Obsessions

I'm reading a book by Jon Krakauer, who mainly writes about mountain climbing adventures. At one point Krakauer ruminates about why people come to be obsessed with activities like climbing mountains. He writes:

"Obsession is a funny thing. One can only speculate what quirks of chromosomal architecture cause some people to go overboard on Rotisserie League baseball, while others become Shriners or dedicate their lives to growing the perfect tomato; who's to say why Rick Fisher [a famous mountain climber] has wrapped his life so tightly around the canyons of the desert Southwest?"

Recently I've been wondering along those same lines. With the arrival of Spring it seems everyone is getting outside and becoming active in an endless array of activities: biking, hiking, fishing, camping, tennis, golf, gardening - the list goes on and on. What makes a person pick up one activity or hobby instead of another? What makes one person insanely preoccupied with tying fly-fishing flies while another spends every spare moment rebuilding cars and driving them hundreds of miles each weekend to car shows?

Like Krakauer, I don't have the answer why we pick the obesssions we do. I suspect there are probably many diverse reasons - Freudian and otherwise - why we take up certain obsessions. I do know this though - find yours - discover what it is that gets your blood pumping and makes your mind clear and focused, and you are blessed. You will never be bored again; you'll always have something interesting to do, or think about, or to spend your hard-earned cash on. Something to think about...eh?

Fifty-Four

Today is my 54^th birthday. I could not possibly be that old. I certainly don’t feel over half a century old. This morning as I am writing this it is snowing to beat the band outside. That’s pretty hard to believe too. Perhaps the unusual weather we are having is God’s way of reminding me that all sorts of strange things happen in the Springtime, as do the ones we should expect this time of year: we grow older, dead things fall away, and new life springs into being.

I woke up feeling grateful this morning. Grateful for the amazing family I have. Grateful for my friends, for my health, and grateful to live when and where I do (21^st century Georgia, USA). Since I am currently unemployed and somewhat at loose ends, I would expect to find myself worried, anxious, or depressed as another birthday arrives, but I am not. That is a testament to God’s presence and his healing grace in my life.

I could go on, and get all mushy – I have plenty of reasons to do so, but I think instead I’ll just let this poem by Emily Matthews say it for me instead.

Your Birthday Is A Day Of Promise by Emily Matthews

This is a day of promise -
0f hopefulness, laughter, and cheer,
for this is a day of remembering
the good things that happened all year -
A day for reflecting on memories
shared with friends and with family, too,
who were so much a part
of the joys in your heart
and the love that you feel
all year through.

This is a day of promise
of the beauty and warmth life can hold,
and of new dreams to dream
and more love to share
through a year that's about to unfold.

Looking Back

In my “spare” time (which I have plenty of these days), I have been going through my old calendars and journals looking back at what all I was involved with or accomplished, pretty much all the way back to my college days (back before electricity). One thing I have discovered is that I spent an enormous amount of time and energy the last 30 years on people and/or projects that never came to fruition. This includes wasted hours and meetings with what appeared to be promising sales contacts that I never sold anything to during my “business” days. It also includes people who were in the churches I served who were high maintenance consumers, that is they constantly needed attention and stroking, but they never contributed anything to the church (and I don't mean financially). It also includes people I prayed for and taught, hoping they’d come to know Jesus, who never crossed over the line of faith or church membership, which, by the way, I recognize as two distinct things.

Obviously your calendar should reflect your priorities, both looking ahead and looking back. As your most precious commodity, time should be spent wisely and with greatest effect. If it has been, you should be able to look back and feel proud of how you allocated your days. You should feel like your time was well spent. Unfortunately, when I look back I find far too many instances where my time and effort was misspent. Too many meetings proved barren. There were strategy and visioning sessions that consumed days and even weeks which ultimately did not pan out, or worse, which backfired. Meetings for meals or visits in people's homes which seemed to accomplish nothing. What was I thinking?

The problem, of course, is that when you are in the midst of these, it is difficult, if not impossible, to know which ones will prove fruitful. If you knew, then you would spend your time and energy there. Surely we wouldn't knowingly waste our resources, would we?

Obviously no one bats .1000. We must accept the fact that plenty of our time and energy may lead to nothing. Rather than beating yourself up about this, concentrate instead on being more discerning – learn what to put on the back-burner, and what needs to go right there on front. I believe that many of the decisions we make about which people and activities will receive the lion’s share of our attention are often made without really thinking them through. We must learn the power of that simple word “no.” We must not worry so much about disappointing others. Otherwise you’ll end up like one of those plate-spinners that used to be on the Ed Sullivan show (familiar to my older readers) and you’ll be going 100 miles per hour and getting nowhere. Look back and learn; I did.

Going Back Home

Thomas Wolfe got it all wrong. You can go home again. Donna and I did this weekend by attending worship at the church where I recently stepped down as pastor. We went because some missionary friends of ours were in town speaking about their work in Ghana, and we were their hosts for the weekend. We were blessed by what the missionaries had to say, but we were also blessed to see some familiar faces and by the great worship experience we had there. I was anxious about returning, and both Donna and I felt very emotional, but it was worth it to be back home again.

God has us on such an interesting journey right now. I keep asking to see the whole picture, but every indication is that God is going to guide us in his own time and in his own way. I have the tendency to be "destination" or "goal" oriented. I think in terms of arriving somewhere like, "When I graduate" or "When I get married" or "When we have children" or "When I retire." But the truth is, life doesn't work that way. In fact, that is a terrible way to live because you constantly put life on hold and you miss out on all the great things God is putting in front of you each and every day. All the times and places I see as destinations in life are merely stops along the way. They aren't the "end-all-be-all." Each of us is constantly moving, never arriving. You never get "there," no matter how hard you try.

The answer, obviously, is to simply enjoy the journey; to delight in the process; to trust the transformative work of the Spirit in our lives. on. For me at least, this is terribly difficult; even so, I journey on. Sometimes I even backtrack and head back home.I suspect I am not alone in this.

Lord, in your mercy help us all to enjoy the journey, detours and all. Help us to stay out of your way as you mold us and make us into your image. Help us to have eyes to see and ears to listen to you as your fulfill your purpose through us and our lives. Help us to stay the course we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Anxiety

Are you feeling anxious? Do you know someone who is? Webster’s dictionary defines anxiousness as: “Extreme uneasiness of mind or brooding fear about some contingency: worry about something future or unknown; painful suspense.”

If you are Christian, you probably already know the Bible tells us in several places that we are not to be anxious about anything (for example, Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount). And yet, avoiding anxiety is easier said than done; especially these days. What can we do about our anxiety? I don’t believe we can learn to not be anxious or worry; these come too naturally to us. The only way to overcome anxiety (a negative force) is to trust God more (a positive force).

But how do you do that? Here are a few biblical ways to deal with anxiety:

1. Pray – talk to God about whatever is making you anxious. In Philippians 4:6-7 Paul tells us to not worry about anything, but instead to “make your requests known to God” and then the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. In other words, pray about it.

2. Surrender – In First Peter 5:7, the apostle tells us to “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Some people find it helpful to consciously do this by some physical act such as touching the doorframe, or wiping their feet as they enter their home, leaving the worries they have encountered that day outside the home.

3. Simplify – In Luke 12:33 Jesus says we should store up treasure in heaven rather than on earth. Part of what makes us so anxious, at least here in America anyway, is all the stuff – all the “earthly treasures” that we are worried about either maintaining, or losing, or never receiving in the first place. Live simply and you’ll stress less, it’s as simple as that.

4. Trust God to take care of you – At its core, anxiety is about a lack of trust in God. Worry is our reaction to the enemy whispering “Are you sure God will take care of you? Are you sure he even can take care of you, or that he wants to?” Believe me friend, God is trustworthy; God can be trusted. Read Matthew 6:24-34. There Jesus tells us to look around and notice all the ways God provides for every living thing. God feeds the birds of the air and clothes the plants in the fields. Birds and plants don’t toil, or spin, or worry, and yet God takes care of them. Jesus’ point is that if relatively insignificant (compared to us) things like plants and birds are worthy of God’s care, how much more will God take care of us? You can trust God. God is in control. Nothing ever surprises God and nothing slips past Him. He won’t fall asleep or leave his post. God, and only God, can be counted on no matter what may come your way.

Still Scanning!

I'm still scanning in old family photos. I got my own scanner today (an early birthday gift, thanks to my parents and in-laws) so I can scan now at home. The scanner, an HP Scanjet G3110 has an adapter that lets you scan 35mm slides and photo negatives.

When I was growing up my parents had two cameras. One was a cheapo camera for snapshots and the other one was a very nice 35mm that my dad bought in Korea on one of his tours over there. My folks used the "good camera," and took slides rather than regular photos when they really wanted to take important pictures. I'm just starting to scan those slides now. It should be fun.

The photo above was taken in the winter of 1966 at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha Nebraska. I was ten years old. In the wintertime they would take down the nets and flood the tennis courts on the base. If you had skates you could skate to your heart's content. That's my older (much older!) sister skating with me. We used to do ice-dancing stuff, spins, little jumps, it was great. By the way, if you click on the photo you can see it better.

Transitions

Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes by William Bridges is about managing and understanding the transitions we all face in life. Whether you are switching jobs, moving, retiring, divorcing, or becoming an empty nester, Bridges' lucid guide will help you navigate the troubled waters of change.

Bridges wants to debunk the myth that once you reach adulthood at, say 25, you just can just live life on cruise control to age 65 and retirement. Instead, the author demonstrates that we continue to develop as adults and that life consists of incremental instances of beginnings and endings. How you steer through those transitions matters a great deal. Bridges writes,

The difficult process of letting go of an old situation, suffering the confusing nowhere of "in-betweenness," and launching forth again in a new direction is the subject of this book. The aim is to provide the tools for identifying a personal development chronology.

The author makes the case that there are three distinct phases of transition we encounter:

1) An ending, followed by

2) a "neutral zone," a period of confusion and distress, leading to

3) a new beginning.

Before making the shift to the field of transitional management Bridges was a professor of English. This allows him to cleverly use literary characters and symbolism to highlight some of the subtleties of transitioning. Bridges offers an interpretation of the stories of Odysseus in The Odyssey and Oedipus in Oedipus Rex and demonstrates how at certain times in life we discover we have crossed some mysterious line and that everything that once worked so well for us now works against us. It turns out that one of the most important aspects of transitioning is to "unlearn" many things that got us where we are to begin with. Odysseus' story, for instance, demonstrates that through his suffering and attrition, he learns a kind of courage that is different from the cunning and aggressiveness that served him so well on the battlefield. Bridges continues:

There comes a time when the self-image and personal style we have selected in life hinders growth and we must go through the long, slow process of growing beyond them. Much of this growth looks like loss, just as much of the earlier growth looks like gain. But that is no more true than the sense that spring is a season of gain and fall a season of loss. In fact, each is essential to the full cycle, and the cycle is the only context in which the specific changes along the way have any meaning.

This book was a timely read for me, and I believe it would be beneficial for anyone facing transitions in their life. Reading it gave me handles to grasp the mysterious and exhausting time I am currently in the midst of.

What Are You Going To Do?

"What are you going to do now?" That's a question I hear more and more these days - from practically everyone I know. Isn't it amazing how we let our jobs define us? If you meet someone, the first thing you want to know, after learning their name, is what they "do."

In my case, the answer to either of those questions: "What are you going to do now?" or "What do you do?" is most often a sheepish, "I really don't know." Usually that response is met with another question, "Well, are you still going to be a pastor?" The answer to that one is no, I don't think so. I no longer intend to be a pastor who preaches sermons every Sunday to a congregation that calls me their pastor. The Lord has put me on a different path now. In the sense that people mean the noun "pastor" when they say it, I am no longer such a person. I don't plan to regularly preach sermons or go to committee meetings, or lead a staff who in turn run a bunch of programs. Honestly, I'm not sure what my new "do" is, or is going to be, in the Kingdom of God. All I know for now is I am still listening and waiting to see what God wants me to do next. Whether that is something I have done before, or something totally new and different, again, I just don't know.

I would ask the few of you who read this blog to keep me in your prayers that God would do whatever it is in me He needs to do to prepare my heart, soul, body and mind for whatever He has in store for me next.

Until then - "What do I do?" Well that's a long story...

Christianity Rediscovered

I just finished a wonderful book called Rediscovering Christianity by Vincent J. Donovan. Donovan is a Roman Catholic priest and missionary who spent 17 years evangelizing the Masai of Tanzania. Upon his arrival in East Africa in 1966 Fr. Donovan wrote a letter to his Bishop stating that he planned to go and speak to the Masai about Christ and Christ alone. He would offer no gifts, build no churches or schools, offer no sweets for the children, tobacco for the men, beads for the women, or medicine for the sick. He would go to them for the sole purpose of talking about God. He decided to go to each section of his territory once a week to speak with the people, knowing it would take a year or more to effectively cover what he needed to cover. After that it was up to the Masai to reject this message or to accept it.

In doing what Donovan came to call "First Evangelization" he realized the first thing he had to do was discover what the essential message of Christianity really is. He began to realize that many things we in the West consider "essential," such as church buildings, certain sacraments and rituals, even the priesthood, are actually cultural accretions; baggage we've added to the gospel. In the midst of his pondering and praying about this he asks, "I wonder if you ever reach that point in your life or in your work where you are certain you will never have to start all over again?"

What emerges as Donovan "rediscovers Christianity" is encouraging to anyone who has ever wished to evangelize, or even wondered about faith itself. It is also very incriminating to anyone who has never questioned their methods or motives. He writes:

It is only in the imparting of an outward-turned Christianity that we have any hope of achieving Christianity. An inward turned Christianity is a dangerous counterfeit, an alluring masquerade. it is no Christianity at all. The salvation of one's soul, or self-sanctification, or self-perfection, or self-fulfillment may well be the goal of Buddhism or Greek philosophy or modern psychology. But it is not the goal of Christianity. For someone to embrace Christianity for the purpose of self-fulfillment or self-salvation is, I think, to betray or to misunderstand Christianity at its deepest level. Christianity must be a force that moves outward, and a Christian community that is basically in existence "for others." That is the whole meaning of Christian community. A Christian community which spends all its resources on a building campaign for its own needs has long ago left Christianity high and dry on the banks. Or all its resources on an education program or youth program for that matter. (Pg. 104)

Later, discussing community, Donovan offers this:

The strange, changing, mobile, temporary, disappearing communities of America can leave one without any experience of what community is. The different groupings there are in America do have one common denominator - competition within the group. An individual's worth within any group is pretty much determined by his or her achievements, talents, skill, or beauty. And even if one is talented it can sometimes be very difficult to be recognized because of the fierceness of competition present. The endowments and talents that are present are often envisaged not as contributions to a community but as additions to one's personal stature. Such are the bitter-sweet fruits of intense individualism. (Pg. 141-142)

In the latter quote, Donovan goes on to say that the indigenous system of community he found in Masai communities did not prohibit striving for excellence, but did preclude competitive striving for individual aggrandizement at the expense of the community. This discussion comes in the midst of the author's denouncement of two obsessions in the Western Church: Individualism and organization, which he feels leaves little room for the Spirit to do His work.

Rediscovering Christianity made me want to get out there on the playing field again with a whole new objective and focus. I am grateful for Fr. Donovan's book. It is filled with great stories, African proverbs, and lessons about authentic Christianity and biblical missiology. I was sorry to put the book down when I was finished reading it.

On The Journey

I've been feeling low-grade guilt the past few days for not blogging. Quite frankly I haven't blogged because I haven't had much to say. Odd, for me, but true.

A lot has been going on though. We helped Leigh and John move to a new apartment in Brookhaven. We are transforming Leigh's old bedroom at our house to a home office (that's where I'm writing this from now). And I continue to sort through and scan old photos. I'm also working on a chronology of my family. Thanks to my genealogically inclined mother and sister, I can trace ancestors on one side back to the 1700 's.

There is no change on the job front - actually I am not even really looking right now. Instead I'm still sorting things out. As I do, an old James Taylor song called "Enough To Be On Your Way" keeps echoing through my mind...

Oh...it's enough to be on your way,
it's enough just to cover ground,
it's enough to be moving on.
Home, build it behind your eyes,
carry it in your heart,
safe among your own.

It's good to be on the journey....