Spirituality

Responding to the Call: Olympic Lessons (still) from Eric Liddell

Steve · February 13, 2010 · 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days about the idea of vocation and calling. I think maybe it’s the Olympics and all those great stories that come out of it. Sometimes I think I like the personal stories of the athletes more than I do the actual competition. Sometimes. I love competition, too. Head-to head competition is some of the greatest real-life stories we ever get to experience, even if it’s from the sidelines or from the comfort (and warmth) of our easy chairs. And here’s why: We are all called to something. We are all called to the equivalent of Olympic excellence and a life of purpose and meaning. Our job is to hear that call and find a way to respond.

In one way or another, these gifted, committed athletes are responding to a call that they have heard for a long, long time. No one becomes an Olympic athlete overnight, and none do it because they have nothing better to do. They do it because they can’t imagine doing anything else. They do it because they know they must respond to a call they sense, even if they cannot always identify where it comes from.

In the Beginning

Steve · January 22, 2010 · 1 Comment

Sunrise in Mexico, 2009. Photo by Steve Givens

We all have our ideas of how the world came into being. I like to think God was having a good time when that first light was cast…

The idea was at once captivating and ludicrous.

And as he grew more excited
his enthusiasm made him smile.
A huge sheepish grin spread across his aged face
and somewhere deep in his gut
there began a gentle rumble.

The laughter welled up inside him
and he hissed and sputtered
like a child at church
who doesn’t want to laugh but can think of nothing else.

Finally
knowing he could postpone the moment no longer
he stood
placed his hands on his hips
took a deep breath of his good air
and then the laughter and words poured forth
like a river bursting its banks
spreading quickly over the darkness:

Let there be light.

The play of Mexican light. Photo by Steve Givens, 2009

My Soundtrack: Seize the Day

Steve · January 11, 2010 · 2 Comments

[an occasional series of essays about life, spirit, and the music that makes up the soundtrack of my life]

The Power of a Song, photo by Steve Givens, Nicaragua, 2009.

Seize the day, seize whatever you can
‘Cause life slips away just like hourglass sand.
Seize the day, pray for grace from God’s hand.
Then nothing will stand in your way…seize the day.

–singer-songwriter Carolyn Arends

The Latin phrase carpe diem, perhaps made most famous during modern times in the movie “Dead Poet’s Society,” has been around much longer, dating back to a poem by Horace (65 BC – 8 BC). It is usually expressed in English as “seize the day,” although its literal translation is perhaps closer to “pluck the day” or “pick the day,” as in gathering flowers. A nice image.

Some choose “carpe diem” as a life philosophy and live the proverbial “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die,” which indeed appears to perhaps be Horace’s original meaning. In the name of this carpe diem some get in touch with the darkest part of themselves, engaging in often self-destructive behavior. But there’s more to carpe diem than this. There’s more than one way to seize the day.

Take, for example, the characters who reside within Carolyn Arends‘ song, “Seize the Day,” who live their lives by seizing all that God is offering them. They live day to day by seizing the opportunities to do creative and charitable things. One person writes poems and novels; one works in an African clinic and “writes home to the cynics”; another is an older man, an alcoholic, who laments that he never learned what it truly means to seize day and now fears that it’s too late. Finally, there is Arends herself, who triumphantly announces that, throughout her travels as a performer, she has noticed: “Everyone’s got a dream they can follow or squander/You can do what you will with the days you are given/I’m trying to spend mine on the business of living.”

About a year after being diagnosed with my rare blood disease, I was given the opportunity to accompany my church’s youth group on a service trip to Nicaragua through an organization called “Amigos for Christ” that helps builds houses and entire communities for the poor of one of Latin America’s poorest countries. I knew we were only going for a week and I knew we wouldn’t change the world much for the people of the villages where we worked in the northern part of the country. But what I didn’t know was that – working in the shadow of mountains and volcanoes that loom so large over these villages — I would learn so clearly about the courage and fortitude of a community of people who have been dealt a pretty raw deal in life. I learned that they cared about many of the same things that any of us care about and that, when it comes right down to it, we all need food, warmth, friends and a place to call home.

I also learned that I was no longer strong enough to carry a 90-pound bag of cement very far and that I didn’t have the same amount of energy for digging ditches and lugging buckets of concrete and gravel that others had. I learned that there are wonderful young people who gladly stepped forward to take my spot on some of the tougher chores and that a ten-year-old boy from the village could shovel and carry faster than I could.

I learned that I could play with a young orphaned boy with cerebral palsy and get absolutely nothing – not even a smile – in return. I learned that I could read Spanish well enough to entertain a group of kids, even if part of the entertainment, I figured out, was them laughing at my poor Spanish skills. I learned that we could play games without having to have a winner and that people have immense pride in a home that they helped build, even if that home was smaller and simpler than my garage.

So I may not have changed their world in a meaningful way, but I know that together we made a difference and I know I changed my own life and way of thinking about the world. I know the village is just that much closer to having a new school because 40 of us worked for a week lifting and pouring and carrying. I know I made a difference because some kids in a small village in Nicaragua now believe there are people in the United States who know about them and can call them by name. I know I made a difference because I dared to take a risk and change my own world by moving outside my comfort zone.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what we do, how much we give or how far we travel to do it. What matters is that we give of ourselves whether we’re a healthy and strong 20-year-old or a 50-year-old with a rare blood disease who receives chemotherapy every three weeks.

I may be able to go back next year or I may not. That doesn’t matter. I’ve learned to seize the day like a child who picks a flower for no other reason than its beauty. We can change the world. We can help a child. We can help build a village or raise our own kids and teach them well. We can write a song or a poem or a novel. We can fight our demons, our fears and our addictions. And there’s no reason to wait. As Anne Frank once wrote, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

Don’t wait a single moment. Find your place. Focus on your strengths instead of your weaknesses. Do what you can instead of wallowing in what you cannot. Respond to the call to serve. Seize the day.

Finding the Sacred in the Ordinary

Steve · December 6, 2009 · 2 Comments

[an excerpt from a work in progress: “Embraced by God: Facing Chemotherapy with Faith.]

Holy is the dish and drain, the soap and sink, and the cup and plate,
and the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile, showerheads and good dry towels, and frying eggs sound like psalms, with bits of salt measured in my palm. It’s all a part of a sacrament as holy as a day is spent.
– Carrie Newcomer

I was driving to work one day last week and, when I was almost to my office, I realized that I didn’t remember a thing about the drive. I remembered backing out of my driveway and turning onto the main road that would lead me toward the university, but that’s all I remembered. I had been so lost in thought and in the business and busy-ness of my day that I failed to notice anything along the way. No stoplights, no trees, no people, no cars around me. How I arrived safely I’ll never know. It was like I was on autopilot. And that experience of mindless driving, I thought, is exactly how I so often find myself plunging ahead through life, unaware that all around are signs and moments of God’s presence and grace.

The sacred in an ordinary lollypop. Chinendega, Nicaragua, 2009. Photo by Steve Givens.

It’s relatively easy to recognize the things in our lives that we have come to know as holy or sacred. If asked to list these elements of life, many of us would quickly rattle off words like church, scripture, God, mass and sacraments. We might even branch out further from these distinctly religious ideas and objects and include words like family, children, grandchildren and friends. We might even recall those special moments in our lives when God seemed especially close – perhaps standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, listening to a favorite piece of music or observing a work of art. We might think of holy days and holidays. We might recall weddings and births and even deaths. Certainly all these experiences can be seen as sacred to us.
But there is also sacredness in the seemingly ordinary moments of my life that, like my drive to work, all too often passes by in a noisy blur without much notice. These moments can be fleeting and seemingly meaningless, but when we take the time to reflect and allow ourselves to live a more examined inner life, we can begin to see that the sacred is all around us.

Departure: The sacred in a moment of sadness. Chinendega, Nicaragua, 2009. Photo by Steve Givens

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t live in a constant state of spiritual bliss, always aware that God is in the room with me and that everything I do is part of a grand sacrament of ordinary life. Indeed, a week or a month can go by when I don’t feel this (or remember to sense it) at all. But I do believe we are all called to this way of living, and we are perhaps especially called to it if we find ourselves facing serious disease and health issues. For when we allow ourselves and our lives to be drawn into the realm of the sacred and the divine, then even our pain can take on a semblance of the sacred and our days of chemotherapy can transform into sacramental moments of sacrifice, prayer, worship and even grace.

Later Thanksgiving day, November 25, 2009

Steve · December 1, 2009 · 3 Comments

Autumn leaf... — One last leaf of autumn, Missouri Ozarks, 2009. Photo by Steve Givens

As I head toward turning 50 just after the first of the year, I sometimes sense what feels like creative energy and a multitude of ideas mixed with a touch of fear bubbling up inside me. The creative energy is good, of course. The fear might be good, too, but it can be crippling. The fear, I guess, is that I won’t be able to act on all the energy and ideas. That’s a stupid fear. Just push forward. Forget the fear.

As a writer and songwriter, I can tell my stories and hope and trust that someone will see a grain of truth in them–a semblance of something real that maybe they have felt themselves. If they believe in God they may recognize their own divine experiences in my stories. If they do not or do not yet know if they believe or not, perhaps they will still glean something from me that points them to their own discovery of God and faith. I don’t preach, but I can’t help but reflect what I hold most true.

So back to the lake. All around me the sights and sounds of late autumn remind me that nature takes these last few moments before the onslaught of winter to prepare and gather. Puffy-cheeked chipmunks scamper about me gathering food for the winter. Squirrels glide from tree to tree, building nests and hording sustenance. A noisy murder of crows continually breaks the silence of the fall air. I don’t know whether that has anything to do with the coming winter or not but they seem content to caw and scare away the occasional gull. Whoever said this time of year is dead has never taken the time to look and listen. For I hear and see things now that I never notice during the peak of the lake season. I actually heard the flutter of a sparrow’s wing high above me in the tree as it perched preening itself. I can hear a pair of ducks cutting through the water. I hear a far-off fishing boat long before I see it. The world is intense and intimate and alive during these moments and I am blessed to be here.

As a Christian and a Christian writer, I believe that I am called to two things. First, like all Christians I believe that the world should be able to see Christ in me. That’s a tall order and I certainly do not always succeed. In what I say and what I do (and what I write) they should be able to see that this “Christian stuff” makes a difference–that it’s real and alive and moving, just like the movement of God in my life. As a Christian who is a writer, I believe I’m called to try and make some sense of all of this “God stuff” and “faith stuff” on the page. I don’t want to grab the readers by the scruff of their necks and pull them screaming into the kingdom, but I do want to help them find evidence of the sacred in everyday life. I want them to see what I see, holy moments that may lead them gently into the light and the waiting arms of God. If they see something they like, I hope they will join me in the walk. It’s a good road.