Saturday, November 29, 2003
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
We decorated the house for Christmas yesterday. It’s usually a day that I dread. I love the house once it’s decorated, but I abhor the work it takes to get it looking good. Mucking around in the attic wrestling with the tree and boxes of decorations, putting up the Queen Mother’s outside lights, and keeping the kids from eating last years garland – what’s to like?
I do look forward to putting ornaments on the tree. Every year we get an ornament for each member of the family – chosen specifically for them. Most of them represent something about the person so we get to celebrate each other as we place them on the tree.
We also hang couple of odd ornaments that are not part of this tradition. One of these is an ornament from marriage number one – number one in order not in importance.
As I hung that one yesterday, I flashed back in time to Christmas 1993. I was living in Loretta Lewis’s basement. Despite Loretta – a seventy-year-old widow and a good friend – I was alone. Post-divorce alone. I had decorated a tree in the basement. It’s was bright and beautiful and sad. I held ornaments given with a love now found hollow.
This ornament now hangs on our tree today, ten years later. It reminds me of a reality that could be were we to give our falleness its way. We are capable of allowing all those current ornaments to hang just as hollow one day. I hung it with a prayer for vigilance and fidelity.
Today it hangs on a tree just as bright and beautiful - a tree garnished with a spirit of joy, not sorrow. It is an ornament redeemed. Mine is a life redeemed. Merry it must be.
We decorated the house for Christmas yesterday. It’s usually a day that I dread. I love the house once it’s decorated, but I abhor the work it takes to get it looking good. Mucking around in the attic wrestling with the tree and boxes of decorations, putting up the Queen Mother’s outside lights, and keeping the kids from eating last years garland – what’s to like?
I do look forward to putting ornaments on the tree. Every year we get an ornament for each member of the family – chosen specifically for them. Most of them represent something about the person so we get to celebrate each other as we place them on the tree.
We also hang couple of odd ornaments that are not part of this tradition. One of these is an ornament from marriage number one – number one in order not in importance.
As I hung that one yesterday, I flashed back in time to Christmas 1993. I was living in Loretta Lewis’s basement. Despite Loretta – a seventy-year-old widow and a good friend – I was alone. Post-divorce alone. I had decorated a tree in the basement. It’s was bright and beautiful and sad. I held ornaments given with a love now found hollow.
This ornament now hangs on our tree today, ten years later. It reminds me of a reality that could be were we to give our falleness its way. We are capable of allowing all those current ornaments to hang just as hollow one day. I hung it with a prayer for vigilance and fidelity.
Today it hangs on a tree just as bright and beautiful - a tree garnished with a spirit of joy, not sorrow. It is an ornament redeemed. Mine is a life redeemed. Merry it must be.
Butt Face
Cooper, the four-year-old, has a best buddy. He was the only friend to celebrate Coop's last birthday at the local climbing wall. He comes over once a week and plays. He weighs 200 lbs. and is 27 years old. His name is Dan.
Coop thinks that Dan is just a really big 4 year-old. He stopped by Dan's apartment once with the Queen Mother. He wanted to know where he kept his toys. He inspected Dan's bedroom and closet before he could accept the fact that Dan was toyless.
A couple of weeks ago, Dan was over for dinner - a common Thursday night event. As is also common, Dan got into a romping round of wrestling with both the boys - just as often Josie joins in. On the night in question, Dan had sufficiently wrestled himself out and was walking away from the fray. As he turned his back, Coop charged. He had two rooms worth of take off, running hard face first, his hands flopping behind him. He was at full velocity when he collided with Dan's butt...
...still face first.
Coop went where no man goes. We all fully expected Dan to have a body sticking out of his rear.
I'm glad Coop's got a friend like Dan. Dan is a true comrade to his dad, too. True enough to smile when his son plants his face up his keister.
Cooper, the four-year-old, has a best buddy. He was the only friend to celebrate Coop's last birthday at the local climbing wall. He comes over once a week and plays. He weighs 200 lbs. and is 27 years old. His name is Dan.
Coop thinks that Dan is just a really big 4 year-old. He stopped by Dan's apartment once with the Queen Mother. He wanted to know where he kept his toys. He inspected Dan's bedroom and closet before he could accept the fact that Dan was toyless.
A couple of weeks ago, Dan was over for dinner - a common Thursday night event. As is also common, Dan got into a romping round of wrestling with both the boys - just as often Josie joins in. On the night in question, Dan had sufficiently wrestled himself out and was walking away from the fray. As he turned his back, Coop charged. He had two rooms worth of take off, running hard face first, his hands flopping behind him. He was at full velocity when he collided with Dan's butt...
...still face first.
Coop went where no man goes. We all fully expected Dan to have a body sticking out of his rear.
I'm glad Coop's got a friend like Dan. Dan is a true comrade to his dad, too. True enough to smile when his son plants his face up his keister.
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Naked Without Fear
A lot of days the last thing I want to be is a pastor.
It’s my current lot in life, and I’m comfortable with that, but it just sucks sometimes.
Take Sunday mornings, no really, take Sunday mornings please. You wake up on the wrong side of the spiritual bed. You are on your side and as far as you are concerned God can stay on his. Prayer is the farthest thing from your desires at the moment. You roll into the church that morning not out of joy or passion or even really faithfulness. Its duty you show for; it’s a paycheck.
Yet, it is your job to pray like you mean it when all you would really rather do is carve dirty words into the pew in front of you. You have to speak about God like you care when at that moment you doubt that you do. You wish you could growl at people. Glare and stare down that super-dependant leech that uses Sunday morning like an emotional smorgasbord, sucking the life out of anyone who gets near, especially you, being the pastor and all.
Granted, I may be exaggerating a bit. This past summer an old friend listen to me rant and said, “You sound like one of those cynical old pastor’s we swore we would never be like in college.” Who was this guy to talk to me about this anyway? He’s a bar-hopping bible college drop-out. But I love him, and he may have been right.
My friend, Kenny, just started his first ministry, a youth ministry in small-town Kentucky. This is his concern: “I think that this job will leave me in a continual state of feeling like I’m not enough. We’ll see.”
Wouldn’t it be great to just “be” on a Sunday morning instead of having to “do”? What about not having to deal with anybody’s expectations, including my own, and only be concerned about God’s? What if I could come on the Sunday mornings that I am frustrated, irritated, and disappointed with God and be honest about it?
I’m not sure the church is ready for a pastor to step up and say, “Look, I’m really pissed at God this morning and talking about Him is the last thing I want to do today. So, I’m out of here. You all are in charge.”
So if you happen to show up here on a Sunday morning, and you see some wild man running naked through the vestibule, be not afraid. It’s just the pastor.
A lot of days the last thing I want to be is a pastor.
It’s my current lot in life, and I’m comfortable with that, but it just sucks sometimes.
Take Sunday mornings, no really, take Sunday mornings please. You wake up on the wrong side of the spiritual bed. You are on your side and as far as you are concerned God can stay on his. Prayer is the farthest thing from your desires at the moment. You roll into the church that morning not out of joy or passion or even really faithfulness. Its duty you show for; it’s a paycheck.
Yet, it is your job to pray like you mean it when all you would really rather do is carve dirty words into the pew in front of you. You have to speak about God like you care when at that moment you doubt that you do. You wish you could growl at people. Glare and stare down that super-dependant leech that uses Sunday morning like an emotional smorgasbord, sucking the life out of anyone who gets near, especially you, being the pastor and all.
Granted, I may be exaggerating a bit. This past summer an old friend listen to me rant and said, “You sound like one of those cynical old pastor’s we swore we would never be like in college.” Who was this guy to talk to me about this anyway? He’s a bar-hopping bible college drop-out. But I love him, and he may have been right.
My friend, Kenny, just started his first ministry, a youth ministry in small-town Kentucky. This is his concern: “I think that this job will leave me in a continual state of feeling like I’m not enough. We’ll see.”
Wouldn’t it be great to just “be” on a Sunday morning instead of having to “do”? What about not having to deal with anybody’s expectations, including my own, and only be concerned about God’s? What if I could come on the Sunday mornings that I am frustrated, irritated, and disappointed with God and be honest about it?
I’m not sure the church is ready for a pastor to step up and say, “Look, I’m really pissed at God this morning and talking about Him is the last thing I want to do today. So, I’m out of here. You all are in charge.”
So if you happen to show up here on a Sunday morning, and you see some wild man running naked through the vestibule, be not afraid. It’s just the pastor.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Boy Genius
The other day the Queen Mother was tooling around town dragging our three rugrats along with her. For the purposes of this story, it is important to know that the Queen Mother is also Instructor, Principal, Superintendent, and School Board of the Queen Mother School for Easy To Love Children, she home school’s. As such, on that particular afternoon, she was quizzing her students from behind the wheel of our ’94 Aerostar, a classroom on wheels.
“Cooper, what planet do we live on?” she asks our four year old.
“Earth.” he says in his slightly imperfect kid speech.
She was surprised. Outside of reading a few books on space, she had never talked to him about the planets.
She ventured a second question, “What is the largest planet?”
“Jupiter.”
Now she’s impressed. “Which one is the red planet”
“Mars.”
The boy was brilliant, and she was the best damn teacher on the face of the earth.
This morning she sat with the boy on her lap. I asked him what planet we lived on.
“Earth.”
“What is the largest planet?” “Earth,” he said with a grin.
Dubious, I asked, “Which is the red planet?” “Earth.”
The Queen Mother raised her voice, calling, “Jack - son!” This is the oldest, a six-year-old, and an expert on all things space, who happens to sit next to his brother in the van. Eyes boring into him, she asked, “did you give Cooper the answers?”
“Yea,” he said with a shy smile.
So much for the teacher of the year award.
The other day the Queen Mother was tooling around town dragging our three rugrats along with her. For the purposes of this story, it is important to know that the Queen Mother is also Instructor, Principal, Superintendent, and School Board of the Queen Mother School for Easy To Love Children, she home school’s. As such, on that particular afternoon, she was quizzing her students from behind the wheel of our ’94 Aerostar, a classroom on wheels.
“Cooper, what planet do we live on?” she asks our four year old.
“Earth.” he says in his slightly imperfect kid speech.
She was surprised. Outside of reading a few books on space, she had never talked to him about the planets.
She ventured a second question, “What is the largest planet?”
“Jupiter.”
Now she’s impressed. “Which one is the red planet”
“Mars.”
The boy was brilliant, and she was the best damn teacher on the face of the earth.
This morning she sat with the boy on her lap. I asked him what planet we lived on.
“Earth.”
“What is the largest planet?” “Earth,” he said with a grin.
Dubious, I asked, “Which is the red planet?” “Earth.”
The Queen Mother raised her voice, calling, “Jack - son!” This is the oldest, a six-year-old, and an expert on all things space, who happens to sit next to his brother in the van. Eyes boring into him, she asked, “did you give Cooper the answers?”
“Yea,” he said with a shy smile.
So much for the teacher of the year award.
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
To Be Cursed No More
I was on the road last night with my friend, Tim. We were cruising along toward highway 180 winding up into the Sierra’s. The sun was setting, red billows of crimson-golden clouds hovered over the mighty orb like cherubim to the throne of God. It was beautiful.
Tim and I have both been traversing into the wild areas of our faith as of late. Our conversation had entered into the deep end of the theological pool when appeared a brown, flop-eared pup, fifty-feet ahead, straddling the double yellows. The dog took two slow motion steps into my lane, stopped, and looked me right in the eye.
I didn’t have a choice. It was almost like he wanted to die.
Conversation over. Neither of us could bring ourselves to say, “yeah well, anyway, like I was saying…” We needed to hold a short, puppy memorial so that we could have a little closure.
There was beauty in creation in that sunset. There was glory in two friends baring themselves with words. In the morning snow that now falls lightly upon these mountain pines there is wonder, and yet, in that quick moment last evening something good was lost. Death broke in.
It may be back-broken but it yet breaths and while it does, we still long for its demise.
I was on the road last night with my friend, Tim. We were cruising along toward highway 180 winding up into the Sierra’s. The sun was setting, red billows of crimson-golden clouds hovered over the mighty orb like cherubim to the throne of God. It was beautiful.
Tim and I have both been traversing into the wild areas of our faith as of late. Our conversation had entered into the deep end of the theological pool when appeared a brown, flop-eared pup, fifty-feet ahead, straddling the double yellows. The dog took two slow motion steps into my lane, stopped, and looked me right in the eye.
I didn’t have a choice. It was almost like he wanted to die.
Conversation over. Neither of us could bring ourselves to say, “yeah well, anyway, like I was saying…” We needed to hold a short, puppy memorial so that we could have a little closure.
There was beauty in creation in that sunset. There was glory in two friends baring themselves with words. In the morning snow that now falls lightly upon these mountain pines there is wonder, and yet, in that quick moment last evening something good was lost. Death broke in.
It may be back-broken but it yet breaths and while it does, we still long for its demise.
