Many of you heard my testimony last Sunday morning in church as part of our Christmas story-telling time. It was a blessing for me to share, as I hope it was for you to hear it. In it, I mentioned the guys at this Bible study I went to one fall while I was slowly coming back to Jesus. I’ll now share with you “the rest of the story”, a la Paul Harvey, of one of those guys. I referred to him as the “Air Force guy”.

In my freshman year when I met Jay, he had committed to the Air Force ROTC program. He was gung-ho about Jesus, the armed forces, and his country. He was active at many events, and was unafraid about sharing his faith. By all measurements, he was dripping with leadership potential. Big guy, broad shoulders, and a striking face made him the envy of most guys on campus. He was on track to get into flight school, and his heart’s desire was to fly fighter jets.

After I came to Christ in my sophomore year, I saw him around now and then, but he was getting more focused on his training track with the Air Force. By my junior year, I barely saw him at all. He began dating a girl involved with one of the Christian groups (not the one I was in), and they seemed like a very nice pairing. They got serious all throughout that year and the beginning of our senior year.

That’s when she decided to break up with him.

For whatever reason, he couldn’t handle it. He became obsessed with getting back together with her. She refused. He started stalking her. She refused to even see him. One night, it all came to a head when he wanted to see her and talk to her at her dorm. When she rebuffed his request to come down, he decided to climb the outside brick façade of the building up to the third floor. He got to her window, and when she wouldn’t open it, he punched it with his fist.

Dorm windows are made very strongly – you have college students inside them, mind you – and inside each pane of glass is a tiny reinforced steel mesh that the glass wraps around. That way, if the window breaks, the shards will be minimal, and the window won’t create further damage.

So when he punched the window, his hand crashed through the glass to the metal. It was bloody. Muscles and tendons were ripped. He had to go to the hospital and get surgery. And in the process, he lost some functionality in his hand. Gone was his dream of flight school. Gone was his desire to fly fighter jets. Gone was much, much more than a bruised ego or wounded self-esteem. His world came to a shattering halt like the tiny slivers of glass lying inside that little dorm room.

I still don’t know to this day what it was that drove him to do that. Was it damaged pride at being rejected by a girl when you’re appealing enough by the world’s standards for most women to throw themselves at you? Was it that underneath the bravado and machismo, there lurked an insecure, fragile guy who folded when dealt a tough hand? I’ll never know.

What I took away from that sad episode is that although we all obsess about the outside appearances of a person, God looks at the heart.  Similar to what God did to reveal to the prophet Samuel the future King of Israel (2 Samuel 16), perhaps this was another reminder that what we see, and what He sees, can be very different indeed.  In Samuel’s case, all of the bigger, stronger, more handsome men of the family were paraded in front of him – and passed over – until David, the young runt by comparison, was selected.

The apostle Paul articulates an amazingly radical worldview when it comes to viewing the inside and outside of someone. He says, “So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think about him now!”(2 Corinthians 5:16)

May we be people who do not focus on outside appearances, but fix our attention on the heart and soul of people – the things that matter most to God.

As I am recovering from a stomach bug from the last couple of days, I found an interesting article in the NYT about Mary Mallon - otherwise known as Typhoid Mary. She was sentenced to live on a desolate spit of an island in the middle of NY harbor called North Brother Island - “a ramshackle Alcatraz” as described by one author. Sounds like a lovely vacation destination.

Typhoid Mary was sent to live her remaining life in the tiny hospital occupying the island -

Not after the first offense...

Not after the second offense...

But for the third offense of spreading the disease amongst the general population.

She was forcibly sent there because officials concluded she was a live healthy carrier of the dreaded typhoid bacteria; and because she worked as a cook, was infecting every family she went to work for. Officials finally concluded she could not live among the general population anymore, and sentenced her to live out her days in isolation and exile on North Brother Island.

When they did an autopsy, they discovered she had live typhoid bacteria in her system, received probably in utero when her mother contracted it and survived, which gave her the antibodies to combat it.

It astounded me that this woman had three tries to start an epidemic, which finally landed her in exile on this tiny lonely piece of land.

So besides being fascinated with virology, my mind went in a different direction. It begged a question in me for all of us:

What are you spreading?

Every one of us is passing on or giving away bits of ourselves as we interact with others and go through the day. We ‘ooze’ or ‘leak’ something about us – a pleasant smile and warm personality, a cranky attitude, a nervousness or anxiety about some potential crisis. We send signals to others through our words as well as our non-verbal body language.

So what are you leaking? What are you spreading? What remains after you depart?

The apostle Paul used the imagery of smell when he called us “the fragrance of Christ.” He said in 2 Corinthians 2:15 that “Our lives are a fragrance presented by Christ to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those being saved and by those perishing. To those who are perishing we are a fearful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved we are a life-giving perfume.”

After we leave the scene, there should be a lingering odor of our presence. What would that be?

Is what you’re feeling infectious to others? Is your mood and your countenance contagious? Should it be?

Paul asked a great question after his statement: “And who is adequate for such a task as this?” He knew it was not because he ginned up something fabulous, or manufactured a great smile, that made the difference with people. For Paul, it was the reality of Jesus in his life that compelled him to smile, to love, to be the kind of person that leaked joy and strength, that was contagious and unable to be held in, that would spread on its own simply because it was not something that could be locked away or contained.

May we be infectious people of love and joy because of the realized reality of Jesus in our souls.

I’ve never been good at math, so I tend to keep my equations simple. My kids are studying algebra 2 and geometry, and I’m all tapped out. I got nothing.

But there is a simple equation I re-discovered this week that works even more fundamentally than those hard-to-memorize calculations from math class. It works tremendously with people; in fact, you could call it the equation of love. It looks something like this:

Time + money = love

                In my case: $5 + 90 minutes = act of love to bless someone else

Five bucks was how much I spent at Price Rite for a 10lb bag of Idaho potatoes. Ninety minutes is how long I spent peeling, cooking, mixing and mashing said potatoes (with my own original recipe of 11 herbs and spices, of course). Love is what I experienced and displayed as I took the pan of mashed potatoes and gave it to the servers preparing the food for an outreach dinner held in our city of York by a church we are closely connected to.

 What was extraordinary was how I felt like I was handing over my loaves and fishes, and out of it was coming a far greater amount of practical and expressed love than I could have imagined.

Jesus once said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” What is most important to you is what you love most. What we love shapes who we are and what we are striving to become. When we take our time and money and invest it into building the Kingdom of God and loving other people, we are living out the equation of love.  

I heard this from Arthur Brooks (American Enterprise Institute) last week at a public debate.

What’s the most depressing year of a man’s life?

When he turns 45.

Why?

• Because it’s at that age that most guys recognize that the things they are trained to do and have gone through years of schooling for, and the things they are most excited and passionate about, are actually two different things that may never intersect with each other.

The unsettling realization that “I don’t want to be an accountant, yet we have a mortgage and two college bills to pay” dooms that man into thinking that his life is essentially, over. He is locked into this course of action for the foreseeable future, and it depresses him.

Brooks’ point was that we live in a relatively free society that allows men to change gears and move into a different direction.

My interest is in pointing out that many men wrestle with issues like this without doing deeper heart reflection into their design – their strengths, personality, styles, core values, desires – that could help shed light on what those next steps could be. I’ve seen guys make fatally awful decisions when in that moment of panic or despair.

My encouragement for any man in this position is to not fear that your life is over. God is not finished with you, and He can inspire each of us to great lives and callings - if we're willing to do the one hard thing and surrender to Him.

And I’m 44 right now. So I have one more year of happiness before I get all depressed.

In the wake of the scandal at PSU, it’s easy to cast judgment and blame around a number of individuals. Arguably the one we have the most emotion over is the head coach of almost 50 years, Joe Paterno. The unsettling truth of his lack of initiative and accountability has left us saddened and heart sick. Say it ain’t so, Joe.

What we have come to discover is that behind the appearances of integrity, behind the coke-bottle glasses of honor, we found the most disappointing reality: Joe Paterno is human. And humans let each other down. Humans make mistakes. Humans fail.

Most of us can’t go 84 years before we let someone down. That was a gift of longevity. I'm lucky to make it a week before I do something bone-headed that disappoints my wife.

But at some point, every human lets another one down. Maybe it’s not in spectacular ways like this event; maybe it’s in the quiet realization between two people or a small group of friends. But at some moment, we will wrestle with sobering judgment that our best interest, or the best interest of another, was not met – in some cases not even close.

In the case of Joe Pa, it was the shattering truth that he could have done more. He didn’t measure up to our standards, or even his own. He failed at a moment when we desperately wanted him to succeed, and where he rightfully should have. When the news broke, and the sobering certainty sunk in, we had that collective thought of “oh no, not him too.” Yes, him too.

The fault doesn’t lay so much in Paterno as it does in our rendering him semi-angelic. We thought he was above the fray. We thought he’d always give his best and do what’s best. We always considered him untouchable by scandal, untaintable with the muck of human muddle. Now we know better.

What it reveals is that, once again, our leaders will fall short.

They will not measure up.

They will fail when we want or expect them to come through for us.

Their dark sides will be revealed and exposed at an extremely ugly moment of truth.

They will demonstrate themselves to be human.

Only a third of the leaders in the Bible finished well. The rest tubed it, whether through egregious sinfulness or a burnout and fade-away process. That should cause us to sit up and take notice about how dependent we become with the leaders in which we place inordinate trust.

Perhaps that is why we read in Psalms 146:3 the following: "Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save." It also says in 118:8-9 that "It is better to trust the LORD than to put confidence in people. It is better to trust the LORD than to put confidence in princes."

Unfortunately, Joe Pa joins the swelling ranks of many leaders of groups or institutions that have blown it, dropped the ball, or stepped into a trap of self-selection.

The Catholic church has been embroiled in its own leadership crisis for years, amplified now due to the sex scandals in its halls. It faces a daunting future because of the loss of integrity among its clergy as perceived by the general public. Now all priests have to bear the tainted stain of the evil that some did. And their numbers grow smaller in the process.

Other denominations are not immune either. I’ve seen a number of high profile leaders of protestant churches or para-church organizations step down from their role because of moral failure or an abuse of power.

At one point in the last presidential election, President Obama was viewed with almost messianic reverence, as if he could do no wrong. Now, three years later, we see he’s no different from the rest.

All leaders let us down. All leaders are human. All leaders have to fight their own dark issues in their soul. Most do reasonably well. But sooner or later, they are going to make a mistake. They will choose unwisely. They will look the wrong way down a one-way street.

We just need to remind ourselves of Whom it is we can trust without reservation, without the fear of mistakes, without the anxious worry of wondering if someday we will wake up and see that we put all of our eggs in the wrong basket.

As I write, more and more revelations of the epic disaster on the campus of Penn State continue to emerge. I have read the grand jury PDF. It is grotesque and gut-wrenching. No person should ever be violated, especially not the weaker members in our society like children. Utterly vile and despicable.

The most heinous aspect of the situation is not the crime itself; it’s the mis-handling perpetrated by some in the school administration once the initial reports were given. Everyone from family advocacy groups to tax-payer lobbies are now pressing for information and a complete accounting in the wake of the revelations released over the weekend.

Unfortunately, Happy Valley is now going to be known as the Land of Minimal Expectations. Or worse.

Swirling through the morass of personal destruction is the reputation of Joe Paterno, vicarious god-father to thousands over the last fifty years he has coached the football team. Joe is not guilty of any legal wrongdoing as of this point. He is not being charged.

But in the court of moral courage, Joe’s been found to be wanting. Faced with allegations on another coach made by an assistant, he did what he was supposed to do—he reported it to his superiors.

But that’s it.

No follow up, no accountability to their handling of the situation. No personal investigation to determine the identity of the kid(s) involved. No questioning of the other coach or anyone else to make sure this was being addressed.

The failure of Joe Pa was in not ensuring that the matter received his highest concerns, for two reasons: 1) it involved someone close to him - an assistant coach he worked with for over 20 years; and 2) the nature of the allegations, even if not spelled out graphically, were such that he should have followed up and received some measure of confirmation that the incident was being fully investigated.

Since Joe Pa did the minimum, and nothing more, he failed to be the leader he inspires his students to be each year.

It reminds me of another scenario where a few people - icons in their community - when faced with the option of going out of their way to help someone, or go out of their way to avoid the moral responsibility to offer aid, chose the latter. Jesus told their story we know today as the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Ironically, if you could have interviewed the priest and Levite in the story after they had skirted past the wounded and dying man in the road, they would have ushered their justification as something like “the law says…” They would have been honored in their communities as men who upheld the constraints of the law and did the ‘right’ thing, according to it. They did exactly what the law prescribed.

The problem is that the law only pointed to minimum standards, not maximum opportunity. The law told them what to avoid. But the intent of the law was to give clearer focus on how to love someone. And in that, they failed. They missed the forest for the trees.

The question as followers of Christ is whether we follow the Law of Love or a love of the law. Following the Law of Love says I need to be compassionate and assist those in need or peril, even at the cost of my own personal scorecard. The love of the law says I must only do the minimum to avoid sticky and troublesome situations.

May we realize that laws are not our barriers to avoid dealing with people, just guidelines to help us know how we can love others who desperately need it.

May we be people who do not hide behind rules and laws, but step out and be people of exceptional moral courage in a dark land of minimal expectations.

One morning, I read John 1:43 where it says, “The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

Very quickly, I discovered that the Lord had some things for me to ponder – so I went back. The phrase that stuck out was “finding Philip”. It was just two words, but it spoke a tidal wave of meaning to me.

Jesus seeks out Philip in this passage. He goes on the hunt looking for Philip. And what I felt that morning as I read and re-read that phrase – he’s looking for me. He’s on the search for me. He wants me, and has something for me. He’s trying to find me.

I found my mind drifting into that moment. I envisioned Jesus searching through the crowds at the market, the morning mist still coming off the trees and sand. He peers around the corners of the buildings, scans the crowds over the tops of the tents – all because he’s looking for me.

Not only is he looking for me, he’s inviting me. He wants me to be with him – with him! He’s holding a hand out, offering to take mine and lead the way forward. He’s got something in store for me. He’s thinking and envisioning a future for me that I would never have imagined on my own.

Imagining that I was Philip, I felt affirmed, valued, recognized, loved, and worthy. I don’t know what I did to secure this invitation, but it was meaningful. It was powerful.

God spoke powerfully to me about his desire for me. Like Jesus looking for Philip, he’s seeking after me. How that thrilled my heart to realize that Jesus—my king, my savior—is looking for me. He wants me. He has something for me. Simple words, seismic effect in my life.

Another thought emerged—how often do I live day-to-day without even kindling the fire of that desire for me? How often do I walk around with barely a nudge towards the reality of that profound truth? It’s not that it’s not true; I’ve just not stopped to appreciate and integrate that potent truth into me. The fire just smolders, instead of burning white hot.

Oh Jesus, speak to me. Thank you for loving me so wonderfully. Keep pouring your truth and love into me. I need it desperately. I am done without it, without you. Don’t let me settle into complacency about how voracious your desire is for me. Keep my fire aflame, and burn it brightly into a bonfire of passion for you.

My uncle and aunt celebrated their 50^th anniversary this summer. It was a marvel to behold: that a couple in their seventies could last together for this long (taking into account life expectancies and marriage failure rates)—and more importantly, that they still liked each other after all these years.

You could see it in their expressions with each other. They were unafraid to touch each other in casual ways; they smiled and exchanged pleasant looks many times; they helped each other with their sentences, thoughts, or ideas. They danced together at the drop of a hat. They genuinely seemed to enjoy being in each other’s presence, and it radiated throughout the room.

Uncle "Stick’s" been an extraordinary relative. The guy is a rock. While not the largest member of the family—he’s actually physically the smallest among his brothers despite being the older one—he’s been the go-to guy, the “steady-Eddie”, the guy who’s quietly in the background, offering a helping hand when needed, working with more than a few relatives facing crises in their life, providing a loving and stable environment for his own family, maintaining an active religious life through his Catholic faith. In many respects, he’s been the quiet presence many families around him relied on and off throughout the decades.

It reminds me of how the presence of Jesus often frames our days and our lives. We of the busy-hurried-rushing-about kind of people, hurtling head-long into our furious thrills or our reckless lows, many times miss the quiet steady pacing of the presence of God around us. In our hectic pace, we may usher ‘prayers on the fly’ as we’re waiting at a stop light for a green light, quickly scan a page of scripture and toss an amen into the ring, or squeeze in a moment with Jesus in between meetings, dinner, and the latest TV fad before collapsing in bed (or falling asleep on the couch with the tube on).

Yet, in the midst of this roller coaster ride of daily living, Jesus awaits. He awaits in love, he awaits in joy, he awaits in great patience for the moments we give Him. He radiates His gracious love for us in even the fleeting moments we spend in conscious awareness of his presence. He is the Quiet Presence that frames our comings and goings, only being noticed (or sometimes sought) when we need it most. But He remains there, and in those moments we need him most, He loves just the same.

At one point, Uncle Stick was sharing a few thoughts with the crowd about memories from 50 years of marriage, when he said: “you know, I am not a Biblical person, but I am remembering a few words that Jesus shared with his disciples in the Gospel of John. He said this: as I have loved you, so you must love one another. As I look around this room, I see the reflection of that here tonight.” Almost everyone was moved by the simple poignancy of his observation.

And there it was—the “quiet presence” remembering the Quiet Presence. Jesus, while He may not have been spoken of (or to) much at all that night, is revealed once again in a simple and powerful way.