I'm Going to Somewhere in My Mind

I just got back from a trip to Naples this morning. It was a great trip. I was able to check out Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii while I was there. What an amazing place. I arrived there right after my trip to Burgundy, France. Burgundy makes some pretty great wine and the towns there are so quaint and have such ambiance. The boat trip down one of their major canals was pretty fun. Yesterday I was up in Alaska and checking out one of the glaciers there that is slowly closing off a major river. Then I went snowmobiling with one of the state troopers, checking out a hunting party and one of the state residents who lives about 31 miles from their nearest neighbor. It looked pretty cold out there.

I've also been taking weekly trips to Ireland, exploring the country and meeting the people, many from Ireland but a number of them new residents to the Green Isle but who consider themselves part of the Irish clan.

Now, I bet some of you think I have lost my mind but rest assured, I have not, though certainly my mind was very much involved. The cool thing was, I never left my house. My butt never left my couch. I went there through the miracle of TV travel shows and travelogue books. I am addicted to these travel shows and books. I'm currently traveling throughout Ireland with Pete McCarthy ("MCarthy's Bar) and I have traveled with Bill Bryson, hiking the Appalachian Trail ("A Walk in the Woods"), exploring Australia ("In a Sunburned Country") , checking our Europe ("Neither Here or There") and several other places, all through their books. I record travel shows, some I keep. I rent videos, some I keep.

And I dream about these places that I would love to visit. There's a really good chance I'll never get to these places. Money, schedules, and the lack of money, seem to have a lot to do with it but it doesn't prevent me from going there in my mind. It was James Taylor who sang, "I'm going to Carolina in my mind," and since I'm already in "Carolina", I'll just go somewhere else in my mind instead. The mind is a terrible thing to waste, they say, so why not imagine hiking in the mountains, riding a train in the valleys of Alaska, biking in Naples, camping out on the beaches of Southern California, or rafting down the Colorado River?

I get itchy feet sometimes, meaning, when I feel really stressed out, or depressed, or bored, or just needing a break, I imagine my wife and I packing up and taking a trip. We don't get to actually do much "traveling" because our schedules are different - she works during the week and has off the weekends; I can take a couple of days to get away during the week but I have to be back at "work" on Sunday (being that I am a preacher and I only work on Sundays, Wednesdays and when someone is sick or in the hospital... so I have been told by some....), so it's hard for us to get our schedules in sink. Add to that a teenage daughter that is developing her own life and, well, staying around home is more often norm.

Anyway, there are times I want to get away, go for a scenic drive, take a couple of days and head to the mountains or the beach. That's one of the nice things about where I live, 3 hours from Myrtle Beach and Charleston and 2 plus hours from the mountains. But when I can't do that, a good book about traveling somewhere or a travel show, especially in high def, will tide me over.

I've found this really great spot near my church where I go and hang out for a few hours each week. It is a park that is on the lake. It is really pretty and calming. This last fall was especially beautiful. I've been blessed with such places at the churches I have pastored over the last number of years. I need places like that. It helps me step out of my ministerial role, out of my world, and reconnect with myself, my thoughts, my soul, and more importantly, my God. It's funny, and troubling, how quickly I can get disconnected and distracted. And when I do, it can take me several hours or even a couple of days to get back into that place of sacred space, holy peace, and spiritual calm. My wife doesn't always understand but she is usually patient and gives me the time I need. I know that I am a strange beast but she loves me anyway!

It has been two months since my last blog entry. It's hard to believe how fast time has gone and how busy and distracted I have been. My mind has been racing and filled with many things, like working out sermon ideas, ministry ideas and goals, worry and anxiety (something that ministers are not to be dealing with because we are God's ministers and shouldn't be struggling with such things, right?), busy schedules and so on. In other words, life. But for brief moments, I have been able to take a trip, dive into the crystal water of a stream in New Zealand, hike up the mountain that St. Patrick spent time on praying for the people of Ireland, explore a village in Vietnam, and, in real life on that rare occasion, sit in a hot tub on top of a mountain with my son and brother and shoot the cold rapids of the Nantahala with the Elder guys.(My brother David is in the back, then my brother Bruce in yellow, then my Dad on the left and me on the right, then my nephew Chris, David's son, on the front left, my son Jonathan, and just behind him is my nephew Jake, Bruce's son)

Of course, I always have the arms of my loving wife to fall into. And I have God's Holy Mountain to hide on and His amazing kingdom to explore.

God is good.

Politics and the Church

I got an email today from Leadership Journal that included an article entitled "Non-prophet Preaching" by John Ortberg. I found it very insightful and so I wanted to pass it along. Don't worry, it is neither from the left or the right, Democrat or Republican, or anything like that. It is just a very thoughtful discourse on politics and the Christian/Church.

"Non-prophet Preaching" by John Ortberg

It's All Because of Us

It's Friday morning, it's grey and rainy, there's not a gas station within a few miles of my house that has gas, another bank has tanked, and the stock market is expected to take another dive. One would think that things are pretty bleak. And they are but, strangely, I don't feel bleak. A tad anxious, yes, but not bleak. I suppose that is in part because I realize that this isn't as bad as it may get and, secondly, I have a strange inner peace from God that encourages me to believe that, no matter how bad things may get, He will stay true to His word. In fact, what is unfolding around us is true to His word.

Here's what I mean. God is very aware of what is unfolding around me and what is unfolding is due in large part because of our selfishness, greed, and outright sin. His word tells us, directly and by example, that sin has consequences, it damages us and our world. I'm not so sure why we are so surprised at all these events when it seems to me that these events are the outcome of our choices.

I do believe that we will "fix" things - that's what we do - we pull our selves out of the messes we got ourselves into, only to turn around a little later and find ourselves in an equal mess. When all this financial stuff gets dealt with - and we're naive to believe that it will all come together in next week or two and we're naive to believe that this will be the fix that will "fix" it all, we'll probably find that we will wipe the sweat off our brow and say "that was a close one" and move on and not learn much from the experience. This crises has been brewing since the 90's and before because man is selfish, greedy, and sinful.

By the way, I did preach my message on greed last Sunday. I had no choice - to many things kept taking me in that direction, from a Bible study, discussions, world and US events, and even my devotional reading for the week. It was a hard message to preach because it really challenged me and where I was in my heart. People were responsive, appreciative, complimentary (is that a good thing?), and attentive. All I ask is that they be attentive, it's God that asks them, and me, to be responsive to His word.

Speaking of responsive, I think we live in a growing church culture that is uncomfortable with making a demonstrative response to challenges or invitations in a message. The altar seems to serve more as a decoration than a place of prayer and commitment. Why is that? For a while the altar served as a protective wall between the pastor and people but I removed that by coming down into the congregation when I preach. Which may cause some to ask, why doesn't the pastor use the pulpit to preach God's word? I have my theology and biases to why I don't but that's for another day.

The Greed Connection

It has been almost a month since my last entry. A lot has happened since then. We have had two presidential conventions, two hurricanes, financial institutional crises, and falling gas prices - well, until last Wednesday when gas started to go up even while oil prices continued to fall.

Having watched both political conventions and the aftermath of both, I have had a lot of thoughts running around my head about politics in general and our presidential candidates specifically. It is probably best to leave those thoughts in my head but suffice it to say, I'm not happy with either candidate and their approach to campaigning and I have grown tired of the news media and their blatant hypocrisy and misrepresentation of the facts. Now I'll move on.

Sunday was our stewardship campaign kickoff at my church. I preached on the subject of stewardship. I've never done a sermon on the subject in conjunction with a financial campaign so I was a little apprehensive going in to it. I did a lot of reading and studying on stewardship, wanting to approach it from a more "holistic" view. So I talked more about stewardship in the context of all that we have been given from God to care for, distribute and enjoy. My hope was that I would be able to challenge my listeners to a deeper understanding and commitment of all that we have in this life and view ourselves as caretakers of God's blessings. I don't know if I succeeded in that or not.

However, I had a couple of people say to me afterwards that it was a good message on money and one visitor who said that they looked forward to hearing me preach on something other than money. Interesting, I only mentioned money twice in my message, the first time explaining that stewardship isn't just about money, and the second time as part of a list of a number of things that God has given us to care for! However, this response actually confirmed something for me.

In the process of my reading and listening to a few sermons on stewardship, I began to get a growing sense that our problem with the issue of stewardship, whether it be with our stewardship of our money or the stewardship of the earth, is greed - our growing desire to have and to own and to think of "me" first in connection to all the things that I "have" in my "possession." To paraphrase Donna Summer, I "work hard for the money," therefore, I'm not so willing to let go of the things that I have worked so hard for to make my life easier, more complete, and more satisfying.

I've watched with interest, and with some worry, the demise of Lehman Brothers, the amazingly rapid sell of Merrill Lynch, the propping up of Fanny May and Freddie Mac, and the growing uncertainty in the market about other financial institutions. And I wonder what is behind it all. What is behind the housing collapse? What caused Enron to go under and the dot coms of the 90's to implode?

Greed.

What causes a person to max out their credit card and then open a new credit card account (the average American has seven!) ?

Greed.

Why does a church goer spend $100 dollars a week on eating out but can only put in two or three percent of their paycheck in the offering every payperiod because they don't have any money left?

Greed.

Why do people in power, whether a leader in a company or a member of the government, begin to take kickbacks, twist the truth, add earmarks to bills, or behave in a morally inappropriate way?

Greed.

Let's be honest - America, "the most powerful country in the world," is also the richest, the most in debt, and the most wasteful. We exemplify greed. Our culture, with Wallstreet, Madison Ave., and Hollywood, is built on the concept of having and getting more.

Please understand me, I'm not against earning a living, working your way to the top, or enjoying the things that are available in this world. But I have found myself beginning to see, in myself certainly, that much of the way I approach living in this world comes out of some form of greed, the desire to have and to have more, first for me and then, whatever is left over, to God and to others. That seems to be a rather mixed up understanding of how we are to live as Christ Followers, doesn't it?

I think we Christians need to rethink about a few thing in our lives as it pertains to our finances and material possesions but also, just as much, in reference to our use of time, talants, power, opportunities and God's creation. I think that greed may play a larger part in who we are than we ever realized or are willing to admit.

Now I'm just wondering if I should take the risk and preach about this on Sunday!?

Music and Lyrics that Touch the Soul

A number of weeks ago I came across the music of John Mark McMillan. I was instantly drawn in by his lyrics and stirred by the emotion of his music. I was quite pleased to find that he is a Charlotte homeboy and will be doing a CD release concert here in early September. I thought you might like to listen to some of his music. Be sure to listen to track 9, "How He Loves." It is powerful. His music is a blend of rock, blues and folk.

Another singer/songwriter that I just stumbled upon today is Sarah McMillan. She is married to John Mark McMillan but her music is very different but just as powerful. I think you will enjoy here as well. Her music is more folk, country, and rock influences.

So sit back, turn up your speakers and be touched and moved.