HopeForYourFamily

Some of you may consider me a big loser for posing with my friend Pooh Bear, here.  That’s cool.  Others may consider me a big loser for plenty of other reasons.

The reason I am posting this today is because I am very excited about participating in the Biggest Loser 2010: C-K Office Park edition.  Several years ago, I decided it was time to lose weight and get fit.  I did just that, losing 60 lbs in about 6 months.  I kept it off for quite some time, but slowly put almost all of it back on as I slowly lost the discipline to be guided by my goals and values over my impulses and urges.

So, I’ve been THINKING a lot for a while about losing weight and getting fit again, but DOING very little about it.  It seems I needed something a bit out of the ordinary to help me find that catalyst to get going.  Well, I found my needed catalyst.  First was a realization that my unhealthy diet and lifestyle habits are setting the pace for my son, and I am not okay with that.  Second was an invitation from a friend at my office park to pay in $10 and join the Biggest Loser pool for the next three months.  Whoever takes off the highest percentage of body weight takes home the $100 purse.  I’m in!

While my blog is not going to become a weight loss / fitness forum, I do plan to share with you my progress, lessons learned, struggles, and challenges faced over the coming weeks and months.  I thought including this recent “before” picture on my site would be a fun, if painful, incentive for me to really get serious and bring down my weight from my 6′1″ official starting weight of 227.  Maybe I won’t have to find such a rotund photo partner to feel good in my forthcoming “after” shot!

With Hope and Contentment in HIM,

Dr. B

Tags: compasses, discipline, fitness, personal responsibility, respect, the journey

Colt McCoy – hats off to you, brother!  Folks, you’ve got to see this minute and a half interview!  For those who aren’t aware, Colt McCoy was a Heisman runner-up for the last two years, and one of the most outstanding quarterbacks ever to play college football.  His Texas Longhorns played an impressive undefeated season and clearly earned the number two spot to play against the Alabama Crimson Tide for the national championship last night.  In the very first series of Texas downs, he took a hard hit to the shoulder, which apparently caused some type of nerve injury that was significant enough to sideline him for the entire game.  This resulted in the freshman backup QB playing the entire game.  No one knows how the game would have gone had McCoy played, but the Longhorns lost to a fairly dominant Alabama team, despite an impressive rapid buildup of poise and confidence in Gilbert, the green QB sub.

Given all of that, listen to the humble, steadfast words of this incredibly talented young man of faith:

Tags: compasses, hope, leadership, manhood, respect, the journey

It is very good to have a plan.  Just don’t hold it too tightly.

Six days and seven nights at Disney World.  Four parks, plus a special shopping district, and multiple resorts with additional minor attractions.  Special lunches and breakfasts and dinners that include up close and personal visits with the real Disney characters.  Special events and attractions at limited venues.  Three adults.  One child.  Two guys.  Two gals.  Two Disney “veterans.”  Two Disney “newbies.”

Yeah, we needed a plan.  Thanks a million to Phoebe, my mother-in-law for working so hard to organize a basic game plan before we arrived in Orlando, based in no small part on input from friends and family with much more Disney expertise than we had.  I tend to figure out things as I go, and make plans on the fly.  Had I been in charge of our agenda, we almost certainly would have missed out on many of the things that we enjoyed during our time there.  Here are just a few images of the fruits of good planning:

Life is much the same.  If we don’t face it with intentionality, purpose, and some kind of well-considered plans, we will likely miss out on some of the best in life.  We may enjoy those things we stumble upon, but we will shortchange ourselves of the full richness that God desires us to experience in life.  While it is true we cannot actually live beyond the present moment, and can waste a lot of energy trying to do so, we also do well to be mindful of where we are headed and why we are headed there.

But, guess what?  We didn’t stick to all of our plans while we were at Disney World.  We had to take into account our level of energy (and sanity) from day to day, what we actually did and didn’t enjoy once we experienced it, and new possibilities that cropped up during our time.  And so, each day involved deciding which plans to keep, which plans to scrub, and what new plans to make.  Had we not been willing to be flexible, Disney would probably have been a miserable mess.

That sounds like life, too, doesn’t it?  Plans and purposeful decision-making are essential, but without flexibility, we snap.  Sometimes, today just doesn’t unfold like I anticipated it would yesterday.  I can stay hung up on yesterday’s expectations and plans, or I can regroup, adapt, and face life on life’s terms today.

While we’re at it, here are a few Butner family images of Disney memories that we owe to our willingness to adapt (Chemaine would kill me if I posted the picture of her sitting on the “Barrel of Fun” – the best “ride” at Disney that only cost 25 cents per foot-massaging minute):

Tags: compasses, the journey

I know.  For those of you who have been following me on Twitter and/or Facebook, you realize this statement comes near apostasy for me.  But what you may not realize is that I grew up in Little Rock, AR, home of Jennings Osborne and family.  Click here to get a visual tour of the world record home Christmas lights display (year after year after year) that truly makes Clark’s efforts look about as bright as a matchstick at dusk.

Reading the account on the Osborne website paints the neighbors as Grinches and themselves as altruistic. I’ll take the middle ground.  It was truly something breathtaking to behold, but the traffic was an absolute nightmare, and I don’t even want to imagine being a next-door neighbor to the Osborne compound on Cantrell.

Between viewing Christmas Vacation last night, reflecting on the otherworldly light spectacle that grew exponentially for years on end at the Jennings Osborne compound, and reading Trey Morgan’s post this morning, I have been thinking about how over the top we can go about things that have such little eternal value.  Can you imagine a world in which followers of Christ were as passionate about living in the Way of the Kingdom of Heaven as we can be about decorating for Christmas, or cheering for our favorite athletics team, or watching entertaining movies, or posting stuff on Facebook that gets lots of comments, or generally eating, drinking, and being merry?  Sorry, John Lennon – that’s the world I want to imagine!

Here’s to the prophets of living on fire for Christ today – Shane Claiborne and Francis Chan and John Eldredge and Dallas Willard and Richard Foster and Eugene Peterson and…  Who else would you put on this list?

Tags: community, compasses, culture, facebook, hope, the journey, twitter

Just checking in to share how wonderful it was this morning when I was driving my son to school, and he asked to listen to some music.  He wanted to listen to “The Law and the Prophets,” which is what he calls the song on his Steve Green cd of Scripture songs for kids that is based on Matthew 7:12 – a verse well known to many as “The Golden Rule.”  I cannot fully express how delightful it is to this father’s heart to hear his son joyfully singing about a life of showing love to others in the Way of Christ.

Today is a good day!

With Hope in Him (and hope for him),

Roger

Tags: character, compasses, family, hope, leadership, parenting, the journey

I am increasingly realizing that I have been terribly duped for much of my life.  My flesh has conspired with the American culture of hedonism to raise me on a steady diet of the consideration, “What do I feel like doing?”  Some regular variations include, “What would make me more comfortable?” “What would make me happy?” and “What is easiest?”  Let’s face it, a great deal of the advertising that bombards us on a daily basis is built on these kinds of questions.

And it usually starts very early.  As a parent, I have a tremendous responsibility to train my child in the reality that being led by these flesh-directed considerations will not bring him to fulfillment, joy, and freedom.  No small task, when the millions of mighty voices of our worldly culture are chanting in unison, “Have it your way!”

I am sick of being duped by this insidious lie that my flesh will lead me to contentment.  It never has, and it never will.  God, have mercy on me.  Lord, free me from this self-imposed slavery.  Spirit, lead me in the paths of righteousness.

And so – last night I decided to defy this old way of life.  I checked my schedule for the coming day, and realized I didn’t have to be in the office until late in the day.  “Yes!  A perfect morning for sleeping in!!!  My wife will head to school for the day with our son, leaving me to enjoy the peaceful slumber of an empty house.  Beautiful!” Thus spoke the old familiar voice of Comfort.  And then another voice spoke within me.  A voice more removed, and yet, somehow more intimate.  “You don’t need more sleep.  Your son does need more time with you, though.  And, haven’t you been seeking to cultivate a life of greater discipline?”

Okay, Lord, you guide my steps.  And, so I said, “Hey son.  How about if I drive you to school tomorrow?  Would that be cool?”  So this morning, I got up “early,” led my son through his morning tasks, and drove him to school.  And not that there is always an immediate, tangible reward for following the voice of God rather than the voice of Comfort, but today there was.  As we sat in the car line, waiting for his teacher to bring him to his classroom, we discovered he had his first loose tooth.  It was a wonderful moment of growth and mystery and creation and relationship.  A moment I would have missed if my lazy bum had been lying in bed, slumbering to the soothing melodies of Comfort.

Tags: character, compasses, discipline, family, freedom, manhood, parenting, personal responsibility, the journey

Training our kids to live according to the compass of Reality is difficult.  It is NOT the path of least resistance, to be sure!  It is the nature of kids of all ages, and particularly teens, to fight against the compass of Reality and cling to the compass of Fantasy.  And our postmodern culture can really make this fight a terrific struggle at times.

Recently, my son and I were playing with his alphabet blocks, and he had proudly assembled four letters and proclaimed them to spell “Mars,” as in the red planet beyond Earth.  M-R-A-S, “Mars.”  Uh, Houston, we have a problem!  I rearranged the R and A, telling him he was close, but that this was the correct spelling.  He moved the letters back to his original ordering, and as he sounded out the letters, it was actually understandable why my five year old thought it should be spelled that way.  He was very pleased with himself, and clearly wanted me to share in applauding his spelling prowess.

But because I believed he needed my guidance more than my praise at that moment, I said to my lad, “You know, son, denying reality doesn’t change reality.” He may only be five, so I didn’t expect him to fully grasp this concept, but I believe I need to be working on it with him already at his young age.  My impulse was to just let it go and let him enjoy his moment of pride.  After all, I want him to enjoy spelling, to continue developing this critical life-skill.  By correcting him, I knew I ran the risk of discouraging him, as well as giving him an easy avenue to dislike me for a while.  But my parenting convictions won the battle by reminding me that I do him a disservice by contributing to a false pride in him or by letting my desire for his affection to set the course for my actions.

I was totally unprepared for his response.  “Your reality is not my reality,” my son retorted, rendering me speechless and wondering when Noggin started airing Postmodernism for Preschoolers.  We’ll see how my boy and His Reality do on the spelling quizzes that await him in school in the coming months if he continues clinging to a faulty compass with his postmodern pride.

Postmodernism holds some important keys to living in relationships.  As a marriage and family therapist, I am very grateful for the ways my work has been informed and improved by the postmodern perspectives that have become a part of my view of people and interactions.  Postmodernism is not the enemy, as some so strongly feel these days.  But it certainly infuses some particular challenges into parenting in the 21st century.

And so, if perception is reality, it is incumbent on us as parents to offer our kids experiences that will help them perceive life with compasses of Reality, rather than compasses of Fantasy.  Life is hard.  But with discipline and God’s help, they can learn to succeed in life and flourish in their relationships, finding rich meaning and joy along the journey.

Let me know if you could use some help on your journey!

Tags: compasses, family, parenting

Life is hard.  I have to work when I don’t feel like it.  Things don’t always go the way I want.  Crisis comes with pain and devastation.  Sometimes I do the right things and still do not see a reward for my efforts.  I don’t get to make many of the rules in life.  Others have authority over me.  In order to get what I want, someone (me, or someone on my behalf) has to be able and willing to pay for it.  When I do something wrong, there are painful consequences to one degree or another.

You get the point – I’ll not extend the list of unpleasant life-truths.  But here is the real point.  These unpleasant truths are not the problem.  The problem is when I try to live as though they aren’t the truth of the matter.  I mean, let’s face it, my sinful nature (flesh, immature self, ego, etc.) would rather life go according to this alternate reality of expectations:

Life is easy.  I don’t have to work when I don’t feel like it.  Things will always go the way I want.  The pain and devastation of crisis will never come to my life.  I will always see a reward for my efforts, whether I do the right thing or not.  I get to make all the rules in life my way.  I don’t have to submit to any authority but me.  In order to get what I want, all I have to do is want it and it is mine for the taking.  I should be able to have a free pass every time I do something wrong.

The problems of living according to this flesh-directed set of expectations are too many to count.  Irresponsibility, addiction, terrible relationships, crime, and misery would be somewhere around the top of the list, based on what I have seen.  If you find your self living more according to the second “compass” than the first “compass,” it’s time reset your bearings and get plugged into Truth on a regular basis.  I would highly recommend plugging into God’s Word from the Bible, worship and fellowship at a healthy church, small groups and meaningful relationships with others who are plugged into the Truth, Men’s Fraternity for men, and even active participation in support or recovery groups for those with particular addiction struggles.

But mostly, I share this as a challenge to parents.  Take some time to look at the reality of your children’s lives as lived out in your family/home experience.  Are you helping them to live in view of the first compass of Reality, training them to live well in this fallen world?  Or are you actually leading them toward the second compass of the self-centered flesh expectations that have become so prevalent in Western culture?

In my work with adolescents and with addicts, I constantly see this skewed compass of flesh at the heart of the problems that have surfaced in their lives.  As parents, we have the privilege and the responsibility to train our children to live in view of Reality.  It may feel good now, for them and for us, to deny or minimize that reality by serving up life on an easy silver platter for them.  But we do them a terrible disservice, and we invite deep trouble and misery into their lives and ours in the process.

I am by no means a “doom and gloom” kind of guy.  Those of you who know me can certainly testify to this.  But it is critical that I commit each day to living in view of the Reality of this fallen world, and that means embracing the unpleasant, difficult, and seemingly harsh truths that make up a significant portion of the fabric of life.  And so I share this today as a reminder for you, for me as a parent, and for my own life.  Let us live in the freedom of Truth!

“Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.  Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.  For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.  Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.  We live by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”  (2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10 NIV)

Tags: adolescence, compasses, culture, freedom, hope, parenting, personal responsibility, teens