No Better Place...

Over the past few months I have had some problems writing. I have just not been able to get what is in my head down on paper (or typed on a computer)... Maybe this offering will help to free the creative juices...

While I was a teen, I remember my mother telling me (with a bit of frustration and a little anger) that regularly on my father’s non-teaching days he would take me to work. Mom would come to check on her boys, and on several occasions found that Dad had allowed me to be taken away by some of the college girls. I was usually returned with a belly full of donuts and more often than not, a new stuffed animal. I could never have been in a better place than with people my Dad knew and loved, and who knew and loved him.

Mom was rarely pleased that Dad had allowed me to be taken out of his sight, much less off campus. For my Dad, there were few places safer than a college campus. These were places he spent time with his father, places he played, and made friendships that lasted for his lifetime.

At times it is much clearer than others that I am much more like my father than I care to admit. For me there are few places safer than the Church. I grew up playing among in the pews of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Methodist Churches of Clarendon. I matured under the care of saints in churches of Clarendon, Lubbock, and Lexington, KY. Many of those I am honored to call friends, I have not only met within the walls of Church but have been the Church with them outside its walls….

I noticed this past Wednesday as I was helping to serve our Fellowship Meal that my children who had been underfoot in the kitchen, were no longer there. As my gaze quickly scanned the Fellowship Hall my eyes eventually found all four of my children. They were being cared for by several who had come for our evening meal. Some by cared for them by choice, others by sitting in the wrong seat at the wrong table.

Since graduating from Seminary I have had the opportunity to have my children at work with me. Sometimes my children have been a tremendous help while they are with me in the office, at other times they are the biggest distraction that could ever walk thru the Church doors. Over the past few weeks I have had lots of opportunity to have Noah in the office with me, due to Rebecca finding herself away from the house a little more often. Whether it was in the First United Methodist Church of Amherst, or here at Clyde First United Methodist Church my family and I could not be in a better place with people we are getting to know and love, and who are getting to know and love us.

My hope for you is that when you Worship, or in joining others in allowing your hands and feet to be used by God, there is not a better or safer place for you to be surrounded by people who you are getting to know and love, and who are getting to know and love you.

I sit down for a few minutes every morning to read the daily Abilene paper on my computer. Something the online paper has that the physical paper does not, is the ability to make a comment on an article. It does not really matter what the article is about, most comments about the article boil down to just a few topics. Some of the favorite topics boil down to:

1. Our elected or appointed officials are corrupt and are not leading us in the right direction.
2. You are not very intelligent for believing what you believe, and I am superior to you because I believe something different.

These are not my opinions; yet these seem to be what comes out in the comments about articles in the paper.

For one reason or another we are extremely hard on those that have been elected to serve or who have been appointed to serve our schools, communities, counties, state, etc…. We all do it. It is easy to criticize those who have been placed in a position of leadership. It is easy to believe that someone else could do a better job, or at least address my concerns, in a timely manner. It is easy to make accusations when the chances of anyone knowing who really made the comment are slim. How often do we complain about things going on in civic organization, our church, our school, etc. but never sit down with the powers that be to discuss the things we see wrong? We are quick to complain, but slow to bring these matters up with those who need to hear or can make a difference regarding our complaint/”observation.”

We don’t deal well with those who believe differently than we do. We believe differently about so many things, education, politics, religions, etc. At some point in time, having interactions with others who believe differently than we do has become a more combative interaction. We are all guilty of it. It may be co-workers from different generations, or people affiliated with different groups or organizations, etc., or we may come into contact with others who believe differently than we do. Most of us are at least somewhat polite to their face, but behind closed doors or in the confines of likeminded people we feel free to make them anything but human.
People do the same thing everywhere you go. To some extent, we distrust those who work to serve the greater good of our organization or community. We feel threatened or superior to those who believe differently than we do. But taking pot shots at others does not benefit the community we are a part of.

What are you going to do? Are you going to take pot shots at people from behind a computer screen, or at the local coffee shop, or the closest salon? Or are you going to take your concerns to someone that has the ability to make changes on a particular issue that concerns you?

Loss...

Over the past week I have had a chance to chat with a couple of friends that I have not had a chance to connect with in a while. I almost had the chance to chat with a couple of other friends that I have not seen in a while; unfortunately our schedules didn’t allow it…

Of the friends I did not have a chance to connect with, one was a former college roommate, and the other one of my best friends from college, who was also my best man when I got married. They called me to let me know they were coming through Abilene and wanted to see if we could catch up. Their calls got me thinking about our time in college. We were young, we were ambitious, we thought we were going to turn the world upside down. I have not exactly turned the world upside down, but I have been able to do a few things I never thought I would be doing. But still, for a moment or two I could feel the loss of time, the loss of opportunities, dreams, etc. that I will never get back.

Of the friends that I did get to connect with, one was a former boss, and the other a friend who I worked with at a church in Lubbock. I was able to chat with my former boss on the phone for almost an hour. He was really more than a boss; he was another father figure in my life. After our conversation I thought a lot about the many things I was able to be a part of while working with him. But at the same time I also thought about many of the things I was not able to be a part of when I left working for him.

I was able to sit and talk with my friend and former coworker after a long day of meetings in Lubbock. We talked about our kids and our wives. We talked a little about our jobs. He made fun of me because I still cannot figure out all the features of my laptop and iphone. As I headed home from Lubbock I thought about our work together. There were things we dreamed of but never got to accomplish, there were also experiences we never expected that we were privileged to be a part of. But there were many thoughts that hauntingly reappeared reminding me of so many things that never got traction.

I wonder if those who go through a mid-life crisis have some of the same feelings I have had as I reminisced about my friends and our lives together. It really seems I should have done more in my life by now. I have some feelings of anxiousness, sadness, loss that so many things I want to accomplish are no where close to becoming a reality. I think too often life just moves on and we never acknowledge we have experienced a loss. We rarely take the time to mourn, to grieve the woulda, coulda, shoulda’s… This may be because we do not know how to grieve healthily. Too many of us have been raised to stuff our stuff deep down inside, forgetting that our stuff will come out one day and it is usually not very pretty when it does…

We all experience loss. At some time we will disconnect from a friend. At other times it is a loss of a dream or possibilities, or the loss of getting to continue to make our own decisions, etc. We need to acknowledge our losses, we need to grieve them in a constructive way. We also need to remember that of the many things we have lost, not been able to complete or accomplish, there are probably that many if not more things we have to celebrate being a part of, rejoicing that we were a part of something or many something’s we never thought possible.

Waiting

We took our kids to a water park while on vacation this summer. Usually I stay in the small kiddie area with our two younger children while my wife takes our two older children to the big kid areas. My wife took some pity on me and let me take our oldest son to one of the newer slides. We stood in line for about 30 minutes, which I did not think was that bad of a wait for the new slide… However my oldest child thought the line was moving slower than a snail’s pace. I may have had a little different perspective than my oldest child, since just a few weeks before I had been to a different water park with Junior High and High School students from our Church. At that water park there were several slides/attractions that the wait was anywhere from 2 – 4 hours.

As my oldest child and I waited in line I heard myself utter something that only a parent says… “You know you are going to have to get used to standing in line, it’s just part of life.” I surprised myself by saying something so “parent.” But that statement got me to thinking…

While waiting in line is something most of us have to do on a regular basis, we are not very good at waiting. You would think that with all the lines we have to wait in, we would be a more patient people, but the opposite seems true. We seem to be less patient with others. We seem not to want to wait, even though somewhere deep inside we know we have to…

We have packed our lives so full of activities that to wait anywhere throws off our schedule. Even when we take time to relax or take a vacation, we don’t want to wait; we don’t want to be patient. For many of us the start of a new school year is a time we can start new activities/projects or pick up those things we laid aside for the summer. Maybe with a new school year we need to reevaluate what we do and why we do it. Maybe we need to stop doing a few things that for one reason or another, we have been roped into, so that we have more time for those things that are important to us.

We grow to be more patient as we choose to be patient. We are surrounded by those who choose to be impatient, but we can choose to be different, and as we choose to be different we might just be surprised at the difference we make in the lives of others.

Commitment

We are bombarded regularly with requests to commit ourselves to one endeavor or another. I receive requests at least once a week, if not once a day, to give my time, my energy, or my money to someone or something. There are those that ask me to support an orphanage or a missionary, or research to find a cure for this disease, etc. There are very few requests that I look at and think “Seriously, you want me to consider giving my time, energy or money towards that?”

Over the last several decades the idea of committing ourselves to something has been watered down. While working on my master’s degree one of my professors recommended a book titled Bowling Alone. The author looked at the changes in our country over the past 60+ years. When our troops returned home from World War II there was a surge in people becoming a member of a group, committing their life to being a part of something. Most people were members of just a few groups because of the commitment required of these groups. In the decades that followed membership requirements of many groups/organizations were softened so that more people could become a member of their particular group. The effect was for a short amount of time membership in most groups went up, but the long term effect is that commitment has gone down.

I can “commit” myself to hundreds of groups/organizations… I can be a “member” of countless things… For the most part, all it requires of me is to make a regular donation of my money. I can be a part of groups and never attend a function, as long as they have received my regular financial contribution.

But, committing ourselves to something, being a member of something should require more of us. We should be more selective about what we give our time, our energy, and our financial resources to. There are countless groups that want a commitment from us, that want our membership, but how many of these groups are we truly passionate about? How many do we really want to give our time to? How many do we intend to exert energy for? How many will use our financial resources for projects that make a difference, and we are passionate about?

We can commit ourselves to many things, but not truly be a part of anything. We can be a member of many groups but not make a difference anywhere. We need to be more selective of who gets our time, who gets our resources, etc. So that what we commit to aligns with those areas we are passionate about making a difference in.

Making a Difference

I am a part of several groups, teams, and committees that discuss how to better meet the needs and serve those who live within the boundaries of our area. It was not long ago that I attend a meeting where we discussed meeting the needs of a specific demographic within our area. Everyone agreed that something needed to be done to meet the needs of this specific group.

It just so happened that we had several present from this demographic. Someone had the bright idea to ask them what it would take to begin working with them to meet their needs. These people began to open up about their lives and what it is that they need in their lives. I was a little surprised someone actually asked them the question. I was a little more surprised at how open these people were about how we could help. I was utterly shocked at the response by some of those seated around me.
I overheard a few people around me say something to the effect; “No one has ever done that for us, why should we do that for them?” Now I think that response was intended to be a whisper, but it did not come out that way.

It can be easy to point at the problems we experience in community, in organizations, in families, etc. It gets a little harder when prescriptions are put forward to make the group better, or healthier. Following a prescription usually requires that I make a change in my life. Change is not always easy. Change is especially difficult when the benefit of the change that is required doesn’t directly affect me.

It is an optimistic desire to want to help those we see that have a need. It is a selfish desire to want to meet their needs without it changing us. The question really comes down to, “Do I really want to make a difference?” I think most of us want things to be different in our community, in the organizations we are a part of, our families, etc., but are we willing to be a part of making the difference? If so, we need to make changes to our lives so that we have opportunities to help those around us.

Trust

Recently, following a meeting, a young man approached me. I have met this young man several times but he doesn’t ever seem to remember me. He motioned me to follow him out of ear shot of the rest of the group, so I followed him. He wanted to know more about one of the activities at the Church. About that time one of the people responsible for the activity walked by and I tried to introduce the two. The young man was more interested in discussing it with me; I thought because he knew who I was. It was not long before he confessed that he had been very nervous about coming and asking about the activity as he had really wanted to talk with the pastor of the church about the activity yet had gotten really nervous about talking to the pastor.

This evening I was with a different group. We were in a parking lot and needed a boost to get our vehicle started. The problem was that there were not many cars in the parking lot, and very few people seemed to be heading to a vehicle. I saw a lady with a young girl getting into an SUV. I called out to the lady and asked if she wouldn’t mind giving our vehicle a boost. She looked at me a little distrustfully and said, “I am really sorry, I don’t know how to do that, and would really prefer not to…” Now I don’t really blame this lady for not helping us. She was just trying to get her little one and herself into their vehicle and head home. The way she had looked at our group and especially at me, there seemed to be some distrust in her eyes.

It’s easy to say someone shouldn’t be nervous talking to me. When I look in the mirror the last thing I see is someone who evokes nervousness or distrust in others. I see someone who should be easy to talk to, someone who is worthy of placing trust in. Unfortunately, that is not how everyone else sees me. I hope that those that know me well see me this way, and I hope that those who don’t know me can see through my faults and see the me that is in there somewhere.… But we know ourselves, we know our friends. Others don’t, and most of us have grown up being taught to distrust strangers.

We often fear what we don’t know. I didn’t know the young man at the meeting very well, and I admit I was a little afraid of what he wanted to ask me. I had never seen the lady in the parking lot before and probably never will again, but I was a little hesitant to approach her to ask for help. I was even about to stop one of our group from approaching a foreign looking and sounding man. Yet it was this stranger who took of his own time to help us out of our predicament.

We can’t control how others perceive us. We can’t control if a stranger trusts us or not. We can however, act towards others how we hope to be treated. When someone needs help, you can stop to see what you can do for them. As difficult as it might be, trust someone who hasn’t earned your trust. We all find ourselves at times in different places with people we don’t know. In those times when we need help, we hope someone will come to our aid. We need to extend help to those who find themselves in a different place with unfamiliar people, to be the answer to their prayer, their hope in flesh, offering hands and feet to help…