Lame!
"That's lame".
I hear that expression a dozen times a day. Half the time the expression is coming from my lips!
Sometimes it's a reference to a bad song on the radio or a lousy advertisement on TV. Sometimes, it's a reference to the behaviour of others, particularly behaviour that disappoints me or lets me down in some way.
In these cases, I'm essentially using the word "lame" as a acronym; i.e., Lazy And Making Excuses. You don't want to be around me when someone is lazy and making excuses. Just ask my church -- they'll tell you what I'm like! (Ugh.)
I'm not saying laziness and excuse-making shouldn't be confronted. When people slip into L.A.M.E. behaviour, they're letting others down. They need to know that. They need to hear how their actions (or lack thereof) are impacting other people. The rest of us owe them an intervention.
Which is my point. There's something about the L.A.M.E. behaviour of others that can quickly trigger our own L.A.M.E. tendencies. There's something amiss when we use the L.A.M.E.-ness of others as a reason to write them off. It's especially a problem when we wanted to write them off all along and their L.A.M.E. behaviour just happened to give us a reason to do so.
Who's L.A.M.E. now?
Relationships take work. By work, I don't mean putting up with the inaction and indifference of others. What I do mean is something the Apostle Paul calls "speaking the truth in love" (Ephesians 4.15). In fact, the Apostle describes speaking the truth in love as essential to our spiritual connection to Jesus.
Easy to say. Hard to do. I've seen a lot of people speaking the "truth", which is usually some self-centered rant about how they're offended, shocked, and disappointed by someone else. On the other side of the equation, I've seen a lot of people perpetually put up with the neglect or abuse of others out of the mistaken notion that love is analogous to a limp noodle.
Truth and love belong together. Truth is an attempt to express what I really think and feel. Love is the recognition that the whole world does not revolve around what I think and feel. Speak the truth in love -- let these two elemental qualities interplay with each other in your relationships with others.
Are you game?
Or are you L.A.M.E.? Do you have what it takes to speak the truth in love with your family, friends, co-workers, the people in your church, etc.? Or are you going to let their L.A.M.E. behaviour turn you into just another person being lazy and making excuses?
Labels: Christ, game, Jesus, L.A.M.E., lame, love, spirituality, truth
posted by The Rock 'n' Roll Preacher at
10/21/2008 12:03:00 AM
1 Comments:
Dear Rock and Roll Preacher
Very affecting post you made this week. L.A.M.E. seems to be a law that guides most of us most of the time . It got me thinking about Albert Einstein.
L.A.M.E and Relativity
Albert Einstein had two great theories both referred to as theories on relativity . The special theory of relativity is the one that told us to be careful drawing conclusions because what you see is not always what you get. For example if you travel very fast you will not wrinkle , get grey hair, weaken in muscle power or brain power..... relative to me! How fair is that! The first one to church gets......What seems to us in the congregation like a simple trip on to church in your speedy black GM early each Sunday, ,even with the stop at Starbucks results in relative changes none of us sitting at home could have hoped for. Turning L.A.M.E into G.A.M.E. by driving fast. Clever plan Pastor G.
Relativity has a cautionary side when looking at L.A.M.E.
Steven Covey (7 Habits of Highly effective people) tells a story about relativity that you may know. Mr. Covey was sitting on a subway car all alone. A young women, looking tired, and her two young children get on the subway car,rather late. The kids , four and seven are restless and running and screaming . Mom just sits there and doesn't stop her children. This becomes very irritating to Mr. Covey who already has a headache .As time goes on he finally leans over and asks her to control her children or at least try. She then replies
" I am so sorry. We have just come from the hospital . My husband died there this evening and I have no energy left'..............
Mr. Covey points out that even the concrete 'evidence' witnessed with our own eyes is all relative to our own pre-existing point of view.
So perhaps the first response to what we see in others as L.A.M.E should be to look in the mirror to check our own actions. Who knows, while we are checking and modifying our own problems, the LA.M.E. we surmised in others may have already become G.A.M.E. just watching us.
Your posts keep us on our toes as always Pastor G.
P.S. Guide to the Galaxy, I need help;
Where is your son Greg when I need him? The universe was becoming so clear to me before this week. I am reading in ' The Quantum Ten' by Sheila Jones that the early fights over the laws of nature were between Positivists and Realists. Now Greg, who was my personal Socrates for a year, explained the difference to me, ever so clearly, in his best non sarcastic way, but all I can remember is that
Positivists + God = Realists
or
was it the other way around??
ugg! E=MC**2
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