The Turkey Purifies

To the contrary of the senseless christmas music rambling fury of commercial Alzheimer's, we are just exiting the Thanksgiving season in which we celebrate three of America's top ten things to do: Watch football, eat too much, and buy more stuff than we can afford.

In spite of the less noble traits of Thanksgiving, I am still appreciative of a holiday whose tricks a culture of spoiled children to say thanks at least once a year, "Yay, thanksgiving break!" God knows we need it like air.

I used to think Thankfulness was about being nice and showing other people you appreciate them, or at least to make them think that was the case. I was supposed to thank my aunt for that horrendous gift of a (not really) Lego set that won't fit with the real thing. Apparently the goal is to make her think that she is a good gift giver so she can continue to get me what she thinks is the perfect gift without having to try. Thank you for your sub par attention to my interests. I may have some baggage.

A friend recently talked about being thankful, continually, in everything, no matter what. I would argue with him, but the apostle Paul backs him up on this one, though I'm sure he would change his mind if he knew about my aunt and fake Legos. They didn't have fake Legos when Paul was writing half the New Testament. Paul said, "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Yeshua The Messiah among you."

That is powerful language. You don't throw around words like "everything" or "will of God" all willy nilly, especially if you're writing the Bible. There is something deeper at stake here.

I got thinking about this being thankful for everything bit and did a little experiment. For the course of about fifteen minutes, I tried to be consciously, genuinely thankful for every little thing I did or interacted with.

-Thank you God that my door opens.

-Thank you God that I have shoes to take off.

-Thank you God that you inspired people to create Pumpkin Spice egg nog.

-Thank you God that we have a couch.

-Thank you God.... for my smartphone.

-Thank you God that I can sit here and play a pointless game on my smartphone for a half hour....

....wait a second.

I tried to say thank you a second time, then a third. Something was hitting the ceiling.

It's hard to say thank you about a deficiency. While I may often enjoy my deficiencies like I love picking like a scab (don't pretend you don't do it too), I can't meaningfully say thank you God for my anger problem, thank you for strong hands to beat my wife with, thank you that I haven't ever had to do anything significant with my life. The reality is that there are things I can't say thank you for without stopping for a second to think, "Should I be thankful for that?"

There is something purifying about being thankful. Is it petty to say thank you for my iPhone or the time I waste on it? I'm not entirely sure, but if it is, should I even have it in the first place? Is it an issue of petty ungratefulness of a spoiled child, or is it something I can't show to God and say, this is an actual blessing in my life, thank you that I have it. Either way an inability to be thankful shows me something needs to change.

The things genuinely worth being thankful for are the things worth keeping in my life.

Something Worth Fixing

Relationships gain significance with time and experience. I have this emotional portfolio for everyone I know, filled with all sorts of random memories. Some people have a cover letter, explaining when and where I met them, and how that first encounter went. These are the people I rarely see, or talk to, or hear about. Then there are several dossiers that have so much piled into their slightly ripped and faded manilla casing that there is no way to go through all the information in one sitting. Hundreds of pages serve no memorable purpose, but add their collective weight to the manilla monstrosity, helping show that something about this file is very important.I am fortunate to have more than a couple of these very full dossiers.

Life currently finds me going through some of these files, realizing wrongs done and close friends left behind. There is some bridge repair that needs to be done, probably painful stuff, but these are the sorts of past experiences that have made these relationships worth building. There has been too much history to give up now.

A Way to Community... Maybe.

I'll be up front, I am stealing the foundation of this idea from Don Miller. I'll also admit that I have a man crush on him. But that is beside the point.

There are things that I do that I hate doing. These things always go bad. They are continually uncomfortable, even awkward. A year or so ago Miller wrote a post about making a list of things you will not do in the following year, sort of like an inverted list of resolutions. I made a list.

I won't try to recount my list for you because I don't remember what was on it, with the exception of one item: "I will not watch a movie with a group of people when everyone spends about a half hour deciding what movie we should watch." This always went poorly for me. Everyone would try to think of something, maybe throwing in some movie that they sort of heard about from a friend of a friend, or some obscure movie that took five minutes to explain why it was worth watching. I don't remember one time where I wasn't watching the movie thinking, I hope so and so likes this one, or man this really isn't as good as they said it would be. And so it made my list.

The reason I remember this one is because I have actually stuck to it, rather obnoxiously I might add. On several occasions, before anyone can halfheartedly recommend anything, I interject as if their words could destroy the world, and assign the task of selecting a movie to a specific person (usually the one who suggested we watch a movie). It doesn't matter what movie it is, so long as it isn't porn or something by hallmark. I trust my friends enough to know that they know me and the others in the group and can make mature adult decisions. After several experimental interjections I've found this method to be highly successful. Well, at least for me. Previously few were happy with the outcome anyway, a compromise of everyone's taste resulted in a movie that no one enjoyed.

I think why this works, and I think the point of what I am just now getting to, is that when people resign themselves in advance to the decisions of another person, there is a laying down of personal preference prior to the event. I think there is something beautiful in doing that that makes this process deeper than movies.

Community, real and deep community, happens when tell each other to pick the movie, when we look at someone and say, "Help me understand you and who you are, even if that makes me uncomfortable, or dare I say it, bored." I think when we do this in advance we open up a door in our being that allows us to really listen to someone else, and possibly even enjoy it.

I am guilty of trying to command the situation (e.g. telling someone to pick a movie). Even if I do let someone else drive conversation, I do it by guiding them with questions, instead of just listening what they have to say. When I do this, I'm hindering community. Maybe next time I should watch their life, knowing that someday they've agreed to watch mine.

What Makes Something Meaningful?

Let's cut to the chase. We want something honest.

Now that I answered my question, allow me to elaborate.

The most meaningful, and I would argue life changing, conversations I have taken in were not planned, organized, programized (new word), or taken from an outline in a book about having meaningful conversations. They snuck up on me as if I were an unsuspecting bird bathing under the supervision of some tiger like tabby cat.

These sorts of encounters only started to happen when I learned to be honest, and not in the generic I am human and have problems sense. I used to do that to make myself approachable and likable, and sometimes even 'spiritual', as if my generic issues made me qualified to understand grace. Until I learned to shame myself in front of someone and put myself in the position where they could justifiably wonder why they would want to talk to me, I didn't encounter much in the way of this sort of life changing heart exchange.

These sorts of encounters never happened in Bible studies. I'm not sure this was the fault of the Bible, or God, because most of my meaningful moments came back to Him and His thoughts. I think it has something more to do with what people do when they get in situations like that. You're showing up to this thing where you sit with a bunch of people you somewhat know with the intent of finding some deep spiritual truth that no one in the history of the world has discovered before in the course of about 30 minutes. What usually ends up happening is that someone asks generic questions that the verse just read obviously answers. If not that, then things head off on the most impractical yet divisive theological issues you can think of. I hope to never attend another Bible study again. On the other hand I very much hope to explore life through the thoughts of God, within deep relationships, many more times.

These sorts of encounters didn't always have a singular point. They sort of meandered around whatever God forsaking trouble I, or my co-explorer had got into, asking the whys and hows and how to get back to innocence. I don't apologize to say that not everything in life has to be a coherent, singular, point. Record your focused conversation sometime and see just how thesis like it really is. This doesn't scare me as much as it used to. I don't think this means that life isn't coherent, I think it just means that maybe the unifying theme is something deeper and more relational than a few tidy points. Maybe that's why we can't wait for the Bible study to get over so we can play cards and laugh together.

A Poem.

What the Waves Know.

He stares at waves he has seen before,

That he laughed at in innocence,

That he wondered at.

The waves wave back and play on the shore.

They recognize the man in the hat,

Who's gained one or two wrinkles

Since they saw him last.

He waits. He stares. Wanting more

Than their knowing furious silence.

He yells. They say nothing back.

The waves simply wave and play on the shore.

They play there knowing deeds present and past;

The things he's told them when the stars twinkle;

Things he now wishes he could take back.

He sits. He stares. Wanting more

Than their deserved insolence.

He cries. Yet -now comforted by a hand on his back.

The waves simply wave and play on the shore.

Now two wrinkled men sharing deeds present and past.

Laughing at the wonders of innocence,

and plotting together how they might get back.

The New Girl on the Block.

***Forgive the following illustration, it in no way signifies the state of my marriage.

Not more than thirty minutes ago I logged on to the digital neighborhood of the internet and stepped out to the edge of my street to check my mail. And there she was. There across the street was the new girl in my digital neighborhood. Her name? Google+ (I'm not sure what the whole + is about, but I figure if Prince can use an unpronounceable symbol for his name then she can use +). Intrigued, I walked across the street and introduced myself. I was casual and rather uninterested, though I was very interested. We were about halfway through a great conversation when I noticed a moving blur over her left shoulder, peeking around the edge of a house. Facebook. I felt a small sense of shame. I was faced with the reality of this new intriguing crush, while still relatively involved with the friend who had been there since I discovered what social networks were.

So here I am in this little love triangle, something's got to give.

All joking aside. I don't really feel like juggling TWO social networks, though I find them useful as a musician and a writer to connect with other musicians and give an outlet for my writing. There have actually been tangible real life relationships that have developed through social networks that I today consider very valuable. I've also found it a good forum for some great ideas to be shared.

So for now this is the plan. Probably going to keep up facebook, spend less time on it (like I already should) and check out + to see if it's going to be a benefit or a time waster. Honestly with the plethora of google items I already use (this blog for example). I'll probably end up in the latter circle (pun intended). That's the plan/guess.

On another note, I'm reminded again of the value of all this networking and whether or not it's a necessary (of course not) or good (maybe) thing. Investing in relationships isn't a bad thing (usually) but I'd rather not invest more time in mindless consumption of status updates, especially when I have a list of other reality based items I'd like to accomplish.

Anyway, hello google+, nice hair.

30 ft is Roughly 40 Years long.

The plane in this picture is travelling at just over 500 m.p.h.... toward my father and oldest brother. 0.1 seconds later it adjusted pitch by about five degrees and forcefully landed into a group of 50 or so people in the box seats in front of the grandstands, making a two foot deep by six foot wide hole in a military grade tarmac.

By pulling up, the pilot probably saved a couple of hundred lives, including my father and brother's, exchanging them for 9 others.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to be grateful.

My dad said he didn't have his life flash before his eyes. There was just an adrenaline induced silence ringing in his ears as he stared down the Mustang as it slashed it's four broadswords frantically, trying to scare the crowd away, then a sound like a bag of flower being dropped on a wood floor.

If you've seen saving private Ryan, this would be one of the scenes that teenagers would talk about the next day, only this time the effects weren't digital. It's funny how we try to make movies as realistic as possible, yet we wish that no one would ever have to witness something like this.

My brain always pulls me to a larger scale. I am comparing my fear of what this post could have been about, then to what it is about for people other than my father, then to what it's like to people in war torn countries or people who lived somewhere in Europe and might have been shot at by the plain that hunted down 9 more victims a few days ago. Ultimately, I place this in the context of history, and somehow this becomes normal. This is our normal.

For my dad, 30ft may mean 40 more years on terra firma. By comparison, the world and it's history is 7901 miles wide.

It took 2 seconds for the Galloping Ghost to call in a mayday at 50 feet, roll out of control, climb 100 or so feet, and come down another 152. Dad said there wasn't enough time to have his life flash before his eyes.

I feel grateful, yet unsure. There is something here I have to accept, that 9 people died instead of my dad. There is a tension there I don't know how to resolve. It's like someone is letting a jazz chord hang in the air, maybe something diminished, and I wait for the resolving note to come. There is a beauty in the chord, but the dissonance haunts me. It sounds like it's going to hang in the air for at least another 30 ft or so.