I don't make any secret of the fact that I'm a believer - albeit an often uneasy one. I also don't even try to pretend that the church isn't a flawed body - it's made up of flawed people, and as a result the flaws are just too obvious to deny. But - and some of you are just going to have to trust me on this one - at its core there is something that doesn't show up in the mainstream media very often. If you can see past the hucksters and the showmen that have turned "god" into their puppet - or worse, their whip and post - there are good people really trying to do good things - and they regularly succeed, too. That doesn't sell clicks or ratings, however. But I digress...

Every time something tragic happens in this world and people start using the phrase "our thoughts and prayers", sure as $#!+ the hecklers pop up to ridicule that phrase in every venue they can find.

Thing is - in a very practical way, they're right to. And here's why...

"Thoughts and prayers" - okay, right off the bat - toss that "thoughts" part - by itself it's worthless. I can think about being a fish until I pass out from exhaustion - but if I go try to breathe water, I'm gonna drown. Period. Thoughts that begin and end in the mind are about as useful as flatulence. Brain fart, indeed.

Prayer is a little different, though, because prayer addresses an Outside Force. That having been said - prayer alone - particularly in situations concerning how we humans treat each other and our world - is still potentially worthless. You heard me correctly - God will allow our prayers to be worthless.

God is not a parlor magician that does tricks for our party or a genie that magically grants our wishes. In my own experience and everything I've seen, God does not force the issue. He is never farther from us than our next breath, but He also always gives us the choice to "Walk with Me, or walk away from Me..." - a thought that is encouraging and terrifying at the same time...

Believers are instructed to pray without ceasing, yes - but we are also told that faith without works is dead. The message is pretty clear - "pray" cannot be separated from "do." Praying for change is all well and good - but through what means do we actually expect God to enact that change?

Newsflash - almost every time, it's though us. If I pray "God, please change me," and then don't show up to do MY part - the hard work of challenging myself and my habits and perceptions, guess what?

Nothing changes.

 

Do I leave room in all this for miracles? Sure. But miracles are the exception, not the rule - otherwise they would, by definition, not be miracles.

Thoughts and prayers are great only so long as they are the launch pad for effort and action. Firing off a prayer and then just going back to binge-watching Netflix on the couch doesn't fool anybody - much less God. He'll just say "Come back and talk to me when you're serious. We'll get something done..."

Reality-lag...

Over the last year or so, I've had a few notable opportunities to reconnect with people that, were I asked, I would have defined off-hand as "close." That being in spite of the fact that the gap of time between the present and the last time we had any meaningful interaction would be measured in terms of years - and I don't mean just one or two.

In the midst of these encounters I've been contemplating an odd phenomenon that takes place within my own mind, and I suspect I'm not the only one. I may be the only one to waste time thinking about it, to say nothing of writing about it, but I've wasted time on far less meaningful things in my life, so I'm not going to worry about that.

For lack of a better term, I'll call this phenomenon "reality-lag." In a way, it's reminiscent (on a much smaller scale, of course) of a fact I was reading about today, that being that when an astronomer looks at a star that is, say, 2 million light years away, he is not actually looking at what is occurring out there at the moment he puts his eye to the telescope, but rather what happened out there 2 million years ago. He is so far removed from that star that it has taken the light his eyes are now registering 2 million years to get here to earth where he can see it. So basically, he's looking back in time, and his current observations of that star, in reality, can tell him precious little of the star's true, current state. In fact, were he to be able to somehow instantaneously transport himself, line of sight, to the location of that star as he sees it in his telescope, he would find that the star wasn't even there, as in the ensuing 2 million years, it would have traveled quite some distance away. Clear as mud? Good...

As for the people I have reconnected with, reality-lag plays out more like this. For instance: I have lunch or a drink with a friend - just like we have numerous times before - and part ways with a sincere "Talk to you soon!" or whatever. Then life happens, and the paths that we two walk upon that up until now would criss-cross at reasonably regular intervals, suddenly don't any more.  We rarely know when "this time" is actually the "last time," do we? Sooner or later we might start getting that "Man, it's been a long time - I need to call that person" feeling (and I like to imagine they experience similar thoughts toward me, but I have to admit that's likely just ego talking), but days turn into weeks, and weeks into months and months into years, and all along the way life is happening to us both. Good things, bad things, hard things, joyful things, unexpected things - all the things that, added up across the duration of our lives, make us who we are. The experiences that shape our perceptions and inform our decisions - experiences that fundamentally change how we see the world and how we see ourselves.

Now fast forward 5 years (or more), and the divergent paths at long last converge again and I think, "Oh my gosh, look! It's my friend! Good lord I've missed them!" But here's the catch: at that instant, two versions of that person exist. There's the reality-lagged version in my mind who is essentially the same as the last time I saw them, and then there's the actual person in front of me who has, apart from me, moved through years worth of life-changing experiences, and in a very real way is not exactly the person I once knew. In essence, the star I'm seeing is not actually the star that exists. The real kicker is that the other person is in the same boat concerning me, whether they realize it or not.

All that having been said, most times the person, while not exactly the same, is also not entirely different, either. And if the core connection is still solid - well, that's where that fun of catching up with each other occurs. Then we usually resolve to stay in closer touch, and if we're lucky, we actually do. As an aside, I am suddenly reminded of that old factoid that says that due to the process of cells dying off and being replaced by new ones, our bodies replace every single cell over the course of about seven years. In that case, if you have an eight year gap before you run into an old acquaintance, in a real, physical sense they truly are not the person you once knew! But I digress...

There have been some in my life with which I find the core connection has dwindled, stretched and finally snapped, and any shared ground that we may have once been able to meet upon has long ago been lost to the past (often times I hear people like this described as "someone I used to know" - a phrase which used to strike me as quite odd, but which I understand in a different light now). Most times in these cases it's fairly obvious - or perhaps just comforting - to see that the separation was inevitable. Sometimes I have had to to resign myself to the realization that the relationship was probably tied as much or more to circumstance than it was to true affection or interest. At that point the wisest course of action is to simply release that relationship into the past. This doesn't mean, by the way, that these relationships can't be reconnected - just that, to me, it appears highly unlikely to happen. And yes, sometimes that's a sad realization.

So, I suppose the upshot to all of this is that I'm a bit more cautious these days when I find that my path has once again intersected with one I haven't encountered in a long time. They may not be who I remember. I may not be who they remember. In fact, I may not even be who I once thought I was to them. Still - when it happens to be one of those people that the encounter leads to that "catching up" thing? Man, sometimes that can just be the best. And I find I just don't want to let those people get that far away again...

If this were my last day...

I think I would see things differently.

The sky might seem bluer, the clouds whiter, all woven into a beautiful, drifting veil between my soul and the unending beyond.

Perhaps sunlight dancing through the leaves would throw cascades of gold through the air; a cacophony of shattered lights and shadows across walls and streets and the millions of now-amazing blades of green that I had blindly trodden upon the day before, all caught up in a rush to get somewhere else.

A child's laughter would likely be more beautiful than any symphony, and perhaps I would see in their eyes the sparkle of excited anticipation of a fellow traveler still new to their own journey - beautiful eyes that still saw things for the first time ever.

Perhaps the whe wind would be a caress, and water an embrace. Each breath in my lungs may seem a treasure, held briefly then released, as though it were never really mine to begin with.

The smile of a friend could crash through the now useless walls of fear and shame, delivering itself as a silent reminder that they found value in my company, loved me as best they were able, and were thankful that our paths had touched.

Were this my last day I might, for a moment, consider all of the things I had never managed to do or see, and perhaps feel a shadow of regret...

But it would be dwarfed by the anticipation of the fulfillment of a promise: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him..."

If this were my last day, perhaps I would see more clearly the crystalline beauty of an incredibly ancient work of art that is, for now, partially obscured beneath crude layers of corruption, pain and death.

Were this my last day, I think I might feel the presence of my own soul and finally have to admit that, in the grand view, I have no more control over my beginning and end than a dandelion tuft floating on the wind can decide where it will fall...

Yet I would take great comfort in knowing that The Wind knows my name.

So I just watched this mash-up that incorporates all the popular music from 2012, and something struck me as I realized I didn't know (nor much care) who many of these performers were. Once upon a time, back in my "I'm gonna be a rock star" days, I was so aware of the popular music culture that, at my (then) job at the Hastings Music in the Galleria, I once helped a customer find a song she was looking for before she even hummed a single note (and believe me, some of those "It kinda goes like this" moments were - shall we say - interesting).
 
What struck me, though, was how comparatively detached I am now from today's popular music culture. Sure, you could answer that statement with "That's because it all sucks...", but it doesn't all suck. Don't get me wrong, some of it sucks horribly, and the fact that it's so popular is a dismal indictment of the values and tastes of whomever it is that supports this stuff to the point that it stays "popular" - but I digress.
 
What struck me is that the whole music thing seemed so intensely important to me back then. Having said that, I say again, don't get me wrong. I'm one of those people that may not have made it through my 20's if it weren't for music, both playing it and listening to it. To this day I have some form of music playing almost constantly. It's nearly as essential to me as air. But I don't get my identity from it any more. Back then, with my hair past the middle of my back, gas-station-special mirrored shades, ragged jeans, concert tees and callouses on my hands from working out behind a drum kit no less than three nights a week, "music" meant hard rock or heavy metal - because that's where a lot of my identity lay. Or so I believed.
 
It's funny - we think a lot of things when we're young - things like "older people are just out of touch." I look back now from my current vantage point three decades on, and I realize with a bit of surprise that it was actually the younger me that was out of touch., Had you suggested that to me then, of course, I would have scoffed and dismissed you as just another one of those out-of-touch middle-aged dudes (or dudettes). But the gravity of life; the realities of being an adult; the things that truly gives deeper meaning to life? Nope. Didn't have half the clue that I thought I did. Good lord, I'm still working on all that. Still, I see a lot of things a bit more clearly now, and I tend to take them a bit more seriously as well.

To whit...
 
My 5-year old daughter is now rolling down the tracks, and the cultural influences that are going to bombard her as she grows are substantially different than those of my childhood - but, in many ways, also strangely the same. I have no doubt  that, in her eyes I will be seen as hopelessly-out-of-touch at some point in the not too distant future. I also wonder if I will live long enough to see that perception right itself. Who knows?
 
Has it ever struck you as absolutely over-the-top surreal how popular some performers are? The fans will swear up and down that it's about the talent that performer has, but I'm here to set that record straight today - it ain't about talent. I've seen entirely too many insanely talented performers and musicians never get a single break. Yes, there are some extremely talented and popular performers out there, and God bless 'em. But there are also some extremely popular performers out there who's talents actually lie in marketing and spectacle, and the music is almost irrelevant.

But, to come full circle, maybe that's how it's all supposed to work. At twenty, we think we're all wise and grown up and the world is our oyster. Then we get to thirty and think, "Man, if I only knew then what I know now, 'cause now I really do know it all." Then, somewhere between thirty and forty we begin to realize just how much we don't know, probably never will, and (here's the real kicker) how many of our perceptions of life were and are illusions. And then we have to decide what to do with that knowledge.

Meanwhile the twenty-year-olds look at us and laugh and shake their heads. If they only knew. Perhaps it's God's grace that they don't...

Just in case you're looking for that blog post I mentioned...

...it's not here yet. But it's coming...

Addendum: If I could just remember what it was supposed to be about...

You know, there's nothing like a little upheaval in your life - say, losing a job of eleven-and-a-half years - to shift your perspective around on things. And my perspective has certainly shifted on many things. Some of them have been good shifts, even exciting shifts - but not all of them. Some have been painful and some have been exhausting. And some shifts I've had to wrestle  to the ground and shove out the door. A few times. It's given me a lot to think about...

Thing that bugs me is that I apparently dare not discuss it in any public forum - at least not in any depth. People these days are so freaked out about what a potential employer is going to dig up and use as a reason to reject them as a candidate. Thing about it is, I really don't have much dirt to dig up. I'm not saying I've lived my life as an angel - who has? But I'm pretty transparent when it comes to who I am and where I've been. I don't run around spewing life details to strangers, but if you want to know something about me, usually all you have to do is ask.

Still, one of the things I learned in those 11+ years of working in communications in a church is this: communication is a two-way process. It always, and I mean ALWAYS consists of what is being said and what is being heard. There's the message, and there's the interpretation of that message, and the interpretation is always seen through the lens of the preconceptions of the receiving party. Lenses that, more often than not, we are not even aware we're wearing. I've seen plenty of situations where those lenses skew messages almost beyond recognition.

So I guess in that light, I'll be keeping my thoughts to myself for a while. Maybe some day they'll make some interesting entries in this little corner of blogdom...

I'm generally not one to over-spiritualize things, but it certainly seems as though God has been talking to me the last couple of days. Or maybe I've just been listening more...

Yesterday it was Isaiah 43 that wouldn't get out of my mind. It was ricocheting around in there like an angry bee until I went and looked up the passage and read it. Turns out it was something that I needed to hear, and more importantly, later that day, it became something a close friend of mine needed to hear as well - perhaps even more than I did.

Today, it was this passage:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour..." 1 Peter 5:8

The thing that's ringing like a bell, though, is not the usual focus of that passage - to be vigilant, or that Satan wants to "devour" anyone he can. No, the thing that is shining through the fog in my head this morning is his modus operandi - his tactics, and what specifically those tactics are intended to accomplish.

It's fairly straight forward. For the sake of the illustration, imagine a lion sitting right in front of you, roaring in your face. I can guarantee two things: One, you would be flustered at best, probably even panicked - unable to think clearly, and two, you would have a very hard time hearing anything else over the racket.

Since you've made it this far in my ramblings, I'm going to ask you to consider another passage (one of my all-time favorites) that was in my head yesterday - 1 Kings 19:11-13:


The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"


A Gentle Whisper. What are the chances I would hear a gentle whisper if my focus is on a lion roaring in my face? Slim. But what if that gentle whisper is telling me a greater truth - that I have nothing to fear because I belong to One far greater, and that further, if I stand my ground in faith, the lion will actually retreat?

God is the author of all truth, and Satan does no want us to hear any of it. His whole goal is to separate us from God, and keep us from hearing, much less believing, anything God has to say.

I've been letting the roaring in my face - from the world, from my worries, from my fears, perhaps even my desires - be my focus far too much lately. I need to make more of an effort to listen to the Gentle Whisper.