Ryan's Ramblings

what I heard it say to me

This video is a bit edgy, but I like it.  I don't endorse all of it, but I am challenged by what it says . . . or at least what I heard it say to me.  It talks a lot about "truth," with a capital "T," along with numerous references to "real life."  The video caused me to think about my thoughts, my attitudes and my choices, and in the midst of it all I couldn't help but think about the Truth that came into this very "real" world and dwelt among us.

Tattoos On the Heart -- Book Review

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle

Over the years I have heard references to Father Greg Boyle and his amazing work with gang members in Los Angeles. He has been making a difference for a very long time in an extremely dark place and he is greatly admired by many.  He has given his entire life to the work of helping youth see themselves as worthy contributors beyond the hopeless trappings of gang life.

Last week on iTunes I noticed a new documentary called “G-Dog.”  It is a glimpse into the life, work and ministry of Father Greg Boyle.  I watched, or more specifically “wept,” my way through the movie and when it was over I started the movie (and my crying) all over again. The story of Homeboy Industries and the work of Greg Boyle is nothing short of amazing.

Through the movie I learned of Father Boyle’s book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion.  I immediately bought it on Kindle and read through it in two days.  It is a great read.  I could hear Greg Boyle’s voice throughout the book.  It was the same gentle voice that I heard in the movie, G-Dog—full of patience, wit, care, solidarity, compassion and extravagant love.

I found this book hard to put down.  It is full of real life stories—replete with humor, tragedy, victory, loss, hope and love. Boyle’s writing is much like his life.  He doesn’t just visit the margins to help and to minister to those less fortunate; instead, he dwells in the margins with them, as an equal.  In his writing, Father Boyle, the Jesuit Priest and former English Teacher, expounds upon poetry and various quotes from desert fathers/mothers and Catholic writers in a way that enmeshes the profound with the prosaic and the result is a glimpse of the very Truth that resonates throughout the Gospels.

I cannot help but recommend this book (and the movie) to you.  Enjoy.

The Old Tire

              The Old Tire 

by Ryan M. Roberts

 

                     As one of four, I carried a star;

On business of utmost import.

 

From summit to shore, I traveled afar;

All the while my time growing short.

 

I rolled along, till my tread was all spent;

Tossed away—thin, worn and unfit.

 

On the side of the road, to the ditch I was sent;

To die lying still in the pit.

 

But life ebbed again at the hand of a boy;

A push and a roll was my test.

I found all joy, in the guise of a toy;

These miles are some of my best.

 

a means to something bigger

"Security is mostly superstition.  It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."  –Helen Keller

“. . . an adventure is not an end to itself but a means to something bigger.”  -Jeff Goins

Spring break.  Hmmm . . . a time to rest and relax or, a time to "re-create" with a group of high schoolers at a children's home in India?

Here we go, on our way to something bigger.  Pray for us!

His infinite purpose of love

If we look at the Gospel story of the Passion as a whole and do not isolate the Cross from its context, one of the most impressive and revealing things in it is the air of strong deliberation and mastery which characterizes Jesus throughout those last days.  He is so manifestly not in the least a straw on the stream of events.  His enemies are not manipulating Him so much as He is manipulating them, not in any wrong way, but in the way in which God does lay hold of the wrath and sin of man and make them sub-serve His infinite purpose of love.  To the end He could have escaped the Cross by the simple expedient of going somewhere else; but He did not do so.  He deliberately directs His steps to it.  There is an atmosphere of mastery all about Him as He steadfastly sets His face towards Jerusalem.  Standing before the council, or before Pilate, there is no suggestion of fumbling or hesitancy.  Nor on the other hand is there any suggestion of a merely excited and fanatical confidence.  It is the other people who are excited, not He.  And it is always the excited people who are the weak people.  He says almost regally, “No man taketh my life from me; I lay it down of myself.”  He says—very plainly, quietly, with the direct steadiness of clear-sighted conviction—“Hereafter ye shall see the Son of man seated at the right hand of power.”  The hereafter refers to their seeing.  He Himself sees now.  He is conscious of being in a very real sense at the right hand of power now.  He is with God now; the victory is His now.   –H. H. Farmer

The cross of Christ didn’t just happen.  It wasn’t a tragic and unexpected ending to a good story.  It wasn’t a case of evil triumphing over good. 

It was God working out His infinite purpose of love.

Through the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross—our sins are completely forgiven, we are able to relate with a Holy God, we are cleansed of all of our sins, and we no longer need to live as slaves (in bondage) to sin.

Easter Sunday is just two weeks away.  As we walk the path to the empty tomb to joyfully announce, “He is not here, He is risen!” let us remember that out of love Jesus walked through it all on purpose—the garden, the denial, the trial, the beating, the flogging, the mocking, the shame, the sorrow, the abandonment and the cross—for you and for me.

a battle to be won

“. . . these days, resistance looks more like Apollyon standing arrogantly astride Christian’s path; like the combined forces of the world, the flesh and the devil, pitted against my efforts to follow a call I’ve heard, a summons as wild and strange and full of longing as the cry of wild geese over a winter landscape. Resistance means there is probably something on the other side worth fighting for. Making art is waging war on all the inner demons and the outer distractions that would keep us silent and compliant in this world.”  ~Lanier Ivester

The battle rages.  The inner critics are caustic and the distractions alluring.  The embers of creativity recede under the strong draught of resistance. 

But silence, darkness and defeat are not imminent.

I have seen the fires of creativity burning brightly in a children’s home in India.  The children are without parents in a home lacking running water, electricity, computers, the Internet, bicycles, cell phones and TV, and yet beauty and art prevail.  In the midst of faith, hope and love—drawings, paintings, gardens, dancing, weavings, poems and songs radiate forth in illumination and victory. 

There is a war to be fought—within and without.  The resistance is great, but the calling to make art is greater.  We must fan into the flame the fires of creativity.  There is something on the other side worth fighting for. 

It is a battle to be won.

17,000

“Time always moves in one direction.  It’s a rare opportunity that passes us twice, and we only pass the road not taken once.  We must decide and grab on to our best future, and if we miss it, we may live a long life, but we will never live a consequential life.  The carousel passes the golden ring but once.  Grab it, and the horses leave their circular death and become steeds of purpose that you may ride where you will.” –Calvin Miller

I just flipped the page on my calendar.

-March 2013-

It is still early in the calendar year, but I think in terms of the school year.  The arrival of March warns me that the school year will be over in a blink.

All the challenges, frustrations, excitement, worry and work of moving our entire school site to a new campus is but a memory.

Most of the year's big events that filled the pages of my datebook with ink and my mind with anticipation, planning and preparation are behind me.

My oldest child’s first year of college is nearly done and my youngest child’s last year of high school is about to begin. 

Wow . . .

Last night my wife and I went out on a date.

Today is my 17,000th day of life.

I just flipped the page on my calendar.

neglect = spam

The best way to kill a plant, a relationship and a blog is through neglect.  The spammers are working harder on my blog than I am.  I am constantly having to delete spam from the comments section. 

Just as a garden unattended grows weeds, a blog unattended grows spam.

I am not quitting though.  I like this little bottle of a blog through which I can toss a message now and then out into the vast ocean of the Internet. 

I am thankful for the two or three readers that check my blog regularly.  What a disappointment it must be for you to take the time to click this site and, day after day, find nothing.

Please don't curse this fig tree of a blog quite yet.  I am committed to watering this plant--at least a couple times a week.  No more neglect and no more spam.

I hope that our relationship will grow and that you will find a little fruit to nourish you along the way.

the conversation continues

I'll say it again, Andrew Peterson is one of my favorites.  I have been listening to his music for a long time.  His songs fill my iPhone and I find them to be the perfect traveling companions.  Whether I'm on a long bus ride to Seoul or on an even longer plane ride to--who knows where--I am listening to Andrew Peterson.

I'm not just listening though, I'm conversing.  Andrew's music always leads me to engage in a conversation between the song, my heart and God.  I think it's because Peterson's music resonates in the thin places where real life and God interact with and encounter one another.

Here's a song about growing up, coming of age and trusting in God.  I have been there and am doing that. 

The conversation continues.

being remembered

In my morning reading time I came across the poem, "Death the Leveller" by James Shirley. (see below)  Shirley was a playwright who lived in the 1600s.  He is known to have had a flair for the "dramatic," but in this poem his prose communicates a very real and sobering truth.

All of us--the great, the mighty, the rich, the poor, the just and the unjust--will someday die.

The Internet tells me that 56 "famous people" died in this past year of 2012.  I will miss Andy Griffith, Dick Clark and Ray Bradbury, to name a few, but there are others, that didn't make the list of 56, that I will miss much more.  They live on in the memories of my mind and heart.

The poet reminds us that in the end we will all inhabit the grave.  But this morning I am not thinking about dying, I am thinking about living.  My name will never be found via a Google search of "famous people who died," but it just might be remembered by my family, my friends, my coworkers and my neighbors.

Death the Leveller

The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crookèd scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon Death's purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

James Shirley