perspective

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.

Fruit

Do you know you can get married in AT&T Stadium (where the Dallas Cowboys play)? Or have a sweet sixteen party or quinceañera? These are just 2 of the things I learned on my tour of the stadium. And to answer your question, they never addressed why you’d want to.

My son & I went to Dallas earlier this week to see an NBA basketball game, except they had rescheduled the game (I’m still waiting for a response to my email that includes a heartfelt response from Mavericks owner Mark Cuban), so we just went to Dallas. While we were there, we toured the home stadium of everyone’s favorite football team, America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys – I wrote about it on my other blog, lovewithacapitall.com. The spoiler is that I didn’t really love it like I thought I would, but I’m not writing about that, specifically, here.

Something else happened, while I was there, that I am writing about. In last week’s post, I shared about our disappointment with the game. I have very many people (i.e. you) in my life (much more than I could ever deserve) who are beautiful and care for me in such lovely ways. One of them has a Good Friend in Dallas and offered to reach out to help us, with what I expected to be suggestions, directions for an aimless trip. I was mistaken.

We were met at a cool lunch spot by a young woman, who had arranged our day for us, booking tours and making dinner reservations. She spent the day with us, enjoying the experience as much as we did. As it turned out, she was also paying for everything (as representative for the person she worked for, the Good Friend). I can only guess what everything cost, an extraordinary sum, but the actual amount was actually sort of irrelevant, as far as we’re concerned.

What IS important, and the sermon they were preaching to us was on generosity, on our relationship to our money.

You see, Jerry Jones (the owner of the stadium) chose to use his money to create an obscene tower to the heavens, a monument to himself and his own desperate bid for “greatness.” The Cowboys might play there, but there is no mistaking that it is the home of Jerry Jones.

(You don’t have to worry, I will continue to love my Cowboys…but I will not be back to that stadium, unless I’m giving the Sunday morning Gospel message there;)

The Good Friend chose to use his wealth to give to my son & I, 2 people he had not, and still has not, met. He chose to give what he had earned to us, to give what he had been blessed with, he chose to love us. It speaks to the relationship he has with the person we do know, but it speaks more to the character of both. They are conduits. What they have been given, they will give.

Their money is a way to connect, a way to provide, to pass along their faith. Their legacy is gratitude, experience, generosity, care, ministry, and beauty. The legacy of Jones is a massive silver egg in Arlington.

In a story in the Bible, Jesus tells a rich young man to give away all he has and follow Him. The young man can’t, and walks away with only his wealth. He has corporations and empires to build, bank balances that need to grow. Money isn’t evil, it’s just a thing, a tool, that can be used to connect or to destroy. The love of money is the problem; that love is a ravenous monster that devours everything in its path in its insatiable quest for More.

I don’t pretend to know Jerry Jones, and to infer things about his character and his god may be unfair. I am not his judge, thankfully. But I don’t know the Good Friend, either. Sometimes, all others have is our fruit to express our hearts. Our time in Dallas was just a day, but the questions it asked and the contrast in the answers, will last forever.

A Heartbreaking Disappointment

For Christmas, the past several years, I’ve taken my son to an NBA basketball game. We live in Pennsylvania, so we go to a game when the 76ers play the Dallas Mavericks.The Mavericks are his favorite team because Luka Doncic is his favorite player by a mile. Last Christmas, I thought it would be amazing to take him to Dallas (his first flight) to see them at their home arena, to play a team other than the 76ers – in this case, Steph Curry & the Golden State Warriors. This was a bigger decision than it might sound, because we can’t exactly afford a flight, hotel, car, and game, but sometimes paying for a debt all year is absolutely worth it. The game is next week, and the season has gone in a direction for both that makes it a very big game. How exciting, right?

Well, apparently the Dallas Mavericks and/or the NBA thought so, too, so they rescheduled the game. The first, the one I bought and gave as Christmas gift, was Tuesday, April 2, Warriors AT Mavericks. Yesterday, I received confirmation for my tickets: Friday, April 5, Warriors at Mavericks. Tuesday, the Mavericks are now going to Golden State. My game tickets are still good, the game has just been moved. Just.

Sometimes, NFL games are “flexed” and change times or even dates, depending on the importance of the game. That is usually ok with me, because, like everybody else, I don’t think much about the impact of a dumb game on others. Things mostly only matter to me in direct correlation to their proximity to me. In other words, I only care if it happens to me. I recognize that isn’t something exclusive to me, it’s a human disease, and if we are interested enough to change, we spend our whole lives taking baby steps to open our minds and hearts to notice and understand the lives of others.

I did think of those poor suckers who have sports tickets to a game to only get it flexed, or rescheduled, away. Today, I am that poor sucker. I am not the usual poor sucker, I know full well that tv contracts drive sports leagues far more than ticket sales. And I know the ticket sales of once/year fathers & sons really doesn’t move any needles at all. Yes, I know these things, and today, I don’t care. I think it’s awful. And I think it’s awful I have to tell my boy the biggest part of the trip we’ve been planning for months has disappeared. I wonder if it’s worth it to fly to Dallas to rent a car and stay at some hotel to eat a few meals out? I wonder if the trees or sun look different there. 

Of course, like everybody else, we’d like to see the stadium where the Cowboys play… Is it worth a year of debt? If they let us work out in the team weightroom with the team, maybe. But now that I think about it, I like the Cowboys because of the star on the helmet far more than the name on the back of the jersey (at least since Troy Aikman retired). If I don’t ever do curls with Dak Prescott, it’s not a loss I’ll regret. 

When I say it’s awful, I do it in full awareness that in the eternal scope of things, a family missing an NBA game is very low. But relativity simply doesn’t matter when it comes to heartbreak. When a teenage girl breaks up with a boy, the tears don’t come less because the Middle East is in a perpetual war. The diagnosis of a 90 year old woman in Tennessee certainly isn’t as big as the bombs in Ukraine that will kill many, many more over a line on a map (yes, it’s an oversimplification, but you get the point). But it’s not inconsequential to that woman in Tennessee or to her family. It’s seismic and earth-shattering. The boy who has lost his first girlfriend will find another, we all know that, but it doesn’t make it better, it never has and never will. 

Our pain is just that, ours. And it doesn’t have much at all to do with relativity. Yours is yours and mine is mine, and one moment spent comparing the 2 is pointless and disrespectful. A broken finger is not a fractured rib, but it still hurts like crazy. We talk honesty here, right? How many times has it made sense when a friend told you what they were walking through but didn’t want to tell you because others have it worse? None. Not one. Not now, not ever. 

Because we hurt doesn’t minimize their suffering. We can hold them all in our great big beautiful hearts. I’m angry and disappointed over this ticket catastrophe, but in no way do I confuse it as being a monumental global disaster. Or even as any bigger than it is. But I do think the God that created and loves me cares. A LOT. And is disappointed withus (not in us). I bet He saw that reschedule and all of the fathers & sons who will lose the experience and was disappointed. I bet He saw me when I read that email and longed to hold me with His human arms and ease the storm inside my chest. And that’s good enough for me.

So maybe I’ll see you in Dallas, on Tuesday, at some awesome bbq restaurant or working out with the offensive line. And maybe I won’t.

One Word

I have another website I write on. It isn’t always explicitly spiritual. Of course, it is spiritual; It’s me, and everything is spiritual, but I don’t always use specific verses and I sometimes just write about songs or movies or books. Anyway, the platform that hosts both sites (WordPress/Jetpack) gives a prompt every day, in case you don’t have anything to write about and want to write anyway. This is not usually a problem for me, but it does sometimes set me down an interesting path I didn’t know I wanted to walk. Today I was going to write about a familiar subject, the painful freedom of boundaries, how hard they are to keep, especially as we are all such soft-hearted loving souls. We don’t want to set them, and we second guess, sometimes being terribly rough on ourselves, and go back on them frequently. You see, I have a very good friend… (this is the conception of so many posts – my filthy pens and the beautiful people that are in them with me.)

The site prompt today is “What is one word to describe you?” Or we can modify it into “What one word would you want to describe you?” because I don’t want us even thinking of going down some self-loathing path the enemy has paved for us.

So, who are you, in one word?

It’s a coincidence (if you believe in that kind of thing – another very good friend calls them God-incidences) that I have been thinking about this, in a slightly different way. I want to be the kind of man who is taken for granted (I know that’s 3, but it’s my exercise, so I can use a phrase if I want). I want everyone to know I will always show up, give them my heart, my best, that I will love them, that they are safe and cared for. I want everyone to know I’ll make lots of mistakes, and say sorry & mean it afterwards, and then I’ll grow. I want my boys to forget to thank me when they have a game and I am in the stands, because I am just always in the stands. I want that to describe me. I want everyone to know I believe them, believe in them. That I don’t care who they think they were, but that I care a great deal about who they are, who they will become, Whose they are. I want everyone to take for granted that I am a Genesis 1 (and not Genesis 3) man.

But what started me down this path lately, is that when I am hurting and breaking, I begin to resent that I am taken for granted. It’s the big warning light on my dashboard. I consider closing the pen door, and opening it only for people who say “please,” and “thank you.” This is only for a second, maybe, or a day, but it magnifies who I am created to be, Whose story I am in, and quickly opens my eyes to who I want to become. Painful moments looking into a mirror are terrific teachers. There doesn’t have to be judgment, just conviction and a gentle invitation into this new creation I am. (That is a fairly new understanding.)

Who I want to be doesn’t change. The Gospel doesn’t change. I just turn a little, and I no longer like those sometimes smooth clean wide paths of the enemy. They are not for me, not even close. And I repent. (That is an example of a word I don’t use too much on the other site – I’d say “turn around,” but you know that’s what Jesus meant then, and what I mean now.)

So, what’s your word (or phrase)? Tell me what it is. I’ll show up, I’m safe, a terrific listener, and will be awfully careful with you. And you can take that for granted, please.

Colors

The youth group is going through some changes. (Sometimes, God answers prayers before you even know you have a need for the prayer.) A few weeks ago, the new leader asked a deeply profound question, and I’ll ask it here. We’ve asked variations of it a million times, but maybe that’s the point. Keep asking, seeking, knocking, until our perspective changes, until we change.

So, he says look around this room at all of the blue things. Then, after a few moments, he has them close their eyes, and he asks them, “Ok, what did you see that’s red?” Right?!!? Of course, nobody knows. There are plenty of red things, but none of them were looking for red things.

This is so important, because we find what we’re looking for. How many times have you been looking for that specific lost sock, and then, days later, look for a different sock, and remember that you’ve seen it, but can’t remember where? We find what we’re looking for.

Once, I went to a lecture/sermon given by a famous author named Shane Claiborne with some friends. He blew our minds with his talk of kindness, grace, simplicity, loving like Jesus in real life. His was one of those talks that left you different. You might not yet be sure how, but the you that walked out was very different from the you that entered. The 4 of us went out to eat afterwards and talk about what just happened, and ask important questions of ourselves: What did this mean, for each of us, how would we react tomorrow/next week/next year, what would our dreams look like now, and on and on.

One of us, though, stated, with more than a little offense, “I just wish he wouldn’t have slammed the Catholic Church like that.” None of us remembered anything like that, and when pressed, she referenced 1 line in the middle of a long story about something else entirely. We often find exactly what we’re looking for. We were going to be inspired, and she was going to be offended. We each got what we paid for, that night.

When you leave your house today or tomorrow or Sunday morning, what are you going to be looking for? Will the world be a dangerous place where people are selfish and untrustworthy? You will find that, to be sure, because some of us are dangerous, selfish, and untrustworthy. But what if your eyes were open for the opposite? What if you are searching for beauty and generosity and love? That, too, is there. I would suggest in far greater supply. But I would, wouldn’t I? Because, for me, that is always the “blue” of the exercise.

The question is, what are our blue’s and what are our red’s? Are they what we want them to be? Are they authentic, or are they simply reflections of someone/something else? Are they serving us well? Do they inspire us to love more and more, or limit us? Are our world’s bigger or smaller because of our blue’s? Do we need a shift in our perception?

Sure, it’s scary to reflect and question our tightly held ideas (that have become like our childhood security blankets, soft and comfortable), but we only grow when we choose to have the courage to turn the lights on and discover/re-discover the people we’re called to be. And things are much less scary with hands to hold.