Thanksgiving Lessons from the Farm

I love my grandpa's stories.  Some I've heard five or six times (they get embellished a little more each time) and I get a little impatient for him to just get to the punch line... but on this Thanksgiving break, I heard a few new ones...

We were on our way up to "The Ol' Saw Mill" a working mill that my Grandpa bought 30 years ago for about $3,000.  The story goes that back before he had his mill, when one of the trees on his property would fall (due to rot or lightning or age) he would haul it to the local sawyer for him to cut it up into useful boards of lumber.  Well, when Hurricane Hugo came 'round this sawyer had so much work that Grandpa's logs just sat there at his shop.  Grandpa Harry would call every now and then and this Sawyer said, "I'll get to it when I can."  Two years later, Grandpa drove to the shop himself and the logs were still sitting there, only now they were unusable due to old age.  That's when my Grandpa decided to get his own.  He found a spot out on his property that was mostly level and he built a shelter and then customized the mill to fit his needs (tractor driven, not diesel engine driven).

[The long-haired gentleman is my Uncle John, the dude with the beanie is my cousin, Joe]

That's the Morris way.  When we come up against something that's too expensive or too much trouble, we start thinking and plotting to do it "on our own."  Grandpa chuckled and said, "there isn't much a Morris is afraid to tackle."  

After making some repairs to the sawdust excavating mechanism, we fired her up and sliced up a 2 ton log into 2x4's that my uncle John will use in his next project.  It was so much fun, and I worked up quite a sweat trying to keep up with how fast my Grandpa was cutting them.

"You know, my daddy was a sawyer," he said.  We had shut off the mill and were sitting there, enjoying the crisp air and sunshine.  "He owned 3 mills, and had 7 teams of lumberjacks working for him."  I sensed some pride and perhaps a little sadness in my Grandpa's voice.  "He also owned a general store, a cafe, and a handful of other shops in town."  He paused.  His eyes twinkled.  "But I don't know what he did in his spare time."

"I visited the town I grew up in (a small town in Alabama) not too long ago, just to see if it was just as I remembered it," he said.  "After walking around for a bit, memories flooding back, I stopped at a malt shop for a cold drink.  A man walked up to me who I had never seen before, and looked me deep in the eyes and said, 'are you little Henry?'  (aside)  Henry was my Daddy's name.  I told the man that yes, Henry was my father, and he sat right down next to me and said, "That's what I thought!  Son, my name is _____, and I've been the town mayor for 20 years now.  Let me tell you a story about yer daddy."

"I came to this town 30 years ago, hungry, broken, separated from my wife and child, and with not a dollar to my name.  I couldn't find a job or even a drop of kindness to help me get back on my feet.  Then I met yer daddy.  He heard my story and felt pity.  He gave me a steady job, a warm meal, and even let me stay at his place until I could afford to move out on my own.  After a little while, I could afford to go get my wife and kid and move them here with me.  I ran for mayor and have always been active in helping this community that helped me so long ago.  Son, yer daddy saved my life, and I just thought you should know what a great man he was."

Now, at this point in the story, I have to offer a little bit of background.  You see, my Grandpa never really knew his father personally.  It's a little fuzzy, but I think it's because he passed away before my Grandpa was old enough to know him.  From what I can recall from my dad's stories, my Grandpa had to assume the role of Father for his family when he was still just a boy.  Hearing these words from the Mayor of his old town must have really meant a lot to him.

There are times when I have felt disconnected from my father.  Times when he has seemed too stubborn or too private or too perfect to approach.  I know I have felt bitterness, even anger at him for not being understandable or accessible to me.  But this trip with my Grandpa has taught me that even when you don't fully understand your father, you have his blood running in you- and you have the people around you that have been affected by him.  There's often more going on in his life than you know- there's more at stake than what makes sense to a boy- and to cut him some slack is the right thing to do.  The parts in me that I am proud of- the "entrepreneur spirit," a sense of determination, physical strength, a respect for the divine-- these things are in my dad and in my Grandfather and in my Great-Grandfather.  

These things will not easily fade.  They make us who we are.

The Fourth Leg

Some good friends of mine have been playfully arguing over a leg.

My Anglican friend says that the solid foundation of a Christian is like a 3 legged stool:
1.  Scripture
2.  Reason
3.  Tradition
Neither the Bible, nor the authority or the Church, nor the reasoning intellect can claim the last word, but together they offer a balanced way to discern the will of God.  This metaphor was created in the 16th century by Richard Hooker.


My other friend says that these three legs are great, but are unbalanced until you add the 4th leg: Experience.


The 1st friend replies, "Yes, experience is important, but only as they fit into the long line of Tradition."


So.


I am musing on the importance or unimportance of my own experiences with God.  This issue is also made poignant to me based on how my life has been greatly affected by Christians who have placed a HUGE emphasis on their own experience of God to make decisions regarding me.  (For those who don't know, I was kicked out of church leadership because they "felt" I was leading in a different direction than they wanted to go, not based on Scripture, Reason, or Tradition.)


First question: Does my experience of God matter?  YES.  I am certain that I am not just a speck in the universe, nor a drop of water in a bottomless ocean-- I am convinced that my God loves ME, specifically, and cares so much that he knows the number of hairs on my head.  


Second question: Is my experience of God ever misleading?  Hm.  Yeah, I guess it is.  I have sometimes felt convinced that God hated me or was just punishing me for the hell of it, or that He stopped caring-- and to this day I know that although those feelings were very strong in me, they were lies.  Perhaps also in times when I have been blissfully in the arms of a loving God, prancing in the clouds and raising my hands in worship and critiquing others who were not "feeling it" like I was-- perhaps then I was being misled as to whether or not that really was a "God moment" or me just in love with feeling in love.  Perhaps when times are tough we think that must be God's sign to kick someone out of our community.


Third question: How does God want me to interact with (or worship) Him?  Shit.  I wrestle with this constantly.  I see in scripture His emphasis on ACTION: taking care of the poor, being good stewards of money, loving His creation, etc... and then I see His disregard of OVERACTING: the famous "Martha, Martha" passage in which he tells the sister who is serving everyone so diligently to just sit down like her sibling and enjoy His presence.  There's a tough balance here.  


Fourth question: Maybe the metaphor of the three-or-four legged stool breaks down?


There's nothing in scripture that says to create the perfect metaphor to discern the will of God.  There are times when God is "gently whispering" and other times God has just blatantly said, "Ah hell, I'm just gonna come out and say it out loud so you don't get confused!"  Sometimes it lines up neatly with Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, and sometimes it DOESN'T.  (Side note: any time someone says, "I'd like to see you back that up with scripture" I laugh because of how many weird-ass things you can "back up" with scripture.  I.e.- God approves of the brutal mauling of kids who tease their elders about being bald, God approves of having multiple wives, God insists on women having their heads covered in church, etc.)


Although we've seen how the metaphor breaks down, I still believe there is truth in honoring scripture, reason, and tradition in deciphering God's will for us.  And with that, there is danger in adding a 4th element: MY experience.  So, I guess I am going with the Anglicans on this one.  Although I AM important to God, if He wants to give me individual direction and instruction I must LEAVE THAT UP TO HIM (like a burning bush or a soaked fleece).  If God has not come down in a blinding vision (or other miracle), then I have no right to say, "I believe God is telling me to do such and such."  My role within the Church universal is never to raise my own experiences above all others.

Words I didn't write: Teddy Said it Best

Words from Sarah Cunningham.  They spoke to my soul.  Enjoy:

I hope I‘m not the only person whose life circles back to different versions of the same question:

Should I sink my energy into tackling new ambitious projects? Into chasing some noble goal?

Or … should my ambition be to relax off the hero button for a while; to settle into a more natural, less-stressful life rhythm? Could the simple acts of living and loving somehow be just as noble?

To top it all off, I face this question without the infamously Christian “life verse”. (I have a life Bible, does that count?)

I don’t even have a life mission statement tacked to my mirror or refrigerator or car dashboard.

What I do have is a little visual that’s all my own. It doesn’t feel commercial or gimmicky or demanded of me by some charismatic leadership figure. The visual is inspired by a quote that I ran across a long time ago and it stuck in my soul like a dart to a bullseye.

The quote is from Teddy Roosevelt.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The visual in my mind when I read it is a mix of all the epic arena scenes—a little bit Ben Hur, a little bit Gladiator, maybe even a little bit Rudy.

All of those arenas boil down to a visual, something I could sketch for you on one of those old school transparencies that people used to lay on projectors. In the scene, there are two main spaces—the playing field where champions do battle and the platformed seats where spectators sit.

The obvious thing to say here is that I want to be the man in the arena, right?

And I do. I would rather be criticized for attempting something valiant, than to never know what it tastes like to do so. I want to spend as much time on the field as I possibly can. I want to always believe there is one more fight to be had. To thirst for my Rocky 5, 6, and 7.

BUT … the older I get, the more I believe that although I want to spend the majority of life in the arena, it’s not healthy to live one’s whole life there.

People who try to fight every day, day after day, often become unnaturally exhausted. Their leadership starts to come from a desperate place; they start to develop ruthless qualities that subtract from their humanity.

Some days, its right to pour it out on the playing field—to bleed and be wounded with the best of them. But on a few reserved days or stretches of life, it might be just as right to sit on the sidelines; to recoup, to learn, and to believe in someone else’s battle.

That’s not less courage or nobility talking, it’s the wisdom life beats into me.

Because here’s the thing: I want to spend the majority of life in the arena, not just now—not just for this year, not just for this decade, but for the long haul. Forty years from now, if you check in on me, I want you to see me armoring up my frail, elderly body and leading a new charge.

To love the arena life that long requires a balance, I think. It means loving the many days where I grit my teeth and fight, but to equally love the life stages when it’s my turn to experience renewal and invest in or celebrate someone else advancing.