Loud Loft

A New Score Card in town . . .

(orginally posted on my blog www.loudloft.blogs.com which now cross posts to my Facebook)

I've been approached privately by a few of the folks who I'm "friends" with on Facebook or who follow my twitter account or read my blog about my spiritual life. There has been some curiosity about what I believe and how I manifest those beliefs in my life. There has also been curiosity about the church that I attend. I also work at that church as Storyteller - which is our term for Director of Communications. Here's a stab at answering some of those questions.

I'm fortunate to have friends (both analog and digital) who represent pretty much the entire spectrum of spirituality. I am reassuringly uncomfortable in my own place among my journey. I've lived long enough to have figured some things out and long enough to know that there are things I will never figure out and also long enough to know that my beliefs will change over time. That last statement tends to raise a few eyebrows from some folks . . . so let me elaborate.

In the Christian vernacular there is the statement that many of you have heard, it's "I've been saved" or the question "are you saved?". This refers to the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ to "save" someone from eternal separation from God. Theologians write books on this idea - so I won't go there. However, fundamentally, those statements tend to focus on just the past tense. They refer to a point in time at which something "happened" in a person's life. History is a good thing as it gives context, but context alone is insufficient.

I prefer "I'm being saved". That is not to imply that the actual acceptance of Christ is a temporal event that occurs over time or that it is possible to begin and then reverse or to lose it. I do embrace a theology that is often termed the "once saved always saved" position. What I mean by the use of the word "being" is that "once saved" is just the beginning of my journey and not my destination.

In that context I'm "being saved" every day. I'm forced to live solely in the present. The past is behind me and out of my control. The future is before me and also out of my control.  Certainly the choices I made in the past have consequences today and in the future and the choices I make in the future will have consequences then . . . but NOW is the only time that I can make those choices. It's both simple and complex and that the dichotomy is one of the reasons that draw me to my faith.

So, all this is fine and dandy . . . but unless this manifests itself somehow in my life it's all just talk.

The church I attend is parish minded in the sense that it's far less about what happens inside our walls than outside. The inside is good, don't get me wrong - but if it's walled off and hidden behind facades it really does nobody any good.

I could go on but instead I would invite you to download this PDF and give it a whirl. It lays out ten key things that have to happen to make a significant impact on the community you live in. Yeah, it approaches it from a spiritual perspective . . . so I may have lost some of you. If so, humor me and at least read the ten topics that are highlighted in bold.

Those ten topics accurately paint a picture of what we are working toward.

Those ten topics present a much different "score card" than what most folks in the church biz have used in the past. I (and we) think it's a much needed change . . .

BTW If for some reason - the link to the file doesn't' come across when this cross posts to Facebook just wander over to www.loudloft.blogs.com and you will find it in this post

Mystical Music Musings

Tommy and I were standing on our chairs and had been screaming at the top of lungs at each other for the last ninety minutes. Finally, at one point, we reached out, grabbed the front of the others shirt and began pounding each other in the chest. We couldn’t be more ecstatic . . .

What I thought were aircraft landing lights (but I learned later that they were banks of lights commonly used on film sets to recreate sunlight) had just lit the darkness and had blinded us. The sound was so overwhelming that I couldn’t hear myself no matter how loud I yelled. It was the last song of the concert. We were on the fourth row directly in front of Pete Townsend. In addition to the deafening PA sound system, Pete had three sets of 200 watt amps on stage. Each set had two cabinets with four twelve inch speakers each. You could feel the music as much as hear it.

Won’t Get Fooled Again was at it’s crescendo. It’s that point in the song right after the synthesizer/organ bridge, Keith Moon starts beating the #$%* out of his drums, Roger Daltry screams yyeeeeaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!, John Entwistle hits a bass note that sounds like a jet engine at full throttle, Townsend strikes a massive chord on the guitar and the lighting guy fries the retinas of the crowd with those freakin’ bright lights.

It was November, 1975. Tommy and I had worn out numerous album copies of The Who Sell Out, Tommy, Live at Leeds, Who’s Next and Quadrophenia but this was the first time for us to see The Who live. They were all about 30 years old, so still young enough to hit it hard and old enough to really know what they doing. Tommy and I were 18 and freshmen in college. Without knowing it at the time, by pummeling each other, we had invented slam-dancing which later evolved into moshing. Who knew we were such innovators? At the time it was just the emotion, testosterone and energy of our youth manifesting it self the only way it could. I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for soccer hooligans every since.

Anyway, that all happened nearly 34 years ago and I can still recall every nuance of the moment. Every time I hear the song (yeah, I watch CSI Miami just for the open) I clench my fists just a little and wag my head to the beat.

A few years later in 1983, while watching MTV, a video comes on of a live concert in the rain at Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. The rain is coming down hard, the band is soaked, the crowd is soaked and the cameras are getting drenched. It was U2 doing Sunday Bloody Sunday. Towards the end of the song someone hands Bono a pole that has a white piece of cloth tied on. It’s not a white flag of surrender in the sense of being defeated. It’s a white flag of obedience. It’s a white flag representing the purity of an unblemished sacrifice. He waves it over the crowd as the steam rises off his back and sings “The real battle just begun/to claim the victory Jesus won/on Sunday Bloody Sunday.” The torches in the distance, the shafts of light cutting thru the night rain and the crimson tint of the rocks makes this an iconic image that causes it to be listed as one of the fifty moments that changed the history of rock and roll.

Nineteen years later on 2/2/2002 at the half time performance of the Super Bowl, at the end of Where The Streets Have No Name, after the names of the victims of the tragedy of 9/11 have scrolled across the scrim, Bono pulls his jacket open to reveal another flag sown into the lining. It’s an image etched into the ethos of our culture. Though it's associated with a tragedy that touched the lives of millions - it represents a determination and courage that mere words spoken or written on paper can never convey.

For me, music has a power and mystery that I Can’t Explain (if you know your Who songs you will get the pun). I’m not a musician. I can’t sing. In fact, in those places where people are expected to sing along (often times this is during Church) I make it a point to not sing with the crowd and it’s not just because I have a crappy voice. I’m enthralled with the swirling sound of music and people singing and it diminishes the depth of feeling when I add my voice. Yeah, I know, if every body felt the way I do . . . there would be nothing to listen to. But, every body doesn’t feel the way I do - so drop it.

I love to feel music when I listen to it. I love music that is on the ragged edge. However, I do have favorite artists that don’t sound like bombs going off. I enjoy the sensitive song writer genre and James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Randy Newman are some of my favorites along with many others styles of music. Fatboy Slim, Modest Mouse and even trashy European techno/dance has a place in my heart.

But back to the music that peels paint and makes your ears ring the next day.

Lola by The Kinks was the first record I ever bought and yes, it was a 45 rpm single and I paid way less than a buck for it back in 1970. I would have been about 13 years old so a song about gender confusion was just what I needed at the time :)

Lola shares a characteristic with another Who song, Baba O’Riley in that when performed live in concert, the crowd sings along on certain sections. For Lola, the audience sings Lo Lo Lo Lo Lola on the chorus and on Baba O’Riley the crowd drowns out Pete on "Don't cry/don't raise your eye/it's only teenage wasteland". Those are the few times that I feel like singing along with the band.

I always come back to the snarling, chain saws on sheet metal, distorted, amped up, sweat slinging, spit flinging music that made Tommy and I want to beat the #$%&* out of each other . . .  in a brotherly love sort of way. We tend to build walls, dig moats and bury land mines around our emotions. I think that’s the reason these “over the top/this one goes to eleven” situations cut deep into the hearts of so many of us.

Tommy is 52 now and I will be too in just a few months. We’ve been friends since August of 1970 when we both showed up in home room on the first day of 7th grade. I always sat near him since my last name is Buchanan and his last name is Byrd. He still calls me Billy and even though I call him Tom - he will always be Tommy to me.

In August of 2000 he came for a visit. I had tickets for us to see The Who at Reunion Arena. Moon had died of a drug overdose many years ago and Ringo Starr’s son, Zach Starkey had replaced him on drums. The band was in their mid 50’s and they didn’t jump and leap about as much as they did the first time we saw them . . . neither did Tommy or I.

But, we still stood on our chairs, sang along on Baba O’Riley and made fools of ourselves, but this time we just punched our fists in the air  . . . we bruise a lot easier these days.

What, Me Worry? Dreams I'll Never See . . .

Just one more mornin'
I had to wake up with the blues
Pulled myself outta bed, yeah
Put on my walkin' shoes,
Went up on the mountain,
To see what I could see,
The whole world was fallin',
Right down in front of me.

[chorus]
cause I'm hung up on dreams I'll never see, yeah baby.
Ahh help me baby, or this will surely be the end of me, yeah.

Pull myself together, put on a new face,
Climb down off the hilltop, baby,
Get back in the race.

[chorus]

Pull myself together, put on a new face,
Climb down off the hilltop, baby,
Get back in the race.

[chorus]

Ok, it’s not Shakespeare or Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote or Kurt Vonnegut but I literally grew up listening to this song. It was the second track on side two of The Allman Brothers Band album (that was both the name of the album and the name of the band - they were either real economical with names or not very creative, I have to go with the former because . . . well, they sort of invented and dominated an entire genre of music). It was the longest song on the album at 7:19 and the music dominates the lyrics if you catch my drift.

They were known for stretching out a song. Considering that the live versions of Whipping Post clocked in at 22:53 and Mountain Jam ran 33:39 you just have to believe that for the brothers, it is was more about the music than the words. That’s ok with me and it seemed to work ok for the Grateful Dead and later for a little band from Vermont called Phish.

But anyway . . .

One of the more interesting side effects of this medicine that I’m taking is vivid dreams. Now I couldn’t find that specific terminology listed as a side effect but I’m certain the Doctor who gave me the prescription used those words . . . and if she didn’t, well it makes a much better story if she did, so there.

So, either way, I’ve been having the most vivid dreams lately, including the one that centers on the mythology that if you die in your dream . . . you will die right then in real life. I’m here to dispute that myth.

I won’t go into the whole dream sequence because, well it’s dream and most of it didn’t make much #$%&* sense. The end of the dream found me in a very tall building looking out over the city. I had to be at least 20+ stories in the air. There was a beast (let’s call it a lion) that was roaming the floors inflicting the most excruciating pain as it found people in it’s path. It wasn’t roaring or tearing them limb from limb or anything that you might expect an angry lion to do. In fact, it was quite nonchalant as it wandered around, but when it found you . . . it was bad, real bad.

To save a bunch of folks the agony and suffering at the hands of this beast I had convinced them to hop on this trolley (remember this is a dream so it doesn’t have to make sense) and had steered it thru a window causing everybody to plummet to their death 20 stories below.

Seriously, compared to the horror, suffering and pain that the lion was handing out, falling that distance to a quick splat at the end was a merciful option.

I was still standing at the now shattered window (for some reason I had jumped off the trolley right before it crashed thru) and watched the lion as it ambled towards me. I turned to face the skyline thru the open window and stepped off the edge.

As I fell, I leaned back to the point that all I could see was the blue sky above me and the sides of the buildings on either side slipping by as I rushed towards the ground.

I thought how beautiful the sky was and wondered what I would feel when I hit. And. Then. Bang. Everything went black as I felt the first feeling of impact with the concrete. The first thing I thought was “wow, that didn’t hurt at all. I guess the impact was so severe and sudden that my passing from consciousness to  . . . well, whatever it was I was feeling now was so sudden that I didn’t really have time to feel anything at all. Mercy.

Remember, I’m still asleep and dreaming. I didn’t wake up just before I hit. I didn’t wake up just after I hit. I kept right on dreaming.

The first shock was the sense of peace. I thought “this is it? This is what dead feels like? What the #@$% is everybody so afraid of? This is nice.”

I didn’t see any bright lights or hear trumpets or find myself staring into the face of God and much to my dismay . . . I woke up right about then.

Here’s the deal. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I believe in Heaven. I believe that Hell is, at least, separation from God. So maybe I had to wake up right then because I wasn’t dead. Maybe it was just my vivid imagination (and I do have one) picking plot lines and story elements from the storehouse of movies, books and shows I’ve seen over the last 51+ years and weaving all those parts together to entertain me while I was sleeping.

I don't have a clue. I don’t care.

What I came away with was that death is not the end of things, it’s how you get to the next thing. I believe that next thing for me is community with God and that even my most vivid imagination and all the most vivid imaginations of all of the most creative minds in the world all gathered together in one place will not be able to describe it.

So - I will leave you with these words from brother Gregg Allman.

Pull myself together, put on a new face,
Climb down off the hilltop, baby,
Get back in the race.

Preach it Gregg. The living is in the race . . .

What, Me Worry?

For a specific segment of the population that short phrase speaks volumes. For the rest of you, click HERE to find the source.

This phrase has, for most of my life been a motto that I take seriously (pun intended). There are so many things that we have no control over in our lives that it just seemed prudent to accept that it would be better to determine what I should spend my time worrying about and let the rest fall to their own place.

Generally speaking, up until a few months ago, this philosophy worked quite well. Sure, there were times when I worried about certain things and there were times where I felt the cold clamp of depression  . . . but I always worked my way out of those times in a generally acceptable manner.

Life has it’s ebbs and flows, it’s peaks and valleys and what I’ve experienced is well within any normal standards of what your average guy deals with. In fact, I’ve probably had a lot less to worry about than most folks. I’ve been incredibly blessed with good health, a job, friends, family, a roof over my head, food on the table a wife who loves me for who I am . . . seriously folks, when it comes to anguish and whatnot, I lead a “What, Me Worry?” life.

But then . .  .

On April 1st 2009, things came to a crescendo. That it happened on April Fool’s day is just a cruel trick of timing. That morning, I woke up with the very ordinary feeling that my Dad was in the present. What’s not so ordinary is that my Dad died on February 22nd, 2000 . . .

This wasn’t one of those situations where you have a dream that your loved one is alive because even with a dream you understand that it was a dream. This was a scenario that transcended awareness of a dream in which you know something is not right. It was crushing when I finally began the process of realizing that something which I knew to be certain (that my Dad was in the present with me) was not so.

In essence, my Dad died all over again . . . and I began to grieve all over again.

On April 6th I was in a meeting. It was a Monday morning and one of my co-workers was telling a story about some situation that had upset him and how his small daughter came over to him and gently patted his cheek and said “It will be ok Daddy”.

Lisa and I don’t have children and we’ve never had regrets for not making the leap into parenthood. In some cases, I think we would have been great parents, but generally speaking it’s not something we ever had our heart’s desire set upon and we are both comfortable with that choice. We’ve talked about it at length at different points in our marriage (both of them) and we harbor no ill will towards the other for our choices. In fact, we both feel the same way about our decision.

But  . . .  as I listened to my friend describe the tenderness of his daughter towards him I realized that I had to fully reconcile that I would never experience such a relationship with a child, or a grandchild. It was something that I had to fully “put to bed”. I’m not sad about the choice I’ve made or even have second thoughts but I’ve never had to close the door on being a Father or Grandfather . . . . and I began to grieve over that closure.

During all this time, my Mom (who will be 87 this October) was getting more and more frail and less able to care for herself. I have two wonderful siblings who have opened up their homes and share the responsibility for providing a home to her. My mom splits her time with my sister in North Richland Hills and my brother in Denison. Their homes are both one level which makes it possible for my Mom to stay with them . . . our house is two levels and all the bedrooms are on the second level with stairs that make it very difficult for Mom to stay with us for any length of time. In fact, these days, if my Mom is at my Sister’s and they need to be out of town for the weekend, instead of Mom staying with us I go over to my sisters and spend the time there.

But a couple of weeks ago she fell at my sisters. She’s fallen before and has the bruises and scars to prove it. She is (by her own description) a tough old bird. She survived colon cancer over 42 years ago (resulting in colostomy), multiple heart bypass surgery 32 years ago and a fall that broke both of her elbows (they had to replace one entire elbow and half of the other) about 10 years ago. In addition, all three of her children had polio in the late 40’s (my oldest sister died, my other sister was disabled in her right arm and my brother had only minor issues) and of course my dad died of congestive heart failure a little over nine years ago.

The week after she fell at my sisters, she was at my brothers. I had the strangest impulse to call her on a Monday morning and my sister in law answered her cell phone in a bit of panic. Mom had fallen again in the bathroom and she had just got her back to bed. I spoke with Mom on the phone and she didn’t sound good.

I drove to Denison and spent part of the day with Mom. We think she may have taken an extra nighttime sleep aid and was just really groggy when she got up in the morning . . . that’s what we hope anyway. Still, watching your mom laying in bed struggling to make a coherent sentence is sobering. She’s been ok since then but she’s ready to go and be with Dad. I know the grieving for that time will come and I grieve a bit now for her loss of mobility and self. She’s still a “tough old bird”  . . . for now.

Did I mention that my wife’s brother was recently divorced after 30 years of marriage? All the turmoil has been tough on him and almost as tough on Lisa. She and her brother (I’m very close to him and we go back even from before I met Lisa) are as close as two peas in a pod. The pain he has felt has taken a toll on Lisa. I’ve struggled with how to be a good partner, husband and friend to her as she deals with her own feelings about all this.

And then about a year and a half ago I changed careers - drastically. I left a VP of Operations position with a company that I had been with for eighteen years to go to work for my church. It’s a great job and one that I’ve been preparing for all of my life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything . . . but #$%^&! it’s a lot different than what I’d grown accustomed to for the last thirty years.

So, between grieving all over again for my dad, grieving for the first time over parenting choices, my Mom’s declining health issues, my wife’s struggle with her brother’s divorce and my job change . . . I began a spiral that I could not correct.

One of the amazing things about my new job is that I work with people who care enough about me to call me out when they see a change. My boss (who is also a good friend) took me aside one day and bluntly asked “what’s the matter?”. He had noticed, other co-workers had noticed and they loved me enough to not sweep it under the rug and carry on as if nothing was the matter.

Another amazing thing about this job is that my employer provides counseling to staff free of charge. You might think that would be a matter of course for a church but this counseling is done by a third party, off site and is anonymous. The counselor notifies one person her at the church of how many visits were made by staff in any one month and then he’s reimbursed accordingly.

So, I had a visit with the Doctor and after  going into much more detail than I’ve shared here, he concluded that there had been a “perfect storm” of issues and that I was experiencing moderate depression. He offered to continue the meetings and also offered the option of a prescription for an anti-depressant if I was open to the suggestion.

Have you ever seen the iPhone commercials where the narrator describes a certain situation and then declares “there’s an app for that”. That’s pretty much how my generation grew up with drugs. If there was a problem then “there’s a drug for that”. Some folks have issues with that and would rather explore any option possible before they run down the path to prescription drugs. I, however, see things a bit differently.

Last year about this time I had surgery on my right hand. Several months later I was having a terrible time with my right elbow. It seems that I had developed tennis elbow as a result of  favoring my hand and arm as the scar healed. I had multiple physical therapy sessions on my right arm and elbow but what finally did the trick was a steroid shot right into my elbow. All the manipulation in the world wouldn’t solve the problem. It took a little bit of medicine directly into the elbow to jump start the healing process. It worked quite nicely.

So, today I visited my family doctor, reviewed the situation with her and walked out  with a month’s worth of samples of something that is supposed to jack with my serotonin levels. I should see some improvement within a week or less and I will update my doctor when I go back in four weeks for my annual physical. The thinking now is that I will be on the anti-depressants for six to nine months till I work my way back to square one.

I’m wrestling a little bit with sharing all this personal information online in a public forum . . . but what the &%$#. If I’m ever going to err on one side or the other, I’m going to choose transparency, authenticity and “real” over the other choices. I don’t fault others for not making that choice. I mean, seriously that’s why it’s called “choice”.

I will post more as the weeks go by. It actually helps me to tell this story. It’s one way that I process the intangible and abstract and give it form and space. At some point I can go back to my motto, “What, Me Worry?”

More to come . . .

Lord's Table Elements

So I decided to give up not drinking for Lent this year. Yeah, its a bit unusual but it's not like I drink all the time anyway. In fact, if I have one beer a week . . . that's a lot. So it was a challenge for me to commit to drinking 40 beers over the 46 day period of Lent. I decided that if I was going to go down this path I might as well  go whole hog and try to work in the observance of the Lord's Supper as often as possible. That's especially interesting as I'm pretty opposed to the daily observance.

That's mostly because I think that since I don't hold to the transubstantiation camp that it's just another thing that will become a ritual and quickly loose it's meaning.

Anyway, I had the beers and I had these tasty chips so I figured why not? So, for all but about five or six of the days of Lent - when I had my time of observing the commitment I had made "for" Lent, I also observed the Lord's Supper.

"This is my blood and this is my body"

I figure that the Shiner and gluten free chips are a &%^# of a lot closer to the wine and bread that were on the table when Jesus initiated this little shindig with his friends than the juice and wafer that is offered at church..

It actually became a meaningful experience for me. I don't see the point in continuing it every day of the year but, for the season of Lent, it was a good thing to pause, take a sip of a refreshing beverage, crunch down on a tasty, salty chip and consider the sacrifice of my lord and savior a few thousand years ago.

A sacrifice that changed the world and one that continues today to effect the lives of people around the world.

Lent was good for me this year. I enjoyed thinking about my commitment over the 46 days and it did cause me to focus more on how I can be the hands and feet of Jesus to this world . . . and I still like Shiner too.

Goma, text messaging and community

So I'm sitting in church this morning when Barry asks the folks to pray for the folks from IBC (including Steve Roese) who are in Goma Congo. The situation there is slightly better than it was just a few months ago but is still extremely tough. Our folks are visiting the ALARM compound that I visited with a few other IBC'ers last October.

When the rebels started raiding, hundreds of thousands fled Goma and that area of the Congo for safety. All but a few of the ALARM staff left but have slowly trickled back in.

Anyway,

Instead of/as I was praying, I sent a text message to Steve telling him that we in the body gathered here in Irving were praying for him and for the folks there. He texted back his thanks and noted that ALARM needs funds to supply provisions to pastors in the area who are making their way back to their flock.

When the violence got close - they fled with the clothes on their back and the items that they could carry. They are coming back to nothing in most cases and it's difficult to minister to others when your own family has nothing to start with.

So, ALARM needs $100 per pastor to supply a tarp, some farm tools, some food and some rice - along with a little cash to start over with. They want to help 100 pastors so the math comes to $10,000

So I sent a text to Mike Gwartney (who "runs" the services each Sunday at IBC) and he and I exchanged a few more texts while Steve and I exchanged a few more texts . . . and the short story is that during the Lord's Supper, Mike was able to get word to Barry about all this and at the close of the service Barry shared that some texts had flown back and forth half way around the world during the last hour or so and baskets had been placed at the exits and if you wanted to give something to help the pastors of Goma, to drop something in the basket on your way out the door.

And the people gave $1469.15.

Barry will make a bit more comprehensive announcement at the 6:00 service and people will be able to contribute at the end of that one to. We might come up with $2500 or so just from today

All this because of a couple of text message that brought the communities of IBC in Irving Texas USA with the community of Pastors in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa. Is there real community in a "virtual/online" community? This question comes up all the time amongst those of us who dabble in technology as we journey through this place and time.

Does that question even have to be asked? Seriously?

BTW - if you want to help, send a check to IBC with ALARM/Goma Pastors in the detail section.

UPDATE: At the 6:00 service the folks gave another $1410.13 for a one day total of $2879.28 and I know of at least one check for  $125 that will come in tomorrow to take the total to over $3,000.

Not too shabby a demonstration of what the power of a few text messages can do . . . well, that and a body of believers who care for the "whole" body no matter where it's located.

A passionate endorsement of Lent . . .

That title should really read “A passionate endorsement of Lent by somebody who really isn't that passionate about Lent” but that just seemed too long and made me think of some other long titles like THIS or THIS  and that's not really the point of this post.

So, Dear Reader, you ask what is the point? If you've read any of my prior posts you know the answer to that is usually “it depends”. I tend to cover lots of ground and this post will be no exception.

Still, the general theme I'm working with is Lent, how people observe it, why I'm “meh” about it all and why I'm going to give it a whirl this time.

So, Lent is a 46 consecutive day period of the church calendar that begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes the day before Easter. During that time, the folks who observe Lent commit to “give something up” for 40 of those days. The Catholic Church, being ever the pragmatists and the architects of this shindig, give you a break on the Sundays during this time to go crazy and partake of that which you've elected to give up.

I'm not certain of the reasoning behind that but certainly giving up something for six days in a row is a little bit easier to bite off than forty six days in a row . . . I'm just saying.

Anyway, the point is not so much in the thing that you give up as it is in the frequent reminder you encounter as you come up against the choice of continuing to abstain or to break your vow. The reminder is there to cause you to consider the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the place He holds in your life, an issue that you need to deal with, His forgiveness that is awaiting your request, His grace that you need to accept, how to show that forgiveness and grace to others . . . and the list goes on.

Lent is a time of intentionally creating a situation that will generate an attitude of contemplating. The “what” you are contemplating is intensely intimate. It's no one's business but your own. The “why” of Lent is to just give you a tool to consider the “what”.

As a recovering Southern Baptist, growing up I didn't hear much about Lent. Well, who are we kidding I didn't hear squat about Lent. It's something the Catholics do and those people are strange what with the candles, the robes, the incense – not to mention that whole Pope thing in Rome.

But at Irving Bible Church, where I go, this is the third year we've observed Lent as a community and I love symbolic gestures as much as the next guy. Not to mention the parades, floats, clowns and bands. Wait, that's Mardi Gras which is the blow out binge that wraps up midnight on Fat Tuesday right before Ash Wednesday and is designed to let you indulge in whatever you're giving up in spades so that it lessens the pain. I mean really, when you're coming off a two day binge, the last thing you want is more of the same, not that I would know anything about that . . .

Back to IBC. We do the Ash Wednesday service, we have a special website that walks you through each day, click HERE to see it,  you can subscribe to get a daily text message (text lent to 313131) sent to your phone, we have a Twitter account, IBClent that you can follow, each worship service is intentionally planned to reflect the tone and mood of the season and we make it kind of a big deal.

So, this time for Lent, I've decided to give up not drinking. That's probably not the most common way of approaching it but, hey it's my way and my blog, so you will have to come up with your own.

I thought of this while sitting in the bar of a local Italian restaurant on Monday afternoon with a good friend. The number of times I've found myself in a bar drinking in the middle of the afternoon reminds me of that old joke told in geek circles. “There are 10 kinds of people who understand binary numbers. Those who do and those who don't”. If you don't get that joke consider yourself normal. If you do get that joke you probably spend way too much time indoors and need to go work on your tan.

Anyway, this was the first time for me and it was the result of the both of us sitting through a blitzkrieg of meetings that had rendered us null and void. I pretty much slammed the first Shiner Bock so that I could take my time on the second and savor this sweet nectar of Texas. We chatted for a while about things and another friend called (who had also been in the same set of meetings) who soon ended up there with a glass of wine in their hand.

After awhile, we all made our way back to work, I took care of some things and finally left for the house around 7:00. This was the Monday before Ash Wednesday and I was going to have to either fish or cut bait on this Lent thing. I'm typically opposed to joining things and having such a structured thing as Lent looming before me actually made me more annoyed than excited.

But, let's face it, anything that you do that can cause you to stop, ponder, think, contemplate, remember, ask forgiveness for, seek direction, worship, honor, glorify our Lord and risen Savior is a good thing. Even Lent.

So, each day, when I think about the cold Shiner in my fridge at home I will stop and consider His incredible gift of grace, when I pop the cap I will give thanks for His mercy  and when I bring the cold bottle to my lips and savor the taste I will remember the sacrifice He made for me on the cross and that He is my Redeemer and Savior.

I'm still kind of “meh” on Lent but that's changing. I really do like the idea of Lent, especially when I can come up with a way to do it that reflects the personality that God gave me. Cheers.

Duddy Duddy and Elwin Wilson

Growing up I worked for my Dad and the company my Dad worked for had a contract to do right-of-way maintenance and other construction/maintenance jobs for a company that owned pipelines, pump stations and delivery stations (where the big trucks go to fill up with gas to take to gas stations to sell to you and me).

My Dad’s counterpoint at that company was a man named Woodrow Wilson Mathis but we called him Duddy Duddy as he went by W. W. Mathis.  Yeah it’s a pretty juvenile thing to make fun of his name and to be honest I even think that the guy who came up with it had a cleft palate deformity and talked with a speech impediment so it’s actually impolite on several levels . . . but I digress.

Duddy Duddy was a racist and he made no effort to hide that fact. At this point in time he was well into his sixties with thinning grey hair, a huge back brace to stabilize his spine, a lift in one boot (which made him even slightly more Frankensteinish) to correct for some other injury or malady that he had acquired along the way and a pure and concentrated hatred for blacks, punk kids with long hair (this was the early 70’s) and anybody who didn’t think, act or look like him.

I never heard him say a kind word in the six summers I worked for him and my Dad - and I never heard a kind word said to him either. Long after I graduated from college and got a job and ended my annual summer job position . . . he passed away as angry and bitter and racist as he was when I worked with him.

Today, while watching a Good Morning America I saw another Wilson from that era. Elwinn Wilson, 72 years old, was sitting with John Lewis the Democratic Representative from Georgia and offering an apology.

When I saw Elwin Wilson, because of his age, his appearance, his accent and his history I immediately thought of Duddy Duddy. What I saw right after that made me grieve for Mr. Mathis and how he lived his life . . .  all the way to his grave.

Forty eight years ago, John Lewis arrived in some town in the south on a Greyhound bus and tried to enter a waiting room that was whites only. John Lewis was one of the Freedom Riders from that era who traveled around the south pushing the limits of the segregation laws and customs of that time. Elwin Wilson attacked John Lewis and beat him for daring to break the norm and disturb the status quo. During the interview there were pictures that showed Elwinn taunting a black man and the expression on his face was one of evil glee . . .

Years later, Elwin Lewis became a Christian through a close relationship with a good friend and embarked on a journey of forgiveness. He had been shown grace. He had been forgiven and now he was asking for forgiveness. He visited a former whites only cafe to meet other civil rights activists (I don’t know but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had lived in the same town his entire life), told his story and asked for forgiveness from them. He visited others that he had wronged and asked for their forgiveness

The paper in Rock Hill, S.C reported on Elwin’s journey and through a series of events he ended up in John Lewis’ office in the Capital offering his apology and asking for forgiveness for beating him forty eight years ago.

Lewis was gracious in accepting his apology and said that he hoped that Elwin Wilson's quest for redemption would inspire others who took part in civil rights-era violence to come forward and help heal wounds from the struggle over integration.

So what caused Elwin to change? Was it a civil rights documentary? A mandatory class in equality? Reconciliation counseling? No. All of those things are great and can cause a person to think and question but it was the redeeming gift of grace, mercy and forgiveness expressed by his acceptance and faith in Jesus Christ that changed Elwin Wilson's heart and caused him to ask God for forgiveness and to get up out of his chair and go to those he had hurt and ask for their forgiveness too.

Don't be a Duddy Duddy . . . be an Elwin.

BTW click HERE to read the story on the ABC News website.

Thoughts on 1/20/09

It’s been interesting to watch (read) the folks in my online community comment on the recent inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama. LIke most folks (I hope) I have friends, relatives and acquaintances from across the political spectrum.

My sister is a Democrat who cancels out her husbands Republican vote each year. My brother, earlier in his life was a Kennedy Democrat (JFK era) but I would put him in the Republican/Libertarian camp these  days. Most of my wife’s family are some version of pretty hard core Republican. My dad never voted anything but Democratic (as far as I know) since the days of FDR and I’m pretty sure my Mom followed his lead.

Of the folks who I work with - it’s split fairly evenly between Blue and Red. When we were on an overnight work related team building/strategic planning trip back before the election we all fessed up and told we were going to vote for, the details of which will never be divulged.

That we felt comfortable enough to share was remarkable and is a testament of the closeness we felt and the trust in each other that we began to develop. I’m the new member of that group and I’m still getting used to that level of intimacy between leaders - but it’s freakin’ cool, let me tell you . . .

I don’t have any problem sharing who I voted for in the most recent Presidential Election . . . I voted for whoever Lisa told me to vote for.

You may call that a cop out - but you can go pound sand. A long time ago I decided that I would graciously cede this one to her. I go on and on and talk and debate and analyze and when it comes right down to it, I would rather give her the honor of choosing who she and I vote for rather than beat it to death with words.

I will say that it only applies to Presidential races and I’m free to vote on my own for all the other races. Trust me, I’ve voted pretty much every party (including Independent, Socialist, Libertarian and Vulcan) at one time or the other. Yeah, Vulcan is a race not a party but I swear I once saw it on a ballot.

This was the first Inauguration that I’ve followed this closely since Reagan and that was only because the Iranian hostages were being release at almost the same time as the swearing in ceremony and my joy for their release was tempered by my amazement that we had actually elected such a clueless old guy like Reagan. I’m sure he wasn’t the first “puppet” President but great googly moogly people he was the nearest we’ve come to a Raymond Shaw President, at least in my life time.

But I digress - and probably lost all the conservative Republicans readers, pity (so please stay around)

I’m still trying to get my head around the first African-American Bi-racial, Mixed-race whatever  . . . POTUS and what it must mean to every body who doesn’t look like me. Ummm . . .  if you don’t know what I look like, my shiny happy face is beaming out at you from the upper left corner of this blog

There - now that you know what “I” look like, consider the mixture of face shapes, eye shapes, colors, shades, hair texture, height, width (yeah I’m talking Aretha here) and ages of the folks sitting on the platform at the inauguration.

Guess what, that’s how God sees us and I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such a blending and mixture in such a public place presented at once to so many people around the world.

Oh, and I do think this is a grand thing. A great thing. A wonderful thing. More accurately reflecting the “entire” image of God is never a bad thing. It’s never something to be afraid of. It’s never something to oppose. It’s to be pursued. It’s to be longed for. It’s to be enabled . . . by your thoughts, your words and your actions.

As for the politics of Barrack Hussien Obama . . . he will likely accomplish far less than he hoped for when he began this journey a few years ago. History will tell us if that is a good thing or a bad thing and no pundit or commentator worth his or her salt (and to be clear few are worth anywhere near what their salt would bring on the open market - yes I’m talking Keith Olberman, Bill O’reilly, James Carville and Ann Coulter) would disagree.

As for me - I pray for President Obama, his Cabinet, his advisors, his followers and his family. It’s the same one that I prayed for Carter, Reagan, Bush Forty One, Clinton and Bush Forty Three. A prayer for wisdom, for courage, for discernment, for humility and for compassion.

Hmmm - I wonder if there will be all this hoopla when Michelle Obama is elected in 2016 . . . kidding - or am I?  :)

Caved by Grace Part Two

The other day I happened into a room in which a couple of folks where discussing the IBC statement on women in ministry. They continued the conversation but as I was now the third person in the room it seemed to ratchet down a little bit after I made my entrance.

The two snippets that I heard were (and I will paraphrase mightily as I was trying to “not” eavesdrop but it was hard since the discussion continued) was that one person was concerned that it took the Elders 18 months to arrive at a conclusion since anything that took that long meant that there was something unsettling about the whole thing. The other item of concern was the feeling that this new statement was the result of our current liberal, feminist culture.

What I found interesting was that the things that this person expressed concern about (the lengthy time of study and the influence of current social and cultural standards) . . . were things that didn't concern me at all and here's why.

Where they saw the lengthy, protracted process as negative and indicative that if it took that long there must have been some mental gymnastics involved to arrive at a conclusion . . . I saw it as indicative that real blood, sweat and tears were involved and that the Elders saw something along the way that really challenged them to look deeply into the issue. Also, that this was so significant a topic that to spend anything less would be a disservice to the body of believers that they are charged with shepherding.

As for the influence of our current liberal, feminist culture . . . in my opinion the Elders sought to look, not just beyond the current mores, but also look beyond the past 2,000+ years of mores (liberal, conservative, feminist, chauvinistic, etc) and consider the revolutionary statements that Jesus and Paul were making to the culture of their day.

Paul consistently exhorted, encouraged, recognized and lifted up women in the church and, to be blunt, Jesus was a chick magnet who elevated women to equal status among the believers and totally turned the social and culture mores of that era on it’s ear. I submit that the past 2,000 years has seen a regression from the role that Paul and Jesus established for the church and that we’ve allowed a male dominated secular world view to deflect the intended role of women away from what was intended.

Hmmm - probably the only thing that you will remember from the preceding paragraph was my characterization of Jesus as a chick magnet. I hope the rest helps. If not click HERE to read more about the journey that the Elders of IBC took as they came to their conclusion.