Show me .... reality versus perception

My favorite Christmas movie of all time, hands down, is unequivocally “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Call me a sentimentalist if you wish, but there are several moments throughout this movie where I still tear up, even though I know exactly what’s going to happen. My favorite moment is when George Bailey, standing there at the rail of the bridge, prays “God, dear God. Dear Father in heaven. I’m not a praying man, but if You’re up there and You can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope. I – show me the way, God!”

By the time George finishes that prayer, my television screen is a complete blur. Why? Because at that moment, I am George Bailey. Every bridge moment I’ve ever had rushes from the back to the front of my memory, and I relive every one of them all over again. And just as master film maker and director Frank Capra invites us to share that very private, very intimate moment with George and God, I invite you to join me as I pray the last phrase of that prayer.

“Show me the way, God, to understand the difference between the way things appear to be, and the way things really are. In this sound-bite culture of ours, I have a tendency to hear or read some snippet of information and take it for the Gospel. Help me to practice Benjamin Franklin’s classic advice to “Believe none of what you hear, and half of what you see.” Give me a healthy dose of skepticism, but not so much that it makes me cynical.”

“Show me the way, God, to peace in a world where there really isn’t much peace. It’s not hard for me to imagine You being deeply interested in peace in the Middle East, but honestly, and perhaps selfishly, I’m not talking about global peace. I’m talking about peace in my own heart. I get a little scared at times, Lord, thinking about my family’s and my health, our safety in an increasingly violent world, or the economy and how it will affect me, and those I love. All of these things disturb my peace, but I need to learn to trust You. It’s pretty easy trusting You when everything is going great, but not so easy when things are tough. I can’t trust in my position with the University, nor in my government, but I certainly can trust in You. Don’t let me forget that.

“Show me the way, God, to stop worrying about what I should or should not do, but by Your grace, be what I should be. I’ve spent way too much time worrying over ‘jots and tittles’, when I simply need to allow your grace to work in and through me to change the very nature of who and what I am. If I understand it right, you taught us in the Sermon on the Mount that it was Your job to complete those details, not mine. Forgive me my sins, and transform my nature into a reflection of Yours.”

“Show me the way, God – Your way, that is. So many times when I pray, I’ve already determined in my own mind and heart what it is You’re supposed to do, and as You well know, I’m not bashful about sharing with you what I believe the answers to my own prayers should be. But what I really need is for You to help me get past what I think I want, and receptive to what You know I need. Help me see things Your way, not my way. Amen”

I don’t know what George Bailey was expecting when he prayed his desperate and passionate prayer, but it’s pretty obvious that he wasn’t expecting Clarence the Angel, nor the near tortuous journey through a Pottersville World absent his own personal influence. What I do know is that God answered him, and that that answer was better than George could have ever imagined for himself.

Try it, and find out for yourself.

Following Gidgy

My wife, daughter, granddaughter and I were in a Janie & Jack’s children’s store at an Indianapolis mall, shopping, obviously, for the granddaughter. While not her legal, given name, she is affectionately known to Yours Truly as Gidgy. Don’t ask me why; she’s just always been Little Gidgy to me. Next March she turns six, but during this Janie & Jack’s adventure she wasn’t much older than two. While the women shopped, it was my assignment to watch The Gidge. I can’t speak for other grandfathers, but for Grapper (that’s what Gidgy calls me), Gidgy watching is an marvelous treat.

Now I have to explain what Gidgy watching actually means. It means . . . well, watching Gidgy. I’m not an interferer unless it is absolutely necessary or I’m asked to interfere by the Gidge. (I respond to “Up Grapper” or “Down Grapper” or “Hold hand” or any number of Gidgy commands.) I am a true watcher and avoid unsolicited interference. Gidgy watching is one of the most educational and entertaining things I do.

On this particular occasion, after checking out everything of interest to a Gidgy attention span in this relatively small store, she took it upon herself to check out the rest of the mall. She quite deliberately walked out of the Janie & Jack’s and down the hall toward the escalators. With me watching and following at an interfere-able yet discreet distance, she made her way up the escalator, across the second floor to the down escalator, down the same hall from whence she came, and back into Janie & Jack’s.

Now to all you shocked Mothers out there reading this, you need to understand that I suddenly starting viewing everyone in that mall as a potential pedophile, and was ready to interfere at any given moment, so I was not shirking my grandfatherly duty. Gidgy didn’t realize this. She was on an intense, private exploration, but I can assure you, Moms, I was ready! Fortunately, no interference was necessary.

From time to time I’ll lean back in my chair, rub the computer glare out of my eyes and reminisce about those memorable few moments. The entire adventure probably only lasted between ten and fifteen minutes. I actually started laughing right out loud on a couple of occasions thinking about it. I’m sure my colleagues thought I must be losing my mind. During one of those recent reminisces, it dawned on me that this is such a microcosm of life. We’re all on this great, personal journey, and walking none too steadily much of the time, up one escalator and down another, across the hall into one phase of life, then out again to the escalators and on to yet another phase.

All during her sojourn I could tell Gidgy was confident and knew where she was going. No one was bothering her. She was safe, so I left her alone to learn and to explore. Ah, but I was watching, and I was ready to interfere at a moment’s notice, and I have since interfered many times in other circumstances.

How like God this is. He is watching every individual reading these lines, as well as those that aren’t. He’s not nervous about our circuitous journey because He’s our Grapper-God, and He loves us. If I may be so bold, He’s excited about our successes . . . and there to interfere for us in our failures.

Can it be that the sovereign God takes pleasure in our explorations? I know how proud I felt as I watched Gidgy fearlessly make her way through that mall and safely back again to Janie & Jack’s.

Most of the time we aren’t even cognizant that He’s there as we go up and down life’s escalators, moving in and out of life’s various phases, but my friends, He’s there alright . . . and He’s ready to interfere at a moment’s notice.

What is blessed?

My wife and I were driving down the road a few weeks ago when we pulled up behind a big, black SUV at a red light.  Stuck to the lower left side of the back window were these stick figures of what appeared to be a Dad, a Mum, an adolescent boy and girl, a couple of toddlers, and even a stick dog and a stick cat. Now I’ve seen stick characters like this on folks’ automobiles before, but this one was a wee bit different. Under the Stick Family were the words “We Are Blessed.”

I wondered to myself, what does it mean to be blessed? Does being blessed mean having an intact family and riding around in the comfort of a large, relatively new, highly polished sport utility vehicle? If so, what does that say about those us who are reduced to driving an old beater, or worse, having tragically lost one of those represented by the stick figures? Do we get the get the razor knife out of the toolbox and scrape off the stick representation of the divorcee, or the stick representation of a child whose tragic death has devastated us, then change the words to say something like “We Are Blessed But Not Quite As Blessed As We Were”, or “We Are Blessed But Not Quite As Blessed As Others”? The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that there is something very wrong about this.

When I was just a kid, my 22 year old, newlywed cousin dropped her motorcycle off the edge of the road, hit soft sand, and was thrown into a light pole and tragically killed. Had it been in vogue in those days, I can assure you that she was the type that would have had a sticker or a license plate frame that said “I Am Blessed” on it. She had met and married the man of her dreams only a couple of years before this and had recently learned that she was going to have a baby. They were as happy as any couple I have ever known, before or since. Prior to her accident, that couple, their Mums and Dads, and all of us uncles, aunts, and cousins could have sung “We Are Blessed” around the campfire together. So what do we sing now, “We Are Cursed”?

This whole thing revolves around what it truly means to be blessed. I personally have an intact family, an excellent, fulfilling job, and a snazzy little drop-top sports car, all for which I am extraordinarily thankful . . . but I’ve come to believe that none of this is evidence of God’s blessing. So I’m still left with the question, what does it mean to be blessed?

Well leave it to Jesus to turn conventional wisdom on its head. I don’t know why I let these kinds of things confuse and frustrate me when, if I only take the time to look, He has the answer. In the introduction to His Sermon on the Mount, as recorded by His disciple Matthew in the first eleven verses of chapter five of that Gospel, Jesus is pretty clear about what it truly means to be blessed . . . and unless you’ve read it, you’re going to be surprised, because it isn’t at all what we’ve come to believe it means to be blessed. He says we’re blessed when we’re poor (so much for the SUV and that snazzy drop-top of mine), mourn (although my cousin’s untimely departure left a hole in our hearts, she did get to go live with Jesus), are meek, (you may not get to be a Wall Street investment banker, but you will eventually inherit the earth), long to do the right thing (which could be tough if the right thing isn’t the popular thing), are merciful (so be kind to that grouchy neighbor . . . he is a blessing), are pure in heart (heart disease is what makes us act snidely and speak unkindly), are a peacemaker (in peace negotiations, both sides typically have to make concessions), are persecuted (there’s that grouchy neighbor again, or worse), and when you are insulted and falsely accused (well that sure isn’t anything like my preconceived notion of being blessed.)

So sure, be thankful for your SUV or snazzy drop-top, or whatever you drive, but get rid of that misguided notion that those things are somehow tied to God’s blessings. According to His Son Jesus, it’s a little more involved, and a whole lot deeper than that.

One thing is certain . . . you’ll think twice before the next time you wish God’s blessings on someone. They may actually get what you wish, and it isn’t an SUV.

A nation of sheep

It’s that time of year again! Politicians that we haven’t seen since the last election cycle have been out in force, visiting every county fair and public event imaginable, promising to do everything from solving world hunger to “creating” new jobs.

Promises, promises.

If we are to believe everything we’ve heard from the past two political conventions, depending upon who is elected we can either count on unemployment being reduced to almost nothing, or no one needing a job in the first place because the government is going to feed, clothe, and shelter everyone anyway.

At the risk of making just about everyone mad, both of these notions are complete nonsense. No one person can make jobs appear out of thin air, and the top 25% of income earners already pay 86% of all federal income taxes. What’s not being taxed today is being borrowed from tomorrow, so where’s the money to feed, clothe, and shelter folks going to come from?

Yet in spite of all my ranting, I’m honestly not so concerned about paternal politicians. After all, they’ve been around since John Adams decided to squelch free speech. Merely nine years after the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights declared that the government couldn’t, President Adams and Congress decided to just do it anyway . . . all in the name protecting the Republic, of course, and the courts actually upheld it as “Constitutional”. The same thing happened in the Civil War, both World Wars, and even today there are those that want to restrict speech that doesn’t fit the mold of whatever kind of speech is the politically correct flavor of the day.

So impossible-to-keep political promises and partisan sniping are as old as the nation itself; much older, really. What I can’t figure out is why so many of us get all worked up about these promises in the first place. Why, in the face of such history, do we still “believe”? I think I know why. Mankind needs to believe, but that need makes us susceptible to the slickest snake oil salesman of the moment.

It’s not hard to understand why when you realize that 42% of college graduates have not read another book after graduating, 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year, 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years, 57% of new books are not read to completion, and most "readers" (to use the term loosely) do not get past page 18 in the last book they purchased. So, it should not be surprising that the average American reads, and I posit, understands at an 8th grade level. No offence to our 8th graders out there, but if this is our level of understanding, the snake oil salesmen are going to have a field day. Oh, pardon me . . . are having a field day.

150 years ago people read anything and everything they could find. Newspapers would be read, passed around, and read again and again, until they literally fell apart. Those that were fortunate enough to have a book . . . most commonly classics by Plutarch or Sir Walter Scott . . . read and reread them over and over. But what I find the most fascinating is that in almost every saddle bag you’d find a Bible. Those Bibles weren’t the dust covered tomes like you might find lying on the coffee table or end table of some of our homes. They were dog-eared, coming-apart-at-the-seems, read-to-death Bibles.

Now I think I understand why we were once a nation of sheep dogs, but now we’re mostly just a nation of sheep.