Standing on the edge and looking down

I have a bad case of HDBS (High Diving Board Syndrome). I remember the symptoms from my former kindergartners. They wanted, very much, to go to kindergarten. They shopped with their mothers for school supplies, bravely endured booster shots and were excited to see me at home visit time. But, when they showed up at the kindergarten door, they just couldn't make themselves dive in.

I am prepared and ready for the semester to start. I am looking forward to my classes and getting ready to teach 80 students. I know it will be a good semester, in that, it will be interesting and challenging. I assume I will learn many things, both from my teachers, as well as my students.

But, the tightness in my stomach says I am looking off the edge of the diving board and I don't want to dive in.

The "what ifs" are lurking near, too. What if I can't keep up with my homework load? What if my students don't like me? What if I forget where I am and put one of them in the "calming down chair?" What if I can't . . .what if this doesn't. . . .what if, what if, what if? I can only handle so much uncertainty.

Hope is not an "if." Hope is an assurance. I can jump off of this diving board and know that I will hit the water. Maybe I will glide in smoothly and come up for air, exhilarated by the dive. Or, maybe I will belly flop. I don't know what will happen between the board and the water but I know God is encouraging me. I know God will catch me. No matter what happens, God will bring good out of the events of the semester.

Confidence is a tricky thing; too much and you do not adequately prepare; too little and you run from the challenge or handicap your own efforts. My faith teaches me to have no confidence and to have every confidence. I know that the old Adam in me will mess this up. I will forget details, say something I shouldn't, teach something wrong. I have confidence that I do NOT have the abilities to pull this off on my own. The new creature in me knows that with God, everything is possible; everything is good.

With hope and faith, the water doesn't look so far away from the edge of the diving board.

But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, Who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. II Thessalonians 2: 13-17

Sandwich, please

I am a card-carrying member of the sandwich generation. I slid in on the tail end of the baby boomers; way ahead of any of the younger, hipper, technologically savvy generations. I am sandwiched in between elderly parents and children not quite on their own. My life is layered with responsibilities, promises to keep, tasks to attend to, and no place to turn for solace. Lathered over the top of that sandwich is a nice dollop of guilt that slides down my finger threatening to leave a stain on my lap.

Hold on . . .I think I have a piece of lettuce in my hair.

Some days I literally don't know if I am coming or going. Am I moving gracefully into the next stage of my life? If I am, I seem to be dragging the last stage along with me. Am I leaving behind the previous stage? Only if I am done raising my own parents, who seem to need me now, more than ever.

I am starting to feel the bread closing in on me. Can I be a salad, instead?

Somewhere in between the parents and the children, under the cheese but on top of the sliced turkey, is me. I am there, trying to keep the tomato from sliding out, while desperately trying to hold on to the bacon. I am there, wondering what I am supposed to do next; wondering who I am; wondering why I am here.

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

Jesus didn't come so I could be a sandwich. He didn't come so I could feel pulled in too many directions. He didn't come so I could be content with wrapping myself in my life and responsibilities only to ignore the world full of ministry outside of my little life.

He came that I may have life and have it to the full.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Psalm 34:8-11

I am going to wash that lettuce right out of my hair. I am going to grab those pieces of bread and be a sandwich to the best of the abilities God has given me. Whatever I am doing; it's all good. It's all God; and God is good.

Creative Confusion

It was my turn to lead discussion for class on Tuesday. The topic assigned to me was "creativity" and we had just finished reading several research papers on creativity and motivation. In earlier discussion of the research I had expressed my dismay at what was deemed creative behavior. The action of creativity had been divided up into small parts and students were assumed to be creative if they could write several different titles for stories. Their creativity was simply the generation of ideas. My interpretation: the students were simply taught an interesting game.

I began my discussion by talking about the action of riding a bike. In riding a bike the whole is more than the sum of the parts. If you teach a child to ride a bike by having him practice on a bike that is propped up on its kickstand, that child will not be learning what is necessary to actually ride. You have to learn to ride a bike by actually riding it. I believe the same is true of creativity. If you want to understand that amazing process, you have to watch it while it is happening. You cannot recreate it in a lab, and test it a small piece at a time. You will be looking at the parts, but not understanding the whole.

Apparently, many educational psychologists disagree with me. Oh, well.

This weekend a group of atheists and agnostics are having a conference on UNL's city campus. UNL has made it clear it is not sponsoring the group. A representative for Campus Crusade for Christ has announced they have no intention, or reason, to protest, and would hope this group would not protest their future gathering. Have you ever thought about what you would say to a group of non-believers? I am intrigued by how they like to divide faith in God, into teeny tiny parts that then can be discredited. This somehow brings them comfort, or perhaps a sense of control. In one sense they are correct; if you divide faith into small parts it is ridiculous and incredulous.

The problem is, this analysis does not bring understanding; it only creates confusion. God cannot be reduced to thought molecules that can be examined under an electron microscope. He is God. He is not parts; He is Alpha and Omega. Likewise, faith cannot be divided up and scrutinized, either. Faith comes from God. It is whole. It is living. It is efficacious. It is our personal part of God's love. It is beyond analysis.

Just as researchers are not learning about creativity by putting the behavior of "brainstorming" under the microscope, atheists are not learning about what faith really is by making lists of why it cannot be true. You must see faith in action, you must experience faith, you must be blessed by faith, and even then you do not understand it. But, in that action you become a precious child of God and that is enough.

God is not a God of confusion but of peace. I Corinthians 14:33

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. James 1:5

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3: 17-19

Wait! I’m not ready!

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2: 8-10

Ephesians chapter two was my Bible reading for today. This is a familiar verse, one I probably memorized for confirmation. As is common, when we are led by the Spirit through scripture, today it has a fresh meaning for me.

I am focusing on the last phrase "to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." The thought that circles in my poor addled brain is this: He prepared the works in advance; it doesn't say He prepared me in advance.

And boy, am I feeling that truth right now. I am, learning all over again, how to write papers with lots of the redundancies that make my past editors cringe. All my years of learning how to write have not prepared me for keeping professors happy; yet, this is the work He has prepared for me in advance.

I feel disoriented about many things for which I feel woefully unprepared. 26 years of teaching young children math, a GRE math score that puts me in the bottom 1/3 (excuse me, at least two standard deviations below the mean) and the work He has prepared for me includes statistics?

26 years of teaching children how to understand what they read and another 10 years of teaching adults how to teach comprehension and now I need to be able to read APA style (Barney, 1997) which puts (Dinglefritz, 2005) stupid (Carbuncle, 2009) references in the middle (Hoosenfuss, 1977) (Peabody, 2001) (Jingleheimer, et al, 2008) of what you are trying to understand.

26 years of wiping noses and solving petty arguments and now I am reading journal articles that are a whole new level of petty arguments. These are solved, not with familiar playground banter, but with huge meta-analysis studies. Yet, they still sound like "but, he said . . . ." Can you even put a theorist in a time-out?

This prepared me . . . how?

The only thing in my past that is working for me is years of convincing administrators that my idea is really their idea so they will be more comfortable allowing me to try it. (insert "professor" for "administrator").

Somehow I doubt this well honed skill will work with my committee. Sigh.

God doesn't prepare us in advance. He prepares us as we need it; sometimes the night before the test or moments before the paper is due. Sometimes He doesn't prepare us at all, and allows us to fail so we can learn something else. He doesn't dress us up in astronaut suits that take care of our every need, and put us in a ministry rocket that has been prepared and checked over and over again. He doesn't even warn us with a countdown. He simply sends us off; ready or not, here we go.

God does not prepare us in advance. God prepares the works in advance. He has the plan, He applies the grace. He knows where we are going to land and has prepared the work waiting for us.

Right now, I am selfishly praying for a soft landing.

Abba, father, amen.

Competent confusion

I was more confused than usual reading the chapter on competence. It was posted on-line and I had it blown up 200% to make reading a bit easier on my eyes. I couldn't shake the feeling that things were not making sense. I would be okay in the middle of the page but moving from page to page left me re-scrolling up and down to see if I had skipped something. Slowly it dawned on me: the pages were out of order: 62, 63, 60, 61, 58, 59, etc.

The really sad thing is it took me half an hour to figure it out.

The other day the research we read talked about testing motivation with reading passages that were purposefully confusing to see how long the subjects would persevere. I wondered if this is what the professor was attempting to replicate? I started to panic; what if I did not have the correct kind of motivation? What if I had an entity view of intelligence instead of the much more productive incremental view? What if my attributions were about blame which would obviously mean that I didn't have what it takes to succeed? What if all of this was in vain? Maybe my deepest fear is true – I am not competent to see this assignment to its completion.

Take a deep breath, have some chocolate, relax.

Our first discussion in this class was over a reading that basically took 20 pages of really big words to tell us that we cannot trust the meaning of any terms. Most of my studying this last year has been an effort to bring me up to speed on vocabulary, so I can hope to comprehend what is on the textbook page. Now they tell me that the words I have been writing down in my notes and committing to memory have no meaning.

It is times like these when it is really great to be a child of God. When you have faith you have certainty. When I worry that I am not good enough, or smart enough, or motivated enough; my faith reassures me that I am right. In fact, I can do nothing.

I am so very glad this doesn't depend on me. God is good enough, God is smart enough; God is in control. Sometimes He puts the pages in the right order and gives me a glimpse of His plan. Other times, He tells me to just keep on reading, writing, listening and learning.

When I read my psychology text books I get an interesting picture of mankind's folly. We strive to understand ourselves and how we think, work and hopefully, thrive in the world in which we live. The folly is in believing that we can understand ourselves. One of the researchers cited in my textbook is named Eccles. See if you don't think this is God's sense of humor:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher.

"Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

Eccles 1: 2

It is meaningless, isn't it? I don't mean to say the work God asks us to do is useless. He has a purpose for everything that happens and a promise to bring good out of it. It is just that it is meaningless to us because we are the children and not the Father; we are the tools and not the Artist. We are to trust and obey, to believe and have faith, to work and to wonder. We leave the meaning and the outcome up to God. Now that makes sense.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed,

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,

giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Colossians 3:17

Perfect peace

It's been a long week. It started with frustration and ended with grief. From the computer to the cat, we ran the gamut of stress and sadness. One thing piled on top of the other until I felt inundated. I had trouble ordering my text book for class, so, now I don't know if I will get one book or three books; I just know it will be late. The wireless router wouldn't work so I had to travel all over Lincoln to find a place where I could successfully download readings for the class. When I finally got copies of what I needed, reading them left me stunned and confused. By the middle of the week, the long term care facility, where Grandpa lives, called to tell us he is getting closer to hospice. Then the week finished with the kids and I taking our 22 year old cat for her last trip to the vet.

It is interesting how some things are easier to cry over than others.

At the moment we are blessed with unusually cool July weather. In 40 years of Nebraska summers, I don't remember another July day when I woke up to temperatures in the upper fifties, and left the windows open all day. A rare blessing, to sit out on the deck at this time of the year, and to feel God's love in a warm breeze. So tonight we will eat a picnic supper; enjoy chicken, corn-on-the-cob, and watermelon and we will thank our God for the goodness of a warm summer evening. We will laugh and tease and talk about the next cat. There will be spoken and unspoken memories about Grandpa. We will remember how God loves us.

And He does love us. He loves us when we are basking in the sun of happy events. He loves us when our confusion leads to anxiety and stress. He loves us when we face loss and when we anticipate the good that awaits us in heaven. He loves us.

Next week we will return to the frustrations of work and school. We will find ourselves looking for our cat in her favorite sunbeam spot. We will begin talking about what hospice means and what lies ahead for Grandpa and for us. And God will continue to love us in that perfect and complete way that sustains us, forgives us, saves us, and gives us peace.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him,

so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Is your life a spiral or helix?

A spiral is an interesting line. When flat it can be referred to as a whirl, when three dimensional it becomes a helix. It is common in both nature and human design, being a symbol for sun, starlight, and even hypnotism. It is a strong and efficient design as found in staircases and it is easy to doodle when one is bored with a lecture. My favorite spirals when I was young were those made by my Spirograph toy. I could sit for hours watching my pen create layers of colors and lines. Perhaps I was unknowingly practicing self-hypnotism.

A spiral could be a good metaphor for our lives. We often feel like we are traveling in a circle with the illusion that we are getting somewhere cruelly dashed as the same sight comes into view, once again. We try to venture into new territory but part of us wants to remain tethered so we simply travel in circles. I believe this describes my journey with sin, quite nicely.

I am losing my love for spirals.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7: 15-20

I think I am getting a little bit dizzy.

Now with a helix, the story is a bit different. A helix is a spiral with the center pulled up, like the curved edges on a screw. With a helix you are still traveling in a circle, you are still tethered to the center, but you are making progress by moving in space. If you draw a spiral on a piece of paper, then take a scissors and cut along your line, you can attach a string to the center and hang your helix from the ceiling. It will spin and twirl with the air in the room.

A helix is a more apt metaphor for what our life in Christ can be. We move about our world with our faith tethered to God's word and as we move about we progress ever closer to Him. It is a slow process. It is a careful process. And, in this process we are moved by the breath of the Spirit.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 'For in Him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17: 24-28

In a helix we still struggle with our tribulations and our sins. In a helix we remain tethered to the Word of God. As we move about the world, the faith God has given us will keep us from wandering away. But, in a helix we don't just travel in circles; we make progress. We live and move and have our being; as the Spirit moves us ever closer to Him.