"Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz"

What’s the message here? I think it’s good news. You ask Santa Claus for stuff. Not God. And most of what we ask God for is stuff. God isn’t eBay or Amazon.com. God isn't a micromanager. In those times of my life when I’ve believed that I most need a break what I’ve asked God for is peace in my own heart and soul; I’ve asked God to not give up on me and to be a presence in me.

When things have been going well, I forget to thank God for the day, for my good fortune, for my happiness, for the loved ones in my life. When things haven’t gone so well, eventually I’ll get around to asking God for the “right things”.

I remember a time in my life about 20 years ago. My children were young. I was unemployed and devastated personally, psychologically and spiritually. I slept on the couch rather than with my wife believing myself to be unworthy of even the comfort of bed or of being beside my wife. I would pray each morning when I woke up, “Lord please take me today, please end this misery.” And things didn’t get any better.

Then I changed what I would ask God for in the gray dawn as my brain would slowly come alive, the household still and the world quiet. I would ask God to be a presence in me, to be with me and help me get through the day. And life got better. I quit asking God for stuff. And instead invited God to be a part of me.

That’s the Good News this Sunday.

Food for Thought -- The GFW Equation

In the early 80’s, I had a friend named Lew Giesking who was the City Engineer in the small city in northern Iowa where I was the Chamber of Commerce Executive. Lew and I worked closely on a number of projects in the community, from planning a new swimming pool to the extension of infrastructure to a new Industrial Park that the Economic Development Corporation I also headed had purchased on the edge of town.

Our oldest sons were the same age and played on the same Parks and Recreation Baseball team. Occasionally, we’d schedule a meeting and would get together at the baseball field where our boys were playing. We’d have plans and documents spread on the hood of one of our vehicles and would be discussing the project at the same time that we were hollering out encouragement to our kids.

One particular day, as we were talking, I asked him a question. “Lew, I notice that your van has GFW Construction painted on the side of it. Now your name is Giesking, so that’s the ‘G’, but what does the F and W mean? Are those your partners?”

“No,” he responded with a smile, “They’re not. What GFW stands for is my priorities in life, God, Family and Work, in that order.”

Over the years, I’ve remembered that short conversation many times. What a wonderful way to try to live your life. As I think about it, at the time we were engaged in the “FW” part of it. We’d slipped away from our respective offices and ventured into the hot, muggy Iowa summer sun to share something with someone in our family while at the same time get a little work done.

But more importantly, we all sometimes tend to get our priorities a little bit lopsided. Today’s world tries to put an inordinate demand on us for work. We forget about why we work and all too often let what we do become who we are.

We can’t all paint “GFW” on the side of our vehicles. Maybe we need to make up a bunch of those bracelets that were popular a while back that said “WWJD” or “LiveStrong” but this time in big letters have them say “GFW” as a constant reminder of what our true priorities ought to be.

Because, maybe—just maybe--if we honored God and Family more by remembering what our priorities should be, then the Work part would go a lot better too.

Al Lindner as Curly

“One thing,” Curly (Jack Palance) rasped out to Mitch holding up his index finger. “That’s the secret of life.”
And, of course Mitch (Billy Crystal), like the clueless “city slicker” that he was asked, “What’s the one thing?”
“You’ll know,” was Curly’s reply.

I’ve always liked that piece of dialogue in “City Slickers”. Because, no matter how trite it may have actually been, it’s pretty much true. It doesn’t take someone else to tell us what the “one thing” is but it may take a while to reveal itself to us. Especially when we finally figure out that it’s not money or property or anything else that fits the category of “stuff”. It’s usually our family or just a sense of inner peace and contentment which can come from any number of sources—but pretty much never from stuff.

While I’m at it, maybe I should remind you of another pretty good line from another not really good movie. This one’s from 1977 in “Oh God”. During the trial to “prove” whether or not George Burns was God, he was asked by the smarmy evangelist, “Does God answer all prayers?” To which George Burns/God responded, “Yes, but sometimes the answer is No.” And that’s pretty much true too, isn’t it? Too many of us ask God for stuff. You ask Santa Claus for stuff, not God.

So, that brings me to Al Lindner. For the uninitiated, Al’s a fishing guy. He started out in the 70’s in Brainerd, Minnesota with In-Fisherman. He brought science and technique to fishing magazines and television (as opposed to the old “whooooooo boy, lookit that hog bass” type of fishing show). And, he also managed to bring a lot greater entertainment factor to fishing because of it. His first passion was walleye but over the years that passion has expanded to a number of other fresh-water species.

His new venture is called “Angling Edge” and it’s a TV fishing show on Versus (what used to be Outdoor Life Network). Al has always been a bearded, straight forward kind of guy who still carries an accent from his earlier years in northern Wisconsin—although the “dis” and “dat” and “dese” and “dose” in his speech aren’t as noticeable anymore.

Bear with me folks; I’m getting to my point here.

Al Lindner is an unabashed Christian. Evangelical even. But he doesn’t beat you up about it—never has. One of things I really like about watching his new show though is the last few minutes of each episode. These 2 or 3 minutes feature Al talking just a bit about his faith in an unassuming, sharing kind of way—just the right tone, quite frankly, to get me to listen to his brief message.

So the connection to Curly and Mitch and the “one thing” is this: Today Al said that each night when he goes to bed he spends a few minutes thanking God for “just one thing”. Just one good thing from today. Some days, he said, it’s hard to identify that one thing and other days it’s hard to narrow it down to one. But he always manages to do it.

And you know, I liked that. I think I’m going to try to start doing that each night when I crawl into bed next to my wife. Give thanks for just one thing each and every day.

Long ago, I started, and try to make a habit, of each and every morning before I get up of offering a short prayer for “just one thing”—although it’s always the same thing—and that’s help and guidance to get through today. That’s it. Just one thing.

But, maybe giving thanks each night for “just one thing” is one of the best things we can do too.

Mulligans

I’ve done a little recreational golfing in my day. Truth is, I’m lousy at it but long ago I reconciled myself to the notion that the only way to enjoy it is to accept that fact and not get bent out of shape by the drives that fly away curving as though the ball has “Chiquita Banana” printed on it rather than MaxFli or Titelist or by 7-iron shots that are mis-hit and travel maybe 30 yards resulting in an opportunity for an 8-iron shot followed by a wedge, then a sand wedge.

Once at a golf outing, after having shot 146 for 18 I was presented with the prize for the highest score, a rod and reel and the suggestion that I try another recreational sport. I’ve caught more crappie and perch with the rod and reel than I’ve ever had success with a golf club.

At golf outings and in recreational 4-somes there’s usually an opportunity to take a “Mulligan” on a drive, typically one per round or one per 9 holes. It’s a chance to “do-over” a particularly gruesome drive and try to improve (sometimes my Mulligan shots have been worse than the original drive).

Sometimes when I let my mind wander, the thought has occurred to me that it would sure be nice to have a Mulligan in life occasionally. We tend to suffer from our bad decisions, impulses gone awry or our complacency. Wouldn’t we all be better off if we could do a Mulligan. Wouldn’t it be even better if those around us would grant us the grace to exercise a Mulligan and try again to do things differently and achieve the outcome we’d like to have. Wouldn’t it be great if we could use a Mulligan in our personal lives, in our relationships to make better decisions, to be more loving, to be kinder, to be more tolerant, to be more forgiving, to be gentler.

I’ve known people who have absolutely screwed up everything they’ve ever tried. People for whom, if it weren’t for bad judgment would have no judgment at all. People who have given up on themselves and on whom other people have given up as well. Don’t they deserve a Mulligan?

It’s something to keep in the back of your mind. Everyone is deserving of a Mulligan—an opportunity to try again. One thing I believe is that God grants each and every one of us as many Mulligans as we need to get things right. No matter how many bad choices or decisions we make. No matter how badly we have screwed up our lives or our careers. God will give us an unlimited amount of Mulligans. And the good thing is, we only have to get it right once—just once.

I’ve often thought that if God grants us an unlimited amount of Mulligans, then can’t we all try to be a little more like God and allow others extra Mulligans—even when there’s a big part of us that wants to write the person off, to discard him or her as a loser.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we could do that. Mulligans are great in golf. They’re even better when applied to the human condition.

Michael's Blue Worm

Michael just turned 27. He's a dad now himself and lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. I admire and respect him for the man he’s become.

I remember the little boy though--especially the little boy who taught me to slow down and relax and see the world through his eyes. When Michael was about 2, we lived in a beautiful turn of the century frame house in a small town in Iowa. There were at least 8 or 10 full grown maple trees on our lot which made for some serious leaf raking in the fall. The house was only 3 blocks from the downtown of this bustling small, regional retail center and I would often walk the 5 minutes back and forth to my office if I knew I wasn’t going to be gallivanting around town that day and needed my car.

Each evening when I would get home, I would be met by my irrepressible blond toddler holding onto his “Blue Worm”. The “Blue Worm” was a little plastic toy with a seat and 4 wheels that he would sit on and scoot with his feet. He was waiting for me to take him on a nightly adventure around the block with me walking and him riding his Blue Worm. He’d have a grip on the handle bar of the Worm and a big grin on his face. I’d stop and squat down, still in my suit, and tell him, “Give me a minute Mikey to take off my tie and change jackets, OK?” He’d nod, I’d step through the kitchen door, pull off my tie and suit coat and put on my old college fraternity jacket, say “Hi” to my wife and be ready to go because adventures with a 2 year old never wait.

We’d take off down the driveway with its slight slope. Michael would lift his feet and coast until I stepped up and stopped him from going all the way to the street. He’d giggle because he was testing me, playing a little joke on Dad, seeing if I’d let him get all the way down to the street. Sometimes we’d even take our Springer Spaniel, Shorts, and I’d have the thrill of shepherding both a dog and a 2 year old. The dog would stop and sniff every smell he’d come across and lift his leg at nearly every vertical object. And Michael would stop just as often picking up a rock he’d spotted, examining it, offering it to me for my examination then discarding it just as quickly so as to move on to the next item that caught his attention. He’d pick up fallen maple leaves of the brightest hues and give them to me so that he could present them to his mother when we got home—his latest trophy from his most recent sidewalk safari with Dad.

On these nightly sojourns, I quickly learned to slow down, to leave my office and work behind and enjoy the world from the perspective of a 2 year old boy. Stop. Slow Down. Bend low. Look at the treasures that a 2 year old finds in the simplicity of nature that surrounds a residential sidewalk. Listen to the wind rustling in dry leaves as late summer turns to fall and fall marches towards winter. Stoop low to see the light in a little boy’s eyes as he encounters a magical world from much closer than you or I.

As we stoop low we see the wonder, we feel the joy of loving another human being that is a part of us and we learn patience. Because our world moves more quickly, we’ve seen every bent, broken twig we need to see. We’ve raked more leaves than we could ever count. But that 2 year old shows us 1 leaf. Just one. A leaf which to him is perfection in color, in shape, in texture. A leaf worthy of taking home to Mom. So we force aside the impatience we feel rising in ourselves because this is a far more important mission that we’re on. Much more important than sitting back in a recliner and watching the news and getting irked at the cacophony of children. Far more essential to living than sorting through today’s stack of junk mail.

The light of day would be fading as we turn the final corner of our one-square block safari. The temperature would be dropping. I’d have to stop to wipe the double runners oozing from Mike’s nose. And we’d slowly finish our trip. Sometimes with me carrying Mike in one arm, holding the magical Blue Worm in my hand and hanging onto Shorts’ leash with my other as we walked up the driveway. Then I’d deposit Mike on both feet and open the kitchen door handing him today’s treasure for Mom. He’d scamper up the landing, face red from the brisk outdoors while I put the Blue Worm in the corner under the coat hooks, ready and waiting for tomorrow’s grand adventure.

It’s surprising what you can learn from a 2 year old. They’re an open book, filled with unique insights. We just need to remember that there are many times and many circumstances in our personal and professional lives when we can do more and be more by slowing down and stooping low to find the treasures hidden right out in the open. A 2 year old can spot them in an instant. It takes us older folks a little more work.