pastorrudytlc

Back in 1979, the music group Supertramp had a huge hit with a record called “The Logical Song.”  The lyrics went something like this:

“When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.”

 Did you catch the significance of that last line?  “Please tell me who I am.”  I wonder if it is wise to even attempt to ask another person or an earthly group or tribe to describe or define the regal purpose of a human life!  Maybe the trouble is that we people all depend way too much upon one another for our labels and our instructions and our roadmaps to a destination where our lasting legacy may be discovered.  But one thing is for sure and that is deep down inside of each and every one of us we know that we were designed to live a story bigger than ourselves.  There is a nagging, almost gnawing feeling that disrupts the soul and calls and cries out for something so much more than what another daily lap around the mindless track of status quo can ever offer us!  And isn’t it so often in the quiet of the middle of a sleepless night when the noise of our utter despair can deafen our ears- although nobody else may hear a sound? 

 Why has the music stopped?  Why do we who were once so hopeful and full of wonder at youth become so hard and so full of woeful whining as adults?  Is comfort a legitimate goal to strive for?  Is the accumulation of wealth and stuff enough to satisfy the yearnings of a hungry heart?  Is settling into the same old ruts and routine actually more a prescription for spiritual rot rather than being respected as a responsible grown up?  Have we resigned ourselves to just being content to sit in the audience and watch television as others tackle the tales that perhaps we were actually authored to perform?  Is it time to wake up before the credits of our own short years begin to scroll down on the screen marking the reality of my days as “that’s all folks?” 

 I must admit to myself that I use my age as an excuse to not jump in and live as I know I still can!  I am not dead yet so why am I telling myself and believing the lies that my best days are behind me?  That is just not true!  There are still challenges that I believe God has put my name on to go after.  I need to be willing to pack up my laziness and put it back in the basement where it belongs and go up into the attic of my mind and break out my candor and my curiosity and my confidence and kick into high gear once more!  I have understood that what we call “The American Dream” isn’t worth waiting for and definitely not worth wasting my fragile days dying to get to!  I want to be part of an epic blockbuster adventure that is filled with many meaningful and loving relationships. The lives around me are the true treasure of this pilgrimage!  I want to dive into moving and miraculous opportunities that I know I can’t pull off without my constant companionship with the God who made me! I long for and desire a diet of daily digests of new truths and life lessons so that I may learn and know and experience fully which will keep active each and every precious one of my senses that God has equipped me with!  The only way I will know that my day has come and gone is when I stop breathing!  But even that for me will only be a change of venues and not a conclusion to life itself!

 There is much more I can say but for now I will leave you with this thought and that is the only logical thing we can all do is take a close and honest and reflective look into the depths of our souls and answer these questions:  “Do I like who I have become?”  “Would I continue reading my life story if I was the observer and not the main subject?”  “Do I still have time to rewrite and edit where this tale may be going?”  Answer well for your future and how you will be remembered depends upon it!  What’s your story???

Last night I went to see Middle Township High School’s musical production of Camelot…  I have something in common with that play as we were both born and were introduced to this earth back in 1960 and I guess that is why I have always felt a strange but very real kinship with it…  John F. Kennedy had just been elected as our new president in the fall of that year and when Camelot hit Broadway in December I was a hopeful and still show room new 10 month old infant.      

Maybe it is because I too am a dreamer, constantly yearning and longing for a world that is so much better than the one we have got, that my heart and soul so resonates with the driving theme of this play which is to get to a place where “we fight for right and not might… and celebrate the reality that “chivalry is not dead but very much alive and well…”

We had it once in the Garden of Eden…  God lovingly planted us in an environment where our sole purpose was to walk with him and enjoy and explore the majestic world around us.  We could express our souls without insecurity and jealousy and an unhealthy competitive nature that blocks so many songs from ever being sung and so many sonnets from ever being composed.  Who really cares if Randy and Paula and Simon think that I have talent and that I am doing alright as longs as the Master encourages me with his “well done my good and faithful servant?”  I was created to blossom and bloom before an audience of One- but I have sold out the rights of my creativity to the wrong one way too many times along the journey…  

And we get caught up in the drama of the scene that we are stuck in because of the times and places we are born.  And today in 2011, so far removed from the knights of the roundtable in King Arthur’s court and what seems like forever since the times of John and Jacqueline we live today in a chaotic situation where the politically correct values have hijacked our very uniqueness which unfortunately never gets to see the light of day.  And I yearn for something so much more than what I am served in the daily cafeteria of earth!  I want substance and soul and grit and genuine human touch and the encouragement to fly like a hawk knowing that I was designed by my God to soar like an eagle and not putz around like a chicken!  I want love to be passionate and compassionate and filled with the promises that, “no- never will I leave you- winter, springtime, summer or fall… No never will I leave you, no, not at all!”  I want Camelot!      

 So I continue on, with my feet on the ground in this world, but knowing undoubtedly that my heart really belongs in another…  And I won’t give up the quest for Camelot for I know in my DNA that it is real…  It is the place where grace and truth are the laws of the land and it is the field that I know this fertile spirit within me will one day be planted to be given the proper time and nourishment to grow and flourish into the harvest that I was meant to be!

Until that season- my message to all of you must be the same challenge that Arthur gave to Tom at the end of the play:  “Don’t let it be forgot… That once there was a spot… For one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot…” 

What was once- will be again- and I don’t want to miss its revival!

WHY BIBLE STUDY IS IMPORTANT!!!  This is how Solomon’s Bride would look if we took his words to her literally… Let’s just say that she wouldn’t be much to look at but she probably would have scared all the rats out of the neighborhood!!! 

 I am a firm believer that I have more regret in my life caused by the times that I have chosen to be way too tentative and overly cautious rather than just jump right in and “go for it” which, by the way, is much more my nature!  I don’t understand the value of committee meetings that take a wonderful idea that has so much potential and then just talk it to death and deflate it to the point that the best anyone can do with it when it is over is “table” it for another day!  I abhor the times in my walk when I seem to live more to just get by rather than attacking new challenges- and I wince when I recall all those “what could have been” moments if only I would have gone when the light turned a bright green!

Is swinging at a 3 balls and 0 strikes count a good idea?  Now most baseball coaches are going to blow a gasket over what I am about to share.  Any coach worth his weight is going to give his player the “take” sign- which means “don’t you dare swing”- which is also called giving the player the “red” light- when his batter is up there with such a delicious count. But I have always disagreed strongly with that philosophy!  I personally think that too many ballplayers allow too many hittable pitches go right on by them as they admire them with their bats cemented firmly upon their shoulders!

I think that when a hitter is ahead of a pitcher 3-0, the best bet for them is to be ready to swing away.  It is what is called giving the guy “a green light.”  The pitcher, who is already under some pressure to not walk the batter, is looking to throw a strike and most of the time he is going to offer something that lands right smack down the middle of the plate.  A pitcher thinking that the batter is going to be taking will more often than not serve up a lollipop on a silver platter and the sad thing is the batter can’t even partake of it if he wanted to because the coach has prematurely tied up his hands!  I say if it is a fat fastball then hit the living daylights out of it!  Don’t give up something great for something else that might never come again!

 How many ballgames have you seen where your guy takes a juicy pitch right down the middle at 3-0 and then will haphazardly swing at garbage on 3-1?  And then before you know it, the count is back to 3-2 and the advantage for the hitter is gone!  What are we waiting for if what we get is what we want?  I always approached the plate, when I was a player, as if I was never going to give myself a red light by taking a green light kind of offering!  Maybe I was called an aggressive hitter- but the key truth of it all was that I was a good hitter.  I hit the ball because I went up to the plate looking to swing the bat! 

 Life is too short to be sitting around when the light turns green! I am coming out against those who live with a looking for a “red light” mentality!  It is like they want to sit on the bench!  It is like the majority is satisfied to want to take a walk rather than go for the fences!  Jesus told his followers to “GO!”  The Lord challenged us to get out of our easy chairs and head into the entire world and go and be light and go and be salt and go and make a difference and go and love people just like He would!  He inspired us to be doers of His word and not merely those who read it and then ignore it a few minutes later!  It is like we Christians are satisfied to just read the book and not star in the movie!  As Senator Robert Kennedy once said, “Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?”  I say now that is living with a green light mentality!

 I want to be wise and I want to be smart, but I also don’t want to be looking for excuses to not do something- but to pursue it with everything that is within me!  I want to live and if I lose- I want to strike out swinging and not because I was afraid to try!  Is there something right now that is eating away at you and you have kicked your heart in neutral when you should be in overdrive?  Are you rationalizing about something you should be running full speed ahead after?  Faith believes that what God leads you into, He will take care of you all the way through!  No, you might not have all your pieces in place- but isn’t that why they call it faith- because there must be room for God to show up?  Is God giving you a green and you are reading it as red?  Are you guilty of an over analysis paralysis?  It is funny to me that most of the critics up in the broadcast booth couldn’t hit the broad sign of the barn on a windy day with the breeze blowing in the right direction!  I am not in it to do it like they would do it!  I am up there swinging for the light is green and the day is here and it is our moment to make or break a miracle!  What color are you seeing today?