Christian T-Shirts & Mugs

You've seen the T-Shirts.

"Mom & Dad went to Hawaii

and all I got

was this lousy T-Shirt"

This came to mind yesterday afternoon as I was listening to the new Bishop for the West Ohio Conference* speak at Ginghamsburg UMC.

He spoke, in part, about the difference between Pilgrims & Tourists.  Pilgrims are on a journey to get to somewhere significant.  Tourists want to hit the sights they have seen on postcards and pick up a t-shirt or mug to prove they were there.

My mind almost always moves directly from words to images, and so it was perhaps inevitable that I could immediately see this T-shirt for sale at any number of Christian outlet stores:

"Jesus went to Calvary

and all I got

was this lousy T-Shirt"

In a judgmental moment, I added a postscript to the text on the shirt: '... and most days, to be honest, that was all I wanted out of the encounter'.

I was thinking of how tempting it is to experience what Christ has done as a tourist - or (perhaps even worse) as a member of an audience.

Jesus went to Calvary and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt

 - but that's not a complete story.

Jesus went to Calvary  - . . . and defeated Death and its power over me and all of Creation - and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt

Jesus went to Calvary - . . . and broke the power of Sin and mortally wounded the Adversary - and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt

Jesus went to Calvary  - . . . and opened to door to Life, and to a relationship with the God who made us - he went there and made his death an invitation to live as God's sons & daughters - and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt - 

We need more than spiritual souvenirs.  The world needs more Pilgrims who are going somewhere (to return to the Bishop's words)  "on purpose"  - and fewer Christian tourists.

+ + + + + + +

The new Bishop for West Ohio is Gregory Palmer.  If you have not heard him yet, I recommend you click on this link as an introduction: Bishop Gregory Palmer preaching on Isaiah - then spend a moment thinking about whether this faith is a spectator sport, or an invitation to be on the front lines fighting against sin & death in a world where the Kingdom sometimes seems very far off.

*(of The United Methodist Church)

CONFIDENCE!

I came across a great phrase in a great book last week.

The book was from 1995: The Trivialization of God: The Dangerous Illusion of a Manageable Deity by Dr. Donald W. McCullough (an under-appreciated book and worth looking up).

In the book the author describes being lost on a rainy night in Edinburgh, Scotland - a city with which he had no familiarity to begin with.  Having gone out alone he found himself without an umbrella or a raincoat in a late-night rainstorm.  Convinced that he could find his place of lodging before getting soaked, he describes himself as setting off "with confidence bolstered by complete ignorance."

'Confidence bolstered by complete ignorance'

 What a phrase - what an idea!

 On the surface it sounds like the worst of a collection of bad ideas, but there are times when that kind of confidence is just what is needed to get us moving.

Many of us know the reality of "analysis paralysis" - the condition of being unable to begin because we cannot see how things will work out perfectly.  To that degree, CBBCI can get us moving without waiting for all the answers - but it can also lead all the way to a brick wall.

That's what happened to the author, who got hopelessly turned around in a driving rain.  Two thing saved him that night.

• A local who knew where he needed to go, and (just as importantly),
• His willingness to give up on the plan begun with only CBBCI and follow the new direction (directions, actually) offered by his rescuer.

Many cultures have noted that the most difficult part of a journey is getting beyond our own front gate.
Boldness - even badly informed boldness - coupled with humility & flexibility, can get us on the road and can even manage to get us somewhere.

The Compleat Guide

I thought I'd better get this down somewhere besides the notes in my office. After a decade or so of telling folks I really needed to get a T-shirt deal - since I had condensed my rules for life down to 2 lines - I think I'd better get to it for real. I'll tell you why after I share the rules.

The Complete Set of Guidelines

for

Living as a Member of the Kingdom of God

1. Remember Jesus is Lord.

2. Don't be a jerk.

Years ago I wrote (but did not publish) a Chorus named "Remember" - built around the line "Remember who you are" - Within a year someone warned me that Disney was also featuring those words in "The Lion King" - Disney, for crying out loud - I couldn't go up against DISNEY - (actually the folks at Disney have been great and have hardly trespassed on the area of Worship choruses at all, so kudos to the boys in legal).

Fast-forward to this week, when a religious group suggested some 'guidelines' that I suspect were intended as snarky ('cause snarky is very big with the young folks now). There was some intellectual congruency between their list & mine (even though they couldn't get Life handled without a third line).

HERE'S THE THING - When I came up with the guidelines above, I meant it. In succeeding years just about everything I've lived or observed has been covered by these two lines:

1. Remember Jesus is Lord.

2. Don't be a jerk.

Most misbehavior by Christians - on the Left or the Right for that matter - could have been avoided by a strict observance of the guidelines (with a special emphasis on not violating Rule #2). Look for the T-shirt soon.

Still a Step Ahead of Molokai

Many are familiar with the story of Father Damien - a Catholic priest who went to serve what was then called a leper colony (for victims of Hansen's Disease) where patients were segregated on a remote point of Hawaii. [Note: any who are not familiar with Father Damien's story will find greater inspiration in looking up his story now than in what follows below - you can always come back here later - it's not crowded].

A famous scene in his biography depicts the moment when Father Damien, who has contracted the disease himself (after disobeying his orders not to touch or share meals with the patients), begins his sermon one day with the ringing words, "My fellow lepers".

My life has not paralled Damien's in any way - not in drama, or sacrifice - and yet I have recently (for wholly different reasons) felt a kinship with that one moment, when anyone can say to what has been an 'other' group: "My fellow __________."

After reading about Ohio's unemployment woes for years, I find that, in one SMALL way, I will be able to join the ranks of those affected by job insecurities in the months ahead. I hope that I have not been without empathy or sympathy before now, but since I now know that 1/2 of my employment (the payment part, anyway) will disappear after October, I feel a stronger connection to the rest of the folks in Ohio (some of them my dearest friends) who have found themselves unemployed, or - to use the vernacular - underemployed.

While supposedly immune to much of this (due to pledging myself to a system which "guaranteed" full employment opportunities to Full Members such as myself), it turns out that one reason these are called "tough economic times" are because sometimes, when reminded of such promises, the powers that be say, "Tough."

Still, I'm several steps ahead of Father Damien - he had died by the age of 49, in virtual exile from the life he had known. [Seriously, if you haven't looked up his story yet, go do so now - it will do you good - you can at least get started at Wikipedia - Search for "Father Damien"].

Stay tuned for the next step for my small part of the journey that is employment in Ohio in 2010. I may have to read (& take seriously) the blogs that have come before on this site. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

Alternate Exit

I loved fire drills when I was a schoolboy. One minute you were stuck at a desk, and the next moment you were allowed - even required! - to go outside. I always wished we would have a fire drill every week (you can tell I don't remember too many rainy or cold fire drills, BTW).

In 1965 one of our fire drills was different.

It wasn't because there was a real fire - that would have been less weird.

When we (Mrs. Morrison's 5th graders) got to our exit door, there stood our Principal - Mr. Hackler. He was wearing a red beanie and yellow work gloves and holding a red flag in each hand. Around his neck hung a sign that simply said, "FIRE".

I like to think that if it had been a real fire blocking our exit we would have done a better job of reacting (by, say, proceeding directly to our alternate exit). Instead we more or less held an impromptu meeting. Some kids asked Mr. Hackler what we were supposed to do - but he was busy being the Fire, and he wasn't any help. I'm pretty sure that our teachers had been instructed not to talk, as well.

Some kids pointed out that it was still possible to get around Mr. Hackler, but by then we had pretty much figured out that this was a test of some sort. That's when we more or less 'voted' to head for the alternate door - which was further away & IN THE WRONG DIRECTION for us to go for a fire drill.

I point out that it was IN THE WRONG DIRECTION so that I can be a little more forgiving of our 5th-Grade selves. It is a fearsome thing (or at least it was in 1965) to go in ANY direction except the normal one. Remember that this is around the era immortalized in "A Christmas Story" (aka - The BB-Gun Movie - the one with Ralphie). There is that great moment when the recess bell rings and they all desert their friend who has just become frozen to the flagpole by accepting a dare to lick it. Why do they leave him there? As Ralphie 'explains' - "I don't know. The BELL rang!"

We didn't easily decide to go in aberrant directions - but sometimes the Fire is real.

Sometimes there really is a brick wall in our way. Sometimes we figure out that continuing on in the way we expect to go will not only be impossible - it may hurt us to try to hang on to Plan A.

Thank God for Plan B (& C, D, E, etc.) - even though it's almost always painful to turn away from Plan A. There just may be life outside that alternate exit.

Flickering Lights

If you're like me, you wonder sometimes about caveman teenagers.

(What? I can't be the only one ... ?)

Anyway, sometimes when I find myself sitting in front of a television, I remember all of the childhood warnings about how it would ruin my life:

• It will ruin your eyes
• It will rot your brain
• If you sit too far away you will get headaches from squinting
• If you sit too close you will get radiation - and die.

Wow - why did we ever keep sitting in front of something that dangerous? OK, sometimes it's because there is something great on it - think Masterpiece Theater, or the first season of Cheers. Much more often, though, there is nothing great, nothing that absolutely compels us to watch - and still, we are often found in front of the 'idiot box' - and it's at times like that that I start thinking about the caveman teenagers.

I suspect that soon after cavepersons discovered fire the cave parents got annoyed by the endless hours that cave teens would sit staring at it. Why? Because we like watching things flicker - they get our attention. It's not accidental that police cars & fire trucks have lights that flash - it makes us look. So I picture the cave teens being huge fans of this new innovation (they are always the first to know that the next awesome thing is, indeed, awesome).

• You'll go blind if you stare at that fire all night
• Your brain will rot if you don't go to bed so you can be up early for some hunting and gathering
• You'll fall asleep and fall into that thing - and DIE!

For my generation, it was TV - currently it is a variety of screens - computers - DVD players IN CARS (!-my generation could only dream of some future time when such a wonder would be possible) - or 'phones' (a terribly inadequate word for what cell phone/home theaters have become). Sometimes we're staring at these things because they have great information or vital information - but often, I suspect, the hours disappear while we're basically watching the lights flicker.

Just something to think about the next time you find yourself still in front of the television after the good show ends - or when you're checking one more page on Facebook as rigor mortis sets in by way of your carpal tunnel. If you're just watching the flickering lights, give your eyes a rest, and switch your brain back on, and go take a walk.

[BTW - thanks for watching these particular lights flicker for a while].

Life Lessons from my Illustrious Running Career

OK - maybe the career wasn't all that illustrious, but the life-lessons are legit - and one of the earliest directions from my track 'career' was this:

Run through the tape.

Now, just because it has been important advice doesn't keep it from being outrageously funny for a variety of reasons - among them:

• At no point was I ever part of a race that actually HAD a tape held across the finish line, and
• If there ever had been a tape marking the finish line, it would have been long gone by the time I got there, because the winner would have broken it already [see note above re the lack of illustriousness of my running career].

So why did it seem like good advice? Because the REAL message there was to keep running until you passed the finish line. Even if you weren't the first runner across the finish line, someone was keeping your time - and one of the brilliant things about being involved in running is that even if you are not a premier runner, there are still many ways to succeed - including:

• improving your personal best, and (NOT to be underestimated when it comes to personal victories),
• FINISHING.

If you have watched any number of track meets, races, marathons, mini-marathons, 5-Ks - you know that not everyone finishes. Occasionally that will be due to injury, but far more often it is a matter of heart. That's why the people who are watching cheer (and mean it) for those final runners who keep running until they cross the line. (If you have never been present to observe a track meet, I recommend finding a way to attend one - it will do your heart good).

When you are not going to win - or even contend for a top spot - it's tough to keep running.

"Run through the tape" is, in part, advice that can insure that you get your best time - and because I believe in that I have been enormously frustrated over the years by watching world-class runners ease off a few yards before the finish - often missing a world record time by a couple hundredths of a second. My frustration is that of the 'also ran' who would have sacrificed a variety of body parts to have ever held, however briefly, a record of ANY kind (but I realize that these guys & gals have a pocketful of such records, and will probably set more any day).

Most races, though, are not filled with world-class runners - just with folks who realize that there is a choice about running all the way to the finish - OR NOT.

THERE ARE A THOUSAND REASONS TO STOP - and believe me, I know - I rehearse most of them daily. In the end, though, it's still good advice - Run through the tape -

• Even though others (often MANY others) will finish ahead of you -
• Even though it may seem embarassing to still be trying -
• Even though it may not be a day for a 'personal best' -
• Even though any 'victory' accomplished by finishing (be it a race, a workout, a job, a relationship, a project) may ONLY be apparent to you -

Run through the tape - but I've got to go for now - I'm in the middle of several projects, none of which are of earth-shaking importance and many of which seem a little ridiculous, but which are part of today's race - so I've got to go put one foot in front of the other - & then repeat.