Oh Tim Tebow what are we to do with you? You just won't stop making those incredible passes or ending the game with kneeling prayer will you? At least this is what the secular world is thinking and asking. He really brings out the division in the world doesn't he? The secular world certainly wants him to stop the kneeling prayer. "You just can't do that in our arena...you can't bring your private religious expressions into the public arena especially the one of NFL football. It is secular...don't you get it?" The other part of the divided world, the sacred realm especially the right wing Evangelical Christian slice of that realm like to make him their champion. "Yeah, at least we have someone to cheer for and not be embarrassed by. Go Tim!" But is it that simple? Is that really what all the fuss about Tim Tebow is; a divided world, one side decrying while the other side cheers?

I don't really think so. I think what makes Tebow unique ( other than his God given athletic gift) is that he is a man of the "Old West". No not the Cowboy and Indian old west. The Old West men like C.S.Lewis referred to: Western Civilization before the Sacred Secular Split, the Christocentric world of the Middle Ages.( Sorry Tim if this makes you a Medieval Man...better that than a Renaissance Man, but that is another story.)

For Tebow there is only one world, it is not divided. It belongs to it's Creator the Trinitarian God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit as revealed by the Word of God. He lives in a world under his Lord and Savior and makes no apology for it because it is the real world, the true world. He plays football with an intense passion yes, but what makes him so unique and so disliked is that he gives all the glory to God. He does not do this in a half hearted sort of apologetic way that so many who have accepted the notion of a divided world do as they try not to offend anyone.

Tebow is unique because he is not a divided man, he does not hail from either side of the sacred secular split world. He is a Christian in the truest sense of the word...he follows Christ. Well you say, you can certainly agree he doesn't come from the secular world but how does he not come from the religious right wing of Protestant Evangelicalism? The answer may surprise you.

There are many in the Protestant Evangelical world of today that have accepted the man made idea of a world divided into sacred and secular realms. They drank the Kool Aid. They go into their religious compartment for things like Sunday worship, Bible studies, prayer meetings, mission trips, and then they go right out into the "secular" realm for everything else. They compartmentalize not only their outer life but their inner life as well. There is a huge discrepancy between what they "know" and what they actually "do". I have dwelt long in the Protestant Evangelical world and can understand why the secular realm so dislikes us ( read the book Unchristian by David Kinnaman for more detail). Too often the pursuit of self, wealth, and power all the "stuff" of the world is covered over by a veneer of religiosity that goes about proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Savior.

How do I know Tim Tebow is not like that? Well my guess ( and that's what it is) is because even those who do not like or agree with his "Tebowing" do not disparage the man. They like him. They admire him. They like his humility, his passion, his fierceness, his compassion, his genuineness, his virtue. Oh now there is an "Old West" term; virtue. His discipline in body and soul has produced a virtue which everyone, secular and sacred can literally see, and everyone is drawn to whether they like it or not.
           
"The glory of God is the human being fully alive and the life of the human consists in beholding God", wrote the great Christian Saint Irenaeus.

Tim Tebow is living fully alive reflecting the glory of God and every time he drops down in deep gratitude on that now famous knee he is beholding his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This fall while I was teaching Crossing the Threshold I taught a lesson on Sacred Time, so it was natural for me to really consider the time Christians call Advent.  I didn't decide to just practice Advent or do something holy and spiritual. It was more like going on a journey and entering a new land where everything was strange including the way time passed. A good description of this might be like Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away; he stepped out of chronos time and into kairos time which forced him to live in a very different reality.

What I discovered in this new landscape called Advent was that the Lord really did come, in some amazing and very personal ways. I received gifts from him that were truly life changing and of course the greatest gift was himself...more of Jesus!

I also found that I was different in this place. Beauty replaced my busyness. People replaced the presents. I spent hours perhaps, gazing at my tree caught up in its beauty and remembering people and places associated  with the ornaments, then offering up prayers for all those who came across the threshold of my memory. There was a deep sense of gratitude that took hold of my heart and replaced the usual worry over what I needed to be doing or getting. No grasping in other words, just a time of receiving.

When I did venture out to go shopping that time was radically altered too. I purchased fewer gifts but they were much more intentionally chosen. The Lord even seemed to come and help me find what I needed. After my only trip to our very large mall I did something I have never done before...I took myself out to dinner at a restaurant in the mall and sat and just enjoyed the beauty and people there!.

By the time Christmas actually arrived I could look back and see that my time in Advent had not only been good for me it had changed me. Like Tom Hanks coming off his island ....he could no longer go back to his FedEx frantic ways; he took kairos with him and lived on that "kind" of time. I knew that this had happened to me when I started quite unconsciously referring to 2012 as the Year of Our Lord. It just flowed when I wrote or spoke or thought about the new year. In the year of our Lord 2012...it was the most natural thing I could say.
What a beautiful way to start a new year. To know that it is His year, His time, and because I know how good He is it will be a good blessed year....The Year of Our Lord.

Right now I am working on a project that is really stretching me in ways I didn't know I could be stretched. So after a very frustrating day of not getting much accomplished I sat down last night to have a small pity party. I happened to be in the living room where our Christmas tree is and as I stared at its beauty the thought popped into my head....well at least there is one thing I can do.....I know how to decorate a Christmas tree!

All of a sudden I got some "incoming" thoughts about just how I had decorated that tree. First I had to select a tree and then bring it home and then the decorating went in stages....lights, ornaments ( best first), beads, tinsel ...you get the picture. There were stages and if I had stopped at any point I would not have beheld the finished project and it's beauty the way I was doing at that moment. Okay Lord I understand maybe my "project" is in a very early stage and I am seeing no beauty in it whatsoever! I get it. Hang in there until it is complete and see what it looks like then.

The tree however continued to play with my imagination. I started to think of how many people had a part in my Christmas tree. God of course with the life of the tree, but someone planted it, pruned it and brought it to market ( no I didn't get to go cut one this year). People helped me select it and load it on our SUV. People made the lights and the tinsel and someone shipped those products to the store and stocked them on the shelves. I have spent 40 years collecting the ornaments from all over the world so think of all the people and nations that are represented there. Wouldn't it be fascinating if you could magically pull up everybody that had somehow in someway  been connected to that tree?

And yet the tree is uniquely mine. There is no other tree like it. Even if someone in my family were to take all of the decorations and try and put it together it would not be the same. They do not have the love, or desire, or passion that I do for the Christmas tree. Even though lots of people have had a part in that Christmas tree it is a unique expression of my creativity....a unique expression of who I am. But on the flip side of the coin I couldn't have done it without all those people.

That made me think about my life. I am like the tree. God created my life, my mother birthed me, people fed me and pruned me and "grew" me. Thousands upon thousands have left their imprint on my life in one way or another and yet I am unique...I am me. But the me that I am is also because of the people who have played a part in my life.

Now there's a thought! Everyday people do ordinary things like stocking lights on a shelf, or making tinsel, or pruning trees and they do not realize they are part of a finished work in a beautiful Christmas tree. The same can be said for all that we do in our "ordinary" lives. We touch people everyday and leave an imprint in the clay vessel that they are...either for good or for evil.

Thankfully there is One who is overseeing the entire "project" of my life. He is taking all the broken fragments, the cheap baubles and dingy lights as well as a few spectacular treasures and assembling something that He will be thrilled to stand back and say " I know how to do new creation"

I have been asked several questions regarding the website, so I thought a word of explanation might be helpful to all.

First question: Why the picture and the II Corinthians 5:17 verse?
When I found this picture ( after a long search), I felt it "said" in symbolic form all that I wanted the website to say. For me the rising sun and the brilliant green grass speak of a new day and "new creation". I really liked the small rock in the foreground that has somewhat of an arrow shape pointing to "The Rock" in the background. The verse is not necessarily my favorite or a life verse, but I do love the true meaning of it. N.T. Wright puts it like this: "Verse 17, one of the great summaries of what Christianity is all about. In the Greek language he (Paul) is using, he said it even more briefly: 'If anyone in Messiah, new creation'. The new creation in question refers both to the person concerned and the world which they enter, the world which has now been reconciled to the creator."
There you have it; picture and verse proclaiming the great truth that with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the new creation has begun and you can be a part of it if you are "In Him".

Second Question: What about the class Faith, Film and Fiction?
Okay, I taught this class this Spring and I have to say it was one of the best I have ever taught, and not because I was teaching it! No it was the content that was so exciting....and as the lessons developed I became aware of a much deeper reason for the class than my own personal intention when I started out. I realized as we went on how deeply compartmentalized not only our culture is but that the deep divide between sacred and secular is within us! This class was a small step in breaking down that divide and challenging people to "see" in a whole new way.
The first two lesson ( or "conversations") are up on the website and there are six more to follow. These have been filmed but have not yet been edited. The person so graciously doing this for me is immersed in her work at the moment so we are waiting.....
The topics covered in the six sessions include film ( especially Titanic and Avatar), fantasy ( Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter), fiction, and fairy ( including Disney and Pixar films). The last session concludes the series with a talk on the Book of Revelation!  Wow!

Third Question: Why are some movies like Inception on the Leslie Hand Blog and not on Movieglimpse?
When I write on movies for Movieglimpse I never use the first person. I write on things that I think are there and that everyone could see if they just knew the language of symbols or parts of a story etc. In other words I am not writing my personal thoughts, (some may disagree with that statement ...I understand). On the blog I can write about things "I see" for me...maybe lessons I get or how a scene made me think of something. Movieglimpse is directed to one audience and Leslie Hand to another...that should be obvious.

Fourth Question: Would you be so kind as to respond?
If you have visited Movieglimpse or Leslie Hand I would really appreciate hearing from you. Thanks for taking the time and sharing your thoughts.

Finally, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Leslie

There is a video going around on Facebook (why I couldn't pull it up on the internet I don't know) of Peter Jackson's first "videoblog" on the making of his new movie The Hobbit. It is a ten minute teaser; taking you around the sets, going into the wardrobe department, watching the actors "blocking" a scene, just a whole introduction or reintroduction to Middle Earth. At one point Jackson says he is used to seeing the set of Rivendell on film and now he is walking into it. Kind of weird he remarks.

Weird? Weird? He is walking into the story...into Rivendell and it is weird? Why I thought it is AMAZING! I want to be there. I want to be part of it. On the video you see all these people coming together and working to create something and they are walking into the story, not seeing it on film, not reading it in a book but living in it...really living in it.Why this had such a powerful effect on my I was ready to drop everything...my family, my life, everything. Just let me fly to New Zealand and say PLEASE can I help? I'll do whatever, just let me walk into the story!

I think the answer to why I responded this way (and I bet you would too) lies in the loss of story. The modern world ( and thus our post modern world) lost the story. There is no story to walk into. Ever since the sacred/secular split of the 17th and 18th centuries we have a bifurcated world. Yes bifurcated, or forked as a serpent's tongue. One compartment or branch is the "real world" where we live out the days of our lives. This is the objective scientific world that came out of the "Enlightenment". No God, no mystery, no magic, no "music of the spheres" just objective scientific facts, thank you very much. The other compartment or branch is reserved for subjective spirituality; whatever version you may prefer. BUT this spirituality that you may practice on Sundays, or Saturdays or whatever day is really about when you die. It is not about life here and now in the "real world". This is the great tragedy of the world in which we live.

J.R.R. Tolkien who wrote the The Hobbit and created Middle Earth lived in the story. He walked into everyday of his life. He saw the earth for the great stage that it is. He knew The Author of the story well enough to imitate His creation with his own "sub-creation" and gave us The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Peter Jackson and Company are taking Tolkien's "sub-creation" and sub-creating themselves. They are artists of every kind creating costumes, weapons, music, worlds really. They are living in the story, walking into every day and playing their parts well...really well.

No wonder the "reel" story is so much more appealing than the "real" world of post modernity. We have no "wizard workshop", no Shire, no Rivendell. The bifurcated world is perhaps the serpent's greatest achievement; for it is not only an objective fact in the world it is a subjective experience in our hearts.

The other day I was having snow cones with my four year old granddaughter Lily Grace and she asked me to tell her the story of Spooky and Scooter. Of my three children and seven grandchildren Lily Grace is the one who likes family stories. So I started to tell her the abbreviated stories about the night we got her mother, Spooky the cat and how Scooter (her mother's dog) discovered a crab hole at Pawley's Island. "No start from the beginning" she said. I had only shared these stories with her one time, but she had already committed the details to memory and would have nothing to do with a shorter version. So I went back to the beginning, as we sat on the swings and ate snow cones.

When I had finished she asked me the question "are Spooky and Scooter in heaven?". Since my time was limited and not wanting to get into the philosophy of whether all dogs (and cats) go to heaven I simply said yes. I know some people will not like this answer but at the moment it seemed like the right one. Then Lily Grace said this; "yes I know they are because sometimes when I look at the clouds I see their little claws coming through."

Oh how cute you say. Well I have been thinking about that comment and reveling in its profundity, not in "how cute it is." I thought how easy it is for a four year old to see heaven (God's space, domain, kingdom. dimension) breaking through into our world of space, time and matter! I know many adults, no make that most adults who cannot connect the two. For them God remains in this remote place called heaven to which they hope to go when they die (or could care less, depending on their belief system). But for most whether yea or nay they see no connection, and certainly no "in breaking" of God's Kingdom into this world.

For Lily Grace Scooter and Spooky are not far away; she sees their claws peeking through the clouds. The veil has been rent! I rejoice in that because that means for Lily Grace the Lord is not somewhere out past Pluto, He too is very much a part of her world. I would love to hear all she has to say about that. We will save that conversation for the next time we sit on the swings and have snow cones.

I have been thinking a lot about fear lately. A few years ago I was graciously given a few days on Bald Head Island. I knew it only as the quaint island off the North Carolina coast, the one you had to take a ferry to, and drive golf carts on. I didn't realize it was at the very tip of Cape Fear.

My daughter and I were cruising around in our golf cart the first day and we came to a small boat that had the words Cape Fear written on it. It was just parked by the side of a road. We started to turn down the road but another sign caught my eye, Shoals Alley golf carts only. My mind interpreted this as only the golf carts that belong on Shoals Alley can enter! Crazy I know, but that is the point, fear of doing the wrong thing or being in the wrong place made me interpret it that way. So we turned and headed off in another direction.

The next day I was walking and once again came to this spot. Well I am not in a golf cart I reasoned so I can walk down Shoals Alley and I did. I came out on the most magnificent sight for the small "alley" led straight to the Atlantic Ocean. It was a glorious morning and the sun was brilliant over the water, I literally ran down to play in the surf. I found myself on the eastern side of the island and after awhile I decided to walk down and around the corner to the southern beach and explore my way back to our house.

My final morning I was up and out before anybody was out of bed. I was so anxious to get to the beach as the sun came up I skipped my morning cup of tea. Down the road to Shoals Alley and there I paused because this time I read the sign correctly....only golf carts Leslie...no cars, no trucks, no buses, only golf carts! Funny I thought, how could I have read it any other way?

I came out at the same point and once more danced my way down the beach and then I got very bold. I decided I would go out to the very tip of land where the eastern edge met the southern edge and this would truly be Cape Fear. There was a small sand peninsula that jutted out into the ocean at the corner of the island and this is where I was headed.

As I walked out on to the tiny finger of sand I was stopped in my tracks by utter beauty and a sight I will never forget. The sun was rising over the ocean and there at the point where land and water merged sat a row of pelicans. They were facing the east and basking in the warmth of the sun and all that was before them was the vast Atlantic Ocean. One slowly turned his head around and gazed at me, as if to see who it was that was daring to intrude on their worship. Worship you say???? Yes Worship. I felt as if I was standing on holy ground, there was a presence of the Lord that I cannot describe.

I could not go any further, to disrupt them was unthinkable. So I stopped and prayed and yes worshipped God. Slowly I made my way back to the house, then back to the mainland, and back to my life, but for weeks the pelicans haunted my mind. Why was I so fixated on them? What was the Lord telling me through them? Finally I got out a symbol dictionary and there I found my answer. Pelicans are a symbol for Christ shedding His blood on the cross*. The moment I read this the Lord spoke to my heart. "I will be with you in the deepest place of your fear."

I have been thinking a lot about fear lately. My friend Stephanie lies unconscious in a hospital with a broken body from a severe car accident. She is expected to make a recovery  but she will awaken to the news that her 39 year old daughter was killed leaving behind a husband and two young daughters. This will break her heart.

"I will be with you in the deepest place of your fear". So be it Lord.....for Stephanie.


*Hall's Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols.

My dentist thanked me for recommending the movie Mama Mia to his wife. He was checking my teeth the other day and told me how much she loved it. His opinion of the film was simply Pierce Brosnan cannot sing. I said "I know but women don't care". The entire conversation took me back to some thoughts I've had on midlife and Mama Mia.

The movie's main character Donna lives with her daughter on a small Greek island. She has spent the last fifteen years running a small resort hotel that she built. Now her daughter Sophie is getting married and Donna is facing the empty nest alone.

The Villa is named quite appropriately Villa Donna, it is a metaphor for her life. It has been all work and no play, an isolated life on an isolated island and now the Villa is beginning to deteriorate, a sure sign of middle age. This sad condition makes Donna sing a song of lament about men and money.

In my dreams I have a plan, If I got me a wealthy man, I wouldn't have to work at all.............

How many lonely women are singing this tune?

The movie comes to a climax at Sophie's wedding. There is a beautiful scene where Donna sings to her first love of her absolute brokenness..The winner takes it all. She has lost, its over. She has come out of the villa/house that she built and is stripped. There is nothing left for her and now she is losing the one thing she has lived for, her daughter. Empty, broken she stands on the rocks; a picture of a life broken on the rocky terrain of midlife.

What happens next is wonderful if you understand the language of symbols. Donna finishes her song and flees to a path that is beautifully lit with small lights. She climbs the steep trail following the lights to the top of a high hill attached to the main island only by the rocky isthmus. There she finds another house....the House of the Lord.

Inside before all the assembled wedding guests she is compelled to make a confession of her long held secret and to ask Sophie's forgiveness. The moment she does this something beautiful happens. She finds the love of her life and Donna the brokenhearted becomes Donna the bride. The marriage supper she has prepared for Sophie turns out to be hers.

How many people crash on the rocks of midlife when the house they were building begins to crumble and fall ( as surely it must)? Many never recover nor do they see the small lighted path that leads to another house, where love Himself patiently waits.

I liked it. Not that I understand all of it, but I did like it. The movie gave me a way of "seeing". So here are some random, and I do mean random thoughts on what I was seeing.

Reality
The movie has two realities or two dimensions, the dream world and the real world. Seeing that whole concept was powerful. We live in a world of two dimensions or realities; there is what we consider the "real" world and there is the Kingdom of God. I liked seeing the dream world of Inception as it reminded me of our "real" world.....the world we create, the world that is decaying and falling all the time. The Kingdom of God is so much more than we could ever imagine; it is the reality of which our world is a mere shadow of.
Perhaps planting the thought that there is a world apart from God that we can rule and create was and is the first and greatest "inception".

The Kick and the Totem
In the movie there is a "kick" to get back into the real world and there is a "totem" that everyone has to have so they can identify whether they are in the dream world or the real world. They made me think of the two sacraments the church has been given; baptism and communion. We are baptized into Christ; it is our "kick" into the real world of God's Kingdom. We also need something to remind us, to orient us as to what world we are really in. For two thousand years the Lord's Supper, or Communion, or the Eucharist...whatever you want to call it has been our reminder. It awakens us to the reality of what the cross did to bring us back into the Father's world.

Guilt
I liked seeing the truth of what guilt does to the human mind. It torments it. Dom suffers guilt over Mal's death. This unresolved guilt torments him by Mal showing up in his mind. When he makes the confession in front of Ariadne he is released.

Strongholds
In the film the 'dream team" is trying to get into fortified areas of another persons mind; either to steal an idea or in this case to plant one. I likes seeing these fortified areas and how powerfully defended they were. It gave me a way of seeing what the Bible refers to as fortresses.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4,5.

If the enemy has established a stronghold in our mind he knows how to defend it. There will be a battle to blow it up!

Garden Imagery
The movie ends with Dom getting "home" and seeing his children in the garden. The imagery suggests that Dom and Mal were once the children of the father figure Miles and they left the garden to live in a world of their dreams. Only one returned. Oh by the way Dom means "Lord" and Mal means "evil".

I was having coffee with a friend the other night and she reminded me of a list I had made several years ago. She told me how after receiving it she had tucked it away in her underwear drawer!. One day while walking through the valley of Alzheimers disease with her late father the list had surfaced and it gave her courage to love him well until the end. Now she keeps it on the front of her computer.

I thought if it had so much meaning for one person it might be worthwhile posting it for others. The list came to me one Saturday morning as I was sitting in bed thinking about the movie The Holiday. I was thinking of how the "dominant" woman Amanda and the "desolate" woman Iris were each living in unloving situations, so I wrote down what this place of "unlove" looked like. Then on a whim the women trade places for the holiday and suddenly find themselves in a whole new atmosphere.....love. They are transformed by love and so are Miles, Graham, and Arthur.

God is love (1John4:16), He creates the atmosphere in which all the things listed below about love are true.

Love:
    Restores that which is lost and much more than you can imagine.
    Makes Real
    Sets free, releases from bondage
    Makes beautiful
    Honors
    Bestows favor
    Lifts up and invites in
    Fills the emptiness, the void
    Rewards
    Sees things clearly
    Applauds
    Brings Joy
    Understands and is kind
    Restores dignity
    Is open and generous
    "Anything is possible"
    Wants to know you
    Pursues the beloved

Unlove:
    Masquerades as love
    Accuses
    Deceives
    Cheats, unfaithful
    Uses
    Is selfish
    Wants its own way
    Wounds with words and deeds
    Does not repent
    Gets angry
    Casts down, depresses
    Makes inferior
    Immobilizes with fear
    Lifeless