Become a Hero

In the New Testament book of Acts Jesus is reported to have spoken these words: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Jesus understood that to sacrifice self-indulgent desires, for the sake of someone else, brings happiness.

Christianity is not the only world religion that stresses the significance of giving.  Every major world religion stresses the importance of charity. In the Qur’an we read, “True piety is this…to give of one’s substance, however cherished, to kinsmen, and orphans, the needy, the traveler, beggars, and to ransom the slave…” And from the Hindu Vedas: “The wealthier person should give unto the needy.”

Even though Americans give more than citizens of any other country, there is something surprising in those numbers. According to Forbes, “While the wealthiest citizens give the most in sheer dollar amounts—it’s in fact low-income employed Americans who give the highest portion of their income, or 4.5%.”

 It seems that the less money one has the more one is willing to part with one’s money. By why is this? Why do the wealthier among us give a smaller portion of their income to charity? What is it about having less that equals giving more? My experience suggests that when we have less we more fully realize our dependency upon God. I'm not, however, suggesting that we give away retirement accounts or the kid’s college fund, but there is wisdom in the idea of sacrificial giving.

I remember a Hebrew professor in seminary who once told my class, “Show me your checkbook or credit card statement and I will show you your faith.” Or, in the words of Jesus, “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” The habit of our giving is symbolic of our faith—or lack thereof.

There is a story about a man packing a shipment of food for the poor people of Appalachia. He was separating beans from powdered milk, and canned vegetables from canned meats. Reaching into a box filled with various cans, he pulled out a little brown paper sack. Apparently one of the pupils had brought something different from the items on the suggested list. Out of the paper bag fell a peanut butter sandwich, an apple, and a cookie. Crayoned in large letters was a little girl's name, "Christy Room 104.” She had given up her lunch for some hungry person that she had never met.
The little girl in the story was a hero. It’s never too late to champion a cause greater than yourself. It’s never too late to become a hero in some else’s life.

So dig deep into your pockets. Demonstrate your faith in God. Give on a regular basis. Sacrifice for a cause bigger than your own self-indulgent desires. Do this and you will discover that giving is more blessed than receiving.  

Explore, Dream, Discover

My maternal grandmother once lamented that our family, having arrived in St. Augustine in 1832, did not purchase miles of beach-front property. “Such a missed opportunity,” she said. All of us, I imagine, can relate to missed opportunities. All of us can relate to standing on the sidelines only to regret our inaction at a later point.

Robert Fulton, an artist and engineer, was responsible in the early 1800s for putting sailing ships out of business. He made the steamboat a standard on the open seas. It is said that he presented his idea to Napoleon. After a few minutes of this presentation, Napoleon is reported to have said, “What, sir? You would make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks? I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense.”

As a pastor, I am privy to stories of regret from people who missed out on adventure only to later bemoan the botched opportunity. The lost opportunities seem to always have a common question at their core: “Why didn’t I take the chance?”

An Arabian proverb given to me by a Rotarian friend is true: “Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.” All of us know that fumbled opportunities do not come back. Some of us live our lives lamenting a chance never taken. We look back upon something that we wish we would have done, but out of fear we played it safe. Perhaps we should all take advice from the Jewish Talmud, “Act while you can: while you have the chance, the means, and the strength.”

My experience suggests that we often regret with great pathos those things that we did not do but wished we had done. For example, a common regret — missed opportunity — is not traveling when you have the health to travel. After all, as the sun sets upon our lives we have but memories; these memories are often colored by seized opportunities or regrets of inaction.

It is fear that oftentimes keeps us from taking a chance. Fear of what might happen. Fear of the unknown. Fear of potential consequences. But if we exist too much by the dictates of fear we will live on the periphery of life. Fear governs strictly and is antithetical to a life well lived.

As each year passes into the next, the more convinced I become that Mark Twain was correct when he observed: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Failure

If there is one thing that is endemic to humanity, it is failure. Failure is universal among us. There are more or less successful people; but all people have endured failure.

Failure may happen in politics, morality, business or academics. Failure may happen in relationships or it may happen with one’s own integrity. Regardless, no one lives without tasting the fruit of failure, which can be bitter.

According to the late psychologist B.F. Skinner, “A failure is not always a mistake; it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.” I suppose we have all heard something along these lines from parents, teachers, friends, or clergy. “Don’t give up!” they say. So we push forward trusting that, as someone once said, “Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.”

Sometimes our highest hopes are destroyed so that we can be prepared for better things. The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly. The passing of the bud is the blooming of the rose. Our failures can be the door to a new success. As the Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda, wrote, “The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.

The name of John James Audubon is forever associated with the magnificent paintings he made of the birds of North America. No one else has so accurately painted the birds and the natural environment in which they were found. But his success as an artist might not have happened had he not gone bankrupt in business. In 1808, he opened a store in Louisville, Ky. It was after he went bankrupt in 1819 that he began traveling and painting birds. Audubon’s failure in business was his success in visual art.

C.S. Lewis noted that “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement,” but this is not always the case. Often people give up after one or two attempts at something in which they have failed. But success often comes after multiple failed attempts at an endeavor. As Thomas Edison remarked about the continual problems related to his invention of the light bulb: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

It’s usually assumed Handel’s “Messiah” was written at the pinnacle of his success. But that is not the case. The composition of the “Messiah” was written after Handel suffered a stroke. It was written while Handel suffered through a particularly desperate night of despair over his failure as a musician. Upon waking, Handel unleashed his creative genius in a musical score that continues to inspire us generations later.

It may be that failure is universal among us. But so, too, is success. The trick, which really is no trick at all, is dogged persistence. For success rarely comes to one who easily accepts failure as the final word.

The Placement of Reverence

Have you ever wondered what might help you lead a more joyous and meaningful life?

Plato once wrote that parents should not teach their children how to become rich—but how to become reverent. Try as I might, however, my nine-year-old son has not yet developed an appropriate sense of reverence. Ant hills are for kicking. Lizards are targets for a BB gun.                 

Adults, however, are not much better at being appropriately reverent than nine-year-old boys. Just yesterday I heard an adult speak pejoratively of a cobweb in her kitchen but reverently of the TV show, “Hell’s Kitchen.” Why is it that we often revere the fantastically farcical but shun the incredibly sublime? Maybe I’m crazy, but the sublimity and grace of a cobweb deserves more reverence than a caustic TV personality.

I have a friend who does not watch pro sports or other popular entertainment. My friend tells me that he can’t stand the lavish attention that is given to entertainers and athletes. When I asked him about his “stick-in the-mud” attitude, he, in turn, asked me if I thought pop culture icons deserved their hero-like status and huge salaries. I confessed that whether or not pop icons deserved their salaries is beyond my ability to determine. But the reverence that we heap upon cultural icons is not beyond my ability to critique. Our reverence for entertainers and athletes is misplaced and out of proportion to their value to society (consider the comparable amount of reverence that is given to teachers, nurses, and those who serve us in restaurants).

The word reverence comes from the Latin word, reverentia, which means “to respect greatly.” As I survey American pop culture, I find that we have a lot of reverence. But we often have reverence for the wrong things and wrong people. Perhaps that is one reason why meaning and joy are, according to polls I’ve read, in short supply. Misplaced reverence can create an existential void.   

According to the late theologian and physician, Albert Schweitzer, “By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world. By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.” Maybe that’s why so many people I know do not seem deep and alive. Maybe that’s why our popular culture, with its vicarious living through sports heroes and reality TV, is largely shallow and depressive.

On the other hand, appropriately placed reverence puts us in touch with the holy of this world. And when we are in touch with the holy of this world, we are, I believe, in touch with The Being that creates the holy of this world. And to be in touch with The Being is, according to statistics, to offer some measure of meaning and joy.

So go ahead and stare at a cobweb in your kitchen. Stop staring at your TV. You might just find meaning and joy are not in such short supply.

Prayer

Martin Luther said prayer should resemble a dog’s appetite. As Luther tells it, he was watching his dog who had a piece of meat. Luther said, “If I could only pray the way this dog watches meat. All his thoughts are focused on the piece of meat. Other than the meat, he has no thought.”                                                                     

I will leave it to you to decide whether or not this is a helpful image for the life of prayer. Myself, I have found another, but complimentary, image.                       

I remember watching a beggar in Damascus, Syria. The woman, before shopkeepers shoed her away, kept asking everyone in our travel group for help; she kept seeking assistance; she persisted in knocking on the door of our hearts. And, in the end, someone in the group bought her food.                                                     

The image of a persistent beggar is a good image for the prayer life. To become a beggar before God admits the reality of the human condition. We are frail creatures—all of us in need. To stand as a beggar before God is an act of faith. We beg for what we need, trusting in God to act on our behalf.                           
But to approach God like a beggar does not mean that all of our prayers will be answered. After all, God is not Santa Claus or a cosmic bellboy. And we forget that, on occasion, God may simply say “No” to our prayers, just as we might say no to a beggar on the street. But in all of our asking, seeking, and knocking, God has our best interest at heart. God is our heavenly, loving parent.                                    
But let’s be honest: most of us do not have a great prayer life. We are not the best at asking, seeking, and knocking. And we probably do less begging from God and more bargaining. Our prayer lives are probably not all they could be.            

When we pray, our minds wander—we struggle to focus on God like a dog focuses upon meat. If our cells phone rings or a text comes through we have a short debate with ourselves about whether we should check the message. If we’re praying with other people, we may wonder silently to ourselves, “I wonder how I sound to these people?”                                                            

Prayer is, of course, personal, though it is not entirely private. Prayer must be discovered and understood on our own terms. People can help us with prayer. People can encourage us to pray. People can pray for us and with us.                                    

But, ultimately, prayer is a personal practice. The way we speak to God, the way we seek God’s will, the way we persevere with God comes down to who we are—and who we want to be.  Just as we all have different ways of relating with family and friends, so all of us have different ways of relating to God.                                             

I don’t know about you, but the older I become the more I look back over my life and see a creative power at work. Looking back I discover that this power, God, provided when I asked, provided when I searched, and answered when I knocked. And I have discovered that when God seemed not to provide—well, God was providing in a different, more mysterious way.

Overstretched and Overbooked

Are you too busy to notice that you’re too busy? Are you so busy that you barely have time to tell your friends that you don’t have time to talk to them? “  

 In his very famous book, Walden, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”                    

 What are you busy about?

 Psychiatrist Edward Howell wrote a book called, Crazy Busy: overstretched, overbooked, and about to snap. In the book Dr. Howell tells a story of how he came to see that his life had gotten out of control and way too busy.                     

Dr. Howell was on vacation where he had no cell phone reception. In the house was a rotary phone—some of you remember those dinosaurs, the phones that you had to turn the dial. One day, using the rotary phone got him frustrated to the point of anger—simply because he had to take time to let the dial come back to start.                                      

His frustration at the phone was a wakeup call, no pun intended. He writes, “What a fool I had become. I had become a busy man in a hurry even when I had no need to be a busy man in a hurry.”                                 

Knowing when not to be busy can be difficult. Many of us are much better at being busy than being still. Many of us are better at running from one thing to the next—rather than slowing down. At the very least, learning to slow down and pay attention to what matters most is a prerequisite to living a God-filled life. 

 Are you too busy? And what are you busy about? Has God gotten pushed to the back seat? We need to take a close look at our lives. Evaluate priorities. Evaluate where we spend our time.     

 We all have certain responsibilities that cannot be shirked. We all have certain commitments that we must keep. The question for us becomes at what point do we begin saying “no” to extraneous obligations? All of us, I suspect, want a full and meaningful life. But the danger is when we step over an invisible line that separates a meaningful life from a life that is too busy—a life that cannot make time for being with God. A life that has lost perspective.

 “It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants.” The question is: What are we busy about?”                           

      

Living with Regrets

The philosopher Rene Descartes famously wrote, “I think therefore I am.” But, perhaps, we might also say: I regret, therefore I am. Even God, according to the Hebrew Bible, lived with regrets, the most famous (but not the only time God regrets something) being, “And the Lord regretted that he had made humanity.” (Genesis 6:6)

There are different types of regret. There is the regret of commission and the regret of omission. The former type of regret stems from hurting something, either emotionally or physically. The latter type of regret is born from not seizing an opportunity.

Sometime back a hospice worker named Bonnie Ware wrote an interesting article called the “Top Five Regrets of the Dying.” Those regrets are:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish I’d let myself be happier.

If you read the regrets closely, you noticed that only one of the regrets, number 2, is a regret of commission. The remaining four are regrets of omission. Or, in other words, the regrets of the dying have more do with what they didn’t do than what they did do.
It is possible to re-word the 5 regrets to read as either regrets of commission or omission. Be that as it may, the above list was authored by dying people. And dying people, from my personal experience, don’t mince words. They mean what they say and say what they mean. When death is imminent, life takes on linguistic clarity.

All of us have regrets—more or less. One significant regret that I have is not being more patient with my son during the first four years of his life. At that time I was wrapped up in doctoral work. The stress of my studies accompanied with working full time in a church often left me with little patience.
In most instances, life allows u-turns. In all instances, God allows u-turns. The Quran, like the New Testament, suggests that when regret becomes repentance God, like a loving parent, runs out to meet the repentant one.

While we can never erase painful moments of our past, we can amend our lives, with the help of God’s grace, so the future looks less like the past and more like the life of our dreams.
Mark Twain once quipped, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

So I ask you, dear reader: How might you change your life so that when your dying moment arrives your regrets are fewer than they might have been?

Your Ordinary Everyday Life

Take your everyday, ordinary life and place it before God. God will take your ordinary life and use it for incredible purposes.                                                          

It is in the ordinary and mundane stuff of life that we are called to live as Christ followers, loving God, neighbor and self. It is in the ordinary routines of our lives where God will most often use us as instruments of grace.  

The spiritual writer Julie Porter wrote, “Much work that isn't interesting or fun is vital to human life and community, and the ones who perform it serve as the hands of God...”        

In your daily life, how might you become the hands of God to your family and friends and strangers? How might you serve other people in the mundane routines of daily life?                                                                
                                                  

It’s strange but true to say that in the mundane things of life it is most difficult to be faithful, loving, hopeful, and generous. Our Christian task, however, is to be heroes and heroines of grace when life is most tedious, hum-drum, and commonplace.     

Each day presents us with simple possibilities to serve God. Helping a neighbor or volunteering at a school. Helping a stranger with $10 worth of gas. Listening to a grieving co-worker or volunteering at the COA, teaching Sunday school or buying extra food at the grocery to give to the food pantry.              

In one of the church’s I served there was a homebound widow by the name of Jo. Though homebound, Jo said that she had found a way for God to use her. Every week Nellie sent a hand written card to everyone in the church who was sick, homebound, or grieving.                                                                                          

You might think, “Well, it’s just a card”—but you’d be wrong. Over the years, Jo’s cards were seen by those who received them as God’s grace made visible. Jo’s old, shaky hands became God’s hands to the hurting and lonely.                      

Never think for one moment that God cannot use you as a vehicle of grace. Take your everyday, ordinary life and place it before God. And God will take your ordinary life and use it for incredible purposes.

The Song and Dance of God

William Wallace, was a Scottish common man who fought for his country's freedom in the 13th century. Wallace led an uprising against the English King, Edward the Longshanks, who wanted the crown of Scotland for himself.
In the end, Wallace was martyred for the casue of freedom.                                                                                                                                                        

In his final moments of life, as he lay on the executioner's bench, Wallace was tortured. He could have ended the torment by saying the word “Peace,” indicating his support of the king. Instead, Wallace yelled, “Freedom!”                        

God is a God of freedom. In many ways, freedom is the song and dance of God. In many ways, freedom is the mantra of the Bible. Over and over God seems to yell “Freedom!” to the oppressed, enslaved, and marginalized.                                                                         

When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, God declares, “'I am the LORD, and I will free you from the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery.” In the Bible, God is intimately concerned with freedom. When God’s love is made flesh in Jesus, the first sermon Jesus preaches is taken from the book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon to me to…to proclaim release to the captives…and to let the oppressed go free.”  This message of freedom is continued in the ministry of St. Paul. When writing to the church in Galatia, Paul tells them, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”                                     

What has you enslaved? Political ideologies? Religion? Shopping? Fear? Alcohol?                                                           

Gossip

Gossip sells — just take a look at the news-rags that accost you leaving the grocery store. Pure gossip. As someone in my Sunday School class noted, we have an entire industry built upon gossip. And we eat it up. It’s like the novelist Joseph Conrad wrote, “Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everyone enjoys.”

In a nation that reports to be highly spiritual, we fail when it comes to one of the more simple tests of virtue. Erma Bombeck had it right: “Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It’s gossip.” A spirituality that is compatible with gossip is like saying motor oil is compatible with water. The two simply don’t mix. The New Testament book of James puts it plainly: “If people think they are religious and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.”

Two weeks ago I went to Gypsy Cab for lunch (I love their Bahamian chowder). It was crowded and, since I was alone, I sat at the bar where, I discovered, an acquaintance of mine was also eating. He finished his meal before me and returned to work. After he left, I overheard a man at the other end of the bar saying unkind things about my acquaintance, which may have been true — but this is beside the point.

The man was gossiping. He was trying to use information to injure and slight my acquaintance. Each word was a knife in the back of the man’s reputation. I felt caught between a rock and a hard place. Do I say something to the man — or not? I was, after all, eavesdropping. I decided not to say anything — and this I regret.

All of the great world religions underscore the importance of not gossiping. The Buddha explained that right speech is necessary for a sound morality. He stated that people should abstain from slanderous speech and not use words maliciously against others. A fundamental of Hindu and Yogic ethics is the practice of satya: conscious consideration of what you say, how you say it, and how it affects others. And Judaism, in the book of Leviticus says, “You shall not go around as slanderer among your people.”

We have all gossiped. We have all listened to gossip. But at what price? Gossip and slander eat away at our goodness—and perhaps even our health. It is suggested that Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, goes so far as to say that people will be held accountable for every careless word they speak.

What ought the spiritual response to gossip be? How should the religious/spiritual man or woman respond to gossip? We must learn to carefully choose our words when talking about people. And we must summon our courage to stop gossip when we hear gossip. After all, we might just save our own reputations.

Den of Thieves

I recently found myself in the Atlanta airport with my wife and son. We were eating in one of the more popular sandwich shops located in the sprawling concourse. We sat down and I overheard two employees talking about a recent event that had caused a stir at the restaurant.

It seems that a physician accidentally left a briefcase in the eatery the week before and the briefcase, which wasn’t locked, harbored the modern equivalent to a pirate’s trove.

The conversation between the fast food employees went like this:

“You hear about the briefcase that was left here last week?”

“Yeah. I heard. And some fool turned the thing in. You believe that?”

“That was me, I woulda kept that thing!”

“Hell yeah. Thing had 70 Ben Franklins in it!”

I’d kept that thing. Got me some new clothes.”

“Yeah, man. The fool turned the thing in.”

“Crazy, man, crazy.”

“Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked,” says the book of Proverbs. Is this ancient opinion debatable? It must be or we would not see — on such a vast scale that defies race and class — fraud, stealing and embezzlement. And while I have told my share of “white” lies, and stolen a lollipop at 12 years of age to impress the wrong crowd, I do believe there is a social consequence when we are less than truthful.

Shakespeare said, “No legacy is so rich as honesty.” If this is true, why would two gainfully employed men talk about keeping $70,000 dollars that does not belong to them? I grew up hearing Benjamin Franklin’s pithy saying, “Honesty is the best policy,” which is akin to a religious sentiment found in the Q’uran: “God will reward honest people for their honesty.” I can’t help but wonder, however, if we no longer hold the conviction expressed by Franklin or believe in the idea that God rewards people for doing what is right, especially when doing wrong is more profitable.

Though Benjamin Franklin coined his phrase 200 years ago, I am not naive enough to believe that people were, at an earlier time, more humane, honest and virtuous. The ancient commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” proves as much.

Is it me or does dishonesty appear to be growing in every strata of our nation? From Washington to Tallahassee, and from homes to schools, dishonesty, it seems, is the new best policy. I am convinced that we parents must do a better job of instilling honesty in our children. Clergy must do a better job. Our elected officials must do a better job. Corporate leaders must do better job. We must try to model honesty. For a nation, community, religious organization—or corporation that does not stridently condemn dishonesty is nothing but a den of thieves; the treasure they — we — plunder is truth. And, as someone once remarked, “There is no worse theft than that of truth.”

The Power of Weakness

            I saw something in the Greek of 2 Corinthians 12:9 that struck me. The Greek of verse 9 hit me in a whole new way. In verse 9, Paul writes, “The Lord said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

I suppose the word ‘weakness’ is what really caught my attention. The word in Greek has the connotation of powerlessness, illness, handicap, helplessness—you get the point. And don’t you think that it is striking that Paul celebrates his weakness, his powerlessness?  

I mean, can you imagine doing something like this this? Can you imagine celebrating your incapacity, your physical limitations? Celebrating your powerlessness, your weaknesses? Is Paul crazy? Can you imagine rejoicing in your disease, your sickness, depression or inadequacy? Celebrating powerlessness seems so contrary to being…to being…human. And especially contrary to being American.

I can’t think of one successful Hollywood action film that celebrates weakness. I mean, can you imagine Bruce Willis or Matt Damon boasting about being powerless? No way. Can you imagine doing a status update on Facebook that goes something like this: “Hunter Camp… rejoices in his aching left knee that keeps him from winning a foot race against his son.”                         

No way. We Americans celebrate strength—we love the strong and powerful; as a culture, we have little abiding sympathy for the weak and powerless. In American culture, just like the ancient Greco-Roman culture, power is not made perfect in weakness.                              

When Paul wrote, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness," Paul was sending a counter cultural message. The church in Corinth would have been shocked to hear Paul boast about his limitations. And yet, something in my experience suggests that Paul may be right. Strength can be found in powerlessness. God’s kindness and grace can become our muscles when the circumstances in life beat us down.      

On Tuesday, April 3 of 2010 I was diagnosed with a large tumor in my left deltoid. The tumor was very deep. It was wrapped around my humerus. My doctors at the Mayo Clinic thought the tumor, because of the depth and position, was malignant. In fact, one radiologist, a friend, confided in me and said, “It doesn’t look good, Hunter.”

After surgery and spending the night at Mayo, I was discharged with a sling and a long incision down my shoulder. My instructions were to rest, do physical therapy, and wait for the pathology, which is a miracle story for another day.  

Anyhow, the Sunday after my surgery I decided I was fit enough to lead worship and help serve Communion. With one hand I held the chalice as people came forward. As my parishioners dipped their wafer into the cup they looked at me with great love and gentleness. They exuded God’s kindness.      

It was during that Holy Communion that I came to understand Paul’s words: “The Lord said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

In the faces of those people, young and old, I came to see the all sufficient benevolence of God—the God we know in Jesus Christ. I came to see that suffering can be a crucible for personal-transformation. I came to see that during the struggles of life, in the times of suffering, this is where we often encounter God’s presence. For when we are weak God’s strength becomes evident.    

Now, I don’t have any plans to boast about my many personal experiences of powerlessness. But this I will say, and I will say it with all the conviction and confidence in the world: through God’s power, weakness and powerlessness can become strength. And this power of God’s is worth boasting about.                                                                                                     

 

If I Were A Knight

In the United States, chivalry has, historically speaking, been loosely tied to religion. During the Middle Ages, however, chivalry, or the Chivalric Code, was directly linked to Christianity, or, more properly, the Church.

In all truth, though, the sacred texts of the world’s religions do not much concern themselves with matters of chivalry. Chivalry is, properly speaking, a civil philosophy. Chivalry is a way of being in the world, which may dovetail with certain religious principles, but in and of itself chivalry is not beholden to religion.

I appreciate chivalry and am grateful for its contributions to our society. I fear, however, that chivalry is dead — or at least gasping for breath in a roadside ditch, having been beaten and robbed of its importance. A recent example will illustrate my point:

Last week as I approached the Gate Station on the island, a young man in front of me allowed the heavy-framed glass door to close in the face of a pregnant lady walking directly behind him. The man was in a hurry, as anyone could see by the pace of his steps. But to walk pass a pregnant lady because you’re in a hurry and allow the heavy door to shut in her face is shameful. The man’s action made me angry. If I were a knight I would have drawn my sword.

The incident at the gas station reminded me of a quote by the 19th-century author, Louisa May Alcott: “Gentlemen, be courteous to the old maids, no matter how poor and plain and prim, for the only chivalry worth having is that which is the readiest to pay deference to the old, protect the feeble, and serve womankind, regardless of rank, age, or color.”

I was raised on the bread of chivalry. Despite the detractors of chivalry, I’m feeding my son the same fare. My son is learning to open the door for a lady (not because she can’t do it herself, but out of honor!), give up his seat to a lady or the aged, and say “yes ma’am,” “thank you,” and “please.” I am teaching my son to defend kids who are unable to defend themselves, to speak against public vulgarity, dress appropriate for all occasions, and always be charitable and generous.

It’s my judgment that, by and large, our culture no longer swims in the historic rivers of honor and duty, which is why fewer and fewer young men embrace the virtue of chivalry. Be this as it may, I will continue to take my stand and make my appeal:

Fathers and grandfathers, as you teach your sons and grandsons to fish or play football, do not neglect to teach the code that has long greased the wheels of a more beautiful and genteel society. Or, to paraphrase the British philosopher John Stuart Mill: Do not neglect the Chivalric code, which remains one of the most precious monuments of the moral history of our race.

Putting God in Tupperware

People try to pin God down. Figure God out. Box God in. People develop elaborate, and not so elaborate, theological containers for God. As if anyone could put God in cage. As if anyone could put God in Tupperware like last night's leftovers.

People say, "The Bible says that God is...." Perhaps the Bible does say this or that about God. But to use the Bible as an exhaustive measuring scoop for God is anti-biblical. The Bible goes to great lengths to dissuade people from the erroneous notion that God can be fully comprehended. The biblical descriptions of God are not meant to be exhaustive of God. For how can God ever be exhausted? And if descriptions of God cannot be exhaustive then we must be very careful about our God-claims. We must be humble. Our claims must be tentative. Hubris has no place in conversations about God.

Where is God?

The mother who loses a child to a car wreck, the husband who loses his wife to cancer, the teenage girl who loses a boyfriend to a freak accident while on spring break, the parents who learn that their son died of a roadside bomb in Iraq: they have all asked "Why?" They have all asked, "Where is God?"

And what is the best answer? What is the right answer? What is the real answer, if different from the two previous questions?

The longer I live the more I have learned to content myself with saying, "I don't know." It's comforting to realize that we do not need to defend God. We do not need to explain God (as if we really ever could explain God). We do not need to excuse God. We do not need to exonerate God. God is who God is. And God will be who God will be. And God will be what God will be.

In the face of ugly circumstances that smash our sense of right and wrong; in the face of tragedies, both natural and moral, we cannot ever satisfactorily, or ultimately answer the crying mother's question of "Where is God?"

But we can say this: The God we know in Jesus does not forsake us.

Encouragement

A friend in New York City who teaches at a prep school lamented to me: “The faculty never speak a word of encouragement. It’s always the same thing — criticize, criticize, criticize. It’s enough to make me quit my job.”

Why is it that we often find it easier to criticize rather than to encourage one another? The 19th century writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, wrote, “Correction does much, but encouragement does more.” My own experience agrees with this wisdom.

After speaking with my friend in New York City, I’ve been wondering if we criticize others to make ourselves feel better. I’ve also been wondering what our critical assessment of other people says about our image of God, by which I mean how we understand God’s character or personality.
It’s my opinion that there is a strong connection between a person’s image of God as a heavenly critic and his or her own criticism of other people. If God is always looking at your faults, then you might be more eager to look at the faults of other people.

But here’s the thing: God is not always looking at our faults. I know of no primary religious text in any major world religion that suggests God is always out to get us. I know of no sacred writing that imagines God as a Being who unyieldingly criticizes humanity. Rather, God is the great encourager.
Of course, it is not just people of religious faith who are critical rather than encouraging of others. But, as a pastor-theologian, I have to ask: Why do many of us religious types swiftly criticize other people rather than encourage them? Doesn’t our religious faith inspire the best in us, which should lead us to inspire the best in other people?

As someone who is privy to the inner lives of many people, I am struck by the lack of encouragement that people feel in daily life. Our culture is swimming in aspersions. To paraphrase the black country music star Charlie Pride, who felt the sting of criticism from both white and black detractors, “What we don’t need… is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgment of what belongs and what doesn’t.”

Ask any psychologist and he or she will tell you that encouragement is what’s needed to thrive. As the famous American writer Harper Lee said in an interview, “I never expected any sort of success with ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’... I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.”

Even the greatest among us need encouragement. And if the greatest among us need encouragement, how much more so you and me and those for whom life has been a series of failures and bad starts?
So, dear readers, stop overly criticizing other people — or yourself. Rather, take the perspective of a verse from the Christian New Testament: “Encourage one another and build up each other.”

Litter Bugs

You probably never litter. Or, maybe it’s just been a while since you last tossed a coke can out the window. Or, maybe it’s your practice to litter all of the time, throwing cigarette butts, McDonald’s bags and beer cans along U.S. 1 and A1A. Maybe it was you that I saw just the other day.

We were headed into downtown. We were stopped on the bridge. I was behind you. You were driving a Honda sedan. I saw you holding the cigarette near the tinted open window. And I thought to myself: “Surely she won’t throw the butt on the road” — though I knew it to be a distinct possibility because I pick up trash on Pope Road and cigarette butts are the most prevalent form of litter.

My optimism was shattered: you took one more drag of your stick and then flicked the cig onto the pavement. I’ve been wondering how many ciggy’s you’ve deposited on our roadways and beaches. And since you don’t mind throwing butts out the window of your ride, maybe you’re the one who throws 46 ounce Styrofoam cups onto A1A. I’m not an environmental warrior. But I do think the old Native American proverb is accurate: “We do not inherit the EARTH from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”

OK, OK. I will stop pointing my finger. I know that it’s not nice. And besides, Jesus has said: “Do not judge lest you be judged.” Nonetheless, I’m very frustrated with litter bugs.

In graduate school I studied the psychologist Carl Jung. Jung once wrote: “The thing that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” I believe this nugget of truth. I know that littering is one of the things that irritates me, but I’m still wrestling with what it is supposed to teach me about myself. Maybe I’m supposed to learn that I shouldn’t judge litterbugs. Because that’s what I do. I judged you when you threw the butt out of your Honda window. And I know I shouldn’t judge you. It’s like Mother Theresa once said: “If you’re judging people you have no time to love them.”

Be that as it may, and as a student of ancient Greek philosophy, I think the oft-quoted statement by Euripides bears repeating here: “Judge a tree by its fruit.”

Euripides, Jesus and Mother Theresa have to be held in tension, I think. After all, it’s impossible not to evaluate people’s actions. If we don’t evaluate — judge — people’s actions, and our own actions, how would we ever know that littering is not the right way to live in community?

So, on the one hand, I owe you, dear litter bug, an apology for judging your public untidiness. But, on the other hand, I love you enough to tell you that your behavior is inappropriate.

Money

To paraphrase Plato, too much money is as bad as too little money. They both bring their own concerns.
In most cases that I know, lack of money is not the issue: too much desire is the problem. Lessen desire and less money is needed. Whether rich or poor, discontentment can bleed you to death. If you're not content with what you have then you will suffer. No amount of money can appease a dissatisfied heart.
The richest person is the person who is grateful for what she has in the moment.