Counting on Your Crew When the Weather Gets Stormy

Who do you count on when the weather gets rough?  Do you have the right crew assembled for when the next storm system comes through?

At a recent Lumunos retreat, we looked at the story of Jesus calming the storm  A part of our conversation was about who constitutes our crew when we face the storms of life.  Story after story was told about the importance of having people with us when we face those times of trial.   

There is not one kind of crew member.  Often times we need a variety of friends when we are in heavy weather.  A few of the types of crew we identified on the retreat:

• the “I can be totally honest with you” friend

• the “Sure I’ll come over and cut your lawn because you are in a storm and have no time to attend to routine chores” friend

• the “I need to tell you as a friend that you have a storm brewing in your life and you don’t even see it coming” friend.  

• the “Do you want to pray about this?” friend

We also talked about the unexpected crew member, the person who is outside our preconceived notion of who are friends are.  But by the grace of God, they show up and help us get through the storm. 

Soon we will be in Holy week, which represented a kind of perfect storm for Jesus.  It is almost as if he experienced all the kinds of trials we face, concentrated in a few days.  I wonder if he had cultivated his crew in part as preparation for this storm.  Some of these crew members let him down in big ways.  But he too experienced the grace of a stranger stepping out of the crowd to help carry his cross. 

Question:  As we head into Holy Week:  What kind of crew member do you need for a current or upcoming storm?  What kind of crew member are you called to be for another?

by Doug Wysockey-Johnson

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St. Patrick’s Day and Green Pants

The guy at my local YMCA is wearing a big green fuzzy hat today.  He is also decked out in some snazzy lime green pants. I look at him and I smile. He looks so wonderfully goofy that I have to grin and pick my head up.

Today I am a stressed out guy with way too much on his plate.  Today I am taking myself and the world too seriously. I would like to attribute that to my deeply spiritual Lenten practices, but really I am just wound a little tight. And this is where the guy in the green pants comes in.

The world needs people in funny hats.  It is no small thing to bring a smile to another’s face. Sometimes it can turn a whole day around, and who knows what might happen after that?


Joy is closer to God than seriousness.  Why?  Because when I am serious I tend to be self centered, but when I am joyful I tend to forget myself.
            Krister Stendahl, emeritus Bishop of Stockholm

by Doug Wysockey-Johnson
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Sankofa

Sometimes the best thing to do when you need to go forward is to look back. Today I am learning this from the Akan people of Ghana.

“Sankofa” is the word they use to describe the learning that comes from revisiting the past.  Sankofa is critical for moving into the future. 

There are so many other examples of people using this wisdom, I think it must be hard wired into the universe.  Just in our culture and country:

• Organizations look at their past as a part of strategic planning for the future;
• Therapists help clients review the past as a tool to help them live differently in the future;
• Athletes study film of past games in order to play differently in upcoming contests.

I have an 80 year old friend who begins each day by looking at his journal from 10 years ago to the day.  This is not someone who is stuck in the past.  He says the looking back gives him perspective as he lives into the challenges of the current day.

Is it possible to get stuck in the past, or dwell there in unhealthy ways?  Sure.  But it is equally possible to refuse to learn from the past, which is its own form of stupidity.

To a people who stood at the crossroads, God seemed to invite this kind of reflection:  
Stand at the crossroads, and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.  (Jeremiah 6:16) 

Sometimes the best thing to do when you need to move forward is to look back.

Reflection Question:  What part of your life could use a little “Sankofa?”
by Doug Wysockey-Johnson
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Long View, Short View, & Call

Are you taking the 30,000 foot view, appreciating where you are on the journey to live your call in the world? Or, are you focusing only on your toe tips, managing the very next step, as best you can make it? Either way, it's a place of faith. Here's another exploration in snowshoeing to give a visual of what taking the long view, and the short view might be like for you!


by Tiffany Montavon
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