Wolves shooting guns in the kitchen.

I was a liar as a child.  It is something really.  I would lie to my parents about all kinds of things.  Once I wrote my name on the side of our house with a pencil.  When my dad asked me if I had done it, I denied it.  Now, I am no lawyer, but I feel my defense may be weakened in these particular circumstances.

The amazing thing about all my childhood lying was that I really don't know why I did it.  I was a pretty good kid.  Sometimes my friends and I would do stupid stuff, but nothing illegal, that we knew of at the time.

My lying haunted me when I became a teenager. It was clear that my parents had a hard time trusting me.  Please understand that I completely agree with them at this point.  Who would trust someone that would lie about their homework almost everyday and then lie about how they had lied in order to try and get themselves out of trouble for lying.  Mom and dad, I get it.

This lack of trust in our home created a bit of a vacuum for healthy conversation and genuinely led my dad to becoming a stark raving lunatic.  I had cried wolf so many times in our home, the shepherds were just down right pissed. Let me explain.

I had BB Gun when I was a child, like all good boys.  I had shot many pop cans, neighboring cats and the occasional migratory bird.  I was actually pretty responsible with the device.  I know you don't believe me now, but I swear.  Anyway, on one fine day my friends and family popped a big bowl of popcorn in our Stir Crazy popper.  Being young, I was always inclined toward making a mess.  A number of the hot popcorn seeds spilled out of the popcorn maker and onto our linoleum kitchen floor.  The seeds were so hot that they melted little holes into the floor just about the exact size of a BB.  Do you see where I am going with this?

My dad, not exactly a morning person, woke up one afternoon after working hard as a long haul truck driver only to find his kitchen floor riddled with small holes. His red faced assessment led him to believe that I had walked around the kitchen shooting the floor with my BB gun.  I know, right?

I was confronted with the allegation whereupon I laughed quite loud.  My dad became enraged at my humorous downplaying of the situation and proceeded to deductively reason both my motivation for the crime and my general defiance in the home.  I was at a loss for words.  I thought he had gone nuts.

The sad part is, he was really angry and stayed that way for quite sometime.  What I considered to be something trivial and silly, he presumed to be wedge in our relationship.  That kinda sucked.  The wedge would have been an easily explained mishap if trust had been maintained.  Instead it was a family altering reality.

Trust is what it is because it is necessary in healthy relationships.  Trust is a non-negotiable component. Trust is like 1000 foot dam.  It appears powerful and strong and nearly invincible but as soon as one little leak is spotted, integrity and value become doubted and even dismissed.  Trust is the foundation for all relationships because it is both fragile and firm.  It tills the soil and nourishes the seed. You wonder why all of God's relationships with us were built on convenant...a old word for promise based on trust.

To this day, I am convinced that my dad still believes I shot his floor.  No worries dad, at least you never found the holes in the ceiling.

Thomas Aquinas and Socrates had jobs, I think?

When I changed my major for the seventh time in college, my dad, understandably, was a bit annoyed.  My parents had saved money and were generously helping my siblings and I through the collegiate experience.  I was a Psychology major then Sociology, History, Communications, Public Relations, Secondary Education, Elementary Education and finally Theology and Philosophy.  Yes, you can get a degree with a double major in unemployment.

Christmas break came and my dad sat me down.  He asked, "How do you ever expect to get a job studying Theology and Philosophy!"  My witty 19 year old self replied..."Dude, you don't go to college to get a job, you do it to get an education."  "Thomas Aquinas and Socrates had jobs, er, I think?" After my dad recovered from me calling him "dude," he rolled his eyes and exhaled a breath of disgust.  A pretty healthy argument ensued.

Fast forward six years...

My parents helped me move into my second youth ministry position.  I am managing a two-hundred person youth group at a thousand plus family parish in Sumner, Wa.  My dad asks me, "So when are you going to get a real job?"  I responded with a pony tail to the middle of my back and a pair of Birkenstocks on my feet, "Um, not cool dad." This was actually a pretty good question on my dad's part at the time.

I am a dreamer and always looking at the pretty grass on the other side.  I am generally convinced that there is alway more.  In ministry I have never ignored the demands of my current reality, but I certainly seem to stare into the distance longingly a great deal of the time.

Fast forward three more years...

I bring a group of forty teenagers and adults from the the nine parish youth ministry I now manage to my parents little cabin in Newport, WA for a ski retreat. I ask my dad to cook and be patient.  If you knew him, you would be giggling right now.  A funny thing happens.  In the midst of my enjoying the moment, celebrating young people, developing relationships, praying, listening, laughing and just engaging great youth ministry, something clicks.  My dad and my mom see joy.  They see a career.

Fast forward six more years...

I manage the youth ministry for a Catholic diocese over 55,000 square miles.  We serve over 70,000 people in over 60 different faith communities.  I am responsible for resourcing, supporting, visioning, engaging, developing and practicing healthy adolescent faith formation for over 12,000 youth.  And, I do it from behind a desk (and in a car most of the time) with one administrative assistant and a heck of a lot of prayer and support.

My parents know that I have a real job.  I have always known this.  When we are young we have a decision to make.  Are we going to pursue a salary and the "security" of economic directive or are we going to face plant ourselves into a life of vocation.  The difference is in the spiritual life.  Are you doing something because you can or are you pursuing something because it is what you were built to do.

My little undergraduate degrees will get me a $2 cup of coffee at Starbucks.  That is, of course, a skim milk latte, but you get the picture.  My career has gotten me a life of challenges, beauty, innovative people skills, management experience, stress, marketing development, joy and a network of thousands of people all over the country.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  The grass may be greener, but I love the field I am in.

One bathroom shall serve them all.

Being a father of daughters, I am always taken back by the gasp that exits people's faces when I tell them that I have one bathroom and five girls.  The next assertion is generally concern for me as a parent  when my children enter their teenage years.  I can certainly empathize with this idea.  My children already compete for the one hairbrush of twenty that we own that they claim does not rip their hair out when they brush it.  Mornings are like responding to an alarm in a fire station only with more pink, hair ties and drama.  I think I hear CBS calling.  My girls argue over cereal, noise, eye contact, milk consumption and the weather.  They also dispute over shared shoes, some clothes, tooth paste and my attention.

I come from a family of five people.  I have a brother and a sister. My mother was a nurse and my father a long haul trucker.  My dad recently retired.  Reflecting on my childhood, I discovered something fairly astonishing.  My dad has been absent half of my life.  Allow me to explain.

My dad, a wonderful man and dedicated husband, would drive a long distance every other day.  When we lived in Spokane, WA he drove to Bellingham, WA every other day.  Years later his route changed to Boise, ID then Billings, MT.  Every other day he was in a hotel sleeping before piling back into a truck and returning home.  When home, he would sleep, parent, catch up on responsibilities, etc.  Quite a life when you really think about it.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great childhood.  Rarely did I ever feel lacking.  In my adult years, however, I cannot help feel this deep burning need to catch up on time with my parents, especially my dad.  I just want to hang out.  Be present.  You know?

My oldest is ten and my youngest is two.  There is nothing I would rather do than spend time with them.  Time is like a precious commodity in a fluctuating market.  Some weeks I have a ton of it and its value is modest.  Other weeks there is very little of it available and its value is precious.  The time I spend with my kids, my wife, my God has to be intentional and disciplined.

In youth ministry we call this the "Ministry of Presence."  The very nature of being present is in itself its own gift.  Our presence sends a message of dedication, trust, investment and most of all, comfort.  Others our comforted by our desire just to be there.  We witness discipleship by the sheer nature of our attendance at family, school and church functions.  We are present because we are part of the wholeness and formation of young people

I know this is true with my own kids.  When I can just be with them there stems a natural sense of accountability and wholeness.  My  wife likens it to peace with a little harmony.  Of course, harmony in a house of five little girls is akin to a symphony playing on a stage being pulled by a speed boat, but it will have to do.

Be present to family, faith and formation today.  You will never regret time dedicated to others.  The longings of the generations to come ought to come from their desire to be present to others.