Favorite red pen

One night during the holidays I was watching a college football bowl game on TV, the Las Vegas Bowl, featuring Oregon State and BYU. It was a game I was interested in only because I was running a bowl game contest and my own pick to win the game was getting hammered. At the end, after a decisive win by BYU, I reached for my favorite red felt-tip pen to grade everyone’s pick sheets, only to discover my pen wasn’t on the library table where I left it. I looked all over for my pen. I looked in and around my own small neat stack of projects. I also dug around Cyndi’s piles of papers and stuff. No pen.

Then Cyndi came into the library to ask how the game was going (she was entered in the bowl game contest as well, which was the only reason she cared who won). I said, “Bad. We all got slammed.” Then I added, “But I can’t find my favorite red pen. Do you see it anywhere on this table?”

“You took it into the kitchen and left it on the counter. I put it away in the drawer to keep it safe for you.”

“I’m sure I didn’t put it in the kitchen. Why would I take my pen in there?” I could tell she was starting to walk toward the kitchen and plant my pen in the drawer to make her own story plausible, so I jumped up out of my chair to get there before she did. We ended up race walking through the house. I tried to bump her off against the entertainment center but she slipped around me just in time. She did have a head start, after all.

She pulled out the drawer near the refrigerator and grabbed my red pen and held it up. I don’t know how she palmed it into the drawer without my noticing; slight-of-hand tricks have never been Cyndi’s style.

“Why is my favorite red pen in there?” I asked.

“You left it in here on the counter.”

“No I didn’t.”

Then I noticed the freshly-baked sugar cookies piled on the counter and I got distracted. I looked for the telltale pile of rejected brown-bottomed “family cookies” that would be acceptable for eating, but I didn’t see them. Cyndi noticed my subtle glance and offered me a cookie. She said, “I can’t believe you would sneak your pen in here on the counter just so you could get a cookie.”

“Well, I don’t believe it, either. I’m pretty sure that isn’t what happened. And besides, I’ve been hinting around all evening about you sharing your cookies but you just kept ignoring me.”

“So you snuck your pen into the kitchen?”

“So you smuggled my pen off the library table and hid it in this drawer?”

Well, I would have kept arguing but now my mouth was full of delicious freshly-baked sugar cookie and I could no longer speak clearly. It was a primo cookie, not even from the family pile. I took my pen from Cyndi and went back to the library to grade my stack of bowl game pick sheets.

However, once I finished, I left my pen in the middle of the table, hoping Cyndi might sneak it away again. I heard she was planning to bake her famous cinnamon roles next and I couldn’t wait.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/

Four stories of grace

Story #1: Reading in Genesis about Noah in the ark, verse 7:16 says “Then the Lord shut him in.” I wrote in the margin of my Bible, “We talk a lot about God opening and closing doors. Here is a case when God closed a door as protection … yet, I usually pray for open doors.”

For my entire life as a believer I’ve heard the phrase, “When God closes a door he opens a window.” The idea is that if an opportunity goes away God provides another. It is meant to be a comfort when something we wanted gets closed down. In later years I learned a Quaker phrase, “Proceed as the way opens,” meaning in our pursuit of God’s life we seldom get to see very far in advance but we should simply move forward as opportunities open up. Both of those phrases have proven true for me at different stages of life.

In Noah’s case God closed the door to protect Noah and his family. I wonder how often God has closed a door, slamming it shut, to protect me and my family? How many missed opportunities or regrets that seemed bad at the time but were actually God’s grace?

Story #2: Genesis 14 tells the story when Lot and his family was captured by four warlords. This was after Abram and Lot made their famous split and Lot chose the land that eventually led to this downfall. They were taken along with other people and possessions from Sodom and Gomorrah.

When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive he assembled his own men and pursued the warring tribes, chasing them across the countryside until he soundly defeated them. He recovered all the goods and people and brought them back home.

As I read this I wondered if being captured and destined for slavery or death was Lot’s wake-up call from God. I wondered if God allowed this to happen to Lot to show him he would share in the bad fortunes of the people he had chosen to live with, and to give him an opportunity to pack up his stuff and rejoin Abram, which would mean rejoining God? Maybe this was God’s warning to Lot that life was about to get much worse at Sodom and Gomorrah and he should get out now.

But Lot settled back into his old life. After he was rescued he went home to Sodom and there is no mention of his presence at the worship service with Melchizedek to honor God for the victory. Lot was conspicuously absent from the record. In spite of God’s grace and warning, he learned nothing.

Story #3: Genesis 16 describes the plight of Hagar, servant to Abram and Sarai, who was tossed out of the family through no fault of her own. Hagar called the place where God spoke to her “Beer Lahai Roi,” saying, “You are the God who sees me.” What a comfort to know we are seen, to know we are valued, to know our efforts and contribution have made a significant impact and have been noticed by those who matter, to know we are not alone, to know we are not abandoned, to know God sees us. In ancient religions it was not good to be seen or noticed by god. Worship was about appeasing god and keeping him satisfied and keeping him distant. But here is a God who showed himself to Hagar and she was blessed. She knew she was not alone. Even when pushed out of her family, out of her own life, and left alone, she knew the one who mattered saw her and noticed her. Sometimes that’s the grace we need most.

Story #4: Finally, in Genesis 19, angels had to drag Lot and his wife by the hand to save them from destruction in Sodom. Even then, Lot tried to bargain with them as they saved his life. I wonder how many times I have been rescued by God dragging me by the hand, while I complained the entire time?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/

Goals 2010

I’ve written about this before so it should come as no surprise: I’m a goal-setter, a list-maker, and a box-checker. I like to write my goals on paper in a list so I can check them off. When working with daily goals or weekend projects, I even draw little boxes beside each item so I have a place to put my checkmark.

I prefer to set goals that I have a solid chance to achieve, and goals that I can measure. For example, I never set abstract goals to be a better person or impossible goals to learn Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. I wouldn’t know how to begin with Einstein, and I wouldn’t know if I was successful at becoming a better person.

I also believe in incremental improvement over a lifetime, so I don’t mind if my goals are small. I know that small changes today equal big differences tomorrow. As long as I make goals that are sustainable and repeatable, they’ll add up over time to shape new habits and new life. That’s my plan.

So, as has been my habit, I have a list of goals for 2010. They are a subset of my big list of 100 Life Goals, which, if you are interested, can be found at: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/life-goals.html

Send my next book to my editor, and publish it this year.

Start working on book #3. I already have a broad idea in my head and I am ready to start working on it.

Run a marathon this spring, and an ultramarathon next fall. I know this depends on staying healthy and keeping my knee safe, so it is actually an every-day goal.

Continue my 2009 weight loss plan (I went from 220 down to 195), moving down to 175 pounds. I don’t know if I can go that low (I haven’t weighed that since high school), but I would like to try it to see if it helps my knee. The bit I lost in 2009 helped me do almost everything better.

Spend time backpacking in Big Bend, the desert flatland in the winter, and the Rim in the summer.

Read several books by Hemmingway, as part of my long-term study of great storytellers. I hope, by reading their stories, I will get better at telling mine.

Build a chin-up bar in the garage and pursue one of my life goals of doing my age in pull-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups. The sit-ups and push-ups are hard, but doable. The pull-ups are a killer, but I have located a plan and I think I can do it.

Play my trombone more often. I took most of 2009 off because of my extra deacon duties at my church, but those are now over and I want to reengage. I am afraid if I leave my horn in the case too long it will stay there forever, and I am not ready for that yet.

Have lunch with at least one of my guys at least once a week. God has surrounded me with great guys and I need more one-on-one time with them

Update our wills. Our current wills were written when both children were very young; it’s high time we caught up to this stage of our life. This has actually been on my list of goals for a couple of years now, and I’ve made no progress other than placing the forms on top of my desk to remind me of what I haven’t done. This is the year to get it done.

Read 60 books on various topics, and read through the Bible. This is actually a yearly goal for me that never changes.

Think about the possibility of maybe beginning to consider learning Spanish. I’m not sure how to go about this, so I am open to suggestions.

Print at least one family photo album. This project has been on my list for a couple of years, but I keep finding more photos in shoe boxes and old albums and in the bottom of desk drawers and I’ve been afraid to start, thinking there must be even more photos somewhere. It is time to move on with this.

Do you have a list? Do you have any goals for 2010? What are they?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/

Nativity

Last week I was in the Live Nativity again at First Baptist Church. I don’t know when I first started doing this, but I’ve been participating on-and-off for several years. I think they keep asking me back because I have a real beard. Through the years I have been a shepherd, a wise man, and even Joseph. This year, I was a shepherd.

It is the most simple of all drama assignments. We dress in costume, submit to stage makeup so we’ll look Middle Eastern, go outside in the cold and stand for an hour without moving or speaking. I think I am actually too old to be a convincing third-world shepherd; I expect they were all teenagers or younger. However, after living outside all day all year, maybe even teenagers looked 50-years-old.

So the best news about being a shepherd was that I didn’t have to be a wise man. The wise men have to kneel, and I would never have made it even twenty minutes kneeling. And if I miraculously survived kneeling, I wouldn’t be able to stand and walk back into the church afterward. As a shepherd all I had to was stand behind Mary, off her left shoulder, lean against my staff, and gaze at the baby Jesus. My knees handled that assignment just fine.

It was cold outside, but I was very comfortable. Underneath my costume I wore black jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. (A friend saw me walking into church beforehand, noticed my all-black outfit, and said, “Merry Christmas.”) I remember doing this in previous years when piercing cold was the dominate factor of the night. One year was so cold we stayed outside only 30 minute at a time. But this year was almost balmy.

So we posed nearly motionless for an hour; the hardest part of the evening was deciding what to think about for so long. I thought about my own experience as a new father when Byron and Katie were born, and it occurred to me that if I had been Joseph I would have been staring at Mary rather than Jesus. I remember being so proud of our new babies, but even more than that, I was proud of Cyndi. She was wonderful as a brand-new mother, and I just wanted to hold her close and make her feel safe and guarded and well-loved. I’ll bet Joseph felt the same way about Mary.

To keep my mind entertained, I reviewed all the Bible verses I could remember, several times, only to discover we still had thirty minutes left. So, I stood staring at baby Jesus and prayed my way through my life and my family. I’ve never thought of myself as a great prayer warrior, but I’ve learned to cherish private prayer moments. I tend to start by praying for specific needs in my life and in the life of friends, but the time is most meaningful when I systematically walk through my life and discuss all my thoughts and concerns with God.

This year my strongest and longest prayers were about writing and selling books. I reminded God of my passions and dreams, and then asked him to speak to my heart and align it with his. I am sometimes embarrassed that my prayers are nothing more than pitching my best-case scenario at God and hoping he buys into it. I want to do better.

“Lord, I have all these dreams of writing and publishing books and being read by people all around the world, and I have dreams of creating trusts funds and scholarships and giving money away … I have lots of dreams, but my most honest prayer is this, I want to honor you with my life, and I don’t know how to do that on my own. You have to teach me.”

It was my genuine prayer, the prayer of my life. I think Joseph’s prayer was similar. He didn’t have many answers for his life, or special insights into the future of his young family. He just followed God, trying to protect the gifts God had given Him (Mary and baby Jesus), and trusting God for the future.

The Live Nativity is an unselfish gift from First Baptist Church to our community; its one more point of contact aimed at a city full of searching people, one more method of telling the grand story of Jesus. It’s also a good reason to dress like a shepherd and stand in the cold once a year. I need the time with God.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/

Songs

Maybe the reason guys like me say things like, “today’s music doesn’t’ speak to me,” isn’t just because we are becoming geezers. Maybe it isn’t so much about the music or the lyrics or the beat, but because we don’t yet have any stories linked to those new songs. However, speaking for myself, since my only real exposure to current music is in Gold's Gym, and since if I didn't work out I would hear only what they play on NPR, if I don't have any personal stories tied to contemporary music, it might be my own fault.

In his clever book, “Manhood for Amateurs,” Michael Chabon, lamented the format change at his favorite radio station. They flipped from the oldies of his youth to contemporary pop, and it hurt. Each of those old songs linked to a story from Chabon’s life, and whenever he heard an old favorite he also remembered a favorite old story. He called it, “the mysterious power of the chance interaction between radio and memory.”

Chabon wrote, “More often there is no obvious thematic connection between a song on the radio and the memory that it somehow or other comes to preserve, between the iridescent bubble of the music and the air of the past that it randomly traps.”

While reading the book I started thinking of the memories and the stories that I flash to whenever I hear certain old songs, and I scribbled several in the margin. If I hear Steely Day singing “Reelin’ in the Years,” for example, I am transported back to the evening when fellow trombone player Jan Ramey gave me a ride home after evening band practice and we heard that song for the very first time her station wagon.

If I hear “Beginnings” by Chicago my memory runs back to my first date with my first girlfriend. If I hear “Never Ending Love For You” by Delaney and Bonnie I am instantly skiing with Cyndi, clicking my poles behind me for a rhythm track, singing to her.

If I hear “Jesus is Just Alright With Me” by The Doobie Brothers I remember sitting in my car on a rainy Sunday evening outside of Bellview Baptist Church in Hobbs waiting for the song to end before going inside, listening to the coolest song I had ever heard and the coolest song I could imagine ever hearing containing the name “Jesus.”

Whenever I hear the opening beats of “Fallen” by Lauren Woods my head snaps around looking for Cyndi who will already be walking toward me with arms outstretched ready to dance. It’s part of our ongoing story, forever linked to that song.

When I hear “Hit the Road Jack,” by Ray Charles, I remember the weekend when Cyndi was away teaching an aerobics workshop and the kids and I worked up a surprise for her. When we were ready to go somewhere, I would say, “Well, it’s time to hit the road,” and Katie would say, “Jack,” and Byron would say “Don’t you come back no more no more.” They were both preschoolers, I think. We practiced over and over all weekend, and when we picked Cyndi up at the airport and tried it on her, it worked perfectly. We all laughed and laughed we were so proud of ourselves. We repeated that little mantra many times through the years and I still think of it every time I hear the song.

I remember the first time I heard “Hey Jude” by Paul McCartney. I was riding in the backseat of my grandparent’s car on the way to a family reunion at Kirkland Docks on Lake Brownwood. I think of that scene every time I hear the song. I also think how strange it is to link my kind and gentle grandfather, a very conservative small-town Baptist preacher, with The Beatles and “Hey Jude.” He would’ve been shocked at the connection.

When I hear “Life Less Ordinary” by Carbon Leaf I am back on Highway 101 driving north from Ventura, California, enjoying the sunshine and relaxed freedom of the road, thinking once again of the extraordinary future I dream of with Cyndi, and I cannot help but smile.

Sunday night at our church we heard a concert by classical guitarist Rodrigo Rodriguez, and in one of his medleys he played a worship song from a few years back titled, “As the Deer.” I was immediately transported back to a Walk to Emmaus spiritual retreat that I attended in 1998 during an especially soft spiritual time in my life. After the concert I told Cyndi, “I could feel my biorhythms slow down when he played that song. It was as if I settled into a comfortable place.” That song, among others, will be forever linked to my stories from that weekend.

In fact, I could go on and on to the point of boredom listing songs linked to stories of my life, and perhaps I already have. I’m not sure the ones I mentioned are even the most important ones; they are just the first few I thought of right away. And I wonder if I would even remember those stories at all if I never heard the songs again. I can learn to enjoy new songs, but I would hate to lose my stories.

How about you. What are your songs with stories?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/

Telling stories

Michael Chabon wrote about how his life changed when his younger brother was born. “But it was not until that moment, in early September 1968, that my story truly began. Until my brother was born, I had no one to tell it to.” (Manhood for Amateurs)

I wrote in the margin of my book, “So our story doesn’t exist unless we have someone to tell it to?”

A few years ago Cyndi and I went to Uganda and Kenya to visit our friends John and Linda Witte. After we came back I couldn’t stop telling stories and writing about our adventures. One friend told me, “I would rather send you on a trip and listen to your stories than go on the trip myself.”

Well, I didn’t believe that was exactly true, but I realized the corollary was true. If I don’t have an opportunity to tell my stories when I get back, I might as well never go on the trip. For me the stories were more important than souvenirs. Stories are the artifacts of life.

One time I heard Gary Barkalow ask at a Wild at Heart camp, “What is something that you cannot stop doing?” He wasn’t asking about bad habits or eating chocolate or nervous tics, but rather he was asking about the clues into our personality and character.

My answer to his question? I cannot stop telling the stories of my life and the lives around me. If I have any sort of experience, I have to tell about it. For me, the trip hasn’t happened unless I have stories to tell. The book hasn’t been read without a story. A backpacking trip never occurred without a story, and a story doesn’t usually bubble up unless something spectacular happened – like a disaster, or a storm, or a beautiful sunrise, or a wild animal. And the best part of running a marathon is the story-telling session afterward. Without a story to tell, it’s a waste of 26.2 miles.

One year at CornFest at our house my friend Todd cut his hand while carving an ear of corn. He thought he’d have to go to the emergency room to get stitches until Linda put him back together with Super Glue. It worked perfectly. In fact, he healed so completely he didn’t even have a scar. The guys at work didn’t believe his story because he didn’t have a scar. Without a scar, there was no story; and without a story, it never happened.

Like Michael Chabon’s, my own brother was born twelve years after I was, so we each grew up as an only children. We had nothing in common. I was a freshman in college when Carroll started first grade. We grew up in different phases of a parent’s lives. We grew up with different friends and different music and different movies and different family stories. We finally connected during the past ten years as we raised our own families. We finally had stories to share that both of us understood; stories about our families and about each other. Now we talk at least once a week for an hour, usually late at night (late in my world, not in Carroll’s world). Carroll calls me because he actually remembers to make phone calls and he is much more social than I am.

Recently we met for lunch at Rosa’s in Midland and told stories for a couple of hours. I think we were both surprised at how many personality traits we had in common. Who knew? It took stories to bring it out.

Roy Blount wrote about a friend of his who was visiting her mother in a nursing home. Many of the other residents had Alzheimer’s, but the friend’s mother’s mind was unclouded. “They’ve forgotten their stories!” she said of the others. “They can say anything!”

I always think of stories as defining us, of communicating our heart. To say, let me tell you my story, is to say, let me tell you who I am and what I believe and what I think is important and who I love and where I’m headed, and all that. To know my stories is to know me.

And in fact, if I want to describe someone else to you, the best way to do it would be to tell you a story.

The mother in the nursing home said if we have no stories we have no boundaries. We can be anybody, which is to be nobody. One day we are a musician, the next a mountain climber, then a mechanic, maybe a rocket scientist, maybe a street bum. Stories not only tell who we are, they keep us true to ourselves.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/

Creative process

It was Saturday afternoon and Cyndi was in Alpine, so I was on solo childcare-duty for the weekend.  I was doing some computer work in my library at home, paying bills, and all that, when my seven-year-old nephew Kevin, being a social creature, unlike me, decided to join me at the big table. He brought his partially-built Lego Jedi Starfighter, as flown by the Lego version of Anakin Skywalker. He was hoping I would help him finish the starship, which means he was hoping to watch me put it together for him.

He was disappointed in the outcome because I wouldn’t help him as much as he wanted me to. I helped him line up his pieces when he was trying to build a mirror-image of the drawing in the book – for example, when he was working on the left wing but the drawing was of the right wing. Working with mirror images is a bit much to expect from a kid.

But I wouldn’t help him look for missing pieces. I didn’t refuse to help; I was just really slow at actually getting around to helping. I wasn’t trying to be mean to him, but finding the correct Lego piece is a skill that can only be learned by repetition. Each time he eventually found the piece anyway without my help.

Once Kevin got so mad at my stall tactics he stomped out of the room, pouting and fuming. I let him go; he’d earned the right to be angry at me and my lack of cooperation, but a few moments later I heard him digging through his big box of extra Lego pieces in his bedroom. Then, he came back into the library with the exact piece he had been looking for.

“See, Uncle Berry,” he bragged, “here it is,” defiantly showing me who was boss.

“Good for you, Kevin. I knew you could find it. You are smarter than you think you are.”

He eventually finished his Jedi Starfighter on his own and went on to save the galaxy. It was a proud afternoon.

It wasn’t that I was too busy to help him more, but I’ve been down this road before with my own kids. They tended to be more interested in completing the final product, the airplane or fire truck or starship shown on the box. They didn’t really care who did the actual construction, they just wanted it to be done.

Me, I wasn’t that interested in the final product at all. I wanted them to learn how to read the diagram and understand the drawings, find their own pieces, and learn how to make substitutes when they couldn’t find the exact piece they wanted. I was more interested in the process than in the final product.

And to be honest, I am actually happier after the box-cover model has been completed, and played with, and finally dismantled. That’s when creativity and imagination replace plan-following routine. That is when improvisation begins.

Maybe that’s why I like that sound of young hands digging in a Lego box so much; it sounds like creativity to me.

Later, I thought more about the Lego scenario, and I realized once again how our simple everyday life mirrors the nature of God. I don’t believe God is as interested in the final result of our life as much as he’s interested in the process of getting us there. He cares more about our character than our destination.

I wondered if God ever holds back from helping us because he wants us to try harder. Does he know there are some things we can learn only through repetition? I wonder if it makes him happy when we take the misfit pieces of our life and begin to improvise a new solution. I wonder if he smiles when he hears us digging through our box of spare parts.

For the past few months I have been working around with my list of 100 Life Goals. In fact our Iron Men group that meets on Thursday mornings has been working on this same project together. Several of the guys sent their lists to me so I could make a group compilation, and today at lunch I read those lists for the first time. I was stunned how personal and honest and specific the goals were. Not all the goals were what might be considered actual responsible adult behavior, some were wild moon shots. Some were dug from the bottom corner of the Lego box in hopes they would fit in with the rest of life. They were improvisational, hopeful, and creative. I don’t know if any of us will be successful with our entire list. In fact, I suspect none of us will achieve them all. But I think the process of dreaming big makes God happy. I believe he likes to hear us digging through the box for the cool pieces.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/

To follow Berry on Twitter … @berrysimpson

To contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/

Copyright 2009 Berry D. Simpson, all rights reserved.

Being one of us

Being “one of us” is a powerful thing. We are all stronger because of the communities we belong to.

This morning our family engaged in one of our semi-annual Thanksgiving traditions – we joined 37,000 other runners and walkers for the 42^nd annual Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot 8-mile and 5K races. It was a great morning; just cool enough stay comfortable in winter running gear, but warm enough to be pleasant and friendly. It was great to be a part of such a large tribe of people, to be one of us with all of them. How often can so many people get together with no fighting and everyone friendly to each other? The only reason there were police on the scene was to protect us from traffic, not from each other. There was energy hanging in the air from so many people with shared goals. It was contagious. We were all wearing the proper tribal colors (race T-shirts, high-tech fabrics, running shoes), and we all had fun.

That many people won’t fit in the small space of a street on one city block. The pack of runners waiting to start spilled over onto all the sidewalks and side streets and stretched a long way from the starting line. And a group that size won’t move very quickly, even after the starting horn sounds. It always takes a long time before everyone is up to speed; the crowd uncoils like a big slinky. I got closer to the starting line this year than ever before, which meant I started moving (shuffling) only two minutes after the horn went off. Usually it takes 8 to 10 minutes before I start moving my feet.

About a half-mile into the race I found myself trapped behind three double-sized baby strollers being pushed side-by-side, the pushers talking and gossiping and giggling like old friends, all six kids nestled into their blankets. They created a barrier across the road of about 15 feet, leaving a huge wad of runners dammed up behind them trying to find a way around. But that sort of thing is what you should expect in a family event so huge.

By the time I hit mile two, I finally passed my last group of walkers – I don’t mean runners who occasionally walk, but people who never intended to run at all. They were easy to identify by their huge fleece jackets and blue jeans. It took me two miles to catch up them, meaning they must have lined up very near the starting line to be so far ahead of me. I got into place about 20 minutes before the race start; they must have lined up an hour before.

As I settled into my pace for eight miles, I thought about how running has become such a family marker for us. And this particular race has been part of our Thanksgiving tradition for ten years.

Running together is something that has become so important and identifiable with us, yet it started off in our group back in 1978 with me trying to impress a girl. I thought I had to do something athletic to win her attention and I choose running because it had the least skill requirements for a beginner. I was never any good as a runner but I just kept stumbling along. Who knew Cyndi would eventually join me? Who knew Byron and Katie would join in? Who knew Katie would marry an athlete and drag him into our running tribe?

Our beginning with running was fragile and tenuous to start with, but over time it became a fundamental part of our story. And it is our shared stories that make us a tribe, that make us … one of us.

This single activity sets us apart from most of the world but joins us with the thousands of families we ran with this morning. Why did we stick to it? How did it become so important? Who knows?

How often the defining markers of our tribes, the activities and attitudes that link us together, that bind us together, are so fragile and thin. Community can be very subtle. We had a lot of things in common with 37,000 people today, even more things not in common, yet I might feel more a part of that group even without knowing anyone else’s name than I might feel with some family members that I’ve known for decades.

The older I get the more I value the communities I belong to. Maybe its because my family has grown, and grown up, so its been more important for us to get together. Maybe its because I’m finally convinced I cannot do it all myself - or I can’t do it well all by myself - or I no longer want to do it myself. Or maybe I’ve finally listened to the advice of friends who understood the value of community for their entire lives.

Community has to be guarded and cherished. Our tribe is held together only by a few things, but they have become strong things. I am looking forward to more.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/

To follow Berry on Twitter … @berrysimpson

To contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/

Copyright 2009 Berry D. Simpson, all rights reserved.

Good branches

I was reading from Jesus’ final words to his disciples before he died: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15:1-2, NIV)

Two years ago, after reading that same verse, I wrote in the margin of my Daily Bible, “I lost the election; was that pruning so my life will be even more fruitful?”

Cyndi and I bought our first house in 1980 while living in Brownfield, Texas, when we were just children.

OK, we weren’t really children; we had jobs and degrees and bills and a baby, and one of us had a library card, but it was so long ago it seems like a different life. We lived in a trailer donated by Cyndi’s mom, in the Careyville Mobile Home Village, because there were no apartments for rent. After only one winter with the west Texas wind whistling through that trailer, carrying dust through the walls and blowing out the pilot in our heater and freezing the water pipes, I had enough. I wanted something else. We bought a house on Oak Street from the youth minister at our church, and one feature of the house was a significant rose garden alongside the driveway.

I ignored the roses and let them live alone in peace during our first spring in the house, but the second spring I decided I could learn to become a master rose gardener. I got lots of advice on how to prune the branches for maximum rose production. I weeded the beds constantly and fed them and pampered them all spring and summer. I was out pruning those rose bushes at least two or three days a week and we had beautiful roses all season long. We had roses in our house and gave them to all our friends. That year we had a plethora of roses, way more roses than the previous spring when we left them to grow on their own.

I thought about my rose-farming experiment when I read this verse from John 15. The part about God pruning the fruit-bearing branches wasn’t what I expected. My first thought was that he would prune only the lazy unresponsive non-bearing branches.

As I’ve gotten older and found a better handle on my real strengths and talents, I’ve slowly eliminated from my life the activities and projects I don’t do well, focusing instead on my strengths. I have engaged in self-pruning to maximize my effectiveness and to live the life God has called me to live. I want to act out of the strength of my life and not be distracted by the things I don’t do well. Being able to make those choices is one advantage of getting older.

But if I’m reading John 15 correctly, it says that God will prune away even my strengths and talents, my fruit-bearing areas, my best branches, to make them even better. Is that what I want?

Does that mean God might take away the opportunities I’m good at? Does it mean he might limit my exposure or impact even when I’m doing what he told me to do? Will God take me out of roles and responsibilities where I excel? As in, city government?

Most of us aren’t the best judges of our own lives. We don’t recognize our own strengths and we underestimate the effect of our lives on people around us. Often, those same people can see our strength and significance better than we see them ourselves.

So if God prunes something out of our life that we thought was one of our best attributes, well, maybe it wasn’t our best after all. Just because we get a lot of praise and attention from something doesn’t mean it’s successful in God’s eyes. In fact, all of that may become a distraction from where God really wants us to be.

So Tuesday morning, after reading from John 15, I posted this on Twitter: “Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes. Will he cut back something I’m good at, to improve?”

Because my Twitter account rolls over to Facebook, I got several responses to the post. Mark wrote: “Perhaps that’s what the city council thing was about? It made room for Running with God.” (Running with God is the title of my first book.)

I think Mark was right. In fact, the first time I noticed this particular verse was when I read it on November 16, 2007, only 10 days after losing a city-wide election. It was all still fresh on my mind when I made those notes in the margin of my Bible.

But now, two years later, at least for this particular example, the part of my life that God pruned away, the part I thought was so important to my identity and significance, well, after only a few months, a few weeks even, it was gone from my mind. I never missed it. Some day I may take another turn at government, but for now it has simply disappeared. It was so long ago it seems like a different life.

Pruning is always future-oriented; the loss happens now, but the gains come later. At the moment of pruning, there is no evidence of what is to come; we have no proof there will be something better. All we have is the faith that we will be more fruitful. If I believe John 15, which I do, then I must relax and trust God when a part of my life gets pruned away, and wait to see where the new and better fruit will come from next.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Burning words

One Friday found me at Wendy's in Plainview (an appropriately named town) eating lunch, on my way to Aunt Teena’s farm near Sedan, New Mexico, to pick com. I was reading from my Daily Bible, from Jeremiah 36, about a time when God told Jeremiah to write down all his sermons and prophecies.

By this time in Jeremiah’s life he had been preaching for over twenty years; what a chore it must have been to recall everything he’d said. I doubt he had a folder of sermon notes in his file cabinet. Maybe he kept some form of journal through the years - that isn’t too farfetched since much of the book of Jeremiah is made up of his personal observations and analysis. Also, since he was following Gods direction to write it all down, maybe God helped him remember.

The story says Jeremiah asked another man, Baruch, to write down the words while Jeremiah dictated. Being a writer who edits a lot, I can’t imagine writing with pen and ink on a papyrus scroll without a word processor. Almost nothing that I write is readable on the first draft.

But they did it, and Baruch went to the temple to read Jeremiah’s words aloud. Some of the king’s officials got wind of the reading and had Baruch give them a private reading. What they heard scared them. It was obvious to them these were words from God, and they recognized Jeremiah’s hand in all of it. They knew that King Jehoiakim needed to hear it.

The next scene is one of those stories I have known since early childhood. I remember the picture from children's Bible class showing a regal-looking bearded king sitting in his throne beside an open fire while Baruch read the words.

The Bible says Jehoiakim used a scribe’s knife – I guess an early editing tool - to slice off the portion of the scroll after the words were read aloud and then burned those pieces in the fire. It was a dramatic scene, which is probably why I remember the picture so well even though I haven’t seen a copy in at least 45 years.

What did Baruch think as he was reading? The king was destroying months of work right before his eyes. Surely he was angry about that; yet he was reading aloud before the king himself, an honor few experienced. And what would happen when he read the last paragraph and it was burned up - would the king turn his scribe’s knife on Baruch? He must have worried about that as he read.

I wonder how often our work for God gets burned up by some contemptuous unbeliever after we’ve spent months or years working on it? Do we wonder why we did it all when the only remainder is smoke curling up to the ceiling?

And why did God expect Jeremiah and Baruch to go through all of this if he knew it would be burned up? Did God intentionally waste their time? Did he assign them a futile mission as a mean joke?

No, of course not. I think God was giving King Jehoiakim one more chance to repent before the hammer fell on him. Or maybe God’s intended audience that day was never the king himself but some member of his royal court. Preachers and teachers never know for certain which person in their class is the real target.

All we can do is speak what God gives us, when he asks us, and trust him with the outcome. After all, Jeremiah’s words were burned, but I still have a copy.

Cyndi likes to say, “It’s possible to become richer by giving away.” The problem with giving away – whether money or home-cooked food or talent and energy, or even written words directed by God – is that we don’t know what the recipient will do with the gift. If we worry about whether it will be used or appreciated, well, we haven’t really given it away, have we? We simply have to give ourselves and our stuff away and trust God to take care of it.

Jeremiah must have known the only way to preserve his words for all time was to give them away, even if that meant they might be destroyed by an unbelieving king. His gift certainly lasted longer than the arrogant King Jehoiakim. There I was, 2,600 years later, in Wendy’s, in Plainview, reading Jeremiah’s gift.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/

To follow Berry on Twitter … @berrysimpson

To contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/

Copyright 2009 Berry D. Simpson, all rights reserved.