More Than More

Palms - but not trees

2012-01-27T16:30:00.002-05:00

Hey guys! Ever looked at your hand? Maybe your child's while they were sleeping? Ever noticed all of the things your hands can do? Try moving the fingers, feel the sensation in the fingertips. This is an amazing thing!!

But i want to tell you about something else - the Palmar Aponeurosis - wow, that is a fantastic word - might want to work that into the conversation around the chips and salsa bowl at your super bowl party!

What is it?

Well, look at your wrist and make a fist - see those tendons? then they disappear into the hand!

well, they tendons of the hand need to be fixed in place side to side, but they also need to move back and forth normally so you can move your fingers - otherwise your tendons would be slipping all over the place whenever you used your hand and that would not be good!!!

It is our friend the palmar aponeurosis that holds them in place - like a blanket draped over some logs in a campsite, as my partner said the other day, except that it is vacuum sucked aganist them and allows free movement!!

This is an amazingly intricate design!! And all so that you can hold the hand of the one you love - so that you can express yourself with not just your voice but your hands - so that you can point that finger at the child who is misbehaving - so that i can type this blog post out!

Now, some people would try to convince you that this intricacy happened by accident - that somehow it just all happened like this - ludicrous - this screams of a wonderful God who loves very much and has designed us beautifully.

Now, the cool thing about this is that a God who goes to all the trouble of loving and making a hand so amazingly would nto abandon you! He loves you.

So, you may be having some hard times, but there is a God who love you very much and living life with Him will not make all the bad things go away, but it is better than living without Him! And to remind yourself of Him, all you need to do is wave...

So, my advice is that you notice your hands, they are amazing, and when you do, just thank Him for your hands and invite Him into your day - it might just change your day.

we will be hanging out again at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM, on the 9th of February

there are activities for children and teens

we hope to see you there!

January 26th 6:45-8:00PM

2012-01-24T12:52:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone! I am reminding you that we will be hanging out this Thursday night, 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette. There is free childcare for the kids and a fantastic group of teens and tweens as well.

More than more is a group of people who are sick of the usual American way - we want to find something More in life...and we are. This in no way minimizes the pain in our lives - we are living/have lived in some of the most painful circumstances imaginable and yet we find that as we begin to notice, life starts to change.

if you are searching for something More, we would love to have you join us - laugh a little, be cared about, for who you are, and dont be surprised if you find yourself a little more hopeful...

we hope to see you there.

Tomorrow - 12-29-11

2011-12-28T21:07:00.002-05:00

Just a reminder that we will be hanging out at More than more tomorrow night, the 29th of December, from 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

It will be a great time!

for the first time we will have a group of teens and tweens hanging out too - this will be a time for students to learn about something More than just the usual American way - they will be talking about a movie called "Facing the Giants" It will be a great time!

As always there will be fantastic time for kids!!

Hope you can make it!

Thursday

2011-12-13T14:53:00.002-05:00

Just a reminder, because the writing has been slim of late, that we will be hanging out Thursday night, 12/15/11, 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

It will be a great time!

If you are sick of the "life as usual" American way this holiday season, we hope you join us as we continue to search for More!

As always, there will be free, excellent childcare!

hope to see you there

The Fabric of our Lives

2011-11-18T16:01:00.003-05:00

Ever notice how amazingly our lives are knit together? We spent some time last night noticing how God has brought us together. So many of us, from so many different places and times, different financial situations, different ages, different relationships and yet there we sit, every other Thursday night, our lives intertwined - these are the best friends i have in the world! They are amazing! We talked through a couple of them - it baffles the mind to think of how we have come together. Now, all of us, dong our best to look behind the usual of the American dream, to find something More out of life - to savor and appreciate the wonder of a God who would love us so much as to bring us together in the midst of our lives!

So, if having some friends who actually accept you no matter what you offer them sounds good, or if you are sick of life as usual in the US, and are looking for something More, you might want to join us - we will be hanging out December 1st, 645-800pm at MCAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

and, if you are already trying to live this way you might just happen to notice the people around you who you love and who love you and how your lives have come to be woven together, you might just take a second and thank the God who loves you enough to fill your life with those people - and invite Him into the moment with you - it might just change your perspective!

hope to see you soon

More Pix from Shoes

2011-11-01T21:57:00.002-04:00

Love via Shoes

2011-11-01T15:13:00.006-04:00

What if there was a group of people that loved? Really loved? What if the questions that lie in our hearts about our country and whether anyone really cares about anyone else anymore were answered by a simple group of people learning to live life differently than the rest of the country? What if that love got demonstrated in a tangible way, with something that would be meaningful to almost anyone?

After all love requires giving of yourself. Sacrificing. Being present when it is not easy. It involves forgiving and trying to understand someone else. It involves spending time when it is not easy and there is little to gain for yourself. love is focused on the other person's needs, not your own.

But love is also the greatest thing in the whole world. The joy in love exceeds any other joy that there is - the pain in love may exceed any other pain that there is too, but the joy is bigger than the pain. The joy is well worth the pain, no question.

Well, all of these things are happening, right here in Lafayette and last Friday we had this wonderful chance to share the love we are learning to expeerience in daily life. We are sick of everyday Americanism of get more and more and more. But, we are also ready to do something different about life, or more specifically WITH life.

This was exemplified this past Friday at our 2011 Love Your Feet Day. About 20-25 of s took the day off from work and our schedules to be together and share the day with some of the folks in our own town that needed help the most. We invited anyone who needed help afffording shoes to join us and they came - at the end of it all, we were tired, but we had given love and been witness to the giving of love to hundreds of people. We gave away around 700 pairs of new shoes!!!

As part of my time on Friday, I had the joy of being able to tell people who werre coming to pick up their shoes that they were not being given shoes by some big fancy organization with government funding, but rather, they were being given shoes that were paid for by the money from the bank accounts of the people who were handing them the shoes! The expression on their faces melted. They were shocked to tears, and they exploded with gratitude and near disblelief that anyone would value them that much to spend hard earned money to buy shoes for them. They sensed the love in the room - it was no longer about shoes anymore, but about love and meaning. You see, they left with new shoes but mostly with new found respect for who they are made to be. For, at More than more, we value them. And if we do, maybe they should too!!

We spent time sitting on the floor and reading books with kids. We spent moments observing people as they removed their rag-like shoes in the hallway and slipped on their new shoes, then took a second to just look at their feet in them - smiling - feeling their feet feel good and their spirits feel valued. We saw children with little hair, grin widely when reminded that they are beautiful. We saw people confused that any simple group of people could really love like this without an agenda of some kind and without expecting anything in return. We saw individual members of More than more so broken hearted over those who came to late to sign up, take the names themselves and go buy the shoes after all the Love Your Feet was over. We saw people who had really never heard of More than more before crying tears of joy as they simply observed the giving of the day. We saw people who felt so little like they mattered that they did not want shoes for themselves, even though they needed them, only for their kids - only to be overwhelmed with gratitude when they realized that the shoes (and the love and value) could be for them too!

In short, it was a great way to spend a day! It was not all easy - there were some who were less than thankful, even hurtful. We were tired at the end, after it all, giving that sacrificially is not typical, or lightly done. But it was sooooo worth it!

In the evening, we spent a long time sitting around a campfire and sharing stories and challenges - with one end result:

We are going to do everything we can to live out this kind of love and mission in our everyday life, not just on Love Your Feet Day!

If this sounds like something you would like to be a part of, we would love to have you join us - we will be hanging out together at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, from 6:45-8:00 PM this Thursday - the 3rd of November - of course there will be free,excellent childcare!

What does it mean to believe?

2011-10-14T16:54:00.003-04:00

So, i had to tell you about a couple things that have happened in the last week - once again my children have humbled me...

So, Tuesdays we go to school early for my oldest's prayer group - but this only for Junior Higher's - so me and my 2 younger children spend some time talking to God together and learning something. This Tuesday we read a section of in my son's Bible about faith. Now faith is one of those fancy Christian words that people talk about a lot but i'm not sure what it looks like in everyday life, if you know what i mean. So, i was trying to explain to them that having faith means that you believe that what you hope for will be true - and the best kind of faith is when what you hope for is good and true and pure, not to get new xbox games or for your worst enemy to break their ankle or something like that - it is best when it is when you hope for what God would want in each situation...It was a good conversation and i think they understood what i meant but it is hard to explain and harder still to live.

We finished and they went to their classes and on with their days, and i with mine.

Then the very next morning we were talking with God about some friends of ours who are being evicted by their landlady, who seems to be downright evil and who had forbidden them from fixing their sewer - leaving them with no place to go for now and having to go to the neighbor's house to do laundry, brush their teeth, wash dishes, etc. Let's make it clear, they were offering to even pay for the repairs, which they should not have had to, and she wouldn't let them. So, as i was talking to the kids, i said that we should pray for these friends, that they would find a place to live and that God would help them in the meantime.

Well, i came time for the kids to pray and Sophia, the youngest started out - she talked to God about family and friends and our days and our neighbors - all the usual things and then she went on to talk to Him about our friends - "Help them to find a place to stay and take care of them. And please help their mean landlady to have a soft and loving heart and to see how great life can be with You. Help her not to be mean anymore." Then, one at a time, they each prayed for first our friends and then the mean landlady.

I just almost couldn't take it. I had just been taught a lesson in faith. You see, i could give talks about faith and i believe God will give our friends the perfect place to stay and that He will take care of them. But, until my kids satarted talking to Him, i never even considered trying to believe that He would reach down into the heart of that mean lady and bring healing to her hurting heart. But, my kids saw through her meanness to her broken heart - to whatever it is that makes her so mean. And more than that, they saw that God could and wanted to, help her just as much as us, our family, our neighbors and our friends. They seem to understand faith much better than i do - maybe this Tuesday they should lead our time together!

The Truth is, there is no one beyond the reach and love of the God who made all that is - He wants everyone to have life that is full of wonder and freedom.

If you are sick of living in a world that is just not seeing all there is, we would love to have you join us - we will be hanging out at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, from 6:45-8:00PM this Thursday, October 20th. We would love to meet you - and maybe we can open up our minds a little more than usual!

The Amazing Diversity of our Minds!

2011-10-10T13:17:00.003-04:00

So, after talking about what More than more meant to us, we had some time, as we always do, to notice the amazingness of God and to notice the amazingness of people and their brokenness.

We began by talking about the way we think. I related a quote given me, and shared with permission, by a patient with ADD. He came into my office and his presenting complaint to the nurse was "Because you can't change the world if you can't focus." Now, why is that so important?

Because, he realizes that he has something amazing in him that could change the world, but he cannot seem to get his mind to focus long enough to get to it.

Why will he change the world? Well, let me tell you with a question.

If you want to balance your checking account, make a budget, get everything to add up perfectly, stay on schedule, what kind of a person do you ask to help you? Proabaly not someone with ADD. You would be looking for someone with a compulsive tendency, very organized and structured, right??

But, if you are stuck in your thoughts, trapped in a box of ideas from the past that you just can't seem to out-dream. You are bumping into a problem with the ame solutions and just can't seem to get past the usual ways of thinking. You are blank and just can't dream any more ideas. Who do you ask for help? Do you run to the compulsive person who is doing your books? Or do you ask your buddy with ADD and tell him not to take his medicine?!

I think you are getting the idea now. So many people consider their mind type and their thought life to be a handicap of some kind. They hate that the numbers all need to add up - they don't like being so organized and anal. Or they hate their tendency to wander and wonder in their thoughts - they just want to accomplish things and they can't get their heads out of the clouds long enough to do it. Yet, on a second look, we see the value in the organized and compulsive mind - someoone needs to keep everything reigned in and moving in a positive direction. And at the same time, we see the value in the ADD mind - ready to imagine outside the box,to dream new dreams, new combinations of dreams. To unleash their mind on the unsolvable!

Isn't it amazing? Now, seriously, how, by accident, did we all develop so differently and yet so much like pieces of a puzzle - perfectly fitting together to make sense. Put an ADD person with a compulsive person and they may irritate each other, but they will gt so much done and complement each other amazingly. No, this variability in our minds that leads to such amazing possibilities is obviously an expression of the creativity of a God who loves us deeply (and who clearly has a sense of humor).

So, the next time you notice the difference beteen how you think and how you want to, or how you think and the person next to you does, notice. Pay attention for just a second. And then thank the God who made you that way. Invite Him into the moment with you. Ask Him to be part of your days. You see, why would God go to so much effort to make us so amazing only to abandon us? The answer? He didn't - He very much wants to be a part of your life. And as He becomes more and more a part of your life, your perspective will change - you will begin to have a life that opens up and is More than you ever dreamed. I hope you'll try it!

Hope to see you next Thursday at McAllister Center - just off 20th and Schuyler - in Lafayette - from 6:45-8:00PM.

Have a thoughtful week!

The intro from last time is too much to miss!

2011-10-10T13:08:00.004-04:00

More than more last week was a good time - if you were there, i'm so glad and if you were not, you missed out.

I don't usually restate our introductory/relax and chill out question on the blog - partly because sometimes the answers are a little too personal and partly because sometimes the blog entries are too long...but this time i must:

The intro question was, "Describe what More than more means to you in 1 sentence or less."

The answers were humbling.

"Family"
"Acceptance"
"Noticing the amazingness of God and people"
"Caring"
"Seeing life differently"
"Living beyond the usual American way"

These are just a few - i was nearly in tears, as people of all walks of life (one of whom came from lunch break just to be with us and his wife! - thanks Kale) gave voice to the fact that when a group of people begins to notice God and invite Him into their worlds and notice each other and the people around them, both their value and their brokenness - lives are changed. It was cool.

This, if for no other reason, is a reason to join us. Come hang out with us next Thursday night - October 20th - from 6:45-8:00Pm at McAllister Recreation Center. If you are tired of the usual life, a dose of some acceptance and caring and healthy family might be just what you need.

Paths, Creeks, and Freezers

2011-10-09T21:35:00.003-04:00

I wanted to take a couple minutes and share with you a couple things that have struck me in the last few days.

First, on Saturday morning I was sitting in my tree stand out back behind my house, honestly not really caring much if a deer came or not. I was watching this little chipmunk family who inhabits the space i use once in a while scurry back and forth through an old hollow log (actually wondering how someone seriously got Alvin and the Chipmunks from these little things and kinda wishing they would stand up on their hind legs and start singing...)gather nuts and im sure ration them for winter. I was watching the leaves fall, one by one - it was not very windy and it is a beautiful thing to watch the leave saunter their way to the ground. It was a nice morning.

As i looked around, i looked down the path - this is the direction that the deer usually come from, if they come, which is not usually. This time of year most all of the leaves have not yet fallen and so i can only see a little way down the path, especially from where i sit 15 or so feet in the air. It seemed the path was a place i could walk down - have actually, a lot of times, especially in the May mushroom hunting season. I could walk down a way, check things out, maybe turn left up the hill, or go right, off into some of the meadows down the way - they might be pretty this time of year. But, as i thought of the path, i thought of what i could do and where i could go - it was like the two thoughts jumped off each other - 1st the thought of the path and then right after, the thought of going and doing. The path became an example of my life - go and do, go and do, go and do - this is so much the way i live...

Then, as if drawn, i heard the gurgle of the south fork of the wildcat creek to my right - it is low right now - probably only about a foot where i sit and there is a little roughness to the water there - enough to make an occasional bubbly, gurgly, creek sound - i love it - music to my sometimes worn soul. Then, i remembered the path. But, the creek was not like the path. The creek just moved. It had no direction in particular it was trying to go, no choices to make, no initiatives to pursue - it was simply following along its course. And, before i could think about it, i longed to be more like the creek. I so wanted to not worry and fret about the choices of the paths or to find myself throwing all of my passion into simply going and doing - it seems that i get quite enough of that and it seems to lead me away from the REALLY important things in life. I wanted to be able to follow God in a creek-like way - to be so aware of where He wanted me to be, to be so filled with the noticing of Him and His ways that i could simply live life and follow the course He had plotted out for me - even though sometimes the water is gurgly and sometimes it is smooth - occasionally there is a major boulder in the way - if i could live with the creek banks of His love and guidance all the time, it seems that it would be ok...

Then, there was one more thing. This was today - now a lot of hours since i left the forest - and quite a different thing that struck me. We had our friend Stephanie over for dinner and we were all talking and somehow the packing of freezers came up. This is a longstanding joke at our house, because as wonderful a person as my wife is, she is not a good freezer packer. I was joking, as i often do, that if you pull something out of the freezer when Melissa has packed it, you might want to have steel toed boots on - which poses an issue when you are sitting out some meat for the next day and you have snuck downstairs in your underwear - because it is a little silly to be in steeltoes and undies - but ill leave that one alone for now. You see, Melissa packs the freeer with slope - and all the slope is pointing out of the freezer - to your toes!! So, be careful if you're in the freezer! Anyway, we were all laughing about this and one of the girls said that you have to be careful because sometimes you might pull one small thing out and then the whole freeze might fall on you - as if it was all balanced delicately on that one pack of bacon or something. Well, that set me thinking. Sometimes i feel like that freezer. I feel like i am just so unstable (i know this comes as a surprise to some of you) that if just one thing is moved, i will come tumbling down - all my confidence and self-esteem and everything else, all balanced on a pack-o-bacon!!! It makes me mad - i want so badly to be more stable, more consistent, more like so many people i know that nothing seems to ever ruffle them. I get frustrated with who God made me to be.

So, here's the thing: I know that i do not want to just live the ordinary American life - like the path - always going and doing - always choosing my own way - never noticing, never depending on God. I want to live more like the creek - ready to just rest and follow God wherever He leads me. But, i am sure frustrated by my lack of stability! But, the truth is that my instability may be the very key to my creeklikeness! You see, if i was always stable, always had it all figured out, never got ruffled or upset or hurt, i think i would just always choose my way through life and never get off the path and into the creek. Instead, i find myself reeling with every package of bacon that someone takes from my freezer, and as frustrating as it is, i find myself looking to God and His control and soon find myself drifting down the creek of His guidance, noticing and loving and at peace with life!

So, tonight i am glad that i am unstable - can't believe im saying that - but i pray that you will be too, if that's what it takes to help you find the Truth in this life - and to be able to notice God's way in every day.

An Apology

2011-10-07T22:55:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone - there's nothing like the Truth to smack you in the face - a couple of posts ago, i wrote to you about driving across the midwest to see a band we love - i was absolutely inspired by the conversation with one of the members afterward - his willingness to admit to his struggles in his life, especially as it relates to church, was really humble of someone who really had no need to share anything, with this strange family from Lafayette.

But, as i glanced at his email that apprently my wife had printed, tonight on the desk, i realized that i had misstated his words and i must correct what i have said:

1) He does go to church and has for multiple years.

and

2) He prayed through his music all night long - not needing to make it somehow more formal than that.

And so, my apologies go out to him and to you, for misstating and for confining prayer to something that happens only when someone formally talks outloud to God - it was lame of me - and i am sorry. Talking to God can be in song, can be in our heads, can be in appreciation of nature or life or a million things - you would think that after 3+ years of leading More than more i would be the first to realize this!

The beauty of the disillusioned and their search for God is still the same, as is the truth that all people who try to follow after God's way have trouble and difficulties along the way - you are not alone in your struggle - but together we can find support in the difficult times - i hope all who come find it at More than more.

Thanks

Jason

the back door

2011-10-06T12:31:00.002-04:00

I have company coming for lunch - it's one of my favorite things to do...to have people come over and talk over life - what's going on - learning and supporting each other - becoming all we can together. the conversations vary a lot, from specific issues one of us is dealing with, to general "what's up with the world" discussions. We talk to God and try to notice and then go on with the rest of our day.

So, the person coming today has not been before and so i just texted to him that he could come in the back door - and it got me thinking.

I love the back door.

I know, you are probably thinking i'm finally losing it that im enjoying the back door this much, but let me get it all out before you make up your mind.

Truth is, if you come in the front door - it is formal and although inviting, kinda for people we don't know very well, but if you come in the back door you are like family...more than welcome, you are welcome to see the laundry on the floor, the dog toys laying around (not at the office, but at home, maybe), dust bunnies we have not been able to get cleaned up etc. I also like the people who come in my back door - many times they make me feel welcome in my own home/office - they love me too and we cherish living life together.

The back door is wonderful!

At More than more, we get together at a place called McAllister Recreation center - it is this really cool former school building in Lafayette, that has been converted by the City Parks and Recreation into an all purpose building for the citizens of our town. You might say it is More than more's home.

And here's something cool - at McAllister, everyone comes in the back door!!!! I don't know that we have ever had anyone come in the front door - all the parking and the playground and everything is all around the back door!

And, i think that is very typical of More than more. We welcome anyone who would like to join us to come in the back door. Be welcome, take your shoes off if you want. Chill out. Be at peace. You have nothing to prove. We will do our best to care about you right where you are and we will look forward to you caring about us right where we are. If you are grumpy, come anyway, back doors are not just for those in a good mood - if you are goofy and playful, come on in, let's laugh together, if your heart is broken, what better place to be supported and heard than inside the back door?

The point, if i am losing you, is that in a wolrd that is filled with people who never even notice each other, More than more is a place where people of all different parts of our world, all different ages, all different situations, come together and welcome each other - care about each other. It is a good place to be. We notice each other, we pay attention. We notice the amazingness of life and the God who made it and we will not let it slide by!

If you are sick and tired of the usual of American life, and this sounds like something you might like to give a try, we would love to have you join us - our back door will be open tonight from 6:45-8:00PM, October 6th (and again on the 20th) - would love to have you join us!!

What next for the (dis)illusioned?

2011-10-02T15:15:00.004-04:00

So, what is next then for those who are disillusioned - those of us who see the brokenness of the world and particularly in those we thought we would not see it in - and then move on into life, trying to make sense of it all?

Well, as i stated in the last post, we need to begin with involving God in the moments of our lives - this is what More than more is all about - we are looking for something More than the usual in everyday American life. We need to see the wonder of God and have connection with Him in our everyday lives.

But, what does that really look like? What advice to those who struggle with the past and betrayal and know that God exists, but have trouble with connecting/finding Him except in their heartbreak?

Well, consider something amazing, like a life resurrected from the ashes - like we talked about last time we got together for More than more - when we had a conversation with Reuben Bible.

Reuben is a fantastic young man currently in his first year of studies at a Bible College in Indianapolis. But, his life was not always like this...

As Reuben shared, he was raised learning about God and over the years, he began to think that he had a better way - he would work hard and support his family (he never really wanted anything fancy, just to be able to take good care of them) and he would do it his way. Reuben was first a tree climbing lumberjack of some sort - not sure the name, but when offered a chance to move back to the midwest from Florida, they did. Then, he began to work with horses - he broke them, rodeoed them, then trained them, and borded them - about anything to do with horses and all in an attempt to stabilize his family and provide for them - he wanted to just be a good man - all he could be. The thing is, this pursuit became Reuben's "more" - he spent everything he had and all his energy on this and he has suffered multiple fractures from serious incidents with horses over the years - in the last one, he was really no longer able to deal with horses and so he formed his own business and was doing really well - making the most he had made in his whole life until one day he was mowing and he hit a downed tree with the bushhog and it came up and severed all but a small piece of his lower leg.

This has placed this hard-working, stubborn but unbelievably active man, flat on his back for months and months at a time - for most of that time he has been angry at God, frustrated at what he has had to go through - feeling as if he was finally about to make his dreams and now this has to happen. Not to mention that fact the Reuben was told he may never walk again, much less be able to do the heavy type of work he has always done.

But, what Reuben discovered was that at the end of his dreams, was something bigger and better than he had ever realized. He began to talk to God more and more and release his future to God and what he found was that God had something amazing for him. He was finding that people were coming to him and wanting him to help them find God. He felt inadequate for this, but found that God used him anyway and then he began to feel that he was to be going to study and learn - and that's how he ended up at the Bible College he is at now.

But, there was another problem, they did not have the money. Well, through some scholarships that seemed to come out of thin air, Reuben has his entire first year paid for!

At the end of the line, he found More.

So, what do we say to those of us who are disillusioned? Pay attention. Notice. Sometimes God is expressing himself in amazing ways right under our noses. When you notice, ask Him to help with your perspective - to help you see life differently and to be a part of your every day, every moment. I believe you will begin to find relief as soon as you begin noticing...

If you are sick of usual American life of get more, become more, achieve more, etc, we would love to have you join us this Thursday night, October 6th, at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, Indiana, from 6:45-8:00PM - maybe there is something More.

Of (dis)illusions

2011-10-02T13:45:00.001-04:00

I just returned from a crazy 4 hour drive each way that has returned me to questions I often wrestle with - this time I would like to share them with you...

We went on this adventure for 2 reasons - one was to see some very good friends and to share some time together - they have a fabulous family and we see them rarely and so it was good to catch up, laugh and say things like, "I remember when..." The second was to celebrate my wife's birthday - her birthday is September 11th and I know this is a really late gift, but I had given her tickets to see one of her favorite music groups on Friday night.

The time with friends was encouraging and fun, relaxing and crazy, but the concert was just amazingly unexpected. We arrived just as it was starting, to see a local youth group praise band play, which we enjoyed from a praise standpoint much more than from a band standpoint. Then, within a few minutes the group we had driven all that way to see came up on stage. It was a far more theatrical performance than we had expected, but the music was good and the ringing of their songs deep in our hearts was really powerful in some spots. There was one thing that I noticed was remarkably absent for a Christian music group, playing in a Church - there was no prayer - none. I had grown used to listening to their music and kneading those words like yeast into the lives of the people I lead and watching those peoples' lives be changed by God working through those words in the middle of their life situations - so to have no communication with God surprised me. It certainly did not keep me from jamming out with my family - praising God and enjoying the talents of the four gifted artists.

Now, we had been expecting to walk into a packed house - but there apparently are not very many people in that area who follow this group - there were only about 50. We were surprised but fine with it. The cool thing is that after the concert, because there were so few of us, the band stayed around and talked and had pictures taken, signed autographs and all - it was cool. Since it was my wife's birthday present, we decided to do the "groupie" thing and get pictures with the band. But, we couldn't just have a picture, we felt compelled to tell them the impact that their music was having on what we do. The lead guitarist was really touched - it was cool to see him light up when he heard of how the tunes he was playing were making a difference in the lives of real people. But the conversation with the lead singer really was a bit mind bending...

We had our picture, then told him how we invest our lives in helping people see the amazingness of God in everyday life and also in helping the people of our world see that there is More to life then the usual American way that so often leaves us feeling empty & 00unfulfilled. Then he asked a question. "So, you work with the disillusioned. Are you, as well, disillusioned?" He proceeded to tell us the story of his hurt and painful betrayal in his Church and how he had not even been back to church since - and it sounded like a long time.

So, here's a question: What makes a writer of fantastic songs about the strength and protection of God disillusioned by what he has seen in the American Church? Well, he has seen what we all see if we are around very long and if we look very close - in fact what we can't miss unless we bury our heads in the sand and deny/refuse to look at all. He has seen that people suck. He has witnessed the ickiness and pain and poor choices and other people harming actions and emotions and relationships of people. Now, it takes only 2 seconds to confirm that this should not have surprised him and it should not surprise us - people suck - all i have to do is look into my heart and my motives and my attitudes and i quickly find that suckiness is the norm - and i see it in everyone i know - including my wonderful wife, who many of you i'm sure are convinced is perfect - sorry honey! We do stupid things every day - sometimes it seems like every second. Yet, somehow, sometimes we are still shocked, amazed, hurt, even horrified at the fact that people have done bad things, cruel things, hurtful things, even illegal and evil things. Why? We don't seem to be too bothered when prison inmates act in evil ways. But, we speak so freely of our disillusionment with the church - we find ourselves reeling inside, when we hear of church people who have been behaving in sucky ways. Yet, we see it in ourselves if we will just look with enough humility to peer honestly and truthfully at our hearts - and most of us, in our honest moments, would admit this.
What was my answer to him? Yes, we have been and are, to some degree, disillusioned. But, we find that wherever we look, people suck. They are all messed up. They are selfish and pitiful and broken and it is not any different in the church, it just is a different look of the people and a different look of the suckiness and a different list of the issues.
So, if people are all so screwed up, why is he and why are we so many times so horrified by the church people who are sucky? Well, i am convinced that it is because we have this expectation that in their positions with their "connection" with God and their worship times and all that they will no longer be so pitifully sucky - but we are wrong!!! And we are judgmental and unfair to turn around the suck meter on them and turn it up to freaking ultra sensitive detector mode for them and if they come up with any suckiness then we hand our heads in defeat and become "disillusioned." Think about the word disillusioned for a second. What does it mean? "Dis" means the negative of something - like "dis"respect means not respecting. But what does illusion mean?

il•lu•sion ( -l zh n)
n.
1.
a. An erroneous perception of reality.
b. An erroneous concept or belief.
2. The condition of being deceived by a false perception or belief.
3. Something, such as a fantastic plan or desire, that causes an erroneous belief or perception.

So, to be disillusioned might mean the opposite of that definition - which really might mean that our original erroneous perception of reality or concept or belief (that church people don't suck just like everybody else) is now gone - we now see reality, we have a true concept or belief.

The thing is, the truth is not always fun and it is not always what we want to hear. We wanted church people to not suck - but the do. So, why do we find ourselves so lost and frustrated and screwed up after learning all these sucky things about the people of the church?

Well, that leads to the next thing i told him (honestly at this point not believing i am having this conversation with this guy who wrote these songs that have so touched my life, but plunging on anyway) was, "The thing is dude, people all over suck, in the church and out of the church, but God does not suck - He is amazing and if you keep coming back to Him - over and over and over again - your life will be the best life it can be!!! He, you see, is wonderful!"

And i think that's why it bothered me that they didn't pray.

So, what do you do with all this? if you are angry or frustrated at people who you thought woudl not be sucky and it proved out that they were over time - let it go - talk to God about it and realize that they are living up to their potential - they are going to screw up and the sooner you realize it, the better - if you are wallowing away in self-pity over the fact that the institutions that are supposed to be showing the amazingness of God are not, and maybe they have even hurt you - get over it - start looking to the God who will show you himself, if you will simply notice (check out www.morethamoremtm.blogspot.com) - talk to Him about it - get together with other people who are also noticing Him and share stories - pursue Him and invite Him into the moments of your life - it will make all the difference.

After all, this is the same God who carts families 4 hours across the midwest to see a music group in order to arrange a meeting of the disillusioned - what wouldn't He do to help his sucky, messed up creation to get back on track?

Love Your Feet Outreach - October 28th

2011-09-27T16:30:00.001-04:00

Ok - so, it is set - On October 28th, Friday, we will be having our Love Your Feet outreach from 8-4:30ish - More than more will be providing lunches for volunteers that day - at the YWCA (6th street and Cincinnati, in downtown Lafayette)with

dinner and campfire at our house afterwards!

the night before (the 27th) we will have a setup time and dinner from 6-9PM at the YWCA.

We need someone to help by taking charge of the dinner the night before - it is a huge process getting all this organized and running smoothly and to do the dinner the night before too is too much for Melissa - there is a full kitchen for your use at the YWCA and lots of refrigerator space. More than more can help with the cost of supplies if you need us to

If you are a part of More than more, we need your help - This is a really good time, it is great to serve and to help lots of people see their value - but, it is also a ton of work - we have given away as many as 1000 pairs of shoes in 1 day in the past and this requires lots of hands and feet helping out! This is mainly for people who are part of More than more though or connected in some way - and generally not just for anyone - it is our way of sharing all the things we are learning about and receiving in More than more with other people - our chance to give back, or forward...and our opportunity to form relationships with people who need to hear/see what being really cared about is like.

If you are going to be participating (it does not have to be all day), please let us know and especially if you have not been a part before, let us know early so we can get you a More than more shirt to wear that day!

Please note, there will not be any childcare on Thursday night, we are happy to have you bring your little children and hangout, but you will need to plan to watch them - no babysitters - on Friday, kids old enough to really help are welcome and even encouraged because it is good for them to experience a day like this. Of course, all kids are welcome for the dinner after Love Your Feet at our house!

It is going to be a great time together - hope you can all make it for at least part of the day!

keep noticing...

Jason & Melissa

Picture from Durgan

2011-09-21T20:59:00.002-04:00

Medical Outreach September 2011

2011-09-21T20:28:00.000-04:00

So, yesterday was another great day to be a part of More than more. We spent 4 hours sharing the perspective and love that is growing inside us with about 15 patients who were not able to afford doctor visits or medications or both, along with the great, dedicated workers at Bauer Center’s Durgan location, here in Lafayette. It is a wonderful thing to be able to just share some care with someone else. You see, in our society, many times having a lack of money, insurance, resources, stuff, etc, tends to carry with it a stigma that many times leaves people feeling as if they have no value at all to society and, even worse, to the people around them. This kind of despair goes right to the heart – it leaves many people feeling as if they don’t really matter to anyone.
When we give from our hearts and our skills – whether it is medical care and medicines or nail painting or face painting or balloon animals or playing games or even just smiling and laughing and chatting about life, we do more than give medicines or good advice or give nice looking manicures…we instill hope…we donate life…we give love and purpose and the very real sense that the person we are investing in actually matters – because they do. In fact, each of us has had times in our lives (or we will) when we doubted our value, we doubted our lives and someone, somewhere, decided that they would invest in us and show us that value and that has changed everything.
Now, investing in people is not easy. We usually come face to face with the reality that we cannot possibly solve all the problems of even one of these people, much less all of them, much less all of our community, much less all of our nation, all of our world. This can leave us feeling frustrated and hurt and sad. But, we also must remember that it is not ours, alone, to work out all this – only to share our portion in our time – the rest falls to the same God we learn about in More than more and who joins us in our lives. He is the One who made hearing – who allows us to recognize faces and connects us to each other in such a wonderful way. He is the One who gives us the perspective change that makes life More than more!
I do not know what the people we served and cared for yesterday took away from the time we shared. I do not know their impressions of us, nor what is happening in their hearts today. But I do know that for those 4 hours yesterday, we were doing exactly the right thing! I also know that I have seen so many peoples’ lives changed by this idea – that there is More to life than the usual American more. That More lies in seeing the Truth in life – noticing the amazingness of the God who made us and having Him be a part of our lives. It lies in sharing life together, accepting each other, as amazing and messed up as we all are. It lies in noticing each other and sharing the amazingness with those who have yet to see it.

It is a better way to live! And if it sounds interesting, tempting, we would love to have you join us tomorrow night – 9/22/11, from 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

Hope to see you there – keep noticing…

Can you HEAR me?

2011-09-16T14:15:00.003-04:00

So, last Thursday we had a great time hanging out, laughing and being together - if you missed it - you missed out, but you can join us next Thursday night, Seoptember 22nd!!

We talked aboout how amazing our hearing is this last week. You see about the only time that most people notice their hearing is when they have a bad codl and their ears are stopped up or when they try to talk to their grandmother and she can't hear them very well. But, some of themost amazing times in our lives are because of our sense of hearing.

For example, if you hear your baby cry for the first time...or if you have waited forever to hear the words "I do"... or if you heard the wind in the trees or the song of a bird or the voice of smoeone say, "I love you." You see, our hearing is always there, doing its thing, and we do not appreciate it. Nor do we appreciate the amazingness of the God who made it so perfectly. Ever considered how amazing it is that you can hear a sound and see a picture in your head? Maybe you hear a voice on the phone and you can picture immediately the face of the person you are talking to? This is because our brain immediately connects what we hear to our thoughts - it is amazing! God made you hearing amazingly.

I have attached a link for you to check out - do not know the web site well, but the diagram is cool and the descriptions of hearing process -amazing!!

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/anatomy/ear/

So, don't take your hearing for granted!! The God who went to all this trouble to make your hearing perfect did not make you to be abandoned - He made you because He wants to be involved in your life - so...thank Him. The next time you hear something just thank the God who made your hearing - and invite Him into your world - ask Him to join you in your day, to change what you notice and what you don't. It just might change your entire day!!!

If you are sick of like as usual - only noticing the things in life that you have to get done - always striving for more and more and more, consider joining us - we will be hanging out next Thursday night 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center,just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette - as always there will be laughter, acceptance, and free childcare - we hope to see you.

Just FACE it

2011-09-06T18:16:00.002-04:00

Ever wonder about faces?

So, last time we were together, I placed a picture of a face in front of Deb’s face. I gave her 1minute to look at it. At the end of 1minute, I removed the picture and then asked her to describe the face in detail – traits and all – that it might be redrawn. She was not able to give any of the details to a significant degree. Then, i handed her a photo book and asked her, instead of describing the face, to simply identify the lady in the picture (who, incidentally, she did not previously know). She flipped through the pages and easily identified the lady.

Now, this may seem perfectly obvious to you that this would happen this way, but have you ever thought about why? Have you ever stopped to notice?

What is remarkable about this is that we can easily recognize the pattern of a face without being able to describe all the details of it. Why? Well, we were made to see the importance of and the uniqueness of, people! We were made to recognize the pattern that is a human and how it is different and wonderfully created. This, in fact, is the first step in any relationship! We see someone, recognize them as unique and wonderful and then begin to know them more from there!

This is a reflection of how God made us – it is not an accident – you see, God thinks that people are the most important thing in the world and he puts that in us – hardwired into us.

You ever see someone in the mall or something and you think, “Where do I know them from?” You probably have seen them before and you are recognizing their uniqueness! This is a beautiful thing!

So, the next time that happens, consider thanking God for making you so amazingly – and for putting this value of people in you. And, invite Him into your world – ask Him to share the day with you.

Also remember that the same God who made you so amazingly would not invest all that energy in this part of you, only to abandon you in the midst of your circumstances – He made you like this because He loves you so much and that will only continue – He will not let you go! No matter how bad your circumstances are, he will be with you. And this is way cool!

Now, i realize that it might be hard to imagine that something like this could actually change your life, so many of us have so many difficult times, and this just seems so small...but at More than more we are determined to live life better than the everyday, usual American way of get more, buy more, achieve more, etc. We have found that in order to live for More, it helps to notice - and as we notice, to invite God into our lives - as we do this in lots of different places - we find that life opens up and even though our circumstances are still not necessarily any different, we see life differently.

If you are sick of the usual American life and are looking for something More - even just some people who will accept you for who you are - we would love to have you join us this Thursday night, September 8th, 2011, from 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

It's TIME

2011-08-12T21:40:00.002-04:00

We had a wonderful time together last night - if you missed it, you really missed out!

We talked about time - take a timer and just watch it for 1minute - go do it now.

Ok - do you feel like you just wasted a minute? Did it seem like a long time to just stand there? Did you question whether that portion of your life should be broken up into things called minutes and seconds? Do we question whether our lives and the happenings around us should be measured in regular predictable amounts?

Do we wonder or question that 24hrs in a day is logical? Like the rotation of the Earth on its axis? Do we wonder if 365 days in a year are logical (i know it is off just a little...), like the time around the sun?

Or do we accept all of these things as the most logical and appropriate things?

Why do we just accept them? Why have people measured time for as long as anyone can remember? Why do all cultures track it to some degree?

BECAUSE it makes sense - the obvious answer is that the period between sunrise of one day and sunrise of the next makes sense - it is orderly and predictable and logical. The world makes sense.

Now, some people would try to get you to believe that the world and everything in it happened by accident - that some chaotic things happened to give rise to all that exists - this is craziness - it only takes one look at something as simple as the time it takes for that timer to tick off 1minute to realize that the world and everything in it was made orderly and amazing!

In fact, the reason all this is so amazingly orderly and structured is that it was made by an amazing God who cared that it not be haphazard. He is wonderful and amazing and so His creation must be!

What does this mean for you?

Well, if God took this much trouble to make time so perfect, do you really thin He has made you only to abandon you? Do you think you are a mistake? NO!! He cares way more for you than your timer! He loves you so much - and He will never abandon you!!

I know it does not make all the trouble in your life go away and does not make everything easy - but life is never easy - the real question is Is it better to go through the hard time with a God who is so amazing or without? The answer seems obvious to me.

So, we spent time noticing God and how amazing He is and then we took time to notice people - all people are amazing - all of them made perfectly the way they were supposed to be - hand chosen for the world. But, they are also all pitifully screwed up - broken - hurting - lives in pieces...We need to notice them - do we dare step outside of our frantic American lifestyles enough to notice the amazing people around us and how much pain and hurt they endure? Do we dare to care about them? Do we dare to invite God into themidst of their problems? To make a difference to them, like someone has to us??? Well, we spend some time each time we get together daring to notice each other and also challenged to step out of our usual lives and into noticing...

finally, we listened to the song One Day Too Late, by Skillet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNEC735juI4

try the youtube link

How much of our 60second minutes, 60minute hours, 24 hour days, 365 day years, do we spend do the things we think are the most important? Do we dare waste even a minute??

How will you spend the time you have been given???

Make a change - you may not be able to "love you enemies" tomorrow perfectly or "forgive and forget" perfectly tomorrow, but don't you want to at least be going in the right direction? Giving your life to something that matters with every minute you have? A great place to start is to notice - allow yourself to step out of the usual American way and notice the amzingness of God and the amazingness and brokenness of people!

If this makes sense to you and you want to learn more, feel free to post - and if you want to hang out with some people who are trying to live their lives this way, we would love to have you join us - we will be hanging out again on August 25th, from 6:45-8:00pm at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette

hope to see you there

tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock...

Last time and next time

2011-08-10T16:30:00.002-04:00

So, last time i missed, but i hear it was absolutely fantastic - there will be a blog post to follow - so keep checking.

Our next time together will be tomorrow night, August 11th, at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, from 6:45-8:00PM - there will be free childcare, as always!

Hope to see you there!

Late Medical Moments...

2011-08-02T08:51:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone! Sorry,t he blog posts have been paltry...surgery and then outreach and then famiyl vacation has kept us running - but we are back now and i wanted to tell you about the time we shared on July 19th, yes, fair week, at Durgan Elementary.

We spent 6 hours having tons of fun in the heat, painting nails (not me - you don't want me to paint your nails, playing xbox kinect, painting faces, and loving people with our smiles, our hugs, our paint, our play, our care, our doctor visits and some free medicines!

What a great way to spend the day! We had a blast! We had 31 patients and we were able to help them with a wide variety of troubles. It was great to be in a position to care. It was also wonderful to see the folks waiting (imagine waiting for a docotr!!) chatting and enjoying eachother so much! The love and mutual care was just really cool! One lady was even going to miss her bus and so someone gave up their spot to let her go 1st!! It was remarkable!!

You see, we find that as we notice people, not as whether they are insured or not, or whether they have certain clothes, or act a certain way, but as wonderfully created people, made by a loving God - we begin to see life open up in new ways!!! Life takes on a joy and wonder that we never anticipated before! This is what More than more is all about!!

If this sounds really cool to you - we would love to have you join us next Thursday night, August 11th, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th ahdn Schuyler Ave, in Lafayette. 6:45-8:00Pm - free childcare as always!

If transportation is an issue, please reply on the blog and we will try to help!!

hope to see you there!

My Melon!

2011-07-06T21:33:00.003-04:00

So, you know that thing above your neck??

more specifically than your head - your skull - well, last Thursday we spent some time being amazed at how God made our skulls just right for us!! It was a great time!

Ever thought about your skull? Maybe when you raised up into that sign you thought you missed or that cabinet you did not realize was there!!!

Well, the skull is a complex of bones that develop separately during infancy and are not fused until past 1 year of age. Even this is amazing because the fact that they are not fused is many times essential to allow the baby's head (which is the largest part of the baby) to come through the birth canal and actually fit. Plus, the brain grows a vast amount in the first year of life and the unfused bones allow for plenty of growth - after all, we wouldn't want to have our brains smushed by not having enough room in the skull!! How perfect is this???

Then, there's the part of how perfect the skull is for it's job for the rest of our lives. What is the job?

Protection - how many times have you bonked your head? Imagine if those bonks were straight to the brain!!! Not many of us would live past toddlerhood, but instead we have this hard head - which incidentally gets much harder right about the time we get much more mobile and daring - that absorbs the blows we give it and protects us!!

Just to highlight how strong the skulls is i wanted to share a story a patient gave me permission to share:

This young man was working on his car. He was working on something just to the inside of the tire area. His car was jacked up and he was working with his arms inside the tire and his head under the tire. Well, the jack slipped and the entire weight of the car fell on his head, wedging it between the tire and the ground. He was then able to keep his wits enough to reach for and find the slipped jack, slide it under the frame, jack the car up and slide himself out from under the car, only to call the 911 operator and have her think he was joking around because his story was so far-fetched. Well, long story short, after lots of tests and some major worry, he was fine. No harm done. Well, he had a small (too small to see on ct of the head) fracture of the bones, but nothing that won't heal on its own!!! Amazing - now, let me tell you, that young man is exceptionally thankful for his skull!!

Now it is nice to appreciate our skulls and be thankful that we have not damaged ourselves too much over the years, but that would only be part of what we need to do with this story - my advice? Take a minute the next time you notice your skull, or anyone else's for that matter, and give some credit to the God who made us so amazingly. Stop for just a second and thank Him for making you so wonderful! Invite Him into the moment with you, ask Him to be a part of your life...to join you in the moments of your life. You might just begin to see life in a little different way - maybe you'll notice the important things in life and life will become More than it seems now!!

If you are sick of life as usual and would like to begin to live for More, we would love to have you join us next Thursday night, July 14th, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, from 6:45-8:00PM. There will be free, excellent childcare, as always!

Hope to see you there!

Hugs

2011-06-29T21:59:00.007-04:00

So, we had a great time 2wks ago and if you missed it, you missed out!

The best part of the time we shared was during the part of our time together when we share something amazing about God. So, while all stood up, Sophia, my 7 yr old who is famous for her hugs, went around the gave every single person a hug. Now, it was an amazing thing to watch people whi have been so hurt in their lives so touched by the love of a little girl. Some were even crying because of the way their hearts were touched to be hugged.

Now, i think it is safe to say that even if you weren't there, you can understand how cool it is to feel the warmth of another person's hug. It is safe and wonderful. We were made to feel this. Why? Because God loves this way and He wants us to have the joy of having this kind of love in our lives too and so He made us this way - this is no accident - in fact, He wants us to love Him too!

Consider how much a hug is worth - how much would you pay for a hug? What if it was from someone who you lost to death or a broken relationship? What if it was from someone that you always wished could love you and they just wouldn't or couldn't? What price tag would you attach to that?

See? A hug is beyond worth, but how many times do we rush right past them to get something done?

Well, the next time you get a hug, stop and savor, and then invite the God who made you enjoy it into the moment with you. Thank Him for making you that way. Invite Him into the moment and into your world with you - ask Him to join you in your day - it might make all the difference.

If you are tired of missing the really wonderful parts of life because you are caught up in the franticness of American life, we would love to have you join us tomorrow night - June 30th, at MCAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, from 6:45-8:00PM. As always there will be free and excellent childcare.

hope to see you there!

Forgiveness Followup

2011-06-15T20:34:00.001-04:00

Well, I emailed the people who made the movie and they cannot allow us to give copies. So, if you are interested in having a copy, please feel free to post and i will get you the info.

We will be hanging out tomorrow night at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette - 6:45-8:00PM. As always there will be free, excellent childcare.

Also, want to let you know that any of you who are interested are welcome to join us on a community outreach night, next Tuesday night, the 21st. We will be helping to mulch someone's flower beds that we have been praying for for a long time. It will be a great time! If we only experience the goodness of God in our lives and don't share it with other people, we miss so much of the joy in life!!

If you want info, please post to the blog, or come tomorrow night!

Hope to see you soon!

Forgiveness...

2011-06-03T07:51:00.002-04:00

So, we had a fantastic time last Thursday night at McAllister. We, you see, are tired of living life in the usual American way. Always get more stuff, make more money, more fitness, more health, more sex, more toys, more, more, more. Instead, we gather together every other Thursday night to talk about ways to change the way we live - we alter our focus intentionally - we choose to focus our minds and hearts on those things in life that really matter...

Thursday night we talked about Rwanda. We watched video clips from a movie called as we forgive - here is the web site for the movie http://www.asweforgivemovie.com/ - and heard from Cara and Josh, a couple who has just returned from Rwanda. They spoke of genocide - the killing of a million people in cold blood, just because of the type of family they were born into - and then of amazing forgiveness.

The lady in the film's husband and children were murdered and her sister and her family as well. It turns out that her sister was murdered by a family friend of this lady - he tells the story of what he did. He then feels intense guilt and remorse and comes to her to say how sorry he is and to ask her forgiveness. She, almost unbelievably, says that is God has forgiven her, then she will forgive him. she no longer fears death, or agony...it was humbling and intense and perspective changing.

The thing is, God made us this way. We find in our hearts the ability to forgive the most heinous. Now, let me clarify - forgiving does not mean that you are saying that what someone did is ok, or all right. It does not mean you forget, or even that you have some fluffy and healthy relationship with them, but you do make your peace with them, the most you can, right where you are. You choose to not hold tightly onto the reigns of revenge or bitterness. You do your best to see that person as broken and messed up and go on with your life. Now, i realize this is not easy and am not suggesting this - but the amount a human can forgive is absolutely amazing!!!

We went around the room, prior to the movie, and many of the people in the room had been wronged near to the lady on the screen, and had found it in them to forgive to the maximum that they were able at that time in their lives! And we don't live in Rwanda...but the midwest!

You see, as bad as things can be that are inflicted upon us from other people, as much pain as they can cause us, humans have it in their ability to forgive and go on. This is not natural - natural is to attack, to defend, to avenge. But, inside us is this deep seated God-likeness - You see, He made us in His image - meaning that He made us, at our root, to be like Him. We are made to have an ability to forgive, way beyond what it seems like we should be able to.

So, the next time you encounter that person who just really has hurt you (or even think of them)...the next time you see someone forgive past what is reasonable...notice. Pay attention not just to the peace, i am glad for that, but also to the fact that you are made that way. Stop for a second and thank the God who made you so amazingly that you could go through all that and still find the other side. Invite Him into your world, right there. Ask Him to join you in the moment and to begin to open your eyes to what's really important about life. It will not stop people from doing mean things, but it will change your world.

If this is sounding like it might just be a better way to begin trying to live your life, we would love to have you join us June 16th, 6:45-8:00 PM, at McAllister Recreation Center. We will be continuing our journey together, and having some serious laughs. McAllister is just off 20th st and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette. As always, we will have free, excellent childcare, and some exellent food.

Hope to see you there.

Jason

Tomorrow

2011-06-01T21:05:00.004-04:00

Just a quick reminder to all of you that More than more will be hanging out 6:45-8:00pm tomorrow night at McAllister Cetner - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette - we will have some friends of mine with us to share - it should be a good time.

Also, tomorrow begins summer hours at McAllister - which means that we will finish promptly at 8 - they stay open a hour late for us on the Thursday nights we are there.

would love to see all of you there!

So...you want to talk about politics...

2011-05-24T13:25:00.012-04:00

Like i was saying in the last post, we had a great time last time, learning about fractals and appreciating how amazing God is. We also spent time focusing on people and both how amazing all of them (even the biggest pains in the butt ones) are and how broken and messed up and hurting they are. We truly care about each other and it is not because of what we provide to each other - there is nothing much we provide except support and acceptance - but because as we begin to look for More in life, we begin to see that what really matters...is people.

Ok, so after we spent some time focusing on each other and people in general and noticing them, we talked for a while about politics and bumper stickers - 2 topics that most wise leaders try to avoid - i guess that tells something about our leader!

So, i was out at the soccer fields the other day and saw this Chevy Suburban-type vehicle with 4 bumper stickers on it - here they are:

I will not be discussing the "Good Bush"/"Bad Bush" or the "Vegetarians Taste Better" stickers - i cannot speak to the validity of either of those...but it is interesting that they happen to be placed next to the other 2.

So, what do you think about "Religion. You can't start a war without it." and Religion is regarded by the common as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful?"

These 4 stickers struck me so powerfully, that i had to get pix of them.

Then, the next day i was driving home and came across Jeep Cherokee with this bumper sticker:

and just below it was:

How interesting! 2 vehicles, 2 days, 5 bumper stickers ( i guess you might be able to guess that the suburban did not have the "In God we Trust" license plate), 2 license plates.

Well, we had a serious discussion about all this Thursday night!

The truth is that I feel a wide range of emotions and have a broad range of thoughts about the suburban and their clear feeling that religion is at best foolish and worst evil. One of the things, just to start off, is not violence.

I look at those and i am saddened by the distorted view that they have of the God who made fractals and them and me and gives so much More to life than i ever imagined before i began following Him. He is the God of acceptance and love and forgiveness and reconciliation and peace and joy and purpose and meaning. He is the One who made you to appreciate the wonderful moments of life, just like He does and to grieve the painful moments of life, just like He does. He is not a God who loves violence and war. He is not a God who wants to detroy or hurt. He is smarter than the wise and way more powerful than the rulers who may use His "religion" in a corrupted form to oppress or harm people. To view say religion of my God is false because corrupt leaders mis-use it would be like saying that the American government was not real, just because corrupt politicians mis-use it.

But, i am more than sad when i think of all this...I am angry. Who am i angry at?

Not the vegetarian, who apparently tastes so good. I am angry at the Jeep driver who apparently thinks it is a good idea to malign the president (no matter what you think of him, we, as Americans, elected him) right above his "In God We Trust" license plate. You see, by driving with that combination of plate and sticker, he is saying that the one thing he wants you to know about him other than his trust in God is that he thinks his president is a huge mistake. These are the only messages on his bumper - not "Love your neighbor." not "Forgive when you are wronged" not "Do something wonderful with your life." not "You can have healing from the brokenness inside you." not "There's More to life than economics and money and stuff and work." not "I will gladly help you if you ask me." not "I love all people." and on and on i could go. These would be Jesus' messages (were his messages when he walked on this earth) if he drove a Jeep and had an "In God We Trust" plate on it (and honestly i think if Jesus lived now, he might not be able to afford a vehicle - he would probably ride the bus or walk or bike).

You see, what i see in our world is that the majority of the population that claims Jesus and his teachings (called Christians as a religion) are much more ready to assert their political sentiments than to love their neighbor...more ready to trumpet the cause of their agendas than to forgive when they are wronged...more ready to beat on those who disagree with them than to do something wonderful with their lives...more ready to assert their claim to their lot line and neighborhood rights than to let someone know that you can have healing from the brokenness inside...more ready to flap their giant steaks in the face of the vegetarians and yell at them for not supporting beef farmers than they are to let them know that There's More to life than economics and money and stuff and work...more ready to give &10 via text to Haiti than to say to any random someone who appeared, in need, I will gladly help you if you ask me or I love all people. It is this kind of pervasive neglect for the truth of Jesus' teachings that allows someone to deny the Truth of it. There is no question in my mind that if the driver of that suburban met Jesus and hung out with Him for a few days, they would become convinced that He was not a starter of wars and that He was absolutely true - it rings with the quote from Ghandi - "I like your Christ, I don't like your Christians"

The misrepresentation of the the Truth of God is so bad in our culture that when More than more began, we started because there were so many who, encountering our love for them, wanted to know more about this God we talked about, but refused to go to church. So, we tell people about how amazing He is...and we find that more and more of them are encountering Him for real and see that He is not the God of the suburban, or the jeep.

You see recently More than more went to someone's house to help them for a night and the gentleman who lived there told me how he was struggling with God and whether He could be real with all the pain that was in his life. My response? "Look around dude. You may not be able to believe in God, but you cannot deny these people who have come out on a Friday night, to your house, for no payment, for no reason, except that they choose to share the love in their lives with you. This, my friend is what God is like."

Now, i don't want to give you any false ideas - we are soooooooo far from perfect. We screw up often, and we own it. We live broken lives and life has beat us up, one side and the other. We have addictions and bad habits and have made choices that we wish we could go back and change. We are mean sometimes and impatient and unkind. We are judgmental way more than we want to be. We are broken and hurting people. But, we will not deny it. And we are choosing to look at life in a different way. We are choosing a different path. Our lives will matter, not because of who we are - we suck - we will be very quick to tell you this - but because of the love that we are seeing in this God, this Jesus, this God of Christianity. Plus, we will accept you - we will help you - we will care for you - we will not make a war with you and by the end of it all, you may be able to deny God, but you will not be able to deny us!

So, to the people in the suburban, if you simply bought the truck with the stickers on it and could not get them off, then disregard the message, it is for the previous owner. If those are your stickers, i would love to have you join us at More than more, we will be hanging out again June 2nd, from 6:45-8:00PM

And to the people in the Jeep, we would love for you to join us too - we would like to re-introduce you to the God we trust - He is amazing and wonderful and i'm pretty sure He loves president Obama...

What is a fractal??

2011-05-23T13:12:00.003-04:00

Well, we had a great time last Thursday! It was so cool to hang out and enjoy being with people who accept us as ourselves - and are all sick of the usual thing in this country of always trying to get more, become more, be more, buy more, achieve more, etc.

This time we talked about fractals.

What are fractals? Yeah, i had no idea until relatively recently either.

Fractals are shapes that when you split them into parts, there are reduced size copies of the original. They are amazing - allow me to copy a couple links to web sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_GBwuYuOOs

http://fractalfoundation.org/

The interesting thing (check out the 3rd of the web sites) is that fractals occur everywhere. In DNA, in weather, in geography, in math, in space - everywhere. Check out this quote from:

http://library.thinkquest.org/26242/full/

What is a Fractal?

Imagine flying in a space shuttle looking at the coast of Britain. From such a great distance the coast looks perfectly straight, going from north to south. But, as you approach the earth something tells you the coast is not perfectly straight... Of course! As you go into the upper atmosphere you realize that it has thousands of bays, harbors, capes, and peninsulas that you could not see from a distance. Thinking that now you have a detailed picture of the coast, you turn towards one of the harbor beaches, which seems to be straight... However, as you get closer to it, you see that it too has thousands of smaller bays, harbors, capes, and peninsulas! Wondering if this will ever end you decide to get even closer... Eventually you wind up on the beach looking at the coast through a microscope. You can now see every grain of sand clearly, but, it too has thousands of indentations and extrusions!

No matter how close you get, you will
always see a similarly detailed picture

The fact that any small part of the coast will look similar to the whole thing was first noted by Benoit Mandelbrot. He called shapes like this fractals. Fractals are figures with an infinite amount of detail. When magnified, they don’t become more simple, but remain as complex as they were without magnification. In nature, you can find them everywhere. Any tree branch, when magnified, looks like the entire tree. Any rock from a mountain looks like the entire mountain. The theory of fractals was first developed to study nature. Now it is used in a variety of other applications. And, of course, beauty is what makes them popular!

So, here is this naturally occurring, amazingly complex shape system that seems to be everywhere. It is perfect and it is not understood! Why does this happen this way? What is the purpose of all this?

Well, the problem is that this unbelievable organization does not fit with the idea that the world just randomly evolved into existence - if it was random and naturally selected only, there would not be this much consistency. What is does scream is that there is a marvelous creator who is intelligent beyond our imaginations and made the world in a beautiful, organized way. His creativity was applied with reason and purpose!

Now, i know this is interesting and i hope you enjoy learning about it, but if all you do is read this and go, "Cool" and then back to your life, then it is not enough.

My advice?

When you read about fractals, thank God - invite Him into that moment with you and ask Him to be part of your life. When you see fractals in life (which if you look, you will), do the same - enjoy the fact that the very same God who made the world so amazing and complicated, made you and if He went to all that trouble, He will not abandon you - and plus there is More to life than the everyday!! Stop and notice it, let is sink in, maybe there is something besides work, sleep, and bills!

Hope this can encourage you this week when the week begins to overwhelm,

Those who choose their pain - the second part

2011-05-20T05:50:00.002-04:00

So, i feel like there is a 2nd part to the last post...

Within the most tragic of the pain sufferer's group are 2 groups of people:

The first is a group of people who see the good and identify that it is good and want to go there and leave behind their pain but for some reason their life circumstances, their issues, their confidence, their place in life keeps them from being able to do it - many times they feel guilty and tons of pain at choosing to go back to the pain, but in their minds they just can't seem to see the way to get from "here" to "there." Honestly, to some degree, i think all of us live in this place to some degree - we see that we could do or be better people, have more love, be more positive, or whatever, but we are not yet in a place where we can get all the way to where we want to go. This is actually a healthy kind of dilemma to some degree, as the accompanying frustration of not being able to get all the way to where we want to get tends to shove us closer to God - we yell at Him, we ask Him, we plead with Him, we go to friends and true relationships where He is involved and look for new ways to grow and challenge and become, the best we can.
These folks are actually wonderful - we struggle and battle and grow over time. The key here is that we find our way to the circumstances and life experiences that will help us grow and move past the choosing of the pain. I face this regularly in myself - i want to be more patient or understanding, but inside me something pushes that back and i become grumpy and frustrated and impatient. This frustration then pushes me to interact with God and those who i trust in Him and He helps me, but never as fast it seems as i want Him to (still impatient...). I face it in the office - the alcoholic comes into the office and wants to quit, identifies that there is a problem, really wants to do better, to move away from their pain, but they just can't seem to put it away - so, in their frustration, i hope they will talk to God and ask for help in finding ways to quit. Usually what happens then, over time, is that they experience cricumstances that motivate them to quit and draw them closer and closer to God. So you see, in this case, we are choosing our pain, but mainly because we just can't do any different.

If you find yourself in this group, my advice is to run after God and those who love Him with all you've got - do your very best. Pray for vision, that you would see a new way of thinking and doing things - that God would show you where to go next - He will. Ask those who care about you to pray the same thing...it will happen - i see it over and over. There is a beautiful future for you ahead - please do not pound yourself into oblivion for your mistakes, just keep going back to God with them and asking Him for help - you will find that over time you will get there.

The other group is a group of people who have seen the Truth and identify it and start toward it and then in spite of having an ability to go toward the good, they abandon all that is good, God and people, and run full force into their pain. They choose to stop having relationship with God and all that is good and instead embrace the pain and brokenness of their lives. Now, these people too are products of their circumstances, but they are where they are because they are choosing to go against all that they know is good. It is true that they may need to experience that time in their lives in order to get to the good and appreciate God and His love and plans for them completely - i know that my life has had some times when i went against all that was good knowingly and had the ability, to some degree, to change that pattern and i chose not to and i am convinced that that time was essential in my growth in God. So, while these folks hurt us very badly and are so frustrating because we invest so much love and care into them and they betray us and hurt us, they actually may still be moving toward God. Please if you are caring and love someone in this situation, please don't stop loving them...don't stop praying for them...don't lose that glimmer of hope at the bottom of your heart that they can change and become all that you see they can become. Pray that their life circumstances will take them where they need to go to see that their path is detroying them.
And if you are one of those people choosing to go against all that is good (i am excited that you are still reading!!), talk to God - He is not out to get you, but to give you a full and wonderful life. There is a better way!! There can be joy and peace and wonder in life. Please, reach out to some people who love Him and are trying to go His way in this crazy life. You do not have to keep going the way you are going - we will not stop loving you. Consider joining us at More than more - we are a group of people who are all messed up and trying to choose what's best and struggling with it every day, but seeing ourselves grow to be more pain free over time. We will be hanging out on June 2nd for the next time at McAllister recreation center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM - there will be free excellent childcare, as always. We hope to see you there!

About Pain

2011-05-16T06:19:00.000-04:00

5-7-11
I have been overwhelmed by the pain in the world. So many times I put my head down on my pillow and am haunted by the faces of people I have encountered who are in the midst of pain and heartbreak. Now sometimes the pain is a direct result of choices they have made – they are essentially dealing with all the “fall-out” of things they have done or said or been in the past. This is hard and frankly it sucks, but it is something we all have to deal with, me and you and everyone. We don’t want to deal with it, but if we are wise, we do and we realize our part in it all and trudge through, trying to learn as much as we can and make peace and goodness out of it as much as possible. Sometimes the pain is completely random, we are diagnosed with heart problems, or a tragedy occurs and takes someone we love, or a tornado rips through our town and destroys all we had planned, not to mention all our neighbors had planned, or something of the same type of thing. This also sucks, but it seems more unfair, like why me, and yet, as we look around, it seems that most everybody has those “why me” times and if they haven’t yet, we all have a sense that they will someday and we half smirk/half frown as we think about their naiveté. We say to ourselves, “Oh someday it will happen to you and you will understand like it or not and I will feel sorry for you then, but you will not be so cocky.” But, in spite of having to deal with the consequences of our own past choices and being struck randomly with painful circumstances (no matter how universal it is, it still is unbelievably hard), there is a thread of hope in these painful times. No, we do not wake up the morning after this happens and jump out of bed, glad to have been struck in such a fashion with the blind hand of life. But, those of us who are real people, forging through life with purpose, realizing that there is More to life than just the everyday work and pay your bills life that most people live, we attack these times the best we can, we see them as bad, but as the perspective dawns on them, as the reality sinks in, we usually find ourselves changing, growing, getting stronger, becoming a better person – something happens in these times and we sense it, deep in our souls. “There is an end to this” – and at the end, things are better – maybe even better than they ever were before the pain. We do not completely understand this, but it is there, nevertheless. Sometimes it takes a long time to make it to that place, but we get there, eventually, as long as we keep connecting with people we love and who love us, a God who loves us, and wants the best for us, and forging ahead, searching, looking, willing to become, to unfold, like a rose that is budding. I am reminded of a story one of our friends wrote about recently, as she and her husband rushed to their former home in Georgia, where a tornado had destroyed a town, taking with it the life that those people had known. No government aided disaster relief puts back together the pieces of your life in times like that. But our friend talked about this woman whose house had been shredded like a block of cheese. Our friend and her family had spent a portion of their day picking up family pictures strewn about because the tornado had no respect at all for family memories. And this woman, whose life had been so devastated, was a picture of hope – just as sure as she could be that there were wonderful things to come of this (sometimes when people say this I think they need to be medicated, because they must be delusional, but the sense I get is that this was a real spirit of hope, sure that the thread of hope she felt would lead her to something better and that she was not going to give up that thread, but instead she would follow it to a place far away from that field of devastation where she, and all she knew was new and alive and had a meaning and purpose she had never dreamed before the tornado came.) I am not suggesting that we all be jolly about pain here, simply saying for these 2 types of pain, there is an end that is often much better than we dream in the middle of them if we will go through the pain with God and some loving friends.
Now, this is actually not a story about the hope in pain – if you continue to read what I write, there will be more on that topic, but not this time. This is actually about a whole different kind of pain. This is about a kind of pain that slapped me in the face multiple times in the last couple months (and I actually see if very often in my day to day life). This pain is so heinous that I cringe at it. I fume at it. I get nauseated at it and I weep the deep places of my heart about it, more than almost anything else in the whole world. I have dedicated my life to changing it. I can no longer sit by and allow it to go on without a fight!
The first two times I wanted to tell you about occurred when my wife and I were sitting in church. I know, church should not be a place where one witnesses the worst kind of pain that exists and I want to tell you right now that my church is NOT a bad place. It has a group of people that come together to try their best to know God and do what He wants. Many of them live out the love of Jesus in their everyday lives – this story is not intended to be harmful to them – in fact – my church is a good place to learn about God and hang out with other people who are trying to get closer to Him. It is not the church’s fault, at least not directly, that these painful things were going on – the people are simply doing what they know, doing their best – I also want to tell you that this pain is not the fault of my pastor. He is a good man – I love him. He loves God very much. He would be equally grieved by the pain that I saw.
So, the first of them occurred just down the row from me. There was a young man. He was not peculiar in his dress, jeans and t-shirt, or in his look, he was well kempt and respectful. He was not making strange faces or disrupting the service. In fact, he was working, I think. He was with a disabled man in a wheelchair, who could not push himself. This young man was the caretaker, the chair pusher. There was something about the way he carried his body, kind of bent a little in the shoulders. There was a sadness in his eyes, something empty and lost, it seemed to me. He was not weeping and upset, but he looked as if he had taken it on the chin from life a few times. He was there, next to the handicapped man, with his dark backpack. So, as I said, it was Easter Sunday and the sermon was excellent – the pastor did a great job of speaking about how amazing our God is and that the fact that Jesus was resurrected basically meant that God did not do things the way everyone else did and we no longer needed to live all bound up by and controlled by and imprisoned by what was going on in the world – we could live lives that were free. Full of joy and meaning and purpose, our lives could explode with greatness!! I have got to say, I am excited about that message – I have lived far too much of my life bound and imprisoned, wrapped up with stuff and with no real peace in my life and now my life is amazing beyond description – all because of this Jesus of Easter!
So, this poor sad looking young chair pusher, sat there in that service, surrounded by the love of God, with the words of freedom circling around his head like he was a Sunday comic strip on steroids, all he needed to do was wake up, pay attention, grab even one of those word bubbles and ingest it – breathe it in - and feel the life rush into him. But, what was he doing? He was reading a cheesy paperback novel (now I must admit here that I do not know what he was reading specifically, but it was a small paperback book…). He would read his novel, every once in a while looking up when the pastor was particularly animated, kinda like he was tuning into CNN to see if there was some juicy piece of news or something and then he would go back to his novel. Then , just before the end of the service, when things were kinda wrapping up and all, he put his book away, got up and wheeled the disabled gentleman out, not to be seen again. This young man, slightly bent over, with sad eyes, in his jeans and t-shirt – he represents the worst kind of pain.
Another of the face to face moments I have had with this unbearable pain was also in church (please re-read the section now on how this problem is not my church in particular). It was the Sunday after Easter and the pastor was speaking about Mary of Magdala. She was the first person to see Jesus after He rose from the dead and she was first one Jesus trusted with his message of life. She was also unlikely in her being chosen. She was from a dumpy town, famous for its pickling industry and looked down upon by the people of the region. She was a woman and women were just the most beat down, pitiful, nonrespected people in those days. And to top it all off, she, prior to meeting Jesus, had 7 demons living inside her. Now, she was a pitiful case, but Jesus got rid of her demons, and then she followed him around. And He chose her for one of the most important jobs in all of history. He didn’t choose someone who was high society, or from the country club. He didn’t choose someone who was powerful or respected. He didn’t hold her past against her, but loved her unselfish and tender heart. He pronounced her worthy, even though she wasn’t until she met Him. Now, toward the end of talking about all this, the pastor said this great line: “Now, you may feel like your past is holding onto you and you will never be free of it. You are wrong. Jesus says that you have worth far beyond what you have done in the past.” Now, I don’t know about you, but that is phenomenal news!! I am not proud of my past. If you were to probe it, you would be shocked and I would be ashamed. But Jesus does not hold that against me anymore!!! Instead, He chooses me for something amazing for Him!! Now this makes me want to jump up and down, to express the thrill to everyone I know!! But, the next thing I heard was my wife leaning over and saying, “Why isn’t anyone else excited about that? That’s good news!” I looked around and I agonized to see dazed people, sitting in rows, then I became angry – overwhelmed by the fact that this amazing Truth was right there in front of them and they seemed to not see it – they were missing it, or they were dead! This, this is the worst kind of pain – beyond grief and sadness and destruction.
The third example of this horrific kind of pain that has absolutely slapped me in the face recently has been enacted by many many people I know over the years, some friends and some acquaintances, and some that I do not even know, but lately it has been particularly hard to see in some people that we love very much, who we have invested our lives in loving. The details vary greatly, but the basic story is the same. A person faces life, and while going through life, they face major problems. In the midst of the problems they are presented with the gift of a way of going through the problems so that, in time, they can grow and see the thread of hope of a better day. That gift is given to them in the form of friendships and unconditional love they have never known. It is given to them in the form of resources provided out of love and with no other agenda, but to show them that there is a way through – to be a thread giver, if you will. It is given to them in form of support and advice and experience from having walked that same road in the past. It is given to them in form of tears shed, prayers shared, and late night texts and phone calls agonized over. It is given to them in the form of lunches sacrificed and dinners shared. Now, there is nothing more beautiful than being a thread giver and watching someone grasp onto the thread, with as much grasp as they have, and then to wriggle and writhe their way, searching and seeking and clawing their way to the other side of the pain – then to have the joy of celebrating on the other side! But, there is nothing more painful in all the world than to watch someone presented with something so beautiful as this thread of hope and instead to choose to go right back to the place where the pain is; to stop looking for the thread; to stop searching for the God who can help them through to the other side of the pain; to deny and run away from the love of those people who have been thread givers to them. Instead of grasping onto the thread, they choose to live in their pain – they choose the familiar heartbreak of their lives over the unfamiliar possibilities of the future. They choose to wallow in the mud, when the spa is waiting and free. They choose shoes with no soles in favor of brand new shoes with jet packs on the heels! They choose to ride a broken down moped instead of flying in supersonic jets! They choose to read their cheesy novel and keep their sad face over grabbing the words out of the air and finding some meaning and healing in life. They choose to sit in their rows and satisfy their self-imposed requirement to be religious with that particular time instead of celebrating freedom! This is the worst type of pain of all! This crushes my heart and makes me want to tear my 40 year old thinning hair out. This is a tragedy of tragedies!

So, if you are a person who has faced disaster and is clinging to a thread, keep on clinging – find some others to cling with you, keep searching for the God who made you and loves you and hang on! You will get there!

If you are a person who is a thread giver, keep giving the threads – pass on the hope – let them know that they are loved and cared for and that you will never abandon them and you will never leave them and that God won’t either. Many you will find will find hope and meaning and peace in the world – many will put down their novels and grab up the hope in those threads like a thirsty man in the desert presented with a jug of water. Some will break your heart, I am sorry to say, but don’t let that stop you. Even Jesus, who was the most influential man that ever lived, had some who chose to wallow in their pain (read in the Bible Mark 10:17-27). But having someone not accept it doesn’t make the message any less True. When you feel the stinging pain of watching someone you love deny the Truth, pick up their novel and read away, take heart, you re doing the right thing – but you are not the one who has the ultimate responsibility for them. You only have the responsibility to be faithful and true in what you are asked. They have to choose.

If you are one of those people who is choosing to read your novel, to deny the love of true friends in favor of what you have always known, to stay with the same old pain and badness because it is easy even if it sucks. Would you consider just talking to God about it? Invite Him into your world right now – and keep doing it – i think sometimes we find ourselves denying the threads of hope because something inside us is too broken to actually see the Truth – we have no idea what to do next, or if there’s even a possibility that the thread might be True. Ask God to heal you inside. Ask Him to give you a new vision of what life can be like. Ask Him to change Your mind – keep asking – do your best – surround yourself with people who have an idea of what hope really is – thread givers – don’t isolate yourself in your pain, behind your little cheesy fiction book – there is so much More to life than you have seen if you will just lift up your head.

At More than more we cannot prevent pain from entering into your life. In fact, all of us have been pretty well slammed by pain. But, what we can promise is that we will journey through it with you. We will care about you and we will continue to point you in the direction of goodness and healing. We will journey with you toward More than you have been living for.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, please join us this Thursday, May 19th, 6:45-8:00 PM, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

Ever thought about Thyroid??

2011-05-03T12:34:00.005-04:00

Well, let me tell you, if you have not thought about thyroid, you are missing out!!! This is a truly amazing gland in your body (ok not all of you - some of you may have had it removed...) The thyroid is this gland, in your neck, that makes thyroid hormone - great name!! Now, thyroid hormone is absolutely essential to your well being - it controls how you grow, how you maintain weight and energy, how you use food, how you feel, your mood, and tons of other stuff - in fact, one of the rules of medicine is that if something is wrong and the thyroid is messed up, fix the thyroid first, and the other things may normalize too! It is truly amazing and powerful!

So, the way that thyroid works is remarkable - i have attached a picture for those visual learners, like me - basically, it begins in the brain and a signal is sent to the pituitary gland in the form of a hormone - TRH - this tells the pituitary to make TSH, another hormone, and then that goes to the thyroid gland and tells it to make thyroid hormone! Now this seems complicated and unnecessary until you know the next part. The thyroid hormone then floats around doing its work in the body, but both the TSH maker and the TRH maker have a built in sensor for thyroid hormone - these sensors tell them when there is enough thyroid in the blood and then the signal to make more decreases automatically - so the system is so miraculously made that this vital hormone stays at very consistent levels in your system, because of this delicate feedback mechanism!!!

Now, as if this is not enough already, we have known for a long time that thyroid levels change during pregnancy and it used to be thought that it was because the newborn must have plenty of thyroid hormone to grow and develop (and God designed an automatic system to protect that little one!!), and because there are more proteins in the blood of a pregnant woman, the levels of the labs we use to test are harder to interpret. But there is more than these things - it turns out that the hormone from the placenta that women make during pregnancy - HCG (this is what pregnancy tests measure) also goes straight to the thyroid gland and stimulates production of thyroid hormone (thus giving plenty of supply to this essential hormone to that precious little baby), but there is some unknown automatic adjustment in the pituitary and brain signals that does not allow the level to decrease because of this special extra hormone floating around!!! Do you see, the baby and mom need extra, and the body would not usually allow that because of the balanced system that it has, but because of that system, God put something in place tht we do not understand to protect them!!!!

Now, i went to a conference a couple weeks ago and this big shot guy was talking about this as if he was surprised by this - as if he has everything all figured out - and there i was in the back of the room, wanting to jump up and down and scream that this is God's plan - to provide for that little one!!! Amazing!!

So, the next time you get up, get that cup of coffee (this is what i do) and feel the energy start to surge through you as you wake up - consider thyroid hormone. The next time you see a little baby, or a pregnant lady, consider thyroid hormone, and God's amazing plan to protect that little one, that even the big shots don't understand. Talk to God in those moments and invite Him to join you in your world, in your moment, in your day. It will be a better day for it!

You see, it makes more sense to believe in a loving creator who made all this especially for us, than it is to believe that is was an accident. And that is beautiful - because if He loves us enough to guard our little ones like this, then He is not going to let us go in our lives - You see, He wants to be part of our lives! And when He is part of our lives, we have the chance to escape the crazy, get more, buy more, become more of this world and find the meaning in life - we find MORE than more.

We will be hanging out tomorrow night - May 6th - at McAllister Recreation Center, Lafayette - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave - 6:45-8:00 PM - we would love to have you join us - you will never find a group of people who will accept you for who you are more than these people and theya re all on this same journey - searching for More.

Hope you can make it!

Why Can New Parents and Residents Survive?

2011-04-20T06:41:00.001-04:00

Why Can New Parents and Residents Survive?

So, have you ever wondered how some people can get by with very little sleep and others seem to need a lot? Ever wondered how at some points in your life you seem to need more sleep and then other times (like when you are a new parent) you can get by with very little and be tired, but still be ok?

People always say that you can't "make up" sleep, but it sure does seem like you can miss almost a while night or even more and somehow get a whole lot less than a "night sleep" and still be somewhat functional the next day! Something here does not make sense!

Well, I went to a conference over Spring break and heard someone talk about this - this guy was a good speaker, entertaining, interesting and all, but he was kinda clueless. You see, he just didn't see the Truth in front of him.

He have his talk about sleep - as you may or may not know - sleep has different stages or pasts to it - Stage 1, 2, 3, 4, and REM or Rapid Eye Movement. We progress through these phases through the night as we sleep and we need certain portions of them to consider ourselves rested and functional.

Well, here's the amazing part, the part Mr. Fancy Lecture Guy totally missed out on, if you miss sleep, like a night, for whatever reason, the baby's crying, work is bugging you, you are stressed out, whatever, your sleep cycle automatically adjusts. You cram the phases of sleep into a much smaller time frame. If you can get what is called "core sleep," which for most people is about 5 and 1/2 hours, you actually get the functionality of the full night sleep - and here is the amazing part: you are made to adjust this automatically. Now, you may not feel like a million bucks after just core sleep, as opposed to your usual, but literally the stages of your sleep adjust on their own!

Now, what did Mr. Fancy Lecture Guy miss out on? He missed God in this! He taught this like it was just an odd coincidence! Ludicrous! God made you this way! He made yo to be able to survive child bearing and me to survive delivering babies in the middle of the night and us to still be able to function in our lives. You see, HE knew that sometimes, some people, would not be able to get the full 8 hours of sleep consistently, and He also knew that people and life depended on those people (like moms and doctors and firefighters, for example) still being able to do all they do and well they next day or 2. So, He made a system where everything auto-adjusts. You don't have to say to your sleep when you go to bed - "now i want you to adjust my stages of sleep tonight" - in fact most of you had no idea how you survived those times in your lives when your sleep was majorly disturbed before you learned this - i sure didn't!

But, consider this: If there is a great big God, who is big enough to make you adjust like this. If there is a God who loves you and your family enough to cover you when you are tired. If there is a God who sees into our needs and world so perfectly that He gives gifts like this to us and we don't even know about them. Then, isn't it possible that He is there with us each step of the way in our lives? The answer is yes, a loud and consistent yes!

You see, He loves you very much! He made you!

So, the next time you are laying there in bed, getting ready to go to sleep, or even struggling to sleep, getting up with a sick kid, or having to go in to work, would you consider noticing? Notice that you are made this way! Thank God that He made you this way. Invite Him to join you in your night, your life, your day. Relish the fact, that while life is hard, we are not abandoned to the hardness of it - we have a God who wants to go through it with us, to help us.

If you would begin to notice and invite God into the moments of your life, you will begin to see life differently. You will begin your exit from "life as usual" in the American dream.

If you are sick of the get more, buy more, achieve more, satisfy more, eat more, exercise more, religion more, success more, society we live in. If you have tried it all out and found out that you still feel empty and lost. Please consider joining us Thursday night, the 21st of April, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM. We spend our time trying to move out of the "more" of usual life and into the "More" of the One who made mom's get enough sleep! We notice people and how amazing they are and we appreciate them. We also notice their pain and hurts and troubles - we do not ignore them - instead, we care about them - we come beside them and help in any way we can. And we would love to share this with you - it is great way to live! Hope to see you there!

update

2011-04-04T21:56:00.002-04:00

So, last Mtm, on the 24th, went wonderful - it was great to be able to really help someone out, for no reason other that the fact that they matter - if you were there, tell someone about it and if you were not, you missed a great chance to give something of yourself and get a heart full of joy.

I just wanted to remind you all that we will be hanging out this Thursday night 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette - it will be a great time to hang with the kind of people who go to people's houses they don't know and help them out, for no reason except that they believe in something More in life than the everyday grind of American life!

hope to see you there!

Next Thursday

2011-03-18T22:32:00.002-04:00

Ok - so, as you have read, we will be out in the community next Thursday, helping someone out who could use a hand (or 30!)

Here is the address:

8228 S. 350 E.
Lafayette, IN
47909

we will be there from about 6:45 til 8:00PM

We will then be back at McAllister 2wks from Thursday - 4/7

One final note, the place we are helping is not safe for kids - it is near a creek and has a lot of old equipment laying around - so we are asking, JUST FOR THIS WEEK, no kids.

We always want your kids, any other time...we just want them to be safe too!

Hope to see you soon!

More along those lines...

2011-03-17T06:55:00.000-04:00

Fear.

Well, it seems to be everywhere.

As I noted in my last blog entry, my fear has shaped me remarkably. But, have you ever thought about what happens to you when you are afraid?

Your pupils dilate to take in more light and see things more clearly. Your ears get more sensitive to hear every sound. Your body moves blood from the gut to the brain (to think quickly) and the major muscle groups (to react and defend or run). You may even get more aggressive.

Here’s the cool part: Do you stop when you are afraid and think to yourself, “Ok, I’m afraid now, let’s dilate the pupils to take in more light and get the ears perked up and the muscles ready and…?”

The obvious answer is no – you don’t. It all happens automatically! You see, even though fear is complicated and many times distorted in the way we use it, it is a wonderfully made, automatic self protection mechanism that God has given you! It all happens without you even noticing!

Why did He spend so much time making this? Because He loves you! He wants you around. This is a way for you to protect yourself!

It is fantastic…and we take it for granted at every scary movie, every near miss in our cars, every time we get scared.

So, as much as you may not like being scared, the next time you are, don’t just let it slide by – recognize that God made you amazingly well and that when He did that, he was saying how much He cares about you. And if He cares about you that much, then He will not abandon you…ever. Notice His love for you in that moment. Thank Him for it! Invite him into that moment with you and ask Him to be part of your life – right there. Notice the connection point with God and your life will begin to change a little. Your perspective will begin to change.

If you are sick of life as usual in this life, always trying to get more, become more, achieve more and you would like to have a different type of life – one that notices like this – we would love to have you join us!

We get together every other Thursday night – the next time will be 3/24 – 6:45-8:00PM. This next time will be different than usual though – we will be out in the community, doing something to help someone! It will be a fantastic time! Stay tuned to the blog (www.morethamoremtm.blogspot.com) or email (if you get them) to find out where. There will probably not be childcare at the outreach night and so you will need to plan to watch your kids if you come, or get childcare (too hard to watch the kids where we are going to be).

The time after, 4/7 – will be back at McAllister Recreation Center- just off 20th and Schuyler in Lafayette, 6:45-8:00 PM and there will be wonderful and free childcare for that night!! Hope to see you there!

So, what are you afraid of?

2011-03-09T06:51:00.000-05:00

So, my wife and I were talking the other night about something she has been reading and studying and talking about with some friends of hers. The entire discussion was about fear. Seems fear is something that is present all over the place in our society. I deal with it often in my office – it manifests itself as anxiety in the lives of thousands of Americans and seems to suck the joy from our lives.

So, she asked me, “What’s your greatest fear?” “Woa, hold on a second,” I thought, “I know this is marriage and all, but do you have to get so personal.” Well, after a second of adjusting to the question and the fact that I really did not like thinking about it or dealing with it, I decided on an answer and here it is:

I am most afraid of failing.

When I type them out on the screen, they seem so small and insignificant, but when I say them, even as I’m typing them, they conjure some senses deep inside me that cringe, even feeling like I am being prepared to be hit or something (and as far as I know no one is lurking around me ready to smack me!).

The thing is that this seemingly insignificant 6 words have shaped my life massively over the years. You see, I am an analyzer – I try to think ahead of everything, anticipate everything and figure everything out before it happens. This tends to drive those I love crazy sometimes (it is not unusual for my wife to say, “Quit analyzing me!”) There is no question that this fear has also been responsible for many, if not most, of my decisions in life. So, just imagine with me, someone comes up to me with a great opportunity, but a lot of risk, what am I most likely to say? Of course, I tend to be extremely conservative in my decisions (not politically necessarily, another discussion). I am too afraid of fear to really risk very much! This also has negatively shaped my relationships – imagine what it is like to be most afraid of failure and to grow up in a home where the 2 adults could not get along – where marriage was not harmonious to say the least. I have been afraid of failure forever in my marriage and relationships! This has handcuffed and imprisoned my marriage in a cell of my fear for most of our lives. And this is just a couple of examples.

In fact, last night when my wife and I and the kids were driving back from Indianapolis and talking, I told her that I remember back in the younger days of our relationship that I was happy, but not like this – there was so much i didn’t understand, so much frustration and hurt and anger at myself that even though I loved Melissa, much of my joy was sucked away. But now, my joy seems to leap from my life. Things have changed.

You see, I figured out the fear inside me was responsible for much of the good in my life – like driving me to be good at medicine and parenting and all, but that it was also a terrible thing for me – sucking the life from me – the joy. Then, I began to realize that this fear was really just my way of protecting myself from what might happen next – anticipating failure so that it would not overwhelm me when it happened.

But, how did I find freedom from this, or at least begin on the road? Well, I began to see that succeeding did not validate my life – it was nice, but there was never enough success to keep me happy! And I began to see that failure was not nearly as bad as I thought it was – usually when I failed I learned something amazing and life got better from there. I began to realize that my true value and my future and accomplishments and successes were controlled by God. He was the One who gave me success and the ability to gain it. He was the One who gave me value in success or failure, regardless. He accepted me either way. And, He was the One who controlled the outcome of the decisions I was making (as long as I was keeping Him in my life and not shoving Him out) – there was no need to fear failure, when the One who created all that exists was the One who was in charge. Now, it has taken years and years of trying and failing to get to the point where I trust God with my identity and my future, but as I look around me, I see no handcuffs! I see little bondage to my fear anymore. Of course, sometimes it rears its ugly head again and I slip back into my self-proving life, but mostly, I live full of bubbly joy, not because of what I have done, but because my life is about something different than it ever was before!

This is what we are all heading toward at More than more – we are joining together to begin to see this freedom of life and spirit that is found in the release of our fears to the One who made us. We are on this path with many others, who remind us of our journey and encourage us along the way. They accept us for who we are, not who we prove ourselves to be! It is a wonderful thing!

If this sounds nice, and you are tired of being ruled by drives inside you that you do not understand and cannot seem to get around, if you crave peace – I wish you would join us – it will not be a magical insta-fix, but you can come alongside us, and we will help you see what we are already seeing – something More…than more.

We will be hanging out tomorrow night, 3/10/11, 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center, Lafayette, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, and of course there will be free, excellent childcare available – we want your kids to be safe and have fun too!

What's in the Sound of Voice?

2011-03-02T13:09:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone! Do you ever think of voices? They can destroy us in pain with just a few words...they can raise us to near ecstasy in another. They can use words to motivate us or music to soothe us.

Out of this one thing comes all communication related to speech. All languages are simply differences in the way this voice is altered in one way or another.

And what is more frustrating than when your ears are plugged up and you can't hear someone or when someone cant hear you and keeps saying, "What?"

In short, voices are amazing!

But, have you ever stopped to think about how all this works?? Truth? Voices and all their sounds are made by 2 little cords of tissue called the vocal cords - and are they a great creation!!

Check out this Utube video that we watched at Mtm last Thursday (we did not produce this, just watched it):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajbcJiYhFKY

Amazing!

So simple - 2 little cords of tissue, vibrating against each other - making all those sounds, all those languages, all that significance to our lives!!

So simple, yet so complex! So wonderful and unbelievable and yet so easy!

We can make some sounds by manmade methods, but they are not so simple and easy to confine - they just would not work on the space of the throat!!

You see, God made your voice so amazing and wonderful and He made all of us to respond to voices so profoundly! He did this special, for us. We are amazing and complicated and yet simple - and God is the mastermind of it all!

He loves us very much! Now, does that make everything simple in life? No. Painless? No. But, it can help you remember that thre is More to life than just the usual American get more become more achieve more that we usually see!

My advice? The next time you hear your voice, or someone else's, take a second to notice - enjoy the amazingness of it all and invite God to join you in the moment- thank Him for making you so wonderfully snd ask Him to join you in your day! See if this doesn't make a little island of wonder in the craziness of your day!

By the way, at More than more we are totally commited to living this way - trying to get out of the usual and into the ordinary amazingness that is around us all the tmie. And we do not deny the pain of life, instead, we choose to care about each other through the pain - not to run from it and not because of what a person may have to offer the group, but rather, we love each other, just because.

If this sounds good to you, if you are curious, or if you are fed up with the usual of our world, we would love to have you join us - we will be hanging out next Thursday night, March 10th, 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, with free childcare, as usual.

Hope to see you there! In the meantime, enjoy your voice!

So, what about Joy??

2011-02-23T06:57:00.001-05:00

So, if Joy is clearly not the same as happiness, but something deeper and fuller and less dependent on our circumstances - it seems we can imagine feeling some joy, even in the midst of difficult times...

Joy seems to be connected with several things - First is what we are going for - if what we are shooting for is temporary and short range, we seem to get happiness, but if it is bigger than us and more meaningful than just something we can buy or get (which seem to lose their significance in a short period of time)or some individual person (who can betray us or may not always be around - like kids growing up or marriages failing or friends hurting us) - if it is bigger than this, more lasting than this, then we seem to get joy as we find it.

Second is that joy involves hope - it seems to be attached to the fact that tomorrow may bring all kinds of things, but it is likely that there will be good in it. There may be tons of pain too, but that there will be good working in our lives too.

At More than more - we are learning the really joyful parts of life that most of us would name, if we thought about it for a while, would not be the things we spend most of our time dwelling on, working for, shaping our time around, etc. Rather, we spend most of our time for other things - and then miss most of the joyfulness on a daily basis - this is the shape of our society.

But we are choosing to try to notice the things in life that point us to real joy - that help us find deep meaning and wonder in life - we are choosing to find God in life and that is giving us joy - many times in the midst of the most severe circumstances. We are daring to leave behind the rush around days of American life and instead in the midst of our rushing (we are busy people) we choose to let go of the schedule sometimes and notice the wonder and amazingness of life around us and people around us and savor. We are inviting God into those moments and He is coming into our lives and helping us see what's really important! And this changes everything. Life is still hard, but like one of the folks said the other day, "I have had one of the worst years of my life, but it hasn't seemed as bad as I thought it would have." This is because of God in our lives - He makes all the difference.

So, if you are racing francitcally through life - and feel no joy. If you reach your goal and it seems to wither in your hand, happiness fading. If you have invested and invested in someone and they have become your world and they have betrayed you - realize that there is still hope - it will still be painful, but there is hope and JOY.

We would love to have you join us - we will be hanging out tomorrow 2/24/11 - 6:45-8:00PM McAllister Recreations Center, Lafayette, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, free child care, as always.

hope to see you there - have a joy filled day...

Joy

2011-02-20T08:34:00.002-05:00

While we all seem to agree that joy is hard to define, or even figure out, we had some good talk about it.

It certainly is not the same as happiness. Happiness is nice and good, but short and more surfacy (kinda superficial) comepared to joy.

Joy seems to be deeper inside us - longer lasting - and less dependent on our circumstances. We could be in a great time of our lives or a not so great time of our lives and have joy, but not necessarily happiness.

It seems that joy comes from inside more and happiness from outside more - like joy rises from within us and happiness is something we get done to us or something we achieve or get or buy or have...

What do you think?

Joy

2011-02-15T14:06:00.002-05:00

We began this last time together with a question - I will pose it to you...

What is joy??

Adapatability

2011-02-09T23:19:00.003-05:00

Hi - ever wonder what would happen to a snake if you put it in the artic? Or maybe a polar bear in a tropical rain forest?

Well, the answer is easy - they would not do well - they would die out!!

But, have you ever considered that people can live in nearly any place on Earth and survive? There have been people living in the hottest, the wettest, the coldest, the dryest and everything in between. It is pretty amazing!

The reason that we are able to do this is that we humans were made able to adapt to different environments very well! We can adjust our temperatures and heat consumption or preservation. We can think about how to further survive by collecting water or by covering up to keep dry!

But, this is no accident - we were made so amazingly complicated and wonderful by a God who loves us very much and wants us to succeed on this planet!!

Now, i understand that life is full of problems and pain and crises and issues, not to mention bills and frantic paces, hectic schedules and meetings to keep - but in the middle of this i fear we have often lost our joy - our appreciated of the amazingness of life! Let me ask you then to remember, whenever you see or think of a faraway place, a vacation, a getaway, etc, that you were made able to adjust to wherever that place is - and in that moment, just start a conversation with the God who made you that way!! Appreciate how amazing you are and invite Him into the moment - you will not regret it...and the more you do it, the more your life will be released from the prison of our rushing world!

If your life is crazy and lonely - if you are wondering if there's something More to life - we would love to share a couple hours with you - talking about this kind of stuff!!

We will be hanging out at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM tomorrow night, February 10th. As always, there will be free, excellent child care!

Hope to see you!

Sports...

2011-01-18T05:22:00.001-05:00

1-13-10
Well, you must know that I am a Chicago Bears fan – it comes from weeks and months of brainwashing from “The Super Bowl Shuffle” when I was a kid I think. Now please don’t hold this against me, especially this weekend if you happen to be a Seahawks fan. So, on Sunday when the game is on, I will batten down the hatches, turn off all relational attachments but those corporately engaged in frolicking in the joys of football and zone out in happy land (or sad/angry land if the bears get whipped), and maybe become so unruly that I bear only a slim resemblance to my usual self. Now, I may close myself off, but not from fellow bears fans! We relish the time spent together, cheering for our team, even in criticizing the coach’s choices or the players’ performance. And, at the game itself, set in the freezing cold of Soldier Field in January, there will be a community of warmth basking in aggression and excitement, in passion and togetherness, in unity.

It’s interesting, but you know what’s even more interesting? This will be happening at Playoff games around the country this weekend. It will be happening at hockey games and NBA games, and college basketball games and high school games and junior high games and even 4th grade basketball games (I know because my son is on the 4th grade basketball team at his school). Truth? We love sports. We love all of it. We are addicted to it! Men and women, boys and girls…you will rarely see people more excited and animated, angry and passionate, than at any sporting event.

But have you ever looked at it a little deeper and considered what it is about sports that is so wonderful to us? Well, let me give you my opinion and you can tell me what you think.

We love the community of sports, the togetherness, the unity, the common purpose. It taps into something that runs very deeply within all of us. You see, we were hard wired to have relationships, to work together, to enjoy the commonness of mankind. We are just better when we are working together with other people – it feels safe and right and peaceful. We love being united for or against something.

Why is it that the college in my hometown has no problem getting people to give millions of dollars, even in an “economic slowdown”, to new projects, buildings, new developments, while at the same time struggling to keep up with the maintenance on the facilities that they have?
Why is it that it is easy to get people to give money to stop AIDS (project RED) or to stop human trafficking, if they will be joining together with others, but to have them give money to their County Health Department to administer meds to TB infected people immigrating from Vietnam is something that just does not happen?
Why is it that marriages so often are great when they are out attacking the world together, in their early days, but when the years pass, they are sucked into the everydayness of life and they lose the passion and wonder for life? For each other?

But, why have sports become so big? Can’t we have the commonality of purpose, the unity, the wonder in togetherness in some more productive area of our everyday existence? Well, look around. Do you see people who have lots of time, energy, passion, excitement to apply to unity and commonality of purpose in something in their everyday lives? I don’t. You see, the drive to productivity of our society naturally pulls us away from any depth, any commonality, anything other than getting done the next thing that needs to be done. We trudge on minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day – each looking the same as the previous thousand, all bent on, as the recent Monday Night football commercial states, Getting to Monday night. We miss out on the purpose and wonder of life and this longing we have to something more. We want to have this kind of unity. We want to have relationships – we are made for it, but our world does not seem to allow it, at least not without purposefully bucking the system, realizing the futility of our world and our system and intentionally going a different way from the rest of society.
So, what does this ask of us? First, recognize that you are made to love sports – ok, not sports – but relationships and unity of purpose – doing something productive together. You were made to love and be loved…and sports is just a taste – it gets so much better as the depth increases and the purpose develops and extends! You, see, God loves. He loves relationships and purpose and involvement and depth – He hates superficial and meaningless – He hates producing just to store stuff away and to get more and more and more! He loves people loving! This is why sports feel so right! We were made to feel this way! So, the next time you are cheering for your favorite team, with your buds around you, or the other parents around you – you might just smile, notice the wonder and awe with which you were made – enjoy the way God made you! Thank Him for the fact that He loves so much, He does not abandon us to the mediocrity of our society! He wants wonder and awe and passion and purpose for our everyday lives. Invite Him into the moment with you – savor depth for a minute. Second, begin to look for chances to buck the system. How can you begin to let go of the superficiality of our produce more, get more, society, that so pulls us away from the unity and meaning and wonder that we were made for? Begin asking the God who made you the way you are to show you what your life could look like if it were to embrace the passion of sports in everyday life. Now, be careful with passion – passion is not momentary excitement – it is not a license to abandon commitments and the loves currently in your lives – instead, it is an invitation to see all of the commitments and loves with different eyes – to see them with God’s eyes – to open them up with all the wonder of your first Cub game!!!

This, by the way, is what More than more is all about. We are all trying to live our lives this way. We are trying to figure out what God’s way can look like, for real, in the world we live in, but the way we were made – not strumming harps and flying around like angels - but fist pumping, chant cheering, dancing and bash brother embracing, passion! We hope you will join us – we will be getting together to hang out again on January 27th, 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette. Go Bears!

After Christmas - a lull?

2011-01-11T22:16:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone. Do you ever wish that you could just hang out with some people who cared about you not because of what you could produce for them, what you could give to them, what you look like, what money you have, or anything other than that you exist and are wonderful simply because you were made? Do you ever wish that you could hang out with some people who actually tell you the truth – like friends are supposed to do?

The truth is that the lull we sometimes feel after Christmas is because we have realized that we cannot buy enough gifts to make people love us – we cannot purchase our way to love. We will never have enough of us to make everyone happy. No amount of earning or spending will make give us meaning! A society of superficial relationships seems to be starving us for real. We are looking for something with substance, something true and real and purposeful. It turns out that people can be loving, caring for others, noticing the amazing things in life and allowing those to really dominate their lives – this is the only way to live - and this is what we are shooting for at More than more.

We accept all who join us, with open arms, and we would love to have you join us – this Thursday night, 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center – just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette. Hope to see you there.

The world...in color

2010-12-28T06:27:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! It has been a crazy couple weeks huh? This time of year is filled with franticness, running to and fro, with more appointments than time to complete them all! Sometimes it feels as if the real wonder and joy of all of it is lost in the to and fro.

So, into thw midst of all this, here's something to think about. Take a few seconds and clear your mind of all the clutter - sit down someplace quiet and give me 2minutes. Now, find something that is a color. I don't care what color it is, but preferably one color.

Now, just settle your mind down and look at the color. Allow your mind to wander about that particular color. What does it remind you of? What memories does it conjure in your head? What experiences do you recall? Maybe brown reminds you of the woods and hunting with your father. Maybe red reminds you of your first bike and the ride (and spills) you took on it. Maybe yellow reminds you of your grandmother's lemon poppyseed bread. It may not be all good - maybe black reminds you of a funeral or white of a wedding day full of promises that were never kept. Whatever it is, for a minute let the memory swallow you up a little. I can almost smell fresh baked bread, can almost feel the dampness of the woods in my lungs, can almost see the smiles of my little ones when they learned to ride their bikes...what do you see? What do you hear? What memories run wild in your mind?

Now, let them run their course and then let's come back to 12-28-10. Consider this: All i asked you to do was think about a color and your mind was transported to vivid memories, thoughts, dreams, smells, feelings, emotions, passions. If you really let things run, you might have even had a heightened sense of your senses as you could almost BE where you were in the middle of what you were remembering. Now, consider this: Your brain did that automatically (ok, I prompted it to some degree, but the direction and memories are yours). It took a color and created an amazing scene.

Do you ever stop and notice color and what is does to you? Do you ever stop and consider that the process of going from the sight of the color to being enveloped in a memory is natural and amazing? You see, some people would argue that the development of all the complexities of humanity is an accident - some cosmic mistake made us here! When we consider color and all that it brings about - the remarkable passion inside us, is there any question that we are wonderfully made? And if we are made, there must be a maker. A maker who gives us all these wonderfully complex bodies and minds!

Now, i would like to suggest to you that you notice. That every once in a while you notice color, let you mind wander to what it conjures in your head and then be thankful for how amazing you are. Have a little chat with the God who made you that way. Allow yourself to escape the everyday rat race of American life and invite the One who made you into the moments of your life. This, my friends, is the beginning of freedom; freedom from being always driven to get more, become more, achieve more, be more, always driving, always pushing, always more, more, more. This will destroy us all. Instead, to focus on the wonder and the things in life that really matter - that is a better way; and to invite the One who made the wonder - that is even better!

I hope this encourages you to find More in your life!

If you are intrigued by this way of going about life and would like to hang with some people who are trying to live their lives this way, we would love for you to join us - all are welcome!

We will be hanging out at McAllister Reacreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, from 6:45-8:00PM, this Thursday night.

There will, as always, be free and excellent child care for you kids.

Hope to see you there!

Wonder in a 12 year old

2010-12-14T14:49:00.003-05:00

Hey - ever get so caught up in the craziness of everyday life that you seem to forget what it's all about? Ever feel like your schedule owns you and not the other way around? Ever get to the end of the day and feel like you may have totally missed the point of life?

Well, here's a perspective moment:
My daughter, Emily, just had her 12th birthday. Now, as I am being hurled headlong into a world of "cycles" and giggling about boys, a world of dresses and makeup and hairdo's, I am overwhelmed and amazed. You see, on that crazy day - her birthday - which saw 8 - 11 and 12 year old girls spending the night at my house - I stopped for a second, several times actually, and really SAW Emily. There she was, laughing, giggling, running, smiling. She was filled with passion and joy, excitement and awe. She oozes life! She is lovely and amazing. In her i see the true meaning of life - there is something about her life that goes way beyond the everyday grind of get more, become more of the american way.

You see, i remember when Emily was born, she was small and delicate and tiny - she was helpless and she spit up so much that everything in our entire house smelled sour, and yet we didn't care. When she smiled, her whole body seemd to smile - she was amazing - our little blessing.

So, when she was born she was amazing, and when she is 12 she is amazing - all i had to do was stop...and...SEE. I had to notice.

How much of our lives do we miss because we fly right by the truly amazing things that are right in front of us? How much time do we spend on insignificant things when amazing things are there, under our noses.

You see the really amazing thing about Emily is how she is both the same person, the newborn...and the 12year old...both...and together. You see all the people around us, all these kids, they all grow this way - they are all babies, gifts from God and then they grow and develop and they have all that wonder inside them - how could anyone look at the way children change and seriously believe that they are anything short of amazing - certainly no chance that she happened as an accident - She is a beautiful proof of God and His love.

I read somewhere that when God makes us, He is making us because He believes in love so much that He wants to share it with someone - to expand the love(not unlike my wife and i did when we decided to try and have a child) - and that His making of each of us is His gift to Himself! I like to think of that. And I like to think of Emily...and when i do - when i notice her, i sometimes invite God into the moment with me, i thank Him for the amazingness of Emily and her life and His life in her - and in that moment i have broken another of the chains that have been placed on me by the american dream of always getting more - not me - i choose to NOTICE.

If you too are tired of busyness as usual this holiday season, come join us tomorrow night 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, we would love to hang out with you - and you will not regret it!

Tonight!

2010-12-02T06:02:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone! Ever feel like our society during this season is taking a bath in the "if you buy it, you will be happy" idea of life?

The problem is that what we find the day after Christmas each year is that all that buying is not what really satisfies us - living life appreciating the wonderful and amazing parts of it - is what really makes the most of each day.

Tonight we will be hanging out and trying to learn better ways of doing life.

We hope you can join us!

6:45-8:00PM McAllister Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette

Outreach 2010 - Fall

2010-11-09T19:04:00.006-05:00

Hey - wanted to update you on More than more's Community Outreach from 10-28. We spent a fantastic day at McAllister Center (which is where we get together every other Thursday, 6:45-8:00PM)! We gave away hundreds of pairs of shoes and free medical care and prescriptions on that day. It was a wonderful thing to be able to share all that we have been blessed with with other people! I even got 3 hugs from one lady!

The great thing was sharing how much what is happening in our lives has made us care about what happens to others around us - we dared to really notice them - to see them - to see their smiles at new shoes and to see their cold feet (flip flops on that 30 degree morning was just not right and neither is babies whose mom's can't afford shoes and so are barefooted!).

We dared to look way past what society may say about them to what the One who made them would say - that they are wonderful and beautiful and meaningful and amazing!!!

That was the life-changing part of that day - the noticing of the people and the giving of love and acceptance to them - for no other reason than that we have this love in our hearts that needs to be shared!!!

You see, the More than more way of living, daring to go past the usual American way, opens up life - God begins to change the way we think and act and almost before we evev realize it, we are putting on orange shirts and giving out all the love we can, because it seems to ooze from us!

This is the kind of life we are learning! We hope that you will consider joining us next time we get together - 11/18/2010 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette - all are welcome...

Maybe the American Dream...

2010-10-30T11:11:00.003-04:00

It's not hard to look at our world and wonder. I wonder about our future - the future of our country, of our lives, of our world. With the unbelievable debt of our country growing, the trust of the people of this world fading, and the tendency to live a life fully focused on whatever makes ME happy in this moment, the world seems to be bankrupting itself while feeding on selfishness and short-sightedness.

Yet, only a couple generations ago the "American Dream" seemed to be making this the "Land of Opportunity." The people who came here to this country from all over the world, many owning nothing but the clothing they wore, seemed to have a strange sort of happiness and optimism - yes, it was hard and they sacrificed greatly, but they looked to the future for what would become of their family in generations to come because of the love, sweat and tears they poured out - they saw the future with hope and joy!

Now, we have, as a country, achieved all that they set out for us. We are successful - no less than global domination. We have an unbelieveable life - with cars and tv's and warm places to live - looking around the world, we see that we are remarkably close to the dream our dreaming past generations had for us. Yet, are we REALLY happy? Do we find that the end of the American Dream is satisfying and peaceful? Do we find that we savor the moments of our days and spend much of our time just smiling at the wonder and amazingness of our lives?? In each 24 hours, do we find that the majority of our time is spent doing the things we would do if we really could choose what we wanted to do? Do we put our heads on our pillows each night and find the smile hard to escape us because of how fulfilling our lives are?

I think you will find if you look around our country, around your neighborhood, around your house, you will find that the answer is, "No."

So, if we are not happy and full of joy when we have made it to our ancestors' dream for us, then where have we gone wrong? Why were they happier than we are? Why are we so harried and frustrated and stressed out?

The truth is that we have misnamed the American Dream. The real dream of America - the joy and wonder and hope of this country - is not found in success and achievement and power and money...it is not found in pleasure and fun and self-pleasing...it is not found in escape or even in religion and being very successful at your belief system.

The real wonder and amazingness of this country - that made this country great - is love. It is a willingness to sacrifice for someone else...a willingness to see the beauty around and savor it, to be satisfied with what you have in the moment and yet to keep trying to become the best you can be...a lifestyle that lives like each of the people i encounter in a given day is just as important as i am and that i should treat them that way...a desire to see someone else have a great life when i can help them, and to look for ways to make that happen...a really deep knowledge of what is really important and what is not in this life, and a life that shows that you really believe it...

The problem is that it is hard to live this way - there is virtually nothing in our society that is encouraging us to live this way. In fact, everything teaches us to live exactly the opposite. So, how can we return to the real American Dream?

This is what More than more is all about. These things are what we believe in at More than more and we are looking for ways to live this out, to change over our lives to experience life in the fullest. You see, there is a fantastic God who is so interested in our lives and He is so amazing that He set the world up to be lived in this "true" American Dream kind of way - that is why living that way is so amazing!! At More than more we notice the wonder of life and the people around us and this keeps our focus on what is really important. Plus, we invite this amazing God into the moments of our lives and He helps us to see life differently - and we have the chance to celebrate life, not just plod away at it until we die.

It is a great way to live!

We would love to have you join us - we will be at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM tonight, the 4th of November and then again on the 18th, same time - we would love to have you join us!

the wobbly leaves

2010-10-27T22:48:00.003-04:00

I was sitting in my tree stand the other day. It was the middle of the day - not the best for encountering a deer necessarily, but a great time to just take in the wonder of the world and talk to God about life.

So, it, of course, is fall here in Indiana and the trees around the stand are an amazing array of colors, the smells are almost overpowering of the fallen leaves and the woods. It is like God decided to explode his color pallette and scent factory all over!

So, there i sat and as I took it all in i noticed a funky little leaf. It actually was 3 leaves, on one stem. They were sitting leaves down, with the stem up, wedged in the crook of the stem, on a branch. With each gust of the wind, the 3 little leaves swayed back and forth and yet they did not move. They just went on swaying back abd forth, back and forth, back and forth. These little leaves had already fallen off the tree, and yet they had not fallen to the ground. I thought it was kinda sad.

Here were all their brother and sister and cousin leaves falling to the ground, where they would be used by the forest to make that beautiful smell of the forest and eventually become fertilizer to make the next year's soil even richer - their lives would be used up for the life of the forest - a wonderful and meaningful purpose. Either that or the others were still on the tree - some were there giving life to the tree - taking the energy from the sun and giving it to the tree - a wonderful purpose and a great life to be sure.

Then there was this one silly little clump of leaves - it was almost like they could not decide what they wanted to do - they were not heading back to the tree to give life into it and they were not falling to the ground, where their lives could be used to make something else much better. Nope, there they sat, determined to stick it out where they were, flapping in the breeze, no purpose, no meaninf, nothing, just watching out for themselves!!

So, the more i looked at the 3 little leaves - wobbling around - i felt sad. i saw myself in those 3 little leaves. i saw America in those 3 little leaves. i saw a man who talks about giving himself, but lives in luxury. i saw a man who talks about sacrifice, but who wines when he gets hungry. i saw a country that talks about loving a neighbor but does nothing about it. Truth is, it is how we act, how we live our lives, that tells what we really believe and think is the most important thing - not what we say, or what creeds we recite, or what church we attend or what humanitarian group we are a part of.

You see, the more i say one thing and do another, i find that i am just like that cluster of leaves - pitiful - unable to go one way or the other - unable to make my life really count for anything, unable to live for any purpose - just flapping in the wind.

i choose to not live that way - i choose to give my life - to jump off the tree and make a difference in the world around me. Is is hard? Yes. There is always someone silly hunter who commes along and tromps on me - i get bumped and jostled and even peed on sometimes (sorry if that's too crude). But the way of life that REALLY matters is always one that requires some being tromped on, some pain.

But, it is sooooo worth it. I meet hundreds and hundreds of people whose lives are empty - meaningless - they realize that their lives really matter for very little - they are flapping in the wind - never really comitting to anything. But, when they begin to see that there is something More to life than just the usual, they come alive - their lives begin anew - with fire and passion and excitement, with healing and restoration and even joy. You see, when I jump off the flapping branch and choose instead to dive in head first to be used, i find myself face to face with people who need help - and when they get help, embedded in the life and love of a person, they find meaning and value in their lives that they did not know before.

This is where life explodes with wonder! This is the heart of More than more.

We choose to no longer follow the usual way if selfishness and flapping around with whatever breeze happens to blow by - no we choose to give up our lives, to jump in head first, to make a difference!

Tomorrow this is what we will be doing at McAllister Recreation Center - we will be giving away hundreds of pairs of shoes, and dozens of prescriptions and doctor visits. We will be jumping off the branch - and it will be fantastic!

If this kind of life sounds like something you'd like to learn more about, we would love to have you join us next Thursday - 11/4, from 6:45-8:00 PM, at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette - of course there will be free childcare for your kids - we hope to see you!

What do we do with the massive pain of life?

2010-10-26T12:35:00.004-04:00

Ok, so even though what you will read primarily on this blog is that More than more is a group of people with a hopeful outlook on life - that we are searching for something More than the usual stuff that Americans spend their lives pursuing and we are finding life better and more meaningful because of it - we are also not so silly and delusional that we totally miss the MASSIVE amount of pain that life seems to dump on us.

Not that it is just "us" at More than more - it seems to be universal - all people, everywhere, have MASSIVE amounts of pain. Now, granted, some have more than their share and that I totally don't get, but by and large, all people have tons of pain in their lives.

Pain seems to be one of the things that we all have in common - and a lot of it is random - not caused by us, not asked for - just happens.

So, I wanted to spend some time this last Thursday giving some voice to the fact that I totally see the pain. We, at More than more will not run from it. I have spent a lifetime around church people who deny or ignore or "paint a happy face" on their pain (and attempt to on everyone else's too). I have heard over and over again, "Just give it to God." or "Let go and let God." or "What dooesn't kill you will make you stronger." among others - and while there may be some truth in these - they never seem to be very conforting when the doctor throws around the Cancer word, or your spouse has decided that they love someone else.

What would and does bring some degree of comfort is to have some people who actually care about you. Not for what you can provide to them (because in the midst of pain, you only provide them pain). Not for how good looking you are or how wealthy you are (because who looks great with a snotty nose and tear stained cheeks and how many of us are actually wealthy anyway?) But people who actually care about you. People who will listen and hear, people who will hug you if you need it and give you space if you need it. People who actually remember that you are struggling the next time they see you, because they listened. People who might even call you if you were struggling rather than making you call them. That helps.
In fact, it is so much easier to make it through another day in the middle of the pain that we can actually consider the idea that it could someday end - that we might someday become somebody better because of it. But it only feels this way because the idea is all warmed up by the love of the people around us.

So, this is part of what More than more is all about. We truly care about people - yes it is true that we are a messed up bunch - and we have our share of issues too, but we really care about people. There's something about this More than more way of living that takes us there. And it is so much better than anything else I have evr found in the midst of massive pain.

So, we don't ignore pain. We just live through it...together.

a night to remember

2010-10-12T04:37:00.002-04:00

Last Friday, rather than getting together and hanging out at McAllister, we spent the evening in someone's home who really needed some help. Instead of just talkingabout living life differently, we lived life differently for real.

It was fantastic to work together as a team and reach into the lives of some people who needed someone to give them a break. You may not have noticed, but life seems to give out plenty of bad breaks, not to mention the fact that we sometimes make decisions that bury us. When all this comes together, life can be downright hard.

Friday we spent the evening with a family who has had things really hard lately. We spent the evening working alongside them and it was great to see them encouraged by the help we gave them, but even more by the fact that a bunch of people loved them enough to take their Friday evening to spend with them, doing whatever they could to help.

You see at More than more we believe that there is something More to life than just the usual American way of always trying to just get ahead another step - there is a life that is filled with meaning and purpose and even joy - and we live it out in our day-to-day lives.

We will be back at McAllister again on 10/21, 6:45-8:00PM and we hope to see you there. McAllister is just off 20th and Schuyler Ave in Lafayette. If you are tired of living the get more, become more, achieve more, buy more, lifestyle of this world, come join us - we wold love to show you More.

The rocks by the sea

2010-10-11T05:29:00.000-04:00

10-3-10
Today I found a wonderful rest and I wanted to tell you a little about it. We slept in – can you imagine? I slept in, alongside Melissa, until 10:00!!! We woke to the alarm that signaled 30minutes to the end of the free breakfast downstairs (6:30-10:30 and I wonder who was up at 6:30?). We finished breakfast and, as the cappuccino began working, got ready to go to the beach. Most places are not open on Sundays in Sicily (what an idea!! – I am wondering if the founder of Chik-fil-A is from Sicily?) and so a drive in the country and then catching some rays and basking by the Mediterranean sounded relaxing on our first day.

So, we drove off into the countryside with Melissa jokingly navigating but mostly soaking it all in and taking pictures and videos. The lady in our hotel said that only about 10miles or so away is a beach called Arenella and so we headed off in that direction. We saw the signs and drove that way, trying to look less like tourists and more like Italians (which means lots of crazy driving). Well, somewhere along the way we must have missed the sign for Arenella and instead turned a wrong way. Sometimes this would bother me intensely, but today I did not care if we had some adventure along the way. So, as we went, we began to not care if we made it to Arenella at all, but mainly just that we got to sit by the water and chill out for a while. So, at one particularly steep one lane road Melissa said, “Hey, look bikini girls! I bet there’s some beach down there!” So, we drove a little further, turned around and then decided to try the one lane, steep hilled, road.

Now, Melissa does not drive stick shift vehicles at all and so she has not clue what it is like to drive down a road like that, much less to parallel park on it and not roll back (or front) into anything around you, so to her this excursion was wildly fun, to me a bit stressful, but we have good insurance on the rental (thank goodness!). After getting parked with no dings and no hit walls or cars, we walked down to the water to find that this was not a beach after all – it was actually just a whole lot of flat rocks by the Sea, where locals gather to sun themselves and relax away their Sunday afternoon.

There were very few people there and it looked nice and so we agreed it was worth a try. There, down the rocks from a bunch of Sicilians, we had one of the most peaceful and restful days ever. We read and talked, prayed and napped, had lunch and just had a fantastic day!

After we were done there, we decided to drive down to Arenella just to see what it was like. A few miles down the road we found a lovely little beach, with tons of people (and it was 4:30 PM) that had lunch stands and chairs and was bustling and busy, with kids and their paraphernalia coming at us as soon as we arrived. We hurried to get away from there and then headed back to our hotel to get ready for dinner. But here’s what I learned:

Sometimes the best place for you is not the place you were looking for.

We went looking for the beach…we found the rocks – the rocks would have been anticipated to be hard and pokey and unpleasant, but they were perfect! It was the ideal place, and if we would have forced our way to the beach, we would have never found the perfect place. The problem with finding the perfect place, though, is that often times it requires you to allow a different idea, something you never considered, to enter your mind.

So many times we Americans are so wrapped up in our routines and our ideas (and everyone else’s around us for that matter), that we forget to really notice that the best place for us, the best thing for us to be doing, the most wonderful, fulfilling and amazing thing may be something that we drive right by and miss, each and every day!

So, my advice to you (and me), is to try in this day to live life willing to notice life around you – open your mind – have conversations with God about where it would be best for you to be. Open up the possibilities and allow the schedule and agenda that you cling to so tightly to gently float away and allow your life to open up into brand new steep hills and cool sea waters.

What do you SEE?

2010-09-27T13:10:00.002-04:00

We talk a lot about noticing at More than more. We want to try to find something more to life than just the usual get more, achieve more, buy more, become more of American society. One of the ways we do that is to notice. We see the amazing things about life and make it a point to notice them.

But, the thing about noticing is that we have to see something to notice it...or feel it to notice it...or smell it to notice it... We have to stop long enough to notice - and we stink at this in America. Ever wonder why impoverished people in 3rd world countries seem to be so happy and we have all this money and we can't seem to stay happy with our food, our houses, our spouses, our TV, our entertainment, our family, our ... You see those folks have not choice but to notice - they see what is around them (partly because they don't have enough of anything to distract them) and because they see what is around them, they often times have joy in the most simple and amazing things in life - the things that we miss. Now don't get me wrong - the idea is not to introduce suffering and disease and poverty and poor health. The idea is to get us Americans to stop and notice...

The movie Avatar is relatively recent and is a fun visual-fest for movie watcher, if a bit cheesy when all is said and done. We watched a clip from the movie Thursday night as our jumping off point.

What, you may ask, could be so interesting about this movie that a bunch of people who are trying to find something More about life would find it worthy of the central theme of their time together? Well, I'm glad you asked!

The movie is about these people who live on another planet. They live relatively simple, but full of joy and peace (i know, i said it was cheesy, ok?) But the cool part that i love is the clip we watched - it's the way they greet each other. Now, before i tell you, think about the people yo have greeted today, maybe "Good morning" or "Mornin" or "Hello" or "Hi" - usually something short and not too involved - usually without even seeing the person you are talking to.

Well, these folks greet each other with, "I see you."

This, I love! What if every time we greeted someone we saw them - REALLY saw them?Looked into their eyes and saw who they were, what was troubling them, what they were celebrating, what they were hiding? How would our lives change?

The cool thing about More than more is that even though the group of people who come and hang out there every other week could not be more diverse in their education level, their financial standing, their social status, their age difference and on and on, they SEE each other - and they don't just see, they care - they look into each other's lives and see the hurts and the pains and the joys and the wonders and they care. And it's not just because they know each other well - they do the same thing for new people who come! You see, these people, they are choosing to notice! They are choosing to see.

Now, this has not made their lives easy, or problem free - in fact we struggle with many things, but it has begun to fill their minds and hearts with more hope and more joy and more meaning. They are finding More.

If this sounds like something that you might be interested in, we would love to have you join us!

Our next time together will be 10/8 (this is a major change as it is a Friday night instead of a Thursday)and we will be going to someone's home and helping them with some stuff they need some serious help with. This will be 6:45-about 8:00PM that night and we will be leaving McAllister Center (just off 20th and Schuyler AVE, Lafayette) at 6:50PM. If you want to join us, be there and we will take you to where you need to go! It will be a great time - it is always amazing to see the responses of those who we help and those who are helping!!

The time after this will be back to normal - 10/21 - 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister - as always, there will be free, wonderful, childcare!!

Here are the dates to the end of the year, as well:

October 28-Community Outreach (8AM-5PM roughly at McAllister - we will be giving out shoes/boots to those in our community who need them and giving free medical care and medicines)

November 4

November 18

December 2

December 16

December 30

Here's hoping that you'll SEE...

From Last Thursday

2010-09-19T20:58:00.002-04:00

Hey! Do you ever get tired of the usual American way - always trying to get ahead, only to find that when you get "ahead" there's not much satisfaction there? Do you feel like there mustbe something More?

This is what we are all about at More than more. We are a group of simple people, no massive organization, no federal funding, just us, trying to find a better way to live this life.

Last time we had a great time talking about, of all things, amusement park rides. It turns out that there are a lot of us that really like them, and a few who don't at all.

Well, we talked most about the really fast rides, like roller coasters and we actually talked about this ride called Disaster Transport, at Cedar Point. This is not just your every day roller coaster, it is completely in the dark! Now, this is totally unacceptable to some of the people in the group, and I must say, it is a big more jerky than your usual roller coaster ride.

Now, here's a question for you: Why is it not something some of the people would want to ride, when they will ride coasters in the light and why is it more jerky than other roller coasters?

The answer is kinda obvious. Even though the roller coaster is going like 60 miles per hours, when we can see, we can anticipate what is coming next and our body naturally compensates for the movements that are coming without even realizing that we are doing it! Literally, our eyes see the upcoming drop, react by telling our brain and our brain tells each muscle group to contract in just the right way to adjust our position and weight so that we react perfectly!

This is amazing! How complex our reactions and yet perfect they are!! Some people would try to convince you that this is all an accident, but let's be real - this is amazing and wonderful and God made us this way!! The amzingness of Him is around us all the time.

So, the next time you go a the fair, or a carnival or to an amusement park, notice now amazing your body and reactions are. Stop in your head just for a second and invite God into the moment. Thank him for how amazing He made you and ask Him to part of your life and your day.

If you begin to live a lifetime of noticing, you can break out of the American trap of empty "get aheads" and on to something More.

If you are curious or want to know more, we would love for you to join us - we meet simply in a community center - the times we share are light and fun and people's lives are changed there!!

Next time will be next Thursday night, 9/23, 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette. Hope to see you there!

Summer Community Outreach 2010

2010-08-24T21:15:00.003-04:00

I wanted to take a minute to tell you about our most recent Community Outreach day – it occurred 7/27 and was at CFRC Southside Community Center – 4th and Fountain St’s – Lafayette.

We truly had a fabulous time! We hung out the evening of the 26th and got all the shoes we had purchased ahead of time organized – it was fun to be together. We talked about a few songs – the first was “I’m letting go” by Francesca Battistelli. In this song, we are reminded that we must let go of what we had thought our life was supposed to be, if we want our lives to explode with life. Then we heard “Awake and Alive” by Skillet. In this song, we are reminded that we need to take a stand – it is time to know what we believe and not back down – it is our rallying cry – we will make a difference – even when it’s hard and means that we have to sacrifice. Then we heard “One Day too Late” which reminds us that we often may feel passion and know what we believe but then we figure it’s ok to just do it tomorrow. This is not the way – we need to act now – no waiting, live the way of giving life and noticing the amazingness of God today and inviting Him into the moments of our life now and noticing the amazingness of those around us and their pain and beginning to make a difference in our world.

We went home ready to charge at the Outreach day. We then spent the next day overwhelmed by the needs of our community. We finished the day having given out around 1000 pairs of shoes and 45 office visits and dozens of prescriptions. But, more than shoes and medical care, we gave out something more valuable: We gave unconditional love and real care to people – we let them know that they have value and that they matter, no matter their financial status, their situation, no matter what. To watch people who are hardened by life’s circumstances and living without for so long melt in the face of love and care for them when they realize that this is not some fancy governmentally sponsored organization caring for them but instead people from their own town who care about them enough to share their lives and their vacation time and their money to help them in their troubled times. It is wonderful and terrible – to see the pain that exists in our own town. It might be easier to never even see the pain in our town, but then we would never make any difference…

We had so many who were so thankful and some who wept at the giving and the love they were receiving. But it is also so painful to see those who have been betrayed and hurt for so long and have become part of that whole system and they complain at us for not having the brand of shoes that they want and hurt us when we are not fast enough for them – yet we realize that if anyone is ever going to break through this hardness and hurt, someone must love through this, there is no easy way around (I must tell you that I am so glad that someone dared to love through my manipulative and hurtful, angry past – for if they would not have, I would have been lost in my pain forever). Plus we also realize that we must open ourselves up to these people if we are to help those others who so badly need help who would not ask for help if we were not here. The More, of More than more that we realize makes life worthwhile and gives this love in our hearts – Jesus – this was how He lived – taking the abuse and the pain, absorbing the hurt and hardness of those who were products of the system in order to help those who needed His help. We choose to live this way – and we trust that as we keep living He will give His life into us, His strength when it seems the hardest.

At the end of the day we all met at Dog n Suds for dinner. It is amazing to share such a time together – it is hard, but wonderful, to see so many people’s needs met in one day – if there are 100 thousand people in Lafayette, we put shoes on 1% of the population of our town – can you believe there are that many who don’t have good shoes to wear?? Those people left knowing that they matter to real people and with comfy feet! What a great way to spend a day!!

This is what More than more is all about. We are tired of lip service commitments to those who are hurting – we are tired of expecting the hurting to come to us – we are going to them and are determined to show people that they matter.

You see, we are tired of the American dream of get more, buy more, achieve more, grapple and fight and claw your way to the top – more money, more job, more work, more success, more sex, more everything, and yet we are never satisfied, as individuals or as a society – broken marriages, betrayed friendships, hefty credit cards bills – they never make us happy or fulfilled in our hearts. We want More. We notice More in life and we share in this each time we hang out – every other Thursday night at McAllister Recreation Center just off 20th and Schuyler, in Lafayette. The next time will be this Thursday – 8/26 – 6:45-8:00PM. We hope to see you there!

Last night

2010-08-13T07:02:00.002-04:00

Last night, we had a fabulous time together. We dared to take some time together to look at life differently - to notice something more than just the usual American way of more more more and it was a great time.

We started with some time to relax and little and let the stress of the day fall away a little. It was nice to hang out with some people who care about each other just because - not because of what we have to offer each other, or what we can produce or our social status, but just because.

We then spet some time noticing something ordinary, that is amazing. We talked about hips and shoulders - these 2 joints are both ball & socket joints, but they function very differently. The hip is important for power and support - it needs to be stable and it can move in a lot of directions, but not as many as the shoulder. The shoulder on the other "hand" (ha ha)is much more mobile, but has much less power to it. It does not need as much power, as it does not support our body weight, but needs to be mobile, so we can do stuff with our hands. We took a look at these joints and realized that the hip socket is very deep and the socket of the shoulder is very narrow. The deep socket of the hip makes it more powerful and almost impossible to dislocate. the narrow socket of the shoulder makes it very mobile and allows it to move in a gazillion ways so that we can use our hands and arms to do stuff, but is much less stable and, as you know, is much more prone to dislocate. Now, when I look at the amazingness of the shoulder and the hip and how they just happen to have the perfect design for the function we need, I am overwhelmed. The system works perfectly, the way it is supposed to. Now, some people would have you believe that this happened by accident - that all this happened just because it worked out that way - this seems like an assertion that takes much more of a leap than just believing that these joints were made this way by a wonderful creator who wanted us to have bodies that worked the way we needed them to.

So, the next time you bend down (using your knees to bend...)notice the power in your hips - when you hold your child and balance them on your pelvis - notice the power in your hip - and be thankful - invite God to join you in the midst of that moment and savor the fact that while life is hard and we struggle with so many things, there is a great God who cared enough about us to make our bodies work the way we needed them to. When you are working above your head, or reaching to scratch your back, have a chat with God about how cool it is that your shoulder can move like that and the His design is amazing. Invite Him into the moment and ask Him to be part of your life. You may just start noticing that there is more to life than the usual "more" of the American way!

We will be hanging out again in 2wks at McAllister Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM, 8/26/10. Hope to see you there if you are sick of the everyday American way of more more more and looking to find something "More" than more.

To Review

2010-07-26T22:57:00.002-04:00

Hey all! More than more is a group of people, from all walks of life, who gather together every other Thursday night at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave - in Lafayette, Indiana, from 6:45-8:00Pm. When we get together, we have a great time laughing, joking, and growing.

Every person who comes to More than more finds people who care about them for who they are, not for what they make or how they dress or how they act or what habits they have. We simply care.

We spend time each time we get together trying to break out of the usual American mindset of get more, become more, be more, buy more, achieve more, drive more, more fun, more sex, more money, more abuse, more, more, more - that so is destroying our country, our city, our neighborhoods, our lives. We believe that there is so much more to live for. The there is More than more.

We do this by noticing the really wonder filled things about life that we all agree are the reasons we actually love to live - like the love of our family and friends and the birth of children and the beauty of nature - and then taking time to celebrate how amazing life is, as it is occurring right under our noses. We give thanks to the God who made it all so wonderful and we ask Him to join us in our lives. Then, we take time to notice how amazing the people are around us, at More the more and in our homes and our workplaces, our neighborhoods and the places we spend our days. Plus we dare to try to notice their pains too. We Americans are a distracted and sad, broken people - we live in pursuit of the next conquest, the next purchase - our debt swallows us - as people and as a country. We do not savor life becuase we never break free to notice life. And, at More than more, when we begin to notice the people around us living this way, we dare to try to do something about it!

Tomorrow, we will be doing something about it! We will be at Community and Family Resource Center - 4th and Fountain St's - Lafayette - there we will be giving shoes to those who need them and medical care and medicines to those who cannot afford them. This is out attempt to let some people know that they are noticed - they matter - and to help someone else begin to break free from the trap of the "more" of American society into the freedom that can be found in the More of having God in life!

At More than more, we are not a church. We are simply a group of people noticing...

We are actually a group of people many of whom have had a hard time finding church appealing, many times because of bad experiences we have had at church or because of things we have felt would make us unacceptable at church - we are plain basic people who enjoy hanging out and having fun together!

We would love to have you join us next time we get together at McAllister - it will be 8/12/10, 6:45-8:00Pm. We always have free, wonderful childcare!

Being Held is better than not being Held

2010-07-04T16:35:00.002-04:00

I am overwhelmed. I am sitting at the western end of Denver International Airport, sitting at a bar with my phone plugged in, listening to “Hold My Heart” by 10th Ave North and looking out at the Rockies (that’s how I know I’m facing west). You may be thinking, “What a sap. Overwhelmed by a song.”

But it is not the song, but the totality of my existence this morning that has me totally overwhelmed.

You see, I am not heading to Denver, but to Albuquerque. I am not going to the “Land of Enchantment” for a vacation or a conference. I am going to help bury Joanna; My cousin Tom’s wife. She died last week, her life on this earth ebbing away because of the breast cancer that grew uncontrollably in her body. 50 years old. The heartbreak is inescapable. In a few hours I will stand face to face with her husband and son and parents…

But, let me go on. Last Monday, my wife’s aunt Shirley, one of the most kind and gentle women I have ever met in my life – the very face of self-neglect and servanthood – went to an outpatient surgery center for a “minor procedure” on her ankle and shoulder. Before starting the surgery all the way, something went terribly wrong and Shirley’s heart stopped. By the time she was at the hospital across the street, she had been without oxygen for too long. Over the week of breathless moments and prayers, we have been given doses of the hopelessness that is Shirley’s existence here on Earth. I listened to my children remind me of God’s ability to do anything and in turn reminded them that our plans don’t always match God’s. Then came the news Tuesday night that Shirley’s brain suffered near complete destruction during those minutes last Monday…and a “minor procedure” became the last memory we will all have of our dear Aunt. We will head soon, as a family, to Atlanta, to bury our dear Shirley and ache for her children and husband so lost and lonely for one more of her “sugars” and hugs.

Not only this, but we have been journeying alongside a dear friend who buried her daddy last Winter and many more who are burying their broken hearts and dreams and addictions and lost selves. We have looked into their weepy eyes on so many occasions – sometimes I can’t sleep at night not because of worry, but because of the shared pain I feel. We want to scream to them that the path is not easy, but it is worth it – that God hears and cares and can show them to something new. We know – we have ached like they do and we have known the relief of knowing that God holds us. As my Uncle Roger (who lost his wife to breast cancer a few years back) said the other day, “I have never known God to be so close as He was during those times. I could sense in a very real way His presence strengthening and holding us up.”

Now understand, I am not one who is a foreigner to mourning – my family has a long track record of burying each other at young ages – as my cousin Andrea said the other day, “The Hendricks know death.” In fact, not only have I dealt repeatedly with death in my personal life, but my job places me face to face with those dying and left behind on a nearly daily basis. I sometimes struggle with all the different responses I have to this journey. Sometimes doctor and statistician, sometimes preacher and Christian leader, sometimes little boy, and sometimes husband and father – it can be quite a tornado of emotions and thoughts.

So, I process all this and then on comes the song – “Hold My Heart” and I can barely keep from weeping for Tom and Aaron and Shirley’s husband and daughters and for those whose struggle we are joining on a daily basis:
Hold My Heart Lyrics
How long must I pray, must I pray to You?
How long must I wait, must I wait for You?
How long 'til I see Your face, see You shining through?
I'm on my knees, begging You to notice me.
I'm on my knees, Father will You turn to me?

One tear in the driving rain,
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breaking heart?
One life, that's all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You're everything You say You are
Would You come close and hold my heart

I've been so afraid, afraid to close my eyes
So much can slip away before I say goodbye.
But if there's no other way, I'm done asking why.
I'm on my knees, begging You to turn to me
I'm on my knees, Father will You run to me?

One tear in the driving rain,
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breaking heart?
One life, that's all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You're everything You say You are
Would You come close and hold my heart.

So many questions without answers, Your promises remain
I can't see but I'll take my chances to hear You call my name
To hear You call my name

One tear in the driving rain,
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breaking heart?
One life, that's all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You're everything You say You are
Won't You come close and hold my heart.

Hold my heart, could you hold my heart?
Hold my heart.

Sometimes at night when my kids are afraid and they run into my room, or scream in fear from their rooms I search to find the right words to soothe their fears – to help them know that while the world is a scary and painful place, but that it will be ok. Most of the time I find the words lacking – instead realizing that what they want is to be held by me – instead of big speeches, I have taken to simply holding them close and saying, “Do you feel my arms? Do they feel strong? Will daddy protect you? I am here.” What I feel in those moments is my sweet child relax in my arms, allowing me to hold their heart.

I do not have an answer for Tom or for Shirley’s family, or for all those whose eyes I look into other than that, if you will cry out to Him, He will hear the sound of your breaking heart and hold you in His strong arms, comforting you and showing you the way. It will not be easy. Many times you will feel like you are simply one tear in the driving rain and one voice in a sea of pain and like you are just one life barely able to stand, but He will hear – in fact, you need not beg for Him to be there – He will join you in your journey if you simply groan to Him out of the pain in your heart – there will be a place for you to relax in His arms – they are strong…

For me, my course will continue to take me along life’s journey with those who suffer. But for them, I do not hold them, I am not strong enough, my arms are too weak – I point them, as I do you, to the One who has held my heart, who holds my heart, even on this clear skied and sunny and yet dark, dark Thursday morning. This journey of life embracing those in pain is so painful – so much moreso than the neglectful life of the usual middle class Americanism and it’s unending desire to consume – but it is so wonderful when even one scared and screaming child is snuggled up close to their father and I get to be there when they relax in His arms. You see, nothing is better than to be an emissary of the One, no matter the pain in the journey.

If you are struggling with the pain of life, cry out to Him – He will hold your heart, and please join us sometime at More than more – we meet every other Thursday, 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette. We will be there this Thursday, 7/8/10. Choosing His way will not make all the pain go away, but He will help you through it.

If you are coming face to face with people with are hurting lately, I hope you will join me in daring to care for them – point them to the One who cares for them – it will be hard – but you will look back someday and cherish the point when you decided to take His course.

What were we doing in there?

2010-06-29T06:36:00.002-04:00

Last Thursday we spent a great evening together. As usual we spent part of our time discussing how amazing our God is in our everyday lives. This time we began our discussion with a video – a somewhat little seen video – of – my wedding. Of course, there were the prerequisite groomsmen and bridesmaids, the soothing music, organ and all, and then the view of the back of the church – the lovely lady dressed in white and her father choking back the tears. Then the close up on the groom (which in this case is me), as the bride comes to the altar – but if you look closely at the groom, you will see anxiety - he is one freaked out dude.
Now, I need to clarify something – I was not anxious about the woman I was marrying, she was fabulous and I knew it – I was anxious about the idea of being married, of being a husband, of all the things I was supposed to be and had no idea of how to do it. You see, I had not grown up with parents who communicated and lived the way with each other that I expected myself to be as a husband. I had no idea how to do the things I needed to do to be the person I wanted to be. I felt trapped. I felt like I was in a dark spot with only a flashlight to light the future of where I was to go. All the light I could see of hope in a future as a husband was about 3 inches around me. I had no idea how to get to where I needed to go and I was terrified. I spent my honeymoon feeling sick – I had no idea why – but I realized much later that the reason I was feeling so sick was the overwhelming anxiety I was feeling in my darkness. I needed to see that there was a way to get past my inability.
This is where God is so amazing. You see, I am not a hero, but if you asked my wife, you would find that while she fully recognizes my faults, she also would be the first to exclaim the fact that I am a fabulous husband. I am her rock. She depends on me through all the things that life brings our way. The distance I have traveled between the darkness I felt at the wedding to today is huge and I had no idea how it would be covered. The truth? God changes people. I was a terrible husband. I was awful and harmed my sweet wife so much that I'm ashamed to even talk about it. But, in the midst of all my anguish over harming her, I began to ask God to change who I was – you see, in the darkness, I realized that I could never be all that I wanted to be and I had no idea of how to get anywhere but where I was – so I reached out for God. Then and there He began to show me one step at a time the path toward how to become the man Melissa needed. Usually there was no giant vision of my future and the route to get there – simply a little more light in the direction of where I needed to go. After years of following a step at a time and asking God to change me, I find myself having come closer to where I wanted to be on that warm July day in 1993, than I ever realized I could be. Yet, I seriously claim no responsibility for this transformation that has occurred other than that I reached out to God.
This is amazing. Stop for a second and understand the fear I felt…understand the pain I caused and felt…soak up the devastation of not knowing where to go and yet knowing that where you are cannot possibly be right and yet not knowing where to even go next.
Do you every feel trapped? Do you feel like all you can see is the darkness of where you live now? Do you feel like you will never be able to make it out of the pattern of life you are in? Like you will never be able to break that habit? Like you will never be able to be the person you want to be? Like it is hopeless and you will never be able to get past the darkness of your life?

Listen to this news (some people have even called it good news). There is hope for you. You see, possibly better than all the noticing of sleep and noticing taste and all the other things we have noticed over the years is the noticing that there is hope. God is a God who cares about people and their lives and can change you. Even more than just changing you, He can help you actually be the person you were made to be – the one who is crying out in the darkness from inside you that there must be something More than this. This is the most amazing thing that there is about God. And this is what I see in all of the people who have been coming to More than more. You are being changed by him – I see it in you. So, when you notice the darkness and the prison of yourself – thank God for the fact that He is the changer of people and invite Him into the moment with you and when you notice the changes He has made in you and anyone else around you, thank Him for it and celebrate how amazing He is.

If this is interesting to you - if your heart is crying out for More, you are more than welcome to join us - we hang out every other Thursday at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, from 6:45-8:00PM. the next time we will be there will be next Thursday, the 8th of July. As always there is free childcare so you can not have to worry about your kids. We would love to have you join us!

From June 10th - Noticing

2010-06-22T08:29:00.004-04:00

Hi! We had a fabulous time on the 10th and we hope you are able to join us this Thursday, 6/24, 6:45-8:00PM, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

On the 10th, we spent some time noticing how amazing God is by talking a little about sleep. Now, I know there are some of you who are not the best sleepers, but nevertheless this is an amazing thing!

NOw, just think about it, without noticing it, each day, you spend your day working or doing what you do and then you come home, you have dinner and then you go to sleep - usually from 6-10 hours per night. This means that you spend more time in your bed, sleepnig, than anywhere else in your entire life!!

Each day you crash out - exhausted - many times unable to do anymore - and then you wake up - rested and ready to go again. You have thiswonderful period of rejuvenation built right into your world! God has made you with this - it is no accident!

Did you know that years ago there were some studies done in which they intentionally kept people awake for extendd periods of time - you know what happens? They all get psychotic - hallucinations and the whole shebang! You sleep helps your mind cope with all the things yo have to think about!

Did you know that the mecahnism for sleep to start is so complicated that it is not still completely understood (here's hope for you who have some struggles with insomnia) - wonderfully created!

Did you know that growth hormone is released during sleep - and children sleep much longer than adults (interesting how they are the ones who are growing!!) - see how magnificently the sleep cycle is made??

And, last but not least, sleep is prompted by 2 signals - one is a hormone called melatonin and the other is...a drop in temperature - isnt it amazing that we need to sleep at night, when we can't be as productive because of the lack of daylight - and when it just happens to get cooler?

It is truly amazing that God has made your sleep and mine to be so perfect - it is just impossible to believe that something as perfect as this happened by random chance - God made you this way!

So, the next time you head off to sleep, or wake up, talk to God about how thankful you are that He has made you so amazingly and perfectly for what you need! Invite Him into the moment with you and relish the time you get to share with Him. Notice...and you will begin to live for More than just the usual more of American life!

a 3rd Note

2010-05-29T09:26:00.003-04:00

We ended the time together Thursday with a story:

Julie is a young woman who I see in my practice who asked that I share her story. She came to me as a new patient years ago when she was a newlywed and doing well. I enjoyed making sure that her sinuses were clear and she was doing routinely well.
Then one day, she came into my office, pale and broken and not herself. You see, her father, who had been so close to her, had just died suddenly. She wept and hurt and tried to get through it. But, she was now raising her baby and had lots to do, a job and a life and a husband and she really did not have time to grieve (or she chose instead to throw herself headlong into her life so that she did not have to think about her grief) so she tackled day after day.
After some struggles with burying her father, she seemed again to "hit stride" and be close to her usual happy life, with only some intermittent issues with anxiety. Then again one day, I saw her name on my schedule and when I walked into the room, I knew something was going on that was not good. She looked down at the ground, eyes red, tears flowing down her cheeks, her voice hushed. "Jacob has left me," was her only sad sentence. So, again she wept and cried and we shared the grief of the pain of her life. She seemed to somehow still function here and there for months after this. She began to go to try to involve God in her life some and yet her husband was really not interested in getting back together with her.
Then one day, she came into the office smiling and happy and much more her normal self again. She announced to me that she was just sure that she was supposed to be back with her husband again and that she was planning to go meet with him and announce her intentions to get back together, in spite of all that he had done to her and her little boy.
The next week she was back, the most beat down and sad that I have ever seen her - even wondering about the value of staying alive. "He didn't want me. He didn't want to get back together. He wants no part of me," were her words. Racked with pain, it seemed her entire existence was coming to an end.
We talked for a long time that day, and I began to remind her that she was a fabulous person, not because Jacob said so, or because she was married or because she was a mom or a daughter or because her dad said she was valuable, but because God made her as an amazing and intricate gift to the world. He made her just the way she is - she did not have anything to prove in order to "be someone" to God, or to me. She looked up, kind of not totally believing me. We prayed and she promised to begin trying to get in touch with God in new ways and to allow Him to be the One who gave her More to life.
She returned in a few days (I was checking on her because she had been having such a hard time the previous visit) and this time she still had a hurting look to her eyes, but she looked me in the eyes, and what I saw there was peace. She smiled when I came in...
She proceeded to inform me that she was already trying to involve God in her life more and she was beginning to realize that she had been searching for more in the relationships she had with her husband and her father. She felt that her entire self was tied up in these things and when she began to see that WHO she was God's child and that He loved her very much and not Jacob's wife or her father's daughter, she began to be more at peace with life. She still is not sure what direction her relationship will go - it is painful to her to see the destruction of so much of her life - but her changed perspective on life, pursuing God as her "More" instead of wife hood or daughter hood, has helped her so much already and her future is promising regardless of the path that her journey will take.
Now, by no means am I saying that being a good wife or daughter is a bad thing - it is a fabulous thing - but relationships with people, whether it be in Julie's way, or feeling as if you must always make everyone happy and always serve everyone, or feeling as if your life is over when your kids are out of the house and grown, must not become who you are. If they do, at some point in your life, you will have to face the fact that these things will never completely make you full and happy. If you do these things and make God the More in your life, you will find that these relationships have better perspective and when the troubles come, which they always do, life will continue to have meaning and purpose and there will be joy behind the struggles that you are having.
At More than more, we are continuing to try to find ways to experience life more fully, to get past the usual "more" that we find ourselves pursuing in everyday American life and that so seems to crowd out our joy and meaning.

We would love to have you join us 6/10 at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, IN - here is a google map link

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=McAllister+Recreation+Center,+Lafayette,+IN&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.85226,91.494141&ie=UTF8&hq=McAllister+Recreation+Center,&hnear=Lafayette,+IN&ll=40.442505,-86.87439&spn=0.080738,0.178699&z=13&iwloc=A

6:45-8:00 PM - as always there will be free childcare for your kids!

Hope to see you there!

A 2nd Note

2010-05-29T09:12:00.002-04:00

I think my posts are too long - so I am trying to split them into more readable sections - let me know what you think...

Thursday after noticing handshakes, we noticed people. We looked around at each other and saw each other as people, full of joy and peace, full of pain and doubt and fear and hurt. We dared to step out of the life of America where we simply try to get to the next task and get it completed and into the real life of wonder where amazing people surround us everyday - each of us wonderful!!!

I told about a young man who entered my office just prior to our time together - he had just returned from Haiti. What he had seen there had devastated his heart. The heartbreak of the little children, hungry and hurting, will never allow him to return to normal again. He was so crushed that he struggled to even spend the money to come to my office across town and the $1 of gas that he was spending! That was money, he reasoned, that could have fed 2 or 3 of those kids, as he wept before me. There he sat, crushed, broken, by the pain of those kids and that country and his inability to feed them all, save them all, help them all...

You see, he noticed. He saw those kids as beautiful little creations, each with their own handshake. He noticed their brokenness and pain...and it crushed him.

The thing is, we are surrounded by a society of hungry children. Yes, there are those who are hungry and hurting right there in your town (and we should be helping them). But, even more than that, we are a society that has lost its meaning and joy - we strive for things that mostly have no meaning - we spend almost of our time trying to earn enough to pay off our credit card bills and to buy the next thing we want. We spend most of our hours and days trying to build up enough to have joy in a few moments - rather than having joy in the everyday. We are bankrupt and broken and lost and full of pain - this land is filled with people who need to hear about the life that opens before us when we dare to notice. They need someone to SEE them - to be crushed for their pain and love them - and then to know that there is HOPE. When we are noticers, we have the chance to give HOPE. We want to notice!

The problem is that noticing means that we must LOOK and then we must be willing to give up our agenda, our plan, our timing, what ever we had in mind for that moment, in order to notice them and care about them. We do this everytime we get together at More than more. We NOTICE.

Just a Note

2010-05-29T08:55:00.002-04:00

Hey you all!

We had a great time Thursday night. It was a time to get our minds and hearts onto something "More" than what we have/had been living for. We find ourselves many times living out dreams to have more fun, more money, more toys, more sex, more power, more degrees and status, more friends, more escape and we find that when we get these things we find only emptyness - yes, fun for a little and then the need to go after something else to make us "happy" - as we continue this journey after something "More" we find more peace in the midst of where we are, more joy in the everyday - it is good.

Thursday we noticed handshakes - we noticed the character of the hand we were shaking, the callouses, the softness, the strength of the grip, the tremor, maybe even sensed the tendons of the hand, and if we dared, we might even look into the eyes of the person whose hand we were shaking - we find an unbelieveably complicated thing in a handshake - something we do many times per day.

You see, when you shake a hand and notice you, realize that in the instant of the handshake you know many things about the person whose hand you are shaking - you can tell the kind of work or hobby that they have (my surgeon's hands better be soft!) - you can often sense their fear (shaking or sweaty) or their confidence (real or exaggerated) and desire to dominate you (if they squeeze the heck out of our hand)and you make a connection with that person - whether you want to or not!

All this processing occurs instantly - you do not have to ponder on it for hours to figure it out - your hand gives the information to your brain and instantly you know all these things as your brain instantly remembers a million handshakes before this one and correlates this one to all the others! Amazing!

But, here's something funky, there are people who would have you believe that this is all accidental - that something this amazing came about by accident! This is ludicrous - this has the mark of all kinds of meaning to it - we cannot help but connect with each other...all the time!

You see, God made you this way! So, the next time you shake someone's hand - don't just cling to the hand and think about it - the person whose hand you are shaking will thing you are a handshake stalker or something - but notice how amazing it is! Tell God how thankful you are that He has made you so wonderful and invite Him to join you in your day. You see, I choose to not go through my life as a shadow of who I am, simply trying to produce and consume. I choose to notice the wonder and amazingness all around me - this frees my mind and heart to something "More" - God has given all this and when I invite Him into the moment and thank Him for the amazingness, my life gains a new fullness and meaning than I never knew before!

Notice

2010-05-26T08:00:00.002-04:00

Hi! I just realized that my last post actually was published as a past post because I started it before the followup one. So...look past the "uterus" entry to the next one for the post leading up to this week's More than more time - this Thursday, 5/27 - 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

Hope to see you all there!

From the heart...and the Uterus?

2010-05-05T16:14:00.002-04:00

Well, we sure are a prolific group - seems we have a way of having lots of children among us - sure does keep things lively! This was the topic of discussion this last time we got together - we had the extreme pleasure of having Autumn Renee with us - she is the daughter of Jenna and ws only a couple days old last Thursday! She is beautiful and perfect and amazing and all the adjectives in the world seem to not do her any level of justice!

Well, we talked about how her life inside her mom had some pretty major rough patches, and things seemed dark and scary for a while - just like life so often does. But, there she was, amazing and delicate and such a beautiful little gift to her mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and More than more - and it becomes very clear that when God gets involved in the lives of people there is hope. So...as many people in our group and probably many of you who are reading this need to hear as you struggle wit the circumstances of life - the heartbreak and pain and dark days that we all face - there is hope. This is what we are all about at More than more - we want to notice the Autumn Renees of the world and begin to invite God into the moments of our lives - in this we find newness in life and meaning and purpose!

If you are living in the everyday American dream of get more, become more, be more, buy more, have more and you are finding it empty and shallow and lifeless and you long for something "More" or if you are just curious about such a strange group of people, then we would love for you to join us next Thursday, May 13th, 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

Hope to see you there!

Fish Net and Hat Guy

2010-04-28T05:56:00.004-04:00

So, the other day we had the pleasure of being in San Diego and we were eating some breakfast at a little Cafe, downtown. We were sitting outside and watching the big city traffic flow here and there and the inner city people walk by. We were particularly enjoying all their frantic pace and our lack of any plan whatsoever - being people who usually are frantically running to and fro the break was wonderful.

Well, there we sat, when all of a sudden my wife (sitting across from me changed her facial experession to this thoughtful, almost questioning, look. My first thought was that I had something on my face - this happens a lot - but then I realized that not only was she not looking at me, but she her head was moving - following something or someone along. There was this faint hope that it was not some really good-looking blond haired, abercrombie-looking 20 year old surfer guy that I would then need to whoop-up a little, just to fight for my woman...but wait, I am getting off track a little - sorry! Her eyes seemed to dart back and forth between whatever was seemingly moving toward us and the street/the cars passing by.

So, I wondered what it was was that had so captured Melissa's attention, but I realized that I couldn't just turn around and gawk, but instead had to wait until whatever it was came into view. And within a few seconds to my left walked past us a yound lady, maybe 20-25 years old with blond hair, a short but nice skirt, fish net stockings and boots. She was actually tastefully dressed Melissa said, but she was not shy nor amish.

Now, obviously, we travel a fair amount and seeing someone dressed like this is not unusual, but the interesting thing was actually not her at all (not not to me either). It was the traffic. Yes, it seemed that most of the drivers in the cars on that street (it was one way coming toward me and in the opposite direction of the young lady)were men; young and old, driving nice cars and beaters and delivery vans. And they seemed to all think she was the best thing to look at on the street! It was interesting to see how traffic slowed down and men's heads turned to observe her. She caused quite a stir! Melissa was really mad at a couple of the guys who she said looked like they were probably married and I got a "You better not look at girls that way when I'm not around" look my way, clear as day! Well, she went her way and there was no traffic accident at her passing by, thankfully, and we went about our day, enjoying having no agenda.

Later in the evening Melissa was kind enough to go with me to Petco park, to see the Padres play the Giants. Before you go and applaud her generosity too much, you should know that the biggest reason that she wanted to go was to enjoy the baseball nachos which are legendary in her mind. I joke, she was excited to be there - she says baseball was made to be seen in person and is too boring to watch in TV - and basically I agree with her. So, we found our parking place and filed into the park with the rest of the crowd and quickly found our seats.

We settled in and found that there were not very many people in our section - not a big deal to us - but kinda wondering if they could smell the midwest on us or something. We enjoyed the game, watching the crowd and enjoying the wonderful, although much chillier than we expected, evening.

Over the course of the game, we noticed a guy, wearing an unusual fishing hat, between us and home plate (which was of course where a great deal of our attention lay). He was small, maybe 5'5" or so and small framed as well, but this in no way dampened his enthusiasm! With each mini-song of the giant baseball park organ he was up and chanting, pumping his fist, doing the wave by himself (and trying to get all those around him involved), and generally being a loyal and true and excited fan. So, as is often the case, we watched both the game and "Hat Guy" and how each would progress through the evening.

In the end the Padres won on a 10th inning homerun by David Eckstein. It was really cool to see a "walk-off" home run to end a game and fireworks and all! But, the progress of "Hat-guy" was equally impressive. Over the course of the game he developed friendships and infected his entire section with his passion. By then end, he had multiple people chatting with him, chanting and cheering with him and I may have even seen them do a mini-wave! They were laughing and having a great time being Padre fans and people - it was really cool...and I am pretty sure they were not drunk - at least not all the way - so their behavior was legit.

So, I wonder if you are now asking, "What is the point of "Fish-Net Girl" and "Hat-Guy"? Well, I would love to tell you.

They both share something really important. They have an attraction about them. There is somethign about them that inspires, the brings out passion (admittedly not necessarily the best type of passion, but nevertheless...)

You see, what I see in American society today is almost all a grit it out, make a living, survive the credit cards, pay the mortgage, get to all the activities, get a little sleep and repeat the next day kind of life. Most people feel like the really important parts of their lives - the fabulous (or Fish-net/Hat Guy) moments of life are actually only a tiny portion of how we spend our time. One time a guy I really respect told me that in American we spend most of our time working so that we can enjoy and invest the rest of our time in what we really value.

This is not how I want my life to be! No offense if your mission is to spend your life like this, but this is not for me. I want to have a life that is filled with fish net and hat guy enthusiasm, with passion, with fire. I want to exemplify meaning and purpose, even if the tasks I am doing in a given day may seem routine (like Padres baseball or walking down the street). I want people to see the way I live and think, I want to cheer like that crazy guy in the hat!

So, how do we begin to get "more" out of life? How do we move past the everyday, grind-it-out mentality of America? Well, we need a huge change in the way we view life - kinda like in Dead Poets Society when the teacher encourages all the students to stand ont he desk and look at the classroom in a different way.

We, at More than more are living more and more like this every day. We are finding ways to see life differently. It is not always fluffy or easy, being different and seeing things differently - but it opens up life and gives such freedom...

We would love to begin sharing this with you!

We will be getting together again this coming Thursday 5/27, 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center in Lafayette - just off 20th ahd Schuyler Ave - free child care, as always. We hope to se you there!

Simply Put - We Love Movies

2010-04-20T17:52:00.002-04:00

So, I have been spending a lot of my free time of late watching old movies that I have never seen (like "The Outlaw Josie Wales" which I just finished) while I exercise. My thinking is that sometimes I get a little weird from my exposure to sick people all the time and then in my role as leader and teacher and all and so the movies help me keep a little better touch with the reality of American life - masy sound silly, but try living in my very strange (but wonderful) world for a day and I think you will better understand. Anyway, all this movie watching prompted the "noticing" for last week's More than more time we shared.

We talked about our favorite movie and each of the folks talked a little or a lot about their favorite scene. It was really hard for some and one movie seemed to be too much of a task for many of us, but we tried and we had a great time talking about anything from "The Blind Side" to "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" to "Armageddon" and "Gone with the Wind" and "On Golden Pond" We laughed and (yes that's right) some even cried as we talked about the significance these movies have had in our lives. It was fun and interesting to see what everybody likes.

We then spent some time noticing the amazingness of God as we considered how remarkably movies impact us. In fact, all a movie is typically is a made up story, with some overpaid men and women acting it out and being told what to do and say by some dude or lady with an ego the size of Texas and a bunch of fake backdrops and props to make it sell, and nowadays with a bunch of computer generated additions at the end. This is a big sham, from the beginning to the end. Granted some of these are "based on a true story" but how loosely I sometimes wonder!

So, here's the skinny - these fakey, built up, silly, made up scams move us to tears - even in a group of people sitting around in a community center like More than more. Don't get me wrong, I am so glad the people who come to More than more find peace and acceptance there to such a huge degree that they feel they can just totally be themselves, but consider how much movies affect us!

Literally, "Dead Poet's Society" has changed the way I live my life. It has affected me so much. But how is this, that this fakey creation has such an impact?

The truth? We see, in these movies, glimpses of ourselves. We find pieces of our insecurities lived out in the lives of the people in the movies - we see them win the battles we wish we could - we see them make it seem like our journey is not so impossible after all - they validate us, they challenge us, sometimes they condemn us. All out of this fakeness, they do all this.

So, here is the "notice" part. The reason that we are made this way - so able to connect, to be impacted, to associate and intertwine our experiences with those in the movies, is that God has made us this way. No, I am sure He did not make us this way specifically so that the movie makers could make more money. Instead, he made us so bound to relationships and memories and our emotions are so tied up with our experiences and with those around us that we automatically connect and experience intense passion with those in the movie. Plus, to many of us, because there is also some intermixed sense of the fakeness too, connecting with the people in the movie is a lot safer than connecting with the people in our real world, as it only involves 90 minutes or so and there is little potential for serious harm to come to us, unlike the people in the real world where serious hurt is the norm, it seems. It is a beautiful thing that we are made so wonderfully as to be able to connect to movies, books, stories, music so deeply - that it can impact us so powerfully. And, we have God to thank for this! He made us this way. I am sure that if I watch "Dead Poet's" with my dog, she will have no connection at all with the characters in the movie (I doubt she would feel any connection with Marley in "Marley & Me" either for those of you ready to point out that there are no dogs in "Dead Poet's"). So, the next time that you watch a movie, or a TV show, or a Hallmark Commercial, and you find youself involved, inspired, moved, hurt, afraid, etc - consider first that the whole thing is a fake and then consider that it still is having a huge affect on you. There, in that moment, pause the DVR, or mute the sound, and talk to God. Thank Him that He made you so wonderfully and amazingly that you have this built in people connector in you because without it, life would be lame. Ask Him to join you in the moments that you spend watching movies and TV and in your life and enjoy how He changes the way you think!

This is a little piece of what we talked about last Thursday at More than more. If you are looking for more out of life and are tired of the same old thing - we would love to have you join us on our journey toward meaning and purpose and joy in life. We will be hanging out again 4/29 at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM - we would love to have you join us!

Spring Community Outreach 2010

2010-04-14T08:51:00.011-04:00

Hello!
I want to tell you about Good Friday - 4/2. More than twenty adults from More than more, and many more kids, took time away from work and home to give some of the love that we have been experiencing in our lives at More than more on 4/2 at Howarth Center, here in Lafayette.

We saw 25 patients in the clinic and were able to give lots of free medicines and we gave out more than 400 pairs of shoes to those who had no good shoes. Plus we fed 3 meals to our friends who don't happen to currently have homes at Lafayette Transitional Housing. It was an amazing day! We talk a lot at More than more about noticing. We try to notice the wonder and amazingness of God in the life around us and celebrate that, rather than having our lives trapped in the do more, get more, buy more, achieve more, become more, more sex, more escape, more entertainment of our society. We realize that the more of American life is empty and even many times hurtful and we choose a different way - to connect with the One who made all this and so longs to be a part of our world. We also focus our minds and hearts on noticing each other and the people around us.

The amazing thing about all this ideal belief stuff is that it is really changing the people that we are. As we involve God in the moments of our lives and dare to notice the life around us, our lives become more full and meaningful and joy filled. So, out of all that came our desire to share this amazing life with other people...and an intense frustration with the "business as usual" that we find around us day after day in the world around us. We are frustrated by the way that the "system" puts people down, uses people, steals away their dignity and meaning and makes them feel like the things that are really important to all of us are not really important. In short, we are angry at the injustice and we see all these people around us, every day, who we want to see that they are important and that they matter and that there is hope for them - this motivates us to do something about all that injustice - and that is why we take time out to spend giving away shoes and medical care! You see, we really do believe that people matter and each of the people that we were able to share shoes or medical care with heard from us the same message - "no matter what society may say, no matter where your life is, you matter to us!"
It was an amazing thing to watch the responses of the people we told that. In fact, the group was asked beforehand to "notice" all day and write down their notes in a note book. We saw people who were part of the "broken" system we are all a part of who took advantage of us - some who took maybe even a dozen of pairs of shoes - for what purpose we do not know - other who tried to manipulate the system to suit their selfish needs the best they could. But some who brought back shoes that they could not use and some who refused to take any more than they absolutely needed - like the parents who would only take shoes for their children. Then there was the little girl who just wanted to hug the lady who gave her the shoes and the family who only had winter boots to wear for their kids in the heat of the near 80 degree temps and whose children literally danced in their wonderful new shoes - much to our delight! There were the people, when told that they really mattered, just because, that responded that they had never been told that before in their lives (what a tragedy!)

It was also amazing to watch the people of More than more - these are people who have struggled with all that life can dish out, many all of the same kinds of pain and loss and heartbreak that the people they were serving were going through - and there they were, loving each other - part of a community of people who care for each other not because of what the others provide to them, or what skills they have or how socially able they are or how they dress or where they live or even how they act, but just because they noticed that all the people are wonderfully made by God. And, even past that, that these same people were caring for every single person who came for help - without any hesitation - opening their hearts to be hurt by those who would take advantage and to be loved by those who were grateful, but putting it out there nevertheless. And you should have seen them shine - their faces shined (and not just with sweat - although it was hot) - they shined with love - and joy - it was amazing!

You see, we are a group of people who are tired of the way things work- we believe in something more. Yet, we are not content to sit around and talk about it - we are determined to make a difference in the world - we choose to experience life differently than other people and it is changing our lives in the process.

If you are tired of living "business as usual" in this country and would like to begin living life with more meaning and purpose and joy and if you long to be cared for and loved for who you are instead of what you offer, you should join us - we will be getting together this thursday night - 4/15/10 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, in Lafayette. there will be free child care as always and you can bet on a good time! We hope to have a chance to share the time with you!

Community Outreach 2010 eve

2010-04-01T21:46:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone! Well tomorrow is the "big day!" Months of planning and preparation will all come to a giant culmination tomorrow at Community Outreach 2010 - Spring edition.
We have had 2 great nights, these last 2. Wednesday night many of those who are giving their day tomorrow to those in our community who need shoes or medical care gathered together to organize oabout 400 pairs of shoes which we have already purchased and to share dinner together. It was really a great time - it was fun enough to make you want to join in for July and October if you missed it!
Then tonight we gathered together for More than more. It was a fabulous time! We spent some time notcing outside - as we relied on each other's senses to see the world around us as it comes to life in Spring. We spent some time just noticing the world around us on the front lawn of McAllister Center and then we shared those tings and spent a little time thanking the God who made these things so wonderfully - like baby bunnies playing, birds singing, the feel of the cool grass between our toes and the wind on our faces, the sound of children laughing, the beauty of the late daylight (even if it was helped along by the government making us change our clocks)and even the sprayed on grass seed, getting ready to sprout - we were taken with the many colors and the life all around us! It was cool. We were challenged to notice these things in our day to day life - these things are not only present during this hour and 1/2 we call More than more every other Thursday, but they are there all the time. We need to be willing to once in a while, let go our of need to do so much and notice, and in that moment invite God to join us and thank Him for the amazing world He has given us.

We then spent a little time talking about the 7th anniversary of our disaster and victory in the Hendrick house. 4/1/03, was a day that forever changed our lives. Sophia was 8wks inside Melissa, who was at Toys R Us with 3 yr old Nate. She had a severe dizzy spell and got disoriented, but was able to get me on the phone. I went straight there and found here really unable to walk because of the dizziness and then on the way to the hospital really not making much sense. We went to St E ER and as they sedated her with some valium, I watched my sweet 29 year old wife's face droop on the right side. Well, 2 MRI's later came the news from my colleague, Dr Hoyer, "She's had a stroke." The words seemed to hang in the air like a bomb waiting to explode. Well, long story short, 6months of twice a day painful shots, and now a lifetime of Aspirin daily and my sweet wife is perfect - you would never know she had a stoke - except for the fact that out of that terrible experience, God remade and reshaped her - into an even more wonderful and beautiful woman than she was before!

Here's the take home message - it is easy to be inspired by the hope of Spring right now - buds on the trees, new grass, bulbs bursting from the earth, life is restarting all over! But, life is not Spring-like. Life is filled with pain - strokes and betrayals and Lupus and cancer and car wrecks and messed up backs, addictions and habits and hurts and pains and losses - it is often times more like fall or winter than spring! Not to rain on your nice spring day, but it is true - life is hard. The things is, this God we invite into the middle of our lives in this More than more group takes the pain and the loss and the hurt and makes spring - he is the great Creator - making all things new - just like He took Melissa and remade her out of her pain and heart break and loss and pain - He can take and remake you, make spring out of your winter. No, it does not erase the pain - Melissa had 6months of shots and a lifetime of remembering and our girls will have to fear whether that could happen to them when the time comes. But the newness and joy and wonder and peace and meaning and even peace that He brings out of the ashes of burned down dreams never ceases to amaze me. As I look around the group of people at More than more, I see a group of people who are being recreated, remade in beautiful new forms, by the same God who gives us this beautiful spring!

Tomorrow we will be sharing this newness and wonder and love with hundreds of our neighbors who cannot afford good shoes for their families or good health care or medicines. It does not seem like a burden or work to us - but rather an overflow of thankfulness to the God who has brought spring to our lives.

If you have experienced fall and winter, pain and loss and hurt, if you have been betrayed and kicked, if you have searched for joy and meaning and peace and have found none, and you find this More than more idea interesting, or inviting, we would love for you to join us April 15, 6:45-8:00PM, 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, McAllister Recreation Center.

2010-04-01T21:46:00.001-04:00

When the thumb misses the mouth

2010-03-24T08:25:00.003-04:00

The other day I was visiting with a young mother and her little girl. 7 month old Juli was playing and laughing and, as usual, charming the socks off me. We were just chatting away, and then I noticed little Juli trying to get her thumb into her mouth. It was so cute, as this little munchkin repeatedly shoved her thumb to her face - it didn't hurt or anything - she would take it back, as if gauging the distance and then she would shove into her cheek, then into the other cheek and this happened 4 or 5 times in a row. It was so funny, her mom and I just laughed and laughed as her momma finally guided the poor misfiring thumb into her sweet little mouth.

So, here's the point. There are so many times in life I am going along thinking that I have figured out what will make me happy, content and satisfied - I pull back my thumb and jab it toward my mouth, sure that this time it will be the right fit and I will be happy. Then, to my frustration I find that I am not happy and satisfied after all - the pushing for money did not do it and the pushing for more hobbies did not do it and the drive for success and achievement, that didn't do it either and neither did escaping into the sports or the tv or the making everybosy happy around me - each time the thumb seems to have missed my mouth - when all the while, my mouth was right there, waiting for me to hit the mark and find some more peace and satisfaction than I ever had before.

Life in America, it seems, is mostly a pursuit of more - trying to find the right "more" thumb hole to make us finally content - when many times it is actually that we are looking in wrong place for our thumb. At More than more, we are all about helping people begin to look past the "business as usual" American lifestyle to finding something "More" out of life. We can't make you content, but, like Juli's mom, we would like to show you where you may be able to find more peace and more joy and more wonder in life - we'd like to point your thumb toward the mouth it has been searching for - we certainly are finding that the "More" we are finding is more fulfilling, more wonderful, more amazing, more fun than we ever dreamed...

If you are spending your life going after things that just seem like they are not nearly as wonderful as you thought they'd be, if you seem to run after things in life, only to find them not as satisfying as you expected, if your life has an emptyness to it that you just can't seem to fill or shake off, or if you are just curious, we would love to have you join us next Thursday, 4/1/10 at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM.

I laughed til I nearly fell off my chair

2010-03-22T21:32:00.002-04:00

This last Thursday, we had a fabulous time. It was not exactly "usual" even for us, but it was a blast. We laughed over the craziest and sillest things, but mostly we enjoyed being with a group of people who actually care about us with no agenda and enjoyed the peace and comfort of that kind of atmosphere.

We spent time noticing how things have been going in our preparations for Community Outreach 2010, which will be 4/2 at Howarth Center - 18th and Union St's Lafayette. Of special interest this time was how Melissa, who almost never goes to Kmart, stopped in for a quick peak at their shoes and found that they had marked down hundreds of fabulous shoes at 1/2 of the usual clearance price - she got hundreds of shoes to put on the feet of people in our town that don't have good new shoes to wear! Plus, the sales people everywhere we go are falling over themselves to help us even if all they can do is ring the shoes up (and no they are not on comission) so that they can be a part of something so cool! One of them even wants to start coming and being a part of a group of people that can love people like that! What's amazing is that all those shoes at Kmart were just marked to that low price that morning - they would have never lasted through the weekend and Melissa & Heather and Jordan just happened to stop in at that time - just when the time was perfect - truth is God works things out just the right way!

We spent so much time celebrating and laughing and enjoying noticing how God is working everything out that we didn't have much time to do anything else - but we didn't really miss it!

Hope to see you coming up soon at our Shoe Organization Party at Howarth Center garages, 6PM next Wed, or at More than more, 6:45-8:00PM, next Thursday, 4/1 at McAllister Recreation Center - 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette!

Last time & next time

2010-03-12T16:07:00.002-05:00

Hey all! We had a fabulous time last Thursday night, the 4th, at McAllister Center. We spent our time talking about sacrifice. Beginning with noticing how humans naturally are made to sacrifice for others that they love, we noticed that we are amazingly well made and actually made to be caring about other people - even though sometimes we don't do this as well as we'd like to. It is an amzing thing to consider that all except the most evil people in the world sacrifice something naturally for other people sometimes.

We then spent some time noticing each other and the amazing people that are More than more, but also the pain in our lives and the hurts we carry and we talked to God about those things - it is amazing to see the pure acceptance that happens in this group, every other Thursday night, month after month, no matter who walks into the group - they care about them, without agenda!

Then we considered the amazing life of searching for More in God and how sometimes it is hard and even painful to give up of yourself for the love of people and to do the best things with your life, but it is so much better than living in selfishness and the lameness of the usual, get more, achieve more, attain more, buy more of American society.

It was a good time to hang out and enjoy each other and the chance we have to make a difference in the world - we will be extending this to our community on 4/2 at Howarth Center, 18 th and Union St's in Lafayette, when we give out shoes and medical care to those in our community who need them! We would love to have you join us in the group - we will be hanging out again next Thursday, the 18th, 6:45-8:00PM at 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, McAllister Center - hope to see you there!

An Update

2010-02-26T06:50:00.000-05:00

2-19-10
Language and Coaches

Well, if you missed More than more last night, you missed a great time! We enjoyed relaxing for a while and chilling out for a few minutes (not that being cool enough is any issue at all right now in Lafayette!) to begin. It is always nice to see new people and people we have shared some of life with when you have not seen them in a while. That seems to be how it is when we first get together each time. To me, it is walsy amazing how folks who are new to the group are brought right in and embraced with the love of the group – it doesn’t seem to matter much at all what they look like, what they drive, what their economic situation is, etc – they are welcomed all the same! Truth is, this group loves people – it’s not creepy, just warm and comfortable – like going to grandma’s house (if your grandma was nice).

After some time to settle in, we spent a little time noticing how cool life and God are. You see, we spend almost all of the hours of all of our days focusing on what we need to do, what we need to become, what we need to achieve, how we are going to survive, get this bill paid, get this deadline satisfied, etc. But, if I asked most of the people I know what really matters to them, the most important things in their lives, they would say things like family, friends, good times, relationships, etc. So, we believe these things re important, but most of our lives we live for other things – spending very little time focusing on what is really amazing about life.
On this night, we brought our focus onto language. I know, how silly – to me this conjures images of my grade school sentence diagrams and subjects and predicates and all. But, language is really amazing and so is our wonderful ability to understand it!
I wrote a word on the board – “HELLO” – so, when you just read it simply, it just says, “hello.” But imagine if you have been separated from the one you love for 3 years and all of a sudden you hear their voice, behind you, in the airport, “Hello!” It takes on an entirely different meaning! What if it is spoken by the one who you love so much, on Valentine’s day, and the kids are with the sitter and the word is, “Hellllo, How you doin?” Well, we won’t go any further with that one, but you get the idea – the word means so much depending on the way it is said, who is saying it, the context it is said in, etc. Not only that, but we have not take into account the facial expression and body language involved. If the face is frowning and the eyes drift the watch, glaringly – you know you are in trouble – I guess you get what I mean. Now, understand that this is one of the hardest of our times together to adequately describe in writing, but how amazing are we that we can deliver such amazing information with language and that we can understand and “hear” it so wonderfully. How awesome are we made that this is just part of being human?
So, over the next couple weeks, until we get together again, begin looking for chances to notice the wonder of language. When someone says something to you – try to really notice all that it means – take a second sometimes to thank the God who made you so marvelously for making you that way – invite Him into the moment and enjoy something deeper than just getting by in the next thing you need to do. You might begin to see life differently!
We next took time to notice each other – talking to God about each other quietly – confidentially when requested. It was good to notice each other – how amazing the people in the room are and how many hurts they have in their lives. It is easy to slide right past people all the time and forget that they are wonderfully made and also that they have so much junk and pain in their lives – that it might just change the way we thought about them, us and life, if we would begin to notice and invite God into their life and into ours in those moments.
Last we had a couple small stories. The first was about sports – Sports figures in our time have become bigger than life and more than one of my friends has left behind a “sports-widow” as he must watch his ESPN every night, etc. Kids grow up wanting to be Lebron James or Peyton Manning (no offense intended Colts fans – he is a good guy I think too). But many times, we, especially guys, escape our world, real life, the joys and wonders of life into our sports. Well, this last week I was doing some ESPN escaping when George Carl (the recent coach of the NBA all-stars) came on. There he was, his head as big as the TV as the cameras closed in on him like hungry lions chasing an antelope, saying, “No, I have not come to grips with it. The first things I think every day when I wake up is ‘Oh Crap, I have cancer.” And there, this most successful of coaches began to choke up, right on camera, and I got a dose of reality. Basketball was not important, sports heroes are just guys, like me – and what is important to them? LIFE. I was humbled.
A couple days prior to the George Carl episode, Nate and I were walking across the parking lot at Faith Community Center, on our way into his last basketball game. It was cold, imagine, in February, in Indiana! As we stepped, he looked down at the ground and saw a thin layer of ice across the blacktop. He stepped on it, trying to break it – but, even though it was quite thin, it did not break – it was applied directly to the pavement. “That ice is really thin, dad,” he said. “Yup,” my less than profound reply, and then, “Won’t break, will it?” “Nope” “What would happen if you took that thin layer of ice and raised it off the ground and into the air and then tried to break it?” “Well, it would break really easy.”
“Yes,” I said, “This is what is like to be a person. We find ourselves a lot to be very thin and breakable. We just are not strong enough to handle all that life gives us. But, if we apply ourselves to God, something strong enough to handle life, we find that even though we are thin and frail, we do not break.”
So, if you would join the 2 stories with me. Life will show you how thin and weak and frail and temporary you are, I see it every day in my office. It will be bigger than you can handle – I guarantee it! Those who think not will be wrong – I watch them melt in front of me with the words, “It’s cancer. You have 6months to live, so sorry.” Or “The baby died. I have no words to describe how sorry I am that this has happened.” Or “I am leaving you – I don’t love you anymore.” And on and on the list goes – you will break – and the things that seemed important will not seem so important anymore – just ask George Karl how important basketball is now. But you are not just a thin piece of ice, broken over the air. You must begin to set yourself against the amazing God who made language and life – who made you – and loves you tons – who says that are amazing and worth more than any price anyone could ever pay! You do this by inviting Him into the moments of your life and starting to live your life trying to grow closer to Him. At More than more – we can help you! And, as your ice is applied more and more to the wonderful One who made it – against the powerful blacktop of God – you will find that you will not break. I am not saying that all life will be kicks and giggles – the cancers still come, the heartbreak still happens – but the ice that is applied to the God of all the universe – it will not break. In fact, when you begin to be applied to God, you will find more joy and more wonder and more power and more fulfillment out of life than you had ever dreamed.

If it sounds good, join us next time – we will be at McAllister Center, 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM, on March 4th. Of course, there will be free, excellent, child care for those of you with kids. Hope to see you there!

Finally, don’t forget the dates for our community outreach this year:

April 2nd Friday
July 27th Tuesday
October 28th Thursday

We will be giving out shoes, providing free medical care and free medicines - to those in need in our very own community. If you are intrigued by noticing, give it a try in your town!
The earliest we can know if you will be joining us, the better. We will have hundreds of people to help and will need all the help we can get. Consider talking to God about this now and asking off early. Let us know when you do and we will plan on having you – we already have several who have volunteered to take days off to share in giving with us!

Tomorrow

2010-02-17T18:54:00.001-05:00

Hey guys! We will be hanging out tomorrow night at McAllister Center - 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM - it will be a great time to hang out and enjoy some time together - hope you can make it!

Community Outreach 2010

2010-02-10T06:01:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! Thought it might be good for this to be a separate post! We are breaking our outreach to the underserved in Lafayette into three different times this year, to better serve their needs.

We will be giving away shoes, and feeding the homeless at Lafayette Transitional Housing and giving away free medical care and medicines and doing some manual communicty service. Please be talking to God about these dates and whether you can take one or all of them off and join us - it is a joy to be able to give this completely! Each day will be only one day for now - it may expand into 2 days for planning and organization and we will need plenty of help - even leading up to the days. Last year we gave 615 pairs of shoes away in 1day and fed tons of people and had 40-50 doctor visits each day!

The dates:

April 2, 2010
July 27, 2010
October 28, 2010

hope to see you all there!

Last Thursday

2010-02-09T06:29:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone!

Last Thursday we had a great time, hanging out and laughing, relaxing and being stretched in the way we think. If you were not there, we missed you, and we hope to see you next Thursday, 2/18, 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Center - 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.

We spent some time noticing how big and amazing God is. This is our chance to allow our minds to think some different than usual. We talked about how the modern tendency of thought is always to think that we can make something better, more complete, than it was originally - or replace something with something better that we have invented.

For example - there was a time, not too long ago, when the health care community told moms not to breast feed their kids. This milk is watery and not very thick and therefore must not be very nourishing, was their theory. After years of thinking we had it all figured out, we have now realized that the milk a mom produces for her baby is the healthiest, best thing for that baby - in fact, when I visit with mom's in the hospital who are thinking about weaning quickly, I often tell them that any amouint of breast milk that that baby gets is an advantage for that baby, even if it's one bottle per day or a couple ounces, pumped or nursed, it is the best thing. So you see, we think we have one up on the way God made us, and we realize quickly that it is not the case.

Here's another example - the appendix - yes, the appendix - for years doctors have arbitrarily taken out the appendix because it "has no function" except to get infected and cause appendicitis. So, when doctors are doing surgery for other things, they often remove the appendix, just to prevent a future need! Well, I just got back from a conference in San Diego where one of the "hot topics" was how the bacteria that live in the intestines of people have a huge function - possibly changing things like childhood eczema and adult irritable bowel syndrome and certainly affecting the way our body handles getting antibiotics and how our stomachs respond. Well, it turns out that some people are beginning to think that the appendix, because of its location (right between the small and large intestine), nay be the place where we regenerate the bacteria in our colon from if we have an illness, a course of antibiotics that kills off a lot of the bacteria etc. Sooooo, it appears likely that the appendix has a function after all! Here, we have arrogantly assumed that we know better than God and taken it out! It begins to produce an awe in my heart as I am humbled by the completeness, beauty, simplicity and complexity of creation - God has made us wonderfully - no way this is just the product of a bunch of accidental genetic twists and turns like some people might have you believe - it inspires a giant sigh and a moment of silence for the amazing God who made us so wonderfully and loves us so much.

Now, if you only notice the information and oooh and aaahh, then you have only gotten part of the point. You see, you were also made to be in relationship with this God who made you so marvellously and loves you so much. He wants you to involve Him in your life. So, when you begin to notice something like how wonderful babies and mommies are and their feeding is, thank God for it - talk to Him about how amazing it is and enjoy the fact that us people are made this way because He loves us so much! When you eat breakfast or lunch today, thank God for the way your little appendix has - if you have one - and be thankful that we, as people, don't have it all figured out! Let your heart move away a little bit from the driving, what comes next American mind set and involve God in your day - you will see - it will make a huge difference. Besides, if you just work, and fail to notice the amazing things in life - you will be missing out on the really great part of life!

We then spent a little time noticing each other - sharing things in our lives and talking to God about them! We share them either anonymously or not on a piece of papaer and then talk to God about that person for the following 2wks. We realize that the people who surround us every day are also amazing and that they also have tons of problems in their lives, pains and hurts and losses, just like we do. We also realize that if we go through life and miss out on the fact that they are there, we miss a very important part of life. So, try to really see the people around you in the next 2 wks, notice who they really are - don't let your busyness overwhelm your humanity!

Along these lines, we listened to song by Dave Crowder Bamd, called, surely we can change:

And the problem is this
We were bought with a kiss
But the cheek still turned
Even when it wasn’t hit

And I don’t know
What to do with a love like that
And I don’t know
How to be a love like that

When all the love in the world
Is right here among us
And hatred too
And so we must choose
What our hands will do

Where there is pain
Let there be grace
Where there is suffering
Bring serenity
For those afraid
Help them be brave
Where there is misery
Bring expectancy
And surely we can change
Surely we can change
Something

And the problem it seems
Is with you and me
Not the Love who came
To repair everything

And I don’t know
What to do with a love like that
And I don’t know
How to be a love like that

When all the love in the world
Is right here among us
And hatred too
And so we must choose
What our hands will do

Where there is pain
Let us bring grace
Where there is suffering
Bring serenity
For those afraid
Let us be brave
Where there is misery
Let us bring them relief
And surely we can change
Surely we can change
Oh surely we can change
Something

Oh, the world’s about to change
The whole world’s about to change

Then we talked briefly about the movie: Return to Me - this is a cheesy chick flick movie that we like at our house partly because it is set at a restaurant in Chicago that we love. In the end of the movie, we find the heroine, Minnie Driver, sitting on the top of an Italian Restaurant in Rome, trying to paint, but unable to because of her sadness. The Italian waiter comes by and asks if she needs anything and she says no. Then he looks at her empty canvas, and her sad face and says, "He...married?" and She says, "No, it's a long story." The waiter walks away and then stops, grabs a chair, and walks back to her and sits down, "I take my break", he says. This is the kind of noticing I am talking about! Do we dare to let go of our pressing schedules to notice the people around us and leet God use us to help them? I hope so!

Anyway, that is a summary of Thursday - hope to see you next time!

Tomorrow Night

2010-02-03T20:43:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone! We will be getting together tomorrow night (2/4)at McAllister Center, 20th and Schuyler, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM. It will be a great time to hang out, laugh some, and notice some things that lead us to something more than we are experiencing in day-to-day American life. We hope you can make it!

Love Letters

2010-01-26T21:46:00.002-05:00

1-21-10
I talked for a long time to my mom on the way to the airport today. I am taking a very unusual mini-sabbatical. It is time to learn about some medical stuff, pray and focus, read and write, listen and grow – 2 days of silence and solitude of a different sort. It will be good – God has much to do in my life and I anticipate meeting with Him and gaining ground through His strength in these days.
My mom and I do not talk much, but this time on the way to Indy was a great time to catch up a little. We found ourselves talking about something I noticed yesterday evening as I got ready all that I needed for the trip and then settled into bed was that I felt an urge to write a note to the kids and my wife. No, it was more than an urge, it was a compulsion. I would not have felt right leaving without writing these little words of encouragement, instruction, love, peace, whatever. It was bigger in my mind than I had previously thought. I have always done this – when Melissa and I go away I always right a note to each child and sometimes even to my in-laws! So, I mentioned this to Melissa, how this felt so overwhelming and she asked, appropriately, “Why?”
Well, did that ever get me thinking. I started to look into the heart of the notes, the emotion behind it, the associated times I had felt these emotions in the past in my life. Here’s what I think: I feel this compulsion to write the note because there is a fear deep inside me that something will happen to me and I want to give them something wonderful as my last input to their lives. I know that sounds massively messed up and I don’t know what to say about it so let me continue, before I am mentally shipped off to the padded room in your mind.
I remember at age 7, walking with mom into the basement (why are hospital cafeterias always in the dark, windowless basement?) of Carle Clinic hospital, Champaign, Illinois. My dad was upstairs in some room. I knew he was sick, but really not much more and was mainly, as most 7 year olds, concerned with my life and what important things were going on in the life of a first grader. My mom sat me down at a table, before we even got our food and tried to gently break the news to me, “They say that your daddy is probably going to die, Jay.” The words hung in the air as if they were made of lead, and they landed in my gut and head the same way. The shock rung through me, wave after wave of grief and despair and loss and crushing pain wracked my little unprepared mind. I screamed, over and over, “My daddy can’t die! My daddy can’t die! My daddy can’t die!” It was all I could think or say or summon to express the loss I was feeling.
I spent the next months wondering if he really would die, or if he might live. It looked like he might be ok and he made it home, only to be rushed to the hospital, after almost dying in our living room. My life seemed to have had its stable point cut out and there was nothing I could do to paste it back into place again.
Well, he survived, and we had another almost 14 years together. But I don’t think I have ever recovered from the shock and heartbreak of that day in the hospital cafeteria. Even as I write about it now, my eyes fill up with tears – it has been 31 years…
Getting back to the present, I have this compulsion to write letters and this sense that I don’t want to abandon my family without something wonderful, remember? Well, I suppose you can connect the dots. I truly believe that the crush I felt in that cafeteria brings me to a place where I so badly don’t want that to ever happen to my kids that I without realizing it write them letters before I leave them. I suppose it is a survival mechanism I have formed from the pain inside. But, the thing is, in spite of the pain that started the letters, they are a really wonderful thing. The letters are nearly always still there when I get back, often times next to their beds – sometimes I find them months or years later, clung to, prized, cherished reminders of daddy’s love.
So, lots of sentimentality…plenty of confessional and potential for my healing in sharing my experiences, but what does all this mean to anyone but me and my family? Is that what you are thinking? Here’s the “So what?”
First, many of you look at me as this kind man who cares deeply, speaks with authority, prays long, and on and on and on. You need to understand that my life is scarred with loss and pain and hurt – just like yours and the person next to you. I do believe in a better way of life and love to tell about the way that God can change people’s lives and help them live more meaningful, joyful, wonderful lives. But, this is not because I have lived some kingly, charmed life of ease. The circumstances of my life have crushed me, over and over and over again.
Second, know that the loss and pain and heartache that I went through with my dad created so much havoc in my life that I felt a sense of instability in my world for most of my life, it was awful and there is much more that I haven’t said in this letter. But, look at what all that pain and loss has become in God’s hands. I began many years ago realizing that I had no way of getting better over the pain and hurt inside me. My heart was broken and I had no idea how to love. I was angry and hurtful, manipulative and destructive, addicted and filled with rage. Yet, as I began to see that the path to “more” of what I wanted was a dead end, my heart began to cry for its maker. I began to invite God into my hurts and ask for His help. I began to search for His truth and notice the wonder of His world. And then an amazing thing happened, the pain and the heartache began to be changed into something beautiful. He began to change shrieking sobs ringing in the ears of a 7 year old into love letters written from the heart of a daddy so consumed with love that it must overflow into the lives of his children, his wife, his patients, his community, his world. I can’t tell you how it all works specifically, like in some psychological dialogue or something, but I can tell you that I have seen it over and over and over again in the lives of those who would give up their hurts and pain to the More who can change them to love letters.
Well, as you probably caught above, my dad died when I was a senior in college – almost 21 years old. It was a hard time – 17 years ago this week. So, the talk with me mom, about my love letters was particularly poignant. It was good to talk to her – I think in some way she understands the morphing God has done in my life better than anyone – she was the only one there for the sobs in the cafeteria besides me and she certainly watched in dismay the path of destruction I followed for so many years afterward. But, she also sees with glee, the change of heart that God has brought to my life. I only hope that He will continue to pour out his love from my wounds for many years to come and…

that many more of you will get a chance to experience this wonderful way of living.

This, by the way is what we do at More than more. The people who come together and hang out every other Thursday are seeing this kind of change in their lives – even as they continue to experience the crush of life.

We hope to have a chance to share this with you. Please join us.

We will be getting together next Thursday, 2/4, at McAllister Community Center, 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM

As always, there will be excellent, free childcare

More than more for the 21st of January

2010-01-20T09:09:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! We will be having an exciting community outreach night tomorrow night! We do this from time to time - several times per year, in addition to our major community outreaches. This helps us to keep focused on caring for those around us and not just on what is going on in our lives. Plus it gives us a chance to share the exciting news we have that life is not just about the constant push to get more, become more, be more, own more, have more - but can be full of joy and meaning and purpose and life!

These are really cool nights - we always have tons fun!

We will be helping an older, retired couple who are struggling with disabilities in cleaning out their garage so they can get their car into it!

We will meet at McAllister at 6:45 PM and will leave there by 6:55 PM (you will be meeting Kristi Pope) - we will finish most likely around 8:30 or so, but any time you spend with us, you will love and we will love having you!

Hope to see you there!

Tomorrow

2010-01-07T00:27:00.003-05:00

Just a reminder, we will be back at McAllister Center - 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette - 6:45-8:00PM tomorrow night - watch the weather - if it is too crazy, we may have to cancel, we will post here and send out email to those we have email for when we decide...only if we decide to cancel.

hope to see you all there

Sharing Heartbreak

2009-12-21T07:21:00.002-05:00

Jessica Goyette has been a part of More than more for more than a year now. We love her dearly. We have shared many laughs together over the months, soaking up life and her infectious giggle.

Saturday she lost her father - suddenly. It is one of those things in life that we know occurs but we all hate the idea that it could happen at any time, to any one of us. There is no cute or easy "fix" to this kind of pain. Over my years of experiencing loss and watching people experience loss, I have found 2 things that seem to make all the difference:

1) The love and presence of family and friends who truly care about you - not what you can provide to them, not your productivity or how you "fit in"

and

2) The belief that there is a God and that He loves us and cares what happens to us. Even though it is so difficult to "feel" connected to God or even people sometimes in the middle of times like this - knowing He is there and caring - it really helps.

So, my request from all of you is that you be willing to let your hearts ache with Jess and her family during this unbelievably difficult time, even as you have let yourself laugh with her on Thursday nights for the past year. Talk to God about her and her mom, Cynthia, and her brother.

Thanks

We will gather together again January 7, 2010 at McAllister Recreation Center, 6:45-8:00 PM.

here is the link if you need it
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=McAllister+Recreation+Center+Lafayette+Indiana&sll=39.795996,-86.524284&sspn=2.034277,4.927368&ie=UTF8&hq=McAllister+Recreation+Center&hnear=Lafayette,+IN&ll=40.45792,-86.87439&spn=0.062956,0.15398&z=13&iwloc=A

We love you all

An Update

2009-12-15T04:49:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone!

We got together this last Thursday night and had a great time! We spent the time relaxing and enjoying some time not having to be fakey and perform for anyone - being around some people who genuinely care about you can really be an amazing thing...

We started off our time with the question, "What is the worst gift you've ever gotten?" From a game that was 5yrs too young, to gloves, to no gift at all, we shook our heads as we took some time to get to know each other just a little better.

We then spent some time noticing how amazing God is. This time we talked about how amazingly changeable people are, as we talked about how Melissa has changed over the years from a timid, don't even talk to anyone in line at McDonald's when they cut, to a chase down a young guy at Meijer who flipped her off. And furthermore, how I had gone from a gruff and disrespectful young man who was not even allowed to go into the plant manager's secretary's office when I was 19-20yrs old because she hated me so much, to a doctor who hundreds of women trust with their depression management and to take care of their kids. Generally thought of as sensitive and kind, I am amazed at the change in my life.

Isn't it strange and amazing how chanagable we are? In this case, Melissa and I, over the years, have become more and more like each other. She, more like my agressive and strong personality; me, more like her kind and gentle personality. This has not happened, though, on accident. It is because of love. We have loved each other for more than 20 years now. This love is the most powerful changing force in the universe! This is the kind of living that God can give - He has made us so amazingly and loves us so much that we have all the possibility in the world!

One of the things I hear sometimes that just makes me cringe is, "That's just the way I am. I'll never be any different." This does not have to be true. God has made you in an amazing way -able to morph over time. This can blow your mind if you consider it - there is nothing too amazing for your life - when it is filled with love!

So, the next time you notice how different you are than you used to be, or when you see an older couple who have been together so long they are starting to look like each other - stop for just a second and notice - this is a fabulous gift - we could all be just like the animals and simply do whatever we need to do for the next day - survive and only adapt on the basis of fulfilling our needs. But we're not! In those moments, thank the God who made you and celebrate that the circumstances you are currently in with your bad attitude, your issues, your problems, do not always have to be the same - cool!

Next we took some time to notice each other - we have some folks with some major pain in their lives that are in the group and we talked to God about each other for a little bit. This is a really cool time, when we just have a chance to realize that regardless of the situations in our lives, color of our skin, size of our house or bank account, or even whether we have something to say there are people in this room who care for us. That is just something we just don't seem to find other places. Plus, when we talk to God about stuff - things change - for the better. We can't perfectly explain how that happens and we realize that it may sound kinda corny - but it is true - time after time we sit together - we see it happening.

Last we had a chance to view a picture of our family. In it, my youngest daughter, Sophia, is a newborn. We are all standing in front of the Christmas tree, grinning ear to ear, little Emily and Nate, and Melissa, holding Sophia, and me. The only odd thing is that Sophia is letting out this mouth-wide-open, let it all out at once, yell. I mean, she is screaming her head off - and there all the rest of us are - just grinning as if she doesn't even exist.

The interesting thing about this picture is that it is so consistent with so many of our lives. We live our lives, with our "images" put on - our faces made up pretty for the world, day after day. Yet, there, in the picture of our lives, there is a screaming baby. It is yelling to be seen, but we keep it in the background, ignoring its presence so that we can look our best! These discrepanacies between what we portray and what we really are can nuke us from the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night.

For some of us, it is time to "come clean." We need to be in a place where we can be ourselves - begin to see the pain and screaming in our lives and put it in the perpective of our actual world - to admit that the screaming baby is there and deal with it. This is one of the reasons that More than more exists. We want to give people a place to be real...

For others of us, we are pretty much who we are - we do not deny the screaming in our lives - but we seem to be trying to get closer to God - to notice how amazing He is and live becoming something more amazing than we had ever imagined. But, in this, we are doing and saying the living some things that we know just are not the best things. We continue to do them in spite of the fact that they just don't seem to be the best things to be doing anymore, and they become the screaming baby in our pictures. We can change from these too, if we will begin to invite God into the middle of these and allow His ability to change us to work on the screaming baby that may be holding us back from all the future holds for us!

So, no matter where you fall in the "screaming baby" scenario, we would love to hang out with you, laugh with you, even care about you. We would love to help you move past the religiosity so often found in this world and help you begin to see that God has wonderful things for your life. This, you see, is not some cute, little religion club - we are an open, loving, understanding, accepting, group of people who just want to join you in life's struggles and walk through the days with you - no matter who you are.

We will be getting together this Thursday night, 12/17/09 at McAllister Recreation Center - 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM. Of course, there will be free, excellent childcare.

Hope to see you there!

Thursday

2009-11-04T07:09:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone!

We have missed seeing you all!

Just wanted to remind you that we are hanging out 6:45-8:00 PM on Thursday night at McAllister Center - 20th and Schuyler - Lafayette.

It will be a great time and we hope to see you there.

If you get a sense that there just might be more to life than you are experiencing, you need to be there...

have a great one!

2009-10-14T13:32:00.002-04:00

So, I seriously hope that none of you will be mad at me for saying so, but I am a deer hunter. Mostly I sit in the tree stand and enjoy being outside in the quiet peace of the woods. If a deer happens to come along, well we won't talk about that part right now, but I love this time of year for the hunting.

The other day, it had been raining all day, but was just barely spitting when I got home, so I donned my camo and headed over the hill to the stand. I came over the ridge looking down onto Wildcat Creek and slipped/skidded my way down the hill to where the 4 or 5 deer paths converge and where my stand sits this time of year. To my shock and then anger, my stand was gone! I looked all around and did not find it anywhere. I then proceeded to be stupid and walked several hundred yards into the woods, down the paths, thinking maybe i would find my stand (or the chump who took it!). I found neither and no deer - not that they couldn't hear me coming a mile off, in my angered state of mind.

Now, understand, I do hunt with permission on someone else's land, but there has not been any recall of his permission to my knowledge. I fumed - seriously I think my head might have been steaming off the rain that was falling on it. Yet, not to be turned away, I was determined to hunt that night and so I perched myself on a downed log and sat for a while. Needless to say no animals approached - probably because they could smell my anger - and so eventually I got up and began walking home. I trudged up the hill to the clearing behind my house, hoping to see some grazing deer there, looked left, toward my house as I entered it, and there was my stand, laying on the ground. I was stunned. I was not sure whether someone had left it there for me, knowing that i was the hunter and not wanting it left on the tree, or if they left it there to come back for it another time, but nevertheless, it was mine and it was found.

Needless to say, I was relieved to have my stand and after dragging my soggy self back inside and settling down a little (I was still mad that someone would take it) I had some time to think about the whole thing.

I was mad about the stand because it was not where I thought it should be. I looked in a million places and i just could not seem to find it. I got angrier and angrier the longer i looked because I knew where the stand was supposed to be and it wasn't there! Truth is, it was actually up on the hill. Somewhere completely unexpected and unforeseen. It was not running from me - it was just sitting there, in the rain, waiting to be picked up.

Many times this is how life is. We are just absolutely convinced that the thing we want is right over here, at the bottom of the hill. Then, when we get there we find that it is not there at all and so we go searching - we search and we search and we search for anything that we think may be able to satisfy us, but we are just not able to find it. Then, in our desperation, we look somewhere where we would never have thought to find something wonderful and there it is - waiting as if we would never get there. This is how it is often with God. We think we know where He is - but sometimes we need to think differently when the missing things in our life are not where we though they would be.

Now, i don't want you to misunderstand, God is not just sitting there like my stand. He is sculpting the moments to guide you to the top of the hill where He is. He wants you to find Him - but most of the time we are so preoccupied with our searching where we think life should be that we forget to look for Him.

Maybe you are reading this because you are heading up the hill - maybe this is a chance for you to change your focus - to modify your search.

If so, we hope you will join us Thursday night, 6:45-8:00 PM at McAllister Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, we will all be heading to the top of the hill, together.

By the way - here are the dates for the rest of the year - there are some changes to the usual every other Thursdays because of holidays and vacations

These are the following dates we will meet at McAllister:(PLEASE note them on your calendar)

Thursday October 15
Thursday November 5th
Thursday November 19th
Thursday December 10th
Thursday December 17th
Thursday January 7th

thanks and we'll look forward to seeing you!

Sleeping Through

2009-09-24T06:55:00.000-04:00

The other day I was in my office seeing a patient of mind named Joan. She is a pleasant older lady – retired – who was in to check on her medical problems. We have an understanding, me and Joan, that I will discuss with her things that are important to her health and I understand that each thing I mention will make her more and more nervous. She will try to endure the nervousness about all the tests that are now expected as screening tests to prevent illness from happening, because she realizes that she needs to know all of it and that is part of the reason she comes to the doctor in the first place. We had been talking about her getting a dreaded colonoscopy for a long time, years actually, and she had decided to wait, over and over, because it was just too much to consider – what happens in a colonoscopy (which if you do not know, I am not going to tell you).
One of the last times I had seen her, we talked about how things were in her life, enjoyed a moment together and then I began my reminders of good health care and she began to cringe, but when I got to the colonoscopy and reminded her that it needed to be done, to help her not die from colon cancer, much to my astonishment, she reluctantly agreed! Well, after I got my jaw off the floor, I applauded her bravery and went on with the visit and after hers, the next one and on and on until the end of the day. Frankly, I forgot all about the fact that she had finally agreed to the colonoscopy until she came back to the office for her follow up visit 3months later.
So, the other day when she was in, in the process of our talking together and recapping that last 3months, she excitedly began to tell me about her colonoscopy (not the details, read on!). She announced, in her retired lady, somewhat shaky and nervous voice, “It wasn’t that bad! I slept through the whole thing!” grinning the whole time. Then she added, “You can do any test on me you want to if I can sleep through it! That was the best! I don’t even remember a thing about it!” By this time, she was nearly off her seat, as if released from the anxieties of my office and my explanations of all the healthcare she should be getting, to new vigor and life in the idea that we could probably do all her subsequent tests asleep!
Now, Joan is sweet and in some ways I agree with her. I do not like going to doctors (I know that is weird, but it is true) or having tests and certainly do not like having anyone see parts of me that no one else does. I do not like pain or discomfort. I do not like my space invaded – just try cutting me off in traffic sometime and you will see. But this whole, “You can do any testing you want as long as I am asleep,” idea really prompted some thought in me.
You see, I am convinced that so many of us live like this. We would rather just go through our lives asleep than awake. We immerse ourselves in our work until it is so frantic a pace that there is no longer any time to think or perceive or notice anything anymore. We simply do one thing and then the next and then the next and when we look up, the day is gone and we go to sleep and start over the next day – like we are under an anesthetic of our emotions and existence. We do this unconsciously most of the time, our society prompts us with so many things that can be used as anesthetics (fill our lives with things to do). But sometimes, we do it intentionally too – we do it to escape the pain that lingers in the moments of quiet. It is in those moments that we hear the call to something more; something that we have not yet been able to find. We have spent our lifetimes trying to find satisfaction, fun, joy, excitement and everything we try fails at some point or another. We feel lost and strangely misplaced in our own existences. But, if we can sleep through it, we can go through anything – so we mentally immerse ourselves in things – sometimes it is even good things like family outings and activities or religious activities. The problem is that if we are doing them because we feel this need to be immersed in something or because we feel we a need to be busy doing something and this seems like the best option…then we are simply following Joan’s advice and sleeping through. Yet, we all hear the voice inside us that calls us to something amazing and powerful and extraordinary. If we wake from our sleep, what do we do with this voice?
Well, that voice is the wonder and amazingness of you. God has marked you. He loves you tons and wants you to have a fabulous life – unleashed from the sleep of American life. He is the One who can help you through the pain of your past, through the uncertainty of your today and into the hope of your tomorrows. They do not have to be drowned away in the anesthetic of our society, they can be awake and alive and full of anticipation!
Now, I fully understand that to wake up from sleep can be painful. There are things that must be faced – some of them worse than the colonoscopy – but it is better, so much better to face them awake and walking with the One who can bring healing to them than it is to run away from them. You see, as you begin to face them, they no longer hold you caged in the fear of them and, like Joan, free to be excited at the doctor’s office, you can begin to see a whole new life!
How do you go about it? How do you begin to wake up? It’s simple. Begin to talk to God about it. He, by the way, does not expect any big fancy, Thee and Thou and Thy language from you – He only wants You. Just explain to Him your struggle – if you don’t understand, tell Him that and how much you do understand – ask Him to help – He will. I know because I used to sleep through life, and I never want to go back there.
Also, if you are interested in hanging out with some people who are trying to “wake up” from the American sleep – please join us every other Thursday at McAllister Recreation Center – 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, 6:45-8:00 PM. Our next time together will be 10/1/09. We hope you can make it!

Who we are - What the Heck Does "Soulful" Mean?

2009-09-17T07:19:00.000-04:00

We spent some time at the end of last week’s time talking about who we are. I had suggested at the end of last time together that there was a word I wanted us to think about over the 2wks that described us very well: Soulful. So, as we began talking about it, we simply had different people say what they thought that word might mean. We came up with quite a list:
Meaningful
Deep
Loving
Spiritual
Spirit led

Among others…

Then we explored the words a bit more. We came back to our previous time of celebrating the coolness of God story (or in this case, the last blog post) and were reminded that we are marked deep inside by God. We sense it in our lives it seems, no matter what our life’s circumstances seem to be. This part of us would be described by many as the soul. Now, I realize that this word has been abused and beaten down from its amazingness by the church over millennia, but if you will try to release the word from its man-made cage and allow it to represent the deepness inside us that cries in the despair of life and wonders at the joys of life, always moving us forward to something more, it will help a lot in this discussion. We cringe a bit at the word “spiritual” again because of all the things in the world that are “spiritual” and we are not talking about them. But, the portion of that word – “spirit” means something that is not routine, not normal anatomy and physiology, not something I can’t operate on in an operating room. And that is kind of what we are talking about – something outside the lines of the usual. Definitely deep – anything superficial would never match our “soulful” idea. Loving, yes, particularly in regard to this group and Outreach week. Spirit-led – seems to be something a least close to spiritual.
So, what does it mean that we are living “Soulfully?” What does it mean that we took time off from work, put on fluorescent orange shirts, and, like people who are not quite right in the head, took our vacation time to feed people, clothe people, give shoes and medicine to people without asking for any financial information – no proof of their need- allowing them to abuse this, manipulate, cheat, etc to get more from us than they were supposed to without judging them, hurting them back, etc? What does it mean that we cherished the help we were giving, even when we were overwhelmed, burdened and beat down?
What does it mean and where does this kind of living come from?

When we were there, at the Howarth Center, giving of ourselves, we certainly all had the sense that it was wonderful, a good thing. We probably have all heard at one time or another from someone serving on a mission trip or giving of themselves that “I got more out of it than the people I was serving.” Why? We are doing the giving. Why do we do it and why is it so wonderful? All would agree, it is not typical. Inspiring? Yes. Exciting? Yes. But ask other people to go ahead past thinking it is cool to actually do it and they will oftentimes cower and turn their faces away. Why? How are we different? What wonderful thing can describe something as desirable and wonderful as this? I would love to tell you – living soulfully is the way. But what does that mean and how do you do it? Please, in typical American fashion, give me ten steps to achieve soulfulness…
If we agree that the “soul” is that deep part in us that cries for something more, the “marked” portion of us (see the previous post). If, in fact, it is the part of us that dares to “notice” (to notice God and to celebrate how awesome and amazing He is and to notice other people and to see how amazing and yet hurting, they are); if it is the part of us that intentionally shoves out of the routine American, get more, be more, cubicalism (living your life confined to your cubical); out of the mundane, “keep up with the Joneses” kind of life, is it not living with this part of us (this “soul”, this deepness, this noticing part) in the forefront of our thoughts and actions, rather than the background (where it has been banished by us and our society), that produces such things as “Community Outreach 2009?” In fact, as we look to things in us that are “deep” and “meaningful” don’t we begin to let go of our attachment to the trinkets and insignificant things in life, and begin to live more in the “soul?” Don’t you think differently now than you used to? Don’t you feel a little differently than you used to? That is the awakening of the “deeps” of you; the “soul” of you; the God-marked meaning of you. That’s why “it is better to give than to receive” and why “I got more out of it than those I served” are not necessarily shocking phrases to us. The problem is that we live them out such a small amount of the time.
The thing is, I have someone at least once per day give me all these praises for the Outreach week. I always feel a little weird about their praise for what a good thing it was for us to do. I agree that it was a good thing. But I tend to be thinking more and more that it doesn’t deserve some praise in and of itself for several reasons: 1) As I tell them, this week was not an isolated event. It was simply the continuation and expression of what this group of people, this More than more, are trying to learn to live like. We are trying to find a better way of life than the usual American way and the Outreach was simply an overflow of that to the people of our community. 2) There is a very heavy sense in me (not bad heavy, just heavy) that this kind of living absolutely should not be a 1 week per year, or season, or month, kind of thing. It should be how we live, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. There is a call on the inside of me to continue to expand my “noticing” and our “noticing” until it becomes my/our way of life, rather than something we dabble in every other Thursday night and 1 week each summer. This may make some of you cringe a bit – it certainly does me – and this is probably why it feels “heavy.” But, listen closely, make sure you don’t miss this: I see this happening in me and you already. You all notice more than you ever have. You are aware of the wonderfulness of God around you and of people around you more than you used to be. You live more in the deepness and less in the mundaneness than you used to. The problem is, it still seems so far away to be able to live this way all the time. No question that most of the 24hrs of the days of my life are spent not noticing anything but either routine or what my selfish little head is wanting to a significant degree – and I am the one who is leading you! (But don’t forget, even though we all may still suck at it compared to what we feel drawn to, we are moving closer and closer to noticing over time.) And so this brings us to 3) We do not have the ability to push ourselves to do this on our own. We cannot psychologize or rationalize or motivate or plan enough to make ourselves do this. We will fail. We will end up back in our selfish little worlds, noticing nothing other than our cravings and desires and trying to quench the “more” call in us with whatever happens to pop into our heads! The only way to do this, to move to a place of noticing as a way of life, to live soulfully, is for God to do it in us.
How do we do this? Such a strange way to live, such a difficult thing to do, to try to begin to live life more fully sounds so good, but the God doing it in us sounds so odd and difficult, seems impossible. Should we give up? Should we shove away the screaming of our hearts? Should we bury it under a lifetime of busyness and immersion in everything we can think of? Should we live as islands, never really touching life? No, No, No, No! The answer to the seemingly difficult problem is found in the simplest of places; first, in the life of an infant. Ask a newborn to read a newspaper. I know, it sounds silly…impossible. If asked, they would be so far away from being able to read the newspaper in terms of abilities that it boggles the mind. Should we give up on them then? Should we just say, “All he can do is drool and sleep and cry and poop. What a worthless person?” No, of course not. Furthermore, do we expect them to be able to do it? Are we disappointed that they can’t read when they are born? No, we understand the process, it is slow but worth it. They are not a failure because of their inability, they are simply not there yet. With years of growth, they will learn to talk, and then to sing the ABC song and then sound out basic words and eventually read some board books and then chapter books and then the newspaper – no surprises.
Now building on that, consider you and me – we are not all the way able to notice as much as we seem to feel drawn to, not able to live soulfully as much of the time as we think we ought to be. Yet, we condemn ourselves for not being able to and throw our hands up – ready to quit at the seeming impossibility of it all. Still, look back on the time you have been interacting with More than more. We are all noticing more than we ever have before. We are living more soulfully than ever. We are the ones God used to do Community Outreach 2009 and that was seriously soulful! We are no longer infants – we are becoming more soulful! I see it in you and me. It is good. We are all moving from infancy to being able to read, but it is not a fast journey.
So, back to the question, how does this happen? How is God doing this in us? Clearly it is happening – we are soulful. But, we still seem to have so far to go. We touched on this briefly this last time, but this is where we will focus out time this next time, This Thursday night, 9/17, 6:45-8:00PM, McAllister Recreation Center – 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette. We hope to see you there!

Who we are…soulful?

2009-09-15T21:29:00.001-04:00

We are More than more. We believe in finding More to life than the American way of getting more and more and more. We want to savor life and live with meaning and fullness and joy.

If you missed our time together Thursday night, you missed a great time. It was fun to relax and learn some new ways to think and go about life. We hope you can make it next time!
We started with some time celebrating how big God is. This time was different than some we have shared. We followed the story of several creatures born at the same time.
A bird was born in a tree in Indiana. It hatched, as all birds do. It was fed well with bugs and worms from its mother bird. It grew and grew and eventually ventured out of the nest to fly, then to find a mate of its own and have baby birds of its own.
Another bird was born in Arizona, right on the edge of the desert, not in the city where everyone waters their plants and lawns are green. It was born in barrenness and there was hardly enough food. Its mom was not around much because the search for food was so difficult and when she did find food, there was not enough to fill all the little birds’ tummies. The bird did grow up though, learning how to fly a little later in life than its Indiana counterpart, but flying nevertheless. It also found a mate, had some baby birds and they went about their lives. The lives of the 2 birds are quite different because of their circumstances, but neither gave any thought to it. They lived their lives and found food and grew and tried to fly and on and on and on their story goes – hardly a surprise to any of us!
A Lion was born on the great Serengeti plains. It nurtured and raised by its mother in the usual way; It and its siblings in the den, mother bringing in the plentiful gazelles for them to eat, growing and developing. This lion had all the comforts, plenty of food, siblings to spar with, plenty of attention from its mother because she did not need to hunt all day to find food, it was so plentiful. The lion grew and grew and grew and eventually its roar could be heard all around the area. It found a mate and filled a den with cubs.
Another lion was born right on the edge of the Sahara. Worse yet, it was dry season and there was very little green anywhere. The gazelles, antelopes and water buffalos were scarce as many had died in the dry conditions, or had migrated elsewhere in the region. The mother searched for food, but several of the little lions’ siblings died because there just was not enough to eat. It, however, was strong, and got more than its share from the mother when she did bring back food. She was gone a lot on hunts and one the siblings was eaten by hyenas as, unsupervised, it wandered out of the den too far. The little lion got enough food to grow and eventually was able to leave its mother’s care and the den and find a mate and have some cubs of its own.
A human was born to parents that desired a child it. They had loved each other deeply and felt prepared to have a child and so they had conceived this little wonder, or so they called it. They cherished it from the moment of its birth, doting on it, feeding it, bathing it, caring for its every need. They loved the child and the child never knew what it was like to not be loved, never new what it meant to not have enough. The child grew up happy, went to school, enjoyed its days, playing with friends and family, and eventually grew up, and went on to live a great life. The child felt this sense on its life that there must be something more. There was a sense of anticipation to life that they were there on earth for some great purpose and that they needed to find that and do it. They had this idea deep inside them that just ordinary, day to day stuff was not enough; that there must be more.
Another human child was born to parents that did not want the child. It was an “accident” and caused much pain and loss to the parents. There was so much fear and concern to the birth that the father left promptly and never returned – and the child never knew its father. There was even talk of aborting the baby, but the mom never made it to the clinic and so was forced to carry the child. The baby was born, and was placed in the cradle in the hospital and rarely held. It was then taken home and it always felt itself to be somewhat of a burden to its mother. The child worked hard from the time it was little, trying to help the family survive. The mother had many men and there was abuse of all kinds enacted upon the child, who grew up in fear and desperation. The child would walk home from school in the dark and each car that came on, would imagine that that was the family they had always dreamed of. They would walk by each driveway and look at the warm lights inside each house and dream that that was their house, where people would love them. They had a sense, as long as they could remember, that there must be more to life than this. There must be more than pain and loss and fear. The heartache and despair and hopelessness was met by a sense that there must be something other than this to life…a sense of anticipation or at least longing for something more.
The amazing thing about the 6 characters in our story is that the first 4 are so different from each other. Some growing up in plenty and having all they need and some growing up in nothing, with barely enough to survive. Yet, they think nothing of it. They simply go about their lives, living on their instincts and their training from their parents and doing the best they can to survive and thrive in the their given setting. Contrary to Disney talking animals like Pooh and Simba, Poomba and even the non-talking Dalmations Pongo and Purdy in 101 Dalmations, these creatures feel no human-like disappointment at the plight of their lives nor sense of expectation in their good circumstances. They simply carry on. The humans, however, no matter how different their circumstances, sense some sense of anticipation and wonder – something bigger and more than they are experiencing – from the time they are little. Whether it be the despair of how bad they have it, or the wonder of how good life is and how there is much they should be doing with their life, they have the similar sense that “this is not all there its.”
Now, I realize that up to this point this is purely a story and as interesting or not that it may be, it is not necessarily personal, but each of you can personalize this particular story. Consider the life you have lived, have there not been moments of despair, loss, pain, frustration? Maybe even right now, you are experiencing something like this – some of us who have been attending More than more are in the middle of these times right now. In these moments, did you not feel some of the abandoned and lost child’s sense of “something more?” Did you not at least appreciate how bad and yucky your circumstances were? Or perhaps you can identify with the other child. Have you never been cruising along and in reflective moments considered that fact that there is a sense of anticipation, something larger to your life; that you were meant to be something so much more, to become? Doesn’t this amazing awareness infect itself into every human’s life, from the worst to the best?
Now, that being said, isn’t it remarkable that we all identify this? Isn’t it amazing that we all have this same kind of sense about the deepness of our lives? So, what’s up with this feeling, this depth of sensation which surpasses what we would expect out of our ordinariness? This is the mark of God on your life. You are human – and we are each one-of-a-kind masterpieces made by a God who desires us and has something in this life for us that is so far beyond what we have seen it is amazing. We all sense it – either in the contrast to the pain we have lived in or in expectation of our future. Animals do not sense this. They simply are born and live in the moments of their lives, instinctually, until they die. How can we account for the difference in any other way? Certainly we cannot account for this with evolution as an isolated means of our being here, without some creator involved. It is ludicrous to imagine that not only did we develop accidentally over billions of years from a soup of chemicals, but that we somewhere along the line made this amazing leap into wonder and awe and a sense of something more to life – the very sense that makes us capable of so much (good and bad). It just is not plausible.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, it was time in our time together to be thankful for these amazing things. It is God who has marked us. It is Him who has made us unique and amazing and full of this sense in us of something more. This part of us, this obvious, but hard to isolate part – we call the soul. It is the center of everything that you are – and a surgical exploration of you will not find it – a dissection will not point to the place it exists. You are marked and special and amazing and full of wonder and expectation. Even more, you were made that way. It is not an accident. It is something to savor and relish and cherish about your life. It is something to explore and thank God for. It is this sense that keeps the despairing person going – allows them to come out of the most heinous circumstances to something meaningful. It is this that moves the well cared for person moving forward to discover amazing things and create all kinds of newness in the world.
So, the next time you notice your uniqueness, notice the deep sense inside you that there is something huge about life and it may be sliding by you or calling to you, notice the God who stamped that on you, who made you special…stop and savor and thank Him. He loves you dearly – and this is why you are marked by Him – and this is something to celebrate!
I am going to make this one blog entry and then continue to the next part of our time together with a separate entry – since it is so long – please feel free to comment – or join us next time – 9/17 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Center in Lafayette – 20th and Schuyler.

Who are we - as we live it...

2009-08-24T12:35:00.003-04:00

Well, we all got together again last Thursday night at McAllister Center to hang out and enjoy some time being with some people who actually care about us and their caring has nothing to do with what we have to give them, what we own, how we talk or dress etc, etc, etc. It was a great time.

We started with our time of noticing how cool and big God is as we watched the pregnancy video of my first child, Emily, now 10 yrs old. Before you go there, it was not all the details of the birth itself, so just chill. It was about every 3wks videoing the ever enlarging pregnant belly of Melissa, followed by the hospital video of Emily's first moments and ending with Melissa (all puffed up from the IV fluids) holding Emily on the 2nd day of her life.

We were again reminded of how amazing each life is; that this kind of beauty of the beginning of life is not just for the family's where the baby is desired and wanted and prayed for like Emily was before she was born, but the baby who was an "accident", a "surprise", to a single mom, in a 3rd world country, with not enough food, and on and on - they are all beautiful, just like this one. Whether they are born in a field or in a operating room - they are gorgeous and unique and wonderful and each of them has all the potential in the world. So, whenever we are tempted to miss the amazingness of this God we talk so much about, consider that one of the most beautiful expressions of His love for us is in the faces of the created people all around us - each of them with a birthday as beautiful and wonderful as Emily's.

Then, we spent some time noticing people - realizing that the world is not all roses and syrup - sugary and sweet, but exceptionally painful a lot of times - and that when we involve God in the middle of those problems - they are better. We took some time to notice these things among us and to care without reservation and then to talk to God about those things. This was amazing and to see the love and care the people in this group have for each other is humbling. Many pains were helped in this one evening!

We then spent 2minutes introducing the next word for who we are - last time it was "giving." This time? Soulful. This term was given in contrast to the word "Selfish." This group is soulful and we will talking more about that in 2wks - 9/3/9 at 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center - 20th and Schuyler, Lafayette.

Just to introduce the idea - we feel so many times like there should be more to life than there is - like we live in a fraction of ourselves - like the deepness and amazingness of life is lost in the schedule and activities of the everyday - when we live soulfully, we tap the amazingness more and more and more as life goes on - here's hoping for a soulful day!

Hope to see you 9/3!

To Bump or not to Bump

2009-08-18T22:07:00.004-04:00

So, the other day we were at Six Flags, Great America, on vacation, right? We were standing in line, as is so often the case at these giant amusement parks. To most people (and to be honest, to me as well, most of the time) this is simply a time to space out, listen to the children complain, feel hot and sticky, and bump into another 500 or so people who are spaced out, complainy, and hot and sticky - not your typical "I want to spend how much money to do that" kind of time. But I sort of like to people watch - to pay attention - to "notice" stuff, and this time I was applying this idea to the line, so sometimes I am a freak, I know.

So, there I was, in line for bumper cars - or as they call it at Great America, Rue Le Dodge - not sure the significance of that, but doesn't really matter to the post. I like to people watch at bumper cars - I think some of people's true nature comes out - you see the most timid person flying around like a maniac - it's really cool!

So, as the cars start up I see this guy. I had walked past him a couple of times in the back and forth of the line. He was thin, with long hair in a pony tail and drk complected. Now, I kind of figured he was a tough guy with that long hair and all, and that he would be out to get some unsuspecting people in their little yellow bumper car, out for a nice drive. But, to my astonishment, he was simply driving around, away from the other cars, in a little circle all his own. He was kind of swaggering with his head, enjoying his personal space. When some other car would come his way, he would gingerly dodge them (maybe that's where the name came from?), laughing at their inability to penetrate his Sunday afternoon Rue Le Dodge leisure ride. It was almost surreal to me, because I love to smash people in bumper cars - I think I could probably grade the degree of neck snap I get when I hit people if I thought about it long enough! But this long haired, pony tail wearing dude wanted nothing to do with it! Didn't he realize that that is the point? It is not the Great American Raceway - the one with the stinky old cars that you drive around a track guided by a post under the car at about 2miles per hour, where you are not allowed to bump the car in front of you, or even think about it because the workers on that ride can read your thoughts and you will be expelled from the park if you bump the car ahead of you...woa, I kind of got carried away there a little bit, sorry. The idea is, in bumper cars you are supposed to thrash people - you are suppposed to BUMP them! And, as near as I could see, this guy went the whole ride without a single bump, not one collision, no smashes, no crashes, nothing. He ended the ride with that silly smirk still on his face. I couldn't decide if I wanted to run up to him and tell him it was safe to hit the other cars, that maybe he didn't understand, or I wanted to throw him back into his car, put on his safety straps and thrash him myself...oops there I go again - this ride brings out the best in me!!

So, here's what I think. Way too many people live lives trapped in the circle of avoiding anything of significance. They think the ride is all about just making it through without any "bumps." They go about their lives avoiding anything of with any power, never to face up to the passions of life. The thing about real life is this: it always has bumps - everybody gets nailed. No one is exempt. Tomorrow will be another day at my office of helping people through the unexpected "bumps" of life (and this lighthearted writing is not meant to minimize them at all, by the way). The thing is we must not go around our lives living trying to avoid all bumps - life's greatest joys are found when we are willing to let go of the things that seem to be safe and reach out into the unknown. There is something in all of us that screams that there is something more than just the day to day, bumpless life we are leading. We find that in the pain of the bumps (and especially on the back side of them) is often the creativity and wonder of life.

If you find yourself circling life safely - if you find that it is just not all that you thought it might be - that there must be More - please join us Thursday night at McAllister Center - 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette - 6:45-8:00PM.

Hope to see you there!

What time is it?

2009-08-16T09:48:00.003-04:00

We are lucky to have a wonderful family. My wife and kids are a joy to nearly all who meet them...and every time I spend more than a few hours with them it seems I have this dominant ache inside my soul that cries for more. There is joy in their growth and the ever-changing love we share that seems to knit us together like a skilled craftsman making a beautiful scarf, and a grief in their growth and the ever-changing love we share that seems to be gradually moving us apart, into the strength of the childrens' independence and eventual departure from our home to their own homes (just this week my 5 year old has been discussing with me who she will "probably marry" and why).

It is under the spell of one of these times that I write now. We are in Chicago for our last weekend before 5th, 3rd, kindergarten.

I am also massively lucky to have my in-laws. They are hospitable and gracious, kind and loving, and have taught me so much about caring and true love that I will never be able to thank them enough.

We stayed Friday night with them and, in keeping with their famous hospitality, we slept in their bed. I was really tired, as I often am after a week of bathing in the hurts of mankind in my office, and I turned in long before Melissa. I took a glass of water to bed, to sit on the nightstand, feeling parched.

Needless to say it was only minutes before I went to my dreams, prayerfully asking God as I nearly always do to take my sleep, hoping He will make sense of all the jumble inside there before morning...like a unconscious therapy session I take part in each night.

Somewhere in the night I woke up. In the the haze of partially completed "sleep therapy" my bleary eyes looked over at the bright green numbers of their alarm clock on the nightstand. But the bleariness was more severe than usual yesterday in the night. In fact, all I saw was a fuzz of green distortion. I shook my head, blinked hard, figuring that the image would clear - it did not. Then I realized that the rest of the room was clear, but the clock was not. In fact, where I had set my glass was directly in between me and the numbers and I was seeing them through bent glass and water. I moved to the side and the numbers were clear, I realized it was 2AM, in keeping with how my body felt, and went back to sleep.

But, even that night, an observation began to dawn on me. So many times in my life, I go about the details of living. I spend time investing in a million things. Up, exercise, read, write, to work, run, run, run, lunch, to work, run, run, run, home, quickly bond and hangout, activities and responsibilities, run, run, run and then kids to bed, run, and then clean up the dishes and all with Melissa, write, exercise, run, run, run, bed. The franticness is only exceeded by the sense that we a driven by our schedule. But so many times when I go to look at the time, to get a sense of what it is all about, what the drive for life is, what the purpose of it all is, I feel like I am looking through bent glass and water and that there is no clarity at all - there is clarity of all else - where I am supposed to be, what I am supposed to do, who I am supposed to be with, etc, but not clarity to what the significance of it all is. Yet, I grope and blink and strain my eyes sometimes to see what it all means. I strain because I know there is More. There is something besides the everyday, day-to-day, run, run, run, but it is not always clear what that is.

How's that for pitiful? Here I am the "leader" of More than more; the one who is supposed to have all the answers, and I struggle like crazy.

Well, I have fabulous news for you! This struggle, this groping, grappling, blinking, straining to focus, is actually a wonderful gift. You see, most people live lives feeling the uncertainty, blinking and searching, aching for something more - sensing that life has some significance and majesty and wonder and joy and fullness more than they are getting - they see it in the eyes of their children on Christmas morning, they see it in the smile of their lover on sunset evenings, the smell it in the air on the fall mornings when the fog has not lifted yet, they hear it in the rush of the wind and the song of the birds, they feel it in the vibration of a NASCAR car as it flies by, and in the hit of a defensive end on a quarterback, it screams at them as they watch the days of their lives fly by and look back on years of wasted time, they experience the ache of it in the credit card statements and the fact that there is still the same sense with the bill that there had been prior to the purchase - there must be more...

This more, this focus place, this meaning, can be found - you can connect with the power of the NASCAR and the delicacy of the fog - there is a unifying More to life. This is not the "religion" fed to us over years and years of organizations, denominations and liturgies. This is a living God, who loves you. He loves me so much. He clarifies the run, run, run and makes it full of joy, an exciting adventure. He is the reason that More than more exists. He is the reason that my life has meaning. He is the reason that you feel all those moments of "eternity touches" that I just mentioned. Sadly, He has been contamninated by our search for power and desire to harness Him into what we want Him to be in churches and pastors and congregations over the years - he has been bashed by the struggle to dominate in terrible times like inquisitions and crusades. He has taken it on the chin by us. But, please, do not let the organization of Christianity create your opinion of God. Begin to open your mind to the possibility that that cry inside you is a cry for Him - the real Him...that He only wants you. Consider that the reason you have not yet found the fullness and meaning and joy that you sense is out there, is that you have not yet opened your life to the idea that He is the reason. Begin simply asking Him to enter your world. Ask Him into your moments. Be real with Him. My journey began with a simple request to Him - humble and pure and true - "Please Lord Jesus, teach me to love - I don't know how and I don't even know what to do. Please help me." This simple request and He has remade my life. I touch the wonder of all with each episode of "run, run, run."

If you would like to join with some other people who are doing this...broken, messed up, addicted, lost, hurting, beaten down, but beginning to see More to life, please join us this next Thursday, 8/20/09 at 20th and Schuyler Ave, McAllister Recreation Center - Lafayette, 6:45-8:00PM. Plan to have your focus changed - to notice life in a different way - and to meet some people who will care for you, just because - no one will judge you for what you wear, what you say, or what you've done. What they will do is invite you to join them on a journey past the green fuzzy numbers.

We hope to see you there!

Who are we?

2009-08-08T07:57:00.003-04:00

Hey! Last Thursday we got together at McAllister, usual time, usual place - and had a great time relaxing and trying to get to a better way to live life.

We started with the Question (thanks Denise): How did each of you come to be a part of More than more? The answers were different - the stories of life different - but they all seemed to share a critical component - relationship. We know each other - sometimes we have met at a bookstore and sometimes at work, some have been friends for a long time and others only known each other a short time - but it seems we all came because there's something in the relationships we have shared that we want to continue. It was cool and humbling to see the remarkable journey we have been on.

Next we spent time noticing how cool and amazing God is by talking about football and nascar. We pretended Jason Blankenship was watching a football game and that Jessica was making him cereal in the other room (she volunteered that she can make cereal - but I happen to know that she makes some fabulous oreo balls and oyster crackers). He was so into the game that when she yelled that his cereal was ready, he didn't even hear her. So, she came closer and said it louder and he still didn't hear, as he was so (pretend) into the game. Now, hasn't this happened to all of us. The guy swears he never heard and the lady says, "Whatever." The thing is, he's telling the truth. The way the brain works is that when our mind is really focused on something the nerve from our ear to our brain doesn't even work - it literally shuts off completely sometimes, depending on how focused we are on something else. This is because of how amazingly we are created. God made our brains and nerves so amazing that if we are focused, we literally "tune out" other stuff. Now, for the football example some people would argue that this is not helpful and can actually be harmful but what about if you were driving in heavy Chicago traffic and some semidriver was about to cut you off and then all of the sudden your kid in the back seat yells that they want some gum. Isn't it a good thing that you really can't hear them? God made us this way for our safety. The amazing thing is that this is so amazingly complex that no one completely understands how it works and yet some people have the nerve (no pun intended) to say that all this complexity comes from a Big Bang and then from a cess pool of stagnant water. I'm sorry, but no matter how many years go by - this is just not as possible as the fact that there is a loving God who made us amazingly. So, the next time you are "ignored" for football or nascar, for Oprah or food network, before you get too frustrated, stop and talk to God for a little bit about how cool He made us - thank Him - no one else loves you more.

Next, we took some time to notice the people around us. We looked at them all for a little, nothing fancy - some probably wondering if they like football or nascar, Oprah or food network - and noticed that they were real people - wonderfully made, each unique...many times we go through life and never really "see" anyone. Then, we notice that they all have issues, problems, things going on in their lives. We give time each time we get together to talk to God about each other. We believe this makes a huge difference in the way our lives go. It does not change everything and make everything perfect, but it does make things better. We offer this chance to share something of our issues with each other by writing it on a slip of paper. This can have our name or not. We then put them all into a hopper and draw one out. Then, simply, over the next 2 wks we will talk to God about that slip, asking Him to please help them out. It is a really cool way for us to help each other and get closer together.

Last, we always try to have at least a little learning. We are beginning a new set of talks this time. They are titled: Who are we? We all experienced how amazing our outreach was a couple weeks ago and now we need to look back at who we are, both when we started and during the outreach week and try to figure what we are really about. So, we will be putting together a list and some discussion about this over the next times we meet. So, we began by going back to our original ideas for the group - before we had even gotten together. We read them together - if you would like a copy, attach your email to this post and I will send you one.
I then simply asked the question, "That is who we were intended to be. Who are we? In light of the time we spent a couple weeks ago reaching out to the community. In light of the reasons why you are all here and why you continue to come. Who are we?" The first answer, and the one we talked about Thursday night was: Giving.
So, I asked, "Before the outreach week, before this group, what were you like in terms of giving?" The responses were tough - "I never gave." "I only gave when it seemed like I was going to get thanked or something back." We tended to give only when there was something in it for us. Next the question, "What is your giving like now?" The answer? "Willing to give even when someone isn't thankful (not necessarily cool with their lack of thankfulness, but willing anyway)" Ready to give even if it costs, a lot. So, where does this change come from? Is it that we try hard to become "good givers?" No, we noticed God for a while, began to invite Him into our worlds, moment by moment throughout our days, then we began to notice people, their needs and hurts - their inability to even know how to thank anyone (especially those who need the most, may have been hurt the most) and the desire to give grew and grew and grew. We see God's love - given to us even when we are not thankful -and it makes us want to give that love to other people. It is an amazing change - like transformers, becoming something more than meets the eye.

Then we listened to a song call I Will Go - by Starfield - here is a link to the words
http://www.elyrics.net/read/s/starfield-lyrics/i-will-go-lyrics.html

We then shared some time talking and having some yummy homemade bread (thanks Becky)and juice as we celebrated what God has done for us.

It was a fabulous time! Out of times like these, we are capturing a better way to live life. More than the usual more's that people live for. It is a great time and we hope you can join us next time,

8/20/09 6:45-8:00 PM at McAllister Recreation Center - free, wonderful, childcare as usual!
20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette

You may be right, I may be crazy

2009-08-01T11:46:00.002-04:00

As we approached last week and our community outreach week, weeding through the bureaucratic maze of insuring a major event, putting in place all the preparations we could think of...as we went through the week, watching lines of hundreds of families come and go, feeding hundreds and giving dozens of prescriptions away...as we have answered questions about it this week, talking about ideas and trying to make sense of it all, one of the dominant things that was and has kept running through my mind is "This is crazy...absolute insanity. What are we doing?!" The interesting thing is that that is how we first felt when we started More than more. It is how we felt when we started Center on More. It is how we felt when we went to Puerto Rico 2 years ago and to Matamoros last year. I have said more times than I can count, "I feel like I am in so far over my head. I don't have any idea what I'm doing or exactly how it is going to happen." I am sure many of you have heard me say that.
Each of these crazy over-our-head things, however uncomfortable though, we do not consider to be bad. In fact, we consider them to be among the most wonderful things in our lives. We have been so pitifully out of control, yet we have been on the most amazing and wonderful, fulfilling journey we have ever taken. I am not saying it was easy or even fun all the time - there are huge struggles, mostly against ourselves, the ideas we have, the tendencies we have developed, the brokenness we have inside us, misconceptions we have, the issues we have - but also sometimes against politics or attitudes of other people, sometimes against institutions, certainly against the grain, the mainstream ideas of what American life should be like. The strange thing is that we don't remember the fights for the most part - we remember the journey God has taken us on. The stuff inside us that was so hard to break no longer binds us in the same ways. The habits we struggled with often times are memories of habits now - seemingly because of the journey - as crazy as it has been!
We have chosen to not live by the conventional American ideal - we have chosen to break out of the society of "more" - get more, become more, achieve more, buy more, be more - the society of "upward mobility" - instead to embrace what I have heard called "downward mobility" by this friend of mine named Garrett. We have chosen to invite God into the moments of our lives and to ask Him where He wants us to go and what He wants us to do on a sometimes minute by minute basis. This request, and the God who responds to it, has taken us on the over-our-heads, fulfilling, wonderful, joyful, fun, hard, and crazy journey that landed us where we are right now. This changes everything.

Something I read last night really characterized this idea well. It is a quote from a guy named Albert Camus,

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very act of existence is an act of rebellion."

and then a quote from Brennan Manning,

"Simplicity, purity, and obedience to the Word [in this case meaning Jesus, God] will leave us weak and powerless in the world's eyes because we can no longer call on our possessions and privileged position as security. We will be subject to derision and outrage because [following God in this way] is a life of sublime madness."

Wow - I see us living free - More than more as a group - breaking free from the idea that more is the answer - and shedding that idea for the wonder of uncertainty and giving of ourselves, our money, our time, our energy, our passion for this amazing and insane journey...willing to be powerless and weak, to give up our rights to be what our education, status, neighborhood, upbringing, history, bank acct say we should be...even willing to hurt and beaten down, taken advantage of, to have those we are trying to help even hurt us because of the pain and loss within them - all because we choose to be free, in our madness - that our very existence would be an act of rebellion to the very broken world we live in.

We invite you to join to us, every other Thursday night - the next time is 8/6, next Thursday - as we continue this journey - who knows what craziness is next...

Happy Birthday...to us

2009-07-30T06:35:00.002-04:00

Last week I was in taking care of a patient, sitting there in the Red Cross Conference room - weeding through the maze of health care resources and trying to help people connect with doctors when they have no money and many no prospect of money. Trying to get them onto meds that they can afford and yet still be safe - trying to help them.

I was feeling hurt and sad at how we as a society have let so many of our people go without adequate health care - hurting for their lack medicine when they need it so much, glad to be able to help, but concerned for their lack of help.

I often try to notice something about a patient when we first meet - it is one of the ways i have found to help people feel more relaxed and comfortable when we meet. So, in walked a patient with an unusual birthday - 12/24...Christmas Eve. "What a beautiful gift you must have been to your parents," is what I said - and wholeheartedly meant it - and there the tough doctor melted inside and looked deeply into their eyes and said, "Really, you must have been a wonderful gift." Here is this person - down and out, out of work, unable to pay for health care, seeing me because they need help and don't know where to turn. Shunned by society, many would think them beneath the rest of the town and world. Beaten down, mowed over, feelings not considered, many times it turns out, treated less than human. This person...was a beautiful gift.

Then it began to shake inside me, ringing back to the talk i give to my new parents, while they and their baby are still in the nursery at the hospital - "Don't forget that this baby is a beautiful gift from God - He chose one day that the world needed a Johnny, or Elizabeth or whatever the name might be - and He sent them to You. He made them just like they are, beautiful and perfect and soft and small - a gift to you and the world."

Then, as the 2 different types of visits began to come together in my head, it began to tear apart the fact that i was somehow doing the serving for this person who sat in front of me. It was not just me who was the gift to them to help them with their healthcare - I was - but they were too - they were a gift to me and to the world as a whole - that did not stop on Christmas Eve so many years ago. God made them especially for the world, in that moment and in the Red Cross Conference room - He has a wonderful painting to paint of their life.

Their value as a gift does not come from how much they make or how good their insurance is, not from their bank account or what trauma has happened to them in the course of their life not from the illnesses they have or have been treated or cured from. Their value rests in the fact that the creator of all that is, one day, decided the world needed them - He hand crafted them and gave them to us, all of us, on that day so long ago when they were born, Christmas Eve or any other day.

This was one of the gifts to me from Community Outreach 2009. Simple - a birthday. We all have one - and we are all fabulous gifts with value beyond measure -none with anymore value than the rest to the one who made us.

So, when I looked into the eyes of that person and all the rest i saw last week and told them that we were doing this because we wanted them to realize that we thought they were important - no matter what else anybody else may say about them - I meant it...

It was like the greatest birthday party ever!