Let's dance

"Daddy, let's dance." Ethan calls from the living room to me as I stand kicking my shoes off into the closet. In background Madonna's "Holiday" plays in the background. While I'm not a Madonna guy, some of early stuff is still pretty good. Anyway, I see Ethan dancing by himself on the carpet moving his body in circles, one hand in the air, not quite to the beat of the music. But, he's feeling the music. He recognized that music pulls movement out of us if we let it.

"Daddy, let's dance." he says again.

I oblige. We take hands and dance in the middle of the living room floor to the music. We move our arms. We go in circles. Daddy gets dizzy. Ethan laughs. There is a beauty to simply moving randomly in a space. We weren't on the beat. Our dancing wasn't anything to look at. We definately wouldn't win a dance contest, and believe me, I'd never enter one. But, what I learned tonight was the freedom and the lack of self-conciousness a 3 year old possess (I'm rounding his age up). He is simply him and invites me to have fun with him. Ah, the lessons children teach.

This week I've been praying a simple prayer all week from my devotional book. Part of the prayer reads, "Help us that we may serve you with the cheerfulness and gladness of children, delighting ourselves in you and rejoicing in all that is to the honor of your name..." I think God answered my prayer tonight teaching me that there are times in life to simply dance, to move freely with little regard to the opinions of others; to move freely to the rhythms of life all around us. Can I be awake and listen enough to hear the beats of life? Or am I asleep, bored, or taking life WAY too seriously. After all, life's too serious to take seriously.

And yes, I prayed "us." I included all the people on my prayer list in the "us." People like my family, my close friends, former friends and classmates from HL, people at ASLC, etc...

I hope God answers the prayer in your life as he did in mine.

"May I have this dance?" God

Running after...

Tonight I realized that there are days that I am not a follower of Jesus, I am one that chases after him because I've stopped and he's kept walking. I'm standing in a worship service tonight singing and praying and I had this image of me running after Christ. All I can see is the back of his head and the back of his robe pretty far ahead of me. When I get to him, all I can do is breathlessly touch his robe. That is enough. He turns to me with a gaze of acceptance. My heart was moved.

In that moment, I realized that sin pulls me away from Jesus. It makes me stop. "Ohhh...something shiny" and I wander away from being close to the One. I realize that with Jesus, I am so much like my almost 3 year old son, easily distracted by stuff. I am so easily distracted causing me to wander.

So, I start and stop. I walk, I stop, and then I run. Don't know what I'd do if I ever lost sight of Jesus. So far so good. I'd feel that panic of being lost. But, would Jesus search for me? Yes, I know so. He said so. Would I search for Jesus? Yes. I hope so...

Hey Jesus, wait up. Sorry. Got a bit sidetracked.

Getting a sucker

Last night my 2 year and nine month old son, (he's not two or two and a half and yet not three. Why do the months matter when a person is that young? When do we stop counting the months? After all, I'm 35, and I'll tell people that I am 35 all year until I turn 36. In May I won't tell people, "I'm 35 1/2"...for another blog. Now back to this one.) Ethan got his haircut. He sat in my lap and sat pretty much still allowing Sherry to cut his hair. At one point while the chair was turned to the side, he had a chance to see what was behind us normally if we were facing forward towards the mirror. Sherry says, "Are you looking at those pretty girls standing over there?" No response. His eyes were fixed in the general direction of the girls. Eventually he says, "I'm going to get a sucker."

"That's right buddy, you will after you get your haircut." I said.

He said it again, "I'm going to get a sucker." Then we realized that Ethan was looking at the girls, he noticed the basket full of little dum-dum suckers. Ahhh...it's all about the suckers.

Forget the people, he's all about the sweet taste of the sucker.

Is there a lesson here? Do we look past the beauty of people or the people around us for the momentary pleasures of things?

Comedy in truth

I have this book on my shelf called, "Truth in Comedy," a great book, considered by some to be the bible of improv theater. Del Close's idea is that comedy comes out of reality. He's right. There are funny things happening right underneath our noses. It's just a matter of paying attention to them or stopping to think about our day. After all, how many times have we told another person (spouse, friends, co-worker) about our day and we find ourselves laughing at what happened. If we get out of our own little worlds and out of our heads and deal with the moments of reality around us, we may find ourselves laughing daily at the oddities and complexities of life. Now, I am not saying that we laugh at people. That's just cruel. I never want to laugh at someone...I want to laugh with someone about the reality of the moment.

Life's too serious to take seriously. There is joy and laughter right under our noses.

For example, this morning I helped by son get his cereal. One way I motivate him to eat is to point out that I am eating the same thing he is eating. So I said this morning, "Look Ethan, daddy's eating this cereal and so is Ethan!" Ethan says, "Yeah!" and sticks his spoon into the bowl pulling out a few fake apple jacks (we go with the generic Target brand cereal). Now, Ethan didn't make me burst out in laughter, but his voice and his simple excitement when he realized that he and I were eating the same thing, brought a smile to my face and a chuckle to my throat. What a great way to start the day.

Lifting my soul

I've been living with Psalm 25 this week, reading it each day once. It's a wonderful discipline that go over and over a text. God opens new doors and insights each time. What seems commonplace becomes interesting and insightful. For example, I stopped the other day on a phrase I have sung and read for most of my adult life as a Christian, "To you O Lord I lift up my soul" (v1). Another translation puts it this way, "In you, Lord my God, I put my trust." Clearer, but I think I like the first one better. Here's why. I get the picture of a man lifting the word "soul" above his head representing what is at the core of his being. His soul. It's as if he's offering to God what and who he is. (A similar picture is a tribal person lifting the sacrifice to the heavens as an offering to the gods.) The question for me is this, "Do I have the ability to lift the core of who I am to God? Do I have the desire to do so, or am I content with lifting my money to God or my time to God?" I guess it depends on what I believe is at the center of my being. Do I exist because of money? Do I exist because of what people think of me? Do I exist because time is at my disposal? Or, do I exist because I have a soul. Look at a dead body sometime and compare that to someone who is alive. There is a marked difference, something is missing. The essence of who they are as a person has left the shell of the body. It is a noticable change. Can I offer me, all of me, the essence of who I am, to God?

"$2.31. Hmm. It's up a few cents." I thought as I drove by a BP today. I surprised by my reaction. It wasn't that long ago, maybe a year, that I thought, "$2.31!!! What the...&U*&@*^@*&@"

My how time changes things. But it still ticks me off. I feel helpless in the face of big oil companies. What can one man do? Ride my bike? Stop buying gas? No. My only choice is to get used to it. The price is here to stay.

What's going on in our lives that seem wrong at first, but after a while we begin to think, "It's not THAT bad. It could be worse." What's going on, what pressure is on us that we feel helpless to fight and we feel like we have no alternative but to give into the pressure. Maybe it's an addiction. Maybe it's pressure at work. Maybe it's a toxic or abusive relationship.
In the face of a large oil company, I don't have a lot of say in the price of gas. I know that, unless I become a revolutionary and muster the American public around the cause. Not going to happen.

But when we feel powerless to face forces in our own lives...forces out to destroy us...we can do something. We could give up and give in, or we can surrender to the all powerful God who can do more than we can ever ask or image for us. There is help. There is hope. There is a power greater than ourselves. There is a being in this universe, who, as one theologian put it, if he stop thinking of us would cease to exist. This being...God seen in the face of Jesus. He's preoccupied with our health, with our lives, with our relationships. Let him in and see what happens.