The Starbucks crowd

Posted on July 9, 2013 by jwfisch

th-4It was a most unusual memorial service — a celebration of strangers. They were strangers, not to each other, but to the family that had suffered the loss. They came by invitation, not by name. Their invitation was a poster in the window of a Starbucks store.

The man who died was only 28. He had suffered a serious automobile accident when he was 13 that left him disabled due to a severe brain injury. Through a number of years of rehabilitation, he had worked his way to where he could fend for himself, as long as he kept to his meds, and he had the loving supervision of a father and sister who saw him daily.

But he also had a number of friends beside his family down at the local Starbucks where he would spend a good part of every day hanging out. So even though the funeral service was going to be held a week later in another part of the country where most of the family resided, the father wanted to have something special for this group of people he knew about, but did not know personally — some way to say thank you and let them say good-bye. So he printed a poster of his son that announced a celebration of his life to be held at a nearby restaurant, and waited to see what would happen. Over fifty people showed up. “I don’t know most of these people,” the father told me. “They are all my son’s friends.”

It was an eclectic group. Among them were a few retired folks, a couple veterans, a woman in an automated wheel chair who wheeled herself five miles every day to be there, and some younger people who had simply come to know the deceased because he spent close to six hours a day at a certain table that was pretty much reserved for him and his friends. And these were dear friends — beautiful people who obviously loved him and enjoyed his company.

I had the remarkable privilege of attending this event, and whenever I think back on it, it makes me ask myself: do I have a place where, if I died, they could put up a poster about me and a whole group of folks would show up? Where, in the marketplace of people and ideas, are my friends? What have I done to cultivate a place in this world with relationships that count for something? This young man, with short of a fully functioning brain, has done better than I have.

I found out that on the day of his death, when his friends inquired as to why he wasn’t there and found out the unfortunate news, they turned a chair upside down at “his table” and put a sign there: “Good bye, Troy; we’ll miss you.” And as the day wore on, a number of people set flowers there to remember him.

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I know who you are

Posted on July 8, 2013 by jwfisch

Today’s Catch comes by way of a story sent in by one of our members as told by an ER nurse.

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80s, arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00.
 
I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound.
 
On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound. While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor’s appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife.
 
I inquired as to her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer’s disease. As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years.
 
I was surprised, and asked him, “And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?”
 
He smiled as he patted my hand and said, “She doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is.”

Two things strike me about this story:

Don’t you know this is how God loves us — every last one of us? We are so whacked in the head that we can look right at Him half the time and not even recognize Him. But He knows who we are. He knows what we need. And He sits with us and listens to our incoherent ramblings and loves every minute of it.

This is also how we love those in the world who don’t yet know Christ. We sit with them and listen. In every human being there is a trace of God, be it His image or His mark on their soul, and even though they might not see it, we do. They might not recognize us, but we see them as who they are — a child of God. So we too can put up with anything — anybody — and love every minute of it.

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God and country

Posted on July 3, 2013 by jwfisch

th-1Tomorrow, as a country, we in America celebrate our independence from England. That seems a little hard to say, since we have lots of friends in England now. That fact itself is an illustration of how relative these matters of state truly are. Our allegiance is first and foremost to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ. After that, well, it depends on where you live, and what kind of role you play in the government of human beings.

The scriptures place high regard on local rulers and authorities as being set up by God to maintain social order, and this was in a time when the ruling political system resembled a dictatorship much more than a democracy. Local governments maintain control, but our allegiance to country is never to rival or be equated with our allegiance to God.

Abraham Lincoln made the right distinction in his second inaugural address, at a time when the nation was at crisis in a bitter civil war, “Both (North and South) read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other…. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

God’s purposes are far above that of any government’s. They have to do with His kingdom, which is not of this world. The greatest privilege established by America is independence, and primarily, an independence, which, in its highest form, consists of the freedom to worship a God that is above all kings and parliaments and presidents and governments, whether they acknowledge Him or not.

For those of us who will celebrate the Fourth of July tomorrow, let’s remember what our freedom is really for. It is not to pursue happiness, as much as it is to pursue God in the way in which we choose.

[Note: There will not be a Catch tomorrow due to the Fourth of July holiday.]

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th-2The Catch is dedicated to helping more people worship God in their daily lives. If you have been aided by the Catch in this way, consider becoming a Catch Monthly Sustainer. For as little as ten dollars a month, you can help power the Catch into the future. Join our membership team today!

Become a Member today. Click on the shoes.

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Time and attention

Posted on July 2, 2013 by jwfisch

thGod doesn’t desire more of our time sometimes; He desires more of our attention all the time.

Ever feel frustrated because you hear messages about getting closer to God and you definitely desire this for yourself, but you are inundated with so much to do already that this only makes you feel guilty because you are too busy for God? I think we all feel this at one time or another, but carving more time out of your busy schedule to be with God isn’t necessarily the only answer to this question. Look at the following scriptures:

I have set the Lord always before me. (Psalm 16:8 NIV)

My eyes are ever on the Lord. (Psalms 25:15 NIV)

I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips. (Psalm 34:1 NIV)

Reading these words makes you wonder if these are the words of a monk who had nothing else to do but devote himself to God. Actually, they are the words of David, King of Israel, a great ruler and warrior. How did he manage to run a nation at war, and keep his eyes on the Lord at all times? The only conclusion is that he did this while he did everything else. It’s a continual awareness of God that we are talking about here, not necessarily more time devoted to spiritual pursuits.

I once saw a sign that read: “Your God is what you pay attention to.” You see, I believe you can pay attention to God while you are doing everything else. It’s all about doing everything for God and seeing God in everything we do. It’s about bringing God into the boardroom, the exercise room, the living room, and the bedroom. Now of course He’s already in all these places but we’re talking about being aware of His being there at all times. That’s what it means to set the Lord always before us.

Worship is a frame of mind that always has God in the picture. We don’t need church, or Bible study, or devotions to remind us about the Lord if we’re already aware of Him all the time. These opportunities then become more precious to us because we can devote all our attention to that which we have been doing all along.

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Family tree

Posted on July 1, 2013 by jwfisch

th-4I attended a 50-year reunion this weekend. You are starting to do a little math right now as you try to figure out what type of reunion this must have been. I’d like to say it was my Kindergarten reunion, but alas, I am a little older than that! Hopefully you’ve narrowed it down to high school. (Actually for me, it was a reunion for my sophomore year in high school.) The dates weren’t exact for this particular reunion, nor were we all from the same class or the same school. That’s because this wasn’t a typical high school reunion. This was a reunion of our church high school group, complete with the man and his wife who was our youth minister at the time who had had a profound effect on us all.

“You’re kidding,” one attendee reported a friend of hers as saying. “You’re going to a church youth group reunion? I’ve never heard if such a thing.” Well, you have now, and this was no small deal. One man came from Illinois, a couple from Colorado. Many came from all over California.

The outpouring of love and gratitude to the youth director and his wife who had made such a lasting impression on us all was tangible. I have often reflected on this man and his passion for the Lord, for the word of God and for me, and looking around the room as we shared a meal together made it evident that I was not alone. We meant something to each other 50 years ago, and coming back together was an opportunity to find out we still did.

I have often decried the fact that I have had a rather rootless existence compared to others I get to know who have long-standing family histories going back generations. “Family” for me has never been much more than my nuclear family, and growing up in California fifty years ago does not give you much of a sense of roots. I even took my family back to New England for seven years in the 1980s, and part of what I was seeking was a respect for history and heritage. We found that heritage there, though it wasn’t ours. We experienced it and touched it, but we were never really “in” it. I learned that you don’t really belong in New England unless you’ve had relatives buried in the church graveyard, and that’s already full. Those names are already established. You’re either in, or you’re looking in from the outside like we were. You can appreciate it, as we did, but you cannot be a part of it.

But this weekend I found my roots. I found my own history. I found a different kind of heritage – something that had not occurred to me before this weekend – and something even more important than family history. I found a heritage of faith – the beginnings of my spiritual journey that has taken me a long way and back again. I found a wealth to tap into just be being together and celebrating the fact that we are all still following Christ and will follow Him right on into eternity.

You might want to trace your spiritual heritage today. Who are the people along the way who have influenced your walk with Christ? Even if you are relatively new to faith in Jesus, you should be able to locate those along the way who contributed to your own spiritual journey. You just might find out, as I did, that you are wealthier than you thought.

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Looking and living

Posted on June 28, 2013 by jwfisch

th-3U2 recorded at least two different versions of the song that was the theme of yesterday’s Catch,“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Thanks to David, my pop music/gospel connection to Canada and a regular Catch reader, we’re going to think about the second version this morning and reflect on its message. The initial recording, on U2’s “Joshua Tree” album, is somber and plaintive in tone, fully capturing the album’s pictorial image, the gnarled silhouette of a Joshua tree standing alone against a desert sky. The second came by way of a gospel choir out of New York called The New Voices of Freedom. They recorded their own version of the song, and when Bono, lead singer of U2, heard it, he arranged for a meeting with the choir and the band in their Harlem church. The result was electrifying. Choir members called the reason for the strange connection between a gospel choir and what was then the most popular arena band in the world, spiritual. It was a spiritual connection.

It’s no accident that this song contains the clearest expression of the gospel of Jesus Christ in U2’s repertoire:

You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believed it

The stage was set for a gospel celebration, and the result was an appearance by the choir in the band’s Madison Square Garden concert and the inclusion of the song and video in U2’s acclaimed documentary, “Rattle and Hum.” This version is entirely different from the “Joshua Tree” recording. It is performed with a simplified rhythm and the exultant chorus. The style is entirely gospel and the tone is exalting, jubilant, electrifying.

I walk away from the first version wondering. I walk away from the second with my eyes sparkling like a child’s on Christmas morning. In this setting, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” takes on a new attitude, as if the whole song reverberates with the question, ‘You mean there’s more?’”

Is this not why we live: to find out more? To experience more, learn more, love more? It includes the whole thing — the joy and the sorrow, the loss and the gain. If God has redeemed it all, we have something to gain from it all. We will never have found what we’re looking for because we will never be done looking and living.

Those who are satisfied with what they have, have what they have. Those
who keep asking, seeking, and knocking will find more.

“So I [Jesus] say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you
will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks
receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be
opened.” (Luke 11: 9-10).

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th-2The Catch is that place where questioners can question, doubters can doubt and believers can believe. We are all about looking and living. Here at the Catch we always believe there is more, and we are calling more of you to become monthly supporting members. Members are the lifeblood of the Catch. We simply can’t exist without you, and we can’t go forward without more of you. Power the Catch! Click on the shoes and become a supporting member today!

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Still haven’t found what you’re looking for?

Posted on June 27, 2013 by jwfisch

th-1A while ago I received an email from one of our readers who has been corresponding with me off and on for a while. He is a person who does a lot of thinking, and as a result, belief comes hard for him, because his keen, curious mind has him looking at things from so many different angles. For every question someone else might have, he will have five. His recent message revealed he was up to his old tricks.

In his own words: “I don’t ‘know’ anything (I guess my ‘knower’ is broke), but I believe that there is a God, simply because of the world around us. Isn’t that what Romans says: that God will make himself known by his creation so that there will be none with any excuse? I am just waiting for him to continue so that once again I can believe that Jesus is the evidence of that.”

I like people like this — people to whom belief doesn’t come easy — because when it comes, it will be solid and true, and those who have gone through this kind of personal process can help others who are struggling in similar ways. C.S. Lewis was a person like this who has helped countless people wrestle with the issues of faith, only because he has wrestled with them himself and written about it.

And I believe it was to these people (well … all of us) that Jesus was speaking, when He said: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). In other words, don’t stop asking, seeking and knocking. These are the people God rewards, and it is an ongoing process. Many people stop this process because they are satisfied with what they’ve gotten, when in reality they have gotten very little.

My friend suggested that his “knower” was broken. I don’t think so. I think his “knower” is working just fine because he is still seeking to know. Your “knower” is only broken when it’s not being used, and it could very well be that there are many people with broken “knowers,” because they stopped asking, seeking, and knocking years ago.

When U2 first recorded, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” it was confusing to many Christians who presumed that Bono was a believer. Aren’t Christians supposed to have already found what they were looking for?

Well … yes, and no.

Coming into a relationship with Christ connects me with God, but it does not end the process of knowing; it just begins it on the right foot. All U2 was saying in this song is that there is much they still want to know. My friend who wrote me the email still wants to know. I still want to know, and I expect to still want to know until the day I die.

How about you? Is your “knower” still working?
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th-2Many who are seeking, questioning and doubting have no place to voice their struggle in a supportive environment. The Catch is that place where questioners can question, doubters can doubt and believers can believe. The Catch needs you to survive. Become a monthly contributor today and help secure a place for strugglers tomorrow.

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All the lonely people

Posted on June 26, 2013 by jwfisch

Following is what I believe to be one of the most poignant tributes to loneliness and isolation ever to be chronicled in a popular song. The song only makes an observation. It makes no conclusions except for the tragic: “No one was saved,” at the end. “Look…” it tells us, and in looking, we are asked to be more conscious of what is going on inside of people — not just what is on the surface. On the surface are Eleanor Rigby’s face, and the clerical collar of Father McKenzie’s position in the church. Behind the scenes are the all-too-common facelessness and futility that accompany so many in life.

Eleanor Rigby
John Lennon, Paul McCartney

th-4Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people
 
Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?
 
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
 
Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working.
Darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there
What does he care?
 
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
 
Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
 
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”  (1 Samuel 16:7)

You could say that this song gives us a God’s-eye view of a couple people, because it looks deeper than outward appearances. But we aren’t God, so what does this have to do with us?

1) We can be aware of the fact that what is on the surface of the people we are with today tells only a small part of the story.

2) We can get close enough to someone to care about what’s inside. This usually begins by being daring enough to reveal what is inside us — our own fears and insecurities and loneliness. It always works this way. If one person has the courage to take her face off, others will follow. Love provides the ability to do this.

In this tragic story, it is a loving environment of acceptance and openness that is missing. Both of these people could have been saved had someone been willing to be open with them.

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Everyone who is tired of Dorothy’s clicking shoes raise your hand. Ha! My hand went up faster than yours and I know the membership committee’s hands were up before mine!

Since we know Dorothy got home, what do the rest of us care if the Catch gets home? Now maybe only my hand and those of the membership committee are presently raised. Why ours and not yours?

Maybe it is because the membership committee and I have an inside view on what it takes to run this thing called the Catch, and while I believe the committee has done an excellent job in communicating their commitment, maybe it is my error in not letting you in on the urgency. Since I prefer to keep a distance from the management of the Catch’s services and the cost of doing business, I sincerely believe the blame falls on me.  (Sure wish I could put the blame on Marti for this one. Where is she when I need her?)

What does a membership with the Catch get you? Not far, and certainly not fair, compared to those who enjoy the Catch and its services without contributing.

Better to think in terms of what you are giving when becoming a member:
You are making real faith to become human by removing barriers to believing – articulating what is at the heart of a matter, and initiating action that impacts eternity in the marketplace in the midst of a dynamically changing world.

You are creating a space where…
   Questioners can question, doubters can doubt and believers can believe;
   Where those who struggle with forbidden issues can get personal help, and
   Where barriers to love can be overcome.

You are keeping alive what would not exist were you not giving. It’s a lot of you giving consistently over time that will keep the Catch alive. So the real question is not what you would be willing to pay to receive the Catch, but what you would be willing to give a month for others to receive it.

Dorothy’s clicking shoes have been a fun way to get at this, but in the fun we may have sent the wrong message that this is a game, or that nothing is urgent. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have a board that Is forcing us to be financially viable, and a committee that wants us to succeed.

So heck with what any of us think about the shoes… they’re just a click – a click that can bring hope to lots of lonely people.
th-2

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Send me

Posted on June 25, 2013 by jwfisch

When bad things happen send me.

I received a nice note from Pam about my Catch last week on theological conundrums. She mentioned that her pastor often talks about how the world is “subject to gravity and meteorological activity and people’s bad choices and polluted air … you get my drift. Not that God doesn’t intervene in miraculous ways but calamity is just part of existing on this planet. What God does do for us when we are in need is send people.”

Now I love that, and I believe it is true. Not that this is reason for bad things to happen, but bad things do give God an opportunity to send people, and just who would that be if it isn’t you and me?

This could be any number of a million things like offering assistance, or offering counsel, or just offering a warm body to sit with someone and kick at the darkness. The important thing is to get yourself there, and the important thing before that is to ask yourself, “Is this my chance? Is God sending me?”

th-3On September 11, 2001, my daughter was attending college north of Boston, and when she heard of the terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York, she wanted to go there. She was a trained EMT, for heaven’s sake. She could help. She could do something. Now in this case it wasn’t practical for her to go, but I never forgot that attitude. I think that’s what God is looking for — someone to say, instead of questioning, “Send me.”

Next time you hear about something bad happening to someone, instead of wondering what God is up to, I want you to imagine God pulling you aside and whispering in your ear, “I want you to go in there and help. I want you to represent me. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say when you get there; I’ll give you the words — that’s what my Holy Spirit is for — just get yourself there. I’ll handle the rest.”

When bad things happen, it’s really not up to us to try to figure out God; it’s up to us to try to figure out if God is asking us to do something about it.

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The inevitable witness of asking for help

Posted on June 24, 2013 by jwfisch

Please give me a drink. – John 4:7

th-1We worship a God who became a vulnerable human being. Superman took kryptonite. Samson lost his hair. Jack Frost relinquished his wintry powers to become the town tailor. Jesus got thirsty. It’s a story that is played out not only in history, but in fantasy, legend and mythology – someone with supernatural powers gives up those powers to become human, and it is always done for one reason: love. That was God’s reason. “But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8)

And yet Jesus did more than just come to die. He also came to live as a human being. And that’s how it came to be that the God who made the heavens and the earth, including the clouds that bring water to a thirsty land, wound up at the well of Jacob asking a Samaritan woman for a drink. She had something He needed. He gave her worth by asking her for it. Due to tradition and culture, He should have had nothing to do with this woman. As it turned out, He ended up revealing to her His identity as the Messiah — something He was much more guarded about with everyone else

Love always makes you vulnerable. There’s no way you can love without being exposed in some way or giving something up. Love and need go together. God’s love compelled Him to do what He did because that very love created in Him a need for us. By creating us He also created in Himself a place for us, and that need was reflected many times through the life of Christ.

Jesus Christ didn’t die for us because it made for good theology; He died for us because He loved us, lost us to sin, and gave Himself up to buy us back. By doing this He had to become vulnerable to the very system He created, that we might see how true love behaves. There is a death in love, and that death is the death of self. Jesus died to love us; we die as well in order to love and serve others. And part of that is in being vulnerable.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for someone is ask for help. Try Christians asking non-Christians for help. It’s a great way to start a relationship, as long as we can give up this idea that Christians have all the truth and all the answers. God has shared His truth with everyone. We do not always have to win the upper hand. By being vulnerable to those who need to know Jesus we will help them discover their own need for a savior.

Jesus asked the woman for a drink and three years later, he was asking for the same thing from a soldier as He hung on the cross – symbolic of the vulnerability He placed Himself into for the whole human race. Being vulnerable to those you love is a big part of passing that love on to someone else.

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