imagination

Like Stars

The Dallas Cowboys broke our hearts by losing to the hated New York Giants last night, and it made me think of that passage in Romans (why do I do the things I don’t want to do, and not do the things I want to do?). I would very much like to move on from the Dallas Cowboys, but I’m beginning to suspect I simply can’t, or won’t. What’s the difference between can’t & won’t, anyway, right? Probably nothing, that loss is devastating either way. Let’s move on.

I really want to continue to discuss the homework from Sunday. If we remember the Message translation of several verses in Matthew 5, “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine!”

He brought us here to be light, put us on a light stand, on a hilltop, to bring out the God-colors of the world. We were never supposed to keep our identity or our faith private, keep God a great big secret, hiding under buckets. But you know what? I think we have been doing just that. Many of the light switches in my home have a small slider that dims the bulbs. I like to do that, because it can feel like I’m being interrogated. (I always think I’m hilarious when I say, either “Tell me what I want to know” or “I’ll never tell you anything,” depending on if I’m the one flipping the switch or not. Absolutely hilarious.) Sometimes, it’s better to have a nice soft glow in the evening. In fact, I think that’s the best thing for our circadian rhythms as we begin to wind down for bed.

However, we are not those light switches. The light inside us is never better as a nice soft glow. We are made to shine like stars. Of course, we might shine in different ways, but there isn’t one of us that doesn’t have it, that isn’t made to light up our surroundings. If we’re at work, shine. At home, school, the grocery store, gym, highway, shine. Always shine.

The next question is, what does shining look like?

Well, honestly, it looks like you.

There have been times where I want to say things, want to laugh out loud, want to give of myself, want to wrap my arms around another, want to cry, sing, dance, whatever… and I don’t because, what will they think? Maybe it’ll be taken wrong, misunderstood. Maybe they’ll get offended or judge me or something. And so I do the equivalent of wearing a bucket. I move that slider down, I dim the most authentic, coolest, most awesome version of me. I hide the man God has “wonderfully made,” the man God is forging, transforming, the man I am and am becoming.

You know, I can get pretty excitable on Sunday mornings. There were many weeks early on, as I was speaking, that a voice in my head started with the shame, trying to convince me that I was embarrassing myself. Tone it down, this is inappropriate in a church, that kind of thing. It was often loud and awfully convincing. This voice was also lying, holding a bucket and dimmer switch out for me.

After the Israelites reclaimed the Ark of the Covenant, when they were bringing it home, king David was dancing before it, through the streets, in front of everyone, and his wife Michal was horrified. She “despised him in her heart” for being so “undignified,” and tore him up when he got home. This was the voice in my head, Michal’s. David responded, “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.”

In other words, this man “after God’s own heart,” was going to shine, no matter what, no matter where, no matter when. In Matthew 5, Jesus gives us that same call. We’re called to live and love out loud, so let’s do that, all the time. (In Dallas Cowboys wins AND losses.) Let’s stop wondering what we’re supposed to look like, or how we should act, and just be exactly what He’s made us to be, and do exactly what He’s made us to do: Shine.

Now, What You Hear Is Not A Test

The Angel & I spent last weekend’s holiday at a Labor Day party/picnic/bocce ball tournament. The food and company were excellent, we lost both of our games badly, and I got to spend some time with my family. The soundtrack for this sacred time was a best of the ‘80’s playlist. During the Sugar Hill Gang’s classic hit “Rapper’s Delight,” I watched my cousins sitting next to each other across the yard. They weren’t talking, they were just moving individually, in perfect time (with the music and each other), and mouthing every word (which is really saying something, “Rapper’s Delight” is very, very long). This continued for quite a while, covering quite a few songs.

My family hasn’t always been this close, there was a too-many-year period where we were estranged. We used to live next door to each other, then we moved, things happened, grudges & resentments happened, distance happened, then another thing happened, that distance didn’t matter anymore and we were reconciled. As I watched them, I thought of all that. I thought of my sister, and the language that close relationships have that transcends language and time. I thought of us and how much we all missed, and how much we still miss, deciding some sort of thing or another was more important than this.

So, then, I started to think about the relationships we share, and the reasons they end (or are placed on pause). I wonder if we even remember the reasons. We remember the times we spent, the fun we had, the memories we made, together, but we usually have a much harder time remembering the nonsense that keeps us apart.

We’ve taken to reading the “love chapter” in 1st Corinthians 13 every Sunday. Love is patient and kind and doesn’t keep any record of wrongs and never fails. Do these characteristics describe each of our interactions & conversations, do they even describe our homes and/or marriages?? I said earlier that the holiday was a “sacred time,” and the worship music was “Rapper’s Delight,” and that was true. Every time love becomes the cause and the effect, the motivation and the result, of our lives, God is the main character, and we may as well call those spaces church. Every time our love asks us to lay our own interests, vanity, control, and need to win, down, and we respond by doing just that, it is absolutely church. When we hold each other, listen, laugh, play, cry, these things are all church, and wherever they happen is the temple of God.

I’ve been in churches full of bitterness and unforgiveness and I’ve been in bars and gyms full of support, encouragement and capital L love. Monday, that yard was a temple, a monument to the God who made us and sustains us.

You know what else I thought? That we live in a world (comprised of millions of homes, streets, neighborhoods, communities, districts, states, countries, planets, and galaxies) in desperate need of the message of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the Gospel of Jesus. And we need to be the so-called (for lack of a better term) “brand ambassadors,” of the Gospel. We need to sing & dance along to this divine Story, over and over again, being living examples of possibility instead of clinging to our own little stories.

I realize that this, of course, doesn’t come easy (and spiritual attack is, sadly, very real), and can be quite painful, but that is also part of the Story we happen to be in. That’s why we simply can’t continue to miss the most beautiful, inspiring parts just because we’ve chosen to be somewhere else, divided by who cares what. These are our lives and we are our people, church is anywhere & everywhere, “Rapper’s Delight” is awesome, and I am truly grateful for (or in) all of it.

1st Day

Today is the first day of school in my little circle. 3rd-5th grade children returned to the school where The Angel works, and classes began at Lycoming College for my youngest son. My oldest son is studying for his next new responsibility at work. And here I am, alone at home, writing, listening to the punk band Rise Against as loud as my speaker will comfortably go.

Life moves in rhythms. We soar along the clouds, plunge into the valleys, and take slow, sometimes boring steps in the flat straightaways. In the Church calendar, these are called sacred and ordinary times, and it has come to imply that some times are more charged with the Divine than others, that some Tuesdays are deeper than others, and that all Sundays are more spiritual than those Tuesdays. I disagree. Not with the idea that there are rhythms to life, it seems pretty silly to argue about that, but instead, with the assumption that there are places, spaces and times where God is not, or at least, where He is less.

Is the opening of classes today common, ordinary time? Or is this the sacred & holy? Was our wedding day more sacred than this Monday morning, 25+ years in, standing on our porch, me taking her 1st day picture, before we walked to her car and shared a soft smooch? Was last Friday moving my son into the dorm charged with big, heavy meaning and significance, or was it the day before when we all ate dinner together, played Pictionary, and went disc golfing?

I’m more and more certain that “ordinary” time is simply the moments and days, seasons or years, where we fall asleep or lose our vision.

If my oldest son can’t see the hand of God on his work, or even more importantly, on his life, then it truly is common. However, I can, and they are anything but common. They are miracles, he is a miracle. What about the kids that come into that elementary school today, terrified and alone, who find The Angel’s luminous smile that can stop a clock and her arms that will bring safety and solace to those storms raging in those little hearts? Does that sound ordinary? Do you think it’s ordinary to those kids?

We just forget to see.

I am here, alone in my chair, with this computer and these words. The song currently playing is called “Historia Calamitatum,” and here are the lyrics to the hook: “When it rains it pours Like summer storms, the skies as grey as leaves. The rivers flood the banks and spill into the streets. But the people laughed and swore that they’d restore The city piece by piece. And then the clouds gave way as if to agree. When it rains it pours.” If you heard it, you might let it play and miss that devastating poetry. That would be heartbreaking. But even if we do hear this song, how many songs do we miss?

There is nowhere God isn’t, nowhere there is less of Him.

Even in our sadness and tragedy. Even in our pain. Even in the news and on Facebook. Jesus says, “Whoever has ears, let them hear,” and I don’t think He was only talking about His parables. I think, maybe, He was referring to baseball games, punk rock songs, tv shows, sunsets, mangoes, Tuesdays AND Wednesdays (and all other days), wedding days, 1st days and every days. I think He was probably referring to everything He has made, trees, streams, red-eared slider turtles, families, neighbors and even enemies.

Ordinary time is likely intended as a way to protect against our tendency to want (or expect) every day to be fireworks and movie scenes, to want every song to be “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.” And it is probably supposed to point us to the presence of God even in the “ordinary.” But I think we went too far, lost that point, believed the opposite, and went to sleep.

The revolution of His Kingdom begins when we start to wake up to the Divine, sacred, holy reality all around us.

Spirit

We have a prayer ministry at the Bridge. (I think every faith community should have a prayer ministry, where people can come together, share their burdens, requests, and celebrations, and then take them to the feet of Jesus together. So we do.) We’ve also added a short time before that to discuss what we’re reading in the Bible and/or other questions we might have about our faith. It’s a safe place to be vulnerable and explore. I sometimes picture us in the 1st century receiving letters from apostles, reading and wrestling with these new mind-blowing concepts in someone’s living room. And I usually take my shoes off, because we’re on holy ground (in a holy space, a holy posture).

This week, the conversation centered around the Holy Spirit, the Third Member of the Trinity Who receives relatively little mention in our lives. Maybe that’s because we’re confused about His/Her (often, The Spirit is given feminine characteristics and imagery) role, or that we’re simply used to using the Names of The Father, God, and The Son, Jesus the Christ. It probably doesn’t matter why or even if we use the Spirit specifically, as long as we recognize & acknowledge Her* enormous impact on our lives, impossible to understate.

(*or His, if you prefer – sometimes the words we use can be a huge obstacle, due to any and all sorts of human baggage. In that case, change the words. I’m certainly not interested in keeping obstacles. However, we must never abandon the principle and certainly not The Person based solely on an traumatic experience and negative semantic connotation.)

We are blind and The Spirit opens our eyes, deaf and The Spirit opens our ears, breaks our heart and heals it. When Jesus ascended, He left the Advocate/Counselor/Helper/Holy Spirit in us as a constant Divine presence. The prompts we receive to call that person or do that thing or whatever, that may be the Spirit leading us. The songs on the radio that connect to the passages we read earlier that “happen to” connect to a decision in our lives, there’s a great chance that’s The Spirit, too. Maybe you hear Her as an audible voice or a subtle nudge or a whisper or a shove, the way She moves is as different for each of us as it is for us at different days, times, situations in our own lives.

So, when I see the hosting site’s prompt today, “Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that,” I can’t help but to see an obvious (though likely unintended) parallel. The uninteresting story, about other people doing other things in other places, does connect, we just can’t always see it. The prompt slows us down, asks us to focus, breathe, and look for connections. That the other places aren’t as “other” as we initially think, the other people definitely not “other” at all. What could possibly be unrelated or uninteresting?

I’ve heard this sort of exercise called “tying the clouds together,” and it absolutely isn’t something we do by ourselves. On our own, we divide and categorize, we look for trivial criteria to evaluate & compare. We fight and de-humanize. If (and when) we hear The Spirit, we can erase all of those walls, hope to forgive, and begin to love each other. Connection instead of separation, peace instead of war, kindness instead of violence, enough instead of more, you/we instead of me – these are all the work of The Spirit.

I don’t care too much about the story we find when we “scour the news,” but I care A LOT about the connection, and I’m pretty sure that’s the work of The Spirit, too.

What Brings You Joy?

“Describe one habit that brings you joy.” That’s the hosting website’s writing prompt for today, and I wanted to pass it along to you. What is one for you? What brings you joy? What brought you joy today?

[I opened my computer to write about something else entirely. (Maybe it’s not so different, we’ll see.) Yesterday, as an aside, to illustrate the “requirements” of falling in love with & following Jesus, and the relationship between salvation & sanctification, I asked my oldest son what he’d do if I bought him a Lego set. He said, “Thank you, and build it.” Our response to His gifts are just like that, we are grateful, say “Thank You,” and we live full lives of love, joy and peace. Those are the “requirements.” The Angel wasn’t in the service, and when I told her that our son absolutely preached, it was more and more simple and profound. And I wanted to talk about it again, here. But now we have a new question to consider…]

We are often confronted with some variation of this question: Where do we find joy? It reminds me of the feeling I have when I read the story where Jesus comes upon a blind man who is calling out to Him. He stops, asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” Now, in this story, the man asks for his sight, so Jesus gives it to him.

I don’t think we’d do the same, necessarily. Faced with Jesus, I think we’d be afraid to ask for anything, hedge our prayers, feel some kind of way asking for something so personal, and instead ask for a new cane or sunglasses to better deal with our blindness. Or, worse yet, if Jesus asked us what we want, what He can do for us, and we couldn’t answer Him because we didn’t know. I get to ask this question to quite a few people, in vulnerable places, and it is crushing when they can’t answer. They usually answer after a long pause through watery eyes.

What brought you joy today? Anything? Or everything? (Maybe that’s a lot to ask. Work on a Monday morning might not be the most joyous experience.) What if we don’t know? What if there hasn’t been any joy today? What if there hasn’t for days and days? Weeks? Years?? Then what?

[Now, as I suspected, these 2 thoughts aren’t unrelated at all.]

Are we spending so much time obsessing about what we have to do, about the “requirements,” that we’ve forgotten what we get to do? And what if they’re the same thing, with the only difference being our perspective? We often don’t know what we need, and we often become so blind to the shine on His gifts that we lose the joy of the simple, beautiful response: gratitude and building.

Maybe that guy’s response to Jesus is ours, too, because usually, the only difference between joy and emptiness is our ability to see. Maybe He can give us our sight, so then we can finally see what (and Who) has been there all along.

A Lego Life

This week, we were discussing the ways to connect and grow at the Bridge, and it made me think of Lego’s. Very many things make me think of Lego’s, and at least a little of it is because, at any time anywhere in my home, I am surrounded by Lego’s. Where I sit to work, I see, in order, the house from Up, a mouse house & wheel, Eva & Wall-E, and then a mechanical rhino that looks menacing. I almost forgot Kevin, Russell and Mr Fredrickson (also from Up). I can see, in another room, a gigantic Millennium Falcon (from Star Wars) and a tower-type thing. My oldest son is what’s called an AFOL (Adult Fan Of Lego). This is something that is new to me. I thought Lego was a child’s toy, but of course I was wrong about that.

I do jigsaw puzzles. I love connecting small, seemingly unrelated pieces into a larger cohesive picture. It’s a way we can reduce the unrelenting noise and bring order & beauty to chaos. This is exactly what Legos do. Small, seemingly unrelated pieces into larger cohesive pictures. You know, this is also a pretty great description of The Church. We are all small, seemingly unrelated pieces who fit perfectly into a larger Divine design, a beautiful picture of harmony and peace.

Anyway. In a Lego build, there is a specific process. You begin with a foundation, whether it’s a flat square or a series of connected bricks, it’s the solid base of whatever we will create. Then, it grows with each piece, each level, color and size, into finally, a finished masterpiece. Finished, unless we choose to dismantle parts or a whole and transform the model, using our imaginations and interests.

Sunday, in that short talk about plans, programs, and practices, I realized we were simply talking about the bricks of our lives. The foundation is the same: Jesus. But from there, we use this creative spark we were born with, in the image of a wildly creative God, to build our own masterpieces. What kinds of bricks will we choose? Will they be Bible reading and/or car mechanics? Writing blog posts, long distance running, parenting, caring for pets, volunteering…As with all artwork, the only limits are our own self-imposed boundaries and the distraction that so often plots our course.

The world is big, fast, loud, and never stops demanding of us. Without any sort of direction, intentionally set, we will simply roll with the tide.

The Scriptures are a vast library of all different kinds of literature. There’s poetry, history, parable, song, prophesy, letter, and on and on, but each of them leaves us with one constant question. What now? This one leads us to so many more. What does this poem (or story or whatever) mean, and what does it mean for me now? What does a letter written to a church in Asia 2,000 years ago have anything to do with us in Pennsylvania today?

Those letters addressed the same issues we have. What does it mean to be human? What is a beautiful, meaningful life? And when we make it personal, what does it mean to be me, what does it look like for me to be human? What is my purpose? What am I really here for? Then, we build. What will our greatest work of art, this gift of our lives, be? Will we love?

Today is our day. We have all the bricks from which to choose, everything is possible. What now?

A New Story

We are reading the Bible-In-A-Year (capitalized because it must surely be a trademarked property), and yesterday’s reading was fascinating. It felt almost frantic, hurried, urgent – the story as well as the way it was written. The monumental shift in direction happened in relatively few paragraphs, it is jarring, and set against the tone and content of the rest of the books of the Kings, almost shocking to read.

Earlier this week, I wrote about the seeming inability (or rather, unwillingness) of either of the split kingdoms of Israel and Judah to fully eliminate the idolatry of the pagan shrines and asherah poles. Even the most faithful of the kings stop short of total obedience.

In 2 Kings 22-23, the story of Josiah begins quietly, with the proper counting and allocation of the people’s offerings. Then, the record scratches as Hilkiah, the high priest, declares that he has “found” the Book of the Law. At that time, there weren’t Bibles in hotel room drawers (I guess that’s a dated reference because they aren’t there anymore, in our time, but you get the point). There weren’t Bibles for every niche, translated into all different languages, for all ages. There was one hand-written scroll, as far as we can tell. And it was lost. And judging by everyone’s actions & reactions, they had neither seen nor heard it. These spiritual leaders have no idea what they’re reading and what it means, so they seek out the guidance of the prophet Huldah (A WOMAN! Gasp! I wonder what many modern church denominations make of this passage. Anyway…)

Once they hear it and understand, they tear their clothes and weep. They can finally see their intended path, just how far they have strayed, and their hearts are loudly broken. Josiah has it read to the people and commits to actually doing what the Bible says. It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? He makes no excuses, even though he has a good one – he truly didn’t know what it said. But now he did, and was faced with the question with which we all are faced, in the Scriptures, “Now what?”

Josiah answered, quickly, decisively, with his actions. Immediately, he started the process of destroying any and all shrines, poles, and altars. He tore down all avenues of idolatry all over his kingdom, not stopping until all “detestable practices” were demolished. Until “finally, he returned to Jerusalem.”

“Never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since. (2 Kg 23:25)”

Now what? We all have excuses for living beneath our divine call to love, peace, patience, joy, self-control, righteousness, excuses for living beneath our divine call to really, truly, fully live. So, now what? The Bible tells us exactly who we are and what we’re worth, truths we too often seem to be bent on ignoring. Now what? Will we take our example from the kings of the divided kingdoms and do some, take some steps, move a little, just leave a couple of asherah poles behind? Or from 1 particular king of Judah and dive into becoming who we have been created to be?

[What it looks like for each of us is different, unique. Each of our asherah poles is different. And usually, tearing down the No means saying Yes to something else, something more fitting to our beautiful creation. That’s why relationship WITH God is so important, we hold His hand and He leads us into our own new story.]

Today is our country’s Independence Day, maybe it could be ours, too?

What About Self-Control?

We discussed self-control Sunday, the last of the fruits of the Spirit. I know what’s going through my head as I study, write, and give these messages, but what’s happening in the heads & hearts of those listening? That’s always an interesting thought to me.

Have we let ourselves down, when it comes to self-control, did the things that we knew weren’t healthy? We knew they weren’t healthy, sometimes even destructive, knew they were beneath us, they didn’t fit in who we are and/or who we are becoming, and yet we did them anyway. Then, we looked in the mirror and felt that familiar twinge (or tidal wave) of guilt or sorrow. I can see that some of us know that emotion very, very well. Maybe others have had it, once or twice, some quite recently. Maybe one or two of us are just beginning to discover our identity, whose eyes are only starting to see that there are things that aren’t healthy, things that would be beneath our standing as children of God. Some are thinking about loved ones who are engaging in things that are tearing them (and us) apart. And probably others are thinking about lunch. Or the World Cup. Or just watching the clock.

I think about the areas where I am disciplined, and then it doesn’t take long to drift into the ones that are less so. Sometimes, it’s jarring how fast that transition moves. And then I ask, “why?” Isn’t this quality, this fruit, just an across the board kind of thing? Like, either I am disciplined or I am not. You can’t be kind of pregnant, isn’t self-control like that? What does self-control look like, anyway? If I want to work out, how much would display self-control? What if I take too many days off? (And what’s too many????) Why can I do these things but not these? Why do I have blind spots?

And while we’re at it, why do I do the things I don’t want to, at all? If I don’t want to do them, it only stands to reason that I wouldn’t do them, right? Nope. And, then, why do I not do the things I DO want to do?

Of course, in a super-well known passage in the Bible (Romans 7:15-20), Paul writes about exactly this situation: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

Have you ever read this closely? I do not understand what I do. That makes sense, I don’t understand. Then, we see that if I don’t want to eat those cookies and I do, I agree that the Law is good? No, I don’t. And sin still lives in me? I still have a sinful nature? I do have the desire, I sure do, I don’t want to do the things that make me feel like garbage in the mirror, and I want to do the good things, I really do. But when I don’t, it’s not me????

We could unpack this passage forever. But I think what I’m trying to say, at least today, is that whatever goes through our minds, whatever we feel when we look in the mirror, is that we are not alone. Wherever we are right now is a really great place for us to be right now. I know we all can easily start to think, “I SHOULD be so much further along, I SHOULD not have this trouble anymore, I SHOULD be perfect.” But what this Romans passage tells me today is that we’re all on a path. Even Paul, a superhero of the faith, writer of much of the New Testament, struggles, does what he doesn’t want to, doesn’t do what he does want to. Even Paul doesn’t understand what he does. And sin still lives in Paul.

When my boys were very small, each of them had trouble with their weight. They fell 2 lines on the sacred growth chart, and 2 lines make the doctors absolutely freak out, so for the oldest, we had endless appointments with specialist after specialist. Every meal was of massive importance. The stress hung like a thick blanket over each bite, on him and his parents. The tests were all good news, and the moment one recommended a feeding tube, we decided to step out of this hamster wheel and take a breath…he began to eat. When the youngest followed the same pattern, we did some tests (not the whole battery his brother faced), and opted out. Of course, then he ate, too.

Our anxiety over where we SHOULD be, who we SHOULD be, is really not helping us. We’ll gain our weight as soon as we give ourselves a break from the shame of the should’s. There is nowhere we should be, and there is nowhere we are where God’s grace can’t cover us. That’s comforting, right? And it just might free us up to start moving again.

The Kindness Manifesto

This week, I read a very long quote from a man about kindness, and I want to share it with you here, where you can read it slowly. When I first saw it, it was devastating. Then today, as I read it out loud in our faith community, surrounded by our family, it was even more so. It changed, mostly because I could see faces & hearts, see the commitment to following Jesus, and what could have been a completely overwhelming, impossible task now just seems inevitable.

Dr Barry Corey writes, “I’m willing to bet that if Christians leaned more into kindness and understood more its revolutionary power, the world would see a side of us that would cause many skeptical and irate folks on the other side to take notice. Our radical gestures of kindness may be rejected. They may be received. But they will not be forgotten.

By kindness, I’m not talking about when you buy a stranger coffee or when you bring in your neighbor’s trash cans or when you tell someone they have food in their teeth. These are nice random acts. But kindness is not a random act. It’s a radical life. Kindness is not limited to grandmothers or Boy Scouts. Never mistake kindness for niceness. Kindness is all over the Bible, plentiful in both Testaments. But you won’t find niceness in the Bible once—nor the word nice, for that matter. Kindness is fierce, brave and daring. It’s fearless and selfless, never to be mistaken for niceness. They’re not the same and never were. Kindness is neither timid nor frail. Niceness is kindness minus conviction. I think we should scrub “nice” from our vocabulary. We need to stop telling children to be nice and instead tell them to be kind, and then tell them the difference. The virtue of kindness is rooted in Scripture, forged on sound Christian theology and modeled over the centuries by followers of Jesus. Since the early church, disciples have walked the risky and sometimes dangerous road of kindness. Kindness is a radical way of living biblically. It’s a fruit of the Holy Spirit on Paul’s short list in Galatians 5. It’s not a duty or an act. It’s an imperative. It’s the natural outcome of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. We exhale kindness after we inhale what’s been breathed into us by the Spirit. Kindness radiates when we’re earnest about living the way of Christ, the way of the Spirit. Kindness displays the wonder of Christ’s love through us…Kindness is a dimension of God’s common grace through us. It’s a civility grounded in gentleness and respect. At the same time, kindness is neither milquetoast nor weak. It is fierce and passionate. The God-authored spirit of kindness in us has the power to upend the enemy and season the world around us for the good. Kindness as Jesus lived it presents the highest hope for a renewal of Christian civility, a renewal needed now more than ever.”

The only thing left is the gigantic, loaded question the Scriptures always leave: Now what? Will we be fierce, brave, and daring, extending kindness and grace without condition? Will we “upend the enemy and season the world around us?” What will we do with this “revolutionary power” within us? I just can’t wait to find out.

25 Years?!

[I wrote this on my other blog, and thought I would share it here, as well. It’s about a specific pop song, but it’s also about marriage, and the blessings we can sometimes miss. Maybe you’ll like it.]

What does “having it all” mean to you? That’s what the site is asking, and it is actually a pretty revealing query. It certainly tells more than most of these prompts. Maybe I’d care to dive into this another day, but not today, hosting site, not today.

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. The Angel has been married to me for a quarter of a century. I’ll get all mushy at the end of this post, but something happened this morning that perfectly illustrates what a healthy marriage is, and how to get one. (I don’t have all the answers, obviously, but when I do happen to come across one, I like to pass it along to you. I don’t only want me to have an A+ 25-year marriage, I want everybody to have that. Incidentally, I am not particularly special or unique, what I’m about to write about has nothing to do with me, it is open to all of us. Also incidentally, I used to think this A+ healthy marriage had to do with finding the Angel, and that blessing had more to do with her being a unicorn rather than any principle or idea. I don’t, anymore. That unicorn has everything to do with my marriage, but she is not the only avenue for anyone to have a beautiful relationship.)

Anyway, this morning on the way to school (through some turn of circumstance, I take her to and from work nowadays), I chose to listen to an Amazon Music playlist titled Rediscover: 90’s Alternative. The first song was the classic “Wonderwall,” by Oasis. I knew she’d sing along with me once the first word of the lyrics “Today…” started up. It’s also an awesome love song – “I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now…Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me, and after all, you’re my wonderwall.” Perfect beginning to a great day, right? Except she says, “I’m happy I’m getting out of the car.” Whaaaat???? The she explained, she doesn’t like Liam’s voice or the song or the greatest era of music, either. 

We had our first date in 1998, got married in 2001, and have been together almost every day since. How could I have possibly not known this? Before this moment, it had never ever crossed my mind that anyone would not absolutely love this song. I told my son, later, that “it was wildly overplayed, think “Shake It Off” (by Taylor Swift) levels of airplay, and still, it wasn’t enough.” Everyone loves “Wonderwall.” The fact that my wife doesn’t is impossible.

So, here’s what I learned… You marry someone, you learn all about them, who they are, what they dream of and care about, where they come from, what songs they love, and then they grow and change, and you learn those things again and again and again. I am not the boy she married, and I will not be the man I am now in 10 years. She is not the same woman who sat across from me in that restaurant in 1998. We are dynamic creatures by nature, made to move and evolve. (Sometimes we forget and stagnate, but that is not our design.)

My experience has been that relationships crack and break apart when we stop paying attention, stop learning each other, when we think that we know who the other is, that there are no more surprises or amazing revelations. We get bored. But we are very wrong. The harsh truth of that is, we’re not bored with them. We’re bored with ourselves, we checked out of our own lives and never came back. We’re the boring, uninterested & uninteresting, apathetic, pathetically incurious ones. 

Imagine if I believed the Angel was the college junior I met those many years ago? I would have missed countless wonderful (tiny and humongous) transformations. She looks the same, gorgeous as ever, but now she has some gray hairs and they are absolutely fantastic, adding a level of texture and interest. Imagine if I stopped looking at her so closely, so intently. Imagine if I expected her to look like a 20 year-old. I would have missed this wildly better, even more beautiful, version entirely. 

After 25 years, I’m married to the Angel, but the Angel is different, new, stronger, deeper, both more open and more assured. She’s cooler than I thought, and she’s everything I knew she was. She drives me crazy – in all the good ways as well as the bad. Of course, there have been growing pains, but they are also growing joys, growing pleasures, growing wonders, and growing peace. We have discovered each other in terrific new ways, and in not so terrific ways (like the “Wonderwall” tragedy). We have loved each other, and will continue to do so, for as long as we are given. 

I’ll never know why she wanted to be married to me for one day, much less 25 years, but that’s her problem, not mine. As for me, I’ll keep looking & listening closely, dreaming, learning, I’ll keep growing and moving forward, and I’ll stay forever grateful that I get to do it with her, whoever she becomes, and whatever horrible thing I might learn in the car, tomorrow.