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An inspirational week

1/30/2018

This week several people have inspired me to think afresh about adversity.

Like some of you, I’ve been glued to the television each evening watching some of the best tennis in decades being played out at the Australian Open.

There are new up-and-coming players beginning to make their mark and none more so than the South Korean, Heyon Chung, who defeated a number of players on his way to the semi finals, including his idol, Novak Djokovic.

At the age of six, a doctor advised Heyon to take up tennis to help improve his weak eyesight. Little could they have imagined then, where that decision would lead. How many people with poor eyesight would dream of setting out on a career in tennis or even contemplate that at just 21 years of age, they would defeat Djokovic in the Australian Open? He is inspiring a generation of young people in South Korea to imagine what might be possible.

Then there was Dylan Alcott in the wheelchair tennis at the Open. He was born with a tumour wrapped around his spinal cord. During surgery to remove the tumour, his spinal cord was damaged. He had 15 operations before the age of four. Life hasn’t been easy and he endured a lot of bullying, but he credits his resilience to his family who refused to wrap him in cotton wool and treated him like any other child.

He took up tennis when he was 10 and switched to wheelchair basketball at 17. He became the youngest wheelchair basketball gold medallist at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. In 2013 he returned to tennis and won his first grand slam title at the 2015 Australian Open and numerous titles since then. He became the Australian Open champion for the fourth straight time this year.

In a post match interview, Dylan said his disability had given him opportunities he would not have had any other way and he wouldn’t change his life for anything. He gets the privilege to be a role model for disabled children everywhere and show them what is possible in life. He sees himself as an athlete who just happens to use a wheelchair and hopes that is helping the community at large to view disability differently.

Sadly children are bullied for many reasons and sometimes for nothing more than the colour of their skin. Eddie was born and raised in Sydney by Malaysian, Chinese parents. While he identified as an Australian, this schoolmates didn’t think he fitted the Aussie mould. He was bullied for being different.

And different is what he has become. He had every intention of becoming a high school English/History teacher but when someone challenged him about the dire need for mathematics teachers, he took on the challenge and has just been awarded the Australian Local Hero of the Year award for his services to education and mathematics in particular.

When one of Eddie’s students was diagnosed with cancer and was absent for long periods due to chemotherapy, Eddie started recording his lessons and putting them online at Wootube so his student could keep up. The channel now has way over 4 million viewers, due largely to his infectious enthusiasm and unique way of teaching students to understand mathematics.

Adversity is the thing most of us will avoid at all costs but these three people remind me that when embraced, adversity becomes a door that can lead us into places we might never have chosen to go.

There is a choice. We can fight adversity and let it "cripple" us or we can accept and embrace it and allow it to shape us, and the direction of our life.

These young people have been an inspiration to me this week. Not that I have to navigate the huge challenges they have overcome, but age brings with it struggles and limitations I would rather avoid. Some of those are hard to accept, leave alone embrace, but acceptance is the key to becoming more compassionate, available, and other-centred.

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I see you

1/23/2018

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He saw him. Not as a Jew to be destroyed, but as a human being to be cared for.

Wilhelm Hosenfeld was a German schoolteacher, husband to Annemarie, a pacifist, and father of five. He’d grown up in a conservative Catholic and German patriotic family and in 1935 joined the Nazi Party. In 1940 he was stationed in Warsaw where he rose to the rank of Captain.

Wilhelm's loyalty to the Führer gradually dissolved into disillusionment as he saw the cruelty and horror playing out before him. In his journals and letters home to his wife he described his repulsion at what he saw.

On June 16, 1943 he wrote, “These brutes think we shall win the war that way. But we have lost the war with this appalling mass murder of the Jews. We have brought shame upon ourselves that cannot be wiped out; it is a curse that cannot be lifted. We deserve no mercy; we are all guilty..."

In the closing months of the war, he came upon a Polish Jew, hiding in the rubble of an abandoned building. Their eyes met. The Jew, starving and exhausted, was paralysed with fear at the thought of what would come next. What came next he would never forget.

Wilhelm hid him, brought him food and water and gave him his coat to shield him against the bitter cold. He didn’t see a Jew, but another human being and risked his own life for him.

In the early 1900s a new word was added to our English dictionaries, empathy, coined ironically from the German term Einfühlung, literally meaning “feeling-in” ... being able to feel for and open your heart to another human being.

Empathy requires that we ‘see ‘ the other person. And isn’t that what we all long for … to be seen for who we are, understood and appreciated? But so often we see a lack of empathy playing out every day.

Bullying, racism, domestic violence, terrorism, homelessness and loneliness are all evidence that we aren’t ‘seeing’ each other. When we shut our eyes to the worth of the other person, we lose sight of their humanity.

Maybe the ‘not seeing’ is more literal that we realize. In an age of 140 characters, Facebook friends and screens, have we lost the ability to look into one another’s eyes and see the pain and the joy? How often do we deliberately eyeball someone in an effort to connect and let them know they count … even for that moment?

Our way of greeting each other in the West, “Hi, how are you”, (often not seriously wanting to know) is so different to our African brothers and sisters where greetings require time and answers.

Sawubona, is an African Zulu greeting that means "I see you". It means more that our traditional "hello." It says, "I see your humanity. I see your dignity and respect you." It's a powerful greeting. And then there is the expectation of the answer. An African greeting is never hurried, it is a valued, respectful communication and needs to be taken seriously.

Someone mentioned to me the other day that in America, someone can chat to you for 90 seconds in the supermarket and then say, “It’s been nice visiting with you”. Have we too become adept at superficial relating? Are we too busy to make each other a priority?

It's easy to feel invisible.

What if ‘seeing’ other people became a daily priority? What if we intentionally looked into people's eyes and let them know they were noticed, that we saw their humanity and dignity ... that we genuinely wanted to know how they were ... whether our neighbour, the shop assistant, the homeless person on the street, the fisherman on the wharf or the teacher/nurse/pastor who continually give out to others?

Some years ago a new manager arrived at the office where I was working. He was a vibrant, positive, joy-filled person and brought a breathe of fresh air to the team. But over time I watched the vibrancy fade and the spring in his step disappear. One day I went to his office and asked if he have a few minutes to spare. I told him how concerned I was to see the enormous change in him, and he began to cry.

In the next few minutes, he poured out his heart. Oh the pain we often carry alone, the loneliness that no one seems to see and the healing that can come from someone letting us know we are noticed, valued and heard.

The polish Jew saved by Wilhelm Hosenfeld was Wladyslaw Szpilman, a famous pianist, who survived and lived to 88 years. When Wladyslaw heard that Wilhelm had been taken prisoner by the Soviets, he tried desperately to get him released but Wilhelm never got to see his wife and children again. This man whose heart of compassion had reached out to a number of Jews, saving and protecting them, died in prison as a result of torture at the hands of people who knew no compassion or empathy.

'Are you lost in the world like me?' Brilliant video clip by Steve Cutts - Second clip down.
http://www.stevecutts.com/animation.html

"When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands and we increase our capacity for connection and compassionate.” Daniel Goleman

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The power of praise

1/16/2018

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I was going through a very tough time in my life when my best friend gave me a piece of advice I’ll never forget, “Just praise your way through it, Glen, keep praising”.

At the moment it felt impossible and I can honestly say it didn’t start from my heart, but I respected this woman and her close walk with Jesus so I made a herculean effort to praise God through the pain.

The situation didn’t change, the pain didn’t change, but something in me changed. My focus shifted from the problem to Jesus’ promise that even this difficult time would be turned for my good and his glory. And the best part was, hope returned.

It’s one of those lessons that have stuck with me through life … the power of praise.

Praise kept me focused on God and the more I praised him, the more things I realised I had to be grateful for. It’s so easy to focus on what’s right in front of me, the busyness, the problems that need sorting out and the relationships I’m trying to navigate, and miss the myriad of his blessings.

I find it hard to be discouraged or depressed when I’m praising God because praise has the capacity to derail resentment or self-absorption and replace it with grace. But best of all, it delights God's heart.

I love the old hymn,
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face,
And the things of life will grow strangely dim,
In the light of his glory and grace.

There’s an interesting story behind it. It began way back in England in 1853. Lillias Trotter was an exceptional artist, in fact she had been told by the preeminent art critic of the time that she had the potential to become the greatest artist Britain had ever known.

She came from a wealthy and privilege family from London's West End and was a woman of faith, committed to volunteer mission work amongst London's working girls. She had a special heart for the prostitutes of Victoria Station and helped them learn skills that enabled them to find alternative employment, while introducing them to Jesus.

It was on a visit to Venice with her mother that she met the art critic, John Ruskin. He was greatly impressed with her talent and took her under his wing. Her abilities as an artist grew exponentially. John asked her to give up her mission work and give herself wholeheartedly to art. It was an agonising decision. At first she was overwhelmed with excitement but eventually she knew she must seek first the kingdom of God and declined his offer.

In 1887, she was challenged by a need for foreign missionaries and felt called to the people of Algeria. She was just 35 years, couldn't speak one word of Arabic, and at her own expense set sail for Algeria.

When she died in 1928, she had set up 13 mission stations in North Africa and south into the Sahara Desert, and had 30 workers committed to the task of bringing Christ to the people of Algeria.

During those years Lilias used her art to produce many leaflets about the Christian faith. One was entitled, Focused. In it she said, “So then turn your eyes upon Him, look full into His face and you will find that the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness”.

Two decades later, the leaflet fell into the hands of a song-writer named, Helen Lemmel, an English woman living in America. She said, as she read the words, “ “I stood still and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus, with no one conscious moment of putting word to word to make rhyme or note to note to make melody”. She sat down and wrote that beautiful hymn of praise. For me its a perfect description of what praise does ... dims the things of this earth in the light of his glory and grace.

I've been thinking about the words, "sacrifice of praise" (Hebrews 13:15,16). Not just lips that profess his name but a life that does the same.

Lilias continued to draw and paint during her years in Algeria, recording nature and life in leather-bound journals. One of her life-long friends once reflected, "The ache of desire was with her to the end, not so much in the days she didn't draw, but as on the days when she took up her brush ... conscious of the pain of the artist who takes up an unpractised tool and knows full well to what beauty he might bend it if he could but give it his strength and life".

She sacrificed the thing dearest to her heart to profess his name to a people who had never heard. Who knows how many people will stand redeemed before the Saviour because of that sacrifice of praise.

All the art work on this blog is from Lilias Trotter's journals.

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Spun beauty

1/9/2018

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Many years ago, a friend and I walked early each morning through a natural bush area alongside a river. It was a tranquil place with rocky outcrops protruding through the bushy landscape and lush lawn areas winding beside the river beneath gums and wattles.

I found it a most refreshing and peaceful walk but my friend was an anxious and fearful soul and always had a feeling of foreboding that we might be attacked along the way. She had an arsenal of ‘weapons’ that she carried to protect us … sometimes a hatpin, an umbrella and once a pepper pot.

It made me realise for the first time that I am quite fearless. I’ve travelled alone to many countries where I didn’t speak one word of the language. I loved the challenge of making myself understood, and travelling alone opens you up to experiences you wouldn’t have if travelling with a companion.

But my fearlessness comes to a grinding halt when I come face to face with a spider, particularly a huntsman. Yes I know they are pretty harmless, my brain knows that, but my heart disagrees. I’ve seen them jump, and when I’m lying in bed and see one eyeing me (with all eight eyes) from the ceiling above, I can reach speeds previously unknown to man.

I’m a complete wimp when it comes to spiders and yet they are some of the most amazing and complex creatures on the planet.

All spiders produce silk but not all spiders build a web. Inside each spider is a tiny silk production factory. Thread is stored in their bodies as a highly concentrated liquid. As the liquid travels down the spinnerets, the PH reduces, harden the silk by acidifying it, a method similar to the process used in the manufacturing of industrial fibers such as nylon.

A common garden spider can produce seven different types of silk, made from a different sequence of proteins. And each type of thread has a unique purpose.

Some of the threads are sticky, enabling the spider to catch prey. This silk’s gumminess comes from a super strong polymer adhesive that is produced in a gland in the spider’s abdomen. When the spider wants to cross these threads, it uses tiny claws on its legs, which prevent it from getting stuck. The silk is highly elastic and can stretch to 140% of its length without breaking.

Bolas spiders use their silk to make something like a fishing line with a sticky blob at the end. They throw this at insects passing by, snagging them just like a fishermen catching fish.

Nephila spiders, or the golden silk orb-weavers produce gold silk. After mating, the female wraps her single egg sac in a mass of golden silk, which is then hidden on foliage away from the web, disguised within a curled leaf for protection.

Trapdoor spiders mostly make burrows with entrances made of silk. They hide behind the silk curtain and when prey passes by, disturbing the trip lines along the entrance, they jump out and snare their meal.

The Darwin Bark spider, from Madagascar, is only the size of a thumbnail but creates the strongest material made by a living organism. Their giant webs can span rivers, streams, and even lakes and weight for weight their silk is 10 times stronger than Kevlar. To build it, the female sprays a continuous line of silk 25 metres long from one bank of the river. Air currents carry it across to the other side to create a bridge. In the centre of this bridge, the spider constructs a spiralling orb web that can reach almost 3m in diameter. By positioning their webs directly above rivers, they can capture dragonflies, mayflies and other energy-rich insects that live over the water.

The world’s biggest spider is the goliath spider (Theraphosa blondi). It can grow up to 11 inches wide, and its fangs are up to one inch long. It hunts frogs, lizards, mice, and even small snakes and young birds. I definitely don't want to meet one of those!

And I've kept the best until last. The Australian Maratus "peacock" jumping spider is no bigger than a ladybird. The male is a talented dancer with fancy footwork, using their elaborately decorated abdomen flap to attract the female. Most spiders don't have the visual sensitivity to perceive bright colours, but the peacock spider sees colour through ultraviolet, blue green and red sensitive cells within their eyes, similar to birds. These tiny 'birds of paradise', just 4mm in size are a masterpiece of creation. (Photo: National Science Foundation.)

Despite man's extensive research and many long years of experimenting, they have never been able to replicate spider silk. The make-up of its complex protein molecules and repetitive DNA sequences has made it impossible to artificially recreate.

Spider silk farming has not been successful either. Even though silk can be extracted from spiders, millions of them are needed in order to create just a few feet of silk. Spiders are difficult to keep in captivity in large numbers: they need to be kept separate from each other, due to their predatory nature. Spider silk is compatible with human cells so it could be used for a myriad of medical purposes if ever they discover how to reproduce it.

I'm not about to become best friends with a Huntsman anytime soon, but the intricate design and beauty of each spider is staggering. I stand in awe and wonder at the complexity of each of these miraculous engineers and the wonder and intricacies of their silk. Here is a process so complex and ingenious that the best efforts of man with all the tools of modern science, cannot replicate.

But most of all I stand in aware of the Creator who designed it all in the first place.

Check out this cute video clip of the Peacock spider dancing. Enjoy! :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=85&v=HPh_Gi7PCqs

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Detours

1/2/2018

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There were laces to tie, a jacket to zip and a hunt for a hat. We tumbled out the door into the sunshine with all the excitement and enthusiasm only a small child can bring to a morning walk.

We hadn’t reached the front gate when he spied a trail of ants. We knelt down to take a closer look and studied them intently as they navigated their busy workaday world.

There was no straight path to our destination. There were gutters to investigate, low fences to walk along, pine cones and pretty leaves to collect and sticks to carry. There were shadows to chase and questions to answer … a fireman to wave to and trucks to count.

A blind man passed by with his white cane and we sat on a fence and talked about what it would be like to not be able to see.

We sniffed flowers, watched an industrious bumble bee and even discovered a fat green caterpillar enjoying his breakfast. I marvelled at the wide-eyed wonder of childhood and felt the deep joy and privilege of being apart of it even for that moment.

As we grow up we are taught to focus on the destination, to give it our undivided attention … our school work. our HSC, career, sporting achievements, or whatever we put our hand to. In the process the sense of discovery and awareness to all that’s around us somehow becomes vestigial. We lose that sense of wonder and excitement. We're robbed of the fascination of the present moment?

I remember being called to the school by my son’s teacher who was displeased because he was always looking out the window at the building being constructed next door, rather than paying attention to her. I asked if he knew what she had taught and she agreed he did, so I was left wondering why there was a problem. She didn't know he would go on to become an industrial arts teacher and maybe those days at the window were part of the journey that lead him to that destination.

It’s so easy to travel through life focused on the destination and to miss the richness of the journey.

Maybe we need to rediscover the wondrous multidimensional awareness of our childhood … to stop sleepwalking on the sidewalk and develop ‘first eyes’.

In 2009 I visited missionaries in Africa. Everything was new and exciting. I drank it in like a thirsty child … the sights and sounds, the people, the colours, the textures and the smells. My senses were on high alert! Every moment was filled with new discoveries. One of the missionaries who had worked there for over 20 years was fascinated as she saw me engaging with ‘first eyes’ … seeing it all for the first time as she had all those years ago. For her it had become commonplace and familiar and had lost its wonder. She told me she got to see it again with fresh eyes, through mine.

How much of the wonder of this world do we miss every day?

I want 2018 to be more about the journey and less about the destination. I want to live it with more childlike wonder ... with more detours ... to be more available and more aware. I want to wave to the fireman, notice the blind man and look out the window. I want to be constantly surprised by life.

Will you join me?

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An inspirational week

I see you

The power of praise

Spun beauty

Detours

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