The Stage

“The stage has grown further away,” said the once prolific performer. Now advanced in age, he climbed the steps onto the stage rarely, and it felt as if the stage itself had moved. It hadn’t. He had.

As the two of us sat on the porch in silence, I thought about the “stages” on which I had once performed. I could see, like him, that the stages seemed further from me than they used to be. It’s as if time slides the stage out of reach, then out of sight. I suppose it’s only natural, but the distancing stage phenomenon is something that troubles me.

There are all kinds of stages: jobs, roles, activities, friendships. Each in its own way has given us an invitation to show up, take our place, and offer whatever it is we have to offer, but if we ignore those invitations enough, those opportunities, like the stage for the performer I was sitting with, grow distant. We are left bemoaning the emptiness that surrounds us and think only of what used to be.

The key is to get up and walk toward the stage. Even with weary legs and scratchy voices, we need to make the effort to return and sing whatever song we have to sing. We need to pick up the phone and call that friend who once meant so much to us. We need to turn off the news and go join the group who asked us to do something. We need to pull out the long-forgotten instrument, pick up the pen, or make a meal like we used to. Yes, it will take some getting used to, and we are bound to stumble or forget the words to the song, but the more important thing to notice is the stage somehow draws closer and the steps are not as steep.

Time is not our friend when we squander it, but it can be a precious gift when we don’t.

Bring on the Nuts!

There was no ignoring the sign. Posted right as you enter the church school building, it was there to protect children with allergies, but the secondary message made me smile. How true, I thought, and how sad. I couldn’t resist writing a brushstroke about it.

There was a day when the church was made up of nuts, imperfect brothers and sisters united in their need for God and basking in a grace that surpasses human understanding. The tax collectors and sinners of Jesus’ day formed this thing called “the church,” which was referred to as the “Body of Christ.” That body, made up of “raggamuffins,” to quote Brennan Manning, was magical. It took ordinary people like you and me and made them into something more.

Slowly, however, things changed. Maybe when the emperor converted, bringing the entire empire along with him, the church became something different. Maybe when the church grew powerful, and priests began to rule rather than serve, it changed. Whenever it happened, and however it has continued, the church became a place of prestige, a place where the blessed children of God gathered to celebrate and give thanks for their good fortune. While we should always and everywhere give thanks to God for our many blessings, we can’t do so as people no longer in need of Grace. No matter how blessed we are - no matter how large our bank account, or how high the social pedestals on which we stand - each of us, every single one of us, is imperfect. Whether we want to (or are able to) admit it, each of us is fallen, or nuts.

On the surface, that doesn’t sound like good news, but it’s the best news I know. While we were yet sinners (nuts), God came and sat beside us and extended a love beyond anything in this world. What’s more, the very things that should disqualify us as children of God are the very things that allow God to enter in and show his grace. “You can’t have a savior if you don’t think you need saving,” a friend recently joked.

So, bring on the nuts!

Let’s embrace our authentic selves - the good, the bad, and all that lies in-between – and let God do what God does! Let him take our wounds and heal them, our unhealthy wants and transform them, and our desperate needs and fulfil them. Let’s break the chains that bind us, the ones that make us obsess over trying to appear perfect, and run free. God’s arms are opened wide. All we have to do is run.

Characters

C. S. Lewis once compared God creating you and me to an author creating a character for a novel. Having created characters for a novel, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the comparison.

Characters must be distinct. To create characters that are alike makes it difficult to remember who is who. Character has to have a purpose, a reason for being in the story. Characters must move the story forward, and, lastly, characters must be real. By that, I mean they must be three-dimensional. The way that happens is by giving them irregularities, flaws that make them human. Characters need a “limp,” someone once said, through which they walk through life.

When I apply these truths about creating characters to God creating you and me, I see some important things to keep in mind:

·      We are called to be distinct. I think that is what Jesus meant when he said we needed to be salt . . . to have taste. We were not created to be like others, even though much of the time we strive to look, sound, and be like others. In the end, it becomes difficult to see who’s who. Better to uncover what makes us unique and live lives out of that uniqueness.

·      Each of us has a purpose, a reason we’re in the story. It might not necessarily be grand and glorious purpose, though it might be, but each of us has work to do that is uniquely ours to do.

·      We are here to move the story forward. It might not be the purpose we wanted or envisioned, but the story depends on us. As people of faith, we believe life has a plot and everything we do needs to serve the plot.

·      Finally, like a character in a story, we need to be real. We need to be three-dimensional. That means not hiding our flaws or quirks but living a life with and through them. In other words, we need to accept our “limps” and walk through life anyway. So many people deny the things that make them real; they hide them and hope no one will notice. The magic of life, the magic of authentic living, however, is embracing all of who we are and bringing it all to whatever we do, to whatever conversation we have, to whatever relationship we’ve been given.

Can you imagine such a world - a world full of real, wonderful, quirky characters serving a plot we didn’t write? It’s beyond exciting. It’s enough to get me out of bed and be the character I was created to be.

Want to come along?