Two Become One!

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman' for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:22-24)

This scripture verse is etched into my wife, Truly and my wedding rings. It is one of those verses that to me is a quite a mystery...until you see evidence of that "one flesh" manifest itself in the womb of my bride. On this past Friday, Jan 16th, one day after my mother's 65th birthday the mystery came more alive to me. This doesn't take away the mysticism of God, in that I saw my baby for the first time via ultrasound, it just makes the promise more real. I was hoping that when my wife and I got married that we would be able to have children and now a part of Truly and a part of me is forming inside of my wife's stomach. What an amazing blessing and gift from God. As I sit and ponder this life that is inside of my wife's stomach I can't help but think of the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. We just celebrated His birth in Christmas and as I see my little baby's spine and head and all it's little parts, I am reminded of His love for us and also how His promises hold true. It is beyond me how vulnerable God the Father made his son by trusting Mary and Joseph with the raising of his Son Jesus. Wow! I am now about to be trusted with raising a small child, boy or girl, and God the Father has given me this responsibility. As I prepare for one of the biggests honors in my life I pray that this little baby you see in this blog would come to know His heavenly Father in an amazing way and be His hands and feet on this earth as I strive to do in my life. Please join me in praying for that...I would greatly appreciate it! Enjoy the fresh pics!!! Also, the video at the bottom is of Truly and I lighting a candle for our child as we went on a pilgrimage to a monastery outside Barcelona, Spain called Montseratt. It was truly a holy moment as we went on to pray for our future child with the sounds of a boys choir that has been around 600 years singing in the background. Enjoy!

Election 2008

Well, I have delayed this for a few days now because I have had so many thoughts running through my head. I have not only thoughts of the past couple days but experiences that have been nothing short of small miracles.

On Tuesday night a few friends biked downtown (see pics and videos) to be a part of a potential historic moment, and historic it was. I am so glad I did! I will never forget the masses of people with such diverse backgrounds and histories gathering as one. I will never forget being outside of the Hilton in which Obama was waiting for the results when people started erupting on Michigan Ave. that he had won while I was talking on the phone with my good friend and mentor Steve Braxton (see video of Obama coming out of the Hilton below). I didn't anticipate when I planned on going down to Grant Park that night how significantly diverse the crowd was. Not only was it diverse but I can't recall any moment in my life when I felt so unified with such a large mass of people who looked so beautifully different than me. If I sit back and think about that, it is pretty sad, isn't it? Didn't God create us different to show His amazing creativity and we miss so many moments to celebrate as one and experience that creativity. We have to be in these pockets surrounded by people that look like ourselves and act like us all the while missing our creative Creator's masterpiece. That is why I love the city! That is why I love Chicago! That is why this night was so special to me because I was one with complete strangers for a unified vision of Hope and of Change.

Another experience that happened on the night of the election was this massive celebrative atmosphere all over the city. While biking back from downtown myself and 5 other white people on bikes were beeped at numerous times by black people on the west side of Chicago while giving us thumbs up or pointing the sky in celebration. They obviously knew where we were coming from. Let me just tell you, most interactions with complete strangers on the west side of Chicago, where I live is "Run Forest Run!" or "Get out of my neighborhood!" The latter has been communicated verbally as well as more common, through body language. That night, I experienced change that will hopefully last for a lifetime, not a night. (See my "I Have A Dream" blog to hear my heart on that matter) My hope that someday we will live, breath, laugh, as one not just in the same country but in the same neighborhood as friends and neighbors is coming true as I write this. I know because in the past week I have experienced it.

I think the most significant for me thus far was the morning after the election. I live on the west side of Chicago just down the street from where Martin Luther King Jr. used to live, and every morning I walk to work at this small community fitness center where I try my best to love people with the love of Christ and encourage them to take care of their bodies. Everyday I pass by a few African Americans, usually men, and I often feel a resentment coming from them because of the color of my skin. On November 5, 2008, it was different and I know it just wasn't me. All 3 interactions I had with African Americans that morning on my way to work were just "different." I still can't fully put words to my thoughts but it was as if some burden or negative feel toward me, a white man, was lifted. I passed by one individual and used the opportunity to greet the man with a warm, "Good morning!" He responded by saying something on the lines of, "Yeah, in more ways than one," and we both sort of knew that something in this world was different and we were glad to be alive to experience that great day.

The next thing that occured that morning was probably the most significant one that I will never forget. I had an interaction with a young man probably around 20 as he came into the fitness center to play basketball. I asked him something about the night before and I was sharing to everyone about my excitement for being in Grant Park. I will never forget the words that came out of his mouth as I probed. He said, "All this time, my mom told me I could be anything, and I didn't believe her until today." Not only those words were incredibly significant but the way in which he said it was significant. He was totally serious! (The picture above is a picture of the gym the young man was coming to play ball, also a polling place that helped bring the first black president to office...the very act that changed this young man's outlook on life in America.) As he walked into the gym, he said he was going to go back to school to get his college degree. I see him everyday so maybe I'll be able to report back in a few years to let you know if he followed through)

Let's join together, Republican/Democrat, black/white, and pray that Obama is a good leader and listens to His heavenly Father for advice on every decision he makes. Who knows, maybe we will have a Democratic president who becomes pro-life while being president. Who knows, anything could happen if we just unify our hearts and seek God to heal this land.

(to be continued)

Chicago Marathon 08

This past Sunday I participated in the Chicago Marathon with Team World Vision. World Vision is a huge organization that does a ton of work in developing countries as well as here in the United States. You may know World Vision through their child sponsorship program. The project for Team World Vision this year was to raise money to build wells that would provide, I believe, 60,000 people clean drinking water in Zambia. So, it is pretty important and meaningful work. Sunday I ran/walked 26.2 miles for 4 hours and 20 minutes. My goal was 3 hours and 10 minutes and did not include much walking. I'm a pretty competitive person but I openly share my time with no reserve because there were many lessons to be learned for me and much growth that occurred in my heart. This was quite humbling but because I was running this year for a greater purpose than just attempting to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I finished the race without dropping out. If it wasn't for Team World Vision backing me, I would have dropped out even before the race began, which at the end of the day doesn't really matter a whole lot if I dropped out, but I think there is something very important to finishing what you started.

A few weeks ago I contacted Michael Chitwood who is the director of Team World Vision and told him that I have been experiencing IT Band Syndrome (runner's injury...basically tendinitis in the knee) and wanted to drop out of training. I thought I could give my marathon slot to someone else. (Chicago Marathon sells out every year) He wasn't listening to that...he just told me to take two weeks off and start back with the training slowly. I really didn't want to hear that but I banked on his optimism and the thought that God could be glorified through whatever time I finish in. So, I took two weeks off and started back slowly. When training for a marathon, training programs usually suggest at least 1, 20 mile run prior to the race. My program suggested 3. The longest I ran during my training, due to my injury, was 15. You see IT Band Syndrome is an overuse injury and I just wasn't giving it enough time to heal. There is the first lesson, patience! When you are a runner, it is hard to stop, especially when you are in the main part of your training. Also, the injury started in the first place because of increasing my miles too quickly. Once again, an act of impatience because I wanted to move along in the training at a faster rate than suggested. If you are a runner, please take seriously the fact that you shouldn't increase your mileage more than 10% per week. So, learn from my mistake in this area, trust me.

Overall, I feel the biggest growth that occurred for me, a super competitive person is just simple humility and that whatever I do in life I should be doing for something greater than myself. This time it was pretty clear, I was running to raise money and awareness for children and their families that don't even have clean water near their home. There are two verses that come to mind when thinking about what I learned. The first verse comes out of Matthew 25:40 and it says, "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' The next verse that comes to my heart through this adventure of running a marathon and helping the "least of these" in Africa is from Philippians 2:3 and it says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves." Whatever I do in life, my prayer is that I am able to apply these principles to everything that I do. This year, in the Chicago marathon, I didn't qualify for Boston, I didn't impress any human by my time, which deep down inside I like to do, but, I did labor for the "least of these," and I did grow just a little more in being able to labor not out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. For that I am thankful and praise God for this wonderful experience. If you would like more information about Team World Vision please go to http://www.teamworldvision.org/ or like to donate on my behalf to the project, please go to http://www.firstgiving.com/briangannon12. Thanks for reading!

I Have A Dream!

I have a dream that one day it will be a natural occurrence and even an expected occurrence that people of all colors be friends. I have a dream that some day it will no longer be "wierd" or uncomfortable to dialog and really get to know someone who is different than me. Today I marched with a group of students from North Lawndale College Prep High School and community members in remembrance of Martin Luther King's assassination. We started at NLCP and went to the location where King lived when he came to Chicago. The plot of land happens to be exactly 1 block from my house. It was somewhat of an awkward experience because of cameras being all over filming our walk. I was really trying to get in the moment and reflect on the assassination. Not exactly a fun thing to think about but definitely something that needs to be remembered. Once we arrived at the spot, a few poems were shared and a few people shared dreams of their own. One girl who I knew because she comes into the fitness center where I work sang "Amazing Grace," rather well. Overall it was pretty low key but yet powerful at the same time. For me, the experience was quite upsetting when out of a crowd of about 100 people, mostly black, I was the first picked out to be interviewed by the news. I responded when the news anchor came over to me, which I felt was coming when she made eye contact with me, "I would rather not, but my friend Pastor Terrance may." I went to the event with my friend Terrance, who happens to be black. They chose to walk over to another white guy and he agreed and I was sort of pist. If you really think about the dream I shared at the beginning, from this action you can see we have quite a long way to go. The cameraman and the news anchor were white. Let's pray for our nation and let's pray Barack can CHANGE our nation! I also have a dream!

Humility/Submission

I live in a neighborhood called North Lawndale which is located on the west side of Chicago. I often bike or walk to work which is only a ½ mile down the street so it only takes a few minutes. I often walk by drug dealers or gang bangers who externally work hard at looking “hard” and “acting” confident. I see them all the time and it breaks my heart that the world has influenced these individuals to walk around this way and put on this act all day every day to feel important and to feel like they have some form of power.

Now I will take a trip in my mind back to high school when I myself use to walk the halls of school every Friday in the fall with my football jersey on, which was our team’s tradition, and strut myself around school. I had this feeling of importance and power because of my role on the football team or being a part of a group that was glamorized, or because I read my name in the local paper the day after a games. Well, I guess I should specify that I occasionally read my name in the local paper the day after the game. Nevertheless, I hope you see my point of how we oftentimes do certain things, cling to certain groups, or act a certain way to feel important or powerful.

As I have gained a few years in my life and have observed people I greatly respect and have studied the Word about how we gain our significance, my mind has been “renewed” to how we really become powerful and become important. I have always been attracted to Jesus’ humility and submission to His Father’s will. I have come to learn that through submitting to my heavenly Father and constantly remain in a spirit of humility, as Jesus did, I have an overwhelming sense of fullness and confidence that I really can’t describe in words. When I keep this focus, the confidence is just there.

I think of so many situations in life call for me to submit to maintain the fullness and the sense of empowerment that comes only through the Holy Spirit. One of my main goals is to be fully alive through the Holy Spirit that dwells in me. Think on that, the Holy Spirit dwells in you if you are a follower of Jesus. We just have to be in step with that Spirit and mindful of when our flesh gets in the way so that the Spirit can redirect our paths to the Father's will.

Abundance!

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us… (Ephesians 3:20)

During our engagement, my wife and I were living in two separate states. I was in Chicago, Illinois helping to organize a little league on the west side and she was a waitress and weight loss counselor in Canton, Ohio. We managed, for the most part, to plan and organize just about all the details of the wedding being separated physically except for our vows. We were committed to writing our own personal vows that would be straight from our heart and something we would cherish forever. The problem was, we didn’t know how to start. Should we email or talk on the phone. Nothing was happening or working so we had to come up with something soon or else we were going to just have to use traditional vows. When the technology failed to be a useful tool in this process of communication, we decided to meet half-way on a Sunday and see each other face to face. We met after not seeing each other for a few weeks on the western side of Ohio in a town that has slipped my memory. I do remember though, that we sat at an Olive Garden and started writing as we sat face to face. The first line we came up with was, “Truly/Brian you are more than I could have ever imagined.” That was as clear as we could be to start out our vows. We had never envisioned in our finite minds how amazing God could weave two hearts together and make us one. In the verses prior to Ephesians 3:20 Paul makes says, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:17b-19).” I have always been a hopeless romantic and always created amazing situations in my mind, but this girl that came into my life and I was about to be married to was beyond anything I could ever have imagined. We have been married almost 5 years now and I feel closer to her now than I have ever felt. In this third Chapter of Ephesians Paul also says in verse 16, “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being.” All of this “Abundance” in my marriage would not be a fruit in my life if the Lord did not give me strength daily through His Spirit that is living inside of me.

Forgiving Spirit

My wife is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. Her example to not hold grudges or think about negative thoughts about people is amazing. She is the most accepting and non-judgemental person you could find who is always quick to forgive. As I have lived with her and have done life with an angel, I have grown more and more into what I feel like is another Jesus trait that He gave us to follow. When I experience someone doing something wrong to me I immediately experience a little inner turmoil. I always think, “Why would they do that to me?” As arrogant as that thought is, I feel that it may be pretty common. If I look at all the bad that is being done to people around the world and I really think about that, what makes me any different to receive poor treatment from another human being. There are millions of innocent people out there who have been treated a million times worse than I have and I get upset when someone cuts me off on the highway.

I live in Chicago and one thing that is actually bad about Chicago is the traffic. I live on the west side and I often take the Eisenhower expressway toward the loop to go running on the lake or do something downtown. If you decide to get off the Eisenhower and go either towards Wisconsin or Indiana via 90/94 you usually experience a delay getting off the ramp. I can’t tell you how this experience causes me to sin so often but because I struggle with how human beings treat each other, it causes me to sin a lot. What happens is, there is actually usually quite a delay on the two right lanes about a mile before you can even get off. What people do to make the delay even longer, they drive in the two left lanes and then when they find a tiny gap they squeeze their way in. In elementary school we use to call this “cutting” and if anyone do it, we would pout and cry and tell the teacher. Well, in this situation all you can do is pout to yourself, feel sorry for yourself because you waited your turn in the two right lanes. This is so frustrating and just thinking about it gets me mad. The problem is, allowing this to get to me, I create turmoil in my heart and sacrifice the fullness that God wants for me in my life. Now you could say that it is just human to feel this way and that is what we say to a lot of things but what if we discipline our minds to have a heart and mind that is quick to forgive and not so quick to get angry and think, “How could they do that to me?” When you think about it, how often do we do things like this to others? Maybe were at the grocery store and we don’t feel like putting the cart in the corral so we leave it in the parking lot. Maybe we drop something on the ground and don’t feel like picking it up because it may make our hands dirty so we leave it for someone else to pick it up. These are just a few things that we may choose to not do but it affects someone else and makes their job harder. If we really think about it, why not just forgive people? There is so much freedom in forgiveness.
I remember when I was in college I was reading a book and in the book it started discussing a situation where a father was having the “sex talk” with their child and how awkward this was. All of a sudden I started weeping because of the void that was created in my life because of my father’s drinking and his lack of intentionally being in my life to teach me about things like the “birds and the bees.” I immediately started writing a forgiveness letter to my father because I felt this overwhelming feeling to express forgiveness towards him. I remember feeling so much being lifted off off my heart and mind during this process. I was taking the shackles off and through forgiving, experienced freedom like I never experienced up to that point.

Live for Self?

(Thursday Night Before David’s Funeral-in a plane)

In America it seems that if you aren’t making choices that benefit either you or you family, they aren’t good choices. I’m not sure that is biblical…because when I read the bible I hear Jesus calling us to live a sacrificial life. I just can’t get over the picture of my Savior not having a place to lay his head. Here is a thought, “how about mankind, especially Americans, (To whom much is given, much is expected) make choices that benefit the good of society and not self. I guess there are pockets of this type of thought that is somewhat mainstream as we think about the movement for sustainable farming, and others, but overall our individualistic society says we need to be “me” focused. At the beginning of this week, I found out my uncle had shot and killed himself. As I gathered information about why this occurred, it appeared he was very stressed out about a second home that he and my aunt had bought to relax and enjoy nature. This has led me to contemplate pretty hard about what God values. The word “sacrifice” keeps coming to my mind, not the word “self.” Are we truly happy if we consume more and more because we can? Does just because we can mean that we should? Because a lot of Americans have such an abundance, does that mean that it is ok to buy a second home, a second car (for yourself), a television for every room, and the list continues? I’m not asking this question to judge or to put down individuals that do, I’m just asking a question for people to think about. What is a better life? I remember my parents reactions when I told them that I wanted to move to the inner city. They felt that I was stepping on the American dream and spitting in their face. They thought if I raised children in the inner city I would be depriving them of what my parents worked so hard to give me. Is this true? The best word that I can describe 4 years after I made this decision is the word “rich.” But, if some people would look at my life they may say that I am sacrificing some things that just doesn’t make sense to do, but all I feel is “rich.” How is that? I’m not talking about rich in the monetary sense, I’m talking about rich being the feeling that I experience as I go through life experiencing many cultures and many beautiful people. How do I feel rich when I’m trying to live what ones would consider sacrifice? It doesn’t really make logical sense. In order to get to this richness, though, you have to get past the surface. I think in our consumeristic society we have created this acceptance of superficiality and it may be a bold statement to say consuming things creates shallowness but I truly feel there is a connection. What I can’t get out of my mind and my heart is that I’m unsure we are fully taking Jesus up on his offer in John 10:10 to give us life to the full. Do we understand what he was saying? The conclusion that I have come up with in my life so far is that when I don’t live for self, I seem to feel more full.

Procrastination!

Man, what a terrible word. It adds so much stress to my life and I have been doing it for so many years. I am sitting here thinking about how the concept of being "Fit to Serve" and making changes in my life relates to procrastination and it came to me. When I have those times in my life that I can sort of have "my time" this doesn't really apply but that is not very often in my life as well as I'm sure most people's life that we have excess "my time." I'm sure you know what "my time" is. You know when you can do whatever you want and it really won't affect the state that you are in whether you are stressed or not because it is "your time?" It sort of hit me as I reflect about having children and how people say that that term doesn't exist anymore. I will seek to be the best father I can but I try to think about how am I living now that will help me be a good father in the future. This is where it hit home. I'm thinking about those times when I have to wake up at 4AM or when I get home from work or whatever I was doing that day and I go straight to the books or the computer to complete work and meet deadlines. I think about how that affects my marriage. Of course it affects the quality time that I can give my wife because I'm so focused on the deadline and getting the assigment done. It's that sense of urgency that we tend to get focused in life. But what if I could discipline myself to have the same focus even when that sense of urgency isn't there. Let's paint the picture again. I come home and I can relax and enjoy a nice conversation with my wife or go out running with her or go to the park and play tennis. That sounds nice. At least a lot nicer than the other picture I painted. Now I am going to think ahead to when I have children. What will the consequences be to my child's life if I come home and go straight to work. I'm so stressed to get something done that I go into the computer room and just start typing away not having that quality time with my child in those formative years that fathers have such an important role in. Man, that sort of scares me when I think about that. It sort of gives me a sense of urgency to get rid of this terrible habit. Even if it may be years down the road. I have to sit back and think, am I "Fit to Serve" my child by procrastinating the way I do sometimes?

The worst voicemail of my life!

Well, this is going to be hard to write as I hash up memories deep inside that I know need to be brought up over and over so that the scars can be continually healed. Life seems to bring situations, at times, that you wish you didn't have to go through but you know that in the end there really was a purpose for that situation even if you don't want to be honest with that purpose or admit that good came out of the mess. Sorry for the run on sentence. Does this make sense? I hope someone out there can relate to that comment and I'm not the only one with that thought.

Anyway, let's take a ride back to my childhood. I had this "real" fear/nightmare growing up that I would lose my parents. I was never particularly close to them but to some degree they were for most of my life my stronghold and sort of what kept me together. I think that is pretty typical for most people who had parents in their life. We weren't very close and there were reasons for that. For one, I was an athlete and made sports my life and identity, shallow as that is, that's how I was. They never really paid attention to anything sports-related in their life so that created a pretty big gap in my childhood mind. The other was that my father chose to drink to ease the pain that life brought him. I resented that quite harshly and built walls up to protect myself. Isn't that what walls are for? Although I desired, I didn't really include my parents in my social life because of the lack of the same interests and also embarrassment from my father's illness. I wanted my own little family away from my family. I wanted a strong peer social group to share life with...pains & joys.

So, like I said even though we didn't have a wonderful relationship I still deep down inside wanted my parents to be there and for especially my father to be proud of me. As I started following Christ, which happened my senior year of high school, I wanted them to be proud that I was truly changing from the inside out. In turn, I thought that there would be a possibility that God could change my father's heart to stop destroying his body, mind, and soul through drinking. I so clearly remember the Christmas break of my last college year (I say it like that because I was on the five year plan), I was in my room at my house which happens to be in the basement where my father does most of his drinking. I smelled smoke and immediately ran out to the TV room where my father was. He didn't even notice that the smoke was rising from the trash can. He had put a burning cigarette into the trash can and it preceded to start burning the trash in the can. I remember yelling at my father like a father yells at his child. I remember saying something on the lines of him being so drunk that he was going to burn the house down. I was frustrated but this wasn't the first time something like this had occurred. I remember struggling and being so confused about why I had to play the role of the father. I didn't think that was suppose to happen until my father was in his eighties. You know, in a nursing home and all that?

Let's jump ahead about a month. It was during my student teaching that one of the most stressful situations (Nightmares!) in my life occurred. Once again, I remember this like it was yesterday. It was a Saturday morning. One of my roommates' was a youth pastor and he had set up this flag football league for college/high school students. It was a blast! We had games every Saturday morning. This particular Saturday in February was extremely cold and there was snow on the ground. I was waiting for my team to play in it's game when I noticed I had a voicemail. I preceded to check my voicemail and in the message my mother was telling me to call her back right away. She said that there was a fire in our house and dad wasn't doing too well. All those memories of the nightmares that I had when I was little flashed through my mind and I was thinking "This can't be happening!" I never felt such inner anxiety before in my life. It truly was like a nightmare that I would never wake up from. I immediately called my mom and she told me that my father had put a cigarette into the trash can and left the room to go downstairs and drink some more. The smoke alarms went off and as my mother frantically got my 87 year old grandfather out of the house my father went to try and put the fire out. I'm assuming because he was drunk he wasn't very aware of the seriousness of the situation. He was found just inside the sliding back door of the house on the ground. He was literally a second away from getting out of the house. He went into cardiac arrest and went pretty long without receiving any oxygen to his brain. The doctors administered tests to see if any there was any brain activity and after a week of testing we discovered he was brain dead. During this time I remember the great hymn sung by Fernando Ortega title "Give me Jesus!" providing me with a ton of healing. Focusing simply on the love I know that Jesus has for me helped me. I knew He didn't want me going through this situation alone and He wasn't letting me go through it alone. I remember the support of family and friends being so pivotal in my recovery and healing. And as I write this post in my blog I feel continued healing occurring in my soul. As I mentioned earlier, life brings crazy situations at us because of not only our wrong choices but others wrong choices. The most challenging thing is how we handle those situations and where true growth and healing comes from. I had a friend who wrote a song called "Tears of Pain" after this situation occurred. I came to realize through this song that not only my own expression through sharing with others and journaling helped me manage the stress but I've also discovered others expressions have been pivotal as well whether it is music or a book. The underlying theme of the song that my friend Ben Deem wrote has been the major stronghold in my life and that is that no matter what happens in life, God the Father, Son, and Wonderful Counselor will never hide from me. They will always be there for me to gain strength to keep on keeping on with passion and vigor never looking behind but always straining toward what is ahead. Thanks for reading!

To listen to "Tears of Pain" click on site and then play "Tears of Pain."
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