Tuesday = News Day: Episode 6 – I’ll trade you my hammer for your life?

Cameron Lyle. A name none of you may know, but one who impressed me immensely this last week in a piece of news I stumbled across on the internet.

Lyle is 21 years old. Two years ago, when he volunteered to have his mouth swabbed to join a bone marrow registry at his school’s cafeteria, he had no idea of any future implication it might have on his life and sporting career. He was told “there was a one in five million chance for a non-family match.”

When the call came that he was a match for someone dying from leukemia who would otherwise likely have less than six months to live, he decided straight away that it was a no brainer. In fact, when he realised this would put an end to his college athletic career [Cameron was a Division I athlete, focusing on shot putt and the hammer throw] he was the most nervous about breaking the news to his coach, Jim Boulanger, who had been his coach for four years:

“Here’s the deal,” Boulanger told Lyle. “You go to the conference and take 12 throws or you could give a man three or four more years of life. I don’t think there’s a big question here. This is not a moral dilemma. There’s only one answer.”

Boulanger said he’s “very proud” of his athlete.

You can read the rest of the article that alerted me to this courageous story here. 

This story reminded me how frustrated, and if I’m honest, angry I get at people who choose not to donate blood without any tangible reasoning. I have a friend who faints almost every time she gives; my mom who has often been turned away after having her finger pricked [by far the worst part] because she is unable to give on that occasion due to iron levels or blood pressure… And yet they both keep going. “I don’t get around to it,” “I don’t want to” and “I’m scared of needles” don’t seem to hold that much weight as arguments when you are comparing them to, “Someone may die.”

Whether it’s blood donating or bone marrow [which as far as I can recall is an extremely painful procedure] or even a kidney, may the story of Cameron inspire us in the right direction as to how we can get involved in other peoples’ lives for good.

[For next Tuesdays ‘Of burials, cicadas & the no no of pointing heavenwards’, click here]
[for last Tuesdays, Boston Bombing Context and Condolences, click here.]

Monday = Funday: Episode 6: The Human Ventriloquist Doll and a Boy with Tape on his Face

It’s a new Monday, which means my job is to find something fun or funny to help you start the new week with a smile on your face [or chocolate steri stumpi pouring out your nose]. How this process works is that i normally find something funny [eg. How Wild Animals eat their food] and store it for Monday because I think, ‘This will make people smile and/or laugh,’ and then the next five days on Facebook I see that same clip get shared by eleven thousand people, and so by Monday there are only two people who haven’t seen it ad one of them hates slapstick. But I will persevere…

This week’s comedienne that I found [or was reminded of] and put aside to share, was literally stuck on my timeline the very next day, and so I did what any normal person would do which was to shout at the person who tried to stick something funny on my wall. No, I really didn’t, although I think she may have thought I did. Obviously I am grateful that people are sticking genuinely funny things on my wall so keep on.

What I did do, however, was find a different clip to the one that was posted so it will seem at least a little bit original… and who knows, some of you may have missed Nina Conti [who in my opinion is the best ventriloquist around, especially since I’ve lost so much faith in ad respect for Jeff] doing one of the most original and clever ventriloquist acts I have ever seen:

Nina Conti

However, for those of you who might be bummed by the fact that you have already watched a similiar themed clip by Miss Conti, I found this gem, which I imagine most of you have not seen. [I am officially too scared to go and look at my Facebook wall now] So I hope you will enjoy: The Boy with Tape on His Face:

Boy with Tape on his face

And then if you enjoy that one, which is just a taster really, and can find the time to watch this one, it is pretty great:

Hope you enjoyed.

[for next Monday’s Safe as Butter, click here]

[To catch up with last Monday’s Ship Your Pants, click here]

Friday = My day: Episode 5 – Getting busy with it.

I mean, that’s it really. And you know… Well something inside you knows. Many of you probably wouldn’t say it out loud without covering it up with a bunch of weak lame-assed excuses and justifications. Some of you will keep quiet, because admitting the extent of the problem will be like announcing an addiction. [Which again for some of you this is].

When Val and I were residents at the Simple Way for the 19 months preceding this adventure, we had an 8am prayer meeting from Monday to Friday and then if there were visitors, I got to speak to them til 9am or beyond which was the start of official work time until 5pm. We had some activity every night of the week [which included ‘Date Night’ which we had to schedule in as an actual item on our timetables so that it would happen at all just because of the nature of the busyness]. And then the idea was that sometime outside of that we were meant to connect to the neighbors and community around us [which usually meant the weekend or in the slight gap between work and evening activity]. It was a great experience but over-the-top busy and so manageable for a 19 month stint but hardly sustainable long term.

Now we are in Oakland, California working with a different non-profit called Common Change in a 30 hour work week with no access to a car and so we rely on bicycles and walking and buses and trains and so life has slowed down a lot.

And it’s great.

But back to the picture at the top. I don’t want to say much more about this or I’ll be adding to your busy. Just that you don’t have to accept it as the way things have to be. Be intentional about slowing down. About creating spaces and times to stop. And just be. To choose to walk instead of drive. To take a book to a coffee shop. To blow the dust off your Bible. To call a friend you haven’t hung out with for a while. To really spend solid time with your family.

Stop the glorification of busy. Kick the feet out from under that idol. Be real with yourself about your addiction. Just stop.

[to read next Fridays Blessed are the Matrix-filled, click here]
[to read last Friday’s Blessed are the Geeks, click here]

Thursday = Thirsty: Episode 5 – the Awakening of Faith

I have just finished reading a book called ‘The Awakening of Hope’ by a friend of ours named Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove which looks to address the question ‘Why we Practice a Common Faith’ by focusing on seven ancient practices/disciplines and this excerpt on faith and conversion really stood out for me:

‘No one gets to start from scratch. But each of us, from within the story we’ve received, decides whether we will continue to trust what we’ve first received or inhabit a different story. This decision is what we usually call “faith.”

The Bible says that faith is the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen [Hebrews 11.1, KJV].
Faith is what we trust for those questions that we cannot know the answer to, for the presuppositions that undergird whatever story we call our own. In the modern world we are in the habit of thinking that faith matters for our personal and religious lives. When we talk about “people of faith,” we usually refer to people who are committed Muslims or Buddhists, Jews or Christians. On the other hand, we usually assume that what matters in economics and politics, science and medicine is facts, not faith. Religion is about what we believe while science is about what we know.

But good scientists agree with the woman in Sarah’s writing seminar that whatever we know (including the facts), we know within a story that we have chosen to trust. That is, we are all people of faith. Of course, doubt plays a role in the pursuit of truth for scientists, just as it does for theologians. But none of us can ever doubt everything. Whether the truth we seek is best described as scientific or religious, our pursuit of it depends on holding experience up against the story we assume to be true. In science, when the facts demand a new story to explain how they can all be true, we call that necessary change a “paradigm shift.” When the facts of our lives cry out for a story that can help us tell the truth about ourselves, we call it “conversion.”

For Jesus, the invitation to welcome God’s story is a call to conversion: “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent ad believe the good news” [Mark 1.15]. To trust that what Jesus says about the world is true is to, quite literally, have a change of mind. This conversion – this paradigm shift – does not invalidate the truth of the story that came before it. In calling God’s people to conversion, Jesus says, “Do not think I have come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” The new story that Jesus brings incorporates the truth of the old, offering both a framework for understanding what we knew before and a lens for seeing truth we could not recognise within our old story.
Even so, the only way people who have inhabited one story can learn to trust another is to experience a change of mind.’
We must be “born again,” as Jesus says to Nicodemus in John’s gospel [3.3] Or, more literally, we must be reconceived from above.” That is to say, conversion is about reimagining our human story from the place that Jesus starts His – not with the mixing of two human stories, but with the miraculous union of God’s story and a human story.’

[from the chapter ‘Why we share good news’ from the book ‘The Awakening of Hope’ by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove]

[for next Thursday’s A Most Powerful Message, click here]
[for last Thursday’s How’s Your Heart, click here]

Wednesday = Wed day: Episode 5 – Strangers in a pit.

With today being the day to focus on relationships, I think i must add a link to my Irresistibly Fish blog where yesterday I posted something called ‘How much sex in marriage?’ in response to a question i received in the comments of a different post. I was blown away by how popular it was and some excellent commentary was added in the comments section afterwards by various people. So if you missed that definitely give it a look.

You may have seen this one already, but if you haven’t, then I encourage you to make the time to watch it. With the kind of news doing the rounds these days, this is inspiring stuff. And yes, it got me close to tears [seems to be a lot of that these days, I’m totally good with that]

The basic premise is that there is a ball pit [yup, just a box filled with plastic balls] next to a sign that says, ‘Take a Seat & Make a friend.’
That’s it. No hidden agenda or aim. Just balls with questions/statements on them that help to stimulate conversation.

Questions or statements like, ‘Name one thing on your bucket list?’, ‘What is one thing you have in common?’, ‘Describe the first time you fell in love’, and ‘Talk about someone who inspires you.’

Take a look.

[to see next Wednesday’s There should be a Sorry in there Somewhere, click here]
[to take a look at last Wednesday’s Your Relationship with You, click here]

Tuesday = News Day: Episode 5 – Boston Bombing context and condolences.

This comment was attached to this picture on the Facebook wall i nabbed it from:’Our preoccupation with the USA results in a lack of similar coverage of the tragedies faced on a daily basis by others.’

The reason i love this picture is because it captures two strong points in one:

“Hey, this happens in many places around the world on a daily basis, and often to much greater extent in terms of loss of human life and destruction of property.”

And, “Hey! What happened was a sad and tragic thing and we join you in mourning and grieving for your loss and everything that this attack represents.”

Both are important points and one does not cancel out the one and should not minimalise the other.

It would be great to see a bunch of American young people and children holding a similar sign the next time we hear of a bombing on their side of the ocean.

[for next Tuesday’s I’ll trade you my hammer for your life, click here]
[for last Tuesday’s look at the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, and some rather unfriendly responses to her death, click here]

Monday = Funday: Episode 5 – You’ll ship your pants.

This should start your week off with a smile…

And I guess the less said with this one the better, excepting to ask the question of whether there was someone in the chain of command who only saw this as an innocent ad?

Although the next question to ask would be if you remembered the name of the store that this ad is for, because, after watching it the first time, that was not what was on my mind…

Which begs the question – good ad or bad ad?

What do you think?

[to see next Monday’s Human Ventriloquist and Boy with Tape on his Face, click here]
[to see last Monday’s Eating Habits of Wild Animals, click here]

Friday = My day: Episode 4 – Blessed are the Geeks.

Last night, tbV and I ended up in this room at the back of a Games/Magic the Gathering shop playing some new [to us] games.

With titles such as Poison, Dixit and Takenoko, we ‘moved the panda and ate the bamboo’, ‘avoided the poison’ and came up with the clue ‘Rapunzel’ to describe a card that showed a number of knotted sheets tied together leading out of a prison window with its bars cut out.

I know, Geek Central, right?

Or was it? Because the ‘geeks’ I was referring to definitely didn’t include Val and myself.

When we label people, we rob them of the ability to be something else.

When we categorise someone we meet as a ‘jock’ or a ‘blonde,’ an ‘Aquarius’ or a ‘hottie’ and especially as we cross a more substantial line and start throwing out titles such as ‘racist’ or ‘bitch’ or ‘murderer’ or ‘rapist’ to refer to or describe someone, we subtly remove the possibility or at least the likelihood in our minds, and possibly in those of our hearers, of them being anything else apart from that.

Is he ‘a rapist’ or is he a broken and messed up human being? A person who, for whatever reasons, ended up committing the horrific act of rape?

Am I born ‘a racist’? Or as I grow up, and are natured and nurtured along the way, do I at some point start to exhibit racist tendencies, thoughts and actions?

Am I born a ‘murderer’? Or is it possible that somehow along the way of life happening, circumstances took place and decisions were made that led me to the point where I killed someone?

Val and I had a really great time last night, vibing with some new people and learning some fun new games. We were completely welcomed in to this gathering of people we had never met and treated with the utmost kindness and respect. People showed interest in who we were, why we had moved to America and the work we are doing. It feels like doing them a tremendous disservice and injustice to collectively label them as ‘geeks’ and let that be the blanket definition of them.

In the Bible, Paul writes this to the Corinthian church – ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.’ [2 Corinthians 5.17-19]

In a nutshell, he is saying to them, ‘That which you were before you met Jesus, you are no more. You are a brand new you. No longer will you be defined by the title ‘sinner’ or ‘broken’ or ‘messed up’ or ‘needy’ but now you will be known as a child of God. You are a King’s kid. Find your identity in that.

No, she is not ‘stupid!’ She is a delightful, lovely person, who may have done a stupid thing.

No, he is not ‘evil!’ He is a person loved by God [who calls me to love him too] who has committed an act that can only be described as evil.

Let us look beyond the labels, and even possibly start discarding them?

Let us start to see people. Beautiful, fascinating, people.

[To read next Friday’s Getting Busy with it, click here]
[for last Friday’s When the Busy Fades, click here]

Thursday = Thirsty: Episode 4 – How’s your heart?

This follows on from yesterday’s look at how you view yourself…

Israel needs a new king and so Samuel the prophet is sent to the house of Jesse to anoint Saul’s successor. As he looks at the eldest son, he says to himself, ‘Yes, he looks the part. That must be the one.’

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” [1 Samuel 16.7]

And so David is anointed as king and does a lot of stuff right, but also messes up hectically, committing treason and murder and adultery, and yet at the end of his life, God describes him as ‘a man after My own heart.’

David’s response to the own sin and brokenness in his own life was to repent, to confess his sin before God and to make things right. And God forgives him. He is not remembered for the things he did wrong [although they were still recorded so we can learn from them] but for who he really was, who God saw him as.

There are three things to take from this:

[1] Are you a person after God’s heart? Do you chase the things of God’s kingdom [Loving God, Loving people] or are you following your own path?

[2] Make sure you understand how God sees you. Other people may write you off and think you are not worthy, but this statement still stands – ‘The Lord looks at the heart.’ God knows your worth and your potential, He knows who He has made you and the gifts He has given you and the talents He put in you. Don’t miss out on seeing those because of other voices you may have heard your whole life. Listen to what He is saying.

[3] If that is how God views people, who are we to judge them any other way? When you enter a room, are you drawn towards the popular or those with money or well recognised skills? What about those who may not look like much on the outside, but who God wants us to get to know and Love? Is there someone on the fringes of your life who you think God might be wanting you to connect with and start building a friendship?

[for next Thursday’s The Awakening of Faith, click here]
[for last Thursday’s Loving God means Loving Him/Her click here]

Wednesday = Wed day: Episode 4 – Your relationship with you.

I have noticed this strange thing in my life [well, maybe not so strange].

At times when I am feeling really good about myself, when I am in a good place with God and with people and I am involved in people-transforming stuff and exercising well and all of that, when I look at myself in the mirror, I really like what I see. And then it is usually when I am caught up in some time-wasting habit or am in a not-so-great place in my relationship with tbV [the beautiful Val] or one of my friends, or have just been grumpy for a while or whatever it is, that I look at myself in the mirror and feel fat or ugly or just not all that confident about what I see. It seems to be a case of what I see [or take away from] when I look at the mirror really seems to largely reflect what is going on with me internally.

For the most part I am able to look in the mirror and pronounce “I love you” over myself which I don’t think is a bad thing. It is done largely through the understanding of how I am viewed by God. As one who is loved and worth sending His Son Jesus to die for. And so this acceptance and appreciation of having been adopted into the family of this King. Which makes me a King’s kid. That is a pretty schweet deal.

So what I am suggesting, in part at least, is that what we see on the outside can in part echo what is going on in the inside, for us at least. [When it comes to other people we seem to have become way too adept at creating a series of masks and personas to ‘protect’ them from ever seeing the ‘real me’. Because what if they didn’t like what they saw?] For me, it actually works as a warning light, because when I am looking in the mirror and I am not feeling super amped with who I see looking back then often I know something is off. Which causes me to do a stock take of my life and try and sort it out.

Yesterday I watched this and it really brought me close to tears. And then reading the comments section almost did the same because of a lot of missingthepointness that was going on there.

Take a watch of this moving video brought to you by Dove

Great points raised about it not being all about outwards beauty and how that shouldn’t be your end point and I agree with all of those. But what I got from this clip is that we often judge ourselves more harshly than we should, and often fail to see the beauty that exists within us. A lot of the people who gave comment were talking about things like spirit and presentation and so it was not completely about looks at all.

Real beauty lies in who we are, not how we look. But sometimes what it happening on the outside might provide a deeper reflection of what is going on deeply on the inside.

What was your take on this?

[to see next Wednesday’s Strangers in a Pit, click here]
[for last Wednesday’s Love When You Don’t Feel Like It, click here]