Sacred Mundane: The Blog

From the time I was big enough to hold a basketball, up until I started college, sports were a pretty all-consuming part of my life.  That may come as a surprise to you seeing that I can’t even remember the last time I shot a basketball, but from about 8-18 that was my life.  With a dad who sleeps, eats, and breathes sports (and was our school’s athetic director, PE teacher, and coach), I guess it’s in my blood.

Basketball was probably my favorite sport, at least the one that was most all-consuming.  Not only did we have the regular season, we always had a huge pre-season schedule, plus summer-league, plus individual summer basketball camps, plus team camp.  I loved it.

And yes, I did really well.  But you know what? In retrospect I think the one thing that kept me from really being outstanding was that I never disciplined myself to work on my left.  My natural strengths were speed (at least relative to other high school girls), defense, and rebounding.  I had killer bony elbows that could clean out the bottom of the key in no-time flat.  But just like is so natural, I really only worked on my strengths.  My weakness was my left hand.

As a good defender, your job is to know your man (woman). Is she a good shooter? Can she dribble both ways?  Does she like to fake?  What are her favorite moves?  The better you know your opponent, the better you can tailor your defense strategy to capitalize on her weaknesses.  Someimes you might here a coach shout to his player, playing defense, “She’s got no left!”  Which just means you can exaggeratedly guard her right hand side, knowing that she can’t dribble to the left to save her life.  This gives you a huge advantage, obviously.

All that to say that I think what really makes an outstanding basketball player (and why I would never have qualified myself as outstanding), is that they know how to work on their left, so to speak. They know how to identify their areas of weakness, and take special attention to develop those areas.  I really never did that.  I liked to shoot baseline jumpers and free-throws, scrap like mad for rebounds, and make my opponent furious by guarding like a hound dog.  But a truly great player will instead focus on their weakness–they’ll work on their left.

I remember one particular circumstance where this was costly.  I played softball in junior high, but was horrible at sliding.  I could hit, catch, throw…not slide.  I could never get it right.  And instead of working on it, I just avoided sliding.  One game, I was stealing third and my coach was shouting, “Down down down!” (to slide).  I didn’t.  I was too scared.  And then I was thrown out.  “I told you to slide!” he yelled at me.  I hung my head and walked over to the bench.  How frustrating it is when we’re in a crunch situation and we’ve not prepared ourselves to meet the challenge.  How frustrating when we realize, “If only I’d worked on my left.” 

So this coming week I have the joy again of teaching at Multnomah.  This class is on Women’s Leadership, and we’ll be discussing character qualities of a leader.  As I’m studying through dozens of different key character qualities, the thing that keeps coming back to my mind is the importance of working on your left.  Being punctual, organized, enthusiastic, warm, and hard-working is not a challenge for me.  So it’d sure be easy if I just capitalized on those things and sat around feeling good about myself.  (And yes, there is a value in finding a work/ministry situation that revolves around your strengths–that’s common sense.)  But when it comes to, let’s see, patience, flexibility, going with the flow without an agenda, willingness to follow without clear direction, “wasting time” with people–those are my “lefts”.  And do I work on them? 

So I’ll write more later about the Character Qualities of a Leader.  But for today, our challenge is simply to sit down for a moment and evaluate–honestly–an area or two of weakness.  How easy it is for the enemy to “defend” us when he knows we’ve “got no left”!  How much more effective we would be as Christian ministers, parents, spouses, and friends, if we had the ability to “go either way”.  How much more confident we would be if we knew we could slide into third base if we had to.  What is it that you don’t want to work on?  What is your left?  And how can you become more of a threat to the enemy, and a more powerful weapon in the hand of our God?  Let’s work on our left.

Did the title get your attention?  This’ll be another chance for my spam-filter to work overtime.  I feel like I’m all backed up in my blogging–I have so many things stirring in my heart and mind, and yet somehow this time is so incredibly busy and hectic there is no time in the day and I collapse into bed at night and fall asleep.  It might have something to do with the fact that we are trying to sell two houses, one of which is now vacant which means trips there to clean/maintain/stage for showings,  living in a third house (not ours) that’s for sale, so showing it and having it ready, plus getting ready to have a baby any time now (!), corralling my toddler, keeping up with the innumerable (but wonderful!!) church events, teaching at High School group this week, and gearing up to start my internship this week.  Hm…  Sorry, just needed to get all that out. I feel better now.

But back to porn.  Right now at church we’re studying through the book of Colossians and it has been the most powerful series ever.  What I love is that each week we are confronted again with the wonder of the GOSPEL, every week I find myself weeping at our beautiful Jesus, every week I am contronted with the seriousness of my sin and how great a debt has been paid by my Savior.  Today Pastor Joel talked about empty philosophies (Col. 2) and how we tend to take the world’s “philosophies” or systems and ways of thinking, and mix them in with our Christianity.  He used several examples, but the one that stood out to me was consumerism.  Is consumerism and materialism a philosophy? Well, it’s certainly a way of life, a mindset, that drives our world. 

He introduced to us the idea of Consumerist Porn, and how it warps our minds.  It’s a strong term, but I think so accurately describes what so many of us do.  Consider the magazine industry.  How many of us have Pottery Barn catalogs?  Crate & Barrell?  Do we sit and flip through these magazines, fantasizing about things that we don’t have, in essence lusting after things we think will make our lives better?  What is it for you?  Joel talked about travel magazines, golf magazines.  What about Victoria’s Secret catalogs or whatever it may be.  What do we spend our “mindless” time doing?  And is it, in a way, unhealthy fantasizing about material things?

I realized lately that without my even meaning to, God had weeded my life from some of this.  As I was organizing our file cabinet, I found a manila folder with “House Ideas” on the tab.  Inside were torn out pages from–you guessed it–Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrell, Restoration Hardware.  The pictures were nice, I guess, but for some reason it seemed kind of silly.  Why would I purposely keep pictures of things I don’t need? Just in case I forgot?  Praise God I forgot!  Long long ago I quit getting Victoria’s Secret or any clothing catalogs of any kind.  Why?  Because I don’t know I “need” new clothes until I see them adorning some 6’2″ 105lb. retouched model.  Then I realize I need them! 🙂  And I am absolutely content with my body until I take a good look at that 6’2″ 105lb. model and then I realize how wide my hips are.  Fantasy? Perhaps. Lust? Maybe.  Unnecessary for my spiritual growth and Christlikeness?  Absolutely.

But this doesn’t just happen with magazines.  I was convicted as I listened because of…the house.  Yes, there is a house right by our church, that I have to drive by (oh darn) each time I go to church on Sundays.  It is a bank-owned Repo … and yes, it is gorgeous. It is beyond gorgeous in my opinion, and as I saw pictures online, I realized it has every detail that I love in a home–size, style, walking distance to church, elementary school, middle school, park, grocery store.  And, if we sold our homes and got a good deal, within our price range. I saved the ad for it on my web browser favorites, and for the first few days would go and look at it, again…just to see.  And no, of course there is nothing wrong with having an eye out for a house in the very location we hope to move, but it is a fine line between searching for a home, and lusting after the house of my dreams.   So with outstretched arms today I asked God to take my fantasizing about the house I love, and give me a surrendered heart consumed with a vision of Him–the One I love.

So I know the term Consumerist Pornography is pretty strong, but I like it. I like it because it refuses to let us call covetousness by a nice neat name that makes us not feel bad.   God gives us good gifts.  He is a loving Father. He may very well bless us with a beautiful home or a tropical vacation or what have you.  But perhaps too often we are guilty of letting ourselves buy the lie of this world, “If only I had that…”

Give us faithful eyes, Lord. Free from lust and fantasy. Pure hearts, pure motives, content with what we have.  Rid our lives of consumerist pornography and give us eyes for You alone. In Jesus’ name.

You’ve probably heard me mention my love for Therese of Lisieux and her “little way” of humility and sacred living.  Well our church’s high school group is doing a series on biographical sketches of some of Christianity’s greats, I have have the privilege (as the token woman 🙂 of teaching on Therese of Lisieux next Wednesday.  I’ve only scratched the surface of her character, but I’m realizing her life is a gold mine of treasure, especially with regard to the sacredness of the mundane.  She lived it! 

Her life is one of suffering and tragedy and mundane tasks. Her mother died when she was four-years-old, and at nine she already wanted to be a Carmelite nun.  After being rejected countless times because of her age, she finally was allowed to join the convent at Lisieux when she was 15.  At 15 her maturity and wisdom was amazing, and yet all was shrouded in a childlike innocence and faith that earned her the knickname the “little flower of Jesus”. 

Therese’ famous “little way” meant using every single ordinary task and assignment in her daily life as an opportunity to manifest her love for God and for others.  She showed no favoritism, took no part in gossip, despised no menial task.  She embraced the mundane things of life as a means for demonstrated her love for her Savior.  Her truly extraodinary life was filled with ordinary things. 

This perspective of hers changed the way she viewed everything, especially suffering.  A life wrought with sorrow, at the young age of 21 her health began to steeply decline.  In 1896, at 23 years of age, she began bleeding from the mouth as a result of tuberculosis taking a turn for the worse.  Her perspective on all this?  She said, “I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me.”  A year later, at the sweet young age of 24, she went to be with Jesus. 

Though the Catholic church usually requires 50 years to pass between death and beatification/canonization, she was beatified, then canonized by the Catholic church only 28 years after her death. Though according to Scripture all God’s children are considered Saints, her recognition of Sainthood truly is a tribute to her unique devotion to God in the mundane things of life. 

I believe her message is a timely one for young and old alike.  Many youths are encouraged to “do great things for God!”  I would argue many need to simply do little things for God.   It is my experience that the little things require a depth of fortitude, resolve, humility, and courage, that many large things do not.  Little things provide no pats on the back–only the sweet knowledge in one’s own heart that God–who is the Object of all affection–is well pleased.

I’ll write more about Therese as I study more.  I’m fascinated by her life and have a feeling she will be walking through the pages of the Sacredness of the Mundane. 

Speaking of suffering, my blog was down for FIVE days.  I know.  Tragic beyond words.  It was touch and go, and I wasn’t sure I was going to survive. Yes, I know, I could have written just like a normal person, in Micrsoft Word or something, but somehow it’s not the same as sitting down here, with you, and sharing my heart.  So imagine my joy when just now I checked and that glorious black background came up, my familiar fog and bare trees reflecting off the dark waters.  Ahhh….home at last. 

So many sacred things happened this weekend. I will later write about the Sacredness of Showers, as I was incredibly ministered to and blessed by baby showers this weekend.  But first I had to reflect on the amazing message from church this weekend, from Colossians 1:24-2:7.  Pastor Joel focused on suffering in the life of the believer. 

We’ve all heard messages on suffering, and perhaps even have some awareness of the suffering endured by Christians in different parts of the world. Or perhaps we even have a vague sense of guilt that we don’t suffer while others do.  Or perhaps we are suffering in some way and cannot understand why God doesn’t deliver us out of it.

One thing that stood out to me was this thought–if we all lived happy, healthy lives, knew we’d live to be 100, and never endured any physical or emotional suffering, how many of us would really turn to Christ?  I mean, think back to the times when you’ve most grown in your faith, most relied on GOd’s strength, most seen Him move miraculously on your behalf, most felt His presence, comfort, and love? I know all of those have been during times of suffering for me.  And yet, we will do anything to avoid suffering.  We spend our life’s energy trying to keep our life free from as much suffering as possible.  While this is normal, and human, and understandable, it does strike me as interesting.

The thing we most loathe brings us to the Thing we most love. 

It is through the things we avoid and yet endure that we gain the precious intimacy with our beautiful Lord that our hearts long and yearn for, just as the labor pains bring the miracle of life.

I do not suffer, I have the most abundantly blessed life I could even imagine.  But there is a trial right now that this past week definitely got my eyes off Jesus.  That is another post–The Sacredness of Surrender. (I told you I have a lot bottled up right now!).  But how big I let this trial become! How all-encompassing. How discouraged and frustrated I felt!  How small my God became.  How I needed a change in perspective. 

At the end of Joel’s message, he shared the story of Pastor Kim, a pastor in North Korea in the 1950s.  I wept as he read this story.  I share it here not to ruin your day or cloud the beautiful sunshine we’re enjoying this week, but to give us perspective.  Oh how we do not suffer! Oh how much perspective changes everything!  If our life is hidden with God in Christ, we can set our minds on heavenly things, and the things of this world grow strangely dim.  I’m thankful for a refreshed perspective this week.  I’m also thankful for saints like Pastor Kim and his little flock of 27, who gave their lives for the gospel:

For years, Pastor Kim and 27 of his flock of Korean saints had lived in hand-dug tunnels beneath the earth. Then as the communists were building a road, they discovered the Christians living underground.

The officials brought them out before a crowd of 30,000 in the village of Gok San for a public trial and execution. They were told, “Deny Christ, or you will die.” But they refused.

At this point the head Communist officer ordered four children from the group seized and had them prepared for hanging. With ropes tied around their small necks, the official again commanded the parents to deny Christ.  Not one of the believers would deny their faith. They told the children, we will see you in Heaven.” The children died quickly.

The officer then called for a steamroller to be brought in.  He forced the Christians to lay on the ground in its path. As its engines revved, they were given one last chance to recant their faith in Jesus. Again they refused.

As the steamroller began to inch forward, the Christians began to sing a song they had often sung together. As their bones and bodies were crushed under the pressure of the massive rollers, their lips uttered the words:

“More love to thee, O Christ, more love to thee
Thee alone I seek, more love to thee
Let sorrow do its work, more love to thee
Then shall my latest breath whisper Thy praise
This be the parting cry my heart shall raise;
More love, O Christ, to thee.”

Let’s sing this song this week.  More love to thee.