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Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Comparisons - Am The Only One?

There are two things that can often bring out the worst in me. The first being the game Monopoly. I am not, by nature, competitive. It does not matter whether or not I win or lose at a game. For the most part, board games are merely for fun and enjoyment. But Monopoly's not like that for me. I'm not sure if it's the play money or grabbing up all the properties  . . . All I know is, my family hates playing with me. They don't like that I take such glee and delight in bankrupting them. In fact, whenever I play Monopoly, I notice that my character changes and I tend to devolve into . . .

I'll readily admit, it's something I seriously need to work on, especially when I'm playing one of my sons. It really is shameful to see a grown man doing his victory, in-your-face dance to his own kid. I can only imagine how God is shaking his head and going, "Really, Elliott?" Is it any wonder that Monopoly sits in our game closet gathering dust? And the thing is, it's not even my favorite game at all (It's Clue for those wondering - and I'm sure there are a lot of you . . .). Yet Monopoly taps into something deep within me that is not a fruit of the Spirit, but more like a rotted vegetable of self. Pray for me.

My other problem area can often be social media. Sites like Facebook can either be a great way to keep up with people or, unfortunately, to compare ourselves to people. How often has my day and mood been affected by someone else's post? And I'm not talking about some negative, angry rant, either. I mean, my day is so-so and then I check Facebook and there's somebody on another great vacation. "Didn't they just come back from a cruise?" I ask irritatedly. "How do they afford it?" This can turn to my griping about how we can't. Then it becomes a spiral about all the things we can't afford and how my car's check engine light has been on for about a year and our garage had termites and how much it cost to take care of that and how Danelle's car needs a new pump and on and on and on . . .

Facebook sometimes feels like everybody's life is picture perfect and way more fun and far more interesting and filled with lots more friends (and don't get me started on seeing photos of friends who went out together to do something and, somehow, I didn't get invited) and while their lives appear to have fallen off the Travel Channel or HGTV or are Pinterest perfect, mine seems to be the hilarious epic Pinterest fails or that horrible driver's license photo that the DMV wouldn't let me do over (like my last one where I was this weird shade of orange, like I'd gotten a horrible spray tan or had become an Oompa Loompa from the first Willie Wonka movie).

Or I read the post about somebody's great kid who had some awesome achievement on the day my kid got on nuclear-red melt-down at school and I had to be called in to meet with the principal. Or my kid gets a zero on an assignment because he didn't turn it in. Or they write about going out to eat as a family and how an older couple pays for their meal and tells them how beautifully behaved their kids are and how they see Jesus in their family. Mine is the family other people would pay for us to eat at another restaurant. Yet I go on social media and wonder: Am I the only one?

How often does comparison keep us from our best selves because we are too busy measuring ourselves by somebody else? I know that I am far too guilty of doing this. I find myself wondering how another blog has far more readers than I do and gets an abundance of likes and reposts and comments because, so often, no comments are far worse than bad ones because it leaves me wondering: Is anyone even reading this anymore? Should I quit?

Self-doubts and insecurities abound. I start thinking about how they are more impressive and more talented . . . If only I could write like Annie Dillard or Anne Lamott or Henri Nouwen or Madeleine L'Engle or . . . If only my blog was as popular as Ann Voskamp's or Maria Popova's Brain Pickings or Jen Hatmaker's or . . . Then I read in Dialogues With Silence by Thomas Merton this prayer he prayed, "Let me withdraw all my love from scattered, vain things - the desire to be read and praised as a writer . . .to live at ease in some beautiful place - and let me place everything in Thee, where it will take root and live instead of being spent in barrenness."

Jesus tells us to love our neighbors, not compare ourselves to them. We cannot love when we are busy measuring ourselves against someone else.   Why? Because love turns to ashes when we do not choose to practice it over asking questions like, "Why don't I . . .?" or "Why do they . . .?"

One of the deadliest questions to contentment is, "What if my life were different?" Fantasy can often be a huge impediment to our faith.

Comparison can destroy us. Just look at the downfall of King Saul when he compared himself to the young David. Even though he was king and lived in a castle, he saw only through the eyes of his own insecurities so that his castle was less than David's cave. All he heard were the words people sang, "Saul has killed his thousands, David his ten thousands." David got more "likes." King Saul wanted to destroy David and it ended up destroying himself, as well as his son Jonathan. Is it any wonder then that the Bard, William Shakespeare, wrote in his play Othello, "It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meet it feeds on?"

While reading the Psalms, I came across these two verses (written by David):

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance (16:5-6).

But how often do I really and truly look at my life that way?

How often am I satisfied with "my chosen portion" and I'm not envying someone else's?

Maybe it's just me. Maybe others have their acts together.

Yet I'm learning that I will never have any joy in the present if I'm not actually in the present of my life but the Facebook post life of others. Often gratitude can be the hardest when we are imagining that it would be easier to be grateful to have someone else's chosen portion. When we're eating leftovers and see that friends are at some fancy, trendy restaurant and posting photos of their delicious meal. Or we're on a stay-cation and see those photos of the kind of vacation we would only get if we somehow got on and won the Price is Right. We look at those images and think, "But that's one of the pleasant places and that's a beautiful inheritance."

How is it my beautiful inheritance to barely maintain the upkeep of our old cars when they bought another new one?

Soon I am face to face with my fallenness. I am deep in the well of my malcontent and discontent. I am ungrateful with my first world problems and concerns. What I don't see when I look at those photos is that every stone gleams in a stream. But what happens when you take one of those smooth stones out and dry it off? It most often dulls and loses the glitter and shine it had beneath the running waters. Why? Because our perspective has changed. This can also be the case with those posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. What we see when we go on social media is what others want us to see.

Studies have shown how social media can have negative influences on a person's mental health. In fact, they found that people who spent a majority of their time on social media were more likely to suffer from depression. Part of this is due to what I have been writing about. We often look at others and think that we are missing out. It's like the title of Mindy Kaling's book:

This can often lead to feelings of isolation, anxiety and insecurity. Psychologists have even coined a term for this "compare and despair factor." They have found that social media, such as Facebook, is even more addictive than cigarettes and harder to abstain from than drinking.

We worry that if what we've posted doesn't get as many likes as something our friend posted, that we aren't as well liked as they are. We begin to tie our self-worth and identity to our posts and the feedback or lack of feedback that they get. (What? How can a blog about someone's cat being cute get way more likes than my post on why we need to lament?).

Albert Einstein wisely said once, "Everybody's a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid." How many of us feel like stupid fish because we are watching a monkey climb?

I'm discovering that I can either have comparisons or contentment, but not both. I have a choice. I cannot be when I am always trying to become. How many of us miss out on the buried beauty of our being because we are too busy focusing on what we perceive as the others' better life?

Social media is not reality. It's not the whole picture just often the best ones. We often project the life we would like to lead and leave out the parts of the vacation where everything fell apart or the kids fought or the luggage got lost or someone got sick. We don't know somebody's struggles and we don't see the cup they wish they had. We cannot draw out value by the value others give it, but by the value that Christ gave it (and, ultimately, he died on a cross for us). I need to love where the lines and boundaries have fallen in my life without trying to move them to resemble other's.

We all long for validation and acceptance. That's why we post photos on Facebook and Instagram. That's why we Tweet 140 characters on Twitter or post entries on our blog. Then we eagerly await to see how many likes or comments or reTweets or reposts we get. How many followers do we have? But what really matters cannot be counted. If we get our validation from others we will also then receive rejection from them.

The Apostle Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians, "Our work as God's servants gets validated - or not - in the details. People are watching us . . . in hard times, tough times, bad times; when we're beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late . . .with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; when we're telling the truth, and when God's showing his power . . . when we're praised, and when we're blamed; slandered and honored, true to our word, though distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God . . . The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. . . Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!" (6:413, The Message).  I love that last part. "Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!" That is not the small life, the life lived in comparison to others. That is the life that Henry David Thoreau wrote about, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." When we live our lives in God, not the approval or comparison to man, we live openly and expansively with our songs being sung, not to ourselves, but in praise to God.

So I have coming to realize that my blog is not my identity. Yes, it is a crafted reflection of parts of myself, but I should not determine my own intrinsic worth by the number of hits my blog gets or doesn't get in a day, how many likes or lack of them it gets or reposts or comments. Ultimately, my portion shouldn't even be about me, it should be about giving God glory. It is understanding that He is my portion. He is my inheritance. He is the pleasant place. That's why 1st Timothy 6:6 tells us, "But godliness with contentment is great gain."

When I remove myself from social media and spend time in nature (where I love to just watch clouds), or reading scripture or poetry, in prayer or in silence, I find myself no longer focusing on other people's lives but living mine. Without comparison, I become more attuned to the joy (sometimes the hidden joy) in my life in the same way that honey bees navigate themselves in relation to the sun, from whatever changing landscape they're in, back to their hive. In those moments where I go out into what Mary Oliver calls "the wordless, singing world" (a delightful phrase), I discover that I enter into the glorious act of self-forgetting. In his beautifully poetic book Anam Cara, John O'Donohue writes, "In our mediocrity and distraction, we forget that we are privileged to live in a wondrous universe." And it's so true. When I stop focusing on what others have and I don't, I find myself realizing all that I really do have and begin to appreciate it far more. Our lives are gifts.

I have to spend more time in communion than in comparison. Only then will I know a wholeness and a rest that I lose every time I move outside of this pleasant place that is called being who God has made me to be, with what God has given me, and to trust fully and solely on Him that He is making me not in the image of a friend or neighbor or coworker or celebrity, but myself more deeply realized in His son Jesus. This is the heart of contentedness.

Monday, August 29, 2016

Words For My Sons On The First Day Of School

Wow, I somehow blinked the summer away and now, here we are, back at the first day of school for the boys.  What do I have to offer them on the year that's ahead for them in their academics and their daily lives with all of the ups and downs that come with navigating their youth and finding their identity? I offer them this:

Pray first. That is how you should start each day and go wherever your prayers lead you because that is where God wants you to be.

Be explorers. The world is bigger than your backyard. Don't let yourself be confined by a narrow vision, but ask questions because the answers may surprise you. Let yourself be open to the question and to questions that don't always have answers. There is tremendous elegance in the mystery and we are to stand in awe of a God who created all of it.

Find ways to serve others, even in the smallest of ways. It may be as simple as a smile or a kind word, as someone else may really need it, including your teachers.

No matter how smart you think you are, there is always someone smarter. Learn from them. And share what you've learned.

Always let your curiosity be sparked and challenged, as all wisdom truly begins with curiosity. People will tell you to follow your passions, but I will tell you to follow your curiosity. Why? Because passions wane, but curiosity doesn't. Curiosity is always an open door to another room, another place and another way of seeing the world.

Be brave. Don't let fear determine your fate. Fear keeps the world small but even in the smallest acts of courage the world grows in size, as will your life. And remember that God did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Take mindful risks rooted in love. Fear keeps the baby bird in the nest and not in wondrous bright-skyed flight.

Know that life is a glorious mess. Everything isn't neat and tidy but it can be delightfully beautiful.

Joy is a choice not just something that happens to you by accident. Always choose joy and kindness.

Be open as you never know where inspiration will come from, who it will speak from or how it will change you, others and the world.

Failing does not make you a failure, quitting does. Everyone fails and it's how you deal with that failure that determines whether or not you are successful. Every single person makes mistakes and you will, too. Be gentle with yourself when you do because mistakes are often the best teacher and the best way to find the right path to take.

Always extend the amount of grace to others that you would want them to extend to you.

Don't judge yourself by others because you don't know their hurts or their struggles, their fears or their insecurities. Like icebergs, everyone is more than what you see above the water.  Deep down we are all afraid of not being accepted, but strive beyond mere popularity to establish a reputation of real character that people know you are someone who keeps your word and can be trusted.

Know that vulnerability is strength. When you open yourself to others, you will be hurt but don't let that hurt determine whether or not you allow yourself to become guarded and distrustful, cut off from this wild, improbable and great world.

Keep a good and tender heart.

Be a friend to someone who doesn't have one.

No one's an "other" once you listen to their story.

Strive to be a genius of generosity. There is greatness in giving.

There will always be struggles. Know that any kind of progress comes through struggles. Find the beauty in the struggle because that's life. Don't be dissuaded because something is hard because those things which are difficult are the ones that give us our greatest achievements. Dreams cannot become real if you aren't willing to work to make them so.

Never say that work you've done is "good enough," always strive for excellence in whatever you do.

Know that your habits become your character.

What you do is not as important as who you become.

Let your actions be filled with mercy and generosity and graciousness.

In the history of the world, there has never been another you and there will never be another you. How you impact that world will be uniquely in your own way; in a way that God has created only you to do. Your life is precious but that does not mean that you protect it from fear of being broken.

Don't worry about doing great things, strive to do all things in grace.

Listen more than you speak, you just might learn more.

Sometimes it is more important that you be kind than for you to be right.

Spend more time seeking to understand someone than in trying to impress someone.

No matter how bad or inadequate you feel, God is always present. You are not alone in your day.

Let yourself be astonished. The world is full of the miraculous. Remember, if Moses hadn't stopped and looked, he would not have encountered the burning bush. How many do we miss rushing about, not paying attention?

Sometimes you need to be bored. Everything shouldn't entertain and amuse you. It's from boredom that imagination is kindled.

Seek wisdom over intelligence. Wisdom is rooted in God and can be used to help others. Wisdom is not only gaining knowledge but knowing the right and wrong of how to apply it. You can gain facts and information with intelligence, but with wisdom you can gain an understanding of others, yourself and, ultimately, your Creator. Wisdom is limitless.

The most important things you can learn are honor, generosity, gratitude and kindness. They are also the most important things for you to be examples of to every person you come across during your day.

I know you will want to rush through this year and be done with it, but, one day, you will think otherwise. Take time to pause and see the blessing of the moment. See how sacred this short time you are given here really is.

Know that your mom's and my love are not based on merits, or awards, successes or failures, but only on that you are our children and take deep gladness in that you both are.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Lying On The Grass

Sometimes I like nothing more than to lay on the grass in our backyard and look up at the trees, through the leaves of them, to see the sky. One of my favorite things is clouds. I lay still and motionless, so much so that butterflies have landed on me. I have felt their movement on my arm. Or a bird (a Robin: fat and humorous in his appearance like Dicken's Pickwick) has gotten so close that I could, quiet easily, touch it with my fingers.

Blades of grass tickle my ears.

In that moment, lying there, I do not worry about the thousand different other things I could (or should) be doing. I am content.

My thoughts are focused.

I'm aware of the earth beneath me and the breath within me.

Even though there is the sound of cars whizzing by our house, I find myself forgetting them. Only the sounds of birdsong is heard.

In this moment, this is the whole, beautiful, numinous world.

I dig my fingers into the soil; the dirt getting in my fingernails. I am made from this earth. Humus. Human. "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed in his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." What an image to envision. Adam. Adamah (earth). We are connected, this earth and I.

I close my eyes and focus on my breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Breath of God. Giver of life.

Breathing, is it not a beautiful sound? To hear your own? Or your spouse's as they are sleeping. It is one of the most beautiful sounds. Along with silence. And the ocean. And wind. Falling rain. Or a hymn being sung.

How overwhelming it is to realize how God has created all of this connected. To lay there, on the grass, and doing nothing else is a form of prayer.  I feel awe just as many others do standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I feel reverence for the magnitude of this moment that will make up so many more moments, that make up a life and that my life is connected to those around me (even those I don't know and will never meet).

As I am still, the insects are busy at work in the ground beneath me. A whole world that I cannot see but that is as grand as the universe above me, beyond those clouds I love to watch slowly gather and fold and unfold.

And, in that moment, to understand that there will come a day in which I will lie beneath this earth and return to it and feed the life that lives in the darkness of soil.

Many would quickly leave these thoughts, but to comprehend death is to appreciate life.

So I savor this moment, until one of my sons will come dashing out of the house, calling my name, "Papa! Papa" and, as he stands over me, ask, "What are you doing?"

"Join me," I will tell him and pat the ground beside me, "and hear the voice of God."

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

The Importance Of Learning To Lament

I have been spending a lot of time reading and meditating on some of the more difficult books of the Bible (Job, Lamentations, the prophets and, of course Psalms). While many view these books with the same distaste as I do kale, I have found that my faith is deepened more by reading them and by understanding the gift that grief really is. There are those who would balk at this suggestion and would prefer to avoid all circumstances that will cause grief, sorrow and lament. They are like children who want every day to be Christmas Day. The real danger to not giving voice to lament is that we take away the voice of the the victim and the status quo goes unchallenged. Neither of those are biblical. By silencing lament, we silence the cries for justice. Biblical lament is both private and communal.

There are some who might even ask, "What is lament?"

According to the dictionary, lament is a "passionate expression of grief or sorrow." How many of us would prefer to ignore such a topic? Most. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would ask, "Couldn't you blog about a more cheerful topic?" Certainly you're not going to find a lot of Ted Talks on the subject matter. People aren't clamoring to retreats or seminars on the subject. Yet without lament, I think we have a fragmented faith that is ungrounded and can be easily unmoored by tragedy. As believers, I think we need to have a stewardship of sorrow and both the Old and New Testament stress using lament as the sound to trauma and injustice. Lament falls between mourning and anger.

The book of Lamentions is thought to have been written by the prophet Jeremiah. The title of the book in Hebrew is hkya which means "How" and is commonly used in Israelite funeral dirges. It is to ask, "How? How can this happen?" It is psalmist crying out in the Twenty-second Psalm,"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?" One doesn't hear that sung in the modern American church. Yet over half the Psalms are laments. David wrote more Psalms in the cave than he did the castle. Walter Brueggemann wrote, "It is experiences of being overwhelmed, nearly destroyed, that have given life that empower us to pray, to sing."

In the Beatitudes, Christ says, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). Certainly in this culture we do not view mourning as a blessing. We tend to want to avoid it, even in our churches and our worship. We like praise songs. Uplifting and make us feel good. We prefer not to study books like Lamentations or Job that are real downers and are too depressing. Too many congregations want to hear sermons on spiritual success. We long for mountaintops only and avoid all mention of the wilderness or the valley or the desert. Yet, without the wilderness and without lament, we have a juvenile faith that prefers shallow fantasy to the depths of the dark night where so often we truly encounter God. We must step out of our sugar-coated, sanitized notions of scripture and really see what is there within its pages. All of us must sit with Job (both the biblical figure and those around us who are suffering a major loss in their life). We must lament over the sins and failures of ourselves and our nations as the prophets did.

Jeremiah by Michelangelo

And yet, I cannot help but think that the Church is incomplete until we truly learn to mourn and lament, especially with others. Too often, whenever someone is going through a loss (a divorce, a death, a miscarriage, a failed adoption, depression), they find themselves feeling abandoned by those in the church, which only deepens the wounds of grief they are suffering in silence. Whatever loss they have, it will be as Joan Didion wrote in her The Year of Magical Thinking, "Life changes in that instant. The ordinary instant." For her, it was the death of her husband. She wrote that, "Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expected." I learned the truth of these words with the death of my own mother. In grief, gone is the ordinary, daily life we had led. Instead, we find ourselves caught within the waves of mourning that come like the tide

That's why lamenting is critical: it's a release. Laments often take the formula of remembrance. A good example of this is the beginning of Psalm 42:

These things I remember:
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of the Lord
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
among the festive throng.

The lamenter pours out to God how things used to be. This is not nostalghia. It's not mere memory. It is someone who is suffering a loss and longs for restoration. Lament is not passive. It is not wallowing or looking for pity nor is it self-pity. It is looking for change. It is Jeremiah crying out for justice to roll down like mighty waters.

Those on the outside, who know about the loss someone else is going through, often feel insecure and unsure about how to approach them and how to respond to the loss. "I just don't know what to do," they say. But we don't have to do anything. Or really say anything. The important thing is to show up and just be there for that person. Sit with them and hold that hurt and sorrow with them. Let them know they are loved and not forgotten by just being present to them. Those hurting are not looking for answers, they are looking for . We only get true intimacy in friendship during those times of sorrow and loss, during those times of questioning and lament. By being present we are helping the sadness not become bitterness. When they ask, "Where is God?" We can hold their hand and answer, "Right here. With us. In this moment." We are being the hand of God as we hold their hand. We are being the physical representation of our Creator's compassion in that moment. By our being there, we are helping create space for the Spirit to enter (where two or more are gathered). This is why Galations 6:2 reminds us to "bear one another's burdens." Laments are to be heard and honored, not dismissed with a, "Cheer up." Nor should we just give them some more time. As the poet Emily Dickinson wrote:

They say that time "assuages," -
Time never did assuage;
An actual suffering strengthens,
As sinews do, with age.

That is why we must be present, so that sorrow does not become toxic. Lament is a release, a letting go. But we must offer ourself to that process. It's not easy. Or comfortable. To enter into a room where the pain is palpable, where someone is mourning the death of a child, or wailing the shooting of a loved one. Pain and suffering can be wrenching and physically and emotionally draining. It requires more of us than some biblical platitude or greeting card sentiment. It means we have to be Chris-like and be moved with compassion. The Greek for this is splagchnizomai which means to be moved from one's inward parts. or, quite literally, from the bowels. In his groundbreaking book The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen writes, "Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in his own heart and even losing his precious piece of mind? In short: Who can take away suffering without entering it?"

Drowning on Dry Land by Eric Ruin

One of the most important things we can teach our children is how to mourn. Many parents try to keep their children from seeing suffering or any type of loss. The damage they are doing is in providing an illusory vision of life that is without pain. When a child, especially one in the Church, then encounters real suffering, they are ill-equipped to handle it. They do not have the psychological or spiritual tools to deal with loss. This can cause an abandonment of a faith that they see as being unable to handle the pain that they are experiencing. They do not have the inner vocabulary to articulate and give name to this suffering within a spiritual context. If all they have been taught is the God of sunshine, they cannot fathom God being there when they are "in the depths of Sheol" as the Psalmist writes.

They must understand that in life there is death, pain, and sometimes suffering we cannot understand (examples being 9/11 or the Holocaust). We have to be able to teach them to sit in those places of not knowing until they can get back to that place of trusting. And what better example can we give them that God completely understands our pain than with Christ himself. Musician and author Michael Card wrote in his book A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament, "Jesus understood that lament was the only true response of faith to the brokenness and fallenness of the world. It provides the only trustworthy bridge to God across the deep seismic quaking of our lives." He also understood the lament when he cried out the opening to the Twenty-second Psalm while he was on the cross. When anyone says, "God cannot understand the pain I'm going through," we only have to point them to that moment.

Job's Prayer by Marc Chagall

It is only when we give voice to lamentation, that a person is no longer a victim, but is slowly able to to create within their own heart and soul the place to heal after a tragedy has occurred. God is a God of the mourning, as well as the laughter. God is a God who keeps our tears in a bottle so that they are never forgotten (Psalm 56:8). He is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).

Lamentations show that God is big enough to take our lashing out, our wrestling and our wondering, "God, where are you?" For those who want to sanitize scripture, Psalm 88 lays bare all misery before the Creator.

O Lord, God of my salvation,
I cry out day and night before you.
Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!

For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those you remember no more
for they are cut off from your hand.
You have put me in the depths of the pit,
in the regions of the dark and deep.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves.  Selah.

And that is just part of the Psalm. The writer of this Psalm lays bare his soul. This is not the conventional faith we are so often presented with in the Church. We wince when we read such words (if we don't just skip them altogether). Yet it is when we present just such Psalms, that we can show that the life of faith is not always a happy one, a life of ease and that there can be suffering.

Years ago, when my mother was dying of cancer, a long-time friend of hers came to visit her. In the midst of my mother's agony, this woman, like the friends of Job, told her, "You don't have enough faith." This crushed my mother's spirits when they were already low. This woman, in her prosperity gospel sensibilities, saw cancer not as disease but as a curse of one whose faith is weak. I can only wonder what she will believe should darkness come upon her.

The Psalms and Lamentations show the pain and protest with raw honesty. They help us come to terms with our own inability to understand the hardships we may face. They are examples of what Brueggemann calls "bold faith" because it presents the world as it really is and that nothing is out of bounds in discourse with God. Why? Because God is big enough to take it. He can take our honesty. And we are putting our pain before God, not bottling it up and denying it. There can only come healing when we do and stop pretending that we have it all together.  We have a God who allows us to cry out in our bewilderment and confusion. Lament is the language of the wilderness and it is only in the wilderness that we can truly begin to trust God and to grow in our faith.

As brothers and sisters in Christ, we then should dare to enter that wilderness to be there with them and to sing a song of lament and, in doing so, sing a song of redemption because we can only be redeemed from that which we acknowledge.

We are a culture of productivity and efficiency that does not know how to deal with lament since it falls into neither of those two categories. Lament is messy and can be lengthy and we would prefer someone just "snap out of it!" In The Seven Story Mountain, Thomas Merton wrote, "The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does the most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most." And we see that in our culture. I think that is why we are so explosive and reactionary.

But we need to understand that lament is more than just personal grief. Biblical lament is also a petition for deliverance. It can either be personally or as a nation. The prophets lament the fallen state of Israel, not only during its times of captivity, but, even more so, in terms of its abandoning the things of God. It is to see the brokenness of the world around us and cry out. It is to lament poverty and injustice and, in doing so, aligning ourselves with those are oppressed. To lament is to awaken ourselves to the suffering of others in the world, as I have been doing for the people of Syria.

In this modern age where we have media coverage 24/7 and it tends to focus on the darkness, we can easily become overwhelmed and apathetic and disconnect. We see tragedies (Syria, the flood in Louisiana, the earthquake in Italy, bombings, and murders) and it can drive us to either fear or fantasy (both of which are a hindrance to faith). But when we truly look at suffering and lament, we are forming a spiritual protest. It is not an escape from but a deeper entering into of the world's pains, but offering them to God. Lament is not despair. Lament is to hope because we are giving up our laments to a God who hears us. That is why I lament what is happening in Syria or Ukraine or when a plane crashes or injustice in our judicial system or lament the brokenness and loneliness that permeates this world of ours. I lament my own sinfulness and fallenness. I see that all of the problems of the world are also problems within me: greed, selfishness, indifference. I cry out to God, "Deliver me from these things" just as I cry out for God to deliver the world.

When I lament for the world, I am connected to it. The suffering and problems of others are my problems. It moves me with compassion when I see images like the one of Omran Daqnee that has so touched the world. When I see him, I see my own child. I want to comfort him as I would my own son. Because I cannot, I pray for him. I lament for him and for his family and for his country. Like Jeremiah in his final lament, I, too cry out to God, "For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, 'Violence and destruction!" (20:8). It's like a fire that is shut up in my bones and must be released because it makes me weary to hold it in. When we lament we name the loss and, by so doing, it does not consume us. Instead, we are consumed not by bitterness but by love. It is acknowledging the hurting before the holy.

This is why we, as believers, must reclaim the practice of lament in our pulpits, our private places of prayer, and in our public square.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

My Best Reads Of Summer 2016

Summer is winding down. This means school will soon be starting and one of my favorite seasons, Fall, will begin. Every summer I have a list of books I hope to read during these few months. Some I read and, along the way, I discovered others. What were my favorites? They include four books on faith, two works of fiction, and a collection of poetry.

At the top of my summer reading this year was:

Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic For A Simpler, More Soulful Way Of Living by Shauna Niequist. What I loved about this book was Niequist's candor about being someone who says "Yes" to too many things until she found that she was burned out and overwhelmed. All of the things she had thought were God's will and what she thought she wanted, weren't really either. In the midst of speaking engagements, to-do lists, and busyness, Niequist found herself disconnected from everything. She was neglecting her family, her health, and her spiritual growth. That's when she began to "remake" her life from "the inside out," as she says. She also learned that saying "No" may be the most spiritual thing one can do.

As she writes:

Present is living with your feet firmly grounded in reality, pale and uncertain as it may seem. Present is choosing to believe that your own life is worth investing deeply in, instead of waiting for some rare miracle or fairytale. Present means we understand that the here and now is sacred, sacramental, threaded through with divinity even in its plainness. Especially in its plainness.

Her official site is: http://www.shaunaniequist.com/

How To Survive A Shipwreck: Help Is On The Way And Love Is Already Here by Jonathan Martin. If you're going through a difficult time in your life or you know somebody who is, this is the book to read for yourself or give to someone or both. There is a raw vulnerability to Martin's writing about his life after he left the church he started, the failure of his marriage, and being in a place where he was unsure of where he should go and what he should do. His writing is beautifully poetic and profound in his dealing with loss, failure and a crisis of faith.

This was the book I took with me on our trip to Nashville and I found myself not only moved by his story, but encouraged and amazed at his ability to write about what it's like to find oneself in the depths, feeling like one is going under for the last time and finding himself drowning in pure grace of God. The chapter on sea monsters alone is worth buying this book.

His official site is: http://www.jonathanmartinwords.com/

Roots & Sky: A Journey Home In Four Seasons by Christie Purifoy is a book I have posted about before (hungering-after-beautiful-good.html).  Purifoy writes in a reflective, lyrical manner that draws the reader in and makes you feel as if she is welcoming you into her home. Like Madeleine L'Engle, whose writing Purifoy's reminds me of, Christie is a keen observer of the mundane details that truly make up a life and a home. Into this, she deftly weaves theology that moves us towards hope. This is a book to be savored and enjoyed.

Her official site is: http://www.christiepurifoy.com/

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power Of Habit by James K. A. Smith was one of the most profound books I've read in a long time. This is not an easy read but it has caused me to rethink my ideas of worship. We live in a culture that is based on the philosophy of  René Descartes that says,"I think, therefore I am."  Smith presents a case that this is erroneous and that the more accurate statement should be, "I am what I love." This book is challenging and makes one think and rethink the "whys" of our habits and why we do what we do. It will also make you look at malls in a completely new light.

His official site is: http://jameskasmith.com/

Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo is a book I bought at Parnassus Books in Nashville. I adore Kate DiCamillo's work and have yet to be disappointed by anything she's written. This is easily one of her best novels yet.  It's the story of Raymie Clarke, whose father abandoned the family one night to run off with a dental hygienist. Now she is convinced that if she wins the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition then her photo will be in the local paper, her father will see it and he'll realize he has to come back home to his amazing daughter. The story is funny and heartbreaking and wonderfully written as only DiCamillo can write.

Her official site is: http://www.katedicamillo.com/

Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton is one of those classic novels that I somehow had never read before. Set in Apartheid South Africa, it tells the story of Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo who goes to Johannesburg to help his sister, Gertrude, and find his son, Absalom. As the story unfolds, one moves through this lyrical narrative which sheds light on the hardships, poverty and famine that the blacks suffer and the way whites are affected by "native crime." In one part, Paton writes, "The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again." Despite its subject matter, this is a hopeful book that is full of grace and mercy. It will be one of those books that I will return to again and again.

Felicity is a collection of poems by one of my favorite modern poets, Mary Oliver. Like many of the writers that I am most dazzled by, Oliver is one who chronicles place, landscape and nature with such joy that one wants to go outside and be in it. There is a wisdom, hope and peace to her works, even in the midst of turmoil. These poems focus more on love than nature. The writing is spare but the words so well chosen that they have greater impact on the reader. They are bittersweet, as her partner of forty years had died, and she is ruminating on both the love and the loss of their time together. This slender volume is a luminous elegy. One of my favorite poems from the book is entitled "The World I Live In."

I have refused to live
locked in the orderly house of
reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in
is wider than that. And anyway,
what's wrong with Maybe?

You wouldn't believe what once or
twice I have seen. I'll just
tell you this:
only if there are angels in your head will you
ever, possibly, see one.

These are my favorite books this summer, so tell me what yours are. . .

Friday, August 19, 2016

A Vulnerable Messiah

For the last few days I have been meditating not just on one passage of scripture, but one story that is told in Matthew, Mark and Luke. It is a well known one that many of us have read and heard to the point that we find it over familiar that we kind of skim over it without truly seeing what is on the page before us. It is the passage where Jesus calms the storm. I'm sure that many of you can already picture the series of events as it unfolds and we tend to rush through the story to the miracle. Like the disciples, we read this passage in scripture and want the storm calmed, never focusing on what is always central: Christ.

Certainly, pastors and teachers make their sermons and lessons on Jesus calming the storms in our own lives or about fear and doubt. They tend to focus on his question, "Why were you afraid?" I have yet to read or hear anyone talk about Jesus being exhausted. I mean, this was not a nap or a rest but a deep heavy sleep. This is Jesus being wiped out. He was sleeping during a tempest. This isn't just a rain storm but one where the disciples (some who are experienced boats men and fishermen, believe they are going to sink and drown beneath the waves).

Like others, I, too, have been guilty of reading what I believe to already be there and, thereby, glean nothing from a passage. It becomes stories we tell children in Sunday school. Cleaned up and sanitized. Jesus calming the storm is like magic from a fairy tale. It has no relation to our daily lives and experiences so we do what we usually do and connect the dots to, as I mentioned before, applying this to our own storms, fears and doubts.

Not too long ago, I began using the Ignatian form of contemplation that is called imaginative prayer. What this means is quite simply:  I read passages of scripture and then begin to imagine the scene in detail: sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. I place myself in what is happening. I realize that there will be some who read this and become distrustful of such practices and fearing that it will allow one's imagination to run wild and add things that aren't in scripture. This has not been the case for me but, instead, has allowed me to see the Bible in a new light.

When I came to the passages of Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:35-41, and Luke 8:22-25, I found myself drawn to something I never paid attention to before: the vulnerability of Jesus. All three of the Gospels' accounts have Jesus teaching and healing the crowds before he tells his disciples, "Let's cross to the other side." Most likely this is the Sea of Galilee. In each of the three accounts, Jesus falls asleep and a great storm arises. Both Matthew and Mark mention that the boat is being filled by the waves crashing over the sides of their boat. The disciples, afraid that they are about to die, awaken Jesus and he gets up, calms the sea by simply speaking to it, and then asks them, "Why are you afraid? Where is your faith?" We hit that bullet point and start application.

But I didn't. Not this time.

Instead, I closed my eyes and pictured the waves lapping over the rocks of the Sea of Galilee.

Christ is getting into the fishing boat with some of the others. Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, and James push the small boat off the shore and into the water. When the get waist deep, they are pulled into the boat.  We set out on the cornflower blue sea. I look back at the shore where the crowds are still standing there in the tufts of grass along the beach. Slwoly they begin to leave. I wonder how many of them are already planning to meet Jesus on the other side.

Off in the distance there was a trace of a dark cloud, but nothing to be too concerned about. While the disciples and I are talking amongst ourselves: some over what Jesus had been teaching and the three fishermen about how good it feels to be on the water again. And why not? We can smell the sea and taste it on our lips, and there is the lingering smell of fish in the boat.  It's warm with a gentle breeze.

There is some joking and some bragging about who's caught the most fish. Peter's the worst about this. He always has to be more of a man than the rest of us, especially those of us who were tax collectors. The only thing worse than his bragging is John's constantly referring to himself as the "beloved." We all just roll our eyes.

Off in the distance are the hills that look almost pink. Overhead some Whiskered Terns, white as the clouds, gracefully fly past and, like the Rabbi said, I smile as I do stop to consider them.

At first I find myself just looking at the beauty of it all and then it dawns on me: all of this was created by the very one who's in our boat. It's then I stop and look for Jesus.

I discover that he's  asleep. He was so fatigued to the point of exhaustion that he is asleep in the bow of the boat. I feel tenderness for him. I wish I had a blanket so that I could cover him like one would a child. How vulnerable he appears, sleeping there, unaware. His head resting on a net as though it were a pillow with one hand underneath his dark hair with its short, tight curls. I watch the rhythm of his chest as it rises and falls with each breath like a silent prayer. How much we ask of him. I cannot imagine what it's like to have so many people wanting so much from you and seldom having a moment's peace.

This moment of peace is soon broken when a storm suddenly arises. My attention shifts from Jesus to the storm. Waves begin to batter against our small boat and waves crash over the sides, causing the bottom of the boat to fill around our sandalled feet. It does not take long before my clothes are soaked and sticking to my skin. Inside, my stomach is churning from the boat being violently tossed to and fro. I look around. All of the men are filled with terror, even Peter now.

At first they debate waking Jesus. I look at him. He's still sleeping. How much does his preaching and teaching and healing and all of the crowd pushing in and wanting to touch him take out of him?

The others are mystified, "How can he sleep during this?!!?"

But I see him there. He's soaked and water is all about him, but he just sleeps on, with a such a weariness. His strength depleted. I want to stop them. I want to stand him and the rest of the disciples and say, "STOP! Let him rest! Can't you see how exhausted he is?"

It does not matter, for James and Andrew are shaking him. It takes Jesus a moment. He's groggy and he wipes the sleep from his eyes. He has not fully come out of his dream. What does he dream about? His Father? The kingdom he left but talks about in parables? Then he sees us. He sees the fear in us before he even notices the storm. "Why are you afraid?" he asks.

"Look around you, Lord. Really?!!?" I know we think it, but none say it. Not out loud.

Then, someone speaks up. Some later say it was Judas, but they like to blame him for everything.

"Rabbi, do you not care about us? That we are perishing?"

With gentleness, he sighs and shakes his head, "O you of little faith." It's as if he is as if he is saying, "You are still such little children. When will you grow up?" Slowly he sits up and then, putting his hands on the sides of the boat, lifts himself and, though the rest of us are having a hard time standing, he does not. "Peace," he says. "Be still!"

Jesus Calms The Storm by Laura James

I realize he is not just talking to the waters. And I am. And I'm scared because the storm obeys him.  I see that the others are all afraid. They whisper among themselves, "What sort of man is this, that even the winds and sea obey him?" I can hear the awe in their voices.

Yet I see, that for many reasons, he is still tired.

How many times have I read this passage of scripture and never, ever taken in the fact that the Son of God is now a man who is so exhausted that he sleeps during a violent storm. He probably collapsed into sleep as soon as he got on the boat. I found myself in tears seeing him there sleeping. We are unprotected, unguarded when we sleep. That vulnerability is so childlike. It's why, as a parent, I love to check on my boys as they are sleeping and kiss their foreheads. In that moment, I wanted to kiss Christ's. I loved him with a tenderness. I felt protective of him as I am my sleeping sons. It did bother me that the disciples could not see past their own fears and needs to see the need of Jesus to just sleep. In the past, I might have been like them. I might have been angry with Jesus for not being there when I needed him, but not now. In this moment, as I saw him sleeping, I was moved with compassion for a God who made himself so vulnerable as to take on flesh and become one of us to show us just how much the Father really does love us.

And Jesus is vulnerable so many times in so many different ways throughout the Gospels. Think of when he has returned in his resurrected body and he confronts Peter. There is a tenderness in him asking, "Do you love me?" He asks us that just as he did Peter and we can answer, "Yes" or , "No." In that moment, he allows himself to be either accepted or rejected. I can see both he and Peter weeping as they embrace. Peter sobbing into Christ's chest. Jesus placing his hand on Peter's head, like a father would a child, like the Father did his prodigal son.

Or that passage in Revelation 3:20, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock." Think of that. The Creator of the universe is knocking. He is not beating down the door. God is knocking and waiting on us. The Maker of heaven and earth, is waiting on us. "If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me."What a beautiful image. God is knocking and if we answer, then we will share a meal, share intimacy. This is the picture we see of Jesus throughout the Gospels. Sharing a meal and himself with people. His vulnerability is the vulnerability of a God who so desperately loves us and longs to have communion with us, so much so that He bent down and became God-and-man to show us.

This is why I have embraced this way of meditating on scripture because it invites me in, asks me to take a closer look without my preconceived ideas, my misconceptions, and my assumptions. I see passages afresh and with new eyes and glimpse greater meanings because of I am not outside the text but approaching it from within.

How do you see these passages?

Perhaps, because you're going through something, you, like the disciples, ask Jesus, "Rabbi, do you not care?"

What does God show you?

What does He reveal to you that you've never noticed or considered before?

What does what you are shown reveal about you and where you are in your spiritual life?

Here is James Martin, SJ explaining Ignatian Contemplation:

If you decide to use this form of prayer, let me know how it has impacts your own faith. If you are already using Ignatian imaginative prayer, share how it has deepened your understanding of the Bible.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Encountering the Holy In the Humdrum

Do we gaze into the screen of our technology more than we do our spouse's face? Or our children's? Or our friend's?

So often when I'm out, I cannot help but see so many people with their attention given solely to their smart phones (either on social media, playing Pokemon Go, texting). And if it isn't bad enough already with our smart phones, tablets, laptops, and computers, scientists are creating virtual reality. While I'm not going to write about all of the potential dangers of that (we already have people who starve themselves to death because they cannot stop to eat and leave the world of the video games they play), I cannot help but see the problems that lurk in such technology. It also makes me concerned about how they will no longer be able to see actual reality.

The more and more we become disconnected from others, from community, and from our environment, the more we become disconnected from the sacred.

How many people easily become bored with the ordinary, with the daily mundane that surrounds them and do not realize the holy in all of them?

In the liturgical year of the Church, many celebrate what is known as "Ordinary Time." This is the period that begins on Epiphany Day and ends on the day before Ash Wednesday. In Latin it's known as Tempus Per Annum (Time throughout the year). I love the idea of celebrating "Ordinary Time" though. Of paying attention to the daily, routine stuff that fills our lives. How many of us find God in the folding of clean sheets? Or in the small shafts of sunlight that comes through the leaves of trees? Or the taste of an orange whose juice gets on your fingers? Of hearing your children laughing together in another room?  Or that first cup of coffee in the morning?

One of the books I have returned to again and again throughout the years is The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. In it, he notes how to develop the awareness of God in the quotidian activities of our day (cleaning, fixing a meal, making a bed). All are to be done as a form of prayer. I'll admit, I am not always so great at that, especially in the chores I dislike the most (cleaning the bathrooms). Yet I have noticed, that when I am present, really paying attention to washing a cup under the cold water of the sink, and I am aware and I am listening to the sounds of that activity, I find myself not hurrying to go on to the next task. Instead, it takes on meaning and, in its simple way, a form of worship. What if we viewed our daily errands or duties not as a burden but as a holy vocation? As a way of ushering God into our ordinary lives? A way of seeing these small routines as touched by grace?

Brother Lawrence writes, "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than the continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it." And how did he do this? By working in the kitchen of a priory in Paris. By repairing the sandals of the other brothers in that community. Neither sounds like a very spiritual activity but one that would grow tiresome day after day after day after day. I mean, the idea of repairing dirty, smelly sandals of others has no appeal to me at all. Yet Brother Lawrence found in that act a way of growing closer to God. As he said, "We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed." Do I approach my job or the housework or raising children in this light?

Another writer whose works I deeply cherish because they so deeply nourish me and have taught me to slow down, be present and take notice is that of Kathleen Norris. She wrote, "The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry."

Do I view doing the laundry (I don't mind the washing or even the folding, but the putting away . . .) as a way of looking thoughtfully at what I am doing in the same manner I would a prayer or meditating or studying scripture? Prayer in the perfunctory. Daily rituals and routines as offerings before God.  Teresa of Avila said that, "Love turns work into rest" (I haven't achieved that state of mind or soul yet, to be honest).

To do this is to realize that the commonplace is a gift. As I was washing my coffee cup, I held the moment inside me and happened to notice an orange and black insect on the windowsill. I watched as it moved slowly along the wood and its antenna twitched with life. Then I opened the window and let it fly away.

After the insect was gone and I closed the window, I thought about my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson, and how much of her poetry dealt with the mundane but in a way that made us see the ordinary as extraordinary. How much of her poetry would we have lost if she had modern technology when she lived? Most would see her world as so small, but she mined such depth from it because she was so present, so alive to it, so aware of something like a bee or a spider. As she so aptly wrote, "I dwell in possibility." She did. She was alive and aware of all the possibility that the moment held, that there was. "Forever is composed of nows." she wrote and every time I read that small statement, I become aware of just how complex and thrilling and mystifying it really is.  Saint Emily, as she is to me, makes me want to be open and aware and available to my surroundings, to what is before me at that moment in time, to find joy in the simplicity of an action like chopping a pepper or dusting our furniture (taking a moment every now and again to reflect on the memory of that object: where I purchased it, who I was with, what was going on in my life at that time. Perhaps if I have no real connection to that object then I should get rid of it). "Find ecstasy in life," Dickinson wrote, "the mere sense of living is joy enough."

"Her Garden" by Catrin Welz-Stein

I love that line, "The mere sense of living is joy enough." How exuberant such a line is, especially if it is lived out. To not need constant entertaining but to find joy simply in the living. In watching birds in the yard as I'm washing a pan. Walking outside and hearing the birdsong or the music of the cicadas. To find peace exactly where I am, doing what I'm doing in that moment. To be content. As Teresa of Avila said, "Thank God for the things I do not own." I am slowly coming in to the realization of that line, as I am attempting to simplify my own life (and I've started with getting rid of books. Yes, I can hear the gasps now of those reading this).

This requires the doctrine of discipline. Of literally practicing being aware of God's presence (as He is always there while I am not always so). It means that I have to turn off the background noise, whether that be the radio or television as I do my menial tasks around the house and to not view them as menial but meaningful. When I am folding my kids' clothes to be not only thinking about them but praying for them. To find the theology in everyday life. It means being awake and not just doing things rotely. We should not find the beauty in such actions only when our bodies no longer allow us to perform them as we used to (something we learn as we grow older and find it easier to pull muscles or to feel the aches and pains of doing simple tasks).

It means being aware of my breathing: inhaling and exhaling. What a gift! And to think it was breathed into us by the very lungs of God.  As the book of Job says, "The Spirit of God hath made, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." I love how in Hebrew the word rauch means wind, breath, mind and spirit. "The rauch of God is in my nostrils" (Job 27:3).  Rauch Elohim (the Spirit of God). Yet how we take that simple action that gives us life for granted. Do we use our breathing as prayer? Breathing in and out the name Yahweh. Breath as a form of communion.

Or the beating of our hearts. 60 to 100 beats per minute. Do we allow the external rhythms of our actions to move to our internal rhythms?  Or to appreciate the ability to see light coming in the kitchen window? Or to hear the sound of the birds in the shrubbery? Or to feel the coolness of the water on our hands? Or to appreciate all of the different types and colors of flowers? Or to focus on just one? To really see that one flower as if one is appreciating a painting by Van Gogh.

Be intentional. As children we sang, "This is the day that the Lord hath made. I will rejoice and be glad in it," but as adults, do we? Do we rejoice in the day? In the dull and mundane? In the routine and the rote?  Replace complaints with communion. Pray. Worship. Be silent. Be present.

How much of this will be lost the more and more people focus so much on their technological gadgets?

While I'm not saying we should get rid of all of our technology, I am asking that we turn them off and interact with the person who is at the table with us sharing a meal. I asking that we not turn every moment into an Instagram photo or a Facebook post. Enjoy the meal without comment. Enjoy a concert and hear the music and see the performance in place of looking at it through the small screen of a smart phone as you record it to post it on social media. See the poetry in your daily life. Truly see the glass of water and the way the sunlight plays on both.  Or taste the sweetness of wine on your tongue. Savor a meal instead of hurriedly devouring it to get on with life when that is life. So much of Jesus' ministry was simply sharing a meal with someone. Ask your child a question and just listen. And, as you listen, watch their expressions and the life in their eyes and gestures and mannerisms. See yourself and your spouse and your parents in them. Capture that moment in your heart and not you phone.

The poet Mary Oliver wisely wrote her "Instructions for Living" as:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

So now I am going to end this blog and practice the life I wish to live and I pray that you will join me in doing likewise.


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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

EERE News: Hydropower Upgrades to Yield Added Generation at Average Costs Less Than 4 cents per kWh – Without New Dams

This is good news for the waters and people of the State of Arkansas. The American Recovery and Revitalization Act earmarked certain infrastructure improvements without spending billions on new dams.
In the entire U.S., Four cities with MegaWatt stations of 50 MW of smaller were awarded these project funds. North Little Rock will benefit greatly from this injection.

The North Little Rock Electric Department has been awarded up to $450,000.00 to have an automated intake device installed, by the Department of Energy.

This device will help decrease the air pollution in a 'non-attainment' air basin, because it stops the previous need to burn debris dredged out of the intake. This will keep the operation of the dam at peak efficiency.

This boost came from Recovery monies for infrastructure. This upgrade on the Arkansas River and the dam is creating or saving jobs and helping the environment...Way to go.

I subscribe to EERE newsfeed; this is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter. November 4, 2009

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Snowfer, the most versatile snow ice sailing board in the world

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March 13, 2015

Is it just me, or does it feel like summer already? The daylights savings time switch might be a miracle worker because ever since we jumped an hour ahead last Sunday it has been warmer than ever and the weekend is supposed be hot hot hot. Skipping spring and going right on to summer: Check. It might just be the first Friday of the new year where I don't have to wear my socks and sweat pants while working (I'm not a weirdo, I just work from home). But let's get to the point of this Friday afternoon post ;) Here's what I've been up to lately:

Binge-watching Downton Abbey:
Any Downton fans in the audience? I know there must be a reason for the fact I missed out on this - let's be honest - amazing show when it started, but I can't seem to think of one right now. The only good thing about it is that I got to watch all episodes in one go - the proper way. Thanks for stealing all my time with your free Prime trail, Amazon! So I finished four seasons in a matter of weeks weeks and now am dealing with serious withdrawal symptoms from being so emotionally involved... Any tips? Seems to me the only solution is to start season 5.

Researching a more eco-friendly lifestyle:
Maybe it's because I just turned 25, maybe not but for some reason I can't just live with how much unnecessary trash I produce or useless things I buy. So I'm trying to trim down on starting with the bathroom. It's not like I have much of a beauty routine, but still... using only cruelty free products that have less packaging and are better for the environment feels right. I'm taking baby steps though. Lush seems to have a few good options like solid shampoo and deodorant (which I'm trying out right now - scary!). Let me know if you know of any other options!

Making breakfast burritos:
That first meal of the day is an important one to me and to be honest... I'm not usually very patient about it. But last week was an exception for some reason. After losing an hour on Sunday and going swimming I arrived home to find a husband with a brilliant idea: let's make our own breakfast burritos. Since - surprisingly - I wasn't starving (yet) we drove to the store and bought all the ingredients. It was almost 2 pm when we finally sat down at the table and enjoyed that home made brunch/early dinner, but it was so worth it! Oh and did you know that mimosas with freshly squeezed orange juice from blood oranges are even better? Yup.

Feeling the urge to go body boarding
It's getting warmer and sunnier outside, but we haven't gone body boarding in what feels like forever. The waves haven't been that great but I didn't think I would miss it this much. I've become a very spoiled citizen of San Diego. So this weekend I will just have to go for a swim in the ocean if we can't catch some waves.

Eating too much Speculoos/Biscoff
Costco has the big packs now!! I might have stocked up on them... but I'll blame it all on Nick if I have to. Having them withing range is a true challenge though - consider yourself warned! Here's a list of other stores in the US that have some delicious Lotus products.

Expat interview
A few weeks ago I was contacted by the lovely people from InterNations for an interview. Anyone who's interested can read it here. I've actually still to go to my first InterNations meetup even though I've been a member since moving to the US. I never have much luck when it comes to those activities since it's always on days I have to work in the evening...

Are you a member of InterNations? Addicted to speculoos?

Happy Friday!

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Top Problems of Six Popular Smartphones By FixYa

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In the constantly growing battle of smartphones, Fixya is concerned with letting users know more about the device they are investing in. In its initial Fixya Smartphone Report, it gathered data by tracking its 25 million users and 15 million product problems and solutions on its Q&A site. It scored the common problems encountered by users of six of the most famous smartphones: iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy SIII, HTC Titan II, RIM Blackberry Curve, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and Nokia Lumia 900.

Fixya CEO Yaniv Bensadon said that “… with all the buzz that surrounds new smartphone releases, it is becoming increasingly important for consumers to see through the hype and understand the devices they are investing in…” He adds that “the Fixya Smartphone Report reveals which devices have the edge and where even the top dogs struggle in the constantly evolving battle between iOS, Android, and their competition.”

Here is a list of the most popular smart phones and their top problems.

iPhone 4S

Fixya reported that 45% of its customers using iPhone4S complain about the battery life. It cited that iPhone 4S is a power hungry device that comes with a multitude of features.

For iPhone 4S users, battery life is their primary complain. (Image: Christyam (CC) via Flickr)

According to the report, iPhone 4S users continue to find problems with the battery life even with Apple’s iOS update. Keeping the iPhone at room temperature when not in use may help save battery life.

Prolonged charging of the phone at 100% may weaken its battery power. It is advisable to use the provided wall charger when charging rather than the computer-connected USB cable. Turning off location services, Siri, and push notifications also help extend battery life. WiFi and Bluetooth must be turned on only when in use. Set screen brightness at low level and select manual fetching of email to minimize battery work.

Other user complains for iPhone 4S: WiFi connection – 20%, Bluetooth connection – 15%, Siri complaint – 10%, and others – 10%.

Samsung Galaxy S III

Behind its smooth and fun experience, Galaxy S3 owners seem to be cutting out with issues. Microphone malfunction is the most common problem of device owners. FixYa accounts 50% of the total Galaxy S3 complains falls on this category. The phone usually loses signal strength for quite a time after hanging up, which causes users not to be able to hear the person on the other line. This strange bug is pointed by FixYa as the obvious cause of complications during a phone call.

Galaxy S3 users complain about microphone malfunction. (Image: Stereopoly blog (CC) via Flickr)

This may be fixed by restarting the phone. If the problem continues, update the firmware by connecting to a WiFi and following the steps: Click Settings ? About Device ? enter Software Update. If an update is available, click Update.

If the glitch is not solved with the update, restoring the device to its factory setting is the last resort. Do the following: Connect device to a computer to back up data ? Click Settings ? Back Up and Reset ? Factory Data Reset ? Reset Device ? Erase Everything. The phone will be cleaned and the malfunctions will stop.

Other complains for Samsung Galaxy S III: Battery life – 15%, Device getting hot – 15%, Internet connection issues – 10%, and Others – 10%.

HTC Titan II

HTC’s attempt to rush Windows’ development into the smartphone market has failed when it released Titan II nearly six months after the first Titan. Introducing a bigger screen is unfortunate for HTC, says FixYa. 35% of Titan II owners who come to FixYa complain about the screen resolution. The quality of videos and applications is not worth the $200 price tag, users claim. Moreover, 20% of FixYa customers whine about not finding applications they see on Apple and Android Marketplace.

HTC Titan 2 users complain about the screen resolution. (Image: GSMGuru (CC) via Flickr)

Unluckily for Titan II users, the issue about the screen resolution has no manual solution. The problem is dealing with its hardware and not merely software issues. Enlarging the size of the screen is not beneficial since Microsoft limits the screen resolution of its phones to 800 by 480. Hence, Titan II is not made for users who watch videos and use apps heavily.

Titan II users are also hard-pressed looking for apps. FixYa says Windows Marketplace is not in its height of inventory like Android and Apple are.

Other problems complained by Titan II owners: Camera quality – 15%, Battery life – 15%, and Others – 15%.

RIM Blackberry Curve

Forty percent of Blackberry Curve users report the problem of random rebooting of the device for no apparent reason. Aside from being an interruption in business and emailing, it is a major annoyance to the owners.

RIM Blackberry Curve users complain about random rebooting

The problem is primarily caused by the memory card. To fix it, remove the memory card and battery and wait for 30 seconds before reinserting the battery. Backup your memory card files in a computer. From the computer, right-click the memory card folder and select Format then Start. After formatting, turn off the Curve and reinsert the memory card. This will either solve the glitch completely or reduce the instances of random rebooting. If none of the solutions take effect, device owner will have to buy a new memory card.

Other complains: Software errors – 20%, Missing applications – 20%, Memory card error – 10%, and Other – 10%.

Galaxy Nexus

The two main pandemic issues of Galaxy Nexus users are microphone malfunction (55% of total Nexus complains) and battery life (20%).

Most Nexus 7 users complain about its microphone. (Image: Samsung_ua (CC) via Flickr)

The first issue is obviously a big deal since it restricts users from the phone’s primary function – phone calls. To fix it, backup the entire phone’s data to a computer and perform hard reset of the device. Go to Apps ? Settings ? Personal ? Click Backup and Reset ? Click Factory Data Reset. If the problem persists, either you can download Android 4.0.4 IMM76K radios, or AXIOM CMPLX 4.0.4.

To increase battery life, download the free app “JuiceDefender”; shut off phone and charge overnight; disable background app check-ins; surf internet via WiFi and not 4G as much as possible; set phone to sleep at the least time possible; disable Bluetooth; disable app auto-synch; turn off location settings.

Other complains: Can’t connect to WiFi – 10%, General usability – 10%, and Other – 5%.

Nokia Lumia 900

Nokia Lumia 900 hit major consumer buzz because of its screen durability. The YouTube video “Nokia Lumia Screen 900 Hammer Test” showed viewers how its screen can resist breaking with a nail being hammered on it. However, this durable screen has an odd purple tint which distracts 25% of FixYa users.

Nokia Lumia 900 users complain about odd purple tints in their screens. (Image: oliviawhitlach (CC) via Flickr)

In addition, twenty percent of users complain about the camera button which does not wake up the phone when attempting to launch camera app from powered off or standby mode. Another 20% complain about not finding applications which are available on other devices.

Nokia has gone through the purple tint bug and pushed an update to solve it. To get this update, plug the Lumia 900 to a computer and run Zune for Windows or Rune Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac, grab the update and reboot the device.

For the phone to wake up with the camera button from powered off or standby mode, simply turn on the device and exit all the running apps. Go back to standby mode and hold the camera button, and the camera app will launch.

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Author: Neal Alfie Lasta

I enjoy learning and writing about social media and the latest in mobile updates. Don't forget to subscribe and receive our latest posts in your inbox.

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Thursday, 2 March 2017

There is no ‘People’s Brexit’

By Tom O’Leary

The certainty that Brexit will push living standards lower is not really a forecast- it is already happening. Fundamental economic forces mean that Brexit can only have a negative outcome.

Immediately following the referendum the pound fell sharply and has more or less stayed at that lower level since. The 13% decline means that CPI inflation is moving remorselessly higher and will continue to do so. Higher inflation means lower wages and incomes in real terms.

People are already worse off, and Brexit has not even begun. On the current timetable negotiations are supposed to be concluded in early 2019. Only at that point will the massive disruption caused by Brexit really begin to take effect.

We will see then whether all the car makers stay, or if the Government has to bribe them with our money to stay. In either event we will be worse off. There should be no silly crowing about the probably departure of the banks either. Most workers in finance are not paid much more than average wages (and 165,000 of them are in unions). In all industries where there is deep connection to the EU there are likely to be job losses or contraction, whether these are complex supply chains, key export markets or simply the dependence on the free movement of labour (such as the NHS, hotels, agriculture).

The Government has prioritised reducing immigration over increasing prosperity. This too will make us worse off. Migrants are disproportionately workers. Two thirds of EU migrant population are in work, while less than half the UK population is, as they are in school, college or have retired. Reducing them will lower output and output per capita. We will pay the price in terms of lower tax revenues and even worse public services.

There is no socialist or even ‘people’s Brexit’. Everyone operating in the UK will still be subject to the laws of the market. The problem will be that the market will suddenly be much smaller and less productive than the EU Single Market the UK has been participating in for the last 25 years. If the Tories continue to get their way, there will also be a stripping away of the workers’ environmental and consumer rights that were instituted under the EU’s ‘Social Chapter’. These have long been a Tory target for abolition in the UK. Post-Brexit, the economy will be operating behind a series of tariff and non-tariff barriers as others protect their markets. All of these will make the economy less competitive and will increase costs.

Of course, the pound could depreciate sharply again to offset these disadvantages, but this would lower living standards and real incomes even further. If currency devaluations alone were the answer then Britain would be an earthly paradise. In 1940 there were 5 US Dollars to the pound. Now there are 1.25. Over the same period the relative size of the UK in the world economy has shrunk dramatically in real terms, to less than one-third its proportion of world GDP, 2.3% now versus 7.3% in 1940.

Chart 1. US Dollar/UK Pound Exchange Rate 1940 to 2016
Source: FRED database

There is a widespread notion on the right that Brexit will lead to ‘taking back control’ of the economy. Unfortunately, this is also shared by important sections of the left. It is a delusion. The 1930s saw a whole series of countries taking back control, in what might be called an early anti-globalisation movement. Although the authors of these policies are now widely and rightly derided their arguments will actually be very familiar.

It was said that other countries were taking our jobs, they are dumping their output on us causing our industries to fail and that those industries need protecting and government support, or state aid. Once we have done that, then we would be able to trade freely with the whole world. Of course, the more virulent version also included vile invective against foreigners, immigrants, Jews, gay men and others. When the economic policies went spectacularly wrong, the racist invective became policy.

The reason these policies failed spectacularly should be clear. Behind the protective barriers, costs rise, potential markets are closed off (especially as they respond with barriers of their own), industry becomes less not more productive, profits decline and workers are laid off. The economic crisis that ensued was finally resolved only by general rearmament.

What Adam Smith called the division of labour and Marx called the socialisation of production is actually the most powerful economic force of all. Ever since some of us made the spears and others went hunting with them, we have all collectively benefited from the socialisation of production. Statistically, a key measure of this socialisation are inputs and these grow faster than GDP itself.

If a country cuts itself off from world markets, or simply erects barriers between itself and the world then it diminishes its own participation in the international division of labour, the international socialisation of production. Now, instead of being part of an intricate supply chain making cars, there are tariffs and other barriers which increase the cost of production. The UK becomes a less efficient place to make cars and production shifts at some point to the larger market where there are fewer or no barriers. Or pharmaceutical companies importing inputs (biochemical products, electron microscopes, processing equipment, and so on) find they now come with the additional costs of tariffs.

As a result of all this, investment is likely to be diverted to the bigger market, the market not burdened with tariffs. This is where the investment returns will be greater. Investment is the second most powerful determinant of growth, after the socialisation of production.

The UK will experience lower investment and even that investment will become less efficient, as access to the most technologically developed investment goods becomes more expensive. The UK economy will become a low investment centre of low-cost, low-value added production and wages and living standards will reflect that. So too will public services.

If I cut my daily calorie intake in half, I cannot say what my weight will be in three months’ time, but it will be lower. Forecasting a disastrous Brexit is not project fear. It is a certainty. It is fundamental economics.

A slightly amended version of this piece first appeared in the latest issue of Labour Briefing (Co-operative).

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Tag Archives: Keywords

Use your creativity

10 Commandments of Blogging

For me, the emergence of blogs was my burning bush. I didn’t understand it at first, but I’ve come to see that salvation (commonly known as content marketing) is within reach. If only we’re willing to believe that using a smart keyword strategy …

Plan ahead for message continuity

Editorial Calendar – Social Media Strategy Must-Have

Keeping the message on target and timely is one of the biggest challenges I hear from community managers. How do you keep the content flowing in a way that makes sense to the community? Take a note from this former journalist’s toolbox and build yourself an editorial calendar …

blogging as a marketing strategy

6 Keys to Writing for Your Small Business Blog

If you’re a small business owner and haven’t yet considered starting a business blog, hopefully if you’re reading this post, you’re already rethinking that. Blogging takes a commitment and is undeniably time-consuming – but it’s also one of the most powerful, valuable ways to market your business …

how do I blog creatively

Unblocking Writer’s Block ~ For Bloggers

All writers and bloggers have experienced writer’s block at one point or another. If you’re blogging for business, it can be stressful to have a deadline looming and inspiration coming from nowhere. Blogging for business can be tricky because while the content is focused on the brand, the personal, intimate voice of the blogger is what makes it sharable …

Don't be shy about your SEO strategy

50 Shades of SEO

Curiosity titillated by what SEO can do for your bottom line? Start by checking your inhibitions at the door and checking into a new way of doing business online.

how not to seo

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the SEO Galaxy

Search engines are big business and they have a responsibly to online searchers. If they don’t deliver relevant content, they lose searchers to their competitors. Getting found online is all about understanding what the search engines want …

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How to Write Great Content

Whether you call it content marketing or blogging, reaching out with stories humanizes companies. It makes big companies feel more approachable and small companies stronger. Free, easily shareable content attracts prospects …

Stand out in a crowd

SEO Copywriting & Blogging Best Practices

Get your blog on with these tips & tricks Confession: I’m a word junkie. The choice of one word over another can change our perception of issues, products and other people. As a former journalist and communications director and now professional blogger and social media strategist, words – and how I use them – are […]

strength and power

Building Your Site’s Popularity & Relevance

You’ve invested money, resources and creativity into building your great idea of a site, yet no one’s coming. You need to be found. The concept of FINDABILITY needs a strategy as part of your company’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) program …

The Accidental Entrepreneur

Some people are born entrepreneurs and others fall into it through circumstance. And some, like me, come into their true calling when they finally and truly realize that their square peg is just never going to fit into that round hole. SocialNorth celebrated a first birthday last month …

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PRINTED FROM the Encyclopedia of Social Work, accessed online. (c) National Association of Social Workers and Oxford University Press USA, 2016. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the applicable license agreement governing use of the Encyclopedia of Social Work accessed online, an authorized individual user may print out a PDF of a single article for personal use, only (for details see Privacy Policy).

date: 20 January 2018

Abstract and Keywords

Arthur J. Altmeyer (1891–1972) was an administrator in Washington, DC from 1934 to 1953. He was a leader of social welfare policy and helped design and implement the Social Security Act of 1935.

Keywords: Social Security Act, social welfare, merit system, survivor's insurance, disability insurance, health insurance, workers' compensation

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