Breathe

Just breathe.

...sometimes you just need to take so many breaths...just to breathe again.

When I run, for example, I often bring my tensions and anxieties along (who can set them aside?).  And, it takes about half a route of running...breathing -- in-and-out, in-and-out -- before I start to get a sense of things again.  Even hearing myself breathe, helps me slowly realize something significant is going on.

And, then, it occurs.  I start breathing again, metaphorically, breathing again...shedding the thinking and things that often end up encumbering my being.  I rediscover the natural rhythm of things; relaxing and breathing...as the things of life start to go back to their proper place, order, and orientation.

Just breathe.

Thoughts on Asking for Forgiveness

Do you need 'forgiveness' in 2012?  To receive it?  To offer it?  Here is an interesting read from Donald Miller's blog on forgiveness, a topic which always seems to generate lots of engagement (note the comments after his entry).

...seems loosely connected to my recent entry on enemies.

Anyway, what about you and forgiveness...in the year ahead?

The Enemy is not Your Friend

The enemy is not your friend.

Well, that seems a bit self-evident, doesn't it? But, think about it a bit. Don’t we often see those who are our 'friends'...as the enemy in things that we are feeling about life? For example, we act like our spouses are sometimes the enemy. Someone at work or church, or a neighbor; we sometimes view as an enemy. Many times whoever is not cooperating with my sense of how life should work to benefit me...is thought of as someone to oppose, like an enemy. Someone we need to stand up for ourselves against. And, we can live a long time with such a view of others. But, what if 'they' aren’t really the problem we can often think they are? What if they are being used by a real enemy to keep our attention distracted from where the real battle is?

We all have a sense of things we need to fight for...some are good and some aren't.  But, what if the object of our fight is not the other person, at any given moment?  What if the battle is really at a much different level?  What if we are simply being led to believe the problem is with the other person...to keep us focused on a level of fight that we think we can win, with our own effort, with our own ingenuity?  Believing that if we could just change them, if they would just change, if they would stop or start doing this or that, then everything would be OK.  What if the real struggle, though, in them or in us is really with something else, but we live largely unaware that this is true?  What if the nature of our effort could really be more about what we turn to than about who we turn on?

Perhaps, the enemy is not really...our friend, after all.

50th Wedding Anniversary

Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

-- Mark Twain


 To my parents, today; on their 50th Wedding Anniversary,

When I think about 50 years, of just about anything, it pretty much seems like what it sounds like...a long time.  Of course, whatever one would assess as 'long' would have to compared to something.  Compared to all history, compared to the time since Christ ascended, etc. 50 years is not so long.  Compared to one's life span or with many marriages these days...well that seems like a different story.

At the very least, 50 years is longer than my little life...and that, at least at the moment, seems like quite a while.  And, working at a relationship for that long seems...note-worthy, especially in an age of instants -- instant upgrades, instant trade-ins, instant new... of nearly anything.  So I'm impressed by longevity when I see it still happening.  For one thing, it helps me reconsider my own sense of a long time.  It challenges me to consider alternatives to giving up, to quitting when things get difficult.  It provides a context to consider lots of things that short time-frames don't seem to allow much for.  Further, when considered in the context of relationships, even greater pause is provided.  I am grateful that I have paused to consider what I'm seeing when I feel the appeal of the 'shorter route'.  I am grateful because some of that same longevity I increasingly respect in your marriage is benefitting my own. 

Growing old together, while not as fashionable as it used to be, has many wonders; many graces that God knew about long before we learned to agree with Him about it.  I'm so grateful for the example you have laid in front of me -- the joy of longevity, of willingness to stay at something to learn about the surprise of the depths of God's goodness.

Now, it should likely be noted, that longevity in and of itself may not be all that it is cracked up to be.  It, in fact, can be a great cloak over many evils.  But longevity seeking something much better and deeper than the benefits to self is a different matter.  And, that greater calling, to seek the source of loving others provides for something that 50 years together only begins to tap into.  And, I want to thank you, Dad and Mom, for helping me imagine those possibilities by doing the same yourselves. 

50 years together, seeking God, the best you know how...is a wonderful gift to me, a son.  One that keeps on giving as I seek the same in my relationships, and thereby give to our own children.

Praise God for enabling your faithfulness to Him all these years.  And, thank you.


Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

-- I Corinthians 13:7

Snippets

Sometimes, the things that help me identify most with a song are the little snippets or phrases tucked within them.  For example, I really like this song, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, noted on a friend’s blog this Christmas, because of these phrases:

Born to set Thy people free;
    From our fears and sins release us,
    Let us find our rest in Thee.

It hints at what true freedom is really about.  It is really more about what I learn to rest in than in what I am able to get away from or what I can overcome (both of which tend to be very wearying).  I'm grateful for the meaning of these words for my friend and for the reminder they are to me.

Sometimes it is the smallest of things that catch our eye or our attention, that port meaning to and from our lives.

Advent

God, the God of Israel, is not a God that we can force to conform to our purposes. For as Isaiah makes clear, we have been created to conform to God's purposes. This, moreover, is extremely good news because it means that the world as we know it is not without purpose. It can only appear without purpose if we persist in viewing and acting in the world as if God does not exist.

The question, therefore, is not does God exist, but do we. For whatever it means for us to exist, we do so as creatures created, as the universe has been created, to glorify God.

So it matters what sort of persons we are to be if we are to be a people who know how to wait. This is Advent. This is the time of a hastening that waits.

—- Stanley Hauerwas

Oh Holy Night

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining"

Earlier this month I referenced one of my favorite Christmas songs, which is filled with phrases that ring so deep it can almost hurt to take their truth fully in.  I think the phrase above sets the stage so well.  There is something about 'pining' that seems so accurate and so descriptive of our fallen state -- pining away...for what seems like forever.  And, not just in sin, but in missing the point of so much in life; in other words, error.

"Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth"

Have you ever felt your worth?  What if we could...truly know our worth?  What would that be like?  And, he came in order that we could know what he has made us to be.  Without his coming, we would never know and would just 'pine' away.

"Let all within us praise His holy name"

Advent Waiting

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes … and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

—- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It strikes me that something gets freed from the inside, as one learns to wait for it from the outside.

Christmas in Colorado

Click here for more pics....

Politicals

Since I'm on vacation, I've let myself stop and think...about politics.  Wow, why bother, some might say.  Even when I want to, it's a bit hard to avoid the political arena of life, especially these days.  And, there are spots of decent drama, even though they seem to be perpetually overwhelmed by what isn't (decent drama).

I often wonder how this is hitting the next generation.  Forgetting, in the doing of that, about how it is hitting me. I think my leader thought above (I used the word 'avoid') comes from the sense that almost none of the stuff being bantered about seems real.  It feels much more like a lot of posturing about things that aren't real, than substantive work.  I guess I'm just not that into 'positioning' in order to get things done (it doesn't seem very effective anyway) and more interested in having serious conversations about differing points of view and then actually getting things done.  I get the sense that I am not alone in this.

The other challenge is that politics seems to be an awful lot about sweeping generalizations and the search for truth up there somewhere, when it seems to me that the truth is quite simply and much more on the ground.  So, at the risk of sweeping generalizations, here are some of my more specific political thoughts:

1. I have a hard time with the Republican political disposition because it seems to me that it is rather snobby, particularly as it relates to the poor.  This is a serious problem for me, as the heart of the more significant things in life is concerned with the poor.  I see very little room for snobbery.  And, I don't like the 'pull yourself up by your boot-straps' mentality that always seems to be within arms reach for Republicans to swing against the poor.  "Do it yourself; I did"...is a gross misinterpretation of what anyone really has ended up with.  When you're down, this is not what makes the difference.  And, it's not an explanation for why, when you are up.
2. I have a hard time with the Democrat political disposition because it seems to me that it believes that government should solve all the problems, of the poor and of most anything else.  Let's make a law about everything that's wrong.  And, when it believes that, it ends up believing that money is the solution...and that it just needs to be applied more appropriately.  I don't think government is the solution, though I do believe it has a key role in protecting people from some of the really ugly results of capitalism.  Capitalism will crush people with its greed.  Government, in theory at least, can help protect the victims of greed.  But, I also have a hard time with the unconstrained spending of money as the answer to people problems.  Money, in many cases, may actually be the problem.  But, people's problems are deeper than what government exclusively can and should be dealing with.

So, what to do?  Where does that leave me.  Like in a lot of things, I think I need to just stay in it.  Don't disengage.  Do my part...every day.  What about you?  How do you respond to politics these days?

The rhetoric will blow away in a day anyway.  But, probably just not for a while...more later on the people, process, and details (it may be much later...which may not disappoint too many of you).

My Top Christmas Songs 2011

Well, two years have passed since my 2009 version of this, but I must say that not much changed; the ones then are still my favorites this year. Click here.

Collisions

We spend a good portion of our lives colliding with things that we do not comprehend -- like running into things that jar us from our own sensibilities about things.  I remember several collisions along the way:

1. Getting really mad at things during my high school years...not knowing why
2. Questioning whether my faith held muster during my time in Europe and then especially after I returned
3. Realizing that marriage wasn't as awesome as I'd hoped it would be
4. Several situations along the way where I really wasn't letting others be themselves...realizing I wanted them to be more like me
5. The first time I lost a job
6. The second time I lost a job
7. Learning to let God be in charge of my kids

I have noticed similar collisions occurring in the lives of my kids, in my friends lives, in the lives of people I don't know that well.  Makes me think that this is much more a regular part of the design of life than I had originally imagined.

It’s the colliding that gets our attention and us contemplating what all else might actually be going on (like quite Ahas).  It’s starts us on the road of self-discovery, which leads towards one of three paths:

1. Endless and confusing collision – from which we learn nothing...we just plod on, running into one thing after another
2. A belief that we can organize our lives to avoid collisions (life) –  leading us to arrogance of one kind or another, believing that the problem is 'out there' and largely something simply to be solved
3. A recognition that we are dependent (not independent afterall) and not all that self-determining  –  allowing us to accept and offer grace like we have received to others

In time, collisions become more about running into ourselves as we run into others as we learn that they offer us more opportunity than threat (though it is often the threat we feel that provides the opportunity).

Disappointed with Intimacy

The Bible does promise that we can have true intimacy with Christ. But this intimacy, which is mediated through the Holy Spirit, is unlike any other relationship with which we are familiar.

-- John Koessler

It's What We Hide

Reminded me of a beautiful experience yesterday with some dear friends who chose not to hide...and helped give me the permission to not hide either.

...from Donald Miller's blog.

The Sound of Twinkle

The trail peaked out this morning at a point along the stream that compelled me to stop.  To stop and look at what lay before me.  To listen...to the sound quietly filling the air around me.  To take something in that had been just sitting there, almost waiting for my presence to observe it.  Not for my sake, but for its own.

But it ended up being for my sake, too.  I noticed the tiny little berries, red and Christmas-bulb-like dangling from the twigs now surrounding my head.  They lit themselves against the background of that unspeakably beautiful mix of snow and wood in the forest behind them.  I slowly counted...realizing as I did, that the stream had joined the scene with the most complementary sounds.  Its water was positively 'twinkling' as I observed its 'mini-light' friends.  What a wonderful idea, I thought.  Who made all this?  And, why?  The latter didn't matter, I was just thrilled to again take it in.  The sound of visual...in the form of a twinkle.

I'm glad I stopped...or that it stopped me.

2011 Album of the Year - Bon Iver

I love it, too!  Thanks, Blake, for connecting me with Bon Iver.  See Paste Interview.

From a prior post, take a listen.

Smallness: A Shot, a death, and so much...

...I cannot know.  Read the story here....

Sometimes our smallness overwhelms us.

Fences

We all need someone to help us reset our boundaries from time to time.  Prone to wander...so the saying goes. While we tend to resent it at first, there are times when we can see how grateful we are for fences in our lives.  They free us to live within our appropriate limitations.

Ranking Friendship

Ranking friendships is dangerous business.

There is something inherently unfriendly about it -- it reduces friendship towards one thing...me.

Every Generation

Each generation is reacting to the one before and it usually takes about a full generation to realize that's what it's doing, fix things and seek to perpetuate it's repairs on the next one...which kind of keeps the cycle going.

You see it in higher education.  You see it in religious life.  You see it in the way we parent.  This can be frightening, enlightening and freeing, all at the same time -- we don't have quite as much ingenuity as we think we do.  What goes around, comes around....

Every generation blames the one before....

-- Mike & the Mechanics

Staggering...either way

Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering.

-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Christmas Season

The deeper we grow in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become the more we realize that everything in life is a gift.

-- Brennan Manning, "The Ragamuffin Gospel"