two trees

A couple of years ago, my family honored the memory of our friend Beth Berman by planting two trees in our yard.  The decision as to what type of tree to choose was such a difficult one that we ended up picking out two trees.

One was a variegated Vanderwulf Pine.  It's striking and amazing in its color and its unique look.  It's not like other trees.  And it's completely unsuited to Georgia summers.  Heat and humidity will kill it.  It's an alpine plant, but such a knock out when it's really going and growing well.

The other one was a Southern Magnolia.  A no brainer for our area.  Dependable.   Solid.  Proven performer.  Flowers, fragrant, evergreen and absolutely created to thrive in our area.

The two of them together: a perfect synthesis of the beauty of who Beth Berman was.  At once volatile and willing to be so unique, rare, and impossible to grow while showing such stunning radiance.  And completely steady, dependable, and productive day in and day out.  A safe bet, but always on the margin.

Keith Jennings has opined of the recent loss of the icons that defined those of us 40ish and a bit better: Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and now John Hughes.  As for me, I would add the two year old loss of Beth Berman.  In describing the meaning of John Hughes in her life, Molly Ringwald described him as the person who "saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself."  The description is so apt of why the memory of Beth Berman penetrates my life.  Her, the administrator, and me, the fledging and for the most part incompetent program director who had no clue of what I was capable of.  But she somehow did and pretended that it was the most obvious thing.  Right up until, but really only after her death, I started believing that along with her.

So the Vanderwulf pine is still looking good, and surprising me, and taking my breath every time I round the corner and see it.  Just like the Southern Magnolia can be depended on to be there for a long time.

I know the Vanderwulf pine will probably die soon.  The Magnolia will probably outlive me.

They both will always remind me of Beth and I can only hope that I'll stay true to the Vanderwulf pine parts of myself and the Southern Magnolia parts of myself.  I hope that I'll always be free with living and confident in the lasting sense of life the way Beth was.

I hope I can always see something in others that they don't see in themselves.

I hope I'll be able to honor that as we gather together on Thursday night to remember the people, like Beth, who are unafraid to die because they know they'll always be alive.

Tomato sandwiches

This time I'm almost positive I'm right.  When it comes to a tomato sandwich, you're not going to make one unless it's with a home grown tomato.  So, that's a given: tomato sandwiches are made with homegrown, truly vine ripe tomatoes.  So the core value of a tomato sandwich is simplicity to let that (for most people who don't grow tomatoes or have a friend who does) rare commodity shine.  There is nothing like the taste of a vine ripened Georgia grown tomato.  You want a very basic bread- fresh white for me.  A little mayonnaise and maybe some salt and pepper.  You peel the tomato, slice it, put it between the two pieces of bread.  You then cut the sandwich in half on the diagonal (because that makes all sandwiches better) and eat it.  If you can make and eat while the tomato is still warm from being in the summer sun: all the more better.

Store bought tomatoes are an after thought for most sandwiches.  A nice little piece, but unless homegrown and ripened on the vine, nothing special.  A borderline garnish.

Would you believe there are people who take that home grown tomato and put it in a sandwich with sandwich spread, cheese, pickles, and then grill it.  It's not a bad sandwich.  I tasted one.  But in that sandwich, the tomato is just another tomato.  The flavor, so rare and subtle, just becomes run of the mill tomato flavor.

So what?  

I want it to be about the things where there is a clear right and conversely wrong way to do or think about something, and in this case I am clearly right.  

I want it to be about knowing what's really important and not cluttering it up with other stuff that detracts from the important thing that we as leaders have to identify and help others understand.

I want it to be about people realizing that they don't need all that other stuff.  The best thing is right here.  We already have it.

But it's still that you can usually be right and alone and lonely or in a community and less in touch with your rightness.

The main reason I would want someone to make their tomato sandwich my way is because I do believe it's the best way to honor the tomato, but also a part of it is I need the energy I can gain from someone doing something my way.  Which will leave them feeling a little less energized and still wondering what the grilled sandwich with pickles and sandwich spread would taste like.

Can we make our sandwiches and not just tolerate how others make theirs, but try to gain some understanding of why they like their sandwiches so much and how we can love them (the people, not their sandwiches) better?

How do you like your tomato sandwich?

pentas and petunias

My wife took charge of planting the spring annuals this year.  We have three small areas we put summer flowers and typically I love picking out the combinations and the varieties that will bloom a long time, fit the space and generally perform well.  This year my interest waned, and my wife was more interested in having something planted than I was in working up a master piece.  I would have made a different selection than she did.  They would have been classier, more understated, more all around artisan.  She picked out petunias (not even wave petunias or a really cool long lasting disease resistant variety) and pentas.  The space is too small for two species.  A simple single species is really prescribed for such a space.  But she picked petunias and pentas. 

The other day, I took a closer look at the planting and was so impressed by how it turned out.  The larger, single petunia flower with the pale foliage is such a wicked foil for the clusters of smaller pentas with the richer green foliage.  The flowers mirror each other so incredibly.  I never thought of the penta of the community which takes a cluster to be noticed vs. the solo brilliance of the petunia.  The reds complement and contrast at the same time as well.  Not to mention the play of the sprawling petunia, willing to go anywhere against the stately reserved composure of the penta.

I would have never experienced the wonder of these two plants together if I did it my way.  Which suggests I need to not be so quite consumed with how things are done according to my understanding of the best way, right technique, truest theology, most efficient way.  All the time.

The price of the tickets, how you frame the story, the guest list, what you feature about the event, how obtuse you are, what different ways you promote, what the color of the carpet is, whether it's evangelism or social action might turn out not to be so important as giving someone else a chance to express themselves- their passion, gifts, and dreams.

You might discover a combination you never dreamed of that will serve you for the rest of your life.

Sun dances and 3 on 3 basketball tourneys

I read with interest a passage from the book On the Rez by Ian Frazier recently.  The book chronicles a relationship between Frazier and a Native American named Le and the friendship and life lessons the two share.  Frazier chronicles a conversation he overheard in a restaurant which he describes as bordering on an argument.  The discussion involved "white guys dancing". (p 53)

"My cousin was saying 

that there was too many white guys dancing at the sun dances on the reservation last summer.  Him and his friends think letting white guys or any non-Indians in ruins the ceremonies.  They don't think outsiders should be allowed even as helpers or water carriers.  They say that you let white guys buy the food and the firewood, the way some sun dances do, and then you've gotta let 'em dance, and then pretty soon people who don't know anything are running the whole ceremony.  And he's right that there was hundreds of white guys goin' to the sun dances last summer.  But I say, if a person's heart is good, let him participate in a respectful way.  There's non-Indian people that love the sun dance and are really sincere.  You just have to be sure that you have elders and medicine men who run the ceremony as it's supposed to be."

That passage came alive for me because I just returned from a community development venture to the Tohono O'odom Indian Reservation in Sells, Arizona where our team, among other things, attempted to take part in a 3 on 3 basketball tournament hosted by an evangelical native american outreach group (interestingly, founded by an anglo).  Our team members interested in playing were told the tournament was only open to "locals" and then that our group could play if they could have 2 locals on their team, and then finally that it would be really best if our guys didn't play at all.

It was an awesome experience for us for a few reasons.  Our team is mostly anglo, affluent, guys.  Probably not too many of whom have ever been disqualified from something because of their ethnic background or because of where they came from.   So that was cool.

Also, we debated whether that was a good rule- on the one hand it was because we were in the process of trying to understand that community development ventures were really about serving the vision of the local community and their leaders and that native americans- even though they were actually "outsiders" to this particular community were automatically more qualified to build social capital than we were.

But most importantly, we realized that it's ok for outsiders to engage in these sorts of activities whether we find ourselves the outsider or the insider as long as " a person's heart is good" and he participates in a respectful way and that you realize that there are different people that love aspects of one another's culture and are really sincere; and that the stakeholders who understand the endeavor best are the ones who run it (or lead it).

So lessons learned- my bad: questions raised:

The things that we do in ministry as leaders: is our heart good?  Do we really believe this stuff we talk about?  Is it capable of what we read about in the Bible for us? Is it true? Is it worth it?

Do we interact and participate with others in a respectful way?  Do we seek out the voices we know are in contrast to our own?  Are we willing to argue from our weak points rather than dominate from our strengths?

Do people love our ministry the way we are leading it?  How are we looking for ways for them to participate, understand it better, and share with others?

Are the stakeholders- lay leaders, colleagues, people who don't know as much as us are aren't as good at it or theologically grounded as us allowed to run stuff?

Jesus wept, but (I think) watched

And Jesus Wept: On a corner adjacent to the Oklahoma City National Memorial is a sculpture of Jesus weeping erected by St. Joseph's Catholic Church. St. Joseph's, one of the first brick and mortar churches in the city, was almost completely destroyed by the blast. The statue is not part of the memorial itself but is popular with visitors nonetheless.

A mission team I was part of recently visited the Memorial and I was struck by something about the sculpture of Jesus.  He is depicted as turned away from the site of the death and destruction of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Just as surely as we weep as Jesus wept in times of sorrow and loss (or in times when we don't see the hope of God's love in the midst of evil and terror), surely He would not turn away from it.

Sorrow often pervades times of tragedy.  The loss of a dream, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of faith has, I think, Christ's undivided attention.  He does not turn away.  

Do we?

"...once we stopped at Chick-fil-a..."

I was on a long road trip with a fairly large group of people recently while simultaneously reading James Redfield's Celestine Prophecy, which is a fictional account of an ancient manuscript which gives insights into a coming transformation of society through understanding how things "really work."  The book makes the point that we  often gain energy from other people getting them to go along with our way.  If I have something I want and you have something you want and I get what I want, I gain energy.  And maybe you lose energy.

I was watching this fictional insight being played out as our group worked to decide on where and when to stop for lunch.  It had to be Chick-fil-a and it had to be now.  Whether Chick-fil-a now was best for the group as a whole or not didn't matter as much as Chick-fil-a now for the group that wanted Chick-fil-a now.  And I kind of think the Chick-fil-a  and that we would have it now didn't matter as much as having everybody have Chick-fil-a now.

So we gave up eating with the rest of our group together later.  

The food was good- we had been several days in an area that didn't have Chick-fi-a's.  But the energy gained by the group that wanted Chick-fil-a was out of proportion to the goodness of the food.

The Chick-fil-a now group getting their way gave them energy over and above the ambient value of the food.  It basically changed the whole dynamic of the trip for some.  Days later people where talking about how the stop at Chick-fil-a rescued the whole trip.

It's possible that getting our way and the energy it brings causes us to make decisions and do things that aren't in the best interest of the group.

I recall a mission trip several years ago where the team wasn't able to have the impact they had hoped to have on the area where they were working.  Finally somebody was able to get together some commodes and get a couple of them installed.  (People in the area use "turkish toilets" and not commodes there).  "If it hadn't of been for those commodes..." I remember someone recanting about the trip.

(The next year when the team visited, they noticed a number of the commodes still in crates and not used- people there use turkish toilets, not commodes)

So you wonder if it was the commodes gave the team energy or the fact that the people of that region came around to our idea of how to use the bathroom that saved that trip.

Anyway.  It's futile to not recognize that getting our way gives us energy.  How do we use that for good purposes?  As a catalyst for the community becoming the community God would have it be?

Is the way we evangelize or share ideas or tell stories or provide leadership motivated by something other than the best interest of the group in fulfilling God's mission?

Can you in some sort of judo leadership move allow others to gain energy by letting them get their way.  Or does this lead to enabling?  Or is it scheming?  Manipulation?