“Brian Johnson: [closing narration] Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us – in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain…
Andrew Clark: …and an athlete…
Allison Reynolds: …and a basket case…
Claire Standish: …a princess…
John Bender: …and a criminal…
Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.”

I came up with a theory about the popularity of the TV show Friends. The one where the last episode aired 10 years ago. I’m a little late to the party sometimes.

I think one reason people like the show is that we’re all a bit like all the six main characters: Chandler, Monica, Ross, Rachel, Joey, and Phoebe.

We’re all a little charmingly awkward at times like Chandler.

We’re all a little anal and obsessive but still lovable like Monica.

We’re all nerdy and neurotic on occasion like Ross.

We’re all hot messes periodically like Rachel.

We’re all goofy and dim-witted every now and then like Joey.

We’re all “throw caution to the wind” spontaneous and free-spirited at times like Phoebe.

I think we relate to each of the characters on the show because we each see a little of all of them in us. Or at least I do.

That’s what good storytelling does. You think, “I’ve done that” or “I’ve been there” or “I’ve felt like that before.”

So that’s my theory. Maybe it works with other good TV shows. Or even other movies. I haven’t gotten that far yet.

Two of my relatives had birthdays this week. My grandmother turned 90 on Tuesday and my niece turned 3 today.

I was 3 once. It seems like a very long time ago, but it happened. I hope I make it to 90. That would be fun.

Most of all, I hope I don’t take a single day for granted and that I appreciate each and every day I wake up to as a gift from God. I hope I can always look for the good and find the minute blessings and small joys in each day.

I hope I can always be a better person today than I was yesterday. A better son, a better friend, and hopefully one day (God willing) a better husband and a better father.

Most of all, I hope that if people remember anything about me, it would have been that they saw Jesus in me and felt His grace through me. Of course if all they remember is the grace of God and not me or my name, that will be okay.

I always tell people that I’m living the dream because life, being alive, is the biggest and best miracle there is. Don’t ever take that for granted.

The end.

“Am I afraid to die? I am every time I let myself be seduced by the noisy voices of my world telling me that my ‘little life’ is all I have and advising me to cling to it with all my might. But when I let these voices move to the background of my life and listen to that small soft voice calling me the Beloved, I know that there is nothing to fear and that dying is the greatest act of love, the act that leads me into the eternal embrace of my God whose love is everlasting” (Henri Nouwen).

I normally do not fixate on death. I’m not like the Woody Allen character in Hannah and Her Sisters who is obsessed with the possibility that he might be dying.

But lately, death has been on my mind a little more than usual. Maybe it’s hearing how Jan Hooks, former Saturday Night Live cast member, passed away recently from an undisclosed illness at age 57.

Not to be morbid, but every one of us will die sooner or later. The question isn’t how we will die but how we will live until that moment comes and God calls us home.

When you live as if this could be your very last day, your priorities change. Suddenly, it’s not so important to be in a hurry or get a lot of things done, but rather to spend time doing what you love and being near those whom you love.

My pastor always says that gold isn’t the currency in heaven. It’s pavement. Love is the currency in heaven.

So how are you investing your love now? Are you making time for those you love? I know I personally have longed to talk with family members who have passed away and imagine the conversations we might have.

Oh yeah, I had a great night. I spent time in Franklin and visited all my favorite places there and took in some not-quite-fallish weather (it was warm enough for me to wear shorts comfortably).

I was thinking about Sunday’s sermon on giving from 2 Corinthians 8:1-7. The Apostle Paul commends the Macedonians for their generosity and notes that even though they themselves were poor, they were literally begging to be able to give to help their brothers and sisters in the faith.

I’ve known people like that. So have you. People who are so generous and have such giving hearts that you want to be just like them. People who fill your heart with joy whenever you’re around them.

Then I thought of The Giving Tree.

Yes, I mean that book by Shel Silverstein.

In case you don’t know the story, it’s about a tree who loves a little boy very much and gives of herself for this little boy. And the boy never gives anything back. He just asks and takes.

At first, you and I think of how selfish that little boy (who eventually grows up) is, but then maybe you’re like me and think, “That’s how I am with God.”

He gives and gives and it seems all I ever do is take. But then again, what do I have to give God that He didn’t give me in the first place? Even my desire to give to Him comes from Him.

I think that true giving is giving back to God what is already His. Like my money. Or my time. Or my talents. Or just me.

God wants us to be generous with those around us as He was generous with us. God wants to reflect His giving heart to those around us where we live, work, and play (to borrow a phrase my church uses often).

God’s working on my heart, making it as open and giving as His own heart. Little by little, He’s transforming me into a more giving, generous person who can one day measure my wealth by what I gave away rather than by what I kept.

All that from a kid’s book.

As I type this, my cat Lucy is in my lap, contentedly purring away and reposing in a very relaxed, semi-comatose state. In other words, her normal mode of consciousness.

That has nothing to do with what will follow. It’s just a freebie. You’re welcome.

Tonight in my TNT class, the teacher spoke about writing out your mission statement, something that combines your gifts and passions into one concise statement.

What is yours? How has God uniquely gifted you to make a difference in this crazy, beautiful, neurotic world we live in? What are your passions, the very things that make your blood pulse through your veins and make you come truly alive?

How has God called you to be a difference-maker?

Better yet, will you be crazy enough yourself to believe that you CAN make a difference instead of retreating to cynical snide remarks about the current state of affairs?

12 men were crazy enough to believe they could change the world. And they did. You know them better as the 12 apostles, and Christianity is now a worldwide phenomenon thanks to these poor, illiterate nobodies who refused to take no for an answer.

The question isn’t if you will change the world, but how and when. To not even try and accept the status quo is to work for change but not for the better.

I was reminded of something tonight at Kairos. It goes a little like this:

The world determines your worth by what you can contribute to the collective and by how much they can squeeze out of you. Which means that if you’re unable to contribute in a meaningful way, you have no value and can be disposed of, whether you’re unborn, a special needs child or an elderly person.

Mother Teresa said once that it is a poverty that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. It’s a poverty that anyone should die because they are an inconvenience to our way of life. It’s a tragedy when human life becomes cheap.

On the other hand, God values us for bearing His image and because He made us. No other reason. The Bible says that before God made us, He chose us. He set His love on us.

You are more than a random collection of molecules brought about by accident or chance. You are uniquely designed by the Creator, one of a kind and priceless in God’s eyes.

Remember that. People will treat you like you’re worthless. Some will even call you worthless. But God through Jesus and the Cross says that you are priceless.

One of my favorite writers, Henri Nouwen, wrote:

“First of all, you have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: ‘These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting belief” (Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World).

This is from a book I just finished reading. I don’t agree with everything the author says, but I agree with this:

“As I looked out over the shivering crowd, I suggested that perhaps Mary Magdalene thought the resurrected Christ was a gardener because Jesus still had the dirt from His own tomb under His nails. Of course, the depictions in churches of the risen Christ never show dirt under His nails; they make Him look more like a wingless angel than a gardener. It’s as if He needed to be cleaned up for Easter visitors so He looked more impressive and so no one would be offended by the truth. But then what we all end up with is a perverted idea of what resurrection looks like. My experience, however, is that the God of Easter is a God with dirt under His nails.

Resurrection never feels like being made clean and nice and pious like in those Easter pictures. I would have never agreed to work for God if I had believed God was interested in trying to make me nice or even good. Instead, what I subconsciously knew, even back then, was that God was never about making me spiffy; God was about making me new.

New doesn’t always look perfect. Like the Easter story itself, new is often messy. New looks like recovering alcoholics. New looks like reconciliation between family members who don’t actually deserve it. New looks like every time I manage to admit I was wrong and every time I manage to not mention I was right. New looks like every fresh start and every act of forgiveness and every moment of letting go of what we thought we couldn’t live without and then somehow living without it anyways. New is the thing we never saw coming – never even hoped for – but ends up being what we needed all along.

‘It happens to all of us,’ I concluded that Easter Sunday morning. ‘God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.'”

“You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give” (Khalil Gibran, The Prophet).

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you” (John Bunyan).

I was thinking as I was listening to Lionel Ritchie on the way home, the reason I love a good movie or good book or good song is that it is just a way for the artist to tell his or her story in such a way that when I take it in, it feels a lot like my own story. It’s like Lionel is singing my own words in a more eloquent way than I could ever express them.

Art requires sacrifice. It requires being vulnerable to share yourself with the world. Not always your best self. Sometimes, it’s the less attractive, un-Photoshopped version of you that gets put out there.

But you give anyway.

God has called us to be generous. Not just with our money and possessions, but also with our time, our talents, our life experiences, and with our lives.

Really, it all belongs to God. Every bit of it. Even you belong to God. You were after all bought with a very great and very high price. If the price was much too high, God still paid it anyway– not grudgingly but willingly and gladly.

If my treasure is where my heart is, then my checkbook tells me who (and what) I’m really and truly worshipping. Ouch. That last line was really convicting.

As I’m figuring out, you can learn to be generous and it’s never too late to start. It starts with the tithe but doesn’t end there. After all, the New Testament standard of giving is the Cross. As my pastor once said, you don’t stand in front of Jesus with His nail-pierced hands and feet and wounded side and debate percentages. You give all because Jesus gave all.

“That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing” (Simone de Beauvoir).

Yes, it is 11:45 pm on a Saturday night. It’s just me and Lucy hanging out together and Lucy has apparently already called it a night.

So it’s just me.

I loved how crisp and brisk the air was today on this truly Autumn-esque day. I could stand for it to stay this way for the next month or so.

I visited my usual Franklin haunts and still managed to be home on a Saturday by 9 pm. How sad is that? I need to think of some new Franklin places to haunt.

But fall does something to me. It reminds me of just about all my happy childhood memories and the people who aren’t here anymore and even some of my old pets who aren’t here anymore.

I’m reading a very interesting book called Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber. I don’t agree with all her politics or theology, but it is a well-written book with some occasionally profound insights. Read it at your own risk (it has some very non-Baptist words in it).

I’ll keep you informed on my my next choice of book after this one, as well as any notable restaurants or coffee shops I visit. As always, err on the side of grace, especially when it comes to your own faults and weaknesses.

Good night out there in social media land.

I just had a great image for what grace looks like: it’s when God comes up to you who have basically wasted your life up to this point and says, “I’m doing something great in the world and I want you to be a part of it.”

I still sometimes have a hard time believing it. God wants me? The kid who usually got picked either next to last or last for kickball and other elementary school sports teams?

Maybe you feel like no one notices you or knows you. Maybe you’ve felt unwanted even by those who were supposed to be closest to you, like your parents or your children or your spouse.

Get this: God wants you. Not because there’s no one else available and all the good ones have already been drafted. God looks at you and says, “Yeah, I want that one on my team.”

I’ll never get over grace because I’ll never get over the amazing feeling of being wanted and chosen and pursued and rescued. And best of all, it’s God who wants me and chooses me and pursues me and rescues me.

I don’t mind being a broken record when it comes to grace. Maybe if I keep repeating the refrain about that amazing grace that saved a wretch like me, it will finally sink in.

So I hope you don’t get tired of hearing about grace from me. If you do, too bad. I’m gonna keep talking about it because it changed my life.