Sometimes I have ideas for a blog post a long time before I figure out a title for said posting.

This isn’t one of those times.

This time, I had a perfectly good title all picked out: “Sometimes You Don’t Get A Second Chance.” Of course, the problem with that title is that it sounds morbidly depressing. To avoid questions about my mental state, by now you’ve discovered that I arrived at the much more hopeful sounding “Get The Sprouts.”

I find it’s best to start at the start though, and the start of this story involves a much younger, incredibly shy, incredibly awkward 13 year old version of myself. This version of myself, much like any other 13 year old male was rendered doubly shy and triply awkward around members of the opposite sex. This condition was, of course, amplified when the member of the opposite sex in question was one that I was particularly attracted too. You get the idea. Perhaps you can even relate?

One evening near sunset I found myself at a party in a somewhat secluded area of a park. I was sitting on a small wooden bridge with a girl to which I was particularly attracted. Summoning up not a small bit of courage (I’m sure) for a 13 year old girl, she said “you know I really like you?”

This was clearly a pivotal moment in a young man’s life. Alone, with a girl, who I’m quite attracted to, in a park, moonlight fast approaching. To borrow a line from Casablanca “this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Or at least an awkward first kiss. It was a moment begging for a perfect reply, a devilish grin, or a longing gaze.

Instead, I said “really?”

That’s it. Nothing more. Just awkward silence.

My memory is a little hazy on which (or perhaps both) of us ran away in embarrassment.

I’d like to tell you that young love found a way and days later when given another chance, I found that perfect response. But that’s not the way life works.

Sometimes you don’t get a second chance.

Years later this situation pretty much repeated itself. To avoid complete humiliation, I’ll spare the details. Suffice to say it involved a couch, a (different) girl, sharing a blanket, watching a movie and the girl throughout the movie turning toward me with a look intended to say “why don’t you kiss me stupid?” And me returning a look intended to say “because I’m a shy, awkward idiot!”

This situation ended about as you’d expect.

Sometimes you don’t get a second chance again.

We’ve all been presented with times in our lives when, moments after it was over, we said “that was a huge opportunity and I blew it.”  The sad truth is, yes you did. You blew it.

The question is, why?

If you’re like me, it’s hesitation. Failure to take a chance. In truth, fear.

Fear I’ll:
Say something stupid.
Embarrass myself.
Be rejected.

These moments missed, never involve:
Putting myself out there.
Taking a leap of faith.
Trying something new.

Which brings me to current day me. (One far more confident and significantly less awkward.) While visiting friends in North Carolina recently, I happened into a small brewery in Durham. It was located in an old brick warehouse in maybe not the nicest part of town. (Truthfully, it could be the nicest part of Durham for all I know, as it’s the only part of Durham I’ve been to. I’m sure it’s a lovely city.) It was Saturday night just before Halloween and the place was packed. Some people in costume, most not. People talking, people laughing, people drinking. Full of good beer and cheer, my friends and I stepped outside in the chilly October air to try our luck with one of the food trucks parked on an adjoining street.

After choosing a truck called “American Meltdown: Gourmet Melts,” I was just walking up to the window to order when I heard a girl sitting on a nearby picnic table say, “get the sprouts.”

Get the sprouts.

“Do you like sprouts,” she asked? “No,” I replied. “Then you have to try these. When are you ever going to be somewhere and have sprouts that you like,” she asked?

So, I said to the man at the window, “Let’s do an order of brussels sprouts with that patty melt.”

The girl walked off across the street and I never had a chance to thank her for the two important lessons I learned that night.

One is that fried brussels sprouts are amazing.

Two is that when you’re in a strange city, at a brewery, with a food truck outside and cute and somewhat odd girl says, “get the sprouts,” you get the sprouts.

This is normally the time in this blog when I tie the whole lesson together with something spiritual. I would love to find the perfect Bible verse and say “see how sprouts are a metaphor for __________” (You fill in the blank.) But I’m learning that just as life doesn’t always give you a second chance, it also doesn’t wrap each lesson up in a neat bow.

This time, when opportunity knocked, I was ready. Will I say yes the next time? I hope so. But I’m wondering, what if rather than waiting around for that next big opportunity, what if we chose to see every moment as an opportunity? What if instead of asking where is God in a particular circumstance? What if, as we learn to see each moment, the good, the bad, the mundane and the sublime as a moment of intrinsic value simply because every moment is an opportunity to interact with the divine, how much more valuable would each person, place or thing become? And then just maybe, we’d necessarily grow more courageous?

At any rate, do yourself a favor and get the sprouts.

It was pointed out to me that about 85-90% of my Facebook posts are about food. Now it’s creeping into my blog posts as well. It’s no wonder that I’m overweight.

Recently, I posted this little gem:

For lunch today I had banana pudding. I just thought you should know.

Pithy.

Actually, I thought it was quite witty. I was making fun of people who post to Facebook every inane detail of their life, while simultaneously posting an inane detail about my own life.

My mom should be proud.

I got some pretty good responses too (who knew posting about banana pudding would be so popular?) such as:

You are my hero!

I’m eating the same thing.

“Oink, Oink….LOL!”

You see, I would have been offended, but they wrote “LOL” so I knew they were joking. They were laughing out loud while they wrote it. Plus, eating banana pudding as your entire lunch pretty much leaves you open to any jokes people can think of.

I responded to my friend “…ouch! :-)”

The use of the smiley face emoticon is always a good sign that a person is joking. I mean, if you write “I hate your guts! :-)” or “The coffee at McDonald’s tastes great! :-)” and aren’t being facetious, we should really have a talk.

Unfortunately, my friend became worried that she had offended me and it started a chain of messages back and forth that degenerated into her being concerned about my emotional well-being.

What we say has meaning and this meaning is often, despite our best intentions and proper use of emoticons, completely misunderstood.

I started a small business 3 years ago. When I’m not slaving away at this blog, I can usually be found slaving away in the world of graphic design. Over the past three years I have been successful beyond both my expectations and truly what I feel I deserve. There is very little explanation why a chronic procrastinator with no business training at all should be able to make a living running his own small business. So when people ask me about the state of my company, my typical response has been:

“I’m blessed.”

I couldn’t find a better explanation than that. It’s quite honestly how I’ve felt. Unfortunately, it doesn’t accurately describe my theological worldview. I don’t believe God makes customers want to hand over their money for my attempts at logo design anymore than I think he controls the traffic patterns when we’re running late, the outcome of our favorite football team’s game, which pop star wins a Grammy or any number of things we attribute to a higher power.

While I was trying (admirably I think) to express humility before my Creator, I believe I missed one very important fact.

If I’m blessed, are other people not? Or worse, are they cursed?

If I attribute the success of my business to God’s blessing, what about the people who have worked just as hard as me and have failed? Were they not blessed? If I’ve been blessed with good health, what about the people who are sick or in pain? Are they cursed?

What are we saying about the nature of ourselves and God when we say we are blessed? Are we saying that we are somehow more righteous and therefore deserving of His blessing? Or are we saying that God is some sort of schizophrenic arbiter of fate who randomly chooses to bestow blessing on one person at one time while choosing to completely ignore another person’s pleas at another?

If the good things that happen to me are blessings, are the bad things that happen events that God has chosen to ignore? Or does He cause the bad things as well?

That’s what people going though times of struggle hear when I talk about my “blessings.”

Do we really believe that God is sitting on a throne up in heaven interceding at times in our lives to make things smoother, better, faster, stronger, more peaceful, hopeful and financially lucrative? And at other times, to other people, he turns a deaf ear? Like a giant Soup Nazi, “No blessings for you!”

What we say and how we say it has meaning.

All this blessing talk is shaped not only by our understanding of who God is, but actually our definition of what it means to be blessed.

Fortunately for us, God helped us with that definition. It’s found in a little section of the Bible conveniently referred to as “the beatitudes.” …Beatitude is defined as “supreme blessedness.”

Jesus being surrounded by a crowd of people went up and sat down on a mountainside and began to teach. And (as was his want to do) he said some crazy, radical, counterintuitive stuff. Stuff like:

Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who morn.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are those who are persecuted.
Blessed are you when people insult you.

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like the kind of grammy winning-touchdown catching-business succeeding kind of blessings I was looking for.

Jesus has a whole different definition of blessing than we have doesn’t he? Jesus seems less concerned with outcomes and more concerned with how we get there.

Jesus knows that God, who created the world and gave His creation the ability to continue that creative work, is working every day, every minute, every second to bring healing, hope and peace. God is about the business of making things whole.

Business not working out? You’re blessed.
Stuck in traffic? You’re blessed.
Not the cool kid at school? You’re blessed.
Relationship not working out like you hoped? You’re blessed.
Health failing? You’re blessed.

For Jesus, a blessing is not something we receive. It’s who we are.

So, you say potato and I’ll say potato, but as for me I’m going to call the whole “blessed” thing off.

*****

While it’s important to be humble and it’s entirely appropriate to be thankful, I’m sorry God if my fumbling attempts at humility have missed the point that you are engaged and involved in our lives in ways we can’t possibly understand. I’m sorry if my language has caused people to hurt or to question your love. May I bring comfort to those who mourn, help to those who are persecuted, and peace to all. Amen.

I like coffee.

Actually, that’s not really true. I LOVE coffee.

I love it like I love Johnny Cash records, a warm Spring day or my first-born son (I don’t actually have children, so I’m imagining that’s what it would be like.)

Now, this wasn’t always the case. Only a few short years ago, I really didn’t like coffee at all. I had a friend though who would stop at Starbucks on the way in to work. She would rave about a drink called a gingerbread latte. “You have to try it! I’m going to bring you one tomorrow,” she said. If you haven’t had a gingerbread latte, let me explain.

It tastes like sugar. And gingerbread. But mostly sugar.

Well, who wouldn’t like that? So, I started drinking gingerbread lattes. This went great until around the end of February when they stopped selling gingerbread lattes. So, desperate for that sugar and caffeine buzz of which I’d grown accustomed, I tried something called a caramel macchiato.

A caramel macchiato tastes like sugar. And caramel. But mostly sugar.

So, for a time, all was good with the world. It wasn’t long though until I realized that I was paying $4 a cup for these drinks and ingesting goodness knows how many calories. So, I decided that I HAD to learn to drink regular coffee. It was much less expensive and contained far fewer calories. There was only one problem with this plan.

I hated regular coffee.

They say some things are an acquired taste. I’d definitely put coffee in that category.

To make a long story slightly less long, with enough cream, sugar substitutes and patience, I learned to love coffee.

One thing that isn’t an acquired taste is the smell of coffee. Freshly ground, freshly brewed, wonderfully aromatic coffee. It’s the best. They should make a cologne of it. Or maybe spray it inside new cars. I’m guessing they’ve already thought to make a candle that smells like coffee.

There’s a quote that says:

Coffee Smells Like Freshly Ground Heaven

I really think that’s true. Even non-coffee drinkers agree that coffee smells good.

Recently, I had a friend ask what I thought about crowns in Heaven. She’d been in a Bible study where they were discussing the topic. The Bible speaks, on several occasions, of storing up crowns in Heaven. Typically, this is interpreted as a situation where if you live right and do good deeds during your life on Earth, you’ll be rewarded with riches or blessings in heaven. Some people even say this means that certain people have a more favored afterlife than others. In Heaven they’ll have crowns, giant mansions, favored seating at Heavenly restaurants or maybe a super-sweet harp. To me, all of that seems unlikely and actually a bit unlike the teachings of Jesus. However, who knows? As long as there is coffee in Heaven, I’ll be fine.

The truth is, I think coffee and God are really quite alike.

God is often described as the essence of love. But love isn’t easily defined is it? Try it. You’ll either wind up describing warm, fuzzy emotional feelings or you’ll describe actions that take place as a result of love. Perhaps the only way to see God is through the prism of His creation. Perhaps the only way to fully relate to and interact with God is in the very act of love itself.

God is meant to be experienced, and shared.

In a cup alone on a counter, not being consumed, coffee becomes cold, stale and frankly, quite gross. However, sitting on the front porch on a cool autumn morning sharing a cup of coffee with someone you love….that is sacred event. Or in a coffee shop, reading a good book, surrounded by people of all walks of life…that becomes an encounter with the divine.

Coffee is meant to be experienced and shared.

So, may we slow down and relax this week. As we savor that morning cup of coffee, taking the time to appreciate the aroma and taste the richness of its flavor, may we see that God is there, all around us, interacting with His creation. And much like a good cup of coffee, may we recognize that God is meant to be experienced and shared with someone we love.

You often hear that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who see the glass half empty and those who see the glass half full. I think a better way to look at it is that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who plan vacations and those who take vacations that others plan for them.

I myself am a planner. I plan to plan. I’m that guy. When planning a vacation, I make a folder with color coded files that include, but aren’t limited to: airport terminal maps, driving directions, places to eat, walking tours, an alphabetical listing of important phone numbers and a checklist so I don’t forget to do anything.

Of course, this compulsive need to plan bleeds over into my everyday life as well. Most nights, I make an impossibly long to-do list for the next day. Each item is numbered and often contains bulleted sub-sections. Usually by around 10:30 am it becomes perfectly clear that the day’s list has no hope of being accomplished.

I may (read: definitely) take planning to the extreme, but am I really alone? How many of us had a pretty good idea of how life would work out? We’ve had expectations heaped on us from birth. Society, our parents, our church, family and friends often just the unrelenting force of this is how it’s always been lead us to see no other way. Success in life is clearly defined and we set out with a color-coded folder telling us how to get there.

For many people, life is about achieving a goal and checking off certain items along the way.

This can be a exhausting way to live, can’t it? Essentially, we become slaves to expectations. And worse yet, we’re doomed to failure from the very start. One phone call wrecks that intricately planned out daily to-do list. Or one late flight or traffic jam means we’ll never make it to the hotel in time to change, to make the cab, to make the dinner, to make the…well, you get the idea. Life has a way of completely interrupting our expected journey.

There’s a counterintuitive way to look at these interruptions however that see them not as roadblocks to our expected destination, but as detours to an awesome place we never even knew existed.

Nobody in history has mastered the counterintuitive like Jesus. In his uber spiritual-mystical-completely amazing-but totally confusing way, Jesus threw out sayings like

The last will be first and the first will be last.

and

Whoever loses their life will find it.

Jesus ate with sinners, talked to the woman at the well, healed on the sabbath and had the audacity to be a poor carpenter’s son from Nazareth.

Jesus was not a slave to expectations.

The funny thing about expectations is that as much as we seem compelled to live by them, we instantly recognize and celebrate those times when we step outside our comfort zone or off the beaten path.

I guess for some people, Applebee’s is their favorite restaurant. Most people though, when asked, will name some little hole-in-the-wall place in an old gas station, or a deserted strip mall, or tucked so far off the main road that your GPS can’t even find it. Where I live, people will pass four Pizza Huts to get to Big Ed’s Pizza. Who hasn’t heard someone say something like, “It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but it has the best hamburger you’ll ever eat”?

Or, take romantic comedies (please). The guy spends the whole movie foolishly chasing after the most beautiful girl in school. The entire time he’s confiding in his bespectacled, nerdy, unattractive best female friend while we are yelling at the screen because we know what he doesn’t. We see beyond his expectations. Only at the end does he realize that she is the one he loved all along. (Of course, in true guy fashion, it takes her removing her glasses and fixing her hair for him to realize this.)

I had a friend tell me recently that she had an expectation for how everything should go, for various reasons, but she has felt more like herself, more real since she let all that go and just simply lived.

That is my challenge. To live a beautiful, counterintuitive life that doesn’t judge a book by it’s cover, that’s isn’t a slave to expectations, driving headlong towards a predetermined goal. But rather a life that sees every detour, every interaction, every moment as a new opportunity to

take a leap of faith
get outside my comfort zone
stop worrying
stop stressing
stop planning
and just simply live.

The glass may be half empty, but what’s it full of?

 

True story.* When I was in elementary school, I made a paper mache model of the solar system for a science fair project. For those of you who don’t know, “paper mache” is actually French for “huge sticky mess.” It involves tearing up strips of paper, soaking them in a mixture of Elmer’s Glue and water until they are nearly dissolved and then wrapping them in layers around a form. In the case of my planets, these forms were styrofoam balls.

One might ask at this point, why didn’t you just paint the styrofoam balls as planets instead of going to all that effort with the paper mache? Well, the answer is that it was an early example of the fact that I seem to like to do things the hard way. And in fact, once I decide I want to do something one way, I’m pretty bull headed. But enough about me.

My brilliantly produced model of the solar system, was made up of a large piece of black poster board to which I attached the Sun at the center, circled by nine planets of various sizes and colors.

I learned a lot from making this model. First and most importantly, that I was much more likely to have a career in the arts than I was the sciences. Second, the sun wasn’t always considered the center of the solar system. In fact, for most of human history the Earth was considered the center of the universe. The Sun, it was thought, revolved around the Earth.

It wasn’t until the 16th Century that Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a heliocentric (fancy word for “Sun centered”) model of the universe.

This was of course revolutionary and quite controversial at the time and, as it was ultimately proven correct, brings up two great points.

1. Prevailing wisdom isn’t always accurate.*

2. One person thinking outside the box can make a huge difference in the world.

While these are great points, questioning authority and the power of the individual aren’t what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about Einstein’s general theory of relativity and Newton’s law of universal gravitation. Two subjects I knew nothing about in elementary school.

Einstein’s theory states that:
the phenomenon of gravitation itself is a consequence of the curvature of spacetime governing the motion of inertial objects.

Newton’s law postulates:
the gravitational force proportional to masses of interacting bodies and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

It should be pointed out that I’m not a physicist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.** So, more simply put:

Things are affected by other things around them.

You see, the Earth is held in its orbit by the gravitational pull of the Sun. The Earth, while a completely separate entity, capable of spinning on its axis, controlling complicated weather systems, providing shelter to its inhabitants, etc. is nevertheless controlled to a large extent by outside forces.

We’re a lot like the Earth, affected a great deal by forces outside our control.

As rational human beings, we spend a lot of time reflecting on and attempting to understand those forces. Each of us, if asked, could probably describe those things that are at the center of our universe. Those things that affect our lives.

God
Work
Money
Bills
Spouse
Children
Addiction
Pain

What is at the center of your universe?

Last week I went to a concert by my favorite songwriter Josh Ritter. Josh has a song called Orbital in which he discusses these very same themes. The chorus goes like this:

Who do you circle round
Who is it circles round you
Is it circles round you?
Who is it circles round you
Do you circle round who
Is it circles round you?

While we spend a lot of time studying, and one might even say worshiping those things at the center of our universe. Those things we circle around. I think sometimes the more important question is:

Who is it that circles around us?

What are we doing to affect, in a positive way, those people? Are our actions filled with love? Compassion? Empathy? Do we even notice all the different people that are affected by us each day in ways large and small?

So, today, may we realize that we aren’t the center of our own universe. And, if that center isn’t something positive, if it isn’t uplifting, if it isn’t giving us life, may we have the courage to let it go. Because, unlike the Earth, we have a choice in what we circle around. But perhaps more importantly, may we stop to notice all the different people that circle around us, or circle around with us, each day. May we see their struggles and needs. And may our actions bring them joy, and peace and life.

_____________________________

*Prevailing wisdom it seems was wrong about one other thing. At the time I made my model of the solar system, Pluto was still considered the ninth major planet. It is now considered a “dwarf planet.” Harsh. What will scientists say isn’t real next? Sasquatch? The Loch Ness Monster? That the eight cheeseburgers I eat each week are bad for me?

**I didn’t actually stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

In the opening scenes of the movie Pulp Fiction, the two protagonists (Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield) are retrieving a briefcase belonging to their crime boss employer Marcellus Wallace. While the contents of the briefcase remain a mystery throughout the movie, suffice to say it is of great value and they have been tasked with returning the briefcase at all costs. (The fact that they remark that “we should have shotguns for this” sort of reinforces this fact.) The briefcase is being held by two young men who live in a run down apartment building. Vincent and Jules enter the boys apartment and, as it is early in the morning, happen to interrupt their breakfast. When Jules asks what they are having for breakfast, the leader of the young men replies… “Cheeseburgers.”

One man’s lunch is another man’s breakfast.

After sharing a soda, discussing vegetarianism, a rather through interrogation and reciting a passage of scripture, Vincent and Jules proceed to shoot and kill the young men. Unfortunately for them, a third youth is hiding in the bathroom with a handgun. After hearing the Bible passage and gunfire, this young man kicks open the bathroom door and, at point blank range, unloads all six shots from his revolver.

This should be the end of the road for our two gangsters. However, amazingly all six shots miss. Vincent and Jules then return fire. …They do not miss.

Later that morning (after events too complicated to explain) Vincent and Jules discuss the incident over a meal at a local diner. Jules has attributed their survival to “an act of God.”

A miracle.

Vincent however is skeptical and declares that, while admittedly peculiar, what they experienced was a freak occurrence.

Chance.

Jules explains that Vincent is looking at the situation the wrong way. Whether or not the events of that morning were an actual “according to Hoyle” miracle is not important. What matters to Jules is that he has decided that God has gotten involved in his life and he can no longer lead the life of a criminal.

For Jules, God is no longer an abstract being. He’s no longer just a passive bystander to life.

God has become involved.

And for Jules, this changes everything.

Speaking of kickball… (smooth segue, right?) I play in an adult recreational kickball league.

Yes, they exist.

In the first game, my very first kick, I popped it straight up in the air to the second baseman. Fortunately for me, a kickball is much harder to catch that it appears and the ball ricocheted off her shoulder and into the outfield. While this is supposed to be the “non-competitive league,” my aggressive nature took over. I rounded first base and headed full speed for second. Unfortunately for me, I failed to take into account that my poor diet, increasing age, and general lack of exercise had taken a toll on what speed I used to possess. As I neared second base, the fact that I was likely to be out became a real possibility. Due to my poor physical condition, increasing age, lack of exercise, and the fact that I didn’t want to get itchy, I decided sliding into second wasn’t an option. So, I sort of went to the outside of the base and stuck my foot way out to the side.

I still think I was safe.

As you have probably gathered, the umpire saw it differently.

Same play. Two people. Two different conclusions.

Speaking of flying… (again, master of the segue) I recently went to Texas. I was going there to perform a wedding ceremony for some close friends. Like any great wedding ceremony, I planned this one at 2 a.m. the night before. When I arrived at the airport, I was informed of the fact that there would be a 4 hour delay.

This trip is starting out well.

So, I bought a cup of overpriced coffee and sat down to read a book. At the time, I was reading The Legend of Baggar Vance by Steven Pressfield. If you’ve seen the movie…I’m sorry. Read the book, it’s really pretty good. Without giving too much away, God comes down disguised as an itinerant caddy to help a young man discover his “authentic swing.” And yes, while teaching him about golf, He’s really teaching him about life.

Going through my head at this time (and again, a lot can go through your head during a 4 hour flight delay) was the fact that for almost a year, I’d felt distant from God. Prayer and communication, which I had previously enjoyed, had become fairly non-existent. For some time, I had felt very much alone. Both in the spiritual sense and in the very real emotional sense. …Clearly, I was the perfect choice to officiate a wedding.

I was also contemplating the fact that while planning a wedding (the union of two souls for all of eternity) I had several good friends who were experiencing relationship troubles. …Marriage it seems was not the magic answer to ending loneliness.

Through this entire mess of loneliness, separation, broken relationships, wedding planning, existential self-help books and long flight delays, I noticed one thing…

a cute girl standing alone by the widow.

I decided at that moment to do something very uncharacteristic for me. Walk up and talk to the cute girl standing alone by the window.

I’d love to tell you that we’re now dating and planning to be married, but that’s not the case. I actually only got her first name. We did speak for about 20 minutes though and it was quite nice.

Later, much later thanks to American Airlines, that night I was sitting in my hotel room in Texas after polishing off a cheeseburger.

One man’s lunch is another man’s midnight snack.

And it dawned on me. You can be just as alone in a relationship as you can be single. The secret isn’t hoping that your situation will change, that you’ll meet somebody, your spouse will come back, you’ll find a new job, win the lottery or whatever it is that you think will happen

and then life will be perfect.

The secret is finding your true swing. Being happy with who you are.

This is not Earth-shattering news, I know, to many people. But for me it was a breakthrough.

Did God cause
the flight to be delayed
my friends to have relationship problems
my other friends to get married
in Texas
me to be reading just the right book
at the right time
for a cute girl to be alone
 by the window
and for me to have the courage to talk to her?

Probably not. But for me it doesn’t matter. God got involved.

So, may you see each situation in your life, each freak occurrence, not as a coincidence but as God getting involved in a very real way in your life and the lives of those around you.

A miracle? Probably not. …But what if it is?

 

I like modern design. You know, the kind of architecture and furniture that is so cool and cutting-edge that it looks exactly as if it were designed in the middle of the 20th Century. Actually, they have a name for modern looking architecture and furniture that was designed in the middle of the 20th Century. It’s called…wait for it…Mid-Century Modern.

Genius.

You’ve probably seen this sort of design before. Stuff like clocks with no numbers on them, or a couch with cushions so square that it appears painful to sit on. That’s the type stuff I like. Most of this furniture is so wildly expensive that I can only look at it and dream. Fortunately for me, there’s a place to view this type of modern furniture right from the comfort of my office. It’s called the internet. And on this internet there are people so concerned with helping me to view and possibly purchase modern design that they send it right to my inbox every day. They call themselves Fab.com.

One day recently, Fab’s header was advertising something called “The Japanese Design Shop.” The advertisement read simply “God Is In The Detail.”

God is in the detail.

Also Genius.

My first thought was, isn’t their supposed to be an “s” at the end of that. My second thought was, I thought the Devil was in the details?

Now I’m really confused. So, I consulted another group of people concerned with helping me on the internet. Google. Google says that “God is in the detail” is actually an idiom. An idiom (according to Google) is: a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words.

Needless to say, that didn’t help me much.

So, I turned to another completely reliable source: Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia the phrase has been attributed to a number of individuals, most notably German born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Ludwig is quite an interesting fellow. He was the last director of the German Bauhaus and along with Frank Lloyd Wright is considered one of the masters of modern architecture.

Mid-Century Modern architects such a Ludwig Mies van der Rohe stress extreme simplicity and the elimination of “unnecessary detail.” Nowhere is this more evident than perhaps his most famous work
the Farnsworth House. (shown below)

The Farnsworth House is essentially a big glass box.

When you’ve stripped away all adornment, you’re really left with nothing but the details, so you’d better pay attention to them. I think that’s a little like how we relate to God.

The prophet Elijah experienced God not in the storm, the earthquake or the fire, but rather the still small voice. It’s not that God wasn’t in the storm, earthquake and fire. He most certainly was. As the apostle Paul says, God is “over all and through all and in all.”

All. That’s pretty clear. Nothing vague about it.

However, I think God is fundamentally something we experience. And we don’t really experience grand theological concepts do we? What we do experience are intimate moments with family, friends and sometimes even complete strangers.

An inside joke
The lyrics to our favorite song
Dinner with our spouse
The laughter of a child
A door held open when our hands are full
Someone who listens, really listens
A word of encouragement
A helping hand
A shared smile

I think this is why Jesus was so revolutionary. Jesus got to know people on a personal level. He rubbed mud on the eyes of a blind man to restore his sight. He ate with “sinners”. He touched lepers. He talked to the woman at the well. He washed the disciples feet. He suggested those without sin should cast the first stone. Jesus knew it wasn’t the big things, it was the small.

We don’t experience compassion. We experience a friend right there beside us at our darkest hour. We don’t experience love. We experience quality time with a good friend. We experience actions, not concepts.

Whatever we experience though, if it’s true, if it’s honest, if it’s real, these are experiences with the divine. Sometimes we just have to get all the clutter out of the way to see that

God is in the detail.

When I look for wisdom, there’s really only one place to go. It is isn’t fortune cookies or bumper stickers. …While we’re on the subject though, why do fortune cookies taste so bad? I mean, I just had some delicious Kung Pao Chicken. Can’t I get a cookie that tastes like chocolate chip or maybe oatmeal raisin? But I digress… No, when it comes to true wisdom and sage advice I look to Facebook.

Yes, Facebook.

A friend recently wrote: I believe that life begs for celebration.

It was followed by a smiley face emoticon, of course.

Such a simple, uplifting statement. But is it true? Or rather, do I recognize the truth in it? If I’m honest, isn’t life for me more accurately described as begging for

consternation
aggravation
desperation
limitation
isolation

and a dozen other words that I may have stolen straight from the U2 song Bad.

I mean, from the fifth time I hit the snooze button in the morning until my head hits the pillow at night, how much of my day is spent celebrating and how much is spent just trying to make it through. Running late. Stressed. Trying to make ends meet. Trying to please somebody. Anybody.

My nephew doesn’t have this problem. He’s two, and he lives to celebrate life. The other day he was in the hallway spinning around in circles. As he was spinning, he was saying “Spin. Spin. Spin.” When he wasn’t spinning he was laughing. Then he made a mad dash across the living room floor. Sort of sideways. Then he laughed some more. Like I said, the kid knows how to celebrate.

A few weeks ago, I was at a wedding. (Actually, I officiated the wedding, but that’s a whole other story.) The day was filled with all the wedding day things you’d expect. Things such as looking at YouTube videos on how to tie a bow tie (note to self: get a clip-on), and taking tons and tons of pictures. Despite my oversized role in the ceremony, the wedding went off quite smoothly. The parents were proud, the bride and groom were the picture of love, smiling the entire time. Wedding cake was cut. Champagne toasts were made. Rice wasn’t thrown, but does anybody really do that anymore? Afterwards, the bride’s father took us all out to dinner for barbecue and beer. Now, there’s a man who knows how to celebrate.

Psalms 118:24 says “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” I think that was meant to be shouted “THIS IS THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE; LET US REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN IT!”

Ask any kid (or teacher) on the last day of the school year before summer break. They’ll tell you. Life begs for celebration.

But what if life isn’t really celebratory right now? What if you’re alone? The marriage isn’t working out? There’s sickness? Or pain? Or death?

There is a time for everything. If you need to hurt, then hurt. If you need to mourn, then mourn. It’s appropriate. Find a friend to mourn with you. That’s a true friend. God mourns. Jesus weeps. We hurt. The Psalmist isn’t saying rejoice in the face of overwhelming pain.

So if you need to hold on, then hold on. ….and then, when it’s time, let go.

Look up.
Slow down.
Take a breath.
And then another.
Get involved.
Take a chance.
Take a trip.

Whatever you need to do to see that life is more than just a never ending battle with the alarm clock, traffic, work, stress and the routine. God didn’t make us to just get by. To just exist. To spend the day worried about tomorrow or regretting yesterday. To be mistreated. To mistreat ourselves, or others. To fill our days so full of the ordinary and mundane that we miss the CELEBRATION that’s going on all around us

Spinning
Barbecuing
Tebowing (I hear that’s trademarked now. So maybe celebrate a different way)

Life begs for celebration.

Freddy Freedom is your guide to the wonderful world of microbrewed beers. Occasionally on this journey, deep thoughts and inspirations of a metaphysical nature will be shared. So, bring an open mind and your trusty pint glass. We’re just getting started.