Tim Loves Everyone!

The Host and the Hostage

timtom — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:45:37 +0000

Krystal introduced me to substitute teaching at KIPP Middle School in November of 2006. She suggested that I drop by and observe her father who also subbed occasionally, prior to stepping in. A week before I was due to teach I visited the campus and nervously walked up to the second floor of their classroom building, intrigued by the inspirational banners adorning the walls and the uniforms adorning the students. This wasn’t the hostile public middle school jungle of my own childhood. I spied through the porthole in the door of the 7th grade math class I came to visit, took a breath and stepped in. Behind the desk stood a lean, black gentleman, so I walked in to greet him while the kids worked in their groups. He was cordial, though obviously distracted, and offered me his seat while he walked to the front of the class to resume his lesson. This was the first time I met Danny Carter.

Being a fellow Lakewood member, I was bound to see Mr. Carter again. Last year Krystal invited me to hear her parents teach a Lakewood “Compass” class, a Bible study between services every weekend. I sat with her in the back row of a small classroom and spent the next half hour or so in shock at the grace with which Mr. Carter taught from Scripture, the love with which he addressed his wife, and the directness with which he conversed with his God. The last, more than anything else, stands out to me about that day. While speaking he would pause between sentences, smile, and softly direct a “Thank you” to his Lord as he found a new thought or passage to share. He stood with a room full of believers, but in those moments he was alone with his God.

I was invited to a birthday party for Mr. Carter in May last year. It was this gathering that clarified a truth about the man: he was the quintessential host. Family and friends from all over gathered in his home, people he’d affected through his various ministries at church, at prisons, at schools. We huddled around, feasting on barbecue and playing party games, but the climax arrived when Danny took a moment to quiet the group and address everyone personally, standing in the living room next to Mrs. Carter. He expressed his gratitude and explained that he didn’t want anyone to visit his home carrying a burden of any form, only to leave unchanged. He warmly prayed with us and welcomed his Savior into the room. Mr. Carter was a host who, despite attending a party thrown in his honor, would place the spotlight on his Lord and on his guests.

Earlier this year I was walking the halls at church carrying my guitar and I bumped into Danny just as he dismissed a men’s gathering he was conducting. Noticing my guitar, he excitedly interrogated me on my availability to play with him during one of his ministry visits to local prisons. He proceeded to sing a few songs, asking me if I knew how to play any of them. I had heard of his trips to correctional facilities around town, and I’d looked forward to accompanying him eventually. I was thrilled that I could finally join him and perhaps serve a better function than just observing. We exchanged phone numbers and I promised to contact him when I had a free weekend and had rehearsed a few of the songs he sang for me.

Krystal called me the night Danny was taken to the hospital.

I felt helpless when I met her later that evening and prayed with her. Danny had suffered from weakness and labored breathing for a few days, and it was with hope and faith that the Carter family made their first visits to the doctor. The diagnosis knocked the wind out of everyone who knew him. But I cursed, shoved my phone aside and sat on the floor the moment I learned that Danny Carter had finally passed away, just a few months later. I felt stupid and faithless, unable to console or even comment, since even speaking about Mr. Carter in the past tense seemed offensive and disgusting. It wasn’t until a few days later that the loss began to register and the tears began to flow. It’s been a month now since he passed. I’m humbled by the visible strength of the Carter family. I don’t know how anyone makes it through a personal loss of such magnitude.

There was something untouchable about Danny, this man of dignity and love and humor. He was childlike when he laughed: his mouth would shrink into a tight smile, his eyes grow big, and he would bend at the knee and bounce, as though he were catching the weight of his own humor. His face was inquisitive when he listened to you, and he would look away thoughtfully, brows furrowed while he formed his responses. When Mr. Carter walked to the front of the room that first day I visited KIPP, he didn’t have to raise his voice. He didn’t even have to look up from the small index card he was holding before the students respectfully quieted down to pay attention. He spoke with a thoughtful confidence, delivering wisdom (in a math lesson, no less) with his unique Trojan horse technique: he would pose questions while creating opportunities to share personal stories, historical illustrations and Biblical allusions. The kids, like me, didn’t know what hit them. His subversive insertion of the Gospel into every conversation and lesson contributed to this untouchable quality, this remoteness that was apparent when you caught him poring through his worn Bible in his free moments. We never fully had him. He was bound to his Savior, held hostage by Love, desperately seizing every moment to uncover his captor. If he was the hostage we were the ransom, won over to his captor by his life and his message. Like for all people you esteem highly, his passing was too soon, but it’s almost impossible to deny that he’s enjoying his home now, smiling and laughing and bouncing in that childlike way, his face tight with joy in the company of his Father.

Happy Birthday, Jessie Mani!

timtom — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:40:34 +0000

Jessie Mani is a super guy. Here’s what he looks like, right before he charges the matador.

Two years ago Josh and I celebrated Jessie’s birthday by composing a little tune.

The Jessie Mani Opus

Jessie’s Birthday was on September 13th, but Hurricane Ike prevented us from getting the following up in time. It’s over a week late, but Sam, Josh and I wish Jessie another happy birthday with this second installment:

The Jessie Mani Opus, Part II

We love you, cuz. Happy birthday!

Bent By Beckham

timtom — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:14:01 +0000

She was bright, young, and attractive, three qualities which, together, will make any high school student pay attention to you. Ms. Beckham taught freshman English, and in fulfillment of a prophecy she gave her students, I still remember what she pronounced about her lessons: that we would remember them and be indelibly affected by them for years to come. Big words for a high school teacher. Time has proven her right because over a decade later I credit her first for the way she taught me to read and study critically, to read with the pursuit of an author’s unwritten and implicit motives. I suppose it was my first foray into hermeneutics, into acknowledging every written word as potentially intentional, into not lazily ascribing everything to chance or disposition. It’s a fun, empowering, and admittedly exhausting way to read.

There’s a time during our church services when kids are welcomed forward to pray for their elementary-aged life needs. The prayer requests are reliably surprising, and it’s not uncommon to see fellow teachers and adults crying as they pray passionately about the things that trouble kids. Illness among family members, fighting between parents, wanting to be better students: these topics head the list. One little first-grader marched up to me once with a big smile, and when asked what he wanted to pray for, he said in a loud voice, “I want a Nintendo Wii!” If only we all were as bold and honest.

A prayer need that touches me most is the one that indicates social dysfunction, the tension of loneliness and anxiety. It breaks my heart when kids need prayer to make friends or fit in at school. Arguably, the latent need in adults to absolve some unresolved childhood memory or problem is what drives them to pursue work helping or teaching children. It’s understandable, and in many cases a great force for good, especially when a person has grown in wisdom and is able to offer godly counsel to those who just want to be happy. Isn’t that what the good life is? Being happy?

The avenues to happiness are subjective and endless, and it’s why no one can adequately determine the happiness of another. You have to know things for yourself, if a conscious, enlightened happiness is what you desire. Frankly, knowing for myself is what makes me happy. Trying to understand the written and unwritten messages of God’s Word is a life-worthy fascination and thrill. Several months ago I came to the realization that I’ve been needing time to figure things out and renew some spiritual and personal foundations. Knowing why I do what I do brings me pleasure, and with that pursuit in mind, I’ve taken August as a sabbatical from every current work and church obligation. It’s a rush being able to do all the small things I’ve put off for several months, tackle the projects I’ve wanted to work on, study the things I’ve wanted to learn, travel for a bit, spend time with Christ as I used to. I’m not sure what’s supposed to happen by the end of the month, but like any of Ms. Beckham’s good students, I want to dig deeper. God says that he can be found by those who pursue him, and I’ll be bold and honest enough to say that he is what I want. I suppose August will find me buried in something but free with myself. I think that’d make me happy.

Rainbow Brite, Optimus Prime, and Me

timtom — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:47:13 +0000

I was terrified of life in the first grade. Come to think of it, I was terrified of life all throughout grade school. But those first few elementary years were wretched. I would fake illnesses to escape school, and until my parents grew tired of my belly-aching (I literally belly-ached; I was 6, I hadn’t perfected disease-faking yet), it usually worked. Being a soft-spoken teacher’s pet in those early years did help, though. Kids will generally leave you alone, if not respect you, for being modest.

All of my fellow first-graders brought their lunches to school. It was a source of pride and comfort, comparing lunches and carrying a taste and reminder of home into the belligerent and frightening foreignness of public school. It was a safety line to parents in a way, the only people we’d learned to trust in 6 years of living. With parents who knew and cared little for pop-cultural relevance, and me being too young to completely understand its apparent importance, I dressed like a gnome, parted and combed my hair down flat, wore my pants closer to my armpits than my belly button, and carried a girl’s lunch box. I was 6. I knew no better. I was scared around the clock, wanting to go home, and I knew not to care for anything about my lunch box but its sweet, calorie-laden contents.

That’s right. Until my so-called friends at school thoroughly and passionately convinced me of my foolishness, I carried a bright yellow Rainbow Brite lunch box, which held my daily ration of PB&J on white bread, complete with a bright yellow thermos of milk and a bag of Cheetos.

It may have been a target for ridicule in 1986 (as if I didn’t do a good enough job being a target already), but I’d love to still own that piece of personal history. I don’t know where it went — I can only hope it properly ended up in the hands of a girl — but I do remember the shame I felt when my classmates pointed out the absurdity of my luggage. I also remember that the box was soon replaced, after anguished complaining to my parents, with a glossy, modern Transformers lunch box, also complete with matching thermos. Here’s a secret: if you want to make a first-grader happy, just have Optimus Prime and Megatron be silent witnesses at every lunchtime. It worked for me.

My parents might have dressed me like a gnome, but I was clean, I ate well, I had a loving home and I had fun. It’s unfortunately rare these days to find such a stellar checklist completed, but my parents jumped through hoops to do it for me and my brothers. Somehow it’s the most trivial things like TV-themed lunch boxes that stand out as symbols of love. Love, I suppose, makes you buy things you don’t really need, and, as in my case, fear may be what makes you want them in the first place.

Patience!

timtom — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:35:47 +0000

Naturally, hindsight has me focusing on the dozen or so things I could’ve improved upon, but given the time crunch I put myself into, I’m pleased with both how this project turned out and how it was received by the kids this weekend. I present to you, “KidsLife Lunch Meet.” My thanks to the brothers and to Jeremy (awesome coincidence!), the manager at 59 Diner. And for clarification: the diner’s real waiters are prompt.

Deserted, or “Jesus and Jessica.”

timtom — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:10:14 +0000

We pray to an unseen God and wait for a knowledge of his presence or a sufficient impression of “peace” as part of a growing relationship with him. It can be hard (though, I’m not defining all of my faith as being so existential). It’s not uncommon for me to pause, acknowledge Jesus and have as explicit a conversation as one can have with a person that’s not physically in the room. And, admittedly, I must be content and thrive on that quiet peace or voice that I often accept as “his end” of the conversation.

It’s the most damned and frustrating thing, trying to maintain a relationship via one of my most hated mediums: the telephone. It’s hardly a request or search for a more pleasing medium, because for me the only satisfying means of having a relationship with a person is in person. The telephone leaves my ears hurting almost as much as my heart.

I’m at my least realistic when I’m on the phone. I need to be with a person, with all of her nonverbals, in order to feel it’s a worthwhile time. It becomes unbearably arduous to read someone — much less keep a meaningful relationship for months at a time — when you’re deprived of that reliable way of understanding and knowing someone. Faith is crucial to any “long distance” relationship, be it with God or man, and I can’t imagine how such a relationship would be possible for a faithless or selfish person. Jessica and I are forced to give each other a steady and unending stream of benefits of the doubts.

A few weeks ago I was in Amarillo, visiting Jess’s town and family for an extended weekend. They were easily the most perfect 5 days of my life. It’s difficult to describe how much I miss her or how much we struggle to feel that we’re making the most of those rare occasions when we can actually be together. There’s nothing like making her laugh until she’s gasping with the kind of abandon that makes me feel like the funniest person on the planet. I’d trade 5 hours of phone calls for 5 minutes of driving and laughing together anyday. We spent that Saturday at Palo Duro Canyon where we tanned (unintentionally — I don’t know any Indian who WANTS to tan) and had lunch. It’s fitting that our relationship had us vacationing in a canyon; its desert terrain perfectly captures the way we feel without one another — alone and surrounded by the uninhabitable.

My relationship with Jesus sometimes leaves me doubtful and frustrated. I always feel like I don’t have enough of him, that prayers too often feel unanswered, that conversations are too tedious, that too many things should be different. With Jessica I’m praying that the time we have to spend apart is worthwhile, that somehow we grow in ways that bring us closer; we’ve already grown to understand the foolishness of taking each other for granted. To Jesus I’m praying that I understand the breadth of that distance between him and me, that somehow I’d come to understand how much he longs to be closer as well.

It’s the all-too-familiar desert, in love and spirituality. A person in love can’t spend his life simply inferring the heart of another, no more than one can know God merely through interpreting the writ and subtexts of Scripture. You’ve gotta have time, time alone and together, with the kind of explicit empathy that leaves you in awe of the fullness attainable in this lifetime. As unpleasant as it can be, it may be for the better: sometimes you see paradise clearly when you’re in the desert.

Pickle-icious!

timtom — Sat, 17 May 2008 03:26:42 +0000

We try to give our kids the best we can muster, and it’s frustrating to feel like my own efforts aren’t up to par. I’m working on a video for KidsLife, and it’s the first time I’ve been in charge of the whole shebang: writing, casting, directing, editing. It’s a lot of fun, and although I’ve leaned toward an easier production approach, I hope to put up a sample of what I’m currently working on. I’ve had the great privilege of meeting and teaming up with a few super-talented people, and here’s proof of some of what we’ve been able to put together in the past. Mind you, it’s long and it’s an older project (I still had long hair), but it’s one that was satisfying to edit and watch. Most importantly, it kept the kids engaged–no small feat.

Bankable

timtom — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:52:31 +0000

It’s ironic that we desire money as a means to having the good life, only to find that the good life compels us to give our money away.

Water Buffalo

timtom — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:55:19 +0000

Perplexing, bizarre, terrifying, inspiring. I’ve been a Björk fan since college. The woman has no boundaries, and her creativity is otherworldly. Here’s what I’m talking about. What am I supposed to say about this? I can’t quite put my finger on what’s so unsettling about it: how was it made? What’s CG and what’s stop-motion? What’s live action? WHAT’S GOING ON? It’s eerie and great, and it had me captivated from the first visible frame. I bet the 3D version it was originally introduced in–if, in fact, it was the kind requiring the glasses–would’ve been mind-blowing.

DAF Night

timtom — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:44:29 +0000

Dinner among friends. Although, with how much food we have on the table–and how much I tend to eat–at some point, it’s no longer dinner. It’s a contest…but I’m not sure who’s the real winner.

I met Krystal Carter and Eric Garcia through the kids ministry at church. The three of us were involved with the drama team, they being directors and I usually being the oldest actor on stage. Trust me, ministry doesn’t work without a solid and repeated dose of humility. Since furthering our involvement in different ministries at church over the last year, I haven’t seen them as frequently as I used to (we once used to see and work with each other at least every weekend). So, to preserve what we found to be an unusually cohesive friendship, we resolved to have dinner together at least once a month, at Krystal’s apartment by default. Last night was that night, with Krystal, using what she’s learned about our appetites, baking a giant tray of lasagna. If your friendship doesn’t include cheesy meat or meaty cheese in heavy, repeated doses–much like humility in ministry–then I question the depth of your friendship. Conversation and binging are essential to any good relationship, I’d say.

Our conversations are never too investigative; I’m impressed by how accepting we’ve become of each other. The unwritten (until now) rule we have is to love and serve each other unquestioningly. These are two of the most talented and dedicated friends I’ve had, despite the fact that we have to schedule a day every month to see each other. Eric put it best when I had the pleasant surprise of actually seeing him at church last Sunday: “We’re lifers.” We’re not trying to be friends–we simply are. We’ll see one another after an indeterminate interval and pick up where we left off, no apologies necessary. Maybe the distance and the reserved respectfulness in our conversations are what make things work. But who can figure such things? One tray of lasagna, a half gallon of ice cream, and several waistline inches later, we can come to this conclusion: thank God for good friends.