GOOD GOD OF IRONY

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I asked students to describe an episode of irony from their own lives. Ryan retorted, “I choked on a lifesaver once.” Touché. I’ve “choked on a lifesaver.” It’s when the thing that should be adding value to your life steals it instead. And wouldn’t you know that this is the subject of most of my contemporary theological discussions?

I went to a UCLA Football game tonight at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. For the record, the Bruins bested the Arizona State Sun Devils 29-28 in a game for the annals. But the subplot is clearly the irony of life defined by sports/entertainment/sexualized subculture. People find their identity in the aforementioned things and therein lies the irony. Because dude, beer can’t give you life. Neither can the chick in Row 50 Seat F with all that make-up on. There’s junior highers flirting with high schoolers and rival college students presenting the keg-life as legendary to young onlookers.

There’s always the risk of sounding like a human diatribe whenever you bring attention to the irony of life but it’s worth the rant. The point is not that Bacon wrapped hot dogs are sinful or that I paid $8 for a carne asada burrito. It’s not even that so much is being sold at a college football game. The irony is in the fact that football is a gift as is a beautiful stadium nestled against foothills while the canopy of the cosmos canvases human activity like exquisite decor. The irony is that we seek life in “artificially flavored” segments as if the natural divine ingredients of our Saturday afternoon are not enough to satisfy. Irony has become virtually unrecognizable because we’ve acquired quite the taste for worshiping human creations. There is time yet, however, to move back into a mode of valuing experiences, good conversations and a perfect spiral that hits a wide-out in stride for a 76-yard touchdown. Realized irony in our human ranks could be one of our Lord’s greatest revelations.

DENOUMENT FROM TRIPLE OVERTIME

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When the events of the story conclude, tie up and make sense, you have Denoument. We make resolutions at various times throughout life and to say we’re short sighted would be grotesquely inadequate. Our resolutions are not action focused or developmental. We determine to reach these pinnacles and shock the world. And I watch USC football wanting them to be electric. Today was October 29, 2011 and USC took three OT periods to lose to heavy favorite Stanford. USC lost 56 – 48 and I know moral victories are billed as ethereal myths that motivate. Nevertheless, I think the better team sometime loses.

Put two teams, two sets of super human athletes across from one another in combat. All things can be equal but the science of an oblong ball’s bounce, the pain threshold of each human on that field and the subjectivity of officiating come together to produce what we know as college game day. So the only constant is preparation and a will to give all on every down, so-to-speak. Because we all know that you will not always win. It’s as grim a truth as exists. Your Denoument is literally everything.

It’s not a choice to resolve. It’s a mandate. You have to decide who you will be, how you will work, why you will fight in this life. You have to respond to both wins and losses. But mostly you have to respond to varying degrees of loss. You have to adjust, regroup, retool, relearn and reapply. The plot structure of your saga is loaded and can lure you into its complexity. Don’t bite. Run hard, hit hard, mourn your losses but you dang well better resolve to battle the pressure and refine yourself. Championship play is always an admirable objective.

SHOOTOUT WITH GOD

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God sometimes demands so much of you that it’s maddening. I was talking to my wife yesterday about a holding pattern I’ve been in my whole life. There is such a thing as too comfortable with who you are. My case-in-point is how in the midst of debt, a new job and the horizon of ministry, I can hear God’s unmistakable voice like a coach who won’t end practice until you’ve given everything. There’s no mercy in this element of God’s character for it is because of his mercy that you are in the crucible. And so the age of manna for me is fleeting and if I’m to excel and stop circling the airport I  have to mine the recesses of latent places deep within.

So much of Christianity has been billed as formulaic and this was my point of contention with God. My formula wasn’t working. I had the deep desires, the visions of how to impact the world along with a dab of gab gift. But God said, “You lackin’ the killa, son. How bad do you want freedom? How bad do you want to see a realm transformed from superficial to significant?” I was left speechless.

So I recounted the convo to the wife concluding that God ain’t lettin’ a brotha off the hook on this one. It’s either, “Get some bulldog” or settle for a break-even life. The break-even life is just as it sounds – just enough to get by or at least think you’re gettin’ by. It constitutes falling prey to the most sinister suppression of keeping you content with mediocrity.

The takeaway was that I’ll treat the conversation with God like when someone older than you picks on you. They make you mad and then something is lit inside you that moves you to another gear. Tenacity is realized in a moment. But I’ll need to stay mad to perform in this vein. You gots to be pissed to stay in this mode and there is no plan B. So the discontent is compounded by God’s refusal to relent. But a grip you must get on your emotions and threshold of the difficult. The only way out of average is through a hellish bout with self.

BREAKIN’ UP 2.0

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Technology has taken “Dear John” to a new level. I parted ways with my mobile carrier yesterday and fell into the arms of another. The beauty of the potentially cataclysmic event was that I didn’t even have to see my old carrier face-to-face. My ex-service provider had no leverage either. They couldn’t have retained my phone number and our bill was current. They didn’t have an opportunity to provide us incentives or re-win our business. It’s almost a sad convenience that you can discontinue a business relationship remotely.

When you change cell phone companies, technology allows you to port everything from your old phone that’s of any significance. This is courtship 2.0. But it speaks to something in us that hates awkward confrontation. Truth be told, some smart girl or guy probably had a bad experience trying to leave a mobile service provider. He or she said, “I’d like to discontinue my service with you.” In response they got something on the order of, “May I ask you why?” The refugee then stumbles over his or her words trying not to hurt feelings, as if this is a personal dialogue. The business minds used to have the advantage of evoking emotion in an effort to manipulate.

Ah but no longer. Now it’s consumer who appears to have the advantage in the shark tank. No more bleeding in the water as phone vendors aggressively solicit your business. You need only to do your homework online, show up with a budget and you’re unstoppable. Mobile providers have to earn a face-to-face nowadays and I’m impressed with this advent. On the contrary, if you translate the ethos of quitting without correspondence to sports, it loses its luster.

Trace the big decisions athletes make from high school to professional and there’s an unmistakable money trail. There’s the scent of lucre that fills the nostrils of athletes, just to pick on them for a second, and it drives switch-carrier philosophy. Soundbites at press conferences for transient athletes in mid-migration usually use “best for my family” as if it were an axiom. That quote means that you can be left alone if you are pursuing what everyone supposedly wants – MONEY. It’s the universal caveat that works great for your 2-year phone contract but could be a dangerous governor for more significant decisions.

Case-in-point: I’m a coach. I hate non-communication by my players. You can’t just not show up for practice, thinking coach would understand your reason later. By the same token, sending a text to explain a lame excuse is even worse. But that is the glitch in Breakin’ Up 2.0 – it’s an application for selfish interest. It’s not compatible with the team construct that requires character.  It’s been “downloaded” by a great majority of us. Stay tuned for the upgrade.

SKELETAL

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What holds people up, makes them stand vertical? There’s simple answers and complex ones. There are God-fearin’ folk who would say, “God is the skeleton that supports the human frame.” But if I’m asked a similar question, I’d assume the asker wanted a more specific articulation. So I’d offer, for starters that people prop themselves up by one of two things. Either they take joy and affirmation in the feeling that, “I can produce.” Or  they affix themselves to causes bigger than themselves that can be but aren’t always spiritual. There is something that motivates people to make their own lives count and the efforts toward that objective quickly become skeletal.

As with the human skeleton, and I know little about bones, I imagine our pride is regularly subject to bruising and breaking. Bones and egos are brittle due to deficiencies and when weak skeletons are exposed, the result can be toxic as people attack one another.

Pure ignorance cripples us all at times as we judge, complain and pout because we can’t have what we want. It’s a brittle bones disease beyond compare. In fact I once met a young man with the physical version of this disease and he was quite cantankerous, throwin’ attitude and nearly runnin people down with his wheelchair. Wouldn’t you protect your Achille’s heal?

And so the word skeletal has more to do with the depth of the strength you exude than the remains you leave behind. The operative word is depth. We can choose to fortify our emotional and spiritual core, unlike our genetic skeletons. The irony is how we leave that to chance and blame the world for our failures. Make the skeletal work of you a beauty.

 

TETRIS LIFE

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You know good and well Tetris life doesn’t work. Is there anybody 25-40 years old who didn’t play Tetris at some point, who  didn’t wait for the long slender piece to get you 6 rows deleted? The piece sometimes appeared, relieving all fears just before those blocks stacked up but more often than not the outcome was frustration. You realized you should have taken the small pieces, the L and T blocks that get you one line.

How many times have you translated your Tetris skills to your approach to work and team. We humans are never happy right where we are, which isn’t criminal. What is, though, is when you can’t flourish where you are because your vision is cast so far beyond you. It’s the, “I’ll be happy when” affliction that plagues because it cripples “right now.” And right now is important. “Right now” is not solely bridge work or cobble stone steps. RIGHT NOW is a meaningful place that requires your attention and energy. It needs you to engage fully and not peer over it for the long elusive piece you’ve been missing. The goal is to win and learn simultaneously. Passing up RIGHT NOW successes for the long piece just ends the game quickly.

THE “TROOF”

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There’s a reason why the truth intimidates us so. Better yet there’s several. The first principal reason the truth is offensive to people is that it often flies squarely in the face of materialism. People smarter than I wax eloquent on the airwaves defending strange  assertions that present money as the end all be all. When Ron Artest had beer thrown on him in 2004 and ran up into the stands to “consult” fans about it, the lion’s share of blame was placed on the men who threatened the profit margin, the players. Money is some kind of task master. A submission to truth would see fans reprimanded en mass for derogatory behavior that denigrates other human beings. In other spheres, people would have you believe that even the modern church is a business. I assure you it is not supposed to be but that is an offensive truth.

Secondly, the naked truth threatens fraudulent ways of life for us all. Promiscuity, neglecting family and monetary greed are dubbed undeserving targets of religious prudence but dude, we all know the truth on that subject. So the world creates convenient ways for us to stew in our own juices comfortably.

Third, the unclad truth says that if you are kind, occasionally generous and focused on self-advancement you still lack. Truth be told, and it always should be, you are entitled only one thing  in this world – the prerogative to align your life with the system created for your success. The truth makes you change not only what you do but how you think about what you do. It affects your perception of the great God who created and saved you from…YOU!

I stood behind my car today right before running basketball practice and thought about character. I thought about how school programs promote character without the basis for it, how they espouse a higher standard of living in a vacuum. Character is rooted in only one place, eternal truth. Good habits alone leading to the livable dream are too shallow to anchor a true motivation for character development.  Anybody who’s been through any level of adversity knows that the basis for your character, your personhood, your moral/ethical quality can’t merely be based in college aspirations, careers and track housing. But that’s how we sell character. C’mon man!