Finding Your Inner-Salt

I finally succumbed and purchased the best-selling book The History of Salt by Mark Kurlansky. I’d talked myself out of buying it for a couple of years but I found a discounted paperback copy and quickly began reading it. I’m fascinated by how a writer can take a seemingly mundane subject and turn it into a million-seller book. If George Clooney could play a pile of salt the movie rights would be up for grabs right now. The actual book, setting aside all professional jealousy, is a masterpiece. Salt was gold for more years than gold has been gold, if you get my drift. Salt literally ran the world for thousands and thousands of years.


Did you know that Egyptians used salt to make mummies (I think they used bodies primarily but salted them down really well)? Or, that salt was to the ancient Hebrews, and still is to modern Jews, the symbol of the eternal nature of God’s covenant with Israel? Did you know that for eon’s loyalties and friendships were sealed with salt because its essence does not change? (Even dissolved into liquid salt can be evaporated back into crystals). Roman soldiers were often paid in salt, which was the origin of the word salary and the expression being worth your salt. The Latin word sal (salt) became the French word solde, meaning pay, which is the origin of the word, soldier. This is one literary lesson you should take with more than a grain of salt!

 The New Testament instructs us to be salt and light to our world. One of salts greatest early values was to preserve food. Another value was as a seasoning, something we continue to use today. It is the seasoning aspect we should translate into our daily faith lives to be true to scripture. We are told to live lives that demonstrate and provide an example that is different from the norm around us. We are to season life with holiness and positives that other people will want to have in their own lives. Something as mundane as salt can still transform the world.
 
Michael McCullar

Being a Regular Size Person in a Skinny Fit World

Who invented the skinny fit approach to clothing? You know the kind, sits lower on the waist and is tapered down the legs. Really? Seriously? In America? The land of “Super-Size those fries for me!” I am a relatively normal size person and I accidentally picked up a pair of skinny fit trousers to try on. It was an ugly experience. Who besides a seriously, even certified, skinny person, would want a pair of skinny fit men’s pants? What happened to the “expand-a-trouser’ model of a few years ago that gave a bit around the waist? Now those were excellent trousers. I’m guessing you would have a harder time outgrowing those so the return business was not what it needed to be. Probably a consultant in Paris said, “Ahhh, let’s get those Americans by designing skinny fit clothes” (add in your own French accent). And there you go…we are now the land of skinny fit clothes!
You may be asking at this point, “what exactly does this have to do with faith?” You may also be thinking, “preach on my mid-size brother…I despise skinny fit clothes too!” Keep reading and we will all end up happy, well that is if we aren’t presently stuck in a pair of super tight, uncomfortable trousers. Skinny fit clothes are for skinny people. To squeeze into a pair of this or that just to be stylish is unnecessary discomfort and, let’s face it, it’s pretty obvious if “the skinny clothes don’t fit.” It’s better to relax and be O.K. with what we are. Obviously we should treat our bodies as holy vessels created by God and that might mean a diet or a bit of exercise or less stress. At some point, however, we are what we are. The same goes for matters of faith.


I learned a long time ago I’m not Billy Graham, nor am I Max Lucado. Truth be told, they aren’t me either (although they wouldn’t know me from Adam’s gardener). I’ve accepted my gifts and what God has called me to do. It took time, but I stopped trying to be something other than the unique person God intended me to be. In God’s scheme we are all unique, necessary and vital to making a difference in the world. Sadly, we won’t make that difference until all of us step up to God’s calling for our lives. Each of us. Being O.K. with who we are. Finally. Unlike skinny fit clothes, God’s fit is always perfect!

Michael McCullar

Life Before the Super Bowl

The first Super Bowl took place in Los Angeles on January 15, 1967 between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. Led by Bart Starr on the field and Vince Lombardi on the sidelines the Packers won the initial game 35-10. The game was attended by 62,000 people and was shown on two television networks. My, how things have changed. Today 62,000 people mingle around in the parking lot just to be near the game. One television network pays billions of dollars for the rights to televise the game. Non-football fans watch the game just to see the one million dollars per minute commercials. What did we do before January 15, 1967?
The answer is simple: It doesn’t matter. The Super Bowl is what it is: football is huge in America (especially in the South), and it will continue to grow in popularity and in reach. So we roll with it. We enjoy the game and (some of) the commercials and in the process model to friends, family and co-workers that to us, football is not a religion. We can mix football and faith and keep faith at the top of the list. This is a good message, especially this week…because, let’s face it, it’s not 1967 anymore!

Michael McCullar

Humpty Dumpty Was A Good Egg (Or Not)

 

                   Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

           Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

           All the kings’s horses and all the king’s men

           Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

All in all Humpty Dumpty seems to be a Good Egg. British people use Good Egg to signify good character in a person. In America we use the term to signify an excellent breakfast. Mother Goose, however, never stated that Humpty Dumpty was an egg. In fact, earliest versions have this last line:

           Threescore men and threescore men,

           Cannot place Humpty Dumpty as he was before.

Not only does this not rhyme, it damages the age-old idea of a talking egg dressed in early 1800’s British school clothes. Scholars of such things believe the story was borrowed from an even earlier French riddle and Humpty Dumpty was a tortoise. Another view is that this riddle/rhyme was aimed at the King of England who was a bit on the round side and who lost a strategic war. Fast forward seventy-five or so years to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Humpty Dumpty is portrayed as a contemptuous grammar-fiend who argues with Alice. He is an egg in Carroll’s story, but certainly not a good egg.

Good Eggs may be clumsy and prone to fall down, but they are never argumentative with little lost girls. Good Eggs also likely realize there’s no such thing as, as he was before. Good and Bad Eggs change each day. No one is static. We all exist in a state of flux, exacerbating our fluxness with daily decisions and actions. There’s no going back. Plus, we can’t fix ourselves. Lord knows we try to fix ourselves. The self-help publishing world is a billion-dollar business and growing. No amount of glue and precision can piece us together exactly as we were before.

Here’s the takeaway: God can make us better. If it were possible to be put together exactly as before, would that be preferable to better than before? Hardly. We tumble, we fall and we break (spiritually, emotionally and physically) but God can make us new, whole and better than ever. And that’s no nursery rhyme! 

Michael McCullar

Twittering Faith

JONAH: I now understand claustrophobia. Nineveh is probably a nice place this time of year. My new motto: Listen to God.

ADAM: To all my followers I say, watch those choices…lovely fruit doesn’t always taste as good as you imagine.

EVE: He’s right. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he is sooo right.

JAMES: You think you had family issues! You should have grown up with my brother.

THOMAS: I think I’m right, but I’m not sure. You may be right, but possibly not. I believe you, but on the other hand, is there any proof?

JOHN: He likes me best. End of story. I’m the fav.

PAUL:  And to think, my fifth grade Hebrew school teacher said I’d never be a writer!

While none of the above tweets can be verified by historians, isn’t it amazing that each famous Biblical person seems so, well, uh, human? God used flawed people to great effect. Flawed people like us. People who took hold of the movement and built God’s church. God still needs flawed people. Flawed people like us.

Michael McCullar

Without Geography You're Nowhere

Some of us are math-people while others are stronger in the social sciences. The same distinctions can be made about our brains. Each of us has a brain that has two sides with one side being dominant to the other. Thus, some of us are left-brained and some of us are right-brained. Left-brained people are very ordered and analytical in a strict way; and, right-brained people tend to be less organized, less structured, but very creative, even a bit out there. All of this brain-trivia to say we each have mental strengths and weaknesses and we are quite unique. Think of yourself as a snowflake and you’ll grasp the analogy. No two snowflakes are exactly the same. Billions of snowflakes fall each winter and each is totally and completely unique. Like us. Totally. Completely. Unique.

Don’t feel badly about a lack of geographical skill and don’t feel dumb when math seems like a foreign language (it is!). We need both and we must work harder on the disciplines that are harder for us to grasp. The same can be said about the organizationally-challenged among us (of which I am perhaps the King, at minimum, a Prince). The uber-organized will shake their well-ordered-heads at your seeming lack of stacking and sorting prowess. Don’t be upset because you do the same things when you see their color-coded To-Do-Lists and their desks staged in perfect symmetry with the constellations. Again, we are different and unique. This was God’s plan. Go with it. Be O.K. with it. If necessary, color-code it and place it in the In-Box of life.

So in this new year stop trying to reinvent the wheel that is your life. You won’t find the magic formula to becoming more or less organized, nor will you suddenly acquire the ability to calculate the square root of massive numbers. If we had those abilities, wouldn’t we have already changed our lives? The key is to set much lower goals. It’s true you won’t hear that one on Oprah, but it is nonetheless a powerful statement. Lower the bar and pick your battles.

And, most importantly, make each choice a truly spiritual one. If each New Year’s Resolution were bathed in faith we would have a much better chance of success. If a life change is also a spiritual life change, the equation is so much stronger. No longer is it simply us making a promise for change, it is God in and through us providing the power to be successful. 

Michael McCullar

Resolute…Maybe…Sort Of

Have you made a resolution for the new year? This is the hot time for resolutions and new starts, especially those focused on life changes. Who hasn’t vowed to lose a few pounds or to better use our time? Early January is also the time to debate the overall effectiveness of resolutions. Do resolutions work? Is it possible to effect change for the long haul? Wouldn’t it be easier to purchase newer, larger clothes?

ProActive Change reports that 45% of all adults make resolutions and an amazing 64% are successful after six months. The other view is championed by Mark Shapiro, author of the book Goal Free Living. Mr. Shapiro doesn’t believe in setting goals in general, much less New Year’s Resolutions, and sees the practice as a waste of time. He states that 3 of every 4 people fail miserably in following through on their resolutions.

So who’s right? Are resolutions a positive practice or a colossal waste of time and effort? The answer is quite subjective and falls within the glass is half full versus the glass is half empty argument. The ProActive Change people believe those who make specific resolutions are 10 times more likely to make positive, long lasting changes in life. The key is to be positive and for Christians, to make all resolutions spiritually based. Nothing new there, scripture teaches a positive mindset and a life lived with God at its center.

Who knows, we may actually be able to lose those pesky ten pounds, or be more patient, or save more money, or…or…well, you get the idea.

Michael McCullar, Resolutely Positive in 2012