Bringing Faith to Life
Archive for January, 2013
Punching holes in the darkness
112 years
I had never heard the story shared by Adam Hamilton in his 2013 Inaugural Prayer Service Sermon. He said,
I’ll be telling the old story about Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson, the 19th-century author, once told how, as a boy, he’d been sitting in front of the window at nightfall, watching the lamplighter light the gas street lamps. He would erect a ladder at one post, he would climb up and light the lamp or the torch, then he’d take it down and go the next one and the next one. And his father walked into the room and he said, “Son what are you looking at? What do you see out there that’s so fascinating?”
And the young Stevenson said, “Daddy, I’m watching that man out there knock holes in the darkness.”
Nothing like a great image to hold in your mind as you navigate ski slopes on a Colorado mountain. It’s snowing and foggy and cold. I can barely see my family a few yards ahead of me. We take the lift up for one last run and there it is. The ‘orb.’ My funny daughter Stephanie coined this phrase on a ski trip some years ago. It announces the welcome appearance of the sun.
“Hola orb,” we say.
And there it is, poking through thick clouds, piercing a hole in the dim gray. It has blazed a patch of blue around a perfect circle of flame. I can’t get my camera on it quickly enough before the cloud cover shrouds it again. It teases me.
By afternoon, the blue sky is brilliant.
I marvel at the shimmer off of an entire slope of perfect mogul mounds. (I look from the bottom, of course.) I must pause to capture the moment in a photo. But I cannot dawdle. My family has already started down the slope. Soon they will be out of sight.
I start my descent but turn to look back at the lovely scene behind me. I want to stay, to keep looking, but the rear-facing rotation pulls me off balance. I must choose.
Before me is the clear, crisp snow. A wide path dotted with other skiers but ripe with options for my path down the mountain. They are no longer shrouded in fog and snow. I see them clearly now. Gracias, orb.
I’m meant to move forward in the illumination it provides.
Endless supply, isn’t that clever of grace?
112 years
The strangest thing happens here at the base of the ski mountain every day at 3:00 pm. They hand out big, warm chocolate chip cookies. For free. To everyone who asks.
They push their cart out filled with cookies, and a long line of small children scampers along behind. But it’s not just the small ones. No, groups of winter-clad skiers of all sizes begin to collect in anticipation of the distribution. Then, at 3:00 many chefs hoist trays piled high with cookies and assume their places. One by one they put the cookies in folks’ outstretched hands. No one grabs. Some ask for two.
Yep. I was among them. I received my cookie and stepped aside to let others. I watched as the tray was depleted of its treasure and felt sorry for those who missed the 3:00 curtain call. The chef left with her empty tray and then re-emerged with another tray piled high. Then another. And another.
Soon, the crowds began to thin allowing even the small and the mild to get through for a cookie. It is really something to watch the behavior of people receiving a gift that is offered willingly and in endless supply. Some hurried to “get theirs” but they need not. Some waited patiently and were not denied. Some came back for seconds or more. One Mom told her child he could take “as many as they would give her.” Some shared with a sibling. And some just nibbled happily because they were hungry and now they were satisfied.
Isn’t it interesting how people respond in the presence of grace?
Of course I, the sport scientist, concluded that this was a clever injury prevention ministry on behalf of Beaver Creek resort. Enticing the days’ skiers to come down the mountain a bit early to find some sustenance and take a short break when they were just starting to tire, not after they were completely exhausted. I’m told that 50% of the injuries happen in the last hour of skiing.
Cookies after a long day of skiing are just happy-making.
Isn’t that clever of grace? It has so many life applications. You just can’t help smiling and saying thank you.
Busted ~ Over and Out
1I HAVE to get my book draft finished! The first draft was so fun. The editing stinks. I find everything else in the world to do – other than finishing it. It’s me. It’s procrastination. I know this me. So does God. Help! …I say.
So I’m pulling on my sweatshirt this morning – the one with the laces strung through the metal eyelet, and I scratch the heck out of the bridge of my nose. It’s bleeding and dripping. I dab with the damp tissue and am satisfied that I don’t look quite so much like a prize fighter.
Then I take my seat at the desk and stare at the manuscript. I pull on my reading glasses to paw through my reading materials. I wanna sketch the changes in in pencil. Perhaps dabble a bit in my journal. But my nose hurts. Yep – right there. Bridge of my nose. Underneath my glasses.
Go figure. Do you suppose God scratched me so I would have to set the glasses aside and get this doggone manuscript completed on the computer? My editor has requested it in digital form.
But then, I pull out the laptop and … I am compelled by this blog that “needs” posting. So here I am. To say. That I am suspending all new KC posts until I have this manuscript thing edited and sent to my professional editor.
God says so. But in the meantime, perhaps you kind readers will offer encouraging words about how to beat the procrastination monster. I will, of course, be reading comments via smart phone.
And maybe shoot up a few prayers. I need them.
Thanks for reading. See you soon, I hope.
Wendy
Faith is what we hold on with
1A friend is fond of saying, “the important thing is holding onto my faith.”
I don’t think we hold onto faith. I believe we hold onto God. Christians do this by holding onto Christ. Faith is what we hold on with.
Some days I have my arms and whole body wrapped around Him. Some days I have only a fingernail hold. And then there are those days when He grabs me by the hair, just as I am falling. Hey, if it’s legal in the NFL, it has to be in God’s playbook, right?
Oh, we put our faith in lots of things. We hold onto them. Perhaps we “believe” in them. The DC area saw a great example of this in RGIII and recently in John Wall with the Washington Wizards. Amazing how one man can make the whole team better, inspire belief, even breathe life into what we’d all given up as dead.
The difficulty comes when an RGIII forgets for a moment that he is not the one who is working the impossible, rather it is God working the impossible through him. God can do this through us on any playing field or any sidelines if we hold onto Him. Or when we are in difficulty, if we let Him hold onto us.
Faith is in the holding. The wisdom comes in knowing what to hold onto.
When Christ sets all our transgressions to zero, we can address our weight
212 years
One size fits all. That’s what my daughter told me when I mentioned my desire to purchase some yoga pants. I am a bit behind the times. Still hanging out in my Adidas track pants. Comfort, yes, fashion not so much. She was offering to let me wear hers while she is traveling abroad for several months. She is 20, slim and fit. One size, really?
So, while I avoid the expected disappointment of what I’ll look like when I try these things on, I am chewing on the one-size phenomenon. Because here in America, one size usually means, “Super-size it, please.”
And isn’t that interesting? We’ve got two concepts battling here:
- We’ve lumped together the small to medium to medium-large sizes, so more people “feel” small. Elastic is all the rage, right?
- Our choice for movie popcorn starts at large, then extra-large and jumbo -so we can get “more for our money.” Of course, then there’s the ‘we can’t waste it’ plea bargain, so we ‘waist it.’ And now we are back to the elastic, right?
No question, we are a country obsessed with our weight, all trying to fit into our jeans. Or we used to, but the designers have managed that problem for us, too. They’ve lowered the waist line (calling it modern fit) to rid us of unsightly “muffin-top” and now jeans are made of “stretchy” denim. So we don’t have to feel the unforgiveness of a fabric that stays the same size regardless of ours. As we grow, so do our jeans. Now we’re back to yoga pants.
One size fits all. It’s just tough to buy that. Because I look around and see all sorts of shapes and sizes. Perhaps our problem is with the notion that one size should fit all, that one size is our goal. Well, that’s a beginning anyway.
The next thing is that nasty sense of compression. It’s uncomfortable, the threads that bind us. We resist “stepping on the scale.” We don’t like to have a standardized measure of ourselves. Because it tells us the truth. Perhaps a truth we don’t want to hear. Can we please just admit this? And then take the next step: sever the link between over-weight and bad-person.
I have had several close friends come to terms with this recently, that they don’t like how they measure and they want to make a change. Supersizing their wardrobe was hurting, not helping. Their first step was getting on the scale. Perhaps in the privacy of their home, absent the prying eyes of society but in plain view of the Christ they knew.
That was a re-calibrating moment.
Calibration. That brings me back to the lab when I used to weigh the chemicals that were to compose the test solution I was studying. We calibrated the scales so they would weigh precisely. Then, we tared them, by placing the measuring paper or container on the scale first and re-setting the scales to zero. So it wouldn’t confound our measurement.
The bodies we are in are our physical containers, essential ingredients for the living of earthly life and meant to come with us on the journey beyond. But they are tared when we put them on the Christ scale. Christ sets all our transgressions to zero, when we climb on His scale and ask.
Supersizing may be doing us in, but not for the reasons we think. It’s allowing us to avoid the moment of measure, and denying us the opportunity for re-calibration Which may be the greatest moment of love any of us ever knows.
We’re all meant to be One in Christ. Maybe the one size fits all folks are onto something. Excuse me while I go try on those yoga pants.
What would I wear to a job interview with the Creator?
0I am mailing a package at the Exxon station down the road, (Yes, they are the only place without a line at the first of the year.) and the owner comes to weigh and post my parcel. I don’t know him well, but he is a kind and gracious man. We have never had a “faith” conversation, but the books and tracts on the waiting area table tell me he is a devout Muslim. He is dressed immaculately in a starched white shirt and shimmering magenta tie.
“Did you have a big job interview?” I ask him. This is, after all, a service station. I am standing among racks of processed package foods, while customers enter and exit paying for their gas, cigarettes and sundries. Behind the counter are two doors leading to the service bays where men with greased hands regularly pop in and out to ask about this transmission or that oil change.
He smiles at me, shakes his head, then looks and points upward. “With the Creator.”
“Ah, well, that’s every day,” I respond, rather lamely.
But after I paid, collected my receipt and stepped outside to make my way into my day I wonder, what would I wear to a job interview with my creator?
I mean, do you dress to impress? Put on your Sunday best? Shine your shoes? Make sure you’re matching, nothing clashes? Try to stand out in the crowd? To get His attention? They are all kind of laughable thoughts. I mean, who are we kidding here?
Yet, this Muslim man got me thinking. If each day as I went to work (or play or school or family) I dressed as if I were coming before my Lord to perform the day’s task in a way that was so pleasing to Him He would hire me, how would I dress?
We Christians tend toward the casual Friday, I think. “Oh, God accepts me any old way so why try so hard?”
Well, by His grace He does invite me for the job interview, and I know I don’t have to wear something that will make a good impression – because He won’t be fooled by what I wear. But what an opportunity – to dress up for God. To show up in a way that honors Him and His intention for me.
And then, what will I be wearing when I leave that moment? Will people ask me if I had a big job interview this morning? And if they did, would they be surprised to hear “it was with the Creator?” Or would they smile and nod as I did toward my Muslim friend. And wonder…
What would I wear for a job interview with my Creator today?
Called to go beyond our limits ~ by Gregg Levoy
0This is so marvelous, I wanted to share it with friends of the Kinesthetic Christian. ***
It makes perfect sense that we should be called to go beyond our limits, because the One that calls us is beyond all limits. I suspect that all the energy we have bound up in resisting our own potential is more energy than we’ll need to reach it. It takes as much energy to fail as it does to succeed. The strategies are legion:
- Hiding behind the tasks of discernment. By analyzing a call to death and picking apart all its varying implications and by poring over calculations that would put an actuary into a coma, we lose all the heat from the heart through the head, as if we had been in the bitter cold without a hat.
- Waiting for the Perfect Moment. Waiting for just the right combination of time, money, energy, education, freedom and the ideal alignment of the planets….
- Telling ourselves lies. For instance, “I can’t afford it….” [when] the truth was, “I won’t afford it.” I won’t reprioritize my life, won’t make sacrifices….
- Choosing a path parallel to the one we feel called to. One that’s close enough to keep an eye on it but not so close we’re tempted to jump tracks. We become an art critic rather than an artist, a school teacher rather than a parent, a reporter rather than a novelist.
- Attempting to replace one calling with another. Because we don’t like it, our parents don’t like it, it doesn’t earn enough money or prestige.
- Immediately turning a call into a Big Project. Thereby intimidating ourselves into paralysis.
- Self-sabotage. We feel called to go to art or medical school but are so afraid of finding out we don’t have what it takes that we “forget” to mail the application until after its deadline has passed.
- Distracting ourselves with other activities. We suddenly become inspired to finish old projects we haven’t thought about in ages.
- Playing “sour grapes.” We believe we won’t succeed … or will suffer unduly, so we try to convince ourselves we don’t want it anyway.
- Trying to make ourselves unworthy of a calling. Hoping that God will decide we’re not the person for the job and take it back.
The degree of resistance is probably proportionate to the amount of power waiting to be unleashed and the satisfaction to be experienced once the “no” breaks through to “yes” and the call is followed.
Source: Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life
Thank you, Gregg and Church of the Saviour.
Have you ever painted a sunset?
0Some of my fondest memories of my youngest daughter are the times we used to paint the sunset. She was probably about three years old, and whenever we spotted a sunset, we’d pull out our imaginary paintbrushes and paint, together.
We’d make flourishes with our brushes, in oranges and yellows and reds. And then we would dab a bit of blue or purple or gold. Of course, we didn’t produce any colors, really. But we’d say them. “There’s a little purple!” And we’d brush. “Don’t miss the red.” And we’d brush again. It was almost as if we were chasing the colors together. And there was no dipping into paint on a palette. There was simply stroking with the brush. Sort of sketching with the colors that were already there.
I miss those days. When my little one would come get me “to paint the sunset.” Because I saw it differently when I painted it with her. She had a child’s eyes, artist eyes, that see and then jump in to be part of the scene. No preparation. No gathering supplies. And absolutely no reservation. All she needed was there to participate in the beauty she saw.
Participate in beauty. Perhaps that’s what we’re meant to do always. That’s Kingdom work, a royal calling of celestial proportions. To dab with paintbrushes always at hand. To distribute color already present. Or shade and blend what’s already been applied. To re-create what God has put before us.
Guess that makes me a re-creational artist. My medium is words. But somehow color words are insufficient to paint a sunset.
Perhaps one day I might overhear my daughter’s child say, “Mommy, look! Come paint the sunset.” And she will have spoken a memory, and a vision and a connection she doesn’t know is there. And my daughter and I will slip back into those days for a moment, and remember. No need to explain. Why use words when a smile and a nod will do?
God has so many ways of expressing Himself, doesn’t He?