Daily Readings

York, Nebraska.

This morning I woke up partially naked and surrounded by corn.  It’s true.  Somewhere between the moon being over Arby’s and the moon being over the China Buffett, I woke up covered in sweat.  I adjusted my sleepwear accordingly and went back to bed.  A bit later into that lunar cycle I fumbled over to the window unit to see why it was so hot.  After some trial and error, I was able to figure out that the window unit was mislabeled – A/C was in fact Heat and Heat was in fact A/C. 

And the corn thing… well, my hotel just happens to be surrounded by hundreds of miles of corn (maybe thousands I don’t know).

So let’s get back to the morning…

Every morning I shower.  And every morning I get out of the shower to a fogged up mirror.  I know I am not the only one.  It has happened to you.  Now, there are lots of ways to clear the mirror…. A back and forth motion east to west, an up and down motion north to south, the Zorro motion, or even the anal-retentive Zamboni motion, it is endless…  Now I, on the other hand, have been using a unique and very personal method since last year. 

I take my towel and I make one big swath from North to South.  And then I make another swath from East to West.   The mirror then reveals a cross (and me in my glory).  I then look into that cross and say “You have been marked with the cross.  You are a beloved child of God! “  Ohhh I’m sure you probably need to be ordained to say stuff like that, but I do it anyway. 

What I don’t do (very often) is take multiple showers in the same day; but yesterday I was covered in Nebraska.  So I took a shower before I walked to dinner… and naturally I cleared the mirror with a sign of the cross.  Well you can imagine what happened this morning.  I pulled back the shower curtain and the mirror was all fogged up – however, the image of the cross was still in the middle of the mirror! 

You know how they usually tell you “don’t try this at home”, well, you can… it’s quite easy and you can leave all kinds of messages!

I started thinking about how many hotels I have stayed in all over the country… and how many crosses have appeared to random strangers the next morning.  I wonder what they were thinking…  I once heard Pastor Amy say “Preach the gospel.  And when necessary – use words.”  Do you think this is what she was talking about?

Geoff Glibbery

Bonner Springs Kansas

I am developing a theory that grace is like the air… It is everywhere (including in us) and the process of acquiring it is completely involuntary.  There is much more to that theory, but for today I would like to focus on the exhale. 

A spiritual retreat is much like taking a REALLY big breath and trying to hold it as long as possible.  Eventually, you must exhale.  At the beginning of yesterday I could feel myself unable to hold onto that spiritual high… the exhale was coming.  I thanked God for the always timely “Big Gulp” and then prayed that he would exit gently.  I could sense things moving back to the “norm”.  I hoped it would stop just short of the norm, so I could visually indicate some type of growth.

Coincidentally, yesterday was also a brief shift back into “work mode”.  After sharing my intended travel route with NSA, they managed to find some work along the way.  Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana. They said it was easy work (10-15 mins at each site), had a two month lead time, could be done from the motorcycle, and wouldn’t be too far off track.  I decided the extra money would be good and it would allow me to deduct most of the trip as business; so I agreed.  What I didn’t think about was the mental shift, the transition that occurs when you go from “road trip mode” to working. 

This transition, combined with my conscious awareness of an exhale, led to what might be described as my least-best day in quite some time.  Thankfully I was clad in a helmet and crash suit, because it was a bumpy ride. (Figuratively speaking)

 Fast forward 200 very straight Kansas back road miles later and I’m pulling into my third job site. I dismount, disrobe, disguise (my hair with a hat), and disappear into work mode.  I walk into the Subway sandwich shop carrying a few hand tools and a bracket, proclaim myself to be from Subway Maintenance, and proceed to repair the refrigerated cooler. While doing this I engage in a brief conversation with the only employee in the building.  He is a college student working part time.  His major is theology.  I say something like “Wow, that’s great. Good luck with that” and then he says something that blows me away.

He says”When you walked in that door I could see the holy spirit on you.”

He didn’t say he saw the Holy Spirit in me… he said ON me.  I was wearing a dress shirt, a baseball hat, jeans, and hiking boots.  No cross, no neon sign, nothing that would indicate I was a Christian.  And yet he very specifically said ON me…  That simple statement changed my day, changed my thought process, and changed my outlook on exhaling…   

Exhaling is what we as Christians do.  We share the grace from within us.  So the grace (air) really isn’t leaving us, it’s just moving from the inside to the outside, where others can enjoy it too.

                                                                                                                                                                                Geoff Glibbery

Lawrence, Kansas post rain delay

While taking notes this past weekend, I placed asterisks next to the thoughts that I wanted to develop later.  Here are some of those notes…

 The difference between us and a plant is that we can choose to stop growing.

The ideal (not idea, but ideal) of grace is not lived in isolation, but in a community.

We are called to be Christians wherever God places us… (this one hit home for me…)

Actual grace is an inner momentary spark through which God deepens our understanding AND at the same time, strengthens our will to do HIS will….  (Clearly this doesn’t happen very often… but I would like to think of these moments as stars in the sky… there are LOTS of them, we just are not always in a position to see them.)

God is unlimited in how he will communicate with us.  Listen, look, he is present. Everywhere.

By all definitions I am a traveler (there have been other words used to describe my activities, but for now let’s stick with travelerJ) and to a traveler nothing is as important as the map.  The map is the key to understanding not where you are going, but HOW to get there….  You really have to understand a few things before you can take that next step.  First, you should understand where you have already been.  Second, you have to understand where you ARE.  So before any of us can truly know what is next in our lives, we should ask ourselves some questions…

1. Me – How important am I? Where do I stand with God?
2. God – How do I relate to God? What part does he REALLY play in my daily life?
3. Other people – How do I relate to other people?
4. The world – Does the world control my attention?

Living a life in grace gives a Christian purpose to each of those four relationships.

One of the women at the weekend shared a post-it note that she has on her bathroom mirror.  I now have this same thing taped to my tank bag on the motorcycle.  It says…

1. God, who are you?
2. God, who am I?
3. God, what are we going to do today?

One final thought for the day…   How do you live and what guides you on a daily basis?

There are no wrong answers to any of these questions… and answering them honestly is the only way any traveler knows exactly where they are on the map.   Safe travels….    

                                                                                                                                                                Geoff Glibbery

Lawrence Kansas.

I’m under a rain delay… I think God knew it would be unsafe for me to have a helmet on while trying to process another amazing and grace-filled week of Via De Cristo, so he allowed me a second day in the hotel room…  I have decided to flip my helmet open, turn it upside down, and tap a few thoughts out of it.

First some background. During a Via de Cristo weekend there are 15 talks (5 talks about grace and 10 talks about specific things in a Christian life).  One of those talks is about Christian community and how you can develop it in YOUR environment. 

The Christian community is defined as a group of people (two or more) working together to share Christ in the world by spreading God’s love, forgiveness, and encouragement to others.  I know that’s a mouth full, but if you break it into “spread love, forgiveness, and encouragement to others” – that seems pretty easy.

Here are some characteristics of what that a Christian community would look like… and they are not in any particular order of importance.

1. There is only one center – and that is Christ
2. They share a living friendship with Christ
3. They are guided by the Holy Spirit
4. They share a common idealism, a spirit of self surrender, trust, and self giving love.
5. They desire to share Christ with the world
6. They pray together.

So, while I should have been listening to what was next, I can’t, because I’m distracted by the instant illumination from the light bulb going off in the front lobe of my cranium.  It strikes me (gently) that by definition a group is two or more… meaning that a family, or even just a couple, could be a Christian community.  And this environment he talks about could be as simple as wherever you are at that moment. 

How amazing would this relationship be if it was built on these 6 characteristics? How many of the other things that we perceive as obstacles to a relationship would simply go away?  What would happen if instead of looking for someone we could live with, we looked for someone we couldn’t live without?  And how cool would that be if both of you answered God to that question?

I’m not sure it’s ironic, as much as planned, but I started reading the Purpose Driven Life this morning.  And the first day reminds us that “it’s not about me”.  So I have to ask myself if my perpetual bachelorism is because “I” have been at the center of my relationships or because “we” as a couple have not made these 6 things a priority… Yep, I’m thinking it is a big fat BOTH.

I think I’m going to run… in the rain…  because, I’m thinking there is no such thing as a rain delay.  It just means OUR plan wasn’t exactly what God had in mind for the day.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Geoff Glibbery