Our task today is recklessness.
For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature,
We lack a holy rage.The recklessness that comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.
The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets . .
and when the lie rages across the face of the earth —
a holy anger about things that are wrong in the world.To rage against the ravaging of God's earth,
and the destruction of God's world.
To rage when little children must die of hunger,
when the tables of the rich are sagging with food.
To rage at senseless killing of so many,
and against the madness of the militaries.
To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction — peace.
.
To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change
human history until it conforms with the norms of the kingdom of God.– A peom by Kaj Munk, a Danish pastor killed by the Gestapo in 1944. Cited in Exiles by Michael Frost, and The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.
Month: April 2008
Firstly Kevin Carroll author of the Red Runner Ball, did a shoutout about my very out of date block. You can read it here. http://kevincarrollkatalyst.com/index.php/blog/shoutout_thursday/
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1OHz0zJaWg&hl=en]
I was blown away, and humbled that Kevin, wrote about me. The net and social networking perplex me alot.
Some posts I wrote in the last month:
I Think I Do… @ lead2live.com
Mowing the lawns … oh JOY! @ lead2live.com
sexy @ lead2live.com
Imagine you’re at a wedding and the Minister asks the Groom. “Will you take Jane to be your wife?” and then the Groom responds, “I think I do”.
To that question there is only one correct answer. One of action. “I do!”
How many people do you know, that know the right thing to do? They could fix the process, eliminate the stress, mend the relationship, change the world and yet do nothing.
Doesn’t it really bug you when other people don’t take action and just complain about the problem. It is so flippin annoying.
Yes flippin I say!
The problem is not that they don’t think, but that they don’t do. Why cant they just get on and do something. Anything. Now!
Why do some people have all the knowledge I ask myself, and yet do nothing?
Why? In a John Campbell voice.
Clearly, I have decided, there are two kinds of people. “I think” people whom think and never do. And “I do” people who actually make things happen.
Two kinds of people.
And for the record “I think” people really flippin bug me!
So with that in mind which one are you?
Unfortunately …
I am both … and I flippin bug myself.
One of my earliest childhood memories is chasing my father around the lawn with my toy lawn mower. Not surprisingly this wore off in my teens when I was forced to actually mow the lawns with a crappy old lawn mower that you had to start with an electric drill.
Nowadays I actually like mowing my lawns. (You will notice I said my lawns; I probably wouldn’t enjoy mowing your lawns.)
Mowing my lawns brings some form of escapism and satisfaction. I plug in my MP3 player, zone out and get an uninterrupted hour to myself. The satisfaction comes from completion, the finished product, and it looks good.
Over the weekend I was mowing the lawns and Jayden woke up and decided he would take his plastic lawn mower and “help” me mow the lawns.
He starts by zig zagging all over the place, bouncing around like a rabbit on steroids. At first I think it is cute and it brings a smile to my face. After a while it becomes outright dangerous as he cuts in front of me and instigates lawn mower head on collisions.
My frustration starts to set in. Not because it is genuinely dangerous but because he interrupted my routine, my thoughts, MY time!
I start to get annoyed, and at that precise moment I miss the point of life.
Jayden was having fun, enjoying life while his old man was selfish, grumpy and annoyed. The five minutes extra it took to have fun with my son, was just 5 minutes I would spend on the couch later that day.
I was reminded that I need to be joyful. To delight in everything. In all things. To make my sons day.
Joy, afterall, is something God wants us all to have.
Strangely, the times I have the least joy seem to be the times that I am self-centered and concerned more for my problems and myself. My needs become more important that the needs of my son or my family or my friends … or … people!
In order to live vividly we need to take every opportunity to experience joy.
So … What if I focused less on myself and more on bringing joy to those around me? What would happen to me if I did this? Would I experience more or less joy?