Randy picked Jim up to visit Bliss Megachurch at almost 10:30.
Jim had to chuckle. He had put on his best jumpsuit this time, but Randy was wearing his most comfortable 'suit - artfully torn coveralls that is. Jim always dressed in better than old coveralls, even while at work fixing aerocars, so this week he was vastly overdressed. It seemed Bliss was a little more relaxed than First Evangelical. Either way, there was no time to change.
Hopefully, Bliss was a lot more relaxed, because if the service started at 11:00, they were definitely going to be late. Randy had an old hybrid road car that had only passed the most recent emissions test because Jim detuned its gasoline engine. Bliss was well outside town, and they were not going to top 35 mph the whole way.
Randy told him not to sweat it. They were only going to miss the singing, and half the men skipped the singing anyway. The women comandeered the singing decades ago, and the men just kind of decided to gaga, (go along and get along.)
This was a strange thought to Jim. The Walkers had been all about the singing so he was confused when someone like Randy, who really walked the Lord, was intentionally skipping the singing at Bliss. He wondered what might make half the men want to miss the singing?
Jim had forgotten how little traffic was on the roads on a Sunday morning, and was pleasantly surprised when they pulled into the parking lot only 5 minutes late. As they walked in, Jim noticed just how right Randy was. There was a line to get into the building, and people still pouring in from the sidewalks. Once they were inside, the picture didn't get any better. The Bliss Buzz Shop on the left was doing a booming business selling caffienated energy drinks, while the Bliss Bible Booktable was selling jewelry, home decor and occasional books on the right.
Directly in front of them, two friendly looking men held the double doors closed as strains of, "The Rose Loved Me," wafted between the cracks. Jim looked to Randy, and drifted toward the door. Randy looked over to the Buzz Shop, longing for a little pick-me-up before entering the auditorium. He saw the line was at least a song long, though, and it was obvious Jim wanted to be in the auditorium already, so he decided to forego the bliss of Bliss juice. They joined the short queue at the double doors, just as the last chorus of the current song finished.
When the doors opened, ushers guided them directly to the closest row with two open seats. It was a pretty good walk, and they were handed off from usher to usher twice along the way, since the auditorium was really quite full. Jim could not stop looking around, taking in the size of the audience, the electronic orchesta, the amazing architecture, and the quality of the sound. The whole time that he was being seated, and being amazed, the man on the stage was filling time with a poem.
The poem seemed to be much like the song. It, too, was about a rose, and how it loved the world around it. The aromas of rose petals, fresh rain, and pungent earth teased Jim's senses as he sat, taking in the poem in its full surround-sound glory. High Def pictures of perfect roses waved on the three screens behind the speaker as Jesus approached the viewer with His arms held open. The rose loved by receiving the sunlight, and reflecting it to God's children. It drank deeply of the water in the earth, and reflected strong leaves out to the world. The rose was Christ Who had drunk deeply of God, and loved us so that we could love Him.
This really was just like a vid. The screens darkened, and switched over to weekly announcements of upcoming Bliss Events, and the clean scent of vanilla filled the air. The aroma immersion worked. Whenever he smelled vanilla, for at least the next week, he would remember that the Bliss Bible Booktable was holding its annual missional special sale next week, and that the Bliss Buzz Shop did discount catering for all registered members.
The smell of some kind incense took over from the vanilla, as a lighting change revealed a 6-piece band, and the next song began. The words scrolled on the center screen with the current word underlined. The band led the audience through the dynamic moves of the song, as the audience lighting dimmed, and a series of rapturous faces gazed upward on the outer vid screens. The song celebrated removing our veils to behold the Lord face-to-face, and the people in the vids were doing just that. As the song built up to its well-known ending, the vid screens filled with a joyous brightness, the audience lights came back up, and the audience itself responded with a delighted shout.
The leader began a spontaneous outpouring of praise, and the audience followed him with gusto. The building was filled with the simultaneously spoken love of hundreds of people for their Lord, until the power of the moment could not be ignored.
Jim struggled to keep his eyes from bulging like some security-bot's.
Jim had never seen anything remotely like this. He was a new-ish Christian, and he had been converted in a living room, to a living room church. He had never been a part of a thousand people shouting at the same time about anything, unless it was one of the local semi-pro football games. He didn't even ask whether it was right or wrong. He just assumed that a thousand followers of the Lord could not be wrong, and took it all in.
Soon enough, it ended again, and the doors were opened again to the latest wave of latecomers.
This time a man stood up to exhort everyone to give freely to the Lord, while the vid screens explained how to use the credit pad that was about to be passed around. Just thumb print the screen, and enter the amount into the keyboard that comes up. The vid screens also showed a map to the cash offertory for those who were more comfortable giving after the service. After a quick prayer of blessing on the offering, the pastor came up and began his lecture before the credit pads had even started down the aisles.
Pastor Jones was a great speaker.
It could not have been more than 5 minutes before Jim was laughing along with the vid highlights, sombering at the deeper meaning behind them, and seeing the value of a church that could speak to its culture. Jesus left us with a mission, and no one else could do it. Jesus fit in with sinners, not religion. Jesus understood failure, and spoke to people in their own language, not theo-jargon. If a Buzz Shop spoke to the culture, then they would put one downtown!
The Anti-proselytization Act had held them up for a while, but Satan could not hold the upper hand for long. They had done the grace-roots campaigning, they done the praying, and they had overturned the enemy's devices. Now, they could serve the Lord with all their hearts, and with all their means. Satan could not keep them on house arrest for long.
Yes, Bliss Megachurch was opening "Bliss Buzz" at the corner of High and 3rd. It was all part of the mission of reaching the lost, and it was a faith step since they were not yet sure where the rest of the money would come from. The initial investment would be high, but the payoff would be eternal. (The credit pads started their journey through the audience about now.)
Jim thought about his morning so far, and Pastor Jones was right. At no point, since he had entered Bliss, was he ever in unfamiliar surroundings. The little shops and the vids and the casual atmosphere really had made it easy for him to fit in. No wonder Charles' kids were more comfortable at Bliss. The buzz drinks alone would be enough to bring a man back again, if he had either arrived early enough to get one, or skipped a song or two. Aside from the long, loud group declaration of love of audience for God, the whole experience was natural for him.
Pastor Jones continued.
Christianity had covered up Christ for too long. They kept cloaking the simple, loving Carpenter in religious robes and religious rules that prevented the average Joe from feeling comfortable enough to hear from Him. If, instead, His church would humble herself enough to rub shoulders with people just like themselves, then Christ Himself could be seen. We all need to be accepted, and the church is God's chosen tool on earth to teach the lost about their acceptance in Christ. We just needed to reset our priorities, learn to love our neighbor, and do all we could to help the Bliss mission in the power of the Spirit.
As the last of the credit pads was collected, Pastor Jones wrapped up his call to action.
The pastor started another time of free praise and declaration to the Lord. The audience answered back with enthusiasm. Now that he knew what was happening, Jim tried saying a couple words of praise. He could not hear himself, so he tried again a little louder. Once more, really loudly, and he felt it. It was pretty cool to shout praise, and oddly safe to do it in that large of a group. Everything was so loud, no one would hear him, so he could say what he felt. He was beginning to picture his voice as joined with everyone else's in the ear of God, when the lights began to drop, and the band quietly started playing.
They played the last song again, about beholding the Lord face-to-face. Only this time, the vids in the background were showing downtown scenes, and the people were all from the High St and 3rd Ave area. The audience looked at their faces, while they reminded themselves in song that these people all needed to see Jesus' face. They just needed a chance, and the joy of knowing the Lord in Bliss could be theirs.
When the song ended, the ushers emptied the auditorium in a surprisingly efficient manner. It probably took less than 2 minutes to get everyone out who wanted to leave.
Even more surprising was that it was still not quite 12:00 noon. It had been such a ride, that it seemed like almost two hours to him, but really it was less than one, and they were headed for the door. Randy looked at the Buzz Shop again on the way out, but the line was way too long. If he had to choose between waiting in the latte line or the parking lot line, he may as well be making forward progress.
Jim and Randy talked the whole way home about the benefits of an energy drink bar in the downtown area with Bliss's name on it. It was a shrewd move, if it would eventually be self-supporting. They talked about all the things that could happen down there. They might could even introduce the kind of singing and poetry they used to do back with the Walkers. That could be a lot of fun.
Of course, neither of them was sure how you would go about starting a Walker meeting in the middle of a bunch of downtownies getting tanked up for their afternoon meetings. Tough call.
When Randy finally dropped Jim off, it was still barely 12:30. He'd been gone for a total of 2 hours.
There was a lot to tell Brenda, of course. But as he started in, he remembered the question he asked himself about the singing. Why would half the men at Bliss decide to skip the singing? The Buzz Shop came to mind, but really that was just one thing they did instead of singing. Some of the men just decided to be late. The only thing he could figure, and Brenda thought it made sense too, was that they didn't like to be told what to feel, when to feel it, and how overpowered to be.
He thought about asking someone he'd met, but it dawned him that he had not really met anyone. Everyone was friendly, and easy to greet, but he didn't really meet anyone but ushers.
Whatever it was, it was a lot to think about.
He and Brenda talked on through lunch.
Next week he was to go with Thom to Corner Church. He wondered whether it could possibly be as different from Bliss and First Evangelical as they had been from each other.
21 December, 2006
19 December, 2006
News: Middle Eastern Converts
[Shamelessly hoping our local Middle Eastern expert, Weekend Fisher, will weigh in on this one.]
We had some missionaries from the West Bank at our church this evening. Ellen said something fascinating. (Paraphrased, condensed, and hacked, but she agreed after the talk that I had heard her right.)
The number of West Bank Muslim converts to Christianity went from approximately none to enough to start a church overnight. She asked the people who were visiting their homes, and giving them the gospel, what is different? They said the people were telling them, "The leaders of the Islamic nations are being killed, so now we wonder, where is Allah?" We tell them about Jesus.
As I understand it, Islam is a highly political religion. They measure the blessing of Allah by the blessings that are upon their government. Hence, if you shame an Islamic government, you have done much worse than that. You have either shamed Allah, or shamed the nation and its leaders for having done something to lose his blessing.
As they watched Israel successfully assasinating their leaders, it proved to them that the promises of the Imams were empty, and they began looking for truth. (The reader must remember that I consider Israel to be another secular democracy, and not the nation of God on earth. In saying these things, I am not saying that the Lord's people are assasinating these leaders, but that one political entity is making war on another. No "divine right" is implied.)
I don't know what to make of this assessment, but it seems to jive with everything I've read over the years.
Barring a great discussion starting, I will put this one in the mental crockpot, and see what stews.
We had some missionaries from the West Bank at our church this evening. Ellen said something fascinating. (Paraphrased, condensed, and hacked, but she agreed after the talk that I had heard her right.)
The number of West Bank Muslim converts to Christianity went from approximately none to enough to start a church overnight. She asked the people who were visiting their homes, and giving them the gospel, what is different? They said the people were telling them, "The leaders of the Islamic nations are being killed, so now we wonder, where is Allah?" We tell them about Jesus.
As I understand it, Islam is a highly political religion. They measure the blessing of Allah by the blessings that are upon their government. Hence, if you shame an Islamic government, you have done much worse than that. You have either shamed Allah, or shamed the nation and its leaders for having done something to lose his blessing.
As they watched Israel successfully assasinating their leaders, it proved to them that the promises of the Imams were empty, and they began looking for truth. (The reader must remember that I consider Israel to be another secular democracy, and not the nation of God on earth. In saying these things, I am not saying that the Lord's people are assasinating these leaders, but that one political entity is making war on another. No "divine right" is implied.)
I don't know what to make of this assessment, but it seems to jive with everything I've read over the years.
Barring a great discussion starting, I will put this one in the mental crockpot, and see what stews.
FHC: The Church of Tomorrow - Part 5, First Evangelical
Charles landed to pick Jim up for church spot-on at 8:50. Jim was surprised to see Charles in a snazzy, gray jumpsuit with a white cravat. Jim had never even managed a suit like that for his job explorations. You'd think that with the job cycle index running at 27 months, and 13 months in the trades, he'd go ahead and plop for a decent 'suit, but he didn't really want to move into management anyway.
They would be alone on this trip. Jim let his wife relax while he scouted out the local churches, and Charles's wife was accompanying their children to Bliss Megachurch. Charles' kids were teens now, and they were much, much happier in Bliss than they had been in First Evangelical.
As they flew over neighborhood after neighborhood, Charles explained that he was an elder at FE, and that he would be sitting in the front row. He was surprised that they reinstated him so quickly into his eldership after his time with the Walkers, but it felt good to be back in the board meetings with his brothers again. He had been raised Evangelical, and getting back into the rhythm was a blessing. He assured Jim that he would be completely comfortable in his new church home, if he decided to stay.
As they topped the last little ridge, it was easy to see the cluster of steeples that marked the center of town from the air. All three churches were of long history in the town, and well established. First Evangelical was the nearest of the three, so there was no complex approach pattern necessary. Charles just ID'd the parking space he wanted, and engaged the GPS auto-lander.
They were greeted at the door, and several more times as they entered the building. He was surprisingly under-dressed, but nobody mentioned it. Everyone showed great delight to meet him. In fact, he began to feel like the "single guy" walking into a bevey of grandmothers with eligible granddaughters in mind. His ring was still on, so that wasn't it, but he was not comfortable at the center of attention. Most people just wanted to know whether he was enjoying himself so far, so he kept assuring them that he was.
Charles disappeared, leaving him in Frank's friendly hands.
Frank asked which Sunday School class would interest Jim. Then Frank found out he needed to explain what Sunday School was. That obstacle cleared, he recommended either the old testament class on Leviticus or the new testament class on Ephesians. Having never heard anything promising about Leviticus, Jim opted for the Ephesians class. That worked out well, because Frank usually went there, too.
The room looked like nothing he'd seen in a long time, maybe since grade school. First off, there were no computers. That was odd in a classroom, which this obviously was. Second, it was just 5 rows of six or seven chairs each, all facing a stand - was it a lecturn they used to call those? Something like that. Anyway, Frank had allowed him to go in first, so he gravitated toward the back of the room, sitting in the last row, one seat in from the aisle. It was the same place he used to sit in 6th grade algebra.
They made chit-chat for a while, then everyone bowed their heads for prayer. Jim wasn't very good at the bible yet, but he could not remember anywhere that told him to do that. The Walkers always raised their hands and faces in prayer. Whatever. He bowed his head.
When the teacher started, he was talking about Eph 4, and how teachers were given to the church for the perfecting of the perfect ones. Paul called them saints - perfect ones - and teachers made them perfect-er. It was very cool. He was blessed. Which is to say that he was gifted by God with something to add to what the teacher was saying.
It was odd, because he kept wanting to add something about how blessed he was by truth the teacher was giving out, but he could not. Maybe he could have, but it didn't seem right. He was new, so he was keying off everyone else, and everyone else was quiet unless they had a question. It seemed the teacher had a lesson plan, and if there were too many interruptions, he would not finish it. So, they handled questions quickly and moved on. Jim remembered something about how songs could play a big part in building the saints together, but he wasn't going to speak up if no one else was saying anything either.
At the appointed hour, the class ended. The teacher had rushed the last couple verses, but he made it all the way to verse 16, exactly as planned. And Jim had learned a lot that he had never heard before. It was a very profitable hour.
As they left, he got to meet a couple more saints. There were almost 30 minutes to spend somehow between the end of Sunday School, and the beginning of "worship." Fortunately, a couple of the grandmothers were happy to talk to him about the weather, and what it was like to be an aerocar mechanic, and whether his family was just lovely. And, of course, whether he liked First Evangelical so far, and whether he would be back.
When people started filing through the double doors, he followed.
He had seen one other room like that in his adult life. Jim and Brenda had once gotten a babysitter, and gone to see a live play. It was like nothing they had ever seen before. The vids they watched in their basement were perfect, with every detail of sight, sound and smell to make you feel like you were part of the vid story, but the live play was better. It was sure different! The people on stage were sweating, and missed their lines, and needed the audience to laugh and grow quiet at all the right places. Somehow, even without High Definition, Surround Sound and Immersion Aroma, it was a totally engrossing evening. They had sworn to be live theater addicts, but somehow they had never made it back.
This room looked just like a theater, except that the audience was as well lighted as the stage.
He sat down to see what kind of show they would put on.
After a few minutes, his friend Charles walked up to the lecturn. He said, "Hello," to everyone, motioning them in to the room and to silence. After a couple social announcements, he called out number 347. Everyone around Jim opened one of the books conveniently tucked into the seat ahead of them. His neighbor noticed Jim fumbling, and helped him find the hymnal, and even helped him to read the song when they started singing.
Jim really didn't hear the first song at all, because he was too busy taking in the oddness of singing like that. He felt like a Christmas caroller. By the second song, though, he had settled in, and began hearing the words he was singing. "Bind us together, with cords of love." It was a beautiful song, and the piano plus the two hundred voices all singing with years of experience did it justice. The next song, declaring to Jesus that we were resting, resting in the joy of what "Thou art," was even better. Jim had seen a couple of Shakespeare's plays on the edu-vids back in school, so he knew what, "Thou art," meant, but it was wierd to hear it sung by people who meant it.
He decided with a chuckle that he would let the whole hymnal discussion, "rest in Jesus."
Charles next called the ushers forward to receive an "offering." Evidently, it was a collection of money, and since he was a visitor, he was not expected to participate. Still, it was amazing how many things Jim had not learned from the Walkers. He had never had to bring cash to a church meeting before. But, this was one of the big differences between the Walkers and the traditionals. The traditionals could collect money, and the government would not come after them. So, Jim guessed that he would have to think a little longer about the money stuff. No thinking today, though, because Jim had not carried cash in a very, very long time.
Charles then introduced Pastor Smith.
Pastor Smith stood up into the lecturn, and started a running monologue.
He took Col 2:7 as his text, and how we needed to be rooted and established in the faith, exactly as we have been taught. We were all here to be taught, so that we could be established, so that we could be rooted, and so that we could abound in teaching with thanksgiving. Teaching was the heart of Christianity, because knowing Christ started with knowing His character as revealed in His Word.
Jim soaked it all in like a sponge. It was wonderful to hear this man layer the Word of God like bricks one on another. He flew all around the bible, using this verse to establish that one, and those verses to explain these and making the whole thing serve the idea of teaching as central to our lives. Pastor Smith was just like those actors he had seen. He was sweating up there behind that lecturn, and he needed the audience to amen the good parts and hush for the bad ones. It was a real performance, and he played his audience well. Jim enjoyed the learning, and he enjoyed the show.
Eventually, of course, it had to end.
The pastor reached the end of his message ten minutes before the turn of the hour, and then issued a call for people to come forward to receive Christ. Jim was stunned. He instantly felt the need to get up and receive Christ, but he reminded himself that he had already done that. The doubts still nagged, though. He had never done it in a holy place. He had accepted Christ on Thom's living room floor, not in a real church. Maybe he should go forward? He sure wanted his salvation to be real. What should he do?
While he was thinking about it, the moment passed. They dismissed everyone, so the decision was made for him. Jim got up with everyone else, and started introducing himself all around again as more unknown people came up to greet him. Mercifully, Charles did not take long to find and free him. Charles needed to hurry home to start dinner, and Jim was only too happy to oblige him by leaving immediately.
It had been a good morning all around, and Jim was ready to get home to Brenda, and tell her all about it. On the flight home, Charles didn't pressure Jim to promise a return trip, but he let him know how glad he was that his first visit had gone so well. With a quick farewell, they parted ways.
Upon getting into the house, Jim did not immediately tell Brenda anything. He asked her to wait while he did a quick lookup. Picking up the vid tablet, he walked over the easy chair, and had a seat. He looked at the bible icon, and tapped the edge of the tablet. Then he looked at the search icon and said, "songs in Ephesians and Colossians," and tapped again.
Sure enough. He thought he remembered songs in both of the books he had heard about today. Ephesians and Colossians both said that everyone was supposed to speak to one another and admonish one another with different types of songs. The Walkers used to do a lot of that. They were forever making up little ditties, and long ballads, both. At times it had seemed like the Walkers should be called the Singers. Maybe he would get a chance to introduce the way the Walkers sang to First Evangelical? That would be cool.
It was a lot to think about. Brenda was going to enjoy hearing about all of this.
And next week he would get to visit Bliss Megachurch.
They would be alone on this trip. Jim let his wife relax while he scouted out the local churches, and Charles's wife was accompanying their children to Bliss Megachurch. Charles' kids were teens now, and they were much, much happier in Bliss than they had been in First Evangelical.
As they flew over neighborhood after neighborhood, Charles explained that he was an elder at FE, and that he would be sitting in the front row. He was surprised that they reinstated him so quickly into his eldership after his time with the Walkers, but it felt good to be back in the board meetings with his brothers again. He had been raised Evangelical, and getting back into the rhythm was a blessing. He assured Jim that he would be completely comfortable in his new church home, if he decided to stay.
As they topped the last little ridge, it was easy to see the cluster of steeples that marked the center of town from the air. All three churches were of long history in the town, and well established. First Evangelical was the nearest of the three, so there was no complex approach pattern necessary. Charles just ID'd the parking space he wanted, and engaged the GPS auto-lander.
They were greeted at the door, and several more times as they entered the building. He was surprisingly under-dressed, but nobody mentioned it. Everyone showed great delight to meet him. In fact, he began to feel like the "single guy" walking into a bevey of grandmothers with eligible granddaughters in mind. His ring was still on, so that wasn't it, but he was not comfortable at the center of attention. Most people just wanted to know whether he was enjoying himself so far, so he kept assuring them that he was.
Charles disappeared, leaving him in Frank's friendly hands.
Frank asked which Sunday School class would interest Jim. Then Frank found out he needed to explain what Sunday School was. That obstacle cleared, he recommended either the old testament class on Leviticus or the new testament class on Ephesians. Having never heard anything promising about Leviticus, Jim opted for the Ephesians class. That worked out well, because Frank usually went there, too.
The room looked like nothing he'd seen in a long time, maybe since grade school. First off, there were no computers. That was odd in a classroom, which this obviously was. Second, it was just 5 rows of six or seven chairs each, all facing a stand - was it a lecturn they used to call those? Something like that. Anyway, Frank had allowed him to go in first, so he gravitated toward the back of the room, sitting in the last row, one seat in from the aisle. It was the same place he used to sit in 6th grade algebra.
They made chit-chat for a while, then everyone bowed their heads for prayer. Jim wasn't very good at the bible yet, but he could not remember anywhere that told him to do that. The Walkers always raised their hands and faces in prayer. Whatever. He bowed his head.
When the teacher started, he was talking about Eph 4, and how teachers were given to the church for the perfecting of the perfect ones. Paul called them saints - perfect ones - and teachers made them perfect-er. It was very cool. He was blessed. Which is to say that he was gifted by God with something to add to what the teacher was saying.
It was odd, because he kept wanting to add something about how blessed he was by truth the teacher was giving out, but he could not. Maybe he could have, but it didn't seem right. He was new, so he was keying off everyone else, and everyone else was quiet unless they had a question. It seemed the teacher had a lesson plan, and if there were too many interruptions, he would not finish it. So, they handled questions quickly and moved on. Jim remembered something about how songs could play a big part in building the saints together, but he wasn't going to speak up if no one else was saying anything either.
At the appointed hour, the class ended. The teacher had rushed the last couple verses, but he made it all the way to verse 16, exactly as planned. And Jim had learned a lot that he had never heard before. It was a very profitable hour.
As they left, he got to meet a couple more saints. There were almost 30 minutes to spend somehow between the end of Sunday School, and the beginning of "worship." Fortunately, a couple of the grandmothers were happy to talk to him about the weather, and what it was like to be an aerocar mechanic, and whether his family was just lovely. And, of course, whether he liked First Evangelical so far, and whether he would be back.
When people started filing through the double doors, he followed.
He had seen one other room like that in his adult life. Jim and Brenda had once gotten a babysitter, and gone to see a live play. It was like nothing they had ever seen before. The vids they watched in their basement were perfect, with every detail of sight, sound and smell to make you feel like you were part of the vid story, but the live play was better. It was sure different! The people on stage were sweating, and missed their lines, and needed the audience to laugh and grow quiet at all the right places. Somehow, even without High Definition, Surround Sound and Immersion Aroma, it was a totally engrossing evening. They had sworn to be live theater addicts, but somehow they had never made it back.
This room looked just like a theater, except that the audience was as well lighted as the stage.
He sat down to see what kind of show they would put on.
After a few minutes, his friend Charles walked up to the lecturn. He said, "Hello," to everyone, motioning them in to the room and to silence. After a couple social announcements, he called out number 347. Everyone around Jim opened one of the books conveniently tucked into the seat ahead of them. His neighbor noticed Jim fumbling, and helped him find the hymnal, and even helped him to read the song when they started singing.
Jim really didn't hear the first song at all, because he was too busy taking in the oddness of singing like that. He felt like a Christmas caroller. By the second song, though, he had settled in, and began hearing the words he was singing. "Bind us together, with cords of love." It was a beautiful song, and the piano plus the two hundred voices all singing with years of experience did it justice. The next song, declaring to Jesus that we were resting, resting in the joy of what "Thou art," was even better. Jim had seen a couple of Shakespeare's plays on the edu-vids back in school, so he knew what, "Thou art," meant, but it was wierd to hear it sung by people who meant it.
He decided with a chuckle that he would let the whole hymnal discussion, "rest in Jesus."
Charles next called the ushers forward to receive an "offering." Evidently, it was a collection of money, and since he was a visitor, he was not expected to participate. Still, it was amazing how many things Jim had not learned from the Walkers. He had never had to bring cash to a church meeting before. But, this was one of the big differences between the Walkers and the traditionals. The traditionals could collect money, and the government would not come after them. So, Jim guessed that he would have to think a little longer about the money stuff. No thinking today, though, because Jim had not carried cash in a very, very long time.
Charles then introduced Pastor Smith.
Pastor Smith stood up into the lecturn, and started a running monologue.
He took Col 2:7 as his text, and how we needed to be rooted and established in the faith, exactly as we have been taught. We were all here to be taught, so that we could be established, so that we could be rooted, and so that we could abound in teaching with thanksgiving. Teaching was the heart of Christianity, because knowing Christ started with knowing His character as revealed in His Word.
Jim soaked it all in like a sponge. It was wonderful to hear this man layer the Word of God like bricks one on another. He flew all around the bible, using this verse to establish that one, and those verses to explain these and making the whole thing serve the idea of teaching as central to our lives. Pastor Smith was just like those actors he had seen. He was sweating up there behind that lecturn, and he needed the audience to amen the good parts and hush for the bad ones. It was a real performance, and he played his audience well. Jim enjoyed the learning, and he enjoyed the show.
Eventually, of course, it had to end.
The pastor reached the end of his message ten minutes before the turn of the hour, and then issued a call for people to come forward to receive Christ. Jim was stunned. He instantly felt the need to get up and receive Christ, but he reminded himself that he had already done that. The doubts still nagged, though. He had never done it in a holy place. He had accepted Christ on Thom's living room floor, not in a real church. Maybe he should go forward? He sure wanted his salvation to be real. What should he do?
While he was thinking about it, the moment passed. They dismissed everyone, so the decision was made for him. Jim got up with everyone else, and started introducing himself all around again as more unknown people came up to greet him. Mercifully, Charles did not take long to find and free him. Charles needed to hurry home to start dinner, and Jim was only too happy to oblige him by leaving immediately.
It had been a good morning all around, and Jim was ready to get home to Brenda, and tell her all about it. On the flight home, Charles didn't pressure Jim to promise a return trip, but he let him know how glad he was that his first visit had gone so well. With a quick farewell, they parted ways.
Upon getting into the house, Jim did not immediately tell Brenda anything. He asked her to wait while he did a quick lookup. Picking up the vid tablet, he walked over the easy chair, and had a seat. He looked at the bible icon, and tapped the edge of the tablet. Then he looked at the search icon and said, "songs in Ephesians and Colossians," and tapped again.
Sure enough. He thought he remembered songs in both of the books he had heard about today. Ephesians and Colossians both said that everyone was supposed to speak to one another and admonish one another with different types of songs. The Walkers used to do a lot of that. They were forever making up little ditties, and long ballads, both. At times it had seemed like the Walkers should be called the Singers. Maybe he would get a chance to introduce the way the Walkers sang to First Evangelical? That would be cool.
It was a lot to think about. Brenda was going to enjoy hearing about all of this.
And next week he would get to visit Bliss Megachurch.
Life: The Usefulness of Depression
There's nothing worse than having a ready supply of muffin stumps.
There are some things in life that have no perceived value. You'd like to think there's some value, but nope. You're just stuck with this raw material for treasures no one in their right mind wants.
And so it is with me and melancholia.
But Scientific American is pleading my case!
It turns out that depression improves focus. Contrary to the stereotype of the creative, depressed artist, depression depresses creativity, but in exchange it improves focus. I think their experiment is pretty weak, and in fact, that it really proves that depressed people are more nitpicky (which is not exactly news) but I'll grasp at any straw in a storm. :-)
If they are right, then maybe I can use the gloomier moments of life to address issues that require deeper focus. It's an interesting thought.
Again with the unexpected twist at the end of the article, though.
As for the myth of the depressed but brilliant artist, Anderson speculates that creativity may be a form of self-medication, giving a gloomy artist the chance to adopt a cheerful disposition.
Fascinating!
Almost certainly true.
I love to create things, and creating can absolutely lift me out of, "it," whatever it might be. But, it is so hard to make the brain create when it feels ineffectual.
BTW, I find that depression is not primarily a mood. It is a response. It is the response of despair in the face of insurmountable obstacles.
[OK, I'm really in "train of thought" mode here. Sorry. I love motivational posters, but one of the worst is, "Obstacles are those things you see when you take your eyes off of your goals." What vitriolic pablum! (Yes, cussing would be easier, and more to the point, but the mere idea of a poisonous, syrupy sweet paste amuses me more than saying what I was really just thinking then.) Do those addled half-wits at the poster company really not believe in insurmountable obstacles?]
Anyway, I was just say that depression was busy being a response to insurmountable obstacles, the response of despair. Grief for loss of hope, and grief for the loss of the things hoped for, followed by a general unwillingness to believe that anything else is worth having or doing. This leads to a systemic deadening. Hands, heart and spirit take on the character and weight of lead.
Creating something is the perfect answer to despair.
Remembering that I am capable of seeing something that doesn't exist, and bringing it to be, is a wellspring of joy. Creation requires faith. And faith opposes despair. So, creativity becomes an indirect tool. It's like having to do some woodwork in the basement. Step one is cleaning the workbench. That workbench needed cleaning for weeks, but it's the chance to create something that causes me to finally square it away.
Creating something doesn't clear the depression, but it gives me a reason and a little hope, and I am able to clear those cobwebs myself. If I can see something that needs to exist, then I can find the faith to attack the things keeping it from existing.
Ah well, I found it interesting.
There are some things in life that have no perceived value. You'd like to think there's some value, but nope. You're just stuck with this raw material for treasures no one in their right mind wants.
And so it is with me and melancholia.
But Scientific American is pleading my case!
It turns out that depression improves focus. Contrary to the stereotype of the creative, depressed artist, depression depresses creativity, but in exchange it improves focus. I think their experiment is pretty weak, and in fact, that it really proves that depressed people are more nitpicky (which is not exactly news) but I'll grasp at any straw in a storm. :-)
If they are right, then maybe I can use the gloomier moments of life to address issues that require deeper focus. It's an interesting thought.
Again with the unexpected twist at the end of the article, though.
As for the myth of the depressed but brilliant artist, Anderson speculates that creativity may be a form of self-medication, giving a gloomy artist the chance to adopt a cheerful disposition.
Fascinating!
Almost certainly true.
I love to create things, and creating can absolutely lift me out of, "it," whatever it might be. But, it is so hard to make the brain create when it feels ineffectual.
BTW, I find that depression is not primarily a mood. It is a response. It is the response of despair in the face of insurmountable obstacles.
[OK, I'm really in "train of thought" mode here. Sorry. I love motivational posters, but one of the worst is, "Obstacles are those things you see when you take your eyes off of your goals." What vitriolic pablum! (Yes, cussing would be easier, and more to the point, but the mere idea of a poisonous, syrupy sweet paste amuses me more than saying what I was really just thinking then.) Do those addled half-wits at the poster company really not believe in insurmountable obstacles?]
Anyway, I was just say that depression was busy being a response to insurmountable obstacles, the response of despair. Grief for loss of hope, and grief for the loss of the things hoped for, followed by a general unwillingness to believe that anything else is worth having or doing. This leads to a systemic deadening. Hands, heart and spirit take on the character and weight of lead.
Creating something is the perfect answer to despair.
Remembering that I am capable of seeing something that doesn't exist, and bringing it to be, is a wellspring of joy. Creation requires faith. And faith opposes despair. So, creativity becomes an indirect tool. It's like having to do some woodwork in the basement. Step one is cleaning the workbench. That workbench needed cleaning for weeks, but it's the chance to create something that causes me to finally square it away.
Creating something doesn't clear the depression, but it gives me a reason and a little hope, and I am able to clear those cobwebs myself. If I can see something that needs to exist, then I can find the faith to attack the things keeping it from existing.
Ah well, I found it interesting.
17 December, 2006
Tennis: Ummmm. Yeah.
Well, after beating my coach last weekend, and playing him a tough, tough match yesterday, today was ... how shall we say? Not so much. :-D
You wouldn't have known it to watch me, but I loved today too.
3-6, 0-6, 5-4 (called for loss of light.)
I'm not sure, but I think my problem might have been that I was trying to bounce the ball over the net. Literally, at least 5 times I had a good setup shot, and hit it hard into the ground before it ever got to the net. Those were interspersed with the occasional shot that hit the fence before the ground. And there were some gorgeous shots gracing the edges of the game.
When the wheels come off, I still have not figured out how to get my game back on track. I stopped the choke for a while, but then the ol' mind just went away.
That's alright.
The coach finally feels like he is getting some benefit out of playing me. That means I get to play more. It's all good.
And, there were a couple good hitters in the next court, and I gave them this blog address. So maybe I'll even get to hit against someone new. One can hope.
(codepoke@wideopenwest.com)
You wouldn't have known it to watch me, but I loved today too.
3-6, 0-6, 5-4 (called for loss of light.)
I'm not sure, but I think my problem might have been that I was trying to bounce the ball over the net. Literally, at least 5 times I had a good setup shot, and hit it hard into the ground before it ever got to the net. Those were interspersed with the occasional shot that hit the fence before the ground. And there were some gorgeous shots gracing the edges of the game.
When the wheels come off, I still have not figured out how to get my game back on track. I stopped the choke for a while, but then the ol' mind just went away.
That's alright.
The coach finally feels like he is getting some benefit out of playing me. That means I get to play more. It's all good.
And, there were a couple good hitters in the next court, and I gave them this blog address. So maybe I'll even get to hit against someone new. One can hope.
(codepoke@wideopenwest.com)
16 December, 2006
Engaging God: Retelling a Psalm - Brief Summary
[Written for our small group, which is just taking their first steps this week.]
There are three things you have to do to retell a Psalm in a way beneficial to yourself and us.
1) Choose a theme and a Psalm
A theme is not strictly necessary, but it sure makes things easier. This theme should not be doctrinal or idealized, but warm-blooded. Your sweat or tears should be in this theme. You are not trying to write something wonderful and impressive. You are trying to write yourself, and none of us is perfect. You will find that the Spirit wants to speak something, too. He is always stirring something in your heart, so listen a little while before you start, and see whether you can find something both you and the Spirit wish to say.
Sometimes your Psalm is chosen for you, but a good choice is important. Ideally, you would choose a Psalm that sounds vaguely like your theme. Even more, though, you want a Psalm that cries or rejoices somewhat like you want to cry or rejoice. If your theme is rejoicing, you might find the mourning Psalms don't sound like you want to sound, even if you are rejoicing over forgiveness received. It's nice when you find a Psalm that really is "where you are." (If anyone knows a good summary of the Psalms, I'll buy it!)
Mostly, though, don't get stuck here. Your pick won't be perfect, but the Lord will speak to you anyway! Let's get started.
2) Retell each verse, one by one
Put away that really cool journal where all your prayers are going to be recorded. You'll want to do this on scratch paper, and throw lots of stuff away when you're done. It's cool. When you like your final product, then copy it over to that journal.
+ Think about what the Psalmist said, and what he was seeing that caused him to say it.
+ Then think about things that you have seen of Christ that are similar, but more completely revealed. If David sees God's mercies that never fail, then you might see Christ, the Mercy of God in flesh, Christ Who paid the eternal price irrevocably, and Christ Who was dedicated to seeing the Father's plan completed at all costs.
+ Finally, think about your theme. Can you see how the Spirit might be saying something that you want to say? Remember to make this real, not theological.
You might get stuck here. That's OK. Be encouraged! You are experiencing the birth pangs of all art. That's why they call it, "labor." Spend a few minutes. Pray a while. Think about and study other verses in which Christ is doing what the Psalmist is talking about, or Christ is overcoming what the Psalmist is mourning. Restate your theme. Don't dig for an answer. Keep looking at the Psalm, at Christ, and at your heart. The answer will come.
Then, write something down. Write something lame, if you have to, and move on. Even if you decide it's a good time to get up and walk away, write down where your mind was before you left. Amazing things happen when you just put something on paper. Remember, this is scratch paper. Nobody will see it, and God loves our simplest doodlings.
After you have finished all the verses (whether it takes a day or a week) put your finished version aside. Some prayers are perfect at this point, but most are not. I never trust anything I've written unless I've proofed it after at least 1 day away from it.
3) Make it flow
Read it again a day or two later. The first time through, you were working verse by verse and refering to the Psalm, the Lord's revelation and your theme. This time, just read what you've written.
If my experience is any indication, you will find redundancy, vagueness, wordiness and a general lack of communication skills when you come back to it. That's OK. There are no points deducted for editing!
Remind yourself again and again, we really want to hear your struggles and joys, and we really want to hear you giving them to God.
In our next lesson, we'll talk about how we can join in with your prayer.
There are three things you have to do to retell a Psalm in a way beneficial to yourself and us.
1) Choose a theme and a Psalm
A theme is not strictly necessary, but it sure makes things easier. This theme should not be doctrinal or idealized, but warm-blooded. Your sweat or tears should be in this theme. You are not trying to write something wonderful and impressive. You are trying to write yourself, and none of us is perfect. You will find that the Spirit wants to speak something, too. He is always stirring something in your heart, so listen a little while before you start, and see whether you can find something both you and the Spirit wish to say.
Sometimes your Psalm is chosen for you, but a good choice is important. Ideally, you would choose a Psalm that sounds vaguely like your theme. Even more, though, you want a Psalm that cries or rejoices somewhat like you want to cry or rejoice. If your theme is rejoicing, you might find the mourning Psalms don't sound like you want to sound, even if you are rejoicing over forgiveness received. It's nice when you find a Psalm that really is "where you are." (If anyone knows a good summary of the Psalms, I'll buy it!)
Mostly, though, don't get stuck here. Your pick won't be perfect, but the Lord will speak to you anyway! Let's get started.
2) Retell each verse, one by one
Put away that really cool journal where all your prayers are going to be recorded. You'll want to do this on scratch paper, and throw lots of stuff away when you're done. It's cool. When you like your final product, then copy it over to that journal.
+ Think about what the Psalmist said, and what he was seeing that caused him to say it.
+ Then think about things that you have seen of Christ that are similar, but more completely revealed. If David sees God's mercies that never fail, then you might see Christ, the Mercy of God in flesh, Christ Who paid the eternal price irrevocably, and Christ Who was dedicated to seeing the Father's plan completed at all costs.
+ Finally, think about your theme. Can you see how the Spirit might be saying something that you want to say? Remember to make this real, not theological.
You might get stuck here. That's OK. Be encouraged! You are experiencing the birth pangs of all art. That's why they call it, "labor." Spend a few minutes. Pray a while. Think about and study other verses in which Christ is doing what the Psalmist is talking about, or Christ is overcoming what the Psalmist is mourning. Restate your theme. Don't dig for an answer. Keep looking at the Psalm, at Christ, and at your heart. The answer will come.
Then, write something down. Write something lame, if you have to, and move on. Even if you decide it's a good time to get up and walk away, write down where your mind was before you left. Amazing things happen when you just put something on paper. Remember, this is scratch paper. Nobody will see it, and God loves our simplest doodlings.
After you have finished all the verses (whether it takes a day or a week) put your finished version aside. Some prayers are perfect at this point, but most are not. I never trust anything I've written unless I've proofed it after at least 1 day away from it.
3) Make it flow
Read it again a day or two later. The first time through, you were working verse by verse and refering to the Psalm, the Lord's revelation and your theme. This time, just read what you've written.
If my experience is any indication, you will find redundancy, vagueness, wordiness and a general lack of communication skills when you come back to it. That's OK. There are no points deducted for editing!
Remind yourself again and again, we really want to hear your struggles and joys, and we really want to hear you giving them to God.
In our next lesson, we'll talk about how we can join in with your prayer.
News: If Anyone Missed This...
It's about the cutest story ever.
His sister in danger, 4-year-old plays hero
I don't know whether to laugh, cry or just sit back in awe.
But I would literally tip the burglars in this story cold, hard cash for leaving.
His sister in danger, 4-year-old plays hero
I don't know whether to laugh, cry or just sit back in awe.
But I would literally tip the burglars in this story cold, hard cash for leaving.
Tennis: A Fun Defeat
Yep, I played my coach again. This time his ankle was better, and my skills were no surprise to him. That "ambush factor" was pretty important last week. This time, he had me thoroughly scouted, and he knew what to try.
5-7, 4-6.
It was a good match. Early in the second set, I was up 2-0, and blinked to find I was behind 2-4. One hates to drop 4 games in a row. But, I didn't drop them so much as he took them. I only choked on maybe one shot in 50 today.
He played against my mobility. I am both fast and strong out there. He decided he could not play against my strength, so he moved me a lot. Forward, backward, and side to side. That's OK. It is my greatest joy to run balls down that no one should get. He played the old dropshot, deep passing shot, dropshot combination. The passing shot was literally beyond me before I started running for it.
He lost that point. ;-D
I love this game.
5-7, 4-6.
It was a good match. Early in the second set, I was up 2-0, and blinked to find I was behind 2-4. One hates to drop 4 games in a row. But, I didn't drop them so much as he took them. I only choked on maybe one shot in 50 today.
He played against my mobility. I am both fast and strong out there. He decided he could not play against my strength, so he moved me a lot. Forward, backward, and side to side. That's OK. It is my greatest joy to run balls down that no one should get. He played the old dropshot, deep passing shot, dropshot combination. The passing shot was literally beyond me before I started running for it.
He lost that point. ;-D
I love this game.
15 December, 2006
Science News: Virgin Births Lead to Transplantable Stem Cells
Nothing in particular to say. It was just a really, really wierd headline. You know, it's not like virgin births happen every day, so to hear that they lead to transplantable stem cells was oddly disturbing.
I can kind of see where they're coming from, of course, since it was Christ's coming that made it possible for as many of us as believed to become the children of God. It's like a divine stem cell is ingrafted into us. They must be amazed that it was only by one of the (thousands of?) virgin births that salvation was ever made possible. It's just odd that they think it newsworthy that all those other virgins are popping out kids, when they're not even microscopically remotely close to being of comparable worth to the triumph of the Lamb.
I for one am glad I barely wasted the time to skim the whole article, which is actually something about cloning female eggs without fertilizing them. (Maybe they don't really believe in virgin births?) They fail to point out that this is a good idea, because if there is no male human involved at any point in the process, the religious right won't feel bad about killing the living being that results. After all, we didn't mind when the first virgin birth experiment ended in a death for the good of others, right?
I'm pretty sure they think we who bother ourselves with the ethics of embryonic stem cell research will be glad to see these virgin-born non-humans sacrificed for others, because they are not even called zygotes. They're called Parthenotes, which is much less human-sounding. The new word even sounds like scientists should be dinking around with parthenotes, if only to see what god-like works might be possible on them.
The article ends on an unexpectedly ominous note, One possible hitch: Parthenotes might not grow properly, because they lack important contributions from male genes.
Nah. There's nothing to worry about. We can make ourselves stronger, faster, smarter than we were before.
The last words spoken on earth might be, "Hey, look what we invented. You just push this button, and ...."
I can kind of see where they're coming from, of course, since it was Christ's coming that made it possible for as many of us as believed to become the children of God. It's like a divine stem cell is ingrafted into us. They must be amazed that it was only by one of the (thousands of?) virgin births that salvation was ever made possible. It's just odd that they think it newsworthy that all those other virgins are popping out kids, when they're not even microscopically remotely close to being of comparable worth to the triumph of the Lamb.
I for one am glad I barely wasted the time to skim the whole article, which is actually something about cloning female eggs without fertilizing them. (Maybe they don't really believe in virgin births?) They fail to point out that this is a good idea, because if there is no male human involved at any point in the process, the religious right won't feel bad about killing the living being that results. After all, we didn't mind when the first virgin birth experiment ended in a death for the good of others, right?
I'm pretty sure they think we who bother ourselves with the ethics of embryonic stem cell research will be glad to see these virgin-born non-humans sacrificed for others, because they are not even called zygotes. They're called Parthenotes, which is much less human-sounding. The new word even sounds like scientists should be dinking around with parthenotes, if only to see what god-like works might be possible on them.
The article ends on an unexpectedly ominous note, One possible hitch: Parthenotes might not grow properly, because they lack important contributions from male genes.
Nah. There's nothing to worry about. We can make ourselves stronger, faster, smarter than we were before.
The last words spoken on earth might be, "Hey, look what we invented. You just push this button, and ...."
14 December, 2006
Relationships: Male Pattern Bonding - With Women
What has gotten into me that I am even contemplating posting this?! This ain't even a little like me. Maybe Milly's and Andreia's encouragement is wearing me down. It must be a good thing. :-)
One of the implications of my first relationships post was that average men don't seek out relationships with other men. Normal men seek out worthwhile work, and then become friends with the men who join them in it.
Ah, but average men do actively seek out relationships with women. Everything is completely different in that realm.
With this post, I want to explore a recent revelation I had on this difference. I feel like I just discovered fire. This revelation feels that significant. The discovery of fire was a turning point for mankind in Greek myth, and it feels like that huge a turning point for me.
Only it would have been so much easier if I had noticed that fire had already been discovered millenia ago.
Really.
Discovering fire is not that big a deal when all your buddies have been using it their whole lives, and even have neat little stoves, heaters and hot water tanks to make it for them on demand. Kind of makes the whole discovery experience a little anti-climactic.
You see, when I say that I feel like I have discovered fire, I don't mean that I have found something ya'll need to know. Au contraire. I am realizing that I have exhausted half my given years without the most basic of knowledge, without wisdom every other 7th grader picked up by osmosis and experience. Imagine making it to middle age in America without ever seeing or using fire. Now you know what kind of a deprived idiot I feel like right now.
But, better late than never.
So, why am I posting about being an idiot? Frankly, this is the kind of thing I usually cover up assiduously. Well, really, I'm posting this because I got into this mess by covering up my problems assiduously. (Did you notice that "assiduously" sounds a lot like "insidiously?" I did. That's why I keep using the word. It's meaning is perfectly innocent, but its tone conveys the self-destructive secrecy of my perfectionism.) I am posting to shed light and get input, and because saying things out loud seems to be helping me these days.
---
It was on Tuesday a week ago that I got my first inkling that there might be a reason to really be friends with an eligible woman.
Queue laughter/offended reactions, but please be merciful.
I didn't think that it was wrong to be friends with a woman, but my thoughts seem to have been bringing up the caboose. With my mind I affirmed the truth, but the law of sin working in my members..., and all that. Let me tell my actions, instead of my thoughts. They're more revealing. I doubt I would have condoned my actions - but I sure did do them.
+ Respect a woman? Learn from a woman? Absolutely. I did so all the time.
+ Enjoy activities with a woman? Well, sure, I guess. Why not? But really, our interests were always completely different, so why?
+ Share deep thoughts and feelings with a woman? Not if marriage were a possibility.
... Not if marriage were a possibility.
In my mind girls were shunted into one of two categories: "Maybe she's the one," and "No, she's not the one." I shunned the No's for fear of confusing either party. From the Maybe's I hid all signs of weakness or imperfection. My lack of a social life made both these errors breathtakingly simple to fall into, of course, but I'd have done it anywhere.
And I was proud of myself.
Divorce has done this one thing for me. It has forced me to face what a complete failure I was at 7th grade. It was my second year of straight A's, and I actually thought those A's mattered. I wasn't happy, but that did not make me doubt myself. The voices in my head were pretty sure that being happy was a sign of sin, so my depression was invisibly reinterpretted as another glorious victory. There was no happiness, so I must be doing well.
We live and learn eventually.
3 decades later, I found me watching myself muddle through life using the same tactics and strategies that brought me here, and it dawned on me. Maybe I could try something different?
But trying something different means forcibly displacing what's already there.
How many times did I hear the story? My father looked at my mother and said, "I'm going to marry you." She laughed, but a couple years later she became the happiest woman on earth. Was there ever a movie that was not a variation on that story? I'm sure there are many, but my selective ears only heard the ones that reinforced my training.
It's amazing how trying something different still feels like sin. Even with obvious evidence of my need for change, I still cling to disproven strengths and strategies. I still fear the same hopes, and still hope to open my eyes and find everything I've always believed is true. My father and his father before him did the things I did. My church condoned the things I did. Good culture condoned the things I did, and bad culture rejected the things I did. It feels like sin to walk away from these things that have served me so poorly, for so long.
Over the years, I must admit that people gently probed that maybe I should try having more women for friends. When that happened, I gave them my friendliest look of blank confusion. It was the same look I would have given had they suggested that I try breathing "in" more. It was a quizzical, "I see your lips moving, but there's no sign of brain activity," look. Having lots of women for friends was sinful (because it was not what my father's father did) therefore I was obviously virtuous. And the fact that I had no clue where to begin getting such friends, if I had I even wanted to, must be my final, strongest proof.
Of course, that's just me. If you tell me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I will botch the job completely. I'm preternaturally gifted at botching instructions. If you can tell me why to make that pb&j, though, you usually don't need to tell me how. I'm pretty bright, and can achieve goals with the best of them. It's just getting me to reorient my goals that can be a mite touchy.
On Tuesday, I finally faced all this with a brother.
He said the simplest thing. "You're friends with my wife, and you don't look at her that way."
Uh. Yeah.
One might think that could have occurred to me somewhere over preceding decades, but... Well. Um. No. No, it didn't.
I have always had a number of ineligible women as friends. And why not? They were fun, and they offered an interesting counter-point to the opinions of my brothers. That was even part of the fun of being married. When I made those vows, I made every woman ineligible, and life became vastly more simple.
It was only eligible women that gave me fits.
And, of course, it wasn't the eligible women who gave me the fits. It was me creating all my own problems from thin air. All I might have to do is change my categories to change everything. It took about 2 minutes for me to weigh the pros and cons, and come up with the right answer. Projected benefits to this new approach to life flooded my simple little head. If I changed, I could have twice as many friends overnight. Of course, I might have to face the sin of being happier, but grace might even cover happiness with a little finagling.
Mostly, though, I might not make the same mistake of marrying the wrong girl based on what was really just a poor, uninformed guess.
For decades, I've wondered how to be friends with a woman who would never be my wife but was yet eligible to be.
For decades, I have been asking the wrong question.
On Tuesday I was asking why I would hesitate to be friends with people of acknowledged high quality?
Answer: Fear.
Answer': Get off your butt, and do what you have to do to overcome that fear.
With a whole week under my belt of getting to know the world in this new way, I won't claim to know how to do it yet, but it sure seems possible. It seems that if I just recategorize a formerly "eligible woman" as a "person," the problem vanishes. Now that I see, "why," I figure I can do it. Actually, I already do it every time a woman gets married, even in my current addled state. A year or two from now, I trust I will have found numerous improvements on this initial foray into normalcy, and even have grown a little more normal. But for now, I hope it's valuable to mark this day while it's still a work in its infancy.
I just wish I could have discovered fire a few decades ago.
And to all the friends out there I've missed, I express my deepest regrets and sincerest apologies.
One of the implications of my first relationships post was that average men don't seek out relationships with other men. Normal men seek out worthwhile work, and then become friends with the men who join them in it.
Ah, but average men do actively seek out relationships with women. Everything is completely different in that realm.
With this post, I want to explore a recent revelation I had on this difference. I feel like I just discovered fire. This revelation feels that significant. The discovery of fire was a turning point for mankind in Greek myth, and it feels like that huge a turning point for me.
Only it would have been so much easier if I had noticed that fire had already been discovered millenia ago.
Really.
Discovering fire is not that big a deal when all your buddies have been using it their whole lives, and even have neat little stoves, heaters and hot water tanks to make it for them on demand. Kind of makes the whole discovery experience a little anti-climactic.
You see, when I say that I feel like I have discovered fire, I don't mean that I have found something ya'll need to know. Au contraire. I am realizing that I have exhausted half my given years without the most basic of knowledge, without wisdom every other 7th grader picked up by osmosis and experience. Imagine making it to middle age in America without ever seeing or using fire. Now you know what kind of a deprived idiot I feel like right now.
But, better late than never.
So, why am I posting about being an idiot? Frankly, this is the kind of thing I usually cover up assiduously. Well, really, I'm posting this because I got into this mess by covering up my problems assiduously. (Did you notice that "assiduously" sounds a lot like "insidiously?" I did. That's why I keep using the word. It's meaning is perfectly innocent, but its tone conveys the self-destructive secrecy of my perfectionism.) I am posting to shed light and get input, and because saying things out loud seems to be helping me these days.
---
It was on Tuesday a week ago that I got my first inkling that there might be a reason to really be friends with an eligible woman.
Queue laughter/offended reactions, but please be merciful.
I didn't think that it was wrong to be friends with a woman, but my thoughts seem to have been bringing up the caboose. With my mind I affirmed the truth, but the law of sin working in my members..., and all that. Let me tell my actions, instead of my thoughts. They're more revealing. I doubt I would have condoned my actions - but I sure did do them.
+ Respect a woman? Learn from a woman? Absolutely. I did so all the time.
+ Enjoy activities with a woman? Well, sure, I guess. Why not? But really, our interests were always completely different, so why?
+ Share deep thoughts and feelings with a woman? Not if marriage were a possibility.
... Not if marriage were a possibility.
In my mind girls were shunted into one of two categories: "Maybe she's the one," and "No, she's not the one." I shunned the No's for fear of confusing either party. From the Maybe's I hid all signs of weakness or imperfection. My lack of a social life made both these errors breathtakingly simple to fall into, of course, but I'd have done it anywhere.
And I was proud of myself.
Divorce has done this one thing for me. It has forced me to face what a complete failure I was at 7th grade. It was my second year of straight A's, and I actually thought those A's mattered. I wasn't happy, but that did not make me doubt myself. The voices in my head were pretty sure that being happy was a sign of sin, so my depression was invisibly reinterpretted as another glorious victory. There was no happiness, so I must be doing well.
We live and learn eventually.
3 decades later, I found me watching myself muddle through life using the same tactics and strategies that brought me here, and it dawned on me. Maybe I could try something different?
But trying something different means forcibly displacing what's already there.
How many times did I hear the story? My father looked at my mother and said, "I'm going to marry you." She laughed, but a couple years later she became the happiest woman on earth. Was there ever a movie that was not a variation on that story? I'm sure there are many, but my selective ears only heard the ones that reinforced my training.
It's amazing how trying something different still feels like sin. Even with obvious evidence of my need for change, I still cling to disproven strengths and strategies. I still fear the same hopes, and still hope to open my eyes and find everything I've always believed is true. My father and his father before him did the things I did. My church condoned the things I did. Good culture condoned the things I did, and bad culture rejected the things I did. It feels like sin to walk away from these things that have served me so poorly, for so long.
Over the years, I must admit that people gently probed that maybe I should try having more women for friends. When that happened, I gave them my friendliest look of blank confusion. It was the same look I would have given had they suggested that I try breathing "in" more. It was a quizzical, "I see your lips moving, but there's no sign of brain activity," look. Having lots of women for friends was sinful (because it was not what my father's father did) therefore I was obviously virtuous. And the fact that I had no clue where to begin getting such friends, if I had I even wanted to, must be my final, strongest proof.
Of course, that's just me. If you tell me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I will botch the job completely. I'm preternaturally gifted at botching instructions. If you can tell me why to make that pb&j, though, you usually don't need to tell me how. I'm pretty bright, and can achieve goals with the best of them. It's just getting me to reorient my goals that can be a mite touchy.
On Tuesday, I finally faced all this with a brother.
He said the simplest thing. "You're friends with my wife, and you don't look at her that way."
Uh. Yeah.
One might think that could have occurred to me somewhere over preceding decades, but... Well. Um. No. No, it didn't.
I have always had a number of ineligible women as friends. And why not? They were fun, and they offered an interesting counter-point to the opinions of my brothers. That was even part of the fun of being married. When I made those vows, I made every woman ineligible, and life became vastly more simple.
It was only eligible women that gave me fits.
And, of course, it wasn't the eligible women who gave me the fits. It was me creating all my own problems from thin air. All I might have to do is change my categories to change everything. It took about 2 minutes for me to weigh the pros and cons, and come up with the right answer. Projected benefits to this new approach to life flooded my simple little head. If I changed, I could have twice as many friends overnight. Of course, I might have to face the sin of being happier, but grace might even cover happiness with a little finagling.
Mostly, though, I might not make the same mistake of marrying the wrong girl based on what was really just a poor, uninformed guess.
For decades, I've wondered how to be friends with a woman who would never be my wife but was yet eligible to be.
For decades, I have been asking the wrong question.
On Tuesday I was asking why I would hesitate to be friends with people of acknowledged high quality?
Answer: Fear.
Answer': Get off your butt, and do what you have to do to overcome that fear.
With a whole week under my belt of getting to know the world in this new way, I won't claim to know how to do it yet, but it sure seems possible. It seems that if I just recategorize a formerly "eligible woman" as a "person," the problem vanishes. Now that I see, "why," I figure I can do it. Actually, I already do it every time a woman gets married, even in my current addled state. A year or two from now, I trust I will have found numerous improvements on this initial foray into normalcy, and even have grown a little more normal. But for now, I hope it's valuable to mark this day while it's still a work in its infancy.
I just wish I could have discovered fire a few decades ago.
And to all the friends out there I've missed, I express my deepest regrets and sincerest apologies.
13 December, 2006
FHC: The Church of Tomorrow - Part 4, Future History?
[I wanted to take a look at the church in 2026, so I had to invent a little history to get us there. Next thing I knew, I had gotten carried away. It's fun to get carried away. :-)
Anyway, after my little future history lesson here, I will follow up with posts about some different types of churches in 2026.]
Jim wants to join a church. It's 2026, and he is a flying car mechanic. He's married, but only has one child so far. He was raised, like so many of his generation, as a consumercrat. His parents voted by the motto, "It's the economy, stupid," and so does he. A mechanic never makes much money and never keeps up with the styles, but he has enough stuff to feel good about himself.
Jim has never known a day that the answer to any question he had a life, the universe, or anything was not available with a quick search on the Internet. Wikipedia was his primary information source, even before it was bought by Microsoft and got so much more accurate. Even as a mechanic, he doesn't go to classes on fixing flying cars. He grabs his Toolbox Pilot (R), puts in his earpiece and let's the onscreen video answer any questions he might have about why the gyro stabilizers keep cutting out, or whatever.
Jim met the Lord in 2025 toward the end of the Walking Movement.
Regarding the Walking Movement, Wikipedia will report:
Massive shame at the moral failures of the American government under the honorable Mrs. Clinton's sole term scandalized the country in 2008. In response, evangelical groups within the Christian church politicized into an ecumenical third party, the Uprights, emphasizing conservative morality and projection of military power.
During the election of 2012, the Uprights smeared Barak Obama as under Muslim influence against their own avowedly Christian candidate. (The loss of the 2008 election, and the subsequent disaffection of the electorate crippled the Republican party's standing as a major player in 2012.) As the campaign descended into a maelstrom of name-calling and fear-mongering, the issue of religious conversion as political tool rose to the top of the national debate.
The Uprights were able to leverage both their decades of experience raising money for religious reasons, and the experience of numerous fund raising experts recently departed from the Republican party, to build a political war chest such as had never been seen before. They blanketed the nation with an integrated advertising campaign targeting multiple strata of society for conversion to the Upright Life.
The highly polarizing campaign of the Uprights, and the mingling of religious conversion with political canvasing brought America to the brink of violence. The Uprights won the Whitehouse, but could not pull together enough grassroots support to make inroads into Congress. The Democrats increased their already significant majority of both houses of Congress, pushing the Republicans even further into the background. The stage was set for political backlash.
This backlash arrived when a Muslim high school student was seriously injured during a protest against an Upright speech during a political assembly at her high school. When the President commended the speech, rather than chastise his own party, Red-state America was galvanized to action. Riding the unexpected wave of popular anger, Congress approved a bill to prohibit all organized forms of religious proselytization. Enough Republicans crossed over to the Democratic/populist position to override the obligatory Presidential veto easily. The Supreme Court ruled, unexpectedly, that the prohibition against an organization soliciting conversion to its religion was not a law against the personal practice of religion, and therefore was constitutionally valid.
The Walking Movement began in 2021, after the full implications of the new laws were finally understood. The churches were still fully supported by law, but no longer allowed to function outside of the legally protected boundaries of their own walls. Evangelism in every form was prohibited by law, and charity work was only sanctioned when there was no observable opportunity to convert to the charitable religion.
Bloggers all over the world initiated a rebellion based on the WWJD craze of the late 1990's. They asked what Jesus would do if He were not allowed to spread the gospel of the kingdom. In answer, they formed loose correspondence networks of people who continued to declare the Son of God come to earth, and His continuing reign on earth through His church, "in loco divinity". It was never determined which post, "started it all," but within weeks thousands of blogs had linked to hundreds of declarations of intent to evangelize like never before.
Walkers even began to find each other IRL (in real life) in their local neighborhoods.
These little "Walker groups" were not properly organizations, so the proselytization laws were not directly applicable to them, and they took full advantage of these loopholes. Simultaneously claiming house to house and on the street corners to be an oppressed group, and working under the full freedom of the law, the Walkers changed everything. They were not able to incorporate their little assemblies into tax-exempt organizations, so they were never able to collect money. Without money, they focused on the people in their immediate neighborhoods. In spite of this hindrance, the Walkers became wildly successful.
The Walker Movement became known as the 3rd Great Awakening by its historians, because of the wide perception that it was accompanied by a "move of the Spirit." Much like the Jesus Movement 50 years earlier, the Walkers were inundated with new converts who had never "done church" before, and were highly uncomfortable in the surroundings most Christians considered correct. The resulting forms of gathering that sprung up were sometimes praised and sometimes dismissed out of hand by the traditional churches all around them.
The Walker Movement waned when the Upright Party wrested control of Congress from the Democrats in 2024, and repealed the proselytization rules. With the churches fully free to evangelize again, they enticed the majority of the Walkers to "return to the fold," essentially ending the experiment for all but a few die-hard extremists.
Jim found the Lord in 2025 when he stumbled onto the last remnants of a little Walker group in his neighborhood. After three months, this group disbanded and his three best friends each returned to their pre-lockdown churches. Having nothing better to do, he tried each of those churches.
Charles took him to an old-fashioned church, with old fashioned doctrines.
Randy took him to a modern church, with all the bells and whistles.
Thom took him to small church, that had just barely survived the anti-proselytizing laws at all.
The next three chapters will tell Jim's in each of these churches.
Anyway, after my little future history lesson here, I will follow up with posts about some different types of churches in 2026.]
Jim wants to join a church. It's 2026, and he is a flying car mechanic. He's married, but only has one child so far. He was raised, like so many of his generation, as a consumercrat. His parents voted by the motto, "It's the economy, stupid," and so does he. A mechanic never makes much money and never keeps up with the styles, but he has enough stuff to feel good about himself.
Jim has never known a day that the answer to any question he had a life, the universe, or anything was not available with a quick search on the Internet. Wikipedia was his primary information source, even before it was bought by Microsoft and got so much more accurate. Even as a mechanic, he doesn't go to classes on fixing flying cars. He grabs his Toolbox Pilot (R), puts in his earpiece and let's the onscreen video answer any questions he might have about why the gyro stabilizers keep cutting out, or whatever.
Jim met the Lord in 2025 toward the end of the Walking Movement.
Regarding the Walking Movement, Wikipedia will report:
Massive shame at the moral failures of the American government under the honorable Mrs. Clinton's sole term scandalized the country in 2008. In response, evangelical groups within the Christian church politicized into an ecumenical third party, the Uprights, emphasizing conservative morality and projection of military power.
During the election of 2012, the Uprights smeared Barak Obama as under Muslim influence against their own avowedly Christian candidate. (The loss of the 2008 election, and the subsequent disaffection of the electorate crippled the Republican party's standing as a major player in 2012.) As the campaign descended into a maelstrom of name-calling and fear-mongering, the issue of religious conversion as political tool rose to the top of the national debate.
The Uprights were able to leverage both their decades of experience raising money for religious reasons, and the experience of numerous fund raising experts recently departed from the Republican party, to build a political war chest such as had never been seen before. They blanketed the nation with an integrated advertising campaign targeting multiple strata of society for conversion to the Upright Life.
The highly polarizing campaign of the Uprights, and the mingling of religious conversion with political canvasing brought America to the brink of violence. The Uprights won the Whitehouse, but could not pull together enough grassroots support to make inroads into Congress. The Democrats increased their already significant majority of both houses of Congress, pushing the Republicans even further into the background. The stage was set for political backlash.
This backlash arrived when a Muslim high school student was seriously injured during a protest against an Upright speech during a political assembly at her high school. When the President commended the speech, rather than chastise his own party, Red-state America was galvanized to action. Riding the unexpected wave of popular anger, Congress approved a bill to prohibit all organized forms of religious proselytization. Enough Republicans crossed over to the Democratic/populist position to override the obligatory Presidential veto easily. The Supreme Court ruled, unexpectedly, that the prohibition against an organization soliciting conversion to its religion was not a law against the personal practice of religion, and therefore was constitutionally valid.
The Walking Movement began in 2021, after the full implications of the new laws were finally understood. The churches were still fully supported by law, but no longer allowed to function outside of the legally protected boundaries of their own walls. Evangelism in every form was prohibited by law, and charity work was only sanctioned when there was no observable opportunity to convert to the charitable religion.
Bloggers all over the world initiated a rebellion based on the WWJD craze of the late 1990's. They asked what Jesus would do if He were not allowed to spread the gospel of the kingdom. In answer, they formed loose correspondence networks of people who continued to declare the Son of God come to earth, and His continuing reign on earth through His church, "in loco divinity". It was never determined which post, "started it all," but within weeks thousands of blogs had linked to hundreds of declarations of intent to evangelize like never before.
Walkers even began to find each other IRL (in real life) in their local neighborhoods.
These little "Walker groups" were not properly organizations, so the proselytization laws were not directly applicable to them, and they took full advantage of these loopholes. Simultaneously claiming house to house and on the street corners to be an oppressed group, and working under the full freedom of the law, the Walkers changed everything. They were not able to incorporate their little assemblies into tax-exempt organizations, so they were never able to collect money. Without money, they focused on the people in their immediate neighborhoods. In spite of this hindrance, the Walkers became wildly successful.
The Walker Movement became known as the 3rd Great Awakening by its historians, because of the wide perception that it was accompanied by a "move of the Spirit." Much like the Jesus Movement 50 years earlier, the Walkers were inundated with new converts who had never "done church" before, and were highly uncomfortable in the surroundings most Christians considered correct. The resulting forms of gathering that sprung up were sometimes praised and sometimes dismissed out of hand by the traditional churches all around them.
The Walker Movement waned when the Upright Party wrested control of Congress from the Democrats in 2024, and repealed the proselytization rules. With the churches fully free to evangelize again, they enticed the majority of the Walkers to "return to the fold," essentially ending the experiment for all but a few die-hard extremists.
Jim found the Lord in 2025 when he stumbled onto the last remnants of a little Walker group in his neighborhood. After three months, this group disbanded and his three best friends each returned to their pre-lockdown churches. Having nothing better to do, he tried each of those churches.
Charles took him to an old-fashioned church, with old fashioned doctrines.
Randy took him to a modern church, with all the bells and whistles.
Thom took him to small church, that had just barely survived the anti-proselytizing laws at all.
The next three chapters will tell Jim's in each of these churches.
12 December, 2006
Relationships: Male Pattern Bonding
I was talking with an older friend of mine the other day. She was concerned because her Dad had not made any friends in his life.
I asked, "So?"
She was flabbergasted. That, she was sure, could not possibly be normal.
Well, remembering Nee's distinction between,"normal," which is how God intended us to be, and, "average," which is how most of us are, I would have to agree. It is not normal, but it sure is average.
She called up the example of one of her sons-in-law who had made several friends with whom he was still close, even now that he was happily married with 2 children.
I rested my case.
Obviously, that merely proved my point.
Male Pattern Bonding is that we seek out other men to overcome struggles. We endure and overcome together, and then we are friends for life. I'm a bit of an oddity, in that I want to talk about feelings and the like a little bit, but not even much of an oddity at that. Give me a worthy struggle and a man to stand with, and I am happy as a pig in slop. If the struggle is worthy enough, we will be friends till death. You won't be able to tell by watching us, but we know.
Then the man marries.
That's the end of worthy struggles for the "average" man.
Half of what's left is raising children, keeping a house upright and warm, and making sure the 8 hours you give to "the man" each day are worthwhile. The other half is keeping a happy wife. All of those things are worthy struggles, and come heartily endorsed by all parties. They are hard, important work. They can consume a man happily, fully and commendably all the days of his life.
But no other man can stand shoulder to shoulder with you on those.
I've heard some static to the effect that we are supposed to help each other with those things, but I have to ask exactly when the minds behind those voices lost their marbles. Imagine for a moment that I help Bill with his family and marriage. What's he supposed to say on his deathbed? "Without Codepoke, my house would have fallen down around my ears, and my wife would have left me for the milkman years ago!"
In your dreams.
So what's left?
ESPN, debating tech toys and swapping war stories? No? Well what then?
Oh sure. The church. That's right.
Let's see. What do men get to do at church? They get to be taught the bible. They get to praise the Lord. Good things, but hardly the stuff of legend. I'll quit on this. I've already been over this ground enough times, I'm sure, and it's not really my focus anyway. My point is specifically that precious little happens in church that forges lifelong bonds between men.
We need those bonds.
Those bonds need sweat, and even a little blood.
I have a theory (yes, again) that when we marry, we ask a little too much of our wives. I don't believe we'll be happy until we are sweating something that matters, and I don't believe that our wives are the people with whom we need to do that sweating.
It is the most average thing on earth for a man never to make another deep friend after he marries.
Dudes. There are things out there worth dying for. Don't let your sweat wait unshared. Pick a brother, a cause, and a plan, and go tear something up.
I asked, "So?"
She was flabbergasted. That, she was sure, could not possibly be normal.
Well, remembering Nee's distinction between,"normal," which is how God intended us to be, and, "average," which is how most of us are, I would have to agree. It is not normal, but it sure is average.
She called up the example of one of her sons-in-law who had made several friends with whom he was still close, even now that he was happily married with 2 children.
I rested my case.
Obviously, that merely proved my point.
Male Pattern Bonding is that we seek out other men to overcome struggles. We endure and overcome together, and then we are friends for life. I'm a bit of an oddity, in that I want to talk about feelings and the like a little bit, but not even much of an oddity at that. Give me a worthy struggle and a man to stand with, and I am happy as a pig in slop. If the struggle is worthy enough, we will be friends till death. You won't be able to tell by watching us, but we know.
Then the man marries.
That's the end of worthy struggles for the "average" man.
Half of what's left is raising children, keeping a house upright and warm, and making sure the 8 hours you give to "the man" each day are worthwhile. The other half is keeping a happy wife. All of those things are worthy struggles, and come heartily endorsed by all parties. They are hard, important work. They can consume a man happily, fully and commendably all the days of his life.
But no other man can stand shoulder to shoulder with you on those.
I've heard some static to the effect that we are supposed to help each other with those things, but I have to ask exactly when the minds behind those voices lost their marbles. Imagine for a moment that I help Bill with his family and marriage. What's he supposed to say on his deathbed? "Without Codepoke, my house would have fallen down around my ears, and my wife would have left me for the milkman years ago!"
In your dreams.
So what's left?
ESPN, debating tech toys and swapping war stories? No? Well what then?
Oh sure. The church. That's right.
Let's see. What do men get to do at church? They get to be taught the bible. They get to praise the Lord. Good things, but hardly the stuff of legend. I'll quit on this. I've already been over this ground enough times, I'm sure, and it's not really my focus anyway. My point is specifically that precious little happens in church that forges lifelong bonds between men.
We need those bonds.
Those bonds need sweat, and even a little blood.
I have a theory (yes, again) that when we marry, we ask a little too much of our wives. I don't believe we'll be happy until we are sweating something that matters, and I don't believe that our wives are the people with whom we need to do that sweating.
It is the most average thing on earth for a man never to make another deep friend after he marries.
Dudes. There are things out there worth dying for. Don't let your sweat wait unshared. Pick a brother, a cause, and a plan, and go tear something up.
11 December, 2006
Engaging God: One Way to Write a Prayer
Psalm 124,
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
124:1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—
let Israel now say—
2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side
when people rose up against us,
3 then they would have swallowed us up alive,
when their anger was kindled against us;
4 then the flood would have swept us away,
the torrent would have gone over us;
5 then over us would have gone
the raging waters.
6 Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth!
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped!
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
If you want to try retelling a Psalm in a new way, I am going to recommend one method. It may not be simple, and it may not be easy, but it can really get the juices flowing.
I would only recommend one thing. If you do give it a go, let at least one person see it. Most of us find it really hard to believe our art is worthy, but that's because we think there's a standard. What matters is that it's you. I do some low quality stuff, but even in that the "real me" is seen by those who love me. It's worth the agony of being seen. Besides, there's nothing quite so fulfilling as finding out that the piece of doubtful work that flowed from my fingers meant something to someone else, and nothing quite so deadening as wondering a hidden piece might have been enjoyed by someone. If no one else does, I promise to love it. :-)
This kind of prayer is a blending of three things.
1) Divinely inspired scripture.
2) The revelation of God in Christ 2000 years ago.
3) A grain of dust.
When a snowflake is formed, it is a combination of water, environment and a single grain of dust. (A snowflake can be formed without that seed particle, but it's much easier if you have one.) And from those 3 simple ingredients come a billion, billion snowflakes, every one of them unique.
Our grain of dust will be some life experience that will make our prayer form up more easily. Sometimes we will have a mourning in our heart, and sometimes a rejoicing. Sometimes we have a request. Whatever is happening, we take it to the Lord and blend it with our knowledge of Him, and the Psalmist's willingness to be demanding. David was never bashful about asking for that which he needed. He will help us be as bold.
Our water will be Psalm 124.
Our environment will be whatever we have learned about Christ. (Learning more DOES help you pray better.)
Our grain of dust will be "grinches who want Christmas to go away." (Me? Maybe not. I don't want Christmas to go away, just advertising for it.) Forgive me if my step-by-step example is not very heavy. :-)
124:1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—
let Israel now say—
Water) Thankfulness to the Lord. We get to start in this Psalm with the reminder that He is on our side. And we are going to say something about that out loud.
Environ) In the 21st century, we have seen the Lord became the Lamb and died for us. We can declare much more completely how He is on our side than David could. Also, we are spiritual Israel, so we can direct this to ourselves.
Dust) The grinches are coming! The grinches are coming!
We can't fit all that in without getting to wordy, so what's a good balance?
Flake) If the Messiah had not come and stood with us-
Let the church now say-
2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side
when people rose up against us,
Water) A repeat is a chance to be poetic by repeating or expanding on the first repetition. But, here we see our enemy for the first time. The people are not just one enemy, but a whole nation or culture.
Environ) Well, not much new here. Christ is the King over the people. Maybe that would be of some help.
Dust) The people in this Psalm are our grinches. That's pretty easy. Is it fair to say the grinches are rising up? Heck yeah! We grinches are a curmudgeonly lot, not at all happy to just sit around and wait for people to come to us. We go to your parties, and grinch all over you.
Flake) If the Child had not been born to us -
When the grinches rose up against us,
3 then they would have swallowed us up alive,
when their anger was kindled against us;
Ah. Now we see trouble appearing!
Water) David and God's people were facing death in this Psalm. Maybe that's not quite as dramatic as facing a Christmas full of, "Bah, humbug!" but we can understand the difference I'm sure. We have to express our complaint, though. Our complaint is real, if minor, and we can make it with confidence.
Environ) Many times, the evil of the Psalms can be paralleled to the evil in our own hearts. Many times, it is the evil of our own hearts that threatens to swallow us up. Or it can be related to the work of Satan to cover up the Truth with his lies, and to tempt us to our own destruction.
Dust) The grinches don't hate Christmas. They hate Christ, and it is toward Christ they direct their attacks by attacking us. Remember the serpent trying to drown the mother and Child with their many floods in the Revelation.
Flake) Then they would have swallowed our joy in His advent
When they vaunted their anger against us;
4 then the flood would have swept us away,
the torrent would have gone over us;
Water) David is not afraid to say he is afraid. So many leaders pretend that they stand above the fray, and know their salvation is coming. Yeah. Whatever. David knew no such thing. I know no such thing. When the flood comes, I am under it, looking up. No prayer worth its salt is spoken fully from a position of power. At some point, the fear has to be expressed. The KJV says the stream would have gone over our soul. It's a powerful fear.
Environ) Going back to the Revelation, the flood directed at the mother and Babe is swallowed up when the earth opens. God didn't just make it go away. He created a natural/supernatural situation that cured the problem. It's good to pray for visible answers to prayer.
Dust) Grinching against Christ is not exactly the end of the world, or of our lives, but it really is a complaint.
Flake) Their rage against the Babe would have driven us away
The river of their political correctness would have silenced our souls
5 then over us would have gone
the raging waters.
Water) David is drawing a picture of raging death that would have tossed and robbed us of breath. This is the last negative verse, so we have to give it some punch. We have to go there, and feel the fear.
Environ) Christ is even resurrected in the extreme of death. Sometimes, with the Psalms, it is helpful to pray as if you have died and need also to be resurrected. We don't need to fear doing this, because we have died with Christ.
Dust) Maybe here is where I should repent of having been a grinch my sad ol' self? Either way, we have to remind ourselves how awful it is to walk through a shopping mall that fears Christ, yet caters to every worldly lust and greed and has to gall to do it in His Name.
Flake) The lies of wrath and diversity would have tossed us and buried our souls
6 Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth!
Water) Remembrance! At long last, we can allow ourselves to remember the Sun of Righteousness that saves us from the greedy storms, water and teeth of our enemies!
Environ) We know Christ was actually born, the helpless King of the eternal kingdom. We also know He has placed His Spirit in our hearts to overcome every lie.
Dust) The world really, truly, actually wants to destroy everything in us. One little way they do it by forcing us to hide the Babe in a mockery of charity to those who do not love Him. In the name of kindness they tear at our hearts.
Flake) Blessed Jesus came,
And the sight of Him delivers us
He preserves us from their rending lies
(Everything I did with "teeth" sounded worse to me. Oh well.)
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped!
Water) David switches to his third picture here. The snare follows the teeth that follow the floods. I'm not a good enough poet to follow him effectively through these pictures, so I am not going to try. The point is that we were caught in a snare built just for us, but the snare broke. It's not that we were fast or crafty little birds, or that God lifted us away, but that He broke the plans of His enemy.
Environ) Ah, but don't look for that breaking in the headlines. It's not that God caused the political correctness gurus to stumble, but that in His Son He shattered their might forever. We focus on what He did.
Dust) In looking for Christ's work, I see two ways to go:
1) Jesus overcomes our enemies.
2) Ignore the dust completely. Let this verse be Pure Jesus, and forget everything else to sing His praise.
Flake 1) Our hearts are preserved from their ambush
From their lying loves we are freed
Our love is to the Master
And His nativity we proclaim!
Flake 2) Our hearts fly to our Master
Held only by His beautiful love
Bound wholly to His glory
Our love grows as wide as the skies.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Water) I have the hardest time with the recaps. David brings to mind the Name and power of the Lord.
Environ) I am reminded that there is only one Name given by which we must be saved, and only One worthy to receive glory and honor and power, and only One Who prevailed to take the book and loose the seals thereof.
Dust) I want to look back to the Babe and forward to the Lion of Judah Who took the book, broke the seals and ended the reign of terror against us. I don't know if I can.
Flake) Our salvation is in the Babe with no bed
He prevails to redeem heaven, earth and us - His own.
OK. I didn't catch everything I wanted, but then I never do.
Now, if this were a live exercise, I would set the Flakes aside for a day or two, and read them again to see whether they flowed at all. They won't. They never do. But with a little editing, they usually start to sound like a whole picture, instead of individual sentences and snippets. With the last prayer I did, I found out that I had completely changed subjects halfway through the retelling. I picked the second theme, threw the first away, and edited the keeper like a mad fool. :-)
We're all different. I never know where I'm going until I get there.
Everyone does this differently. I have known people to 1) outline these things, and stick to their outline like glue, 2) wander in a free-association that left almost no resemblance to the original, and 3) just change the tense of the verbs and the names of the subjects leaving everything almost exactly as it was. All three forms have created beautiful prayers. All three forms revealed a little bit of Christ revealed in them.
I hope you'll give this a try, and I hope you'll share with someone what comes out of it.
(Wait until you hear what comes next. :-)
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
124:1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—
let Israel now say—
2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side
when people rose up against us,
3 then they would have swallowed us up alive,
when their anger was kindled against us;
4 then the flood would have swept us away,
the torrent would have gone over us;
5 then over us would have gone
the raging waters.
6 Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth!
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped!
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
If you want to try retelling a Psalm in a new way, I am going to recommend one method. It may not be simple, and it may not be easy, but it can really get the juices flowing.
I would only recommend one thing. If you do give it a go, let at least one person see it. Most of us find it really hard to believe our art is worthy, but that's because we think there's a standard. What matters is that it's you. I do some low quality stuff, but even in that the "real me" is seen by those who love me. It's worth the agony of being seen. Besides, there's nothing quite so fulfilling as finding out that the piece of doubtful work that flowed from my fingers meant something to someone else, and nothing quite so deadening as wondering a hidden piece might have been enjoyed by someone. If no one else does, I promise to love it. :-)
This kind of prayer is a blending of three things.
1) Divinely inspired scripture.
2) The revelation of God in Christ 2000 years ago.
3) A grain of dust.
When a snowflake is formed, it is a combination of water, environment and a single grain of dust. (A snowflake can be formed without that seed particle, but it's much easier if you have one.) And from those 3 simple ingredients come a billion, billion snowflakes, every one of them unique.
Our grain of dust will be some life experience that will make our prayer form up more easily. Sometimes we will have a mourning in our heart, and sometimes a rejoicing. Sometimes we have a request. Whatever is happening, we take it to the Lord and blend it with our knowledge of Him, and the Psalmist's willingness to be demanding. David was never bashful about asking for that which he needed. He will help us be as bold.
Our water will be Psalm 124.
Our environment will be whatever we have learned about Christ. (Learning more DOES help you pray better.)
Our grain of dust will be "grinches who want Christmas to go away." (Me? Maybe not. I don't want Christmas to go away, just advertising for it.) Forgive me if my step-by-step example is not very heavy. :-)
124:1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—
let Israel now say—
Water) Thankfulness to the Lord. We get to start in this Psalm with the reminder that He is on our side. And we are going to say something about that out loud.
Environ) In the 21st century, we have seen the Lord became the Lamb and died for us. We can declare much more completely how He is on our side than David could. Also, we are spiritual Israel, so we can direct this to ourselves.
Dust) The grinches are coming! The grinches are coming!
We can't fit all that in without getting to wordy, so what's a good balance?
Flake) If the Messiah had not come and stood with us-
Let the church now say-
2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side
when people rose up against us,
Water) A repeat is a chance to be poetic by repeating or expanding on the first repetition. But, here we see our enemy for the first time. The people are not just one enemy, but a whole nation or culture.
Environ) Well, not much new here. Christ is the King over the people. Maybe that would be of some help.
Dust) The people in this Psalm are our grinches. That's pretty easy. Is it fair to say the grinches are rising up? Heck yeah! We grinches are a curmudgeonly lot, not at all happy to just sit around and wait for people to come to us. We go to your parties, and grinch all over you.
Flake) If the Child had not been born to us -
When the grinches rose up against us,
3 then they would have swallowed us up alive,
when their anger was kindled against us;
Ah. Now we see trouble appearing!
Water) David and God's people were facing death in this Psalm. Maybe that's not quite as dramatic as facing a Christmas full of, "Bah, humbug!" but we can understand the difference I'm sure. We have to express our complaint, though. Our complaint is real, if minor, and we can make it with confidence.
Environ) Many times, the evil of the Psalms can be paralleled to the evil in our own hearts. Many times, it is the evil of our own hearts that threatens to swallow us up. Or it can be related to the work of Satan to cover up the Truth with his lies, and to tempt us to our own destruction.
Dust) The grinches don't hate Christmas. They hate Christ, and it is toward Christ they direct their attacks by attacking us. Remember the serpent trying to drown the mother and Child with their many floods in the Revelation.
Flake) Then they would have swallowed our joy in His advent
When they vaunted their anger against us;
4 then the flood would have swept us away,
the torrent would have gone over us;
Water) David is not afraid to say he is afraid. So many leaders pretend that they stand above the fray, and know their salvation is coming. Yeah. Whatever. David knew no such thing. I know no such thing. When the flood comes, I am under it, looking up. No prayer worth its salt is spoken fully from a position of power. At some point, the fear has to be expressed. The KJV says the stream would have gone over our soul. It's a powerful fear.
Environ) Going back to the Revelation, the flood directed at the mother and Babe is swallowed up when the earth opens. God didn't just make it go away. He created a natural/supernatural situation that cured the problem. It's good to pray for visible answers to prayer.
Dust) Grinching against Christ is not exactly the end of the world, or of our lives, but it really is a complaint.
Flake) Their rage against the Babe would have driven us away
The river of their political correctness would have silenced our souls
5 then over us would have gone
the raging waters.
Water) David is drawing a picture of raging death that would have tossed and robbed us of breath. This is the last negative verse, so we have to give it some punch. We have to go there, and feel the fear.
Environ) Christ is even resurrected in the extreme of death. Sometimes, with the Psalms, it is helpful to pray as if you have died and need also to be resurrected. We don't need to fear doing this, because we have died with Christ.
Dust) Maybe here is where I should repent of having been a grinch my sad ol' self? Either way, we have to remind ourselves how awful it is to walk through a shopping mall that fears Christ, yet caters to every worldly lust and greed and has to gall to do it in His Name.
Flake) The lies of wrath and diversity would have tossed us and buried our souls
6 Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth!
Water) Remembrance! At long last, we can allow ourselves to remember the Sun of Righteousness that saves us from the greedy storms, water and teeth of our enemies!
Environ) We know Christ was actually born, the helpless King of the eternal kingdom. We also know He has placed His Spirit in our hearts to overcome every lie.
Dust) The world really, truly, actually wants to destroy everything in us. One little way they do it by forcing us to hide the Babe in a mockery of charity to those who do not love Him. In the name of kindness they tear at our hearts.
Flake) Blessed Jesus came,
And the sight of Him delivers us
He preserves us from their rending lies
(Everything I did with "teeth" sounded worse to me. Oh well.)
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped!
Water) David switches to his third picture here. The snare follows the teeth that follow the floods. I'm not a good enough poet to follow him effectively through these pictures, so I am not going to try. The point is that we were caught in a snare built just for us, but the snare broke. It's not that we were fast or crafty little birds, or that God lifted us away, but that He broke the plans of His enemy.
Environ) Ah, but don't look for that breaking in the headlines. It's not that God caused the political correctness gurus to stumble, but that in His Son He shattered their might forever. We focus on what He did.
Dust) In looking for Christ's work, I see two ways to go:
1) Jesus overcomes our enemies.
2) Ignore the dust completely. Let this verse be Pure Jesus, and forget everything else to sing His praise.
Flake 1) Our hearts are preserved from their ambush
From their lying loves we are freed
Our love is to the Master
And His nativity we proclaim!
Flake 2) Our hearts fly to our Master
Held only by His beautiful love
Bound wholly to His glory
Our love grows as wide as the skies.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Water) I have the hardest time with the recaps. David brings to mind the Name and power of the Lord.
Environ) I am reminded that there is only one Name given by which we must be saved, and only One worthy to receive glory and honor and power, and only One Who prevailed to take the book and loose the seals thereof.
Dust) I want to look back to the Babe and forward to the Lion of Judah Who took the book, broke the seals and ended the reign of terror against us. I don't know if I can.
Flake) Our salvation is in the Babe with no bed
He prevails to redeem heaven, earth and us - His own.
OK. I didn't catch everything I wanted, but then I never do.
Now, if this were a live exercise, I would set the Flakes aside for a day or two, and read them again to see whether they flowed at all. They won't. They never do. But with a little editing, they usually start to sound like a whole picture, instead of individual sentences and snippets. With the last prayer I did, I found out that I had completely changed subjects halfway through the retelling. I picked the second theme, threw the first away, and edited the keeper like a mad fool. :-)
We're all different. I never know where I'm going until I get there.
Everyone does this differently. I have known people to 1) outline these things, and stick to their outline like glue, 2) wander in a free-association that left almost no resemblance to the original, and 3) just change the tense of the verbs and the names of the subjects leaving everything almost exactly as it was. All three forms have created beautiful prayers. All three forms revealed a little bit of Christ revealed in them.
I hope you'll give this a try, and I hope you'll share with someone what comes out of it.
(Wait until you hear what comes next. :-)
FHC: WooHoo! Someone's Asking the Right Questions!
I doubt I'm going to like this gentleman's answers, but I dream I might; boy do I dream I might.
The question is this:
About four years ago I attended a seminar on missional church where the speaker asked the question “How many Christians do you think there were in the year 100AD?” He then asked “how many Christians do you think there were just before Constantine came on the scene, say 310AD?” Here is the somewhat surprising answer…
100AD There are as little as 25 000 Christians
310AD There are as many as 20 000 000 Christians
He then asked the question, and it has haunted me to this day, “how did they do this?”
The whole article is here
I don't have time to open this can of delights right now! Aaarrgh!!!! I'm not even keeping up with comments on ya'll's sites, and I have three posts to get out by Wednesday. But mark this thought. I will have to come back to it.
Hat tip to iMonk.
(BTW - they got around to blocking posting from within the network here. So, I have to email my posts to myself at home, then post them from there.)
(Well that won't work because of the line breaks. I need to email attachments, I guess.)
The question is this:
About four years ago I attended a seminar on missional church where the speaker asked the question “How many Christians do you think there were in the year 100AD?” He then asked “how many Christians do you think there were just before Constantine came on the scene, say 310AD?” Here is the somewhat surprising answer…
100AD There are as little as 25 000 Christians
310AD There are as many as 20 000 000 Christians
He then asked the question, and it has haunted me to this day, “how did they do this?”
The whole article is here
I don't have time to open this can of delights right now! Aaarrgh!!!! I'm not even keeping up with comments on ya'll's sites, and I have three posts to get out by Wednesday. But mark this thought. I will have to come back to it.
Hat tip to iMonk.
(BTW - they got around to blocking posting from within the network here. So, I have to email my posts to myself at home, then post them from there.)
(Well that won't work because of the line breaks. I need to email attachments, I guess.)
09 December, 2006
Engaging God: A Way to Look at a Psalm
I have resisted writing this post for a long time. It's a tough one! How do you tell someone about a way to pray? But, I'm going to do it in person tomorrow night, so I may as well do it online tonight.
[I wrote this on Wednesday. The Thursday bible study went pretty well.]
There's a whole lot more than one way to love a father.
You can love his family.
You can love the causes he supports.
You can love the way he runs your family.
You can love the things he's made.
You can love working for him.
That list, of course, is completely wrong. That's not how you love a parent at all. Those are all the things you do after you love that parent. You love a parent by feeling something.
I'm probably going to lose someone when I say that love is a feeling, but such it is. It's not necessarily the same feeling all the time, but it's always a feeling. We work so hard to make sure couples survive that first (and second, and third) cooling of infatuation, that some of us have crippled love. Some teach a love that is strong in truth and action, but end up creating one weak in feeling.
I want to find, feed and foster my feelings of love toward God.
I can show my love to God by loving His family, His purposes, His ways, His works, and His commands; but I actually love Him by loving Him. I will love him by watching Him, and admiring Him, and telling Him of all those things about Him that inspire.
More and more, and in every area of my life, I'm learning how important it is to say things out loud. Thoughts rattling around inside my head are worthless. It's things that come from my mouth that make the difference for me, and for others. I suspect the same is true for God, or there would not be an Eternal Word of God.
The Psalms are the richest collection of expressions of love to God in the world. And they are very "out loud," if we'll read them that way. (No poem should ever be read silently. I don't know much about poetry, but I know that much.) We need to speak these love poems with our tongues.
The Psalms are inspired. They are perfect. They are holy writ, and the Word of God on paper for us.
That said, we still have the opportunity to improve on them.
The Psalms were written about a God Who was hiding behind a veil. David, Solomon and the rest were describing with inspired skill a God Whom they could only vaguely see. In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, and not by Words only, but by deeds.
That blinding veil is done away in Christ.
Now we have the opportunity to do away with the veil in the Psalms. We have the opportunity to see His form, His colors, His motions in ways David never could.
And then we have the opportunity to say out loud the beauty we see.
When you declare your love for anyone, you change them. Even when you know each other well, and you trust each other's love, declaring love can refresh purpose and hope. God created us to live on love, and He did so because He lives on love. When we worship Him, we speak truth, and it's good. But when our worship is warmest in love for Him, we fulfill His purpose for creation.
It takes time and effort to write a love poem. (Especially if you have to start from scratch, but by starting with a Psalm, we get past the blank page immediately.) It will take time and effort to create a prayer from a Psalm. But the payoff is real.
You know He's lovely, but don't just repeat what you know. Take a chance. Stretch yourself. By this, you will stretch your love. See Him through new eyes by blending what you have already learned of Him with what the psalmist was seeing. It will be different every time, and every time it will change you and bless Him.
And fail. Just up and write a terrible prayer once in a while. It does us all good to try to express something, and just not be able to. Failure stretches us, too, you know. None of what we write will be inspired stuff. Proving our inadequacy every now and again is mandatory.
So, what do I do when I try to do this?
Well, first I get really, really embarassed. I hate to be embarassed. I'm not one of those people who takes everything in stride. I take everything to heart. And knowing that I am about to make a new prayer out loud nearly drives me back into the safety of writing about doctrine. I can blast away about whether denominations are a mistake, and I'm not really exposing my heart. But, if I say something about Jesus in a prayer like this, it could be irreverent, it could be wrong, it could be boring, or worst of all, it could be true and passionate. No matter what, I am revealed, and it's hard to take that chance.
But we have to.
We have to risk loving God out loud. We have to risk praising Him with all our hearts, and encouraging each other with our successes. We have to keep risking even though sometimes we fail in public. So, I pull the trigger.
The next post will be a step-by-step, the first I've ever done on this. Wish me grace. :-)
[I wrote this on Wednesday. The Thursday bible study went pretty well.]
There's a whole lot more than one way to love a father.
You can love his family.
You can love the causes he supports.
You can love the way he runs your family.
You can love the things he's made.
You can love working for him.
That list, of course, is completely wrong. That's not how you love a parent at all. Those are all the things you do after you love that parent. You love a parent by feeling something.
I'm probably going to lose someone when I say that love is a feeling, but such it is. It's not necessarily the same feeling all the time, but it's always a feeling. We work so hard to make sure couples survive that first (and second, and third) cooling of infatuation, that some of us have crippled love. Some teach a love that is strong in truth and action, but end up creating one weak in feeling.
I want to find, feed and foster my feelings of love toward God.
I can show my love to God by loving His family, His purposes, His ways, His works, and His commands; but I actually love Him by loving Him. I will love him by watching Him, and admiring Him, and telling Him of all those things about Him that inspire.
More and more, and in every area of my life, I'm learning how important it is to say things out loud. Thoughts rattling around inside my head are worthless. It's things that come from my mouth that make the difference for me, and for others. I suspect the same is true for God, or there would not be an Eternal Word of God.
The Psalms are the richest collection of expressions of love to God in the world. And they are very "out loud," if we'll read them that way. (No poem should ever be read silently. I don't know much about poetry, but I know that much.) We need to speak these love poems with our tongues.
The Psalms are inspired. They are perfect. They are holy writ, and the Word of God on paper for us.
That said, we still have the opportunity to improve on them.
The Psalms were written about a God Who was hiding behind a veil. David, Solomon and the rest were describing with inspired skill a God Whom they could only vaguely see. In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, and not by Words only, but by deeds.
That blinding veil is done away in Christ.
Now we have the opportunity to do away with the veil in the Psalms. We have the opportunity to see His form, His colors, His motions in ways David never could.
And then we have the opportunity to say out loud the beauty we see.
When you declare your love for anyone, you change them. Even when you know each other well, and you trust each other's love, declaring love can refresh purpose and hope. God created us to live on love, and He did so because He lives on love. When we worship Him, we speak truth, and it's good. But when our worship is warmest in love for Him, we fulfill His purpose for creation.
It takes time and effort to write a love poem. (Especially if you have to start from scratch, but by starting with a Psalm, we get past the blank page immediately.) It will take time and effort to create a prayer from a Psalm. But the payoff is real.
You know He's lovely, but don't just repeat what you know. Take a chance. Stretch yourself. By this, you will stretch your love. See Him through new eyes by blending what you have already learned of Him with what the psalmist was seeing. It will be different every time, and every time it will change you and bless Him.
And fail. Just up and write a terrible prayer once in a while. It does us all good to try to express something, and just not be able to. Failure stretches us, too, you know. None of what we write will be inspired stuff. Proving our inadequacy every now and again is mandatory.
So, what do I do when I try to do this?
Well, first I get really, really embarassed. I hate to be embarassed. I'm not one of those people who takes everything in stride. I take everything to heart. And knowing that I am about to make a new prayer out loud nearly drives me back into the safety of writing about doctrine. I can blast away about whether denominations are a mistake, and I'm not really exposing my heart. But, if I say something about Jesus in a prayer like this, it could be irreverent, it could be wrong, it could be boring, or worst of all, it could be true and passionate. No matter what, I am revealed, and it's hard to take that chance.
But we have to.
We have to risk loving God out loud. We have to risk praising Him with all our hearts, and encouraging each other with our successes. We have to keep risking even though sometimes we fail in public. So, I pull the trigger.
The next post will be a step-by-step, the first I've ever done on this. Wish me grace. :-)
Politics: The Weakness of Democracy
This pair of paragraphs comes from a Touchstone Magazine (so far pretty disappointed) book review by Peter Leithart (where have I heard of this guy?) of a book by Matthew Maguire, "The Conversion of Imagination: From Pascal Through Rousseau to Tocqueville."
The review gives the book a pretty intriguing turn. The theme seems to be that imagination was transformed between 1775 to 1825 from something held in disdain to a critical tool in life, but that it remains "unconverted," and therefore still dangerous. Imagination is given a lot of power now, but no direction, so it tends to leads us to either thinking we are gods or that we don't really exist. Both bad effects.
Please forgive the incompleteness of this summary, and realize that it may be pretty misleading, being so short, but it sets the stage a little bit for the quote that really intrigued me from the review.
Imagination plays no role in the constitution of a democratic regime: democracies bow before the truth of natural equality. Lacking the imaginative ascent characteristics of an aristocracy, democracies weigh imagination down: As Maguire puts it, "Tocqueville's presiding metaphor for democracy [is] a gravitational force acting on imagination."
Realistic drama and fiction, and colorless fashions, are the best democracies have to offer. Normally, democratic imagination riss no higher than "inventing means of increasing riches and of satisfying the needs of the public." Tocqueville admires America, but mainly because in America imaginative energy flourishes within a system that supresses it."
WOW!!!!
Maybe in 1835 America had imaginative energy. Would I really dare believe that possible? Well, sure. There's actual evidence.
I'm not sure much such evidence exists to commend the 21st century here.
I have been looking for "it," the thing I am uncomfortable with about America. To call it consumerism is to identify the sickening symptom, but not the cause, not the illness.
To blame democracy for teaching the people to vote themselves corn and circuses is in the same boat. The weak become powerful in a democracy, yet fail to become strong. Their voice is heard, but their voice that of a petulant child asking for more candy and more TV (high-def TV, with lots of original programming), not that of a mature person trying to better himself through better government.
But to think that democracy kills imagination. Now, there's a root cause that makes sense.
I have never liked the idea of making the church a democracy.
Now I know why.
The review gives the book a pretty intriguing turn. The theme seems to be that imagination was transformed between 1775 to 1825 from something held in disdain to a critical tool in life, but that it remains "unconverted," and therefore still dangerous. Imagination is given a lot of power now, but no direction, so it tends to leads us to either thinking we are gods or that we don't really exist. Both bad effects.
Please forgive the incompleteness of this summary, and realize that it may be pretty misleading, being so short, but it sets the stage a little bit for the quote that really intrigued me from the review.
Imagination plays no role in the constitution of a democratic regime: democracies bow before the truth of natural equality. Lacking the imaginative ascent characteristics of an aristocracy, democracies weigh imagination down: As Maguire puts it, "Tocqueville's presiding metaphor for democracy [is] a gravitational force acting on imagination."
Realistic drama and fiction, and colorless fashions, are the best democracies have to offer. Normally, democratic imagination riss no higher than "inventing means of increasing riches and of satisfying the needs of the public." Tocqueville admires America, but mainly because in America imaginative energy flourishes within a system that supresses it."
WOW!!!!
Maybe in 1835 America had imaginative energy. Would I really dare believe that possible? Well, sure. There's actual evidence.
I'm not sure much such evidence exists to commend the 21st century here.
I have been looking for "it," the thing I am uncomfortable with about America. To call it consumerism is to identify the sickening symptom, but not the cause, not the illness.
To blame democracy for teaching the people to vote themselves corn and circuses is in the same boat. The weak become powerful in a democracy, yet fail to become strong. Their voice is heard, but their voice that of a petulant child asking for more candy and more TV (high-def TV, with lots of original programming), not that of a mature person trying to better himself through better government.
But to think that democracy kills imagination. Now, there's a root cause that makes sense.
I have never liked the idea of making the church a democracy.
Now I know why.
06 December, 2006
Meme: Christmas Songs
I have been double tagged (at least.)
And since posting is currently easier than commenting, ;-), here we go.
Probably, my favorite Christmas song of all time is the Little Drummer boy.
I know, it's part of a kids play. It's about a child who doesn't have any frankinscense or myrrh. And let's face it, when he beats out his little tune for the newborn king, it probably sounded something like a little drummer boy beating out a tune. But that song. Doggone, it makes me cloud over almost every time I'm alone and really get to sing along. When that Baby looks at the little boy and smiles....
Behind that comes Oh Night Divine. I love to hold a dramatic note, and OND is just full of those, and at all the right places, praising the right One.
Then, just start listing songs about Jesus and ignoring songs about Christmas, and you pretty much have my list. Joy to the World, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, etc.
I celebrate Christmas, with all its gaudy money flying around like skeeters in the Georgia dusk, but it makes me ill to sing about products. If I happened to feel like being a good enough sport to sing Frosty the Snowman, I still won't be a good enough sport to do it with a smile on my face. Sorry.
And since posting is currently easier than commenting, ;-), here we go.
Probably, my favorite Christmas song of all time is the Little Drummer boy.
I know, it's part of a kids play. It's about a child who doesn't have any frankinscense or myrrh. And let's face it, when he beats out his little tune for the newborn king, it probably sounded something like a little drummer boy beating out a tune. But that song. Doggone, it makes me cloud over almost every time I'm alone and really get to sing along. When that Baby looks at the little boy and smiles....
Behind that comes Oh Night Divine. I love to hold a dramatic note, and OND is just full of those, and at all the right places, praising the right One.
Then, just start listing songs about Jesus and ignoring songs about Christmas, and you pretty much have my list. Joy to the World, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, etc.
I celebrate Christmas, with all its gaudy money flying around like skeeters in the Georgia dusk, but it makes me ill to sing about products. If I happened to feel like being a good enough sport to sing Frosty the Snowman, I still won't be a good enough sport to do it with a smile on my face. Sorry.
04 December, 2006
FHC: The Church of Tomorrow - Part 3 - Change?
Improving the Church
Merely to suggest changing the church is to put your neck in a noose.
People are happy to window-dress. I could recommend we change the order of worship, or that the preaching be done a little differently. But to suggest that the church needs core change is just not acceptable.
And I doubt that the reasons are entirely spiritual.
Any, every, all change causes exactly the same chemical reaction in the brain as hitting your thumb with a hammer. Trust me. I see the faces of brilliant people contort as I tell them about a change that's coming. I may as well have walked around the room with a hammer and popped them all a good one.
When life is sailing along, you are running in "sip" mode, energy-wise. If you were a car, you would be a hybrid running on battery power at 75 mph. That portion of your brain is remarkably efficient. Then I come along, and I change something. Now you have to switch to mental "gulp" mode. Now you are more like an SUV loaded with 3 tons of rock going up the Donner summit at 85 mph. You might be burning 2 mental gallons per mile. And your brain reacts to that change as it does to any other pain.
Still, the church must change.
There's A Change Coming
I am a dreamer by trade. Sad to say, my dreams make people unhappy, but dreaming is what I'm paid to do.
I dream up red tape.
My job is to corral the most brilliant and creative group of people you could ever want to know: programmers. I tell programmers how and when they are allowed to unveil the fruits of their genius to their customers. Twice a year or so, I change their world.
They remind me repeatedly of the old, unpublished truth that all change is bad.
I present all my new ideas to my customers face to face. I have been booed. I have been cajolled. I have been complained about at every level of management. And, invariably, I go meet with my unhappy customers face-to-face, and we part company happy.
Really.
There are two reasons I succeed in delivering the awful news of change. The first is that I know what I do to them sucks, and I say so. I often use the line, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help," with irony dripping from my voice. They get it. I tell them up front that I'm sorry for what I'm forcing them to endure.
The second reason for my success is that I tell them why they are going to have to endure it. I won't bore you with the reasons, but they are good. In three years, our group has taken 400 programmers from 60% compliance and 71% success to 99% compliance and 93% success. I show them how their group has gotten better. I show them how 4 years ago (before I started) they did just as much paperwork, but it was random and pointless. The paperwork I ask of them always has a real reason, a reason they appreciate.
I change things in ways people hate every day, and when I'm done those people succeed.
There's a Change Coming
And I only know the half of it.
I dream big, but I only actually make small to medium-size changes.
I make changes for about 400 people at 3 levels. 15 or so of them work for me. 50 or so of them work with the 16 of us. The remainder think they work against me, but they don't. They work for their customers, and I am just an obstacle to them. They don't work against me. They work around me.
All 400 of those people are geniuses at what they do.
So when I push out the medium-sized change that came from my big sweeping idea I hear about everything wrong with it in about 3 minutes. And whatever they tell me is always right. And not because they are my customers. They're good at what they do.
I don't care how big, how beautiful, how perfectly balanced my idea was; there's always something wrong with it, and sometimes it's something big. When that happens, we modify the idea per request, or we back it out. We don't wait for management to force us to admit we were wrong. We jump up, send out a "we were wrong"-gram, and change whatever we gotta change to make sure everyone can do their jobs effectively.
By the time we are done making my big sweeping idea work for all 400 people, it has always evolved in ways that make it ugly to me.
That's a good thing.
Those 400 people know their jobs perfectly. They have them nailed, and anything I do that puts them out of their groove is a bad thing. When all is said and done, the thing that rolled out to everyone is a big improvement for all 401 of us.
I have rolled out 6 big changes over the last 3 years. They were universally feared when I introduced them, and now pulling them back out would be just as scary. Everyone is now happy with those changes, but they will still fear and hate the next one.
Bottom line: Complaints made when a change is introduced, but before it happens have very little credibility with me. Suggestions, on the other hand, are always highly valued.
Never Change a Winning Strategy
Always Change a Losing One.
There is a huge difference between surviving and winning. Just ask the three guys to whom Jesus gave talents in Matthew 25. All three of them still had everything they started with, but one of them added nothing to it. That last man, the one who buried his talent so he would know where to find it when the Master returned, was told that he should at least have taken his talent to the money changers - just before that lone talent he had was taken away.
Barna's reports state one thing clearly. The younger you are, the less likely you are to be attending church.
We all know that the interpretation of data is more important than the data itself. My interpretation of Barna's findings is that the present church is not going to work with the younger generation. I support that interpretation by refering to the workplace. The workplace has changed drastically in the last 30 years. Far beyond allowing more casual clothing and flexible work hours, the way work is assigned and tracked is changing with the generations. More responsibility is being devolved down to younger ranks, and it is working.
Hang onto that phrase, "It's working."
We know it's working, because the old codgers are going along the same way as the young kids. Everyone is looking at work as a short-term transactional contract, and asking for work that enhances their resume. We all know that this is what the kids are doing, but it's what the gray-hairs are doing, too.
Scripture, Scripture, Scripture
I hear the protests, of course.
God established the church the way He knew it needed to be. Only a fool would tinker with an eternal organization to conform to a fallen generation.
Pretty soon, I'm going to be hearing verses about a perverse generation surrounding themselves with teachers that tickle their ears.
All I can say is, "If you want to go down that road, lead the way." :-)
You will not find a single verse of scripture to support a denomination.
You will not find a single verse of scripture that requires a church building.
You will not find a single verse of scripture to support seminary.
You will not find a single verse of scripture advocating customer experience marketing.
You will not find a single verse of scripture forbidding 100% participation in ministry.
You will not find a single verse of scripture suggesting in the most oblique of ways that Christians who disagree on doctrine should separate to be more united.
You will not find a single verse of scripture that confounds consistency of belief with love the way our religion does.
We seem to believe that "they will know we are Christians" because we fellowship with a bunch of like-indoctrinated people 10 miles away "by our love."
Remember how I said change is working in the workplace?
Staying the same is not working in the church. We are surviving, but we are not thriving. The message is good, and the saints are good. The organization is what's left. It is the organization that's failing us.
Change it.
It's painful, but only by changing can we get back to the way the Lord set the church up 1900 years ago.
Change is coming anyway. Let's get out ahead of it! Let's get there faster!
Merely to suggest changing the church is to put your neck in a noose.
People are happy to window-dress. I could recommend we change the order of worship, or that the preaching be done a little differently. But to suggest that the church needs core change is just not acceptable.
And I doubt that the reasons are entirely spiritual.
Any, every, all change causes exactly the same chemical reaction in the brain as hitting your thumb with a hammer. Trust me. I see the faces of brilliant people contort as I tell them about a change that's coming. I may as well have walked around the room with a hammer and popped them all a good one.
When life is sailing along, you are running in "sip" mode, energy-wise. If you were a car, you would be a hybrid running on battery power at 75 mph. That portion of your brain is remarkably efficient. Then I come along, and I change something. Now you have to switch to mental "gulp" mode. Now you are more like an SUV loaded with 3 tons of rock going up the Donner summit at 85 mph. You might be burning 2 mental gallons per mile. And your brain reacts to that change as it does to any other pain.
Still, the church must change.
There's A Change Coming
I am a dreamer by trade. Sad to say, my dreams make people unhappy, but dreaming is what I'm paid to do.
I dream up red tape.
My job is to corral the most brilliant and creative group of people you could ever want to know: programmers. I tell programmers how and when they are allowed to unveil the fruits of their genius to their customers. Twice a year or so, I change their world.
They remind me repeatedly of the old, unpublished truth that all change is bad.
I present all my new ideas to my customers face to face. I have been booed. I have been cajolled. I have been complained about at every level of management. And, invariably, I go meet with my unhappy customers face-to-face, and we part company happy.
Really.
There are two reasons I succeed in delivering the awful news of change. The first is that I know what I do to them sucks, and I say so. I often use the line, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help," with irony dripping from my voice. They get it. I tell them up front that I'm sorry for what I'm forcing them to endure.
The second reason for my success is that I tell them why they are going to have to endure it. I won't bore you with the reasons, but they are good. In three years, our group has taken 400 programmers from 60% compliance and 71% success to 99% compliance and 93% success. I show them how their group has gotten better. I show them how 4 years ago (before I started) they did just as much paperwork, but it was random and pointless. The paperwork I ask of them always has a real reason, a reason they appreciate.
I change things in ways people hate every day, and when I'm done those people succeed.
There's a Change Coming
And I only know the half of it.
I dream big, but I only actually make small to medium-size changes.
I make changes for about 400 people at 3 levels. 15 or so of them work for me. 50 or so of them work with the 16 of us. The remainder think they work against me, but they don't. They work for their customers, and I am just an obstacle to them. They don't work against me. They work around me.
All 400 of those people are geniuses at what they do.
So when I push out the medium-sized change that came from my big sweeping idea I hear about everything wrong with it in about 3 minutes. And whatever they tell me is always right. And not because they are my customers. They're good at what they do.
I don't care how big, how beautiful, how perfectly balanced my idea was; there's always something wrong with it, and sometimes it's something big. When that happens, we modify the idea per request, or we back it out. We don't wait for management to force us to admit we were wrong. We jump up, send out a "we were wrong"-gram, and change whatever we gotta change to make sure everyone can do their jobs effectively.
By the time we are done making my big sweeping idea work for all 400 people, it has always evolved in ways that make it ugly to me.
That's a good thing.
Those 400 people know their jobs perfectly. They have them nailed, and anything I do that puts them out of their groove is a bad thing. When all is said and done, the thing that rolled out to everyone is a big improvement for all 401 of us.
I have rolled out 6 big changes over the last 3 years. They were universally feared when I introduced them, and now pulling them back out would be just as scary. Everyone is now happy with those changes, but they will still fear and hate the next one.
Bottom line: Complaints made when a change is introduced, but before it happens have very little credibility with me. Suggestions, on the other hand, are always highly valued.
Never Change a Winning Strategy
Always Change a Losing One.
There is a huge difference between surviving and winning. Just ask the three guys to whom Jesus gave talents in Matthew 25. All three of them still had everything they started with, but one of them added nothing to it. That last man, the one who buried his talent so he would know where to find it when the Master returned, was told that he should at least have taken his talent to the money changers - just before that lone talent he had was taken away.
Barna's reports state one thing clearly. The younger you are, the less likely you are to be attending church.
We all know that the interpretation of data is more important than the data itself. My interpretation of Barna's findings is that the present church is not going to work with the younger generation. I support that interpretation by refering to the workplace. The workplace has changed drastically in the last 30 years. Far beyond allowing more casual clothing and flexible work hours, the way work is assigned and tracked is changing with the generations. More responsibility is being devolved down to younger ranks, and it is working.
Hang onto that phrase, "It's working."
We know it's working, because the old codgers are going along the same way as the young kids. Everyone is looking at work as a short-term transactional contract, and asking for work that enhances their resume. We all know that this is what the kids are doing, but it's what the gray-hairs are doing, too.
Scripture, Scripture, Scripture
I hear the protests, of course.
God established the church the way He knew it needed to be. Only a fool would tinker with an eternal organization to conform to a fallen generation.
Pretty soon, I'm going to be hearing verses about a perverse generation surrounding themselves with teachers that tickle their ears.
All I can say is, "If you want to go down that road, lead the way." :-)
You will not find a single verse of scripture to support a denomination.
You will not find a single verse of scripture that requires a church building.
You will not find a single verse of scripture to support seminary.
You will not find a single verse of scripture advocating customer experience marketing.
You will not find a single verse of scripture forbidding 100% participation in ministry.
You will not find a single verse of scripture suggesting in the most oblique of ways that Christians who disagree on doctrine should separate to be more united.
You will not find a single verse of scripture that confounds consistency of belief with love the way our religion does.
We seem to believe that "they will know we are Christians" because we fellowship with a bunch of like-indoctrinated people 10 miles away "by our love."
Remember how I said change is working in the workplace?
Staying the same is not working in the church. We are surviving, but we are not thriving. The message is good, and the saints are good. The organization is what's left. It is the organization that's failing us.
Change it.
It's painful, but only by changing can we get back to the way the Lord set the church up 1900 years ago.
Change is coming anyway. Let's get out ahead of it! Let's get there faster!
Changes for Codepoke
I will be changing my style out here just a little bit.
My past style was to blog at night, and read comments at lunch and just before leaving. That was easy, because I can read mo' better with a sandwich in my hand than I can type that way.
My new style will be influenced by the fact that my company just decided to block all blogspot sites at the firewall. I can no longer read my blog at work, much less comment. It's a solid decision, and I have no complaints about it. It's a security improvement for us, and will probably result in fewer people being fired. (You may have noticed that blogging can be a mite addictive.)
For a while, I am able to post up new writings from work, and I am doing so now. When that is blocked, I will start emailing my posts home.
The upshot is quite disappointing for me.
I will not be able to comment in as timely a manner as is my wont. I hate to leave anyone's comment sitting out there, because I hate it when my comments sit unanswered. But the odds are good that I will only get to comment once a day going forward, and that on all 50 of the blogs I track.
It will be interesting to see how I react to this new constraint.
By God's grace, we will move straightly forward.
Codepoke.
My past style was to blog at night, and read comments at lunch and just before leaving. That was easy, because I can read mo' better with a sandwich in my hand than I can type that way.
My new style will be influenced by the fact that my company just decided to block all blogspot sites at the firewall. I can no longer read my blog at work, much less comment. It's a solid decision, and I have no complaints about it. It's a security improvement for us, and will probably result in fewer people being fired. (You may have noticed that blogging can be a mite addictive.)
For a while, I am able to post up new writings from work, and I am doing so now. When that is blocked, I will start emailing my posts home.
The upshot is quite disappointing for me.
I will not be able to comment in as timely a manner as is my wont. I hate to leave anyone's comment sitting out there, because I hate it when my comments sit unanswered. But the odds are good that I will only get to comment once a day going forward, and that on all 50 of the blogs I track.
It will be interesting to see how I react to this new constraint.
By God's grace, we will move straightly forward.
Codepoke.
03 December, 2006
Tennis: Comeback
My wrist was probably at 90% healed, so I got on the phone. The hardest competitor available to me doesn't like to play when the weather drops below 40 degrees, so he was out. #2, though, was happy to play. Phew!
#2 is the man I would let coach me, if he believed he had anything to teach me. I have tremendous respect for his mental game. At 67, his legs are a little weak, and I suspect that he once had a little more power on his groundstrokes, but his game was never about power. So, the last time I played him, I was crushed 2-6, 1-6. It was the best I had ever done against him.
I hit the ball harder and more accurately. I move at least twice as well as he does. My serve is a weapon, where his is only adequate. I am the better player. There are two reasons I always lose to him.
#1 He plays smarter than I do. I drive the ball at the two far corners, and when my opponent starts reading me, and getting to the ball, I try for too much. Coach uses all four corners, mixes his shots better, and always lets me be the one to try for too much.
#2 I choke. He starts getting to my shots, and giving me easy shots to hit back. That's a brutal, brutal thing to do to me. I hit the first easy put-away easily. The second one I think about. The third one I muff. It goes downhill from there. I always start out well against him (especially in warm-ups - hard to choke in the warmup) then win some very easy points, then relax and tighten up at the same time and in the wrong ways.
Do you care about any of this? Ah. If you don't, I forgive you for not reading this. :-)
Anyway.
He came out to play on Saturday. His ankle was freshly recovered from an injury, and he really wanted to get out and use it. In case you are wondering how his ankle injury plays into the story, the last time he beat me at 2 and 1, his elbow was barely working and he could not hit the ball. The time before that, his back was sore. Come on! The guy is 67 - something is always going to be hurting. It was my bum wrist and general fear against his healed ankle, 67 years, and perfect record against me.
I broke him for a quick 3-1 lead. He was playing the rope-a-dope against me, giving me easy put-aways, and waiting for my mind to fade. I kept putting the winners away. But it was early.
My serve began to fade. This is a problem. If you live by your serve, as I have much of my life, when it goes away, you go with it. Sure enough, I was in trouble on my serve. Down 15-40.
This is where it happens.
"What happens?" you ask?
I don't know. But it is usually at about this time that I look down, bounce the ball a couple times, look up and find the score is 3-5, 15-40, set point against.
Really.
Choking is the most bizarre experience I know. It's a crap shoot for me. Sometimes, if I can find the right shibboleth, I do the opposite of choking - whatever that's called. Let's call it heroic breathing. Sometimes, I breathe like Hercules himself. I believe that I have lost 5 or so matches from being ahead 7-1, and maybe won 15 matches from 1-7 behind. Neither is excusable. If I can win 7 games in a row against my honorable opponent, I should not be able to lose 7 games in a row against him. But knowing that I can silence my mind, find my arm, and put together 28 points by a simple act of will is frustrating - because I cannot do it nearly as often as I should be able to.
BTW, (as all of you may already know) I silence my mind by opening my mouth. If I can make words come out of my mouth, and flow happily to my ears, my mind finds rest and peace and remembers what my arm should be doing. If I can say the right things to myself, I can actually play tennis. If you search the archives of this blog, I'm sure you will be amazed at how boringly consistent I am on this point. I need to talk to win.
But, I won't talk.
Instead, I think in my head. I think I'm thinking the stuff I would be saying if I were saying anything, but I'm not. I'm thinking the right thought surrounded by five wrong thoughts. It's like one golden nugget surrounded by five pieces of pyrite. When I speak these things out loud, my tongue acts as a gate, blocking the pyrite and letting the gold flow back to my ears.
Why don't I do this more often?
Ancient habit of being alone, I imagine. I don't think it was until I flipped burgers that I ever did anything that I did not do alone. Years of talking only to myself drove me mad.
So, at 3-1 I could afford to lose a game. That's one of the pyrite pieces. At 15-40, I needed to take a couple chances/I needed to play conservatively. Pyrite. I needed to relax, and play my game. Pyrite. I needed to focus on the ball and trust my arm to do what it's been doing well in practice for 35 years. Pyrite.
What I actually said to myself was, "I've been winning by playing deep to both sides with power. I'm softening up my shots, aren't I? I need to not do that."
4-1.
My serve continued to fade, so my game continued to fade. More pyrite. Lots more pyrite. But, I took 2 of the next three games for 6-2. The last game was a "skin of my teeth" thing. I won it by gritting my teeth, and forcing the shot that finished it. It's a win, but it's a mental loss when that happens. Trust me on this. I'll take the win, but bad things are coming when I win by gritting my teeth.
New set.
New mind games to lose. Coach is a crafty opponent. The first time we played, he told me with amazement that I was no good at hitting back his topspin. He was absolutely right, but most people will never identify that weakness in my game. He picked it out by the start of our 3rd game together. We had played about 20 points (around 200 points make up an average match.) Ten minutes into a 90 minute match, and he already knew what to do to win any important point against me.
He broke my serve immediately (fading even worse.) I broke him back. He broke me again, and then he held. 1-3.
My thoughts began their death-spiral. "He must have found some weakness in my game. And, of course, my serve is laying down bad. This is how I always lose. I'm going to lose. Well, at least I played one good set. I can build on this. I don't have to be completely ashamed. So, I can relax, and play like I have nothing to lose. I can swing out, take some chances, play more conservatively, focus on the ball, trust my arm, come back like I've done so many times before."
I had completely quit talking to myself.
Picture these thoughts flowing around in my head like images in a bowl of mercury, mesmerizing me with their truth, hypnotizing me, moving my mind away from my arm. It's hard to describe a good choke, but thinking the "right" thoughts is always a part of it for me.
Pyrite.
Of course, pyrite is a euphemism for other terms that are floating around in my head right now, but in this case, the euphemism is superior to the other terms. It is the shinyness of the thoughts above that make them attractive. It's their shinyness that keeps me talking in my head instead of out loud where my tongue can filter them for me.
We traded breaks twice. He kept thinking he was going to close me out, and I kept not quite going away. At one point I was serving at love-40, and put the next ball in the net. At another, he was serving at 5-3, 40-30 set point. I didn't know what to say to myself. I probably need to get all uber-dweebish and script out my talking points for each match, but I've never tried that before. Never thought of it before. We'll see.
Anyway, there's one thing I can always say to myself, "Tennis. Come on. Play tennis." It works. It worked.
Coach began to falter. He went back to his rope-a-dope. And who can blame him. It's always worked against me in the past. This time, I took each of his bloops, and turned them into points against him. I repeated the "tennis" shibboleth, and my eye stayed focused on the ball, my arm knew what to do, and I took some chances while being more conservative. I didn't have to think about any of that stuff. It just worked.
I won my next service game at love.
Now Coach was serving to stay in the set. I pushed him hard, but he came up with the goods. It was tiebreak time.
And finally, I was into the match.
This is the moment you play for. I didn't need to talk to myself any more. I didn't need to filter away the pyrite. I just needed not to think about how I didn't need to think any more. I was there. I was 100% playing just for the joy of doing with the ball what it needed done to it.
Why does it take me 20 games to find that mental place?
We split the first 6 points of the tiebreak. After losing each of my three points, I did a silent little mind check. I shouldn't, but I couldn't help myself. I did it quietly enough, though, that I didn't disturb the fragile balance of my psyche.
I took the next 4 points straight, and it was over.
I had withstood Coach's assault on my mind, and my own Vichy collaboration with him. The resistance had won. I don't know that I've ever beaten a full-blown choke like that on my own before. I've come back from early suckiness, but I don't know that I've ever been ahead, choked, struggled against the choke for the rest of the match, and made it back into the zone.
Not in singles.
I've always needed a partner to whom I could talk. I've never been able to do this when trapped between those white lines with just myself to lean on. I've never been able to break out of the trap that is always waiting for me inside my head.
But now I've done it once.
Who knows? Maybe I can survive being single.
#2 is the man I would let coach me, if he believed he had anything to teach me. I have tremendous respect for his mental game. At 67, his legs are a little weak, and I suspect that he once had a little more power on his groundstrokes, but his game was never about power. So, the last time I played him, I was crushed 2-6, 1-6. It was the best I had ever done against him.
I hit the ball harder and more accurately. I move at least twice as well as he does. My serve is a weapon, where his is only adequate. I am the better player. There are two reasons I always lose to him.
#1 He plays smarter than I do. I drive the ball at the two far corners, and when my opponent starts reading me, and getting to the ball, I try for too much. Coach uses all four corners, mixes his shots better, and always lets me be the one to try for too much.
#2 I choke. He starts getting to my shots, and giving me easy shots to hit back. That's a brutal, brutal thing to do to me. I hit the first easy put-away easily. The second one I think about. The third one I muff. It goes downhill from there. I always start out well against him (especially in warm-ups - hard to choke in the warmup) then win some very easy points, then relax and tighten up at the same time and in the wrong ways.
Do you care about any of this? Ah. If you don't, I forgive you for not reading this. :-)
Anyway.
He came out to play on Saturday. His ankle was freshly recovered from an injury, and he really wanted to get out and use it. In case you are wondering how his ankle injury plays into the story, the last time he beat me at 2 and 1, his elbow was barely working and he could not hit the ball. The time before that, his back was sore. Come on! The guy is 67 - something is always going to be hurting. It was my bum wrist and general fear against his healed ankle, 67 years, and perfect record against me.
I broke him for a quick 3-1 lead. He was playing the rope-a-dope against me, giving me easy put-aways, and waiting for my mind to fade. I kept putting the winners away. But it was early.
My serve began to fade. This is a problem. If you live by your serve, as I have much of my life, when it goes away, you go with it. Sure enough, I was in trouble on my serve. Down 15-40.
This is where it happens.
"What happens?" you ask?
I don't know. But it is usually at about this time that I look down, bounce the ball a couple times, look up and find the score is 3-5, 15-40, set point against.
Really.
Choking is the most bizarre experience I know. It's a crap shoot for me. Sometimes, if I can find the right shibboleth, I do the opposite of choking - whatever that's called. Let's call it heroic breathing. Sometimes, I breathe like Hercules himself. I believe that I have lost 5 or so matches from being ahead 7-1, and maybe won 15 matches from 1-7 behind. Neither is excusable. If I can win 7 games in a row against my honorable opponent, I should not be able to lose 7 games in a row against him. But knowing that I can silence my mind, find my arm, and put together 28 points by a simple act of will is frustrating - because I cannot do it nearly as often as I should be able to.
BTW, (as all of you may already know) I silence my mind by opening my mouth. If I can make words come out of my mouth, and flow happily to my ears, my mind finds rest and peace and remembers what my arm should be doing. If I can say the right things to myself, I can actually play tennis. If you search the archives of this blog, I'm sure you will be amazed at how boringly consistent I am on this point. I need to talk to win.
But, I won't talk.
Instead, I think in my head. I think I'm thinking the stuff I would be saying if I were saying anything, but I'm not. I'm thinking the right thought surrounded by five wrong thoughts. It's like one golden nugget surrounded by five pieces of pyrite. When I speak these things out loud, my tongue acts as a gate, blocking the pyrite and letting the gold flow back to my ears.
Why don't I do this more often?
Ancient habit of being alone, I imagine. I don't think it was until I flipped burgers that I ever did anything that I did not do alone. Years of talking only to myself drove me mad.
So, at 3-1 I could afford to lose a game. That's one of the pyrite pieces. At 15-40, I needed to take a couple chances/I needed to play conservatively. Pyrite. I needed to relax, and play my game. Pyrite. I needed to focus on the ball and trust my arm to do what it's been doing well in practice for 35 years. Pyrite.
What I actually said to myself was, "I've been winning by playing deep to both sides with power. I'm softening up my shots, aren't I? I need to not do that."
4-1.
My serve continued to fade, so my game continued to fade. More pyrite. Lots more pyrite. But, I took 2 of the next three games for 6-2. The last game was a "skin of my teeth" thing. I won it by gritting my teeth, and forcing the shot that finished it. It's a win, but it's a mental loss when that happens. Trust me on this. I'll take the win, but bad things are coming when I win by gritting my teeth.
New set.
New mind games to lose. Coach is a crafty opponent. The first time we played, he told me with amazement that I was no good at hitting back his topspin. He was absolutely right, but most people will never identify that weakness in my game. He picked it out by the start of our 3rd game together. We had played about 20 points (around 200 points make up an average match.) Ten minutes into a 90 minute match, and he already knew what to do to win any important point against me.
He broke my serve immediately (fading even worse.) I broke him back. He broke me again, and then he held. 1-3.
My thoughts began their death-spiral. "He must have found some weakness in my game. And, of course, my serve is laying down bad. This is how I always lose. I'm going to lose. Well, at least I played one good set. I can build on this. I don't have to be completely ashamed. So, I can relax, and play like I have nothing to lose. I can swing out, take some chances, play more conservatively, focus on the ball, trust my arm, come back like I've done so many times before."
I had completely quit talking to myself.
Picture these thoughts flowing around in my head like images in a bowl of mercury, mesmerizing me with their truth, hypnotizing me, moving my mind away from my arm. It's hard to describe a good choke, but thinking the "right" thoughts is always a part of it for me.
Pyrite.
Of course, pyrite is a euphemism for other terms that are floating around in my head right now, but in this case, the euphemism is superior to the other terms. It is the shinyness of the thoughts above that make them attractive. It's their shinyness that keeps me talking in my head instead of out loud where my tongue can filter them for me.
We traded breaks twice. He kept thinking he was going to close me out, and I kept not quite going away. At one point I was serving at love-40, and put the next ball in the net. At another, he was serving at 5-3, 40-30 set point. I didn't know what to say to myself. I probably need to get all uber-dweebish and script out my talking points for each match, but I've never tried that before. Never thought of it before. We'll see.
Anyway, there's one thing I can always say to myself, "Tennis. Come on. Play tennis." It works. It worked.
Coach began to falter. He went back to his rope-a-dope. And who can blame him. It's always worked against me in the past. This time, I took each of his bloops, and turned them into points against him. I repeated the "tennis" shibboleth, and my eye stayed focused on the ball, my arm knew what to do, and I took some chances while being more conservative. I didn't have to think about any of that stuff. It just worked.
I won my next service game at love.
Now Coach was serving to stay in the set. I pushed him hard, but he came up with the goods. It was tiebreak time.
And finally, I was into the match.
This is the moment you play for. I didn't need to talk to myself any more. I didn't need to filter away the pyrite. I just needed not to think about how I didn't need to think any more. I was there. I was 100% playing just for the joy of doing with the ball what it needed done to it.
Why does it take me 20 games to find that mental place?
We split the first 6 points of the tiebreak. After losing each of my three points, I did a silent little mind check. I shouldn't, but I couldn't help myself. I did it quietly enough, though, that I didn't disturb the fragile balance of my psyche.
I took the next 4 points straight, and it was over.
I had withstood Coach's assault on my mind, and my own Vichy collaboration with him. The resistance had won. I don't know that I've ever beaten a full-blown choke like that on my own before. I've come back from early suckiness, but I don't know that I've ever been ahead, choked, struggled against the choke for the rest of the match, and made it back into the zone.
Not in singles.
I've always needed a partner to whom I could talk. I've never been able to do this when trapped between those white lines with just myself to lean on. I've never been able to break out of the trap that is always waiting for me inside my head.
But now I've done it once.
Who knows? Maybe I can survive being single.
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