1,005 Smooth Stones

Kevin Harlan (no…not that Kevin Harlan) is the pastor of congregational life at my church, Christ Community Church in Leawood, Kansas.  This past week, he put together a video for our Sunday worship service dealing with non-essential differences between Christians.   The result is the video posted below.  A couple things you should know as you watch it:

• our pastor, Tom Nelson, wrote a book several years ago titled Five Smooth Stones;
• in the opening, the guy standing at the toolbox is our facilities manager;
• in our spiritual formation classes, we highlight quite a bit the Great Invitation found in Matthew 11:28-30 (”Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…” -v.29);
• we have a second campus in Olathe that utilizes video sermon delivery on a one-week delay.

This is a funny piece.  We’re going to miss you while you are on your sabbatical, Kevin.

On baseball caps and sweet spots…

The sweet spot. It’s a baseball term that refers to a place on a baseball bat that is essentially the perfect location for the bat to meet the ball, the force of the turning bat plowing through the pitched ball perfectly connecting for what it was created to do…smack a baseball for a beautiful, angelic double in the gap or a soaring three-run home run.

This morning, I couldn’t help but start thinking about my sweet spot. In my line of work, I wear many different hats. Some fit better than others and some just seem forced and uncomfortable. Some, at times, just feel goofy to be wearing, some make me feel young - like my dad should be wearing the hat and not me, and with some I wonder if it is as apparent to others (as it is to me) that the hat I’m wearing is completely and utterly ill-fitting, uncomfortable, unbecoming, and simply, wrong.

I have this ratty, old, discolored, sweat-stained Boston Red Sox cap I wear that I just love. It is what it is…old and comfortable, dirty and perfect, scrubby and beautiful. I guess if I were to tell you why I wear it, it would be because it fits just right.

And so it is that I sit at my sweet spot and recognize there are some places that just feel better than others, some swings that connect more sweetly than others, some baseball caps that fit just right. I cannot tell you how right it is for me to be at a piano. Maybe you think, “Well…duh.” But throughout my life I’ve had to face the reality of the tension between my created, creative sweet spot (music, artistry) and what I’ve been sold as irresponsible, unrealistic and not at all utilitarian (how will you support your family?). Yet, here it is, the sweet spot. The place where I feel made more complete in my individual design, what I consider the personal attribute of Imago Dei that allows me to experience in a very small way the sense of completeness and fullness of God.

What about you? Do you have a place like that - a place where something you do or somewhere you go makes you feel complete? What is your sweet spot?