Reality Reflection: does the stage matter?

Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Helen Keller, Elizabeth Blackwell, Michelangelo, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Amelia Earhart, Charles Dickens, Caesar, Jesus, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, DaVinci, Catherine the Great, Florence Nightingale, Rosa Parks, Stephen Hawking. You probably know many of the names on the list, you may even know the basics of their story too. What brings them all together in this list is the fact that they did something great, helpful, powerful, impactful in their time and their actions, their legacy impacted people after (sometimes long after) they died.

Yes, each of them were special in one way or another, but if you think specifically of the story of Rosa Parks, she is really known for her courage. Maybe she was just feeling tired that day on the bus, maybe she was just fed up, maybe she just decided that it couldn’t get much worse so she was going to stand up for herself. Don’t get me wrong it takes a ton of courage to do what she did, but is it really that hard to sit on a bus and get arrested? No, it’s not like designing a rocket ship that will take people to the moon and back alive. It’s a different type of challenge. The same is true for Mother Teresa. She didn’t strategize wars or build pyramids or chart the high seas, but she did care with her whole heart for people who never experienced such care.

What gets me about these people every time is that so many of them have a story that’s very similar to ours, but their life played out on a national/world wide stage. You can write books and impact people. You can work in the medical field and impact people. You can have courage and impact people. You can fly a plane and impact people. You can be artistic and creative and impact people. The question is if you’re willing to do it knowing that you’re probably not going to get the same stage and legacy that they did. Personally, I believe we’re selling ourselves short if we don’t live our whole lives to our full potential even if that means we’re only impacting a fraction of a percentage of people on the planet. So go ahead: be artistic, do your job, write books, heal people, speak up, have courage or whatever it is that you do and make your impact on others. Live your life to its full potential even if that full potential isn’t known by everyone. Because it’s probably not your job to impact everyone, your job is to impact those you are here to impact.

Considering What Matters Most

Have you felt like you’re under a lot of pressure or stress lately? While everything that has continued to go on in the world hasn’t exactly helped us find a new stable life since the pandemic began, I feel like we’ve allowed ourselves to fall back into some of the bad habits that we had before the pandemic like overbooking our schedules, thinking we need to be busy 24/7, and being lazy about supporting each other in the ways that we saw happen in the early months of the pandemic. So as I’ve been thinking about some big decisions in my life that I have to make I read the words of Philippians 1:10a:

“…I want you to understand what really matters…”

Since God is so awesome He always gives us options that we can consider. Rarely is it a case of there being only one way to accomplish a goal or work through a problem. We may not love all the options that are available to us, but usually if we are willing to get creative and/or put in the effort, we can make things work out. We may not love the idea that some of those options come with a necessary waiting period or a requirement of going slow, but moving along at a slow-but-steady pace is better than not making any progress or not being able to eventually reach your goals.

Going back to today’s verse from Philippians, one of the hardest parts about all those options is determining what really matters when all things are considered. Sometimes the situations in your life mean that the only thing that matters is the short term and right now and that’s the option you have to choose (certainly something we experienced on a global scale during the early months of the pandemic). Other times while it may not be easy, you have to consider what will bring you more results or further along or better relationships or more success in the long run even if it means some sacrifices and challenges now.

But it’s more than just about the results, because you can work your fingers to the bone with accomplishment after accomplishment and feel completely unsatisfied and unfulfilled and be really far from the plan of God for your life. In the end sure you accomplished a lot and crossed lots of stuff off whatever lists you have, but none of them were fulfilling or helped you grow as a person or really meant anything to you. Of course not everything will have the same meaning or value as some things (like for example the birth of your first child), and some things will be downright ordinary, which is to be expected. But when it comes to the big decisions, the big expenses, how you spend significant portions of your time, and the relationships you really invest in, what really matters should be a factor in those decisions. Because if that thing doesn’t really matter to you or to God, how much should you be investing in it?

As we look at the last 3 months of this year and even begin to think about next year, I encourage you to spend some time with God thinking about what really matters to Him and to you as a person, partner, son/daughter, parent, coworker, neighbor, investor, and child of God. Maybe it’s time for a new plan of action or new direction because the things that you’re investing in right now don’t really matter to you and won’t help you get to the things that do matter to you.

Jesus and the Jewish Leaders

One of the things that always intrigued me about Jesus and His story in the first 4 books of the New Testament is His connection to and involvement with the faith of Jesus’ family: Judaism. One of the few stories we have about Jesus as a young boy is about how his parents forgot Him when they went to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival (how does this even happen!?). The story goes that somehow they all got to Jerusalem but Jesus ended up staying in the Temple to converse with and learn from the Jewish teachers who were there. It is one of the few positive interactions recorded in the Bible between Jesus and Jewish leaders. Finally they did reunite and return home together (you can read the story in Luke 2:41-52).

When He’s an adult we have stories of Jesus interacting with priests and other Temple leaders, usually with less than pleasant results because they didn’t agree with what Jesus did, or how He taught, and weren’t open to hearing what God’s Son was there to tell them. And in the last week of Jesus’ life we have Jesus cleansing the temple (basically reacting to all the irreverent acts and ways that people were conducting business and life in the temple) and then we have Jesus and His Apostles celebrating the Passover.

One of the things that stands out to me the most throughout all of the stories of Jesus and the Temple/Jewish leaders is how willing Jesus was to keep trying and keep interacting with them. He went back time and again, had conversation after conversation with them, and I have to wonder what changed between when He was a child and who He was as a man. Why is was it acceptable to celebrate Jesus’ wisdom as a child, but they were unable to welcome Him as a man? Why could they be open to the child who showed such interest and promise, but not the man who was not only able to do great things but also touched the lives of thousands with His words?

It may be as simple as they were jealous of His wisdom and how people who never really responded to them responded to Him. As we continue exploring our hearts and minds through this year’s Lent, I encourage you to consider what role jealousy may play in your life and how it may hinder you from growing, or how it may hinder you from playing a [bigger] role in sharing God with the world. Time and again in the Bible Jesus speaks to how irrelevant comparison is and how instead we should just focus on doing the best we can and becoming the person God created us to be and share the Word of God in the ways that we’re able to. What is your focus on this week and what should it be on?

True to God

Part of life that’s never easy is when you lose people. In the last days of 2021 and these early days of 2022 we’ve already lost some people who were legends of their industry, names that will never be forgotten including: “Meat Loaf,” André Leon Talley, Louie Anderson, Thich Nhat Hanh, Bob Saget, Sidney Poitier, Betty White and so many more. Part of the reason these people were so legendary is because they were themselves and brought something to the world that only they could bring and remained committed to being themselves and bringing their gift to the world. Each of them faced challenges in their life, and they weren’t loved by everyone, but that didn’t stop them from working hard and trying their best and staying as positive as they could despite the challenges they faced.

As I was thinking about these talented individuals and their loss, I was reminded of a couple of people in the Bible who would have fit well with these people. Jonathan, David’s best friend and also King Saul’s son, was a leader in his own right, but he was also wise and willing to follow God’s leading to David being the new king and his father not being the king (1 Samuel 13-2 Samuel 1). Daniel was courageous time and again and consistently chose to do what he believed God wanted him to do whether it was eating healthy foods or praying, and even if it got him into some tough spots like a fiery furnace or the lion’s den (book of Daniel). Saul/Paul became one of the most well known people of the New Testament with his crazy conversion story when God stopped him on the road to Damascus, but he continued his fervent preaching and teaching and faced many challenges and persecution as a disciple of God (the book of Acts and others in the New Testament).

Most of us won’t become as famous as any of these people I’ve mentioned today, but that’s not the point since none of them did what they did because their only goal was to become famous. The message here is that it’s always best to be true to who you are, and be the person God made you to be. Don’t question the giftings and experiences He gives you, instead learn how He wants you to share those gifts and experiences with the world. The goal is to do your best with what God gives you and touch the people He gives you opportunity to connect with whether it’s ten or ten billion. How are you being true to who God has made you to be?

Reality Reflection: What’s Important

The last three months of the year are packed with awesome holidays, some that many celebrate in different ways and others that are only recognized by a segment of the population of the US or the world. Even if the holidays aren’t part of my culture I still enjoy learning about them: why and how people celebrate them. Often I learn things that I can apply to my life and celebrations during this time of year, and it also helps me better understand some of the other people that we share this world with, and what’s important to them.

This is a question I’ve been thinking about over the past two weeks: what’s important? I think we would probably have some similar answers like our family or having enough resources to care for ourselves or leaving the world a better place than we found it. But many people say that certain things are important to them (like being healthy for example) and yet how they live their life and the choices they make don’t reflect that.

I do think it’s important to have holidays and to celebrate. Holidays are full of traditions that teach us about our heritage, that allow us to share our heritage and culture with new friends and new generations, and give us the opportunity to make new traditions and memories too. The celebrations bring us together in ways that little else in our world does these days. They remind us that we need celebrations in our lives. And maybe most important they remind us of the bigger picture and get us to lift our heads out of our life to see the world around us and reconnect with people we don’t see often.

What else is important? I think it’s important to put our best foot forward in life. I think it’s important to be a blessing to others and considerate of them. I think it’s important to have people in your life that you can trust and turn to when you need a late night ice cream run or a family member is in the hospital. I think it’s important to care for yourself and about yourself. I think it’s important to have faith. I think it’s important to be someone others can rely on. I think it’s important to make time for learning and exploring the world that we live in. I think it’s important to have passions and pet projects to play with in your free time. I think family is important, whether it’s family by blood or choice. What is important to you?

Reality Reflection: Everyone Can Make A Difference

Who could do something like that? How did we get here? How did it fall apart so fast? How did we miss the signs? How could [they] do something like that? These are all questions we ask about things that happen around the world from terrorist attacks to genocides to murders to awesome ideas and businesses that failed for unnecessary reasons. Too many things that happen in our lives or in our world are hard for us to understand because they’re not things we would do and we can’t understand why someone would do something like that or who wants to live like that.

I was talking with some people about the situation in Afghanistan and they shared one story of some former military and other people who got together and were part of the solution for bringing out thousands of refugees. These weren’t people using regular airlines and waiting on the government to help, they were just using their resources and connections to help others. The same can be said about the men and women and organizations who are helping provide water and cleaning stations to the homeless, or better toilet solutions to parts of Africa that have few resources or the people, organizations who help those with addictions break free and eventually own their own homes and be able to provide for their kids or the people, and organizations who raise dogs that help with everything from mobility issues to PTSD to seizures.

Whether we want it to be our job, our responsibility, or not, we really are called to step up and work to make the world a better place in whatever way we can. Maybe that’s singing and playing music for a group of veterans or survivors of a tragedy to give them a night’s distraction from the things they struggle with on a daily basis. Maybe that’s providing pro bono legal support to battered women. Maybe that’s taking in a family member or friend’s kids who is unemployed and can’t pay for a sitter or the kids of someone who is having health issues for a weekend once a month to give them a break. Maybe that’s connecting two people you know who have similar passions but different skill sets and could make great things happen like the ideas shared above. Maybe it’s using the publicity they’ve received on social media to share about worthy causes and people doing good things for their communities. Maybe it’s working in the police and court systems to bring justice to families who have lost so much.

No one is perfect and everyone fails and makes mistakes, that’s just the way life is. So if we know we’re going to live in a way that negatively impacts the world, it’s really our responsibility to make the world better in whatever ways we can. If we can’t avoid doing wrong, we have to do better about doing right more often and more consistently in whatever ways we can.

“No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be Tikkun Olam — repairers of creation. Thank you for whatever you do, wherever you are, to bring joy, and light, and hope, and faith, and pardon and love to your neighbor and to yourself.” Fred Rogers

Reality Reflection: Proud with Plans for the Future

Today, the Fourth of July, Independence Day, is known for many things. It’s often a day that families and friends gather together around a barbecue and eat and play games together in backyards around the US. It’s also a day of parades, where veterans and community groups march or make floats to ride on. And lastly, it’s often a day of fireworks. I didn’t grow up attending fireworks displays, mostly because my brother has sensitive ears, but I’m sure if I really wanted to see fireworks one of my parents could have taken me while the other stayed home with my brother, but they never held the appeal for me like they do for many people.

The other day I was talking with some kids and they were sharing that the fireworks had been cancelled in their town for some reason, with the possibility of it being because of how loud they were for pets, and I mentioned that fireworks are also a nightmare for some of the veterans who are instantly thrown into flashbacks when they hear them. Of course being kids they suggested that the veterans and pets could just deal with it, but those of us who have experienced something traumatic in our lives know it’s never that simple or easy to “solve”.

It reminded me that as much as we’re celebrating the start of our country and the progress we’ve made as a nation today, we know that there’s another side to the story. No nation, no victory, no life ever is built without pain, sacrifices and suffering, and especially over the past few decades we’ve heard more stories of how poorly some people and groups have been treated in the name of getting our country to this point. It didn’t have to be that way, but it was and we’ve been challenged as a nation to step up and do better going forward. Maybe doing better is having fewer fireworks displays to be more sensitive to those who are bothered by them. Maybe doing better is reconstructing history class to do more than just hit the same high points every year and instead share the true challenges people faced. Maybe doing better is putting more resources towards solving cold cases and violent offenses like rapes and attacks. Maybe doing better is making sure every kid has a full stomach before they go to bed. Maybe doing better is making sure more people get a fair opportunity to succeed in life. Maybe doing better means requiring everyone to contribute towards the growth and health of our country other than paying taxes and having kids. Maybe it means being vocal and honest about the challenges people have faced since our country was born and other challenges people are facing today.

I do believe it’s a day to celebrate, but it should also be a day that motivates us to work even harder on producing a future country that our great grand children can be proud of, excited to live in, and full of plans for an even more awesome future.

Reality Reflection: You Matter

A recent email I got was on the subject of the phrase ‘for such a time as this.’ It goes hand in hand with the phrase ‘the right place at the right time,’ which you’re probably also familiar with. I’m always amazed when something seems so perfect, like you get exactly what you need at the store or you get a message from someone you haven’t heard from in a while and had been thinking about, or you get approached about extra work (and pay) or a new position at work, or you’re asked to foster an animal after you lost yours, or someone almost loses something as they get in their car and you’re able to get their attention, or you see someone get hurt and you’re there to call for help.

Maybe you’re not president or the leader of a company, maybe you don’t have a bunch of kids to raise, maybe you don’t have a leadership position in your church, maybe you don’t have neighbors you look out for, maybe you don’t have a huge client list, maybe you don’t fix broken bones and cure diseases, maybe it seems like you’re just an average someone who isn’t really important in the scheme of things and anyone really could replace you down the road. While to some extent that may be true, you also put your own spin on it, presentation to it, character with it, and perspective to it, so no one could really exactly and precisely duplicate who you are and what you can share with the world.

But even the very ordinary can make a positive difference for someone. It may not seem like a big thing to call for help, but it could save a life. It may not seem like a big thing to have a live camera at your animal nonprofit, but that could be the only cheer and adventure that some people have in their day because they’re home bound or can’t have a pet right now. It may not seem like a big thing to park a little farther away, but that could mean that someone who’s having a rough day with their kids could park close and be in and out of the store sooner. It may not seem like a big thing to go on a date with your significant other, but that could mean babysitting income for someone and income for the restaurant you eat at or other establishment you visit.

It’s far more often the little things that help the world keep turning smoothly than the big ones that truly matter. Maybe you aren’t here on Earth right now to do or be something big and dramatic, but when you add up all the little things, what you’ve done stacks up to be a lot.

Reality Reflection: The Size of Purpose

I believe that a big aspect of purposes is in using them to do good. I don’t believe you can have a purpose for evil, you can do evil things, but I don’t believe it’s anyone’s calling to be evil. I believe each of us are called to do important things in the world, but sometimes we can forget that important doesn’t have to be this ginormous thing that makes an impact on a large portion of the world.

Important can be as simple as helping a neighbor cut up trees and clean up after a big storm, or staying for an extra hour after work to help a coworker who is struggling. Those may not seem like big things in the scheme of things, and maybe they’re not. But if you believe in karma both of them are ways to have positive effect on your future. If you don’t believe in karma, maybe you believe in a benevolent universe or the concept of receiving what you give, both of which provide good reasons for doing even these small activities as well.

This weekend in the US is Mother’s Day, which makes me think not just of mothers, but also of family. Maybe you aren’t social and don’t want to make an impact on the whole world, so maybe part of your purpose is to do good for your family, whether that’s with phone calls and texts, special little “I see you” gifts, showing up for events and gatherings, praying for them, sharing your home or resources with family members in need, or just being a cheerleader and advocate for them.

Don’t be afraid to do the right thing and stand up for what you believe is the good or right thing to do. Don’t be afraid that what little you can do won’t matter, because it will. Live your life in the best way you can so that when you reach the end you’ll be proud of all you’ve done, and so will your kids and others in the world.

“A small change can make a big difference. You are the only one who can make our world a better place to inhabit. So, don’t be afraid to take a stand.” Ankita Singha

A Heartfelt Journey

Last week we talked a lot about Earth Day and the small but important step that was taken when the man primarily responsible for the death of George Floyd was found guilty. As I thought about what to write to close out this month, where we were a year ago today, and where we have to go from here, I was reminded that most of our victory journeys involve destinations that tug on our hearts and we truly care about. Even when the victories are something that seem small to many of us like getting out of bed or going on a video call, to some people those are really big victories, and progress in their life that they are and should be proud of.

Are we supposed to keep the same emotion and level of emotion from the beginning of the victory journey to the end? I don’t think that’s how it works. As painful as it is to lose someone, over time we feel a little differently about that loss. We may never totally lose the pain because we loved someone, and there will be moments that poke us harder than others. But for many of us the anger and/or raw sadness fades a bit and we work through the stages of grief, however slowly we may do it. On the other side of emotions I know we’re not going to be as happy or passionate about a cause, situation or project the whole way through from start to finish either. There will be really great moments when you’re excited about the potential of what you’re hoping to accomplish, as well as awesome steps of progress and little victories to celebrate along the way.

Our emotions will change throughout our victory journeys and so will we. If we’re really working through or towards something that has impacted us enough for us to devote significant time and energy to a victory journey about it, it’s not going to be something like picking a breakfast cereal or favorite dog breed, it’s going to be something that will transform us too. As much as victory journeys are about accomplishing something, they’re also opportunities for us to get to know ourselves better, to learn more about who we are, what is important to us, our particular gifts and talents, and about the world that we live in. They’re also an opportunity for us to develop our spirituality, our faith. They’re also opportunities for us to give back and help others who are going through what we’ve already been through.

Don’t be scared of the big feelings you have about the victory journey you’re on or about the victory you’re hoping to accomplish, embrace them and the experiences you have on the journey and in your life because they’re part of what make life unique and worth living. Sharing those feelings with others gives them a personal understanding of why it’s so important to you and what makes it worth working on.

“What questions concern your heart? What weight or burden do you bear? What is your need? Come to me, Jesus says. I am your provision. I am your answer. Trust me.” Br. Luke Ditewig