Spiritual Ritalin

Tuesday, 17. June 2008 by Dan Ryan

We were less than 5 miles in, and I was concerned.
A couple weeks ago, 4 of us set out to bike to Clinton Lake and set up camp for the night. I thought I was ready for this 28-mile jaunt along the backroads of central Illinois, but now I was wondering. My 3 comrades had opened up a sizeable lead and were waiting on me. Ugh—I was firmly entrenched as the caboose of this group.
Similar to when I run, however, I began to hit my stride (or they tired…it matters not), keep up with the group and soon was helping lead them to higher speeds as we knifed through the hot, windy conditions. We chased the sun westward at a 14-mph clip on this Thursday evening, gradually realizing that daylight was at a premium.
Looking back on that memorable ride, the 4 of us had no trouble persevering; thanks to Zach’s mapwork, we knew the way and were fairly certain we would arrive before nightfall. In that regard, the outcome was hardly in doubt. Now, had we actually gotten spun around on some country road, or had we discovered that we had budgeted too little time for our journey (we flirted with both), I wonder if our pack would’ve displayed the same determination.
Something happens to us when life’s outcomes become shrouded in doubt. That doubt messes with our persistence. Could that explain why we are afflicted with such spiritual ADD (attention deficit disorder)?
Usually it’s a turnoff to make a blanket statement like that, especially an indicting one. But something tells me I’m on safe ground here. As I scan the Christian landscape, I don’t see that stick-to-it-tiveness in many believers.
Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but when is the last time you heard of someone who devotedly prayed for years, and that desire became reality? Or someone who championed a cause to fulfillment, seeing it through lean times because he or she believed so strongly in that movement? Or they kicked a sin that had been a longtime nemesis?
Instead, we abandon our prayers after a week. We flit from cause to cause. We surrender too easily in our quest for holiness, white flags at the ready. Pass the Ritalin, right?

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Can I just say that I detest summer?

Friday, 06. June 2008 by Dan Ryan

Can I just say that I detest summer?
Today marks the last day of our 2007-08 school year…and the beginning of my withdrawal symptoms. I love what I get to do, and now they tell me I don’t get to do it for another 2.5 arduous months. Hold your tears—I’m not done yet.
On top of that, summer is the Sahara Desert of the sports calendar year. If you don’t like baseball (which I do) or NASCAR (which I don’t), then you’re out of luck. And if my White Sox (first place right now, woo-hoo!) fall out of contention, then I quickly abandon the sports world altogether and largely hibernate until…
College football season. I love college football. In fact, I will count down the days until its late-August kickoff by surfing the net to keep abreast of the latest recruiting news. Bear with me now, because here’s where it gets interesting.

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Ever play the game “Taboo”?

Tuesday, 27. May 2008 by Dan Ryan

Ever play the game “Taboo”?
If you haven’t, “Taboo” basically is verbal charades. As the name implies, there are certain words you simply cannot say in an effort to have teammates guess the topic given to you. Though I have never given much thought to this, we walk around each day with a long list of taboo topics ourselves, don’t we? While previously off limits, if any of these topics are raised in conversation, people often have zero clue how to react.
I bring this up because Sunday afternoon, I found myself seated next to Mahomet-Seymour’s Class of 2008 at its graduation ceremony. Having taught both the valedictorian and salutatorian, I was eagerly anticipating their speeches. Meagan Musselman went first and talked about…
Death.

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The Raging Bull

Tuesday, 20. May 2008 by Dan Ryan

What a difference a year makes. I hope that’s true, because on Wednesday, I was initially disappointed at the difference 14 years had made.
Last week, I had the privilege of chaperoning a physics field trip to Great America for 62 of our upperclassmen. This was the same trip I had made myself back in 1994. I had not been back to Great America since, and there were precious few reminders of my last visit.

What better way to re-introduce myself to the park than to tackle one of the nastiest rides there—The Raging Bull? Even though I’m sure roller coasters have advanced since then, the difference was negligible to this rider.

The same helplessness I’d felt back then returned in waves. And it was coupled by my utter dependence on that roller coaster. I was depending on The Raging Bull for some excitement, to be sure, but I was on also depending my survival.
Those were the two primal emotions that dominated my psyche on that agonizingly long climb to the top of The Bull (you could see Lake Michigan off to the right!). Helplessness and dependence, hand in hand.

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Listen

Tuesday, 13. May 2008 by Dan Ryan

Okay, this has officially reached a crisis of epidemic proportions.
In the past week, I have watched as 3 of the absolute nicest people I know—no exaggeration here, either—consistently struggled just to simply listen to someone else in conversation. And the frequency of these struggles got me thinking.
Are we overly obsessed with what we have to say? Do we not believe the other person has anything worthwhile to offer? What is the deal?
For the past month or so, I’ve been mulling how cell phones are intertwined—for good or bad—with our spirituality. Take my arch-nemesis, for example: text-messaging. While I may succumb to the occasional text, that doesn’t mean I can’t hate them. Like them or not, however, text messages have picked up irreversible momentum in the past year.

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I Don’t Understand Myself

Tuesday, 06. May 2008 by Dan Ryan

I am one big internal riddle. Case in point: a lot of you know I’m pretty diligent about trying to eat healthy (most of the time). At the grocery store, I don’t even wander into aisles with desserts or frozen foods, etc. And yet, there I was this past Friday night, cruising eastbound down Interstate 70 when I saw them.
By “them,” I mean those familiar golden arches sprouting out of the Ohio horizon. McDonalds! I was 4 hours into a 6-hour road trip to see my best friend from high school, and I had grown tired of munching on the fruit I’d packed. I wanted sustenance, not strawberries.
At that point, my rationalization kicked into overdrive: I couldn’t possibly eat the chicken wrap I’d made with grilled green peppers and onions—that would be too messy. And I couldn’t possibly pull over now to eat the chicken wrap because I was running late for my friend’s baseball game as it was. Besides, I do this every trip to Ohio.

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The Masterpiece

Monday, 28. April 2008 by Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D.

The east side of the Carrizo plain, in the Temblor Range, about 50 miles west of Bakersfield, CA.
Photo taken by Barbara Mathews - May 14, 2005

**Man’s handiwork will never equal the glory of God’s creation.

Modern Day Carpenter

Tuesday, 22. April 2008 by Dan Ryan

God is backwards.
Last weekend found me in St. Louis, visiting my friend Justin. He had lined up what promised to be an intriguing Saturday of service at a dilapidated brick warehouse located in one of the more rundown neighborhoods on the rundown-as-it-is west side of St. Louis.
But from the inside, this aged warehouse is buzzing with hope. Two years ago, Jim bought this warehouse and began to renovate in hopes of relocating his carpentry company on site. And he has. Oh yeah, one more thing—Jim and his family have moved into the upper level of the warehouse. So he has literally moved into the neighborhood in every sense of the word.
We reported for duty at 9:00 a.m. and, with so many saws and other sharp tools in attendance, were promptly given the obligatory safety talk. The words that followed, however, seemed in stark contrast to Jim’s insistence on caution.

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Chess Match

Monday, 31. March 2008 by Dan Ryan

Recently, I’ve re-discovered this much to be true: there are situations in which human beings strongly desire to go first. And others where we fight it kicking and screaming.

That first jump off the high dive. Ordering food. Speech class. Given the choice, I usually don’t want to go first. There are exceptions, of course.
For example, I taught Lyle as a freshman and a junior. Lyle could be lovably feisty in class, and some days turned into an enjoyable battle of wits. Now, as a senior, he ventures down to my room each day during our lunch and we still match wits like old times—this year over a chessboard.
We have similar games, both featuring a raw—and sometimes reckless—tendency to aggressively attack the other. Both Lyle and I do so in an effort to force the other to react. The opponent has no choice but to respond to our first action.

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Palms

Tuesday, 18. March 2008 by Dan Ryan

Journey back with me 2 weeks…
It was Monday, and I had entered that mild spring evening and a dimly lit chapel with an agenda of my own, thank you very much. This is totally consistent with my annoying need to maximize time, to be efficient, and to “produce” some result from my time, even my time with God. Not that my agenda happened to be evil or bad—nothing of the sort. It’s just that agendas are not always healthy.
So making like Peyton Manning, Jesus threw His best audible at me. What happened next remains as real to me as…as anything else that’s real. I sensed Him calling me to sit in the front row and just relax (how often do those two go together?). 
Soon after, Jesus threw my restless nature a bone and pulled up next to me on the carpeted floor of the almost-empty sanctuary. After a while, He began to talk.

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