Shimmering Gems and Sparkling Diamonds

Last night in the dim light of the fellowship hall after the guests had gone to sleep, I had one of those candid, beautiful, vulnerable, honest, and at times painful conversations with a man named Johnny, a man who was returning to involvement with the church he desperately loves after years of being rejected by that very same church. The phrase he used: 'churches eat their wounded.' He presented a kaleidoscope of stories. As I listened, I had the overwhelming sense that he was pouring out a pile of shimmering gems and sparkling diamonds just for me onto the table between us. Having talked about the precious gift embedded in a story just that afternoon in my ministry of teaching class, it felt like Christmas morning. To be in the presence of this man was to be anointed by an entire jar of perfume, to have my feet washed by a king. "I don't deserve such grace," I thought, "I don't deserve this." This is kingdom treasure.

Front Yard Magic

I walked out into a warm winter day a week and a half ago, which at that point was nearly fifty. While walking across the street I heard noise around the tall 10 foot bushes blocking our driveway from the next door neighbor's house. Looking over I saw a young girl wearing a pink sweatshirt. I noticed that she carried a two-foot stick in her hand. She was thrusting the stick at a branch about twice as long on the ground in front of her. It appeared as if the stick was serving as some sort of magic wand, and she was directing the magic to the longer branch below. I called out a hello to her, and she cheerfully said hello back. Before I could even ask her what exactly she was doing she told me that she was trying to make the branch disappear. I asked her how that was coming. She scrunched up her face, wrinkled her nose, faintly smiled, and held the sapling wand to her body with both arms as if she was suddenly embarrassed. "Half of it?" I asked her. Then she shook her head, held up her hand, and made parallel her thumb and index finger indicating that she had made just a little bit of the branch disappear. I wished her luck with the rest of it. As I drove down the street in front of her, I waved good bye. She just kept hugging the stick with her body and scrunching her face, making that embarrassed look again. I wonder if she was embarrassed that she was trying to make the stick disappear in the first place or that she had made just a small portion of it disappear. I very much hope that it was the latter. Imagine.

MLK Day

Prophetic words from Martin Luther King, Jr. in his extraordinary 'Letter from Birmingham Jail.'

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens' Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection...'

Notice

A week and a half ago, I was trudging up the steps, dragging my feet to the third floor of McPheeters at 7:45 in the morning. Taking deep breaths, I was hoping that the expansion of my lungs my start to wake me up a bit. I have often considered myself a morning person, someone who enjoyed being up before the sun. And I still do. But this morning, I would be the first to admit that I was thinking of my matress on the floor, or the comfortable, blanket-laden couch in the living room. However, as I ascended the last set of stairs, my heavy head slightly tilted down, I noticed a dark silhouette of a man facing the window. He was a tall slender man with a large brimmed hat on, that I may have more quickly noted to be Dr. Mulholland if it had been later in the day or not that particular day. He was looking out the window holding his cell phone to the glass. He had a content and curious look on his face, a look that I often see on his face. But it did not take long for me to venture my eyes through the window and see something huge and glorious that I had somehow missed. The sky was filled with soft red and purple clouds, like the cover of 'The Sound and the Fury.' It was like an ocean in the sky, an upside down ocean, filled with soft billowy waves rolling on and on into a distant solar light. It was the kind of picture that instantly made you think of the eternal, the holy, the awesome. I had somehow missed it. I normally consider myself someone who notices, but I clearly didn't that morning. I suddenly had a tremendous gratitude for Dr. Mulholland and those like him who are able to notice and disciplined enough to notice when I cannot.

On another note, I hope you notice the new banner I put up. I've made effort to get it up numerous times, but I have finally succeeded.

The Defeat of Josh Hamilton

I’ve never been one to post about sports. This is certainly not for lack of ability to be a sports fan. Many do not know that I thoroughly enjoy listening to sports radio and am very fond of ESPN Sportscenter when I have the cable to watch it. I think that many would be surprised at the breadth of needless and pointless sports knowledge I do possess. Despite the fact that I am a closet sports junkie in many ways, it is something that I do not connect to spiritual matters much. I usually leave these to people like my good friend Aaron Tiger who is a master at sports analogies. However, last night’s home run derby event provided a rare circumstance, an atmosphere that I found so significant that it was worth writing about.

Given that this is a post connected to sports in the middle of July, in the middle of what many might call the dreadfully boring and insurmountably long major league baseball season makes this writing all the more surprising. What is even more surprising to me is my enjoyment of baseball this season. Although I do not have a team I am particularly fond of in major league baseball, an interest has blossomed in me this season for reasons really unknown to me.

Last night was the annual home run derby that by chance I decided to watch. By “watch” I mean that I flipped back to every now and then between other television shows. It began like any other derby. Each contestant blasted about 3 to 6 balls into the stands of Yankee Stadium. I can’t explain it, but there is something about a homerun that is captivating to watch. It is such a picture of brute power and strength. The first round was no different than any other derby until the last contestant. This was a young player named Josh Hamilton from the Texas Rangers.

The first thing you would notice about Hamilton is the heavy tattooing that covered his fore arms. The visible mark, the scarlet letter, which serves as a chilling reminder of a turbulent and recent past with drug addiction. This was an addiction that took him out of baseball for three years into all the darkness and evil that cocaine addiction brings, after being picked first in the draft and labeled one of the most talent players in recent history. He now wishes he could take off his tattoos. He became a follower of Jesus, and the Lord brought him life again. Now, he is free in Christ, not to mention one of the great hitters in the game now leading the league in RBI’s. Hamilton is noted as one of the great sports stories of our time.

This added electricity and a special feeling to the derby. But no one could have foreseen the event that would soon occur as he took his place at the plate. From his first swing, Hamilton demonstrated his natural, God-given talent by catapulting one home run after another. Slowly, the crowd at Yankee stadium began to sense something special taking place and began to cheer in a way that surprised everyone. At one point, he had hit 13 home runs in a row. By the end of the round, Hamilton had hit 28 home runs, the most ever hit in a round. The stadium including spectators, players, and commentators were glazed over and amazed.

He was interviewed afterwards where he humbly thanked God and revealed that he had had a dream in which he was in the home run derby adding more to the aura of what he had just done. He had captured the night and really the heart of everyone watching and all this merely after the first round. Everyone knew that Hamilton would win this home run derby.

But what was more interesting to me was that Hamilton actually lost the home run derby. Hamilton obviously made it into the final round where he went head to head with a good player named Justin Morneau from the Minnesota Twins. Rather than including the contestants previous totals, they both started from scratch in the final round in order to make it more competitive. Morneau was first hitting 5 home runs. I think that he along with everyone else believed that this was not enough to beat the talented Hamilton to whom this night seemed to belong. Hamilton took the plate and intitially hit a couple of home runs. But then he began to ground the ball, hit pop flies, and his out total began to pile up. When he was on his last out, he had three home runs – 2 short of Morneau. There was suddenly the dawning of a sober reality that Hamilton might actually lose. One got the sense that everyone wanted him to win; I most definitely wanted to him to win. It seemed right for him to win. It seemed appropriate for him to win. Maybe he had some magic left in him. Maybe he could squeeze in three more right now. That would add even more amazement to the night. It would be the perfect story. But his final hit was not a homerun; it was a grounder to left side of the field. Disappointment was obviously the dominant feeling in the stadium. It seems that Hamilton had just grown tired and did not have it in him. Hamilton smiled as he left the plate and congratulated Morneau.

Afterwards, Hamilton was interviewed where he humbly accepted defeat. In a final question of which I do not quite remember, he paused for a moment looking into the distance as if wondering if this was the right time to say what he was about to say on national television. Then he thanked his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the opportunity to be here. It seems to me that it was not out of shame or embarrassment that he hesitated in saying this. It seems to me that he wanted it to be seen with his life rather than his words but decided that it couldn’t hurt.

This is certainly not the first time that we have heard someone thank God or even thank Jesus Christ on television or a large public setting. We hear this quite often at the Grammy’s and occasionally at the Academy Awards. But it suddenly came to me last night that we normally do not hear this in defeat. Yet, it seems fitting that Hamilton cried Jesus in defeat, particularly when just an hour or so before victory seemed so securely in his grasp. It is times like this that help us realize that just because we follow Jesus doesn’t mean that we win the homerun derby or become champions of anything. In fact, it appears that Jesus came to teach us not how to win, but how to lose. He came to teach us the way of losing in order that others may be loved and may be saved. Much like the monumental display of 28 homeruns of Josh Hamilton, Jesus did some amazing and beautiful things in the first round of his life that made the outcome of the final round in his life all the more disappointing and hard to understand. Jesus lost, he willingly grounded into a double play for all of us (pardon the cheap analogy). But it is one of the beautiful ironies of our faith that through defeat comes victory. Familiar with the way these things go, I would guess that Hamilton had to be defeated spiritually in order for God to burn the evil and addiction out of him. But through this defeat came to him a cup of life that makes a derby victory pale in comparison. That is what I saw last night. For those who see it, for those who have ears to hear, the defeat of Josh Hamilton last night was the most victorious thing.

Something Scandalous and Uncomfortable

A little less than a week ago, I was teaching a group of high school and middle school students about Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus in John chapter 3. But if we call this Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus we might miss something about, what I would argue to be, one of the most significant points of Jesus’ teaching here. The vital teaching that Jesus gives is that Nicodemus cannot really ‘encounter’ Jesus, unless Jesus encounters him first. The new birth is something we have to let God do to us. It is something passive. To illustrate I used the story of Eustace, the unpleasant boy who turned into a dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. One of the strangest yet somewhat magical lines in that book is the Lion’s advice to Eustace just before he is changed back into a boy: “you’ll have to let me undress you.”

When I said those words to these students I suddenly discovered that there was an imprisoned giggle all over the room. Grins and open teeth began instantly forming. I felt that I needed to break the ice so I said it was okay to laugh. Immediately, students began to laugh aloud, look at their friends, and express to each other how strange this story was. Even more laughter exploded when I began to go on with the story and describe how Eustace laid down and let the Lion actually undress him. I’ll admit, the words are a bit scandalous. Our entertainment culture would have fun with a line like that. I can see a sly joke forming in Jimmy Kimmel’s mind already. The words may have been a bit less scandalous to Lewis when he wrote them, and most likely to the children he was targeting with them. But, considering what I have written below, this might be one of the crucial reasons Jesus tells us to be like little children in our faith.

It began to occur to me later on, that those words that the lion spoke were perfectly suited to describe the new birth, which is one of the most intimate things that can ever happen to anyone. The new birth is quite a scandalous thing. It is here that you have to let God make new the ugly and dark parts of your life. But before you can let God do that, you have to give those things to God. But before you can do that, you have to touch and look at it like the underbelly of a large rock. That’s something scandalous and uncomfortable if I’ve ever heard it. Perhaps, this is why we see Nicodemus outraged by Jesus’ response that in order to see the Kingdom of Heaven you have to be born from above. The new birth, in some sense, is never easy for anyone.

The Art of Starting

As summer approaches I am drawn to think about what sort of reading material will occupy my bedside table and house couch given that the summer months bring a new sense of freedom to my bookshelf. But in the midst of this I came to the painful and uncomfortable realization that there have been written way too many books that I would be interested in reading, and there is no possible amount of time in my life to read them. Perhaps this is a personal and unusual fight with pessimism, that forces me to think that the possibility of reading them all is simply an illusion when it is not. Reading lists are like blank canvases in many ways - filled with the most intense contradiction of wonderful possibility and stone-still intimidation. Perhaps I can apply what I've learned from painting, writing, and obedience to God to the summer reading list: the art of starting. I've just got to dig in and go after it.

While there are too many books to mention, I will say that my doctrine class has made me interested in the writings of Emile Brunner. Perhaps I will make a stop by the library.