I don't have time to write much more than a note. Church is at 11 and I don't want to miss it. For one it's a date with Marie, and we'll probably go to the movies or have a picnic after.
We go to Beaverton Christian Church, led by Pastor Clark Tanner. The music is fabulous and the teaching is very positive and Christ-centered. Pastor Tanner is a wonderful man and Friday night he sat down with us, counselling us about our marriage. He talked with us for over two hours, just practical and straightforward, and recommended someone for us to see, a counselor named Matt Howell. We really appreciated the sincerity and compassion Clark showed. It's a church with over a 1000 members and he talked and prayed with us like family, incredibly generous with his time.
Last night I worked at The Battle of Bands at the Buckeroo Grounds, one of my sister's events, serving beer and bottled Mojitos with Kristy's friend Melina. She was a nice lady, married with three kids. She had a great energy and a heart for people and really connected with the folks. It was a lot of fun to work and contribute to Kristy's event. The Concrete Cowboys, a country group from Portland, won the battle, and the crowd was well-behaved and had a great time. I made $147 bucks in tips, and there was a great barbeque stand next door where I got a pulled pork sandwich and a plate of leftovers to go home. Cool, huh?
The two paragraphs above will take turns offending people. The first one will offend people who don't like Christians and the second one will probably offend everyone in some way. "See, he's a hypocrite. Running off to church on Sunday and working at a beer stand on Saturday night." That's silly. Jesus' first public miracle was making wine at a wedding. He regularly had dinner with tax collectors and prostitutes, touched lepers with healing power, befriended an outcast woman at the well. People get this image of Christians as being stuffy and judgemental, but Jesus wasn't. He loved life, and people. "I have come that you might have life," he promised, "and life more abundantly." My favorite Bible verse is, "This is a day that the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." They make it into a song you sing at Bible Camp.
You look around and you see broken lives and a broken world, and untold miseries of celebrity obsession, sports fixation, shameful behavior and lost people, and you might start to realize that all the wealth and entertainment we have isn't making us happy. In fact we are the most depressed nation in history, and ahead of us lies a time of uncertainty and despair. A broken economy. International terrorism. Global warming. World-wide food and energy scarcities. In Zimbabwe right now a loaf of bread costs a billion dollars in their currency. For all the technological know-how and scientific wizardry we've achieved we've made a mess of our world and our lives, and there's a lot of hurting people. Marie and I of course have troubles of own, and of our own making. We're working on that. But somehow all of us have to consider that man isn't perfectible, and the sorrows and concerns we have an ultimate spiritual solution.
It's worth considering, anyway. After all it is Sunday. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go on a picnic with my wife. Best wishes, and thanks for visiting.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
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This is the Way the Transformation Begins
"Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw, Robert F. Kennedy
This is the way the transformation begins.
It begins in me.
It begins now.
It begins with small incremental changes and shifts in attitude
it begins with positive action
failing forward
and suddenly I start looking at the world and my place in it in a new way. I speak differently and dress differently and project a different energy, and the world opens up like a glorious pink azalea bush, eight feet tall and blooming like mad.
photo by Kajo123 from the website flickr.com
Good morning!
An engineer builds a bridge and every bolt and weld has to be exactly right; every measure has to be perfect, or the bridge collapses or fails to take its place. Fantastically detailed blueprints have to be laid out. Impact statements have to be filed, sediment has to be studied, years of effort, months of planning, and a man-made marvel rises in the sky. Park somewhere and take a good look at a bridge, and think of all the skill and knowledge and hard honest work it took to create it. Consider how a few thousand years ago we were living in caves.
It is not so with a dream. Some people are remarkable dreamers and dreams spring whole from them, or they can leap up from bed and pages of creative genius flow out of their pen, intricate and perfect. Most of us though are baby dreamers, new at it and tentative to the trust the power of what we wish for.
Start the dream! Whether you want to go to nursing school or college or learn to play the guitar, take a first step, now, even in the wrong direction. Don't wait for the blueprint to come to you, the environmental impact statement, the permits and the 200-page budget and legislative dream approval. Rough it out, sketch it on a napkin, tell a friend, and take action. Your dream begins the moment you step out in first moment of believing, and the result can touch a thousand souls. Listen to Jim Valvano: never give up, never surrender. Believe in the audacity of action and your fantastic potential for change and new opportunity.
It is not so with a dream. Some people are remarkable dreamers and dreams spring whole from them, or they can leap up from bed and pages of creative genius flow out of their pen, intricate and perfect. Most of us though are baby dreamers, new at it and tentative to the trust the power of what we wish for.
Start the dream! Whether you want to go to nursing school or college or learn to play the guitar, take a first step, now, even in the wrong direction. Don't wait for the blueprint to come to you, the environmental impact statement, the permits and the 200-page budget and legislative dream approval. Rough it out, sketch it on a napkin, tell a friend, and take action. Your dream begins the moment you step out in first moment of believing, and the result can touch a thousand souls. Listen to Jim Valvano: never give up, never surrender. Believe in the audacity of action and your fantastic potential for change and new opportunity.
The Hawthorne Bridge at sunrise, Portland Oregon. Photo by Joe Collver, from flickr.com
Genuine happiness and success start with an attitude of abundance
Make it a daily practice to begin your day with five minutes of thankfulness. You can even do it in your car on the way to work. Do it in your own way, whether it's thoughtful reflection or a prayer or singing out loud, but focus on your rich, amazing, abundant life.
Feeling grumpy or resentful or worried instead of thankful? Change direction! Consider the incredible gifts you have--mind, body, spirit, senses, your family, your friends, your clothes, your car, and the breakfast you enjoyed this morning. By the standards of 99% of the world, Americans are incredibly, amazingly rich. You truly have no idea how richly blessed you are until you start thinking about it. Even the heart that beats within you and the lungs that breathe your air are an intricate and amazing miracle.
Some of my favorite movies are ones that feature a once-defeated character waking up to an absolutely new day: "It's A Wonderful Life," the various versions of Dicken's "Christmas Carol" and "Groundhog Day." How exhilarating it is for George Bailey to wake up and realize his life isn't over, it's just beginning, and that today truly is a brand new day.
"It's a Wonderful Life"
George returns home to everything he ever wanted.
2 comments:
I for one find nothing offensive in either paragraph and I'm a pretty conservative Christian.
I hope you and Marie had a very nice day today! I am praying for the two of you!
I have been reading your blog everyday and usually make comments so you will know I have been here and you will know I care about your life, you and what's important to you.
However you never make comments on my blog so I'm not feeling the same from you. (You do have a nice comment with the link on your blog to our blog which I did see and appreciate).
I know my blogs are not as well written and don't contain nearly as much emotion as yours but they are important to me :)
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