Thinking on these things . . .

I have a blog, but I'm not a blogger. I can swim, but I'm not a swimmer. I can prepare a meal, but I'm not a chef. I can balance a checkbook, but I'm not an accountant. We wear many hats. We have many responsibilities. We have numerous abilities. We are not proficient in most of them. We do what we can with what we have. I go to church on Sunday, but does it influence how I live on Monday? I am a Christian, but do I know Christ? I refer to God as Lord, but do I follow his commands? I know how to pray, but do I engage in ongoing conversation or merely recite appropriate sentiments? It is not critical that I am a blogger, a swimmer, a chef, or an accountant but… It is crucial that if I claim the name of Christ that I know him, obey, and talk to him. Being a Christian cannot be one of the things I do, it must be who I am . It must become the essence that characterizes and defines everything else in my life; the hub from which everything originates. If I have invited him ...

I was on Facebook looking up old acquaintances; typing in names from the past and seeing who I could find. So I decided to type in my maiden name to see how easy it would be to find me if someone were looking... What I got were 385 people with my name... 385! With my same name! And that's just on Facebook! Talk about being lost in a crowd...! So, if you knew me before I was married, you would have to go through 385 pictures and lack of pictures and one word location clues until you could possibly narrow it down to which Becky is the Becky from long ago. I'm amazed anyone has ever found me at all! So what's in a name? Well, in my name, you may recall some times we've shared but in my God's name... Psalms 9:10 says, "Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O Lord, do not abandon those who search for you." By which names do you know your God? Savior? As he has rescued you not only from eternal destruction but a life of meaninglessness. Lord? As you ...

The Olympics are well underway and while it is a great testimony to dedication and harmony...it has also made us all critics! My family was watching the synchronized diving and suddenly we were all experts. Every last one of us was being critical of the divers and the judges, discussing, over our bowls of popcorn, the merits of one dive against another. Later it was gymnastics and the floor exercises as we all watched eagle-eyed to see if they stepped on the line or out of bounds. Forget the fact that they just executed a perfect triple flip with and inverse half twist I saw her bobble on that dismount! How easily we sit back in our comfortable chairs and talk about the poor performance of someone who has been training thousands of hours for this event - somehow we think, since we know a few terms, that we are the experts. Teddy Roosevelt said this far better than I ever could so let me give you his words. "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the st...

From John Locke's philosophy we get this term - Tabula Rasa - meaning "blank slate". He believed all children were born with a mind that was "unformed and featureless" just waiting for impressions to mold the mind by it's experiences. But don't worry , this writing isn't about what John Locke thinks. (I saw that glazed look in your eyes...!) This is about you It is about your calender. The one starting in September to be specific. Many of our lives know September as it's own mini "new year" as school resumes. This means the resumption of sports teams, and car pools, and fundraisers, and piano lessons and homework and...(you already know what's coming don' t you?) And for many others it is the resuming of the full slate of church activities - classes and choirs and fellowship events and ... I was getting my dry erase calender ready today for the onslaught of activities and was struck by this phrase - this "tabula rasa"....

You know exactly the commercial I'm talking about don't you? How long has it been, ten years or more? Surprisingly, I saw a remake of that commercial this morning. But it's not funny any more as I had a mom who lived alone, and kept falling, and therefore wore one of those devices. We surround ourselves with people so that, should some injury befall us, we are not alone. But the fact is that millions do live alone, and do need what these services supply; someone that can be called on in case of an emergency, someone who will offer assistance. I doubt that a single one of those millions who live alone ever thought they would get to the place where they would be needing to wear a pendant in case of an emergency. None of us do. Children aren't the only ones who think they're invincible. There's a very good chance that one day many of us will be sporting the same taste in jewelry... So now, while you are on your feet, what can you do for those who aren't? Th...

This summer I discovered the luminescent world of making stained glass. It’s addictive and beautiful. It wasn’t difficult and with the first piece I soldered I was hooked and then the first time I went to choose glass to cut and saw all the various patterns and shading … make that hook, line and sinker! My dad made a Tiffany lamp years before I ever remembered him doing so. The light fixture was just always there hanging above the dinning room table. Suddenly now I realize, my dad made a tiffany lamp! I have a better idea now of what that means and the craftsmanship it involved. I knew that about my dad for a very long time but it is only now that I really know what that means. It’s that way with God too. We know lots of things about him. He is holy, faithful, just, gracious, merciful, and omnipotent; he hears our prayers, collects our tears, sends us peace, a refuge in trouble, knows our hearts… and on and on we could go. We know these things and we believe these things, absolutely, ...

I'm sure you're familiar with the story of the little boy who was standing up and had been told numerous times to sit down. Finally he was persuaded to be seated and from his chair he said "I may be sitting on the outside but I'm still standing on the inside!" Our "insides" being more important than our "outside" is a familiar Biblical theme; from Samuel passing over the physically impressive sons of Jessie to anoint David as the new king, to the sermon on the mount and how our heart's motivation discounts our outward actions if we're doing what we are just to be applauded, to admonitions in the epistles about having a heart that is pure before God. God is looking at my heart no matter what outward actions everyone else is observing. God knows how I really feel. Today at church I was given pause and considered the “flip side” of this mind-set, because in this day my outward actions were not able to properly represent the attitude of my ...

I was watching a movie in which a billionaire was bored and decided to steal a painting from a museum, and then put it back just to see if he could do it. The whole movie is the revelation of this very intricate plan. He'd thought of every possibility and made provisions for it. I have a GPS unit that can get me from here to there if I just turn where it says to turn. And, if I miss a turn, it's "recalculating" to give me a new course to follow to get me to where I am going. We have personal computers that in seconds can give connect us to a website that originates ten thousand miles away. With instant messaging and text functions we can contact someone virtually any time day or night. Ask a question and get an almost instantaneous response. OnStar and the like have satellites that can keep track of exactly where millions of people are all at the same time. My point? We live in a great age for more easily understanding the abilities of God. If someone with money coul...

For me a piece of writing is sometimes a crazy juxtaposition of different occurrences, conversations and various directions my own thoughts have taken. It’s fascinating sometimes to see how they all come together in a cohesive and, hopefully for you who read them, a coherent thought. Lately it’s been all about relationships. I was at a funeral today for my girlfriend’s father. It took me a while to find her because, when I did, I hardly recognized her; she looked great in her high heels and sharp outfit. (Now how do you write that as a compliment without it also seeming like an insult for how she looks the rest of the time…?) :) She looked stunning, and she truly is but how I know her as stunning is not in her choice of outfits but in how she is as a person – in how she gives of herself, how she loves her children, how she’s a selfless friend. I know her with dirt on her hands as she’s trying to help my poor attempts along at a flower garden. I know her under stacks of library books we...

I am reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s book Gift from the Sea and it is fascinating. In it she likens our lives to a wheel, with spokes radiating from a central hub. These spokes represent all our responsibilities – spouse, children, extended family, community, job, etc. There are tensions that press down on these spokes as we meet the needs and demands of all these different areas of our lives. And the question is then, as she puts it “How to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center, how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel?” Good question. If we are the center of our individual worlds, what is in the center of us? Now I haven’t read far enough in the book to know what her answer is but I did read the answer today. “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalms 46:10 Why do you think so many forms of meditation and spirituality ...