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PS2 Upgrading

October 11, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. October 11, 2011

About a year and a half ago Kevin, my son-in-law, passed on to me his PlayStation 2 game system. A while before that Kevin had upgraded to the PS3. He blew the dust off of his old system and handed it down to me. (Point of Instruction: Old people hand down to younger people things like cars, dining room tables, books, and jewelry. Younger people hand down things that deal with technology to older folks.)
When I got the PS2 I tuned it on once within the first day, got tired of driving off the road in the racing game I was playing, and then put the game system away for…the next 18 months. Last week I got it back out again! Back in August the Liberty High School Girl’s basketball team that I help coach had a garage sale and I bought about 30 PS2 games for a dollar a piece.
Let the gaming begin!
What I realized however was that I was missing some kind of cord. I don’t know what happened to it. Perhaps it disappeared out of obsoleteness. Whatever it was I needed that cord…whatever it was!
I went to Best Buy first. I noticed they were stocked heavily in PS3 gear and games, but for some reason there was no PS2 section.
Lizi went with me to Game Stop. Not knowing what cord it was that I needed, I just took the whole game system into the store with me. (I noticed that it was about this time that Lizi started keeping her distance from me. What’s up with that?) The young lady behind the counter was very pleasant, although the encounter felt like a scene out of “Extreme Pawn Shop.” I asked her if they had PS2 cords, and she looked relieved. I think she was expecting me to ask her how much she would give me for my game system.
She muttered something like “Don’t see many of these any more.”, as she went looking for the missing cord.
The needed cable cost $15, and then she tried to sell me on the idea of being a member of the Frequent Customer Rewards program. I declined by saying, “Miss, let me be honest with you. I’ve had this game system for a year and a half and I’ve turned it on once.” She smiled. I was close to asking if they had a discount for AARP members, but withstood the urge.
I exited the store with game system and the needed cord. Lizi waited a few seconds before following me.
When I got home I put in one of my new old heavily-discounted garage sale games into the console and started gaming. Clumsy would be complimentary! The control has so much more than the old Atari game stick we used in 1980. It’s almost like a keyboard! I jumped off a cliff numerous times!
It’s going to take some effort and a lot of time, but I’ll master it. Before you know it I’ll be less than ten years “game system irrelevant.”
On the positive, the games are cheap, and nobody wants to play the PS2. You don’t have to share what nobody wants!
The PS3 seems to imposing, so overwhelming, so…current. I can’t imagine being able to play it! Maybe in a few years!

BRIDGE THOUGHT: As I look at my PS2 and how antiquated it is, it occurs to me that such a scenario often happens in the church as well. When I first started in ministry I heard it said quite often that the church was twenty years behind the times. That is still true in many ways. The difficulty is that change is happening so rapidly today that twenty years in the late seventies is equivalent to about fifty years today. That is, what is current becomes obsolete much quicker. The scariness is that when we think we have become more current we’re already dealing with what was. Does this mean that the church must mirror culture that much more closely? Ministry is not about being hip, but it is about maintaining the ability to speak. When what is current for us is twenty years dated we risk giving the message “Come here when you want to deal with your past, not with your future?”

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Rewriting History and Other Things

September 28, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. September 28, 2011

One
of my reading projects for the past couple of months has been reading James
McPherson’s Battle Cry For Freedom, his extensive 900 page
masterpiece about the Civil War. It’s a fascinating work that exposes some
situations about the Civil War that I never knew. For instance there was the
Fugitive Slave Law, which gave a slaveholder the right to go into any state that
his runaway slave had escaped to, and claim his slave as property. In 1842, when
a slaveholder from Maryland sent a man into Pennsylvania to bring back his
escaped slave, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that a slaveholder’s right to his
property overrode any contrary state legislation. In another situation,
President Millard Fillmore threatened to send federal troops into Boston to help
retrieve a couple that had run away from their Georgia owner and been in Boston
for two years.

I was
also amazed to find out that Jefferson Davis, when he was a U.S. Senator, led an
effort to purchase Cuba from Spain to try to make it into another southern
slaveholding state. There was an effort afoot to increase the number of states
where slavery would be legal. In doing so it could tip the voting balance in
Congress. On the other hand, there were apprehensions expressed about any
possible new state being added. These concerns were from pro-slavery Senators as
well as Senators who were abolitionists.

I
don’t remember a lot of the things that McPherson writes about being taught in
my U.S. History class my junior year of high school. Perhaps I was sleeping.
After all, class was right after lunch and our teacher’s voice was infected with
“extreme monotone syndrome!”

As we
look back at that era from today there is a tendency to summarize the situation
by saying the South wanted slavery and the North was against it. It makes it
easy to remember, but misses much of the history.

I am
constantly amazed today at how people frame their explanation of a problem on
the basis of what will make them look right. People, and talk radio hosts
especially, rewrite and reconstruct current events not so much to look right and
knowledgeable, but rather to make the other side look out-of-touch and
insensitive.

But
you see, I also think we dangerously “rewrite Scripture” to say what we desire
it to say. It seems there is a tension these days between “culture” and “the
written Word.” It is foolish to think that we are able to look at Scripture
without any filtered culture lens–and it is also foolish to allow culture to
dictate what it is that Scripture is saying.

In
essence, we allow our culture to be the double-edged sword that determines who
is going to get cut and where. Our leaning is to figure out what I believe and
then find Scripture to support it, or interpret Scripture so that what I believe
does support it.

There
are many things in Scripture that people cannot come to agreement about, and I
don’t think we should expect that. The community of Christ should expect to have
interesting and diverse dialogue. As long as there are Yankee and Red Sox fans
in the church there will be debate on God’s opinion about pin stripes.

However, it seems that editing the Word and rewriting it
has gained new momentum in the midst of polarized people.

To
that I wonder, although I won’t be around to discover the answer, how history a
generation from now will summarize the Christian movement of the present?

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Facebook, Netflix, and Others With God Complexes

September 21, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. September 21, 2011

It is a common occurrence in our culture that when something gets popular it teeters on the edge of unreasonable. The escalator has been taken to the “exalted floor” of the mall. Quite often many of us get taken with it, or perhaps a better way of saying it in hindsight is “got taken.”
New ideas spark new ways of seeing the world, but sometimes the new ideas come to a point where they believe that are the new deities, above questioning and inspection.
Netflix got that idea a few months ago when they raised their monthly membership by up to 60%. In other words, they were saying “We’re awesome! You can’t live without us! Here’s what you’re going to pay, so deal with it!” When my trash company raises it’s fees by $5.00 every three months I can deal with it. When milk prices jump a quarter I can deal with it. But when a “lay around time” activity thinks my life will not be complete unless I chalk up more money so they can increase their corporate profits, I jump off the escalator.
Just to clarify, I’ve never been a member of Netflix, but the tactics and entitlement seem to be filtering down into our cultural systems more and more.
There’s a difference between leading new initiatives and bleeding constituents.
Like the $62 a seat Nuggets tickets I bought at a silent auction last year for $25 a piece, and then I discover that our seats are at a certain place in the arena where the shot clock on our end of the court obscured our ability to see the basket at the other end of the court. I think I’ll just cough up $10 and go to the Air Force game. Believe me, there are no obstructed view seats there.
Or that mega social media giant “Facebook”, which recently made changes because they just wanted to, and people can’t get along without them…so there! Facebook now determines, in a social networking kind of way, who your most important friends are, and who aren’t that necessary. I don’t understand it, but, of course, I don;t understand Farmville either. When it comes to social networking I’m more like Abraham, “going not knowing.”
I remember hearing a presentation by Tony Campolo years ago about the principalities and powers that oppress people and destroy lives. Campolo at that time was focused on oppressive governmental systems and Gulf-Western, which raised sugar cane in the Dominican Republic. I remember him talking about an orphanage his organization was running in Haiti because of horrific poverty situations that caused me to weep. He would quote Colossians 2:14-15: “…having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he (Christ) took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” The Cross of Christ showed the tendencies of our culture for what it is- drunk with power, ADD in their concern for the have-nots, selectively tuned-in to the problems of their customer base.
Could it be that the principalities and powers of today are those institutions, corporations, and even individuals who think the world revolves around them; and that you and me can’t survive without them?
Let’s bring it home to the church! As a community of faith I hope we never enter that area called “entitled.” That is, a church that is an expression of the “living Christ” isn’t beyond reach. It never thinks that the community is privileged to have us, even though the community is better because of what we’re about. It’s not a people of privilege, but rather a people privileged to live out the call.
As a people of faith there needs to be an owning up, an acknowledgment that even though we are the community of the living Christ, people have been living without us.
Netflix learned that they weren’t as high and mighty and a necessity as they thought they were. Facebook may find out the same thing (Anybody remember “MySpace”?) The church, the messengers of hope for the one true God, will be more and more vital as it proclaims who the one true God is!

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Messy Conversations

August 31, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. August 30, 2011

I’m speaking this coming Sundays on “Messy Conversations”, and I have to tell you…I’m a little anxious! I’m praying that God will work through me to not create a mess, but to proclaim the possibilities “in our messes.”
There’s a a growing chasm in our culture between “opposites.” They say that opposites attract. Maybe with magnets that’s true, but in regards to our belief systems, values, and opinions, recent history has shown the…”opposite!”
The ongoing political campaigns are an example. What we see on TV, and the internet, is usually people on opposite sides of the canyon throwing rocks at one another. Everyone seems to think they are right and the opposite side is wrong that very seldom do you hear of the possibility that each side has some of the right.
Messy conversations are those situations where my need to make you see the error of your ways is not as important as hearing what you are basing your belief on. Our conversation is somewhere in the middle of the mess.
Jesus didn’t feel a need to be right. Well, okay…he was always right, but it’s not what drove him. He showed a consistent habit of giving value to those who had lost their voice- a woman dragged to him under a charge of adultery, a tax collector of minimal stature, a woman who had a feminine condition that caused her humiliation.
There aren’t too many families that have not been touched by either an unwanted pregnancy, a drug-dependent relative, an alcoholic uncle, a “prodigal son” child, a job-terminated kin, or a marriage gone south. All of us have messy conversations that we are connected to.
It would be nice to think that walking closely with Jesus keeps our lives feel of such pain, but each of us knows that’s not true. The messy conversations of life often cause us to rush to the feet of Jesus in our grief and pain, and seek his leading when we have no words to say.
If our walk with Jesus created a force field around us protecting us from the chaos of this world, perhaps our congregations would all require parking lot attendants to help with the overflow.
One of the telling points of a church is whether or not it can be a community of grace in the midst of the messy conversations. Rigidity tilts the slide towards legalistic righteousness, which is okay until you’re the one needing grace.
Some might be concerned that I’m hinting that there are no absolutes. There are absolutes. There are absolute truths that I am firmly committed to, but I am also firmly committed to the uncomfortable conversations with my opposites.

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Different Languages

August 18, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. August 18, 2011
On a recent flight to Chicago, Carol and I witnessed an interesting language situation. Across the aisle and one row up there was a little girl about 7 years old sitting in the aisle seat with an open seat beside her. We couldn’t quite understand why she was by herself, but, of course, “not understanding”is a key term in this story.
A good-sized man in his late twenties came up the aisle as people were finding there seats, and when he got to the aisle that the young girl was sitting in he looked up at the sign that tells which seat is which, looked down at the young girl, looked back up at the seat, and then asked the young lady “Excuse me! Is this your seat?” She looked up at him with a seven year old’s confused eyes, but didn’t say anything. The young man, who was about 6’2”, 230, was very patient and he sat down in the open seat behind her and waited until a flight attendant might happen to wander by.
About a minute later a young woman came up the aisle and the young man realized that he was in her seat, so he unoccupied it and stood in the aisle…with great patience. (Yes, where are the flight attendants when you really need them?)
Finally one of the attendants happened to come by and the young man asked him about the young girl. With a bit of frazzlement the attendant said to the 7 year old, “Miss, this is his seat.” And then the attendant fled the scene! The young lady didn’t say a word, and continued to sit and play with her teddy bear.
The football player continued to be very patient. He got the attention of another flight attendant who came by, said something similar to the young lady, and then proceeded on.
A minute later as the plane has filled and the man is still standing in the aisle, another attendant came by and talked to the girl. Finally, it dawned on someone that the child didn’t speak English. She only spoke Spanish, and her grandmother was in the row ahead of her, and her mother was four rows in front of her.
Enter a flight attendant who spoke Spanish, and the situation got easily solved. And let me say it again, the “Hulk” was patient the whole time. The young girl was simply one seat away from where she was suppose to be, but the language of the airlines was foreign to her. She simply sat in the first open seat.
I thought of how people who aren’t familiar with church sometimes brave a visit. We need to ask ourselves how much of what we say is like a foreign language to them. It’s not that we should not use terms like “atonement” and “blood sacrifice” and “Pentecost.” But, perhaps, we must be willing to slow down enough to explain them. How comprehensible is the message that we proclaim about the gospel of Jesus Christ? How clear is the pivotal truth of the grace of God in a culture that believes more in earning one’s way?
When I receive a blank stare from someone who happens to navigate what the right entrance is into our building, find the sanctuary, and join our congregation in a gathering of worship, are there other things I should be considering to bridge the “language gap?”
In the confusion of the situation with the seven year old there were statements that dictated, and questions that weren’t understandable. Finally the right question was asked that provided clear direction about what should be done next.
Sometimes the people of God ask the wrong questions. Asking someone is they have been filled with the Holy Spirit makes no sense whatsoever to someone who then is wondering “What is the Holy Spirit?” Jumping over “A” to get to “B” doesn’t work very well.

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Speed Traps and Grace

June 30, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. June 30, 2011
A few blocks from our church building an unmanned police speed van has been parked one or two days each week. It’s driven to the spot around 7:00 in the morning and left there for the rest of the morning and afternoon. This nifty vehicle, that was created in the back of someone’s dark mind, takes a picture of any speeding vehicle that happens to unsuspectingly go zooming by.
If I can use the word “unfair” in this situation it’s in regards to the fact that the van is parked at the bottom of a hill. There is a slight curb as people come down to the hill. After the curb there’s another two hundred yards or so before reaching the bottom of the hill.
According to the law the expensive photo gifts that the drivers receive is legal. The speed limit is 35, and if you’re going 42…downwards!…that’s your problem. Unmanned police speed vans don’t understand grace. It eats into the city revenue.
It should be at about this time that many of you are expressing your sympathies for the speeding ticket I received. Except…I didn’t get one! I did, however, notice a number of other people having flashes go off as they were braking. Pausing at a red light just a block away from the speed trap I saw eight flashes in the span of one red light.
Let’s see….eight times $125 (estimate)…that’s $1,000 in about thirty seconds. Why doesn’t the police department order more of these revenue makers?
As I said, unmanned police speed vans don’t understand grace.
I’ve noticed a lot of people don’t understand it as well.
Some expect it, but don’t offer it.
Others stretch it like a size 44 trying to squeeze into a 34 waist. How far can it be taken without splitting at the seams?
A forty-four never looks good in a thirty-four, but someone will try to make it happen. (Stay at a distance from anyone who is trying to do that!)
A Christian who believes in grace as it pertains to him, but becomes judicial in its application to others is a contradiction in terms, but, unfortunately, also too common.
We have a habit of reading grace into Scripture as it pertains to us, but seeing it as a possibility in others requires a reach that is hard to extend. Grace is for my speeding vehicle, but at other times I’m the police speed van rigid in my situation assessment.
Absolute law!
When will we live in absolute grace?
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors!”

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RUSHING DOWN THE STEEP BANK

June 27, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. June 26, 2011
One of my favorite Jesus stories is the “swine dive” in Mark 5. In case you don’t have it memorized, it’s the story of Jesus’ encounter with the demon-possessed man. The man is so afflicted that his name is Legion, an implication about how many demons has taken up residence in his life.
Jesus is going to set this poor fellow free and the demons request that he send them into a herd of pigs nearby. When that happened there was a two thousand swine mass stampede to death.
I can only imagine what that must have looked like. I’m seen a bunch of guys rush into a lake to try to get the greased watermelon, or a herd of crazed people rushing through the doors of Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving about 4am…and those were quite the sights, but I’ve never seen a herd of pigs racing to their doom.
I think of that story because of another comment that was made by a man who assigns basketball officials to college games. He said “moving too quickly maximizes risk.” His point was about how someone who referees basketball games usually wants to move up the ladder to high school, then Junior College, College, and then…for a very, very few…professional basketball.
He’s seen many officials advance too quickly, and then come crashing down, because they hadn’t put in the necessary time to season their game.
The same principle applies to the growth of a follower of Jesus. Moving too quickly maximizes risk. How many times has someone experienced new life, had incredible enthusiasm and excitement, and been put into a position, or entrusted with certain responsibilities that they weren’t ready for?
Many times!
We expect instant success and sudden stardom. To have gradual growth as a disciple is looked down on.
The responsibility is on the mentors and the Body of Christ. If we don’t see the value in solid gradual growth then no one else will. We even see it in church growth. If a church grows by 50% in one year it’s applauded. There’s a good chance a traveling workshop will arise out of it within the year after that. It’s common for other people to want to copy the sprint to success.
But a sprint to success is on the same level as the swine dive off the steep bank. People aren’t ready for rapid growth, individually and corporately. The first church grew quickly…I mean, off the charts growth patterns…and then it had to stop and figure out the Hellenistic widows who had fallen between the cracks. In essence, it had to stop and think about where things were.
Moving too quickly maximizes risk.
Perhaps that’s why the description of an overseer, or elder, in 1 Timothy 3:6 includes these words: “He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.”
Hmmmm…

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The Pursuit Worth Pursuing

May 15, 2009

Many years ago I knew a lady who was passionate about collecting buttons. Not buttons that you sew on to your coat, but rather buttons that you pin on to your coat.

Political campaign buttons. Buttons with pictures. Buttons with smiley faces. Buttons with slogans. Buttons with American symbols, and buttons with British symbols. Buttons from states, and buttons shaped like different states.

Her home was populated with buttons, thousands and thousands of buttons! But she used buttons to facilitate “that one thing” in her life that she pursued with passion and purpose. Her buttons were used to initiate conversations, but “that one thing” in her life was Jesus. Buttons opened the door to conversations about Christ.

I would say that a vast majority of people can’t point to “that one thing” they desire to pursue. It’s that one thing that is like an emerging flame within their spirit. That one thing is not a hobby, or even an activity. It’s “the pursuit worth pursuing.”

It’s Adoniram and Ann Judson pursuing a new calling to be missionaries to Burma as a result of being convicted that baptism by immersion was what the Bible talked about. The conviction they felt, listen to this, was during the voyage they were on to India, where they were to being sent by the Congregational Church to be missionaries. All of a sudden the pursuit worth pursuing…that one thing…changed their plans. They went from being commissioned, financially-supported missionaries to un-commissioned, non-supported, un-employed missionaries. Luther Rice, who was another commissioned missionary, whose views on baptism had also been changed, sailed back to America and went from Baptist church to Baptist church raising support for the first American Baptist missionaries overseas. If Luther hadn’t come to understand that this was the pursuit worth pursuing the Judson’s wouldn’t have been able to spend the rest of their lives sowing the seeds of the gospel in Burma.

This was not meant to be an article about American Baptist missionaries. It’s just to illustrate the point that I’m not sure how many of us come to that point of knowing what in our life is “the pursuit worth pursuing.” We might re-word it for our situation, but its realizing the “heart” of Paul’s passion. He wrote “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12, 13b-14)

We focus on trivial pursuits that “flame out.” “Temporary flings” is the phrase that best sums up what consumes the bulk of our energy.

Why is it that our attention is so easily diverted? It could be because the pursuit worth pursuing is also a little intimidating. Like the dust clouds rising behind a speeding car on a dirt road, there are accompanying doubts that trail closely behind the pursuit worth pursuing. When the drive forward is halted the dust settles in around us making the way unclear. The “what if’s” surround us.

What if I go full speed forward and I fail?

What if I pursue and I fall flat on my face?

What if the flame flickers out while I’m pursuing?

What if I’m just meant to be mediocre?

The pursuit worth pursuing is not a problem for most people, because they never get started.

I’m more afraid of another “what if.” What if “that one thing” that God has planted in my heart…that pursuit worth pursuing that He is entrusting me to be about…what if that one thing is the pursuit I never pursue?

That would be a tragedy!

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Non-Traditionally Traditional or Traditionally Non-Traditional

May 8, 2009

We throw around the terms.

Traditional.

Non-traditional.

They carry extensive resume’s attached to them. When we say traditional visions of straight-lacedness dance…I mean…don’t dance in our heads. We think of orderliness and finishing on-time and the traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Conversely, when we say non-traditional we think of radical natures, “out-of-the-box,” differing processes.

Okay, I admit! I think that!

It occurs to me, however, that each one of us—every one of us—is a mixture of traditional and non-traditional. Both camps of people are ready to throw something at me at this moment, so hear me out.

I love to drink a good cup of coffee in the morning. Diana says that she could stand a straw up in the midst of a cup of the coffee I brew because it’s so strong. Wimp! (Smaller font so she doesn’t see it.) When it comes to coffee I’m a traditionalist. Recently I was at Pike’s Perk Coffeehouse to get my mug filled. There was light roast, medium roast, dark roast, de-caffeinated (“What’s the point?”), and French Vanilla flavored. I usually get medium roast. Flavored coffees just don’t appeal to me. That could be because I started drinking coffee back in my seminary days when “flavored” meant that you had dipped your donut in the cup. I learned to drink coffee a certain way, and French Vanilla, or Snickerdoodle, or Swiss Chocolate, or, Amaretto is just too outside of my tradition.

On the other side of my preferences, however, is my preference to drive a hybrid car. “This is not my dad’s Buick…or Ford…or Chrysler!” My parents have always driven cars that have traditionally been thought of as having been made in America. Call me a radical, but our family owns three Hondas and I’ve gone to the hybrid car. For right now it’s still seen as being non-traditional, although the day is coming….

Henry Ford was seen as being non-traditional at one point!

We bring those labels of “traditional” and “non-traditional” into our spiritual lives, and especially into our congregational lives. Depending on where you place yourself, it’s easy to see someone who is in a different place then you as being messed-up.

“Alex hates praise music. He’s very…traditional!”

It’s said like the person has an illness.

“Alex hates Pepsi. He’s…diabetic!”

Or “Alex does not care for our 10:30 worship service. He’s very…non-traditional.”

I’m a hybrid. I’m a mixture. We’re all hybrids. Just when I think I’m a non-traditionalist I make a batch of popcorn on Sunday night, because when I was growing up my family always made popcorn on Sunday nights and watched the Ed Sullivan show together on TV. Just when I think I’m a traditionalist I find myself reading a book by Leonard Sweet like The Gospel According to Starbucks or Thomas Friedman’s book The World Is Flat.

Just when I start thinking “normal,” I look at some of my “Far Side” cartoons.

We’re all messed-up, but we’re also all “mixed-together.” Christians more often than not use labels to create separation than a unique kind of unity. We allow our preferences to irritate us about someone who has a different preference.

After all, if everyone was like me there would be a lot less arguments!

And if you thought I was serious in that last sentence, you obviously haven’t realized that I am a non-traditional humorist!

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The Susan Boyle Effect

April 23, 2009

 

I admit. I can’t watch it enough!

I’ve viewed Susan Boyle’s performance on “Britain’s Got Talent” probably twenty times. The YouTube video has passed forty million hits.

If you’ve been out of the country—actually out of the world—Susan Boyle is a 47 year old, never-been-married, never-been-kissed, unemployed, church charity worker, who is, at first glance, strikingly unimpressive! Her common appearance is the first thing that hits you. At a school dance she would blend in with the wallflowers. Her companion is her cat Pebbles.

She is so “un-showbizzy” that the audience and three judges wrote her off before she even started singing. If tomatoes had been available the stage would have been slimed…and then the music began!

She sang a song from Les Miserables that her hero, Elaine Paige, had sung. Her performance was better than the one sung by her hero. I keep hit the play button on the YouTube video to that moment when the faces of the judges change from “Why Did I Take This Job” to “Oh! My Gosh!” Three seconds in the audience erupts in applause and astonishment.

It is a classic case of determining a book by its cover without bothering to even read the table of contents. It’s pre-judgment in its finest example. It’s the musical real-life version of the movie Hoosiers, which was based on a true story, but seasoned with a touch of Hollywood to make it that much more entertaining. Susan Boyle was entertaining, talented, but in real time! She’s Napoleon Dynamite with a personality and a smile; the average student who suddenly produces an authentic best-seller. She’s the clarinet player in a group that thinks percussion is where it’s at! She’s the little boy who gives Jesus his lunch in order to help out with the hunger pangs of the multitude. Who would have thought such a sacrifice would touch the whole crowd.

“Susan Boyle” is a story of the value that we so easily yank away from someone. It’s an example of the pecking order of life that people even exercise in front of a TV screen, or, in this case, an internet web site. How quickly we settle on first impressions! We tend to assign a value before opening the box.

The majestic moments in this situation are how quickly the audience and judges put the brakes on where they thought this was going, and turned the bus around.

It’s a heartwarming story that really does elicit tears. And yet in the midst of this incredible happening to an average middle-aged woman there have come doubters. Today I noticed that the skeptics surfaced, insinuating that it was all staged. It’s as though no one can so quickly change a hissing, ridiculing audience. Our world is more prone to think the worst of people than allow Cinderella stories to play out.

Susan Boyle, unintentionally mind you, has become a person of hope and realized dreams. In her a multitude of people see that perhaps their lives can find fulfilled purpose and realize what they only dreamed of. Our world infrequently allows average people to make vivid lasting impressions.

Susan Boyle has given us cause to celebrate and re-assess our value. Perhaps for a few moments it has caused us to slow our judgmental attitudes down long enough to hear the hidden sweet sounds of life that drift by us unnoticed.

 

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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