Posts in Category: down to earth believer
“The Helpfulness of Love”
“1Cor. 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (English Standard Version)
What is love, anyway? Sorry to ask such a simple question, but I really would like to know. Hey, what can I say? I’m a beginner!
According to the Lexicon of the New Testament, the word used for second characteristic of real love is part of a configuration of related words (“χρηστεύομαι, χρηστός, χρηστότης, chresteuomai, chrestos, and chrestotes”) that can be translated with a variety of English words: “to be good, kind, benevolent;, useful, serviceable, good, benevolent, favorable; usefulness, good quality, goodness”
The word is often translated “kind” in English translations. However, I was especially struck by the word “useful” as one of the nuances of the Greek word. Love is useful! Huh!
Furthermore, this word is a verb, an action word. Usefulness is not a quality. It is something we do. Indeed, all the “qualities” of love that are listed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 are verbs. And love itself in the New Testament is often a verb. I suspect that this tallies with much in our own experience.
One more nitty-gritty grammatical item: The verb for “being useful” is in the present tense. In Greek, the present tense suggests ongoing, repetitive action. According to Paul, usefulness isn’t spasm or a sprint. It is being useful over the long haul. Real usefulness is a marathon.
When I think of my mom, I think of the word “love”, but I also think of the word “useful”. Mom served. She served me, dad, my brothers and sister, neighbors, people she liked, and the very few people she didn’t like.
I think of my wife, and I think of the words “love” and “usefulness”. She serves me and anybody else who needs serving, and will allow her to do so. As I write this post, she is serving her mom who is confined to a bed and is not always easy to serve.
So, my affirmation for today is as follows: “Today, by God’s grace, I am serving at least three other people in some small way. I am also gratefully receiving all the blessings that God and other people have for me.”
“The Ugliness of Alzheimer’s and the Beauty of Swan Lake”
My wife showed me a wonderful video of a woman who has Alzheimer’s Disease. According to NPR, aspects of her backstory are disputed (or perhaps, even false). But three important things seem to be beyond dispute.
- The woman does likely have dementia, either Alzheimer’s or some other kind of dementia.
- The music of “Swan Lake,” and music in general, is powerful and evocative.
- The woman knew how to dance, and the music awakened that memory.
You should view the video before you proceed in reading this post. You may do so at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsLLXY_wZYI.
. . .
My wife, after reading my post of November 12, 2020 (“The Magic is in the Story), wrote, “I like your post. I was thinking of the prima ballerina video that I showed you the other day. There was beauty and ugliness in the story but also magic. The magic was revealed in the midst of the ugliness of Alzheimer’s in the beauty of the dance. A story such as this, that can bring you to tears, is true magic.”
There is a kind of memory that is known as “muscle memory.” It is memory that comes from practicing the same movements of parts of our body (or the whole body) over a long period of time. It is crucial in everyday activities, in sports, in playing or singing music, and in dancing. After certain motions are done consistently over a long period of time, it becomes second nature to us. Perhaps it even becomes part of our first nature.
The woman in the video was in a wheelchair. She did not seem very alert mentally. Yet the music awakened her muscle memory and she danced.
Faith, love, joy, gratitude, obedience—all these virtues and more—can become part of our spiritual “muscle memory.” We spend entirely too much time waiting to be zapped from above with these things. And then, we become depressed when the zapping never comes.
We have sayings in twelve-step work that reflect the importance of practicing and developing good recovery muscle memory. Here are three of these sayings:
- Move a muscle; change a thought.
- It works if you work it and give a lot of love.
- One day at a time.
My prayer for both you and me today, indeed for every day, is that we will practice developing our emotional, spiritual, and relational muscles today. You don’t even need to go to the gym to do that! You can learn to dance wherever and however you are.
“The Magic is in the Story”
I was at a church, and they had a number of magicians who were going to put on a brief show. I was thinking about doing something myself, but I couldn’t think of anything to do. I don’t generally do magic. And I hardly, if ever, do brief.
But then, I said to myself, “Well, I’ll just watch and listen and enjoy what the others do. Really listening to someone else in an open and reverential manner is also a form of magic.”
“Or,” someone next to me said, “you could tell them a story. The magic is in the story.”
And then I woke up. And yes, the magic is indeed in the story.
Someone has said that the difference between asking the same question of a Protestant minister and a rabbi, is this: If you ask the Protestant the question, you’ll get doctrine. If you ask the rabbi the same question, he’ll respond, “Let me tell you a story.”
I believe in magic. Not in black magic which seeks to manipulate reality. Not in sleight-of-hand tricks that simply misdirect the eyes and the mind. No, I believe in the true and deep magic that embraces both the truest beauties and the ugliest realities of life. And by this embrace of beauty and ugliness, true and deep Magic encloses them in a story, a story of unspeakable evil that is conquered by unfathomable love.
For me, as a deeply flawed beginner at following Christ, this magical story comes to its end and its beginning with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cross and the empty tomb are the end of Jesus’ earthly story, and—at the same time—they are the beginning of new life for me and for us all.
But for all of us, even those who are not Christ-followers, the magic is in our stories. We may not be able to see it, but it’s there. And we need to see and hear and feel the magic of our own stories and the magic of everyone else’s story.
Because the magic is in the story.
“Still on the Design Board”
“As you look back over your life, it is not too difficult to believe that what you went through was for a purpose, to prepare you for some valuable work in life. Everything in your life may well have been planned by God to make you of some use in the world. Each person’s life is like the pattern of a mosaic. Each thing that happened to you is like one tiny stone in the mosaic, and each tiny stone fits into the perfected pattern of the mosaic of your life, which has been designed by God.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may not need to see the whole design of my life. I pray that I may trust the Designer.” (From Twenty-Four Hours a Day © 1975 by Hazelden Foundation.)
Even though I am sixty-nine-and-a-half, I am still on the drawing board. The Great Designer continues to work on me. He is very creative and very patient.
The problem is that his work on me feels like radical surgery without the benefit of an anesthetic. I am not usually aware of his desires for the final product, but I am keenly aware of the pain.
But of course the pain hasn’t killed me yet. Maybe it won’t.
Sometimes, I get really discouraged when I think of how many years and days I’ve had on this planet and how few years (?) or days (?) I may have left. But then I remember that the Designer who is working on me is eternal himself, and that what he designs is also eternal.
“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,
and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” (Hebrews 12:11-13, English Standard Version)
So, I say a very reluctant “Get on with it, LORD! Don’t mind the whining and screaming. You know what you’re doing, even when I don’t.”
“Living Lightly with God”
I am not good at living lightly. No matter what the situation, my philosophy is often summed up by the following proverb: “Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.” While this proverb—like most proverbs—serves me well occasionally, it often creates more problems than it solves. I tend to pack too many things for vacations and keep too many throw-away bottles because “we might them, and I want to keep them out of landfills.” I also keep broken equipment, thinking that I will eventually get around to fixing said equipment. Of course, I rarely do. I don’t think I’m a hoarder, but I am for sure on the cusp of becoming one.
God is continually reminding me that my life needs to be simpler. The reason he needs to remind me so often is that I am continually forgetting God’s call to simplicity. But, am I forgetting or willfully ignoring? I think I know the answer, and I don’t like it.
Sometimes, it is helpful for me to think in terms of the big picture. I didn’t have anything or any freedom when I entered this life. I didn’t even come with a diaper. And when I die, I won’t have anything, including one more breath or heartbeat. Meanwhile, everything that I “have” is on loan.
“You are sojourners with me.” (Leviticus 25:23.) God is speaking to Israel just before they entered the Promised Land. Israel didn’t own the land. God did. And they were living there as resident aliens.
There’s a song by 38 Special called “Hold on loosely.” The chorus is pretty simple, but also very powerful: “Hold on loosely, but don’t let go. If you cling too tightly, you’re gonna lose control.”
May I, may we all, hold on loosely today.
“The Glory of Overlooking Things”
“Prov. 19:11 Good sense makes one slow to anger,
and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” (English Standard Version)
I wasn’t very glorious the other day. In fact, I almost caused a very serious accident. The details don’t matter. What does matter is that I did not handle a highway offence in a glorious manner. Quite the contrary: I allowed a jerk to turn me into a jerk myself.
Of course, if the jerkiness had not been in me, it couldn’t have come out of me. Andy Stanley warns his listeners not to make the following statement, “I don’t know where that came from” when they’ve messed up. Andy says, “I know where it came from. It came from you!” Right! (One of the things I really like about Andy Stanley is that I don’t like a lot of what he says. But, of course, he’s right.)
It is easy to rationalize this proverb, if we simply look at most of the translations. We might think that the word translated “offence” (English Standard Version) suggests a minor offense. Nope! The Hebrew word pāšaʿ suggests a serious violation of trust. This Hebrew word is often translated as “rebellion” or “transgression”. It applies to both rebellion against God and human beings. So, it is not legitimate to say, “Oh, I do in fact overlook minor things, but when it comes to big things, I don’t overlook. I don’t even just get mad. I get even!” And it is always a big deal when someone transgresses against or offends us, isn’t it?
Choosing to overlook an offense doesn’t mean denying it or minimizing it. Rather, creative overlooking means acknowledging wrong-doing, at least to ourselves, and then thinking of the best response. My problem is that I don’t always think about the best response. I simply react. And reactors—nuclear and human reactors—are always in danger of meltdowns. Unless someone is about to pull the trigger on a gun, I almost always have time to think about my response.
And of course, there is prayer. It may need to be short. (“Help God!” comes to mind as being about the proper length of such prayers.)
God, help us to slow down today. Help us to think about our responses. Help us to make glorious choices about how to respond to wrong-doings today. Deliver us from becoming the same kinds of jerks that offend us.
Yes indeed!
“The Lame Blame Game”
“Blame must be assigned, and it wasn’t me.” (A 12-step friend about how his family handled wrong-doing.)
“The woman, whom you gave to be with me, she gave it to me! (And I ate it.)” (Genesis 3:12: Adam, the first man, when God confronted him about his disobedience.)
Blaming others is our national sport right now. Perhaps it always was. We see it (and do it) daily. It is practiced by small children and old people, by men and women, by religious people and by irreligious.
But in reality, blame is really lame. By using the word “lame,” I mean this: Just like a person who can’t use his legs, blame can’t go anywhere.
Don’t get me wrong. Acknowledging the role of others and ourselves in creating problems can be helpful. Confronting others and ourselves when they/we’ve done wrong can be healthy. Cleaning house is not done by merely throwing things in the closet or shoving them under the bed.
However, blame doesn’t simply acknowledge or confront wrong. Blame contents itself with continuing to talk about the wrong of others or of self. Yet, at the same time, blame refuses to do anything to change what’s wrong.
Of course, it’s easy to see the stupidity and uselessness of other people blaming other people (or circumstances or God) for why things aren’t the way we think they ought to be. Seeing that we ourselves are playing the blame game is not so easy. No! Of course, we aren’t blaming. We’re telling the truth about why things are as they are.
Really?
Even blaming ourselves isn’t wise or helpful. That is a truth that I struggle with every day. When I’ve done something wrong—or not done something that I should have done—I tend to go on and on about my failures. But here is the deal: I’ve discovered that continually blaming myself is so much easier than doing something positive to make my own life and the life of others better. But blame is still lame.
In twelve-step programs, steps 10 and 11 seem to me to flow rather naturally.
Step 10: “Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”
Step 11: “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a power greater than ourselves, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.”
The antidote to the lame blame game is to acknowledge our wrongdoing, and then turn to God and seek to discern God’s will for us. And then, we do God’s will. It’s as simple as that. It is also as difficult as that.
“Reflecting my Heavenly Father on a Down Day”
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” (Matthew 5:14, English Standard Version)
“Today, as God helps me, I am a living reflection of my Heavenly Father.” (My twelve-step affirmation this morning)
But I don’t feel much like the light of the world or a living reflection of God this morning. There are reasons.
- My wife left and will be gone for a day-and-a-half.
- It is cool and rainy.
- The daylight hours are short.
- My favorite brother-in-law has covid-19.
- My hands hurt it (arthritis?) so badly that I can hardly type or hold my coffee cup.
- I am worried about the upcoming election and its aftermath.
- Today is the first anniversary of the closing of CCU, where I taught for eleven years.
- I am trying to change my relationship with food. (That is a very positive thing, but difficult, nonetheless.)
But I refuse to do anything to make a difficult day worse. I refuse to think harmful thoughts toward myself or anyone else. I refuse to eat a bunch of junk food. That would make me feel a little better for a little while, but it would also cause me to feel a lot worse in a little while.
Instead, I do positive things, no matter how I feel.
- I take and make 12-step calls and text friends.
- I make myself a cup of vanilla caramel tea and drink it out of a butterfly meadow cup.
- I read some good Scriptures (no Ecclesiastes today, thank you very much!) and other good readings as well.
- I take good care of our little dog, who is a wonderful companion.
- I send a text to my wife about what I’m feeling. (She texts right back with the most encouraging text I’ve ever received from anyone.)
- I listen to a TobyMac c.d.
- I turn on virtually every light we have on the lower level of our Cape Cod.
- I write this blog post and publish it.
I will reflect God’s love and grace no matter how I feel on this or any other day.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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