It's Fall, Y'all!

The weather has changed in Texas. It’s still in 80's during the day. BUT, two weeks ago it was 94 degrees with a heat index of 105 so this is much better. We are not complaining.

I sniffed the air this morning and felt fall leaves and pumpkins in it. They weren’t tangible per se, but they were there anyway! The fall aura told me so.

With the temperatures like this, I often feel more hopeful, like maybe life after the 2016 election won’t be so bad after all…right? Did anyone watch the debate? I did, for about 15 minutes. When I realized that I could do a better job of Donald Trump at debating, I soon lost my appetite and turned it off. I don’t think he really wants to be president. I think this is all as much of a surprise to him as it was to all of us. I honestly believe he wakes up in a new world every morning and one morning about 6 months ago he thought, “Gee, today is a GREAT day to run for president! Maybe I’ll try out. Should be fun!”

And Hillary…I don’t want to talk about her. There’s no sense in ruining a perfectly lovely morning with thoughts of Hillary Clinton.

On mornings like this I feel excited and joyful. I wonder if world dictators feel like this also. I wonder if they wake up on nice mornings and decide to execute only 50 people that day instead of 500. Are they affected by beautiful days? Was Hitler temporarily lifted from his madness when it turned fall in Germany?

These are strange thoughts but I’ve often wondered things like this. What really happens when Kim Jong Un has the flu? He must get sick just like everyone else. Dictators are people too, horrible, maleolvent people, but human beings comprised of flesh and bone just like the rest of us. I wonder if they get migraines…I wonder if North Korean officials secretly breathe a sigh of relief each time the dictator gets a cold. It's useless to speculate about things like this, but fun nonetheless. 

Anyway, today is a beautiful day and it is supposed to be a beautiful weekend. It’s a beautiful life, y’all! Enjoy the outdoors. 

Living for Something More

There seems to be a general sense of a lack of direction in many people’s lives. This results from a prevailing combination of factors that are too many to list here, but all draw back to one reason: apathy. In general, we lack direction as a whole because we don’t really care. We’ve forgotten what it was like to work for something and to work toward something. Our lives are not voiced with purpose, they are ran by our desires.

These problems are not solely limited to people in the “world”. They are increasingly a part of the everyday Christian’s life as well. We have our nice churches, we have lived our lives in the era of grace, sadly, of cheap grace in many cases, and there seems to be very little left to do. What else is there to work toward when your church comfortably seats 1500 and all bills are paid? And if your life is already full of blessings, which are easy to obtain in this time of economic prosperity that Americans are experiencing, it seems a little…unrealistic to live life as if there was really something to live for. After all, life is life and for the average American, it’s pretty good. Why strive for something more?

But what if this reality was not supposed to be our reality? As that sentence sounds a bit like something from the Matrix and altogether too philosophical, let me explain a little further. The world we live in is not supposed to be one we consider ourselves part of. As a Christian, we’re supposed to live in the world, but not be strictly of it. This means many things, among them a separation from the ideas and motivating factors that drive the world’s mantra. Christians are supposed to live lives that are holy, godly, and while we possess material items (i.e., technology and gadgets) they aren’t supposed to change our attitudes or our ways of living.

It’s very easy to fall in the trap that because we live in the period of the dispensation of grace, we can bend the rules somewhat and blur our lines a little. God’s grace and mercy are significant and eternal and all we have to do is ask for forgiveness, right? Well, yes. Yes, grace and mercy are always available. Yes, all you have to do is ask. Yes, we are blessed beyond measure in this aspect. There is nothing better than knowing that God still has His hand stretched toward you even after you’ve fallen and messed up over and over and over. However…

There is a reason to live according to how we should live and not according to how we can live. I’m referring to the fact that Christians are supposed to live for something more. We are to live for something greater and better and bigger than ourselves. We are to be the lights, the eternal flames that sit on a hill bringing illumination to our dark and shadowy world. There is nothing that says we are supposed to be constantly flickering.

Living for something bigger than yourself gives you a reason to act right. It lets you know there’s more to come, causes you to be aware that you aren’t the only thing in the universe. It’s the reason that immature people suddenly start to live normally and responsibly once they have kids. It’s the reason that we expect more from those in leadership because they are leading us into living for something more and the mantle of responsibility is supposed to give them a holy purpose.

Living for something more as a Christian is supposed to be second nature. We live for God every single day. He is something more. But sometimes I think we forget that this is the case. When we forget that we are actually not living our lives for ourselves, we start to stray. We miss church a little easier. We don’t take our commitments as seriously. The lines between what’s right and what’s wrong are blurred and fade as times goes on. Living with the mentality that life is only about YOU is a dangerous place to take up residence. If the church as whole is to grow and to expand, we are to become parents, no longer sold out to our own ambitions and desires, but married to the idea of the fact that we are responsible for spreading the light to those around us who live in darkness.

When you begin to live for something more, suddenly the light needs to be on all the time. Having it flicker is not acceptable. It starts to become a true second nature to live life in a holy state, a state of sacrifice and of self-containment. This is how the church should live. This is how we should be. Perhaps it doesn’t sound like a very fun world, but in the end, it’s a better one.

It is Better to be Kind than Smart

I struggle with the aforementioned title. I would rather be smart than be kind. I would rather win than love (sometimes). It’s easier to rattle off answers and numbers and facts than to lend a helping hand or to have compassion on the forgotten soul. I’m not sure why this is, but the best way I can think of it is some people are more predisposed to be kind, while others have to work towards it.

Intelligence is something that we are born and bred to marvel at and to compete with each other over. We all want to be the smartest, the brightest, the best in the class. Those people are rewarded the most and with the better grades and eventually the better salaries and promotions. Intelligence is valued in our society as it very well should be. Without a moderate degree of smarts, society ceases to move forward.

But what about kindness? Do we place the same values on it? The short and difficult answer is that no, we do not. Kindness and charity and compassion and love are not valued as highly as intelligence and competition are. Society simply does not care if you’re kind or not, kindness doesn’t add more dollars nor does it add to your pedigree. Essentially, kindness is done without thought of compensation or reward, while the pursuit of intelligence rewards more obtrusively and expensively. We can sometimes view kind people as weak, as unwilling to stand up for themselves while their neighbor steamrollers over them. Our society does not tolerate weakness; it’s hereditary. Since the beginning of time, the weak were left behind while only the strong survived.

This lack of balance in the scales of brain and heart is most unfortunate. Our biological instincts lead us astray in this one area. Because, while society cannot move forward without intelligence, it can also be said that it will cease to exist altogether without the repeated applications of kindness.

Interestingly enough, there are very few scriptures in the Bible that speak positively on the subject of human intellect. It’s usually the complete opposite. Over and over we find scriptures stating that our own brainpower and wisdom comes from the Lord, not from ourselves, and we find repeated implications that if you think you’re incredibly smart, the answer is that you usually aren’t. But when it comes to love, on the other hand, we find one of the most oft repeated texts from the Bible staring us bluntly in the face:

“If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;  but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13

These verses serve to remind us that without love, and thereby, kindness, we are nothing. Love cannot be purchased or measured but it wins friends and trust and a life of beauty in ways that our brains simply cannot. Love produces kindness and compassion in unequaled amounts; it cannot be compared to.

In the end love is the prevailing force that conquers all. Without it, we are nothing. But with it, we can accomplish more than we ever hoped to.

Purpose

Purpose seems to be on everyone’s mind lately. The Purpose Driven Life has sold millions of copies and is probably still on the bestseller list. I have heard countless sermons preached on finding purpose and how to find purpose and reassurances that yes! you have a purpose. My generation, and the one following me, are leaving the traditional workforce in droves because it doesn’t offer them a purpose, or, rather, it doesn’t offer them a purpose they find acceptable. The middle-aged, finding themselves with an empty nest and close to retirement, are also seeking answers about a purpose.

We are all looking for direction and meaning to our lives. I think this is fundamental to human nature and serves to explain why the age-long question, “why are we here?” exists. Being born, existing, and then dying are not feasible to us any longer. We want to live and experience and dream and live with intention. This is what our generation of today seeks.

It’s easy to see how we came to this current reality. Years of prosperity and a relative scarcity of combat situations that would cost millions of casualties have led us to a relative peaceful life that allows us the time and energy to ask these questions. Poor health, famine, disease, and war usually took these options from the generations that preceded us. It’s not that they didn’t want to find a purpose, but purpose to them was usually staying alive past the age of 40. If you could do that then your life’s purpose was satisfied – you were alive! But today we aren’t concerned with those details. I am grateful that we live such blessed lives that allow us to escape the worry about dying in childbirth (if you’re a woman) or being killed in a war or losing a limb performing dangerous manual labor (if you’re a man). But since there is no such thing as paradise on earth, today’s society must still confront some problems. And this brings us to my subject because I believe that one of society’s current big questions of life is how to avoid living a meaningless existence. Although the question is simple, the answer seems to evade many.  

So, purpose. What is it? Dictionary.com defines purpose as “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists”. So essentially, to find your purpose you need to find a reason to stay alive. To further your purpose, you need to find a reason to stay alive and a reason that makes you want to contribute to the world.

But how do you find your purpose? It’s almost a cliché to say that purpose isn’t found in material things – in money, in stuff, in better houses or better cars. We all know that the wealthiest among us are not the happiest. We know this intrinsically – it’s why children are just as happy playing with a cardboard box than with a new toy. But yet we reject this as we get older and we instead focus on more stuff. Stuff, and stuff, and more and more stuff…we literally have entire stores, large stores!, that are dedicated to re-selling all the STUFF we have consumed and no longer want. It’s amazing.

The secret to a life of purpose, I think, and a life of meaning is to spend yourself. To give it all up in the pursuit of something you really believe in. Granted, not all things are worth the endless pursuit. As a Christian, I find that my life is happiest when I’m pursuing a Christ-like life and when I’m spending myself, my time, my energy, my personal resources, on the things of God.

When I think of the word purpose, I think of the young men of WWI and WWII. Millions and millions of them died, sacrificed to the gods of war. Of those who did not die, so many more lost integral parts of themselves while fighting – eyes, legs, arms. But yet although they knew the dangers of war, so many of them still ran to sign up. They lied about their ages. The youngest soldier recorded in WWI was 15 years old. He, and so many others not only lied about their ages but left behind families and jobs and schools and ran to an almost certain death. And for many of us, that seems like a missed purpose. Why would you sacrifice yourself for something so horrible? Ask any 18 year old today to go run off to war and many of them will refuse. They don’t see the point. But young men and women, generations past, were not bothered by this show of common sense because they believed in something greater than themselves. Not only did they believe in it, but they believed in the evils that were soon to come if they didn’t go out and sacrifice for victory accordingly.

So purpose comes when you have a goal in mind. Purpose comes when you are passionate about something. And true, godly purpose comes when you are focused on something else besides yourself – when you are focused on God and His plan.

There are a lot of people who are searching for and finding purpose and meaning in things that are devoid of both. I admire and applaud people who take care of their health and who spend copious amounts of time at the gym. We owe it to ourselves to be healthy and to maintain some level of fitness. But my admiration and applause are limited; they only go so far. Why? Because it seems like a selfish pursuit ultimately. If it’s all spent on making yourself look better, and there’s no other reason behind what you’re doing, then what is the point of it all? Humans are made of clay. We all crumble and fall eventually.

The happiest people I know are those are busy and consumed by something that is greater than themselves. They are the ones you see at church all the time, on workdays, on non-workdays. They are the ones you see who spend hours outside soaking in the beauty that God has given us and they are the ones you see often reading His Word. They aren’t as worried about tomorrow. They aren’t as concerned about what will happen with their 401(k). These are the people who have discovered the secret to the age-old question. I hope that more of us can discover this – humanity owes it to ourselves. We have so many blessings, it seems wrong to waste them all on a purposeless existence.

Fall is coming!

The final notes of summer are sounding. However, since I live in Texas, it’s more like the final few notes that lead into the last triumphal march before the piece is finally done. Summer is done! No, never mind, it’s still going to be 90 degrees for a few more weeks.

But still, summer IS done and that is evidenced by the school busses I see everywhere. I remember when I was younger and I had to go to school that seeing those school busses brought tremendous heartache and heartbreak to my young soul. I hated the sight of them. To be quite honest, I still do, although for entirely different reasons (have you ever seen a school bus driving fast? No. It’s always a slow and unsteady 40 mph that is impossible and illegal to pass.)

I love the time of year that is about to come up. Fall is an utterly delicious thing in Texas. To compensate for the endless summers, we have cold fronts that make everything worthwhile. They are so wonderful to behold. If you’re at my parents’ house, a cold front makes itself known by the singing of the chimes on the front porch. If the door isn’t already shut it will proceed to slam shut on its own with the force of the wind. Speaking of that wind…cold fronts make it moan and groan around the house making the outdoors sound utterly desolate and forlorn. Usually a cold front comes in with clouds and rain on the first day and then the next day all is merry and bright outside but the weather is crisp and cool. Everyone wears boots on days like that because in Texas, if the weather is 60 degrees or less, you wear boots and scarves and hats and sweaters. We like fall apparel, okay? It doesn’t matter if it isn’t entirely cold…that’s not the point!

The end of summer signifies that fall and winter are coming and with them are holiday parties and feasting parties and hayrides and bonfires and smores if you’re so inclined to risk your fingers on a roasted marshmallow. Fall days are usually not that cold but the nights are chilly and if you happen to live ever so slightly out of the city, the stars shine with eternal warmth in the cold night sky.

Fall also means one other major thing and that is the beauty that is college football. Even if you don’t like football, which I don’t, you will love college football because it means chilly nights listening to the game, wings at Pluckers (an Austin original) and if you happen to be so lucky, sneaking into the student section at the actual stadium and cheering on the Longhorns in person. All football games should end on a high note, regardless of win or loss, if you end them at El Patio (another Austin original) which is located at the heart of Austin on The Drag (also known to outsiders as Guadalupe but who calls it that anyway?) El Patio serves the best Mexican food in the entire world and if UT happened to lose that day, there’s nothing like endless amounts of chips and salsa to lighten the mood.

This is what Fall is in Texas. This is my home, where I was born and raised, and there is nothing like it in the world. I love my Texas!