Discovery — Page 52

What Year Your Heart Beats

July 10, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Forget about Candles on a Cake. . .

They can never really determine how old your Heart Beats

How old does your Heart Beat?

I know it was a Youth For Christ weeklong event, somewhere in Pennsylvania. . .I was 15 or 16.

It was better than any Church Camp I ever attended or Directed.

It was filled with lots of memories, but none any more powerful than the last night.

It was a Girls vs. Boys Flamingo Football game, on a muddy field and it was intense.

Flamingo Football is when the guys have to do everything by hopping around on one leg while holding the other one by the ankle–like a Flamingo.

The girls had all the advantages and even though they were slipping and sliding all over the place, they at least had two feet to do it; I don’t think they scored all that much, but WE DIDN’T SCORE AT ALL. And they tackled and blocked HARD.

Everyone was covered with mud. . .some bloodied, most covered with bruises we couldn’t see because of the caked mud. It was 60 or so teenagers who became first or second graders not afraid to get dirty.

Muddy. . .all of us. . .we, without getting washed off or changed, were all marched into the cafeteria hall to hear about the lesson of the Mud Sessions. . . .

THE LESSON

actually took place as we were going into the Hall. . . .

The caretaker/owner of the property was holding the door for us as we were walking in. . .with the biggest smile on his face.

He was just as muddy as all of us. . .he was the referee. . .who couldn’t quite keep his feet under him

“Looks like you had a good time, sir. . .”

“The best time ever. . .you kids made me feel young again. . .

and it was better than actually being young the first time around. . . .”

I wish I could tell you that I made a pact with my muddy self right then and there; that promised I would never let the days of my youth slip/slide away into old age. . . .

But. . .but I did RE-Member. . .

And I just put it all back together again recently when I was out playing with my grand-nephew’s and a couple of my granddaughters.

My Heart beat young again

forgetting my Osteoarthritic Knees, my lack of range of motion, my A G E

I remember well how my heart beat that Friday night as a 16 year old mud-caked kid. . .

I remember well how that mud-caked old man smiled young as we walked past him into the dining hall. . .

I remember well how I wanted that moment to be more of a lifestyle than just an idle instant. . .

I remember well how I’ve tried to not only make my heart beat young, but help other hearts to beat just as young AGAIN. . . .

When was the last time you remember your heart beating young?

Q U I C K

Throw me the ball

or better still. . .catch it. . .

and run

or chase

someone to remember again.

Just Throw

February 23, 2015 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

Kevin Costner has made a lot of different sports movies.

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME is one of my favorites…no, it’s not the Classic, FIELD OF DREAMS or the funny, BULL DURHAM or even TIN CUP or DRAFT DAY, but it has some strong moments.

It’s about Kevin’s character, Billy Chapel near the end of his career playing for a not so good Detroit Tigers Team and he’s literally pitching the game of his life. He’s pitching a no-hitter going into the bottom of the 8th inning with a one run lead and he’s tired with not a whole lot left in the tank, when his catcher counterpart tells him that the whole team is behind him and that right now because of his awesome performance versus the New York Yankees that they “Don’t Stink.” He encourages his tired, nearly worn-out friend to:

“JUST THROW”

Oh, that’s right, he’s lost the love of his life and will soon find out that even throwing a no-hitter means absolutely nothing if YOU HAVE NO ONE TO SHARE THE JOY.

But, but that’s not the story, really.

The real story as told by Kevin Costner recently in an appearance on Mike & Mike on ESPN was that the movie almost never was able to take place; at least not in Yankee Stadium.

George Steinbrenner, who was still alive and the owner of the Yankees almost pulled the plug on the whole project.

Do you know why?

It was because when George read the script he found out that someone would come into HIS HOUSE of Yankee Stadium and actually NO-HIT his beloved ball club. He almost pulled the plug on the whole project because THE YANKEES LOSE!

They had to convince George that the Yankees, in fact, had already clinched the Division and it was just another game at the end of the season before they made another march in the playoffs. They had to assure George that the game MEANT NOTHING–that it was just a throw away game. And after believing that the game didn’t have significance he allowed the movie to be shot in Yankee Stadium with the Yankees being defeated in a dramatic No Hitter.

I love T H A T!

I so very much admire and at times envy THAT Passion of Mr. Steinbrenner.

That makes the movie, ultimately different, doesn’t it?

WHAT. . .

IN YOUR LIFE WOULD YOU NOT NEGOTIATE

unless you were totally assured it really had no meaning or significance and that indeed, it was actually to illustrate a greater outcome?

Now THAT question is like an all day sucker you can’t quite get your tongue around. . . .

JUST THROW

is really good advice if you know you’ve got THE WHOLE TEAM behind you; if you knew that just for this one significant moment in your life you could put your EVERYTHING in to IT with nothing to lose, when you were at your weakest, at your can’t-do-one-more-thing-exhaustive-break point.

JUST THROW

is really easy to do with pure, unadulterated PASSION!

It’s one thing to Recognize THAT Moment. . .

It’s one thing to Have THAT Moment. . .

It’s one thing to Give THAT Moment. . .

It’s one thing to Share THAT Moment with another. . .

It’s one thing to Combine THOSE Moments into ONE. . .

Go ahead…

JUST THROW!

Be the Magic!

Batter UP!

A Hill of Beans

January 12, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Depressed or Inspired? What do you feel like after you watch this brief video?

If our life were measured in Jelly Beans, forget about asking what Color or Flavor you’d be…how many of them would you have wasted by now…how many thousands?

The only way our life is worth a Hill of Beans is if we’re willing to make them. . .

MAKE THEM COUNT!

You don’t have to be a Mathematician or a Numerophile…you don’t even have to like Jelly Beans but as the makeshift of a old cliche goes:

YOU DON’T HAVE COUNT YOUR BEANS (DAYS) SO MUCH AS MAKING YOUR BEANS (DAYS) COUNT!

Let me give you an equation that makes us all Mathematicians:

All the beans in the world don’t count except just ONE…the ONE you have left. . .the ONE you have
today!

So, we already know how to count a Bean of one. . .the 28,835 dollar question is:

H O W

are you making it COUNT?

Quick. . .you may a few beans to spare. . .

but not another Moment.

Hope, Faith, and Love

September 17, 2014 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

How good of a NOTICE-ER are you?

Do you believe in Coincidence or are you more of an Einstein believer of, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining Anonymous?”

I’ve always had a fairly sharp eye for what’s happening around me. I still think I MISS much more than I notice, but a willingness to SEE, HEAR, TASTE, TOUCH, SMELL more goes a very long way in actually seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling so much more than purposely not doing so.

Everyone wears NAME TAGS these day.

EVERYONE. . .EVERYWHERE.

I saw her’s at CVS as I was checking out. Her name was HOPE.

“I like your name, do you?” I asked her.

She smiled and said it was ok.

I asked her if anyone ever made fun of it and she told me more than she’d like, but was pretty much use to it.

I thanked her for taking care of me so nicely and said, “No pun intended, but I ‘HOPE’ your name serves you well and others more than you’ll ever understand or imagine.”

She smiled at back at me and already began checking out the good of the person behind me.

I NOTICED. . .

Later that day I was picking up some copied mps/cd’s from a camera shop and person who had called me on the phone to let me know that my order was ready, she identified herself as, Faith.

I had a little “Hmmmmmmmmmmm of the Day,” moment.

When I met her, I asked her about her name just like I had done with Hope. She told me that it was an aunt’s name who had died before she had been born.

I asked her if she liked her name and she smiled and shrugged her shoulders a little and giggled out a, “It’s alright, I guess.”

“Well, Faith,” I said, “I hope your name serves you and others well–just like it did me today.”

Her smile served as her only response.

I NOTICED. . .

It was my last visit of the day.

She was sitting with her back to me and her husband was lying in bed.

From the doorway, I could see he was half sleeping and half awake, moaning softly.

He blinked opened his eyes repeatedly, tried to clear his throat and then with a raspy whisper he said, “Hey Love, can you give me sip of water?”

“Ahhhh, thank you, Love, thank you,” he sighed as he was already back into a not so restless slumber.

“What a great name,” I said as I pulled up a chair beside her on the side of his bed.

She looked at me with moist, tired, red eyes.

“Oh that’s not my name, it’s Gloria, but he’s called me that since our second date 48 years ago.”

“It seems to fit,” I told her as we sat silently watching her husband breathe with a little rattle.

He mumbled, “Love. . .Love. . .Love. . . .”

She put her hand over top of his and laid her head down on the side of his bed.

It was peaceful. . .it was Love-FILLED.

I NOTICED. . .

Coincidence or

meeting three women in three so very different places, God’s way of remaining Anonymous?

Are you a good Notice’er?

You really don’t have to be Einstein to N O T I C E

Hope. . .

Faith. . .

Love. . .

The Greatest of these is not just in the NOTICING, but BEING in the moments that make Life more than mere Consequences…and then,

SHARING THEM. . . .

A Most Difficult Practice

September 3, 2014 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

We are reminded every once in a while, aren’t we?

And it’s a very painful reminder too, isn’t it?

WE DON’T KNOW E V E R Y T H I N G. . .

In fact, sometimes, we barely know, anything.

I think we are at our most dangerous when We KNOW,
When we know that We KNOW,
When we bet our lives WE KNOW
that we most likely have the ability to A C T like we KNOW NOTHING!

And do you know what we KNOW the very least about?

Death.

Wait, we do know that death occurs when the heart beats no longer, when brain waves are flat, when there’s an absence of pulse, when the lungs don’t inhale/exhale.

D E A T H

But. . .

We are not talking about Death

We are talking about YOUR DEATH!

I was in my second year of Seminary taking a Clinical Pastoral Education Class. Near the end of the Unit, after spending my time at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, my Supervisor asked me what I wanted to do with this training.

Hospice was a fairly new concept, but I was intrigued by death and dying and companioning those who are intimately walking that path.

I told my supervisor that I would like to possibly use my Clinical Education Class to do Hospice Chaplaincy.

I still remember his smile…it was a slow one that gently spread across his face, wrinkling his cheeks and squinting his eyes, showing his teeth.

He held it there in my gaze for just a few seconds, those few seconds that last an eternity in your mind.

He cleared his throat and asked me a question that I’ll never forget–now neither will you:

“WHAT ABOUT YOUR DEATH; HAVE YOU THOUGHT OF YOUR DEATH?”

And then with one simple statement, my life changed,

“YOU CAN’T HELP ANY ONE ELSE DIE, YOU CAN’T WALK THEM DOWN THAT PATH UNLESS YOU’VE DEALT WITH YOUR OWN DEATH.”

Good words then, great words, still. . . .

I’m going to die, so are you.

We know it.

We know we know it.

We’d bet our lives that we know it.

But, but for the life of us, we act like we just don’t know it.

So I practice. I practice dying a little each day. With each visit, each funeral, each ache, each pain, each disappointment, each hurt, each good-bye, ‘see-you-later, with each moment of perfect peace, each night, just before I go to sleep. . .

. . .and begin again each morning I wake up. . .

Until, until I don’t. . . .

This Is A Test

September 1, 2014 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Go ahead. . .

FILL IN THE

. . . .

Perfectly Imperfect

August 20, 2014 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

Are you Perfect?

I am.

Pristine. Unadulterated. Pure. Faultless–ME!

Perfectly IMPERFECT!

You?

The Teacher Knows.

The story goes, not so Once-Upon-A-Time, but currently, when a Rabbi, The Teacher, prayed daily that God would make a perfect world in which there would never be any hatred, jealously, pain or problems.

Well, wouldn’t you know, one night, God appeared to the Rabbi, The Teacher in a dream and took him on a wonderful tour of any absolutely, magnificently uncorruptable World.

P E R F E C T

The Rabbi, The Teacher, saw his house, his synagogue, his little town. Lions and lambs were actually laying down together.

P E A C E F U L

Still, this Rabbi, The Teacher was troubled. Something, something was terribly absent…MISSING!

“Where am in in this Perfect World,” the Rabbi, The Teacher asked, wanted…needed to know?

God offered the most apologetic answer, ever: “This is a perfect world you requested. You must understand that you are NOT PERFECT, so you cannot be included.”

We are NEVER just one thing in Life, are we?

We are all so very PLURAL and never so SINGULAR.

But one thing, one thing through all of these Personas, through all these changes, through all our ages, our comings/goings, stayings/leavings, pasts/presents/futures remains the same, doesn’t it?

We–everyone one of us–are undeniably, immaculately, impeccably, PERFECTLY IMPERFECT.

It helps, doesn’t it, with the WHY’S, the HOW-COME’S, the WHAT-FOR’S?

Expecting the world, this world of August 20, 2014 to treat us fairly because we are nice, caring, compassionate, PERFECTLY IMPERFECT People is like expecting a Bull not to gore us just because we are vegetarians.

Are you Perfect?

I am.

So are you.

We, we are PERFECTLY IMPERFECT.

A Person of No Age

August 6, 2014 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

21,550 isn’t all that a big number. . .

Until, until it is.

If a person were allowed to live for 21,550 days, 3.078 weeks would have been ventured; 707 months survived, 15 leap years endured…

1,861,904,152 seconds
31,031,735 minutes
517,195 hours
1,539 fortnights
792 lunar moons
414 dog years
60.81 lunar years
2.27 generations
0.59 centuries
0.05904 milleniums
0.00000025669823197229 galactic years

…Countless Moments. . . .

As much as we are not a Label, we are not a distinct moment.

We are so very, very much more and much, much more to become.

What. . .which day isn’t a Birth Day…which day isn’t one we haven’t expired to be birthed again…in another, new way?

I’ve decided to become, without another fortnight or galactic, nanosecond to pass,

A PERSON OF NO AGE.

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.
–Wu Men (Hui-k’ai)

I’m inspired and awed by so much and better–so very, very MANY.

Pause…as I have a few moments before writing these few facts/figures and thoughts from Sherry Ruth Anderson’s story about harp lessons (in this google link below)

http://books.google.com/books?id=fG4dAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT53&ots=q2SKD57_Jn&dq=sherry+ruth+anderson+ripening+time+harpo+marx&pg=PT52#v=onepage&q=sherry%20ruth%20anderson%20ripening%20time%20harpo%20marx&f=false

How about it? Are you up for becoming a Person of No Age?

Join me…let’s be TIMELESS…and oh yeah…Happy Birth

Day.

Would THEY Blacken Your Face OUT?

July 18, 2014 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Would they blacken out your face if you left?

Do we matter THAT much?

We all want to be accepted, liked, LOVED!

It’s the innate yearning that’s more a part of us than the very first time we let out a cry.

For the second time in four years, LaBron James made a DECISION that literally has effected thousand of lives, not to mention his own and his family’s. Not just Cleveland, not just Miami, but the Country, the World was waiting for where LaBron was going to play basketball next. He made his decision last Friday and reactions were fierce everywhere. Anger in Miami. Pure Party-in-the-streets hysteria in Cleveland.

Why would LaBron be cause for such craziness? For such opposing reactions? LaBron stirs up the pot of emotions so much because he’s the best basketball player in the world. People love him and others just love to hate him. Psssst…that means he matters. He’s doing relevant, amazing things.

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