Miners, Makeovers, and Lives Reconnecting

* I'm super-pumped!  I've been invited to be a guest contributor to the Presbyterian Church's (USA) mission efforts.  Their Mission Crossroads program does a monthly podcast called "God's Mission Matters."  It's a great resource for anyone in the short or long-term mission field.  Anyhow, my job is to augment the podcast with a written piece focusing on popular culture.  Here's a draft preview of November's article. *

No doubt you have heard last month’s news regarding the rescue of the Chilean miners.  After two moths trapped beneath the surface of the Earth, thirty-three very happy, smelly, dirty, grateful men broke through the darkness into the waiting arms of family and trained medical staff.  The story is the stuff of Hollywood movies.  Tragedy and uncertainty all wrapped up in a happy ending.

Before the miners had made it to the surface, I was lucky enough to catch a story on NPR that focused on the miner’s wives.  As you might imagine, the women were distraught beyond belief.  To help the women through their anxiety and grief, they dispatched a team of experts to help them.

Beauticians.

Apparently, the lack of sleep and unimaginable stress wasn’t their only concern.  The dry air of the Atacama desert was wreaking havoc with their hair.  Their skin was dry and flaky.  Their tresses were parched an unmanageable.  Forget post-traumatic stress.  They had split ends for cryin’ out loud!

Of course, I am being overly dramatic.

The reporter in the story interviewed some of the hairdressers.  Not surprisingly, they viewed their role as that of counselor.  They were there to listen.  To comfort.  To support and sustain.  All the while, choosing the right cut to accentuate high cheekbones or bright smiles.

The wives were in a different position.  Every fiber of their being wanted to lend a hand to the rescue effort, yet there was nothing they could do to help.  But what they could do was make the pending reunion with their loved ones as special as possible - as if it needed any sweetener.    This was one thing they could control.  They took pains to choose a look they thought would be flattering, yet not change too many attributes of their appearance as to shock their spouses.

Now imagine you are one of the miners.  You are going through one of the most agonizing waiting game anyone could imagine.  As one , Mario Sepulveda  would explain it, “I was with God, and I was with the devil.  They fought and God won.”  The only words to describe what you’ve been through involve a Heavenly battle between good and evil.

Meanwhile,  less than a half-mile above your head, your wife and her friends are getting makeovers.

This only proves that it’s not the physical space that creates the distance.  It’s the experience.  So different.  So unexplainable.  Still, I can only imagine the exhausting joy that the families are experiencing now, growing together through separate experiences now shared.  Lives reconnecting.

And so it goes with mission work.  Certainly, I cannot be so bold to say that volunteer service in God’s name in any way matches the struggles of the miners.  Not even close.  That’s like saying my experience as president of my high school mathletes club qualifies me for a race for the White House.  But the analogy is worth exploring.

All of us who have embarked on mission work can attest to feeling at a loss for words.  How can we explain what we’ve just experienced?  Truly connecting with the divine.  It’s like trying to describe the taste of air or the smell of your own nostrils.  It has moved us.  Changed us.  Shaped us.  Tranformed us.  We want to shout it to the rooftops.

But we just can’t tell you what “it” is.

And when others ask us about our journey, they ask questions that seem so far removed from the depth of the experience.

“So, what was the food like?”

“Did you get to bathe?”

As if a description of rice and beans, and occasional mystery meat might be a window to the soul of service.  Such encounters can leave the missionary feeling misunderstood and alone.  We’ve been changed from the inside out.  An extreme soul makeover.  Tranformed.

They merely got a haircut.

And this can be very frustrating.  Until we remember something.

Though our insides have changed, our outside looks exactly the same to everyone else.  So everyone else seeks to understand as best they can, using references that would have applied to the person they knew before.  This support can seem so awkward.  Like getting a makeover while the lives of loved ones hang in the balance.  But that is where we must begin.  Because we have to recall what it is that changed us in the first place.

We were changed because we were willing to go outside of ourselves to experience another culture.  Another perspective.  Someplace foreign.  Only to find that God was there waiting for us in the faces of strangers.  Sharing a common love.  Nurturing one another.  Learning from one another.  Perhaps getting more out of the service than we have given.

The entire experience is about community.  Building mutual respect.  Sharing equally.  All in the name of God.

And so when we return, the mission continues.  We must have the courage to go outside ourselves to experience another perspective.  Lives reconnecting.  Finding God anew in the faces of people who now seem strange.  Sharing a common love.  Nurturing one another.  Learning from one another.  And allowing ourselves to get more out of the service than we can give.

Then, and only then, will we truly be transformed.

Dilemmas and Dream Crushing

* Warning:  The following post is rated PG.  * I’m a Dream Crusher.

That’s right.  A Grade A, number one killer of hope and inspiration.

Santa Clause?  Fake.  Easter Bunny?  Come on.  Tooth Fairy?  I used to think so, until I saw my grandpa take out a whole mouthful of teeth every single night and place them by his bedstand.  The guy never had so much as a penny to show for it.

It’s all bunk.

If you think that’s mean, we’ve only scratched the surface of my capabilities.

Eight years ago, after being laid off from my job when the dot-com bubble burst, I started my own business doing training and development work for corporations.  In the early days of self-employment, I spent a lot of time prospecting, but not a lot of time generating income.  During this time, Gabby worked as a manager at Dell, Inc. and supported us.  That year, my gross profits amounted to the value of an eight-year-old BMW.

Without air conditioning.

Or doors.

Gabby didn’t particularly love her job at the time, but she was good at it, and it brought us a nice income.  After coming home from our mission year in Guatemala, it wasn’t all that surprising that she didn’t rush right back in to her work helping to make millions of dollars for a large, global computer manufacturer.  Something in her gut told her she was meant to do something else with her life.  Unfortunately, unlike Gabby herself, her gut didn’t provide many specifics.

Eight years later, I’m the main bread-winner, and Gabby is the main child-rearer and all-around magician of our lives and schedules.  She volunteers.  She helps with my business.  She keeps us all sane.  Our existence as a family is generally very joyful and stress-free, thanks to my wife.

But her gut is still talking.  And it’s starting to get into the details.

Gabby has always had a way with people.  She is kind and generous.  She wants to be a helping hand for others, even when that help is kind of messy.  In fact, I think she prefers it to be messy.   She also remembers how she would have given her right arm to have had some medical training when visiting small villages during our year in Central America.  Both of us recall countless opportunities to truly change a child’s life for the better, had we only known how to provide basic care.

It’s pretty obvious to you where we’re heading with all of this.  Whether it’s divinely inspired, or simply a result of eating too much dairy, her gut has finally spoken.  She wants to be a nurse practitioner.  Caring for patients.  Healing the sick.  Doling out prescriptions.  Trying to make health care a better place for all of us.  Honestly, the miracle here is that it took seven years to figure it out.  This call to service that started as a seed years ago is finally germinating into a full-on desire to commit herself to helping others sustain the most precious gift we’re given by the Creator.

Life itself.

The good news is that we live in a city that boasts one of the finest medical training institutions in the country – Vanderbilt University.  They have specialized Family Nurse Practitioner programs that would allow Gabby to take an accelerated track to earning an advanced degree that fits her skills to a “T.”  Unfortunately, there are no other programs of this kind in the city where we live, and it costs as much as a new  8-Series BMW.

With a chauffer.

Holding a briefcase full of money.

Bring on the Dream Crusher.  Call from God?  Nope.  I think it’s the dairy talking.  For the past week, I have been visibly antsy when we talk about this latest turn our lives have taken.  Rather than display excitement that Gabby may have found her true calling in life, I am agonizing over the price tag.

I know.  I’m a barrel of laughs.

This must simply be too purposeful for me, the Accidental Missionary.  Dedicating your life to service.  Finding a way to make your work something meaningful.  Developing yourself so you can help the Great Physician do the work that miracles miss.

We’re now facing what my friend Joe would call an honest-to-goodness dilemma.  A dilemma is not a choice between two alternatives where one is obviously right.  No.  A dilemma is a choice when both seem to have equal merit.  Think of how many people those tens of thousands of dollars in tuition payments could help.  Then think of how many people that trained medical professionals can help.  Especially ones who feel called to work with underserved populations both at home and abroad.

It’s a dilemma.

But is it?

It’s only a dilemma in the way I have defined it.  It’s not like we would liquidate our savings and give all of our money away if Gabby decides not to pursue this calling.  Could we?  Sure.  Would we?  I’m a little to “of this world” for that to happen.  At least not tomorrow.

What if we don’t have enough for retirement?  Lord knows our mission year set us back quite a ways.  When you make $260/month, there’s not a lot left over for savings.  Or even Ramen noodles.  Now, with Gabby staying at home with the kids, we’ve gone from being DINKs (Dual Income No Kids) to SITCOMs (Single Income, Two Children, Outta’ Money).  As Gabby will tell you, staying home and working for the kids has a great benefits package, but the pay sucks.

And what about those kids?  We should help support them by saving something for their college education, right?  This new plan could slow down our savings there.

And what about our life as we know it?  There would be lots of changes.  Scheduling hassles.  Gabby studying at night.  I might have to scale back business travel to be around for the kids when Gabby needs to be at school.

When we get right down to it, it’s only a dilemma because I am scared.  Scared of losing the staus quo.  Scared of sacrificing a good chuck of our retirement nest egg.  Scared of debt and the stress it can bring.  And I worry about all of this even though we haven’t even made a decision, she hasn’t even applied to the program, and we haven’t even investigated all of the alternatives.  Gabby even admits she may take her first prerequisite and realize it's not for her.  I’m worrying ahead of schedule.  It appears this is the only thing I do that doesn’t get a healthy dose of procrastination. It’s premature Dream Crushing.

And why am I worried?  I view money as security.  It’s one tangible way that I can maintain some semblance of control in a chaotic world.  It affords us comforts and flexibility.  If I have it, then I can conceivably handle anything the world throws at me.

If I don’t have it, then I have to rely on, well…

God.

Sounds like a dream.

Kids, Cops, and Breaking the Jesus Rules

I love my kids.  More than words can express. Please remember I wrote that.  Because I’m getting ready to do some Grade A complaining about them.

If you haven’t met them, allow me to paint a picture.

Jake is four.  Audrey is two.  They both talk incessantly, and at an extreme volume.  We’re not talking about a little bit of chatter and the occasional scream.  That’s other peoples’ kids.  The annoying ones.

With our kids, we’re talking about the "if-I-hear-that-kid-say-another-word-I’m-going-to-rip-off-his-tiny-little-fingers-and-pierce-my-own-eardrums-with-them” kind of loud.  I have inflicted pain upon myself just to get away from their high-decibel yappers.  Nearly suffocated myself under a pillow.  Hot.  Dark.  Sweaty.  Lack of oxygen.

It was worth it.

Gabby recently picked me up from the airport after I had been on a business trip.  Jake and Audrey were doing their normal Abbott and Costello routine, turned up to 11.  They were giving me a migraine, so I pulled out all the stops.  I offered them a special treat if they could be quiet for one minute.  Just 60 seconds.

Their longest silent stretch was four seconds.  I timed it.  Four seconds.  Though they were in the back seat, they talked as if they were trying to have a conversation in the front row of a Miley Cyrus concert.

Impressive.

Gabby and I have found that the only real relief is to join in the conversation before they start to argue.  My recent tactic is to use our traffic time as an opportunity to teach the kids their numbers.  There are numbers everywhere.  Even out in the middle of nowhere.

“Tell me what numbers you see, kids?”

“There’s a three!” yells Audrey.

“That black and white sign says fifty-five, daddy!” shouts Jake.  “ What does that mean?”

“It means you can only drive fifty-five miles per hour, son.”

On a recent trip to Ohio, I was unfortunate enough to get pulled over for speeding on I-71.  My excuse is that I was distracted by the kids and their incessant blathering.

The cop wasn’t even in his car.  He was just standing beside his cruiser holding a radar gun.  He waved me down while I was still a tenth of a mile away.  It hardly seemed fair.  Kind of insulting, really.  If I’m going to break the law, I’d at least like for you to give me a good chase, like an episode of Cops.  This was the police equivalent of a self-checkout at the grocery store.  I pulled up right next to him, rolling my window down. Audrey screams from the back,

“Daddy!  Why is that police man standing at our window?!”

I know it sounds like an innocent question, but it was incredibly embarrassing.  I am avoiding eye contact with the officer, who is looking down his nose at me with great disapproval.  I was going 20 miles over the limit.

In my defense, it was a speed trap.

How to respond to my two-year-old?   I had a couple of options.

Option A:  I could confess my traffic violation in the presence of the nice police man.  This alternative gave me the willies.  I grew up Catholic, and the idea of confession scared the holy shnikeys out of me.  By the rules of God, you’re supposed to do your first confession in the 3^rd or 4^th grade.  Must be in the Bible somewhere.  Anyhow, I played sick for an entire semester of Sunday School to avoid it.  I was confession-free until the 8^th grade when my Catholic guilt finally got the best of me.  By then, I had accumulated four more years of sins, which equated to an additional 45-minutes in the humiliating, non-sound-proof booth opposite Father Mikliska.

Confessing is not my strong suit.  What was the alternative?

Option B:  I could answer “I don’t know, Audrey.”  Thereby, leaving it up to the nice police man to tell the kids what a menace to society that I am, and how I had placed their lives in jeopardy with my reckless behavior, and how if I speed too much they can lock their daddy up in jail.

I chose option A.  Stopping just short of Jimmy Swaggart tears, I played it soft,

Menace:  “Well Audrey.  The police man pulled me over.”

Jake:  “Why daddy?”

Menace:  “I was driving too fast.”

There goes my chance at pleading “no contest” or arguing that his radar gun was mis-calibrated.  Thanks kids!

Jake:  “Why were you driving so fast?”

Menace:  “I don’t know, Jake.”

Audrey:  “What’s he doing?”

Menace:  “He’s writing me a ticket.”

Audrey:  “A ticket!?!?! ”

She said this with unbridled enthusiasm, confusing this ticket with the slip of paper that allows you to enter an amusement park.  Or the colored slips of paper they give out at the YMCA with bible verses on them.

Menace:  “No Audrey, not that kind of ticket.”

Jake:  “What’s it for?”

Menace:  “It tells what I did wrong.  It tells me I have to pay a fine.”

I would have bought them matching Ferraris for their 16^th birthdays just to get them to stop talking.  There is no way that would have worked.  Jake, still yelling over the howl of an imaginary jet engine called out,

“What’s a fine?”

Menace:  “Daddy has to pay money to the police department because he broke the rules.”

Jake:  “Oh.  That’s not good.”

Menace:  “No it’s not.”

Jake:  “Why were you driving so fast?

And so continues the circle of questioning.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Gabby smiling.  For once, she didn’t have to be the bad guy and comment on my driving.

Now Jake has a new number game.   First, he looks at all of the speed limit signs and reads them aloud.  Next, from his prime viewing angle in the right rear passenger seat, he compares the posted speed limit to what he sees on my speedometer.

“Daddy!  The speed limit is 45 and you’re driving 60!  Slow down!”

“It’s OK Jake.”

“No it’s not!  You’re going to get a ticket!”

“OK, Jake.”

And so it has been for every single car trip since I started teaching the kid his numbers.  I almost wish he were an imbecile who just sat around and ate Elmer’s glue.  But no.  He’s Rainman.

This past Saturday, we were coming home from a shopping trip.  The car in front of me was driving very slowly.  Far below the speed limit, in my opinion.  As it exited the highway, it straddled both left turn lanes.  I couldn’t pass him, and the light was green.  So, as soon as he got over far enough, I sped around him and tried to make the light.  It clicked to yellow.  To stop, or not to stop?

Traffic laws state that stoplights have seven colors.  Green.  Yellow.  Yellow-pink.  Yellow-orange. Yellow-red. Just-Turned-Red.  And Been-Red-For-Awhile.  You may proceed with caution with all colors except Been-Red-For-Awhile.  Look it up.  I promise.

As I drove through the “Just-Turned-Red” light, Gabby gasped in disapproval.

Jake:  “What happened?!”

Gabby:  “Daddy just drove through a red light.”

Jake:  “You’re going to get a ticket, daddy.”

Menace: “No, I’m not going to get a ticket, Jake.”

Jake:  “But you broke the rules!”

Menace:  “I know Jake, but no police were around to see it, so I’ll be fine.”

I see Gabby wince.  She gives me a look that spoke volumes.

Is that really what you want to teach your kids?  That it’s OK to break the law so long as no one is watching?

I am not proud.

Then Jake verbalizes what she’s thinking.

Jake:  “That’s still bad, Daddy.  The next time you see a policeman, you need to tell him what you did.”

Menace:  “I will, Jake.”

The next day, I neglected to take the kids to their second straight day of the “Music and Molasses” festival.  First, because Gabby and I were worn out.  Second, because there are a slew of mounted police at the festival, and I would have had to confess to every last one of them, lest my yapping kids rat me out.

But this begs the question.  Are there some rules that are OK to break?  Just because something is against the rules doesn’t automatically make it bad, right?  And vice versa.  Just because something is legal doesn’t automatically make it moral.  For all of us, this is a tough call.  Navigating the gray area.  And, if you’ll allow me to go out on a limb here, it can be even tougher as a parent, when your every waking moment is being watched by a tiny little person that will likely emulate anything you do.   I’d rather teach them how to count.

Take this example.  Let’s say I wanted to start a business selling drug-free urine to people who were having trouble passing the good old fashioned drug test.  Guess what?!  In all but 13 states, it’s not illegal.  In Tennessee, they’ve outlawed synthetic urine sales, but you’re free to sell all the real pee you want.  Still, if Jake and Audrey became budding entrepreneurs and wanted to start selling their own “liquid gold,” I’d probably advise against it.  Not against the law, but it doesn’t feel right, either.

And what about this one.

A few years ago, Gabby and I volunteered with a group called No More Deaths.  They leave bottles of water, sometimes even 55-gallon drums full of water, in the desert in an effort to stop the deaths of desperate immigrants illegally crossing the border.   Hundreds of them die each year crossing the deserts of Arizona, literally baking to death.  Seems like the humane thing to do, right?  However, these humanitarians have been arrested for littering.  Granted, all have been acquitted using the defense that “How is giving a dying person water illegal?”  Even so, the debate rages on.  I know what side of the fence I fall on that argument, and I know what I would tell my kids about this one, but I’m not naïve enough to think that my position is shared by everyone, even my close friends.

So, which rules should I follow?  Which rules should I bend or break because I think Jesus would do it, too?  That’s a pretty tough question to answer, especially since the Hebrew-In-Chief  isn’t here today to weigh in on the drug-free pee debate.

Something tells me he might not give me a straight-up answer.  Instead, he’d speak in a parable.  He’d probably save a good one for me.  Like the story of the man who did everything right, but Jesus asked for one more thing, “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. Then follow me.”

Oh.

Can you run that by me again?  I think I’d rather just obey the speed limit and limit my littering, thanks.

Living by the Jesus rules?  That’s the tough stuff.  The guy doesn’t give you a lot of wiggle room, does he?  He’s always there.  Reminding.  Prodding.  Challenging.  He wants me to put my money where my mouth is.  Literally.  But that’s easier said than done.

And that’s why  I think he’d probably describe me the same way I describe my kids.

“I sure do love him.  More than words can express.  But he’s a lot of talk.”

Pizza with Einstein

This weekend I am reminded that one year ago, I competed in the Urbanathlon.  It was one of those things I wasn’t sure I could do.  One of those things that makes you nervous.  A real challenge. “What’s an Urbanathlon?” you say.

Well, the Urbanathlon is a 12-mile footrace through the streets of Chicago, complete with “urban obstacles.”  This includes running through and jumping over monster truck tires, climbing monkey bars, hurdling beams that are five feet off the ground, running the steps at Soldier Field, jumping over taxi cabs, and scaling an 8-foot wall.  Apparently, these are all things that Chicago’s urban population must do while walking to school or work.

Glad I don’t live in Chicago.

I had seen an advertisement for it in Men’s Health, the magazine that sponsors the race.   Making small talk, I made the mistake of telling my brother Jeff about it during a family gathering.

Stupid.

As my sister says, Jeff “looks like somebody won him in a raffle.”  The guy belongs on the cover of Men’s Health, or featured in an ad for underwear.

I, on the other hand, once drew a stick figure of myself on the cover of the magazine, and own lots of underwear.  Some of it could even be called “vintage.”

As soon as I mentioned it, my brother got really fired up for the race, and I got caught up in his enthusiasm.  He said, “Man, that would be really fun!  I have an old fraternity brother who would be up for it, too!  We could do it as a 3-man relay team.  That means each of us would only have to do 4 miles plus obstacles.”

Jeff’s fraternity brother, Todd, makes my brother look like Chris Farley when it comes to fitness.  When my brother called Todd about the race, his reply was,

“I don’t know.  I usually don’t do races that short.”

And he was talking about the full 12 miles.

Todd is an adventure racer.  You may have seen them on TV.  These are the nut jobs that team up with other screwballs to try and cover as much rugged terrain as they can in a 12-24-hour period.  Using only a compass and a map, they hike through mud, carve their way through dense brush, bike up mountain trails, scale cliffs, raft on rapids, and set their own broken limbs.  I believe they get bonus points for eating  granola made from twigs and burrs, and starting a fire using only some wet bark and the heat of their steely-eyed gaze.

After some coaxing, Todd was in.

We arrived in Chicago the evening before the race.  We registered, checked into our hotel, and went out for a meal.  As is the common wisdom of all elite athletes, we opted to do some “carb-loading” before the race.  This consisted of 3 slices of deep dish pizza for each man, and 3 pitchers of beer shared among us.  I’m fairly certain that this is the same pre-race meal eaten by Lance Armstrong when he is out in Chicago with his fraternity brothers, and he’s preparing to watch the Indy 500.

When we awoke the next morning at 6:15am, it was a tropical 36 degrees outside.  I say “tropical” because the air felt as moist as the inside of a dog’s mouth.

When he’s sucking on ice cubes.

Five minutes before race time, it was 39 degrees, and sleet was falling from the sky.  Luckily, I was responsible for the first leg of the race.  This meant that I would be able to work up a sweat on my four miles of the course, while my brother and Todd waited patiently, freezing their pectoral muscles off at their checkpoints.

As worked up as I was about the race, it ended up being a non-event.  About two miles into the run, I found my groove.  The monster truck tires were a large, yet manageable bump in the road.  I got a second wind just as I arrived at the checkpoint to make the hand-off to my brother.  I passed him our timing chip, and he was off like a rocket.

When it was all said and done, we finished 76th out of 405 in our age bracket.  I wish I could take credit for our top 18% finish, but I was the slowest member of our team.  Given the fact that I was also the youngest member, it’s even more pathetic.  My brother ran like a gazelle and worked the monkey bars like Curious George.  Todd ran the steps at Soldier field like he was riding an escalator.  He literally left it all on the course, stopping just 20 yards shy of the finish line to deposit his breakfast at the feet of a lucky spectator.  I think I’d rather catch a foul ball at a baseball game, but I guess that’s the kind of souvenir you get when you watch an endurance race.

Afterward, we decided to celebrate with some more pizza and pitchers.  The place we found was a bit like Cheers, with regulars coming in just to hang out.  We found a table surrounded by televisions, ordered our food, and discussed the morning’s race.  As you might expect, our conversation focused on Todd’s over-the-top performance.

As we spoke, a guy lumbered in.  He looked like a homeless Albert Einstein.  He was disheveled, with his long wool coat bearing stains from long ago.  He carried a shoulder bag filled with knick-knacks.

The regulars saw him coming a mile away.  They didn’t make him leave, but they didn’t respond to his small talk, either.  It seemed that he was their bothersome gnat – something annoying to be tolerated.  He attempted to start up a conversation with a few folks, but was ignored.

He approached the bar and ordered a beer.  When the bartender brought him his glass, he paid for it using a handful of change.  In my head, I repeated my mantra:

“There’s no such thing as ‘worthy poor.’  There’s no such distinction. Everyone is worthy.”

All the while I wondered how many handfuls of change this man had poured into a pint glass.

Our pizza arrived, which distracted me from the man.  When the waitress laid it on the table, it was the size of a cheesy manhole cover.

We were dishing up our first slices when the man walked past our table with his glass of beer in hand.  He paused and asked, “How are you boys doing?”

“We’re fine,” we answered, all hoping the conversation wouldn’t get long and awkward.

“That pizza looks good.  I love the stuff.  Lemme’ know if you don’t finish it.”

We made some reference to being from out of town, enjoying the Chicago-style pie, etc, etc. etc.  He said a few more things and sauntered off to a booth twelve feet away.  He sat there sipping his beer, mumbling from time to time, singing along to the jukebox, and watching people come and go.

The bartender came over and asked, “Is that guy bothering you?”

“No,” we replied in unison.  “He’s fine.”

“Just let me know if he gets to be too much.”

We chatted some more, laughed some more, and ate until we nearly burst.  I looked down and saw we still had a couple of slices left.

For some reason, my mind went back to my childhood.  I saw an image in my head of my mother.  She was scolding me for bringing home a stray dog, which I had lured onto our front porch with pieces of ham.  He was a good-sized dog, too.  Like a German Shepherd.

“You feed a dog like that, and he’ll never leave.  It’s just trouble.”

Sure enough, that dog got into a fight with my little dog.  Treated him like a chew toy.  I thought he was going to kill him.  Luckily, I was able to scare the dog away with some yelling and a well-aimed tennis shoe.

But Einstein wasn’t a dog.  He was a human being.  A human being who liked pizza.  From a purely mathematical perspective, it just made sense.  We had two slices.  He had none.  We didn’t need any more food.  He did.

I approached the bartender and asked for an extra plate, napkin and fork.  He didn’t say a word, but gave me a knowing look.  The same one my mother uses.  And my wife.  It must be in a book somewhere.

Faces of Disapproval, by Ima Woman.

I loaded up the pizza and carried it over to the man.  He was scribbling something in a notebook he had pulled from his knapsack.

“Oh!  Thank you so much!” he said.  “That is very kind of you.  It looks delicious.”

“Yes, it’s really good.” I said.  “Enjoy.”

As much as I would have liked to create a connection with this man, the reaction of other people in the bar made me question this.  If they had been so pestered by him, there must be something about him that makes him a bothersome guy.  So, I cut our conversation short, and went back to our table.

My brother, Todd and I watched some more football and enjoyed another beer at the restaurant.  We were basking in the glow of our 76th place finish, and killing time before our flights.  As we chatted, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.  The man stood up from his seat and approached up once again.

Oh brother.  What have I done?

Einstein came over to thank us for the pizza.  He made small talk, asking us where we were from.  Why we were in town.  When we were leaving.  We talked for a couple of minutes, wondering where this conversation would lead.  He would ramble a bit about random subjects.  There were lots of long, awkward pauses.  Then he said,

“Do you mind if I take your picture?”

He swung an old camera off his shoulder, and held it in his hand.  It looked like a toy from the Nixon administration.

“Sure!” We answered.

It was dark in the restaurant, but as he clicked the photo, there wasn’t any flash.

“So, where should I send it?” he asked.

“Send it?”

“The picture!  Where should I send it when it gets developed?”

We all sort of looked at each other.  Should we give him our address?  Maybe not.  I thought it might just be safer to give out a fake address, like the girls I used to meet in high school who would give me their phone number.  When I would call it, it would be some bank’s time and temperature information line.

Todd grabbed a napkin.

“Sure!  Here you go!” and he wrote something down and handed it to Einstein.

The man thanked us again, and went back to his table to finish his meal.  When he left, we asked Todd what he had written.

“I gave him my mom’s address.”

“What?!”

“Yeah.  We’re building a house now, so that’s where my mail is getting sent for the time being.”

We all joked how there wasn’t any film in that guy’s camera.  How it was all a ploy to get personal information.  Now Einstein was going to show up at Todd’s mom’s house someday, looking for some pizza.  Worse yet, he would steal Todd’s identity and ruin his credit.

Stupid.

When the man finished his meal, he simply waved and walked out of the restaurant.

Fast forward three weeks.  I am seated at my computer and receive an email from Todd.  The subject line reads:  “You won’t believe this.”  I flashback to Todd giving his address to Einstein, and half expect that his mom has been abducted.  I gotta’ check the police blotter in Springfield, Missouri.

But when I open the email, I see this:

Urbanathlon pic - A black and white moment

Urbanathlon - the enclosed note card 2

A photo.  A note.  And a homemade business card.

I was floored.  We didn’t even think the guy had film in the camera.  Heck.  We didn’t even think the camera was real.  Now, here it is.  A dark, blurry picture of three friends who didn’t have a clue about the guy behind the lens, who calls himself “Z.”

I had gone to Chicago to do one of those things I wasn’t sure I could do.  One of those things that makes you nervous.  A real challenge.

And that’s exactly what I got.  But it wasn’t about the race at all.  That’s the way God does it sometimes.

I saw a side of myself that makes me nervous.  The side of me that judges.  The side of me that gets it dead wrong.  The side of me that misses seeing Jesus in others because I have simply forgotten what He looks like.  Ordinary.  Carpenter.  Vagabond.  Loner.   Radical.  Blessed.

Child of God.

Built To Last

Ten years is a long time.  There are many durable items that testify to being “built to last” that can’t survive intact for more than a decade.  For example:

• Snow tires
• Cheap roofing
• Exterior paint
• Weather stripping
• Egg Beaters (even from the freezer.  Trust me)
• Gift cards from JC Penney (don’t even get me started)

Exactly ten years ago today, Friday the 13^th, 2000, I met my wife, Gabby.  Luckily, the event was chronicled by a professional photographer.

It started like this…

No, that is obviously not us.  That lovely couple is Jason and Candice Hicks.  They chose to get married on Friday the 13^th, and invite us.  Jason was a former college roommate of mine, who moved to Austin, TX.  He worked as an engineer at Dell.  That’s where Gabby met him.

I know what you’re thinking.  If you meet someone on Friday the 13^th, you should probably just call it quits after the first date on principle.  Nothing good can come of that, right?  But, given that our friends were courageous enough to commit their lives to each other on that date, then we could at least share dinner and a movie.

When we got to the wedding reception, I noticed Gabby right away.  She was incredibly hot, in a sophisticated way.  Great smile.  Great haircut.  Nice ears.

Note:  Apparently, at this same time, Gabby was checking me out.  Her assessment was slightly different.  She told her friends, and I quote,

“He looks cocky.”

She arrived at the reception with three other folks, Summer, Dev, and Jeannie (pictured here L to R).

I automatically assumed she was there with Dev, due to her level of hotness, and the fact that Dev can bench press a Volvo and drink protein shakes fortified with nails and concrete.

Undeterred, I asked around about the hot chick.  The first person I questioned was this guy.

I know.  He doesn’t look like a trustworthy source.  My analysis skills had been slightly dampened by two glasses of wine.   That’s my friend Jamie.  An Irishman who worked diligently this night to live up to the Irishman stereotype.  The open bar helped.

Jamie said, between sips of lager, “That’s Gabby.  She’s been dating some guy for 8 months.”

Problem solved.  I gave up on the idea of Gabby, and immediately moved on to plan B.

Dancing like an imbecile (pictured here).

After a few more beverages, I decided to ask Gabby’s friend Summer to dance.  In retrospect, this probably was not the wisest move when trying to woo a woman.  To this day, I still hear about my questionable decision making skills.

As the evening progressed, I was approached by Jamie once again.  In his lovely Irish accent, he informed me (shocking!) that his previous assessment of Gabby’s relationship status may have been incorrect.  In fact, she had recently dumped the guy she was dating, and, had Facebook been around back then, her status would have been “Available, but not looking.”

But something told me she might be easily persuaded to dance. (pictured here)

I plotted my next step, which involved showing off my latest dance move.  I call it “Rhythm-less Man with Broken Arm”.  (pictured here)

I use it to take women’s attention away from their own groove.  You can see how well it’s working.

Finally, the music slowed, and I made my move.  I was nervous.  Sweaty.  Talking too fast.  Hoping that the rapid-fire words would shock her into submission.

I guess it worked.  I don’t remember the song.  Only that it was very long.  “Stairway to Heaven” long.  “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie” long.  And like most conversations, the length of the song was amplified by our awkward chatter.

But it didn’t matter.  I was hooked.  (pictured here)

Who else has a picture of the night they met their wife?  How lucky can one guy be.

The rest of the story goes like this.  We left the reception early to go dancing downtown.  Once there, I thought she left me, so, I asked Summer to dance again.  The problem?  Gabby had only gone to the bathroom.

When she returned, she asked, “So, do you want to dance with me, or with Summer?  ‘Cause we’re friends, and I don’t want to play those silly games.”

“I wanna be with you,” I answered.

And that’s how it remains.  Summer married a guy named Tim, and they have two beautiful boys.

As for Gabby?  The next day, I dragged Jamie along with me to meet her friends for lunch.  Two days later, I sent some roses.  Three months later, I was moving to Austin.  I tell Gabby that it was because I had a new job there, but she knows the truth.

Accidental?  Maybe so.  But whether it’s accidental missionary work, or accidental relationships, some things are just meant to be.  Sometimes you meet someone who makes you a better person.  Someone who challenges you to be more than you could be alone.  Someone whose giant heart teaches you about friendship, generosity, love and service.  Things that are built to last.

And today, I’m just thankful.

Bad Dogs, Death Alley, And Lessons Learned on the Farm

Let me make this perfectly clear. I am not a farmer.

Sure, I had a Fisher Price Little People Farm Set, complete with plastic cow and sheep. Unfortunately, I forgot to feed them and they were sent to live on a real farm at a day care center somewhere nearby. I also forgot to tend the crops, and the neighbor kid turned the plastic field into a skateboard ramp.

Needless to say, when someone chooses to spend their days toiling in the Earth, herding cattle, or milking goats, I just don’t get it. They are self-selecting hard work. And it’s hard work you have almost no control over. You could plant the best crop in the world, and it could get washed away by a terrible storm. You could provide top-notch feed for your cattle, and they could still catch Mad Cow disease and die. Or worse yet, they could actually survive, maybe with just a mild case of Slightly Irritated Cow disease, and you would be forced to do more arduous labor, butchering them and turning them to burger.

Yes, I’m lazy. This typing is hard work for me. I think I’m getting a wrist cramp.

But farming? That’s real hard work, with no guarantees. That’s what makes my brother-in-law Owen such a curious specimen to me.

About seven years ago, he and my sister-in-law moved their family from suburban Houston to a farm outside of Columbus, Ohio. They went from mowing a postage stamp yard, to owning a 10-acre farm. Gone were the neighborhood pool and bike riding on the sidewalk. They were replaced with a creek-fed pond and horseback riding.

The land is absolutely gorgeous, especially now in fall. The weather cools and the trees look like exploding tubes of paint, every shade of red, orange and yellow. Behind the house, the ground has a gentle roll, fading into forest along the creek. Next door is a field of soybeans. Across the street are stalks of dried corn as thick as the hair on Alec Baldwin’s noggin.

But even Owen will admit that the idea of the farm was quite different from the reality of the farm. When they first moved, they casually named the place “Harmony Hills Acres” or something like that. Several months later, we arrived for a visit. He joked with me that they should change the name to “Chaos Reigns Ranch.”

Runoff from the nearby animal farm was causing thick algae to form in his pond, making it challenging to keep it in use as a swimming hole. Some of the roosters were sexually harassing the hens. Turkeys would get out of their fenced-in area. They had to buy an Epi pen due to a series of bee stings suffered from a honey harvest gone bad. The goats found their way into a storage area and ate the vast majority of their cardboard boxes. Not the contents, mind you, just the boxes. All that remained were random semi-stacked cubes of stuff, spilling out onto the floor. Apparently, goats can be finicky.

And then there’s Bear-Bear.

Bear-Bear is a three-year-old Australian Shepherd. He’s the kind of dog that makes vets want to prescribe Prozac.

From the moment Bear-Bear stepped on the farm, he was trouble. He would bark incessantly during the night, for no apparent reason. He would chase cars. True to stereotype, he also chases the mailman. Last winter after an ice storm, he ran out in front of the garbage truck as it came barreling down the road. The driver, not wanting to kill a family dog, slammed on his brakes and nearly skidded into a ditch. All the while, Bear-Bear stood his ground like a protest student in Tienamen Square.

Bad dog.

Random animals were turning up dead, like a bad horror movie. Baby chicks. Roosters. Turkeys. Rabbits. Nothing was safe. It turns out that nearly all of the murders were committed by Bear-Bear, doing a Freddy Kreuger impersonation. A darn good one.

Since no one wants to eat a chicken that already has dog bite marks in it, the victims of Bear-Bear’s killing spree ended up buried in a place on the property that the kids referred to as “Death Alley.”  It became quite a cemetery. Lots of plots. No headstones.

Had Bear-Bear been mine, I would have sent him to “live on a farm,” as they say. The problem is, he was already on a farm. Even Owen was inches away from putting the pooch on Craigslist, but for some reason, he never pulled the trigger.

And I’m speaking figuratively, of course. Please don’t call the PETA on me.

Several months ago, we went to the farm for a visit. When we arrived, Bear-Bear barked at us from behind the fence, temporarily constrained from chasing cars or chickens. In the latest attempt to rehabilitate this devil dog, Owen had tried an old farmer’s trick, tying Bear-Bear’s latest kill, a duckling, around the dog’s neck in hopes that the ever-present smell would drive him nuts, and he’d never want to do it again.

It didn’t seem to be working. Bear-Bear eyed my children like an NFL lineman stares down the #4 Value Meal at Mickey D’s. Probably due to the fact that we pull out every trick (and treat) in the book to keep them quiet on a seven-hour road trip, so they were sweating pure high fructose corn syrup from their pores.

Anytime I went in the back yard, Bear-Bear would accost me and try to push his way through the gate, so he could chase God-knows-what or dig through a garbage can. I would use my size 11 to not-so-gingerly move him out of the way. I considered taking him for a long nap back in Death Alley.

Bad dog.

Perhaps the worst thing about Bear-Bear had nothing to do with him at all. He was now the only dog left on the farm. Owen used to have another dog. Another Aussie named Paco. With sincerest apologies to my own current and childhood pets, Paco was perhaps the best dog in the world. A loveable, huggable, loyal companion that seemed to anticipate everyone’s needs for thirteen years. He was like Radar O’Reilly from M.A.S.H., only with a cold, wet nose.

Unfortunately, on that summer trip, Paco had to be put down. He developed a kidney infection that couldn’t be cured, even though Owen would have spent a mint to save him.

And now, Bear-Bear is all that’s left.

Worthless.

When we pulled out of the driveway after that trip, I knew that was also the last time we would see Bear-Bear. There is such a thing as too much hard work, even for a farmer. And Owen had tried every trick in the book.

Fast forward three months.

This past weekend, we went to Ohio once again, to enjoy fall color on the farm. When we pulled into the drive, we were greeted warmly by the family. The whole family. Even Bear-Bear. I half expected he would have been shipped off to Timbuktu. But here he was. But he wasn’t jumping. He wasn't barking. Just an excited greeting, and licks on Audrey’s face.

Was this the same dog?

We took our bags inside and enjoyed some laughs and good conversation. Bear-Bear came into the house with us. Granted, his paws were a little muddy, but he behaved himself for the most part.  I still held a grudge, though, like the guy at the 20-year reunion who meets up with the bully who used his Fisher Price Farm Set as a skateboard ramp.

The next morning after breakfast, we walked outside, and there was Bear-Bear again. I half expected him to jump on me and knock me over like a bowling pin. Instead, he licked Audrey’s face for a small taste of her breakfast, and then left her alone. Then Owen noticed something and began calling to him in a low tone, “Os, Os, Os…” (Oso is “bear” in Spanish)

Bear-Bear sprung to action. The goats had miraculously gotten out of their pen. They had gritted their teeth and powered through the electric fence. All to eat the same variety of grass that was in their pen to begin with. But they were sure to spread more destruction. No boxes are safe with them around.

And then, quick as a yellow light, Bear-Bear jumped in front of them, herding them back into the barn as they baaahed in disapproval.

When Bear-Bear was done with his chore, he came bounding back toward us, happily. Then Owen chimed in.

“Yeah. Who woulda’ thought? After all that I’ve been through with this stinkin’ dog, chasing cars, killing chickens, nearly causing a garbage truck to drive off the road in an ice storm. All I had to do to break him was to pull another old farmer’s trick. Hold him in my arms, lay him on his back, and carry him around like that for a while. Now he listens to everything. He’s an awesome herding dog. He can’t stand for those goats to be anywhere besides where they are supposed to be, and he pretty much leaves the chickens and ducks alone. He’s not perfect, but he’s learning.”

I joked how that was the exact technique that Gabby used to get me to do what she wanted around the house.

Then I looked down at Bear-Bear. He was sitting patiently, looking up at Owen, waiting for his next call to spring to action.

“Yeah. Glad I didn’t give up on him,” Owen finished.

And that’s why I’m not a farmer.

It takes commitment. There is no giving up. Me? I have a closet full of excuses, and a rented storage unit packed with “should have’s.” Those are tools that have no use on a farm.

Because here was a dog that spent his life chasing rabbits down random trails. Making a mess of things. Irritating neighbors, mailmen and bus drivers. Destroying lives and property. Apparently doing all of those things because he didn’t understand who was in charge, and didn’t really know who to listen to, so he just listened to his own tiny brain. Didn’t do him a lot of good.

Then, the farmer picks him up and holds him. Day after day. Legs splayed in the air. Totally vulnerable. Totally unable to move, lest he fall to the ground.

Then one morning, he gives up the fight and gives in to the idea that he’s not in control. It took all that effort for that Australian Shepherd to realize that he wasn’t built for self-serving behavior. Nope. He was built for service. Even his name says so.

And that’s my prayer today. To let go. Give up control, and just serve without question. Till then, I’ll be here in the farmer’s arms, laying on my back, still flailing madly, praying to God he doesn’t give up on me. ‘Cause I know I’ve got some more to give.

And a lot more to learn.

Cups of Sugar, Connectedness, and The Heavenly Library

When I was a kid, one of the most cringe-inducing phrases in my house was “Scotty?  Come here!  I need a favor!” Ugh.

I would stubbornly set aside whatever mission-critical project I had going – usually making faces in the mirror, practicing the Moonwalk, or defacing friends’ pictures in the school yearbook - to go help Mom.  She would be standing in the kitchen, elbow-deep in some recipe that she was anxious to get on the table by 6:00.  In my house, dinner time was 6:00.  Every night.  Not 6:01.

6:00

I don’t care if you just broke your collarbone, suffered a ruptured kidney, and collapsed a lung while playing “Tackle The Man” with your friends.  You’d better have your buddies drag your sorry carcass home by 6:00, and then be ready to use your one good arm to help set the table.  So sacred was the 6:00 ritual in my house that, much to Gabby’s irritation, I still get a little antsy if we aren’t setting out the plates by 5:58.

But enough about my neuroses.  Back to mom.

Mom’s request was usually due to some poor planning in the food prep department.  She’d be on step 4 of an 8-step process to make some crazy pie, cake, or casserole of questionable origin.  That’s when she’d realize we were fresh out of some key ingredient.

“Could you go to the neighbor’s and borrow some sugar?”

So, armed with an empty, stainless-steel measuring cup, she would send me to survey the neighbors in search of whatever we needed.  I don’t know why it bothered me.  Maybe it’s because I felt like I was intruding on someone else’s space?  Maybe I just lacked confidence?  Maybe I was just afraid to ask?

The funny thing is, it didn’t matter whose house I was visiting.  It could be Mrs. Cunningham, the mother of one of my best friends.  A woman who I saw nearly every day.  A woman who once picked me up from school when I was sick.  A woman who loved me enough to warn me not to eat that plate of Long John Silver’s fish sticks after she picked me up from school.  A woman who still loved me even though I puked up those fish sticks all over her new carpet in the hallway.

No matter who I went to beg, I still felt nervous, even though I was never turned away.  Whether it was Mrs. Cunningham, Mrs. Lewis, or Lamar, the truck driver from across the street, they always welcomed me in and gave me what I needed.  Then, I would take the hour-long walk home, stepping painfully slowly like that Tim Conway character from the Carol Burnett show, trying not to spill a single granule of sugar.

Ah… the memories.

One day, I hope to pass on the joys of the “ingredient walk” to my own children, much as I have already passed the mantle of “can you bring me the remote?”  Handing down the tradition of household chores ranks just below “Seeing my kid cure cancer” as one of the pleasures of parenting.

But things seem a bit different today.

Is it just me?  Our neighborhoods seem more spread out.  Our houses are bigger.  Our lives even seem busier.  I never remember needing a day planner when I was seven.  But today, you can buy one at Target with a Thomas the Train theme.

This all makes us appear to be a bit more distant.  Those tight neighborhood relationships that happened by accident now must happen on purpose.  In the past, living close by someone meant you were close to someone.

Though I’m much more confident now, I feel more intrusive than when I was six.  Borrowing a cup of sugar would seem odd, somehow.  Borrowing a lawn mower or a Weed-Eater?  I might feel like I needed to bring a contract with me.  It’s not that people are any less generous than before.  It’s just that we seem less connected, even though we’re connected by technology more than ever.

I now carry my mailbox in my hand.  I literally make phone calls to friends from my pocket.   We can download e-books.  This whole concept makes me feel old.

And I’m only 37.

That’s right. Now you can get your Judy Blume in digital form.  But it’s not the same.  A good book, especially a kid’s book, is like a fine wine.  Wine is more than just grapes.  It has hints of oak, citrus, and gooseberry from being aged in just the right barrel.  A good book is more than text.  It needs to have hints of stale milk, kid sweat, and shepherd’s pie from being aged in the school library.  That’s the book experience.

But I lost it long before I had my smart phone.

Before we went to Guatemala, Gabby and I were living in a bit of a bubble.  Or, shall I say, a bigger bubble than we live in today, complete with a man cave.

We were DINKs (Dual-Income, No Kids).  As DINKs, we actually had “extra” money.  Today, we’re SITCOMs (Single-Income, Two Children, Outta’ Money).

Back in the DINK days, we would go out on dates and eat at restaurants that didn’t have neon menu boards or place mats you could decorate with your own crayons.  We would have genuine conversations.  We would go shopping, often at book stores, where we could browse the shelves for hours on end.  We would find interesting titles and add them to our home library.  We had shelves of books.  If someone told us about a really cool author, we’d just go out and buy their latest novel.

Then something happened.

Like that “Frozen Man” that they discovered in the arctic not long ago, we rediscovered that Prehistoric relic called the public library.  And it was like we’d stumbled upon the greatest discovery since canned beer.  What makes it so great, you ask?

The library is where yesterday lives.  The yesterday you love.

If you haven’t been to a public library recently, I would highly recommend a “Stay-cation.”  New libraries can be quite palatial, filled with story times, children’s plays, and special events.  It’s kinda’ like Disneyland, without the rides and somewhat frightening, mute, globe-headed cartoon characters.

And the smell.  I wish they could bottle that smell.  The smell of books.  I love it.  It brings back memories.  Good memories.  In fact, it’s hard to think of any bad memories of the library.  Probably tough to find anyone who hates the library.  Or the smell of the library.  It’s probably because we associate that smell with something Heavenly.  Something bigger than us.

Consider this:  If the library could talk, what would it say when you rang the doorbell?

“Hi!  Come on in!  Want a library card?  All you have to do is prove that you live somewhere nearby.  No application.  No drug test.  No judgment.  You’re a member, just because God put you on the planet.

If you’re homeless, come on in and use our computers.  In fact, we have folks who will help you find a job if you want one. For free.

Need help doing your taxes?  We have folks to help. For free.

Want to hear a story?  We’ll read one to you.  Or, you can read one yourself.  But there are limits.  You’ll somehow have to make do with only 25 books at a time.

And one DVD.

And three books on tape.

But if you don’t return them on time, there are penalties.  Ten cents per day, to be exact.  We can’t have people just running off with all of our stuff.”

I can’t even get a piece of bubble gum for a dime anymore.

There is something very comforting about this.  In today’s world, where we often lament the loss of connectedness, the loss of grace, and the loss of sanity, there exists this place that stands in stark contrast to it all.  It’s a living reminder of the virtues of generosity.  Trust everyone.  Give outrageously.  Expect nothing in return.  Do it not because you have to, but because making yourself and all you have available to everyone is just the right thing to do.

This is how we love our neighbors.  But it’s not just in the giving.  It’s in the sharing.  Not only do we give of ourselves to help someone else, we also open ourselves up to receive.  There is something very closed and protective about refusing hospitality.  We must not only give of ourselves to help others, but allow others to give to us, and through their own giving, feel the fullness that comes from offering without pretense.

Recently, Gabby took Jake and Audrey to have “lunch with friends” again at the soup kitchen.  They arrived early, and had the chance to chat with the folks who were already there.  Jake and Audrey both brought games with them.  Jake brought tic-tac-toe and a card game.  Audrey brought a wooden puzzle.  They sat and played with their new adult friends who were waiting for lunch.  Making friends.  Making connections.  Sharing.

As they were leaving, a man approached Jake, holding a toy truck in his hand.  Definitely a bit unexpected.  You don’t expect to see a homeless guy with a kid’s toy.  Looking toward Gabby he asked, “May I?”

She nodded.

The man just thought he would like it.  A homeless man.  Giving a gift.  Not wanting anything in return.

Jake lit up like the Griswold’s yard display at Christmas.

So did the man.

And there is our community.  Giving.  And receiving.

It’s powerful.  It’s Heavenly.  It’s Divine.

So, my prayer today is that I can be both the giver and the receiver.  To answer the knock at the door, or better yet, anticipate it.  And to knock on the door myself from time to time.  To ask and receive.

To borrow that cup of sugar.

Sounds pretty sweet, doesn’t it?

Scott's Saturday Chili Explosion

You know how some smells can bring back memories no matter where you are?  I don’t know about you, but I have some time-tested scents. The smell of a fire in the fireplace takes me straight back to Oklahoma winters, laying on the floor of the living room with my legs perched on the hearth, warming my feet after playing outside in the snow.

The musty, earthy  smell of a grocery storage area takes me back to walking the aisles of the day-old Wonder bread store when I was a kid.  The whole place kinda’ smelled like that.  It was a happy time when bring home a loaf of cinnamon bread was a real treat.

And then there’s the smell of banana chips.  Back at Surrey Hills Elementary school, the janitor had this industrial-strength cleaner, which is probably now banned in all 50 states due to the fact that it caused kids to grow extra limbs.  Anyhow, the sole purpose of this pungent, banana-scented cleaner was to clean up after anyone got sick on the commercial-grade carpet.  So now, anytime I smell banana chips…

Well.  You get the picture.

After yesterday, I have a new memory smell.

Chili.

This week was one that begged for a weekend.  I was busier than busy.  I was stuck on planes.  I was feeling run-down.  Saturday was going to be the cure-all.  We had virtually no set plans.  The freedom felt intoxicating.

I woke up on Saturday filled with expectations.  This was going to be a perfect day.  Gabby and I were going to start the morning by volunteering with the kids, helping tend the community garden at our local middle school.  Next, I planned to come home and do a quick furniture repair project to fix up a friend’s table that was damaged in this summer’s flooding.  Then, I’d make a batch of chili.  When the weather cools off, I look forward to making vast quantities of soups and stews and storing them in the freezer to keep us fed through the winter.

To cap off the day, we were planning to head out to Arrington Vineyards in the evening.  Take the kids out there, meet some family and friends, and lay out on the grass with a picnic while listening to our buddy’s jazz band.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?  Perfect, in fact.

But that’s not how the day would go.

Breakfast went well.  We were able to mobilize the kids and get them out of the house quickly.  This is no small feat.  We planned on working at the garden all morning, yet another opportunity to teach the kids about service.  We arrived to volunteer by 9:00.

Audrey started whining at 9:01.

She asked to go to the bathroom at 9:02.

No bathrooms nearby, so, at 9:03, Gabby held her aloft behind the car while she peed in midair to avoid a repeat of the “zoo pee debacle”.  Yeah.  Don’t ask.

The kids proceeded to get filthy while Gab and I worked.  I spent an hour or so shoveling dirt, sifting through it to extract old Bermuda grass, and dumping the dirt loads into raised beds.

By 10:15, the Audrey was losing it.  Rather than subject the rest of the volunteers to our screaming, whining kid, we left around 10:15.

I started my little furniture project at 11:00.

By 11:21, I had mis-cut four table legs trying to be creative, and ruined all my materials.  A huge waste.

At 11:30, I gave up on the project, berated myself for screwing everything up, and went in to contaminate my wife’s good mood.

By noon, we had finished lunch, and I had successfully irritated Gabby.  She left the kitchen while I made chili. Here’s where things started to turn the corner.

Every artist has a medium.  Some use pastels.  Others use water color.  Oils.  Sculptors work in stone.

Me?

Ground beef.

By 2:00, I had concocted what was sure to be the world’s best batch of chili.  By the smell alone, you could be transported back to some pioneer’s chuck wagon.  Minus the nearby scent of manure and open latrines.  I took one last taste of the brew, and hit the couch to watch a little football.

After a short nap, I woke up and realized we needed to get the kids ready for the evening entertainment.  Time to mobilize again!

Before dealing with Jake and Audrey, I had to clean up the kitchen.  I went to my pot of chili and loaded it into four, quart-size Tupperware containers.  I labeled them all with the date and the contents, to distinguish them from the current supply of spaghetti sauce in the freezer, and tomorrow’s batch of chicken tortilla soup.

It was a good-sized load of chili, but we were in a hurry.  So, I balanced the four containers and began the journey from the kitchen, through the living room, and eventually out to the garage refrigerator.

Unfortunately, the door to the laundry room passage into the garage was closed.  So, I cradled the four containers under my arm like a chili newborn and opened the door.  Once I had the door open, I let go of the knob and reached for the stack of Tupperware.  As I brought the mountain of chili out from underneath my armpit, the Earth started to spin at twice the speed it normally does.  At least that’s my excuse.

I zigged.  The Tupperware zagged.  And time froze.

Two of the containers were airborn.  In an attempt to save the plummeting  chili, I released the grip on one of the safe quarts that was still in my hand.  Unfortunately, I am not a ninja, so my less-than-cat-like reflexes served only to punch the falling container toward the washing machine, while the newly dropped one fell unfettered to the hard tile floor.

If I had a video, I imagine it would have looked like that episode of The Office where Kevin's brings his famous chili to work.  Absent of a true visual, allow me to explain.

The resulting impact was a steaming-hot, rust-colored explosion of liquid gastro-intestinal distress splattering in all directions like some edible Fourth of July fireworks display.  Sauce sloshed onto my pants.  Beans peppered the wall like cover fire from an automatic weapon.  Chili oozed out in every visible direction.

I may have said a bad word.

Gabby heard me and came rushing in, “Are you OK?”

Then she saw what had happened.  I was fuming.  Again, mad at myself.  Then the kids came running over.

“Daddy, why did you do that?!”

Gabby wisely told them, “Kids, let’s leave daddy alone right now.  He’s busy.”

She went off to grab some spare towels while I surveyed the damage and speed-dialed BP’s emergency response team.

Chili was oozing underneath the washing machine.  Sauce was splattered everywhere.  Kidney beans and ground beef were caught in the air conditioning vent covering the floor.  The whole room smelled like a Frito Pie.  If I had my wits about me, I probably could have seen the outline of Jesus’ face in the resulting spill.

Or Jim Caviezel.

But I wasn’t paying attention to that sort of thing.  I was more concerned about the mess I had made.  I spent the next 30 minutes scooping beef and beans into a bucket, cleaning out the vent, and sopping up the orange-y sauce with towels.  I moved the washer and dryer to see what was happening underneath.

Imagine, if you will, 18-months worth of laundry room dust-bunnies swimming in a pool of chili.

Appetizing.

I put the finishing touch on the room with a bleach-soaked mop and cleaned myself off.  Powerful scent, the chili and bleach combo.  Needless to say, we were a bit late getting to the Vineyard.

The Vineyard was a nice distraction.  It took my mind off of the day’s disasters.  After a short, yet wonderful evening listening to jazz while eating a picnic in the cool fall air, we arrived back home.

Eager to wash the smell of failure and stupidity off my body, I took a shower while Gabby unpacked our cooler.

Clean and dry, I put on some comfy clothes and walked toward the living room.  Gabby and I planned to watch a bit of TV before bed.

On my walk to the couch, my foot slipped on a wet spot and I nearly fell on my keester.  The floor was soaked.  I wondered, “Why would Gabby have mopped the hallway?  With water?   It’s a wood floor?”

“And why does it smell like chili again?”

“And laundry detergent?”

Then I turned on the light.

The hallway was covered in a half-inch of water.  It was rushing in from under the doorway into the laundry room.  Gabby came over again.  “What’s happening?!”

We looked in the laundry room, where Gabby had started a load of towels just 15 minutes before.  The chili-soaked towels from earlier in the day.

The wall behind the washing machine was soaked.  Apparently, when I had moved the washing machine to clean up the chili mess from before, I had forgotten to connect the drain back to the pipe in the wall.  So, for several minutes, our washing machine had been spewing light orange, chili flavored waste water onto the back wall of our laundry room and out into our hallway and closets.

And the rinse cycle was just beginning.

I quickly shut off the machine, and we got to work on the damage.  Forty-five minutes and seven towels later, we finally had it under control.  We had to pull up the carpet in the closet, and bring out a fan to dry off the area.  We just hope the floors don’t buckle.

So, let’s get a scorecard for the day, shall we?

Volunteering cut two hours short.

Furniture repair materials ruined.

One mostly wasted pot of food.

One chili explosion.

One minor flood.

And the smell of chili still lingering in the air.  The scent of expectations unfulfilled.

Sounds about right for a Saturday.

What had started as a beautiful day filled with promise turned into a reality that was quite different.  It happens sometimes.  In fact, it happens most times.  We get these grand ideas about how our day might turn out.  How our career might pan out.  How our kids might choose to live out their lives.

But expectations aren’t reality.  Expectations are a man-made measuring stick by which we judge our own success or failure.

Sometimes expectations are useful.  They propel us forward to achieve goals we might never be able to reach otherwise.

Other times, expectations are poisonous.  When they cause us to question our own worth, or our own capabilities.

I remember very well our missionary experience in Guatemala.  I went into the situation hoping – no, expecting – to change the world in a year.  I would touch hearts.  Make my mark on the world.  Maybe even save a life.

In reality, I spent a lot of time with Guatemalans, sharing God, and learning just a little bit about what it is like to live in poverty.  The experience wasn’t nearly as productive as my expectations.  But was that bad?

No, it was just different.

Whether I’m examining my service or my Saturday, I have to recognize that what is most important is the heart with which I approach them both.  Whatever the situation, if I bring the best of who I am and contribute the best I know how, then the results are those that God intended, whether they meet my expectations or not.

And, that experience will teach us something.  So long as we look for God’s hand in whatever it was, rather than focusing on the mess we’ve made.

And so, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go enjoy a bowl of chili.  The only one left.  The smell reminds me of a Saturday.  A Saturday that turned out just like it was supposed to.

Can't See The Money For The Leaves

Since the dawn of time, man has been musing about how cool it would be to have a money tree, in some form or another.  Prehistoric man wanted a tree made of wheels.  Bronze Age man wanted a tree made of carving tools.  Disco Age man wanted a tree made of Polyester leisure suits.  Whatever the most valuable form of currency at the time, man has wanted it to sprout from the earth naturally, in an easily-harvestable seed pod. Do me a favor and watch this video.  Then, come back and we’ll chat, shall we?  It’ll give me a chance to take a potty break.  And if you’ve read the blog, you know how critical that can be for me.

(pee break)

Welcome back!

Crazy, huh?  I don’t know who’s more fun to watch.  The people who take genuine delight in finding a dollar?  The people who totally ignore the tree?  The guy who notices the dollar on the ground, but fails to look up at the other hundred fluttering above?

Fascinating.

I’ve mentioned in a previous post how I have a tendency to get wrapped up in my internal monologue, and tune out the rest of the world.  I get very distracted.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake ten years ago of admitting to my wife that this also happens while driving.  She interpreted this comment to mean that she had carte blanche to nag/rebuke/comment on anything I do behind the wheel.   I know.  It sounds exhausting.  But somehow she manages to notice everything.  She’s over-achiever.

In fact, for Lent one year, unbeknownst to me, she gave up making negative comments on my driving.  Anytime she wanted to nag me about my seat belt, tailgating, or lack of turn signal, she would simply replace her frustrated comment with a simple “I love you” followed by a smile.

For forty days, every time we were in the car together, it was as if someone was incessantly yanking a pull string on her back.

Start engine before clicking seat belt.

“I love you.”

Back out of driveway and nearly clip the trash can.

“I love you.”

Fail to come to a full stop at the end of our street.

“I love you.”

Luckily, my internal monologue kept me from noticing how odd this all was until Easter, when she let the cat out of the bag.  I just thought she loved me.

Very much.

Yes.  I am easily distracted.

If I walked past a money tree, I would likely be the guy who didn’t see it.  Ironically, it wouldn’t be because of my internal monologue.  It would be because I also don’t tend to notice details.

Back in high school, I didn’t date a whole lot, but I was lucky enough to have a couple of serious girlfriends.  I had been going out with one particular girl for four months when I took her on what seemed like an innocent outing to the park.

We swung on the swings.  We walked barefoot in the grass.  We drank half-price Happy Hour limeades from Sonic.  It was perfect.

Until.

She turned her head, smiled, looked up at me, and closed her eyes.  Then she asked,

“What color are my eyes?”

“Blue?”  I hesitated.

I was wrong.  They were brown.  I wasn’t even on the same side of the color wheel.  Four months.  Yep.  Four months.

Needless to say, we didn’t make it.

And you think a guy would learn, right?

Gabby and I have been married for eight wonderful years.  She is the light of my life.  The honey in my tea.  The waxy chocolate on my Hostess cupcake.  We have shared the most intimate moments of our lives together.  She is the mother of my children.

She also has a beautiful tattoo on her ankle of a Japanese kanji which means “Spirit.”  However, If she were maimed in some freak farming accident and the authorities called me on the phone and asked for identifying markings, I couldn’t for the life of me tell you which leg that tattoo is on.

But I can, without hesitation, tell you where the shopping cart was invented.  (Oklahoma City, OK - 1937)

It’s not one of my more endearing qualities.

So why is this?  Why is it that I can remember some obscure facts like they were burned in my brain at birth, and other things just slip past my consciousness.  I mean, I have spent a lot of time with my wife.  A lot!  Much of it while her ankle was exposed, and other more distracting parts covered.

Why?

Because we tend to remember things that have meaning for us.  They are significant to us for one reason or another.

I remember the shopping cart detail, because it was invented in my home city, and, let’s face it, there aren’t many things about Oklahoma City that constitute bragging rights.  Unless you’re talking to someone from Arkansas.  Or North Dakota.

Yep.  I wear that Okie shopping cart as a badge of honor.

I also remember that my wife has a tattoo.  It’s part of her, and the image has meaning for her.  “Spirit.”  She’s the embodiment, so I remember.  I remember the color.  The shape.

Which leg is it on?  Frivolous detail.  But I know the tattoo.

The same holds true for the things we notice.  Even a detail-challenged guy like myself notices things.  It’s human nature.  We notice.  Especially the things we’re fixated on.  The things we're looking for.

Notice how you rarely see a particular make and model of car on the road until you’re thinking about buying one?  Then you see them everywhere.  I never gave two hoots about a Honda CRV until we actually bought one.  Now, it’s like they’re haunting me.

As a first-person blogger, it should come as no surprise to you that I often fixate on myself.  So, if I overhear someone say my name, I notice.  If my name happens to appear lettered on a street sign or painted on an overpass, I notice.

When Gabby and I finally decided we would spend one year of our lives serving in Guatemala, we noticed advertisements touting the wonders of Central America all over the place.  License plates from Guatemala.  We noticed.   Guatemalan dishes on restaurant menus.  We noticed.

What about the Money Tree?

Internal monologue or not, I would probably notice.

As a self-employed guy, I spend a considerable amount of time thinking about money.  Fixated, in fact.  Worrying about money.  Wondering about money.  How can I get more clients so I can make more money?  Do we have a solid emergency fund?  Are we saving enough for retirement?  Would life be easier if Gab went back to work, even if it meant not staying home with the kids?  Is $2.79 a good price for a box of Cookie Crisp?

I didn’t say they were all important thoughts.

And I worry about this, having lived for a year with a family that has no indoor plumbing.  A family that can’t afford to buy basic medicine.  A family that makes $200/month.  And that’s a good month.

Why do I worry at all?

I live in the wealthiest country on the planet, and enjoy the best standard of living the world has to offer.  Fifty-percent of the world lives on less than two dollars per day, and I’m wondering if we should cancel our Netflix subscription.  The sad yet hopeful truth is, I am blessed and burdened with having far more than I can use at any one time.  More food.  More space.  More stuff.

Ridiculous.

Today, my prayer is that I fixate on what’s important.  Let me notice the small things.  Let me simplify.  Let me relax.  Give me a peaceful heart, realizing the blessing that I live among community and family that will never let me go hungry, and never allow my family to be without a warm bed or solid roof.

And let me remember that I already have a money tree.  I hardly notice it at all, because it’s tucked away in my pocket.  Hidden behind wants disguised as needs.

So today, I pray for an unselfish heart to share more than I think is reasonable, and more often than I think is possible.

‘Cause generosity doesn’t grow on trees, you know.

How to Catch an Atheist

I finally did it.  I went fishing with my brother-in-law, Victor.  He had invited me to go with him more times than I can count.  And, I had denied him for a year and a half.   I chalk it up to a strange psychological disorder, where I saw this as some weird way of exacting revenge on all the girls who had turned down my requests for dates, dances, or homework help back in high school. Much like those girls who would have loved to go out with me had they not had previous commitments, (i.e. family reunion, detention, appendix surgery, or a date with a more attractive guy) I just couldn’t work it into my schedule.

Maybe I was just avoiding something?

Intimidation.

Victor isn’t any ordinary fisherman.  Victor is a fly fisherman.  There is a big difference.

Ordinary fisherman like me see fishing as a diversion – something you do when you happen to be near a body of water.  But you don’t let it get in the way of you enjoying other near-water activities such as sun-burning, rock-skipping, beer-drinking, or making a fake duck beak using two Pringles potato chips held between your lips.

Fly fisherman are a different breed.  They come with accessories.  Wading pants.  Waterproof boots. Vests with secret pockets.   And let’s not forget the army of flies.  Flies for catching brown trout.  Flies for sunny days.  Flies for fast-moving water.  Flies specially made for fishing when the Democrats control the Senate, but are in danger of losing their majority.

Me?

I had a Syrofoam container full of dead night crawlers, a raw hot dog, and half a bag of frozen corn.

There was no real question who was going to catch the fish that day.  The only item up for debate is whether or not I would take an afternoon nap in the truck.  Victor said several times, “Scott.  This is an ALL DAY thing,” giving me plenty of opportunity to back out.

One of the best surprises was that my dad came along with us.  Any chance to hang out with my father is pure gold.  I got really nostalgic, thinking of all the times my brother and I went fishing with my dad growing up.  We would wake up at the crack of dawn, go find some pond, and he would spend his vacation time getting barbs stuck in his cheek, calf, and back, just to spend some quality time with his boys.

My dad is perhaps the best kind of fisherman.  On the inside, dad is an ordinary fisherman like me.  He feels much more comfortable using processed meat as bait.  However, on the outside, he looks like a fly fisherman.  Thanks to a Bass Pro Shops gift certificate, he has all the accessories to look the part.

So, Victor, Dad and I drove 90 miles at the crack-o-dawn to a special spot on the Caney Fork river.  We arrived in darkness, and the river was enveloped in fog.  Standing knee deep in the frigid water, Dad looked incredible.  I was proud to even be next to the guy.  It was like he’d just hopped out of an issue of Field and Stream.

Unfortunately, this issue of Field and Stream came tangled up in miles of fishing line.  Dad spent an hour-and-a-half trying to tie a fly on his line and cast it ten feet in front of him.  It was like looking at a drawing of Pig Pen from the Charlie Brown cartoons, only the curls of dust were tufts of nylon string that left a never-ending aura around my father.  His spirit was unflappable, though.  He stayed with it until the sun came up.

By then, Victor had already caught three fish, and I had already switched my bait from dead worm to corn, both equally unsuccessful.

Just before lunch, dad improvised by tying a fly onto a regular fishing rod, and skewering a worm onto the fly’s hook.  It was pure fishing artistry, as the functionality of his creation was seriously called into question.  Still, he caught a fish on his second cast.

Fitting.

But I was still a big goose egg.

We had lunch and traveled to a second spot, just below the dam.  There, we were surrounded by a couple dozen other fly fishermen.  I continued to fish using random items from the side order menu at Applebee’s.  Still, no luck.

Dad reprised his role of Pig Pen in nylon, until finally making his way into the water.  There, he quickly lost his footing and fell ass-over-eyeballs into the 55-degree water.  After his impromptu swimming adventure, he called it quits for the day and headed to the truck for a nap.

Meanwhile, Victor stood in the middle of all of the best fly fisherman in middle Tennessee, and proceeded to pull an entire Mrs. Paul’s fish stick factory from the river.  He was quietly shaming every last man and woman that stood waist deep in the water.  It was a sight to behold.  Fish after fish, while everyone else looked on.

Seeing all of his success, I decided to try my hand at it.  I unwound dad’s line and waded out to the middle of the river.  I mimicked the fly-fishing motion, trying to make the fly lightly touch down upon the top of the water.  Victor coached me.

“It’s a light touch.  10 and 2.  Snap your wrist.  You wanna’ just let the line float out there while the fly just lands ever-so-gently on the water.”

Easier said than done.  But at least it wasn’t corn.

I was enjoying myself, but I still wasn’t catching anything.  After an hour, Victor sympathetically called out, “You wanna’ try my pole?”

This is like asking someone if you want to drive their Rolls Royce.  The answer is “Yes.  I really wanna’ drive.”  The reality is that you are scared to the point of pooping your pants, praying to God that your insurance is paid up and you don’t crash.

Victor and I swapped fishing poles, and I began to cast with his fly rod.  Five minutes.  Ten minutes.  Thirty minutes later.  I still looked like a guy with a broken leg trying to tap dance.

Not pretty.

I said, “one more cast.”  It was 3:30.

I let the line drift out, and the fly like hit the water like a handful of gravel thrown into a bathtub.  Still, I let the fly float downriver to complete the cast.

As the fly reached the point where it was time for me to reel it in, I said, “Well… I guess that’s it for th…”

I pulled on the line to reel it in and felt a tug.

“You got one!”  Victor’s eyes were the size of Frisbees!  He said, “I am sooooo glad you caught a fish.  I was going to be so disappointed if you had come home empty-handed.”

I would like to say that I fought the giant trout for 20 minutes.  In truth, I fought it for a bout 30 seconds.  It was the size of a well-stuffed enchilada.   Victor grabbed the end of my line and hauled the fish in.  “Let me take him off the line.” he said.

Part of me thinks that Victor might have seen something I didn’t, and that’s why he wanted to take him off the hook.  Maybe I hadn’t really caught the fish with bait, by the mouth, but rather, I had snagged him.  Caught him drifting by.  A fish in the wrong place at the wrong time, minding his own business.  I probably hooked him in the spleen.

If fish have spleens.

And then, just as Victor had done with every single fish he caught that day, he looked at it.  Admired it.

And then he let him go.

It was a great day of fishing.  100 degrees outside.  55 in the water.  It was where we were supposed to be.

And so it is with us.

If we call ourselves Christians, one of the jobs we sign up for is that of fisherman.  We’re supposed to go out and try to encourage people to sign up to play for Team Jesus.  I think the Good Lord himself even asks us to be “fishers of men.”  Rain or shine.  So how do we do this?

Let’s make it a multiple choice question, shall we?

1.        What’s the best way to convert someone to Christianity?

a.       Plant churches in far off lands like some kinda’ U.S. Government subsidized Jesus farmer.

b.      Corner him/her in the pet food aisle at Wal-Mart, and among the stacks of Ol’ Roy dog food, ask them if they have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior.  Offer a $2.00 off coupon for Alpo as incentive.

c.       Go on a mission trip and serve the poor, all in the name of making me feel more thankful for the cars in my garage, the clothes in my closet, and my garbage disposal, which consequently, eats better than 50% of the planet.

Hmmm.  That’s a toughie.

Some opt for a) planting churches in far away nations.  Places like Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Croatia, Gambia, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Namibia, Nicaragua, Panama, Philipines, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Swaziland, South Africa, Uganda, Ukraine, Zambia, Zimbabwe.  To name a few.

All of which have a greater percentage of Christians than the United States.

Is that the best way to spend our time?

One of my friends has church plant in the Czech Republic.  Now we’re talking!  A paltry 28% of that country is Christian, versus 78% here.  There’s some definite Jesus marketing to be done in the former communist nation, to be sure.

What about b), the face-to-face, bum rush conversion at a discount store?

I have a relative who is an all around nice guy who reads this blog from time-to-time.  I love the guy.  He’s a genius with a photographic memory, and a generous spirit.  He’s refreshingly candid, and can talk intelligently about anything under the sun.  He’s a fantastic dad and someone I am proud to call a friend.

He's also an atheist.

He sent me a curious email recently.  I asked him for his permission to post it, and he gave me license, saying “Feel free to use my comments anonymously -- wouldn't want to lose my atheist badge or anything.”  Love it!

He wrote:

Hey guys, had a question.  I know the flooding didn't get you, but it got the parents of one of my best friends.  Yes, they’re a retired couple that live on Sawyer Brown Rd (River Plantation area - almost to Bellevue Shopping Center.)  The first story of their house was flooded to about 4' high.

I mention this because (a) they live 2.7 miles away from you [thanks google!], and (b) in completely tearing out their lower floor / moving furniture / rebuilding they received what by all accounts was incredible help from their church group.  You can see where I'm going with this.  They're in a church, you're in a church, and even an atheist like me knows there aren't that many churches that provide fantastic service to their people like tearing out flood damaged first floors.

So if you helped them out, I wanted to pass along my thanks (they're great folks, really), and if you didn't help them out, I'm sure you helped out another flood-damage victim, or you helped out someone during the flood, or you helped out someone sometime, which is all cool.

I’m not sure what your reaction to this is.  Me?  I love his writing style.  But more than that, I love that something piqued his interest in any form of church.  It’s never been my goal to “convert” him, probably because I’m not so good at Jesus sales.  I’ve mentioned before how I’m in more of a Jesus customer service role.

That said, I had to write back and probe about his comment.  It was a very unscientific poll with a sample size of 1.  Nothing that would stand up to scrutiny in any Christianity Conversion Journal, if there was such a thing (which wouldn’t surprise me.)   A guy like him doesn’t usually mention the church lightly, so I was curious what an atheist thought about fishing for converts.  His response is pretty enlightening.

I inquired about evangelism, and what he thought about it.

He responded pretty adamantly that he was deeply offended by the holier-than-thou Christians that spent lots of time deciding who was beneath them on the moral totem pole.  My guess is that he’d generally lump anyone who did the “bum rush” conversion technique into this category.  The very idea that someone would come at him proclaiming to be able to save his "heathen soul," while at the same time totally violating his personal space and not learning a thing about him, was pretty laughable.

And don't even get him started about the hypocrisy of professing a strong faith, yet committing horrible crimes that land you on the ten o'clock news.  Our 'forgiveness-minded" Jesus can be pretty convenient, can't he?  My cousin would be wondering, "So this guy embezzled millions of dollars, begged for his poor followers to fill the offering plate so he could own another Armani suit ('cuz God loves Armani), and he gets forgiven and goes to Heaven, but I'm destined to be lectured that I'm bound to burn in hell, even though I've never so much as stolen a paper clip from the office?"

You gotta' admit.  He has a point.

And, though he didn’t say anything about it, option c) to the multiple choice question above, and our take on mission and service trips could need an adjustment.     If the major learning that we come home with after serving abroad is a greater appreciation for what we have, have we really learned anything?  I’m as guilty as the next guy.  After coming home from Guatemala, I was pretty fixated on the appreciation of an on-demand hot shower anytime I wanted it.  But is that what Jesus really wants that experience to be about?

Let’s get back to the fishing analogy.  Whether it’s fly fishing or casting a net, we don’t catch anything unless the fish is interested.  The fish either needs to be drawn in by the authenticity of the bait, or we have to be casting a net in a place where the fish we seek feel right at home already.

Fish aren’t clubbed, like wives in the prehistoric days.

Fish aren’t shot from a distance, like wild game.

Fish aren’t shocked with electricity to be skimmed up when their lifeless bodies float to the surface.  They’ve made that illegal now in Oklahoma – go figure.

Nope, people, like fish, are drawn in by something that looks appealing.  Something that looks authentic.

Something about service appealed to my cousin.  It wasn’t our Bible-thumping, and it wasn’t our hard sales pitch.  It wasn't judgment, and it wasn't the fearmongering that has turned our news media (both left and right), and our churches, into a giant, national campfire ghost story.

No, I think it was the idea of serving without pretense.  Without asking for anything in return.  Not even a life lesson.  Selfless giving.

Our jobs as Christians is not manipulation and trickery.  Our focus shouldn’t be on noticing what’s different or “immoral” about others.  Instead, we should be living with an unquenchable desire to treat others with the grace that Jesus showed to all of His people.

And if we do that, whether by accident or on purpose, others will notice.  They’ll be drawn in.  They may even make it into our nets for a while.

And sometimes…

We let them go.

Because the best fisherman have a deep respect for what they’re trying to catch.  A genuine respect.  An authentic respect that comes from knowing we're all equal players on this planet.  Dependent on one another.

The good news is that Jesus  was never one to keep score or store trophies on a shelf.  He’s just happy we’re out there.  The expert angler.  The one tangled up in nylon.  And the accidental missionary in us all.

Fishing.

Superheroes, Mix Tapes and Missed Opportunities

A few weeks ago, I woke up at 5:00 in the morning to go for a run.  Yes, you read that right.  Five bells.  For a run. I know what you’re thinking.  God invented cars so people wouldn’t have to do that sort of thing.

To make matters worse, at 4:59 am, I was having an incredible dream.  I don’t remember exactly what it was about, mind you, but it was accompanied by an overwhelming feeling that I could conquer the world.  So much so, that my guess is it involved my morphing into some sort of superhero.   A pale-white Adonis capable of flight, with biceps the size of a couple of Volkwagen Bugs, legs the size of Greek columns, pecs to rival those of Pamela Anderson, and abs that would make even Jesus himself do a double-take.

Just as I was about to save a hypothetical school bus full of adorable orphans from falling off a rocky cliff, the alarm went off.

Rolling out of the rack, I made my way to the bathroom.  Staring back at me from the mirror was a very tired man, still very white.  But that was the only thing that stayed the same.  Now instead of a super body and super coif, I simply had bad breath, bed head, and mild arthritis.

Cue slap in the face.

I put on my running shoes, hopped in the car, and drove to Edwin Warner Park.  And yes, I realize the irony of driving 5 miles to go for a 4 mile run.

I arrived and set up camp at the start of the trail, where I went through my typical stretching routine, which involves a series of awkward bends accompanied by the occasional squeal of pain or crack of bone.

I was looking forward watching the sun come up while jogging among the trees, surrounded by beautiful hills.  I had been on this particular trail before, and spotted no less than seven deer out looking for a morning snack.  As romantic and idyllic as that sounds, they actually scared the living Tootsie Rolls out of me by springing from the tall grass like a hoard of shoppers at the opening bell of a Black Friday Doorbuster sale at Best Buy.

I inhaled the air, heavy with the smell of dew-covered grass.  I felt the cool air on my skin.  I listened to the morning music of bird calls.  The atmosphere was perfect.

So I ruined it by pressing “shuffle” on my iPod workout playlist – a veritable menagerie of bad 80’s hair band music, some praise and worship tunes, and a smattering of Lynerd Skynerd.  This particular mix is my absolute favorite because:

a)      anyone stealing my iPod would immediately return it, thinking they had mistakenly stolen the Mix Tape of Loudon Swain from the movie Vision Quest, and

b)       true confessions of a 37-year-old dork… this music actually makes me feel faster, stronger, and border-line invincible, much as I did at age 15 when I first heard the chorus of “Kick Start My Heart” by Motley Crue.

First song on the playlist was (and no,  I’m not making this up) “Footloose.”  I channeled my inner Kevin Bacon and took off like a rocket.

Unfortunately, while the music made me feel faster, the reality is that I did not actually possess the ability to run faster.  After 87 seconds, I was wheezing like a chimney sweep.  I slowed to my normal pace to avoid cardiac arrest.

The morning was gorgeous, and I drank it in.  The first mile flew by like childhood.  For mile number two, my thoughts started to wander.  That’s how it can be with running.  Once you get past the never-ending desire to stop and walk, like normal sane people would do, you can find yourself lost in the moment, focusing on random thoughts, pondering the universe and your place in it.

Thoughts meandering.

Look how muddy the trail is this must have been covered by a landslide during the summer flooding   the flooding affected so many homes around here    I wonder how that guy is doing who we helped   it was so amazing how so many random strangers showed up to clear out his house   his home was next to those baseball fields just beyond the bridge   I wonder if Jake will play baseball   signups start this fall and I hear they are free for kids his age  but I don’t think he has a glove  I need to get new gloves before the winter snow comes  I’m getting a bit of a snowy fringe on my temples  finally starting to look older than a junior high captain of the math-letes club

And so it goes.  I was out among the beauty of nature, but never left my own skull.

After four miles, I arrived right back where I started, only now I was sweatier, smellier, and breathing heavily.  The sun was coming up, and the world was lit with a pink hue.  Will Smith’s “Getting’ Jiggy Wid It” played in my ear.  Fifty yards away from the parking lot I saw a water fountain.  I mustered enough energy to jog there, and took my customary seven sips.

(Don’t ask.  I can be a bit OCD)

When I stood up again, I saw an older woman approaching about 20 yards away.  She had come from the opposite direction that I had, emerging from the hilly trails that start at the edge of the trees.  She was walking a dog.

She looked a bit like one of those fast “Mall Walkers” dressed in running gear.   In between huffing breaths, I said, “Good morning” in a I-know-I-have-earphones-on-my-head-but-I-will-still-speak-as-if-music-is-blaring-in-your-ears-too voice that was far louder than was appropriate for the hour of the day.

The louder the music, the faster I run.

As I turned back to the fountain for another seven sips, the woman returned the greeting, elaborating.  She shuffled past rather quickly.

I lifted my head toward the sky, catching my breath.  I reminisced about my run, secretly feeling superior to all those still in bed.   I blurted something like, “Yeah.  Great morning for a run!”  I glanced in her direction, distracted by the sweat ball dripping from my eyebrow.

She hesitated, said something else, and bent over slightly.

I was trying to decide if I should go back to the parking lot, or if I should engage in a bit more awkward bending and work out the kinks.  As the woman resumed her fast walk past me I said, “Enjoy the rest of your morning.”

Just as my workout song finished, she was half way to her car.  As I put my leg up on the handrail to stretch a bit, she turned back toward me and yelled, “Yeah, I really bit the dust!”

I was a bit confused.  Why would she say that in response to my comment about enjoying her morning?  Is she a bit nuts?

Then I noticed her leg.  She had blood streaming down her shin, from her kneecap to her shoe.  Her elbows were scraped up, and she was holding her shoulder.  Now I could see that her awkward jog was actually a limp.

“Oh my goodness!  Are you OK?” I asked.

Forty yards away, she continued jogging to her car.  “I’ll be fine!”  she shouted.  “I was just running down hill, and my dog got going faster than I could go, and I bit the dust!”

“I have a first aid kit in my glove box!” I called, yet failed to move.

She pulled out her keys.  “No.  No worries.  I don’t live far from here.”

“Are you sure?” I yelled, as she sat down in the driver’s seat.

“I’m sure.”

And then she was gone.

I stood there, replaying the last 60 seconds back in my mind.  I had seen the woman approaching, but didn’t really see her.  When she returned my “Good Morning”, she was elaborating about her fall.  I had heard her, but I didn’t really hear her.  I was so wrapped up in my cheeseball music and my own thoughts, that I missed it.  In trying to be nice, I was actually being indifferent.  I was the guy who asks “How are you doing?” without actually caring about the response.

This woman had given me three chances to notice her.  To connect with her.  To help her.

And I struck out.

I was left wondering, “How often do I get so wrapped up in my own thoughts, my everyday worries, and my mindless pursuits, that I miss the obvious?  The Heaven-sent, meatball, knock-it-out-of-the-park opportunity to be Jesus for someone else?

I wonder what percentage of my day I spend living in my own head?  Camped out on a La-Z-Boy between my ears?

Whatever it is, it’s far too much.

I go to the gym in the morning and immediately “plug in.”  I go there four to five times a week.  There are hundreds of people there, and I talk to a grand total of…

One guy.

And don’t even get me started on the cell phone.  The instant that thing hits my ear, I am immediately enveloped in an imaginary plastic bubble.  Nothing gets to me.  I notice nothing.  Hear nothing.  The cashier becomes a robot.  The other shoppers might as well be Cabbage Patch Dolls.  I am oblivious.

But the worst of all has to be my own inner world.  The voices in my head that wonder if I remembered to turn off the iron, if I’ve spent enough time with my kids, if I’ve done enough to show my genuine concern for others…

all while someone I care about is talking directly to me.

Today I’m praying.  Praying that I can turn off the music.  Turn off the thoughts.  Get off the La-Z-Boy.  And notice.  The world doesn’t need another superhero.  It  just needs us to be regular folks, living in the present.  Living with each other.  Listening.  Hearing.  Seeing.

Serving.

The Worst Thing I've Ever Done

Every parent wants the best for their kids.  This usually means two things. 1.  We try and give them the best we can give, whether that’s a college fund, a quality home, or a supportive atmosphere.  And,

2. We do everything within our power to assure that they turn out to be the best people on the planet, which means, to become a far better than we’ve ever been, even on our best day.

Sample prayer:  Dear Lord, I pray that my child grows up to know you, to know what it means to love, to have confidence, to serve with humility, to act with wisdom…,

and never, ever, drink too much of that trash can punch at the Sigma Nu frat party which leads him to marshal a team of twelve people to temporarily deface  the University of Tulsa library pavilion with random yard art while simultaneously closing off a busy street with “borrowed” safety cones, all without getting caught.

Hypothetically speaking.

Amen.

I grew up Catholic.  What can I say?  This blog is my confessional.  For my penance, I’ll Google and click on 74 versions of the Hail Mary and we’ll call it even, OK God?

I digress.

Gabby and I really want our kids to grow up with a heart for service.  To us, this means that they’ll grow up thinking that service is just something you do.  Part of everyday life, thrown in somewhere between eating breakfast, breathing, showering, and not flossing.  We want it to be in their blood.

In an attempt to foster this kind of normalcy, I’ve mentioned how we “have lunch with our friends” down at the local soup kitchen every so often.  The kids get a kick out of it.  They have fun serving, meeting people that come in all shapes, sizes and colors, and running around like rabid squirrels at a Betty Crocker Acorn Bake-Off.

On our most recent trip, we showed up and chatted with some folks while we were waiting for the lunch to begin.  Jake and Audrey’s job that day were to pass out forks and spoons, each matching set lovingly wrapped in a tiny disposable napkin.  Gabby and I were on germ eradication duty, which involved watching our kids like hawks, and intercepting any utensils that they had co-opted for use as  a) percussion instruments, b) nose pickers, c) hair brushes, or d) armpit decoration.

Needless to say, it was a stressful half-hour of volunteering.  We very nearly ran out of silverware.

The people who came through the line were gracious, waiting patiently for our kids to select just the right fork for them.  It was a painstaking process that required the same deliberation as say, Israeli Palestinian peace talks.  The final handover of dinnerware was accompanied by a hearty “Have a nice day!” or “Bon Appetit!”  Their joy in helping was met with lots of smiles and mini conversations.

All except for one man.

I noticed him approaching us, and he stood about five feet out of the line.  He was saying something to himself that I couldn’t quite make out.  He was not making eye contact.

And he wasn’t happy.

Mental illness? I wondered.

As he got closer, I heard him comment, “There aren’t supposed to be any kids here.”

What a stick-in-the-mud!  Everyone else seemed to be enjoying the diversion, but this guy was not interested.  Then I heard his follow-up comment that stopped me in my tracks.

“I ain’t supposed to be within ten feet of any kids.  If somebody sees me here, I could go back to jail.  These kids shouldn’t be here.”

Without thinking, I grabbed some silverware, stepped forward, and handed it to him.  He reached out toward me without looking and accepted the  napkin, and returned to his arms-crossed stance.

So, what started out as some idyllic trip to have “lunch with friends” and make service part of our everyday normal, turned into something very different.  As you might imagine, my immediate thought went to my kids.  When Jake was ten months old, we took him to Guatemala to visit the host family we lived with for a year.  We justified it because he was breastfeeding at the time, so he wouldn’t be eating the questionable food, or be near the contaminated water.  No chance of serious sickness for him.  Since then, we’ve hesitated to take the kids back again until they are older, and frankly, not sticking random objects or fingers in their mouths like they’re an all-you-can-eat Popsicle bar.  It’s one thing to put yourself in a compromised health situation.  It’s another thing entirely when you make that decision for someone else, even if you’re doing it for God.

And here I was again, feeling a bit naïve.  When you’re serving those on the margins, you’re bound to run into some people who wouldn’t likely make your top ten list of lunch table companions back in the third grade cafeteria.  This was one of those situations.  It also had me questioning whether or not this would be the best service opportunity for our family.  My brain started “awfulizing.”  I mean, what if I had accidentally let Jake go to the bathroom all by himself?  Should this guy even be allowed in here?

Then my thoughts turned to the man in line.  I realize I'm making some assumptions here, but my guess is that he was just trying to get back on the straight-and-narrow, and thought he was coming to a safe place to have a nice meal.  Now, he was facing his demons and a chance he might have to go back to jail.  Not exactly the afternoon event he had planned for either!

So where was I, and where was God in all of this?

In my mind, I had questioned whether or not this was our place for service.  Selfishly, I thought, “If these are the kinds of people they serve here, is this where God would want me to spend my time?”

I think it is precisely where God wants me to spend my time.  Why?  I tend to do a job for God that He never asked me to do.

I create a filing system for the needy.

In one folder, I place the “worthy poor.”  Those disabled by no fault of their own.  The homeless trying hard to work their way up.  The abused victims.

In the other folder are the “unworthy poor.”  The convicted felons.  Those who are mentally ill due to years of prolonged drug use.  Those who have the capability to get a job and a home, but don’t seem to want to.

God sees my filing system as ridiculous.  Kinda’ like holding an election to see whether trees are more beautiful than flowers, or vice versa.  It doesn’t matter.  Both were created in God’s image to be just what they are, and as God’s creation, we’re supposed to show the same appreciation for both.  They both deserve the best we have to give.

Now, does that mean that I send Jake and Audrey to summer camp at this guy’s house?

NO!

What it does mean is that we should always remember that we’re far better than the worst thing we’ve ever done.  Each and every one of us.

And I say this not to put myself on a high horse.  First, I’m scared of heights, and that would make me scream like a tiny girl.

Second, there are times I’ve been judgmental, hurtful, and insincere.  I’ve told lies.  Heck, I’ve even made personal copies at the office, which make me question whether or not that was the real reason for WorldCom’s downfall.  But these things don't define me, and that’s not what defines us all.  We’re better than the worst thing we’ve ever done.  God’s grace is there for the taking, whether we deserve it or not.  Shouldn’t we reciprocate by giving without prejudice?

In the spirit of that, a funny confession follows.  It’s like a “bonus blog entry” from my archives.  Helpful if you really have a lot of time to waste on the blog today (Hello?  Conference calls?).  I really hesitate to share this, but then I think how the world is filled with far too many people pretending to be something that they’re not, to impress other people who really don’t care all that much.  As an fully ordained pastor of an internet church (First International Church of the Web - and Saint Luke's Evangelical Ministries - no lie) I make it my job to shatter the image that members of the clergy are perfect people.  This may not be the worst thing I’ve ever done, but telling the world about it sure helps put me in my place, which helps me remember how we can never be too quick to judge those we serve, or those we don’t.  Enjoy!

*************************************** June, 2002

I fancy myself a well-educated guy.  Heck, at times, I have even been called “smart.”  I earned a 3.9 in grad school at Oklahoma State University.  I graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Tulsa.   I even graduated 10^th in a high school class of 362.  Granted, it was Yukon High School in Yukon, Oklahoma, where not sucking directly on the Bunsen burner tube as it’s attached to an open gas source gets you a minimum of a B-minus in chemistry.  Still, not too shabby.  Overall, my brain has had a decent workout during my time on the planet.

So, one might think that a simple decision of whether or not to pee before leaving the office today would be a walk in the park.  Not so much.

I have spent this past week in L.A. attending a class for the company I work for.  It was rather enlightening, and I feel like I actually earned my salary as my brain crunched away from 8-5.  Throughout the day, we spent most of our time seated on our keesters.  This tends to make the joints get a bit stiff due to some mild arthritis I am fortunate enough to have inherited.  The good news is, I have found a remedy.  If I just drink gallons of water, I’m fine!  However, what is normally just a mild case of “tiny tank” syndrome in my bladder turns into a colossal urge to wet myself about every thirty minutes or so.

Today, class finished up a bit early.  I sat around gabbing with my coworkers for a good half hour when I finally realized that I had better head to the airport so I could make my 5:55pm flight back home.  The thought of arriving late and missing my flight did not excite me.  Even though I had ample time to make the trek from Thousand Oaks to LAX, one can never be sure about LA traffic.

Because of my arthritis issue, I figured I should make a pit stop and load up on fluids.  Besides, Gabby is always telling me how traveling on planes dehydrates you.  This is VERY true.  I know this, because  1)  on last weekend’s bachelor party, having only a couple of beers en route from Austin to New Orleans made my mouth feel like I just tried to down a box of saltines topped with baby powder, and  2) if I don’t drink enough fluids before and during a flight, my arthritis gets horrendous and I walk around like a retired NFL offensive lineman for a day or two.  For these reasons, I downed the last of my current water supply, and stopped by the company cafeteria for a refill.  I loaded my 20 oz. Styrofoam cup with ice and about 4-5 lemon wedges, then filled it to the brim with water.  I didn’t have an immediate urge to pee at this time, so I headed out toward LAX.

The drive started smoothly, and by my astute calculations, it looked like I would get to the airport in PLENTY of time.  I really wanted an exit row seat, so this would be an added bonus.  The idea is that if I beat everyone else to the ticket counter, I have my choice of spots on the plane.  NICE!  I dialed up my good pal Marty on the phone to help pass the time.  He wasn’t there, so I left a message.  When I hung up, I felt a slight urge to relieve myself, but nothing major.  At the rate I was traveling I would be able to get to the car rental place in plenty of time and have the Avis shuttle drop me at the airport.  Then I could hit the "Little Cowboy's Room" before check-in.  PERFECT!

Two miles later, the traffic stopped.  I sat motionless on the freeway while a 65 mile per hour speed limit sign mocked me on the shoulder.  I can’t be too sure, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a three-toed sloth passing me in the HOV lane, pulling a trailer loaded with anvils.  Maybe this was a hallucination from all of the Southern California pollution, but it was still a bad omen.

I figured that there must be an accident up ahead.  I was right.  I passed it about 5 miles and 25 minutes later.  I was hardly any closer to the airport, and had burned up nearly a half an hour!  The good news was, the traffic was moving at about a 30-40mph clip.  I had a pretty heavy urge to pee now, but nothing to write home about.   Since this story tops 3,900 words, you, dear reader, know that this would change for the worse.

As I hopped off the 101 onto the 405 freeway, I got a call.  It was Marty.  We yakked for a good 10 minutes, and I appreciated the distraction.  My bladder was filling, but listening to Marty making fun of some of the dolts he works with took my mind off the pressure.

When I got off the phone with Marty, I had the “maybe if I clench my buttcheeks it’ll be better” urge to pee.  I thought, “Well… perhaps I won’t wait ‘till I get to the airport to make a pit stop.  I should just risk missing the first Avis bus back to LAX and use their restroom instead.”

SCREECH!  The traffic came to a standstill again.  “This is not looking good,” I thought.  All lanes of traffic, including the HOV lane, were crawling.  I still had a LONG way to go to the airport, too.  As I crested a small hill, I could see a mile or two in front of me, and not much was happening.  My bladder immediately shrunk upon seeing this.  Now, I was at the “if I keep taking these deep breaths and exhaling loudly, maybe the urine in my body will magically evaporate” stage.  My bladder was a virtual powder keg now.  This is when I made the decision that would change the course of history.

I reasoned with myself.  “First off, it will take me FOREVER to get from the ‘fast lane’ over to a place I can exit.  Second, this is a fairly ‘residential/nature preserve-ish’ stretch of the highway, and I see absolutely no establishment nearby that would let me pee, at least not legally. Third, if I drive around to find a place, I will likely get lost.  Four, if I drive around to find a place, I will likely be late to the airport and lose that coveted exit row seat, or worse yet, miss my flight.”

You may be asking, “Scott, what was the alternative?”

I noticed my 20 oz. stryrofoam container perched in the armrest cup holder, now empty.  Again, my critical thinking skills kicked in.  “That’s a pretty sturdy lookin’ cup there! It’s like the ‘circle of life’ in Elton John’s song!  I just took 20 ounces from the cup for nourishment, it’s only natural that I give it back at some point, right?!   My brother has even told me a story about one of his college buddies who took an emergency leak in a coffee cup while stranded in a winter snowstorm traffic jam.  Heck, I have MUCH MORE than a simple coffee cup here!  This is a 20-ouncer!”

My choice was made.  Making my flight took precedence over decorum.  But how to do this?  I assessed the situation.

I was driving a rented, golden beige-colored Oldsmobile Alero.  It rides pretty low to the ground.  Traffic was still crawling.  I looked to my left and right.  Sure enough, there were SUV’s on both sides of me. Their high vantage point gave them a prime “crotch viewing” angle into the Alero!  Noticing this I now wish I had rented “Truckzilla” for this trip.  However, when making car reservations, I never forecasted that “tall enough so that no one driving a normal-sized vehicle will be able to check out your ‘franks and beans’ on the 405” would have been my highest priority vehicle feature.  Fuel economy seems like such a wasted benefit right now.  Lesson learned #1:  Olds Alero is a poor vehicle choice for peeing into a cup while driving.

My plan of attack changed a bit.  I shuffled over to the HOV lane.  From this lane, I only had to worry about vehicles to my right.  On my immediate left was a thin shoulder and a big concrete barricade.  This was only interrupted by the occasional wayward straggler, who himself has probably peed into many forms of cup or canister.  They won’t care!  I figured that the chance of being pulled over for driving/peeing solo in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane was worth the risk.

So, I was driving about 3-5 miles per hour in the HOV lane, considering dropping trou and taking care of business.  The problem was that I still had plenty of trucks and SUVs to my right.  I quickly reached into the back seat, unzipped my backpack, and pulled out an old T-Shirt.  The thought was that I could lay the T-Shirt in my lap to cover myself.  I positioned the T-shirt like a napkin at a fine dining establishment, then I unzipped.

Soon after, I realized something I was never taught at Yukon High School, Tulsa University, or even in graduate school.  When seated in driving position, it is difficult to obtain the “downward angle/dangle” necessary to fill an upright cup.  Since it would be impossible to change the laws of physics and defy gravity, I had my work cut out for me.  Leeson learned #2:  proper seat adjustment is critical when peeing into a cup in an Olds Alero.

First. I straightened the seat back so that I resemble a guy wearing a back brace. Next, I grab the electronic seat control that raises my butt, and lowers my legs & thighs.  Needless to say, NASCAR drivers would never attempt such a posture.  I am essentially eating the steering wheel, and my hindside is now in the lap of a “virtual backseat passenger.”  Let’s put a visual on this.

Imagine, if you will, that advertisement for those robotic recliners they used to try to sell on infomercials to old people.  Similar to the Craft-Matic adjustable bed, these are the chairs that basically move you from a seated position to a “crouched-standing position” for $699 and the push of a button.  Well, I am now in the “nearly-crouched standing” position.  Good if you’re watching the big game on TV, and need to be righted so you can go to the fridge for another cold one.  Bad if you’re driving on the 405 in LA.  From this position, I re-cover myself with the T-shirt, sit up high to get some leverage, then position the cup.

As helpful and awkward as it is, I found that this seat position only allowed me to get a 60-70 degree tilt on the cup.  Translation? I gotta’ be careful.  As I positioned myself near the lip of the cup, I took a deep breath.  I tried to block out the fact that guys on motorcycles are “riding the line” between lanes of traffic and nearly clipping my side view mirrors.  I have BUSINESS to attend to!  Finally, the moment of truth – sort of.

You guys probably know the term “pee shy.”  Well, for any ladies reading this, “pee shy” is what sometimes happens to guys when they are forced to pee while standing next to a bunch of other guys at a urinal.  I still don’t know the exact cause of this disorder that affects 99.8% of the urinating public of males.  Maybe there’s something about standing there with your privates hanging out while a bunch of other guys are around.  Maybe it’s the fear that when you release your contents, you’ll have the weakest stream in the group - more of a trickle really.  Subconsciously, this says something about your level of manliness, much like the size of your truck tires, the capacity of your backyard grill, or your fastest recorded time to pick a Buffalo Wing clean to the bone.

Whatever the case, when the “pee shy” fairy overtakes a guy, it means that he may go to the can and walk away unfulfilled.  Sure, he may try to mask it all by making a lot of noise (coughing, flatulence, belching) to cover up the fact that there is no “splashing” sound at his urinal.  He may even finish with a hearty flush to try and fool the rest of the happy pissers.  Still, the truth is out.

Back on the 405, I learned that “pee shyness” is magnified when you’re surrounded by a slew of 4X4s, Ford Excursions, and Hum Vees.  I probably sat for 60 seconds with nary a drop.  I’m just sittin’ there with my wanger perched on the lip of a Solo cup, covered by a Lyle Lovett concert T-Shirt, driving at a snail’s pace on one of the busiest freeways in the country.  Not your everyday situation, to be sure.  Needless to say, my “twig & berries” were out of their element.  It was gonna’ take a while to adjust.  Finally, somewhere before the Marina Del Rey interchange, I felt a rush of sweet release.

Whether you know this or not, using the bathroom in the driver’s seat can be just as rewarding as taking a leak anywhere else.  I was feeling like I had made the right decision, that is, until I realized another sinister biological phenomenon had taken hold.  I felt warmth on my inner thigh.  Taking my left hand off the wheel, I lifted the T-Shirt to peek at the goings-on down below.  Sure enough, I had fallen victim to the cruelest random joke in the male universe.  That’s right, it was a “split stream”.

Again, guys know what I’m talking about.  For you girls, it may take a little explaining.  For centuries, women have complained about “bad aim”.

“My little boy pees all over the floor!”

“My husband always leaves droplets on the rim!”

“How hard is it to pee in something as big as a toilet?!”

Well ladies, I promise you that anyone over the age of three always aims true.  We line up dead center and then let it go!  But sometimes, when the moon is full and Saturn aligns with Pluto, our primary stream is diverted.  To use a plant-watering analogy, it’s like you were letting the hose just pour into the flower bed, and then suddenly, you capped your thumb over the end.  Next thing we boys know, our primary stream is hittin’ the Tidy Bowl Man right between the eyes, but this secondary trickle is splashing into your jewelry box on the night stand.  We have no control over this.  It just happens.  So (an aside here) next time you catch yourself complaining about bad aim, you should just be happy that the majority of the primary stream hit its mark.  It coulda’ been much worse.  Trust me.  Anyhow, back to the 405.

When I looked down, I saw my secondary trickle bouncing off the edge of the cup and draining into my lap.  “Great!  I’m peeing my pants!”  I yelled.  With all the strength I could muster, I shut off the stream and rethought my strategy.  This minimized the damage to my inner thigh, but didn’t quell the fire in my bladder.  I reasoned, “Well, there’s no turning back now.”  So I tried again and prayed.  Once the “pee shyness” subsided, the split-stream event had fixed itself, and I was feeling better.  Total relief was in sight.  Except… wait… wait just a minute…

“How big can a bladder be?” I wondered.  I saw the cup filling rapidly.  Logic told me that a 20 oz. cup should be more than enough to hold all my pee.  What I didn’t figure on was the “tilt factor”, which greatly reduced the capacity of the cup.  Then my morning flashed before my eyes.

Happily sipping two 12 oz. cups of hot tea…

Joyously gulping down two 20 oz. cups of water…

A couple of trips to the drinking fountain!

For the love of Pete!  She cannot take much more Captain Kirk!  I coulda’ filled a swimming pool!

I peeked at the cup again and realized the root cause of my misfortune.  Well, I take that back.  The root cause of my misfortune is that I thought it would be a good idea to void myself while driving on the 405.  My problem now was that there wasn’t much ice left in the cup, but the 4 lemon wedges were taking their toll.  I would never go the distance.  The solid objects were displacing the liquids, and I had to make a rapid decision.  Damn my love of citrus!

I cut off the stream again.  Just in time!  So, let’s recap.

As if this picture wasn’t odd enough to begin with, now it’s even worse.  I am now driving 10-15 miles per hour on the 405 (things are picking up), I have my “bits & pieces” hanging out, covered by a Lyle Lovett concert T-Shirt, I have a pee spot the size of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on my jeans, and in my right hand I now hold a steaming 20 oz. cup of lemon-flavored urine.

Now what do I do?

The good news is that even though I wasn’t able to empty my bladder, the idiocy of what I had just done has taken away all urges I had.  Lesson Learned #3: Heavy doses of personal shame and embarrassment apparently overtake any feelings one has to expel waste from his/her body.  Good to know!

I placed my cup of pee ever-so-carefully into the cup holder beside me, and use my free hand to zip up.  I reached back to put the T-shirt into my backpack.  I looked right and left to see if anyone noticed what I had just done.  Luckily, I was driving in the most superficial town on earth, so the women were busy considering their breast implants while the men were wondering if they have enough vacation time left to get a butt lift.  They didn’t even notice me.

We (me and my hot cup o’ pee) crept along for another 7 minutes, then traffic started to pick up to 20 miles per hour.  I am still laughing at my poor planning, when I realize that my rental car now smells like the men’s room at a Dodger’s game.  I think, “This isn’t good.  I have to get rid of this pee before I return this car.”  The light aroma is starting to nag at me like the “thump-thump… thump-thump” from Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart.”  I am thinking, “Leave me alone, pee cup!  Leave me be!”  I must rid this car of the evidence… and FAST!

I rolled down the window and considered chucking the cup.  Then, an idea hit me. “I should just DUMP the cup!  That-a way, I could ‘refill’ it if another traffic jam comes and I’m desperate.”  So… I reached my left arm WAAAAAAAY out the window, and gave the cup a hard flicking motion.  I soon realized that, essentially, what I just did  was toss a cup of urine and lemon wedges into a 20 mile per hour wind.  I might as well have just strapped a playful elephant on the back dash of my car spraying wildly with a trunk full o’ pee.  It would have the same effect.  The end result is a crop of shiny urine droplets dancing across the side of the Olds.  I didn’t even bother to check the rear-view mirror to see if my other road warriors got a shower, too.  The good news is, my car was already the color of stale pee to begin with, so now it merely looked like it was sweating.  The bad news was, my wellspring of poor choices now seemed endless.

I changed lanes quickly to get to the far right lane.  This maneuver was probably a violation of the law, but by this point, who’s really counting, right?  I hoped that the wind rush of the rapid lane change would help to dry the side of my car. Looking up, I felt relieved that I was a mere two miles from the exit that takes me to Avis.  The bad news, I realized, was that I still had a gargantuous pee spot on my pants.  Sure, most guys can overlook a little pee spot.  One little dribble can easily be covered up by an untucked shirt, well-placed laptop case or jacket.  With larger splatters, you can often just blame it on a sink that has a bad spraying faucet.  However, the spot I have looks like I had an exploding water balloon in my pocket.  Even worse is the fact that the checkout guy at Avis knows that there aren’t any wild spraying sinks in an Olds Alero.  At this point, I just wished I had a medical ID bracelet diagnosing me with Overactive Bladder Syndrome.  At least that way I would have had something to blame it on.

Again, my brain kicked into gear and I try to figure out what to do.  A quick fix I have often used for a small drip is to just rub the spot vigorously with a dry cloth or paper towel.  The friction causes heat, which dries the spot.  Looking at my spot, I knew I had my work cut out for me.  I blindly reached into my backpack for anything resembling a rag.  This time, my prize was a pair of clean boxer-briefs.  I exited the highway to head for Avis.  “I must work quickly, ‘cuz I am not far from the car lot.”

At the intersection at the end of the exit, the light was red.  I decided to seize the opportunity.  I feverishly got to work on the spot.  I rubbed back and forth as fast I could trying to generate some heat and get rid of that darn spot.  Once I started, I realized that this may take a LOT of effort.  I kept looking down, then looking up to see if the light was green yet – still working feverishly. My mouth was contorting into all sorts of unnatural expressions.  I worked on the spot for a good 45 seconds. After that time, I went zig when I shoulda’ gone zag, and lost my grip on the boxers.   I held the boxers up to get a better handle on ‘em before I got to working again.  When I did this, I realized another really bad idea had come to fruition.

A guy in a Toyota Camry was idling next to me at the light.  I glanced at him.  For the last 45 seconds, he had apparently been watching me “go to town” on something in my crotch region.  As I glanced back at my hand on the steering wheel, I saw why his eyes were open so wide.  He had just watched me “work on my spot” for a while, and then my hand made its way up to the steering wheel to reveal me holding a pair of underpants.  I can only imagine what he must have been thinking.  If only I could have been shot right then and put out of my misery.  I stared straight ahead.  The next seven seconds felt like hours.  As soon as I saw a hint of green, I floored it.  Lesson Learned #4:  When embarrassed to the point of heart stoppage, I can win the Grand National Dragster Championship in an Olds Alero.

Thankfully, that was the last of my truly big mistakes.  I arrived at Avis about 5 minutes later to return the car.  I quickly deposited the cup while the guy was ringing up my final total.  As I grabbed my receipt, I looked at the side of the car.  It still showed signs of my “cup dumping”.  Even though the guy probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it, and certainly wouldn’t have thought that he was staring at drops of pee on this nice new rental car, I mumbled, “Yeah… I drove through a little puddle at the edge of the parking lot.”  Red-faced, I quickly grabbed my receipt and jumped on the bus, using my laptop case to cover the evidence on my pants.

Now… here I sit on a plane bound for Austin.  My arthritis isn’t acting up, so that’s a good thing!  Another positive is that I have learned a valuable lesson.  I hope each of you have as well.  Enjoy this story, gents.  Pass it on if you must.  But please… please… I beg of you…  next time you’re in LA… keep your windows rolled up, stay out of the HOV lane, and remember...

we’re all so much better than the worst thing we’ve ever done.

Guest Towels, Unwritten Rules and Uncommon Sense

It was forbidden, but I did it anyway.  A cardinal sin.  I’ll have to check my Bible, but it may even be one of the seven deadlies.  The worst offense any family member can commit in his own home.  You know what I’m talking about. I used the guest towels.

These are the towels reserved for visitors only.  Heads of state.  Foreign dignitaries.  Persnickety grandmothers.  In fact, they cannot be accessed alone.  Usage of the towels requires inputting a launch code, as well as two keys, turned simultaneously before they are jettisoned from the towel rack.

Due to solar flares and a misalignment of the planets a few months ago, I was caught soaking wet in the guest bathroom without my normal, slightly bleach-stained towel that fits like an old tennis shoe.  So, I looked around to make sure there wasn’t an audience, and did the unthinkable.  I dried off with the puffy, extra-large blue guest towel.

It was positively luxurious.

Sort of.

The luxury was in my mind.  It felt kinda’ wrong but oh so right.  I felt like a special person.  The way a person should feel.  But a person using a towel should also feel drier.

And I didn’t.

The towel really wasn’t doing its job.  A good towel needs to be broken in, like a good pair of loafers or a baseball glove.  This one was brand-spanking new.  It hadn’t even received a “courtesy wash” after coming home from the department store.  It’s like it came Scotch-Guarded, straight from the factory.  Lacking its full sopping potential, the towel was just smearing the water on my skin.

Then I looked in the mirror.

Apparently, due to the lack of washing, the “towel debris” that normally fills the lint screen during the first wash was getting cabin fever.  When the lint saw its first chance at freedom, it chose to stow away in the stubble on my cheeks.  I looked like a color negative of Papa Smurf, with my fish-belly white skin contrasting a puffy blue hobo beard.

Not a good look for me.  Naked or clothed.

That’s when I realized the absurdity of it all.  The unwritten rule.  We save our best for guests.  Think of the china in your kitchen.  Gabby and I have lovely set that we got for our wedding.  The problem?  Mass murderers sentenced to solitary confinement see more sunlight than those plates.  They sit there in our cabinet in their own little Alcatraz.  Apparently, we’re waiting for the Prince of Burundi to visit.  For him, we use the china.

But only if it’s a holiday.

It’s a curious thing, saving our best for the guests.  We bring out the best food.  We clean our homes.  We light candles and spray air freshener to get rid of that weird odor coming from the kids’ playroom.  We bake cookies.  We exhaust ourselves to make sure everyone is well cared for.  That’s hospitality.

So why is it that when we are giving to poor people, it’s nothing but hand-me-downs?

I’m as guilty as the next guy.  When the local high school crew comes by the house looking for donations for their canned food drive, I’m the one that reaches waaaaaaaaaay back in the pantry for that 3-year-old can of hominy.  I justify it by finding some stat on the web that shows how poor people love hominy 50% more than people who aren’t poor.  But we all know the truth.

Nobody likes hominy.

The same is true when I make a special trip to the grocery store to buy items for the food pantry.  I’ll pick up generic brand this and off-brand that.  If I make a run to Goodwill,  I reach into my closet for the shirt with the small stain, the pants with the torn cuff, the jeans that are ten years out of style.  And the homeless guy on the corner? He gets my spare change.

It’s the follow-on to the unwritten rule.  Guests get our best.  Poor people get the leftovers.

Sounds kinda’ silly, doesn’t it?

So, this begs the question:

What if I become close friends with a poor stranger and they come over for dinner?  Or what if one of my close friends suddenly becomes homeless?   What category do they fit in now?  What’s the rule there?  Do they get my best, or do they get the leftovers?  It’s a tough call.

Consulting my “Rules of the Absurd” handbook, I believe you’re supposed give them one of your old college sweatshirts for Christmas, but wrap it in valuable stock certificates.

Problem solved.

If I’m honest with myself, part of the reason guests get my best is that I want them to know I have the best to give.  These are usually people who are friends and neighbors.  It’s a status thing.  I’ll roll out the red carpet for them so they can say, "Did you see?  Scott and Gabby have a red carpet!"

And the poor?  They have nothing, so anything is better than that, right?

Logical.  Reasonable.  Common sense.

But God relishes in the uncommon.

A few years ago, Gabby and I were visiting some friends, Rob and Lodie, for a weekend.  They didn’t have a particularly large home, and with two daughters in high school, they didn’t have a guest bedroom either.  Fully expecting to sleep on the pull-out sofa, we dropped our bags in the living room.

“Oh no,” said Lodie, “you’re in there. “

We hesitated, and she grabbed one of our bags and marched toward the back of the house.  We followed her to the master bedroom.  There, she had laid out a couple of towels on the bed to welcome us.  Though the master bedroom is usually the best room in the house, it’s also kinda’ private.  It’s sacred space, and now they were giving it to us.  We were speechless.  How do you describe that feeling of gratitude mixed with humility?

Uncommon.

Another time, we were traveling in Guatemala with our friend Charity.  It was a cold, damp day, and she was wrapped up in a really snazzy scarf.

“I love your scarf!”  Gabby commented.  “It’s so cute!”

Charity replied, “Thanks!  I like it, too!  It’s my favorite.  My mom gave it to me.”

We knew what this meant to Charity.  Here she was, in a foreign land for a year, with no family nearby.  This was a tangible reminder of her mom.  She could wrap it around herself as tight as their relationship.

Gabby continued, ‘It’s really beautiful.”

Charity looked down at the scarf, thought a moment, and then blurted, “Well why don’t you take it then?!”

Charity, true to her name, removed the scarf and handed it to Gabby.

“It’s a gift.”

There was lots of back and forth.  “No, I couldn’t!”  “No, I insist!”

Grateful and humbled, Gabby accepted it.

Uncommon sense.

I pray for this uncommon sense.  Giving with a spirit of a true giver.  Truly knowing the recipient, their needs, wants and desires.  And then letting go of all the hang-ups, judgment and rules and just giving all I have.  And it’s not about giving ‘till it hurts.  That only breeds resentment.  No, it’s more than that.  First you gotta’ accept and rejoice in everything that God has given you.  Own it and embrace it.  And then bless others, all others, with the best you have to give.

Don’t give ‘till it hurts.

Give till it surprises.  Offer the uncommon.  Rewrite the rules.  Use the guest towels.

But wash them first.

Just Do Some Laundry

So, Gabby and I have just returned from a belated Anniversary weekend.  As of last week, we’ve been married eight years!  Or, as Gabby would say, to her it only feels like five minutes… …in a microwave.

In truth, we’re very blessed.  Best friends.

We shipped our kids off to “Nana Camp,” a no-holds-barred, fun-fest where my mom (who, incidentally, receives social security checks) out-plays, out-laughs, out-pretends, and out-kids our maniac children.  It’s a sight to behold - equivalent to a monk showing up to a frat party and drinking the pledge class under the table.  A wholly unexpected surreal display that leaves you in awe of her vitality.  The kids beg for mercy naps when it’s all over.

Now kid-less, our weekend took us to Asheville, North Carolina, a lovely town tucked away in the Smoky Mountains where hippies thrive and shoes are optional.  For a moment, we were transported back in time to our dating days when we lived in Austin and could have adult conversations and eat at restaurants  that don’t have a picture of a clown on the menu.  I didn’t see a chicken finger the entire weekend.

The “big event” of our weekend was touring the Biltmore Mansion.  If you’ve never been, let me break it down for you.

Essentially, it’s a $55/ticket open house.

If you want the audio tour, that’s ten bucks extra.

Don’t get me wrong, Biltmore is as awe-inspiring as my mother’s energy level, if not more so.  It’s the largest private dwelling ever built.  The estate is 125,000 acres.  The house alone, built in 1895, is four acres of floor space.  The best part of all is that the place was built by George Vanderbilt, who was single at the time.  Imagine sitting down to breakfast, having a bowl of Corn Flakes at a table that seats sixty people.  Such loneliness might make you want to buy some friends, or at least a small army of mannequins to keep you company.

As we’re walking through this masterpiece of architecture, I can’t get over the absurdity of it all.  Two-hundred-fifty rooms.  Thirty-four bedrooms.  Forty-three bathrooms!  That’s right.   One guy, with forty-three bathrooms.  If he pooped an average of once per day, starting on Ash Wednesday, the guy could make it all the way to Easter without having to visit the same toilet.  Pure craziness!  And don’t even get me started on the sixty-five fireplaces.  How many S’mores can one guy eat!?

Bottom line?  The place is gorgeous, but incredibly wasteful.  I can only think of the hundreds of people who could have been housed, the thousands of meals that could have been purchased, the untold sickness that could have been cured.  Instead, he chose to put in a heated indoor swimming pool, complete with underwater lighting.  In 1895!

I left the tour feeling overwhelmed.

Then I realized that Gabby and I had just spent $130 on tickets to an open house.  Tack on the ice cream and bottle of Cabernet we bought at the Biltmore winery, and we’re nearing a buck-fifty.

I’m no George Vanderbilt, but it’s all relative, right?  How many people could our admission have housed?  How many meals purchased?  How many vaccines given?  What a schmo I can be.

As I reflect on it all now, I’m taken back to an interview I recently heard on NPR with Liz Murray, a girl who grew up homeless after her mother died of AIDS.  Without a home and consistent support system, she was still able to graduate high school and get accepted to Harvard.

Her story was picked up by many newspapers.  When people heard her story, they jumped in to help, buying her the essentials she needed.  Liz, as you might imagine, was at once amazed and skeptical of the gifts.  She wasn’t used to such generosity, and wondered what it was all for.

One day, a woman met her outside her dorm.  She approached Liz and said, “I’m sorry it has taken me so long.  I have been meaning to meet you.”  Slightly confused, Liz just listened.  The woman continued.

“I read your story in the paper, and wanted to help.  But I thought, ‘I’m not wealthy.  I don’t have money.  I have nothing to give.’  So I did nothing.  Then one day I was doing laundry for my family and realized, ‘Liz is a person.  She must have laundry like the rest of us.  I could probably help.’  So that’s why I’m here.  I am here to do your laundry.  Go get it for me.”

So Liz went and got a handful of laundry.  The woman opened her station wagon, and there was a laundry bag.  Liz filled it, and was on her way.

For one year, this woman came to Liz’s dorm and picked up her laundry.  Every week.  For one year.  Doing laundry.

The message is this.

We may not think we have much, but we can always give something.  Whether money or time.  Our guilt in not giving is also not productive.  It’s there to remind us that we do have something to offer.  God doesn’t care about the size of the gift.  He only cares about the heart that gives it.

So today, my prayer for myself is to let go of the guilt.   Let go of the judgment.  Don’t worry about those huge questions.  Those huge homes.  Those huge dollars I’ve wasted.  It’s gone.  Worry is waste.  The idea today is simply to serve.  Big or small.  It doesn’t matter.  Just do some laundry.  Some way.  Today.

On Missionaries, D-Cups, and the God Corporation

So, I started this blog, feeling like an “accidental missionary.” Sometimes God calls you. Other times, you just fall ass-backwards into ministry. I’m more of the latter. I never would have thought I would be a missionary. Allow me to explain. Webster’s defines a missionary like this:

missionary (ˈmi-shə-ˌner-ē) (n.) a person undertaking a mission and especially a religious mission

That’s not how I define the term. Instead, my version of missionary is made up of things I’ve learned from reflecting on random church sermons, watching Saturday afternoon movies, and channel surfing past weepy televangelist. Scott’s New World Dictionary defines it this way.

missionary (ˈmi-shə-ˌner-ē) 1. (n.) A guy with an unkempt beard and a slightly soiled white robe, whose neck is draped with a wooden crucifix the size of a Virginia ham, with an accent that blends the best of british aristocrat and the worst of Jimmy Swaggart. 2. (n.) A guy who spends his days reading Bible stories to children who speak no English, folding hands in prayer, and dunking natives in a peaceful river with as much ease as normal people dunk post-worship fellowship hall donuts in coffee. 3. (n.) A guy who has memorized the Bible word-for-word, physically incapable of having a conversation without weaving in a quoted scripture. 4. (n.) Anyone who dies doing God’s work. The lucky ones die of dysentery fairly late in life, within reach of Immodium. Otherwise, the death will likely involve burning, stoning, dragging behind a horse on rocky terrain, or multiple gunshot wounds during a climatic final scene of an Oscar-nominated film.

I am none of these things.

First off, I don’t even own a robe. Not a bath robe. Not a choir robe. Not even a mumu. My theory is this: If the only thing standing between a stranger’s gaze and my “man parts” is the speed and direction of the wind, then such a garment does not belong in my closet.

As for the beard, at 36 years old, I still get carded at establishments that sell “Satan’s juice.” My baby face is incapable of growing any fur. I once tried, and the results were so spotty, it looked like someone had sprayed Round-Up on my cheeks.

And the cross? I’m just not a jewelry guy. Any more than a wrist watch and I start to feel like Flavor-Flav.

Dunking? I grew up Catholic, so my improvised attempts at full immersion baptism would probably look more like a game of Marco-Polo gone bad.

The Bible? Before our time in Guatemala, I haden’t memorized a single scripture in the Good Book. In fact, in an attempt to deepen our faith, Gabby and I embarked on a daily devotional diet. On day three, the reading was from the book of Amos. We both looked at each other and said “There’s a book of Amos in the Bible? Who knew?” Interestingly enough, we also learned that there is a book of Joel, named after one of my best friends, a book of Esther, named for my neighbor’s aunt, and the book of Habakkuk. Sorry, I don’t know a Habbakuk. But I have met a woman named Velveeta. She manages a convenience store outside of Memphis. But, I digress.

Now that I’ve been a missionary, I can over-simplfy the concept for you.For those of you who have played either of these roles, or both, I’d love to get your take on this.

There are really two kinds of missionary. You either work for Jesus’ sales department, or you work in Jesus’ customer service department. Jesus sales is all about spreading Christianity to people who don’t know anything about it, or have heard of it but don’t really care much for it. This is done through translating the Bible into native languages, planting new churches where none existed, preaching about Jesus, and saving souls through prayer and encouraging them to sign up to play for Team Jesus.

Jesus customer service is all about finding some spot on the globe where oppression or poverty has made life a less than desirable product, and trying to “fix” the situation. This is done through raising money, raising awareness, advocating for the marginalized in the political system, or getting your hands dirty by building stuff like clean water systems, schools, houses, or composting latrines. While both have their place in the world, my goal was to be the second kind of missionary.

Frankly, I’ve never been too good at sales. I have a real hang-up about it. I feel like it can seem a little pushy and off-putting. So, I tend to soft-peddle it, and don’t close many deals. My commission check from the Good Lord would be pretty slim. In fact, I’d probably be fired. The service side of the Jesus business just sounds more my style.

Because our missionary year was primarily the service variety, we spent considerable time learning about all the weird things that Jesus’ customer service department has done over the years to screw things up.

Take, for example, a group of U.S. missionaries who traveled to a remote village in South America and saw how poverty had negatively affected the entire community. The youth, without money, jobs, or a sense of purpose, were roaming the streets causing trouble, stealing, and committing violent acts. The missionaries thought, “How about a place for the community to gather, where the youth could enjoy sports and other activities to give a sense of purpose and direction? That could make a huge difference.”

So the missionaries returned to the U.S., raised money, and traveled back to South America to build the community center. They sent a team of laborers to build the building and fill it with equipment and supplies. They hosted a grand opening event to celebrate the achievement and hand over the center to the people. The whole village showed up for the party. A year later, the missionaries back in the U.S. received a phone call.

“Your roof is leaking,” the voice said, with heavy accent.

“Our roof is leaking?”

“Yes, your community center is leaking,” he repeated. “We thought you should know.”

That’s right. The community center was something the missionaries would have wanted had they been in this impoverished situation. They built it from their perspective. The villagers never actually asked for it. They didn’t have a hand in building it. They were never truly involved in the planning. It didn’t fit in their culture. It was a waste. Like giving your great-grandmother a Bowflex for Christmas.

And there are loads of other stories just like that one. Missionaries designed an elaborate microloan program for impoverished women in Central America to buy and raise rabbits to sell and to feed their families. Fantastic idea. Cheap project. Rabbits multiply like, well… rabbits! Lots of food. Lots of money. The problem?

They don’t eat rabbit.

The project was about as successful as a McBunny value meal promotion at the Golden Arches.

Or there were the missionaries who distributed brassieres to tribeswomen in Africa for comfort and prudence. The Bible says “Clothe the naked,” right?

They returned to the village a year later and find the men wearing D-Cups around their waists.

“Thanks for the wonderful pockets!” they said. “Now we can easily carry our hunting supplies on our hips.”

Note to self: Native rhymes with creative.

So our a lot of our missionary prep was chock-full of learning about cultural awareness, understanding poverty, and understanding ourselves and our American biases and values. It was both fascinating and humbling. Though the learning was intense, those who were shepherding us through the program admitted that it wasn’t really enough to prepare us for the “real world” of missionary life. That would take time. We would learn to be “missionaries of presence.” So what the heck does that mean?

It goes a little something like this. First off, God is everywhere. To say you are bringing Him to a distant land is like saying you’re bringing oxygen to the air. Whether you’re in Jesus sales or Jesus service, your product has already arrived at the destination long ago.

Our job is just to be present with people, and meet with them one-on-one. Sharing the God that lives in all of us. It is through this connection that we can truly transform. Whether that be in helping facilitate a real relationship with God, or serving others to fulfill a genuine need.

So, what do you make of all that? I’d love to get your take.

The Double-Edged Sword

Fatherhood. It’s a double-edged sword.  Sometimes it can be absolutely joy-giving.  For example:

• The morning when my two-year-old daughter wanted me to teach her how to shave, so I plopped her on the bathroom vanity, covered her face with cream, and gave her a razor (no… not a real one.  Don’t call Child Protective Services).

• Having a 45-minute dance party on Labor Day morning, and hearing Jake reply that he likes that Disco song best.  The one called “Booger Shoes.”

Uh… that’s “Boogie Shoes,” Jake.  From Saturday Night Fever.

Other times being a dad can be soul-sucking.  For example:

• Hearing my daughter yell, for the 482^nd time, “Daaaaaady!  Come wipe my bottom!”

• Waking up at 2am to have your son puke on you.

Come to think of it, that’s a little like my college experience.

For better or for worse, parenthood is a blessing.  You get to see the wonders of the world - the beauty and the mess - all wrapped up in a 34-pound package.  It also comes with its fair share of responsibility.  And, as a former missionary trying to keep livin’ like I oughtta’, that means teaching kids about service.

Recently, my wife and I decided that we should expose the kids to some volunteer opportunities.  Granted, at 2 and 4 years old, their contributions are small.  But it’s all about the ministry of presence, right?

We had been talking for months about going to serve at a homeless kitchen in Nashville run by a woman from our church.  We finally got around to calling her to set up a time to come visit.

The day came to go to serve.  As we got ready to leave the house, I squatted down next to the kids.  I was fully prepared to give the “we’re going to serve people less fortunate than us, so be on your best behavior” speech.  Like something from the psychic hotline, Gabby sensed what I was about to say, and interrupted.

“Hey kids!  You wanna’ go eat lunch with some new friends!?”

They were so excited, we might as well have told them they were going to live in a house made of Twizzlers and cotton candy.  Score one for Gabby.  I was just about to set up the giver/taker dynamic without even thinking about it.  Idiot.

When we arrived, the kids ran around like crazy people.  Jake was loud.  Audrey talked to everyone.  We finally corralled the kids and gave them their jobs.  Jake’s role was to hand out ketchup packets to folks in line.  Audrey was on mayo and mustard.  Gabby and I simply made sure they didn’t smash the packets into a Technicolor array of condiment art.

The kids were amazing.  They chatted with people.  They offered packets.  They said “Have a nice day!”  They got distracted by the cookies on peoples’ trays.

But what didn’t distract them were the people.  Young and old, every color of the rainbow.  One guy dressed in a sport coat, another in tatters. Mental illness.  Prison time.  The kids just smiled.  Shook hands.  Made connections.

And had lunch with new friends.

Fatherhood.  It’s a double-edged sword.

Just when you think you’re doing the teaching, you’re the one learning all the lessons.

My Dream Date With Clint Eastwood

Back in junior high, I was a pretty good kid.  But I had my limits. Case in point.  In 1985, my mom came up with a grand plan to orchestrate “The Best Christmas Ever.”  For us kids, we would have been over the moon for a shopping spree at Toys-R-Us or the mall.  But Mom?  Her recipe for Holiday bliss involved the usual heavy dose of forced family fun.  “This year,” she told us “we’ll be serving at the Red Andrews Christmas Dinner.”

Insert chorus of groans.

For those of you who don’t know, the Red Andrew’s Christmas dinner is a 60-year-old Christmas tradition in Oklahoma City, where no fewer than 8,000 of your closest homeless friends come to enjoy a meal and some Holiday Cheer at the downtown convention center.  You can imagine my delight at getting to set aside all of Santa’s gifts to freeze my keester off and head downtown to serve a meal to people I’d never met.

I’d prefer a lump of coal, thanks.

On the drive down to the Convention center, Mom cooked up a pretty strong sales pitch.

“Maybe you could pass out toys to the kids”, mom said.  “Wouldn’t that be fun?!”

Her enthusiasm helped.  A little.

Narcissism makes a great stocking-stuffer.  After a few minutes, I had visions of playing the role of the world’s only 117-pound Santa, handing out gifts to cherub-cheeked kids who would giggle and squeal with delight.  I might even get to deliver some brownies to a few hungry folks.  I started to believe that this might be a Christmas I could be proud of.

When we showed up, we met the volunteer coordinator.  She was a frazzled mess of anxiety and activity.  A lot goes into coordinating dinner for a large army of people.  When we asked how we could help, and she said, “We have enough servers, we also have plenty of people wrapping and handing out gifts.  Where we really need help is maintaining the line.”

We quickly found out that “maintaining the line” meant that we would be policing the lobby area, where thousands of needy, very hungry people had gathered.  Our job was, in no uncertain terms, to assure that no one cut in line.  It’s just as much fun as it sounds.

Some decisions were easy.  Unruly guy, smelling of booze, irritating lots of people?

Please go back to your place in line.

Others were harder.

Seventy-five-year old woman with a bad hip using a walker?

Back of the line, granny!

Scary, six-foot-five-inch, muscle-bound biker covered in prison tattoos?

Dad, you take that one.

Needless to say, our expectations were transformed.  What started in my head as grand plans to pass out toys and brownies became the most uncomfortable Christmas I’d ever experienced. As with all things, God puts us in uncomfortable situations for a reason.  I just had no clue what that reason was.  Sure, we probably did some good that day.  The coordinators needed help, and we may have prevented conflict and altercations on the Lord’s birthday.  There’s something to be said for that, right?  So, we were serving, and in way, letting God work through us.  The only problem?  We weren’t letting God work in us.

About eight summers ago, I had a shot at redemption.  My brother, whom I had idolized for my entire life, had become the youth leader along with his wife at his church in Kansas City.  When I was a kid, I tried to walk like him and talk like him.  I wanted to dress like him.  Thanks to a wardrobe made up of 80% hand-me-downs, I got to dress JUST like him, only five years out of style.   To this day, I even write in all caps ‘cause that’s how he did it.  The only thing I didn’t idolize was the giant perm he got back in 1982.  The guy looked like a walking stalk of broccoli.

I heard that my brother was having trouble funding a youth mission trip to Harlan, Kentucky, a town tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains where we in America hide some of our poverty.  There was a chance they would have to cancel.

At that time, I had a really well-paying job, and more money than I needed.  Here was my chance to be the hero!  Talk about pride.  As I wrote the check, a sizeable one, I couldn’t help but think of the look on his face when he opened the envelope.  Wow… My little brother must have made it!

Well, the reaction wasn’t quite what I had expected.  While my brother was very grateful for the check, he asked for something more.

“You should come with us!”  He said.  “I need another youth sponsor!”

I thought to myself,  Did you not see all the zeroes on that check?  Decimal-point-free, bro!

I wish I could say that I jumped at the chance, but signing my name on the trip release form to go to Kentucky took much more effort than signing the check.   But this was my chance to do meaningful work and serve the poor.  No line maintenance on this trip.

So, I was off to Harlan.

We spent the week doing some very amazing things.  Small groups of kids roofed homes, some painted houses, others cleaned.  My job was to lead a team of 6-8 youth at a different site.  It was a combination warehouse/food pantry.  That week, we worked to renovate an upstairs area for homeless in transition.  If they needed a place to stay for a few weeks while they got back on their feet, they could crash at the pantry.  We pounded nails, we sawed boards, we did demolition work.  We even helped clean out the food warehouse itself.  The most challenging part was the disposal of 1000 pounds of rotten potatoes, the bulk of which needed to be moved  by hand from the warehouse to the dumpster.  It was God’s work.

Each night, we would reflect on the good work we had done for the poor.  We were proud of ourselves.  Again, narcissism makes a great stocking-stuffer.

At the end of the week, the warehouse had its normally scheduled “Soup Kitchen.”  This was the day where they opened up the warehouse to serve meals.  So, the final activity of the week would be seeing some of the people that we were working to help.   We continued working on the transition center it came time to serve the meal.  We washed up and started to don our hair nets.  The homeless were gathering in a line outside the door.

That’s when my brother came in.

%$@#$!)

(Note:  the above word is censored because my mom reads this blog and sent me the following email: Received a phone call from xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx and she was so excited to read your blog; however, she was going to forward it to her church friends, but felt that the word "%$@#$!)" would be offensive. It really doesn't sound like you either Scotty, so just white it out!!   Love the blog - very entertaining, just watch your language......from your MOTHER )

He looked around and saw that the regular volunteer crew was enough to serve the meal.  So, he said,

“There are plenty of folks to serve, what I’d like you to do is just sit down and have a meal with these people.  Get to know them.  Make some new friends.”

All of us stood and stared blankly at him.  The silence was deafening.  The kids looked toward the line.  Standing there were the mentally ill, the homeless, and former prisoners. These were all people who most of their parents had told them to avoid when walking alone at night.

Or during the day.

The voice planted in everyone’s head at that point, including mine, was “We were here to serve.  Not to make friends.”

My inner voice was saying, “I’m comfortable when there’s some distance between me and the homeless.  Maybe  separated by a sneeze guard, or a gloved hand, or a boxed gift.  Or, distracted by hammers and shovels and tools for building, so I can ignore the fact that there is a real person standing next to me that I could be connecting with.  But to truly connect?  That’s too much.  Besides, what do I have in common with these people?”

It was Red Andrews all over again.  Inside, I was terrified.  I wanted to run.  But I didn’t have that luxury.  I was supposed to be leading.  Outside, I said, “OK guys, let’s do it!”

The kids were not so outwardly enthusiastic.

We got into the line and got our food.  I found a table, sat down next to a man wearing a tattered flannel shirt and blue jeans two sizes too big.  I introduced myself.  “Hello, I’m Scott. “

He said, “I’m Clint Eastwood.”

So I guess both of us were nervous.

Now what do I say? The normal questions of “where do you live, what do you do for a living” seemed too risky.

“So, have you been in this area long?”

And that was it.  We talked for 30 minutes.  About childhood, playing in the mountains of Appalachia, of dads and moms, of pets and school.  We were people.  Talking.  Sharing a meal.  Connecting.

The meal was over.  We put up our trays, and cleared the table.  Then there was the awkward moment when it was time to part ways.  Before he left I held out a hand,

“Well, thanks for dinner.  It was good to meet you, Clint.”

He took my hand and said…

“It’s David.  Nice chattin' with ya’”

I wish I could say that David and I have remained friends.  You know the kind.  Making occasional phone calls.  Maybe swapping Christmas cards.  Well this isn’t that kind of story.

Throughout our lives, God puts us in uncomfortable situations.  Like I said before, that discomfort is there to teach us something.  Sometimes you miss the point.  Sometimes it’s crystal clear.

My meal with David sent the simple message that we’re on this planet to make genuine connections, and that can’t happen unless we remove all judgment and pretense, and really connect.  Face to face, person to person, soul to soul.  When we look into the eyes of others and share ourselves in this way, we give the gift of dignity.  We meet the Christ that lives in all of us – especially those on the margins – the homeless, the orphaned, the imprisoned, the sick, the troubled, the downcast.  And isn’t that what Jesus wants most of all?

To meet us in our day-to-day.

Our Father Who Aren't In Heaven?

OK… like lots of families, we say a prayer together at mealtimes.  Sometimes, we riff spontaneously about whatever needs prayin’ (neighbor is sick, friend needs help, nana is joyful, stuffed animal disemboweled).  Other times, we roll through a litany of Greatest Hits.  Might be “God Our Father” sung to the tune of frère jacques.  Maybe a preschool prayer complete with hand motions straight outta’ Show Choir. A couple of months ago, Gabby decided it would be fun to say the standard Lord’s Prayer every so often.  The “Old School” version.  I grew up Catholic, so I’m a “trespasses” kinda’ guy.  We thought that maybe our four-year-old Jake would catch on.

Well, he did.  Granted, he pronounced “trespasses” as “trash-passes”, but we’ll let it slide.  Little did we know that two-year-old Audrey was soakin’ it up like a sponge.

So, here’s her solo version.  Just ignore the sacrilegious “Our Father who Aren’t in Heaven”, “Hollow Be Thy Name”, and "Power For Glory" business.  She makes up for it on the AMEN!  Good stuff.  Now, we just need to teach her what it all means, right?