The Wrestler

The foam mat was semi-squishy, kind of like my nerves. 

After lacing up my high top shoes, donning my plastic ear guards and turning to my coach who was doing his best to pump me for the match, I noticed that his enthusiasm lacked authenticity. His smile kind of hung lopsided on his chin and his eyes had kind of a cringy look, as if he was already thinking a little further into the future.

You see, I was an undersized, underdeveloped, frightened twelve-year-old wrestler who wanted to be doing anything - anything at all, even homework, or the dishes - than facing off in a spandex singlet grappling with another twelve-year old, underdeveloped and frightened boy. 

It was the last match of the year. I had participated in seven of these contests. Pretty much after the first one I wanted to quit, but quitting was not acceptable in the Matthias family. If you said you were going to do something, you did it. But the coach's reservations about my abilities were real: I had won one match. Generally, I was finished off by the end of the first period; if I was lucky, I'd make it through the second. These three periods, each a minute in length, seemed interminable. The minutes stretched into eons as we entered the circle and into the fray, faced each other, one foot forward, hands ready and raised. Frankly, I just wanted it to be over, but my competitive nature did not allow me to simply flop onto the ground and pin myself.

The referee would blow his whistle and we would grapple. Mano y mano. Hand to hand, man to man - there was no outside assistance.

Once locked into the struggle, I knew I was losing. The other boy obviously had a strength (and will) advantage. My main tactic, as far as I can remember, was to attempt to escape the circle. Generally, ones who do this lose points for stalling, but I didn't care. Unfortunately, my opponent was quite good at counteracting my best move of running away.

He just kept dragging me back in.

It feels like the year 2020 is the same kind of opponent. Bush fires, coronavirus, riots, protests, political insanity. This year has stretched interminably - minutes have become locked-down hours; hours have become isolated days; days have become weeks of worry. There have been times when I've wanted to throw in the towel, but more often I just wanted to escape the circle for a while. I wanted a breather - and frankly, I just wanted 2020 to get off my back.  

But the year keeps dragging me back in.

I can't even imagine, then, what Jacob felt like during his wrestling match written about in Genesis 32:

Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he struck Jacob's hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip. Then he said to Jacob, 'let me go, for it's daybreak.'

But Jacob said, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'

There are all sorts of things that I wonder about this story:

1. Why was there a wandering wrestler in the wilderness?

2. How could they possibly wrestle all night? A minute was long enough.

3. As Jacob pulled the man back into the circle, he pinned him down so that he could be blessed. How did Jacob know how to do this?

If I think about it, this year is very much like this story. For all the years of comfort we've grown accustomed to, 2020 arrived very much like a strange, wandering wrestler. Entering into the circle of our comfort, 2020 pulled some moves we weren't expecting: fires, viruses and general global unrest. 2020 dislocated us, not just upsetting our comfort, but truly stopped us from moving. 2020 arm locked us down, and strangely, it's felt like the referee doesn't feel good about stopping the match. 

And now, we have a choice:

We can try to just drag ourselves to the end of the year, tap out and hope that 2021 is far less aggressive, or we can hold on tight and find the blessing of this year - fight until the daybreak of December 31st and marvel that we have, as a global community sought to find meaning and life in the midst of all the struggle.

What blessings are you holding (on) out for? What have you struggled with already? Are you tired out? Are you stronger? Are you blessed? 

The Root of All...

Mowing my lawn has become somewhat of a fascination for me lately. I've never had my own lawn before. When Christine and I lived in Arizona, our lawn (and most of our neighbors') was made of colored gravel. Sure, when I lived with my parents, I spent part of every Saturday riding on a lawn mower around their two acre homestead. While listening to my Walk-man, Michael Jackson or Wham blasting through my padded headphones, I trimmed the grass, circled trees (as best as I could) and defied death trying to mow the ditches. For the most part, it was simply routine but I must confess, I wasn't really that worried about how straight my lines were or whether there was a little extra grass standing by the lilac bushes.

But now that I have my own lawn, I am a bit more meticulous. I must clarify. When I say a bit, I'm not confessing to murdering every strand of grass that grows against the fence, but I have been known to even mow the grass on a diagonal. In my own head I keep thinking that someone from the local baseball affiliate will come and ask me to mow their outfield. Talk about a great job. High stress, but great job.

In the last two weeks, though, I have let Elsa, my oldest daughter do some of the trimming in the front yard. My next door neighbor gave us his self-propelled lawn mower which makes it easier for her. But, it does tend to pull her forward like a dog on a leash waiting to find the next hydrant. She does a relatively good job except that the portion of the lawn that I have given her is full of roots from our maple trees. Over the years, the roots themselves still pass under the blades without being hacked into submission, but when the tires run over the roots, they cause the mower to go astray. Because I am a bit stronger than Elsa, I can keep the mower relatively straight. Elsa, being eight years of age, does not have the muscle to attack the roots. So, when she runs over them, they toss her and the mower to the side. Elsa's mowing rows look like waves on an ocean or some sort of pattern left by space aliens in a cornfield. I really don't mind the lawn pattern; I just like to watch her grow up.

But those roots intrigue me. From my little knowledge of horticulture, I always thought that tree roots should grow downwards. It seems as if every tree in our neighborhood has sent its hard tendrils onto the top of my lawn. Why won't they go down deep? Why don't they sink in to the water below?

I found the answer that question the hard way. Christine asked if I would dig a pit for the compost. No problem, I answered, but as my spade separated the grass and the topsoil, I noticed six inches down was gravel and hard clay. Flustered, frustrated and quite sweaty, I worked my way down a bit further. I gave up. It was too hard to penetrate deeper. I think my trees do the same thing. It's much easier for the roots to stay on the surface. Rain water is easier to collect on the top. The problem for the trees is, I think, that the reserves of water are deeper and when it is dry, the tree doesn't grow as fast.

This week a friend gave a newspaper article to me (and I have seen a few articles throughout the country in the last few weeks) regarding salvation and faith in the United States. It seems that throughout many of our denominations (and non-denominations) 70% of the people believe that there is more than one way to salvation, Jesus Christ just being one of them. Of course the statistics are based on a small minority of people interviewed but still frightening none-the-less. When I recall my Sunday School lessons from early on right up until today, I don't remember Jesus saying "I am the way, the truth and the life - for some of you" or "I am a way, a truth and perhaps the life for a small minority." But in our fast-food like culture, we want religion fast and easy. "C'mon, Pastor," some might say, "Just tell me what I need to get in to heaven and let me choose from whatever other spirituality to help me cope with my life." It's like a religious buffet: I'll take a bit of what I like from this religion, a dash of that, a healthy helping of grace and call it a meal.

It's all quite shallow, isn't it?

Seeking to send out spiritual roots, many of us (and I'll include myself at times) believe it's easier to stay shallow than to be changed. When things are going well, it's easier to to not dig through our tough clay-like hearts. It's easier to allow someone else to carry my cross. It's easier to drink quickly from the blessings than to dig deep and be sustained through the storms and dry seasons. We are a hard hearted animal, we humans. Constantly I pray that I can be taken deeper with God no matter the difficulty of breaking up my patterns of behavior or methods of thought. We, as Christians, need to struggle with the Word and what is says for our life. Will this be easy - I should think not - but the reward is what hopefully most of us crave for - an intense relationship with the living God, a flowing river into which we can sink our roots and be sustained.

May God grant you deep spiritual fulfilment this week.

Are You Dead Yet?

Unless you are 10 years of age or younger, a nap is a beautiful thing. Truly, there is nothing like falling asleep on my favorite sofa. Perhaps a nice comfortable spot on the floor, in the sunshine spread eagle as if to absorb every last moment of peace that a nap can bring. Some people collect memories of mountaintop experiences: climbing Everest, Bungee jumping a New Zealand Gorge, finishing a novel; I collect these things (not those exact things) but I also have a sorting house in my head of my favorite places that I have taken naps. Usually, I recall beaches or grass patches in front of a famous building (I know, I'm a bit of a dullard at times). One of my favorite naps I ever took caused me to wake up laughing. I was laughing, not because the dream was funny, but how I awoke.
Christine, the girls and I lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas for a year. The residence provided for my internship was large, airy and full of windows. The bedroom Christine an I shared was wood paneled and dark - perfect for night sleeping. But, my favorite room to nap in, though, was called the cloud room. Across the ceiling, a previous resident had painted it blue with cottonball-like clouds scattered across. Two whole sides of the room were panes of glass and as I would settle down for a nap, like a dog trying to find a comfortable spot, I felt like I was preparing to sleep outdoors.
Time doesn't exist during naps, but as I was swirling to the top to awake, I felt a tugging at my hand. I don't normally sleep on my back, but on this occasion not only was I on my back but one of my arms was hanging off the side of the bed. At first I thought I was dreaming - perhaps my arm had fallen asleep and was beginning to twitch. But, the longer I swam to the surface of reality, I realized this was no twitch but a constant pressure. Just before I opened my eyes I felt two little hands pressed on my face and a little push of air in my ear.
Then a voice, "Daddy, are you dead yet?"
I grabbed Greta, who was then two years of age, and began to tickle her. Not only was I awake, but when I tickle the girls, I feel and remember that I am alive. Greta, although perhaps she wondered if I truly had perished in the middle of a blissful dream, was simply asking me if I was ready to play - to be alive with her.
There are many who walk through life as if asleep. Sometimes I am one of those - days take on a monotony; hours lull me into passivity. At certain times, I am simply unaware of what just happened. Startled out of a strange reverie, I have blinked and the whole world has changed. I open my eyes and I am married and have three children. I own my own house (kind of). My children continue to stretch inches every day, it seems. I spend minutes, hours and days at work and sometimes I wonder if I will ever get close to catching up (in some ways, I hope not). I am no longer an impetuous child, a boisterous teen, a rebellious twenty-something or whatever I was a few years ago. I have those memories; I import them everyday to help me function with the world, I mix them with the dreams of the future but now, now! I must live - in the present. I am not dead yet. I am alive! Have you ever stood on the bank of lake and screamed at the top of your lungs "I AM ALIVE!"?
Yeah, me neither - but it's about time I do that.
Question for you - are you dead yet? When you open your eyes tomorrow morning or after a pleasant nap, how will your life have changed? Is there a piece open for rejuvenation in your family life? Is there a spot to meditate on what God is doing in your life - how the Holy Spirit will help shape your decision making to allow you move. Life is about movement - not just physical but emotional and spiritual also. Is there a place where you can be happy in yourself?
Question: Are you dead yet? Not yet. Not yet.
Move.

Video Camera Generation

As I was looking through the calendar this week, I happened upon a list of celebrations and observances here, in the U.S., and some abroad. Little did I know that this week of the calendar year- the fourth week of May 2008 Anno Domino - is Pickle Week. I did not know that this is an international remembrance of the way pickled cucumbers have influenced the way we live our lives.

I also did not know of some of the other celebrations and observances such as:

1. January is clown month.

2. January is also fiber focus month, national oatmeal month and prune breakfast month. I guess they want us to be regular after the holidays.

3. In the midst of celebrating our return to intestinal normalcy, some celebrate cuckoo dancing week. (I don't know what that really is)

4. February is cat health month.

5. Embroiderers unite! February celebrates you.

6. Lastly (I could only waste so much time checking up on special dates) March 1 is pig day.

There is a joyous opportunity to celebrate virtually every day of the calendar year. Common holidays include Christmas, Easter, Valentine's, Thanksgiving (if in the United States). We are people who love to establish rituals to mark the passage of time. We have birthday parties, anniversary celebrations: included in the commemorations are baby's first toilet training, the loss of the first tooth, when I correctly learned to identify the difference between adjectives and adverbs - you know, all those normal things.

I remember graduating from high school and college. My graduation from seminary was a huge cause for celebration. Memory sometimes fails of my graduation from preschool although my parents have a wonderful picture of me grabbing my 'diploma' wearing a wonderful '70s style green jumpsuit.

Today I went to Josephine's kindergarten graduation. In these days, kids not only graduate from high school, they also graduate from kindergarten, fifth grade, sixth grade and eighth grade. Hallmark must be making a fortune. As Christine and I journeyed into the chapel where the graduation ceremony was to be held, we noticed that there was a complete forest inside the sanctuary. This was not a forest of wood, but a forest of tripods. Video cameras replete with all the buzzes and whistles of an affluent society. Most of the cameras were the size of the owner's palm; I remember when the video cameras were the size of a rocket launcher. My aunt and uncle used to have one. It was the kind where you had to look through the eye piece to actually see what you were recording, one eye shut, blinding light making all the people in the picture throw up there arms to ward off the luminescent assault. I'm glad video cameras have become smaller. I digress.

We took our position in the back of the church; all the front pews had been reserved by three or four people who were saving them for all the family members in the four county area. Thus, Christine, Greta and I watched our beloved Josephine craning left and right to peer around the heads of all the Johnsons and Jones' in the first fifteen rows.

As the beautiful singing started, I heard beeps, buzzes, whistles as recorders were turned on and tuned in to each family's star of the show. (There was some mild profanity uttered as a few parents had forgotten to charge their batteries.) Throughout the ceremony I noticed that almost all the parents who were holding video cameras were so intent on recording the moment that they missed the moment. Because future posterity was so important, they missed out on the life giving, breathing moment of the beautiful children singing in a choir. They missed the live performance to watch it on a little three inch screen.

I think it is incredibly important to record for future generations the 'way things used to be' but I wouldn't have traded for a minute watching little Josephine dance and sing and laugh with her classmates. I could visually see how she wanted to silence a little boy who was singing to far ahead. Even though our event was recorded also, I really don't know how many times we'll watch Josephine's kindergarten graduation in the future, but I do know that Life escapes all too quickly and I'm going to enjoy it live - not by Memorex.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

One of the great icons in all of television history is Fred Rogers. I didn't know his first name was Fred until I was in college, I think. I just assumed that his whole person centered on being a "Mr." There was a time when televisions only had a limited amount of channels - usually thirteen and then there was that special channel that seemed to only carry kids stuff - PBS. I neither cared about what PBS stood for or why it didn't have an number; I only cared that it carried Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Sesame Street was totally unpredictable; you were always shocked by who the guest of the day would be or what number the Count would be offering for the day. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, on the other hand, was utterly predictable. The camera zooms through a miniaturized set up of a city and rests on the door of Mr. Rogers' house. The viewer is whisked inside as Fred waltzes through the door, takes off his wonderful cardigan sweater, changes into his house shoes all the while singing a song. At the end of his musical missive, Fred Rogers gazes questioningly into the camera and asks, "Won't you be my neighbor?"

If you are anything like me, it is quite common to talk to the television. Of course I wanted to be his neighbor! Yes! I would shout. Yes, Fred, count me amongst those of your friends and with you, let me ride on that train to the Land of Make Believe! Fred, take me with you!

Mr. Rogers' question is still very important today. Sometimes that query, "Won't you be my neighbor?" can be changed to the question, especially in Christian circles, "Who is my neighbor?"

In my growing up years, the nearest neighbors to us were at least half a mile away. We could ride our bikes or walk to our neighbors - we had an understanding of who they were, what the parents did. By all means we knew the names of roughly all the households in a ten mile radius. That, in essence, is a core value of small town life in rural Iowa.

Thirty years later we ask the same questions: "Who is my neighbor?" and "Won't you be my neighbor if you are not now?" Walking around the streets of my neighborhood, I have yet to meet all of those who share the same street address. When asked, "Who is my neighbor?" I could give you the names of those who share property lines with us, but I don't really know them. I think that has to do in large part to a change in perception of society. In this new culture we don't want neighbors - we want privacy. We don't want relationship or communication - we want to be left alone.

What a sad thing that is, in my mind. In a world longing for care and love we shun closeness. Concerned more for our own "personal time", we lose track of that which makes us human - our relationships. Who is my neighbor?

Just recently, on the way to work, I have been stopping to talk with people during the six block walk. As I approach some houses, I can see people's eyes scrutinizing me - wondering if I am a salesman - wondering if I am going to pressure them into buying something that they neither need nor want but simply want to rid themselves of my presence. After a few words of greeting I assure them of my non-fiscal intentions and we can talk, usually about the weather or forecast for weather or how much rain his cousin's wife's daughter's niece got, but simply talking to each other allows us to be neighbors - to share the same street, to share life under the same trees.

Neighbors are a good thing.

They don't necessarily need to take us to the Land of Make Believe where we pretend all sorts of things.

And so Mr. Rogers, at the end of his show, encourages all young children to tune in again sometime soon and says goodbye to his new neighbors. What a concept.

What do pastors do?

Kids have different ideas about how the world works. Forgive me for being Captain Obvious for a few moments, but really, the world takes on a completely altered view for those who have fresh eyes. I try and recall, sometimes, what it was like to have young eyes. What were the colors like thirty years ago? Did the trees sway faster in the wind? Did the sun seem even a shade brighter, blinding me, but bringing such joy to a promising play day?

Children, it seems, experience life as a constant stream of exciting input. There is no such thing as an impossibility, only a challenge – even flying, if I remember my own pre-teen years. Jumping off the chicken house with strapped on paper wings was a hard challenge. The inability to fly that day did not defray my determination. Eventually I did fly off the chicken house, albeit on a sled. No impossibilities when young.

Young people also feel have an insatiable appetite for answers. Questions fly from their mouths – urgent, quick – the need for knowledge exceeds the need to restrain the vocabulary of the questions. Many of you have experienced the “Why’s” of youth or the “How come?” Young humans, in general, find old people (anyone above 25 years of age) as a menu for their appetites.
When ten years old (I still remember this) I asked the pastor at Zion Lutheran church in Rake, Iowa, “What do pastors do besides talk a lot? Do they ever get anything done?” Ah, sweet impudence.

Pastor Arlen, whom I still hold with great reverence to this day, although I’m not sure he discovered the same esteem for me, responded with great care. Squatting down, he looked me in the eye and spoke to me like an adult. “Reid, pastors are a different lot. We spend most of our time caring for people who are injured. Maybe not in a physical way, although some are. Most of the people we care for are people who are scared, or shocked, or even mystified (that’s my grown up word now) by the way the world responds to change. In the midst of every day change of life, pastors are shepherds leading sheep to still water to drink where the water never changes.”

I didn’t really get the analogy at that time, and I had a thousand questions mostly to the fact that I had never seen Pastor Arlen wear a shepherds robe except maybe that thing he wore on Sundays. How are pastors shepherds? What does that mean about everyone else? I didn’t feel like a sheep although I had really curly hair. My question was asked to a pastor, someone who held my great respect.

The question for the first few weeks of my blog I think well resonate with that young person’s question, “What exactly does a pastor do?” I won’t (and can’t) speak for all pastors in all denomination, but I can speak what it is for this pastor of Word and Sacrament. Next week, read again to see if pastors do anything but talk for 15 minutes (or longer if your name is Lee) on Sunday.