world | Russellings of the Spirit

Posts Tagged ‘world

Feb

High School Heroes

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: conforming, fitting, friends, God, guns, high school, Jesus Christ, prayer, pressures, violence, world

Following a longer-than-normal walk with the dogs, Joan and I decided to reward them with a trip to our neighborhood Sonic Drive-In. She ordered her customary lemonberry slush while I favored the cold brew iced coffee. The dogs, naturally, snacked on pup cups.

This Sonic is located right next to the local high school. As it happened, we arrived just as school was dismissing for the day.

While we chatted about the topic du jour, I watched the students walk by us. Some walked in pairs. Some in groups of three or four, while others walked by themselves.

And as I watched them, my heart stirred.

Some laughed. Some smiled. Some seemed as if they were a thousand miles away, lost in thought. All of them seemed to demonstrate joy at the fact that they were walking away from school for the day.

At first glance, it seemed like an utterly unremarkable, quotidian scene. It is a ritual repeated in towns of all sizes, every day between September and May at 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, come rain or come shine.

As I looked on, I realized that the students walking there – some wearing logoed outerwear, some in shorts in 36-degree weather, some with blue streaks in their hair and nose rings – each represented a younger, brighter, livelier version of me.

They are probably worried about who likes them and who doesn’t. They aren’t sure how they are going to juggle everything they have on their plates right now. They absolutely cannot understand how their parents can be so lame and clueless. They wonder what kind of world they are about to enter… where it is headed, and what their place in that world is going to be.

But for all those similarities, I also know that the kids I am watching as I sip my iced coffee face pressures 1969 Russell couldn’t conceive of in his wildest imagination.

For starters, they were born into an “always on” world of electronic voyeurism… constantly watching and being watched… measuring their worth in bytes, likes, follows, and views. This world is as prying as it is relentless, wedging its fat, judgmental eye into every waking moment of their lives.

These kids today have also been forced to consider the possibility that the hallway they travel between third period Algebra and fourth period History might suddenly erupt into random bursts of gunfire, blood, and screams.

How in the name of God do you factor THAT into your daily psychic toolbox?

Hell, back in the day, pop-up fistfights between rival “greaser” gangs used to scare the snot out of me. But at least I knew they were fighting because they hated each other. Today there are no breadcrumbs to follow that might offer clues about the rage boiling up inside the kids who shoot up schools.

And then, when those hopeful high schoolers lift their eyes for a moment to see how we – the mature, seasoned, arbitrator adults – handle our spats, all they see is pettiness, vitriol, and a willful blindness to any notion of “the common good.”

And I pray; God help them.

God, help us help them.

But then, when my heart is almost overloaded with sadness and pity for these young adults, they make a sharp, unexpected turn. Suddenly they erupt with a joy, a generosity, a lightness, and a compassion that just blows me away.

Abruptly and unexpectedly, they become my teachers. THEY show me how to love and include all those who were “born this way,” to flagrantly steal Lady Gaga’s phrase. THEY passionately appeal to me to take care of the ONE planet we occupy. THEY remind me that I don’t have to be enslaved to my stuff. THEY insist on learning a version of history bereft of whitewashing, coverups, or race-based distortions. THEY don’t hesitate to demand that JUSTICE serve every man, woman, and child ever born.

And so, as I keep watching, my prayer expands.

It still asks God to help them, but now also asks God to help me LEARN from them.

God bless them…

… and YOU, too.

Jun

Order out of Chaos

By revruss1220 Leave a Comment

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: abundant, blessing, chaos, community, creation, creativity, enforcement, faith, God, Jesus Christ, justice, law, love, neighbor, new, order, police, world

Extension cords Look at this.

Isn’t it amazing?

My organizational genius of a wife took our laundry basket full of a mishmash of all sizes and styles of extension cords and – armed with only her labelmaker and a few plastic containers – turned it into this miracle of peace and harmony.

Ahhhh! Satisfaction.

So inspired was I by her de-cluttering, systematizing prowess that I immediately turned my attention to the task of taming the long-ignored Garage Beast!

Mission accomplished!

Satisfaction AGAIN!

In spite of the fact that I occasionally seem to be content to wallow around in an untidy environment, there remains something deeply satisfying about bringing order out of chaos.

It seems almost as if this ordering drive might be hard-wired into our humanness, doesn’t it?

Some theologians, in fact, have argued that the Genesis creation story begins, not with God creating SOMETHING out of NOTHING, but rather with God creating ORDER out of CHAOS. Indeed, we read in Genesis 1:2, “… the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.” (Gen. 1:2, NRSV).

But I wonder… if it is true that the impulse to ORDER our world is an essential, defining quality of the human experience… can we ever go overboard with this impulse? In other words, can there be such a thing as TOO MUCH order… and not enough CHAOS?

Lately we have certainly seen a whole lot of chaos in the streets of our major cities. Violent protests have erupted in the wake of murders by armed police officers. Chaos erupts. Order is imposed. MORE chaos erupts. And even more order is imposed.

But then sometimes… somehow… something new gets born out of that chaos. Ask anyone who has ever been present at the moment a brand-new baby is delivered into the world; it is a moment with more chaos and mess and disorder happening all at once than you will likely EVER see anywhere else!

And lest we forget…

From the chaos of 40 years of wandering in the desert, the new people Israel was born.
From the chaos of the American Revolution, this country was born.
From the chaos of riots and unrest in the early 60s, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was born.

There is no doubt that this moment is calling forth the need for something new to be born in the way our governments go about the work of ensuring public safety. The day when we need heavily armed, militarily trained phalanxes of police officers to keep the peace is gone… if indeed it ever existed in the first place.

Yes, we need order. Yes, we need peace. But not at the price of our freedom. And not if it means whole segments of our population end up living in daily fear of the very institutions appointed to ensure their safety.

You see, God has been trying to teach us this lesson from Day One… first through Abraham, then Moses, through the judges, the prophets, the kings, and through his only begotten Son, Jesus. God desperately wants us to understand that the only sure path to both peace and freedom is by following the Big Two… 1.) Loving God, and 2.) Loving Neighbor.

Loving our neighbors… WHO they are, AS they are… can be a little chaotic at times. Because let’s face it, some of them are just not that lovable.

But it is also an essential part of the people we are each made to be.

Abundant blessings;

Jun

Doing Love

By revruss1220 5 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: atonement, commandment, covenant, disciples, emotion, excitement, feeling, forgiveness, God, healing, Jesus Christ, John 15:12, love, marriage, pain, power, repentance, world

Joan and me 1 Please pause for a moment and pity poor Joan.

Joan – for those of you who don’t know – is my spouse. And since we just celebrated our 20^th anniversary on Cinco de Mayo, she has occupied that status for 20 years, poor soul.

At the start of our courtship, it was all cumquats and marmalade… or some other, better phrase carrying the equivalent meaning of “24/7 magic.” I was utterly charming, fun, and thoughtful. I thought of her needs first, sang sweetly in her ear, found new ways to make her laugh, and regularly surprised her with creative, elaborate gifts.

She really sparkled, too, with inner and outer beauty, energy, graciousness, and a boundless sense of adventure.

And so on one enchanted day – as a chorus of bluebirds chirped above us – we decided to make the arrangement permanent.

But then, somewhere along the way, something happened. We moved in together. We started sharing our lives… ALL of our lives… not just the sparkly, shiny, wild, crazy, outrageous, “starry-eyed lovers” parts.

We started seeing fun little details about each other that we somehow missed before; like the way someoneinsists that the table be set like THIS instead of like THAT. Or the way little piles of dirty clothes seem to appear hither and yon. Or the way a pitcher of iced tea gets put back in the refrigerator with less than a teaspoon of liquid left in it.

(OK… that’s all me, just in case you were wondering).

Somewhere along the way, the cumquats and marmalade and “24/7 magic” began to sparkle a little less as the ordinary threatened to usurp the extraordinary.

And it was at that precise moment, I would submit, that Joan and I discovered the real meaning of the word LOVE.

Long, long ago, you see, I subscribed to the pop culture notion that love is all about a particular FEELING. I bought the line that says love is that butterflies-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach excitement that comes when your hormones get a turbo boost in the presence of your beloved.

I can thank Jesus – and marriage – for setting me straight on that.

Jesus helped me by the words he spoke in John 15:12 – “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” In reflecting on this passage, pastor and author Cary Nieuwhof once said, “You can’t COMMAND a feeling.” Feelings come and feelings go, triggered by all manner of stimuli.

So clearly the kind of LOVE Jesus is talking about – the kind that CAN be commanded – is something much more actionable.

This kind of love is a way of living. It is a way of relating to other people. Ultimately this kind of love seems to be – before it is anything else – a way of SEEING. Jesus’ love is a way of seeing the world and its inhabitants that will then give shape and texture to our words, our actions, and even our attitudes.

The same thing happens in marriage. Joan and I always love one another. But we don’t have warm and gushy feelings toward each other 24/7/365. Sometimes we get on each other’s last nerve. Sometimes we get really annoyed with each other. Sometimes we each do stuff that just really pisses the other one off.

And yet, as feelings come and go, driven by the events of the day, love abides.

The world we live in today needs a LOT. It needs healing. It needs humility. It needs repentance. It needs justice. It needs forgiveness. It needs boldness, and creativity, and ENERGY.

But more than anything else, the world today needs a healthy dose of that no-nonsense, Jesus-commanded, action-oriented, all-encompassing, world-changing, boundary-destroying kind of LOVE.

Abundant blessings;

May

Tipping the World

By revruss1220 1 Comment

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: angry, Brene Brown, community, conflict, connection, gospel, hate, humanity, Jesus Christ, love, neighbor, solution, Surgeon General, together, Vivek Murthy, world, yelling

Angry guy I had a great bike ride yesterday.

The sun was out, the sky was blue, and my bike shorts were clean, so why not?

It had been a while since my last ride, so I cut this one a little shorter than usual. As I pedaled out of the driveway, I put in my earbuds, dialed up one of Brene Brown’s Unlocking Us podcasts, and hit the road.

As you would expect, the podcast was really solid, first-class stuff. Brene interviewed Vivek H. Murthy, M.D. Murthy, as you might recall, was the Surgeon General of the U.S. from 2014 to 2017. He has just written a book called Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes-Lonely World.

It was a great interview and sounds like it would be a great book to read. Murthy talked about the actual, physiological effects of loneliness as being the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day and emphasized the powerfully healing effects of human connection.

As they concluded the interview, Murthy and Brene both emphasized the need for each one of us to take an action every day that, “… tips the world in the direction of love.” It was one of the most secularly Christian (or maybe it was Christianly secular?) examinations of the Gospel I have ever heard.

Then… as I wheeled into our cul-de-sac… I was confronted by a truly ugly sight. My neighbor Tom’s (not his real name) two kids were standing in his front yard crying. Tom’s ex-wife – who had just dropped them off – was standing by her SUV yelling something I couldn’t understand. At the same time, Tom was striding angrily across the cul-de-sac screaming at our other neighbor Al (also not his real name), saying, “AL, YOU JUST SHUT YOUR F**KING MOUTH AND STAY THE F*** AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!!!”

I was stunned. The scene playing out in front of me was nothing like the warm, friendly Fort Collins, Colorado we have experienced since moving here six months ago.

Al, for his part, was standing in his garage holding his baseball hat by the brim. I hadn’t heard what he had said to Tom, but our remodeling contractor told us earlier that it seemed Al had been drinking as early as 9:30 that morning.

Because I have talked with both of them individually on previous occasions, I know that Tom is very politically progressive and not a churchgoer while Al is very politically conservative and a regular churchgoer. Tom is in his mid-30s and Al is retirement age.

For my part, I just wheeled my bike into the garage, took off my helmet and gloves, and closed the garage door, anxious to remain uninvolved in whatever was going on out there.

“Is this how it starts?” I wondered as I poured myself a drink of water. “Does the tension of months and months of isolation, on top of mounting financial pressures, combined with a highly charged political atmosphere finally set neighbor against neighbor and unleash a widespread ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario?”

That thought was followed quickly by this one: “What would it mean for me to take an action that might ‘tip the world in the direction of love’ in that very moment?”

I stood. And thought. And prayed. And came up with exactly nothing.

You see, that’s the really tough part of this whole discipleship thing. I am good with saying the right words in church or offering a cheerful greeting to the people I pass on my morning walk. But when it comes to stepping up, right in the middle of a situation that is fraught with pain, fear, and anger, I evaporate quicker than the morning dew.

Thinking back to yesterday, I feel I failed. And yet, I still don’t have a solid idea of what loving discipleship might have meant in the middle of that dust-up.

The thing I DO know with absolute certainty, however, is that there is no better time than RIGHT NOW to choose to live as an agent of love toward ALL of our neighbors.

Abundant blessings;

May

CHANGE

By revruss1220 Leave a Comment

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: alter, change, destiny, fate, God, goodness, Jesus Christ, joy, justice, life, love, mercy, peace, universe, world

Universe picture What moves the world?

What kind of force does it take

To cause even the tiniest shudder?

And alter – even microscopically – the unflinching orbit

Of lives?

Of fates?

Of destinies?

Of kingdoms?

Of stars?

Is it great beauty?

Unbearable suffering?

An explosion of wisdom?

The threat of extinction?

Or is it all just a whispy candycloud

Covered in dreams?

Are we all merely following tracks?

Tradition tracks

Carved in the

Bedrock marble of our souls

By forces beyond our influence

And greater than our gods?

It is not unheard of, you know.

Gravity has been defied

In days gone by.

The poles have been reversed

The die has been uncast

The other shoe has been arrested midfall.

Once upon a time.

These are the times to remember…

HE is the only one who can.

HIS is the strength to cleave time itself.

In HIM – him alone – do we find

HOPE

POWER

LIFE

LOVE (the unconditional kind)

PEACE

JOY

MEANING

REDEMPTION

“Behold! I am making all things new,” said the One In Charge. (Rev. 21:5, NRSV).

Apr

Take Hope

By revruss1220 2 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: baseball, confidence, COVID-19, culture, death, despair, disease, distance, God, health, hope, interdependence, Jesus Christ, joy, life, pandemic, resources, return, selfish, social, world

“But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?” Romans 8:24, NRSV.

Hope is a precious commodity these days.

On some days, it can be harder to find than that ever-elusive toilet paper.

We squint and look at the road ahead and yet see nothing but mist and blur. No one knows with any certainty (even if they say they do) when we can once again be care-free about who we hang out with and in what quantities.

Today we hope for the best while we prepare for the worst.

So let me ask: in those moments when you allow yourself a rose-colored glance into the future, what do you find yourself hoping for? My first thoughts about hope are colored in a very self-absorbed hue; I hope for the safety of my friends and family. I pine for the return of restaurants, concerts, air travel, and baseball. I long to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other congregants in church on Sunday. I hope the stock market stabilizes and stops imitating some kind of psychotic carnival ride.

This kind of hope, I soon realize, is rooted in nostalgia. It is a hope for a return to life, “as it once was.” In that sense, it is a very backward-looking hope.

At other times, I catch myself hoping that this present time of crisis will perform a work of transformation… on me and on the world around me. Once the “all clear” has been sounded, I hope I continue to value solitude and times of quiet contemplation as I do now. I hope I will still eagerly look forward to evening walks with Joan and the dogs, sharing thoughts, jokes, and news of the day.

[Just to clarify, I mean Joan and I sharing those things… not the dogs and me.]

I hope – is this too wildly ambitious to put out there? – that we all might continue to call the people stocking grocery shelves and picking up our trash “essential.” I hope that we would continue understanding and applauding the heroic nature of those who care for our health (and the utter insanity of tying healthcare to employment status). I hope we will walk away from this pandemic with a renewed awareness of just how tightly interdependent we are and how much MY well-being is directly tied to YOURS.

I hope people will stop dying from COVID-19 and that our eyes will be permanently opened to the life-and-death consequences of institutional racism and economic discrimination.

I know that some of these hopes of mine will not come to fruition and others will. But even if two out of three of my hopes fall to the ground with a sickening THUD, I will continue to hope. Like an excellent major league hitter, I am going to be thrilled with a success rate of one out of three.

Over the course of the next few days, my goal is to share stories of hope in this space. I aim to share stories that illustrate the power of hope in the midst of bleak and apparently hopeless circumstances.

If you have one such story, I would love to hear it. Otherwise I will be harvesting them from friends, family, and the World Wide Web.

For today I will just wrap up by reminding us all that sometimes – just as the verse at the top reminds us – hope is not terribly rational. Hope is often that seed dropped onto a hard concrete sidewalk that – by God – is determined to germinate and grow.

It is also a good time to remind us all that hope which is rooted and grounded in faith, is one of the most powerful forces in all of nature. As Paul reminded the wayward worshipers in Corinth, I will also remind us: “[Christ] has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us…” 2 Corinthians 1:10, NRSV.

Abundant blessings;

Mar

Change is Coming

By revruss1220 5 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: change, community, compassion, coronavirus, God, interdependence, Jesus Christ, kindness, new, responsibility, transformation, world

Coronavirus Think back; do you recall events in your life that CHANGED you? I mean, changed you in a profound, lasting, BC/AD kind of way?

I believe I was forever changed that time my dad suffered third-degree burns on his upper thigh.

He had left me at home by myself when he went to bring my mom and new baby brother home from the hospital. I was nine years old at the time.

As he left the house, dad accidentally left a pot full of boiling water and plastic baby bottles on the stove. The water boiled away and the bottles all melted. I didn’t know what the bad smell in the house was and so I went outside to sit on the front porch to get away from it. When dad, mom, and baby brother returned, the house was filled with smoke and the pot was in flames. When he grabbed the pot to run out the back door with it, dad splashed hot, melted plastic on his leg, causing third-degree burns.

I blamed myself for his injury and spent the rest of my youth trying to atone for my mistake. I believe that childhood episode engendered my overblown sense of responsibility for the well being of those around me… a trait I carry to this day.

My mother’s death was another event that wrought a change of the deepest, most elemental kind in my life. Mom died of lymphoma, exactly one month after I graduated from high school. For most of my life, she had been my cheerleader, encourager, friend, buffer, and confidant. After her death, I drifted rather aimlessly through life… rudderless and self-absorbed. My grief wounds ultimately healed, of course, but the change her death caused in my life was long-lasting and fundamental.

I can bring to mind several other intersections along my journey that had similar effects; our family’s cross-country move the summer before my senior year of high school… my marriage… the birth of each of my children… my divorce… my spiritual rebirth… my first U2 concert. (JK!)

In each case, as I think back on those personal milestones, I can clearly describe pre-event Russell and post-event Russell. Sometimes it was a change for the better; sometimes it was a change for the opposite of better. In every case though, these events jolted and dazed me… knocking me off of my feet and leaving me grasping for a handrail.

This event we are all experiencing right now – the COVID-19 outbreak – is exactly one of those kinds of haymakers. Except in our case, it is a haymaker that has landed on the chin of the entire world at the same time.

Collectively we are still right in the middle of the landing of the punch. The opponent’s fist is in mid-swing… still connected to our jaw. It’s like one of those artfully choreographed fight scenes shot in super SLO-MO.

Soon we will spin around… hit the mat… see stars… and then shake our head and wonder what the hell just hit us. Sadly, we are a LOOOOOONG way from getting back on our feet and putting up our dukes, ready for the next foe.

Not even the wisest soothsayers can tell us how long this time will last or how bad it will get before it is over. But it doesn’t take a King Solomon to know that ALL of us will somehow be different on the other side.

What kind of change will it bring? Will we be kinder to each other? Will we have a better understanding of community and interdependence? Will we show a deeper appreciation for the world and people around us, remembering how concerned about each other we were?

Maybe. Hopefully.

Or will we quickly revert to our standard, “Every person for themselves, look out for #1” approach, becoming even more self-centered and callous than we were before?

Gee, I sure hope not.

Even though I roundly reject the idea that God sent the COVID-19 virus to teach us to love one another, I passionately embrace the idea that we can emerge from this pandemic as new, transformed people… with a new awareness of the intricate interconnection of our lives.

Every day I pledge to surround each of you with love and prayers for your wholeness, health, safety, and security. I am also asking God to open my eyes to ways I can directly serve my neighbors in need.

I am already feeling just how precious you each are and how much I need each one of you in my life.

Together – with God’s help – we can make it through this.

Oct

Dueling Drives

By revruss1220 3 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: allegiance, conflict, current events, envy, information, informed, Jesus Christ, justice, knowledge, love, news, overwhelemed, war, wisdom, world

drowning_in_information How often do you find yourself caught between a pair of strong, yet diametrically opposed desires? For example:

Have cake? Eat cake?
Exercise body? Veg out?
Shave? Cultivate trendy stubble?
Spend? Save?
Blog? Think about blogging?
Rock? Hard place?

This mental impasse happens to me at least once a day. I ponder the features and benefits of Option A – find myself drawn strongly in its direction – and then immediately turn my attention to Option B…

… and then fall in love all over again.

Most of the time I resolve my stalemate by sitting down with a spoon and a big tub of ice cream and burying myself up to the elbows.

Today, however, I find myself caught in no-man’s-land once again with no visible escape hatch and no available answers.

Today I am helplessly caught between (A) a drive to be well informed about current affairs, and (B) a yearning to remain blissfully ignorant of them.

If you have watched the news on TV, read it in a newspaper (kids, you’ll need to go ask your grandparents what a newspaper is),or heard the news on a radio, you know exactly what I mean.

War, violence, hatred, and brutality abound. And that’s just here in my NEIGHBORHOOD!

I used to think of politics as an intellectually entertaining spectator sport… the arena where great ideas vied for my attention and allegiance. These days, however, civil political discourse seems to be as dead as the newspapers that once reported on it.

On the one hand, it seems irresponsible to choose to walk around in a state of willful ignorance. On the other hand, I have an active and curious mind that I believe God fully intended me to use!

And now, in my new status as a retired guy, precious little stands in the way of me binge-watching CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN… maybe a little Fox News now and then… with NPR on in the background ALL DAY LONG!

But honestly, it seems as if I can feel my soul eroding a little bit whenever I try to pay a moment’s attention to the news about events shaping my nation and community.

What’s an intellectually curious human to do?

Maybe this time, instead of pulling out the mint chocolate chip and eating myself into a dairy-induced coma, I’ll try something different. Maybe I’ll try…

… stopping.

… inhaling deeply,

… exhaling.

… listening.

Listening, for example, to the voice of 1 Corinthians 13:2 where the writer tells me, “… if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

So maybe it is time to take stock and realize I will never fully understand everything that is happening around me in the world today.

Maybe I have to ‘fess up and admit that one of the reasons I tune in to all this news is so I can work up a little righteous indignation… indignation that helps me feel empowered when I shake my fist at the man on the screen and tell him how wrong he is (and – in contrast – how right I am).

Maybe my current torn-ness is God’s way of telling me I ought to pay attention to the things that REALLY matter in his kingdom.

Maybe it is time to spend more time working on my capacity to LOVE instead of my capacity to STAY CURRENT.

Maybe. Just maybe.

What do YOU think?

Russellings Archives

Follow Russellings via Email

Rustle through Russellings…

RB’s Facebook page

RB’s Facebook page

Follow Russellings of the Spirit on WordPress.com

Russellings of the Spirit

Posts Tagged ‘world

High School Heroes

Order out of Chaos

Doing Love

Tipping the World

CHANGE

Change is Coming

Dueling Drives

Russellings Archives

Follow Russellings via Email

Pages

Rustle through Russellings…

Blogs I Follow

RB’s Facebook page

Posts Tagged ‘world

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Russellings Archives

Follow Russellings via Email

Pages

Rustle through Russellings…

Blogs I Follow