The Prince of England was here this week. For Americans, the royalty of England has been a source of fascination. From the beginnings of the Revolution to the abdication by King Edward the VIII in public fascination, the British Royals bring intense scrutiny all over the world. In reality, the Queen of England and her famous family have little to no power, but their influence is obvious and everywhere. For Australians, when royalty visits, it is like a national celebration. Because it is relatively difficult for the reigning royalty to shadow the shores of Australia, the media circus was at its finest. Prince William graced the pages of every newspaper and television, and this American watched and read with great interest.
I remember when Prince Charles and Lady Diana were married. Why this was such a media spectacle was beyond me at the time (I think I was only seven) but perhaps in all of us is a little reverence for royalty. There was Prince Charles dressed in his finest formal military outfit and Lady Diana with the wedding dress from heaven. How she dragged that piece of clothing up through the church was amazing. Their carriage ride was seemingly from a fairy tale and the whole family watched with rapt attention on our sixteen inch, rabbit-eared TV the fairy tale wedding. Millions of people watched the ceremony (I can't imagine how nervous the pastor was) and my wish was to be part of the throng that welcomed the happy couple afterwards. It wasn't long afterwards that Princess Diana became pregnant - a boy who they named William. His has been a life of scrutiny and he has dealt with the invariable crush of media very well.
Prince William was here in Australia this last weekend visiting the various areas affected by natural disasters this last year. His first stop was in the north of the country where Hurricane Yasi decimated the crops and destroyed the livelihoods of some of the Australians. Then, on to Brisbane to talk with locals about how life has changed, how tenuous our existence is. Finally, the Prince of made his way west to the small farming villages around Grantham and then on to Toowoomba.
In the wake of his visit, a transformation has taken place. The newspapers have catalogued the faces of those who lost everything during the storms. A woman in Cairns was shown grieving the loss of the source of her stability; the people of Grantham, who became internationally famous when the town they called home was violently washed away, were pictured sifting through the rubble; the city of Brisbane, thousands of homes destroyed, was a carrier of grim faces.
But then the Prince arrived. The people of Cairns stated that the sun came out for the Prince - it was only their second day of sunshine this year. The people of Grantham and Toowoomba waited patiently on the future king and at his arrival, tears turned to joy, sadness to smiles - there was a rejuvenation of life. To his credit, the Prince did not hold back from the people of Australia - just the opposite. Prince William shook hands, smiled, touched people, consoled them in their loss and brought grateful relief from the shock of recent months. He spoke kind words, he held no sympathy in reserve and I was impressed by the very 'pastoral' way he took these people into his heart and gave them comfort.
Christine asked me if I would like to go see Prince William when he arrived in Grantham. It was raining that day; I wanted to mow the lawn; I had a thousand and one things to do to make an excuse to not make an appearance in Grantham (which is less than ten miles from our house). Surely the Prince will have enough to do without making time for this American Aussie and his family. I might get to glimpse him from afar - see the sun shining off his head (we have very similar haircuts, I think) - I had enough to do at home. These excuses ran through my head and I verbalized them to Christine. She, too, wanted to go see him - it could be a once in a lifetime event - and yet we hesitated. Life gets in the way, bills to pay, excuses to make - he'll come back some day and then we'll go.
My response to Prince William is a lot like how I deal with King Jesus. It should be simple to perk up and make the trip to devote myself to the King each day, to take a trip into solitude to find a few moments where I can be comforted, touched, smiled at in the presence of the sovereign and yet time and time again I make excuses; life gets in the way. He'll be back some other time when it's more convenient for me, and I forget how life changing it is when we continue our relationship with the King. He comes to us, not the other way around; we don't need to feel guilt but a sense of excitement when presented with the opportunity that the King is right around the corner. He has time for all of us, not just those that are struggling or having difficulties, but Jesus wants to share in all of life's moments.
Prince William's visit was a beautiful thing. I pray that King Jesus' stay is even more beautiful.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Bull in a China Shop
Christine was laughing when I got home the other day. She had made a trip up the street to downtown Laidley, approximately six blocks from our house. Laidley is considered a big town for the Lockyer Valley, it's business district having shops lined along the main street roughly three blocks long. There is a shoe shop, a butcher, a restaurant, a movie rental place, a hardware store all with creative and inventive names. The name of one of the markets is "The Food Shop." I love it. From what I understand about townships in Australia, the only thing needed to be considered a town is a pub. You don't need a post office or a store, a gas station or hospital - just a bar. Laidley has at least two pubs; I haven't been inside either one yet not because of any particular leanings toward Puritanism, but I haven't taken time to get to know the local talent. One of the pubs, a hotel bar advertising Karaoke, sits midway along the main street advertising itself as a sports bar. It all looks very quaint.
Christine was laughing because of the excitement outside this pub. I'll try and recreate the event - I wasn't there so the dialogue will be false, but the sense of the conversation will hopefully fill you in on the colorful life in small town Australia.
To set the scene, Christine had motored downtown to go shopping (at the Food Shop, I believe) for groceries. Parking out the back, Christine noticed police cars greeting Laidley residents as they spent their hard-earned cash in the CBD (Central Business District). Lights flashing, the police officers had cordoned off the walking avenue between the stores. Many people were standing around watching the goings on. Christine stepped up to see what kind of hubbub would cause Laidley's finest to be out and about. She approached an older gentlemen who held up his hand.
"Best not go in there, Mate." (Even the ladies in Australia seemed to be called 'mate.' That or 'darl,' 'sweetheart,' - which sounds like 'sweet-hawt' which every time makes me jump)
"What's going on?" Christine asked as she looked over the quasi police tape.
"See that trailer over there?" The man pointed behind Christine to the parking lot.
"Yes," she said.
"A bull got loose, stuffed the whole trailer." (I'll get to Australianisms in a different blog, but at this point, just try and fit everything in context) Christine looked behind and noticed that a wooden trailer with metal siding looked like it had barely survived a tornado. "Yeah, big one. It must have been cheesed off about something, probably looking for a bluey, and tore out of it."
Christine's amazement was apparent.
"Yeah, that's why the police are here. The bull is loose - they say it's already been cornered."
"Where did they capture it?" Christine asked ready to jump across the line to find the police pulling some sort of Crocodile Dundee move to calm the savage beast down.
"It's in the pub."
"What?" I'm not making this up. The bull was in the pub.
The man looked at Christine. "I'm not making this up. The police cornered the bull on Patrick Street (Main Street) in the hotel. As big of a mess as the bull made with trailer, I wonder what kind of damage it's doing in the pub."
"Maybe it was thirsty." Christine said.
The old man looked her over. "Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it wanted to sing some karaoke."
True enough, the main news of the week was the picture of a bull escaping from its trailer to make headlines with antics in the bar. Only in the country would this even happen, I think, but when Christine told m the story, it was as if I'd been placed in the middle of the movie "Australia." I expected Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman to jump out of the background.
Just a short saga this week. Life is a good place to be.
Christine was laughing because of the excitement outside this pub. I'll try and recreate the event - I wasn't there so the dialogue will be false, but the sense of the conversation will hopefully fill you in on the colorful life in small town Australia.
To set the scene, Christine had motored downtown to go shopping (at the Food Shop, I believe) for groceries. Parking out the back, Christine noticed police cars greeting Laidley residents as they spent their hard-earned cash in the CBD (Central Business District). Lights flashing, the police officers had cordoned off the walking avenue between the stores. Many people were standing around watching the goings on. Christine stepped up to see what kind of hubbub would cause Laidley's finest to be out and about. She approached an older gentlemen who held up his hand.
"Best not go in there, Mate." (Even the ladies in Australia seemed to be called 'mate.' That or 'darl,' 'sweetheart,' - which sounds like 'sweet-hawt' which every time makes me jump)
"What's going on?" Christine asked as she looked over the quasi police tape.
"See that trailer over there?" The man pointed behind Christine to the parking lot.
"Yes," she said.
"A bull got loose, stuffed the whole trailer." (I'll get to Australianisms in a different blog, but at this point, just try and fit everything in context) Christine looked behind and noticed that a wooden trailer with metal siding looked like it had barely survived a tornado. "Yeah, big one. It must have been cheesed off about something, probably looking for a bluey, and tore out of it."
Christine's amazement was apparent.
"Yeah, that's why the police are here. The bull is loose - they say it's already been cornered."
"Where did they capture it?" Christine asked ready to jump across the line to find the police pulling some sort of Crocodile Dundee move to calm the savage beast down.
"It's in the pub."
"What?" I'm not making this up. The bull was in the pub.
The man looked at Christine. "I'm not making this up. The police cornered the bull on Patrick Street (Main Street) in the hotel. As big of a mess as the bull made with trailer, I wonder what kind of damage it's doing in the pub."
"Maybe it was thirsty." Christine said.
The old man looked her over. "Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it wanted to sing some karaoke."
True enough, the main news of the week was the picture of a bull escaping from its trailer to make headlines with antics in the bar. Only in the country would this even happen, I think, but when Christine told m the story, it was as if I'd been placed in the middle of the movie "Australia." I expected Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman to jump out of the background.
Just a short saga this week. Life is a good place to be.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Australian Adventure
It's hot. Not just warm-I-think-I'll-just-sit-in-my-armpit-sweat hot, but the feeling as if my whole body is living inside a sauna. When I wake up in the morning, it's as if I'm breathing through a cloud. But, it's a refreshing change, in a way, from the bone-numbing cold from which we left in Rockford. Not better or worse, just refreshingly different.
Life is different. It's a different pace, a different sound, smell and taste. Overall, it has not been a huge shock to my system... yet...
It would be helpful if I described my surroundings, I think, not just the heat and humidity, but the actual vista in which I live. We live in the small town of Laidley, Queensland, Australia. It probably does not have many claims to fame; as of yet, I haven't find too many people that know a whole lot about it, and when we talk to the city folk of Brisbane, they ask, "What would you move out there for?"
Laidley is positioned between to sets of mountains, a small nested valley. The most famous moment in the Lockyer valley (or should I say 'infamous') was six weeks ago when the inland tsunami rushed down the mountain and through the valley decimating villages, ruining crops and destroying the dreams of many. Even just this week, as I was taking a walk along the small main street of the town (three blocks long) I overheard a woman talking to a neighbor telling them that her family was safe, but they have struggled after losing 100 head of cattle. This is as rural as you can imagine, but the people who live here have that hardened look of a group of people that not only survive but thrive when life throws lemons. Just like the floods of Iowa and the Midwest a few years ago, the people have banded together to return life to somewhat of normalcy even if they never return to a complete sense of security.
The flood has changed this place. When it rains people look over their shoulder to see if the water will be rising soon to chase them away from real life again. They are wary, like long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. But they are honest, wholesome people, farmers for the most part, who long to live just a simple life of providing for their families and earning a living tilling the ground and planting food for the country.
I watch some of them go to work in the morning. Laborers, doing all sorts of jobs, leaving at 5:30 in the morning and not returning for twelve hours. I am still on CST of the States so I am up early and down early. I get to watch them as they watch me. It is a joy to wake up here in Laidley. My back, shaded porch opens to the east where the sun slowly scales the hills of the east and wakes the kookaburras that have made their homes in the eucalyptus trees. Other amazing birds inhabit the area, parakeets, lorakeets, cockatoos, willy wag tails. Tonight, even as I went for a run, I came across a man going to his car who carried a parrot on his shoulder.
I'm not making this stuff up.
During the day, I am still focused on driving. It is a whole new experience traversing the backroads of Australia on the left side of the road while positioning myself in the driver's seat on the right. More times than not I have attempted to drive the car away while entering on the left and then sheepishly I get back out while the locals watch me thinking I've gone crazy. As I drive down the highway, the memories of the flood continue to be tattooed on the highways. In some places the roads have been washed out; in others, the potholes still remain, empty, bowls in the side of the road that threaten to swallow tires whole. I have almost memorized where they are already, but it is still a stark reminder of the power of water.
When I come home at night, I love to watch the wildlife change. The birds go to sleep and the bats wake up. At the end of our street, a cul-de-sac, stands an enormous tree with limb the size of beer kegs sprouting even at the top. The fruit bats sit in this tree motionless until the sun seemingly starts to succumb to gravity on the western horizon causing incredible hues of orange, pinks, purples and blues to be painted on the walls of houses and roads. The bats take flight, hundreds - maybe even a thousand - swirling and swooping making their way to the fruit trees somewhere far away from their home tree. It is a beautiful sight even though my neighbors shake their fists at the protected bat species wishing all sorts of atrocities to befall them for the paint eating presents they leave on the cars as they pass overhead.
Then it is dark and the beauty of this country sets in. Supposedly, the clearest skies in the world are found in the Australian outback and I believe it. The stars shine with an intensity that I have only seen a few times in the northern hemisphere. The Southern Cross is a bright reminder of where I am and it's symbolism on the Australian flag leaves me speechless. It is a pleasant place to spend a night, in this a small town in Queensland, Australia. I look forward to carrying you on this journey in life with me.
Solomon once wrote in Ecclesiastes (actually multiple times) "Everything is meaningless, a chasing after the wind." But I will take on the second greatest king of Israel and proclaim that everything has meaning and the only knowledge and meaning that we have comes from our own experiences. I hope you'll enjoy my tour along the Australian adventure.
Peace,
Reid
Life is different. It's a different pace, a different sound, smell and taste. Overall, it has not been a huge shock to my system... yet...
It would be helpful if I described my surroundings, I think, not just the heat and humidity, but the actual vista in which I live. We live in the small town of Laidley, Queensland, Australia. It probably does not have many claims to fame; as of yet, I haven't find too many people that know a whole lot about it, and when we talk to the city folk of Brisbane, they ask, "What would you move out there for?"
Laidley is positioned between to sets of mountains, a small nested valley. The most famous moment in the Lockyer valley (or should I say 'infamous') was six weeks ago when the inland tsunami rushed down the mountain and through the valley decimating villages, ruining crops and destroying the dreams of many. Even just this week, as I was taking a walk along the small main street of the town (three blocks long) I overheard a woman talking to a neighbor telling them that her family was safe, but they have struggled after losing 100 head of cattle. This is as rural as you can imagine, but the people who live here have that hardened look of a group of people that not only survive but thrive when life throws lemons. Just like the floods of Iowa and the Midwest a few years ago, the people have banded together to return life to somewhat of normalcy even if they never return to a complete sense of security.
The flood has changed this place. When it rains people look over their shoulder to see if the water will be rising soon to chase them away from real life again. They are wary, like long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. But they are honest, wholesome people, farmers for the most part, who long to live just a simple life of providing for their families and earning a living tilling the ground and planting food for the country.
I watch some of them go to work in the morning. Laborers, doing all sorts of jobs, leaving at 5:30 in the morning and not returning for twelve hours. I am still on CST of the States so I am up early and down early. I get to watch them as they watch me. It is a joy to wake up here in Laidley. My back, shaded porch opens to the east where the sun slowly scales the hills of the east and wakes the kookaburras that have made their homes in the eucalyptus trees. Other amazing birds inhabit the area, parakeets, lorakeets, cockatoos, willy wag tails. Tonight, even as I went for a run, I came across a man going to his car who carried a parrot on his shoulder.
I'm not making this stuff up.
During the day, I am still focused on driving. It is a whole new experience traversing the backroads of Australia on the left side of the road while positioning myself in the driver's seat on the right. More times than not I have attempted to drive the car away while entering on the left and then sheepishly I get back out while the locals watch me thinking I've gone crazy. As I drive down the highway, the memories of the flood continue to be tattooed on the highways. In some places the roads have been washed out; in others, the potholes still remain, empty, bowls in the side of the road that threaten to swallow tires whole. I have almost memorized where they are already, but it is still a stark reminder of the power of water.
When I come home at night, I love to watch the wildlife change. The birds go to sleep and the bats wake up. At the end of our street, a cul-de-sac, stands an enormous tree with limb the size of beer kegs sprouting even at the top. The fruit bats sit in this tree motionless until the sun seemingly starts to succumb to gravity on the western horizon causing incredible hues of orange, pinks, purples and blues to be painted on the walls of houses and roads. The bats take flight, hundreds - maybe even a thousand - swirling and swooping making their way to the fruit trees somewhere far away from their home tree. It is a beautiful sight even though my neighbors shake their fists at the protected bat species wishing all sorts of atrocities to befall them for the paint eating presents they leave on the cars as they pass overhead.
Then it is dark and the beauty of this country sets in. Supposedly, the clearest skies in the world are found in the Australian outback and I believe it. The stars shine with an intensity that I have only seen a few times in the northern hemisphere. The Southern Cross is a bright reminder of where I am and it's symbolism on the Australian flag leaves me speechless. It is a pleasant place to spend a night, in this a small town in Queensland, Australia. I look forward to carrying you on this journey in life with me.
Solomon once wrote in Ecclesiastes (actually multiple times) "Everything is meaningless, a chasing after the wind." But I will take on the second greatest king of Israel and proclaim that everything has meaning and the only knowledge and meaning that we have comes from our own experiences. I hope you'll enjoy my tour along the Australian adventure.
Peace,
Reid
Friday, January 28, 2011
Certain toys always bring back memories. All of us, I would guess, remember the first bike that we ever had. Mine was a dark green mean machine (akin to the Green Machine, but not three wheeled and not anywhere near the ground) with a banana seat and yellow handle bar grips. She flew down the gravel driveway throwing up dirt and rocks as if I were putting the world behind me in a cloud of dust.
Our first (and only) video gaming system - the Atari 2600 - showed up one Christmas Eve after many beggings and pleadings to our parents. My brother and I wiled away the hours in front of the TV, the Atari projecting only two colors onto the screen - orange and green - blowing up Invaders from Space, or defeating each other in Technicolor baseball. Atari came with two types of joysticks (I always used to laugh at that description for the controllers - almost pseudo-sexual) one was square and looked like the gear shifter in a car without the nob, and the other was a small rectangle with a circle on the end that could be turned this way and that for use in games like Pong, Warlords, Night Racer...
As much as I loved those two toys, nothing beats the creativity of Tinker Toys. Packaged in a can that appeared much like a large container of rolled oats, Tinker Toys were a portal into a new place of imagination. My parents used to say that they played with Erector Sets (that name sounds funny to me also - toy makers must be really marketing for adults) and Lincoln Logs. Erector sets take a lot of time and effort with countless directions and maps and Lincoln logs are limited in the ways that they can be arranged, but Tinker Toys - the world is your oyster! The round pieces can be wheels or support columns, spokes or even eyeballs. From each of the round pieces pencil like sticks could be inserted to add on the next level of creativity. Tinker Toys could absorb hours and hours of life with great joy (and without joysticks).
I remember one afternoon we kids had been kept home from school because of one of the frequent blizzards that visited us during the dark winters. Snow days were the best for us kids because little was required (by parents) but much was expected (by kids). The parents hadn't made up a to do list so we had the day to play outside, not likely because of the forty-five inches of snow that fell per hour (and the -50 F wind chill), or we could play inside. We usually chose outside if we could, but on this day, the weather outside was frightful and the toys inside were delightful. We played with G. I. Joe soldiers, model airplanes, a buzzing version of football where these plastic football players moved across a metal board by vibration (still to this day one of my favorite games) - and then we got to the Tinker Toys. After dumping all of the pieces along the floor, we slowly assembled what would be the Taj Mahal of Tinker Toydom. Of course the origianal Taj Mahal took 17 years to erect and was built in memorial of Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of Shahjahan, who died during childbirth of the couple's fourteenth baby. We built the Tinker Mahal in 17 minutes and had no babies during the process unless you count my sister coming in with announcement that "Ken and Barbie had just had a Cabbage Patch Doll they named 'Geneva Gena.'
Just as we finished putting the finishing touches on the masterpiece, we hear that voice from the kitchen - we knew it was coming - sending out the alarm that dinner would be served in five minutes and that meant we had to put all the toys away. After much complaining, about five seconds worth, that we needed to keep the palace up so that Geneva Gena would have a residence worthy of her name, Mom gave us the look that said, 'save your breath, you might need it for the eating process.' It was pointless to argue. So, with great grieving, my brother and I began to dismantle the Tinker Mahal piece by piece while Ken and Barbie, along with their newborn, mourned near the side. There were so many dreams that we had for the rooms of the palace. As we disassembled the rooms, the hopes and dreams of those stories faded into the background. By the time the house had been dismantled, we had already moved on, but there is always that memory of what the Tinker Mahal looked like. Fortunately, we still had the pieces to build something even better the next time.
These last few weeks I have felt the same thing here in Rockford, Illinois. Two months ago we announced to our congregation that we would be moving to Australia where I had accepted the call to be the chaplain at a Lutheran high school and part of a five point parish near Plainland, Australia. When we told the congregation, the feelings were mixed, bitter was the point of the dreams and hopes that we have for the congregation that we won't be able to be part of (physically that is: as part of the body of Christ, we are all in this together, right?), excitement at the prospect of a great new opportunity. I can deal with those emotions, but two months ago, it wasn't really real, do you know what I mean? Because I didn't have my greencard yet, the new call was just a ship on the horizon; we could only see the briefest top of the sails.
This week, I got the good news that my greencard had come through. The government of Australia had deemed me worthy to place my feet on the sandy soils of OZ. That's when it got 'real'. Not that we would be turning back anyway, but at this point there was no hesitation to where we would be next. Then, I received an e-mail from the President of the Lutheran Church of Australia, Queensland District who said, 'get yourselves here as quickly as possible.' With the news of the floods, our help will be invaluable.
That made it even realer (I know that's not a word, but stick with me while I add more vocabulary to the English language.)
So, this week Christine, the girls and I have been preparing our house for departure. The basement was first. Piece by piece all the memories of our past have been taken off the walls - the flags, the mugs, the photos - with each memory removed and carefully prepared for packaging I find myself feeling like we are dismantling life - life as I've always known it, and with that feeling of dismantling is a surreal understanding that all of life is change. Sometimes it is painful (almost always it is) but with the pain is sure and constant sense that even in the dismantling of the present, the blessing of God continues to place us where He needs us next and most. The fear that comes with change is replaced with a sense of peace on a walk where God reminds us that even though we disassemble a life here in the United States, the same pieces that we are packing are available to us wherever we go.
I will tinker with the emotions that come with that understanding of new life.
Our first (and only) video gaming system - the Atari 2600 - showed up one Christmas Eve after many beggings and pleadings to our parents. My brother and I wiled away the hours in front of the TV, the Atari projecting only two colors onto the screen - orange and green - blowing up Invaders from Space, or defeating each other in Technicolor baseball. Atari came with two types of joysticks (I always used to laugh at that description for the controllers - almost pseudo-sexual) one was square and looked like the gear shifter in a car without the nob, and the other was a small rectangle with a circle on the end that could be turned this way and that for use in games like Pong, Warlords, Night Racer...
As much as I loved those two toys, nothing beats the creativity of Tinker Toys. Packaged in a can that appeared much like a large container of rolled oats, Tinker Toys were a portal into a new place of imagination. My parents used to say that they played with Erector Sets (that name sounds funny to me also - toy makers must be really marketing for adults) and Lincoln Logs. Erector sets take a lot of time and effort with countless directions and maps and Lincoln logs are limited in the ways that they can be arranged, but Tinker Toys - the world is your oyster! The round pieces can be wheels or support columns, spokes or even eyeballs. From each of the round pieces pencil like sticks could be inserted to add on the next level of creativity. Tinker Toys could absorb hours and hours of life with great joy (and without joysticks).
I remember one afternoon we kids had been kept home from school because of one of the frequent blizzards that visited us during the dark winters. Snow days were the best for us kids because little was required (by parents) but much was expected (by kids). The parents hadn't made up a to do list so we had the day to play outside, not likely because of the forty-five inches of snow that fell per hour (and the -50 F wind chill), or we could play inside. We usually chose outside if we could, but on this day, the weather outside was frightful and the toys inside were delightful. We played with G. I. Joe soldiers, model airplanes, a buzzing version of football where these plastic football players moved across a metal board by vibration (still to this day one of my favorite games) - and then we got to the Tinker Toys. After dumping all of the pieces along the floor, we slowly assembled what would be the Taj Mahal of Tinker Toydom. Of course the origianal Taj Mahal took 17 years to erect and was built in memorial of Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of Shahjahan, who died during childbirth of the couple's fourteenth baby. We built the Tinker Mahal in 17 minutes and had no babies during the process unless you count my sister coming in with announcement that "Ken and Barbie had just had a Cabbage Patch Doll they named 'Geneva Gena.'
Just as we finished putting the finishing touches on the masterpiece, we hear that voice from the kitchen - we knew it was coming - sending out the alarm that dinner would be served in five minutes and that meant we had to put all the toys away. After much complaining, about five seconds worth, that we needed to keep the palace up so that Geneva Gena would have a residence worthy of her name, Mom gave us the look that said, 'save your breath, you might need it for the eating process.' It was pointless to argue. So, with great grieving, my brother and I began to dismantle the Tinker Mahal piece by piece while Ken and Barbie, along with their newborn, mourned near the side. There were so many dreams that we had for the rooms of the palace. As we disassembled the rooms, the hopes and dreams of those stories faded into the background. By the time the house had been dismantled, we had already moved on, but there is always that memory of what the Tinker Mahal looked like. Fortunately, we still had the pieces to build something even better the next time.
These last few weeks I have felt the same thing here in Rockford, Illinois. Two months ago we announced to our congregation that we would be moving to Australia where I had accepted the call to be the chaplain at a Lutheran high school and part of a five point parish near Plainland, Australia. When we told the congregation, the feelings were mixed, bitter was the point of the dreams and hopes that we have for the congregation that we won't be able to be part of (physically that is: as part of the body of Christ, we are all in this together, right?), excitement at the prospect of a great new opportunity. I can deal with those emotions, but two months ago, it wasn't really real, do you know what I mean? Because I didn't have my greencard yet, the new call was just a ship on the horizon; we could only see the briefest top of the sails.
This week, I got the good news that my greencard had come through. The government of Australia had deemed me worthy to place my feet on the sandy soils of OZ. That's when it got 'real'. Not that we would be turning back anyway, but at this point there was no hesitation to where we would be next. Then, I received an e-mail from the President of the Lutheran Church of Australia, Queensland District who said, 'get yourselves here as quickly as possible.' With the news of the floods, our help will be invaluable.
That made it even realer (I know that's not a word, but stick with me while I add more vocabulary to the English language.)
So, this week Christine, the girls and I have been preparing our house for departure. The basement was first. Piece by piece all the memories of our past have been taken off the walls - the flags, the mugs, the photos - with each memory removed and carefully prepared for packaging I find myself feeling like we are dismantling life - life as I've always known it, and with that feeling of dismantling is a surreal understanding that all of life is change. Sometimes it is painful (almost always it is) but with the pain is sure and constant sense that even in the dismantling of the present, the blessing of God continues to place us where He needs us next and most. The fear that comes with change is replaced with a sense of peace on a walk where God reminds us that even though we disassemble a life here in the United States, the same pieces that we are packing are available to us wherever we go.
I will tinker with the emotions that come with that understanding of new life.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Wishing Well part III
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)