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Dig It: Ferris Buellerology

 

 

During this year's Super Bowl, Honda introduced it's new commercial ad with actor, Matthew Broderick as the lead. Broderick, is playing the character of Ferris Bueller in the commercial. Do you remember the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off? One of the great movies from the 80's. There is a memorable quote from the movie, which Broderick re-introduces to us in the Honda commercial, he says, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." How true that is for many of us?

That particular Ferris Bueller quote reminded me of a portion of scripture in the Bible. Luke 10:38-42, introduces us to two people: Martha, and her sister Mary. These sisters represent two approaches to the Christian life. Martha is actively, busy serving Jesus, but she is actually missing Jesus. She is caught up in the "doing" of life. Her duties and busyness have overwhelmed her and scuked dry her inner-peace. Life was moving so fast for Martha that she was missing what was really helpful and important to her soul. Martha was the ipedimy of the statement,"If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Mary, on the other hand, stops, looks around, and "finds" it. She finds a rhythm of tranquility and peace as she sits and listens at the feet of her beloved Jesus. Mary is not running around doing spirituality, she is "being" with Jesus and finds a unique intimacy with God that feeds her soul.

Ferris was right, "If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Finding God throughout our day and being conscious of Him does wonders to our heart, mind, and soul! Lord, help me NOT to miss You! Help me redefine what is important. 

What things are continually "worrying" and "upsetting" you in your life right now? What things preoccupy you from sitting quietly and meditating quietly?

"As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.t Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:38-42 NIV)

"What makes you think that God wants your former peace but does not want your present pain?"

Many of us attempt to find God in our present situations of suffering and pain.  We ask God, "WHY?" Many good people have pain and carry doubts, and can no longer find God in their present situations.  

The great spiritual writer, Rabbi Abraham Heschel poses a question, "What makes you think that God wants your former peace but does not want your present pain?"  Sometimes our understanding of God must die, an be raised to new life...so we can get a better understanding and picture about life and God. 

Pathological Busyness on the Spiritual Life

Every generation has struggled spiritually. There has been no golden age.  If that statement is true, what torments our generation spiritually?  What struggles in spirituality is unique to our generation?  Once answer might be...

 Pathological Busyness, Distraction, and Restlessness

There are so many distractions in our culture.  We are literally tormented by the need to stay busy.  Jan Walgrave once commented that our age constitutes a virtual conspiracy against the interior life.  How many of us really have any kind of interior depth whatsoever? The environments we participate in our daily lives are rarely conducive to interiority and depth of soul.  Whether you serve in the church or not. 

 Thoughts on Pathological Busyness:           

• Ronald Rolheiser says, “Among the many things that work against interiority today, three can be singled out as particularly cankerous: narcissism, pragmatism, and unbridled restlessness…we are more busy that bad, more distracted than nonspiritual, and more interested in the movie theatre, the sports stadium, and the shopping mall and the fantasy life they produce in us than we are in church.”

• Thomas Merton said, “The biggest problem of our time is efficiency, work, pragmatism; by the time we keep the plant running there is little time and energy for anything else.” 

• Neil Postman said, “As a culture, we are amusing ourselves to death, that is, deistacting ourselves into a bland, witless superficiality.”

• Henry Nouwen said, “For every kind of reason, good or bad, we are distacting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.”  

 What is Narcissism?  It  means exvessive self-precoccupation.  Narcissism accounts for our heartaches.

 What is Pragmatism? It means excessive focus on work, achievement, and practical concerns of life.  Pragmatism accounts for our headaches. 

 What is Restlessness? It emans an exvessive greed for experience, an overeating, not in terms of food but in terms of trying to drink in too much of life. Restlessness accounts for our insomnia.

We can be so self-absorbed with our heartaches, headaches and insomnia that we rarely find time to be in touch with our interiour life and deeper movements inside of and around us. 

 

 

 

Princess Diana, Janis Joplin, Mother Theresa: How does our spirituality connect with these women?

In his book, The Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser is on quest to find true elements of Christian spirituality.  Many of us attempt to make sense of what is frequently a misunderstood word: spirituality.  Rolheiser simply asks, “What is spirituality?”

Desire, Our Fundamental Dis-Ease:           

Rolheiser defines spirituality as "what we do with the fire (passion/desire) inside of us, about how we channel our Eros.” For example, some of the stumbling blocks to expressing this passion are our naïveté about the nature of spiritual energy; our pathological busyness, distraction, and restlessness; and a critical problem with balance. 

 We all have a “fire” that burns within us.  What we do with that “fire” how we channel it, is our spirituality.  Spirituality concerns itself what we do with our desire and how we shape and discipline that Eros.

• Spirituality is, ultimately, about what we do with that desire.  What we do with our longings.

• Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  Spirituality is what we do with that unrest.

 

3 Women and how they handled Eros:           

•  Mother Theresa.  Mother Theresa looked frail and weak, but she was a dynamo of passion and energy.  She was driven woman, and had great passion and desire…she had Eros.  However, she channeled and focused that Eros into great discipline.  She channeled that energy into a clear focus: God and the poor. Rolheiser said, “A saint is someone who can, precisely, channel powerful Eros in a relative, life-giving way.” Mother Theresa had great energy, but it was very disciplined…her fiery Eros was poured out to God and the poor.   She was a person who could “will the one thing.” The one thing was serving the poor in Jesus name.

• Rock and Roll singer Janis Joplin was another women with fiery Eros; great desire, passion, and energy.  However, unlike Mother Theresa, she could not channel that fiery Eros into “one thing.”  Joplin’s Eros willed many things.  Her great energy and passion went into many direction, with many appetites, and “created an excess and a tiredness that led to her death.”   Many of us can relate to Joplin.  How? We end up like Joplin because “we” are also good-hearted, “highly energized, driven to take in all the things of life, but in danger of falling apart and dying from lack of rest.”

• Princess Diana: She also attempted to channel her Eros, but we see something most of us can identify with the princess, “a tremendous complexity, a painful struggle for choice and commitment, of sins and virtues.”  Diana was committed to helping the poor, but also had a commitment to the seductive high-life of self.  She was what Ronald Rolheiser called, “a mixed road. She was neither fully the route of Mother Theresa nor of Janis Joplin.  She chose some things that left her more integrated in body and soul and other which tore at her body and soul.” 

 

Spirituality is about what we do with that fire inside of us, about how we channel that Eros.

 

 

Even the priest wants to look good...

Psalms 94:11 The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.

 Vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others.  I read a great story about how there's a touch of vanity in all of us...

There was a ninety-two year old priest who was venerated by everybody in town for his holiness.  He was a member of the Rotary Club.  Every time the club met, he would be there, always on time and alway seated in his favorite spit in a corner of the room.  

On day the priest disappeared.  It as if he had vanished in thin air.  The townsfolk searched all over and could find no trace of him.  But the following month, when the Rotary Club met, he was in the there as usual sitting in his corner.

"Father," everyone cried, "Where have you been?"

"I just served a thirty-day sentence in prison."

"In prison?" they cried.  "Father, you couldn't hurt a fly.  What happened?'

"It's a long story" said the priest, "but briefly, this is what happened.  I bought myself a train ticket to go into the city.  I was standing on the platform waiting for the train to arrive when this STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL WOMAN appeared on the arm of a policeman.  She looked at ME, turned to the cop and said, 'HE DID IT!  I'm certain he is the one who did it.'  WELL, TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH.  I WAS SO FLATTERED I PLEADED GUILTY."

The Scorpion and Me

 I came across a great story by Henri Nouwen, which was re-told by Brennan Manning...

    The story was about an old man who used to meditate early in the morning under a big tree on the bank of the Ganges.  One morning, after he had finished his meditation, the old man opened his eyes and saw a SCORPION floating helplessly in the water. As the scorpion was washed closer to the tree, the old man quickly stretched himself out on one of the long roots that branched out into the river and reached out to rescue the drowning creature.  As soon as he touched it, the scorpion stung him.  Instinctively the man withdrew his hand.  A minute later, after he had regained his balance, he stretched himself out again on the roots to save the scorpion.  This time the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hand become swollen and bloody and his face contorted with pain.

    At that moment, a passerby saw the old man stretched out on the roots struggling with the scorpion and shouted, "Hey, stupid old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature.  Don't you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?"

    The old man turned his head.  looking into the stranger's eyes he had said calmly, "My friend just because it is the scorpion's nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save."  

    The image of the crucified Christ comes to mind, "Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing." The scorpion he had tried to save finally killed him.  The passerby, who sees him stretched out on the cross and shouts, "Only a madman would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, ungrateful creature," Jesus answers, "My friend, just because it is fallen mankind's nature to wound, that does not change my nature (love) to save." 

Living Reruns

 A rerun or repeatis a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast.  The rerunning of summer television shows are finally over.  And the fall season is a time of the year when our favorite television shows are airing new and afresh.  However, what's amazing about reruns is that how many times we will watch a particular movie or television show over and over again (for me - the original Star Wars over 50 times). 

In a CD I recently listened to, Erwin McManus spoke about the subject of reruns, and how it relates to our lives, he said, Alot of us need reinvented lives, many of us are living a rerun...many of us need a fresh story. Do you wake up in the morning and are just waiting for your show to be canceled...our life can be an endless rerun with worn out story-lines, and meaningless characters. 

How many of us feel as if we are living a rerun? How many of us need a fresh storyline in our life?

Life is a Work of Art

God has been challenging me lately to bring the inspirations, dreams, and passions he has for me to fruition.   I have been in such a discontented state of mind lately...anyone relate?  

My prayer is that God keeps stirring and awakening this movement of inspiration, passion, creativity and innovation in me (God divinely wrecks us sometimes).  However, the challenge has been do I believe in these divine possibilities God has for me.   And the question I have been wrestling with is this: How can I lead others passionately into their futures of what could be if I am not willing to take a risk and GO THERE myself?

Just a thought!

It has been said that, "life is a work of art." Therefore, the canvas we paint first is going to be our life.  Then our life becomes the paint-brush from which we paint the dreams God has for us.  

You are the artist...What kind of  painting are you creating on your canvas? 

• Some spend their lives painting images of slumber and sleep (Apathy) – proverbs 6:10-11 “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands..." 
• Some spend their lives painting images that only remember the past.  Their dreams are memorials to what was..."oh how I love the good ol' days."            
• Some spend their lives painting images of fantasy.   Have you ever met someone who was pursuing the wrong dream? ...it’s the American Idol syndrome.  
  
• Some spend their lives painting images of regret and dream only of what could have been.  They live lives of indecision.  Prolonged indecision is a dream-killer.  Their art is a tribute to a world of what could have been…no wills, no conviction, no courage.
• Some spend their lives painting images of a world that does not yet exist; of a world that must exist.  They dream a future that must be created.  They know that there dreams is their true work – it is what they were born and created to do.

The question for the ages...

Have you ever gone through this process with God?

 

• I’ll talk to God ABOUT what I’m going to do.
• God responds
• I beg God to let me do it.
• I give up and listen to God.
• God reveals His will for your life.

Knowing God's will (say it again with me, only this time say it with a deep, deep voice...KNOWING GOD"S WILL!)…this can be a very heavy topic of discussion for most people.  How does a person really know and understand God’s will for their life?  Have you ever wondered why knowing God’s will has to be this deep, mystical process?  Have you ever wondered is there an element of practicality in knowing God’s will? 

 

Here are my 5 key words that helps me understand God’s will for my life:

• PROCESS – Knowing God’s will is a process (Where have I been?).  One must consider things like your background in life, personal temperament (Myers Brigg’s Type Indicator testing), what you have experienced on your journey in life…all these elements have implications in knowing God’s will for your life.

• POTENTIAL – What are my spiritual gifts?  Do I know what my spiritual gifting are, and am I using them in my life and ministry?

• OPPORTUNITY-– My calling in life will be accompanied by opportunities and open doors. 

• PURPOSE – Do I have a desire to see it accomplished?  Do I have a passion for this thing that God is moving toward.

• PROCEED – Bear Bryant said, “Cause something to happen.”  Proceeding means taking action…after you pray, go do!

    How do you process God's will for your life?

Distance

I have been extremely busy this past month or so.  And there are always some negative effects in our life when we stay extremely busy.  What I have noticed about myself this past month is how distant I feel from God.  Have you ever been there?  Now I know that God walks with me no matter how "I feel"...I get all that.  However, there are times when we do feel distant from God...don't we? 

What is really wild about the whole thing is that distance from God can be a frightening thing.  We know that God will never adjust His agenda to fit ours.  God will not speed His pace to catch up with ours; it seems as it we need to slow our pace in order to recover our walk with Him. It has been said that deep within our souls we still long to know God intimately. 

Key Thoughts about Intimacy with God:

• Discipline yourself for intimacy with God. 
• Intimacy with God cultivates wisdom, and with wisdom comes Christ-likeness. 
• Wisdom is cultivated on God's terms, not ours. 
• Intimacy with God must be intentional.