What LOVE really looks like! - "WE CARRY KEVAN" by Kevan Chandler

" 'Guys,'I said, 'I’m thinking of going to Europe.'

That’s how it started. That’s how the thought was finally voiced. There was now, in a sense, no turning back. Whether the dream came to fruition or not, it was no longer safely tucked away inside my imagination. The dream was out in the real world, and I was suddenly accountable to it. This was a threshold, a line drawn in the sands of life, and crossing it meant nothing would ever be the same again." KC

OKAY... I THOUGHT I KNEW WHAT LOVE LOOKED LIKE...

 AND THEN I READ KEVAN'S STORY.  

"Bolstered by the encouragement of Tyler and Drew, I sent a notice of intent to three friends: Andrew Peterson, Luke Thompson, and Tom Troyer.

To each of them I wrote the following: “I’ve always wanted to go to Europe, but it seems impossible with my wheelchair. So what if I had a team to take care of me and carry me where I can’t go on my own?” KC

Imagine someone confined to a wheelchair due to Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a rare neuromuscular disease. If it was me, I wouldn't have much of a dream of anything, let alone travelling across the planet without my wheelchair.  Something as debilitating as that would squelch anyone's dreams... but not Kevan Chandler.  Kevan had a dream and Kevan had more than a dream, Kevan had friends that loved him.  I have nothing other than the highest form of LOVE to describe what his friends did for him.  They had a backpack built and they carried Kevan to his dream.  The book "We Carry Kevan" is the story of their first trip to Europe.  But this dynamic team of explorers didn't stop with Europe, they went on to have an adventure in China.   Check out Kevan's Youtube channel for video footage of that trip.  

The Love that Kevan's friends had for him to carry him around the world was enough to impress me, but what really blew me away was Kevan's character.  Who he is, is someone those guys want to be around.  Who he is, is a friend.  He was never a burden, but a blessing.  That was obvious in the story and in the testimonies of his travelling companions.  

"Kevan is an example of appreciation and gratitude for life, and throughout our trip and my friendship with him, I saw that infectious spark travel to those he came in contact with." Phillip

"Love, indeed. Love gets us into all kinds of trouble...

On a more serious note: I’m a terribly selfish person, and I know it has been with Kevan that I can remember the first moment of truly forgetting myself and thinking about someone else—if only for a few seconds at a time." Tom

"I thought Kevan was just inviting me along to catch up and meet his friends. What he actually invited me into was a gift so powerful, and so gentle—that of truly grasping what it is to love one another, and the unexpected life and exuberance it creates." Lauren

"Despite this, I probably wouldn’t have joined the group in their dancing, but having Kevan on my back helped me to let my guard down. Without knowing it, he pushed me to connect with others in ways that I would not have otherwise done." Phillip

Who is this man who is so confident in who he is that he would dare invite four friends to carry him around the world.  It seems he was always confident, it is who he was and is.  This testimony is from his parents... 

"Raising Kevan was always an adventure where we felt he was carrying us along for the ride. We remember the many things he wanted to do growing up and how our family worked together to creatively help make things happen.

One of the first outstanding characteristics we noticed about Kevan from an early age was his magnetic personality, and how he was always surrounded by an amazing number of friends. So it really came as no big surprise to us that he would take off to explore the world like this with a great group of guys. In looking back, it’s what we raised him to do." Kevan's Mom and Dad

If you watch the Youtube videos of their trip to China, you will notice that this adventure went beyond a tourism, they discovered that a simple backpack could change a lot more lives than just Kevan's.  Isn't that the way LOVE works.  Once you see what it does when it touches your heart and life, it seems impossible to keep it to yourself.  

"Since returning from Europe, the team and I had gone headlong into developing a nonprofit ourselves. We called it We Carry Kevan, and our mission statement was (and still is), “Believing in the inherent value of every person, we mobilize individuals with disabilities by redefining accessibility as a cooperative effort.” To what capacity this meant at the time, we weren’t entirely sure, but for starters we knew it involved telling our story and getting our backpack into as many hands as possible. We wanted to provide opportunities for others to experience what we had, not just in travel but more so in the life-giving power of friendship." KC

Asking Questions? ... "FAITH UNRAVELED" by Rachel Held Evans

FAITH UNRAVELED

HOW a GIRL WHO KNEW ALL the ANSWERS

LEARNED to ASK QUESTIONS

"If there's one thing I know for sure, 

it's that faith can survive just about anything, 

so long as it's able to evolve." 

Rachel Held Evans.  (1981-2019)

It's early morning on February 29, 2020 and I have to confess, today is the first time I have grieved at the end of a book.  I grieved because I didn't want it to end.  I wanted more.  I got to the end and kept reading the Acknowledgments because I didn't want it to be over.  Maybe I could still find some more gold in the gratitude that the author gave people for helping her compile this treasure of a story. 

"It's not about the answers I found 
but about the questions I asked." RHE

Rachel Held Evans died last year: May 4, 2019.  When she died, I didn't even know who she was.  Only recently have I discovered who this beauty of a woman is, and the legacy that she left behind for doubters and strugglers like me.   Maybe it is fitting that today I grieved... not only for the end of the book, but for her.  

She is the author of four books and it made sense for me that I would first pick up the one entitled "Faith Unravelled" because that is what has happened to me.  My faith has unravelled.   

"Big questions have a sort of domino effect. Concerns about certain biblical texts led to questions about the Bible’s accuracy; questions about the Bible’s accuracy led to questions about how the canon was assembled; questions about how the canon was assembled led to questions about church authority; questions about church authority led to questions about the Holy Spirit; questions about the Holy Spirit led to questions about the Trinity; questions about the Trinity led to questions about how on earth I’d gone from worrying about the garden of Eden to worrying about three-leaf clover analogies.

Only this time, I wasn’t asking these questions rhetorically or in preparation for an imaginary debate with a skeptic. I was asking them because I didn’t know. This time, I was the skeptic." RHE

Have you ever had the experience of free falling... hoping something will slow you down, pull you back or envelop you so you don't die in the process.  Whether it is a parachute, a set of bungee cords or an obstacle free pool of water... there is still an element of faith required in jumping.  Faith in the guy that packed the chute, faith in the designer of the bungee cords and faith in the lifeguard to keep that pool of water free from obstacles and other swimmers. 

Well that is what I am doing... free falling.  

 "What makes a faith crisis so scary is that once you allow yourself to ask one or two questions, more inevitably follow. Before you know it, everything looks suspicious."  RHE

To be honest, I am scared, I feel alone.  Maybe not totally alone now, that Rachel and a few others have come into my literary world.  Sarah Bessey put it into words so well in the Forward...

“In these pages Rachel will do for you what she did for so many of us: she will give you permission. Permission to look your doubts right in the eye, to name them, and then to ask yourself a fateful question: “What if I’m wrong?” That question can be terrifying, but it can also be healing.” SB

That could be why I am on this journey.... for healing.  Sarah is right... the questions are terrifying... like standing at the top of the high dive board (or the bungee platform) and looking down.  It is much more scary to stand on the diving board and look down at the water, than it is to stand on the side of the pool and look up.  But what is my other option... go back and climb down the ladder?  Maybe I won't dive in head first, but I can still jump, tuck my legs in and hold on tight... and cannonball!!! 

"If I’ve learned anything about what it’s like to be on the outside of Christianity looking in, it’s how awful it feels when your questions aren’t taken seriously. Sometimes I just want to hear someone say, 'You know, I’m not sure what to make of that either.'" RHE

On the outside looking in... that is feeling I understand.  What I don't want right now is an invitation back into whatever club I came out of.  Maybe it's scary out here, and maybe I feel alone many a time, but I am still healing and really not alone.  

"My generation is perhaps more equipped than any other to defend the uniqueness of Christianity, but we are also the most capable of seeing things from a different perspective. So we began to deconstruct — to think more critically about our faith, pick it apart, examine all the pieces, and debate which parts are essential and which, for the sake of our survival, we might have to let go." RHE

Letting go.... There are some many things I have let go of, and so many things I have yet to let go of.  I keep saying this is a journey.  Living the journey has made me not so destination focused.  "What can I do today?" is the question I ask now.  I breathe now, so I need to live now.  Tomorrow doesn't exist for me.  Today is what I have been given.  Tomorrow is that train I will never board, because when I make it to the platform, the train I climb on is Today.   I may make plans for the future... but having had enough experience in failing plans... I prefer to look forward to today and what I can do in the daylight hours I have been given.  

I hope I haven't spoiled the book, by including some amazing quotes.  There is so much more gold in the pages of this outstanding and valuable read. I only shared a few coins worth.   I am grateful to Rachel Held Evans and other authors I've been reading with this train of thought. Who in giving me the freedom to doubt, might just be saving my faith.  

"...many of us entered the world with both an unparalleled level of conviction and a crippling lack of curiosity. So ready with the answers, we didn’t know what the questions were anymore. So prepared to defend the faith, we missed the thrill of discovering it for ourselves. So convinced we had God right, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong.

In short, we never learned to doubt.

Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. 

The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue." RHE

A Father and Son share their story in "WHY I LEFT, WHY I STAYED" by Tony and Bart Campolo

        Over a Thanksgiving dinner, fifty-year-old Bart Campolo announced to his Evangelical pastor father, Tony Campolo, that after a lifetime immersed in the Christian faith, he no longer believed in God. The revelation shook the Campolo family dynamic and forced father and son to each reconsider his own personal journey of faith—dual spiritual investigations into theology, faith, and Humanism that eventually led Bart and Tony back to one another.

         In Why I Left, Why I Stayed, the Campolos reflect on their individual spiritual odysseys and how they evolved when their paths diverged. Tony, a renowned Christian teacher and pastor, recounts his experience, from the initial heartbreak of discovering Bart’s change in faith, to the subsequent healing he found in his own self-examination, to his embracing of his son’s point of view. Bart, an author and Humanist chaplain at the University of Southern California, considers his faith journey from Progressive Christianity to Humanism, revealing how it affected his outlook and transformed his relationship with his father.

        As Why I Left, Why I Stayed makes clear, a painful schism between father and son that could have divided them irreparably became instead an opening that offered each an invaluable look not only at what separated them, but more importantly, what they shared.

(all quotes highlighted and italicized in green are some of my favourite quotes from the book.) 

"Honestly, I believe that if I were to live on this earth for a thousand years, the reality of those moments would nevertheless remain a vital part of who I am." Tony

"Indeed, it may well be that the greatest mistake in this world is to live as if you have endless time when in fact you don’t."  Bart  

I don't often give books like this to my Mom to read, but I gave her this one.  I have to admit I did it for selfish reasons.  I was hoping,  at the time, to have a conversation with her like Tony and Bart had.  Now... I don't know what that would look like... for Mom is not like Tony and I am not like Bart.  

"I must constantly remind myself that Bart’s deconversion is primarily the result of his own decisions, not mine." Tony

"In other words, for the first time in my Christian life, without consulting either my youth leaders or my Bible, I instinctively and quietly adjusted my theology to accommodate my reality." Bart

This book for me was more than just a debate between a father and son about their beliefs and convictions.  It was about a conversation.  I admire and respect two people who can have a conversation when those two people come from very different spaces in ideology and understanding.  I try having those conversations, but I feel somewhat yucky after.  I wish I could agree with people more than I do, but I am trying to be honest, at least to myself, and right now, in the space that I am in... I don't agree much with most people.  I have found myself embracing a lot of different things and they don't mesh well.  

"Have I simply chosen to believe in a Creator who is revealed through the scriptures, who is at work in the conversions of broken people, and who regularly appears in my own life by way of transcendent spiritual experiences, and then cherry-picked those theories and arguments that best support that choice? Of course I have. Making that choice is my act of faith." Tony

“Simply stated, human morality is and always has been fundamentally about human relationships” Bart

If I found myself picking a side in this conversation to relate to, honestly... it's been Bart's.  I understand him more.  I am not a parent, so I don't have the intrinsic need to have anyone on this planet follow in my footsteps.  I am not a role model to be copied, but I do hope I can be an encourager along the journey.  I know some parents have found that freedom to encourage their children in their own journey of life, while letting go of the expectation that those offspring will follow them in theirs.  I know my Dad was and my Mom is that kind of parent.  I don't think Mom is worried about my soul, as much as she is hoping I find peace.  

"Something else the two of us agree on is the need for both parties in this conversation to be more interested in listening to and understanding the other person than in convincing them to change their mind." Tony and Bart

Boy, that sounds like the place to long for.  I want that more than anything.  As much as I want the freedom to travel down any "rabbit trail" I can find; I also would like some restraint that shows respect to the people most precious to me.  I don't need to change anyone as much as I want to love them... because I don't want to be changed, as much as I want to be loved. If there is anything I have appreciated in Tony and Bart's story, it is the understanding that they still love each other very much.  That has been obvious in the conversations I have heard.  

I do want to plug one more thing.  I am a supporter and listener of Bart's podcast Humanize Me.  I like the conversations I hear on this podcast, because I have avoided them for most of my whole life.  I use to be scared of hearing people talk about life after faith, because of what I believed about their eternal destination.  But it's freeing to listen to people's story when I'm not worrying about something I can't prove anyway.      

"This is not just good theology; it is also a good strategy for keeping the conversation going and maintaining close relationships across the faith divide. Simply stated, even when we know better, most of us feel deeply hurt and offended when we realize the person we are talking to genuinely believes we are doomed to hell. In a real sense, to write someone off that way is the ultimate act of disrespect, effectively negating every good thing they have ever said or done unless they change their mind and agree with us." Tony and Bart