Time, Truth, Hearts

At the invitation of our friends David and Katie Poole, Kim and I have been attending Lake Hills Church. Because of my passion and desire to serve the church as an artist, one of my highest priorities in assessing Lake Hills as a potential future church home was to judge their level of commitment to the arts. When I first walked through the doors, my initial impression was of their technical proficiency. It was shocking. Above the stage were three very bright, discrete, rear-projection screens. They were displaying a rotating program of announcements, a countdown clock (which we had long argued that we needed at ACF), and the the Lake Hills logo, which was beautifully rendered and computer animated. David runs the sound board on Sundays, so he greeted us as we walked past and later, he gleefully took me into the booth and showed me their digital sound and light boards. He clicked through the presets of the console’s 6.2 mizzillion channels, the faders flying back and forth as if underneath invisible fingers. On either side of the board were the wireless microphone antennas. The ones at my previous church had looked like the same rabbit ears we used on our 60’s era TV growing up. These sleek black antennas looked like something from a stealth AWACS, if there were such a thing. Two other techs manned their stations within the booth, their faces illuminated by computer monitors. Also in the booth was one of the video cameras that films the service. As the countdown clock approached zero, the lights came up and the band led worship with a familiar contemporary praise song. The audio mix was perfect. The emotional impact of the music was delivered unimpeded to the congregation, who lifted their voices up in offering to God. I was dizzy.

The artistry at ACF had also moved me deeply, but the technical professionalism and sheer investment in technology at Lake Hills pointed to the kind of excellence I was seeking. I couldn’t even imagine what kind of Programming Team they had. I was guessing a tight team, perhaps even with professionals from the video production or movie business. Certainly they would have a website like the ACF Programming site, but I began to have fantasies of submitting a script through the site and having this auto-response sent to me via email: “Your submission has been forwarded to the drama and video production teams. Your video will be ready to review on Wednesday, October 26, 2005. Your script has also been auto-archived and repackaged for sale to other churches on the LHC Media Library site. Thank you!” Could it be possible?

I was so excited that I decided to go ahead and meet with Andrew Barlow, the Pastor of Creative Development. The plan was for us to meet in his office for half an hour one Wednesday afternoon, after which I could audit one of their Programming Team meetings. We had a very nice conversation about our churches, which share very similar histories. They are about the same age, they are very similar in style and demographic, they each only recently moved into permanent facilities, and of course, they are each struggling with growing pains. As we started to discuss the details of programming, I started to realize that maybe their arts program might not be as advanced as their technical wizardry had led me to believe. And then Andrew said, “If we are lucky, we do maybe one element every six weeks.” I couldn’t believe it. An element is something like a video, special song, or drama that the arts team produces for a Sunday service. One every six weeks? ACF averaged two or three elements a week – every week! ACF was also smaller and almost certainly had fewer human, financial and technological resources. Maybe Phillip was right. He said that he had seen the arts programs of churches all over the country and that we had something very special. I never really believed him.

After our meeting, we joined the programming team for their bi-weekly(!) meeting. After a word of prayer, we went around the room and introduced ourselves. At first, I thought this was for my benefit. But Andrew explained that introductions were in order because there is no established programming team! Each week a different set of people might show up and they might not know each other. In fact, there are no established arts teams at all. Only tech teams. Oh, boy. Then Andrew spent the next fifteen minutes explaining his vision of the future of the arts at LHC and suddenly, everything clicked into place. I saw the big picture. I looked beyond the meltdown at ACF and saw what God had done. He had plucked the three leaders of the ACF programming team out of the train wreck and sent one to Kansas City, sent another to a small Austin church that was trying to get their arts program started, and had now sent another to a big Austin church that was trying to get their arts program started. For good measure, despite a nationwide search, God lifted up a fourth member of the programming team to become the new Director of Creative Arts at ACF. Anyway, for maybe only the second or third time in my life, I felt a calling by God. I heard a clear call to help LHC build their arts program.

The next morning, I called Phillip and told him what had happened. We spent the next hour talking a mile a minute, excitedly fanning the flames of our passion to be used by God in this manner. Because we were talking about something so fundamental to the source of our relationship, I felt as close to Phillip as I always have, even though I now haven’t seen him in months. Almost at the same time, Beth says this in her blog, “Due to changes in circumstances and probably my own laziness, I’ve lost the kind of closeness I had with a group of folks only a few months ago. I know we’re still friends, and truth be told, I should reach out more, but I find myself at the end of each day, coming home from school exhausted and overwhelmed with demands.” That’s interesting because that’s exactly how I thought I would feel, but I don’t. I’m still trying to figure out why. I suspect part of the reason is that I’m healthier than I have ever been, but maybe there is more.

I had another opportunity to think about this issue at my 20 year high school reunion this past weekend. The reunion itself was fine. I enjoy seeing my old classmates and our Friday event took place at the school itself, which was surreal, but unlocked some old forgotten memories. Just like at my 10 year reunion, I found myself talking to some classmates at length like we were old friends, though we had barely known or spoken to each other in school. On Friday evening, Kimberly and I had dinner with David Sylvester, my best friend who had come down from Dallas to stay with us for the weekend, and Mat Farabee, another one of my best friends, along with Michelle Regnier, Cathe Pado (Chiappino), Kali Parsons (Parsons) and her husband. Even though Michelle’s family were friends with David’s family (her parents were his godparents, in fact) and Kali’s family were friends with Mat’s family, as a whole, we were not a group of friends in school. You would never have known it. We had a wonderful time! Conversation, jokes, and reminiscing flowed easily over the mountains of seafood and beer to make for a perfect microcosm of the ideal reunion experience. It felt like an honest celebration of being better for no other reason than having known each other in any way, no matter how great or small.

After the dinner, David and I caught our second wind and decided to drive to Pflugerville to meet the class at Graham Central Station. In for a penny, in for a pound. Not many from the class managed to make it out, but there were a few who hadn’t been at the school earlier. Joey Ellson walked up to me and one of those crazy reunion things happened. We had gone to school together the whole time I was in Austin, but we had never been friends. In fact, we had never done anything together that I can remember, so I thought this was going to be another one of those celebrations of recognition. But there was something different. Joey was actually beaming when he saw me. He rushed up to me and we shook hands. Then he tried to yell something to me over the blaring music. I leaned down so that I could hear better.

“What?” I asked.

“I said, I always look for your name!”

“What are you talking about?”

“At the movies – I always look for your name during the credits! Ever since 6th grade you and Mat said all you ever wanted to do was produce movies! So I always look for your name!”

And just like that, my second wind got knocked right out of me and I wanted to sit down and cry. I had spent my childhood feeling invisible, but here was somebody who had not only taken note of me and what I was saying, but had believed me, believed in me and maybe even admired me for what I was trying to do. I had made enough of an impression that 27 years later, he was still looking for my name on the screen. Sometimes, to be thought of, is to be loved. But this warm thought didn’t last long. It was like a baseball I had tossed lazily into the air, stopping weightless at the top of its arc, and falling towards its inevitable destiny. The baseball bat came hard and I was flooded with memories of a broken, misspent youth and of utter catastrophic failure. No room for dreams in that mess. I had let everyone down. I had failed myself, I had failed everyone around me, and now I find out that I had failed people I didn’t even know about. I think I said something to Joey about making movies for church and the truth is – that really is a blessing and joy in my life. But it isn’t what I had in mind in 6th grade. And somehow, I felt like I owed Joey a better try for believing in me. Christ, can a guy get a lousy goddam drink in this place?

Around the corner came Janea Pabst and her best friend Debbie Roy, so the four of us tried to find the quietest of the six clubs. The live music club was empty and quiet so we camped there and visited until the band started. After that, we did the best we could yelling at each other at the top of our lungs over the music. I forgot how funny Debbie was. What a riot! What did Janea just say? I can’t hear. We would have drown ourselves? Is that what she said? Yes. Yes, of course she’s right. Quite right.

The next day my friends gathered at our house, just before the Saturday reunion event at Carlos and Charlie’s. David was there, of course, along with Janea, Anna Phillips (Matula), who was my very first girlfriend, and Wes Mau. Except for David, I hadn’t seen these people in years. Only the day before did I meet Wes and Janea’s (collective) five children. I had been to their weddings, but I had never met any of their children. Nor had they been to my wedding. What had happened? I loved these people. I suspect we lost contact out of my left-over tendency to sabotage my own life. But like I said, I am healthier than I have ever been. And while we were standing in my kitchen, I felt like there was a correction being made. They were in my kitchen because they belonged in my kitchen. There, then. Here and now. Not as a sentimental desire to reclaim the past, but as much as God’s will allows, to lay claim to the correct future.

Over 20 years ago, a teenaged Janea Culpepper stood in my kitchen on Hunters Trace, soaking wet and laughing from a water fight we had. A few years later she stood in my kitchen on Exposition laughing and drinking Champagne from a sippy cup, and now, a wife and mother, she was standing in my wife’s kitchen, laughing along with the rest of our friends. Yes, of course that’s right. Quite right. When I was a senior in high school, I dated Wes’ sister Melissa. That was ground zero for a category 5 emotional hurricane that cut a path of destruction that touched everyone I knew, starting with Wes. It hurt him badly knowing that when I went to his house at the time, I was no longer there to see him, but rather his sister. Our relationship almost ended with a horrible fight that nearly came to physical blows. But who held my head in his hands and listened to me sob on a dark playground one night when she was gone? Who was standing in my kitchen now?

Earlier this year, I was driving home shell-shocked at just having seen my third lifeless baby inside my wife’s body. The meltdown at church was simultaneously underway and I knew it would end badly. I just knew I was on the cusp of losing the group of friends that were bringing me the most amount of joy in my life (outside of my dear bride). I was listening to Moby’s Hotel CD that I had bought only the day before as he warned me over and over:

Hold onto people, they’re slipping away
Hold onto people, they’re slipping away

And they were slipping away. But the answer was right there, too. Hold on. I don’t accept that what has been is what shall be. I’m healthier and I know I can do this. I brought these people with me because I want them here. To the degree that they want, I would like to get to know them again. By force of will (and lots of grace, too), I will not leave my friends in my past to be pulled-out every decade like my Duran Duran Rio album for a weekend of nostalgic fawning, only to be put-away again. I will love them. I will hold on to them.