The money bucket

Lately it seems like the mound of bills has been piling higher than normal. Even the normal level is too high. It tends to make life very stressful.

But I find myself at a different place about the whole money bucket with its gaping hole in the bottom draining out every penny I make - I find myself a lot less worried. For those of you who know me, that is wholly new ground. I tend to fret and stress and worry, somehow keeping afloat the illusion that I can control it if I care enough.

But things are different now. I don't know what made the difference. Maybe a simple trust that I can only do what I can do and pay the bills when they come. Maybe I stopped caring. Who knows.

Abraham Maslow came up with his famous psychological model of the "Hierarchy of Needs" where physical needs occupy the bottom of a pyramid and things like "belonging" and "self actualization" stand perched on the pointed top. His theory was that you can't move up to the higher needs until the lower ones are met. But I am finding that there might be a substitute to the needs getting met - namely a surrender to the inevitable and a choice to focus on the needs higher up the pyramid. Sometimes it is the only choice. When you can't do much about paying the bills, you do what you can, even if Maslow wouldn't agree.

My hope is to someday wake up in complete financial freedom - not that we have all kinds of money, but that I am free from the pull and push of money all together. On that day I really hope to kick the bucket - not literally, but to put money back where it belongs - at the bottom.

Being a man

My youngest son came to visit this past week. I put him on a plane at toodamnedearly this morning. As I drove away from the airport I began to ask myself what he had learned from me about being a man during his visit. I'm gonna guess he learned that men are busy and distracted. I'm gonna guess that he learned somehow between the lines that he is loved and important as well.

Being a man isn't always an easy thing. It means being divided between work and family, between heart and obligation, between the important and the unimportant. Being a man is one of those things I hope to get figured out sometime before I die.

I know that being a man is a powerful call. Too often for us men - when we wake up enough to realize who we are - we live our masculinity faintly - life is like discovering King Arthur's sword in our hall closet. We are unsure as to what to do with the thing. Oh the impact we could have on the world if we could figure it out.

And that right there becomes the essential task of being a man - trying to figure out that sword. May God grant us the wisdom to wield it with character, purpose, and power.

Trying to get in motion

Motion is a funny thing. Getting into it is even funnier. How do you describe it? "Something moving". That just doesn't seem to cut it.

There is a real shift, at least for me, when life is in motion, and when it is not. Being stalled, with no change, no growth, no goal on the horizon - that is a really hard thing. Having a purpose, a reason, a destination, a dream - well for me, life doesn't get much better than that.

My work as a life coach is almost always about helping people get in motion. And there is nothing miraculous about the work, but miracles happen when we dare to take steps forward. They don't have to be the right steps or the perfect steps. Heck, they don't even have to be steps forward. But putting an object (or a person) into motion changes things. It creates energy, it creates enthusiasm, purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. A man moves a hammer that hits a nail that builds a wall that makes a house. Simple motion creating dramatic results.

But the honest truth is that we have little to do with where that motion takes us. Our part is to put it in motion, even if it is wrong. We are supposed to swing the hammer - that's our part. We may end up pulling that nail out again, but movement is happening. And with movement comes energy, and with energy, creativity. And with creativity, the image of The Creator is reflected in our lives.

Isn't that what this journey is all about - somehow reflecting the image of our Creator? So go create. Go do. Move. Put life into motion, and trust Him to steer it where He wants it to go.

The day hope came home

There is a profound shift in the experience of life when there is hope. The day has meaning; there is a reason for life and a thank you to its creator; the sun shines a little brighter; the impossible seems suddenly possible. And without hope, life seems very, well, hopeless.

Having the illusion that things could actually change - whether they actually do or not - can draw us into a tomorrow that actually gets created by our hope. We become the changing force because of the hope we carry, and that hope creates. It is a faith applied, especially when it doesn't make sense.

We had an offer come in on our house today. We had it sold almost 8 months ago, so three days before it was to close, we moved to another town and signed a lease. A day later the sale fell through, and since that time we have been making double payments, trying to carry an empty house and pay rent. Needless to say, it has been hard.

But with an offer on the house, hope came back home. It has been a long time since we have seen any of that around here. Today, at least for a little while, the sun is shining.

Thank you Jesus.....

What will last

I have three things going on in life right now. I am trying to start a very alternative way of doing church in the basement of a bar; I just finished up tiling a bathroom floor - it is beautiful; and I am finally writing again after 6 months of distractions.

And as I reflect on those three significant things, I wonder which will make the most impact in life. The floor will be appreciated by people for years. Will that be the mark I leave behind? And I don't know if it is even possible to create something genuinely alternative for getting to know God. But if it is, and I do it well, will it last? Will it make an impact? And all the writing I have done - what good has it done, is it doing, or will it do in the years to come?

I am haunted by my own insignificance, and yet driven to make a mark - somehow, somewhere, some way. More than anything else, I want to make that mark on the people of God. More than anything else I want that mark to be in the shape of Jesus.

Nailed to the cross

Okay, so we are heading into the Easter season. I have to admit that sometimes it feels like we are just going through the motions of another religious holiday. "Tis the time of year to celebrate and remember Christ's sacrifice." Needless to say, I hate empty ritual.

I got to thinking today about Jesus on the cross, his hands and feet nailed there, as if those iron spikes could keep God from changing the world. I thought about that man who held hammer and nail, just doing his job, thinking that he was nailing another scoundrel for his sins. He didn't know any better.

But what struck me as I thought about Christ on the cross was that he is still there. His hands and feet - now the church - are still not changing the world. We are still there. We are still stuck there, nailed to the wood of our comfortable pews, not making much of an impact. We are dying there, unwilling to actually take what Jesus did and do something in response.

I am ashamed to call myself a Christian. I am ashamed of what we have become as the church. I love Jesus - and I so want to live the difference he has made in my life. But I have to admit that the body of Christ is still hanging there, nailed tight against the wood. When will we start living our faith? When will His body - the church - stop playing religion and start being Christ?

On death and dying

I found out yesterday that a long time friend had passed away. He had been fighting cancer for two years, and finally went home. I was able to visit him and spend the night with his family at their house in DesMoines a week and a half ago. We laughed together and cried together, and one of the last things that I said to him was "Since it looks like you'll get there before me, give me a call when you arrive and let me know how things are." So far he hasn't called yet. Maybe they don't have phones in heaven.

I layed awake last night thinking about him - a wife and kids who have to go on, and my friend just on the other side of this thin veil we call reality. I wondered if he knew my thoughts like my Papa knows my thoughts, if he could hear my heart for him and his family. I know he is in heaven - if there is a heaven, my friend is there. He was a good and godly man.

But I hurt for all of us left here in this life, still having to endure the days, the pain, the confusion of life in this world. From my perspective, I won't see my friend for a long time. For him, it will be but a blink of an eye.

So Mark, if you can read this, know that I love you, that I will miss you, and that I am a little envious that you get to be there while we are stuck here. Enjoy, and I look forward to the day I can see my hubba-bubba-cave-man brother again.