How can it be so?

How can it be so, that we might have so much sorrow and joy in the same day? In my 'day job' I have the privilege of walking with people through some incredibly difficult life circumstances, in which I can do nothing to solve their problems. Most of the time, as they're crying and talking, I'm praying as I listen.  One of the great mysteries of serving people is that some of their sorrow gets transferred to me. It is a beautiful thing, in a Gethsemane kind of way. So painful, so beautiful, such a privilege.

And then, not even 15 minutes later, I'm running the daily obstacle course with Little Man on the way home from his school: follow the paint squiggles on the sidewalk, walk along the wall, slide down the signpost, climb up and over the tree stump, and back up onto another wall, then piggyback him the rest of the way home. Now we're snuggled on the couch with Little Man, and he literally couldn't be any closer to me without sitting right on my lap. He's pouring over a comic book that he can't quite read (Tiny Titans - a kids version of DC comics, GREAT for getting reluctant readers interested!).  Soft Christmas music is playing, and I have a whole evening with my son ahead of me.  Delight. 

How can such sorrow and joy coexist in one person?  I wonder, as we follow Christ, who knows both to the fullest, does our capacity for this sorrow-and-joy cocktail expand?  What do you think?

'Just Do It'

Growing up in Portland, Oregon, where Nike is headquartered, I knew their slogan "Just Do It" before it ever became a national campaign.  To be perfectly honest, this tagline never really connected with me, because I always, always, always stop and think.  To excess.  I have never been one to jump in without thinking, no matter how much I wanted to be like that.  So, "Just Do It?"  Ah, no thanks, but thanks anyway!

Howwwwever . . .

I follow a blog called The Pioneer Woman.  Many, many, many others do as well.  Ree Drummond, the ranchwoman extraordinaire behind this wonderful site, logs 20 million hits per month!!!  I'll never get there.  I'm just telling you now.  But Ree?  Ree is fascinating and engaging.  In the last two years, her blogging enterprise has resulted in a bestselling cookbook, a book tour, a couple of other book deals, movie rights, and TV appearances on everything from The View to Throwdown with Bobby Flay!  The woman is awesome.  Now, not living in the States means I have to watch these appearances on good 'ol YouTube.  :)

And wouldn't you just know it?  A clip from Ree's Q&A at the 2010 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. smacked my overthinking, hesitating self right in the kisser!  Three different questions came up along the lines of 'How did you learn...'  (How did you learn to blog every day/take such great pictures/cook so well, if you're curious.)  And Ree's answer to all those questions was basically a paraphrase of Nike's slogan, "You just have to do it."  She went on to say that after you've done it for a while, regularly, it gets easier and easier, and less and less of a chore.

Now, I know that doesn't sound profound.  But it reminds me once again of something I blogged about in my very first blog post (over a year ago now!), from a slightly different angle this time, the fact that we must actually practice faith.  We don't try be a Christian, we practice being a Christian.  That is, we put our faith into practice.  If I want to grow in my faith, I must 'Just Do It'.  I'll try to explain what I mean and what I don't mean.

I don't mean that in matters of faith, it's all on us.  I don't mean that going through the motions is enough to produce a strong faith.  I don't mean that we shouldn't count the cost of following Christ (Jesus himself tells us to do that in Luke 14:25ff).

I do mean that faith requires action, and that most of the time, the balm to our agonizing, the solution to our fretting, the best answer to all our self-centered self-analyzing, is to get off our duff and "Just Do It".  The epistle reading we had in morning prayers yesterday speaks to this, too!  (Isn't it groovy how God uses so many different and unrelated sources to drive home a point to us?  But that's for another post!)  Anyway, we read James 2:14-26, in which the main point is, "Faith without works is dead."

Ree said she took a lot of really bad photos when she was first learning.  And she thinks her early blog posts were pretty unsophisticated, and sometimes she couldn't think of anything to write, so she just posted something she'd written for something else.  And her cooking is not the fruit of formal culinary training, but it sure struck a nerve with the American public.  Ree's point is, you will probably be bad when you first start something, but you will get better, and it will get easier.

This same principle applies to our spiritual life and practices, too.  I was really bad at practicing silence when I first started over 8 years ago.  I was fidgety and unfocused, and my body couldn't handle any one posture for more than five minutes.  My first sermons were nothing more than vague pep talks.  When I first started reading the Bible seriously, I interpreted every single verse to be about Little 'Ol Me.  :)

The point is, if I ever want something to come naturally to me, there will come a time when, motivated or not, skilled or not, ready or not, I gotta "Just Do It".  And do it again.  And again.  It's called discipline.