perspective

How Do You???

I’m guessing nobody wants to read another post on youth sports, and how my coaching career came to an end (a loss), or how I feel about it today (a melancholy peace, if you know what I mean, and I know that you do – it comes from a 2 Hands practice, where you hold all emotions, sometimes seemingly conflicting, at once.)

And we’re discussing righteousness on Sundays, and why and how the spirituality spills out of us into real life, in real time. There’s so much more to think/say/argue about that, right? But the site prompt today is: How do you express your gratitude? And I like that, so we’ll start there.

Let me ask you, first – how do you express your gratitude? We all have a practice of thankfulness…well, when things are going well, we know what shalom means, and we feel positive, joyful, engaged, creative, hopeful, then we all have a practice of thankfulness. When we don’t, when we’re discouraged, isolated, restless, overly cynical, we forget that practice. That practice is also how we get back and find our hearts and souls, how we find our identities, who we actually are.

However today is, when your eyes are open, creation is crackling with the energy of the divine, and you are totally aware of who you are and who He is, how does that gratitude come out of you? Do you sing in the car? Walk a bit more slowly, with your eyes up? Do you call your friends? Are you on social media more or less? Do you move more, eat better? Do you give compliments? Hugs? Kisses? Do you dance in the kitchen as your make your dinner? Do you pray more or less? Read your Bible more or less? What kind of music do you listen to? Are you aware of time? Fun questions, right?

And what I’m thinking about connection is that the way I began this post only seemed unrelated. Nothing is ever unrelated. I coached those kids for lots of years, lots of games, and sooooo many practices, and that was absolutely an expression of the gratitude I feel at being here, now, and these gifts I have been given (gifts I could never deserve.) The kids were some of the best gifts, so caring for them and loving them was simply a grateful response. Writing to you, on this blog, is an expression of thanks. I sing and dance a lot, too.

And, as long as we’re at it, that’s what righteousness is. It is a response to the gifts (all of them, but especially the BIG one: salvation) we have received. We have a new life, so maybe we could live it as thanks, treating ourselves as His, royalty, wonderfully made. So often we make everything so complicated. If you give me a great gift, I treat it with care, giving it a place of prominence in my home. It is valuable to me, so I act that way. I don’t hit it with a hammer or kick it down the stairs. I am thankful and that is reflected in my behavior.

Our lives are our most obvious expressions of gratitude, and we might as well live them as the masterpieces He already knows we are.

What I’ve Learned About New Things

This is a fairly significant week for me. Decisions have been made (I think) and these particular decisions will lead to many more. I have coached youth sports for 10+ years, in different fashions. I’ve been an assistant and the head coach, baseball, basketball, and soccer (even though I really, really don’t care for soccer). Mostly, this was out of necessity, 8 year-olds need parents to volunteer, whether they know/understand the game or not. Then, I stuck to baseball, because I have been a ballplayer. Which was pretty great, we won lots and lots of games, and lost lots and lots of games. This year is the first one where the team I’m coaching doesn’t include either of my sons. That’s sort of unusual, and if I’m honest, I don’t even like baseball too much anymore. But I love the boys I coach, I’m invested in their lives, and I know that I’ll create a safe environment where others might not.

The season began and I figured it would be the last, because leaving my family to go to the field was nearly impossible. But then the kids were great and I changed my mind and this was where I belong, in ministry with bats and balls. Then no way, then of course, then then then, changing with the wind. The kids were always great.

There have been many, many moments and experiences, faces and families, lesson after lesson on being and becoming the human beings they will be, who we will all be. And when I think of those things, I am overwhelmed, honored, grateful, and sad, in equal parts. I have been so blessed to receive the gift of being able to do this, and I will choose to do it no longer. In any small way I have made an impact, the people I’ve done it with, and for, have impacted me to an exponentially greater degree. I’m a very different person than I was 10 years ago.

But I’ve been a baseball coach, and moving from that includes a gigantic amount of uncertainty. If I were to leave, then what? Without this particular ministry, where would my ministry be? (Because having none is obviously not an option.) What exactly would I do with this time? And what about the program we’ve built? Or the league? Who knows? But is it my responsibility to answer that question, should I be one who knows?

You know this feeling, right? If we don’t know the next steps, it’s hard to move. We like control and we like to know where the next steps lead. But that is a luxury we don’t always have. And it doesn’t make those invisible next steps wrong. Sometime we are loudly called to “Go,” but the “Where?” is met with deafening silence.

(This is just volunteer recreational baseball, so maybe it’s not this dramatic. But if you know me for more than 10 seconds, you know I don’t believe in “just” anything, and everything we do, and how we do it, can have massive, world-changing consequences. Showing up and speaking fresh words into someone’s life in a significant time/space can transform reality forever. “Just” anything? Never.)

So, as far as those questions, I don’t know. But I will. Some of those questions aren’t mine to answer, no matter how loud the should’s and supposed to’s and what if’s and but’s scream. The ones that are are exciting and wide open. I wonder.

This weekend will be the last games for us, and for me. That feels fine, I don’t mind complex, complicated situations that require many more than 2 hands to hold. Of course, there will be loss – all change is loss, after all – that has to be mourned and reconciled and integrated. And it will be. I’ll keep growing, I’ll continue to be a very different person that I was, than I am.

And as we know very well, when I write “the last games,” it is in pencil. Maybe the “Go” isn’t what I think it is today, or maybe it’s just about asking the questions as to why I do what I do. Endings are always hard, and New Things are always scary, right? Even asking the questions are scary. But we do all of this, ask, answer, grow, go, together.

Piggies

So, about these guinea pigs. Their names are Hazel and Pipkin and they’re 3ish years old, they look like big hairy loaves. They don’t move very much, which I understand is pretty usual for guinea pigs. When my son cleans their cage, he puts them outside in a makeshift fence (with a top so nothing can snatch them) and they lay right down and eat whatever grass is under them. They talk to each other, and to us, in language that sounds like an 80’s video game. I read that they’re such social creatures that you need to have 2, otherwise they die of loneliness, and I don’t care at all whether that’s scientifically true or not, it’s wonderful.

They’re so cute it makes me want to cry.

Anyway, I often feed them. I give them romaine lettuce, baby carrots and Timothy hay. After washing the veggies, as I walk towards them, I call/sing, “Gir-rulls…gir-rulls…” and they lose their minds, beeping and squeaking and chewing on the cage door as an answer.

I open the door and try to pet them while they run (sort of?) around the cage, then I give them a carrot each, which they grab, then drop and wait for the next thing. Then I drop the lettuce, and they immediately move on to that, then come back, waiting for the next thing. That’s when I put the hay into their bowls and they dive into that. For a bite or 2, then wait for the next thing. There is no next thing, so they go back to what they have. Hazel likes the lettuce most, Pipkin is a carrot girl. They always forget these facts in greedy anticipation of what’s next. They don’t want what they have, they want what’s next.

And that’s too often like us, right? We have all we need, yet there’s always something new that we need, a new model, a new solution for a problem we had no idea we had. It’s hard to be here, now. We love our spouses, but there’s this new exotic co-worker… This job is what I worked for, but that one might be better. We can’t even tell, because we’ve stopped looking at this blessing some time ago, longing for the grass on the other side.

I heard grass has an interesting property that makes it appear greener from a distance. So, the grass actually MIGHT BE greener on the other side. But as we already know, once we get there, it’s just grass, and the grass we left now looks greener. As Yoda profoundly remarked about Luke Skywalker, “All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.” And of course, while he was saying it, Luke was daydreaming!

Arthur Schopenhauer writes, “A man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something that he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbour with mast and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he is happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over.”

These piggies are never happy, but spend their whole lives striving after something they think will make them so. Where are we? Are our minds on where we are, on what we are doing? Hmm? Are we truly with the people around us, sitting at the dinner table? I’ve seen many people leave relationships, careers, schools, churches, faith because another one was shiny and green, only to find it not so perfect, after all.

In Genesis 28:16 (you know we’d end up here, right?), Jacob wakes up and says, “Surely the Lord was in this place and I was unaware.” He missed the beauty of the gift he’d been given, the gift of the present moment. Let’s not do that, ok?

The Pigs

There’s this story in the Bible: “And when He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men confronted Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. And they cried out, saying, “What business do You have with us, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” Now there was a herd of many pigs feeding at a distance from them. And the demons begged Him, saying, “If You are going tocast us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” And He said to them, “Go!” And they came out and went into the pigs; and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. And the herdsmen ran away, and went to the city and reported everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they pleaded with Him to leave their region. (Matt. 8)”

So, the first way I read this story was of the exorcism of the demons for these 2 men. Incidentally, in Luke’s version, there is just 1 man, who calls himself ‘Legion,’ because there are so many demons inside of him. And, we can get stuck when the stories don’t exactly line up. So about that… These aren’t textbooks. These are 2 men writing their accounts of events. Have you ever asked 2 of your friends who were at the same party how it was? After they answered, you probably wondered if they were actually at the same party, right? I think, sometimes, these men had different purposes other than precise historical accuracy. And I don’t think their differing accounts necessarily makes them unreliable, I think it makes them people who saw the party through different lenses, from different couches, different rooms. One man or two is a pretty minor detail, as far as I’m concerned, though I do wonder how their accounts could conflict about that.

Anyway. The exorcism is a fantastic miracle, and a great way to read it. But then, the phrase he (Legion)/they (the 2 men) use: “Son of God.” In the Scriptures, the only group never confused about who Jesus was are the demons. That’s an interesting note, isn’t it? The disciple named Thomas doubts, the demons don’t. The religious elite questions Jesus over and over about His identity, the demons don’t have to, they know who He is. I spent 20+ years in disbelief, demons don’t spend a second.

And then, now I always end up focused on that last sentence: “They pleaded with Him to leave their region.” And I wondered why. But the pigs represented food, as well as income. These pigs were their economy, careers, sustenance, comfort, identity, etc. These pigs illustrated a way of life. And they chose the pigs. When we are faced with the Son of God, and His life & teachings, they very often come into conflict with our accepted notions of ‘how life is’ or what we want/think we need, our identity, our priorities, our comfort, our rights…well, He very often comes into conflict with everything we accept as reality, too. And we can choose the pigs, too.

[A funny side note is that, when I opened my computer to write, the pigs of the title of this post were my Guinea Pigs, but then I thought about this story and these pigs, and intended to weave the two stories together, in the way I do. That won’t happen, I won’t get to my Guinea Pigs today.]

At the end of our series on forgiveness, yesterday, I said that in all of the ways we don’t choose peace or unity (like politics, religion, issues, rights, race, sex, style of dress, the way we wear our hair, and on and on), in the endless ways we choose division and chaos, we are really saying that the sacrifice of Jesus, His blood, His amazing love, simply aren’t enough. So, when we divide along party lines or condescend to another with a perspective other than our own, when we have to win, when we don’t forgive and hold on tightly to violence, resentment & bitterness, or exercise our rights at the expense of another, we choose to ignore Jesus, we choose to worship an idol, we choose another Gospel. We choose the pigs.

And that’s where I get stuck. Each step is stickier than the last. What are my pigs? Where do I choose other, inferior gospels? Where do I need to let my pigs run into the sea and drown? This could go forever, because there is never a shortage of cultural pigs to be examined.

I’m not ready for a new reading just yet. This one is deep enough.

[And next week, for sure, we’ll talk about my piggies and their breakfast carrots.]

James & The Note-Writers

The note in my Bible on James 2:14 (What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?) reads, “If our life remains unchanged, we don’t truly believe the truths we claim to believe.” That’s pretty harsh, and leaves little room for wiggling. But is it true?

I guess the question is, can we receive salvation and continue to sin? Doesn’t our salvation cover our sin? And if so, then (as several letters of Paul’s address) can’t I just keep on doing whatever I want? Will our salvation & new life convict us, causing us to stop doing those things that destroy us? What if we still do those things, or want to do those things? Does that mean “we don’t believe the truths we claim to believe?” And then, I guess we should ask if that sounds too much like a ‘works’ theology. This book of James is awfully deep water.

I do have an idea, and it hinges on John’s use of 2 kinds of sin. The first is like falling in a hole, where we mess up. It’s mostly a mistake, and we’re mostly sorry. The other is translated like, “keep on sinning,” and that means we live in a hole, and mess up, and decide to live in that mess. We might be sorry, in that one, but not too much.

So, Jesus loves us, and maybe we fall in love with Him, He rescues us, and we receive new life, but sometimes while we’re scrolling, we end up on certain sites that aren’t for us, they’re beneath our calling. We know He doesn’t want us on those sites. Maybe we stay, but we’re a guilty afterwards, and don’t want to do it again. That’s one.

Now, Jesus loves us, and maybe we fall in love with Him, He rescues us, and we receive new life, but we search those sites purposefully, then stay on them. We know He doesn’t want us on them, but we don’t really care. We like them, they’re fun, and on the spectrum of things I could be doing wrong, this one isn’t too bad, it’s not hurting anyone, etc. That’s the other.

I don’t think James is talking about the first. And maybe the change the people who write the notes in my Bible are looking for is the sentence, “we don’t want to do it again.” We know what He wants, know what His Word says, and want to do it. When we don’t, it hurts us. That hurt is a change in our lives that will eventually lead us to not end up on those sites at all.

The “unchanged” life means we might know, but doing it just isn’t that big of a deal.

But can we believe the truths we claim to believe and still operate under the second scenario? What does it mean to believe?

If I tell you I believe the Styx album Kilroy Was Here (which includes the hit single, “Mr. Roboto”) is the best album ever recorded, but I don’t own it and haven’t listened to it since 1984, will you believe that I think it’s the best album ever recorded? Maybe that’s what James and the Note-writers are pointing to. We think we think belief is intellectual, but we really don’t, in practice. I’m figuring we understand this just fine, we simply don’t like it. We don’t like not having a way around, a justification, an argument. We like to pretend.

We sometimes ask so many questions so that we don’t have to act on the answers. Probably, we all agree with the note-writers (and to know if we do, maybe replace spirituality, Jesus, the Gospel, with this Styx album, Dawn dish detergent, or our relationships.) If I truly love The Angel… well, I don’t think I’ve ever even asked if I could love her AND date other women. I’ve never wondered if her forgiveness and grace would cover over my infidelities. My love for her, my YES, changes my life, to where I’m not even considering the NO’s anymore.

If she’d ask me to forgive somebody, I’d probably try to do it until I actually did, because I love her and want to do the things that make her happy. I wouldn’t just ignore her, and pretend she didn’t mean it. Or look for a loophole. Or ask if I can do both, love her AND hate them.

Maybe I’m a little tired of the grace/works debate, or maybe I’m tired of asking the questions that keep me stuck. Maybe I want to eliminate the word games that keep us all stuck. OR maybe I’m just done pretending.

Youth Sports: Facepaint, Silver Chains, and Ugly Arm Sleeves

This baseball team I get to coach presented a choice for me last year. The boys wanted to use eye black (a product usually used in a black strip under the eyes to reduce glare) all over their faces, creatively, as a form of self-expression. We had bats and cats and stripes and anything else you can imagine in the field.

When the boys asked me if we would allow them to do this, my instinct was, of course, absolutely not. I am fairly progressive in many ways, but very old-fashioned in many more. And in all things sports, I consider what my dad would have thought, and he would’ve lost his mind. Against that instinct, I said yes. The other coaches disagreed, but we continued to look like a traveling band of KISS impersonators.

I waited all year for repercussion from the league that never came. We are 2 games into this season, and received our first stern email. This year, in addition to the paint, we now have big, loud silver chains and ugly arm sleeves. One wore a hoodie under his jersey on a 95 degree day. I can’t possibly tell you why, but I don’t have to. I responded to the president of the league, with, “I’ll/We’ll do whatever you say, but…” And explained our/my position.

Let me say this, to begin, my team is a collection of The Best Group of Young Men you’ll ever find. (It’s interesting, as the team turns over and the boys are replaced, the groups changes yet they remain “the best group of young men you’ll ever find.” Interesting, right? Maybe 15-16 year-old boys aren’t the worst.) But they’re also kind of squirrelly. Just like I was, and you were, and my dad was, and his dad was, and these kids sons will be. They’re funny and weird, terrific human beings. Of course they’re creative and individual, they are created in the image of a wildly creative God.

My position is, among others, we are totally respectful – of ourselves, each other, other teams, the league, the game. Other teams shout, “drop it!” shout at and fight with each other on the field, sass their coaches, curse at umpires and parents, walk on the field and give far less than their best. Do you know the term “try hard” (as in “he’s such a try hard”) is meant as a derogatory slur? Some 15-16 year-old boys are the worst.

But our team loves each other, stands and supports each other, never puts down other teams, runs out routine ground balls, does everything any of the coaches ask them to do (even when it means they sit on the bench and be good teammates or wipe the paint off and take off their chains), it is an entire roster of “try hards.” Other teams can’t get all of their players to the field on playoff game days, we have everyone for every practice. My dad would’ve LOVED them, he would’ve come to watch them play every day, paint or not.

I’m writing this here for a specific reason. Maybe you already figured this wasn’t totally about eye black and youth sports. So, my last reason was, of course, evangelism. Kids can be pretty disrespectful and generally like video games and Snapchat more than they like activity outside. Participation in all sports is down everywhere. If we want them to play, maybe we need to understand who they are and where they come from, what’s important to them. Maybe we can’t continue to cling to our notions of how we used to at the expense of today and tomorrow. Maybe nobody cares. What is the message? We might need to remember Why instead of How.

My son used to have very long, unkempt hair that I may not have always liked. BUT he is the best person you know. He’s kind, respectful, generous, empathetic and loving. When that’s who you are, who cares how you wear your hair???

This team loves baseball, plays exactly the ‘right’ way (whatever that means…my dad probably knows), and is beautiful to everyone. They come out and know, without a doubt, that they are valued and loved by their coaches. (I wonder if kids might be pretty disrespectful because they’re insecure and scared to death that they’re inadequate, and desperately need the grown-ups to listen and show them they’re worth more than they ever dreamed.) My team is who you want them to be. When that’s what you are, who cares if their arm sleeves have wolves on them??? Sometimes the traditions we hold so tightly to can become a different sort of chain around our necks.

In the Scriptures, Paul had a similar decision to make. He was bringing the Gospel of peace and love, salvation, reconciliation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to new people & cultures. He learned who they were, what they cared about, who their gods were, what they were reading, and on and on. He knew them then he went to where they were. He cared for them and connected in ways they could understand. We’re not only coaching baseball, we’re coaching the Gospel.

If we want people to open their eyes to Jesus (Who is already there, waiting) and His love (which is already there, for all of us)… If we truly want them to know Who He is and who they are more than we want to win… Maybe we can release the chains that we cling so tightly to and let them wear theirs.

One Time Thing

Today’s site prompt is “Are you a leader or a follower?” They have a new one every day. Apparently, to build a huge audience as an internet influencer, you have to create lots and lots of content. Anyway, the answer is, of course, both. We are followers (or as Paul says, ‘slaves’) of the Risen Christ, but we are leaders in the world. We lead others to the life we’ve found in Jesus – we lead to follow. I wonder if leadership, in this context, is actually more posting. Maybe we learn to follow through daily engagement. Which, strangely, is exactly what I intended to write about today.

One of the points that forgiveness is NOT, is a 1-time thing. It’s not now, today, and we’re finished. The wounds bubble to the surface after we thought they had disappeared, the weight climbs back onto our shoulders and hearts. This is not surprising. Eating right or exercise isn’t just something we do today and then never again. We don’t love our spouses or grow relationships once. Alcoholism, addiction, negative habits aren’t kicked on a Wednesday, they are confronted every Wednesday. Not just Wednesdays, every day, every hour, every moment. We transform through an endless series of choices. Nobody changes by accident, or without commitment to the process.

The older I get, the more I value consistency. I don’t think to show up is all that important anymore. I think showing up all the time is. Anybody can go to the gym for a good workout today, hardly anybody does every day. I recognize we shouldn’t go to the gym every day – rest is just as valuable. But it’s not rest without work, it’s just the boredom of stagnation and complacency.

A beautiful marriage doesn’t simply happen. And it’s probably not beautiful every day. Well, at least not in the ways we usually think. The beauty is in the pouring of ourselves, our love, into the other, even when they are sometimes, honestly, pretty hard to love. We’re also pretty hard to love sometimes.

The beauty is in the pouring of our love into ourselves, too.

As the wise philosopher Princess Leia says, “if you only believe in the sun when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.” If we only show up when we feel like it, the night will probably never end. We are worth it. Our divine call is certainly worth it. Forgiveness is worth it. The other is worth it. Growth is worth it.

So, we keep walking the path, following the way of Jesus. And as ministers of the Gospel, we continue leading to follow. Maybe the internet needs more influencers of this sort. A relentlessly positive influencer that speaks of this life, truth, love, unity instead of division, might be what we all need. And, like we always say, maybe we’re the answer to our own prayers. Maybe we should all say, “maybe it’s me,” a lot more often. Maybe the site (WordPress or Jetpack or whatever it is on your device or browser) is right, posting once in a while isn’t how anything works. The site that publishes my books says the same thing, that I’ll never sell books, that nobody will read my books, if I don’t keep talking about it, posting, showing up to the work. The Bible makes no distinction between spiritual and non-spiritual, probably for the same reason. We follow God all the time, or it’s just another hobby, like puzzles or video games.

I won’t post here everyday (it’ll make audio messages and announcements much harder to find), I’ll keep that once a week, but the lovewithacapitall.com site seems like a nice spot to jump in. Of course, the question is begged: do I have the time??? I seem to always have time to do online crossword puzzles or watch cult documentaries… I bet I have time to express my gratitude by showing up for a new ministry, too.

Distraction

Since I’ve been sick, I have some time, so I’m doing an awful lot of thinking about distraction. The last straw was yesterday, my Bible in my lap, reading Philemon until finally realizing I had no idea what I had just read. This wouldn’t have taken a monumental feat of focus. Philemon is 1 chapter, barely a page. (I think the letter is pretty funny, too. Paul is sort of manipulating a slave-owner, saying things like, “I could make you, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll ask…I don’t want you to do it because you’re forced to, but because you want to…I’ll pay anything he owes, and won’t mention how much you owe me.” Ha!Th)

But I’m sick, and as always, very dramatic about being sick. At the risk of oversharing super-gross information, there is absolutely no way that my head could store in 3 lifetimes all of the mucous that is coming out of me. Where does it come from??? It’s just produced from nothing at all, like the water, land & stars in Genesis 1. But all of it makes my head feel like it’s underwater, unable to think clearly and coherently.

Illness is simply one of so many. One of the biggest struggles of living a purposeful life is to maintain a focus on our call & mission. The constant barrage of stimulation that (may or may not) require immediate attention can keep us like animals frantically chasing the next shiny object. We live in reaction, intention is a dream, and days and weeks are lost to the blur of distraction.

There are people, with our drama, divisions, responsibilities, and breaks. Work. Our daily practices, spiritual and otherwise (even though there really is no otherwise – all of life is spiritual). Ministry. And on and on, right? There’s no end in sight.

What’s surprising is that all of these ‘distractions’ are good things. How can spiritual practice become an obstacle to our focus, or mission? When it becomes the point, the end, instead of the means to a greater end. We are called to love people, to have “dirty pens” (my paraphrase of Proverbs 14:4), and that dirt can sidetrack our call. Helping to carry each other’s burdens is beautiful, but the burdens can easily become dead weight. When ministry is solely a rote activity to check boxes and not an expression of gratitude or glorification, then it becomes distasteful and a tool of the enemy.

My sickness kept me from several appointments and opportunities. Of course, I needed the rest, needed to regain my health, but the fact is that there was a big cost. I think the main thing is to acknowledge those costs, to have our eyes opened to the spaces where our focus can be drawn away from our true love. Then we can decide. It can be anything, it really doesn’t matter what we choose. Sleeping last week was probably the more important thing for me, but any step towards bringing the intention and attention back into our lives is vital. Our work is simply another way of worship, as long as we make it so. Everything can be worship, as long as we make it so.

The reason music on vinyl is so great is not the sound. It’s the ritual. We decide what we want to hear, choose the record, remove the album from the sleeve, set the needle down, and become active listeners. We can become active participants in these gracious divine gifts that are our lives, and this can happen as soon as we say it does. It can happen today.

“Gifts”

The Buddhist saying, “the world is divided into those who are right,” is really tearing me up this week. A general rule of ministry is that we are given the “gift” of attack in the spaces we are most vulnerable, in those hard to reach places where we will be wildly uncomfortable. AND that these “gifts” will be given at the worst possible time.

I used to not really believe in spiritual warfare or the devil or demons or anything like that – I thought it was fiction to excuse our own poor decisions and behavior (which, of course, it is, sometimes). But I was wrong, I believe all of it now. I also believe that God can, and does, take these moments and transform them. We grow in/through the battlefield. And most importantly, in the fight, we see that He is there, that He has never left us alone.

Division is probably the greatest tactic of the enemy, constantly whispering our right-ness, our superiority, into our ears. Our heads and hearts are filled with “how they are,” or how to view “them.” That’s why humility is so important, and so impossibly hard.

Socrates says, “wisdom is, above all, knowing what we don’t know. He taught an intellectual form of humility that freely acknowledges the gaps in our knowledge and that humbly seeks to address our blind spots.” What we don’t know?? It’s hard to remain arrogantly superior with gaps in our knowledge, or blind spots.

And Aristotle understood humility as a “moral virtue, sandwiched between the vices of arrogance and moral weakness.” Like Socrates, he believed that humility must include “accurate self-knowledge and a generous acknowledgment of the qualities of others that avoids distortion and extremes.”

Division based on our being right is not generous. Instead, it ignores the qualities of others. And our supremacy thrives on distortions and extremes!

These “gifts,” and attacks can produce a result that is in direct opposition to the one intended. We can see them as the biggest & best evidence that we have much more work to do. We won’t need to prove or defend our imagined superiority, because we will be secure in our identity in him: loved, accepted, forgiven, and made holy. This knowledge will give is the courage to be vulnerable and uncomfortable. We won’t want to build any walls, because we will be too busy tearing them down. And we can keep taking a sledgehammer of love to the fear and inadequacy that draws these silly lines of division. And we can open our eyes to the peace of Jesus Christ, and as we do, we can encourage others to do the same.

This is (and we are) a New Creation, it’s time we act like it.

Todays

Last night, we went to a nearby Catholic school to watch a high school girls softball game. It was my first since I was at college, but that might not count. I was only there to see the Angel, so maybe a game happened, maybe our school won, maybe they played with NERF balls or in ball gowns, maybe, but who could possibly care? Not me, that’s for sure. I had been away for 2 months in California, wasting time post-graduation, and spent most of those 2 months with my brother, sister and their cats, listening to music, writing, and missing my special lady.

Anyway, last night. After an extra inning, our school won. How did I end up at a high school softball game? For a very similar reason to the one in which I previously found myself at a softball game; a girl. My son has a girlfriend who is a star. I know she’s a terrific athlete, but it’s one thing to hear it and another altogether to see it. In the extra inning, with runners on 2nd and 3rd, she came to the plate… I can’t remember anything in baseball being as much of a foregone conclusion. Baseball is a very difficult game, a “high-failure” sport, where nothing is certain. Except this. These runs would score, everyone there knew it, and a bases clearing triple later, we were all proven right.

Earlier in the day, I gave communion to some friends in their living room. (This is something I hadn’t done before, and it’s something I’ll do again.) The man is ill, the prognosis is not too great, but we shared that moment in our sadness and our care, giving each other and God our presence, the most priceless of gifts we ever truly have to offer. I told them I loved them, and left a couple of hours before the eclipse.

As far as the eclipse, the schools closed early, so my family (all 4 of us) and the softball superhero stood outside in those ridiculous looking glasses looking up through the clouds at the sun.

I’m not sure I was overwhelmed by the eclipse, or what I was feeling, but it was big and heavy and significant. Saturday, we attended a funeral for my cousin. I had the honor of speaking, and I chose to speak about my favorite passage in the Scriptures: “Surely God was in this place, and I was unaware.”

Incidentally, I have quite a few favorite passages, but this one holds special meaning to me. You see, I missed so much of my dad before he passed. And I have missed so much of you, missed so much of my cousin, and missed so much of me.

This post is full of GREAT BIG MOMENTS, but our lives are made up of what is often mistakenly called “ordinary” time. This “ordinary” time is so easily missed, and only then do we realize that it was never ordinary at all, never common. It, and we, are wildly unique and spectacular. A ticket agent’s help in Dallas who was “just” doing her job, a softball dad’s handshake, a dog laying on the floor in a living room while 4 people share communion, laughing at the dinner table, and walking outside in the grass…when did we stop realizing these things were miracles of divine presence? Love isn’t only rose petals and grand gestures, and life isn’t always extra inning RBI triples, it’s sometimes pushing shopping carts & quiet nights reading in bed. It’s not always mountaintops, it’s simply ok. And I don’t have to tell you that other times, it’s heartbreaking.

But these are our lives, each of our todays are gifts, God is in all of these places, and it’s really time to stop missing them, stop taking them for granted, believing the lies that they are anything other than wonderfully, fantastically extraordinary.