A Couple of Personal Accomplishments

Gotta toot my own horn a little bit here… this past week I have hit a couple of cool milestones… last night my youngest son, Ian, and I both tested for our next rank in Karate – he became a Purple Belt and I, an Orange Belt! Today, I am very sore though… Congrats Ian!!

The second accomplishment is pretty much meaningless and certainly has none of the actual value (physical or mental) of training in the Martial Arts but… the other night I was playing Guitar Hero 3 and I got a perfect score on the Seeker by the Who! …didn’t miss a note, 451 in a row… And while no one ever questions the attaining of a belt in Karate, they may require proof for the Guitar Hero claim…

This Is Odd…

In our backyard there used to be a dead rose bush. In the couple of years that we have lived here, it has not produced a single flower although the thorns seem to be fresh! So, earlier this summer, we tore it out with plans to put something else there. In fact the clippings of the rose bush remains have sat in two green lawn bags for the summer. A couple of days ago I walked out into our backyard and was greeted with the site you see in the picture below… a blooming rose growing out of the uprooted remains in trash bags… I am sure this is a metaphor for something…

Packing It Away

We have all just finished up a busy summer… vacations, the Olympics, cook outs, swimming, gigging through the midwest, projects around the house, building decks, reading, block buster movies, summer camp for the kids… whew! Just typing it out makes me tired! And now the kids are back in school and adults are breathing a collective sigh of relief as we focus in on what needs to happen this Fall.

As each season passes, we pack away the trappings of one and get out the trappings of the next. One of the ongoing questions throughout the year is “What things do I keep out and what things do I pack away until next year?” In essence, what things do I need to have all the time and what things are expendable?

One of the camps I spoke at this summer used the Olympics as its theme. Citing Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 9:23-25, we talked about what it meant to go into training and what the prize we strive for is. Many kids said the prize we strive for is Heaven, and yet when we give our lives to Christ, Heaven is the very thing we get right off the bat! Almost like a welcome home gift! But if we get Heaven just for signing up, what is the goal? It seems to me that the goal is not Heaven, but Jesus Himself!

One of the great complaints through the centuries has been that when people try to share Christ they are often guilty of trying to pass on not only faith but their culture as well. And yet, this Jesus who is the very goal of our faith has impacted both men and women in every culture and in every time period. Whether the government was socialist, communist, democratic, a monarchy, a dictatorship, Jesus has changed lives. Whether the civilization was modern or medieval, Jesus has changed lives. Whether faith was legal or illegal, fashionable or detested, safe or not, Jesus has changed lives. Jesus and the life He calls us to has little or nothing to do with the type of culture we find ourselves in. And hence, living out our faith has little or nothing to do with perpetuating or furthering the type of culture we find ourselves in.

So, as we pack away all of our Summer gear and get out the Autumn sweaters, I think we ought to examine our faith and see if what we are living out (and hence passing on) is all Jesus or part Jesus, part culture. Maybe now would be an excellent time to pack away the expendable and fleeting things of culture and keep out only the things of Jesus, timeless and unchanging.

Pictures of Dad

Down in the basement, I’ve got that slide projector out
I dust off that old screen and take those carousels down
Revisit once again all those places that I never want to leave in all these…

Pictures of Us, one of the songs on my most recent CD, has its origins in my childhood. My Dad is one of those fathers who takes pictures of everything. Every trip, every holiday, every family visit, every school event, every major purchase, everything… And periodically, he would summon us all to the living room in the evening where he had set up the screen and the slide projector and we would watch these events unfold. There would be, of course, the odd slide that either didn’t drop or was inserted backwards or upside down and we waited while he fixed and then triumphantly showed it correctly. The sound of the fan in the projector and the sight of dust floating in the projection beam are distinct memories.

As a father myself, I am not like my Dad in this respect. Although I have noble intentions of documenting everything, I often am just lucky to be there on time. There are the odd videotaped school plays, talent show performances, karate tests and music recitals but nothing that can rival a good slide show. The advent of the digital age has taken this art form and moved it from the family room on a Saturday night to a small digital picture frame on a desk. And I am afraid my own children will be the worse for it.

It wasn’t too long ago, while visiting my parents, that I ventured into the basement and dug out the screen and that old slide projector and as many carousels of slides as I could find. For the next couple of hours, I immersed myself in my own childhood and my family’s history and I silently thanked my Dad for taking all of these pictures. And of all the treasures in my parents’ house, these might just be among the most valuable.