The Love Chapter

Cindy and I have been reading through a book called "Love is..." by Les and Leslie Parrott. The book's 17 chapters break down I Corinthians 13--often referred to as the Love chapter of the Bible--and provide thoughts on each individual version, as well as 17 different translations of this most famous of scriptures.

Last week, we read the J. B. Phillips translation, published in 1958. I had never heard of J. B. Phillips, nor ever knew that he had written his own translation of the Bible, but I think I'd like to pick one up after seeing how he handled I Corinthians 13. Listen for yourself how artfully he captures a profound message that we perhaps know too well to fully appreciate.

---

I Corinthians 13
Translation by J. B. Phillips

"If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith that can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.

"The love of which I speak is slow to lose patience--it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive. It is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.

"Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when Truth prevails.

"Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

"For if there are prophecies, they will be fulfilled and done with; if there are "tongues," the need for them will disappear; if there is knowledge, it will be swallowed up in truth. For our knowledge is always incomplete and our prophecy is always incomplete, and when the Complete comes, that is the end of the Incomplete.

"When I was a little child I talked and felt and thought like a little child. Now that I am a man my childish speech and feeling and thought have no further significance for me.

"At present we are looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. The time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face! At present all I know is a little fraction of the truth, but the time will come when I shall know it as fully as God now knows me!

"In this life we have three great lasting qualities--faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love."

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I especially like the line, "[love] can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen."

To me, it serves as a challenge: when all else has fallen and only my love for others is standing, will I be proud of what I have invested in that most eternal of objectives?

For no matter what else I have earned and achieved in this life, if my investment in love has been small, I will be the poorest of souls.

My Testimony

Cindy and I just joined the South Shore Baptist Church in Hingham, and we were both asked to share out testimony on Sunday morning, February 17th. I was also baptized that day as I had never been baptized as a believer, which is something the baptists (even though SSBC is only historically connected to the baptist denomination) are pretty big on. I agree with the practice, actually, so long as no one thinks not being baptized as a believer somehow interferes with one's salvation. It's a nice tradition, as a full-bodied physical experience is entirely appropriate as a public expression of something so life transformational as accepting Christ's gospel. But that's a whole other discussion. Back to me sharing my testimony...this is what I read in front of the church, standing in the baptismal pool just before I got dunked:

It’s astounding when I pause and recall that God has worked in my life in a very personal and active way. Who am I that the creator of the universe should even consider my situation? But I know that if God didn’t get involved, I would certainly now feel that life is a mostly lonely, disappointing and dangerous experience.
God blessed me by bringing me into a family that trusted in Jesus Christ. What I observed most growing up was that my parents were big on service to others. I learned that the church was where you labored in love to serve in some capacity. Fulfilling the mission of the church meant tithing my allowance, always going to youth group, singing in the youth choir, and mowing the pastor’s lawn for free. It was a warm and comfortable place to be, and I felt like I belonged, but the message of the gospel was a bit lost on me until the summer before 8th grade.

When I was 14, I attended a summer camp where the counselors and camp directors were filled with something that was entirely new to me. Although I’d spoken to Jesus in prayer many times, I’d never considered asking Christ to take up residence in me, to be my savior, rescuer and redeemer. During that week, I decided for the first time that although I already had a relationship with God, I needed to declare for myself that my sins made me unfit to call on my God, except by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus’ life in exchange for mine.

It was a quiet moment with no fanfare, and yet I knew something profound had happened.

I continued to grow, excelling in some things while concealing shameful parts of myself from everyone around me. Putting on the good Christian face became such a natural act, that I eventually believed that what I had was as good as the Christian life could get. I seemed to be respected among many people, but life was burdensome, and I was always afraid of my darker side being found out.

I had no idea there was such a freedom in being authentic with myself, with God, and even with others. I had failed to internalize that accepting Christ as my savior meant he removed from me the stain of my sinful nature, removing also my shame as my story was not so different from anyone else’s. Resting on the grace of God meant there was no longer anything to hide, there was no longer any game to try to play and win.

I started to come to an understanding of these truths after college. In my 20’s and early 30’s, I endured a long, drawn-out battle with depression during which I finally gave up hope of trying to look good and appear as if I had it all together. It’s now clear to me that it was actually God’s great wisdom and even mercy that planned for me to walk through some of those very dark valleys, for the freedom and joy I finally came to experience from giving up my quest to be “a good Christian” is worth far more than all the difficulties and trials I faced.

Without those trials, I would not have learned that most important lesson, that my greatest efforts produce only disappointment, but that trust in the Lord and his sovereign ways frees me to live the way God always intended. Without the burden of trying to earn my worth, importance or righteousness, I can enjoy all that life has to offer, and more freely offer myself to others, whether in service or in simply being a friend along the journey.

For Cindy's testimony, visit our .Mac website at http://web.mac.com/cindylyle.

Relationship Problems - The Paradigm Shift

I'm quite sure most people would say they don't like problems in their relationships, and some may avoid them at all costs, even to the point of deterioration. I completely identified with this when I was dating. In a dating relationship, problems produced much mental processing mixed with angst and worry. This was because the problem consisted not only of itself, but raised larger questions of whether the relationship should continue or whether this issue was big enough to end the relationship entirely. Making a decision as big as "Do I stick with this person or do I venture out again in the hope of finding something better?" involves negotiations between the head and the heart that can be intense enough to induce headaches. It's a very difficult decision, and decisions are inherently tough on our minds because we spend so much time trying to work them out, considering all options, weighing the various outcomes and repercussions. So, the toll that a relationship crisis takes on a person and the relationship turns out to be much bigger than just the crisis itself. Even the hint of a problem induces a sense of foreboding because we don't like being in that state of having to figure out what we should ultimately do.

Marriage changes all of this. If Cindy and I have a conflict, I don't have to spend any mental energy considering whether this conflict is a relationship breaker. My brain never hurts from the intense speculation of whether my life would be better without her, and considering having to start over again in the next relationship.

In marriage, the issue is vastly simpler and the process much more straight forward.  It involves just a few things:

• Why is Cindy upset and/or why am I upset?
• What is the root emotion that underlies the tension of the present moment?
• What needs to be communicated to address this emotional injury?

Of course there is more involved in conflict resolution, but the point is it's all focused around the problem itself.

Resolving marital conflict is still not trivial, but it's infinitely better than also trying to decide the fate of the relationship. And because you are sure the relationship will survive the conflict, you are also assured the relationship will be stronger because of it; for every resolved conflict is a step closer to truly knowing the other person and sharing greater intimacy.

As a result, I no longer fear a crisis in my relationship like I used to; in fact, I almost look forward to them as I know they will produce good fruit in my marriage!

How's that for a paradigm shift?!

The Greatest Commandments, the first sins

Cindy and I were reading a book from our new member class and came across an interesting analysis I hadn't encountered before.

It's starts off with the greatest commandments (as declared by Jesus):

1. Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, strength and mind
2. Love thy neighbor as thyself

I don't think I would offend too many people by claiming that these two principles are by far the most important lessons in the entire Bible, and that if you're striving after these two, the rest of what God asks of us will more or less fall into place. That may be an oversimplification, but this is a blog, not a theological discourse.

The interesting part of the analysis was the juxtaposition of these commandments with the first two sins. In the Genesis account of creation, Adam and Eve are tempted to question God's prohibition on eating from the tree of life. They are told God was not being truthful with them when he said they would die from eating it. Adam and Eve trust the serpent rather than God. They failed the first commandment in that one act.

The second sin recorded in the Bible (side-stepping the question of whether Cain's less than pleasing offering to God was a sin) is that of Cain murdering his brother Abel. This is clearly a violation of the second commandment, and both sides of it at that. For in order to have loving thy neighbor as thyself be a good thing, one must presumably actually love thyself. Cain doesn't love his brother nor does he love himself. In my experience, in fact, very few of us love and accept ourselves, which makes it all the more difficult to love one another.

I liked this bit of parallelism as presented in the book our new member class was reading not because it's all that profound or terribly enlightening, but because it points to how the two greatest commandments are the very tools to combat the two greatest sins:

• failing to put our full faith and trust in what God is telling us is best for us, and
• failing to be comfortable with ourselves, and being able to love our neighbor, even when he shows us up

I bet if I took the time to think about it, the whole of the 10 commandments would be rendered moot if only we could truly live by the two most important.

I guess I shouldn't have been at all surprised to see that the greatest commandments simultaneously show us the right way to live, and shield us from the wrong way. God's good (and highly efficient) like that.

Why Fall is my Favorite Season

Holy Cow! Has it really been over a year since my last post? Well, meeting the girl of your dreams, proposing, starting a new job, moving to a new apartment, getting married, and moving Cindy's stuff to the new apartment can take up a bit of one's time. Also, Cindy and I are putting up a new website of our own, where my blogs (which will be much more frequently updated) will live. But that's not what this post is about...

Fall is definitely my favorite season. I love to camp, hike and bike, and the fall is just the best time of the year to do that. It’s dryer than spring, cooler than summer, and the colors are, of course, a visual feast. Plus, I actually enjoy winter and cold temperatures when you have to get all bundled up, so fall is the time when that is coming, but it’s not quite so cold that you can’t spend the day outside. I think it’s mostly about the colors, though. Especially if you happen to visit a lake and see the trees all around the shore reflected in the water. Finally, if spring is the season of new birth, then fall is the season of life receding. It’s not as if the natural world dies for the winter, but it retracts. And it does so with such glory and grace in the changing of the leaves. It’s nature’s last big show before the off season, and it’s a spectacular one.

DP's very cool posts on Creating Round Borders for web pages

Both of these posts on Dave Paroulek's blog are quite interesting and well written:

• Create Round Borders on the Fly
• Using CSS to Make Round Borders
  

My Trip to Cape Town

A few months ago, I spent 9 days in Cape Town, South Africa visiting my friend and former roommate Derrick Lovick. He and his wife Rashidah were spending a year there working with student leaders of Christian fellowship groups at two different universities.

We toured the wine country, had some traditional meals, saw one of the several shanty towns outside Cape Town, hiked Table Mountain with a group of students, and visited Robben Island, home to the former maximum security prison used during the Apartheid era for political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela.

Cape Town 2006

Irish Festival pictures

The Lord Family visited the Massachusetts Irish Festival in June and had a great time. Lots of step dancing, diverse music, face painting, and big bubble machine, and even a rugby match made it a fun day. Click on the photo below to see all my pictures.

Irish Festival 2006

Christmas in August?

For those who like to revisit their holidays 8 months later, there's a link below to my Christmas 2005 photo album. BUT, for your own safety, and of those around you, (or if you want to download/print the full size version of a picture), please read the instructions below.

1. When you get to the web album, click on an image to get a medium-sized version
2. After clicking on a photo, to the right there will be a "Download Photo" link. This saves the full-size image to your computer for printing or putting in your own photo album.

Click here to see the photo album:

Christmas2005

Musings on Humility and Gratitude

Humility and Gratitude are strengths beyond understanding. Forget not to consider the value of others and what they do, and your life and theirs will overflow with goodness; their support and even devotion will be strongest because it is willfully given. If those with whom you live and work ever say, "No one notices what I do until I don't do it," then you have failed.

Quotes & Notes

Aristotle: The Law is reason, free from passion. STL: It makes me wonder if Aristotle, and probably many after him, regarded passion as negative by nature. If reason is considered the only worthy guide for determining behavior (and what is law but governance of behavior?), then for what purpose do we have passion? While it may sometimes lead to all sorts of evil, passion is certainly capable of producing the opposite. And is reason all that trustworthy? The rationalism of a wise person may be, but not all people will arrive at the same reasoning. Indeed, rhetoric and debate likely originated with one wise leader trying to pursuade another to agree with the first's reasoning. Only perfect reason, and perfect rationality will always lead to the right course of action or behavior. But I submit that perfect passion would do the same. If Aristotle is correct, then it must be that imperfect reason is preferable to imperfect passion in creating law and governance. Of course, who am I to judge Aristotle?! For a multitude of other quotables attributed to Aristotle, read this Wikiquote page.

Fall 2005 family pictures

I was up in Westborough, Massachusetts for Labor Day weekend and got some more pictures of my nieces. Why is it that taking pictures of kids is so much fun?!

Claire and Bridget are growing fast, and talking a lot. They even say grace at dinner quite often! Audrey has started kindergarten and rides a school bus every day for this first time. She got a new backpack and lunchbox for this year! Brenda and Richard settled the debate over whether to get rid of the twins' cribs when they discovered they could remove one side of each and turn them into a kind of day bed (for little people, of course).

Audrey is amazing with wanting to help with everything, even when dad wants to go shovel mud off the driveway! She also seems to enjoy gardening with grandpa and cooking with mom or grandma.

Grandma and Grandpa Lyle are doing very well. I didn't get any good pictures of them this trip, so I'll have to rectify that during my next one.

Me and Audrey	Richard and Claire hanging out
Hide-n-seek...counting to 10	Hide-n-seek...no peeking!
Hide-n-seek...Claire's hiding place	Audrey's first day of kindergarten!
Claire & Bridget seeing Audrey off to school
Claire, Bridget and Audrey	Audrey with butterfly hair pin
Brenda reading to her girls

Frazier, this is for you...

This is for you, Derrick

Philosophy of Charles Schulz

Charles Schulz penned the cartoon "Peanuts" from October 1950 to February 2000. He decided to retire the strip with the Sunday paper of February 13, 2000. Mr. Schulz died the evening of February 12th, as his final frames were being printed around the world.

These are some quotes that reflect his personal philosophy on life:

• Big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life.
• I love mankind; it's people I can't stand.
• My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right.
• Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.
• Jogging is very beneficial. It's good for your legs and your feet. It's also very good for the ground. If makes it feel needed.
• Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask why me? Then a voice answers, "Nothing personal, your name just happened to come up."

The following is also attributed to Charles Shulz and can be found many places on the web as well as those e-mails that get circled around the Internet every few years. I could not find any official Charles Schulz / Peanuts sites that either verified or denied the authenticity of these words. Personally, it's nice, but I doubt that he really wrote it.

Try answering the following questions in your head:

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winner for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

The point of this exercise is that few of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Now consider these questions:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
6. Name half a dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.

The lesson? People who make a difference in our lives are not the ones with the most credentials, money, or awards. They are the ones who care.

Hancock Shaker village in spring

Here are some of the best pictures from a trip to a Shaker village in Hancock, MA this past spring. Brenda may not appreciate the one with her and the twins just chilling out, but it's actually one of my favorites. Just check out the twins' expressions and how Claire (wasn't Bridget in red sox that day?) looks like she's about to take a plunge into the grass!! I should crop that down to just her and make sure it gets in her senior yearbook (evil Uncle Stephen).

Now that mom & dad live just out of earshot from Brenda & Richard's house, I should get more pictures than the twice a year or so I do now. Parents, I've observed, don't always have time for photos, but relatives (and particularly grandparents) always do.

Now, if I can just get mom to use her digital camera. (Mom, this is the perfect opportunity for you to try out commenting on a blog to defend yourself!)

Happy November, everyone.   I love this month!

Audrey in the spring	A precious moment
Getting ready to go	Candidly caught
Checking out the vines	I want my mommy!
Bridget/Claire(?)	This one took 12 shots to get

Disney pictures and the demise of my career at IBM

Not long ago, this blog was created by an IBM employee with foresight and ingenuity to prove to his colleagues that blogging could significantly improve the experience of the entire staff of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) who were being dragged (some screaming...little kicking) into using a new database system to keep track of their students.

The idea was that each group on the IBM team (training, field support, data conversion, technical support, project management, and communications) would create a blog that would be one link away from our home page (http://dcstars.k12.dc.us:50825--designed and created by said IBM employee).

These blogs could be kept up-to-date by their owners, rather than having said IBM employee manage the entire website for them. They could post short articles, longer "how to" documents, training materials, or anything else they wanted.

Alas, no one saw the light, and so this weary IBM visionary went and asked Plumtree Software (www.plumtree.com) if they needed someone with ideas who can occasionally fix computers by just entering the room. After my second interview on Thursday, October 28, I think they've decided they do need a person like that. I hope to hear this week their official offer.

All of this is just a prelude to why you are most likely here...pictures from the recent Lord-Lyle adventure travel to the Magical World of Disney. Yes, this whole Plumtree experience, although the most exciting thing to happen since this trip, mostly pales by comparison to the four days I spent in Orlando with Brenda, Richard, Audrey, Bridget and Claire, and the matriarchs and patriarchs of the Lord and Lyle family. Thanks to Paula and Dick Lord (half of the aforementioned matriarchs and patriarchs), we had a lovely place to stay with beds for everyone and pools of many sizes for swimming.

So, without further ado, click on the thumbnail pictures below to see larger versions of the best of my shots from the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, MGM Studios, and the Epcot Center.

Pictures from Disney, September 2004