Monday, February 27, 2006

John Wooden, more than just a Coaching Legend...

Written by a sportswriter.......

On the 21st of the month, the best man I know will do what he always does on the 21st of the month. He'll sit down and pen a love letter to his best girl. He'll say how much he misses her and loves her and can't wait to see her again.

Then he'll fold it once, slide it in a little envelope and walk into his bedroom. He'll go to the stack of love letters sitting there on her pillow, untie the yellow ribbon, place the new one on top and tie the ribbon again. The stack will be 180 letters high then, because the 21st will be 15 years to the day since Nellie, his beloved wife of 53 years, died.

In her memory, he sleeps only on his half of the bed, only on his pillow, only on top of the sheets, never between; with just the oldbedspread they shared to keep him warm.

There's never been a finer man in American sports than John Wooden, or a finer coach. He won 10 NCAA basketball championships at UCLA, thelast in 1975. Nobody has ever come within six of him.

He won 88 straight games between January 30, 1971, and January 17,1974. Nobody has come within 42 since.

So, sometimes, when the Basketball Madness gets to be too much -- too many players trying to make Sports Center, too few players trying to make assists, too few coaches willing to be mentors, too many freshmen with out-of-wedlock kids, too few freshmen who will stay in school long enough to become men -- I like to go see Coach Wooden.

I visit him in his little condo in Encino, 20 minutes northwest of Los Angeles, and hear him say things like "Gracious sakes alive!" and tell stories about teaching "Lewis" the hook shot. Lewis Alcindor, that is...who became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

There has never been another coach like Wooden, quiet as an April snow and square as a game of checkers; loyal to one woman, one school, one way; walking around campus in his sensible shoes and Jimmy Stewart morals.

He'd spend a half hour the first day of practice teaching his men how to put on a sock. "Wrinkles can lead to blisters," he'd warn. These huge players would sneak looks at one another and roll their eyes.

Eventually, they'd do it right. "Good," he'd say. "And now for the other foot."Of the 180 players who played for him, Wooden knows the whereabouts of172. Of course, it's not hard when most of them call, checking on his health, secretly hoping to hear some of his simple life lessons so that they can write them on the lunch bags of their kids, who will roll theireyes."

Discipline yourself, and others won't need to," Coach would say."Never lie, never cheat, never steal," and "Earn the right to be proud and confident."

If you played for him, you played by his rules: Never score without acknowledging a teammate. One word of profanity and you're done for the day. Treat your opponent with respect.

He believed in hopelessly out-of-date stuff that never did anything but win championships. No dribbling behind the back or through the legs."

There's no need," he'd say.

No UCLA basketball number was retired under his watch. "What about thefellows who wore that number before? Didn't they contribute to the team?" he'd say.

No long hair, no facial hair. "They take too long to dry, and you could catch cold leaving the gym," he'd say. That one drove his players bonkers.

One day, All-America center Bill Walton showed up with a full beard.

"It's my right," he insisted. Wooden asked if he believed that strongly.

Walton said he did. "That's good, Bill," Coach said. "I admire people who have strong beliefs and stick by them, I really do. We're going to miss you." Walton shaved it right then and there. Now Walton calls once a week to tell Coach he loves him.

It's always too soon when you have to leave the condo and go back out into the real world, where the rules are so much grayer and the teams so much worse.

As Wooden shows you to the door, you take one last look around. The framed report cards of his great-grandkids, the boxes of jellybeans peeking out from under the favorite wooden chair, the dozens of pictures of Nellie.

He's almost 90 now. You think a little more hunched over than last time. Steps a little smaller. You hope it's not the last time you see him. He smiles. "I'm not afraid to die," he says. "

Death is my only chance to be with her again."

Problem is * we still need him here."

There is only one kind of a life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere. Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters: John Wooden"

Friday, February 17, 2006

Food for Thought and Reflection...

Below is an article from Christianity Today that addresses those in our churches that appear to being living the Christian life the way God intended. This may include you. Take some time to reflect on whether or not you are in your Father's arms. Are you doing the life of a Christian or have you truly accepted the Grace that Christ has already given you?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/004/17.138.html

Helping the "Healthy"

How do we preach saving grace to those who just aren't "good" at sinning?
by Craig Barnes

I have about decided that the most dangerous thing people can do in the church is be healthy. The leadership will either overuse them on committees and ministry teams, until they're no longer healthy, or we will just ignore them. Clergy have a particularly hard time knowing how to care for those who do not appear to be in trouble.

It isn't really that difficult to preach to prodigals. Pastors are well trained for this task, believe it is core to the gospel, and love nothing more than proclaiming the forgiving grace of God to the sinner. But what does the pastor have to say to all of those elder brothers who have faithfully stayed in the pews of the church their whole lives?

Face it—caring for the elder brother is a drag. He doesn't want any of our sexy recovery programs because he isn't divorced, bereaved, or addicted to anything other than playing it safe. He doesn't have a dramatic story to share because he never got around to making a mess of life before returning to the outstretched arms of the rejoicing Father. So all we say is "Well, you have always been here and we're proud of you, too. Now, about the stewardship committee—"
I am not exactly sure that the elder brother is spiritually healthy. The point of the parable, it seems to me, is that the goal is to find yourself in the arms of the Father. It may be that the elder brother was in greater danger of never finding those arms than the prodigal who had to run away to return to them. But that is precisely my concern. How do we preach saving grace to those who just aren't good at sinning?

The preacher has to remember that not being a flagrant sinner is a particularly seductive means of rebellion. This was essentially Jesus' point to the Pharisees. Those who have not broken the rules may be farther from the Father's arms than those who've broken most all of them. Sin is anything that separates us from God, and nothing does that quite like not feeling the need for mercy. Again, the point isn't to be good. The point is to get into those arms, and grace is the only way there.

This means preachers are called to peel back the veneer of spiritual health in the elder brothers, and help them to see that beneath all of those years of careful living lies a soul that is as dangerously parched as that of the prodigals. Their right answers, dedicated volunteerism, beautiful families, and well-marked study Bibles can keep them away from the love of the Father just as much as the prodigals' wantonness.

Whether he realizes it or not, like everyone else, the elder brother yearns to be in the right relationship with God. But for him, that requires repenting of his years and years of living so carefully that he doesn't need grace. This is not an easy point to make as a preacher.

Over the years, I have learned to get at this hard truth by telling short, subtle anecdotes. For example: "A woman is vacuuming one day, praying that God will make her a better mother. As she looks out the living room window, she sees her five-year-old son in the backyard. He is throwing a ball up in the air and clumsily trying to catch it. She doesn't know why, but she can't stop crying."

It is not necessary to interpret the story by making the obvious point that the goal is not to be a better mother, but gratefully to enjoy the child God has given her. With prodigals you have to be obvious, but with their careful, hard-working elder siblings, only subtlety will pierce through the self-righteousness. This is why Jesus liked parables so much.

Other preachers may prefer different strategies for speaking to those who have lived too carefully. But clearly, the healthy members of the church are in just as big trouble as everyone else. If we pastors ever get confused about that, we have only to look just beneath the surface of our own spiritual veneer.

Editor at large Craig Barnes is pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church and professor of leadership and ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This article first appeared in the Fall of 2005 Leadership Journal.
Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Living Your Life for Christ - Even in Sports

Polamalu has emerged as one of NFL's top safeties

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/sports/steelerslive/s_295403.html

Excerpt:

Then, there is Polamalu's faith, which is the strongest guiding force in his life. "God calls upon Christian football players to play with passion, just like the life you live."

Polamalu doesn't watch games that don't involve him (other than USC's victory in the Orange Bowl this year), so he said he acquired his instincts for the game "just playing in the park."
He said his skills are "mostly God given."

"I'm not trying to toot my own horn here," he said, "but it is definitely a blessing from God that he has allowed me to be very instinctual and just go out and play football. My faith has got everything to do with my performance, whether it's good or bad."

Polamalu said his faith has been important to him since he was about in the third grade and his grandmother Ese Pola died.

"It was very hard on me," he said. "I went to church, maybe, four or five times a week before she died, but I didn't really find meaning in that. But from then on, was when I started praying every night and started reading the Bible."

Even today, Polamalu reads the Bible -- and his playbook -- every day.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Time Management 101

Something that I struggle with from time to time is fitting everything that needs to be done in the time I have allotted and still leave time for fun. The following article on Christianity Today gives us a glimpse into God's perspective on time management via the example of Jesus. Pray and ask God to reveal to you what "work" he has been interrupting your life with that you have been missing.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/002/29.43.html

Schedule, Interrupted
Discovering God's time-management.
by Mark Buchanan


"Teach us to number our days aright," Moses asked God, "that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Ps. 90:12).

There is a right way to tally up days. There's an arithmetic of timekeeping, and God must tutor us in it. Wisdom is not the condition for learning this arithmetic. It's the fruit of it. Wisdom comes from learning to number our days aright. You don't need to be wise to sign up for God's school. But if you're diligent, attentive, and inquisitive in his classes, you'll emerge that way.

It's easy to get this wrong. God's school is not like most. It's not regimented, age-adjusted, fixed in its curricula. The classroom is life itself; the curriculum, all of life's demands and interruptions and tedium, its surprises and disappointments. In the midst of this, through these things themselves, God hands us an abacus and tells us to tally it all up.

Meaning?

Meaning, work out where time and eternity meet. Pay attention to how God is afoot in the mystery of each moment, in its mad rush or maddening plod. He is present in both. But too often, we are so time-obsessed that we take no time to really notice. I have a pastor friend in Toronto who one day after a Sunday service received a note: "Pastor Peter, I would appreciate it if you prayed shorter prayers. Your pastoral prayer this past Sunday was 12 minutes, 43 seconds in length. Please strive for greater brevity."

The note was unsigned. The only thing we know about this man, woman, or child is that the writer is so bound by time—counting the minutes—that he has never learned to number his days. This person can tell time, but not discern seasons.

Miss that, and you miss wisdom. For only those who number their days aright gain a wise heart. Only they become God's sages: those calm, unhurried people who live in each moment fully, savoring simple things, celebrating small epiphanies, unafraid of life's inevitable surprises and reverses, adaptive to change yet not chasing after it.

The Ironic Secret
I write this at a time when the church talks much about being purpose-driven. This is a good thing, but we ought to practice a bit of holy cynicism about it. We should be a little uneasy about the pairing of purposefulness and drivenness. Something's out of kilter there. Drivenness may awaken purpose or be a catalyst for purpose, but it rarely fulfills it: More often it jettisons it.

A common characteristic of driven people is that, at some point, they forget their purpose. They lose the point. The very reason they began something—embarked on a journey, undertook a project, waged a war, entered a profession, married a woman—erodes under the weight of their striving. Their original inspiration may have been noble. But driven too hard, it gets supplanted by greed for more, or dread of setback, or force of habit.

Drivenness erodes purposefulness.

The difference between living on purpose and being driven surfaces most clearly in what we do with time. The driven are fanatical time managers—time-mongers, time-herders, time-hoarders. Living on purpose requires skillful time management, true, but not the kind that turns brittle, that attempts to quarantine most of what makes life what it is: the mess, the surprises, the breakdowns, and the breakthroughs. Too much rigidity stifles purpose. I find that the more I try to manage time, the more anxious I get about it.

And the more prone I am to lose my purpose.

Truly purposeful people have an ironic secret: They manage time less and pay attention more. The most purposeful people I know rarely overmanage time, and when they do, it's usually because they're lapsing into drivenness, into a loss of purpose for which they overcompensate with mere busyness. No, the distinguishing mark of purposeful people is not time management.

It's that they notice. They're fully awake.

Zigzags and Detours
Jesus, for example. He lived life with the clearest and highest purpose. Yet he veered and strayed from one interruption to the next, with no apparent plan in hand other than his single, overarching one: Get to Jerusalem and die. Otherwise, his days, as far as we can figure, were a series of zigzags and detours, apparent whims and second thoughts, interruptions and delays, off-the-cuff plans, spur-of-the-moment decisions, leisurely meals, serendipitous rounds of storytelling.

Who touched me?You give them something to eat.Let's go to the other side.

Jesus was available—or not—according to some oblique logic all his own. He had an inner ear for the Father's whispers, a third eye for the Spirit's motions. One minute he's not going to the temple, the next he is. One minute he refuses to help a wedding host solve his wine drought, the next he's all over it. He's ready to drop everything and rush over to a complete stranger's house to heal his servant, but dawdles four days while Lazarus—"the one he loves"—writhes in his death throes (John 11:3), or fails to come at all when John the Baptist—"the greatest in the kingdom of heaven"—languishes on death row (Matt. 11:1-11). The closest we get to what dictated Jesus' schedule is his statement in John's Gospel: "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).

The apostle Peter, after declaring that Jesus is "Lord of all," describes the supreme Sovereign's modus operandi: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and … he went around doing good" (Acts 10:36, 38, emphasis mine). So that's it, the sum of Christ's earthly vocation: He wandered, and he blessed. He was a vagabond physician, the original doctor without borders. His purpose was crystallized, but his method almost scattershot. "My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted," Henri Nouwen said near the end of his life, "until I discovered the interruptions were my work."

Paying Attention
No, Jesus didn't seem to keep time. But he noticed. So many people along the way—blind men, lame men, wild men, fishermen, tax men, weeping whores, pleading fathers, grieving mothers, dying children, singing children, anyone—captured his attention. He stopped to tell a lot of stories, many of which arose out of interruptions: "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me" (Luke 12:13); "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25); "Son of David, have mercy on me!" (Matt. 15:22). What's more, he invited others to go and do likewise. Those driven to get and spend, to judge and exclude, he called to attention.

Look at the birds!
Look at those flowers!
Do you see this woman?
Where are the other nine?
Why do you call me good?
Who do you say I am?

Life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions, Jesus warned. And then he told a story about a rich fool who noticed all the trivial things but was oblivious to all the important ones. What matters, Jesus concluded, isn't being rich in stuff: It's being rich toward God. He explained the essence of such richness elsewhere: It's having eyes to see, ears to hear. It's to notice, to pay attention to the time of God's visitation. "The dream of my life," Mary Oliver writes,

Is to lie down by a slow riverAnd stare at the light in the trees—To learn something of being nothingA little while but the richLens of attention.

Jesus was that "rich lens of attention."

To live on purpose means to go and do likewise. Purposefulness requires that we pay attention, and paying attention means, almost by definition, that we make room for surprise. We become hospitable to interruption. To sustain it, we need theological touchstones for it—a conviction in our bones that God is Lord of our days and years, and that his purposes and his presence often come disguised as detours, messes, defeats.

I came to you naked, Jesus says. I came to you thirsty.

"When, Lord?" we ask, startled.

When he wore the disguise of an interruption.

Think a moment of all the events and encounters that have shaped you most deeply and lastingly. How many did you see coming? How many did you engineer, manufacture, chase down?

And how many were interruptions?

Children? You might have planned as meticulously as a NASA rocket launch, but did you have any idea, really, what it would be like, who this child in your arms really was, who you would become because of him or her? The span between life as we intend it and life as we receive it is vast. Our true purpose is worked out in that gap. It is fashioned in the crucible of interruptions.

The Crucible of Interruptions
The movie Mr. Holland's Opus tells the story of a man with a magnificent ambition. He wants to be a great composer. But he still has to pay the bills, so he and his young wife move to a small town where he teaches high school music, strictly for the money. All the while, he works on his masterpiece, his opus, laying the ground for his real calling. The plan is to teach for a few years, then step into his destiny.

But life keeps intruding. One year folds into two, into five, into fifteen. And then one day, Mr. Holland is old, and the school board shuffles him out for early retirement. He packs his desk. His wife and grown son come to fetch him. Walking down the school's wide, empty hallways, he hears a sound in the auditorium. He goes to see what it is.

It's a surprise.

Hundreds of his students from his years of teaching—many now old themselves—dozens of his colleagues, both current and former, hundreds of friends, fans, and well-wishers: The room is packed. All have gathered to say thank you. An orchestra is there, made up of Mr. Holland's students through the years. They've been preparing to perform Mr. Holland's Opus—the composition that, over four decades, he hammered out and tinkered with, polished, discarded, recovered, reworked, but never finished.

They play it now.

But of course he knows, everyone knows: His opus isn't the composition. His real opus, his true life's masterpiece, stands before him, here, now. It's not the music. It is all these people whom his passions and convictions have helped and shaped. It's all that was being formed in the crucible of interruptions. This is his work. This is his purpose.

Finally, after all these years, he's learned to number his days.

In 1973, the comedian Johnny Carson nearly caused a national crisis with a single wisecrack. That was the year North America's long flight of postwar prosperity fell to earth like a shot goose in one ungainly plummet. There was runaway inflation. There were oil and food shortages. All the abundance that Americans had come to see as their due, their birthright, suddenly seemed in jeopardy.

And so, on December 19, 1973, at 11:35 p.m., when Johnny Carson walked on the live studio set of The Tonight Show and quipped, "There's an acute shortage of toilet paper in the United States," it wasn't funny. The joke had a toehold in reality: Earlier in the day, Congressman Harold Froehlich from Wisconsin had warned that if the federal bureaucracy didn't catch up on its supply bids, government agencies would run out of toilet tissue within a month or two. Carson took this shard of trivia and played it for a laugh. Then, as was his trademark, he swung at an invisible golf ball, took a commercial break, and got on with the show.

Not so the nation. Twenty million viewers flew into panic. The next morning, hundreds of thousands of frantic shoppers lined up outside the supermarkets of America, poised to dash to the paper aisles and stockpile rolls, fighting over bundles of two-ply and four-ply. There were brawls in the aisles and scrums at the checkout. Some store managers tried to limit sales to four rolls per customer, but they had no way of monitoring how many times a customer came back, and most came back repeatedly. By noon on December 20—mere hours after Johnny's flippant remark—America was sold out.

Johnny Carson's offhand gag line had sparked a national run (no pun intended) on toilet tissue.

We're generally gullible about news of scarcity. We have, it seems, an inbuilt skittishness about shortfall. This has been with us a long while, since the garden, by my reckoning.

Most of us live afraid that we're almost out of time. But you and I, we're heirs of eternity. We're not short of days.

We just need to number them aright.

Mark Buchanan's latest book, from which this article is excerpted, is The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring the Sabbath (Word, 2005).

This article first appeared in the February 2006 issue of Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188