Egypt!

It is exciting to watch the news tonight. It has been an education for me to witness, via the media, the last 18 days of unrest in Egypt. For instance, I didn't know the details of how Mubarak came into power. He was present at Sadat's assassination, and, as the head of Egypt's Air Force then, he took temporary control of the government of Egypt. This temporary control is what he kept for 30 years. Amazing, eh? There is much I don't know, but I do know that the world is changing before our eyes. I also know that these are days to pray for Egypt.

2-Hour Delay

As a kid, I remember well the 2-Hour Delay. We have one today. Preschool, therefore, is cancelled. I can still recall the wash of blessing and relief I felt as a 13-year old when I - awake like Christmas morning - heard it on the radio. Now I could sleep in! It wasn't a snow day, but it was the next best thing. Sleeping in was unabated joy, even if it consisted of two hours of unbroken wide-eyed staring over the pillow at the clock.

Now having everyone else in the house sleep in is my preference. Alone I sit in a rightly quiet house. Coffee, there will be coffee in heaven. The hazardous snow on the ground measures roughly the thickness of two slices of American cheese, wrappers removed. The sun will do my shoveling for me. It feels like the best way to start a day sometimes, is to delay it.

It's funny, however, that almost everyone I know loves to be told, at the beginning of a day, "your day is delayed or cancelled." Days are all we have, yet the way many of us live makes us love to shorten or skip them.

Cheesehead Nation

I don't think I've enjoyed a Super Bowl more. As a Vikings fan, I find it easy to like Green Bay today, for some reason. Congratulations Cheeseheads!

What's the spiritual application? The good guys win, eventually.

LATER NOTE:
I was kidding with the "good guys" thought, but now that I've heard and seen some of "the good" in the Packers' stories, I'm amazed. I've written it here before: sports, whether you like them or not, are a testing ground for character. Many players on every NFL team are giving men of faith. So, it turns out, all kidding aside, that the most watched TV program in all of history can, in fact, be mined for lessons and insight about life. Go figure. :)

The poor musical performances (anthem and halftime) also made the news. Those of us who are musicians can feel for them. Remember, it was the most watched TV program in history.

Snow Day

It's been a while since I've written here. This blog has floated away from my day-to-day awareness like driftwood. Returning to it stirs the sentimental in me. I remember the first several entries made one summer from my covered back deck every morning. Coffee, a bible and books, and this laptop combined to produce sentences and paragraphs. I had readers right away. Now I'm not sure anyone will read this. Snow on top of snow with the potential for ice knocking out our power is the reality today. I write this blog from my basement with a thick robe and ski hat. Still I see coffee, bibles and books, and this laptop. The passing of time is more certain than change. Some change is cosmetic. Snow teaches this. I built an igloo for Kelsie yesterday. It has a door. She fits in there nicely, but protests any Eskimo's opinion of the warmth of such a shelter. Schools are closed from here to Texas. Travel and commerce for over a third of the United States shows little potential for occurring today, tomorrow, or the next day. Snow seems in every way a transformation of reality, yet it is only snow. It is only a covering. All that was before it arrived still is. Earth (and life in the eastern half of America) is only covered and paused temporarily.

Stray thoughts:

- Yes, He (Jesus) makes our sins as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). Remember that the whiteness of the snow is an illustration. The prophet calls his hearers to reason with God, to think. The snowy picture is a jump-start to thinking about God's forgiveness. The work of Jesus Christ is never cosmetic, personally or historically. What He covers changes status forever, unlike snow.

- Potential power outages are our problem this week. Power outages are always a problem. Welcome to the 19th century. Be careful with fire. Sometimes physical power outages cause a renewal of spiritual, emotional, and relational power. If we have to have one, let's pray to have the other.

The Comedy of Summer Plans

Summer plans are funny. In May, we talk about all the things we'll do this summer. In September, we try to figure out what to do with the residue our unmet expectations leave on our lives. Now it's October. As a pastor, this means I'm busy. A colleague in ministry, also a Vikings fan, is at the Jets-Vikings game tonight. I'm not.

To watch the game tonight on television I had to arrange things with myself and get serious about not sitting with the laptop on my lap. Of course it is ... right here ... on my lap, my fingers tapping the keys.

Perhaps you were expecting theological reflection. This is. If I don't put this laptop down immediately, we all have solid evidence that I have a theological problem. Reformed theology rests, laughs off drivenness, taunts "rat race," image maintaining anxiety.

The summer's over, in more ways than one. I'm shutting this thing off.


(By the way, I took a look at all my unposted blogs that I was going to haul out. See below. There was a reason I didn't publish these! So, the last entry is the last of its type.)

The problem with problems

This is part one of a series of older, shorter blurbs of mine that never got posted...

"Watching the Masters (a golf tournament, for those of you who don't know or don't care) reminds me how bad I am at golf. Golf is a series of problems; it's "a good walk ruined" said Mark Twain or somebody like him. Maybe golf bores or angers you, but it is like any other sport or art; it's hard. It's a challenge to get the little ball in the hole or the basketball in the hoop or the baseball over the fence. Opera, sculpture, Shakespeare, and Beethoven are also difficult. Any great thing is difficult. I know this, but something in me seems addicted to forgetting it. If I hit the ball in the water or play a wrong note, I think it's bad. I think I'm bad. No. It's just hard. Hard things come by trial and error. Life is hard. Even the best golfers play like me sometimes.

Sometimes it's preferable to watch others go at it. Sometimes it's easier to sit it out.

But then I remember: easy's got nothing to do with it.

Finishing Well

I'm 45 years old today. Certain numbers hit people in different ways. We all have birthdays that come and go without much drama, but we all also have those birthdays that hit us hard. Time is running out. For some reason turning 27 was hard for me. I think 53 was a hard one for my dad. 30 and 40 are classically difficult. 45 is nothing to sneeze at. I better get going. My to-do list is now a to-do soon list. Someday is today. This is how I'm feeling. I think it's healthy. In fact, I'm convinced it's God. To be someone who attempts to follow Christ is to be someone who yearns to finish well. Nothing has more appeal.

But finishing well means something different at 45 with two little kids than it did at 27 when I felt like I was still too much of a kid. It means something different when there's no part of any competition or contest anywhere that seems more interesting than having the time to sit outside on my deck and read a book. It means something different when I genuinely let go of what people think and say about me, good or bad. It means something different when time is precious because it's something I can give to others instead something I can give to myself. It means something different. Getting older means there's less time left, but it also takes the pressure off. My teenaged dreams of greatness now are safely dead and buried. I don't even listen to U2 anymore, never mind want to be their keyboard player. There are all kinds of things I can forget about, put away, dismiss, and release into the wind.

Why do people complain about getting older? Especially Christians? There's a sweetness to this. I'm enjoying, like never before, a great cup of coffee, a pending thunder storm, and an unmowed lawn that I won't harm of blade of today. The striving of youth with all its perspiring ambition gives way to the smiling, settled indifference of slightly weary middle age. (How's that for bad writing!) Now I want to do things because I want to do them, not because I want them to do something for me. I feel urgency and drive, but they're different. They're calmer and less prone to frustration. Is it possible that the older you get, the younger you feel in your spirit? Is it possible that the more certain and abundant your failures in life have been, the more you can really succeed in ways that satisfy your spirit?

One thing is certain.

There's an amazing difference between the life God chooses for us and the life we would choose for ourselves.

Work at Not Being a Jerk

I've seen people act like jerks. It's part of my profession. Pastors see people at their best and at their worst. We also see many people act like jerks. Every pastor I know has struggled with this. We want people we're charged to care for not to sabotage themselves spiritually or socially and not to hurt others. Of course, some people do it anyway. We then have the difficult job of trying to help the jerk, trying to help others not be jerks themselves in reacting to the jerk, and trying to undo the damage to the environment that jerky behavior causes. The official definition of a jerk is "a contemptibly obnoxious person." Herein lies the true problem; it is the contempt. I know it's the adverb in this definition, but contempt is the real edge of jerkiness as well as the problem inside the hearts of those who are affected by it. Obnoxious behavior by itself doesn't hurt anyone. It's when contempt drives it and contempt informs how it is experienced that people start hurting themselves and others. Here are some approaches that help me in dealing with jerks:

1) Don't take their behavior personally. This is the root of contempt. To hold people in contempt is to disregard them, to look down on them, to see oneself as better than them, to scorn them, and to see them as worthless. This is exactly what jerks do. They disregard you and your feelings. Don't let them. You accomplish this by not taking it personally.

2) Don't be a jerk to those who are being a jerk to you. Don't return the favor. Don't apply a backwards golden rule. Contemptibly obnoxious behavior is contagious. It can be like a cancer. Recognize this and take it seriously. Don't drink from the cup of contempt, no matter how tempted you are. The temptation is great too. Don't underestimate this. Often, jerky behavior seems like the best route. It never is.

3) Consider the real source. People act like jerks, but this doesn't mean that they are jerks. Sure, they define themselves and even defend their behavior as jerks. Hard core jerks are hard to talk down from their perches of contempt. Nevertheless, and no matter what they say, this is not who they really are. Often personal pain is the seed for contemptible conduct. Bullies are suffocating in their fear. Blamers are trapped by deception and insecurity. Bashers are burning inside with anger. Show them pity, not contempt. They need the forgiveness and healing of God that comes through Christ. Pray for them to get it. "Lord, have mercy on this wounded person. Keep him/her from continuing down this path. Keep me from showing them contempt, from joining them. Give me a heart to love even those who act like jerks. Amen."

Men's Room Cleaning Insights

A few teased me for how long it took me to clean the toilets and everything else in the main men's room in our new building over the weekend. I defended myself poorly by recounting the fact that construction workers have been using (and not really cleaning) this men's room for months. Also, those stickers on new toilets, urinals, and sinks can be a bear to remove. Anyway, here are some profound insights for life derived from my "leisurely" cleaning of the men's room in the new building.

1) The smallest thing, dust, can present the biggest problem. This is how it is throughout life. The small things, especially the really small things, hog up all our time and energy. There was dust everywhere. It was on every surface. The bathroom will need another cleaning next week to get it ready for Easter because there will be more dust. There is always more dust. Small stuff happens. We can decide not to "sweat the small stuff," but we still have to deal with it and there is sometimes a high cost in dealing with it.

2) The nasty mess inside each of the toilet bowls was the easiest thing to clean. Harsh chemicals, blue and fresh smelling, combined with a simple, sturdy brush, tidied things up quickly. One possible reason I was alone in my cleaning project was how scary and disgusting these bowls seemed. Life is like this too. The problems that look big are often no problem at all.

3) Sometimes we're asked to sacrifice control for convenience. This bathroom has automatic sinks. You just put your hands under them and they pour forth luke warm water. This is fine unless you're trying to clean the sink! It was quite of battle of wits between me and the little invisible hand-detecting eyeballs hiding out there somewhere under each faucet! I learned to trick them by quick motions. I felt a little like Neo from the Matrix. I'm just glad those guys who timed my cleaning efforts weren't there to watch this. I would never hear the end of it. Is convenience worth the control we sacrifice for it?

Aren't you glad I wrote about this here instead of using it in a sermon? Can you see the PowerPoint pictures of toilets and brushes? Probably not, eh? Perhaps the final insight here is that we can learn from anything on any day.

Seasons

It is difficult to write about some things in a given platform. Were I to write about what I've been thinking lately, I suspect this tiny blog, because it is public, despite the fact that it is seldom read, would not be the appropriate place. I had a formal conversation with a respected colleague today who knows me well and knows well the details of various situations I find myself in as a church pastor. She diagnosed me as someone in transition. She did not intend for me to experience her reflections as a diagnosis. I offered the visual of a river with a slow but constant current. The current is sometimes too slow; other times it is too fast. These perceived speed differences are unrelated to the actual current. They are the result of unsteady emotions. Such emotions accompany real change. The change is the steady current. I admit that I'm in the midst of real change. I'm moving down a new river. Things that once interested me no longer do. The flames that once lit certain goals now only exist in my memories. What I once craved as success was only the idea of success. A woman last night at a church function spoke about the increased use of our new building this Easter and beyond and chirped, "Pastor John, your dream is coming true." I too quickly and too firmly retorted, "This is not my dream!" She didn't understand. I hastily buried my rude clarity under pillows of fuzz and niceness. But the truth remains: despite good ministry and a fine new building, there is nothing associated with the work God has called me to as a pastor that presently falls under the category of "dream." This is new for me and challenging, but more challenging is any attempt I've made to explain it to my wife, myself, and even God. Is this how a called person, with many of life's direction questions cancelled by vows, experiences mid-life crisis or "half-time?" As always, I find Scripture verses anchor my wavering mind. Ecclesiastes 3:1 is one of a handful of verses that talks about a season. "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." There's also a verse I'm preaching this weekend. 2nd Timothy 4:2 commands me to "preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction." No two seasons are the same. One season does little to prepare us for the next. Slowly the current of time pulls us out of one and into another. There's nothing anyone can do to stop this.

Yet I look forward to spring. Maybe I have a dream about spring. Thank God for spring.