freedom from Shawshank...now where are we going???

Cristina and I watched Shawshank Redemption on Saturday, and I was called back to a quote that really stirred my heart two years ago when I first watched this film with my buddy Jeff.  To provide you context (or YouTube), it's from the very end of the film, when Morgan Freeman has decided to turn away from a dull post-prison life of fear, living at a depressing halfway house & working at a grocery store.  Instead, he's purchasing a ticket to Fort Hancock, Texas--breaking his parole, traveling to Mexico, joining his escaped friend the legendary Andy Dufresne.  On the bus to Mexico:

"I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head.  I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel--a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain...I hope I can make it across the border.  I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.  I hope the Pacific is a blue as it has been in my dreams.  I hope..."


My friend Tim lives a very cool life.  He seems about as shy & hesitant as a grizzly bear at a fish fry.  I love Tim.  Tim even looks like a grizzly, in a lovable sort of way.  Of course, Tim is just as flawed a man as I am, but that seems to make him all the more awesome, because Tim is dreaming big dreams AND living big dreams.  Tim is taking his daughters to all 50 states and a few foreign countries before they graduate high school.  Tim planted a church where another one had died of old age.  And Tim and I are getting lunch next week.

Recently, I've been in despair over what to do with my life.  You know, that question you start asking yourself in middle school and never really answer till...well...I'm not sure when.  Saturday, Tim told me where he saw my life headed.  It was big.  Tim's not like a prophet or anything, but Tim's a man of great vision.  And I got real excited, then creeped out like Tim had been renting copies of my daydreams.  Every bit of the vision he painted lunged at my heart.

I shared all this with Cristina, and then I started freakin out.  "Tim's crazy!...Babe, do I need to go back to school? And how would we afford that?...Man, I'd be good at this aspect, but I'm definitely missing the gifting for that!"  Cristina, being the awesome wife that she is, told me to stop.  And then I got to thinking...

Why can't I pursue those dreams that are bigger than me?  Why would I settle for the halfway house, for "institutionalization," conformity to that which the old cynics dub "the way things are"? 

It's the excitement only a free man can feel.  This is not naivete, the precursor to cynicism.  This is reason.  Do you know who my God is?  Have you heard how he led old Israel from captivity through a Red Sea, then through a desert to the Promised Land by pillar of fire & cloud?  Did you hear about that cross deal, how he proved he was FOR me by trading his Son?  With him I am free.

I'm not dreaming of a life with no conflict.  I'm saying embrace the conflict, & create a good story, the memorable scenes.  No one writes a film about saving up money to buy a Volvo.  Lord Of The Rings was written about a halfling who almost died only about a 100 times, and then saved the world.  There's a good story.


**I'd love to hear the ambition you're pursuing, or would like to pursue, if you'd like to comment.  I think that'd be AWESOME.

Back to School: Lesson 1

All the K-12 kiddos head back to school this week. The moment they've all been waiting for---some dreading, some eagerly anticipating. All the school supplies, in their varying colors, have been purchased. Bookbags have been unearthed from that pile in the bedroom that no one has touched since school let out in June. Heck, I even broke down and bought my own school supplies today. I bought a new journal (fine, it was a spiral notebook that I intend to use as a journal), and a new bookbag (that I need to lug around my 100-pound laptop). I just couldn't resist those school supply aisles in Walmart any longer. And, I think, for a minute, I just wanted the familiarity of buying school supplies in August---gearing up for the new school year. Last August was my first August, since I could remember August's, that I didn't start a new school year. I think that transition left me reeling for the past year. But, then, February 28th brought a new sort of August to look forward to...an August as a wife. So, here we are, in my first August as a wife...another transition. Life just keeps bringing them, huh? And, I've gotta say...scariest transition yet. Why? Well, among other things---like not knowing what kind of vacuum cleaner I should buy, or how to cook anything in a crock pot, or how to sew up the hole in our brand new pillowcase---I have no clue where this transition is going to take us. I have always had an end in sight. The end of the week, the end of a school year, the end of the summer, the end of STINT, the end of wedding planning. This one is WIDE OPEN. It feels like a free fall. So, here's the pop quiz...

When faced with the incredibly unknown, will you:
A. Be a pansy (as Case would so lovingly refer to you) and run away from things you can't predict or understand or control because of fear?

OR

B. Trust the Sovereign Creator & Lord of the Universe who gave Himself up in love for you, and who can write a much better story than you ever will?

God keeps teaching me this same lesson over and over, so that one day I'm gonna know the answer without prompting. The answer is B. TRUST

chapter 1

So I'm not really sure why I started blogging today.  Cristina has wanted me to do so for a while, and she's not even here right now.  She went to work two hours ago not wanting to go, and I let her go not wanting to end on the dissonant notes that we did.

I once took a sophisticated personality test that told me I tend to blame things on others when things are wrong.  Its called arrogance.  After a lazy Saturday at our Hut, much of which has been spent watching Shawshank in the bed, Cristina and I made the treacherous trek across the street to hunt for a meal.  Returning with fresh CharGrill, I felt the religious compulsion to thank God for our meal, and asked Cristina to do the honors.  Cristina felt like she couldn't pray though, and I thought--here we go again.  Sometimes Cristina feels like she just can't talk to God, and sometimes she feels like she can't talk to me, like her brain gets jammed or something.  As I understand it, this means something is bothering her and she has no idea how to express it.  This being a foreign situation to my own analytical mind, I tend to perceive this as a weakness in Cristina.

My CharBurger quickly cooling, I searched the Great Mind of Casey for a solution and put together a few scenes from the recent life of a struggling Cristina, noticed what I thought must be a pattern, and then told Cristina exactly what was wrong and how she needed to change in order for life to be awesome.  Boy! this really worked wonders!  After bowing at my feet and thanking me kindly for the info, Cristina told God how great I was and then hand-fed me my burgers & fries, even joyfully salting the fries and touching them up with ketchup according to my liking.  We then had a wonderful time talking over how smart I can be, & Cristina even called a few friends to let them know too.

In reality, Cristina was not pleased, and let me know how dumb my idea was.  Ten minutes later she left for work, and I was left laying on the bed with a book that would tell me how never to make this mistake or any other mistakes ever again.

The book, of course, failed toward its end, but it did help bring me to a vision closer to how I think the mind of God perceived this situation.  The weakness, I found, was not necessarily in Cristina's lack of understanding, but in mine.  For rather than listening to my wife, I chose hot food and the presumption that I could quickly "repair" a broken situation.  Rather than praying & taking the evidence to God my righteous Judge, I decided I could execute justice on my own.  Rather than elevating & honoring my wife as a "co-heir" of this new life we've been given (that's from 1 Peter 3:7), I looked down upon her and barked orders on how to climb up as high as me.

But then God honored me, and God listened patiently to me, all because 2000 years ago he poured out justice for my sin on His Son instead.  I hope to show the same patient love to my wife when she comes home tonight.