How my family returned to the Eucharist and why I finally got a driver’s license after driving illegally for about 20 years.
I found this pizza-by-the-slice spot in Old Town…
They have your standard pepperoni and plain cheese slices, but they also make all these weird little one-off pizzas that seem like some folks just met in the back, gave a cursory glance at what was in the fridge, and then ran it by a guy named Dillon who partied a little too hard the night before. Once I saw one that had mac and cheese and hotdogs with chili dolloped across the top.
On one of our daddy-daughter Monday evenings, I took the girls there. We sat at the bar top by the big windows. Apparently, Haven wasn’t feeling well, so that’s why she didn’t eat much. Luckily, Mary had plenty to say otherwise. There weren’t too many lulls in the conversation to address.
They each picked out a bottled soda, and I carried over the plank sized slices on the thinnest paper plates ever made. I showed them the little glass shakers with Parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes. They told me about anything and everything that came to their minds while I sat on the stool between them making sure neither slipped off.
The pizza didn’t have to be good—it was about experiencing a little moment in time with these two girls. We just had this happy time together. I was with them with no agenda, contently listening to them, and pointing out the rain clouds making their way down the street to us.
Mary talked about how things were going with her classmate, Maya. Haven listed off ideas of what she wanted to do for her science project. I made a point to ask them for their ideas about something I was planning just so I could hear their thoughts. And we also made little comments here and there as we saw all the people and kids walking past us.
As we finished our slices, down came the rain.
The last time the three of us were caught in a downpour, we were unprepared. I parked down the street and around the corner from the restaurant because I thought we’d like to walk around after having a couple burgers together. That hope was abruptly dashed.
We had to book it across the main strip of College Ave and then cut through a couple alleys and side roads before we made it to the car. My first idea was to grab a couple little free newspapers that were under an awning. That idea seemed the most sensible when we first left and when the rain was just a drizzle.
[Quick note: The only reason we left when we did was because a man came inside, having an episode of violent pacing and extremely disorganized, nonsensical outbursts. If it weren’t for him and all the potential consequences and questions that could’ve followed, we would have just waited out the storm while splitting a milkshake.]
Once we started walking, the skies opened up over us, soaking through our newspapers, turning them into illegible globs in our greatest moment of need. Lightening crackled overhead and the thunder sent my girls into a panic. When we turned the last corner, in a full sprint, I thought I had parked just right at that corner. Sadly no, we had one more block to go. That’s when the screaming started.
I picked up one and threw her over my shoulder like a bag of rocks. I sent the other one ahead with the car keys so she could get in as soon as she made it. We ran like we were fleeing an air raid.
This time however, I parked just across the street and under a couple towering oak trees. I checked the weather before we left the house. The girls made sure to grab their little umbrellas as well as their rain boots. Leaving the restaurant, all we had to do was a little hop over the train tracks, a cute little drizzly walk across the street, and then right into the car. The ride home this time around involved fewer screams of desperation and terror.
The pizza didn’t have to be good—I just wanted to have a moment where I could “keep them all to myself” and nothing else mattered except whatever they had to tell me.
“I don’t really care; I just want a general appearance of things being sorted out.”
At my worst, I flirt with the notion that I somehow can be the only person in the world to achieve a moment of perfection. Real perfection—not just a good feeling or a kind of ecstatic satisfaction. I like to think that I can bring together all of my life’s goals, strengths, relationships, resources, and whatever collection of entrails and organs I can find to a kind of sacrificial table whereby I can give all of it to the good work of experiencing a kind of perfection. I’ll sacrifice all of it so I get exactly what I want.
I’ll sacrifice everything (except myself) so I and whoever would appreciate the same can live inside what I deem as perfect.
Some might use the phrase “On earth as it is in Heaven” with a sincere devotion toward a sacrificial life. For me however, I would make an amendment to the hopeful intercession, to include, “by the work and unmatched creative expressions of John Mark Guerra, the man we could never thank enough.”
On the first weekend of October, Lisa and I had our date night scheduled as usual. Vedika came earlier than we expected, so we were scrambling to leave the house while also making sure the girls were set up for the evening. I think I made spaghetti and some popcorn. I can’t remember if I made or put out any kind of dessert, but I know that is usually expected.
Lisa was working on the last push to clean the house. She usually likes to take Friday afternoon for a deep clean, especially the bathrooms. As much as I can clean the bathrooms, she prefers her way of doing things.
I don’t really care. I just want a general appearance of things having been sorted out.
Alongside the gloves and the little caddy she carries for such necessary sanitation, she was also intentionally considering how to best support one of our daughter’s growing responsibility for cleaning her room.
The room was in a near constant state of disarray with every flat surface covered with some disorganized expression of chaos. As Lisa saw it, something had to be done.
While I was focusing on adjusting the salt and acid and umami of the marinara sauce as well as my plan to take Lisa to that little pizza place, she was navigating her own work of support, frustration, weary resolve, and whatever kind of creative solutions that came to her. I didn’t really care about the room, I cared about the date.
So we start driving into Old Town. As we do, Lisa begins to talk through how she’s feeling and how she wants to navigate something as prescient as supporting and “solving” the room situation. Meanwhile, all I’m thinking about is taking her to the pizza place and enjoying the date.
The pizza didn’t have to be good—it was about experiencing a little moment…
I could tell she was upset about something, so I thought that if we knocked it out beforehand, we could put it all behind us before getting out of the car. This was a bad idea.
I started prodding with the goal of giving her space to let it all out, like you might flush a water heater once a year to purge out the built up sediments. (I should purge my water heater.)
When I saw that she wasn’t really coming to a conclusion like I hoped for in the car and she wasn’t really taking my ideas as a means to solve her problem, I parked the car near the pizza place. As we walked to it, I then asked if we could finish the “conversation” outside before going in. I had a plan, I wanted to create and share a specific kind of moment, and I really didn’t want to deal with her or anyone else’s bad moods.
The conversation didn’t have to be done perfectly or with her needs in mind—it was about experiencing a little moment in time with my wife.
This is when everything went bad.
It was more important to me that I resolve the problem so I could have the moment I wanted, than it was that she have the space and time to come to a place of peace within herself. We had a schedule to keep and I didn’t want to work so hard and fight with her to come over to where I wanted to be.
I won’t go into any more details except to say that what occurred next were as follows:
- She took me up on my “offer” and drove off in the truck for an hour, leaving me on a bench by myself.
- I took a lovely little sunset stroll from Old Town over to my brewery off of Laporte and Taft Hill.
- Lisa met me there and we continued to try and hash out the issues. With some semblances of success and better communication.
- We both said triggering words to each other that had the reactions one would expect when triggered and afraid.
- At one point, when we were driving home, I pulled the truck over and began screaming and shouting and demanding myself while Lisa sat in a kind of conversational rigor mortis.
- I believed myself to be 1,000% in the right.
- No one had pizza or fun that night.
There were countless other regrettable moments that followed. They involved me taking the girls to my mom’s for the night, a lengthy email to pastors and friends stating my case to “offer” my two cents regarding Lisa’s state of mind and heart regarding our marriage, and a kind of posturing that broke everything open.
The pizza became more important than uniting my life to Christ.
Why yes, we did have a pastoral meeting after the fight. The whole taking my girls away from their mother, the stupid email that never should have been sent out, and the universal consensus that something was off in our marriage—all of it was addressed.
From that meeting and the honesty in the moment, it became clear that my family would be best loved and pastored if we stopped for a time to repent and not receive the Eucharist.
A couple notes on an Orthodox understanding of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, also called Communion:
In our tradition, the Eucharist (communion) is seen as something far beyond and above a “remembrance” of the Last Supper set aside for either special occasions in the rotation of Sunday services or a personal devotional practice involving little sterilized cups and wafers stuck together and ordered off of Amazon.
We believe that the Eucharist is a mystery revealing Christ and His Church uniting together. In this most sacred event we remember that we are not individuals with a personal relationship to Jesus as we define and experience Him. Rather we enter into the mystery of being one with the very real Body and Blood of Jesus and His people. There is no individualism in this Eucharist as one might understand being solely responsible for and in charge of their life’s purpose. Instead, we are uniting ourselves to Christ and to one another.
We remember and join hearts with “the holy, glorious, and most praiseworthy apostles; whose memory we celebrate; and for all Your saints, through whose supplications, visit us, O God. And remember all who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection to life eternal.” We remember our brother Andrew and our sister Selma. I remember my father and my grandfather.
All of these, alive in Christ, stand alongside us in the mystery of Heaven coming to earth to give testimony to Christ’s salvation and union, living and active in our midst.
There’s nothing left to one’s own way of thinking and isolated best ideas. Everything in one’s life, including spouse and children, are completely and without reservation given over to the Lord. He can ask for any of my life, even unto death, repentance, and suffering.
I wasn’t thinking like that when I demanded Lisa fix her problems and do what I said so I could have another kind of perfect moment and some pizza.
Since I didn’t see any of it correctly, I was living as if the Eucharist wasn’t greater than my desires. I was betraying Jesus and making His sacrifice a part of getting what I wanted. The pizza became more important than uniting my life to Christ.
Now to the Matter of My Driver’s License
When I was 19 and 20, I decided leave Colorado and return back to my hometown of New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina and my folk’s marriage. This was right around Christmas. I had about $500 cash on me, a tank of gas, and a plan to surprise my then girlfriend by showing up unannounced as a Christmas present to both of us.
The surprise went well enough. I wrote her a letter that I asked that she read out during our friend’s Christmas party. As she read the letter, I built things up line by line to the grand reveal where I walked out of the back bedroom like I was some kind of new car you’d see on The Price is Right.
That moment may have been the last good moment of all that happened for the following six months.
Soon following the big reveal, I milled around and someone mentioned that her company was actually hiring. I could get a job and not have to go back to Colorado. From that little offering, and my desperate desire to hold onto something that made me feel valuable, strong, and a kind of savior to my girlfriend’s sad and lowly state, I then, less than an hour after arriving, decided to stay in New Orleans. No plan, no warning for anyone involved, and only now $380.00 left.
Everything that followed was grounded in my desire to hold onto some kind of control for having a relationship and a life that met my needs as I saw them. It wasn’t solely about loving my girlfriend as much as it was about my desire to have a girlfriend and a life under my control.
The next week, I got the job mentioned as a delivery driver. I was given this huge delivery van and had to drive through the streets and highways of a city enduring incredible turmoil. The ideas one might have of “traffic” fail in comparison to what I experienced.
Many of the traffic lights didn’t work, so major intersections were reduced to a little stop sign meant to manage 8 lanes of cars. Roads were closed because they were washed out. Businesses were boarded up and rows of houses were left in piles and heaps.
One day, while I was in the seemingly horizonless line of traffic, I had enough. I pulled onto the shoulder and started driving.
Faster and faster I went, thinking I was going to get out of the dispirited state of pain that I and countless others were experiencing because of this one stupid stop sign. After mile four at 35 miles per hour, a cop car pulled me over. Without question, I got a ticket.
Louisiana Laws: Revised Statutes
TITLE 32 — Motor vehicles and traffic regulation.
RS 32:296 — Stopping, parking, or standing upon the highway shoulder; driving upon the highway shoulder.
Soon after this infraction, I got in three separate car accidents over a period of two weeks, all with the company van. I then got another ticket for driving my little red Mazda with expired tags, no valid insurance, and a suspended license. I should’ve been arrested except that I dropped the names of a couple officers and it was a mess in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
From there I tripped over a tree root and sprained my ankle. Two days later, the girlfriend I drove down to surprise broke up with me following a funeral. The next day, I got in yet another car accident with a rental van while the company van was being repaired. This time though, it was right outside the school where the CEO of the company sent his kids.
When I called to let my supervisor know what happened, I was immediately fired. Second sentence said was, “Okay, you are so fired.” My response was something like, “Yeah…. I think we all saw this coming.”
Between all of this and my scheduled court dates across two parishes in the Greater New Orleans region, I left the city and returned to Colorado. This resulted in a suspended license, multiple bench warrants, and a couple thousand dollars of fees. At the time I thought, “I’ll figure it out later. If I’m out of the state, it was like it never happened, right?”
This was very much not the case.
I had enough. I pulled onto the shoulder and started driving. After mile four, driving at 35 miles per hour, I was pulled over and given the easiest and most justified ticket ever written.
So, skip to 2015. I got my truck registered under Lisa’s name so the tags would be current and it would actually have insurance. I drove with my eyes in the review mirror every day. I didn’t drive it on the interstate just in case. And we’d use Lisa’s car as much as possible, unless I wanted to do a late night drive to taco bell.
I didn’t even tell Lisa about the whole “not having a valid license and having multiple warrants out for my arrest” thing until after the wedding.
Before then, I drove with my tailgate down and an expired tag from 2011 when my folks registered the car in their name. Every time I saw a cop car, I’d duck into a parking lot or do a drive through run where I’d get a free cup of water.
I loved it when it snowed. I would just take some snow and shove it over the expired tags. It felt like I was Mario with a super star and I was invincible.
- It worked for years
- I should have never deceived her into doing that.
- As long as no one asked any questions, from all outward appearances, everything looked fine.
So, beginning in September 2023 after we received a large amount of unexpected money, I felt it was time to once and for all get this matter resolved. (This was all a part of a greater work of restoring my identity in the Lord. You can read more about that here.)
I made dozens of calls across the state of Louisiana collecting documentation and court orders all related to the situations I created for myself back in 2005. I had spreadsheets and folders full of tracking and references and updates all so I could keep my progress documented. After work every day, I took an hour or two just to navigate this mess I made.
With each call, I met some exasperated woman sitting in a court dealing with every kind of unsanctioned activity, who was surprisingly shocked when they pulled my cases up. I can’t tell you how many times a lady said something like, “Oooh baby, this is a mess.”
I filed paperwork with clerks of court and the state Department of Motor Vehicles. I collected emails and names of direct contacts, and made requests for any kind of fee reductions and mercy. No mercy was given except that they didn’t send an extradition request to the state of Colorado.
When all was said and done, I paid a little over $1,400.00 to once and for all finalize that chapter of my life. A month of daily calls, emails, and faxes, and 18 years of shame, hiding, and fear all came to an end.
The day after I received a final judgement with a cleared name, I went to the DMV, sat with the teenagers, took the little online quiz, a driving test, and then became a fully licensed driver in the state of Colorado.
So to celebrate my newly legalized status, that first weekend of October, I thought Lisa and I could go to a little pizza spot where I had taken the girls the weekend before.
When I feel things are out of my control, I fight to put an end to it all the while believing I’m 100% right.
Many of the times in which I have made catastrophic errors contain within them some degree of my sense that I am losing or have lost a kind of control.
Either things “got out of hand” and I just don’t know what to do, or people have behaved outside of what I believe to be the acceptable and most reasonable way of relating to me. When either of these moments occur, as well-spoken I may think myself to be, I become enraged and panicky and afraid.
There’s a feeling of bafflement, I just don’t understand why he/she/they/the moment/traffic/etc. is making this so much harder than it needs to be. If they would only do and say exactly what I want them to do or say, all the way down to scripting their responses to me, our life together (read: my life) would be that much easier. The problem though is that despite my best intentions and plans, people and this world surrounding me are very much not under the rule of my wishes, as good and well meaning as I might think them to be.
And so, while I might have the best of intentions at the start, as these moments begin their all too guaranteed descent, I find myself shouting and talking over everybody. I feel my fists tighten and I start digging my heels into the points I believe are being ignored, not considered, or not valued to the same appraisements I would give. Basically, I just start to shout and bully people into either doing it my way or leaving me alone.
This has cost me two jobs, three dating relationships, several friendships, and it very much cost me pizza as well as any kind of connection with Lisa that Friday in October.
As much as I wish I had this kind of insight then, that night and the following morning I believed myself to be completely in the right. I even thought I was inspired by the Holy Spirit in my actions. I thought I stood up for myself and gave Lisa a kind of ultimatum our relationship needed. I was being a good and strong husband to a weak and depressed wife who just couldn’t get on board.
She overreacted, not me, not cool and collected John Mark. She was stubborn, not me, the kindest and most amenable man there ever was.
So that morning, as the girls ate breakfast, I brought up the night before with Lisa while we were getting ready in our room. I said that we needed to make things right before we received the Eucharist. I wanted to be the good husband who could deliver a family at peace to the Lord. She however was not at all up for any kind of making things right.
Lisa said she felt crushed and abused and attacked by me. She thought there was no chance of repair or any kind of restoration.
“Really, it’s not a goal for me to be reconciled with you at all.”
After that, I took the girls from her.
I drove down to my folks’ place with my girls confused and with a thousand questions. When we got there, I told my mom the tragic state of my house and how Lisa was not in her right mind. I felt completely justified and disturbed by how things unfolded. How could I not have seen this sooner? How long had she been harboring such resentment and vehemence to me, where once I finally speak my mind and have my say does she then say that she has no goal to be reconciled to me?
When I feel things are out of my control, I fight to put an end to it, all the while believing I’m 100% right.
“Wait . . . Am I the jerk here?”
The hardest part of repentance is when you realize you’re the one most in need of it. This was all the more true as we navigated the fallout of our quite unfortunate date night. It wasn’t so much the activity of others that was the issue. There was a quick call to our couple’s counselor (who we stopped seeing a couple months prior), there were some pastoral meetings to go over things, and the girls needed a couple days to recover from the sleepover. That was all to be expected.
The greater fallout was the steady work of my altogether kind and patient Father to show me that the state of my house and the fearful way my wife withheld herself at her most vulnerable from me was actually not the fault of Lisa or anyone else. One day I saw everything for what it was. I saw my sin and my very real need for undeserved mercy from a God who had within Him every reason to take from me all the good that I took for granted.
Over the phone one Thursday, Jordan said something I could not remember anyone ever saying to me before. He said I was contentious. He said my outbursts created moments where people felt trapped to appease me. I didn’t think I had outbursts, only moments where I felt trapped and defensive.
He said small groups have dissolved and relationships have ended because of me. People had not felt safe with me because they didn’t know how I would react. Small groups were on edge to go into anything of depth because they worried if I was going to hold things up with my arguments and disagreements. He said all of this when I asked him why other men in the community had hesitancy when I asked to join yet another small group.
Basically, there was a question about whether or not I could go through certain materials relating to parenting without causing an issue. I couldn’t understand why they would think there would be an issue at all. Here I was, actively looking for a way to take care of my family as a part of my repentance, and yet there were brothers keeping me from receiving the kind of support I needed.
Jordan gave me a kindness by saying out loud what many have kept to themselves, or said to me once without my appreciation or acceptance. Suddenly, it wasn’t everyone else’s fault for not genuflecting to my way of doing things.
For the first time I could ever recall, I said “Wait…am I the jerk here?”
- Has it been difficult for you to relate to me?
- Do I come off as a bully or antagonistic?
- Am I argumentative and intimidating?
The hardest part of repentance is when you realize you’re the one most in need of it.
Both Ethan and Lisa said yes. Lisa nodded a little too enthusiastically when I asked, but that’s beside the point.
That day, I had to navigate a deluge of memories of many relationships which came to either a point of pain or an end because of me. Suddenly, my mind raced back twenty years and skipped across countless experiences where I felt rejected and ignored. Back then, I could not understand why people would want to cut off relationship with me or bring our relationship into moments of conflict. But that afternoon when I laid on the floor of my bedroom weeping, I saw all of it for what it was.
I have not been a safe person.
It was like being in a car accident.
After the car settles, and my awareness returns, I check to see that I’m okay. I try and climb out, not knowing just how bad of an accident it is.
The front of the car has folded in on itself. The windows have shattered and the axel has fallen to the ground, creating a scar in the road. Every side panel has been crumpled like foil after a meal. Smoke is billowing out from the hood. But then I see the rest of the carnage.
While my relationship with Lisa may have survived that moment, the truth of it all is that we barely did so.
As painful as it was to realize that Lisa and I had been in a near-death kind of car accident, what followed broke me. I then saw car after car after car, wrecked beyond repair, stretching down the highway. I hadn’t just caused one wreck. No, I was responsible for many broken hearted casualties, traumatized ex-girlfriends who could not trust me to honor their boundaries and bodies, former roommates who dealt with my domineering and loud demands, and co-workers who have reported me to HR for my interpersonal behavior in the workplace. Behind me was a road crowded with trauma victims of all kinds, being triaged by angels and therapists and safer people, all of it caused by me.
Now I see why the State of Louisiana revoked my license. No one was safe, even when I thought I was in control.
“A man in the jungle at night, may suppose a hyena’s growl to be a lion’s; but when he hears the lion’s growl, he knows damn well it’s a lion.”
Her hair was more red than brown—almost a bright ruddy color, like a dessert wine. I remember how bright her smile was and how her eyes held this emerald shine. She wore bright purple with a bright brass zipper running up her shoulder. I think she wore heels that Sunday because she was just barely taller than me.
I was in the front of the room and she was in the back. I usually made it a point to turn and face everyone just to watch everyone’s worship as well as seek the Lord for any prophetic words. As I turned around, that Sunday at Club Tico in City Park, I saw for the first time in my life the woman I was going to marry.
I can think of a small number of women in whom I held some degree of hope that maybe they would be the one I would marry. Some had a greater hope than others—some with great assurance—others were more or less understood as companions that could become more if there were ever reciprocative desires from either of us, and still others were partners in bright and burning indulgences of my own catastrophic doing. In the same way one might hold up a cantaloupe to see if it is ripe, all of them were given some kind of consideration.
It’s not that I exactly knew what I was looking for, but I knew it made sense to at least think about it. It always looks better to pretend you know what you’re doing when buying fruit, especially if you think everyone is looking you.
But then Lisa came in the room. When she did, every other consideration I may have given to any others quietly let themselves out. She was the one; I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew right then and there. From that moment, every problem or question or delay I might have to deal with was relegated to trusting that all of it would get worked out one way or another.
It was done, I was done. That girl in the purple with the reddish brown hair, dancing in the back of the room, I was going to marry her. I stared at her and only her for as long as I could remember, with a tilted head and arms crossed like someone not sure what to make of a Basquiat painting.
I never felt anything like it before, but I knew I was feeling a holy confidence that I met my wife. I saw the woman for whom my mother and countless others had prayed. Nothing else before or since has come close to that moment. There she was, my wife.
After service, and while we were setting up for lunch, I walked over to her to introduce myself. The second sentence she said after saying her name and that she was friends with Danika was how she was only staying in town for six months. She had a plan to live out of her little Hyundai and drive wherever the Lord led her. She wanted to be nomadic and completely given over to service and love, whatever that meant. She didn’t want any possessions or stuff to hold her back. She wanted to just pick up and go as she heard the Lord.
I remember her smiling at me. I said something like, “Well, that sounds fun for now, but I mean at some point you’ll need to get things like a couch and a bed, right?”
She laughed me off saying something like, “I don’t know. I don’t see why?” Then I remember getting quiet and putting my entire self into looking right at her hazel eyes to say, “You have no idea what the Lord has ahead of you.”
From that moment, I gave everything I could give to make her my wife. It started with getting a real job and learning to be patient with her. But it wasn’t until she and I found ourselves happily stuck in traffic every day for a week as we drove down for job training in Denver, that I realized just the kind of woman she was. Hearing her talk about her dreams for life, what kind of family she wants to have, how she understands her life in the Lord, and the matters that matter the most to her, that’s when I loved her. It was as easy as waking up in the morning to a quiet house. Slowly my desire for her stretched me awake like flowers opening in the sunshine.
Her hazel eyes, her easy smile, the way she drove a stick shift through traffic. I burned. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her lips as she spoke about our God and Father. I wanted to stop the car, take her out on the shoulder of the interstate, spin her around, and scream my love for her until my voice cracked. I wanted to see her cackle a smile as she saw me dance around and leap up and down like an altogether impassioned florican.
“You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love,
lovely as Jerusalem,
awesome as an army with banners.
Turn away your eyes from me,
for they overwhelm me…”
- Song of Solomon 6:4
I forgot her. I still loved her that October evening and I couldn’t imagine myself without her, but nevertheless I forgot that woman who 9 years prior, drove the two of us to Denver for a week straight since, unbeknownst to her, I didn’t have a valid driver’s license.
“I think she wore heels that Sunday because I remember she was taller than me.”
“Then The Reckoning Day Came Upon Us”
Everything in my relational challenges and heartache and imposing persona has its foundation and existence within my fear-driven desire to control. If I could control the situation or at least the narrative of the situation, then I wouldn’t suffer loss. And what kind of loss do I fear, really? Truthfully, the only fear I have in those moments is losing whatever my false self believes he is entitled to have.
The false self is a nothingness that we all attempt to imbue with a life impossible for our true selves to ever attain. It’s less than invisible, completely useless unlike one’s imagination or something as human as fiction, and entirely uncreated. It isn’t even a ghost of what once was, for it can never be.
Everything that is, is holy, but the false self, more importantly my false self, has never been. Yet I, along with all my fellow persons, struggle with a dissonant perseveration for some kind of proof of existence and therefore a measure of reality given over to this nothing. Basically, unless we actively “die to self,” we will do all we can to make that self fully realized, to the detriment of who we truly are.
Since God can only know what He has created, this false self is completely unknown by God. To be unknown by God is the definition of nothing. “All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.”
Despite this truth, we all do our best to try and make our own false selves known. (If not by God, then perhaps maybe by the people around us.) We try and cover it over with coats and scarves, callings and jobs, gender identity and sexual orientation, each and every passion one might have, and maybe even faith. But if one takes all of it away, like one removes bandages, all that is left is the nothingness, unchanged from its original formlessness and emptiness.
Every last one of us will stand before the Lord God as our true self, even if we never come to know who that person is. The false self we fought so hard to conjure up will have only its absence to offer.
The work of repentance is not just in correcting behaviors, it is also burning idols.
I made my false self the idol. I set it up in my house to be worshipped and respected. Like a priest, I led my wife and children in the ways by which they could offer up sacrifices and affections and gifts to it. All my work to control and push against any kind of interpreted rejections was the work of a clerical protectorate to this immature and contentious asshole who wanted oh so desperately to be as real as my true self. I just wanted everyone else to care for it as much as I did. But here’s the great dilemma: you can’t make anyone, including God Himself, care about someone who does not and will never exist.
Christmas morning, Lisa woke me up and sat on the side of our bed. With my eyes not fully opened, she asked the question, “What would you think if I didn’t come down to the Springs with you and the girls?”
Every year, we have made it a tradition that we go down to my folk’s house for Christmas for a couple days. My mom makes a big deal of it, as she does most things. We stay for a couple nights so the girls can get a sleepover. My mom makes it possible for Lisa and I to have a night out. My brother and his family come over and my nephew runs around with the girls for hours. I take a bunch of pictures. We do hours-long gift exchanges, slow breakfast and lunches, and then we have at least one intentional dinner together where my folks make it a point to serve something spectacular.
My folks plan this out for months. The girls talk about their plans for weeks beforehand. And for me, it’s one of the few times I get to just be with my family without interruption or rushing to get back on the road.
That morning, after a week of the girls suffering through and recovering from the all too reliable end-of-semester elementary colds, I was ready to pack up the car and make the drive down. We had spent the night before getting the girls ready and packing the presents in the back of the car. They were now already up and running around, excited as expected and louder than recommended.
I wanted that weekend. Everyone had agreed to the plan, including Lisa. But then, she asked for something that would bring catastrophe upon it all (as I saw it).
Fear, control, false self, contention, domineering, fear again, and confusion all shot up my body.
You can’t make anyone, including God Himself, care about someone who does not and will never exist.
We spent the previous months with a steady work toward health and healing. We made it a point to talk through things calmly and peacefully. We agreed to take breaks when emotions became larger than clear thinking. And we had met a couple days earlier with Jordan and other pastors to go over our improvements and considerations for returning to the Eucharist.
Everything was supposed to go better. I was supposed to be better. I wanted to be better. Then, the reckoning day came upon us.
We spent hours across several counties and houses that Christmas Day, navigating Lisa’s question, to which I gave a resounding no. The “no” was actually more of a “How could you ask for such a thing? Don’t you know how important this is to me? Why would you wait until the last minute like this to ask such a thing? We have the car packed? What will the girls say? What will my mom say? I want my family to do this together and I want to spend this time with you. Why would you want to do this after all the work we’ve done?”
Lisa however, and thankfully, held her own in the midst of my cacophony of anger, rejection, heartache, disbelief, disappointment, and spinning. All she said was that she believed she should be able to ask for things from me without feeling like she had to “de-self” to better appease me or make it work for everyone else. I could not have been madder.
Then, as I was more and more consumed by a concerted effort to bring what I perceived as dishonor, I made myself a drink.
It was maybe noon and I poured myself a screwdriver as a means to calm myself down. Lisa tucked herself away in a bedroom to collect herself and I joined her after believed that I too was calm enough to continue.
Again, she said that she felt she could make a request of me without feeling like she was responsible for my emotional state. Again, back to fear-driven desires to control so as to prevent someone from rejecting my false self.
Without thinking, I left the room, grabbed our car keys, and drove off. What I didn’t realize until I was about a mile away was that I was still holding onto and drinking the drink I made. I then drove around for about another fifteen minutes or so.
As low as a moment as the was, I believed myself to be 100% in the right.
I came back to the house, Lisa and I looked at each other. My mom, seeing the two of us, said that she would watch the girls. It was time for the last round. Into another bedroom we went, this time without a drink in my hand and without my fists firmly around what I believed was mine to have.
We got there. We came to understand each other (I understood her). We both recalled our desire to remain with each other and work this out, but that there was more work to be done. We then came out of the room, exhausted but with affection.
Christmas morning came and went a little later than planned. My brother and his family didn’t join us in order to keep my newborn nephew safe from the potential of acquiring the girls’ cold. Lunch was skipped. The girls had a great day with their grandparents. Lisa and I simply sat quiet like those shellshocked by war. Things would be okay, but we were wrung out.
Later that night, I sat with Pops and asked him the question, “Okay, what am I not seeing here?”
“Let’s say you’re in my situation. Mom wakes you up and wants to make a major change in plans and says she doesn’t want to go with you? She knows just how important it is to you and your family. She knows how much time and effort you have given so you can go together. But she decided to do it like she did? She wakes you up an hour before you are to leave and asks you if she would be able to not go. What would you say to her?”
“I’d say, okay.”
Pops and my mom sat with me until about 11pm. With all my questions and attempts to sort everything out, he said things like, “It’s really simple; you just need to consider her over your plans” And “Everything will get figured out, but you just need to care for her first” and “It’s about her, not you.”
At one point, as I tried to make my case, I was shushed.
The repentance of it all showed it’s work because this time I actually wanted to be corrected. I wanted to see where I went wrong. I knew I was wrong in one way or another, but how?
So, around midnight, I went upstairs and woke up Lisa. The girls were piled around her, but I found a foot to shake awake. I figured if she did it to me, I could do it to her.
“Hey, hey. I want you to ask me again what you asked me this morning?”
“What?”
“I need to redo everything. I was completely in the wrong. Can you ask me again what you asked this morning?”
“Uh…I want to stay home.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, babe. Thank you so much. That really means a lot.”
“Alright, good night.”
“Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed.” - Luke 8:36
Unbeknownst to me, Lisa had the forethought to actually record each instance of that day’s interactions. After we got home, things settled. She and I got back to our shared path of repentance, she told me about the recording. She said that it would be really important to her that I listen to it. Since I said many things that day regarding how I experienced our marriage, she wanted to give me a chance to listen again, see if I still believed what I had said, and decide whether those things were still that important to me. She wanted to give me a chance to clear up anything that may have gotten clouded over by the emotions of the day.
She sent over the recording, and I saw that it was over an hour and a half long. I thought there would be a lot of silence to go through. So, I threw it into an AI thing to remove any silence just so I could listen to the actual conversations.
There was no silence. Lisa had already edited that out. Instead, what I heard was me talking at my most whiny and annoying for over an hour. All told, I spoke for an hour and twelve minutes while Lisa only spoke for eighteen mostly interrupted minutes.
That clarity alone repulsed me. I thought, “What I would think if a guy talked like this to my daughters?” That and the conversation with Pops were the last nails in the coffin of my desire to hold onto anything of my false self as I had for years. I saw that it was my responsibility to run away from that kind of immature and abusive person by all means possible. I’d bite my leg off if he tried to hold onto me.
It was done. I was done. That girl in the purple with the reddish brown hair, dancing in the back of the room, I was going to love her no matter what in me needed to die.
At one point, as I tried to make my case, I was shushed.
“What if we just brought wine there and dipped our bread in it when no one is watching?”
When we first explained the changes to the girls in October, there was an acceptance, but a valid sadness. It was all said pretty simply:
“Girls, do you remember how your mom and I had to work through everything last weekend? Well, because of that, our family will begin a time of repentance. And one part of that repentance will be that our family won’t receive the Eucharist at liturgy.”
“Why? If you and mom have to work on stuff, why can’t we receive the Eucharist?”
“Because we’re a family, and our whole family needs to repent. Our house doesn’t look like Jesus wants, and so to help us, we’re going to do this together. There’s a lot that needs to change and it will just take time for us.”
“How long do we have to do this?”
“Not sure, but not forever. This is just going to take time. I need to better love y’all and lead the family to look more like Jesus is pastoring us. Because He wants to pastor us. We want our house to look like Jesus lives here.”
“…”
“So, when we are at liturgy, instead of going up to Father Jordan and having him give us the bread and wine, we’ll cross our arms over our hearts. He’ll then give us a blessing and some of the blessed bread. It won’t be the same as when we receive the Eucharist, but we are blessed and very much a part of the Body of Christ.”
“Okay, but what if instead of eating it there, can we take the bread home and you give us some wine and we make it the Eucharist by ourselves?”
“Oh, Dad, what if we just brought wine there and dipped our bread in it when no one is watching?”
There is no Church without communion. Everything else that says it is Church but does not honor Christ and His offering of Himself through the giving and receiving of His Body and Blood is really just a weekly get together with free childcare, some music, and inspirational talks. It’s nothing worth laying down your life for, and it’s nothing that requires such a sacrifice in the first place. It doesn’t even ask for your name unless you want to fill out a “want to know more?” card at the end of the service.
The North American Evangelical Industrial Complex isn’t really designed to lead people into deeper communion with Christ and His people.
True Church is a people who have committed their entire lives to Jesus and to one another in love on a pilgrimage toward becoming more and more like Jesus. While I have a thousand things to say to this end most of which cannot really be explained here, what I can say is that when I say “entire lives” I mean just that: our lives our not our own, but they’re His. And this means not just my life, but my family’s lives as well—all of what He has given me must be brought under His leadership.
For the next months, I led my family into Christ and before the altar to be blessed with repentance. My girls would occasionally ask me with their body language if we would receive the Eucharist, and I would silently cross my arms over my chest before we went forward. We would go forward quietly and then stand as the rest of our community came forward. I would (and still do) give my amen to each person who came forward as they received Christ. I also took that time to remember that my life and family must be completely His, even if it means I give up any desires or hopes that don’t set my life toward becoming like Him.
Everything, everything had to come to its end.
Then, after Christmas, much counseling, prayer upon prayer, seeking help sincerely for the first time, seeing myself and my role as a husband and father as hidden in and sustained by Christ Himself, and time for the new ways to become the normal ways, at dinner one weeknight, I told the girls that at the next liturgy we would receive the Eucharist.
It was like we told them that we were getting a puppy.
Right then, I started thanking the Lord for the work He had done in our family. I thanked Him for His compassion and patience. I thanked Him for wisdom and mercy. I thanked Him for His lovingkindness in how He pastored us in His people to see Him and see ourselves in Him. I thanked Him loudly and longer than I would normally pray at dinner, because I wanted to make it a point to my family that He provides everything we need, including the path required to turn back and walk to Him and His House.
The North American Evangelical Industrial Complex isn’t really designed to lead people into deeper communion with Christ and His people.
One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness.
They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. - Psalm 145
I drove the family to church, legally.
We got there early so we could help with setting up chairs, and get things in place. (Truthfully, it’s really just so I don’t have say hi to anyone or be stuck in a clogged spot of people coming into the room from the stairwell.)
The girls got their stuff ready for when the sermon would require their stillness and silence. Lisa greeted Laurel and Amanda. And I stood still behind my chair quietly preparing my heart and mind for worship.
The liturgy was familiar as always, and recited from memory by most of us who have participated in it for years. The sermon was given by Mike from a passage from 1 Corinthians. He shared about how the crowns they would give those who won in the races were usually made out of celery, but that we have better crowns than celery for which he was grateful. And then we stood up and began our great entrance into the deepest and most vulnerable place of our shared life in Christ.
After the entrances and readings of the Epistles and Gospels, the liturgy continues into an Offertory Prayer which involves “The Kiss of Peace.” (also called the holy kiss, brother/sister kiss, the sign of peace, kiss of love, and sometimes the rite of peace.)
"Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you." - 2 Corinthians 13:12
This is a moment where we greet one another with the phrase, “Christ is among us.” And then we respond to the greeting with “He is now and forever shall be.” Here is where we make it a point to forgive one another and bring our conflicts to peace. It’s also a great time for the kids to run around and squeeze their friends in a hug. Most don’t kiss, except for Jeanne, she kisses everyone. I make it a point to offer peace to Lisa first and then the girls.
I give her a kiss first because I can and because she likes it when I do. We’re all about peace. Big peace offerers. Some might say we can be overly peaceful.
From this, we all move back to our places alongside the altar and sing in triumph to the Father. We thank Him that even though He has within His Kingdom thousands and thousands of angels and saints singing and proclaiming His holiness and glory, He now receives our worship.
Jordan then takes the bread and wine and asks that the Lord would bless it as well as those of us gathered to become His Body and His Blood. In this we remember His commandment to us that we would “take and eat” what He gives because it is His body and blood. We give our amens and bow in honor.
He then steps back from the altar until he is in the midst of us. He bows again and says, “Remembering, therefore, this saving commandment and all that has been done for our sake: the Cross, the tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand, and the second and glorious coming again, all that You are and all that is Yours, we offer to You, on behalf of all and for all.”
Because of what He has given and because of who He is, we bow before Him and say, “Everything we are and will ever be is Yours.” This is why I needed to step away from the Eucharist. I had not entirely offered up my life.
We’re all about peace.
Big peace offerers.
Some might say we can be overly peaceful.
As the liturgy continues, we ask that the Father would send down His Holy Spirit upon us and what we have offered up to become just like Him.
Jordan breaks apart the bread like Jesus did and continues to do. He then pours boiling water into the wine as a sign for zeal and a fervor of faith. We sing every word and amen as a response. We chant ancient songs. And we enter into a mystery where we stand in Christ in the holiest of places.
From that place, I quietly took my wife’s hand and brought my family to the altar.
I looked Jordan in the eyes and opened my mouth. He dipped the bread into the wine and fed it to me saying, “The servant of God, John Mark, receives the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ…” With my mouth full of the life of Christ, I whispered an amen.
Then, all those standing with me and my family, as they had for those months, offered up a loud chorus of amens. Those who didn’t know the whole story as well as those who were tied to our journey of repentance all agreed and said that I was indeed a servant of God who has received Jesus Christ as well as a new life hidden in Him.
“The handmaiden of God, Lisa, receives the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“The handmaiden of God, Haven, receives the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“The handmaiden of God, Mary, receives the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
In that teary-eyed moment, all that had occurred and all that was given over to our holy work was offered up in the family of God so that we might be saved from ourselves and given a life impossible without Him. What was our shame and pain has been transfigured into a testimony of the faithful love and mercy of a God who loves me and my family.
And that is how my family returned to the Eucharist and why I finally got a driver’s license after driving illegally for about 20 years.
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