Fit to be Tied

October 23, 2016

The news coverage of Sunday's Arizona Cardinals - Seattle Seahawks game (final score 6-6 in overtime) is all over the map.  Some reporters lament that the NFL may actually lose some more ratings points because the overtime tie that came about as a result of a largely defensive battle were apparently not entertaining enough for the American people.  Some reporters chose to zero in on the two missed field goals that statistically were as likely to be missed as the NFL is likely to become less greedy. These reporters seemed to have missed some human compassion for the surely crushed and cringing kickers Steven Hauschka and Chandler Catanzaro.   Both kickers missed what were considered easy field goals, but their mistakes met with entirely different reactions:

From the Cardinals coach on Catanzaro's miss:

"Make it. He's a professional. This ain't high school. You get paid to make it."

From the Seahawks coach on Hauschka's miss:

"Hausch made his kicks to give us a chance and unfortunately he didn't make the last one...Just checked in with him. He's been making kicks for us for years, and I love him and he's our guy."

Which begs the obvious question:

Who would you rather work for?

Still other reporters took this game as another golden opportunity to attack the Seahawks offense, which is one of the lowest paid in the NFL, and apparently, according to some, deserving of loss.   That storyline doesn't show much hope for subsiding anytime in the near future.  

A few, very welcome reporters and news agencies chose to focus on the gold star stories in the game.  Among them, an injured quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks named Russell Wilson who, despite appearing to be a dismal failure on Sunday, stayed the course, and advanced on an incredibly even keel to keep trying and never give up, a hallmark of Seahawks character.  And then, there was the other side of the game where an aging quarterback on the Cardinals offense, Carson Palmer, also continued to try, try, try... despite being on the field for a ridiculous amount of minutes.  Palmer also did so with a remarkable consistency considering the brick wall called the Seattle Seahawks defense that seemed to stand between his team and scoring any substantive points.   

Other reporters chose to focus on my favorite storyline to come out of Sunday's maddening game:  that carried by Richard Sherman, master of the emotional outburst in the previous week's game against the Atlanta Falcons.  Rather than being shamed by the press with regard to the anger he showered on national television the week before...Rather than being crippled or weakened by such a venting of emotion... he played one of the best games of his career, not by the end score, not necessarily by the favored statistics... but instead by the fact that he held one of the best wide receivers in the game to ridiculously low yards and did so for an unbelievable proportion of minutes.  He drove himself so hard that he couldn't move in the locker room after the game.  Win or lose, he poured all of himself into his passion and craft.

Those of us out there who have given so much that we temporarily render ourselves catatonic, understand how this goes.  Whether the giving is physical, intellectual, emotional, or far more common, a combination of those things, we understand what it's like to collapse... depleted but knowing that we made ourselves vulnerable and gave it our all. We know that the critique that almost inevitably comes afterward, the unfair or dismissive comments of what we gave... will hurt.  But, watching this kind of story unfold on national TV was a welcome sight.  

In many ways, that's the kind of example those in the national spotlight should set and the one that often makes the most difference.  It's not the moves or the prizes or the performances that win the squeaky clean, universally affirming press coverage that make the difference.  It's the giving it all performances that meet instead with mixed, quirky, off-topic, and generally unsympathetic coverage that stimulate those that are watching to get up in the morning and give it all, no matter what the consequence.  

Despite the fact that I am called to a place where the unsympathetic feedback is more the norm than the exception, I'll get up tomorrow morning and give it my all.  I might have held back, if I hadn't watched what I did for almost four exhausting hours last night.  I might have just given less than what I could, held back, protected my heart, admitted defeat in my limited impact.  But, instead, I'll get up, and push that light inside of me out into the world by trying my very best to be a better teacher tomorrow than yesterday ... no matter what the consequences.  

And, I can hope that my efforts to that effect might also inspire someone else to do exactly that... give it everything without regard to the consequences or aftermath.   
Is that corny?  Well, of course. So?

The Grief Train

In its first round of attack, grief is more like a bullet train.  It races through the heart relentlessly, spreading pain, anger, grief, denial, and emotional debilitation in its various phases.   Remaining on a tight and frequent schedule, the bullet train of grief eventually decides to go elsewhere for amusement and is replaced by a less frequent, conventional train of grief.  Some who we love and lose are only passengers on a car; others are entire cars in and of themselves.  But, regardless of how much they add to the lasting train, it seems as we cycle through grief, all of these losses remain, linger, and build the train up from almost nothing in our younger years to something that can delay us for quite a long time as we wait at the railroad crossing.

As I watch pensively those who are older than me and who are serving as role models for how to age well with Light, I wonder how they bear the burden of the ever increasing loss of loved ones.  As the grief train accumulates more and more cars, does it ever become too much?  Does it overwhelm in the middle of the night?  On dates of significance?  On random notes?

Or, by necessity, does the grief train resort to a free ranging weight on the heart and spirit that, while heavy and dark, still allows for getting up every day?  Do the cars travel into the station, one at a time, considered only as isolated losses rather than a pervasive blanket of emptiness?

For me, at middle age, the grief train comes in moments, and mostly unpredictable ones.  The moments can fill my consciousness in an instant, bringing immediate burning tears to my eyes, making complete sentences an impossibility, and putting professional composure out of reach.  Sometimes, the train leaves as quickly as it arrived, allowing me to return to some semblance of normal behavior. Sometimes the train lingers.  Sometimes, I wonder how to live my remaining years never being able to see those that I've lost until...

While I love this beautiful place that God has created for us to live our lives, I can imagine a day when the grief train will have too many cars, be too much to bear. And, on that day, I can see that, despite the draw of this beautiful Earth, despite the many things left to do in serving a broken world, regardless of the many lessons still left to learn... I will turn the corner, and long to go from this wonderful home to Home.  
Because, much as I would like to say so, I am not yet... confident... and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord  (2 Corinthians 5:8)

Soil, Sand, Clay, Concrete

I dig a lot of holes in life.  Fortunately, at least some are literal and not dysfunctional... tangible, earthy holes dug for a specific purpose that involves liberating a tree from a roadway or a plant root bound in a too small plastic container...

Digging holes requires some preparation and pondering.  A sunny day is a bonus. Avoiding the dry season (at least in the West) is wise.  And then comes donning the ragged work clothes, worn and impossibly dirty sneakers, gloves, the right tools (and some of the wrong ones), and on the list goes. Once dressed and equipped for a digging adventure though, I have to take a few moments for the pondering.

Resting my arm on the shovel, acting almost as if I am a wise steward of the land, I look out into the garden, or the woods, or some other part of our acreage, and ponder.

Where might be the best place to set this new green creature free?   Sun, part sun, part shade, morning sun, shade, or afternoon sun?   Along a slope or on the flat? Next to an acid lover or far from one whose pH lurks below 7?   As the pondering progresses and the decisions are locked in... some more slowly than others... some accompanied by a short break to bask in whatever weather is the flavor of the day... the last decision almost always involves the soil mix that will accompany the latest greenie into the ground.

Fertile nurse log soil?  Sand?   No problem.  Easy to dig.  Joyful to plant.

Clay?  Much more intimidating.  Clay with rocks?  Requires a rather lengthy commitment of time and may tempt me to pick another day for my digging adventure. Regardless, I will get around to it. If you know me for any length of time, you know that I don't avoid digging holes for very long.   Always determined to get yet another something or other into the ground.

Concrete, however?  No.  Digging in concrete requires heavy machinery (and a darn good reason to dig it up).   Concrete requires something well beyond myself to turn a spot into a home for my green friends.   I have chipped away, dug into, and scooped away almost any type of soil in my life. Sometimes in more of a crazy frenzy of physical labor than others.  But, I draw the line at concrete. It is more than I (and my lower back) can bear.  Digging and concrete do not go together.

But, if I were in a bind, and just had to plant in a spot overlaid in concrete, I would recruit the appropriate power tool and begin not by digging, not by coaxing, but by shattering... breaking the concrete to pieces, not only so I could haul it out of the way, but also to clear a space for sun to infiltrate, moisture to rest, and nutrients to restore the underlying soil into something that could then host any range of appropriately zoned plants and trees.

I certainly don't and can't fully understand why and how some of our human hearts have become hardened in concrete.   But, after my own many years of digging, I can imagine that our God knows that hardened hearts can't be replanted successfully with any traditional tools.  No measure of fertilizer, seeding, or sunshine can evolve concrete into a lush spiritual ecosystem.

Instead, it seems that the only way to reach hardened hearts appears to be by shattering them... breaking them into a messy multitude of pieces in order to grow anew. In the Old Testament, God regularly orders such shattering events to take place so that His people can begin anew, so hearts can grow fertile agin.  But, in the New Testament, God appears to have left behind the practice of creating tragedy, destruction, and trauma just for the purpose of deconstructing hardened hearts.

In this new age ushered in by His son's presence in this world, God's hands seem, in part, to be tied... by His love for us. As I read the verses in the Bible that speak to hardened, unreachable hearts, my heart is dismayed at the suggestion of hopelessness to those whose hearts are in this resistant and unapproachable state of affairs:

You will indeed hear but never understand and you will indeed see but never perceive.  For this people's heart has grown dull and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed... (Matthew 13: 14-15).

Could it be that this is not the whole story?   Could it really be that a heart hardened and overlaid by concrete is beyond hope, beyond reach, and beyond salvation?  Or, instead, is it that an ever vigilant God now has to wait for something of this world to shatter that heart?  to break it beyond apparent repair... and, in the process of working all things for good...

And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28)

Does He step in and rebuild a once hardened, but now shattered heart... into something more fertile, more reachable, and infinitely more close to Him?

I am painfully aware that this little monologue doesn't solve the hopelessness for some that is embedded in the puzzle of predestination.  But, it does offer more hope for my own service in this world, more motivation to love, more presence to care, and more reminder to be alongside those who hurt... no matter what my Google calendar may suggest otherwise.

How Pretty.

I took this photo two days ago (actually, my camera took it ... I am just the messenger)  at a place called Ebey's landing on our not-so-little Whidbey Island:

...my first thought was not "How Pretty!"... even though that particular language did come a little bit later in my internal mental dialogue (of which there is much, just ask my psychiatrist).   My second thought was a series of technical ones, all directed toward figuring out how an ordinary camera lens and optics could distort that round bright ball in the sky into what I saw on the resulting image.   This train of thought didn't last very long, because the benefits of surmising a range of hypotheses regarding the scientific origin of my cameras's unexpected behavior just weren't that important to me.

Instead, my first thought began with speechlessness and disbelief.  And, being the jaded, skeptical type of person I often excel at, I took another 20 or 30 photos with the same lens and scenery to verify that I had more than just a "once only" in my digital hands.   The star remained, prompting me to move beyond the speechlessness that lingered in both my mind and heart.

Until the sun dropped below the approaching fog on the horizon, the six points of the start remained.   Six points speaking to God's six days of creating the world.  Six points speaking to the six attributes of God symbolized by the star:  power, love, wisdom, mercy, justice, and majesty.

As my speechlessness passed, I had my first thought, an entirely crazy one:

Why is the Star of Creation casting a glow on Whidbey Island, Washington?
What is it doing HERE, of all places?

I realize that it would be safer (and less crazy) to just trim my thoughts back to "How Pretty".   But, why do it that way? Why not think for a moment that God is not only right here on Whidbey Island, but planning to reveal Himself soon in a way that those here who don't know Him will have, as their first six thoughts:

Power, Love, Wisdom, Mercy,  Justice, and Majesty

Would that be totally awesome or what?

Levitucus

I once volunteered to be part of a group at our church to read the entire Bible, cover to cover, in sequence, out loud, in our new sanctuary.  We were assigned 30 minute slots to run 24 hours around the clock until we finished.  Lucky me.  I won a 2 a.m. slot on a Saturday night.  But, the middle of the night assignment was not nearly the most joyful part of this effort.  Rather, in addition to rolling down to Seattle in the middle of a Saturday night, I also did so to read Leviticus for 30 minutes. I honestly do not recall whether I finished the reading in street clothes or pajamas.  But, since no one was around to observe except my Heavenly Father Himself, I think either set of clothing worked out OK.

The Book of Leviticus was written by Moses and includes procedural law at a level of detail that has been scientifically proven to make the eyes of believers fall out of their heads while reading it.  To say that it is detail oriented is to say that the sky is blue.  To say that the language is dense and a certain cure for insomnia for all those reading it ... is very close to Biblical truth.

But, aside from the semi-infinite litany of text that endeavors to micromanage the behavior of the often errant Israelites, Leviticus has since been parsed into a Sometimes, Sometimes Not book... and that bothers me more than its dry and dense language.  Sometimes, rules contained within the verses of Leviticus are honored and Sometimes, they are not. The most often used distinction between the Sometimes and Sometimes Not camps appears to be whether a rule found in Leviticus was culturally derived or spiritually derived.   Although history, theology, and scientific knowledge are a great foundation for drawing a line between the two camps, there always remains some uncertainty as to whether the lines we draw are true ones.

For example, Leviticus says both that a woman is unclean during her period (and therefore, a great deal more than usual must be thrown in the washing machine during her monthly time) and that if a man has sexual relations with a man, (as he does with a woman), it is abominable and they both shall be put to death.  Western culture has clearly tossed the former set of verses and often retained the latter set. While I understand that other parts of the Bible may support the wrongness of homosexual behavior, I believe we have no right to dive into black and white thinking with regard to Leviticus.  At best, Leviticus gives us something to think about in terms of seeking out Truth.  And if we fundamentally continue to ignore Leviticus Sometimes and Sometimes not, we need to stay humble about using Leviticus as a weapon or an argument in seeking or stating Truth.

At best, Leviticus provides possible evidence for Truth.  At worst, it can lead us into black and white thinking that leads astray from The Golden Rule (So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you -- Matthew 7:12).

So, as I curl up with my husband in the same bed during that time of the month, without overloading the washing machine, it is always a reminder to me to stay prayerful and humble and to accept uncertainty rather than sandblast it into black and white corners of my limited understanding of God's design for His people.

And, finally, it saddens me immensely when those I know and those whom I talk with on these challenging issues assume that if I am uncertain, I must be on the other side of the argument.

I simply don't know the answers.  I don't know the whole Truth.  I admit it.

MP3 Player

I recently read scientific research which has shown that even when the human brain is stricken and incapacitated with Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia, it retains and replays memories of songs we've listened to throughout our lives.

Unfortunately, this research tells me that the AC/DC song that I listened to while running/walking around a track for two hours in high school for some cause I've long since forgotten, will haunt me until the day I die. I wish I had known about this research at 17 as I would have run far from two hours of the same AC/DC song infiltrating my developing brain over and over again, but... hindsight is 20/20.

On the other, greener side of the AC/DC problem is the fact that the MP3 player that is apparently lodged in my head for perpetuity will continue to spontaneously play my favorite worship songs at unpredictable times for the rest of my life.  And, if I know God the way I think He tells me to know Him, these wonderful songs will get played at times I need them most, even when I no long have control over retrieving the memories, playing them on i-Tunes, or inserting a CD into the stereo.

Presumably, if I succumb to one of these horrible diseases, I will also shed my inhibitions while retaining my gray matter-based MP3 player.  And, though I won't have the opportunity to remember it, I hope I dance across the floors wherever I am, celebrating and worshiping a God who, even in the darkest of times, has found a way to remain within me and close to me.