Just DO THAT!

     My friend Brad and I used to play a lot of bad golf together.  Occasionally, one of us would hit a good shot.  Mostly, we both hit bad shots.  Then Brad got tired of being a bad golfer. He took lessons and practiced a lot.  After a while he began hitting mostly good shots.  I, however, took no such drastic action.  Apparently, I was content in my lousiness, and continued to hit mostly bad shots.  For some reason, Brad still played golf with me.  It must have been very sad for him.

     One day, in the midst of a round of my usual snap hooks, slices and near total whiffs, I had one of those golfer-savant moments where, without warning, I suddenly hit a good shot.  Actually, not just good--wonderful actually.  Like a life-long loser winning the lottery, I stood there aghast holding the golden ticket and watching my ball go where only the deepest part of my suppressed and battered node of hope thought it might go.  I dropped my club and began to weep silently.

     Brad was just as shocked.  Having suffered alongside me through hours of my hopeless hackery, he was pitifully overjoyed at the prospect of being able to go hit his second shot without the usual five minutes in the poison ivy helping me look for my ball.  I could tell  he wanted to say something appropriate to memorialize the moment.  A mere "nice shot" really wasn't going to get it.  He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.  He looked at me.  Then he looked at my ball, way out there in the fairway.  He looked back at me like it might be a trick.  Finally, he blubbered:  "yeah . . . that.  Just DO THAT!"  That was his golf tip of the day:  Just DO THAT.

     Then we both cracked up.  If only it was that easy.  I couldn't "just DO THAT" more than once in a while, and then only accidentally.  How could I?  I had a horrible swing and unlike Brad, I had not put in the hard work to change it.  I couldn't "just DO THAT" anymore than I could give birth.  Unless I changed my swing, which would be painful, I would never be anything but bad.  I would never "just DO THAT."

     Today  I  saw a bumper sticker that said "Wag More, Bark Less."  I take that to be in the same vein as "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and "Practice Random Acts of Kindness" but with just a scintilla more  depth.  Instead of demanding that we stop barking altogether, it recognizes that there will still be some barking even as we miraculously conjure up more wagging.  Other than that though, "Wag More, Bark Less" is just about as worthless as every other bumper sticker premised on the idea that the key to being happy is simply to be happy.

     Now, it's obvious sophistry to me.  But before, when I was unhappy--before I changed my swing--I couldn't see that, maybe because I didn't want to.  I would read a bumper sticker like that and think, "yeah, that guy's really onto something, just bark less."  But of course I couldn't, because it was not a matter of making myself "just DO THAT."  I needed to change my swing and accept the pain that would take.  And every day I put that off was another day extra of painful unfruitfulness in my life.  So, far from being an innocuous little bit of saccharine, those bumper stickers actually enabled my procrastination.

     Of course, I don't blame the well-meaning guy who thought he might cheer up some sad clown like me driving behind him by pasting "Don't Postpone Joy" on the bumper of his Prius.  He didn't do that to make me delay the hard work that would lead to joy.  But, ironically, that is precisely what he did.

Travelling Dogs

                How do you get a dog to get in a car?  Open the door—he’ll jump right in.  Why?  If he sees the car going someplace with his master driving it, that is where his canine heart wants to be.  And bursting with joy,  he shoves his snout out the window into the wind. 

                How do you get a man to get in a car?  Just opening the door won’t get you anywhere.  A man is going to want to know some things first, like where this car is headed.  We humans care a lot less about who is driving the car than a dog does.  We get in cars driven by complete strangers all the time.  Our primary concern is with the destination—that’s the thing over which we want control.

                Jesus told  his disciples to “come follow me” so that He could  make them  “fishers  of men.”  (Matthew 4:19).  And they did.  Having recognized Christ as their master, they were more concerned with the driver than the destination.   Anon.  It seems to me that what is shared by all Travelling Dogs is faith in the driver and a belief that the destination will be for their benefit, a better place than they could or would choose for  themselves.  In this, they surrender both their will and self-determined nature.  Lord, please give me the strength to do that.  I want to stick my snout in the breeze and let me tongue hang out.  

The Enervated Life of Mr. Gammy Foot

“Life's journey is not about arriving at the grave safely and in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "Woo Hoo" - - - what a ride!”

            That is the way my brother Belto signs off his e-mails.  I don’t know where he got this (maybe he made it up), but I love its description of a life lived boldly—charged through—so completely sold out to mission that nothing is left untapped and regretted.  It makes me think of Christ telling the disciples to stop watching the Weather Channel and jump out of the darn boat already.  Life is supposed to be exciting, and can be if lived within Him and in a spirit of True Grit.

            On Drudge this morning, two unrelated stories appeared that together run contrary to the spirit encapsulated by Belto’s e-tag.  First, here the story of a man from Gastonia, NC who robbed a bank of a dollar solely to avail himself of the comprehensive health care coverage offered by the Gaston County Sherriff. Apparently, the man was particularly concerned about a “gammy foot” that he wanted looked after.  I’m not exactly sure what Gammy Foot is, but I am pretty sure I’d limp through it quite a while before I would trade my freedom for the privilege of having the prison nurse-practitioner tell me to stay off it awhile, which I suppose is not all that bad since staying off your feet in prison is probably pretty doable.  Second here, King County, Washington will now levy a fine of $86 on any person reckless enough to try to swim outside of a “designated public beach”  in more than 4 feet of water without a life vest.  That’s right, if you are crazy enough to try to go swimming without a life vest in King County, you are getting fined.  One potential problem I see is that the one thing you cannot do with a life vest on is to swim, because life vests make you float.  They may not have thought this completely through in King County yet.  More likely, they don’t care.  They would probably rather not have anybody swimming anyway.  Too dangerous.

            Both of these stories resonate with me personally.  My wife’s family happens to be from Gastonia, NC.  Having spent a lot of time with them, it is hard to for me to reconcile the lack of personal resilience of Mr. Gammy Foot with what I know (second-hand) about the hard working people of Gastonia.  They just do not seem like the kind of folks who would rather subject themselves to the mind-numbing drudgery of prison life than try to manage their own health care.  Maybe Gastonia is changing, and not for the better.  I am no less flummoxed by the Mae West-happy folks of King County.  I met a soldier many years ago who told me that as a boy he and his friends would jump in the river holding rocks big enough to sink them to the river-bed, where they would hold them until they felt like that were going to pass out.  The last boy who bobbed to the surface was the winner.  Nobody died.  I’m thinking this game would not work very well wearing a life jacket.  That guy was a heckuva soldier—smart, tough and a pretty good swimmer. 

           

            I know these are extreme examples, but that is how bad trends start.  What will happen to our nation when a majority of Americans would rather be prisoners than risk life without adequate health care coverage?  Or, when the only people who know how to swim are the kids who are lucky enough to have parents who take them to “designated public beaches” for lessons from certified swimming instructors?  Are we really intended to live the Enervated Life of Mr. Gammy Foot, strapped into life jackets and yet still too terrified to jump out of the boat unless it is parked harmlessly on dry land?  What kind of ride is that?

Command Presence

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”  NIV
Genesis 1:28


If you were to walk into the building that housed an United States Army Infantry Company, you would see a line of pictures displayed somewhere prominently near the front door. The leftmost picture would be the President of the United States. At the opposite end would be the picture of the captain in command of the company in whose headquarters you were standing. The pictures in between would be of the men in the chain of command in between the president and the captain. You might be surprised how few there are.

The purpose of those photographs is to manifest that the company commander's authority is derived of the President, who is our national command authority, our commander in chief. It is meant as a reminder to the men that the orders of their captain bear the authority of their president. It is also a reminder to the captain that he is accountable to the highest reaches of the chain of command for every order he gives and fails to give.

Likewise, the Lord has ordained man as the rulers this earth and all that is on it. We are the stewards of His creation, charged with the duty to populate and rule it as we best believe He would. We should be neither sheepish nor apologetic in the discharge of this duty, for we will be held accountable for both our abuse of His resources and our timidity in their proper harnessing for the good of mankind and the furtherance of His Kingdom.

Packing Peanuts

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.  With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.  He has spoken through the Prophets.  (The Nicene Creed).

            In unison, we chant the Nicene Creed every Sunday in my church.  When we get to this part, where we affirm our belief that the Holy Spirit reveals Himself to us “through the Prophets,” I sometimes wonder why we would say this if we do not believe it.  Maybe I don’t understand the phrase properly, but I always assumed that it meant that the Bible is THE word of God—spoken directly by God and transcribed for our benefit.  Paul seemed to think so:  “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”  (2 Timothy 3:16).  Does this not mean that the Bible (in its entirety) is a transcription of everything God wants us to know on this realm and put to use in the furtherance of His Kingdom of Righteousness?

Not so fast.  What about all those verses (many of which come from that same Paul) that prescribe or proscribe conduct or thought that we would rather engage in or refrain from as we see fit?  Don’t we get a say here?  Because, if we are to believe that all Scripture is God-breathed straight to the Prophets, then we don’t have any choice but to obey or disobey everything in the Bible, whether we like it or not.  I heard a proposed solution to this dilemma this morning.  Instead of saying that the Bible IS the word of God which we must obey entirely, we could say it CONTAINS the word of God that we need only obey partially.  In other words, the Bible is like a spiritual birthday present that comes packed in a shipping container that the Lord intends us to discard as we dig for the real gift of His truth.  It’s the gift that matters, not the container. 

            This formulation is enticing.  It conveniently allows us to disregard the personally offensive parts of Scripture as mere gift wrap.  Surely, with our big human brains we should be able to discern between the divine wheat and chaff that the Spirit speaks through the Prophets.  Maybe.  But what this image brings to my mind is my kids on Christmas morning, ripping open their presents to get to what they are sure is buried in the bottom of the box.  Often, in their childish zeal, they toss away the card or batteries that go with the gift.  Is it not the same with us, when we grant ourselves the right to decide those parts of Scripture we will accept as gifts and those that we will discard as Packing Peanuts?

Basic Training

James 1 tells us that we should rejoice in our trials as it is through perseverance that God will transform us from the double-minded and unstable men we are into the Christ-reflecting creatures He wants us to be.

In this, I am reminded of my arrival at Army Basic Training, looking like the civilian I most thoroughly was, as did my fellow trainees. Our long hair and goofy clothes reflected our sense of self, who we thought we were or wanted to be. Obviously, having volunteered to be there, these external signs of our individuality were things we were willing to sacrifice. We knew the Army was going to cut our hair and put us in uniform, that externally we would be conformed to how a soldier should look. But were we ready to be conformed internally to what a soldier should be? How could we? We had no concept of what that was before the process started.

Our external transformation into what soldiers should look like was complete within two hours of disembarking the bus that brought us there. With our new haircuts and uniforms we did look like soldiers. But we had not yet become soldiers, not even close. We could not even march ten feet properly--learning to do that would take many hours of training in the hot sun. Ultimately, I realized that I was no longer a civilian, that I had become a soldier. But this realization was not sudden or dramatic. It happened gradually, like night becoming day where you cannot actually see the sunrise.

When I became a Christian, volunteering in a sense to be a soldier in His army, I may have gotten a "haircut" and a pair of new "boots" but I could not march a lick. For me, it's been many hours in the hot sun in the conformance of my new self. And, I assume, it will be many hours yet. Like my Army training, I am not expecting some dramatic moment of transormation. No, I expect that it will be a gradual road upward, marked by tiny milestones of my abandonment of self-will into the will of Christ. Only by periodically pausing to wipe my brow, looking back down that twisting road, will I even be able to see the image of my old self climbing ever upwards, persevering into the freedom of Him.

Man Alone

               Within the last four months two public figures have been exposed using the internet to send pictures of their bare torsos to young women for prurient purposes.  From the reference points of worldview and politics they were very different men:  one was a secular Jewish liberal democrat and the other a protestant conservative republican.  Yet, they also had much in common—they were both married, 46 years old, in excellent physical condition and two of the 29 members of House of Representatives from the state of New York. 

                What are the odds that 7% of the New York Congressional delegation would engage in the same inexplicable self-destructive behavior within a four-month span?   As coincidences go, it seems pretty unlikely, particularly given how much these men had to lose.  Perhaps the best explanation lies not in the what these men seemed to share, but in what they seemed to both lack: male friends.  I remember thinking the same thing during the Lewinsky scandal—where are this man’s buddies, the guys who stand behind a man when he is broken?  More importantly, where were they when the man was first considering, and then engaging, in the behavior that would ultimately (and inevitably) bring him low? 

                I guess these are rhetorical questions.  These guys had no friends to stand behind them when the poop hit the fan because they had no friends in the first place.  Men get caught engaging in inexplicable behavior when they have no friends to whom they have to explain their behavior before they engage in it.  If, when first caught up in some crazy fugue state of lust and confusion, one of these congressmen had disclosed to a friend his intent to e-mail a naked a picture of himself to a college girl, that friend probably would have stopped him.  At least he would have tried.  Even downstream a bit, when the scandal was breaking, a friend would have encouraged the man not to try to cover it up, because it is the cover-up that compounds the initial misdeed with lying. 

                A man without friends is a Man Alone.  God help him.