John Fischer The Catch

Everybody should be allowed at least one computer day a year. By that I mean a day you didn’t plan on losing to some form of technological breakdown in your high-tech arsenal of electronics necessary for twenty-first century communication.

Mine turned out to be six hours in the Apple store yesterday getting Marti’s iPhone to sync with her calendar and contacts. Forrest, Michael, Mandy and I are all on a first name basis now, and given how hard they worked to try and help me, I have no complaints in their regard. I understand this is part of the nature of the beast. Six hours. And I had Chandler with me as well. In fact, it started out as a one-on-one session with Chandler to help him get the most out of his computer, and the poor guy never got his shot. I never would have made it as far as I did if they didn’t have video games he could play in the store.

How did I do? Well I definitely could have done better. I could have seized the opportunity to find out what this experience was all about. Instead of fighting it I could have gone with it and looked for what meaning I could find in the futility, and gain through what appeared to be a random sequence of malfunctions. I could have asked, “God, what do you have me here for right now?” (There’s nothing random with God.)

I’m writing about this so that those of you who might be going through a similar experience might think to ask God the question, “what do you have me here for right now?” Actually, we could all stand to ask ourselves this question many times a day.

Last week, Marti and I wrote about the stars of Isaiah House for homeless women – the ones who live there as well as the silver confetti stars strewn out on the ground in the aftermath of a “Puttin’ on the Ritz” celebration Marti engineered as part of a Women of Vision assistance program. Four days later, I’m still seeing stars.

There are stars on the floorboard of my car, stars on the dashboard, stars on the driveway, and yes, even stars in my eyes. You see, on the way back from the shelter last week, Chandler and his best friend, who had helped us decorate and were the ones responsible for originally distributing the confetti stars in the first place, tried to throw a handful of them out the window as we drove home on the freeway, and the wind had blown many of them back in the car with a number ending up on the panel behind the back seat. Those are the ones that revisit my mind the most because I see their reflection in the rear window every time I look through the rear view mirror; they float there, suspended. Today it rained, and through the raindrops on the window, the stars appear to hover just outside the car.

So far I haven’t done anything about removing them from my car. I don’t think I can. They’re almost sacred. I feel like I would be devaluing someone’s life if I did. So they will remain, at least for the time being, a reminder of God’s view of everyone, but especially those who haven’t had a fair shake in life.

Today I walked down to the beach, and guess what I almost stepped on in the street, strewn over two blocks by the runoff from a recent downpour? Stars. Apparently Chandler and his friend had tossed a few out the window as we drove up the street to our house.

I suppose you could call that littering the street. I prefer to think of it as glittering.

Shanice McKinley is running for Miss California, and should she get anywhere near her goal, it would be a huge feather in the cap of the town she is from which is known for its gangs, not its beauty queens. Shanice is from Compton, California, a town trying hard to throw off its violent history. There are signs of improvement and Shanice is one of them. She is going around to the small businesses in her community seeking to raise support for the entry fee and wardrobe she will need to compete in the pageant.

“Hi, my name is Shanice McKinley and I am running for Miss California USA, and my whole campaign is really to change the image of what people think about the city of Compton and our youth.”

Images and stereotypes are hard to shake. Just ask Shanice.

At Cal State San Bernardino where she earned her degree, her roommate didn’t show up for freshman orientation or the first week of classes because she was afraid to share a room with a Compton girl. “I thought she was going to be crazy and rude and loud and stuff.” When she finally decided to actually MEET the girl from Compton, she found out the roommate she feared was actually sweet-natured, bubbly, and even a bit naive. The two became inseparable.

How many times have you had a stereotype shattered by coming to know a real person? You’d think we would learn. Without the labels, we are all pretty much the same. When you know a person by name, all other distinctions pale.

If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where fashion sits…
Puttin’ on the ritz. – lyrics by Irving Berlin

It was Women of Vision night again at the Isaiah House for homeless women in Santa Ana (every one, a star), and that meant my wife, Marti, was once again a coordinator of confetti, the one who figures out a way to bring a sparkle into the eyes of women with little to smile about. This time she did it with top hats, bow ties and tails, and the theme of Puttin’ on the Ritz, complete with a stand in for Fred Astaire… yours truly!

Tables were covered in dark cloth and sprinkled with candlelight and silver star-shaped confetti. The soup line was transformed into a chorus line served by eight women of vision in top hats and bow ties, dishing out a menu inspired by cuisine from the Ritz Hotel in New York City. And yes, I was the entertainment, doing my best imitation of soft shoe in top hat, tails and accompanying cane.

Dressed up like a million dollar trouper
Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper

Music for the night besides the dance routine included period pieces “Anything Goes” and “Me and My Shadow,” “One” from the Broadway musical Chorus Line, Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl,” Petula Clark’s “Downtown,” and I couldn’t resist: ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man.”

The highlight for me, though, was when I went to take Marti’s arm for a final walk across the “stage,” and, finding her hands full of punch-laden champagne glasses, I found one of the women of the house to take my arm and stroll into the night. (She later told me that she had come with a heavy heart and that her weight had been completely lifted by what happened last night.)

Marti wrote as she mused about the evening (and there is no more I can add to this):

“Just how many evenings like this will I have left in one small life, amidst the tax returns and supermarket shops and work that I’m aware I should be doing now while gathering the bits of leftover glitter of silver confetti stars, sweeping up brightness from the floor, to tip into the bin bright constellations … How much time is left to sweep up stars?”

I was reminded recently of a story I used to tell about a man who was the last to share in his prayer group. They were going around in a circle, giving their personal requests for prayer when they came to him and he took a deep breath and proceeded to relate some very ugly things he was going through in his life right then including some anger at God and a real sense of being depressed due to questions he had no answers for and problems he couldn’t solve. He had wanted to avoid these painful things and just focus on how good God is, but the reality and intensity of his present state of affairs prevented him from telling anything but the truth.  When he finished, there was a long pause, and the man related to me how in that silence he had regretted revealing as much as he did. It was then that someone broke the silence with five very special words: “Can we go around again?”

Five words—that’s all—but oh how important those five words are. Those five words say: You are not alone. If the rest of us had been as honest, we would all have equally challenging things to say. In fact, let’s go around again so we can!

What good is so-called prayer time if we don’t tell the truth about what we really need? Who are we touching if we are not allowing ourselves to be touched? Whatever it is that you are afraid to reveal, it’s not as bad as the phony, shallow relationships that will result if you don’t.

“Can we go around again?” says so much. It says you have courage, you want to be and know the truth, and you are willing to stick out as the only one with real problems, should no one else choose to meet your level of honesty.

For the sake of yourself and others, be a “Can we go around again?” person.

In trying to get closer to the root causes of what appears to be a typically poor self-image among evangelicals, I need not go much farther than my own childhood raised in an evangelical home.

We used to sing a song in Sunday school called “Jesus and Others and You, what a wonderful way to spell JOY.” Now taken correctly, this little ditty, though simplistic, could mean to put Jesus and others before yourself, and that would be biblically sound, except that somehow, when this was taught, we caught something else from our teachers. We caught that we were supposed to lower ourselves below everybody else. We were scumbags. We were nothing. Godliness was next to worthlessness. You could never take credit for anything. You could never be proud about anything because pride was a sin. Under the guise of humility, there was perpetrated a kind of sinister nothingness not unlike “The Nothing” in the movie The Never Ending Story. How else do you explain the poor, drab, non-descript character that has typified Christians for decades? (Think no farther than the church lady.)

The problem with this is that it is not in keeping with a God of love who created us in his image and loved us first before we could ever love back. By treating ourselves so poorly in our own minds we are actually desecrating what God created and called good.

Yes, the scriptures talk about humbling yourself, giving yourself up (husbands), offering yourself as a living sacrifice, dying to yourself, pouring yourself out in service (Paul), but when it does, it is assuming you have a good hold of something of a reasonably respectable self to give up, to pour out, to die to, and to offer! We had become so ingrained with the idea that self was the problem, that when it came to doing something with ourselves, we had nothing to do anything with. We had reduced ourselves to nothing. This is a perversion of humility, and nothing close to what men and women of the Bible experienced. And this thinking is so subtle and cynical that I am still finding my way out of it.

There is a way to make others important without making yourself unimportant. There is a way to consider others better than yourself without considering yourself the scum of the earth. There is a way to love others based on a way you love yourself that honors both loves as necessary and right. Don’t ever devalue what God values… you.

Evangelical Myth #4: All Christians love themselves like the Lord loves them – that is why when you meet a Christian you feel so loved.

Wouldn’t this be great if it were true? In reality, Christians are the least likely to love themselves. It’s so tragic. How a book who’s sole purpose is to announce to a race of people that they are all made in the image of a God of love who wants to spend eternity with them and has sacrificially done everything to remove the barriers that keep that from happening could can turn out a host of fearful, angry people who are incapable of loving anyone because they are convinced that they are not lovely, is beside me.

Guilt plays a huge role in paralyzing believers. Even after knowing what we know about God’s grace and mercy and how he has forgiven and forgotten our sin, we are still hounded by guilt. Is it that we don’t really believe it? Or is it that we keep insisting on having some part in our salvation, because if we do, we will always wonder whether we have done enough.

How about you? Do you have difficulty loving yourself? I do. Something in us just can’t take a free gift. We’re suspicious. We can intellectually understand God’s love – even believe it – but it doesn’t get down to the heart of the matter. No matter how we slice it, we simply don’t believe we are good enough to be loved by God – by anyone for that matter.

The problem is, this is not a spiritual bonus – something you can live with or without, it is fundamental to everything. We can’t claim to know God if we don’t know this. And how can we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, if, in fact, we don’t love ourselves?

There is a scripture that needs to be foremost in our thinking. It should be on our lips; it should be written on our doorposts and on our gates; it should be worn around our necks the way the Pharisees wore the law. It should be everywhere because it is so hard to remember and harder still to believe: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2).

No condemnation. No exceptions. No joke.

Marti is not done yet. She gave me enough for two days so here is Day 2.

So convinced am I that Roses on Wednesday will revitalize a marriage that I will guarantee it will work, even if a payment plan is prearranged with a florist so that the flowers are sent out each week automatically. Same result. Doesn’t matter how, as long as it’s done. I’ve even given more than half a thought to setting up a business to do this for you guys.

No, Roses on Wednesday isn’t everything, but it is a visible beginning to show that your love is true.

In Ephesians 5, I am commanded to give value to John, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). But more importantly, you men are to give yourselves to your wives: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself” (Ephesians 5:25-28).

Here is what I think: I think John and you need to restructure from God’s perspective what you are to be doing with your wives, coming with as much expectation as we woman would to Christ, while you are preparing to die for us as Christ died for us all.

No more chatting, dear brothers. Either join what God has given you, embrace it, improve on it, and when miracles arise, give praise to the Lord for His work through you… or don’t.

Are you truly still with me asking where to begin? I will tell you: Submit yourself to going beyond yourself and resist denial.

It’s your call.

Okay guys. Lest you think this “Roses on Wednesday” thing might just blow over, here’s what my wife has to say about it.

Whether you are married, dating, about to… thinking of… or already getting a divorce, consider this view from the Fisch bowl: Just stop. Stop the complexity, and start making your life more simple. Buy your wife, your date, or your departing mate Roses on Wednesday.

“But, oh no!” you say, as though shocked that I would suggest such a simple form of manipulation. Yes, my dear. Yes. I will say it again – YES! Buy her Roses on Wednesday. Buy them on Wednesday, when things tend to be blue for her.

Seek out the lost, gentlemen, which starts within your home, which is your wife (or the woman you are dating, or the woman you let go). Don’t shy away. Instead, go deeper. Once in, bless them by praying for them, fellowship with them, care for them, and then when they ask, “What is this?” tell them the Kingdom of God is here!

Join the Lord’s system. You, my dear brother, must be convinced that God has a destiny greater and better than your present circumstances. She is God’s gift to you, and you are God’s gift to her. It is not just a truth we can grumble about; it is an attitude. Attitude always determines altitude. If you think you have married the wrong person, like Esther, choose to treat her like the right one, and she will turn into the right one. On the other hand, if you married the right one, yet treat her as the wrong one, she will turn into the wrong one. I suggest you declare right now that your mate (past, present or future) is God’s gift to you.

Embrace what God has given you, passionately. You must put your arms around her. Eat and drink what each has put before the other. So often, you have rejected her and she, you (verbally, or more than likely through the conversations you have with yourself in your head), pointing out the flaws instead of the hope that lies ahead.

Bring the kingdom of God to your marriage. Bless your marriage, whether it is alive, dead, or moved on. Embrace it, and bring to bear the power of God on the areas that require miracles. Once the kingdom is in place, it is bound to expand to your children, your neighbors, your community, and your jobs. I do not think it works in the reverse.

I have a theory that when a preacher starts coming down hard against something there’s a pretty good chance that something is a particularly personal problem for the preacher. I have this on good authority – my own experience. For instance, I can get really riled up about Christians being judgmental. I can cut and dice this sin a hundred different ways because I am so well acquainted with it in my own life. When it comes to judging judgmental Christians, I can really dish it out. Welcome to Evangelical Myth #3: Christians practice what they preach.

Busted.

As a writer and speaker, I am often having things I have said or written come back to haunt me. One particular example of this is in a song I wrote about giving your wife roses every Wednesday. The inspiration behind this was a couple I had the privilege of knowing and observing early on in my career. Horton and Edna Voss were the most in love couple I have ever known. Edna was clearly the focus of Horton’s affections and her glowing demeanor was evidence of the attention he lavished on her. He was always surprising her in thoughtful ways and the most famous example I eulogized in a song, “Roses on Wednesday.” The practice started when they were dating and continued throughout their marriage. He never missed a Wednesday.

Here’s the deal: Even though I have told and written the story numerous times and sung it a thousand times more, and even though I know that I could give my wife roses – even a single rose – every Wednesday until I pass from this earth, and it would never cease to amaze her, have I done it? No. Such a simple thing… Such a dead ringer for success… Yet my track record is poor.

It’s especially painful when I run into a happy wife who thanks me profusely for giving her husband the idea, because he hasn’t missed a Wednesday since he heard about it from me. Seems I’ve made other wives happy and missed my own.

Hey guys… Don’t look now but it’s Wednesday. Come on, you can’t do worse than me. You don’t have to make a pact with every Wednesday yet to come. Just get this one. Help me practice what I preach, even though I busted this myth.