Stranger than Fiction

I've just completed watching perhaps the best movie I've ever watched. It was so striking and compelling to me and so rich with the thickness of truth, I will watch it again...and again.
 
In this movie, Kay Eiffel is an author who kills off the heroes in her books. She is struggling to complete her book because she cannot find an acceptable way to kill Harold (perhaps she is looking for the heroic death?). Yet, Harold tracks her down and asks her to reconsider and she begins to contemplate the implications of her part in the story. As she sits with the professor near the end of the movie, she explains her sudden change from one ending to another ending:

Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die. And then dies. But if a man does know he's about to die and dies anyway. Dies- dies willingly, knowing that he could stop it, then- I mean, isn't that the type of man who you want to keep alive?

The conversation between the professor and Harold after the professor had read the book was also revealing. During the conversation Harold was asking if there was any way out because Harold was sure the professor would have a solution and Harold was ready to do what he said. I imagined Jesus, in his most human moment asking that, too. He knew what he was going to do and in that moment, Harold became more resolute as well.

Men of Valor. They are rare, because most of us are trying to hang onto our lives so tightly that our lives are of no benefit to others. I'd imagine there was a moment of complete freedom and peace that Jesus experienced as a human when he surrendered his life. Not in the moments in heaven when discussions first began a long time ago. I refer to the actual, impending and inevitably of death which was closing fast on Him.

There were so many moments in this film that grabbed me, I do not think I can pick out just one, yet one is worth pointing to as a truth which I hope would resonate with any man or woman.

Harold Crick is about to die, he knows it and is about his tasks leading up to his death. He is going to willingly lay down his life because it is, as he tells Kay Eiffel after he read her manuscript, "a beautiful story". He's read the book and realized his story is beautiful. Death as poetry. Courage is freedom. Valor is peace.

This is the first time I've looked at death in terms of poetry, of beauty. But then I am reminded of the Psalmist who wrote as much in Psalm 116:15. Yet, what is even more profound is Harold doing what must be done, fulfilling the order of things, and laying down his life. I cannot put into words what this did in me, only that it struck me as profoundly Christ like, of giving what I cannot keep to gain something I cannot lose; of willingly laying down in order to truly live. Try to carry that truth with you daily.

Of course, daily dying is what God calls me to...today. Today is all we receive and it is a gift. There is much to be appreciated about today and it is all started by the people around us whom God has woven into the fabric of us. For me, it starts with my wonderful wife and my two dear precious sons. I cannot imagine a sweeter thought right now in this moment than them. It is in this moment I am so awakened to the reality of God and his work to orchestrate the events leading to each of the events in my life...which has led me to this moment.

As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And, so it was, a wristwatch saved Harold Crick.

God saves our lives, not just once at the Cross, but each day, with his handiwork by which He has put people in our story to make it complete. God makes our lives complete, fills it up with himself and I have no other end but in him. Yet, God also grants us today with a tapestry of events which, one could argue, could have be different if only we would have done something sooner, later, last year? Well, God can change your destiny. He can change the ending of your story.  He changed mine. He is the author of life and death and he gives daily hints. The awakening to his hints are the great delights along the way.

MLK Day 2012: The Civil Rights Movement, The Left & The Legacy of MLK

MLK Day 2012: The Civil Rights Movement, The Left & The Legacy of MLK

Walk Off the Earth with "Somebody I Used to Know"

I Wouldn't Do It Like That Guy!

I'm right, you're wrong.

I have never read Kierkegaard but in quotes, so when I got "Practice in Christianity" from Cory this Christmas, I was excited to start. So far, I've not been disappointed.


I'm going to go through some of the main ideas and items I've highlighted, mainly for posterity sake. I always have book notes, and eventually, my book notes will go onto this site so I can have them in one place as opposed to being scattered in various folders.

Soren Kierkegaard (known the rest of the way as SK) wrote "Practice in Christianity" in 1848 and the main thrust of the beginning of the book was to lay out Christ as a contemporary to every man in every generation. It is rather easy to look at Christ as a historical figure and keep him in annals of history relegating him to 2,000 years ago. However, as SK points out, he is not distant, but here, now; able to transcend any year or heart, if the individual is willing and not offended.

I'm offended and experiencing great indignation at your comment

SK's prayer is

Lord Jesus Christ, would that we, too, might become contemporary with you in this way, might see you in your true form and in the surroundings of actuality as you walked here on earth, not in the form in which an empty and meaningless or a thoughtless romantic or a historical talkative remembrance has distorted you, since it is not the form of abasement in which the believer sees you, and it cannot possibly be the form of glory in which no one as yet has seen you. Would that we might see you as you are and were and will be until your second coming in glory, as the sign of offense and object of faith, the lowly man, yet the Savior and Redeemer of the human race.

This offense SK refers to is the first time I've come across the idea of offense and pride working together to form a wall built to keep a man from stooping to belief in God. I say stoop because a man's belief in anything usually has to pass his pride first.

"I simply cannot believe in 'x' because it is silly, beneath my vast understanding and intellect". It is not articulated as such, but lived out in a certain haughtiness, through a consistent puffed out chest and raised chin. The mental picture of pride in that respect is found in all of us in various disciplines of life. For some it is the metaphysical, for some it is political and for the simple like me, it comes in the form of sports (teams, instruction, allegiances)

And in the most profound sense, pride is manifest when help is offered and summarily rejected. Whether the help is rejected because of the source or the manner in which the help was offered ("it is not the way I wanted it!") isn't relevant. We find Naaman initially rejecting help for his leprosy because of the manner in which help was given. In 2 Kings 5:1-19 the story is written. Naaman was a proud man and wanted a dignified way to be healed, maybe even a quick fix. What he got was something he had not planned. However, there is no easy remedy for what ails you and I.

Dip in the Jordan seven times? Inconceivable! Naaman's pride made him incredulous to the task. That is us.

Naaman without leprosy & pride

As an aside, If you were tasked with bringing a rebel back to your camp, what methods or manner would you employ?

I see this in the coaching profession. A coach makes a decision with personnel or play calling and every one not on the coaching staff (and perhaps those on the staff) will eventually say, "I wouldn't have played him" or "I wouldn't have called that". It's inevitable. That's what armchair coaches do, they second guess. Naaman second guessed the coaching staff of Elisha and God, we second guess others and at some point in your life, you've second guessed God.

But what if you were God? What would you do to set out guidelines, expectations without offending? This:?


In a fantastic scene, Bruce loses his pride and discovers humility ( the key to belief )
A picture of humility.

Bruce figured it out, lost his pride and responded to the invitation SK points out in his first chapter: There is One asking you to "Come here" because He has what you need.
SK writes in the first chapter titled, "The Invitation":

But ordinarily it is the case that the person who is able to help must be searched for, and once he is found it may be hard to gain access to him, and when one has gained access one perhaps must still plead with him for along time, and when one has pleaded with him for a long time, he perhaps at long last lets himself be prevailed upon- that is, he sets a high price on himself.

A person only asks others to come when that person is willing and able to help. Invitations come from those who have something or someone to give. They are requesting your presence to something they think you would like or need. The inviter reserves to the right to invite whom they like. The selection of the inviter is up to the inviter. Pretty simple, eh? So, Jesus has invited all to "Come here" under no conditions, no matter your condition. Jesus knows all the objections & excuses. Apparently, it doesn't matter to him.

He also isn't worried about how many will come, either. Is there ever "too many" for Him? So, from our perspective on invitations, we are usually attentive to "who is going?" and that may partially influence our decision to accept the invitation or reject it. Perhaps that is why Jesus reserves the right for him to judge who is fit to be with him. For if we were left to decide, who knows who would be there?

That's why the Cross is offensive and God remains the only one who can rightly be offended at sin, provide a solution and simply say to all, "Come". He doesn't ask any of us if we'd prefer that someone or some group  remain uninvited. Since He is the one offended, he chooses whom he will invite.
Everyone.

What an enormous variety, what almost limitless differences among the invited guests...So, then the invitation goes out, along the highways and along the lonely ways, and along the loneliest way-yes, where there is a way so lonely that only one person knows it, one solitary person. XII, 11

SK writes for three pages on the why the invitation hits each one of us at our own crossroads. We have our own roads in which we travel, yet common to most men. There are wide roads such as despair and loneliness that Jesus has been along, yet he calls you and I to a narrow road, a road of rest.

To the ones he invites, it matters not at this point whether you are aware of your sin. He understands your condition, whether you acknowledge it or not. That's why some get offended. He offers the invitation and some say, "What, me? Why? I have no need of such help!" and they turn around in a huff. "Why the nerve of such a man to say that I need what he has! I've never been so offended in my life!" and off you go, to suck your thumb in the corner, satisfied you know better. Good luck with all...that.

SK continues

And if you are conscious of yourself as a sinner, he will not question you about it, he will not break the bruised reed even more, but will raise you up when you accept him; he will not identify you by contrast, by placing you apart from himself so that your sin becomes even more terrible; he will grant you a hiding place with himself, and hidden in him he will hide your sins. For he is a friend of sinners. He walks- but no, he has walked, but infinitely farther than any shepherd...Indeed, he walked the infinitely long way from being God to becoming man; he walked that way in order to seek sinners!

SK continues further with the implication of the Inviter seeing the need of all he invited, thus everyone, as weary and heavy burdened, wretched and poor. As soon as you see yourself as those, you will have no problem accepting the invitation. However, it is a big problem when you don't think you have a reason to accept the invitation. Why would you if didn't think you were poor, wretched, sick and dying?

Self assessment, accurately executed, will quickly set you on the path of humility. The longer one goes without it, the farther down the road one gets, making the path back that much longer. The problem is once so much time is invested down a road, the time itself becomes the main thing keeping one on a particular road.

"Come here!" He assumes those who labor and are burdened feel the burden to be ever so heavy, feel the labor to be heavy and now are standing there irresolute and sighing, one person looking in all directions for help, another with downcast eyes because he discerned no comfort, a third staring upward as if it might still come from heaven-but all of them searching. 

Which of the three shoes are you wearing or wore before you were found? Let's not make the mistake of saying we found Him. No, he found us, offered himself and we accepted the help. Whether it be a simple sigh or a determined walk back from a wrong turn, God receives them both as an RSVP to his invitation for us to "Come here"

Wither 2011?

One more year goes by and I will make it a point to catalog what is happening in 2012. It will start with Soren Kierkegaard's book, "Practice in Christianity" and exposition of it, as well as a new struggle: A coach, now a parent watching other people coach. What fun that is!

I am beginning to understand a parent's frustration with my profession! Heh.

Fly You Fools!

As I was out running tonight through the trails near our house, the scene from Lord of the Rings where Gandolf was fighting the giant demon in the Mines of Moria stuck in my head. Gandolf's last words to Frodo before being pulled into the abyss were, "Fly, you fool!"

The reason for my thought was on the issue of sin and how important those words are and emphasized even more so in James 4:7 and 1 Corinthians 6:18. However, in one verse (James) the devil is fleeing and in the other verse (Corinthians), it is us doing the fleeing.

The key is the fleeing. In order to be victorious over sin, someone has to go. Either it is the devil or it is me. The trouble with most sin is the neither one is doing the fleeing, which is a pretty good indicator of the familiarity and comfort each has with the other.

That is a sobering and shameful thought, right?

We can't hang over the abyss, gazing into sin without something going terribly wrong. We've got to flee and it really doesn't matter the pace, only the direction.

It's pretty easy to understand that principle when I'm running. I am heading toward something and running away from the starting point. In most cases, it's as simple as getting up and going to defeat sin. But, the interesting thing is this: I'm more interested in staying in physical shape, so I don't need much motivation to get going. But, in the spiritual sense, I'm more slothful; less apt to 'get moving' and more apt to think, "eh, I'm too tired" and then...TROUBLE.

Well, perhaps we need to be reminded to stop looking over the edge and get out of the cave, into the light by being reminded by the Spirit to "Fly, you fools!"

Dear Dad

Dad,

Today is Father's Day and I'm so glad to be the father of two incredible young men. My oldest, Zachariah, is tender hearted, conscientious, thoughtful, considerate, and he has this dry wit thing going on;  with tremendous leadership characteristics as well as being a graceful athlete. Most of all, he seems to be finding his his own way with the Lord, wrestling with the call of Christ and embracing the things of God. I'm proud of him for so being so much more than I could ever have dreamed to be when I was his age.

My youngest, Noah, is passionate, kind toward all, loyal, diligent, wise beyond his years and peaceful. He works hard at whatever his hands find to do and he is able to articulate why and what he believes about God and life. He has a deep and abiding hunger for the things of God and that makes my heart rejoice. He already has more A's on his report card than I did in my entirely way too long educational journey.

You would be very proud of them, too. Even more so, you may have looked me in the eye and told me you were proud of me and how my boys are growing up. That would have been a great moment in the life of a father who sometimes wonders, "How am I doing? Am I doing this right?"

Of course, since most examples are caught, rather than taught, you missed out on giving me that example. I've had to rely on the examples around me, the men who've poured a little bit of their life into mine. You didn't know these men, but they filled in admirably in your stead.

Grandpa Erbes, who took care of his own daughter and grandson for the first few years while driving me around in his International Harvester truck. He came to my baseball games when I was older and I smell his cologne sometimes in random places and it always brings a smile. 

Jeff Totten, my first little league coach, who was one of the strongest and gentlest men I remember. He had a big, bushy mustache and the hairiest arms I'd ever seen. I remember him talking about Jesus and wanting to know Jesus just because of how he carried himself.

My Uncle Dale, who played chess with me, bought me books like "Man of Steel: The story of Terry Bradshaw" covertly planting the gospel seeds that would bear fruit some 15 years later. I remember staying over at his house watching Michigan in the Bluebonnet Bowl and getting to hold the remote! (Big remote, too being that it was 1977!)

Duane Postema always made sure to make me feel like a Postema (the mighty dutch!) and came to games even well after the marriage between my mother and him crashed and burned.

John Thiele, my next door neighbor who coached our Red Arrows Rocket football teams for three years. He always made sure I was on his team and always made sure I had a ride to practices and games.

Randy Commeret, one of my Junior high coaches, who taught me a great lesson in 7th grade. I forgot my stirrups for one of our baseball games and he benched me. He didn't think twice about it and his reasoning was I wasn't prepared. I never forgot any part of my uniform for any sport I participated in from that day forward.

Dick VanderKamp, my high school baseball coach, who drove me around in the summer, tried his best to keep me eligible during high school, threw BP to me in the early morning before school and believed I could be more than a 'bad actor' someday.

My summer coaches, Al Ware and Dick Klunder, who were peaceful, strong men who knew baseball and knew young men. They were a quiet, steady influence on me and I was better for being around them.

My college coaches did the best they could with me. The ebb and flow of my locations, emotions and dependability made their jobs a bit tougher. Although I was a good ballplayer, I was not a good man.
I look back with a sense of loss because I know the impact I could have had on those around me if I was walking with God, growing in grace and knowledge, and acting like a man, not a boy...a foolish one, at that. 

Do you think you could have made a difference? Maybe we would have sat down, talked about how I was playing, what you saw that could make me better and then then reinforced the truth about servant leadership. Maybe the examples I would have observed in your life would have left an indelible mark, the imprint of a father's touch.

Do you think you could have made a difference? Maybe you would let me know my wife needs me to be more compassionate, selfless and tender hearted. I can figure out these things, but the delay switch is on and it needs to be fixed.

I know there have been times when I have hurt my sweet sons with reckless words. Those moments have been scarce, but they still haunt me. I sometimes wonder if your example would have helped me be better than I was in those moments.

I was and still am a fiery competitor. I am aghast at my lack of maturity in some situations and ashamed of my moments of tempestuous behavior. I sometimes wonder if you would have made a difference, directed me down the path of wisdom a bit sooner so God wouldn't have such a big reclamation project on his hands. 

For most of my life, I've never spent more than a few minutes pondering you and where you are, if you're alive and what you are doing. It's not on my bucket list, or any other list for that matter. But, today is Father's day and I cannot understand any father not wanting to be near their son(s).

People ask me if I would ever want to see you, meet you, contact or hear from you. Honestly, my response is: "Only if he has left an inheritance of monetary value." Sad isn't it? That's about all the value you could offer now, since the most important part of what a father can give, you abandoned many years ago.

Knowing what I know about God's love for his own son and my love for my sons, I cannot fathom you walking away so many years ago. When I saw Zachariah for the first time, I didn't want to run away, I held onto him and never wanted to let him go. When Noah was born, I held him and never wanted to let him go. Now, at night when I pray over them and bless them there are times I don't want to leave their side. I want the moment to linger, to go on and I don't want to take my hand from their hand.

I know it's all a gift from God. I understand I need to seek Him first to be the man I'm supposed to be; as a husband and as a father. But sometimes, I fall a short and could really use that voice of wisdom that is tangible and trustworthy.

There is a promise written in the Psalms about God being a father to the fatherless. Technically, I had a father around for intermittent times, but I can look back and see God's hand in it all. I believe whatever the enemy planned for hardship, God has made good. I rest in that.

I would trade many things to go back and see what life would have been like with a Dad ever present to help me navigate through adolescence and beyond. But if that trade would mean losing the joy of being a Father to Zach and Noah, it would never be enough.

So, Dad, I just wanted to let you know I missed you...and you missed me.