Still feeling the effects of my cold, I marched to church with an intrepid spirit on Sunday morning. Equipped with an ample supply of lozenges and tissues, I was determined to grind it out & feed my church family this past Lord's Day. However, after a full hour of Bible Study & a sermon, I was starting to cough an inordinate amount & my voice was beginning to crack and fail. I realized that I wasn't going to be able to preach Sunday night, so I tagged our church's de-facto youth minister & he was it. I'm so blessed to have a ready & able, and most importantly willing, fill-in whenever I require it.
It's not often that I get to go to church to just listen, so I figured it'd be a good opportunity. Instead, he began with a line of questioning so profound that I could barely hold my attention on his presentation -- my mind was swirling with the implications. Here's the question:
"Who is God?"
He was asking us to think of how we would explain God to someone who had never heard of Him before. I like the way Denzel Washington puts it in the movie "Philadelphia" when he asks people to, "Explain it to me like I'm your grandmother," or, "Explain it to me like I'm a 3rd grader." You're having a conversation with a totally unchurched unbeliever & you're going to explain the subject in the most simple terms imaginable -- how do you explain the concept of God?
My mind immediately goes either to attributes or to metaphors. I can explain God by addressing his exclusive attributes: being omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. Or I could explain God by appealing to metaphors: God is like a King; God is like a Father; God is like a Shepherd; etc.
And then he continued, "But do we ever BEGIN with God is love?" I'm unsure if I ever have. And so our fill-in preacher continued through the evening addressing how "God is love" should be primary in our thoughts about God, and thus in our conversations about Him as well.
I began to think of the implications for ministry. In terms of how I think about God and how long it takes me to get to "love," how does that affect how I dispense the grace I've been given? When I think about myself doing the work of an evangelist & fulfilling the role of a minister (2nd Tim. 4:5), what do I think of? Well, true to form, I either think of attributes or metaphors. I'll explain what I do: preaching & teaching, having Bible studies, serving, visiting, etc. Or I'll appeal to metaphors: minister as pastor; minister as shepherd; minister as CEO; minister as point man; etc.
But do I ever think of myself, the minister, as "Lover in Chief?" I'm unsure if I've ever really, consciously conceptualized my daily vocation in that way. In fact, in view of Eph. 6:12, I've always thought of myself as more of a fighter than a lover. But perhaps a reordering is due in light of this reimagining.
What do I do for a living? I get paid to love on people in the name of God.
Alabama running back Glen Coffee has a favorite Bible passage: it's God's description of a war horse in Job 39:19-25...
Pretty cool stuff. I'd never really paid this verse much mind until I heard it was his favorite passage. I think it's awesome that he takes on the spirit of this passage in his running style.
I want to highlight what I found to be a great review of the recently released mockumentary by Bill Maher entitled "Religulous." A few months ago I made it known that I pledged to not watch this film -- I didn't want to contribute a dime to it's box office returns or Bill Maher's, as I called it, "2nd-gradish, bullying brand of 'Ha Ha Ha! You're so Dumb' humor." After reading this review by Holly Robaina, I'm even more resolved to fulfill that pledge. Check it out:
1.) Alabama If you listen to "the experts" speak, you'll hear them keep on emphasizing how Alabama isn't very impressive and probably won't even make it to the BCS Championship Game. I guess 'Bama doesn't get any style points for having Sara Evans & Eva Longoria on the sideline last week. Meanwhile, in workmanlike fashion, Alabama keeps on finding ways to win the very games that the so-called "better teams" keep on losing. Last week it was Texas; this week it was Penn State. But Alabama stands tall at 10-and-0 in the SEC.
2.) Texas Tech They look impressive in their scrimmages. I wonder what would happen if they had to play against a defense.
3.) Florida 4.) Texas 5.) Southern California 6.) Oklahoma 7.) Utah 8.) Penn State 9.) Georgia 10.) Missouri 11.) Ohio State 12.) Oklahoma State
It's high time I pick up with describing some of the strange dreams I've had recently as I've been mourning the loss of my Mom. If you missed the first part of this series, you can read it here.
A fair warning: there's some real personal stuff in here. If you're uneasy with people getting sort of "emotionally naked," then you might just wanna stop reading now and move on to something else.
It's been awhile since I dreamed this dream. Anyhow, here's a summary from my previous entry about the major events of this dream:
I had this dream where Mom was coming to visit me for a week. She was coming down from Alabama with her mother & her sister. The first day she came, she and I reconnected in affectionate ways that are normal for mothers & their sons (and as was normal for us). I always enjoyed it when Mom scratched my head & played with my hair; so I would oftentimes lean against her shoulder & let her play with my hair. In this dream, Mom & I were doing this on our first day together. I didn't have an awareness of the strangeness of this encounter because of Mom's death; I was simply enjoying the rich, full amount of time we had together after recognizing that we had been apart for some time. The best way to describe this part of the dream was that Mom & I were reconnecting both physically and emotionally.
This was a very comforting experience for me. But what happened next was an emotional jolt of another kind.
Within the dream, the very next day, Mom surprised me with the news that she, her sister, and her mother were going to cut their visit with me short & head up to Atlanta, GA for some shopping. They had to go abruptly, seemingly after having planned to spend time with me for a week.
My immediate reaction? First shock (What?! Why? Why NOW?), and then anger. But it wasn't an enraged anger; it was a calm, thoughtful anger, if such a thing exists.
Before I describe what happened next, I have to provide some context. My Mom left our family in the middle of my Senior year in high school. She met another man who flattered her. She didn't have any improper relations with him while still with my Dad. But she felt that her relationship with Dad had grown cold, and she was eager to experience the warmth of love again.
This is going to sound odd -- because it was -- but Mom actually consulted me on her decision to leave us & move away to Alabama. I specifically remember how in early December 1998 Mom told me that she had rekindled a friendship with an old pal, she didn't know if it would ever become anything more, but that she felt trapped & wanted to be set free to pursue a better relationship with him or whoever else might come along. She asked me what I thought about that. So, I told her that I thought that was her choice. I calmly, rationally told her that I wanted her to stay with Dad, but I understood how she felt & appreciated her desire to be happy. I explained that I thought her decision wouldn't much affect me, because I would in just 9 months time be moving away for college. But I urged her to consider my sister, who was just entering adolescence.
Mom made the decision to go pretty quickly after that conversation. The month between that conversation & the day she left was one of the dreariest, depressing periods of my life. I kind of chuckle about it now, but I literally sat in my room and listened to Simon & Garfunkel that whole month. That's how sad *I* was! ;)
I didn't think Mom's leaving our family would affect me that much, but it did. I don't think I ever really expressed it to Mom, either, because part of her decision to leave was based on me saying, "I think I'll be alright."
So back to the dream. Mom has up & decided she's going to cut her visit (and MY time) short to go off on some flighty, selfish shopping journey. And so I tried to rationally explain to Mom why I didn't appreciate it. I started to explain how she wasn't considering me, and how this was hurting my feelings. I remember saying repetitively, "Mom... ... You KNOW why I'm upset about this." With this line of conversation, I was connecting her cutting her visit short with her leaving the family a decade ago. I was turning the screws to try to get her to stay. And she'd act dumb, and I'd interrupt saying, "MOM -- I know you KNOW why I'm upset."
And that was it. That's when I woke up. So comforting, and yet so disturbing.
For the first time, I think, I've realized how much Mom's departure from my family actually did affect me. Like the stereotypical "hero child," I wanted to pretend that I was above mere feelings -- that I was an impregnable fortress that couldn't be touched by pain or hurt. And yet I was still feeling it all. And here I am NOW -- almost TEN years later -- STILL feeling it because I never really dealt with it.
You wanna know what song I listened to most during that dreadful "Simon & Garfunkel" period? It's called "I Am a Rock." Until just a few weeks ago, right after I dreamed this dream, I hadn't realized how much this song conditioned my response to those events in my life until I randomly heard this song on the radio -- the first time I'd given it a listen almost TEN years.
The first & last lines are so revealing...
"A winter's day In a deep & dark December I am alone..."
"...And a rock feels no pain And an island never cries."
Dreams can shake us up because sometimes they make us deal with emotional issues that we've tried to sweep under the rug. For me, my response to the intense emotional turmoil in my life at that time was to retreat into myself & shut others out of my life. To this day, my personality still resonates with figures & characters who can be strong, self-reliant people without the need of supporting friends or family.
Listen to something I wrote but never published on the blog when I was trying to clear my mind about an infatuation with a particular girl a couple of years ago. I was pontificating about my own romance with being like a cowboy:
Cowboys don't need girls -- it's just them, their horse, & the frontier. It's what I love about the movie "Jeremiah Johnson."
And yet still he learned to settle down with his wife & adopted boy.
[Sigh]
So part of me likes the independence of singleness. The cowboy-esque "I'm satisfied on my own" attitude that doesn't need anyone else.
You know, it didn't take long for God to figure out in Scripture that "it is not good for man to be alone." We were not created to be Christian Cowboys wild & roaming the frontier all by ourselves. I wasn't created for that. I, and we all, were created for community.
I suppose I'm writing this for the benefit of my friends, or for anyone who might stumble across this while doing a Google Search. In life, there are going to be unique times where we face intense grief or disappointment. It's not a matter of if, but when. When you do, I encourage you to do the courageous thing and face your grief or disappointment head-on. You will not be able to put it off forever. Someday your feelings will find you; perhaps long after it's too late to deal with the person who helped produce those feelings.
As if we really needed to have another reason. Despite the success of the Red Sox, this story just goes to show that the Yankees are still -- and will always be -- the bad guys.
1.) Alabama I didn't see it, but on ESPN's College Gameday, apparently Chris Fowler stated that an undefeated Alabama team would be an underdog to a one-loss Florida team if they both were to advance to the SEC Championship Game. I wish I could describe how much I appreciate that the media is down on the Tide. And the only reason they'll be ranked #1 is seemingly by default -- begrudgingly.
2.) Penn State 3.) Texas Tech What a WIN! If you missed this game, you missed the game of the year in college football. Michael Crabtree... unbelievable.
This is the one team that I had not given much in terms of respect for most of the season. They've earned it. But they'll be on letdown alert this week versus Okie St.
4.) Florida They skunked Georgia in the 2nd half. It's pretty evident how Georgia can kind of give up if you demoralize them enough.
5.) Texas 6.) Southern California 7.) Oklahoma 8.) Oklahoma State 9.) Texas Christian 10.) Georgia 11.) LSU 12.) Missouri
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