Explaining the Name...

I am being asked to explain the name "My Chlorine" though I was hoping to leave people guessing. Nonetheless, since this blog is about disclosure, I'll spill the beans. In the early 1990's I was serving as a volunteer youth worker at my home church, Ward Presbyterian, and I had the chance to work very close to two boys who were super-creative. One thing they did was take someones first and last name and create a new two-word label. Example: Dan Czach (one of the boys whose last name phonetically is "Zack") referred to himself as "Dan's Acne" -- if you say his name quickly and add "nee" at the end you can hear it. I, being Mike Lawrie, was called "My Chlorine" -- again, say it a bit different and add "ine" and you can hear it.

As I thought about naming this blog, that name came back to me. I thought about it on a simple level - that being a nickname that reminds me of creativity, yet, allows for some anonymity. However, I eventually chose it because of how I was thinking of it on a deeper level. Chlorine cleanses and makes things new again; it takes cluttered and filthy things and allows them to function again. This blog, as a discipline, allows me to write, confess, lament, celebrate my journey and it reflects what the Lord is doing in my life -- namely, making me new again, clearing out the clutter, and erasing the filth.

The second part, "And Other Spiritual Cocktails," perhaps seems oxymoronic, or at worst, you may think I am moronic. However, cocktails, is in reference to something that I came to understand not long ago. Upon reading and studying what we as Christ-followers are called to know, be and do, I realized we were called to be made "new" and not simply "change." In Jesus we experience a "new" covenant, he tells a Pharisee he is to be "born again" or "made new," Paul explains that in Christ the old is gone and the "new" arrives, and John's vision of the end is of a "new" Jerusalem. It is like the difference between making grape juice and wine. Grape juice is about gathering grapes, water and sugar and mixing them together to drink a refreshing drink. Change took place by swirling the elements together and enjoying the drink. However, wine is another story. The elements are similar but with one necessary component: yeast. Grapes naturally have yeast and sugar in their makeup but these elements are difficult to control, thus, the winemaker needs to add the yeast at the right time to control the fermentation process -- fermentation makes the drink something "new." Through a long slow process of time, care, pressure, science, art within a controlled environment (i.e. light, temperature, time), by virtue of the yeast eating the sugar and making alcohol, the winemaker actually creates something totally "new." It is the great difference between "change" and "new" -- change is good but to be made "new" is our calling. To be "new" is to die and rise with our Lord, it allows us to embrace the necessity of the Gospel each day (though I continue to rest on our security in Christ), and it allows me to see the sweet-grace impressed on my being.

So that is the story of the name -- My Chlorine is my Spiritual Cocktail; cleaning me out and making me new...

From U2 to the Qohelet...

I recently discovered a stack of vinyl albums at my in-laws home. Amidst the stack of Neil Diamond, ELO, Tchaikovsky, and a myriad of other random records was the ultimate diamond in the rough: U2, The Unforgettable Fire. I still remember the first time I heard this band as if it were yesterday. The year was 1984 and I went on a trip to the famed roller-coaster park Ceder Point with my new middle school youth group. I was standing in line for a ride and I heard over the speaker system this amazing song in which the singer was bellowing out words and notes that ended with the suffix "tion":

This desparation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go

I asked my youth leader I was with who this band was and he informed me that it was indeed the band U2 and upon my return from that trip I headed to the store to by the cassette tape. Thank you Chip Hardy for the introduction.

Anyway, the back of the album cover is a picture of the four band members staring at a dilapidated castle; the walls crumbled to the earth and their backs to the camera. Below the photo are the words to the first track, A Sort of Homecoming, which sings, "And you know it's time to go, through the sleet and driving snow, across the fields of mourning to a light that's in the distance." It got me thinking about the long winter of my life - literally the cold, sunless months I've just endured in Michigan as well as the spiritual season of calling, doubt, discouragement, bewilderment and wonder. However, even in the few days since my last post, I'm sensing the light in the distance. As I stare out the window in my office I see the life giving sunlight, the yellow tulips in my dear neighbors yard and the giant bumble bee bouncing off the windowpane. I've also engaged in life giving conversations this week that have fed my soul, affirmed my calling and encouraged my journey.

I've been reading these lines from A Sort of Homecoming and listening to the album (ipod - I don't own a record player anymore) this morning and my mind wondered to the Qohelet (perhaps Solomon the King) and his worldview as stated in Ecclesiastes 3 (the Message - the bold is where I've centered my meditation):

¹ There's an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:

^2-8 A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace.

Perhaps my winter season is behind me. Perhaps it is I with my back to the camera and staring at the brokedown palace. Perhaps it is the light that is drawing me into a new season of rebirth, planting, construction, laughter, joy, embracing, searching, holding on to, speaking up to and loving the gift of life. A Sort of Homecoming ends with this poetic line, "Oh don't sorrow, no don't weep. For tonight, at last, I am coming home. I am coming home." And where is my home? Perhaps it's found in the comforting words of Jesus, "Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons/daughters of light." Perhaps the light is near again.

terrible gods

It's been entirely too long since my last post.

As I sit down to write this I am perplexed by all that has transpired in my life the past three weeks - it seems as if I've lived a lifetime in 2o days. One side of me wants to rant about all the ways people have let me down, disappointed me, and angered me while the other side wants to walk away, keep my mouth shut, and move on. I think if I had been writing along the way, the rant of rage would have won the battle and this blog would have become the very thing I've tried to avoid: spew. So, perhaps, this is the high road or it's part of my maturation. In the end, people have failed me along the way but this is nothing new in the greater scheme of things. I remember what my youth pastor told me a long time ago when I was in high school: "I might be a great man but I am a terrible god." The reality is, he would eventually make a series of bad decisions that failed his family and his friends. Yet, he was right: great man - terrible god.

So I am back writing again longing for clarity as I move forward. I am pursing and being pursued, asking questions and being questioned, generating options and being deflated. Rejection is a difficult animal as it both crushes dreams and makes paths straight. Lately my prayers have centered on the simple idea of clarity, "Lord make my path straight. Close doors so only one will remain open." The slow process of waiting, dealing with rejection, waiting, questioning , waiting, doubting, wondering, waiting, hoping, being frustrated, and longing wears me out. However, this is my journey, my reality. Rejection closes doors and the path becomes ever straighter.

My goal this week is to study well, read with purpose, write with integrity, and seek clarity. Please feel free to respond, post, email, critique, call and pray. I have been reading Psalm 39 in earnest over the past month or so. The last poetic idea says it well:

Hear my prayer, Lord,
listen to my cry for help;
do not be deaf to my weeping.
I dwell with you as a foreigner,
a stranger, as my ancestors were.
Look away from me, that I may enjoy
life again
before I depart and am no more.