Phil Letizia

Friday, August 29, 2008

Routine

I've tried to make a few changes in my daily routine. Since I moved last week I thought it was the perfect time to implement some things. I read a recent blog which said that change usually comes through failure, which I agree with. We've all had to stare ourselves in the mirror at times confronting those parts of us we know need to go away and hide somewhere. These are small in nature but like so many changes, I hope they will lead to others.

So here's a sample of the new weekday morning routine, that's got my life all turned upside down.

For at least one week, each morning I've got up at 6 am, ran with the guys, gone to get coffee, made breakfast, and spent a couple hours writing each morning before heading into the office at the church. It's been one week, but so far so good. I'm not getting enough sleep, still going to bed really late, but that's never going to change.

I'm a big believer in change. Change leads to other changes. So, even if it's small, there may be something big following right behind.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Red is the Color

Music and Lyrics by Steve Earle, from the album,
Washington Square Serenade

North wind blowin` like a hurricane house
Old man leanin` like he`s pullin` a plow
Neck bowed, bendin` like a willow bough

Red sky color of the end of time
Bleeds dry runnin` down the center line
Wise guy pretends he doesn`t see the signs

Bad news everybody talkin` `bout
A short fuse a half an inch from burnin` out
All used up beyond a reasonable doubt

Make way for his majesty the prodigal king
Still taste the poison when you`re kissin` the ring
Don`t say he never gave you anything

Deep breath the calm before the storm begins
Cold sweat pretend that you ain`t listenin`
Don`t bet on gettin` by with that again

Short ride from here to where the beast resides
Fine line that separates the shadows inside
Make mine a double shot of cyanide

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Faith thrown Overboard

Many hear the word faith and feel the bitter cold rush of uneasiness creep up their spine. How can so many people be sure about things? How can they claim to have a better grasp on all of this than me? Faith is certainty to many. Unwavering. Commitment. Belief in something no one can see, and no one can feel. How can you be sure?

There are different levels of certainty. The hitch is, they’re unpredictable. Some come easy, while others feel so unattainable and far away. We push them back under our pillow at night to deal with another time.

For those who believe, who hold tight to faith or a certainty in things not quite understood still have room for uncertainty, for doubt and questions. Yes, it’s still there. The lie we’ve bought and sold, the one which those less certain than us can never be allowed to see has not only harmed the faith of others, but ours as well.

Jeremiah, an Old Testament Hebrew prophet, the young man charged by God to give the worst message one could give to a people group, tossed and turned in his uncertainty. Like two wrestlers grappling on the mat, within his own mind he held his depression. His cries of destruction in a time of peace were as lost on those who heard them as a child lost in a dark forest.

What’s unique about Jeremiah though is his own uneasiness, his own questioning relationship to God. When the task God gives leads you to the stocks in the city square, a cry of complaint is understandable.

O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived;
you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
everyone mocks me.


The prophet of God, laid bare in the center of the city for the world to mock and scorn. His faith leading him to a place of question,

“Is this the plan? Is this what you intended for me?”


Yet the beauty of faith, for those who embrace it as hard as it is for others to understand, is the stabilizing of our emotions. Faith brings bandages when we’ve been overpowered.

11 But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior;
so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.

13 Sing to the LORD!
Give praise to the LORD!
He rescues the life of the needy
from the hands of the wicked.


The song of faith somehow finds our lips as if it had been stored somewhere deep inside us without our even knowing. It comes in our weakest moments. Our grandmothers words who prayed over us while we sat on her lap, or the sound of a hymn we were sure we had forgotten long ago, surges through our thoughts.

Faith flows like a rushing river. But it can be fleeting.
Here and gone.

There’s a special place in my heart for Jeremiah. At times he seems delirious, confused. Other times he’s composed, sure, and strong. From one moment to the next he is unique.

He feels and looks like me.

From complaint to praise, from accusation to despair and back again. What a song of faith he sings in verse 13. “He rescues the life of the needy. Sing to the Lord!” Followed by cursing the day he was born, and the one who even carried the news to his father!

15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news,
who made him very glad, saying,
"A child is born to you—a son!"

16 May that man be like the towns
the LORD overthrew without pity.
May he hear wailing in the morning,
a battle cry at noon.

17 For he did not kill me in the womb,
with my mother as my grave,
her womb enlarged forever.

18 Why did I ever come out of the womb
to see trouble and sorrow
and to end my days in shame?

If this were your first introduction to Jeremiah you would think he was out of his mind. From one moment to the next his mood flips from sturdy to unstable. From faith to despair. He is the “weeping prophet” because his heart was ripped apart by the message God put in his mouth for his people. His city would be lost, his people without a home because they continued to run from being righteous and just. Their streets crowded with the poor, with the widow and the orphan, yet their temple filled with the rich and upright. Their lips gave words, but their hearts carried different actions.

Jeremiah came into the mess reluctant, young and unprepared to call them back. Faith though has a funny way of calling us to something we can’t do. Belief comes out of nowhere to get me through what will come next, my venom like complaint, my cursing, my despair, and my despondency.

The owner of faith also knows hope. The promise that in the middle of our uneasiness, in the middle of our doubt or anger, things are ultimately not determined by us alone. Jeremiah’s depression and joy finds its moments of peace in the promise of hope. “He rescues the needy.” He knew that what saved him in his moments of weakness, his times of mental and emotional instability was the hope that someone could save him from the pain and uncertainty.

During the last night before Jesus’ death, he found himself alone in a garden praying. Their he wavered and shuddered in pain and mental and emotional stress. Like Jeremiah moving from one thought to another, contemplating the message God had called him to carry out, he came to the place where he cried, “Father, may this pass from me?” The basis of our faith however, the center of our hope, is that in that moment, Jesus answered his own question, “Your will be done.” He carried on with the task. When Jeremiah, when you and when I waver, when we are strapped by our depression, our inner agony, we buckle. Our faith like a ship that’s lost its man at the wheel, crashes on the rocks.

It’s OK.

This is the center of faith and hope. Our faith has thrown us overboard. Jeremiah and I have been lost time and time again in our own faith, but the ultimate hope comes not in our faith, but in the certainty of Jesus. In his moment of weakness he carried on so that in my moment of weakness, my moment of doubt, I could hold onto him and not myself.

Faith is not being certain in yourself, or in everything this world throws at us. Faith believes that in our moment of trial, cursing, or joy, we are holding onto something other than ourselves. We’re holding onto the one who was made weak for us, that we may be strong in him.

Even in the darkest of nights, and the happiest of days.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Later

Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now,
but you will follow later."

John 13:36

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Deep Green Conversation

The color Green is everywhere. Malls, restaurants, TV commercials, everyone is trying to bring Green into their world. So much so that "being green" in my mind has become more of a fashionable marketing ploy than actual active environmental conservation.

For a host of reasons Christians have struggled with how to position themselves on the issue of the environment. Perhaps because much of Evangelicalism has aligned themselves with conservative politics which has always been seen as anti-environment, whether fair or unfair. Wherever you find yourself on the political pendulum, balance is always the center mark.

I went surfing the other day when Tropical Storm Fay came ashore, and maybe that's why this article I read today from Christian Buckley caught my eye. It's one of the more balanced approaches to the environment from a Christian I've ever read.

We all seem to go one way or the other on this issue. Let me know what you think.

Read it here:: Touching God in the Waves

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Fay

You can't quite understand life in South Florida until you've experienced your first hurricane. If your home has always been here, then the topsy-turvy hurricane season is something you're used to. Something you're prepared for.

Storms bring their share of problems. Extreme damage is possible, life can hang in the balance. But there are a few days in Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, West Palm Beach, Key West, or Key Biscayne, when the storm is not quite a threat. More an excuse.

Today, Fay was the excuse. She was the excuse to get off work early, and I mean EVERYONE got off work early! She was the excuse to go surfing at 2pm on a Monday in the highest seas we've had all year, in a rip current that if you're not careful could carry you to Boca, or Freeport. Fay, today was the excuse to get a bunch of guys and girls together to play Rain Football until we couldn't see anymore. The rain bands came, and another touchdown went on the board.

Life seems to hit the hold button on these occasional So Fla days, and we love it. School stops, work shuts down, and we head to the beach, the park, or the movies.
At least until it gets really bad, then we just wait.

Today was the first Hurricane Day of '08, and tonight was the first Hurricane party. Hopefully there won't be many more in '08, but if there are, we hope they're a lot like Fay.

Not dangerous.
Just an excuse.
'

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Beijing

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing have been a sight to behold. Whether you are a sports fan or not seems immaterial. The Olympics have a draw in and of themselves different than any other sport or any other stage. It's culture, nationalism, sports, and personalities. We watch and take them in as they shine for us, like the stars we always wanted and the heroes we never knew were next door.

These games have another element however.
Something we all knew was there but couldn't quite understand, or grasp the depth of.

China.

The sites are breathtaking. The venues remarkable. And the culture unearthed from its hidden stage. The Water Cube is a wonder. The National Indoor Stadium, a state of the art coliseum. These games have allowed the world to not just stare through the wooden fence into the neighbors yard. They have invited us into a culture we can't quite put our finger on, and a people we hope to learn to understand.

Two years ago I read a USA Today piece about the Beijing games and posted in response to it on this blog. I was mesmerized by the grandeur and anticipation. As we watch it now unfold before us, looking back... it's happening.

Here's the post from a few years back...
Flying Daggers and the Olympics

Zai jian.

Monday, August 11, 2008

On the Eve of 27

Disappointment in your life is one thing, hard to manage and extremely distracting. Disappointment in the lives of others though, your friends, has begun to sting a little more. Maybe its moving on in life. Moving up in the world. More responsibility, more at risk. Relationships coming and going, some stepping out wondering and hoping, while others are cautious and practical. There's more money to spend, but there's fewer to spend it on.

Looking into the TV late at night, you flip through your mind's Rolodex of feelings, but you can't see or feel someone else's end of the day. I've spent most of the last week trying to sort in my own mind what it means to decide. The process we all go through to make our way in life. We're all in the labyrinth, the maze turning from clear and free, to cloudy and restricted. This is the time they say, "You're young. Enjoy and don't worry." It's true. This is my time, and probably your time, and I'm enjoying it. But once in a while, no, more than that, someone else's situation takes precedence. Someone's problem is flickering on the TV late at night and I twist and turn hoping and praying for them to sort it out. To make that one turn in the maze that will take them closer to the center and not further away.

What I believe about life has to come into play though doesn't it? Inside, the walls are high, winding, and deceptively similar. Along the way markers creep up, turns come that push us closer. From the inside I can't see over the wall, and I can't see over yours either. But from above, the maze is clear, the labyrinth wide and free with a pull to the center that we all feel deep down inside.

I've worn the dream coat, and I've had it stripped from me. But in the end, in the end for you, the string that leads you and me through one fret to another, leads us closer to the center, to the draw of the center. I have to believe that. I have to believe that a decision, that a host of decisions won't muck up my life. If that's true, if the sum is so much greater than the parts, than what a resource that is for life! What a help for you and for me.

On the eve of 27, I never thought this is what my life would look like by now. But the path for a brief moment seems clear, the ending is open, but I can feel the pull to the center.

From above and from within.

The dream coat was lost a long time ago, but there's another on my back now. One not my own, with whom life still seems dizzy and trying, but warm and true.

For you and for me.
For young and for old.
What a resource!
May we find our way to the center.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Today, Today

"Man is the creature of the moment; the past has gone from him, and over the future he has no control; it is only the present moment that is his. Therefore it is that, when he is made partaker of Christ...and the eternal salvation He imparts, God's great word to him is Today."

-- Andrew Murray