Category Archives: Personal

Motivation, Personal

Birthdays

2 Comments

My birthday was yesterday.  I am feeling old.  My bones hurt.  Oh, for the days of jumping from rock to rock in a rushing stream to find an elusive trout.  It is the wear and tear of the daily living that seems to have ripped the desire to pursue my dreams and to shadow my hopes.

With repeated attempts, I find myself unable to reach my greatest intentions. I am not giving up, but I seem to be losing my grip on the things that seemed to matter to me so much over the years.  My greatest fear is getting to a place where I simply say, “what is the use.”  What is the use to continue my quest to help where I can?  What is the use to feed the next generation with my learned lessons of life, if they seem oblivious to the insight? When life was young there was an inner zest, or maybe a simple twitch toward the moral battle rightly engaged.  There was a foe to slay, a flock to shepherd and protect, but now, what am I to do?

All sorts of compromises have been made as practical adjustments to the world in which we live. Legitimate hopes and dreams have been lost in the fog.  Griefs settle upon me as I see myself more like Don Quixote battling windmills than King Arthur fighting the good fight. The struggle seems to have dulled my sword and now has become difficult to hold it up.

My bed beckons me each evening but I can’t sleep because of all the little naps taken to get through the day.  The question, “what is the use” seems more and more close.

This does not mean that I will cease battling.  I will continue to fight the good fight, I will finish my race.  Just because I can not run 100 yards does not mean I am giving up to self-indulgence and retire to the companionship of my easy chair.  I will, and I am doing my part to make a difference.  I have not lost the zest of the moral struggle.  I may hang on grimly to the end, but with the inner fire not quite as bright as it was back in the day, I will keep on keeping on.

The fire is still burning within me and even if no one comes by to warm themselves by it, I will keep it lit.

Your comments are requested.

Life, Personal, Short Quotes

Fathers and sons

Matthew 3:9 in the NIV says: Don’t think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have father Abraham!’ because I tell you that God can raise up descendants for Abraham from these stones.

There were those in the times of Jesus who claimed a right to Heaven just because they were born into a family.  May I just say in no uncertain terms: God is not much interested in the lineage of parents than in the life of the children.

Just saying.

Personal, Politics

Yes is Yes

Decisiveness is a quality lost in the world we live in.  There seems to be a new art in being able to say yes and no to the same question.  We don’t want to offend anyone so much we simply end up saying nothing.  I was raised in a household of loudness.  No idea was out of bounds if it was bespoken with conviction and subsequently backed up with facts.  Loudness was the attention mechanism and the concept was the substance.  But today, the weakest voices are the ones we seem to be listening to the most.

It is the little voices that cry out, “it is not fair”. Case in point: The idea that the current president was not elected by the people because he did not get the most votes.  While at first blush we think this is a travesty; it was not fair. Never-the-less it is still the best mechanism in the election of our highest office.  If it were not for the electoral college, only the most populated states would have it there way, while states like Montana would just be totally neglected.  It would be like two wolves looking at a sheep and deciding a menu. Our system says an unequivocal yes to the method of checks and balances in our government.  It may not seem “fair” to some (probably because they voted for the other candidate) but it is. No wonder it takes a super-majority of the Congress and two-thirds of the states to change the constitution.

You may not like the outcome.  You may have wanted to come out some other way.  But in retrospect, the election was an absolute “yes”.  There is no maybe. There is no, not really president: he is president. If you don’t like it, raise your voice and be loud but back it up with facts.

Personal, Ramblings, Sermon Illustration

Califorina Highway Patrol and grace

Way back in the day I owned one hot 68 Ford Fairlane two door.  It was a very special car and it had a lot of work done.  I had all the chrome and emblems removed and painted it with six coats of #44 black lacquer and it was buffed mirror shine. It was fast. It had a 428 cu in (7.0 L) Cobra Jet, developing 335 bhp. The largest tires that would fit under the wheel wells on the rear,  gave it a rake that looked mean.

I was employed in a small grocery store as a meat cutter and after work, I was always in a hurry to get home. The little town of Cottonwood was not a large anything and very seldom was there any traffic down the main street; the freeway had passed the sleepy town by.

Not being very cautious and wanting to get home, I pulled out from a blind stop sign in front of another black car.  I had cut that car off a little close and I stepped on the gas in response and left just a little bit of black mark on the road.  It was out of embarrassment that I had done this dastardly thing.  I had wanted to create some additional space between myself and the other black car just for safety sake.

I was well exceeding the posted 35 miles per hour and that other black car flipped on its siren and his Blue light, I had not noticed that trailing black car was a California Highway Patrol car. My turn to home was just a half a block away and wanting to be safe I turn quickly down the street and pulled over with just enough room to allow the officer to park behind.

The rapid turn took the CHP officer by surprise and he tried with all his might to follow but as he turned he realized he was too close and literally slid all four of his tires into the small space behind me with only one foot to spare in a great cloud of dust.

After, what seemed to be an eternity, the CHP officer who had been quietly sitting in his car trying to assume a posture of calm, opened his door and walked very slowly to my window.

Rolling down the window I stated with a large smile on my face, “Can I help you, officer?”

He replied, “I almost rear-ended you twice; the first time when you pulled into the street in front of me.  I could have let that slip, but when you sped up I had to turn on my lights.”  He continued to say with a small rivulet of nervous sweat coming from under his official brown hat, “Then you turned left abruptly and when I tried to follow, and the excessive speed I was making, my engine died.  I lost my power steering and my power breaks.  I almost lost control and came close to hitting you again.”

I came to the realization he was almost apologizing for coming so close to my car.

“I could well write you up for a number of things, but I came very near to hitting you the second time, that I just don’t have it within me.”  Please slow down and watch your turns.”  He walked back to his car and sat down.

I pulled out slowly with the appropriate turn signal as I watched the CHP just sit in his car. My actions as I pulled away were in response to grace.  My reaction to grace was not that I got away with something, it was that I had been stupid and I would be more careful, more attentive, and more obedient.

It is the same calling we receive by grace to act accordingly.  “The things I believe I do, all else is just religious talk.

GRACE….

Church, Culture, Personal

I may be me…

1 Comment

Church, I want you to step up and make this “love of Jesus” thing real and real to me.  I am here, in my flawed, screwed-up, wounded, shell-shocked, doubting, disillusioned personhood, ready for the full-on Jesus stuff.  Step up and show me the supposedly relentless and all loving Jesus; make it real.

Church, the word for today’s world is tolerance.  Tolerance for everything that can be accepted by the broad and wide way.  Right now, I need you to tolerate me.  For that matter, you need to tolerate those of us who, for hundreds of reasons, you may characterize as un-Christian.  I am so weary of feeling the only thing that goes on around here is a religious agenda, an argument to win, a point to make, a cause to defend, a soul to save.  You can’t promote your cause without accepting me as who I am.

I want to be more than a number on a tally sheet.  I want more than to be counted with those who “like” a Facebook site.  I want to be more than a prop in a baptism ceremony. I want more than applause and high fives when I show up and am soon forgotten when the music ends.

I am waiting for the time when you stop doing your thing and listen to my thing.  Stop evangelizing us, preaching at us, fighting us, judging us long enough to simply hear my pain, my garbage. I am fully aware of my own foibles. It is not your place to put up a mirror, that is God’s job.

Listen carefully church.  Even if we are all sinners like the woman with adultery, or the doubting follower, or the rebellious prodigal or even the demon filled man, there is little we can do about it.  It is all that we are.  Don’t value us because of what we could become but love us because we need simply to be loved.  I need, we need, the world needs, a church big enough, tough enough, and loving enough to look us in the eye and love us unconditionally. Not for what we may become but what we are now.

I am well assured you think you are what God wants.  You go about your ministries and try to be inclusionary to all.  You make every attempt to love and care.  In the shoes, I walk in, in the world in which I live, strive, struggle, question, feel rejection and try to just be me, it does not feel as though you care and love.  It feels more like space and silence.

If I am hurting, telling me it will get better does not help. It only adds to the distance and space between us.

If I share that my very soul is wanting.  If I voice my conviction that I don’t feel included, don’t ignore me. It is so frustrating for you to say it is not right to be hurt.  It is a conversation ender.

If I tell you I am starving for compassion, relationship, authenticity, the last thing I want to hear is that I need to be corrected for my hunger.

Oh, you may be doing your thing and it may be good enough for you.  But for me, it is just one more excuse to stay away.  By the way, if the problem is me, it’s me who you are supposed to be reaching.

Bible, Personal

The hour has come

2 Comments

Behold, my hour has come.

The Passover meal is set before us in the place I have chosen.  Passover is to be a celebration of the deliverance of my people in the face of desperate persecution and slavery. Judas had made his exit, leaving a cloud of speculation and disappointment. There seems to be a marked change in the countenance of the remaining eleven. Somber, yet inquisitive eyes, all trying to understand.  Trying to figure out the next chapter.  They don’t really understand it all.  I have taught so much in such a short time.  But they don’t yet understand.

I recline here with my friends, my companions for well over three years.  I love them.  I have cared for them. I have fed them from God’s abundance.  Buy my example of care and affection, I have tried to explain the purpose of my life and of their lives. They do not understand the time is at hand.

To demonstrate to these special men the love I have for them, I remove my cloak and overshirt and wrap myself in a towel.  All the while, they stare and whisper.  With a slow deliberation, I pour water into a bowl and I move to each person in turn and wash their feet.

Of course, Peter, my rock, my skeptical fisherman would not let it go.  My servanthood lesson could not go unchallenged. Looking down at my attempt to show my love for him he stated, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

I looked up into Peter’s impetuous and alarmed eyes and said, “Peter, someday you will understand.”  You see, my hour had come.

In his own rough scratchy voice and pulling back his feet from my hand, Peter says, “You shall never wash my feet.”  After much discussion and further objections, the deed was completed.

“Do you really understand what I have done for you?”  You see my hour had come.  It was the place of no turning back.  No more would there be laughter and fishing. No more would there be a few fish turning into baskets full.  No more walking along the Sea of Galilee.  It was the first moment of the end of my earthly life.  My hour had come.

I am filled with emotion and deep feelings.  I lean back at that table of now somber men and remember the beginning of it all.  I remember the hour I spoke, and the world came into being.  The hour I walked in the cool of the evening with Adam.  I was there in the beginning.  I was there witnessing all the trails of tears of Israel. I had to come to be a part of my treasure. And now my hour had come.

I close my eyes to see Mary and Joseph.  I remember well the time I told my mother, “My hour had yet not come.” Three years and it is now over. I am now at the time where it is to end.  The end of my purpose.  My purpose to walk, talk, understand, care, hope, be disappointed, to teach, be misunderstood, to be hailed, and to be criticized. It was time to give up and let go.  My hour had come.

From that first hour, this world has made its path around the sun.  It has been the home of my greatest treasure.  Yet it has been corrupted by war and famine and disease.  My greatest treasure has darkened the surface with suffering, pain, and hate.  They have wallowed in despair, never understanding the true nature of the purpose.

This despair and pain were unavoidable.  It came with my gift of freedom. That freedom became license.  That license became the darkness.  My greatest treasure became without worth.  No money would ever buy the redemptive value of my treasure.  I had to come and pay the price.  My hour has come.

The darkness will be even more intense.  Man will always be cruel.  The poor will always be on the street corners asking for one more coin. There will droughts, famines, war, pestilence, hate, disease.  Yet, in the middle of it all will now be a bright shining light.  There will be a hope.  There will be redemption offered.  My hour has come

Someday a new hour will come, and I will plunge a fiery sword into the very innards of the earth.  It will split like an overripe fruit.  This world of pain will pass away. It will be swallowed up and obliterated. The mountains, seas, oceans, plains, deserts, forests will all pass away.  Someday that hour will come.  But as I listen to the hushed tones of my friends and realize I must teach some more.  I still have work to do.  I must give them my words of life.  To help them understand the end is near.  I must tell them, “My hour has come.”

Bible, Ministry, Personal, Theology

Discernment

If ever there was a person that looked for the little things in life it was Jesus.  He had that habit about Him.  He is full of sympathy and sensitivity.  I can only imagine walking the dusty and dirty streets of Palestine with eyes flashing back and beyond, always looking, always seeking, always noticing.  When He entered the house of Peter, Jesus noticed his Mother-in-law was down with a fever. Matt 8:14. No one needed to tell Jesus of the problem.  No one slipped up to his ear warning the dinner might be late because one of the servers was sick. He just noticed.  He perceived the situation and went straight to her and touched her hand.

Jesus walking with the disciples noticed everything.  He noticed the patched garments of the children, the long lines of men out of work.  He noticed the great and the small.  He noticed the hypocrisy of the priesthood. He noticed a sore back from fishing all night and showed where the easy fishing was.  In the middle of one of his greatest sermons, He stopped and took notice that they “were hungry.” In the shadow of one of the greatest architectural masterpieces in that part of the world, the Temple, He stopped and noticed a woman putting in her last coin. He noticed the uneasiness of the keeper of the purse at the last supper. He noticed the women at the cross amid the terrible pain.

It was His habit.  It was his character.  It was one of the characteristics of the life of Jesus.  It is close to the center of his being.  God notices.

Are you suffering in silence, God notices.  If you can’t seem to stretch that last dollar to the end of the month, God notices.  If you can’t seem to find the light at the end of the tunnel of your life, God notices.  If the kids are driving you crazy, God notices.

And we too must take notice.  To walk through life with a glazed over, blank stare is to miss all of life’s finer adventures and to miss the very things God would have us see.  If we blunt our hearts to the suffering and heartache of those around us, we will lose the God-like gift of noticing.

God’s gift to us is noticing and our gift to those around us is noticing.   We need that gift of seeing the small, to see the currents within the grand sweeping river of life.

It is a God-given perception of the small.  It is noticing.

Comments?

Life, Personal, Politics, Sermon Illustration

Viewpoint and disagreements.

1 Comment

With apologies to Dr. Henry T. Hodgkin a medical doctor and Quaker missionary in the early 1900’s, I wish to share with you a philosophy that he wrote just prior to the first World War.  He was a true pacifist and was feeling the brunt of the national ardor of becoming part of the War of all Wars. It speaks to me as what a Christian attitude should be.  I have taken a little license to paraphrase his text to bring common vernacular and understanding. It is primarily what kind of attitude one should have when confronted by someone with a differing opinion.

  1. I will always seek to discover the best and strongest points to any brother’s position.
  2. I will give credit for sincerity and persistence in opinion.
  3. I will try to avoid classifying him and assuming that his position is only because of a class or membership of which they belong.
  4. I will emphasize our agreements and convergence points.
  5. When others criticize, I will try to bring out favorable points.
  6. When there is misunderstanding, either I of him or he of me, I will go to him directly.
  7. I will seek opportunities to pray with him.
  8. I will try to remember that I may be mistaken and that God’s truth is too big for any one mind.
  9. I will never ridicule another’s faith.
  10. If I have been found criticizing another’s viewpoint, I will seek the first opportunity of understanding if my criticism is just.
  11. I will not listen to gossip and second-hand information.
  12. I will pray for those from who I differ.

Arguments rarely solve anything. It is when the rational and reasonable come together willing to listen and understand other points of view that change will happen.

Comments?

Church, Personal, Psycolog, Ramblings

Love as a gift.

Knit booties

In a small town in which I first Pastored, there is little that was not known by the population.  A good reputation can be lost a lot faster than a bad reputation can be repaired.  I needed the Church to be known as a place of caring. Faced with a need to tell the community that the church  cared and wanting the congregation to both buy into the idea and wanting to involve the congregation in the solution, I thought long and hard as to a methodology. There was only one hospital in town. Every baby born in the county took its first breath in The Clearwater County Hospital.

I asked the some of the ladies of the church to create something I could give to each newborn.  The solution was a pair of homemade knit booties.  We added a card from the church with good wishes and an invitation.

Before I knew it I was inundated with the most adorable knit booties you could ever want.  The ladies of the church bought into the idea that their wares which would be the first gift a new child would use.  I pumped up the knitting crew with ideas like “Booties from Jesus” and “Gifts from the Maji.”

We were going to do something out of the ordinary.  To give without any expectation. There seems to be an insidious thought pattern in the church.  A thought that there is a reciprocity timeline.  That is to say, if I do something nice for someone that person becomes obligated to respond in an appropriate manner and in an assumed appropriate time period. If I do good things I should be rewarded because now I deserve it.  One definition of karma is: moral law of cause and effect governing the future.   If I give you a compliment, you are expected to respond with either a self-deprecating comment or an equally gracious compliment in return.  If you receive a Christmas card the week before Christmas you have to make a mad dash to the Hallmark store and send one back immediately.  If I offer you half of my cookie you have to offer me some of your Cheetos. It is just common politeness. We make sure everyone gets equitable gifts for their birthdays, so when it is your turn you will get gifts in return.  The problem with this reciprocity mindset is it always seems to be accompanied by disappointment if the giver does not get gifted in return.

When you give someone a gracious compliment like, “you are a great speaker,” and they return with “I know that,” you are hurt.  We find ourselves wallowing in disappointment when our ample generosity is not met with the expected results.  The problem is not with the complement being not received, but it is our return expectation.  The issue was that we gave with a motive of reciprocity. The motive behind telling someone you like their new shoes is partly dictated by the reasonable expectation for them to tell you that you look good in your terrible shirt.  This mindset no matter how subtle ruins the true meaning of gift giving.  Though our intention is likely pure, we can unintentionally mar the beautiful experience of giving by focusing on what we will eventually receive in return.

When we let go of the notion that we deserve to receive gifts or actions or behaviors based on our giving, then and only then can be the kind of giving displayed by God.

When gifts are given laden down with expectations, they cease to be gifts and become units of exchange that is offered up for some future reward.

As those ladies gathered around together to do ministry they may have had grand expectations.  But the gift itself was love.

If you have trouble divesting yourself of your expectations, you may need to reflect upon the root of your inability to act in the true spirit of giving. Each time you make a gift ask yourself if there is something you hope to receive in return. You may be surprised to discover that you expect to be repaid with an easy life, financial windfalls, or opportunities.  We have to go beyond this.  The Church had to become a place of selfless generosity. And we did that by letting go of our expectations.

To integrate this most selfless form of generosity into the life of the church and even in the lives of individuals, you will have to let go of your need to be in control. Giving without expectation is letting go of the timetable, it is releasing the control of the outcome. Giving selflessly and without expectation eventually becomes a profound joy that stands alone, separate from any and all conditions.

We must rediscover the distinction between hope and expectation. Expectations are often characterized by unfulfilled desires. Expectation is about calculation. Expectation is manipulation of the response.  Expectation may not always be realistic.  Expectation has no surprise.  Expectation is often disappointed. Expectation is typically fixed and frozen.  It is inflexible and rigid.  It is unable to give or bend or to change. The worst part of expectations is what happens when we just don’t give them up.  We hold on to them as if they were gold. They infect and overwhelm us, like viral flu that simply will not go away. It consumes us like the plague.  We are unable to give them up.  We are not able to let them go.  Expectations change us.  They affect how we see the world around us.  Expectations start to rule our responses to everything in our lives.  Expectation is so rigid, we always respond negatively.  We become angry.  Sometimes unmet expectations cause us to even more force our expectations.

When little results were seen from our booty ministry, someone said, “If the booties were better constructed, or if the invitation was worded more eloquently we would get a better response.” Expectation was pushing out the hope and with it the joy.

Hope is much different.  Expectation is the assumption of success, false or not, hope is the wish for something to happen. Hope is about imagination. Hope is alive.  Hope responds.  Hope allows others to grow.  Hope is not limited by our experiences because it does not die when unmet. Hope is not directing the responses or the lack of response.  Hope is always realistic and can happen. Hope always comes with a surprise. Hope never results in disappointment. Hope admits uncertainty.  We may have to adjust our hopes but we can always keep hoping. Hope helps us to keep moving forward.  Hope fills with life.

When someone does not live up to our hopes, we can keep hoping for them because hope is flexible. We may adjust our hopes based on what we learned. We may lower our hopes realizing they were too unrealistic. What I learned from the God of Idaho and dozens of pretty bootees is, “There is no such thing as a false hope.”

I don’t know if a single booty ever changed the mind of a new mother and father to come to the church.  I don’t know if the plan was a good one.  I don’t know if sometime, in some place, the future a parent or even the child will pick up that first gift from the ladies at the Church of the Nazarene and have their life changed.  But I do choose to believe that no work, no effort given selflessly and in the name of Jesus is for naught. I choose to believe these special ladies, sometimes with sore hands and failing eyesight, did ministry.  They made an effort outside of themselves.  They felt part of the church.  They felt an inner joy in giving in the name of God.  They gave in hope.  And it is in these moments of joy that these lady saints enjoyed the very presence of God.  Love is always bestowed as a gift – freely, willingly and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love.

Love is part of the human condition.

Life, Personal

I thirst.

People come in all forms, sizes, desires, and priorities.  Some live with a passion that simply burns them up and others seem to just simmer.  Some would rather let others do the talking and take it with a gross acceptance, while others accept nothing at face value.  Christians run the full gamut from great thinkers to great doers.   Some would prefer the music to move them as it wishes, others must know the time, key and meter of every song.

My aim for this blog has always been to promote my personal descriptions and insights into Christianity.  I make no pretense of knowing it all.  For that matter, I am learning every day as to the time, key and meter of my understanding of God in relation to man and the church.  I have espoused a practical theology.  A theology that often runs contrary from the path of the mainstream.  My hope is that someone may actually read this and be helped or at the least be motivated to look a little deeper into their own relationship with God.

It was once said it is not the rock-lined hole in the ground that the soul cries for but the cool quenching water it holds.  It is not intellectual knowledge that quenches the burning our souls, of heart thirst of our lives.  It is the very person an personality of God that slacks our inner burning.