When you point a finger at someone...

You have three fingers pointing back at you.

This is an old clique about not being judgemental. And yet we all struggle. Sometimes I think that we need others to stay the way they are so we can continue to be critical towards them.

There are times where I wish God would straighten someone else out, and what I find is that God needs to change me. I find that it is not the other person's behavior that I am struggling with but my own feelings about the person. In fact after my heart is changed, the other person could still act in an obnoxious way, but it no longer troubles me.

What freedom!

Where is God now?

Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons is in deep doggy -doo (sorry, I couldn't help it) with his involvement in a dog-fighting ring. He has been known for his Christian beliefs and his charitable deeds. Because of these allegations, Nike and Reebok have pulled their endorsement deals with him. With all the negative press he has received Michael may very well be wondering where God is in all this turmoil.

A great thing about this country is that if we believe in the "who is doing well indicates God's presence" line of thinking we can actually find where God has moved to.

According to that thinking, God has left Michael Vick and now resides with the Christian collector merchandise sellers, because since Vick's merchandise has been pulled from the shelves, the collectors’ prices are up.

Wow. This is soooo easy to discover God's presence! No wonder this thinking is so prevalent in this country. If you pay attention to the news you can actually document God's movements! Now if I could just find a way to market this!

Dealing with trauma

I finished "The tenth circle" by Jodi Picoult this week. It was about a girl who accuses a boy of rape and then has to deal with the fallout of that accusation. I enjoyed the book.

There was one line that stood out in the book. "It was a catch-22. If you didn't put the trauma behind you, you couldn't move on with your life. If you did put the trauma behind you, you willingly gave up the person you once were."

I have maintained that the only true control I have in my life is how I respond to what life has thrown my way

One of the struggles of life for me is that life is unpredictable and sometimes injurious. When those times come I have learned that I need to deal with the experience and willingly allow change to enter my life. What I have found in the process is that change isn't bad. In fact I realize that I'm grateful for what the experience has changed me into.

Different sides of a coin

In church on Sunday the pastor talked about testing versus trusting and how they were two sides of a coin. You couldn't test if you were trusting and you couldn't trust if you were testing.

In "Raising Arizona" Gail and Evelle Snoats are robbing a bank. Gale comes in shouting "All right ya' hayseeds, it's a stick-up. Everybody freeze. Everybody down on the ground." An old man looks at him and says "Well, which is it young feller? You want I should freeze or get down on the ground? Mean to say, if'n I freeze, I can't rightly drop. And if'n I drop, I'ma gonna be in motion. You see..." Gale yells "shut up!"

There are so many things in life like that. We are forced to choose. I remember watching my kids struggle with this concept when they were younger. They wanted both or all the choices, but by choosing one they missed out on the other.

You may flip that coin over and over for as long as you want, and the longer you flip that coin back and forth you are missing the benefits that choice can bring. If you wait too long you may miss the ability to choose all together.

One of the hardest things in life is what comes next. Making a commitment. Because as soon as you do, you can no longer view the other side of the coin.

What birth is trying to tell us.

Our neighbor is about to give birth any day now. In fact the baby may have come by now.

The baby has been coming for a month now. In the last week there have been false labor and days taken off by dad. But the baby hasn’t come, and they continue to wait. And with each day frustration mounts.

In our culture control is a big thing. We can be spontaneous, but our environment should be predictable. If something interrupts our lives, we stress.

Our neighbors are stressed. They want to know. The truth is that only God knows. That baby is coming in it's own time and our job is to be ready for it

The message that babies bring is that life is unpredictable, and where we embrace the miracle of life, is in those unpredictable minutes.

The need to fix

Last Sunday while the pastor was speaking, the mike cord, which usually goes up his back and over his shoulder was hanging down his chest. As he waved his arm around during his homily, the cord moved further down his arm. While what he was saying was good, the cord distracted me, waiting for him to catch it in his hand motions and rip it off his ear. I had to quell the urge to go up front and position the cord out of reach of his arm.

I wonder what my need is to fix things. There is the desire in me to not see bad things happen to those around me...to the point of distraction. Maybe it is the narcissistic belief I can carry inside that somehow I can fix everything, and perhaps it is my responsibility to fix it.

In Interpersonal Relations that is called a fallacy, a false belief.

I don't like the word "probably".

“It’s probably nothing.” These words are designed to ally fears, but it does nothing of the sort. They stir up doubt. As a parent I have said probably because I don't want to commit to something that I may not be able to follow through on.

We want certainty. Probably is not certain.

Fear of jumping

In church was a message about becoming sold out to God. The pastor made a good point about needing to be passionate about things if you believe them. He talked about people who were afraid to jump because of what others might think. That's where he stopped

I agree with the concept of commitment in terms of jumping, and that there are those afraid of jumping, for fear of social rejection. What I also know is the fear of jumping into toxic thinking.

I believe it a cop-out to talk about hypocrisy in the church. It is made up of people like me. I am a self-proclaimed hypocrite. But I have also seen the unhealthy ways that people are motivated to “serve” the church leadership. Guilt and shame lurk in the dark corners of the church. Freedom in Christ is boldly proclaimed from the pulpit; shame for not living up to “godly” principles is whispered in the hallways. In fact I have sat through sermons attempting to make me feel ashamed for being afraid of social rejection.

So I acknowledge that my fear of jumping may look like fear of being rejected. In actuality there may be a greater fear of what I am accepting.

"We've got a nerd man walking!"

I went for a walk tonight. I wanted to continue to break in some new shoes and it was too hot not to wear short pants. The solution was to wear my black socks, which is the only color I own and don my shoes. I looked like a dork, missing the clashingly loud Bermuda shorts and the terry cloth crush hat. My wife even called me a nerd.

When do we stop caring about how people view us? At some point age sets in and we realize that some things may be more important than what people think about an aspect of our thinking, acting, or attire. It doesn't happen all at once, but as we move towards older age, that carelessness creeps into more and more of our actions.

So I didn't care that I looked like a nerd. What I cared about is body temperature cool, not jet set society cool. I can proudly say I pulled it off. The walk was enjoyable. I was cool. And can I forgive my wife for calling me a nerd? Of course I can, she's younger than me. She will understand when she is older.

The power of forgiveness

A friend of mine talked about hurts perpetrated by a family member. This person added, "I haven't forgiven this family member, but I'm not letting them know about it, because someday they might be all I have".

Forgiveness is a powerful force at our disposal. We can grant it, we can withhold it. It is in our power, and our power alone. No one can make us forgive. And like all power the responsibility for its use good or evil resides inside us. I know that I have struggled with forgiving someone else. I don't want to let them off the hook.

My friend said a profound thing in that statement. Power was identified and ways to use it were articulated, a trump card waiting to be played at the right moment.

Letting go

Over the past several months I am learning new ways to let go. In recent months I have had to let go of desires, dreams, and beliefs that I have held. And it has been harder than I expected. If you had asked me a year ago if I could let go of things I would have told you that I could. Now, faced with the task of letting go in certain areas, I am finding it to be quite the challenge.

I think one of the reasons for the difficulty of letting go is that in doing so you need to change the definition of yourself. I have known myself a certain way relative to the relationship or object. In letting go, that definition changes, because part of who you are has been defined by that relationship or object. In letting go I say, “I change who I am in relationship to you. Change is a deliberate act.

Change is hard. Change is scary. Change is uncertain. And because of all those descriptors, change is hard to do. And yet, change is good.

I must change to find peace within myself. My struggle with pebbles may have been my unwillingness to redefine. My struggle with pebbles may have been signals that my definitions needed upgrading.

People from Iowa

Sitting on the beach the other day, two girls throwing rocks into the bay had lime green shirts on that proclaimed that they were Iowa girls.

In my mind I went back in time to a road trip out west a number of years ago. We had been heading west from Minneapolis. We stopped in a small town in Iowa to eat at a restaurant close to the highway.

Another family with children was eating nearby. One of my children, who will not be identified, looked over at them and said, "So that is what people from Iowa look like!"

Surprised I pointed out that they didn't look different than us at all. He hesitantly agreed.

It is always a fight to keep from looking at the world as "us" versus "them". We continue to define the world as those other than us. And we try to stack the deck to show our rightness and other's "wrongness".

Politicians and religious leaders have used it with great success. We are divided between rich and poor, saved and unsaved, hard working and welfare, catholic and protestant, privilege and common, faithful and infidel, red and blue, righteous and heathen. And we are encouraged to choose a side and look down on the other side.

“So that's what humans look like.”

Yes, and they don't look too different than me.

Hiking the river

Today hiking was on the agenda. We went to Cascade State Park and walked up the path. Again, it was a beautiful day and cool. We ascended the winding trail alongside the river. We saw the river and then walked around an obstacle only to encounter the river again. The sound of the water was loud and soothing.

While I walked I realized that I don’t want to go back to my life just yet. The mark of a good restful vacation is that you are looking forward to getting back to your “real” life. I wasn’t ready. In fact I felt I was desperately trying to cling to peace. Boy isn't that an oxymoron! I am continually learning to let go.

I have a reason to get back, so I am going. I have resolved to not let so much time elapse between retreats, and I believe that life will be better handled by getting away for a day or two.

Life, like the river keeps flowing. While there is a diversion here and there, it moves around and keeps moving towards its destiny. As are we. Diversions are nice, life has to be lived. So I will go back home and get busy with my "real" life again.

Letting pebbles go

Yesterday my wife and I sat out on the pebble beach in Grand Marais. The sun was bright, the sky was clear. I watched as throngs of people came down to the water's edge and skipped stones. Geese wandered through the crowd like street performers looking for handouts.

I talked about pebbles hitting me. Here I was on a pebble beach not picking one of them up. While others picked them up, I let them lay there under my feet.

It is important to move away from those annoying pebbles and gain some perspective. This weekend, I moved out of range, just for a while from the trajectory of the pebbles and I felt relief. It allowed me to look at new ways of handling the pebbles more effectively, and which ones I can keep from having thrown at me.

I was at peace. I did nothing; my thoughts hit me like the bugs on my windshield from the trip up here. Processing was optional and I let life drift me along. It felt good, it felt healing, and I could feel stress leaving me

I could sit there and watch others heave their pebbles into the water and not pick up even one.

Freedom!