Laughing at Ourselves

"A cheerful heart is good medicine but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."
- Proverbs 17:22

The ability to be able to laugh at yourself is a strong trait in a spiritually healthy person. Take the case of one of my all time favorite baseball characters, “Vinegar Bend” Mizell, nicknamed for the Alabama town he grew up in. Describing living conditions in his home growing up, Mizell once said, “One day a fire started in the bathroom, but we were able to put it out before it reached the house.”

A left-hander with a blazing fast ball, Mizell was signed by the St. Louis Cardinals after graduating from high school. After spending time in the minors, notably at the ace of the 1951 Houston Buffs Texas League championship team, he was called up to the big league team. He spent seven years with the Cardinals before being traded to the Pirates in the middle of the 1960 season and went 13-5 down the stretch for a team that defeated the Yankees in one of the most dramatic World Series ever. Mizell finished up his career with the New York Mets in 1962 (one of the worst teams in the history of baseball by the way). Later Mizell was elected to the House of Representatives, serving three terms. A dedicated Christian on and off the field, he championed the cause of Christ, and had a special heart for high school and college students.

Mizell once humorously spoke of his effort as the doomed starter in game three of the 1960 World Series. In front of 70,000 fans at Yankee Stadium, he retired only one batter and gave up 5 runs. “If people tuned into the game late on the radio or TV, they missed me completely!” he once said self-deprecatingly. But he still wore his World Series ring with pride, having pitched well during the regular season for Pittsburg.

His delivery was definitely old school. With a slow, arching windup,“Vinegar Bend” would rear back with his leg kicked high and his pitching hand close to the mound. Then he would bring the ball over the top and blow it by a hitter. When asked about his delivery, Mizell would reply with a twinkle in his eye, “Not only did I occasionally touch the mound with my pitching hand, sometimes I would actually knock the ball out of my hand before I could deliver it to the plate!”

One might think a Christian, a Congressman, and a competitive person would be very serious minded and have little reason to laugh, but that’s not the case. Vinegar Bend (his real name, by the way, was Wilmer), realized what many others fail to grasp. A cheerful heart is good medicine. Christians can really laugh with a security -- we know the end of history’s story! We know how it all turns out. Jesus wins in the end. Our enemy is defeated once and for all. Our sins are forgiven, our tears are wiped dry and our future is glorious.

So go ahead and laugh. Snicker at yourself when you drop the ball. Smile when you trip over a crack in the sidewalk. Guffaw with glee when you get the date wrong or forget something. Tell a joke on yourself in a crowd. Those around you will appreciate that you don’t take yourself too seriously. Your ability to laugh might just also help raise someone’s spirits who needs it, and may give them a right perspective the next time they knock the ball out of their own hand.
 
Your number #1 fan,
Jeff

Going Home Justified

The 1962 film Ride the High Country is a study in Christian character.  Click here to read a great review of this film, and I encourage you to see the movie if you can.

-- Jeff

Hurry Sickness

Do you find yourself “busy” all the time? Even in down times are you harried and trying to multi-task? The place and time in which we live make us very susceptible to what author and Presbyterian minister John Ortberg calls “hurry sickness.”

He identifies the following symptoms of this rampant condition.

1. Speeding Up

You are haunted by the fear that you don’t have enough time to do what needs to be done. When listening, you nod more often to encourage the other person to get on with it. You chafe whenever you have to wait. At a stoplight, if there are two lanes and each contains one car, you read the year, make and model of each car to guess which will pull away most quickly.

2. Multi-tasking

You find yourself doing or thinking more than one thing at a time. Psychologists call this polyphasic activity. The car is a favorite place for this. Hurry-sick people may eat, drink coffee, listen to a podcast for ideas, direct business on the cell phone, and drive all at the same time.

3. Clutter

One researcher noted that the average desk-worker has 36 hours worth of work on the desk and spends three hours a week just sorting through it. The hurry-sick lack simplicity. They often carry around a time organizer the size of Montana.

4. Sunset Fatigue

We come home after work, and those who need our love the most, those to whom we are most committed, end up getting the leftovers. Some of the symptoms of “sunset fatigue” are:

a. you rush around at home even when there’s no reason to.

b. you speak sharp words to your spouse and children, even when they’ve done nothing to deserve them.

c. you tell your family that everything will be okay “in just a week or two.” So many of us look forward to the day when things will lighten up, at least for a few days. Alas the day never seems to come.

d. you indulge in self-destructive escapes: such as, watching too much TV, scanning the internet too much, looking forward to the cocktail hour.

e. you flop into bed with no sense of gratitude and wonder for the day, just fatigue.

5. Love impaired

The most serious sign of hurry sickness is a diminished capacity to love, for love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time and time is the one thing hurried people don’t have. Though it doesn’t readily occur to us in the midst of our hurried lives, it is clear that hurry sickness and its symptoms are a huge SPIRITUAL CHALLENGE for us. We need to address it as such. The remedy is not just a matter of slowing down and finding relaxation, but deep rest – it’s not a matter of getting “peace of mind” but of “the peace of God which passes all understanding.” It’s not relieved by entertainment, but by delight. This summer, as the rhythms of suburban life slow down, each of us have an opportunity to reflect on the quality of our lives, to let go of so called pressing priorities, to “vacate” and create some place in our harried lives, for time to rest with God and our families.

We can lay our deadly “doing” down and take time just to be, to listen, be aware, appreciate, pray. May this summer be for each of us a “spiritual time” that restores us to the peace, joy, intimacy and productivity God intends for us.

Peace to all,

Jeff