Staying In Touch in the Age of Information

Dave, our National Perspectives Director, graciously allowed the National Staff in the Fayetteville office to come and be a part of the annual gathering of the Regional Directors in Tulsa. We were blessed to join the roundtable discussions without the distraction of running back to the office, leaving meetings early to set up meals and snacks, run errands, etc. The end result was a lot better, more relaxed communication with them and with the dilemmas and decisions they make every day regarding Perspectives classes and the movement at large, as well as the joys and rewards. And vice versa, I suppose.

As they do, I’m sure, I have a lot of thoughts incubating in my mind. One is the use of Twitter and other social networking. For connecting with people, what we formerly relied on in e-mail is for many people now passé. Since Hayden left the country 11 years ago, I have thought that e-mail was the greatest gift I could ever have received as a parent in of an Asia-dweller, but now we have a Magic Jack computer phone which allows us to talk any time we can arrange for both of us to be awake, and if we Twittered, we could easily Tweet each other at any time of the day (at least from an internet café for Hayden at this point). Communication technology keeps marching forward, and it adds another line to our “to do” lists to stay in the ranks and not get trampled down by the soldiers behind us.

It happens fast. Being “engaging” for the kingdom requires one to consider what it might mean for us single-minded people, driven by our desire to communicate what we believe. If you want to discuss this, e-mail me. Maybe soon, I’ll be accepting Tweets.

To the Journey--is it the end or the beginning?

It’s Friday, and John and I have been reflecting all week how blessed we have been being a part of The Journey community with all its variety of descriptive words over its colorful lifetime! We know we have forever friends among you because of a deep bond we have shared in all the ups as well as the downs.

I have wanted to write about it all week, but I think I got my best idea yesterday (Thursday). We spent a most encouraging morning in the living room of a prayer retreat house on Beaver Lake listening to Avery Willis (am I name-dropping?) converse about a new book he has written with his grandson, Learning to Soar, subtitled “How to Grow Through Transitions and Trials”.

Let me back up: I know eagles are a familiar example, but it did happen that in getting ready for our Half Day of Prayer at the Center on Tuesday, John sent this out to the staff to elaborate on Isaiah 40:31:

“An eagle will perch high atop a canyon wall and wait for the thermals—warm wind currents that arise up from the canyon below. When the rising wind is just right, the eagle will fold its wings to his sides, literally cast itself into the chasm and plummet into the abyss. Isaiah would not have known this in his day, but God has equipped eagles with tiny sensors in their beaks to let the birds know when they have reached the optimal speed. When this happens, the bird will spread its wings, catch the thermals, rise up into the sky and soar.”

Avery, in his book, talks about how the mother of the little eaglets, when it is time to learn to fly, takes out all of that pillow soft lining from the nest of sticks so that they will begin to get the idea, “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t stay here forever…” and think about trying their wings. I’m sure flying takes a lot of courage—it might take a while to see the value of diving into the chasm and letting the thermals lift you up.

When John and I took Perspectives in 2001, we felt like our eyes were opened to a whole new world of possibilities. I imagine we had heard that we were “blessed to be a blessing”, but I’m not sure that thought had ever fully penetrated our cortexes! When my mom was no longer in our care after December 2004, we thought we were ready to fly off to some remote part of the world. Our All-Wise Parent God, however, had other ideas. We needed the cottony nest of the Journey to take us deeper in learning how to walk with God. In April of 2007, we jumped off the side of the nest and are still seeking to ride the thermals. The Journey encouraged us and has supported us in a big way these last 2-plus years and we are more thankful than we can say for that.

Could it be that God has taken the cottony stuff out of the Journey nest for others now? Could He have been taking care of you in this soft spot and is now urging you to embody His purposes, knowing what you now know and experiencing in a real way His nurture and His love, to be His heart, hands, and feet to the world around you?

John and I want to take courage and be spiritual “adrenaline junkies”, riding the thermals in wherever they take us. Want to ride along?

Ballast

Answers.com (that mostly reliable resource) defines “ballast” as “heavy material that is placed in the hold of a ship or the gondola of a balloon to enhance stability. Having just returned from a week in Atlanta and Greenville with the grandkids, that word surfaced in my mind as a pretty good analogy to the role of grandparents. Ballast shouldn’t determine the course of the flight, just add a little stability. Not that visible, just a sense that it is there. Or…since I spent most of the time at Lyle’s, our electrical engineer, maybe I should define it in an electrical sense: something that maintains a constant current of electricity flowing through despite variations in voltage or changes in the rest of the circuit.

Someone else may have thought of this first, but that’s my way of saying what a joy it is to be a ballast in our married children’s lives and in the lives of their children. It is our heart’s desire to see them follow their dreams, offering wisdom of years (only when asked, of course), serving as a spiritual presence and most of all prayerful cheerleaders. We pray for that Shikinah glory around them in their own worlds--that they would honor us in their spiritual heritage and grow in following their internal spiritual compasses in knowing how to navigate their own journeys so that someday they will be a ballast force themselves.

Spiritually speaking, it’s interesting that the meaning of “glory” is heavy. Hmmm…the Spirit is without a doubt a stabilizing force in high seas or a regulator in times of power surges of tough turns of event. What would any of us do without You?

Outside the Balloon

Maybe it was a vision. Or maybe it was the key lime ice cream we ate before we went to bed, I don't know. Coming out of a sound sleep, it's hard to say if it was Narnia or that time when you see the wardrobe but you're still in the Other Country. Whatever it was, I don't want to let go of it--a clear sense of a world that truly was perfect and good (that big thing we take by faith), but all of time and history being lived out in the inside of a balloon. Inside there, the air is stale. Little people like me, from the beginning of time, have been living and dying inside thinking life inside this cramped space is all there is and running around, trying to get all the stuff they can to help them make it through life in the balloon. One day, God will take His big fingers away from the neck and let out all that stale air, releasing all those who dreamed of real life outside into the expansive freshness of His perfect world. All He asks is that we pay attention to the Message He left inside the balloon before the whole thing inflated.

Breathe deeply.

Read the Book.

Look forward to better days ahead.

Funny about those mirrors...

It's Thursday night before our 4th of July holiday and I'm feeling rather free to just do what I want to do. I was just going to go to bed but decided to check the blogs I follow. What a phenomenon blogs are--a virtual mirror into what drives people's passion and reflections! I find myself reading my kids' friends blogs and wishing I could sit down and drink a Sonic cherry limeade with them and continue the conversation.

My stream of consciousness leads me to reflect on mirrors--OK. A pun intended. John and I recently accompanied Hayden to a most remarkable workshop recently where we learned to tell stories. As storytelling goes, I proved to be the least of these. In fact, my first experience with a "story" from James 1 about mirrors was a total disaster. It really wasn't much of a story--my excuse for drawing a total blank when I got up to tell it, but darned if it hasn't stuck in my mind like glue. I've probably thought of it every day for the last couple of weeks.

You likely have heard about the curbside disaster recently where John's 2002 Ford Escape decided to commit suicide, as John likes to tell it. Last Saturday, we spent the day standing in asphalt parking lots and test driving several potential replacements trying to find just the right one. By mid-afternoon, we were heading down College in one we really both liked and I made the comment: "I love this one on the inside, but I can't remember what it looks like on the outside." Oh look, those mirror thoughts are back: something like when you're inside your own skin, looking at yourself only from the inside, you can't remember what you look like from the outside. Everyone else can see what you look like as they watch you come and go but you may have forgotten. If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror, for once he has looked at himself and gone away (or retreated inside), he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. I acknowledge this isn't a scholarly thought or maybe not even inspired, but I say this to provide evidence that those stories really do act like the velcro loops on our grey matter.

Thanks, fellow bloggers, for the reflections. Sonic happy hour is 2-4 every day. Maybe I'll see you there.

April Showers, May Flowers, June Craziness - Part 2

I—who pride myself in hardly ever getting sick—had been fighting a cold since last Thursday night pulling out my arsenal of natural remedies and being only moderately successful. Tuesday night about 3 a.m., I headed into the kitchen to get a drink of water and was surprised to see an orange glow in the window. My first thought was that the condos up the hill must be on fire, then I thought, “no, it’s my car!” Then “no, it’s John’s car!” All sorts of things ran through my mind, mainly “how can a car just catch on fire??? Did someone set it on fire???” The hood looked like a huge sparkler on the 4th of July. I gathered my thoughts then yelled to John who, of course, suddenly awoke from a deep sleep, “Can you come in here? Your car is on fire…” The front tire exploded which made me realize the gas tank could do the same thing and I threw all caution to the wind—sleeping neighbors or not—in yelling at John to “back up—that think could totally blow up!!!” We are just around the corner from the fire department who showed up in no time and put an end to the adrenaline rush. It’s the first time we’ve been thankful there is too much stuff in the garage to get the car in. It’s still slumped over on the street, waiting for its final rites, and shocks us every time we exit the house. No explanation, but since then we’ve heard that if you have a Ford Escape, you’d better sleep with one eye open. And park it on the street, whether your garage is full or not.

Thursday was fun. Hayden gave our staff a Bible storytelling demonstration in his creative way, then we all packed up and went to check out a potential place to move our office. Another one of those glorious days, none of us wanted to go back inside so we found ourselves back on the square for a while waiting for the maintenance crew to come unlock the door and we people-watched down on the square, watching a film crew and several visitors who were obviously in town for the Walmart stockholders’ annual meeting. Happily unable to do work on my still-disengaged computer, I went shopping for the grandkids and home to heat up the ginger-noodle soup. That night, it just seemed right to use the movie gift card that our dear friends the Flynn’s had given us for Christmas to go see Up, the cute 3-D Disney movie-- amazingly entertaining and we highly recommend it.

Another thing we recommend is making sure you know where the airport is when you’re flying out of a new one. It had thrilled our frugal souls to find $67 tickets to Atlanta. All we had to do was drive to Branson, of all places. The purpose of this trip was to pick up Lyle’s old faithful Maxima for Hayden to drive for the next two months. Hayden looked up the directions online and sent them to my e-mail. When I printed them off, it just didn’t look right. So…I spent quite some time online myself, filling in the gaps with missing information and reasoning why that couldn’t be the right airport. But look over here—there’s a brand new Springfield-Branson National airport in Springfield. That MUST be it! So after sharing with John’s Friday morning Band of Brothers group, we rushed off thinking we would have the full two hours early before their flight departed. Still repositioning things in the car for the ride home, here come John and Hayden rushing back out to announce that the Air Tran flight really does leave from Branson, 40 plus miles south of there. So now, the light hearted chatter on the way over turns to deep quiet thoughts of “how could I be so stupid?” and “we’re going to have to eat these tickets and we still won’t have the car” and “is it better to take a chance of getting a ticket or drive the speed limit and watch them close the gate before our very eyes?” Also, no one pointed out that you can’t make very good time on five miles of twisty mountain roads leading you through a mountainous golf community to get there. God’s grace is sufficient—and there is no other explanation—they made it.

I am a little sad about them being in Atlanta and Greenville without me. I AM the grandmother of three children in that part of the world! But, I have to admit, a three and a half day blank spot on the calendar sounds like a bit of a vacation. Maybe it’s the perfect ending to a memorable week. As the Up movie suggested, I may just go have another adventure!

April Showers, May Flowers, June Craziness--Part 1

I’ve been reading lots of other people’s blogs and asking myself, “Why don’t you rein in your thoughts a little and just write about what you’ve been doing like everyone else does?” So maybe I will. But don’t think this is a normal week.

Seven days ago, almost to the day, Hayden took to the skies and landed in NWA. Being perpetually late and going alone to XNA because John was on an office float trip, I surprisingly showed up at just about the same time Hayden did. That was great, but unfortunately, it appeared that this could not be said of his luggage. Not too shocked, as he has had several special deliveries after the fact over the years, I pulled up to wait while Hayden filled out the necessary forms as he listened to 5 other unhappy travelers in the same predicament rant and rave. Just as we were leaving, luggage carriers from the back came in announcing—yes—it did make the trip but just now they were pushing and shoving the luggage stuck in the baggage claim passageway. Thirty minutes later, it was dislodged, picked up, and we were on our way to Arby’s for a late dinner.

Saturday morning, we visited the Farmers Market on the square on what was really the first really pretty Saturday of the spring, complete with funky Fayetteville bluegrass music, the usual cute dogs and their owners, bubble machines on more than one corner, and even a new thing I hadn’t seen before—gong therapy! Saturday night, we celebrated Hayden’s birthday with our staff at Las Palmas with bottomless tortilla chips and a birthday cake with a candle for every year we have not able to sing Happy Birthday in person—12! This time, he got it sung in Spanish and English and with a little merriment in almost having a bucket of ice poured on his head! Our dear friends really blessed him. John and I gave him a ticket to see Rain!—the Beatles in concert. Maybe not like it used to be but they’re still fun to watch.

Tuesday morning, we had our final discussion on all the Perspectives articles at work. Sometimes, we catch ourselves marveling at how God has meshed our lives and passions together with Hayden’s, making it easy for him to sit on the couch with us and join right in the discussion. We are really thankful for that. On returning from the Chinese buffet and moving toward my computer, a bright blue screen awaited me. Seemed like I remembered that wasn’t a good sign. Long story short—my barely broken in hard drive chose that day to give up the ghost. But something stranger would happen that night…