Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 16

Welcome back to Second Chance Wednesdays! It is once again time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

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I am sure that there are times when you have thought you needed or wanted a second chance. Have you ever asked for one, though?

In 2011, I asked for a second chance in a situation where I had made some grave mistakes. Considering how much grief the original situation caused me, I was prepared to be devastated if the answer was "no". The other person involved did not give me that second chance, but for some reason it did not bother me very much at all. I was very surprised. I guess it must have been more important for me to ask for the second chance than to receive it.

My old friend Kelly Marshall once talked to me about "wallowing in grace". I always wondered what that looked like but I have never dared try it before. God has been patiently waiting for me to take that dare - to give myself a second chance to "wallow" in His merciful love.

It is looking like 2012 could be a year full of second chances for me if I'm willing to take them. This second half of my life could be a great example of what grace in action looks like. I just have to be willing to step out in faith. I think I just might do that!

How about you? Are you willing to give yourself a second chance?

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 15

Welcome back to Second Chance Wednesdays! It is once again time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

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Look at this face:

Grinch was a mean one, for sure. He also took his second chance before anyone really offered it to him. That takes guts. Could you do that? Could you be atrociously evil and do whatever was possible to ruin someone else's holiday and then turn around and say, "I get it now! Merry Christmas!". Would you be afraid of how that someone would respond to you? Would you let everything fester so that you did not have to apologize or make the first move?

I'm pretty sure that I have been on both sides of this one. I have gotten better at apologizing, forgiving, and reaching out, but there is much more work to do on my shriveled little heart. It might still be at least one size too small.

What about you? Do you need to reach out to someone this Christmas? Do you need to give or get a second chance?

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 14

Welcome back to Second Chance Wednesdays! It is once again time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

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The Occupy Movement, which started garnering publicity with the Occupy Wall Street protests that started in September, has added some new phrases to our lexicon. Ninety-nine percent used to just be a number. Now, 99% represents a group of people. That means that 1% represents a group of people as well. In this context, "1%" represents the top wage-earners and wealthy people in the United States.

(Read the POTSC blog post on 100% here.)

I have heard and read some passionate arguments from those for and against the Occupy Movement. I have been told that I am part of the 99%, the 1%, the 53%, the 47%, and several other numbers that people have come up with. 

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 13

Make sure you read all the way to the end of the post.

Welcome back to Second Chance Wednesdays! It is once again time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

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Look at this face:

Could you really be mad at that face? Does Animal really need a second chance? At first, I just want to say no because I love Animal and I love drummers. But then I think, what about all those times he has obnoxiously interrupted a special moment? What about all those times he has acted like, well... an animal?

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 12

Welcome back to Second Chance Wednesdays! It is once again time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

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So let's jump in. This week we have for your viewing pleasure Joe Paterno, formerly the head coach of the Penn State football team and more recently an out-of-work old guy who has been accused of following the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law when it comes to protecting children from pedophiles, specifically an alleged pedophile that worked for Coach Paterno.

There are others involved in the scandal alleging that several people covered up the child-molesting activities of one of the Penn State assistant coaches. However, Paterno is the most famous of all involved and therefore has become the face of the matter. Being the poster child (or poster grandfather) for bad decisions is never the way one wants to be remembered, but it looks as if that will be a large part of Joe Paterno's legacy. The administration at Penn State has already decided that Joe will not be getting a second chance to be a leader at their university.

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 11

Welcome back to Second Chance Wednesdays! It is once again time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

This week's poster is going to be challenging for some people. POTSC decided that we should have a conversation about giving Osama bin Laden a second chance. Obviously, since he is dead, the conversation is more of a metaphor than a reality. But it brings up an interesting question. Many of bin Laden's compatriots are still alive and free. How would we treat any of them?

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 10

Welcome back to Second Chance Wednesdays! It is once again time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

Our villain this week is the dictator Kim Jong Il, the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea).

According to the POTSC blog, "He has been in power for 13 years, and his time has been marked by nationalized manipulation, repression, isolation, and starvation. North Korea is perhaps the most isolated country on Earth; knowledge of the regime relies heavily on secondhand testimony and clandestine video." 

Kim Jong-Il's government has admitted to developing nuclear weapons and conducting underground nuclear tests. They think they need to do this for their own protection. They like to rattle swords at South Korea and the United States to keep us on our toes. Evidently, we aren't on the friendliest of terms with North Korea.

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Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 9

Welcome back to Second Chance Wednesdays! We have had a couple of weeks off, but it is once again time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

POTSC is keeping us on our toes by coming at the idea of grace from a slightly different angle this week. Instead of giving us a villain, they have given us more of a metaphor. This week's poster is Jaws. Yes, the shark. The POTSC blog says, 

Jaws represents the unprovoked attack. The terrifying unknown, preceded by reputation and worst-case scenarios. 

Common wisdom says to avoid sharks. They’re dangerous. They kill. They are to be avoided. They are to be feared. 

Except, if you seek out the facts, you’ll find that sharks actually kill very few people. DEER kill exponentially more people than sharks. 

Yet the fear persists because of the headlines … the movies … the collective wisdom.

Many of us have met Jaws, even if we’ve never been to the ocean. There’s a Jaws in our past. Our office. Our school. Our home. Our neighborhood.

And as we face the shark – whether in our dreams or in our waking hours – we’re left with a choice.

Do we embrace fear, judgement, hatred, and revenge? Or do we see the human behind the shark? The human … in the shark suit?

Unfortunately,  I am completely caught up in fear and revulsion of the shark right now. Two nights ago, I was hit by an "unprovoked attack"... not by a human wearing a shark suit. It felt like it was more of a shark in a human suit - it came from someone who would be least expected to attack.

Samplings

Here are a few things that might be of interest to you today.

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For the past nine weeks I've been writing my column called Second Chances Wednesdays as part of the Never Beyond project. Don't worry. We are not through with Never Beyond, but People of the Second Chance took a break this week to show off a new project called "Labels Lie". You can check out some information about it and even watch a video of Mike Foster's inaugural Labels Lie speech by clicking here.  Next week we will be back with another bright red poster and more questions about never being beyond the reach of grace.

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Some of you might remember that I recently took part in a Community Writing Project called Word Portraits. I wrote about my Granny. Today some of the stories that were submitted for the project are being featured over at The High Calling. You can check them out here. You can also find links to all thirty-two submissions here. I really did enjoy this project. It made me wish that we had recorded more of our family's stories before so many of our relatives were gone. It also showed me what rich histories we all have. I think anyone who thinks life is boring just needs to spend more time with family!

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The Community Writing Project has also inspired me to write down some of my stories - my memories - before I forget important and interesting details. With inspiration from Dan King, also known as the Bible Dude, I have decided to start with stories about the mission trip to Uruguay that I went on in 1998. I'm thinking I will start a Sunday series on that and see how far it goes. In the meantime, I would urge you to start reading Dan's e-book The Unlikely Missionary. Follow that link and go to the bottom of the page where you can buy the book in Kindle, Nook, or PDF versions for only $4.99. (In the interest of disclosure, Dan might give me a free copy if I write a whole post about the book, but I am pumping it up right now just because I feel it is worth the effort.) Maybe you will find that you are a missionary right in your hometown. I would love to hear what you think of it.

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In other news, there are two blog posts that came out today that I think you might benefit from or enjoy. Tamara posted over at A Deeper Story about going to the theater vs. going to a woman's conference. You can read that here. Sarah Markley post on her own blog about not being embarrassed of yourself. You can check that out here.

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Those are your samplings for today. I hope you enjoy them. And in the words of Bartles and Jaymes, "Thank you for your support!"

Second Chance Wednesday on Thursday

So, um...yeah. Second Chance Wednesday got moved to Thursday this week. I got a little caught up in other stuff [READ: making David Dark more famous - he totally should be] and lost track of what day it was. 
In defense of my forgetfulness, People of the Second Chance threw us a little curve ball this week. No bright red Never Beyond poster to burn an image into our mind this week. No, you will have to use your imagination even more this time.
This week POTSC has given us a video to start our conversation about radical grace. Which is all fine and good, but I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to start a discussion about radical grace after I saw it. (I think I have officially become one of those I-don't-know-much-about-art-I-just-know-what-I-like people.) My first thought while watching the video was "Jeremy Cowart sure can draw fast." Not exactly profound, eh? Gotta think a little harder now.
After watching the video again, it occurred to me that I had experienced some of what I think Jeremy is telling us this past weekend. On a much smaller scale, of course. The full human experience...

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 6

Here we are at another Wednesday. Time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

The new poster has presented an interesting challenge for me. This week’s miscreant is Mel Gibson: actor, director, alcoholic, racist-ranter, Catholic divorcee, and girlfriend-beater. There might be roles that I left off that list, but I think we have sufficient discussion material here.

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 5

Here we are at another Wednesday. Time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. If you are new to this campaign, you can read more about it and find links to all of my Never Beyond posts here.

What you are about to experience is not my finest hour in the Never Beyond campaign, but it is the complete truth about where I am at in this process. It is all I have to offer here.

In a move that I'm absolutely sure was designed to get on my last ever-lovin', grace-givin' nerve (because it is all about ME, isn't it?) POTSC chose the KKK to be on this week's poster. Yep, you read that right - the Ku Klux Klan, the cross-burning, sheet-wearing, white supremacists. Here is our lovely image of the week:

The picture alone almost makes me want to run in the other direction. Or walk up and snatch the hood off of whoever that might be. I don't usually have mild reactions when I think about the KKK.

I'm sure you are just waiting for me to tell you how I really feel, aren't you? Yep. Thought so.

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 4

Our good friends over at People of the Second Chance did not put out a "Never Beyond" poster this week. They took the Labor Day holiday off, as they should have. However, that did not stop God from pushing me towards giving second chances. Nope. God had some "villains" all lined up for me.

In case you haven't heard, a huge portion of Central Texas is either on fire now or has been on fire recently. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed. Evacuation orders are in place. And there is no rain. Oh Gracious God, please bring rain.

Never Beyond: Is This Working For Me?

"I consider myself to be a deeply flawed person, and I identify with those whose character flaws have led them into grave troubles, whose momentary impulses have caused lasting harm."
- Cary Tennis

I really like that quote, even though Cary Tennis and I don't really share the same politics or ideas about life. He is more liberal than I probably will ever be. I don't recall him saying anything that leads me to believe he is a Christian of any flavor (but I cannot prove that). I do like to read his advice column, Since You Asked, though. Cary and I have shared some of the same life experiences. More important than that, he is very articulate and well-thought-out in his writings. He understands many things about the human condition. If he doesn't know something, he will say so. He understands something about grace and second chances. More than I do, I'm pretty sure.

Some of you know that I have been working on the Never Beyond Poster Series with People of the Second Chance. If you are unfamiliar with the project, you can get more info by clicking here. I really don't know what I expected when I agreed to participate in this project. I'm sure, since I was new to POTSC and still in my "honeymoon phase", that I thought it would be some nice, warm, fuzzy feel-good experience. I did not stop for one second to think how I would be personally challenged by this project. I felt God pushing me towards it and for once I didn't stop to try to negotiate. I'm not saying that following God's leading by jumping out in faith is bad. But stop and think about some of the places He has taken you when you've done that. Those types of growing experiences were not on my current to-do list when this project came along.

I also forgot to do the math when they said 25 posters at 1 per week. Six months. That is six months. I can't even commit myself to a 10-week Beth Moore Bible study (granted, the Bible study requires me to show up somewhere other than home and the POTSC project can be done alone, in the dark of the night, in my bedroom), and yet I jumped in feet-first to a project that will take six months of my effort. Do you know that I am a quitter? Or "non-finisher", if you want to be all touchy-feely about it. Do you know that I turn around when I see a mountain in my way, only to find out MUCH later that it wasn't a mountain at all - it was a speed bump that I had amplified in my mind without investigating it.

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 3

Please watch the video since some guy worked awfully hard for the $5 I paid him to make it!

Several years ago I had a homemade t-shirt that I would wear to adoption conferences. On the front it said, "Darth Vader could be my birthfather for all you know" (on the back it said "Help! I'm in the witness protection program and nobody will tell me who I am!"). Imagine my surprise when I found out that People of the Second Chance had picked Darth Vader as this week's Never Beyond villain. Take a look at this bad boy:

Isn't that a face that is just in desperate need of a second chance?

Okay, seriously now...

Let's just pretend for a minute that the Star Wars saga is real (sorry, Star Wars fans, it is just pretend). Luke Skywalker had been raised believing that his father had been killed. He ends up thinking that it was Darth Vader who killed his father, Anakin Skywalker. He had some mighty righteous rage going at Darth Vader. Can you imagine the sorrow and revulsion Luke must have felt when he found out (after his hand has been cut off by said villain) that Darth Vader actually was Anakin Skywalker, his father? Luke was literally hanging on for dear life while having to process the fact that this evil mask-wearing killer, who had slaughtered innocents and been party to blowing up whole planets full of people, was the father he had always yearned to know. Not afraid to lose his Macho Card (because he obviously didn't know we were all watching), Luke cries and screams out, "Ben [Obi-wan], why didn't you tell me?" He's asking his friend who is dead, but lives on in The Force, why he didn't tell him this awful news. You have to admit, that is a lot of information to handle at one time.

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 2

Here we are at another Wednesday. Time to turn to the People of the Second Chance's poster series, Never Beyond. I will admit that it has been a trying week and I have not been looking forward to writing this post. It has nothing to do with this week's supposed villain. It has to do with how much of a villain I have been this week. I have had little patience for people these last seven days. I have not felt like giving a second chance to anyone. The redeeming feature here is that I have (mostly) been able to keep my mouth shut and not spout out all of the unkind thoughts running through my head. I think what is happening is a combination of me feeling more ungracious than usual and also being more aware of it now that I have jumped  right into working with People of the Second Chance. God evidently intends to make sure that this is not just an academic exercise for me!

So let's jump in! The subject of this week's POTSC poster is Mike Tyson.

It has been quite awhile since I thought about him. Never one to follow boxing, and only somewhat interested in pop culture, he has been off my radar. I actually sort of wondered why he even made it into the Never Beyond series, and then I read the brief summary POTSC had posted of his life. He has not been an angel, that is for sure. He was just never one of my personal villains.

Second Chance Wednesdays - Part 1

Have you ever heard God laugh? No. Here’s what you do: tell Him your plans. Then sit back and listen for the chuckle of the Almighty.  It is kind of like my parents chuckling at me when I told them – at the ripe old age of four – that I was going to marry Buck Owens one day and be on Hee Haw with him.  There is no malice in His laughter. Just Him saying, “oh my child, that is lovely… now let Me show you what *I* have planned…”

So... all five of you loyal readers are obviously breathlessly waiting to see what I told God that He laughed at, so I’ll give. (Note: this conversation with God was totally private, so I could probably get away with not telling any of you and you would be none the wiser. But then the rest of the post might not have as much impact. And He is definitely telling me to share that.) Let me lay some ground work for what my plan was.

People of the Second Chance (POTSC) have started a new campaign called “Never Beyond,” meaning never beyond grace. They will be putting out a new poster each week that has a likeness (or partial likeness) to a person - historical or contemporary, real or fictional - who has harmed society in some way. (I’m holding out for one of the posters to have the Cucuy on it!). POTSC has asked bloggers to then write a post about that person and talk about giving second chances. I was asked to participate and I said yes. (ask me in a few weeks how that is working out for me!)