Author: Robert

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The Ordinary Sacred

G.K. Chesterton possibly wrote:

“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”

I wrote “possibly” above because I can’t find a citation where Chesterton actually said or wrote this so I’m not sure he did write or say it. I did find a discussion here concerning whether Chesterton wrote this exact phrase or not. Regardless of whether or not Chesterton actually wrote the statement I really like the point of the sentence so I’m going to use it as a starting point and admit that it might be apocryphal that he wrote the saying.

I’m not sure that you can rate sacredness but if you could I grow to believe a little more each day that ordinary moments done well (in light of God and others) are among the most sacred. The special or “mountain top” moments sure feel holy and majestic but I don’t actually think that their feel counts for much. The holiest moment of Christendom was the time Jesus spent on the cross and while we modern believers may get goose bumps thinking about it or during passion plays I don’t get the impression from scripture that anyone involved thought anything special was going on. Mainly people responded in fear, pain, and most sad of all, just plain ordinariness. For the vast majority of people who looked upon the crucified Son of God He was just another of thousands of crucifixions they may have seen during their lifetime. God was brutalized and hung upon a cross and Jerusalem went along with the typical business of the festival week. Nothing stopped. Ordinary life continued.

Jesus’s life before His ministry was probably amazingly normal and ordinary. The vast majority of Jesus’ life was made of activities that though sacred, because the Divine was involved in them, were so ordinary that no one considered writing them down. Almost nothing, other than one scene when He was a pre-teen, is written of Jesus from the age of 2 to 30. We expected God to come down and for everything He did to be extraordinary but instead most of what He did ordinary, which is so extraordinary that we struggle to comprehend it.

I am presently in love with a song by Waterdeep titled “Why Does God Have to Look So Human” from their musical “The Unusual Tale of Mary & Joseph’s Baby“. In this song Mary sings of the struggle she has when God presenting Himself within humanity and especially within humanity as a baby. To quote from last lyric of the song, “And he doesn’t look like power, oh no. Instead… He looks like me.” What I love about this song is its description of how the Incarnation brought humanity into God. When God chose to be Incarnate suddenly the ordinary became sacred because it became part of what God did. Eating, cleaning, working, napping, laughing, crying , etc. all became a part of the sacred because they were activities that Jesus, God incarnate, did. All of these became moments in which we can interact with the Divine.

I think this is part of the reason that I love Brother Lawrence‘s simple little book “The Practice of the Presence of God.” Lawrence tried to practice God’s presence in all that he did. Which is why it is said of Lawrence that “Peeling potatoes was more essential for Brother Lawrence’s spiritual growth than attending the evening prayer service because Brother Lawrence recognized that God was there in the kitchen as much as he was in the chapel. ” This wasn’t an excuse for Lawrence to miss evening prayer service as some people use similar phrases as excuses to miss their own religious duties. “I can connect with God while playing golf or fishing.” Yes you can but I would bet money that if you are using that as an excuse then you probably aren’t connecting with God during those times. You might feel a moment of the majestic but you aren’t really being connected with and changed by God. Lawrence recognized that God was in the kitchen and he allowed the divine to shape and change him even while he was peeling potatoes. Being in the kitchen was a prayer service for Brother Lawrence because the ordinary was sacred for him.

David Thoreau wrote “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

My understanding of what Thoreau meant by that line and the sentences around it in Walden is that the vast majority of us live lives of misplaced value and then try to make up for that misplaced value with things like money, possessions, experiences, etc. To put it into the point of this post we have lives full of the mundane and try to make up for it with big meaningful, exciting moments that we call memories because we think these big moments are the most meaningful parts and what life is all about. “Ah! This is life!” Nope.

The ordinary is the majority of our life and therefore as a Christian I believe it is where we probably most interact with God. So therefore my encouragement today is for us to experience God in the ordinary today.

For me that will probably look like recognizing God in the midst of…

  • eating breakfast with my wife and thanking God for her and the ability to enjoy my nourishment – Thank you for these tastes Father.
  • removing pegboard from our smashed garage and being thankful for the ability to work and that the tree didn’t hurt anyone – You created me to have tired muscles, thank You for this feeling.
  • finalizing the sermon for tomorrow and thinking about how God has and wants to work in and through Tapestry – Father, I am so grateful for the community of faith of which I am a part.
  • walking Clive and being reminded of a magnificent Creator – Help me to be as loyal to You as Clive is to me.
  • hopefully fishing with Noah recognizing the beauty with which God made His world. – What beauty you have put into the world Oh God.
  • riding with Clive in the Mustang and enjoying the weather that God has given us – This wind and Bob Marley music are so wonderfully enjoyable, Thanks.
  • reading in bed and enjoying the new thoughts and experiences that God allows me to have – How many ideas and stories have you allowed Father?
  • ending my day with a prayer thanking God for it all for the ordinary can be sacred and hopefully today mine will be – Ahhh. You were in this day.

What a wonderfully, sacred, ordinary day today is going to be!

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Active Shooter Training & Living in Fear

Recently one of the companies I chaplain for went through active shooter training. This was your basic ADD training.

  • Avoid – get away from the shooter
  • Deny – hide and use attempted to block the shooter’s access to you
  • Defend – attack the shooter as a last resort

I believe this was good training for us to go through as long as we understand the actual proportional risk we face of an active shooter. I think the danger with thinking about mass shootings is, as C.S. Lewis describes with the danger of the demonic in his classic work The Screwtape Letters, to think either too little or too much about them. Like a fire drill it is good for us to be prepared. After all there is a risk, though a an almost minusculely small one, that we will one day need this information. Unfortunately our wonderful, God-given instinct to fear danger can go hyperactive and lead us to unreasonably fear things to the point of being paralyzed by events that are extremely unlikely to ever happen to us. That unreasonable fear stops us from not only enjoying our daily lives but also responding in love to the opportunities around us. Fear paralyzes us, love mobilizes us.

The chance that Clive the basset will kill you is significantly less than the chance that Helen the cat will trip you and break your neck.

For example, your chance of dying in a mass shooting is around 1 in 110,154 (2016 stats). That’s not something that I want to completely disregard but it also isn’t something that I want to shape my life around. To give you some comparisons that chance is close the same chance that you will die from a dog attach (1 in 112,400) or legal execution (1 in 119,012) but more likely than being killed by lightning (1 in 161,856). Whereas much more likely means of death include, obviously, hearts disease (1 in 6), cancer (1 in 7), and motor vehicle accident (1 in 103) but also death by fall ((1 in 114), drowning (1 in 1,117), fire/smoke (1 in 1,474), and death by hornet, wasp, or bee sting (1 in 46,045). I am much more concerned about tripping on one of the cats and falling to my death than I am of Clive the Basset turning vicious and killing me. Both could happen but one is definitely more probable.

I’m not sure about you but I don’t mess around with lightning, I’m not going to go running around in a lightning storm holding a big metal pole, but I also don’t fear it to the point that it keeps me from doing my daily activities or even running while it rains.

So all I am saying is try to let the facts reassure you that you don’t have to live in fear. As horrific as terrorist acts like mass shootings are our chance of being involved in one isn’t very great. Fear is usually what terrorist are hoping for. Be smart enough to know what to do if you are ever, God for bid, in one but don’t live in fear of something that you will probably never personally experience. So you don’t have to respond in fear of crowds and fear of every stranger because you most probably won’t ever be in an active shooter situation. You don’t have to walk around like you are in an active war zone or always sit with you back to the wall in an hyper-aware mindset even when you are out to dinner. You don’t have to live in fear and in my opinion if you are a Christian you shouldn’t live in fear.

I think understanding unreasonable fears is incredibly important for those of us who profess Jesus as Lord because first we were not given a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7) , and second unreasonable fears often keep us from doing the things that Jesus calls us to do such as caring for the foreigners in our midst. For example, consider the Ebola scare of 2014 (I wrote about the church and Ebola here). Remember the fear that was associated with helping people and countries sufferings from Ebola? Many people who claimed to be Christians responded in great fear rather than great love over a crisis that never really ended up affecting us very much. There was a great deal of sound and fury, but in the end nothing really for us to fear. Still that fear led some Christians to act in very unChristian manners toward those in need. When we respond in love instead of fear we tend to do great things. Again fear paralyzes us, love mobilizes us.

Try to listen to the voices of love rather than fear. I think it leads to a more God honoring life.

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My Thoughts on a Good Funeral

When I searched my Google Photos account for “funeral” this image of “The Exorcist” came up and I thought it was funny that out of all my stored images this is what Google Photos correlated with the search term “funeral”. So I decided I would use it as an image for the post. Obviously the image has nothing to do with my thoughts on funerals … unless Google knows something I don’t.

As a pastor and a chaplain I not only officiate many funerals but I also think that as a chaplain I probably attend more funerals than many other ministers. Seriously chaplains attend a lot of funerals because you have connections with lots of different people from many different areas of life, not just the people in your church or friend/family circle. When I first started writing this blog post (some months ago) I had attended /helped officiated 6 funerals in the four weeks prior to starting to write the post. Funerals are simply a normal part of my daily life. I have experienced some really amazing funerals and I have been present for some horrendous ones.

Before I give my thoughts let me just say these thoughts are from my white-middle class perspective. Other cultures have very different funeral practices and my thoughts might go against the grain for those practices. For example, Hmong funerals in our area. So just remember these are my thoughts from my perspective. I think they may be helpful but if their aren’t just ignore them.

So here are my few thoughts on some attributes that help to make for a life-giving funeral :

  • It is personal – I don’t mean by this that it is small or intimate. I have watched as some officiants tried to talk personal about the deceased and I was fairly sure that every one in the room could tell that the minister had never actually met the person who he/she is eulogizing or spent anytime with the family members to hear stories about the deceased. The most amazing funerals I have ever been a part of have involved the minister also being one of the ones who grieves, but I have also seen some funerals where the minister didn’t know the deceased but had obviously spent enough time with the relatives to speak of the relatives’ thoughts and feelings and these were still wonderful funerals

  • It is genuine – I am not suggesting that we speak ill of the dead, but I have been to a few funerals where all that was said about the deceased was overly positive, vague, overarching, and pretty much meaningless. Everyone’s a saint when they die is only true for those who really didn’t know the deceased. Some of the most amazing funerals I have ever been to have acknowledged the deceased’s faults in such a manner that you knew people loved him/her despite, and sometimes because of, their faults. Two people got up at my father’s funeral and talked about how cheap he was and all I did was smile because I knew that they actually knew and loved my dad and his cheap ways. I’ve been to funerals were lots of flowery words were said about the deceased that everyone in the room knew weren’t true. “He would give the shirt off his back,” but no one can name an example of him doing anything close. “She loved her family greatly,” except for the family members that she hurt over and over again. Cliché, cliché, cliché, ad infinitum because that what you say when you feel like you can’t say the truth.

  • It acknowledges death – this one may seem a little strange because you would think that a funeral would obviously acknowledge death but often they don’t. We are so scared of death that we no longer like to even call them funerals. Nope, we call them “celebrations of life” and we talk about everything except the fact that we are going to miss our loved one and that their absence hurts. At funerals we gather together to help each grieve. Sometimes that grief involves laughter and smiles but those laughs and smiles come with sadness and pain. If we just run away from the pain then we don’t help anyone grieve.

  • It points beyond itself – Yes I am a person of faith but I think this is true regardless of whether a person is actually a person of faith or not. I believe funerals should remind us of things that are bigger than ourselves. Specifically I believe there should be a connection with the divine but even if you aren’t a believer I think that funerals should help the living to have a long view of life. When it points beyond itself a good funeral allows those who have died before us to shape what we leave for those who will come after us. Funerals help us to think in terms greater than our own existence on this earth.

  • It has some structure – The worst funerals I have ever been too have had no structure whatsoever. Everything doesn’t have to be written down and planned but please have a little structure. Have the people doing the eulogies think about and possibly write down what they are going to say. Figure out the music beforehand (seriously I have been to a funeral where people were scrolling through a phone trying to find a song that they thought the deceased would like to play on the sound system). Some structure recognizes that there are people at the funeral with varying degrees of grief. Some are just there for the family and want to let the family know that they hurt with them. Others are there to be comforted and need to be comforted for a long time. A horrific scene is when you can tell that a large group has taken off work to be there for the family and they begin to realize that this funeral isn’t going to end when they had been told and they are going to need to make other work or childcare arrangements or just duck out without giving their condolences to the family. I have seen people squirm. Whereas I have been to some highly structured funerals full where every word was prescribed that were still amazingly personal and meaningful.

These are just a few of my thoughts as someone who goes to many funerals. What I know is that I hope for those I love to have funerals that help all those who love them, including me, to grieve their loss , remember the deceased, and most importantly point to the God of life Who is there to comfort all who grieve.

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Spurgeon the Pacifist

We are up to the hilt advocates of peace, and we earnestly war against war. I wish that Christian men would insist more and more on the unrighteousness of war, believing that Christianity means no sword, no cannon, no bloodshed, and that, if a nation is driven to fight in its own defense, Christianity stands by to weep and to intervene as soon as possible, and not to join in the cruel shouts which celebrate an enemy’s slaughter. Let us always be on the side of right. Today, then, my brethren, I beg you to join with me in seeking renewal.

(From An All-Round Ministry, a college address in 1880)

I’m just posting this here for my neo-reformed friends who love Charles Spurgeon but also seem to be very often pro-war.

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White Christians Shouldn’t Be Able To Support White Supremacy

If you profess Jesus as Lord then you profess an Ancient Near Eastern Jew to be the King of Kings and Creator and Sustainer of the universe and Lord of your life. Because of the Christian belief in the incarnation He will also always be Jewish. The Father and Spirit might be without race but the Incarnate Word was Jewish and remains Jewish. He didn’t give up His race when He was raised from the dead for the resurrection was just that … a resurrection. It wasn’t some purely spiritual thing. It was bodily resurrection. Jesus ate and allowed people to touch Him. He was still incarnate as a dark-skinned man and when He ascended into the presence of the Father He did so in that same body. So it makes no sense what so ever for a Christian to ever be racist or support white-supremacy.

Yet I know it happens.

We’ve all seen it happen.

But I still have hope because I believe the good news here is that the church continues to grow in its understanding of what our faith means. At one time the majority of the church supported slavery, but slowly the teachings of Jesus so convicted disciples of Christ that slowly but surely the church turned away from slavery and helped society to do so too.

Martin Luther King paraphrased a sermon of the Reverend Theodore Parker with the following famous line. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” As King I believe that Jesus is reshaping the world away from its sinfulness and brokenness. One day He will finalize that redemption. Until that day we our lives should continually “bend toward justice”. Over the past century some parts of the church in the US have done better than other parts in understanding this. For example, that modern revolutionary Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers is a great example of racially bending toward justice.

And other parts of the church have been slower on the uptake here. My own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is an example of being slow in bending toward racial justice. Still the teachings of Jesus bend toward justice and that changes those who are honestly trying to follow Him. I am reminded of this when I often see prominent leaders within my denomination say things that I know will cost them with some people but continue to help us to “bend” as a denomination.

For example, Beth Moore

And Ed Stetzer

The arc is really long and I can’t see with my own eyes where it actually ends in justice. That horizon is simply too far away for my eyes to see. But I believe I know the dark-skinned One Who stands at the end of that arc and I believe slowly but surely He changes things in His church. I want to work towards the justice that I believe He bends the universe toward.

So let me state this as plainly as I can. If you profess Jesus as Lord and you hold racist views or vocally or non-vocally support white-supremacy then you are, at best, an idiot. At worst you are sinning and participating with the demonic. When I have done this I also have been an idiot. Thankfully I believe in a dark-skinned messiah Who forgives us our idiotic, at best, and sinful/demonic, at worst, ways, and our salvation rest in His faithfulness not ours. Still we are idiots when we hold or support racist views and actions.

Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be racist. Don’t support white-supremacy. Be like Mr. Rogers.

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Small is Beautiful – An Ode to Small Churches

Ok this won’t actually be an ode, 1st because without looking it up I’m not exactly sure what an “ode” is (I just did. An ode is “a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter.”), and 2nd, now that I know what an ode is I also know that I don’t have the skill to write an ode (yes Pamela I hear you “anyone can’t write an ode if they just put themselves to the effort and don’t judge themselves for not writing like John Keats”).

Nope I just liked the sound of the phrase “An Ode to Small Churches” and thought I would use in the title of this post concerning how I love small churches. So let me start with this statement, I LOVE SMALL CHURCHES! In particular I LOVE MY SMALL CHURCH!

At one point in my life my idea of ministry was bigger and better.

I often heard the statement “healthy things grow” as the measure for success. The mindset being that if you are faithful as church you will grow in numbers. I seriously bought into this mindset. If your ministry was effective your church WAS GOING TO GROW.

The problem with the statement “healthy things grow” is manifold, but here are a couple of problems I initially have with the analogy: 1st it nullifies some of our true examples of successful ministry, the greatest of which is Jesus’ ministry. Jesus’s ministry probably peaked with Him having around 25,000 followers (This is an estimate derived from the feeding of the 5,000 and guesstimating the women and children who would have also have been followers) to around 500 followers right after His resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:6). In Jesus’s case healthy ministry shrank. 2nd the analogy doesn’t work in nature either. Healthy things only grow to maturity, if they continue to grow they aren’t healthy. Gigantism is a significant health issue. Organisms grow past their systemic capability and the organism sufferers as a result. We may still be enamored with such growth in organism (who doesn’t love photos of the world’s largest dog?), but we need to make sure and not mistake gigantism for being healthy – it isn’t healthy, it is suffering. Healthy things mature and maturity in nature implies a cessation of growth at least in size.

Please don’t hear this as a “megachurches” are bad rant. They aren’t. I was a part of a megachurch at one point in my ministry and I thought it was a great church. All I am saying is that megachurches shouldn’t be the goal. We need them and some people relate better to them, but that is simply a different style of church, not a better style of church. Small churches are different and that difference offers up some real advantages. Advantages that I love.

I think of megachurches and small churches as being like Starbucks and Ruby Coffee. Starbucks can do things that Ruby can’t. There are opportunities, especially of efficiency, with megachurches/big business. But there are also opportunities that Ruby has that Starbucks doesn’t, or small boutique businesses versus Walmart. I prefer small boutique businesses because of their advantages, other prefer Walmart. Both are fine by me. The same is true with small churches compared to large churches. Both have their opportunities. One isn’t necessarily better than the other. I think we should celebrate those opportunities, rather than the definition of success being that a church become a large church. This is one of the reasons that I loved that Mike Yaconelli, one of my heroes, used to describe his church as “the slowest growing church in America.” He celebrated the opportunities that came from his church being small, rather than striving for it to become “successful” (i.e. a big church).

So here are a few things that I love about our small church:

  • Over the past week I know of at least 1/3 of the “threads” helping someone with significant service. This is the past week, not counting the week before when we had a major storm, when I know even more people were helping others. This was stuff that was organized by the organization church. Nope this was the members of the body making phone calls and sending texts to set something up themselves to help some. That’s a big deal. When I was at Parkview Baptist Church in Baton Rouge at its largest 1/3 of the attenders would have equaled 700 serving on their own initiative without the pastoral staff organizing a service event. Such numbers would have thrilled us.
  • We were supposed to have a baptism gathering two weeks ago. The whole gathering was focused around these baptisms. Three days before the gathering an emergency came up and we had to rearrange everything on the fly. Know whose “panties got in a wad” over the change in plans? Absolutely no one’s, because this is what you do in a small community. The community is more important that the program.
  • People can and do interrupt me during the message to ask questions, add something, or sometimes disagree and nobody ever thinks anything of it. I was at a large conference where someone once tried to ask a question and that question was shot down immediately. I was also at a service where a person went into cardiac arrest and the service continued while the person’s needs were taken care of. You know what would happen at most small churches if someone had a cardiac arrest during the service? Everything would shut down and focus on the needs of the person and his/her family.
  • In the past year over half of the church has led in one form or another during our worship gatherings. This includes singing, preaching, reading scripture, playing instruments, etc.
  • Here’s one that may seem different. I believe there is often more diversity at smaller churches. Small churches need everyone that is a part of them, so small churches often put up with a great deal more difference and uniqueness than larger churches. At a larger church if someone is different from you then you can just avoid them. At a small church that isn’t possible. At a small church you get used to the other person’s idiosyncrasies and love them for and in spite of them. “He’s not weird, that’s just Robert, we all know what he is like and love him.” I love the diversity that this leads to in Tapestry. We have people that are very different from each other in everything except for Jesus.
  • Small churches are often noisy. This might sound like a bad thing but I think it is lovely. I love the fact that our gatherings are full of the normal noises of life. Babies crying, whispered jokes, bibles dropped, etc., etc. Sometimes there might so few people that you can actually hear someone’s stomach growl. You can’t avoid noise in a small church because there aren’t enough people to hide it. A large churches often try to shape the service to avoid distractions and “usher in God’s presence”, small churches remember that God is already present in the noise of everyday life because whether you want it to be or not there will be noise in a small church gathering. Our God is too big to be chased away by a stray sound.
  • Because of our small groups I know that almost half the people at one of our normal Sunday gatherings have read at least the whole New Testament. That’s a huge percentage of the church and makes for some good interruptions during the message.

There are many other reasons that I won’t get into (we have homemade snacks at our welcome table, if something goes wrong a “thread” just gets up and fixes it, our kids regularly get to be a part of worship – from drumming during the music, to singing into mics that may or may not be plugged into the board) etc., etc., etc.) concerning why I love the small church that I get to lead. And again this isn’t putting down large churches. I am really thankful that there are large church for people to go to that need a large church. All I am saying is that rather than small churches being looked at as merely future large churches or failing, we should recognize that small is beautiful and often they are one of the best places for genuine maturity to happen.

Small churches are beautiful and this is a good thing since 60% of the churches in the US have less than 100 people actively involved in them.

I love my beautiful small church.

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Some of the Best & the Worst

Pam and I were raised in and the boys spent their early years in hurricane country and yet last week was the first time I have ever had a house substantially damaged by a storm. Last Saturday we had straight-line winds that reached around 90 mph (which I now know is called a Derechos wind storm) and they tore down a healthy 75′ white pine which thought it would be a good idea to plop down on our garage and house. White pines are not known for their wisdom in finding places to lay down. So basically the garage is destroyed, but thankfully no one was hurt, the house itself is barely damaged, and we have insurance.

Noah and I blame the whole incident on the fact that we were watching “Boss Baby” on Netflix while the storm was going on. Darn you Alec Baldwin!!!!!! I can’t help but think that if we had been watching “The Outlaw Josey Wales” this would not have happened. The lesson here is never watch Boss Baby.

I’ve been a part of friends’ lives who have had similar, and much worse, situations, but I have never been through it personally. This past week I was reminded of how good my friends are. The day of the storm we had people just come over and help us. This doesn’t include the people who called and offered to help who Pam and I also very much appreciate. Nor does it include the people from out of state who reached out to make sure we were ok and even said to let them know if insurance didn’t cover something. We are surrounded by amazing friends and we are very thankful for y’all.

Thanks to those that showed up Saturday everything that could be moved by non-professionals was taken care of before evening came on the day of the storm. One of my neighbors had hired some landscapers to clean up his trees (he lost 6) and debris and I talked with them concerning coming over when they were done. There were 6 of them and they were charging $60/man hour (high but fair for the circumstances). We had so much help that I went back over to the landscapers and told them I wouldn’t need them, all the work they would have done was completed by friends who had come over to help us. Some of these were “threads” (Eric G is a beast with a chainsaw) and some from other churches. I know of many “threads” helping in other places and if you are interested I know of another spot in which we can help this week.

An inside view. Those are rafters resting on Pam’s car.

Unfortunately I also know of some circumstance were people tried to take advantage of the damage the storm caused. Unless my interactions in the near future change dramatically I will begin to steer people away from one local company because I don’t believe they have acted ethically. Charging 5 to 6 times your normal rate might be capitalistically good on the short-term but you probably lost one customer who would be using your service for the next 5 years and who loves to refer people to services he believes in.

Unfortunately we don’t have video of the actual fall. Just right before it and then later.

Since last Saturday, and for the foreseeable future, we are now on the storm tourism tour. People stop in front of the house and take photos to send to others to convey what the storm was like. I get it because I have done it. I’m fine with it. Take your photos and be in awe of the power of God’s creation. Just please don’t pull into our driveway while we are working and stop us from working by trying to ask us questions to satisfy your curiosity (yes this happened). I’ve got work to do. If you would like to ask me about the storm I’ll gladly answer your questions if you put on a pair of gloves and start helping. Otherwise, just dry by slowing, pause briefly, and take your photos. Sorry, my grumpy old man side is peaking out.

Anyhow, as I said above, Pam and I have great friends and we are very appreciative for all of y’all.

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The Threat of Resurrection – Parker Palmer

Pam introduced me to the thought of Parker Palmer a while back. I am really glad she did. Awhile back at Tapestry I referenced a seldom discussed story of Lazarus the disciple whom Jesus raised from the dead.  After Jesus brought him back to life there were some who viewed his continued existence as a threat. John 12:9 records.

Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

Lazarus was breathing, walking, and talking proof that Jesus had power of Death and therefore Lazarus was a threat to the powers that be. Life in the land of Death is a threat to power. In the video above Parker Palmer does a great job of discussing the threat of resurrection.

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I am so Proud of You

This post has nothing to do with Mr. Darcy or Colin Firth but 1) it was the first image that popped up in my Google Photos when I searched for “pride”, and 2) I figured I would get bonus points with Pam for posting an image of Colin Firth, who, thanks to her, I know to be the best Mr. Darcy adaptation.

I know I have mentioned this before at church and I believe I have mentioned it on the blog before – I am a world class eavesdropper. I think I get this from my mom, who is a world class snooper/stalker. It may be creepy, but I enjoy listening to other people’s conversations. Ok, so it is  little creepy when I think about it.

Anyhow, the two guys beside me at Emy J’s right now are pretty easy to listen to because they are loud talkers. So it isn’t even really like I’m trying to eavesdrop on them. 🙂

It is a young guy and an older guy talking about pretty deep issues. The thing that has hit me is how often the older gentleman has told the younger one that he is incredibly proud of him. These haven’t been throw away lines. The older gentleman has said specifically why he was proud and what has impressed him most about this young man.

“I am so proud of you” is an incredibly powerful statement and one that I believe many people long to hear and unfortunately don’t very often. It was such a pleasure to hear this older gentleman tell this younger guy how proud he was of him. Without even having to try very hard to eavesdrop I could tell that it was also meaningful to the young man.

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Not Cool Futon Cushion Taker

Earlier this week I posted a much loved futon as a CURB ALERT. A Curb Alert is a post that basically says “hey this is free and on the curb so come and get it”. It is a great way to let someone else use something that you no longer need. They get a benefit out of it and the item on Curb Alert avoids going into the landfill. Curb Alerts give the earth a hug.

So I posted the Curb Alert on Facebook and Craigslist. Here is what it said:

I put the Curb Alert on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. Mr. Cushion Taker seems like a Facebook guy.

The best of all worlds.

First, it is free! Can’t find a better price than that.

Second, it is only comfortable to sleep on for a day or two at most so your guest won’t stay for the third day because it will hurt their backs by the third night. It is actually comfortable to sit on so if your friend sleeps sitting up then three day guarantee is null and void. Make sure and don’t invite people over who sleep sitting upright.

Third, my basset hound Clive would regularly lay on it so it has been covered in basset hound comfort and there is no greater comfort than a comfortable basset hound. Seriously these dogs know how to relax .I’ve included a photo of him so that you can see how relaxed he is. You want to be this relaxed.

First come, first serve. If the listing is up it is still in front of my house so there is no need for you to message me. If you message me asking if it is still here I will probably be snarky. I’m in training to be a grumpy, old man. STAY OFF MY LAWN! 🙂 Just come and get it. 

I was excited about someone else getting the futon rather than just taking it to the dump. So today I saw a person in a white Grand Caravan get out and look at the futon for a minute or two and then get back into their minivan. I couldn’t really see them from where I was in the house but I could see the edge of the futon so I knew they hadn’t taken the futon. Later on I walked and discovered that Mr. White Minivan had actually taken part of the futon. He took the cushions and left the frame.

Not cool Mr. Cushion Taker. There is an unwritten rule of Curb Alerts – you don’t make things worse for the person doing the curb alert. Well at least that is the unwritten rule that I live by on Curb Alerts. Mr. Cushion Taker you made it where I still have to deal with the futon frame and now no one else is going to want the frame. So I have to deal with getting rid of the frame. Really not cool Mr. Cushion Taker and you were driving a Grand Caravan, I thought we minivan guys looked out for each other.