rain

My Mushy Brain Post

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Somewhere between the long work week, the rain, and me getting up at 5 am every morning, my lil’ brain became mush. So don’t expect anything profound or deep from this post. I even made the mental faux pas of saying that Monday was Memorial Day (instead of Labor Day, which is the correct upcoming holiday).

After work, I met up with some fellow Kairos greeters for dinner at McAllister’s Deli. It felt a little surreal, as I used to work at a McAllister’s in Germantown (the one just outside of Memphis, not the one close to downtown Nashville). The food was good (one Spud Max), the conversation was good, the half tea/half lemonade was decent but not great.

Carried away by all the good feelings, I went next door to Golf Galaxy and bought a Yeti tumbler. Yeah, I know. I said I’d rather have a less expensive knockoff. And I don’t even play golf. Chalk it up to the mushy brain syndrome. Plus, I really like the retro green color.

My little kitten continues to be a sweet, affectionate little thing. I believe she’s as grateful today as she was on the day I rescued her and brought her home from the shelter just over two months ago. She likes to cuddle and purr at least once a day, and she seems to like just about everybody.

Right now, I’m content. The only improvement I might make is if I could somehow sleep under a tin roof in the rain. I think that’d definitely help me drift off to sleep faster.

As always, I’m thankful for another day to be alive with my five senses to take it all in. Truly, at the end of the day, it’s all grace and anything good that came my way today is all God.

 

Rain, Rain, Go Away

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  “When you face stormy seas I will be there with you with endurance and calm;
        you will not be engulfed in raging rivers.
    If it seems like you’re walking through fire with flames licking at your limbs,
        keep going; you won’t be burned.
    Because I, the Eternal One, am your God.
        I am the Holy One of Israel, and I will save you” (Isaiah 43:2-3, The Voice).

I never thought I’d say it, but I’m actually relieved that the weekend is just about over.

It has rained literally all weekend long and Monday promises to bring sunshine, so I say bring on Monday!

All this rain reminds me of nearly seven years ago when Nashville had a long period of substantial rainfall that turned into a flood that significantly impacted the city and surrounding areas.

I still remember not being able to get out of my subdivision due to the road being flooded. I remember seeing parts of the city underwater and seeing portable school buildings floating down the interstate.

I remember above all a promise God made to never again flood the world, accompanied by the sign of a rainbow given to Noah and all who would follow after.

I remember that God told us not to fear even when the waters rise and the flames come because He said He’d be with us no matter what.

Thankfully, this weekend hasn’t been nearly that dramatic. No floods or flames, just rain. The worst I had to deal with was getting wet while walking to my car in the rain.

I take great comfort in knowing that no matter what happens, even the worst case scenarios that we all occasionally fear, nothing can separate me from the love of God. I have a Redeemer who knows how to walk on water to get to me.

 

Maturity

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I’m laying (or is it lying) in bed, typing this as I listen to the rain pounding on the window. There’s something comforting to me about storms when I am safe indoors and not out driving in one.

I’ve been thinking about something quite a bit lately. In theory, we’re the most tolerant society, yet in practice we are anything but. We talk a good game about how we tolerate anything and everything, yet wait until someone disagrees with us or spouts a political view that is opposite to what we hold dear and see just how tolerant (or intolerant) we really are.

It’s about maturity. How do you react when you speak your opinions and someone contradicts or criticizes you? How do you take criticism?

Once again, I do not mean that you meekly abide under verbal or physical abuse. I do not mean that you allow someone to berate or insult you and not defend yourself.

I do mean someone who disagrees with your beliefs or convictions. How tolerant are you then?

I confess I don’t like criticism. I may not always show it, but I tend to be defensive and angry when I get told I’m wrong. A lot of people are that way.

Maturity means you don’t always have to agree 100% with criticism, but you can always find some nugget of wisdom there. You can always use the negative comments to spur change for the better within yourself.

It’s one thing to be steady in your convictions, beliefs, and actions, but it’s quite another to live outside of any accountability in a place where no one can ever correct you for a perceived mistake or unwise choice. You need at least one person whom you give the permission to speak into your life, even if that means they can tell you the truth about when you’re out of line.

Maybe we can get to the place where we can actually have an open dialogue and listen to what those on the other side of the debate are actually saying instead of the all-too-common haranguing, name-calling, and demonizing that characterizes much of what goes on in politics and society.

Maybe we can get to the place where we welcome dissenting voices that will challenge us to examine our own beliefs and convict us to live in such a way that our actions match our words.

God help us all.

I’m Dreaming of a Wet (and Humid) Christmas

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So, apparently my dreams of a white Christmas will have to come true in my dreams. The forecast doesn’t look promising in the least.

Try a week of mid-60s to lower 70’s with rain forecasted for every day up to Sunday. Yep, Christmas will be green . . . and very wet.

Still, it will be Christmas. There will be gifts and food and candles and food and holiday apparel and food. Did I mention food? There will be food aplenty. The diet starts in 2016.

I’m learning to live out of eucharisteo, out of a mindset of joy and thanksgiving. Instead of focusing on all those rain clouds, I choose to see that when people like you and me couldn’t find a way to get to God, God found a way to get to us. To become one of us. To live and die as one of us.

But not just to live and die, but to live in perfect obedience the life that we could never live and to die as a perfect sacrifice to pay for the sin that we could never begin to work off.

That alone is enough for a million lifetimes’ worth of gratitude. That should be enough for me.

Advent is a season not only of awaiting and anticipating the arrival of the Emmanuel, bu also of remembering why He came in the first place. Advent stirs up gratitude and thanksgiving in the hearts of those who know where to look and what to look for.

So I’ll probably get my White Christmas courtesy of Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen. It’s still my favorite Christmas movie and it never fails to deliver the feels.

Then again, maybe the best kind of white Christmas is this one:

“Come on now, let’s walk and talk; let’s work this out.
        Your wrongdoings are blood red
    But they can turn as white as snow.
        Your sins are red like crimson,
    But they can be made clean again like new wool” (Isaiah 1:18, The Voice).

 

 

 

Baseball in July

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I went with my brother-in-law and sister and their clan to a Nashville Sounds baseball game at the new stadium.

A good time was had by all. It really was.

It reminded me of a time eons ago when I came to a Nashville Sounds-Memphis Chicks game in the old Greer Stadium with my family and one of my cousins. I was probably the same age that my oldest nephew is now. Talk about full circle.

The new stadium was a bit underwhelming based on my expectations and what I had heard. Being from Memphis, I might sound a bit biased when I say that AutoZone Park is way better, but it is.

If I had to guess, I’d say that it’s a recreation of the old Sulphur Dell ballpark that was home to the old Nashville Vols back in the day. They even wore the old uniforms, this being Throwback Thursday. That was probably my favorite part of the evening.

The weather started off very uncooperative but ended up being picture perfect for a night of baseball. At 6:30, I was 90% sure that the game would be called off on account of rain. At 7:30, the game got a delayed start, but it started nonetheless. 

If you had told me 1) I’d go to a baseball game in July in Nashville and 2) that the temperature wouldn’t top 75, I would’ve thought 3) the cheese had slid off your cracker.

As much fun as it is to watch baseball on TV, it comes nowhere close to actually being there, even if there is Triple-A minor league baseball. Being a part of the crowd, smelling the freshly cut grass, and hearing the crack of the bat can never be replicated by even the most advanced HD TV on the market.

I guess at some point I’ll have to watch all those old baseball movies like Pride of the Yankees, Field of Dreams, and A League of Their Own. Maybe even Bull Durham.

There’s just something about the baseball experience that’s different from any sporting event. I can’t really explain it other than to say that you just have to go to understand.

 

 

 

 

 

Psalm 57

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“God, be gracious to me; be gracious,
for I have made you my refuge.
I shall seek refuge in the shadow of
your wings
until the storms are past” (Psalm 57:1).

I chose to read through the Bible again in 2015, this time using the New English Bible translation. I’m currently in the middle of the Psalms and I ran across one that I had to re-read and then re-read again because it was perfectly timed for the weather we’ve been having.

To be fair, this part of the country has seen mostly rain and not much in the way of actual storms. But storms don’t always mean lots of rain, lightening, and hail. Sometimes storms come in the form of losing a job or losing a loved one. Sometimes storms are seasons of life that are difficult. Those storms don’t always come and go within 24 hours. Some can last for weeks and months and even years.

But the same Jesus that spoke peace to actual winds and waves so long ago is just as capable of speaking peace to your and my storms. Often I’ve noticed that He will allow the storm to rage, but He will calm the child within the storm (and I’m fairly certain that is not original with me).

For me, storms have been the place where I’ve found Jesus to be most faithful. Even when I can’t see the end of the storm clouds and wonder if the sun will ever shine again, I know even then that the promises of Jesus are just as true in the darkest storms as they are on the brightest days.

I’ve read through the Bible more than once and yes, I have read the last page. There are no storms or thunder or trials or pain or suffering there. Only victory. Only peace. Only the joy that comes in the morning after a night of weeping.

 

 

 

On a Rainy Good Friday

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158901.hrain2

I drove home in a monsoon. Or it felt like a monsoon to this Middle Tennessean. The picture above is a fairly accurate depiction of what I saw through my own windshield– not much at all– as I motored down the interstate. Twice, a passing car splashed a lot of water on my car and I literally couldn’t see anything for a few seconds that felt a lot longer than a few seconds. I gripped the steering wheel, prayed hard, and kept going.

I think I even passed through a small amount of hail, which I can safely say with almost 98% certainty was a first for me. I’ve never seen so many cars pulled over to the side of the road under overpasses to wait out the deluge. But I trudged onward, slowly and cautiously.

I was nervous, but not panicky. I figured that God was more than able to get me through the rain and it had to let up sooner or later. No rain, literal or figurative, can last forever.

On another Good Friday, there wasn’t a whole lot of sunshine. It was both literally and metaphorically one of the darkest days in the history of humanity. Jesus had breathed His last on the cross and they had taken Him down to be buried in a borrowed tomb.

I can read about it knowing the rest of the story, but for those living it in real time, they had no idea that a resurrection was coming. Those disciples who had fled during Jesus’ arrest had witnessed the crucifixion from afar. Or maybe they hid out and received reports from those who were there, Either way, they had seen their world end.

I’ve been there. I’ve been in places that felt like dead ends and wondered how I would ever get back.

But Easter is about a God who knows the way out of the grave. And though it may be Friday, Sunday’s comin’!

 

Elvis, Basketball, and Spring

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Recently, I spent my birthday amazon gift card on some Elvis. Specifically, I purchased Walk a Mile in My Shoes, a box set of the King’s essential 70’s recordings. For those of you at home keeping score, that’s 5 discs of 120 songs. Now I sound like a PBS pledge fundraiser.

http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Mile-My-Shoes-Essential/dp/B004LR5K0I/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1426219405&sr=1-1&keywords=walk+a+mile+in+my+shoes

But one of those songs took me back. The memory was driving at night in Christiana, TN, and the song in question was T-R-O-U-B-L-E, which I’m sure I haven’t heard since I was much smaller and weighed a lot less. And I was a huge Elvis fan.

The only problem with that is that I remember the song from an 8-track of dubious quality where on that particular song Elvis sounds as if he’s singing through a oscillating fan. The CD version was too cleaned up, at least in my opinion, to truly recreate the memory from that night. But it was close enough for me.

In other news, yes it is finally spring. I love the fact that I can wear a t-shirt and not get hypothermia. And I’ll take all the rain from the past few days over all the snow and ice from a few weeks ago. That was nice for a bit but got old rather quickly. Being stuck at home for a week tends to have that effect.

Finally, March means one thing for true sports fans– March Madness. That means LOTS of college basketball, lots of excitement and close games, and quite possibly one or two memorable and miraculous buzzer-beaters.

It also means I will be filling out multiple NCAA tournament brackets once again in hopes of finally winning the jackpot. So far, I’ve come close once or twice, but haven’t actually won any money.

FYI, if you’re looking for some good Elvis music, I recommend these fine compilations. Both have 30 songs on them and both have the best sound of any Elvis CDs that I’ve heard.

http://www.amazon.com/30-1-Hits-Elvis-Presley/dp/B00006AG5N/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426219096&sr=8-1&keywords=elvis+%231

http://www.amazon.com/Elvis-2nd-None-PRESLEY-ELVIS/dp/B0000AUHOX/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1426219132&sr=1-1&keywords=elvis+2nd+to+none

 

 

Being Patient in 2015

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“Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand” (Henri Nouwen).

Patience is easy in theory and much harder in practice. As the old saying goes, you never pray for patience unless you want what little patience you possess to be severely tested. Or in my case, you find out how completely impatient you are.

I do think that patience is not passively waiting. It means you prepare yourself for the future God has in store for you.

That means you confess any sin that might hinder the work of God in your life and you stay daily surrendered to whatever God calls you to and to whoever He calls you to be.

I still suck both at patience and at waiting. Blame it on my ADD. Blame it on my passive nature. I wish I could say that at this point in my life that I’ve mastered these two disciplines. I haven’t.

But I also believe that even when I pray “Lord, I want to believe. Help my unbelief,” even that mustard-size faith– so small it barely registers as faith at all– can move mountains and change the world. It can change my world.

It has never been about big faith in God, or I’d be totally screwed. It’s about faith in a big God who can take the tiniest beginnings of faith and trust and work wonders with those.

Lord, as always, I believe. I want to believe. I try to believe. Help my unbelief.