31 Days of Courage: The Courage Not To Get It All Right

It’s the plague of the first born.

OK, not just the first born, lots of other people too.

I was reading some of the comments of other folks involved in this 31 day challenge, and it struck me how we all have a bit of a different take on this crash writing bonanza.

Some people just decided to skip the weekends and are perfectly ok with that.  Those bloggers are really relaxed and secure and are having a ball.

Some are finding it difficult to write on one topic and keep the quality of the content.  They reach out to others for ideas and encouragement.  They stumble about a little with complete authenticity regarding their struggles and successes.

And some, well probably mostly the first born crowd, sweat, take notes, determine to write a certain number of words every day, and never miss a day, no matter what.

Art (or in my case and my opinion, it’s more craft) imitates life.  Every person has to find their groove and do what they are put together to do.  But it’s not at all linear and clean.  There are days when the whole thing flows like the Hudson down Mount Marcy, and those other days when it’s more like pick axing up the side of Mount Crumpit (who gets that reference?).  Most of us will look back and say of the story of our lives “I wish I had written that bit a little differently” (or a lot differently), or “That paragraph was a complete mess…” or maybe “I’m done with with this story…I can’t get it right.”

And here’s where courage comes in to play.  Because in this little microcosm of the 31 day challenge I have experienced all of these emotions through the tip of my “must get it all right” pen.  It’s completely ridiculous to expect every day to be your buttoned up best.  Maybe we’re tired, or the check engine light is back on in the car, or we've got the Coxsacki virus coming on…any of a myriad of the foibles of life that make our days less than ideal.  Not to mention the downright earth shattering "work stoppages".

There is courage in saying with peace in our hearts:

I did my best today. Even if my best wasn't all that great.

You have nothing to prove, because you are loved by the One who approves of you exactly as you are.

With that comes freedom to find our way through failure and fallout, because we’re not working to be loved, but because we’re loved we’re working. 

I promised myself when I joined these 31 days, that I would write for the One who has given me the love of communication and words.  I really do love to write.  Or should I say as Dorothy Parker said, “I love HAVING written”.  But I admit I've got the first born tendancies.  I always wish I'd done better.  

There’s a freedom in not having to be great.  To simply be and do for the sake of being and doing.  

Whatever your life looks like, whatever strange turns, however many mundane stretches or confusing patches, press on.  Do your best, even if today’s best isn’t as lovely as yesterday’s or tomorrow’s.

It’s a big story, and you aren’t the Author anyway.  You’ll be amazed when you see how His grace and mercy edit the thing to make it a splendid chronicle in the end.

That was the point of the Jesus' best day...which was the same day as His worst day.  He got it all right for our sakes.

Be brave enough to lay down your pride and know it’s ok not to get it all right.

Your first- born friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

31 Days of Courage: The Courage To Lighten Up

I get mixed up by those different personality types.  Especially choleric.  What the heck is choleric?  I could probably Google it but it’s Sunday afternoon and I want to keep the electronic buzz to a minimum.

There is one personality type I’m extremely familiar with, though, because it lives in my skin.

Melancholic. 

That crying prophet Jeremiah, he was a melancholic too.  Apt to see the darker side.  Apt to think things through until they’re like a chicken boiled in a pot for 3 days straight.  Worst of all, apt to take ourselves way too seriously.

It’s so hard to lighten up when you’re all wired to sort out.  You’ve got to dig around, search your soul, ponder and contemplate until you’re “dead in the water”.  (Quote belongs to my son David).

For people like me, lightening up, reading the funny papers, playing a game, actually require an effort I would say is akin to courage, if not courage itself.  I can’t explain it except to say that if you are a person like me, you know what I mean.  It’s like being a catcher, and being asked to pitch a few innings.  It requires stepping out of that heavy gear and getting out of that crouchy position and letting a few things simply fly.  For you Tigger’s out there it seems like a no brainer.  But for us Eeyore's, it really is a step of faith.

The Word of God of course is replete with the principles of perfect balance in life.  It’s right there in the Proverbs, plain as day:

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”  ~Proverbs 17:22

My husband, who has every good reason to sing the Blues as he works through daily pain from his run in with an intoxicated man in a 3 ton pick-up truck, has been God’s instrument of grace for my overly sober leanings.  Smitty was born with a laugh in his heart.  Heaven knows I would have worn nothing but black lo these grown up years if I had married a man like me.  Just this morning he showed me a funny comic, and got me to play a card game before my melancholic daughter shuffled back to Buffalo.  That man makes me happy every day.

Don’t get me wrong: I truly believe we are all put together in whatever way pleases God.  There is great beauty that has come from the melancholics of this world.  I simply think there is an ebb and flow to our natures, and a need for a hearty laugh, a good party, a goofy dance. 

Just sayin’, it doesn’t come natural to some of us.  We desperately need you wonderful, mirthful folks who can pull us off our tour bus of the tragic and take us to the fun house.  Give us a little courage to try on a different outfit.  Even if it’s only for a little while.

I bless all the wonderful people in my life who don’t let me take myself so seriously.

And I especially bless my God, who is chomping at the bit for all of us to come, dance, be merry, have a banquet, and rejoice and laugh for eternity. 

In just a little while.

Still, He wants us to have a measure of fun here too!  It just might take a bit of brave to do some bouncing.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

31 Days of Courage: The Courage To Wake Up

That old prophet Isaiah, he’s blowing reveille this morning.

Indeed, the alarm to wake up keeps coming.  It passes through all the books of the Great Book, right to the end.  Especially at the end.

Here I am, tapping words down in a language unknown to Isaiah, in a time when drowsiness and sleep have a firm hold on this suffering world.  And I of all people, one who needs to rub the sleep out of my own eyes, here I stretch from sleep for a few paragraphs on a topic that would fill the volumes of every book in every library.  Perhaps this particular post is really just for me.

How often have I lived through a day, asleep to the truth of my purpose there?  That the glory of God, the souls of men, and indeed the growing and gracing of my own soul are at stake while I remain asleep. 

Asleep, making breakfast, without gratitude and awareness of the gracious hand that prospered the wheat of the earth so I could have my bagel.

Turning the ignition in my car, heedless to the One who made the mind of man so great that he could design such a useful machine.

Living and working with other mortals, forgetting they are eternal beings, to be treated with honor.  To be cared for and understood.  To be forgiven.  And to seek forgiveness from. 

Indeed, to be awake to the brevity of life, to its meaning down to the peeling of the apple at lunch.  To be alive and aware that this world and everything in it is a gift of God.   That even my worst pain drives me to Him, and will not allow me to go down to a deathly slumber.

To vomit up the sleeping pills of materialism, human accolades and silly dreams of comfort so I can spend this aging body in the pursuit of lasting reality.

To open my eyes, pull off the covers, and be willing to get out of the hazy warmth of just following the rules and stepping into the brisk awakening air of bold living.  I hear you Isaiah, I hear the bugle call.

And I hear my ancient brother the Apostle Paul, through these sleepy ears:

“Be very careful then, how you live- not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”  Ephesians 5: 16

And just one verse before this he says:

“Wake up O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (vs. 15)

Very convicted I am this morning, as I push aside the dullness in me.  I will sing loud today at church, and be glad even in my sorrows.  And with thanksgiving for my coffee, and my struggles and the leaves all over my front lawn, waiting to be raked.

When the test comes as it surely will, I pray I will hear the bugle boy of God in my ears for the sake of those who are dead asleep.  That come what may, I will have courage to live the Gospel, even if thought a fool.  That one day many will stand with me, by grace alone, by the blood of Christ alone, before the Almighty One.

Awake and alive for all eternity.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

31 Days of Courage: The Courage To Leave It All Behind

I woke up this morning with lots of baggage in my head.  I know you know what I mean. 

Like everyone else, I have 24 hours in a day.  Like most people, I feel squeezed and pressed for time. This morning the rush of thoughts slammed into me like a 747.  The stuff at work not done (it will never be done).  The people I want to have for dinner (that list will go on until they’re having dinner after my funeral).  The closet uncleaned, the bushes unclipped, the groceries unbought. 

And then there are the worries.  About my kids.  About money.  About the future.  BAM.  I mean my eyes have been opened for 10 seconds and I’m already slammed.  The enemy of our souls wastes no time in accusing us.  He starts first thing, hoping (if that foul thing can hope) that we will stay there, twisted up and torn up, without peace and forgetting Whose children he’s messing with.

C.S. Lewis said this, and bless him, he didn’t know back before I was born how these words would sustain me:

“It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.”

This is going to sound weird, but there’s something about fretting that can be comfortable.  There’s a familiarity to it, and a twisted sense of control it carries.  All a complete lie, of course, but a powerful one.  The only way to battle that sucker is with the truth.

And the truth is this:  We don’t even control the next breath we take.  Every morsel of food we eat comes from the hand of God.  Every job we have he provided.  (No man has a right to arrogance, for every man lives by grace alone.  Even if he doesn’t recognize it).

To let go of fretting and that sense of control takes real courage.  A relative of mine once said something that stuck all these years later from a time when she was going through a really difficult patch in her life. She said letting go “felt like I was falling off a cliff…but it turned out to be like I was tied to a bungee cord and I never did slam into the rocks below.”  Her faith sustained her.

This morning I have 2 choices.

Hold on to my false sense of control, fret on, and be perfectly miserable.

Or, leave it all behind, be grateful, find the good, and trust my Jesus, come what may.

Believe me when I tell you I’ve taken option 1 far too many days on this brief sojourn.

Today, my baby girl is home for the weekend.  Since the terrible accident of 2009, there is still plenty to fret about.  There is plenty of brokenness, trouble and heartache.

But for today, we will be going apple picking in the rain, sharing apple cider donuts and reminiscing with the wooden Indian at the farm we’ve gone to every autumn since our babies were babies.

Today, I’m praying for the courage to leave it all behind.

Standing back from all my natural fussings and frettings…and coming in out of the wind.  Praise be to God, who always leads us in triumphant procession in Christ!

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

31 Days of Courage: The Courage to Swim Upstream

Here’s a quote by a wonderful author and blogger whose words have many a day given me courage:

"Any dead fish can go with the flow — you have to be intentionally alive to swim against the current." 

~ Ann Voskamp

This post is going to offend some people.  And believe me when I say I have no intention and no motivation whatsoever to be offensive.  I try very hard to stick to universal truths in my blog posts, and to stay away from politics and touchy subjects.  Not because I don’t have strong beliefs, but because I believe my little calling in these daily scribbles has always been to bring encouragement for everyday people in their everyday world.  Other  folks, much smarter and far better educated than I have the grand calling of the big picture. 

But Ann Voskamp’s quote, not to mention her fearless and grace filled writing, have given me some courage to tackle a topic highly controversial but deadly important.  And I’m scared because I might be misunderstood, accused of being judgmental, and instantly dismissed.  These are all things that push the chicken buttons of my heart.

So with fear and trembling  I want to spend just a few paragraphs today in defense of the defenseless.  And in the age we are living in even mentioning this horrendously painful topic is most definitely swimming upstream.  But I don’t want to be a dead fish.

Since 1973, approximately 57 million unborn children in the United States of America have been denied an opportunity to take their first breath.  There probably isn’t much sense in going over the arguments surrounding this silent holocaust, euphemistically referred to as “women’s reproductive rights”.  Those who defend the practice of abortion and those who oppose it often cannot be moved.  And I’m sure I will change no one’s mind today.  My point here is that there is a cultural tide moving in the opposite direction to those who stand firmly in the defense of life.  We must be willing to be thought of as intolerant, judgmental and pharisaical.  We must swim against the stream and accept the consequences.  And above all, we must not become ungracious and mean spirited in our unshakable grip on the truth.  One can run into the wind without spitting into it.

Yesterday I wrote about encouragement.  The giving of courage to another.  And who needs it more than a woman who finds herself with an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy.  It takes a tremendously brave person to risk her reputation (although that’s not as big a factor here in the 21^st century), her career, or a relationship to give the gift of life to another small, helpless human being.   It takes even more courage to then place that child in the loving arms of an adoptive mother.  That kind of courage, self- sacrificing and profound, is what elevates our humanity.  It is like the fire fighters who went up the stairs of the World Trade Center to rescue the helpless ones inside.  They were willing to risk everything to save those souls.  Beautiful in the extreme.

There is no easy when it comes to courage.  It is not neat and clean like it looks in the movies.  Courage costs big time, and not just in ways that can be seen, but in emotional losses that can last a lifetime.  The strength to carry a baby to term, and then give that child away requires great endurance and willingness to accept loss.    It demands being intentionally alive, feeling a million feelings, and swimming against the current.  

Smitty and I regularly support a ministry called Alpha Center, which devotes itself to meeting the physical, psychological and spiritual needs of women who make the brave choice to keep their babies, and also to bring comfort and hope to those who have already experienced the devastation of having had an abortion.  This is where the pedal meets the medal.  How are we going to be there for the mother who makes the hard choice, and the one whose courage was battered? 

I know it’s a complicated issue.  So were the international  politics of 9-11.  But that didn’t matter to the people in the towers.  They just wanted to live.  They just needed someone to be brave enough to pull them from the flames.

Perhaps we ought to swim upstream with all our might, whatever is thought of us, to stand and deliver.  Not with violence or harsh tongue or clenched fist.  But with tenderhearted compassion and open hands and brave hearts.  In whatever small way the Spirit of the Living God shows us.

That way, we won’t be dead fish.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

31 Days of Courage: When Courage Fails- The Sequel

Yesterday’s post highlighted what I consider the great antidote for the ailment of failed courage: 

God’s Grace. 

I pointed out what I believe with all my chicken heart: that grace trumps all.  The vaulted courage of the fully human Christ to endure the emotional, physical and spiritual agony of the rejection of the Cross is his banner across the ages.  Read it every day…it says “I have enough grace for your worst failures.”

There is something else, though, perhaps less regal but beautiful all the same that travels the pilgrim road as a companion of grace.

My children, born between 1993 and 1997 are the generation of the Toy Story movies.  The first film my firstborn ever saw was Toy Story 1.  After his introduction to that marvelous screen gem, he spent many a waking hour jumping off chairs with the expensive Buzz Lightyear laser gun his Grandma Smith bought him.  And as he “flew” through the air he would shout:

“To infinity, and beyond!”

If you’ve never seen the Toy Story movies, OMG for heaven’s sake get thee to the DVD store!

In Toy Story 1, Buzz Lightyear comes on the scene as a new toy for the boy Andy, who has spent much of his short life with Woody, a cowboy toy with a friendly face who sounds suspiciously like Tom Hanks.  Buzz believes he’s a true space superhero, and Woody feels like second fiddle when the souped up space ranger commands a generous portion of Andy’s attention. 

Conflicts arise, and without giving all the details, Buzz winds up learning he’s not a real space hero at all, but just a toy. Worst of all, Buzz finds out he can’t really fly.

 And here’s the point: Buzz loses heart, in a big way.  His sense of purpose, his joy, and his identity are devastated.  Until.

Until Woody, who has his own character growth spurt, becomes Buzz’s ENCOURAGER.  See that word!  That’s my take on the 2^nd antidote to the failure of courage.  Encouragement. 

I want more than anything to be an encourager.  This broken down world needs a whole lot more Woody’s to get the Buzz’s flying high again.  Even if their flying is only just “falling, with style.”

What a privilege to help someone find their courage.  How I repent of the times I’ve sapped people of theirs’ with words unwise. 

And how little it takes to encourage someone!  A joke for the bus driver, a verbal pat on the back for a child while they battle through long division, a coffee delivered to a desk for a tired co-worker.  Try looking for something small today you can do to give somebody else on this runaway merry go round a lick of courage.  There is no dearth of folks who need some strength.

Sometimes there is no human encourager.  There is only God.  And it is then we must dig deep and believe that powerful word of truth from the real Star Command:

“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”  2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

Encouragement.

It will take us and our struggling fellow pilgrims…

To infinity…and beyond!

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

31 Days of Courage: When Courage Fails

In May of 1431, a young woman of great courage and faith experienced what we all will: a failure of courage.

Joan of Arc is famous for her outstanding feats as a French soldier, in an age when women were considered on a level with dogs and dust.  She had an intimate and powerful relationship with God, and ultimately it was this great strength that was used to kill her.

For reasons mostly political, the Anglo-Burgundian military of England captured the “Maid of Orleans” to make an example of her.  She had encouraged and fearlessly led the French army to victory after victory against their forces as they quarreled over the rightful holder of the throne, and they had had enough. (I don 't pretend to understand the complicted politics of that time...what was English and what was French was a mixed up mess). Using trumped up charges to get her off the grid, Joan was imprisoned, badgered, tormented and broken down by her captors.  As is unfortunately often the case, religious leaders became the bad guys in this story.  Those medieval Pharisees took wickedness to new heights as they brutally stripped a teenage girl of any human comfort.

During one of the many sessions Joan of Arc was forced to endure, she was asked this question:

“Do you know whether or not you are in God’s grace?”

And this uneducated peasant girl, beaten down, persecuted and exhausted, gave a stunning answer that would boggle even the most learned theologian:

“If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I were not in His grace."

As religious men had  tried to trap her Savior, so they did to her.

Finally, after multiple trials, with the chief charge being “cross dressing” (Joan clung to her soldier clothing to protect herself from her guards’ constant threats of rape) she was presented with a document to sign, recanting her call from God and the accompanying visions. 

She signed the paper.  Her courage failed her.

And it has failed us, under a lot less pressure and with a lot less to lose.

What are we to do then?  When courage fails, as it has for people like Moses, King David, and Peter the Apostle, is there still hope?  What is the remedy for courage lost?

There are 2 things that come to mind.  One I will address in today’s post, and one in tomorrows’.  

Today, the very words of Joan of Arc give a clue to the antidote for a heart lost to fear and failure:

“I would be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I were not in His grace.”

Greater than any failure of courage, or any act of courage, is the power and might of the Grace of God.  His grace to poor, weak mortals like us only makes more brilliant the wonder of his condescension to the likes of mankind.  Motivated purely by love.  Expressed and demonstrated by the unfailing courage of the Son of God.  Fully man, carrying the weight of all the world, he went to the stake without hesitation. 

Eventually Joan of Arc, in misery and sorrow, but clearly with supernatural assistance, recanted her recanting.  She received the grace in which she trusted, and with her hope firmly placed in the atoning death of Christ Jesus was burned at the stake as a heretic.  She was the same age as my daughter.

In one moment, courage failed for Joan of Arc, but it was grace that prevailed.  Grace trumps failure.  

Grace trumps all.

Remember that when your courage fails.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

31 Days of Courage: What I Learned From My Mother

One thing I really love about Jesus, among many, is his uncanny knack for making friends with the unlikeliest folks. 

A short guy who nobody likes…that swindler hanging in a tree, yep, Jesus went to his house for supper.  A woman at a well who was married umpteen times, was considered a nobody, especially to the Jews…Samaritan, she might as well have been a leper.  Oh yeah, lepers too.  And wealthy religious guys, soldiers and fishermen.  The humility of Christ is mind blowing.  He befriended those who thought they weren’t worthy to grovel at his feet and likewise those who thought He wasn’t worthy to grovel at theirs. 

As always, He stands as the high, exalted example.

Isn’t it strange how we folks today isolate ourselves from people not like us?  And quite frankly, it takes effort…courage really, to approach someone in a wheelchair who drools a little and makes funny noises.  On the other side of the fence, we fear starting a conversation with a corporate president in a Brooks Brother’s suit.  Why are we afraid of what is not like us?

My mother, Cynthia Marie Connor Champagne, was the bravest person I’ve ever known.  She battled the brutality of schizophrenia from her mid-twenties until she died at age 60.  One thing my mother was great at was relating to people of all stripes.  She treated doctors, lawyers, plumbers and janitors with the same respect.  Her wit was sharp and her humor steadfast despite the menacing burden of a horrific affliction.  She was isolated by her disease, but always stood at the ready to accept every person who could get past the oddities of her broken psyche.  Though many were uncomfortable with her, she stretched hard to reach some kind of relationship with people, even with the handicap of a broken mind.

Me, Mom and my brother Donnie - Danny's not born yet

Even though she was unable to raise me past my 10th birthday, she showed me the way of courage.

Today a family got on the elevator with me.  A young woman in her electric wheelchair, probably around 16, non-verbal with uncontrolled muscle movements,  playfully backed in to her mother.  I looked at this young woman, and thought of my mom, and of my Jesus, and how they might respond in this cramped space, with a profoundly disabled teenager who was goofing off with her mom even while trapped within the bounds of her great limitations.  But I was uncomfortable.

So I pulled up my big girl boots and spoke to the young woman.  I heard the whole family call her Micaela, so I had an in.

“Micaela, are you trying to squish your mom?”

Micaela lifted her head and smiled, and backed in to her again.  Her mom laughed, her sisters and her dad laughed, and I laughed!  Micaela’s mom looked at me with gratitude as if I had just handed her the ticket to Derek Jeter’s last game at Yankee Stadium. Why?  Because I had taken 10 seconds to acknowledge this precious human being who likely has been ignored and passed over by many.  I’ve done the passing over many times myself with people “not like me”. 

 In that little interaction of fun with Micaela, I felt the discomfort draining from my body.  As the doors opened, I put my hand on Micaela’s arm and felt her soft, warm sweater and smiled at her.  I was grateful to her for being there to bring me a bit of laughter in a cold world.  For a moment, we related.  I overcame my discomfort and found a little joy.

There’s nothing heroic in sharing a laugh with a disabled girl and her family.  But for me, there was a little bit of brave required to let go of what the outcome might be there.  These are the tiny attitudes and actions that might just bring us up out of the mundane and make an often icy world a little warmer.

Thanks Mom.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

31 Days of Courage: The Courage Not To Worry

 “Do not fret, it only leads to evil”.  Psalm 37:8

Them’s fightin’ words.

And here is the greatest enemy to courage in my everyday life.  Worry.

I’ve often said if I didn’t have something to worry about I’d make something up.  Anxiety is such a dominant gene in my family history it’s a wonder more of my ancestors didn’t land in mental institutions (and some did, no joke). 

Worry has robbed me of countless days, months…God help me, years of joy, peace and service to others. 

I am growing and changing by the grace of God, yes I am.  But what is it about that particular stronghold that, when it gets it’s talons in hard, ruins people’s lives?

This is a hard sub-subject to write about in this 31 day challenge because this is the area where I fail with greatest  dispatch.

And where I need to seek courage with ongoing endurance.  Worry is to courage what water is to fire.  But courage is to worry what the law of aerodynamics is to the law of gravity.  Courage can always rise above.  Courage has won the day in many an anxious heart.

Almost 5 years ago, my husband and daughter were nearly killed by a drunk driver.  For our girl, the road since then has been bumpy, steep and scary beyond what I can express here.  When I say I have cried out for courage it is an understatement in the extreme.  Every day I place that beloved child into the hands of her relentlessly loving Heavenly Father and exhale with surrender.  I don’t do it perfectly.  But this difficult trip has been the birthplace of courage for me…this soaring over the fields of worry to the high places of trust.  No matter what happens.

What is it for you?  What worry is strangling you?  The Great One is always telling us to cheer up, look up and buck up! He promises to be with us, to give us strength in our weakness and to love us through every failure.  Courage today might look as relatively small as facing your closet disaster, or as big as putting your disabled child square in the hands of God.  It might be having a conversation that’s long overdue, or trying again to find a job after significant unemployment. 

In the end, worry leads to nothing good and courage leads to everything worth anything.

There’s not been a single blog post in these 31 days so far that applies more to the writer.

And believe me when I tell you, it’s fight of my life.

How I need your prayers.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

31 Days of Courage: The Courage to Unplug

Sadly, I understand the addiction.  I’m not so much of a high tech addict.  I have a “dumb phone” and I don’t feel compelled to check my email and facebook page all the time.  But I do have a problem I’ve dealt with for almost my entire adult life.  And I can honestly say, with great trepidation, that I’m doing ok with that at the moment.  You see, I’m a talk radio junkie.

For many years I would have the blah, blah, blah on in the background as a matter of course.  I’d get in the car, on with the radio.  I’d work in the kitchen, on with the radio.  Despite feeling restless, anxious and negative from the listening, I listened on.  There was a true sickness to the whole thing.  It seemed innocent on the outside, but it was wildly unhealthy on the inside.  When I finally felt enough of the yuck, I stopped.  I unplugged.  And though I’m always in danger of going back to the mind numbing yacking, I’m so much better off without it. 

The whole culture has gone mad with noise and distraction.  We seem to be afraid of quiet.  Reflection and contemplation are disciplines of a former time.  This diabolical turn that has taken place in just the last 50 years, and in particular the last 20 years has clearly not improved our happiness factor.  Technology has made possible a world of good.  And a world of evil.

Socrates eloquently said:

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

That’s a bold statement, shimmering with truth for today.  And the interior life cannot be examined with an I-phone, twitter account or video game.  It takes place alone, in sometimes uncomfortable stretches of quiet thought.  The enemy of our souls wants at that quiet so that no self- examination takes place.  So we’ll remain plugged in and unaware of the deeper meaning, like the lifeless masses in the movie “The Matrix”, or the fodder for devilish delight in C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece “The Screwtape Letters”.

It takes no small effort to walk away from our phones, our televisions, our radios, and our laptops and determine to consider and relate to God and man in real life. 

Listen, I’m not saying these things are wrong in and of themselves.  (And believe me when I say I’m preaching to myself here!)  But isn’t there a point where we must be the boss and say “enough”?  Where we shut the door to our room, put the phone on silent, and simply spend time thinking, reading, meditating, praying…

In the world we live in, that may be considered an act of courage.  Because I can tell you for sure, if you get quiet you’re going to notice that you need to change.  There’s no getting around it and there’s no missing it.  Turn down the volume, visual and auditory, and up comes the truth.  The liberating, powerful, beautiful truth of who we are and who God is.

It’s ironic that I’m using an electronic medium to communicate this concept.  But again, this isn’t about bashing technology but illuminating idolatry.  And only you know when you’ve crossed that line.  Only you can be brave enough to admit it and unplug.  Only you know how much is enough.   (Parents have to make those decision for their young children too so they aren’t eaten alive by the technology beast.  I admit I haven’t been as strong in that as I ought to have been.  I need mercy there too).

With all the understanding I can muster I say please don’t feel condemned, but please do be bold and strong.  Jesus exhorted his friends to “come away to a quiet place.”

God help us, do they even exist anymore?

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann