Good News and Better News … September 21st, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Many years ago, I sensed a voice within me, encouraging me to go out and share my heart and abilities with the world. Some people would say it was the voice of God, while others would probably insist that it was just me, declaring my own bidding.

I don’t care.

I heeded the call, and that decision has taken me on an exotic adventure.

I was so proud. I finally got it right.

I spent the week misspelling the name of the town we were headed for our next gig. It was Tomah, Wisconsin, but I kept trying to move the “h” up next to the “t”–forming “Thoma.”

Try as I might, I apparently had placed a crease in my brain to prefer the premature h. But when I arrived in town and was jotting down a note or two for the upcoming presentation, I actually spelled it correctly.

Let me get back to that.

The people sent to greet us and assist us in setting up for the performance were Mary and Paul. Lovely folks.

You see, the key to hospitality is realizing that the quality of our being is not assessed on how well we treat ourselves or our families, but rather, on the profile we select in caring for strangers. (Strangers scare us. That’s why we emphasize it with the word “strange.”)

But Mary and Paul relaxed, so did we, and in no time at all it seemed like this was our eighth barbecue together instead of first conversation.

When it came time for Sunday morning, I arrived at a church whose pastor had recently suffered two strokes. I was saddened by this for a pair of reasons:

Number one, it is the responsibility of every human being to temporarily take on the pain of others to bring the reality to bear of the need for prayer.

Secondly, the lady who books us said that the pastor was a delightful, loving, giving and warm-hearted man. The Kingdom cannot afford to lose such a valuable creature.

In his stead was another fellow, who was formerly the pastor of the church, who kindly, gently and ably was filling in during the absence of the ailing shepherd.

How do I describe my experience with the Tomah people?

First and foremost, delightful. I do like people.

I like them when they’re difficult because it presents me with a challenge.

I like them when they’re easy because then I don’t have to survive a challenge and we can get to the business of just enjoying one another.

The two services were filled with great emotional moments. Emotion is our fuel:

• If it’s a football game, we cheer.
• If it’s a sudden burst of finance…well, we also cheer.
• But if we’re in church and we realize how good our life is, how blessed we are, or how we were spared a disgrace or indignity, we tend to sit, bewildered by what to do.

You see, that brings me back to my situation with the spelling of Tomah. There apparently was some stubborn part of me that wanted Tomah to be spelled the way I proposed. Even though I was incorrect, I felt right enough to continue to be wrong without apology.

Yes, there was much good news at the Tomah church, but I can offer them better news, and here it is:

Blessing arrives in tiny bites which need to be appreciated, or you will never experience the satisfaction of a full meal.

Church was never intended to be a place where we come and tiptoe around, attempting to find the will of God.

After all, church is not for God. It’s for us.

It is a sanctuary.

It is a place where we come to escape debates, anger, shootings, frustration, foolishness, politics and threats that surround us all week long, in a world that seems determined to self-destruct.

We need a place where we can lounge in the confidence of the love of those around us, while celebrating the bites of truth that are gradually coming into the vision of our understanding.

So don’t tell me your denomination doesn’t get emotional when your denomination is filled with people–and people are emotional.

I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care what kind of music you use as background to your decision to feel.

But when you leave a church, you should sense that you’ve been uplifted and touched in your heart.

That’s what I tried to bring to Tomah. Were they listening? Well, honestly, that’s not my business.

Just like it was not my job to change how they spelled their town.

 

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Confessing … August 29th, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2677)

XVII.

I confess so I can heal.

If I deny, I remain sick.

They had been married just four months when their pastor asked them if they were willing to allow a traveling family to come and use their condo while they were away on vacation.

Being good Christians, they agreed.

We were that vagabond family–my wife, three children and myself, touring through the area, being blessed by the courtesy and hospitality of strangers.

The condo was beautiful–a blessed departure from the B-rated motels where we usually found ourselves. So we enjoyed the week.

There was even a downstairs area which had a pinball machine and a ping-pong table.

About three days after our departure from this lovely facility, I received a phone call. It was the husband of the pair who had so graciously provided us lodging, asking what had happened to the ping-pong table.

I explained to him that I had never even gone downstairs during the visit, and he shared with me that it was broken.

I told him that I was unaware but I would check with my sons and find out what happened.

I did. Both of my older boys denied any knowledge of the incident.

This placed me in a dilemma. Should I believe my children or should I take the word of these hospitable souls?

I got on the phone, called the gentleman back and told him my boys had not broken the table.

God, I felt noble.

I felt like “Dad of the Year,” sticking up for my children.

Obviously, the fellow insisted, causing me to dig my heels in, which led to an emotional tug of war followed by an all-out bitter fight.

Yet I insisted there was no way that my sons would lie to me about the situation.

As my original benefactor hung up the phone, he said, “Well, we’ll never do this again.”

Let me tell you–good kids don’t always tell the truth; they just eventually tell the truth.

I had good kids, but it was two weeks later, after a church service, when one of my sons tearfully admitted they had broken the ping-pong table, but were so embarrassed that they didn’t know what to do.

I was flushed with anger with a side order of foolishness.

I couldn’t decide what was the best path for handling the matter, so I did nothing.

The young couple who had been so open-minded never received my apology or an admission of guilt from my child. I convinced myself that the damage had already been done and could not be mended.

It was stupid.

It proved what a baby I was instead of the mature man I envisioned myself to be.

And because of my original stubbornness and the absence of a heart-felt apology, that young couple were led to believe that openness is a dangerous pit instead of the entrance to God.

 

 

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Quatrain of Hospitality… August 5, 2014

 

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2313)

I see you coming

I prepare a place

That where I am

You may be also

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Mason … August 13, 2012

• (1,606)

I went on a journey, or perhaps better stated, an odyssey. (Only a boorish, sanctimonious wordsmith would ponder the difference). Although my odometer only registered twenty-one miles, it seemed I had traveled much further. Was it backwards, forwards or sideways (whatever that means…)? No, it was more enduring–a persevering place of purpose.

They call it Mason. There I met a family which decided to work together for my good instead of using the sanctioned beauty of the union of people to sit on their island and throw coconuts across the pond at strangers. I was in a town among people who were living with their circumstances and abiding with their possibilities instead of acting over-perplexed or disheartened. There were children singing, adequately nervous over being in front of the community, as they offered their voices, ringing out in praise to something still beyond their comprehension. There was an audience of human beings looking for a reason to applaud instead of sitting on their hands, stubbornly refusing to respond to the beauty around them. There was excitement over money collected in small tin cans by tiny tots, to buy mosquito nets to prevent malaria in other young children a world away. The proceedings were gentle, possessing some purpose, but comically infused with a sweet clumsiness. Fire hats were used to tell stories of gospel truth, to try to pass on information to children who fidgeted at the notion of paying attention. Greetings of “peace” that possessed a warmth and tenderness instead of being over-complicated by duty and presumed religious significance.

And then, a kind introduction. A welcoming. Permission for the two of us to offer our sacrifice of praise and initiate the calling of our hearts. Good cheer. Five loaves and two fishes put to good purpose. Time–the relentless master. The Rose. Concluding with the holy concept of “NoOne is better than anyone else.”

And then the overwhelming joy of being face-to-face, celebrating stories of grandchildren, admissions of revelation, courtesy–and just enough rejection to confirm that the message given was divine and not prepared to please.

People lined up to buy t-shirts identifying them as comrades-in-arms. Laughter. Children running through a hall of fellowship without fear or correction, in wild abandon. Cookies offered as nutritional snacks without apology.

Stranger in a strange land … without feeling strange.

And then–packed away, preparing to exit, when the shepherd appeared, offering his card and promise that if I ever needed anything, I was invited to return and sample similar hospitality.

I drove away, wondering. If I circled the globe and returned to this same spot, would Mason still be there? Would it remain the little burg suspended in animation, living out its own dream instead of absorbing the poison around it? I decided that such an escapade, even if it was “around the world in eighty days,” was unnecessary.

As long as I was willing to take a portion of the people and the environment with me, it might be possible to plant the seeds of such an adventure and a delight everywhere I went.

Yes, perhaps that was the significance of my odyssey–to take seedlings of the spirit of Mason … and scatter them everywhere I go.

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