Rogue State of Heart

Archive for June, 2009

As I enjoyed our Sunday baptism service, which was all about people telling stories of how they came to Jesus, I hearkened back to a chapter in The Jesus Creed which viewed the baptism of Jesus like I had never seen before. I remembered a new angle for reflecting on Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River, and why it is such a powerful image for me even today as I watched people take the plunge.

You may recall that before Jesus arrived, John the Baptist was calling people to repent—that is, to change their strategies for living and coping and seek God’s way instead. It was time to make a clear and decisive change from the past, humbled by the reality of personal darkness and aided by the Spirit of God. It’s easy to see why everyone else was “going under” – they wanted to stop living independently of God’s truth and love and forge a new direction in a right relationship with Him. That’s a no-brainer.

So why did Jesus do it? What did he have to repent of?

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This weekend, we had our annual Father’s Day weekend camping trip (which should really be called Mother’s Day Two camping trip–but that’s another post). Anyways, a bunch of us survived the Saturday morning ‘wall of water’ that greeted us as we awoke.

Afterwards, the clouds eventually broke, and, as a matter of fact, it became a pleasant day by sunset. We even had fires going by the afternoon, much to our children’s delights.

At one point in the afternoon, I was horsing around near our fire pit with Riley, the four year old son of my friend Nathan. I’d lift Riley upside down and pretend to lower him to the ground. He would giggle and squeal about letting go, but then jump back at me for more. 

At one moment during our tussle, as I held him in my arms, a stub of a fresh green pine-cone dropped right between us—amazingly accurate targeting by the tree, I must add. He picked it up and laughed. I told him it was a gift from Mr. Tree.

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Sit down, hold on, and enjoy the ride!

These were guys from our church who went WWR out in western PA last month.

I found another nugget from Scot McKnight and The Jesus Creed in a story I had heard a long time ago, but was reminded of it’s centrality in my life even today.

It involved Ben Franklin, and his attempt at moral perfection. He reasoned that if he was intentional and purposeful about achieving moral virtue, over time it would just unfold and emerge in his life as he practiced each virtue and targeted it for growth in his life.

So he set about tracking his progress each day, evaluating how well or poorly he did with each virtue that he was focusing on. His conclusion after about a month or so of this effort?

“I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined.”

It was a rogue state of heart moment for Ben Franklin.

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Subtitled: “I’d rather be eating.”

Two ‘fellow rogues’ & I meet weekly for some “below the waterline” discussions. We’ve elected to open the closet doors of our hearts and let each other take a peak inside down in the dark places. We also decided recently to try fasting on the day we meet as a way of helping us explore the deeper issues within us that we’d allow each other to see.

Fasting?? What were we thinking?!?

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Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or abstaining from media for the last 6 months, you know that by now we are undergoing a metamorphism of sorts—good-bye analog, hello digital TV. When DTV finally becomes reality tomorrow, many of us anticipate clear channels with great pictures and more options.

But there is one silent problem lurking for some of us on that fateful day. If you have cable, then you’ll be fine. But if you’re too cheap for cable like me, you may face something called the “cliff effect.”

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Recently I was playing a game with my son, and losing. It was not pretty. He bought this complicated Star-Wars type of game, and was both playing and instructing me at the same time. It’s not even my game, and yet I found myself getting upset over not understanding how to play this game, and the fact that I was losing badly.

Boy, did it expose my pride. I wanted to win, to show myself superior. I acted impatiently, irritated and just mad that I was getting my keester handed to me. At that moment, it took a lot for me to keep my composure and not allow a regretful action to erupt.

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This is the best line I’ve heard in a while on growing old. Owen Wilson’s character “John” turns 40 in the movie “Marley & Me”, and he is reflecting on the reality of that birthday with his dog, Marley:

“Well, we knew this was when Father Time was gonna make his move, buddy. He’d lead us down a dark alley and beat the hell out of us.”