Trust the Catcher….

I've been cleaning up some of my "database." Files, snippets, quotes, old emails....etc...scattered all over the place....like on my computer, flash drives, Evernote, SpringPad, Zoho Notebook, AOL Mail and Windows Live Writer. (What can I say….I’ve tried a lot of note programs)  Sometimes when I go back through files, I find treasures I've forgotten about.  And snippets....far flung and diverse....seem to fit together.  You will see a few upcoming posts birthed because of this "spring" cleaning project.  Some, like this post, will rely mostly on words written by others....

There is a story told by Henri Nouwen in his book Our Greatest Gift: Meditations on Dying and Caring

"The Flying Rodleighs are trapeze artists who perform in the German circus Simoneit-Barum. When the circus came to Freiburg two years ago, my friends Franz and Reny invited me and my father to see the show. I will never forget how enraptured I became when I first saw the Rodleighs move through the air, flying and catching as elegant dancers.

The next day, I returned to the circus to see them again and introduced myself to them as one of their great fans. They invited me to attend their practice sessions, gave me free tickets, asked me to dinner, and suggested I travel with them for a week in the near future. I did, and we became good friends.

One day, I was sitting with Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe, in his caravan, talking about flying. He said, "As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher, The public might think that I am the greatest star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump."

    "How does it work?" I asked.

    "The secret," Rodleigh said, "is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything: when I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catchbar."

    "You do nothing!" I said, surprised.

    "Nothing," Rodleigh repeated. "A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him."
    When Rodleigh said this with so much conviction, the words of Jesus flashed through my mind: "Father into your hands I commend my Spirit." Dying is trusting in the catcher. To care for the dying is to say, "Don't be afraid. Remember that you are the beloved child of God. He will be there when you make your long jump. Don't try to grab him; he will grab you. Just stretch out your arms and hands and trust, trust, trust."
   

…..and the related snippet....from a very favorite author of mine...Max Lucado, in his book, When God Whispers Your Name.  He tells the story of a game he played with his five year old daughter...leaping from the bed into his arms.  I've seen versions of this game played in my own house....participants.... my own kids and their dad.  Jump from a high step......jump from the top of the refrigerator.  The leap was always accompanied by shouts and gleeful giggling.

They played a variation of this game sometimes.  He tossed them in the air...they soared to great heights. Way. Up. There.  There were a few close calls but he always caught them.  They loved it.  Me....not so much.

But I digress.

Max sums up how we can learn to have the faith of a little child in the trustworthiness of our Father's arms and be assured of His ability to always catch us.....

 

Part of the answer can be found in Sara’s little leaps of faith. Her older sister, Andrea, was in the room watching, and I asked Sara if she would jump to Andrea. Sara refused. I tried to convince her. She wouldn’t budge.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I only jump to big arms.”

If we think the arms are weak, we won’t jump.  For that reason, the Father flexed His muscles. “God’s power is very great for those who believe,” Paul taught. “That power is the same as the great strength God used to raise Christ from the dead” (Eph. 1:19—20). Next time you wonder if God can catch you, read that verse.

The very arms that defeated death are the arms awaiting you.

Body, Soul and/or Spirit?

This body, soul, spirit thing ....as in whether we are two dimensional beings (dichotomy) or three dimensional beings (trichotomy) ....has been a controversy for quite a while.  How come I didn't know that?

It goes way back.  Way, way back.  As far back as Plato who toyed around with theories about the "tripartite soul." And St Augustine who identified 3 Laws....Divine Law. Natural Law. Temporal Law. Or his 3 Characterizations of the "Soul"...Memory, Understanding, Will.  Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa, Luther, Oswald Chamber,  T.Austin-Spark, Watchman Nee all came down on the trichotomy side of the debate. It is also one of the main "go to" beliefs in kingdom ministries.

Two verses in scripture came to mind when I stumbled across this subject this morning. 

1 Thessalonians 5:23
Now may the God of peace Himself  sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 4:12 -
For the  word of God is living  and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit,  of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Far too often, in far too many versions of the Holy Bible, the English word chosen to convey the meaning of the word in the original language is....ah....way off.  Sometimes when you check the Strong's Concordance it doesn’t even come close.  I’m obviously not a Biblical scholar but it doesn't take a Biblical scholar to check out what the King James says a word means against what the Strong's Concordance says a word means….and come to your own, hopefully spirit led, conclusion.

 

Sometimes the translators will use the same English word to translate different Greek or Hebrew words.  Or visa versa.  Sometimes they will use different English words for one word in the original language.  Sometimes this accurately conveys the meaning….other times….not so much.

But in both verses above, the word translated spirit is the Greek word Pneuma.  The word translated soul is the Greek word  Psuche.

The Scofield Study Bible says this about the distinction:

Man a trinity. That the human soul and spirit are not identical is proved by the facts that they are divisible.

…the distinction between spirit and soul may be traced. Briefly,that distinction is that the spirit is that part of man which "knows" 1 Corinthians 2:11 his mind; the soul is the seat of the affections, desires, and so of the emotions, and of the active will, the self.

“Because man is ‘spirit’ he is capable of God-consciousness, and of communication with God (Job 32:8; Psa. 18:28; Prov. 20:27);

because he is ‘soul’ he has self-consciousness (Psa. 13:2; 42:5, 6, 11);

because he is ‘body’ he has, through his senses, world-consciousness” (The Scofield Study Bible, page 1270.

So....man, a triune being, has the potential to bridge the gap between the two realms, the physical and the spiritual.  He is linked to the visible realm....the earth....the material world with his body and he is linked to the spiritual, "other worldly" realm, beyond the veil…. by his spirit. The soul is sort of the swing vote.  I can submit to be ruled by the spiritual man and be "seated with Christ in heavenly places"....or allow the carnal man to "be the boss of me." (My friend “Kansas Bob” wrote a post a while back that talks about how we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit to accomplish this)

I found the following quote in an article called "Discovering Your Identity."  Disclaimer...there are parts of the article that I don't agree with....like the spiritual warfare kind of view about "the enemy"....and there is a rather blatant altar call toward the end of the article....but he has a really interesting way of explaining the body, soul, spirit concept. 

 

MAN'S SOUL
With the union of man's body and spirit, he became "a living soul." The soul is that aspect of man's being that, like a photographer's dark room, develops the impressions of the external world around him, which have been gathered by his physical senses, into distinct expressions of thought, emotions, and desire.

1. Man's spirit is the seat of his God-consciousness - where God dwelt!
2. Man's soul is the seat of his self-consciousness - where self dwelt.
3. Man's body is the seat of his world-consciousness - where his senses dwelt.

 

Makes sense to me…….

Which Voice?

I found this serendipitously on my FB feed this morning.  It is a quote from Neal Donald Walsch that talks about the two voices....and goes along quite nicely with my post yesterday about Job....

..... you have two voices with which you speak: your

Mind Voice and your Soul Voice.

These two voices are also — all the time — speaking to you.

Which voice you listen to will determine

which voice you speak with.

God invites you to listen to — and speak with — your

Soul Voice. This will vastly improve your personal

communications… to say nothing of your mood.

I might quibble with Neal about his terminology....specifically the use of the word soul to refer to what I think should be referred to as spirit.  I get the idea though....

Which voice you listen to will determine

which voice you speak with.

Whose spirit?

I've been reading through Job VERY S...L...O...W...L...Y.  Here and there, now and then....

The other day at the gym, I picked up where I left off the last time.  Chapter 26.  Interesting chapter.  In verse 4, Job asks one of his miserable comforters a probing question.....

4  To whom have you spoken these words, and whose spirit has spoken through you?

To whom have you spoken and whose spirit is speaking?

A good question to ask ourselves, often and earnestly, in our day to day communications. When we are talking to our kids, our spouses, our coworkers....ourselves....are we speaking with a namaste spirit? The christ in me recognizes the christ in you. 

Or do we direct our comments, observations, suggestions.....demands.....to adam (the carnal man/the egoic mind/outer man/old man).

The power of life and death is in the tongue.....indeed it is. 

Just prayed to a god that I don’t believe in….

After a year long (and then some) hiatus, I’ve been hitting the gym just about every morning. I’ve been getting up early (as usual) but instead of lollygagging around on the internet sipping a strong “not for wimps” cup of coffee for an hour or more, I’ve been heading out to my cold, frost covered car and driving to Planet Fitness.  Once there, I read the blogs I’ve saved in google reader and other miscellaneous stuff I’ve earmarked to read…on my Kindle 3 while pedaling or hoofing it on the treadmill.  Killing two birds with one stone.

I suspect some insights and thoughts are a result of the endorphins that are circulating through my system.  I’ve read there is a difference in the way the brain processes thoughts when you are exercising.

I’ve gotten so many ideas for blog posts, I’m pondering a new  “at the gym” tag. We’ll see.  No telling how long this early morning exercise resolution will hang on. 

The idea for this post came, not from google reader or anything saved on my kindle, but from the Planet Fitness music blaring from their speakers.  Usually an annoyance that fades to the background, these lyrics captured my attention. 

“I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing”

“Just prayed to a god that I don’t believe in”

The song is called Breakeven from The Script.  It is an ode to lost love.  An “I’m dying here while you are out there living it up” song.  The song emphasizes that he is “falling to pieces.”

It made me think about how often we turn to the god that we “don’t believe in” when our world is crashing down around us and we are “falling to pieces.” 

Wasn’t is C.S. Lewis, no stranger to incredible pain when he lost his beloved wife, Joy, who penned the words

But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. --C.S. Lewis

And George MacDonald said this

As cold as everything looks in winter, the sun has not forsaken us. He has only drawn away for a little, for good reasons, one of which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him. --George MacDonald

And there is the oft repeated “no atheists in foxholes” quote.

I won’t get into the perpetual, seemingly unanswerable question of whether God merely allows or directly causes our suffering.  I suspect it’s a bit of both and not strictly an either or thing.  But he uses our distress as his megaphone to break thought our deafness.  Many times when we have nowhere else to go, we turnj to the god that we don’t believe in….and find, to our utter amazement, that he is indeed there. 

My “testimony” is a variation of that very theme. 

I’m including a video of the song in this post.  Videos come and go on You Tube, so it will inevitably become a dead link.  I think it’s really interesting what they do with the photographs in the video. 

 

The Kindness of God….

One of the blogs in my google reader feed posted the lyrics to a hymn written in 1854 by Frederick William Faber.  Farber was a Calvinist turned…oddly enough…Catholic priest.  At the time, Catholics were reluctant to sing Protestant hymns…and they had none of their own.  So Farber composed quite a few hymns…including the one posted on Steve McVey’s blog, There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.

The lyrics speak of the kindness of God…kindness in his justice and Heaven’s kindly judgment of earth’s failings.  One verse that I especially liked….

For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

And when I got to thinking about his kindness, the verse in Romans that proclaims it his kindness that leads us to repentance came to mind…

Romans 2:4
Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

And then another song that my friend, annie has mentioned on occasion; Wayland the Rabbit, by Seals and Crofts

One fine morning, as Dad was walking, just to see what he could see.

He spied, a little white rabbit. He was frozen as solid as he could be.

And Dad cried, as he knelt down beside him. He asked God, "How could you be so cruel?"

And his heart broke, for the little white rabbit.

"But you see that the owl would never have been so gentle, And God is so kind."

Which triggered another memory in my ring around the rosie thought process….from an article I read a long time ago…and saved excerpts from in my files.  It was a short writing that talked about the verse in Matthew where Jesus says:

Are not, two sparrows, for a farthing, sold? And, one from among them, shall not fall upon the ground, without your Father; Matthew 10:29 Emph

I googled it and found the link.

How can we make sense of this crazy, godless world? by Dave Farcas.  A quote from the article….

He literally experiences the death of the sparrow; He suffers it's death empathetically.

I would like to quote Jacques Ellul's comments on this, "In other words, death comes according to natural laws, but God lets nothing in his creation die without being there, without being the comfort and strength and hope and support of that which dies. At issue is the presence of God, not his will."

And God is, indeed, so kind…..

Sitting with the ashes…

I just read an article in the November edition of Reader’s Digest called “Love, Faith and War.” It is a short article (duh…Reader’s Digest, after all) about two chaplains in Afghanistan. Very well written….with carefully chosen quotes and situations that brought the story to life.

I checked the RD website to see if the story was on the internet but I couldn’t find it.  (There is an article called “Fifty Secrets Nurses Won’t Tell You”…..interesting read….and a bunch of other interesting titles)

There was a snippet, a quote by Capt. David Knight, that stuck out.

“Much of the chaplains job, he says, is not resolving problems or offering advice but simply being present as the patients and the staff cope with terrible situations”

“You need to be OK with people hurting, he says.”

He calls this sitting with the ashes, a reference to the Biblical story of Job, who lost his family, his health, and all his possessions.  “He was sitting in the ashes mourning and his friends came and sat with him,” he says. 

Now granted, Job’s friends are infamous for their “miserable comforting” techniques…..but perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there too.  What not to do when we sit in the ashes with someone who is hurting. 

As a mom, I’ve had to sit with the ashes.  All three of my kids have had difficulties and heartache in their lives.  Many times….most times…they brought it on themselves.  There have been times when, out of futility and necessity,  I’ve stopped beating my head against the brick wall of trying to control the situation and simply been there with them in the ashes. 

Right now, one of my kids is going through a challenging situation.  Nothing that will matter all that much ten years from now, but a costly, most definitely avoidable mistake that involves a lot of unpleasant untangling and damage control.  And I’m sitting with the ashes. 

And it hurts like hell to watch someone you love in distressing situations.  Especially your kids.  Especially your “mom, I’m and adult now” kids.  They are….yet they aren’t.  A time of transition…with one foot still in the old world of childhood and dependency….but the other foot in a new world of “I’m my own person and can do what I want.”

And I wonder if God feels that way about us.  He tells us, he warns us, he guides us….but sometimes we get that rebellious burst of “I’m my own person and can do what I want.” And when things fall apart, he sits with us in the ashes. 

I know he does because I’ve felt his presence very strongly in the ashes.  And I believe his heart aches for us when we make a mess of things….and he promises that he will (eventually)bring beauty out of the ashes…..