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Posts Tagged ‘randy hasper’

Flowers On The Water

Posted: June 23, 2014 in recovery
Tags: flowers on the water, grief, how to recover from loss, loss, randy hasper, recovering, thriving

Friday night I motored out to sea with about twenty other people to throw ashes and flowers out of boxes onto the smooth water, the setting sun above, the calico bass below, white flower petals floating in a line out behind the boat.

It was a moment. I had trouble knowing what to feel. We rode home through the sloshing sea in the dark. An orange bonfire glowed on the shore. I sat alone for part of the trip.

What remains — a sense of the sea, an image of a pelican floating on the air beside the boat, a swirl of bright color in the water as a bass took a small fish on the surface, a swell picking up the boat and softly letting it down again, the flowers on the surface of the sea.

Monday night I talked to my daughter for a long time. We were both ruffled a bit by the day — picked up, set down, taken on the rise, sloshing in the dark and to each other we were a small bonfire on the shore, a splash of warmth and color on a small phone screen as we video chatted each other back up. We prayed for each other before we hung up.

Sunday after church I hugged some people and made a couple of lunch appointments for next week. Bonfires.

Life is loss and gain, up and down, moving close and then farther off, riding together, riding alone, thinking about it.

We are grass, caper and vapor, flowers on a tree, flowers in a box, flowers in the air, flowers floating in a saline sea.

I don’t like losing people. Nobody does. I don’t much like being close and then not being close anymore.

I think I’ll make more phone calls and lunch appointments, and do what people ask me to do for them, even when it is hard, and pray more, and grow flowers and not pick them, as much as I can.

I remain hopeful.

Buy Something Red For The Turtle

Posted: June 18, 2014 in thriving
Tags: choosing our motives, how to examine our motives, motives, randy hasper, what are motives

As I left the house today for the grocery store, my wife called out, “Buy something red for the turtle.”

“Really,” I thought, “for the turtle!” It didn’t make sense. Then I realized she wanted me to get Celine some thing red to eat. I imagined strawberries and thought, “I’m not wasting our money on strawberries for a turtle.”

Then it occurred to me that the turtle might be hungry and really enjoy some red, juicy watermelon, and watermelon is cheap, and so I dropped the stinginess in my heart and went out gladly, questing for the good of the turtle. I came home with a small watermelon.

I sensed no gratitude on the part of the turtle and was tempted to eat most of it myself.

I’m naturally like this, begrudgingly generous, with turtles. I’m working on it.

I have, in a reformative spirit, taken to refusing money — sometimes. I used to charge for the public speaking skills I brought to weddings and funerals. I don’t anymore. I no longer have a stomach for profiting from other people’s grief — or joy. As a result, my rhetoric has improved. Since no one is paying, I only aim to please myself with my remarks, and as a result, I am more pleased. My not-for-sale humor makes me laugh, and my nonprofit pathos keeps me emotionally congruent. I like myself better — serving others — for free.

This is needed. My first instincts have almost always been greedy. I’m learning to go more now with my second and third instincts. Recently I paid people more than they asked for to do work on my house. I knew them. I didn’t want them to think I was cheap, and I truly wanted to benefit them.

I’m no saint. My motives about all kinds of things fluctuate from benevolent to self-interested, and everything in between. I am, like most of us, complex, bi-motivated, tri-motived, quadra-inspired. Even when I do something good, there is often, lurking just on the other side of love — which is the best motive in the universe — a less noble instigator. I am motivated by love, but also by others’ expectations, by their appreciation, by guilt, obligation and gain.

What I am learning is that my motives warrant examination. Why do I do what I do? What is in my heart? I want to know. I want to be more honest about this. Because if I can at least name these co-conspirators, then I can put them to the side, mitigate them, even refuse their influence. What I can name I can defeat.

I can defeat selfishness. I can choose to be generous. I can choose to not use people for my gain. I can choose to say no, or yes or later or never or, “I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” with no praise, profit or power-grubbing motive dragging along like dead and dying weight behind us.

I can choose, to buy the turtle something red, and not eat it myself.

Hidden Beauty!

Posted: June 11, 2014 in beautiful
Tags: beauty, God has hidden beautiful things, hidden beauty, randy hasper

God is wasteful — with beauty.

He creates beauty, for no one to see, tossing a planet in an unknown corner of space here, a flower in an unseen field over there, a rare fish in an unreachable depth, a rare galaxy at an unthinkable distance — strewn, random, gorgeous, precious stuff (gold, diatoms, astroids and bromeliads) literally tossed everywhere across the planes and peaks and drops and seams of the universe.

We didn’t discover the rings of Saturn until Galileo spotted them in 1610 or really until Christian Huygen sorted them out in 1655. Those majestic, bright curves — so long wasted on no one.

A mile below the ocean surface lives the Viper fish, Chauliodus danae.

The deep sea vipers are hidden from us, the beautiful, iridescent green, silver and black fish with the huge, bulging eyes. On their backs they carry long dorsal spines with lights at the end called photophores to trick other creatures to come close — for dinner!

Or the corpse flower, Rafflesia arnoldii. — this rare, fascinating endangered bloom is found in the low lying tropical rainforests of Indonesia, its flower, more than a meter wide.

Most of the sea vipers and corpse flowers which have existed, strange and gorgeous and wonderful, were never seen by human eyes. In fact, more beautiful things have been not seen by us than have been seen.

Think of the universe, the vast reaches beyond our galaxy, beyond our local group, beyond our super galaxy, the billions of stars, their unseen planets, the supernovas we will never witness, the vast, lovely gas clouds, the great dark matter — all unseen.

Beauty, complexity, wonders, mysteries — never witnessed by any, but God. Why?

Because God himself — and this too has often gone unnoticed — must revel in beauty!

Ordinary!

Posted: June 7, 2014 in clarity
Tags: an ordinary day, I love ordinary, on the miracle of the ordinary, ordinary is beautiful, randy hasper, the power of ordinary

Normal is a miracle!

You know that when you don’t have it.

Today I talked to my brother on the phone. He has multiple-myeloma, a form of cancer. He is taking twenty medications — or so. That’s not normal.

His doctor asked him if one of his pain medication was working.

“How would I know?” he mused. He has three medications that he takes for his pain.

Today I talked to a friend who is in the hospital for three weeks, waiting for her baby to be born. Her water broke a few weeks ago. At thirty-four weeks, next week, they’ll induce her.

She’s waiting, for normal, for home, for nights not in the hospital, for food you get out of the refrigerator and make yourself. She is waiting to take her baby home. That’s normal, and good, for her and her husband.

This week I came down with a killer flu-cold! Brutal! Knocked me out for two days. I’m just blinking now, at the sunlight, “What the heck just happened to me?” thinking about just getting back to ordinary, beautiful, everyday normal — breathing!

We overrate the big deal, the miracle, the win, the triumph, the conquest, the lottery, the promotion, domination, the big kahuna.

For most men, just keeping their zippers up is a win. For most women just liking themselves for a day is a win.

Ordinary morals, ordinary self-love, the ordinary paying of the bills, an ordinary dinner that you make after work, an ordinary breath, an ordinary day where you can leave your house, an ordinary day when you are not locked up in a hospital room, an ordinary day where you aren’t on twenty medications — ordinary is extraordinary!

Unnamed

Posted: May 27, 2014 in wonders
Tags: randy hasper, the unnamed, the wonder of unnamed realities, things we don't have words for, we don't see what we don't name

Most of reality is unnamed.

Consider the lack of names for various and odd spaces. A balbis is an H shaped thing, but what is a simple, one-word name for an empty space between a bed and a dresser? We see such a space often, but we have no name for it. A squircle is a combined square and circle, the shape of iPhone apps, but what do we call the space between two tree trunks?

Some languages do better than others at getting at unnamed stuff. In German, the excess weight gained due to emotional overeating is called kummerspeck, literally, “grief bacon.” But what do we call the last bite of a delicious food that tempts us to have one more bite?

The Japanese note a difference between what one must claim to think and feel in order to fit in with society, and what one privately thinks and feels. They call this tatemae and honne. But what do we call the thoughts we borrow from others and then mingle with our own tangential thoughts to produce something neither ours nor theirs?

The Scotts call the moment of panic when you are introducing someone and realise you’ve forgotten their name a tartle. But what do we call that moment of panic when we call them by their name and then realize we have gotten it wrong?

It may be argued that the realities we don’t name we don’t discriminate from other realities. Generalizations gloss over nuances and leave them hidden. Space is an inadequate word for the area between our fingers, and because we don’t have a common name for this, and because we don’t talk about this space much, we may actually see it without really seeing it.

Life is filled with this kind of seeing what we don’t see, seeing background, seeing empty space between objects, seeing pieces of things not noted by the name we have for their whole.

What is the word for the space inside the fold of a fabric? This is such a beautiful space, so common, so lovely in a Vermeer, so delicate on a sleeve, so gorgeous in a curtain in a breeze-blown window.

I love the unnamed spaces of life with a love that I can’t name or define. The space under an umbrella — it has a safe, fun, social, protected feel to it. The space within a cat’s fur — it has a soft, dense, silky, warm feel. The space between two people when they are having a good talk — it has a close, combined, focused, secure feel.

Perhaps, to be less bored, to be more aware, to see more beauty, we should go looking for what’s unnamed.

What’s in a nameless thing? A nameless flower by no name still smells as sweet,or does it?

Everyday, in every moment, there is a possible adventure, the essence of so many unnamed realities waiting to be discovered, both spiritual and physical, emotional and social waiting to be noticed, waiting for us to softly and reverently enter in to — and name.

Warm Affection!

Posted: May 25, 2014 in friends
Tags: generous love, how to grow a church, randy hasper, reverent wonder, warm affection, what makes a good leadeship team

Today I munched tasty Greek food with my leadership team and staff, fifteen of us overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, California.

It’s a gorgeous spot — sculpted sand cliffs, beautiful sand beaches, peak breaks, a lovely little cove, sleeping seals, snorklers, divers, surfers and tourists from all over the world.

We talked about all the cool innovations we had initiated at the church this year, and all the new stuff we had in mind for the second half of the year. It is crazy fun how much we have done, and how much we have planned for the near future.

1 Peter 1:5 speaks of building on “reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love.” In our team, we have all this and more.

When all is said and done in an organization like ours, it isn’t all about the innovation and change, although innovation is fun, and necessary and very, very healthy, to keep things moving forward in a God-honoring way. But it is really all about the reverent wonder, for God and each other.

It is a reverent wonder to work with such amazing people. They are beautiful, and they make these some of the best years of our lives.

Warm affection — I have that for each one of them.

With several of them I ventured to Nicaragua. With one I share a love of art, with another a passion for ideas, with another a fun, laughing, teasing warmth, to several I am an empowering mentor. One of them is one of the safest people I have ever known, another one of the most loyal, another is one of the kindest most empathetic persons possible. Another I have known since she was a child, another was the best man in my wedding, another is a financial guru of my ilk — responsible.

We must not overlook the value of such relationships. Perhaps we don’t see how good such relationships are, until we lose them. Several members of our team will move next year. That’s the kind of world we live in, transient, mobile, changing, metamorphic. We shed people; I don’t want to.

I like to find them, and keep them. Good luck with that. We won’t keep them all, and yet, nothing is lost from what has been found. Each one completes us, each one adds to us, each one is a wonder, each one a treasure, given by God, for the time we have them.

Warm affection — you can’t beat it, even if it is just for now.

Generous love — nothing is better!

I can’t wait to see what and who is next!

Jacaranda

Posted: May 11, 2014 in self
Tags: being who we are, on not comparing, randy hasper, the essence of being, the jacaranda of the self, to be or not to be ourselves

The jacaranda trees are showing off again in Southern California, being themselves, being gorgeous, taking compliments, blushing not-so-shyly in the canopy.

Their flowers are the thing, standouts, showoffs, conspicuousities — large proud panicles of purple or blue, fine five-lobed corollas.

This is just what the jacaranda do each spring, show off the essence of their essential essence, parade their blue-purple — be — exist as they are, with aspirations to be very precisely themselves. They carpet the areas under themselves in their color, mirroring their splendor on the ground. One is not enough, of their exact selves.

We might do well to follow suit in precisely their fashion. Some of us aspire too much to other than what we are. We are purple; we long for red. We are blue; we want green.

There is much to be said for being what we are, fully, unreservedly, not shyly, not longingly, no eye cast jealously toward colors below, above, to the side — simply, breath-takingly us!

What are you? Normal, boring, no standout, a plodder, a wall flower, an average citizen, a good joe, an average Jane — not blue ribbon?

No, you are more than that.

The self-possessed average-ordinary — always casting the ubiquitous dumb-blind-stare of stupid inferiority within the canopy of their ever-present shadow of insane insecurity — they are more than they know.

The inveterately comparative — those ever casting the elusive and wistful glance of they-seem-more-educated, she-is-more beautiful, he-is-taller-and-stronger — these know not who they are.

Each self is a jacaranda of a different color, a gorgeous conspicuousity, a standout in the canopy, casting its own color on the ground below, existing as nothing less than what it is, particularly purple, yellow or green, nothing less, nothing more, nothing else needed — to be beautiful.

I Like Me — Gracious

Posted: May 6, 2014 in mistakes
Tags: graciousness in vogue, how to deal with mistakes, i like myself gracious, on thriving, randy hasper

Yesterday I was in line at Sprouts with my broccoli and double dipped chocolate peanuts.

The food in front of me, on the conveyor, had no customer connected with it. What to do?

For a second the checker and I looked at each other, bemused, and then suddenly a woman with a child in a cart blew by me, crowding me in a bit and saying, “Those are mine; I have just a couple more items.” She proceeded to empty her cart of another twenty or so things.

It was odd. How did she get some items on the conveyor, and have so many still in her cart. Actually, I didn’t come up with an explanation until later. She must have partially unloaded her cart and then have gone back into the shopping area to get something she had forgotten. She didn’t just leave her cart there, because she needed to take the baby with her.

Her order took some time to process. There was some problem with the card or payment method or something.

The checker was visibly upset, and she apologized to me when it was finally my turn. She said, “People shouldn’t get in line until they have finished shopping.”

Normally, I would have been irritated too. Normally, I’m in a bit of a rush, pushing it, as I like to do, keeping the accelerator down. I like going fast.

But it wasn’t normally. I was on vacation, nothing to get to next that had a time stamp on it, and I found myself to be unphased by the wait.

“It’s not a problem,” I told the clerk. She thought it was. She apologized twice. I was gracious.

I like the feeling of being gracious. It’s a calm feeling, a lack of stress, a lack of judgment. I like not correcting people. I like myself when I am not correcting people who have done something odd or different than I would do, or wrong. I like understanding what is going on.

I like me — gracious.

It’s interesting. Gracious may be coming back in vogue. Maybe not.

Some thinking young people today seem to me to be more interested in understanding behavior than in judging, criticizing and condemning it. Young people in particular seemed to me to be sick of the judgmentalism of their parents, judgements concerning sexual behavior, political orientation, religion.

Some of this may simply be simply their lack of morality or formulated politics or faith. But really, some of this might be a more human desire for freedom, from the control of others, and for freedom, to be imperfect.

Life has its moments, when we have forgotten something we came to the store for, and in which we choose — in a flurry — to go back for. Life has its omissions. Life has its waits.

And in those cases, as in so many, graciousness is good.

I hope someone is gracious with me, the next time I make a mistake.

I Love Being Human

Posted: May 5, 2014 in food
Tags: a proper relationship with food, food isnt eviil, how to eat like a Christian, I love being human, randy hasper

I can turn it on
Be a good machine
I can hold the weight of worlds
If that’s what you need
Be your everything

But I’m only human …

Christina Perri

We aren’t machines; we can’t hold the weight of the world. We’re human, we feel and cry and care — it’s good!

The old Gnostic heresy that bodies are evil was wrong. Bodies are good. Bodies are a gift.

Psalm 139, “We are marvelously made by God.”

Human? Good; human emotion, good; human reason, good; eating, very good.

Mark Twain once quipped something like, “Success is eating what you like and letting the food fight it out inside you.”

I particularly like the fight inside between vanilla bean ice cream and Hersey dark chocolate sauce. The chocolate jumps on the vanilla.

I love food. I love to think about food. I love to thing about God and food. He made it.

Where do we find food in the Bible? Where don’t we?

Food came with the creation of plants, and Genesis records that God “saw that it was good.” Food is proof that God loves us!

God fed his people in the wilderness. In the OT, God gave the Jews, dietary laws, for discipline, in some cases perhaps for health, certainly to teach them to set themselves apart as a special, holy people. Food was given great value, when commanded as sacrifices and offerings.p

In the NT, Jesus turned water to wine. He fed his followers fish and bread when they were hungry. He declared the bread and wine to be sacraments. He defined himself as the bread of life.

Later Peter’s vision for a diverse church declared all foods clean.

The consistent narrative of the Bible is that food is love. Food is good. Food is a gift.

Food isn’t evil. Food is fun.

Of course of us at times have struggled with food. Some of us have developed unhealthy relationships with food and it is to us an area of weakness and even shame.

We’ve eaten too much, or too little, or unhealthily, and felt shame and guilt about eating. We’ve had other people force food on us, or perhaps criticize us for eating.

For some of us food has at times become an addiction, or a weapon to punish ourselves with, or a substitute for relationships, or even a form of protection.

Food issues are very deep and complicated. Eating disorders are very serious and people need help to recover from them. Professional help is needed.

I am certainly not perfect in this area of food choices.

Last Monday for snacks I had the following: Pinkberry yogurt, two bowls of cold cereal, three popsicles, some blueberries, two premium fudge bars and some double dipped chocolate peanuts. They are recorded on MyFitnessPal app on my phone

It’s a confession. Forgive me Father for I have sinned …

I have over indulged in the edible creation, the confectionary creation, the delectable, mouthable, tooth-worthy creation!

We can all identify. We all have our healthy and unhealthy choices.

We all have our healthy and unhealthy choices; we all have our bacon and our kale. I usually eat mostly fish, chicken, veggies and fruit. But I have my moments of food food too. I let the cheese and sausage fight it out.

But remember, food was given to us by God, in love, and eating it was meant to be act of freedom.

1 Corinthians 10:25, “Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

Frappuccinos are the Lords, and everything in them.

All of us eat at times unhealthy food or in unhealthy ways to relieve stress, to sooth our emotions, as a response to being traumatized.

But the salient, significant, interesting question arises:

What is a proper relationship with food? How does this effect spirituality?

We find a good model in Daniel.

Daniel was among the Israelites taken captive from Jerusalem when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged it.

In the book of Daniel, chapter one, verse 11 we find his story:

“Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, 12 “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” 14 So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.

15 At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. 16 So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.”

Daniel and the other men didn’t starve themselves. They didn’t stop eating. They simply made better, healthier choices. There is something important here to comment on.

They stopped eating somethings and choose better things. They had four things: a strong internal motivation, a higher calling, a purpose and a strategy.

They didn’t wait until they had health issues to discipline themselves. It is hard to learn healthy eating from a heart attack

And note that the text doesn’t say they never, ever ate meat again. We don’t know their food habits through the rest of life. But we do see from observation of people that monk, the flagellant, the extreme dieter, often just can’t keep it up.

Too many rules in any area of our Christianity, too much strickness, extreme asceticism, extreme self-denial … it tends to backfire!

Wisdom does not lie in food absolutes (I can never eat pizza again) but in a calling to a high purpose, in strategy, in self control, in moderation.

Daniel and his men ate out of of positive, not a negative motive, out of love for themselves, for their potential. The motivation wasn’t shame. It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t from someone else telling them what to do.

It doesn’t work well to correct and criticize others about food choices. “Do you really want to eat that?” The answer is “Yes!” They do

Success comes when we eat with a purpose; to make ourselves the best we can be — useful to God and the king.

This matters. If you take inspiration from these ideas it could save your life! Jesus saves, but he may not save you from a heart attack if you consume too much fat and lethargy.

The desire to make good food choices is best to come from within, not comparisons, but from God, because we are excited about a higher purpose, being the best in the court, being men and women of wisdom and knowledge.

God honored Daniel’s discipline. Daniel 1:17 reports, “To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning.

When the king examined them, he found them ten times wiser than his own magicians and “… they entered the kings service.”

We can do the same. We can make healthy choices. We can eat to present ourselves to the one true king, as ones healthy and ready to be of use to him. We can enter our bodies into the kings service.

I’ve sometimes felt I couldn’t control. But I was wrong. I do have the power. I am not helpless.

We can eat to keep ourselves alive, to makes us happy, out of thankfulness of the gift from God, and to fuel our ability to love, to worship and to serve.

1 Corinthians 6:12 Some of you say, “We can do anything we want to. But I tell you that not everything is good for us. So I refuse to let anything have power over me.”

God loves you? Food is not evil. Your desire for food is not evil..

It’s okay to feel okay about you.

It takes time, but the goal is to get to a positive place with yourself and to be okay with your food choices — and to have them be mostly healthy.

This is a very positive place, “God, I am eating well, out of love for myself and so that I might be as much use to you as possible.”

Eat, drink and be useful! For this is the will of God in Christ concerning you.

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