fourfeetsixinches

while on my way home from algona after meeting with lee laaveg for breakfast and long-overdue conversation, i drove past this old general- store-looking-thing in a little town called sexton. am guessing that not all that long ago this was a central location for all kinds of business transactions, casual meetings and conversations, and various other services. but today it looks like these photos. things change. some more quickly than others. tread is worn from the tires. containers are empty and thrown aside. toys discarded. the roof’s weight is pushing the sidewalls out of it’s way as gravity pulls it downward. the evidence of a once-thriving era is almost gone.

that was one of the things lee and i talked about. a decade where we worked closely together. a great season of growth and thriving. of imagining fresh, different ways of doing worship in the context of a more traditional church setting. using more of the language of the day, of the current culture, to express the timeless message of the gospel of jesus. but we have both moved on to other places. and we continue to think about ways to live out that same mode of operation. not hanging on to memories and trying to keep the same things going, but to imagine fresh and even unconventional ways of doing things.

like this building; the building itself was never the most vital part of it all. the lives and relationships and provisions and needs met were the real stuff of life there. it just happened inside the door that is ajar and under the now-falling roof. when it falls completely to the ground, the real life of it all does not have to be dead and gone with it.

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harriet doerr wrote that “one of the best things about aging is being able to watch imagination overtake memory.” i had to think about that statement for a while. imagination overtaking memory. i agree with harriet’s thoughts. and on the flip side i would suggest, that one of the worst things about aging can be “to watch memory overtake imagination.”

i don’t want the memories of how my life has been up to this point to have a crippling power over my imagination.  especially in regard to how i live in the present and look toward the future. i don’t want to be a slave to how things have always been. rather, to be open to the possibilities of how things can be from here on. i want to be able to imagine new and better things for tomorrow. to be open to all the possibilities…

  “see, i am doing a new thing! now it springs up, do you not perceive it? i am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”  – isaiah 43:19.

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these boxing gloves were attached to a gift received when i was born. somehow they have survived some fifty plus years. they now hang as ornaments on our christmas tree each year. sappy and sentimental perhaps, but there are a few things i like about them. first, they are made with meticulous detail. they are like actual boxing gloves in miniature scale. second, they have endured for over five decades, and i appreciate endurance. third, they remind me not only of parts of my personality, but also of others i have had the privilege of knowing over the course of my life.

i suppose to some degree by nature and to some degree by conditioning, i am a quiet fighter. generally not the one throwing the first punch or leading the charge. but i fight nevertheless. and i know many others who i consider to be quiet fighters. people who face battles that most others aren’t even aware of, yet they fight with intensity. with passion. with resolve. whether it be some emotional struggle that would overtake them if they didn’t fight it. or something physical. whether it be some scarring event from the past that continues to hold back,to hold us down, to limit, etc., the battle goes on. there is courage there that most are not aware of because they are also not aware that there is even an enemy at war inside of them.

for me, i’ve got what some people call “an obvious disability.” nice descriptor, huh? yet, it is obvious. mostly little kids and the occasional adult will ask why i’m in a wheelchair. why i can’t walk. what happened to me? kids ask and parents blush and apologize for them. but i think it’s a natural thing to do, really. i have some kind of obvious disability thing going on. people are curious about it.

these  boxing gloves remind me that a fight needs to continue. for all of us in one way or another. you may have an obvious or a hidden battle. you may be a quiet fighter or one that gets a little rambunctious about things. still, life asks us to fight for one thing or another. most every day. we’re asked to lean into things. to press on. to go against what feels easier to do but isn’t necessarily the courageous or healthy or loving thing to do. and…to never give up.

“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when has has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”    James 1:12

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one day earlier this week i was wide awake at 4:30 in the morning. brewed coffee early and finished reading a book by henry cloud called integrity. in the concluding chapter he makes this statement:

“you can literally get a ‘new past’ by doing something new today.”

i am not all that big on new year’s resolutions, but i do have to admit that i’m thinking more in the last weeks about the need for a bit of a fresh start. a redirection of some of my energies. a resetting of goals. a push to complete some things that have been trapped in dream-state rather than finding their way into more of a tangible reality. and although there is nothing all that magical about 2011 changing to 2012, it does seem to offer a starting line to run my race differently. and i do agree with dr. cloud in that the new things we attempt today do give us something new in our past.

i’ve been listening to the goo goo dolls sing a song called “better days” this afternoon:  http://youtu.be/i-kHleNYIDc   am enjoying it as i think and type here.

how quickly our moments are gone…how quickly the present becomes past. how mercilessly time waits for nothing. for no one. that said, our God offers us another start in the morning. forgives whatever we’ve done or not done that needs forgiving from today. that is worth asking for. i snapped this sunset over the hill behind our house this week because the colors caught my eye. and because it reminded me that the day was quickly becoming my past.

all throughout the scriptures there is a theme of God making things new. it is a new year now. a new day. a chance to do something new, break the status quo, and get “a new past” starting right in this moment. happy new year, friends!

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monday morning. the sunrise blazing it’s way through the window on our front door, painting with vibrant gold and orange hues. the leaded glass framing of the door window shows such straight and clean lines. much like i wanted to be able to start my day. to start my work week. organized. managed. respectably within my control. and i’m not typically even a control freak sort of guy. [even though mare would say i have my own particular kind of control thing going on…]

but as work days and work weeks will often do, this one seemed to grab hold of the straight clean lines of my attempts at organization and good intention, and scatter them. disorient them. throw them into what felt like a less-than organized state. sometimes even chaotic. as far as feelings go anyway.

this sunrise photo through the front entry door… i like to compare it to the sunset on the other side of our house. the honeysuckle windbreak creates its own kind of stained glass appearance. not so straight and clean in how its lines are laid out. but it is framed in beauty nevertheless. and it speaks of my reality sometimes much more than the sunrise through the eastern window. and most days i am caught between the views. the controlled and the uncontrolled. that’s just where i live life.

Lord, you order my days. and i want to trust that you don’t allow anything to cross my path that is not in some way a part of your purpose for me and for those i meet today. much of the time i prefer to see the world like the sunrise through the window. but i have also seen rich beauty in seeing life as the sunset through the windbreak. sometimes i tell clients that we are much less in control of the things in our lives than we think we are. that statement doesn’t always sit well. it doesn’t always sit well with the counselor either [if he is an honest one].

many times i want my life to look more like the sunrise through the window in my front door,  rather than like the sunset through the tangles of the windbreak in my back yard. both are a picture of beauty. both have a component of reality to them. but the glow through the tangles in the back yard is closer to reality much of the time. more natural. less controlled. less protected. and more the reality. more the reality of God being sovereign over all of life.

on any given day. any given week. what happens between the sunrises and the sunsets can be messy. confusing. seemingly random. but it is reality. and we do well to embrace both sides of it. both views.

i love what the writer of psalm thirty-one says in verse five: “i’ve put my life in your hands. you won’t drop me, you’ll never let me down.” those words remind me that i can live between these two views with meaning and purpose. and live with the friend written about in chapter fifteen of john, verse fifteen.

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