The Perfect Loss Audiobook Sample

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

You're listening to the Sage Hill podcast. For this week's episode, we want to share with you another excerpt from Doctor. Chip Dodd's recently released audio book, The Perfect Loss. Here's Chip. Peacemakers have a compelling desire in the spirit to live fully, as he has made us to do, having been given life renewed. Peacemakers have a compelling desire to love deeply, having been loved first by the spirit who sought us to make us whole. Peacemakers also have a compelling desire to lead well, being of maximum service, by giving oneself away for the Creator's purposes. When my youngest son, William, was eight years old and Tennyson 10, Sonya and I and the boys were driving home one Friday night after going out to eat. Summer warmth and early evening coolness has settled down into night. We had had a good meal, and I was just finished in the evening by going down Main Street with my window down and the air conditioning on. The sounds of summer eased through the car as we headed home. We were sitting at the corner of Main Street in Tennessee Boulevard where we were about to turn left and pass the church I mentioned when this story you are listening to first began. Forty plus years have been added to my life since then. The evening was calm. The day finished. Life was good. I foresaw a vacating of thought. I could pretend, at least for a while, that the magazines and mythology about small towns, sinless people, perfect marriages, and trouble free living could be true. Then William said from the back seat, dad, do you remember when I hit the home run at McKnight Field? I heard William clearly, but wanted to say, what? As if I didn't hear him so that maybe he would say, never mind or or nothing. Then I could stay away from my fear, difficulties, any trouble brewing, love, and my own son's heart. Since William was eight, not four, I had no wiggle room for imaginative stories like, yes, I do remember the home run, the one that bounced off the top of the car that started the horn, and a bunch of other horns started and kept going until a 100 car horns blared for hours and dogs howled and the game had to stop while everyone ran to their cars in a mad dash and everyone was laughing, even the dogs that watched the game. I said truthfully and gently, instead, no. And then he said, yeah, dad. You remember. I really hit the ball and it bounced over the fence, and everybody thought it was a home run, but really it bounced over, but it was a home run. I felt more fear and a dawning pain of compassion searing into my stomach and pulling my heart out. I slowly said, no, William. I don't remember that. Children's bodies are barely big enough to contain the heart God has fashioned within them, which is why they need so much care, focus, time, attention, and guidance. God doesn't really see that truth about us changing. He identifies us as children of God and his people in need of him throughout scripture. Our bodies only get bigger, and we learn how to contain our hearts. Then the probabilities of having intimacy with God are reduced unless life breaks through. When life breaks through, we can have heart again and grow from the soil of who we are made to be. We need heart food more than body food. William needed heart food, and I needed to not pretend. William screamed from the back seat, don't say that, don't say that. Yes, I did. You remember. The solids in the car weighed in heavily, and a thousand words of heart sat on a tipping point. To be brought into the light or to fall into the dark of unsettled shadows and squashed dreams. My little eight year old son beckoned me to meet him in his expression of pain while he was telling me to leave him alone. The vacating part of me that pretended wanted to run away from William's pain, ignore him, or teach him about life. I had the night planned already. I wanted to fix it by telling him something I didn't know to be true. You will hit a home run next time. I wanted to feel better, postpone his agony by pretending a gushing cut was just a scratch. I wanted to attack what I could not control, shut him down with my own denial about life's tragic outcomes, and tell him to toughen up. I wanted to give him a resignation pill, the infamous fix all. Life's not fair, so get over it and get on with it. This half truth always works to shame hope into its corner with its back to life. The preponderance of evidence of life's unfairness is always weighted toward loss winning the match. This half truth squishes hope, makes it look weak, silly, and useless. Most of us do not rediscover that hope in the midst of tragedy. Finding hope, however, in the midst of survival frees us. We are liberated to fight for full life because of who already fought for us. Perseverance is a refusal to believe that our hero, Jesus Christ, will ever be defeated. Without the hope, we cannot find the perseverance. He called me from pretending to peace. He called me into peacemaking. He called me into the war of love. I remembered a scene in William's life some three years before. He played baseball on a t ball team, the ultimate fantasy game for burgeoning heroes. The player hits a baseball off of a stationary tube at home plate and runs. In the world of the untutored, it can be a carnival. But to the boys who can already imagine, it is where dreams can come true. After a game, William walked into the center of a small circle of Tennyson's friends who would be playing later in the day. He stated stoutly as he looked up into their faces, y'all think I'm just a little t ball player, but I'm not. I'm good too. The other boys looked at William, heard him, and looked rather nonplussed by the declaration. They looked on, including Tennyson, without comment, question, or concern, and William said no more. It just happened. And I remembered questions rising in me that I didn't ask or move into. Kids just say the darndest things, is where I left the scene. I also remembered several years later during a pregame batting practice with Tennyson's team warming up for a game. Williams' team would play later in the same baseball complex. Out of 10 pitches thrown to Tennyson, he hit nine out of the park. The team he played on that year won the dizzy dean state championship. Tennyson hit a passel of home runs that summer and stowed them all in a drawer in his bedroom with the trophies. He also had a nickname, t bone, which became very memorable to other boys and interested parents who are involved in that tiny universe. A universe where identities are conjured up, shaped, confirmed, or missed, conquered, and lost. The times were all memorable with our sons, the baseball, the teams, and the families. The boys loved their friends and baseball. William also was watching and hearing and feeling. We drove home in silence that night. I cried out in quiet desperation to God about what to do. I hurt inside about my young son. I knew pain. My William was in pain. God said only choose. I loved my son's insomnia. I knew one direction because of this God I knew. Stay true to the God who is faithful in a fractured world. Stay true to love. Fight for him so he can have himself back in his quest. We arrived home amidst these thoughts. As we got out of the vehicle and headed toward our back door, I said, William, stay out here with me. Let's sit out here. He said, no, sir. Tennyson and Sonia went inside. I said, William, come on. I sat down where God had designed for us to sit. On our back patio, looking out over our courtyard of flowers and bushes, was an old church pew. The old wood creaked a little when I sat, having been sat on thousands of times, and then finally landing on my back porch. I said, William, sit down. He said, no, then sat down. He said in that way that let me know that he might be sitting down on the outside, but standing up on the inside. We sat there, him staring, full of pain, silent. I, full of pain, scared, wanting, and locked out. I reached my hand to touch the back of his shoulder. He pulled away with a message of pain and contempt. I sat there seeing the back of him. He sat staring into the dark. Then I said the simplest, most obvious hope prayer I could imagine. William, do you believe that you have to hit home runs to be somebody? The question had pureness and powerlessness, trust and hope, wanting and love all over it. Out of deep shalom, I spoke into his torment. Before I knew it, an anguished guttural cry rose from within my eight year old. What do you think? He screamed. And then the many tears rushed forward as his torso fell over onto his thighs and his head rested against his clenched hands. What do you think? All I ever hear is t bone, t bone, t bone. I'm nobody. They don't even know my name. A wail emerged with chest wracking tears as his rib cage shook. I'll never be anybody till I can hit a home run. I was leaning forward with him. His tears dropped like rain on the old red bricks, turning each spot black. I slowly reached out my hand and touched his shoulder blade, and his body melted against my leg as I leaned over him in my own aching love. After a while, he breathed with a tired last breath that is rest for the grieving. And then I said, William, William, I don't even care whether you ever hit a home run or even play baseball. You're William. Your worth is yours. Your gifts are yours. You are your own kind of ball player. You'll hit a home run when it's time, or your gifts will play themselves out in many other ways. I love you for you. You've got to be William. I know you want to hit home runs. I know you hurt, but you're made to be William. He just cried himself into silence, resting against my leg with the side of his face turned onto my knee. He looked tired and rested and like William. Some of the words I spoke went into the openings of his heart. Most of them probably just splashed about and evaporated like his tears, but the love wasn't lost nor his struggle for truthfulness wasted. He and I quietly talked more. He said after a bit, can we go in now? Sure, I responded. Do you mind if I pray? I prayed and then we went in. As we entered the back foyer, Tennyson and Sonya, who had heard the wailing, were coming from the kitchen into the foyer too. William saw Tennyson move to him quickly, put his arms around him, and said from way inside himself, I love you, Tennyson. There they stood, arms around each other, the one who walked in pain proclaiming love to the one who at the time walked in victory. Tennyson's cheek rested on the top of William's head, and William's cheek rested against Tennyson's shoulder. I love you too, William, were Tennyson's simple words. William had his heart back and his true voice. He knew he wanted to go see his brother. God has made us right. The world is wrong. Surrendering to God how we are made and surrendering to the God who made us frees us from the world with its standard of measurement that uses power and control as its measuring tools. When I put them to bed that night, I sat between their twin beds, talked about differing gifts, the need to celebrate each person openly, and told them that God would stick with us as we all grew. I encouraged them to keep heart. I didn't know then if they understood any of what I had said, but they did know they were loved inside their own chests. They did know I would show up in their lives. They also knew without knowing the words that God had made me a peacemaker and that I had a passion for them to keep heart. The next day, William and I were coming home from somewhere. I felt close to him and grateful to have been available to him and relieved that his heart had been unfettered again and free. I also wanted him to tell me how grateful he was to have me as a father. I wanted to manipulate a magical moment from him so I could see myself as successful in the mirror of my ego. I disrupted Shalom. I said, William, do you want to talk some more about last night and your pain? In true fashion, out of the mouths of children come straight, unassuming, uncompromising truths, unwilling to participate in the manipulation games of knowing what someone wants without them saying it. He simply said, no. It felt pretty good to get that hurt out last night. I smiled about his clarity, straightforward expression, and peace about where he was. Had it been otherwise, he would have said so. I shook my head at myself, wondering if I would ever grow up enough to be so truthful and free about giving up control over someone else's mind and heart. The first beatitude never ends. I saw myself and thanked God for his love and mercy. The following summer, William's baseball team was playing in a weekend baseball tournament. He hit a high arching ball to deep left center that actually hit the very top of the fence and could have bounced in or out of the park. It bounced out for his first home run. I walked over to the dugout after the next batter was at the plate and congratulated him. I was struck by how clear and bright his eyes were when he looked into mine. He said, dad, did you see me run around the bases like I've done that before? I laughed at all of us at that moment and said, yeah, and returned to the watching fold of dreaming desperate parents. Driving home, he said, you know, it really isn't that big of a deal. A bitter seed of resentment had reached into the soil of his true identity and had begun to grow tendrils. I'll show them. They will see. I'll be more, I won't feel, I'll have power, I must be that, I must be somebody, I'll get even, somebody will pay. All that determination makes self will, pride, figuring, and power mainstays in our lives, and eventually makes us blind to ourselves, others, and to God. They will isolate us from true relationships and life no matter how successful we appear to become. The pain of his heart needed to be known and joined. He needed the emotional and spiritual medicine of true relationship. Ambition had begun to feed off of his heart's passion, and precious worth was being enslaved by momentary applause. And I, his dad, wasn't paying attention. I was not running beside his heart. I had just been watching only. Thank God for repentance, recovery, redemption, restoration, and recreation. Thank God that children are looking for clumsy parents, not perfect parents. Our admission of our humanity and God's pursuing imperfect love remain the portal through which our children can keep their hearts for life. But we must have gone through first to let them know. You say perhaps too big a deal is made of a moment. No. Our lives are nothing but where we are in our hearts and what we do with moments. Little things are the big things. The little things become the tasting and touching, the experiencing of God's creation. But this is only true for the surrendered. If my sons lost the presence of their own feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope, and the capacity to imagine as bearers of God's image, they will have lost heart. Then their identities will be stalled. And years meant for living fully may be twisted and knotted into destruction, despair, darkness, and death, unless they live in surrender. God takes our surrendered hearts and joins with us to bring us to full life, deep love, and genuine relationship. God is the fulfillment of the heart's cry for creation, hope, light, and courage. He brings the antidote to the poison that would make us lose heart. We don't have to drink deeply of the ways of the world that ultimately void our hearts and smother us with regrets and finally self condemnation. I cannot stop them from losing heart, nor can I make them keep heart? I can just show up with them in heart. That is what a peacemaker does. Peacemakers experience where they are in heart by feeling their feelings, being truthful about what the intentions of their hearts are, or remaining in confession and then giving it over to God in his processes. Peacemakers live in surrender, having found the bounty of such freedom. God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He does it. We desire as much for others. We know who does it. We just want it and move. God does it. God then sets us apart, in the world but not of it. We are not its. We are human beings, saved by grace, through faith, who see that we are God's poetry, being written even now into vibrant expressions of living fully, loving deeply, and leading well. Peacemakers started in brokenness of the first beatitude, and have grown into the daily surrender and courage of the seventh beatitude.

We hope you've enjoyed this excerpt from Dr. Chip Dodd's recently released audio book, The Perfect Loss. For more information about Sage Hill, as always, visit us online at sage hill resources dot com. For the remainder of this audio book, The Perfect Loss, visit audible.com.