Starting Points - part 1

There are a lot of interesting debates out there. The most interesting and volatile are the ones which involve politics and/or religion. You know the old saying - don't talk about either if you want to avoid an argument. My dear old dad, God rest his soul, had some very strong opinions and avoided debate about them. Equally explosive are the ones which involve religion and science. Hmmm . . . Maybe religion is the actual powder keg in this whole mess. Pick an issue and find a way to incorporate religion into it and one of two things will happen. It will either explode or the other person will totally dismiss you. Sometimes both things happen.

For a person on a faith journey, this sometimes explosive nature of religion causes a problem. You don't know how to handle it. You don't even know if you SHOULD handle. Depending on where you are in your journey, you might find yourself debating abandoning the journey instead of the issue itself. All because you find yourself trying to reconcile two or more different starting points. Sometimes you have to choose one and accept the end result.

I'll never forget being in a college math class and the professor "proved" some things that were totally contrary to all my assumptions about how the world worked geometrically. But the proofs were completely valid. Despite their apparent illogical nature, their validity was an outcome of their starting points. In our "normal" flat world, we accept without question that you can draw one and only one straight line through any two points. However, pull a globe out and take a look at what our world really looks like. If you put one finger on the North Pole and one finger on the South Pole (two points), you can trace an infinite number of straight lines of longitude that connect these two. Suddenly, everything has changed!

So, back to the real purpose of this blog. Everybody's faith journey has a starting point. In fact it has multiple types of starting points. It has a starting point in time. You might not be able to identify that point, but at some point in your life, you began a conscious journey to explore matters of faith. Your journey has a philosophical starting point. That's the fun one because it can change. As you journey, you find yourself changing routes because your current road leads you to a dead end. Or you take a fork in the road somewhere that connects you to a set of ideas that are totally brand new and you realize that they are part of some other system and you are not even sure how you got there. You might even find yourself in one of those hot topic debates with seemingly irreconcilable positions and you have to choose a starting point so you can decide on one or the other positions.

There's a lot more to be said about starting points that I'll say later. I'd love to hear about the starting points of others - whether they be starting points in time or ideas. What are the starting points of your faith journey?

Revisiting the lawn

Well, it has begun. I put it off as long as I could. I mowed for the first time this year. For the next 5-6 months, this ritual will be conducted once a week. The only bright spot is that in July I will get to switch lawns and begin caring for a different one.

If you've been here before, you know how I feel about yardwork. This past weekend wasn't so bad. After a wonderful warm spell, the weather turned cold, so I didn't even break a sweat. The only bad part was that the entire yard did not really need to be mowed. Yet I still had to "mow" the whole thing in order to get all the patches that did. Within a month, however, I won't have that option. The whole thing will need to be mowed. Then I'll start doing the countdown thing to the last time I have to mow it. Hopefully I won't grow tired of my new lawn before the mowing season ends.

Some things just have to be done - like flossing, showering, mowing, and your various "holy habits". Some are more enjoyable than others. Most of the time, mowing falls at the bottom of the list for me. There are some things that just have to be done when you are on a faith journey. What those things are will differ depending on who you ask. I'm curious what other people think are the things that "have to be done" when you are on a faith journey. Which of those things have you really enjoyed and which ones are a drudgery?

Hidden Charges

I was just looking at a bill for our trash pickup. We've contracted for a once a month dumpster pickup. The invoice shows the fee for the monthly pickup. Then it shows something they call "Fuel/Environmental Recovery Fee". It's always been there and I've always known it. Today however it irks me. When they set up their business, did they not realize that the trucks would need fuel? Were they unaware that garbage disposal impacted the environment? Isn't that the cost of doing business? Shouldn't it just be part of the fee?

I know why they do it - so they can say they haven't raised the prices. Same reason why muncipalities begin charging more for whatever service they can so they can say they haven't raised taxes. In one city where we lived, yard waste pickup went from free pickup and free can to free pickup but $20 can to free pickup, $20 can, $50 year sticker on the can. But taxes never went up.

Growing up, I heard from folks in the church that salvation and forgiveness of sins were free. All we had to do was accept it. I watched others take advantage of this free offer. Then I watched the folks in the church start to apply "other fees" in the forms of do's and don'ts. And I watched people eventually leave their free gift behind because they got tired of the fees.

On my own faith journey, I've experienced the other fees and rebelled against it. I refused to pay them. But I somehow stayed on my journey. As a faith journey guide, I try to watch myself to not impose hidden, unnecessary fees on others. I may pay the dumpster company every month, but there are restrictions on what I can put in it. No couches, hazardous chemicals, nuclear waste. . . you know, the basic restrictions. My faith journey may be free, but it is not without cost or restrictions.

The problem is that we live in the age of bundle packages and multiple calling plans. Sometimes the church establishes hidden fees and charges in a good willed effort to help people. So, people react by wanting to know the minimum required to keep on the faith journey. We should be focusing on the abundance we could get out of it if we fully exercised every option available to us. People on a faith journey need to know where to find those options.

What options have you discovered? Once discovered, how did they affect your journey? Or, what hidden fees have you experienced so we can help one another avoid the same trap?

Just a thought.

Flossing and other Habits

Gasp! Sorry, I just had to start that way. Apparently it's my new buzzword. I noticed it in 2 of my last 3 posts. Amazing how things become habit, even speech. I had to assure a guy he was not offending me every time he slipped with a four letter word, especially since it was of relatively benign nature. I knew it was a result of 40+ years of using it regularly. He had only recently begun his faith journey and this is one of those things that would take care of itself.

My dentist got on me for not flossing. I knew he would. Every dentist I've ever had did the same. I just have not been able to form the habit. I will do really well for a couple of weeks but never make to the end of the proverbial 30 days that supposedly cements a habit. He told me to not try to form the habit. He said, "Just do it for 30 days. Once you've done it for a month, you won't stop. You'll notice such a difference when you don't that you won't be able to NOT floss. It will be like skipping a shower one day." We'll see. I haven't begun day 1 yet.

When people begin their faith journeys, we try really hard to help them develop what has been called "holy habits" and quit some of their other ones. We always say, "Just do it for 30 days. It will be a habit and then you won't be able to stop." I'm not sure that's necessarily true. For 9 months I followed a composite of all the good carb/bad carb/anti-carb eating plans. I actually lost almost 25 pounds. Things got a little stressful and I began to give in to the ice cream and candy bars again. Soon biscuits re-entered my diet. I've put about 7 pounds back on. The pants have tightened up again and I know what I need to do. I to return to the other way of eating because it's better for me. And I actually enjoyed everything I was eating on that plan, so it's not like I'm really depriving myself of pleasure.

So, it's not the amount of time that's important when you want to develop a habit or a routine. Perhaps it just how badly you want to do it. My "holy habits" are not ones I do because I have programmed my life that way. I just miss them when I skip them. I feel like I've not showered or flossed. I see how their presence or absence affects my faith journey.

Just a thought. What do you think?

As a side note, they say once you do crack you are hooked. That's a lot less than 30 days isn't it? Any chance there's a positive thing out there that will hook us first time?

doldrums

When I first set up this blog, it was my intention to post every week, hoping to encourage personal reflection in the readers. I set it up in Feb 2005 and finally, in Jan 2006, got around to posting! Of course, my original intentions may have been arrogant to start with. I assumed that I would have enough things to say to post every week AND that others would actually read. Luckily, I have three brothers and sisters and a handful of good friends. So, at least a handful people actually read it.

Anyway . . . last week I faced Monday morning with dread because, * Gasp * I didn't know what to write. Fortunately for me, an angel came along and brightened my weekend. As I pondered my doom of having to write something for someone to read, I realized how quickly the novelty wears off things. My children, because of the generation into which they have been born, suffer even more because the world has become 3 - 5 minute multimedia bites. Is it any wonder that so many kids are becoming ADD?

I don't know if we can call it fact or not, but things at least SEEM to be more fun when they are brand new. Our cars, our toys, our spouses, our blogs, . . . , even our faith journeys. When I decided that I was going to follow God as a high school senior, the joy from the novelty was tremondous. I read chapter after chapter in my Bible every night. It was even a King James translation and I did not always follow the sentence structure or vocab, but I loved reading it. A couple of months into it and the excitement began to wane. By the fall when I was college freshman, it became something I better do or I would lose my edge. It was just part of the routine.

My relationship with God lost some of its shiny newness and excitement. For the most part, I stayed on the journey heading towards him. There were periods of standing still over the years. One day, I decided to take off, make up for ground lost from those times of standing still, by going as fast as I could in God's direction. I can honestly say that todayI no longer suffer from boredom in my relationship with God. Each day brings a sense of novelty. It's exciting and new.

What about your journey? Is it one of last months toys, thrown into the corner? Have you experienced moments of novelty and wondered how to get them back? Is it ok to expect and want novelty?

What are your thoughts?