A Labyrinthine Journey

Nothing shameless about this plug. I want to invite and encourage you to do something great (selflessly and selfishly) for my family.

Click on this link to the PKD Foundation and make a gift toward my sister’s Team.

My sister and her daughter and grandchildren will be walking in the Kansas City PKD fundraising walk in September. She has set a small goal of $1000. I would love to blow that away with support from the family and anyone who might follow my blog.

Why is this great for my family? My mother had Poly-Cystic Kidney Disease when she died almost 5 years ago. So did my grandfather. PKD is a genetic disease where descendants have a 50/50 chance of contracting the disease if they have a parent who has it. Of the four of us in my family we hit the odds: one sister and I have been tested and are clear, my other sister (Pam) and my brother have been tested are have the disease. There is currently no cure for it though research has found some hopeful leads lately. We are hoping that something can be found within our lifetime for my sister and brother (and all others who have it) and for their kids and grandkids who might or might not have it.

If you do go and donate, please leave a comment on this thread so we know who we can be grateful to.

Blessings,

David

This summer we put a bird feeder up in our wildflower garden. Our cat just loves it, she spends a lot of time sitting in the window watching all those birds come and go. Sometimes she is kind enough to tell us there are some delicious … um, I mean, interesting … birds out there.

Every once in a while I am sitting there watching with her and I find myself thinking, “Oh, it’s just a bunch of sparrows out there. Nothing too interesting.” It is hard to get excited about the small, ordinary birds that are all around anyway. But lately I have been convicted that there is something awry with that attitude.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts … Even the sparrow finds a home, … at your altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God.—Psalm 84:1,3

To God, there is no such thing as “just a bunch of sparrows.” God’s loving presence is such that all creatures, no matter how small or common or ordinary they are find a place in God’s compassion.

Sometimes it is easy to focus so much on our own smallness that we are tempted to forget that. We look at the big cities or the mega-churches, or even just the bigger church across that county and think that God is present there, but of course God would be, they are bigger and flashier and have more exciting things going on. The problem is the flip thought is that somehow God is less present with us in our small town with our limited resources and just our regular, ordinariness.

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight…. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. —Luke 12:6-7

Cast those thoughts away. God is fully present with us here in our homes and our congregation, just as much as fully present in the big cities and tall steeples. Sure, I may seem to be “just a sparrow,” but to God there is a place at the altar for my home. To God there is a place in my heart for the fullness of Grace and Spirit.

Don’t even get me started on a faith the size of mustard seed.

Your Fellow Sparrow.

David

Ran into this music video at Ministry and Meteorology? Blog.

Looks like a lot of fun, looks like something I would imagine doing, in a room full of treadmills, of course.
!vb:yt,pv5zWaTEVkI!

The weather finally cooled off enough to mow the lawn. (high 70s). Unfortunately, the grass had grown long enough that I had to use the grass catcher. I prefer to let the mower mulch the grass and add it back into the ecosystem, but when it gets too long, that doesn’t work. We don’t have a very big lawn, but I dumped 11 bags of grass clippings in the back of the church parking lot (creating a nice mulch line under some trees there).

The labyrinth was also due for trimming. I love walking on the grass in between the pavers that form the “walls” of the path (the photo in the masthead really is me walking my labyrinth). But once a month the grass will overgrow the pavers and it looks shaggy. Well, since the lawn was even longer today, there were some pavers that were completely hidden.

It felt really good to start with something hidden and chaotic and unkempt and see it revealed before my eyes. There is not a lot of things in ministry where one can see immediate results of one’s actions, so I really enjoy those things that I can see results right away. I felt that same way when Anna and I were painting the canvas labyrinth. I feel that some way when I get into a programming project, or a photoshop project. There is a sense of well-being to see the order and beauty come out when something works (or doesn’t work in the case of programming .

Yet, I have to remember that most of the time, the really important things are the long-term processes that will not produce results immediately or even visibly. It takes faith to do something knowing that you will not see the effects. There are days when that is harder to do. To just do the important thing without seeing where it fits into the grand scheme of things. However, that is what we are each called to do as believers: trust and love.

I’m glad that God does give us something to do from time to time when we can see the results. I have a feeling that my lawn will again give me that opportunity in about 5-7 days.

Last night it was quiet here in our little town. Hot, humid, and quiet. So I was a bit surprised as I was going north to visit someone in the hospital to see tree limbs down and corn flattened. Last night about midnight a storm with some strong straight line winds went through the area. The biggest damage I saw was the grain elevator in that little town. You can also see some of the corn in the foreground.
Pretty scary.

Haven’t been on to blog much lately. Not a lot of things have come up that I thought, “Wow, I need to blog this.” So I decided to at least step up to the keyboard and start writing to see what comes out.

The last week has been fun and busy with my Dad coming up from Arkansas for a visit. I did have work to do so he enjoyed just relaxing and then playing golf with his twin brother. I was able to join them for a round later in the week. That was fun with my youngest daughter driving the golf cart. I suppose I could call her my caddy since I did toss my wedge to her a couple times to return to my bag after chipping. I celebrated coming 3 shots away from a lifetime goal, beating my Dad at golf. You would think a 48 year old would be able to beat a 73 year old, but I haven’t found my touch yet this year.

Touch is a good image for my life at the moment, or the lack thereof. Touch in golf is knowing the right speed to swing the club to get the ball just where you want it, not short, not long. I find myself fumbling through my life lately. I know I have had the touch in the past, but it isn’t there. Either my attempts fall short of what is needed, or they miss the mark and speed by. Frustrating.

Maybe that is what I am supposed to be learning right now, but it is hard. One thing that I realized I am prone to with both my personality type (INFP in Myers-Briggs and 9. Peacemaker in Enneagram) and my depression (which is still toxic to my soul and spirit) is a lack of self-awareness, that then becomes a lack of self-assertion. It is too easy to not see the whole picture in life. This is especially true in terms of experiences that trigger anger, frustration, and resentment. In too many places I have not allowed myself to even begin to feel anger, so I shut-down my emotional processor. I feel not anger, I sense a hint of pain and ache, but no more. I even sometimes feel like I deserve it. So the depressive thoughts take over and I become lost.

The lack of self-assertion goes hand in hand with that. By internalizing the blame (sometimes not even my on blame, but others’ shame as well) I get easily stuck in not thinking what I have to say is that important for anyone to hear. The one place where that has not really stuck yet is in my preaching. Now if I can take the humble boldness of preaching and embrace my life with the same mode of being, I will be a long way toward recovery. (Hence my blogging is an exercise in self-assertion. It takes no risk to write things in my journal, but I have to step up to my own plate when I write these words.)

Anyway, that is a sort of aside from where my thought process started: about what I am supposed to be learning at the moment. The whole embracing my life through self-awareness and self-assertion goal is what emerged from my prayer retreat. And since then it has been one challenge to that goal after another. I have been faced with having to choose again to allow myself to feel pain and resentment at criticisms fair and unfair. I have been placed in situations where I would normally just sit back and say nothing even though I do not agree with what is being said, but challenged to attempt to say something that goes counter to those ideas. It isn’t getting any easier, but my head knows that this is the way it has to be to wake up the inertially challenged spirit that I have allowed myself to become.

I am looking for the day when it will not be a struggle, but that the “touch” will come back to my life and I won’t feel like I am just tripping and fumbling all over it.

Yet, there are moments. There are moments when the heart and mind are clear and the beauty that is God around us comes into focus. There are moments when the words of compassion not only flow toward the one whom I am sharing God’s love with, but illuminate the beauty God has created in my own life. Moments when it all clicks and I can go “Yes, God! Thank you.”

Then the next shot goes into the woods, three fairways over and I am not sure I know how to play the game at all.

Yet, there are moments.