Me, Myself and I

Tuesday 7/2/2013 7:04 AM

When I was a child my mom used to quote The Tea Party, by Jessica Nelson North.

I had a little tea party

This afternoon at three.

‘Twas very small-

Three guests in all-

Just I, myself and me!

Myself ate all the sandwiches,

While I drank up the tea;

‘Twas also I who ate the pie

And passed the cake to me.

I have always enjoyed the poem and now, at my age, I have an image of one of my granddaughters passing around cups, enjoying tea with imaginary friends.

That cute image becomes more sobering when I consider the culture in which I live and willingly participate.  It bombards me with messages of individualism and reminds me to always ask, “What’s in it for me?”  Those who lead extravagant lifestyles are held up as role models and television shows about acquiring bigger and better houses, faster cars, and more of everything are prolific.  One is taught to go to school so you can get a good job that pays a lot of money and will ensure your success.  Unfortunately this leads to a society of looking out for oneself and relying on no one but oneself.  Beyoncé sings a song Me, Myself and I that sums it up well, “Me, myself and I, that’s all I got in the end.  That’s what I found out and it ain’t no need to cry.  I took a vow that from now on I’m gonna be my own best friend.”

This is a stark contrast to the simple reminder from my devotional material this morning, with the theme of generosity.  “Our prayers should be freeing us from our self-centeredness and opening us up to others.”  God’s desire is that people have meaningful relationships with him and with each other.  He describes the church as a body, dependent upon its members.  In God’s economy there is no room for selfish individualism; he wants interdependent community.

It is difficult to swim against the stream of individualism that runs so deeply in our culture.  Unfortunately Christians today are often the ones preaching that God wants to bless us with wealth and material goods, describing them as “blessings.”  God makes clear that he blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others.  I am not to be a cistern, collecting the blessings of God for myself, saving them up for a rainy day.  I am to be a canal, bringing the fresh water of God’s grace to a thirsty world.  Lord, help me to open me, myself and I to others.

Be Holy

Tuesday 6/25/2013 6:49 AM

I’ve noticed that as I age some issues that I once saw as black at white seem to be varying shades of gray.  I have usually chalked up this change in my point of view to the fact that I am more informed and educated about things than I was previously.  This morning I read an excerpt from the book Gracias! by Henry Nouwen that makes me reconsider this idea.  He writes, “One of the temptations of the middle class is to create large gray areas between good and evil.  Wealth takes away the sharp edges of our moral sensitivities and allows a comfortable confusion about sin and virtue.  The difference between rich and poor is not that the rich sin more than the poor, but that the rich find is easier to call sin a virtue.  When the poor sin, they call it a sin; when they see holiness, they identify it as such.  This intuitive clarity is often absent from the wealthy, and that absence easily leads to the atrophy of the moral sense.”

Perhaps what I perceive as my educated, enlightened point of view is really the atrophying of my moral sense, my way of creating confusion about sin and virtue or my way of salving a guilty conscience.  Jesus warned about the difficulty for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Maybe this is one of the hurdles that get in the way.

I live in a culture dominated by wealth, power and influence.  Christians who speak God’s truth into that kind of culture are often perceived as fanatics.  I do not want to be lumped into that same category because that type of fanatic often seems to be devoid of love.  I wonder if my blurring of the boundaries of sin and virtue are my attempt at fitting in with society while disassociating myself with the fanatics.  God’s call to me is to be holy, that is, set apart from the culture around me.  How much of my desire to fit in goes against God’s desire for me to be set apart?

Holy Tee Shirt, Holey Tee Shirt

Friday 6/22/2013 6:29 AM

Last month Emily and Garrison got married.  We spent eight months planning the big day and we had a great celebration with family and friends.  Once all of the hullabaloo wore off and family members and friends returned to their respective homes, I returned to my regular routine, having tomato juice and Cheerios for breakfast, going to work, eating peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, mowing the lawn on Saturday, cleaning the bathroom, all the mundane things that make up my life from day to day.

Over the years I have begun to realize that, while we spend much of our lives anticipating the grand events of life that we celebrate with much fanfare, dressed to the nines, the majority of life is lived in the routine of life; going to work each day, repairing a leaky faucet, wiping noses and changing diapers for young grandchildren, washing dirty dishes while wearing stained shorts and a tee shirt with a hole in the armpit.

In his book A Way in the World, Ernest Boyer, Jr. describes how to regularly experience the presence of God.  He writes, “Life at the center lives the reality of the presence of God in the now of every moment of every act that is done.  It is a life that sees the greatness of the smallest of tasks, since these, as all others, are of God’s work.  Life lived at the center is an expression of God’s immediate presence.  It is not a life of imitation; nor one of anticipation; it is instead a life of participation, participation in the truth of its own full reality.  But in saying this, no one should think that life at the center seeks some special mode of existence, some level of being somehow above the mundane toil of day to day.  Just the opposite – it is life at its most human.  It is not a life that ignores or avoids the ordinary, but one that lives it fully, since it knows that in doing so it expresses the profoundest of the profound.  It is a life that may know pain and trouble; it certainly knows routine.  It lives this as it lives everything – moment to moment – and in doing so touches the eternal.”

I need to constantly remind myself that God reveals himself through the everyday routine of my life.  I want God to reveal himself with a holy tee shirt.  He chooses to reveal himself through my holey tee shirt.

Porcelain Rabbits

Friday 6/14/2013 5:19 AM

The other day Jaci and I babysat for Quinn and Crew.  We went to the park to play on the playground equipment.  On the way there I pulled Quinn in the wagon and Jaci pushed Crew in the stroller.  On the way home I began pulling Quinn in the wagon again but about halfway home she wanted to walk.  When she walks I have a rule that she can walk on the sidewalk by herself but she has to hold my hand when crossing streets.  She does not yet fight that rule so we had a nice walk home.  As we turned down our street the sidewalk ended and she continued walking on the parkway, across people’s lawns and driveways.  Eventually she came to a yard where there was a porcelain rabbit that the owners had placed on the curb.  She saw the rabbit, got a little nervous and came over to hold my hand for the remaining half block.  Evidently holding Papa’s hand gave her the confidence to face the intimidating, porcelain rabbit.

My psalm for the week is Psalm 142 and the fourth verse caught my attention today, “Look and see, there is no one at my right hand; no one is concerned for me.  I have no refuge; no one cares for my life.”  My Bible says David wrote these words when he was in the cave, probably hiding from Saul.  David was distraught because even though he was honoring Saul, God’s anointed king, he was still being hunted down like a criminal.  He felt as if there was no one on his side supporting him.  These words of David are a sharp contrast from the words penned by Asaph in Psalm 73:23-26, “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.  You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.  Whom have I in heaven but you?  And earth has nothing I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”  It seems that Asaph didn’t care what circumstances he faced, including death, if God was holding his right hand supporting him.

Too often I walk through life buoyed up by the circumstances around me.  When I have good health, my job is going well, my marriage and my family relationships are healthy then I feel secure.  But when a porcelain rabbit rears its ugly head and my circumstances change so that my health is compromised, or I lose my job, or I have a fight with Jaci, or there is turmoil within the family, then I run to God and complain, like David, that if he really cared for me he wouldn’t allow those kinds of things to happen.

God’s wants me to walk hand-in-hand with him through life.  When I spend every day walking with him I am assured of his love and I learn to trust him to do what is right, much like Quinn trusted me to protect her.  Then my security does not rely on my circumstances but on the knowledge that God is with me, come what may, porcelain rabbits and all.

Worry and Wealth

Thursday 6/13/2013 7:56 AM

As I get older I wonder more about what retirement will be for me.  I enjoy teaching a lot but eventually I will not be able to do so full time.  One of the things I think about is whether or not my pension will be enough to live on.  Last year Jaci and I looked at the next few years with a financial planner.  It seems that we will be adequately cared for but he suggested that we start to put a larger percentage of our income into an IRA or some other tax-sheltered investment.  We currently give a fairly substantial percentage of our income to charity and there is the temptation to cut back on that giving so that we can put more into our retirement.  It seems that I waffle between trusting God to care for me and worrying about whether there will be enough after I retire.

The theme of my devotions this week is anxiety and today I read Matthew 13 and the parable of the sower.  In explaining the parable Jesus said, “The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.”  Ironically my worries are about wealth.  I think I am deceived, thinking that sufficient wealth will rid me of worry.  The truth is if I trusted God for my future there would be no worrying about my retirement.  In her book The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, Hannah Whitall Smith writes, “And remember, there are two things which are more utterly incompatible than even oil and water, and these two are trust and worry. … When a believer really trusts anything, he ceases to worry about that thing which he has trusted.  And when he worries, it is plain proof that he does not trust.”  I often say that God has taken care of me for the first fifty-seven years of my life so he can probably handle the last few years too.  Now is the time to start living like I believe it.