Audios

Dreams

I have 2 website where I write. There’s this one, and there’s another where I choose to discuss movies and music and terrible referees or whatever catches my eye. The hosting site gives a prompt every day, I’ll sometimes use that. That blog is always about Jesus, too, because everything is always about Jesus. I just might not use Bible verses there. Every now and then, a post happens and it fits into both spaces. This is one of those.

I’ve been meaning to write about a verse in 1st Kings, I started it 2 weeks ago, and it’ll be cool, but I keep getting sidetracked by basketball points or snow days or, in this case, dreaming. I assure you, I will get to that one, just not today. So, anyway, here it is:

This site is asking me what my dream job is… 

There’s a story in the Bible I reference often. A blind man reaches out to Jesus, asking for help, and to this, Jesus responds, “What do you want me to do for you?” It sounds pretty simple and obvious, but I have found it’s anything but simple or easy. For an endless number of reasons, we don’t ask to see. We ask for a new can or sunglasses, or a better attitude to deal with the blindness, or enhanced hearing or taste. This man alongside the road understands the assignment, asks to see, and is immediately granted his sight. 

So, like the site, I sit down with people and ask, “What do you want?” How they answer that is always fascinating. But the saddest reply (for both of us) is, “I don’t know.” We’ve gotten so used to blindness. Or we’ve lowered our hopes & expectations to the point where sight is impossible. Or, in the case of the site’s question, we’ve stopped dreaming a long time ago.

I had a job for 16 years. It changed my life for the first 10, then quickly deteriorated for the last 6. You’d think I would pray for a new job, new opportunities, an imagination that could hope for a new path. Just something new and wonderful. But my prayer was to endure in a more positive fashion. The site question wouldn’t have made sense. The question from Jesus would’ve been met with silence. 

Probably, the most damage we can inflict on our children is to steal their imagination. The adults in the room talk about realistic expectations (which is just another way to open the door for them to join us in dark rooms of despair.) I want to be a superhero. Really? Why? To help people. Because I see injustice. To fix what is broken. Whatever the why, there are a million pathways for that. But I was told, over and over, that it was impossible, that I was wrong and had better craft a Plan B (or C or F) that was more reasonable. Go to college, make money, work in a nice office with a window and fancy title. Get a job and a new car. Wear a suit & tie. Pull your head out of the clouds and chain it to the plow of consumerism. Superheroes aren’t real life.

Except they are. I meet superheroes every day, I see people do extraordinary feats all around. It just takes eyes to see – maybe that’s the point of the interaction between that man and Jesus. We might have our sight, but we sure can’t see. They are (you are) ordinary men & women who haven’t had their dreams dashed on the rocks of ‘good sense,’ who still believe that we can make a difference and change the world, who still believe that every day is a chance to rewrite what is, and create what will be, who love without limit or abandon. Ordinary? No way, they are absolutely superheroes, they just don’t wear capes and cowls.

This is what I get to do. I get to ask those questions, re-frame the conversation, and try to inject some hope back into our lives. This is my dream job, and those grown-ups were wrong, I do get the chance to be a superhero.

1,000 Points

Maybe the least surprising thing to you is that I’m writing today, about this. Last night, my youngest son, named after the prophet Elisha, scored his 1,000th point as a basketball player. It was on a great move, where he was fouled, and the bucket counted, on what’s called an “and-1.” The game stopped, while we all stood and cheered this significant achievement. The Angel, my oldest son, and I were able to go on the court to hug him and take pictures. I told you I’d be the one with the watery eyes, and I was. I think we all were.

Then, less than 5 minutes later, he blocked a shot and, as he came down, rolled his ankle and missed the rest of the game and probably the rest of the week (at least). I may have mentioned (a time or 2 million) that an authentic, fully present life is held with 2 hands, in this case, great celebration and pain, minutes apart.

We all looooved last night, and we went to bed, aching with disappointment. 2 hands.

This young man, my son, and I prayed in the training room. I asked him what hurt more, his heart or his ankle, to which he replied, “same.” His concern was over their hopes at playoffs. Then, later, after the game (a loss), he composed himself and graciously received the accolades and congratulations from those who showed up to love him, thanking every one. In those moments, I could so clearly see my boy becoming the man he will be. Sunday night, I told him that we would be talking so much about his athletic performance, which is considerable, but our love for him has absolutely nothing to do with points or wins. And when I told him last night how proud of him I am, that also had nothing to do with a ball or a hoop.

But as far as a ball and hoop go, these points and this celebration, he earned them. Almost no one sees the hours and hours, the buckets of sweat, the study, the focus he invests. 1,000 points don’t just happen, they are the product of much, much more than 4 – 8 minute quarters. He’s gifted, of course, but he has worked to explore the depth of those gifts, to see what might be possible. An evening in January looks/feels far off on empty courts in June, but they do come.

I wrote a post yesterday about the intense hypocrisy of the adults from Friday’s game (who may have been from Lancaster Mennonite;). Before the game last night, the head coach of our opponents last night found me in the hallway and congratulated me, and asked many questions about my boy. His job was to beat our team, but he was one of those who cared for the boys on both teams. It’s no surprise his son (who I had the privilege/pleasure to know and coach) is so classy and kind. The juxtaposition between the 2 people could not have been more stark, and made Friday’s coach and program look that much worse. I relayed our conversation to my son, and he said how that coach (whose name may have been Chris George, and whose team may have been Northern Lebanon) also spoke with him, and expressed his genuine sadness with the injury. It was a wonderful illustration of the best part of sports.

Now. The real reason I opened my computer to write today was not on the court. The stands were packed full of people who love this beautiful young man. Friends drove hours to be there, made plans, gave up their own valuable time to sit in a gym on a frigid Monday night. You know, we fall in love with Jesus, we intentionally create these lives together, trying to step into our call every day, each moment, choosing our values, deciding who we’ll be and what we believe, and time passes, and we rarely get the opportunity to stand back and see the divine blessings that God has bestowed. Then, you happen to look up from your seat in the stands, and see the people of these lives filing in to love your son, and it is then that you can truly see the love and grace of God.

My post yesterday was, a little, about the dangers of tying Jesus to the actions of His followers. My post today is about the upside of that relationship. As we posed for pictures on the court, teary eyed and full, I looked up into the stands and I saw the faces of our lives, the answers to our prayers, our hope manifest. God may not always give a paved road, full of gobs of money, comfort and ease, but He gives us each other, and that is so much more than enough, so much better.

I am overwhelmed. I am grateful. He has a thousand and three points and I have a ba-zillion thank you’s that I’ll try to give to Him, and to you, with my life.

Hypocrisy

In this documentary I’m  in the process of watching, a girl named Natalia Grace is living with a family where the husband/father is a bishop in a denominational local church. As he was introduced, I said to the Angel, “Oh no, I hope he’s not the worst, and doesn’t do anything awful.” Maybe he will, but there was a scene where he got into an argument that nearly turned physical with Natalia Grace’s previous adoptive father. It began with the bishop’s stern scolding for this guy to watch his language, and that was enough. The scolded person raged like a child, tearing off his microphone and leaving. The bishop and the guy’s lawyer faced off, taking this all into the street, where they were nose to nose, all peacocks trying to assert their dominance in typical neanderthal behavior. Sigh.

And I thought of Paul’s letters.

Then, last week, we had a basketball game at a Christian high school (which may have been Lancaster Mennonite). Over the last many years, we have found religious schools to be at the bottom in terms of behavior and sportsmanship, this school (which may have been Lancaster Mennonite) consistently being the very most depressing.

As a matter of fact, I wrote my one and only heartbroken email to a school website after a particularly gross display. I almost wrote my second last week.

We had quite a few friends and family members there to watch my son’s game, some of whom aren’t Jesus followers, for the same reason most aren’t. If you ask people on any street to describe Christians, the first response isn’t usually “loving,” “kind,” or “patient,” it’s not sin or mistakes or anything related to what we actually do, it’s “hypocritical.” And if our call is the Great Commission, hypocrisy is the major obstacle. I am more and more convinced that it’s very nearly impossible to meet the real Jesus, and read the real Bible, and not fall in love with Him. But we don’t, and instead, we decide who He is, and what the Scriptures say, based on the people who follow Him and sit in pews on Sunday morning.

Now, we can recognize that we are all hypocritical sometimes, right? I am and you are, but we know each other, we have a close relationship with a lot of history and experience, so it’s fairly easy to accept each other’s flaws. It’s why it’s so much easier to call someone a monster from far away and rationalize the same actions in our home. BUT, if the first impression you had of me was me aggressively pretending to be one thing while I am clearly another, we might not have gotten to have that deep, rich history in our relationship.

The fact that this Christian school from last week (which may or may not have been Lancaster Mennonite) has chosen winning high school basketball games perhaps isn’t the main problem, it’s the corporate prayer over the loudspeaker before the game, and the circle of players at half court afterwards that is.

If you’re driving home today, and a monster truck, whose driver is yelling out the window, giving you 2 hands of birds, cuts you off, and as you’re veering from the road into the grass, you see that truck speeding away with a school of Jesus fish and Bible verse stickers papering the tailgate…well, I don’t imagine you’re going home looking for a local church to get to the bottom of that person’s faith.

Paul writes about tv documentary bishops and half court prayers in most of his letters, except he uses words & phrases like “live blameless lives,” “don’t drink so much, or “be faithful to your wife,” and lots of other timely examples. Not because if we’re not blameless or if we lie or want our neighbor’s donkey, God will be mad at us and rescind our rescue, revoke our salvation. After all, Paul also says, “everything is permissible,” and “I can do anything,” says that salvation (thankfully) isn’t based on our resume in the least. However, in the next breath, he says, “don’t do anything that causes another to fall.” So much of the list of behaviors are really about removing any obstacles that we build between ourselves and Jesus’ love. That’s our call and our mission. He knows if I am not faithful to my wife in my personal life while I am publicly teaching the texts that speak of honor and fidelity, it might be a bitter pill for you to swallow, and a pill that might push you far away. If I teach of purity, and you see me at a place I should not be, with people I should not be with, doing things I should not be doing, it could act as a wedge that keeps you away (whether that is fair or not.)

I’m writing this, not to disparage that bishop or that school (which may or may not be…you get the picture), but as a real life epistle from the Apostle Paul. The Bible happened, and it happens everyday since. The Great Commission is still our commission, just because we can doesn’t mean we should, and our call is, has always been, to build bridges. It is to get us to lower our arms so He can wrap His around us all. And sometimes prayers on the town square aren’t meant for Him at all.

What Could I Do Differently?

You know the hosting website for this blog asks questions. Sometimes, they’re pretty dumb, but other times… Today’s site prompt is: What could you do differently?

That’s a terrific one, because the way we answer speaks volumes about who we really are. What if your answer is, “nothing at all?” Think about everything that level of arrogance says. Is it arrogance OR maybe contentment and acceptance. How about, “I’ve never thought about it before?” Or, “I could floss in the mornings?” “I’d like to tell my kids I love them.” “Maybe go a new way to work?” “Read a novel.” “Go to church (or the gym or the school board meeting.)” Great question, right?

Are we answering what we could do differently? That question is endless, we could literally do everything differently. Sleep on the other side of the bed, eat with our left hand, slide down handrails. Or are we answering what we should do differently? which is a totally different thing they’re asking. I wonder how the AI prompt generator meant it. Mostly, I wonder how we read it, but of course I would wonder that. It’s a variation of the topic of the last 2 Sunday mornings. What now? Who are you? Who do you want to be? How do we get there? How do we “prepare the horses,” or “build the house?” Are our relationships, jobs, whatever – are our lives what we want them to be, based on our own Divine creation? And what could we do differently?

Are we loving our neighbors? We could probably do that differently. Are we caring for our marriages & families in ways they understand and receive? We can always do that differently. Our answers are as unique as we are. After service on Sunday, a very good friend who is a brilliant woman was asking what kind of hose she is. (The message discussed being conduits, being hoses, for the love of God to travel through.) Was she a soaker? A sprinkler? Think about all the kinds of hoses and flows. Which one are we, today? Which one will we be tomorrow? Could we be a different kind of hose? Are we even a hose at all?

Questions are so much fun. Lives are so rarely transformed by a scolding, or even a directive. Do this. Do that. You know what you should do or what you should think or who you should vote for??? We usually unplug right about then, and start looking around for somewhere else to be. But a question, that’s an invitation that gives us the chance to consider, to hold the strong, lovely, wise hand of Jesus and walk into dark spaces we might not have gone otherwise.

Jesus asks a blind man, “What do you want Me to do for you?” I wonder what I want Him to do for me? Jesus, what do You want to do for me? What do I want? Is that what I really want? Is that what would bring me joy & peace? Jesus, what could I do differently? His question opens the door into all sorts of new questions, new opportunities to know ourselves, to know Him, to trust. To know what to do, and discover the courage to do it. To love.

And then, well, that’s the tricky part, we listen. Now that I think about it, it’s how I’d answer the site prompt: I would listen.

Sunday Morning Telephone Call

At the end of every Sunday service, our community gathers into a circle-ish shape, holding hands for a closing prayer. Last week, at this precise moment, my phone rang. (Of all people to have a ringing phone on Sunday morning, right?) I silenced the noise and after making a short obvious joke (“who calls me on a Sunday morning???”), said, “I wish I could tell you who that was.”

Now I can.

I began journals for my boys on the day we found out they were alive. That is, the day we were blessed with a positive pregnancy test. Each began with, “Today is _____, and at ____pm, we found out you were here.” I continued these journals for the 9 months, then through the first year of their lives on the outside. They are an account of their growth (“you are probably the size of a cashew by now”), current events (war, terrorism, political elections, etc), personal events (my dad passed during Samuel’s first year, etc), advice (just in case I’m not there to pass it along face-to-face), and very much more. Essentially, it is an account of who we were. As they grew and transformed, so did I. So did I.

I had to wait to give them. There are content issues not fit for a 7 year old, for example. But more importantly, I had to be ok with the possibility that they may not read them. Just because they’re so overwhelmingly significant to me doesn’t mean they’ll mean the same to them, at least now. And that has been terrifying, it would have broken my heart and I would’ve been, in my unspeakable hurt, angry. It had to be a gift that I could offer, completely unconditionally. They had to be free to casually cast them aside for the next gift.

An interesting fact is that these journals (along with 2 novels I wrote in college) are the only things I wrote that we saved in the flood. Everything else (crates FULL of notebooks) went under and were unable to be salvaged. The Angel knew the importance of these and rescued them before she left that night.

Anyway. This was the year to give them. The book for the youngest was handwritten, but the oldest’s was a stack of printed papers that needed to be bound. Staples is a chain office supply store that offers this service. I took all 3 in (his book and the 2 novels) and, as I handed them across the desk (they would take 1 day), the weight of the paper and distance of the desk become clear. What if something happened? There were no extra copies, no back-ups, no possible replacements. I held them tightly, said, “they are very meaningful to me,” and this sweet young man behind the desk replied, “I will take care of them.”

But that didn’t make the night go much easier. So, when Staples came up on my phone during our prayer circle, it was a thrilling relief. (Of course, it could have been a message saying, “sorry, we lost your work,” but I was convinced that sort of message wouldn’t come during worship.) He DID take care of them.

I gave my sons their books, their love letters, their written illustration of my heart, their account of how much they are loved by their daddy, on Christmas morning. I may have abstractly mentioned them in passing through the years, so there were rumors of their existence, but to see them in their hands was extraordinary. They didn’t cry, but I sure did. To see the young men I wrote these words to so many years ago, holding them in their hands, is… well, it’s a big deal. It’s an honor, responsibility, joy to be a dad, their dad. (In a colossal understatement,) It’s just the best.

The most important decision we make is to say Yes to Jesus, then we participate with the Spirit to create these beautiful, faithful, dedicated lives. These books are simply a way that love, His love, comes out of me. Our lives are our greatest artwork. And My life (of which these books – and my marriage, the Bridge, my work, relationships, everything – are a part) is mine; my offering, my response, the way I say Thank You to My Savior, Who has given me everything and more.

So, that was the phone call. It was a very welcome interruption.

Play

The site prompt today is “what was the last thing you did for play or fun?” And probably this is it for me. I like to write, it’s super fun. But I was also thinking about you this morning and opened my computer to post. This question is in the same ballpark.

So first, what was the last thing you did for play or fun? Do you love to sing, or play the guitar? Paint? Work out, make or eat a great meal, reorganize your closet? Meet a friend for lunch? Binge watch tv shows or go to the movie theater? Play board games, read novels, listen to Morrissey albums, watch high school basketball games? Sleep? Kiss your wife? What are the things that make you come alive, refresh you, or give you rest? What are the things that are like revival to your tired soul? What are the things that, when you do them, you lose time & think, “I was born to do this, and could do it forever?”

I sat down to write this because I’m neck deep in reflection, evaluation, and anticipation – of the last year, the last several years, the upcoming days, months, years, who I was, who I am, who I am becoming. And this path always leads me to the Bible passage in the gospels where a blind man reaches out to Jesus, who asks him, “What do you want Me to do for you?”

If Jesus were to ask us that same question, how would we answer? Do we know? Have we ever even considered it? Who, what, do we love? What do we dream of, when we allow our imaginations off the least of routine and responsibility? What do we want Jesus to do in our lives? Do we believe He wants to, do we believe He can? Who is our God (or god)? Where are we blind and desperately need sight?

Speaking of doing something for play and fun, these questions are really fun, right? Do you remember sitting in elementary school letting our minds run wild, anywhere they wanted. The exhilaration of the lives we’d have. We wanted to be superheroes or artists, or moms or dads, or rock stars, and at some point, life and grown ups told us that it was impossible, to be realistic, to lower our expectations for our lives, that it is what it is.

But they were wrong. We are superheroes to someone, it isn’t just what it is, and we are all artists. Our greatest work of art are these lives we have been given…the problem is, we stopped seeing them as art. In lowering our expectations, we forgot who we were, who we were made to be, and settled for unfulfilling jobs, buying stuff we don’t need, emotionally distant from our spouses and children, believing the lie that what we do doesn’t matter, that we can’t change, that it can’t change. We became blind to the Divine, to the Holy Spirit (THE SAME Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead) living in us. We are the blind men alongside the road, reaching out to Jesus. He’s asking us the same question…

What are we going to tell Him, the One who set those talents, gifts, dreams, passions, blessings in our hearts? I, for one, want to see. That’s what I want for Christmas, from the Giver of all of our best presents.

Warmth

The site prompt for today is, “Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?’ It’s a pretty good question, but the answer really isn’t the point. What is so significant about this question is only that we ask it. A life without any reflection is one that is lived mindlessly out of habit,just getting through each day. And a life like that hardly ever leads to growth or, to use a word from the Scriptures, transformation. Instead, we stay stuck in our loops simply because we never pause long enough to recognize that it is a loop and to question it’s health or usefulness.

Maybe that job or relationship or budget or schedule or expense or whatever isn’t for us. Maybe it never was. Maybe it stopped being a positive influence months ago, or yesterday. Maybe something else is now a much better fit, and there isn’t any room because we’re still hanging on to the old. Or maybe we have the perfect thing for us already in our lives, but we can’t give it the attention it deserves because of the other distractions (sometimes, what was once so valuable becomes little more than filler now) that we haven’t gotten around to leaving behind.

And maybe some people or things need to return. Maybe the old has been unnecessarily and unintentionally excised.

This month, leading to the new year, is a natural time to empty out our lives onto the floor and take a good, long, hard look at what’s actually in there. Maybe we don’t even know what is taking our time, or energy, or money, and maybe (probably) we have even less idea why.

So, let’s begin to do that. We can do that in our room by ourselves (well, you know what I mean. Not by ourselves. When we are in our room, or anywhere, we are with Him, with the Holy Spirit, always with.) or with trusted friends and mentors. They might be able to ask some difficult questions in blind spots, like, “why do you spend your money there?” “What do you do after work?” What do you actually want?” “Why do you want that person/thing?”

It’s simple presence. We are totally present participants in our own lives.

Here’s what I notice around this time of year. We get so busy doing all of the things, ordering the presents, shopping, wrapping, sending the cards, baking the cookies. We do all of these wonderful things for other people that we forget the other people!! Martha chose to spend the time with Jesus making the hors d’oeuvres, vacuuming the floor, clearing the table, and doing the dishes to serve Jesus and the other guests, that she almost missed Jesus altogether. It can be the same in our lives. We get so busy chopping wood, we end up less than grateful, oblivious to the warmth it provides.

This season, let’s show up with all of us, wide awake, and ask the questions, see each other, listen, notice, pay attention, love somebody, love somebody else, and say thanks with out lives for the warmth He provides.

How Do We?

The BIG question from Sunday’s message is: How do we bring the Gospel into this world, here & now? It’s especially charged because we are less than 3 weeks away from Christmas Day, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ. He was the Gospel, that is how He brought the Gospel into this world. But as He left, after His resurrection, He gave us a Great Commission. “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey all the commands I have given you.” And ends with my favorite part: “And be sure that I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Essentially, take this Gospel into this world.

So, again, how do we intend to do that?

Do we do it with our theology? With our fancy commemorative, personally embossed Bibles that are specially made for left-handers or racecar drivers or pilots or Libertarians or whatever group we happen to be a part of? With our bumper stickers or decals? With our exemplary church attendance? With our perfect hair and shoes?

Or do we do it with our love? With our hands and feet? Our hearts and words?

Of course, theology is important. If we put our faith in a grocery store chain or a football team to save us, they won’t. That isn’t the Gospel at all. And our Bibles are important, inside those fancy faux-leather covers and pandering marketing ploys is the inspired Word of God. Bumper stickers and decals can testify, and being a regular member of a local church is a really big deal. These things do matter. (Maybe perfect hair and shoes don’t matter too much, though.). But they are not the point, they are not the Gospel, they do not save on their own.

Jesus Christ does, and when He was asked what we’re supposed to do, He said, “Love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.” Is that the answer? Can it be that simple? It sounds that way. (Simple. Not easy.)

We are the cover songs (a cover song is when an artist interprets a song that they haven’t written, that others have previously recorded, in their own perspective and style) playing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, however we play it. Maybe we love with our hands, our presence, our gifts. Maybe we love through our money or our brownies. Maybe we love with a phone call or a meal delivery or a present under a tree. That’s our own interpretation. The lyrics are the same. Jesus Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and in Him, our creation, forgiveness, and salvation.

I think we can make our faith so complicated waiting for someone to tell us exactly what to do. But no one can. The guy that asked Jesus what he was supposed to do wanted a checklist to follow, and instead he got a word: love. What does that mean? How do we do it? Love can look different from different people in different circumstances, right? But maybe the point isn’t a solid structured checklist. Maybe it moves, evolves, maybe it’s dynamic. Maybe it’s better characterized as a relationship. Maybe it’s not what we do as much as Who we’re WITH. Maybe we don’t get a list because He wants us to keep holding His hand, asking Him, growing with Him. Maybe the way we play the song when we’re 15 shouldn’t be the way we play it when we’re 40. Maybe we’re supposed to be transformed through our journey with Him, in thought, action, situation, in the street and with our in-laws. Maybe we’re supposed to fall in love with Him.

Maybe that’s why, when He came, He came as a baby. Maybe that’s why He came at all.

Girlfriend In A Coma

Today’s site prompt (the hosting website asks a question every day, to spur thought and encourage me to post every day) is “What’s one thing you would change about yourself?” On one hand, I don’t like this question. It sounds like a wish in a well, like ‘I’d like to be taller,’ or to be able to fly, or whatever. But on the other, maybe this is a doorway into something deeper. In a mass email I received last week, a man named Mark asked if we were becoming the sorts of people we want to become, and that sounds like a variation of the variation of the same question I ask most Sundays. If our answer is a catalyst towards entering a new phase of growth, maybe it’s a good one. Instead of wishing to be a superhero, what if the one thing is to love our neighbor in ways they understand, or to show up to our spouses more often, and asking is the first step in actually doing it, that’s a different story, isn’t it?

This reminds me of a book I just read, Girlfriend In A Coma, by Douglas Coupland. It’s a good book that I read in college, because I have always liked Coupland (he wrote the impossibly important novel Generation X, where the term was first coined), AND because it’s titled after a fantastic Smiths song. A good book, but not life-changing, then. Now might be a different story.

The end has all of the main characters standing in an apocalyptic wasteland, they are the only survivors, and they have a decision. They can stay where they are (which isn’t at all as terrible as it sounds, for one HUGE reason that I won’t spoil) or go back to before the “apocalypse.” They choose to go back, deciding to use this new time, these new lives, to effect change.

Listen to this: “You guys just wait and see. We’ll stand taller than these mountains. We’ll bare open our hearts for the world to grab. We’ll see lights where before there was dimness. We’ll testify together to what we have seen and felt…Our hearts will shine brightly.”

“How can I give them a spark? He wonders. How can I hold their hands and pull them all through flames and rock walls and icebergs?…Every cell in our body explodes with the truth…We’ll be begging passersby to see the need to question and question and never stop questioning until the world stops spinning. We’ll be adults who smash the tired, exhausted system. We’ll crawl and chew and dig our way into a radical new world.“

Right??? I’m typing with tears in my eyes for 2 reasons. First, the thing they had to give up was so humongous, the cost was so high, it absolutely crushes my heart. But the second is the hope of their choice and their opportunity. Now, obviously, it sounds like they’re the ones who will “fix it,” who will “stand taller than mountains,” whose strength and significance is great enough to rewrite the future. I don’t believe that. Jesus fixes (fixed) it, Jesus stands taller than all mountains stacked up, His strength & significance is more than enough to rewrite the past, present, and future, forever and ever, amen.

However, I think this grandiosity isn’t always our problem. More often, we have far too little regard for our own participation. We simply don’t think we have a part to play in changing anything. We believe we’re a pebble thrown into the ocean.

This book (and all of the art that really moves us) presents a different narrative – that we can “testify to what we’ve seen and felt,” that we can let our hearts “shine brightly,” that we can give a spark, we can hold hands and pull, we can smash this tired, exhausted, hopeless system through our faith and hope in Our Savior, and in so doing, we can have a “radical new world.” What we do matters, and it matters a lot.

It doesn’t matter if the prompt is a good one. What’s important is that we keep asking, keep pushing, keep holding, keep crawling, keep shining, keep testifying. Every cell in our body explodes with the Truth, we just have to let that explosion out.

The Grateful

Gratitude Journals. Gratitude Breaths. Thank You Notes. Those are the first 3 in an email list of gratitude practices, as it is Thanksgiving this week. I think we’ve probably heard all of them before, We’ve been told to make lists and to slow down and breathe many times. Maybe we haven’t had thank-you notes suggested (when was the last time we passed a hand-written note at all??), but it certainly does make sense to acknowledge kindness and beauty.

The 4th requires an explanation. Flip The Script means, in difficult situations, we ask,”what is one thing I can be thankful for in this situation?” It’s a simple re-frame that can exchange one “O” word – obstacle – for another – opportunity. And it reminds me of a different email I received yesterday, that stated “the opposite of misery isn’t happiness, it’s gratitude,” and asked us to “Be grateful for your struggles, because within them is the opportunity for growth and meaning.”

In the movie I watched last night, after saving the multiverse (don’t ask), one character asked if the time variance agency (really, don’t ask) could change another character’s regrettable, awful past for rescuing the world. He was told that past, that deeply painful past, is what created the hero that could save us all. There was nothing to change.

By the way, it was yet another instance of a story where the hero sacrifices him- or her-self so everyone else can live. Sounds familiar. I point this pattern out to my boys every time we see it, and explain that it’s in so many stories because it’s The Best Story. Our Creator, Savior, and redemption are wired into our souls. We all know it, and so does Hollywood. (I was going to add “whether they admit it or not,” but that’s silly. They admit it with every re-telling.)

Anyway. I’m just spending the time this week reflecting on gratitude, in general, as a concept, and in my own life, specifically. We could make lists or flip all the scripts, but each of them, any/all of them, are designed to open our eyes and turn our heads. Paul writes that we are to be thankful in everything, and that’s unbelievably difficult sometimes.

But so was my first deadlift. A deadlift works nearly all of the muscles in your body. It’s hard and I struggled to do very light weights. However, I wanted to do it, I wanted to be a man who deadlifts. And guess what happened? I kept watching YouTube videos on correct, safe form. I asked questions and studied others in the gym. I deadlifted often, even when I didn’t want to, didn’t feeeeeel like it. The light weights increased as it became an integral part of my workout routine. It’s still hard, but it’s awesome. I am a man who deadlifts.

I think gratitude is probably the same idea. Being a grateful person requires all of us, asking muscles we don’t always use to grow and strengthen. And we pay attention, hand writing notes (maybe we should bring handwriting back) or reading mass emails or whatever, and keep gratituding. Even when we really don’t feeeeeel like it.

We have been given our very lives, each breath, each moment. We’ve been given each other, the beauty of the changing leaves and the Church. We’ve been given touch, smiles, kisses, tapioca pudding, and breakfast sausage. We have been made to deadlift, we’ve just seen the wind & forgotten. Way deep down, in all of the most authentic parts of us, under all of the rock in which we hide, we are The Grateful. So, how about, starting with this week, we begin chipping away at the rock and reveal this stunning true nature of ours.