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Category Archives: Video
Stinkin’ Synchronicity
This past Sunday I was given the honor of pitching in relief for our pastor at our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. The text I was asked to address was Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
In case anyone is interested:
I thought I did a relatively okay job of unpacking the theme of Life and Death in the passage. Then, in a moment of synchronicity on Monday I stumbled on the blog post entitled “The Stench” by my fellow blogger at Beauty Beyond Bones. She happened to hear a different message on the same passage this past Sunday. She wrote a powerful post that articulated it all so incredibly well:
When I was “dead” in my anorexia, my stench could be smelled a mile away. Aside from the obvious skeletal body and having my hair fall out, there were also things like, isolating myself. Being angry with a micro-short fuse. Lying. Manipulating. Outbursts of venomous speech. You name it.
It was ugly. It “smelled bad.” It was the stench of death.
But the thing about the story is that Jesus worked through the stench…
I encourage you to read her entire post (and follow her blog). She nailed in a short blog post exactly what I was desperately trying hard to get at in a 30 minute message.
Stinkin’ synchronicity. I Iove it.
Message: “Love Hopes All Things”
I mentioned the attached message in Monday’s post Hope and Disappointment. The message, in which I share about Wendy’s and my journey through infertility, talks about three important waypoints we went through in coping with the disappointment, when our strongest hopes remained unrealized.
I’ve included the message here in both audio and video formats. These are posted with the permission of Third Church in Pella, IA who holds all rights.
Hope and Disappointment
Surely it was for my benefit
that I suffered such anguish.
Isaiah 38:17a
Sunday was an emotional day for Wendy and me. I had the privilege of sharing the morning message among our local gathering of Jesus followers. The topic came from Paul’s letter to the believers in Corinth; One of the most well-known chapters in all of God’s Message. “The Love Chapter” is what it’s commonly called and I had been asked to speak to the phrase “Love hopes all things.”
As soon as I realized that I had been assigned that phrase, I knew in my heart that it was time for Wendy and me to share openly about a particularly difficult stretch of our own journey. I have touched on it from time to time on my blog, but we’ve never really spoken about it openly and publicly.
For many years Wendy and I eagerly attempted to conceive and bring a baby into this world. We started with high hopes, each of us endured surgeries, and we repeatedly travelled down the path of virtually every medical procedure and homeopathic suggestion available to us in our hope of having a child.
As hope waned for this desperate desire, Wendy and I experienced all of the stages of disappointment and grief. We felt doubt, anger, envy, despair and rage. We cried. We screamed. We fought. We wrestled with all of the hard questions. If God loves us, then why…? Why her? Why them? Why not us?
It has now been a handful of years since we surrendered our hopes of conceiving. To this day the grief still surprises us. It’s amazing how the sadness and tears well up unexpectedly in the oddest of moments. Nevertheless, Wendy and I recognized in the depths of the valley of infertility that we had come to a spiritual fork in the road. One path led in rapid descent into hopelessness, anger, brokenness and despair. It was an easy path to follow as are most paths of descent. The other path was a much longer road of ascent. It would still traverse hopelessness, anger, and despair, but the long slog eventually climbed toward trust in a larger narrative God was writing into our stories.
In my message this past Sunday I tried hard not to make it about our infertility as much as speaking to the myriad of hopes and disappointments each of us experience along this journey. In today’s chapter King Hezekiah’s hopes were for a long life and a prosperous reign. Those hopes are dashed with a terminal diagnosis, yet Hezzy comes to the same spiritual fork in the road that Wendy and I faced. He chooses the faith slog, and comes to recognize that there was purpose in his pain. There was benefit in the anguish.
Wendy and I can relate to that. Just was we are sometimes surprised by the grief that appears in unexpected moments, so are we often surprised by joy in the midst of our grief. It has taken years, but we can honestly say we experience a deep sense of thankfulness for having to traverse that valley. Our faith journey through infertility has led us further up, and further in. We have experienced facets of life and love that we didn’t know existed with clarity we didn’t know was possible. From our current position on life’s road we now look back and affirm the lyric of Hezekiah’s song.
Anguish has it’s benefits.
Faith, hope, and love have led us through disappointments, but they have not disappointed us.
Here are the audio and video of the message (used with permission of Third Church, who holds all rights) in case you’re interested.
Someday … is TODAY!
Anyone who knows me even moderately well knows that I am among the millions of long-suffering Chicago Cubs fans. My precious young daughters endured long, chilly April afternoons at Principal Park with dad watching the AAA Iowa Cubs play. They did, however, get to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame for a local news story about the ubiquitous “Businessman’s Special” (forgive the extremely poor VHS archive footage):
Taylor even dutifully went along with me on my first visit to Wrigley Field.
When Wendy and I married she allowed me the joy of teaching her about baseball, about the Cubs, and she has walked this journey with me for over a decade. She’s endured the chill winds blowing in at Wrigley with me. We try to watch or listen to every game, often recording it and watching it late if we have to, and planning our travel to the lake to coincide with Pat and Ron calling the game on the radio. My wonderful wife has become such a baseball fan that while I was on a business trip a few years ago she was watching all of the major league roster moves on the MLB network at the trade deadline and texting me up-to-the-minute news. Man, I love that woman.
Our family and friends have had to live with (endure, really) the reality that the Cubs are always on at our house. It’s just the way of life at both Vander Well Manor and our Playhouse at the lake. I’m happy to say, however, that more than a few have embraced our crazy. It’s been a blast to share the fun together.
Iowa Cubs beat the Albuquerque Isotopes!
Cuff Links made from baseball used in Cubs Yankees game on June 18, 2011 (the evil ones won 4-3 that day).
Madison got some Cubbie swag to help maintain her Midwest roots in SC!
The crew that was left late in the afternoon!
“Play Ball!” Cubs’ preseason games start this afternoon!
Enjoyed scoring a few Cubs games on the deck!
Cubbie Bear stopped by to wish me a Happy Birthday!
Every year hope has sprung eternal. Opening day is a bit of an annual rite of passage at our house. Wendy has hot dogs, nachos, and cold beer ready. We put it on the calendar and make watching a priority.
I crank Eddie Vedder’s Someday We’ll Go All the Way and dream quietly that it just might be a day this year, this season.
Every autumn hope has ended with acute, even horrific, post season tragedy or the painfully slow, obtuse seasons in which there were far more losses than wins.
There’s been more sorrow than joy over the years, but it hasn’t really mattered. We still watch, listen, follow, cheer, scream, and cry. Then we grieve the long months of winter until the sounds of a Cubs game can once again resonate through Vander Well Manor each day.
Ask any Cubs fan and they’ll tell you that this season was special. There was something different about this crew of bear Cubs. There is the zen, hippie manager who organized pajama parties on road trips and petting zoos at practice. There are the expensive free agents that the front office were willing to sign. There are the talented free agents who passed up more money and longer contracts because they wanted to play for this team. The National League infield in the All-Star game were all Chicago Cubs. And, there were wins. A lot of wins. The “W” flag risked getting tattered from consistent exposure to the elements. We’d experienced some great seasons, but we’d never experienced a season like this season.
There’s this thing I’ve learned about hope when all you’ve experienced is disappointment. You want so desperately to give yourself wholly to dance with hope, but you’re always waiting for disappointment to show up, tap hope on the shoulder, and cut in. We’ve been conditioned to expect that our hopes will be dashed. The rug will be pulled out from under us.
Our team swooned in June before the all-star break and we thought, “Oh no, here we go again.”
Our team won more games than any other team, and we were told “the team who wins the most games rarely wins the World Series.”
Our team lost to the Giants in 13 innings, and we thought “The momentum’s gone. Here we go again.”
Our team couldn’t eek out a single run against Kershaw in Game 2 of the NLCS, then we get shut out again in Game 3. We thought “Surely, this is the beginning of the end.”
Our team gets shut out in Game 1 of the World Series, then loses two of three at Wrigley. We have to win three straight, and win the last two in Cleveland. We’re reminded incessantly by Joe Buck and the rest of the baseball talking heads how long the odds are, how improbable it would be, and how many times the Cubs have blown it before. And, we think, “The dance with hope is over. I see disappointment making its way across the gym floor to cut in. Again.”
Then we win Game 5 at Wrigley and salvage one victory at home. At least we won’t have to endure watching Cleveland celebrate a World Series victory in the Friendly Confines.
Then we win Game 6 in Cleveland and relish the thought of having pushed the series to the limit. Still we have the talking heads reminding us of the improbability, the long odds, the history of our dashed hopes.
Then comes Game 7. Lead off homer by Fowler. Strong effort by Hendricks. 5-1 lead. The Indians get a couple of runs but we’ve got a lead and it’s getting late in the game. Hope is dancing. Hope is literally cutting the rug, and we are feelin’ fine. Put on the dancing shoes.
Nine outs away.
Six outs away.
Four outs away.
Two down. Bottom of the 8th. Bases empty. Just one more out and we’re on to the 9th.
Indians double.
Indians Home Run.
Tied 5-5.
There is disappointment tapping hope on the shoulder. “Excuse me. I’d like to cut in.”
Rain delay. Seriously?!
Texting with Madison in SC.
Texting with Kevin M.
Texting with Chadwicke.
Texting with Kevin R.
Texting with Matthew.
Texting with Harry.
Then comes the top of the 10th.
Cubs score one.
Cubs score two.
The Cubs are doing it. They are defying the odds and the naysayers and the talking heads and the curses and the nagging disappointments.
Carl Edwards Jr., the kid we watched pitch at Principal Park for the Iowa Cubs just a month or so ago, is in to close it.
Indians score one. Disappointment is still trying desperately to steal the dance.
Texting with Taylor
I have always dreamed of this day. I had always envisioned being in Chicago. I imagined driving to Elgin and taking the train into the city and the Red Line to Wrigley. But, there was something so right about being here at Vander Well Manor. It was just Wendy and me listening to Pat and Ron call the game while we watched the muted television feed. This is where we celebrate Opening Day with hot dogs, nachos, popcorn and beer. This is where we listen and watch and cheer and groan and cry nearly every day from April through September. Now it’s November. It’s the last day of the baseball season. Game 7 of the World Series. The Chicago Cubs were the last team standing. We won the big one.
Hope shrugged off disappointment this time. It’s time to dance, really dance, for the first time in 108 years. Wendy and I hugged, and cried, and went outside to #FlytheW.
Someday was TODAY. I can’t describe how much fun it was to exchange calls and texts and messages and posts and tweets with friends and family. And, most of all, with the little girls, now grown, who endured chilly April afternoons at Principal Park with dad watching the AAA Iowa Cubs play and learning to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame.
It’s root, root, root for the Cubbies, if they don’t win it’s a shame…
No shame tonight. We won. It’s time to dance.
Whale of a Tale
For anyone who might possibly be interested, this is the message I gave last week among my local gathering of Jesus’ followers from Mark 4:35-41.
Cheers!
Mark 1: “The Dance”
For any interested and for what its worth, this is the first in a series of messages on Mark’s biography of Jesus that I had the privilege of sharing with my local gathering of Jesus’ followers in the auditorium at Third Church a couple of weeks ago.
I’m scheduled next on May 15: “The Power…”
Cheers.
TBT: “That’s Life”
Speaking of “Where have I been?”, it’s Sinatra week in honor of Blue Eyes’ 100th birthday. For Throwback Thursday (posted one day late), here’s a gem from the Vander Well VHS archives good for a laugh and a reminder of just how adorable young Taylor and Madison were. For a church talent show, the girls and I performed one of Frank’s signature songs, That’s Life (I won’t be offended if you mute the audio).
“Play LaMarseillaise. Play it!”
We’ll always have Paris. Vive la France!
And Now, For Something Completely Different
You gotta love a Finnish bluegrass band covering Iron Maiden. And, they do it so well. Makes me smile. Here’s another winner from Steve ‘n’ Seagulls.
Wayfarer 