Category Archives: character

How Rich Dixon kept rolling.

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Many of you know my friend Rich Dixon. You see him here most mornings, sitting down in the comment box. Last fall, you helped him support Convoy of Hope as he rode his handcycle the length of the Mississippi, from Minnesota to New Orleans. You’ve read his book, Relentless Grace, about his learning to live after falling off the roof.

Last Monday, he wrote about the challenges some other people were taking on as they chose to follow Jesus

A full, abundant life involves hard work, sacrifice, and risk, because that’s where we experience excitement, joy, and authentic fulfillment. [God] absolutely invites us to leave our comfort zones, but it’s not because He wants us to be miserable. He knows a quest for comfort at all costs is a waste of life.

Last Tuesday, Rich went to the garage and discovered that the handcycle had been stolen from the garage while Rich and Becky were sitting in the house. He called the police, he walked through some fear and frustration, but by Thursday morning he wrote,

I remembered something I wrote during the ride: Life’s determined more by choices than by feelings.

I want to choose gratitude, even though I don’t feel entirely grateful. I’m thankful the thief just took a replaceable thing rather than entering the house and perhaps doing something much worse. I’m glad he escaped without detection, avoiding a potentially dangerous confrontation with us or our neighbors.

He got the cycle back on Friday, discovered in a pawn shop, delivered by the police. But  what’s clear to me is Rich kept his heart from being stolen. On Thursday, before he knew the cycle would be returned, while he still was unsure he’d be able to keep a commitment to ride again this summer, he wrote:

Of course I feel violated and a bunch of other emotions.

But this is an opportunity to choose intentional response over reflexive reactions. It’s not about denial, it’s about acknowledging and trying to make better choices.

I want to forgive, though I don’t feel forgiving. I want to be thankful even in the places that don’t feel like it. I want to believe God will use this for good, though it sure doesn’t feel very good right now.

I’m grateful for Rich’s honesty through the process last week, living up to what he said. But that’s Rich.

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For more information on his next ride, see Cincinnati to DC.

How to make a follower.

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Commit your life to something. Could be anything. It’s more fun if it’s something that matters. Or someone.

Learn about it. Or them. I mean learn. Details, subtleties. Favorite time of day. Batting average. History of the development of the scholarship. Not because it’s impressive, just because you love to know.

Conform your life to it. Change your schedule to coincide with when all of the episodes are going to be shown. Don’t just buy the t-shirt, build the muscles that make the t-shirt bulge. Make real choices.

Notice someone who seems interested to talk with you more. It’ll be tempting to interest everyone. But you know that not everyone is. So why waste time trying to convince someone. Instead, look for someone who has the same curiosity or desperation you had, back when we started this post.

Explain what you know. Forget understanding everything. Talk about what you do understand, not as an expert, but as a committed learner. Explain what you learned by screwing up.

Spend time together. Invite them to go to the hardware store with you to watch how you make choices about money and about what projects can help other people. Invite them to go to the movies with you to watch how you make choices about content. Invite them to just sit quietly, unentertained. Invite them to go to the grocery store and the bank. Just like parents do with kids.

Share your reading patterns on Facebook. I used to think it foolish the way people shared the articles they read (Yahoo), the music they listen to (Spotify), the videos they watch. I thought, “do you really want us to see that?” And then I realized that’s a great way to help your followers understand you.

Watch when they start through this list, too. 

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How my mom lives hope.

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My mom has a disease that gradually sucks your mind away. It often helps you remember stories from the past, then disables the counter that keeps track of telling stories.

I’m intrigued by the stories mom finds important to tell me each time I visit and often when we talk on the phone. She talks about the night in December when we sat around a table and her granddaughter Hope talked with great clarity about the idea of church and young adults today. She talks about her prayer for peace as my dad was dying, and the sense of peace that she feels every day since then. And she talks about the time she went to college.

Mom had gone to college for two years, received a teaching certificate, and then taught for a couple years. She decided, somehow, that she needed to finish her four-year degree and so, in the mid-fifties, went to Bethel College in St Paul.

On leaving day, she packed everything in her car. She had a job lined up and thought she had a place to live. In the hesitation that came from leaving rural Wisconsin and heading to the big city, her mother said, “You don’t need to go.” “Yes, I do,” my mother said.

When she got to town, the place to live was gone. At 1pm, she went to work at Blomberg’s Pharmacy with a fragile lead and constant prayer. At 3:30, friends of her sister walked into the pharmacy, recognized her, invited her to supper at their house and offered her a place to live. She didn’t know they lived across the street.

This story she keeps telling me is a simple story of God providing when she didn’t know where to go. I think she tells me because she’s still there.

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How to meet Jesus while vacuuming.

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I was writing this post the other day while I was vacuuming. I was writing in my head.

I had been rereading In His Steps, an old book that was the inspiration for the WWJD bracelets. In this 1897 novel, Charles Sheldon considers what would happen if a disciple of Jesus committed “to try to do what Jesus would probably do in the disciple’s place.”

While vacuuming I was considering whether Dallas Willard, was quoting from Sheldon. In a lecture at Wheaton College he said that being a disciple of Jesus means, “Learning from him how to do what he did, learning from him how to do what he said, by becoming like him. In being a disciple, I’m learning from Him to lead my life, as he would lead my life, if he were I” (10-31-01, Staley Lecture series).

And then, as I was comparing these two thoughts, I stopped the vacuum and picked up a small table to move it. I tilted the table slightly and one by one, the three pots containing cactus slid off the table and spread their planting soil and plants on the carpet.

My first thought was not to ask what Jesus would do at that moment, if he were a husband who had dumped three cacti on the carpet.

My first thought was much different.

Nancy, on the other hand, immediately said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve done that too. Just relax.”

I eventually did relax. And realized that she had done exactly what Jesus would do if he were a wife whose husband had dumped three cactus on the carpet. He would have cared more about the husband than the carpet. And he would have repotted the plants. And he would have left some dirt for me to vacuum.

Just like Nancy.

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How to answer a simple question.

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I work at a church. Every Sunday morning, I know that someone will ask me how I’m doing. I know that someone will say, “How was your week.” And I will not know how to answer the questions.

So I decided to figure out how to have an answer.

1. Don’t think, “I wonder why they are asking. I better answer well. They are paying part of my salary.” And get tongue-tied.

2. Don’t think, “Great. They are asking me, I need to ask them, and then we’ll be talking for an hour. And I have to fix the projector.”

3. Every Sunday morning, when you are driving to church, remember that someone will ask you these questions. There is no excuse for being surprised. (If they ask, “why did you drive backwards through the softball field last night,” you can be surprised.)

4. Every Sunday morning, think through the names of the people that you are likely to see. That way you won’t be scrambling to remember. And it’s possible that the review session will give you something to ask first: “How are you feeling after the Boston Marathon?” (Hi bib #13577).

5. Be honest with the person who is asking, letting them know that the reason you keep edging away from them is that you are getting toilet paper for the three empty stalls upstairs.

6. Be honest with yourself that you aren’t nearly as busy at this moment as you would like to believe that you are.

7. Stop rushing for fifteen seconds and look in the asker’s eyes. You’ll find out whether the next sentence is going to be “great” or is going to be “my mother has Alzheimer’s.”

8. Remember that touching, talking, listening, stopping, and speaking truth were all ways that Jesus got involved in the lives of people. People just like me.

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