A Great Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year; lots of food, family, and fun. Most important of all, lots of love and lots of Jesus – I think I had the most spiritual Christmas I've had in years. Thank you Lord.

Here are a few of our photos…

http://picasaweb.google.com/doctorstevej/Christmas2010#

The Lonely Pine

In the small stand of trees
on the north side of my house
stands a lonely pine.

I just noticed it today.
I wouldn’t have noticed it
at all if the leaves had still been
on the hardwoods that surround it
and if the sun had not been shining
on it just the right way.

But there it was, shivering with all
the other trees in the frigid morning air.

The lonely pine is a symbol. It stands for
all those who, though standing in the
midst of a crowd feel overlooked or invisible.

We’ve all felt that way before: When you
want to be seen, known and loved.
Whether you're surrounded
by others, or all by yourself, these times
can lead to sadness and despair.

Even the name the tree bears, the “lonely pine”
is symbolic. The tree is lonely because
even though it is surrounded on all sides
it feels alone and forsaken. Pine
because that’s mostly what it does;
it pines to be understood – to understand
– to love and to be loved – to find its place
in a forest of other pines.

It pines for what is not
instead of what is.

I have felt like the lonely pine before. Have you?
I felt that way in Africa; a tiny speck of
white in a sea of black faces. Truth is, I feel
that way right now; lost, adrift, searching
and alone.

In Psalm 102:7 David compared himself
to a lonely sparrow. One that had lost its
mate or its young, or for some other reason
has become miserable, and now the poor bird
sits and pines away on a rooftop.

Lord why can’t the lonely pine simply be?
And why, Lord, is the lonely pine like me? 

Ode to a Number

Donna and I moved to Cumming on the fourth of July weekend, 1981. We bought a foreclosed house and an old high school buddy of mine, Mike Elder, helped us move north using a U-Haul truck.  One of the first things we did when we moved was arrange for telephone service from what was then known as Southern Bell. The phone number we were assigned was 887-0510.

That phone number served our family well, through seven different moves in Forsyth County, the birth of two children, and multiple career changes. Our daughters used that number for all the calling teenage girls will do; at least until they used the number so much we had to get them their own phone lines for a while. I got the call that I had been appointed to plant what would become Creekside UMC on that phone line. I made the calls that led to the start of NewSong on that phone line. I got numerous calls in the middle of the night to “come right away” to hospitals or funeral homes on that line as well.  

Many of the vendors we use as a family identify us by that phone number. I have out-of-state relatives that have that number memorized we’ve had it so long. Honestly, 887-0510 has been a pretty big part of our lives for a long, long time now.

But the number also represented about $60 a month that we don’t need to spend any more, what with cell phones, texting, email, Facebook, Twitter, etc…. And so yesterday I called the company now known as AT&T and I cancelled our service. The man I spoke to there said, “When would you like to discontinue your service?” I replied, “Any time is fine.” He gave me the “disconnect service” confirmation number and we hung up.

Less than five minutes later I picked up the phone…just to see, and there was absolute silence. The line was completely dead. Something, I’m not sure exactly what, but something made me very sad about the silence on the line. It was as if one more chapter of our lives – chapters which now seem to fly by at the speed of light – had ended. I'm pretty sure it wouldn’t have helped if Ma Bell had left the line on a few more hours, but there was something about the suddenness and the finality of the passing of 887-0510 into oblivion that made me feel gloomy and old.

So here’s to you 887-0510. You weren’t as famous or irrational as pi (3.14159), you weren’t as sinister as 666, or as lonely as the number 1 (one is the loneliest number); but you served us well. Rest in peace old friend, and may your next owner/user enjoy you as much as we did.

Levels of Good

Something has been rumbling around in my head lately; namely how there are so many levels of good. What I mean by that is with almost anything you can imagine: musicians, tennis players, writers, speakers, basically anything you “do” there are seemingly endless levels of ability or competency.

Take tennis for example. You can have a guy who is decent who can beat all his neighbors, but if he goes down to the local tennis center he’s a putz compared to the guys down there. Then take the best they have to offer, say the local “pro” who can beat anyone at the club, and send him to a tournament somewhere and he loses out in the first round. Take the winner of that tournament and send him to another tournament and he may not even qualify. See what I mean? Endless levels of “good.”

Or how about football? One team seems amazing; they make it to the finals of the playoffs beating great teams all along the way and they get whipped 35-0. They are supposed to be good. They are good, but there are endless levels of good.

The same thing holds for musicians. One guy knows all the chords and seems to be pretty good; then he meets another guy who plays a million times better, and that guy is put to shame by another guy who is in a “real band.”

What’s the answer to this? Is it that we shouldn’t worry about who is best? Should we just enjoy our level of competency (or our team’s level), whatever that is, and not worry about everybody else?  Or should we constantly strive to be better, always hoping we’ll someday be the best of the best? Or are categories like “better” and “best” not helpful to us, or even real?

The Bible answers a lot of these questions. It encourages us to always do our best, to do everything as “unto the Lord.” The Bible also teaches against envy and covetousness and against comparing ourselves against others.

Actually I wasn’t even looking for an answer. I was just making an observation. It certainly isn’t the greatest observation in the world (there’s always a better observation looming out there), but a plausible one nonetheless. Peace…Out.

Peaks and Valleys

I just finished reading “Peaks and Valleys: Making Good and Bad Times Work For You — At Work and In Life” by Dr. Spencer Johnson. Johnson also wrote the enormously popular “Who moved my Cheese?” a few years ago, a staple in leadership circles, so when I stumbled across “Peaks and Valleys” in the library I decided to give it a shot and ended up reading it in one sitting (it’s a short book).

The book is the story of a man who lives in a “valley” who one day faces his fears and climbs a “peak” and there meets the most peaceful and successful man in the whole world. In a series of conversations, the man on the mountain shares his “Peaks and Valleys” philosophy and the young man is never the same. There is a lot to like about this book. Although it has a kind of Stoic-Zen kind of vibe, it is also full of encouragement in these difficult days. For instance, the book teaches three important things: a) how to get out of a valley sooner, b) how to stay on a peak longer, and c) how to have more peaks and fewer valleys in the future. That’s something we could all be helped by knowing.

There are some great quotes in the book too. Things like, “Peaks and valleys are connected. The errors you make in today’s good times create tomorrow’s bad times. And the wise things you do in today’s bad times create tomorrow’s good times.” I also liked Johnson’s notion of responsibility when he says, “In truth, we actually create our own good and bad times, far more than we realize.” And finally, I loved his statement, “The secret to truly appreciate and enjoy each time for what it is while you are living it” (emphasis mine).

Like I mention above, there is the Buddhist slant, “The path out of the valley appears when you choose to see things differently.” And there is the Stoic angle, “You cannot always control external events, but you can control your personal peaks and valleys by what you believe and what you do.” You could also add a few Scriptures to what Johnson says and preach a sermon from his book (I’m sure many preachers already have). Thus, the book is worth a read, especially if you find yourself lost along the trail right now (as I currently am). Enjoy!

Peaks and Valleys: Making Good And Bad Times Work For You--At Work And In Life by Spencer Johnson. Atria Books, ©2009. ISBN 9781439103258 (hardcover), 112p. Book website: www.PeaksAndValleysTheBook.com