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This Week
A
Reminder
(897)
September
6th, 2010
It was Saturday night and I was in my car, driving to do a
set-up of my equipment at a church in
Now, I don’t like doctors—whether they are medical or
hold some degree in theology. I
know it’s my problem. Maybe
I’m jealous. Or maybe
I’ve just spent too much time with people educated to be heels
more than to actually heal.
Either way, it makes me grumpy.
So, slapping myself a bit for being a brat, I still was
careful in my first meeting with this sponsor, trying to be open,
but prepared for an onslaught of arrogance and an air of
over-importance.
He wasn’t.
He was courtly, gentle, open and willing to banter with us
road-weary strangers. As
we left that evening from the set-up, he handed me a bulletin for
the service along with a copy of their congregation’s circular.
I love to read church newsletters because they’re full of
the personality of the body at work.
I turned to an article he wrote—and then I realized why
this man, who has a doctorate, had chosen a life of humanity and
simplicity over pomposity and peevishness.
For you see, in this article he related a story about his
sister, Jane. Because we
live in such a politically correct environment, it is difficult for
me to describe Jane to you. I’m
sure my word choices would be deemed by someone to be offensive.
So let us just say that his sister, Jane, has special needs
placing her in circumstances to require special care, culminating in
a very special life. She
lives in a residence called Lamb’s Farm, where she is able to
share, give and function in a productive way.
Every night my doctor friend receives a phone call from his
sister.
It is a reminder. Yes.
It is a gentle prodding to his soul, re-informing him that no
matter how many degrees or gifts or opportunities may come his way,
there is someone who is working with less—and often creating more.
It grants him the humanity to mercifully interact with
mortals instead of merely blowing the dust off of doctrines and
posturing over the politics of the pulpit.
It shows up in his life.
Can any of us really ask any more than that?
For after all, a good life is when the assets and
liabilities, trials and blessings all gingerly combine to form the
vulnerable warrior that we are all intended to be.
It was a wonderful weekend.
I met ingenious, delightful people, pastored by a gentle
shepherd instead of a taxing technician.
But it’s all because he has a daily reminder—a daily
reminder that we all need. And
that reminder, for all of us, is:
Life
is good, but very short. So
get to doing it as peaceably as you can.
Please
Forgive Me, Me
(896)
September
5th, 2010
It is Sunday. Today
millions of congregants will congregate into their congregations to
contemplate the constitution of the configuration of our particular
constellation.
We call it church.
It is headed by a Being we refer to as God.
Defining who God is generates as many different answers as
the number of congregants who have congregated.
But one thing they all seem to share in common—it seems
that this God is greatly displeased with our sinful doings. So
we ask His forgiveness. People
do it tearfully, ruefully, masterfully or even liturgically. The end
result is always some derivation of, “God, please be merciful to
me, a sinner.”
I guess I have to say I have a problem with this. Because if
God is merely energy, He certainly doesn’t care if we sin, and
would be more concerned that we learn the physics and chemistry of
our environment. If God
is a Father, he wouldn’t want His children to grovel, seeking
penance, but would want them to pursue excellence, beauty and
self-awareness. If God
is our boss, then we will probably spend most of our time asking for
a raise. If God is
perfect and is our judge, we’re all doomed to inadequacy long
before we are dipped into the lake of fire.
I think God is God. And
because He’s God, the Creator of the Universe, He wants us to
discover that sin, iniquity, vice, addiction and inconsideration are
destructive to us. So
most nights I close with prayer, thanking God for the opportunity to
live and for the magnificence of the choices He has provided, while
asking forgiveness of myself.
Yes. Please forgive me, me.
I run through all my four parts and ask each one to grant me
absolution:
·
Please
forgive me, emotions, for stifling you to such an extent that you
are forced to scream out in aggravation instead of sharing your
heart in simplicity.
·
Please
forgive me, soul, for missing the quiet, subtle clues that you
whispered to me because I was inundated with the noise manufactured
in the factory of my own fear.
·
Please
forgive me, mind, for allowing myself to listen to foolish bantering
and arguments and prejudicial statements and not refreshing myself
with the new wine of better thinking.
·
And
please forgive me, body, for deciding to sit instead of walk, eat
that food that upset my stomach instead of nourishing my parts, and
for not taking care of myself as much as I could.
Yes, please forgive me, me.
Because Jesus said that the closest description of God was a
Father. And having
fathered six children in my life, I will tell you that the greatest
joy of parenting is seeing your children discover, on their own, how
righteousness benefits their journey.
So you may continue to bow your heads and pray to God for
forgiveness if you so desire. But
I find true peace in my soul by discovering how stupidity makes me a
stupe, sin makes me a sinner and ignorance renders me an ignoramus.
I will forgive myself, knowing that’s the only true way to
get God to smile down on me.
And you know what? Once
I forgive myself, it’s a lot easier to have mercy on you.
Didn’t
Want To
(895)
September
4th,
2010
Pouting does not cease just because we get a diploma, procure
a job and start an adult life. It
really just gains a bank account and a set of car keys.
I realized that this week.
Again.
My “I didn’t want
to” monster jumped into my heart and started to thump around
and fuss with me.—and when I tell you what I didn’t want to do,
you’re going to think less of me.
But I don’t care. Truth
is truth, and I’ve never found that self-revelation leaves me
anything but naked. And
if I’m ashamed of my emotional nudity, I probably need to spend a
little time in my closet of prayer.
I
didn’t want to see my brother.
He’s my older brother.
I’ve already lost two of my four brothers, and this
particular one is a recluse who lives with cats and doesn’t really
like anyone very well. I
have persisted in writing him and interacting with him because, well
… I need to work on my persistence.
His letters to me are often mean and filled with venom and
anger, which in my soul I know is not really vented towards me, but
rather, a release of his frustrations.
But when you’re reading the words, it’s sometimes hard to
edit.
Since I’m in the process of selling my house and moving on
to new projects, I wasn’t exactly sure when I was going to see him
in the near future. So I
picked him up on the way back from my gig in
I didn’t want to.
My brother makes life tough.
My brother makes life boring.
My brother makes life contentious.
My brother finds fault with most everyone he meets because
after all, human beings are our mirror, not our enemy.
In other words, since he really doesn’t like himself,
it’s hard to be madly in love with anyone else.
“I
didn’t want to.”
So as I was driving back to my home with him in the car, I
thought about why I don’t like to do certain things.
And I realized it’s because they’re all forms of human
exercise. And who in the
hell likes exercise? Here
is how it goes:
1.
To spend four days with my brother, I would have to
emotionally stretch. I
would need to listen to things that were not immediately
interesting, and try to pick out the fish from the bones, and jump
in conversationally. You
see, that’s an ouch-y. It
sounds like it’s going to hurt, right?
2.
I would have to allow my soul to be bombarded
with his agnostic views, as he tried to portray me as a
believing bumpkin. You
see, I pride myself on being an intelligent believer.
But the atheist contingent in our society is bound and
determined to make any person who holds faith a container of
stupidity. You see?
Another ouch-y.
It hurts to have faith and be considered stupid because of
it.
3.
Mentally, I would have to decipher his words and find meaning
in the midst of rambling. Wow.
That may be the toughest one.
Because sometimes we would like to turn to people and say,
“Do you have a point??” But
we must realize that in most cultures that question is considered to
be rude. But it’s in
sifting through the ashes of burned-out thinking that we often find
the treasures to begin a new life.
Still, it is a third ouch-y.
And I can tell you this morning—my brain actually hurts.
4.
And finally, it is not physically easy to drive someone back
to your home and then drive them back to their home and then drive
on to
I’m looking forward to a nap.
“I didn’t want to”
kicks in for every human being as we pout over the need to
emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally exercise to get in
shape for the next project.
I’m glad I did it. The
visit with my brother, I contend, will have eternal consequence.
Yes. It was a
good choice. It’s the
way I tell God that I believe there is an eternity.
It’s not by reciting liturgy, speaking in an unknown
tongue, being baptized in water or quoting the twenty-third Psalm.
Belief in God is established when we do things that we know
are damned important … even though they create ouch-ies.
Cleaning
House (894)
September
3rd, 2010
I was twenty-five years old and stuck in a motel room deep in
the heart of
We were bored.
Money was short, which makes boredom even more pronounced.
So we scraped together our quarters, nickels and dimes and
ordered in an extra-large double-cheese mushroom, onion and
hamburger pizza—our favorite—or more accurately, the
conglomeration of our favorites. There
was nothing on TV; it was long before cable afforded its myriad of
meaninglessness.
The pizza arrived and we were munching away when I came up
with an idea. I
explained to them that I thought it would be fun for us to play a
game which I dubbed “Cleaning House.”
We would take turns and go around and share secrets we had
never told anyone else before, and the only rule was to share the
complete facts—unashamed and don’t hold anything back.
It was a bit awkward at first.
You know—stealing candy bars and stuff.
But as we got to the end of the pizza, our inhibitions
disappeared. The room
was a little chilly so we covered up under blankets, turned the
lights off so we didn’t have to eyeball each other, and began to
open up.
We shared our concerns; we shared our dreams.
We shared the origins of our sexual histories.
And then we began to share even deeper, darker secrets that
I’m certain we felt were the abomination of desolation—but ended
up really being just a bunch of goofball stuff that we all do.
There were moments when a revelation would shock one of us,
and then we would make fun of that surprised individual, calling him
a dork or a nerd. It
lasted about an hour-and-a-half, and when it was over we knew
ourselves a lot better, and knew each other a lot more, and it was
still okay. We were
still friends.
The amazing thing to me was that the fear that holds our
souls in bondage arrives very early in life, builds a little cottage
in the middle of our hearts, and refuses to leave until it’s
evicted. My fears
were exposed that night. It
was so simple—it was so pure.
It was so real.
I went to sleep after we were done and when I woke up the
next morning, part of me was no longer afraid.
Matter of fact, ever since then, the truth about myself has
never been nearly as intimidating.
Don’t get me wrong. I
still cover up and lie sometimes.
But now I really feel stupid about doing it.
For after all, it doesn’t make any sense.
Because cleaning house is the only way to find out that you
had more room than you thought.
Re
or De? (893)
September
2nd, 2010
Here’s the scoop. In
the past two weeks, I’ve put on six pounds of the seventeen I had
originally lost. The
scale doesn’t lie—which is why the Bible has the observation
that we’re “weighed in the balances and found wanting.”
Or in my case, “weighed on the scale and found porky.”
As I stared down at the number today, I immediately followed
the tradition of my family—and also of my species—to feel sorry
for myself. I had a
litany of excuses. Excuses
are what human beings use to wall-paper over the holes in the walls
of their character.
Here are some of mine:
1.
I banged up my leg two weeks ago and haven’t been able to
be as active.
2.
I think I’m retaining a little water.
3.
Could I be a little constipated?
4.
I underestimated the caloric count on a Jack-in-the-Box taco.
Who knew?
5.
I had dessert because it was a birthday party.
No need to be inhospitable.
6.
There was a lot of humidity in the air.
7.
Maybe some of it is muscle.
You see? I can go
on and on.
And the excuses are so astute that I almost convince myself
they are not hiding a bout of self-pity.
De. That
is one of the choices I have when I realize that my efforts have
fallen short of what is necessary to make things work.
De—which is
followed by a pressing.
Yes—I press all my own buttons. I
pull out all the excuses, and even some
reasons why I end up occupying a fatter man’s clothes. And you
know what the problem is with choosing de?
De not only
doesn’t solve the problem, but it brings its own poundage of
difficulties to the situation—because in my case, when I press de
I also insert spoon and fork in mouth.
This is why God gave us a sense of humor.
The reason I know the truth is rarely spoken in politics and
religion is that no one is laughing—especially at themselves.
Humor is the only way to guarantee that you are actually
telling yourself the real, honest-to-God factual truth.
Because if you can’t laugh at yourself and your excuses,
you will probably press the de
button and lock yourself into position.
So I laughed at myself—all six blubbery new pounds of
me—and instead, punched the re button. And when I
punched the re button, it
led to dedication.
Yes—I rededicated
myself. And when I did,
I suddenly realized I was absent elements that had made my weight
loss so successful in the past.
1.
I wasn’t counting my calories.
2.
I wasn’t as active because of my knee—and didn’t
replace it with anything else.
3.
I was drinking a little less water than usual.
4.
I was beginning to French kiss carbohydrates again.
5.
I was slipping the occasional extra piece of food, and even
though it was a healthy choice, it was still weighty.
6.
I was eating later at night.
7.
I was failing to note that certain foods I was eating still
had calories—since they were so good for me.
You see? As there
were seven excuses for being plumper, I immediately came up with
seven ways to unplump. It
really is a question of whether we are going to press
de or dedicate re.
In the long run, we all occasionally go through a season of
depression so as to avoid rededication.
I am so grateful that the re
button doesn’t become discouraged and run away from us, just
because we want to languish in a particularly murky mire of
moodiness.
No—the re button will patiently wait for us to wake up and realize that
most things are our own fault, but they don’t have to kill us
unless we’re looking for people and places to share the blame.
So back on the good path to reasoning—with a chuckle in my
heart replacing the recent cholesterol.
Re or De? It is a daily human choice—one that makes the journey more interesting. Or … more dangerous.
The
Fifth Element (892)
September
1st, 2010
September 1st, 2044.
It is two days until his fifty-eighth birthday.
All of his children are grown, graduated and on their own,
living happy lives. He
stays quietly in his bed for a few extra moments, thinking.
He never imagined being fifty-eight years old.
Actually, he has no point of reference whatsoever.
Except …
He had a dad who was his friend who was once fifty-eight
years old. He thinks
back to a birthday many years earlier, when he was a young man of
twenty-four, starting off on his new life.
So many years ago. He
remembers a series of columns on the Internet that his father had
written about arcs:
·
An
arc of the heart—to open us up emotionally to the world around us.
·
An
arc of the soul—to liberate us from the bondage of being
imprisoned by our own inadequacies and habits.
·
An
arc of the mind—to free our thinking from mere traditionalism to
the truth that truly does make us free.
·
And
the arc of strength—to energize our bodies to complete the journey
with a bit of flair and style.
And then there was that fifth element.
He paused for a moment, regaining the memory.
What was it again?
Oh, yes. The
decision to become a legend—and the word “legend” divides into
“leg” and “end.”
So many years ago, his dad and friend had told him that after
the heart, soul, mind and strength have gained an arc, it’s time
to decide what end we
want to leave for our life, and what
leg of reasoning will remain to continue to walk our philosophy
after we’re gone.
Yes, that was it—leaving a leg at the end, so our life can continue to stand as a purpose
and not just a happening of chance.
His dad had been gone for many years, but lying in his bed on
this morning, he had no problem remembering the leg
his father left behind in the end.
His dad would often say, “Just remember, your philosophy of
life is more or less a bumper sticker, and everyone begins with the
same first three words. It
is the fourth word that separates our destinies.
The first three words for everybody are: ‘it’s
all about ________.’ Then
each person has to decide how to fill in the blank.”
For after all, certainly there were folks who leave a leg at
the end of their lives that proclaims, “It’s all about money.”
Or “it’s all about family.”
For some, it’s all about God.
For others, it’s all about business, fishing, beauty,
sports, or even food. But
it is the leg we leave behind that continues to walk our lives in
the memories of others long after our end.
He took a deep breath. He
wondered what his leg-end would be.
Remembering his dad’s choice?
Easy.
“It’s all about people—just spending an extra moment
with every soul you meet and making sure the encounter is as rich
and lasting as possible.
For after all, with people you
get God. With people,
you always have friends. With
people, you get excitement. With
people, you get the unknown. With
people, you get a rich life.”
He slowly sat up on his bed and put his hands on his knees,
ready to begin the day. He
was still alive. There
was still time to create his legend.
Because the fifth element in life is leaving behind an answer
and completion to the phrase, “it’s all about …”
It will be the leg that will continue to walk our memory long
after our end. It is
what we are when we no longer really are.
It’s
all about …