Sacred Mundane: The Blog

I just got done running two miles.  I know, not a lot. But it’s a lot for me.  You see, I’m a “Runnabe”…a wannabe runner.  I like to think of myself as someone who likes to run, but the bottom line is that I like to, well, walk.  So, Jeff and I have been talking about how much we need to make it a priority to get more exercise, as “sedentary seminary” has taken its toll and we just want to be healthy and have an active lifestyle. So, he’s been riding his bike to work each day, and loving it.  And as I mentioned, he is taking the 100 push-up challenge.  This week he did 181 push-ups total.

So in the middle of this new motivation, I get a random email from my dear friend Candi (from the Road to Santa Clara) saying that they had a runner drop off their Hood-to-Coast team and she wanted me to join. (Hood-to-Coast is the largest running relay race in the world, 197 mile relay from Mt. Hood to the Oregon coast).  Ok, I will admit that I once said that I wanted to do Hood-to-Coast, but that was pre-baby when I was actually running regularly…a long time ago!  And, most people train for months and months, but the race is only 2 months from now!  So immediately my response was Absolutely No Way.  No way did I want to give up my summer to train for something that would absolutely certain to hurt…a lot.  Any amount of running that causes thigh chafing and loss of toenails does NOT sound like a fun time to me.  Plus, I don’t have that competitive edge anymore.  I am completely content these days to sit and sip iced tea while the world around me competes for the athletic prize.  But I told her I’d sleep on it and pray about it.  And I did.

And it kept nagging at me. Again and again.  And again. I hate that! I hate it when you feel like maybe God wants you to do something and so you can’t quit thinking about it and no matter how many reasons you think of against it, you still feel like it’s what you’re supposed to do.  I hate that. So I came up with a million reasons not to do it. It’s the same day as my 10-year High School reunion that I was actually really excited about attending.  I don’t have a great place to run, other than just laps up and down our driveway.  I’m breastfeeding.  And, the biggest reason: I’ve never ran a 10k in my life and this relay would basically be 3 of those in one day.  Totally out of my league.

You probably think I’m blowing this way out of proportion, but I’m telling you sometimes I get this feeling like something is a big deal, like God wants me to do something and there’s something at stake, which makes me not want to do it more than ever. So I was laying in bed one night, praying about it, and I had this picture in my mind of God dragging me by my arm like a toddler off the playground, and me shaking my fists like a spoiled brat and shouting, “But I’m not a runner! I’m not a runner!” (I know, that’s probably a symptom of some disorder).  But then I began to get this sense that God has something for me in this.  I don’t care about my mile times or proving anything or getting a t-shirt. I do care about getting to do something totally bonding with my precious friend Candi, which I think will be the highlight. But most of all, I think maybe God wants to teach me some stuff, definitely challenge me, maybe bless me. I don’t know, and I actually haven’t made my official decision yet…but I can feel my resistance starting to crumble.  I know it sounds totally dorky to say I’m running for Jesus, but that’s the only way I know how to articulate it.

So this morning I started “training” with a big whopping 2 mile run.  I am the reluctant runner, but I’m trusting there’s a reason God’s dragging me onto the track. He’s so good, so trustworthy, and I guess He’s promised to run with me, right?  I don’t know.  I’m still a little scared…

If you asked me what one area of ministry most fascinates, intrigues, and energizes me, I would without a moment’s hesitation respond: Soul Care.  I really believe that the nourishment and care of one’s soul is presently one of the most neglected areas of life.  We spend our time, energy, and resources tending to the things that are visible.  I often spend more time washing, dressing, and making presentable my body than I do cultivating my inner soul each morning.  I have countless times been convicted realizing that I have entered the house of worship to sit before the King of Kings, and have spent more time contemplating my clothing that setting apart my spirit for the presence of God.  Basically, our souls are too often neglected.

By soul I am speaking generally of what some would refer to as both the spirit and the soul. I mean the spirit, intellect, emotions, basically all that is unseen and incapable of measure.  Of all the four areas we will examine (emotional, physical, time, and financial), this is by far the hardest to quantify.  While we can objectively look at our checkbook and determine whether our financial margin has disappeared, who can so easily sit down and look at one’s life and determine that the emotional reserve is eliminated and overload is imminent?

So how do we know if our emotional margin is gone?  I remember situations in ministry where I was overjoyed when someone canceled our appointment.  That should have been a sign.  I have personally seen pastors leave ministry, even abandoning their wives and children, because they didn’t recognize the dangerous symptoms of burnout.  Depression, anxiety, substance or other kinds of abuse, compulsive overeating (or compulsive anything), are all symptoms that something is not emotionally right.

I feel a bit of freedom in this area right now because of my circumstances, so I must confess that this is not a huge area of concern for me at the moment. However, I have lived without emotional margin, and it’s HARD!  Circumstances change, so my prayer is that when my circumstances do change (i.e. we’re back in “full time” ministry), I will have already set up the emotional margin in my life, so that I know my limit and can keep a good 1.5″ away from the edge of the page.

So what are ways that we can promote our emotion margin, so that when crises do come, when someone does need help, when God knocks and has a challenge for us, we can respond with grace, easily drawing upon the emotional reserves, rather than collapsing and breaking down, unable to muster up any emotional energy.

Here are our LiveDifferent Challenges this week for restoring Emotional Margin:  Choose one or two to focus on; and I’d love to hear responses or other ideas.

1. Reconcile Relationships: “Broken relationships are a razor across the artery of the spirit.”  Unforgiveness drains your emotional energy.

2. Serve: Of 2,700 people studied for over a decade, “those who performed regular voluntary work showed dramatically increased life expectancy.  People not involved in such altruistic activity had 2 1/2 times the morbidity than those who volunteered at least once a week.”

3. Rest: Relax, sleep in, take a nap, turn off your phone.

4. Laugh & Cry:  People who laugh more heal faster.  Try laughing every four minutes (how often children laugh), you will be astonished at the results.  Similarly, cry.  Those who cry more get sick less often. That’s amazing!

5. Grant Grace: Judging others is a weighty emotional burden–“it is a form of emotional and spiritual suicide–like chopping a hole in the bottom of your lifeboat because you dont want the other person to be rescued.”

6. Create Boundaries: Try not answering the phone at dinner. Learn to say no.  Not with selfish motives, but for the sake of soul-care.  Protect your family.

7. Envision a Better Future: This isn’t about the power of positive thinking, it’s about knowing where your hope lies. We don’t hope in a better economy, world peace, or the end of hunger. We hope in the coming of Jesus Christ who will make all things new.  Know where your hope lies.

So this week, consider one or two of these areas and let’s counter our culture and refuse the temptation to run on Emotional Empty.  Let’s add Emotional Margin to our lives.  Let’s tend to our souls and cultivate the inner health of our emotions.  We’ll then we healthy, whole people, fit for the Master’s good work.

Ok, so three quick successive posts on margin is really not going to work.  This concept is so much more huge than I thought…we’re going to take the next four LiveDifferent Challenges to tackle it.  It’s so exciting! I would still really suggest buying the book.  Trying to sum it up in a brief blog entry is daunting…but we’ll try.

So, Wednesday we talked about the fact that we have reached an all-time high point for depression, anxiety, suicide, stress, burn-out, abuse, and divorce.  While life-expectancy is at an all-time high, perhaps quality of life, that is happiness and contentment, is at an all time low.  Something is wrong. As I suggested last time, perhaps it is that we have reached a limit and we’re in desperate need of margin.

Margin is defined as the space between your load and your limit. On a piece of paper, the margin is the white space between the written words and the edge of the page.  As a grader in seminary, let me tell you that my #1 pet peeve in grading is opening a paper and seeing that the student has done one of three things:  used size 10 font instead of 12, snuck in 1.75 line space instead of double, or changed the margins ever so slightly so the words creep over dangerously close to the edge of the page. They might think I don’t notice…but after reading 25 of them, I notice!  And far from being impressed by their covert ways, I am annoyed because what this tells me is that they were incapable of completing the assignment in the given space.  So, they have to cheat by doctoring margins.  That bugs me.  I have been known to write across the top of the page, “Ah!  Give me some white space!”

So we have done this with our lives. In the name of diligence, we have clicked on those margins and dragged them closer and closer to the edge of the page, instead of simply acknowledging the appropriate boundaries necessary for mental, emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual health, and respecting those boundaries.  Instead we have arrogantly assumed that the rules of margin aren’t for us, and we’ve packed our lives to the point of breakdown.

If you’re not convinced that this is an epidemic, check out these stats from the doctor who authored the book:  “Adjusting for population growth, ten times as many people in Western nations today suffer from unipolar depression, or unremitting bad feelings, without a specific cause, then did half a century ago.  Americans and Europeans have ever more of everything except happiness.”  In one morning, nine of the eleven patients this doctor saw where on antidepressents.  We are truly living in a “deteriorating psychic environment.” He observes that “millions of suburbanites seem to find that ‘the good life’ is only endurable under sedation.”

Not only are we sad, we we are overfed, under-exercised, sleep-deprived as well.  We are in more debt than ever before.  We have less leisure time, even though it was predicted in the early 20th century that by this time we would be down to a 2-3 day workweek because we could produce all that we “need” withing that amount of time. Ha!  Whoever predicted that took no classes in human behavior.  We don’t work for our needs. Instead, the workweek has risen rapidly over the past 20 years:  “The average work year for prime-age working couples has increased by nearly 700 hours in the last two decades.”  Exhaustion, burn-out, stress, and mental breakdown have become the norm.

So, what better way to LiveDifferent than to Get Marginalized and introduce some sanity into our lives?  God is the one who created the Sabbath, He’s the one who set up the delicate balance of work, stress, rest.  Let’s say no to the rat race of always wanting more, and say yes to God, who wants health, wholeness, and vitality for us!  We will examine four areas: Margin in Emotional Energy, Margin in Physical Energy, Margin in Time, and Margin in Finances.  I really feel as I’m reading this book that it is a profound secret I want to share.  Again, I’d love to encourage you, if you can, to read the book yourself.  It’s counter-cultural to say the least.

So, tomorrow tune in for Get Marginalized in our Emotional Energy!  I’m off for a bike ride in the sunshine with my son…

These LiveDifferent Challenges are starting to take over my life.  In a good way! What I mean is, I feel like each week something starts brewing in my mind and I can’t wait until Friday.  So whenever this happens I figured I will just start tossing out ideas, so I can get feedback from ya’ll before the official Challenge on Fridays.

So the last few nights in bed my dear husband has been been unable to contain himself while reading and started reading aloud exerpts to me from this book.  Well, since when I’m writing I am completely in the right-mind creative zone, I am absolutely incapable of pausing or even entertaining the smallest consideration of another thought at those times.  So, dear Jeff reads an amazing quote by William Wilberforce, and I completely ignore him.  Last night he was reading a quote about limits, and he finished by “reading”: “And there is always such and such a limit for humans, as in the limit of my wife’s patience when I am reading to her while she’s trying to write.” That got a smile out of me and I did pause long enough to thank him for his sensitivity.

But today, after writing my Much Ado About Nothing post, which you yawned through, I looked around for something to stimulate my sluggish mind and saw the book that my husband has been raving about: Margin. (BUY IT HERE)  A little reluctantly, I picked it up, made myself a big mug of green tea, and settled into the LazyBoy and began to read.  Whoa! No wonder Jeff was overcome with wanting to read aloud to me!

I will likely post 3 entries about this topic, concluding on Friday with the official LiveDifferent Challenge.  The book, written by Medical Doctor Richard A. Swenson, is divided into three sections: The Problem, the Prescription, and the Prognosis.  The Problem is Pain.  We are experiencing the pain of progress at an exponential rate.  Simply glancing through the appendix of this book reveals that life is coming at us in exponential proportions.  Population, Mail, Health Care Costs, Home Prices, Volume of Advertising, Number of Prisoners, Life Expectancy, Bankruptcies, Federal Debt, and Number of International Telephone Calls are ALL increasing exponentially.  And with this increase comes an increase in pain.  We are seeing divorce, depression, anxiety, debt, crime, alcoholism, drugs, suicide, all climb to epidemic levels.  So if we have bigger houses, more cars, higher salaries, and more exotic vacations, why are more people than ever choosing to end their life or escape through drugs, illegal or prescribed?

Progress, Swenson insists, is not evil, but we must realize that somewhere, in the midst of all of this progress and increase, there is a limit.  While athletic records are being constantly broken, there are limits.  A man may run the mile faster than ever before, but there will be a limit.  A man cannot run the mile in one second, nor in one minute, so there will be a limit.  For 2000 years, the slowly climbing linear progression of change has meant that the danger of exceeding limits was still far off. But today, look around at the foreclosure signs and tell me that perhaps we’ve failed to recognize our limits.

WHen we fail to recognize limits we overload.  What is obvious in physical overload is not so obvious in the performance, emotional, and mental realm. We would never try to crowd 3 cars into a 2-car garage.  I don’t pour two cups of milk into my 8 oz. measuring cup. Physical limits are obvious.  But we have a harder time recognizing limits in the performance and emotional and mental realm.  Where is the limit of too many friends? Too many commitments?  Too much work? Too many emotional draining relationships?  We are not unlimited in our resources, even if we do have streams of living water flowing through our lives.  We are not God.

Lately, I’ve been lifting weights.  I have always had 5 lbs. hand weights, and I love them. But after having them for several years now, I’ve noticed that with curls and chest press, I really needed to use 8lb. weights in order to overload my muscles and help them become stronger.  However, there is a limit.  I don’t want huge muscles.  I want to be fit and in shape, but body building is not my goal. So, there will a limit that I put on how heavy of weight I will use and how much I will lift weights.  In my workout video, the instructor says at one point “You are unlimited in your potential.”  I always kind of shake my head at that point. Uh, that’s not true, Gari Love.  I cannot lift up our car.  I cannot bench press my husband.  So, there is a limit to my potential and acknowledgment of that limit is the key to mental health.  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” is not an invitation to embrace absurdity.

So, I guess I’ll leave you with this for now.  Step one, we recognize that there is a problem.  We need more than a one-week vacation to Hawaii to deal with the stress and pain of life.  With ever increasing frequency, people are snapping, resorting to drugs, divorce, drinking, debt, death…because we’ve embraced “progress” and forfeited our souls.  What needs to change?  We need a little margin.