This week, just before my kids head home for Christmas break, I brought out the holiday cheer by watching a short film adaptation of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." The film is broken in 2 8-minute segments and shows its 1969 date well. For those that don't know, the story consists of a small town who adhere to tradition rather than morals in determining who is released from the community. The ending was shocking when I read it back in high school, again in college, and in video form watching it with my fifth graders. Seeing their hands shoot up to ask questions is the best part of my day.
I thought this was a great intro to the Utopian lifestyle depicted in their next novel, The Giver. by Lois Lowry. The story is set in some far off future, where the government controls the population, the educational tracts of its citizens, and even the worrisome problem of what to do with the elderly and the defiant. In this story, and in countless other great science-fiction stories, choice is outlawed in the sake of the mass public. Overpopulation leads to less resources? Let's make everyone have 2 kids maximum. Too many people sick? Let's euthanize them! Having "feelings" for the opposite sex? Take a pill and control your "stirrings"!
The one thing lost on all the hubbub about another popular novel, The Hunger Games, is what the book really says about reality TV, our obsession with celebrities and our reluctance to fight for anything meaningful. Ironically, one of our vocabulary words this week was rebellion. No wonder the kids have no idea what the word means--I used the American Revolution and Star Wars as my examples, along with my impersonation of the Emperor himself!
After some note taking about the plot and the characters, we delved into the "why". Why would a community sacrifice a member each year (again, in The Hunger Games, each district must give 2 tributes for the arena, and those tributes are chosen by a forced lottery)? Religion was their first answer. We talk about the Aztecs who sacrificed conquered peoples (did they really rip the hearts out of virgins or is that just some Hollywood fantasy of men?) in order to assure themselves a plentiful crop. One of my students from Africa starts getting into a punishment ceremony where limbs are chopped off of criminals. That really got the kids talking!
Another student said that you control the population because you can't feed them all. Perfect answer! So we get into hypotheticals. If having a perfect society means you rid the state of poverty by killing all the poor, would that be okay? What about the sick and the old? Where's their place? Why do you think the people of the town just go along with the lottery? Why doesn't anyone fight anymore?
We finalized the into to the novel by looking at the movie trailer for the film adaptation of George Orwell's "1984." What a trailer with its tunic blues, Big Brother faces and fascist embodied flag waving. It's bleak and gruesome, and I doubt the kids really "get" all of it. But they see the nonsense of watching our every move. Don't we have cameras everywhere, I asked. Eyes light up. We talk about Hitler. We write down some thoughts on if a perfect society can be accomplished. Pencils race.
I have plenty of friends on Facebook and Twitter that rail about all the rights we have supposedly or arguably lost over the last decade. Gun rights, what we can eat, health care. I find it ironic too that the phrase "thought police" that was penned by Orwell decades ago is being used so much today, especially after the comments made by Phil Robertson of "Duck Dynasty" fame.
So here's the question--do we really have free speech? As a teacher, and I'm sure you have too dear reader, I have read countless stories about fellow teachers being sacked because of their rants on social media. From gun rights, hating Obama, Sarah Palin, gays, blacks, lesbians, PETA, you name it some teacher has said something to defame another which leads to them being put on "administrative leave until a further investigation" is held. When social media was first making its way into our lives we were all told, not so politely, not to have any social media presence whatsoever. If it wasn't something you said that would get you fired, what you do in your personal life undoubtedly will offend someone.
After some close calls with my own tongue (it's no accident that the Bible mention the tongue as a flame), I've grown to understand the sensitive nature of my social footprint. But then again, I can't censor what I don't do. You wont find pictures of me holding shot glasses (okay maybe) next to some divorced lady with wrinkled cleavage. You wont find me sticking my middle finger to the viewer as if I have some secret about life that they do not possess. I hardly even share links to other stories. I'm pretty bland, not because I have to but because that's just me. I haven't waded into the culture wars that are prevalent on today's news. I hardly knew there was a war on Christmas. They can take all the nativity scenes from every city hall in America and the one that matters most to me is the one at my church, the one in my house and the one in my heart.
What bothers me the most about the divide I see growing in our culture, form black-white, gay and heterosexual, alien believers and non alien believers is that no once can be civil. Petitions are immediately set in place and signs are thrusts. If I banned every form of merchandise recommended to me by progressive teachers, Christian moms and environmentalists, I wouldn't drive, eat, drink or wear any clothes. Where does it all end? The second worst? The endless comments that someone felt necessary for every article on the internet. The Christian spouts biblical verses and the unbeliever pulls something meant for the Jews in the time of Moses and throws it back at us.
One thing for certain, I don't consider myself a bigot. But then again, what do I really care about what anyone does in their bedroom? What would I really say to my family members that are gay? I would still hug them if I saw them. I don't know what we'd talk about, but I bet it would be catching up and laughs. I dont always agree with what is shown on tv, but guess what, I just turn the channel.
Maybe our freedoms and ideals are being stripped away. I think we lost heart years ago. I was reminded today that in the original "The Wizard of Oz" the character of the Tin Man had a much different story line. You see, he was a man first, of blood and bone. The witch was jealous of his love he had for a woman (a munchkin at that) and when he was cutting wood, his axe began to cut off his own limbs. Each limb was replaced by metal until eventually he became the Tin Man. He no longer had the love of the woman in his heart, and eventually he was undone by a rainstorm that rusted his parts. A man without a heart, frozen along the yellow brick road, undone by a green-skinned witch.
My kids still have those hearts. They raise their hands and mine beats.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Slightly Askew
On Wednesday at a professional development meeting, I was introduced to the 4 types of teachers. Mind you, I've read many of these types of lists before. The trend in education every few years is to rename or reinvent what was once old. I remember the cynical eye rolls of the veteran teachers I used to work with. They've been through different superintendents, principals and a decade of classroom students. By the end of their tenures they had become what this study on Wednesday called the "Survivors." Just reading the name implies that the energy required to motivate and sustain a career has long been gone. There was retirement to look forward too, grand kids and the warmer climate of a summer home.
I always looked on the survivor teacher (or the fundamentalist teacher--one who resists changes) with some form of derision and contempt. There was always this part of me that wanted to leave an anonymous note in their mailbox with the inscription: You should just retire now. They would rant and rave in the teacher's lounge and all the ladies would wonder who wrote it. But in the end the message would hit home. Problem solved!
But then again, if there was any anonymous note in anyone's mailbox it would be mine. It would simply read: Dude, chill.
The pressure I place on myself is much greater than the one anyone else could impose. As a teacher, no job is ever done. Assessments, the data crunching, paperwork and lesson plans are ongoing as they are tedious. Like any teacher, I have several papers bound together with clips, all awaiting attention. The evidence of a days work--half pencils, paper shards, the lid from some lonely marker--all need to be swept away. The bulletin boards need attention and the calendar sets slightly askew on a dry erase board that has the remnants of smeared powdery dry marker on its surface.
I'm late to meetings at times and I've been known to be on my phone or grade papers. I have 27 students who all need a variety of attention that I feel inadequate to give. I told the kids that I read about those teachers with "of the year" awards and accolades. Those are my expectations. The survivor isn't an expectation, it's a safety net.
But lately, that's how teaching has felt, like I'm looking forward to an end game that isn't even there.
And the home life is sometimes just as cluttered.
I was watching a foreign film a few weeks back (first warning of existential crisis? Foreign film viewings!). It was one of those that I couldn't remember why I had it on the queue, but I tried it anyway. It featured a family who decided to check out from the mundane life they were living in a drastic and tragic way. It was a film of repetition, routine and sadness. I wouldn't recommend it but the director's arms-length point of view and lack of emotion has not left my mind since I watched it. I the began to look at some of the routines in my life.
Like any dad, any home, there's laundry to be done (our break from the mundane came thanks to a wayward bottle of white out that blotted several of our clothes with sprinkles of white) and carpets to clean. The marks of kids can be seen in any direction, a solitary doll shoe, a dog-eared book, a soldier who lost his way from the basement to the bedroom. The dog pulls his bed from the cage as if he's searching for some perfect view of the house when we aren't home. There's cars to be fixed and a garage to clean.
Yes, a God's man is forever busy. We're supposed to be the light upon the lamp stand. If I were at home all the time doing nothing, the time would be filled with something, and for me, that's not always a great thing. Left to my own devices, I'd eat all day and browse pictures of girls. I'd sleep all day and wouldn't change my clothes. And while this past week I've been reluctant to identify with the Holy Spirit that is working overtime to break through my hard heart, I cannot deny the thrills that come with life.
The feeling I got in a room full of youth on the launch night of our Disciple Now weekend. That feeling of satisfaction when the 2-3 zone we implemented in practice shut down the opponent tonight in our weekly scrimmage (I'm helping a friend coach 9th grade boys basketball). It's the conversations that stem from choosing to wear a blatant Christian shirt (the one tonight was, a blood donor saved my life). It's the voice of the 3 parents I talked to today about their child's successes and challenges.
In the end there really isn't anything routine. Each day is an opportunity. Each new face we see is a chance to awaken a smile. That's all God expects, to believe and let Him do the work. For too long I drift into old habits. I try to tame the lion, keeping it caged up. That baby wants to run. It's the feeling I get in the company of men on my Wednesdays when we get off track and laugh ourselves back onto the agenda. It's the rebuke of a pastor who knows what you really meant when you sent him that email, and it's in the form of my principal who knows just what I needed and exactly how to say the words:
Dude, chill.
I always looked on the survivor teacher (or the fundamentalist teacher--one who resists changes) with some form of derision and contempt. There was always this part of me that wanted to leave an anonymous note in their mailbox with the inscription: You should just retire now. They would rant and rave in the teacher's lounge and all the ladies would wonder who wrote it. But in the end the message would hit home. Problem solved!
But then again, if there was any anonymous note in anyone's mailbox it would be mine. It would simply read: Dude, chill.
The pressure I place on myself is much greater than the one anyone else could impose. As a teacher, no job is ever done. Assessments, the data crunching, paperwork and lesson plans are ongoing as they are tedious. Like any teacher, I have several papers bound together with clips, all awaiting attention. The evidence of a days work--half pencils, paper shards, the lid from some lonely marker--all need to be swept away. The bulletin boards need attention and the calendar sets slightly askew on a dry erase board that has the remnants of smeared powdery dry marker on its surface.
I'm late to meetings at times and I've been known to be on my phone or grade papers. I have 27 students who all need a variety of attention that I feel inadequate to give. I told the kids that I read about those teachers with "of the year" awards and accolades. Those are my expectations. The survivor isn't an expectation, it's a safety net.
But lately, that's how teaching has felt, like I'm looking forward to an end game that isn't even there.
And the home life is sometimes just as cluttered.
I was watching a foreign film a few weeks back (first warning of existential crisis? Foreign film viewings!). It was one of those that I couldn't remember why I had it on the queue, but I tried it anyway. It featured a family who decided to check out from the mundane life they were living in a drastic and tragic way. It was a film of repetition, routine and sadness. I wouldn't recommend it but the director's arms-length point of view and lack of emotion has not left my mind since I watched it. I the began to look at some of the routines in my life.
Like any dad, any home, there's laundry to be done (our break from the mundane came thanks to a wayward bottle of white out that blotted several of our clothes with sprinkles of white) and carpets to clean. The marks of kids can be seen in any direction, a solitary doll shoe, a dog-eared book, a soldier who lost his way from the basement to the bedroom. The dog pulls his bed from the cage as if he's searching for some perfect view of the house when we aren't home. There's cars to be fixed and a garage to clean.
Yes, a God's man is forever busy. We're supposed to be the light upon the lamp stand. If I were at home all the time doing nothing, the time would be filled with something, and for me, that's not always a great thing. Left to my own devices, I'd eat all day and browse pictures of girls. I'd sleep all day and wouldn't change my clothes. And while this past week I've been reluctant to identify with the Holy Spirit that is working overtime to break through my hard heart, I cannot deny the thrills that come with life.
The feeling I got in a room full of youth on the launch night of our Disciple Now weekend. That feeling of satisfaction when the 2-3 zone we implemented in practice shut down the opponent tonight in our weekly scrimmage (I'm helping a friend coach 9th grade boys basketball). It's the conversations that stem from choosing to wear a blatant Christian shirt (the one tonight was, a blood donor saved my life). It's the voice of the 3 parents I talked to today about their child's successes and challenges.
In the end there really isn't anything routine. Each day is an opportunity. Each new face we see is a chance to awaken a smile. That's all God expects, to believe and let Him do the work. For too long I drift into old habits. I try to tame the lion, keeping it caged up. That baby wants to run. It's the feeling I get in the company of men on my Wednesdays when we get off track and laugh ourselves back onto the agenda. It's the rebuke of a pastor who knows what you really meant when you sent him that email, and it's in the form of my principal who knows just what I needed and exactly how to say the words:
Dude, chill.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Value Added
Today is "Black Friday" and I'm home sipping coffee, smelling bacon cooking and listening to my son whine about not getting a Yahtzee (in his world he "never" wins). We have foregone the madness that is the mecca for shoppers across America a few years back. Some of the decision was made for us with having kids to attend to. Some of it was from the pulpit and the conviction that comes from the inability to pay out tithes but the ability to spend a huge wad of money on toys and gifts no one really needs. It never occurred to me to think of the retail workers who work that day.
But this blog isn't some diatribe about worker's rights and the media's fight to bring down Wal-Mart. I find it funny that the liberal Huffington Post is all over Wal-Mart each week for a variety of reasons, from wages to the disparity between incomes for its corporate honchos to "ruining" Thanksgiving by opening its doors to shoppers. No one mentions the shoppers, who share some of the blame for seeking consumptuous (new word alert!) deals and a Thunderdome mentality to survive with the one electronic that will rule them all.
Back when I worked retail, the lure of extra pay during the holidays was rather appealing to someone who wanted more and who had no one to care for at home. That's the difference now. The people I worked with at Target many years ago were teenagers like me who didn't really care if we worked on Christmas Eve. There were grandmas too, people who had retired and went back to work. Single moms and those working a second job. The economy has always been in flux. I've always worked with people who were above the skills needed to perform a task, and those that were forced back into work to help ends meet. The real issue is that the ends we are trying to meet are continuing to drift further and further away.
Priorities and balance have always been an issue for people, especially for myself. The time you devote to yourself dwindles with the commitments towards your kids, your wife and the pressures of work. That just becomes inevitable. There are times when I groan about driving to soccer practice, or having to clean my house. It gets tiring. I begin to take score. I've done x amount of chores but my wife has only done x amount. The analytic teacher side of me fixates on results rather than intentions.
But when you approach life with the charts and graphs of an evaluation, the results will never become clear. In education, half of my performance evaluation is determined by something we call "value added." It's some complex theory that tries to relate the growth of each individual student. Test scores are analyzed, computed in some database and a line graph and numbers are assigned to each teacher in the state of Ohio. We have workshops and conferences to help us read our data. We spend days on professional development to somehow use this data to serve the kids in our classrooms. It's a never ending cycle of number crunching. This year in particular has become numbing in the assessments, tests and attention I've devoted to charting trends and standards targets. I spend more time grading papers and interpreting data than I do teaching.
So I bring more work home, and the work at home becomes cluttered and dusty. When I'm not grading, I'm reading and jotting notes towards the men's ministry at our church. We currently have no men's ministry. It's just me and a small group of courageously committed men hammering out the vision and mission to help our men become God's man. There's a youth ministry component to our lives as well.
So tell me when does burnout happen?
I had a meeting the other day with a great friend. The kind that isn't afraid to speak truth into your life. The kind who is witness to the gifts I bear to others. I brought my judgment, my frustrations, my dreams into his office like I would bring in ingredients to some fantastic meal that has yet to be cooked. I leave with a silver platter of a dish ready to serve. But decisions must be made. The youth? The men? My family? My service to God? I have no complex graph to turn to, not some binder with statistics and highlighted phrases for me to interpret. The human side of me needs answers while the spiritual side demands patience and perspective. I liked it when there was just laundry to worry about.
But this blog isn't some diatribe about worker's rights and the media's fight to bring down Wal-Mart. I find it funny that the liberal Huffington Post is all over Wal-Mart each week for a variety of reasons, from wages to the disparity between incomes for its corporate honchos to "ruining" Thanksgiving by opening its doors to shoppers. No one mentions the shoppers, who share some of the blame for seeking consumptuous (new word alert!) deals and a Thunderdome mentality to survive with the one electronic that will rule them all.
Back when I worked retail, the lure of extra pay during the holidays was rather appealing to someone who wanted more and who had no one to care for at home. That's the difference now. The people I worked with at Target many years ago were teenagers like me who didn't really care if we worked on Christmas Eve. There were grandmas too, people who had retired and went back to work. Single moms and those working a second job. The economy has always been in flux. I've always worked with people who were above the skills needed to perform a task, and those that were forced back into work to help ends meet. The real issue is that the ends we are trying to meet are continuing to drift further and further away.
Priorities and balance have always been an issue for people, especially for myself. The time you devote to yourself dwindles with the commitments towards your kids, your wife and the pressures of work. That just becomes inevitable. There are times when I groan about driving to soccer practice, or having to clean my house. It gets tiring. I begin to take score. I've done x amount of chores but my wife has only done x amount. The analytic teacher side of me fixates on results rather than intentions.
But when you approach life with the charts and graphs of an evaluation, the results will never become clear. In education, half of my performance evaluation is determined by something we call "value added." It's some complex theory that tries to relate the growth of each individual student. Test scores are analyzed, computed in some database and a line graph and numbers are assigned to each teacher in the state of Ohio. We have workshops and conferences to help us read our data. We spend days on professional development to somehow use this data to serve the kids in our classrooms. It's a never ending cycle of number crunching. This year in particular has become numbing in the assessments, tests and attention I've devoted to charting trends and standards targets. I spend more time grading papers and interpreting data than I do teaching.
So I bring more work home, and the work at home becomes cluttered and dusty. When I'm not grading, I'm reading and jotting notes towards the men's ministry at our church. We currently have no men's ministry. It's just me and a small group of courageously committed men hammering out the vision and mission to help our men become God's man. There's a youth ministry component to our lives as well.
So tell me when does burnout happen?
I had a meeting the other day with a great friend. The kind that isn't afraid to speak truth into your life. The kind who is witness to the gifts I bear to others. I brought my judgment, my frustrations, my dreams into his office like I would bring in ingredients to some fantastic meal that has yet to be cooked. I leave with a silver platter of a dish ready to serve. But decisions must be made. The youth? The men? My family? My service to God? I have no complex graph to turn to, not some binder with statistics and highlighted phrases for me to interpret. The human side of me needs answers while the spiritual side demands patience and perspective. I liked it when there was just laundry to worry about.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
That Brutal Nonchalance/The Master Rummager
There's a great part in one of my favorite movies, Magnolia, where TJ Mackey (played by Tom Cruise) stares down his accuser. In the span of an interview with a reporter, TJ Mackey, a Lothario "motivational" speaker who helps men "tame" women. The veneer is all but lost. The machismo has been stripped away. He's left defenseless as his true identity has been revealed. He finally speaks, "I'm quietly judging you." There's pain in that statement, deflection too. there are some tremendous moments in many of director Paul Thomas Anderson's movies. Camera close-ups that linger. We've all been in those situations. Maybe not as cinematic, but it's our drama nonetheless. That quiet judgment of others.
Of course the topic of judgement came up with our youth group this past week. Teaching the class that Sunday helped me get myself back on track. Satan likes to make you feel worthless as it is, especially when your own standards are set high. Leading by example is more than just a saying, it's a kingdom expectation. No, I cannot gain any favor for any job that I could perform, and I would never satisfy God. But to lie helplessly on the ground like a fish out of a bowl is not the plan God has for our life either.
Researching the lesson brought me to Instagram. I wanted to make it relevant to our kids who use social media. The active kids in our youth are great examples of what to post. They hardly complain, they understand that people read more into a random thought, and they generally seem to care about what they are promoting. The somewhat active teens are a little more liberal. And sometimes that comes with the territory. The active kids have active parents (generally), while those that don't get dropped off with friends or have a grandma bringing them, sometimes raising them. Their friends are a different story. Their usernames espouse attitude, a brutal nonchalance. Under their usernames are typical statuses. The high school they attend, the year of graduation, emojis that signify personality. But then the words get more personal.
Build a bridge and get over it. You only live once so fuck it. Can't beat it join it. Listen bitch if u don't like me i'll find u and kick your ass.
So there's me, a teacher, a father with a 20 year old, a youth leader. Judgement ends up filtering through the lenses of my life. Do you judge a situation as uncaring by their parents? Do I judge the mom who knows it and leaves it? Would I think twice about letting my daughter hang out with a kid with that outlook on life? When my daughter was in junior high we ran into many parenting obstacles. Many were attacked with my foot firmly in my mouth. I had no filter. When she went on a shopping excursion with a few girls and a mom and brings back thong underwear, your emotions sometimes get the best of you. Did I judge a few of those girls and her mom? You betcha. Another fiasco was my mouth on Myspace where I told the world no way my daughter was hanging out with the mature-looking blonde. No way I was sending my daughter into that crowd. Surely I was in the right? Yeah, foot in mouth. Call me Judgementor.
Judgment comes in many forms. Sometimes its the deflections of your own shortcomings. As the men's ministry grows one class at a time, it's hard sometimes to see a man's excuse as a means to judge his entire life. As a Christian we're told to "pray" for them, right? A person asks you for money but they wont take you up on the offer to fill up their gas tank. Judge. The person who is so sarcastic they cannot breathe without uttering a joke. Surely they aren't filled with the same Holy Spirit as me? Judge. You put THAT picture on Facebook? Judge.
Here I am spending so much time helping people pry logs from their eyes, I can't see the planks in my own.
I've always been an observer. I noticed the woman pulling folded food stamps from her purse with the look on her face if the amount would be enough to cover the four jugs of milk. The look of a girl who really didn't want to hug that guy friend of hers, rolling her eyes as he pats her back. That skill eventually became one of the many excuses I had from running from God. I remember sitting in church and witnessing the congregation. I could have pointed out the drug addict, the adulterer, the slut. How could so many contradictions remain under one roof? How can the priest sanction this behavior? All this as I was drowning in my own transgressions.
And when I strive to be God's man, that gift of observation becomes ever so prideful. I catch myself thinking it, confiding to my wife, my share group. It "goes away" and comes back. Like any other sin, to extinguish its affects is to break free form its enjoyment, however fleeting. On the flip side of that, that judgment mixed with love has interesting effects too.
It helps me realize when to post on an Instagram account to a text message instead. Less eyes. It helps me speak into the lives of the youth about their grades or the truth about their relationships (one word: overrated). It gives me patience with my students (and when to back off the pedal when it comes to motivation). It allows me to set standards for my kids without calling out the choices of other families. Pointing fingers never won anyone over to the Kingdom. My stubby ones surely wont either.
Other thoughts this week too. At school, God opened up a door in my life I didn't want opened. Which is the messy truth about letting Him in. He's the master rummager, the best interior designer of the heart that ever walked the earth. He moves furniture that is past its due date out for bulk pick-up. He paints the walls. He escorts people out the back (or maybe we do, cause Jesus would invite all wouldn't he?) and sells your luxury SUV for something more economical. There used to be a show called Trading Spaces where couples would redesign a room for one another. The big reveal was always the show's best moment. The look on a husband or wife's face when they see their new rooms are typical of our pride. Sometimes they cry, sometimes they are shocked. But every once in a while they stand there with that look on their face. The one that screams, "What happened?" Or, "you had all this time and you chose THIS?"
We want the prosperity and the blessings and the prayers fulfilled but in the meantime we are wary of the hurt, the change and the sacrifice. Like the student this week who was transferred into my room. I judged him as the bad kid, his mother even worse. Open a door for me Lord and I'll respond, I've prayed before. In walks in this kid and I'm looking to slam it. The mom sat in with him for 3 days. Totally atypical for a classroom observation. My colleagues whispered to me in the halls, they questioned why, they injected me with visions of revolt. I had to change the subject so many times I felt like I wasn't being sincere.
You see, I wanted that release of frustration. I wanted to pound drinks at happy hour and complain on twitter. I didn't want to be a change agent, but there I was teaching through it, hardly missing a beat. I think the kid will return without mom next week. Maybe he leaves to his online destination, maybe he doesn't. One thing's for certain, to God the time now matters. Each person in our life is a reason to respond to the love given to us. Judgment is easy. Love is hard.
Jesus wants to redesign more than a room. Trading Spaces.
Here I am spending so much time helping people pry logs from their eyes, I can't see the planks in my own.
I've always been an observer. I noticed the woman pulling folded food stamps from her purse with the look on her face if the amount would be enough to cover the four jugs of milk. The look of a girl who really didn't want to hug that guy friend of hers, rolling her eyes as he pats her back. That skill eventually became one of the many excuses I had from running from God. I remember sitting in church and witnessing the congregation. I could have pointed out the drug addict, the adulterer, the slut. How could so many contradictions remain under one roof? How can the priest sanction this behavior? All this as I was drowning in my own transgressions.
And when I strive to be God's man, that gift of observation becomes ever so prideful. I catch myself thinking it, confiding to my wife, my share group. It "goes away" and comes back. Like any other sin, to extinguish its affects is to break free form its enjoyment, however fleeting. On the flip side of that, that judgment mixed with love has interesting effects too.
It helps me realize when to post on an Instagram account to a text message instead. Less eyes. It helps me speak into the lives of the youth about their grades or the truth about their relationships (one word: overrated). It gives me patience with my students (and when to back off the pedal when it comes to motivation). It allows me to set standards for my kids without calling out the choices of other families. Pointing fingers never won anyone over to the Kingdom. My stubby ones surely wont either.
Other thoughts this week too. At school, God opened up a door in my life I didn't want opened. Which is the messy truth about letting Him in. He's the master rummager, the best interior designer of the heart that ever walked the earth. He moves furniture that is past its due date out for bulk pick-up. He paints the walls. He escorts people out the back (or maybe we do, cause Jesus would invite all wouldn't he?) and sells your luxury SUV for something more economical. There used to be a show called Trading Spaces where couples would redesign a room for one another. The big reveal was always the show's best moment. The look on a husband or wife's face when they see their new rooms are typical of our pride. Sometimes they cry, sometimes they are shocked. But every once in a while they stand there with that look on their face. The one that screams, "What happened?" Or, "you had all this time and you chose THIS?"
We want the prosperity and the blessings and the prayers fulfilled but in the meantime we are wary of the hurt, the change and the sacrifice. Like the student this week who was transferred into my room. I judged him as the bad kid, his mother even worse. Open a door for me Lord and I'll respond, I've prayed before. In walks in this kid and I'm looking to slam it. The mom sat in with him for 3 days. Totally atypical for a classroom observation. My colleagues whispered to me in the halls, they questioned why, they injected me with visions of revolt. I had to change the subject so many times I felt like I wasn't being sincere.
You see, I wanted that release of frustration. I wanted to pound drinks at happy hour and complain on twitter. I didn't want to be a change agent, but there I was teaching through it, hardly missing a beat. I think the kid will return without mom next week. Maybe he leaves to his online destination, maybe he doesn't. One thing's for certain, to God the time now matters. Each person in our life is a reason to respond to the love given to us. Judgment is easy. Love is hard.
Jesus wants to redesign more than a room. Trading Spaces.
Friday, November 8, 2013
The Epiphanies No One Sees
I'm going to think twice listening to Christian music when I work out. Just that sentence alone sounds horrible, so let me set the context.
At Planet Fitness the endless line of cardio machines, ellipticals, sled glider machines, steppers and bikes all point to several 50-inch or more flat screen tv's that offer an stream of news, sound-bites and talking heads. The major news stations are on, Fox News and CNN, plus the local channels and ESPN. I typically work out from 5:30-7 on a few given nights which is when the news and entertainment shows are in full swing. A few weeks back after the MTV Music Awards, Entertainment tonight and its broadcasting cousins aired nothing but Miley Cyrus. It was close ups of Miley's tongue, close ups of her butt cheeks hanging out of her short shorts. Shots of her swinging naked on a wrecking ball. I felt embarrassed to even watch, Not that I don't sneak a peak at women. But there's something unseemly about Miley Cyrus, perhaps in the fact she looks like she's 12 but she parades around like the woman you hope to meet in some dark alley (well, I don't hope to meet, but you get my drift).
Most times its the news. Obama care and his broken promises about keeping your insurance. Is he dishonest or a liar? Isn't that one in the same? The video from the recent biker group that chased a hit and run perpetrator has been plugged a lot recently. And of course we get the video of the car rolling over a human being. We get men acting violently, attacking the car and beating the windows with their helmets like fervid zombies.
Today the news in our city involved the beating death of a 4 year old girl. The girl suffered multiple skull fractures that were delivered by the mom's boyfriend. The child's grandmother and family were caught by cameras in the courtroom hallways, being asked the types of questions no family should have to ask. The grandparent is interviewed shortly afterward as he condemns the accused to hell.
On another screen there are other tales of woe. A man weeps on his porch, Words from athletes blurted out, redacted for the masses. I've heard about bullying and harassment so much over the past few years you'd think there were gangs on every street corner waiting to take your lunch money (In this fantasy, the gangs are always dressed according to their "specialty" like the ones from the 1979 film, The Warriors. Baseball bats and white painted faces. The roller-skating, overall gang. I'm sure there are gangs of bullies running in my mind all wearing camouflage and Duck Dynasty beards).
I'm inclining on the treadmill seemingly towards the direction of the tv's and it's like that moment in a movie when the music swells and the camera tightly wounds around the face of the protagonist. The moment of epiphany is about to happen (for a great example, see Magnolia). The audience's heart begins to beat in unison with the character. Being witness to the epiphany is cathartic in itself. The release of tears becomes inevitable. Cue music swell, the character blinks and the moment is over. Cut scene.
But I'm at a Fitness center. All I want to do is drop to my knees (thanks to this song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_6JQDsbtlM) but the thought of dropping there on the treadmill would send me into the wall which would result in a fireball of embarrassment so intense it would burn like a thousand suns. So I did what I thought best. I began to pray. I prayed for the man to forgive the man who bludgeoned the poor girl to death (all I could think about was my little girl. Who would beat a little girl like that? Seeing her little teeth, that smile. God, that just kills me thinking about it). I prayed for the family whose son is now behind bars. Surely this is not the life plan they had in mind when they held him lovingly for the first time. I prayed for the football player who thought it was just "fun" to say he was going to stick it to a sister of a teammate. I prayed for the sports newscaster who recently lost a daughter in a car accident.
I came across the parable of the seed from Luke 8. A farmer goes out to scatter his seed. Some falls along the path, among the rocks, some in good soil and others among thorns. The seed that grows among thorns grows, but it ends up being choked by the thorns. In a worldy view, growing up through thorns would be considered superhuman. These are the uplifting stories we get from athletes and public figures. The adversity they faced living in the tough neighborhood, the deaths of family members or close friends. The close calls that lead to those epiphanies that no one sees. In the broken world we live in, the thorns are evident in bunches. Among the 27 students in my 5th grade classroom, they are the seeds growing among thorns.
But I'm not so sure Jesus told us this parable for us to strive for adversity in living a life that's called to seek justice, a call to a life that's bigger than oneself. It's a cautionary tale. How many Christians make it through a life that is surrounded by naysayers, doubters and gawkers? The world wants revenge, the Christian wants forgiveness. Thorns v supple soil. Adversity and trials come at a moments notice and we have no idea how to respond.
Like tonight when I turned the van around and drove back home. I simply had more of my fill of the world. All I wanted to do was cry. All I wanted to do was pray. I think it's okay to do both.
At Planet Fitness the endless line of cardio machines, ellipticals, sled glider machines, steppers and bikes all point to several 50-inch or more flat screen tv's that offer an stream of news, sound-bites and talking heads. The major news stations are on, Fox News and CNN, plus the local channels and ESPN. I typically work out from 5:30-7 on a few given nights which is when the news and entertainment shows are in full swing. A few weeks back after the MTV Music Awards, Entertainment tonight and its broadcasting cousins aired nothing but Miley Cyrus. It was close ups of Miley's tongue, close ups of her butt cheeks hanging out of her short shorts. Shots of her swinging naked on a wrecking ball. I felt embarrassed to even watch, Not that I don't sneak a peak at women. But there's something unseemly about Miley Cyrus, perhaps in the fact she looks like she's 12 but she parades around like the woman you hope to meet in some dark alley (well, I don't hope to meet, but you get my drift).
Most times its the news. Obama care and his broken promises about keeping your insurance. Is he dishonest or a liar? Isn't that one in the same? The video from the recent biker group that chased a hit and run perpetrator has been plugged a lot recently. And of course we get the video of the car rolling over a human being. We get men acting violently, attacking the car and beating the windows with their helmets like fervid zombies.
Today the news in our city involved the beating death of a 4 year old girl. The girl suffered multiple skull fractures that were delivered by the mom's boyfriend. The child's grandmother and family were caught by cameras in the courtroom hallways, being asked the types of questions no family should have to ask. The grandparent is interviewed shortly afterward as he condemns the accused to hell.
On another screen there are other tales of woe. A man weeps on his porch, Words from athletes blurted out, redacted for the masses. I've heard about bullying and harassment so much over the past few years you'd think there were gangs on every street corner waiting to take your lunch money (In this fantasy, the gangs are always dressed according to their "specialty" like the ones from the 1979 film, The Warriors. Baseball bats and white painted faces. The roller-skating, overall gang. I'm sure there are gangs of bullies running in my mind all wearing camouflage and Duck Dynasty beards).
I'm inclining on the treadmill seemingly towards the direction of the tv's and it's like that moment in a movie when the music swells and the camera tightly wounds around the face of the protagonist. The moment of epiphany is about to happen (for a great example, see Magnolia). The audience's heart begins to beat in unison with the character. Being witness to the epiphany is cathartic in itself. The release of tears becomes inevitable. Cue music swell, the character blinks and the moment is over. Cut scene.
But I'm at a Fitness center. All I want to do is drop to my knees (thanks to this song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_6JQDsbtlM) but the thought of dropping there on the treadmill would send me into the wall which would result in a fireball of embarrassment so intense it would burn like a thousand suns. So I did what I thought best. I began to pray. I prayed for the man to forgive the man who bludgeoned the poor girl to death (all I could think about was my little girl. Who would beat a little girl like that? Seeing her little teeth, that smile. God, that just kills me thinking about it). I prayed for the family whose son is now behind bars. Surely this is not the life plan they had in mind when they held him lovingly for the first time. I prayed for the football player who thought it was just "fun" to say he was going to stick it to a sister of a teammate. I prayed for the sports newscaster who recently lost a daughter in a car accident.
I came across the parable of the seed from Luke 8. A farmer goes out to scatter his seed. Some falls along the path, among the rocks, some in good soil and others among thorns. The seed that grows among thorns grows, but it ends up being choked by the thorns. In a worldy view, growing up through thorns would be considered superhuman. These are the uplifting stories we get from athletes and public figures. The adversity they faced living in the tough neighborhood, the deaths of family members or close friends. The close calls that lead to those epiphanies that no one sees. In the broken world we live in, the thorns are evident in bunches. Among the 27 students in my 5th grade classroom, they are the seeds growing among thorns.
But I'm not so sure Jesus told us this parable for us to strive for adversity in living a life that's called to seek justice, a call to a life that's bigger than oneself. It's a cautionary tale. How many Christians make it through a life that is surrounded by naysayers, doubters and gawkers? The world wants revenge, the Christian wants forgiveness. Thorns v supple soil. Adversity and trials come at a moments notice and we have no idea how to respond.
Like tonight when I turned the van around and drove back home. I simply had more of my fill of the world. All I wanted to do was cry. All I wanted to do was pray. I think it's okay to do both.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Metallic Grease
Not much good comes from a story that begins in the doctor's office. But mine is going to start there. After telling the story to a co-worker earlier this week, it made her feel as if I were somehow terminal. She later brought me into her office where she closed the door behind me (nothing good happens when you're called into an impromptu office visit, the door closes, and whispering commences) as she began to ask me how "sick" I really was.
I didn't even have a fever.
I had wheezing the afternoon at the doctor's office. A headache, a dull one. The day at school had been spent with my voice at nothing really higher than a whisper. I chose not to call out sick. Sometimes as a teacher, it's more work to call out than it is just to suck it up and go to work. I would have still been awake early and driven myself to work to hustle out some simple lesson plans that would not have been followed anyhow. Depending on the presence of the sub, I would have come back to school to a room full of fires to extinguish.
Before my appointment, the kids received their flu shots and my son had his check-up. I spent 15 or 20 minutes admiring my kids. My daughter in her stretchy jeans and boots, my son in his droopy shirt, in need of a haircut and his mind filled with nothing but the adventure of future conquests. He's small for his age, and his lineage is rote with blunt-legged and squatty rumps. I think sometimes that as long as he isn't overweight, I can live with anything. That's my brokenness, I know.
I was about five minutes late to my appointment by the time we were done. All I wanted to do was nap. The doctor walks in. "How you feel?"
"Great," I answered back. And the doctor seemed to pause and then gave me the type of look that meant to say, "Really? You're great, you say? Maybe I should ask again."
Up to that point, it was "S'all good." It's the epidemic written from The Sleeping Giant, a class I'm having the blessing to lead every Wednesday.
It's what most guys think anytime you ask them how they're doing. "S'all good!" Even if it isn't true, men will say otherwise. I have cracks on the surface of my life. The piles here among the house, the subtle reminders that things need repair. Our second vehicle's drive shaft literally ripped off the clutch. I can't even get it out of park. It sits there on my driveway. One day it will certainly have a flattened tire. The van we drive each day has taillight problems. Not good to know when you're upon the darkest season of the year. Fluid built up on the passenger side light. I repaired it, but perhaps the initial water caused a short because both lights are out.
My personal maintenance needs work too. Months ago I was supposed to have blood work done. High blood pressure was on the agenda. I failed to follow up. My ongoing affair with obesity continues to mark my life like a ketchup stain on a black shirt. You can scrape it away but there's still that stain everyone can see, metallic grease. I didn't follow up with my dentist this summer. My mind is a constant race of thoughts and agendas once the lights are turned off. The book I'm leading mentions that one reason men don't enter into Bible studies or church is that the men they view as "saved" are the men that seemingly have it "all together." Nothing could be further from the truth. If not for God, I'd be a walking jello--spineless and adrift.
So for all intents and purposes, I felt I answered honestly.
But there's some truth in how we interact with one another. Jokes are telling sometimes, as they reveal our true nature, those buried feelings that are awkward. Sarcasm is like that to. Sighs, blinks, the non-verbal ticks and looks that give away someone's thoughts when you're in a conversation. Perhaps it was God kicking me in the shins.
You sure about that, brother?
Well, I was. But now that you mentioned it...
Devotions. Prayers. Clean up the house. Sleep. Rest. Get better. Heal.
It's my RX for the future that lies ahead.
I didn't even have a fever.
I had wheezing the afternoon at the doctor's office. A headache, a dull one. The day at school had been spent with my voice at nothing really higher than a whisper. I chose not to call out sick. Sometimes as a teacher, it's more work to call out than it is just to suck it up and go to work. I would have still been awake early and driven myself to work to hustle out some simple lesson plans that would not have been followed anyhow. Depending on the presence of the sub, I would have come back to school to a room full of fires to extinguish.
Before my appointment, the kids received their flu shots and my son had his check-up. I spent 15 or 20 minutes admiring my kids. My daughter in her stretchy jeans and boots, my son in his droopy shirt, in need of a haircut and his mind filled with nothing but the adventure of future conquests. He's small for his age, and his lineage is rote with blunt-legged and squatty rumps. I think sometimes that as long as he isn't overweight, I can live with anything. That's my brokenness, I know.
I was about five minutes late to my appointment by the time we were done. All I wanted to do was nap. The doctor walks in. "How you feel?"
"Great," I answered back. And the doctor seemed to pause and then gave me the type of look that meant to say, "Really? You're great, you say? Maybe I should ask again."
Up to that point, it was "S'all good." It's the epidemic written from The Sleeping Giant, a class I'm having the blessing to lead every Wednesday.
It's what most guys think anytime you ask them how they're doing. "S'all good!" Even if it isn't true, men will say otherwise. I have cracks on the surface of my life. The piles here among the house, the subtle reminders that things need repair. Our second vehicle's drive shaft literally ripped off the clutch. I can't even get it out of park. It sits there on my driveway. One day it will certainly have a flattened tire. The van we drive each day has taillight problems. Not good to know when you're upon the darkest season of the year. Fluid built up on the passenger side light. I repaired it, but perhaps the initial water caused a short because both lights are out.
My personal maintenance needs work too. Months ago I was supposed to have blood work done. High blood pressure was on the agenda. I failed to follow up. My ongoing affair with obesity continues to mark my life like a ketchup stain on a black shirt. You can scrape it away but there's still that stain everyone can see, metallic grease. I didn't follow up with my dentist this summer. My mind is a constant race of thoughts and agendas once the lights are turned off. The book I'm leading mentions that one reason men don't enter into Bible studies or church is that the men they view as "saved" are the men that seemingly have it "all together." Nothing could be further from the truth. If not for God, I'd be a walking jello--spineless and adrift.
So for all intents and purposes, I felt I answered honestly.
But there's some truth in how we interact with one another. Jokes are telling sometimes, as they reveal our true nature, those buried feelings that are awkward. Sarcasm is like that to. Sighs, blinks, the non-verbal ticks and looks that give away someone's thoughts when you're in a conversation. Perhaps it was God kicking me in the shins.
You sure about that, brother?
Well, I was. But now that you mentioned it...
Devotions. Prayers. Clean up the house. Sleep. Rest. Get better. Heal.
It's my RX for the future that lies ahead.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Embedded Glass
This past Tuesday at my weekly humbling soccer game, whereby my coaching credentials get shredded by each opposing goal after goal after goal, I had a player completely meltdown on the field. We gave up probably our 15th goal in 8 minutes and she turned and just started crying. Right there on the field. Huge Old Testament tears. For the first time in quite a while, in all the games I have coached, I had no idea what to do. I think deep down she must have felt some kind of disconnect with myself and what was going on in the field. After about the 5th goal, my typical peppy, encouragement-driven, energy-enthused leadership turned to sighs and inward groaning. I think at one point I stopped blowing my whistle when the other team scored. I might have even clapped sarcastically at one point. Even Reycina looked at me quizzically at one point and I was saddened to see that the seed of the coach-daughter relationship had been planted on shaky ground. "I should have kicked that ball, right?" I answered with a, "Duh."
Driving home I felt like I was explaining my behavior to the rear view mirror.
Just because I'm a Christian doesn't mean I don't have bad days.
I can't always be "on."
I know we don't take score, but then don't have a goal.
All were pathetic excuses for the behaviors of a man who simply fell short. Coaching isn't the only aspect that had begun to form thorns in my side. It's those teaching moments when you've spent 30 minutes talking about respect and you find three girls in your class passing a note amongst themselves calling one another "bitches." It's leaving church and hearing the kids talk about honor and serving one another only to fight five minutes later.
And when those thorns dig other events in your life seem amplified. My poor wife had this small, stubby bump on her foot this past month which was probably from an embedded glass she had stepped on. Every time she stepped she felt it. That's how those moments feel when they happen. Trivial events when pulled alongside and analyzed. Forgotten unless they were jotted down in some blog like this.
Like the initial stress of new questions and eyes of wonderment from a new kid coming in 8 weeks after school has started. The computers freezing at the moment of an observation. The parent at dismissal who hit a parked car three times but said, "It wasn't my fault." The back yard that is only 1/3 cut. Your daughter crying in the morning because she can't find her bookbag. Like each step feeling that embedded glass. It stings some but you get over it. But it's always there. That nag.
This past Sunday our pastor spoke about having that winning attitude. He made sports analogies which always resonate easily with men, especially with me. Being from Houston, I've been witness to sports failures and a culture of losing, from the Oilers to the Rockets and my beloved Astros. Only someone from Houston really knows the pain of the Warren Moon years, losing that game in Buffalo, choking in the playoffs. My brother and I reminisce during the Hakeem Olajuwon championship years with the Rockets. Clutch City. Rudy T. Mario Elie's kiss of death. And then the Astros who have taken losing to a new low. Swept in 2005 to the White Sox, Brad Lidge's hanging slider to Albert Pujols, the last few years when we've looked like a minor league team. My dad always joked to my grandpa that he was the "jinx" that kept us from winning. But that culture of losing had more to do with the futility of our sports team than anything my grandpa did.
But those attitudes of losing permeated throughout the city and into my own life growing up. You begin to outwardly express yourself in ways of the culture just to overcompensate for all your shortcomings. Losers complain. Losers make excuses and losers embed the glass even deeper with every step they take.
So when it came time for me to share my closest to Christ moment (those who have undergone the Emmaus walk know what I am referring to here), I had some digging to do. It didn't come to me at some epiphinal (sign of a good blog? Make a new word) moment this week that would have stopped the traffic of my being. But I found some moments. Like when the kids and I compared our square-shaped smiles in the rear-view mirror. Or the laughter I had with my fifth graders listening to "What does the fox say?" at indoor recess. It's the wonderment of a captured prey mantis in a pickle jar. It's the synergy of men who wear Star Wars shirts on the same day.
The automatic things we take for granted. A car starting. The taste of coffee. Lights that brighten a room at the flip of a switch. I wish men's ministry was that easy. Flip the switch and discard the failures of the past, that losing attitude. It's stepping in carpeted green fields instead of glass. The glass you don't see, the glass you don't feel until days later.
Driving home I felt like I was explaining my behavior to the rear view mirror.
Just because I'm a Christian doesn't mean I don't have bad days.
I can't always be "on."
I know we don't take score, but then don't have a goal.
All were pathetic excuses for the behaviors of a man who simply fell short. Coaching isn't the only aspect that had begun to form thorns in my side. It's those teaching moments when you've spent 30 minutes talking about respect and you find three girls in your class passing a note amongst themselves calling one another "bitches." It's leaving church and hearing the kids talk about honor and serving one another only to fight five minutes later.
And when those thorns dig other events in your life seem amplified. My poor wife had this small, stubby bump on her foot this past month which was probably from an embedded glass she had stepped on. Every time she stepped she felt it. That's how those moments feel when they happen. Trivial events when pulled alongside and analyzed. Forgotten unless they were jotted down in some blog like this.
Like the initial stress of new questions and eyes of wonderment from a new kid coming in 8 weeks after school has started. The computers freezing at the moment of an observation. The parent at dismissal who hit a parked car three times but said, "It wasn't my fault." The back yard that is only 1/3 cut. Your daughter crying in the morning because she can't find her bookbag. Like each step feeling that embedded glass. It stings some but you get over it. But it's always there. That nag.
This past Sunday our pastor spoke about having that winning attitude. He made sports analogies which always resonate easily with men, especially with me. Being from Houston, I've been witness to sports failures and a culture of losing, from the Oilers to the Rockets and my beloved Astros. Only someone from Houston really knows the pain of the Warren Moon years, losing that game in Buffalo, choking in the playoffs. My brother and I reminisce during the Hakeem Olajuwon championship years with the Rockets. Clutch City. Rudy T. Mario Elie's kiss of death. And then the Astros who have taken losing to a new low. Swept in 2005 to the White Sox, Brad Lidge's hanging slider to Albert Pujols, the last few years when we've looked like a minor league team. My dad always joked to my grandpa that he was the "jinx" that kept us from winning. But that culture of losing had more to do with the futility of our sports team than anything my grandpa did.
But those attitudes of losing permeated throughout the city and into my own life growing up. You begin to outwardly express yourself in ways of the culture just to overcompensate for all your shortcomings. Losers complain. Losers make excuses and losers embed the glass even deeper with every step they take.
So when it came time for me to share my closest to Christ moment (those who have undergone the Emmaus walk know what I am referring to here), I had some digging to do. It didn't come to me at some epiphinal (sign of a good blog? Make a new word) moment this week that would have stopped the traffic of my being. But I found some moments. Like when the kids and I compared our square-shaped smiles in the rear-view mirror. Or the laughter I had with my fifth graders listening to "What does the fox say?" at indoor recess. It's the wonderment of a captured prey mantis in a pickle jar. It's the synergy of men who wear Star Wars shirts on the same day.
The automatic things we take for granted. A car starting. The taste of coffee. Lights that brighten a room at the flip of a switch. I wish men's ministry was that easy. Flip the switch and discard the failures of the past, that losing attitude. It's stepping in carpeted green fields instead of glass. The glass you don't see, the glass you don't feel until days later.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
The Treasure that Counts
I love me some Indiana Jones. Besides the cultural impact the films have had on future directors and adventure films (despite the last clunker where Dr. Jones survived an atomic bomb while being hidden in a fridge), the opening night frenzy when it opened forever branded in my brain the era of the blockbuster. I remember waiting in a long line at Gulfgate Mall (there was a bridge that spanned the freeway, or at least it seemed that way) my mom and dad waited in. By the time we reached the box office the show had sold out. Incidentally we say "Lady and the Tramp" instead. But this blog is about adventure, treasure and what we hold dear. Talking dogs, while endearing, will have to wait another day.
Dr. Jones went to amazing lengths to secure museum artifacts. He braved snakes, Kate Capshaw's incessant screaming, Thuggee cultists, eyeball soups, German inquisitors, CGI-created fire ants, a precocious Korean child and even George Lucas. But one thing remained--Dr. Jones's sense of adventure was the one thing he cherished, the one thing he he treasured. Those that opposed Dr. Jones were always portrayed as snarling, greedy comic-book inspired villains. The nefarious Dr. Belloq who was in bed with the Nazi's or Mola Ram, who literally embedded his hand in the hearts of men; treasured their own power and possessions over the integrity of Dr. Jones. True as well, each artifact that sent Dr. Jones tumbling from a rolling boulder inevitably was followed by henchmen, villagers and scoundrels who valued the riches beyond the relic. The audience only saw the treasure's importance through Harrison Ford's transfixed gaze. If my son were holding any of the props now he'd have it buried in a toy box within hours. Someone on one of those pawn shows would have been haggling over the price in hopes of financing their dream vacation. A villager would shoot a blow dart in your neck just to get it back.
But treasures are relevant to the user. How many of us know someone, maybe even ourselves, that hold on to antiques and heirlooms in hopes of breaking the bank one day? At our Life Group this Friday, we were asked about the one thing we would move heaven and earth to retrieve if were lost. The obvious answers are our kids, our spouses, but I think what the question really wanted us to admit were the things in our lives that hold hostage our time, the things we stress out over the most. I confessed that my iPhone and BBQ pit were 2 possessions lately that consumed my time and thought. Sometimes it's my laptop, other times it's losing my wallet. Worry seeps in too. Is it worry that keeps me nervous for the entire 6 hour or longer roasting of meat? Is it worry that keeps me reaching for my phone, looking for that one "like" of confirmation, that one retweet that will compliment my life?
I know by this time in the blog I'm blessed to have minute, trivial worries. I am blessed to not be battling sicknesses. The bills sometimes cause some undue stress and that's also a lesson in my own spending habits. But the dumb things I worry about expose my sin more that ever, and it's apparent that God meant for me to hear them.
Like food. This past week I fell into the old trap of allowing food to dictate my mood. My wife makes lunch for the both of us every day (one of the perks of working together) and chose a spinach-apple salad for lunch one day. I wanted meat (which incidentally I had some steak left over anyways) and something more substantial. I made faces over her homemade sweet, honey-induced dressing. I threw a tantrum like a married man does, I stomp away and sigh. Then again during the week I made a comment here or there about what dinner consisted of. Here's my poor wife, treasuring me and the family by making dinner for us, and me complaining.
But worry is like that. Even when you presumably have nothing to worry about, it finds a way to seep back into your existence. I have parents at work worrying about how they're going to feed their kids next week when the government subsidies fold under the weight of this current shutdown. My friend is one of 2 working at the local airbase while the rest of the group is on furlough.
I believe some of the worry we carry as Americans is from the constant barrage of fear and consumption provided by the media and advertisers. Culture has placed these new norms on our lives, like a new car, 401K's, retirements in Tuscan villas and you-deserve-it vacations (anyone find it ironic all these Carnival Cruise ship fiascoes seem to be happening more and more?) and credit card purchased rewards. While our Protestant work ethic has given way to TGIF and I-hate-Monday mantras, the jobs that used to sustain our grandparents are no longer available. I hear from many Ohioans (Texans were different, but that's probably more cultural than anything) about how their dads retired from jobs they held longer than most marriages. Those jobs just aren't around anymore. Thus, the worry of upgrading our homes, the bombardment of bad news from tv and our own self-conscious feelings of inadequacy on all fronts feeds this constant worry.
True as well, men have always valued money. Greed was alive in well in Jesus' time and our own. We'll line up at the Gulfgate mall movie lines for hesit movies, gangster flicks, wall street hustle films and stories about addictions. But living a Kingdom driven life means we should treasure the things God treasures. Just think about the inception of Adam in the garden. God spoke all the world in existence. But for man he chose to mold him from mud. He breathed life into him. The birth of Eve is even more breath-taking. He chose to mold her from a man. That takes not only precision of a deity but the compassion of a maker.
One of my friends from group asked, "Am I building a fortress around my relationship with God?" The creator who took his time when he made us, perfectly in one shot, who chose us before we even existed knows our heart better than anyone. He knows we worry about so many trivial things, the useless belongings and aches of the world. But he loves us too much to simply let us be. He nags with love. He knows that once we find the treasure that counts we'll understand. I found a glimpse of that in an Oklahoma wheat field. I am beginning to see that in the glimpse of people I don't even know. Amid the lesson plans, bills, laundry and laziness, the yearn of God's heart beats on. So, what's there to worry about?
Dr. Jones went to amazing lengths to secure museum artifacts. He braved snakes, Kate Capshaw's incessant screaming, Thuggee cultists, eyeball soups, German inquisitors, CGI-created fire ants, a precocious Korean child and even George Lucas. But one thing remained--Dr. Jones's sense of adventure was the one thing he cherished, the one thing he he treasured. Those that opposed Dr. Jones were always portrayed as snarling, greedy comic-book inspired villains. The nefarious Dr. Belloq who was in bed with the Nazi's or Mola Ram, who literally embedded his hand in the hearts of men; treasured their own power and possessions over the integrity of Dr. Jones. True as well, each artifact that sent Dr. Jones tumbling from a rolling boulder inevitably was followed by henchmen, villagers and scoundrels who valued the riches beyond the relic. The audience only saw the treasure's importance through Harrison Ford's transfixed gaze. If my son were holding any of the props now he'd have it buried in a toy box within hours. Someone on one of those pawn shows would have been haggling over the price in hopes of financing their dream vacation. A villager would shoot a blow dart in your neck just to get it back.
But treasures are relevant to the user. How many of us know someone, maybe even ourselves, that hold on to antiques and heirlooms in hopes of breaking the bank one day? At our Life Group this Friday, we were asked about the one thing we would move heaven and earth to retrieve if were lost. The obvious answers are our kids, our spouses, but I think what the question really wanted us to admit were the things in our lives that hold hostage our time, the things we stress out over the most. I confessed that my iPhone and BBQ pit were 2 possessions lately that consumed my time and thought. Sometimes it's my laptop, other times it's losing my wallet. Worry seeps in too. Is it worry that keeps me nervous for the entire 6 hour or longer roasting of meat? Is it worry that keeps me reaching for my phone, looking for that one "like" of confirmation, that one retweet that will compliment my life?
I know by this time in the blog I'm blessed to have minute, trivial worries. I am blessed to not be battling sicknesses. The bills sometimes cause some undue stress and that's also a lesson in my own spending habits. But the dumb things I worry about expose my sin more that ever, and it's apparent that God meant for me to hear them.
Like food. This past week I fell into the old trap of allowing food to dictate my mood. My wife makes lunch for the both of us every day (one of the perks of working together) and chose a spinach-apple salad for lunch one day. I wanted meat (which incidentally I had some steak left over anyways) and something more substantial. I made faces over her homemade sweet, honey-induced dressing. I threw a tantrum like a married man does, I stomp away and sigh. Then again during the week I made a comment here or there about what dinner consisted of. Here's my poor wife, treasuring me and the family by making dinner for us, and me complaining.
But worry is like that. Even when you presumably have nothing to worry about, it finds a way to seep back into your existence. I have parents at work worrying about how they're going to feed their kids next week when the government subsidies fold under the weight of this current shutdown. My friend is one of 2 working at the local airbase while the rest of the group is on furlough.
I believe some of the worry we carry as Americans is from the constant barrage of fear and consumption provided by the media and advertisers. Culture has placed these new norms on our lives, like a new car, 401K's, retirements in Tuscan villas and you-deserve-it vacations (anyone find it ironic all these Carnival Cruise ship fiascoes seem to be happening more and more?) and credit card purchased rewards. While our Protestant work ethic has given way to TGIF and I-hate-Monday mantras, the jobs that used to sustain our grandparents are no longer available. I hear from many Ohioans (Texans were different, but that's probably more cultural than anything) about how their dads retired from jobs they held longer than most marriages. Those jobs just aren't around anymore. Thus, the worry of upgrading our homes, the bombardment of bad news from tv and our own self-conscious feelings of inadequacy on all fronts feeds this constant worry.
True as well, men have always valued money. Greed was alive in well in Jesus' time and our own. We'll line up at the Gulfgate mall movie lines for hesit movies, gangster flicks, wall street hustle films and stories about addictions. But living a Kingdom driven life means we should treasure the things God treasures. Just think about the inception of Adam in the garden. God spoke all the world in existence. But for man he chose to mold him from mud. He breathed life into him. The birth of Eve is even more breath-taking. He chose to mold her from a man. That takes not only precision of a deity but the compassion of a maker.
One of my friends from group asked, "Am I building a fortress around my relationship with God?" The creator who took his time when he made us, perfectly in one shot, who chose us before we even existed knows our heart better than anyone. He knows we worry about so many trivial things, the useless belongings and aches of the world. But he loves us too much to simply let us be. He nags with love. He knows that once we find the treasure that counts we'll understand. I found a glimpse of that in an Oklahoma wheat field. I am beginning to see that in the glimpse of people I don't even know. Amid the lesson plans, bills, laundry and laziness, the yearn of God's heart beats on. So, what's there to worry about?
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Hijacking the Meatloaf
I think if my students were asked to rate my mental stability they'd rank me a yellow or red on the crazy-o-meter. I can imagine what they must think when they hear me telling a kid that when he says "I don't care," that I'm going to "care times 10" (like that guy in the Bible, "Jesus, do I forgive them 7 times? Response: 7 x 7!). You shrug your shoulders, I unshrug mine 10 times. So I'm walking next my class in the hallway trying to "unshrug" my shoulders while they tried not to laugh.
Or the other day when some of students and others saw, during dismissal, a grandmother "go off" because she was ignorant of our dismissal procedures. At one point she told me that she was 51 and wasn't going to argue with me, peppered with a few choice words the building crowd of kids surely heard. Afterwards I claimed that my ten plus years in school allowed me to fire back when parents (and grandma's) get unruly. I feel like Howard Beale from "Network" ranting on the airwaves: I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
So what am I complaining about?
Perhaps it's the urgency of teaching as we know it. Or as I have become to know it. It's 2 hours of Reading, almost 2 hours of math and it's mostly intervention because the kids come so behind. I had a first grade teacher tell us in exasperation that she gets all her kindergartners on level and where there are supposed to be. So what happens by the time they reach 5th and they are barely reading above 2nd grade level? All I keep referring to is that the #1 thing all the kids and parents need is an infusion of the Holy Spirit.
I know what that must sound like to a skeptic reader. News headline: Teacher confirms Holy Spirit raises tests scores! But that's what's different about the teaching of today. Data, short cycle assessments and individualized instructional plans. I try to get in God as much as I possibly can by just living life in a such a way that's attractive and energetic. I get fired up over "I don't cares" and ask my fifth grade girls to give me ideas to make their recess more of a safe place instead of the current pack-of-wolves mentality where they feasts on each other's insecurities (They want to play volleyball and board games). But how much of a positive change can I really make when I can't mention the one difference that lasts a lifetime?
I met a former teacher a few days back and reminisce about the old days. You can chuckle with any veteran teacher about mission statements, resurrected reading programs, defunct math initiatives and new administrator regimes. Our new superintendent fits this new breed of thinking. He sends weekly emails with craft ideas, random thoughts and pump-me-ups. My old friends remember when the last superintendent came in with fanfare only to retire years later before the idea of change flamed out along with 6-figure a year cronies and failed proposals. The "good ole days" were somehow these idyllic images of white kids in rows sipping instruction through twisty straws of knowledge.
All I remember from my early days of education were ruler knuckle slaps, bus ride shenanigans and holding my food tray above my head during 2nd grade lunch detention. If those were the good ole days, I somehow missed the memo.
But that's what we do in most facets of life. We hark back to some bygone era with fond remembrance and it gives us that distant, far-off look. I love my memories. My Uncle Richard and his hairy legs, my cousin's birthday parties where we blasted pinatas and ate a never-ending supply of beans and rice. My dad working for Ozarka water, that blue uniform of his that made him look like a water mail man. My mom's dabble with smoking. Running the neighborhood with Jon Patterson and trick or treating until the homeowners grew too tired to stay up and decided to leave their candy bowls on the front porch with a note. But in times of change and and upheaval, we cling to the old with such ferocity that we fail to see the advantages coming our way.
Our church is going through some major changes. New initiatives, a strengthened vision and the dust and new paint smell of reform. I haven't been in church long enough in my adult life to know any different. How can I when my son looks for his friend on the "new members" bulletin board in hopes of seeing them for the first time. But other families have chosen to leave. Good men, strong families. One of the reasons I've been just as urgent with the men's study is I want not to lose one more good man to the lure of another church. Where's the adversity and trial by fire spirit? We want to be fed by the Holy Spirit but we don't always like to feel the flames of conviction.
It reminds me of serving on team for Emmaus walks. During the weekly meetings, the scripted details and logistics are spoon fed to us so that the experience for the new pilgrims will be enriching and inspiring. Inevitably it comes down to standing aside while the Holy Spirit leads. Then there's the meatloaf. On each Emmaus walk, because it's a live-in retreat, you're fed like no other church function in the history of food. The meals are quite legendary, and when any of them are changed, people react. The meatloaf dinner was a Saturday night staple of each walk, but really only for those team members who were blessed to serve on team. As far as the pilgrims knew, it was a meatloaf dinner. To the live-in team, the experienced Christians who were the leaders and conduits of Jesus, the meatloaf was akin to the fond cul-de-sac bike rides of their youth. Several years ago, the meatloaf went away for some new meal, I think a pork loin. Someone hijacked the meatloaf. And Christians, men and women alike, took issue. Not with doctrine, not with the delivery of the tent poles of faith, but the meaty goodness of a meatloaf that was no longer there. There became so many rumblings, the leaders finally had to literally remind the live-in team that their longing for the days of the meatloaf were coming off as more of a complaint.
In class tonight, one of the men were studying the sermon notes from our previous pastor almost 19 years ago. It was his last sermon from the pulpit, and from what I understand, it laid a foundation of changes to come and an inspiration to adhere to. I wonder if his words were prophetic or lip service. How many people who listened live 19 years ago are still members now? How many of them have been awaiting the new changes like songbirds, or have they kicked themselves because the money they tithed is now considered a loan rather than payment.
There's been some serious prayer for direction and discernment towards the men's class and where God is taking me and the men of our church next. The more I blog and talk about trusting God, God inches me further away from my comfort zone. The meatloaf was never mine to begin with. Lucky for me, I like to share.
Or the other day when some of students and others saw, during dismissal, a grandmother "go off" because she was ignorant of our dismissal procedures. At one point she told me that she was 51 and wasn't going to argue with me, peppered with a few choice words the building crowd of kids surely heard. Afterwards I claimed that my ten plus years in school allowed me to fire back when parents (and grandma's) get unruly. I feel like Howard Beale from "Network" ranting on the airwaves: I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
So what am I complaining about?
Perhaps it's the urgency of teaching as we know it. Or as I have become to know it. It's 2 hours of Reading, almost 2 hours of math and it's mostly intervention because the kids come so behind. I had a first grade teacher tell us in exasperation that she gets all her kindergartners on level and where there are supposed to be. So what happens by the time they reach 5th and they are barely reading above 2nd grade level? All I keep referring to is that the #1 thing all the kids and parents need is an infusion of the Holy Spirit.
I know what that must sound like to a skeptic reader. News headline: Teacher confirms Holy Spirit raises tests scores! But that's what's different about the teaching of today. Data, short cycle assessments and individualized instructional plans. I try to get in God as much as I possibly can by just living life in a such a way that's attractive and energetic. I get fired up over "I don't cares" and ask my fifth grade girls to give me ideas to make their recess more of a safe place instead of the current pack-of-wolves mentality where they feasts on each other's insecurities (They want to play volleyball and board games). But how much of a positive change can I really make when I can't mention the one difference that lasts a lifetime?
I met a former teacher a few days back and reminisce about the old days. You can chuckle with any veteran teacher about mission statements, resurrected reading programs, defunct math initiatives and new administrator regimes. Our new superintendent fits this new breed of thinking. He sends weekly emails with craft ideas, random thoughts and pump-me-ups. My old friends remember when the last superintendent came in with fanfare only to retire years later before the idea of change flamed out along with 6-figure a year cronies and failed proposals. The "good ole days" were somehow these idyllic images of white kids in rows sipping instruction through twisty straws of knowledge.
All I remember from my early days of education were ruler knuckle slaps, bus ride shenanigans and holding my food tray above my head during 2nd grade lunch detention. If those were the good ole days, I somehow missed the memo.
But that's what we do in most facets of life. We hark back to some bygone era with fond remembrance and it gives us that distant, far-off look. I love my memories. My Uncle Richard and his hairy legs, my cousin's birthday parties where we blasted pinatas and ate a never-ending supply of beans and rice. My dad working for Ozarka water, that blue uniform of his that made him look like a water mail man. My mom's dabble with smoking. Running the neighborhood with Jon Patterson and trick or treating until the homeowners grew too tired to stay up and decided to leave their candy bowls on the front porch with a note. But in times of change and and upheaval, we cling to the old with such ferocity that we fail to see the advantages coming our way.
Our church is going through some major changes. New initiatives, a strengthened vision and the dust and new paint smell of reform. I haven't been in church long enough in my adult life to know any different. How can I when my son looks for his friend on the "new members" bulletin board in hopes of seeing them for the first time. But other families have chosen to leave. Good men, strong families. One of the reasons I've been just as urgent with the men's study is I want not to lose one more good man to the lure of another church. Where's the adversity and trial by fire spirit? We want to be fed by the Holy Spirit but we don't always like to feel the flames of conviction.
It reminds me of serving on team for Emmaus walks. During the weekly meetings, the scripted details and logistics are spoon fed to us so that the experience for the new pilgrims will be enriching and inspiring. Inevitably it comes down to standing aside while the Holy Spirit leads. Then there's the meatloaf. On each Emmaus walk, because it's a live-in retreat, you're fed like no other church function in the history of food. The meals are quite legendary, and when any of them are changed, people react. The meatloaf dinner was a Saturday night staple of each walk, but really only for those team members who were blessed to serve on team. As far as the pilgrims knew, it was a meatloaf dinner. To the live-in team, the experienced Christians who were the leaders and conduits of Jesus, the meatloaf was akin to the fond cul-de-sac bike rides of their youth. Several years ago, the meatloaf went away for some new meal, I think a pork loin. Someone hijacked the meatloaf. And Christians, men and women alike, took issue. Not with doctrine, not with the delivery of the tent poles of faith, but the meaty goodness of a meatloaf that was no longer there. There became so many rumblings, the leaders finally had to literally remind the live-in team that their longing for the days of the meatloaf were coming off as more of a complaint.
In class tonight, one of the men were studying the sermon notes from our previous pastor almost 19 years ago. It was his last sermon from the pulpit, and from what I understand, it laid a foundation of changes to come and an inspiration to adhere to. I wonder if his words were prophetic or lip service. How many people who listened live 19 years ago are still members now? How many of them have been awaiting the new changes like songbirds, or have they kicked themselves because the money they tithed is now considered a loan rather than payment.
There's been some serious prayer for direction and discernment towards the men's class and where God is taking me and the men of our church next. The more I blog and talk about trusting God, God inches me further away from my comfort zone. The meatloaf was never mine to begin with. Lucky for me, I like to share.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Pause. Listen. Play
Sometimes we think listening for God means we must listen for some omniscient booming voice, a cross between an echo and Marlon Brando in Superman. Some people do have some great stories. Mine have always been the indirect kind, the right song getting into the car after share group, meeting that certain person, good conversations and being convicted at church. It can even come from books we are reading and movies we see. It's also being more intentional and being open to listen. I don't want my moment with God to be on the downward spiral of some benign event. I want them to come in the mundane, the ritual, the part of life you least expect.
God spoke to me in the form of 4 fifth grade boys who were destined to be separated due to their past year's behavior. Each time one of them morphs their face into some ball of pouty immaturity, He speaks. Or when one steals a homework, erases the name and enters his own in hopes of getting credit, He speaks. Or when they perform outside of their expected zone of failure, He speaks.
God spoke to me at the gym last week, when some random stranger with chiseled arms stepped out of his way to give me a hi-five as I lumbered through a set in the circuit. It's been in the form of text messages from friends. It was in the voice of my mom. He lies in the heart of my sister.
Tonight He spoke to us in a movie. My son and I have been pausing through segments from "Life of Pi" over the past week. The kids ask so many questions when we are watching something at home I'm pausing to get through it all. Eventually we get to the meat of the intro, when Pi begins to find his foundations in God. His mother is a Hindu and he's shown sneaking through a comic book like adaptation of Krishna. Later, he meets Christ through a series of encounters with a priest. He cannot understand how God loves the world of sinners but he finds himself enamored with this Jesus character. Later, he finds the ritualistic prayers in the Arabic tongue to his liking and begins to incorporate Muslim practices into his daily life as well.
During dinner, his scientific father and disapproving brother chastise him over his juvenile theology. Cruz chimes in, "They should just leave him alone." He sounds a little like the boys' mother from the film. Cruz, of course, sees everything through a Jesus prism. He does not know about the world's other religions that will surely try to contradict his views. But he hears "God" and knows it to be His. One in the same. Clear cut.
So the movie gets paused. I give an elementary synopsis of Hinduism and Cruz jumps into asking me if I was always a Christian. i love these questions. I tell him I knew God existed, I knew what Jesus did in only a definitive verb-like sense, but not what it meant to me personally. This past summer he accepted Jesus into his heart at summer camp. I told him it was something like this that occurred some years back for me. You can't just know of God. You have to bring him into your heart. You have to want to be like Jesus. (Meanwhile, my little girl is telling the entire house she is definitely a Christian because she wants to be like Jesus everyday.)
I don't even know the segueway from one conversation to the next. But my wife came in next from the kitchen after being asked the same questions I had been answering. I know that in her faith walk there was a time of acceptance and a time of doubt. Much of that doubt stemmed from a suicide in her family. It would be disrespectful to bridge that sentence with that story. It's not mine to tell, but I can reflect on the impact the story had on my children. Reycina, to her, all is black and white.
That's just stupid.
My son is the questioner. He has to see the logic in the actions. He cannot go from point A to B without all the connections making sense. I know the leap from what drove his deceased Uncle Terry to take his own life will not be understood by a 4th grader considering the family that loved him undeniably still wrestles with that question. But the topic brought forward more conversation about the words we choose and the feelings we generate sometimes conflict with God's overall plan.
Doubt. Just one seed grows like a mustard tree. Unlike faith, doubt can course through your veins like some disease only a filmmaker could fathom. Scanners. In the end battle between good and evil, the Scanners, from an old science fiction film I loved by David Cronenberg, literally stood before one another trying to melt one another's minds using nothing but glances and sound effects. Doubt battles faith each and everyday. I'm a true believer of it. It sometimes festers in me. I prune one seed of doubt and the devil plants another. Jesus pulls me free from the vines and I go and step into the briar patch once again. Doubt about which direction. Another movie comes to mind. Tom Hanks at the end of Castaway. In a movie full of great moments and grand decisions, he can't realize figure out if he should follow the girl of his dreams. Seriously? That's Jesus looking at my movie. He's released it from the pause button and shaking his head and wondering why i'm still in the same place. Seriously? When does this movie ever begin?
I know my life's greatest hits are in his Netflix queue.
God spoke to me in the form of 4 fifth grade boys who were destined to be separated due to their past year's behavior. Each time one of them morphs their face into some ball of pouty immaturity, He speaks. Or when one steals a homework, erases the name and enters his own in hopes of getting credit, He speaks. Or when they perform outside of their expected zone of failure, He speaks.
God spoke to me at the gym last week, when some random stranger with chiseled arms stepped out of his way to give me a hi-five as I lumbered through a set in the circuit. It's been in the form of text messages from friends. It was in the voice of my mom. He lies in the heart of my sister.
Tonight He spoke to us in a movie. My son and I have been pausing through segments from "Life of Pi" over the past week. The kids ask so many questions when we are watching something at home I'm pausing to get through it all. Eventually we get to the meat of the intro, when Pi begins to find his foundations in God. His mother is a Hindu and he's shown sneaking through a comic book like adaptation of Krishna. Later, he meets Christ through a series of encounters with a priest. He cannot understand how God loves the world of sinners but he finds himself enamored with this Jesus character. Later, he finds the ritualistic prayers in the Arabic tongue to his liking and begins to incorporate Muslim practices into his daily life as well.
During dinner, his scientific father and disapproving brother chastise him over his juvenile theology. Cruz chimes in, "They should just leave him alone." He sounds a little like the boys' mother from the film. Cruz, of course, sees everything through a Jesus prism. He does not know about the world's other religions that will surely try to contradict his views. But he hears "God" and knows it to be His. One in the same. Clear cut.
So the movie gets paused. I give an elementary synopsis of Hinduism and Cruz jumps into asking me if I was always a Christian. i love these questions. I tell him I knew God existed, I knew what Jesus did in only a definitive verb-like sense, but not what it meant to me personally. This past summer he accepted Jesus into his heart at summer camp. I told him it was something like this that occurred some years back for me. You can't just know of God. You have to bring him into your heart. You have to want to be like Jesus. (Meanwhile, my little girl is telling the entire house she is definitely a Christian because she wants to be like Jesus everyday.)
I don't even know the segueway from one conversation to the next. But my wife came in next from the kitchen after being asked the same questions I had been answering. I know that in her faith walk there was a time of acceptance and a time of doubt. Much of that doubt stemmed from a suicide in her family. It would be disrespectful to bridge that sentence with that story. It's not mine to tell, but I can reflect on the impact the story had on my children. Reycina, to her, all is black and white.
That's just stupid.
My son is the questioner. He has to see the logic in the actions. He cannot go from point A to B without all the connections making sense. I know the leap from what drove his deceased Uncle Terry to take his own life will not be understood by a 4th grader considering the family that loved him undeniably still wrestles with that question. But the topic brought forward more conversation about the words we choose and the feelings we generate sometimes conflict with God's overall plan.
Doubt. Just one seed grows like a mustard tree. Unlike faith, doubt can course through your veins like some disease only a filmmaker could fathom. Scanners. In the end battle between good and evil, the Scanners, from an old science fiction film I loved by David Cronenberg, literally stood before one another trying to melt one another's minds using nothing but glances and sound effects. Doubt battles faith each and everyday. I'm a true believer of it. It sometimes festers in me. I prune one seed of doubt and the devil plants another. Jesus pulls me free from the vines and I go and step into the briar patch once again. Doubt about which direction. Another movie comes to mind. Tom Hanks at the end of Castaway. In a movie full of great moments and grand decisions, he can't realize figure out if he should follow the girl of his dreams. Seriously? That's Jesus looking at my movie. He's released it from the pause button and shaking his head and wondering why i'm still in the same place. Seriously? When does this movie ever begin?
I know my life's greatest hits are in his Netflix queue.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Anointed with Syrup
There's one story told to me this past week that I have to share. As a writer (or at least I like to think of myself as one) I like to leave these stories last in the story. During my poetry phase, I was taught that the last image of the poem is sometimes the most crucial. I always tried to follow suit with my short stories and attempts at chapter fiction. Even these blogs follow a similar format. You write what you know and in the style that comforts you. But the story was integral to how I viewed a lot of moments this summer, and these last few weeks as well. Sweet, syrupy and childlike.
I met a friend of mine who moved away after a divorce a few months back. We met through coaching and because our daughters were best friends. He was my Emmaus sponsor and a friend during the baby Christian phase of my life. I'd go to him under the guise of listening to him tell me about his marriage and I always felt like I learned something about myself in the process. He wasn't afraid to deliver the hard truths to me even as the world around him was crumbling. God placed him in my life at the right time, and I have been carrying a sort of friend-guilt along the way when he moved to Georgia.
To understand the story is to understand the man. His mother has a recent stay at the local retirement home as her battle with dementia and Alzheimer's had began to strip her of her personality. So, moving to Georgia meant moving her again, along with his older brother who was barely able to hold a job because of his mental handicap. My friend brought me into the story by reminding me that God always has a sense of humor (his favorite quote is upon reaching heaven, God will say, "I sure had some fun with you") and that a mind disease like dementia not only takes away memories, but robs you of sensations too.
Like the taste of syrup. Imagine that sensation of anything sweet being gone from your memory. The plasticy punch of a lollipop, the crumbled chocolate and flour of a cookie, the cold fruit taste of jelly. Momma H, as I'll refer to my friends mom, didn't want syrup on her pancakes. Her mind has no recollection of the word, much less what it felt like to taste. So my friend takes a fork-full, dips it in syrup and holds it up for her to eat. She bites, and a child's eyes awaken at the taste of syrup once again. I remember my own kids sitting on their high chairs, that great time when they can start eating table food, and the messiness of their cheeks after an all-out onslaught on birthday cake. That was probably the face on Momma H as she poured the rest of the syrup on her pancakes.
I haven't had the misfortune of seeing a loved one unravel one memory at a time. I am a child of divorce, but as a child you have different memories and feelings as one would a husband. My mom had always been pretty forthcoming about her divorce, but not so much my dad or step-dad. I imagine asking them to divulge any other details would be like pulling a scab from a wound. Listening to this story about Momma H was another friend too, one who lost his wife to cancer a few years ago. Divorce and death, 2 wives lost to time and disease. Literal and figurative, the memories now flashbacks in a man's mind, or on the faces of their daughters.
So here I am, nowhere near a divorce, or God-willing a death. I feel like a young David in the Bible miniseries I watched this past summer. In it, David is anointed with honey poured onto his forehead. It drips down his face in this glorious metaphor of having God in your life. Just blessing upon blessing poured out. 24 new kids in a classroom--honey. One daughter in college and my other stopped crying in the morning on the way to the bus stop--more honey. She told me no more tears because she's holding her fear inside.
And my son. Too many pizza rolls doomed his appetite. I nixed playing football for many reasons, one being he's going to be flattened by some man-child kid whose dad is some Al Bundy-like ex high school football star. After telling him he doesn't have enough weight on his bones, that bottom lip of his quivers. I know at that moment he wants nothing more that to be accepted and valued. I bring him over after dinner and try to console him with the promise I accept each day I say "yes" to God. In that instance it's honey on his forehead. Anointed with the syrup. Nothing could be sweeter.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Marathon Man
One of the great movies my dad introduced me to as a kid was Dustin Hoffman's "Marathon Man." It's one of the many 1970's ear thrillers that still hold up today--see The Anderson Tapes, Dog Day Afternoon, All the President's Men, The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor for more--and one of those movies that gets seared into your memory banks. The one scene you're probably thinking about, if you've seen the movie that is, is when Laurence Olivier has Dustin Hoffman strapped in a dentist's chair. He's ready to begin the torture scene of the decade (today's horror movies have it all wrong, using torture scenes like pornography) and utters the phrase that still gives me the willies--"Is it safe?"
I'm making a huge leap now. Feel free if you want to stop reading, but I figure if you're reading this you've been with me on similar blogs where I rip my heart out and leave it on your feet. But the Indiana Jones-ing of my beating heart--bonus Kali Mar points if you get that reference!--led me to this point. It's also from some recent studies, life experiences and that tug God places on your heart from time to time. Actually it's like he's standing next to me revving up the drill and asking me, "You want safe or you want a new life?"
Over the past few years as I lived out the life of a baby Christian, life as I knew it was "safe." I lived in my cul-de-sac not having to really know my neighbors. I stepped into a Life Group that doesn't really challenge me other that getting my reading completed every few weeks. I worked alongside a teaching partner that would just as well leave the door closed than to work together and that was okay with me. My kids go to a safe school and they ride their bikes in the neighborhood without the feeling of dread and menace my school students might have after 5pm. I can easily espouse on life and politics and anything in between from the confines and safety of my computer on Facebook, twitter and instagram. The most fear I have from my daily life is whether or not I'm going to eat, and if you know me in person, you'd think I need to lose a few meals as it is.
But I don't think God is calling me to be "safe." Looking at the Bible and studying it like I have, there's nothing safe about being a Christian. Abraham was called to sacrifice his son? Safe? David, chain mail hanging from his smaller frame and all, slayed Goliath. Was that safe? Moses in the desert for 40 years and never once stepping into the promised land himself. Not safe. On and on and on, God's call for our very best doesn't have anything to do with safety and comfort. This doesn't mean he wants you to be homeless and swatting away lions as you walk the streets. But God calls for us to be awkward.
So this summer has been bearing the fruit of stepping out of that comfort zone. Oklahoma mission trip. Junior high work camp. Emmaus walk. Even my daughter's boot camp commitment was not safe whatsoever. While she was sweating in 90 degree heat in South Carolina and "getting smoked" her friends were taking pictures of their trips to Europe, Hawaii and the beach, taking those annoying belly-n-feet POV shots on Instagram. Hashtag your life sucks cause you aren't poolside with me. That's safe.
Last Sunday I slept in and did not go to church. This is safe for me. No having to get up, no getting the kids ready or worrying if they ran ahead of us before checking them in. No going to junior high table talk to sit with my young men. No nothing. I didn't even watch on-line. So then this Sunday rolled around and the topic of discussion is Presence. Are we simply church consumers? We purchase God on Sunday and check the boxes. We go through the motions, pick up a cookie and punch for the kids. We smile, we wave at a friend and that's the culmination of our response to God's greatest sacrifice. Consumers want that safety. Consumers don't want to commit to anything. They don't serve, they don't study, but every Sunday they sure look good filling up the seat.
There are also the social contract Christians. Their commitment is umbilical only to those people who can advance them. They like the events and the social aspect of church. They will only study with their click. They won't serve without their friends. If affections or attitudes change, this type of person moves on to the next group. It's all for show.
I'd like to think I'm in this next group--those seeking a covenant. We go to the very edge of ourselves to seek the living God. We don't have to be asked to volunteer because we don't see any other way. We love to study because we know it's essential ton our growth. We join mission teams because we want to live and reveal the kingdom. If it wasn't for someone taking a chance on me, I would not be where I am. The standard I have for myself has placed me among this group. I can't say that I have "arrived" simply because my standards are high. The consumer standard is the lowest. "At least I'm here (at church)" is basing your life to a pagan. Don't you want your standard to be Moses? A disciple? Jesus? That's what we strive to be, isn't it?
The men's study I'm being challenged to lead starts September 4. I have 3 guys signed up. 3 out of a congregation of more than a thousand. 3 guys. Seriously? The safe way to handle this situation is to cancel the class. Not even starting one in the first place would be even safer. Satan knows that part of my pride is on display here. Saying no to a study is akin to saying no to me. And my fellow men love to give me excuses.
I'm having changes in my job. It's the night I work out. I'll look into it.
There's some men I can't even ask because they aren't ever around. Yeah, her husband doesn't come to church much is something I hear quite often. That's the safe husband. Others stand in the lobby, posturing like they do when they watch their kids' sporting events, arms crossed, sunglasses on their head, looking at their watches as if they have so many appointments to attend to. They have that, I-don't-read-much look. As if opening the Bible somehow reminds them of Mrs. Rottencrotch in 4th grade, asking to popcorn read aloud as the class made fun of them. Of course, not asking them is also safe, isn't it?
Reading through scriptures I get the sense that there was nothing safe about being a first century christian. We get a sense reading through the epistles Paul wrote to Timothy. Timothy served the church in Ephesus, and from what I gather, leading converted Jews and gentiles to Christ was in itself a daunting task. There were those that used the law for their own advantage. Women were assuming control without the study needed to live the life of a pastor (for those reading this that feel Paul is some chauvinist I have plenty more for you to read to dispute those claims). And amid these words I find my standard.
Temperate. Self-controlled. Respectable. Hospitable. Able to teach. Not prone to drunkenness, not violent or quarrelsome. A manager of his family and with a good reputation.
I'm going through this list and seeing two things--failure and future. Failure of the standard, because I'm a sinner and will continue to sin. But the future is the one that God's calling me to. Failure is safety while the future is unmistakably heart wrenching. Which one do I want?
This week too is not without its surprises. Our youth pastor is returning home to their roots in Louisiana. Hearing the news I was not saddened. Selfishly I want to be witness to their talent and energy, the wisdom and their presence. But this is our temporary home. We aren't designed to live among this broken world just as our youth pastor was meant to be here in Reynoldsburg. He didn't "fit" at times among some of the safe. His family, beautiful and talented and God-loving, aren't meant for this world. They are God's people. They go where He wants to send them. They sat in the dentist chair as God went to drilling. Hell no, it isn't safe. I wonder if God is trying to tell me the same thing. Does he want me to seek men outside the church? Does he want me to seek them elsewhere? If God's appointment cleaning was tomorrow would I answer with a thumbs up? Safe or unsafe.
I think when we cry we cry tears of selfishness. We cry because we want others to see we are in pain. I used to eye roll the girls in school who cried at the drop of a hat because the only thing tears did was bring them more people to hold them. We cry because we want to hold onto what we once had, a loved one, a parent, a child. Believe me, I cry like a baby. I cry for those reasons I just listed and more. I'm sure I'll cry when I say bye too. But God is not sitting around giving us the Kleenex. He's in the no-tears business. He's in the kingdom building business. Count me in.
I'm making a huge leap now. Feel free if you want to stop reading, but I figure if you're reading this you've been with me on similar blogs where I rip my heart out and leave it on your feet. But the Indiana Jones-ing of my beating heart--bonus Kali Mar points if you get that reference!--led me to this point. It's also from some recent studies, life experiences and that tug God places on your heart from time to time. Actually it's like he's standing next to me revving up the drill and asking me, "You want safe or you want a new life?"
Over the past few years as I lived out the life of a baby Christian, life as I knew it was "safe." I lived in my cul-de-sac not having to really know my neighbors. I stepped into a Life Group that doesn't really challenge me other that getting my reading completed every few weeks. I worked alongside a teaching partner that would just as well leave the door closed than to work together and that was okay with me. My kids go to a safe school and they ride their bikes in the neighborhood without the feeling of dread and menace my school students might have after 5pm. I can easily espouse on life and politics and anything in between from the confines and safety of my computer on Facebook, twitter and instagram. The most fear I have from my daily life is whether or not I'm going to eat, and if you know me in person, you'd think I need to lose a few meals as it is.
But I don't think God is calling me to be "safe." Looking at the Bible and studying it like I have, there's nothing safe about being a Christian. Abraham was called to sacrifice his son? Safe? David, chain mail hanging from his smaller frame and all, slayed Goliath. Was that safe? Moses in the desert for 40 years and never once stepping into the promised land himself. Not safe. On and on and on, God's call for our very best doesn't have anything to do with safety and comfort. This doesn't mean he wants you to be homeless and swatting away lions as you walk the streets. But God calls for us to be awkward.
So this summer has been bearing the fruit of stepping out of that comfort zone. Oklahoma mission trip. Junior high work camp. Emmaus walk. Even my daughter's boot camp commitment was not safe whatsoever. While she was sweating in 90 degree heat in South Carolina and "getting smoked" her friends were taking pictures of their trips to Europe, Hawaii and the beach, taking those annoying belly-n-feet POV shots on Instagram. Hashtag your life sucks cause you aren't poolside with me. That's safe.
Last Sunday I slept in and did not go to church. This is safe for me. No having to get up, no getting the kids ready or worrying if they ran ahead of us before checking them in. No going to junior high table talk to sit with my young men. No nothing. I didn't even watch on-line. So then this Sunday rolled around and the topic of discussion is Presence. Are we simply church consumers? We purchase God on Sunday and check the boxes. We go through the motions, pick up a cookie and punch for the kids. We smile, we wave at a friend and that's the culmination of our response to God's greatest sacrifice. Consumers want that safety. Consumers don't want to commit to anything. They don't serve, they don't study, but every Sunday they sure look good filling up the seat.
There are also the social contract Christians. Their commitment is umbilical only to those people who can advance them. They like the events and the social aspect of church. They will only study with their click. They won't serve without their friends. If affections or attitudes change, this type of person moves on to the next group. It's all for show.
I'd like to think I'm in this next group--those seeking a covenant. We go to the very edge of ourselves to seek the living God. We don't have to be asked to volunteer because we don't see any other way. We love to study because we know it's essential ton our growth. We join mission teams because we want to live and reveal the kingdom. If it wasn't for someone taking a chance on me, I would not be where I am. The standard I have for myself has placed me among this group. I can't say that I have "arrived" simply because my standards are high. The consumer standard is the lowest. "At least I'm here (at church)" is basing your life to a pagan. Don't you want your standard to be Moses? A disciple? Jesus? That's what we strive to be, isn't it?
The men's study I'm being challenged to lead starts September 4. I have 3 guys signed up. 3 out of a congregation of more than a thousand. 3 guys. Seriously? The safe way to handle this situation is to cancel the class. Not even starting one in the first place would be even safer. Satan knows that part of my pride is on display here. Saying no to a study is akin to saying no to me. And my fellow men love to give me excuses.
I'm having changes in my job. It's the night I work out. I'll look into it.
There's some men I can't even ask because they aren't ever around. Yeah, her husband doesn't come to church much is something I hear quite often. That's the safe husband. Others stand in the lobby, posturing like they do when they watch their kids' sporting events, arms crossed, sunglasses on their head, looking at their watches as if they have so many appointments to attend to. They have that, I-don't-read-much look. As if opening the Bible somehow reminds them of Mrs. Rottencrotch in 4th grade, asking to popcorn read aloud as the class made fun of them. Of course, not asking them is also safe, isn't it?
Reading through scriptures I get the sense that there was nothing safe about being a first century christian. We get a sense reading through the epistles Paul wrote to Timothy. Timothy served the church in Ephesus, and from what I gather, leading converted Jews and gentiles to Christ was in itself a daunting task. There were those that used the law for their own advantage. Women were assuming control without the study needed to live the life of a pastor (for those reading this that feel Paul is some chauvinist I have plenty more for you to read to dispute those claims). And amid these words I find my standard.
Temperate. Self-controlled. Respectable. Hospitable. Able to teach. Not prone to drunkenness, not violent or quarrelsome. A manager of his family and with a good reputation.
I'm going through this list and seeing two things--failure and future. Failure of the standard, because I'm a sinner and will continue to sin. But the future is the one that God's calling me to. Failure is safety while the future is unmistakably heart wrenching. Which one do I want?
This week too is not without its surprises. Our youth pastor is returning home to their roots in Louisiana. Hearing the news I was not saddened. Selfishly I want to be witness to their talent and energy, the wisdom and their presence. But this is our temporary home. We aren't designed to live among this broken world just as our youth pastor was meant to be here in Reynoldsburg. He didn't "fit" at times among some of the safe. His family, beautiful and talented and God-loving, aren't meant for this world. They are God's people. They go where He wants to send them. They sat in the dentist chair as God went to drilling. Hell no, it isn't safe. I wonder if God is trying to tell me the same thing. Does he want me to seek men outside the church? Does he want me to seek them elsewhere? If God's appointment cleaning was tomorrow would I answer with a thumbs up? Safe or unsafe.
I think when we cry we cry tears of selfishness. We cry because we want others to see we are in pain. I used to eye roll the girls in school who cried at the drop of a hat because the only thing tears did was bring them more people to hold them. We cry because we want to hold onto what we once had, a loved one, a parent, a child. Believe me, I cry like a baby. I cry for those reasons I just listed and more. I'm sure I'll cry when I say bye too. But God is not sitting around giving us the Kleenex. He's in the no-tears business. He's in the kingdom building business. Count me in.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Blast Zones
Next week will begin the all out assault on everything educationally related. My wife and I don't return to school officially until the 14th, but the days pass quickly in August. There has been so much going on this summer personally that has me fired up for life, when typically I kept everything compartmentalized. Family here, work here, church here. I'm beginning to understand that the dream God has for us is not just on one facet of our lifestyles. He wants it all!
Teaching has always been something that I could count on to work based on my ability. That's the problem. When you rely on something tangible to give you purpose it eventually betrays you. The promise of pride, the successes and dreams that go along with your career and the comfort it gives when it works can easily be ripped from underneath you. That's pretty much where teaching has been for me this past year. It's like the carpet has been ripped from my feet leaving me to fall on my ass. Where's that promise of success? Where's the trophy? Where's the feeling it once gave me? I'm on my ass and it doesn't feel right.
This concept was brought to my attention during junior high work camp. Satan's scheme is to betray you. He hates us, really. You think Satan wants you close to God? You think Satan wants you transforming the hearts of the kids God is entrusting you with? Those schemes contradict the dreams God has for all of us. We are a performance based culture. Capitalism is the backbone of our economic system. We've been fed this Horatio Alger storyline since we were kids--the self-made man. We all want to be James Dean in "Giant," striking oil in a vast Texas landscape, only so we can punch Rock Hudson in the face and kiss Liz Taylor. But we drill and drill for riches that never come. You probably think it's silly that I had these movie-inspired dreams for my classrooms over the years. The one where the test scores increase and I walk down the hall in triumph (Stand and Deliver) or the one where all my returning students come to recognize my glory days (Mr. Holland's Opus). Every year I have that one kid you want to toss off the roof (Stand by Me) and the kids who you hope will be standing on their desks reciting poetry (Dead Poet's Society).
That was me those first 5 years. Soccer team, the endless nights, the early mornings, the home visits and the lunch bunches. Eventually that led to me changing schools, and there were plenty of burnt bridges along the way. When I came to my current location, I couldn't see the potential in me because of the plank sticking out of my eye. Over the course of several years, you begin to think why isn't it fun. Where's the urgency? I can blame the administration all I want (and believe me, I did) but the dream God had for me was missed in my quest to pursue greatness without allowing Him to tag along.
The promise teaching once gave me now mocked me. Every time a kid acted out when I had a substitute teacher, or the one parent I failed to call even when I should have, the every-other-week parent complaints. All these incidents piled up. This wasn't the promise teaching had for me, was it? I didn't ever strive to be that teacher who counted the days before the next holiday, the next weekend or the next summer vacation. I didn't want to be that teacher who sighed every Monday, the one who complained in the lounge about some broken kid whose rearing by similarly broken adults was somehow unbearable to be around. The one who fell asleep in meetings or the one who didn't seem to have time for the most troubled, the most annoying or the most clingy.
And then this summer happened. I found clarity in an Oklahoma wheat field. I found peace in the eyes of Miss Jaunita who now has a home to comfort her. I found life in the presence of some extraordinary young men and ladies who I worked alongside with this summer. I found depth among the men at my table during this last Emmaus walk. I found myself. God tapped me on the shoulder and I responded. God had been tapping me on the shoulder all along, but Satan's scheme had other ideas. For the first time ever in my career, I actually thought teaching wasn't where I belonged. And perhaps that's not where I'll end up. But what I do know is that God has placed me in the ripest of environments. I may not be able to preach but living the life will be just as important. It's that blast-zone of influence.
So next week begins the note taking and planning. I'll trove Pinterest for ideas and I'll begin to make phone calls. If I sigh at work it will only be because I'm not raking through wheat to find debris thrown about by a tornado. The challenge is realizing the wreckage is sometimes right in front of me. I pray my heart is broken enough for me to respond.
Teaching has always been something that I could count on to work based on my ability. That's the problem. When you rely on something tangible to give you purpose it eventually betrays you. The promise of pride, the successes and dreams that go along with your career and the comfort it gives when it works can easily be ripped from underneath you. That's pretty much where teaching has been for me this past year. It's like the carpet has been ripped from my feet leaving me to fall on my ass. Where's that promise of success? Where's the trophy? Where's the feeling it once gave me? I'm on my ass and it doesn't feel right.
This concept was brought to my attention during junior high work camp. Satan's scheme is to betray you. He hates us, really. You think Satan wants you close to God? You think Satan wants you transforming the hearts of the kids God is entrusting you with? Those schemes contradict the dreams God has for all of us. We are a performance based culture. Capitalism is the backbone of our economic system. We've been fed this Horatio Alger storyline since we were kids--the self-made man. We all want to be James Dean in "Giant," striking oil in a vast Texas landscape, only so we can punch Rock Hudson in the face and kiss Liz Taylor. But we drill and drill for riches that never come. You probably think it's silly that I had these movie-inspired dreams for my classrooms over the years. The one where the test scores increase and I walk down the hall in triumph (Stand and Deliver) or the one where all my returning students come to recognize my glory days (Mr. Holland's Opus). Every year I have that one kid you want to toss off the roof (Stand by Me) and the kids who you hope will be standing on their desks reciting poetry (Dead Poet's Society).
That was me those first 5 years. Soccer team, the endless nights, the early mornings, the home visits and the lunch bunches. Eventually that led to me changing schools, and there were plenty of burnt bridges along the way. When I came to my current location, I couldn't see the potential in me because of the plank sticking out of my eye. Over the course of several years, you begin to think why isn't it fun. Where's the urgency? I can blame the administration all I want (and believe me, I did) but the dream God had for me was missed in my quest to pursue greatness without allowing Him to tag along.
The promise teaching once gave me now mocked me. Every time a kid acted out when I had a substitute teacher, or the one parent I failed to call even when I should have, the every-other-week parent complaints. All these incidents piled up. This wasn't the promise teaching had for me, was it? I didn't ever strive to be that teacher who counted the days before the next holiday, the next weekend or the next summer vacation. I didn't want to be that teacher who sighed every Monday, the one who complained in the lounge about some broken kid whose rearing by similarly broken adults was somehow unbearable to be around. The one who fell asleep in meetings or the one who didn't seem to have time for the most troubled, the most annoying or the most clingy.
And then this summer happened. I found clarity in an Oklahoma wheat field. I found peace in the eyes of Miss Jaunita who now has a home to comfort her. I found life in the presence of some extraordinary young men and ladies who I worked alongside with this summer. I found depth among the men at my table during this last Emmaus walk. I found myself. God tapped me on the shoulder and I responded. God had been tapping me on the shoulder all along, but Satan's scheme had other ideas. For the first time ever in my career, I actually thought teaching wasn't where I belonged. And perhaps that's not where I'll end up. But what I do know is that God has placed me in the ripest of environments. I may not be able to preach but living the life will be just as important. It's that blast-zone of influence.
So next week begins the note taking and planning. I'll trove Pinterest for ideas and I'll begin to make phone calls. If I sigh at work it will only be because I'm not raking through wheat to find debris thrown about by a tornado. The challenge is realizing the wreckage is sometimes right in front of me. I pray my heart is broken enough for me to respond.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Scraping Away the Barnacles
Water can be cruel. It surrounds everything and can take on the form of any container. Bruce Lee said something once eloquent about water, but after swimming through the Scioto (at least I think it was the Scioto!) river last week the only quote about water would best be reserved for an obscenity.
The idea to canoe was not mine by far. As part of the Junior High work camp, the kayaking and canoe portion of the day was a scheduled reprieve from the work day we had been doing. The first thought in my journal that morning was how worrisome I was. I joke about how "my people" aren't akin to being around water (despite the irony of the numerous wetback jokes and crossing the border quips I grew up with). Coupled with my size, I'm about as graceful as a hippo in a bath of jello. The life jacket looked like an orange scarf around my neck (the strap went just below my right man boob) and the kayaks looked like they were made for pigmies.
Dalton (this summer has also been great because I've spent most of it with my "second son") and I settled on a canoe and it wasn't 10 minutes into it that we flipped. Our boat coasted away from the both of us and I found myself floating in the middle of the river looking for a sandbar.
I ended up on the right side of the bank across from Dalton and I tried to swim back upstream to him. Bad idea. I just continued to float down river. Eventually I went back to the right and waited for any sight of the boat. One of the junior high kids seemed to have stopped it, but the sight of him laying on top of the canoe while it continued to float wasn't a great omen. Josh, one of our senior leaders, jumped out of his kayak all Aqua-man style and went after our wayward boat.
I first floated down stream holding onto the kayak. At one point, I found myself alone. The fear of embarrassment subsided some, so I decided to try the kayak in hopes of reaching the party. Somebody probably has my attempt to board the kayak on some redneck funniest home videos. My legs were hanging out of the boat like slabs of ham as I sunk into the seat. The first move I made with the oar I flipped again. Of all the luck, I'd be the one casualty: Obese man drowns in 1/2 feet of water!
Seeing no one on either side of me, I dragged the kayak back to the sandbar, dumped the water out and threw off my life jacket. I saw the corn field just above the shore line, and somewhere beyond there was the road we came in on. I started to walk towards the field. The thought in my mind was to give up right there and then and meet everyone back at the rendezvous point. I'd give everyone a laugh about what happened, blow off the stress and embarrassment like I typically do, just to save face.
The shore line extended onward, so before hiking up to the field I figured I'd keep walking the bank until I'd get to the boat. Once I got to the next bend, I still saw no boat. But I did hear voices. Distant, but a call nonetheless. I had a decision to make. Float onward with the kayak to find the boat (I kept thinking, could I float for 3 hours downriver to the end?), walk into the mystery of the corn, or just sit there and await help.
This summer had not been one of quitting. This was the summer of Living and Revealing the Kingdom (LARK), dammit! I didn't give up in Oklahoma, when the heat and unforgiving wheat field tempted me otherwise. When the emotions were more blinding than sweat, when that ache punctured my ribs as I walked up that road where the elementary school once stood. There was my daughter in boot camp hundred of miles away in South Carolina, battling her own fatigue and mind games. But she prevailed too. So, what was so unnerving about that muddy, murky river?
I thought about Miss Jaunita, whose house we were serving this past week with the junior high kids. Had she given up? Miss Jaunita, widowed and home bound. The only company she had most of the day was her pet poodle Diva, her home nurse and the Avon lady. She crutched around the house on one leg while the home she grew up in slowly crumbled around her.
So armed with paint, lumber and plenty of juvenile energy, we took upon the task of rebuilding her wobbly wheelchair ramp. We repainted her room and ripped up the carpet to reveal the original wood floors. Moss and fungus had begin growing on the deck in that it created a slippery, hazardous layer for Miss Jaunita to ever enjoy her back yard scenery.
So we scraped (our power washer was more of a sprinkler head) the green away and repainted it a vibrant red. There were moments during the week when we found ourselves on our hands and knees peeling away layers. Same thing with the carpet. Ripping it up left small chunks of padding that had stubbornly attached itself to the original wood.
Scraping away the barnacles from ones life was where I found myself again. Despite knowing that God had washed away my sins, the reflection in the mirror reveals old scars, bruises and imperfections. But it's my eyes that see it, continues to see it despite the devotions, the bible studies or the prayers. It's the sin that sticks. Like quitting. Pride should have kept me away from the sandbar, but the spineless part of me has always been stronger.
Eventually I was reunited with the boat. We took an extra passenger and the remaining trip was one made surrounded by parents and friends. We flipped a few more times too, at one point Dalton and I were sailing the boat backwards, but we made the tour. We were witnesses to another day of God's immense beauty, the hills that extended upwards in rocky slants, the bugs that skated across the surface, and even the menacing curvature of the water as it rippled and splashed.
At the very end, on out last turn, we saw the group ashore. I don't know how long they had been waiting on us. A clap began from somewhere, and there we were, greeted by a group of friends. Had I given up, I'd have missed the ceremony. I'd have missed the group of crazy Christians welcoming us home. We must have looked the same to Miss Jaunita on our last day, trying to squeeze ourselves in the frame of a camera lens. The cool thin about God's kingdom is that there is room for us all. We're being clapped home even when we don't realize it.
The idea to canoe was not mine by far. As part of the Junior High work camp, the kayaking and canoe portion of the day was a scheduled reprieve from the work day we had been doing. The first thought in my journal that morning was how worrisome I was. I joke about how "my people" aren't akin to being around water (despite the irony of the numerous wetback jokes and crossing the border quips I grew up with). Coupled with my size, I'm about as graceful as a hippo in a bath of jello. The life jacket looked like an orange scarf around my neck (the strap went just below my right man boob) and the kayaks looked like they were made for pigmies.
Dalton (this summer has also been great because I've spent most of it with my "second son") and I settled on a canoe and it wasn't 10 minutes into it that we flipped. Our boat coasted away from the both of us and I found myself floating in the middle of the river looking for a sandbar.
I ended up on the right side of the bank across from Dalton and I tried to swim back upstream to him. Bad idea. I just continued to float down river. Eventually I went back to the right and waited for any sight of the boat. One of the junior high kids seemed to have stopped it, but the sight of him laying on top of the canoe while it continued to float wasn't a great omen. Josh, one of our senior leaders, jumped out of his kayak all Aqua-man style and went after our wayward boat.
I first floated down stream holding onto the kayak. At one point, I found myself alone. The fear of embarrassment subsided some, so I decided to try the kayak in hopes of reaching the party. Somebody probably has my attempt to board the kayak on some redneck funniest home videos. My legs were hanging out of the boat like slabs of ham as I sunk into the seat. The first move I made with the oar I flipped again. Of all the luck, I'd be the one casualty: Obese man drowns in 1/2 feet of water!
Seeing no one on either side of me, I dragged the kayak back to the sandbar, dumped the water out and threw off my life jacket. I saw the corn field just above the shore line, and somewhere beyond there was the road we came in on. I started to walk towards the field. The thought in my mind was to give up right there and then and meet everyone back at the rendezvous point. I'd give everyone a laugh about what happened, blow off the stress and embarrassment like I typically do, just to save face.
The shore line extended onward, so before hiking up to the field I figured I'd keep walking the bank until I'd get to the boat. Once I got to the next bend, I still saw no boat. But I did hear voices. Distant, but a call nonetheless. I had a decision to make. Float onward with the kayak to find the boat (I kept thinking, could I float for 3 hours downriver to the end?), walk into the mystery of the corn, or just sit there and await help.
This summer had not been one of quitting. This was the summer of Living and Revealing the Kingdom (LARK), dammit! I didn't give up in Oklahoma, when the heat and unforgiving wheat field tempted me otherwise. When the emotions were more blinding than sweat, when that ache punctured my ribs as I walked up that road where the elementary school once stood. There was my daughter in boot camp hundred of miles away in South Carolina, battling her own fatigue and mind games. But she prevailed too. So, what was so unnerving about that muddy, murky river?
I thought about Miss Jaunita, whose house we were serving this past week with the junior high kids. Had she given up? Miss Jaunita, widowed and home bound. The only company she had most of the day was her pet poodle Diva, her home nurse and the Avon lady. She crutched around the house on one leg while the home she grew up in slowly crumbled around her.
So armed with paint, lumber and plenty of juvenile energy, we took upon the task of rebuilding her wobbly wheelchair ramp. We repainted her room and ripped up the carpet to reveal the original wood floors. Moss and fungus had begin growing on the deck in that it created a slippery, hazardous layer for Miss Jaunita to ever enjoy her back yard scenery.
So we scraped (our power washer was more of a sprinkler head) the green away and repainted it a vibrant red. There were moments during the week when we found ourselves on our hands and knees peeling away layers. Same thing with the carpet. Ripping it up left small chunks of padding that had stubbornly attached itself to the original wood.
Scraping away the barnacles from ones life was where I found myself again. Despite knowing that God had washed away my sins, the reflection in the mirror reveals old scars, bruises and imperfections. But it's my eyes that see it, continues to see it despite the devotions, the bible studies or the prayers. It's the sin that sticks. Like quitting. Pride should have kept me away from the sandbar, but the spineless part of me has always been stronger.
Eventually I was reunited with the boat. We took an extra passenger and the remaining trip was one made surrounded by parents and friends. We flipped a few more times too, at one point Dalton and I were sailing the boat backwards, but we made the tour. We were witnesses to another day of God's immense beauty, the hills that extended upwards in rocky slants, the bugs that skated across the surface, and even the menacing curvature of the water as it rippled and splashed.
At the very end, on out last turn, we saw the group ashore. I don't know how long they had been waiting on us. A clap began from somewhere, and there we were, greeted by a group of friends. Had I given up, I'd have missed the ceremony. I'd have missed the group of crazy Christians welcoming us home. We must have looked the same to Miss Jaunita on our last day, trying to squeeze ourselves in the frame of a camera lens. The cool thin about God's kingdom is that there is room for us all. We're being clapped home even when we don't realize it.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
The Awkwardness of Brown
There's awkwardness in being brown. The only time I really notice that I'm Hispanic is when others point it out, when someone mispronounces my name and when people feel they can tell me their true thoughts about African-Americans because they consider me "safe" enough to tell. Not dark enough to be untrustworthy and light enough to relate.
Growing up in Houston, I was more self-aware of my skin color. Everyone stayed in their designed cliques (see my blog from last week when I talked about church cliques). Even the cliques had their own cliques. Darker skinned black kids did not hang out with lighter skinned black kids (the "high yellow" as it was known to me then) and the lighter skinned black kids were safe enough to hang with the white kids. Among Hispanics, it was the wanna-be gangsters guys who were dressed like extras in one of Vin Diesel's house parties in Fast and the Furious. The girls wore dark purple lipstick and their bangs were so sprayed they could have deflected bullets. I didn't know enough Spanish to truly hang with the gangsters, and I wasn't ethnic enough to hang with the outcasts. Most of the Hispanics in school probably felt I was a stuck up preppy kid who dreamed of being white--and they weren't too far from the truth.
There was awkwardness when my grandmother told a group of black men who ventured into our street that there weren't "any of your kind" and to leave before she called the cops. There was awkwardness when the Ealy brothers would school us 8th graders on the difference between nigger and niggah. There was awkwardness when fellow football players would cry foul on how blacks would somehow take over the world and dry the government coffers from their use of food stamps. Awkwardness every time I balked from helping someone translate their requests. Awkwardness when I moved to Ohio and everyone in Zanesville thought I was from the Middle East.
There's more division now than ever before Growing up I began to see the demand of groups of color who wanted to distinguish themselves as above rather than apart. There were the Hispanic Democrats and Hispanic Republicans. My friends seemed pissed about the Negro College Fund commercials and I wondered when I'd actually see someone who looked like my family on screen other than a butler or a landscaper. I used to cry foul when the census bureau only drew the colors of the American landscape with blacks and whites. Even when the seeds of pride burst forth from my crusty veneer, someone was always around to warn me about immigration and illegal aliens.
When I became a teacher there was a renewed interest in being brown. My students had great questions that came from the truth in their lives. Nothing felt awkward and differences were now celebrated. I wanted to learn from my kids as much as they were getting from me. On a typical day I will joke about being ashy, how black people don't like to actually swim at pool parties and how black or brown you were depended on the menu at your family barbecue. Typically we talk about their communities, which inevitably lead into "running the hood" and how to remain safe surrounded by gang members, crazy adults and a system that seems to want to derail them.
I'm not really sure how I will answer my fifth graders this coming fall when they ask me about Trayvon Martin. I don't want to answer with emotions, as they surely will. I know most of my students will come in with a blend of opinions derived from their parents. They believe Trayvon received no justice. Some will harbor thoughts of retribution towards Zimmerman. The racism card will surely be tossed around and the few white students I have will probably not even want to speak.
Government is what we study, from the three branches to the beginnings of the Constitution. Many 4th and 5th graders are just beginning to grasp some of the larger concepts of freedom and responsibility. The freedom to do whatever we want, even though the realization that not everything is to our benefit. My students don't see much past their own selves and anything prohibiting their freedom is classified as unfair, racist or both.
As an educator, I do have a responsibility to breathe truth in their life without bias. I want them to think for themselves. I want them to know that while America was founded on a bed of blood and political power brokers, there were honorable men in the midst. I want them to know that while the Native Americans were sometimes ruthless warriors, some of them were honorable too. Slavery too, had demons on both sides. But to demonize everyone does not do them a service.
Which is what exactly happened during the Trayvon Martin case. Zimmerman was immediately portrayed as a villain who stalked Trayvon as he innocently strolled though the neighborhood munching on Skittles. Hoodies were the culprit, along with the menacing spectacle of saggy pants. An over-zealous neighborhood watchman, wanna-be cop , now a murderer.
The other side played games too. If you dug around enough, you'd find pictures of an angelic Trayvon next to one where's he's giving the middle finger to the world. In one story he's a full-ride college hopeful and the next he's a weed-smoking thug.
Perhaps I will take the time to discuss responsibility and freedom. The freedom to post a picture giving the Facebook world the middle finger and how it looks like to a future employer, or a potential boyfriend or girlfriend's parent, and even a teacher. The freedom to walk to the corner store to buy a candy knowing that what we wear, what we say and how we look at others can either be a hindrance or a deterrent. I once was stopped in my neighborhood with 2 of my friends by a Spring, TX patrol cop. It was winter-ish and I only remember wearing a dark coat. Lights were flashed upon my face and I was told to remove my hands from my pockets. I did as I was told. No sense getting shot over a misunderstanding.
I'm not sure my kids would see it the same way. When my older daughter went out at night, I didn't have to worry that her sports hoodie would make her a target. My son, on the other hand, will probably be told not to wear one. And when he becomes a driver, I will counsel him on how to act. Hands on the steering wheel, no attitude, yes sir and no sir. To do otherwise raises the possibility that something could occur. I had friends in high school that were treated worse when they back-talked and acted above the law. Why would I want to be arrested or shamed when all I had to do was be nice.? Sure, I had different opinions when the cop left, but I was alive.
And justice. They believe, as do many, that Zimmerman is "free." You don't think his life is forever changed? Or that he wont be hounded by a media that doesn't know when to quit? How many people can say they are being investigated by the United States Government that isn't located in Iraq? Sure he's alive and Trayvon is dead. He wont grow to fulfill the dreams he had, but neither will Zimmerman. Two lives were lost that fateful night.
I want to tell my students that wearing hoodies or snapbacks turned sideways and walking slowly wont make them a target, But I also know that our reaction to the type of situation Trayvon and Zimmerman found themselves in could have been avoided. I have that duty as a teacher to tell my kids as such.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
The Heads of the Brethren
It's not a secret to anyone who knows me is that I love me some church. I've always been a social being, seeded by God and then watered vigorously by my mother and my family. Despite the many times I wanted to sit in a dark theater and extract the meaning of life from the latest art-house movie, I was not built for being alone. This is the truth of all of God's people, saved or unsaved. He didn't bring us into the world so we could live alone. Even Adam was placed in the Garden, and it wasn't one verse later that God gave him a companion. "It is not good for a man to be alone."
Growing up, the socialness (Google chrome is reminded me this must be a misspelled word, my poet side of me is proud nonetheless) of church was always something I looked forward to. The mingling in the lobby (which we didn't do very often as we always seemed to be running in late), the waving in the parking lot, the breakfast tacos after service. We typically sat in the same area, which gave us a good vantage view of those around us and those that weren't there that Sunday from a long night of drinking on Saturday. I enjoyed the same vantage view of Father Piguero, his thick Cuban accent when he made the congregation say "Good morning" twice since the first wasn't sufficient, each Sunday. Anytime we sat someplace different, the entire feel of church somehow lost its flavor. New kids turned in their pews to stare at you--and there's something about Catholic kids that makes them stare even more so that Protestant kids I think. Father Piguero's smile was somehow different when seen over the heads of the brethren in the cheap seats.
So yeah, I guess you figured by now that I am one of those that sits in the same spot at my local church. I park pretty much in the same area, except on the days the line for coffee is long or it's been a long morning getting the kids ready. I enjoy seeing many of the same faces at church. I give the typical 3-handed back slap hug to my man friends, I kiss the cheeks better than Richard Dawson back in the days of corduroy jackets. On sunny days, the sun will sometimes glare through the observation tower, seemingly giving me a glowing sanctification to go forward the next week and do something.
After church we have the same ritual. Herd the kids to the cookie table (we try to avoid the drinks because one of our kids always spills it or never drinks the one last swallow), mingle with "our" crowd at the end of the steps leading up to the classrooms. Perhaps I have been in a clique all this time. I've known it, but there's something about the word clique that has a sense of 1980's era getting-bullied-in-junior-high feel to it. Then I read this blog.
Had I been this kind of parishioner? Unwittingly or consciously? My wife and I sat and talked about for a few minutes, one of those shooshing kids out of the room talks (those are the good ones). We talked about people on the fringe (and I don't mean the wallflowers of church who feel lonely, but those on the fringes of our social bubble), people we've not really met, people we've stopped talking to.
Being a host and outward attention seeker (yeah, that's me) my wife and I have typically fallen victim to the curse of the clique. When out daughter played softball we tried in vain to get admitted into the right team, to know the right coach and to hang out with the popular crowd, which in softball were those that talked the most trash and seemed to know the most. We wanted into the douche bag crowd and were proud of it.
Those efforts prove fruitless. A year or so ago one of the retired coaches and I bumped into one another at some social event. I don't even think we shared pleasantries.
At our church there are groups among groups. The men's choir, the praise band, the youth group, the Emmaus gathering crowd, the lady volunteers with their faces of steel and arms of iron, those that work in the nursery and those that lead classes on Wednesdays. There's a group that helps with the younger kids, the middle schoolers, the high school and even the college kids. We have Life Groups, where more groups are made. Inherently the Life Groups are a way to enhance the call of grace in our lives. It's a way to strengthen ties. The group I am in has helped me grow spiritually over the last year or so, and I've met some great friends that are helping me walk through the threshold of being a baby christian to a disciple.
With that being said, we have drama within the group too. Faces we don't see very often and some have stopped coming altogether. Within this clique mentality, there is some truth to the article. I've been so busy attracting the right kind of people to surround myself around that I lost sight of those right in front of me. I have my excuses. Attendance to life matters to me. It always hasn't, that's true of me to. If one is to share life one must be in active membership. How can I get to know you when you're not around? True, our group is large enough that I haven't met everyone equally. Maybe that's a failing of all Life Groups, all parties or all clubs--it can only be so big before it ruptures over.
Up to this point I haven't had much sympathy for those that haven't been around. It's selective and that, in essence is judgmental. I let go baseball commitments and those that I know personally. Others? Not so much. I can see now that this is the same in church is well. I don't see someone for a while and it doesn't faze me. I might wonder aloud during lunch, "Have you seen such and such?" and then the thought fades with the next bite. Some couples we've found out have even gone to new churches. I sometimes look at my feet to make sure the grass is still green.
I'm not sure what the answer is. Good intentions are nothing without action. Is it pride that keeps my fingers from texting that one person God needs me to reach out to? Stubbornness? What does God think when I answer him in this tone, "Why am I always the one to make the first move?"
Maybe I am too busy being part of the it crowd. I love the place I'm in currently and the great people in my life. The same thing that attracted me to them is perhaps someone else's reason to keep up a wall. Perhaps I can slow down long enough to look back every once in a while. See the view from above.
Growing up, the socialness (Google chrome is reminded me this must be a misspelled word, my poet side of me is proud nonetheless) of church was always something I looked forward to. The mingling in the lobby (which we didn't do very often as we always seemed to be running in late), the waving in the parking lot, the breakfast tacos after service. We typically sat in the same area, which gave us a good vantage view of those around us and those that weren't there that Sunday from a long night of drinking on Saturday. I enjoyed the same vantage view of Father Piguero, his thick Cuban accent when he made the congregation say "Good morning" twice since the first wasn't sufficient, each Sunday. Anytime we sat someplace different, the entire feel of church somehow lost its flavor. New kids turned in their pews to stare at you--and there's something about Catholic kids that makes them stare even more so that Protestant kids I think. Father Piguero's smile was somehow different when seen over the heads of the brethren in the cheap seats.
So yeah, I guess you figured by now that I am one of those that sits in the same spot at my local church. I park pretty much in the same area, except on the days the line for coffee is long or it's been a long morning getting the kids ready. I enjoy seeing many of the same faces at church. I give the typical 3-handed back slap hug to my man friends, I kiss the cheeks better than Richard Dawson back in the days of corduroy jackets. On sunny days, the sun will sometimes glare through the observation tower, seemingly giving me a glowing sanctification to go forward the next week and do something.
After church we have the same ritual. Herd the kids to the cookie table (we try to avoid the drinks because one of our kids always spills it or never drinks the one last swallow), mingle with "our" crowd at the end of the steps leading up to the classrooms. Perhaps I have been in a clique all this time. I've known it, but there's something about the word clique that has a sense of 1980's era getting-bullied-in-junior-high feel to it. Then I read this blog.
Had I been this kind of parishioner? Unwittingly or consciously? My wife and I sat and talked about for a few minutes, one of those shooshing kids out of the room talks (those are the good ones). We talked about people on the fringe (and I don't mean the wallflowers of church who feel lonely, but those on the fringes of our social bubble), people we've not really met, people we've stopped talking to.
Being a host and outward attention seeker (yeah, that's me) my wife and I have typically fallen victim to the curse of the clique. When out daughter played softball we tried in vain to get admitted into the right team, to know the right coach and to hang out with the popular crowd, which in softball were those that talked the most trash and seemed to know the most. We wanted into the douche bag crowd and were proud of it.
Those efforts prove fruitless. A year or so ago one of the retired coaches and I bumped into one another at some social event. I don't even think we shared pleasantries.
At our church there are groups among groups. The men's choir, the praise band, the youth group, the Emmaus gathering crowd, the lady volunteers with their faces of steel and arms of iron, those that work in the nursery and those that lead classes on Wednesdays. There's a group that helps with the younger kids, the middle schoolers, the high school and even the college kids. We have Life Groups, where more groups are made. Inherently the Life Groups are a way to enhance the call of grace in our lives. It's a way to strengthen ties. The group I am in has helped me grow spiritually over the last year or so, and I've met some great friends that are helping me walk through the threshold of being a baby christian to a disciple.
With that being said, we have drama within the group too. Faces we don't see very often and some have stopped coming altogether. Within this clique mentality, there is some truth to the article. I've been so busy attracting the right kind of people to surround myself around that I lost sight of those right in front of me. I have my excuses. Attendance to life matters to me. It always hasn't, that's true of me to. If one is to share life one must be in active membership. How can I get to know you when you're not around? True, our group is large enough that I haven't met everyone equally. Maybe that's a failing of all Life Groups, all parties or all clubs--it can only be so big before it ruptures over.
Up to this point I haven't had much sympathy for those that haven't been around. It's selective and that, in essence is judgmental. I let go baseball commitments and those that I know personally. Others? Not so much. I can see now that this is the same in church is well. I don't see someone for a while and it doesn't faze me. I might wonder aloud during lunch, "Have you seen such and such?" and then the thought fades with the next bite. Some couples we've found out have even gone to new churches. I sometimes look at my feet to make sure the grass is still green.
I'm not sure what the answer is. Good intentions are nothing without action. Is it pride that keeps my fingers from texting that one person God needs me to reach out to? Stubbornness? What does God think when I answer him in this tone, "Why am I always the one to make the first move?"
Maybe I am too busy being part of the it crowd. I love the place I'm in currently and the great people in my life. The same thing that attracted me to them is perhaps someone else's reason to keep up a wall. Perhaps I can slow down long enough to look back every once in a while. See the view from above.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)