Football Fan for a Day

Super Bowl Sunday is fast approaching. Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote for WorldMag.com about how and why to enjoy the big game. 

I have loved football since my pee wee playing days at Pearl Park in Minneapolis. I fell in love with the Minnesota Vikings during the same time period while growing up just a few blocks from the Metrodome where they play (and have since felt like a lover scorned more often than not.) It is not just playing the game that I love, nor is it the Vikings. No, it is the game itself with all of its aggression, drama, skill, passion, competition, and spectacular displays of athleticism.

But just as much as I love football others of you dislike it or simply don’t care about it. Your passions might be for music, literature, cooking, art, technology, gaming, or any of a million past times. And that is fine and good.

But I make one request of you: for one day a year, and one day only, be a football fan.

Be a fan for one day for a single purpose: People.

. . . 

You can read the article in its entirety HERE

The Great Healer?

There are some pieces of common, cultural wisdom that are so often quoted and repeated that we fail to notice just how devastatingly stupid they are. And I do mean devastating.

I heard an interview with a man the other day who was describing a broken family situation. The interviewer asked him whether his relationship with his son had improved recently. His response was something to the effect of “I’m just trying to be patient. You know, time heals all wounds.”

Time heals all wounds.

Does it, though?

Think about the analogy. Does this idea in any way reflect the reality of healing? As a child I busted my head open a few times. I fell off a porch. I crashed in to a chain link fence on a tricycle (It involved being a test case for two of my older brothers and them pulling me with a 20 foot rope down the sidewalk at top speed. The blood ruined my 1987 Twins World Series Champion sweatshirt. But enough about that.) I was hit in the forehead by a hammer that flew out of a rather burly friend’s hand. And not one time did my mother or anyone else look at the blood running down my face and say “time heals all wounds.”

No, they took me to a doctor. Without that care I would have been at risk for infection. The wounds could have festered. And I likely would have had three really ugly scars.

I don’t think it’s any different with emotional, relational, spiritual or psychological wounds. Leave them alone and the blood loss will significant, the possibility of infection is incredibly high, and the scars will be dramatic. Wounds to the heart or emotions are even more likely than physical wounds to spread and cause damage elsewhere. An untreated wound on my head leaves a scar. An untreated wound in my heart mighty end up scarring others.

The idea of leaving woundedness to time is only helpful if it encourages patience, not if it leads to passivity. It takes action to care for the hurts of the heart. It takes cleansing and binding. Often it takes repeated efforts as the wound lingers. And it takes patience.

Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Time doesn’t have any power. Time is just the space during which God can use the actions of people to heal wounds from the outside while he works from the inside.

Joe Paterno, Justice, and Eternity

Below is the beginning excerpt of an article I wrote for World Magazine's website reflecting on the challenge of viewing the life and legacy of Joe Paterno from a Christian perspective.

Conflicted. Complex. Complicated. Such are the feelings conjured up by Sunday's death of legendary college football coach Joe Paterno at the age of 85. 

During his 46-year tenure as head coach at Penn State, “Joe Pa” was known for his utter integrity in a sport full of scandals and cheaters. He earned his nickname by being a fatherly figure who cared more for his players than he did about winning. Penn State never committed any major NCAA violations. The school recruited legally and honestly. Players graduated. And the Nittany Lions did win games. Lots of them. At the end of his career Paterno was the winningest coach in NCAA Division I football history.

But it is the end of his career that so complicates matters.

. . .   

The full article can be viewed HERE.

C.S. Lewis and The Power of Story

Every Christian writer and preacher is required to use a C.S. Lewis quote at least once a year or else risk losing writing privileges completely. It’s an unwritten, but fastly abided by, rule. I have been reading  On Stories and Other Essays on Literature by Lewis (edited by Walter Hooper) recently, and his essay “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” is phenomenal. So here I grace you with some of the gems within its pages.

On whether children’s stories are “juvenile”

“I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last. A waltz which you can like only when you are waltzing is a bad waltz.”

 “Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of merely as a descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves.”

“When I became a man, I put away childish things, including my fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

On the dangers, or lack thereof, of “unrealistic” stories

“I think what profess to be realistic stories for children are far more likely to deceive them. I never expected the real world to be like any fairy tales. I think that I did expect school to be like the school stories.”

“It would be far truer to say that fairy land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.”

On whether it is harmful to read children stories of danger

“There is something ludicrous in the idea of so educating a generation which is born to the Ogpu* and the atomic bomb. Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”

“I think it is possible that by confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would fail to banish the terrors [your child feels], and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable.”

            *Soviet security force responsible for much killing, kidnapping, and murder

On writing to children not as lesser beings

“We must meet children as equals in that area of our nature where we are equals. Our superiority consists partly of in commanding other areas, and partly (which is more relevant) in the fact that we are better at telling stories than they are. The child as reader is neither to be patronized nor idolized: we must talk to him as man to man. But the worst attitude of all would be the professional attitude which regards children in the lump as a sort of raw material which we have to handle.”

It is thoughts like these that inspire me to write and keep me diving deep into stories. I feel the truth of them more heavily and more certainly now as a father and a grown up than ever before. There is power in stories, so let us feed them to our children. But only the good ones of course.

Vehicle, Obstacle, or Passenger?

It’s hard being a parent. It’s hard raising little sinners up to be godly, contributing members of society. Children make it hard by being, well, themselves.

But you know what’s harder than raising little sinners? Being a sinner who gets to raise little sinners. Parents are selfish, and this selfishness exhibits itself most clearly in our parenting.

We treat out children as vehicles to happiness. They are required to carry us to the promised land of reputation or vicarious success. The bear the weight of our bulging, saggy, baggy egos on their little shoulders as we jerk the steering wheel this way and that toward good grades, little league all-star games, and proper table manners. They strain under the burden of our crushing expectations as we mash the gas pedal to speed up their progress toward making us look like genius parents in the eyes of people whose praise we lust after and who we can’t really stand.

And at some point our kids break down. It might be a quiet sputtering to a halt or it might be a glorious, tire blowing, whirling spinout. But it is certain to happen. Since they are resilient it will likely end up happening multiple times as they keep trying again and again.

And what is a vehicle that stops working? An obstacle. And that is what our children become upon our realization that they can’t carry us to the promised land of parental bliss. Then our resentment builds. We might be aggressive with words or passive with our affection, but one way or another that obstacle child comes to know that dad or mom wishes she would just get out of the way. A broken down vehicle is, at best, a nuisance after all.

But children are neither vehicles nor obstacles. If anything, they are passengers. We are to carry them through the changes, travails, and challenges of childhood then youth until they are capable of traveling on their own. And then we accompany them and show them the way. And at some point, down the road, they begin to help us. We are to carry their burdens until we can teach them to carry it as a man or woman ought.

I find myself tempted to put the burden of my happiness on the shoulders of my children every day, and I know this is the case by how often I react to their failures and sins as if they have stopped me from achieving happiness. My aim needs to be to help them learn where real happiness lies by carrying them there. That is, I must model the easy yoke and light burden of Jesus and take my children to Him as the source of happiness. 

Religion: Why's Everybody Always Picking on Me?

Words mean something. Sometimes words mean a range of things. And when a word means various somethings, one cannot just ignore or eradicate some of those meanings. On occasion culture will eradicate or alter the meaning of words, but that isn’t something that we choose to agree upon. It simply happens over time until it is the truly common understanding of the word. (e.g. “Awful” used to mean something akin to “awesome”, not something akin to “terrible.”)

One word that has not reached this point of common understanding, not even remotely close in fact, is the word “religion.”

What is religion? A commonly held set of beliefs? A commonly held set of moral expectations or obligations? A set of customs or rituals based around those beliefs? Some combination of these?

The one thing we can be certain of is that it is a nebulous word loaded with significance and cannot be discarded easily. It is a word held dear by many for wrong reasons and held dear by many for right reasons and discarded by many for . . . what kind of reasons?

People discard religion because of, most often, the people who hold religion dear for the wrong reasons – those who come off as judgmental, legalist, joyless, or useless. But isn’t it better to make clear that their reasons are wrong or their understanding of what makes up religion is wrong but that religion itself is not wrong?

Religion can be just right. It can be the right set of beliefs leading to a freeing set of moral obligations and expectations supported by a beautiful set of customs and rituals. Christianity is absolutely religious in this way. To throw out religion because people do it wrong is like throwing out restaurants because you visited a White Castle.

If we can’t agree on what religion is, then rather than discarding it outright based on a controversial definition, we must simply be careful to explain and define what kind of religion we are for or against. Throwing it out is not the answer at all. 

Hip, Emerging, or Missional: How is a Writer to Write?

My first post of 2012 was a request for reader feedback to help spark ideas for blog posts, reflection, and creativity. Several people offered feedback, all good, all helpful. Commenter Mike, though, asked a question that is one all Christian writers must answer in some way. It will be answered implicitly or explicitly, but it will be answered.

“How can contemporary Christians write in fresh ways while remaining faithful to the gospel message and traditions – do we really need to become hip or emerging or missional in order to have something worthwhile to say?”

Parts of this question are too big or too varied to answer well in this space (like the definition and/or value of “traditions”), but the crux of the question is utterly necessary to examine as a writer. I’m going to try to answer the second half of the question and in so doing answer the first as well.

Must a writer be hip in order to have something worthwhile to say? “No, a writer does not have to be “hip”, that is tuned in to the latest in pop culture and entertainment phenomena. John Piper is the least “hip” person I know. He says worthwhile things. Tim Keller doesn’t seem terribly hip, but is terribly worthwhile. Hipness can be a vehicle to connect with an audience, but it is just as often a distraction from the message. Hipness also, without fail, ceases to be hip in very short order therefore nullifying much of what was said with good intention.

Must a writer be emerging in order to have something worthwhile to say? Truthfully, I have no real idea what “emerging” means. I thought I did at one point and then I didn’t and then I did again and now I don’t. So I’m going to say no, a writer does not have to be emerging to be worthwhile. If there were people who were “emerging” at one point I would that by now they are fully emerged. “Emerging” was a buzz word that was hip, and hip stops being hip after a while, so let’s put that one to bed.

Must a writer be missional in order to have something worthwhile to say? I would answer this with a definitive YES! “Missional is a word that gets thrown around almost as frequently as “emerging” used to, if not more. But “missional” means something good. It incorporates the ideas of gospel centricity with cultural relevance in a particular context. It emphasizes Jesus in a way that most effectively communicates to a particular culture or subculture through people from that same culture or sub culture. If that isn’t the heart of writing then the writer needs to go away.

I read this C.S. Lewis quote recently in Tim and Kathy Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage: “. . .no man who bothers about originality will ever be original; whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before), you will, nine time out of ten, become original without having noticed it.”

So what must you do as a writer? Write the truth with consideration to how God has laid that truth on your heart. Give up the emphasis on hipness, and, instead, communicate with all of who you are before God. Effective communication is that which is heartfelt, aimed at a particular audience, and above all, TRUE. Yes there are writers who are better than others because of their particular styles, verve, vocab, or variation. Yes some authors excel at bringing in cultural applications to enhance a point. But is truth, written with love, out of the life and giftedness God has given you that is the starting point. 

Gratitude Without Comparison

“There are starving children in Africa who would love your dinner! You should be grateful and eat it.”

“Just be glad you don’t have to dress like her.”

“I’m just glad I don’t have things as bad as him.”

Familiar sentiments? I suspect most of us have heard or uttered something very much along these lines. Maybe we said them to our kids or heard them from our parents. They are ideas aimed at assisting in gratitude. Right? That’s what they do?

While there is a sense in which we should be jarred into gratefulness by the reality that others have it worse than we do, these kinds of statements are a pretty horrid kind of instruction on gratitude. They teach comparison more than gratitude. And what about the kids in Africa? How are they supposed to grateful in this set up?

Building gratitude on the foundation of comparison is a structure doomed to crumble. All the mortar between the bricks isn’t, in fact, thankfulness. It’s superiority. I have something someone else doesn’t. I am something someone else isn’t. It is implicit arrogance that is being created and a false kind of gratitude. Your kids become thankful, not for the dinner served, but that they aren’t starving in Africa . . . which is right close to thinking they are better than those from Africa.

Gratefulness can’t be based on any sort of comparison between one person and another. It must be based on the reality of right expectations. What is reasonable to expect?

In truth, nothing. We deserve nothing. Everything we get is beyond what we deserve. And this is the reality which children need to grasp (along with the rest of us, who still get angry when we don’t get what we expect). We need to keep in mind our state as sinners and teach our children the same.

Gratefulness for something lends itself to comparison. But gratitude for something to someone changes the equation. All of a sudden our focus is on the goodness of the giver, and often on our dependence on him or on the undeservedness of the gift. And this is where we want our children to be: focused on the giver’s goodness.

When Evil is Good

Most parents seek to protect their children from evil. We don’t want our children to be frightened, harmed, or attracted by it. But is a parent’s protective instinct always right? Is there a time we should expose our children to evil for their good?

Imagine Frodo on his quest to reach Mount Doom but without orcs, Gollum, ring Wraiths, or Sauron’s eye. That’s not a quest. It’s a business trip trip.

Imagine the Pevensie children entering Narnia and meeting Aslan except without Edmund’s betrayal, the stabbing on the stone table, and the battle with the White Witch. Aslan would be a nice kitty, and it would end with a happy picnic.

Imagine Harry Potter heading off to Hogwarts to learn wizardry but never encountering Voldemort or any of his minions. We’d have ended up with seven books about pubescent crushes, mythical creatures, and quidditch. Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like Twilight on broomsticks.

In the greatest stories it is evil that crystalizes and congeals the good. Only in the face of evil does character, quality, and morality step forth and play the hero. Without evil we are left with nebulous characters of ambiguous depth and uncertain morals. Without evil there is no real decision to be made as to which character we resonate with and which we would want to be.

A child ought to be scared of the scary, horrified at the horror, saddened by the tragic, but most of all delighted by the delightful and gladdened by the good. If we keep evil, the safe kind, the story kind, from our children then the good loses its luster. Evil is the backdrop against which good shines brightest, whether it be courage, sacrifice, fidelity, friendship, love, perseverance or any other truly good quality.

What is more, if we remove the evil, the good might cease to exist altogether. Without evil Frodo never would have left the Shire, the stone table never would have broken, and Harry never would have had the fortitude to sacrifice himself for the greater good. And this is true in every great story, including the greatest one. What need would there have been for a savior without a serpent?

Our children need evil. Without it they may miss the truly good.

Thoughts for 2012?

Merry Belated Christmas and a slightly less belated Happy New Year! After a 10 day hiatus/vacation, I am back to blogging.

I am not one to make new year's resolutions, generally speaking. I'm not much of a planner. But I do enjoy looking forward, and the beginning of a new year is a fitting and convenient time to think about what comes next and new directions to follow.

I set out 6 months ago to blog about ideas that matter in an exploratory sort of way. My intention has been to be informative, challenging, creative, enjoyable, succinct, and occasionally funny and/or heart-warming while avoiding the pedantic or overly critical. That isn't changing. 

What I would love, though, is feedback on ideas about which I might blog. I would love to get questions that want answering, books that want reviewing, theories that want exploring, and so on.  I cannot promise I will write about the ideas proposed, but I value the feedback in order to spark new creative thought flames that can be fanned into posts.

So have at it. What do you have in mind that could spark a blog post here in 2012?