Nothing Gold Can Stay

It was shiny and new. I wanted it so bad when I saw it perfectly placed on its perch in the store. It was shiny and new. I was at the store for something I knew I needed yet the thing I didn’t know I needed sent to me its siren’s song. “Come, look at me! I am shiny and new!” The debate raged between Gollum and Sméagol in my head for the precious. You have the money and you deserve it because you have worked so hard. You have the money but you have better things to spend it on, you need to save more in this economy. Yea, but it really isn’t that much money. It is more money than I should be spending right now. Yea, but it is shiny and new! I know but, well, it is shiny and new. I bought it.

I don’t know where it is now. If you asked I could probably find it but it isn’t shiny and new. This is a perennial problem in people with many parables to prop our difficult decisions, but we continue to pander to the pretty. It is shiny and new! Whether it is a Matchbox car or the latest Muscle car, the perfect shoe or the right amount of Carats; we opt for the shiny and new.

Shiny and new is neither in the harsh light of the next morning.

Robert Frost captures this in his poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Adam and Eve’s shiny and new was a forbidden fruit; what’s yours? Remember what it looks like in the naked light of morning because nothing gold can stay.

Big Boys Eat Dirt

The kids were old enough to play in the yard; not quite by themselves but not totally supervised either. I was working outside and placed them in the sand box while I went about my chores. Periodically checking to make sure they didn’t get out of the fenced in area and sending a few encouraging “big boy!” words their way. I came back to find one of them shoving a hand full of dirt into their mouth and then looking up to smile at me with his huge blue eyes, sand on his cheeks, a brown/black tongue and brown/black drool all down the front of his shirt. After barely suppressing a laugh I did the obligatory “eww... big boys don’t eat dirt!” and helped him wash it out with the garden hose. After many such eating experiences, some even grosser, we have a healthy, well-adjusted 20-something to be proud of.

I have since come to believe that I was wrong. Big boys DO eat dirt; that is IF they want to grow up as healthy big boys. Today’s parents spend WAY TOO MUCH time protecting their kids from every germ, bug and clump of dirt. A study on over 11,000 kids, done by Discover Magazine, found that “an overly hygienic environment” dramatically increases the risk of eczema and asthma later in life.

This is the very idea behind childhood immunizations. You introduce a small bit of the disease into the child’s system so that the antibodies are built up for if/when the BIG attack comes. Immunization is the practice before the big game. Exposure to germs and bacteria is common and needed. You have over 1000 species of bacteria that occur naturally in/on your body.

This overprotection from every bug and germ is also call “first child syndrome” because usually you go crazy protecting that first child from every possible event that you just read about in the 100 raising-your-child-right books you just ingested. By the time the second child comes around you sit way back and relax for the ride. By the third and fourth child you forget their names and let them eat whatever they want as long as they are quiet.

Now seriously, you don’t have to go crazy and expose your child to every disease infested mud pool you find, but letting them play in the dirt at the beach and eat a handful or two of sand won’t kill them and might even inoculate them. Big, healthy boys DO eat dirt.

Hocus Pocus

I looked at the blank stare from the elderly ladies in the nursing home and knew I just gave them more information than they wanted. The question was: “Where did that Bible come from?” And I went into a 15 minute historical recitative of the Bible and its origins. After the blank stares I asked “what?” She smiled and said, “I just wanted to know if you got that Bible from the desk over there.” I got it, but I didn’t get it.

I took my three kids and sat them down in the chaos that used to be our living room. I said that we have had lots of fun and I loved playing with them but now was the time for cleaning up, mom was coming home in about an hour and NONE OF US wanted the repercussions of mom coming home with the house looking like a tornado just went through. “So our Lego armies and airplanes had to have a final battle and put away, the toys needed ...” and I went on to explain what had to be done. We put our hands in the center of the circle and cheered: “Go TEAM!” I went to the kitchen to tackle the mess there while the three of them were to restore the living room. A half hour later they were still playing. So much for calm conversational compliance now came stark, strict instructions. They got it but didn’t get it.

“Daddy, why are they washing that baby? Didn’t they give her a bath at home?” said one of my kids trying to understand the latest baptism in our church. After explaining the spiritual significance of it all, he said, “They still could have done it at home.” He got it but didn’t get it.

Sometime in the 1500’s kids came to Catholic Mass to witness the priest in Latin saying “Hoc est enim corpus meum” which means “This is my body...” and it seemed magical to them how the bread turned into the “body” of Christ. As kids do: they played, practiced and perverted the Latin into (you guessed it) “hocus pocus.” The phrase turned into anything that will magically change from one thing to another, and eventually into something that “falsely” turned from one thing to another; a magician’s sleight of hand. They got it but didn’t get it.

They got but didn’t get it. It sunk in but not quite far enough for complete understanding. Sometimes we nod our head too soon. We tell others we understand when all we have is an unsteady grasp with mentally oiled hands. Many of the problems in our life are caused by us saying we understand – too soon.

STOP! Ask one more question to make sure. Repeat what YOU think they said to make sure that is what they REALLY said and not just mental hocus pocus. It would be better to understand now than to get into trouble when mom gets home.

Holy Days

If you had to put your money on the most popular holiday it would have to be Christmas. This is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus with presents and “good will” towards all people. This holiday is celebrated worldwide now, even though most of the world doesn’t believe in Jesus they still think giving and getting presents is a good idea. The second most popular holiday is Thanksgiving. This is an American holiday, which Canada also picked up and is making its way around the world as a day of giving thanks to – who or what? Most of the world will give thanks to one god or another. After that I don’t know what is most popular. Maybe Halloween or New Years Day or even Valentine’s Day; Easter is up there too as a time of bunnies, baskets, and bonnets.

It was not like this 1000 years ago. Back then, without question, the most popular and significant Holy Day, or holiday, was Easter. Easter was at least a week long and the only week off peasants had through the whole year. Cathedrals and churches alike were filled each of the days as they relived the Passion Week of Christ. From this developed the “Stations of the Cross” and the pilgrimages, and even the Crusades. It was drama at its highest with actors actually whipped and wearing a crown of thorns, bleeding themselves into a holy ecstasy in their devotion. The week was culminated on Easter Sunday with entire communities emptied of flowers so the church could be overflowing with the smell and look of resurrected life.

Interestingly enough Easter actually was named after a pagan goddess. It was an Old English word for a month on the Germanic Calendar (Eostur monath) which was the equivalent of our April. Some believe the goddess Eostre was connected with some folk customs with rabbits and eggs. Most believe that is a modern day Halmark addition. Previous to Easter (899AD) it was called Pascha (Latin for Passover) and celebrated as an alternative to the Jewish Passover.

The second highest Holy Day for 1st millennium Christians was Ascension Day. 40 days after the Resurrection Christ ascended into heaven “to sit at the right hand of God the Father.” The third was the Harvest Festival which would be the equivalent of our Thanksgiving but occurred closer to Halloween in the calendar. Finally, the fourth celebration was Christmas, not such a big thing back in 1000AD.

As with a LOT of things: the date is not important. What is important is what the celebration means. So this particular Sunday is not the actual Sunday when Jesus rose from the grave – so what? It is important that we celebrate his resurrection and what that means for us. Easter has been filled with bunnies, chocolate, and colored eggs – so what? As long as it doesn’t detract from what we are truly celebrating and what it should mean to us. So let’s celebrate, let’s party, and God will smile.

We’re All Full Up Here

I was having a discussion with a friend over a lunch about the recent divorce of a mutual friend. The reason for the divorce was the drug addicted ways of the husband and the controlling ways of the wife. BOTH contributed to the collapse of the marriage; we decided and then my friend said something that has stuck with me since then, he said “we are all in search of our own dysfunction.”

We have heard of dysfunctional homes, co-dependence, dysfunctional marriages, and, yes, all of us are in search of our own dysfunction. I think when my friend said that he could just have easily said “we are all in search of our own excuses.” It would be great if I could put a label on my quirks, call it a dysfunction, get grant funding or social security for it, and never work again in my life. My dad punished me with a belt when I was young – okay – can’t work anymore because of the mental trauma I suffered as a child. One of my brothers hung a spider from and long hair right above my sleeping face and gently woke me, I can still remember it and see it 45 years later. I applied for grant funding for all of us with “spider-trauma” and I expect to research it from my couch and big screen TV for the next 20 years. Then I will find another dysfunction, find a college professor to research it for me, and then take more years off.

My friend could just as easily have said “we are all in search of a reason to shirk responsibility.” We all feel that tendency, especially today, if coffee spills and burns us it is MacDonald’s fault for making the coffee too hot. If a small traffic accident, a mistake, happens then both insurance companies fight over who will pay what to whom, lawyers seek a slice and mistakes become excuses for others to be irresponsible.

After an accident I admitted that it was my fault and the policeman didn’t believe me. He made me write it down and say it again in front of someone else. I am still paying for it in high premiums and a “record.” I am not perfect, in fact FAR FROM IT! But I refuse to use my dysfunctions as an excuse for not working. Nor should you because it is our nature; we are all in search of our own dysfunction.

I like Jack Nicolson’s response in “As Good as it Gets” when someone tried to share their dysfunction. He said “peddle crazy someplace else, we’re all full up here!” In my opinion so is this world.

Finding Answers vs. Finding Questions

I think the record for one of my kids at age three or four was 32 questions in a row. Daddy, why? And you string along a litany of “whys” and “becauses” until you are exhausted and finally end with either “I don’t know” or “BECAUSE I SAID SO!” Every parent goes through this rite of passage but is it a rite for your kids or for you?

I don’t believe, in the minds of the kids, the ANSWERS are important at all. That is why they so easily brush the answer aside, find a key word and attach a “why” to it to form the next question. Asking the question has a purpose beyond just getting an answer. I believe that when a child starts with “Daddy, why is the sky blue?” he or she is really asking “Daddy, will you pay attention to me?” and when, after the 13th question “But why can’t I eat my boogers?” he or she is really asking “Do you love me?” and after the 30th question “Daddy, but WHY do you and mom lock your bedroom door?” he or she is really asking: “Daddy, do you REALLY love me?”

Now let us transfer that same concept to adults. We, as adults, ask some of the stupidest questions but most of the time we really don’t want to know the answer; we have some other purpose in mind. Most often we want to make a statement. When we ask someone “what, are you stupid or something?” I really don’t think we are looking for them to answer the question, we are making a statement.

In a politically charged arena a reporter will ask the question “Why don’t you believe in a women’s right to choose?” and you should know immediately that the reporter is not really asking a question but making a statement. The statement, in the form of a question, from the opposite viewpoint would go like this: “Why do you believe a new mother should not kill her child by chopping it up into little pieces, sucking its little arms and legs up with a vacuum cleaner, and throwing the baby out with the trash?” Now is that a question or a statement with some kind of purpose in mind? The purpose is often to get you caught in an answer that can be manipulated to a headline: “Politician doesn’t support women” or “Politician wants to kill babies!”

When someone comes to me as a man of faith and asks “How can there be a God when there is so much bad in the world?” I can answer that question or I can seek to find the purpose behind it. Chances are they don’t want an answer or won’t be convinced no matter how good the answer is because THE ANSWER IS NOT WHY THEY ARE ASKING THE QUESTION!

When your child asks his 51st question in a row; scoop him up in your arms and say: “Because I love you!” When people ask stupid, strange, or loaded questions attempt to go behind the question and find the purpose. Life is not about finding answers; life is all about finding the RIGHT questions.

The REAL You

At a gathering of business “friends” I tend to sit back and people watch. I have this tendency to categorize and analyze and try to get under the skin through the simple observation. A man, small in stature, receding hairline, a bit overweight, and rumpled suit made his way from one clique to another like a bumblebee sucking a little nectar and moving on to the next. The fact that he hovered over all the small groups didn’t strike me as much as a common phrase I heard him say in each. It was something like: “I really hate these parties, I am such an introvert, and they drive me crazy!” And then he would go on to the next group of flowers to buzz the same interjection. As a wallflower myself, I found his introvertedness extraordinarily extroverted.

If it looks like a duck and acts like a duck the chances are: it’s a duck. It really doesn’t matter if the duck thinks it’s a dog, it’s still a duck.

The REAL you, the authentic YOU is doing what you promise and not just “being who you are.” BEING is way to nebulous to pin down and most people are pretty poor at judging who you are trying to BE. DOING, on the other hand, is easy to see and easy to judge. A wise man once said that it is “by their fruit you shall know them.” He didn’t say you can know them by what they ARE or what they are BEING.

A person of any religion can come up to you and claim “I am a person of faith.” But what if their actions are the opposite of faith? What if they are filled with worry? What if they are filled with violence and abuse? What if they lie, cheat, and steal? Where is their faith? What if it acts like a duck?

We all know those kinds of hypocritical fanatics and that is not what I want you to remember from this column. I want it to be positive because in that same BEING vs. DOING issue lays a strategy for life.

You could spend your time wondering and worrying if you are a person of faith; worrying about your eternity, wondering if you are who you should be; or, you could spend your time DOING it. You could spend your time wondering IF what you say you are is really you. OR you could just act like that all the time.

Just ACT; just DO what you should do. That is enough; you can save all the angst for your cigar and cognac discussion in a leather chair somewhere.

Inspiration

"Father, FATHER, the sleeper has awaken!" inspires me every time I hear it. It is from a corny sci-fi movie. (Can you name it? Look it up on youtube and be inspired) I love going to movies and I think that one of the reasons is that I love to be inspired. A good yarn leading to a climax of faith, conscience, or critical decision where the hero agonizes and knits together quote that will inspire you beyond the comforter of the movie. Something we all could and SHOULD relate to.

Here are some of my favorites in no particular order:

"I may not be able to carry it for you Mr. Frodo, but I can carry you!"

"Get busy living, or get busy dying!"

"Do or do not do, there is no try!"

"There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path!"

"There's no place like home!" (Okay a little old and corny, but I grew up with this movie!)

"I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast!"

"Tell Meryl, to swing away!"

"It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything!"

"What we do in life echoes in eternity!"

"Every man dies, but not every man truly lives!"

"Nephew, from this moment on, call yourself Vincent Corleone!"

There are many more quotes that make me laugh, make me cry, or are just fun to say but these inspire me. They give me goose bumps when I hear them and bring tears to my eyes. (email me your favorites and I'll post them on my blog.)

The previews are over, the music starts, the curtains open a bit more, and with popcorn and soda in hand I search for the inspiration in the darkened theater. We all need inspiration, will you join me?

Add your favorite quotes with the comment feature, I would love to read them. Add the movie they come from. If you don't recognize these quotes. I'll add them later after you struggle with them a little. Steve

Hiring Part Two

I am now ready for the interview. Sometimes they surprise me and wipe out my first impressions but usually I have only two questions for them...

When I was interviewed and trained to DO interviews I was given a book of questions to ask or choose from. I started with the book and the interview took over and hour and I would dutifully write down their answers so I could consult it later and remember why I hired them in the first place ... how stupid is that.

Here are some stupid questions to ask in an interview:
- Are you a self starter?
- Do you consider yourself a people person?
- Are you a leader?
- Are you a Green Bay Packers fan?
- Do you have a problem with overtime?
- Did you get good grades in school?

All of these questions will get only one response. They are basically an intelligence test and not interview questions. If ANY ONE answers “no” to these questions don’t hire them. These are leading questions and don’t get under the skin of the person.

Here are some good questions:
- Define integrity.
- What is on your bookshelf right now?
- Who needs you?
- Tell me about a time when you got in over your head and what you did about it.
- What is the greatest event in your life so far?

When I was a rookie I had the first set of questions and wondered why I really didn’t know my new employee. When I became a little seasoned I evolved to the second set of questions and enjoyed the people I worked with. After hundreds of interviews I broke even those questions down into just two. Two questions told me what I needed to know about the person beyond the non-verbal’s described in the last column. Two questions to get below the surface:
- What do you expect from me, your boss?
- What can I expect from you, my employee?

Confused? Not really, you can find out a lot about a person from those two questions. See if you can tell which I would hire based on the following answers.

What do you expect from me, your boss?
- A paycheck
- A chance to prove myself
- Two weeks paid vacation
- A company car
- Experience, guidance, and knowledge

What can I expect from you, my employee?
- My best, everyday
- Eight hours, minus breaks of course
- My support of you, to make YOU look good
- Loyalty
- The extra mile
- 40 hours a week, with time and a half for more

Which would you hire? Maybe the more important question is: Which are you?

Hiring Part One

The nervous twenty-something sat down at a chair I offered him in the break room of the factory where I was hiring. Within a few seconds of meeting him I had a pretty good idea of whether I was going to hire him or not. Some had resumes and ties, some had torn jeans and a ratty shirt, but most had a scared look on their faces. I set them at ease with an offer of something to drink before we sat down and began the interview. After doing hundreds of interviews and hiring dozens of new employees into the company I got pretty good at getting to know people quickly. Let me give you a few quick observations about hiring for jobs.

Resumes are for pinheads. Any good manager can tell more from a handshake and a look in the eye then they could ever from a resume. Only in the MOST technical of jobs do you even need to know any kind of proficiency in tech stuff. You can ALWAYS teach someone to fix and maintain but you can RARELY teach guts, brains, perseverance and interpersonal skills. I know a lot of idiots with great resumes and there “ain’t no fix for stupid.”

Never trust educational background. With less than 50% of our high school graduates knowing how to read and most universities teaching you political views instead of calculus; I would never trust education. Most people learn to take tests. “Will this be on the exam?” And they forget as soon as the last paper is handed in. How much education and where you got it isn’t important. My degrees are more a testament to my perseverance and patience than they are to my knowledge.

Be prejudiced. Hire based on certain prejudices. I am NOT talking about skin color or gender, which makes no difference. I am talking about hiring the RIGHT people for the RIGHT job, whoever that may be. I have felt pressures from every front to hire people who were not right for the job but they were “right” for some other reason. I was asked to hire a person because their family worked in the company, because they came from a certain school, because I needed more minorities in my departments, because they had seniority, and even because they just needed a break. Resist the pressure against hiring the RIGHT person for the RIGHT job, be prejudiced.

Get under their skin. So many interviews I have been in, on both sides of the table, never get under the skin at what the person is really like. How do you get to know a person in that short of time? They walk in. Are they late, RIGHT on time, or early? You see how they are dressed. Are they OVER dressed, appropriate, or UNDER dressed? You shake their hand. Is it strong and confident, wimpy fish-like, crushing, or Monkish where they wipe after they shake? You look them in the eyes. Are they scared, averted, piercing and deep, or bloodshot? You offer them a drink. Do they graciously accept and thank you, decline and thank you, offer to pay, or have their own and pull out a JB from their pocket. You sit down with them. Do they slouch, sit at attention, cross arms and legs, lean towards you or lean away from you?

You haven’t said a word yet but you probably know whether you are going to hire them based on the first few minutes of meeting them. I am now ready for the interview. Sometimes they surprise me and wipe out my first impressions but usually I have only two questions for them ...

On Being a Pain

Let me apologize ahead of time but I am going to whine for a few minutes. It is not my normal character to whine but I have a point at the end so please put up with it for a paragraph or two.

I cannot walk without pain. In fact, I don’t remember a time since I got out of a cast after my first knee surgery in High School where I have walked without pain. So for over 30 years and six knee surgeries I have dealt with knee pain. The problem is, when your body is out of balance with knee issues I walk funny and after 30 years of walking funny it has affected my back and for the last 15 years I have had back problems. Almost two years ago now I broke the foot on my “good” leg and had to have surgery to put things back together again. So now I have pain on the “good” leg. Instead of just hurting every other step I now hurt with each step I take. I won’t even bother you with all the fingers I have broken and jammed to make each grip painful and rings almost impossible. Nor will I tell you about all the teeth I have missing from growing up with a masochistic dentist and all the oral surgeries. I just won’t tell you about those things. I fall asleep thinking about how to minimize pain, I get out of bed because of pain, each step I take during the day is filled with pain, and I have to sit in certain chairs to minimize back pain.

I am constantly told to try this doctor, or to try this medicine, or this exercise and am given countless home remedies to help with pain. It’s not incapacitating, it is just there; constantly there.

I’m used to pain. I’ve seen enough war movies now that “pain lets you know you are alive” has become a cliché. I have come to accept pain and, in fact: come to use pain for good. The easiest example of this is my proclivity to getting up at 5:00 am to start my day. I would not have the self-discipline to get up that early if my back would not be screaming at me to get up. Pain keeps me humble. I used to run, jump and play with unusual talent and it all went to my head; now I watch from the sidelines constantly fighting the urge to get in the game, invited into the game, yet realizing I cannot. My wife had to threaten me with not taking me to the hospital for my last knee surgery because I could not admit I couldn’t do it anymore, I couldn’t admit that I couldn’t.
We have to look at pain as motivation and not as an excuse. Too many of us claim pain to exclude ourselves from having to work or being fruitful. We become users instead of producers, takers instead of givers, and whiners instead of winners. Take a long hard look at your life and ask yourself “am I using pain as an excuse or motivation?” You get hurt – okay – take a minute to look yourself over, brush yourself off and then GET UP! I know, I know, now I’m just being a pain.

The Present

What a difference a century makes. Geologists and scientists talk about billions of years, biologists and evolutionists talk about millions of years, historians, preachers and philosophers talk about thousands of years, I just want you to look back at the last one hundred.

Most of you weren’t around one hundred years ago but your parents and grandparents were. Picture them and their lifestyle one hundred years ago. Especially when they talk about “the good old days” and the converse “when I was young, I had to ...” you finish the sentence.

One hundred years ago the average life expectancy was 47.
One hundred years ago only 14 percent of homes had a bathtub.
One hundred years ago only 8 percent had a phone
One hundred years ago there were only 144 miles of paved roads with a speed limit of an outrageous 10 mph.
One hundred years ago the tallest structure was the Eiffel Tower.
One hundred years ago the average wage was 22 cents an hour.
One hundred years ago 95 percent of all births took place AT HOME.
One hundred years ago 90 percent of doctors had no college education.
One hundred years ago most women would wash their hair once a month and used Borax and egg yolks to do it.
One hundred years ago the top causes of death were Pneumonia, the flu, TB, and diarrhea would kill you.
One hundred years ago marijuana, heroin, and morphine were available over the counter at local drug stores.
One hundred years ago there were only 230 reported murders in the whole USA.

You reveal the present when you describe the past. When Grandpa looked back saying how hard it was when he was a kid and how kids “have it so easy today.” He isn’t really talking about the past. When Grandma fondly remembers life on the farm when she was a kid in the middle of her confusing, hectic, internet-filled life she really isn’t talking so much about the past but making a comment on today.

We define the present when we reveal our past. Part of that is the teacher in all of us wanting our friends and family not to fall into the same mistakes that were made in the past. But part of it is our mind making an attempt to grasp the un-grasp-able. Our mind is trying to wrap gift paper around a cat and place it under a tree with a pretty ribbon, but it just won’t sit still. Even the smartest man who ever lived was conflicted with this attempt to wrap a cat when he said both:”there is nothing new under the sun” and “no one knows the future and what is to come”.
The best we can do is unwrap our particular part of knowledge for others and share. It doesn’t matter if they listen or not, we have done our part to define this crazy world just a little and that is why we have added 40 years to our life expectancy and ALSO why most of us die from abusing our body. I’ll just praise God for my shower and shampoo.

Cloud Cover

The old wood smell overtook me as I slid between the pews. My feet still couldn’t touch the ground as I climbed up next to my father in the uncomfortable silence. As I yanked on the tight collar of my brothers out-grown shirt my clip-on tie was exposed for the fake it was. Fifteen minutes before the organ music signaled the start of the service we were sitting in our mentally assigned pews along with most of the members who had theirs staked out as well. Ten minutes early was late and got you the front rows or maybe even the Fellowship Hall where the folding chairs signified a lower status of worshipper. The lights seemed to work but as the organ began playing I looked up at the expensive chandelier-like fixtures and it was as if the dark wood of the room sucked the light out of them. It was a cloudy Sunday morning.

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

(Emily Dickinson: There’s a Certain Slant of Light)

I sit in my office unable to get any work done. It feels like a blanket has been laid over the world as the clouds came. The world isn’t dark it’s just – wrong. I don’t mean the light, white, airy clouds of summer days where you fashion them into animals and funny faces; I mean the dark, purplish clouds that lay low like fog with substance. They don’t bring a good cleansing rain but they tease you with a little spit and dust circles on your car: winter clouds bringing a chill and with a depression chaser.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where all the meanings are.

We’ve all felt the clouds laying on our life like heavenly hurt and too often the place where light should shine is the place that absorbs and takes more light from us. All we want to do is find a comforter and huddle in a corner chair and wait for it to pass but that is the exact opposite of a health.

After the first song where I stood trying to hold an amazingly heavy hymnal when all the professionals sang in four part harmonies a child, not much younger than me at the time, rang out with a “LA LA LA LA LA LA” after all other music had stopped. It was as if a ray of sun burst through the clouds and the stained glass windows to blind me with joy. Even my father smiled; pass the pink peppermints, I can make it through this!

With deference to Emily let me add a verse:

There’s a sky full of light,
That’s always, always here,
So push cloud cover away
And see the Light that’s near.

Good Wife’s Guide

Housekeeping Monthly, 13 May, 1955

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.
Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dust cloth over the tables.
During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
Be happy to see him.
Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
Don't greet him with complaints and problems.
Don't complain if he's late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.
Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
A good wife always knows her place.

You must excuse me a minute, before I comment on this I have to go throw-up for a bit.

Maturity

Here’s another one of those quirky thoughts that happened to me in the most strange of circumstances. I happened to be taking out the garbage this morning. Now this is a pretty common occurrence for me for the last 40 years or so, but this was a little different. The garbage can has a plastic bag liner in it; you know the kind, with the red plastic draw strings for closing and carrying. Now the can was jammed full of garbage to fit more in and because I was lazy and didn’t empty it before it got too full. So there is a challenge in front of me.

When my mom would make me take out the garbage I would simply pull the red strings and yank the garbage out of the can as quickly as possible, jam back in it what spilled and roughly run it to where it was supposed to go. Inevitably, the bag would burst and garbage would spill all over the kitchen or hopefully, somewhere outside. I remember getting angry at mom, at my brother who deposited the smelly banana peels, and at my dad for not making the dump close enough to toss the garbage out the kitchen window. Then, since no one would pick up my case, I would get another bag, jam it full, finish the job and be angry for a few hours.

All this I thought about this morning as I pulled the red strings on the garbage bag and carefully wedged it back and forth to remove it from the garbage can. Slow at first but it eventually gave completely to me like removing that one great, unshredded piece from the crab leg. No spillage, no broken bag, and a quick tie to bring it outside.

The lesson that came to me was on maturity. I think maturity is like that. When we are young we have all the energy and little experience in garbage and in life. We will “rush in where angels fear to tread.” Life sends us lessons like picking up stinky banana peels where we have to make a decision: do we learn from this or do we get angry and take our foolishness out on everyone? If we learn then we take one more step up the ladder of maturity, and someday may reach a certain level of wisdom.

The fool lamented to King Lear that he should have grown wise BEFORE he became old in Shakespeare’s play. I pray that for all of us.

There are; however, many advantages to youth. As I brought the perfectly removed bag of garbage out and was thinking these profound thoughts I missed the curb on the sidewalk and tripped. The bag broke and spilled all over my driveway. Nice.

New Year’s Day YEAR, Part 3

The steady roar of the tractor pummeled my ears until I couldn’t hear it anymore. It was steady and consistent as I made my way down the field disking last year’s corn stubble into the ground. Disking was a fairly easy job, especially compared to cultivating where you had to watch and concentrate on the position of the tractor related to the crop or you would cut out the crop. With disking all I had to do was make sure the ends overlapped a bit and buzz down the field. But then it came, that slight change in the RPM of the engine. Before the change I wasn’t even registering the noise of the engine but the slightest change in RPM and I was at full attention. I looked behind me and saw corn stalks piling up in front of the disk instead of being chopped up by it. I raised the disk a bit and watched the disk eat the stalks like a shredder chewing paper.

All it took was an ever-so-slight change in RPM of the engine. The engine I didn’t consciously hear before the change. An anomaly jarred my brain back to attention.

While our brains are fantastically amazing they are also lazy. They will not “pay attention” to things that are the same, the usual, or the ordinary but they will JUMP to attention at things that are different, Unusual, or extra-ordinary. Don’t believe me? Don’t know what I am talking about? Tell me if you have experienced this:

You are calmly sleeping with crazy noise going on: partner snoring, fan, trains going by, TV on, etc; and then you hear a “click” of your front door. Tell me you don’t STARTLE awake. Or, you find yourself at work and don’t remember actually driving to work.

Or just maybe last year went by and you hardly even remember it. Nothing different happened, nothing new stopped you in your tracks or startled you, it was just another year that blew by without you even noticing. You lived it, you survived it, your brain filed it away and you were barely aware of it.

Let’s NOT do that again this year. Now there are things that will make your year memorable that are not necessarily good. Things like death, job loss, traumas, or relationship breakups. I would like to suggest a few things to make this year memorable in a positive way. Here’s my list (feel free to add to it):

- Skydive.
- Drive a NASCAR car at over 120 mph.
- Start your own company.
- Take a trip, NOT just a vacation to hang at a beach, visit the pyramids, the acropolis, the Great Wall, or Red Square.
- Go on a mission project of some kind for at least a week: build a hut, bring water to a village, work at a clinic, and play with kids who don’t speak your language.
- Become an expert at a new hobby.
- Start your own website.
- Write a book and self publish it.
- Fast (drink only water) one day a week and pick one week to fast the whole week (water plus vitamins).

I will guarantee that if you do these and add a few to it. Your new year will be memorable and your brain won’t be able to file it under a “boring” and “skip over” year.

New Year’s Day YEAR, Part 2

There is no doubt that God, the devil, and other people are going to throw a slew of “stuff” your way in this coming year. It doesn’t matter whether you work at home or in an office or the field or don’t work at all: stuff will head your way. Stuff happens.

As we begin this New Year together I want you to consider the fact that over the last year you handled the stuff in three different ways.

You REACTED (badly) to stuff.
You RESPONDED (well) to stuff.
You INITIATED new stuff.

Before I had my foot surgery my doctor gave me a painkilling drug and I REACTED badly to it. It just made me dopy (more than usual) and sick and didn’t really take the pain away. He tried a new one and I RESPONDED well by staying clear-headed and pain-free. This year I am INITIATING a new policy of not acting like I’m twenty-something and will turn down playing on the softball team.

I told my warehouse department, all 25 of them, that they had all lost their jobs and they would have to reapply for their old positions under my new job descriptions. Ten of them REACTED BADLY to the news, filed grievances against me, discrimination suits and tried to make my life miserable. Twelve of them RESPONDED well and had their applications in within an hour of the job being posted. Three of them took the INITIATIVE and asked if they could help with the restructure and offered helpful ideas and possibilities for the new department.

Some stuff happens …

Think about what you normally do now. Do you REACT to it? How much of your time is spent REACTING to what people say, do or email?

The rest of your day may be spent RESPONDING to stuff. Responding to emails, requests, facebook stuff. RESPONDING is gratifying, it makes you feel good because at the end of the day your desk is clean and the pile of stuff is in a different spot than it was when you started.

And that’s it. You go home having spent no time INITIATING! We tend to reserve INITIATING for quiet times, good times, down times or desperate times. We wait until our REACTING and RESPONDING is done, which never really gets done, and people go through life never INITIATING a single thing.

I want you to INITIATE this year. I want you to pause your REACTING and RESPONDING and spend some time INITIATING something totally new and different. Some jobs are REACTING jobs and some are RESPONDING jobs but the best jobs are the INITIATING jobs. And here’s the cool part: ALL of us have a job that could take more of our INITIATIVE.

New Year’s Day YEAR, Part 1

By the end of this year would you like to say that you were “lucky this year!” or would you like to say that you “worked hard this year!”?

Luck is a paradox. Everybody wants it and no one can really catch the lightning of luck in a box. Unfortunately you don’t get to choose luck while effort is something that is totally available ALL THE TIME TO ANYONE!

So here’s a New Year’s resolution for you (most of which I stole from Seth Godin’s blog) in our crazy times.

First: Delete 60 minutes a day of “spare” time from your life. This can include TV, reading newspaper, commuting, computer junk, etc.

Second: Fill those 60 minutes a day with one or all of these:
- Exercise at least 20 minutes at a time.
- Read, relevant, non-fiction book or blog on your job or industry.
- Send three thank-you notes.
- Learn a new productivity tool: spreadsheet macros, Firefox shortcuts, graphic design, or new software.
- Volunteer.
- Blog or journal for five minutes about something you learned
- Listen to an on-line or CD class.
- Pray for more than 15 minutes in one sitting.

Third: Spend at least one day a week doing absolutely nothing but being with people you love.

Fourth: Only spend money, for one year, on things you ABSOLUTELY NEED to get by. Save the rest, relentlessly.

If you somehow pull this off, then six months from now you will be the fittest, best rested, most intelligent, best funded, and motivated person in your office. You would know how to do things other people don’t, you’d have a wider network and you’d be more focused.

It is entirely possible that this won’t change your life at all and you will continue to need more or better luck. But it is a lot more likely that if you simply do these four things you will find luck chasing you down. And you can change your name to Zeus.

The Dynamics of Walking through Crowds 3

Exiting elevators is an interesting experience for the dynamics of crowds. As weird as it may seem I just ride in elevators. Up then down, especially when it is busy because that is when the most crowd watching can happen.

You can find out who the polite people are and who the uninterested are. I still find a lot of chivalry within elevator etiquette. Men will still put their hand in front of the door so women and children can enter or exit. All will move around to make room for more if possible and someone will ALWAYS push the floor button when asked by someone buried in the crowd.

The Venetian Hotel and Casino is the world’s largest hotel/entertainment complex. It has over 8000 rooms which are all suites, millions of square feet in conventions space, more than twenty restaurants, a shopping mall, 5 major theaters for shows, a dozen small ones, and hundreds of thousands of square feet dedicated to slot machines. The problem is that it was built in three separate sections and is extremely confusing if you don’t know where you are going. Who would guess that the canal with gondola rides is ABOVE the casino or that they swimming pool is on the 10th floor and the main entrance is on the 3rd floor from the parking ramp. All this makes for great crowd watching.

I stand in the back of the elevator listening to some Phantom of the Opera music playing when people enter the elevator and see that the 3rd floor is pushed and I listen as they debate whether they need to go to the 1st or not to get to the casino. The push the 1st just in case. The doors open on the 3rd but it just looks like another parking floor. They ignore the signs that say “Hotel and Casino” with an arrow pointing the way and go down to the 1st floor and find another parking garage. Frustrated now they exit and disappear and I don’t know if they ever find what they are looking for.

OR: I stand in the back of a FULL elevator and wait. The 3rd floor opens up to the crowd and those in front exit, take a quick look right at the parking ramp and immediately turn left and the crowd follows them to the left as they exit the elevator. I follow too until they reach the dead end with more elevators. They all turn around en masse and look like lost sheep without a shepherd. The signs are everywhere pointing them to the hotel/casino but they just don’t trust them because they lead to the parking ramp. One adventurous couple will walk out of the elevator hallway and see a carpeted entrance and head up the ramp to the entrance. Soon the rest follow after they see the adventurous ones don’t come back. The crowd moves again.

I look at the signs again and wonder how they could be any clearer than they are. Crowds are crowds and they will blindly follow the one in front of them even though it ends in a dead end. You probably see where I am going here don’t you? I want to know if you just follow the crowds or if you actually pause and read the signs?

As the elevator door opens to this New Year and everything in front of you is new again I want to challenge you to read the signs and not just follow the crowd. I want to challenge you to be different and to make a difference. BE THE ONE people will watch to see if it works instead of being the one of many. Step out, step apart, step forward and make a difference.

The Dynamics of Walking through Crowds 2

I pull off into a dead corner and watch the people streaming through each other. The personalities come through in this seemingly simple, but complicated interaction.

I see some people who are VERY aware of everything going on around them. They are VERY careful to keep to the far right side of the slow lane and never venture into the middle of the road for fear of having to touch or, God forbid, interact with these strangers. They are shy, self-conscious, and usually have a thinly veiled fear which I can see without even seeing their face. The mix with the older and frailer with a fear that is totally different.

In the middle of the stream, sometimes fighting oncoming traffic I see totally different temperaments. Some are fearless only to prove they are fearless to cover up their fear. They are the Bangers who will not care about pushing their way through the crown. They are dressed differently but are really the same. Some are dressed in baggy clothes and sideways hats clinging to a belt loop and walking wide to keep only a planned view of boxer shorts in view. The same people are in extremely tight shirts and pants which closely resemble another skin to show their bulging muscles and tattoos. There are female versions of these two but more often I see the prowling female in Las Vegas. You can tell a lot about women just by the way she turns when she makes her way through a crowd. Will she turn away and protect herself as she brushes by you or turn and face you daring you to excuse yourself by her. Sometimes I even get a wink from “ladies” I am forced to get too close to. As I watched I saw a man turn around and pursue a wink but I never saw if he caught up with her or not.

The rest of us flow with the crowd, not faster, not slower, just with it. Calmly, patiently getting to where we are going with a pocket full of “excuse me” and “sorry” ready to doll out.

While in that corner I experience an anomaly: the traffic clears. As if a stop light clicked on around the corner the hall becomes empty. One at a time people come through and they seem lost. They don’t know how to relate without the crowd. The fearful stand more upright and confident as they make their way. The Bangers slow down because they have no competitors to be faster than. The “ladies” cover up and seem to shrink. And the normal people, well, we simply straighten out the corners and make it a little faster than normal.

I come away from this experience realizing that we NEED each other. Even those defiant and ornery would have no one to be defiant and ornery to, if not for the rest of us. Our trip through the mall hallway is a microcosm of our lives and interactions with each other. We need each other to survive and to move forward in life.

The Dynamics of Walking through Crowds 1

It is the holiday season and I find myself walking through a lot of crowds. My mind makes the move into the express lane as I begin to notice the flow of people and crowd MOVEMENT dynamics.

Most of the time you don’t notice the dynamics unless something happens to interrupt the flow: like chatters to stop the flow and gather in a lane blocking circle to look into a store window; like the young or the elderly who cannot keep up with the flow and feel the fear of bodies passing them on all sides; like some daring thrill-seeker who attempts to work his way against the flow; or, like the occasional face to face with someone coming in the opposite direction where you mirror each other when you sidestep until one of you finally stops and the other makes their way around you.

Most of the time it is simply amazing to me that we actually MISS each other in all the hustle and bustle of people. Without even consciously thinking about it we can weave our way through a crowd without touching a person, while talking on a cell phone or with a friend next to you, making your way around the slow ones, avoiding the oncoming ones, and kicking it into gear to make a corner on the inside.

I have been observing this walking through crowd dynamics for a while now and I think I am ready for my Master’s Thesis on the personalities involved. Let me give you a few and next time you are in the crowd see if you can pick them out.

The Floater. The Floater floats through the crowd seeming to flit from one small gap to another just in time to push ahead before that gap closes. They seem to be unimpeded by the number of people. You try to follow them but you seem to reach the gap in people just as it closes behind them.

The Brute. The Brute is usually a guy but I have seen female brutes as well. This is the person who makes it through crowds by simple, brute force. Instead of floating through open gaps like the Floater, the Brute busts through small gaps making them wider by shoulder banging the people on each side of it. Rarely do you hear an “excuse me” even though you and he might make eye contact and you end up rubbing your shoulder.

The Gabber. The Gabber gabs. Usually a group of three or more friends who spend their time talking, laughing and looking. Often the Gabbers stop at a store window oblivious to the crowd around them. Or they may simply stop in the middle of the expressway, forcing all the traffic around them as they laugh and gab. Sometimes a Gabber can be a single person who may be on a cell phone that needs to make an important point to the person at the other end of the call and so needs to stop walking and make powerful expressions with the free hand.

The Clueless. The Clueless crowd walkers are the ones who gum up the works by simply disobeying the rules of the road. The rules are similar to driving rules. You MUST walk on the right side of the hallway or mallway. The faster walkers MUST pass closer to the middle but MUST NOT venture into oncoming traffic. If you stop you MUST get out of the way of both oncoming traffic and same lane traffic by going into a store entryway or a dead corner. The Clueless will stop and any time, will drive through oncoming traffic, will pass on the wrong side, or go slow on the wrong side. The Clueless just don’t follow the rules and believe they have no responsibility for the flow of the crowd.

There are more, like the Brood: the mom with kids trying to stick close, speeding up and slowing down depending on the temperament of kids and parents. The Entourage: with one leader and others hanging on his or her every word and comment and struggling to be the one closest to the leader. The Accessorized: Usually women with handbags like suitcases that can take out a whole row of the passing crowd or perfume that causes crowds to push AWAY from her. And many more.

Then there are the rest of us. Sometimes I experiment by being the Brute or the Clueless and just do things wrong to stir of the mix of the dynamic. Most often I walk amazed that things actually happen, that people actually move and that we don’t stand like sheep wondering why we don’t get anywhere. I think that might be part of what it means to be made in God’s image, that built-into-us-ness of progressing through crowds.

Despair.com

Achievement: We acquire strength in what we overcome.

Challenge: The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it.

One of the things that drove me crazy at work was those corny motivational statements plastered all over the break room walls at the factory or office. You know the ones with the great pictures and the inspirational statements below them, meant to get you into a positive attitude about your work. If I was still in the corporate world I would go to this website I’ve found and substitute a few of the corny ones for these from Despair.com.

Cluelessness: There are no stupid questions, but there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.

Consulting: If you’re not part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

Effort: Hard work never killed anybody, but it is illegal in some places.

Laziness: Success is a journey not a destinations, so stop running.

Tradition: Just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean that it’s not incredibly stupid.

Sanity: Minds are like parachutes. Just because you’ve lost yours doesn’t mean you can borrow mine.

The TV show Office and the cartoon Dilbert are full of Despair.com quotes and that is what makes them so appealing. It is the anti-motivational message that resonates with people, not the motivational ones. The majority of people relate to failure, while only a few relate to success and a manager standing in front of a cadre of employees spouting clichés becomes the opposite of motivation. At best they become the butt of jokes and youtube videos.

Motivation doesn’t come from outside sources. At best they are reminders of what we have inside but the switch is not going to come from a frequency of posters and clichés. Motivation, the opposite of despair, comes from considering yourself in a constant state of indebtedness. Most people don’t do that. Most people believe the world OWES THEM and doesn’t believe they OWE anything to the world or their God. Second, motivation comes from family. A supportive nurturing family breeds motivated people. And finally, motivation is a decision, not a feeling. Just because you don’t FEEL motivated doesn’t mean you can’t be. DECIDE to be motivated for whatever task you have and you will be motivated.

Motivation: Giving thanks for all, feeling family vibes, and choosing it.

Thanksgiving

A peasant may believe as much
As a great clerk, and reach the highest stature.
Thus dost thou make proud knowledge bend and crouch
While grace fills up uneven nature.

This poem, part of a larger work, called Faith by George Herbert struck me this Thanksgiving season.

I met a man who was “homeless” and looked it. His clothes were clean but still the smell of homelessness was around his unkempt hair and scraggly beard. He had the nose of an alcoholic and his weathered hands wrapped around a cup of coffee as if it would keep his whole frail body warm. We sat across each other in a charity dining hall, I was there to serve and he was there to be served and we filled our rolls quietly.

The din of a hundred homeless having lunch and conversation filled the hall as I removed his plate for him and threw it away. I came back with the coffee pot and offered it to him. His hands opened like saloon doors to allow me to fill his cup again.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” I asked as I withdrew the coffee pot.

His simple response set me back on my heals, “Grace” was all he said and he took another sip. I searched his eyes over the brim of his cup and saw both a tear and a smile.

Grace is an amazing thing. It is something we all need, from the greatest clerk or judge, to the lowest peasant; homeless and smelly. It is something given to all in equal measure to all of us. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, where you are or where you do it; grace is there.

Are you thankful that grace doesn’t depend on your station in life?

Are you thankful that grace doesn’t depend on how much money you have or how popular you are?

Are you thankful that grace doesn’t depend on how good (or bad) you are?
Are you thankful that “grace fills up uneven nature”?

Our Own Sunglasses

Now that the election is over and all the political ads are finally done running and ruining my TV viewing we can take a moment to pull back and look at what just happened. Or can we?

I have had multiple (at least 10) different conversations with people from BOTH sides of the aisle on what just happened and I am finding an interesting phenomenon. I find that people still have their sunglasses on. People can look at the exact SAME event and come out of it with two completely DIFFERENT ways to describe the SAME reality.

It is normal, natural and a part of our human nature. The only thing that is not allowed is the sunglasses that say “I don’t have sunglasses on. I see reality as it really is!” The people who don’t recognize that they are wearing sunglasses that tints reality in one direction or another are the ones that are dangerous.

Remember those cool lenses that came in cereal boxes in the 70’s that were red. You would eagerly dig through the cereal box to find the little package and then use it to read secret messages on the outside of the box. The red lens changed the message and allowed you to read a different colored text beneath. That is us, only we all have different colors reading the same message but it appears differently to us all.

Your sunglasses are your worldview. It is how you look at the world. It is your perspective, you bent on life. Your sunglasses are inherited in part. Your sunglasses are learned in part. Your sunglasses are shaped by your choices in life. Your sunglasses are sometimes beaten into you by abuses in life.

Even the myth of unbiased news reporting is just that: a myth. The best you can hope for in news is the opposite: put BOTH perspectives next to each other and let them present their colored views as best they can according to their sunglasses and let YOU decide who has the glasses with the closest color to yours. Once you realize that everything you see and hear is tainted in some way you are a step closer to reality.

First, recognize you wear sunglasses. Second, recognize everything you see and hear is from someone who also is wearing sunglasses. Third, recognize reality is somewhere in the middle of all that and there is no way we will find it on this side of eternity. Because now we see but a poor reflection, then we will see reality face to face. I have said this before but it is worth repeating: there will be three surprises in heaven. The first surprise is who is there that we NEVER THOUGHT WOULD BE. The second surprise is those who are NOT THERE that we thought would be. The third surprise is that WE ARE THERE AT ALL! What are your sunglasses telling you?

The Loss of the Common

I was into one of my magazines, actually an Archeology magazine when I came across something unexpected. A Christian Pickup Line.

This is not something that you would normally find in a magazine on Archeology so it came out of the blue. The discussion was on the ancient city of Jericho and how much of an impact the story of Jericho has on our everyday life. Here’s the line, but you have to understand the biblical story of Jericho: “How many times do I have to walk around you to get your walls to fall down?”

So that got me thinking about what other pickup lines there may be out there, here are a few I found:

“I just don’t feel called to celibacy”
“What do you think Paul meant when he said to greet everyone with a holy kiss?”
“You know, I am really into relationship evangelism!”
“That halo matches your eyes!”
“Before tonight, I never believed in predestination!”
“Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”
“The Bible says to give water to those who are thirsty and to feed the hungry, so how about dinner?”
“Is it a sin that you stole my heart?”
“Excuse me, is this pew taken?”
“Excuse me, but I believe one of your ribs belongs to me.”
“Oh, you’re cold? Maybe we should read Ecc. 4:11?”

There are even Christian break-up lines:

“I’m sorry; it just isn’t God’s will.”
“God loves me and must have a better plan for my life.”
“I think we should just be prayer partners.”
“I do love you, but it’s just agape now.”

Ouch! And more OUCH! Chances are, more than half of you who read this don’t get it. There is probably only a third of you who get most of them. And maybe only a quarter of you who know what predestination is in the biblical sense. For those of you who get these, how about you try to follow the Physicist’s pickup lines:

“You’re more special than relativity.”
“Heisenberg was wrong. I’m certain about what you’re doing tonight.”
“My last boyfriend wasn’t very stable. He spontaneously decayed last week and left me for a neutrino.”
“I’m attracted to you like the earth to the sun. With a large force inversely proportional to the distance squared.”

Wha? While we may understand the surface humor of it and maybe even laugh, but how many of us really know Heisenberg’s uncertainty principal? Or even what a neutrino is? Or why one of your ribs would belong to me? Or what Ecc. 4:11 says? Or what agape is? Or how the walls of Jericho came down?

What we lack is a common connection that comes from a common history but today, common connections are becoming very uncommon. While we may understand the words we cannot understand the context or meaning behind them. While the world is becoming flatter, it is sacrificing its depth in the process. We are losing the “common” in our history and while I can now talk to one thousand of you reading this many of you won’t get the joke – or the message.

Why I Write

When I was in High School as a freshman I would look at our school paper and the first thing I would read was the column by this ultra-wise senior who was also a basketball player. Talk about a trifecta: wise, senior, basketball. When I became a sophomore I began to think that I could do the same thing, they had no columnist for the Echo (name of our school paper) but I didn’t believe I was quite ready yet. By my Junior year I was on the Echo staff and learn to develop photographs (yes, this was still when we used dark rooms and had to actually “lay out” a newspaper since computers were not yet involved.) Then I submitted my first column. I don’t remember what I wrote about, but it was good enough for the Teacher/Sponsor of the Echo to give me a regular column. So when my first two knee surgeries took me out of any basketball playing I had to rely on my writing to attract the opposite sex. By the end of my senior year I felt I was a seasoned columnist. I wrote because I thought it was cool.

In my college years and in my years in business my writing languished. I had things to say but no format in which to say them. Then came computers: God’s gift to budding writers. I started writing my first book of fiction in the late 1980s and it took about 5 years to complete. It was on 5 1/2 inch floppy drives and was about 220 pages. Only a few have ever read it, it was never published, not even attempted to be published, and I don’t quite know where my copy is right now. I wrote it mainly to see if I could, kind of like climbing Mt. Everest.

Then I became pastor of a church and out of the business world. I was asked to write a Bible Study for Teens and when it was published I had the bug again. (It’s called Workout! And you can pick it up at discount tables or Amazon’s used books for less than a buck). I also started writing a column again in our church’s bulletin/newsletter. Because I was the pastor they let me. Being forced to write a column every week created a hunger in me. First: a hunger for something to write about since you run out of ideas pretty quick, seriously, try it sometime. Second: a hunger for reading things, anything and everything. Third: a hunger for memory helps, since I had the greatest idea for a column that would have changed the world but I forgot what it was – I didn’t write it down fast enough.

Today I write for two reasons. I write because I believe I have a gift of taking something complicated and through stories and weird connections I can make it simple and easy to understand. And I write because it helps me to focus my thoughts clearly and precisely. So here is my advice to you:
- READ, anything and everything. Listen to Books, Lectures, Classes on CD. Magazines, Blogs, and Websites. This will make you a broad, well-rounded, and interesting individual, the life of parties.
- WRITE, anything and everything. Your own column, blog, a journal, or even start your own book. This will force you to focus that broad knowledge you picked up from your reading and give you a conviction in what you believe.
Read to build knowledge and it will make you interesting. Write to build focus and it will make you firm in your convictions and beliefs.

The Weak and the Strong

Who controls relationships? Is it the strong, type A personalities? Is it the older one? Is it the one who has the title? Who controls relationships? I find that it is the weaker person who often controls the relationships. This is counter-intuitive but hear me out on this one.

Isn’t it the weaker that becomes mad and throws a tantrum to get his/her way?

Isn’t it the weaker that becomes upset and pouts to get his/her way?

Isn’t it the weaker that becomes passive aggressive by underhanded yet quiet aggressiveness?

Isn’t it the stronger that calms and speaks of peace?

Isn’t it the stronger that seeks to find out what is wrong and initiates discussion?

Isn’t it the stronger that puts up with underhandedness with an understanding smile of forgiveness?

I find the stronger “giving in” to the weaker because the end isn’t important enough to use any means; because the battle will cause more pain than the wrong outcome. The weak seeks to control by threatening and tearing down while the strong seeks to GIVE by patching, watching over, taking care of, and forgiving.

Ghandi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

The weak make the mistake to think that forgiving is like a gift that we can bestow on those who have hurt us. “Here, take this!” we say as we hand them our forgiveness. But that is the wrong view of forgiveness, or better: that is a WEAK view of forgiveness.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: “Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.”

Considering forgiveness a permanent attitude can only be mastered by the strong. Living forgiveness is a barbell attempted only by the brave. The weak control by tantrums, pouts, and the inability to LIFT forgiveness and LIVE forgiven.

How strong are you?

Sphenopalatineganglioneuralgia

We had finally gotten to Clearwater, Florida after more than a day in our station wagon. The ride had given us a crazy sense of cabin fever cornered with nine people and their luggage in a small space. Car games gave way to bickering hundreds of miles before we arrived so one of the first things we did was stop at a local 7-11 that was close to my grandparent’s Florida home. I ran into the door and filled the biggest cup I could find (there were no Big Gulp’s at the time) and the thickest straw and proceeded to suck down a Watermelon Slurpee. All that cramped up feelings disappeared as fast as the red beverage. My brothers and I forgot our arguing and fights and considered which baseball cards to buy and who would pay for which.

Soon another problem emerged, usually as we made the last slurping sounds with our straws trying to vacuum up the final drops. THEN it hit us all: sphenopalatineganglioneuralgia! Better known as “brain freeze!” The painful headache that comes from something cold spending time on the palate (top part) or your mouth, freezing your nerve endings there and sending painful messages to your brain. Too much, too quick of a good thing causing pain.

Hmm. Do you see an application here? How about:

Gastroesophoganglioneuralgia: Shoving too much good food down your throat cause pain, obesity, diabetes, etc.

UNgastroesophoganglioneuralgia: Causing yourself to NOT eat.

Fearofneighborknockganglioneuralgia: A good neighbor coming over EVERY day, just to talk.

Lotterywinnerganglioneuralgia: Getting A LOT of money too quickly and losing it all in a year which is closely related to:

Spoiledbratganglioneuralgia: Getting everything you want, whenever you want.

Anything good that comes too quickly is not necessarily a good thing. As much as we would all like to be rich and have a lot of money. Most lottery winners will only tell of the pain and heartbreak it caused. We all know what those annoying but cute spoiled brats turn into: Senators! (that was a joke, by the way, okay, maybe not so much).

The corollary to this rule of thumb is that when things are worked at and built up slowly they will last longer and will give you more enjoyment. So ask yourself: Am I sucking at life so hard that I am getting sphenopalatineganglioneuralgia? Or am I building my loves, my life and my self slowly and steadily over time and avoiding the brain freeze?

Signs of the Apocalypse

At the movie theater Frankie and I got our popcorn and drinks and the total came to $12.75. I didn’t have a ten so I gave the young lady a $20 and three ones. She looked at me with a confused expression and then handed back the three ones. I said I didn’t want all the change and handed the money back to her. Again, confused she took the money, rang it into the register, the drawer opened and she handed me the three ones back with a quarter. “I gave your $23” I reminded her, “so I should get back $10.25.” And I gave her back the three ones. She took them, put them in the drawer, stared at the various bills in the drawer, and then counted out ten ones for me and handed the stack to me. It was no longer worth the effort I put the huge wad of bills in my pocket and left with my popcorn.

These are from the internet and anonymous:

I walked into MacDonald’s with a buy-one-get-one free coupon for a breakfast sandwich. I handed it to the girl and she looked over at a sign that also said “buy-one-get-one for free”. She said to me that they were already buy-one-get-one free. I was about to put the coupon away when she took and said, “I guess they are both free then.” She gave me the two without charging me.

One day I was walking on the beach with some friends when one of them shouted. “Look at the dead bird!” Someone near us looked up at the sky and said, “Where?”

While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was north because, he explained, he did not want the sun waking him up every morning. She asked, “Does the sun rise in the north?” When my brother explained that, the sun rises in the east, and has for some time now. She shook her head and said, “Oh, I don’t keep track of that stuff.”

I worked at a technical support for a 24/7 call center. One day I got a call from an individual who asked what hours the call center was open. I told him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He responded, “Is that Eastern or Pacific time?”

My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car designed to cut through a seat belt if she is trapped. She keeps it in the trunk.

My friends and I were on a soda run and noticed that the cased were discounted 10%. Since it was a big party, we bought two cases. The cashier multiplied 2 times 10% and gave us a 20% discount.

I could not find my luggage at the airport baggage area, so I went to the lost luggage office and told the woman that my bags never showed up. She smiled and told me not to worry because she was a trained professional and I was in good hands. “Now” she asked me, “has your plane arrived yet?”

Words can be worth a Thousand Pictures

I read some amazing words today in Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s final address to the cadets ad West Point in 1962. The words themselves actually took my mind into battle with the sounds, smells and feelings of wars long past. The passage is too lengthy to put here but a simple internet search will bring you to those same words.

Pictures and graphics can do much to move you to action, explain situations, and even build memories. But there is something special about words put together in such a way that they take you, in your mind, to places never been. I have never been moved to tears by a picture or a good graphic but I have repeatedly been moved by a letter from a loved one, a song with words that make my heart sing, or a book that tugs on your emotions like a child wanting to play. I enjoy writing and I enjoy going places in my words, they work for me and I hope they resonate with you.

I could say that when I was young I used to play in our back yard. Or I could say:

My childhood on the farm is now filled with memories of the earth. The earth made up of the smell of fresh-cut grass as I rolled and rolled down a small hill in our backyard. I would get up dizzy and ready to do it again with our collie Princess running after me trying to figure out if I was hurt or playing. The earth made up of mudpies my sisters and I would construct in an old chicken-house turned bakery. Earth and water were the only ingredients but taste was only limited by our imaginations as we explained to the gas man who came on the yard that it was a chocolate chip cookie not a simple chocolate cookie as he thought. The earth made up the smell of freshly plow-turned furrows which would exactly fit my (full sized) GI Joe Army Jeep as it raced down the road until ambushed by the waiting enemy. Clods of dirt made realistic, exploding bombs as my hero fought unbelievable odds to eventual victory every hour of play. The earth made up of trees where I dared the impossible climb. Sometimes egged on by my brothers but mostly just to see what was up there. My first remembrance of fear was falling to the earth from a precarious limb and having the breath knocked out of me. The fear didn’t come from the fall as much as it came from the frantic gasps to get air into my lungs. Seconds felt like hours as I lay on my back in the grass wondering if I was going to die. Finally my body found the switch to activate the inhale almost like turning on a bank of breaker switches until you finally found the right one. The earth holds these memories for me and when I look at climbing trees, smell freshly turned dirt, get my hands muddy, or sit on a hillside the earth releases them back into my heart like hugging an old friend.

Words can be worth a thousand pictures.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Football season has begun along with all the craziness that is attached to it like the numbers on the player’s backs. I ran into a man and his wife this week who must now begin wearing his Vikings T-shirt and not wash it until the season is done. His wife, of course, complained about the smell and the rattiness of it all but he insists that his beloved Vikings win more games the longer he wears the T-shirt. He says he is sacrificing for the team and showing what a loyal fan his is.

When I played basketball I knew of players who would never change their socks after a win, their lucky socks would stay in there locker or gym bag until there was a loss. That season we went 24-2. There was not a person left in the locker room who could not smell his socks and I still believe we lost our first game after 17 wins because we all wanted him to get rid of those socks. I don’t think his mom washed them, I think she burned and buried them.

We deal with this kind of thinking all the time, wherever we are and whatever we do. The fallacy in Latin is called “post hoc ergo propter hoc” literally translated it means “after this, therefore BECAUSE OF this.”

As a manager I knew a supervisor who seemed to walk into a department and its production went down. It “seemed” like everywhere he was resulted in business going bad. Deep down you knew it was wrong but it just worked out that way. He was fired because no manager wanted to work with him. The fallacy? He walks in and business goes bad, so business goes bad BECAUSE he walked in.

More kids are violent today than 30 years ago. There were no violent video games 30 years ago; therefore: we have more violent kids BECAUSE of violent videos.

More marriages end in divorce today than 50 years ago. There were no swans in Duck Creek 50 years ago; therefore: we have more divorces today BECAUSE there are swans in Duck Creek.

My waistline is expanding. The earth is getting warmer; therefore: my belly is getting bigger BECAUSE of global warming.

We will often turn this around and believe that avoiding the supposed cause with prevent the undesirable occurance. If we can stop global warming I will be skinny again! If we get rid of the swans in Duck Creek we will have few divorces! If we get rid of violent video games we will have less violence in teens! If we want our team to lose (to get a better draft pick for next year) then wash your socks and don’t wear your lucky T-shirt!

Check your reasoning and see if you fall into the pro hoc ergo propter hoc thinking. This can be very serious because this fallacy is where justification for your prejudices comes from. All ______ people do this; therefore: they do this because they are ______. If you fill in the color then you will get a whiff of some smelly socks.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

I will never buy a dress for my wife. I will PAY for a dress but I will never buy a dress … again. When we were first married a quarter of a century ago, I found, what I thought, was a “pretty” dress for Frankie. I simply looked at the dresses that were on the rack and saw on that caught my eye. It wasn’t her birthday, it wasn’t our anniversary, it was just an unexpected gift. I had it wrapped and brought it home. My intentions were noble and good but the unintended consequences of my actions killed me.

The fabric was cheap and obviously so, I didn’t know, I just liked the color and style. It was a number of sizes too small, I didn’t know, I just liked the color and style. The style was definitely OUT, I didn’t know, I just liked the color and well, style. My noble intentions became a heated discussion on Frankie’s taste, style and even weight; ALL topics better left undisputed in a young marriage. Unintended consequences.

We all know about HIV/AIDS in Africa and the popular opinion is that it is spread through a particularly promiscuous population and heterosexual sex. So to solve the problem the US and other “Western” cultural countries flooded the continent with health care training and condoms. The thought was that 90 percent of the infections were through heterosexual sex but it turned out (according to peer-reviewed analysis of 22 studies by the authors of “Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits”) that it was only 25 – 35 percent compared to US percentage of over 50.

So where did the epidemic of HIV/AIDS come from in Africa? The predominant group with HIV in Africa are non-promiscuous adults involved in strictly monogamous relationships. The culprit is poor medical care, specifically dirty needles. Unfortunately for those living in Africa the more “health care” they receive the greater their chances of being infected. Sanitary conditions that we take for granted don’t exist. They reused not only needles and syringes but surgical instruments. The World Health Organization now admits that the needles used to administer the contraceptive Depo-Povera actually GAVE HIV to women in Africa because the needles used were reused. Unintended consequences.

I can still remember the use of DDT in the sixties on our farm in Indiana. It was a great controller of crop eating insects. We even used it to control spiders on our porches and in barns. Anyone growing up in rural America remembers those nasty spiders that found the corners of your porches, lawn furniture, and swings. Even tent moths that would cover and kill trees were sprayed with DDT to keep the trees alive. In WWII our troops were bathed in it to control mosquitoes which controlled typhus, malaria and other diseases. Then came the book by Rachel Carson called “Silent Spring” calling into question the uses of DDT. She stated that she found the unintended consequences of cancer in humans and threats to other wildlife as well as the insects. It was the one of the first fights in the new environmental movement and by 1972 DDT was banned in the US and around the world.

Yet it has been proven that DDT does NOT cause cancer. It has been proven that DDT kills only insects and NOT birds or other wildlife since “Silent Spring” came out. DDT kept our troops safe, including my father, while fighting in the mosquito laden South Pacific. Today over 515 MILLION people are infected with malaria and THREE MILLION people die every year because they have been bitten by a malaria carrying mosquito. There is no vaccine; there is only maintenance drugs that must be taken the rest of your life to keep it in check. The most effective and proven prevention of malaria cannot be used. Unintended consequences.
While I cannot really connect buying a dress for my wife and millions of people dying of AIDS and Malaria I can connect the Law of Unintended Consequences. Check your sources and your facts before you climb on a bandwagon or the latest trend. When you find the unintended consequences of your actions don’t be afraid to suck it up and admit your were wrong, change direction, or simply stop what you are doing. Rachel Carson died before she could retract what her book started, don’t you wait that long.

Your Actions are Speaking

I was cut off in traffic by an SUV plastered with bumper stickers. You can tell a lot about a person by their bumper stickers. My anger at being cut off and having to hit my brakes HARD to avoid an accident was changed into a different kind of anger when I read some of the bumper stickers. After cutting me off he tail-gated the car in front of him until it literally pulled over and let the guy pass. As he passed he gave the one-fingered salute to the elderly gentleman in the car that just pulled over and raced to the next stop light to wait impatiently for the color change. I caught up to him again at the light and watched as he jumped halfway into the intersection when he thought the light was going to turn green but was only the turning lane. Then, with tires squealing in protest, he took off into the busy streets to never be seen again. Here is a sampling of his bumper stickers:

“Jesus loves you!”
“Proud Parent of ______ middle school honor roll student”
“_______ church”
“_______ for president”
Stickers showing he had 3 kids and a dog along with all their names.
Sticker of Calvin from “Calvin and Hobbes” praying in front of a cross.

Herman Melville in “Moby Dick” wrote, “It is better to sleep with a drunken cannibal than a sober Christian.” I think Herman had this guy in mind when he wrote that. I don’t think the children were too proud of their father at this point. I don’t think the presidential candidate was too happy to have his sticker on that SUV while it ran people off the road and cut people off. I especially don’t think that he helped the cause of Christians and his church by advertising that he was an insane driver.

Now I don’t want to give you the impression that Christians don’t and shouldn’t have flaws or are perfect. THEY ARE NOT PERFECT! Christians struggle like everyone else but just like the politicians they have to watch their every action because advertising that you are a Christian, which is what you are supposed to do, puts a target on your back. When you say you are a Christian people will search your life for inconsistencies and hypocrisy. I was embarrassed by the driver of the SUV. My anger at being cut off was turned into a different anger of the name of Christ (Christian) being dragged through the mud by this guy. He just made it harder for EVERY Christian with his antics. The truth is: Christians NEED to live a better and more consistent life than others because we are called to it and because we are being watched.

So watch your actions because they speak many times louder than your words.

Doubt

Ready for bed on a Service Project in a back-woodsy location, I remember lifting up the zippered flap of my sleeping bag and seeing a few cockroaches go scurrying for cover. There was no way I was now going to slip into that sleeping bag and get any sleep. I unzipped the whole thing and started flapping it to empty it from the cockroaches. I set it down again and found a few more, flapped it again, vigorously, and this time it passed inspection. Yet doubt lingered like those cockroaches lingered for me to simply fall asleep so they could invade the dark covers again. I didn’t sleep much that night.

“Hey, let me do that! I’ll make sure it gets done!” is a scary phrase for people in leadership. On one hand it is your job as a leader to make sure your people are competent and trained as well as giving them new opportunities to succeed. On the other hand it would go so much better if you just did it yourself and/or gave the job to the people who have done it before. When untried and untested requests taking on a job there is small cockroach of doubt that creeps into the covers. You suddenly just are NOT comfortable.

The key is to change that doubt into trust. We learn to trust certain people because of their history: what they have done for us in the past; because of their relationship to you: are they a friend or family; because of necessity: you have no other option. Schwartz says in “The Magic of Thinking Big” that “doubt attracts reasons for not succeeding.” When we doubt someone we have the equivalent of that creepy cockroach in our bed.

If you find that people don’t trust you, then you must ask yourself: “Am I trustworthy?” Have I done something that would signal to them that I am not to be trusted? What can I change to show I can be trusted?

If you find that you don’t trust people, then you must ask yourself: “WHY don’t I trust them?” Is it because they have had no opportunity before or is it because they have already proven themselves untrustworthy. Even if their past was untrustworthy, have they learned from their mistakes so that it is time to trust them again?

Doubt can destroy any company, church or family. Doubt is that nagging cockroach that gives you sleepless nights and paranoid exaggerations. I swear there was a 20 pound cockroach in my bed that night. Each night afterwards I would fully inspect my sleeping bag because I didn’t quite trust it until it proved itself again to me. I laugh at it now but after a few sleepless nights with huge cockroaches it begins to impact your life.

Remove the cockroaches from your life! Trust more and become more trustworthy! Only then can you sleep the good sleep.

85% Chance of Fogginess

We had a primary election last week and it seems that only 15% of our local population showed up to the poles to vote. That means 85% of the people who are eligible to vote decided to stay home, or to ignore the advertisements, or to simply thumb their nose at the process in protest. 85% chose to withdraw.

If that percentage held true throughout all of the US that means of the 300 million people we have only 45 million voted last week. For the season finale of American Idol there were over 65 million votes. Even America’s Got Talent and So you think you can Dance got more votes than did those in our primary. Now before you think this column is about complacency let me change tack here.

Alexis de Tocqueville told us in “Democracy in America” way back in the 1800’s that one of the dangers of democracy is “the tendency, when there is equality in conditions, is to withdraw.” In the Philosophical world when two philosophies to battle with each other and neither is a clear winner the tendency of the populace is to enter into a “so what?” kind of malaise. In the religious world Christianity thrives under persecution but when there is total freedom of religion the tendency is to become complacent and non-committal.

With five older brothers I learned to play baseball and basketball with kids who were years older than me. When it came to going to school and playing with kids my age it was a piece of cake, yet when I did my game suffered. I wasn’t challenged, I wasn’t growing, I was simply getting complacent and lazy.

As a compliment I think Americans are predominantly over-achievers. But we are over-achievers who have gotten everything too easily so we have become withdrawn, complacent, lazy and in some kind of foggy malaise. 9/11 shocked us out of this for about a year and then was gone. Katrina shocked us again for about 6 months and then was gone. Our politicians can’t win right now because they are simply trying to appeal to these over-achievers who are stuck in this fog.
It is time for a politician to take a stand, to have a backbone that is not bent by the latest wind but by some kind of conviction that is radical and earthshaking enough for us to push through the fog and vote. EVEN IF IT IS THE WRONG STAND TO TAKE! Did you hear me on that last one? Let me say it again: EVEN IF IT IS THE WRONG STAND TO TAKE! Because if you stand on something with backbone and strength it will cause me to take a stand against it with backbone enough to match yours; which would cause you to stand up again to defend and promote it; which would cause me to make my point clearer and more appealing, and so on, and so on. Cut the clichés, dump the doubletalk and speak clearly and concisely and STRONGLY for or against something. You will turn some people off, turn some people on but most of all you will help ALL out of our 85% chance of fogginess.

The Knife

I submitted myself to the knife again this past week. It was a simple outpatient surgery that knocked a few days out of my schedule. It is more of an inconvenience than anything else. I always struggle with the balance of putting up with the pain or putting up with the inconvenience of taking care of the pain. A little less than a year ago I put up with the pain after a softball injury left me with a swelled foot and pain for a few weeks. Most of the pain went away but a nagging nob of some kind never really did. It felt like I was constantly walking on a stone. I would wear good shoes and the pain would not show up until later in the day but barefooted (which is my normal summer state) was painful quickly and I grew to walking on the side of my foot instead of putting all the weight on the ball of my foot.

Enough was enough and it was time to have a professional check it out. After a series of x-rays and an MRI I found my bones were broken way back when and they had healed wrong. So I was walking on the wrong part of my bones and it was pressing on the wrong muscles and doing all kinds of other wrong stuff. Next step: surgery; or just shut up about it and deal with it. I had dealt with it for almost a year so now was the time for the knife to take care of it.

The knife. It is a useful tool and a destructive one. I have had many knife slips in my time; cutting me in places I was not supposed to be cut in. You could spread butter with a knife, slice your T-bone or use it to kill someone. What normally would be destructive: cutting into my skin, was now useful and necessary. I had to trust the guy behind the knife (that was after I had to sign a million consent forms and liability forms) I had to trust that guy could heal with that knife and not cause more destruction. We joked and laughed together before the surgery as he wrote “THIS ONE” on my foot with a Sharpie.

Now it is done and I am left with the healing pain after. Was it worth it? Time will tell but I am reminded of another knife that cuts both ways. This knife can be much sharper than any surgical instrument for good and healing but also can be as destructive as a Rambo knife when used wrongly. Only a few days before while in the waiting room I watched a mother’s interaction with her child. The child was being a child and running the room impatiently until finally the mother had enough and began yelling. “You get your little butt over here now or I will give you back to you father!” The pain in the child’s eyes was evident and the knife sliced.
My foot will heal but that child’s heart has a wound that will take more than time to heal. Watch out for how you use your knife for it is as sharp as a double-edged sword.

The Profundity of Staples

One of the reasons for this column, for good or ill, is that it gives me a chance to remove some of the post-it notes that are sticking to the inside of my skull. After a while they start piling up and simply need to be put on paper.

I used the last row of staples out of an old box today and I had to go to Office Max to buy another NEW box. Stop and think a minute. How many of you have actually gone through a complete box of staples? Most of the time you lose the box and have to get another one and then you lose that one before it is totally used up. Seriously, how many times have you scoured every junk drawer in the house for that box of staples you just bought? Other times you drop the box on the floor and all those nice neat rows of staples are busted into 5000 individual staples to be swept up and put into the garbage. I repeat; I used the last row of staples in a dusty old box today. I have a certain Monk-like pride in that. All is right with the world.

I can remember that box being available when the kids needed to staple a report for school or when my wife needed it for her church activities and I would find that box sitting on a table next to my borrowed stapler. I would try to keep my cool as I, through gritted teeth, reminded my wife and kids to put it back when they are done because it will get lost if they don’t. Just like their own stapler and box of staples that I bought for them a month ago that now is lost somewhere in the house. I repeat; I used the last row of staples today!

I can compare this to the odometer on my truck which turned 100000 last year. It is such a great number, all zeros. I stopped on the side of the road to just take it in as it happened. I searched for people to pull over and show it to but found none. So I called my wife and explained it as the phenomenal occurrence it was but I don’t think I got it through to her for some reason. It is almost the equivalent of an eclipse or visible comet with it’s rarity, but she didn’t quite grasp it and simple said “okay” and hung up.

My kids now get a kick out of taking one thing off my desk and causing me to go nuts trying to work while it is missing. I worry it might not get put back where it is supposed to be and I really can’t work well until it’s done. They laugh as I try to work because to me it is like trying to type without one of my fingers, or with 20 people in my room talking loud and distracting me. Without a place for everything and everything in it’s place I find the world slightly kittywampus.
I used the last row of staples today. My two hole punches and stapler are in place along with the tape, paper clips, scissors, extra pens, stamps, batteries and, yes, even post-it notes. All is right with the world and my efficiency is through the roof! I find profundity in staples, you may not, but my application to you would be simply this: find your groove.