Category Archives: conviction

A guest post by Nick Woods

Nick and Jo Jo – 1998

My son surprised me with some thoughts he posted on social media last night … not because of what he wrote but, rather, because he chose to share them in such a public way. Nick plays his cards pretty close to the vest when it comes to social media, so I was caught off guard by his vulnerability. Graciously, he’s allowed me to post his thoughts here; they are worthy of so much more than this landing spot. When I asked him for a title, he wasn’t particular – said he wasn’t really thinking about one when he wrote words down. So I’ve been thinking…

about Nick’s first, best friend. His name is Joseph, but we called him Jo-Jo. I dug through some photo boxes to find this one. It was their last visit together before we moved from KY to NC, a dreary day for both of them. When I asked them to smile, this was the best they could offer. Hugs were given, tears were shed, and then, we all moved on. That was June 1998. 

Fast forward to last night – June 2020. The boy who wrestled with his emotions twenty-two years ago, is the same boy who penned these thoughts last night. And I can’t help but wonder if those three years with Jo-Jo didn’t serve as a solid foundation for the years that have followed … the heart that’s been shaped into the man who is now willing to “climb into” another man’s skin. I don’t think it’s the first time you’ve done it, Nick, … climbed into another man’s skin … but it probably will be the most important time you’ll ever do so. I love you, son. Thank you for this gift. 

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A guest post by Nick Woods (6.01.2020. Allrightsreserved.)

Sharing this on social media, an ouroboros of demagoguery, name-calling, and general lack of good-will, may not be a great idea; but I am not posting for likes, I am not posting as a performative exercise. I am not sharing any crazy radical ideas or thoughts that you haven’t already heard before. I am simply writing as it helps me to organize my thoughts and posting in the spirit of feedback and accountability from those who would read and engage this post in good faith.

OK, here goes…

One of my earliest and more formative experiences engaging with “race relations” on an intellectual level was in reading and occasionally re-visiting passages from To Kill A Mockingbird. If you are like me or grew up in the South, it is likely you also had this as required reading in school.

I have been thinking a lot about the book recently. It is certainly an old text and dated in many regards. And I know many folks roll their eyes when you bring up this book – and I will certainly acknowledge there are many problematic elements with the “who” and the “how” of the storytelling mechanics. But there are also broader themes of empathy, courage against difficult odds, and fighting for justice in impossible situations that ring eerily true in contemporary America. I am struck by a couple of the more famous lines that Atticus delivers to Scout and Jem: (1) “You never really understand a person…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” and (2) “simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”

I have tried to climb into others’ skin and walk around in it in recent weeks. We have seen the very public outpouring of anger, frustration, grieving, and confusion in the wake of the injustice with George Floyd and so many others. We have seen COVID-19 disproportionately impact the health of minority Americans and their families, to say nothing of the disproportionate economic destruction of their livelihoods.

Someone once half-joking said to me “I believe white privilege is real, and I’m sure glad I‘m benefiting from it.” A lot of truth in that statement. Whenever I see a police officer in a public space, I feel a sense of security, that I have someone who is watching my back and looking out for me. I will never know the feelings of fear, worry, and pain that same situation elicits from a person of color. I will never know what it’s like to be born into the wrong ZIP code. I will never know what it’s like to be denied access to educational attainment. I will never know what it’s like to search for a job as a person of color. I don’t know how we fix all that, but that has to be the goal. And even though it may feel like we “were licked a 100 years before we started,” we still have to keep trying to fix it. We can probably start by shutting up and listening to the folks who face these barriers and challenges each day.

But I also hope as we grapple with these important ideas and fight for a more just society that we can also find a lot of common ground – I happen to believe we as Americans have far more in common than things we disagree on.

I believe 99% of the protestors we have seen this week are peacefully, admirably exercising their First Amendment right to call attention to an important problem (the other 1% are simply losers who are breaking things and committing crimes on account of drunkenness, media attention, and a real distaste for capitalism). I believe 99% of our law enforcement officers are operating with the best intentions to protect and serve all people in their communities. Like George Floyd’s brother, I believe that riots, looting and property destruction has to stop if we ever want to build some consensus and not turn off folks who would be allies. I believe that if you want to solve these problems, you can’t count on the folks in White House, and you can’t count on the folks in your Statehouse. Vote however you’d like, but politicians aren’t fixing this mess – and I have a sneaking suspicion many of them don’t want to.

As a Christian, I also think we have to recognize that we are not fighting against each other on this. This isn’t a Left-Right issue. This isn’t an Us-Them issue. This is a fight against Satan and his kingdom of spiritual darkness. As many pastors are fond of saying- racism isn’t a skin issue, it’s a sin issue. The Bible talks about the story of a man named Saul, who had a great deal of experience with leveraging his position, status and legal authorities into a vast number of injustices before he encountered God and changed his life. He later wrote “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” What a turnaround! What wisdom!

This week, I encourage each of us to climb in someone else’s skin for a bit and walk around some. How does that walk compare to our typical one? What burdens do we discover along the way? What can we do to help remove them? Maybe, just maybe, this will be the time we as a country can come together, listen to each other, ally with each other, and overcome evil with good.

I just want to close by saying how unsettling and heartbreaking this week has been, on so many levels. The amount of pain, anger, and broken-heartedness in the United States is incalculable. Seeing all the riots and broken windows and destroyed property was horrible – but those things can be replaced. Human life cannot. I want to extend my deepest condolences and prayers for the family and friends of George Floyd and to all who have experienced pain in the aftermath of his death. And I also want to think about and pray for the more than 100,000 who have passed away from COVID-19 – a disproportionate majority of whom are black and brown. These folks didn’t just lose one life, they lost two: the ones they were living and the ones they still had to come.

The poet Philip Larkin once wrote “the first day after a death, the new absence is always the same. We should be careful of each other, we should be kind, while there is still time.”

Indeed.

on course-correcting indulgence

Christmas has cost me a few pounds. A recent doctor’s visit and my turn on the scale indicated this reality. Accordingly, upon my return home, I purged the remnants of my kitchen–those remaining crumbs of a recent, earlier delight. I had had enough of indulgence. My body knew it; perhaps even greater, my mind … my spirit was in agreement. And when those two entities collide, when the flesh and the spirit are in agreement, then healthier choices take place. The fullness that comes to our stomachs when walking in tandem with the spirit is a course-correct that will eventually balance out the cost of earlier, unchecked indulgences.

And while the human spirit is a mighty force for change, God’s Spirit living in us through the powerful work of the cross, is mightier … holier … the same kind of strength exhibited in Christ’s resurrection from the grave (see Romans 8:11-12, Ephesians 1:19-20). As Christians, God means for us to daily walk in his resurrection strength, to breathe and to take in the fullness that he offers to us, so that we might know the difference between an earthly, hungering stomach and an eternal hungering spirit. So that we might run to the right cupboard for the filling.

Long before my recent purge, another purge of sorts took place on Judean hillside. The crowd numbering in the thousands had gathered to hear from this teacher, this miracle worker named Jesus. On that day, Jesus addressed both of their needs–their hungering stomachs and, even greater, their hungering spirits. It was the latter filling that led them to follow him to the other side of the lake for more. It was then that Jesus released a truth that many of them could not fully absorb:

I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world (John 6:48-51, NIV).

Jesus then furthers the discussion with talk of “drinking his blood” — a partaking in what some would deem too strange of a feast. Eating flesh? Drinking blood? What on earth was he talking about?

Jesus wasn’t talking about earthly things. Jesus was teaching about eternal realities, about that place, that moment when the body and the spirit collide and come in agreement for a healthier road forward. This is the course-correct that balances out unchecked indulgences. This is the course-correct that will fix the human condition–those irrational hungers that bloat, that burden, and that distend the soul to damaging limits.

The world we’re walking in, is a damaged, sin-sickened society that makes it all too easy for us to distend our souls. The world’s cupboard is full of choices to satiate our hunger. They’re hard to miss; they crowd our kitchens and their aromas fill our nostrils until we are convinced that we must eat, we must partake, we must cram final crumbs into that remaining void without even considering the cost to our souls. The momentary overshadows the eternal and, before long, the scale lives to tell the tale.

When that happens, when the mocking of indulgence comes back around to taunt us … to haunt us … it is time for us to release that burden to the cross; it is the only scale that will balance the bloating of our souls. Christ leveled the playing field when he submitted his flesh to a bloody surrender. In doing so, he has made a way for us to overcome our earthly hungering. The cross and our bloody surrender therein, eliminates the extra pounds.

The cross is the course-correct for the fledgling and fragile and failing human condition. It is a strange feast indeed; yet it is a beautiful and bountiful one in which we must partake if we want his life to be made evident in ours.

So today I ask you the question that I am asking myself. What has your recent indulgence cost you? What scale are you using to calculate that cost? Are you tired of the bloating, the bulge that has you stretched to your limits? Has your stomach and your spirit come to an agreement on the matter? If so, then you are ready for a course-correct. Your seat at Christ’s table–his altar of grace and mercy–has been reserved.

Dine there. Feed there. Cram in the cross. The hunger that cannot be filled by earthly cupboards can be filled to overflow from the rich storehouses of heaven. This is the sacred balancing of our souls.

I’ll meet you at the table, and as always…

Peace for the journey,

the song of the brook …

My students and I have just finished reading Song of the Brook by Matlida Nordtvedt. As literary prose goes, it doesn’t measure up to the classics, but it does serve a purpose in our classroom. It’s one book in a continuing series of books presented annually to students who use the Abeka curriculum; they seem to enjoy keeping up with the Johnson family from year to year.

The main character of the story is Hilda, a young girl from Bellingham, Washington, who is learning to live with change: a move to a new community, the disappointment with that community, discord amongst extended family members, bullying on the playground, overcoming insecurities, and the like. Despite the chaos in Hilda’s new life, she finds solace in an unexpected place – the babbling brook running beside her dilapidated house. At night, she sits next to the open, bedroom window and listens as the brook “sings” her a song. Repeatedly throughout the story, the brook impresses upon Hilda’s heart various phrases to soothe (and sometimes to meddle with) the aches within her heart. Her brookside meditations are Hilda’s way of spending time with God and hearing his voice therein.

Even though Hilda’s story is set in time nearly 100 years ago, the problems she faces back then are not unlike the problems we face today. Who of us haven’t known the ache of relocation, the tears of disappointment, the fracture of beloved relationships, the taunts of a bully, and the crippling of insecurity? Today’s troubles aren’t much different from yesterday’s harms; the scenery simply has changed.

Unlike Hilda, I don’t have the beauty of a singing brook running by and next to the parsonage in Laurinburg, NC. I don’t raise my windows in the evening for fear of unwanted critters (or humans) disrupting my night’s slumber. The sounds of my city at night are no match for the idyllic evening lullabies of the countryside, those wide-open spaces that seem to more easily host the voice of the Creator.

Still and yet, I hear the Father’s voice. His words speak to me as I take the time to listen in, to open up the window of my soul and to meditate upon the scriptures he has written to me in his holy Word. Sometimes God’s melody soothes the aches within; sometimes his refrain meddles with my will. At all times, his song is truthful. God cannot lie; neither will he sing a song over me that will lead me down a wayward path. Instead, his song … his words are for me, for my good and, most importantly, for his kingdom good.

Lately, his holy refrain has been crystal clear:

As I have done for you, Elaine, so you must do for others. Wash their feet.

Over and over again, for the past several weeks, these words have cycled repeatedly throughout my mind, like the lyrics of a song you just can’t shake.

As I have done for you, Elaine, so you must do for others. Wash their feet.

In living out this obedience from John 13, there are always ample challenges. Stinky feet aren’t my preference. It’s easier to touch cleanliness than dirtiness. It’s less problematic to embrace the feet of a friend than it is to embrace the feet of a betrayer. Even so, the Father sings…

As I have done for you, Elaine, so you must do for others. Wash their feet.

I don’t know what this will look like for me in the days to come, how this yielding will play itself out. But of this I am certain … it will play itself out. Whether at school, at church, at home, and maybe even at Wal-Mart, stinky feet are everywhere – walking in front of me, behind me, next to me, over me, and, yes, sometimes within me. We all get our feet dirty from time to time. The Father’s basin and towel are equal to the cleansing task, yet another undeserved grace from his heart to ours that allows us to get clean and then to offer that same cleansing to others.

As I have done for you, Elaine, so you must do for others. Wash their feet.

The window of my soul is open. The song of the brook is singing. Even so, Father, I am listening.

As you have done for me, Lord, help me to do so for others. Amen.

 

narrow steps in a broad world …

 

A few days ago, my eldest son called to talk. These are always rich occasions – conversing with my sons as adults. His heart was heavy (as was mine) regarding the chaos in our world. One doesn’t have to look too far to identify it; disorder and turmoil blanket the earth like a thick fog. Without a break in the clouds or a strong light to guide us through the dimness, navigating our way along the planet-path is mostly a clumsy attempt at survival.

I don’t want to walk through this life clumsily, putting too much trust in steps that are guided by fate and by man. Instead, I want to walk through this fog with steps fortified in faith—a sure and certain hope of what I cannot see, but what I know is there …

Truth.

And so I offered my son (as well as myself) a bit of advice to help us both step our way through this season of confusion:

Surround yourself with Truth. Surround yourself with Truth-tellers. Shut out the noise—the voices of dissidence that are hacking away at Truth’s foundation. Stay in the Word; study the Word; search the Word for answers. Saturate your soul with Truth. Then, walk on with Truth as your compass and as your strength.

There is only one source of truth; truth isn’t relative, based on popular opinion. Truth authors from Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (see John 14:6). Get to know him and the darkness surrounding us becomes as light to him (see Psalm 139:12). When we cannot see for the thick fog surrounding us, we can know that he sees for us. Accordingly, we must rest in Christ’s presence. We must walk with Christ’s guidance. And we must, must, must fan into flame Christ’s candle so that our families, our friends, the Body and Christ and beyond, may safely and securely find their way along the narrow path that leads to home.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” –Matthew 7:13-14

We know the way home, Christians. We know the way that leads to life eternal. We shouldn’t be surprised by the narrowing of our pathway in these days; instead, we should be enlivened by the witness of this tapering. This tightening of our steps is simply and profoundly the sharpening of our souls. Few will accept this divine, thinning process; many will, instead, accept the world’s version therein, herded along the wide-path, trampled beneath the weight of sin, and buried in darkness eternally.

Yes, this is the world we’re living in, but thanks be to God, this is not the world we’re ending in. In choosing the narrow path, we make a choice for the wide expanse of our Father’s forever. The road home may be dim, may even be cramping some of us out of our comfort zones, but make no mistake – the path we’re walking today is leading us home to our eternal resting grounds. All roads have an ending point. All earthly journeys will cease. Whether you’re stepping wide or stepping narrow in this season, your next steps matter. Accordingly, I offer you the same advice that I offered my son recently:

Surround yourself with Truth. Surround yourself with Truth-tellers. Shut out the noise—the voices of dissidence that are hacking away at Truth’s foundation. Stay in the Word; study the Word; search the Word for answers. Saturate your soul with Truth. Then, walk on with Truth as your compass and as your strength.

Truth will guide us home. Truth will welcome us as we arrive. Until then and as we go …

Peace for the journey, friends!

 

the reach and welcome of love …

 

My heart is tender toward her tonight – the new girl who showed up at our summer kick-off, Wednesday night fellowships at the pool. She was easy to spot, stuck there at a table of men who out-aged her by at least fifty years. Talk about awkward. When I asked her who she was and how it was that she came to be in our midst, she simply replied, “Mr. Bill invited me.”

I chuckled, while pointing out the retired, elderly minister who fellowships in our midst, and asked her, “That Mr. Bill?”

“No, the preacher man named Mr. Bill.”

“Oh that Bill! He’s my Bill. You can call him Billy.”

And so the conversation began between us. Curious to know how she and my Billy got connected, I learned that this rising, eighth grader was one of the participants in a mentoring encounter our congregation sponsors with local middle-schoolers. A banquet was held in their honor last week, and Preacher Billy invited all the kids to come and be part of our Wednesday night fellowships by the pool.

Bravely she came; bravely she remained despite her odd seating arrangement during the dinner hour. If I had been her, I would have bolted at the first opportunity, texting my mom to quickly come and rescue me from the awkwardness. Instead she waited it out, and my heart broke with the waiting.

Waiting for someone to notice her.
Waiting for someone her age to come around and invite her to join in the fun.
Waiting for the newness to not feel so new to her but, instead, to feel a little bit normal.

I’m not much of a waiter, so after a painful hour of watching this scene play out, I gathered a couple of other women, and together, we coaxed our visitor down to the pool area and implored a few kids to come and offer their greetings. Before long, my new friend was splashing in the pool and, hopefully, feeling better about having taken the preacher man up on his invitation.

Not long after that, her mother arrived to pick her up; I was able to sneak in a quick handshake before their departure, wishing for more time and for a better way of extending the reach and welcome of love to strangers. It’s a haunting ache that has stayed with me all evening. My heart has always been tender toward those who sit on the fringes, the ones overlooked and often ignored. I’m fighting another feeling tonight as well – annoyance.

Why are kids so slow to recognize strangers in their midst? Why not the reach and welcome of love? Why isolate them rather than include them? Are their senses so dulled not to notice the need or are they so self-absorbed that to notice would require too much of them? Where’s the kindness we so boldly proclaim and yet, sometimes, so pitifully live?

I know it sounds harsh; it is harsh. But it’s true . . . across the board, whether teenagers or adults. Why do we bunch up instead of branch out? We are the church – the body of Christ, a group of believers who boldly claim the name of our Lord as our identity . . . Christians. Little Christs. For heaven’s sake . . . really for the sake of heaven . . . when are we going to start acting like him? When are we going to start reaching out instead of always living in?

I’m tired of playing church. That’s not my game. Instead, I want to live Jesus and give Jesus so that no one ever sits on the fringes, feeling unloved, unwelcomed, unnoticed. Perhaps I am tender to this, because like my new friend, I have sat where she sat tonight . . . many times – just wanting to be noticed, to be “in” instead of feeling so very “out.”

Oh could we just live it better, friends? Just look away from the mirror long enough to notice the new faces around us? Just speak some Jesus words of grace and interest into the lives of those who sit within arm’s reach? It doesn’t take much to make a heart smile and to warm up to the idea of friendship. It just takes some willingness on our parts and some training of our hearts to fully understand the kingdom impact of the reach and welcome of love.

Two thousand years ago, my Jesus stood on a hillside, extending the reach and welcome of love through his blood-stained hands. He noticed me then; he notices me still; he notices us all. Why? Because it’s in his heart to make sure that we’re all “in” instead of living as outsiders.

Christ is the way in. A heart shaped by this truth will never forsake the outsider. Instead, a heart shaped by the reach and welcome of Calvary’s love will live accordingly.

Reaching. Welcoming. And loving a new friend all the way home to Jesus.

No longer a stranger on the fringes but, instead, one of the family.

This is my gospel. This is my Jesus. This is the servant I want to be.

So be it. Amen.

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