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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Ordinary is Extraordinary

Since my last post, I have found myself thinking about my spiritual sisu a bit more.  I continue to ask myself, "How can I find my spiritual greatness?"  I find it almost humorous how timely God tends to answer questions like these.  I guess the gospel last Sunday (Luke 11: 1-13) should have given me the confidence that I would receive an answer.  The gospel did talk about asking, seeking, and knocking in order to learn from the Spirit.  So, what answer did the Spirit give my inquiry into finding spiritual greatness?  Well, the answer actually revolves around simply being ordinary.

Now, you might be asking, "Drew, how can you expect to become great from being ordinary?"  First, let's look at the word extraordinary.  If we break the word into two parts: extra and ordinary, then the simple answer is that we just need to be more ordinary in our daily goings-on.  Huh? More ordinary?  Stay with me I'm not trying to confuse anyone.  I'm simply trying to explain that greatness does not necessarily come from doing superhuman things.  Rather, it comes from our ability to do necessary everyday things well.  Here are a few examples of everyday things: being polite, saying hello to people who cross your path, picking up litter and throwing it away or recycling it, smiling, being patient while driving, listening when others speak to you, etc.  None of the above are overly difficult.  They are quite ordinary practices, and yet, how often do we neglect to do these things?  I know I neglect them on a daily basis.  One good example of a man doing ordinary things well, who has been in the news lately, is Pope Francis.  In my opinion, he should be called the "ordinary pope."  For those who have not been following him, you should do a little research into his activities lately.  He seems to epitomize being ordinary.  He has done his very best (up to this point) to shed the image of royalty and authority often associated with church hierarchy for a much more down to earth image.  He did not invent this image, though.  He is simply trying to bring the image of Jesus back to the forefront.  If we pay close enough attention to Jesus in the scriptures, we find that he was the best at being ordinary.  He seemed to do all of the little ordinary things that would benefit others in large extraordinary ways.  So, by doing the ordinary things extremely well, Jesus was extraordinary.  This is how we find our spiritual greatness.

Over the past week, I have found one avenue where I can practice being more ordinary than usual.  That avenue is in my friendship to others.  I have two friends that have gone through stress and sadness within this same week.  One friend, in the midst of taking the bar exam, had to face the reality that he had to put down his dog that had been suffering from prostate cancer.  The other friend, while on an annual vacation with his buddies of around fifteen years, lost one of those friends in a drowning accident.  Since, I have come to find out that the first friend actually knew the man who drowned, too.  Goodness.  What was I to do?  Naturally, I wanted to grieve with and for my friends, but would that be enough?  I wanted to do something extraordinary for them.  However, the more I thought about the extraordinary, the more I wasted time not doing anything.  In the end, my simple yet ordinary offering of prayers, support, and availability was exactly what these guys needed.  So, as we go forward in our lives, let us make a commitment to simply being the best kind of ordinary we can be and in doing so, we will become extraordinary.

May we be ever-faithful, ever-mindful, and ever-joyful.


Monday, July 22, 2013

A Spirit of Sisu

Last year around this time, I posted about my experience as a camp counselor at the Gulf States Distance Running Camp in St. Benedict, LA.  Well, I would like to once again share some of my thoughts from this tiring yet motivating week.

I had the opportunity last week to give a talk to the camp about "Why I Choose to Run."  After much thought and reflection, I chose to revolve my talk around a word from the Finnish language that I have come to embrace: sisu.  From what I have come to know about sisu, it is a word that attempts to describe the spirit within humans being that encompasses guts, determination, "never give up" attitudes, and the like.  However, sisu represents these things and so much more.  It is more of a state of drive and perseverance that can only come from within a person.

In my talk I tried to challenge the athletes that in order to achieve greatness in their lives, they would need to find a sisu in their lives that is authentic to themselves.  Upon deeper reflection, I realized that sisu is probably that which the Spirit of God tries to instill in us as we face persecution, doubt, criticism, hatred, sadness, death, etc., in our lives.  The grit, determination, and toughness of sisu when viewed through a lens of the Spirit should always take the form of unceasing forgiveness, persistent kindness, and unwavering non-violence.  

I hope we can all find the sisu within us needed to make ourselves and others great human beings.

May we be ever-faithful, ever-mindful, and ever-joyful.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

A Lesson on Diversity

Diversity: a state of variety among persons, places, and things.

When I was in high school, some students and faculty started a club called the Welcoming Diversity Club.  The purpose of this club was to reach out to all members of the student body in an effort to bridge any cultural gaps between groups of students.   This club focused on creating an organization full of people from different races, backgrounds, cultures, etc.  Groups like the Welcoming Diversity Club are great opportunities for us to remember that we live in a world full of people that cover the spectrum in terms of skin color, eye color, hair color, height, weight, language, eating habits, drinking habits, recreational practices, religions, socioeconomic status, and on goes the list.  

My point for mentioning this is that while I live in a country that seems to pride itself on its diversity, and while I profess a faith and claim a church that is supposed to accept all people regardless of life circumstances and cultural backgrounds, I can't help but look around myself and notice a whole lot of the same thing.  This "same thing" in my case is primarily an all-white, middle class society.  While this is not bad in an of itself by any means, I sometimes find myself wondering where I might find a larger Spirit of diversity.  Before reading further, take a minute to think about a normal week for you.  Is there a majority of people who look, act, and dress a certain way?  Is there a clear minority of people who look, act, and dress a certain way?  How does this make you feel?  Ok, now you can keep reading.

Well, last week, I found one such place that may be the best source of social diversity I have ever seen: the Department of Motor Vehicles.  I made this trip to the DMV in order to get new license plates for my car.  In the four hours that I had to wait to accomplish my task for the day, I had quite a bit of time to take in my surroundings.  What I saw (other than an inefficient way of doing business) were a couple hundred people ranging in all of the diversity criteria mentioned in the first paragraph.  Some folks kept to themselves (as I did) while others made conversation with each other to pass the time.  These interactions were encouraging to see, I must say.  However, as I continued to gaze upon this extremely diverse crowd, my intrigue turned more toward dismay.  I realized how unfortunate it is that it takes a place like the DMV and the necessity for people to have ID's, Driver's Licenses, and vehicle registrations to gather people together from all walks of life.  Shouldn't my church be a place where I see this diversity?  How about my neighborhood or local grocery store?  I mean, sure there are exceptions to this situation, but on the whole, in my daily goings-on, I see way more people that look like me than not.  Why is this?  Why in the year 2013 is much of our society still divided according to class and culture rather than united in spite of those things?  If God created all of us with equal love, then why is there seemingly so much lack of inclusion among different social/cultural groups?

I wish I had the answers to these questions.  However, I do not.  All I have is all that any of us can have and that is a heart of love and compassion for our fellow humans.  I am very thankful that Pope Francis seems to be encouraging all people regardless of their belief systems to care for God's creation and one another.  If we can honestly try to extend ourselves outside of our comfort zones and diversify our lives to include others not like ourselves, then we will make some headway.  I'd like to think that this headway will look a lot better than the scene at the DMV.  Haha.  I guess this just goes to show that even the local DMV, while both dismal and frustrating, is not above the ability of the Spirit to work in our lives and teach us something about the joy that comes from the love that God has for all people.

Throughout the next week, I'd like to challenge you to be extra cognizant of the people around whom you find yourself in every situation.  Do you notice a trend?  Reflect on this for a while and see what the Spirit has to tell you about things.  

May we be ever-faithful, ever-mindful, and ever-joyful.