Tag Archives: perspective

Snow days, a little perspective & other musings… + a current read

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It snowed last Wednesday. And when I say, “It snowed” I mean it snowed about 9″ in just a couple of hours. From nothing to “we’re headed to a snow-pocalypse.” It was interesting to hear how the sudden intrusion of winter weather into our January affected peoples’ sense of well-being. There was a plethora of cries of “Woe” at the thought of having to drive in the snow (I get it.)

Others bemoaned the onslaught of what could only be the beginning of The Long Winter in which our snowfall would probably rival the worst (best?) in the Nevada history. (Remember February 2019? The month where it snowed more than 26 feet in 28 days? THAT was a lot of snow.) 

Still others celebrated the forced slow down (stoppage? limit?) that a heavy snow inevitably enforces on the peoples’ lives where it falls. That Thursday was full of school cancellations & delays, Official Declarations from the State of Nevada, & (much) longer times in the car as the snow (coupled with frigid temperatures) combined to create virtual ice-rinks all over Northern Nevada as people crept & slid & spun from place to place, longing for a day when the Snow Would Someday Be Gone.

Fast-forward to today – Tuesday – a mere 5 days removed from the carnage that that particular storm wrought upon the land & the people. Just about ALL the snow & ice is gone, save for some piled high from the plowing of huge parking lots. The temperatures are settling into the high 40s & even low 50s #FTW. All the worry, all the anxiety, all the doom & gloom about the pain & suffering that Would Come from the Snows is all but forgotten. 

5 days. What a difference it makes.

The last 5 days of rising temperatures (sure its not Summer or even Spring, but it was 51F yesterday) revealed that though we got hammered with snow on 1/10, it wasn’t the end of the world nor the beginning of the Snow Times. The last 5 days provide us with much needed perspective & a strong reminder that no matter what we’re getting hit with in the moment, there is most likely relief coming in the (very) near future. 

This speaks to me on a multitude of levels… about dealing with rising stress & challenges at work; navigating relational difficulties & conflicts; walking amidst spiraling mindsets, the blues, & other anxieties. 

Perspective. Time. A lifting of the head beyond the immediate, looking to the One who provides not only our help in times of trouble (all of them, all kinds,) but also gives us perspective, perhaps allowing us to see, if only for a moment, from His perspective. Which reminds me… iDoey & family came over the other day to take care of business (showers & washing clothes) because their hot water heater is in process of getting replaced. We’re just a couple weeks post Christmas, so the grandkids brought a Christmas present to play with. 9 year old Lucs got a remote controlled crab that looks all mechanical & steam-punk, & it moves really fast… & it freaks his (almost) 3 year old sister, Jane, out to no end, which probably makes playing with it 10x more fun. But not for Jane. She cried & ran & practically jumped into my arms, & began complaining about the “spider” & how much she didn’t like it… but from the perspective of my arms, it was ok. She still didn’t like it. She definitely didn’t want to get down (didn’t mind that one bit). But she was ok. Because she was safe.

Same for us. Same. Check out Psalm 121.

In other news, I just started reading a book that I’d picked up in the last year or so, (anybody else have “gonna get to them” book piles?) called “When Narcissism Comes to Church,” by Chuck DeGroat. Seems like the word “narcissism” is thrown around more & more on the daily, & people with seemingly self-centered, exploitive, bad-behavior towards others are given the title or label of being a “Narcissist.” I’ve done a bit of research on my own exploring the Cluster B personality types, & I’ve also seen (& heard of) a lot of very bad & even abusive behavior from people leading in the context of church (pastors & other church leaders.) 

A couple things that stand out to me so far (still only 2 chapters in:) NOTE: These aren’t points the author makes; they are just my ‘takes’ on what I’m reading in light of what I’ve seen.

  • The American church “system” seems to be especially susceptible towards narcissistic behavior, because we are drawn to superstars & superheroes, as if the pastors & leaders of our churches are Something Special, kind of like the Heroes of the Bible who were chosen because of their incredible giftings & abilities. (Wait. No. They were actually chosen to show the power of God & HIS abilities to work the miraculous & impossible, EVEN through the insignificant, very normal people He chose.) We (America) want bigger than life; we want special; we want charisma. And we’re often willing to overlook terrible behaviors for the “greater good” of “look at all God is doing in/through/around them.”
  • In a world that idolizes influencers & those with huge social media platforms, the church joins right in & champions church leaders, men & women who often seem to be utilizing the Gospel Good News for what it can get for them. (It’s not a new phenomena: Paul references those who preach the gospel out of selfish ambition & envy HERE.) 

I’m interested to see what else pops up & stands out over the next 10 or so chapters… & as I’m reading, I feel more & more led to embrace the “Jesus-style” service approach to life.

So, what DO you have?

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I was reading in the Gospels the other day & came across the account often referred to as “Jesus feeds the 5000.”  Here’s a sum up:

Jesus & His disciples are dead tired. They’ve been working & interacting with large crowds of people seeking out Jesus for who knows how long. Jesus invites the disciples to “come away” to a secluded place to rest… but on the way, a few people spot Jesus, & they tell a few friends, who tell a few friends, who tell a few friends… you get the picture. Eventually, when Jesus & the disciples get to their “come away” spot, they find that there’s a crowd of more than 5000 waiting for them. Jesus has compassion on them & teaches them… for a long time. At the end of the day, some of the disciples come to Jesus & say, “Hey! It’s been a long day. We were tired when we started, but NOW we’re toast. Would you please send the people away so they can GO HOME & get some FOOD to eat?”

Jesus’ response? “You feed them.”

Immediately, the disciples responded with all of the reasons they COULDN’T feed the crowds; chief among the reasons (excuses?) was that they DID NOT have enough.

Not enough money to buy food.

Not enough food among them for the crowds to share.

Big problem – no solution (that they could see.)

Jesus, however, asks them a question, “So, what DO you have? Fish? Loaves of bread? What DO you have?”

After taking stock of potential resources, they return with the answer, “2 fish & 5 loaves of bread. THAT”S not going to go very far when it comes to feeding THIS crowd.”

It was as though Jesus hadn’t even heard them… after they told Him what they DID have, He simply instructed the disciples to tell the crowds to sit down in manageable groups, & that they’d start the food distribution in a minute.

I wonder what was running through the disciples minds as they were herding tired & hungry (& hangry?) individuals into groups of 50 & 100. “We’re supposed to be telling these people to sit down & wait for FOOD? When we don’t have enough for 2 hungry dudes, let alone 5000. What are we gonna do?”

Jesus took the bread, blessed it & gave thanks, then gave it to the disciples to pass out. “This won’t take long,” they had to be thinking. And then Jesus took the fish, blessed it & gave thanks, & passed it on to the disciples for distribution.

And distribute they did.

“Where is the food coming from?” they wondered. “We started with 5 loaves & 2 fish, & now we’re working on our 10th group of 100, & there is still  MORE food to pass out. What’s going on?” 

All the while person after person, big group after big group were fed to the point of fullness… & there was still more food. Jesus sent the disciples out to gather up the leftovers (Waste not, want not), & by the time they were finished & the last of the crowds were waddling on their way home, they’d collected 12(!) small baskets full of leftover bread & fish. What they had at the END of their feast was MUCH more than what they’d started with.

It’s funny to me how different Jesus’ perspective is from His disciples – they both can see the challenges in front of them:

  • We’re all tired & hungry
  • The crowds here are HUGE
  • We don’t have enough money to buy food
  • We don’t have enough food to share with everyone

However, instead of focusing on the (very real) issues of not having enough of multiple resources to accomplish the task, Jesus challenges (invites?) the disciples to THINK DIFFERENTLY. Instead of focusing on what they DON’T have, how about exploring what they DO have.

It’s a subtle, but significant shift. Jesus is inviting His disciples to evaluate & weigh the challenges in front of them seeing their contribution of loaves & fish as a PART, (not the whole) solution to the food dilemma. Basically, He’s asking, “What do we have to work with, to bring to Father God? What can we offer up to Him?”

Jesus’ actions of giving thanks & blessing the food wasn’t about “protecting the food.” No – it is about acknowledging that God has provided enough, for the task at hand, & that, coupled with faith-in-action of obedience (it took guts to start the food distribution for sure!) was enough for God to make a way & do FAR MORE with seemingly meager & insignificant amounts of food than they would’ve been able to do with lots of money & adequate time to plan. It’s like Jesus was inviting them to believe that God can (& will) do great things (in scope & in number) even if all we have to offer is a real small token (or a mustard seed portion of faith.)

Makes me wonder about the challenges I/we face… where the 1st thing that I usually do when examining the challenge is to review whether or not I have the resources to pull off working through/past the challenge… & sometimes I don’t even consider or remember to ask God what He has to say. I just pull a “we don’t have enough money/resources, etc… There’s no way…”

What if Jesus is wanting to issue the same sort of invitation to us that He did to His disciples 2000 years ago – the invitation to look at what we DO have vs. what we DON’T. Maybe He is inviting us to submit ourselves & our resources to Him & to THANK Him for His provision & to BLESS what He’s given us & then to look to take steps of obedience, wherever He’s directing us.

It’s a definite shift in perspective & requires a bit of stepping back from practicality, feasibility, & sometimes even logic. Jesus’ perspective seems to be, “I can do MORE with the little you have to offer than you can at your best, fully resourced & ready to go. TRUST Me, put your FAITH in Me, & don’t merely look at what you DON”T have to take on the task at hand; consider what you DO have…”

What situations are you currently facing that Jesus might be asking you to evaluate, “What DO you have?”

If Jesus was to ask you, “What DO you have?” what would your response be?

Monday Musings on “September” day…

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“Do you remember the 21st night of September?
Love was changing the minds of pretenders
While chasing the clouds away…” – 

One of our favorite movies is “Dan in Real Life.” (BTW: if you haven’t seen this one yet, it is time. And if you have seen it, it is time to watch it.) And one of our favorite scenes in the movie is the “family workout on the front lawn” scene where they do some Jazzercise (?) to Earth, Wind, & Fire’s “September.” (Stop, click on the link, & dance! You’ll thank me later.)  I needed that today.

I’m finding myself sending out a lot more “Help me God’ quick prayers lately. Feels like we’ve been “knee-deep in the proverbial alligators” for a while & it is only getting more intense. Also, I’m thankful for the Psalms. Just about every day, I find one in my daily reading that says EXACTLY what I want to say/pray… & so I make it my own & pray/read it.

Had a conversation with a 20something the  other day & realized that the majority of my “pop-culture” references (stories, analogies, & the like) are older than they are… which can really undermine the whole point of the analogy.

On that note, I turned 51 on Saturday. That probably has a lot to do with the previous observation. I’m contemplating starting sentences with “Back in my day…” (Not really. But I could.)

I have a confession – I am a serial book collector. And I currently have a stack of new (to me) books that I haven’t read; that stack continues to grow & (sometimes, like today) that stack seems to be looming over my desk like an insurmountable peak that will never be climbed. Over the years, I’ve tried to self-impose a moratorium on all future book buying until I thin the herd of current selections. (BTW – the new stack always has competition from my “old friend” books; you know, the ones that you re-read every year or 2? That stack isn’t shrinking either.) Inevitably, I hear about/read about a book that sounds SO interesting or good that I just have to make an exception for the book. And I buy it. And I put it on the stack.

A few of my favorite books to re-read:

  • Tom Clancy’s “Jack Ryan” & “Jack Ryan, Jr.” series
  • Conan –Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes” collections
  • Pretty much anything CS Lewis, but especially “Mere Christianity,” “The Chronicles of Narnia,” & “The Space Trilogy.”
  • Same for JRR Tolkien, though “The Lord of the Rings” is my favorite of his.
  • Same for Eugene Peterson – I love to re-read, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction,” regularly, as well as a handful of his other classics.
  • Jerry Cook’s “Love, Acceptance, & Forgiveness,” “The Monday Morning Church,” & “A Few Things I’ve Learned Since I Knew It All.”

What are your “go-to’s” for re-reading? What are your current reads?

Waking up & being able to see across the valley is underrated. Here’s to the fires in the vicinity (all of them actually) getting under control. The smoke can GO AWAY, post haste. Please & thank you.

I love talking to my elders (those who have a few years more experience & life under their belts.) I love getting their perspectives on our current difficulties, & hearing how they’ve experienced life disruptions (similar to the current one) at various times in their own lives. Inevitably, I come away encouraged, strengthened, & more resolved(?) to keep on keeping on.

A rainy day or 10 right about now would be greatly appreciated. (With no thunder & lightning, please.)

I’m discovering, more & more, that intentionally (& daily)  practicing gratefulness & thanksgiving has a way of completely shifting my outlook on life… for the better.

Happy Monday to you –

cause & effect…?

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I’ve been reading in the Book of Job for the last few days. It’s been a while since I read it, & I really want to see it with new & fresh eyes, to approach it without preconceived ideas from past trips through the book… so I changed Bible translations to the ESV.

Lots of things are standing out to me – one is that I must acknowledge that there is a huge temptation to read the first couple of chapters of Job where the setting of his story is laid out, then to skip ahead to Job 38-42 where God intervenes & speaks to Job, & restores him. The middle part, the body of the book, complete with the back & forth between Job & his friends, has always been really tough for me to get into, let alone to carefully read or study. Maybe it was just me being lazy. Hmmm.

This time through, I’m finding that the whole “Job’s friends” section has come alive to me… I’m riveted to the interchanges Job has with Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, & Elihu.

Job, a “an upright & blameless man who feared God, & turned away from evil,”  has lost his children & his possessions; he’s suffering with boils all over his body, & his wife is nagging at him to just “curse God & die.” The series of tragedies make no sense to Job, & he can think of  no ‘reason’ why these things have happened to him.

Cause. Effect.

His friends know, they KNOW that Job HAS to have done something to deserve what has happened to him. They know that God doesn’t punish the righteous, so if Job was truly righteous, then… You get the idea.

They’re looking at the Effect in Job’s life: the death, the loss, the health issues, & try to find the Cause. Some hidden sin in Job’s life that would have provided the Just Reason for the suffering he endured.

But they were looking in the wrong places. Drawing the wrong conclusions. And they were making Job’s terrible situation even worse in the process.

Cause. Effect.

I have some perspective on the Book of Job, so it would be easy to throw rocks at his friends.

But I know that I do the same thing they did… I look for the ’cause & effect.’ Try to connect the dots. Quote (misquote?) Galatians 6 about sowing & reaping. And just like his friends, I might, just might be looking in the wrong place. At the wrong things. Drawing the wrong conclusions. Because my perspective is limited & I don’t have all the information I’d need to see it differently.

Thinking.

Maybe some of the difficulties I’ve wrestled (& am currently wrestling) through, things that I think I ‘know’  what the problem is, stuff I’ve been trying to ‘fix’ for days & years… is really something completely different. And maybe it has a cause that I don’t even know about, because I’ve wrongly read the effects, wrongly drawn conclusions… Hmmm.

a perspective shift…

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Today, I had to go to DMV to register the New Ex, acquired last week to replace the Old Ex, which had been totaled the weekend of 2/28. Now, going to DMV is not my idea of a good time, & the closing of the DMV Express has only served to make my reticence increase. However, today was as good of a day as I would get to go – not much on the calendar, & for all intents & purposes, a slow day in the life of scoey d.

Got my SMOG certification. Double checked to make sure the title was signed in all the right places. Gathered the VIN inspection paperwork. Got a copy of the “proof of insurance.” Took a deep breath & headed over to the DMV.

Seems like no matter how long its been between visits, DMV never changes. How many other places in life do you have to wait in line to get the opportunity to wait in line yet AGAIN to have your vehicular issues addressed? But I digress.

The line was long. Really long. Like for Indiana Jones @ Disneyland in the heart of the summer. People to my left & right decided it wasn’t worth the wait. But, I, resigned to the fact that this was My Day to register the New Ex, stepped boldly into the line. My special brain helped me count that there were only 77 people in front of me.

Sigh.

While I stood in line, I determined not to complain or grumble. I’d like to say it was because I am Such a Good & Mature Individual, but in reality, I was merely responding to the grumpy, frustrated, angry individuals around me; those that took the opportunity, time & time again, to voice their displeasure at having to wait. At bureaucracies in general & in specific. At the injustice of waking up to snow again, this far into Spring. & the list went on.

I spent 1 hour 15 minutes in that line. And when I finally arrived at the Info Desk, I hurriedly & prayerfully submitted all of my carefully prepared paperwork, hoping beyond hope that I had done all that was necessary to register the New Ex. My clerk was not easy to read. Her brow furrowed with concern. My mind & heart raced. She called in backup to review my documents. Again. And…

I was given a number. G485. Booyah! Now to wait for my turn.

Turns out, the next number called was G440. Meaning I was only 45 numbers (or so,) away from getting Dealt With by the DMV. Fortunately, I brought my books to study & multitask – prepping for next Sunday’s speech.

Only took another hour to get my number called. Have to say that after 2 hours, 15 minutes of waiting, I wasn’t in the best of moods, but I was ok. Ready to go back to work. And a bit exultant & giddy at finally Getting to the window.

And yet I was blown away by the tech that helped me.

She was absolutely exuding contentedness. She had a grin on her face that didn’t fit the circumstances surrounding us. I asked her how she was doing, how her day was.

She absolutely gushed:

I’m having a WONDERFUL day. It’s so beautiful. And I am so happy. I love that I have a job. I feel so fortunate to be able to do something that I enjoy, to help people. Life is SO good!

I was taken aback by my encounter; not expecting such a response, especially in the dreariness, rush, & general irritated atmosphere of the DMV. And yet…

I was touched. Reminded. Joy isn’t circumstantial. Sometimes what is necessary is a shift in perspective, to look at life through a different set of glasses. With hope.

Thanks Kathy.