Nails

James Michener is an insightful writer who has mastered the fine art of writing over a long career. He is the author of many extraordinary books including, The World Is My Home. In that book he reveals the secret to what has kept him writing decade after decade.

He tells the story of growing up as a small child. He talks about an encounter with a farmer who lived near the Michener's family.

The old farmer hammered eight nails into the trunk of an old, unproductive apple tree.

In the autumn of the year the aged tree yielded an enormous crop of succulent apples.

Michener, as a small boy, asked how this miracle happened.

The old farmer's statement stuck with Michener.

"Hammering the rusty nails gave it a shock to remind it that its job is to produce apples."

Michener relates that in the 1980's, when he was nearly 80, he had some "nails" hammered into his "trunk"—heart surgery, vertigo, a new hip.

Like the apple tree, Michener made the decision that these adversities would not hold him back, but would be the catalyst to producing healthy fruit through the written word.

Have you had any "nails" pounded into your life? I mean, have you had any circumstances that have caused you to wonder where God is?

No one is exempt from "life."

Nails changed the course of history when they were placed in hands of the Story Teller. And nails can change the course of your life...

What do you think?

Trade

Heard at lunch tables in elementary schools everywhere are these familiar words..."hey wanna trade."

To the horror of a mom who lovingly packed the lunch, her son "trades" a red apple for a cellophane wrapped chocolate cupcake.

We make a lot of "trades" in our life. We "trade" work hours for a pay check at the end of the week.

We "trade" long hours of study for a degree.

We "trade" time over coffee for the opportunity to influence someone to think about the Kingdom.

I have been thinking about that word, I have been reflecting on other words with similar meanings, words like "swap" and "exchange."

I have also been thinking about a new definition for the word "salvation."

It's pretty simple...almost ashamedly so.

Salvation arrives when I "trade" my story for His Story. There it is. Pretty simple.

What do you think?

"Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for? Mark 8:34 (The Message)

"Wanna trade?" I am not qualified to put words in God's mouth, but I wonder how often He says to us, "wanna trade" the life you are living for the life I can give?

What do you think?

Paralytic

Thinking about Sunday, my mind has been taken Mark’s Gospel chapter 2.

It is the story of the paralytic being lowered through the roof so that Jesus could heal him and announce, “your sins are forgiven.”

Reading that story over the years has led me to the conclusion that this is a “salvation story.” It is the account of a paralyzed man and his faithful friends who knew where he could find help.

It is the narrative of four friends, “grabbing a corner of the mat” and taking their friend to Jesus.

It is the record of Jesus, the paralytic, the friends and the observers. I have always read it that way. I have always looked at the story through one lens.

Yesterday I was absorbing the intensity of the narrative when it hit me.

Maybe this story is about something else.

What if the story is metaphorical? What if this story points to a larger truth than what I have observed in my studies?

Here’s my thought…

I think that maybe the "church" is the paralytic being dropped down through the roof of culture and community. Jesus is Jesus. And his words to the church are the same as those to the paralytic. He tells the church, "your sins are forgiven." He tells the church, "get up, take your mat and walk."

In this day, I am beginning to think that we are lowered through the roof of a busy culture. We are lowered into rooms filled with busy people. We are dropped into settings that require us to act like we are forgiven.

I really need to hear the words of Jesus which remind me, “I am forgiven.” I need to be reminded to “get up, take your mat and walk.”

The church I attend needs to hear these words. We are a forgiven people, yet we are susceptible to paralyzing forces that cause us to be held down on the mat of our existence and experience.

Here’s what I know….when a church realizes God’s forgiveness, paralysis is broken. When people experience God’s forgiveness, paralysis is replaced by life.

What would happen if we realize what the paralytic experienced could happen to us. The mat that held him down, Jesus gave him the authority to pick up.

Jesus “saw their faith” and responded.

I love those words…”your sins are forgiven” and “get up, take your mat and walk.”

They are life changing….for individuals and for churches.

What do you think?

Ruse

Hans Christian Andersen wrote a clever story that ends with a little boy saying,

“But the emperor has nothing at all on!” It is a ruse.

There are two uses of the word ruse. The first is to identify a city in northern Bulgaria and the second is to illustrate a "fraud" or "deception."

You know the story, it is the story of the emperor parading in front of his subjects in his "birthday suit." The emperor lived under such deception from those around him that he was convinced that the clothing that he could not see was the finest in the land. At the insistence of royal seamstreses, he was urged to parade the newest fashion in front of his loyal subjects..

The parade is on...the emperor's couture is on display.

A little boy standing along the parade route does not "get it." He strains to look and sees nothing but the emperors bare skin. Then he blurts it out, "but the emperor has nothing at all on!"

The cat is out of the bag...the deception is exposed.

The father of the child says, “Listen to the voice of the innocence!”

That was not enough to quell the murmuring. People began to whisper among themselves, “But he has nothing on!” The whispers spread like wildfire. A ruse.

I love the next part of the story. Hans Christian Andersen says, "The Emperor was vexed, for the knew that the people were right, but he thought, “The procession must go on now!” Vexed...think of it.

But what happens next is even more bizarre. The story tells us that even though everybody knew that the emperor was standing there in the nude, the "lords of the bedchamber took greater pains than ever to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold.”

A lot of times I feel like the little boy standing on the parade route watching the church and her doctrine unfold. I feel like the little boy standing on the parade route watching people's lives unfold. I feel like the little boy standing on the parade route when I see people who are deceiving themselves on a daily basis. I have felt like saying, "the emperor has nothing on at all."

Sometimes I feel like the emperor. I have been convinced that the way I see things is the right way, only to discover that there are those around me who see through the ruse.

Sometimes I feel like a lord of the bedchamber who is called upon to carry out the deception of an emperor.

Ruse.

It is difficult to be authentic in a world that prizes ruses. In a culture of facades, someone has to look carefully and announce gracefully, "the emperor has no clothes on at all."

This is a message that our culture needs to hear...it is a message that the church needs to explore...it is a thought that we need to entertain as individuals.

Are you real? No I mean, really real?

Just a thought....

Simple

"It's so simple that even a caveman can do it."

"It's a piece of cake..."

"How hard can it (fill in the blank) be?"

"What's so hard about that?"

Have you ever said any of those things. I am guilty.

There have been times that things have broken in my home or on my car and I stand there and say, "how hard can it be to fix that?"

Several hours later I am standing at the kitchen counter calling someone who knows what to do to fix the problem. Smart? Yes. Humbling? You betcha!

I love this story...

Chrsyler under the stalwart leadership of Lee Iacocca made a decision to reintroduce the convertible to the market.

The story unfolds with Iacocca driving around suburban Detroit. He passed someone in an old Mustang convertible. Startling his driver he shouted over the front seat, "That's what Chrysler needs...we need a convertible"

Getting back to his office he summoned the head of Engineering to his office. Worrying that he might lose his job the engineer hurried upstairs where he heard Iacocca's proposal.

"Well" he said "usually the production cycle is about five years. I guess if we lit a fire underneath the engineering department we could have a convertible come off the line in about three years."

“You don’t understand,” Iacocca said. “I want one today! Have someone take one of our cars to a body shop, have them cut off the roof, and put on a convertible top.”

In Paul Harvey fashion..."and now you know the rest of the story...Iacocca had the modified car by the end of the day. He spent the rest of the week driving his “convertible” and found that everyone who saw it loved it. A Chrysler convertible was on the drawing board the following week.

Do we make simple things difficult. I really wonder if we take things that are incredibly simple and make them complex.

Our culture tells us that if we are to be really effective, we need to plan, organize, budget,and then....

What if it is really simple?

You say, "I don't know enough Bible....I have never been trained to tell others about God...I am not a pastor...yada...yada...yada."

What if it is as simple as "telling the story of what He has done in our life? No gimmicks, no steps, no formula....Just a simple story that points to His Story.

Go ahead...tell someone The Story

Enjoy the ride....

Library

My love affair with libraries started when I was around six years old. It was nurtured by parents that valued reading and wanted me to become an avid reader.

I can still remember the times when I walked by myself from my home at 1239 Elliott to the library at the community center on Bolton Avenue. With each step I grew more excited about all of the books in that little library.

In my bedroom there was a wall bookshelf that contained all of the books that my brother and I shared. I can remember writing the call letters on the spine of the books and ordering them in the same way that the community library did.

I have always loved books.

Today I am sitting in my office with some of my best friends...books. They have introduced me to people that I would never have the privilege of meeting in person, they have taken me to places that I cannot afford financially to go to, and they have allowed me to think about things that would never have crossed my mind.

Books.

Most of my books are in my office, but there are still a lot at home. It is always frustrating to have some "here" and some "there" when I am working on a project.

Recently I decided to catalog all of my books. I found a great web site that allows you to organize your library and make it available for others to see.

If you want to meet some of my old friends, I would invite you to http://www.librarything.com/. My Username is: dwbowser and my Password is: 1genx1. Feel free to look around and explore.

When I think about books, I think about a couple of my favorite quotes...

"A lot of people ask me if I were shipwrecked, and could only have one book, what would it be? I always say, 'How to Build a Boat!'" Stephen Wright-American actor and writer.

"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend on reading it." Groucho Marx.

Finally...

"You know you have read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend." Paul Sweeney

Read any good books lately? Met any new friends? Visited any new places?

I love books...

Original

An Original Idea...

When was the last time that you had one? I mean an idea that wholly belonged to you.

Last night I began to think about this and it occured to me that most of what I think about involves interacting with something that someone has already written or said.

Now this is not all bad, but I wonder how much space I give to creative thinking. I wonder how much effort I expend in exploring unmapped terrain.

The reality is that it is often easier to allow others to think for us, to write for us, and to shape our view of life.

At my "age and stage" I am looking for every opportunity to think and create in new ways.

The sage who penned his thoughts in the book of Ecclesiastes said, "there is nothing new under the sun..." I believe that. Yet, it makes me wonder if "every" thought has already been thought. I ponder the idea whether "every" idea has already been discovered.

Here's the bottom line for me. It seems that our culture, our church, and many of our friends value safeguarding what we already know. The person who ventures outside the "tent of conformity" often has the tent flap zipped up leaving that person out in the world of their creative ideas.

I think I am OK with that.

Someone has to be willing to "think, ponder and pray" their way to new ways of seeing and building the Kingdom.

Here are some closing thoughts...

God often gives us hunches that need to be nurtured...."make space for these hunches"

Creativity is not something that belongs to a select few..."make time to allow creativity."

Turn off all forms of media...."the noise of these anesthetize us from our own creativity."

There are stories waiting to be written, thoughts waiting to be considered, ideas awaiting exploration....

Gotta run....creativity is calling!