Haste, haste

Haste: overly eager speed; a condition of urgency making it necessary to hurry.

My life, probably like many of yours over the month of December, has been a blur of hurry:

• I wake up and hurry to shower and eat breakfast, so I can hurry up and get my girls ready, so we can hurry out of the house to get to the babysitters and work on time.
• I get to school and hurry to get my plans ready for class so that I can hurry up and focus on checking the massive load of papers that need checked before the end of the semester.
• I hurry out of my room at lunch because I know I have a 5 minute walk to and from the cafeteria, giving me 20 minutes total to eat lunch and probably start another pot of coffee for the afternoon.
• I hurry out of my room at the end of the day so that I can get to practice on time, which is a rush now that our school day is longer.
• I hurry home after practice so that I can hopefully see my girls before I go to bed. I often hurry through my supper with the knowledge that both of them need something immediately.
• At night I try to hurry up and get to sleep (which never works), because I know I'm behind on sleep. This is especially true on nights with away games, when I don't get to bed until about 1, desperate to get a couple of hours of sleep before I must wake up and rush to professional development.
• On weekends I rush to get as much done productively as possible once my girls begin napping, because I know it's the only real chance I'll get.

At church at least, I can't hurry. That's often hard because there are times when I sit there and think about everything that needs to get done. Then I rush home to get started on it all.

This morning in church I got all this hurry thrown right back in my face. 'Tis the season for Christmas carols, and one of the songs we sang this morning was "What Child is This?" One refrain that gets repeated in the song is this: "Haste, haste to bring Him laud." That one got me. My entire month has been full of haste, as chronicled above. But I have not been full of haste to bring Christ laud (praise or glory).

Of all activities, events, or tasks worthy of haste, there is none that matches this one. It is this haste that will bring the most satisfaction in a life too hurried to be satisfied with anything.

Risk Equals Reward

I've been extremely pleased with the way the first 3 weeks of the basketball season have gone for our team. I really couldn't ask for more from the team - kids are working hard, this group seems to genuinely enjoy being around each other, and we got an opening night win that involved a lot of hustle, even when the outcome was far from in doubt. I felt really good about it. It was easy to feel good about. It's the best I've felt about basketball in a while.

The end of this week is the first I've really faced disappointment in the new season. We won on Saturday night, but I'd say we played far below our potential. Winning is a dumb thing to be disappointed about; but as a coach, you never want to lose the momentum of playing at your potential. After the game and on the bus ride home, I got a little moody. Quiet. A couple of things hadn't gone perfectly from a coaching perspective at the end of the week, including the Saturday evening performance. I was a little down, and I recognized the feeling.

The feeling I recognized was having something on the line again, and I haven't had as much on the line coaching-wise since the last time I was a head coach. It feels good. Don't get me wrong - I believe I did a good job and brought enthusiasm to my work as the freshman coach. However, I had less control over what was going on, which translated into having less on the line. The highs were never as high, and the lows were never as low.

It all comes back to a phrase that I love teaching my students as it shows itself in literature: risk equals reward. In every aspect of your life, you're either in a high risk or low risk setting. If you risk a lot of time, energy, passion, etc. into something, the rewards can be huge. However, so will the disappointment when it doesn't work out. You can avoid that risk, but you also avoid the chance for the big reward. Anything that doesn't cost you a great deal of risk will not produce an intense reward. This is true of hobbies, relationships, jobs, and even faith.

When thinking about it this morning, I came to the conclusion that I'm lucky to have the opportunity to feel down every once in a while. It means I've got a lot at risk. It means I'm passionate about what I'm doing and that I care a great deal about teaching 18 young men success skills that will extend to the rest of their lives. It means something is on the line again, and I have something to be nervous about. Trust me, life is a lot better when there's something to be nervous about. That means there's something great out there to gain.

It's like this with people, too, especially families. Family members can cause a lot of hurt, worry, or disappointment, both unintentionally and intentionally. I know that since I've had my two girls (or actually since we started to try to have kids), it's like I'm walking around with my heart hanging outside of my body, constantly exposed to the risk of something going wrong. But as much as I hate to worry, I'm realizing that worry is good. It means I've got something great, something at risk. I'd much rather have something to worry about than a carefree lifestyle empty of loved ones.

Losing will happen this basketball season. The season will not go perfectly. More than likely, something will go wrong in a relationship that's important to me as well. Burdens will be carried. But how lucky am I to have something to lose.

It is for this reason that the old hymn lyrics can ring so true:

Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

This Season

The basketball season has begun. Every season has it's own personality, it's own existence, so to speak. This one feels different all together, as it feels very much like I'm on borrowed time.

When last season ended, I believed that I was done as a basketball coach. For reasons that I don't need to get specific about, I was ready to walk away from an activity that I loved. The cost had become too great, the reward too little. I wasn't ready to be done coaching, but I had made my peace with it. I ended the season, gave myself a month to think about it, then told my wife that unless something drastic changed, I was going to walk away.

Something drastic did change, so here I am, starting another season. I'm excited. I'm passionate. And after one week of practice, I'm having more fun that I've had in years. I also understand that my personal approach to this season must be fundamentally different than it ever has before.

For the 1st eight years of my coaching career, I put everything on hold until the season ended. Mostly, I gave myself an excuse to get myself out of physical, mental, and spiritual shape. I told myself that I would work out once the season ended and I had more time and energy. I would read books or catch up on homework once March came around. And I would swear to remember who God was and how I fit into an eternal worldview when I could just get basketball out of the way.

In the back of my mind, I can believe that part of the reason the mess at Nora Springs occurred which took me away from head coaching for a time was because I was holding so tightly to the job. I would say that I could lose all yet have Christ and all would be fine; however, I couldn't imagine my life without leading a basketball program every winter. My identity was wrapped up in being the head coach at Sutherland or at NS-RF. Without that, I felt like less. And I felt like if I lost that, I would have less in life. Unfortunately, I had a much tighter grip on this identity than I did on my own spiritual well-being.

Then I wasn't a head coach any more. That was a major blow to my identity for a while, but I adjusted. I was fine. The world didn't stop, nor did my life. I continued to coach; but as I indicated above, the cost of coaching became greater, the reward smaller. Last spring I thought I had finally learned my lesson - I learned to hold loosely to that part of my identity and realized that I could walk away.

Then the situation changed in a quite favorable way - a way that would allow me to use my skills and passions more effectively and work closely with people I enjoy a great deal. The reward was great again. So I'm back.

I feel like God is telling me, "Dykstra, you can do this. Go ahead if you want. You learned your lesson. But if you worship this again, it's your loss. It's your wasted winter. It's your loss of the exponential joy of focusing on Me for the cheap substitute of a much lesser joy. Go do this, but understand that your joy hangs in the balance."

Whether or not those are God's exact words, they are true. My joy does hang in the balance. I can have it all this winter - feeding my God-given passion for coaching basketball and experiencing exponential, eternally-driven joy in the process. But that can only occur if I see God while coaching, if I seek to bring Him glory and improve His reputation and build up the people I have influence over. Basically, I must stay in spiritual shape this winter in order to have it all. I can do this thing I am passionate about, but only if this passion springs from my passion for a God-centered life.

I want to do this job for many, many years to come. For that to be worth it (for my family, for myself, and for the players and coaches I'm around), this winter must be different.

Those with whom I disagree

A recent editorial in the Des Moines Register prompted an essay assignment in my Composition class. It may involve one of the most important skills I can teach my students.

The editorial was bemoaning the current state of the nation and the fact that we have we have become a collection of homogenous communities. More and more, Americans tend to socialize, live, and talk with like-minded people with similar backgrounds, experiences, and even appearances. Unfortunately, the editorial even pointed out that a church growth strategy taught in some seminaries is based on attracting a certain "kind of people" in the church. The writer also wrote that studies have shown that the longer individuals are around others with whom they agree, the more radical they become in their views. Most Americans ignore "other" kinds of people with whom they disagree. It's just easier. And it's convenient when seeking to demonize individuals if you don't know them personally.

I had noticed in my Composition course sections, as we discussed controversial current events, that students struggled to disagree with their peers without getting personal, offensive, and incapable of reasonable dialogue. I don't write this to belittle my students; I notice many of the same behaviors in adults, even though I quit watching Fox News and MSNBC past 7 pm several years ago.

The assignment I created asked students to take a position on 21 controversial topics of varying degrees of severity. They then were charged with choosing three of those issues, finding at least two people per issue who disagree with them, and writing down why their "opponents" held those beliefs. Now they must write a persuasive essay using these arguments with which they disagree. If common sense and a desire to treat humanity with respect couldn't motivate them to listen respectfully to other students, perhaps their grade will.

I've watched these students over the past couple of days interview each other. It has forced them out of their comfort zone, especially in that they have had to speak with individuals who are not "like them" in terms of the unwritten social hierarchy of high school life. I don't think anyone's mind has been changed regarding specific issues, but that's a good thing. These kids should be strong in their beliefs. What they have done is have conversations, and most of them have learned that reasonable people can disagree. Honestly, it's been one of the most pleasant classroom environments I've been in for a long time.

Christians, I fear, don't do enough of this, especially interdenominationally. An old joke at our house growing up when we looked out at the cattle on our farm and saw half on one side of the pasture and half on the other is that one half were the Christian Reformed cattle, the other the First Reformed. Though there is usually respect amongst individuals from differing congregations and denominations in a "I guess we're in this battle with the world together," sort of way, rarely do the average members ask each other why differences in matters of doctrine exist. I fear one reason is because many simply don't know.

We also don't do enough of this with members of other faiths and with atheists. In fact, there's rarely much mutual respect at all. "They" are simply to be looked down upon, perhaps pitied, or more likely, condemned. This is, at best, a flawed path; at worst, it is a path that is losing souls.

Without rational dialogue, we lose the chance to influence others. We lose the chance to be Christ. We also lose the chance to better understand this world, a world we are charged to live effectively in, even if we are not to become "of" the world.

The number one commandment is to love God with all our heart, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourself. I don't think we'll ever really know the strength of our faith until we believe the term "neighbor" includes even those who don't look, think, and act like us.

I Want to be Misunderstood

I think I might have a new goal. As if I needed anything else on my plate right now.

An old Sunday School song from my youth claims that "I've got the peace that passeth understanding down in my heart." It's origin is from Philippians 4:7, which offers "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ." I've heard or sung that song a million times without ever really thinking about what those words mean. For whatever reason, this weekend I thought about it.

I currently have a peace that people can understand, which is to say that I am calm and at peace when my life situation is calm and at peace. I'm in complete control of my emotions and attitude, except when I've been wronged. People love to hear from others the comforting statement, "I can understand why you're upset," or "I've been there; I know how you feel." Then we get to feel justified for complaining about our jobs or worrying about our money or engaging in hateful speech. This peace is not beyond any understanding - it's completely reasonable to be peaceful when all about me is peaceful.

I want more. I want peace in the storm. I want a peace that no one can understand, that people can do nothing with but shake their head and try to figure out the source of my calm, cool, calculated behavior. I don't want to hold on to hate when my employer cheats me out of money, or hold on to frustration when I can't get 15 consecutive minutes in a Saturday morning without a child crying, or hold on to fear when I hear my six-month old has a rare disease that none of the local doctors have ever treated before. In all of these situations in the past month, I've had peace and reactions that everyone can understand and/or sympathize with. I want more.

I'm not saying that there's never a time to fight. There are plenty of causes worth fighting for. But one can fight with peace. A peaceful fighter, focused on the purpose of the fight instead of the knee-jerk reaction, is probably even a better, wiser fighter. And that fighter is someone that people will follow because they simply can't understand where such a peace comes from, and they follow just to get a taste of it.

This peace does not just happen. I know that I can't just decide that tomorrow I will exhibit this peace and magically it will appear. A peace that passeth understanding is a supernatural peace, a peace obtained from God. In Philippians Paul writes that it comes from two things:
- through prayer, with thanksgiving, make your requests know to God
- whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

I've written before on this blog about defining success. After pondering this, I realize I want more. I want to surpass understanding. When that happens, perhaps more people (including myself) will see God in the daily grind.

More School is not Better Education

Lately, President Obama and others have been in the news calling for a longer school year. The logic goes that kids lose knowledge over the summer; and if we just cut out that summer break, they would learn more, retain more, and compete more effectively with students from around the world.

I have a problem with this.

My first thought (unfortunately but obviously) was to reject this idea because as a teacher, I would lose my two months of freedom. It's one of the reasons I teach. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching; but I would love it a lot less if I suddenly lost the freedom to do whatever I pleased for two months every year. Selfish, yes; but we choose our careers based on what we think will make us happy, and this makes me happy.

The more I thought about it, though, the more offended I got about the idea for more than selfish reasons. If you think about it, the government is basically saying that they know better how to raise my children over the summer than I do. They want to require my children to spend even more time being influenced by curriculum they choose and less time being influenced by me.

That's pretty arrogant for the government to say. Will my daughters really have a much better life because they did a few more math problems over the summer? Because they read another novel, wrote another paper, did another lab project? Maybe they would, but I'd like to have that choice. I'd like to choose whether to have them do math or take a walk in the woods with me. I, their parent, want to decide if they should spend their time reading or working a job or playing basketball or throwing rocks in the river, just to see them splash. I should get to decide that.

I learned a lot in the summers of my youth. I learned a lot from shoveling manure in the July heat, from lifting weights and playing in basketball leagues, from mowing yards, from dating, and from walking in the shadows of my father and grandfather. I'm not sure what educational standard or objective those events fall under, but I do know my life would be vastly different without those experiences.

If the government is so worried about this learning gap in low-income kids who can't afford "educational" opportunities during the summer, then subsidize summer programs and make them affordable. Provide them as an option.

But to mandate more schooling, more government control over the childhood of my daughters, that's the same as saying that President Obama and Arne Duncan and a lot of other flawed, elected officials know what's best for my kid, and I don't.

This may not be a faith issue, but it certainly is a moral one. And my moral duty as a parent is to want more for my kids' youth than trigonometry and book reports.

Size Matters

I used a word the other night that I have no business using. In a discussion with my wife about some people who are important to us, I described their situation as "hopeless." The use of that one word alone was as big a sign as any of a disconnect with God.

How big is my faith? In this case my faith, or my picture of God, was quite small. To use the word "hopeless" is to imply that this problem is too big for God, that not even the Sovereign Being of the universe can change that circumstance. Oh ye of little faith. . .

The size of prayer matters, and I've decided that I must go big. I simply don't pray big enough, and that could be a sign of not believing big enough. Do I believe God is limited? Do I believe that God is only capable of actions that I can fathom, or that I can see myself or others accomplishing on their own? My use of the term "hopeless" would imply that to be true.

Last night I began to pray big. I prayed for many "hopeless" circumstances and relationships and souls. I prayed for them, and I believed God capable of them. God will choose whether or not to give me what I've asked. I'm not so naive that I see God as my own personal Santa Claus who will perform miracles for my individual comfort and entertainment. Realistically, I don't believe that all of the "big" things I've requested will happen in my lifetime. But that's has more to do with my lack of faith in my own limited knowledge of what's good, and less to do with the power I attribute to God.

If God is big, I don't have to worry about relying on my own shortcomings (or those of others). If God isn't, what am I doing worshipping him?

Actions reflect beliefs. Prayer is an action. And in this case, size says it all.