Look Beyond

The Common Thread

I think I have a form of A.D.D.  For me, all of my writing flows out of a mind that is constantly working.  I tend to live more in the realm of my thoughts than in the realm of the world going on around me.  Yes, I'm aware that this is probably not a positive thing.  It makes interaction with the world around me - particularly relationships - somewhat challenging.  I often find it difficult to concentrate on the task or project or relationship at hand if it is not somehow connected to what is going on in my mind.    That's been the case with blogging.  Let me explain.

There are three arenas of thought that I find occupying my mind most of the time.  The first arena has to do with the liberty of the human heart and mind.  That's why I began this blog.  I believe that optimum life is found in breaking free from the bondage of a painful past, perceived limitations and shortcomings, and learning to look beyond what we see in ourselves and our circumstances to become all that we are meant to become.  And what we are meant to become is a force of unimaginable good in the world around us.  This is life.

The second arena of thought that I find myself consumed with from time to time is the liberty of the human spirit from the control of religion.  I am a follower of Jesus Christ.  And I believe that he alone atoned for humanity's evil and made a way for us to experience the optimum life I mentioned above.   I have been a pastor.  And I have come to believe that the greatest bondage of the human spirit can be found in the religions that we create for ourselves.  There is a story in the Bible about the nation of Israel in the earliest days of her existence.  God desired for them to exist as a people free from human control.  But they began to look at the nations around them, noticing that all of them had a human government with a king, and they said to God, "We want to be like the nations around us.  Give us a king."  God granted their desire.  And they came under the rule of a long succession of human disasters (with a few good ones here and there) that eventually led to their destruction.

I believe that followers of Jesus Christ have done the same thing.  We are meant to live as a community of redeemed people with Jesus as our head.  Yet we have, and continue to, create religious governments to manage, control, and feed us.

Well, there's a third arena of thought.  That is the liberty of the American people.  I am one who believes that at one time the United States of America was the greatest nation on the face of the earth.  We were great not because of our wealth, not because of our military might, but because of our freedom.  I believe that our founding fathers and our constitution were divinely inspired for the purpose of creating a people on earth who would demonstrate the beauty of God-given freedom to the rest of the world.  However, I am also one who believes that our country is in a death spiral.  Our constitution is no longer revered.  Our founding fathers have been forgotten.  Our government is no longer a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."  And our "Republic" is being supplanted by an accelerating movement toward socialism.

These are the mega-themes of my mind.  I am seldom fully engaged in more than one at the same time.  So when I have a blog that focuses on just one of those themes, it falls silent as I enter into seasons of thought in one of the other arenas.  I do see that there is one common thread running through my main areas of interest, and that is the thread of liberty.  So, instead of managing one blog with one focus, I am creating a "network" if you will of three separate, yet interconnected, blogs with each one devoted to one of these three mega-themes.  There will be a "feed box" on each blog scrolling the latest posts on the other two.  This way, if one of the blogs falls quiet for several days, you will be able to see what I am writing on the others.

The blog focusing on the liberty of the American people and the necessity of our activism for the preservation of liberty will be called www.keepusfree.net.  Don't go there yet, it's not live at the time of this writing.  And the blog focusing on the liberty of the human spirit will be called www.churchdetox.net.  Likewise, this link is not yet active, but will be soon.

To those of you who have become part of this blog community here at "A Look Beyond," I hope you'll stick with me and become a regular at the other blogs as well.  I'll let you know as soon as they go live.

Yes, I Survived

I know you're probably thinking that I must not have survived my 40th birthday as I haven't posted since.  Well, it was touch and go for a while, but yes, I did survive.  I had to go into hiding for a while to come to terms with my masculinity after our (so called) friends got me a gift inside a bag that looked like a purse with a little Paris Hilton dog sticking it's head out.  What was inside the purse made up for it though...two packages of Starbucks coffee.  I've spent a great deal of time sitting alone, rocking back and forth, and holding the bags of coffee to my chest.  Eventually I recovered.

Maryann, thanks for your heartfelt concern!  :-)

Actually, it's just been really busy.  I'm wrapping up the final couple of weeks of school.  Lot's of stuff going on at work.  And now we're getting ready to head out of town for the weekend.

Hope you all have a great holiday weekend.  I'll get back into a regular blogging rythmn next week.

Be well and do good!

The Unthinkable

Well, it happened.  I promise you, I've spent a lot of time thinking about ways to prevent it from happening.  But I could only come up with one possible scenario, and that one was even more unthinkable than the event I've been wanting to prevent.  It's one thing to be taken surprise by something that quietly approaches and overtakes you without warning.  One can understand why an event like that is difficult to stop.  But that's not the case with what happened to me today.  I knew it was coming.  I've known for quite some time.  Years.  Decades.  And with all of this advance warning.  Still, I remained helpless.  It was around midnight last night that I finally surrendered to what must be.  I stopped reading.  I touched the lamp on my nightstand to dismiss its light.  I let out a sigh of resignation as I pulled the covers up around me.  And I allowed myself to drift into the final hours of sleep before the dawning of the unthinkable.

And now, nine hours later, I am 40.  Yesterday I was 39.

This birthday has been accompanied by flashbacks.  I've been listening to a lot of 80's music the past few weeks.  I've had memories from high school awaken that I hadn't before entertained.  I've had vivid flashbacks of scenes from the past eighteen years of marriage.  I actually woke up one morning recently and before opening my eyes and with bizarre clarity felt like I was in my bedroom in Jackson, Tennessee in 1997.  I think the song that came on with the clock radio sparked the flashback.

Every time Lynn has asked me, these past few weeks, what I wanted for my birthday, I've replied by asking her for a "Wayback Machine."

Well, she gave me my present yesterday.  It wasn't a "Wayback Machine."  Instead, it was a book that I have been wanting for quite some time called, Dead Heat, by Joel Rosenberg.  It's a book about the future.  She also gave me a movie I've been wanting.  The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, a classic about four children who step into another world and discover their true destiny and take their rightful place in in the heroic roles meant just for them.

I think her gifts are important ones for me.  I could spend a whole lot of time thinking about the past, reminiscing, fantasizing about going back, and regretting the bad choices.  What's done is done.  I can't do anything about it.  However, what will be, will be.  And it is in the realm of what will be in which I still have the ability to decide well, create beautifully, act with kindness, and discover who I am meant to be.

And the crafting of that future begins with today.  I sit here, on the back porch, eating cream-of-wheat with my wife, surrounded by the audio-visual symphony of creation, at the crossroads of yesterday and tomorrow.  Later today we'll begin the next forty by spending time with our friends over dinner and at the movies.

It's a good day.

The Worst and Best of Humankind

A small crowd stands bewildered in the shadow of a massive uprooted tree beside a crushed dwelling. A barefoot young man runs for cover as the jungle around him spasms under the merciless assault of wind and rain. Fishing boats lie half-submerged like plastic toys crumpled by giant hands. Up to 100,000 men, women and children, reduced to decaying corpses, litter the landscape.

Men in clean and neatly pressed military uniforms confiscate a planeload of emergency aid from the tarmac. And a young girl responds to her government's request for a "yes" vote granting more authoritarian power to the ruling junta with a simple sign in her tiny hands that reads, "Hell no!"

Every so often the news of the day offers us a large-scale opportunity to observe the very best and the very worst of humanity. Both extremes often emerge from the same event. Such is the case with the devastation visited upon Myanmar last week.

The very worst of humanity has been demonstrated by a government that has repeatedly and deliberately, since the landfall of Cyclone Nargis, compounded misery upon misery for the sake of solidifying its despotic control over the people. CNN.com reported Tuesday that the latest in a series of post-storm atrocities involves allegations that the ruling junta is keeping the best foreign supplies for itself while doling out rotting food to the 2 million homeless storm victims.

If ever there were a sovereign government worthy of being overridden and displaced by the global community, it would be the current government of Myanmar.

The very best of humanity, on the other hand, can be found in the United Nations "flash appeal" to secure over $187 million in relief for the people of Myanmar. Humanity's best can be observed in the International Red Cross, which has already delivered 14 tons of building materials for the construction of emergency shelters. And the evil of Myanmar's rulers is being overshadowed by dozens of humanitarian organizations across America and around the world that are responding with urgency and generosity.

As you read this, please take a moment to consider how you may add your voice to the global chorus of kindness that is saying to a people ravaged by both nature and greed, "We are with you."

Learning Humanity From Dogs

Yesterday I ran across this post from a blog called, My Interesting Files.  As a dog lover, and one who believes that we humans tend to easily lose touch with our essential goodness, I found this post incredibly touching.

Enjoy, "Who Said Only Humans Know What Love Is."

Transformation Project 2 - Exploring The World of Books

"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." ~Mark Twain

I have been an avid reader for most of my adult life.  In my early twenties I read a lot of books on business, economics, management principles, and had a steady stream of news periodicals coming to the house.  A couple of the boxes that we continue to move with us from place to place are packed full of dozens and dozens of issues of Time and Newsweek from the 1990's.

In the late 90's and early 00's - the ascending years toward a life of ministry - I devoured books about  spiritual formation, theology, church leadership, pastoring, and church growth.  While pastoring,  I had a steady stream of books crossing my desk, adorning my study, and accompanying me to bed, all written to help me become a better pastor.

After leaving the pastorate, I began reading spiritual books of a different sort.  These were books about church history and the contemplatives & mystics of antiquity.  These blended with books about current cultural issues and the accelerating collapse of the evangelical empire here in America.

Recently my reading has shifted somewhat.  For the past six months or so I've been reading books about the history of America, the virtues and values of the founding father's, the decline of the American empire resulting from our abandonment of those virtues and values, the rise of socialism, and the devastation that always accompanies such an emergence.

Books have been faithful companions through the changing seasons of my life.  They have accompanied me on journeys that other people would not take with me.  Without the company of books over the years, I would have a much smaller view of the world and an anemic understanding of life.

All of this brings me to our next Transformation Project.

TRANSFORMATION PROJECT 2 - EXPLORING THE WORLD OF BOOKS

If you are not a reader, take a few moments to think about some of the things that are of the greatest interest to you in your current season of life.  Do a keyword search on Amazon.com.  Choose a book, order it, and read it.  As you do, share with us through comments what you're reading, what you're learning, and the impact it is having upon you.

If you are a reader, think about a genre or topic in which you've never spent time reading before.  Do the same as above.  Broaden your horizons, deepen your intellectual wellness, and share with us the things you're learning.

Making Peace With Your Past

I don't know if they still produce the segment, as I have stopped watching the CBS news in favor of ABC.  But one of the segments I most enjoyed was, "Everybody Has a Story."  The host of the segment would throw a dart at a map of the U.S., travel to the town struck by the dart, randomly choose a name out of the phone book, meet that person to learn their story, and then tell it during the broadcast.

I have a story.  So do you. My story is about 40 years long.  Yours may only be ten.  Or it may be 80.  As long as we're both breathing, both stories continue to unfold.  And like any well-written novel, the future chapters will unfold out of and be built upon the ones that have already been written.   That's all well and good when the chapters already written are good, and pleasant, and tell a happy story destined for a happy ending.  But for most of us, that story isn't reality.  All of us have at least one chapter that is devastating, painful, and one that we wish had never been written.  Most of us probably have more than just one. Just as the future chapters unfold out of the good and pleasant ones, they also will unfold out of the painful ones.  And the content of those future chapters will depend a great deal upon what you do with the unpleasant ones.

Some of us will allow the unpleasant chapters to tower above and cast their shadow over the the pleasant ones.  And we'll allow that subplot to become the main plot of our life story with every future chapter being sprinkled with the residue of pain, anger, and bitterness.  But then there are some who will take the time and do the work to make peace with their past, and end up with a much better ending.

To make peace with your past requires that you first group the painful events of yesterday into two categories.  There are those events which you are responsible for bringing about through bad choices born out of a lack of wisdom, judgment, and/or character.  And there are those events which befell you through no action of your own.  These events happened to you either through the bad choices of others, or the simple reality of a world that is broken on every possible level.

You can probably point with ease to the pain brought about by your own bad choices.  When you finish reading this, take some time to reflect on those bad choices and the consequences they birthed into your life.  Write them down on a piece of paper.  Then, take a second sheet of paper and write a letter of apology to yourself.  Pour your heart into it just as you would if you were writing to another person whom you had terribly injured.  The rest is up to you.  You can choose to forgive.  Or you can hold on to your self-anger.  If you choose to forgive, take the list of offenses and burn it.  And then put the apology letter away someplace.  Any time that you begin to feel self-hatred re-emerging out of the memories of the past, retrieve the letter, read it, and remember that you had chosen to forgive.

What about the pain brought about through the actions of others or the random assaults from a broken world?  I want to encourage you to view them as the necessary, scattered threads of a beautiful tapestry.  They were horrible and devastating.  But they are not the sum total of your life.  They are just a few of the many threads that make up your life.  And those few threads have the power to teach you, to strengthen you, and to build into your soul both the wisdom and the character to not only deal with your own pain in a healthy way, but to help others through their pain as well.  To return to our novel analogy, the few lines of pain throughout the chapters of your life - as devastating as they may be - can give way to a beautiful ending of redemption for yourself and for the other characters in your story.

Jim

I won't deny that there was a significant longing in me to stay home.  But my wife promised to help.  She went on ahead of me, and about an hour and a half later I grudgingly got into the truck, put in my favorite 80's rock CD and turned it up as loud as it would go to help take my mind out of the present to a distant time in the past when I still had many more years to craft into the life of my dreams, and drove to the park.

I quickly made friends with a large pine tree at the perimeter of the park and sat down.  A few minutes later I met the pile of dog crap next to me.  I didn't mind.  For the next hour I looked out across the sea of people throwing Frisbees, playing catch, and then at the dinner call flocking like vultures to the tables full of hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, a multitude of side dishes, 2-liters of soda, and deserts.  The annual church picnic was in full swing.

After everyone had passed through the line, I grabbed a burger and a drink and returned to Mr. Tree and Mr. Poo.  Just as I finished, somebody caught my eye.  He was further away from the action than me, pacing back and forth, and then finally kneeling at the edge of the park watching the scene.  I couldn't take my eyes off of him.  He hadn't bathed in a while and his hair appeared to have lived through many mornings without a comb.  He was expressionless, but somehow, in a way that I can't really understand, I felt his heart.  And it hurt.  Eventually his eyes drifted my way and I waved.  No response...for a few minutes.  Then I noticed him stand, walk a ways, and stand off to my left, a few feet behind me.  I thought for a few minutes about all of the little girls running around the crowd and for a brief moment considered the worst of him.  But it quickly passed.  I stood.  And I walked toward him.

"You know, it looks like there's a lot of food left over there that's gonna be thrown away.  Ya hungry?"

"Uhh...naw."

"You sure?  I'd really hate to see us throw all of this food away if there's someone in the park who hasn't had dinner yet."

"Umm, I wouldn't feel right.  I'm not part of the church."

I stuck out my hand.  "I'm Bill."

"Jim."

"Nice to meet ya Jim.  Now we're friends.  Let's go get you some dinner."

"Man, okay...I guess you talked me into it."

We approached the table and I stopped the ladies who were already packing the food away.  "Hang on a sec.  My friend hasn't eaten yet."

I loaded his plate with a couple of hamburgers, squeezed out the last of the ketchup onto his bread, and tried to talk him into some of the vegetables and salads.

"Naw, this is great man.  I really appreciate this.  Thank you.  Where's your church located?"

"We meet at the corner of Midtown and Boxwood, across from where Memory Lane nightclub used to be.  We're there at 9:00 and 11:00.  My wife and I are there at 11:00.  Come and look for me and you can sit with us."

"I'd like that," he said with a gentle smile of gratitude far more convincing than I often see.

I had the best time at a church event that I've had in a long, long time.  And it was because I spent 10 minutes with Jim.

I hope to see him Sunday.

Lonely Looking Sky

Lonely looking sky, lonely sky
Lonely looking sky
And bein' lonely
Makes you wonder why
Makes you wonder why
Lonely looking sky
Lonely looking sky
Lonely looking sky

Lonely looking night, lonely night,
Lonely looking night
And bein' lonely
Never made it right
Never made it right
Lonely looking night
Lonely looking night
Lonely looking night

Sleep, we sleep
For we may dream
While we may
Dream we dream
For we may wake
One more day, one more day

Glory looking day
Glory day, Glory looking day
And all it's glory
Told a simple way
Behold it if you may
Glory looking day
Glory looking day
On lonely looking sky

Library Purge - Part 1

I've spent much of the day beginning an extensive purge of my library and placing the books for sale through my Amazon.com sellers storefront.  Dealing with all of these books every time we move is a heinous ordeal, so we're lightening the load.

Today's purge is the first round of books about church planting, pastoring, and church growth.  Most are in "like new" condition (I take good care of my books).  If you have any interest in some of the top titles in this genre from the past ten years or so, stop by my storefront and check out the inventory.  I'll be adding much more in the days and weeks to come from both my pastoral library and personal library.

Enjoy!