At home on the Yellow Brick Road

"There's no place like ______."
"Follow the ______ Brick Road."

We all know the movie and it's memorable characters, delightful songs ("If I only had a brain"), and fantastic world. It's a wonderful children's story, and like so many stories, it also contains deeper meanings, morals, & lessons which we hope will be carried throughout their lives.

I was wondering the other day, how often do we live like these characters in our daily lives? Instead of learning from them, we find ourselves mimicking their faults and failings! How often do we lack courage? Or compassion, love & heart? How often do we bury our heads in the proverbial sand, refusing to use our brains to think clearly & rationally about difficult topics? How often do we feel lost, alone, and long for a place to call home, a place to belong?

Unfortunately, in real life, there are no Ruby Slippers, no Wonderful Wizard, and no Good Witch of the North. There are no easy answers to the difficult and troubling questions. Life can be so confusing & strange; unexpected events occur and dangers seem to come with startling frequency. The Yellow Brick Road of life offers no promise of safety, in fact quite the opposite. But what is there to do? There is no other path available to us? Like it or not, all we can do is take each day as it comes and "follow the Yellow Brick Road."

And yet, the journey is made it so much more bearable -even enjoyable- and certainly more memorable, by companionship; sharing the journey with fellow travelers. Each traveler is seeking something different from the journey. Each has different vulnerabilities which they must help one another overcome, (dousing the flames on Scarecrow, oiling Tin Man to keep him from rusting). And this is true in our own lives as well. We try so hard to be independent, (as American's we are trained to be) when what the journey truly requires is inter-dependence. King David of ancient Israel had the Mighty Men, Jesus had the 12 apostles. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto. We cannot make it alone!

At the end of their journey, (spoiler alert!) it was revealed that the very things they thought they lacked, the things they had been seeking, they had actually possessed all along. It took the dangers, the trials, and the difficulties of the journey to reveal their hidden attributes. How often do we fail to see our own gifts and strengths because we have convinced ourselves of our own weakness and inadequacy? And I know I for one dislike & fear the events in life which force me to stretch beyond my comfort zone. Often, however, that stretching is what was required to reveal capacity I never knew I had before.

Even Dorothy, who longed to be home, possessed the ability throughout the journey. I'm not talking about the Ruby Slippers. While yes, they would transport her back to Kansas, is that truly home? Is home a place? A house? An address with a familiar structure? If you have ever returned to the house you grew up in, years after your family has moved away, you know the answer; that place is no longer home, because the people who made that house a home are no longer there. The people you call family make it home. In Dorothy's case, her companions were caricatures of her biological family. But at times I have lived far away from any biological family, and my "family" were the people I was living life with; my fellow companions for that portion of the Yellow Brick Road. I currently have friends that are as close as brothers to me, whom, without hesitation, I consider to be family. So it seems to me, that no matter where you are along the Yellow Brick Road of life, if you are surrounded by your family, then even in the midst of the journey, you can always be home. 

And as we all know:

"There's no place like home!"

Lost in translation

D3 was my friend. Daniel Wilcox the 3rd, I believe was his legal name, but everyone just called him D3. When I was a kid, his dad and mine were friends, which set an excellent foundation for our own friendship. His Dad was a missionary in Papua New Guinea. I loved when they would come to visit while home on furlough, and sometimes we would see each other at various church camps. I vividly remember him telling me stories of swinging on vines and dropping into swimming holes. I remember him complaining that bananas "state-side" didn't taste right; they tasted much better picked ripe and fresh, right off a tree. In his stories I could see the verdant green of the jungle, taste the sticky humidity, and feel the wonder and excitement of it all. It seemed a dream come true for a boy: Endless adventure! Ever since, missionaries have always fascinated me.

This morning while getting ready for my decidedly non-adventurous desk job, I was listening to the radio. They were talking with a missionary bush pilot which, of course, piqued my attention. He worked with Wycliff Bible Translators, the same organization D3's dad had worked with, which piqued my attention even more. As I listened to the pilot describe the perils, challenges and joys of being a missionary bush pilot, I remembered my boyhood fantasy (ambition?) to become a missionary so I too could go live in the jungle, swing on vines, talk with aborigines and have grand adventures.

The pilot was talking about the need for bible translation when a stunning idea popped into my brain and stuck: "We are all called to be Bible translators." Cliche at first blush perhaps, but as I unpacked the idea, I realized we are all responsible for studying the Word of God & expressing that in our life. Our lives are to be an accurate translation of God's Word into a language the world can understand: actions.

St Francis of Assisi is credited as saying "Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words." And it is perhaps more true today than ever that actions speak louder than words. Our world is full of noisy talking heads all clamoring for our attention: TV, radio, blogs, facebook, twitter, youtube; everyone is talking, but it is the lone soul who acts that seizes our attention. Lewis Cass said "People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do."

Whether you plan to go to Papua New Guinea, or just around the corner, remember: Speaking the truth is important, but if your actions don't support your words, no one will care what you have to say. As Grey Livingston said "Ironically, making a statement with words is the least effective method." So live the Gospel. Demonstrate it with your life, translate the Bible into your actions. How? While the specific details will vary with each situation, Jesus gave us the foundation:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Remember, "Your life may be the only Bible some people will ever read."
How's your translation?

Where's my Happy Ending?

We love happy endings. Ask anyone to summarize a fairy tale, and you will typically get a one or two sentence summary of the problem, then they spend the rest of the time telling you about it's resolution.

Cinderella "She had a mean step-mother and step-sisters who treated her horribly and made her do all the work. Then a ball was announced to find a bride for the prince..."
Rapunzel "An evil witch locked her in a tall tower with no door. But her hair grew long..."
Beauty and the Beast "There was a terrible beast who lived in a castle in the woods, and Belle had to go live in the castle with him. At first she only saw his beastly exterior, but over time..."

We all want to jump to the happy ending. We skip past the years of toil and captivity, and "get to the good stuff." We want to see the maiden rescued, evil defeated, and true love win out. We long for resolution to every problem presented in the story, with each loose end tied off in a neat little bow. We want everything to work out. And as soon as it does, we want to forget about the painful years it took to get from there, to here; The Beast only a distant memory; The tower left to crumble in ruin; The step-sisters merely footnotes.

But that is not real life! Its not clean and tidy. Real life is dirty. Real life has loose ends and unresolved issues that continually pop up, and it rarely comes with "neat little bows". Most importantly, real life takes time. Our modern-day story-tellers move so quickly to the "happy ending" that our expectations have become unrealistic. We watch as painful situations are completely resolved within a 1 hour TV program; Relationships are restored, wrongs are forgiven and hurts are healed. A major problem may take 2 episodes to fix!

This "pain-free, quick-fix" mentality has even caused the modification of the Gospel message. We talk about Jesus' love, salvation and grace, but barely mention the agony he endured in the Garden of Gethsemane, nor the true torturous nature of his crucifixion. We gloss over the 3 days of intense sorrow, fear, confusion and lost-ness that Jesus' followers lived through, and move straight to his resurrection. I understand why, but this has blinded us to an important truth; Pain is normal.

As stated by the Man in Black in the movie The Princess Bride: "Life is pain, highness!" While that may be hyperbole, its not far from the truth! But we no longer see pain as a normal part of life! We try to eradicate and medicate pain in any form. We have a pill for every ill, but pain still remains. The fact that pain is the norm should not be a cause for despair, however. It should be a comfort! We're not alone! Everyone experiences pain, even Jesus! And because of that, He understands! He can intimately relate to your pain, sorrow, loneliness, the feeling of abandonment. He's been there. He gets it.

Although I wish He would, God never promises to prevent pain. A friend of mine says "He is not the Great Preventer, He is the Great Redeemer." God promises to redeem pain. He will bring good out of it! There will be a happy ending, evil will be defeated, the rescue will occur, and His true love will win. But God rarely uses "quick fixes," and though I wish it wasn't, pain is often the tool He uses to move us.

In times of pain, remember: Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Sistine Chapel wasn't painted overnight. The happiest of endings is coming! But it takes time to craft a masterpiece.

Quality & Content

Tim Sanders ruined my blog post.

I had a post planned and the rough draft written. All I needed to do was to add some citations, make sure the thoughts flowed well, and the layout was clean. Then Tim Sanders happened. More specifically, Tim Sanders posted to his blog. He wrote about how some bloggers will sacrifice quality in order to meet a self-imposed, artificial deadline. That post could not have come at a more perfect moment. 


I set a goal for myself when I started this project to update every Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Because it works with my schedule; Write the post over the weekend, review it Tuesday evening, and it goes live on Wednesday. Why a deadline on a personal blog? That comes back to the purpose of the blog, as outlined in my first post; I want to think through things, and get my thoughts out where I can wrestle and deal with them. That is never an easy process, and being a procrastinator by nature doesn't help either. So I set a deadline in order to force myself to sit down and wrestle through something at least once a week. 


So how did Tim Sanders ruin my blog post? Well, somehow I had started to forget the primary reason why I started the blog; My own personal growth. It is a blog, and I know other people can (and some do) read it, and I genuinely hope that it helps and edifies those who do. But somehow I got bit by the blogging bug in just the few short weeks have been doing this. I began to think less about "What things do I need to think & wrestle through" and more about "What can I write about this week?" But this blog was created for personal reflection. And I genuinely believe that the people who read my blog are drawn to it not because they can count on a Wednesday update, but because I am open and honest, and fairly transparent as I think and wrestle through different topics. 


The blog post I had written was pretty good, and I may use it or draw from it in the future, but this seemed to be more important to me. Somehow I lost focus on my true intent, and I need to maintain that, or I will lose the reason why I created and have loved writing this blog in the first place. So I promise to do my best to have a post every Wednesday, but  I also promise to never post a lackluster blog just for the sake of making an update. I value my time, and yours too much to waste it on a mediocre effort. I will never sacrifice quality for the sake of content. 


...And then God kicked me in the gut. Anyone who knows me, knows I tend to talk....a lot.  I come by it naturally. Both sides of the family can talk for hours on end, and my dad is a preacher. We're a family of talkers. So much so that silence is awkward for me. It seems like empty space, which can filled! And since I am never short of something to say, I start talking. But are my words beneficial, helpful, edifying? Or is it just noise? In truth, I should let that awkward silence hang in the air. It is awkward, and the longer the silence, the more someone will want to say something! Awkward silence will leave space for my quieter friends to have an opportunity to speak. This will help me get to know them better, instead of them always getting to know more about me. And when I do speak, I need to make sure my words are worthwhile to listen to.


Plato said "Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something." And the Bible says "...many words mark the speech of a fool."  So bottom line, I need to speak less, say more.

Like I said; Tim Sanders ruined my blog post. But he may have saved my entire blog, and so much more!