Summer Break

I think I'm going to take one. See you in August. ?

S.W.A.K.

My boys are sleeping at their buddy Mark’s house tonight. As I said goodbye, I leaned to kiss them and both were awkward in their responses. No – “awkward” is not the right word – more like refusing or resistant, I guess. They didn’t want to kiss their mom in front of their friends.

Ouch.

Kind of helps me understand how God feels when I fail to acknowledge/love Him.

Towering

So, while in Toronto, we went with my cousin Wayne and we took the kids to the CN Tower. If you’ve been there, you know that it is really cool, and you are able to go 147 stories (1465 ft) up and look down. There is even a glass floor where you can stand as if you are standing on air and the rest of the world is far below.

Toronto is one of the biggest melting pots I have ever experienced. While we stood in line at the bottom of the tower, waiting for the elevator to take us up and away, I heard so many different languages, saw so many different skin colors and native dress, that I felt very global and cosmopolitan. A group of adults with Downs Syndrome were in line too, and one gentleman reached out to grab my hand across the ropes as I smiled at him. I marveled at us all there lined up, so different but somehow connected.

After we arrived at the top observation deck, I looked down at the world below and I could no longer make out all the differences in people or hear all the noises we make. When I was a kid, I imagined this to be God’s perspective – looking down on the world from far above in heaven – watchful over His Earth. I was always impressed that He knew so many languages and could pay attention to so much going on at once – a fact that also made me wonder if I ever got lost in the shuffle because He was such a great distance away.

Towering as I was last Friday, I had new insight into Jesus and His coming to Earth. God’s desire to connect, to join us at the bottom and touch, to jump in line and speak our language so we could understand His heart, must have been so great that He just went ahead and did it. Sometimes I think we only remember that He came to die, but oh, His arrival was multi-dimensional and multi-purposed. Frankly, His death was certainly important, but His LIFE – then and now – is the real story.

You and I are not lost in the shuffle. Is there distance between God and us? Yes, for sure. But His decision to descend, to break the glass floor, closed the gap forever. He is here and He is now and He hears your noise.

Time capsules

While at the Family Reunion last week, my sister passed out pieces of paper with questions and fill-in-the-blanks. At the top it read, TIME CAPSULE, and apparently our written musings will be buried and then resurrected in 10 years time. She brought a colorfully decorated oatmeal canister for this burying/storage purpose, and so after we each wrote our answers, we were instructed to roll them up and put them in.

I had a terrible time with this activity. I just could not imagine what I would want recorded and reopened in 10 years. Now some of the blanks were easier to fill – favorite books, favorite movies – but even then I knew I had so many things that I marvel at, the thought of choosing one or two was daunting.

Others were impossible. “Tell us something about your current self.” I stared blankly at my page, even attempted to copy off my Aunt Ruth’s paper, but if I had plagiarized and written, “I love to do crafts and Siamese cats” it would have been an outright lie, so I went with, “I am currently great looking, thin, well-educated and easy to get along with.” It’s important to be truthful when capsulizing.

I’ll admit my answers were lame, and after I stuffed my paper into the Quaker Oats can, I took some time to consider the future. It was more than wondering who would be at the next reunion (would there be more children? Less loved ones?) it was a deep consideration of Jesus’ words, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5).

It really isn’t okay to stay the same. If, when our time capsule is opened in 2019, we are all exactly as we were last Saturday something will be terribly wrong. Jesus is making things new, He is changing and restoring me and His world, and by definition it means I should be different in some profound ways by then. I should be even more like Him as He reconciles who I currently am with who He intends for me to be.

When I pastored the 20somethings at our church, I used to tackle this issue like this:

Sometimes I think that we have a Friday Night Self and a Sunday Morning Self. Friday Night Self is outrageous and anything goes whereas Sunday Morning Self is a pretense of self-control and loveliness with others. We resist church (or what we view as the hypocrisy of it all), and the things of God, because we view the gap between our two Selves and we think, “I could never make the huge leap from Friday to Sunday.”

But the truth is, God isn’t asking us to. Yes, there are choices and bad decisions that we make on Friday that God wants to redeem, because often those choices hurt us and others. But He’s not much interested in the Sunday pretender either. What God really longs to do is to reconcile the two Selves midway – help us make better choices AND be a terribly honest and imperfect person too. That's why He bridge the gap between Friday and Sunday - death and new life in just three days.

Maybe you do not have a Friday Self and Sunday Self, but I’d venture to guess there are parts of you that seem impossible to fix – or perhaps you simply want the comfort and security of staying the same.

Time to capsulize. Write down the truth about who you currently are (a journal, a notebook, whatever) and start to cooperate with God. Don’t bother with the oatmeal canister because change will come in far less than 10 years. God can’t wait to start working.

The Longness of Things

I have been out of town. My Dad doesn’t like me to announce when I am going away on my blog, because he is fairly certain that all of you will conspire to rob me. That would have been okay – as long as you fed the dog on your way out.

I have been in Toronto, where my family is. As a matter of fact, we attended a family reunion while there. All of us in the same place.

I have no doubt that as the week goes on, I will pick apart our family idiosyncrasies and interactions to death (don’t you wish you were related to me??) but today I want to talk about the car ride up and back.

It is long. I don’t think I realized it as much as a kid (perhaps I forget) but as I get older it bothers me more. On the way north, we drove through rainstorms and hour long delays at the border and we were very close to being in a serious accident with a gentleman who was far more interested in his cell phone conversation than driving. The trip is usually nine hours, but we arrived twelve hours later, and my rear end was making it clear that it no longer enjoyed sitting on the middle hump in the back seat between two children. When I fell into bed at 2 am, I had fairly serious questions about whether it had been worth it.

Then I saw my family, and the longness of things became even more real. I have belonged to them a long time, and even though you would be hard pressed to believe we are from the same gene pool, there is something very deep and true and long that exists between us.

I enjoy great intimacy with some of them, and some I must confess are mysteries to me, but the longness between us is there – drawing us to meet in a park by Lake Ontario on a beautiful day to eat and play badminton and admire each other’s babies. And for one day the long becomes short and we are in each other’s presence – the ties that bind us have reeled us in close.

I have no doubt my rear end will brave the trip again – not too long from now.

Preference vs. Reverence

I think one of the greatest challenges that the local church faces today is getting over herself. Maybe I shouldn’t say “today” because the church seems to have had this difficulty ever since it formalized (i.e. became an institution) which was a long time ago.
Problems inside the church have been a continual distraction for her.

I can remember when my church was going through a large building program. There was a group of people appointed called “The Decorating Committee.” You wouldn’t believe what they went through – trying to get along while they tried to choose carpeting – all while people less than five miles down the road didn’t have enough to eat.

I think worship wars are another great example. Even though I refuse to call that hour when we gather to celebrate Christ “worship” (we can talk about that later), the problems that occur when you change a person’s Sunday morning service are amazing.

We must be careful that we do not confuse preference with reverence. I vividly remember a Christmas Eve about 5 years ago when the teens participated in our services, and they did a little something unusual. I loved it – probably because all I could see was young people giving their whole selves to the work of the church – but OH the flack I got after that night. One woman in particular called what they did “irreverent” for Christmas Eve.

That woman may not have liked what she saw, but irreverent is a stretch. If you explore worship throughout history – and I mean BIBLICAL examples of how people celebrated God – you may be amazed. The very first “worship” experience in Scripture was led by a woman and involved DANCING and TAMBOURINES. Now you may have stood by the side of the recently parted Red Sea shaking your head disapprovingly if you had been there, but your personal preference doesn’t mean that God didn’t like the noise.

There are biblical references to drama and music and dancing and prayer and eating and a wide variety of instruments – all included in the gathering of believers. And, as much as I love the organ, there is not one single verse that insists every church have one and use it at all times. The exact same is true for guitars.

Pain Relievers

I had a headache yesterday, which is actually a very rare occurrence for me. While I waited for the medication to work, it struck me how interesting pain is.

I could hardly think about anything else as my head pounded and I marveled at how just one thing could influence every other thing I was experiencing – how one part of me could profoundly affect the whole of me.

My kids’ report cards came in the mail (they were great!) but I had difficulty expressing the joy and pride I felt in my heart because of what I felt in my head. I walked through my yard to enjoy the flowers, but the colors seemed less vivid because the bright sun bothered my eyes. You get the idea.

I think we can see life in the same way too. Sometimes when there is one thing out of whack, it is easy to feel like everything is out of whack. Not necessarily so.

Remember the old saying, “Be patient with me, God isn’t finished with me yet”? I do believe that God sees us as works in progress, but often we see the areas of our lives that need work and we conclude. “I’m a mess!” or “I’ll never get there!” At other times, we are experiencing a pain – physical, emotional, spiritual - and it affects how we see the whole world. It taints how we see everything and everyone around us.

Take a deep breath and live in Grace today. God knit you together in your mother’s womb and ordained your days – He knows you. He knows you better than you know you.

And He knows just what medication you need.

No touching

My cousin forwarded this ESPN story to me, and I read it with amazement. Basically, a softball coach did a really small, but perfectly legal, thing. You should read it so that I can make my far out and leaping analogy to the church. Go ahead – read it – then come back.

The point is too clear to pick it apart any further, right? This article perfectly explains my phrase, "I'd rather be righteous than right." Perhaps we, the church, should consider a little rule breaking ourselves?

Beauty Shoppe

My daughter and I played Beauty Shoppe on Saturday. It was very rainy here, so we all had to do indoor activities.

Beauty Parlor is a funny game, really. As I painted nails and curled hair, I wondered how we all got to the place where we put so much importance on how we look. So, I tried a little something new:

Every time I painted a toenail, Mia and I thought of a way that God makes us beautiful. In other words, as I applied the hot pink, she said, “God makes us patient” and with each stroke of the hairbrush, she would smile with, “God helps us forget each other’s mistakes.”

It was great really and maybe worth your time when you stand in front of the bathroom mirror tomorrow morning. With every tooth brushed and every lash curled and every whisker shaved – it might be helpful to review how God is making you beautiful. Take a minute to pause and focus your priorities.

More like a Beauty Stop than Beauty Shoppe.