Treena Kerr - Recipe for Life: How to Change Habits That Harm into Resources that Heal

The late William Barclay,
New Testament interpreter, who wrote these words:

It is very difficult for any man to judge another man fairly. If we honestly examine ourselves we will see that many motives may affect our judgment. It may be rendered unfair by injured pride

• rendered blind by our prejudices
• made bitter by jealousy
• made arrogant by contempt
• made harsh by intolerance
• made condemnatory by self-righteousness
• affected by our own conceit
• vitiated by an insensitive or deliberate ignorance.

Only a man whose heart is pure and whose motives are completely unmixed can rightly judge another manwhich means to say that no man can.

_____________________________________

*Gospel of John, The New Daily Study Bible Series, William Barclay, ed.; vol. 1 (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 193-94.

Y ou may well remember us from our past celebrity (as the Galloping Gourmet team) rather than know us as we are todayas emerging servants. We have heard the word celebrity defined as being well known for being well known and that a servant is one who responds to the needs of others.

Our story in this book is about the transition from celebrity to servant. We describe it as a little like threading a fine needle with a difficult threadit takes repeated attempts! We see the needle as our lifestyle choices and the thread as our God-given faith in Jesus Christ. The purpose behind threading a needle is to repair something or to bring two sides together and join them as onethe act, if you will, of reconciliation or the healing of wounds.

We, too, have a purpose. We are able to pursue this purpose because we have threaded our faith through our lifestyle and now we have the resources to be of service, we hope, to you and those you now love or will love.

Past habits that used to harm us have now become resources that may heal others. Our purpose is to sew that seed in your heart and with you to repair our wounded world.

You are about to set out on a journey. If you choose to go from page to page, it will not seem to be a direct line of reasoning. This is because its purpose is not systematic but rather sequential.

There are two books. The first seeks to examine the obscured nature of today's cultural needle and why it continues to be such a difficult passageway.

The second book tells a personal story, one in which our newly discovered Christian faith eventually begins to pass through the eye of the needle using a seed idea.

Our journey cannot be told or explained as a how to system to be followed to achieve an outcome. It is a sequence born out of a willingness to listen and (according to our gifted seed of faith) to obey.

Our hope is that nothing less could happen to youthat these books would become one seed, germinated in your heart and bearing fruit in your life. How exactly this should happen and what then should you do is going to be between you and God! With due regard for the forgoing, we offer our assessment of modern lifestyle choices not in judgment of anyone but that it may help us to honestly examine ourselves and, as a result, to work together with others of like mind, not as critics but as contributors to the common good. Only the Holy Spirit can reveal the habits that presently harm you and ultimately limit your ability to love God, your neighbor, and yourself, and only God can illuminate the specific tragic human needs that could be met by your reordered life.

All we did (and constantly strive to do better) is to listen to that still, small voice within, then to obey its promptingregardless! In a microscopic way we have, as a direct result, seen the world become a better place and we are filled with joy and gratitude for having the privilege to be part of God's loving solution.

We continue, in the midst of the occupation until Jesus returns.

Graham and Treena

_____________________________________

*Arise, shine, for your light has come,For look, darkness covers the earth, and total darkness the peoples (Isa. 60:1-2 HCSB).

T reena and I met when she was ten. I was an older child of eleven. To reenact our meeting for its Biography series on Arts & Entertainment Television, we returned to the place where we first met in Forest Row in the Ashdown Forest, Sussex, in the south of England.

The photograph at left captures the moment that I asked her to stand still for me to take her picture. I'd love to have the original, but I had no film in my camera!

Frankly, I was blown away that this handsome boy wanted to take my picture. I did my best to look as fascinating as any ten-year-old could look in those far-off years.

We met, we fell in love, and eleven years later we married. By the time you read this, we will have been married for fifty years and have been in love for sixty.

We've grown accustomed to in honor preferring the other (well, almost!). We have been blessed with strongly independent opinions and our interdependent love. I (Graham) am the forecaster, planner, practical, borderline obsessive/compulsive (?) who takes time to develop an idea and even more time to explain it.

Treena, on the other hand, is immediate, loving, warm, receptive, and always having to wait for me to take a breath so she can get a remarkably intuitive, direction-changing, revelational word in sideways.

This has been my cross to bear; however, I put my foot in my mouth far less often than I would otherwise. Now that I am getting older, I mostly use the coughing interruption as a sign. For years I used to wait until Gra (my nickname for him) took a breath.

Within my prose you will find her sudden arrival in both poetry and prose, bringing her word in season just as she does in our daily life and during our public discourse. I owe so much to her love of life, her absolute commitment to action. Please receive her in italics as we share as two people with one purpose: to live our lives as transparent contributors to the common good.

It's all true, what he says about me, even what he admits about himself!