Finding Meaning in the Ordinary: A Spiritual Embrace of the Routine

Here are some ordinary tasks of life that you may enjoy, may moderately enjoy, may moderately dislike, or may find much too mundane. 

·         Getting gas for your car

·         Buying groceries

·         Attending church with the same people every week

·         Giving your pet dog a bath

·         Washing your car by hand or going through the drive through

·         Cutting the grass, trimming the hedges

·         Ironing clothes in preparation for work

·         Doing the laundry and washing dishes

·         Checking your email

·         Monitoring your finances online

·         Making a visit to someone who may or may not respect your time

·         Doing homework

·         Going for a six month dental cleaning

·         Moving the clock back one hour or ahead during “time change”

·         Working at the same job with the same people

Life can be so ordinary.  It’s sometimes tempting to look for the more glitzy and exciting parts of life instead of embracing the routine.  What if the State Fair or Coastal Carolina Fair happened every weekend of the year?  It would probably lose its special fanfare with the citizens.   Having the State Fair once a year for two weeks in the fall makes it distinctive.  Sometimes finding meaning in the mundane takes work.  For me it’s part of being human, and so is the work of maintaining my body, my car, my house appliances, and my soul. 

Moving into the ordinary tasks of life can be meaningful even if their completion is not very glamorous.  Tending to one’s soul is connected to the routine parts of life like shaving, bathing, exercising, sleeping, and eating.  In our routines we accept the world as it is and not as we wish it would be.  We embrace the basic, the simple, the routines as God’s world and our work.  We need the ordinary and we need the special.  Embracing both the distinctive and routine will let us fully accept our human condition, its struggle, and its demand to do the sometimes hard tasks of life.  For students that means studying and writing research papers on difficult topics which is never easy.  Yet, in the routine and mundane and daily tasks we accept our true humanity. 

The birds of air teach us so much.  I am amazed at how birds build a nest, one stick and one piece of weed at a time and one step at a time.  It’s the way of the animal world.  It’s our way too.  One task and one step we move closer to knowing ourselves and God our Creator.   Self-awareness and connection to God are both mundane and profound and probably ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.   Let us ponder the routine and ordinary and in them find our life.  Amen.  

Blessing Your City: Post "Hurricane Matthew"

Jeremiah 29:7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Hurricane Matthew just blew a path of destruction through Haiti, Cuba, and other Caribbean countries, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and eventually North Carolina.  All of us live in our own countries and our cities.   Through the years some cities become more near and dear to our hearts.  Some cities we are glad to leave watching them from one’s rear view car mirror.  Which city is closest to your heart?  Which city do your truly care about and work for its welfare?  I am challenged by the above scripture to work for the welfare of my own city.  Today that would be the cities of Columbia-Irmo.

Here is a list of cities where I have lived as a teenager and adult:

King of Prussia, PA
San Antonio, TX
San Angelo, TX
West Chester, PA
Fort Worth, TX
Summerville, SC
Dallas, NC
Columbia-Irmo, SC

Each of the above places, cities and population has been unique and special for me.  Most of them are large cities but Dallas and Summerville are the two smaller towns.  I have tried to put down roots in each place and I have worked to be helpful to the larger community.  In some cases it was obvious that the city was more of way station on my spiritual path to the next place.  For example, I lived in Fort Worth as a seminary student and never intended to stay there afterwards.

My daughter Heather went to college in Spartanburg, SC.  They call the city “Sparkle City” because it is so clean.  They also call it Hub City because of all the railroads that run through it.  Most importantly Heather has consistently talked, tweeted, texted, and posted on Face Book all of the ways she values the city and how she has helped make it better.  Even last week while working at USC-Upstate she helped college students and others get registered to vote for the 2016 general election.  She is also involved and supportive of urban gardens.  She is truly integrated into the work and social life of the city. She is committed to Spartanburg’s welfare and it is truly inspirational to me.  

"Becoming"

Old Man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you. That's what Neil Young sang.


Jesus called us to follow him and to become like God. That's what Jesus said.
 
Yet becoming somewhat like dad or mom means I have become a little something that I never expected.
 
Becoming involves destiny and genes, culture and powerful stories, which all hide deep in my soul.

Becoming is a hidden work. It shows me my genetic history and my living story that are layered like the earth's crust.


Becoming a little like dad or mom is rather unexpected.  It's ok and I want to become who I am meant to be.


Like dad and mom, it was meant to be.  How could it not be?  It was set in the code even before I knew me.


Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you. O God, take a look at my life, may I be more like you.

(9/6/2016)

Work Anniversaries: Staying, Growing, and Becoming

I just celebrated the 15^th anniversary at my current place of employment.  Staying and growing in one place has many benefits.  I would like to share a few:

Staying gives opportunity to build trusting relationships and to prove oneself to be helpful and supportive to others and the larger mission.  Yesterday’s successes don’t guarantee today’s success but it does make it more likely when strength is built upon strength.

Someone once said that the 30 year pastor has 30 years' experience.  Year one was the same as year 30.  Nothing changed much and the person and the organization benefited little.  Growth and adaptation are needed to ensure one is a contributing and helpful member of the larger work system.

There is always a new challenge and something new to achieve.  One has to seek out new opportunities and even ask for them.  I try to be open and flexible and ask for new ways to serve and grow.

Deep and lasting relationships are built and make the workplace enjoyable and rewarding.  Lifelong friendships are built.  Feedback is easier to give and receive when we have longevity and trust with work associates and colleagues. 

Finally, I try never to take my work for granted.  Milestones and work anniversaries help one to track progress and to plan new goals and help one to chart increased effectiveness and efficiency.    

Teamwork: How Losing 66 to -1 Won't Go Away

Winning is a team sport.  Losing is a team sport.  I prefer winning.

When we moved to Summerville from Fort Worth, Texas in 1993 I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to learn that our home was about 32 miles to Folly Beach and Summerville High School had a powerhouse football team and even had a wrestling team.  The wrestling team part was the biggest surprise since I had assumed that it was more of a northern sport with so many of the great wrestling states located up north and in the north central part of the USA.  Those states would include (very partial list) Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Iowa, and just for fun Oklahoma from the southwest part of the country.

Somewhere in the mid to late 1970’s I was a part of the Upper Merion recreational wrestling league.  It was more serious than recreational since many of us wrestled in the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) junior Olympics.  It was serious fun and serious work.  Just ask some of my buddies who wrestled with our very serious “win at all costs coach” Dale Irwin!  Anyway, one weekend our group traveled to Phillipsburg, NJ where our team lost 66 to -1!  I kid you not.  That score means that most of our team got pinned (not good) and then our coach was given a technical for acting up and henceforth the -1.  It was rather humiliating and Phillipsburg was just that good, extremely good.  I guess I should have added New Jersey to the list above. 

Team scoring in wrestling is a cumulative matter.  There are about 12 matches and every match produces a winner and a score.  I think a “pin” gets one team 6 points and then lesser for points for win or winning by a great amount.  For example winning 12-1 can get a team an extra point.  It’s cumulative and one’s own match and outcome ultimately affects the team.  Isn’t that true in life too?  It’s true for work, family, neighborhoods, cities and countries.  Small wins do matter.  Small wins lead to big wins and team wins.  Losing 66 to -1 was epic.  I can’t remember a personal sports event where my team lost so badly.   Losing like winning can be cumulative as well.  Our individual performances matter.  Winning and losing are team outcomes and determined by our individual performance.  I prefer winning and I imagine you do too.  Let us always remember that our individual performance does matter.  Winning is truly a team sport.  

Still Learning from a Missed Opportunity from 1989

I had the privilege of working with Dr. Paul Broyles who was a Baptist minister who was trained and schooled at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky during its days of academic height and stature in the middle to late 1960’s.  In 1988 he was the pastor of a new Baptist church plant, Southern Baptist, in the suburbs of Philadelphia (West Chester).  The church met at The New Century Club which was the Women’s Club that started the first free kindergarten in 1899 in West Chester.  The church, Emmanuel Baptist, would eventually be the place of my ordination to ministry and so it holds a special place in my heart.  

Dr. Broyles invited this young, 25 year old, new missionary and minister in training to learn the art and craft of interpreting scripture and writing and delivering a good sermon.  Paul was a thoughtful, moderate, very well educated Baptist minister but not even those credentials would push me over the edge to accept his invitation to learn from a proven preacher, a gifted minister, and a fine gentleman.  I was too interested in learning the crafts on my own--the hard way, trial and error.  I wish I would have taken him up on his offer to help me learn the craft.  I really missed a golden opportunity to learn from him but maybe I learned an even greater lesson than I first imagined.  I learned the lesson that learning from others is a give and take process.  It’s a matter of opening oneself and being willing to learn and grow.  That’s a hard lesson for 25 year old who is sold on the idea of “pulling himself up by his own bootstraps.”  

Looking back some 28 years, now, I can see that I was doing the best I could.  I was more interested in my own learning than learning from others.  Even today I have not forgotten that missed opportunity.  I still have fond thoughts of Dr. Broyles and his patient, kind, and gracious approach to Christian ministry.  Missed opportunities are sometimes life’s greatest lessons.  

A Shared Poem on Hope

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

Related Poem Content Details

BY EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - 

That perches in the soul - 

And sings the tune without the words - 

And never stops - at all - 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - 

And sore must be the storm - 

That could abash the little Bird 

That kept so many warm - 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - 

And on the strangest Sea - 

Yet - never - in Extremity, 

It asked a crumb - of me.