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Playing Big With Little People

April 15, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                      April 15, 2012

Saturday morning I was at the soccer game that the daughter of my nephew was playing in. She’s in third grade, which translated means that most of the parents there had cups of Starbucks coffee in their hands, or coffee staying hot in a thermos. (I waited until after the game to go to Starbucks! Willpower!)

Gracie had a great time playing, as did all of the kids. No one had told them yet that “This is serious business…so wipe that smile off your face!”

Meanwhile, something else caught my attention. On the field right behind us a game involving four year old’s was taking place. One of the coaches was an African-American man who was so big he looked by a tree house that the kids could climb on. I’m guessing…and I believe I’m quite accurate on this one…that he played football. He was so big that he could have played Right Guard…and Left Guard …on the same play.

And he was having a ball! And because he was having a ball the players on both teams were having a ball! One time I looked over and he was dangling a young boy upside down. I’m not even sure it was a player on his own team, but the boy was laughing and in a moment of “life delight!”

The coach congratulated and high-fived players on both teams. He helped little girls who tripped back on their feet. He shouted encouragement.

He played big with the little people. He inspired me!

As a coach I get the tremendous privilege of influencing young people, helping them improve their skills, learn from their mistakes, mentor them in life lessons through the lens of a game. I fan the flame of their passion for the game, while not losing sight of their youthfulness.

Although I’m not as big as the soccer coach of the four year old’s, in some ways I get to play big with the little people. I get to guide them in having fun.

In the youth sports culture we’ve lost most of that.

Like the coach who has his sixth grade girls’ basketball team press their opponents full-court even though they are up by thirty at the start of the fourth quarter.

Or the coach who plays his main group and then when, because of a mandatory league rule, he puts the last kid on the bench in to pinch hit, he commands him not to swing at any pitch because the player never makes contact. He robs him of the sound of a baseball meeting wood, because he’s short-sighted.

Or the coach who had no success as an athlete growing up, so he’s going to win at any cost with the youth team he’s coaching now.

Or the two coaches who get into a fight after the game in front of their players, who all stand there with mouths wide open in shock.

The list could go on for pages. Somewhere and at sometime we lost the thrill and sheer joy of playing big with the little people.

The joy of playing children is a sign of the blessing of God upon Jerusalem in the Old Testament book of Zechariah (chapter 8). In The Message paraphrase of Zechariah 8:4 it says, “And boys and girls will fill the public parks, laughing and playing- a good city to grow up in.”

I love that! I pray that we regain that scene.

I hope I run into “the man child” again at the next soccer outing. I’m going to tell him how he inspired me, how he brought a smile to my face, how his “playing big” brought a little glimpse of God’s delight!

Categories: Christianity, Faith, Parenting, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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The Three Sheds

April 14, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  April 14, 2012

 

Once upon a time there was a church with three sheds behind it. One day a couple of thieves thought “We need money, and there’s three sheds behind that church. Let’s break into one of them and steal some cool stuff. Sheds behind churches are easy pickings!”

So they waited until they thought no one was around and they broke into the nicest and newest of the three sheds. They broke the lock off, swung the door open, and started squealing with delight as they were about to open the door. But when they opened the door they discovered that the nicest and newest of the sheds belonged to the Boy Scout troop that the church sponsored, and inside the shed there were only some boxes of scouting manuals, some badges in bags, a couple of flag holders, a coat rack with scout shirts hanging from it, and some folding card tables.

The thieves were disappointed, but they thought “Oh well! There’s two other sheds. We don’t need this one!”

They moved on to the oldest of the sheds, the one that looked like it was in the worst shape. They still had not sensed that anyone was in the vicinity so they clipped the lock off of the oldest shed. Perhaps it would have a good snowplower, or a riding lawn mower, or even a gas-powered leaf blower.

But, once again, when they swung the door open they discovered a stack of old and heavy wooden tables, a mower that looked like it had been around since the Civil War, a weed whacker broken into three pieces, and a yard rake that was missing several of its teeth.

Not only that, but the thieves got smeared with cobwebs!

On to Shed #3! It was the largest of the sheds…in other words, the one that could hold the most treasures! It was the most difficult to get the lock broken off of because the door had gotten a little warped, but with some effort they finally broke it free. When the door swung open they held their breath.

But, alas! Inside the largest of the three sheds were several stacks of metal folding chairs, boxes of old hymnals, choir robes, a twelve foot ladder, folding risers, long tubes that were unrecognizeable, and an old heavy wooden podium. There was even a couple of folding signs. One that said “Rummage Sale Today!” and another one that said “Craft Bizarre Inside!”

One of the thieves looked at the other and said, “This is no fair! We’ve broken into three sheds and haven’t found anything that is worth stealing! Doesn’t this church have anything of value?”

“Come on, let’s go before we get caught!”

And so the two thieves crept slowly away, never to be caught, but also leaving with empty hands…for you see what the church has that is valuable is not in anything material, but rather in a message. Oddly enough, the message is free for the taking, but was costly to purchase.

The most valuable thing that a church has does not involve bricks or mortar, or sculptured creations, but rather a story about another man who died between two other thieves. Neither of those thieves escaped, and yet one of them, if you believe the gospel story, found something of eternal value.

 

*The three sheds behind our church were broken into this week. The above story is true except for the “Craft Bizarre” sign. Nothing of value was taken from any of the sheds, because…there was nothing of value in them to begin with. Our only disappointment is that they didn’t take the mower and the boxes of old hymnals.

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Spiritually Re-Hydrating

April 13, 2012

It’s been a tough winter! The extreme dryness of Colorado has been a killer on my skin. Some mornings when I get up and look in the mirror I look like a cast member of “The Walking Dead.” Brutal!

I’m going through Chapstick like butterscotch candies. I rub on lip balm so much that I have a glaze on my finger now.

Dry, baby! Yes, I know that the excessive amount of Starbucks coffee I drink doesn’t help…but…I…I’m a coffee snob…and a creature of the caffeinated habit.

So now I’m back in Ohio visiting family…and getting re-hydrated! Being within a stone’s throw of the Ohio River is a sign of the “wetness” of the air around here. I haven’t had to make a “Sam’s Club run” for a case of Burt’s Bees since I got here. The vampire look is disappearing from my face. A few more days and I might even look normal! Okay…maybe not!

There is, however, a parallel between being in the spiritual desert for so long that a period of spiritual re-hydrating is the Great Physician’s remedy.

It is not coincidental that King David talked to the Lord about being led  beside quiet waters and laying down in lush green pastures. There are periods in our lives where, spiritually speaking, we need to dangle our feet in a stream and cut some blades of green grass with our fingers.

There are times when we must admit that our lips are parched from too much talking, and not much listening for the whisper of the Spirit. In a different Psalm (the 63rd) David said:

“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1)

David wrote those words as he was in the desert of Judah. It was a time of drought…for him.

Spiritual drought doesn’t suddenly smack us in the face like a Colorado hail storms as you’re out for a walk. It comes gradually, slowly, and then it occurs to you that you are parched, that your upper lip is almost chapped. It’s time for the thirst to be quenched, not in one big guzzling, but rather with a long slow watering.

A few years ago Nestea sold a lot of iced tea by having a guy fall willingly backwards into a swimming pool. Many of us rushed to the frig to get a glass because the visual was so effective. In our churches, a similar visual involves the dipping of a new believer into the waters of baptism. There is a congregational squeal of delight about the time the new believer arises from the water with wet and messed up hair while sporting a smile.

How well do we plan for periods of spiritual re-hydrating? How well do we look for that lip-smacking moment when our spirit sings, like the Nestea plunge, “Ahhh!”

Like lip balm, we often try to play catch-up instead of planning ahead, reactive instead of proactive. Instead of being in the Word, we search for an answer after the windstorm has hit our lives.

We hope that we’ll learn from the desert. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t!

Like the words of a hymn we sing, “It is well with my soul!” May the Spirit drench us with the presence and delight of the Living Water!

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The Graying of the Matter

April 12, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W. April 12, 2012

There is no easy way to growing older. We can talk about getting wiser, but the arthritis often dulls our sense of sharpness. We can talk about maturity, but the increase in the number of pill bottles in our medicine cabinet seems to go with it. We can talk about the glory days of retirement, but the “getting re-tired” every day is a footnote to that page of our life.
And then there is the struggle associated with seeing your parents in the winter of their lives. I’m back in Ohio for a couple of weeks visiting my mom and dad. My mom spent the past five months in a full care center, until my Dad decided he was going to bring her back home and have home health care nurses come each day to provide six to eight hours of care. He and my sister are filling in the gaps. It’s costly, and has its hard moments, but Dad seems to be much happier that his soul mate is back with him at home.
My mom has a form of Parkinson’s that significantly reduces her ability to communicate and to comprehend. This morning she asked me where I stayed last night. I told her the guest bedroom, and she responded “Where’s that at?”
But at other times she seems to mostly understand what is going on!
It is a tough part of many tough elements in the aging process. She is partially with it and partially not with it. Each question…each conversation…each facial expression…carries with it the question…”Is she aware or not aware?”
My mom still gives me “the look”, the look that makes me search back over what I’ve said like a kid who has just unknowingly spilled the beans about a transgression he thought would never have to be revealed. But now “the look” is filled with confusion and disconnection.
In many ways it would be easier if Mom was totally not there or totally there. There would be no guessing and uncertainty. Each moment would be pre-defined.
Her “graying” brings pauses in the conversation. I’m asking myself “Did she understand? Is she searching for a response?”
I noticed during my last visit in December that a couple of the nurses erroneously thought that she had a hearing problem. My mom’s hearing is 20/20! I know that’s a vision calculation, but that’s the best way I can let you know that she hears everything…even when you’re whispering. With the nurses her lack of giving a timely answer was simply due to her trying to connect the dots in her mind.
While I’m here I’m sure that I will have some good, but brief, glimpses of conversation with her, but also some awkward pauses. The awkward pauses will bring me back to my childhood moments when it was best to not say anything and just listen.
And I’ll treasure the moments…the grayness…the uncertainty!

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A Hunger for New Heroes

April 10, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                    April 9, 2012

Bubba Watson’s victory in The Master’s golf tournament was impressive. What was even more heartwarming was the media’s telling of his story. Comments in TV rooms around the country could be summed up with “Nice guys finish first!”

In recent times there seems to be a hunger in our culture for heroes. We want to know that there are still good, law-abiding, morally strong, balanced people who we can look up to. It’s gratifying to know that someone like Bubba Watson, and his wife, Angie (who is 6’4”) had just adopted a one month ago boy two weeks before the Master’s. We tend to pull for a guy who just recently experienced the death of his father. It’s satisfying to hear that after winning the Master’s, Bubba said “I’m like to first thank Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.”

The ironic thing is that at the same time we look for heroes we also seem to seek to find the narrow openings in the armor. Witness the recent experience with Tim Tebow. It was un-nerving to a lot of people to see Tebow “tebowing”. It was irritating to a lot of folks to see him give such visible expression to his faith. There were a lot of people who scrutinized deeper then an FBI investigation. There was intense examination for inconsistencies.

My cynical side mutters that there are probably a number of folk who would rather their daughters bring home a Saints “bounty hunter” instead of a humble quarterback, who knows that there is more to life than a few years in professional football.

And Bubba Watson knows that there is more to life then sporting a new green jacket. This coming weekend is another tournament and a new challenge. His hero status will probably diminish..except in the growing stature of his new adopted baby boy.

We like new heroes, but we seem lacking in the grace to keep them there. They quickly fade, but also rapidly fall. For every “man after God’s own heart” there is a King David whose view of reality and what is right gets distorted by his power or position.

The positive result of that is that each of us has Psalm 51 that we can speak.

“Create in a me a pure heart, O Lord!”

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“Following Jesus As A Following Church”

April 5, 2012

This week’s Newsweek cover story is written by Andrew Sullivan who questions the validity of the church, while still following Jesus. The article’s title is splashed across the front cover of the magazine: “Forget Church; Follow Jesus”.

Sullivan makes several good points in the article about the politicizing of Christianity by the religious right and liberal left; the fleecing of the TV flocks by tele-evangelists; the institutional nature…and he’s right…to a point! It’s like saying that the molesting of children by Catholic priests is bad, therefore we should do away with all Catholic priests. The sad truthfulness of the first part does not mean the conclusion of the second part should be made.

Creating a “battle” during Holy Week does a lot to sell magazines, and inflame the passions of advocates and opponents. Good marketing strategy, but not necessarily the right course of action. It’s kind of like when I came home from the store last week with a new bottle of salad dressing. If I had been asked, before I could safely stow the bottle in the cupboard, why I bought a new bottle of salad dressing I would have had to reply “Because I went to buy bread!” The bottle of ranch dressing was not connected to buying bread, but it was connected to the reason for the visit to the store in the first place.

It seems to me that the church has lost part of its way, and is in the process of rediscovering it. That rediscovery is intimately connected to the original reason- to be a community of followers of Jesus. Faith is not about forgetting the church. It’s about following Jesus as a church. It’s the interconnected lives sharing stories and experience about their journeys.

That journey as following communities is filled with stumbles, mutterings, and banging into one another; but it’s also filled with deep soul-satisfying discoveries, new life and renewal, and dances out of restored lives.

It takes me back to the order of Benedictine Sisters who live at the spiritual retreat center north of our city. There is such rhythm in the midst of their community that my soul still resonates with the peace I experienced there a year ago.

The church as an institution has Titanic written all over it; but the church as a vessel, a follower-ship,  is steered by the hope of Christ, and the wind of the Spirit.

Categories: Christianity, Faith, The Church, Uncategorized

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