Advice to the Young Men in My Life: Intro and 1. First, Jesus

Advice to the young men in my life.

The other day I became inspired to restart my blog, but in a slightly different direction than previous topics.  I’ve been listening to podcasts from The Art of Manliness.  As I listened to Walker Lamond talk about his book “Advice to My Unborn Son” I began thinking about the young men in my life.  I am blessed with a wonderful daughter and was able to teach her many things as she grew up.  Now I have a one year old grandson and I began thinking about what advice/wisdom I would give to him to help make him into a man.  I also began thinking of the two young men in my life – my son-in-law, and my “adopted” son.  What advice would I give to them, even though they are adults now?

So, I sat down at my desk and let the ideas flow in no particular order.  I was able to come up with about 50 different ideas.  Are these “for men only”?  Of course not.  Many of these I hope I have instilled in my daughter.  But I do believe that there are differences between men and women, and some things that make a man a man.  My (ambitious) goal is to try to write about one of these things each week.

My influences of manhood are varied.  First and foremost is my father.  I learned many things from him (which I will reference in posts to come).  My grandfather was a quiet man, but I learned a lot watching him.  I also learned a lot from my Scoutmaster.  Biographies of soldiers, sailors and marines from WWII provided much inspiration.  Fictional role models for me were John Wayne, Louis L’Amour protagonists, and Captain America and Superman.

So, let’s begin.  I said that I let the ideas flow in no particular order.  That isn’t true for the first one, for I believe it is the foundation for everything else:

First, Jesus.

I make no bones about the fact that I am a Christian (I am a priest in the Anglican Church of America, after all!) and I believe that trusting in Jesus as your savior and your Lord is paramount.  The Bible tells us that God created man and desires to be in relationship with him.  God also desires that man be in relationship with creation – the world, animals, plants, other human beings.  Jesus allows us to be in relationship with God. Jesus also shows us through His life what the perfect man (or woman) is.

I think people often tend to think of Jesus as a wimp.  Yes, this is the guy who said “turn the other cheek”.  He’s also the guy that made a whip out of cords and drove people out of the temple.  Jesus faced torture and crucifixion.  He slept through stormy seas that made seasoned fisherman afraid for their lives.  When it comes to strength and courage and fitness, Jesus was a man’s man.

Jesus was a leader.  He was able to keep a diverse group of followers (coming from all walks of life, all levels of education, and all professions) focused on the objective, even when they didn’t fully understand what that was.  He was a servant leader – washing the feet of his disciples like the lowliest of servants.  He had such charisma that people literally dropped everything to follow him.  (You may think that is an exaggeration, but I had the privilege of meeting a man once that – had he said “come with me”, I would have followed anywhere.  His name is Archbishop Benjamin Kwashi).

Jesus wasn’t afraid to show emotion – He cried and He rejoiced.  He had compassion on those around him.  He became indignant at injustice and hypocrisy.  He demonstrated extravagant love – sacrificial love.

As a man, we should try to live our lives in the example that Jesus gave.  We should also be submitted to him, as he was submitted to the authority of God the Father.  This means having a spiritual life (also more to come on this) that includes being an active member of a church, regular prayer, and service, and following His commandments.

As a man makes Jesus first in his life, and establishes Him and His teachings as a foundation, everything else comes from, and is built upon, that foundation.

Next time:  Being a gentleman.

Fairy Tales and The Story

I had a chance to see Snow White and the Huntsman recently.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was very pleasantly surprised.  It wasn’t dark, it wasn’t sappy, it wasn’t….what I expected.  It was, in fact, “real”.  And it got me thinking quite a bit about Fairy Tales and the Story (i.e. The Gospel).  First a disclaimer – while there are parallels and trails of thought that I can bring out of this movie in relation to Christianity, I fully realize that there are places the analogy falls short.  At least as far as I know, the story of Snow White was never intended as an allegory of Christ. (Although it is interesting to do a Google search on this topic and see how many other people have made comparisons).

So let me deal with storyline first.  There is a king.  He’s a good king, and he rules his kingdom well.  Unfortunately, he is tricked by an evil queen.  The king dies and the queen becomes the ruler of the kingdom.  Because of her evil nature, the kingdom suffers – not just the people, but the land itself.  We are told of the queen “she wants everyone dead, all of us!”  In the midst of this, there is Snow White, the only hope for the destruction of the evil queen.  One of the dwarves describes Snow White and the effect that she has on the land and those she comes in contact with:  “she is life itself”.  Furthermore, the evil queen is told “[Snow White’s] innocence and purity is all that can destroy you” – and going even further, “only by fairest blood is it undone”.  So am I crazy in thinking this is a familiar storyline:  a good king, the kingdom taken over by evil that only wants death.  The victory over that evil through someone who is “life itself”, who is innocent and pure, and who undoes this evil through “fairest blood”?  And of course I won’t even mention the whole “poison apple” thing. 

Well, I don’t think I’m crazy.  And I wonder how much of God’s story found its way into the movie, if not the original story?  And that further begs the question of why?  What is so appealing about the story of our creation, fall, and redemption that it would find its way into this (and so many other) stories?  Could it be that we hear and see the truth of that story in our lives and in the world around us?  There’s no denying we live in a fallen, imperfect world.  There’s no denying death.  And we yearn for something more.  We yearn for rescue from the cold “dark forest”, and from the rule of the evil one.  We yearn for “life itself” and the “sanctuary” where the white stag lives.  And we hope (even pray) that it is more than just a fairy tale.  Some of us believe it is more.

But that brings me to the last part of this ramble – how do we (those of us who believe the Story) tell that story?  I remember watching Disney’s version of Snow White.  It’s fluff.  It’s 2 dimensional, it's cartoon, and it's boring – even with a dragon.  It’s singing birds and everything rosy and even the bad things aren’t “too bad”.  But this movie….this movie was different.  It's 3 dimensional, it's flesh and blood.  In this movie Evil is pure evil.  Even though it looks beautiful, it isn’t.  It drips tarry ooze and yells, and kills, and it is old and shriveled and hateful underneath.  And the people (and dwarves) that fight evil aren’t perfect.  They have their faults and sometimes its hard to love them.  But they love Snow White and what she represents.  They fight for that, and the fighting is hard.  There are casualties in that fight.  There is pain and suffering and sacrifice in that fight.  So let me ask you, how do you present Christianity?  Does it come across as a fairy tale where all is fluffy and bright and painless, or does it come across as an epic battle of Good versus Evil, involving imperfect (sometimes downright ugly) people who nevertheless join the fight and overcome evil not by themselves, but through the blood of the one who gives life itself?  Yes, the story is real.  Yes, there is still magic in the story, but it is not “fairy tale” magic.  It is “epic” magic.  So I close by challenging you (and myself) to take a look at how you tell The Story, and even whether you tell The Story at all.  Because you see, it’s only in Fairy Tales that “they all live happily ever after”, because fairy tales don't really matter.  But epic stories do matter, and decisions carry life - or death.

Hermeneutics, Physics, Autism, and Postmodernism....

So, today was the second day of my hermeneutics class.  Hermeneutics is the act of determining the author's intended meaning in a Biblical text and then applying it to our current times.  It can be split up into exegesis - determining the author's original intent within the context of the Scriptures, and contextualization - applying that meaning to other times and cultures.  Inherent in these definitions are several important ideas:
1)  There is a "meaning" to be determined.
2)  That meaning is determined by the author, and has to be interpreted in the context.
3)  If 1 and 2 are true, then "meaning" doesn't change (although significance might).

Now this all makes sense to me, and one would wonder why people would see it differently, but this is where post-modernism comes in.  Some would say that "meaning" lies with the reader, and not with the author.  We see this in the "well, that's all fine and good for you, but this is what it means to me" statements we often hear these days.  It's easy to confuse interpretation and meaning.  We may "interpret" a meaning differently, but that doesn't mean there are two meanings.....(lots of "means" in this rambling, sorry!).  In class today we talked about "sentences" versus "utterances".  A sentence by itself has no meaning, wheras an utterance (because of context) does.  It's a hard concept for me to grasp, but as I understand it, a bunch of words strung together could have multiple meanings (i.e. "he hit the ball" - who hit it?  With what?  What kind of ball?).  It is not until that sentence is used as a communication (where there is someone "uttering it" with communicative intent) that meaning occurs.  This brings us to the question of where the meaning lies - does meaning come into existence with the speaker, with the words, or with the hearer?  And this brings us to physics....

This reminded me of Schroedinger's Cat.  In this "thought experiment" (note no animals were actually harmed in this physics experiment or this blog) the cat's state of being is "indeterminate" until perceived by an observer.  So it would seem that Schroedinger would argue that meaning and truth are determined by the observer.  Other quantum physicists (Heisenberg, maybe?) seem to think that complete meaning and understanding can't be obtained because the observer interferes (changes?) the existence of the thing being observed.  But maybe I'm trying to hard to stretch physics into metaphysics.

Which brings me to autism.  Many of the kids I see have "echolalia".  Basically, they repeat things they hear, but they don't understand what they're saying and the repetitions are usually (but not always) out of context.  For example, I remember a 3 year old son of a military person in Japan telling me "practice good operational security" when I greeted him with "hello".  Now, I'm pretty sure he didn't know what that meant, but I did.  The thing is, I was interpreting what he said based on my experiences.  For all I know he might have been saying "hi", or he might have been saying "I don't like being in this doctor's office", or he might not have been trying to say anything at all.  So here's the question:  was there meaning in what he said?  And if so, who determines that meaning - me as the listener, or him as the speaker?

Which brings me back to the Bible.  Is there meaning in Scripture? And if so, who determines that meaning - me as the reader, or God as the author?  What do you think?

Being Still for 100 miles

I finished a 100-mile bicycle ride yesterday, and learned a few things along the way.  The ride was to raise money to support the John Wayne Cancer Foundation, in honor of my good friend Darryl, who was diagnosed with lung cancer last year.  All the lessons I learned from riding 100 miles also apply to fighting cancer and – even more importantly, to being still.

I wasn’t prepared for this ride, but I had committed to riding it.  I figured the only way I might make it was to take it slow but steady, and rely on God’s grace to overcome my failings.  I first witnessed this technique by watching my friend, CC, run the Big Sur marathon at Monterey.  She intentionally took her time – walking, talking, taking pictures, stretching every minute out of the race.  It reminded me of Thoreau “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die discover that I had not lived.”  It seemed to me that CC ran in such a way that when she “came to the finish line” she would not discover that she had not lived along the way.  She sucked the marrow out of every mile she ran, and she loved it!

So, I adopted this approach, and started off with the goal of riding 100 miles in 9 ½ hours, or run out of time trying.  I took pictures, I talked with people, I stopped and stretched.  Here’s what I learned along the way:

1. You see some beautiful scenery during the journey.  Sunrise, sunset, hawks, blooming ocotillo, badland desert.  It’s even better when you stop, take a minute to truly appreciate it and become part of it.  In the process, I generated experiences and memories that I would have otherwise missed had I been focused on the finish line or on how much I was hurting.  So often in life we seem to be focused on other things.  We focus on out goals.  We focus on our pain and hurting.  In the process, we miss God’s creation.
2. You meet some amazing people along the way.  There’s something awesome about being at the “back of the pack”.  You develop a camaraderie that comes from knowing what the other fellow is going through – knowing that what YOU are going through you are not going through alone.  Robert is an amazing man I met along the road.  He’s been bicycling for only 4 months (compared to my 20+ years) and was riding in tennis shoes and on flat pedals (not even toe-clips) compared to my “latest” equipment.  He made it – what an inspiration.  If I hadn’t slowed down and said “hi”, I’d be a poorer man because of it.  The same is true in life.  We are not alone, unless we choose to be.  And if we take the time to look around us, we’ll find that there are many others sharing the journey.  We’ll find that we share the same hurts and the same dreams.  We’ll find that they come from different backgrounds and that their stories can inspire us (and God willing, maybe our story will inspire them).
3. Use the rest-stops.  Every rest-stop was a blessing.  A chance to eat, stretch, rest, and be served.  To go 100 miles, most of us need to rest along the way, and all of us – even the most seasoned athlete – need to take care of ourselves.  Seems like more and more there’s no “margin” in our lives.  We cram every minute with something to do.  God made a Sabbath day and told us to observe it.  He didn’t design it as a day to “not do anything”, but as a “rest-stop” along the way.  A chance to eat, stretch, rest.  I tend to get “weepy” when I hit “the wall”.  So at the 90 mile rest-stop I found myself choking back tears as a young lady filled my water bottle for me.  There’s something incredibly humbling and grace-filled about allowing someone to serve you.   It is a blessing to you, but also a blessing to them that you would accept their service with thanksgiving, recognizing it for what it is.  There is no sin in needing someone’s help, or even allowing them to serve you.  There is sin in expecting it, and there is also sin in refusing it.  In both cases that sin is pride.
4. Riding on the painted white line is easiest.  Basically, there’s less friction so it’s easier to pedal.  Now, that’s a pretty narrow line.  And as I’ve said in other blogs, what you focus on is where you go.  That means you need to look ahead and follow the line.  If you get off it, it’s harder going.  If you get too far off, you’re in the sand and not going anywhere.  Life is like that, too.  There is a path of least resistance.  It is the one that God has set out for you, and if you stray you’ll find yourself working harder than you need to.  I think that’s what happens when we try to make our own way.  We might still be going in the general direction God intends for us to go, but we’re doing it on our own strength instead of relying on His grace and mercy.  And of course, you can get completely off the path – for there is, really, only one way to the finish line.
5. Don't leave anyone behind.  One potential downside to this method is you can get focused on time.  "Do I have enough time to get to the finish line before the cut-off?"  I was 1 mile from the finish line, with 45 minutes to go.  No problem.  But there was a rider by the side of the road.  As I rode by, I asked if everything was alright.  He called out he had a flat.  Now past him, I asked "Do you need any help?"  And he replied....yes.  I was tempted to go on.  I was worried that if I stopped and helped, I wouldn't make it to the finish on time.  But I stopped.  We chatted while I changed his tire.  Someone else stopped, too.  We finished changing the tire.  All three of us finished the race, when only two would have made the cut-off had we not stopped.  In life, we need to ask the people on the roadside if they need help, and we need to be willing to give it.  More importantly, we need to take as many people with us to the finish line - and let me be perfectly clear I'm talking about heaven - as we can.  We do that by stopping along the way and sharing Jesus, for He is "our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in the times of trouble" (Psalm 46:1.  While you're there, check out verse 10....)
6. Finishing is great, but finishing well is better.  There are some people that crossed the finish line 5 hours before I did.  I can’t know for sure that they didn’t enjoy the ride, but I can say for sure that I got to enjoy 5 more hours of it than they did.  I think Paul understood this when he said to the Hebrews “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).

So, how to sum this up?  Sometimes being still is more about being content with the journey than with worrying about getting to the finish.  It is in that journey learn how to overcome pain, focus beyond ourselves, accept help, form new relationships, and stay on the path.  In short, it is in the journey that we live.

God bless.

Christmas Presence

Over the past many years I’ve had my share of Christmas presents.  It seems like they fall into 3 broad groups.

The first group is the largest – these are the gifts that I thought I really, really, really, wanted (or needed) only to have their novelty wear off after a short time.  I wish I could say that this occurred only when I was a child but that isn’t so.  These gifts end up in closets, or garage sales, or garbage cans within a few years or months.  The pleasure and satisfaction associated with these gifts is even more fleeting than they are and they were cast aside as I grew bored with them.

The second group is the present, often from a distant relative, that is useful but certainly not exciting.  I remember these gifts in my childhood as consisting of clothes – sweaters, socks, and so on.  For a young boy, these were anything but fun.  Although I wanted these gifts to “disappear”, they usually stayed around because of their practicality.  But certainly there was no pleasure or satisfaction associated with them, and I would get rid of them as soon as I could.

I have only had about two gifts that fit into the last group. These are the gifts that have continued to give me joy over many years of use.  While I don’t use them daily, I use them at least once a week on average.  They are the “Best Gifts Ever”.  I would never give them away.

Advent is now over, and Christmas is here.  It is the time when we celebrate God’s “Best Gift Ever” to us.  That gift is, of course, Jesus Christ.  But I think the miracle of Christmas – the miracle of the gift – is best summed up in one word – Immanuel.  God promised this gift through his prophets in the Old Testament…”Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).  Immanuel means “God with us”.  This is the scandalous gift of Christmas.  It is not just that God freed us from our bondage.  It is not just that God found a way for us to be with Him in heaven.  It is that God came down to be with us while we were still sinners.  God set aside everything He is entitled to and dwelt among us as a baby in a barn.  Born to lowly parents, not Kings.  Greeted by shepherds, not priests.  Sought out by foreigners, not by the people He came to.  This is the Christmas present that God gave to us 2000 years ago.  This is what separates Christianity from all other religions, for no other religion’s god sets aside his godhead to enter into relationship with his creation.  Allah does not do this.  Vishna does not do this.  Buddha does not do this.  Only Jesus does this.

So, what to do with this gift?  How to treat it?  We could initially accept it with joy, but not grow into it, eventually casting it off like so many presents of Christmases past.  We could accept it as a “necessity” without finding any joy in it and getting rid of it at the first opportunity.  Or, we could accept it as the Best Gift Ever and use it monthly, weekly, daily – even minute by minute. 

The gift has been given.  God give me the grace to accept it with the excitement, joy, honor, and reverence it is due.

Anticipation part 2

At a recent church planting conference, one statement that really got me thinking was this:  “God doesn’t have a people with a mission.  He has a mission with a people”.  This has several implications:

1)      This takes the focus off of you, and puts it on God.  It’s not about what you want, or what God can do for you.  It’s about what God wants, and what you can do for God.  This is the vertical relationship in our lives.  This means focusing on God, and directing others toward God.  The Bible is full of details about how we should approach God – with fear, with reverence, with worship, with love.

2)      This takes the focus off of you, and puts it on the people that are God’s mission field.  It’s not about you, it’s about others.  This is the horizontal relationship in our lives.  The Bible is full of details about who God’s mission field is.  It seems to deal a lot with widows, orphans, the poor, the sick, the lame, the prisoners – the “lost, the least, and the last”.

3)      You’re not really God’s person unless you’re on God’s mission.  And that mission is crystallized in the junction of a vertical relationship and a horizontal relationship – represented by the cross.

4)      So, the cross should be the center of our focus.  When our eyes are focused on the cross, we are drawn into God’s mission.

So, what does this have to do with being still?  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!  Because sometimes we’re NOT called to be still.  Last time we talked about the anticipation that comes with being pregnant, and how it is a time of expectation.  It is not really a time of “being still” because there is a lot going on.  That includes telling the world about the pregnancy!  “We’re gonna have a baby!”  Family is told, friends are told, co-workers are told, face-book is told….anyone and everyone is told.  It is also a time of celebration – baby showers with games and gifts and laughter.  So it is a time of anticipation, of proclamation, and of celebration.  Sounds kind of like how we should be approaching the whole “focus on God” thing, doesn’t it?  This advent season, as we celebrate God’s work already done, and anticipate His work yet to come, shouldn’t we also be proclaiming this?  I’m not talking about the “Jesus is the reason for the season” buttons, or the “Let’s put Christ back in CHRISTmas”.  I’m talking about actually sitting down and telling a family member, a friend, a co-worker about what Jesus has done in your life and what Jesus could do in theirs.  I’m talking about inviting someone to join you in relationship with Jesus.  I’m talking about getting out this season and actually touching some of those people that Jesus talks about in Matthew 11:2-5.  Touch them by meeting their needs – money, food, clothing, shelter, freedom from drugs or human trafficking.  And LOVE them.  Hold their hand.  Brush their hair.  Wash their feet.  Hug them.  Walk alongside them.  And most of all, tell them about Jesus as you do it.

There is one more implication in our saying about God’s people and God’s mission…

            5)  If you don’t do the mission, God will find someone else.  In Luke 19:39-40 God makes this abundantly clear – God’s mission (both proclamation and action) will be done.  The fact is, God doesn’t need us to do it…but He does invite us.  That is the wonder of the Christian God – that He invites us into relationship with Him.  Let’s take some time this advent season to anticipate, celebrate, and proclaim that wonder.

God bless,

John

Anticipation

If you’re my age, you probably remember the old Heinz ketchup commercials that dealt with waiting?  First there was the song “Anticipation is making me wait”, but my favorite was this one.  Or, if you’re not my age, you may remember one of the best lines from the Rocky Horror Picture Show:  “I see you shiver with antici…………………………………………………………………pation. (Tim Curry did a great job on that line!)  Anyway, anticipation is definitely the word of the season.  What season you ask?  Glad you asked.  Advent.  Occurring between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it lasts only 4 weeks making it the shortest season of the Christian calendar.  Unfortunately, because of the timing, it is also one of the most overlooked seasons as well.  Between the rush of cooking Thanksgiving dinner, black Friday, Cyber Monday, all the other Christmas shopping, cleaning the house, getting ready for relatives, studying for finals (put that one in there just for you, Becky) and who knows what else, there is little time left to….anticipate.  Yup, that’s what advent is all about.  Anticipation.  Some would say it’s about waiting, but it’s more than that.  It’s about waiting with hope.  But it’s more than that, it’s waiting with a hope of certainty.  Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”.  THAT’S the kind of anticipation I’m talkin’ about!

So what does that anticipation look like?  Well, I’ve seen something like it several times in my life, but I think one of the best examples is pregnancy (no wonder we say the mother is “expecting”!)  The thing about pregnancy is we all know it’s going to end – it is just a brief time before “the big event”.  There are several characteristics of that time:  first (as most moms will tell you) even though it’s a “short time”, it doesn’t always seem that way.  In fact, it can seem to go on forever!  Second, this isn’t just a time of waiting.  Parents spend the time of pregnancy getting ready for the baby.  Building a nursery, choosing a name, buying clothes, etc.  That time also involves keeping the mother healthy – eating a good diet, taking prenatal vitamins, and so on.

This brings us back to Advent, at several levels.  First, Advent sets our minds back to the time “between” the Old and New Testament – the time of waiting for the Messiah, Jesus.  Second, it sets our minds forward to Jesus’ second coming.  In the first instance, we know it was a limited time.  In the second instance, we must rely on that faith mentioned in Hebrews 11.  In the first instance, the Israelites weren’t ready for Jesus.  In the second….?

So…..here’s my question about this advent.  How do I practice the discipline of anticipation?  What can I do over the next 3 weeks (yup, already one week behind!) to anticipate Christmas and everything it represents (past and present)?  I’m still working on that, but I suspect (looking at past blog entries) it has something to do with 1) being deliberate, 2) focusing on Jesus, 3) spending time in God’s presence, and 4) being still (not just physically, but mentally and emotionally).

shivering with anticipation,

John