Merry Christmas 2024

As the years click by, time just continues to feel like it’s accelerating and in all honesty, it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Like a smooth Miles Davis LP played at 45 rpm, the sounds are still recognizable but something just doesn’t feel right. It’s just off a bit. But drop it down to 33 and you hear the pauses. You can sense the breath and feel the depth of joy and pain in every note as the record spins. That’s what this year has felt like to me. Slowing down, reevaluating priorities, and redefining the moments of my life with purpose and intention. Well, at least that’s what I’ve tried to do. It’s almost as if every natural inclination and outside influence are all working against us, pushing against our desire to slow down and forcing us deeper into apathy as we race through life, unaware and wandering.

I’m sure you’ve received Christmas letters telling of all the wonderful things people have done over the past year. Vacations, weddings, new babies, and graduations. In fact, that’s pretty much what my Christmas letter was last year, too, and honestly probably will be again next year. Nothing wrong with that at all. It’s fun to see the amazing gifts and experiences people have received throughout the year. But our Christmas letters don’t seem to talk about the difficulties much. The divorces, the loved ones lost, the disappointments, and heartaches. Those things are messy and who wants to hear about that stuff at Christmas time? But these are the reality of our lives. Joy AND pain. Victory AND defeat. Triumph AND tragedy. Sometimes we just have to slow down enough to see the magic in it all.

God brings beauty from ashes. God works all things together for good. God comes to us in our darkest nights, when we are hopeless and desperate. And that, my friends is the story of Christmas. It’s easy for us to get distracted and miss the wonder of the moment, that God so loved the world. The world. This messed up, divided, hateful, selfish, lustful, and greedy world. Me. You. Us. He so loved US. He came. He lived and walked among us. He experienced the tragedies and pain. He was ridiculed and rejected. He knows of our temptations and suffering. God came so he could know us. He came to heal our brokenness. He came, as a refugee infant, to redeem us and give us a better story. Let’s all take some time this season to slow down and take a breath. Consider the darkness we see in the world, the darkness of our own hearts, and all the messiness and evil that constantly fight against us, and take a moment to thank God that he came. Into all of it, he came to bring peace to our hearts and to the world. He is our Christmas miracle. Let’s celebrate him this season, and every day whether in good times or bad, because he so loved us that he came.

May this next year be full of life and joy in all things. May we love one another more, and strive to bring peace and goodwill toward all mankind.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Living life backwards

Our kids were 13, 11, and 9. All 5 of us in a Honda Accord road-trippin to Disneyland. We all had a blast in the Southern California sunshine. Two days in Disney, playing at the beach, swimming at the hotel. It was all an epic trip and great memories. It also sucked. I remember on the way home, after being on the go for several days straight, I was exhausted…..and grumpy. Four of the car’s passengers wanted to take a small detour to Hollywood. One of us didn’t. Four of us were laughing and playing road games. One of us wasn’t. Four were having fun and enjoying the journey. One of us was not. One of was tired, stressed out with SoCal traffic, and definitely not excited about the long drive home. In my defense, I do have to say this was before we had Siri and Google maps. We had a huge paper map to figure out the complex system of freeways and my copilot, well…..she has many gifts and is an amazing wife, mom, and Mimi. However, navigation is not one of her gifts. It’s actually more like her cryptonite. I remember sitting on the curb in a parking lot, in a mostly deserted town about an hour off course, pouting like a spoiled toddler. It was not my finest moment.

I’ve said many times that Google maps has saved many marriages and family vacations. We didn’t have it on that trip, but the principle is saving me in more ways than I can even express. The principle is this; you have to know where you want to end up in order to have clear directions of how to get there. If you simply look at where you are in life and try to navigate from there, you’re bound to get lost almost every time. Looking ahead, find the destination where you want to end up, and plan your route to get there. My good friend Pete, who passed away several years ago, described this as living life backwards. If you want to end up with a happy marriage, rocking on the porch together at 90 years old with your wife you fell in love with in your teens or twenties, live your life today in a way that will build that relationship over the coming decades. If you picture the end of your life having a houseful of kids and grandkids to love and pass on your legacy to, set your priorities to invest in them now. I regret to say that I certainly haven’t always lived this way. Honestly, I know that I still don’t most of the time. But I want to. I see the value in it and I’m trying to grow in that and get better at it with every passing year. Well, I hope I’m getting better at it.

Life has a way of just sneaking up on us. If we aren’t paying attention, before you know it we’ve veered off course. We can find ourselves, like I did, in the middle of nowhere, pouting, and wondering how we ended up there. I’m finding that the key for me is living intentionally. If I just let life happen, it’s a bit like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I end up crashing through walls, running people off the road, and essentially just going in circles. Living life backwards, with intentionality and focus, helps me to stay on course. Perhaps you have found yourself in similar situations in life, wondering what happened and how you have ended up burned out or broken down. Try taking a step back. Look at the big picture of your life and decide where you want to end up and then map a course based on your desired destination. We’ll still have breakdowns and traffic and perhaps even lose our way at times. But hopefully, we can minimize the impact by being ever-mindful of where we’re going so we can correct our course quickly and avoid the catastrophe ahead.

Finally, I will say this. When you find yourself off course, it’s never too late to turn around. You’ve never strayed too far to choose a new path for your life. Never. If you’re driving down the freeway and have a tire blow out, you get out of the car, put on the spare and continue on your journey. You don’t get out and slash the other three tires. If you screw up in life, don’t self-sabotage by screwing up more. Own the mistake. Learn from it. And move on with life. Sitting on the side of the road pouting will never get you where you want to go. Live life backwards and you’ll find your way back home.

The wall

November 9, 1989. The Berlin Wall came down. It was a monumental day in the history of Germany, as well as for humanity. Hard to believe that was only 35 years ago. As I pondered the anniversary of that pivotal moment, it made me consider the walls I’ve built up to protect my own little kingdom. Whether they are physical boundaries of picket fences or barbed wire walls, or the imperceptible borders I set in my life and mind that only allow people to see whatever propaganda I want them to see, we are surrounded by walls of separation keeping some things in and others out.

I’m tempted here to talk about the heartbreaking tragedies that happen around our borders. I’d like to discuss Leviticus 19, where God says, “When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don’t take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own.” That seems like a pretty good place for us to start when we consider how to make America great. But, I’m going to save that for another day. Today, I want to look inward. I want to be real and honest and vulnerable. I have my own walls that need to come down. Next week I’ll turn 49, starting my 50th trip around the sun. I’d say that’s long enough to be imprisoned behind the walls I’ve built.

Sometimes when I feel too exposed emotionally, I deflect the attention away from myself by generalizing my feelings rather than acknowledging them honestly and admitting my own struggles. If I feel afraid, I make a joke so I don’t have to face my fears. When I feel rejected, I put up walls and withdraw in order to protect my fragile ego. God forbid I disrupt the false peace I’ve established in my mind and expose myself to anyone or anything might push me beyond my personal comfort. Meanwhile, I have family and friends standing outside my walls begging to get inside and know the real me, to hear my honest thoughts, to see my faults and watch me fall and get back up again. But it’s scary. What if they see how much of a mess I really am? Will they leave? If I remove the happy, plastic mask to expose my own brokenness, am I still enough to be loved?

I’m inviting myself to remove the mask. I’m giving myself permission to be seen, to be known, to be honest and vulnerable and……free. I have nothing to prove and no one to impress. There is nothing wrong with me that God doesn’t already know, and he chooses to love me anyway just how I am. Here is a poem I wrote a while back, and it carries particular significance for me in this season, as I consider who I am and how I want to live and how I want to show up both for myself and for those around me. If this is a struggle for you as well, I invite you also. I assure you, it is safe, and you are enough. 

Welcome to the king's masquerade.
We all dance around pretending
with smiling, shiny masks that hide our pain.
"They won't love me if they see the dirt, 
the cracks in my skin, or the ugliness"
so, we all hide to protect ourselves, 
to protect each other from ourselves.
We've come to dine at the king's table 
without truly even knowing who sits right next to us.
We may at times catch a glimpse
of a tear in their eye,
but the smiling mask fools us to believe 
they must be tears of joy.
They are truly happy, while I alone hide my misery.
Everyone else's perfect mask reflects
who they really are.
Mine is just pretend.
Then the king steps forward, taking his place.
He looks at us with compassion, us in our silly masks
His eyes somehow gaze at each of us at the same time,
and he bids us to remove our plastic face.
"Never!", we all cry at once.
They could never accept my true self.
The king then rises from his high place,
and kneels at the feet of each of his guests.
Something in his eyes told me it was safe.
With slow uncertainty, we all took down our masks.
I looked to my side and saw it was my wife,
sitting next to me the whole time.
I couldn't see her clearly.
The mask had blurred my vision.
She looked at me, now unmasked, 
with the same loving gaze as the king.
"You're enough still," she said with a smile.
"You are enough."

Have we forgotten?

Do you want to live in peace? Do you want to experience peace? I have mentioned this quote in a previous post Goodness is relative, but it’s worth repeating and consideration. Mother Teresa said this, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other”. In this tumultuous season we find ourselves in, with politics dividing friendships and family, wars that breed deep, generational hatred, and rapidly increasing anxiety plaguing the human heart, it seems that peace is a pipe dream. World Peace can’t happen without peaceful nations. Peaceful nations don’t exist without peaceful governments. Governments, being nothing more than a collection of anxious and warring people…..well, you get the idea. Peace begins with me. Peace begins with you.

We have two different fruit trees in our front yard. One is a scraggly little peach tree. I have tried to baby that poor, old tree. I prune it, make sure it’s getting the water it needs, and check it’s growth frequently while the young fruit is starting to grow. It doesn’t produce much, but the peaches we do get are delicious. We wait patiently, watching them grow and waiting for the perfect time to harvest. Typically it produces just enough fruit to give us one, fresh, homegrown peach crisp that we share with our family. About fifteen feet away lives an old apple tree. It’s overgrown, too tall and thick to be healthy. It produces a couple hundred apples, but probably 90% of them are infested with worms. They grow too close together so many of them get rotten and deformed. I rarely water it and even the fruit that does grow, we pick far too late. Like me, the quality of the fruit is determined by the love and care that is put into the tree.

When I look at my life, the fruit that comes out of it is a product of what goes into it. If I’m neglecting my body, not eating well, exercising, and taking care of myself, I not only see it in the mirror but I feel it. When I stop caring for my soul, it doesn’t show up right away. A season or two can go by and everything seems fine, but slowly things start to get cluttered up in my mind, like overgrown branches getting all twisted up. Like an infestation, anger, fear, bitterness, envy, and all sorts of negative thoughts take over my mind. I may still be producing lots of fruit, but upon closer inspection, it’s full of worms, rotting from the inside out.

If we want to see peace in our families, in our communities, and among the nations, it starts with each individual heart being tended in love. It starts with allowing God to prune away the dead branches that are causing us to live in anxiety, full of fear and insecurity. It starts with turning our complaints about what we don’t have into thanksgiving for what we do have. And it starts with remembering that we belong to each other. I’m not alone. You are not alone. In healthy community, we find a sense of purpose and belonging when we lift each other up rather than tearing down. Love builds up. Love lays down it’s own life for a friend. Love sets aside it’s own rights for the good of others. Love restores our soul and in due season, produces in us a fruitful harvest.

Peace is not a pipe dream. It comes from God, who is love. It is possible when we remember we belong to God and to each other. My life is not my own to simply seek my happiness and serve my every desire. In that self-centered life, peace will never come. I’m not going to lie, this is a constant struggle for me. Everything in me wants to serve myself. I want to be right. I want what I want when I want it. But even when I get it, there is no peace. Then I remind myself of this truth. My life isn’t only about me, and the world doesn’t revolve around me. God’s love is bigger than my fickle happiness. I’m here to be loved by him, to love my neighbors and my enemies, to give hope to the hopeless, joy to the brokenhearted, and remember that we belong to each other. In that, I find peace for my soul and hopefully, in due season, will see peace grow throughout the world. So say this with me and we navigate the busyness and stress of the holidays, “Peace begins with me”.

 

Smoke and Mirrors

“Keep your eye on the ball.” I don’t know how many times I heard that as a kid, but for some reason I just couldn’t get a hit. I played baseball up until about 5th grade, but I was terrible. I could play in the field o.k., but once I stepped up to the plate I just could never get a hit. That’s apparently a pretty vital part of playing baseball because I rarely got much playing time. Difficulty keeping my eye on the ball coupled with a fear of getting pummeled by said ball, rendered me completely ineffective with a bat in my hands. In short, I pretty much sucked at baseball. I finally gave it up to pursue other sports where I would perhaps find more success, where I also found the recurrent theme that was drilled in on the soccer field, golf course, football field, or tennis court…..”Keep your eye on the ball”.

Life has a way of bringing chaos and distraction, causing us to whiff in our crucial, defining moments. Whether for fear, bad habits, lack of intentionality, or a whole host of other possible reasons, we (or should I say “I”) will often take my eye off the proverbial ball. Another swing and a miss in life. We all want to hit the grand slam, to be the hero who comes through clutch when the game is on the line. More often, we’re either sitting on the bench or striking out. Perhaps we need to work harder, practice more, and discipline ourselves through rigorous effort. Or, maybe, and I think this is the case for many of us; we’re just swinging at the wrong balls.

Being the hero isn’t what I was created for. I was created to love God. I wasn’t born to be famous. I’m here to love my neighbor. These are the “balls” we should be swinging for. If we get distracted in the pursuit of anything else and miss these, we might as well be swinging at smoke and mirrors because even if you hit it, it will vanish before you know it. You can chase after money, fame, and sex, or the “good” distractions of faith, church, leadership, or religious piety, but without love it’s all for nothing. God says that without love, even these things are like a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”. Basically, they are meaningless and kind of annoying.

Don’t get distracted. I’m speaking to myself perhaps more than to anyone else. I have difficulty staying focused in life. I can set my intentions for the day at 7:00 am, and by 8:00 all I can think about is a cup of coffee or checking the latest football news. At every turn, we are faced with distractions. Politics, wars, natural disasters, family disputes, global pandemics….you name it. It’s everywhere all the time. But our role in life isn’t to get sucked into the distraction. We can engage in politics, having good and meaningful discussions and debates, but keeping our eye on the ball to love FIRST. Yes, we should consider what to do about our nation’s immigration policies and look for solutions, while maintaining our primary focus to love God and neighbor. These things aren’t mutually exclusive. We don’t have to “check love at the door” in order to deal with the issues of the day. But rather, we deal with the issues with love as the driving force behind our positions and decisions.

It’s not easy. Nothing truly worthwhile is easy. But I do believe it’s why we’re here. All of us, regardless of your beliefs, nationality, gender, or any other factor, we are here to love one another. I want to strive to keep my eye on that ball better than I have. I want that to be where my focus and intention is set. If I can truly live my life loving God and genuinely loving every other human around me, that’s the grand slam I want to see in my life. The challenge to myself, and to you as well, is to pick up the bat, step to the plate, and start swinging for the fences.

Peace and Love to you.