Playing Small, Playing Tall

Over the past two days I have gotten to watch Akeelah and the Bee three times. That means that I heard and saw a quote from Marianne Williamson six times. It seemed to be the central guiding force within the movie. I didn't know who it was from, so I googled the first line as I heard it for the sixth time. That's when I found it was by Williamson, and that's when I noticed it had been abridged. It's a quote all about human potential and the big amazing thing being the power and ability and beauty that is within a person, etc. The part that was left out of the movie included this line, Your playing small does not serve the world. I have had to come back to that line over and over today. Playing small seems to mean holding back, not striving to reach your full potential. Or in my frame of reference it might mean-not trusting God enough to serve Him as well as you could. Or being chicken to get out of your comfort zone. Or attempting a humility that seeks not to put itself forward. But what if it's a pretense at humility? There is a truer quote that goes like this: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. (Romans 12:3) This verse is found in a section that begins the personal application of the gospel to the entire life and leads into such thoughts as --if you have a gift then use it! How is it that a person can think both highly enough and not too highly. That certainly was Paul's intention. It has always been my personal dilemma. To go back to Marianne a moment, actually playing too tall or playing too small, neither one serves the world. And then back to my own haunting--Is there more that God is calling me to? Am I too content to play small right now? Or is it just too inflated of a thought, a vain ambition, or somekind of delusion of grandeur? This is where it gets too much for me. Jesus played his size. He did not push his hour but waited patiently. He did not take on too much. (And of course there could not have been too much ever for Him.) Still He waited for his hour. He did not run ahead nor did He slip behind. So He is my hope and my help. As I live with Him I will learn to hear his voice--though the challenge against playing small and the warning against playing tall.

Lonesome Dove--A Pulitzer Prize Winner

I found Lonesome Dove at the Salvation Army and got it as part of 8 for a dollar. So the price was right. And the read was fun. It was long, with lots of different characters, set in the west and most of it was about a camping trip. Well, it was really a cattle drive, but they did have to camp all the way from the Texas-Mexico border area to the Montana-Canada border area. So the setting was a big plus. I sort of knew the story, because I had seen some bits of the movie, but there was way more than enough I didn't remember and wanted to find out to keep me going from chapter to chapter. I stayed up late several nights to read and read instead of doing other things several other times. The book left me sad. Gus, who was easy-going and ready for fun and adventure liked to talk and he liked to argue. He also liked women. Call, who was the leader, could get men to do things but could not understand much about women or himself. He couldn't own up to the reality that Newt was his son. But he cared for him and really helped raise him as part of the 'outfit'/family. He could hardly say his name and called him "the boy". But then he had trouble being able to call the mother by name as well. Maybe the silent type fit the wild west well, but Call was relationally a cripple. When Clara told him off on his way back to Texas, he couldn't answer her and dwelt long on her words as he carried Gus' body back to Texas. I guess what hit me was that someone could write a 900+ page book that included such intriguing characters and leave them so superficial. It makes me wonder if the 'old west' was really like that in terms of personhood, or if it was Larry McCurty. Maybe it was because Lonesome Dove grew out of a 1972 screenplay and so it carried a Hollywood stamp from the start and entertainment was the focus. Entertaining it was. A fun read. I looked up places on the maps and Google Earth. I would have liked to been there (sort of). This was my second Pulitzer Prize winner I have read in the past two years. It was definitely more fun than The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. But neither of them compare to the two other Pulitzer Prize winning novels that I have under my belt (The Caine Mutiny and To Kill a Mockingbird).

Perspective is a great help

I listen to sermons, lectures and interviews on my morning drive. It provides me some spiritual nourishing and some academic engagement, and often both. This morning was a great example. I have been listening to different interviews posted by Nine Marks, a ministry that believes that churches are God's main means of impacting the world today. I have benefited from David Powlison and Donald Carson and today I listened to Os Guiness. I actually met Os in 1973 at L'Abri. I was lying on my bed reading his book, Dust of Death, when he came in looking for some help moving furniture. As he was talking with Mark Dever, the question came up about Frank Schaeffer's book, Crazy for God, which I mentioned a few blogs ago. Os gave an entirely different perspective on the book than I got while I read it. I read it, enthralled by the story of a young man growing up in the family of a man who tremendously influenced me through his work at L'Abri. I remembered Franky as an outspoken young man. By the time I met him he had married and really had only limited personal interaction with him. But I heard stories about him and watched him grow up and become himself. His book fascinated me because it gave me a view of the Schaeffers that partially rung true. I did realize as I thought of the book that Frank has his own blind spots, and maybe particularly so in regards to his family. But I was touched by reading it. I have talked about it with others and encouraged some to read it. And then I heard Os Guiness talk about it. He said he was disgusted with the book. He felt that Frank was cruel and treated his parents wrongly. He acknowledged several virtues Frank had exhibited in the work at L'Abri, but gave an entirely different perspective of Franky's childhood. Frank said he was basically neglected. Os said he was spoiled, and liked it. Frank revealed that he had little guidance from his parents in many areas. Os said that Franky had learned to wrap his parents around his finger so he could do what he wanted and he reveled in it. Looking back on the book now, with just a few remarks by Os, makes me realize what a good thing perspective really is. It gives us an image that is much closer to reality. It helps us find those blind spots. And it gives me pause, teaching me to be a bit more humble in my acknowledgement, admiration or even criticsim of others. It turned me to Proverbs 18:17 tonight, "The first to present his case seems right, until another comes forward and questions him."

Why "bored" is okay

I have often told children (my own and my school kids) and just about anyone I can find, that being bored is not a bad thing. In fact I often say it is good for you because it makes you think. Often I try to avoid being bored by some form of escape. It could be playing Tiger Woods golf on the computer (I am again the #1 rated player in the world and still in my first year on the tour!). More often than not it is books that offer escape. I favor adventures like Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum. I love John Grisham. I can get into fantasies by Steven Lawhead or Orson Scott Card or Isaac Assimov. I hide in Tolkien on almost an annual basis. Since I teach language arts at the middle school level I also read young adult books. Sometimes I read blogs of interest, but my selection is rather limited--a few friends who write very sporadically, a couple of "thinkers" who I find very refreshing and helpful, and of course the weather blog. Recently I have started to feel my reading is more time filling than soul filling. It gives me someting to do but I wonder what I am doing. It has raised an awareness of something deeper than I can yet articulate. It feels melancholy or maybe minor-key-ish. It may be that deep longing that C. S. Lewis identifies as home. I am sure it has to do with God. I am afraid to walk to far towards the deep, yet drawn by a sense that there is no other way to live. I would be much diminished if I did not know this haunting, I would, in fact, be hopeless. My hope rest on what He has done, and a trust that the pathway is His. Nevertheless, it is sometimes dark for I get in my own way and fall back to offering my Lord my own advice. Being bored is good, for it brings me closer to my senses. He is my all in all. In Him I am satisfied. He is the author and perfector of my faith. I can trust Him. Being bored cuts through the diversions I use to hide from the One who loves me most. What could be better than that?