carbonated joy

Participation trophies get a bad rap.
I’ve heard them held up as everything that is wrong about a generation.
It’s time I come clean…I like participation trophies.
As a strikingly unathletic individual, I have received a few trophies I didn’t deserve.
As a strikingly flawed human being, I have received grace I didn’t deserve.
But, participation trophies get a bad rap.
I mean, C’MON!!! We are Americans for crying out loud!!! We value competition over charity!!
Participation trophies smell too much like grace. As long as we are winning, we prefer justice over mercy.
But…
Participation matters.
Sometimes the hardest thing in life is just showing up. It takes commitment and courage to show up everyday and do what you have to do.
Some people deserve a trophy everyday…
The young parent who goes without sleep and takes care of a helpless little human. The older parent who goes without sleep while waiting for their teenager to make it home, literally and figuratively. The unappreciated employee who works nonstop for another person’s vision. Everyone who gives and lives and puts self on hold. Everyone who does something no one else wants to do.
They show up.
Even when it’s hard.
They participate everyday.
Give them a trophy.
Participation matters.
It says I was a part.
Not everyone can be #1, somebody has to be #2. (NOBODY wants to be #2) Sometimes the simple act of participating is a humbling thing. It’s sharing the spotlight, it’s surrendering the spotlight.
You do things that you aren’t personally passionate about.
But, if you participate in enough things, you will eventually find your primary thing. You participate until you can pursue.
Participation opens the door for passion.
Participation trophies speak loud.
They say…
I showed up.
I was a part of a team.
Participation matters.
So…
Show up!
Smile at your teammates.
AND, hold your participation trophy high!!

I watched the Moonpie discover her hands again this morning. She is fascinated by her fingers!! And just like that she teaches me that one of the keys to joy is the continual choice to rediscover what has always been there.

Gather around the campfire, I have a story to tell about a campfire that took up residence in me…

It’s a Ghost story and I assure you it’s completely true…
I first met the Ghost in a creaky old farm house in West Texas. The house had once been a family home, but that was many years ago. Now, it was in serious need of a paint job. There were large insects and rumors of creepy snakes. It was the perfect place to put a bunch of kids. It was there that I experienced a Ghost encounter. I had heard others tell Ghost stories, I had occasionally sensed a presence. But, when I turned to look, there was nobody there. That day was different, a seasoned Ghost-hunter named Jeanette kindly prayed that I would know the Ghost…and it happened! I met Him. This Ghost doesn’t scare me, in fact He helps me conquer my fear.
It’s crazy that my biggest source of comfort is a Ghost. Everyday I hear the Ghost, He gently whispers to me, “you are bigger than you think you are, you have experienced the indwelling of the infinite. You are a habitat for the Holy.” He assures me that I’m never alone. He tells me the truth and tells me which way to go.
I’ve learned to listen to the Ghost.
Some people have acted as self appointed Ghost busters. They deny the presence of the Ghost or they say that He hasn’t been seen in years. But, I know the truth…
The Ghost is real…
He is my friend.

One of my favorite biblical people is John the Baptizer. There was a wildness about him that appeals to me. He was a rebel, a nonconformist. He was a wild eyed, bug eating, bearded, wild man.
He really was born to be wild.
In fact, in Mark chapter one, it says that “John the Baptizer appeared in the wild”.
There is something about “the wild” that speaks to me.
Then a few verses later in the same chapter, Jesus shows up. He is baptized by John and then the Holy Spirit came down and filled Him up, how’s that for wild!?
Then, it says “at once, this same spirit pushed Jesus out in the wild.”
The Spirit empowers Him and THEN instantly pushes Him into the wild!?
Why?
Why the wild?
What happens in the wild?
Why is time in the wild important?

The wild is the place of “un”. It is uncultivated, undomesticated, unscripted.
It’s in the wild places that we are undone.

That’s scary because the wilderness is, well, wild. The wild is weird. It’s full of unknown and uncontrollable.

We need the wilderness.
Grace seldom grows in sanitized environments, it’s not needed there. It shows up in the wild places.
Wild stuff happens in the wilderness.

The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years. They had been freed, but, It took four decades of wildness to get rid of the sludge of slavery. They had to learn to live free. In the wildness, they learned to trust, depend, believe, hope, and really live.
They needed the wilderness.

We need the wilderness.
The wildness exposes the subtle ways we have become slaves to the system and wrong thinking.
In the wildness we are taken back to the basics, in the absence of OTHER things, God becomes the ONLY thing.

We need the wilderness.
The wildness exposes the tameness.
It unleashes the wild in us, and drives out fear and timidity.

We need the wilderness.
In order to walk IN wholeness, we have to walk THROUGH wildness.
We try to run from it, we run to the known and comfortable.
But the “same spirit” keeps pushing us into the wild.
Because THAT is where the shackles fall.
We are born in slavery. We are slaves to sin, self, and system.
We need the wilderness.
That is where we are freed from slave thinking and slave ways.
That is where we learn to live, love and lean.
That is where we become a free people.
If you haven’t, go ahead and answer the call of the wild, it’s the only road to freedom.
And now, let the wild rumpus start!

Today, I learned a new word and I REALLY like it!

I’m adding it to my list of favorite words.

It’s a fun Latin word.

The word is “hilaritas”.

It means cheerfulness, merriment, good humor. It’s where we get our word, hilarious.

It’s a fun word, a happy word, a word that lightens.

It’s a word that doesn’t seem to get associated with “religious” folk much, and THAT is sad!

It seems that if you are spiritual you are hardly hilarious.

We seem to equate true spirituality with a sour expression. If you want to appear “holy” you must be serious and somber, arrogant and a little condescending.

Can you take yourself VERY seriously, act constipated and seldom laugh? Then, you too can be a Christian!!

We equate deep with serious, and people who laugh are shallow and lightweight.

That’s not hilarious at all!

This way of thinking hasn’t always been the norm.

“In the days when the Roman Catholic Church was in the business of canonizing certain of our brothers and sisters in faith, giving them the honorary title ‘saint’ and indicating thereby that they had lived an exemplary life of faith, one of the standard items for qualification was evidence of hilaritas – joy. The proposed saint had to be a hilarious woman or a hilarious man, capable of laughing, of praising, of enjoying.” (Eugene Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire)

I love that so much!!! A holiness measured by holy hilarity!! A faith marked by joy.

Real Saints smile!

The Saint test: Do you love Jesus? Do you you know how to laugh?

Why are we surprised by that?

God is the designer and distributor of joy. Laughter is His idea.

I think that sometimes the One who said “let there be light” also says “lighten up!”

He gives us joy to make us strong in this sometimes UNhilarious world.

Apart from God, joy loses its fizz like a carbonated beverage that is left sitting open too long.

We need carbonated joy!!

Hilaritas.

My prayer: may we be a hilarious people today!