Words from WW Blog

 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ⁴⁶ When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45)

My wife and I just finished eleven days watching over our three oldest grandkids, two of whom have entered that stage called “teenagerism” and the other nine. Today, we’re feeling our age and the fact that a couple of generations removed from them has produced a vast canyon of differences.

In our younger days, my brother, sister, and I would sit around watching the stories of Lassie, Leave It To Beaver, Batman, and Johnny Quest. Each episode was self-contained unless it was a two-parter. We’d see the situation or problem, the tensions and drama that resulted from the problem, and the solution or climax. In our eleven days with the grandkids, they rarely watched a TV show like that. They feasted their eyes on YouTube videos that featured squealy-sounding young people and lame dialogue. But most of all, there was an absence of plot.

Anyone these days with a camera, even just a cell phone, can put a video together and post it on YouTube, Facebook, or one of the social media outlets. Thus, there is a plethora of short videos that have the same ability as Miller Moths to make their way inside a family room of a home. Almost all of them, however, had an absence of plot or, as I’d like to define it, “story.”

Like the glue we used to put our airplane models together in the past, “story” is the bonding substance that holds past, present, and future life together. It helps us make sense of why, when, where, and how. It gives us the context, the history, the reasons for our pain and our joy. If there isn’t a story, life can be trivialized into meaningless fluff.

Jesus used “story” to teach about spiritual truth and the mysteries of God’s ways. We remember the concepts of the stories of “the pearl of great price,” “the prodigal son,” and “the widow’s mite” teach us. His stories focus on themes such as God’s grace, His love, caring for our neighbor and who that might be, and sacrificial giving.

When a culture loses its sense of story, it becomes adrift, anchorless, and simply exists. It can be fooled into believing that the world’s nonsense is the essence of life. This leads to nowhere but a desert of wandering through life.

I recognize that I am a relic from a different time, prone to enjoying stories from Mayberry, the mysteries of Agatha Christie, and C. J. Box’s adventures of Joe Pickett. I need stories. They are the lens through which I view life.

Going back to those old model airplanes, my older brother had several of them on his bedroom dresser. One day, I decided to see if they could fly. I’d launch them into the air and discovered that none of them could stay in the air before they came crashing back to the floor. When each of the planes crashed, they shattered. The impact negated the adhesive glue, and nothing was left to hold them together.

I find it interesting that I can remember that story from sixty-plus years ago to illustrate the damage that can result from the loss of story.

A friend I’ve known for twenty-plus years shared with me his disgruntlement with the actions of a close relative. As a result, there was an important event coming up in the relative’s life that this person was considering not attending. I asked him the question, “What will she remember five years from now, that you were there or not there? Will she remember the problem you had with her at the time, oir will she remember your presence on an important day in her life?”

Most of us are impacted by the short-sighted decisions we make that cause long-term grief. In the heat and emotion of the moment, words are said that cause years and years of pain. Or the attractiveness of a situation causes us to disregard the red flags that are waving in the background.

It’s too bad that we don’t live life with a rewind button that could back up the time to pre-dumbness. Or maybe have one of those five-second recall switches that would allow us to do a retake, kinda like a math test do-over. There’s been a few miserably memorable utterances I’ve made that I wish I could do-over. Like when I called one of the fifth-grade teachers at my elementary school “an old bag” in an effort to impress my friend. Soon after, Mr. Morton made an impression on my behind that brought warmtyh to the situation that lasted a lot longer than my two seconds of lunacy. It was like having an excessive amount of Bio-Freeze applied to my britches!

More accurately, our short-sighted solutions to our situations is more problem-creating. It brings to the surface the importance of having people around us who can see the consequences that we have become blind to, friends who are wise and care for our wellbeing.

Dealing with young adolescents, I see the impact that short-sighted decisions have, but also how friends who don’t have a lick of sense can add to the pain of those decisions. After all, they are middle school students. Sometimes, all it takes it for one goat to jump into the pit and all the others follow. I needed a couple of goats who stopped at the edge and said, “Hey! Let’s think about this for a moment.”

I think of some of the commercials on TV that try to make sports gambling look fashionable and, as we used to say, “hip.” In a time when debt is out of control, there was more money gambled last year than ever before. Short-sighted visions of riches almost always leads to long-term despair.

Back to my friend, I’m waiting to hear what he decided to do. Hopefully, he surrendered to a few moments of uncomfortableness to nurture a vital relationship. If not, I may have a few more conversations in the near future about consequences and healing a fractured relationship.

It’s May. A few days ago, I advanced the number roller of my tens column from 6 to 7. That means a lot of things, like having people look at my driver’s license and then giving me a sympathetic look…as if I have one foot in the grave and the other with curved arthritic toes. Or like yesterday when I played dodgeball with sixth-graders and this morning, as I trudged down the stairs, my knees and back are asking in a physical whining sort of way, “Why did you do that?”

Hitting 70 means, optimistically, that I may have 20 years of birthday celebrations left—maybe more, maybe less! Using that calculation, it means my battery is down to 28%.

More importantly, it causes me to consider how to finish well. How does a person finish well? At our final middle school track meet this week, one of our sprinters stopped running hard ten yards from the finish line. As a result of not finishing well, she went from second to fifth. The coaches and many of her teammates will remember her not for the first 190 meters but rather for the last 10. On the opposite side, another one of our runners slipped on the wet track at the starting line, recovered, and finished in a blaze, winning by five meters in the league championship 200-meter race. He will be remembered for how he recovered from adversity and finished strong.

I’ve been blessed to know people who don’t coast or give up but strongly believe that God has purposes for their lives. They live life with that viewpoint—no whining, no bemoaning about what is and what could have been. They are partners in the Master’s Plan.

Truth be told, as we go through this life journey, we get dinged up like a 59 Chevy. The hurts and hits of life slow us down, bring doubts into our minds, and cause us to wonder about our resilience and abilities. The grey replaces the brown, the wrinkles overshadow the grace, and our physical limitations supersede our expectations. And yet, the wisdom gained through our life experiences is a precious gift that is imperative for us to share. There is soundness and substance in what has been experienced.

As 70 in one way, defines me, it causes me to consider what I principles I need to pack for the rest of the journey.

1. Just as God considers me important enough to have a relationship with, the personal relationships I have are to be treasured and cared for.
2. Who I am is a result of who has been part of my journey.
3. Laugh often and bring laughter to others.
4. Contentment doesn’t come as a result of doing or having what our culture says we should have.
5. Each day is a gift from God. Don’t waste it.
6. Don’t be afraid to risk…but don’t do stupid either (like jumping out of a plane!).
7. The list of what you can do should always be longer than the list that keeps saying you can’t do.
8. Pray for your kids and grandkids, and hopefully your great-grandkids!
9. Fill your life with simplicity, like watching The Andy Griffith Show, taking long walks, and reading books that warm your souls.
10. Finally, hang out with middle schoolers and even play dodgeball with them, with the understanding that in doing so you make a big target. It brings delight to them!

At an NCAA Women’s Basketball Regional, the University of Utah team was getting pelted with so many racial slurs that they changed hotels. News reports said that the athletes feared for their safety.

What we thought we had grown past had grabbed hold of our ankles and worked its way into our lives and our language. Racism is as firmly planted in our culture today as the Celtics are planted in the Boston Garden. In the freedom of our nation, many have felt the freedom to be racists, sexists, and uncontrollably nasty.

Interestingly, this topic came to me today on the 56th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. It wasn’t planned that way…or maybe it was, but not by me! Dr. King paved the way for what we should have already known: Everyone has value and should be treated with respect.

Recently, at our middle school, the principal has talked to all of the students about the rise of racial slurs during the school day. Things said at a lunch table that is meant to get a reaction have done just that—a bad reaction! Many will look at those situations and think, “Kids will be kids.” Actually, Kids will be reflections of their culture. What they experience around them at home, in media, in music, and in things said in casual conversations get soaked into their minds.

We thought we were better than that. We thought we had evolved. We were wrong. One of the main ingredients in our cultural stew of chaos is racism. It pours salt in the wounds, spice into heated situations, and leaves a bad taste in the memories of those affected.

Although segregation has been outlawed, it still exists. Judgments are made based on a person’s ability, intelligence, and competence based on their skin color or background. It’s nothing new. Going back to Genesis 46, when Joseph brought his family to Egypt, he asked the Pharaoh if they could settle in the region of Goshen, “…for all shepherds are detestable to the Egyptians.” (Genesis 46:34)

The Apostle Paul made a sweeping statement in his letter to the churches in the region of Galatia. In Galatians 3:28, he said:
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.“

We are to see each other with equal regard. Such words, however, lost their meaning in a historical period of minimizing. As we sink deeper into the racism abyss, the meaning of the bracelet that many of us wear or wear…WWJD…What Would Jesus Do?…is clouded in a fog that leaves us guessing.

And so, a group of college women’s basketball players, 18 to 23-year-olds from a variety of backgrounds, races, and nationalities, feared for their lives even though all they were doing was eating dinner together in a restaurant.

That’s messed up!