Nobody knows what horrors I have saved the world from ’cuz people can’t see what never happened.
—Papa
Only the Lord knows how a boy from south Mississippi could be a die-hard Minnesota Vikings fan, but I was.1 And my mom and dad gave me the unheard-of present of going to New Orleans to see my beloved Vikings play in person against the Saints, known in those days as the “aints” (blessedly, times have changed).
The three hours it took to drive to New Orleans seemed to me an eternal day. But we finally got there, and my dad parked the car. We took a trolley to the old Tulane Stadium. It was a magnificent afternoon, and the game was everything I had dreamed it would be, including a decisive Viking victory.
After the game we were walking down the exit ramp when I looked over the rail and saw three buses lined up, and I recognized the huge men boarding the buses as the Viking players themselves. Without thinking, I ran down the ramp and somehow made my way to the players. I actually shook hands with Carl Eller and was inches away from Alan Page and Wally Hilgenberg. And Coach Bud Grant himself stood not five feet from me. As he leaned over to sign an autograph his hat fell off, and I got to pick it up and give it back to him. Needless to say, I was in heaven.
Then, one by one, the buses began to drive away. I remember watching them go beside the stadium and turn left, out of sight. When the last bus was gone, the greatest of all fears seized my little heart. I suddenly realized that I had no idea where my parents were, and worse, that they had no idea where I was. I looked around and there was not another person in sight, not one. To this day, it is a mystery how the crowd around those buses disappeared so quickly, but they did. There was not one single human being to be found. Sheer panic gripped me. Within seconds I was scared out of my mind. I did not have a clue what to do. My heart was racing so fast I could not even think.
Twelve years old, New Orleans, Tulane Stadium, and it was getting dark. I was a long way from being street-smart, but I knew to the roots of my soul that I was in trouble. At some point it dawned on me to find a policeman, but there were none. I could not find another person, let alone a policeman, and I walked around that entire stadium at least three times.
By this time I was frantic and crying my eyes out. There were plenty of houses around, but I was not about to go to one for help. The only thing I knew to do was to try to find my way back to the car. I thought of the trolley that we had taken to the stadium, but which one? North and south were meaningless to me on the streets of New Orleans, and I had no idea which direction to go anyway. I did not even remember any street names. But I had some money in my pocket, so I found a trolley car and got on and told the driver that I was lost. He told me to get in the back of the trolley and keep my eyes peeled, and if I saw anything, to pull the cable and he would stop.
As the trolley made its way around New Orleans, I jumped from one side to the other, pressing my face against the cold windows, hoping, just hoping, that I would see something that I recognized—a tree, a building, a street, a parked car, who knows—maybe even my parents. But it did not happen. I rode that trolley all the way back to the stadium.
“Son,” the driver said, “we have made the circuit. What do you want to do?” Not knowing what else to do, I got off and walked around the stadium all the way back to where the buses had been. Alone and scared to death, I sat down under an oak tree in a pile of leaves. I remember fiddling with a stick and crying, but there were no more tears. It was pitiful.
But things got worse. As I sat there, my twelve years of life flashing before my eyes, the stadium lights suddenly went off. I have never experienced darkness like that. Nearly forty years later I can still see the darting, haunting shadows of that place and still smell the concrete and hear the leaves rustling in the cold wind. I don’t know how long I sat there, but it seemed like hours, certainly longer than the eternal ride to the stadium. It was so dark. I was so alone and cold.
And then suddenly, the stadium lights came on, and before I knew what was happening, I was on my feet running around the stadium. Someone had to have turned the lights on, and I was determined with the fire of the universe to find them. And then it happened. Over the noise of my footsteps and the pounding of my fears, I heard the most blessed sound in all of New Orleans. It was the most blessed sound I had ever heard in my life: one word, “Baxter!”—shouted by my father.
No one had to tell me what to do. No one had to tell me what that word meant. No one had to tell me how to apply the word to my life. My name, shouted by my father, spoke the hope of a thousand volumes. The overwhelming fear, the frantic searching, the anxiety, all took a left turn like the buses and were gone. And in their place arose the simplest and most wonderful of all things: security, assurance, rest.
I had no way of knowing it at the time, but I was being given a world-class education on how to live life. It would be years before I could begin to understand the significance of what happened. The story is a living parable with two simple points.
First, it’s not just about a young boy lost in New Orleans, desperately searching for his family. It’s about us, the human race. We are on the trolley car. It is a streetcar named Scared to Death, but who can admit it? We don’t know who we are or why we are here, or what’s going to happen next. It’s a fearful world. And we are trapped on the streetcar going in circles. Again and again we hear, “Son, we have made the circuit. What do you want to do?” Some of us have given up and gone to entertaining ourselves, others sleep in one way or another, some stay busy, some pretend that all is well or that they have it figured out; but when there is an odd sound, we all betray ourselves as we glance out the window, hoping to see something that will give us a hint of home, of hope, of peace.
Second, my trauma in New Orleans is a dramatic picture of the truth that life is all about hearing Papa shout our name. It is truly no more complicated than that. When we hear Jesus’ Abba shout our name, it baptizes our inner worlds with unearthly assurance. In the New Testament this unearthly assurance is called parrhesia (par-ray-see-uh): confidence, freedom, boldness, assurance. We are so made as to live our lives baptized in such assurance. That is how we are wired. We have been designed, so to speak, to hear Jesus’ Papa. And when we do, peace happens, assurance settles our souls, unexpected joy fills the room of our broken lives. We see with new eyes, and we see glory everywhere.
I have heard a year’s worth of sermons on “the will of God,” and some shame-filled ones on “settling for God’s second best.” I believe the will of the Father, Son, and Spirit for us is that we would know what Jesus knows, that we would see what Jesus sees, and that we would experience what Jesus experiences when he looks his Father in the face. Think of what Jesus feels when he looks into his Father’s eyes and hears, “You are my beloved Son, in whom my soul delights.” I dare say it’s not sadness or fear; not anxiety, dread, or hopelessness. I think Jesus’ soul is baptized with unearthly assurance, with a freedom and confidence and hope that are born in his Father’s heart. Jesus gets to live life in the joy of that baptism, in the freedom of the Spirit. The dream of the blessed Trinity is that we will, too. We will get to be mothers and fathers, friends and neighbors, golfers and poets and gardeners, ditchdiggers and teachers in the assurance of Papa’s voice. Heaven. Zoe.
I love the scene in The Shack when Papa says to Mackenzie, “Just follow my voice” (91). It is no more complicated than that. But oh, Lord, there are so many voices. Jesus’ Papa loves us forever, and shouts our name with a smiling face, but we have weird ears. There are childhood wounds, the voices of our disappointed parents, the sermons on the angry god, the constant whisper: “I am not worthy, I am not important, not lovable, not good enough, not okay.” There are divorces and financial crises, abuses and the betrayal of friends, overwhelming losses, all conspiring together to drown out Jesus’ Father’s voice.
As you read this, I want you to find a mirror and stand in front of it. I want you to stare yourself in the face, look yourself in the eyes, and as you do I want you to say these words out loud: “I am good.” Then say them again: “I am good.” And then a third time: “I am good.” Why is it so hard to say “I am good”? Is it because we have reached another conclusion about ourselves, a conclusion based on real-life experiences? Is it because of what we have been taught in church? Perhaps we have a definition of goodness that clearly excludes us. Perhaps we have crowned ourselves as the ultimate judge of goodness.
The truth is that Jesus has crossed all worlds to find us. He became what we are, entered into our world of confusion, and boarded the trolley car. He found his way into our darkness, into the scary places inside our souls. And there he pitched his tent forever—and he brought his Papa and the Holy Spirit with him. We can’t say “I am good” because we don’t know who we are and what glory lives within us. For inside of us all, because of Jesus, is nothing short of the very trinitarian life of God, with all of its goodness and beauty, its righteousness and holiness, its joy unspeakable, its love and laughter. “I am good” because Jesus and his Father and the Holy Spirit have found me and live in me.
What will happen when the great dance of trinitarian life and love and freedom, when that beauty and goodness and righteousness of the Father, Son, and Spirit—already within us—gets loose, so to speak, to run rampant in our lives and relationships, in our work and play?
What is keeping it from happening? What is in the way? What do we bring into the equation of the trinitarian life that is being shared with us every moment? What keeps us from believing Papa’s shout? It is simple, but not easy. Like Mackenzie, we are not neutral. We bring a load of rubbish to the kitchen conversation.