Six Degrees from …

            A true story: Summer, 1998. We are at Myrtle Beach and our younger son is eleven months old. We’re on the beach and realize we need a change of “floaties” and juice. I leave the beach and head through the hotel lobby and into the elevator to go to our room. As the door begins to close an arm comes in.  The door opens and in walks … Kevin Bacon. That’s right, the actor Kevin Bacon. Being who I am, I look at him and go, “Hey, how’re you doing?” I get a tepid “fine” and then Mr. Bacon puts his head down and has no further conversation with me.

            A second true story: we have a wonderful biology teacher this fall. She’s energetic, enthusiastic and brilliant. She’s also a “local,” raised in Charlotte County before moving away to become an infectious disease researcher. We were talking the other day and the subject of the movie, “Sommersby” came up. That movie – starring Richard Gere and Jodie Foster – was filmed in the town I was living in with my wife and then only child.

            “My brother rented his house to Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford,” she told me. I knew the house. And, I remember Cindy Crawford. See, while Richard was “filming,” his significant other was exploring our little town (made famous after Brown vs. Board of Ed, when the white country school board voted to close the public schools rather than integrate). And that led Cindy, in a spandex sports bra and tights, to end up at the gym I worked out at. Cindy (I still feel like I’m on a first name basis!) came over to me and, in a sweet voice, said, “Can you please spot me?” How could I say no? So there I was standing over the lovely super-model as she bench-pressed.

            That evening, I regaled my friends with my “Cindy” story paying particular attention, and providing minute detail, to one part of her anatomy. It eventually led my wife to comment, “You’d think he never saw nipples before.” Which – in turn – led to my retort, “not like those!”

            “Famous people” stories. I have dozens of them from my travels and I use them with the guys in here who are enamored with fame. I tell them their lives matter as much as Jay Z or Snoop Dogg or the dozens of other celebrities they wish they were like. I tell them the same thing I told my older son after I’d spent a night at a high dollar craps table with the producers for the band Coldplay. My son asked me “Did you get your picture with them?” I responded, “They should have asked to get a picture with me!”

            We live in a world that is obsessed with fame and celebrity. But, the truth is, people are people and the real work, the real decency, isn’t in your fame, it’s how you treat each other. I understand why these guys “want” the lives they see these other folks living. But for me, as great looking as Ms. Crawford was, I value the moments I have with these young guys a whole lot more.

            Six degrees from “name the celebrity.” That isn’t what’s important. Heart, courage, mercy, those matter … and never more so than for guys putting their lives back together in here.

Holy Moses! A Running Insight

I was out getting my laps in on Sunday morning and thinking, as I usually do, about the Bible passages I read at 4:00 am.  I was a guy who in my past life, my “good” life, thought I understood everything there was to pretty much any subject.  And religion was no exception.  I’d sit in church every Sunday and run intellectual jousting matches in my mind with the minister’s sermons.

Perhaps one of the very good things in having gone through this is all that arrogance and self-assurance has been stripped bare.  I never believed people were “born again”.  That misconception was stripped away from me in the fear and despair of a jail cell.

Still, I never cease to be amazed at the relevance of my morning reading on my current circumstances.  Such was the case Sunday as I lapped around the gravel track.

The story is pretty simple.  The Israelites have left the bondage of Egypt.  God has parted the Dead Sea to make their escape and prove His power.  He’s provided water when they were thirsty and “manna” – food – when they hungered.  The Israelites are camped at the base of God’s Holy Mountain.  Moses heads up the mountain to talk to the “Big Guy”.  He tells his brother Aaron – the chief priest – to keep everything as is.  “I’ll be back in a little while.”  Off goes Moses with his trusted charge, Joshua.

And what happens?  Moses’ tent flap isn’t even fully closes when “the people” decide he’s gone forever, never to return.  “We’re in the middle of nowhere.  Do something!” they shout at Aaron.  “Make us a new God to lead us.”  Aaron does just that.  They take gold and make a calf idol and then have a huge party.

Meanwhile, up on the mountain, somewhere into his forty day visit, Moses is given God’s laws.  The Ten Commandments.  And God let’s Moses in on a little news:  the Israelites have made a gold idol in place of God.  God, understandably, is pissed.  “That’s it.  I’m wiping them all out.  I’ll find another chosen people.”

Imagine God, having performed miracle after miracle for the Israelites and every time a little difficulty arises they immediately act out of impatience and show they have no faith in His promises.  They turn to idols instead of God.   As I ran, over and over I thought “impatience”, and reacting, turning to idols instead of quietly, faithfully trusting in God’s promises.

But then Moses does something extraordinary.  He talks, really talks, to God.  He spoke to God as a friend and asks him “Let me handle this.  Don’t give up on these people.”  And God heard him.  God said “OK Moses, we’ll do things your way.”  Can you even imagine just talking to God like you would your best friend and God saying “OK, I hear  you.”

The story continues with Moses and Joshua carrying the stone tablets back and Moses sees the Israelites, his people, running around a golden idol in lust and immorality and he snaps.  He’s so angry he throws the stone tablets and breaks them.  He finds Aaron and says “what the hell is going on?”  And Aaron whines and tells him “they made me do it.”  Moses ends up getting a handful of righteous guys together and they slaughter 3000 of their fellow Israelites who were leading the orgy.  Moses can’t believe it.  He had done everything he could to get his people to the Promised Land and look how they acted!

He tells them to go into mourning and repent and he heads back up the mountain.  This time, having another conversation with God, he has to convince Him to keep leading “His people”.

My mind played through this story over and over as I ran.  See, the past few weeks I’d been running more, as if some way I could outrun the disappointment and hurt I was feeling about being replaced in my family and with so many of my friends.  I figured if I just ran long enough all that junk would dissolve into laps.  As I ran Sunday, the story kept rewinding.  What did it all mean?

Impatience.  Things happen and human nature tells us to “act”.  “There’s no time to waste.”  Unhappy in your circumstances?  Disappointed with your spouse?  Do something.  Except, over and over God says “Hold on.  Be patient.  Have faith.”  Too often, we react, take matters into our own hands and rationalize the consequences.  Whether it’s justifying stealing $2 million, or divorcing your spouse of 28 years, we act based on our finite understanding of the circumstances instead of saying “OK God.  I’ll ride this out.  I’ll wait on you.”

And our answer to our problems almost always involves creating an idol.  We find comfort for our decisions in things:  new cars, vacations, shopping sprees, or in our self-righteous attitude, “Look how well I’m doing!” or we rationalize our less than Godly behavior “Of course I had to divorce her.  I need to be fulfilled.”  And things get worse.

Then there are the other two parts of the story that hit me as well.  The first was Moses’ anger.  He spends all this time convincing God to let him handle things and he sees everything he worked for in shambles and he reacts and smashes God’s law to pieces.  Anger destroys.

And then there was Moses talking to God.  God spoke to him as a friend.  What an image.  God saying “talk to Me Moses.  Tell Me what you think.”  It’s funny, but in my worst days I would go out and run and just tell God what a mess everything was.  I’d tell him how much I was struggling and, within the day, either a verse would spring up, or a letter would arrive that would let me know God was saying “I’m with you.”

So what did I learn on my Sunday run?  To be patient.  God will handle things in His time and in His own way.  My responsibility is to be patient, trust Him and keep talking to Him.

And there’s one other thing I was reminded of.  Anger solves nothing.  Love, on the other hand, never quits.  Love never gives up.

The actress Jodie Foster made a remarkable statement the other day about her close relationship with the embattled Mel Gibson.  Foster, an atheist said more about a Christ like approach to relationships than anything I’ve seen in a long time.

“I can’t defend what he does…but, he’s someone I love.  And when you love somebody, you don’t run away from them when they’re struggling.”  Holy Moses!  We could all use a friend, a soul mate like that!