Ouch.

The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow

Wendy’s brothers have all served in the military. Her youngest brother just went through the rigor of basic training a year or so ago. Since my side of the family has, for the most part, never been big on military service I have found it interesting to observe. I’ve been knocked out by the transformation in Wendy’s young sibling. The methodical process of discipline and denial has had visible benefits that go beyond the mere physical.

It is, perhaps, a bit of synchronicity that today’s chapter comes on the day after Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Lent is the season of “preparation” before the celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection which lasts for 40 days. The number 40 is not insignificant. The number appears throughout God’s Message and history:

• 40 days of rain in the flood
• 40 days Moses was on the mountain before God gave him the law
• 40 years of wandering in the wilderness for Moses and his followers
• 40 days Jesus fasted in the wilderness
• 40 days after the resurrection Jesus was seen publicly before his ascension

These are just a few of the examples, along with the example in today’s chapter in which the people of Nineveh fasted and repented for 40 days to seek God’s mercy.

There is no magic in “fasting” or the act of denying yourself of something, but there is a process of spiritual formation that takes place. When, for a period of time, we deny ourselves and focus our hearts and minds on the things of God it becomes like spring training for our souls. It is spiritual boot camp and, like Wendy’s brother, you never emerge from boot camp unchanged in some way.

… but sometimes it’s kind of fun just to see things blow up!

What can I say? Wild at heart.

I sank down to the very roots of the mountains.
      I was imprisoned in the earth,
      whose gates lock shut forever.
   But you, O LORD my God,
      snatched me from the jaws of death!
Jonah 2:6 (NLT)

I don’t care how low we’ve sunk, how far we’ve fallen, or how deep into it we find ourselves. There is no pit in this life so deep that God’s love and mercy are not deeper still.

God is in the business of snatching people from the depths and raising them up.

Reach out. Grab hold. Believe.

For the sailors to live, Jonah had to sacrifice himself.
For Jonah to live God’s purpose he had to die to himself.
To be washed from his sin, Jonah had to be plunged forcefully in the waters.
To pass from death to life, Jonah was buried for three days.
For the Ninevehites to experience salvation, Jonah had to die, be buried, and be resurrected.

The word picture of salvation in Jonah is so striking that even Jesus could not help but draw attention to it:

Matthew 12:39-41
[Jesus] answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here.”

Luke 11:30
“For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.”

The further I get in the journey, the more convinced I am that once God truly calls a person, he or she cannot successfully run away forever. The story of Jonah is lived out again and again in the lives of those who are called according to His purpose, and for whom all things work together for good.

by indi.ca via Flickr

Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Colossians 4:2 (NLT)

Devote [dih-voht] verb 1. to give up or appropriate to or concentrate on a particular pursuit, occupation, purpose, cause, etc.: to devote one’s time to reading.

Yesterday morning my brother asked me if I’d read a section of a book he’d asked me to read last fall. I apologized that I’d not gotten to it. Nor have I gotten to the book Wendy’s wanted me to finish for the past year or two, nor have I gotten to the book another friend gave me, or the one Taylor gave to Wendy that was then given to me. Nor did I get to the two books a fellow blogger gave me. And, I haven’t finished reading the script a fellow playwright asked me to read. ARRRRGGGHHH! CALGON, TAKE ME AWAY!

Some days when I read the morning’s chapter I’m encouraged, and other days I’m inspired. Then there are days like today when I’m convicted. When I read the simple command to devote myself to prayer, the word devote leapt of the page and pierced my heart.

What am I devoted to? What will I readily sacrifice other things for, in order that I will have the time and resources to do them? Do the things to which I say I’m devoted match my actions when it comes to devoting time, money, and energy? If you look at my life it’s certain that I’m not devoted to reading, and I’m pretty sure you could make the case that I’m not devoted to prayer either. There are a lot of worthwhile pursuits to which I’m not devoted, and some rather trivial ones to which my actions prove I am.

God, you say I’m supposed to be devoted to prayer and I guess there’s no time like the present. Forgive me for being devoted to silly insignificant things while ignoring eternal things. Help my devotion to be focused on the right things as I journey through this day.

Five people play one guitar. Thanks to my brother, Tim, for sharing this one. Worth the time to watch.

10.  Chapter-a-Day Jeremiah 46

9.  Day 19: Something that Never Fails to Make You Feel Better

8. Tom Vander Well meet Tom Vanderwell

7. Day 5: List Five Things that Irritate You About the Same/Opposite Sex

6. Chapter-a-Day Proverbs 11

5. Striking a Chord: When a Blog Post Goes Viral

4. Chapter-a-Day Proverbs 10

3. Day 2: How Have You Changed in the Past Two Years?

2. Speaking of Changes in Life

1. 10 Ways Being a Theatre Major Prepared Me for Success

As I look through the list, it’s a reminder to me of the blog posting mantra that Mike Sansone impressed up on me when I started. Always “link out” to another post, he told me. I can see that some of the posts on the top ten made it simply because they had been “linked” within a popular post. The more people read the popular post, the more likely some would click the link and explore what it had to say.

Blog on.

Image via Wikipedia

Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. Colossians 3:2 (NLT)

Wendy and I love movies, books, and the arts. We talk about them all the time. A friend of ours has told us on several occasions that he likes to watch movies with us. “You see things in the movie I don’t see,” he said. “And, you talk about the movie when it’s over; really talk about it. Most people I know don’t do that.”

Wendy and I tend to look at movies from different perspectives. We think about themes, the writing, the way it was directed and shot and edited. We talk about what the writer and director were trying to say about life, or death, or relationships, or whatever piece of world view they happened to address. The river of our conversation will often flow out into little tributaries of related conversations about all sorts of things.

Some people find it annoying. I know. “Cant’ you just watch a movie?” I’ve been asked on several occasions be different people. I could. I guess.

Wait, scratch that. No, I can’t.

As I observe people and talk with people in different avenues of life, I see those whose thoughts and motivations rarely, if ever, stretch beyond their natural appetites. Get to the next paycheck. Get to the next party. Get to the next major purchase. Get to the next meal. Get to the next sexual experience experience. The journey appears never to exit the interstate of base human appetite.

I have found that Life is so much more than simple appetites. We live in an ever expanding universe made by an infinite Creator. We are eternal beings on an amazing sojourn through this world that is a miniscule dot on eternity’s time line. I don’t want my life to be confined to the dot, I want it to expand toward the entire line. I don’t want to spend the journey a zombie wandering thoughtlessly to my next instinctive need never giving thought to Life which is happening all around me in a million different ways. I want to spend the journey reaching out expansively to fill my mind, my heart, my spirit with Life.

So, to me a movie is more than a two-hour nap for my mind and soul. It’s a leaf from the tree of tales that is unique and fascinating and waiting to be explored and understood in the context of Life. I know it seems weird to some. Hey, what can I say? That’s how we roll.  Come on over to the house sometime for a little wine, a nice dinner, some of Wendy’s fabulous cheesecake, a movie and a little late night conversation (along with another piece of cheesecake). You might just leave feeling fullness in more than your stomach.

Image via Wikipedia

As I’ve contemplated the list of roles I’d love to play for this series of posts, I realize more than ever how influenced we are by plays and roles we either did/studied earlier in our lives or roles that we would have loved to have played but didn’t get the part.

So it is with the role of Matt Friedman in Lanford Wilson‘s play Talley’s Folly. The show takes place in a broken down family boathouse in Missouri in 1944. It is the 4th of July and Sally Talley has returned home from her job as a nurse in St. Louis. She met Matt Friedman, a young Jewish man, while on vacation. Matt has written Sally a letter every day since they first met and only received one (not encouraging) reply. He shows up at the family homestead to confront Sally. She meets him in the boathouse, angry that he has shown up uninvited. The show reveals their conversation, their history, and their hearts.

My college produced the show, and the role of Matt went to my roommate, Kirk. Kirk played the role with his usual display of talent and excellence. Kirk could always find humor in the most amazing ways. And, as Craig S. continues to remind me to this day, Kirk also got to kiss Tara. Nevertheless, as I helped Kirk with his lines and helped produce the show I fell in love with the role of Matt. I have always wished that one day I could sink my teeth into portraying Matt on stage. I love the depth of his character and would love the challenge of finding his voice and physicality. Plus, the intricacies of the conversation between he and Sally is like a chess game. Finding the complexities would be a blast.

Wendy had never read the show, so a few years ago on a cold Saturday morning we cuddled together on the couch with one script and read the play together. By the end of the play we were both wiping our eyes (as one audience member put it – “It’s a two-hanky show”).