Church Interactive

I wonder how I can write this without sounding “holier than Thou?”

As we mature in our Lord and begin to live a deeper walk we challenge the thinking of the average Christian. How we react to their reactions is a measuring stick of the depths of our walk.

Wading into the depths of God’s love and living it out may bring conflict with the average Christian as their understanding of God is challenged. Yet, it is precisely in their conflict that growth can occur.

As we grow deeper, God’s Spirit works to enrich our view of God. This reveals the errors of our beliefs. These are the beliefs that have been shaped by our needs and struggles rather than a clearer view of God. As we begin to grasp the deeper truths of God we are faced with a choice. Either we can let go of the blurry view of God and live a richer life OR we can hang onto our blurry view and live a poorer life.

Too often our beliefs are what we feel secure in rather than being secure in God. Wading into the deeper water is letting go of what God’s Spirit is telling us to release and living out the better view of God He is trying to get us to see. Those who understand the deeper walk will see just how deep their walk is as they deal with this conflict. Godly insight helps one to realize that this is a personal thing. God is at work. So we must let God work and not react to what our brother or sister says and does. We must come along beside them, lift them up and care for them. The deeper life we claim to grasp demands this. God is forcing us to live out of the depths we claim to believe.

This is one reason God works to make us interact with each other in the church. We all learn from each other and we discover what we really believe in how we work through this interaction.

Concepts of Love

Today, let me just throw across the page a smattering of thoughts that I have collected about love, particularly God's love and how we should live it out.

The love of God is such that should we see it clearly we would die of that love.

Love and death are mingled at Calvary. We can’t have one without the other. “In love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve.” Thornton Wilder
· The invitation of Jesus is this as we see Him on the Cross: ‘Don’t weep for me, join me. The life I have planned for you is a Christian life, much like the life I led.” Brennan Manning
· “Discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians are called upon to suffer. God is a God who bears. The Son of God bore our flesh, he bore the cross, he bore our sins…In the same way his followers are called upon to bear, and that is precisely what it means to be a Christian …The yoke and burden of Christ are His cross.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
· The more perfectly and purely I love Jesus, the more I become one with Him in love and share in his sufferings. The intimately I know the man of sorrows, the more I love Him and suffer with His sufferings. Angela of Foligno
· “We relive the passion of Jesus through the life of compassion. On the Cross, the open arms of the Crucified One reached out to feel the pain and suffering of the world.” Brennan Manning

Whenever love is withdrawn, pride is the cause.

“There can be only two basic loves: the love of God unto the forgetfulness of self OR the love of self unto the forgetfulness and denial of God.” Augustine

The nearer we come to the perfect purity of love, the more we turn from thoughts of ourselves in order to fix them totally upon God.

“It I truly have a fervent love of God in me—a love that enlightens my heart with the depths of His love—then when anyone speaks evil of me, I will be patient and gracious unto them.” Angela of Foligno:

“It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.” Mother Teresa

“Once you come to know the love of Jesus Christ, nothing else in the world will seem beautiful or desirable.” Brennan Manning

“We die daily in Jesus Christ or we deny him. This death in us has something to do with love toward Christ and toward people. We die to it when we love Christ and the brethren from the bottom of our hearts, for love is total surrender to what a person loves.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

“It is an indicator of purity of heart when you can look at a sinner and have mercy, notice a weak person and feel compassion.” Pseudo-Marcarius

“Does my heart seek no other joy than Jesus alone? Does my heart feel a burning love that is for Him alone? May my heart be Jesus loving, Jesus thinking and Jesus desiring—breathing in Him daily.” Richard Rolle

“Lord, kindle my heart with the heat of your love, enlighten my inmost being with the Light of your truth, feed me with the honey of your grace—as much as my body and soul can endure.” Richard Rolle

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”’ Antoine DeSaint-Exupery

“The world does not understand vulnerability…Vulnerability is flatly rejected by the world as incompetence and compassionate caring is dismissed as unprofitable. The great deception of public televisions advertising is that being poor, vulnerable and weak is uncool and ineffectual…Social climbing, power plays and winning breed a sprit of competition that bids farewell to compassion. The spirituality of the servant is incomprehensible to the advertising industry.” Brennan Manning – Today competition overrules compassion in American Christianity. We are becoming what we see.

“Keep a clear eye toward life’s end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God’s creature. What you are in His sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember, that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received—the fading symbols of honor, trappings of power—but only what you have given: a heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.” St. Francis of Assisi

The Church Disillusioned

Many churches are shattered because of a fanciful idea of what the church should be like. Christians within the church bring with them a definite image of what the Christian community ought to be like. God quickly frustrates all such images. God desires to lead us to a proper understanding of a genuine Christian community. The grace of God will not permit us to live in a dream world. When the church experiences the reality of its disillusionment and sees all of its unpleasant and evil appearances, it will begin to be what it should be in God’s sight. It will begin to grasp the promise that has been given to it.

A Church that cannot bear and cannot survive this disillusionment and clings instead to it idealized image loses the promise of a durable Christian community. Every human idealized image that is brought into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be broken up so that genuine community can survive. Those who love their dream of the Christian community more than the community itself become destroyers of that Christian community. This is true even if their personal intentions may be honest, earnest and sacrificial.

God hates wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and conceited. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others and by themselves. They enter their community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law and judge one another even God accordingly. They stand adamant, a living reproach to all others in the Christian community, as if their visionary ideal binds the people together. Whatever does not go their way, they call a failure. When their idealized image is shattered, they see the community breaking to pieces. So they first become accusers of other Christians in the community, then accusers of God, and finally accusers of themselves.

God is the one who has laid the foundation of our community. It is God through Jesus who unites us in one body with other Christians. We enter into that life with other Christians, not as those who make demands, but as those who thankfully receive. We thank God for what God has done for us. We thank God for giving us other Christians who live by God’s call, forgiveness and promise. We do not complain about what God does not give us; rather we are thankful for what God does give us daily. We believe that what God has given is enough. We accept the other believers who go on living with us through sin and need under the blessings of God’s grace. Is God’s gift any less great on the most distressing and difficult days within the Christian community?

Even in sin and misunderstanding, the one who sins is still a person with whom I stand with under the Word of Jesus. Will not the occasion of another Christian’s sin help me to again give thanks for both of us that we live in the grace of God’s forgiving love? We prevent God from giving the great spiritual gifts prepared for us because we do not give thanks for His daily gifts. If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian community in which we have been placed, even when there are no great experiences, no noticeable riches, but much weakness, difficulty and little faith…then we hinder God from letting our community grow according to the measure and riches that are there for us all in Jesus Christ.
{Adapted from Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Life Together; pages 35-37}

Please e-mail me your thoughts about this blog at pastormac@newlifewc.com

The HEART of Prayer

Prayer – We think we know what it is. It is asking God for things. We pray to seek God’s guidance. Or we pray requesting God to heal or direct or fix or assist in some way. When we grow in our prayer life we discover that prayer is a two way street. We begin to believe that it involves dialogue and not just our monologue. Yet how does this dialogue work? Does God call us on our cell phone? Do we sit and stare off into space until we “hear” his voice? Perhaps there is some nudging of our desires or wills that comes from God.

For many years I prayed intercessory prayers. I had lists of Scripture promises that I claimed and lists of people and needs that I prayed for. This is prayer. Yet, I have learned that this is just a small piece of the prayer pie. Our prayer relationship with God goes so much deeper than just listing our demands and our needs along with the people whose lives need help.

What we should seek in prayer is that God breathe into our spirits the depths of His heart. We are seeking to know our Father’s heart.

Prayer needs to become an adoring, uncomplicated and enduring attention on God.[1] True prayer should create a longing to love God more. When we pray we are allowing our hearts and spirits to ascend toward God. We are seeking the nearness of his presence.

When we pray we should invite God’s Spirit to fall upon us. We recognize that God is present with us. We focus our hearts and spirits upon the Lord. We want to contemplate who He is and reach out in love to him. True prayer is starting to happen.

Now we can place our hearts, spirits and minds in the brilliance of God’s Light. We are exposing them to the warmth of His heavenly love. This will begin to purity them so we can now pray from His heart rather than from ours.

Prayer involves centering our hearts, spirits and minds on Jesus. We are lifting them up to him with a stirring of our love for Him. We are seeking Him for HIS sake only and not for anything we might receive from Him. Our sole concern is to center everything upon Him. [2] If I am aware of myself when I am praying, my attention is diverted from God. If it is God whom I love and all pleasure disappears from my praying, what difference does it make? God is still God, even in times of dryness. Do I love the comfort of God or the God of comfort?

This deepening love for God will create a deeper walk with God that will provide a deeper intimate union with God that will keep me unmoved and untroubled at all times!

We are seeking to live our lives in such a way that just as we can feel the warmth of the sun on our faces, the people around us will feel the warmth of God radiating out from our lives. Our daily lives are becoming a prayer to the Lord. We are learning to “pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) Our lives are beginning to bear the imprint of our Father upon them.

We are learning the language of God. We are growing in our awareness of the heart of God. God begins to laugh into our souls and sing within our hearts and dance within our spirits. This is what prayer is all about!
[1] Francis DeSales; Living Love; pg 45
[2] The Cloud of Unknowing, pg 40-41

Buy Your Own Present

A gracious ninety-year-old grandmother was struggling with the hectic pace of Christmas shopping and made a decision. She would no longer send presents. Instead, she would send Christmas cards and include a check with each one so that her friends and family could purchase their own presents.

She carefully prepared each card and wrote in each one, "Buy your own present," and then sent all the cards well before Christmas. Strangely, no one ever made any mention of having received a card. When some of her family visited her during Christmas, she asked them if they received her cards. They were polite but not enthusiastic. They acknowledged that they had received cards but barely even thanked her.

A year later, as she was preparing to send cards again, she made a grievous discovery. Underneath a pile of Christmas papers, she found all the checks. She had never included the checks in the cards. She had written "Buy your own present" inside each card--without a check!"

Digging for BINGO

In Matthew 13:44 we read: "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” NIV

There is this treasure in a field. Who put it there? No one knows. A man learns about the treasure. So he takes off into the field to begin digging for it. He did not discover the treasure in his first hole. He begins digging hole after hole after hole. He is diligently seeking. He is working hard. It was back breaking work to move shovel full after shovel full of dirt. How deep did he dig each hole? One foot deep? Three feet deep? Yet, hole after hole yields nothing. He is sweating and growing tired. He is getting dirty. Can you see his face smeared with dirt?

After hundreds and hundreds of shovels full of dirt, he strikes a box – Thump! In his excitement he shovels faster and deeper, ignoring the pain in his back, and the sweat dripping into his eyes and his exhaustion. He carefully shovels the dirt from around it. Gingerly he raises the box out of the hole, opens it and discovers a wonderful treasure. There is only one problem. The field doesn’t belong to him so the treasure doesn’t belong to him, yet. There is no “finder’s keepers” law.

He goes and looks up the owner. He inquires about the sale of the field. They banter back and forth. Each one is extolling the virtues or vices of the field. When the price is finally arrived at, the man realizes he must sell everything he has in order to purchase the field. In today’s language we would say that he sold his house, his boat, both of his cars, his cottage at the lake, all of his furniture and cashed in his IRA’s. The treasure he discovered was worth the price. This treasure cost him huge volumes of time, energy, pain, and money. He willingly gave up everything that he had in order to acquire that field.

Jesus compares this story to the Kingdom of God. Consider this: God has hidden a treasure for you. It contains the wealth of heaven and the depths of God’s wisdom. Yet, He will not just reach down and hand it to us. We are challenged to “dig” for it. It will cost us time, energy, pain and perhaps money. There is a cost to it. The acquiring of this treasure could very well cost us everything that we hold dear, everything we strive for, and everything of value to us.

Are you willing to dig, not knowing what each hole may yield? Are you willing to struggle and sweat searching for the treasure and see little if no visible results? In our microwave, fast food world we want everything in an instant. Our gratification must come early or we quickly give up and move on to somewhere else. If you are not willing to invest yourself, if you will not grow in the grace of patience and if you refuse to commit to the journey, then you might as well stop right here.

Digging holes is hard, strenuous labor. Moving shovel full after shovel full of dirt and seeing few visible results can get disheartening. Frustration can set in and we might just throw up our hands and cry, “Forget it Lord. It’s not worth it.”

Yet, the hole digger in the parable never quit. Perhaps he discovered that each day he grew less tired. He realized that he could dig more holes before exhaustion set. He muscles were growing stronger. His back was firmer. His stamina was greatly increasing. He was not discovering the treasure but he was developing himself in other areas. And he never questioned the knowledge that the treasure was there in the field. He just kept to the task and one day, BINGO! It was worth it all.

Serving at a Snail's Pace

St. Teresa of Avila asks the following question: “Why do we serve God at a snail’s pace?”

Why is it that we want to just get by in our relationship with God doing as little as possible? We will only pray “just enough” or fast as little as necessary. We will go to church when we feel like it. We are treating our relationship with God like it is only worth about $2.50 instead of what it is really worth – a trillion, trillion dollars and more.

God wants us to give ourselves wholly to Him. This creates a starved hunger for God and His Kingdom. Jesus told his disciples: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” NIV He had discovered the fulfilling nourishment that comes from passionately following His Father.

Why are we so unwilling to invest ourselves completely to the Kingdom of God? Why do we only seek to do the minimum? Are we spiritually lazy? Are we losing out battle against the world, the flesh and the devil?

Satan will do all that he can to weaken us and reduce our spiritual hunger. He creates interruptions, false needs and endless distractions to try and defeat us.

Our Father honors his children when they resist Satan’s tactics and willingly sacrifice time, energy, effort and themselves to journey the road less traveled. It is on this road we uncover the valuable treasure of a deepening bond with God.

It's Risky Business

“To live without risk is to risk not living.” Brennan Manning

I have noticed that many Christians begin their life with Jesus excited and anxious to know more. Over time this begins to diminish. The believers enter into a steady flow of life, get involved in a church, read their Bibles and pray some. Yet what begins to happen is that their lives are becoming stagnant. Jesus is a part of their lives. However, there are other concerns of living to that must be taken care of.

Growth in Jesus implies taking a risk. It is moving out of our comfort zones and stagnation into the flowing stream of Living Water. As Jesus stretches us and matures us in faith, we come to realize that following Him is more than the acceptance of a set of theologically correct beliefs. A Christian lives out of the heart of Jesus. This makes life risky.

Am I willing to risk loving the unlovable?
AM I willing to risk forgiving the one who hurt me?
Am I will to risk my reputation by stepping out and being seen witnessing to the outcast, poor and lonely?
Am I willing to risk some money by giving to those who have a deep need?
Am I will to risk the investment of time in a person who is ungrateful?
Am I will to step out in faith and follow in the footsteps of Jesus and take the Truth to the one living in lies?

Living this way makes our trust in Jesus more than just a Sunday morning religious duty. We are driven to spend more than just three minutes a day with God. This moves us into deeper Water and richer faith. The Christian life becomes an adventure with Jesus!

“We’d like to stay close enough to the fire to stay warm, but are reluctant to dive in. We know we will come out burnt, incandescently transformed. Life never will be the same again. Nonetheless, we are dissatisfied with the narrow dimensions of our partial commitment. Deep within there is a longing to throw caution to the wind.” Brennan Manning in the Signature of Jesus, page 186

The Heart of the Matter

“The Heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9

There are so many times that we struggle with our hearts. I care about this person or that thing. Or I despise that person and want nothing to do with that matter. What causes us to choose one over the other? Whatever is going on within our hearts decides our choices. Our hearts seem tossed about by each breath of wind or every wave that crosses our paths.

If I am a follower of Jesus, He lives within my heart. I must train myself to listen to Jesus’ heart that resides within me. Only His heart is steady and true.

As we learn to listen to his heart we discover that there are emotions and habits of my heart that can block out the voice of Jesus. There is so much “noise” within us. We can get so caught up in the drive to succeed, to provide, feel secure and significant. The should’s, could’s, and ought to’s cry out and drown out the still small voice of the One we claim to be following. We must discover how to tune out the “noise” that clutters our hearts so that we can tune into the Spirit of Jesus.

This summer I went out to Colorado. One day I went up on the side of a mountain seeking an answer to a prayer. As I sat there praying and seeking God, He came to me and said, “Listen!” So I tried to tune out the noise of struggle and confusion and listen.

I heard frogs, the rustle of leaves as a squirrel ran through them, the swish of the wind in the leaves, the snip, snip, snip of grasshopper wings, and the cascade of water down a mountain side. God whispered: “Worship me.”

I was drawn into the music of His creation. I lifted up my heart to him. The clutter of my heart fell away. There in the midst of Him, I discovered the power and the joy of a heart that fully opened to His love. The peace of His Spirit flowed over my heart. I no longer needed the answer to my prayer. My heart was being drawn into the One who died for it.

When we open our hearts to Him and allow Him to fill them, life has a way coming together in a new perspective. We discover that He was there all the time. We realize that we can wait upon Him and discover renewed strength.

Open my heart Lord, I want to “see” You!

R and R

Life gets so filled with frantic activity. We are driven by the need to help our children become all they can be. We want to feel like we are involved in important things and be successful. The drive for stuff and the need to be doing keep us from our Sabbath. What we often forget is that the Sabbath principle established by God.

Even pastors can get lost in the frenzied actions of ministering in Jesus’ name and forget the command of God to come aside and rest and worship. Once again I am learning the power of the Sabbath – of stopping, resting and focusing on Jesus. The Sabbath can keep us from drifting. It renews our spirits, our hearts, our minds and emotions.

God rested on the seventh day. God commanded the Israelites to stop farming every seventh year and every fiftieth year (The end of seven sevens of years) in order to rest and worship. He commands us to remember the Sabbath day as well.

The Sabbath is really about trusting God. Living the Sabbath may mean realizing that everything is in God’s hands. When I live the Sabbath principle I can let go of everything that clutters my life and relax, renew, refresh and review on the Sabbath.

Daily living soils my heart and drains my spirit. The Sabbath allows me to lay my heart before God to be cleansed. It allows me to open my spirit to be filled once again. It provides a time to appraise where my life has been and where it is heading. The Sabbath helps me express that my faith is in God ALONE.

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. Isaiah 30:15 NIV

Lost in LOVE

Do I truly understand the love of God, particularly His love for me? Perhaps we can quote John 3:16 and even tell others that God loves them, but do we really grasp the idea that God loves ME? His love has no conditions. I need not become better, prettier or successful. I do not need to give more, serve more or care more to get more of God’s love for me. He will never love me more nor can He love me less than He does right now! This love for me is INFINITE! Catch that—INFINITE. That means without beginning or end.

We tend to be hard on ourselves. We look at our lives and see the failures, mistakes and outright sin that we have committed. We never look into our hearts. Staring down into the center of our being is too scary. We will see the garbage that is there and realize that no one could love and accept us, much less a holy and perfect God. We do not understand the heart of God! We do not comprehend His love!

We are predisposed to define our value based on looks, money, job description, people’s appraisal of us and our own evaluation of our lives. These are all flawed! Grasp this—FLAWED!

Once we begin to clutch to our spirits the depths of the love of God for us, we will begin to walk in the freedom of His love. This is the freedom of acceptance. Freedom to just be who God created us to be. Free from the expectations of others and of ourselves. Free to enjoy life. Thomas Merton tells us that we need to define ourselves as “One loved by Christ.”

This love is experienced in our brokenness. This love grows in our weaknesses. This love blossoms in humility. This love is the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in a field that a man went and sold all that he had to buy that field. Why wouldn’t we all do that? This is the heart of the greatest gift ever given. “For God so loved…

Why can I write about this? God has brought me to a turn in the journey that is my life. For several years I have been learning, studying and experiencing the journey of faith. Now I have turned onto the road of love. Where will it lead? Only He knows.

Cat-tastrophe

Ever been misunderstood?

A couple was preparing to go out for their anniversary. They were ready to go and had just taken the cat outside the house. As the taxi cab drove up to the front of their house, they opened the front door to leave. The sneaky cat ran back into the house. The husband told his wife to go out to the cab while he retrieved the cat. The wife got into the cab and apologized for her husband. She did not want the cab driver to know that no one was home, so she told him that her husband went back in to say good bye to his elderly mother. When the husband got into the cab, he apologized for the delay and explained, "That stupid old nuisance was hiding under the bed. I had to slap her with a coat hanger a couple of times to get her out from under there!"

The Storm!

I stood in the midst of a mountain valley watching a gathering storm. As I observed the clouds billowing up God began to speak to me about the storms of our lives.

There are times in our lives when we see the storm brewing on the horizon. We realize that we cannot hold it back. Some of these storms will turn out to be just passing showers. Others will come hard and heavy. Those are the days we will wonder if we are going to make it or not.

How we survive them depends on how we much we have prepared ourselves to handle them. Out in the middle of the storm we will get wet and wind blown. It will be tough to speak and even catch your breath. That is the moment we wonder, “Where is Jesus?” We think he should have protected us from the storm. At least He could have provided shelter. In the midst of praying we hear His voce calling to us from the heart of the storm! “I am here. I am standing with you. Lean on my strength. Trust in me.” He is holding out his hand. Faith grasps it and holds on tightly as the rain pounds down and the hail bounces off of you.

When the storm comes, it blots out the sun, but does that mean the sun is not there? Of course not. So when we are wet, cold, wind blown and beaten up by the storms of life, it does not mean that Jesus is not there. It means he is teaching us about life, about God and about faith. He has a greater purpose than just keeping us dry, safe and warm.

Again today I am confronted with how much of self is still in my heart. For many years I have been reading about how much of self is dwelling in our lives – in my life. So many times I have felt the love of God speak to me as I wallowed in self-focus, self-desire and just plain selfishness. Over the span of these years God has graciously revealed to me the depths of self that still inhabits my soul. When He does this I feel no condemnation, only a gentle but firm nudging from His Spirit telling me to “let go” so He can fill the places my self once dwelt in.

I have experienced the tender compassion of God seeking to draw me nearer to Him. All that holds Him back is ME!

Why is it so hard to let go of me? I have “seen” God’s love. I have “heard” His voice calling to me. There were wonderful moments when He sang in my spirit and brought joy to my heart. Those were the moments after I was able to “let go” of me. Sadly those moments have been too far and too few between.

If Jesus lives in me, if I am developing His character in me and if I allow Him to mold me, then I will constantly be bumping into me. I get in Jesus way when He is growing and stretching me. I discover this when I clash with another person. I discover this when I allow life to direct me rather than Him. These clashes, bumps and collisions are God’s way of revealing me to me. My reaction to these things reveal the depths of my walk with the Lord.

The weakest moments of my life drive me to God. It is here I discover His strength. It is in the height of the moment I can choose to walk in the depths of His grace. It is in the moments I feel the most empty that He can fill me the fullest.

Beans on our Faces

I have noticed that in our walk on the earth, God has a way of using the events of life to teach us about our relationship with Him.
My family and I had gone camping. I enjoyed “roughing” it. The smell of the campfire, the fresh air and family time was relaxing. I was thrilling my boys about my tales of being a Boy Scout when we began to cook our afternoon meal. I told them how we used to cook our meals as scouts. That day we were fixing baked beans for lunch. I regaled with how we used to just place the can of beans in the fire and let them pressure cook. I was not a baked beans fan, but I really enjoyed those that we ate with the Boy Scouts.
As we prepared our meal, I decided I would cook our beans just like we used to in the scouts. We rolled the can into our roaring fire. I excitedly told my boys how great these beans were going to be. They would be steam and pressure-cooked. In my excitement, I forgot one little detail about cooking baked beans over the fire. We always poked a little hole in the top of the baked beans can before we rolled it into the fire.
KABOOM! Beans flew everywhere. The can was blown 15 feet into the air. The fire was blown completely out. And my son and I were covered with freshly steam cooked baked beans.
There was a couple strolling by our campsite just as the beans exploded. I certainly did not want them to think I had done anything foolish. Yet, do you know how difficult it is to look nonchalant with baked beans dripping out of your hair?
Why did this happen to me? I was proud of the fact that I had been a Boy Scout and knew some things about how to cook out in the open. I just knew that I could remember all that we had done to cook beans over an open fire. I wanted to impress my family with these facts. Pride, self sufficiency, the desire to succeed, the need to fit in, and ignoring the truth has a way of making beans blow up in your face.