The 15th annual Winter Juggling Showcase is Saturday, March 14 at 7:00 pm at The Hopkins High School Little Theater. This free 90-minute show is sponsored by the EYJA, led by our SLT, and produced by Paul & Wendy Arneberg. The deadline to apply has passed; now, each act must be previewed during normal club hours by Student Director Elizabeth Stockbridge by 2/28; emcee brainstorming 5:30–7pm on 2/11 and required emcee previews on 3/3 from 5:30-7 in the Commons.

• SUMMER CAMPS PREVIEW: Our camps (4.8 weeks, from June 1-July 2) are an ideal place for youth to immerse in juggling and in our JH culture! A week of 3-5 consecutive mornings is optimal for beginners; most Jugheads choose punchcards.
• Summer registration forms and the online registration were posted on 2/3/20; early-bird discounts are offered automatically online through Wed., 4/1/20. Summer SLT application deadline: Monday, 3/30. Even if our summer camps don't work for current Jughead families, we appreciate your kind references for new and returning campers to come and juggle, bond, and develop with us for a few days early this summer!
• NOTE: While we've laxed our pre-requisite of a full week of summer camp mornings before any prospective school year rookies may become Jughead members, this is still a tried-and-true recommendation. New Summer Camp Coach Joshua Nelson (Class of '18) attended three years of our summer camps before joining, and even with all of his accolades, he asserts that our camps are one of his very favorite aspects of our company!
• JBC 3, our 3rd Annual Juggling + Bible Camp, is set for Sunday—Friday, July 5-10 at The Refuge Retreat Center near Stockholm, WI. Registration opened on Monday, 2/3/20 for up to 25 Jugheads currently in 6th-12th grade. (We had 17 Jugheads in our 1st JBC in August 2018 and 23 in July 2019. 25 is our capacity since our own kitchen staff prepares all our meals. We've posted 20 spots online and reserve five spots for those paying by check.) Email JBC Co-Directors Paul & Wendy Arneberg with any questions or to confirm/request a spot on Paul's preliminary roster (although spaces will fill on a first registered basis).

• Our Juggle Jam (JJ) Slide Show is a cherished tradition since JJ1 (1999)! Photo Week is March 2-6: Coach Erica Liddle will take portraits, group shots and candids during all clubs except Ultimate Club. Each Jughead may choose attire and posing props. If any Jughead must miss club that week, please plan to attend a different club that same week if possible and email Paul as well as Erica (rclddl@gmail.com) of your chosen photo make-up day. (All photo makeups after Friday, March 6 need to be during either Advanced Club from 3-4:30 pm on Mondays or Elite Club from 3-4:30 p.m. on Tuesdays.
• All tickets for JJ22 (May 15 & 16) will be reserved and sold online in two pricing tiers for Adults & Students. A link to buy tickets will be on jugheads.com from Monday, March 30 through Wednesday, May 13. Remaining tickets will be sold at the door each night. 
• Look for an email in March detailing JJ22 volunteer opportunities (e.g., pre-production, rehearsals, show nights).

“A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.” —Proverbs 19:9 (ESV)

Speaking words of truth is not the easiest thing to do. It is often hard and daunting, but falsehoods hurt people. Recently I was in a car accident. It was not a bad accident, nobody was hurt and there was almost no damage to either car. A guy cut me off and I couldn’t stop in time. However, his story isn’t the same as mine. He claimed that he was going 40 MPH and I rear-ended him simply because I wasn’t paying attention. And now my insurance has to figure out who’s actually telling the truth. Even though this is a minor situation, it is still very annoying. 

Many people in our culture cling to honesty when it is convenient, but when the weight of honesty becomes too much, they drop it like a burning coal. God makes it clear that honesty isn’t a nice thing to have when it’s easy, but rather that it is crucial to the functioning of society. Honesty is a serious concept. 

In Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira were both struck dead by divine power for being dishonest. In Luke 22, Peter was put to shame for denying Jesus three times when just a few verses before he claimed he would never deny or abandon Christ. God doesn’t write his laws down as arbitrary rules that you have to follow to be miserable. God’s laws are freedom. 

The final part of honesty is integrity. You cannot say one thing, do a different thing, and still be considered an honest person. “Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who act faithfully are his delight” (Proverbs 12:19, ESV). Lining your actions up with your words is a vital part of being honest. 

I learned this lesson in a humorous way.  I had the idea to fill a 5-gallon bucket with tortilla chips and I said it was going to happen. But one of my friends challenged me saying, “Do you do anything you say you’re going to do?” That day, I learned that actions speak much louder than words and you cannot be honest without backing up your words with actions.  

When the heat and pressure come, the flames of falsehood cannot scorch the purity of truth. “Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment.” —Proverbs 12:19 (ESV)

• JJ22 Shows: May 15 & 16, 7 pm; Dress Rehearsals: May 6 & 11, 6-9 pm. 
• JJ22 Specialty Act Auditions (solos/ensembles, not Club routines): Tues., April 14 (evening) @ the Emmaus Church Gym.  Potential acts: fill out and turn in audition applications (soon to be posted online) by Monday, 3/30/20. 
• MORE CALENDAR CUES: Spring Break for all Clubs is March 23-27. No Advanced Club on Presidents' Day, 2/17. On other Edina-specific release days, these Clubs WILL meet: Elite on 2/18; Fri. Rec. on 3/13. Jugheads are encouraged to attend alternate Club days to make up any absences.
• MONDO Juggling & Unicycling Festival is Feb. 14-16 at Concordia U. in St. Paul. Families or individual Jugheads may attend on their own.
• Senior Deca-Jughead Elizabeth S. is participating in a Metro-wide high school competition to create a digital media campaign on the benefits of freshwater mussels to the ecosystem in Minnesota. If you would vote for Minneapolis Washburn H.S. via the link below, Elizabeth's Environmental Studies and Societies class could win a day at the Minnesota Zoo! You may vote 1x/day through 2/28: https://mnzoo.org/show-us-mussels-challenge/.
• Next SLT + Staff Meetings: Kayla M.’s home, Sat., 3/7; The Commons, Tues., 4/7; Lizzy's home, Sat., 5/23.

"This cup, this cup 
I wanna drink it up
To be right here in the middle of it
Right here, right here
This challenging reality
Is better than fear or fantasy"
—The chorus of "This Cup" from the 2015 album Floodplain by Singer-Songwriter Sara Groves

"Concerning our children, one of the greatest gifts we can give them is that of biblical contentment...today's youth peer cultures can be difficult to endure. It often seems no youth can measure up unless they are attractive, intelligent, athletic, and rich. Make the home a countercultural place of safety and contentment." 
—Richard Swenson, Contentment: The Secret to a Lasting Calm (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2013), p. 199.

As I first read that Richard Swenson quote above on 8/7/15 (I habitually record the dates of my on-and-off reading discipline), I wrote in the margin of p. 199, "And JUGHEADS." Inasmuch as I've always considered this company as a home away from home (a sentiment shared by many Jugheads over the years), I want JUGHEADS to be "a countercultural place of safety and contentment."

But that is a tall order, is it not? It's also paradoxical. In Chapter 1 of Contentment, a profound follow-up to his signature work on Margin, Dr. Swenson clarifies that "contentment is not complacency" and "contentment is not about mediocrity," but rather, "contentment means that we work hard on this broken world but always with a yielding to God in our hearts, a glad submission to His will...and pursuing God's daily agenda even if it means walking directly into the storm" (Contentment, Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2013, pp. 21-22). Like the costly peace covered in this column in December 2019, contentment (most) often isn't easily attained. But it is a treasure for those who seek to find it.

There are so many areas in life for which contentment is the cure, and certain areas are emphasized at various stages in life. Considering with broad-brush strokes the major generations represented by the families of JUGHEADS, it seems to me that the average Jughead needs to learn contentment with: each Club level any given year; elusive skills that take months or years to master (if ever); learning to deal with failure over social skills (e.g., rifts with friends, or having no friends at all at Club); rejection (e.g., not making it past Juggle Jam specialty act auditions or simply not being chosen as a passing partner or co-emcee); and "juggling" many schedule priorities among family, church, school, and other extra-curriculars while not wanting to let anyone down, including a Jughead's Club-specific Staff & SLT.

For parents and others in the wide swath commonly known as "middle age," contentment is often tested in terms of happiness in marriage (or singleness), satisfaction in career, and confidence/security in the future (especially finances). And at the uppermost end of life, grandparents and others in their golden years are certainly not exempt from the quest to be content, perhaps most notably in the areas of increasing health struggles, fixed income in retirement (while battling the inflation monster), loneliness (especially if estranged from adult children, extended family, and long-lost friends), and frustration with our society's changing norms (for better or for worse).

I know I promised in September that I wouldn't exploit this series as "a self-indulgent exercise of personal reflection," but if you'll indulge me for one paragraph ;-), I'll use my life as an example of striving for contentment. Last November, I decided to resume my once-held discipline of dedicating at least part of every Tuesday to extended time to fast, journal and pray as a way to earnestly seek God's will for my life. Over New Year's, my 23-year-old nephew, David Arneberg, challenged me to go on an extended fasting and prayer retreat. I did just that by renting a family's cabin from Jan. 20-22, focusing many hours on the areas of Career, Church, and Home, all with contentment as the goal, fueled by much prayer for wisdom and courage. Even though I didn't come home with all my prayers clearly answered, I developed several new tools for daily contentment, such as deliberately and daily listening to edifying music rather than only my barrage of podcasts and news shows; limiting how many days a week that I even turn on the TV; and 1-Year, 5-Year, and 10-Year brainstorms for my life. Wisdom calls for when to strive and when to rest. But I'm actively seeking, and listening.

On the way to my mid-January retreat, I listened intently to Sara Groves' Floodplain album. "This Cup," the first track, has been an anthem of mine in recent months, and that helped to set my mind on contentment even as I prepared my heart for much soul-searching and God-seeking. Yes, we all have "challenging realities," but if we learn to embrace our circumstances and seek for God's will as our character is strengthened, we may find that "this cup" is far better than any "fear or fantasy."

I am cognizant of the fact that these long editorials often seem to have little to do with youth juggling. But they do have to do with wholistic living. I pray that any readers will search for the "rare jewel" of contentment (a phrase coined by Jeremiah Burroughs in his book in the 1600's) as one antidote to lives that are otherwise marked by disappointment, heartbreak, fear, or fantasy.

In "Simplicity" last month, I quoted 1 Tim. 6:6-8; it's a key teaching on contentment. Here are two other precious passages:
"Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you' " (Hebrews 13:5, ESV, citing Deuteronomy 31:6).
"I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:11-13, ESV).

Both passages focus squarely on material needs: money and food. They are also applicable to the intangible (and I would argue, even more prevalent for most of us in 2020) areas needing the "great gain" of godliness with contentment: relationships, career, talents, social position, fame, power. Contentment is the key to not only a life of margin, but a life (and a Jughead career) of overcoming, of gratitude, of simplicity, and of peace. 

Developing Youth Through Juggling—with the paradoxical goal of contentment—Since 1994,