My mom died in 2003, and with Mother’s Day only a couple of days away, it seems like a good time to share a few of the things that I would tell my mom if I could sit down this Sunday and have one more conversation with her.

1. I still wear clean underwear.

You probably didn’t need to hear that, mom, but I just thought I’d lead with the obvious.  You taught me a lot about being prepared and being responsible, and also about seeing the possibilities in every new day.  I know that when you told us to put on clean underwear it was probably more about the funky smells than a life lesson, but I tend to see it as letting go of yesterday and seeing today as a fresh start.  Starting each day with a clean pair, um, slate gives me confidence, and I know that no matter what I might face over that next 24 hour period…

2. I’m ok.

Don’t get me wrong.  I would so much rather have you here with me, calling me every day “just to check in” on me, but you need to know that all the time you invested in me to shape the man I would become paid off, and even though it hurts that you’re gone, your absence hasn’t left me unable to live, because you taught me that life is about so much more than how I feel or what I experience.  Life is about Jesus, and He’s been good to me.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that…

3. She’s everything you prayed for.

It’s not like you never got to meet Wendy, because we’d been married 12 years before you died, so I’m sure you died at peace knowing that I was married to the woman YOU PRAYED INTO MY LIFE.  No, you didn’t pray specifically for Wendy, but I know you spent time on your knees asking God to give me the perfect blend of strength and grace, beauty and integrity.  She’s all of that and so much more.  The fact that she said yes and married me is only one example of how…

4. God heard you.

I’ll never forget the summers when you would send all of us kids off to youth camp.  I remember specifically the summer that you hugged me good-bye and told me that I would be a preacher some day, and I’m pretty sure I laughed.  In your face. But just like with Wendy, God heard you because God seems to have a special line of communication for praying moms, and here I am years later in my third decade of ministry.  I’m so thankful that you were able to see God’s answer to your prayers before your death, and I cherish the years that I got to serve on staff at your church.  I think of you often now as I preach at and lead The Gathering, and this Sunday you will be a big part of me, because…

5. You are not forgotten.

I don’t break down as much as I used to, but I think of you more now than ever before, and I’m more determined now to live my life in such a way that others don’t forget the woman who held me when my ear infections kept me up at night, or my mind blew up thinking about eternity, or a girl broke my heart.  I think of you when I see Wendy help our children with school work and every time our extended family gets together.  I look at my sisters, my daughter, my niece, and every now and then when they turn their head a certain way and laugh, I see you.  The thing is, I couldn’t forget you even if I wanted to, because you are in me.  Your DNA pulses through me, your values guide me, and your passion for pursuing Jesus awakens me to all the things you prayed for me.  For that, I can only say…

6. Thank you.

Thank you for everything.  Thank you for giving up your life to pour into mine.  For living in front of me the sacrificial love of Jesus by pouring yourself so fully into the care of my special needs brother.  Thank you for teaching me that every life matters, and that if I look hard enough, the lives that seem less valuable can actually teach me the most valuable lessons.  Thank you for showing me that no matter how many years you’ve lived, it’s never too late to try something new.  Thank you for your time, your patience, your unwavering faith, your consistency, your realness, your laugh and your love.  But most of all, thank you for so impacting my life with your character that every time I hear the word grace, I see your face.

Mom, if you were here with me right now, and I could have one last conversation with you, the last thing I’d say to you would be the first thing you heard when you saw Jesus…

7. Well done.

Every now and then, culture and faith collide in such a way that it gives the church an opportunity to really stand out and show how following Jesus makes us different.  Sometimes we step up to the plate and knock it out of the park, and sometimes we strike out swinging.

Over the last week, I’m afraid we haven’t even swung.

Two events happened almost simultaneously that got a lot of media attention.  In a span of about 24 hours, Dan Haseltine – the lead singer for the Christian band, Jars of Clay – made some unexpected comments about same-sex marriage and the Bible, and Donald Sterling – the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers (and possibly the most hated owner of all time) – made some racist comments to his girlfriend that she made sure everyone heard.

And then, the world blew up.

Granted, it probably should have, because much of what was said was like a bomb.  It’s not my position that Donald Sterling said anything privately that he hasn’t been known for publicly.  His racist and prejudicial beliefs have been pretty well documented over the years.  And as far as the comments by Haseltine about same-sex marriages and the authority of Scripture?  Well, when the prominent front man for a respected Christian band hints at not caring what the Bible says, that’s as close to Twitter napalm as you’re gonna get.

What really got my attention wasn’t so much what was said (even though it raised some eyebrows), but what happened after what was said. From professional media to bloggers in the basement, people grabbed the keys, fired up the busses and proceeded to throw Don and Dan under them.  And before you start to do the same to me, let me say one more time: I’m not advocating that they shouldn’t be under the bus, but consider for a moment the following statement.

In a drive-by culture, assassination is valued more highly than conversation.

Let me take a minute and unpack that sentence, and then let me tell you why I think it matters.

First, our culture has grown increasingly into what I call a “drive-by” culture.  I’m not speaking about guns and drug thugs, but of talking heads and the way we’ve learned to handle conflict.  There was a day when people could disagree and actually talk about it, but those days are quickly going the way of the dinosaur.  Now it’s a roomful of “experts” spouting opinions and debating with no resolution.  It’s a 140-character missile launch of explosives but no follow-up, a comment on Facebook or a blog without sticking around to answer reasonable arguments to the contrary.

In short, it’s immature people making points when mature people would offer thoughts.  A drive-by culture offers sound bites that bite.  And trust me, it’s an epidemic that isn’t contained to your TV.  People you love and care for – friends, family, coworkers – routinely spout venom and then shrink away before anyone can call them on it.

And that’s why, in their minds, assassination is so much better than conversation.  Assassination kills.  It ends the matter and allows the person with the biggest gun or the last shot to escape without any accountability.  The basement blogger can launch social grenades from a distance and never have to get his hands dirty.  But conversation?  That’s a lot tougher, because conversations require grace, and patience, and a willingness to kill the pride that makes us want to be right.

Not surprisingly, that last sentence sounds a lot like God, doesn’t it?  Of course, God doesn’t have pride like we do, but Jesus proved that God isn’t content to stand off like a snob and simply launch a tirade against us.  In fact, the Bible paints the picture of a God who COULD have assassinated us, maybe even SHOULD have, but instead CHOOSES to have a conversation with us about our sin.

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)

I love that and hate that all at the same time.  I love the fact that God chose to “reason” with me about my sin when He could have just thrown me under the bus, but I hate the fact that His willingness to do so now becomes a reasonable expectation of me towards others, and that’s where I feel that the church has struck out looking when she had the chance to get on base.

I’m not surprised at the backlash toward Sterling.  In fact, I expected nothing less.  I am not a follower of Christ who expects anybody who isn’t following Christ to act as if he or she is.  But I don’t have the option of assassinating the man, because, in His mercy, God sent Jesus to talk with me when He could have kept His distance and just condemned me.  “To whom much is given, much is required.” (Luke 12:48)

What we learned with Donald Sterling is that the world handles hard things with drive-bys and assassinations.  What we SHOULD have learned with Dan Haseltine is that the church handles hard things differently.

But we didn’t.

Almost before you could say “heretic,” the web was filled with posts from fellow believers (I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt) about how the frontman from Jars of Clay had embraced gay marriage and kissed evangelical Christianity good-bye.  Admittedly, when I first read the tweets, I thought about posting, too, but decided to wait, thankfully.  Within a day, Haseltine had posted on his own blog clarifying a lot of what he had said and giving the context behind it.  Of course, when I went back to see how many of the bus drivers from earlier had posted updates with this new information, I found none (in the days since, there have been some updates).

Instead, I found page after page of Google results littered with the casings from the smoking guns held by Christian assassins who were too quick to shoot and too slow to reason.  Sadly, that makes the church a little too much like the world and little too less like the God who calls us to reason, consider, and talk together about hard things.

Conversations don’t ignore the facts, and they don’t bypass consequences. In fact, over the next 2 verses of Isaiah 1, God included in the conversation the positive and negative consequences that await us when the talking is over and the doing begins.  What conversations do accomplish is the opening of a heart, a mind and a life to the possibility of redemption.  They allow the church to point those deserving the worst to a Savior who became the worst in their place.

So could we please, as Christ followers in a drive-by world, put down our guns and pick up the cross, and live in such a way that we talk about Jesus, point people to Jesus, and always remember the grace of Jesus that saved us when He had every right to gun us down?

That is a conversation worth having.

Since last night, I’ve roasted marshmallows, played hide and seek and had a pillow fight.  I’ve been in prison, tamed lions and saved killer whales who were friendly and had fallen overboard. There have been bears who walk, pillows who talk, and lots of laughter.  I’ve been a tickle monster, a gold medal champion and a poopyhead.

In fact, the only way I was able to get away to post this to the blog was by swallowing a magic pill that made me invisible to the prison guards.  But I won’t have long, because the potion isn’t very strong and I can hear the footsteps of the munchkins coming.

So, from a location deep in the imagination of a child’s mind, let me challenge you – no, I triple dog dare you:

Grow up, but never grow old.

Sometimes as we age we get cranky and crusty.  We get set in our ways and stuck in our routines, and so we read words in the Bible about how Jesus calls us to childlike faith and we shrug our shoulders, furrow our brows and mumble something under our breath about childish behavior.

I refuse.  I want to mature without becoming a miser.  I want to grow in stature without becoming a statue.  I want to grow up still full of wonder instead of growing old just full of thunder.

There are things that we probably shouldn’t do as an adult that we did as kids.  Running into a room full of people and pulling your shirt up over your head is cute as a kid, but it could get you some unwanted attention as an adult.  But to grow up and still live the kind of fearless life that would never worry about what others might think before taking a risk?  That’s what I want.

When my almost 3 year-old nephew woke up at 6:04 am today, I heard him talking even though there wasn’t anyone in his room to talk to (because all the others crazy ones were camping out in the living room).  When I went to investigate, I found he wasn’t alone.  There were 2 lions, a bear, a fish and a killer whale all on the bed with him.  You could tell him they weren’t real, but I don’t think he would have believed you.  There is something about this that must move God, because He also, from time to time, looks at things and sees them differently than other people.  He once looked at a valley of bones and saw and army.  He looked at enemies and saw broken people who needed forgiveness.  He looked at you – and me – and saw value when others saw none.

This unrelenting desire to see the world as a playground or as a giant laboratory in which to perform countless experiments is a childlike quality that you and I must refuse to ever grow out of if we’re to see the fullness of what God wants to do in us.

We will all grow up, but we do not all have to grow old.

Give me, I pray, the heart of a child so that I might know the love of my Father.  A Father who relishes the risky and applauds the audacious and who catches us when we try and fail and inspires us to try, imagine, and risk again.

Now, I beg you, I must take my leave.  The potion has worn off and the guards are coming.  It won’t be long before they find me and take me back to pris