the drum|rob fairbanks

Being Grateful

Do you have to "feel" grateful or is it a gesture of the will?

If it is a “feel” thing, than I may be in trouble this year - this Thanksgiving.  It is not that there are not ample reasons to feel grateful, but for some reason I am quite flat.  It might be the weather!  Everyone knows how much I despise the cold.  That’s right!  I despise it.  It could be the late light in the morning and early dark at night here in the north.  Regardless, I am, as my therapist wife would say, non-affective (as in unemotional...not the disorder).

I am, however, not persuaded that being grateful is as much “feeling” as it is discipline.  Not the arduous type, but simply a choice.  Paul wrote, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” (Col 3:15) Regardless of how I feel (and you may be in the same place), I still can be thankful.  I still can intentionally count the things in my life, whether in consolation or desolation, that are gifts.  And when I say gifts, I mean something that I can trace back to God’s gracious life toward me.

Ok, here is what we as a family have always done and I would encourage you try it.  It is called the “Thankful Game.”  Simply complete the statement, “I am thankful for (or because)…”

…my always encouraging and supportive wife.  She is beautiful in everyway.  A miracle that she loves crazy me!

…the children God has giving me to love, protect and disciple.

…the warmth of consistent, enduring and loving friends.

…sweet 3 point jumpers (I had to throw that in).

…um, um, ok, the colder days as it gives seasonal variety to life (ouch, that one was hard to get out).

…beautiful art and music.

…my amusing and creative son-in-law.

…a community of faith that has challenged, loved, held and supported me for 20 years.

I could go on...really!  Even though I don't "feel" like it, I still can exercise the gift of choice.  The amazing thing that happens when you do apply this is you actually start to recollective the emotion of thankfulness.  I think it has something to do with Jesus' words about "...where your treasure is, there your heart (emotions) will follow."  Anyway...

Think about this: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe…” Hebrews 12:28

The Grandeur of God

Here is a portion of a moving poem that was sent to me today by one of my best friends, Shann Ferch.  The poem is entitled, The Grandeur of God and was written by Gerard Manly Hopkins:

But in all this, Nature is never spent,

and though the last lights off the black West went

Oh Morning, at the brown brink eastward springs

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. 

BTW - Shann is an amazing one.  We have been meeting together weekly as journeying friends for a good share of our adult lives - pushing 20 years now.  He just was granted an award from the National Endowments for the Arts.  Additionally, he has just published two new books. One, a tome in the area of servant leadership entitled, Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity: Servant Leadership as a Way of Life.  The second one is a wonderful book of his short stories entitled, American Masculine.  Check em out.  Ok, the Servant Leadership book was written as a academic textbook, so don't freak out over the price tag.

Out!

Paying Attention to the Inner Life

Parker Palmer, in his book, Let Your Life Speak, writes of the importance of tending to the inner life,

"Go far enough on the inner journey, they all tell us - go past ego toward true self - and you end up not lost in narcissism but returning to the world, bearing more gracefully the responsibilities that come with being human."

I think this is a bit counter-intuitive.  It makes some sense that if we spend too much time going inward, we will almost certainly neglect or forget about the world – becoming amissional.  The reality should be just the opposite though.  We should actually be a better lover of people as we discover our “truer” self.

Palmer goes on to speak about how this relates to the discipline of leadership.  I find his thoughts charged with earthy wisdom.  He writes,

“Those of us who readily embrace leadership, especially public leadership, tend toward extroversion, which often means ignoring what is happening inside ourselves.  If we have any sort of inner life, we ‘compartmentalize’ it, walling it off from our public work.  This, of course, allows the shadow (he is speaking of something like a debilitating inner darkness) to grow unchecked until it emerges, larger than life, in the public realm, a problem we are well acquainted with in our own domestic politics.  Leaders need not only the technical skills to manage the external world but also the spiritual skills to journey inward toward the source of both shadow and light.” 

Honestly, I find myself almost unable to trust any public figure right now because of the series of inner lives exploding onto the news outlets with almost daily regularity, from sports figures (can you say Penn State?), to politicians, to leadership in the church.  My cynicism tells me that we will see more, much more failure because of the consuming temptation to be public without the paying attention to the inner journey.  However, the hopeful side…the Christian side of me longs for a richer, thicker community where this type of honest inner journey is not only longed for, but also normalized!

That’s all for now.

From the Lighter Side

I got this from CA's staffer, Rich Sander from Santa Barbara,

A preacher was driving home from a conference when a policeman noticed him swerving all around the road. The cop pulled him over and said "Sir, have you been drinking tonight?" "No officer, only this bottle of water" "Sir, that's clearly a bottle of wine." The preacher looked down and said "Good Lord, He's done it again!"

Ba dum ching  "Thank you, I'll be here all week, you're beautful people!"