|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| So today [Saturday] was the first day in maybe a couple of months where i had the opportunity to be mostly by myself all day and do [mostly] nothing.
I got up at 10:30am.
Answered some email.
Read a few chapters from "The End of Poverty." Brilliant and insightful.
Watched the movie "Sideways." Not sure what all the fuss was about.
Ate a almost an entire box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Starting to hate the stuff.
Answered the phone a couple of times and texted my girlfriend, Sarah, who was in class wishing she were outside [apparently it was a nice day today].
I took a nap from 2:30pm to 5:00pm.
I thought a lot about life, my job, my relationships, etc.
Mostly what i've done today, though, is fight off the guilty feeling that i should be doing something.
During the day one roommate, Jason, was in and out doing work and going to parties.
Another roommate, Adrian, was leading a movement called, "The Amos Project," where people actually try to follow God by helping people who cannot help themselves.
Another roommate, Mark, went running with his bride-to-be and later helped his dear friend move from one house on one side of Los Angeles to another.
They did this while i was taking a nap and eating cereal for kids.
One ancient story says that as God painted on the canvass of existence it took about a week to do [take THAT, Bob Ross!] and then he did something odd when he was finished.
It says that He "rested."
In Hebrew it actually says that God was "renewed."
Growing up in a nice suburb of Kansas i had lots of opportunities to rest. My parents and my sister both have great work ethics...i'm not sure where mine went. I guess you could say that, as a child, my work ethic was on strike.
I've been thinking a lot about my childhood. I would come home from elementary school [which, to be honest, was a total blast. I loved learning, playing the game of getting the grades, hanging out with friends, etc. Something inside of me died the day i graduated college] and do the following...
-Mow the lawn [if it was that day. i hated STARTING to mow the lawn...but once i got into it i began to love it. I would often times write short stories in my head while i mowed].
-Go to soccer practice [another thing i hated-- but my dad was the coach and the team were my friends and i always felt good afterwards, that good tired feeling after having done something physical]
-Or watch The Disney Afternoon [Ducktales, Darkwing Duck, Tailspin, Chip 'n Dales Rescue Rangers, etc.]
I would do this until dinner was ready [both my parents are still great cooks to this day] and then i'd watch some evening television [The Cosby Show or maybe The Wonder Years and whatever came after them] do some homework, maybe watch a little more TV and then go to bed.
Honestly, that's a pretty relaxing afternoon and evening, wouldn't you say? I wasn't exactly changing the world, mind you, but at least i had the "rest" thing down.
Saturdays were even better. Wake up whenever, have some breakfast which i didn't make, play in my room for a while, play with my friends in the backyard [we didn't have fences so we would play in the whole neighborhood-- backyards were like our own little kingdom]. As the Sun would relax and the shadows would get longer you'd begin to smell grills cooking and my mom or dad-- no kidding-- would ring a bell that would sound throughout the "backyard-land" to let me know dinner was ready.
Evenings were always the same: Wheel of Fortune or Cosby or whatever.
It was beautiful.
And now, on this Saturday, i just try to not break down and cry because I didn't make the world a better place.
...to be continued... | | |
| BURNT.
When I was in high school, during the summer, about 400 high school students would go up into the mountains of Colorado and camp out for a time of fun, relaxation, and spiritual development. During the day it was gorgeous—about 70 degrees—with the sun shining and a light breeze through the trees. Colorado is truly God’s country.
At night it was owned by the Devil…and, ironically, the Devil likes it cold.
Sometimes it would snow. We were sleeping in tents. Some people enjoyed this. I call those people. “idiots.”
I’m over 6 feet tall. I’m pushing 150lbs. With that kind of ratio there isn’t a lot of spare insulation on my body, if you know what I mean. So I had to create the insulation to protect me from Jack Frost by wearing four layers of clothes. This really damages your ability to move—so I would wobble around, wearing four pairs of pants, looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy.
In the mornings it wasn’t much warmer—the sun hadn’t reached our crevice in the mountains—so every morning I’d wake up, suit up, and wobble down to the base camp for some hot cocoa. I hate coffee, so hot cocoa has to work as a sort of psychological stimulant.
The cocoa was always hot. I knew that it was going to be hot. It was hot when I drank it the day before and it was going to be hot the next morning. I didn’t need a McDonald’s sign letting me know it was hot, or very hot, or what have you. I knew this already.
And yet…
I always drank that dang hot cocoa too fast and would burn my tongue. Every time.
I hate having a burnt tongue.
This is because I love to eat. I LOVE to eat. I love all kinds of food [except sushi—and it makes me mad that I’m that kind of person]. But other than that, I love to eat.
And when you have a burnt tongue…that ruins everything. Your whole day of enjoying breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert is totally shot. Every time you bite into a sandwich or lasagna or…*sigh*…French Silk Pie!...you’re not going to taste what you should. You’ll get a little of the flavor, but mostly it will just remind you that you have some roasted taste buds.
I get a little riled just thinking about it.
I was talking with a friend of mine the other day. Not about burnt tongues. More about burnt guts. We were talking about how we should listen to our guts…
Unless, of course, we shouldn’t.
And therein lies the problem. We should listen to our guts. But sometimes our guts…well…they lie, don’t they?
Recently a book came out called “Blink.” It’s a fascinating book. I like Malcolm Gladwell—the dude who wrote it. He’s got a great fro going on. And he’s wicked smart.
I’ve heard a lot of people summarize the book. It’s a New York Times best seller so a lot of people talk about it. They always, always, always summarize it like this…
“You can make subconscious decisions that are better than conscious ones. You can trust your gut.”
But that’s not what the book is about. The book isn’t about how you can trust your gut. The book is about how you can trust your gut…
…IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR.
That little phrase—if you know what to look for—makes all the difference in the world.
It distinguishes between a healthy gut and an unhealthy gut. It distinguishes between a normal tongue and a burnt tongue.
How many stupid situations have we gotten ourselves into because of our gut? Sometimes it leads me out of danger, sure. But sometimes it puts me right smack dab in the middle of it. Sometime my gut tells me to just drink the dang cocoa.
And then I burn my tongue.
I think we live in a world of burnt tongues. We live in a world of burnt guts, where the blind lead the blind.
We do things all the time that burn, don’t we? We have baggage. We get burnt by others. We burn others. Bad decisions. No decisions. We burn ourselves. We say something mean. |We take in a moment when we should give. We cultivate environments of apathy, pride, and selfishness. These things are subtle. Sometimes we don’t even realize it.
A weird thing about having a burnt tongue is that it keeps you from feeling if you burn it again.
To be continued…
© Jason Brandon Jaggard | | |
| WORK [part 3]
Note to self: It’s hard to blog when you’re watching “Silence of the Lambs.”
*Ahem*
My parents are wonderfully complex human beings with different hats they wear. My dad isn’t just my dad. My dad is a friend, husband, son, and teacher. My dad doesn’t just hang around the house all day. My dad works.
Jesus said, “My father is always working.”
Previously I asked the question, “If God is a workaholic, what would be the best way to experience Him?”
If the only moments we have with God are when we’re alone, then we are not experiencing the fullness of who God is.
If quiet moments with God are the defining experiences I have with God then I’m like the kid who spends a lot of alone time with his mom, but is still missing out on the wonderful complexity of who his mom really is.
I’ll know my mom cares about me.
I’ll know my mom wants the best for me.
I’ll know my mom enjoys me, disciplines me, instructs me.
In short: I’ll know my mom loves me.
But there’s also a lot about my mom that I won’t know.
I won’t know that my mom cares fiercely about children who are not her own.
I won’t know that she had given her life to serving people outside our family.
I won’t know that she can command an audience of thousands with her voice.
I won’t know that she can write musicals and empower scores of kids to perform on stage for hundreds of parents…
…because I never went to work with her.
I never saw the other parts of her life outside of her life with me.
I might pick up some of her values from listening to her stories, if I ever take the time to ask or listen to her stories. But even so, there’s a difference between hearing your mom tell you stories and then seeing those stories fleshed out in her life.
There’s a difference between my dad telling me stories from his coaching days and me seeing him command a team of football players and coaches in the 4th quarter with thousands of fans cheering and screaming.
There’s a difference between hearing stories about God and partnering with Him to write new stories today, right now.
So by going to work with our parents help us discover who are parents are, and going to work with God is one way to discover who God is.
I think this is the way God is, and I think this is why our experience of God is so limited.
How many facets of God do we really put ourselves in a position to experience in our lives? Are our experiences of God limited to our time alone with Him? Do we spend most of His time talking at Him instead of listening to Him share His heart and reveal His stories? Are the only stories of God we know the ones He’s revealed to others?
When I meet people or hear stories of people who have deep experiences with God that are not just emotional “oo-la-la” God moments but are moments that resonate with God’s character, I meet people who serve humanity on God’s behalf. They’re not merely sitting in an empty room meditating [although that’s usually a part of their lives]. They’re profound activists. They spend time with God alone, sure. But the time alone seems to be like a shaking of the champagne bottle of their soul, spurring them on to love and serve others more.
So in order to experience God most fully I have to go to work with Him.
I think that’s a large part of what following Jesus is. Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you leaders of men.” What was he doing? God was asking His kids to come to work with Him. It’s like He’s saying, “Come and see what I do. Come and see what my life is about. Come and see what makes me tick.”
One of the ways God loves to express Himself is by redeeming human hearts. Changed lives are the benchmark of His presence.
Redeeming the world is on God’s heart. It’s what the Son modeled for our lives. It’s what the Spirit inspires, enables, and empowers us to do.
It’s the family business.
And God is inviting us into the family business.
© Jason Brandon Jaggard
| | |
| WORK [part 2]
OXYMORON: “Mosaic working environment.” The offices are the bane of my type-A existence.
In the last entry I talked about how weird it was to discover that my parents had a life outside of the family. That they weren’t merely parents. They were wonderfully multifaceted human beings. They even had jobs where they spent at least 40 hours during the week. 40 hours away from me—during which I had no idea what they were doing or who they were.
One time Jesus was talking to his followers and he said this:
“My father’s always working.”
The Scriptures use several different images to describe the Spirit of God. In Genesis 1 the Spirit is hovering over the waters. In Matthew 3 the Spirit descends like a dove. In Acts 2 the Spirit comes down like fire. A few chapters later the Spirit is like a rushing wind and shakes a house. Hovering, doves, fire, wind and earthquakes.
The Spirit of God leads, convicts, inspires, encourages, and affirms.
In short: the Spirit moves. The Spirit has ADD.
The Spirit is always doing something. And so is God.
God is a workaholic.
Now, before you freak out on me, I’m not suggesting that we should be workaholics. But I am saying that God rested after creation for our benefit, not His. He didn’t have to rest. He was setting a precedent so that we wouldn’t work ourselves to death.
That being said: God is a workaholic. He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t rest. He doesn’t stop moving creation towards His plans and purposes. His eyes are always searching for people willing to follow Him. His heart is always hurting for those who do not know His hope. His hands are always moving through His body—the church—to serve a lost and broken world.
God is a workaholic. And that’s a good thing.
Imagine if He wasn’t. Imagine if God took a vacation. Imagine if God went to Bermuda for a couple of months to take His mind off of things. Imagine if His Spirit took a break from moving in your life and mine, what life would be like if God were absent from the world, even for a day.
It wouldn’t be good.
So the thought came to me: If God is a workaholic, what would be the best way to experience Him?
Most of the time when we think of experiencing God we think of Bible studies, prayer, and sitting in church services. These things are all great. I’ve had many life-changing moments in the silence with God.
I’ve had “Lion King” moments.
You know, where Simba and Mufassa hang out on the African prairie at night. I’ve had African Prairie moments with God. Where we just hang out and are quiet together. I’m a pretty anxious person, so these moments with God are really valuable in helping me live a sane life.
In high school I would spend quiet moments with God in my bedroom. Inevitably, during these times, my mom would need to talk to me or see how I was doing or something like that. Because I was communing with the creator of the universe—full of love and compassion—I would usually respond with the following:
“Go away.”
For some reason, there have been times in my life where spending time alone with God actually made me less loving, less compassionate, less wise and less…likeable.
I remember in college I used to spend an hour with God every day. I would wait until dinnertime when most people were out of the dorms and I would go to an abandoned room on the second floor where I lived and sing love songs to God and spend some time with Him and read the scriptures.
The difference between these times and the times in high school was that in college I tried to carry in my heart the conscious awareness that when I was done being alone with God in that room I was going back into a world that God cared about immensely. I knew that I would walk across the street and into the cafeteria and see people that Jesus died for.
And I clung to that as long as I could before I started making fun of people again.
And now I write blogs to punish myself.
To be concluded…
© Jason Brandon Jaggard | | |
| WORK [part 1]
I think someone should make Quentin Tarantino Pop-Up Books. There’s some real money to be made with those.
When I was a kid my favorite author was Brian Jacques. Brian Jacques wrote this amazing children’s book series called “Redwall.” They were mythical books about little woodland creatures that talk and go on swashbuckling adventures. Redwall is kind of like Disney’s Robin Hood…but darker and without the singing.
Basically Redwall beats the snapple [thank you, Scott] out of Harry Potter. Hail Redwall!
Anyway, I had a 6th Grade Teacher named Mrs. Butler. She was awesome. You know the teachers on TV? Shows like “Head of the Class” or “Saved by the Bell” or “Saved by the Bell: The College Years”? They always had some very cool teacher who was non-traditional. They were Dead Poets Society “Oh Captian, my Captian” type teachers. And when we watched shows and movies we wished we had them for our teachers. Well, that’s the kind of teacher Mrs. Butler was [in fact, I had a ton of great teachers like that growing up: Hats off to Ms. Kohl, Mrs. Holt, and Mr. Barnes, among others].
One of the things Mrs. Butler did for me, which I’ll never forget, is take me to see Brian Jaques in Kansas City for a book reading. I loved it. Brian Jacques was amazing [he was from England, and I could listen to those people talk for hours]. But while the night was totally cool, there was something weird about it.
I had to hang out with Mrs. Butler outside of class.
Very weird.
I’m 12 years old, right? And to a 12-year-old’s brain, teachers don’t do anything else but teach. Of course, both my parents were teachers but that didn’t matter. To see Mrs. Butler and to have her pick me up and go her apartment to meet her husband before heading to a book reading was way disorienting. It freaked me out a little bit.
Mrs. Butler is married??
Mrs. Butler has a cool apartment downtown??
Mrs. Butler knows how to drive?!
I’ve seen the same reaction on other kids faces when I would go to the grocery store or some other public place with my parents. Students would come up to my dad and I in the produce section and nervously say, “Hey, Mr. Jaggard.”
What they meant to say was: “What in the world are you doing here buying lettuce?! Shouldn’t you be grading papers or figuring out how to make our lives miserable or something??”
It was the same phenomena for me when I went to see my parents at work.
It was weird to see my dad interact with high school students or to see my mom teach music. They’re amazing teachers. Kids love my mom. They still come up to her, years after having her for music and give her hugs. “Hey, Mrs. Jaggard!” They shout, smiling like idiots.
My parents were actually cool, in a teacher sort of way.
I had no idea.
As I grew older it began to dawn on me that, as their child, I really didn’t understand how complicated my parents were as human beings. My dad wasn’t just a dad. My dad was a dad, coach, teacher, friend, comedian, and thorn in the flesh for moron sophomores who don’t like to work hard. My mom wasn’t just my mom. My mom was this spacey, creative, friendly, compassionate, multi-talented teacher, lover of kids and advocate of music.
Of course, I didn’t know this-- mostly because I never went to work with my parents. If I did go to work, I usually checked out rather than paying attention or learning something new about them.
And now I write blogs to punish myself.
www.redwall.org
To be continued…
© Jason Brandon Jaggard
| | |
|
