Anda’s form shook with distress. The walls of reality began to crumble around her; her deepest desires, her most heartfelt wishes, her very soul seemed to quake as the depths of life flooded around her. She struggled to breathe. She struggled to move. Anda’s spirit seemed to desire that the waters of the wishing well would swell up and swallow her.
Behind her, Anda heard a splashing sound. The boy who called himself the ‘Dream Reaper’ was wading towards her. “How could you do this to me,” she cried out. “You’ve stolen everything from me?”
The wading boy stopped an arms length from Anda. “Are these all your coins?” he asked patting his jangling pockets.
“No, they aren’t all mine. But mine are in the midst of them. Wishes from all sorts of people for all sorts of gifts.”
“How many of these are yours?” he asked.
Anda finally looked at him. As she did, he took a step back almost stumbling. The waves from his near fall rebounded against the angel and back to Anda. She studied his youthful face. His eyes were close set, his small nose was slightly upturned and overall, his face was smudged with dirt. His hair was dark, at least it appeared that way in only the moonlight.
“What does it matter to you? You’ve taken them all?” She sighed in resignation.
“What good does it do to throw money into the wishing well? Does the Angel even see? Does the Angel hear your voice? Does the Angel even care?” The boy stooped down to pick up one of Anda’s last coins. “This one. What was this dream?”
“That,” Anda said as she began to rise, “was my last hope.” She held out her hand to the boy who drew close and placed the quarter in her outstretched palm. “I asked the Angel for the deepest desire of my heart. And now I know, truly know, that the Angel is simply…”
“What?” the boy pressed her.
“…simply a sign that life isn’t fair.”
They were quiet for a moment. The two of them, the Dream Caster and the Dream Reaper, paused to find the right words to say.
“It was always just stone,” the boy said. “But there is something more, something much better than stone angels and coin casting.”
Anda looked around refusing to hope anymore. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“This place, here and now, is cold and wet and confusing. But there is a place that I can show you, not far from here where the world is warm, the people are content and they welcome new people. Look,” he pointed over the pine trees. “Do you see the glow on the horizon?”
Anda nodded.
“That is the light of the new day and with a new day comes new life. That is also where I’ve found a community of…”
“What?” Anda pressed him.
“A place of faith. Not in stone Angels or silvery coins or even wet feet and hands. Come with me. Follow me.” The boy seemed very certain as he stretched out his hand to her.
“I’ve got to get home. If I don’t, my dad will… reprimand me.”
“There’s no hurry,” the boy said. “Let me walk with you on your way. Then, in the near future, look for me at your door.”
Anda looked at the boy’s small, wet hand. Slowly she reached out and took it in her own. The two of them stepped out of the wishing well and began walking slowly up the path to Anda’s house hand in hand.
“What are you going to do with the coins from the Wishing Well?” Anda asked.
The boy smiled. “New dreams are sown, my new friend, from the scattered wishes of the past. You’ll see.”
They were quiet on their walk.
The Wishing Well wished them well on their journey. It’s soft trickling of water echoed for a few moments. The moon winked behind the clouds. The Angel must have turned her face.
A new day was coming.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
The Wishing Well: Part 2
Without thought to the darkness that waited for her, Anda closed the bedroom door behind her. Leaving the lights off, Anda attempted to bury herself in darkness; she wanted to immerse herself in the anonymity of the night preferring not to see her reflection in the panes of her window.
“My window,” she thought. “I can escape out the window and run back to the wishing well. I’ll bring a handful of coins this time. Surely the angel will accept my offering if I bring a fortune.”
Anda rummaged through her room seeking to find her piggy bank containing what little treasure her parents would give her. After some fumbling in which she knocked over a lampstand (she we was sure her father would hear and offer advice in only the way that he knew how), Anda found her porcine treasure box, opened it and retrieved all the money left in it. Carefully she placed the piggy bank back on the shelf and wended her way to the window. As she struggled and strained to open the window quietly, she felt the blood rushing to the newly formed bruise on her face. It was simply a low throbbing now; the instantaneous shock of pain had escaped the window of her soul.
With just a small screak the window popped open. Anda tilted her head waiting to hear her father’s inevitable footsteps ascending the stairs. Hearing none, and thanking the God of the Angel for that, she placed her foot out the window and onto the roof of the house. After backing out and shutting the window until only a crack remained at the bottom, Anda noticed the breeze of the night that she hadn’t felt just an hour before. From this high perch, the world seemed different. If only I could fly away, she thought. Just for a few hours I could leave this home and soar through the clouds playing in the moonlight. No more pain; no more shame.
Anda peered over the edge of the roof to the ground below. Although only ten feet to the ground, Anda knew that flying was out of the question. She shinnied down the drainpipe being careful not to make any sound. She alit on solid ground once again thankful to the God of the Angel, for safe passage.
The short hike back to the wishing well was filled with wistfulness. I wish I lived in a house with a family that cared enough to care. I wish that just for a while we were normal. I wish… I wish…
Anda startled a deer on the wooded path back to the pool guarded by the stone Angel. It ran into the woods, turning back when it seemed a safe distance. The deer’s eyes questioned Anda’s need to be in that place. They stared, the two of them, just for a few moments and then the deer melted into the darkened woods. Anda continued on her journey. Not far from the pool, she heard a brief splashing sound. Hurrying forward wondering what could have happened, she hastened to the wishing well. Looking up at the Angel, she noticed the shadows had changed the Angel’s face from stern disapproval to seeming contentedness.
It could only be a good sign. Anda reached into her pocket to grab the rest of her remaining wishes, when suddenly she noticed that the moon was not reflecting any of the other casually tossed dreams in the bottom of the pool. Her heart leapt! The Angel! The Angel had descended to take the coins! All of her dreams had come true! With a great smile, Anda pulled the last of her coins out and hurled them far into the pool. Some of them rebounded against the Angel statue, the others plopped harmlessly into the pool below.
“Thank you, Angel,” Anda spoke to the statue. “I look forward to new life!” With those words, Anda reached into the pool and washed her face. She poured water over her head, over her arms. She took off her shoes and immersed her feet in the rippled coolness. Excitedly, Anda felt as if the doors of her heart had been opened and the wind of joy had swept across the waters of the pool and entered refreshing her to the soul.
Quickly, Anda dried her feet in the grass, put her shoes on and turned to leave. She felt like whistling; she felt like singing – she hadn’t done that in a very long time; she felt like dancing. Even the bruise which was beginning to outline her eye seemed less oppressive.
Anda turned to walk back home…
When she heard a sneeze.
It seemed to have come from the wishing well; Anda was not naïve enough to believe that the Angel had sneezed.
“Who’s there?”
Silence.
“Come out. I want to know who you are.”
The moon seemed like a spotlight on the silent form of the Angel spreading her trickling waters to the pool. Then, a small form emerged from the behind the stone skirt of the heavenly Messenger. His face was shrouded in darkness.
“Who are you?” Anda asked again.
The boy, who could not have been more than ten years old, said nothing but raised his hands.
His hands seemed to shimmer, to twist in the dim light. It was then that Anda realized that the boy had picked up all of the glittering money from the bottom of the pool. She could see the outline of his pockets bulging with coins.
“I am the Dream Reaper,” he said.
Anda sat down to cry.
“My window,” she thought. “I can escape out the window and run back to the wishing well. I’ll bring a handful of coins this time. Surely the angel will accept my offering if I bring a fortune.”
Anda rummaged through her room seeking to find her piggy bank containing what little treasure her parents would give her. After some fumbling in which she knocked over a lampstand (she we was sure her father would hear and offer advice in only the way that he knew how), Anda found her porcine treasure box, opened it and retrieved all the money left in it. Carefully she placed the piggy bank back on the shelf and wended her way to the window. As she struggled and strained to open the window quietly, she felt the blood rushing to the newly formed bruise on her face. It was simply a low throbbing now; the instantaneous shock of pain had escaped the window of her soul.
With just a small screak the window popped open. Anda tilted her head waiting to hear her father’s inevitable footsteps ascending the stairs. Hearing none, and thanking the God of the Angel for that, she placed her foot out the window and onto the roof of the house. After backing out and shutting the window until only a crack remained at the bottom, Anda noticed the breeze of the night that she hadn’t felt just an hour before. From this high perch, the world seemed different. If only I could fly away, she thought. Just for a few hours I could leave this home and soar through the clouds playing in the moonlight. No more pain; no more shame.
Anda peered over the edge of the roof to the ground below. Although only ten feet to the ground, Anda knew that flying was out of the question. She shinnied down the drainpipe being careful not to make any sound. She alit on solid ground once again thankful to the God of the Angel, for safe passage.
The short hike back to the wishing well was filled with wistfulness. I wish I lived in a house with a family that cared enough to care. I wish that just for a while we were normal. I wish… I wish…
Anda startled a deer on the wooded path back to the pool guarded by the stone Angel. It ran into the woods, turning back when it seemed a safe distance. The deer’s eyes questioned Anda’s need to be in that place. They stared, the two of them, just for a few moments and then the deer melted into the darkened woods. Anda continued on her journey. Not far from the pool, she heard a brief splashing sound. Hurrying forward wondering what could have happened, she hastened to the wishing well. Looking up at the Angel, she noticed the shadows had changed the Angel’s face from stern disapproval to seeming contentedness.
It could only be a good sign. Anda reached into her pocket to grab the rest of her remaining wishes, when suddenly she noticed that the moon was not reflecting any of the other casually tossed dreams in the bottom of the pool. Her heart leapt! The Angel! The Angel had descended to take the coins! All of her dreams had come true! With a great smile, Anda pulled the last of her coins out and hurled them far into the pool. Some of them rebounded against the Angel statue, the others plopped harmlessly into the pool below.
“Thank you, Angel,” Anda spoke to the statue. “I look forward to new life!” With those words, Anda reached into the pool and washed her face. She poured water over her head, over her arms. She took off her shoes and immersed her feet in the rippled coolness. Excitedly, Anda felt as if the doors of her heart had been opened and the wind of joy had swept across the waters of the pool and entered refreshing her to the soul.
Quickly, Anda dried her feet in the grass, put her shoes on and turned to leave. She felt like whistling; she felt like singing – she hadn’t done that in a very long time; she felt like dancing. Even the bruise which was beginning to outline her eye seemed less oppressive.
Anda turned to walk back home…
When she heard a sneeze.
It seemed to have come from the wishing well; Anda was not naïve enough to believe that the Angel had sneezed.
“Who’s there?”
Silence.
“Come out. I want to know who you are.”
The moon seemed like a spotlight on the silent form of the Angel spreading her trickling waters to the pool. Then, a small form emerged from the behind the stone skirt of the heavenly Messenger. His face was shrouded in darkness.
“Who are you?” Anda asked again.
The boy, who could not have been more than ten years old, said nothing but raised his hands.
His hands seemed to shimmer, to twist in the dim light. It was then that Anda realized that the boy had picked up all of the glittering money from the bottom of the pool. She could see the outline of his pockets bulging with coins.
“I am the Dream Reaper,” he said.
Anda sat down to cry.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The Wishing Well
It is truly incredible that I have been this slack - four months (and a whole lot of changes). For the next few days, I'll be updating the blog with pieces of short stories that I have been working on over the years and then in the next weeks I'll be blogging about the process of change.
This first short story has appeared in sections of Our Savoir's newsletter, Crosstalk, the last two months. On Tuesday, I'll be adding the last segment (which hasn't appeared yet in the Crosstalk - so those who want to finish the story first will have to read it hear on the blog.)
The Wishing Well
Amanda, or Anda, as she was called by most of her friends, stood beside the gentle lapping water of the wishing well. The cool night brought goosebumps to her arms, but she took no notice. As she stood by the water’s edge, she looked up at graying statue of the angel which was the source of the water trickling into the pool. The angel held a sword in one hand holding it high as if protecting the world from any number of tragedies. The hardened look on its face gave the stone angel a determined look – a look that said, I will allow nothing to get between you and me.
Anda stared at the molding statue seeking desperately for some sort of acknowledgment by the angel that it recognized her presence.
Why don’t you help me? She pleaded with the unmoving presence. The only response was the whispering water as it cascaded softly over the hem of the angel’s robe and dropped into the pool.
A stark, white moon cast it’s glow over the ripples in the pool. Anda knew in her mind that the sun cast the light to the moon and was reflected, that somewhere – just somewhere – it was warm, comfortable and pain free. Anda stepped to the edge of the pool to view all the other dreams that had been casually flipped into the wishing well. She could almost hear the wishes embedded in the glowing coins.
“I wish I was prettier.”
“Let my mom and dad get along.”
“Please don’t let him touch me again.”
“Why am I like this? Make me a better person.”
One by one Anda could sense the needy. All wanted answers but the wishing well was silent. Anda was one of the needy – needing some sort of newness of life. Leaning over the pool she attempted to see her reflection but knowing that she really didn’t want to experience the recent attempts by her father to ‘help her understand how discipline will help her in life.’
Looking at her distorted image, her face wrinkled and moving, she unwillingly recollected the last nights, in a series of too many ‘discipline’ nights, rocking herself to sleep waiting for her bruises to turn color.
Straightening up, Anda reached into her pocket for the quarter. Turning it over in her hand, she noticed the similarities in color of the angel and the stern face of the first President of the United States. If only…
There are no rules for wishing at the wishing well. There are only hopes and rituals. Anda’s ritual was to take a coin from her piggy bank and press her wish into the coin hopefully ironing her deepest desires into the offering for the angel. Anda brought a quarter this night, normally it was a penny or a dime, hoping that the greater the worth of the coin the greater acknowledgment of the angel to grant her wish.
Please let my father stop hitting me. Let him see me as a precious gift. Let him treat me as his princess and not his disgrace.
A tear trickled down her cheek and dropped onto the coin. Anda’s face was like the angelic statue in the middle – always leaking water. Not wasting another moment, Anda drew her arm back, hesitating only a moment, and threw the coin into the wishing well. She watched the quarter arc over the water, the moonlight sparkling across it’s spinning surface. With great hope she listened for the brief plip as the coin entered the water and presumably settled to the bottom of the pool near the angel’s foot.
With something like reserved faith, Anda bowed to the angel and turned to make her way back home. The recent rains had made the path slightly muddy but Anda’s thoughts were far from the quality of the path. Nearing her house, she slowed noticing that even at this late hour, the living room light was on. Trying not to make a sound, Anda placed her hand on the door knob and opened the door. Entering without looking, she closed the door behind her.
As she turned around, her father greeted her with a closed fist.
“It’s past your bedtime,” he said. “I was worried about you. Next time, you’ll learn.”
This first short story has appeared in sections of Our Savoir's newsletter, Crosstalk, the last two months. On Tuesday, I'll be adding the last segment (which hasn't appeared yet in the Crosstalk - so those who want to finish the story first will have to read it hear on the blog.)
The Wishing Well
Amanda, or Anda, as she was called by most of her friends, stood beside the gentle lapping water of the wishing well. The cool night brought goosebumps to her arms, but she took no notice. As she stood by the water’s edge, she looked up at graying statue of the angel which was the source of the water trickling into the pool. The angel held a sword in one hand holding it high as if protecting the world from any number of tragedies. The hardened look on its face gave the stone angel a determined look – a look that said, I will allow nothing to get between you and me.
Anda stared at the molding statue seeking desperately for some sort of acknowledgment by the angel that it recognized her presence.
Why don’t you help me? She pleaded with the unmoving presence. The only response was the whispering water as it cascaded softly over the hem of the angel’s robe and dropped into the pool.
A stark, white moon cast it’s glow over the ripples in the pool. Anda knew in her mind that the sun cast the light to the moon and was reflected, that somewhere – just somewhere – it was warm, comfortable and pain free. Anda stepped to the edge of the pool to view all the other dreams that had been casually flipped into the wishing well. She could almost hear the wishes embedded in the glowing coins.
“I wish I was prettier.”
“Let my mom and dad get along.”
“Please don’t let him touch me again.”
“Why am I like this? Make me a better person.”
One by one Anda could sense the needy. All wanted answers but the wishing well was silent. Anda was one of the needy – needing some sort of newness of life. Leaning over the pool she attempted to see her reflection but knowing that she really didn’t want to experience the recent attempts by her father to ‘help her understand how discipline will help her in life.’
Looking at her distorted image, her face wrinkled and moving, she unwillingly recollected the last nights, in a series of too many ‘discipline’ nights, rocking herself to sleep waiting for her bruises to turn color.
Straightening up, Anda reached into her pocket for the quarter. Turning it over in her hand, she noticed the similarities in color of the angel and the stern face of the first President of the United States. If only…
There are no rules for wishing at the wishing well. There are only hopes and rituals. Anda’s ritual was to take a coin from her piggy bank and press her wish into the coin hopefully ironing her deepest desires into the offering for the angel. Anda brought a quarter this night, normally it was a penny or a dime, hoping that the greater the worth of the coin the greater acknowledgment of the angel to grant her wish.
Please let my father stop hitting me. Let him see me as a precious gift. Let him treat me as his princess and not his disgrace.
A tear trickled down her cheek and dropped onto the coin. Anda’s face was like the angelic statue in the middle – always leaking water. Not wasting another moment, Anda drew her arm back, hesitating only a moment, and threw the coin into the wishing well. She watched the quarter arc over the water, the moonlight sparkling across it’s spinning surface. With great hope she listened for the brief plip as the coin entered the water and presumably settled to the bottom of the pool near the angel’s foot.
With something like reserved faith, Anda bowed to the angel and turned to make her way back home. The recent rains had made the path slightly muddy but Anda’s thoughts were far from the quality of the path. Nearing her house, she slowed noticing that even at this late hour, the living room light was on. Trying not to make a sound, Anda placed her hand on the door knob and opened the door. Entering without looking, she closed the door behind her.
As she turned around, her father greeted her with a closed fist.
“It’s past your bedtime,” he said. “I was worried about you. Next time, you’ll learn.”
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Off the Beaten Path
I have been continuing the discussion about Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes which I will begin again next week. But, I have been asked by a few people to put a couple of articles that I have written lately into my blog. The first one is about worship and the next one is about a life of service.
Worship.
There are all sorts of feelings associated with the word. If I would send out a questionnaire regarding what ‘worship’ is, I’m sure I would be bombarded with a slew of understandings of what it is, what it isn’t and what it should be. In the past, I have asked confirmation classes their experience of worship. Usually they lead off with adjectives like ‘boring,’ ‘old,’ ‘meaningless.’ As each voice is raised with their description of how worship has shaped them in the past, I cringe. I have to take it personally, that, as a pastor of the church, we are not raising or children and youth (or ourselves, for that fact) to know the importance of that word put before us.
Worship.
What is it? As the youth have spoken about their own reservations about worship, we must understand how the youth and younger generation have come to comprehend worship. Because many of them see worship as irrelevant in their daily lives, they simply come to put in their time – some of that is because their parents see worship in the same way: worship is the hour we put in at the church, once per week, whether we like it or not, so that we can start the next week with a clean slate. The sins of this week are erased, now we can take the black marker and adjust the check list –
Worship – check. Now we can watch the ballgame we DVR’ed and finally relax for the day.
This is from people who attend worship regularly. What about the sixty percent of those on the Lutheran memberships that attend only once or twice per year? Why is worship avoided like the plague? I think there are a few reasons:
Worship is perceived with a financial cost. I have to pay to get in (that’s how many people view the offering). I have to pay for my own sins – right before communion, I drop my envelope in the offering plate and now I can go receive forgiveness.
1. Irrelevance. If a person is neither entertained nor ‘gotten something out of the sermon’, then worship is a failure. The overarching understanding of culture, in this day, is “what’s in it for me?” If it doesn’t feed my desires or my needs then it ceases to be relevant.
2. Unforgiving – it’s for the good people. Sunday mornings, too many people, scream piety - being good enough. The average person who struggles with addictions, domestic problems, health difficulties doesn’t want to attend a church where everyone seems to ‘have it all together.’ When they do show up, they believe that those who attend judge them for what they look like, what their past appears like and how new the car is that brings them to the church building.
3. Lack of depth. The world longs for an experience of depth. We are given shallow television sitcoms, egocentric advertising and a society that idolizes escapism. Many people long for the answers to life’s greatest questions but are met with ‘just have the faith of a mustard seed.’
Worship.
The real problem? It’s become a noun instead of the verb that it was always intended to be. The word ‘worship’ is used 250 times in our Bible and is never once used with regards as a place. It is never a thing – but it is an action. Worship has become synonymous with a place; we sound more religious if we say ‘I am going to worship,’ rather than, ‘I am going to church.’ Biblical acts of worship are always used from the perspective of humankind doing worship not letting it passively happen in front of their eyes.
This is where we have failed as a Christian body: we are not bringing up ourselves or the next generation to realize that worship is not something done to us, but something we do. And, it is not done for our benefit – it is done for our growth.
This is my definition of worship:
Worship is the art of forgetting who we are and remembering in whose hands we rest.
Maybe all of us can remember a mountaintop worship experience where God seemed more real than the fingerprints on the end of our digits, where the closeness of the Spirit seemed real and intentional where we forgot about who (or where) we are and remembered that there is so much more to life than what is now.
Instead of feeling like we need a vacation from church, we can start to rotate or hearts to taking a vacation from ourselves and offering up all of our fears, sorrows, worries and unfulfilled expectations to remind us that ‘we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For (we) are convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, depth, or anything else can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37b-39)
We worship to remind ourselves of love and life together with the One who supersedes all of life and death. And then we are left in awe.
Worship.
Sometimes when I hear the parable of the Good Samaritan, I start to yawn. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the brilliance of Jesus rhetoric regarding who is supposed to be ‘good’ and who is supposed to be ‘lessthangood’, but the story itself is repeated and played out so many times as a moral template for living in a world of sin, that I have grown stale with it. The parable has lost its glow like the shine on a copper penny that has been through the wash ten too many times.
It had lost its glow, that is, until Pastor Woody made a passing statement during his sermon a few weeks ago. He said, “Often we find our own identity in any one, or all, of the characters of the story.” After he said this, I looked back over the story (ashamedly, I missed part of his sermon because I was thinking about the characters of Jesus’ own narrative) and found one character that is frequently overlooked. Almost all of the attention goes to the Samaritan; a little bit to the priest and the Levite - because they should know better, and if there is any focus left in our attention span we might see through a pinhole the downtrodden man and his foes, the robbers. But, there is one more character of the story: the innkeeper.
As Woody spoke, I was placing myself in the shoes of that innkeeper. Minding his own business (literally), preparing places for weary travelers, he probably was intent on simply making it through the workday and getting home to the children, a meal and maybe a nice, relaxing bit of sleep. Innkeepers don’t like interruptions - I have seen that first hand.
Maybe you have seen innkeepers who are not as impressed with travelers who make extra demands. I have watched innkeepers, or hoteliers, hold back their distaste – as if they swallowed a lemon (rind on) – for a family that asks for a few extra towels.
But here, in this Gospel story, the innkeeper has been given an extra task by a traveler. Imagine the innkeepers distaste as a Samaritan brings in the refuse from the street, a man who has been beaten and bloodied – must be homeless, part of the rabble that can’t get a job. Perhaps the innkeeper would hold up his hands and say, “I’m sorry, but you can’t bring him in here like that. We don’t have the facilities to treat and administer care.” The Samaritan rents a room, ties up the donkey and gives innkeeper the license plate number in case there is any trouble in the room.
Then, inconceivably, the Samaritan stops by the front desk the next morning, drops the key off, and has the gall to say, “Here is some extra money for the man who is still staying in the room. Take care of him. If there are any other expenses, I’ll be back to pay those later.” I imagine that the innkeeper would come around from behind his desk and start his tirade. “What does this look like? A hospital? A clinic? Does it look like I attended medical school? I don’t have time to take care of this guy. Maybe he got what he deserved. Take him some where else. He’ll upset the rest of my patrons.”
Of course, that isn’t what the innkeeper said. Jesus doesn’t tell us what his reaction might have been, but I’ve simply filled in how I probably would have responded. I’d be a priest-like innkeeper or a Levitical hotelier. The sentiments above are my own self-centered reactions to how I have, in the past, reacted when extra responsibilities are put on my plate. I am self-centered, immature, uncaring (should I go on?) but our parablic innkeeper is exactly the opposite. It seems as if he is willing to take on extra responsibilities above and beyond the call of duty.
Often, the Spirit will bring new people into the shadow of the doors of Our Savior’s. Not all of them are healthy (emotionally, spiritually, mentally or physically). They come with needs to be healed; they long for a place of comfort and restoration. We, at Our Savior’s, are called to be the innkeepers. As the Spirit appears with new armload of hurting human souls, are we priest-like innkeepers who through up our hands saying, “I’ve got enough on my plate now (or worse yet, we’ve got enough people in our membership to worry about already)” or are we like the gospel filled innkeeper who seems to accept the next task with hope and faith that the Samaritan will come back and reward the innkeeper for his work.
That’s our call – the call of duty, to take the wretched poor, the homeless, the widow, the orphan, and the spiritually damaged and nurse them back to health. It’s a monumental task –
But only an innkeeper can do it.
Worship.
There are all sorts of feelings associated with the word. If I would send out a questionnaire regarding what ‘worship’ is, I’m sure I would be bombarded with a slew of understandings of what it is, what it isn’t and what it should be. In the past, I have asked confirmation classes their experience of worship. Usually they lead off with adjectives like ‘boring,’ ‘old,’ ‘meaningless.’ As each voice is raised with their description of how worship has shaped them in the past, I cringe. I have to take it personally, that, as a pastor of the church, we are not raising or children and youth (or ourselves, for that fact) to know the importance of that word put before us.
Worship.
What is it? As the youth have spoken about their own reservations about worship, we must understand how the youth and younger generation have come to comprehend worship. Because many of them see worship as irrelevant in their daily lives, they simply come to put in their time – some of that is because their parents see worship in the same way: worship is the hour we put in at the church, once per week, whether we like it or not, so that we can start the next week with a clean slate. The sins of this week are erased, now we can take the black marker and adjust the check list –
Worship – check. Now we can watch the ballgame we DVR’ed and finally relax for the day.
This is from people who attend worship regularly. What about the sixty percent of those on the Lutheran memberships that attend only once or twice per year? Why is worship avoided like the plague? I think there are a few reasons:
Worship is perceived with a financial cost. I have to pay to get in (that’s how many people view the offering). I have to pay for my own sins – right before communion, I drop my envelope in the offering plate and now I can go receive forgiveness.
1. Irrelevance. If a person is neither entertained nor ‘gotten something out of the sermon’, then worship is a failure. The overarching understanding of culture, in this day, is “what’s in it for me?” If it doesn’t feed my desires or my needs then it ceases to be relevant.
2. Unforgiving – it’s for the good people. Sunday mornings, too many people, scream piety - being good enough. The average person who struggles with addictions, domestic problems, health difficulties doesn’t want to attend a church where everyone seems to ‘have it all together.’ When they do show up, they believe that those who attend judge them for what they look like, what their past appears like and how new the car is that brings them to the church building.
3. Lack of depth. The world longs for an experience of depth. We are given shallow television sitcoms, egocentric advertising and a society that idolizes escapism. Many people long for the answers to life’s greatest questions but are met with ‘just have the faith of a mustard seed.’
Worship.
The real problem? It’s become a noun instead of the verb that it was always intended to be. The word ‘worship’ is used 250 times in our Bible and is never once used with regards as a place. It is never a thing – but it is an action. Worship has become synonymous with a place; we sound more religious if we say ‘I am going to worship,’ rather than, ‘I am going to church.’ Biblical acts of worship are always used from the perspective of humankind doing worship not letting it passively happen in front of their eyes.
This is where we have failed as a Christian body: we are not bringing up ourselves or the next generation to realize that worship is not something done to us, but something we do. And, it is not done for our benefit – it is done for our growth.
This is my definition of worship:
Worship is the art of forgetting who we are and remembering in whose hands we rest.
Maybe all of us can remember a mountaintop worship experience where God seemed more real than the fingerprints on the end of our digits, where the closeness of the Spirit seemed real and intentional where we forgot about who (or where) we are and remembered that there is so much more to life than what is now.
Instead of feeling like we need a vacation from church, we can start to rotate or hearts to taking a vacation from ourselves and offering up all of our fears, sorrows, worries and unfulfilled expectations to remind us that ‘we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For (we) are convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, depth, or anything else can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37b-39)
We worship to remind ourselves of love and life together with the One who supersedes all of life and death. And then we are left in awe.
Worship.
Sometimes when I hear the parable of the Good Samaritan, I start to yawn. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the brilliance of Jesus rhetoric regarding who is supposed to be ‘good’ and who is supposed to be ‘lessthangood’, but the story itself is repeated and played out so many times as a moral template for living in a world of sin, that I have grown stale with it. The parable has lost its glow like the shine on a copper penny that has been through the wash ten too many times.
It had lost its glow, that is, until Pastor Woody made a passing statement during his sermon a few weeks ago. He said, “Often we find our own identity in any one, or all, of the characters of the story.” After he said this, I looked back over the story (ashamedly, I missed part of his sermon because I was thinking about the characters of Jesus’ own narrative) and found one character that is frequently overlooked. Almost all of the attention goes to the Samaritan; a little bit to the priest and the Levite - because they should know better, and if there is any focus left in our attention span we might see through a pinhole the downtrodden man and his foes, the robbers. But, there is one more character of the story: the innkeeper.
As Woody spoke, I was placing myself in the shoes of that innkeeper. Minding his own business (literally), preparing places for weary travelers, he probably was intent on simply making it through the workday and getting home to the children, a meal and maybe a nice, relaxing bit of sleep. Innkeepers don’t like interruptions - I have seen that first hand.
Maybe you have seen innkeepers who are not as impressed with travelers who make extra demands. I have watched innkeepers, or hoteliers, hold back their distaste – as if they swallowed a lemon (rind on) – for a family that asks for a few extra towels.
But here, in this Gospel story, the innkeeper has been given an extra task by a traveler. Imagine the innkeepers distaste as a Samaritan brings in the refuse from the street, a man who has been beaten and bloodied – must be homeless, part of the rabble that can’t get a job. Perhaps the innkeeper would hold up his hands and say, “I’m sorry, but you can’t bring him in here like that. We don’t have the facilities to treat and administer care.” The Samaritan rents a room, ties up the donkey and gives innkeeper the license plate number in case there is any trouble in the room.
Then, inconceivably, the Samaritan stops by the front desk the next morning, drops the key off, and has the gall to say, “Here is some extra money for the man who is still staying in the room. Take care of him. If there are any other expenses, I’ll be back to pay those later.” I imagine that the innkeeper would come around from behind his desk and start his tirade. “What does this look like? A hospital? A clinic? Does it look like I attended medical school? I don’t have time to take care of this guy. Maybe he got what he deserved. Take him some where else. He’ll upset the rest of my patrons.”
Of course, that isn’t what the innkeeper said. Jesus doesn’t tell us what his reaction might have been, but I’ve simply filled in how I probably would have responded. I’d be a priest-like innkeeper or a Levitical hotelier. The sentiments above are my own self-centered reactions to how I have, in the past, reacted when extra responsibilities are put on my plate. I am self-centered, immature, uncaring (should I go on?) but our parablic innkeeper is exactly the opposite. It seems as if he is willing to take on extra responsibilities above and beyond the call of duty.
Often, the Spirit will bring new people into the shadow of the doors of Our Savior’s. Not all of them are healthy (emotionally, spiritually, mentally or physically). They come with needs to be healed; they long for a place of comfort and restoration. We, at Our Savior’s, are called to be the innkeepers. As the Spirit appears with new armload of hurting human souls, are we priest-like innkeepers who through up our hands saying, “I’ve got enough on my plate now (or worse yet, we’ve got enough people in our membership to worry about already)” or are we like the gospel filled innkeeper who seems to accept the next task with hope and faith that the Samaritan will come back and reward the innkeeper for his work.
That’s our call – the call of duty, to take the wretched poor, the homeless, the widow, the orphan, and the spiritually damaged and nurse them back to health. It’s a monumental task –
But only an innkeeper can do it.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Embracing
Supposedly, there is a time for it and a time for refraining from it. I could leave you to guess what it might be; it could be anything - running, speaking, eating steak, petting spiders - but from verse five of Ecclesiastes: (there is) a time for embracing and a time for shunning embracing. What? When would we shun embracing? Who doesn't want a hug? Isn't that what's wrong with this world - that we've learned to avoid hugging? Embracing?
I like embracing. It feels good. Hugging Christine is like a little trip down memory lane. I can remember my first embrace with her (I will spare you the details) but walking into her open arms is like a ship finding a safe cove out of the wind. All storms cease; the protection of her arms is as needed as running, speaking, steak and spiders (I can do without them, though). I'm not writing this to brown nose because our anniversary is in a couple of weeks (maybe a little bit) but I think all of us, even the men (especially the men, perhaps) enjoy a daily hug. Hugs are a bit different nowadays though in my household. Now, as I approach Christine for a hug like a plane coming in for a landing, I have to prepare for the inevitable wriggling and wiggling of the girls prying their little bodies inbetween Christine and I needing to be part of the group hug. Good times. Good times. Pretty soon they will too big to wiggle between the two of us.
Is there a difference between embracing and hugging? That's the true question from this blog, I think. And, I believe there is a difference. Hugging has a time limit. I looked it up. The Guinness Book of World Records says that Paul and Sandra Gerrard set the record at 24 hours and 1 minute. Surprisingly, the world's longest kiss is six hours longer. Karmit Tsubera and Dror Orpaz found a way to lock lips for just under 31 consecutive hours. They obviously did not have children trying to wedge between them.
Anyway, hugging has a time limit. There is only so long that two humans can be connected. It's a natural thing. By that, I mean, nature has intended a certain amount of space to between everything. All atoms, molecules, insects, plants and animals seek a modicum of space to thrive and survive. That is why, in most psychologist minds, it is incredibly healthy for couples to have a hobby, or a circle of friends that help them find space outside of the marital relationship. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, as they say - But at the same time, too much space makes the heart wander. We'll talk about that some other time.
Embrasure is different than hugging. I believe that embracing is more than just physical bodies touching. Embracing is the use of the whole person - mind, body, strength and soul. When one would say "I embrace life," or "I'm embracing the past," "I'm finding a way to embrace my feminine side." ( I haven't said that yet.) To embrace means to encircle something with every part of your being. I believe this is what Jesus was talking about, and the shema from Deut:6 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your might."
In other words, embrace God.
It's hard though. We find too many ways to distance ourselves; we find things that wedge between us and God. Perhaps unconsciously we'd rather hug God, find a little bit of comfort, peace from the storm, and then let him go. I feel better; now I can make it on my own, thank you very much. God becomes a wonderfully soft Teddy bear sitting on my bed at night.
But this, I don't think, is the embracing that Solomon is writing about in Ecclesiastes. Throughout the first three chapters, the king writes distinctly about the futility of all things like a chasing after the wind. At the end of chapter three he writes: Thus I realized that the only worthwhile thing there is for (people) to enjoy themselves and do what is good in their lifetime; also, that whenever a (person) does eat and drink and get enjoyment out of wealth, it is a gift from God (3:12-13).
Embracing the good things in life is a gift from God. Pleasure is a gift. Hugging is a gift. Steak, is a gift (even if the cow would disagree).
But there are certain things that we are allowed to refrain from. Life, at times, can seem like a cosmic buffet; I'll take a smidgen of this, a serving of that, a dollop of this and a slice of that. Pretty soon, our plate is full and we become stuffed with our own gluttony of life. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:12, All things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial. Surely life is full of pleasures, and none of them can tear us away from the love of God in Christ, but not all of them are beneficial. Our society revels in the bacchanalia; if it feels good, do it. Drugs? No worries. Sex? What can it hurt? Food? Fifty-eight million Americans alone are overweight. Forty million are obese. According to www.annecollins.com, three million Americans are morbidly obese. The website also states that 78% of Americans do not meet the daily basic activity amount to remain physically healthy. 25% of Americans are completely sedentary. According to A Healthier America, if 1 in 10 Americans would embrace a walking program (a walking program!) the country would save 5.6 billion dollars per year in heart related health costs.
We refrain from embracing healthy activity because it takes work and sometimes work doesn't feel as good. Well, there was my soapbox for healthy activity.
But beyond that the ability to refrain from certain activities makes us well rounded individuals - adults. Adults have to make decisions about what they do, what they say and what they embrace. Imagine the chaos of the world if we never filtered the things that we said or if we never curbed our appetites for pleasure. This planet would be ruined in short time.
There is a time for embracing - heart, soul, mind and strength - God, health, relationships.
There is a time for refraining:
I'll let you decide when that is.
I like embracing. It feels good. Hugging Christine is like a little trip down memory lane. I can remember my first embrace with her (I will spare you the details) but walking into her open arms is like a ship finding a safe cove out of the wind. All storms cease; the protection of her arms is as needed as running, speaking, steak and spiders (I can do without them, though). I'm not writing this to brown nose because our anniversary is in a couple of weeks (maybe a little bit) but I think all of us, even the men (especially the men, perhaps) enjoy a daily hug. Hugs are a bit different nowadays though in my household. Now, as I approach Christine for a hug like a plane coming in for a landing, I have to prepare for the inevitable wriggling and wiggling of the girls prying their little bodies inbetween Christine and I needing to be part of the group hug. Good times. Good times. Pretty soon they will too big to wiggle between the two of us.
Is there a difference between embracing and hugging? That's the true question from this blog, I think. And, I believe there is a difference. Hugging has a time limit. I looked it up. The Guinness Book of World Records says that Paul and Sandra Gerrard set the record at 24 hours and 1 minute. Surprisingly, the world's longest kiss is six hours longer. Karmit Tsubera and Dror Orpaz found a way to lock lips for just under 31 consecutive hours. They obviously did not have children trying to wedge between them.
Anyway, hugging has a time limit. There is only so long that two humans can be connected. It's a natural thing. By that, I mean, nature has intended a certain amount of space to between everything. All atoms, molecules, insects, plants and animals seek a modicum of space to thrive and survive. That is why, in most psychologist minds, it is incredibly healthy for couples to have a hobby, or a circle of friends that help them find space outside of the marital relationship. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, as they say - But at the same time, too much space makes the heart wander. We'll talk about that some other time.
Embrasure is different than hugging. I believe that embracing is more than just physical bodies touching. Embracing is the use of the whole person - mind, body, strength and soul. When one would say "I embrace life," or "I'm embracing the past," "I'm finding a way to embrace my feminine side." ( I haven't said that yet.) To embrace means to encircle something with every part of your being. I believe this is what Jesus was talking about, and the shema from Deut:6 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your might."
In other words, embrace God.
It's hard though. We find too many ways to distance ourselves; we find things that wedge between us and God. Perhaps unconsciously we'd rather hug God, find a little bit of comfort, peace from the storm, and then let him go. I feel better; now I can make it on my own, thank you very much. God becomes a wonderfully soft Teddy bear sitting on my bed at night.
But this, I don't think, is the embracing that Solomon is writing about in Ecclesiastes. Throughout the first three chapters, the king writes distinctly about the futility of all things like a chasing after the wind. At the end of chapter three he writes: Thus I realized that the only worthwhile thing there is for (people) to enjoy themselves and do what is good in their lifetime; also, that whenever a (person) does eat and drink and get enjoyment out of wealth, it is a gift from God (3:12-13).
Embracing the good things in life is a gift from God. Pleasure is a gift. Hugging is a gift. Steak, is a gift (even if the cow would disagree).
But there are certain things that we are allowed to refrain from. Life, at times, can seem like a cosmic buffet; I'll take a smidgen of this, a serving of that, a dollop of this and a slice of that. Pretty soon, our plate is full and we become stuffed with our own gluttony of life. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:12, All things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial. Surely life is full of pleasures, and none of them can tear us away from the love of God in Christ, but not all of them are beneficial. Our society revels in the bacchanalia; if it feels good, do it. Drugs? No worries. Sex? What can it hurt? Food? Fifty-eight million Americans alone are overweight. Forty million are obese. According to www.annecollins.com, three million Americans are morbidly obese. The website also states that 78% of Americans do not meet the daily basic activity amount to remain physically healthy. 25% of Americans are completely sedentary. According to A Healthier America, if 1 in 10 Americans would embrace a walking program (a walking program!) the country would save 5.6 billion dollars per year in heart related health costs.
We refrain from embracing healthy activity because it takes work and sometimes work doesn't feel as good. Well, there was my soapbox for healthy activity.
But beyond that the ability to refrain from certain activities makes us well rounded individuals - adults. Adults have to make decisions about what they do, what they say and what they embrace. Imagine the chaos of the world if we never filtered the things that we said or if we never curbed our appetites for pleasure. This planet would be ruined in short time.
There is a time for embracing - heart, soul, mind and strength - God, health, relationships.
There is a time for refraining:
I'll let you decide when that is.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Gathering Stones
My daughter, Greta, has a rock-collecting container. It looks like a miniature tackle box but instead of lures and hooks it is filled with rocks. To my eye, Greta' rock container holds a hundred similar stones. To Greta's eye, it holds treasure - not in the bejewelled, golden kind, but the treasure of memories. Greta gathers stones and the visible reminder of the shape and the color of the stone brings back a moment in life.
A few years ago, my family on a vacation. We decided that between my internship year and my last year of seminary that we would see as much of the North America as humanly possible. So, in a six week journey, we put seven thousand miles on the car (and the pop-up camper). Traveling from Iowa across to the West Coast, we visited incredible sites like Custer State Park, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, Yosemite, Redwoods. We trekked up the coast through Oregon and Washington and finished by traveling from the Canadian Rockies to Lake Superior. All in all, it was an experience that we can't ever replicate not just because of the length of time (or length of journey for that fact) but because life is never the same. The girls were six, four and three and deep into experiencing the world one rock at a time.
Instead of being awed by the magnificent canyons or massive trees, the girls were always on the lookout for things that they could climb whether park benches, trees or rock piles. As Christine and I 'oohed' and 'aahed' over the magnificence of the created world, Elsa, Josephine and Greta had their eyes glued to the horizon for the next rock pile. So, every few hours we would have to stop and stretch while the girls fulfilled their inner spirit of mountaineering.
As I watched the girls do this, though, what I began to notice was that after each moment of rock climbing, Greta was picking up a rock and putting it in her pocket. We watched the pockets of her jeanshorts bulge like the cheeks of a chipmunk carrying seeds. By the end of the day she probably weighed and extra five pounds.
"What are you carrying in your pockets, Greta?"
"Nothing." Three-year-old logic is quite different than adult logic. Well, maybe not.
"It looks like you've got something in your pockets."
It's funny; she actually had to look at her pockets to see if something was in them.
"I wanted to take rocks."
"Can I see them," I asked.
You could see the light in her eyes. She wanted to share those things that she had picked up along the way. Pulling out handful after handful of pebbles, stones, pieces of rock not much bigger than a sand particle. Her little hands were like shovels digging into the earth; some of the rocks tumbled to the ground but she kept her eyes on them making sure not to lose any of them.
To my untrained eye all of the rocks looked basically the same. Smoothed by erosion and time, these gray stones, some of them with a white stripe or a distinctive crevice, looked basically identical.
"Greta," I said poking my way through the mound, "Why are you carrying all of these rocks around. They look all look the same."
Greta moved in between myself and the pile assuming I was about ready sweep them from the table. Protecting them like a mother lioness she looked up at me and said, "Daddy, you're so silly. These are my memories from my walk today." Then, for an agonizing fifteen minutes, Greta recounted every climbing episode that she'd encountered. One rock that was next to the picnic table. Another one from the place where we saw a bear in the distance. She pointed to a smooth rock that she actually tripped over. All of them were a reminder of what she had just experienced. She had gathered up the rocks to remind her of where she had been.
I have written about this in the past, but the same thing happened with the Israelites crossing the Jordan River. God tells Joshua that the priests must gather rocks with them and pile them up on the shore as a visible reminder of where they had just been. The rocks symbolized the difficulties of the journey but also the hope of the future. They piled the rocks on shore and in the middle of the Jordan River. In the midst of where the water just was they piled another set of rocks to remind themselves that God had spared them from death.
What about the stone rolled from the tomb? What about gravestones? These rocks are reminders of memories along the journey but they are also promises of hope for a future. Plans to prosper and not to harm. The stone rolled from the tomb leads to an awareness of the gaping hole that death brings but its emptiness leads us to hope - hope which does not disappoint. Hope which leads to faith and new life. This stone we carry with us - it rolls with us (a rolling stone) like the stone that Paul says rolled with the Israelites through the desert to provide water at a moments notice. (1 Corinthians 10:3,4)
So I asked Greta what she was going to do with her stone memories. She smiled. "I'm going to keep the best ones and throw the rest in the river." With that she picked up her rocks, put them back in her pockets and made her way to the stream where one by one, with great relish, she plinked and plunked the rocks in different parts of the fast flowing stream. With each toss she recounted what she was doing when she found the rock, but at the same time, without even knowing it, she was making room for more 'stone memories' in her pockets.
That was a good object lesson for me. There are so many 'memory stones' that I hold onto that limit my ability to move on. I become weighed down by the oppressive memories of the journey that sometimes I forget to cast them into the river, to let them roll on their merry way so that I can fill my own life journey with the things that God has planned for me/us/we/the world.
What memory stones will you keep and which ones will you cast into the river? Where will you go to gather stones and where will you toss them.
Ecclesiastes 5:5a a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together.
A few years ago, my family on a vacation. We decided that between my internship year and my last year of seminary that we would see as much of the North America as humanly possible. So, in a six week journey, we put seven thousand miles on the car (and the pop-up camper). Traveling from Iowa across to the West Coast, we visited incredible sites like Custer State Park, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, Yosemite, Redwoods. We trekked up the coast through Oregon and Washington and finished by traveling from the Canadian Rockies to Lake Superior. All in all, it was an experience that we can't ever replicate not just because of the length of time (or length of journey for that fact) but because life is never the same. The girls were six, four and three and deep into experiencing the world one rock at a time.
Instead of being awed by the magnificent canyons or massive trees, the girls were always on the lookout for things that they could climb whether park benches, trees or rock piles. As Christine and I 'oohed' and 'aahed' over the magnificence of the created world, Elsa, Josephine and Greta had their eyes glued to the horizon for the next rock pile. So, every few hours we would have to stop and stretch while the girls fulfilled their inner spirit of mountaineering.
As I watched the girls do this, though, what I began to notice was that after each moment of rock climbing, Greta was picking up a rock and putting it in her pocket. We watched the pockets of her jeanshorts bulge like the cheeks of a chipmunk carrying seeds. By the end of the day she probably weighed and extra five pounds.
"What are you carrying in your pockets, Greta?"
"Nothing." Three-year-old logic is quite different than adult logic. Well, maybe not.
"It looks like you've got something in your pockets."
It's funny; she actually had to look at her pockets to see if something was in them.
"I wanted to take rocks."
"Can I see them," I asked.
You could see the light in her eyes. She wanted to share those things that she had picked up along the way. Pulling out handful after handful of pebbles, stones, pieces of rock not much bigger than a sand particle. Her little hands were like shovels digging into the earth; some of the rocks tumbled to the ground but she kept her eyes on them making sure not to lose any of them.
To my untrained eye all of the rocks looked basically the same. Smoothed by erosion and time, these gray stones, some of them with a white stripe or a distinctive crevice, looked basically identical.
"Greta," I said poking my way through the mound, "Why are you carrying all of these rocks around. They look all look the same."
Greta moved in between myself and the pile assuming I was about ready sweep them from the table. Protecting them like a mother lioness she looked up at me and said, "Daddy, you're so silly. These are my memories from my walk today." Then, for an agonizing fifteen minutes, Greta recounted every climbing episode that she'd encountered. One rock that was next to the picnic table. Another one from the place where we saw a bear in the distance. She pointed to a smooth rock that she actually tripped over. All of them were a reminder of what she had just experienced. She had gathered up the rocks to remind her of where she had been.
I have written about this in the past, but the same thing happened with the Israelites crossing the Jordan River. God tells Joshua that the priests must gather rocks with them and pile them up on the shore as a visible reminder of where they had just been. The rocks symbolized the difficulties of the journey but also the hope of the future. They piled the rocks on shore and in the middle of the Jordan River. In the midst of where the water just was they piled another set of rocks to remind themselves that God had spared them from death.
What about the stone rolled from the tomb? What about gravestones? These rocks are reminders of memories along the journey but they are also promises of hope for a future. Plans to prosper and not to harm. The stone rolled from the tomb leads to an awareness of the gaping hole that death brings but its emptiness leads us to hope - hope which does not disappoint. Hope which leads to faith and new life. This stone we carry with us - it rolls with us (a rolling stone) like the stone that Paul says rolled with the Israelites through the desert to provide water at a moments notice. (1 Corinthians 10:3,4)
So I asked Greta what she was going to do with her stone memories. She smiled. "I'm going to keep the best ones and throw the rest in the river." With that she picked up her rocks, put them back in her pockets and made her way to the stream where one by one, with great relish, she plinked and plunked the rocks in different parts of the fast flowing stream. With each toss she recounted what she was doing when she found the rock, but at the same time, without even knowing it, she was making room for more 'stone memories' in her pockets.
That was a good object lesson for me. There are so many 'memory stones' that I hold onto that limit my ability to move on. I become weighed down by the oppressive memories of the journey that sometimes I forget to cast them into the river, to let them roll on their merry way so that I can fill my own life journey with the things that God has planned for me/us/we/the world.
What memory stones will you keep and which ones will you cast into the river? Where will you go to gather stones and where will you toss them.
Ecclesiastes 5:5a a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Laughter and Tears
Don Pederson writes in his book Mental Laxatives for a Constipated Mind,
"Most of us do not take laughter seriously enough. Too often, laughter is regarded as child's play. To be an adult is to be hardworking, responsible and serious. We need to revive our natural sense of humor."
Humor is not laughter, but laughter is our response to humor (or nervous or embarrassing situations). Sometimes laughter is not even intended - it just slips out - when someone falls and gets hurt - or at funerals, some people - although they don't find the situation humorous, laugh because their brain doesn't know what else to do. Scientists assume that laughter is an inherited response from our farthest back ancestors; they laughed when danger passed. When the sabertooth tiger missed them, yup - they started to chortle - that is, until the pterodactyl picked them up and took them away to the nest for supper.
Laughter is also a bonding experience. When one laughs and shares in the joke, the others are invited into the company of mirth. Usually, scientists say, the boss is the one who shares the most humor because when the boss laughs, it's going to be a good day. I'll have to keep an eye on that one.
The study of laughter is called gelotology. The ironic part of gelotology is that scientists have found that they can't actually study laughter. When it is forced, it doesn't happen. When they hooked people up to instruments, laughter ceases.
Physiologically, the front part of the brain decides what is funny. When humor reaches the brain, the immediate response is a forcing of pressure from the lungs back up the throat. The ha-ha-ha (or in Santa's case - ho-ho-ho) is the epiglottis closing over the opening of the trachea. When we laugh really hard, this causes us to gasp, some of us begin to cry - not because we are sad, but our body tells us we are suffocating. Even though we are happy and laughing, we cry because it feels as if we are dying.
Tears are a symbol of death. "Jesus wept" - the shortest verse in the Bible and perhaps one of the most poignant. That Jesus wept is a sign that he could feel the ultimate suffocation that the fear of death has on us. When we mourn, it is often a response to the death of something. We cry because someone has died, a dream has died, a relationship has ended. Our tears symbolize and reflect the suffocation that life sometimes has on us. We can't help but crying.
Laughter and mourning are different locales in the same mountain range. Most often, the Bible expresses mourning with visuals of sackcloth and ashes, tearing of clothes, shouting and wailing to the God of the heavens. In Biblical times, often the family of the deceased would hire professional mourners, those who did a good job of crying. Those who cry have an excellent sense of self. Some of us feel like professional mourners sometimes: we mourn people, events, oceans filled with oil, cities and villages imploding because of earthquakes - it seems as if the world will never be free of reasons to mourn.
But God promises us that a day will come when mourning is God - a morning of non-mourning. Revelation 21: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more... And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes; Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.
No more mourning, crying and pain, but as of right now, there is a time for it: and it is healthy. We need time to mourn, to cry, we need time to dance and laugh. That is life.
That IS life.
"Most of us do not take laughter seriously enough. Too often, laughter is regarded as child's play. To be an adult is to be hardworking, responsible and serious. We need to revive our natural sense of humor."
Humor is not laughter, but laughter is our response to humor (or nervous or embarrassing situations). Sometimes laughter is not even intended - it just slips out - when someone falls and gets hurt - or at funerals, some people - although they don't find the situation humorous, laugh because their brain doesn't know what else to do. Scientists assume that laughter is an inherited response from our farthest back ancestors; they laughed when danger passed. When the sabertooth tiger missed them, yup - they started to chortle - that is, until the pterodactyl picked them up and took them away to the nest for supper.
Laughter is also a bonding experience. When one laughs and shares in the joke, the others are invited into the company of mirth. Usually, scientists say, the boss is the one who shares the most humor because when the boss laughs, it's going to be a good day. I'll have to keep an eye on that one.
The study of laughter is called gelotology. The ironic part of gelotology is that scientists have found that they can't actually study laughter. When it is forced, it doesn't happen. When they hooked people up to instruments, laughter ceases.
Physiologically, the front part of the brain decides what is funny. When humor reaches the brain, the immediate response is a forcing of pressure from the lungs back up the throat. The ha-ha-ha (or in Santa's case - ho-ho-ho) is the epiglottis closing over the opening of the trachea. When we laugh really hard, this causes us to gasp, some of us begin to cry - not because we are sad, but our body tells us we are suffocating. Even though we are happy and laughing, we cry because it feels as if we are dying.
Tears are a symbol of death. "Jesus wept" - the shortest verse in the Bible and perhaps one of the most poignant. That Jesus wept is a sign that he could feel the ultimate suffocation that the fear of death has on us. When we mourn, it is often a response to the death of something. We cry because someone has died, a dream has died, a relationship has ended. Our tears symbolize and reflect the suffocation that life sometimes has on us. We can't help but crying.
Laughter and mourning are different locales in the same mountain range. Most often, the Bible expresses mourning with visuals of sackcloth and ashes, tearing of clothes, shouting and wailing to the God of the heavens. In Biblical times, often the family of the deceased would hire professional mourners, those who did a good job of crying. Those who cry have an excellent sense of self. Some of us feel like professional mourners sometimes: we mourn people, events, oceans filled with oil, cities and villages imploding because of earthquakes - it seems as if the world will never be free of reasons to mourn.
But God promises us that a day will come when mourning is God - a morning of non-mourning. Revelation 21: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more... And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes; Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.
No more mourning, crying and pain, but as of right now, there is a time for it: and it is healthy. We need time to mourn, to cry, we need time to dance and laugh. That is life.
That IS life.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Weeping - Laughing
A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.
It's sounds as if Solomon is painting the picture of opposites. Interestingly enough, weeping is made synonymous with mourning, and laughing similar to dancing. Mourning and dancing are the actions and weeping and laughter are responses to the actions. So:
Mourning necessitates weeping and laughter follows dancing.
I can definitely find myself in the latter. Every time I dance, pretty much the assembly begins to laugh. The use of the body to copy the rhythms in music is at the very core of how the world works. Have you ever noticed someone who is walking while listening to music through headphones? By nature, the body - even those who are rhythmically challenged - will gravitate to the beat of music. And once in tune with the music, we become one with the song and its meaning. I believe this is why people clap to keep the beat during a song or even move their feet. It's rare, I know, in Lutheran circles in the United States, for people to consciously become part of the music, but in certain places in the world, if you don't dance, you aren't really worshiping.
I have some really good friends who are Tanzanian. As part of the New Life Band, they witness through music and message to tens of thousands of youth and adults every year. Every three years or so, the band travels across the Atlantic Ocean to be missionaries to the United States and to gather funds for their ministries in Tanzania. They told me the story of their first experience with Christian worship in the United States. These are the things that struck them as totally outside their realm of experience in Tanzania:
1. Worship is one hour long. If it goes any longer than that, people start to look at the watches; they start to fidget. If they haven't gotten their God-fix by the time communion is over, they start heading for the doors. American worship services have tried to squeeze the amount of praise for God into one hour (sometimes less) and then move on to the really important things of the day like soccer practice, mowing the lawn, watching football, whatever kind of entertainment or work that might captivate a sabbath afternoon. In the last one hundred years, western society has lost all understanding of Sabbath. We no longer have a day of rest, to thank God for the peace of a day apart from work. We have an hour - an hour that many would say is simply 'putting in their time.' The Tanzanians were amazed by the lack of rest and reflection on God's abundant goodness to humans.
2. People don't dance. All the songs during a Tanzanian worship regard dancing as essential as much as the piano or guitar. To really understand the song, one must be one with the rhythm and the melody. They move back and forth. It seems coordinated, but it is more that they are completely in tune with their bodies and their congregation. God gave us bodies to praise. The New Life Band found American worship services so sterile that worship seemed almost a necessary evil rather than an expression of praise.
3. There is so little interaction between those that have come. Most churches have aisles, but they might as be walls. Most churches have permanent indents in the pews or chairs from the current residents who have been sitting in the same space for the last thirty years. We are creatures of habit and what the band noticed was that apart from the sharing of the peace (which lasted thirty seconds) there was no interaction at all between congregation members. I think we, as Christians, have lost the sense that we are a living body: what one person does affects all the others. Sharing the peace in Tanzania may take twenty minutes; they actually share the peace - find out how family members are doing - taking an interest in the lives of the people around you.
All in all, they (and I think I am included) would love to see a different type of worship that frees us from the starched repetitions that we have always done. Whether traditional or contemporary worship, a dose of dancing (which leads to laughter) might be just what the worship doctor ordered. I'm not saying that I'm all that comfortable with dancing, but that's because I don't often allow myself to be part of the Spiritual music of a congregation.
Dancing leads to laughter, and laughter leads to health.
That's where I will continue next week, I think.
It's sounds as if Solomon is painting the picture of opposites. Interestingly enough, weeping is made synonymous with mourning, and laughing similar to dancing. Mourning and dancing are the actions and weeping and laughter are responses to the actions. So:
Mourning necessitates weeping and laughter follows dancing.
I can definitely find myself in the latter. Every time I dance, pretty much the assembly begins to laugh. The use of the body to copy the rhythms in music is at the very core of how the world works. Have you ever noticed someone who is walking while listening to music through headphones? By nature, the body - even those who are rhythmically challenged - will gravitate to the beat of music. And once in tune with the music, we become one with the song and its meaning. I believe this is why people clap to keep the beat during a song or even move their feet. It's rare, I know, in Lutheran circles in the United States, for people to consciously become part of the music, but in certain places in the world, if you don't dance, you aren't really worshiping.
I have some really good friends who are Tanzanian. As part of the New Life Band, they witness through music and message to tens of thousands of youth and adults every year. Every three years or so, the band travels across the Atlantic Ocean to be missionaries to the United States and to gather funds for their ministries in Tanzania. They told me the story of their first experience with Christian worship in the United States. These are the things that struck them as totally outside their realm of experience in Tanzania:
1. Worship is one hour long. If it goes any longer than that, people start to look at the watches; they start to fidget. If they haven't gotten their God-fix by the time communion is over, they start heading for the doors. American worship services have tried to squeeze the amount of praise for God into one hour (sometimes less) and then move on to the really important things of the day like soccer practice, mowing the lawn, watching football, whatever kind of entertainment or work that might captivate a sabbath afternoon. In the last one hundred years, western society has lost all understanding of Sabbath. We no longer have a day of rest, to thank God for the peace of a day apart from work. We have an hour - an hour that many would say is simply 'putting in their time.' The Tanzanians were amazed by the lack of rest and reflection on God's abundant goodness to humans.
2. People don't dance. All the songs during a Tanzanian worship regard dancing as essential as much as the piano or guitar. To really understand the song, one must be one with the rhythm and the melody. They move back and forth. It seems coordinated, but it is more that they are completely in tune with their bodies and their congregation. God gave us bodies to praise. The New Life Band found American worship services so sterile that worship seemed almost a necessary evil rather than an expression of praise.
3. There is so little interaction between those that have come. Most churches have aisles, but they might as be walls. Most churches have permanent indents in the pews or chairs from the current residents who have been sitting in the same space for the last thirty years. We are creatures of habit and what the band noticed was that apart from the sharing of the peace (which lasted thirty seconds) there was no interaction at all between congregation members. I think we, as Christians, have lost the sense that we are a living body: what one person does affects all the others. Sharing the peace in Tanzania may take twenty minutes; they actually share the peace - find out how family members are doing - taking an interest in the lives of the people around you.
All in all, they (and I think I am included) would love to see a different type of worship that frees us from the starched repetitions that we have always done. Whether traditional or contemporary worship, a dose of dancing (which leads to laughter) might be just what the worship doctor ordered. I'm not saying that I'm all that comfortable with dancing, but that's because I don't often allow myself to be part of the Spiritual music of a congregation.
Dancing leads to laughter, and laughter leads to health.
That's where I will continue next week, I think.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Summertime
The dam is barely holding.
You can see it behind their eyes, the excitement building somewhere in the growing brains - brains that for nine months have soaked in information, videos, gossip, rules about what is cool and not (I don't even know if 'cool' is a 'cool' word anymore). These cerebral cortexes not only look like sponges but they act like sponges - they soak up anything in the near vicinity, whether good or bad.
Sponges are some of the coolest things on the planet. They are considered animals even though, to me, they look more like plants. Sponges, although animals, do not have a circulatory system, a nervous system, or a digestive system. In other words, they don't think, they don't feel and they don't really eat - they basically take up space, waving back and forth in their territory waiting for some kind of food they can envelope. Our neighbors' dog is really a land sponge. It does not behave as if it has a brain; if it moves at all, it is so slow that the squirrels stop in front of its face and have a good chat knowing that Harvey couldn't catch them if he tried; the dog has also lost the hunting instinct - Harvey's idea of the thrill of the chase is to blow a fly off the bowl of yummy dog food placed directly in front of its muzzle so that he only has to lift his head to lick out the crunchy tidbits before it goes back to his non-stop rest. This dog makes a koala bear seem like a whirling dervish (a koala averages 20 hours of sleep per day).
Sponges, as I was to learn, can survive at the very depths of the oceans; some of them have been found 8,800 meters under the surface of the ocean. For those of you who live in non-metric countries, that's five and a half miles from anyplace where the sun shines. Imagine the pressure at five-miles down. Imagine living in a place where darkness is swallowed - swallowed like a doggy treat.
I don't really know how I got off on this tangent; I think it was that I was thinking about how children's brains are like sponges - yes, that's it - like sponges. Ocean sponges (there are a few fresh water ones also) don't really soak up water. The water simply passes through it where the cells of the sponge gather food and oxygen from the water. Children's brains sit in the steadily flowing informational flow of school picking out bits of things from the instruction that feed them - help them grow.
But now, the brains of the children feel full. Nah, not really. Their glassy-eyed expression is from staring out the windows of the school at the absolutely gorgeous weather. Like moths to a lightbult, the children's face float towards the sun shining through the dust-streaked glass. Their very apparent sense of freedom is only a week away.
As my children come home from school, their homework is dropped in a screaming heap by the back door and the dam bursts; they are like screaming eagles streaking out the back door to play in the back yard. Sometimes I watch them from inside the house, through my own dust streaked window, remembering how summer (and summer school vacation) is truly what makes life go round.
I have often wondered how summer got its name. From what I gather from the incredible world of the web, the word 'summer' may come from the Norse god 'Sumarr' who is the god of summer. I would guess that Sumarr was a really short god. In case your not following, Norway has a really short summer.
It's been too long since I've blogged.
Almost every good thing happens in summer. The heat returns from its vacation to the south - the sun is a snowbird, I think. The rains come to the deserts; the cows start calving; the crops grow; the Monarch Butterflies begin their return from Mexico. Road construction continues in earnest.
Okay, it's not the greatest thing, but that's what happens when you live in a northern latitude - ice and snow eat roads for breakfast.
So, I watch my girls through the dusty window remembering the times when I was little, the last day of school had come. Ripping off what was left of my paper bookcovers, I turned them in with great pleasure. I no longer needed science text books, math workbooks and English quizzes. Now, I could simply learn from nature. Summertime is the time when nature teaches us more than classrooms probably ever can. Nature teaches us how to care for creation. Nature teaches us how to survive. Nature teaches us how to breathe in fresh air and exhale all of the conditioned air that comes with indoor living.
But too often now, we have taken the shape of the living room sofa. We continually express in our brains that 'I should go outside for a walk or a run' but the sofa seems to have a seatbelt that keeps us in place helping us to believe that tomorrow is really the best day to let our brains go for a walk in the great outdoor.
This summer, I'm not just going to watch the girls smile through the window or see them run quickly through sprinkler water. I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to reinvent myself as a child of the summer where my brain soaks in the sun preparing it with rest for any future possibilities. Summer is a time of play and rest.
Play and rest this summer.
You can see it behind their eyes, the excitement building somewhere in the growing brains - brains that for nine months have soaked in information, videos, gossip, rules about what is cool and not (I don't even know if 'cool' is a 'cool' word anymore). These cerebral cortexes not only look like sponges but they act like sponges - they soak up anything in the near vicinity, whether good or bad.
Sponges are some of the coolest things on the planet. They are considered animals even though, to me, they look more like plants. Sponges, although animals, do not have a circulatory system, a nervous system, or a digestive system. In other words, they don't think, they don't feel and they don't really eat - they basically take up space, waving back and forth in their territory waiting for some kind of food they can envelope. Our neighbors' dog is really a land sponge. It does not behave as if it has a brain; if it moves at all, it is so slow that the squirrels stop in front of its face and have a good chat knowing that Harvey couldn't catch them if he tried; the dog has also lost the hunting instinct - Harvey's idea of the thrill of the chase is to blow a fly off the bowl of yummy dog food placed directly in front of its muzzle so that he only has to lift his head to lick out the crunchy tidbits before it goes back to his non-stop rest. This dog makes a koala bear seem like a whirling dervish (a koala averages 20 hours of sleep per day).
Sponges, as I was to learn, can survive at the very depths of the oceans; some of them have been found 8,800 meters under the surface of the ocean. For those of you who live in non-metric countries, that's five and a half miles from anyplace where the sun shines. Imagine the pressure at five-miles down. Imagine living in a place where darkness is swallowed - swallowed like a doggy treat.
I don't really know how I got off on this tangent; I think it was that I was thinking about how children's brains are like sponges - yes, that's it - like sponges. Ocean sponges (there are a few fresh water ones also) don't really soak up water. The water simply passes through it where the cells of the sponge gather food and oxygen from the water. Children's brains sit in the steadily flowing informational flow of school picking out bits of things from the instruction that feed them - help them grow.
But now, the brains of the children feel full. Nah, not really. Their glassy-eyed expression is from staring out the windows of the school at the absolutely gorgeous weather. Like moths to a lightbult, the children's face float towards the sun shining through the dust-streaked glass. Their very apparent sense of freedom is only a week away.
As my children come home from school, their homework is dropped in a screaming heap by the back door and the dam bursts; they are like screaming eagles streaking out the back door to play in the back yard. Sometimes I watch them from inside the house, through my own dust streaked window, remembering how summer (and summer school vacation) is truly what makes life go round.
I have often wondered how summer got its name. From what I gather from the incredible world of the web, the word 'summer' may come from the Norse god 'Sumarr' who is the god of summer. I would guess that Sumarr was a really short god. In case your not following, Norway has a really short summer.
It's been too long since I've blogged.
Almost every good thing happens in summer. The heat returns from its vacation to the south - the sun is a snowbird, I think. The rains come to the deserts; the cows start calving; the crops grow; the Monarch Butterflies begin their return from Mexico. Road construction continues in earnest.
Okay, it's not the greatest thing, but that's what happens when you live in a northern latitude - ice and snow eat roads for breakfast.
So, I watch my girls through the dusty window remembering the times when I was little, the last day of school had come. Ripping off what was left of my paper bookcovers, I turned them in with great pleasure. I no longer needed science text books, math workbooks and English quizzes. Now, I could simply learn from nature. Summertime is the time when nature teaches us more than classrooms probably ever can. Nature teaches us how to care for creation. Nature teaches us how to survive. Nature teaches us how to breathe in fresh air and exhale all of the conditioned air that comes with indoor living.
But too often now, we have taken the shape of the living room sofa. We continually express in our brains that 'I should go outside for a walk or a run' but the sofa seems to have a seatbelt that keeps us in place helping us to believe that tomorrow is really the best day to let our brains go for a walk in the great outdoor.
This summer, I'm not just going to watch the girls smile through the window or see them run quickly through sprinkler water. I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to reinvent myself as a child of the summer where my brain soaks in the sun preparing it with rest for any future possibilities. Summer is a time of play and rest.
Play and rest this summer.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Duality
There are two sides to every story.
For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.
There is a time to kill and a time heal.
This verse, I knew, was going to be the hardest to write about because that phrase 'to kill' is such touchy one. In my Jewish study Bible, it's even worse "to slay" which brings about all sorts of systematic visions of movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, and Hot Shots: Part Deux. Our current culture has the most distinctive dualistic relationship with death and violence. On one hand, we do everything by every means to avoid death and dying, but on the other hand, we are fixated on death to the point where we consciously or unconsciously slow down for car accidents, rewatch injuries during athletic contests or even subject ourselves to the vilest forms of 'entertainment.'
What is it about death that makes us feel squeamish and fascinated at the same time?
A few years ago I attended a Halloween party that was bacchanalic in its embracing of gore and violence. I was shocked by how much Halloween had changed from a "boo! - Oh, that's a good one" kind of funny, to explicitly portrayed violence through the haunted house which featured decapitated corpses staggering from a casket, to pools of fake blood running across the cement floor. It doesn't seem that long ago when Friday the 13th was the scariest movie of all time, but kids don't even notice a movie like that any more. There's no realism. There was no realism until a series came out in the mid 1990's - black listed of course - called the Faces of Death which were live video footage of people dying.
Now, we don't even have it blacklisted: it's on our own news services, whether religiously inspired beheadings, suicide bombers driving planes into buildings or car accidents happening too fast for the mind to comprehend. America has become immune to violence and it is a sad, depressing thing. Many of the kids I have asked "Why do you watch this stuff?" respond - "If it's happening to someone else, I can be thankful it's not happening to me."
So, our world is inundated with death and the fear of death and we sink further and further into the presumed safety of our own little worlds, inside our texting devices, in front of our television screens, typing furiously before the computer monitors hoping and praying that the angel of death is, like a moth to a street lamp, more attracted to the light of the outside world . Our relationships suffer; we become a society ruled by fear of the other. Remember what it was like to shake hands with everyone without the thought of 'swineflu' running through our brains. Our fear of death is killing community life one village at a time.
There is a time to kill but I believe it's not killing of another person; that, to me, makes no sense, but the killing of our ego - the killing of our pride, the death of our fear; phobicide. What would happen to this world, to our nation, to our village, to our families and selves if we moved past the fear of death to open the door of abundant life which is in community with other people. What if we murdered our television sets and took steps outside the front door for hours at a time. What if we wrote letters again, called people on the phone just to hear the sound of their voice? What if we began to heal our society from the inside out learning to forget the fear and find ourselves in the middle of a family of humanity? What if?
The dualistic nature of Ecclesiastes 3 is no more apparent than in verse three. "A time to kill, and a time to heal; (an alternative translation from Hebrew is: A time for wrecking and a time for repairing). A time to break down and a time to build up.
"Breaking down" can mean a multitude of things.
1. To cut something up into manageable pieces. "Can you break that down for me?"
2. Something most football players despise. During my football years, the coach would blow his whistle where we would then run in place as fast as we could until he blew the whistle again and yell "Break down!" which would see us then fall to the ground as fast as we could then rising attempting to not be the last one to stand again.
3. To extemporize rap-style. i.e. In the immortal words of M.C. Hammer "Break it down, now."
4. To flatten card board boxes. When I worked at Radio Shack, this was the main focus of my job. I always wanted to be a great salesperson. I would study the specs for all of the electronic gadgets - the robotic toys, the CD players, all sorts of needless necessities that kids crave - and then every time someone would come in to buy a computer or any other high end product, the store manager would approach the customer, relieve me of my prospective commission and relegate me out the backdoor to break down cardboard boxes. I grew so frustrated with him that I pretended the boxes were him and I punched them time and time again. He only caught me once. It was especially embarrassing because I had drawn a picture of him on the cardboard box and talking to the box while punching it saying things like, "Oh, you think that's funny, stealing my fifty dollar commission? How funny is this? Do you like that? How about a double kick to your face?"
There's a time to kill cardboard boxes, I guess.
But the breaking down that Ecclesiastes calls for, I believe, is the breaking down of walls of pride. And oh, the walls that we build are hard. The only thing that seems to have any sort of success against our walls is a word of forgiveness. I, for one, would rather have the wall than speak of forgiveness sometimes.
Sometimes our sinful self would rather kill a relationship than to work through the difficult times of confession and forgiveness. Mark Steele has an interesting view on how human nature works. From his book Half Life/Die Already
For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.
There is a time to kill and a time heal.
This verse, I knew, was going to be the hardest to write about because that phrase 'to kill' is such touchy one. In my Jewish study Bible, it's even worse "to slay" which brings about all sorts of systematic visions of movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, and Hot Shots: Part Deux. Our current culture has the most distinctive dualistic relationship with death and violence. On one hand, we do everything by every means to avoid death and dying, but on the other hand, we are fixated on death to the point where we consciously or unconsciously slow down for car accidents, rewatch injuries during athletic contests or even subject ourselves to the vilest forms of 'entertainment.'
What is it about death that makes us feel squeamish and fascinated at the same time?
A few years ago I attended a Halloween party that was bacchanalic in its embracing of gore and violence. I was shocked by how much Halloween had changed from a "boo! - Oh, that's a good one" kind of funny, to explicitly portrayed violence through the haunted house which featured decapitated corpses staggering from a casket, to pools of fake blood running across the cement floor. It doesn't seem that long ago when Friday the 13th was the scariest movie of all time, but kids don't even notice a movie like that any more. There's no realism. There was no realism until a series came out in the mid 1990's - black listed of course - called the Faces of Death which were live video footage of people dying.
Now, we don't even have it blacklisted: it's on our own news services, whether religiously inspired beheadings, suicide bombers driving planes into buildings or car accidents happening too fast for the mind to comprehend. America has become immune to violence and it is a sad, depressing thing. Many of the kids I have asked "Why do you watch this stuff?" respond - "If it's happening to someone else, I can be thankful it's not happening to me."
So, our world is inundated with death and the fear of death and we sink further and further into the presumed safety of our own little worlds, inside our texting devices, in front of our television screens, typing furiously before the computer monitors hoping and praying that the angel of death is, like a moth to a street lamp, more attracted to the light of the outside world . Our relationships suffer; we become a society ruled by fear of the other. Remember what it was like to shake hands with everyone without the thought of 'swineflu' running through our brains. Our fear of death is killing community life one village at a time.
There is a time to kill but I believe it's not killing of another person; that, to me, makes no sense, but the killing of our ego - the killing of our pride, the death of our fear; phobicide. What would happen to this world, to our nation, to our village, to our families and selves if we moved past the fear of death to open the door of abundant life which is in community with other people. What if we murdered our television sets and took steps outside the front door for hours at a time. What if we wrote letters again, called people on the phone just to hear the sound of their voice? What if we began to heal our society from the inside out learning to forget the fear and find ourselves in the middle of a family of humanity? What if?
The dualistic nature of Ecclesiastes 3 is no more apparent than in verse three. "A time to kill, and a time to heal; (an alternative translation from Hebrew is: A time for wrecking and a time for repairing). A time to break down and a time to build up.
"Breaking down" can mean a multitude of things.
1. To cut something up into manageable pieces. "Can you break that down for me?"
2. Something most football players despise. During my football years, the coach would blow his whistle where we would then run in place as fast as we could until he blew the whistle again and yell "Break down!" which would see us then fall to the ground as fast as we could then rising attempting to not be the last one to stand again.
3. To extemporize rap-style. i.e. In the immortal words of M.C. Hammer "Break it down, now."
4. To flatten card board boxes. When I worked at Radio Shack, this was the main focus of my job. I always wanted to be a great salesperson. I would study the specs for all of the electronic gadgets - the robotic toys, the CD players, all sorts of needless necessities that kids crave - and then every time someone would come in to buy a computer or any other high end product, the store manager would approach the customer, relieve me of my prospective commission and relegate me out the backdoor to break down cardboard boxes. I grew so frustrated with him that I pretended the boxes were him and I punched them time and time again. He only caught me once. It was especially embarrassing because I had drawn a picture of him on the cardboard box and talking to the box while punching it saying things like, "Oh, you think that's funny, stealing my fifty dollar commission? How funny is this? Do you like that? How about a double kick to your face?"
There's a time to kill cardboard boxes, I guess.
But the breaking down that Ecclesiastes calls for, I believe, is the breaking down of walls of pride. And oh, the walls that we build are hard. The only thing that seems to have any sort of success against our walls is a word of forgiveness. I, for one, would rather have the wall than speak of forgiveness sometimes.
Sometimes our sinful self would rather kill a relationship than to work through the difficult times of confession and forgiveness. Mark Steele has an interesting view on how human nature works. From his book Half Life/Die Already
There have been too many important decisions to count in my life -
but six are instrumental to this story.
The first of which was the transition from offended to teachable. My assumption had been that this would be an evolution - something that would grow in me over time without much effort on my part. This was, of course, ridiculous, because offended is easy and teachable is a state of being about as attainable as invisibility. I had assumed I was teachable because I was sometimes teachable, but of course, this also meant that I was at other times offended. This is not a decision. This is a state of stuck. I had always hoped that in every instance where I experienced tension between these two states oppositions would eventually merge into one reality.
No Dice.
It became evident that change would not come until I began deep introspection in every aspect of my life. The first aspect: When things did not go my way, how did I respond to disappointment? More often than not, by holding on to the offense. So funny. I have hurt so many people in so many different ways and, because I understood what I intended, I think the wounded should leap over tall buildings to forgive me. But when the hurt is done to me, I think the wounder should pay. I don't actually say this, because that would be un-Christian. I instead imagine lengthy conversations that are awkward for them and rewarding for me and when I am finished with the imagination, I have less hair and a pit of acid in my stomach. In certain seasons, I have carried unforgiveness, and it has tangled and soured in my stomach like spilled milk in a shag rug. Many ask me: Why do people keep hurting me? But I think this is the wrong question. Maybe when wounded, we should ask,
What am I refusing to learn?
In other words, why am I refusing to learn to forgive. I think at the heart of healing or building up is forgiveness. We heal others by giving the gift of forgiveness which truly is the gift of life. If my spouse has erred in some small way, I could hold that transgression against her thereby giving me a sense (albeit false) of power over her, but at that point, our married existence is being strangled, losing air, losing life - it is being killed. But forgiveness opens the airways, it allows new life to begin. It allows us to take the fear out of marriage and gives us renewed zeal to begin again.
A time to kill - I'm being a bit terse but - try and kill our love affairs with electronics. Turn off the tube - talk to the family; share life with the neighbors.
A time to heal - Speak, write - lay down the cell phone.
A time to break down - unforgiveness; it is extraordinarily easy to retain forgiveness, to hold the power of life or death over a relationship
A time to build up. Experience new life in within the bounds of forgiveness.
Have a great week.
Reid
Friday, January 29, 2010
Planting and Plucking
Ecclesiastes 3:2b "... a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted."
Some people are born with green thumbs. Interestingly enough, the history of 'green thumb' presumably dates back to King Edward I of England. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, King Edward I loved peas. He enjoyed fresh green peas so much that he had half a dozen serfs working to keep him supplied, a prize going to the one with the greenest thumb, presumably from hours of shelling.
I have shelled many a pea pod in my day. When the sun would shine mid-summer, my siblings and I would be dressed in play clothes and moved out the door to the half acre garden where all of my parent's plants lived and breathed. These memories seem to have a crusty, golden feeling to them, like an old mirror that has some rust around the edges but the reflection seems almost accurate. Walking toward the garden, late morning, the grasshoppers would have already started their click-clacking, the cabbage moths would be floating between dandelion patches and the mosquitoes would still be shaking off the morning dew.
We kids would be equipped with five quart empty ice-cream buckets or else five gallon water pails to collect the produce of the garden. As we approached the growing vegetables, it would be amazing to think that just 10 weeks before, these enormous plants had sprouted from seeds. Most parents think the same things about their kids when they get older, I think. I've heard so many adults say, "They just grew up so fast." It's easy for grandparents to say that; they aren't in the midst of diaper changing, discipline and sleepless nights when seven-year-olds are coughing every four and a half minutes. Someday in the not too distant future I will probably say the same thing about my girls and then I will have realized, I'm closer to grandparent's age than I am to a new father.
Off topic, sorry.
Planting wasn't so hard. Dad would bring out the old tiller, its rotating claws looking like a machine from a science fiction movie. The motor on that thing would frighten the dickens out of our gun shy dog while the cat, Ozzie, would simply yawn at the goings on. When the tiller started up, it was like a parade; dad driving (or being pulled along) followed by skipping young ones stopping to pick up a rock to attempt mothacide (I never did hit one of the cabbage moths but it was still fun). Tillers aren't fast but they are powerful and as dad finally hit the garden we watched the claws dig up the black dirt bludgeoning the clumps into small clods. We would follow behind picking up juicy worms to fish with. It was a good summer life.
The '80's were a time of small jean shorts and tank tops. Sunscreen was rarely used; nobody cared about sunburn. We spent hours in that garden. My dad and mom would put some seeds in each of our hands and tell us how far to space them. After we got bored, I watched my brother look around near the end of his row and dump most of the seeds in one tiny clump. Impatience is a necessary part of childhood.
For those ten weeks we watched the plants grow. What our hands had put in the ground, our eyes watched come out of the ground. At first they were just plain, small sprigs of green, but soon the leaves began to open and in the instance of peas, the tendrils of vines stretched for the sky seeking to grasp anything which to climb.
Just like kids. It seems like from the minute they are born they are looking for things to climb, things to pull them up whether chairs, hands, steps, light fixtures, garage doors or radio antennae on a large combine. Kids long to be higher, where the adults are, assuming life is much better at a higher altitude. It is most beautiful; they never stop reaching for the next step. Like peas, they reach one rung and keep going for the next all the while growing taller and taller.
During most of the summer, that's what peas do: they climb. Then, when the heat of summer beats down, the peas start to blossom. The fragrant blooms fill up the garden. It seems the whole world is filled with the beauty of the pea plant. Walking down the rows of peas, if you could step close, you could watch the fingers of vines wrap around the chicken wire fence as if holding on for dear life. They don't want to be on the ground - the air is much better up there.
Then, when the blossoms have come and gone, the pods form - first flattened, but then seemingly filled with moisture, they burst outward seeming to stretch the seems of the pod itself. They look like they'll pop like a balloon if you just touch them, but the pod itself is hard. It is weathered and strong as a safe. It can withstand quite a bit of pressure.
And there we were, we kids, in mid-summer pails in hand walking out to the pea plants to pluck from them the pods only to bring them back to the house to shuck them. It was not hard work, but to a child, anything repetitive is dull. We would hurry down the rows picking as fast as we could, missing many, but probably eating many more raw, right from the vine. There aren't many vegetables as delicious as the fresh sweet pea. They are quite a bit like candy, crunching between your teeth, squishing. Even the juice of the pea pod can be chewed and swallowed although swallowing the whole pod is not as enjoyable.
Sooner or later we would return to the kitchen hauling pounds of pea pods. We would spend the afternoon pulling back the tip which would pull the pea string (that's what I called it) to make opening the pea pod that much easier. Then, you would pop one end of the pod and run your thumb down the middle freeing each pea from its nest. By doing this, one's thumb would turn a nice, pea green. Thus, a green thumb.
We spent many a summer with brown skin, dirty-black clothes, and green thumbs. There is something inherently good about working the soil - planting and plucking. The cycle of life replicated every year gives life a complete kind of meaning and feeling. Planting means spring; plucking means summer, plucking up means fall when we would go back into the garden to free the chicken wire from the dried vines of the peas. But that is life; it is a circle.
And it is beautiful.
Mark 4 - if you get a chance, read how Jesus describes planting. Read carefully and find a little extra meaning behind the seed.
Some people are born with green thumbs. Interestingly enough, the history of 'green thumb' presumably dates back to King Edward I of England. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, King Edward I loved peas. He enjoyed fresh green peas so much that he had half a dozen serfs working to keep him supplied, a prize going to the one with the greenest thumb, presumably from hours of shelling.
I have shelled many a pea pod in my day. When the sun would shine mid-summer, my siblings and I would be dressed in play clothes and moved out the door to the half acre garden where all of my parent's plants lived and breathed. These memories seem to have a crusty, golden feeling to them, like an old mirror that has some rust around the edges but the reflection seems almost accurate. Walking toward the garden, late morning, the grasshoppers would have already started their click-clacking, the cabbage moths would be floating between dandelion patches and the mosquitoes would still be shaking off the morning dew.
We kids would be equipped with five quart empty ice-cream buckets or else five gallon water pails to collect the produce of the garden. As we approached the growing vegetables, it would be amazing to think that just 10 weeks before, these enormous plants had sprouted from seeds. Most parents think the same things about their kids when they get older, I think. I've heard so many adults say, "They just grew up so fast." It's easy for grandparents to say that; they aren't in the midst of diaper changing, discipline and sleepless nights when seven-year-olds are coughing every four and a half minutes. Someday in the not too distant future I will probably say the same thing about my girls and then I will have realized, I'm closer to grandparent's age than I am to a new father.
Off topic, sorry.
Planting wasn't so hard. Dad would bring out the old tiller, its rotating claws looking like a machine from a science fiction movie. The motor on that thing would frighten the dickens out of our gun shy dog while the cat, Ozzie, would simply yawn at the goings on. When the tiller started up, it was like a parade; dad driving (or being pulled along) followed by skipping young ones stopping to pick up a rock to attempt mothacide (I never did hit one of the cabbage moths but it was still fun). Tillers aren't fast but they are powerful and as dad finally hit the garden we watched the claws dig up the black dirt bludgeoning the clumps into small clods. We would follow behind picking up juicy worms to fish with. It was a good summer life.
The '80's were a time of small jean shorts and tank tops. Sunscreen was rarely used; nobody cared about sunburn. We spent hours in that garden. My dad and mom would put some seeds in each of our hands and tell us how far to space them. After we got bored, I watched my brother look around near the end of his row and dump most of the seeds in one tiny clump. Impatience is a necessary part of childhood.
For those ten weeks we watched the plants grow. What our hands had put in the ground, our eyes watched come out of the ground. At first they were just plain, small sprigs of green, but soon the leaves began to open and in the instance of peas, the tendrils of vines stretched for the sky seeking to grasp anything which to climb.
Just like kids. It seems like from the minute they are born they are looking for things to climb, things to pull them up whether chairs, hands, steps, light fixtures, garage doors or radio antennae on a large combine. Kids long to be higher, where the adults are, assuming life is much better at a higher altitude. It is most beautiful; they never stop reaching for the next step. Like peas, they reach one rung and keep going for the next all the while growing taller and taller.
During most of the summer, that's what peas do: they climb. Then, when the heat of summer beats down, the peas start to blossom. The fragrant blooms fill up the garden. It seems the whole world is filled with the beauty of the pea plant. Walking down the rows of peas, if you could step close, you could watch the fingers of vines wrap around the chicken wire fence as if holding on for dear life. They don't want to be on the ground - the air is much better up there.
Then, when the blossoms have come and gone, the pods form - first flattened, but then seemingly filled with moisture, they burst outward seeming to stretch the seems of the pod itself. They look like they'll pop like a balloon if you just touch them, but the pod itself is hard. It is weathered and strong as a safe. It can withstand quite a bit of pressure.
And there we were, we kids, in mid-summer pails in hand walking out to the pea plants to pluck from them the pods only to bring them back to the house to shuck them. It was not hard work, but to a child, anything repetitive is dull. We would hurry down the rows picking as fast as we could, missing many, but probably eating many more raw, right from the vine. There aren't many vegetables as delicious as the fresh sweet pea. They are quite a bit like candy, crunching between your teeth, squishing. Even the juice of the pea pod can be chewed and swallowed although swallowing the whole pod is not as enjoyable.
Sooner or later we would return to the kitchen hauling pounds of pea pods. We would spend the afternoon pulling back the tip which would pull the pea string (that's what I called it) to make opening the pea pod that much easier. Then, you would pop one end of the pod and run your thumb down the middle freeing each pea from its nest. By doing this, one's thumb would turn a nice, pea green. Thus, a green thumb.
We spent many a summer with brown skin, dirty-black clothes, and green thumbs. There is something inherently good about working the soil - planting and plucking. The cycle of life replicated every year gives life a complete kind of meaning and feeling. Planting means spring; plucking means summer, plucking up means fall when we would go back into the garden to free the chicken wire from the dried vines of the peas. But that is life; it is a circle.
And it is beautiful.
Mark 4 - if you get a chance, read how Jesus describes planting. Read carefully and find a little extra meaning behind the seed.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Turn, Turn, Turn
Soon I will be 37 years old. For some, that seems like a lifetime ago. There are two gentlemen at church that, when they greet me, call me 'young fella'. For others, like those in my confirmation class, they see me as ancient. Thirty-seven years old seems to put me at the age of Stonehenge. When I try and interact with them using some of their own lingo using words such as 'like' a lot, or throwing in a couple of 'Whassups', I can actually hear there eyes rolling. I might be a little past it, but as Steve Martin says (perhaps denying reality) "I still got it!"
So, I am almost thirty seven. That's how we say it in English. I am my age. My years determine who I am. If I was fifty seven - I should act like a fifty-seven-year-old. If I was thirteen I should act like an early teenager. But in most languages, the phrase for stating age is not 'I am..." but "I have thirty-six years." It seems like a slight difference, but in reality, the attitude difference is huge. If I say "I have thirty-six years" that means I am not defined by the digits, but defined by the ownership of the memories of thirty-six years.
A better way to look at it is, each of the years that I have might have a different theme because of location or outlook on life. For instance, my early twenties were defined by my college experience; my mid-twenties by traveling, my late twenties by early fatherhood. So, in a metaphorical way, each moment of my life is a rock - some are diamonds, some are coal, some are granite - whatever. But, I have them - they are mine and belong to no one else. As I look back at the moments of my life, I can sort the memories by category of rocks - diamonds, the beautiful moments of growing up, the fun moments of college, married life and children. These are the rarest and most beautiful like the gems.
The granite is the most abundant. I don't know the make up of the earth's rocky crust but it seems like there is a lot of granite. Granite is hard and composed of many different minerals - so is the majority of life. Most days are composed of repetitive patterns of behavior of which we sometimes take no notice. But, have you ever studied granite closely? There are rainbows of colors that sometimes our eyes miss. The granite of our lives is what makes us who we are; it shapes who we will be. This rock is the strength of our person.
Lastly, the coal. Of course coal serves a purpose. The coal of our lives, the episodes that we'd like to forget, or burn for that fact, reminds us of who we don't want to be. I don't want to be impatient, mean, envious, boastful, arrogant and rude. I don't want to insist on my own way, be irritable and resentful. Basically, the anti-love from 1 Cor. 13. But the coal, when pressured by heat and weight turns into diamond (after a very long time). We learn from our mistakes and we move to be better.
So, we have these rocks in our lives. These are our years. We aren't the things that we have done - we own them; we have them.
When I probably had seven years of age, I think I remember hearing the song "Turn, Turn, Turn" by the Byrds. Every time I hear this song it brings back some really groovy memories of my childhood - music tends to do that, to bring you back to a time where everything seemed a little more diamond like. The Byrds didn't write the song, actually Pete Seger did, but the Byrds made it popular with their twangy guitars and lilting voices. If you get a chance, YouTube it and listen to it again with fresh ears. Pete Seger may have written the music, but someone much older wrote the words: Solomon, third king of Israel.
Ecclesiastes 3: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die...
In the next few weeks I'd like to go through the list of supposed opposites and dig a little more into the seasons of life. I like how Solomon understood life itself - seasons. I've heard that phrase before that the segments of life are defined by seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Most would think that the seasons are of equal length but I would like to think that they are not. In my opinion, spring is the first 30 years, summer the next 25, autumn the next 20 and winter - whatever happens after that. Each season in nature is characterized by certain events and so is life.
Spring, new birth, new growth, new learning - everything is new. Solomon writes, there is a time to be born and a time to die. When spring rolls around it seems like every living thing is singing "Turn, Turn, Turn". The winter is past, life has come. The world has a new year. It is in the springtime of life when the sun begins to warm the earth. As I write this, those of you who might be reading this in temperate climates, just imagine the re-awakening of the earth from under a thick blanket of snow, like a sleeping giant shaking off the sleep, stretching and yawning, taking a huge breath! In spring we hear the birds beginning their happy songs again, the worms screaming in horror that the birds are back. The fresh wind from the west promising not snow but longer hours of sunshine soon. People seem to walk with a new bounce in their step, more willing to say 'hello' less willing to say goodbye. In this season, there is a time to be born and a time to grow, but spring is also a time to die. In the first years of our life, we learn to die to the things that hold us back. No longer are we completely dependent on our parents for everything. It is a time of utter change, and that can be frightening, just like death.
So, I haven't done a specific Bible study on this blog yet, but perhaps we can do one together. If any of you would like to share some stories of the springtime of your lives, the newness of life, new birth, please e-mail or respond to this post. I won't publish without your consent, but I would love to hear your own stories - your own diamonds, granite (and coal, if you wish). In the next weeks, I think I'm going to try and work through Ecclesiastes 3 so please read through the first 15 verses and give me some thoughts and ideas.
Peace,
Reid
So, I am almost thirty seven. That's how we say it in English. I am my age. My years determine who I am. If I was fifty seven - I should act like a fifty-seven-year-old. If I was thirteen I should act like an early teenager. But in most languages, the phrase for stating age is not 'I am..." but "I have thirty-six years." It seems like a slight difference, but in reality, the attitude difference is huge. If I say "I have thirty-six years" that means I am not defined by the digits, but defined by the ownership of the memories of thirty-six years.
A better way to look at it is, each of the years that I have might have a different theme because of location or outlook on life. For instance, my early twenties were defined by my college experience; my mid-twenties by traveling, my late twenties by early fatherhood. So, in a metaphorical way, each moment of my life is a rock - some are diamonds, some are coal, some are granite - whatever. But, I have them - they are mine and belong to no one else. As I look back at the moments of my life, I can sort the memories by category of rocks - diamonds, the beautiful moments of growing up, the fun moments of college, married life and children. These are the rarest and most beautiful like the gems.
The granite is the most abundant. I don't know the make up of the earth's rocky crust but it seems like there is a lot of granite. Granite is hard and composed of many different minerals - so is the majority of life. Most days are composed of repetitive patterns of behavior of which we sometimes take no notice. But, have you ever studied granite closely? There are rainbows of colors that sometimes our eyes miss. The granite of our lives is what makes us who we are; it shapes who we will be. This rock is the strength of our person.
Lastly, the coal. Of course coal serves a purpose. The coal of our lives, the episodes that we'd like to forget, or burn for that fact, reminds us of who we don't want to be. I don't want to be impatient, mean, envious, boastful, arrogant and rude. I don't want to insist on my own way, be irritable and resentful. Basically, the anti-love from 1 Cor. 13. But the coal, when pressured by heat and weight turns into diamond (after a very long time). We learn from our mistakes and we move to be better.
So, we have these rocks in our lives. These are our years. We aren't the things that we have done - we own them; we have them.
When I probably had seven years of age, I think I remember hearing the song "Turn, Turn, Turn" by the Byrds. Every time I hear this song it brings back some really groovy memories of my childhood - music tends to do that, to bring you back to a time where everything seemed a little more diamond like. The Byrds didn't write the song, actually Pete Seger did, but the Byrds made it popular with their twangy guitars and lilting voices. If you get a chance, YouTube it and listen to it again with fresh ears. Pete Seger may have written the music, but someone much older wrote the words: Solomon, third king of Israel.
Ecclesiastes 3: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die...
In the next few weeks I'd like to go through the list of supposed opposites and dig a little more into the seasons of life. I like how Solomon understood life itself - seasons. I've heard that phrase before that the segments of life are defined by seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Most would think that the seasons are of equal length but I would like to think that they are not. In my opinion, spring is the first 30 years, summer the next 25, autumn the next 20 and winter - whatever happens after that. Each season in nature is characterized by certain events and so is life.
Spring, new birth, new growth, new learning - everything is new. Solomon writes, there is a time to be born and a time to die. When spring rolls around it seems like every living thing is singing "Turn, Turn, Turn". The winter is past, life has come. The world has a new year. It is in the springtime of life when the sun begins to warm the earth. As I write this, those of you who might be reading this in temperate climates, just imagine the re-awakening of the earth from under a thick blanket of snow, like a sleeping giant shaking off the sleep, stretching and yawning, taking a huge breath! In spring we hear the birds beginning their happy songs again, the worms screaming in horror that the birds are back. The fresh wind from the west promising not snow but longer hours of sunshine soon. People seem to walk with a new bounce in their step, more willing to say 'hello' less willing to say goodbye. In this season, there is a time to be born and a time to grow, but spring is also a time to die. In the first years of our life, we learn to die to the things that hold us back. No longer are we completely dependent on our parents for everything. It is a time of utter change, and that can be frightening, just like death.
So, I haven't done a specific Bible study on this blog yet, but perhaps we can do one together. If any of you would like to share some stories of the springtime of your lives, the newness of life, new birth, please e-mail or respond to this post. I won't publish without your consent, but I would love to hear your own stories - your own diamonds, granite (and coal, if you wish). In the next weeks, I think I'm going to try and work through Ecclesiastes 3 so please read through the first 15 verses and give me some thoughts and ideas.
Peace,
Reid
Friday, January 15, 2010
Scarred for Life
I see it almost everyday. Right outside my office window it flies. Rarely do I pay attention to it other than when it is flapping so hard it makes a whipping noise. It is the flag of the United States of America. Like the flags of every other country in the world, it has specific meaning. It is a symbol embedded with symbols. I won't write today about the feelings of patriotism that is, in some, inspired by the stars and stripes; that is not my intent. My intent is to write about something very visible that has a history - a history that I have not really thought about, not until it was blogday, at least.
Disregarding the Grand Union flag of the Continental army (which was never recognized as a flag for the the entirety of the union), there have been 26 different flags that the United States has used as the flying symbol of the country. If asked before my research, I could have picked out two: the 13 colonies flag (the one supposedly seamed by the esteemed Betsy Ross) and the current one consisting of 13 stripes and fifty stars - which symbolically stand for the 13 original colonies of the country and now the fifty states which make up the union. I've never really thought about it that hard but I guess every time a new state was added to the union they would have had to have a new flag. If you want to see a progression of flags from the inception of the country in 1776 until 1959 (our present flag) go to Wikipedia and look it up. Our current flag, like almost all symbols, has a tinge of folklore with how it was adopted as our country's flag.
When Alaska and Hawaii were being considered for statehood in the 1950s, more than 1,500 designs were spontaneously submitted to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Although some of them were 49-star versions, the vast majority were 50-star proposals. At least three, and probably more of these designs were identical to the present design of the 50-star flag. At the time, credit was given by the executive department to the United States Army Institute of Heraldry for the design.
Of these proposals, one created by 17-year old Robert G. Heft in 1958 as a school project has received the most publicity. His mother was a seamstress, but refused to do any of the work for him. He originally received a B- for the project. After discussing the grade with his teacher, it was agreed (somewhat jokingly) that if the flag was accepted by Congress, the grade would be reconsidered. Heft's flag design was chosen and adopted by presidential proclamation after Alaska and before Hawaii was admitted into the union in 1959. He got an A.
In the basement of our house we have multiple flags. Because Christine and I have a large worldview, we try to collect flags from many of the countries that we spend a goodly amount of time in. The Canadian, Danish, German, Tanzanian, American and English flags hang on the west wall of our basement. The Jamaican flag is there too - my brother bought it for me when he and his wife returned from a second honeymoon. We haven't been to Jamaica, but its got green in it - so we put it next to the Tanzanian flag - green makes me happy.
The Australian flag has an interesting history also. I could go through all of the flags but the two prominent ones in my life are, of course, American and Australian. The Flag was established in 1901 when Australia became a federated nation under the 'supervision' of Great Britain. After Federation on 1 January 1901, the new Commonwealth Government held an official competition for a new federal flag in April. The competition attracted over 32,000 entries, including many originally sent to the Review of Reviews. The designs were judged on seven criteria: loyalty to the Empire, Federation, history, heraldry, distinctiveness, utility and cost of manufacture. The majority of designs incorporated the Union Flag and the Southern Cross, but native animals were also popular. Five almost identical entries were chosen as the winning design, and their designers shared the 200 pounds prize money. They were Ivor Evans, a fourteen-year-old schoolboy from Melbourne; Leslie John Hawkins, a teenager apprenticed to an optician from Sydney; Egbert John Nuttall, an architect from Melbourne; Annie Dorrington, an artist from Perth; and William Stevens, a ship's officer from Auckland, New Zealand. The five winners received 40 pounds each.
Incredible, isn't it, the creativity of youth?
The symbolism of the Australian flag: Union Jack - protectorate of England. Seven pointed stars - 6 states and one territory - federation, Southern Cross (five starred constellation seen from all states and territory). For many years, the Australian flag was backgrounded by two colors, either red or blue, until 1954, that is. In that year, the red background was dropped because red was the symbol of communism.
Amazing the how the history of the symbols informs us of what the personality of the country is. The history has shaped how the country views itself.
For me, symbols on flags are like scars on the body. Each scar is a significant moment in the history of a person. And, each scar influences how we respond to stimuli in our environment. Some people are full of scars and will often engage in a game of 'scar wars' with another person to see who has had the most physically traumatic experiences in life.
Some people would say that people with few scars are either a.) incredibly lucky or b.) incredibly dangerous. I would say that people with many scars fall somewhere in the middle of unfortunate and daring. I've got quite a few scars myself; multiple knee surgeries, a head surgery from birth. My brother and I, who are identical twins, have the same scar running down the middle of our heads (we were born without soft spots and needed to have strips of bone removed from each side of the middle of our heads so that we didn't end up looking like twin E.T's when we grew up). I used to tell young children that my brother and I were conjoined when born - right down the middle of the head. The doctor's separated us successfully but left each of us with half a brain. Only conceptually is that true.
Each scar has a story and a memory of trauma. I can remember the instant my knees decided they had had enough torque and blew out. I remember having warts on the tops of my hands and having them frozen during football season. They blistered so badly that I had to wear surgical gloves during football practice so that they wouldn't get infected. It worked until I caught my hand in the face mask of a rushing lineman effectively ripping the glove and all the skin of my knuckles off.
I could go on in detail describing all the scars of my past and perhaps grossing every reader out, but more importantly the scars that I want to talk about are unseen. Whether we like it or not, our hearts are scarred by what others do. As much as we like to say "Sticks and stones may break our bones but words will never hurt me" they do. They hurt bad. We carry the scars of off-hand remarks about our looks, about our personalities and about our ideas. We learn what topics we should stay away from like learning to keeping our hands away from a hot stove. It takes a long time for the scars to heal but one thing remains, the memory of the pain.
There may be moments in your life when you have scarred for life by the actions of another. But what softens our hearts is the universal solvent of faith: Forgiveness. Once we learn to forgive, we free ourselves from the pain of the past. It no longer is a festering wound by a symbolic reminder to be aware of how people can be cruel or mean. And, on the other hand, a symbolic reminder to treat others in the same way that our own soul longs for. When we forgive, the scars of emotional pain can be softened. Forgiveness is less for the other person and more for ourselves. If we don't forgive, we continue to wallow in a sense of resentment. We learn to hate ourselves as much as the other person effectively locking ourselves out of a place of love.
The scar remains - scarred for life; but new life can be born from the pain.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Ascribe
I like to write.
I should say, I like to type. No one really writes any more, except my grandmas. Regularly I still see the beautiful script of aged ladies, diligent words pressed respectfully with a pen to paper. Although, my Grandma Matthias has found the 21st century and is into e-mail and Facebook now. I can always tell it's her even without peeking who it's from because Grandma only types with the caps lock on. When I read her e-mails I have to put aside my thinking that capital letters means lots of emphasis should be put on the words. My grandma Matthias doesn't typically put a lot of stress on a phrase like this: THE SUN WAS SHINING TODAY AND GRANDPA CHOPPED SOME WOOD. HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT DAY. GMA MATTHIAS
Really jumps out and catches the eye, doesn't it. But nobody really writes like that. No one, that I know, hand writes in capital letters. There's so much more subtlety to hand written words. And, people are much more likely to take seriously hand written words than typed words or spoken words.
A pastor friend of mine was telling me a story of how handwritten letters affected the life of one of his parishioners. The woman, who had made some considerably life altering changes, had received letter after letter from her family. My pastor friend, I'll call him Larry, was sitting with the woman one day when she broke down crying. The woman had read the letters daily which boldly proclaimed what a sinner she was, how disappointing she was to the family, she had no part in family dynamics. In effect, the letters were castigating her for choices made, but in essence were letters of fear that somehow they had failed her.
The woman, Anne (not her real name), lived with a constant source of guilt and dread that she was not human being anymore. Larry prayed with the woman and asked her to give him the letters for safe keeping. The words were stones. Like the woman caught in adultery, she was caught in the crossfire of a verbal stoning. Battered and bruised, physically she had escaped with her life, emotionally she was dead.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Yeah, whatever. Especially written words will kill. How many times do we see it in the paper that words have destroyed reputations, ruined relationships and brutalized life. The spoken word is air - breath released; it brings a memory but the written word is permanent and if written by hand, we know that the hand of a person actually pressed on the same page that we are holding. It's personal, very personal.
Many times, though, handwritten letters bring joy and contentment also. I love receiving handwritten Christmas cards. I got one this year - from my Grandma Nacke. I love reading the stories of the lives of people who I know and am endeared to, but often I will skip most of the information if there is a personal, handwritten script on the bottom. That usually means that they had a special message just for us. Yeah, they did a lot during the year - that's great - but LOOK AT THE HANDWRITING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE! THEY STILL REMEMBER US!
Remember not that long ago when almost all letters were still sent through the mail not filed electronically, typed, texted or Facebooked? Christine still keeps all the love letters that I wrote when she was in Australia and I lived by myself in Arizona. Every time she would receive a letter (so she tells me) she would read it three, four, fifty times not only to read it but to see my handwriting - because my handwriting is unique to me.
There are experts who can tell when signatures are forged or simply tell what people are like by their handwriting. (They soon might be out of jobs when everyone in the world forgets how to use a pen) They are called graphologers. For example, graphologers would suggest that these types of script say lots of things about us:
SIZE Small handwriting- research-oriented, good concentration, methodical, not always social Large handwriting- people oriented, outgoing, outspoken, love to entertain and interlock Right in the middle- you like to be with people, but value your own time
SPACING Good deal of space- you need your freedom, to do things in your own time, don’t like to be overwhelmed or crowed. Very little space- it shows a tremendous about of irritability and constant pressure on yourself
HOW LETTERS ARE SHAPED Rounded letters- indicates creativity, artistic abilities (writing, painting, acting, etc.) Pointed letters- shows you are more aggressive, intense, very intelligent, curious Connected letters- you are logical, systematic, make decisions carefully
LOOPING Loopy handwriting- very social individual, huge imagination, sensitive to criticism Not loopy- more isolated, reclusive, within themselves
DOTTING YOUR I’s Right over the I- attention to detail, organization, emphatic in what you say or do High over the I- shows great imagination To the left- procrastinator Circle your I’s- visionary, child like Slashing it- overly self-critical, don’t have a lot of patience for inadequacy or people that don’t learn from their mistakes, irritation
CROSSING YOUR T’s Right in the middle- you are personally safe Short crosses- shows a lack of determination Long crosses- great determination and enthusiasm, can be stubborn Very top of T- you’re an idealist, ambition, good self-esteem Cross downward at the top- you dominate your environment, authoritative nature O’s Open- you are talkative, social, able to express your feelings, have little secrecy Closed- you are very personal, limited sharing of your personal feelings, introvert
LEAD IN’S OR EXCESS FLOURISHES Lead in’s (or excess flourishes) - shows family orientation is important to you Lack of lead in’s (or excess flourishes)- you tackle problems in a direct, practical way, unhampered by sentimentality
MARGINS Writing all over the page- you can’t relax, constantly thinking Left hand margin- you live in the past Right hand margin- you are always looking towards the future
PRESSURE Tremendous pressure- very intense, may have some evil qualities, aggressive, blow up easily Average or light pressure- laid back, go with the flow
DOODLES Boxes- you need structure, stability and order Flowers- idealistic, romantic, creative Triangles- perfectionist, structured, people that feel stuck- don’t risk easily Circles- dreamer, creative, takes thinks personally, visionary Smiley faces- illusionary, wanting life to be beautiful, optimistic Color inside the box or shape- you are very intense, serious, worrier, can suggest sign of temper because of tension or frustration
PUNCTUATION MARKS Lots of exclamation marks- ego is involved, you want to be understood, passionate
SLANT If you write upward- you tend to be optimist, hopeful, honest, ambitious, motivated If you write downward- you tend to be negative, slightly depressed, dishonest
SPEED If you write things quickly- you are impatient, dislike delays or time wasters If you write slowly- more organized, more methodical, more self reliant
SIGNATURE (this is your public self image!) Legible- shows integrity, confidence, leadership, open to show your true self Not legible- very private person, hard to read or understand .
I didn't come up with these ideas - I found them by typing words onto the internet. But, the handwriting really does say something about the person. I will not tell you which of the styles is mine but needless to say I'm a bit loopy.
Larry and I met this week. We read from the book of Psalms as we always do and this week it was Psalm 29: Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name; worship the Lord in holy splendor. Within the word 'ascribe' is of course the need to write. How often do we write down what is due to God? I don't do it very often, not in my own handwriting anyway. Often it is typed form that comes in the visage of a sermon. What would happen if every week we took time to hand write down all the goodness of God? Would our view of life in general change? Would the words that jump off the page remind us of the goodness of God? That God's own handwriting is nearby?
Paul writes in 2 Cor. 3 "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves shall be our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts ---"
Our lives are living letters prepared by God written in the script of the Holy Spirit, legible to the whole world. God's handwriting does not need ink but is impressed on our very souls. What do you think God's handwriting looks like? Loopy? Extra spaces? Speedy? I would guess that God takes His time to prepare a love letter and writes it carefully and slowly on our hearts so that we can open it every day and remember that all of us are beloved children of God.
So, this week, try and write a few letters in your own hand. Ascribe to God the glory, ascribe to others all the love that God gives you, and ascribe to yourself that you are beloved of God and many.
My New Year's resolution is to try and keep typing this blog.
If only I could hand write it. Maybe more people would read it.
Peace,
Pastor Reid
I should say, I like to type. No one really writes any more, except my grandmas. Regularly I still see the beautiful script of aged ladies, diligent words pressed respectfully with a pen to paper. Although, my Grandma Matthias has found the 21st century and is into e-mail and Facebook now. I can always tell it's her even without peeking who it's from because Grandma only types with the caps lock on. When I read her e-mails I have to put aside my thinking that capital letters means lots of emphasis should be put on the words. My grandma Matthias doesn't typically put a lot of stress on a phrase like this: THE SUN WAS SHINING TODAY AND GRANDPA CHOPPED SOME WOOD. HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT DAY. GMA MATTHIAS
Really jumps out and catches the eye, doesn't it. But nobody really writes like that. No one, that I know, hand writes in capital letters. There's so much more subtlety to hand written words. And, people are much more likely to take seriously hand written words than typed words or spoken words.
A pastor friend of mine was telling me a story of how handwritten letters affected the life of one of his parishioners. The woman, who had made some considerably life altering changes, had received letter after letter from her family. My pastor friend, I'll call him Larry, was sitting with the woman one day when she broke down crying. The woman had read the letters daily which boldly proclaimed what a sinner she was, how disappointing she was to the family, she had no part in family dynamics. In effect, the letters were castigating her for choices made, but in essence were letters of fear that somehow they had failed her.
The woman, Anne (not her real name), lived with a constant source of guilt and dread that she was not human being anymore. Larry prayed with the woman and asked her to give him the letters for safe keeping. The words were stones. Like the woman caught in adultery, she was caught in the crossfire of a verbal stoning. Battered and bruised, physically she had escaped with her life, emotionally she was dead.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Yeah, whatever. Especially written words will kill. How many times do we see it in the paper that words have destroyed reputations, ruined relationships and brutalized life. The spoken word is air - breath released; it brings a memory but the written word is permanent and if written by hand, we know that the hand of a person actually pressed on the same page that we are holding. It's personal, very personal.
Many times, though, handwritten letters bring joy and contentment also. I love receiving handwritten Christmas cards. I got one this year - from my Grandma Nacke. I love reading the stories of the lives of people who I know and am endeared to, but often I will skip most of the information if there is a personal, handwritten script on the bottom. That usually means that they had a special message just for us. Yeah, they did a lot during the year - that's great - but LOOK AT THE HANDWRITING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE! THEY STILL REMEMBER US!
Remember not that long ago when almost all letters were still sent through the mail not filed electronically, typed, texted or Facebooked? Christine still keeps all the love letters that I wrote when she was in Australia and I lived by myself in Arizona. Every time she would receive a letter (so she tells me) she would read it three, four, fifty times not only to read it but to see my handwriting - because my handwriting is unique to me.
There are experts who can tell when signatures are forged or simply tell what people are like by their handwriting. (They soon might be out of jobs when everyone in the world forgets how to use a pen) They are called graphologers. For example, graphologers would suggest that these types of script say lots of things about us:
SIZE Small handwriting- research-oriented, good concentration, methodical, not always social Large handwriting- people oriented, outgoing, outspoken, love to entertain and interlock Right in the middle- you like to be with people, but value your own time
SPACING Good deal of space- you need your freedom, to do things in your own time, don’t like to be overwhelmed or crowed. Very little space- it shows a tremendous about of irritability and constant pressure on yourself
HOW LETTERS ARE SHAPED Rounded letters- indicates creativity, artistic abilities (writing, painting, acting, etc.) Pointed letters- shows you are more aggressive, intense, very intelligent, curious Connected letters- you are logical, systematic, make decisions carefully
LOOPING Loopy handwriting- very social individual, huge imagination, sensitive to criticism Not loopy- more isolated, reclusive, within themselves
DOTTING YOUR I’s Right over the I- attention to detail, organization, emphatic in what you say or do High over the I- shows great imagination To the left- procrastinator Circle your I’s- visionary, child like Slashing it- overly self-critical, don’t have a lot of patience for inadequacy or people that don’t learn from their mistakes, irritation
CROSSING YOUR T’s Right in the middle- you are personally safe Short crosses- shows a lack of determination Long crosses- great determination and enthusiasm, can be stubborn Very top of T- you’re an idealist, ambition, good self-esteem Cross downward at the top- you dominate your environment, authoritative nature O’s Open- you are talkative, social, able to express your feelings, have little secrecy Closed- you are very personal, limited sharing of your personal feelings, introvert
LEAD IN’S OR EXCESS FLOURISHES Lead in’s (or excess flourishes) - shows family orientation is important to you Lack of lead in’s (or excess flourishes)- you tackle problems in a direct, practical way, unhampered by sentimentality
MARGINS Writing all over the page- you can’t relax, constantly thinking Left hand margin- you live in the past Right hand margin- you are always looking towards the future
PRESSURE Tremendous pressure- very intense, may have some evil qualities, aggressive, blow up easily Average or light pressure- laid back, go with the flow
DOODLES Boxes- you need structure, stability and order Flowers- idealistic, romantic, creative Triangles- perfectionist, structured, people that feel stuck- don’t risk easily Circles- dreamer, creative, takes thinks personally, visionary Smiley faces- illusionary, wanting life to be beautiful, optimistic Color inside the box or shape- you are very intense, serious, worrier, can suggest sign of temper because of tension or frustration
PUNCTUATION MARKS Lots of exclamation marks- ego is involved, you want to be understood, passionate
SLANT If you write upward- you tend to be optimist, hopeful, honest, ambitious, motivated If you write downward- you tend to be negative, slightly depressed, dishonest
SPEED If you write things quickly- you are impatient, dislike delays or time wasters If you write slowly- more organized, more methodical, more self reliant
SIGNATURE (this is your public self image!) Legible- shows integrity, confidence, leadership, open to show your true self Not legible- very private person, hard to read or understand .
I didn't come up with these ideas - I found them by typing words onto the internet. But, the handwriting really does say something about the person. I will not tell you which of the styles is mine but needless to say I'm a bit loopy.
Larry and I met this week. We read from the book of Psalms as we always do and this week it was Psalm 29: Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name; worship the Lord in holy splendor. Within the word 'ascribe' is of course the need to write. How often do we write down what is due to God? I don't do it very often, not in my own handwriting anyway. Often it is typed form that comes in the visage of a sermon. What would happen if every week we took time to hand write down all the goodness of God? Would our view of life in general change? Would the words that jump off the page remind us of the goodness of God? That God's own handwriting is nearby?
Paul writes in 2 Cor. 3 "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves shall be our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts ---"
Our lives are living letters prepared by God written in the script of the Holy Spirit, legible to the whole world. God's handwriting does not need ink but is impressed on our very souls. What do you think God's handwriting looks like? Loopy? Extra spaces? Speedy? I would guess that God takes His time to prepare a love letter and writes it carefully and slowly on our hearts so that we can open it every day and remember that all of us are beloved children of God.
So, this week, try and write a few letters in your own hand. Ascribe to God the glory, ascribe to others all the love that God gives you, and ascribe to yourself that you are beloved of God and many.
My New Year's resolution is to try and keep typing this blog.
If only I could hand write it. Maybe more people would read it.
Peace,
Pastor Reid
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
I'm having reservations. At the risk of sounding old-ish, technophobic, or even wallowing in grumpiness, I'm hesitant about embraci...
-
I was all set to write about the disappointing reality of attempting to remain positive with 3 EASY STEPS , but the truth is, everything cru...