Christmas and Wonder

In business, companies do an analysis where they imagine where they want to be and then determine where they are. The difference between the two is the gap and documenting that is called a gap analysis. Harvard professor and innovation expert Clayton Christensen terms this gap under the banner "Jobs to be Done". This time of year, I frequently contemplate a gap analysis between the creator God and the Christ child born.

We were at a party last night and the daughter of one of our friends had a brand new 10 day old baby there. I found myself watching this baby and even trying to remotely contemplate what it took for Christ to enter our world. We had this conversation about whether the Christ child cried. In the hymn "What Child is This" it says the baby "no crying He makes". Sounds cute but I do believe the Christ child cried because a baby's only means of communicating basic need (not sin at that point) is through crying. Someone actually made a ringtone out of a crying baby - are you kidding me, but I digress. I am thirty years from this stage of my life but it still makes my blood pressure go up (wait till grandparenting).



Christmas should exacerbate our sense of wonder. I finished journaling through the book of Matthew this year As I finished up in chapters 26 and 27, I found myself in wonder as Christ stood before in succession Annas, Caiaphas, Herod, and Pilate marveling at the thought of King Jesus standing before puny man in judgment. Then to end up on a Roman cross in a form of punishment designed for the lowest of the low. Paul says it succinctly in Philippians that Christ "humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross". God who spoke the world into being becomes a baby born into the messiness of a stable, is a totally dependent child, walks among us for 33 years, and dies a slave's death.

Don't get caught up with going through the motions. Stop and and wonder. Let your mind fill with wonder this Christmas.

Home!

Deb and I traveled to Florida over the Thanksgiving holidays to visit her mom, brother, and sister-in-law as well as other family members and friends. The weather in Florida could not be better - low eighties, no rain. We had a wonderful time. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we set out on our journey home. Our original plan was to get as far as we could and then stop somewhere if we got too tired. But we kind of broke up our journey into manageable junks and around about 1:30 AM we rolled into Northeast Ohio. As we passed our first sign that welcomed us back to our home, Deb says "Ahh Brecksville".

Now on the surface of it, going from the sunny pleasant confines of Florida to the unpredictable grays of NE Ohio this time of year is hardly fitting but this is our home and there are many days it is hard to imaging living anywhere else. Jesus says in John 14:1-3 that he is going to prepare a home for us in heaven, the home we have always longed for. I blogged about home a number of weeks ago commenting on the passing of my friend Greg Gerycz. What is it about home that fills the deep longings of our heart and soul?

1. Home is a place of the familiar. It is what we are accustomed to. Being away, I think we appreciate what home represents.
2. Home is where we can rest in the routine of life. Life has its patterns and while sometimes those patterns need a break, we always feel better when we get back to those patterns.
3. Home is the physical place of authority. What I mean is that this is the place where we kind of take charge of our own lives. As much as we love to visit people, we are in their home and their place. We tell people but "Make yourself at home" but it can never be our physical home.
4. Home is the presence of relationships. It is where friends and family dwell.  Over the years, we have developed so many friends here it becomes hard to imagine being anywhere else. Our girls and much of our family are elsewhere and we go to them in one sense to reunite people and places together. This is why the longing of heaven is so natural because it reunites us with the most intimate of relationships from across time and space.

We while wintering in NE Ohio is not ideal and Florida certainly appeals to my creature comforts desires, it is very good to be Home.

Will Anger Lead to Action?

I was traveling this past week and I was in Austin, TX for a conference when the election results were published very early Wednesday morning. As I was walking to the conference event that morning, a cyclist whom was coming towards me and I let pass before crossing the road yelled at me "Get out of my way you bitch" (left the word in for emphasis - not a word I have ever been called). Later that night, I was walking to one of the events for this conference (the Tableau conference has 13,000 attendees so it is huge) and I got swept up in a protest by students from University of Texas at Austin. One of the video clips I took is below.

This type of anger is usually bred by frustration. When we get frustrated, we get angry and that is the definite sense I got from this protest. Judge for yourself. Anger out of frustration is rarely a good anger. Even the civil rights protests of the sixties was fueled by productive action (boycotts etc.). Not all anger is bad. Injustice should make us angry and anger then should lead to action. In this case, it is hard to label it an injustice since our election laws go back hundreds of years and are designed to prevent populous areas from dominating our vast country. Nobody is contesting the fairness of the election. There is nothing that will change. It really is just venting. Consider the protests in Portland which turned into a riot with windows being smashed and local businesses damaged. I had a coworker friend who would say to me when I would vent - "Dan, what would you want me to do". What matches anger is the ability to translate that anger to passion and passion to action.

I love a hot shower. I am told that water at 98 or 99 degrees centigrade is pleasant. But at 100 degrees centigrade, water boils and it is very unpleasant to take a scalding shower. Our country needs to move back from scalding to hot and we need to channel the 50% of us that are upset in a positive direction. I pray that happens.

A Little Birdie Told Me

Ever wonder where certain expressions came from? The expression "a little birdie told me" comes from Ecclesiastes 10:20 and it says "Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom curse the rich, for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tell the matter". I find the Scriptures to be very timely even in our high tech world. The wisest man in the world, Solomon who wrote Ecclesiastes could not have foreseen the social media crazed world that we live in today. Yet this verse is more relevant today than it ever was.

The point is that what you say seemingly in private will come back to haunt you in public. Does this ring true with today's presidential candidates? Both candidates have said something whether in text form or speaking that they never expected would be public and yet they were. Digital assets record just about anything that comes out of our mouth or through our fingertips. We are just a notch below a creator God who knows everything that we are thinking even if we don't say it. The cure for the "little birdie issue" is not to not say it but to examine our own attitudes and beliefs.

As an example, this past week our Indians were in the World Series against the Cubs. My wife is from the Chicago area, I went to college near Chicago, our daughter lives in Chicago with rabid Cubs fans as friends and family. Both Deb and I ourselves are Cubs fans. I went to a number of Cubs games when I was in school. So we found ourselves engaged in a little "smack talk". But it was very good natured and when the Cubs pulled it out, we were happy for our friends. There was no bitterness involved. When Lebron James went to Miami, I found myself bitterly rooting against the Miami Heat. It did not feel healthy and it lasted for one season. Bitterness towards others is never healthy.

Getting at the root is the first step. Self-examination is a theme rooted throughout the Bible. Jesus said to look at the log in our own eye before examining the speck in someone else's eye. When we do this, we are less prone to want to say or do something that a little birdie will carry out to others.

2016 Election - Is This the End of Civility?

A friend of my wife recently commented to her that she prayed before voting early this year and then after casting her vote, she just cried. Such is the state of this election year. This election has separated co-workers, friends, and families. It has even impacted our own family.

I love our freedom in our country to vote. And I appreciate that we have the ability to say what is on our mind about who we vote for. However, I look at it and say I am an ambassador of Jesus Christ and as such it is not remotely worth it for me to cloud my Savior with who I want as President. The two are not tied in any way whatsoever. So why would I want to risk confusion of one vs. the other. So I don't put politics on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. I won't even tell you who I am voting for. I will cast my vote, but in a few weeks I will support whoever wins the election because that is what I am supposed to do (Romans 13).

There is an aspect of this election that is even more troubling however. As cantankerous as previous elections have been, this one rises to a much higher level. I cannot remember EVER this level of personal attacks. John Kasich vowed to stay positive and it probably cost him. Barbs, jabs, and personal attacks seem to be the mode of our Reality TV era. Does this trouble you like it does me? James the writer says we are to be "Quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God". It seems to me the evidence of a society that is slowly unraveling. Moving to Canada is probably not the answer. But being a change agent of casting aside bitterness and rancor probably is. I pray our country moves past this point and embraces the kind of common good we had in the days immediately after 911. 

Leaving Family, Going Home

Whenever I have an employee take another job, I always ask the same question. Are you "going to something" or "leaving from something". This is a matter of gauging intent. The strange thing is when someone dies, they are doing both and it is not a question of intent. They are going home and they are leaving family. They are ripped from those closest to them but ushered into a new home, one they have always longed for. This brings this a strange conundrum of mourning and celebration together.

My friend Greg Gerycz passed away suddenly Thursday morning. Greg was part of a circle of friends that we have been close to for many years. Greg was my age so it reinforced a sense of my own mortality. It has really brought it close to home. Greg leaves a loving wife Gail and two adult boys, two daughters-in-law, and one grandchild. Greg had a relationship with Jesus Christ and I am confident that he was ushered into his presence on Thursday.

Home is somewhere we long for. To the believer, this world is not our home. We are sojourners and ambassadors, but not citizens. Our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20) and we eagerly desire to go there. Jesus is putting the light on (to quote the Motel 6 commercial) and preparing the place for us to go (John 14:1-3) and it will be a lovely place indeed (Psalm 84). Most importantly, Greg is now forever in the presence of Jesus, something we groan for (Rom. 8:23, 2 Cor. 5:2). From 1998 or so to 2005, I traveled a lot. I was gone most every week. It never got old to arrive back home and be back in my own house with my family. Greg has been on a very long business trip; he got a lot done; built a lot of friendships, but now he has arrived home. And that is cause for celebration.

So why do we also mourn? Because Greg has left us. Death is a result of the fall, resurrection is a result of the gift. So death carries a bitter sting (1 Cor. 15:56) - someone is ripped from our presence leaving a huge hole. I find it interesting that when Jesus raised Lazarus to life, he wept before doing so. Jesus knew He would heal Lazarus - that is why He delayed. So why would He weep? Because Jesus in his perfect humanity knew the pain death leaves behind. So mourning is to be expected. But the Scriptures say we are not to mourn as those who have no hope (1 Thess 4:13).  We can say the Bible is full of hope. The word hope appears 132 times in the Bible. Why - because our hope is in Christ and that means reunification. The Berlin Wall separating us from loved ones who pass on will eventually come down. We will soon be with Greg again. The closing words of 1 Thess. 4:18 states it perfectly "therefore comfort one another with these words".

The Wrong Story

A woman leaves three kittens in a hot, overheated car causing the kittens to go into severe distress before someone spotted the kittens and called police. The police break into the car and rescue the kittens and arrest the women on a felony charge of animal cruelty.

This might be the end of the story - we would all agree that leaving kittens in a hot car is truly negligence and the woman should be charged. As I read this story, I was struck by what was mentioned as an afterthought. The woman was homeless and had gone into a church seeking help. I love animals as much as anybody but they are not human beings made in the image of God. Something is deeply troubling when we elevate animals above people. I am also troubled that the place that she should expect help is in a church. Instead the article focuses on the plight of the kittens.

My heart went to this woman and what she must have been thinking. I don't know anything about her, but I do know she had no place to go and she went to the right place. Now there may have been more to the story - I don't know. Maybe the woman received the help she sought. If so, that would have been a better story. If not, I think it is a misplaced story because our callous hearts must go to our sister first.