Common Grounds Online

Amy Lauger, How Do I Feel This Good Sober?

“How do I feel this good sober?” is a persistent question in Pink’s pop hit, “Sober.” I’m drawn to the brutal honesty in this song that portrays a woman struggling with addiction. She goes from feeling “safe up high, nothing can touch me” to lamenting her continued dependence on her substance of choice to feel good.  Over the past few months, I’ve listened to this song over and over, drawn to the truth and cutting beauty of its words. It reminds me of the frightening power of my own sin and addictions.  We all have them. For some it is drugs or alcohol. For others sex or pornography. But for others perhaps it’s building the perfect career. Or having the perfect family and home.  However our idols manifest themselves, they promise us everything yet in the end leave us with nothing.

The struggle in this song reminds me of Romans 7:15, where the Apostle Paul admits “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” The woman in Pink’s song repeatedly does the very thing she doesn’t want to do. In her struggle, she vacillates from saying being high is “perfection” and the feeling of “no pain,” to crying out “never again” and admitting that she’s “just trying to find a friend.”  In exasperation, she says this is “not the way I want my story to end.”

Fear Not: Lullaby for a Parent

D-day is just around the corner. Forty some-odd days to go until life changes forever. A month and some change until my husband and I will get to welcome the little life whose DNA twists and twirls with parts of him and parts of me. I’m more excited than I am afraid. Perhaps I should be more afraid.

The Song That I Sing - Cody Chambers

I went to the Houston Symphony's performance of Handel's Messiah last month. I had never heard the oratorio all the way through--most of us only hear 2 of the 53 mini-songs that make up Messiah. I took a peek at the lyrics page in the concert program and to my surprise found two full pages of text made up entirely of Scripture. We might give credit to G.F. Handel for skillfully weaving the tapestry of singers and instruments, but this declaration in song wholly originates in God's Word. Which made me wonder: who in this chorus sings these words from the heart, with belief? They are perhaps the most powerful words put to song. Many of the singers were about to explode with the energy they were putting into each word. Others carefully uttered the lyrics with more dispassionate looks on their faces. How many confess--not just sing--those words? I wanted to bump into one of the choristers after the performance and say, “So, what's it like to sing that song?”

I often mouth Christian verbiage with a less than believing heart. How can I do this? As I step back and look at the story told by my Christian faith, how can I help but bow my head in reverence and humility? Our hearts are to be directly tied to the words we confess (Luke 6:45). How can we make our tune a true song that springs from the heart?

Linc Ashby, The Death Machine and the Meaning of Life

I don’t know if I am one of many, or one of just a few, but this time of year has become for me a time for resolutions.  Usually reserved for first day in January, this is when my mind drifts towards those goals I hope to accomplish.  That’s why I found myself frantically trying to squeeze a work out in between the time we were dismissed from the all school faculty breakfast and the time we were scheduled to begin the first athletic council meeting.  I ran upstairs to the aerobics room, after taking a ridiculously quick and far too cold shower, beads of sweat quickly returning, shining brightly on my brow, towel in hand, courtesy of our trainer, Sean DelFavero.  “I was so excited about this meeting I just burst into a sweat,” I quipped, settling into my seat a few minutes late.

Kathryn Gatewood, People Watching and Jesus

My husband and I recently returned from a week long vacation to Vancouver, BC. The distance and cheap ticket provided us with basically two full travel days- one at each end of the trip, and a lot of airport time.     One can only read so much before inevitably being sucked into "people watching". I think I probably take in about 15 people per minute, though often dwelling longer on those I feel drawn to over analyze due to interesting shoes, books, or family dynamics. It's pretty pathetic but the stories I contrive in my head about these strangers are quite elaborate. Partly I am simply fascinated by the diversity, partly I judge and feel pretty good about myself in comparison, and partly I get sad. But at one point, at the end of our trip, as I was staring down more people as we waited to board our final flight, I looked at my husband and asked, "What would go through Jesus' head in an airport?" How different would it be from what goes through mine? Where would his mind wander to? In short, how are we to "see" people and how does Jesus "see" us?

Here is a short list of what I'm coming up with, and a challenge to come up with your own. 

Amy Lauger, A Poor Match?

Julie is the daughter of a picture-perfect Christian couple. Her father is an elder and a successful businessman and her mother is a devoted stay-at- home mom and Sunday school teacher. Julie was surrounded by love, security, and godly nurture throughout her childhood and her time at a well-respected Christian college. In the early days of her first job, she met Mark. His was a childhood much different from hers. His father struggled with alcoholism and eventually left his mother to raise three children alone on a high school education and little support. Mark didn’t go to church much growing up and rebelled quite a bit in high school. However, at his secular college he accepted Christ through a campus ministry and has sought thereafter to live a life pleasing to the Lord. Julie was immediately attracted to Mark’s humor and passion for Christ and he adored her giftedness, faithfulness to God and clear sense of purpose in life. The two began dating seriously but encountered much resistance from Julie’s parents, who were afraid of what his difficult background could mean for his relationship with their daughter. They urged her to reconsider her feelings toward him.

Are We Listening?

The clouds have been building in my town this week, threatening to take us from hot and humid to just plain sauna. We had gotten a few outbursts of rain over the preceding days, but not the big one. With so much 'talk' and so little delivery, my son and I headed to a friend’s house this weekend to help her change some outdoor light bulbs. "It will only take 10 minutes", she assured.

I was watching my son replace the first set of floodlights, when I noticed above the corner of the house a pile-up of pine needles in the gutter. They were tucked just behind a tall metal guard, peeking their tips into view. It was right where a cornice joined the main part of the roof, creating a pathway for the water to drain into the gutter pipe. My friend had a little dam going up there, right in the way of the main flow.

Leigh McLeroy, The Balcony Dancer

Out of the fifth floor window of a downtown Denver hotel room, something in motion caught my eye. I was only vaguely aware of it, the way you're aware of an insect buzzing nearby: you sense it - but unless it lingers or threatens to come closer, you don't turn in its direction. The peripheral distraction continued, though - so I set down my coffee cup, laid aside the newspaper and focused my eyes on it instead of on the day's headlines.

"It" was someone on the balcony of a nearby building - across the street and just slightly below me. At first I thought the person was  a child waving his arms wildly at someone just inside the sliding glass door...but a closer look revealed that it wasn't a child at all. It was a child-sized woman doing what must have been her morning workout, dancing with all the verve and energy of an NBA cheerleader - skipping and leaping from one side of the balcony to the other in fast time and flinging her arms up and out as she went.

“Enjoy the Process” by Todd Bragg

I have been doing some projects in my yard lately. Specifically, relaying an existing brick patio in my backyard. This is the first of several phases to getting my yard in order. I am the first to admit that I am not crazy about doing landscaping. I love the payoff at the end, but I don’t particularly enjoy getting there, and as with most projects that I tackle, it seems to always become a bigger process than I anticipate in the beginning.

Tonya Riggle, It's all in a Name

Once again I have become intrigued by Genesis 3:20. I keep coming back to it. In its simplicity, it speaks to me. It is the occasion of the naming of Eve.

You know the story…Adam’s helper, God’s fashioned-one on whom he had lavished the wonders of his pristine world and the fellowship of himself had become convinced there was more. And ‘more’ was to come through herself – her forbidden-fruit-enlightened self - her bigger, better, more exalted self. So, in Satan’s ultimate coup of creative marketing, she bought the lie and got death instead. In the process, she became the open door of death to all. What a legacy – life-taker – like no other.