Month: January 2010

Color has been studied for years and is now commonly accepted to affect our moods, feelings and behaviors. Personally I don’t always understand the in-depth analysis of such psychobabble but there are things I readily accept. I enjoy “pretty” and respond to “ugly” with action I suspect shrinks might find telling.

I can walk a meadow of wild flowers and be taken for hours into places of joy. I can also walk into a place where only darkness can be found and want to get out as fast as possible.

Rainbows rarely show more than a few obvious colors, at least to the naked eye, but still my heartbeat picks up in pace whenever I see one. Those colors represent promise and I desire to seek my treasure wherever they may lead me to look further; over or under, I will continue to seek.

Carl flipped the coin with gusto. As it went upwards his eyes followed and he wondered if he was the only one who noticed the coin was moving in slow motion. A crowd had gathered around him at the bar to watch how this was going to play out.

A man in a slick suit had come in an hour earlier offering to buy the drinks. His conversation was pleasant and his smile winning. He carried a charm Carl had never encountered before. At first it was just the two of them having a chat but it was as though every nearby ear was drawn to listen. People began to hush around them and pay attention to the words.

“So heaven is not real to you? So what is?” asked slick suit.

“Well, my friends, my job, my kid; although I don’t see him much, having as much fun as I can while I can; perhaps enough money to sail about the world without a time clock.” Carl answered.

“I tell you what, if you could flip a coin to have that sailboat dream or head on into the afterlife you don’t believe in, would you be ready to go? No soul preparation, no thought to the possibility there might be more, would you do it?”

Carl laughed but countered with “Why, are you going to fund my sailboat dream?”

With a smile, slick suit pulled out his wallet. He laid out fifteen bills of a thousand denomination and wrote a check for another hundred thousand, laying it on the bar before Carl. “Does that answer your question? This is only the down payment of course. There is more where this came from.”

Carl’s eyes were wide, he’d never seen so much money. Eyeing the man he asked, “So what’s the catch?”

“No catch. Flip a coin, your coin. Heads you take this money and more and sail your dreams. Tails you take this money and more, also sailing your dreams, however you never enter that heaven which is not real to you anyway.”

Watching the coin fall Carl could feel his chest tighten; this had to be a joke….

The walk back to my car wasn’t too short. Time to think. Unexpectedly I had come face to face with a truth about something in my heart. Why did I need to see it in that place and at that moment? Another lesson to be had; I side-stepped the need to beat myself up. I would never be able to concentrate on learning if I was too busy kicking myself in the let down.

Something inside me stirs…

“Do you know what I mean?” It’s a phrase I hear all the time and sometimes speak myself. I hear it most often in my job, although too many times my answer is “No, I don’t.” It’s not that I don’t want to; it’s simply a lack of communication. Conversation is an art, intimate at its best or combative at its worst.

I love it when someone says to me, “Do you know what I mean?”, and I can nod my head to say, “Yeah, I really do.” Be it stranger or friend, there is a satisfaction in understanding their communication. In that moment I get to experience intimacy with their thoughts.

What would the world be without mystery? I doubt many of us would enjoy ourselves if we always knew every answer and outcome. Questions pose for us the opportunity to seek out the mystery, and we often enjoy the search beyond even finding our answers. This is the very reason game shows have been, and still are, such a popular enjoyment to the public. They want to know the answers to the questions asked! Even when little prize money is to be had they stay tuned in because they want to know if their own answers are correct.

Mystery is the ultimate plot to write fiction or make a movie. We long to know the ending, but do you ever notice how short lived that satisfaction is? It’s not long before we are searching again for another mystery to be solved, no matter what the media or life issue. Even gossip functions on this level. People just want to know answers.

The desire to ask questions is a gift and the seeking of deeper mysteries will never be without fulfillment.

I have to say I know what it means to “hit the wall”. Perhaps it means something different to all of us, but the impact remains the same for description. A place where we feel we cannot go any further, we feel blocked and hindered. Some look at this as emotional, financial, relational or even spiritual. No matter the wall, it just feels impassable.

I keep thinking I need to resurvey my own walls. Why do they feel insurmountable and how come I let them block my path? Walls can be so intimidating. One of the “seven wonders of the world” is the Great Wall of China. Every famous castle of note to history had serious walls of protection. To this day even, stands the most famous Wailing Wall from the age of Solomon. Although this wall seems less about hindrance and more about hope, it’s still curious to wonder why “a wall”?

More interesting though are walls once thought to be impenetrable, yet they fell. Most famously in recent history was the Berlin Wall. In most ancient history would be the walls of Jericho. This is a wall I notice most because it’s the one to fall with the least effort to my natural eye of understanding. I may be oversimplifying the matter but history speaks of horns and trumpets.

I think those walls fell because Joshua’s heart was resonating God’s frequency. What wall could stand up to God’s love, justice or righteousness? All would and should crumble. To this day our own walls can come down from the same impacting character of our Savior.