For the Point University Class of 2020

Here we are. This is being written on the last day of the Spring 2020 Semester and I haven’t seen you in person for something like seven or eight weeks. Even more importantly, you all haven’t been able to see your classmates, teammates, best friends, and a host of other relational descriptors for that time either. Hopefully you would include some great faculty members, coaches, and staff in those “relational descriptors” as well. 

This is not how your final semester of college was supposed to end!

But it did.

Now what?

I want to answer the “Now what?” question by first encouraging you to be grateful for those in places of leadership at Point. I promise you that we didn’t move from in-seat, regular routine to online, no routine just to have something to do. And graduation didn’t become virtual instead of more communal because of a lack of courage on the part of Point leaders. 

I’ve been a part of Point longer than most, if not all, of the 2020 graduates have been alive. In those 43 years we have faced lots of difficult moments and survived. This particular moment may be the most difficult of all of those moments – but it isn’t the first, and not likely to be the last time we face serious challenges. I’m confident God wants us to survive.

Point is moving carefully in these unique moments. Please don’t confuse “caution” and insistence upon reviewing all the options as “hesitation borne of fear.” And please don’t confuse groups – unfortunately some “Christian groups” – who move recklessly and call that courage. 

You would likely be surprised at how many people have participated in countless zoom meetings over the past seven or eight weeks in order to determine the best path forward. A reckless leader might simply say “we are back to normal by mid-summer.” A courageous leader will say, “let’s make the best decision we can – with God’s help – to lead Point into its next opportunity to be a kingdom outpost impacting our culture for Christ.

There is something like 200 people graduating Saturday morning. I can remember when we didn’t have 200 students, total! But God has greatly blessed Point with authentic kingdom leadership and He has obviously blessed that kind of leadership with fruitful, fulfilling opportunities “to educate students for Christ-centered service and leadership throughout the world.”

Leaders whose vocabulary is exhausted with the word “successful” have yet to read Scripture well. “Fruitful” is a better word. It won’t always be the same as our culture’s definition of “successful,” but it will always reflect the heart of Jesus. Leaders who can only talk of “happiness” and “wealth” and “health,” are equally unfamiliar with Scripture. “Fulfillment” and “significance” are much better words.

None of that is to suggest we should be comfortable as “failures” and “miserable,” but it is to suggest that in the coming new world, we have an amazing opportunity to change the conversation of a culture that has pursued “stuff” at the expense of “life” in ways that have failed us. 

What if the 2020 graduates of Point University determined that they will take seriously the call of Jesus to follow Him and decide that things like feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, taking care of the prisoners, and such “fruitful” and “fulfilling” are more important than the “stuff” our culture has pushed us toward? (Matthew 25:31ff.)

One of my favorite things about graduation is to take pictures with students either before or after the ceremony.  We can’t do that this year. That’s sad.

But . . . once we get beyond “social distancing” and “shelter in place” – everyone one of you can come to West Point and ask your professors to take pictures with you. I’ll even bring my academic regalia if that would make you happy!

On this “commencement-eve” as we think about what might have been tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m., let me encourage you to think about “what can be, not just tomorrow, but for eternity.” God has great options for each of you – it’s just a matter of stepping up to the plate and swinging the bat!

God bless each of you. I’m so grateful that I’ve been a part of Point while you were a student. Some of you have spent lots of time in class with me, many haven’t. But I promise you – your presence at Point has been a blessing and opportunity for me.

May God richly bless you as you step into a new world of opportunity tomorrow morning about noon time!

Don’t confuse “courage” with recklessness,” and don’t confuse “caution” with cowardice. You’ve had great models at Point. Look at them. Follow their lead.

[Not every Point graduate follows me on social media, so if you see this, please forward to your friends!]

 Earlier this morning I sent what is printed below to all the students in classes I'm currently teaching who have, in significant ways, experienced a sudden and in some ways unpleasant, life change that they could not have seen coming. I don't want them to think that the only reason I contact them is for "school work." I thought I would share it more broadly for two reasons: [a] some Point students will see it and hopefully be encouraged; and [b] many who read it will take a moment and pray for some really good young adults at  Point who are struggling right now!


I wanted to take a moment this morning and message you about something that has nothing to do with classwork! The last thing I want you to think of me is that the only time I contact you is when I am making another assignment!

In my personal Bible reading this morning, I read Psalm 119. (I think some of you are following along with me the 31 days of Psalms and Proverbs!) It, along with Proverbs 25 seemed to speak in powerful ways to the moment we now face.  Here are a few lines from Psalm 119:

Teach me the ways of your decrees, Yahweh,

so that I may preserve it to the utmost.

Help me understand, so that I may observe your instruction,

and keep it with all my mind.

Direct me on the trail of your orders,

because I delight in it.

Bend my mind to your affirmations

and not to profit.

Help my eyes pass from seeing emptiness;

bring me to life by your way.

Implement for your servant what you've said,

that which was for people in awe of you.

Make my reviling, which I dread, pass

because your rulings are good.

There, I long for the things you've determined;

in your faithfulness bring me to life.

Psalm 119:33-40, The First Testament

 

I was especially moved by the verse in bold print above. I hope you will take some time today to think about that.

Early this morning - around 8:00 a.m. - I decided to go do a couple of errands. I filled up my car with gas. I bought gas for the lawn mower and the leaf blower. Then I decided to go to Publix and - assuming it wasn't too crowded - to run in and get a few things. It wasn't "too crowded." I went in. They were out of most of what I went in for: chicken, toilet paper, napkins, hand sanitizer, granulated sugar, Simply Limeade, napkins, sanitizing wipes to use on door knobs, counters, etc.

When I went to check out, the very nice cashier asked, "Did you find everything you needed?" i laughed and said, "Not exactly." She laughed back and said, "I know and I'm sorry." After checking out, I went to Kroger - found some of what i was looking for, but not everything. I did the self-checkout at Kroger so there was no interaction with a cashier - except that the young man overseeing the self-checkout area said, "Sorry if we didn't have everything you needed."

On the way home, I couldn't help but think about the Publix cashier. Or the Publix and Kroger employees doing their best to stock the shelves. Or the truck drivers trying to deliver necessary items to grocery stores. And the warehouse employees who show up for work to load the trucks with whatever they are trying to get to the stores. Or the migrant workers who likely picked the vegetables and fruits. The food supply companies who can the vegetables, bake the bread, make the products - like hand sanitizers which I still didn't find, the cashiers who check me out, the stock people who try and get stuff on the shelves, the butcher I heard saying "I'm sorry, we just don't have it right now" and countless other people who are going to work everyday so people like me can get what we need.

We may be in for a bit of a tough time that even people my age don't remember ever happening. For some of you - life has been turned upside down in ways you have never experienced. A messed up graduation. Moving from "safe housing" to housing you aren't sure of because of lots of reasons. A sports season ended abruptly. A recital that likely won't happen. Missing people who have become your best friends. Concern for others - family who may be at high risk, front line medical people, people in prison, people in elder-care facilities . . . the list seems endless.

Let me encourage you to take Psalm 119 seriously - especially this phrase:

Help my eyes pass from seeing emptiness;

bring me to life by your way.

 

If you don't have a good option for worship tomorrow, let me encourage you to go the Facebook page of Spring Road Christian Church at 10:45. Last week Ron Lewis and I began doing a virtual service together - with lots of help from SRCC staff and others - because we can't meet like we normally do. I meet with a group called Grace Faith Community and of course Ron is the pastor at SRCC. We're talking about Psalm 23 tomorrow at 10:45 a.m.  would love to have you join us!

I'm praying for each of you. wh

The Other Side of Childhood

In using the Wizard of Oz story as an analogy, Richard Rohr in his book Falling Upward, suggests that after the experience of his education, he “was surely not in Kansas anymore.”  He goes on to say, “I had passed, like Dorothy, ‘over the rainbow.’”

He also notes, perhaps as a bit of warning to those engaging in becoming educated, “life was much easier on the childhood side of the rainbow.”

David Brooks, a national columnist for the New York Times, in a similar vein of thought, encourages his readers in The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, to think about the great value of a life of significance as compared to a life of mere achievement, even when the achievement is great. For Brooks, the primary distinctive between those “two mountains” upon which we may live is “selfish” versus “selfless.”

This semester we continue our “reboot journey.” Where are those moments when we may need to turn the machine off and restart? And sometimes, where are those moments when we need to do the “factory reset” kind of reboot?

College – especially in the context of a school like Point where we care about faith, we care about learning who we are and how we got here, we care about where we are headed – must be a reboot time in our lives. If you graduate from Point and “are still in Kansas,” then you missed the opportunity God placed right on your front door step. 

This really has little if anything to do with whether you are a better business person, counselor, teacher, criminal justice person, musician, ministry person, or any other skill. Life is about far more than “achievement” in the world of STEM. Life is about who you are and who, through Christ, you can become! Don’t misunderstand that to mean those other areas are unimportant, just that if that’s all that happens in college, you may end up back in Kansas! (No offense to Kansas.)

What if as we begin this new semester together at Point – either in classrooms in West Point or virtually for on-line students or in some combination of both options – we committed ourselves to focus on what we can do this semester that will help us “pass over whatever rainbow” we need to pass over in order to become the person of significance God has called us to be?

After all, Jesus said “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) Through our faith in Him and commitment to follow Him, we can “pass over the rainbows” that hold us back and discover a life of “significance, not mere achievement.”

IF we do, we will discover “life on the other side of childhood.”

Creation and Reboots

For Christmas this past year, my wife gave me a “squirrel-proof hanger for my bird feeders.” It’s deluxe! In fact, it is so nice that I decided I had to buy new feeders to use, the old ones looked too tired and worn. It really works – squirrels are yet to find a way to the feeders.

Since late December when I installed it and filled the new feeders with really good bird seed, I have seen all sorts of birds. I’m writing this is mid-August and I am still putting seed in the feeders and seeing an impressive gathering of God’s original orchestra and choir: birds!

I can step out of the garage onto the drive way and quietly stand and watch. There is a kind of rhythm to their eating that is impressive. Certain birds prefer certain feeders. The murder of crows (yes, a “flock of crows” is a “murder of crows.”) are too big for the feeders so they are around the feeder on the ground eating what the smaller birds scatter as they eat. Two different species of Woodpeckers have visited us during the summer.

If you go out just before sunrise, the music is amazing.  Little wonder Psalm 19 begins with “the heavens are recounting God’s splendor, . . .day by day it points out speech.”

Another early morning practice for me is Scripture reading. I am striving to be very disciplined about this. If Scripture really is what God says it is, then there is no reason I should ignore it. The more I pay attention to creation and Scripture, the more convinced I am that I should be doing at least some reading outside – in creation. When I do that, I am hearing the heavens (creation, even birds!) declare God’s glory as I read His Word, which this same Psalm (19) says “The Lord’s instruction has integrity, bringing life back . . . is trustworthy, making the naïve smart.”

I love that phrase “bringing life back.” That sounds like a worthwhile kind of reboot. What I have finally learned is that when I pay attention to the world God made and take time to engage His word that the Spirit gave – that can “bring life back.” It is the kind of daily reboot that makes life worthy living and allows us to experience a kind of significance that beats achievement any day of the week.

Not surprisingly, Psalm 19 ends with “May the sayings of my mouth be acceptable to you, and the murmur of my mind before you, Yahweh, my crag and my restorer.” That is from The First Testament a new translation of the Old Testament I’ve read through this summer. In more familiar terms, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and redeemer.”

What if the reboot moments in our lives at Point this year brought us to next May where our every word and every thought honored God?

                                                Best of any song

                                                is bird song

                                                in the quiet, but first

                                                you must have the quiet.

                                                                Wendell Berry