Balance.

Do you remember the teeter totter in the playground at your childhood school?
You'd get on, one of your friends on the other end. up and down, first you would push, then your friend... If you weighed about the same amount, you could go up and down with that person for a long time.

But did you ever get on the thing with somebody who was bigger than you? Remember that sickening feeling when you realized that you had no control over the situation? That bigger kid could keep you up high for a long time, or slam you to the ground. There was nothing that you could do about it.

This is an illustration of balance. So long as that teeter totter was in balance, life was good, even, simple and fun.

Another example would be to imagine 3 potted plants. Lets say that you give one plant 5 cups of water each day. The second plant you give 1 cup of water. The third plant you never water. What would happen? Well, none of the plants would do very well. The first one is getting too much water, and his roots are rotting. The second is getting by, but barely. The third is slowly dying of starvation.

Think for a minute about the balance in your own life now. Do you balance your obligations with those things that you enjoy? The things that you have to do with those that you want to do?

This weekend, babe found herself hopelessly off balance. After spending the entire work week surrounded by five year old children, she discovered that she had come home from work, only to find more five year old children. Although I am not sure what the balancing factor to a kindergartner is, i suspect it is not another kindergartner. By the time that I arrived home on Saturday afternoon, it was somewhat easy to tell that she had no need for a kid-fix. She had experienced enough five year old for one week.

And this happens everywhere a person looks. "too much work makes jack a dull boy" "all things in moderation" how many cliche's can you name that are nothing more than an expression of balance?

Unfortunately, our own ability to balance our lives is often beyond our control. Many times, the things that we have to do override those that we want to do, or worse they override other things that we also have to do. It is awfully hard to do the dishes when you are at work; or take the dog to the vet when we need to be in another place.

But we try. I think that for most of us, the factor in our life that gets left out in the cold too often is simple relaxation. We are so busy trying to keep the rest of our lives in check that we dont stop and take a break. We dont take the kids to the beach. We dont go play with our toys. When was the last time that you took an afternoon nap on a Saturday? You cant because you are too busy trying to get your kids to take their nap right?

The worst thing to try and balance by far are the relationships in your life. every relationship that you have takes a differentiated amount of time. You need to spend x amount with your job. Y amount with your spouse, your kids, each friend that you have takes a unique amount. The hardest part is that you need some time for yourself as well. It never seems to fail that there are more things that you are supposed to do than you are actually getting done. you have more expected than you can deliver.

have you ever noticed what happens when you get your diet out of balance? Too much of this, not enough of that? people get sick. They get tired. They get hyperactive. Worst of all, they get gas. Just a matter of balance.

SO. What does a person do? I think that the best thing is to put some thought to what it is in your own life that is out of balance. Find a way to even things out. Do it on purpose.

Odds are, the things that you are spending too much of your attention on wont even notice the change. The things that are being left to the side will flourish by comparison. Think about those plants again. What if we took the five cups of water from the first plant, and the one from the second, and instead gave each of the three plants two cups of water. Suddenly, without changing the amount of water, or effort we are putting forth, all three plants will begin to grow again, and all three will flourish.

playing telephone....

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the church. You regular readers already know this.

It has come to my attention that there is a movement that is calling itself the Emergent Church... If you arent familiar with this, do a little study. provocative stuff.

Part of this movement is the updating of the language in the bible that we have been reading. I am not certain what my thoughts are on this. To me, the idea of changing the words in the bible seems a bit out there. Who do we think we are? Are we so high and mighty that we feel that we can just mess with the words of God?

This is not the first time that this has happened. Actually, we mere humans have been "updating" the language for millenia. Dont forget, the thing wasnt even written in English in the first place. And unless you have done extensive study in greek, you arent likely to be able to read the initial version...

I trust that the scholars who are doing this rewrite are far smarter, or more well schooled in linguistics that myself. I also trust that thier hearts are in the right place. And I trust that the church is supporting the move. What i dont trust follows.

When we were in Kindergarten, we all played a game called telephone. We would sit in a big circle remember? One person would whisper a silly message to the person next to them, that person would pass it to the next, and so on all of the way around the circle. By the time it got back to the person who started, it was a totally different message. Maybe the original message was "Bobby has a big bucket of fish." And likely the final message would have been "Betty thinks her ham sandwich got switched" There wasnt usually even a semblance of the original idea.

I think you may understand at this point what my concern is with changing the language of the word of God. I would love to know how many times we have screwed up our own message.

Now. Whether or not you believe that this newest iteration is a good or a bad thing; remember that you havent been reading the original anyway. You dont actually believe in the original word of God. You have been raised through the updated word for hundreds and hundreds of years.

And. Even if you have a strong opinion about whether or not it should be changed; you also have to realize that it has the potential to change for the better.

Here's why.

We are in the process of moving to a post-literate state in this world. What language we speak, how we write, how we read, all of these will cease to matter within the next 100 years, primarily due to our adoption of technology. What this means is that for most of us, the idea of even caring what words are in the bible will become obsolete within the lifetimes of our own children. Our own language, both written and verbal, is changing today at a pace that was considered to be inconceivably fast even ten years ago. Consider how much of what you send in a text message is not even a word. Think for a second about some of the slang words that have become common in our speech within the recent past. Our spoken word, and our methods of communication, are changing at a blindingly fast pace.

Where does this leave us? When we begin to work in a written language of icons, abbreviations, and electronic media; how will we even access the word of our lord?

I will say that I cant answer the question. I also dont know whether or not our changing of the words in the bible matters.

What i can say is this. The word of God represents a way of being. An Ideal. A Goal. In the same way that my corrections of my own childrens behavior does not address every single behavior in their lives; my corrections act as a guidebook for them to understand what the proper way of being looks like.

I guess, to me, if installing some new language in the book is done in a manner that makes it a more contemporary defintion fo what our way of being should be, I think that it is ok with me.

I pray that we arent playing telephone. The biggest problem for our own future will come if we think that we should change Betty's ham sandwich instead of helping bobby catch fish.