Summer Reading

OK – in case you wanted to know here’s what I have read this summer… 1) ‘Chasing Daylight: Seizing the Power of Every Moment’, Erwin McManus. McManus is a pastor in LA. (My daughter Quincy and I attended one of his services a couple of Sunday nights ago.) He writes with boldness that seems to influence me every time I read him. 2)Multiple short stories by Hemmingway. I haven’t read him in a long time. Although his personal life was a bit ‘whacked’ (as well as some of his stories!) I love the way he writes. In a word it’s simple. That’s an art that many authors (not to mention people in general) have lost. 3) ‘The Power of Serving Others’, Gary Morsch & Dean Nelson, Berrett Koehler. Morsch details the awesome opportunities he has had through Heart to Heart International to serve people. In the aftermath of Katrina and the Asian tsunami it proves that all of us have something to share and someone to serve. 4)‘The Air I Breathe’, Louie Giglio, Lifechange Books. My friend, Daryl, gave this to me. It was the shortest read of the summer. I was done in about an hour. (You know, like ‘glasses in about an hour’? Same kind of thing.) If you are a worshiper (trick question, cuz we all are) then there will be something in this book for you. 5)‘For Women Only’, Shaunti Feldman, Multnomah. My wife read this book and asked me to take a look. It’s a pretty honest and sometimes painful perspective on what men are about. Of course, no book ever could define any one of us, man or woman, but I would highly recommend it. 6)‘The Culture Code’, Clotaire Rapaille, Broadway Books. Wow. I love this book. It’s a fascinating look at why cultures ‘do’ the things they ‘do’. (It reminds me a little of another book entitled ‘Blink’ by Malcom Gladwell). I think any organization, including the church, would want to read this in order to get a better ‘read’ on customers, constituencies and crowds. 7)‘Renovation of the Heart’ by Dallas Willard, Navpress. It’s not a ‘quick-read’. It’s ‘deep’ in some areas but worth it. One of my favorite sections has to do with sanctification. He says, “Sanctification in this life will always be a matter of degree, to be sure, but there is a point in genuine spiritual growth before which the term ‘sanctification’ simply does not apply – just as ‘hot’ when applied to a cup of coffee is a matter of degree, but there is a point before which it is not hot, even if in the process of being heated.” 8)Speaking of long reads… I actually finished this one a couple of months ago but I think just about everybody should be familiar with Thomas Friedman’s ‘The World is Flat’. It’s very insightful. I have a new perspective on how our children will be most certainly facing new challenges in the global economy. 9)Oh, yeah, the Bible. It’s really good. don’t give up, j

Life Change

I spent today with my three kids at a water park here in Phoenix not unlike water parks all over the country in that they 1)Are excessively uneconomical. 2)Have at least one water slide that goes fast enough to burn a layer of skin off of parts of my body touching the molded polycarbonate plastic on the way down (that’s really true!) and 3)Are filled with lots and lots of people of all different shapes and sizes that in all honesty should probably be wearing more clothes rather than less clothes in public. I am not a health nut and even if I was it would be bad form (sorry, I must have picked this up from my British friends… actually I only have one British friend… and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say, “bad form”…) anyhow, it would be bad form for me to poke fun at people who are not ‘in shape’. Although I don’t advocate being ‘out of shape’ we all have issues and my thought here is going a different direction anyhow. I did a little research about health and dieting (webmd.com, ediets.com, or for that matter just google diets) and found something not surprising: Of the 50 million or so Americans who will go on a diet this year less than 5 percent will keep the weight off long-term. The results confirm what most of us already generally know: Diets are short-term. If you want long-term health it takes life change. Can I just make a comment here? The same applies in all areas of life. If you want long-term financial health it takes life change. (i.e. saving, forgoing immediate gratification, avoiding debt, etc…). If you want long-term, healthy relationships it will take life change. (i.e. large volumes of forgiveness, strong listening skills, embracing healthy conflict not avoiding it, etc…). And the point begs to be made… If you want long-term spiritual health it will take life change. Digest this for a moment… A)Spiritual health is not achieved in 30 days. Some of you reading this are new believers. Yes, you are on the most incredible journey of your life and yes, right now you are feeling invincible. But the feeling will most likely fade. That’s all right. Feelings come and go. Your goal should be pursuing passion, trust, faith and belief not your feelings. (There’s a whole bunch I’d like to say about that but it’s too much for this entry. Email me if you’d like.) B)Spiritual health is not achieved without a price. I don’t mean just the price of a journal and giving some of your income a way each week to a charitable organization. I mean it in the most intense sense. I think it was T.S. Elliot who said something like this (and regarding Elliot, #1you are more than welcome to correct me if I’m wrong on this being his quote and either way, #2 uh… he was really good.) “If you want to be someone you are not, you will have to go through the way you haven’t.” The reason you haven’t gone that ‘way’ is because it will cost you something and you know it. C)Spiritual health is not fast, fun or easy. It’s full of joy, peace, hope, adventure and more. But I would never characterize it as fast (see point A), fun (see and live point B) or easy (combine A and B together and add a season or two of life). But why did you ever think it would be easy in the first place? Did some well-intentioned but shallow co-worker offer that idea? Did the big-haired-preacher lead you down that path? Did the voices in your own head tempt you? Regardless, it’s not true. I think the Apostle Paul had good reason to use the word “mystery” over twenty times in his letters. Spiritual health is not conquering all the questions, rather it’s celebrating the mystery. So, don’t buy into the extravagant claims about diets or anything else for that matter. Changing your life is not pain-free. Be strong, make good habits, don’t fear, love without limits, persevere, be authentic and build patience by being around ‘lots and lots of people of all shapes and sizes’. renovare, j

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The old man and the mountain

Picture I shot on the way up Mt Humphrey’s, the tallest point in the state at 12,635 ft. The good news is that I did get a second wind. The bad news is I got in the first quarter mile. I remember hiking with my family when I was younger. I couldn’t help myself. I was always the one out front. Frequently I found myself waiting impatiently for my sisters to catch up. If only they could have seen me hiking today. I’m relatively out of shape and hadn’t spent enough time in Flag to get acclimated to the altitude. But I didn’t let that stop me! The hike starts out at about 8,000 ft and winds up over 4,500 ft in less than 4 miles. Do the math… it’s fairly steep. About half way up I had to take a break. I’ve hiked hundreds of miles over the years… I don’t ever remember a break feeling so good. It’s amazing how nice a flat hard rock can feel. At about ten thousand feet I was taking breaks every 50 steps or so. Not good. An elderly man of about 65 passed me. Then a dad and three or four boys around 12 passed me. I’m not making this up… about the time I thought there was no one left behind me a chipmunk passed me. That’s the truth. I looked down at him and his little two inched legs and started thinking of those stupid story math problems I had in grade school. Remember those? If a chipmunk has four, two inch legs and passes the man with three foot legs - who will reach the top of the mountain first? I couldn’t calculate it though. I didn’t’ have enough oxygen. At about the tree line I was taking breaks every 15 steps or so. I would have taken more but there was a group of girls behind me and there was no way I was going to let them pass me. With a few hundred feet left I thought I was home free but that’s when the flys moved in. Lots of them. Have you ever seen the movie, Hildago, where they are out in the desert and a swarm of locusts comes over the hill and blacks out the sun? Well, this wasn’t like that but that was kind of an interesting scene... Anyhow, lots of flies descended on me. I began to notice some of the people who were coming down from the top. (cuz they were all there ahead of me). All of them had jackets on even though it wasn’t cold. Several of them had hoods and a few had handkerchiefs over their faces. By the time I reached the top I realized why. You can’t imagine how many bugs there were. My plan had been to collapse and wait for some guys with a lama or something to walk by and offer me a ride back down. Or maybe someone with a Sherpa. (My friend, Lynn, told me recently about Sherpas. I need several of them) But no lamas or sherpas came and it didn’t matter. I couldn’t stay! Between spitting flies out of my mouth, dragging them out of my eye and swinging at them madly I could only endure about five seconds to stand on the tallest point. For five seconds I was higher than anyone in AZ. Maybe in NM to… Hmmm, does NM have a mountain taller than twelve/six? In fact if you take out CO, CA, WS, UT, ID and MT I was the tallest person in the country. Furthermore, even if you didn’t take out those states… what are the odds that there were people standing on mountains at that same time that were all higher than I was? I may have been the highest elevated human being in the country! I had previously only thought of myself this way in a figurative sense… Now it was true! But only for five seconds because I turned around and went straight back. You’ve heard it said (or maybe you’ve experienced it) that going down is often harder than going up. In this case that wasn’t true. It was definitely better going back down. I was so happy to have gravity on my side. I kept repeating to myself, “Yes, gravity is my friend. Gravity really is my friend.” I had lost so many brain cells at that point that it’s all I could think to say to myself. Well, I’ve made a short story long but six hours later the event was over. I was back in the convenient store buying large quantities of Advil. How many 500 miligrams tablets can you take at once? Come to think of it I’m very sleepy… I hope my sisters don’t read this… j

Painting/Self-Esteem

The Milich and the Foster kids at fishermans landing in Point Loma, CA Back from San Diego this week… My favorite part of the trip is always the stop about half-way. Somewhere around Blythe or Yuma… SD is 70 degrees and then the next time you get out of the car in Yuma it’s 115. Literally, it feels like you’ve just opened an oven door. In fact try that sometime. Heat your oven to 115 and then stick your face in it. No, wait. That’s probably not a good idea. Anyhow, I’ve been helping my wife paint this week. It’s not one of my ‘gifts’. She’s been hinting at that. But, I will persevere. By the way – it’s really not very hard to paint. You have a wall, you have a brush, you dip the brush in the paint and you slap it on the wall. Why is that hard? I’ve got issues. OK, this next part is a bit of a stretch in trying to apply it to what I'm talking about, but it’s such a good thought I will throw it in here. It’s about self esteem and not running from issues but working on them head on. “All research suggests that self-esteem largely boils down to one issue: When you face a difficult situation, do you approach it, take action, and face it head on, or do you avoid it, wimp out, and run and hide?” John Ortberg’s summary of the book, Self-Esteem: Paradoxes and Innovations in Clinical Theory and Practice, Second Edition Richard L. Bednar and Scott R. Peterson. (yeah, I know, light reading) So, I paint. Not because I’m good at it but because I’m ‘taking action while facing a difficult situation’. Although my wife may never ask for my help while painting again… hmmm…. Maybe that’s subconsciously what I’ve been aiming for all along… hmmm… interesting… renovare, j

Morro Rock in Morro Bay, CA. Johnna and I stayed there to celebrate the beginning of our 17th year of marriage. It’s a picturesque, little fishing town about half way in between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Morro Bay was ‘founded’ by the Spaniards almost 500 years ago. (And even more shocking…before the Spaniards found it, it was there...) I didn’t even know it existed until this last week. How is it that a place so interesting can be unknown? There must be hundreds and thousands of those kinds of places around the world. Places that have history, character and beauty and yet I have no idea they exist. I’m always in my ‘corner’ of the world. How is that similar to our lives? How may great truths exist that we’re not aware of because we don’t ‘get out’ enough…? We stay in the same ‘corners’ emotionally, creatively or spiritually. New stuff is right around the bend but fear or boredom or anxiety or lack of adventure… keeps us from experiencing it. Looking at the absolute art of nature this week reminded me of something C.S. Lewis said about art, “When we sit down before a picture... the fist demand is surrender… look… listen… receive.” In other words we cannot receive whatever it is the artist has for us unless we are willing to surrender our own preconceived ideas. Or… we cannot ‘see’ whatever it is that the artist ‘sees’ unless we are willing to surrender our own interpretation of what the art should look like. I’m pretty convinced this is the reason some people really don’t ‘get’ art. They are afraid to break open fences allowing new landscapes to be visible. They are convinced that if they can define it (and not the artist) that it will be better for them and everyone else. And then, when they can’t define it, they say it’s stupid! By the way the way I’m writing here sounds kinda snobby as if I always ‘get’ it. But, of course, I don’t... because I don’t ‘get out’ enough… peace, j