If it has to be earned, or can be traded or leveraged – it is not grace.
The millisecond an exchange of what is supposed to be full of Grace is tagged with expectation and is not freely given, it becomes something other than grace. It may be a bargaining chip, an attempt to control another, or something deployed in hopeful attempts to fix or change another, but, once it is currency of any sort, what is being “offered” is something other than Grace.
Grace is about the giver.
It is a reflection of the heart of the person – group, church, organization – freely giving it. It is not about the person or people on the receiving end. Is it not about whether it’s deserved or not, fair or not, or any one of those typical things people will say when someone has been the unlikely recipient of authentic grace.
Grace, with Listening (“You have my full attention”) and Presence (“I am here with you and for you”) are among the most powerful gifts we can offer each other.
Life itself tries to teach Grace to the willing learner.
May the learning curve be smooth and kind and gentle for you and for me.
When it seems that things are coming at you from all sides….
Hold onto yourself.
Even if you are surrounded by supportive loved ones, you are all you’ve got.
You are your own constant companion and your relationship with yourself is the longest relationship you will ever have – so you might as well be best friends.
You might as well learn to enjoy yourself.
How you treat yourself is (already) the platform from which you see others and it forms the lens through which you see all things.
When under pressure, don’t talk to everyone about what you are facing.
It’s a hopeful myth that all talking is helpful.
It’s not.
Choose a few trusted people and talk only to them
Spewing – freely-recalling, random mumblings, blaming others, yelling, speaking from a place of confusion or anger – has limited and few benefits.
Holding onto yourself involves planning what you will and will not share.
You are allowed to keep things to yourself.
You are allowed to plan and decide how you will behave, who you will be.
All this, and more, is all part of learning to hold onto yourself.
When you hold onto yourself, some will tell you are being selfish.
Self-awareness and selfishness are poles apart.
[I will be in Durban in February and April — not March — and would love to speak at your church, school, or fundraising event — make contact by email or private message.]
From a recent lunch in Cuba — note the hat and cigar. This vegetarian did not partake!
“Now what would Jesus do?” asked the woman glancing at her WWJD bracelet.
“Grape nuts,” replied the companion instantly, as if he’d served Jesus breakfast that morning. I slipped away pondering how the will and the ways of the greatest political, religious and social reformer of all time got reduced to a formula for grocery shopping.
I am glad the use of these bracelets appears to be waning. It remains a great question, but wearing it on a wrist somehow suggests that the answer is easily accessible. It suggests that if you will simply stop and think a little, having eyed the bracelet, you’ll get the answer. Then, as you act on your newfound knowledge, your predicaments will be resolved, you will have a better life, and conditions in the world will improve all around for everybody.
Quite the contrary: Answering the question and doing what Jesus would do in any situation is neither easily established nor executed. Finding the answer itself would take a lot of work, like tunneling back though a couple of thousand years, researching culture, geography and weather conditions and the varying political and religious climates. Then we’d have to identify, and then decipher, metaphor, understand and interpret tone and intent, and immerse ourselves in at least a few ancient languages. Besides all this, we’d need a working knowledge of the subcultures and the prejudices that existed within those subcultures. Then, with all this done, we might be able to decide what Jesus would do given some, but not all, situations we face.
The next challenge, once we’ve established the answer, would be to have the courage to do what Jesus would do. WWJD is not about “doing the right thing.” Jesus did not always do the “right” thing. If that were so, no cross would have awaited him. Doing the “right thing” would have endeared him to those who mattered and would not have required him to buck authority.
Essentially Jesus laid a platform for his followers to live differently. It doesn’t take more than a reading of the New Testament to see that he despised pretentiousness and empty religious “performance” and was particularly vocal wherever he found religious zeal that was without internal transformation. He despised abusive systems and was a particular critic of those who ripped off others.
I do not think Jesus cares what cereal you buy, or for that matter, what dress or suit you wear or how your hair is or is not cut. But I do believe he cared about what kind of person you are and whether you love mercy, humility, truth and justice, and challenge the systems where these qualities are absent. It is apparently forgotten that Jesus was hardly a nice guy. Today he’d be a threat to our political order and might not be able to find a church he’d attend, let alone one that would permit him to preach! Consequently doing what Jesus would do could significantly reduce your popularity, The real question, by the way, is not “what would Jesus do” but rather what will you do in response to what he has done?
Shed the bracelets. It’s not grape nuts or cheerios, but love and truth, mercy and justice, that might bring us all a little closer to reflecting who and what Jesus was. But be careful, you might shed the bracelet and exchange it for a cross – and it won’t be hanging around your neck.
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When published in The Indianapolis Star, this column certainly got me some fans – and enemies. The morning it appeared my email was as hot! I was called brilliant, I was called stupid. One reader said that finally he’d read something by an intelligent Christian about a really stupid gimmick. Another said he’d be praying for my salvation even though he was convinced I was a lost cause.
Love one another is surely among life’s hardest, crucial, most fabulous assignments.
Jesus commanded it.
He did not suggest it or consider it a good idea.
If we claim faith in Jesus, His commands leave us no options, no outs, or off ramps.
We are to love those who love us back and those who do not.
We are to love even those who for whatever reason, have chosen to reject and hate us. Hardest perhaps, we are to love those for whom we are invisible, those who regard us, if they even notice we exist, with indifference.
We are to love modern day Samaritans (the commonly rejected change from culture to culture, group to group) and Pharisees (today’s know-it-all blowhards who peer down at we lesser mortals) and teachers of the law and hookers and addicts and bankers and Rev. Private Jet pastors and prostitutes. We are to love those who treat us with the contempt shown to New Testament Samaritans.
Yes.
Everyone.
As you, my sons, love others well and as you learn to love even more people – it doesn’t come naturally – from the most distant or platonic of relationships, to the most intimate and sacred love and trust in marriage, you will be guided, sometimes cajoled, driven, even bullied by deep inner impulses.
Strong tides, forces unseen, forces felt but unknown will rise within you.
These inner pressures are sufficiently powerful that words expressed on any page will not be able to quell the force they will try to exert over you.
Love drills down deep for discovery of the opposite spirit, the counter-intuitive approach, the unexpected, the unanticipated means toward a loving, kind end.
Love your enemies is not some insurmountable-Jesus-hurdle.
He did not command it to trick anyone.
Loving your enemies is the gateway to loving all people, even to love those whom we may consider easy to love.
No one is easy to love.
Remember, what you can do to anyone you can do to everyone.
Love is really understanding the parable of the “good” Samaritan and trying to live it out daily.
Love, to imperfectly and briefly quote Paul, the Apostle, doesn’t return evil for evil.
Finally, read Paul’s summary of love in 1 Corinthians 13 and remind yourself over and over again, Paul did not have wedding sermons in mind when he put his heart on paper.
May this question help you to plan your day. I confess, it’s constantly in the back of my mind with almost all my daily interactions.
You’ve seen him demanding to see the boss, insisting on getting his way, banging fists on the counter. He becomes aggressive and threatening when things don’t go his way. You can be this person if you want. It all depends on what kind of person you want to be.
You’ve heard and seen her, raising her voice at a waiter in a fine restaurant because something wasn’t up to her standards. She plays dirty and attempts to humiliate helpers to land a free meal. You can be this way if you want. Everything depends on who you want to be.
You’ve seen him, kind and patient under stress, generous and openhearted, even when facing difficulties. You can be this way if you want. It’s always, and there are no exceptions, up to you.
You’ve seen her, helping the poor, serving the sick, making meals for neighbors, all-the-while undergoing her own stresses, suffering beneath her own burdens and loads. She serves while she herself deserves to be served. You can be this way if you want. Everything pivots on what kind of person you want to be.
My friend Michael — a finer human (than Michael) I’m yet to meet.
I post this at the beginning of every December so it may “ring a bell” —- no pun intended:
Adult Jesus Ruins My Christmas Shopping
Christmas shopping would be so much easier if Jesus would just remain a baby.
Every time I venture out to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child and try to purchase a gift for someone I love I am stumped.
What do I buy that will somehow declare the birth of the Son of God?
I don’t have the where-with-all for a gift that marks the birth of a King.
Besides, every time I begin to shop in honor of Baby Jesus, I get images of Him being whipped unmercifully and then nailed upon a cross.
Blood spurts derail my shopping. I resist the thoughts but they will not go away.
Before I can do much looking around the malls Jesus jumps out of the crib. He’s fully adult, almost running, sometimes dancing, celebrating on the streets and I can hardly keep up. He’s healing people left, right, and center. He’s getting into all kinds of trouble.
I am lost. I am out of control. No, he’s out of control.
He goes to the wrong places. He loves the seedy parts of town. He goes where I have never been before. He mixes with the rejected. He storms City Hall and insults merciless leaders. He is outspoken, scathing to those who are unfair in their business practices. He doesn’t care about rank, stature, or wealth but detests double standards, addresses them at every encounter.
I want to grab him, shove him back in the crib where he was safe, where we were all safer.
When I thought he would stop in at a church or two – perhaps a cathedral built in his honor – he’s off in a smoky bar with washed out losers. He’s talking politics like I have never heard. He’s hot on fairness, justice, mercy, truth. I tell him not to mix politics and religion and blush with the absurdity of it all.
If he would just stay in one place like a baby should is all I can think.
It’s not long before I am in a jostle with the crowds. It’s not the kind of popularity I was expecting.
Prostitutes love him. Drunks defend him. The poorest of the poor, the marginalized, the rejected, are out in their masses. He dances in the streets with street children and people he has just met. Young men and women, piercings and tattoos all over their bodies, circle him celebrate like long lost friends. Then, ignoring ordinances, he feeds the applauding masses.
Now what do I buy?
Clearly, anything I spend, if I am really out to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, has to be grand. Yet modest. His birth was modest: a shed, a feeding trough. Secrecy. Shame. Danger. Poverty dictated the details for this dramatic night. I cannot spend much. Yet, it was the greatest night Earth had ever seen. Angels sighed! The order of everything disturbed by Love’s intervention.
I tell him he’s ruining things, that he is too quick to befriend the wrong people, but his mind is elsewhere. I beg him to befriend religious leaders, a pastor or two, but he will not listen.
Then, they are up in arms against him.
All but a few want him gone. He’s a hindrance to tourism. He’s a threat to peace and he’s being accused of not attending church!
Next, he looks crucifixion in the eye.
If only he would remain a baby.
It is so much easier to shop for a baby.
(Published first in The Indianapolis Star some years ago) ………….. Yesterday’s brief outing to a beautiful market:
You have escaped the world of all-or-nothing behaving. You don’t throw in the towel because you failed. You try again. You seek in all your trying to do no harm, not to yourself or others.
You have escaped the world of black-and-white thinking and cast off your cloak of knowing it all. You know that people who give the impression of knowing it all, really don’t. Sometimes you engage them simply for the (harmless, of course) fun it provides.
You have embraced ambiguity. You understand that the world won’t crumble and the church won’t tumble and your family may indeed breathe a sigh of relief because you are able to admit there are a few things about which you are unsure.
You embrace your frailties, failures and feebleness with deep regret and sadness (sometimes) and humor (sometimes). You are aware that your constant striving, trying to prove whatever, trying to be right, distorts your beauty. You accept that you are a person, not a prized racehorse.
You desire to be more loving than you have ever been even if you are not quite theologically accurate or sound (who is?). You know that “accurate” theology has killed millions. You want your attempts at sound theology to at least lead you to greater love.
Last evening’s basketball playoff in the world’s really largest field house.
Next week, aiming particularity for Thursday, millions of people in the United States will travel “home” to a family meal called Thanksgiving. It’s almost a given that, after turkey and mashed potatoes and all the “fixings” and before the football (American “Football” of course) on TV people will go around the table and express their gratitude for everything from the nation as a whole to grandma for fixing her trademark green beans.
I confess, it is no easy holiday for an immigrant given that it’s my sons and me and no extended family, but we have grown accustomed to it and are always included in Nolan Smith’s (former Beachwood and Durban North person) family for Thanksgiving.
I have my list ready to go:
I am grateful for my sons and the men they have become. They are honest and very hard working. They know how to conduct themselves in all contexts and I am often moved to tears when others tell me about some of the things they know about my sons.
I am grateful to my readers around the world. I never imagined that The Mercury would become the international platform that it has become for me.
I am grateful for my extended family around the world who do such an amazing job of keeping in touch. Not a week goes by without a vibrant back and forth involving several continents.
I am grateful for the speaking opportunities afforded me. It’s a demonstration of Beauty for Ashes and Grace-upon-Grace if ever I knew one.
I am grateful to be an American and to have dual citizenship with South Africa. Really, a man can love two nations. I know it is possible because I do.
There is no need to twist God’s Arm in ardent prayer seeking God’s Presence.
Hold God’s Hand, instead.
It’s nearer than you may think.
Right there, there’s God’s Hand.
See it?
It’s at the end of the arm of the woman begging at the traffic light. You and I and thousands of others drive off trying hard not to see her and when we do, many of us blame her for her addiction and say things like – in our heads of course – I am not paying for her next pack of cigarettes and I bet she has a cell phone.
Did you see God wave at the traffic light?
God’s Hand is the hand of the unshaved man holding the begging cup and grasping his homeless sign.
You and I and thousands of others drive off remembering just how hard we work for our money and think – to ourselves of course – why can’t he work hard for his money and then you and I remembered how we pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps and why can’t he.
Then – to ourselves of course – we blamed the government.
What are they doing about this begging problem?
When we hold the hand of the lonely, the poor, the disenfranchised, the frightened, we are holding God’s Hand.
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