Kannwischer, Rich Blog

Prayer to Close Out the Day's Work

A friend over lunch recently shared with me his struggle with taking work home at the end of the day.  He may not have a lot in the briefcase, but the tensions and work seems incomplete, following him to his family.  I agreed that as a pastor the work seems never done.  There is always another phone call to make, another tweak of the sermon or lesson, another new relationship to build.  These are wonderful problems to have, but it does make it hard to feel a sense of completion at the end of a day.  

So I shared with him a prayer that I keep near my computer at the office.  It is a prayer I regularly say at the close of a day's work.

"Gracious Father, you have kept me this day even without my knowing.   As the shadows now lengthen and the evening comes, hush the busyness of this world and calm the troubled waters of my heart.  My work is not yet done, but it is time for rest.  I thank you, God, for all the good we did this day and for all that has given me joy.  Forgive me for when I have strayed from your will and your way.  Take from me my worries, my pains, my complaints and my fears.   May evil no longer have power over me.  Let your servant now depart with peace to join those I love to celebrate and bless with your humble kindness.  Amen."

Now, if you aren't already, go home and rest.

The Hardest Spiritual Work

I’ve been reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s newest book entitled, An Alter in the World, where she explores the great spiritual disciplines of the Christian tradition.  In a chapter on community, she discusses the challenge of Jesus where he commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves.  I would comment on what she says, but I’d probably ruin it, so here it is straight up: 

“The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self – to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.  All you have to do is recognize another you 'out there' – your other self in the world – for whom you may care as instinctively as you care for yourself.  To become that person, even for a moment, is to understand what it means to die to your self.  This can be as frightening as it is liberating.  It may be the only real spiritual discipline there is.”

Squish Papa Ride

I went today to Six Flags Fiesta Texas for a little Father-daughters bonding time.  Our favorite ride is labeled as the “Wave Runner,” but Danica and Ashby refer to it with enthusiasm as the “Squish Papa Ride.”  As an old carnival ride, it spins its occupants with great centrifugal force toward the outside of the car.  With glee, Ashby squishes Danica, and Danica squishes Papa.   The girls check to see if I look skinnier after we’re done always proclaiming that I look different. 

I suspect our love for the ride is one and the same whether grown up or child-like.  The point of the ride is having a good excuse to get close.  Perhaps one of our deepest hopes as life flings us around is that our constant spinning will draw us together instead of further apart.  Our heavenly Father must smile at any excuse we create to get close to him.  

You Can't Take It With You.

I had the opportunity today to visit the King Tutankhamen exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art (http://www.kingtut.org).  It is a remarkable collection of artifacts from one of the most significant archeological discoveries in history.  Imagine the thrill of uncovering a king’s tomb that had remained hidden beneath the sand for over 3,000 years.  The hot, dry climate of Egypt provided near perfect conditions for preservation.

Like many leaders of his age, King Tut did not merely consider himself to be a Pharaoh.  He also thought of himself as a god.  His name literally means, “image of the living god.” 

Some of the more interesting items in the collection were the small figurines called “shabti.”  The Egyptians believed that after the king travelled into the afterlife, these figures would transform into servants to provide for them.  The kings also assumed that all of the possessions they put in the tomb would go with them into the next realm.  They literally believed that you could take it with you.  Guess what?  You can’t.  

Bullets or Beans?

Earlier this morning, National Public Radio (NPR) reported on the increase in Fair Trade products and practices.  In this article, an editor from the Financial Times spoke of an organization in Uganda attempting to aid the growers and harvesters of that country.  One of the ways that the leaders did this was to demonstrate the making of a cup of coffee for them in order to let the workers sample what they were producing. 

Many of these farmers had labored for decades in the fields, never truly knowing what it was they were doing.  Some of them actually believed they were collecting these hard seeds in order to be used bullets for one of the region’s civil wars. 

What a difference vision can make: bullets or beans.  I find this same discrepancy to be true in the church as well.  Many people labor for years not knowing what they are really doing or how it connects to the big picture.  I am convicted as a church leader to cast the kind of vision that will help us to know why we do what we do. 

The next time you sip a cup of coffee, say a prayer for the invisible millions of people who work to provide for us.  And let’s work together to give vision and justice for all of God’s children.

Killer Bunny Slippers

Kelly and I had the opportunity the other night to hear British comedian and writer, John Cleese, lecture at Trinity University.  Speaking on the subject of creativity, he cited research on how truly imaginative people are like children, knowing how to get absorbed and fascinated with what they are doing.  He also discussed how deadly anxiety was to creative thinking.  The more anxious we are, the less innovatively we process. 

Creativity is not divorced from hard work.  Cleese spoke of how the movie A Fish Called Wanda went through 13 full drafts before they finally got it right.  Cleese said he worked best when paired with another person because as a team they came up with ideas that he never would have come up with on his own. 

Here are some of his best one-liners of the night:

1.     “An idea is not responsible for the people who hold it.” 

2.     (on children) “they cost a fortune, you do nothing but worry about them and they always end up just like their mother.” 

3.     (on improvisation) “It is a great creative process, but we shouldn’t subject audiences to it.” 

4.     (on mysticism) “churches can’t control it, so they hate it.” 

5.     “Consciousness is just an oil slick on the surface of your mind.” 

But the pinnacle of the night was during the question & answer session when a ten-year-old boy asked if Mr. Cleese would sign his killer bunny slippers.  (If this doesn’t make sense to you, then you haven’t seen Monty Python’s movie The Holy Grail as many times as the rest of us).  

Fight Club

I spoke recently with a church leader from another congregation.  He talked of how easy it is to identify in a church what they are fighting about.  Churches are often quarreling over budget items, liturgical decisions or personalities.  What is more difficult and even more ignored is to answer the question, “what are you willing to fight for?”  In other words, it’s not just what you fight about.  It’s what you are willing to fight for. 

Tomorrow I am privileged to bury a member of our church community, Ray Kehl, who was a true soldier from the “greatest generation.”  He served in the Air Force for three decades as a pilot for WWII, Korea and Vietnam.  His family spoke proudly of how he knew what to fight for … justice, righteousness, honor and peace.  I recall author Rob Bell once said in a class, “Some people are always looking for a fight because they’re not in one.”  The Apostle Paul advised Timothy to “fight the good fight of faith.”  Let’s make sure we fight for the right things.  

Unnecessary but Invaluable

We discover friendship when we realize that we are not alone.  For some strange reason we often think that we can do it by ourselves.  Yet every once in a while a rare tenderness and vulnerability breaks through the surface of our self-sufficiency.  This happened to me today in a moment when someone showed me a great act of kindness.

C.S. Lewis writes, “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one!"  Later he says, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”  In other words, you may not need a friend in the same way that you need your next meal, but a good friend can make the meal more enjoyable.  Ask me whether I would rather eat at fine restaurant by myself or a pizza joint with a good friend and I will choose the latter.  

Easter is a Time for Wonderment

I published an article for the Religion section of the San Antonio Express News this morning.  I'm posting it here in case anyone wants to see it or comment.  Happy Easter!

 

Jesus once said that the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to little children.  I do not believe he said this due to their innocence, but rather because of the richness of their imaginations.  My wife Kelly and I have a front row seat to the creativity of children because we spend the majority of our time chasing our two preschoolers at home. 

Recently our youngest daughter, Ashby, was demonstrating a willful disobedience I am convinced she received from my wife’s side of the family.  Kelly appropriately asserted her parental authority with Ashby.  In response, Ashby cocked her head quizically and inquired, “Momma, are you angry?”  “Yes, Ashby, mommy gets upset when you do not listen to me.”  “But Momma, I’m allergic to angry.”  As parents we have to give credit where credit is due.  Ashby may be stubborn, but she sure does get style points for being creative. 

One of my former philosphy professors, named Dallas Willard, was fond of saying “more people have lost their faith from a lack of imagination than a lack of reason or scholarship.”  Faith and reason are not opposed to one another.  Science and religion do not always have to be at odds.

The best explanation of this comes from the great theologian, Dr. Seuss.  His book “On Beyond Zebra” is one of his least known works, yet still ranks as one of my personal favorites.  In this book he writes of teaching a young friend to spell.  He walks through the 26 letters of the conventional alphabet then says, “So now I know everything anyone knows from beginning to end, from the start to the close because Z is as far as the alphabet goes.  Then he almost fell flat on his face on the floor when I picked up the chalk and drew one letter more!  A letter he never had dreamed of before!
 And I said, ‘You can stop, if you want, with the Z because most people stop with the Z but not me!’”

Dr. Seuss points out that there are some things that cannot be witnessed or experienced without the richness of a bigger alphabet.  The things of greatest value to us, friendship and forgiveness, love and laughter, generosity and grace require picking up where most people are inclined to stop.  Many now realize this tendency toward the limiting nature of science or reason as one of the chief failures of modernism.

So as a spiritual guide on a valiant quest for more, Dr. Seuss continues, “I led him around and I tried hard to show there are things beyond Z that most people don't know.  I took him past Zebra, as far as I could.  And I think, perhaps, maybe I did him some good … because, finally, he said, ‘This is really great stuff!  And I guess the old alphabet
ISN'T enough!’”

The story of Jesus at Easter is not unreasonable, but it is beyond our conventional categories of thought.  It is way beyond Zebra.  The vision of a day when anger melts before mercy, execution becomes salvation, and death is swallowed up in victory requires not only our highest-level scholarship, but also our richest imagination. 

C. S. Lewis’ chief motivation in writing “The Chronicles of Narnia” was to ensure that we did not lose the enchantment of God’s story.  Doctrine is necessary, but it is a poor substitute for wonder.  This is why faith demands more of us, not less.  Jesus calls his followers to become child-like without becoming childish at Easter.  “For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.”  

Always Looking Up

Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to read a good portion of Michael J. Fox’s most recent memoir Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist.  Some of his reflections on his past are quite humorous, and others particularly surrounding his Parkinson’s disease are quite poignant and sad. 

My deepest sorrow; however, was that he talks about having hope.  As I read, I kept asking, “hope in what?”  There has to be an object of one’s hope if it is not merely wishful thinking. 

While I disagreed with many of his conclusions, I was particularly grateful for one of his key insights about religion in America: “When I was growing up, what baffled me about religion particularly the hellfire and brimstone, Satan-centered variety was that the devil seemed to get all the respect and God seemed to get all the fear.”  (p. 163)  May we never get confused as to whom deserves our respect and who conquers all of our fears so that we can have a real hope.