John Fischer The Catch

While my oldest son Christopher operates daily under extreme circumstances as an officer for the Los Angeles Police Department, he was not exactly the model often seen in the razor commercial shaving his face as he jumped out of an airplane. No, our high-flying daredevil of a son was the embodiment of apprehension as he awaited his free-fall from 10,000 feet outside the San Diego city limits. Bravery is being afraid of doing something and doing it anyway.

Since a child, Christopher knew he lived in an infinite universe with unimaginable beauty everywhere (probably why he always loved wherever he was). Early reality struggles occurred when convincing his mind and body that they were designed with unlimited possibilities. It wasn’t until he recognized that to achieve great things one must desire to live life to the fullest.  Yet why is it that so few of us do?

So what did sky diving do for Christopher? Maybe it built a bridge from where he was to where he wants to be – perhaps it unlocked raw power and potential – it could have inspired him further to care for others, which is truly his final frontier.

Will Christopher sign up for further exciting experiences? I wouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps flying in a glider over the Nevada desert (Marti has been there), or scuba diving with sharks (his sister’s done that), or bungee jumping from the Bloukrans Bridge towers in South Africa, the world’s highest single span arch bridge (his sister has done that, too).

While it will not surprise me if he funds another daredevil trip and invites Marti to join him (for which she will quickly start packing), our firstborn will continue the courageous work of the LAPD everyday. He along with the bravest of men and women will put their lives on the line for us tomorrow and the next day in order to serve and protect the safety of us all – to respond when called upon and work to coordinate a fast, effective response to protect homes, property, and most importantly the lives of those we love. Be safe out there, Christopher, you make me proud. Just take care of yourself, too… ok?

The already tiny plane was barely visible from the ground at 10,000 feet. Fortunately it was a gorgeous day and I was able to locate the Cessna directly overhead. “There she is!” cried one of the crew that was waiting with me on the ground to assist the skydivers as they land.

“Where?” I said. The plane was small enough. Then I saw a tiny little dot separating from the plane and realized that little dot was my wife hurtling towards us at terminal velocity with nothing between her and the ground but a chute that better open. (Terminal velocity is the maximum speed a falling body reaches. For a person in free fall, the terminal velocity is about 135 miles an hour.) The other dot was my daughter, Anne. There they were, the two most important women in my life, nothing but tiny falling dots in a deep blue sky.

There goes one chute! There goes the other! Phew! I think it might be harder being on the ground for this than in the sky.

This whole thing had started as a Christmas gift between my son and the girl he is dating. When my wife, Marti, got wind of it, she expressed her lifelong desire to go too, and then my daughter Anne and her boyfriend joined in and it became a family affair. For reasons I don’t need to go into here, I decided not to jump and in retrospect, I’m glad I did (although I have already announced that the next trip will be on my birthday in May).

My joy was to thoroughly enjoy my wife’s experience from her point of view. Had I decided to jump, it would have been hard not to be overwhelmed with my own emotions and unable to pay much attention to anything else. As it turned out, my joy was to take pleasure in everyone else’s experience. Shared experiences are fine, too, but they can also turn into a sort of competition over emotions. As far as I was concerned, this was Marti’s day, with nothing to stand between her and her experience, and it was good.

I think there’s some take home value here. Learning to appreciate someone else’s experience even when it has nothing to do with yours is an advanced level of caring we would do well to cultivate. Jesus learned to empathize with the sorrow of people at the tomb of Lazarus so much that he wept, even when he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Only when we get beyond ourselves can we truly love.

I’m learning to fly but I ain’t got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing
– from the song, Learning to Fly by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne

Marti signing her life away while John looks on.

There is no time left for us to stare at a blank page as if we were the author of something yet unknown. Time only to jump in and experience it all – the good, the bad and the ugly.

The key to living is not perfection. The requisite for life is not to win. No, the pivotal answer for all of us is nothing more than our willingness to act on what is right, as written on our hearts. In essence: to obey. To choose to live this way will undoubtedly include failure, blowing it, and bombing out. But those I love the most are those who go for it anyway and remain in the game to recover in spite of it all.

Like the man I married. He is one grand man of many mistakes and contradictions, and I think for this reason if people knew him better, they would perhaps take him more seriously. The reason there are songs and articles and books written by John about Christ is because knowing Christ for John is such an extraordinary reality and nothing close to commonplace.

We can change the world – even if many of us are just getting started.

Over this weekend, I jumped out of an airplane at 10,000 feet and flipped 5 times before freefalling, enjoyed the escapade of twirling, then headed toward the very top of the sky with arms stretched out wide until quite sadly, pulling the cord, I released the parachute toward the gravity of adult responsibilities – back to where I belong. The experience will always remind me of the sheer fun of flight with the light breaking forth in the skies as if it were a new day – if even for a moment. I flew with the Lord, and saw a snapshot of the unfathomable universe we all get to participate in, and most importantly, I got to see a glimmer of where God is. He is, of course, with the vulnerable and the poor and with us if we are with them – and if we are not, He continues to watch over us, perhaps hoping we capture for ourselves, if only for a moment, the fun He delights in as we change the world, turning our dreams into action, and closing the gap between dreaming and doing.

Sometime today, while you are going through the paces of your average Friday, if there is such a thing, Marti will be getting ready to jump out of an airplane. It’s one of the two things she has always wanted to do sometime in her lifetime, and since she has already accomplished the other one, the time is now. The opportunity presented itself; she saw it; she took it.

She was a little reluctant to have me write about this beforehand, however, not sure she wants to go down on record for this. What if I don’t go through with it? Well, she will. I know her.

Imagine if all the things you said you would do went down in writing to thousands of people before you did them so that if you failed, you not only failed yourself, you failed a host of other people as well, who knew about you and were counting on you. Would that make you more of a man or woman of your word? Well consider yourself served with an audience of God and a heavenly cloud of witnesses. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

One of Marti’s favorite phrases is “to die for.” Anything that is truly great is, in her book, to die for. She’s famous, at least in our family, for stating before all the attendees of her father’s funeral that the Hospice people who took care of him in his last days were absolutely to die for. Kid you not.

Hopefully, Mart’s experience tomorrow, though great, won’t be to die for. We want to hear about it from the living.

[Tonight I will let Marti wax as only she can about this Isaiah House January. We want you to know all your comments and suggestions melded into a splendid evening, and would you believe, she’s already got a theme for next month and something for you guys to do, but more on that later.]

Dream tree.

In spite of the threatening rain, God peppered the night with stars for us and they crowded round the Isaiah House. Though they were curious to see what was taking place, their job was to watch over us; guarding our hearts from any anguish and just when our minds were being twisted a tad too far, the smaller stars started twinkling until we were smiling together again.

Thus was our evening at the Isaiah House. The dinner was elegant. The Women of Vision were most gracious. The Guests of the Isaiah House were full of gratitude.

There is something to the idea of Gratitude that the Guests of the Isaiah House are teaching us Women of Vision. The Guests are facing into those who have failed them, caused them pain, and gambled with their lives and who, because of death or fixity, will never turn around. The guests recognize that whatever evil or lack these people have unleashed in their lives, there are at least one or two redemptive qualities that contributed to who our Guests are today. The Guests understand that if we loathe our lives and ourselves, then we will loathe “them” w — and if we loathe them we are loathing ourselves. If we stop the cycle then what remains is what remains — here we are, there they are, or were, and to be alive is something; a root of Gratitude for another, which is necessary for anything Good to happen to anyone.

So, yes, I think it is possible. At the end of a certain process, it is nearly inevitable, I think, to have a very basic root of gratitude. Certainly grounds enough for Women of Vision throwing a party; announcing a gratitude that causes healing; recalling to our guests hope amongst finite disappointment; and launching, maybe for the first time in a very long time, dreams from the very hearts of our Isaiah House Guests.

“I dream my family can be all together – just one time – again.”

“I dream that every woman here finds happiness.”

“I dream I will no longer feel the shame about my past or the time wasted.”

“I dream that I dunk a basketball with accuracy.”

“I dream that as the Lord loves me, I might love.”

“I dream to continue my life without bitterness.”

“I dream for a less painful path.”

“Because I have enough sin for an army, I dream I become a poster child for forgiveness.”

The first time Jesus spoke in public, His first words are from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” (Isaiah 61:6; New International Version)

What He was really talking about was an era of grace—and we’re still in it.

A converted Muslim tells a remarkable story about how one December, she had four Muslim families come over to her house and wish her a Merry Christmas. The reason for this, she related, was that, as a gesture of friendship and respect, she had visited them on their important Muslim holy days, even after her conversion to Christianity. So impressed were they by what she had done, that they returned the gesture on her next Christmas as a Christian.

This was not her original approach. “For a time I tried to convert every Muslim I came across,” she wrote. But then she was studying the story in John 4 about Jesus and a Samaritan woman, and noticed how he treated her, coming from another culture. He respected her — He didn’t judge her — and He taught her something about God based on her own understanding of her culture and her religion. And even though he revealed to her that he knew all about her past sins, he did not reject her or condemn her, but spoke to her as to one whom he highly valued.

That’s when this converted Muslim realized that converting people was not as important a part of her job as showing them God’s love. So she is learning to love her Muslim friends — even engage in long discussions about God and His mercy with them, without having to convert them or correct every wrong thing they say.

This woman has already learned something as a new Christian that I am still learning as one who grew up believing — that you don’t have to make everyone relinquish everything they already believe in order to embrace Christ. Our mission is not to prove everyone wrong, but to share the love of Christ with everyone we meet through the reality of our own relationship with God. We are on a mission, not to shoot everybody down, or to straighten everybody out, but to simply love people and point them toward the truth.

“You Samaritans know so little about the one you worship,” Jesus told the woman at the well, “while we Jews know all about Him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way” (John 4:22-23).

Jesus completes the picture; he doesn’t erase what was there. We can point anyone to Christ, confident that if they are truly seeking God, they will find Him in Jesus, regardless of where they might have been looking so far.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to return home from her work as a seamstress. Like all blacks who rode buses in the South in those days, she paid her fare up front and then backed out of the bus and went to the back door that opened into the “Colored” section. Paying up front and walking to the back would have meant passing through the “White” section – something that was strictly forbidden. Finding the “Colored” section full, she took a seat in the neutral zone, a few rows in the middle that were designated either way, depending on the load.

When the bus filled up on subsequent stops, the driver ordered her out of the neutral section to make room for in-coming white passengers. When Mrs. Parks stayed put, he warned her, “I’ll call the police.”

“Do what you must,” Mrs. Parks replied quietly.

Rosa’s defiance was not premeditated. She wasn’t intending on becoming one of the central figures of the civil rights movement. She wasn’t even thinking about protesting and going to jail if necessary. She was merely responding to a sense of justice inside her that said it was wrong for her to have to move for another person based solely on the color of her skin.

The bus driver did call the police, and Rosa Parks was arrested and taken off the bus, and when the rest of the black community heard about it, there was a massive boycotting of public transportation in Montgomery that lasted almost a year until the laws were finally changed by a Supreme Court ruling.

That decision was cemented by a speech not long after Rosa’s arrest by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in which he stated, “We will stay off the buses. We will walk until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24)

Though the civil rights movement was in full swing when I was in high school and college, I never got it. As a Christian growing up evangelical, we were so focused on people’s eternal salvation that we missed the importance of their quality of life here and now. The whole idea of justice didn’t register with me, even though I sang Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary songs all about it. And yet to read the scriptures – Old and New Testaments both – is to realize God is as concerned about justice as he is about salvation. We need to pay more attention to the conditions surrounding the daily lives of all people in society. We need to ask ourselves, what are the examples of injustice around us today?

It’s the hammer of justice
It’s the bell of freedom
It’s the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
–  Pete Seeger, Lee Hays

As believers who have been rescued from the stereotype, we share a strong sense of passion for the possible, knowing there never was a night or a problem that could defeat a sunrise or a hope. As the unstoppable Helen Keller put it, “The world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming it.”

We all experience long and hard trials that are frustrating and disappointing. Even so as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose hope…. If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose the courage to be – that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”

King epitomized that hope in his famous “I have a dream” speech. You can’t have a dream without hope, and you can’t hope without the promises of God to base it on.

And so…  today, “I have a dream!”

Because of hope, Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed and than lived his dream. For Dr. King, hope was interwoven into the very fiber of his being and, thus, into our lives.

As we celebrate Martin Luther King’s legacy today, let’s ask each other, “What is your dream?” Together, we can help each other to make the connection between hope and having a dream. While having hope doesn’t make circumstances better, having hope makes us want to make it better.

And so … What is your dream?

My mother’s comment about Marti when she first realized we were getting serious was that she had been praying for someone for me who would make life fun, and it looks like her prayers were answered. Well I can truthfully say after all these years that she was right. And though I’ve done more than enough to put that spark out with my naturally worried and more cynical nature, I haven’t been able to extinguish it. And now Marti tells me her New Year’s resolution for 2011 is: Have Fun. It doesn’t look like this will be going away any time soon.

Lest you interpret this as just something flippant (although I think it is that, too) it is definitely more than that. The fun Marti brings is something deeply spiritual. It’s a kind of un-self-conscious enjoyment of life in the Spirit. It’s an abandonment to God that puts you in the center of the Spirit-life looking out. If you are looking in, you are not there. If you are having to ask: “Are we having fun yet?” you are not there. In her own words: “I think there is fun in everything that is of the Spirit – snow days, work days, or days when you sit in the lap of the Almighty wrapped in His robes of righteousness while peering out to see what He sees – it is all fun!”

Is this being insensitive to tragedy? Does this having fun bit only work when things are going well? Let me just say that it’s been a while since the Fischer household was all looseness and light, and yet the fun is still here. It’s really life in another dimension. It’s the Spirit-life where God’s in control. It’s that place where His will is being experienced on earth as it is in heaven. It’s what Paul calls life in the “heavenlies” and it is not pie in the sky by and by. It is here and now. The kingdom of God has come… and it’s fun!

How do we eliminate fear? By taking charge of our situation. By doing something instead of nothing. The two servants who invested the money the Master entrusted to them were not afraid. (See yesterday’s Catch.) If they had any fear at all, it was covered up by their activity. The third servant, however, was overcome with fear and did nothing. He sat on it, and God could do nothing with him because of his inactivity.

Fear rules where inactivity festers. Fear dissipates where activity flourishes.

Remember when the disciples were fearing for their lives on a stormy Sea of Galilee, and Jesus came to them walking on the water? Now they were even more afraid thinking they were seeing a ghost. But as soon as Peter saw that it was Jesus he asked if he could walk out to meet him. Jesus bade him come and for a while Peter too walked on water until he took his focus off of Christ and onto the storm and started sinking, requiring Jesus to reach out and rescue him.

Now compare Peter’s experience with that of the other eleven disciples on the boat. They are sitting there with nothing to do but worry. Peter didn’t have time to worry; he was too busy acting on his faith. He was having an adventure because he chose to get out of the boat and do something. He took charge of the situation and turned it into a story we’re still talking about and learning from today. And even when he did get afraid out there on the water, when he took his eyes off of Jesus and started noticing the waves and the storm, Jesus was right there to rescue him.

Initiation dissipates fear. The “doing” is the best weapon against being afraid, because once we step out of the boat, the adventure begins. The choice is always ours – do nothing and be afraid, or do something and believe.