I can only imagine (even though I don’t really want to) the scene that morning in the ancient city of Syracuse.
The oddball scientist ran naked through the streets, dripping wet from his bath. Wild-eyed and oblivious to the stir he must have caused, he shouted the word over and over again.
“Eureka! Eureka! Eureka!”
Our best translation in English? “I have found it!”
What, you might ask, had our threadbare technician discovered?
Archimedes’ theory of displacement.
He had found his solution, and the sheer joy that accompanied the unearthing of his newly found theory left Archimedes unable to sit still. Legend says he didn’t even take time to find his toga.
Apparently, our hero filled his tub a little too full that particular morning, right up to the top. When he settled in for the daily scrub, he realized that the amount of water spilling over the edge seemed directly connected to the amount of space ol’ Archie himself was filling.
As his brain connected the dots of physics, he realized the magnitude of discovery.
The round of primeval streaking that followed is why you feel confident boarding ship for your Caribbean cruise today.
What do people presume that 70,000 tons of metal will float? I’m always amazed that planes can fly, ships can sail and that any of us can circum-navigate Atlanta, Georgia, on I-285 and live to tell the tale.
And yet, we do it every day. And we don’t consider such decisions to be major leaps of faith. After all, Archimedes has done the math.
Ships displace a volume of water equal to their own weight. Forces can be measured, and even 70,000 ton vessels can float. Planes fly – it has to do with “lift,” or something like that – and we trust that someone has figured out that this will, in fact, work out o.k.
Human beings can do amazing things when they place faith and trust in verifiable, observable, time-tested science. Even when we observe other realities --- like ships that sink, planes that crash, or commuters who crash --- we block that possibility from our thinking and forge ahead. After all, if we didn’t, how would we ever “get” anywhere? The reward outweighs the risk.
Trusting in God seems a little tougher.
…4 a.m….rough water…exhaustion…hunger…frustration…fear.
Something was out there, and it was getting closer.
How could any boat be making that kind of time in this kind of storm? The wind had pushed them far from shore.
There were seasoned boat people among them. Even though, to a man, they all had their “sea legs,” fear was palpable in the air, and growing by the second.
There could be no doubt now, something was closing on them. As it drew nearer and nearer, initial misgivings blossomed into full-blown panic.
WHAT…IS…HAPPENING?
Adrenaline pumped, minds raced, and then it happened ---
Somebody said the word… “GHOST!”
After that, I can only imagine that all kinds of things broke loose, if you know what I mean. And you do.
I can’t imagine that anyone among the disciples remembered to reflect upon “Archimedes’ theory of displacement” in the heat of those confusing moments on the Sea of Galilee.
Perhaps, if they had, they might have offered themselves a bit of rational comfort. “Physics tells us that what we’re witnessing can’t be happening, so everything must be fine,” they might have thought. But seeing is believing. And it was happening, right before their eyes.
Fear lives just this side of faith, and it weighs a ton.
Two nights ago, I was jolted out of bed at the sound of one of the most horrific crashes I have ever heard. Instinctively, I knew that this was it. The moment had come when a Hartsfield-bound plane had crashed into our house…or Al-Qaeda had blown up our garage…or Osama himself had come to steal my children and attack my wife.
In reality, what had happened wasn’t quite as dramatic – or dangerous.
Turns out, our enormous, old, fat cat had taken a running shot into a bathtub and knocked the boys’ big, plastic, toy boats to smithereens. It’s amazing what the sound of that sort of feline-induced plastic and fiberglass smash-up can do to a protective dad and husband who has drifted deep into REM sleep.
The “fight or flight” response is a real thing. My adrenaline glands instantly dumped all of their reserve directly into my bloodstream. Then, they made a second batch and dumped that, too. After that, they put some more on backorder, and started looking for extra on Ebay.
I was instantly awake, though not yet rational. I leapt (not kidding, this is Holly’s eye-witness account) out of bed and in one gigantic hop, I managed to place myself at the entrance to our bedroom, eyes fixed on the door to our garage, where I could take on the marauders invading our home, and fight them to the death.
Seriously, we’re talking kung fu pose, and the whole deal. There was also a kind of guttural cry involved, and an utterance of the phrase, “Come On! Come On!” ….as in, “Bring It, Osama!!!”
I cannot eat pizza that late in the evening.
What I’ve learned is this. Real fear is a powerful thing. It can grip us like a giant hand, squeezing and choking away life. “Fear” and “thought” don’t do well together, and “thought” pretty much always loses that battle.
The result is that we human beings are willing to do almost anything to avoid dealing with our fears.
We figure out how to engage the world in such a way that our safety and comfort-level can always be assured. We devise formulas, test and re-test, and only board boats that we believe can float through any storm.
We cling, white-knuckled, to the false “faith” that says boats of our own making can never be sunk. Down deep, we know better, but the boat always feels safer than the storm.
There’s only one problem.
Jesus.
He comes walking across the water.
I don’t know why he chooses to send the disciples on ahead that night, or why he decides to teach them such a dynamic object lesson in that storm.
But I think he means to show them, and us, a thing or two about fear.
Fear is heavy. Fear sinks. Fear can’t get out of the boat.
But faith….it’s buoyant.
It displaces…pushes…lifts.
Fear didn’t move Peter to ask if he could come to Jesus. Faith did. Faith somehow held his feet steady on the waves. Faith moved him closer and closer.
Fear made him fall…and Jesus was there to catch him.
This week at SOTH, we’re gonna talk about the things that scare us. As we begin our study of If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, we’re going to think about the truth of John Ortberg’s first assertion.
Following Jesus means receiving a call from God, for every single one of us, to engage in a particular work in this world. And when God calls us, as he surely does, we always find ourselves afraid.
But faith lives just on the other side.
Come take the first step this Sunday.
Grace and Peace,
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
Welcome to Mike and Karen Hubbard, and Jake and Jessica. It’s a real joy for them to welcome them into membership at SOTH!
Fall Community Groups – Over 40 adults are involved in 4 Fall Community Groups for in-depth study of If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat! Groups have their first meetings this week, and it’s not to late to join the fun.
Mondays at 6:30: Tim Potate and Lamar Gilstrap lead, and the group meets at Tim and Ellie Potate’s house – 5595 West Chapel Hill Rd.
Thursdays at 6:30: Hosts are Bill and Mona Clary, 3841 Oak Hill Rd., with Sandra Wells leading.
Fridays at 7:00: Mike and Krys Brooks host, 3810 Georgia Drive, with Derrick Fountain leading.
Saturdays at 6:30: Jim and Cindi Bartlett host – 4297 Doublegate Drive, and Andrea Vantrees will lead.
More great things are coming in October, including our annual Pumpkin Patch youth fundraiser for the community! We need lots of volunteers to help run the patch, and you can sign up on the Youth bulletin board in the church hallway.
Delivery is scheduled for the afternoon of Friday, October 13th, and we’ll need lots of help unloading the truck. Truly, this is always one of the most fun time of working together that happens throughout the year, and you don’t want to miss the spectacle of thousands of pumpkins being unloaded for the folks lined up in traffic up and down Chapel Hill Road!
Sep 27, 2006
Sep 20, 2006
Speech
I remember very well the first lecture of that semester.
My teacher, a native of India, described his childhood as one of “growing up on an island of Christianity in an ocean of Hinduism.”
Himself a Methodist pastor, he had followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Their home was “Nazareth,” a tiny Indian village, converted to Christian faith by Methodist missionaries in the 19th century.
“This class,” he said, “is called, ‘Christian Encounter with Hinduism,’ and that is a lovely name. The problem, however, is that such a title sounds like something you can do by reading books.”
He paused, for effect, and continued, slyly, “This class should really be called ‘Christians Encountering Hindus,’ because that is what we intend to do --- encounter one another.”
That is exactly what we did.
Don’t get me wrong. We definitely read plenty of books. We read the Bible and sacred Hindu texts side-by-side. We read the scholarly reflections of our teacher and other authorities on Christian/Hindu dialogue. We read about the culture and philosophies of India and other Hindu nations. But the experiences of meeting real Hindu people have stayed with me far longer than the best written of those texts.
That semester, for me, was a study in what “diversity” can really mean. We didn’t pull any punches, and we didn’t soft-sell the hard work that interfaith dialogue really is.
I remember the undergraduate students who came to our class and spent 90 minutes sharing about their faith, fielding questions from those of us who understood so little about their belief and practice. They were earnest and sincere young people --- like young people from Christian families, they ran the gamut from those who seemed very pious and committed to others who felt that religion was something for their grandparents’ generation.
I remember the little, tiny, ancient, white man who came dressed in his Hindu priestly vestments. At over 80 years of age, he was the picture of health and vitality. As a young spiritual seeker, he had taken off across the U.S., hitch-hiking and looking for God.
He said that he stopped at church after church, and no one could show him a path that would open up his heart for communion with God, until finally he knocked on the doors of a Vaisnavite community in Chicago. Yoga and meditation spoke to him in a powerful way and he eventually committed himself fully into a Hindu religious order.
I remember the Indian professor of physics who visited us, sharing about the role that faith played in his family, and what it was like to be Hindu in a Christian culture.
Most of all, I remember our trip to a Hindu temple in Atlanta. We met priests and witnessed their conduct of a Hindu worship service. There, I experienced a pocket of India, hidden just off an Atlanta street. Sights, sounds and smells I had never known overwhelmed my senses.
This ol’ Methodist boy came away having learned a lot.
For one, Hinduism and Christianity are really, really different.
That was a lot of tuition to come to such an earth-shaking conclusion, huh?
What I mean is, I learned that understanding diversity doesn’t mean trying to over-emphasize similarities while pretending that differences don’t exist.
Hinduism and Christianity are really, really different.
I found that I don’t agree with everything in Hindu thought and practice.
I found out that I really do love Indian food (big shocker).
I also found that nowhere along the way did anybody asked me to agree with anything. They didn’t even ask me “whether” I agreed with anything. At no time did anyone threaten my faith in Jesus.
I found out that Hindus and Christians can be friends.
At another seminar that same semester, I remember a different professor saying, “diversity isn’t ‘look how much we’re alike, isn’t this wonderful!’ but more like ‘wow, we’re really different, and we choose to live with one another and respect each other anyway.’”
“Respect” and “agreement” are not mutually exclusive.
It’s possible to be “fully” Christian --- a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ, clear about one’s own personal identity --- and also still be a person who holds respect for all people, building relationships and living in harmony with everyone, no matter our real differences.
In fact, it seems a shame to me that I would even have to write that sentence. Shouldn’t faith in Jesus inherently enhance our capacity to “love one another,” even when the “others” don’t look, act or think like we do?
I know. I can already hear the hairs on some of your necks standing tall as you wonder, “then what makes us Christian? Is every religion just as good as another one? What about the cross? What about the need to bring other people to faith in Jesus? Don’t you know that Jesus is ‘the way, the truth and the light, and that no one comes to the Father except through him???”
As far as I can tell, no part of faith in Jesus – no part of the cross – no part of walking in His steps tells me that I have authority to judge another person.
Nowhere does faith in Jesus tell me that I have the authority to define who will be my “neighbor,” no matter how badly I might want to. And I’m pretty sure The Book is clear about two things Christians are supposed to do: we love God, and our neighbors. Jesus says those neighbors are the ones you’d least suspect – or choose.
Knowing that truth and putting it into practice is in no way contradictory to the good news of the Gospel. Rather, it is its highest fulfillment.
It is time for all people of faith to reclaim the podium from the militants. If they won’t turn loose of the microphone (and they won’t), then maybe we at least need to find a way to pull their plugs. TV’s do have on/off buttons (not that I use them nearly enough).
Media outlets are drawn to controversy, extremism and fear-mongering like moths to flame. If we let them, they’ll fill our own individual worlds with the same.
This week, Pope Benedict XVI gave an academic speech at a German seminary where he had taught in the past. Attempting to link faith to “reason,” not “violence,” he quoted a medieval text about Islam, written by a 14th century Byzantine Emperor.
Though the overall direction and content of the speech was appropriate and needed, in my opinion, those specific words were, at best, unfortunate. The ancient quote stated that, the only new things Muhammad had brought to religion were “bad and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
In reaction, Muslims set fire to seven churches in the West Bank of Israel and burned effigies of the Pope in violent protest around the world. Governments have protested against the Pope, and his planned trip to Turkey is now in jeopardy.
The media coverage of this story has been intense, and certainly, there has been real tension around this incident that should not be downplayed.
However, overreaction and violence are not the whole story. Extremists aren’t the only ones who should have the microphone, or find the camera.
The Pope has worked to make apology and to bring clarity to the intention of his statements, and he should be commended.
It is time for some moderate response and clear leadership from Muslim leaders, and it is starting to happen. Remember, moderate comments don’t make headlines.
Muhammad Habash, director of the Center for Islamic Studies in Damascus, Syria, was quoted in the NY Times today, saying, “it is now our turn for calming the situation.”
Ali Bardakoglu, the top Islamic cleric of Turkey said that the Pope’s, “expression of sadness is a sign that he would work for world peace.”
Admittedly, I have longed for a united front of Islamic leadership, loudly condemning suicide attacks and violence perpetuated in the name of Muhammad and Allah. Those condemnations have seemingly been much too few and far between, or at least rarely reported in our media.
But there are things that moderate, thoughtful Christians ought to get loud about sometimes, too. And most often, we don’t. Fear, uncertainty and apathy should never silence people of faith, whether Muslim or Christian. We have a message that needs to be heard.
Here’s my plan: I want to be a Christian “encountering” people. I want our church to be one that is clearly and unflinchingly Christian, but also open and respectful of others. I want us to build relationships, start conversations, and always, always show love of God and love of neighbor in our actions.
I want us to believe in free speech. We should insist upon our own right to it, and defend that same right for others, even when we don’t like what they have to say. I want us to see the world around us and engage it, positively, in the name of Jesus Christ.
I love those words of Muhammad Habash, and I think there’s a way for us to put them into practice --- somehow, some way, right here in Douglasville, Georgia.
“It is now our turn for calming the situation.”
Grace and Peace,
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
Worship Notes: This Sunday will be week three, and the conclusion of the sermon series “Cracking Up,” all about dealing with the pressures of real life. We’ve looked at “time,” and “money,” and this week will be all about family. In keeping with that theme, SOTH will highlight one of its greatest ministries, our Preschool!
Preschool director Leslie Mousa will be on hand to share with us about the excellent work that our preschool is doing, and we’ll have lunch after our 10:00 a.m. service to celebrate our congregation’s connection to all that our preschool does in ministry.
A special offering will be received at the 10:00 service to help support the ongoing progress taking place in our school.
Fall Community Groups: Don’t miss your chance to join a fall community group! Sign-ups will continue this Sunday and more info will be coming to those of you on our prayer/ministry e-mail list this week. Five groups are forming at various times and locations, and groups will begin meeting the week of September 25th.
Our text will be John Ortberg’s If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, which are available for $12 each outside of our worship space.
UM Men News: Our Rock Eagle Men’s Retreat is this weekend, and we’re excited to announce that SOTH will be sending an entire cabin of 18 men to the retreat! This was an excellent response, and the weekend will be very meaningful for every man involved.
My teacher, a native of India, described his childhood as one of “growing up on an island of Christianity in an ocean of Hinduism.”
Himself a Methodist pastor, he had followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Their home was “Nazareth,” a tiny Indian village, converted to Christian faith by Methodist missionaries in the 19th century.
“This class,” he said, “is called, ‘Christian Encounter with Hinduism,’ and that is a lovely name. The problem, however, is that such a title sounds like something you can do by reading books.”
He paused, for effect, and continued, slyly, “This class should really be called ‘Christians Encountering Hindus,’ because that is what we intend to do --- encounter one another.”
That is exactly what we did.
Don’t get me wrong. We definitely read plenty of books. We read the Bible and sacred Hindu texts side-by-side. We read the scholarly reflections of our teacher and other authorities on Christian/Hindu dialogue. We read about the culture and philosophies of India and other Hindu nations. But the experiences of meeting real Hindu people have stayed with me far longer than the best written of those texts.
That semester, for me, was a study in what “diversity” can really mean. We didn’t pull any punches, and we didn’t soft-sell the hard work that interfaith dialogue really is.
I remember the undergraduate students who came to our class and spent 90 minutes sharing about their faith, fielding questions from those of us who understood so little about their belief and practice. They were earnest and sincere young people --- like young people from Christian families, they ran the gamut from those who seemed very pious and committed to others who felt that religion was something for their grandparents’ generation.
I remember the little, tiny, ancient, white man who came dressed in his Hindu priestly vestments. At over 80 years of age, he was the picture of health and vitality. As a young spiritual seeker, he had taken off across the U.S., hitch-hiking and looking for God.
He said that he stopped at church after church, and no one could show him a path that would open up his heart for communion with God, until finally he knocked on the doors of a Vaisnavite community in Chicago. Yoga and meditation spoke to him in a powerful way and he eventually committed himself fully into a Hindu religious order.
I remember the Indian professor of physics who visited us, sharing about the role that faith played in his family, and what it was like to be Hindu in a Christian culture.
Most of all, I remember our trip to a Hindu temple in Atlanta. We met priests and witnessed their conduct of a Hindu worship service. There, I experienced a pocket of India, hidden just off an Atlanta street. Sights, sounds and smells I had never known overwhelmed my senses.
This ol’ Methodist boy came away having learned a lot.
For one, Hinduism and Christianity are really, really different.
That was a lot of tuition to come to such an earth-shaking conclusion, huh?
What I mean is, I learned that understanding diversity doesn’t mean trying to over-emphasize similarities while pretending that differences don’t exist.
Hinduism and Christianity are really, really different.
I found that I don’t agree with everything in Hindu thought and practice.
I found out that I really do love Indian food (big shocker).
I also found that nowhere along the way did anybody asked me to agree with anything. They didn’t even ask me “whether” I agreed with anything. At no time did anyone threaten my faith in Jesus.
I found out that Hindus and Christians can be friends.
At another seminar that same semester, I remember a different professor saying, “diversity isn’t ‘look how much we’re alike, isn’t this wonderful!’ but more like ‘wow, we’re really different, and we choose to live with one another and respect each other anyway.’”
“Respect” and “agreement” are not mutually exclusive.
It’s possible to be “fully” Christian --- a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ, clear about one’s own personal identity --- and also still be a person who holds respect for all people, building relationships and living in harmony with everyone, no matter our real differences.
In fact, it seems a shame to me that I would even have to write that sentence. Shouldn’t faith in Jesus inherently enhance our capacity to “love one another,” even when the “others” don’t look, act or think like we do?
I know. I can already hear the hairs on some of your necks standing tall as you wonder, “then what makes us Christian? Is every religion just as good as another one? What about the cross? What about the need to bring other people to faith in Jesus? Don’t you know that Jesus is ‘the way, the truth and the light, and that no one comes to the Father except through him???”
As far as I can tell, no part of faith in Jesus – no part of the cross – no part of walking in His steps tells me that I have authority to judge another person.
Nowhere does faith in Jesus tell me that I have the authority to define who will be my “neighbor,” no matter how badly I might want to. And I’m pretty sure The Book is clear about two things Christians are supposed to do: we love God, and our neighbors. Jesus says those neighbors are the ones you’d least suspect – or choose.
Knowing that truth and putting it into practice is in no way contradictory to the good news of the Gospel. Rather, it is its highest fulfillment.
It is time for all people of faith to reclaim the podium from the militants. If they won’t turn loose of the microphone (and they won’t), then maybe we at least need to find a way to pull their plugs. TV’s do have on/off buttons (not that I use them nearly enough).
Media outlets are drawn to controversy, extremism and fear-mongering like moths to flame. If we let them, they’ll fill our own individual worlds with the same.
This week, Pope Benedict XVI gave an academic speech at a German seminary where he had taught in the past. Attempting to link faith to “reason,” not “violence,” he quoted a medieval text about Islam, written by a 14th century Byzantine Emperor.
Though the overall direction and content of the speech was appropriate and needed, in my opinion, those specific words were, at best, unfortunate. The ancient quote stated that, the only new things Muhammad had brought to religion were “bad and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
In reaction, Muslims set fire to seven churches in the West Bank of Israel and burned effigies of the Pope in violent protest around the world. Governments have protested against the Pope, and his planned trip to Turkey is now in jeopardy.
The media coverage of this story has been intense, and certainly, there has been real tension around this incident that should not be downplayed.
However, overreaction and violence are not the whole story. Extremists aren’t the only ones who should have the microphone, or find the camera.
The Pope has worked to make apology and to bring clarity to the intention of his statements, and he should be commended.
It is time for some moderate response and clear leadership from Muslim leaders, and it is starting to happen. Remember, moderate comments don’t make headlines.
Muhammad Habash, director of the Center for Islamic Studies in Damascus, Syria, was quoted in the NY Times today, saying, “it is now our turn for calming the situation.”
Ali Bardakoglu, the top Islamic cleric of Turkey said that the Pope’s, “expression of sadness is a sign that he would work for world peace.”
Admittedly, I have longed for a united front of Islamic leadership, loudly condemning suicide attacks and violence perpetuated in the name of Muhammad and Allah. Those condemnations have seemingly been much too few and far between, or at least rarely reported in our media.
But there are things that moderate, thoughtful Christians ought to get loud about sometimes, too. And most often, we don’t. Fear, uncertainty and apathy should never silence people of faith, whether Muslim or Christian. We have a message that needs to be heard.
Here’s my plan: I want to be a Christian “encountering” people. I want our church to be one that is clearly and unflinchingly Christian, but also open and respectful of others. I want us to build relationships, start conversations, and always, always show love of God and love of neighbor in our actions.
I want us to believe in free speech. We should insist upon our own right to it, and defend that same right for others, even when we don’t like what they have to say. I want us to see the world around us and engage it, positively, in the name of Jesus Christ.
I love those words of Muhammad Habash, and I think there’s a way for us to put them into practice --- somehow, some way, right here in Douglasville, Georgia.
“It is now our turn for calming the situation.”
Grace and Peace,
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
Worship Notes: This Sunday will be week three, and the conclusion of the sermon series “Cracking Up,” all about dealing with the pressures of real life. We’ve looked at “time,” and “money,” and this week will be all about family. In keeping with that theme, SOTH will highlight one of its greatest ministries, our Preschool!
Preschool director Leslie Mousa will be on hand to share with us about the excellent work that our preschool is doing, and we’ll have lunch after our 10:00 a.m. service to celebrate our congregation’s connection to all that our preschool does in ministry.
A special offering will be received at the 10:00 service to help support the ongoing progress taking place in our school.
Fall Community Groups: Don’t miss your chance to join a fall community group! Sign-ups will continue this Sunday and more info will be coming to those of you on our prayer/ministry e-mail list this week. Five groups are forming at various times and locations, and groups will begin meeting the week of September 25th.
Our text will be John Ortberg’s If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, which are available for $12 each outside of our worship space.
UM Men News: Our Rock Eagle Men’s Retreat is this weekend, and we’re excited to announce that SOTH will be sending an entire cabin of 18 men to the retreat! This was an excellent response, and the weekend will be very meaningful for every man involved.
Sep 13, 2006
Boot
Having grown up in the cotton fields of West Tennessee, in between the shadows of Memphis and Nashville, it probably doesn’t surprise you to know that I’m a pretty big fan of country music.
It’s real, honest, to-the-point and full of “poor man’s poetry.”
Only the hardest of heart could fail to shed a tear while listening to George Jones whine his way through “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Only the cold and uncaring could fail to feel the pain and desperation of Merle Haggard’s “Tonight, the Bottle Let Me Down.”
Right?
OK, maybe that’s a stretch. I realize that not everyone shares my occasional need for the “down home,” and that even when they do, not everybody’s down home includes George Jones.
Fair enough.
But I bet that since September 11th, 2001, almost everybody, country music lover or not, has been exposed to Toby Keith’s, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.” The song is also known as, and I am not making this up, “The Angry American.”
In case you’ve missed it, let me quote some particulars from the lyrics:
Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you’ll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
`Cause we`ll put a boot in your ---
It`s the American way.
Speaking for all the American good ol’ boys out there, Mr. Keith got in touch with his righteous indignation. And why not?
Revenge sells.
And it feels great, after all.
What self-respecting person doesn’t want to put a boot in somebody’s anatomy when you’ve just been sucker-punched in the gut?
Trust me, I've wanted to put a 9/11 sized "boot" somewhere for the last five years.
I remember what I felt on that Tuesday five years ago as though the events happened just this morning. I was at my office in the church where I served as Associate Pastor at that time.
My plan was to spend a few minutes attending our weekly staff meeting before getting on I-20 from Augusta to a later appointment at Emory in Atlanta.
Just before I went out the door of my office, my cell phone rang and I picked it up.
“Hey babe,” she said, “something’s happened at the World Trade Center in New York, and it’s really weird. They’re saying a plane hit it. They think it must have been a small plane, some kind of mistake, but it’s really on the news, just wanted you to know.”
That meeting never happened, as many other staff members had received similar updates from their spouses. Pretty soon, everybody just wanted to find a radio or tv.
I figured I had better hurry up and get on the road.
A few miles out of town, I stopped to pump some gas, and my phone rang again. “They hit the other tower” she said. “They think it’s terrorism.”
Soon, another call, as the first tower came down. “It fell down,” she said. “That can’t be,” I argued. “It’s impossible. The World Trade Center cannot fall down. It just can’t. Do you know how many people work there?”
Denial can be a powerful thing, and in that moment, I knew what I was hearing just couldn’t physically be true.
Amazingly, maybe because I didn't know what else to do, and because I was still living in a “pre-9/11 world,” I kept on heading down that highway toward Atlanta.
When the second tower fell, and as reports of the attack on the Pentagon came over the radio, I can tell you that I felt a rage unlike any that I have known before.
The pain was personal. The anger was, too. Slowly, mile by mile, a new reality dawned in my heart and mind. “There are people in the world who want to kill me. They want to kill my family…just because we’re Americans.”
There’s no coming back from that sort of shift in reality. The old place just isn’t there anymore, for any of us.
I remember stopping at an exit in the open Georgia countryside, just east of Metro Atlanta. I needed to listen, and really give focused attention to the radio reports, and to try and clear my head for the rest of the drive. As I walked into the gas station just off the interstate, I paused to watch the nervous cashier.
He was of obvious Middle-Eastern descent, and he was working quietly and efficiently, head down…saying nothing. I can’t imagine what he felt at that moment. There were about 20 angry “Toby Keiths” in that store, including me. On 9/11/2001, his feelings were about the least of my concern.
I managed to make my meeting at Emory, although the whole campus seemed like a war zone because it is home to the Centers for Disease Control. On the way home, my much beloved mazda pick up truck gave up the ghost and stranded me on the side of the road, a lethal crack having formed in an old cylinder.
Finally, I managed to make my return to the church, dropped off by a tow truck, and late for the impromptu 9/11 service in which I was supposed to participate.
I found my wife, and stood with her at the back of the room. Thousands were dead. No one knew how many for sure.
Husbands…wives…fathers…mothers…grandparents…sons…daughters. All innocent. All lost. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I knew what it meant to have a true “enemy.”
That’s when it happened. Together, the congregation began to recite the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples.
The words caught in my throat.
“Forgive us our trespasses…as we forgive those who…”
I was not ready to forgive those who had “trespassed against us” on that day.
And yet, the prayer had not changed. Jesus’ appeal to his Father was the same on 9/11 as it had been on 9/10. It was the prayer I was challenged to join.
I don’t think I even really wanted to mean them, but I joined the congregation and prayed those words out loud. These five years later, that act of worship remains fresh in my mind.
9/12/2001 brought a new challenge for me, and for all of us. As a pastor, my job became one of helping Christian people understand their faith and their world in light of the previous day’s events.
That task hasn’t stopped yet, and it likely never will.
As I watched the commemorative events and the thousand documentaries that aired this weekend and this past Monday, I heard a new term for the first time.
One cable news anchor spoke of the “9/11 Generation,” applying the term to all who were between Jr. High and college age on the day of the attacks. Basically, these are the children of the 80’s. All of the characteristics that define this generation have yet to be seen.
I like to think Christianity might have a voice in that conversation.
I don’t simply mean cultural Christianity, in the sense of the West vs. East clash-of-cultures showdown with Islam that the folks on TV like to frame.
I mean the Christianity of the heart that moves believers, one-by-one, to carry the cross of Christ --- listening to his voice, praying his prayers and walking in his steps.
We are called to live and work for justice, and surely all those who perpetuated the atrocities of 9/11 must be held to account.
But vengeance, anger and resentment will eat us alive if it’s allowed to take root in our hearts. That kind of hatred will work like a parasite, draining us of all that makes us holy and leaving us unable to respond to the challenges of faith in a new world.
Jesus’s people pray. For their enemies.
Somehow, they believe that there can be peace, and they trust God to lead them toward it. They forgive those who need forgiveness for vile and personal transgressions, just as surely as we need forgiveness from the Father who loves us.
Nobody said that’s an easy thing…but Jesus has said it’s the right thing.
Toby Keith’s “boot in your backside” song wasn’t the only pop country response to 9/11.
An alternative, very different country song emerged as well.
Newnan, Georgia’s own Alan Jackson wrote a song that’s a little different, called “That September Day.” It says:
Where were you when the world stopped turning
that September day
Teaching a class full of innocent children
Driving down some cold interstate
Did you feel guilty cause you're a survivor
In a crowded room did you feel alone
Did you call up your mother and tell her you love her
Did you dust off that Bible at home
Did you open your eyes and hope it never happened
Close your eyes and not go to sleep
Did you notice the sunset for the first time in ages
Speak to some stranger on the street
Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow
Go out an buy you a gun
Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watchin'
And turn on 'I Love Lucy' re-runs
Did you go to church and hold hands with some stangers
Stand in line and give your own blood
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family
Thank God you had somebody to love
Chorus:
I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith hope and love are some good things he gave us
And the greatest is love
And the greatest is love
I know the world was complicated and full of brokenness long, long before September 11th, 2001. We’re simply much more aware of that brokenness and complication now that it has come into our own homes. Followers of Christ must continue to find their way forward into the future.
No doubt, I’m still angry. I think we all are.
The hurting, human side of all of us still wants revenge against those who caused the pain.
That vengeance isn’t ours. It’s God’s.
My prayer and hope is that the people of Christ will work for justice, not vengeance.
That we will be used by God for peace, and we will help define the world that is to come. There is still much difficult work that must be done, and my prayer is that we don't lose our souls while we do it, and we should pray especially for those who are serving our country in Iraq, Afghanistan and other dangerous places.
I pray that Christian people can feel the courage of our convictions, and that we can find our voice. I also pray that we don't lose the God-given gift of listening, and that we'll always do the hard work of critical self-reflection.
Maybe it’s a little naïve and simplistic, but I’ve got it on pretty good authority:
Faith, hope and love are some good things he gave us…but the greatest is love.
It never fails. Even on the darkest of days.
Grace and Peace,
Adam
IN HONOR OF THOSE LOST ON 9/11/2001
"For the Falling Man"
by Annie Farnsworth, in Bodies of Water
I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized that people were leaping.
I know who you are, I know
there's more to you than just this image
on the news, this ragdoll plummeting—
I know you were someone's lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then,
before your morning coffee had cooled
you'd come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths
—but we can't help ourselves—how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.
It’s real, honest, to-the-point and full of “poor man’s poetry.”
Only the hardest of heart could fail to shed a tear while listening to George Jones whine his way through “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Only the cold and uncaring could fail to feel the pain and desperation of Merle Haggard’s “Tonight, the Bottle Let Me Down.”
Right?
OK, maybe that’s a stretch. I realize that not everyone shares my occasional need for the “down home,” and that even when they do, not everybody’s down home includes George Jones.
Fair enough.
But I bet that since September 11th, 2001, almost everybody, country music lover or not, has been exposed to Toby Keith’s, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.” The song is also known as, and I am not making this up, “The Angry American.”
In case you’ve missed it, let me quote some particulars from the lyrics:
Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you’ll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
`Cause we`ll put a boot in your ---
It`s the American way.
Speaking for all the American good ol’ boys out there, Mr. Keith got in touch with his righteous indignation. And why not?
Revenge sells.
And it feels great, after all.
What self-respecting person doesn’t want to put a boot in somebody’s anatomy when you’ve just been sucker-punched in the gut?
Trust me, I've wanted to put a 9/11 sized "boot" somewhere for the last five years.
I remember what I felt on that Tuesday five years ago as though the events happened just this morning. I was at my office in the church where I served as Associate Pastor at that time.
My plan was to spend a few minutes attending our weekly staff meeting before getting on I-20 from Augusta to a later appointment at Emory in Atlanta.
Just before I went out the door of my office, my cell phone rang and I picked it up.
“Hey babe,” she said, “something’s happened at the World Trade Center in New York, and it’s really weird. They’re saying a plane hit it. They think it must have been a small plane, some kind of mistake, but it’s really on the news, just wanted you to know.”
That meeting never happened, as many other staff members had received similar updates from their spouses. Pretty soon, everybody just wanted to find a radio or tv.
I figured I had better hurry up and get on the road.
A few miles out of town, I stopped to pump some gas, and my phone rang again. “They hit the other tower” she said. “They think it’s terrorism.”
Soon, another call, as the first tower came down. “It fell down,” she said. “That can’t be,” I argued. “It’s impossible. The World Trade Center cannot fall down. It just can’t. Do you know how many people work there?”
Denial can be a powerful thing, and in that moment, I knew what I was hearing just couldn’t physically be true.
Amazingly, maybe because I didn't know what else to do, and because I was still living in a “pre-9/11 world,” I kept on heading down that highway toward Atlanta.
When the second tower fell, and as reports of the attack on the Pentagon came over the radio, I can tell you that I felt a rage unlike any that I have known before.
The pain was personal. The anger was, too. Slowly, mile by mile, a new reality dawned in my heart and mind. “There are people in the world who want to kill me. They want to kill my family…just because we’re Americans.”
There’s no coming back from that sort of shift in reality. The old place just isn’t there anymore, for any of us.
I remember stopping at an exit in the open Georgia countryside, just east of Metro Atlanta. I needed to listen, and really give focused attention to the radio reports, and to try and clear my head for the rest of the drive. As I walked into the gas station just off the interstate, I paused to watch the nervous cashier.
He was of obvious Middle-Eastern descent, and he was working quietly and efficiently, head down…saying nothing. I can’t imagine what he felt at that moment. There were about 20 angry “Toby Keiths” in that store, including me. On 9/11/2001, his feelings were about the least of my concern.
I managed to make my meeting at Emory, although the whole campus seemed like a war zone because it is home to the Centers for Disease Control. On the way home, my much beloved mazda pick up truck gave up the ghost and stranded me on the side of the road, a lethal crack having formed in an old cylinder.
Finally, I managed to make my return to the church, dropped off by a tow truck, and late for the impromptu 9/11 service in which I was supposed to participate.
I found my wife, and stood with her at the back of the room. Thousands were dead. No one knew how many for sure.
Husbands…wives…fathers…mothers…grandparents…sons…daughters. All innocent. All lost. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I knew what it meant to have a true “enemy.”
That’s when it happened. Together, the congregation began to recite the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples.
The words caught in my throat.
“Forgive us our trespasses…as we forgive those who…”
I was not ready to forgive those who had “trespassed against us” on that day.
And yet, the prayer had not changed. Jesus’ appeal to his Father was the same on 9/11 as it had been on 9/10. It was the prayer I was challenged to join.
I don’t think I even really wanted to mean them, but I joined the congregation and prayed those words out loud. These five years later, that act of worship remains fresh in my mind.
9/12/2001 brought a new challenge for me, and for all of us. As a pastor, my job became one of helping Christian people understand their faith and their world in light of the previous day’s events.
That task hasn’t stopped yet, and it likely never will.
As I watched the commemorative events and the thousand documentaries that aired this weekend and this past Monday, I heard a new term for the first time.
One cable news anchor spoke of the “9/11 Generation,” applying the term to all who were between Jr. High and college age on the day of the attacks. Basically, these are the children of the 80’s. All of the characteristics that define this generation have yet to be seen.
I like to think Christianity might have a voice in that conversation.
I don’t simply mean cultural Christianity, in the sense of the West vs. East clash-of-cultures showdown with Islam that the folks on TV like to frame.
I mean the Christianity of the heart that moves believers, one-by-one, to carry the cross of Christ --- listening to his voice, praying his prayers and walking in his steps.
We are called to live and work for justice, and surely all those who perpetuated the atrocities of 9/11 must be held to account.
But vengeance, anger and resentment will eat us alive if it’s allowed to take root in our hearts. That kind of hatred will work like a parasite, draining us of all that makes us holy and leaving us unable to respond to the challenges of faith in a new world.
Jesus’s people pray. For their enemies.
Somehow, they believe that there can be peace, and they trust God to lead them toward it. They forgive those who need forgiveness for vile and personal transgressions, just as surely as we need forgiveness from the Father who loves us.
Nobody said that’s an easy thing…but Jesus has said it’s the right thing.
Toby Keith’s “boot in your backside” song wasn’t the only pop country response to 9/11.
An alternative, very different country song emerged as well.
Newnan, Georgia’s own Alan Jackson wrote a song that’s a little different, called “That September Day.” It says:
Where were you when the world stopped turning
that September day
Teaching a class full of innocent children
Driving down some cold interstate
Did you feel guilty cause you're a survivor
In a crowded room did you feel alone
Did you call up your mother and tell her you love her
Did you dust off that Bible at home
Did you open your eyes and hope it never happened
Close your eyes and not go to sleep
Did you notice the sunset for the first time in ages
Speak to some stranger on the street
Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow
Go out an buy you a gun
Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watchin'
And turn on 'I Love Lucy' re-runs
Did you go to church and hold hands with some stangers
Stand in line and give your own blood
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family
Thank God you had somebody to love
Chorus:
I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith hope and love are some good things he gave us
And the greatest is love
And the greatest is love
I know the world was complicated and full of brokenness long, long before September 11th, 2001. We’re simply much more aware of that brokenness and complication now that it has come into our own homes. Followers of Christ must continue to find their way forward into the future.
No doubt, I’m still angry. I think we all are.
The hurting, human side of all of us still wants revenge against those who caused the pain.
That vengeance isn’t ours. It’s God’s.
My prayer and hope is that the people of Christ will work for justice, not vengeance.
That we will be used by God for peace, and we will help define the world that is to come. There is still much difficult work that must be done, and my prayer is that we don't lose our souls while we do it, and we should pray especially for those who are serving our country in Iraq, Afghanistan and other dangerous places.
I pray that Christian people can feel the courage of our convictions, and that we can find our voice. I also pray that we don't lose the God-given gift of listening, and that we'll always do the hard work of critical self-reflection.
Maybe it’s a little naïve and simplistic, but I’ve got it on pretty good authority:
Faith, hope and love are some good things he gave us…but the greatest is love.
It never fails. Even on the darkest of days.
Grace and Peace,
Adam
IN HONOR OF THOSE LOST ON 9/11/2001
"For the Falling Man"
by Annie Farnsworth, in Bodies of Water
I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized that people were leaping.
I know who you are, I know
there's more to you than just this image
on the news, this ragdoll plummeting—
I know you were someone's lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then,
before your morning coffee had cooled
you'd come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths
—but we can't help ourselves—how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.
Sep 6, 2006
Clock
A little bit of my second childhood died this week.
Steve Irwin, “The Crocodile Hunter” was killed by a stingray while shooting a documentary off the coast of Australia.
When we awoke to the news Monday morning, I found myself stunned, and saddened. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to imply that I’ve ever been an official member of the Crocodile Hunter Fan Club of America, or that my remote control cruises over to Animal Planet of its own accord too often.
But I have watched my share of Steve Irwin in the last six years. Remember, I have a six-year-old son, after all.
Somehow, in the pre-fatherhood coolness of young(ish) adulthood, I had forgotten what fun watching a guy like Steve Irwin could be. Sure, I had laughed “at” Irwin before, often finding his over-the-top sense of wonder at spiders and lizards to be nothing short of comical.
But when I sat with my young son and watched him do his thing with the wildlife of jungle, desert and outback, I realized his true identity. Steve Irwin was a wild-man, Tarzan, animal-wrangling hero.
And a fool, right?
After all, his propensity for up-close-and-personal encounters with wildlife got him killed. Surely, only a fool would risk his life, leaving behind his family, friends and those who loved him.
His death was tragic and entirely lamentable. But, even in light of that reality, here’s what I wonder. Could he really have done anything else, and still have been the Steve Irwin he was meant to be?
In the aftermath of tragedies like this one, it’s all too easy to turn human beings into caricatures. No person is all hero, or all fool. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between, and maybe it gives us the chance to learn about ourselves.
Australians have a word for Steve Irwin, and I like it. Larrikin. “Larrikins” are loud, rowdy, and comical. They don’t take the world very seriously, and they don’t care too much about what other people think. Most importantly, real larrikins don’t take themselves too seriously, and they have a true gift for self-deprication.
A couple of years ago, President Bush went to Australia and a reception was held in his honor. Australia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, invited a short list of Australian celebrities and dignitaries to attend this momentous occasion, and Steve Irwin was there in the crowd. What was he wearing when he met President Bush?
Khaki shorts, a wrinkled khaki shirt, and his scuffed, tan hiking boots.
A larrikin at his best.
That attitude allowed Irwin to live more in his 44 years than most people do in 84.
That he died during a wildlife shoot that shouldn’t have carried much risk, especially when compared to other things he had done throughout his career, is a particular tragedy.
None of us know with certainty what any experience, or any given day, will hold.
As I have now given up on baseball for 2006 (trust me on this, Braves’ fans) and moved headlong into football, I am reminded of the distinct differences between the two – which is pretty much everything.
But perhaps the biggest strategic and philosophical difference between baseball, and football, basketball or many other sports, is that major league baseball lacks a clock.
This weekend, in Knoxville, Holly and I got to see every UT fan’s favorite play. The boys in orange walked onto the field at the end of the fourth quarter, snapped the ball, and took a collective knee. They had the lead, time ran out, and the game was over.
How many times this summer did I wish that a Braves’ relief pitcher could simply kneel on the pitcher’s mound with a lead and see the game come to a glorious end?
Baseball doesn’t work that way. You have to play the “outs,” and each side gets 27. That’s wonderfully fair and democratic. It’s what you do with those outs that makes the difference.
Life doesn’t quite match the metaphor of baseball “outs” or a football clock.
Our best sports analogy might be soccer’s “stoppage” time. During the game, the referee keeps track of the time lost to injuries, ball retrieval, etc., and once regulation time has ended, he adds those seconds to the game.
Stoppage time is exciting because only the referee knows how much of it there is.
Everyone plays with urgency, because the game is ending sometime --- soon. In life, like stoppage-time soccer, there is a clock, and it is ticking. We just don’t know how many seconds still remain.
My concern in writing this blog is that you’ll chalk all of this up to another “seize the day,” e-mail forward kind of inspirational idea. My fear is that you’ll think I’m saying you should do more and work harder, that God wants you to add extra pages to your already overbooked calendar, and that you should live “on the edge” by playing with tarantulas and drag racing on the weekends.
That’s not exactly what I’m getting at.
I’m saying that life does carry risk, and that the solution is not to “play out the clock.” I’ve seen many football and basketball teams that get a lead, only to stop trying to score points. They run the ball, a yard at a time, or pass and pass and never shoot, only to let the other team back into the game.
What we need is not “more.” What we need is focus. What we need is purpose. What we need is a “calling.”
Steve Irwin had one, and he knew it.
He once appeared on Larry King Live and talked about realizing his “gift” as a child. “What gift?” King asked, seemingly confused.
“I'm a wild life warrior,” Irwin said. “A warrior is someone who is trained or engaged in battle. My battle is conservation. So I'm a wildlife warrior. Anyone can be one. But I have a gift. God put me on this planet with a mission. My mission is to educate people about conservation.”
He explained further, “It's in my genetic makeup. That's where it comes from. I can do stuff with animals that no one else in the world can do. I've got this, I've got the ability to be attractive to wildlife and vice-versa. Then, on top of that, I've got a gift that I didn't know I had, of communicating to cameras, which is in essence looking to millions of people. Combine those two and there you see my mission is to educate people about conservation.”
If you’ve seen the video clip of Irwin speaking those words, you know the passion of his belief in the gift. It was his calling, and he pursued it to the fullest, until the clock finally ran out.
There is power in knowing that you’re hear for a reason. In making the divine wager of faith that says the world is more than a random collection of particles and elements.
Rick Warren once wrote:
“I got lost in the mountains. When I stopped to ask for directions to the campsite, I was told, ‘You can’t get there from here. You must start from the other side of the mountain!’ In the same way, you cannot arrive at your life’s purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. You must begin with God, your Creator. You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God – and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.
Many people try to use God for their own self-actualization, but that is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure. You were made for God, not vice-versa, and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purpose. The Bible says, ‘Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.’”
I don’t know what Steve Irwin thought about God or theology. But I do believe that he felt a clear sense of calling in his heart, and for his life. His purpose was something bigger than himself, and he didn’t take himself, or other people, too seriously.
The crazy-eyed, child-like wonder that he displayed for lizards and spiders, crocs and creatures of all kinds was infectious. The power of seeing someone do what they’re meant to do always is.
God holds that power for you, too. Don’t just “seize the day,” seize a call. Be a larrikin for God.
Grace and Peace,
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
Thanks to everyone for a wonderful time in worship this past Sunday. I’m so proud of Time Potate for “flying solo” on his first Sunday morning preaching experience, and for the great love and support that he’s been shown by the people of SOTH.
This Sunday will begin Adam’s three-week sermon series, “Cracking Up.” Have you ever wondered how to balance all the pressures of life? Sometimes, we can feel as though we’re about to crack. The Bible has much to say about finding peace, balance and calm in the midst of the storm. Topics will include “Time,” “Money,” and “Relationships,” over the next three weeks at 8:30 and 10:00 worship.
SOTH’s new Sunday night worship begins this week, September 10th at 6pm. Bring the whole family for our Sunday night experience. Youth also begins at 6:00, at The Ranch, and we’ll have childcare available for the kids. Don’t miss this chance to be a part of something new to our life at SOTH.
This Sunday morning, copies of the John Ortberg book, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat will be on sale, for $12 each. SOTH will study this book in small groups, beginning the week of September 25th, and throughout October. Many more details this Sunday on time and location for each group.
Steve Irwin, “The Crocodile Hunter” was killed by a stingray while shooting a documentary off the coast of Australia.
When we awoke to the news Monday morning, I found myself stunned, and saddened. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to imply that I’ve ever been an official member of the Crocodile Hunter Fan Club of America, or that my remote control cruises over to Animal Planet of its own accord too often.
But I have watched my share of Steve Irwin in the last six years. Remember, I have a six-year-old son, after all.
Somehow, in the pre-fatherhood coolness of young(ish) adulthood, I had forgotten what fun watching a guy like Steve Irwin could be. Sure, I had laughed “at” Irwin before, often finding his over-the-top sense of wonder at spiders and lizards to be nothing short of comical.
But when I sat with my young son and watched him do his thing with the wildlife of jungle, desert and outback, I realized his true identity. Steve Irwin was a wild-man, Tarzan, animal-wrangling hero.
And a fool, right?
After all, his propensity for up-close-and-personal encounters with wildlife got him killed. Surely, only a fool would risk his life, leaving behind his family, friends and those who loved him.
His death was tragic and entirely lamentable. But, even in light of that reality, here’s what I wonder. Could he really have done anything else, and still have been the Steve Irwin he was meant to be?
In the aftermath of tragedies like this one, it’s all too easy to turn human beings into caricatures. No person is all hero, or all fool. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between, and maybe it gives us the chance to learn about ourselves.
Australians have a word for Steve Irwin, and I like it. Larrikin. “Larrikins” are loud, rowdy, and comical. They don’t take the world very seriously, and they don’t care too much about what other people think. Most importantly, real larrikins don’t take themselves too seriously, and they have a true gift for self-deprication.
A couple of years ago, President Bush went to Australia and a reception was held in his honor. Australia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, invited a short list of Australian celebrities and dignitaries to attend this momentous occasion, and Steve Irwin was there in the crowd. What was he wearing when he met President Bush?
Khaki shorts, a wrinkled khaki shirt, and his scuffed, tan hiking boots.
A larrikin at his best.
That attitude allowed Irwin to live more in his 44 years than most people do in 84.
That he died during a wildlife shoot that shouldn’t have carried much risk, especially when compared to other things he had done throughout his career, is a particular tragedy.
None of us know with certainty what any experience, or any given day, will hold.
As I have now given up on baseball for 2006 (trust me on this, Braves’ fans) and moved headlong into football, I am reminded of the distinct differences between the two – which is pretty much everything.
But perhaps the biggest strategic and philosophical difference between baseball, and football, basketball or many other sports, is that major league baseball lacks a clock.
This weekend, in Knoxville, Holly and I got to see every UT fan’s favorite play. The boys in orange walked onto the field at the end of the fourth quarter, snapped the ball, and took a collective knee. They had the lead, time ran out, and the game was over.
How many times this summer did I wish that a Braves’ relief pitcher could simply kneel on the pitcher’s mound with a lead and see the game come to a glorious end?
Baseball doesn’t work that way. You have to play the “outs,” and each side gets 27. That’s wonderfully fair and democratic. It’s what you do with those outs that makes the difference.
Life doesn’t quite match the metaphor of baseball “outs” or a football clock.
Our best sports analogy might be soccer’s “stoppage” time. During the game, the referee keeps track of the time lost to injuries, ball retrieval, etc., and once regulation time has ended, he adds those seconds to the game.
Stoppage time is exciting because only the referee knows how much of it there is.
Everyone plays with urgency, because the game is ending sometime --- soon. In life, like stoppage-time soccer, there is a clock, and it is ticking. We just don’t know how many seconds still remain.
My concern in writing this blog is that you’ll chalk all of this up to another “seize the day,” e-mail forward kind of inspirational idea. My fear is that you’ll think I’m saying you should do more and work harder, that God wants you to add extra pages to your already overbooked calendar, and that you should live “on the edge” by playing with tarantulas and drag racing on the weekends.
That’s not exactly what I’m getting at.
I’m saying that life does carry risk, and that the solution is not to “play out the clock.” I’ve seen many football and basketball teams that get a lead, only to stop trying to score points. They run the ball, a yard at a time, or pass and pass and never shoot, only to let the other team back into the game.
What we need is not “more.” What we need is focus. What we need is purpose. What we need is a “calling.”
Steve Irwin had one, and he knew it.
He once appeared on Larry King Live and talked about realizing his “gift” as a child. “What gift?” King asked, seemingly confused.
“I'm a wild life warrior,” Irwin said. “A warrior is someone who is trained or engaged in battle. My battle is conservation. So I'm a wildlife warrior. Anyone can be one. But I have a gift. God put me on this planet with a mission. My mission is to educate people about conservation.”
He explained further, “It's in my genetic makeup. That's where it comes from. I can do stuff with animals that no one else in the world can do. I've got this, I've got the ability to be attractive to wildlife and vice-versa. Then, on top of that, I've got a gift that I didn't know I had, of communicating to cameras, which is in essence looking to millions of people. Combine those two and there you see my mission is to educate people about conservation.”
If you’ve seen the video clip of Irwin speaking those words, you know the passion of his belief in the gift. It was his calling, and he pursued it to the fullest, until the clock finally ran out.
There is power in knowing that you’re hear for a reason. In making the divine wager of faith that says the world is more than a random collection of particles and elements.
Rick Warren once wrote:
“I got lost in the mountains. When I stopped to ask for directions to the campsite, I was told, ‘You can’t get there from here. You must start from the other side of the mountain!’ In the same way, you cannot arrive at your life’s purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. You must begin with God, your Creator. You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God – and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.
Many people try to use God for their own self-actualization, but that is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure. You were made for God, not vice-versa, and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purpose. The Bible says, ‘Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.’”
I don’t know what Steve Irwin thought about God or theology. But I do believe that he felt a clear sense of calling in his heart, and for his life. His purpose was something bigger than himself, and he didn’t take himself, or other people, too seriously.
The crazy-eyed, child-like wonder that he displayed for lizards and spiders, crocs and creatures of all kinds was infectious. The power of seeing someone do what they’re meant to do always is.
God holds that power for you, too. Don’t just “seize the day,” seize a call. Be a larrikin for God.
Grace and Peace,
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
Thanks to everyone for a wonderful time in worship this past Sunday. I’m so proud of Time Potate for “flying solo” on his first Sunday morning preaching experience, and for the great love and support that he’s been shown by the people of SOTH.
This Sunday will begin Adam’s three-week sermon series, “Cracking Up.” Have you ever wondered how to balance all the pressures of life? Sometimes, we can feel as though we’re about to crack. The Bible has much to say about finding peace, balance and calm in the midst of the storm. Topics will include “Time,” “Money,” and “Relationships,” over the next three weeks at 8:30 and 10:00 worship.
SOTH’s new Sunday night worship begins this week, September 10th at 6pm. Bring the whole family for our Sunday night experience. Youth also begins at 6:00, at The Ranch, and we’ll have childcare available for the kids. Don’t miss this chance to be a part of something new to our life at SOTH.
This Sunday morning, copies of the John Ortberg book, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat will be on sale, for $12 each. SOTH will study this book in small groups, beginning the week of September 25th, and throughout October. Many more details this Sunday on time and location for each group.
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