A Ramble About "The Right Person for the Job"

I was finally able to see the recent superhero movie, “Captain America.” I've loved superheroes since I was a kid, and as a result I've loved superhero movies for the same amount of time. My favorite is “Superman,” but Captain America ranks right up there with old Supes.

For those not in the know, the character of Captain America starts out as a weakling kid from Brooklyn, NYC, named Steve Rogers. In some versions of the comics, he had polio. For the movie, he was a short, scrawny asthmatic with a medical history that would make most doctors cringe. He attempted to enlist in the Army because he didn't feel right about not being there to do his part for the war effort. When he was given the “4F” rating, he went to another recruiting office and tried again. When that didn't work, he tried again. He refused to give up. When he was beat up in an alley, he refused to back down even knowing he would lose the fight. Steve Rogers refused to give up. What's more, he couldn't stand bullies, and always thought of the other person first, regardless of what it cost him.

His determination and heart caught the eye of the scientist in charge of a super soldier program that would take an ordinary man and give him extraordinary strength, speed, endurance, and self-healing abilities. To illustrate his point about why Steve was the perfect candidate for the program, a dummy grenade was tossed towards Steve's training platoon (who didn't know it was a dummy). Everyone else, all men much larger and stronger that Steve, ran from the grenade. Steve, believing it would kill people close by, ran to it and jumped on it to save their lives. The scientist who chose him knew what he was doing, and could see in Steve what no one else could.

When God chooses people for a task, He doesn't choose the people we would normally think the best suited. He never chooses the richest, the strongest, the fastest, the smartest, or the best educated. He never chooses the best speakers. God chooses the Steve Rogers from among His people (and sometimes He starts by choosing those not from among His people at first). He most often chooses the weakest, the slowest, the least educated. What does He see in them? He's not concerned about their physical and mental abilities because He's perfectly capable of suping them up as needed by His Grace and power. He's concerned about whether or not they're going to trust Him and accept what comes from Him. Someone who has always been able to trust his own abilities isn't going to let go of those abilities in favor of what God can do, and is far too susceptible to pride and self-esteem believing that it was through their own abilities and not God's.

Today, I just saw something truly amazing. I saw my wife out raking up grass, watering plants, and doing yardwork. She's been doing it for a couple of hours. Now she's back in the house talking and joking. Three years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. Even two years ago it would have been a true miracle because of her illness and seizures. All of her life she's been told she was weak and sickly. Doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong, and some even had the audacity to tell her it was all in her head when it clearly was not. She's had a dream though. She's wanted to run a home taking care of special needs kids, fostering and adopting them. She's had that dream ever since I've known her. Doctor after doctor told her that it wouldn't be possible because of her illness (which we later learned was Celiac and a spinal curvature, and finally got under control through diet and chiropractic). The thing about my wife is that she's a Steve Rogers. She doesn't give up. She's the person that would run to the grenade to save people and not away from it. I have absolutely no doubt that she's the right person to run that home that we've talked about so many times. Both God and I know what's inside of her.

St. Paul wrote that God uses the weak and sickly things of the world to put to shame the things which are strong. He doesn't need the strongest or the fastest or the smartest. He can fix all of that. He just needs the person who will cooperate with Him and trust Him. God takes the Steve Rogers of the world and turns them into superheroes.

Another Ramble About Weeds

It's funny how some weeds look a lot like the vegetable or herb you're trying to grow. Recently, I was watching one plant come up thinking it might be a potato that we missed last year when we harvested them. After a few weeks though, it became clear that it was just an inedible weed, and up it came as I removed it.

I was thinking about this as I was watching a real potato plant come up where I had planted it a few weeks ago. The differences between this real potato plant and the weed pretending to be a plant I wanted were obvious now that I was looking at the real thing.

But what about someone who didn't know the difference? What about someone who had never seen the real plant come up, but had only just planted? Or what about someone who was looking for edible plants in the wild? Many edible wild plants have poisonous lookalikes. As my wife reminds me, we can't afford to be wrong.

This in turn makes me think about the kinds of fruit we want to see from a disciple of Jesus Christ. We know what it's supposed to look like from what the Scriptures tell us, but how many of us have actually seen a true disciple of Christ who practices everything Jesus taught? In those we take as our examples, are we seeing the edible plants, or are we seeing the poisonous lookalikes? If you've never actually seen the edible plant, you may well assume that the poisonous lookalike is the real thing and feed on that. In the same way, if you've never actually seen someone who “gets it”, you may take what you are seeing for real Christianity and wind up trying to be like someone who is as far from Jesus as possible.

I heard recently that one of the ways you can tell an edible plant from a poisonous one is whether or not it's sweet or bitter (I'm sure it doesn't work in every case, but it seems to be built into our taste buds), and not just by appearance. Granted, this means you have to sample some of it and be prepared to spit it back out quickly.

In some ways, telling whether or not someone is actually a disciple is a lot like this. A true disciple of Jesus Christ will always taste of love and compassion. None of us are perfect as of yet, but a true disciple gets it that what Jesus taught was loving compassion for anyone and everyone, and this is how you know God is coming through that person when His love is pouring out of them.

These days, we tend to take theology or moral virtues as our taste test. But there are a great many pseudo-disciples that are toxic to our progress of faith who are highly virtuous and hold to technically sound theology that truly don't get it that you can't know God apart from loving compassion and allowing His love to flow through you. They think God is found in this or that writing or piece of doctrine. These things tell about God, but you can't know God through them any more than you can get to know a celebrity by reading his or her online biography. God can only be known through loving compassion.

Jesus said you would know a tree by it's fruit. The fruit which you need to see is loving compassion. If it isn't there, turn away, there's nothing nutritious from that plant that you can use and it may poison you.

A Ramble About the Desert

"There is a tremendous serenity about the desert." So begins a story that I started working on thirteen years ago. I'm still not done writing it, rewriting it, and turning it inside out. The character who speaks this line is sitting in the middle of one, musing about his life.

If you've ever been in a true desert, you'll understand what the line means. I was born in Yuma, Arizona, and every so often my family and I would pass through it again on vacation. Down in that little corner of the country it resembles a desert planet scene out of a science fiction movie like "Dune" or "Star Wars" (which is why "Dune" was filmed down there). It's quiet, serene, and sterile. It's the perfect place to muse or meditate without distractions. It has it's own beauty which not everyone can appreciate, but is there nonetheless.

From at least the third century up until this present day, Christians fled into the desert, and into mountains, and into mountains in the desert to meditate and remove themselves from distractions to focus on God. They abandoned everything to focus on progressing in their relationship with God and knowing Him better. Today, Orthodox monks in Egypt still do this, living in caves, and spending their time in fasting, prayer, worship and menial work. From such men as these we received the writings of great spiritual giants (though they never would have regarded themselves in this way) as manuals of practical spiritual growth.

The unfortunate thing about these men, is that most of them never left the desert. We only have their writings now, because someone went to their communities and collected and translated them for the rest of us to learn from. You see, unless you come out of the desert or down from the mountain-top, what happens there stays there. The only one who benefits from your experience is you, and you run the risk of self-centered spiritual pride.

There is a story behind the "fat buddha" statues which are so common. It is actually a statue resembling a Zen Buddhist Master who lived in China centuries ago. He was walking one day with a loaded sack on his back when someone asked him "what is the meaning of Zen?" He calmly put the sack down on the ground. The person then asked him, "what is the actualization of Zen?" He then picked the sack up and continued on his way.

A common understanding which can be found in the eastern mystical traditions is that once you reach enlightment, in order for you to be of any use to anyone you can't actually stay there. Enlightenment is a flash-bang fireworks experience, not a day to day living your life experience. Life doesn't stop when you arrive spiritually, and there is a "next day". In order for your experience to be of any use to anyone, you must be able to share it with others and help them down the path as well.

For Christians, this means that we cannot stay in the solitude of the desert or on the mountaintop alone with God, regardless of how beautiful or peaceful, because in order for our newfound experience with Him to be of any practical use to us or anyone else, we must be able to help others get there as well and this can't be done in isolation. There's a fine line to walk here, because those who are able to help often don't feel that they can, and those who feel that they can often really have no idea. So discernment and double-checking with those ancient Fathers to see if your experience lines up with theirs is important. Never assume that you alone have the answers, always check and see if it more or less lines up with those Christians who came before you whom you know are safe.

The desert is a great place to meet God, but it does no good to others if you can't bring Him to those outside of it.