Do Anything Other than Nothing

I was reading the new issue of Relevant magazine yesterday (which, by the way if you haven't checked it out it is a MUST read!) when I came across a brilliant quote from the always brilliant musician Ben Harper.

Do Anything Other than Nothing.

He says that in this day and age, we often are told by others (or ourselves) that we have to do it all. We have to be it all. If we say no to some social event or to someone's request of our time, that we are somehow not measuring up.

It's a big, fat lie.

He adds that it's not like we have to do everything - but that doesn't excuse us from doing SOMETHING. It's so easy to feel overwhelmed by all that could be done that we freeze up and don't do a thing. So no matter how big the personal Everest is we're facing, let's do like Ben suggests and do something. It beats nothing.

We're Number 1!?!?!?!

Over the weekend I watched the UT Vols become the #1 team in the country. In basketball. Men's basketball.

What's that got to do with faith? Evidently, hell decided to freeze over the weekend, too.

As a lifelong hoops junkie and University of Tennessee fan, normally March is a time to talk about the football team's Spring Game, not be concerned with hardwood tournament seedings. I was too young to catch "The Ernie & Bernie" show, so for the most part, following UT hoops has been brutal. Sure, there have been some highlights, like Dale Ellis, Dyron Nix, Ron Slay and definitely Allan Houston, but for the most part UT men's basketball has been a vast wasteland of suckitude.

40 point beatdowns by Kentucky.

5-22 seasons.

JERRY "If you don't like it you can go shop at K-Mart" GREEN!?!?

All of this has been complicated by the fact that my father-in-law is a rabid Kentucky fan. So there has been no escaping the reality of how woeful our program has been. CBS Sport columinist, Clay Travis, has felt my pain and writes about it in a recent article. In it, he talks about how all the misery ended a few years ago when UT hired Bruce Pearl - who Travis says is now "the second most popular Jewish man in East Tennessee next to Jesus."

He may have a point. After witnessing UT beat an undefeated Memphis team on the road to become the #1 team in the country, Pearl if nothing else has resurrected a program that had been dead for years. And while I'm entirely prepared that Vandy may beat us Tuesday and make our reign at #1 a short one, it's a great time to celebrate being a Vol. Or as the Psalmist said:

"Let us sing to the Lord; Let us make a joyful noise...."
-Psalm 95:1

Amen!

Pray for Levi...

A friend of mine has adopted 5 children. While that's a blog post unto itself, I have a special favor to ask of you now. Please pray for his youngest child, Levi Brass.

Levi underwent heart surgery last week at Children's Hospital, and is now fighting through some very complicated side effects. The family is posting updates at www.levisheart.blogspot.com if you'd like to know more about the situation. Please pray for this brave little guy and his wonderful family for this incredible ordeal they are facing.

With gratitude,
lance

Psalm 51

Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me-now let me rejoice.
Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a right spirit within me...
Restore to me again the joy of your salvation.
- Psalm 51: 8 - 12

I love the Psalms because a lot of it is uplifting, positive and inspiring. But a lot of it isn't.

A lot of it is gut-wrenching. It's people gnashing with teeth and wrestling with God. Asking. Pleading. Questioning. It's real, totally human stuff. Which makes it totally believable to me.

Psalm 51 is one of those Psalms. Often known as David's "Bathsheba" poem, we catch a glimpse at someone who KNOWS they messed up, big time. (Which David did.) Reading between the lines, I see David weary from his conscience weighing down on him. Asking, no begging, God to forgive him. Or as David puts it much more eloqouently: "Restore to me again the joy of your salvation." (Guess that's why he wrote most of the Psalms and I didn't)

While we may not have made the same errors in judgement as David, we all have made those errors which make us feel like we're a million miles away from God. But the simple truth is that God forgave David, because he truly repented. And He promises to do the same for you and I, no matter how badly we've messed up.

Psalm 34:4-5

Today's Psalm o' the day:

"I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me, freeing me from all my fears. Those who look to Him will be radiant with joy: no shadow of shame will darken their faces."
- Psalm 34: 4-5

I love this verse, especially the part about "those who look to Him will be radiant with joy." Do you know anyone who just by walking into a room lights the place up? A person who makes you feel better, just by being around? I have a couple friends with this gift. I've always wanted to have their type of presence - to radiate with joy. The thing I notice about these friends, besides their great smiles, generous nature and endless supply of positivity, is that they are the people I know that are most in tune with their spiritual nature. They are all about deeping their faith and relationship with God. And as this Psalm promises, by looking to Him they have become "radiant with joy." Awesome!

14 years ago today...

"Lord, fulfill your plans for my life."
- Psalm 138:

I saved one of my favorite Psalms for a special day. A birthday, of sorts for me...

14 years ago today I survived being shot.

I won't go into the full story of what happened now, but basically I was with 2 of my college buddies when we got robbed and held up. One held a gun to my head, and although they had already gotten our money, I guess the guy needed to prove a point. So he fired. Twice.

One shot graced the top of my head. To say that it is by the Grace of God that I'm still alive is a terrible understatement.

All 3 of us we're blessed to be all right. But never the same.

I wish I could say that immediately after the incident, I became a changed man. That I stoped swearing, conquered my addictions and started volunteering all my time helping the needy. But I didn't. I continued to live a pretty self-centered existence for the most part for a while. Guess I really am hard-headed. :)

But the incident definitely put my life on a different track. God had definitely gotten my attention. I couldn't get away from the fact that God must have some reason for me still being alive. I started feeling like he must have some plan for me. It became my job to figure out what that was.

14 years later I'm still working on figuring that part out. But it's amazing how richly he has blessed me since that event. Almost immediately after, I started dating the amazing girl that would eventually become my wife. Today there are 2 beautiful children that call me Daddy. I have been blessed with more good health, creative jobs, brilliant friends and wonderful opportunities and memories than I ever deserved.

But the greatest gift has to be that from that moment, I started really realizing that God loved me and had a plan for my life. In coming to that realization, it was then that I really trying to have a relationship with Him. To be on his team rather than trying to call my own plays. I'm still very much a work in progress in that department...but I'm trying.

So as I reflect on this special day and read Psalm 138, I give thanks for the gift of life, and pray for the Lord to continue fufiling his plans for me. What could be better?

Psalm 32

I came across a great quote in reading my Lenten devotion guide this morning. It comes from Sister Katherine Howard who says:

"Lent and life are not so much about what to accomplish, but what God does in us with our consent."

What a great reminder! It's not about how "perfect" I make things or how many things I can give up on this Lenten journey. It's about what God has done, is doing and will do. A different take on "letting go and letting God" but equally powerful.

Today's Psalm is a pitch-patch from Psalm 32 (mostly from verses 1 - 11)

Blessed are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed are those whom the Lord does not hold guilty, and whose spirit there is no deceit.....I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, then you forgave the guilt of my sin."

Confessing my sins is many times the last thing I want to do, or feel like I need to do. But this passage reminds me that nothing could be further from the truth. Because as painful as it can be for me to do it, it is God that does the heavy lifting in forgiving me and loving me, despite all the ways I try to screw it up.

It's not about what I can do, but what he will do, if I can just get out of the way.

Blogging for Lent

As the season of Lent gets underway, I must give thanks to my mom for helping me change my perspective about these special days leading up to Easter. I used to always dread it. Mainly because I just viewed it as a time that I "had" to give up stuff I liked. Beer. Starbucks. Ice Tea. I gave them all up for Lent at one point or another and hated it. Evidently the concept that I could give up something besides beverages never ocurred to me.

Anyways, it was during one Lent season as I was whining, er, talking, about whatever I had given up when my mom said: "Instead of giving something up, why don't you take something up?"

Brilliant.

Rather than going without something, and being in a foul mood about it, why don't I take up something that brings some joy into my life (and hopefully others)? For some reason this small shift in thinking made all the difference. For me, it was a much more positive way to go about preparing for Easter. I could read more of the Bible. I could serve in a Soup Kitchen. I could get in touch with an old friend. The idea of "taking up" rather than "giving up" just made me much more excited about the whole thing. Thanks mom!

Which brings me to what I'm taking up this year: Blogging more.

Starting today, I will post short daily excerpts from my favorite book in the Bible, the Psalms. I love the Psalms because it's full of inspirational passages of people searching for God, questioning God, celebrating God. It's thousands of years old, but sounds a lot like people today.

Whether you are "giving up" or "taking up" may God bless you on your journey towards Easter Sunday this year.

Psalm 94: 16-19

"Who will protect me from the wicked? Who will stand up for me against evildoers? Unless the Lord had helped me, I would soon have died. I cried out, "I'm slipping!" and your unfailing love, O Lord, supported me. When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer."

This is one of my favorite Psalms, in part because of what it says, but more because of the time when I first read it. I was going though a terrible time at work. I had taken a job that on paper looked like my dream job. It was turning out to be a nightmare. I wasn't sleeping. I was racked with worry during the day, and then taking all that home to my wife and kids at night. Every Sunday afternoon around 4:00 in the afternoon my stomach would start churning, as I anticipated what Monday morning was going to bring me.

Good times.

It was at the height of this drama that my dear friend Patti (whom for many reasons I'm convinced is really an angel on this Earth) sent me an email. It was just an encouraging, "hang in there" kind of email that had this verse attached at the bottom. Exactly the right words at exactly the right time. I printed out the email, and still use it as a bookmark today. Such a good reminder that God is faithful even during the lowest points of life. Even it the times when it feels like nothing is going right, doubts fill my mind and I'm yelling out "I'm slipping!" Even then, God's unfailing Love is there to hold me steady.

Love Is A Mix Tape

If you love great writing, pop music and pop culture (and who doesn't) you'll love Rob Sheffield's "Love Is A Mix Tape."

I consider myself a music nerd, but Rob Sheffield is like the Einstein of music geekitude. The fact that he's hilarious and an amazing writer make this a must read.

Sheffield is the superb music critic for Rolling Stone magazine. His album reviews and monthly "Pop Life" column are often the best parts of each issue. And while there are plenty of pop music references in this read, the book is really about so much more.

(Spoiler Alert: Don't keep reading this post if you want to go into the book knowing nothing more about it...)

In the span of seven years, Rob met the girl of his dreams (Renee), was married to her for five years, and went through the unthinkable hell of having her die in his arms, due to a freak medical condition. He uses the listings of fifteen of his favorite mix tapes that he and Renee loved to paint an incredible portrait of her, their love, and the power of music to touch us in powerful, profound ways.

This story, in the hands of a lesser writer could be such a downer. But Sheffield's memoir is as humorous as it is heartbreaking. Not to mention it made me remember a wealth of long-forgotten one-hit wonders from the 80s (Scritti Politti, anyone?)

Turn this one up to 11!