Month: August 2010

So in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been on a real Henri Nouwen kick recently.  The guy is, in the words of my British brother-in-law, spot on.  Eat this portion of “Here and Now” for breakfast, lunch and dinner today:

“I am constantly puzzled by my eagerness to get something done, to see someone, to finish some job, while I am fully aware that within a month or even a week I will have completely forgotten what it was that seemed so urgent.  It seems that I share this restlessness with many others…

“Why is it so difficult to be still and quiet and let God speak to me about the meaning of my life? Is it because I don’t trust God? Is it because I don’t know God? Is it because I wonder if God really is there for me? Is it because I am afraid of God? Is it because everything else is more real for me than God? Is it because, deep down, I do not believe that God cares what happens (on my street corner)?

“Still there is a voice – right there, in downtown Toronto.  “Come to me, you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.  Shouldermy yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Matthew 11:38 – 30)

“Can I trust that voice and follow it? It is not a very loud voice, and often it is drowned out by the clamor of the inner city. Still, when I listen attentively, I will hear that voice again and again and come to recognize it as the voice speaking to the deepest places of my heart.”

Thanks for the reminder Mr. Nouwen.  What’s that?  I can call you Henri? Well thanks.

So wherever you are right now, reader, take a moment and close your eyes and listen.  What do you hear?  No, not the kids commotion in the back ground…not the fan running or the a/c kicking in…not the dishwasher clicking (I don’t know, ours clicks)…not the music on the radio.  Listen.  Is there something, someone, deeper than any subconscious level you can attain trying to tell you something?

That might sound kind of weird to some of you.  If so, that’s cool – feel free to ridicule me in the comments.

Oh, and if you’re reading this on your cell phone, in your car, you can forgo the whole eyes-closed thing.  Seriously. For the rest of us.

Tuesday’s Top Ten has kind of fallen by the wayside. Not sure why.  Maybe I need some suggestions on some good things to make top 10 lists about.

Anyway, just this Wednesday I’m doing a Wednesday’s Worst: the worst ten things about winning the lottery (I may or may not have stolen this idea from The House Studio).  Here we go (and these have all happened in real life, not just on this blog):

#1 – You could get shot and killed by your sister-in-law while she and her boyfriend are trying to kidnap you and hold you for ransom.

#2 – The photo of you holding that giant check could remind police that someone looking very much like you is wanted for theft and possession of stolen property.  You could then be arrested and incarcerated.

#3 – You could win the lottery twice, lose all the money, and end up living in a trailer (heck, I did this without winning two lotteries – I just became a writer).

#4 – You could string your money together and see how many times it wraps around the world, only to get kidnapped by real live pirates

#5 – You could get sued by your girlfriend for a share of the winnings and have to pay out, and then your brother could hire a hit man to try to kill you hoping to inherit some winnings.  Within one year you could (theoretically) be $1 million in debt and file for bankruptcy, leading to you living on food stamps and a $450-per-month stipend.

#6 – You could blow all your money on cocaine.

#7 – You could go to the Canary Islands, get married and buy a house, spending so much of the money that you end up taking a job at McDonald’s to cover your living expenses.

#8 – You could drown in your Scrooge McDuck style money bin

#9 – Your husband could win the lottery and never tell you, then vanish once you were on to him.

#10 – You could trip on the ginormous check while exiting the stage, fall down three steps and paralyze yourself.  You could then fall in love with a nurse in the hospital, get married and flee the country to avoid paying the hospital bills which weren’t covered by your insurance because you quit your job the minute you found out about the lottery win

California has a handbook for lottery winners. It doesn’t sound like anyone is reading it.

Okay, so three of those listed above never happened – can you figure out which ones I made up?

And what do you think is the worst thing that could happen after winning the lottery?

Judging others . . . deciding what’s right and wrong about how someone else is living, or dressing, or eating.  Trying to weigh up someone’s actions and declare them “guilty” or “innocent.”

Why do we do it?

Yesterday I wrote about how so much of that comes from fear.  But I think another reason we have a tendency to judge people is a result of our modern times – being right is seen as the ultimate “win”.  We want to be right.  And if someone disagrees with us, we will tear them and their argument apart in order to be right.

This is not the way of Christ.

He tells us to view others as better than ourselves.

He tells us to treat others as we would want to be treated.

He tells us to love even our enemies.

Henri Nouwen, in his book Here and Now, addresses this burden of judgment:

“We spend countless hours making up our minds about others.  An unceasing exchange of opinions about people close by or far away keeps us distracted and allows us to ignore the truth that we ourselves are the first ones who need a change of heart and probably the only ones whose hearts we indeed can change.

“We always say again: “What about him? What about her?” What Jesus says to us, as he said to Peter, who wanted to know what would happen to John: “What does it matter to you.  You are to follow me” (John 21:21-22)

“Imagine your having no need at all to judge anybody.  Imagine your having no desire to decide whether someone is a good or bad person. Imagine your being completely free from the feeling that you have to make up your mind about the morality of someone’s behavior.  Imagine that you could say: “I am judging no one!”

“Imagine – Wouldn’t that be true inner freedom?”

Are you brave enough to share with us the folks that you find yourself drawn to judge? Or maybe you’ve overcome a long-standing judgment you’ve held against certain types of people…I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.

Everyone seems so willing to pass judgment these days. The conservatives judge the liberals, and vice versa.  The two sides of the abortion debate have succeeded in dehumanizing each other.  People seem almost as divided by race as ever.  Immigrants in every nation, whether there legally or not, are scorned and ridiculed.

As a Christian, it saddens me that we the church have become such a judgmental crowd. I wonder where we get the notion that it is our job to judge the world?  Jesus, our perfect example, didn’t come to judge the world – the only people he ever judged were the hypocritical religious leaders, the ones who were weighing down the people with rules and more laws.  Yet we are constantly looking outside the church, railing on whatever particular sin is the flavor of the day.

The apostle Paul, whose ideas about church are still applied today, wrote:

“It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your job to judge those inside the church who are sinning in these ways.” I Corinthians 5:12 (emphasis mine)

James, the brother of Jesus, wrote that

Why are we the church so critical?  Why don’t we bless anyone’s house any more?  The diminishing relevance of many churches does not surprise me when viewed in light of how they enter people’s houses (metaphorically speaking).

But it’s easy for me to “judge” the wider church. What’s hard is for me to look at my personal life and admit that I, too, judge people…based on how they look, or on their political views, or their religion.  Why?  Why do I do this?

When judging takes place it always has a partner: fear.  Whenever we judge an idea or a person or a religion we do so at least partially out of fear.  But in the book of John it says that “perfect love casts out fear.”

How can I love perfectly, or at least try to? How can I rid myself of these petty fears?

Last week was our family’s annual trek to the mountains: my parents, three sisters, one of their boyfriends, one of their husbands and 8 kids (4 of which are mine).  We stay at this huge cabin with plenty of room for everyone, and there’s a small lake to swim in.

We stay up late playing games, Maile and I take turns sleeping in, and naps are the order of the day.  And swimming.  And eating.  And more naps.  But this year something felt different.

After a few days I realized what it was: my phone wasn’t ringing off the hook.  Last year at the mountains I was still a painting contractor, still taking phone calls from customers and foremen and our advertising agency.  Every morning I would wake up with a churning stomach, nervous that something would go wrong while I was away.

This year my phone didn’t ring once.  That was the difference.

Last year I was running a business I didn’t care for, going deeper and deeper into debt, wondering how we would ever change directions.

This year I am writing, doing what I love, and we’re slowly digging out.  We live in the country, have a garden and have time to eat dinner together almost every night.

Finding yourself in a rough patch? Hang in there – the next year will go quicker than you could possibly imagine, and who knows where you’ll be or what you’ll be doing.  A lot can happen in a year.

For a similar post, check out “What Can Change In a Year” by Kristen over at The House Studio