The Power of the Will (Chapter 3, Day 1)

I don’t know when I read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, (well, I "read" it by listening to it on audio, as you could probably guess), but it was before the movie came out. Batterson writes about the will power in Chapter 3, but Hillenbrand writes about what could be the personification of will power in Louis Zamperini.

After 9/11 happened, I called the army recruitment office to see if I would be too old to become an Army Chaplain. I don’t know what would have happened otherwise, but they told me that indeed I was. 

I look back on that, and think about the last ten years now in serving in a church next door to the free world’s largest military base. I never served in the armed forces but was always proud to say my father was a sergeant in the Air Force and felt a degree of pride during the God and country days when I would see the military men and women stand in honor of their past service.

Looking back on my life, and perhaps because of serving here in Killeen, I do regret not serving in the military. I do not think I would have served more than the minimal two years, but I will never know how my life would have been different. There were no major conflicts in the world in the early 1980s, but I know it would have helped my will power and self-discipline.

I hope you men exercise self-discipline and have good and strong will power. It doesn’t have to be limited to gym or committing to marathon or in my case trying to run the entire distance of a 5-K run (I could barely do that before my plantar fascitus). 

The Apostle Paul admits that bodily discipline does profit “a little”, but do you want to know where you can get the best gain for your “pain” of self-discipline? It’s in the spiritual, non-physical realm. 1 Timothy 4:8 says, “for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

I never joined the army. I never really played sports beyond junior high. I quit band and the discipline that musicians go through to acquire true talent. But I hope that my spiritual disciplines which God has led me through will have eternal consequences. And I hope my prayers for you, my sons, will have generational results on your children and grandchildren. 

Who knows how long the internet will last and how many future generations of McKeown men and women will read this blog? Do know that I pray for you, my sons and daughters and future descendants.

And remember that disciples have disciplines in the spiritual realm. The path of least resistance always leads to a downhill slide. The path to new heights is always an uphill struggle. 

I confess at my age (57 will seem young when I read this again, but man, it seems old right now), I have not arrived, but like Paul, “I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ (Sons), I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

In other words, Men, PLAY THE MAN!

Better than flying to Nova Scotia (Chapter 2, Day 4)

Dear sons,

(If this is your first time here, go back to the first day.)

Chapter 2 of Play the Man talks a lot about star gazing, which is of course one of my favorite past-times. Melissa and I have gone out in August and stared up to the sky at 3 a.m. A few weeks ago, I did the same thing, but it was on a freezing cold December morning.

Last summer I thought about driving eight hours to see, as Carly Simon would say, “a total eclipse of the sun.” But then I found it would be coming to Texas in seven years, and I couldn’t find anyone to go with me. (And yes I think it's coming here is probably about me, I'm so vain).

On May 20, 2012, I rushed years ago after church to drive to Copperas Cove so I could merely see a partial solar eclipse at sunset from a tall hill on the western part of town. I wrote on my Facebook, "Can't explain why seeing a solar eclipse through a tire made me so happy. Insanity is the only explanation. Hope I don't go blind."

I don’t think I like stars and celestial shows like lunar and solar eclipses because of my fascination with Star Trek as a kid (okay as an adult too). I do feel like a kid and have child-like wonder when I go out on South Padre Island and watch “stars” fall from the sky but not because of science fiction.

I do feel small when I think about the vastness of the universe, but I don’t feel insignificant.

My first ride in an airplane was when I was nearly in college. The combination of my mother being afraid of heights and also because we were pretty close to being dirt poor prevented me from flying until then. I remember in second grade a friend (Robert Forsythe) and I promised ourselves that when we grew up we were going to get to fly in a plane!

My first flight was on Southwest Airlines. I saw a businessman get on board and never even looked out the window and it wasn’t because he was afraid of flights like Peter Panning. It was because he lost his sense of child-like wonder.

I literally remember thinking to myself when I saw him, “I hope I never get on to an airplane and not look out the window and have a sense of wonder.” To this day, some 30 years later, almost every time I fly I imagine like Walter Middy or more like a little kid that I don’t have to have an airplane to fly. I look out the window and dream about flying.

A couple of years ago, I was even given a trip by my lovely wife and family to go to I Fly to be the closest to the simulation that I could fly. I am so glad my family was with me. When it was my turn to go, I jumped out onto that pocket of air on my birthday as if I had flown like a bird all my life, because in my imagination and in my literal sleep induced dreams, I have!

When I get in a plane and stare out the little window, I see the cars begin to look like ants and houses turn into blurry rows and streets turn into lines and then disappear altogether, I think about how many prayers are being lifted up from all of those people in all those houses that soon I can no longer see. And I think to myself, “How in the world can God hear and care about all of the prayers lifted up in the world from this vast, vast earth.”

No, I don’t feel insignificant when I stare at the stars. And no, I don’t think it is insurmountable for an infinite God to be able to care about every prayer being lifted up. Quite the opposite.

I feel very significant that despite the vastness of space and I feel important that with all of the more than seven billion people in this world, God knows my name and the hairs on my head and not only that, but every sparrow that falls to the ground.

This wonder and wonder full of creation has a Creator and He knows me and loves me. What I find more incredulous than all of that is that I am told that this Father God of ours loves us more than I love my children and more than you love yours, or will love yours. Now that is mind-boggling.

But I do not doubt that one bit.

In fact, I’m counting on it.

I love you sons,

Dad/Pops

The difference between a P and a W (Chapter 2, Day 3)

If this is your first time here, go back to the first day.

Dear men,

It was a stupid odd thing to start, and every time I said it, it seemed that the girls would roll their eyes, but I would ask them, “do you know the difference between daughter and laughter? A ‘D’ and an ‘L’.”

Mainly I was thinking about how weird two very different sounding words are so similar in spelling but a daughter and laughter are very near the same. And even though “son” and “fun” sound similar and are spelled differently, I do think those two are also nearly the same thing.

I thought about that as I considered two other words, “Wonder” and “Ponder.” They are different etymologically, but what makes you wonder? What makes you ponder?

Do things in life that are “full” of wonder and your life will be wonder-full!

One of my favorite passages is “and Mary pondered these things in her heart.” As a man, as a husband, as a father, I hope you do things of wonder to make your family ponder and have future memories.

I think that doing new things, seeking out new adventures, keeps a child-like wonder alive in us all, regardless of age. I am not a sports dare-devil but I do love adventures, especially in travel. One of the scariest things I had ever done was when in 2008 I went to Africa. We each brought about $2,000 in cash and then landed in Malawi and before we even dropped off our luggage, we divided up and went on a mission site with a native translator.

Think about it: In one of the poorest areas of the world, 18 blindly trusting Americans are separated and whisked away to a remote part of the country under the auspices of preaching the gospel without knowing the language and totally at mercy of the translators. I still have the video footage of me turning on my camera in pitch black darkness as we drove with our native guide to our first preaching site. Eighteen people multiply times $2,000 equals quite an amount of money in an impoverished country and I wondered whether a trace of us would ever be found if something went awry.

On top of that, our guide was very passionate (I mean, loud!) in his talking and on top of all else, he got lost to where we were going. He pulls over and yells out at one of the men nearby and I am thinking, “This is it…they’ll find my final moments on a video recorder and say ‘that’s what happened to this mission team.’” Fortunately, he was only asking for directions and not giving a signal to one of his compatriots. We arrive at the site and all went as planned.

But it was an adventure.

I hope you guys make your marriage and your young families adventuresome. 

SIL*, one time we drove three hours into Mexico on vacation and parked our car while we went sight-seeing. We walked and walked and then decided we would get a taxi cab back. All six of us got into a Volkswagon Beetle, seven in all. When got to our destination and I unfolded my legs, I could barely walk.

But it was an adventure.

Sometimes I get around some people or family memories and all we talk about is remembering a funny episode on a television show or what was the latest movie we saw. Make more memories than watching television. We took a road trip to Washington DC and had to stay with a distant cousin and found out that they, well, were not as family-friendly as I remembered them being. Then we camped out in a tent because we didn’t have enough money to stay in a hotel. Then spent the night with a former next door neighbor, then an aunt of a fellow church member. On the way back, we stayed with a former missionary partner I knew about three days nearly two decades prior. Did I mention she was female? Although we never dated, we did have some fun correspondence as pen pals. For whatever reason, it was somewhat of a frosty stay despite the summer Mississippi heat.

And that trip too was an adventure.

I look forward to sharing with my SIL some of our family memories and hearing from him some of his adventures from childhood. But even more, I look forward to the new adventures in child-rearing and family raising from you men and your families.

“Live long and prosper?” That’s not up to us. But “Live life to the fullest.” That we can decide to do!

Love you all and praying for your decisions,

Dad / Pops  

*SIL stands for Son-In-Law

Yearn to Learn, Grow to Know (Chapter 2, Day 2)

If this is your first time here, go back to the first day.

Hey guys,

You all don’t remember and Dan never knew my life as a bivocational pastor and a journalist. I wasn’t world renowned by any means but I was able to interview former President Gerald Ford, Texas Governor Ann Richards, write weekly editorials for local newspapers and what not. But one of the biggest challenges was that I had to know a little bit of everything that I had to write about and be inquisitive enough to know how to ask questions about what I didn’t know.

I remember working for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and interviewing oil executives. Before fracking was a thing, our oil reserves went through primary, secondary and tertiary or enhanced oil recovery. I worked in days before the internet was popular and even before pervasive use of computers. I had to learn enough to write and interview knowledgeably so get my information the old-fashioned way…I learned it! I had to interview people and executives before I could write articles, probably similar to what TC2 is doing in the medical field.

All that to say is one of the key ingredients to a good writer and journalist is to be inquisitive. Yearn to learn. I guess that is why I still like knowing about apologetics or reasons to believe in God. I like asking people questions. At your age, seek out not just godly people but knowledgeable people. One of my mentors in college called the apostle John the consummate brain-picker. He must have sat like a fly on the wall when Nicodemus (Nick at Night) came and talked with Christ. John asked questions, learned, and retained knowledge. 

That’s why I think I really like the first half of Batterson’s book. He gives a lot of interesting history of different people. Steve Farrar’s books are like that, chocked full of fascinating tidbits of information.  The Apostle Paul was a learned man and knew his audience enough to quote their poets. So is it a “manly virtue” to have a child-like wonder? I think so. I don’t know if I would have put this virtue in the “top seven” as MB does, but it is, ahem, thought-provoking.

And I hope you instill and nurture that in your children. I hope Mom and I did that for you two. I know Dan’s parents “showed him the world” literally. So plan vacations and adventures and read to your children and show them things new. And keep growing in your knowing.

Love,

Dad/Pops

Get wise--Prov. 4:5, 4:7, 16:16 (Chapter 2, Day 1)

If this is your first time here, go back to the first day.

Dear Sons,

I just did Heather’s wedding yesterday. One of the things her brother-in-law did in his toast was call his brother a nerd. But I was encouraged that in Chapter 2 of Play the Man that reading does not make you a nerd. Case in Point: Teddy Roosevelt. A man’s man of a president, he read 500 books a year, and wrote 35!

I wanted to go back and get my doctorate, not so I could make more money, but I really like learning, especially about God and ministry and spirituality. You may not be interested in learning about God, but like Batterson, I hope you always have a childlike wonder about something (and preferably not about Aliens or Star Wars/Trek or anything else that would make you really nerdy). Even people who know volumes about sports knowledge may not seem nerdy, but they sure have burned up a lot of brain cells on useless knowledge.

“Be inquisitive.” I think that is what this chapter is saying about a virtue of a man, and a curious spiritual heart is a virtue of a spiritual man. I miss my conversations with people spiritually curious people. I like it when you guys start out, “Hey dad, what do you think about …?” and really care what I think. (I really really like it when I know an answer to what you are asking about, makes me feel smart).

Paul wrote to young Timothy, “Study to show yourself approved.” Peter admonished his readers, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” We need to have answers not just for our kids (or Rick Bates who always asked good questions to me!) or our spouses but we need to be curious about God.

But not just about God. Learn why atheists think the way they do. Learn about people different than you. Learn cultures. Learn philosophies. Learn with your heart and not just with your head. I know Rich Dad Poor Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki says higher education is overvalued, and it may be, and over-priced, and it is, but it is not over-rated if you do it right. If you can further your education with practical knowledge, do it.

Granddad always said no one can ever take your education away from you and he was right. If you wish you could be something else and the only thing that is stopping you is education, then don’t wait too late. Do it now or soon, especially if it will pay for itself. My great-grandfather T.C. Kuykendall would ask young men who didn’t want to take five years to go to school, “Well how old will you be in five years if you don’t get a degree? Wouldn’t it be better to be five years old and more educated?”

I have too many books and too little time to re-read them. But I wish I could. I told someone my new Year’s Resolution is to go back to my first book I’ve ever read and re-read them all until I get to the latest book. “Really?” she asked. Of course not, but I wish I could.

I wish I could retain the knowledge that I gain. But I don’t need to know what Rush or Mike and Mike think. I need to know what God thinks and what godly people think and what godless people think so that I can better help them think about God. Well, that’s what I think.

Think deeply about deep things and don’t think about things that won’t matter in ten years or ten weeks. Paul said, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

Let me know what you thought of chapter one.

Love you sons!

Dad/Pops

Answer the question (Chapter 1, day 4)

If this is your first time here, go back to the first day.

Dear sons, 

How do we love our neighbor as ourselves? I asked your mother/MIL this morning, "When was the last time you loved your neighbor as yourself?"

I liked being a journalist much more than I have ever liked being interviewed (I remembered that when they interviewed us for the Bell County Magazine) for the same reason I would rather be taking a photo than to be in the photo. I get to ask the questions.

She said the last time she really loved her neighbors was when we lived on Shady Cove with the Dodds on one side and Sandy on the other. “They always looked out for the girls,” she said.

But is that really loving others as ourselves or is it loving ourselves and loving it when others love us the way we want to be loved. Of course, it is the latter.

I ask young engaged couples a question, “How do you know you love you fiancé/fiancée?” Hopefully the answer is not “because he/she is so handsome/beautiful” or “Because she fixes a mean lasagna.” But deep down, I know that some selfish reason is behind even the deepest profession of love. Did any of you marry your spouse because of purely altruistic reasons? (Daniel, you’re still a newlywed and she is still my daughter, so you can say “yes, I did.”)

No one would say, “I got married to this chick because I wanted to meet her every need. Everything she does irritates me but she was so needy I just had to marry her.”

The same is true for our neighbor and I don’t mean the person who lives next to us.  I mean anyone who is in need, do we just love them as much as we love ourselves? Honestly, I don’t. I work with benevolence a lot and sometimes I meet their needs not out of love but out of expediency or because it would make me feel rotten to turn down the request and again that is a selfish motivation.

People give to charity a lot of times just to make themselves feel or look good. Why do you think McLane Stadium has the name McLane on it?

I may be rambling a bit but I admit it is a challenge to love someone as myself for solely for the sake of love and to get no degree of self-satisfaction out of it. In fact, I would say it is pretty near dern impossible.

That’s why we first must love God and allow His love to flow through us. We must give and expect nothing in return. We must give our alms without letting the left hand know what the right is doing. We must look for someone who doesn’t particularly like us (let alone love us), and when that person is in his greatest need, we must put our schedule on hold, risk personal peril from ourselves being beaten up and robbed, bind his wounds, put him on our donkey, take him the opposite way we were going, turn him in to a inn keeper, pay him and promise to pay the rest of the bill when we return. And all for no personal self-satisfaction return other than knowing that he needed it.

Did I say “pretty near dern”? Delete that part!

At least that’s how I would answer if I were to answer my own question of how do I love my neighbor as myself. And that’s why I would rather ask it than answer it.

Love you, 

Dad/Pops

Loving and Leading by Lowering (Chapter 1, Day 3)

If this is your first time here, go back to the first day.

Dear sons,

Text messages from last week:

Melissa: Hannah ask if we can dog sit for a week until she comes back for Heather’s wedding next weekend.

Me: No on dog and i mean no!

Melissa: It's only a week.

Me: It has already been a week. "No" isn’t that difficult of a word.

We have a shelter in town and she has a job and an income.

She can pay for a shelter.

That was then: in our text messages.

This is now: with Pepper in my living room eating a stick.

Bible: Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord.

Humanity: Yeah, right!

   How do we balance “Love your wives as Christ loved the church” with “Wives submit to your husbands” and “Submit yourselves one to another in love.”

   So how do we lead if we are to submit?

   I’m getting ready for doing the ceremony for Heather and Rory and I am looking at some of my old notes in marital counseling and weddings. It’s interesting and a little disappointing that Batterson doesn’t talk much about husbands loving their wives in Chapter 1 on love. As I point out in counseling and I think I did in my ceremonies with you two "boys", love is the most repeated command for the husbands in the Bible.

   Virtually everything Jesus did while on earth was in submission, not to the church or to humanity but to God. When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, or was carried away to Pontius Pilate or carried his cross to Calvary, it may not have looked like He was leading, but it did look like He was loving.

   Leading by love sometimes, even oftentimes, but not all the time, means leading by lowering ourselves below our wants to meet the needs of others. (You know that now even more as husbands and especially now more as dads!). We don't lower ourselves under or beneath our wives but we always lead by lowering ourselves under the Lordship of Christ.

    To love the way Christ loves the church means our love has to be, as Batterson says, as tough as nails. The nails on the cross however were not what held Christ to the tree. It was his love.

    I think it is interesting what Polycarp said as he stopped them from nailing his hands before he was put to the fire, “He who gives me strength to endure the fire will enable me to do so without the help of your nails.” (page 8)

    To love and lead our wives doesn’t take nails. It takes a lot of prayer and truly hearing from God. Don’t ever put your foot down in your decisions before you put your knee down! Loving and leading takes discernment from God. Ask yourself, “Is this what God wants or what I want.”

    And sometimes love looks an awful lot like a dog eating a stick in your living room.

I love you sons,

Dad/Pops