Sniffing out the work of God in the world…
We are called, as followers of the incarnational Jesus, to be in the world but not of the world.
When talking about being salt and light in the world, I sometimes ask my freshman Bible class which they think is the greater temptation for the church today:
To fail to be “in the world”
or
To be “of the world”?
Is the greater danger today becoming identical with the world or being isolated from the world?
What do you think?
“God’s definition of a real man,” Donald Miller told 900 high school guys a few years ago, “is a person with a penis.”
That’s where he landed after spending years trying to figure out — not having grown up with a father — what it means to be a man.
He kept running into definitions that left him or others out. The Promise Keepers rally he attended (much of which he liked) sold bumper stickers saying “Real Men Love Jesus.” That was just typical, he thought, of views that leave some guys out. What’s the message we’re sending to young men in our society if they don’t (yet, perhaps) love Jesus? Are they not really men?
“The rally taught me what a man does, and how loud a man must cheer, but apart from shallow bumper-sticker logic, Promise Keepers didn’t define the term. I found myself looking for a general definition. Because, if I had a general definition of a man, I would know whether or not I was one.”
He went to a men’s group at his church, but that threw him into further despair. It sounded like being a real man meant liking war movies, NASCAR, and football analogies — which he didn’t. “I couldn’t sit through men’s meetings anymore without rolling my eyes, or, at the end of prayers, sarcastically replacing the common phrase Amen with a loud and guttural Git ‘er Dun.
Here’s the tragic part of all this:
“I spent a lot of time believing I wasn’t a man because I didn’t like football analogies, or because I didn’t want to put a cheesy bumper sticker on my car, or, well, because I didn’t have a father. In a way, the guys who are promoting this approach to manhood are pretty innocent. I realize they are just trying to keep guys from yelling at their wives. But when those tactics hit my insecurities, they created a twinge. Tell a guy who grew up without a father that he is not a man unless . . . and he will automatically assume he isn’t one. I didn’t need manipulation. I needed affirmation.”
So he kept exploring: What does it mean to be a man? And he came to that simple conclusion: A real man is a person with a penis. If you have a penis, he insists, God has spoken.
You don’t have to like certain movies, you don’t have to be from Mars (or Venus — whichever it is), you don’t have to go deer hunting, you don’t have to be able to overhaul a car (whew!), you don’t have to coach baseball.
Any time we tell people that REAL MEN are a certain way (they love Braveheart or they hate shopping or they love Jesus), we are creating an environment where young men — and some not so young men — are left questioning whether or not they really belong to the group.
So there it is: a real man is a person with a penis. That’s not all it takes to be a GOOD man, for sure. But for a young man searching for his identity, it was critical to realize that God has (in the biological evidence) spoken. Trust him. “If God has spoken, then I have within me whatever it takes to do the things a man needs to do, to become a good man for a woman, for some kids, for an office, for whatever it is God wants me to do.”
(Quotes taken from To Own a Dragon
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Check out the writings of my buddy Grant Boone at www.pga.com. Move over, Rick Reilly!
Who has Jeff Foxworthy write a blurb for their book — a serious (though often humorous book) one, at that?
Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz
He writes in To Own a Dragon
Miller had left home in Houston and was traveling. He ran out of cash in Oregon, and had to stay for a while in Boring, Oregon, which he said lived up to its name.
At a church there he met John MacMurray, who became his mentor and male role model. Before long, John and his wife, Terri, handed him a key and invited him to move into an apartment above the garage.
Here’s what he observed about this family:
“What I am trying to say is, I saw a family. For the first time in my life, I saw what a father does, what a father teaches a kid, what a husband does around the house, the way a man interacts with the world around him, the way a man — just as does a woman — holds a family together.
“I am not going to tell you it was easy. There were times I would have rather lived on my own, played my music as loud as I wanted, come home drunk, whatever. But playing your music as loud as you want and coming home drunk aren’t real life. Real life, it turns out, is diapers and lawnmowers, decks that need painting, a wife that needs to be listened to, kids that need to be taught right from wrong, a checkbook, an oil change, a sunset behind a mountain, laughter at a kitchen table, too much wine, a chipped tooth, and a screaming child. The lessons I learned in the four years I spent with John and Terri will stay with me forever.
“I read a passage in the Bible a long time ago that said, ‘God sets the lonely in families.’ Looking back on the time with John and Terri, I know that passage was talking about me.”
I’ve been preaching on Wednesday nights from Isaiah 56-66. What an incredible chunk of scripture.
Feast on these words of imagination and conviction:
“For this is what the high and exalted One says –
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
‘I live in a high and holy place,
but also with those who are contrite
and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter –
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here I am.”
“Sure the arm of the Lord is not too short to save,
nor his ear too dull to hear.”
“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.”
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn . . . .”
“But you are our Father,
though Abraham does not know us
or Israel acknowledge us;
you, Lord, are our Father,
our Redeemer from of old is your name.”
“All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have given us over to our sins.
Yet you, Lord, are our father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.”
“See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.
Never again will there be in it
infants who live but a few days . . . .”
“For this is what the Lord says:
‘ . . . As a mother comforts her child,
so will I comfort you.’”
What jumps out at you from these passages?
With 50 only fifteen days away, these words from Anne Lamott’s Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
“Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life — it has given me me. It has provided time and experience and failures and triumphs and time-tested friends who have helped me step into the shape that was waiting for me. I fit into me now. I have an organic life, finally, not necessarily the one people imagined for me, or tried to get me to have. I have the life I longed for. I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be.”
“I still have terrible moments when I despair about my body — time and gravity have not made various parts of it higher and firmer. But those are just moments now — I used to have years when I believed I was more beautiful if I jiggled less, if all parts of my body stopped moving when I did. But I know two things now that I didn’t at thirty: That when we get to heaven, we will discover that the appearance of our butts and our skin was 127th on the list of what mattered on this earth. And that I am not going to live forever. Knowing these things has set me free.”
“I live by the truth that ‘No” is a complete sentence. I rest as a spiritual act.”
“On the day I die, I want to have had dessert. So this informs how I live now.” (Good news, Dad!)
“Look, my feet hurt some mornings, and my body is less forgiving when I exercise more than I am used to. But I love my life more, and me more. I’m so much juicier.”
“As that old saying goes, it’s not that I think less of myself, but that I think of myself less often. And that feels like heaven to me.”
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Lessons learned from watching soccer yesterday:
1. Reports of religion being out of favor in Europe are incorrect. It’s just that soccer is the religion.
2. Remember what you learned in kindergarten: no head-butting. Especially if a billion people are watching. It’s considered rude.
3. A 2-hour game can come down to about an inch — that must be about how much lower the ball hit on the crossbar early in the game for France (when it came down across the line as a goal) than it did in the shootout (when it come down on the line).
4. When watching the World Cup Final with teenage boys who actually play soccer and love soccer, do not try to make insightful comments. You only look like an idiot who ought to stick to coaching baseball.
So it continues . . . tonight we won the Texas District 5 junior league championship. We now advance to sectionals where we’ll face the winners from District 6 (Wichita Falls area), District 7 (Ft. Worth/Arlington area), District 8 (Dallas area), and District 9 (Waco area).
Three thoughts:
First, preaching on Sunday is challenging when you’re living out in the dust of the little league field every night until late. (Fortunately we haven’t had any more 12:20 a.m. games!) But nothing that Claritin D, an inhaler, and a gallon of water can’t fix.
Second, our summer plans are beginning to be seriously threatened by all this winning.
Third, I wouldn’t trade these moments (win or lose) for anything. To be coaching my son’s all-star team–as I did a couple years ago for majors and four years ago for minors–is priceless. (And then there is that constant memory that this time last year, Chris had just come out of a wheelchair and was still in a back brace. It’s been good seeing JWB out at our games, but my hope is that next year his injuries from the wreck will be behind him and he’ll be back on the field, too.)
Any others out there who have found joy in coaching — softball, soccer, baseball, basketball, etc.?
I can’t fix stuff.
Not sinks, not commodes, not electrical problems, not cars. Almost nothing.
I love going into Lowe’s. But I’m overwhelmed by being around so many guys who can fix stuff. As the old saying goes, entering a chicken house doesn’t make you a chicken any more than walking into a church makes you a Christian. Or, any more than walking into Home Depot makes you a fix-it guy.
There are, of course, lots of guys who aren’t good at repairing and building.
But I have no excuse. My grandpa was a carpenter. I just didn’t pick it up.
For a reasonably bright person, I often can’t even envision how something might fit together. I was putting some reindeer together on the front lawn a couple Christmases ago, proud to have a screwdriver and screws in hand. But it wasn’t fitting right. That’s when my (then) 11-year-old suggested that I had the head on the wrong end. You’re trying to put his head on his butt, he said. So the old saying really is true: you have to get your head out of your butt. So I did, and he fit together nicely.
Recently I was talking with a good friend who in a former life was an electrician. I was describing a problem to him and he smiled. He noted that I, a person who usually is pretty good with finding the right word, was at a loss to even describe the problem. Too much use of words like “thingie,” I believe.
Of course, the fact that I stink at fixing things hasn’t stopped me from trying at times. That has led to Diane’s Rule of Mike Fixing Things: I’m not allowed to take off any pipe or hose unless we know for sure that Dickie is home next door.
If there is any blessing to being a guy who can’t fix things, it’s that the most microscopically tiniest fix-it jobs that you do accomplish bring such great satisfaction. And hope. Hope that one day you’ll walk into Lowe’s with a full repairguy vocabulary and the expertise to match.
Maybe that’ll come in the second half-century of my life.
Ken Lay was born in Missouri. He delivered newspapers and mowed lawns. That sounds like MY life, except . . . .
His life ended so tragically. “Kenny Boy,” as President Bush called him, was convicted for being a crook. For lying, for defrauding investors, for bank fraud. He left so many Enron employees crushed (at least according to their testimony, according to prosecutors, and according to the jury).
Jury members in the Enron case said they wanted to find reasons to acquit him. But they said he was arrogant, rude, irritable, and combative. As a result, Lay was facing decades in prison.
Until a heart attack took him at the age of 64.
“Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
Some spend their life as givers; some as takers. (Only God is the true judge.) This story reminds me that the stakes are high.
I like these words from this morning’s NY Times:
Mr. Lay was fairly convicted of his crimes, but he was also a father and grandfather, whose family mourns his passing. He was headed for the penitentiary, but that did not have to be the end for him. He would have had an opportunity to use his personal skills to help other prisoners. And at 64 years, he might have had another shot at that third act after all. Michael Milken has devoted much of his resources to medical research since serving his sentence. What Ken Lay might have done we will never know. Chances are it would have been interesting.
Twenty days until I turn 50. My AARP card is already in my wallet.
My parents are a great encouragement to me about the years ahead. They drove down from Missouri to watch part of the baseball tournament. Dad played PIG and HORSE with his grandson every day, while Mom patiently handled the card games.
As I think about all the people who serve as models of aging for me, they are those who continue to grow. They are the people who keep learning (Mom’s just finished two years of Spanish), who remain connected with their closest friends, who keep pressing their body to stay in shape (even if the body isn’t fully cooperating), who pour their energy into the mission of Christ.
So nice this weekend to have my parents, my sister, and two of my nieces here. Lots and lots of baseball! Yes, they stayed until the very end Friday night (12:20 a.m.) and Saturday night (11:30 p.m.). The tournament continues tonight . . . .
Yesterday, we met at the ballpark for ice cream and cake. But somehow that turned into a father (and one mother)/son game. That’s when you notice the difference between those dads for whom this is their first child and those for whom this is their last child. About 10-15 years difference!
We’ve enjoyed fireworks most of the past many years at the welcoming home of some friends who live just outside Abilene. This year we’ll be enjoying the 8:00 game in the tournament. (Next year I’d love to spend the 4th at Jamestown for the 400th anniversary!)
What are others doing for the 4th?
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Pay attention: if you come to Abilene, go to Frontier Texas. I’m embarrassed to say that I went for the first time on Saturday with the fam. It’s amazing. Way beyond what I’d imaged. Makes me want to read more about this land where I’ve lived for fifteen years now.