Stayin' Alive

I'm a pretty routine kind of guy. I like structure and schedules. I enjoy the Christian year ... Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter. It flows, and it is predictable. It causes me stress when my structured, predictable schedule is interrupted. Of course I'm in the wrong vocation ... interruptions happen frequently.

Such was the case this past Wednesday. My day was going as planned. I had my list of things to do and was well into checking them off. Then the call came (interruption). I would have to come and pick up the boys because they were going to dismiss school a little early and there would not be after school care. I looked at my schedule and realized that I could still pull off my 3:00 appointment with my trainer at the gym and their kid care started at 3:00 ... it's magic!

I picked up my youngest at the primary school ... ran home and changed into my gym clothes ... ran back and got into the line for the intermediate school ... they let out just in time for me to pick up my oldest ... and get to the gym. Since I didn't have to change and was running short on time, I decided to leave my cell phone and wallet in the car. I was stressed, but I was going to work it off ... life was good.

My first inkling that I had made an unwise decision was near the end of my workout as I looked out the window and commented to my trainer, "Wow it looks like it's 8:00 at night". Workout over ... gather up kids ... it's beginning to rain ... get into car ... pick up cell phone ... all kinds of missed calls, messages, and texts. Almost all from my wife ... wondering where we are. Since I'm driving, I don't call or text her ... I'll be home in just a couple of minutes [btw, this was another unwise decision]. I have the radio on and now realize that Knoxville has gone into DEFCON 1 while I have been working out at the gym.

I pull in the driveway and I am met at the door by my beautiful wife, who calmly and lovingly shares her feelings with me ... about my decision to pick up the kids and take them to the gym during a tornado warning ... about how she had canceled her dental appointment in order to rush home to check on her family.

I looked up the word "moron" to make sure she had not used it in a politically incorrect manner. It fit. "A person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment." I was a moron. I had lacked good judgment in trying to keep to the schedule and not allow something to alter me or my plans.

BIT: Well the storms came and the Brewster's spent a great deal of time wisely hunkered down in a closet. The hail was huge and powerful and scary ... and destructive. I facebooked on Thursday after the storm, "Thinking of planting some flowers tomorrow ... around my mutilated bushes ... under my stripped trees ... in front of my pocked house ... beside my two dented cars ... a sign of hope?" We did just that. The pictures are before and after (I know I won't be going into the landscape business).

BITTER: Reflecting back on the high of Easter Sunday to the low of Wednesday and back to a high this past Sunday as we celebrated Confirmation Sunday, I can't help but hear the Bee Gees singing:

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother,
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin', people,
Stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive.

Of course in my reflection I'm wearing roller skates and there is a disco ball. Life is full of breakin' and shakin' (and hail and wind and tornadoes). Easter is all about brokenness being transformed into wholeness ... pain and grief meeting hope ... life (and maybe some flowers) being planted in destruction. It's about stayin' alive ... but not just life ... abundant life ... allowing Christ to alter us (so we're not morons).

Rev. Mickey Rainwater shared a scripture in his column last week. It is Romans 2:1-2 (The Message)
"Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

So, break out of the routine every now and then ... don't be a moron ... be altered ... plant some flowers (there are a whole lot of people who need some) ... be a sign of hope amidst someone's destruction ... be a witness of God's Abundant Life!