How to Help Haiti

Everyone knows about the 7.0 earthquake that rocked Port-au-Prince Tuesday, Jan. 12. There are a lot of people who want to do something to help, and that’s good. If you have some real technical expertise (search and rescue, civil engineering, master plumber/electrician, licensed contractor, doctor, nurse, etc.), please connect with a team that is going there and contribute that way if you can.

There may be a temptation to send supplies directly, but the airports and sea ports are facing a bottleneck, so what you send may be stuck in customs literally for months. This was the case even before the earthquake. 

Donating money to reputable charities working in the area is the best way to go.  Here are a few that I can endorse without hesitation:

American Red Cross- They promise 100% of these donations will go to help in Haiti.

Haiti Outreach Mission-They send doctors and construction teams to Haiti annually. I’ve worked with them directly.

Baptist World Alliance- My church will be channeling our contribution(s) through this org. Support for the baptist hospital, schools, and churches in and around Port-au-Prince. They already have a search and rescue team on the ground.

Project Medishare- I’ve worked as an interpreter for them. They sent 11 doctors to Haiti withing 24 hours of the quake and are accepting donations to support that team.

Partners in Health- Led by Paul Farmer. They’ve set up a triage unit about 2 hours outside the capital and are working around the clock.

Doctors Without Borders- These Nobel Peace Prize Laureates have had a legitimate and trusted presence in Haiti for years.

I was privileged to spend 2 years in Haiti with the Peace Corps. Even before the earthquake, the poverty and desolation there were heartbreaking. Now, I can’t imagine. This is an opportunityfor EVERYONE to do something to help these people. If your pastor doesn’t mention this on Sunday, you have my permission to slap him or her silly, hijack the collection plates, and raise some money for this cause.

Just kidding, but why not call a pastor before Sunday and ask “what are we going to do?”

Whether you go to church or not, we all have to ask ourselves that very question.

10 Ways to Stay Young

Well, I celebrated another birthday this week. It was a terrific day, but still, none of us can run from reality. I have more family and job responsibility than ever before, not to mention gray hair!

Don’t get me wrong, I think people tend to get better as they get older, and I’ve written before about how I’m looking forward to life after 60. Still, even though the years will continue to pile on, I’ve put together a few ways to stay young. It’s not about fighting the aging process, but rather, embracing it.

1. Smile/Laugh often. Are you smiling right now? In about 98% of the circumstances life throws at us, a smile is not an inappropriate response. I realize that smiling can make you feel good, rather than waiting until you feel good to smile. And laughter exercises the diaphragm, nervous system, and organs, burns calories,  and promotes healing.

2. Keep active. I still play basketball every week, and I hold my own with younger guys. Sports are mental as well as physical, and I find that wisdom and perseverance can beat superior athletic ability. Now, will I be dunking and taking charges at 60? No. But maybe I’ll pick up golf or jogging or horseshoes by then. Kids play all day. If you want to stay young, you gotta play.

3. Never refer to myself as “the pastor” or “we”. When I say we, I mean “we,” as in my wife and me or my staff and me, but I’ve heard clergy people use the royal we like, “we are honored to be invited to speak today.” Who’s we?  You came by yourself. Are you talking about you and your Cadillac? You and your cuff links? You (all) are just asking for dementia to set in.

4. Remember age is just a number. I woke up on my 32nd birthday feeling “old.” That bothered me until I remembered that I woke up on my 15th birthday feeling “old” too. Same with 23. None of those ages is really old, it’s just a state of mind. I knew a guy who when asked how he was doing, always said, “not bad for an old man.” He was in his fifties–not a young buck but still full of vitality. He died at 60. Not saying his words killed him, but they couldn’t have helped.

5. Play with my kids. Elmo, the Smurfs, Spiderman, The Wiggles, The Princess and the Frog, that pit full of multicolored balls–this is the life when you’re raising young kids. But instead of just throwing a Thomas the Tank Engine at my 2 year old, I get down and play with him. Seeing the world from his point of view helps me with these next 2 ways of staying young….

6. Use my imagination. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut and a professional wrestler and a fireman all at once. I used to pretend that my house was a spaceship and the bathroom was the control tower. In my mind, it took off from its foundation and I had lasers to fire at the enemies….When you get “old,” you are told to stop letting your imagination run wild, which is really a shame. Letting it run wild as an adult while staying grounded in reality is the only to accomplish great things.

7. Keep learning. One of the things that I’m most proud of is the fact that I’m educated. But saying “I’m educated” is one of the most dangerous things you can say, because it implies that you have finished learning. For their own good, we force kids to memorize and learn whether they want to or not, and it’s important to do the same for ourselves. “When you stay green, you grow, but when you get ripe, you die.”

8. Don’t take “no” for an answer. Rejection is a part of life, but sometimes, as I’ve learned from kids, a no can turn into a yes pretty quickly. If a kid wants a graham cracker and you say no, they can really be persistent about it until you realize that they want to have it more than you don’t want them to have it. Anyone who ever has to ask for anything could learn from that. Once you’re “old,” you assume the worst and don’t even bother to ask.

9. Get more discipline. Kids don’t know much, so we set their bed times, control their diets, monitor their TV intake, spending, wardrobes, and just about every other aspect of their lives. Without that discipline, they would be in pretty bad shape. One of the good things about being an adult is that no one can tell you what to do, but looking at some of our lives, maybe we need someone telling us what to do.

10. Release the past. Two kids get into a fight over something trivial in the morning, and they’re sharing an ice cream cone by lunch. Two adults get in to a fight over something trivial, and they never speak again. Accumulating emotional baggage will not keep you young. Let it go. You are the one weighed down by all the anger and resentment you feel toward another. The fact that you’re so pissed you can’t sleep or eat is not hurting that other person in the least.

11. Don’t let society constrict me. A kid will walk around naked without shame, eat desert first, invent words, and use a fork for a comb. In 2010, I promise to do all of those things at some point! I’ll always play by the rules when it counts, but if you’re always chasing what everyone else is chasing, it’s guaranteed you’re missing what everyone else is missing, too. Besides, where is it written that your top 10 list can’t have eleven?

Two Thousand Ten or Twenty Ten

“Everyone” is saying that we are supposed to call this year “Twenty Ten.” I heard it on NPR and on the local TV news, so I guess that settles it.

It makes sense on some level. We called the years in the last century “nineteen” eighty this and “nineteen” ninety that, so these would logically be the “twenties” now. Still, I’m not so sure.

We were calling last year and all the years before that “two thousand” this and that. So why switch from “two thousand nine” to “twenty ten?” The only thing I can come up with is that it saves us a syllable.

Something is telling me that the “twenty” isn’t going to stick. I like saying “two thousand ten”–seems to naturally follow “two thousand nine” to me. And just because something is more efficient doesn’t mean society is going to embrace it.

Whatever “everyone” ultimately decides on this one, I’ll go with the flow. It just seems like people are trying too hard to make us call it “twenty ten,” and forcing something makes it less and less likely to catch on.

Don’t Get On The Train

Back in seminary, I took a course that allowed me to delve deeply into Zen Buddhism. One of the first questions that I and many people have asked is simply, “What is Zen?”

I got all kinds of fascinating answers from my professor and the books we read. Among them:

“Zen can’t be talked (or written) about, it can only be practiced.”

“Zen is a riddle that can never be solved.”

“Zen is form without emptiness and emptiness without form.”

“Zen is manure on a rake.”

“Zen just is….”

Fascinating, but not terribly helpful answers to a pretty simple question. Perhaps the best answer I ever heard was, “Zen is about not getting on the train.”

In life, our thoughts take us places. It might go something like this in my head on any given day: I’m hungry, but I don’t want fast food. Those Whoppers always look so good in the commercials, but they never live up to the hype. Ha ha, remember those Burger King commercials in the eighties with Emmanuel Lewis? The sandwich was bigger than his head! I met him once in a Home Depot in Atlanta. He was still short, but I heard he really does well with the ladies. I wonder if it’s his charm or his money? He’s probably broke by now, or is he? I’m pretty sure Gary Coleman’s broke. These child actors have it rough. If my kids wanted to be actors, I’d never let them. No, I would let them, I’d just have some competent financial advisers. But why should I wait until my kids become successful child actors to get a good financial adviser? I’m almost 32, and I don’t have a will….

And on and on. Any given thought is like a train approaching you in the station.

If you reach out your hand and grab on, there’s no telling where it’s going to take you. Negative thoughts are obviously more detrimental than positive ones, but any thoughts that are free to roam without mindfulness and focus can’t possibly take us where we truly want to go.

Meditation in general and Zen in particular are about not getting on the train. When thoughts of hunger or anger or self-doubt or addiction or hatred or anything pop up, we don’t have to go along for the ride. We can stand back on the platform and watch them come and go. We’re used to hopping on, used to getting carried away, but we really don’t have to.

Optical Illusions

Hey, the brown leaves in this picture are NOT moving.

 

It’s just an optical illusion, but let that be a lesson to us. Unless we have the wisdom to know better, our eyes often fool us into believing something that simply isn’t true.

There is probably at least one brown leaf situation in your life. You’re hurt or upset because of the way the things seem to be playing out. You’ve seen it with your own eyes! The leaves keep moving no matter how hard bad you want them to stop.

Take a step back and make sure it’s not all in your head.

“Buy the truth and do not sell it. Get wisdom, discipline, and understanding.” –Proverbs 23:23

My 10 Favorite Ben Franklin Quotes

I was chatting with a friend today. In the course of our conversation, I heard myself tell him, “Ben Franklin said, ‘alcohol does not drown sorrows, but waters them, and helps them grow.’” He said Franklin was a genius.

Of course he was a genius. They don’t put you on the hundred-dollar bill for being average.

"...on the low from the Jake in the Taurus..."

Without Franklin’s life and contributions,  the United States would not be as great a nation as it has been and is. I can’t think of another individual for whom that statement is more true. Here are 10 of my favorite BF quotes:

1. He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

2. He that would live in peace and at ease, must not speak all he knows nor judge all he sees.

3. How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.

4. If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing.

5. Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

6. To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.

7. Force shites on reason’s back.

8. To find out a girl’s faults, praise her to her girl friends.

9. When in doubt, don’t.

10. We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.

My man.

Read “Blue Shoe” by Anne Lamott

This is about the 10th book I’ve read this year. Not bad, except that I made a New Year’s resolution to read 25 new books in 2009. I guess between moving across country, starting a new job, having another kid, and taking time to make a bunch of excuses, I’ll probably only get about halfway to my goal.

Still with all of my shortcomings, I still know that I am lovable and worthy, and that was one of the lessons that the main character in “Blue Shoe,” Mattie, came to learn.

This is the only novel I’ve read this year so far. Most of my reading is Christian/New Age/Self-Help type of stuff. It was like a vacation to step into this fictional world that is so much like our own.

I really love Anne Lamott’s writing, mostly because of her knack for dealing with the dark aspects of human nature with humor.

Mattie, the main character, is divorced, a mother of 2, all but struggling financially, has issues with her mother, and most interestingly of all, has a strong desire to be a good Christian. That may not sound like the most interesting aspect of her struggle, but it is, because she fails so miserably at it so often, just like the rest of us.

She has a healthy prayer life, yet fantasizes about poisoning her children. She knows her ex-husband is a lowdown dog, yet sleeps with him regularly even after he remarries.

Also like many of us, she is being eaten up by family secrets that she’s scared to share. She feels like she’s the only one with dysfunction; the only one who prays without seeing immediate results; the only one who feels desperate and dirty as a result of sharing a house with children.

In addition to several lines that made me laugh out loud, the novel is full of wisdom (“expectations are premeditated resentments”), and unapologetic imagery (“she looked almost to the ceiling of the church, where the notes hung above the singers like moths.”) Soaking this stuff up reminded me that reading good literature makes you a better writer, too.

The more I think about the lessons of the novel, the less bad I feel about about not reading 25 books in 2009. I’m grateful for the ones I have read, and for a few more tomorrows to read some more.

Playing Church

“Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for to humble oneself? Is that what you call a day acceptable to the LORD?” Isaiah 58:5

One of the best parts about being a kid is that you can play all sorts of make-believe games. You can play army, play doctor, play house…you can even play church.

You ever seen kids play church? One gets to be the preacher, jumping up and down, shouting hellfire and damnation. He or she may even put a bathrobe on for effect. The congregation has their fans, their costume jewelry, they’re pretending to catch the Holy Ghost–just a bunch of immature kids horsing around.

Hate to say it, but in many of today’s churches, the commitment to discipleship and sincerity of worship isn’t much more sincere than it is for those kids playing church.

Like the Israelites in Isaiah, most churchgoers know God has been good to them, but we want to know why God hasn’t been great to us. Yes, the basic necessities are covered, but what about, the desires, the ambitions, the dreams, all of the great victory that is supposed to come with following Jesus? When do we get some of that? Many Christians wonder.

With anything, we get out what we put in. A lot of church folk serve our time on Sundays, then go about being their our true selves during the rest of the week. Sunday is only 14.3% of a week. If we’re spending that much time focusing on holiness, wisdom, love, and self-control, and the other 85.7% of our lives in darkness, is it any wonder why we are where we are.

This may not apply to everyone, but almost everyone who goes to church has “played church” at one time or another.

True worship, Isaiah teaches, is not about form. It’s about making a difference in people’s lives. Yes that means feeding the hungry and fighting for equal rights, but “freeing the oppressed” is also about letting go of grudges and hatred and resentment, because feeling those feelings towards others holds us back as well.

Some of us are looking up in the sky trying to figure out if God is for real. Meanwhile, God may be looking down on us trying to figure out if we’re for real.

Beating The “Hell” Out Of Ourselves

During yesterday’s sermon, I put this image up on the Jumbotron as I preached from I Corinthians 9:24-27 about “Beating the Hell Out of Ourselves.”

The scripture talks about the fact that in a race, many people run, but only one gets the prize. Christians should run their spiritual race in such a way as to win the prize.

Hate him or love him, Mr. Schwarzenegger is looking pretty impressive here. It’s no wonder he was Mr. Universe and a six-time Mr. Olympia. A few points worth considering:

-It takes work to see results. The more outstanding the results, the more difficult the work must have been to achieve them.

-We all have some hell inside of us. Weakness, jealously, addictions, anger, laziness….these things can rarely be talked out of us. They have to be beaten out with constant, 24/7 effort.

-You don’t achieve results of any kind just by standing still. If you don’t like where you are, there is at least one area in your life in which you could afford to pick up the pace.

-Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things. In fact, the goal of religion arguably is to attain a “spiritual body” that’s as inspiring and honed as Arnold’s physique. When he started lifting weights at age 16, he only weighed 98 pounds and couldn’t afford a gym membership, but look at him now.

-Athletes workout and train to win cash and medals and t-shirts and respect. Christians are “training” so that they can be fully used by God in the world, so that we can live up to our higher calling. Sometimes, we get cash and t-shirts as an after effect, but doing all that you were born to do is better.

-If you look like Schwarzenegger, the enemies and bullies out there will think twice about trying to mess with you–they’ll generally move on to an easier target.

-He’s the governor of California now, but in this picture, he was just another meat head. But he was such a committed, visionary meat head that he got a chance to be an actor. And he was such a driven, memorable actor that he got to run for office. There’s no ceiling on what you can accomplish, even if you have already accomplished something that you consider great, God may have new levels in store for you.

-You wouldn’t take advice on how to look like a champion bodybuilder from someone who’s out of shape. Imagine a flabby coach in a velour sweat suit, whistle around his neck, telling Arnold how to shape his body properly. Easy to be a coach, but hard to be an effective one unless you’ve been there yourself. Perhaps there are too many Christian Coaches standing around beating the hell out of everyone else and not enough Christian Competitors beating the hell out of themselves.

Get In The Social Networking Game

I think I was one of the last people in the world to get a cell phone.

That’s not really true, but I did resist it for a long time. At first it was easy to resist: Growing up, nobody had them, so we didn’t know we needed them. Around the time I was in college, the first nationwide PCS networks began to pop up. Suddenly, you could call any number in the nation for one flat rate, and it was often cheaper than a land line. Soon, many of my friends started getting cell phones. It was still very much a novelty. They used to refer to having a mobile phone as “being in the game.” In response,  I dug my heels in and resolved to never be a part of their silly game.

Now that I have a cell phone, I will probably never live without one again. A luxury is only a luxury until you get used to it, then it becomes a necessity.

There are millions of people out there who are reluctant to get into the “Facebook and Twitter game” for the same reason I didn’t want to get in the cell phone game ten years ago. Ironically, seeing other people enjoy something can sometimes make you want to do that thing even less. Freud called it a reaction formation.

People do it all the time. For example, I don’t have cable. Sure, part of me wants HBO and ESPN, but then the ego defense mechanism kicks in–”Who has time to watch all those channels? There’s never anything good on, anyway…. Remember when people used to actually read books and talk with their families? So glad I’m not like the rest of these idiots wasting their money on cable.”

I understand the resistance, and sure, you can technically live and breathe without Facebook or Twitter, but there are many reasons why the social networking game is something to consider.

The most obvious benefit I have found is being able to connect with people in a meaningful way. I’m getting the latest happenings on people I haven’t seen since middle school–pictures, videos, births, deaths, weddings. And it’s more than just random facts–people really help you out with specific questions if you ask.

Also, if you have something worth saying, an event worth attending, a video worth watching, or a product worth buying, it will gain momentum if it’s good. In the”Web 2.0″ world, it’s the quality of the content that matters more than the source. That’s why regular people get famous on YouTube everyday. When my daughter is born any day now, posting the news on Facebook and Twitter will get the word out to more people faster than any other medium available to me.

It’s good to be in touch with old friends, but Twitter in particular can also broaden your horizons. For example, Rick Warren first published “Purpose-Driven Church,” the go-to guide for pastors, back in 1995. It’s great, but what’s even better is getting his up-to-the-minute insights via Twitter. He even sent me a personal message yesterday, which was a nice surprise. Twitter allows this bestselling author and pastor of 20,000 members  a way to reach out to new jacks like me. Whatever industry you work in, there are people on Twitter who can’t wait to inspire, educate, and urge you on. And, you can do the same for others.

Just some food for thought for all the Twitter and Facebook resisters out there. Are you really against all the positives, or are you resisting because everyone else is doing it?

Don’t forget, it’s free. At least I’m saving $100 a month by not getting cable. What’s your excuse?