Le Beach

We went to the beach yesterday.  Because I grew up in the midwest of the United States, this is a real treat for me.  The biggest thing we have to a beach in Iowa is probably a one hundred foot section of sand on Lake Okoboji - the sand was probably imported from somewhere, and, it has enough mud and stones in it that I wouldn't exactly compare it to...

The Gold Coast.  If you say it, the name 'Gold Coast' brings about images alternatively of beautiful sand and pirates.  The Gold Coast stretches more than a hundred feet, in case you wanted to know and incorporates places with fanciful sounding names like Coolangatta, Binna Burra, Burleigh Heads and Canungra.  From New South Wales all the way to (basically) Brisbane, Queensland, white sand beaches cover the coast like the edges of a table cloth.  The sand is so soft that as you step on top of it, you sink ankle deep.  The sand is so hot, however, you run across the top of it attempting not to scald the bottoms of your feet (and your ankles).  You can always tell the tourists because they dance down the sand as if with each step some kind of Sand Ness Monster is seeking to rip the toes from their feet, all the while  Australians try to act tough by walking barefoot across the molten sand, nonchalantly looking hither and yon wondering if anyone is watching, but on their face is written their pain. Secretly, inside their brains they are yelling, "Ouch, ouch, ouch, I've got to get to the water."

The sand is so hot, I'm surprised it hasn't turned to glass yet. 

(Surfers' Paradise, Gold Coast, QLD)

We took off yesterday morning early, loaded up the snacks, the boogie boards, the beach towels and books (all the necessities of beach life) and drove the ninety minutes to a place called Surfer's Paradise.  What a great name for a beach.  It's a misnomer, though.  There weren't many surfers, but there were a whole lot of young men and women parading in front of each other with such small amounts of fabric covering their bodies, I thought perhaps that a small trip on the sand would send the swimsuit flying through the air in explosive glory.  I'm not puritanical with regards to bathing suits; When young and searching for a mate, just like any other animal, I guess, it only goes by human nature that we show our, um, assets.  I think the guys are the best, though.  We watched a BBC documentary a while ago called Planet Earth and there was one section on birds of paradise who, when looking for a mate, will fluff their feathers and go to extraordinary lengths, dancing and prancing in order to attract the attention of the females.  There were quite a few male birds of paradise preening and pec popping yesterday.  As we walked along Surfer's Paradise beach, there was a row of young men, shirtless, of course, in the mid afternoon baking sun, actually comparing muscles while alternatively looking up to see if any girls were watching.  Maybe I'm jealous, but my guess is, I'm at an age now where pec popping is far too strenuous, and I'm not sure that Christine would actually be impressed.  Either way, I'm happy to keep my sunsafe top on, lathered in sunscreen and holding on to the hands of an assortment of one or two of my daughters and wife.  I'm sure if there was one girl on the beach who would notice me, it would be because, after struggling in from the surf, I had something hanging from my beard.

We parked only steps from the magma temperatured sand.  The girls, wriggling in the back seat, were unhooked from seat belts milliseconds after arriving and standing by the trunk in anxious anticipation.  They wanted their boogie boards.  Riding on the waves was what they'd been dreaming about during these school holidays.  After gathering their boogie board and 'ouching' down the beach across the sand, they shed whatever accessories we asked them to carry and headed straight into the water.  Christine and I took our time and then we walked to the edge of the continent to let the consistent waves lap our shins and allow the voice of the ocean to drown out any thoughts of stress that might have occurred in the last week.

Within half an hour, though, the Greta came back to us itching.  At first we thought she'd just got some sand under the swimsuit, which is pretty natural, but then we noticed the red welts.  As we were examining her, Josephine approached us with the same problem.  Sure enough, right behind her was the third musketeer. 

Sea lice.


What?  When Christine said, 'sea lice', I thought to myself, "Here we go, another one of these made up Australian words (or things) to make me look a little foolish when I gullibly accept that she, as my loving wife, would always tell me the truth."  Just a few weeks ago, on a hike, we stopped the root of tree which was making a noise.  I was fascinated until Christine told me what it was.  "Farting tree," she said with a look of total sincerity.  "What?" I asked.  "Yes, very rare.  You don't normally get to hear them, but these trees build up with gasses from the ground and then, occasionally, they release those gasses through their exposed roots.  It sounds exactly like a fart."  I'm not normally naive, but she looked so trustworthy, like a one carat diamond on top of an engagement ring, but I was to find out that her words were cubic zirconium.  "That's fascinating," I said, swallowing her words hook line and sinker.  She began to laugh. 

"It's a frog hidden in the roots, silly.  I can't believe you fell for it.  Wait till I tell my brothers."  Just what we all need is brothers-in-law making farting noises (real or imagined) every time you are near.

So, when she said 'sea lice,' I was on guard.  Farting is one thing, but scratching myself incessantly is another.  "No, really, sea lice.  They are really small creatures that, like mosquitoes, bite the skin causing welts.  They live in the ocean, usually in the sea weed.  We were just lucky enough to happen upon them today.  Because Christine and I were in closer to shore, we weren't being attacked as much. 

(Not any of my daughters, but you get the idea - pretty gross)


Now that the girls had been gnawed on, they were reluctant to head back out into the water.  They'd been looking forward to this for a long time and now, something unseen was destroying the joy of the adventure. 

Life is a lot like that.  It usually isn't something we can see that reaches up and rips the joy out of something we've been looking forward to; it's almost always something we don't see, something giving us emotional welts.  We can handle the heat of the shore - we can run across it, but we can't handle sea lice because we can't see them which means we can't avoid them. 

I hope that as you set out on a particularly joyful journey, you enjoy it regardless of the things that threaten to destroy it, whether unseen (attitudes, yours or others) or seen (obstacles of your own making or those that have been placed by others). 

The girls got back into the water and swam to their hearts content.  They are only bites after all.  Plenty of time to recover.

Plenty of time to recover from the beach.

How Long?

I've been pondering over the book of Mark for the last couple of months.  Normally I read through the Bible like I watch movies a second time:  I know that I've been there before so I stay awake for only the good parts.  But here I am in my sixth year of pastoral ministry and I'm reading one of the gospels like it was the first time and boy, did I miss a lot.

I'm pretty good with the general message of the New Testament.  I get it; I really do and it's been pressed into my spiritual skin for almost forty years:  Jesus lived; Jesus died; Jesus rose again.  I'm saved by Jesus. 

Amen and close the book.

But that truth never seemed to motivate me that much.  Because of a general apathy towards anything that would change my relatively hedonistic view of life, I never dug deeper.  What really are the gospels saying to a group of people?  I try not to say, "What is the Bible saying to me?" because too often, when I over-personalize it, I remove the opinions and reflections of everyone else and the Bible becomes whatever I want it to be - usually a good luck charm that takes up a place of prominence on the third shelf of the bookcase.  If I'm feeling particularly down in the dumps, I might pull it out, touch the cover of it and somehow (I hope) by osmosis, the Bible would change my prospects for life simply by holding it.

But I rarely ever opened it.

And now I am. I'm astonished and I'm being changed.  Reshaped, if you will.  The book of Mark is fascinating and monumental.  The other gospels shed theological light on different aspects of the life of Jesus, but Mark gets right down to it, right down to the nitty gritty of who Jesus was and who his incredibly fallible followers were.  The more I read of Mark the more careful I am of...

Wanting to say I am just like one of the disciples. 

The disciples were arrogant, selfish, blind to the needs of others, reticent to pray, questioning, rebuke-worthy and full of pride.  They tried to put Jesus into human-sized boxes that looked a lot like constructs of limited minds.  Their hearts were hardened by the nature of the ruling class.  They complained about the politics of the government; they were concerned less for the needs of the hungry and poor than they were about providing themselves with the best opportunities for power. 

Man, I fit the mold of a pre-resurrection disciple perfectly.  For three years Jesus gave them every opportunity to watch and learn.  Then he set them free to change lives and make mistakes.  To bring unity and create chaos.  They never stopped being human.

One of my favorite stories of the disciples comes up as the preaching text this week.  I encourage you to find it in your own Bible if you are reading this.  Almost always it helps to get the context of the passage; read the previous verses and the ones after.  They should  affect your viewing.  Mark 13.  I'll add it here first, but feel free to read around it.

As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher!  What massive stones!  What magnificent buildings!"

"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus.  "Not one stone here will be left on another; everyone will be thrown down." 

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will these things happen?  And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?"

Jesus said to them: "Watch out that no one deceives you.  Many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and will deceive many.  When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed.  Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.  Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines.  These are the beginning of birth pains."

"You must be on your guard.  You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues.  On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them.  And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.  Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say.  Just say whatever is given to you at the time, for it is not you speaking but the Holy Spirit."

I thought the gospel meant 'good news.'

Here we read Jesus explanation of current events, but Jesus reminds the disciples not to read into them.  There has always been a fascination when the last days were going to occur.  From Paul's understanding that Jesus was coming back soon, to the black plague, to the fires of London.  From various cults throughout history who believed that leadership was a reincarnation of Jesus to our own present day anxiety whether an ancient tribe of Central Americans have, in fact, been the recipients of the knowledge when God will say,

"Enough."

Interestingly, our scripture verses start with the disciples being completely enamored by the size of the stones and the architecture of the buildings.  Their eyes are filled with the amazing ability for humankind to dream and then create four walled structures that negate the affects of gravity.  But sooner or later, they all come crashing down, don't they?  The disciples, as if wandering through the downtown Beijing for the first time, ooh and aah their way down Church Street but then Jesus reins them in quickly. 

"Listen, fellas.  These things are not destined for eternity.  They are just buildings; man made dreams that, just like all their dreams, will crash down in the end."

Then, to me, it seems like Jesus snaps his fingers in front of their eyes and says, "Hey, guys, over here.  Focus on the bigger picture."  The disciples blink once or twice and then see Jesus reappear out of their architectural reverie. 

So they end up across the street.  A different perspective awaits them.  Ironically, as they carry on the next discussion, the temple is in full view.  The place where worship was carried out every Sabbath is the place from which they withdraw.  Four of the disciples pull Jesus aside and let him know they want some inside information.  "Teacher, when is this all going to end?  When will the buildings come down?"  Unasked is, "When do we get to be masters of the universe?"

Jesus cuts through the junk because too often, current events, natural disasters, wars and conflicts are used to justify how we preach the 'gospel,' the 'good news.'  We see hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, plagues and somehow cast judgment on the people who have suffered labeling them as sinners or recipients of God's profound justice while at the same time praying to God to refrain from punishing us for our pride and arrogance.  We see in those events God's hand preparing the end of the age, lifting us 'faithful ones' higher so that we will be the first to see God at the end of the age.  We have done all the right things.  We've gone to church, we've...

Well, what have we done?  As a Christian church we've placed ourselves in a position to reap the rewards of God's grace without actually doing what God has asked in the end times namely, "The gospel must be preached to all nations before this thing comes about."  What I find as a sinful disciple is that I preach the gospel to all nations that agree with me.  My evangelism is often limited to the set of people that have the same values and constants in their lives as I do.  And when I have finished my next great sermon, sinfully I sit back and say, "Okay, God, whenever you're ready.  Take me home."

So, I recline sometimes and ask God for a sign when the end is coming.  Why do I do that?  Why did the disciples do that?  Well, perhaps it is the great human understanding of how children see parents.

When I was a teenager, I think I begged my parents to go on dates.  Not that I wanted to think about what dating was like for thirty-somethings, but I wanted my parents out of the house so that we, my brother, sisters and I could do whatever we wanted for a few hours, whether it be throwing things, cooking things, watching TV uninterruptedly or whatever.  If my parents were around, there were always chores to do.  We all wanted them to go out so we could do whatever we wanted.

My parents took us up on that one time.  They left us at home (we were fifteen, or so) so that they could go to a party.  As they left the house, I'm sure that they said, "Don't break anything or anyone."  In today's cellphone technological age, I'm sure that our parents would have called us before they left the party to let us know that they were on the way.  But back in the 80's, no such phone call was made.  Probably for a good reason, too.  If my parents would have called fifteen minutes before they were coming, we would have cleaned up whatever mess that we made, straightened the cushions, swept up the broken glass and dirt from the plants that we tipped over.  But they didn't make that call and the earliest we knew that they were arriving home was the headlights turning down the driveway.  Because we didn't know when they were coming home, we had to be relatively good with regards to keeping the house together.  If we didn't, if the house was messed beyond repair and they arrived, there would be considerable consequences.

Jesus, I think, was using the same kind of analogy with the disciples.  Without knowing, they might have been thinking, "Can you have God text us when He's going to come back, the earlier the better, so that we have time to clean up the mess that we've made?"  But Jesus says response is one of, "How about you guys take care of the house now so that we don't have to clean up any houses?"

We don't need to know when the end is; we just need to take care of the house.  We don't need to know how long it will be before God comes back because living in peace with our neighbor was the intent all along.  When all of these stones fail; when all of these buildings fall; when all of our constructs of what is fascinating in life is left aside and peeled back, then we might see the amazing detail of God's original plan.

The beauty of the Good News.  That Jesus lived to show us a better life; that Jesus died to take away the end of life; that Jesus rose again to give us eternal life. 

That's something to focus on, isn't it?

Praise the Lord

It's been a while.  Usually guilt finds a clawhold on me, somewhere underneath my ego and above my ability to find time to do all the things on earth that I am meant to do.  It's all about time, isn't it?  Even if there were twenty-eight hours in a day, even if there were thirteen months in a year, even if I could live to one hundred and fifty years of age I would still find a way to stress out about all the things that I am supposed to do in the next week.  So, on a Sunday night in mid-November I sit in front of the digital eye tapping frantically away at words that will somehow be cathartic for me.  This tip/tapping on my computer keyboard brings some kind of release.

Or, it could be just a gracious opportunity to procrastinate. 

I'll choose the former.  Catharsis always sounds better.  In fact, the word catharsis is a fun word to say as if by saying it enough times you already feel less stressed.  Try it.  Catharsis.  Dictionary dot com defines catharsis as the purging of emotions or the easing of emotional stress.  Am I stressed?  Do I know what that means?  Does it simply mean that can I feel the blood pressure in my throat at certain times of the day?  Perhaps, but cathartically I can purge my emotional duress by laying out there some of the events that have occurred in the life of this small town pastor.

I've never not prepared for a funeral sermon before.  After spending time with a grieving family, usually I will find a way to connect the life story of the deceased with the living word of the Bible and viola, a sermon leaps from my head like the kangaroo that jumped out of the bush at my car this morning on the way to Mt. Sylvia, a fly speck of a church in the hills of the Lockyer Valley.  Fly speck sounds derogatory; don't ge me wrong - it was an adjective indicative of size rather than composition.  The church building  would comfortably hold forty on a Christmas Eve service.  I'm not sure that Cross Lutheran Church has seen that many since Martin Luther was alive, though.  Perhaps we can invite the local kangaroo population to attend.  Anyway, this kangaroo comes flying out of the bush to leap across the road inches in front of my Toyota Altise, as if a crocodile were hungry for some kangachips.  I beeped my horn as I swerved on the one lane road.  I didn't hit the marsupial but I'm pretty sure her pouch was not full of joeys when I barely missed her.

So the funeral sermon, right?  Eddie was an incredible man.  After the funeral service, one of the attendees caught up with me and explained Eddie in the best way possible.  The man who described him was one of the local farmers.  To the funeral he did not wear a suit and tie, but stained blue jeans and a wide brimmed hat.  His hands, large and stained with dirt, encircled my own as he stopped to talk about Eddie.

"There was nothing spectacular about Eddie.  He didn't really own anything.  He wasn't rich.  He wasn't powerful.  He wasn't even particularly successful at farming.  But look around you.  At this little church, there are almost three hundred people who have come to say farewell to an almost ninety year old man.  When is the last time you saw a truly elderly man whose funeral was attended by so many?"

I had to agree with him.  Usually, when someone in their late eighties passes away, it is a small funeral attended by the family and a few friends.  Most of the deceased's friends had died before.

"And yet here we are, farewelling (it's a verb here) a man who, by most standards, was not materially successful.  But he must have done something right."  With that, the farmer pushed his hat back a little farther on his head, placed his hands on his hips and smiled a slight smirk of contentment.  It was obvious his own memory of Eddie was impinging on the moment.

It was the same memory that all of us had (and I had only known Eddie for a eighteen months.)  Eddie smiled a lot.  And I mean, a lot.  Not just when things were going really well, when he was thinking about his kids or grandkids, but all the time.  One time, during a church service, Eddie banged his leg and it started to bleed.  Because he was on blood thinners, the bleeding didn't stop very easily, but no one in the congregation knew that Eddie was exsanguinating all over his Sunday best socks.  He just sat at the front, content to be part of the community, caring not whether he had to buy a new pair of argyles.  Nobody knew because Eddie was smiling.

His smile carried him through life.  It wasn't that he was happy all the time; the last few months he was not particularly pleased about his lack of ambulation, the falling, the bleeding, the cancer, the age; but he was joyful.  Content with whatever life brought because it meant that he was, as we spoke on that last day, "Almost home."  He said that a few times as he laid in the bed.  "Pastor Reid, I'm almost home."

People knew about Eddie's faith; it was evident in the way that he carried himself and the way he related to his church and his children.  But I'm not sure anyone really knew the extent of his faith.  When Jesus said have the 'faith of a mustard seed,' Eddie's faith was more like a coconut.  Which is why, when it came to preparing a sermon for Eddie's funeral, he had already done it for me.  The four texts that he picked out, all of them about praising God, entering his courts with gladness, rejoicing in the Lord always - the all fit together perfectly, so that when it came to speak about Eddie's journey home, I simply read the word of God. 

I should do that more often.

On the front page of the funeral bulletin was a picture of Eddie (smiling, of course), but the picture is only two dimensional; we don't hear Eddie's voice or see his depth of character and certainly, we don't catch a glimpse of his fourth dimension-ness, his spirituality.  "Come into his presence with gladness.  Praise the Lord.  Rejoice in the Lord always."  Shake and repeat.

I wish there were a lot more people like Eddie in the world. 

Praise God, he's home, though.

In the News

Just for information sake.  My girls' basketball team were defeated quite soundly yesterday.  I stood stoically on the sideline through the second quarter watching the girls sacrifice their egos at the hands of St. Saviour's College (I've never heard of St. Saviour, but I'm going to have to Google him - or her - to find out).  At one point we were down 40-0.  Granted, we did shoot the ball at least three times in the first half, but I put all the blame for our poor performance on the sun - it was in my girls' eyes.  Oh, wait, that was the second half.  I'll find some kind of excuse, bad coaching I think, for our decidedly one-sided defeat 54-6.

This blog is not about basketball and even though I could probably write thousands of words about the joy of coaching, this week I'll be projecting some thoughts about the news.

One of the perks for working at Faith Lutheran College is that one of the state newspapers, the Courier Mail, allows teachers (I get to be included in that segment of the population) to purchase the daily rag for $15 per year.  I thought that this would be an excellent idea to catch up on current events in the world, see how Queensland is doing with regards to national prowess.

Reading the Courier Mail, though, is like... well, you know when you're little, and you decide that the coolest thing in the world is to take your bike out onto a gravel road, push it to the top of a hill and then hop on.  You point the front tire down the middle of the road hoping beyond hope that the tire does not get caught in a rut or hit a big rock - then you let gravity do its thing.  At first its fun. The wind whips your hair a little bit; you begin to catch a few bugs in your teeth, you're feeling a little bit daring so you take your feet off the pedals - oh, it's so fun, so exciting, and then you realize...

So this is what a train conductor feels like when he (or she) sees a moose on the tracks and knows that no matter what, stopping is not really an option...

but you try to stop anyway.  Hand brakes (if you actually had any) aren't really going to work.  You're on a gravel road, the least amount of pressure will send you into a skid that will probably throw you into the cornfield.  Okay, so foot brakes it is, but you know that at the rate you're going, which feels like mach forty-two, foot brakes have as much an affect as wearing long sleeves, instead of a t-shirt out into a blizzard - it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.  Then, as a last resort, you think...

If I can just get my pedals twirling fast enough, perhaps I can slow the bike down that way...

So now you just look plain silly.  Feet flying, wheels spinning and then you hit that inevitable bump just twenty feet from the bottom.  Front tire twists to the side and you are sent over the handlebars for a quick date with the road where the main appetizer is a gravel sandwich.  Open wide.

And then you come to and realize that for the next four hours not only are you picking gravel from every layer of flesh in your body, but the grit in your teeth will not be washed down with any amount of rinsing.  You'll never feel clean again. 

Yeah, that's what reading the Courier Mail is like.  It's fun(ny) at first and then you pick up speed but then, there is no way of stopping the train wreck.  You're left picking grit out of your brain.  You'll never be clean again.  For instance, here is a gem I found a few days in the Courier Mail.  No kidding: actual news.

Headline:  CAT PEE DRIVES MAN TO ASSAULT CHARGE

(no shock that there is no byline for the article)

A MAN allegedly ran down his sister with his car after her cat urinated on his computer.  The woman, 19, received a fractured spine, a broken leg and a collapsed lung and remains in serious condition in hospital.  The stoush allegedly began after the woman's cat urinated on her brother's computer at a house in Winmalee in the Blue Mountains.  Police said the man, 20, dragged his sister across the floor and threw her cat into the car.  The woman was then struck by the car outside the home.  Police charged the brother with common assault and negligent driving.

I just want to pick through this 'news' for a little bit.  Police didn't charge him with attempted murder?  Negligent driving?  What?  Is this such a normal occurrence that it's called a common assault? 

Okay, hold on a minute, negligent driving.  It seems to me that there was nothing negligent about the brother's driving.  To me, it seems he certainly meant to run over his sister with the car.  Oh, wait a minute.  Maybe he actually meant to throw the sister in the car and run over the cat.  Yeah, that's what he was trying to do but he became disoriented by his rage and mixed up his sister with the cat.  Sure, now I can see that it was negligent driving.  He didn't really mean to fracture his sister's spine, leaving her an invalid for life (if she survives).

How is this okay on any level.  I understand that the odor of cat urine can drive any man crazy.  Just in the last weeks I myself have come to a place of feline hatred.  Our next door neighbor has three cats.  Two of them look like they have permanent burs in their hair.  These long haired pseudo-rodents have been wandering our neighborhood which,  in the best case scenario would be looking for mice to eat, but I'm pretty sure they have been simply using my yard as a port-a-toilet.  Every once in a while when return home later at night, I can see the reflection of the eyes of these cats - evil looking things.  They have this pleased look on their face when they see me as if they are saying, "Yeah, merry Christmas.  Your present is in the backyard and guess what?  I didn't flush." 

So, I shoo them off trying to remember to put on my checklist for the next day find uncovered cat feces in backyard.

I'm a busy person though and I rarely remember that my backyard is a litterbox for the neighbors demoncats.  I do remember, though, when I begin to mow and I chunk up little, smelly logs placed in little, smelly piles.  It would be one thing if I just chewed them up in my lawnmower, but the reek from these little feline logs is overwhelming and more than once, my children have found me curled up over the handle bars of the mower retching. 

"Daddy, are you okay?"

I point to the little pile I've just run over.  They scatter.  As I read that I notice that I scatter is a pun.  Scat, scatter... obviously the scent of cat excrement is doing something wrong to me. 

So, what I've begun to do is to make a lap around the yard every morning searching for these little land mines.  Sick, I know, but I take a plastic bag with me and pick up the steaming little piles and traipse across the street to line up the poo in the neighbors driveway right underneath her car tires.  (I do this in the dark because it wouldn't look good for the pastor to be seen taking vengeance on the neighbor - but, I can't help myself).  I imagine that every morning, as the neighbor drives somewhere, she arrives at her place and things, "What is that smell?"

Oh yes, she should know what that smell is.  If only her cat pooped in her own yard.

But never once have I thought to myself, I think it really would be a good idea for me to walk across the street, mangy cat in hand, throw the cat in my car and run my neighbor over.  Really, I've never thought that.  Call the animal services, yes.  Negligent driving, no.

At the end of the Courier Mail's article, I didn't add the last sentence.  I wanted to savor it for the journalistic, Pulitzeresque writing. 

The cat was not hurt.

That's where my mind was going.  I'm glad they added that last little tidbit in.  As if the cat's wellbeing had any bearing on the article other than to make light of the tragedy that has just happen.  Of course, this incident probably does not stand on its own and if this twenty-year-old and nineteen-year-old explosive brother sister combo were living at home together, there's going to be some fireworks sometimes.  Even though the Courier Mail mentioned the health of the cat, it failed to bring up the real question of the story...

Is the computer okay? 

Here's the news this week.  I look forward to adding a few more articles from the Courier Mail.  It definitely adds spice to life.

The Coach

I don't know if anyone has truly lived until they have coached 8th and 9th grade girls basketball. 

During the first term of the 2012 school year, I was asked to lead the boys basketball teams.  With visions of being the next Phil Jackson or Bobby Knight (without the chair-throwing tirades) I stepped out onto the cement, eyes brimming with excitement at the fifty boys that longed to throw the ball through the hoop.  I, of course, felt like I could motivate the young men - they could look up to me (a few of them peered down); like Gene Hackman in the movie Hoosiers, I would take these country boys to the big city and make champions of them, raise them above all expectations.

And then I found out that most of them could not even dribble the ball.  Some of them had come to basketball simply to avoid the general aggressiveness and violence of rugby.  After the first practice, I surveyed the fifty young men at my basketball disposal, and inwardly shook my head.  Fifteen were sitting along the fence, in the shade, chewing fingernails, shaking their heads sideways a la Bieber to keep the hair out of their faces.  Because sports are mandatory at the school, you have to choose something but, unfortunately for some of the boys, the Zumba class was full.

So, they came to me, awkward and, in some cases, almost completely immobile.  All of the visions of national championship glory (which of course there is none) came melting down around my head and the stark reality hit me:  Basketball is not really a sport that is taken very seriously in the Lockyer Valley, is it?

Don't get me wrong, there are a few good players on the team - we could pull together a starting five that wasn't tooooooo bad.  The point guard, not a bad dribbler, fancied himself a future Kobe Bryant, except he couldn't dribble with his left hand and had never made a shot farther than six feet out (that's not entirely true; most of the boys at recess practice half-court shots.  Just the kind of shot that comes in handy in most basketball games).  One boy, who is at least 6'5 and still growing, could be a pretty good player as soon as he figures out how all of his limbs work together for the good of the whole body.  I laughed with him one time as he gathered in a rebound and was so intent on keeping the ball away from other players, high above his head, that he forgot his feet were moving as she shuffled ten feet across the court.  The other players looked like gnats trying to swoop in and swat the ball out of his big hands.

Coaching the boys - it was fun.  By the end of the term we had established some basic rules for the game, the boys wanted to play, sitting on the bench was difficult for them, we won a few games and learned how to be a team.  No Mike Kzkryencsefski (I know that's not how it's spelled but you know who I'm talking about if you follow basketball) am I, but I could have done worse.

But girls basketball...

How do you motivate a pre-teen girl to exercise or even sweat (gasp! is such a thing possible?).  My first (and only) day of training with the girls was an opportunity to make me smile.  As I gathered the girls around me, perhaps like a hen with chicks, each of them unsuccessfully attempting to hold a basketball in their hands or under their arms, I asked how many of them had ever played basketball before.  They all looked around at each other then one girl raised her hand and said, "My brother and I played in the back yard once." 

I definitely have my work cut out for me.  Eleven girls on the team, ten of whom have an understanding that a basketball is round, and that's about it.  Many of the girls have played an Australian sport called netball which is similar to basketball in the fact that you must put a ball through a hoop ten feet in the air, but completely different in that there is no dribbling of the ball, no backboard, and if someone is shooting you must stand three feet away from them. 

The transition to basketball proves difficult for them.

I try to show them some basic skills.  Dribbling the ball is for the most part outside their skillset even when no one is guarding them.  One of the girls came back to me so excited, jumping up and down, giggling and shouting at the top of her voice, "I DRIBBLED THE BALL ALL THE WAY TO THE OTHER END OF THE COURT.  I ONLY STOPPED TWICE!"

This is not even the funniest thing:  during layup drills, we had to stop intermittently for some team congratulation time when any one of the girls would actually make a basket.  As one girl would awkwardly toss up a two handed pass/shot/backboard shatterer and it would go in, the girls would clap wildly and cheer, "We made one!  We made one!"  At least we've got good team spirit, how 'bout you?

We survived practice.  Not that it makes too much difference, but Australian basketball players should be better than American players because they have to factor in windspeed and humidity when shooting.  All of our games are outdoors played on cement or asphalt courts many of which are not kept in the best condition.  One of the boys games I had to clear a dead rat from underneath our basket before the game began.

So, the girls basketball team road the bus to Toowoomba the other day.  It's about a forty-five minute ride up the mountain range.  The girls sat at the back of the bus surrounded by the rugby team, the boys volleyball team and futsol team (don't worry, I'd never heard of it either, but it's like indoor soccer).  Because there were only nine girls on the traveling team and they were surrounded by pubescent boys, I guess it's safe to say they weren't focusing on the upcoming game. 

We departed the bus in a flurry of hair tossing, giggling and sly over the shoulder looks.  I knew that it would be a long afternoon.  Trekking across the grass to the sun drenched, exposed basketball courts, one of the girls asked me, "Coach, do you think we are going to win today?"  Staring straight ahead I said, "Nope."  Taken aback, I think she was trying to decide if I was serious.  We kept walking, she behind me at this point and I turned around and said, "I don't think we're going to win; I know we're going to win!"  The young girl gave out a 'woohoo' and waited for the other girls to catch up to her.  At that point I thought to myself, when exactly is lying to a child a sin?

The other team, dressed in their brilliant red school uniforms - all twenty of them, took the court.  The 'coach' from the other team approached me wondering 'how we were going to do this.' 

"Well, I was thinking we could play seven at a time, you know, get more of the girls playing..."  She kind of let the statement trail off as if hoping I would not know the rules for basketball which include a maximum of five players per team on the court at a time.  Holy Moses. 

"I think," I said while placing my referee's whistle over my head, "That we'll just stick with the rules Mr. Naismith had planned when he invented the game of basketball and go with five at a time."  I didn't really say that, but my words had the same tone.  "Do you mind if I do the refereeing?" I asked.

"No, no, you go ahead.  I don't even know the rules anyway."  You think?

So we began and my girls, I call them 'my' now because that's the way coaches feel when you become a team, my girls were winning at half-time.  Energized by my incredible coaching/reffing skills, we scored six whole baskets in the first half to lead by two points at the break.  I thought to myself, Can we really win this game?  Can I be a present day Nostradamus by predicting this win?

You know when you say or think things and then recover with a retort to yourself, I shouldn't have said/thought that.  Now I'm going to jinx it, well...

For the second half, I don't think we dribbled the ball down the entire length of the court.  We didn't even attempt a shot.  The only time the girls got excited was when the other team dribbled the ball off their own leg out of bounds.  My girls played netball defense meaning they stood three feet away from the shooter, behind her, waiting for the eleven attempts to be over so that the excitement of us taking the ball out of bounds could begin again. 

The other team scored thirty-two consecutive points dealing us a 50-18 defeat.  I knew we were really in for it when, at three-quarter time, our girls were exhausted.  The other team had twenty girls playing rotating them out at quarters; my nine just couldn't keep up even when they were playing netball defense.  The reality of our loss hit me when one of the girls tugged on my sleeve during the fourth quarter while I was refereeing and said, "Coach, coach, I hurt my ankle."  She hadn't even been on the court at the time.  I looked down at her ankle.  No swelling, no bruising, nothing... 

"I think you're going to be okay," I said.  She looked at me with pouting eyes and then it hit me - I have no idea how to motivate this girl to push through the 'pain.' 

"Coach, I need a bandage." 

"Fine," I said.  "There's the medical kit; wrap it up if you need."  She limped over to the medical bag, rummaged through it, and proceeded to put the ancient wrap around her ankle making sure everyone else on the team could see how she was struggling with her 'injury.'  As she finished up, I felt a tug at my sleeve. 

"Coach, I hurt my ankle."  I don't know how I kept my eyes from rolling.  "I need a bandage."

"I don't see a bruise," I said.

"I think the damage is internal."

I motioned with my head to the medical bag and asked the rest of the team, "Is there anyone that can play basketball?"  A few raised their hands but one girl with long brown hair and milky brown eyes said, "Coach, I can't play anymore."

For heaven's sake.  "Did you hurt your ankle, too?" I asked.

"No coach, it's my knee.  Look," she pointed to her left knee.  "I've got a splinter."

This is going to be a really fun year.  I'm serious when I say that.  As much as they might frustrate my minimal basketball sensibilities, I love the fact that they are willing to just be young ladies trying to do something different.  They are all distinct, like snowflakes on a glacier, each one needing something different than all the rest and it is up to me to figure out what motivates these girls.  And one day, when they make a basket, or get a rebound or even make it all the way down the court dribbling the whole time without stopping, they will turn to me to rejoice.

and then I realize again, you've never truly lived until you help someone else - especially kids.

Mothers Day

My mom and grandma came to visit us in Australia over the Eastertime. 

I guess you never really know what to expect when matriarchs come to visit.  For some people, Mom and Grandma take on varied roles ranging from Queen Bee to trident wielding Ursula from the Little Mermaid.  Others mothers are content with having the role of their mother remain just as it always has since they were infants: mother is a comfort blanket, sustenance provider, source of all goodness and mercy - some mothers are quite comfortable never letting their children grow up needing to be 'mommy' well into adult years and at times, I watch with squeamishosity when couples who have been married five to ten years still make no decision together without consulting the bethroned maidens of the family.

My mother and grandmother ride comfortably down the middle; their role of matriarch is a title of honor that has been earned through years of toiling, taking care of tear-stained faces, cleaning up vomit at three o'clock in the morning, sitting in a terrycloth bathrobe holding a frightened eight-year-old child who can't understand why the fever is making him see things.  My grandma and mother have eased into their respective roles as sustainer of family relations, but they have ceased to be the 'everything' that children need when they are growing up.

Instead of everything, they are something special.  The very fact that they live nine thousand miles away on the other side of the planet makes their trip here something extraordinary.  My grandmother hadn't been on a plane for years, well before my grandfather died.  Whenever one thinks about making a big trip, there is always some anxiety about how the trip will go; but to make a trip to Australia at the age of 87 - that, too, is something special.

As Grandma fretted and worried the weeks before she came, my mother told me what she was anxious about.

"What if I get sick?  I don't want to interrupt Reid's family life."

"I don't want to get in the way.  They have a small house the way it is."

"Oh, Reid will be taking too much time for us.  Won't we just be a bother?"

If I were eighty-seven years old and traveling to the other side of the planet, I'd be worrying about things like, "Did I pack my extra toupe?  I don't want to be caught outside without my hair.  If I get sick, I'm not going to be able to do all the things that I want to do.  Where's my ticket?  Did we buy tickets yet?  We're going to go where?  We're going to see whom?  Snnnnncchhhh -( that's me falling asleep in seven seconds in the middle of a conversation)"

My grandma is with it.  Not like a cool, hip grandma that gets tattoos and colors her hair and pretends to be someone she's not (or some age that she's certainly passed), but she's got hearing like an owl.  In fact, sometimes I think she is part owl, not just because she hears everything - I purposely tried whispering a few times just to see how much she was absorbing - but when she plays cards, or games with the girls, when something goes right she kind of hoots.  She'll play a card and go "Hoo hoo" and giggle her way to victory.  Barn owl, she's got to be part barn owl.

My mom, on the other hand, is like a dingo.  Follow me into the strangest analogy ever, and no, I don't think my mother looks or behaves like a dingo, but most people, myself included, are told that the dingo makes no sound, has no bark, but that is false.  Even though the dingo makes very little noise, they do have distinguishing sounds but they are heard infrequently.  Usually, chuffing sounds, small moans and such. 

The week before Easter, we went to the Glasshouse mountains to enjoy it's close proximity to the beach while at the same time enjoying the wonderful hiking trails and parks that surround the area.  The second morning, we decided to hike Ngungun mountain.  From a distance, this variation in topography looks underwhelming, but when you start hiking it, it is more mountain than molehill.  Christine, the girls and I had undertaken the mountain at various times being exhausted by the time we reached the top but taken aback by the view once we reached it.  So, we decided to take my mom up for the view.  Grandma decided that the two kilometer hike didn't work very well with her cane so she stayed back with my in-laws to prepare for the eventual raising of the flag on the summit. 

We set out with vigor; my mother did quite well stepping up the steadily rising slope chasing my three daughters whose vast reserves of energy might have taken them on a step ladder to the moon if given a chance.  But halfway up the mountain we encounter the hardest part; a vertical climb littered with scree and old tree handholds at an almost seventy-five degree angle.  I didn't have to see my mother's face to know what was going on inside of her head, "What have I gotten myself into?"  And just as more, "I'm going to make this if it's the last thing that I do - and I think it probably will be the last thing that I do."

She started up the slope; I could tell that she was getting tired.  She was making chuffing noises warning us that perhaps, just a little bit, that she had bit off more than she could swallow.  We didn't push her or press her but she was more worried about holding us up than she was herself.  I think that trait runs mightily in the matriarchs. 

"Whew," she said wiping her brow taking a swig of water.  With great joy, she watched my daughter climbing up into the caves seemingly oblivious to the inherent danger that gravity can cause.  "This is going to take longer than you thought with an old lady along."

"It's fine, Mom," I said taking a seat beside her.  "This is vacation.  It doesn't matter how long it takes."

Chuff.  Chuff.  She wasn't going to complain.  In fact, I don't know if I've ever heard her complain before, at least not in my presence.  Maybe it's selective memory, but that's something I can be proud of her for.  Chuff.  Chuff.

"You all go ahead.  I'll catch up with you at the top." 

Nice try, Mom.  We waited for her to catch her breath and slowly but surely, we ascended one step at a time as families do, soaking in the sights of increasing altitude noticing the blueness of the sky, the greeness of the trees and bigness of the world.  Each step farther was one step farther into unchartered territory for her.  As we get older, we tend to always do the things that we've always done, to play it safe.  But Mom did not do that and when we reached the top the vista was powerful; the three hundred and sixty degree panaroma included volcanic plugs of mountains long since eroded, the ocean just a few miles away, pineapple and macadamia nut plantations...

And a swarm of gnats. 

As she came back from the peak, my mother was happy, but waving her hands in front of her face, scrunching up her nose trying to keep the insects out while maintaining breath.  "Let's go," she said as she smiled.  I think she had four gnats running laps on her front teeth.  (I just made that up, but embellishing a story is always better than the real thing.) 

On the way back down, it was not as tiring but I could hear a little moan escape my mother's voicebox.  Like the dingo, which moans when it wants to return home, my mother's small mewls were her readiness to return down the mountain to escape the quivering in her legs.  We had a good laugh part way down (after the vertical descent, of course) because Mom's legs felt as if they would be good egg beaters.

After descending the mountain, taking water breaks here and there, listening for kookaburras, whip-birds and any other aves that might be in the area, we made it back to the car where we all gratefully jumped in.  I looked at Mom who was as red-faced as I from exertion and read a silent 'thank you' in her eyes.  To be pushed past the boundaries of what is normal is a priceless thing.  I got to share a really good moment with my mom and my family.  Those are building blocks of memories - going past the normal.

For the next two weeks, the barn owl, the dingo and the offspring (I guess I would be a 'barngo') enjoyed hikes (my grandmother did two hikes that were well over three miles long), traveled, played games - did it all.  As I looked back at the pictures taken over the two weeks that they were here, I noticed that I was almost always walking behind them watching them in wonder, whether holding my children's hands, stopping to look at scenery or simply just breathing in life.  It is the beauty of life to behold generations that take time together. 

That's the specialness of Mom's and Grandma's.  Now, I have these memories for Mother's day this year.

The Tooter

Early Sunday morning, Christine, the girls and I trekked roughly 45 kilometers through the country side to find Ipswich. For some reason, instead of trusting my instincts and listening to that innervoice (like Sir Alec Guinness resounding with incredible reverb in Luke Skywalker's ear: "Trust the force, Luke) I inevitably consult my phone for directions. Perhaps its residue from getting lost every other day for the first months of being here, cursing the early pioneer's road planning abilities by making sure that every road has at least ninety-seven curves and four different name changes, or perhaps it was because Christine was behind me in the other car and I knew that she was carefully watching me to see if I would stray from the course.

I did.

I did hear about it when we arrived.

We weren't exactly late for church, it was more like being tantalizingly close. Christine's cousin, Milton, was being installed at the morning service and we didn't want to miss out, but by the time we entered the worship space, the only available seats were the Chairs of Shame: right near the front. All good Lutherans who show up at least ten minutes in advance have pasted themselves to the back row pews preparing for the short nap that will occur during the sermon only to be awakened by an elbow jab when the offering plate is passed.

The installation was a typical service although one of the older women sitting near us (elderly would be closer to the truth, but I hear that it's a slam to call anyone 'elderly' these days) apparently was protesting the choice of music by pursing her lips together, folding her arms across the front of her 1970's floral patterned dress and refusing to sing.

"We aren't singing any hymns this week," she said.

The man next to her had been singing at the top of his voice, the 'contemporary' songs from the 1990's flowing melodiously from his being. "All of these are hymns," he said. "They have the same amount of verses, a chorus, a message. Hymns, all of them," he stamped his foot as if to impress her.

She shook her head. It was evident to her that a hymn necessitates five or six verses sung in a range only the BeeGee's could reach and is accompanied by an organ (the older the better. The foot pumping ones would still probably best. "Save on electricity, you know," she was probably thinking.)

Lutheran services, while full of history and meaning, often fall short of excitement - I don't think I'm speaking out of turn here. As a Lutheran pastor, I can certainly think of worship services that seemed to have been reapeated from 1925, maybe a new liturgy instead reminding us that we are 'trespassers' rather than '... a poor miserable sinner confessing to Thee all my sins and iniquities which I have offended Thee and justly deserve Thy punishment in time and in eternity." Now that is the type of 'get up and go' service that is really going to draw the masses of young people. Who knows? The Spirit works in mysterious ways.

Anyway, I like the Lutheran service Australian style. They pronounce their words so properly and sing with what might be considered conservative gusto. If they get too loud, they look around to see if anyone heard the syllable, wave a hand as if to say, "Sorry, about that. I'll try and hold back next time." The sermons are deeply theological and often kept around fifteen minutes, or at least that's when my Lockrosians start looking at their watches.

So Anyway, as my Grandma Matthias says to start any conversation... It was Milton's installation; his day to be in the spotlight, exactly where all Australian Lutherans avoid. It's humorous, at times. I even had a discussion during my sermon last week with one of the members who wanted to say that Americans no how to be more affectionate and loving because it's more part of their cultural identity. Australians don't do that kind of stuff. I love those moments in sermons, really, I do. It means they are listening and if they have an understanding that Americans have the ability to love each other easily, he obviously doesn't watch TV that much.

I digress.

After the service, I had an opportunity to chat with some of the relatives. Christine's cousins had come, some of whom I'd only met once; one of her brothers and his family were there, Christine's sister and her family came...

And, of course, my mother and father in law.

I really dig my parents-in-law albeit I'll probably catch a lot of grief for this post. Standing in the shade of the roof of the basketball court, coffee in hand, some sort of breakfast muffin in the other, I shared some space with Robert. He's taller than I am, as I have posted before, and like most of the Smyth men who have been in positions of authority, has an air of confidence. When I showed up at his house for the first time in 1997, he showed me his gun collection.

That's the kind of confidence I'm talking about.

About a nine months ago, no doctor can really figure out what has happened, Robert lost the ability to use his right hand. It has been a real nuisance (as he is right handed) and you never really realize how much you need both hands to do lots of things. Robert and I chatted for a few minutes and then he said to me, "Oh, Reid, I've got to show you something." He maneuvered about for a few seconds and then said, "I hope I can get this out of my pocket with this sunshining hand." He didn't really say that, he would never say that, but I knew he was thinking it.

While he was rummaging around trying to get his right hand into his pocket, all I selfishly think of was, "Please don't let him ask to reach into his pants pocket." Can you imagine how that would look? Son-in-law at a church gathering, looking up at the sky rummaging in his father-in-laws pocket like a raccoon reaching inside a log.

Fortunately, it didn't come to that; his hand found its way in and then, as if pulling forth the golden capstone to the ancient pyramid of Egypt, he pulled out the object.

It was not what I was expecting.

After he first showed me his gun collection when I entered his father-in-law space fifteen years ago, I had this flash of Dirty Harry, "Are you feeling lucky tonight?.... Punk?" So, anytime Robert says, "I want to show you something," I have to squash that image of Dirty Robbie (I'll probably verbally absused for even thinking of calling him Robbie).

It wasn't a gun, or even anything that could cause me harm. It was the mouthpiece for his trumpet. I had completely forgotten that Robert, because of the hand malady, had swithed instruments. Being an incredible saxophonist (which, of course, requires two hands to play well), Robert had been missing out on music, but for his birthday he had received a trumpet. It was a really cool gift, but I truly wasn't expecting him to pull the mouthpiece from his dress pants.

Robert got this really quirky smile on his face.

"I've been practicing a lot. It's a lot different than playing saxophone. You have to make a tooting sound with your lips." He put the mouthpiece to his lips and began making a high pitched Pbbbbbbbbbb sound. A few people looked around, but if he was embarrassed, he didn't show it. "I've been practicing all the time even..." He looked around to see if anyone else was listening closely... "Especially in the mornings on the toilet."

It was at that point when I wasn't sure if he was serious or not, but I couldn't hold my laughter in. I immediately had visions of Judith, hanging up the laundry outside of the house, near the toilet window listening to the strange sounds emanating from the toilet and thinking to herself, "I can't remember what we had to eat last night. Beans? Bacon? Brussel sprouts?"

Robert stood in front of me, proud as a peacock with his trumpet mouthpiece playing away for all the world to hear and I had to take a step back in amazement, proud of my father-in-law, the world had given him lemons and he had turned it into bathroom symphony.

Most people don't have the guts to push through difficult times; some stop trying because they are afraid they will fail. Rober and Judith have simply said, "Here's another stage in life that we might not have been expecting, but let's make some different music."

And so, they toot away.

I'll probably get quite a few e-mails from friends and family, but I don't care.

It's good to toot your own horn.

Lutherans should stand up and listen.

Why Christmas?

Quite a few people have walked into my office today, most of them letting the smile precede them, some of them are whistling a happy Christmas carol. Some of them even knock. As they sit down on the sofa, there is an expectation that I will ask them what brings their smile to my office, and I gladly oblige because if there is any one time of year that seeks fulfillment of joy, it is the advent season. So much expectation - so little time.

Why can't advent be prolonged for four months? Why only four weeks? There are many places on the web that I could find the answer to these questions; many of them claim that the original understanding for advent, or "coming", was more in preparation for Epiphany, rather than Christmas. Little do many know that in the early church there were three main church holidays: Easter (of course), Pentecost (that would be right) and Epiphany (the coming of the light). What? The first three are 'churchy' holidays. What about Christmas? 'Christ' right in the word unless you are my neighbor who continually (to get my goat, I think) calls the whole season x-mas almost as if it were a holiday for Wolverine, Magneto and Storm.

Why didn't the early church celebrate Christmas? Most likely, I think, because they didn't actually know when he was born. Let's face it: Jesus was born as (traditionally understood) part of a poor Jewish family. Birthdays were not considered that important in those days - most people didn't really even know how old they were. They probably would have known what season they were born, but an actual date? Probably not. So how was December 25 chosen as the date of the birth of the Savior? The most obvious guess is metaphorical. December 21 is the date commonly given as the solstice, when the earth begins to swing back the other direction. For those who live north of the equator, the daylight hours would be getting longer after December 21. The young church (already almost two hundred years old at this point) chose the winter solstice because it was a quaint understanding that the light was coming back into the world. What was interesting to me, as I pored through some research on Christmas, was that after the winter solstice, it usually takes the human eye four days to begin to see the change in length of daylight hours i.e. four days after December 21. Literally, we could see a change in the light coming back on December 25. (in the northern hemisphere, that is).

The most common understanding of the date chosen, though, was that it was a religious takeover of a pagan festival. This was common practice in the early church to commandeer the best dates during the year such as Eastertime and Christmastime to help people remember to be especially 'religious' at these times. For the new Christians who were pagan or non-practicing something or other, Christmas was the corporate church takeover of the pagan holiday dies natalis solis invicti or in English, "birth of the invisible sun god.' Imagine that, the metaphor of Christ, the light of the world being born at Christmas - it fits, doesn't it? Christmas which literally means, "Christ Mass" - was an attempt to separate the people from the pagan mindset to celebrate Christ at the darkest time of year.

But Christmas, in the early church, was never intended to become one of the 'Big 3.' Easter carries with it God's saving grace in the world, Pentecost is the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, the comforter and Epiphany, the celebration of the light of the world and his baptism: Light and Water, symbols of life. But Christmas, why has Christmas become Number 1? I think for multiple reasons:

1. People like babies. According to Taladegha Nights: the Legend of Ricky Bobby - it's easiest to pray to a 8 pound 6 ounce baby Jesus. If somehow we can keep Jesus little, keep him bound up in all of our best pictures of Christmas as a 'fleece diapered child of God,' Christmas is more palatable for the general public. People don't want to think about what Jesus did in his life, his death and resurrection. (My sarcasm ball and socket is flexing wildly.) I would guess that many people agree with Ricky Bobby.

2. Christmas is all about receiving. I've heard it over and over again, Jesus said it, "It is more blessed to give than to receive.' But more and more what I hear across the radio waves: "The one who has more presents has more love." Usually, the bigger the present, the more you are loved. Businesses have to sell, I guess, but how many of us really need to be told that, in no uncertain terms, 'your wife will really love you if you put a bow on a brand new Mercedes this Christmas (I should write 'holiday' to fit in with the advertising. Wouldn't want to send mixed messages at this blessed time of year.) Ask and ye shall receive. Write your list to the portly, red outfitted, chimneyphile - ask and ye shall receive it - unless, of course, you've been bad.

3. Everyone likes what Christmas represents: trees, lights, presents, family together, stuffing your bellies full of food and drink and then waddling to the sofa that night after opening presents to fall asleep and not go to Christmas Day services at church. Oops, maybe next year. The glam of Christmas is wonderful, don't get me wrong - but where is the 'silent night' of Christmas. Where is the reflection? Where is God's whisper to us that he loves us forever and ever? Why do we wonder that we can't hear God's voice now?

4. Lastly, Christmas became bigger and bigger once lent and Easter became darker and darker. As western culture developed, as the Church became older, the message of Easter stressed sacrifice and the cross, crucifixion, death, blood and gore... This is what people want to avoid, if they can. It used to be that sex was the great taboo - no one would talk about it. But now, death is the great taboo. We don't talk about it; we avoid it at all costs. We fill our lives with things that speak of eternal youth. As the church tries to exercise the beauty of discipline and sacrifice, more and more people want to call a halt to it. Sacrifice means death; the death of a selfish part of life. Discipline means restrictions on what I want to do. We want happiness and things that make us generally content, not things that remind us of death. But how, as Christians, can we separate Christmas from Easter? It is because of Easter that we have the freedom to celebrate the light and life that came into the world.

It is time to go home. Those who have visited me have left the comfy sofas. There Christmas carol whistles still hang in the air somewhere, but now I am alone for a little bit in silence. It's a good thing during advent: to sit in silence and prepare for what God might have for us at Christmas.

Just a few rumblings for advent - a time of preparation. Prepare for the coming again of the light. Have a very merry Christmas.

Reid

The Blessing

During the late hours of Sunday evening this last week, I prepared diligently for Monday's chapel service. For most chapels there is scripture, music, message, prayer and blessing. When it is my turn to give the message, I usually spend most of my time on the words I will speak to the four hundred students at Faith College. I must admit, rarely do I spend a lot of time thinking about the words of the music - I pick songs by necessity which, priority wise, go like this: songs the chapel band can play, songs the chapel band likes, songs that don't make me cover my ears and want to rock back and forth. I spend even less time, unfortunately, on the words I will say for the prayer and blessing and usually I simply hope that God will give me the right words at the right time: that's biblical, right?

As I looked through some understanding of the assigned scripture for me I was left with the daunting task to try and explain the Spirit to this group of thirteen to eighteen-year-olds. Many of them have not had a large amount of understanding with things Christian, much less spiritual, so I was left with the conundrum: do I try to explain, or do I try to help them experience. I went for experience.

Rob Bell is a popular Christian speaker probably most well known in Christian circles for his Nooma videos. The irony is that the word pneuma in Greek means 'spirit', 'wind' or 'breath.' I found one of the videos entitled 'Breath,' and Rob spoke eloquently and at length about breath and how life is breath. We need breath, obviously, but it was pointed out that most of us never quite get the large breaths that we need. Our bodies are designed to take roughly six breaths per minute. Our lungs have the capacity to hold enough oxygen to supply ninety-nine percent of the fuel that we need to energize our bodies (which would help us lessen our need to eat so much). We only use approximately twelve percent of our lungs and thus we stunt our ability to move in this world. If we could only breathe - and breathe deeper. If we could only fill our lungs; if we could only...

I invited the kids to breathe deeply, to experience the fullness of life coursing through their lungs. In and out they breathed silently (for the most part.) Then I invited them to think about Rob's other understanding in the video, Breath. He said that some theologians, who have contemplated the name of God - YHWH - would say that God's very name, not only unpronounceable because of its holiness, is simply the very breath of creation - the Spirit that hovered over the waters preparing to make the earth as it is. The letters in Hebrew, yod, heth, vav, heth, are full of air and breath. Some would say that it is God's name that keeps us alive; as we breathe in and out, it is God keeping us alive.

I noticed at this point that some of the students were really studying their breath deeply (some of them so deeply that their eyes were closed - the Spirit must have been speaking to them on a very different plane, I'm sure), so, I decided to wrap up the message and commend God's breath to them, God's new life to them.

Then, as is normal for chapel, we extended our time into prayer. Normally I would have one of the students come up to lead us in prayer, but because we were already past time (beautiful, isn't it - chapels determined by time - just like Sunday morning worship) I decided that I would lead the prayers for the day. The words came easily, I thought, and as I opened my eyes after the prayer, I invited one of the kids up to do the blessing. This young man, Luke, had been wanting to share the blessing with the rest of the students for quite a while. He was standing off to the side, smiling, excited - like a child who is about ready to deliver his Show and Tell. He moved quickly toward me (he had told me earlier in the day that he had been working on his blessing). I handed him the microphone and as soon as it hit his hand, this young ninth grader froze. It was as if he had been hit by a taser gun. His face locked into a grimace, his wide eyes imploringly searched mine and then he whispered, "I don't know what to say. Will you help me?"

I had just done such a nice job with the prayer I said out loud, "No problem, Luke," and so I said the words and he repeated them. After raising his hand to the congregation of his peers, as if casting his blessing far and wide over them, he repeated the words I spoke to him:

"Almighty God who hovered over the waters," Luke spoke these words clearly and surely, "will bless you this day and forever more." He was really getting into it now.

And that certainly was my demise...

"We implore you, God, to bless each one of us today with your life and..."

Here it comes, that moment which we wish we could take it back, the moment we replay in our minds hoping that we didn't actually say it...

"And we ask that you give us huge breaths today."

Luke looked at me after he said it aware that the snickering had started in the back. I looked up at the principal and she was trying desperately to not laugh. At first, I didn't get it, but if you read my statement above out loud, you will recognize that it sounded as if I was begging God to give us large, um, well, um... you know...

When it dawned on me what it had sounded like, I then said out loud (I wish it would have been an internal monologue) "Well, that didn't sound very good." The congregation of students began to laugh. After overcoming my embarrassment, I joined in the laughter, but it made me think once again,

Life is full of blessings. Just be careful which blessings you ask for.

S.W.A.T church

Okay. So, it's been almost three months since I posted. Most of the posting has been for my own personal benefit, an emotional enema, if you will. For some who read this blog they have found amusement, maybe a sliver of inspiration, or, in many cases, a diversion to make it through a work day. I won't get big headed about people who say they read my blog: actually, I'd like to, but that wouldn't be humble, and I'm really proud of my humility. The calculated amount of people who read this blog probably reaches into the tens of ones - which is why I mostly blog for my own benefit, but I love the comments after I haven't done it for a while. This is from my former neighbor, Merv,

Kept looking for a blog from Reid and decided he must have broken both arms and couldn't write...

Or, this one from a friend in Arkansas,

I haven't seen a new blog since August 10th... I pray nothing has happened to keep him from writing those as I always look forward to the next one coming out.

Thanks, David, just a reeeeeaally nice way of saying "Stop being so lazy, Reid, and do what you like to do."

Lastly, and probably the best, Thanks for the photos, Christine, sure looks like your husband is losing a lot of hair. Tell him to write his blog.

Nothing like the honesty of friends.

The family and I were driving to church on a Sunday night last month - October. It was an exciting night, the first in a string of nights with the word fest attached to them. Oktoberfest - at church. With the rest of the congregation, we'd been planning Oktoberfest for months. Christine had organized a sheet for people to bring food for the potluck; I had been running down music and a script for the skit. But, what intrigued most people (especially the younger adults and anyone with a last name that sounded even the littlest bit German - you know, names with lots of 'k's' or 'sch's' together) was that we were going to have beer. I know, right, at the church? Beer and brats, throw in the Bible study and you've got a Lutheran rave.

On the way to the church our blue Holden station wagon bounced back and forth between potholes in the road. The floods did great damage to the infrastructure of the highway systems and often driving on country blacktop is like the grainy image of the lunar vehicle bouncing across the moon's surface. As the scenery rolled passed, bounced a little bit, I guess, we noticed life coming back to life. Recent rains had encouraged the grasses to grow again; the dams were full, bursting to the edges while black swans and other fowl floated on the surface. As beautiful as the scenery was, I kept thinking to myself, "Am I doing the right thing? Are we supposed to be having beer after church? Does the Lutheran Church of Australia excommunicate for this sort of thing?"

Most people, when needing directions to Green Pastures Lutheran Church in Lockrose, Queensland, hear that they should turn left after the Brightview Tavern. You know that drinking is part of the culture when the Tavern itself has a children's playground in it, just like the big McDonalds in the States. So, I figured, if people have to be told how to get to church using a bar as a landmark, we might as well make the church hall the very same kind of landmark - not a bar, per se, but a place where people take their time, let their hair down (or in my case, obviously, let my scalp down) and share what's going on in life.

Last week, as I talked with one of the professors from the Lutheran Seminary in Adelaide, I heard him say that it was obvious what Lutheran churches in Australia do really well: they fellowship. He said you could tell what was most important to a church by the size of its buildings. Guess what, the church hall where we gather for events at Green Pastures, is twice as big as the actual sanctuary. Pretty cool, huh?

I turned left at Brightview Tavern noticing the absence of children playing on the monkey bars outside the pub. They must all be heading to church to drink beer. As we neared the small, yellow church, I noticed something different though. At 4:00, the cars were already starting to arrive. Church didn't start until 6:00, so it surprised me that so many were turning up already. Then, I noticed the trailer. Someone had brought a bar-b-q spit! We were going to roast a pig! At Church! And there would be beer! This is the coolest church in the world! Whose idea was it to bring the spit?

I was excited...

Until I noticed Don walking towards me. Don is the chairman of the congregation; he is sturdy and full of laughter. There is almost always a sense that his chest is so full of mirth that any minute the dam might break and I'll be flooded with laughter so deep I might drown in it. He was smiling this night, too, except that it was more of a smirk. We parked our car and I walked over to Don noticing then that all the cars that were parked on the church grounds all looked the same.

"Good evening, Don."

"Evening, Pastor Reid."

"What's going on?" I asked after shaking his hand.

"These guys are some friends of mine from the police department." He motioned toward the hall.

In my head I had sudden flashbacks to college of the police rousting parties that were getting out of hand. But, I'd never heard of the police breaking up a party that hadn't even started yet. Maybe that's how they do it in Australia? It seems to me there are some more disruptive places than churches by the name of Green Pastures to take care of, but, it could have been a slow night.

"Ummm, what are they doing here?" Just as I asked the question, a group of policemen in full body gear came issuing from the hall in full S.W.A.T. gear. They were like angry wasps that buzz out of the nest when you've disturbed them.

"There's going to be a bust in town," Don said.

"Pardon my ignorance," I responded, "But they aren't actually busting Green Pastures' church hall, are they? That probably wouldn't be a good evangelical tool - you know, one of those catchy slogans you'll never put on the billboard, 'Come to Green Pastures: Get saved - Get busted. Don't worry, you're forgiven."

Don laughed. "Nah, it's just up the street. They are just using the hall for a staging point. They should be out of here by the time the service starts."

Excellent. As I looked back again at the trailer, it was not a bar-b-q spit, but a trailer of death: guns, tear gas, ammunition - straight out of a Arnold Schwarzennegar movie. He's got a German last name, he could stay for Oktoberfest. Well, we were in for an interesting night.

Now, the problem that I had was that if the swarm of angry S.W.A.T bees was using the hall for the staging point, how was I going to get the beer in the fridge? It would be kind of strange to walk up to the commanding officer and say, "Excuse me, Captain, I realize that you are kind of busy right now, but do you think it would be alright if I carried a case of beer through your gathering here and put it in the fridge. It's of the utmost importance that this beer stays cold. It could mean life and death to someone."

I couldn't say it like that, but I was pretty sure that people who came to Oktoberfest would rather have cold beer. Deciding to take one for the team I approached one of the officers.

"Excuse me," I stopped one of the black garbed, bullet-proof vested officers who was looking at his machine gun. "Would it be possible for me to go in to the kitchen."

His steely eyes gazed up at me with disdain. Who was this fool with his polo shirt, thinning hair and American accent? Was he a spy from the house that was about to be drug busted?

"What's your name?" he asked me brusquely.

"I'm Pastor Reid Matthias," I hoped that my title would calm his fears and perhaps allow him to lower his weapon of mass destruction. The officer scanned me from head to toe and realized that I was not a threat to him (or to any other segment of the world for that fact).

"No, you can't go in the kitchen."

"But I'm the pastor here. The kitchen needs to be utilized for holding the elements of consecration. The bibles we need are in there. A cross from the Holy City of Adelaide is inside." I didn't really say that but I really wanted to get the beer into the fridge.

"Do you know when we can get into the kitchen?"

"After we leave," the officer responded and then he turned his back on me. Amazing. A pastor turned away from his own...

"Reid," Don said smiling. "They'll be out in a little while. Just let them do their thing. They are trying to be secretive about the bust."

"I can tell," I said sarcastically as I looked over the small army that had assembled. There were roughly fifteen officers in full S.W.A.T. gear (which I looked up means 'Special Weapons and Tactics") two armored vehicles and a whole fleet of unmarked cars. For anyone who lived within five miles of Lockrose, I don't think it was too much of a secret.

The S.W.A.T. team bundled up after about half an hour. While I led Bible study (inside the church, mind you, because the selfish officers wouldn't let us use the hall), the team began to move out. My beautiful wife, in the middle of Bible study got side tracked and began to watch with great amusement until finally, the moment got the best of her and she exclaimed from the back of the church, "They've got two tanks!" Needless to say the kids in the Bible study did a quick calculation of what would be more interesting: Romans, chapter 1 or two armored vehicles motoring down the road to break down the door of a drug lord.

Bible study was over.

When people began to arrive to church, they noticed some of the police vehicles still there. A few of the congregation members verbally expressed their concern by saying, "I wonder what Pastor Reid did? I knew it was only a matter of time - being American and all. We've seen the TV shows, C.O.P.S. Bad Boys, Bad Boys, watcha gonna do?"

It was an interesting night and after the cops left, before the service started, I surreptitiously retreated to my car to carry the case of beer to the ancient fridge. We had to plug the thing in the week before just so that it would be mildly chilled for Oktoberfest. This fridge is so old that the energy rating is negative, I think. But, at least the beer was kept tepid.

It was a great night of worship and fellowship. It made me think of Green Pastures. We have our own Special Weapons and Tactics team. Our weapons don't kill people but ideas like grace and forgiveness are weapons of mass reconstruction. For those that have been beaten down over the years or have been neglected by churches telling them that they are only good in so far as they can 'do something' Lockrose is a place of healing. The tactics we use, special, but not exclusive to Green Pastures, are welcoming and fellowship - finding a place to sit and sing, pray and eat, live and be merry. We toasted the night. We laughed about me verbalizing, "Excellent, we're going to roast a pig tonight," when, in fact, 'pig' is a derogatory term for 'policeman.'

I was wondering why they didn't come back for worship.

Oktoberfest was a moment in time when we realize that church is about relationships, being part of something bigger than our own individual identities, and enjoying life for a while. I guess that's what makes a S.W.A.T. church.

There's No Place Like Home

In 1939 audiences were treated to one of the best motion pictures of all time. Bringing music and cinematography to a whole new world, The Wizard of Oz brings audiences to an enchanted land swirling through a twister to land in a place where lions brave the yellow brink road, tin men feel their way through life and scarecrows realize that life is even better if you only have a brain. I think the American Congress can really associate with all three of these characters - bravery, feeling and an understanding that a brain is tantamount to good politics. I digress: this is neither a political blog or one built on foundational understandings of economics. This is the third installment of my fishing expedition and I bring us to one of the most famous quotes in all of cinema history: "There is no place like home."

Halfway through the night on our ride home southwest from the Swains to Gladstone, the winds started up again. Because the night had been so calm up until this point, I was startled to the point of waking. The waves cause the boat to twitch like a horse shaking a fly from its head and I immediately opened my eyes briefly and thought to myself.

"Oh, sunshine."

Most of the other pirates on the ship had reminded me that since I had been doing so well for the last days of the trip, I had my sea legs, in other words, I shouldn't suffer too much on the ride back. I lay in the upper bunk, Robert sleeping in the lower silently dreaming away in his own, non-seasick way, running through the last day of fishing on the Capricorn Star.

The sun beat down on us most of the day; sunscreen was a must. Some of the other fisherman had arisen at 4:30 in the morning to begin a new day of mackerel fishing; I had taken my turn wanting a chance at the long sleep fish and Graham had allowed me the chance. By 5:30 one had taken the pilchard dangling on the end of a line where three large hooks pierced at intervals. The mackerel, not wanting to end up on the boat went running, line zinging this way and that. As I grabbed the pole I remembered wanting to make a good impression on the other pirates. Unfortunately, the kind of equipment used on a deep sea fishing expedition is much different than North American Lakes and I found myself fumbling and fooling around with the line until eventually, as Warwick and Graham were watching, the mackerel swam to the front of the boat and found a way to tangle itself around the anchor. I watched the captain smile as he looked over the point of the boat.

"I think you've caught something much bigger than a mackerel," he said.

That was the longest sentence I heard him say all week. I wish he wouldn't have seen me. When I returned back to the stern of the boat, Warwick stood, head almost scraping the ceiling, smiling. I knew what he was thinking, "Rookie." After a display like that, there is nothing that I could do but laugh at myself once again. Life is much more enjoyable when you learn to laugh at yourself (that's my attempt at justifying being a lousy deep sea fisherman).

After we ate breakfast, some kind of egg with spaghetti and four pounds of bacon (Steve made the plates look like smiley faces - I guess he was happy to almost be off the ship for a few hours) the boat took off for a few more stops of fishing before the long, disinteresting ride, ten kilometers per hour across the ocean. At the first stop, I positioned myself on the duck board again away from my neighbors Peter and Adrian. Because we'd all gotten to know each other a little bit during the week, they did not take offense for my absence; it was not because of them, but it was a space issue. Just like all of nature longs for a little extra space, so did I and I watched with a small amount of schadenfreude when the middle of the boat connected with snagged lines. Just as we were about to leave, a tug on my line allowed me to catch one last fish. This one had heft and with a sinking resignation, I assumed that one of two things would happen on the long way up from the depths of the ocean: 1, I had a nice fish on that would be a piece of nice fish when it came up half swallowed by a shark or 2. I had caught another friendly remora. Let's face it, during the week, I was a remora magnet - even as the sharks had their feed of all the other fish approaching the surface, their friends found my bait as appetizing as a steak after a week at a vegetarian getaway.

Remoras, also called a 'suckfish' by Encyclopedia.com, is a scavenger. It has a flat disk on the top of its head which allows it to 'suck' on to various predators. The smallest remoras glom on to tuna or swordfish but the most common suckfish attach to sharks or whales, sometimes even the undersides of boats. The sucking property of the remora is so great that some tribes of the Polynesian people tie lines to the tails of remoras which suck to sea turtles which they can then pull in without even using a hook.

The remora makes its living, then, finding a decent host, attaching itself via 'sucking up' to the predator and then taking the scraps from whatever is left over. Not only does the remora not expend any energy in movement because they are pulled wherever the predator is going, but they also don't have to hunt down their own prey. What a life. I've known quite a few people who would have been remoras in previous lives. They were very prominent at college and usually when we would be having a celebration at the house. The suckfish would start showing up at the same time as all the coeds, the predators, who came with empty cups. Then, when the predators would get a drink, the remoras would ask the predators to fill their cup also thus sparing them any effort (or money) to enjoy life. It doesn't stop at college either; remoras are seen everywhere any time there is a celebrity in attendance. You can see them from a distance. I went to a Harry Connick, Jr. concert once and as he tried to leave the venue, people were around him crushing him for an autograph, a handshake or to press a CD into his hand as if he would listen and be moved to record it on a new CD.

It is simply part of nature that this happens: wherever there is power, there is safety. On the African plains, all the animals crowd around elephants and giraffes. Lions are hesitant to approach elephants, and giraffes can see them coming for miles around. Remoras are nature's highest form of sloth, I guess.

Anyway, back to the fishing story, this fish turned out not to be either choice one or two, but the third option was something I hadn't really considered (but continually hoped for). It was a red emperor. We hadn't caught any for the whole week of a keepable size until that morning when Graham had snagged one. But here I was, holding a nice red emperor up from the duck board hoping with all my might that it was big enough to keep so that Warwick and Russell would see it. Warwick, being the good natured person that he is, took a picture of me and finally he could see that I was truly a much better fisherman than he was. Sometimes I just write things because I know that the person I write them about will be reading it also. Kind of like when you are talking on the phone in a very public place and say at a much-louder-than-necessary voice to your wife, "Yes, you'll have to put on some clothes when I get home. I'm hungry."

The rest of the day was spent in relative stasis. The waves stayed low and the captain took us to other spots that, I would guess, he had never caught anything before - he probably just wanted to get home. After reeling the lines up for the last time, it was not really a sad thing to begin our journey homeward. There is no place like it. By the time the week was ending, the pirates were getting restless and ready to be away from the boat, the smell of fish, the sound of the motors and ready for landlegs.

The sun began setting for the last time, a beautiful sunset and the dolphins swam with us for a while. After dark, the stars shone glisteningly white across the ocean like permanent snowflakes attached to the dark canvass of the sky. Great pods of immature flying fish flew beside the side of the boat as we raced toward the west. After a large meal, many of us headed off to bed, others watched a movie and some sat, staring at the stars connecting the points of light like a draw by number picture.

Until the shaking of the boat, the time went quickly and then, as I prayed for a settling in my stomach for the last little while, we were nearing the port of Gladstone. Morning breakfast was at 4:00 and when I arose, the first, I noticed the beauty of land with only a trace of sadness to be leaving the sea behind.

After docking, we alit on land again, each hairy pirate giving expression to different pleasures of being back on solid ground, although it didn't really feel like it. The longer one is on a boat, the longer it takes to adjust to walking on land again. For the first two days of return, my steps were shallow and shaky and I was grateful that this passed.

What a great trip it was. We headed to Robbie's house, picked up our fish, handed out trophy's for biggest fish, said our goodbye and headed home to meet our wives and children. It is always good to be back with family.

It's always good because there is no place like home.