John Fischer The Catch

Getting up is one thing. Getting out is another. But there’s something one of our readers reminded me about that can render them both moot. Know what it is? Yep. It’s the snooze alarm.

In our house it goes like this: Get up! (Snooz-z-z-ze.) Get up! (Snooz-z-z-ze.) Get up! (Snooz-z-z-ze.) And that right there is good for 30 minutes. But was it worth it?

Ever wonder about how effective those last three ten minute intervals of sleep are? Not very, would be my guess. It takes time to drop back into deep enough levels of sleep to mean anything. Had you just set your alarm for 30 minutes later and added that last 30 minutes of uninterrupted sleep onto what went before it, and then simply gotten up when the alarm went off the first time, you’d come out at the same place, but a lot further down the road and a lot less fatigued.

Whoever invented the snooze alarm will have to answer for the gradual slow takedown of civilization, as we know it. Effective, powerful, productive people rendered useless by a button. Lost in the realm of “Maybe.” Wandering in the land of Wait-and-See. Languishing in the Just-Nine-More-Minutes zone.

Jesus said to use a simple “Yes” or “No” (Matthew 5:37). He never said anything about “Maybe.” “Maybe” gets you nowhere. That is one word I can never imagine coming out of the mouth of Jesus. “Maybe” is the snooze alarm of life, and I have it from a reliable source that Jesus would never hit that button.

Your mission today (should you choose to accept it) is to get yourself up out of bed and throw yourself out into the world. That’s right: Get up and get out.

My, how daring we are! Well, yes, when you consider how dangerous a place the world is, and how inadequate we feel when we try to make a difference in it. But just read this:

“For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?” (2 Corinthians 2:15-16 NIV)

Now there is a picture: You and me having a significant effect on people, churning up reactions as varied as life and death by our mere presence. It’s no surprise Paul would wonder, in the next breath, who, if any, might be equal to this task. It’s a rhetorical question that he intends to answer, and he does in the next chapter. “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God who has made us adequate ….” (2 Corinthians 3:5-6 NIV) In other words, we aren’t adequate, but we are. We aren’t adequate in ourselves, but we are in Christ. And we find this out when we jump into the world, believing.

By believing, you are taking the particular characteristics of a believer (a person in whom God’s presence is a factor) out into the world, and by nature of your presence in the world and the presence of Christ in your life, you will make a difference. So, you see, it is all about literally throwing yourself out there and trusting that God shows up when you do, even when you don’t exactly know what’s going to happen next, you just know you’ll be ready when it does by nature of the Spirit of God in you. How about that for living dangerously?

As a friend of mine said once, almost nonchalantly, a true Christian is choosing the most dangerous occupation in the world. I think he’s right, not only because Satan is alive and well on planet earth working to discredit those who believe, but because God likes us living on the edge in believing him. I really don’t think faith is mainstream. I don’t think it gets the popular vote. Real faith does not win mass-market appeal. True faith is a challenge of wits. It’s the mover and shaker of the status quo. Faith kicks us out of our safety net and into the world. If nothing’s on the line, then there’s no faith required. That’s dangerous, but all the more exhilarating when God shows up and shows himself to be true to his promises.

So get up and get out. It’s the only way to truly find out!

I live at the Isaiah House and my friend Marti let me in on some of what might be happening there on February 16th when she and her friends put on the Isaiah House Academy Awards. When I heard that we might all be receiving “Oscars,” I told her that of course I’d want to be making an acceptance speech! Well you would have thought I had applied for a job because she took me up on the idea and told me she wanted to share my speech with her group of online supporters – those same people who made Christmas so memorable.  So anyway, here it is, after many, many rewrites. I hope you like it.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Catch, I thank you for acknowledging me. I want to tell you from where I came and to pay tribute to the many dedicated (they really are) men and women who have made recent milestones in my life a reality.

At the Isaiah House, I know countless volunteer workers (there are no paid employees) and hundreds of fellow at-risk women who would otherwise be living on the streets. All of us together are learning to understand more about who we really are, and about who Jesus is, often without using words. Everyone at the Isaiah House is in the process of change.

When I lived on the streets, I felt abandoned and ashamed. People stared at me and I know they must have been thinking that something was wrong with me because I had no home.

When on the streets, everyone looks for acceptance. I only met a haunting fear that I was alone with no one to call. I was thinking of returning to an abusive partner because it might be better than being alone out here on the street. I needed somebody to talk to.

When I was first got here, I didn’t trust anyone. How could I? My own friends and family rejected and betrayed me. I had learned that no one helps you without wanting something in return. I was very suspicious of compassion.

Many of us at the Isaiah House are unwed or divorced. Many of us blame ourselves for our martial status or homelessness. Many of us have children. They were taken away and live somewhere else. You can probably understand why most of us feel like failures and believe other people and our children see us as failures too.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am fiercely independent and a fighter. Most of us are. We value our independence, which explains why I was able to survive in a hostile environment on the streets. We know life is not easy, but I am not going to give up.

It might come as a surprise to you that I am a believer. I was born and raised in a church. Yet my church gave up on me. I definitely felt I was not wanted.

I am used to taking care of everything myself. Yet, on the street I became very tired. My tiredness made me recognize I needed help. I needed support. I needed rest. I needed someone to care. I needed a place where I was able to rest my mind, if even for a short time.

The Isaiah House people gave me the gift of rest for my mind and my soul and more – my heart. My heart is being filled with love.

Ladies and gentlemen, if this award stands for anything, it stands for the united spirit I am coming to know. It is in you and it is in me, too. You understand achievement because you have overcome barriers. I am beginning to overcome barriers and am beginning to achieve because people like you are meeting the challenges with me. I no longer feel alone.

As I accept this award on your behalf, I am recognizing that you do count me as someone – as someone who is planting a seed today for the future and, maybe, for us all. Thank you so much and God bless you all.

You may have heard it said that you need to earn respect in order to receive it. I suppose at some level respect is something earned, as in one’s area of expertise or one’s career. But in terms of personhood, there is a basic level of respect that everyone deserves regardless of one’s position or performance. It’s what everyone should receive freely from the beginning by nature of being made in the image of God. Otherwise, respect will be determined by nationality, race, religion, physical/mental attributes, or some other category made important by the group or designated point of view.

At its basic level, respect is a spiritual thing. It’s ultimately based on an understanding of who we all are in the eyes of God.

In his 2001 commencement address at Marquette University, the late Fred (Mister) Rogers said: “For a long time I wondered why I felt like bowing when people showed their appreciation for the work that I’ve been privileged to do. What I’ve come to understand is that we who bow are probably—whether we know it or not—acknowledging the presence of the eternal: we’re bowing to the eternal in our neighbor. You see, I believe that appreciation is a holy thing, that when we look for what’s best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does. So, in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something truly sacred.”

How much difference would it make in the way we treated people, if whenever we were in someone else’s presence, we were aware of being in the presence of the holy?

Today, make a decision to think more about giving respect than getting it.

Well it seems that each day we refine this message a little more. First it was “Tell them I love them,” then “Tell them you love them,” and now it’s more like showing them you love them by the way you treat them with dignity, worth and a splash of fun.

Leading up to Oscar night is a big deal in southern California. Gowns will be anticipated, parties will be speculated; winners will be debated. We can’t help it; we are Hollywood.

Not to be outdone, Women of Vision Orange County is pleased to announce its first annual Isaiah House Academy Awards to be held in Santa Ana February 16, 2011. Each Isaiah House Oscar winner will be formally announced and will walk the red carpet clad in furs and feathers provided by your generous gifts as members of the Catch online community. And because the light bulbs use by the paparazzi will surely blind our celebrities, Spy Optic, Inc. is donating a pair of dark glasses for each nominee from its array of contemporary styled premium eyewear. Our theme for the evening will be based on Spy Optic’s product statement, “It’s not seeing different things; it’s seeing the same things differently.”

This will be an evening where real people are acknowledged – not just the pretty people. Our special guests, who are receiving second beginnings for all sorts of reasons, deserve to be congratulated for remaining in the game in spite of it all, just like you and me.

The Academy is requesting you supply your sense of good humor by donating crazy wigs, feathery boas, glamorous hats, gaudy rhinestone jewelry, make believe furs, or any such thing that can be donned quickly and augment ones red carpet moment. Our Master of Ceremonies (yours truly) would also appreciate any jokes or scripts you could send in that might be appropriate. Please send your fun stuff to 1278 Glenneyre, Laguna Beach, CA 92651 to arrive no later than Monday, February 14, 2011.

As can happen sometimes with my Catches that I post late, my wife looks at them the following morning and mentions something like, “This is very good…” and then proceeds to point out 8 things she would have done differently. And as usual, Marti’s changes are brilliant, and often based on her identification with non-Christians and my inability to see outside the evangelical box I grew up in.

In this case, her points are so excellent, I have to share a few of them with you. For instance, instead of “Tell her I love her,” though the sentiment is right, God is much more likely to say to us, “Tell her you love her.” The issue is the transforming power of the Spirit through us as we reach out and touch another human being.

Which is easier to say, “God loves you,” or “I love you”? Which is more involving? Which leaves you more vulnerable? Which means connecting with another human being? Let’s face it, we aren’t standing in for the Holy Spirit, we are the Holy Spirit, or perhaps I should say, the Holy Spirit “R” us. The Holy Spirit is in us and working through us. Does that mean we have to be perfect? Far from it. It means we show up and act. We are the verb of the gospel sentence. Get out there; jump in with people; connect. Come out of our isolation. God will use whomever shows up, in whatever condition they show up in.

There is need for only one cross with one man to die on it, and one Son of God… the man, Jesus, who left one Holy Spirit behind to live and move through everyone who believes. The rest is up to us to believe and act on.

Here is what the Spirit of God says to us: “Tell him I love him.” It could be to a friend recovering from bypass surgery in the hospital; it could be to a homeless man, smelly and half nuts; it could to be your husband just going out the door for a few groceries—and never coming back; it could be to the lady who cut in front of you in line; it could be to your best friend – the one you won’t ever see again, who left the party early to walk home by himself… In all of these situations, the Holy Spirit wants to have us stand in for him. He wants us to deliver the message. It’s the ultimate gift, and it explains why God sent his Son into the world, but it’s less complicated than that. It’s distilled into three words, one phrase, and it’s the point of it all: “Tell her I love her.”

It’s the Holy Spirit’s whisper. He whispers it in our ear while we stand in front of someone it would be impossible for us to love otherwise. And he whispers it in our ear as we casually say good-by to the most familiar face we know. And why do I need to do this? She’ll be back in just a few minutes. Will she? “Tell her I love her.” Don’t miss an opportunity.

Because it’s ultimately what the Father said to the Son when he watched them nail him to a cross and had to turn his back as he agonized alone, covered in sin that was not his and forsaking his only begotten: “Tell them I love them,” God said. And he did.

I have not seen the new version of “True Grit,” but I have read a few favorable reviews, one of which lauded the moralistic virtue that comes through the film especially embodied in the character of young Maddie. The review quoted her as saying: “My father would want me to be firm in the right, as he always was.” And then… “The Author of all things watches over me … and I have a good horse.”

Now that’s enough to sell me right there.

We are, all of us, a combination of very human, very ordinary things, yet with a spiritual component of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. It’s this balance, this sacred right up next to secular – the holy and the common – that makes up who we are. You can’t have one without the other. Try to spiritualize everything and you lose the human element that makes life real. Try and explain everything in human terms and you miss the hand of God shaping and giving meaning to everything.

Indeed, you can’t understand Jesus without accepting the human and the divine altogether. And it’s not half and half, 50% of each. Jesus was (is) 100% God and 100% man. That’s why he can identify with us.

Yes, the Author of all things watches over me… and I have a good horse!

Those of you who have been with us for a while realize we have left out an important part of our family so far this week – our 11-year-old Chandler. Most of that is because he was not on the skydiving trip. And yet it would not be right to conclude a week introducing family to you without mentioning the one who has contributed so much to uniting us. Not that he was ever conscious of that; he just did.

An eighteen-year span separates Anne from Chandler, but no one I know is counting. It would have been easy for Christopher and Anne to check out on family when Mom and Dad decided to start over again. Most parents start celebrating an empty nest at this point. But they didn’t. On the contrary, they circled back and have embraced Chandler as little brother and as a result there is no one Chandler loves more on this planet than his big brother and sister.

Over the years I have not always made my family my top priority. I have cared more about what people I will never know thought of me than my own kids. With Chandler and everyone back, I feel like I have my second wind, and so far, I have my family back.

Recently God has given me a word that I choose to pass on to you. The word was something to the effect of saying: How can you expect to take care of my family if you haven’t taken care of yours? It’s a priority not always taken but one that will reward the bearer handsomely.

Marti’s brother, Mark, remarked after seeing the pictures of our recent skydiving outing, that the most incredible thing about the whole experience was not jumping out of a plane at 10,000 feet, but the fact that Marti was looking great in a pair of jeans. Mark was just as surprised finding out she owned a pair as he was seeing her actually wearing them.

My wife will always be the best-dressed woman in town. It’s not that she works hard at this, nor is it because she has something to prove, it’s because it simply is. I’ve been with her long enough to not question this or try and change it. I take her as she comes; and I have learned to enjoy the ride.

One of the most common mistakes made in many marriages is to think that one can influence some kind of change over time on a partner. To think that you can like certain things about your mate and change the rest is the death-knell of any relationship. You buy the whole package, and if there are things you wish you could change (and there will be), you learn to look at those things in another light. In most cases, these will be the things you end up loving the most about a person. It’s a part of what unconditional love is all about. It’s more than just accepting what you don’t like or understand about the other, it’s about loving them for that.

In my case, it hasn’t been that hard to accept the fact that my wife happens to always be the best looking woman is the room. Not that it’s a contest; it’s just the way it is. If she could have jumped out of a plane in a dress and heels, she would have. But I must admit (and one day she may actually discover this too), that she really does look great in a pair of jeans.