awaken

I saw Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian at a matinee today. The movie is inspiring several entries, but my first has to do with the overall effect that the movie has had on me. I feel like I had been sleeping, and was stirred awake for a bit.

In Prince Caspian, the mythical (not imaginary, but mythical) land of Narnia has been overtaken by intruders, relegating all of the Narnian inhabitants to exile (at best) and wild savagery (at worst).

More notable than the children's absence is that of Narnia's king, Aslan. There has been no sign of him since the children left. They even have to go on a search for him once they arrive again.

All four children are surprised at the state of Narnia. The youngest of the four children, Lucy, is shocked to find that bears won't talk to her, but rather want to eat her. One of her newfound Narnian friends saves her from the bear by putting an arrow through its heart. A dialouge ensues:

Lucy: "Why did he want to eat me?"
Narnian: "I'd say because he appeared to be hungry."
Lucy: "Why, he didn't even talk. He was as wild and savage as the animals at home."
Narnian: "Well, when you get treated like an animal long enough, you forget who you are, and you become an animal."

Later in the movie, Lucy has a dream. In it she journeys through the forest on a search for Aslan. As she searches, it becomes apparent that she is searching for him in the Narnia that used to be--where flower petals whisked through the air to make magical creatures, and trees sway, move, and dance to point the way to Aslan. In her dream, Lucy eventually finds Aslan, but awakes to find that it was only a dream. She rises and follows the path in the forest that she had dreamed about, stopping to touch a tree and whisper: "Wake up."

As I watched the movie, I allowed myself to be swept up in all of its symbolism. I found myself to be one of the Narnians. As I stop looking for God, I stop seeing him. The longer I fail to see him, the more sleepy I get. The deeper my sleep gets, the more I forget who I really am. I become like a Narnian tree: no longer do I dance, sway, or point the way.

Which is why when I first saw and heard Aslan speak in Lucy's dream, I had to fight back tears.

I do not want to sleep anymore.

I want to dance, sway, and point the way.

fatigue

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:9

Here's something that I just don't understand: why is it "tiring" to engage with God? I get tired of engaging with God. I wish that it was not that way. I wish that my desire for God was this romantic, linear, step-by-step, constant, day-by-day growth. It's not. I pursue, then I get tired, then I stop, then I start again.

I think this is a little bit of what Paul was talking about in Galatians. We get tired of "doing good"--not just of serving, or of being moral, or of doing what is right... but of doing good things with God. What is it about us that gets tired of doing good things with God?

I think I know the "right" answer(s) to this question--something along the lines of:

-the good that God desires is only somewhat natural for me to do... it still requires a good deal of effort and will against parts of my nature
-the good that God desires isn't always a "feel good" kind of good--dying to myself on the cross of Christ every day is not the most pleasant nor the easiest thing to do
-while I can say that, over the course of my life with God, my stamina for being with him and doing good things with him has increased, the cyclical nature of it all is sometimes more discouraging than encouraging

I am struck by this every weekend. I lead parts of our worship service through music. Music, like all art forms, has a way of revealing what is below the surface--the true nature of things--against what is really a façade. I've blogged about that here. My instrumentalists, like my vocalists, like me, all come into a place of worship with hearts of sinners. Perhaps we've hated our neighbor, perhaps we've been gluttons, perhaps we've been at war with our spouse or children, perhaps we've lusted, or perhaps we haven't felt love for God or God's love for us in far too long. And with these hearts we begin doing something--singing and playing God-songs together--that swiftly reveals to us and everyone around us what our hearts truly look like.

What's the alternative? Well, in some cases, it's doing the work of confession and repentance together before we worship through music. That's hard. In other cases, it is getting alone with God and doing some soul work before we even come to rehearsal. That's hard, too, because maybe God is the last person we feel like wants to be with us. Maybe he's the last person we want to be with. Maybe we don't like what we anticipate that he will tell us to do, say, or with whom we have to mend fences. Maybe we don't like having to see what's really in our hearts. No matter which alternative we choose--engaging with one another in confession, engaging with God alone in repentance, or refusing to engage at all--we are facing some hard work.

Doing good is hard, because doing good requires doing some soul work with God. And soul work is hard work.

home court advantage

Unlike many of the so-called (and self-appointed, I might add) basketball "purists," I really enjoy watching the NBA. It's not that I don't like watching NCAA basketball. I do. But I just don't buy the whole line about "The college players play team basketball and really want to win for all the right reasons. The pros just don't care. They play for themselves, and for the money."

Lest this introductory rant (which is really a set-up for my point, and not the point itself) get too lengthy, suffice it to say:

1. The teams that have won NBA championships for the past 5 years or so have done so not because of their individual superstars, but because of their team play (see the entries entitled "Spurs", "Pistons", and "Kobe 2008", and cross reference with the entries entitled "Lakers post-Shaq", "Mavericks," and "Suns 2008").

2. The USA Olympic team, post MJ, has finally figured this thing out, and is beginning to craft teams instead of throwing together slam dunk contest winners who shoot about 28% from the field and turn the ball over every other possession because, as it turns out, the international community hasn't let go of that ancient rule called traveling.

3. O. J. Mayo. Enough said.

All of that to say: as I watch this year's NBA playoffs, a striking trend leaps out at me: many teams are unbeatable at home, but those same teams can't seem to win a game on the road.

The Celtics are the prime example of this trend: having had the best record in the NBA this year, they are 7-0 at home in the playoffs... but are winless on the road. In the Jazz/Lakers series, both teams are undefeated at home, and winless on the road. Same holds true for the Hornets/Spurs series.

Now, I've never personally considered "home court advantage" to be a very significant advantage. Sure, most teams play better in their home setting than they do on the road, and that makes sense to me. Home is where you practice all those hours. It's where you feed off of your crowd. It's where you feel the most comfortable because you didn't have to travel there... etc. All of those factors transfer into better and more consistent play. I get that. But how this year's playoffs exaggerate the advantage caused me to think: is this "home court advantage" true in areas outside of athletics?

I often tell people: I've found that it usually takes me about 3 years or so before I really feel comfortable in a certain place, doing a certain thing. It was that way in college. It was that way in seminary. It's been that way at my current job. For some reason, it takes me about that long for my current setting to start feeling like "home." But once it does, I become more sure of who I am, of how I fit, of how I'm growing, of how I'm developing... as does the community around me. Thus, I go from being a "visitor" playing on the home team to being a "role player" who is a familiar face to perhaps even being the "go to" guy.

And it sucks to go from being the "go to" guy back to being a "visitor" whenever God decides to move me on to what's next... but I've learned that, eventually, what was strange at first will feel like home. I just have to give it the right amount of time, and learn how to be a good "visitor" and "role player" in the meantime.

Which gets me to thinking: in today's very transient and hurried culture, how many of us are constantly "visiting"? How many of us ever stick around somewhere long enough to feel like we're at home?

"Wanderlust", in all its trappings of culture, diversity, and well-roundedness, seems to have somewhat of a dark side: you never stick around anywhere or anyone long enough to be known--to be truly known--and to know yourself. We search anxiously for that fit, that feeling of home, that romantic notion of a utopia, but we never seem to give ourselves long enough to find it, because the journey to it is a difficult one. Of course, nothing is ever "perfect"... but I think we can get a lot closer than we think, if we ever were patient enough to let our current environment become our home court.

God is not in a hurry

"I feel a burning desire to preach the Gospel, but I know in my heart that now is the time to pray, to read, to meditate, to be quiet, and to wait... It makes no sense to preach the Gospel when I have allowed no time for my own conversion. I feel a tension within me. I have only a limited number of years left for active ministry. Why not use them well? Yet one word spoken with a pure heart is worth thousands spoken in a state of spiritual turmoil. Time given to inner renewal is never wasted. God is not in a hurry."
--Henri Nouwen

He's right. It does not make any sense at all to preach the Gospel when we have allowed no time for our own conversion. And yet: why do we order our lives in so many other ways?

One word spoken with a pure heart is worth a thousand spoken in a state of spiritual turmoil. Ah, but our words seem to have power nonetheless--they really do seem to have the power to fix other people's turmoil, even if spoken from a spirit of turmoil themselves. I can be utterly spent, but can still get things done--sermon series planned, people counseled and prayed for, blurbs written, budget recorded. That's the dilemma for us: things can get checked off of our list whether or not they were completed with a pure heart full of an awareness of God's love.

Compounding that dilemma is this one: if we make the courageous decision to set apart time and space to allow God to purify our hearts, well, some things don't get checked off the list that could have. The hour of my day that I spent listening, praying, reading, being silent, journaling, in solitude, etc., could have been spent doing something else that needed to be done--and still needs to be done. And that something else usually has a someone else behind it, perhaps secretly angry or disappointed with you for not getting it done (or so we imagine them to be). And really when you get down to it, maybe it's just not worth all of the trouble to let God purify your heart and in so doing purify your service. Maybe it's better to just keep checking as many things off of the list as possible each and every day. People seem to be happier when that happens. And you know what, we might be happier with that ourselves.

We're happier with that because everything is utterly in our control. I had that on my list, I planned a way to complete it, I executed my plan, and now it's off of my list. It wouldn't have disappeared from my list had I not completed it, had I not intervened, had I not called, had I not prepared, had I not preached, had I not had that appointment, had I not been at that meeting. Turns out I'm pretty important to the world continuing to turn. Critical even.

But the happiness from being the center of the world is only short lived, because as it turns out, we can only sustain being at the center for so long without feeling tired, spent, dried up, unappreciated, resentful, angry, bitter, taken for granted... you fill in the blank. Gradually the bliss of being needed wears down, and the ache of being used sets in.

And you wonder: do I really matter all that much? Is it so significant that I kill myself getting things done every moment of every day?

And in quietness, we realize that it is true: one word spoken from a pure heart is worth thousands spoken from a life in turmoil.

Not just to those to whom we speak them. But to our own souls as well.

super nanny

So, I got this wicked virus yesterday that made me shiver, then sweat, then puke, then have night of restless sleep, then wake up early with a back ache. It was awesome.

So, what that means is that I spent yesterday evening in bed, trying to stave off vomiting, watching network TV. Again, it was awesome.

And what happened to be on? None other than Super Nanny. You know, the show where this nanny from the U. K. comes to the homes of different American families where the kids are totally out of control. She observes, intervenes, models, and then follows up to see if the family was able to continue what she had patterned for them.

It really is a fascinating show, filled with the most interesting people. Last night's episode had this upper middle class family with two children, 8 and 11. The dad worked full time, and the mom stayed home full time. The mom was an emotional mess, and her children totally dominated her--physically, emotionally, and verbally. Of course, the dad did just about squat to change anything.

These kids would hit, scream, throw tantrums, refuse to do their homework, manipulate, swear, backtalk... you name it. And the mom would try to resist and fight, but would then be overwhlemed, give in, and even rationalize her childrens' hatred as she conversed with them.

Enter Super Nanny. Seemingly within no time, her firmness, clarity, and resolve whipped those kids into shape... not to mention the parents as well. As firm as she was with the children, she was even more so with mom and dad--who were the real culprits of all of the dysfunction in the first place. She would assess the situation, walk the parents through why all of this chaos was happening, show them what to do, observe them while they did what she told them, coached them as they did, and then debriefed with them afterwards. The whole thing was intensely personal.

Imagine for a moment if Super Nanny operated differently. What if, instead of going to the house, she simply wrote a pamphlet detailing some transferrable principles for most problem families, and then mailed it to the parents? What if the entire show consisted of the parents reading the pamphlet and then trying to apply the principles to their specific situation? Do you think the families like in the episode described above would be successful in their endeavors to change?

Hearing my parent read from a pamphlet is a little different than looking straight into the eyes of the Super Nanny, isn't it? Hearing Super Nanny's British accent is a little more convincing than reading pithy pieces of advice.

The kids and parents changed their respective behaviors not simply because of the Nanny's principles, but because of her presence. Presence.

Presence seems to be the critical ingredient.