Training Wheels

Training Wheels
(a brief Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

My first bike, a Sears 26-inch JC Higgins, was so much bigger than me, I had to bring it to the end of our walkway (which was a full twelve inches above the sidewalk) in order to get on it. But, once on it, I could not keep it upright. That didn't keep me from trying, but I fell ... a lot. In fact, every single time I pedaled a couple of turns, I started to tumble. This kept me close to home. That way I could always tumble unto our slightly raised lawn.

Into this problem stepped my Dad. One Saturday, he called me to come out front to show me that he had installed training wheels on my bike. This was great! I still had to climb on at the end of the walkway, but this time the bike stayed upright. My Dad gave me only one rule: whenever I got off the bike, I had to use the kickstand. He said that would keep the training wheels from wearing out (he intended to use them for my sister at some point). For the first few minutes, I just sat there, luxuriating in the realization that I was not going to topple over.

And then I took off.

I rode all over the neighborhood on that bike, for days and then weeks, I soared, my confidence placed firmly in those training wheels to keep me aloft. Oh, I still had some dismount problems due to that center bar, but on the whole it was the freedom I had dreamed of. This was more than happiness. This was joy.

One morning, after having come back from a ride, I carefully climbed off the bike, hooked the kickstand down with my sneaker, and turned to find my Dad standing in my path.

He said, "How was the ride?"

"Great!" I replied.

"So," he asked, "no problems riding without the training wheels?"

I whipped around and saw, to my horror, that there were no training wheels on my bike! I was almost overcome with the shock of realizing that I could have fallen.

"You took off the training wheels!" I accused.

"A week ago," he replied.

I had been riding without them for a week! But that was not all. Dad had never intended for me to rely on those training wheels. Like Stephen Covey was to articulate decades later, Dad "began with the end in mind." Every two or three days, he raised those training wheels ever so slightly, until, at some point, they never touched the ground while I rode the bike. And, because he had insisted I always use the kickstand, I never noticed that the bike could no longer stand on its own.

It is like this with God and us. God began a work within each of us "with the end in mind." God knows we have to make the journey, that we will encounter things we, initially, just cannot do without assistance; and we get that assistance. But the objective is that we outgrow that help; that, in fact, we grow to the point where, not only do we not need help with that challenge, but we become so skilled at it, we become someone else's assistance.

So, when you read Ephesians 2:10 and find that, long ago, God prepared good deeds for each of us to do; that God crafted a group of positive actions specific to you, for you to do; don't be surprised. Be encouraged: God thinks you're ready.

And be curious. Start looking for them. Someone needs their training wheels.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fourth Sunday in Lent (March 18, 2012)
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21

http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

If you are in Waco Friday morning, join us for breakfast at 8:00 at Cafe Cappuccino (downtown on 6th, near the Courthouse). Good food and good discussion. I am so excited to be going!

Enjoy the week!

Steve

Jumping the Green

Jumping the Green
(a brief Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

My Dad was unable to teach me to drive.  I say unable; but perhaps "unwilling" is a better description of the matter.  

This was way back in the dark ages, before schools included Drivers' Ed in the curriculum.  Driving was not considered a very complicated process, so instruction was left to "a responsible adult driver" to accomplish.  On top of that, we could not obtain a learner's permit until one month before our 16th birthday.  Do that math any way you want: it comes down to having to learn to drive in 30 days.

When the magical day arrived, Dad drove me to the courthouse so I could get my permit.  In Kentucky, this required interacting with some pretty scary-looking State Police officers.  I was asked how I had come there that day.  I couldn't seem to find my voice, so I just pointed to my Dad.  I was issued a driver's handbook along with an admonition to not operate a vehicle, alone, until after I had obtained my license.

My younger sister had already learned to operate Dad's VW Beatle (a manual transmission) on some farmland near our home.  It was an unending source of glee for her, and embarrassment for Dad, that I could not master the "stick."  So, I had to learn to drive in Mom's Barracuda (an automatic transmission).  On our first (and only) outing (taken on country roads to limit exposures to other vehicles), Dad spent most of the drive clinging to the passenger door and hissing through his teeth.  While he never spoke to me about it, apparently my every action frightened him.  Because when we got home, he told Mom she would have to teach me.  I was not sad about that development.  Who can think with a hisser in the car?

Since Mom's Barracuda was blue with white interior (my high school colors!), I was happy ... several less things to have to think about, and a little bit of cool in case any of my friends saw me.  After a few more country road outings, Mom decided I was ready for the surface streets in our town.  Much of this is a blur, but I clearly recall one incident from that month.  We stopped at a red light, my first.  Mom looked over at me and said, "Don't go when it turns green.  Give it a second." 

I remember thinking that was an odd thing to say.  I had read my driver's handbook.  I knew we were supposed to stop on red and go on green ... yellow is still up for debate ;-)  In fact, not only was it expected, it was my right.  When the light is green, I have the right of way.  But, being the dutiful son, and having no desire to be cast off to some other relative for the balance of my training, I obeyed her.  Imagine my shock when, shortly after the light turned green, a car ran the red light, cutting straight through the space we would have occupied if I had asserted my rights!

I learned a lesson that day, and not only one about driving.  I call it "jumping the green," those actions we take simply because we can.  They are allowed, so we do them.  But, as was so stunningly demonstrated to me that day late in my 15th year, such actions may not always be the wisest.

Something to think about.

"Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate."  (1 Corinthians 6:12 MSG)

http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Second Sunday after the Epiphany (January 15, 2012)
1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51

The Butterfly

(Photo courtesy of pdphoto.org)

In the movie, THE REPLACEMENTS, while urging his offensive squad to give their all for one last game, substitute Quarterback Shane Falco says, “Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever.” While I might like to contend with Mr. Falco about his first and third assertions at some future point, I have (blessedly) had almost no experience with physical scars, and thus have no basis to know how attractive they are to chicks. And, while I think I now know a little bit about spiritual scars, I have no way of knowing whether chicks dig them or not. What I do know about spiritual scars is that they are all but invisible to people who don’t have any.

Does the future butterfly feel pain while it is forming (re-forming?) in its chrysalis? That is an answer I would like to know. With us humans, when God is shaping (or re-shaping) us, there is usually a good deal of pain. When the caterpillar moves along its entombed journey to its new life, does it sleep a deep, painless sleep; or does it struggle against the process; resisting, holding back? When God is pulling the skin away from the little pilgrim’s body to use in creating its wings, does it feel pain? I do know that we hold back, resisting the process of becoming.

And, another challenge to our personal reformations, we are not good at recognizing the process in ourselves or others. As a youth, the older, wiser, “solid” people I met (and somewhat idolized), those whose discipleship of Jesus appeared effortless, seemed to my limited experience to just BE that way. Process was not a concept I thought much about. And when I would read some author claiming that “real” change is “forged in pain” or some similar allusion, I usually thought, ungraciously I now see, that this person must be deficient in some way. Else, why have to go through the pain? Obviously (so my youthful thoughts went), God could easily change those who would just yield to his loving touch; only the truly recalcitrant would have to be wrenched into shape. Since then, experience has taught me much.

My experience has been that, as God shapes (wrenches, pounds, slams, stretches, flattens, crams) me, I begin to perceive a tiny bit more of the process, in myself and in others. I have been shocked lately to realize—after all these years of thinking I was on the potter’s wheel, being spun by God into a vessel of significance—that I am still just a lump of clay being “thrown.” God has just been loosening me up, making me more malleable for the real work ahead. Here I thought, based on the pounding I’ve taken so far, that I was on my way to being a God-shaped vessel, destined for spiritual service of some importance; having completely forgotten that the truly delicate work of spiritual shaping can only be done with the most malleable of materials.

So, when I observe the delicate beauty of the butterfly, when I find myself thinking “WOW!” about the glory of God’s handiwork in that creature, I have to remind myself that the little pilgrim got like that the hard way. In fact, there really is no other way. If a butterfly is to have wings—and how to be one without them?—then it must, somewhat like Eustace in Lewis’ VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER, have its skin pulled away from its body; without that skin there can be no wings.

And, if I am to become what God has in mind for me, I must transit the process, whatever it is, however challenging it may seem at the time. But, unlike the caterpillar-cum-butterfly, I do not have to take this journey alone. There are others. And … I am, finally, beginning to recognize them.

Praise God.