LAX Lessons

by Joanie Butman

While watching the NCAA Lacrosse championships last weekend, one player on the Denver team caught my eye – #33. It had more to do with his style of play than the long braid he sported, though that was certainly distinctive. Observing him was reminiscent of watching the Thompson trio at last year’s lax finals.

For those of you with no interest in college lacrosse, the Thompson trio consisted of brother Miles and Lyle along with cousin Ty, who “captivated the lacrosse world and formed what is regarded as one of history’s best collegiate lacrosse attack lines. The University of Albany student-athletes come from the Mohawk and Onondaga Nations out of upstate New York. They are incredibly dedicated to their people, heritage and traditions.”**

During their stellar lacrosse career the Thompsons became a symbol of hope and inspiration to Native American youngsters following in their wake. Bill Tierney, Denver’s coach, applauded Albany’s Coach Marr for “allowing the Thompsons to play the way they play. It’s a turnover once in a while, but it’s beautiful in the impact it’s hopefully going to have, both from what people see in them and see in the beauty of the game and why they play.”***

My daughter accused me of racial profiling, but I knew just by #33’s game that he shared more than a hairdo with the Thompsons. As the final game was a boring event (from a Terp's point of view), I decided to surf the internet to learn more about #33. I wasn’t surprised to discover that Zach Miller shares a Native American heritage with the Thompsons. They were all raised on reservations in upstate New York and played for the Iroquois Nationals. However, in order to truly appreciate the beauty and spirit of lacrosse to the Native Americans, you have to understand that they consider it much more than a sport. It is “a way of life, part of a deep tradition and faith.”** The Iroquois Nationals’ website explains,

Our Grandfathers told us many stories that would relate to lacrosse and how one should conduct themselves and the importance of the INDIVIDUAL to the game. Lacrosse was a gift to us from the Creator, to be played for his enjoyment and as a medicine game for healing the people. The Haudenosaunee* people know that all creatures, no matter how big or small, are significant and have a contribution to make to the overall cycle of life.

Haven't our ancestors left us similar stories illustrating rules of conduct, the intrinsic value of every individual, and the responsibility to use God's gift of life to serve others? The Bible is full of them.

So what does any of this have to do with choosing wisely, you might be wondering? We can all choose to view these boys as an example of living out our faith in a way that:

1. Distinguishes us as members of God’s team.
2. Uses our gifts and talents to honor our Creator.
3. Respects the value and contribution of every person regardless of size or significance.
4. Offers hope and inspiration to others.

Miller’s signature braid may have been a clue to his heritage, but anyone can grow their hair and wear it in a braid. It doesn’t make them an Indian anymore than wearing a cross makes you a Christian. Both are simply meant as outward signs of an inward condition. The bigger question is whether you choose to wear an identifying symbol as decoration or identification as there is a definitive value system attached. Even so, that doesn't mean everyone who wears one lives up to it 100% of the time.

Racial profiling may be taboo from a human perspective, but spiritually speaking, profiling in a Christian sense transcends race and unifies us as members of God’s family – brothers and sisters in Christ. Can’t we all aspire to choose to live out our own beliefs with the passion, dedication and determination that these athletes embody? In the same way I was able to recognize Zach Miller’s Native American style of play, I’d like others to recognize the manner in which I live as indicative of my faith and honoring to my Creator. As the song goes,

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love,

Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

Choose to play life with love. As Zach Miller and the Thompsons exemplify, choosing to play for your Creator with a "clear mind because He's always watching" is a winning strategy in any endeavor.

*Haudenosaunee (pronounced hoe-dee-no-SHOW-nee) means “people who build a house” or “People of the Longhouse.” The name refers to an alliance of six American Indian nations – the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora – that is commonly known as the Iroquois Confederacy.

**http://www.espnfrontrow.com/2014/05/thompson-trio/

***http://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/albany-s-thompson-trio-captivated-lacrosse-world-and-impact-choudl-change-the-game/28731

Dancing with THE Star

by Joanie Butman

I received some distressing news recently. My long-standing Pilates partner informed me she would not be returning in September. Upon hearing her revelation my first thought was, “You’re breaking up with me?!” Finding another partner will be like a new season of Dancing with the Stars. I’m currently auditioning potential candidates, if anyone’s interested.

All kidding aside, it’s not easy pairing up with someone for synchronized anything. I have a newfound respect for dancers – especially since watching Dancing with the Stars. There are so many factors to consider: different schedules, ages, abilities, body types, tempos, and personalities.

It took some time for my current partner and I to develop a comfortable rhythm. We didn’t know each other well when we started. In fact, we didn’t pick each other but were assigned, much like the teams in DWTS though neither of us can claim celebrity status. It wasn’t smooth in the beginning, but as we became accustomed to the exercises and each other, our efforts began to flow, effortlessly in sync, even when one of us was in pain or just feeling sluggish. In fact, it was at those times that the value of a duet class became obvious. Her presence spurred me on despite how I felt. As our instructor always reminds us, “Energy creates energy.” I admit there are days when I just don’t want to get out of bed, but the fact that I would be letting my partner down and that the classes are prepaid, is all the impetus I need – most of the time. I still have a few unexcused absences on my record.

This type of partnership is exactly what God wants with all of us. Much like my rapport with my Pilates friend, it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes lots of fits and starts in our attempts to sync our lives with the Divine. Our initial efforts feel clumsy and awkward. Too often, we stubbornly insist on leading when in reality we should be taking our cues from Him. And who isn’t tempted to give up on some days when the routine seems forced and onerous? On the days I just don’t feel like participating in the dance called life, the fact that Jesus has already paid the cost for my failures is the only motivation I need to get up and show up. I simply put my feet on His, the way little girls do with their earthly Dads, and let Him do all the work. Even with that said, I have to admit that I have a spotty record of unexcused absences on that account as well. As with any team, the more you practice the easier the rhythm becomes until your connection is seamless, and your steps lighter, more joyful and infinitely more fun.

Like I said, I didn’t choose my Pilates partner any more than the most recent winning team of DWTS. She was chosen for me. Spiritually speaking, God chooses us first, but we still have to make the ultimate choice to surrender to His lead. When we allow Him to be our choreographer, instructor and partner, we all become winners despite our ‘dancing’ abilities or lack thereof. He may assign us certain moves unique to our S.H.A.P.E., but He always allows free form in our decision to perform, and in the style we execute the dance should we choose to do so. Finally, the DWTS results announced this week may have been determined by public opinion, but the only vote we need to be concerned with is God’s. And from His perspective, we’re all a 10.

Will you choose to dance with THE Star?

Dancing With God

When I meditated on the word Guidance,

I kept seeing “dance” at the end of the word.

I remember reading that doing God’s will is a lot like dancing.

When two people try to lead, nothing feels right.

The movement doesn’t flow with the music,

and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky.

When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead,

both bodies begin to flow with the music.

One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back

or by pressing lightly in one direction or another.

It’s as if two become one body, moving beautifully.

The dance takes surrender, willingness,

and attentiveness from one person

and gentle guidance and skill from the other.

My eyes drew back to the word Guidance.

When I saw “G” I thought of God, followed by “u” and “i”.

“God”, “u” and “i” dance.

As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust

that I would get guidance about my life.

Once again, I became willing to let God lead.

My prayer for you today is that God’s blessings

and mercies be upon you on this day and everyday.

May you abide in God as God abides in you.

Dance together with God, trusting God to lead

and to guide you through each season of your life.

Author Unkown

 Dedicated with love and appreciation to Roberta and Robin:

*S.H.A.P.E.   Your Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences  (Rick Warren)

Open House

by Joanie Butman

We’ve had two broker open houses thus far in an effort to market our house. Having strangers wandering around your home, poking into spaces where you’ve crammed all your ‘junk,’ is such a weird, invasive feeling. As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve spent the better part of the winter decluttering, cleaning, painting and primping our home (not to mention the 18 years of ongoing renovations). With that in mind, you can imagine how emotional it is to listen to strangers critique your efforts. The comments run the gamut, with some appreciating what we’ve done and others not. You hear it all: too much this, too little that, too overvalued, too understated.

I think many of us are tempted to do the same in our personal life, tucking away the ‘stuff’ we think others will judge, presenting ourselves only in our polished, pristine condition. That may work with people to some extent, but it doesn’t lend itself to authentic relationships. When it comes to God though, every day is an open house. He knows every secret hiding place no matter how deep in your soul you’ve buried it. He likes to hone in on the clutter you stubbornly refuse to surrender, much like the storage locker full of things my husband is reluctant to dispose of because you never know when you’re going to need hundreds of used Pendaflex folders, or a lovely couch we have now paid five times the value for in storage fees. Whatever is in there, I can guarantee it isn’t worth the price of storage. And neither is our spiritual junk, which is infinitely more costly.

God specializes in rooting out those hidden places and infusing the light of His love into them bringing our junk where it needs to be – into His divine swap shop, bathed in the mercy of His healing grace. He’s not interested in our Sunday best. Anyone can be a 'model' Christian for an hour on Sunday, just like I can keep my house clean for two hours during an open house though even that is a challenge now that the kids are home from college. God’s more interested in what goes on behind the polished facade when the messiness of life creeps in.

In much the same way, when we look at houses, curb appeal might initially attract us, but once inside, it’s the infrastructure that draws our closest attention. We could make any house look nice, but if the foundation or the infrastructure of the house isn’t sound, we’re not buying, and neither is God when we attempt to hide the cracks in our soul.

Last Sunday, Tim Keller asked, “What do you really look like?” Interesting question in a society where so much attention is focused on outward beauty. It forced me to evaluate whose opinion I choose to look to for affirmation. Is my self worth based on what other people see, like my house, looks, talent, occupation, service or finances? That’s a slippery slope as people are fickle, and based on the glut of differing opinions regarding our home, beauty truly is in the eyes of the beholder. As such, my true beauty can only be found in the eyes of God. My significance as His child is unchanging and more valuable than the opinions of this world.

That said, when it comes to real estate, the condition of my heart doesn’t enter the equation, and the only opinion that actually matters is the potential buyer’s. Not everyone will value what we’ve lovingly restored. God, on the other hand, is the ultimate restoration authority. He can salvage the most damaged life and transform it into something magnificent. In some ways it is similar to our rescue of the dilapidated barn on our property, where we poured in a new foundation and retained many of its original features adapting them to new uses. Their new functions “fit into and enhance the existing space so well it seems as if they were originally designed for those purposes.”* Sounds eerily familiar to what God does with the cracked and shattered areas of our lives. Our barn restoration may have won an award for Best Adaptive Reuse of Materials, but I can’t think of anyone who deserves that honor more than God. He can take anything we choose to surrender and recycle it for His purposes, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary by revealing the inner beauty that He could see all along.

So what do you really look like? And on whose opinions do you choose to base your worth?

*http://www.agooslovera.com/portfolio/barn-renovations/

Prayer Paralysis

by Joanie Butman

When I mentioned my discomfort with audible prayers last week, I had no idea it was such a common fear – probably because I’m surrounded by so many eloquent and faith-filled supplicants. Determined to overcome my prayer panic, I searched for advice online. I discovered a plethora of support and suggestions for victims of this particular malady. In fact, I felt like I stumbled into an online, 12-step program for prayer paralytics.

I read testimonials mirroring my own visceral responses of terror including a pounding heart, sweaty palms (particularly embarrassing if you’re holding hands), stammering, verbal paralysis and/or a resounding mental voice screaming “RUN!” I was astonished to discover that many of these confessions came from PASTORS and others in ministry! I was in good company.

Like any reputable recovery program, I was directed to a bevy of tips to assist me in conquering my prayer-induced anxiety. Amidst the myriad of counsel and guidance, simplicity and brevity were strongly encouraged. As one website warned, “don’t let your mouth keep moving after your heart has been heard.” Funny, Matthew had a similar suggestion in his gospel. “When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” He then goes on to say something that I found most reassuring, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” That truth certainly takes the pressure off.

If you struggle for words, another direction was to pray Jesus’ own words back to Him, clinging to the thousands of promises He makes. He’s given us a book of them for every occasion. Thankfully, paraphrasing is acceptable as my memory is not what it used to be. There’s even a specific promise to hold on to for prayer paralysis in Romans 8:26, “God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.” (MSG) That’s the promise I’ve chosen to keep in my arsenal for the next time timidity strikes.

Finally, I discovered that if all else fails, there’s nothing wrong with “Dear Lord, exactly what she said. Amen.” This may be an oversimplification, but choosing to affirm or take cues from another’s prayers is perfectly legit. There’s no punishment for plagiarizing prayers.

In addition to spurring my research for remedial assistance, last week’s article prompted a number of conversations on prayer. I was explaining to a friend that when I’m coerced into praying out loud, it feels like a command performance lacking sincerity. She pointed out that I was making it all about me. So true, isn’t everything? Just kidding, or as my grandmother would say, ‘half-fun, full-earnest.’ An all-about-me attitude seems to be pervasive in today’s society, and I am not exempt. Regardless, having the attention on me is exactly what I dislike about it. Another friend wisely, but not quite as gently, commented, “Get over yourself. It’s not about your performance. Concentrate on WHO you’re praying to instead of worrying about others rating your prayer proficiency.”

The expression ‘God is more interested in our character than our comfort’ certainly applies in this matter. I’ve been praying for guidance as to how to get off the spiritual plateau I’m on. ‘Through prayer’ is obviously His answer, which is why He keeps putting me in situations where I am challenged to step out of my comfort zone.

My own tidbit of advice to fellow sufferers of praying-out-loud-in-a-group nerves would be to choose to follow Peter’s instruction to ‘cast all your anxiety on Jesus because he cares for you.’ I choose to dump all my other ‘issues’ in His lap, so why not this one?

Some good resources:

http://www.beliefnet.com/Prayables/Prayer-Galleries/Praying-Out-Loud.aspx?p=2

http://theeasybible.com/1146-are-you-embarrassed-when-people-ask-you-to-pray-out-loud/

https://www.wesleyan.org/doc/assets/downloads/focusedprayer/c2p_PrayingOutLoud.pdf

http://christianmomthoughts.com/9-ways-to-get-over-the-fear-of-praying-out-loud/

http://howtopraythescriptures.com

My God Winks

by Joanie Butman

Learning to hear God is a challenge for anyone because it is unique to each individual. There isn’t a prescribed method of communicating with the Divine, which is why it takes a lot of trial, error, and above all, practice. Plus, it’s also always evolving. I’ve never met anyone who actually hears Him audibly, but that’s not to say they don’t exist. When discussing hearing God’s voice, the most frequently asked question is “How?”

God has a love language for everyone, and the key is determining yours so you can recognize His ‘communications.’ If you haven’t read any of the Godwink books by SQuire Rushnell, they are an excellent (and light-hearted) place to begin learning how to discern the ‘voice’ of God. Rushnell describes the term he coined as:

… what some people would call a coincidence, an answered prayer, or simply an experience where you'd say, ‘Wow, what are the odds of that?!’ What do godwinks mean? Think about when you were a kid and someone you loved gave you a little wink across the dining room table...Mom or Dad or Grandma. You didn't say ‘What do you mean by that?’ You knew. It meant: ‘Hey kid, I'm thinking about you right now.’ That's what a godwink is too: a message of reassurance from above, directly to you, out of six billion people on the planet, saying ‘Hey kid...I'm thinking of you! Keep the faith! You're never alone.’*

I like to think of them as hugs from Heaven and will share my most recent one as an example.

As you know, our house is on the market, and I’ve spent the better part of the past year attending open houses educating myself on the current real estate market. My concern is not that we won’t sell the house, but that we won’t have someplace to go when we do. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve become a house stalker. As such, I have scoped out my favorite homes with the intention of dropping the owners a note to see if they have plans on moving in the near future. Tuesday morning I passed one such house and felt compelled to go home and do a reverse lookup to see if it might belong to someone I knew peripherally. It didn’t, so I sent out a few emails to see if any of my peers recognized the name. Negative.

That tactic may sound overly aggressive or even creepy to someone more timid, but it’s actually not unusual. In fact, that’s how my parents sold their house. On the way home from Florida one year, they prayed for guidance in regard to downsizing. When they arrived home, there was a note in their mailbox with an excellent offer (sight unseen), which they gladly accepted and moved shortly thereafter. THAT is a Godwink.

Anyway, I attended a prayer meeting Tuesday, and for the second time in a week I was put on the spot as the moderator asked us to go around the room verbalizing our prayer requests. We then had to pray for the person on our left. Clearly God is trying to teach me something, because based on my recent prayer blog, it’s no secret that this is not something at which I excel – particularly praying out loud. I grew up Catholic. We don’t do that, unless it’s the rosary of course. Spontaneous prayer leaves me a little tongue-tied. Hard to imagine, I know.

I looked for the nearest exit, but there was no gracious way to escape. As the weakest link in this prayer platoon, I pitied my assigned partner. Listening to everyone else’s eloquent and heartfelt responses, I felt unprepared and obliged to come up with something meaningful. I could either throw out something simple, or I could give them a list a mile long. I went with simplicity and asked for guidance concerning our move. Never gave it a second thought.

The next morning I attended a Pilates class. My partner was not available for our next session so the instructor asked if I would mind being paired with Jane Smith – the name of the person who owns the house I was stalking. Coincidence? I think not. I don’t know how many people live in New Canaan, but I can't imagine any actuary predicting the odds of that particular person being a fill-in as my Pilates partner.

Does this mean she is going to sell me her house? Who knows? I don’t think that was the intended message, which I interpreted as “I heard your request. Relax, I’m on it.” Why do I think that? Because historically, He’s always been my most trusted real estate agent. His answer may be that He wants us to stay put, in which case, no buyer will materialize. Either way, it was His way of confirming once again that He’s got me covered.

I could go on with plenty of other examples, but it’s more fun to discover your own. Once your eye is trained to recognize them, you will be surprised and delighted at their frequency. I invite you to share your Godwink stories at the end of this article. It’s inspirational to read how God works in the lives of others as each account reveals a Father that is intimately involved in every aspect of His children’s lives.

With all that said, God speaks to me most clearly through writing – probably because He knows words are my love language. If you’re a gardener, He might speak to you through nature. If you’re an athlete, He might speak to you through sports. If you’re a musician, music will be your medium. You get the picture. Another good read is Gary Chapman's, God Speaks Your Love Language.

No one can determine your unique relationship and communiqué with God, but I can tell you once you choose to tune into the frequency He’s reserved just for you, it will be well worth the effort as it becomes a life-long conversation. 

*https://www.whengodwinks.com/faqs/