Category: Spirituality - trish hermanson

What Great Adventure Awaits You?

1/23/2020

Trust me, Duane and I are not that adventurous. This is a trick photo taken at an exhibit on extreme sports. But although I’m not a big risk-taker, this expo got me thinking about a radical claim from author Harold Myra about our unpredictable, sometimes scary lives. “The truth is, we’re all plopped down in circumstances that can threaten, dishearten, or even overwhelm us. Only as we see life as an adventure from God do we experience life’s tang and purpose.”
     Life as an adventure from God? How can a cautious person like me buy into this? It helps when I recognize that my story is part of a bigger story. That the little deeds I do, though simple, can contribute toward God’s goal of mending this broken world. Even taking tiny risks like smiling at a stranger or giving a casserole to a neighbor matter because they are actions in the direction of how the world was meant to be - and how God wants it to be.
     Another author, Luci Shaw, challenges me: “Has your heart ever been blown open by the sudden exhilarating thought, ‘This could be my Year of Living the Adventure?’ And if not, why not?”
     Singer Steven Curtis Chapman captures this call to us.

Playing in the Worst of Times

1/2/2020

I choked up when I heard this cellist playing a piece written by a prisoner in a Nazi stalag. Instead of succumbing to despair when he was tossed into this camp, French soldier Olivier Messiaen turned to what he knew: composing music. With the stub of a pencil and a bit of paper from a sympathetic guard, he wrote what became one of the Twentieth Century’s masterpieces, “Quartet for the End of Time” - after all, he feared his time was up.
     Then three other imprisoned musicians joined Messiaen with a ramshackle violin, cello, clarinet, and piano to premier his score outdoors in freezing rain before four hundred inmates and guards. “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention…,” he recalled. Shortly after, the musicians gained release when the same guard forged papers with a stamp made from a potato.
     How could Messiaen lift himself above the hopelessness of a Nazi camp? I began to understand when I heard Colorado Symphony cellist Judith Galecki perform one section of Messiaen’s composition. Her hushed bow strings played “Praise to the Eternity of Jesus,” Messiaen’s declaration that we can rise above anything trying to lock us up because God is timeless and transcends everything.
     My circumstances never sink as low as Messiaen’s, yet when they are tough, I don’t always live above them. Could I rise above my problems if I developed a perspective of the bigness of God?
     I think so.

Mr. Rogers, Make Believe & My Family

11/18/2019

It seems like only yesterday that our girls lived in Mr. Rogers’ land of make believe, and now Tom Hanks is portraying the TV icon in a movie. Mr. Rogers was a hero in our household. I remember when our youngest was just two and her emotions exploded. She stomped upstairs, stood on the landing, and announced, “I hate everybody! I even hate Mr. Rogers!” She marched into her bedroom and slammed the door.
      She quickly emerged with shame on her face and a whisper in her voice. “I didn’t mean what I said about Mr. Rogers.” She couldn’t hate the man who embodied good. Then she retreated to her bedroom to sort out what to do with all the mad she felt toward the rest of us.
     My daughters have blossomed into strong women. I like them just the way they are as they face life’s realities while keeping their rich imaginations. Mr. Rogers has left his land of make believe, passing into the perfect realm he always envisioned. He was disillusioned near the end of his life. Even with his powerful message of kindness, the world had grown worse. I think that’s because we need something more than good attitudes and good intentions. We need new hearts, what the historic Jesus described as being “born again.”
  That’s because beautiful as it is, make believe isn’t enough.

How Did God Become a Swear Word?

11/7/2019

Why did we start to say “Oh my God” as an exclamation of shock or surprise, rather than invoking something like “Oh my Gordon” or “Oh my Gladys”? Is it because we don’t believe in him, so what does it matter? But if God doesn’t exist, why use his name as the most powerful word there is to express shock or surprise? And why say “MY God,” claiming God is yours if he doesn’t exist?
     Here’s another oddity. We say “God damn” to express anger. Are we asking God to condemn someone to eternal punishment in hell? Even if we don’t believe in God or hell, that’s a strong image. Do we really want to channel our rage to that depth?
     I wonder if we use God’s name flippantly because there’s no sense of awe left in us. No reverence because nothing is sacred. We no longer view ourselves as souls, just minds and bodies.
     That’s a tragedy because deep inside us, we know we are so much more. We’re not simply atoms and energy that eventually wear out. We are hopes and hurts, dreams and desires. We thirst for love. And here’s the incredible news - the God who created the universe is so enamored with us he stepped onto Earth as Jesus and still rings our doorbells and asks, “Wanna do lunch?
     That’s a God whose name is worth being awestruck about.

October 03rd, 2019

10/3/2019

I hurt two people recently. Big time.
     I didn’t mean to. I had good intentions, but sloppy words.
     I asked their forgiveness, and they extended it, but they still hurt. And I hurt for them. Will they ever heal from this? It’s taken me years to recover from some slights from others. Will it take them that long?
     I’m asking God to instigate his amazing Recycling Program, to somehow turn my stupidity into something good in their lives. That would be a miracle.
     As for me, I’ve asked God to enroll me in his Forgiveness-for-Dummies Program: to remind me of his tenderness toward me; to help me understand any message he has for me from this; to give me a scar I can run my finger over to prompt me to walk more cautiously with others.
     How we all need mercy - from God, from each other, and for each other.
      ***
  A song that expresses my aching heart is here. The image is a screenshot from the video.