jed or Jackass.  Anything but J, please.  I dropped some hints with my gang during a break between plays.  I didn’t really think it would catch on, but it did.  Slowly it infiltrated the circles of my life.  I was a 20 year old with little direction or vision in life.  I was figuring out who I was, “finding myself”, “coming of age”.  The cement that would become me would begin to solidify within that name, “Jdub”, that year.

   These stories are about that time, my sophomore year of college as best as I can remember them.

Hope

For the longest time I've longed to know what "hope" means.  These 3 remain... Faith. Hope. Love.  How is hope different than faith?  How is it different than expectation?

Our miscarried baby has ended up with the name "Hope".  We don't know if it was a boy or a girl.  I have the feeling it was a girl, but I don't think we would have named her Hope had she been born.  Hope is the name because we think that hope is the thing that has been born to us in this season.

When we saw the ultra-sound, a baby without a heart beat and not quite the right shape - Faith is what I had.  I dove off the high dive heading toward a pool with no water.  My faith proclaimed that water would be in the pool by the time I reached it.  This time it didn't work out.  It's a painful thing hitting the bottom, not just the loss of the baby but also the stretch of faith seemed to fail.  I don't apologize for my faith in the miraculous.  I've seen and heard too much.  I'm confident that the Father is not a fan of miscarriages.  I don't believe there are miscarriages in heaven; I don't believe miscarriages were a part of his design of Eden.  This pain is a result of the fall and they are a tool of the enemy to steal, kill and destroy.  Unfortunately for the enemy, the Father is so good that he can take any act of aggression towards us from the enemy and turn it around to bless us....

This is where hope comes in.

Hope is clinging to the goodness of God and the expectation to see Him release His goodness at the moment that your body is crushed on the concrete of a waterless pool.  Hope comes when the thing you had faith for, 100% certainty for crumbles into nothingness.  Whatever the outcome, despite the current mystery, the Father is good, He is kind and He will prevail.

I feel Him clearly say that my faith was a beautiful offering to Him - and now my hope is a beautiful offering as well.

I can't say how this will turn out or what it will look like, but I know someday I will look back and see clearly the Love of the Father exploding in my life in this season.  I already have a revelation of hope to show for it....

The Story

I just read "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Don Miller.  It was a quick read.  In less than a days time I unfolded it cover to cover.  I found something stirring inside me... a new framework or lens to see my life through.  Stories.  I am living in a series of stories that make up my own larger story.  My story connects and affects the stories of my family, community and beyond eventually into the story of mankind. What is my story?  What do I want it to be?  What are the substories?  Are they boring?  Are they long and drawn out?  Or do I recognize the change and growth required within the circumstance to overcome the obstacles to achieve the heart of the story?

I had a dream last year.  I was getting on an amusement park-like ride.  There was a line.  We boarded individual cars, like a roller coaster, but the cars weren't connected.  I was aware that the ride had a set beginning but not a set ending.   The ride played out like a roller coaster in times like on a scripted track, but most of the time we steered the cars.  There were stops in the ride, with obstacles, puzzles or games that we had to complete before passing.  The puzzles were difficult.  Many people were stumped and opted out of the ride.  After each puzzle the ride seemed to widen with more freedom and the fun kept increasing.  It started fun, but when it got wide it was awesome.  With experience the challenges and pit stops became easier, fewer and fewer people were stumped at each one.  My sense of the dream was that I was thriving on the ride.  I was also pausing at the obstacles a bit longer to help others through, passing on what I learned and encouraging them to pass on the secrets as well...

For some reason this dream came up when I began typing, it wasn't planned (I don't really plan it out. I just know the subject I've been chewing lately, looking at it from different angles, hoping that when it's written down it makes a little bit of sense).  I can't help but think that this ride is the story of life, our story in God.  Too many fall away at the sign of obstacles, mocking in their hearts the value of the story and the goodness of God.  But we can either live in an adventure, a ride/roller coaster, or we can live on our couch, seeking comfort and ease, protecting ourselves from loss and defeat.

I want to live out stories of meaning before God and all the heavenly host.  I want my children to watch me engage in stories that though they require risk, (and some will likely crash) will bring great reward.  I want my children to jump in with me.  I want a grand story for my family, one to tell for generations...  What will it be?  The good news is that I get to cowrite this story.  I get to choose that it can be a story of rich relationships, one of great sacrifice for others, one of joy, faith, hope and love....

I'm a story-teller at heart.  Once upon a time... I did it often.  In High School and College I was surrounded by enough characters that the stories came to me.  I was pulled in to the stories of other people and lived to tell the tales.  Sadly, people tend to get boring when they get older.  Jobs are boring.  Finances and investments are boring.  You know... the grind.  Cheering on the football season and short vacations become the only outlets to express Life in any way.  I have found myself having fewer and fewer stories to tell and the old stories lost their relevance.  I realized that I've not been a story creator with my life.  I don't often seek out risk or thrills or memories for memories sake.  I can easily spend a day and not do anything.  I don't get bored. I don't often get restless.  I want to relax.  I want to sit down in a safe place with safe people and talk and laugh, eat good food, etc.  Though, now I want there to be elements and chapters of that in my story I have to find an ending so beautiful that I'll risk everything to get it.  Honestly, I can't give you many details to what that goal might be for our family besides Greatness in the Kingdom.  I only hope that living out substories faithfully in the meantime will reveal the opportunity to carry the ring and throw it into the heart Mt Doom.

The Story concept is so much easier for me to swallow than the modern lens of mission, vision, measurable goals and tasks.  They are really one in the same, but the sound of one fills me with courage and longing and the other makes me tremble and puke a little bit in my mouth. So to bring it to the ground a little bit, what are the substories I'm going to jump into to help create and unveil the larger story arch?  I'll tell you.

I want to become active, physically.  In the past two years I've been relatively still.  My heart feels it.  My head feels it.  I need some endorphins.  People were not meant to be inactive.  One reason I've never completely bought into "working out" was that it primarily felt like vanity to me.  "I want to be sexy" is the goal.  Sometimes I wanted to be sexy, but that's not a consistent driving factor of my heart.  However, now health and activity feel like a necessary part being inside a worthwhile story.  Who knows what kind a stamina an obstacle might present.  Might I need to carry a snake-bitten child miles through the desert?  Or lift a heavy rock trapping someone to the earth?  Or throw a javelin through a manifestation of evil?  Mostly it gives me more energy for the day and besides, I kind of want to be sexy.  I need to find a race or something to lock me into activity.

I want to write more.  Writing, I'm finding, engages me in a day.  I'm an internal processor and I'm an observer.  I don't take myself too seriously.  I can spend shocking amounts of time not thinking about anything.  If spacing out is a skill then I should accept applications for apprenticeships.  Writing makes me think.  It makes me engage.  I don't care if anyone reads it.  I don't think anyone reads it.  I you do, maybe you'll learn something about something or someone....

I want ready eyes to see entrance into a story.  I want to run to places of need, not away.  I want to take chances to make memories.

One day I will be in a wedding dance circle with Jesus in the middle.  When we're all too sweaty and too tired from laughing He'll pull me aside.  We'll talk about my story while he keeps topping of my glass of wine.  He'll tell me what it all meant and he'll describe all of his favorite parts with a gleam of pride in his eyes.  It will all be worth it.

Coming of Age...

I was running on the Cornish (Seaside) this morning with The National's "I'm Afraid of Everyone" jammin'.  It was my last sprint and I had the odd feeling that I was playing out the middle of a "Coming of Age" movie, running from the frustration, the "who am I?" and getting closer to something new...  But aren't those movies about teens, addicts, or dysfunctional super-human vampires and the like?

I'm 30.  I'm no longer a teen.  I'm not an addict.  I'm not a vampire (yet).  My dream was to have a wife and children.  Check.  We are living our dream of living overseas.  We were able to take a number of adventurous trips and travels all over the world before our move.  We became parents when we were told that it probably wouldn't work, a miracle baby.  To top it all off, we have an amazing network of unique, incredible and loving friends...

I watched 'Up' recently with Rivers.  The intro silent montage of the couples back story is about as wrenching as it gets.  I see Kelly in the wife, the dreamer, me the wide-eyed husband saying "you got it."  I realized though that we have lived each dream as it comes, unlike the continued road-blocks they faced in the movie with each dream; adventure and child-bearing...

Kelly and I have been racing to the top of Maslow's little pyramid of needs.  The blessing and favor on our lives has been remarkable.  Sure, we've made a fair share of good decisions and worked hard through seasons, but what we have is a rare thing.  So why I am in the middle of a "Coming of Age" movie?  Is there a problem? What is next?

In the midst of my first experience with grief (Kelly had a miscarriage 2 weeks ago) I've also been struggling with the sense that I'm not good at the very thing I want to be good at.  I want to change the world.  I want to serve, teach, and inspire people.  I want to be a part of cleaning up the dysfunction of this world.  World, here I am.  I'm in Beirut.  I'm ready, willing and available...

But...

Ooops.  I'm not too good at Arabic.  Ooops.  I'm not very good at meeting new people. If we can crank up some Madonna and dance like we're drunk together, we're good.  If we can sit and laugh, eat finger foods, and let out the child-likeness, I'm your pal.  But if you're in a neck tie, shiny shoes, playing your cool cards - I'm gonna hold back.  I don't know why.  I'll try to think of things to talk about, stories to tell... crash.  Ooops...

How do I connect?  How do I unlock a heart in a different culture?  What change do I make?  How? - Am I willing to pay the cost? - Or am I in the wrong culture? (I love Arab culture).

I've been waking up with a very subtle angst.  It's mostly the grief talking, but also partly due to a season of bad sleep.  It's a dull pain that I don't notice until I can't find my keys, or I hear a hint of "that" tone in a question I'm asked.  But when the chord is struck I feel like freaking out, like finding a dark room alone and hibernating until the next season.  I'm a character that I haven't seen, read about or met.  I'm stuck.  I'm restless.  I'm not running on all cylinders.  I look at the chess board thinking a few moves ahead but it gets all jumbled and I have to start over.  Every decision feels like a radical change - high cost/high risk.  It's scary.  We all know how Tiger Woods's revamped golf swing has worked out... so far.

I'm running toward something.  Now I know better than to expect the sensation of "arrival" and a happily ever after life of coasting, rest and feasts.  It's always a challenge to enjoy and appreciate the new seasons alongside the new responsibilities and changes.  For too long, I thought "my life will be gravy when... fill in the blank."  Rarely in the process of my life so far did I think that I was rich with blessing. I was generally shocked by the unexpected things....

I'm running toward a life of taking care of, loving, and cherishing a growing family while having something left to give to the world.  Though, I cannot see how the pieces of my wiring, gifting, talents, finances, family, environment, etc fit together in the optimal way, I find peace in knowing that in the process I am loved.  I am delighted in.  I am not alone and I am living my dreams.

love.

Yesterday I was sitting at my desk replying to emails about maps and charts for a project at the publishing house I'm volunteering for and it dawned on me.  Something clicked into place.  All the slots aligned.  Everything simplified.  My complex mind map of the hows, whys and purposes of this world and our roles within it clarified - This life is a fiery kiln to produce one thing: love.  The joys, comforts, victories, defeats, pain and grief all should be burning away selfishness and purifying love.  True love.  Not Shakespearean/Twilighty love, or tolerating, well-wishing love, but 'self-sacrificing I'll give you the last cookie even if I'm really hungry and am the one who took the energy to get up and go get it' love.  'I'll engage and pursue opportunities to give no matter the cost' love.  Love when it hurts.  Love when it's inconvenient.  Love when its confusing.  Can I receive love?  Can I believe it?  Can I let it transform me?  Can I actually do it?  Can I meet the challenge to love?

I thought I was a good guy, selfish here and there but good.  Then I got married.  Then I moved to the Middle East amongst a people that I have next to nothing in common with.  Then I had a kid.  I have needs, these things show me.  And over again I've found myself gearing to fight for them, to get peace, comfort, rest, good food, pleasure for myself.  Screw you if you're in my way.  Now, more than a flame of the fire of life these people are also the immediate direct objects of my love playground.  They are the step one, two and threes of how I'm going learn to love, my little league/backyard ball.  But with the challenges against my needs I've found myself clinging to comforts and backing away/disengaging from the fires.  Or in the fires, I've let the wrong thing, love melt away and justify further my needs.  I've been growing tired of the endless compromises of if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, when, where, how long, how hard.  There is something bigger, greater and ultimately more rewarding.  It seems that the measure of love in this life is the measure of greatness in the coming kingdom, one in which love will no longer be tested, it will be all there is.  I want to be great in that kingdom though I have no clue what it means.  On my dying day I want a big chunk of love to be all thats left of me.

Jesus said, "If you love me you listen to and obey my commands".  He summarized it all into the command to love God and to love everyone.  The asterisk next to love, was to love as the Father loves Jesus and like Jesus loves us.  There's no compromise in that with my needs.  There's only strangling selfishness underwater every time it tries to come up for air.  Surely many storms will come and grief, loss, hunger as will bounty, blessing and excess but if the result in my heart is not love, then I've wasted my time.

things i'm looking forward to...

i'm been sick a lot lately and had some time to think about what i'm looking forward to over our time back home this winter...

as you have probably noticed by my facebook tournament, i'm really looking forward to eating out.

watching the ou bowl game with a group and a big bowl of queso.

i hope to go to not 1 but 2 thunder games. i had a dream that i became friends with kd35 and Harden.

games with the Bauers.

spades with the Jaquas.

movies with the Smiths.

new years predictions with Alex.

bball games with the normcomm dudes way to early in the morning.

maybe tennis if there is a nice day.

watching my nephews Reed and Dossett interact with Rivers.

reconnecting with people. laughing. hugs.

christmas with both sids of the fam.

dreaming about Beirut.

taking walks/runs outside. nature.

wandering around target.

affordable starbucks brewed coffee.

rivers 1st birthday party.

the births of several normcomm babies.

speaking arabic to arabs.

driving.

fast internet.

diet coke with lime.

and more...