The Possibilities in the Subtleties (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Caldwell O'Connor had always loved steam driven locomotives. Even as a boy.

And when he recognized the steady replacement of steam by petroleum products was going to put an end to them, O'Connor felt an urgency to capture those behemoths on film, before they vanished into history. And of course, he wanted to capture them in motion.

There was just one problem.

He quickly discovered something other filmmakers could have told him: fast-moving objects appeared jerky when filmed. There was no way to smoothly film their progress across a field of vision. Cameras didn't move that fast without shaking.

So, being an engineer by trade, O'Connor invented a solution. He called it the "fluid-damped camera head." It was a a silicone-filled platform that fit between the camera and the tripod. It eliminated the jerkiness that plagued the rapid panning required to film fast-moving objects.

It solved what he thought was the problem.

One day, while pursuing his joy of filming moving steam-powered locomotives, a stranger tapped O'Connor on the shoulder and asked to take a look. As the guy seemed to know his way around cameras, O'Connor agreed. By his comments, the stranger indicated he recognized what O'Connor had accomplished. And then he asked O'Connor to make 10 of the platforms for him.

That stranger was Walt Disney.

With his expert eye, Disney observed O'Connor's operation of his camera as he filmed racing steam-driven locomotives, the ultra smooth panning as the lens followed the train across the landscape. He recognized something most of us wouldn't even register: O'Connor was filming more smoothly than was possible with existing motion picture technology.

It was a subtle thing, but Walt saw the possibilities in it.

When Walt Disney tapped O'Connor on the shoulder that day, it changed the course of O'Connor's life. He went on to developed many engineering marvels, and he later won the Academy Award for his creation of the "fluid-damped camera head," an invention that completely changed filmmaking. He quit his job with the power company to work full time on his engineering projects, many of which were for Disney.

Disney was in the process of trying to film The Living Desert, one of his first live action nature films. He, too, had been plagued by the jerkiness of rapid panning required to film, in his case, fast moving animals. Using the O'Connor head, The Living Desert went on to win the very first "Academy Award for Documentary Feature."

O'Connor saw his invention as solving his problem: filming trains. Walt Disney saw the possibilities of the O'Connor head for filming ANY moving object; that it was an industry-changing invention.

And it all started with a tap on the shoulder.

Disney, an acknowledged master in his realm, saw the possibilities in the subtleties. He knew that with this relationship he could do wonders. We need someone like that in our lives, someone who can observe us so closely they can perceive the possibilities in aspects so subtle that even we may not recognize them as potential strengths.

In this week's Lectionary, Job is reeling from all the terrible things that have befallen him and his family. Job believed in God, but he had a different relationship with God than we do. Job lived in a world that associated material gain with the belief that It came about because of God's favor, God's approval. In the world view of Job's time, he should have been immune to tragedy.

We know different.

Job also believed if only he could find a way into God's presence he could present his concerns, make his case, receive an explanation of what he had done to deserve such tragedies, and perhaps get some instruction on how to correct his faults. For Job, this was hope.

It is different for us.

We know we have someone who desires the very best for us. We don't have to wait until our lives come apart before we reach out to Him. If we're open to it, we can begin an adventure with just a gentle tap on our spiritual shoulders. We need only be expectantly still.

The Master, who can see the possibilities in our subtleties, can do wonders.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Proper 23 (28) (October 11, 2015)

Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Psalm 22:1-15
Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Psalm 90:12-17
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31
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Be sure to read all of this coming week's Lectionary selections. This is one of those weeks when they all fit together. We're looking at Job, in particular, so start there.

Then join us for Lectionary Breakfast Friday morning at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant. We'll be talking about what happened to Job (and why), and whether we need to be concerned about something like that happening to us.

Enjoy the week!
Steve


Photo credit: http://wallpapers55.com/steam-locomotive-passing-through-desert/

The Parts of a Pause (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

When I was young, the way we watched movies was a very different enterprise than today. Films were actually recorded on FILM, not captured digitally. Copies were made of films and physically shipped from one part of the country to the other rather than transferred digitally across the Internet.

The method for showing a film, today, is rather simple: essentially just activating the digital copy to "play." Back then, someone had to physically thread the film into a projector through which was then shone a very bright light. There was an art to that threading of film. If not accomplished correctly, the film would not feed along the sprockets to the correct position: i. e., where the bright light would project the image out toward the screen where it would be viewed.

It was a lot more complicated for the user, and could lead to FEED OUT (the film feeding right back out of the projector instead of onward into the machine), FEED BACK (the film processing through the machine, but exiting before it arrives at the projection point), or, hopefully, FEED THROUGH (the film moving through and arriving at the point where the creativity of the film can be shared by all viewers).

And that brings me to the parts of a pause. A while back, the Disney organization set out to discover what, if anything, occurs in someone's mind immediately after receiving a stimulus. Understanding that could provide Disney with valuable knowledge, knowledge they could use in shaping what they offer, to whom, and when.

What they learned was that there is a pause between a stimulus being received by someone and their response to that stimulus. And, they discovered something even more interesting: the pause had parts.

Much like the film of yesteryear, a stimulus could produce different results based on what happens during that pause. Should the person respond without thinking, it would be like FEED OUT, just an immediate reaction to the stimulus (you hit me, I immediately hit you back). A more nuanced response would be similar to FEED BACK, where a person uses some portion of that pause to reflect on previous responses to similar stimuli (you hit me, I recall a previous time you did so and decide to employ the same response I did then).

The final part of the pause could be like FEED THROUGH; neither reacting nor settling for a selection from previous responses, but rather moving on through to the creative response (You hit me; I elect to turn the other cheek). Here, at last, was where people in the business of creativity were likely to find a response most useful to their trade.

We, too, can find these metaphors useful. We have options when we read scripture. We CAN simply react without thought. Alternately, and perhaps better in many circumstances, we can reflect of our previous responses and let the scriptures reinforce our behaviors. Finally, we may well find it useful to push on through to the creative response, considering a new thought, a new way of living our lives with God.

I think there was just such a moment when Jesus told his followers “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (‭Mark‬ ‭10:14-15‬ ‭NIV‬‬)

Pause for a bit and think about that.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 22 (27) (October 4, 2015)
First reading and Psalm
Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Alternate First reading and Psalm
Genesis 2:18-24
Psalm 8
Second reading
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
Gospel
Mark 10:2-16
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Lectionary Breakfast resumes Friday morning at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant. We gather at 8:00 for a wonderful hour of fellowship and food; both for the body and for the soul. Come and pause with us for a space between the stimuli and responses that make up your week.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

You Just Don't Know You Know (a short Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

You know her. You just don't know you know her.

She was born in 1919. As a young woman, during the 1940's and 1950's, she and her husband, Gower Champion, performed in several films for MGM (including a remake of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film, Roberta). But that's not why I'm convinced you know her. And it's not because the two of them starred as dancer and choreographer, respectively, in a 1957 TV sitcom. As it turns out, she lived a very long life. She only died a few years ago. It's possible you may have known about some of her late-in-life work (The Awakening Land, Fame).

But they're not why I'm convinced you know her.

Before she was Marge Champion, all grown up and married, she was a teenager named Margie Belcher.

And quite a good dancer.

In the mid-1930's, Walt Disney hired young Margie to come to his studio and dance for his animators. When questioned about how watching her dance helped them complete the cartoon they were working on, Disney reportedly declared, quite forcefully, "We are not making a cartoon! We are making art." What they were making was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." And if you've seen it, you've seen Margie Belcher: when Snow White walks, when she sits or stands, when she dances, that's Margie.

Margie was the motion model for Snow White.

Knowing this story changes how we see that animated film, the very first of its kind. No one had every made a full length animated film before it, and even in the short cartoons of the day, no one had gone to such lengths to ensure the animated characters moved like real people.

Life is like this. We spend our days seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. We use our senses to help us understand our experiences. And, most of the time, that's the whole of it. But every once in a while, someone reveals something to us that changes how we think about what our senses have communicated to us.

From now on, whenever you see Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," or even just a clip of Snow White doing something, you will recall that a teenage girl named Margie, a real girl, is behind every move.

Having such revelations change how we think about things.

That is what is meant by this week's Lectionary selection from Psalm 19:7-14. And that is why we read the Bible.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Proper 21 (26) (September 27, 2015)
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Psalm 124
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Psalm 19:7-14
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50
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Friday is almost here. It gets here pretty quickly. I hope you can join us for Lectionary Breakfast. We still gather at 8:00 a.m. at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for an hour of revelation, tasty food, and, a staple, laughter.

No one will be asked to model.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

The End of the Story (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

A while back, a young man got very excited about something he believed would revolutionize the work he did. That's not unusual, especially for young people. In this case, the "something" was a new level of computer animation. This young animator was so excited about this new animation idea he pitched it to his manager as something the company should do.

He was fired.

The reason? His boss told him it was because he was “screwing around with crazy ideas instead of doing his job.” End of story. Or so we might assume.

But IS that really the end of the story? People get fired every day, sometimes justly and sometimes otherwise. For the person freshly terminated from the working world, it certainly FEELS like it's the end. Still, as those of us who have been around a while have learned, what seems like the end of a person's story is really the beginning of another chapter.

In the case of our young animator, though disappointed in his company's response to his recommendation for change, he was not done. He went looking for more receptive ears . . . and he found them.

In the person of Steve Jobs.

Soon, he was at the center of that revolution in animation. And before long, he was a producer with such hits under his belt as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. They say that one man's trash is another man's treasure. In this case, it was Disney's trash that became Pixar's treasure.

But even THAT isn't the end of the story. When Disney later acquired Pixar, that former employee returned to Disney and became head of Disney’s animation.

In this week's Lectionary selections, we get to see a couple chapters in the story of King Saul and (future King) David. There were some dark times; scary situations with adversaries, rejection by the King. There were even worse times ahead, but God's story for David had many more chapters to go. Still, despite how bad things got, David maintained his confidence in God. And, as we are privileged to know since we can read David's entire story in scripture, God honored David's faith.

Our lives come in seasons and our stories are told in chapters. Be patient. Allow the time for God's plan to unfold. You never know what is just around the corner.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/
Proper 7 (12) (June 21, 2015)

1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49
Psalm 9:9-20
or
1 Samuel 17:57-18:5, 18:10-16
Psalm 133
Job 38:1-11
Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
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We have such a nice time each Friday morning at our Lectionary Breakfast gathering. If you're in the area, join us for a great start to your weekend. The food is tasty and the fellowship cannot be matched. We still meet at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant, corner of New Road and Franklin, in the center near Outback.

Enjoy the week!
Steve