We

TEAM...Together Everyone Achieves More

There is no "I" in Team

The middle letter of sin is "I"

You've heard it all. All of the slogans, adages and sayings that try to communicate the importance of being with other people.

"We"

That is a word that is not often found on the lips of todays "clock watching...clock punching...clock living" people.

We live in a world that is bent on being all about "us." One that seldom takes the time to think about others.

Today's presidential candidates are telling me that they are running to represent my interests. Churches advertise that they have a program that is for me. Burger King has caught the idea and tells me that I can, "Have it My Way."

I am not sure I want it, "my way." Wait a minutes...come to think of it, yes I do when I think about my interests and my ways and my desires.

Today I visited with people who are realizing that life is not all about them. They are coming to discover that there is tremendous power unleashed when we think about "we" rather than "I."

Today I read a quote that arrested my attention...

There is nothing worse that reaching the top of the ladder

and discovering that you're on the wrong wall.

-Joseph Campbell, 20th century writer.

Everytime I climb a ladder of my own making, I discover that I'm on the wrong wall.

Socrates said it well, the unexamined life is not worth living.

I can't do this journey on my own. I need Him. I need others. I need other pilgrims, storytellers, and sages to guide me.

"We" is a lot more fun than "I"

Just thinking out loud...I need Him!

Bricks

Standing at attention the spire reached from the city sidewalk and pierced the sky like a beacon of hope. Mesmerized I stood there and looked at the mass of bricks and mortar fashioned in the shape of a gothic steeple. One couldn't help but notice that each brick seemed to blend into another as the wall took on a tapestry look against the late afternoon sun.

Upon closer inspection it wasn't a morphous mass of bricks, but rather individual bricks making up the majestic structure.

One brick. Another brick. And then another, and before you realized it a wall took shape against the sky.

One brick.

It has caused me to think about the concept of one. One. One brick. One person. One moment. One story. One.

What is it about one that makes me think that we are alone? What is it about one that makes us think that we can do it by ourselves?

We are in the middle of a series of renewal moments in the life of the church that I attend. Last night one of the leaders asked a poignant question. In a time of exceptional evil, what are you doing that is exceptional?

The question made me realize that I am not alone. I am not one...alone. He is with me. Then I felt like a brick. A single solitary brick.

Then it hit me. I am part of the wall with others who stand for His Kingdom and against the powers of darkness.

Isaiah had the picture..."you will be called a repairer of Broken Walls..." 58:12 (The Message)

What if my life is a brick? What if my life is to be placed in broken walls so that the wall is strengthened and others are strengthened?

I am just wondering...

Cardboard Box

Sipping a cup of Seattle's Best coffee, the people around me were speaking in less than hushed tones. She was talking to her friend and lamenting the fact that she had to "go through all of mother's stuff." By the tone of the conversation it was clear that her mother had recently died leaving her with a "depression era" basement of stuff.

She described in detail all of the stuff that now was her responsbility. She complained. She sighed. She summed up the whole ordeal by saying that she was going home to clean up her clutter.

She spoke in choppy sentences about how all of her mothers stuff communicated the story of her nearly eighty years of living.

Just before she turned to leave her friend she spoke prophetically and pathetically. "It's pretty sad, the story of your life ends up in boxes."

That really hit me.

I did a funeral yesterday and its true in one way. We end up in a box at the end of our life.

But more than anything else I don't want the story of my life to end up in a box. I don't want to be remembered by a list of things and objects that I thought were valuable.

I want to be remembered for living life "outside the box."