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spots and sides.
Our family has seen every season of Survivor that has aired. It's one of the greatest social experiments out there. So much to learn. And, as we get excited about another season coming up soon...
If there is one thing you learn watching Survivor, it's this: blind spots lead to blindsides.
And if there is another thing that you learn watching Survivor, it's this: overconfidence breeds blind spots.
And if there is one thing you learn from the great spiritual teachers, it's this: humility and sight are essential to life.
love Jesus and hate the church.
It's been said that's how the "secular' generally view Christianity. They have no problem with Jesus - it's just the church (or his followers) they can't stand.
And it's probably true to a large extent... mostly because Christianity, if we're honest, seems to hate Jesus and love the church.
Unfortunately - or fortunatley, Jesus seemed to hang out with those who more fine with him than their church.
abundant life.
I came to bring life, and life abundant.
Abundant implies so much you don't know what to do with it all, except to give it away to everyone around you in a liberating, generous fashion.
There is nothing to clench your fists over, protect, and defend.
The abundant. They are the enlightened ones.
brakes beat engines.
In a recent podcast I learned that the brakes in a car will (most) always stop a car. We're talking about lots of horsepower, with the accelerator slammed to the floor and the brakes will still stop the car even with the accelerator remaining down.
(Side note, if you're accelerator ever gets stuck, stay calm, take your foot off both pedals and press the brakes - you'l stop.)
Brakes always win.
So do breaks.
Don't let let a critic break your momentum with their empty opinions. They'll always stop you, if allowed.
And remember, you can always stop - even when it seems you can't. Take a break, relax. It's never too late.
paul.
He knew it all. He was at the top of the religious game. He, of course, had faith, belief, action, morality, and church attendance. He was as spiritual as you could ever hope to be. I assume he never once entertained the thought that he needed any further conversion.
And yet, he was persecuting believers of a new faith - a sure sign you are always on the wrong track.
The story says he was blinded by God - physically illustrating what was already true.
If you think you know it all - and are persecuting (in any way) fellow humans - beware.
the worst kind of cage.
Much worse than a cage, is living a trapped life, while believing you are free... and being content with the containment.
Even calling the bars a blessing.
sacked.
I once coached a kid who was a super star.
He was a touchdown machine.
He was the one... who would get the big scholarship someday.
NFL? Who knows?
And he'd never lost a game.
I coached him one game. Arena football.
The first half of the game he was sacked 5 times. We were losing. He was crying in the huddle. He'd never seen adversity.
I once coached a kid who had potential.
He could have been a touchdown machine.
He could have been the one...
He didn't know how to lose though.
the finish.
Some of the most beautiful cathedrals and structures on our planet were built by people who never saw them completed. They would work their entire life and never see the finished project.
I'll admit, there are a lot of things I don't start, because I don't think I'll see them finished. In fact, I might not even lay a brick.
Fix the educational system?
Fix the mental health system?
Fix the prison system?
Fix poverty?
Ridiculous. Too big. Out of control.
Some of the most powerful accomplishments in our society were done by human beings content with not seeing the finished project.
They continued to go to work every day.
it's just a parable.
One day two women came to King Solomon, and one of them said:
Your Majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. Not long ago my baby was born at home, and three days later her baby was born. Nobody else was there with us.
One night while we were all asleep, she rolled over on her baby, and he died. Then while I was still asleep, she got up and took my son out of my bed. She put him in her bed, then she put her dead baby next to me.
In the morning when I got up to feed my son, I saw that he was dead. But when I looked at him in the light, I knew he wasn’t my son.
“No!” the other woman shouted. “He was your son. My baby is alive!”
“The dead baby is yours,” the first woman yelled. “Mine is alive!”
They argued back and forth in front of Solomon, until finally he said, “Both of you say this live baby is yours. Someone bring me a sword.”
A sword was brought, and Solomon ordered, “Cut the baby in half! That way each of you can have part of him.”
“Please don’t kill my son,” the baby’s mother screamed. “Your Majesty, I love him very much, but give him to her. Just don’t kill him.”
The other woman shouted, “Go ahead and cut him in half. Then neither of us will have the baby.”
Solomon said, “Don’t kill the baby.” Then he pointed to the first woman, “She is his real mother. Give the baby to her.”
Everyone in Israel was amazed when they heard how Solomon had made his decision. They realized that God had given him wisdom to judge fairly.
Sometimes we spend so much time on the surface level of a thing, that we miss the point.
Of course, wolves don't dress up as grandmothers.
Of course, wooden puppets don't come to life or have noses that grow.
Of course, a good king isn't going to kill a baby.
Of course, neither woman (most likely a prostitute) is going to believe that a king would kill the baby.
Did it happen? Who cares?
How attached are you to your cause? To your baby? To the thing that was your idea?
That's a different question.
letters
John Pavlovitz recently wrote a letter to Dan Turner in response to Dan's letter written to a judge, on behalf of his son Brock, asking for leniency for Brock's recent rape conviction. The victim of the assault recently wrote a letter as well - by far, the most moving (and difficult to read) of all of them.
There are lots of letters going around... appropriately I guess, since humans tend to love letters, especially those in scarlet.
And all of these letters have me thinking about some things.
(I say all of these things with the obvious - maybe not - acknowledgement of being on the side of the victim. Her soul was shattered, horrifically, and we stand with her in every and any way we can to help her heal and to prevent such dehumanization of people in the future.)
How far does grace extend?
Where does grace end?
What does it look like to extend grace to an assailant?
What does it look like to humanize the rapist?
What does empathy for the villain look like?
What does empathy for the father of a criminal look like?
Are the solutions "not giving a damn" about another human being - even if it is a human who carried out a heinous crime?
Is the solution more prison time?
My main concern is this: Brock Turner (the rapist) did not see his victim as the human being that she is. That is a problem and it's a tremendously large problem that needs to be addressed. The solution, however, is not to move the blindness from him to ourselves. I fear this is often the course we take as a society.
We dehumanize the villain and throw him/her into a cell to appease justice.
It's as useful as throwing the adulteress into a volcano to appease the gods of lighting and thunder.
It's just less primitive and barbaric language.
The solution, I think, is to see her, the victim, him, the assaulter, his father, as the same: human beings created in the image of the Divine, worthy and capable of everything we, ourselves, are.
Wow, that's difficult. (It's like dying in many ways.)
But if we don't see him the way that we wish he had seen her, what have we truly solved or taught ourselves and society?
I don't pretend this isn't complicated. I don't pretend this doesn't involve justice and prison time and guilt and retribution. I don't pretend 6 months is the right amount of time in prison. I don't pretend we don't live in a grossly misogynistic, racist, privileged culture.
I also don't want to pretend that the participation in the de-humanization of any human ever gets us anywhere as a society, even if we're drunk on rage and it does feel good for a moment.
cookies and sunrises
The other night a little 2 year-old was at our house. I happened to give him a cookie and the smile that was on his face was one of those smiles you'll never forget. He just held the cookie, staring at it, with a smile filling up his whole face as well as the room. It was as though he simply could not believe that he was holding such a gift and he didn't want to let the moment go.
This morning I was with a man who should be dead. He survived a car accident that he shouldn't have. He told me that once a week he wakes up at four in the morning to watch the sun rise and he cries every time he does. He began to cry to me. "I shouldn't be seeing anymore of those," he said. "I'm grateful for them."
Damn.
It never ceases to amaze me what I learn from children and from people who have been through the pain.
you're pregnant
Once a pregnancy appears, there's no use telling someone they shouldn't have had sex. Or berating them for having sex. We generally move on. We make things better, no matter what got us to this point.
In that case, it's more obvious. In others, I wish it was.
We're here. Maybe we're here because of an affair, because of alcoholism, because of bad religion.
But, why do we keep talking about what got you or me here?
We move on. We make things better, no matter what got us to this point.
evaluation
The NFL Draft finished recently. I'm always amazed at how much time is spent analyzing, evaluating and determining an athlete's value and whether or not they will be successful. Grades are given for players and for teams on how well they evaluated the athletes being evaluated.
Years later, they'll determine whether they were "correct" or not. There's pretty much a 50/50 chance.
But, very rarely, do we talk about the setting to which the players will go. The team. The culture. The training. The encouragement or lack thereof.
Isn't it possible that it's not the grade of the player as much as it's the grade of the place they are going?
When the player fails, we blame the seed. But if there's no soil, water, and sunlight, the seed is doomed to fail.
Obviously, this is much bigger than football.