Faith Venture

I don’t often write about personal experience. Sometimes it gets me into trouble. Mostly, I’m just pretty boring.

I had a flight to Sacramento yesterday morning in order to attend a business technology conference. I use a driver service. This service has been superb for the two plus years I’ve used it since we moved to the outskirts of the Chicago metropolitan area.

The car was due at 7:15 am. They are always a little early. No car. By 7:30 I was concerned and called. You cancelled the trip the owner said. I said, no I didn’t. Miscommunication. They texted a confirmation which returned a “don’t need a car” message.

I use my same mobile number that I’ve had for years. It is a Sidney, Ohio number. They typed a 6 instead of an 8. So, if someone from Sidney is reading this and declined a ride from Huntley Hills, thank you 😉  Huntley is the village just north of where I currently live.

But the owner gave me a shot. He picked me up 40 minutes late. I allow for time, but I don’t anticipate 40 minutes. Oh, well. Then there was unusual congestion on Interstate 90 around Schaumburg. The GPS said arriving at O’Hare at 8:55. My flight was 9:15.

The driver asked, how can you remain so calm. You haven’t even been checking your phone constantly for flight updates. I told him I know my way through the airport, have the CLEAR system that speeds me through plus TSA Pre-check. I also had my running shoes on.

He dropped me off. I got to CLEAR. Great. Then they said you’ve been “randomly” selected for additional screening. They had to check my ID. But that went quickly. On to the security line. It was short. I walked through the metal detector like I have a thousand times. It beeped. I had been “randomly” selected to go through the other x-ray detector. Oh, joy. One thing after another.

No problem. I got through. Security is close to the tunnel connecting B and C terminals. My gate was the one directly across from exiting the tunnel. I ran all the way through that way. Got to the gate area. The door was still open. Two gate agents were chatting. I made it.

Remain calm? 

You have to recognize when worry just gives no benefit. You work out the problems one thing at a time. One obstacle at a time.

And if I hadn’t made it? Well, there are alternatives, I’m sure. But I’m typing this from my hotel in Folsom, California. Had a good day yesterday at the conference. Looking forward to meeting even more geeks today. And, just chillin’.

The window of my study faces west. This morning in contemplation I watched a thunderstorm move across the prairie over me and on toward Lake Michigan.

We try to outwit lightning sometimes. Coaches of teams in outdoor sports downplay the perils of lightning at great risk. We don’t know whether the lightning will stay in the clouds or whether it will strike somewhere. And that somewhere we are powerless to predict.

For lightning is electricity in its pure form. It will flow where it meets the least resistance.

I have read a philosophy of seeking the path of least resistance as we live out our lives. While I do not advocate our looking for resistance to overcome, it is true that electricity channeled through capacitors and transistors power our computers to do useful work.

As Jesus said in an age before we channeled electricity about paths of least resistance, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Beware walking through a thunderstorm. You may be on the path of least resistance.

Beware also of walking through life always seeking the easy way. The easy path is wide and smooth. Channel rather your energy through the way Jesus mapped out for us.

The thoughts began with a discussion about Affirmative Action and the US Supreme Court’s decision effectively eliminating it because it discriminates against white men. 

So, I suggested that we just step back and look at the issue from various points of view. Not every white male is rich and powerful. Not every female person is the same as others. Not every black person is the same. Just try sometime to list a number of different people. Then say, what if I were that person. How would I feel? What would I want? Then go to the next person on the list.

This is also a great study technique. Maybe to study the stories Jesus told. Or study other stories in the Bible. Perhaps a good way to study history.

Works for relationships. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. What would they need or want? How would they feel if I …?

I hate to be the one to tell you [no, wait, I don’t hate that] that the world and all its people do not exist to serve you. You’re worried about what other people think about you? Don’t! They aren’t.

Many times I see the same teaching and wisdom passed on. Two important characteristics of successful (not necessarily rich, that’s another thing) people are curiosity and imagination.

And I wonder…

What does it mean when it says in the Bible he worshipped…?

What does it mean when God says I will be with you?

Why does the Apostle Paul throw in so many weird, seemingly out of context, sentences?

Why did Jesus say so many things to his followers assuming they knew what he was saying when they hadn’t a clue?

Or, why did those followers write all that down making themselves look foolish?

How is it that these disparate and scattered Christian fellowships survived without a single written comprehensive document (Bible) and creed for 300 years? Why do we fight over that now?

What did it feel like to be part of the crowd on that hillside sloping down to the Lake when Jesus preached his Sermon?

What was it like walking with Jesus and his many companions as we journeyed through Galilee and into Judah? Did we sing songs? Did people jostle for position close enough to Jesus to hear him?  How many conversations happened along the way? Relationships formed?

Some people live within the belief passed on to them when they were eight years old? Some of us wonder—what if? What happened? What was it like?

Glen Campbell was a popular singer/songwriter in the 1960s and 1970s. He recorded a John Hartford song in the 60s about memories of a former love who was “gentle on my mind.”

We don’t often hear about being gentle. Maybe in our macho cultures we worry about being gentle as a form of weakness. Just as it takes inner strength to be humble, gentle is also a sign of strength.

We are strong enough to lift an infant or small child. Yet, we are gentle with them. Even when they frustrate us to no end. That is strength.

We are strong enough to dig in the soil to make a flower bed, yet we are gentle in picking a flower to present to a friend or lover.

We can be gentle when dealing with others, yet we have the strength to be helpful.

Today would be a great time to practice being gentle. Toward the things around you. Toward the people you meet. Toward even to yourself.