Jesus

My Multimedia Adventure Continues

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It’s been a while since I updated you on my latest music and Netflix intake, so here goes.

I picked up a live Bob Marley and the Wailers album from the clearance section of Target. It’s called Easy Skanking in Boston ’78 and it’s classic reggae from my favorite decade, musically speaking. The title’s a little weird, but the music’s great. It helps if you have speakers with lots of bass.

I pre-ordered the new Lindsay Buckingham/Christine McVie album from amazon.com. I’m very much intrigued by the pairing and I’m hoping for a little old-school Fleetwood Mac vibe on this one.

Right now, I’m reliving my high school glory days with The Best of Both Worlds, a Van Halen best-of compilation. It’s amazing how those songs take me back to when I first heard them. And for the record, I prefer David Lee Roth over Sammy Hagar, but I like ’em both.

I foresee some serious Allman Brothers Band marathons in my future. I do believe that southern rock is good for the soul, especially when that soul has a lengthy commute to and from work.

Currently, my Netflix mainstays are Gilmore Girls (halfway through season 6) and Bates Motel (just started season 2). Gilmore Girls still has that fantastic dialogue that reminds me a lot of the old movie His Girl Friday (with some similarities to one of my favorite John Cusack movies, Better Off Dead). I have a fairly decent idea of where Bates Motel is headed, having already seen Psycho (and Bates Motel is the backstory to that movie).

I’m always open to suggestions for what to listen to and watch next, especially when it comes to Netflix. I’d really like something that has a similar vibe to Stranger Things and The OA, but I’m pretty much open to any kind of shows or movies out there.

More to come at some later (and probably randomly picked) date. Stay tuned.

 

 

Take Your Time

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One of my favorite Kairos moments from back in the day when Mike Glenn used to lead the prayer time.

Put both feet on the floor, he’d say. There’s nothing that will come up in the next few minutes that’s more important than what God’s saying to you right now. Relax and breathe. All those errands will still be there later. Right now, all you need to do is focus on God.

We live in a culture that celebrates busyness. Not necessarily productivity. Just busyness. The mantra of the age is that we don’t have time because we’re so very busy doing God knows what.

The idea is to never have a dull moment or any down time. We have all these time-saving gadgets that create more time to get more done. As a result, we have less leisure and free time than ever.

Maybe the most freeing words anyone will ever tell you– take your time. That was my takeaway from tonight’s Kairos message.

Sometimes, it’s good to focus on your breathing. It’s good to be silent and still. It’s good to rest. Above all, it’s important to be in the moment, not always thinking ahead to the next big event or thinking back to the what if’s and the could have been’s.

“There’s no present like the time.” That may be my new favorite line from a movie. Time is not infinite. You get a precious few years to live, too few to waste in busyness. Life is to be lived and savored and not merely gotten through.

Take your time.  Wherever you are, be all there. Do less but do it with everything you have, offering it as your spiritual act of worship. Enjoy the little things and pay attention to the moments in your life.

Also, take plenty of naps. Those are good.

 

 

 

It’s Good to Be Back (in Social Media Land)

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Today was my first official day back on social media since February 28, which just so happened to be my birthday as well as Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. That’s the first day of Lent.

As usual, I gave up social media for Lent. It was fantastic. I enjoyed the absence of political rants and Facebook drama and passive aggressiveness which makes me seem absolutely normal in comparison. I almost didn’t come back.

But here I am again, posting about all the places I go during the week, sharing all the diverse music I’m listening to, and again trying not to judge people’s grammar (and rolling my eyes constantly in the process). I might even post a pic or two of food and/or beverages I’m consuming to make you infinitely jealous.

I do like keeping up with friends and what’s going on in their lives. I had felt completely out of the loop for a month and a half. I honestly have no idea about who’s gotten engaged or married or pregnant. I don’t know how I survived all those years without social media.

Oh wait, yes I do. I had a life. Or at least I had books.

Social media is good and well as long as you keep boundaries and don’t let it run your life or determine your self-worth. I believe that it’s best to keep it positive and uplifting. It’s so much easier to sit behind a keyboard and tear someone else down through a post or comment than it would be to ridicule them to their face.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people who claim Jesus as Lord will unleash political diatribes against those on the other side of the spectrum instead of heeding His words to love and pray for your enemies and to do good to those who mistreat you. Again, social media makes it easier to do that.

You may not always agree on everything, but it costs you nothing to be civil and show respect to everyone. And yes, Jesus meant what He said about loving your enemies.

I intend to do my best to keep things light and fun with lots of pictures of my geriatric feline, plus random and odd memes that strike me as funny.

That’s all. You can go back to your hilarious videos of cats in shark costumes riding on roombas.

An Easter Prayer

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“Lord God,
You loved this world so much,
That you gave your one and only Son,
That we might be called your children too.
Lord, help us to live in the gladness and grace
Of Easter Sunday, everyday.
Let us have hearts of thankfulness
For your sacrifice.
Let us have eyes that look upon
Your grace and rejoice in our salvation.
Help us to walk in that mighty grace
And tell your good news to the world.
All for your glory do we pray, Lord, Amen” (Rachel Marie Stone).

Happy Easter, everyone! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

 

Good News on this Holy Saturday

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“On Holy Saturday I do my best to live in that place, that wax-crayon place of trust and waiting. Of accepting what I cannot know. Of mourning what needs to be mourned. Of accepting what needs to be accepted. Of hoping for what seems impossible” (Jerusalem Jackson Greer, A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together).

“To be sure, it was not Easter Sunday but Holy Saturday, but, the more I reflect on it, the more this seems to be fitting for the nature of our human life: we are still awaiting Easter; we are not yet standing in the full light but walking toward it full of trust” (Pope Benedict XVI, Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977).

I purposely avoid watching and/or reading the news like the plague.

I know it’s good to be informed and to know what’s going on in the world. I also am coming to trust what’s presented to me as news less and less these days. I’m fairly certain that the people in charge of reporting the news are less interested in getting at the truth than in promoting their own agenda.

I also know that tomorrow we celebrate the best news of all time.

Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed.

Those words will echo around the world in places of worship ranging from a few followers to massive sanctuaries crammed with thousands of people. Tomorrow, more than any other Sunday of the year, we will see people who wouldn’t otherwise be caught dead in a church who are trying to figure out this Jesus for themselves.

The best evidence for the gospel of Jesus Christ is people who whose lives match what they profess with their lips. The worst are those who praise Jesus with their words on Sunday then walk out the door and deny Him by how they look and act no differently than non-believers during the rest of the week.

May we celebrate the best news of all of the resurrection by not only talking the good news but living it out as well. That’s the best way to celebrate Easter Sunday that I know of.

 

Good Friday 2017

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“But thank God the crucifixion was not the last act in that great and powerful drama,” King preached. “There is another act. And it is something that we sing out and cry and ring out today. Thank God a day came when Good Friday had to pass” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act” (Mahatma Gandhi).

“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf of springtime” (Martin Luther).

Why is today called Good Friday? What’s so great about Jesus being tortured to death for a crime He didn’t commit? Why does it still matter nearly 2,000 years later?

It seems weird to call the day of Jesus’ crucifixion Good Friday, but when you look at it with Easter Sunday in mind, it makes a lot more sense.

If all you had was Good Friday with no resurrection, then it’s a very Tragic Friday. We should all stay home on Sunday and live however we want. Get stoned, get drunk, get laid, do whatever because none of it matters if Jesus is still in that tomb.

But God raised Jesus from the dead. He walked out of the tomb two days later and everything changed. Absolutely everything. That’s what makes it good.

So much of what happens in our lives will only make sense in reverse. When God promises to work all things together for our good, we often can only see that good not looking ahead or in the midst of it, but looking back on it. We see then how God orchestrated every moment perfectly to lead us where we are now, the best possible outcome.

 

Maundy Thursday

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I confess I don’t know a whole lot about Maundy Thursday. I understand that it is a remembrance of when Christ and the disciples gathered together in the upper room to take Eucharist on the night before Jesus was arrested, tried, and crucified.

I know that some denominations also incorporate foot washing into their services, as Jesus washed His disciples feet and commanded them to follow His example. I know my church didn’t do that part, but I do think they follow the servant attitude behind that command.

I think to fully appreciate Easter Sunday, it helps to experience Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. In order for there to be a resurrection, there also first had to be a death. There had to be a cross before there was an empty tomb.

I also confess that up until recently, I skipped right by these days and focused solely on Easter. For me, it was all about the candy (especially the chocolate kind) and maybe a little bit of gratitude thrown Jesus’ way.

The older I get, the more I appreciate all that Easter represents. I see more of what I could have been apart from grace and more of how much I need Jesus as much now as I did when I first believed. If anything, that need has grown.

I see that Easter, like Christmas, is more than one day of the year. It’s something that believers live out all 365 days of the year while they choose this particular Sunday to commemorate all that Jesus did (and continues to do) for us.

 

That’s What He Said

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“How are we to think about Jesus’s presence today? No doubt volumes could be written on that question, and have been. But the simple fact is that Jesus Christ is present in this world, the only world we have, and in many ways. His teachings, even mangled and broken, have an incredible power to disrupt human systems, including the ones that claim to own him. He is the misfit and thus is available to all who would seek him. His crucifixion and resurrection announce the end of human systems and stand in judgment over them. He is the man on the cross calling us to join him there. He makes himself available to individuals who hear of him and seek him. In many forms both inside and outside the church, with its traditions, symbolisms, and literature, he is simply here among us. He is in his people, but he does not allow himself to be boxed in by them. He calls to us by just being here in our midst. There is nothing like him. The people in the churches also have the option of finding him and following him into his kingdom, though that may rarely be what they are doing.

For many today who think of themselves as educated, historical studies and ‘higher criticism’—perhaps something they call a ‘scientific’ outlook—have made the person and teachings of Jesus problematic. From where they start, he seems a questionable resource for actually living their lives. He may become for them a scholarly football to kick around or to ignore. But he does not go away. In spite of all, he himself is still available in this world, and beyond all historical issues and confusions there stands a strong if somewhat hazy impression of what he stood for. To come to know him and to clarify who he really is, people have only to stand for what he stood for, as best they can, and to do so by inviting him to take their life into his life and walk with them. If they do just this with humility and openness—which everyone knows to be his manner of life—they will know him more and more as they take his life to be their life. In this way they do not have to ‘know’ at the start. It is enough to venture in the kingdom of God and its King. ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Acts 2:21)” (Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge).

Wow. I do believe that says it all.

 

This Blood’s for You: An Easter Toast for 2017

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“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song” (Pope John Paul II).

Once again, I raise my glass and drink to all of you outcasts and loners out there.

Here’s to all of you with perpetually plastered smiles on your faces whose cheery dispositions hide a world of pain that few know about. You may project eternal optimism, but inwardly you feel you’re in the middle of the deepest darkest valley.

Here’s to you who know all too well the meaning of being alone in a crowd. You’re always the one feeling left out in all the conversations and the one who never gets invited to group activities.

Here’s to you who never quite fit in anywhere and who always feel unwanted. Maybe you feel closer than ever to simply giving up on everything.

Here’s to you who feel invisible, rejected, undesirable, outcast, and alone. Jesus died for you. Jesus saw you in your darkest and at your worst and loved you enough to die for you, then and there.

You are no longer unworthy because Jesus considered you worth not a little or even a lot but all of His precious blood shed on that cross.

Here’s to all those nobodies whom God has called to turn the world upside down. You who were once far off and strangers to hope and desperately awkward and ashamed are now sons and daughters of the King and joint-heirs with Jesus to the Kingdom and– best of all– the beloved of your Abba.

Here’s to those who finally belong and who finally fit in and who finally are learning how to embrace all of who God made them to be and to find that in comforting to the image of Christ they become their very best and truest selves.

Here’s to you.

Return to Radnor

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I read recently that exercise is one of the most underutilized antidepressants. It’s also a great way to enjoy this beautiful spring weather we’re having here in Tennessee.

After several months, I finally made it back to Radnor Lake State Park. And yes, it was more than worth the wait.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait to get in. I was surprised at how easily I was able to find a parking spot. I figured that half of Nashville would want to take advantage of the ideal weather and get in a little hiking. Apparently not.

So my friend and I got our hiking in. There’s nothing like a strenuous hike to show you how out of shape you are. For me, it involved lots of heavy breathing and more than a little wheezing. It was not my finest moment.

Still, I was in my favorite place doing one of my favorite activities. I call that a win, even on a Monday.

Not even a brush fire could diminish the beauty of Radnor. Apparently, a brush fire burned about 1/2 to 2/3 of an acre, but I believe that it will come back better and more glorious than ever.

I still think it’s one of the best kinds of therapy to get out into nature and breathe deeply (with only a sleeping cat in your lap topping it). It’s healing for the soul to get away from electronics and technology and all things man-made and get back to what God created.

After a while, I started breathing normally again. If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost say I got a “hiker’s high,” similar to the euphoria and endorphins release that runners experience. Plus, there was a breeze blowing with just a hint of crispness to it.

I think I’ll sleep better tonight than I have in a while. And I will be back to Radnor soon enough.