Surely/Surly

For at least a week last summer I snickered at the sign in front of Oak Grove Baptist Church every day on my way home: “Surly Jesus will come.”

My friends and I had great fun imagining being fed of the loaves and fishes of Surly Jesus. One friend wrote a little skit about Surly Jesus being so surly after spending days on end just looking for a place to go to the bathroom in private without 5000 people right on his heels.

Unfortunately, Surly Jesus is the only Jesus some people know. Surly Jesus inspires churches to make a big deal out of what kind of music the youth group listens to and to believe that the whole place will come crumbling down if Great Aunt Edna’s overgrown azaleas are dug up in favor of more contemporary landscaping. Surly Jesus doesn’t like strangers and thinks that tradition is more important than kindness. Surly Jesus thinks the thermostat needs to be at set at least ten degrees higher or lower than whatever is comfortable for most people. Surly Jesus is a little shocked at women in pants. Surly Jesus thinks divorced people ought to find somewhere else to go to church. Surly Jesus thinks the children are unruly if they stay in the sanctuary for service and that they aren’t being taught proper discipline if they don’t. Surly Jesus has issues, lots of issues. He makes people tired and surly just trying to keep up.

Sometimes you just have to sit back and wonder, “Whatever happened to Surely Jesus will come”?

Surely Jesus…Surely Jesus.

He’s the nice one. He’s the one who remembers that it was always supposed to be about loving one another and that nothing else really matters at all. He’s the one I want to hang around with.

Read Ye Now

End of the Spear
Steve Saint
Saltriver, 2005
ISBN 0-84-236439-0
Amazon Link

I picked up this book at random when my mother was in bed recovering from hip surgery. I didn’t think much beyond, “This looks like something she would like.” I was a little taken aback then by how thrilled she was and how she knew all about the story even though she’d never heard of this book and how she spoke about Elisabeth Elliott as if she were relating memories of a lifelong personal friend. Well, okay, I’d heard about Elisabeth Elliott, and I’d heard about a group of martyred missionaries somewhere in South America some years before I was born. But what I didn’t know was how absorbed my mother was in their story or how closely or personally affected by their story she felt.

After hearing my parents tell about what it was like to hear the news of the deaths of these missionaries, I was not at all surprised that they ate up End of the Spear like it was the last piece of chocolate cake before submitting to a long, harsh winter of low sugar, low fat dieting. They were enthused by this book. They recommended it to everyone who walked through the door. They read passages from it to each other and to anyone who would listen. I suspect my father even called at least one missionary in Central America to tell him about the book.

What surprised me was that I felt the same way about the book. My father is on two mission boards. He is supposed to be excited by missionary books. I don’t have to be. I loved this book purely because it is as engaging and absorbing as it is inspiring.

End of the Spear is a Christian memoir with a Christian message, but you don’t have to be of any particular faith to enjoy it. It’s just a good book, Christian or not. Steve Saint tells the story of taking his wife and children to the jungles of Ecuador to live with the very people who had murdered his father with such depth of descriptive detail and cultural insight that by the end of the story you too will love the Waodani people. If you are a person who believes in God, this book will make you remember why. If you are not, even you will be enthralled and awed by the sheer force of nature the love and faith in this story are.

Just Put it on the List

I was out shopping with my niece yesterday when I asked her to remind me that we needed to get gas before we went anywhere else. She said, "You'd better just put that on the list in your brain."

The problem with the list in my brain is that I keep forgetting where I've put it. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find anyone willing to keep up with it for me. Some things you just have to be responsible for yourself. Now I know.

He Who Stands On Tiptoe is Not Steady

He who stands on tiptoe is not steady.
He who strides cannot maintain the pace.
He who makes a show is not enlightened.
He who is self-righteous is not respected.
He who boasts achieves nothing.
He who brags will not endure.
According to followers of the Tao, "These are extra food and unnecessary luggage".
They do not bring happiness.
Therefore followers of the Tao avoid them.

From the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 24

As it turns out, there are various translations of the Tao Te Ching, some not really even resembling others. I don't know if this is from the King James Version or the New International Version or what, but the point seems to be the same regardless. "It's not about you, baby. If you try to make it about you, you and everyone around you will be miserable. Amen."

How Long is Your Journey?

When I was trying to come up with a name for this blog, I typed in random Blogger addresses just to find out if they already existed. Give this a shot sometime. You’ll find things this way you’d just never read otherwise. I saw one blog that said, “This is where I will chronicle my spiritual journey. Please join me.” That was the only entry on the blog, and it was dated two years ago.

You have no idea how much that cheered me up. How many of us can’t look at that and see ourselves?

I was so going to get my act together, but that was so last Tuesday. Today I have pressures, man. I have stuff to do. You just don’t know.

Wasn’t it Woody Allen who said 80% of success is showing up? I have a feeling that counts for spiritual journeys too.

Thought for the Day

You only have what you give. It's by spending yourself that you become rich.

Isabel Allende

Allende says this in an NPR "This I Believe" essay regarding the lessons she's learned from the death of her daughter.

Ready, Set, Reset

When the computer starts running a little too slowly, I know it’s time for a reboot. It’s been on too long. It’s had too many operations running. It just isn’t working at full capacity. It needs to clean out its memory a little and start over.

I often feel the same way, and it’s no wonder. The human body isn’t designed to keep going and going without a break. We don’t come with Energizer batteries. Even the Lord on High took a day to rest after working all week, and so should we.

Socrates said “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Far be it from me to disagree. The man did have a point, even if that other great philosopher, Woody Allen, rebutted, “Maybe the unexamined life is not worth living, but the examined life is no picnic either.”

The purpose of examining our lives is to set goals and priorities, to purge what’s not working and make way for something that will. As such, I’ve always been a big believer in “the unchallenged life is not worth living.” If I want to spend my time dwelling on something, I’ll take a future potential over a past mistake or accomplishment any day. Hope, after all, is the most interesting companion we could possibly have in this life.

Challenges are beautiful. Challenges are exciting. Challenges make the world go round. And challenges are only met by people who live to see another day.

When things start piling in on you, it’s okay to hit the reset button. Slowing down is not the same as giving up. Sometimes the best thing you can do to help catch up on everything that needs your attention is to take a nap. Clear your head. Read a book. Go for a walk. Empty your mind of its worries, and give your body a chance to relax. If you are really the only person who can get the job done, all that work will still be there when you get back to it. So will all of the possible rewards that go along with it.

Douglas Adams said, “I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.” Let them whoosh, I say. New ones will crop up in their place.

One evening, I realized I was getting sick. I suddenly got a bad headache and a sore throat. I took my temperature: 100.5. A friend called about that time and politely asked how I was doing. I said “Not so great, but I can’t let it get to me. I have to go to work tomorrow.” Everything that needed to be done kept running through my head. I did not want to miss because missing one day would mean everything was thrown off for the whole week. It just wasn’t a good time to get behind, so I kept insisting I was going to work—until the temperature hit 103. Somewhere between 100.5 and 103, my whole perspective changed, not to mention my field of vision.

Responsibility is important. Hard work is important. Meeting obligations is important. But so often we live in a state of 24 hour stress, thinking that’s what’s required to meet those obligations. Then something happens to change our perspective, and we realize we’ve been worrying too much about things that can be done differently if need be.

Know when it’s time to hit the reset button. Just like the computer, your mind and body will work more efficiently once you’ve cleaned out a little pent up stress. Besides, bad moods are contagious, and nobody likes a carrier. By all means, work as hard as you can—until you hit the point of diminishing returns. Then lighten up. Loosen up. Check back only when you’ve given yourself a recharge.

Tragedy

I had not meant to use this blog to report on bad news, but God bless the people of the Phillipines. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Food Fit for Angels

My idea of Heaven is a place where I could eat all the cheesy tots and Girl Scout Cookies I want without gaining weight. I generally go by the rule that if I love it, it's probably bad for me, and I should stay away from it. Sometimes we get to experience a little Heaven on Earth, though, in foods that are both delicious and nutritious. Even fried cheese sticks with ranch dressing don't give me more pleasure than a meal of peas, corn, and tomatoes straight from the garden. And then there's ratatouille. Since it's February, and we can't get anything straight from the garden, allow me to recommend ratatouille as a most divine culinary experience. Delicious, nutritious, and not at all likely to produce unwanted pounds.

Click here for a good recipe.

Eat it cold. Eat it hot. Eat it as a soup. Eat it as a sauce. Eat it over rice. Eat it over pasta. Eat it plain and use a piece of crusty bread to sop up the juice. You can't go wrong any way you go about it.

I've even been known to add heavy whipping cream and curry spices to the leftovers. Yum, yum.

Fit for the angels, no less.

Read Ye Now

The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho
HarperSanFrancisco, 1993
ISBN 0-06-250218-2
Amazon Link

Since the front cover hails this as an "International Bestselling Phenomenon," chances are you've already read it. If not, what are you waiting for?

I believe this book got mixed reviews. Those who love it, adore it. They've formed a kind of cult following for the particular brand of spiritual quest depicted in what Coelho calls "A Fable About Following Your Dream."

The literary cynics don't particularly care for it. It's a little too easy to read and a little too uplifting for them. It isn't just a book about following dreams; it's also about finding God and spiritual purpose for life along the path.

The religious critics aren't likely to embrace it any more enthusiastically than the unbelievers, though. Young Santiago's quest is as mystical as it is religious. Hence, the subtitle "Fable."

However, for those looking to simply enjoy a good book with a positive message, this is a thoroughly enjoyable read full of genuinely uplifting home truths and other points to ponder.

I'll leave you with this passage as a little taste of the kind of truth you'll get from Coelho:

"My Heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

Thought for the Day

Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion toward men and toward objective things.

Albert Einstein

Roll into the Fall

You’ve heard of defensive driving? Well, I have to practice defensive walking. I’m such a klutz that just going to the mailbox is a hazard. Last night, as I was leaving a family dinner at Copeland’s, I tripped and fell in the parking lot. Since I had been drinking nothing but water, I have only my own clumsiness to blame. And like everyone with two left feet, I have no idea how it happened. My brother-in-law said I stepped on a rock, but all I felt was my shoe slipping and myself tripping. It’s not so remarkable that I could manage to trip walking across a flat, paved surface. It wasn’t the first time and won’t be the last. What I’m really proud of is the way I fell. Even my brother-in-law, who never misses an opportunity to tease, only said, “Hey, excellent roll. Now that’s the way to fall.”

I didn’t fall forward or try to break my fall with my hands. I didn’t land on my knees. I simply squatted, rolled onto my side, rolled right over to the other side and back up again in one fluid move. There was too much momentum from tripping to keep from falling. I had no choice but to go down. There was no time to think about it. Just by pure instinct, I caught myself with my muscles and rolled myself along with the fall in a way that protected me from injury. I don’t have a scratch, scrape or bruise on me today. I don’t even have a sore back.

Six months ago I couldn’t have controlled a fall like that. Six months ago I didn’t have the core muscle strength.

We can’t keep things from knocking us down. No matter how good we are or how smart we are or how hard-working we are, there are going to be stones all up in our pathways. Nothing can prevent that.

The only thing we can learn to control is how we handle bad things when they happen. The weaker we are physically, the more likely we are to break something when we fall. The weaker we are emotionally, mentally or spiritually, the more likely we are to break apart when tragedy strikes. Believe me. I’ve broken apart enough to know.

We all need to learn to roll into our falls instead of letting them break us. We need to practice getting stronger in mind, body and spirit each and every day so that we’re able to protect ourselves and those closest to us when the hard knocks hit.

People we love are going to die. Others are going to disappoint us or betray us. We’re going to experience illness and injury. We’re going to experience financial hardship and discouragement. Disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, are going come along and change our whole worlds when we least expect it.

That’s life, as they say.

There is nothing remarkable about suffering. Suffering is everywhere and in everyone. No one is charmed enough to escape for long.

How much you personally suffer has very little to do with how many bad things happen to you. It has much more to do with how you choose to react. Learn to roll into your falls. Learn to accept the bad, accept getting knocked off balance, without ever allowing yourself to lose control of where your falls take the person you are in your core.

An Otter Among Poodles

I had a professor who often said, “Work against your strengths.” He taught poetry writing, and he meant by that to work on being more expansive if your strength was in very succinct expression or to work on being more lyrical if your strength was in narrative descriptiveness. His theory was that whatever you were naturally gifted in would not go away with neglect. It’s everything else that needs your effort.

He had a good point, and following that advice helps people keep from getting in ruts. It creates constant challenges and opens the eyes to a steady flow of new ways to learn and new ways to improve. Improvement is good. Improvement means we are never just sitting still. We are never stagnating or regressing. And lives in motion, after all, are always more beautiful than lumps of aching flesh molded into sofa cushions.

I’m not good at being organized, but I don’t really have to live my life in clutter and chaos. I can work with that weakness if I choose. Lord knows, there are whole industries of products available to help streamline my life, chief among them that old standby known as the waste basket. I can bring order to all these stacks and piles strewn about…if I choose. It’s in me, and despite all of my excuses, life would become more pleasant for the effort of pinpointing a weakness and going at it with all the zest of a Chihuahua nipping at the heels of an unwanted guest.

On the other hand, sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves and others is to accept our limitations. I could have saved my parents ten years worth of piano lesson bills if I’d ever just said, “Hey, I’m tone deaf. I’m not ever going to be a musician.”

The trick is in the discernment. There is a difference in being a realist and being a defeatist.

The first night I went to Pilates class, I sent an email to a friend saying, “I was an otter in a room full of poodles.”

She replied, “Just enjoy being an otter. One day you’ll look at yourself in the mirror and realize you’ve become a poodle.”

It’s so easy to give up. I’m not athletic. I’m not limber. I just can’t do it.

I’m not smart enough. I’m not talented enough. I’m not ambitious enough. I’ve always had a problem with that.

Excuses abound, but sometimes the best things in life are the abilities we had to work the hardest to achieve. Maybe a strength neglected will not go away (but I have heard a lesson before about buried talents). A weakness neglected is almost certain to become a handicap. The choice is yours.

Thought for the Day

Good has two meanings: it means that which is good absolutely and that which is good for somebody.

Aristotle

Keep Your Eye on the Goal

I have an exercise DVD called Tae Bo Believers Workout. It cracks me up. I bought it in the first place because I was so tickled over the idea of yelling “Praise Jesus” for my kicks and punches. It is a good workout, though, and I do recommend it, especially for people who are motivated by praising Jesus for their elevated heart rates and sweaty T-shirts.

In this program, Billy Blanks says at one point, “Keep your eye on the goal. Like Peter in the boat, you’ve got to keep your eye on the goal.”

This is sound advice no matter what your personal faith may be, though I do have to admit I giggled when I first heard it. Me finishing a workout hardly compares to a chosen disciple walking across the stormy sea to meet the Savior of all Mankind. Or does it?

When I was in my mid-twenties and a graduate student at Oklahoma State, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I was devastated. I was frightened. I was on my own in the world with a big problem. My fear was increased tenfold by the fact that I knew exactly what rheumatoid arthritis could do to a person. I’d grown up in fear of what it had done to my grandfather. By the time I knew him, his hands and feet were knotted up beyond all recognition, and he needed help just to accomplish the simplest of tasks.

At first when people told me things like “Cheer up; Have faith” it didn’t mean anything to me. My grandfather was a preacher for crying out loud. If faith could heal anybody, it ought to have healed him. And if anybody had the odds stacked against her, it ought to have been me. I also had allergies and asthma and had suffered my whole life with an immune system that just didn’t quite work right. It always took me far longer to recover from sickness than “normal” people.

That diagnosis came well more than a decade ago, though, and today I am as healthy as I’ve ever been in my life. I can’t explain why. If I knew the solution to chronic illness, I’d bottle it up and give it away to the people still suffering. Call it luck. Call it the Grace of God. Call it determination or faith or whatever you like.

One doctor told me that my blood work indicated I had the most severe form of the disease. That would be consistent with my family history, but it apparently is not so. I simply don’t know why. I do know that I have kept my eye on the goal and that this has made a real difference in my life.

Once when I was first diagnosed, I remember telling a friend, “This is unbearable pain.” He said, “No it isn’t. If it were unbearable, you’d be dead or at least passed out. It can’t be as bad as that.”

Thank God for callous people. I’ve learned most of life’s lessons from them.

The truth is the body can bear most anything if the mind is somewhere else. The heart can bear most anything too if the mind is focused on meeting the goals of faith and higher purpose.

When Katrina hit, the world was a mess here in South Mississippi. I just wanted to sit down and cry. It seemed impossible that this mess would ever get cleaned up. Were it not for thousands upon thousands of people looking at the goal instead of the problem, we’d still be in just as big of a mess.

Keep your eye on the goal. As soon as you start looking at how big your storm is, you’re going to sink and drown in it. I can’t promise that every goal you set will be met, but I can guarantee that you’ll never get anywhere without first envisioning what you want to accomplish and believing in it.

Grow Toward the Light

This is my thought for the day. Grow toward the light.

I noticed this morning that one of my plants is all gnarled up and pitiful looking because I've left it in a room where the blinds have been closed for too long. It is straining and struggling for light. It has twisted itself into a very unusual shape just trying to grow in the direction of what little light it has had available. On the side farthest from the window, it is brown and wilted and very near death.

In the other room, plants that have had plentiful light are thriving, though they are still bushier and prettier on the sides nearest the window.

Don't struggle for light in your life. Open up and let it flow through you in abundance.

I always think I don't have time for things that bring joy into my life. I'm a very busy person, and I tend to become very anxious as more and more responsibilities pile up on top of me. I don't have time to go to Pilates classes in the evenings. I don't have time to go to church. I don't have time to go to the birthday parties for all of the little children in my family. I don't have time to go out to eat with friends or to spend my lunch hour strolling around town gabbing and giggling with a best friend. It would be easier in many ways to just sit alone in my windowless office all day (and all evening) getting done what needs to be done.

But I've discovered something important. I can't afford not to do the things that help me grow toward the light. When I put all of my time into work, I have less energy, more health problems, and more difficulty concentrating. No matter how much time I devote to work, it takes all of it to get it all done. When I devote time to other things, it still takes all of the time I have left to work, but somehow it still all gets done.

Let a little light into your life. Cultivate the things that help you grow toward the light.

I believe that time spent each day remembering our creator brings light into our lives. Start there, and all these things will be added unto you.

Welcome to Strong Refuge!

Even I think this is a strange name for a blog. I tried several names to no avail. Apparently I'm not nearly as creative as I think. Someone always thinks of the good stuff first. :)

I finally arrived at "Strong Refuge" by flipping open a little Gideon's New Testament that was sitting on my desk. It landed on Psalms 71:7: "I am as a wonder unto many; but thou art my strong refuge."

Good enough for me.

I'm not sure what this blog is about. I have several others, and I've experienced some real commitment issues with those blogs. I've found it especially difficult to stick with anything since Hurricane Katrina. I think that's what this is for. I'm not that interested in talking about professional matters these days. I want to talk about real life. I don't mean so much that I want to talk about my day-to-day doings so much as about lessons I've learned and things that have mattered to me, things I think have mattered to the people around me during this year of disaster and recovery.

So here I am, looking for my strong refuge. We'll just have to see where this leads.