Observations of The Body

1 Corinthians 12:12-26

• Each part has a unique purpose.
• No part can take the place of or be another part. Even your left hand, though similar to your right, cannot be a right hand.
• All parts are equally important for the body to act in its full potential. Yes, damage to an eye may have a more drastic effect than damage to a little finger, but both are hindrances and both keep the body from full potential.
• The rest of the body compensates for a lame part. The right leg bears the weight of an injured left knee. The blind person's senses of smell and hearing are heightened.
• Each part is cared for equally. (Don't believe me? Then explain pedicures to me. Or toilet paper.)
• The body has a central nervous system that is in control. It knows every part of the body and its purpose. It knows the strengths and weaknesses of each part and calls on the right part to complete each task. It makes beneficial adjustments without us even knowing it. It knows the needs of each part. It prepares the rest of the body for the future.
• Some of the most vital parts of the body are unseen.
• When the body makes a decision all parts comply and are affected by the decision. One part doesn't abandon ship.
• If one part is injured and another part becomes injured the first part doesn't hurt as bad any more (sympathy).
• A strong foundation is very important. (Just ask an elite athlete or an accident victim learning to walk again about the importance of leg strength.)

I'll pose these questions and let you make the appropriate applications of the analogy:

What bodies are you a part of professionally, relationally/socially, spiritually? What is your part in those bodies? What is your relationship like with the central nervous system? Are you obedient? Do you support and submit to it? Are you the central nervous system? If so, what's your relationship like with the parts?

Please add your observations of The Body as a comment to this post.

Trifles of Life

A friend asked me the other day what made me the most happy. My immediate reaction was to list everything that I like and enjoy doing and then choose my favorite from the list. But as I sifted through the list none of the items stuck out above the rest. Instead, each brought a different positive feeling to the surface. One energized while another aroused adrenaline. One put me at peace while another was fun. One made me feel important while another made me feel accomplished.

Stumped by my friend's question I began to think happy was too vague and too shallow of a descriptor. A lot of things can be described as happy, but it doesn't seem to be enough to capture the full sense of the emotion. I was relieved to know I had successfully eluded his question, so I went for a bike ride. That's when it hit me.

The things that make me the most happy are the trifles of life. The little things that don't seem to matter and that are too small to count. The things that don't make sense but just are. The things that are uninhibited and uninfluenced. The things that seem out of place or that aren't meant to be funny but you can't help it to smile.

The trifles of life. It's the contagious smile to or from a stranger. It's the unconditional love from a dog. It's the uninhibited excitement expressed by a child. It's running into an old friend. It's an unexpected visitor. It's a squirrel digging for a nut or watching a bird build a nest. It's the rain patter on a roof. It's the smell of something new or the taste of your favorite meal. It's a cold shower or a swimming pool on a hot day. It's loud music while cruising down the highway and it's the peaceful silence in nature. It's coasting down a huge hill on your bike, the wind offering a feeling of freedom and escape and flying.

The things that make me the most happy are things no man could have created.

Trifles make the sum of life.

--Dickens

Thanks to Kyle Lantz for posing the question and my uncle Charlie Cromwell for giving me the answer over a year and a half ago.

Respect the Process, Appreciate the Struggle

About this time last year I posted an entry titled Dreamers. At the time I was a college senior on the brink of graduation sitting around a campfire with peers discussing visions for the future. As I reread that post today I can’t help but wonder if I’m falling into that trap of conforming to society’s standards. With a year of exposure to the “real world” I am now more aware of the challenges faced when pursuing dreams. A year ago I was a college senior arrogant enough to believe I could overcome pressures that stalled so many before me. Now I’m aware enough to recognize the obstacles in living counterculturally and wise enough to know there is more to face.

One of the great lessons from this year is that no dream will be realized overnight. I am not changing the world within a year after graduation. First, it won’t happen on my time anyway. God has a perfect plan with perfect timing. Anything of significance will be the work of God’s Kingdom and will require assistance from God. Second, anything of significance is a process. Goeff Colvin suggests the law of 10 years in his book Talent is Overrated which says any elite performer in his/her respective field (music, athletics, art, business, etc.) requires at least 10 years of focused, purposeful, deliberate practice to be considered ‘elite.’ Jonas Salk spent eight years researching and testing different vaccines before developing a cure for polio. John Wooden was a head coach for 28 years (11 high school, two at Indiana State and 15 at UCLA) before winning his first championship (he went on to win 10).

Besides, the joy is in the process anyway. Think about it. We spend so much of our time aspiring to make it to “the top,” but if you look at the majority of CEOs or presidents you’ll find very few that are under 30 years old. In fact, I would guess most of them are over 40. We are bent towards ‘arriving’ as quickly as possible; to have the corner office, be called boss and be in charge. But realistically we will probably spend more time preparing and climbing than actually sitting on top. So, we might as well find joy in the process.

Paul says in Philippians 3, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Our entire life is a process, a journey. A spiritual journey. A professional journey. A relational journey. A personal journey. It’s unrealistic to have a goal to change the world. But we can be better today than yesterday, and we can make the world adjacent to us a better place.

What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are; and what we are will be the rsult of previous years of self-discipline.

--H.P. Liddon

"Ordinary Radical"

I had the opportunity to hear Shane Claiborne speak last night. Claiborne is the author of two books, The Irresistible Revolution and Jesus for President, but is probably best known for his work in social justice.

The evening had three parts to it: 1) Claiborne's address to a large audience at which I took a page full of notes including one liners, new analogies and challenging questions; 2) An hour to reflect on his message where I muddled his thoughts with my preconceived ideas; 3) A question and answer session (which was actually just an answer session because the questions were predetermined) where I took away the overriding message of the night, that Shane Claiborne is an ordinary radical.

His self-proclaimed descriptor has two parts:

Ordinary Radical. Shane is just another dude. He has a goofy sense of humor. He expressed a disinterest in waking up at 5 a.m. I'm sure there are people who rub him the wrong way and there's probably some food he doesn't like. He joked about Mother Theresa and the amish (not degrading though) and the trifles of life.

The community he has established isn't so magical either. Similar to other programs it has structure and organization. It has marketing and brings in money. He has sessions and classes and services. He has a bank account and a budget and rules.

Ordinary Radical. The only thing that makes Claiborne radical is that what he's doing is countercultural. The structure of his community is not about hierarchy and power, but about true community. The money earned is distributed towards needs rather than business growth. What he does goes against what's considered normal. In fact, if you asked him he'd tell you that what he's doing only makes sense. Claiborne should probably be considered un-ordinary because he's actually acting upon the frustrations he has with the church, something the majority of us just complain about or use as an excuse to disassociate from it. He's taking the spark God set in his heart and igniting it into a fire.

Most of us have visions to change the world, but become overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and instead, conform to the world. What Claiborne is doing doesn't happen overnight, but it starts right now, right where we are. It begins by picking up trash in the parking lot on our way inside rather than watching it blow by or helping the old lady with her groceries or giving some spare change to a homeless person. As we dig deeper into the Word and become closer to God's heart our commitment grows. Now we are inviting the homeless to dinner with us. We are cutting the mower-less neighbor's yard as an extension of our own. As our relationship with God grows stronger still we become creative and more invested in rejecting what the world calls normal and accepting what God calls right. It will all seem radical to everyone else, but we'll think it's just ordinary.

Jesus Isn't Santa Claus

Our society seems to live in this pattern of a pendulum. We swing to one side and then recognize the weaknesses of the situation and swing to the extreme on the other side. Unfortunately, things are rarely black and white. I'm believing more and more in the quality of balance.

My parents' generation and older seem to live an "Old Testament faith," if you will, where the fear of God and reverence for God rule their spiritual lives. My generation has swung to the opposite extreme where the focus is on the personal love, kindness, caring and compassion of our best friend Jesus. To be honest, we've gotten a little out of hand. Maybe even a little too comfortable with the creator of the universe. News flash: Jesus is not your home boy!

My biggest frustration with this side of the pendulum is that we have turned Christianity into a lifestyle/religion of soft people. Take note of this thought: Jesus, the face of our religion, the one we follow, the person we want to become more like, was a tough S.O.B. (for lack of a better term)

You see, we have the tendency to make Him out to be Jolly Ole St. Nick with rosy cheeks, a twinkle in his eye and a frost-nipped nose. We see Him as our genie in a bottle who will come down the chimney and deliver everything we wished for. But that's not Him at all.

Our savior lived in the world amidst evil and temptation. He dined with, spent the night with, and befriended the people who were most looked down upon. He was insulted and mocked. He was physically beaten and spit on. He was falsely accused of things by the hypocrites He preached to. He was betrayed and denied by friends.

He was as shrewd as snakes, escaping town when the community was plotting to kill Him. He was good to the evil ones and harder on the "good" ones. He rebuked those who were in the wrong and didn't hold a grudge, but forgave when they repented.

You see, our savior, the one we say we want to emulate, to become more like, wasn't a passive, "excuse me", everything-will-be-okay guy. He was tough, strong and a fighter. He spent every day at His very best, calling others to the same - everyday, His best. Good enough never was. He was firm in His values - everyday. He wasn't full of magic pixy dust hoping everyone would just get along. There was an intent, a purpose, a direction for His life and He was set on taking others with Him.

We're Not Busy, We're Called

I've been every eager lately to tell everyone how busy I am all of the time. I want to share how I spend 12 hours a day in the office and plenty of time on the weekends and at least three nights a week on the road. Neglecting to take into account the efficiency of my work, I subliminally make it a goal to prove I am busier than the person I'm talking with. What I've come to realize is that everyone else is doing the same thing. Everyone is busy.

Now, this seems like a perfect opportunity to launch into a convicting message about not cluttering our lives with busyness and taking more personal time to spend with our family and with God. That all sounds good on Sunday morning but is difficult to apply Monday through Friday when you're trying to survive in the business world during a recession, or when you're trying to meet a construction deadline, or when there are hospital visits to make, or patients who need care.

No, my point is not to pull you from so many hours of work or discourage you from pouring yourself into your job. My point is to encourage you to remember why you are doing what you are doing. Yes, I agree with the importance of structuring a day in which you spend quality time with family, in the Word with God and alone, but I also believe our "busyness" should not be something we agonize over.

Pastor Steve DeNeff of College Wesleyan Church in Marion, Ind. referred to a survey by Heather Arendt when addressing this issue. Arendt identified three kinds of toil: the rituals, the labor, and the calling (DeNeff's terminology, Arendt's concept). The rituals are the daily actions necessary to keep us going like eating, cleaning, taking care of ourselves, etc. The labor refers to a person's career. DeNeff describes it as "things that transcend rituals, [and] seek to perpetuate or preserve goodness, truth and form/beauty." He says people not only do things because they are good at them "but because they are trying to push back the encroaching darkness, to stall entropy, [and] to make life better for others." The third level is the calling. It's our pursuit of excellence through daily, sometimes mundane, details in order to make an imprint on the future and leave a legacy. Arendt observed that over the last 400 years the top two levels, the calling and the labor, have gradually melted down into daily rituals and have drained the dignity, meaning and hope out of our labor and our calling.

The point is do not allow your busyness to turn into agony and stress. They aren't just "to-do lists." They represent your chance to impact this world. Our jobs, our work should not be a drag. It is our chance to positively effect His Kingdom, to push back the encroaching darkness. It is our calling.

The Power of Competition

Competition can be a mysterious thing that the average person doesn’t even recognize is happening. But the true competitors always sense it, in fact, they seek it. And they seek it because they understand its benefit. They understand that true competition is the only way your best stuff is revealed. The average person sees competition only when it’s on stage and under the lights; only when there’s 10 seconds left and you’re down one score, or when the starter says, “Take your mark.” But for the competitor, competition happens every day. It happens alone, in training, when you’re just trying to beat yesterday’s score. Or it happens in a practice session. Two guys trying to complete the same task. They don’t ask about each other’s progress, but they know. They aren’t talking trash or even speaking. When one wins, he’s not rubbing it in the other’s face. In fact, he won’t even mention it, to anyone, because it’s not about beating the other guy. It’s more about digging deeper inside yourself and bringing your best stuff. The other guy just acts as a standard, a measuring stick, the carrot in front of the ox. The satisfaction is that you gave more than you thought you had and the competition brought out the best in you today. Competition isn’t an evil thing. It’s not where people get angry or rude. It’s not the root of hatred. Competition is the driving force, the inspiration, the truth teller. The achievers seek it out, understand its power and thrive in it; the mediocre avoid it, dismiss it, or crumble under its pressure; the fans don’t even know it’s happening.