I was just about to sit down to do something that I really need to do, homework. But, part of the homework/writing process for me is procrastination. Today as I was driving from coffee shop to coffee shop looking for an open table to work at I turned on the radio and began to listen to some good old fashioned talk radio. I listened to NPR for a few minutes than shifted to Rush Limbaugh, then to Sean Hannity. Typically I listen until I get bored with what is being said or until I think what the people are saying is stupid. More often than not it is that I get bored. I am not a politically minded person so if you are and you happen to be one of my four followers and are offended please don't be. I just personally don't care that much about politics.
What bugs me the most is that we (we is a generalization based on radio personalities who are talking to a lot of people) seem to care about stuff that doesn't really matter. To be honest I don't care about some senator who owns a ranch that had a rock on it that had the "N" word painted on it in 1983. Its not that I want to be dismissive of politics or people who care about them, its just that almost every time I began to listen to commentators either liberal or conservative I get frustrated because I rarely hear them talking about things that matter. Instead we argue about rocks and really stupid things people did in the middle of nowhere two years after I was born.
How weird that we can spend an incredible amount of money, emotional effort, and energy in all kinds of directions and completely miss the heart of life. How different would our world be if we began to actually care about things that matter. I would like to stop arguing about rocks so that I can feel better about myself and I would like to start to talking about the condition of peoples hearts.
This was the most difficult thing for me as a teacher. I was being paid to give students an education in the area of history, which really does matter. However, what I noticed while working with students who had been kicked out of many other schools was that while history was important it was not as important as what was happening in their hearts. Who they were becoming was of higher importance than the history assignment I was supposed to be giving. A popular quote among teachers goes like this:
"Kids don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."
People can argue about rocks all day. I want to talk about our hearts.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
You Smell Like a Hypocrite: Book idea pt.2
People will risk change when the environment that they are in becomes safe for them to fail. When environments become safe to screw up and then pick yourself up and start fresh again people will improve and change for the better.
In other areas we recognize this to be true and don't bat an eye about the truth of the previous statement because we inherently know that in order to get better we must push ourselves past where we are, causing us to fail, but in failing also learn.
Sports are a great example of this concept. If you are going to excel in a sport you practice by being pushed to failure. Each day your failure happens at a further point than the day before, and this is what we call progress. At first you make baby steps and what should look like a graceful athletic event looks strangely chaotic and awkard. Nothing like what you see the professionals doing on T.V. But over time as you stick with it and push yourself towards failure, each day challenging yourself to do one more repetition or take one more step, you progress.
What is weird is that what is so clear to us as progress in sports, we define as unacceptable in areas of personal and spiritual growth and maturity. Instead of recognizing that failure is an integral part of maturing and becoming more graceful and effortless in areas of personal and spiritual growth we have made it taboo. Beyond taboo, we have made it highly improbable that any one in their right mind would come to the church or for that matter most adults to share their personal moral failure. They sense our unspoken expectation that failure is not an option and that it will carry with it guilt, shame, and punitive action. Our inability to see these failures as an opportunity to shape our young men and women disables us from being a coach, guide, or mentor before they ever cross our doorstep.
It seems clear to me that if you are reading this, you care. You want to help, or maybe you want to get help. Either way what we can clearly see is that in order for people to risk change they must have others who they are moving towards that stand on the other side of chasm that they are trying to cross. People want to move towards others they can identify with, others who not only know theoretically what to do, but who also have been there themselves and have lived to tell the tell. When we as pastors, parents, or friends position ourselves as morally or spirtually above the mess we disarm ourselves from having a voice in the conversation that will define the direction of an individual.
Essentially the truth is this, that if we cannot recognize our own failures and brokeness we will not have a voice with the ones we seek to help. If we seek to impose punitive damage first and deal with this issue as a behaviour only we will miss the heart of the individual and lose our voice.
People can smell a hypocrite from a mile away. A hypocrite is not someone who makes mistakes. What makes us hypocrites is that we won't admit our own mistakes and in our own brokeness invite the Holy Spirit to come and deal with our own hearts. In our lack of humilty we forget to ask the Holy Spirit to begin to turn our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and we begin to lean into our own understanding. We seek to fix and in fixing forget that we also are in need of healing. Perhaps our area of brokeness has not come in the form of a pornographic addiction, however, wheather or not the issue is pornagraphy or pride every sin leads back to a spiritual condition of the heart. These are the places which we must go in order for their to be healing and lasting change and we cannot effectively go there without the power of the Holy Spirit.
In the Greek, the word for the Holy Spirit is the word "Paraclete" and is defined as "the one who hears our cries." If we are to really help people who are dealing with pornography we must recognize that this battle is beyond physical habits and behaviour. It is cleary as much a spiritual battle as it is a physical or habitual cycle we must break. This is ultimately why, if we truly seek to help people in this area, we must leave the safe towers where we have been living. We must risk stepping out of the places where our own stuggles and past have been hidden, neatly tucked away in the grout of our towers and begin to ourselves cry out to God and ask him to fill our lives, and change our own hearts first. It is then and only then that we will be ready to lead someone out.
If this is interesting to you will you please give me some feed back so that I can get better as a writer or so that I can answer any questions you have...I plan on posting sections of what I am writing as I go, so feedback is welcome. Grammatical errors are to be expected so feedback on content is preferred.
In other areas we recognize this to be true and don't bat an eye about the truth of the previous statement because we inherently know that in order to get better we must push ourselves past where we are, causing us to fail, but in failing also learn.
Sports are a great example of this concept. If you are going to excel in a sport you practice by being pushed to failure. Each day your failure happens at a further point than the day before, and this is what we call progress. At first you make baby steps and what should look like a graceful athletic event looks strangely chaotic and awkard. Nothing like what you see the professionals doing on T.V. But over time as you stick with it and push yourself towards failure, each day challenging yourself to do one more repetition or take one more step, you progress.
What is weird is that what is so clear to us as progress in sports, we define as unacceptable in areas of personal and spiritual growth and maturity. Instead of recognizing that failure is an integral part of maturing and becoming more graceful and effortless in areas of personal and spiritual growth we have made it taboo. Beyond taboo, we have made it highly improbable that any one in their right mind would come to the church or for that matter most adults to share their personal moral failure. They sense our unspoken expectation that failure is not an option and that it will carry with it guilt, shame, and punitive action. Our inability to see these failures as an opportunity to shape our young men and women disables us from being a coach, guide, or mentor before they ever cross our doorstep.
It seems clear to me that if you are reading this, you care. You want to help, or maybe you want to get help. Either way what we can clearly see is that in order for people to risk change they must have others who they are moving towards that stand on the other side of chasm that they are trying to cross. People want to move towards others they can identify with, others who not only know theoretically what to do, but who also have been there themselves and have lived to tell the tell. When we as pastors, parents, or friends position ourselves as morally or spirtually above the mess we disarm ourselves from having a voice in the conversation that will define the direction of an individual.
Essentially the truth is this, that if we cannot recognize our own failures and brokeness we will not have a voice with the ones we seek to help. If we seek to impose punitive damage first and deal with this issue as a behaviour only we will miss the heart of the individual and lose our voice.
People can smell a hypocrite from a mile away. A hypocrite is not someone who makes mistakes. What makes us hypocrites is that we won't admit our own mistakes and in our own brokeness invite the Holy Spirit to come and deal with our own hearts. In our lack of humilty we forget to ask the Holy Spirit to begin to turn our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and we begin to lean into our own understanding. We seek to fix and in fixing forget that we also are in need of healing. Perhaps our area of brokeness has not come in the form of a pornographic addiction, however, wheather or not the issue is pornagraphy or pride every sin leads back to a spiritual condition of the heart. These are the places which we must go in order for their to be healing and lasting change and we cannot effectively go there without the power of the Holy Spirit.
In the Greek, the word for the Holy Spirit is the word "Paraclete" and is defined as "the one who hears our cries." If we are to really help people who are dealing with pornography we must recognize that this battle is beyond physical habits and behaviour. It is cleary as much a spiritual battle as it is a physical or habitual cycle we must break. This is ultimately why, if we truly seek to help people in this area, we must leave the safe towers where we have been living. We must risk stepping out of the places where our own stuggles and past have been hidden, neatly tucked away in the grout of our towers and begin to ourselves cry out to God and ask him to fill our lives, and change our own hearts first. It is then and only then that we will be ready to lead someone out.
If this is interesting to you will you please give me some feed back so that I can get better as a writer or so that I can answer any questions you have...I plan on posting sections of what I am writing as I go, so feedback is welcome. Grammatical errors are to be expected so feedback on content is preferred.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
PORN - now you will read this because you are curious
I've been thinking quite a bit lately about writing a book. If feels presumptuous at this point in my life to think that I have something of meaning to say to others, but then again, I know that God has been using my story to help others along the way and there seems to be some clarity of direction for what I would like to write.
A huge part of my coming to God story has been directly tied my struggle with pornography. I would not be a pastor or at the church that I am at today if this area of my life had not spun wildly out of control at a point in my life when I had no where to turn but to the church which was the last place I wanted to go because of my wounds from the church in the past. (I am sure that was a run on but give me a break...I'm new to this whole writing process thing.) This was the first time I met my pastor and good friend Nathan Edwardson on a personal basis. When we met I came in feeling like the elephant in the room wasn't in the corner of the room, it was sitting on my chest, and the wind was knocked out of me. The feelings of guilt, shame, and anger were nearly overwhelming. I had dreading coming to this meeting and anticipated that this man was going to harpoon me for my sin. That was all I had known from the church. You didn't talk about your struggles becasue it was not safe. Plain and simple. If you talked about your struggles, your hurts and hang ups you were put onto the "prayer chain" where everyone then knew about your crap and then kept the women and children away from you because you were dirty or now untrustworthy.
What I found in this man sitting across the table from me caught me off guard and set me on the path back towards God. It is unclear now, years later if this was a conscious effort by Nathan to be really understanding and loving or if God was just totally speaking to me through him at the moment. Probably both. Either way, for the first time in my young life I felt I had actually exposed an area of my life that was out of control to a man who was a few years older than I and I experienced embrace instead of judgement. This changed my life. Maybe this had happened before this point in my life but if it did happen I can't remember when. I am pretty sure I did not have a complete thought until I was like 27 so it very well could have happened before that, but I just wasn't aware of it. The point is that it happened and that I was aware of it.
If I ever actually complete this book, which I intend to do. My desire is to see men become who they are called to be. The topic of pornography and lust is an area that has been taboo to talk about for most christians and has been kept on the periphery of acceptable talk for as long as I can remember. It has been like the "don't ask, don't tell" issue of the church. We all know the problem is epidemic but it seems that most of us are completely unprepared and unable to talk about it. I think this is because as Parents, Pastors, and Youth Workers we have never had this conversation modeled for us. Where do we even start when a young person or even a man come to us to risk sharing that they are addicted to pornography. We have no idea. We have never actually had this taboo conversation ourselves and so we do what everyone does when we don't know what to do....we allow fear and reactive behavior to take over. In our fear of this evil sin we drop into the punitive mindset that we will ground this behaviour out of you. Meanwhile we miss the heart.
I have more but this is a bit of an intro. If this is interesting to you will you please give me some feed back so that I can get better as a writer or so that I can answer any questions you have...I plan on posting sections of what I am writing as I go, so feedback is welcome.
A huge part of my coming to God story has been directly tied my struggle with pornography. I would not be a pastor or at the church that I am at today if this area of my life had not spun wildly out of control at a point in my life when I had no where to turn but to the church which was the last place I wanted to go because of my wounds from the church in the past. (I am sure that was a run on but give me a break...I'm new to this whole writing process thing.) This was the first time I met my pastor and good friend Nathan Edwardson on a personal basis. When we met I came in feeling like the elephant in the room wasn't in the corner of the room, it was sitting on my chest, and the wind was knocked out of me. The feelings of guilt, shame, and anger were nearly overwhelming. I had dreading coming to this meeting and anticipated that this man was going to harpoon me for my sin. That was all I had known from the church. You didn't talk about your struggles becasue it was not safe. Plain and simple. If you talked about your struggles, your hurts and hang ups you were put onto the "prayer chain" where everyone then knew about your crap and then kept the women and children away from you because you were dirty or now untrustworthy.
What I found in this man sitting across the table from me caught me off guard and set me on the path back towards God. It is unclear now, years later if this was a conscious effort by Nathan to be really understanding and loving or if God was just totally speaking to me through him at the moment. Probably both. Either way, for the first time in my young life I felt I had actually exposed an area of my life that was out of control to a man who was a few years older than I and I experienced embrace instead of judgement. This changed my life. Maybe this had happened before this point in my life but if it did happen I can't remember when. I am pretty sure I did not have a complete thought until I was like 27 so it very well could have happened before that, but I just wasn't aware of it. The point is that it happened and that I was aware of it.
If I ever actually complete this book, which I intend to do. My desire is to see men become who they are called to be. The topic of pornography and lust is an area that has been taboo to talk about for most christians and has been kept on the periphery of acceptable talk for as long as I can remember. It has been like the "don't ask, don't tell" issue of the church. We all know the problem is epidemic but it seems that most of us are completely unprepared and unable to talk about it. I think this is because as Parents, Pastors, and Youth Workers we have never had this conversation modeled for us. Where do we even start when a young person or even a man come to us to risk sharing that they are addicted to pornography. We have no idea. We have never actually had this taboo conversation ourselves and so we do what everyone does when we don't know what to do....we allow fear and reactive behavior to take over. In our fear of this evil sin we drop into the punitive mindset that we will ground this behaviour out of you. Meanwhile we miss the heart.
I have more but this is a bit of an intro. If this is interesting to you will you please give me some feed back so that I can get better as a writer or so that I can answer any questions you have...I plan on posting sections of what I am writing as I go, so feedback is welcome.
Friday, September 16, 2011
30 Mins Left to Blog Before You Die
I have 30 minutes left to blog before I die. Well not actually...I have 30 minutes left until I have to go shopping which is equal to death in many ways for me.
So the question is...If you only had 30 minutes left to blog or leave a message to the world what would you say to others. It is a personal challenge to myself and whoever is reading this. Sit down and set a timer for 30 minutes and when it stops, you stop, mid sentence, mid word. Then post it here in a comment or email me or show no one. I'm just curious to see what you might have to say.
Here I go....
Life is not about climbing ladders or subjugation of others. There is an internal posture in life you can take in which you can have conflict and love, peace and poverty, joy and sorrow all at the same time.
I am sure there are other things but the point is that our lives are lived in tension where we have to choice to fill in what is exposed by the traffic of life with embrace encouragement and seeing the best in others or we can fill in what is exposed by the traffic of life with judgement, contempt, bitterness, and anger. The choice is before us every day. What will you fill in the gap with?
Start your day in quiet contemplation. Don't rush to the first thing of the day. There must be some sacred time that no one else can impede on between you and God. Watch how he changes your perspective, attitude, and emotions when you start your day with Him. Watch as he will open your eyes to what he is doing around you and the opportunities he is giving you to create and speak truth and beauty into people and the world.
Seek the Holy Spirit. The HS is the one who hears our cries. It is out of our brokenness that we experience the love and grace of God. But you must cry out to him to be filled with him. This reminds me of my friend Eric who says that God is a gentleman, he won't force himself upon you. You must ask for him.
Conflict is not your enemy. Don't run from it. Don't be shamed by it. When it happens ask what it is exposing in you deep down. Address that. Ask God what is happening in the conflict that he wants to expose. Ask the one who hears our cries to come and meet you in the conflict and to bring peace that passes all understanding with him. No great story is told without great conflict.
Depth doesn't in life doesn't come from what you do...
It comes from who you have spent time with. We see this in Jesus life that he spent his life living from a place with God to people. Not the other way around.
Sometimes having to be RIGHT is the WRONG thing. It is always interesting to see people who have positional power over another person, who in every way could crush the other person based on their office or position and who continually do so. I always walking away thinking that, that person is actually very weak. Strength is knowing you have the ability to crush someone, and not doing it because you don't need to prove yourself to anyone. Even if you are cussing me out, threatening my family, you have no power over me. You may even kill me, so be it, I know where I am going. If I am not threatened by you I don't have to defend myself from you. I am free to love you while you kill me. I may be RIGHT and you may be WRONG, but what is right for me is to Love you in your wrongness while not having to assert my rightness. Hopefully you get the idea, I only have 1 min 30 seconds left.
Love is the most disarming quality you can have that destroys walls and offenses. If you seek to Love another before having to be right you will have won them over. If you seek to be right first and love second you will have missed your opportunity to have loved.
Time is up. Your turn.
So the question is...If you only had 30 minutes left to blog or leave a message to the world what would you say to others. It is a personal challenge to myself and whoever is reading this. Sit down and set a timer for 30 minutes and when it stops, you stop, mid sentence, mid word. Then post it here in a comment or email me or show no one. I'm just curious to see what you might have to say.
Here I go....
Life is not about climbing ladders or subjugation of others. There is an internal posture in life you can take in which you can have conflict and love, peace and poverty, joy and sorrow all at the same time.
I am sure there are other things but the point is that our lives are lived in tension where we have to choice to fill in what is exposed by the traffic of life with embrace encouragement and seeing the best in others or we can fill in what is exposed by the traffic of life with judgement, contempt, bitterness, and anger. The choice is before us every day. What will you fill in the gap with?
Start your day in quiet contemplation. Don't rush to the first thing of the day. There must be some sacred time that no one else can impede on between you and God. Watch how he changes your perspective, attitude, and emotions when you start your day with Him. Watch as he will open your eyes to what he is doing around you and the opportunities he is giving you to create and speak truth and beauty into people and the world.
Seek the Holy Spirit. The HS is the one who hears our cries. It is out of our brokenness that we experience the love and grace of God. But you must cry out to him to be filled with him. This reminds me of my friend Eric who says that God is a gentleman, he won't force himself upon you. You must ask for him.
Conflict is not your enemy. Don't run from it. Don't be shamed by it. When it happens ask what it is exposing in you deep down. Address that. Ask God what is happening in the conflict that he wants to expose. Ask the one who hears our cries to come and meet you in the conflict and to bring peace that passes all understanding with him. No great story is told without great conflict.
Depth doesn't in life doesn't come from what you do...
It comes from who you have spent time with. We see this in Jesus life that he spent his life living from a place with God to people. Not the other way around.
Sometimes having to be RIGHT is the WRONG thing. It is always interesting to see people who have positional power over another person, who in every way could crush the other person based on their office or position and who continually do so. I always walking away thinking that, that person is actually very weak. Strength is knowing you have the ability to crush someone, and not doing it because you don't need to prove yourself to anyone. Even if you are cussing me out, threatening my family, you have no power over me. You may even kill me, so be it, I know where I am going. If I am not threatened by you I don't have to defend myself from you. I am free to love you while you kill me. I may be RIGHT and you may be WRONG, but what is right for me is to Love you in your wrongness while not having to assert my rightness. Hopefully you get the idea, I only have 1 min 30 seconds left.
Love is the most disarming quality you can have that destroys walls and offenses. If you seek to Love another before having to be right you will have won them over. If you seek to be right first and love second you will have missed your opportunity to have loved.
Time is up. Your turn.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Feel Better
In this busy season of life it is funny how God can get our attention and speak to us through our children.
During the middle of running all over the place trying to get things done I raced home so that some friends could pick up an old freezer I was giving away. We came flying into the driveway and practically jumped out of the Expedition before the vehicle had stopped. This particular week had been one of the busiest of the month and I had a student staying with my family who had been pulled out of an abusive home situation with me as my friends showed up to get the freezer out of our storage room.
During the melee of moving the freezer and watching my two boys and this student I took my eyes off Noah who was running in the driveway laughing and playing tag with Toby. Everything seemed fine and we began to move the freezer out. A moment later Noah screamed out in pain and the long draw of breath before the next sound let me know that this was going to be a good one.
Noah had fallen and deeply scraped his left knee. We quickly set the freezer down and headed out to Noah to tend to his wounds. I picked him up and took him into the house and got the necessary first aid items together and bandaged his knee. As he was crying I felt awful for him, you never enjoy seeing your child hurting. I pulled him in close and hugged him and kissed him continually and told him he was going to be OK. Noah seemed to not hear the words that I was saying and kept saying through his tears, "Make it feel better." I didn't know what to do so I just kept hugging him and trying to console him but he continued to say, "No, make it feel better." So finally I asked him, "Noah, what do you want me to do?" Noah replied, "Ask Jesus to make it feel better."
To be honest, his response caught me off guard. I am a pastor. I work hard to get others to be connected to God and to include him in every area of their lives. But, in this moment it didn't even occur to me to ask Jesus to make it feel better. So with Noah in my arms and the student standing near us I began to pray. Noah closed his eyes tightly, his head moving back and forth slightly with pursed lips. He was intensely praying with me for his knee. As intense as any adult I have ever seen pray.
It was a simple and short prayer. I remembered what my friend Dan had said at a recent staff meeting at work that our Faith is grown when we pray for healing and then take the next step to ask and see if God healed it. So I asked Noah if it felt better. Noah stood up and gently walked a few steps and said that it did feel a little better. The student who was staying with us got a gleam in his eye and emphatically said, "Jesus did that!"
I had no idea what was happening at that moment. The whole situation had taken me off guard. Here Noah had been hurt, inconsolable, and he lead me to pray. The student had been watching the whole thing and recognized it was Jesus. Meanwhile, I was nearly speechless.
A few days later our Stirring baptism was taking place and I still had not taken off Noah's original bandage. At this point I expected to see a huge scab, or at the very least an open scrape. When I took off the bandage there was nothing there at all. Not a scab, nothing. It was like it never happened.
In the Greek, (the language the New Testament was written in) God and Jesus promise to send us the "Paraclete". The word "Paracleta" means "the one who answers our cry." How often I forget that it is not until I cry out and seek Jesus that my own wounds, pain, and brokenness can be healed. Unless that cry surges up from the consciousness of our true reality and need for the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit will not come.
During the middle of running all over the place trying to get things done I raced home so that some friends could pick up an old freezer I was giving away. We came flying into the driveway and practically jumped out of the Expedition before the vehicle had stopped. This particular week had been one of the busiest of the month and I had a student staying with my family who had been pulled out of an abusive home situation with me as my friends showed up to get the freezer out of our storage room.
During the melee of moving the freezer and watching my two boys and this student I took my eyes off Noah who was running in the driveway laughing and playing tag with Toby. Everything seemed fine and we began to move the freezer out. A moment later Noah screamed out in pain and the long draw of breath before the next sound let me know that this was going to be a good one.
Noah had fallen and deeply scraped his left knee. We quickly set the freezer down and headed out to Noah to tend to his wounds. I picked him up and took him into the house and got the necessary first aid items together and bandaged his knee. As he was crying I felt awful for him, you never enjoy seeing your child hurting. I pulled him in close and hugged him and kissed him continually and told him he was going to be OK. Noah seemed to not hear the words that I was saying and kept saying through his tears, "Make it feel better." I didn't know what to do so I just kept hugging him and trying to console him but he continued to say, "No, make it feel better." So finally I asked him, "Noah, what do you want me to do?" Noah replied, "Ask Jesus to make it feel better."
To be honest, his response caught me off guard. I am a pastor. I work hard to get others to be connected to God and to include him in every area of their lives. But, in this moment it didn't even occur to me to ask Jesus to make it feel better. So with Noah in my arms and the student standing near us I began to pray. Noah closed his eyes tightly, his head moving back and forth slightly with pursed lips. He was intensely praying with me for his knee. As intense as any adult I have ever seen pray.
It was a simple and short prayer. I remembered what my friend Dan had said at a recent staff meeting at work that our Faith is grown when we pray for healing and then take the next step to ask and see if God healed it. So I asked Noah if it felt better. Noah stood up and gently walked a few steps and said that it did feel a little better. The student who was staying with us got a gleam in his eye and emphatically said, "Jesus did that!"
I had no idea what was happening at that moment. The whole situation had taken me off guard. Here Noah had been hurt, inconsolable, and he lead me to pray. The student had been watching the whole thing and recognized it was Jesus. Meanwhile, I was nearly speechless.
A few days later our Stirring baptism was taking place and I still had not taken off Noah's original bandage. At this point I expected to see a huge scab, or at the very least an open scrape. When I took off the bandage there was nothing there at all. Not a scab, nothing. It was like it never happened.
In the Greek, (the language the New Testament was written in) God and Jesus promise to send us the "Paraclete". The word "Paracleta" means "the one who answers our cry." How often I forget that it is not until I cry out and seek Jesus that my own wounds, pain, and brokenness can be healed. Unless that cry surges up from the consciousness of our true reality and need for the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit will not come.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
true story
He Never breaks his stare. He sits facing forward nothing moves his gaze other than when someone walks up from behind him through the door. Even then, it is only a slight glance over his shoulder. It's 110 degrees outside the Starbucks and he wears a beanie covering his bald head. His weathered wind worn face and down turned lips match his tan exhausted aviator glasses. He doesn't walk he saunters slowly to the counter to fill his stainless steel coffee cup. He wouldn't be caught dead holding a starbuck's cup in his hand but he was content with dark and strong liquid in his steel cup. If I had not seen him go to the counter I would have assumed it was whiskey. He is clearly over 60 but his shoulders are square and strong, still a formidable force in a fight. Looking at him from behind you would think he was 30 and fresh out of prison, stuck in a cell with nothing to do but push ups. His muscles were not enhanced with steroids, he just had the look of a strong man, every movement is slow and seems calculated. This man looks like a killer.
After a few minutes of awkwardly sitting near this man, trying to look un-weak a middle aged father with his socially awkward kids come walking in. The father looks like a typical nerd. He has an awkward mustache reminiscent of Tom Sellick during the 80's and wears the matching short shorts with a Hawaiin print shirt and big square reading glasses. You can't fault him for this look, no one apparently told him the 80's ended over 20 years ago. But either way you can tell that he is a good provider for his family and well meaning, just completely disconnected from that fact that it is 2011 and that much upper leg being shown on a man in a Hawaiin print shirt is no longer in vogue. The boys 16 or 17 with curly red hair and curly brown hair walk in trailing dad awkwardly through the nearly empty store. Halfway through dad tells them to wait there and they both comply. As the dad walks up the counter, striding forward in all his Magnum PI glory his sons stand awkwardly in the very spot he told them to stand. They are unsure of where to place there hands. In the pockets or out of their pockets, at their side or behind their back. One of the boys points to a cup and mumbles something to the brown haired one who looks at the cup but doesn't move his head so as not to be noticed. There are over 20 chairs available but they sit in none of them because their dad did not tell them they could.
The man just sits, his gaze unchanged as if the annoyingly unmanly youth stand directly in front of him don't exist. I'm not even a biker and I felt compelled to somehow harm them just because it looked so easy. But the biker just looked annoyed, he lives in a world of people whom he rather slap around than speak to. But, there were just too many of us who deserved to have our asses kicked so instead of kicking all of our asses he just slowly stood up and went outside to smoke. He lit the cigarette and set his elbow on the table. He took one slow draw on the cigarette, his hand barely moving at all as it came towards his mouth. The smoke slowly billowed out of his mouth moving as slow and calculated as the man himself.
As I sat and watched him from my leather seat in the corner of Starbucks Pandora played a Ray Lamontagne's song "Lesson Learned" that was reminiscent of an old tragically romantic western song. I envisioned this biker as a young man, happy but tough, losing a love, and becoming the hardened man that sat before me today. I wondered what it would be like to be this old, weathered and angry man who sat before me today. What happened to him that made him who he was today. After he finished his cigarette he came back inside to finish his coffee. He sat near me and I contemplated starting a conversation with him. Just to see what would happen. After a few moments, I gained the necessary courage and asked him if he rode his bike in this kind of weather often. The question was awful but I didn't know where to start. He sat motionless for a good 10 seconds that felt like an eternity then his eyes slowly looked in my direction while his head remained motionless. When his eyes acknowledged my question I realized I should not have spoken. His glance confirmed he would kill me if I spoke again and so I remained silent as he slowly stood and sauntered out the front door to his Harley.
Lesson Learned
After a few minutes of awkwardly sitting near this man, trying to look un-weak a middle aged father with his socially awkward kids come walking in. The father looks like a typical nerd. He has an awkward mustache reminiscent of Tom Sellick during the 80's and wears the matching short shorts with a Hawaiin print shirt and big square reading glasses. You can't fault him for this look, no one apparently told him the 80's ended over 20 years ago. But either way you can tell that he is a good provider for his family and well meaning, just completely disconnected from that fact that it is 2011 and that much upper leg being shown on a man in a Hawaiin print shirt is no longer in vogue. The boys 16 or 17 with curly red hair and curly brown hair walk in trailing dad awkwardly through the nearly empty store. Halfway through dad tells them to wait there and they both comply. As the dad walks up the counter, striding forward in all his Magnum PI glory his sons stand awkwardly in the very spot he told them to stand. They are unsure of where to place there hands. In the pockets or out of their pockets, at their side or behind their back. One of the boys points to a cup and mumbles something to the brown haired one who looks at the cup but doesn't move his head so as not to be noticed. There are over 20 chairs available but they sit in none of them because their dad did not tell them they could.
The man just sits, his gaze unchanged as if the annoyingly unmanly youth stand directly in front of him don't exist. I'm not even a biker and I felt compelled to somehow harm them just because it looked so easy. But the biker just looked annoyed, he lives in a world of people whom he rather slap around than speak to. But, there were just too many of us who deserved to have our asses kicked so instead of kicking all of our asses he just slowly stood up and went outside to smoke. He lit the cigarette and set his elbow on the table. He took one slow draw on the cigarette, his hand barely moving at all as it came towards his mouth. The smoke slowly billowed out of his mouth moving as slow and calculated as the man himself.
As I sat and watched him from my leather seat in the corner of Starbucks Pandora played a Ray Lamontagne's song "Lesson Learned" that was reminiscent of an old tragically romantic western song. I envisioned this biker as a young man, happy but tough, losing a love, and becoming the hardened man that sat before me today. I wondered what it would be like to be this old, weathered and angry man who sat before me today. What happened to him that made him who he was today. After he finished his cigarette he came back inside to finish his coffee. He sat near me and I contemplated starting a conversation with him. Just to see what would happen. After a few moments, I gained the necessary courage and asked him if he rode his bike in this kind of weather often. The question was awful but I didn't know where to start. He sat motionless for a good 10 seconds that felt like an eternity then his eyes slowly looked in my direction while his head remained motionless. When his eyes acknowledged my question I realized I should not have spoken. His glance confirmed he would kill me if I spoke again and so I remained silent as he slowly stood and sauntered out the front door to his Harley.
Lesson Learned
Friday, March 18, 2011
Overcoming Fear
Recently I realized that Fear was playing a major role in my life. I found myself not being able to sleep, waking up at night feeling desperate and stressed out.
Have you ever felt this way?
I don't like to admit it, but, fear makes me feel weak. And who wants to feel weak? Not me, that's for sure! Yet, many times I feel trapped by fear, and therefore trapped by feelings of failure and weakness. When I feel this way, I find myself wanting to retreat away from others towards some familiar place where there is no risk.
But where there is no risk, there is also little gain. And so not risking is not an option because more than I fear weakness, I fear not risking.
Have you ever felt this way?
I don't like to admit it, but, fear makes me feel weak. And who wants to feel weak? Not me, that's for sure! Yet, many times I feel trapped by fear, and therefore trapped by feelings of failure and weakness. When I feel this way, I find myself wanting to retreat away from others towards some familiar place where there is no risk.
But where there is no risk, there is also little gain. And so not risking is not an option because more than I fear weakness, I fear not risking.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
His Name is Will
Today I found myself at Starbucks to take some time to study and pray. I sat in the corner listening to Pandora and enjoying my morning coffee. The cold gray wind whipped through the door as I sat in the corner leather chair, my feet were cold.
A man walked in, he had kind, sad eyes and asked if he could sit in the leather chair next to me. He did not make eye contact with me, and he asked for nothing. I noticed that his hands were shaking and his pants were filthy. I realized, this man is homeless. He is just trying to warm up. So I took out my headphones and asked him his name and if I could buy him a cup of coffee. He looked surprised but said yes. I walked away from all my stuff and purposefully did not look back to see if he was going to run away with my computer and everything in my backpack.
His name is Will and he thanked me. We talked for a few minutes about his life and why he chooses to stay homeless. I was curious, so I think I was asking questions with sincerity, not judgement, and he answered the questions openly. I think he knew I just wanted him to feel warm so he opened up more and told me why he chose not to stay at the mission, even though he was sleeping out in the elements, it snowed all day yesterday.
I had been sitting there for a while and needed to use the restroom. Will had left to go back outside to try and get some money by holding a sign. "Can you help? God Bless" is what his sign read. As I was about to get up, Will came back in. He smiled at me and sat back down in the leather chair. I had placed a gift card in my journal to hold my place and set my journal on my Bible. Again, I left all of my things next to the chair trusting that my things would be safe.
As I came back out from the restroom everything seemed to be in place. Will sat quietly, staring out the window and my journal and Bible sat quietly as well awaiting my return. As I opened my journal I noticed that my gift card was gone. Will stood up and walked out the door. My heart began to sink. I chose to trust this man who had nothing, thinking that because I had shown him kindness, he would not take anything of mine. Slowly I began to check my pockets. Each pocket empty. Will came back in and sat down. In my mind, I began to prepare to ask him if I could have my card back. It is not that I needed the card. It bothered me more that he would take something from me after I had been kind to him.
Will sat there cold and shivering. I looked at him, a small smile of resignation to the cold came onto his face. I leaned forward, as a matter of principle to confront, Will. As I leaned forward, I placed my left hand under my left thigh. I felt the card beneath my leg as I was about to speak.
I think Will just wanted to stay warm. He had done nothing to me. I had convicted him in my heart. Will sat there cold and shivering. I gave him the card, it didn't mean anything to me anymore.
A man walked in, he had kind, sad eyes and asked if he could sit in the leather chair next to me. He did not make eye contact with me, and he asked for nothing. I noticed that his hands were shaking and his pants were filthy. I realized, this man is homeless. He is just trying to warm up. So I took out my headphones and asked him his name and if I could buy him a cup of coffee. He looked surprised but said yes. I walked away from all my stuff and purposefully did not look back to see if he was going to run away with my computer and everything in my backpack.
His name is Will and he thanked me. We talked for a few minutes about his life and why he chooses to stay homeless. I was curious, so I think I was asking questions with sincerity, not judgement, and he answered the questions openly. I think he knew I just wanted him to feel warm so he opened up more and told me why he chose not to stay at the mission, even though he was sleeping out in the elements, it snowed all day yesterday.
I had been sitting there for a while and needed to use the restroom. Will had left to go back outside to try and get some money by holding a sign. "Can you help? God Bless" is what his sign read. As I was about to get up, Will came back in. He smiled at me and sat back down in the leather chair. I had placed a gift card in my journal to hold my place and set my journal on my Bible. Again, I left all of my things next to the chair trusting that my things would be safe.
As I came back out from the restroom everything seemed to be in place. Will sat quietly, staring out the window and my journal and Bible sat quietly as well awaiting my return. As I opened my journal I noticed that my gift card was gone. Will stood up and walked out the door. My heart began to sink. I chose to trust this man who had nothing, thinking that because I had shown him kindness, he would not take anything of mine. Slowly I began to check my pockets. Each pocket empty. Will came back in and sat down. In my mind, I began to prepare to ask him if I could have my card back. It is not that I needed the card. It bothered me more that he would take something from me after I had been kind to him.
Will sat there cold and shivering. I looked at him, a small smile of resignation to the cold came onto his face. I leaned forward, as a matter of principle to confront, Will. As I leaned forward, I placed my left hand under my left thigh. I felt the card beneath my leg as I was about to speak.
I think Will just wanted to stay warm. He had done nothing to me. I had convicted him in my heart. Will sat there cold and shivering. I gave him the card, it didn't mean anything to me anymore.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Pushing Past the Wall
If you met me in the 90's it would have been easy to describe me. Most people would have said, "Aaron plays basketball". Yes, there were other ways people described me as well, but, most people knew me in the context of being in the gym or going to the gym. This was my life as well as the life of all of my closest friends. Basketball is what shaped me, pushed me, and showed me that I could overcome what seemed impossible.
Recently while talking with a friend over coffee I began to see this time of my life in a new light. It was during this time of my life that much of how you would describe Aaron was being shaped. It was during this time of my life that I learned what it meant to push through "the wall". In the context of sports, athletes understand what it means to push through the wall. The wall is the barrier. It is that part of your subconscious that is shouting at your body that you cannot take another step, if you do you will probably die. You can't make it up that hill, you cannot run another wind sprint, you can't handle this.
While thinking about this I remembered what my coach used to say to us while we were thinking we were going to die. Calmly, Coach would as we ran by say, "your not going to die, just breathe." Those words reverberated in our heads as we would pass by. It became a mantra as we would run up and down stairs, back and forth across the court, and as we would leave everything on the floor night after night, game after game. We broke down the wall each time we stepped onto the floor. We pushed ourselves as hard as we could every practice, and with each time we pushed ourselves the wall became smaller and smaller. What seemed impossible the day before became possible today.
The wall was not physical, the wall lived in our minds. The wall wanted to stop us from achieving what we were capable of, and destined for. Blinding us with the desire to quit or walk away because the work was too hard or made us feel too uncomfortable. But, it was through the hard work of not giving up, of continuing to show up for the battle, the run, the game, that the wall became the teacher. I read a quote recently by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Priest, that stated,
"when the student is ready, the teacher will arrive."
The question is weather or not we are aware of the teacher and which form the teacher has taken to teach us what we need to know. Pain was our teacher, and as Rhor so beautifully put it,
" we dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us."
In our fear of the pain we place the blame for our hurt on others (coach/parents/spouses ect.), and miss out on what it is teaching us and the opportunity it is giving us to learn something about life on a deep level.
This reminds me of what the Apostle Paul said in Hebrews 12:1,
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us."
During this season of life I remember Coach pointing out that in our school (kindergarten-12th grade) everyone was watching what we were doing. Everyone was seeing us hit the wall, and how we would chose to deal with that moment of pain. Would we give up and stand there in frustration or run back and make up for it on defense? Would we make the extra pass or keep the ball in our hands so that we could be the hero. Would we give our best effort every moment we were on the floor or would we crumble and give up in the heat of the moment, relegating ourselves to failure?
A friend pointed out recently that watching a person compete on the athletic field gives great insight and exposes what is happening in your heart. During a game or a practice I never wanted to be seen as a person who was going to give up or throw in the towel. This made sense to me on the court, I had a sense of pride about pushing into the pain even more whenever I felt like giving up. When you see someone do that in a game it makes sense. Some of my favorite memories of playing were when I wanted to give up, when it hurt to bad and I would ask for a sub and Coach would look me in the eyes and tell me no, keep playing. To this day this scenario is by far what gives me the most joy to see in a game. An individual pushing through the mental wall, hoping for the easy way out, for someone else to take their place, but in that moment, in a physical expression of what is happening inside having to push through.
Recently while talking with a friend over coffee I began to see this time of my life in a new light. It was during this time of my life that much of how you would describe Aaron was being shaped. It was during this time of my life that I learned what it meant to push through "the wall". In the context of sports, athletes understand what it means to push through the wall. The wall is the barrier. It is that part of your subconscious that is shouting at your body that you cannot take another step, if you do you will probably die. You can't make it up that hill, you cannot run another wind sprint, you can't handle this.
While thinking about this I remembered what my coach used to say to us while we were thinking we were going to die. Calmly, Coach would as we ran by say, "your not going to die, just breathe." Those words reverberated in our heads as we would pass by. It became a mantra as we would run up and down stairs, back and forth across the court, and as we would leave everything on the floor night after night, game after game. We broke down the wall each time we stepped onto the floor. We pushed ourselves as hard as we could every practice, and with each time we pushed ourselves the wall became smaller and smaller. What seemed impossible the day before became possible today.
The wall was not physical, the wall lived in our minds. The wall wanted to stop us from achieving what we were capable of, and destined for. Blinding us with the desire to quit or walk away because the work was too hard or made us feel too uncomfortable. But, it was through the hard work of not giving up, of continuing to show up for the battle, the run, the game, that the wall became the teacher. I read a quote recently by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Priest, that stated,
"when the student is ready, the teacher will arrive."
The question is weather or not we are aware of the teacher and which form the teacher has taken to teach us what we need to know. Pain was our teacher, and as Rhor so beautifully put it,
" we dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us."
In our fear of the pain we place the blame for our hurt on others (coach/parents/spouses ect.), and miss out on what it is teaching us and the opportunity it is giving us to learn something about life on a deep level.
This reminds me of what the Apostle Paul said in Hebrews 12:1,
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us."
During this season of life I remember Coach pointing out that in our school (kindergarten-12th grade) everyone was watching what we were doing. Everyone was seeing us hit the wall, and how we would chose to deal with that moment of pain. Would we give up and stand there in frustration or run back and make up for it on defense? Would we make the extra pass or keep the ball in our hands so that we could be the hero. Would we give our best effort every moment we were on the floor or would we crumble and give up in the heat of the moment, relegating ourselves to failure?
A friend pointed out recently that watching a person compete on the athletic field gives great insight and exposes what is happening in your heart. During a game or a practice I never wanted to be seen as a person who was going to give up or throw in the towel. This made sense to me on the court, I had a sense of pride about pushing into the pain even more whenever I felt like giving up. When you see someone do that in a game it makes sense. Some of my favorite memories of playing were when I wanted to give up, when it hurt to bad and I would ask for a sub and Coach would look me in the eyes and tell me no, keep playing. To this day this scenario is by far what gives me the most joy to see in a game. An individual pushing through the mental wall, hoping for the easy way out, for someone else to take their place, but in that moment, in a physical expression of what is happening inside having to push through.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
RAW - Real / Authentic / With God
Life is meant to be lived in community and we need to get RAW. I was laughing tonight at the stirring as Nate said to the 6 pm gathering that we need to get RAW in our life groups. I am such a teacher I immediately begin to think of alliterations for the word RAW and here is my best shot:
R- real
A- authentic
W- with God
Totally true Nate...let's get RAW this week in our life groups and in our secret life with Jesus.
R- real
A- authentic
W- with God
Totally true Nate...let's get RAW this week in our life groups and in our secret life with Jesus.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Noah and the Coyotes
This is a recent interview with Noah about his Coyote friends. This has been an unfolding drama over the past few weeks which has garnered much attention in our home as the Coyotes have been calling to Noah and as he has been dealing with the challenges of facing the "call of the wild" on his young life. Recently before this interview we had a few cats in heat taking advantage of the eaves of our house under our bedroom window during a rainstorm. Needless to say it was loud and woke up the boys in the middle of the night. Noah and Toby came into our room and Noah stood up in our bed and said, "my coyotes are calling for me." We didn't get into any details about what the "coyotes" were actually doing at that moment (he may be a little too young at this point) but you catch the drift.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)