HOW SPUNKY COUSINS CHANGED MY LIFE

Energetic guitarist and songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman has a reputation for seeking and joyfully expressing the best that life has to offer. Maybe that’s why he confesses his surprise at his own complacency on down days in a song entitled See the Glory.

Chapman is struck by the ease with which he can lose sight of the grandness of life and give in to triviality:

Sometimes it’s like …I’m playing Gameboy
standing in the middle of the Grand Canyon
I’m eating candy sittin’ at a gourmet feast
I’m wading in a puddle when I could be swimming  in the ocean.
Tell me, what’s the deal with me?
Wake up and see the glory!

As a lifelong seeker I’ve always been inspired by glimpses of glory, signs of grandeur in the natural world, and greatness in creative and exuberant people, evidence that there was more to life than I was experiencing.

I’ve pondered the slow drain of childlike joy that most experience over a lifetime, this sapping of our spirit, what one author calls an “erosion” of God’s glory in humans, and another simply and sadly describes as the modern phenomena of “the unlived life.”

In fact, I vividly recall, as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in my early 20’s, my nagging emptiness and fruitless introspection, when I prayed for a fuller vision for my life, and more models of hope. That was before the weekend that changed everything.

FINDING SPUNKY LONG LOST COUSINS

Having grown up outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, our family was far enough away from our South Dakotan cousins that we hardly knew them. But one weekend during my childhood we made the 10-hour trek to the old Stadem family farm used once a year for a big family reunion. We had no idea what we had been missing.

Grandpa Leroy and his boys arrived early to tractor-mow the knee-high grass, put up the Frisbee golf flags, make sure rodents or bees hadn’t taken over, and ensure that we had plumbing. The women scurried about with fresh-baked casseroles and Norwegian pastries. They transformed the place with colorful decorations to make it feel like home.

Then all “heaven” broke loose, as kids piled out of vans, the tents went up, and go-carts whizzed off, making the farmyard a speedway. High-spirited cousins played left-handed softball, prepared skits, hiked to a real live Buffalo ring, and held contests in the swimming pool in town.

The younger set took turns jumping off a tree platform that overlooked the prairie, and swung downhill a zipline the uncles had rigged, then begged for rides from Grandpa on the golf cart. Meanwhile a Huck Finn-type uncle snuck off with a fishing pole to a nearby pond and returned with a big toothy smile.

My sister, brother and I marveled as one set of cousins planned an evening fireworks show, and another sang to guitar music and danced like banshees around a blazing campfire. We were taken aback by the spontaneity and health of this side of our family. Then came the unavoidable question, “Why are we so flat-footed, and never have this much fun?”

CONTRASTING RAW JOY AND SPIRITUAL DEATH

When I said my spunky relatives danced like “banshees,” I meant it. While I watched the uninhibited beauty of my attractive cousin’s silhouettes, grinding out beats in the fire’s light to wholesome Christian songs, it seemed like the loud cry of the female spirit in Irish folklore, warning us of our own impending spiritual and emotional death.

My cousins’ gift to me, though they didn’t realize it, was showing me that, by contrast to their vim and vigor, I had settled for an anemic life, settling for candy in puddles when I could have a feast by the ocean.

As I watched the Stadems tease each other, laugh easily, sing funny songs as prayers before meals, and even do chores and worship with joy, it was natural to ask, “What’s motivating all of this? How did they come to be this way? And is it possible to capture and graft some of this energy into my own life?”

I had already figured out that “faith” was important to this side of the family, and I shared that. Or did I? My dad and their dad were both Lutheran pastors. I assumed we all believed the same things. But I came to see that I was “holding” my beliefs in something like a rusty bucket on a retired tractor behind the farm shed. Theirs seemed to touch everything they said and did.

GOD’S RESTORATION PLAN

I know the Stadem family is unusually blessed. They have had advantages in life that I will never have. But once I got over my jealousy, I realized the immense value of what I had been shown: another caliber of humanity. In them I saw a new possibility for “Christ in me, the hope of glory.” (Eph. 3:17)

My favorite Bible story, one pregnant with hope, speaks of a most exalted quality of greatness that was once instilled in the human race. It was arguably the most startling moment in the history of the world when God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26)

Paying humans the highest conceivable compliment, God made humans in His image and turned over to them “dominion,” care, and responsibility for the earth, along with His inestimable qualities, even the ability to pro-create and make new life! It was a breathtaking decision on God’s part, both a divestment and an investment.

CAN WE RECOVER THAT ORIGINAL GRANDEUR?

The psalmist marvels at God’s endowment of human beings: “You have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:5) The first human began as a lump of clay. But after God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7), he could run races, write symphonies, build bridges and go to the moon.

Then, as we know, humans lost their original capacity and splendor, turning from God toward self-centered ends. Yet, what is often missed, as we rush from stories of Christ’s cradle to His cross, is that God’s purpose in becoming flesh through the life of Jesus was to give us a living, breathing image of the grand, undiminished, original human being – a visual reminder of the path of restoration to a full-orbed life. (See Col. 3:9-10; 2 Cor. 3:18)

As explained in Romans 8:29-30, “God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.” (Message Translation)

RENEWED BY WHAT WE SEE

Nothing can replace Jesus who shows us “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being” (Hebrews 1:3). When I “fix my eyes upon” Him, by God’s design (Hebrews 12:2), I am changed.

As A. W. Tozer writes in The Gaze of the Soul,

The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and (simply looks) to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him.  It will be God working in him to will and to do.

When I take time to reflect on Jesus’ healing, for example, makes me more loving and engaged in the world’s sufferings; to reflect on his confrontation, makes me courageous and strong; to reflect on his lack of retaliation, makes me more understanding and forgiving.

Yet there are things Jesus didn’t model in his earthly life. He did not model what being a spouse looks like, for example, or how to endure an irritable, controlling boss in a cubicle, or the challenging days and decisions of a mother or a geneticist. God furnished only one recorded story from Jesus’ childhood to guide youth, and only one example of how to parent teenagers!

That’s where the inspiring models and stories of our friends, family and neighbors come in, as God shows aspects of His glory through their lives.

WHO ARE YOUR SPIRITUAL PIED PIPERS?

This habit of looking for and reveling in fuller visions of personhood has changed my life. Befriending those whose lives have something to teach me has inspired me as a writer and artist, and pushed me, when I would otherwise forget, to explore the beauty of the outdoors.

It should go without saying, but frequently those modeling joy, environmental concern, family devotion, or care for the poor are not motivated by my spiritual perspectives. One of my models is an agnostic, yet he is frequently heart-broken to the point of tears about the world’s broken systems and ethnic strife.

Last I checked, the Bible says both Christians and non-Christians were created in the image of God, with tremendous God-given capacity to care for their neighbors, love their children, work with integrity, and create a better world. I am inspired by and learn a ton from their lives. Yet Christians have a noble heritage to draw from.

Just as Elisha latched on to Elijah (II Kings 2:9-12), asking for and receiving a “double portion of his spirit,” I have grown through the wisdom of spiritual uncles, surrounded myself with laughers who have helped me not to take myself too seriously, and befriended guys who cry with love for their kids who have softened me with fatherly compassion.

Just as Ruth from her pagan nation refused to leave her mother-in-law Naomi when their husbands died, seeking her God and home country, I chose to marry a lady from a strong family in the Bronx after my parents divorced, gaining immensely from her strength, her propensity for joy and spontaneity, and her consummate mothering and devotion.

Who has reflected part of the image of God to you, in small ways or profound, through the way they love a neighbor, honor a spouse, spend their time or money, or use and express their gifts?

Who may you find, if you look and pray for them, as your personal models and witnesses to the limitless life of God?

Are you willing to trade your candy for a gourmet feast?

© 2012 Todd Svanoe. Unauthorized reproduction of this copyrighted material is prohibited.

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Todd can be reached via the Contact page.
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