Who Has Influenced Your Life?

I’ve learned that I have to be picky when it comes to spiritual influences. I am continually on the lookout for my next influences, and I pay close attention when someone who knows me well makes a recommendation. Even then, I have to be choosy The world is full of well-meaning influences that try to barge their way in, but they aren’t how I want to live. I want influences that push me in the direction of love, peace, patience, forgiveness, gratefulness, acceptance, and grace. This summer I read a book by Ian Morgan Cron titled, Chasing Francis, and in it he quoted Thomas Aquinas, who spoke about two kinds of souls – the magna animi and the pusilla animi.

Cron wrote, “The magna animi is the open soul that has space for the world to enter and find Jesus. The pusilla animi is like a fortress. It is the defended heart. It’s a guarded and suspicious spirit that’s closed to the world. It sees everything and everyone as a potential threat, an enemy waiting to attack. It shields itself from the world.”

The curious thing is the best way to guard your heart is be open to new influences, not closed. But leaving space for Jesus to enter also leaves us vulnerable. For me, that means I find myself crying in public way more often than I’m comfortable with.

Which brings me to last Sunday morning: I sat with the church orchestra on the front row of the worship team, in front of the entire church body, and cried through the feature music. Huge tears rolled down my cheeks and onto my shirt. Fortunately it was a mostly-black shirt so the wet spots didn't show. That happened twice, both services, even though I was prepared for it the second time.

And curiously, the music that got me was an old hymn, Softly and Tenderly, published 133 years ago. The soloist singing was Cynthia Clawson, and she was singing a “modern” arrangement of the hymn that she first recorded in the late-1970s. I have heard her sing that very same arrangement on many occasions over the past thirty years. All that is to say, I was surprised at my own emotional reaction to something and someone very familiar to me.

The song reminded me how we tend to make spiritual life so complicated, take ourselves too seriously, or focus too much on technique or style. But Jesus cuts through the chaff and distractions and makes this appeal: “All who are weary, come home.” Hearing that song by Cynthia Clawson changed the lesson I was prepared to teach that morning in adult Sunday School.

For me, that’s living the magna animi life.

I told my class: “I am a blessed and fortunate man. I have deep spiritual roots that go back generations after generation. Throughout my life my spiritual formation has been shaped as much by singers and songwriters as by speakers and authors. And one my deepest and oldest influences is Cynthia Clawson. I’ve sat under her singing for close to 40 years.”

I first heard Cynthia Clawson sing when I was in high school in Hobbs, New Mexico. She came often to First Baptist Church. The church our family attended was too small to have a youth group, so I joined my friends at FBC often. During those formative years, Cynthia Clawson was the first singer I ever heard who sang directly to me, told her stories exactly to me, spoke straight to me, and pulled me along with her. She was the first singer I heard who made ancient hymns sound like her own personal words to me.

And to be honest, she wasn’t the only one. My theology and worldview have been shaped by a long string of musicians, and mostly after I heard them perform live. I have always been vulnerable to live music.

I came home from a Steven Curtis Chapman concert wishing I could sing. Hearing Rich Mullins made me wish I could write. Chris Rice made me wish I could see Jesus in everyday things. And Cynthia Clawson made me wish I could show you my heart.

I identify with the label of Pilgrim for Christ and the notion that I will always be moving down the trail searching for God. That means I expect to be influenced. These musicians that influenced me are only a few of the many voices that have kept me moving in the right direction and allowed me to relax long enough to listen to God.

QUESTION: Who has influenced your life?

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

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

What I've Learned While Grounded

Here is the good news: I have finally been released by the Wound Management Department of Midland Memorial Hospital after spending every Monday morning with them since April 22^nd. I hope they mail my diploma soon. Here is the bad news: Well, not so bad, really, but not what I was hoping for – I am still grounded from running or cycling until September 16th.

The doctor asked, “Can you hold out one more week?”

I said, “I’ve been uncharacteristically patient and obedient so far, what’s one more week.” I’m still trying to act like a grown-up through all this.

My 150 Days of Grounding happened because of a bike crash on March 4, and physical healing takes a long time. I’m anxious to get back to moving again.

I’ll be the first to admit – well, not actually the first, but one of many – I am not a natural runner. In fact, I’m surprised running is still so important to me. Not one person who knew me before age 22 would have predicted I would choose to do anything physical, especially for 35 years.

Well, again, not exactly correct. I enjoyed cycling in high school; I even rode from Hobbs to Artesia, New Mexico with my friend Doug White, about 80 miles. We only did it once.

But it was running that captured my imagination and changed my heart. I started running in 1978, the summer before my last year of college, because I thought it would help me win the heart of a girl. I kept it up once I got back to OU, with a friend, Charles Calvert. And then I never quit. Running taught me how to lose myself in meditative encounters with God and I’m not the same man I would have been without it.

I recently read a great book by journalist Jim Axelrod titled, In The Long Run, and in it he described what happened when his father started running in 1976. Axelrod could have been describing me.

“The running boom was perfectly timed for him. It couldn’t have fit his personality better. Running didn’t require teammates or partners, like softball, tennis, or golf. Running depended solely upon him. Running had a simple calculus: what you put in, you got out. He needed a transaction like that in his life – immediate and dependable. Running allowed him to sweat his anxieties, disappointments, and fears right out of his system. It was also quantifiable.”

I was drawn to running by the same qualities that attracted Axelrod’s father. It was something I could do alone. Not only that, I could get lost in it. I could release my mind while running and let it shake off anxieties, burn through anger, and roam in imagination. At least 75% of all creative ideas I’ve had in my life came to me while I was running down the road. I started carrying notecards and a pen to record my thoughts until I ruined too many cards with sweat. Then I began carrying a handheld digital recorder.

And running produced a quantifiable number every time I went out. I started keeping a running log very early in my career and I have records going back to 1978. What could be cooler than that? Almost nothing. (As of my Day of Grounding, I’d run 36,721 miles in 7,345 actual days, going through 50 pairs of shoes, all but five were New Balances.)

So during this long sedentary summer I learned a few things about myself. First, my writing suffered. I don’t know if it’s because my feet aren’t moving, or my heart wasn’t’ beating as fast, or I simply missed the daily discipline, but my creative process took a huge hit. Writing has been more of a struggle than it should be.

Second, I have increased in convexity, and it isn’t a pleasant experience. I realize I should have cut back on eating, since I wasn’t burning as many calories, but it seemed like I’d already sacrificed enough in the name of wound management without giving up food, too.

And third, my knees and right foot have been even more of a bother than they were when I was running regularly. They are stiffer and ache more often in spite of all the rest I’ve given them. Apparently use-it-or-lose-it is true.

One more observation. Even during this long down time I’ve been drawn to books and podcasts about running. I have especially enjoyed listening to stories from ultramarathon trail runners, as in, people who do 100 miles or more. Rather than drift away during my down time I drifted toward. I suppose God hasn’t released me from this part of my life, yet. He still has more to say.

QUESTIONS: What is it for you? What drives your creativity? What pushes you toward God?

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

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

Not Done With That

“Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.” (Psalm 90:12, TLB) A few weeks ago a friend told me how he and his wife had been considering names for their soon-to-be-born son, and one of the names they were considering was Caleb. What a great name. From a man in the Bible who never stopped, who lived his story to the very end.

Caleb was a companion of Joshua, and at the age of 85 asked to receive as his inheritance the hill country where the scary enemy lived in fortified cities. He still wanted the hard stuff. He was not done yet. (Joshua 14:12)

And so, thinking about Caleb, I dug out my copy of Wild Goose Chase (Mark Batterson) and found this: “I want to die doing what I love. I am determined to pursue God-ordained passions until the day I die. Life is too precious to settle for anything else.”

Batterson gave an example, Wilson Bently, the famous photographer of snowflakes, maybe the first person to do so, who died of pneumonia he contacted after walking six miles in a blinding snowstorm, taking photos of snowflakes. He died as a result of following his passion.

We don’t know how the Caleb from the Bible died, but we can assume it was while he was carving a home out of the rough country.

I did a Google search on the phrase, “people who died doing what they love,” and I got page after page of articles and blogs. True, most of the people listed in the stories died doing things like freestyle skiing, BASE jumping, adventure filmmaking, mountain climbing, solo ballooning, big-wave surfing, back-country skiing, Congo river kayaking, and free-solo climbing.

Of course, there are two ways of looking at these particular deaths. You could say (1) they died because they insisted on doing something dangerous for too many years and were lucky to have lived as long as they did, or (2) they died pursuing the very passions that motivated and fueled their life.

As a safe and responsible father I should go with the first interpretation, but with respect to how I want to live my own life I prefer the second.

But to say I want to die while doing what I love, well, that might lead to traumatic consequences. Suppose I fell down dead while teaching Compass class or Iron Men. That would be great for me but would take some time for the class to recover.

Or I might die while running or cycling. If that happened I hope it would be because I finally pushed my body beyond known limits and found peace on the other side and not because some distracted driver took me out while I was safely minding my own business.

This is better. What if I die while writing in my journal (and afterward everyone agrees it was the best piece of writing anyone, ever, had written) while leaning against a pine tree near a mountain trail where only moments before I had finished a ten-mile run after spending the night in my tent at high altitude.

Oh, and I am 114 years old at the time … I’m not looking for something to happen right away. I hope to spend another 57 years holding Cyndi’s hand.

The point isn’t to schedule death, but to live life; to lean hard into our passions every day, all the way to the end. What we are doing in our last moments is insignificant when compared to what we did before. When the Psalmist wanted us to number our days, it was about living, not dying.

So Wednesday noon I was at Jason’s with Byron and Paul when a woman we all knew walked by and asked if we were discussing the classes we’d be teaching. Good guess; that was exactly what we were talking about. As she walked away she said, “I taught classes for too many years, now I’m done with that.”

The three of us agreed we hope we’re never “done with that.” There are enough people who are done with that. We need more who are willing to push all the way to the end.

As in those cross country skiers in the Olympics who give 100% of their energy until crossing the finish line and then collapse into a gangly heap of legs and skis and poles, we should stay engaged in our God-ordained passions all the way to the finish line. We don’t want to be done with that before the finish just because we get tired.

Mark Batterson wrote, “We need to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Instead, we need to start playing offense with our lives. The world needs more daring people with daring plans. Why not you?”

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

 Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

How Do You Give Yourself Away?

Do you prefer being with people most of the time, or being by yourself? Last Sunday afternoon I told Daryl, “You would have been proud of me today. At the reception for the Koehl family I served as a line marshal. I stopped visitors from cutting in line or sneaking cookies, mostly by cracking jokes, which means I interacted with actual people for two solid hours.” He was impressed.

And what’s more, that happened only one day after Cyndi and I hosted Cornfest at our house. It’s an annual event where we cook fresh ears of sweet corn and serve them with hamburgers on Cyndi’s most excellent home-cooked buns. We had about sixty people in our house and I talked to all of them that were old enough to carry a conversation.

That means by Sunday evening, I was whipped. I had to rest my blown-out knees. I had to find solitude. To paraphrase Anne Lammot, I sneaked into the back room like an agent for Mossad, just trying to find a moment’s space, just trying to find my heart cave.

And then, after an hour or so, I was ready to reemerge and play with Cyndi.

I should mention that on most personality tests I score all the way to the edge as an introvert. And, I should add, that makes me happy.

There is a pseudo-quiz floating around Facebook these days, taken from the Huffington Post, titled “23 Signs You’re Secretly An Introvert.” I scored 22 out of 23 on their quiz. I’m pretty sure if you answer “yes” to 22 questions there is no secret about it. Everyone knows.

Here’s the thing. The introspection that comes with my personality is one of my greatest assets. It’s the source of my deepest thoughts, the heart of my creativity, the root of my spirituality, and the depth of my teaching and writing. I can’t think of one good idea or creative insight I’ve had while in a group of people. The best always come to me when I’m alone, usually while running down the trail or cycling down the road, or with my head buried in my journal.

I am a lot like Philip Yancey, who wrote he is “quite content to hole up in a mountain cabin with a stock of books for a week at a time, speaking to no one but the grocery store clerk.”

But here is something else Philip Yancey wrote about his introversion: “I keep leaving home in quest of what happens when the faith I write about in a mountain cabin confronts the real world.”

Like Yancey, I also have to come down from the mountain, unwrap myself from the cozy blanket of solitude, and see how the thoughts and ideas and insights I’ve accumulated work out for real people. I have to share my faith with the outside world.

And I’ll admit I enjoy social interaction more than I let on. I enjoy every conversation with my friend Bob or my brother Carroll; I just forget to initiate it.

Still, if you catch me after one of my solo mountain retreats and ask me what I learned, I may be speechless, in spite of all my introspection. But after a couple of days processing the data I’ll start telling stories. And once I start telling stories I won’t be able to stop, whether we are in class, or at Rosa’s, or cycling, or at work.

This is one of the deepest lessons I have learned about myself in the past few years - I have to resurface and tell what I’ve learned. After my solitude and recharge I need interaction with other people. Even when I fail to seek it out. I need their attentiveness and feedback. It is my heart’s craving to give away what I’ve learned, to share what I know, and I am not happy until I find a way to do that.

In fact, while exploring the idea of a Life Theme I have converged to this phrase: “Give myself away every day.” That is hard to do when I’m sitting by myself, so I’ve learned to enjoy my time with people.

And here is another idea about this. Just last week Cyndi told me when I spend too much time with myself, my writing gets very small. She said I need to be around people during the day in order to have significant things to share. She’s a smart woman.

I believe that is the heart of what God was telling me last June when he warned, “Don’t find Me, standing alone.”

While I prefer, and seek out, solitude, it’s hard to change the world that way. It isn’t big enough to merely be true to myself. I want to be like Jesus, and He gave Himself away to people every day.

QUESTION: How do give away what you learn?

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

 Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

Trust Your Heart

How do you follow God? How do you know when to move forward, and when to go no further? That is a hard question to answer.

I recently read this passage from my Daily Bible, Isaiah 30:1, “Woe to the obstinate children, declares the Lord, to those who carry out plans that are not mine.”

Here is the context: The northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered, devastated, and carried away into exile by Assyria. By all appearances they were gone forever, as a nation, and no one remained to rebuild if they got another chance.

Many of the leaders in Judah, the southern kingdom, were afraid the same thing would happen to them, and rightly so, since as a nation they were guilty of the same excesses that got Israel into trouble. Some of the leaders wanted to go to Egypt and form an alliance, essentially selling their freedom in exchange for Egypt’s protection against Assyria. Isaiah, speaking from God, warned them not to do it.

But the idea to ask for help wasn’t that crazy. They needed help. They had to do something.

But there is another Bible story about a time when the Israelites were trapped between the Red Sea and the Egyptian army, who was bearing down on them, and God said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Israelites to move on.” (Exodus 14:15) In other words, God told Moses to stop asking for direction and protection and do what he already knew to do.

And so, the dilemma. When to move, when to pray. I wish I had the firm conviction of my granddaughter on her first day in preschool, but I seldom do.

I can’t remember a single instance when God told me directly to take a certain job offer, or buy a particular house, or go to a specific school, or move to another town. I recognize His guidance in retrospect, but not in the moment. Most of those decisions just happened. I was praying and asking for guidance, but never saw anything so obvious as a burning bush or words painted in the street. I just did what seemed to be wise or logical, and hoped God was with me.

However, that doesn’t mean God has been silent. I can recount several instances when I knew for certain it was God speaking and I should act on it. Never in a big voice audible to everyone, but always inside my head, sounding like my own voice.

God told me to “Marry Cyndi” in the fall of 1978, while sitting at the table in my apartment in Norman, OK. Fortunately, she agreed. We married in July 1979.

God said, “You should be teaching,” while we were in the Parker’s Sunday School class, in the spring of 1990. Later, over lunch, when I mentioned to Cyndi what I’d heard, she said something to the effect of, “Duh, everyone knows that.” As if they had all been talking about it and waiting for me to make the commitment. That week I asked Marilyn Leonard if she could find a place for me to teach, and I started teaching adult Bible study class in September 1990.

God said, “You have something to say.” This was a bit more general, but definitely a call to action, to step further up and further in, to be more courageous when I teach. It was the summer of 1996. We were at Glorieta, NM, where Cyndi was teaching at Church Leadership Week and I was hanging around. Specifically, I was studying in a cabana in the Prayer Gardens when I heard those words.

God said, “Stay where you are.” It was 1995. I had been unemployed for a year and considering a major career change which would mean relocation. After attending two funerals at my church, both services crowded with over 1,000 people from all across our community, I asked God, “How can I live a life that means so much to so many.” As I walked across the church parking lot to my pickup, He answered, “Stay where you are.” I immediately changed my job-hunting strategy, determined to stay in Midland. And today, I cannot imagine the ministries we have now, had we moved back then.

I know these are old stories, but just last June God said, “Don’t find Me, standing alone.” I was sitting on Sam’s porch writing in my journal when this sentence shut me down for the next hour. God reminded me once again that my search for Him is useless unless I bring others along with me.

I have more examples, but yet none of them really answer my question: When do we move forward and when do we wait?

I guess I don’t know the answer, except for this: (1) Develop practices and form habits to pursue God every day; (2) Move in the direction your heart tells you; and (3) When you hear a word, act on it immediately.

Here is the best news - We don’t have a God who is trying to trick us or give us puzzles we can’t solve. He wants us to follow Him.

Give your heart to God, and trust your heart to tell you when to go and when to stay.

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

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

Heart of Music

What was it that captured your heart when you were young, and still has a firm grip on your life? Who opened your eyes to the world, to art, to music, to transcendence? Who first touched the artist in your heart? For me it was a rock band – Chicago – and hearing them changed my life. It was 1971.

Some of you have heard this story so many times you can repeat it back to me, but here it is again.

One hot summer afternoon in 1971 I was working in the backyard of our house on Thorpe Street in Hobbs, New Mexico. Up until that summer I had played trombone in the school band. I enjoyed band because my friends were there, but the idea of music hadn’t yet seized me. I was thinking about quitting. It was the summer leading into my sophomore year of high school and I was hungry for changes that would open up my world.

That afternoon I heard KCRS play a song by Chicago, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is.” I’d heard it many times before, but this time the DJ let the music play all the way to the end. For the first time in my life I heard the trombone solo that famously finishes that song … and, all I can say is, my life changed that day.

There’s no other way to say it. My life changed. It had to be a gift from God because no one else could have changed me so completely. The day before I heard that solo I was a goofy teenager ambivalent about everything; the day after, I was a musician. That event changed how I saw my future, it changed my thoughts about playing the trombone, it changed the trajectory of my life, it changed my heart.

It’s often surprising how so many of the things that define me as an individual started subtly. Teaching, writing, falling in love with Cyndi, moving to Midland, local politics, even how I found Jesus, the events that made the biggest differences were very quiet at the time they happened. It’s the same with music.

And yet, because of my backyard conversion in 1971, I still play my trombone weekly. I played last Sunday, and I’ll play next Sunday. Music still impacts how I write, how I see the world, how I teach, even the rhythm of my speech.

And so, this week, Tuesday night to be specific, Cyndi and I joined our friends to hear Chicago play at the Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center. And to my joy, the first song Chicago played was “Introduction,” the first track from their first album. As soon as I heard those distinct eighth notes, bump bump, a pickup and beat one, I was carried away, like magic. “Sir, I can name that song in two notes.” “Sir, I can be bought with two notes.”

In my high school years I used to lie on my bed listening to Chicago albums while studying the Sketch Scores - books with all the musical lines written out. I was fascinated how complicated the music sounded and yet how simple the actual orchestration looked on the page. How did they know how to do that? They turned simple four-bar interludes into magic, hitting the accents and dynamics together, horns and guitar trading ideas back and forth, with percussion pointing the listener to all the right places. How could they get so much energy out of simple, syncopated, unison parts?

Some people listen to music and pick up their instrument and play along. That isn’t what I did (but wish I had – I’d be a better musician now). I studied and analyzed the structures of the songs and hoped that someday I would make something happen that would be so cool. I was analyzing instead of playing. Maybe that’s why I became an engineer rather than a musician.

Here’s the thing. I’m not really writing about Chicago at all. I am writing about the power of music. I am writing about how we let something latch on to our soul and wallow in it for decades. Maybe for you it was soccer, or dance, or math, or mountains, or the beach. For me it was music, and Chicago made it happen.

If you’ve read any of my writing you know I write mostly about God and running and cycling and backpacking and spiritual growth and family and music and loving Cyndi. I can’t separate those topics. They are permanently interwoven. And to tell the truth, I like them all tied up in a Gordian Knot. I don’t care to cut them apart.

And so, I didn’t go to the Tuesday concert just to hear the same songs I can listen to any time I want. I went to reinforce a 42-year-old life-changing experience that still influences me every day. Music is one of our tightest family ties. Music is one of my deepest spiritual truths. I don’t want to let that slip away.

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

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

Softening Your Life

What do you do to soften your life? Do you have any regular practices that round off the sharp edges and fill in the cracks? Jonathan Katz wrote about his experience with Tai Chi, which his teacher, Scott, said was about softening life.

Maybe Katz was right. However, when I’ve watched Tai Chi practitioners do it, it looks like one more thing I am not coordinated enough, or flexible enough, or strong enough, or patient enough to do.

I know, I know, that’s probably incorrect. Everything is hard until you learn it, and nothing that comes easy is worthwhile. But still …

But still, Katz’ point made sense to me. He wrote, “Our lives are hard, fast, filled with edges – bills, bad news, technological problems, worries about work, a bombardment of too much edgy information, things we have to answer, react to.”

Katz says that for him, softening “is required every day, several times a day in our fragmented world, so filled with argument and sharp points, the left and the right, anger and judgment. It grounds me, though, as meditation does, prepare me for the bombardment of things that is life in our time. Silence is not built into our lives, there is always something to do, check, fix, respond to, absorb.”

Lately I’ve been walking around the pond in the park across the street from our house every evening. Sometimes with Cyndi, sometimes alone. I started this practice after reading Natalie Goldberg’s book, The True Secret of Writing. She wrote, “Practice is something you choose to do on a regular basis with no vision of an outcome; the aim is not improvement, not getting somewhere. You do it because you do it. You set up to do something consistently over a long period of time, and simply watch what happens.”

So I decided to start walking around the pond. Not to put in my mileage log, and not even for exercise, but to see if doing this daily practice will change me in some way.

During a walk last week, I remembered the softening effect our dog, Lady, used to have on me. I walked in the park with Lady at least once a day, often twice. In her final years, instead of pulling me down the sidewalk, she slowed my pace to walking meditation.

Lady was the most introverted Labrador in the history of dogs. She needed very little personal attention, she didn't care to play or get a belly rub or fetch a ball; she was content to be by herself and on her own. When we walked through the park I would talk to her the entire time, but she never gave a sign that she heard me or even cared. She softened my life.

And then, after she died in August 2010, I stopped walking in the park. I no longer had a need.

But every day, when I drove past the pond, I was a little embarrassed that I lived across the street from a premium walk and I wasn't taking advantage.

I started walking again to reacquaint myself with the park and to slow down my pace. Now, instead of talking to Lady as I walk, I focus on my breathing and I pray about relationships and projects.

How about you? Does softening your life sound attractive? Is it something you need more of?

Or maybe you don’t want to soften your life. Are you too soft already and need more definition and structure?

Me, I have plenty of structure, and I create more all the time. But I want to soften those rigid thought patterns in my brain, soften my know-it-all judgmental tendencies.

I doubt you can soften your life as an act of will. That seems oxymoronic, actually. But you can add practices to your life that will have the effect of softening. I added walking.

One more thing: It occurred to me as I was writing this, that maybe my fallback prayer, “change my heart,” should become instead, “soften my heart.” Soften my heart, soften my fear, soften my mind, soften my words, soften my pace, soften my judgments. Soften my life.

What do you do to soften your life? I’d love to hear.

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

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

Try to Loosen Up

What is the scariest thing you’ve done lately to loosen up your life? For me, it was a massage in a Japanese spa. I realize that doesn’t fall very far down the scary-thing spectrum, but, well, now you know the kind of guy I am. A few years ago, when Cyndi and I still lived on Whittle Way, sometime before 2008, we asked our world-traveling friends to recommend a getaway vacation spot for exceptional pampering. They suggested Ten Thousand Waves in Santa Fe. We looked it up online, and to be honest, we were overwhelmed. At least, I was. And maybe a little frightened, too. The degree of Japanese-ness was surprising, and the choices of treatments were so varied and unknown we had no idea what to choose.

As it turns out, we didn’t go, but I don’t remember why. Maybe we were simply too broke that year to do anything cool.

So during our recent Santa Fe visit, on one of my exploratory drive-abouts, I passed by the entrance to Ten Thousand Waves. That evening I mentioned it to Cyndi, who wasted no time scheduling appointments for both of us – two therapeutic massages.

When we arrived at the front desk they handed each of us a tightly-rolled bundle of cloth about 12” long and 6” in diameter, and said, “Here’s your kimono.” Then the desk guy showed us around the beautiful facility, especially the men’s and women’s changing rooms.

The thing is, I hate going into any situation as a beginner, which usually means one of two things: (1) I do way too much research before starting, or (2) I simply miss out on a lot of cool stuff. When I do decide to give it a try, as in Ten Thousand Waves, it takes my full concentration to relax and enjoy, and I’m in data-gathering mode the entire time so I’ll be more ready next time.

Of course, none of this bothers Cyndi. She says it does, but I don’t believe her. She just dives headfirst into the moment with little forethought. For her, the end result trumps all weirdness and fear. For me, I can’t see around the weirdness to even imagine an end result. So I was tiptoeing, internally, at least, beside her through the Ten Thousand Waves property, wary of disaster.

Our courteous guide showed us two communal pools, which were actually more like large hot tubs, and mentioned we might want to try them out since we’d arrived early. The pools were clothing-optional, and that’s why there were two of them. One was for women only and the other for men and women. They didn’t seem to need a men-only pool. Not enough demand, I suppose.

Cyndi and I went to our respective rooms and changed into our kimonos. The lockers were equipped with programmable digital combination-style locks; apparently it’s still important to lock up your valuables (phone, wallet, keys, shoes, pants) even in this calm and peaceful place.

Since I’m still not allowed to submerge my wounded hip in water, I opted for the warm foot bath instead of the clothing-optional communal pool. Cyndi tried the women-only pool but didn’t stay very long because it was too lonely and because she knew I needed her beside me to feel safe. She joined me in the foot bath.

Then our two masseurs, or bodyworkers, Adam and Montana, called us up. They took us downstairs to a room with side-by-side massage tables and mind-numbingly peaceful new-age Japanese music.

Let me just interject here and state that this wasn’t my first massage. I have had at least three before this, but one of those was a hand-and-foot massage in Dongying, China. (I will never let someone pull on my toes again. It was not pleasant.) The other two massages were in Midland and in both cases I enjoyed them more than I expected to.

Still, I usually have to be talked into getting a massage, and I have to psych myself up for it. I know that more frequent massages would probably extend my running and cycling years, but they seem too indulgent for someone as practical as me. Yet professional runners and cyclists get massages regularly for injury prevention and muscle recovery, and they don’t think it indulgent. If getting a massage means eating less to offset the expense, well, I eat too much as it is. So, double good to me.

Adam and Montana worked on Cyndi and me for eighty minutes and all I can say is, it was amazing. I asked if they would arrange for someone to drive us home since I felt too Jell-O-y to drive, and both bodyworkers gave their resort-worker-who-has-heard-every-possible-joke polite laugh.

They suggested we move to the Relaxation Room after the massage, but that seemed redundant. I couldn’t be any more relaxed. Like in the movie Spinal Tap when Nigel Tufnel defended the totally black color of their album by saying, “It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black,” I couldn’t relax any more than I was relaxed. None more relaxed.

Afterward I told Cyndi I was willing to commit to more massages in the future, and she seemed happy to see me take another big risk. “Maybe they’ll keep me fit and moving for a few more years.”

And it occurred to me that since this experience worked out so great maybe I should try a few other things I’d been avoiding because they made me feel like a beginner. I should loosen up.

At least I have my very best asset by my side, fearless Cyndi. She always makes me braver; especially when she drags me into things.

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

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

Churches and Saints in Santa Fe

Has architecture ever snuck up on you? Have you ever been inspired by a manmade structure? Or have you ever walked into a space and felt like you’d left one world and entered another reality? That’s what medieval builders of cathedrals had in mind, to move people into God’s Kingdom. Cyndi and I were in Santa Fe a couple of weeks ago, and while she attended her workshop training I decided to give architecture a shot at me. Counting on the formula: ?P_A + ?P_L = ?P_P (or, Change of Pace + Change of Place = Change of Perspective) I spent some time inside the Loretto Chapel and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis, both in downtown Santa Fe. My plan was to camp out on one of the pews for an hour and read from my Daily Bible, write in my journal, ask God to speak to me, and see what happened. Some of my best spiritual encounters have happened that way, on spec.

My first visit was to the Loretto Chapel. It is now a private museum, but it used to be the chapel for a Catholic girl’s school run by the Sisters of Loretto. It was completed in 1878.

One of the things I like most about Catholic churches is they aren’t afraid to look like a church. They put it right up front, treating visitors like grownups. Even though the Loretto Chapel is no longer a church it looked very churchy. Very Catholic churchy, with dominant altar, depictions of the Stations of the Cross, a prominent crucifix, statues of various saints, and, of course, stained glass.

I like stained glass windows. I think light coming through stained glass settles worshipers, changes their heart rate, and creates expectation for transcendence. That is a quality never achieved in modern black-box worship centers.

We have stained glass windows in my home church, which is Baptist. I’m glad we have those windows, even though one image looks more like Optimus Prime than like a heavenly angel, and another reminds me of the angel of death.

However, it isn’t windows or statues that make a place holy, but rather our own anticipation. That’s why we may feel more comfortable in the type of worship space we grew up in. And when we come to a place expecting to meet God, whether in a cathedral or church or high mountain meadow, our anticipation opens our ears and eyes and heart to the voice and presence of God that we might otherwise miss because we are too busy and distracted.

My second Santa Fe church visit was to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis. It is a live-action Catholic church, so I had to time my visit between daily celebrations of mass.

What drew me specifically into this church was a  biography I’ve been reading about St. Francis, Reluctant Saint, by Donald Spoto. When I walked past this giant church on Sunday morning during my downtown walkabout, I knew I had to come inside and absorb a little more of St. Francis.

I’ll admit, I grew up with serious misgivings about the Catholic veneration of saints. For one thing, I was taught that all Christians were saints because God made us saints, and not because the church tapped us on the shoulder. At best, the focus on saints seemed to be an unhelpful tangent from worshiping God himself.

And to me, St. Francis of Assisi seemed the most strange because all the statues of him I saw showed birds on his hand or shoulder or head. I didn’t understand or appreciate the connection between following God and birds.

Unfortunately, my attitude toward Catholic saints meant I never paid attention to the actual people behind the statues, people who did extraordinary things, people who lived the way I want to live my own life, people who changed their world. Reading about St. Francis may be my beginning of a new understanding of these godly men and women. It’s possible I overreacted through the years to all those statues and paintings. I should’ve looked deeper.

Not only that, after reading about St. Francis’ life, I’m starting to understand his birds. What I thought was a frivolous distraction actually represented his simple and pure pursuit of the holiness of God. It occurred to me that maybe I spent too many years laughing at the wrong things. I complicated my own spirituality so much I overlooked the power of the simple.

Sitting in one of the pews I read this from my Daily Bible, Isaiah 33, “Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful abode, a tent who will not be moved; its stakes will never be pulled up, nor any of its ropes broken.”

My takeaway from the two Santa Fe church visits wasn’t so much about the details of architectural design, as I’d expected, but more about the permanence of the structure. Neither of my two churches were very old. There are churches in Europe nearly 1,700 years old that are still being used for worship. Still, when the Loretto Chapel was build, when the Sisters of Loretto raised money to build this, they had in mind something that would last a long time. A building that could survive the high desert climate, and handle the crush of generations of worshipers.

I want my life to be like that. I want the effect of my life to live on; just like the Sisters of Loretto wanted to build a holy structure that would bless people long after the Sisters had died or moved on. I want to be a tent that will not be moved, whose stakes will never be pulled up, nor any of its ropes broken.

One more thing: at the visitor center of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis, I bought a small carved wooden statue of St. Francis to remember my visit. He looks very pious, and he has a bird on his shoulder and his hand. Maybe the stunning architecture allowed St. Francis to sneak up on me.

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

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

What Do You Hear?

It was early Sunday morning and I was sitting on Sam’s porch reading and writing and listening to the Michigan rain, a welcome sound to my West Texas ears accustomed to the silence of prolonged drought. And as much as I’d enjoyed the weekend, I had a nagging question in the back of my mind. Why should I come to workshops like this when each time my takeaway is to keep doing what I’m already doing? If I have such a clear picture of who I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing, then what is my real motive for coming?

The accusing voice in my head says I’m only trying to build myself up in front of guys I like and enjoy and respect, that I’m trying to bolster my own ego, that I simply want to show off.

The reason that accusation is so easy to believe is because, like most spiritual attacks, it contains an element of truth. I want things to go well in my life, I want to know God’s calling, and I want to live it out in such a way the very visibility of my life encourages others to join me in the same search.

“You’re just showing off in front of your friends so they’ll think you are The Spiritual Guy who has it all together.” I hear that voice almost constantly. Until it gets tired and switches to this: “Sit down and shut up. They’ve all heard your shtick and don’t think your jokes are funny. All the cool guys have moved on to something else.”

How about you? What do you hear? What do your voices say?

I’ve learned enough about Satan’s attack to know it will come directly at us against our strengths. Which means, hearing those mental attacks is, in some ways, reassuring. For me, it reminds me I am doing what I should be doing: delivering my best to bring people closer to God. The attack itself can be the indicator I’m in the right place.

Still, knowing that doesn’t make it any more pleasant.

So attending a weekend workshop about understanding and developing God’s calling becomes an exercise of spiritual reequipping and reaffirming. Being with the other guys reminds me I am not alone in my search for God, or my search for calling and purpose, or my search for meaning.

Not only that, I’m certain I have so much more to learn. I don’t even want to be the guy who has it all decided. I want to be the guy who is continuously asking questions, attending workshops, searching behind closed doors, looking under rocks, and checking around the bend of a mountain trail. As much as it surprises me to say this, I want to be unsettled, uncertain, maybe even a little confused. I want to keep learning.

The main assignment for our weekend was to develop a Calling Manifesto, similar to a Life Theme. (I tend to use the word “Statement” over “Manifesto.” I’m not sure I can live up to a Manifesto.) It was surprisingly hard to do, even for contemplative analytical guys like me. It turns out, you can’t do it alone. You need help from other people who can see your life from a more objective viewpoint.

I also learned the reason why writing something like this had eluded me for so long. I was trying to write with adjectives, describing myself, when I need to write with verbs, describing what I should do. That was a big breakthrough.

Writing a Calling Statement is a worthy exercise. It can be a decision filter to help you know if all the things you’re working on are the best things, and it should help minimize those urgent tangents that steal your energy. And it forms a base of resistance against those scary voices in your head.

I left Ann Arbor with a clearer picture of my mission, and a Calling Statement (Manifesto) I could be proud of. Of course, I can’t leave it alone. I’ve already changed it a bit, and I’ll probably change it some more tomorrow. I expect to keep changing it for the rest of my life, but that’s OK. I don’t want a final answer for something as important as this. Here it is:

For this purpose I am here:

To dig deep and understand Significant Truths;

To synthesize those truths into teachable, usable, and meaningful applications;

To give away those truths by teaching, writing, and sharing with the full weight of my life;

To live those truths openly and transparently, bringing others in close to walk with me;

And to inspire and equip others to join me on this journey.

My heart-desire is:

To see a widening wake behind me of changed people who are changing the world.

To be honest, I wish this was shorter and more succinct but I don’t know what to take out. The reason I am including it here is the same reason I write anything - I hope you will share with me your own thoughts about your calling. Try writing your own statement. Give yourself a fighting chance against the scary voices in your head.

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

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor