Archive for category Spiritual
The Way It Used To Be
Special notice for those keeping score at home: this post uses Blatant Christian Writing Formula #3 (the speck in the brother’s eye compared to the log in your own). Thank you.
Mark
I have mentioned in these parts that I am a runner. Some runners claim running can be a spiritual experience for them. For me it’s usually not. I just like to go outside and run around in a Forrest Gumpian manner. But I do run enough that assuming I have at least a few spiritual thoughts a year, one of them is bound to happen while I’m running.
And running on Easter weekend probably increases those odds.
So last Saturday I went out for a morning run. The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday has always felt a little odd to me. Good Friday feels like a day for somber reflection. Easter feels like a day of celebration. But that Saturday always leaves me feeling sort of cold inside. No stone rolling away on Saturday.
I ran by a church near my house. This church always interests me because it’s one of those with the old-fashioned marquees out front where they put pithy little sayings like the ones you sometime see forwarded around in an email loop. Things like “Seven days without prayer makes one weak.”
They had one message on the sign months ago that I spent way too much time pondering. The sign said:
CHURCH THE WAY IT USED TO BE
At first I didn’t think much about it, but something about it nagged at me even though I knew it simply indicated that they probably have a traditional worship style. Then I saw it again a few days later and realized the nagging feeling was that maybe they weren’t just advertising their worship style, but perhaps they were criticizing mine. Our church, while somewhat conservative and traditional, does sing modern praise songs and uses video screens for various purposes. I suspected maybe they don’t approve of churches that don’t “do church” the way they do. The way it “used to be” when it was done right.
And then my sarcastic side took over. The next time I drove by I was ready for action. I slowed just a little as I went past and hurled an Easter egg at the sign. Just kidding. What I really did was sneak a peek down the side of the church building. Just as I expected, I spotted just what I was looking for:
Air conditioning units.
“Well, well,” I smiled to myself, “I guess they’re not going back too far to the way church used to be.”
And then I started having more fun. Why, with two-thousand years of Christian church history, did this particular church decide that the way to do church peaked sometime after electricity and air conditioning but before the advent of praise music and women wearing slacks on Sunday? I imagined a church service there in about 1965. I saw a wise elder rising spontaneously to his feet and commanding everybody’s attention right in the middle of the service.
“Wait!” he would have shouted with steely resolve. “Do you see? Can’t you tell? THIS is EXACTLY what a church service should be. We shall not change anything about our church from this point forward, because to do so would only diminish it. This very day, my friends, we have perfected church.” And all the members would have applauded (or said “amen” or whatever constituted appropriate public affirmation in 1965).
And so it was and still is today. Church the way it used to be. In 1965, anyway.
The sign’s message has long since changed, but I still think about it every time I go by. I thought about that sign a little bit longer than usual last weekend after I ran past. But without humor or disdain. Maybe I was more reflective because it was Saturday and Jesus still hadn’t gotten out of the tomb yet this year.
And that’s when it hit me.
Easter Saturday may feel weird to me every year because it’s stuck between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. But that’s just because of what happened a long time ago. You see, when Jesus got up and out on that first Easter, He never went back in.
Stuck in a tomb is only where He used to be.
But not anymore.
Anniversary
I think blind dates get a bad rap. Wouldn’t you rather go out on a date with somebody suggested to you by a common friend who knows you both and thinks you’d get along?
Well, I guess you’d have to take into account the trustworthiness and judgment of the common friend.
Sixteen years ago today a really, really successful blind date took place. So successful that tomorrow (July 2) is our fifteenth wedding anniversary.
So I’d rate that as an outstanding first date in terms of the ultimate outcome, but as a stand-alone event it was not my smoothest moment (which is saying something as the competition for my smoothest moment award is not fierce). For one thing, it was a double-date and after dinner the other guy gave the waiter his credit card. At that point in my life I always paid cash for everything. I panicked and felt pressure to appear grown-up and sophisticated, so I got out my card, too. (There is some slim but non-zero chance that my wallet was a Velcro, which I’m pretty sure trumps the sophistication of any method of payment). When the waiter returned with the credit card receipts, I got flustered and had to confess to the table that I didn’t know what to sign, how to tip, etc. They had to teach me.
Smooth.
Also, we all rode in one car together, meaning I didn’t have much control over the logistics. For reasons I can’t remember, the other guy was ready to call it a night immediately after the movie (Jurassic Park). Since I had no wheels I either had to follow his lead or on a moment’s notice devise some sort of plan that allowed Laura and I to get dropped off where my car was so that we could go for ice cream.
Those who know me well will agree that “smooth plans” and “moment’s notice” when taken together (or, alas, separately) are not my gifts. I prefer time to process things. Thus this other guy and his date (who to her eternal credit masterminded the blind date) sat in the car and watched as I walked Laura to the door at what was probably around 9:45pm.
I got home early enough to call yet another friend to discuss the date, and her first comment was, “You’re home already!?”
So the very promising first date was cut short. Everything worked out OK because while being “smooth” is not my gift, I was at least clever enough to ask for Laura’s phone number.
I’m also clever enough to thank God for bringing her into my life. My plans may never be smooth, but His cannot be topped.
Put me in, Coach
I have been coaching youth basketball at our church for almost ten years. We use the Upward Basketball program of which I am a big fan. The teams I have coached have experienced a wide range of on-the-court success. (I think one of my early teams may have been the reason our league chose to not keep score for the youngest age groups).
On the plus side, I have never been accused of committing any recruiting violations.
One of my favorite things about coaching is when (and this is a rare thing) something I have taught the boys in practice shows up in a game and actually works. For example, this year I taught them a VERY simple play for when we got the ball out of bounds under our basket. Five minutes of practice should have been sufficient to teach this play. We worked on it almost all season with no success. Suddenly, in the next to last game, everything clicked. The right kid took the ball out of bounds. The right kid set a pick in the right spot. The open player cut to the right spot. Layup.
I stood on the sideline with my arms upraised like Andy Dufresne after he crawled out of the sewage pipe in The Shawshank Redemption.
So sometimes I teach the players something. And sometimes they teach me.
“Isaac” was one of the smallest players on the team, but he had more fun playing than anybody. He’d yell for his teammates when he was on the bench. He’d scrap for loose balls when he was in the game. About every other week he’d describe for me some elaborate play he’d invented. One game he showed up sporting a nice new cornrow hairstyle and complained that his eyebrows hurt. Another coach and I surmised that his hair was cinched too tight, but having no experience with cornrows ourselves this was admittedly speculation on our part.
One of our opponents had a player who gave us fits every time we played them. This kid was above average in height, and much more physically strong than any of our players. We were losing one game pretty much because of this one player’s impact, and Isaac knew it.
“Let me guard him!” Isaac pleaded between periods. I set our lineup as before and once again saw the same result. I heard the same request again. “Let me guard him!”
This is where I’d like to say that Isaac came in and shut the big kid down despite being WAY undersized. However, our league rules require us to match players of similar ability and size and this just would have been too much of a stretch for me to justify. If not for that rule, I would’ve let him try just for the look I saw in his eye. The big kid was hurting our team, and Isaac wanted at him.
The next time life presents some big or scary challenge, I hope I can follow Isaac’s example.
“Hey, God. Let me try. I’ll give it my best shot.”