What Does Help Feel Like?

I’m hoping you’ll let me write this a bit differently. Arthur C. Clark said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That’s just one way of saying we wouldn’t understand that technology, and so we’d simply just call it love. You can shift that thought a bit and use it to consider the same kind of thing when it comes to love. A significantly advanced love (as in the kind of love that comes from someone who’s perspective is much larger than ours) would be hard to understand to. It might not feel like magic, but I’m sure, at times, it could feel a bit ‘rough’ or at least hard to understand.

So all of that made me wonder: what does help feel like? What does help feel like when you are reaching toward second best and don’t know it? What does help feel like when someone wants to help us become the best version of ourselves? What does help feel like when we don’t see the end from the beginning? Lots to consider.

There is a difference between the kind of nice that ‘feels nice’ and the kind of nice that ‘ends nice’. There is also an arguably larger difference between the kind of kindness that gives us what we want, and the kind of kindness that gives us what we don’t even know to ask for. You could call it a ‘complicated kindness’, and that’s what led me to the question I used for a title.

What does help feel like?

So many people view the question of God through a tangled heap of unexamined expectations. We think we will know God by feel. We think we will know God by the kinds of things we think a God would say or do or give or be. But I have a suspicion it wouldn’t always feel like we expect. It’s something to consider.

I’d like to dig into this a bit more on Sunday as we explore “Unwritten Answers”. If you can’t join us on Sunday, tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

"The Hard Stuff"

We can’t metabolize cellulose. And that’s too bad, really, because it’s the structural component of plants and that makes it the most common organic compound on earth. We’d have a hard time starving in the woods if it wasn’t for that little ‘detail’. All we’d have to do is munch cedar boughs until someone found us. But as it stands that would do little more than put a bitter taste in your mouth while those bits of foliage ‘passed right through’ without giving you a single calorie’s worth of energy.

Cellulose is the hard stuff. If only we could find a way to metabolize it.

‘Metabolize’ is our word for the process by which our bodies turn food into energy. We eat something, it gets broken down and then we turn it into energy. It’s also a great word to help us visualize a process at work when it comes to the stuff we hear. You receive a group of words that were directed at you, then we ‘break it down’ in our minds as we search for the meaning(s). Then it either becomes a certain kind of ‘energy’ or we turn it into some form of energy ourselves.

As an example – if we receive a compliment, we can break it down and turn it into positive reinforcement. It becomes ‘energy to move forward’ or at least feel positive for a while. But a criticism is harder – and that’s what this post is about.

“If you refuse criticism” it says in Proverbs 13:19, “[The] you will end in poverty and disgrace; [but] if you accept criticism, you are on the road to fame”. Think about that. Criticism is the hard stuff. Finding a way to ‘metabolize’ it could open you up to a whole new source for growth and ‘energy’ and forward movement. If we could learn to ‘metabolize’ cellulose, then there would be almost nothing we couldn’t ‘eat’ in the forest and have it become energy or life. You could say a similar thing when it comes to how we ‘experience’ criticism. If we learn how to receive, digest and benefit from criticism – then there would be almost nothing we couldn’t ‘eat’ when it comes to the ‘forest’ of human conversation.

Sometimes I wonder how much of life is really about learning how to develop a way of thinking which can turn just about anything into a positive conclusion and forward movement. It’s like a kind of ‘mental Judo’. I like that metaphor because Judo is all about finding a way to convert your attacker’s momentum (or energy) into something you can use. In the same way, we can develop a mindset that allows us to turn difficult communication into something we can use for growth.

Can you ‘metabolize’ the hard stuff?

This Sunday we are continuing in our series “Unwritten” about the gaps in our knowledge. As always, we are interested in your feedback and excited about the chance to ‘do life’ together. Join us on Sunday or you can or tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

‘Get To’ or ‘Have To’?

I was in a conversation recently that included the following remark (from them): “I can’t believe it took me until 2 am to get this done.” That seems simple enough at first glance. You have a bit of information (they were working until 2 am) and then some interpretation of how they feel about it (they find it surprising or extreme). Again, that seems simple enough (at first glance). But I think it can also highlight something significant about how we put our ‘stories’ together, because that’s not the only way to ‘experience the same information. You could also look at it this way: “Isn’t it great to have something worth working on until 2 am?” (Of course… Repackaging the same information in that way would actually require that you were doing something you ‘believed in’ or are passionate about).

How do you tell your story? Do you describe it in terms of a purpose that pulls you – or on that you are reaching toward?

There is a similar shift in my own thinking which needs to happen on a periodic basis. I need to shift my focus away from the cost (or the complications) and re-center on any number of ‘up side’s’ which are being taken for granted. There’s a quick way to find out which perspective is more your own: Does your morning alarm signal the point at which you have to do it again or get to do it all, again?
How do you tell your story?

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has done studies on the relationship between how we spend our time and what impact that has on how we feel about it. He discovered that we do about a third of what we do because we want to, a third because we have to, and the final third because we could think of nothing better. Which is incredible, really, when you consider how time strapped we all seem to be.

All of this (thinking about purpose and how we tell our own story) came together in my mind this week because of the date. You’ll be receiving this on September 11, 2008. At this time 7 years ago, we were all gripped, shocked, challenged, changed, moved and disturbed by what we were watching unfold on live television. I’m not sure what it was like for you, but it really made me reflect on my life from a totally different perspective. Was I valuing my time? Was I leaning into purpose? Was I making a difference? Was I just taking up space?

7 years ago, we were suddenly and firmly reminded that we are living in history. It’s happening all around us all the time. We feel it more when there’s a crisis, and that pulls to ask “the big questions”. I want to challenge you to not need the crisis.

How are you telling your story? Do you describe it in terms of some great purpose you’re reaching towards and leaning into?

I’m part of a community that believes we were made for an adventure that does not need to end. We believe we were made on purpose and for a purpose – and for us – all of that is connected to the person of Christ. And for myself, I’ll add ‘rather unexpectedly’ because I continue to be surprised every day at how much this story can look ‘done and over done’ on the surface while still being vibrant, fresh and unexplored in it’s deeper parts.

I hope you can find a few moments to think about purpose and the person of Christ.

Join us on Sunday if you can or tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Unwritten Books

There are some things I am not likely to notice. Ever. (At least – not without some help).

Stay with me for a moment because this needs to get technical before it gets interesting. I was talking to someone recently about a development project in Calgary (this is what they do for a living) and we were talking about how some of the underground services work (water, sewage, electrical, etc). He was explaining that I can get a fairly good idea of what is going on beneath the surface by looking for a few small ‘clues’ along the sidewalks and at the curb (for example, there are small vales marked blue for water so you can know there is a water line underneath – that kind of thing).

It first made me think of James Bond, again (only because I ‘used’ him a bit in my teaching last Sunday). I now feel fully equipped to know exactly how to slip beneath the surface of a city and make my way through it’s secret passageways should I ever need to foil some little bit of ‘international espionage’.

After that, it made me think about how there are some things I would likely never notice otherwise. A developer can drive through our city and see all kinds of underground infrastructure because they’ve learned to look for a few small things on the surface. They see passageways and pipelines where you and I see nothing at all – at least nothing at all out of the ordinary (just sidewalks and curbs and trash cans).

All of that leads me to something about our fall kick off this Sunday. We’ve been thinking about the gaps in our knowledge – things we are not just missing, but things we are perhaps prone to miss. All of that led us to think about bookstores. They represent the kind of things we either want to know or the kind of things we can be interesting to us relatively quickly. But what about other kinds of knowledge? What about the books that aren’t being written and the stories that aren’t being told about the stuff that can’t be made interesting right away or at the very first step?

It’s made us wonder about a whole other kind of bookstore – and then our Arts department found a way to build one. And that’s about all I want to reveal before hand.

As a staff (like I said at the very beginning) we’re excited to begin a whole new season of efforts designed to make possible a whole other kind of community. We’re excited to open up whole new directions for thought and conversation. In short, we’re excited to get underway. It’s our hope that you can re-imagine (all over again) what might be possible if we decided to find a way to complete each other and step deeper into the story of Christ. At the very least, please… Don’t just ‘go to church’ this fall. Let’s become it.

If you can’t join us on Sunday, then we hope you will tune into the podcast through the week. Don’t forget our special BBQ challenge and something special for the kids.

Have a great weekend,

Chris