Parents, What do we do with shame? … As a young minister, in one of my first churches, I was excited to be asked to be on the church’s softball team. I had deflected the invite by saying I’m not great at softball and I hadn’t played in several years. The coach said they were down a player and he insisted that I come. As a kid, I was a decent stickball & whiffleball player, a pretty mediocre softball player and a not great baseball player, but I was looking forward to belonging to the team, hanging out, and having fun, making new friends with some guys my age at my new church. In my excitement of being asked to join the team, I went out and bought a new glove, something I hadn’t done since elementary school with my dad. I enthusiastically shared with Anita my great anticipation. I drove to the ball diamond for my first practice. As soon as I got out of the car, the coach said, “grab a bat”… so, I grabbed a bat and stepped up to the plate for what I thought was a practice swing. The pitcher sent me a melon - soft and sweet, I swung the bat and made contact. I didn’t swing hard, I was trying to warm up my muscles a bit. The coach said, “run!”; I was like “what?” and began to run toward first. The short stop easily threw me out. The coach said, “We can't use you Bill… you didn’t even make it to first base.” He was looking for a ringer and I was no ringer. So, in shame and embarrassment I walked back to my car like a disappointed 6th grader who didn’t make the school basketball team (that happened too BTW). According to shame researcher, Brené Brown, shame is an “intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” So, in a sports obsessed community where your value and acceptance is determined by your softball prowess, this was the epitome of shame. The entire team averted their eyes to avoid looking at me as I slinked into the car trying not to show any emotion. I drove home, threw my glove in the closet and collapsed on the couch in a heap, like dirty laundry tossed into a basket. Lots of things were going through my head, all of which led to a spiral of disappointment, hurt and anger. I wasn’t sure what to think, I didn’t know how to process this in a healthy way. I wish I had been mature enough to lovingly confront this older fellow church family member, asking if perhaps I had misunderstood his invitation, or if he had somehow misunderstood my expression of my skill level. However, all I did was avoid the coach and any team member for the rest of my time at this church and they seemed comfortable doing the same. (BTW I needed some humbling at that point in my life, I was kinda arrogant and capable of dispensing some shame myself. God was probably allowing this humiliation with good reason. That doesn’t, however, give a free pass to those who uncaringly dish out this toxic shame.) A few years ago, I gave that glove away with some bikes and other sports equipment to a Dad with four active kids. Just looking at the glove, triggered some shame. I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, but each time I remember it, it reminds me how much it hurts to feel like you don’t belong, like you’ve been rejected and you are just not good enough. It helps me to remember to value people over other things. It reminds me that we are all desperate to belong and we gotta make sure we help flawed people (hint: we’re all flawed!) know they have a place with Jesus and us, regardless of what they can do for us or whether or not they can improve our lives (or win us the church softball league championship).
Friday, October 15, 2021
Parents, What Do We Do With Shame?* Words from COVID 19 Delta
Saturday, October 2, 2021
Parents, Be Careful Who You Believe!* Words From COVID 19 Delta
Parents, be careful who you believe! There I was standing on the wall of my childhood back porch, wearing my cape, shorts with pasty white spindly little legs sticking out and my red Keds tennis shoes, believing I could fly. The Wonderful World of Disney, by the way, had convinced me that all I had to do was BELIEVE and then I could fly. So, I closed my eyes, believed real hard and jumped. Thankfully I had not climbed to the top of the house, still it was about a 7 foot drop (thankfully onto grass, not concrete) … a long drop for a little boy. I hit the ground hard, landing on my feet. My legs folded up under me, my breath was knocked out of me. It hurt my whole body. I limped back up to the porch, thinking maybe I just didn’t believe hard enough. So, I climbed back up, closed my eyes and believed harder, but this time I was either smart enough not to jump or my legs were hurting too badly to try again. Or perhaps I realized that the law of gravity was one that was real and true regardless of my belief (no discredit to the Wright brothers who learned how to use some other physical laws and truths to overcome gravity temporarily). A similar thing happened to a hallmate in my freshman dorm in college. We were on the second floor of the dorm and it had started snowing. This young man had never experienced snow before, he lived in South Florida. As the evening went on, the snow began to pile up. Mind you, we were in Greenville, SC and there were only 3 inches of the wet white stuff, but this young man had been celebrating the snowfall with some inhibition reducing beverages (that weren’t, btw, allowed on campus at that time). He had believed that the snow was soft and that jumping into it would soften his landing. Despite some of his hallmates telling him not to do it, he, like many of us at that age, also believed he was made of steel and he jumped. He, however, was not made of steel and the snow was not deep enough to be soft and he spent the rest of the semester on crutches with a cast on his leg. Both of us had believed a lie or lies. We believed them earnestly and wholeheartedly enough to jump from high places, but we both hit the ground hard. Our sources of truth were unreliable.
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Parents, Does It Really Say, "Give Thanks In ALL Circumstances?"* Words from Delta COVID 19
Parents, does it really say, “give thanks in all circumstances?” In 6th grade, Knox County students had the opportunity to go to a three day learning camp in the Smoky Mountains. I had heard all about this camp from my sister and her friends, so I couldn’t wait to be a sixth grader and go do all the things her class did. This was the mid-70’s so it was kind of a hippie nature education experience. We hiked, dipped our own candles, and wove belts from strips of leather. We heard mountain music and ate grits. The day before we left for the trip, my sixth grade teacher who, by the way, adored my sister and let me know I could be more like her, said, “ be sure to bring rain gear!” When we arrived at the camp and piled off the buses in our ponchos and raincoats, we gathered in the gym. She told us that it was forecasted to rain the whole time we were there. We all groaned, but she told us that these were the days that were given to us and we could embrace them, enjoy the rain and experience nature in a different way than we typically did or we could all be miserable and complain about it the whole time. She said our experience could be the best any one group has ever had at that camp, but it was up to us as to what our experience would be like. We could mope, but that wouldn’t change the circumstances, so we may as well find the positive, embrace the beauty of the rainy temperate deciduous forest biome while we were there and carpe diem! We could whine or shine through these wet days. This may have been my first realization that my attitude didn’t have to be shaped by the circumstances around me. Amazingly, our group stayed as relatively positive as any group of sixth graders could for those three days. After our hikes, we would pour the water out of our boots, wring out our socks and hang them on the end of the bunks. When someone would start to complain, this teacher would gently redirect us to notice something extraordinary or unique, like how the rain dripped off the pine needles and made a pattern in the needles on the ground. She would remind us that these trees around us grew strong and tall because they had plenty of rain. I was introduced to reflective journaling on this trip. We were instructed to find a place in the woods, far enough from another person so we would not be distracted (especially those of us with attention deficit challenges). Each morning we must go to this spot and write in a gratitude journal. This was not easy in the rain, trying to keep the pages dry, but somehow under our ponchos and raincoats we were able to write some things we enjoyed or appreciated from nature. My spot was on a rock next to a creek. The creek of course was rambling and loud, I thought that was cool, because sometimes I could be rambunctious and loud. I imagine it was typically just a babbling brook. After this experience, whenever it rained, I would put on my rain gear and boots and walk around my neighborhood to see how things looked and sounded differently than when it was dry and sunny and be thankful for the precipitation that made the grass green on the field where we gathered to play football and how it made the the trees that I climbed, strong and tall.
Monday, August 30, 2021
Return to Me and I Will Return to You - The Lord Almighty*
I sat as a twenty-six year old in the front yard of my childhood home in Knoxville, TN having returned there from more than half a decade of rebellion. My life was in shambles. My engagement to Anita was broken, I was broken. I was full of regrets for the narcissistic ways I had been living for the last several years and running from my call to ministry. A couple of years before God had gotten my attention and I had returned home, went back to my home church, enrolled in a masters program, but there was still much rebellion in my heart… The drizzle began to fall, tears were falling and I was crying out to God in prayer for my life.
Sunday, August 1, 2021
Parents, Are You Acting Like Sheeple?* Words Post-COVID mid Delta
Parents, are you acting like sheeple? My mother was always involved in our church... teaching, serving, hosting, whatever was needed. She always enjoyed helping. One year she took the Middle School Vacation Bible School class. It happened to be when my sister and I and a neighbor girl were in Middle School. Mom was creative and wanted to do something fun, hands-on and different than a flannelgraph. There were some kids in the group who had not heard the stories of Jesus and she wanted them to know who He is and how much He loves them. Though we had an old 8 MM movie camera that we used to capture family events, she decided to do the “oh so cool” at the time, 1970’s slide show thing because we had a new fancy camera she wanted to use. She loaded us up and took us all to our mini-farm, dressed us all up as disciples and Jesus followers and told the Jesus story through slides. She had Jesus, played by a neighbor girl with dark hair and a fake beard, walking on water. She had us put rocks just under the surface of the water and had the girl playing Jesus stand on them, giving the illusion of “walking on water.” She had Jesus teaching the sermon on the mount with all the kids around Him listening. And she had Jesus teaching about pursuing the one lost sheep and the great joy when the lost sheep is found. In the field next to our mini-farm was a flock of sheep from the University of Tennessee College of Agriculture. The only problem was the sheep had numbers on them for testing purposes. It looked like a mattress commercial. When the slide show was displayed, we all cracked up seeing the sheep with numbers on them. We were all looking for sheep #100, because Jesus had “left the 99.” Did I mention that the girl Mom chose to be Jesus was one of the kids from our neighborhood who didn’t know Jesus? Did I mention that my Mother knew this young lady had begun to do some things in middle school that would lead her down some dark paths if she continued? This young lady, like all of us, wanted to belong and be accepted, so she became like sheeple who were doing all those things that kids in their own wisdom thought would make them feel included, accepted, validated, and loved somehow. In the end all those behaviors would turn up empty, void of good, and lead to aloneness. Did I also mention that Mom picked this girl up each day to ride with our family to VBS? There was a bit of irony here that possibly sheep #100 was the girl that Mom had selected to play the One who leaves the 99 to find sheep #100. Mom had a heart for the lost sheep, because someone had pursued her at the same age and told her about Jesus.
Jesus is all about belonging. He loves us and is always glad to be with us. We are His and He is ours. He will hunt us down to be with us… Luke 15:3-7 says, “So he told them this parable: “What man among you, who has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’ I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need repentance.” Sheeple are people who act like sheep and are led astray by the prevailing “wisdom.” The Old Testament Prophet Isaiah reminds us that we are all sheeple whom Jesus came to seek and save. Isaiah says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”(Isaiah 53:6 NIV) Jesus followers are always looking to find and include sheeple who have been drawn away from Him by their own rebellious nature and desperate desire to belong, be loved, and be accepted. Sometimes I am all too eager to condemn people rather than include them, because I have forgotten that Jesus pursued and included me. Is there someone in your life who needs to be included with God’s people? Maybe there is a creative way for you to make a place for them to be found by Jesus.
Hang in there People! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!
Thursday, June 3, 2021
Parents, Are Your Feet Beautiful? *Post COVID
Parents, are your feet beautiful? In elementary school my family had a mini-farm… seven acres on the Little Tennessee River near Alcoa - a town named after the Aluminum Company of America and not far from Maryville, or “Murvul” if you are local. I always wanted a pair of boots to walk around the farm in. My dad always had some good boots for hunting, checking on the cow, or “Joe the pony”* (cow is singular, it wasn’t a big farm) or working in the garden. I finally got some boots, some real clodhoppers. I was thrilled. I liked the way they supported my spindly little ankles that frequently turned over. I liked the way they clunked as I walked down the hall at Fort Sanders Elementary School. I liked how warm they kept my feet in the winter. I liked how they helped me climb the hills of my steep driveway on Fox Chase Lane. One day at school, a friend and I were headed down the hall and, for some reason that escapes me, we were unaccompanied by the teacher… My friend's mother was a wonderful teacher to special needs students there and I suppose our teacher, who knew her, trusted us to go down the hall, “responsibly” to the office. However, as sometimes happens at that age when you don’t have the benefit of a teacher reminding you to walk not run, our pace increased from a quick walk to a competitive run by the time we were at the end of the hall. As I turned the corner right there was a lady from my neighborhood who worked in the school office. My oversized clodhoppers were out of control and the toe of my boot caught her right in the shin. She fell to the floor grabbing her shin rolling in pain. All I could do was stare for a minute, embarrassed that I had unintentionally incapacitated her with my size three work boots, wondered why she had gotten in my way, and then I continued down the hall to catch up with my friend, who was wearing tennis shoes that could run much faster. I don’t know what I was thinking, she had clearly seen me run right into her. I had watched her eyes open wide just before the shin-toe contact (not the Japanese ancestor worship, but the cry out, “Oh God,” as we collided). Then I saw the grimace and tears as she fell to the ground. I couldn’t get out an “I’m so sorry!” or a “Are you okay?” or “can I get you some help?”... nothing, all I had was a silent stare. And then I ran off. Needless to say, she never forgot our less than fortunate collision in the halls of FSE. Many years later, long after I had repressed the embarrassing memory, she reminded me that her shin had never been the same, that when it was cold especially, it would still hurt. I and the boots I had loved so much were not fondly remembered by my neighbor and school assistant.
Tuesday, June 1, 2021
Parents, Does Practice Really Make Perfect? *
Parents, does practice really make perfect? In Middle School, my mother thought it was a good idea for me to learn the trumpet… perhaps because this small skinny kid didn’t make the basketball team, and wasn’t big enough for football, or maybe because learning music helps your brain develop and she wanted well rounded kids. For whatever reason, I agreed and dreamed of maybe being the next Chuck Mangione or Louis Armstrong. The first day, I played it 'til my lips hurt. I learned that it takes a lot of practice to develop your embouchure, a fancy word for the way you hold your mouth so your lips vibrate right on the mouthpiece. A good embouchure with strong mouth muscles helps you sound like a trumpet player rather than an angry goose. When the band started, I seemed to do okay and the band director put me in the first chair. As the weeks progressed though, practice took second place to pick-up football, stickball, basketball, bike rides, and tennis with my friends. The thought of 30 minutes alone, sitting still with my trumpet was less than thrilling for my ADHD squirminess. However, my mother required it, saying “practice makes perfect.” I did it, but my heart wasn’t in it. In my mind I was outside scoring touchdowns with my suburban neighborhood sports posse. So, by the time the Christmas concert came around, I had moved steadily down the trumpet row, from 1st chair, to 2nd, to 3rd chair. I practiced, but I practiced missing notes, I didn’t practice the way the music was actually supposed to sound. It revealed that practice doesn’t necessarily make perfect, but “perfect practice makes perfect.”