Journal entry 042111: Conversations from the trail

Last Saturday I joined 35 other people from Midland to hike the trail to the top of Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas. Even though it was my 15^th trip to the top, the hike hasn’t gotten any easier. It’s a hard day every time we go.

I told Paul, after we finally cleared the opening mile of switchbacks, “Surely there is an easier way to do ministry.” Well, there might be, but I doubt easier is the same thing as better. I don’t know any other way to duplicate the time I get to spend with my guys; the extended conversations along the trail are my favorite part of the trip.

This time I talked about our trip to Austin the previous day to meet with the Teacher Retirement System folks. Cyndi is ready to move into the next phase of her life, devoting her energies to her studio, although those who know Cyndi also know she can never put all of her substantial energy into one single effort and that she will always have two handfuls of projects to fill one handful of time. Moving into her next phase requires retiring as an elementary school teacher. She is ready.

What we learned in Austin was helpful and necessary - but it wasn’t what Cyndi expected or wanted to hear. We were planning on May 2011 for retirement, but TRS was planning on January 2012. Eight months is a short interval in the spread of our lives, but it is a huge time period from the perspective of today.

One fellow Iron Man hiker talked about the recent news of his upcoming career change and how the final position that he accepted was the one he’d preferred all along had he been given first choice, but one he thought was impossible because it was already filled. He said he would not feel comfortable praying for the other person to leave, so he pursued other jobs. So the answer to his prayer, while better than his immediate request, was not what he had been praying for (job #2 rather than the coveted job #1). He was happy the way it was working out, but curious that the answer to his praying was for a question he hadn’t asked.

Another Iron Man talked about his position as a university professor and how it felt very precarious in light of current state budget predictions. It is easy for us to say government spends way too much money; especially if we aren’t talking about the salary of a gifted and dedicated hard-working family man. He talked about his options should he lose his current job, and we wondered with him about his future and what could we do to help.

Both conversations, about men praying for specific solutions while knowing God’s answer might be something totally different, reminded me of the Bible story about a rich young man who approached Jesus and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?” Jesus answered, “Why are you calling me good?” (Mark 10:17-18)

Jesus changed the opening question from what the man asked to the question the man should have asked. The man asked about eternal life, but it mattered more who he thought Jesus was. Jesus addressed the heart of the issue, “Who do you think I am.” How could the man follow advice from someone he didn’t know?

On the trail down the mountain I wondered aloud how often God answers the prayers we should have prayed rather than the actual prayers we were praying? Maybe we pray, “God, give me Option A,” but God knows what we should have asked for was Option B, so He gives us Option B instead. I expect that happens over and over; we only recognize it afterward, maybe a long time afterward..

In almost every case when I was aware God had answered a specific prayer in my life, especially prayers about career moves, He answered in ways I never anticipated. In fact, I often didn’t recognize His answer until months, even years, later, after I had enough time and distance from the immediate trauma to look objectively. More than once I sat across from Cyndi in a booth at Rosa’s ticking off the points where God had delivered exactly what I’d asked for yet not in the way I expected.

Some might say I was turning coincidences into answered prayer. Well, maybe, but I doubt it. Coincidences have never given me joy and hope like answered prayer has.

Maybe from now on my opening prayer should be, from now on, “God what should I pray for? What should I ask for? Teach me to trust you.”

To see photos from the hike: http://www.flickr.com/photos/berrysimpson/sets/72157626549736298/

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 041411: Some things I’ve been learning but haven’t been brave enough to write about yet

This summer I will turn 55 years old. To be honest, there are things I thought I would’ve outgrown by now, but haven’t. Apparently, outgrowing is messy.

Friday morning last week I was listening to a TED Talk Podcast while running (uncharacteristically,  before sunrise - Cyndi made me promise to get up when she did if I kept her up Thursday night). The talk was by University of Houston Professor of Social Work, Brene’ Brown, who described her first visit with a counselor, making this demand: “Here’s the thing. No family stuff. No childhood s**t. I just need strategies.”

Like Ms. Brown, I’ve spent my adult life seeking out strategies rather than causes.

I remembered back to 2003 when it took me three attempts to finish the book, Wild at Heart. Why would it take so long to read a book that has turned out to be a major influence on my life? Because I kept grinding down at the topic of personal wounds and spiritual attack. I thought it was psychobabble. I wasn’t interested in wounds. OK, so I was sure I had deep emotional wounds in my life just like everyone else, and I could even identify the results of those wounds from my own behavior, but not the wounds themselves.

My question to God was, “How should I deal with this” rather than “What are you saying to me; where am I hurting.”

It has taken eight years for me to understand.

I finally manned-up enough to pray, “God I want you to dig into my heart and show me the truth. You have my permission and cooperation.” The first time I heard back from God was late one Sunday night (Apr 2009), with this statement: “I am always second-string, never anyone’s first pick.” I understood immediately. That thought had lived in the back of my mind since childhood. I prayed: “What was that about?”

Three days later I heard the second message from God, while in the shower at Gold’s Gym: “I deserve better than I am getting.” And, immediately following: “If I don’t have a chance to win, I won’t play the game.” Again I knew in my heart those statements were true about me as soon as I heard them. Maybe they weren’t truly true, but they were truly from the deepest recesses of my heart. I prayed: “God, tell me more about this. Keep talking to me.”

It was a year before I heard another message (Aug 2010), this time it came during yoga class: “The wound you have been looking for all these years is this: you were THE second choice.” It felt frighteningly close to the bone.

The next day I spent a lot of time writing it all out in my journal. I sensed healing in the air and I didn’t want to miss the moment. Yet, what I wrote in my journal was something I would never have admitted out loud, something I would’ve argued against ...  until, it flowed out of my pen onto the page of my Moleskin: “When I depended on God most, He let me down. God cannot be trusted.”

Writing that with real ink in a hardbound journal was so raw and real, it took my breath. I had to sit back in my booth to settle my pounding heart. Yet, it felt true the minute I read it. Not true about God; true about me.

Old stories in which I thought God had let me down started flashing through my mind, flapping rapidly like someone thumbing a deck of cards. In that instant I saw them all. It was true. I’d never trusted God completely. In the deepest part of my heart I was convinced that God would let me down when I needed Him most.

The thing is, I never thought of myself as the guy who didn’t trust God, and I would’ve argued vigorously against that. Yet, I also knew I was not alone. The attack against my heart - that God cannot be trusted - is the oldest attack of all. It goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.

And another thing, when it comes to spiritual attack, there are no coincidences. The Enemy knows exactly when and where to hit us, to do the most damage, to take us out of the battle. Yet, I was reminded that it’s possible to rescue someone else even in the middle of a darkest wound. That is the grace of God.

It took a long journey down a crooked road for me to learn that I didn’t really trust God all those years. It also took a long conversation with a valued friend to find the peace I needed. Clarity is important, but it isn’t enough. Strategies aren’t enough, either. We also need community. We’re too close to our own stories, and we have too much at stake, to see clearly on our own. I needed someone else to listen, someone else to know. I’m walking lighter in my shoes now, relieved that I don’t have to carry my story alone. I have help.

And so, my daily prayer has become: “God, teach me to trust You.” I pray it several times a day. Every time I feel unstable, or misunderstood, or second-string, I pray, “Teach me to trust You.” I don’t want to spend the rest of my life fooling myself. I want to be the man who trusts God.

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 040711: About dreams

So if you want to know the truth, I don’t understand dreams at all. I have dreams every night, and almost all of them are about fictional scenes or situations tied loosely to my real life. They are always a bit unreal, yet never completely abandon the rules of physics. I have never dreamed I could fly, for example. I wish I could steer my dreams to the scenes I want, and believe me, I’ve tried. But I can’t. At least for me, whatever portion of the brain is responsible for dreaming will not be manipulated or controlled.

Not only that, but dreams usually escape my consciousness almost immediately. They have a half-life of about 20 seconds, but occasionally they stick around long enough for me to remember them.

The reason I am writing about dreams is not because I am trying to channel Ezekiel, or even John Lennon, but because I spent the majority of Sunday night dreaming about hiking up a mountain trail. Not about sitting on a summit or under a big shade tree enjoying the view, but about hiking up the trail with backpack on my back and trekking poles flying by my side. Not in the sense of never being able to reach my destination (that’s a different dream), but rather about having more adventures ahead of me. I think it’s significant that my mind, on its own, returns to the image of covering miles on the trail.

I remember one hike up Guadalupe Peak when my friend Brandon said to me as we reached the summit, “Berry, I believe I could experience God’s presence just as well in a big chair in the shade near a Texas lake.” I would guess most people feel the same way Brandon does, and maybe I wish it was true for me as well. It sure would make my life easier. But for me, it’s the movement that often turns an experience into a spiritual encounter.

About this time last year I attended a weekend retreat in Colorado, where we talked a lot about our life calling and talents and dreams and desires. The other guys pointed out that most of the photos I liked and the stories I told and even the words I used were about roads and trails and journey and pathways. I was surprised to hear that from them; I hadn’t thought it was such an obvious part of my story. But then I remembered that at least ¾ of the photos I take while in the mountains feature the trail. My claim has always been that including the trail in the picture adds perspective and depth, but maybe it has always been the pull of the trail itself that made me dig out my camera. As in, “Look where I walked, wasn’t it cool?”

So speaking (or writing) about dreams, Wednesday night I was dreaming again about being on my feet, but this time I was running in a 10K race instead of hiking. The course was nothing but hills - the only flat places were the momentary tangents at the top of each hill and bottom of each valley. In my dream, I was a magnificent runner. I was clipping along with the lead pack, surrounded by young, fleet, flatbellies, the gray-haired sage doling out advice and retelling old race stories even as we ran. I was a little sad when the alarm clock went off at 5:40 AM. Usually I am happy to get out of bed for another Iron Man session, but alas, if I could have returned to my fast-running dream, I might have slept in this morning.

Well, like I said, I don’t know what to make of dreams. I don’t believe, as some do, in the universal symbolism of dreams. I think people are too different to have the same symbols. I do believe dreams are often symbolic, but specific and unique to the dreamer.

I also believe, after reading Mark Batterson, that many of our dreams are actually prayers - especially those dreams we have over and over.

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 033111: This I believe: I have miles to go before I sleep

This is what I believe: Robert Frost was calling me out 90 years ago when he wrote his poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.

      The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

      But I have promises to keep,

      And miles to go before I sleep

The poem is about a man who wanted to enjoy the beauty of snow falling in the woods. (Stopping to smell the roses, so to speak, except there weren’t any roses in the winter.) But as peaceful as it made him feel, he had to move on. He couldn’t stop. No matter how nice it was, he had promises to keep, people who needed him, obligations to fulfill, and dreams yet to be dreamed.

Like the man in the poem I have a tendency to settle into life, stop dreaming, and stop pushing forward. It often takes a traumatic event to pull me out of my woods-gazing. One example was losing my job with a major oil company in 1994. I would’ve been content to sit at my desk in Midland and work out my days doing mundane engineering projects until retirement, but they fixed that for me. My employer kicked me out of the woods and on down the road.

The same was true about the end of my service as an elected official in city government. Had I been allowed, I would have stayed comfortably on the City Council for decades longer. I was effective at it, and I enjoyed it right up until the end. But looking back, it’s clear to me that I depended on it for weight and depth in my life, and I needed to move on. Left on my own I would have stayed gazing into the woods, hypnotic and pleasing and beautiful.

But again, like the man in the poem, I have promises to keep which I cannot fulfill if I stare too long into at the beautiful woods. Promises like:

      To mentor young married couples and inspire other men.

      To write my stories and insights so God can use them.

      To teach and speak from my heart.

      To be a lover and husband and supporter of Cyndi Simpson.

      To keep moving - running, backpacking, and cycling.

I don’t want to end up as one of those old silverbacks who continually lean against the past. I get tired of stories about how good things used to be. I want to lean forward into the future. I have promises to keep.

I also believe I have many more miles to go before I sleep: more to learn, more to change, more friends who’ll influence me.

Another famous writer, the Apostle Paul, wrote in Philippians 3:14, “I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.” (MSG) I believe my best and most exiting miles are ahead of me, and I want to cover them before I sit down. I don’t want to leave any miles un-run.

How about you? What poem tells your story?

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 032411: Spiritual training

Sunday I rode the Mid-Cities route on my bicycle, about 26 miles round-trip. That was a long ride for me at this point in my life, the furthest I’ve ridden in the modern era. It was windy but not impossible, and I worked hard the entire ride pushing my legs and pushing the pace. It was fun.

When I got home I was surprised to notice my legs weren’t weary. I was tired from the bike saddle and my hands and arms tingled from the handlebars, but those were minor discomforts which went away after a few minutes. However, I could feel the effort in my chest - heart and lungs - for several hours, and it felt good. It felt like I had worked hard.

I told Cyndi, “It’s been years since I could run hard enough for my lungs and heart to feel the strain. My knees won’t let me run that fast now. That’s one big advantage to cycling - I can work much harder.”

It wasn’t the same as being short-winded, which happens every time I carry my backpack up into the Guadalupe Mountains; this was more like that good soreness you feel in your muscles after lifting weights. It feels like success, like victory, like value-added, like accomplishment. That was how I felt after the ride.

I’m sorry to be going on and on about a simple bike ride that for my cycling friends was nothing but a simple warm-up jaunt, but as I said,  it has been years since my knees would let me run fast enough to have that same effect in my lungs, and I realized how much I’ve missed it.

Later that Sunday evening, after the ride, as I sat in church, proud of the lingering effects, I wondered if hard exertion has more than physical value. Is there spiritual value in hard work? I know Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden is light, but He didn’t mean we’d have an easy go of it for all of life.

Paul wrote in Philippians 2:12 - “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” (NAS)

“Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God.” (MSG)

“Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.” (NLT)

“Work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation.” (AMP)

Clearly we aren’t supposed to sit down and become spiritual couch potatoes after receiving the free gift of grace. We are to take that free gift and start working.

Dallas Willard said in a Catalyst interview, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it’s opposed to earning.” We don’t earn our relationship with God through hard work, but hard work has great value just the same.

There is a true statement that we often repeat: “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”

Of course, it is absolutely correct. God loves us because He is God, God is love, and not because of our efforts. However, it is too tempting to use that statement as an excuse to sit down and do nothing, and that response ignores the real issue. God’s love for us is never in question, but our love for Him can be a shaky thing indeed. The purpose of spiritual disciplines (prayer, meditation, study, reading, worship, fasting, giving, silence, solitude, serving, etc.) is not to win God’s favor but to change our own hearts. As we work out our own salvation, like Apostle Paul says, we change our own heart and dreams and thoughts and desires, and we improve our own capability of loving God. Spiritual disciplines do not earn access to God, but open up our lives and make room for God.

Dallas Willard Said, “Think of it as training verses trying - trying harder seldom helps, but training makes you better.”

I must add this before drawing too many deep spiritual conclusions from a bike ride. I went out Tuesday afternoon to ride 17 miles and the wind was fierce. It was epically fierce. It was Patagonia fierce. There were moments when it was all I could to maintain 6 mph, legs spinning like crazy. I was so slow I would’ve fallen over if not for the gyroscopic effect of my legs going round and round and round. It was brutal.

Afterward, I didn’t feel any spiritual benefit from that ride at all. In fact, I felt more foolish than enlightened. Why didn’t I go to the gym and ride the stationary bike instead? I still have a lot to learn about training.

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 031711: A talking donkey

Monday afternoon I made a 25-mile bike ride, my furthest ride to-date in the modern era. For some reason, impossible to remember three days later, I thought about the story in the Bible of Balaam and his donkey. I wondered what would happen if an angel tried to block my way as I cruised alongside Highway 191. Would God cause my bike to stop and talk to me? A talking bicycle would be very strange - where is its mouth? However, maybe the flat tire I got four miles from home was a message from God. It certainly slowed me down.

The story of Balaam and his talking donkey comes from Numbers 22. It’s a story I’ve enjoyed even more since seeing the movie Shrek, now that I know how a talking donkey should behave. I used to picture Balaam’s donkey a little like Eeyore, sad and droopy, but now I hear Eddie Murphy’s voice. It significantly brightens the story.

As the story goes, Balaam was some sort of wizard-for-hire who would curse your enemy for a payment. Numbers 22:7 says when the elders of Moab and Midian went to recruit Balaam to put a curse on the Israelite people, they took with them “the fee for divination,” implying it was an understood and standard amount, a set fee.

Balaam may not have been a follower of God in the way we think of it in my church, even though he invoked God’s name. In this story he promised to bring his visitors “the answer the Lord gives me.” At least he didn’t claim to invent his curses all by himself.

We can’t know if Balaam really intended to talk to God about the curse or if his mention of the Lord was merely part of his magician script, but we know that in this particular case, God spoke to Balaam. It’s often a big surprise when he actually speaks to us – more than we expect. Yet, Balaam took it all in stride and accepted the words from God. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t his first time. Maybe God spoke to him all the time.

God told Balaam he must not curse the Israelites. So he was stuck between the obvious word of God and the desires of his employers from Moab and Midian. How could he obey God without alienating his rich and powerful future customer base? Balaam tried to tap dance between the two, making several appeals to God, hoping God would change his mind. Of course, He didn’t.

At one point Balaam was confronted by God while traveling down the road on his donkey. Actually, he was confronted by “the angel of the Lord,” and this is where the donkey enters the story.

The donkey saw the angel standing in the road, sword drawn, but Balaam couldn’t yet see it. Well, the donkey would not pass the angel, and even crushed Balaam’s leg against a stone wall rather than move forward. Balaam beat the donkey, but when the angel again blocked the path, the donkey laid down on the road. Balaam beat the donkey even more.

I remember once when we were at the family ranch, the Tramperos, in Union County New Mexico, I mentioned this story to Cyndi’s grandfather, Forrest Atchley. He started telling me stories about the stubborn donkeys of his life. All the stories ended the same way, with Forrest wailing away on a balking donkey with a 2x4 or a jack handle. I asked him, “Do you think any of those donkeys acted that way because they saw an angel in the road?”

He said, “If they saw any angels, it was after I hit them between the eyes with the jack handle.” Forrest was unwilling to credit any of his donkeys with the spiritual vision of Balaam’s donkey. Forrest did tell me he would consider the presence of angels in the road if one of his donkeys ever started talking to him, but only then.

The most surprising part of Balaam’s story in the Bible is when the donkey started talking. The donkey said, “What have I done to make you beat me three times in a row?”

Balaam answered, “You have made a fool of me.” The best part of the story is that Balaam was NOT surprised to have a talking donkey. He entered into a conversation with his donkey as if this was the sort of thing that happened every day. I would have expected him to jump back and holler, “WOAH, A TALKING DONKEY!”

And not just a run-of-the-mill talking donkey, this was a logical talking donkey. The donkey gave a well-reasoned explanation to Balaam about the situation. Then God opened Balaam’s eyes and he saw the angel of the Lord for the first time and he knew he was lucky to have survived this day.

I thought, Balaam should make it a point to keep this donkey beside him for the rest of his life. Any creature who can see messengers from God should be kept close, especially if it saves your life.

Anyway, that’s what I thought about while riding my bike last Monday. You never know what mind games the West Texas wind will stir up.

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 031011: Are you at home?

This week’s journal is more about exploration than about discovery, more dialogue than conclusions. Feel free to dive in with your own insights. I want your help. Post a comment, or write to me at berry@stonefoot.org.

I’ve been working on my next book, which started out being about family life and raising kids and living together and all that, but lately it has taken a turn toward one of my favorite Bible passages, one that Cyndi introduced me to about ten years ago, Ephesians 3:17-19. It’s the closest I have to a life verse. This passage always stirs up questions that I love to consider, over and over.

It begins, “And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your heart, living within you as you trust in him.” Here are some of the questions stirring in my head:

What does it mean for Christ to be at home in my heart?

What does it mean for me to be at home in someone else’s heart Is that even possible?

Is home a place, an attitude, a relationship?

How are these words related: home, relationship, and trust?

Can you be at home if your heart isn’t at peace? Maybe that’s a good definition of home - the place where your heart is at peace?

Can you feel at home with someone you don’t trust?

I posed some of these questions on Facebook; here are some of the responses, long with my comments:

“Remember that home is where the heart is.” It’s an old cliché, for sure, but things become clichés for a reason, usually because they are true. Personally, I like the idea that home is where (or when) my heart is at rest; or, my heart finally finds rest and peace when I am at home.

“Your relationship can’t feel like home if there is no trust.” Maybe that’s because we can never relax unless we trust.

“Home is a state of mind, not a place.” Certainly true, yet there are some specific places that feel very much like home to me. (My closet, my pickup, Hunter Peak)

“Commitment is important for trust, and being at home is part of this.”

“Those words - at home - change as one grows. It all depends on where you are in life.” I wonder if home was more place-oriented when I was younger and our life revolved around being in the house with young children?

I remember when I lost my job in 1994 and had to move all my stuff into the garage. Engineers tend to accumulate a lot of books and notebooks and, in those day, graph paper and drafting tools. The thing I missed first was my desk. It was just a lousy ancient gray metal desk with no personality, but I spent a lot of time there for 12 years. I knew where my stuff belonged; I knew what to do next. Without a job, without a desk, without a place to sit and call my own, I was adrift and homeless. Nowadays, however, I am comfortable without an office or a desk. My place is wherever I am.

I don’t mean in the sense of, “Papa was a rolling stone, wherever he laid his hat was his home,” but that my office-home has become more attached to an activity than to a physical location. My office is my laptop, or my journal. I’m pretty sure it will move again someday to something else.

“History and hope come to mind when thinking about home.” History demands relationships, and it is manifested in stories, and stories feel like home.

“All three (home, relationship, and trust) are blessings; if you possess them you have been graced.” That is certainly true. The only reason I can have this conversation is because I have been blessed with love, home, relationships, and trust. I once told Cyndi, “All the people who ever loved me, still do.” That is a gift from God. And I have never been homeless, in any sense of the word. That, too, is a blessing from God.

We have lived in our new house for two years now (so maybe it isn’t new any longer, but since we lived in our previous house 26 years, this still seems new), and I must say, it feels like home. But some rooms feel more like home that others. There are some rooms where I still feel like a visitor.

To feel at home there has to be trust, commitment, history, stories, and peace. For me, even the journey itself, the path, feels like home. My heart is at peace when I am on the move.

What about you? When are you at home?

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 030311: Right away

“Some problems have to be dealt with right away,” is what I said to Cyndi last Sunday morning at Katie and Drew’s house in Mansfield, one day after our sugar-and-cake overdose (also known as granddaughter Madden’s first birthday party) when I discovered I was limping around the house, which isn’t unusual for me and is typically caused by sore knees or stiff legs after a long run but this time was due to a sharp specific stabbing pain under my big toe, not a regular injury for me, and so when I pulled off my shoe I discovered a grass burr in my dress sock, which in my life means a black sock since I only buy two colors of socks, white or black, to eliminate the confusion of sorting and locating a  missing member of a pair, and not only do I buy only black and white socks it is important to me that they are identical style so all I have to do in the morning is grab any two socks knowing I’ll be fine all day with none of those awkward your-socks-don’t-match-who-dressed-you moments, and besides I don’t own any clothes that don’t go with either white socks or black socks, but usually if I find a grass burr in a sock it isn’t a dress, so-to-speak, sock, but one of my running socks, especially in the winter, since when I run on the grass at the Windlands Soccer Fields the hidden grass burrs that fell to the ground during the last fall mowing are now desiccated to the point of weightlessness and they splash up onto my socks with every step, and some of the more ambitious burrs take a dive into the small space between sock and shoe that opens and closes with each footfall, and those burrs can bring me to a stop immediately since who can run with grass burrs digging into their feet, not me, but even the burrs that cling to the upper part of my sock or even the skin on my ankle quickly find purchase and I usually hope if I shake my foot between strides, an awkward action even for young lithe flat-bellies, I will fling the burrs away, only it never works to satisfaction but mainly encourages the tenacious burrs to dig in deeper and the braver burrs to dive into my shoe and join their buddies, so I have to stop right there right away and pull them out, interrupting my run, which isn’t all that great anyway but stopping always carries the risk of instant injury-onset, forcing me to limp all the way back to the gym, which I’ve had to do more than once, so I have to stop and remove the burrs because some irritants must be dealt with immediately before they make life unbearably worse.

As soon as I found that grass burr under my toe, Sunday morning at Katie’s, that is, and pulled it out and put my shoe back on, I felt much better, and that was when I realized Cyndi had stopped listening to me a long time ago and wandered off in search of a baby to hold. So I followed her into the kitchen where they were eating breakfast and Madden smiled brightly when I walked in, setting my world aright and removing all memories of grass burrs.

It turns out, some problems which seemed huge only moments before, fade away to nothing in the bright light of joy.

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 022411: Finest moment

David pointed out a big pine tree standing about fifteen away. It had no branches for the first 10’ from the ground but had a dark-brown basketball-sized knot about head high. David called it a burl, and said it was prized among woodworkers for turning bowls and such. Something terrible had to have happened to the tree to create that burl, and our group of hikers talked about how tragedies can turn into value.

There were six in our group, and we were taking a break alongside The Bowl Trail in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, on our way to Hunter Peak. It was beautiful day, about 70 degrees, but the wind was blowing fiercely. Fortunately all its energy was spent rattling the tree tops and not on us. We were sitting in calm contemplation, telling stories of our past adventures and recovering from a long, sustained climb.

David’s comment about the burl captured my attention and, later, after I got back home to internet access, I looked it up. “A burl is a growth on a tree that is very rare and most often occurs when the tree has been damaged usually either by some sort of fungus or mold, or an insect attack. It often looks like a big round tumor growing on the trunk of the tree.”

It occurred to me that if you were to ask the tree about the valuable burl, it would not be so proud of it, but probably ashamed of the bulbous scar and reminded of the deep wound that caused it.

I thought of a scene from the move, Apollo 13, when the NASA Director said, “This could be the worst disaster NASA’s ever faced.” Gene Kranz (played by Ed Harris) replied: “With all due respect, sir, I believe this is going to be our finest moment.”

In our own lives we often can’t get past the story of the deep wound to see the beauty. We are still too close and still hurting from the tragedy to imagine any value.

Brennan Manning wrote (The Ragamuffin Gospel): “Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind-games, or pop psychology. It is an act of faith in the God of grace.” We have to trust God that our wounds can become something valuable.

Not to say every wound is good. They aren’t. Not to say all disasters become our finest moment. They don’t. But some do.

We need community - we need other people - we need each other - to see those beautiful parts of our life and remind us of our best features. We’re often too close to see our own finest moments.

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

 

Journal entry 021711: What about you?

John asked: Can anyone ultimately succeed in ministry if it doesn’t incorporate what they love to do and are gifted at? That’s a good question.

While running last week I heard a cool TED Talk given by Shimon Schocken, a man who lives in Israel and uses mountain biking as a ministry to young juvenile offenders. It was a timely message. The Iron Men have been talking a lot lately about calling and mission and path, and this TED Talk seemed to speak to that issue. (Of course, when I’m bird-dogging a topic, I’ll admit that, for me, everything tends to point toward it.)

The TED website gives this description: Shimon Schocken is the IDB Professor of Information Technologies and founding dean of the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Israel. After 10 years at NYU, he returned to his home country to help found IDC Herzliya -- Israel’s first private, non–profit university. Schocken uses his other life passion, mountain biking, to teach adolescent boys in Israel’s juvenile detention centers valuable life lessons through challenging bike rides in remote locations. His TED Talk described that project.

When I hear something I like, I cannot keep it to myself, so I shared a link to the talk with the guys, who made several observations:

When Schocken was trying to persuade the prison warden to let him try his biking experiment, he said, "These are my principles, and if you don't like them I have others." He wasn’t being wishy-washy, he was being flexible, giving the warden room to say yes.

We should ask ourselves which values do we hold that we won't give up for the sake of reaching another person. I wonder how often we claim PRINCIPLES when it is actually our stubborn resistance to change. How often do we care more about being right than being gracious?

Schocken took a big risk leaving his tenured position at NYU and going to Israel. He took another big risk biking with imprisoned juvenile offenders. There was the risk they might strike out and hurt him, and the risk they might use the opportunity to escape on their mountain bikes while he was responsible for them.

It is impossible to talk about God’s calling without also talking about taking risks. This man’s choice to leave one challenging career for another is a great example. We all have many choices, many possible good directions in life, and we have to pick-and-choose. Following God is almost always risky.

Schocken understood that physical movement and shared hardship opens hardened hearts. Whoever taught us that our physical bodies and our intellectual minds were separate entities (was it The Enlightenment?) did us a disservice. Spiritual understanding is often tied to physical movement and that’s one reason Believers have gone on pilgrimages for thousands of years.

As for me, I am more and more convinced that there can be little personal growth without physical movement. I doubt I have ever had an original thought or creative insight when I wasn’t moving. Even my best writing - an activity that appears to be mostly stationary - comes after I have started moving my pen. I have to start writing before the good ideas come.

And another thing. For most men, physical movement, especially if difficult and challenging, brings us together in a way that sitting in a class together can never do. I don’t know why that is, but it is. Men doing something hard together become brothers.

“Can anyone ultimately succeed in ministry if it doesn’t incorporate what they love to do and are gifted at?” Again, it’s a good question, and it speaks to what Gary Barkalow calls the Glory of Your Life, your Calling, the Weightiness of your life.

Schocken turned what he loved to do into his ministry. What do you love to do? What are you gifted at? What is your ministry?

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org