On the Merits of Accomplishment

"Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment." - Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist, satirist, and historian of the 19th Century.

The accomplished man is arguably an ideal of the postmodern era.  Who we are as men is often defined by what we do or how well we do something.  To be sure, it is not the only way we are defined but it is one of the primary ways we are defined.  For those of us who do not feel very accomplished and who do not have much success tied to our names, such a way of thinking can leave us feeling less than whole, inadequate, and worthless at best, not to mention also leaving us vulnerable to feelings  of being "bad" or "wrong."  A lack of accomplishments, in a sense, can very well limit our ability to do anything at all as it is such a repressive and indomitable spirit that overtakes and subdues our very desires, pinning us to the ground, leaving us with low self-esteem and self-confidence.

Thomas Carlyle's words bring us, then, some very welcome relief.  Achieve accomplishments, build self-esteem and self-confidence.  Seems easy doesn't it?  It seems so simple and straightforward: Do X, increase Y, with Y being that which is an essential construct of our happiness -- feeling good about ourselves, feeling like we measure up.  

But to be honest, it isn't so easy.  Self-esteem and self-confidence to many men and women seems fleeting, almost as though they were the prized and coveted golden fleece that Jason and his band of Argonauts sought after and searched for.

I want to challenge that and say that feeling adequately self-worthy isn't so hard to obtain at all.  In fact, it is well within our grasp and capability.  What seems to be holding us back then?  Accomplishments.  

Carlyle, in my opinion, is spot on in his assessment.  Accomplishments are the key.  But I would wager that most of us set the bar really really high for ourselves.  We have been told to achieve great things, shoot for the stars, be someone special, go big or go home, and on and on.  Those are good things to strive for and they make great graduation speeches, but all in due time.  Those are terrific end results, but I don't believe those are possible to do every single day.  I wonder if what we are missing is the valuing of the small accomplishments in our lives.  The day-to-day victories.  For some, that might simply be getting out of bed, or keeping up with a blog post. (:P)  For others, that might very well be saying hello.  For some, that might be keeping a clean house.  For others, it might be making meetings on time or saying a kind word to someone and making their day. 

To be sure, there are a wide range of possible tiny victories, small accomplishments through any given day.  But I know that we would do well to value those, to lower the bar for ourselves by placing those on a similar level as our more grandiose dreams and visions of grandeur.  I think in the end, if we do just that, we will help to grow our self-esteem and self-confidence and thus help to grow our happiness and satisfaction with life.  And you know what? Small accomplishments may very well be the fuel we need to achieve the great things we imagine and dream ourselves doing or becoming.  No skyscraper was ever just a skyscraper, but, rather, it was built piece by piece -- a patchwork of smaller parts to make a larger whole.

Treasure those small accomplishments whatever they may be. :)

A Priestly Presence

After a long hiatus, I'm jumping back into things.  Aiming at keeping this up this time.  :)

Here's a poem I jotted down today after visiting a couple elderly women in a nursing home.  I've noticed that a priestly presence -- just being a presence in someone's life on behalf of Christ -- can speak more to a person, especially those that are shut-in and forgotten, than any words can say.

Forgotten
The sun casts a shadow of people long
forgotten on the bare
cement floor of my bedroom,
my only only room.
These walls hold me captive, but I've done
nothing to them,
I breathe just fine.  Yep, I breathe just fine,
yet I am bridled by the oxygen tank I am now
forced to hoist on my back.
O Lord take me now.
The people who keep me here pinch and pry
pushing chemicals into me --
I do not want,
and the only things I sell
are memories.

a vision of love from malachi 1:1-5

It's February and I'm scheduled to preach this coming Sunday.  So, what better thing to do than to cover the topic of love, right?  Right.  I'm always about obligatory sermons, albeit with a little bit of a twist.  C.S. Lewis had quite a bit to say on the topic of love, though from a standpoint of the four Greek ideas of love: eros, storge, filia, and agape.  In considering this model, I found it wonderfully captivating to consider the agape love of God vis-a-vis Malachi 1:2.

So,  that is to say that I'm doing away with the traditional 1 Cor. 13 storge, filia, and eros (at least from a human context) sermons and focusing more on our love for God, and God's preceding and subsequent love for us.  God's love is awe-inspiring in its uniqueness.  He loved us before we loved him, and even when we don't feel like loving God anymore, he still loves us.  In Malachi 1:2, we hear these words: "'I have loved you," says the Lord."  That phrase, "I have loved you" is jarring and revelational.  In Hebrew, this phrase is "Ahavti et-chem" (אָהַבְתִּי אֶתְכֶם), and it is perfect tense, meaning: past action, present implication, and a future consideration or commitment.  What is so interesting about this phrase is that God affirms his love through the ages for a people who question whether or not he loves them (rest of Malachi 1:2: "And yet you say, 'How have you love us?'").  What we can learn from this is that God loves us, his people, even when it is unrequited on our part.  Even when we don't love God in return like we should, God comes again and again professing his love for us.  And 1 John 3:16 gives us insight into a full expression of God's love for us, even as New Testament believers: "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us."  There is no fuller expression of God's love for us than this.

So, as we step into this February season of love, let us keep this in the back of our minds and consider how we can emulate God's everlasting love (a love that was, is, and will be) in our daily relationships.

on the ethics of failure

It interesting that what is on my heart right now is the issue of failure.  I have failed this blog.  I have failed to update at all since May of last year.  This is an extreme personal failure in my estimation because it is something I set out to do and did for only two days and then dropped it entirely.  But the issues that this situation raises are larger than that, for ethics drums its boney fingers on the kitchen table, asking is it alright to fail and is it alright and morally acceptable to feel like a failure?


I've never tried to come up with a list of failures in my life--I think that'd be a dreadfully morbid thing to do--but I think a recurring analysis of the failures that I would list would be things that never met my own expectations.  I admit it, I have high expectations for myself, and I'm ok with that because I look at some of the most driven people and I am inspired by them.  John Wesley, for example, preached on average 15 times a week which resulted in preaching around 40,000 sermons during his lifetime.  This is incredible considering that the average pastor, preaching once a week over a 30-year career, would only muster 1,500 sermons.  Throw in a few funerals and weddings and the odd extra sermons and you might end up 2,000 sermons.  That's still paltry compared to Wesley.
So, I am ok with high expectations of myself, if they are within reason.  But my humanity inevitably often rears its ugly head, and I am aware that I'm not perfect and that I mess up with regularity and often don't reach my goals.  But it's how I act when I that happens that is important.  To often in my own life I beat myself up for having missed the mark, for having messed up, and though this initial mental self-flagellation starts innocently enough it eventually moves into a perpetual continuing action that becomes degrading and debilitating.  Anyone will tell you that this is obviously not good, for perpetual self-condemnation has a paralyzing effect.  Here's a poem I dug out of an old notebook of mine that paints a picture of that.

Failure is an option
When I wake most days
I am already in a daze
and inside my head
while laying on my bed
I wonder if I should even get
up.

The fear of failure is a paralyzing thing, and I think that this is something all people should be wary of.  It's something to think about that if Thomas Edison was afraid of failing, it is possible we might not have lightbulbs today or be able to play music on our mp3 players.  The old adage is that Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times, but I believe it to be correctly this:  Thomas Edison's philosophy on inventing was so optimistic that even though he might fail 10,000 times he would see it as 10,000 ways for something to not work.  Even more so, he opted to call his failures "ways in which something will not work."

I think it's proper and fitting to take a page from Edison optimism and look at our failures in life, our not meeting our own expectations, as ways in which to not do something in the future.  We can indeed learn from our failures and apply them to our future activities.  And look at it this way:  if we are too afraid to try something new or different because we are afraid of failing, we need to realize that we are missing out on finding ways in which something will not work.

And in the Christian context, we need to be mindful that even though we fail sometimes by succumbing to sin and not following or obeying God, there is a perfect unfailing person in Jesus Christ who redeemed us at the cross and makes us spotless and perfect before God if we trust in him and ask him for forgiveness.  Most miserable we are if we do not seek the perfection in Christ that is ours as children of God.

Here's to Resurrection

Ok, I have decided to resurrect this blog.  With me and my outlandish ideas, I decided last year that I wanted to keep a blog.  Well, that failed with miserably and epically.

So, here's to trying this out one more time.  Here's to resurrecting a dead blog; proof that even dead things can live again and have life.  It is in this period of Springtime that we see the dead of winter giving way to the life of Spring--brown vegetation becoming green, slothful and desolate people becoming jovial and vivacious, and the wombs of the mother animals becoming productive once more in birthing and producing youngins.  

And it is in this time that I view and rejoice in the proof of the existence of man's creator in nature, for all of nature sings and gives testemant to the existence of God the creator.  Nevertheless, I also mourn the loss of how man views such a creator.  More and more I see man taking ownership for what he has accomplished in life.  Man says to himself, "See what I have done.  See the work I have finished.  See my business that I have created from nothing--see how is grows and blooms and has given me success.  That alone tells me that this world could have and did come from nothing."  And in this he forgets the one who has created him; man reasons Him away.

Bearing this in mind, I think of a poem by William Wordsworth, "Written in Early Spring." 

In it, Wordsworth writes of all the beauty of nature that is around him in the Springtime and that pleasure can be found in such things, but he turns and laments on "what man has made of man."   Ah, even then man tried to escape the pleasure that is found in heaven-sent beauty and he tries to replace it with his own which hardly suffices.  

Ah, so it is in the resurrection of the dead of winter in new life of Spring that ultimately leads us to the Resurrection of Christ and the freedom that that brings.  The freedom to enjoy creation in a new light and not feel like we have to replace anything.

"Written in Early Spring" 

by William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes
While in a grove I sat reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure - 
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What Man has made of Man?