If I were in Austin today, I would invite my daughter to lunch. I’d let her pick the place, and if she were feeling nastalgic, she might go for Sbarro, since I used to take her there on our father-daughter lunches when she was a tiny little princess.
Now she’s a big princess, but she’s still mine. Happy birthday, Karen!
Sometimes the demands of work and life can be overwhelming. Then there are the boondoggles….
Next week we will head to Spain for a retreat. This is a legitimate, work-related, most-expenses-paid trip. I’m sure the meetings will be helpful and challenging. I’m certain that every night when we head to our hotel rooms we will be exhausted. I’m also convinced you don’t believe me – but this is work! You shouldn’t be so cynical, just because we will be in a luxury hotel 50 meters from the beach – that’s just a convenient location so we will have plenty of meeting space.
Still, we get a day off, and our family will be heading to the ancient city of Seville for some cultural and historical nourishment.
I’ll try to post a picture or two….
In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation in which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him (Confessions IV, 10). Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one’s heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away….
There is no escape along the lines St. Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
From C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, “Charity”
One Day in September is a documentary film of the act of terrorism at the 1972 Munich Olympics. When I was in Munich recently, driving past the Olympic village, the pastor I was visiting mentioned this film to me. I had heard about it before and had wanted to watch it; he inspired me to go ahead.
Perhaps because I was 13 and thought the Olympics were the greatest thing on the planet, I will never forget many of the events and names from those Olympics: the USA-USSR basketball farce, Mark Spitz, Valeri Borzov, Olga Korbut, Dan Gable, Dave Wottle, and Frank Shorter. Even without the Munich Massacre, I’m sure those games would stand out in my mind as the most memorable.
But the hostage crisis overshadows all of that glory, and this film shows an amazing string of failures in prevention of and reaction to the attack on the Israeli athletes. I suppose things could have been worse, but it is hard to imagine. Still, as dark as it is, you should watch this film.
I’ve posted a few quotations from Encouragement: The Key to Caring as I have been reading it. It’s not a great book, but it has some helpful insights – and it’s short. Its theme is crucial, of course, and many of us need to learn much more about encouragement.
Perhaps the most helpful thing in this book was the way it reminded me how easily, how carelessly, how thoughtlessly I can discourage others, without even intending to. When the writers point it out, it’s easy to see. I imagine that I routinely treat other people’s hearts clumsily, and I am certain they notice it even though they don’t tell me.
That’s a sad realization, but it gives hope that I might take a little more care. At least I’d like to.
Words that open doors transmit two messages:
1. “I am interested in whatever you have to say.”
2. “I will accept you regardless of what you say.”
[From Encouragement, Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, p. 100]
Last year Tabletalk magazine asked me to write a little something on the ninth-century missionaries to the Slavs, Cyril and Methodius. That essay was published this month, and if you are curious you can read it online here. You can read it even if you aren’t curious.
You should note that it may appear that I am posing as a pastor, since they published the essay in their monthly column called the “Pastor’s Perspective,” which they describe thus: “Pastor’s Perspective is an opportunity each month for a different seasoned pastor to apply the themes discussed in Tabletalk more directly to the life of the layperson and equip the saints for service in the local congregation.” I’m no pastor, but I am different and even seasoned (after a fashion), and I didn’t know my words would be applied to this column till after it was published.
Encouragers must constantly remind themselves that the people with whom they rub shoulders are facing problems in life which, but for the grace of God, are ultimately overwhelming. It is this conscious awareness that can give encouraging power to even the most trivial conversation.
[From Encouragement, Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, p. 79]
What is a determined encourager to do when he is really irked by the one he intends to encourage? How do we encourage someone who irritates us? Certainly the ministry of encouragement should extend beyond the circle of people we enjoy.
[From Encouragement, Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, p. 61]