Getting Lucky With The Other Woman

True confessions time. I cheated on my wife on Valentine’s Day.  Got lucky with another woman.  I didn’t mean to do it.  It just happened.

I met her sixteen years ago when I was working for WorldCom.  I was a fresh-faced kid just starting out in the business world.  I looked like Richie Cunningham from Happy Days, only younger.

Susan was an ex-flight attendant turned counselor, consultant and coach.  She was… ahem… more mature than me.  Graduated high school around the time I was born.  Still, we hit it off instantly.  Probably because my youthful appearance matched her sense of humor precisely.

We worked in a downtown high rise together.  There were many days when we squeezed into a crowded elevator, riding up seventeen floors with eight or ten very business-like passengers.  We would all be standing there.  Every last one of us.  Silent.  Watching the numbers click by.  Inevitably, Susan would ask me a question in a voice hushed enough to sound as if she was trying to be discreet, yet loud enough so everyone could hear.

“Did the doctor ever diagnose that nasty rash of yours?”

“Were you able to get that stain out of your underpants?”

“Are you still gassy?”

With Susan, you got just what you might expect from someone with such a varied background.  The flirty, outlandish  flight attendant mixed with the sharp intellectual wit of the counselor.  She could joke about her days with Delta, busting passengers who were trying to join the “Mile High Club”, then instantly shift gears and talk about the latest organizational psychology that might help improve the management philosophy of the whole company.  She would spice up our department meetings, coming in dressed as a busty, crazed, church lady shouting “Amens” to the rooftops, then break character and offer carefully worded insights that would make us all wonder if she had a secret window into everyone’s soul.

You can see why everyone had a not-so-secret crush on her.

So, when I found out I had a business trip to her new hometown for Valentine’s Day, I had to call her.

“So Susan, it looks like I’ll be coming to town on the 14^th.  Do you have a hot Valentine’s date planned for that night?”

“Only you, Scott-man.”

“My plane lands at 4:30.  I’ll be at your place by 6:00.  Do I have the right address?”

“Yes, but I’ve moved to apartment 103.”

“OK.  See you then.”

On February 14^th, I landed in Dallas, picked up my rental car, and immediately headed toward Susan’s place.  I put on a sport coat to try and dress up my travel outfit, and stopped by the florist to pick up an arrangement of flowers.  I was in the lobby of her complex at 6:00 on the nose.

I passed by the downstairs restaurant filled with couples and families.  Many of the women were decked out in red in light of the occasion, talking across tiny tables.  I was a bit nervous about this encounter, so I walked right past, trying to look inconspicuous.  Then, I realized that trying to look inconspicuous tends to make a guy look more guilty than walking around in a bright orange jumpsuit.  I feigned being normal by stopping a woman in the hallway to ask directions.  She was dressed as a nurse.

“Where is apartment 103?”

Nurse Nancy pointed toward the end of the hall, “All the way down, then take a right.”

That was normal enough.

I found the apartment and knocked on the door.  I heard her call out, “Come on in!”

When I entered, I heard Susan’s muffled voice from behind a half-cracked bathroom door.  “I’m just doing some last-minute primping for our date.  I’ll be right out.”

I stood nervously and waited, picking at a wilted petal on a carnation.  Then I glanced at a picture hanging on the wall and noticed my reflection.  I used the opportunity to straighten the collar of my sport coat and check for food in my teeth, wanting to make a good impression.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.

A moment later the door opened.  She looked up at me with a big smile and said, “It’s so good to see you!  What do you think of my hair?  It’s going gray, isn’t it?”

“It looks fantastic!”

She reached up to give me a squeeze.  I bent deeply at the waist and gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.  You see, Susan has shrunk about three feet since our WorldCom days due to the fact that she now gets around in a wheelchair.

It all started a few years ago.  Susan went to see a doctor about some minor issues she was having, and he found something wrong with her heart that required an operation.  It was a serious surgery, but not an emergency.  She was expected to make a full recovery.  Around this same time, she tragically lost three loved ones in her life, adding insult to injury.

The surgery went well, but the recovery didn’t.  Susan picked up an infection that affected her spinal cord.  Since that time, she has spent months in hospitals, rehab centers and nursing homes, literally trying to get back on her feet, yet suffering countless setbacks.

Her body no longer cooperates.  She’s lost a lot of feeling in her hands.  Her muscles have tightened up.  She’s unable to do the work she loves.  Or work in her garden.  Or comfortably drink from a cup without a straw.  This is tough for anyone, but especially so for a strong, independent woman who had lived on her own, built her own consulting practice, and hiked the Grand Canyon on a regular basis.

Susan stood up out of her chair, opened the kitchen cabinet, and pulled out a glass to act as a vase for the flowers.

“I’ve made a lot of progress since I last saw you, Scott.”

She’s not kidding.  The last time we had dinner together was over a year ago.  At that time, her neck was so tight, she had trouble holding her head upright.  All of her movements were deliberate.  She could not stand on her own two feet.

“I can walk a quarter of a mile now!”

Then Susan’s exhibitionist spirit came out.  She was holding her arms above her head.  Lifting a weighted bar.  Pacing back and forth in the room with the aid of a walker.  If I squinted my eyes, I could see her running frantically through a corporate conference room dressed as that wacky church lady.  It was a beautiful sight.

I got lucky.  I spent the evening with a dear friend whose body was broken but her spirit was intact.  We reminisced about the good old days.  Talked shop.  She told me how she messed with all the old folks at the retirement home.  Especially the ultra-conservative Geraldine, who frequently prayed for Susan’s soul.  When she would come by and ask Susan if she would like to play a game in the parlor with the other ladies, Susan would respond,

“How about hide and seek!”

I laughed at the image of Susan hiding from a bunch senile folks.

She was the same Susan, just wrapped in a different package.  No.  Scratch that.   She was an even better Susan.  Even warmer and wiser, if such a thing was possible.

After a couple of hours, she told me she was pooped and had to kick me out.

“What?!  You mean to tell me I’m not going to get lucky tonight?”

“With these old bones?”  She came back.  “I don’t think so sonny boy.”

Before I left her room, she gave me her latest business card.  Her new title?

“Wellness Visioner.”

On my way out, I walked past the restaurant.  It was 8:00pm and the place was empty.  The halls were empty.  The lobby was empty.  I left the building without a soul seeing me.

I cheated on my wife on Valentine’s Day.  Shared my heart with another woman.  A woman whose spirit inspires and uplifts.  A woman whose smile brings life.  A missionary who serves others simply by being who she is.

I call that getting lucky.

Be A Moron

I recently took a business trip to Phoenix.  Not a bad place to have to go when it’s 35 degrees and rainy back home in Nashville.  Stepping out of the airport, I was smacked in the face by air so warm and clean it felt like angels draping me in invisible blankets fresh from God’s dryer. And apparently, the Heavenly hosts use fabric softener.

Moments like this are best shared with loved ones, so I immediately called Gabby to tell her the good news.  When she answered the phone, she had just finished wiping backyard mud off our 14-year-old dog’s feet, which is almost as fun as it sounds.  Kids were screaming in the background.  I may have even heard a vacuum cleaner salesman outside our front door, begging to come inside and do a demonstration.

“How was your trip?” she asked.

Something told me she really didn’t want to know the answer.  In all honesty, I could have sat in the middle seat between two sweaty Sumo champions, had my right earlobe sucked into the tiny airplane toilet, lost all of my luggage, been strip-searched by the TSA, and we would still call it even.  Why?  Because she knows I get to eat dinner all by myself in a quiet restaurant while she tries to hold negotiations with the loudest kids on the planet over how they must eat every green bean on their plate if they expect to have even one crumb of a cookie.

“You sound busy.  I’ll call you back when I get to the hotel,” I answered.

Divorce avoided.

Proving that the universe is a balanced place, I got lost on the way to the hotel.  I have a keen sense of direction, so long as that direction is accompanied by a very polite woman’s voice on the GPS guiding me where I need to go.  I finally arrived 45-minutes later to a beautiful courtyard packed with orange trees.  Every branch was adorned with brightly colored, fragrant fruit.  I looked down on the ground in front of me and saw that one had just fallen from the tree, so I picked it up and took it to my room.

* My orange:  So perfect

Once I had unpacked my things and settled in, I peeked over at the table in the corner.  There sat my beautiful orange.  I picked it up and sniffed it.  Unbelievable!  It smelled like rainbows.  And pixie dust.  And fairies riding unicorns.

I started to peel the orange, and the juice immediately started dripping down my arm and rolling off my elbow.  I haven’t even taken a bite, and this may be the most amazing piece of fruit I have ever tasted.

I had it half-peeled, and the juice was already out of control.  Once peeled, I held the orange in my hand and bit into it like an apple.  A flood of juice passed over my gums and caressed my tongue.  Then my taste buds finally registered a flavor like none other.

It was like licking a lemon-scented car air freshener and chasing it with a shot of Windex.  I gagged and ran toward the bathroom.  Nearly puked.  Sixty seconds later, I lost the feeling in my lips.  I had a fleeting thought that I may have been deliberately poisoned, but then remembered that I wasn’t a medieval king or Simon Cowell.

No, this wasn’t an attempt on my life.  Apparently (as I would later overhear the concierge explaining to another hotel patron) there are edible oranges and ornamental oranges.  The ornamental variety are bred specifically for their bright color and fragrance.  The bonus?  Animals and pests leave them alone because they taste like the sludge pools at a chemical plant.  People who might pick the fruit either a)  learn their lesson very quickly, or  b) have already been weeded out through the wonders of natural selection.

So, the truth is, I’m just a moron.

Or more precisely, an oxymoron.

I finally called Gabby back, thinking that my numb lips might trump anything she had dealt with that evening.  She had a pretty good time with it, especially given one of my greatest phobias.

“How is it that you are deathly afraid of “food gone bad”, yet you’ll eat something right off of a tree, or even off the ground?” she laughed.

She’s right.  I have a morbid fear of eating food that is past the expiration date.  When I was a kid, I got really hungry and ate about two pounds of random stuff out of our refrigerator.  Apples.  Celery with peanut butter.  Macaroni and cheese.  French onion dip and potato chips.  I couldn’t quite satiate my belly, so I dove into the dairy drawer.  Tucked in among the butter and the eggs were a couple of tiny, foil-wrapped wedges of Hickory Farms gift basket cheese that had been in our fridge since the Carter administration.  They did me in.  I laid on the bathroom floor for the entire night.

Ever since then, I am maniacal about expiration dates.  It drives my wife crazy.  A day or two before something is set to retire, I get the shakes as the urge hits me to send it down the garbage disposal.  Back in 2002, I almost called off my pending marriage to Gabby after she inadvertently served what are now known in our house as “The Millennium Biscuits” – some Pillsbury buttermilk hockey pucks that carried a “best by…” date of 01/2000.

But I’ll gladly eat an orange right off the ground.  Or a chunk of granola bar I find sitting on the console of our SUV.  Or, just yesterday, a pock-marked old Smartie I found in my jacket pocket.

“It’s about the adventure,” I finally answered.

Eating random stuff is exciting.  You never know what you’re going to get.  It’s a bit like opening a book and reading the first page.  Sometimes, you get Dennis Rodman’s autobiography and page one makes you throw up in your mouth a little.  Sometimes you get a John Grisham novel – a pure page turner that keeps getting better and better.

I remember fondly the day I stood on a chair, hanging over the fence at Gabby’s mom’s house picking fresh blackberries off the neighbor’s tree.  I’m not sure if you’ve ever shoved thirty ultra-sweet, just-picked blackberries into your mouth all at once.  It’s like an explosion of summer in your mouth.  It was pure bliss.  A non-stop dessert-fest courtesy of mother nature for nearly an hour.

So, if I happen to eat a toxic orange on my way to another memorable moment, so be it.

But expiration dates?  What fun is that?  You know exactly when something is going to go bad.  You don’t even have to taste it.  The mystery is gone.  It’s pre-determined.

But now, as I reflect on my oxymoronic food rules, I think I may be missing something.  Something big.  There is this part of my life where I throw caution to the wind, let go, and experience life.  Sure, there are times when it doesn’t work out, but I’m still standing.  Breathing for another day on the planet.  Ready for the next challenge.  Lessons learned.

Then, there is this side of me that is filled with fear.  Afraid of the unknown.  It’s all about protection.  Protection from something that I know deep down won’t hurt me.  But in the rock-paper-scissors game of life, fear beats logic every time.  So, I sit back in a safe place, never seeing that the place I’m scared to go is the place God most wants me to be.

It’s time I follow my own advice from a song I recorded a few years ago.  I’ll start small.  Baby steps.  There is a tub of salsa in the back of the fridge that expired six days ago.  Maybe I’ll wait for lucky day number seven and dip a few chips.  I know it won’t kill me.

After that, Heaven only knows what adventures await.

My Love-Hate Relationship with Mary Kay

* Mary Kay Ash.  Entrepreneur.  Philanthropist.  Tormentor.

Today’s reports of over a foot of snow in my old hometown of Yukon, Oklahoma brought back a flood of memories. No doubt, there are kids bundled up, braving the -17 degree wind chills to enjoy the drifting bliss.  Frostbite is a small price to pay for a little taste of winter fun.

As a kid, a good, playable snowfall came around about as often as an invitation to an Independence Middle School dance.  Throughout most of my junior high career, I weighed 107 lbs. soaking wet, with at least 50% of that weight assigned to my giant head.  I’ll let you do the math to determine the probability of me luring the ladies.

As you might imagine, appropriate warm weather gear was one of the first items to fall off my family’s prioritized budget, coming right after “Japanese Kimono for Dad” and just before “Extra Magic 8-Ball Game In Case The Original Doesn’t Work Right.” I always managed to get a good, heavy coat each winter along with some gloves and a stocking cap.  Most of this stuff was second-hand from my older brother, which was fine because I idolized him.  The only drawback is that it was all 5-7 years out of style.  The silver lining is that I can personally take all of the credit for carrying  the “Starsky and Hutch” craze into the early-80’s.

Boots and snow pants were another story.   Several of my friends sported ski suits and moon boots, spurred by the fact that their fathers capitalized on the oil boom of the late 70’s.  I, on the other hand, made do with random stuff from my closet.  Tennis shoes.  Five pair of socks.  Three pair of jeans.  This stuff would keep you warm until it got wet with snow.  Then you would literally freeze and turn into a Popsicle, totally immobile from the neck down.  In the Oklahoma wind, this took about 25 minutes.

One snowy day, my mom saw me warming my feet by the fireplace.  My toes were bright red.

“Mom?”

“Yes honey.”

“I want some moon boots.”

“Why do you want moon boots?”

“Because they are really warm.  Barry and T.J. and Theron can play in the snow for hours without getting cold.  My feet get wet and then get all frozen.”

* Early 80's Moon Boots:  Oh How I Covet Thee

I waited to see what mom’s reaction would be.  Had I sold her?

“That’s right.  You need a way to keep your feet from getting wet.”

Bingo!

“Exactly, Mom.  That’s exactly what I need.”

Mom thought for a moment, smiled, and said, “I think I can help.”

I envisioned this would be one of those movie moments, where mom would walk around the corner, then return with a gift-wrapped box.  One that she had been holding on to for just such an occasion.  A box containing the most beautiful moon boots I had ever laid eyes on.

And mom appeared from around the corner, just as I had imagined.  A smile on her face.

And in her hands?

Pink plastic baggies.

“These should work!” she said proudly.

Mom was a Mary Kay sales rep.  And she was darn good at it, too.  But this was not the first time I had been double-crossed by the makeup mogul.  One year earlier, I had been bragging to my friends at school that my mom was coming to pick me up in our family’s new car.   It was scheduled to arrive at the dealer that afternoon.

“She won it at work,” I boasted.

I waited outside after the final bell rang, only to see my mom pull up, proudly honking the horn of a flashy, PINK Buick Regal.  You can imagine the fun my buddies had with that one.

Now she wanted me to be the first-ever 9-year-old boy to serve as a walking billboard for a makeup conglomerate.

I immediately started whining.  “No, Mom!  Moon boots!”

* A much manlier version of my snowy footwear.  No vintage bag images available.

“But honey,” she pleaded.  “We can’t get out in this weather, and you want your feet to be dry.  These are the only plastic bags we have in the house that can fit over your shoes.  Besides, it’ll be fun..”

Mom continued with one of her textbook sales pitches, able to turn every situation into a fun, funny, exciting adventure.  But this time, I wasn’t biting.  I looked down at the pink baggies, emblazoned with hundreds of little maroon Mary Kay logos.

No way in hell.

Then I remembered the epic snowball fight that was set to begin promptly after lunch.  The baggies could prolong my fun.  But there was a genuine risk to my reputation as well.  Public ridicule of this nature could be on par with puking in the lunchroom with the whole school present.  It’s hard to recover from that kind of social setback.  In fact, many kids suspected that was the reason Michael Taylor moved to the west coast midway through the second grade at Surrey Hills Elementary.

I had to make a decision – and fast.

Maybe no one will notice, I thought.  My feet will be covered in snow most of the time anyway. In an instant, I had convinced myself that I could pull it off.

After lunch, mom double-bagged each of my feet, and secured them at the ankles with a couple of rubber bands twisted over on themselves.  I donned my coat and headed into the tundra.  I immediately noticed a difference.  My feet did feel warmer.  We were set to meet at a house down the street.  However, I made a quick stop at Barry Cunningham’s house, my next-door neighbor.

Barry was younger than me, and heavy-set as a kid.  This made him an easy target for verbal jabs from some of my neighborhood friends.  I really liked Barry.  We got along well, and I did my best to come to his defense, usually with my own shrewdly-worded comments, as my fists never were my strong suit.  Barry subsequently grew to be a muscular star athlete by the time he graduated high school, dating a super-hot cheerleader.  That said, I’m fairly certain that my subconscious was hoping that if I arrived with seven-year-old Barry, he might distract some of the attention away from me.

“What’s that?” he asked, standing confidently in his bright blue moon boots.

“What do you mean?”

I acted like I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You’re wearing pink makeup bags on your feet.”

“Oh.  Yeah.  Those.  Um... I just thought they might help to keep my feet warm and make me faster or something.”

Barry didn’t question my logic.  He threw on his coat and followed me to Brady Farr’s house.

It was evident from the outset that my decoy plan was backfiring. When we finally ran into the other guys, the few extra pounds that Barry was carrying around his midsection were no match for my shiny pink plastic feet.  I might as well have been wearing a ballet tutu and dancing on a giant, frosted cupcake.

Sure, there were a couple of insults that were both cutting and creative.  Fairy Boy.  Pinky Toes.    But most of the kids just stood in silence, trying to make sense of what they were seeing.  It wasn’t until their brains started to compute that I had indeed chosen to cover my feet in pink Mary Kay bags that they started laughing hysterically.  My toasty toes were now accompanied by my face, colored red-hot with embarrassment.

I fought back with humor, the only weapon I’ve ever had at my disposal.

“Yeah guys.  Isn’t this hilarious!  I thought it would be funny to come out here wearing these pink bags.  I had to steal ‘em from my mom.”  I pranced around and made a few kids laugh.  The barbs died down a little until the last couple of guys showed up.  The time for joking was over.

It was game time.

There is no real logic to a snowball fight.  The goal is simply to dish out as much punishment as you can.  The only rule is that you can’t throw slush balls.  They do too much damage, and as soon as someone starts crying, a mom inevitably comes out and cancels the match.  We stood in a loose huddle, and each kid made several snow balls.  Then, someone said, “Go!”  It was in that moment that I realized my mistake.

I don’t know much about the laws of physics, but I now know that friction can be a helpful aid when it comes to running.  Imagine jumping into a plastic garbage bag and trying to run up a theme park water slide.   That’s the situation I was facing.  I had essentially coated my feet with slippery plastic, and was trying to zig and zag all over a packed-snow field.

I was like a newborn deer playing ice hockey.

It took all of five seconds for the guys to realize I was the weak one in the herd.  I fought it for a while, managing to struggle to my feet, only to lunge quickly to avoid an incoming snowball, falling flat on my face once again.  A half-dozen kids circled around me, unloading snowballs at a furious pace.  That’s when I learned the second rule of a snowball fight.

Pelting a guy loses its appeal when the pink bags stop flailing.

I spent the remainder of the match curled in the fetal position, motionless, silent and still, largely unharmed.  I had feared for my life, both social and physical, only to find that silly foot coverings weren’t a death sentence.  And it wasn’t until I stopped fighting against my own shortcomings that the chaos cleared and peace found me.

‘Cuz we all have our pink bags.  Our bulging midsections.  Our old regrets.  Some are worn for all to see.  Some buried deep inside us.

The thing is, they are a part of us.  Part of God’s design.  Beauty in the mess.  To deny all of our junk is to deny the divine in all of us.  We have to give in.  Embrace the different.

Our snowball fight came to an abrupt end that day.  Someone got smacked in the face with a perfectly thrown ball and started crying.  In that moment, the warlords turned into nurse maids, trying to quiet the kid down lest we get busted for playing too rough.  But it was no use.  Someone’s mom came out and shut it down.

The physical activity came to stop.  Several kids started feeling wet and cold, and chose to go home.  Barry and I took that as our cue.  We set off toward my house.

The walk home along Carriage Dive was a few hundred yards down a slight incline.  I got a running start and headed toward the street.  There, the snow was packed hard.  I leapt off the curb and landed solidly.  When my feet hit, Mary Kay worked her magic.  I slid faster than anyone in moon boots could have dreamed.  Half way to my front door without even taking a step.

Still feeling warm.

My Strange Addiction

I was at the gym recently and saw utter chaos in motion. Utter chaos.

A guy was flailing like mad on the treadmill.  Watching him run was like watching one of those cartoon fights between Wile-E-Coyote and The Roadrunner.  It was just a blur, with an occasional arm or leg exploding from the center.  He was spraying sweat and slobber in every direction.  Hacking.  Wheezing.  Grunting.  Words like “BLONK”, “SQUONCH”, “GLURP” written in cartoon fonts hung in midair.  Then he would stop briefly, stare at the treadmill screen, grimace, and start the whole thing over again.  He is the sole reason they leave paper towels and bottles of cleanser in every nook and cranny of those fitness centers.  Nearly had to sanitize the whole YMCA when he finished.

Worst of all?  The guy was me.

That same evening I was flipping through the channels and ran across the show on TLC called “My Strange Addiction” that documents the stories of people who have, well, strange addictions.  Things like eating household cleanser.  Ingesting couch cushions.  Lifting weights.  Tanning.  Speaking as a ventriloquist.  Wearing full-size fur character suits.   They do these things habitually.  24/7.

You know.  Everyday,  garden-variety stuff.

While watching, I recalled my nutty run on the treadmill and I said to myself,

“Hello.  My name is Scott.  And I’m an addict.”

Here’s the deal.  True confessions time.  I’m addicted to the number seven.

“The number seven?”

Yeah.  The number seven.   Strange, right?

The whole treadmill debacle was a product of this madness.  A normal person at the gym sets goals for himself.  Like, today I would like to run three miles on the treadmill in under 22 minutes.  That’s me.  I set that goal.  The trouble is, I have to do that while keeping as many mathematical “7’s” on the treadmill screen as possible.

Here’s how it works.  Calories are displayed as a three digit number and one decimal point.  Time is displayed in minutes and seconds.  Speed is displayed in miles per hour with one decimal point.  Distance is shown in miles with two decimal points.  So, before I can stop running, each of these fields must either contain a seven, a combination of numbers that add up to seven, or multiples of seven… you get the picture.

So, for speed, 7.7 and 10.7 are particularly satisfying.  I can also run 8.7 miles per hour (‘cuz it has a seven), or 8.6 miles per hour (8+6=14  14 is a multiple of seven)  but not 8.5, because the brain power it would take to make those two numbers equal seven would make my head explode.

Much like yours is doing right now.

Now imagine the chaos on the treadmill.  I am exhausted, slobbering, sweating, and flailing.  All the while, I’m trying to add, subtract, multiply and divide my way to a justified stop.  All too often, I’ll think I have found nirvana and quickly smash down on the “Stop” button, only to find that while I was watching the time field click down to 1:43 (4+3=7  7x1=7), my mileage ticked from 3.52 (5+2=7  7X3=21) to 3.53 (an unthinkable number, really).  So… I gotta’ keep running.

It’s now to the point of laughable.  Every time I drink from a water fountain, I must take seven gulps, no matter how thirsty I am, even if it makes me gag.  Listening to the radio in the car, it’s OK to turn the volume up to 14, but never 11 or 12.  That’s probably why I like dogs, whose age is figured as human years multiplied by seven, and am allergic to cats.

Nine lives?  That’s two more than they need.

So, watching “My Strange Addiction,” I was very interested when the nut cases like me finally met with a counselor.  It was like I was in therapy.   Free with the purchase of a basic cable subscription.

As each person hit the couch, the core problem was the same.  Whether they were eating foam cushion inserts, or dressing like theme park mascots, they all had issues with control.   They usually had some traumatic event in their lives, and this was a coping mechanism.  The addiction gave them some sense of regularity and control, which reduced their anxiety.

For me, my life has been pretty easy.  Heck, The Cosby Show had more controversy than my childhood.  And it’s likely for that reason when the numbers don’t add up on the treadmill, I am still able to function. Though, that could all change if I’m asked to go to a Maroon 5 concert and sit in the 6th row listening to their amps all turned up to 11, all while drinking a 12-ounce V8 juice, sneezing, and petting a 4-year-old cat.  Yikes!

Make it a 7-Up, por favor, and we’re all good.

But maybe it is about control for me?  Who knows?

A couple of days ago, I called a fellow missionary that Gabby and I met a few years ago.  He and his wife live just west of downtown L.A. with their two small kids.  They serve a population of Guatemalan immigrants who are trying to make a better life for themselves here in the states.  Their ministry is to simply live in the community, make connections, and bring hope where there is often despair and brokenness.  They encourage vandals to stop tagging, and instead make art to sell for the benefit of their community.  They visit the elderly and paralyzed gang members in some forgotten nursing homes in the inner city.  Stuff like that.

The couple is essentially a very upgraded, deluxe version of Gabby and me, and the guy has a cool accent to boot.

The reason for my call was to learn more about their ministry, and to see how we might fit in.  Since our mission year in Guatemala, Gabby and I have been looking for ways to stay in touch with folks living on the margins of our society.  We figure taking off a month every other summer so our family can get immersed in service in another culture is a good way to do that.  Maybe we could spend that time in L.A. with Alastair and Katherine as our guides on this journey?

The more Alastair talked about their work, the more excited I got.  Reconnecting with our friends from Guatemala who have now made it to “El Norte”.  Being present.  Finding the divine in simple conversation.  Or sharing a meal.  Or singing a song.

And then I got scared.

“Alastair.  I have to tell you something.”

“What is it, Scott.”

“Well.  We live a pretty sheltered life here.  Lots of creature comforts.  I wake up at 5:34am (3+4=7  7X5=35) and go to the gym.  Then I come home and get the kids ready while Gabby goes in for her workout.  Then,  I work out of the house while Gabby takes care of the kids.  We go to McDonald’s, visit the park, check out a museum, go to church.  Come home to our nice, safe house.  Honestly, spending even four weeks away from our little cocoon sounds tough.  I like my material stuff.  It’s all very…

Sanitized.”

Then Alastair chimed in.  “Hmmm.  I may be hearing something different.  I don’t hear you saying that you’re looking for material comfort.  It sounds to me like you’re really looking for routine.  There is comfort in routine.  We know what to expect.  It grounds us.  Even when we’re living on God’s time.”

I was silent for a moment, and then commented, “I think you’re on to something.”

I remembered back to our time as missionaries in Guatemala.  It was a foreign land.  We were stepping out on faith.  We went from living as DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) outside Austin, Texas, to sharing a humble home with a Mayan family of eight in a small mountain village.  No indoor plumbing.  Just a hole in the ground.  No shower.  Chickens running through the house.  No real jobs.

And it was the most peaceful, expansive year of our lives.  We built a routine.  There was comfort in that.  Our new normal.  But most of all, there was comfort that we had given up control and were living on God’s time, letting go of ourselves, and playing by God’s rules.

So, maybe it’s time we try it again?  Develop a new normal.  One grounded in service and faith.  Same concept.  Different venue.

After all, Guatemala was seven years ago.

Does Your God Wear High-Heeled Plastic Shoes?

Let’s get this straight.  I love food.  The more processed, the better. I have squealed with delight upon opening a box of Cookie Crisp as a Christmas gift.  I am a sucker for any “cheese” product that must, for legal reasons, be spelled with a “z” at the end.  And, this being the Girl Scout Cookie season, I can remember with great fondness the evening I polished off two sleeves of Do-Si-Do’s all by myself.

Some consider it gluttony.

I consider it a talent.

As a confession, I have frequently broken the 10^th commandment.  I covet my neighbor’s food.  Especially if the person seated next to me has ordered a meal that looks far more appealing than the one I have in front of me.  I would feel worse about this, but it’s only the 10^th commandment, right?  Not the first.  Though some could argue that my Kraft Mac n Cheese shrine comes dangerously close to “putting another God before” the big guy, I think I’ve discovered a loophole in the eternal damnation clause by simply thanking God for sending the genius food chemist to Earth to create that orange cheese powder that brings happiness to so many.

Problem solved.

Food coveting even applies to food I have given away.  Let’s say I just made a killer batch of chicken tortilla casserole that I plan to eat for the next week, and then I find out a neighbor is laid up after a difficult surgery.  Sure, I’ll do the right thing and deliver a meal.  As a recipient of such generosity, I know what a Godsend a hot meal can be when you’re overwhelmed with the other duties of life.  At the same time, there is a part of me that would like to include a note with the dish that reads,

“Enjoy the meal I have lovingly prepared for you.  Know that with each delicious bite you take, a tiny piece of my soul dies.  Get well soon. Love, Scott”

I can be a downright terrible human being.

That’s why I was so surprised at dinner last night when my daughter Audrey blurted out,

“Daddy is nicer than mommy.”

Huh?

This is coming from a girl who has seen her father hand out more time outs per minute than a couple of whistle-happy coaches during the closing drive of a tight NFL football game.

Upon further review, we figured out why Audrey said such a thing.  Yesterday, while in a rush, Gabby and I were devouring a couple of protein bars for breakfast before heading out of the house with the kids.  It was 10:00am.  We had just returned from the gym after a big workout, and were famished since we’d skipped breakfast.  Then Audrey asked,

“Daddy.  Can I have a bite of that?”

* Yes.  I can resist this face.  Even when it's covered in a generous application of shimmering Princess lip balm.

I looked down at my Kashi bar.  Soy nuggets and selfishness coated in waxy chocolate.  One-hundred-eighty calories my body was craving.  Reluctantly, I broke off a crumb that would be “much too small for the other Whos’ mouses” and handed it to her.

You would have thought I’d given her a pillowcase full of pink cotton candy.

“Thanks daddy!” she beamed.

She returned fifteen seconds later, pleading for another morsel.  I flicked off another crumb, and she was once again satisfied.  Then she went to beg a bite from her mother.  The woman who frequently brings home special treats from Book Club just for the kids.  The one who scans the internet looking for wonderful events for the kids to attend.  The mother who would give both her kidneys to my children if only it would cure their simple head cold.  The mom whose neck has caught more puke than a frat house toilet.

“Sorry, honey.  You already ate your breakfast, but mommy hasn’t had hers yet.  This is my breakfast.”

Audrey, digging deep for her best counter-attack, comes back with “But daddy gave me some of his!”

“Well, your daddy is nicer than me.”

And there it is.  Burned into her brain forever.

Since that time, Audrey has parroted the “Daddy is nicer than mommy” equation numerous times.  Each time, I feel more guilt than the last.  It eats at me like the Thump-Thump-Thumping of the Tell-Tale Heart.

Why?

Because I keep replaying all of the times in my mind when, quite close to dinnertime,  I would wait for that little girl to go around the corner so I could quietly open the pantry and eat some of her Halloween treats without her hearing.

“Daddy?  Why do you smell like candy?”

“I don’t know honey.  I smell like candy?  Um… er… That’s strange.”

Or when I’d swipe a French fry while she was gazing out the window, while Gabby looked on, fry-free, with disapproval.

So this morning, when she verbally proclaimed my superiority to mommy, I had to set the record straight.  I can’t walk around with that kinda’ thing weighing on my conscience.

“Audrey.  Daddy really isn’t nicer than mommy.  In fact, it’s probably the other way around.”

She looked at me like I was trying to explain the theory of relativity.  Stunned silence.

“It’s like this, honey.  Mommy is the one who holds you when you’re sick.  She thinks of fun treats to give you when you and your brother are behaving well.  She takes you to the library to pick out your favorite books.  And daddy… sometimes daddy eats your cookies, and swipes an apple slice off your plate when he’s really hungry.  And that’s not so nice, is it?”

I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Would she cry as the world as she knew it came crumbling down?  Would she hold on to this memory and save it for a therapy session twenty years into the future?  Maybe she would stomp off, leaving behind only the stench of betrayal.

I looked down at her.  Her clear brown eyes gazing up at me.  Her face.  Expressionless.

“Daddy?”

“Yes  honey.”

I prepared to answer one of life’s big philosophical questions of trust.

“Where are my clickety-clackety’s?”

Clickety-Clackety’s?

*  Behold:  One of Audrey/Imelda's countless pair of clickety-clackety's

Here I am, confessing my transgressions to a three-year-old, and her main concern is the location of her loud plastic high heels.  Did she even hear me?

Just as I am about to go into greater detail, I realize it.  Of course she heard me!  Every word!  And that’s the beauty of a child.  The ones that Jesus said have the keys to the Kingdom.

We often think that children are Jesus’ favorites because of their innocence.  Their curiosity.  Their faith.

But we can’t forget their God-like forgiveness.  Quick to forget.  The nimble minds that render some of our greatest failings to a size no larger than nonsense.  Mere toys compared to the reality of God’s grace.  It’s a gift, to be sure.  One that I should give far more often.  For forgiveness is a mission and ministry all its own.

As I hear my daughter click-clacking through the house, I think maybe I’ll finish right where I started.  Selfishly.  Forgiving myself.

‘Cause we all gotta’ start somewhere.

Displaying the Christmas Uglies

Christmas is over.  Done.  Adios. I hate to be the bearer of bad news.  January 5^th was the twelfth day of Christmas.  The Epiphany.  The church celebration to commemorate the Three Kings arriving to Jesus’ crib to deliver their gifts.

I love the idea of Twelfth night.  Knowing that the Savior of the Universe had to wait a couple of weeks to get his gifts makes me feel a lot better about any belated birthday cards I have to send throughout the year.  Call it the Holy Grace Period.

The Holidays came to a close rather quickly at our house.  On January 1^st, our house looked like the Enron office after Arthur Andersen had cleaned up all the old files.  There were no traces of Christmas left inside, save for the extra ten pounds I had gained between Halloween and December 31^st in an attempt to start the new year “treat free” in our pantry.  The only thing left is an inedible waxy chocolate Santa that will only be eaten in the event I become diabetic and need a kicker of insulin to keep from going into a coma.

The outside is a different story.  Our house is still wrapped in Christmas wire.  Not Christmas lights.

Christmas wire.

Don’t get me wrong.  The lights are there.  In fact, if you squint your eyes and sing “Here Comes Santa Clause”, you can see the roof lined with large red bulbs, white icicle lights hanging from the eaves, and the bushes and trees wrapped in white splendor.  I may be biased, but it is one of the most tasteful displays I’ve ever done.  Very symmetrical.

But Gabby won’t let me turn them on. Even starry-eyed pleas from the kids aren’t enough.  Christmas is over.   She doesn’t want us to be “those people.”

My grandfather was one of “those people.”  Legend has it that on December 27^th, the lights on his house became “Independence Lights” and he told all the neighbors he was just getting a jump on the July 4^th festivities.  A permanent fireworks display.  This is believable, since he was also the guy in the neighborhood that got so sick of cutting the grass one summer that he just dumped gasoline on the whole yard and set it on fire.

One man’s lazy is another man’s efficient, I guess.

But I have to hand it to Gabby.  While she holds fast on keeping our roof line free of Christmas cheer in the new year, she permits the annual “Christmas Uglies” to be hung with pride.

“What are the ‘Christmas Uglies?’” you ask.

Christmas Uglies are those God-awful Holiday decorations that should never see the light of day.  This could be stuff you made when you were a kid.  Maybe the stuff that exists in the time period somewhere between “Antique” and “Retro”.  Gifts from ancient aunts who likely bought the décor as a joke, just to spite you.

We have a number of notable Christmas Uglies.

The first is a candle holder that we made at one of those do-it-yourself ceramics places at our niece’s birthday party.  Gabby and I once took a pottery class together, and the majority of our items ended up on what our teacher termed the “Shelf of Shame.”  So, with a renewed sense of purpose and an eye for redemption, we worked together to create our masterpiece.  The kids had all finished their projects, eaten cake, watched the birthday girl unwrap gifts, and made contributions to their college savings plan.  Meanwhile, we worked until they literally had to kick us out.  The result is a cracked, Technicolor eyesore that is either too big or too small for any standard sized candle.  Still, it holds memories of our love, as well as a load of toxic paint, so we display it proudly.

Next is something we call the “Mistle-Toes”.  It is a maroon felt bag, tied with a sprig of mistletoe.  Protruding from the bag are two creepy, grayish-pink rubber gnome feet that look like a Hobbit was trying to escape from a mobster's sack before he got whacked.  I hang it proudly over the doorway, though surprisingly, it has never bought me a single kiss.

The final Ugly is an ornament I received from a coworker fourteen years ago.  She was a regular Martha Stewart, and made gifts for each of us every year.  The decoration is a glass ball the size of a newborn’s noggin.  It has been hand-painted on one side with a poinsettia flower.  On the other side is painted the WorldCom logo.

* Gabby, showing her love for the Christmas Ugly

Yes, I said WorldCom.  Nothing says Happy Holidays like the logo of one of the largest corporate frauds in the history of our nation.

I once worked for WorldCom as a corporate trainer.  Though, I always make sure to tell folks that I was not responsible for ethics training.  I did, however, have my picture taken with the CEO, Bernie Ebbers, who is now spending the rest of his life in prison.

Which reminds me, I forgot to send him a card.  Thank goodness for the Holy Grace Period.

The once clear-as-a-bell glass ornament has been clouded by years of fingerprints, smudged paint, and a felony conviction.  Still, it means something to me.  I’m not sure why I like it so much.  It doesn’t make too much sense, really.  I’m embarrassed to have the company name on my resume, yet I love the decoration on the tree.

Each year, there is the Christmas debate as to where to hang it.  If I am the one who comes across it in the box of breakables, I gingerly place it in a prominent spot, only to find it slowly move toward the back of the tree as Jesus’ birth nears.  I think Gabby just wants to make sure it’s out of the line of sight of our under-the-tree nativity scene before Jesus finally shows on the 25^th.

Might upset the baby.

But each year it lives on.  It’s a reminder of bad choices.   A glimpse of reality.  Our warts on display, so to speak.  Because the most wonderful time of the year is no time to start feigning perfection.  Where is the fun in that?  Where is the authenticity?  If we can’t accept who we are, how can we ever expect to serve others without judgment?

So each year brings another Christmas miracle.  Eight years of Christmas with Gabby.  Eight opportunities for her to “accidentally” drop the Christmas Ugly and shatter it into pieces like the corporation it represents.

But each year, I watch her carefully wrap it in layers of bubble wrap, along with some of our most cherished decorations.  Out of respect.  Respect for me.  Respect for imperfection.  Respect for those who aren’t afraid to let it all hang out.

Because she doesn’t want to be one of “those people.”

Contagious

I went to the doctor’s office a few days ago because I felt like I needed an expert opinion.  A seasoned medical  professional who could tell me what kind of trouble I was in.  A stoic voice to give it to me straight. But he didn’t even have to open his mouth for me to figure out I was screwed.

In front of me sat a man who had likely witnessed all sorts of stomach-churning maladies.  We’re talking open sores, severed limbs, and rashes in regions of the body that were never meant to be without clothing.  As soon as he saw my face, he looked as if someone had just force-fed him a quart of expired cottage cheese.

“Whoa,” he said. “You definitely have a problem there.”

He looked down at my chart to help stifle his gag reflex.

“I figured as much,” I replied.

In order to allow my doctor to see the full effect of my ailment, I had purposefully avoided wiping my inflamed right eye, which had consequently been secreting a grayish-green ooze for the past twenty minutes.  I must have looked like a guy who had just learned to blow his nose through his eyeball.  Through the haze, I could make out the outline of his face.  He was a dead ringer for George Costanza from Sienfeld.

As he handed me a slip of paper, he unloaded his diagnosis.

“Looks like you have a pretty bad case of pink eye.”

My kids had accompanied me on the appointment.  The doctor’s words caught Audrey’s attention and she immediately looked up from the electronic talking book she got for Christmas.

“A pink eye?!” she beamed.  “Let me see!”

Pink being her favorite color, she must have thought princesses were flying out of my face.  When I showed her my oozing eyeball, she was sorely disappointed.

“That’s red!” she corrected, and quickly went back to her book.  The doctor interrupted our father-daughter moment.

“ Here’s a prescription for some eye drops.  Use them four times a day for three days.”  Though no one else was even in the office at the time, he stood up as if he was late for an appointment.

“Good luck with the eye.  Let me know if it doesn’t clear up.”

There were no long goodbyes.  No pleasantries.  No handshake.  The entire appointment lasted two minutes.  I left the office feeling like a modern-day leper.

‘Cuz that’s how it is with pink eye.

Sure, left untreated, pink eye can result in blindness.  But with today’s available medical treatments, it’s really not a serious thing.  Still, the stigma with pink eye is that it is twice as contagious as Disco Fever, and ten times as revolting.  Oozing eyes?  Disgusting with a capital GUSTING.   If you have pink eye, no one wants to touch you.  At least that’s what I learned when my wife got home.

“How was the appointment?” she asked.

“Dr. Costanza says I have pink eye.”

“Ewwwww.” she responded, giving me an awkward kiss on the shoulder.  “I’m not going to get close to your face then.”

For the past three days, she will only pat me on the butt, my upper back, or the tip of my elbow.  She doesn’t have to say it, but I know she is thinking far ahead as she does this, realizing that it is physically impossible for these areas to come into contact with my eye.  A recent hug consisted of her holding her arms straight in front of her, elbows locked, and squeezing my shoulders, like we were being watched by Sister Agnes at the Our Lady of Perpetual Motion Catholic School seventh grade dance.

Make room for Jesus, as they say.

“No kiss?” I inquired.

“No way.  That stuff might splatter into my eye or something.”

And this coming from a woman who voluntarily worked a foot care clinic for the homeless.  She is constantly reminding me to wash my hands, and insists that I use my own towels.  My white pillow cases have been replaced by yellow ones, “so we can make sure they don’t contaminate the other ones.”  She would probably quarantine me to living under the deck in the back yard if she wasn’t afraid our 14-year-old dog, Bailey would get it.

Spreading like wildfire.

I spoke with my friend Jim tonight.  An old college buddy.  In the old days we spent a lot of quality time together.  In the course of an hour, we might spend 13 seconds talking about something of substance, and the other 59 minutes 47 seconds making fun of each other.

It was a deep friendship.

Tonight, our substantive talk far outweighed the crap.  In fact, neither one of us made any comment that would offend the other’s mother, which made me feel warm and sad all at the same time.  As we caught up on the particulars of each other’s lives, I failed to mention the pink eye for fear that he would hang up on me.  I hear that stuff can ooze through phone lines and such.

The topic of our conversations drifted to this blog.  Odds are good that I’m the one who brought it up.  You tend to expect that from someone who writes about himself twice a week and publishes it for the whole world to see.  Such exploits involve a certain amount of ego.

“So.  Why are you writing the blog?” Jim asked.

“What do you mean?”

He clarified his statement.

“What’s it all about?  What’s it for?”

I thought for a brief moment, and then regurgitated some bullet points originally provided to me from my friend Charity (an aptly named friend, to be sure) who convinced me I needed one.  I added a few of my own.

Well… 1) if you’re going to write a book, it helps to build a following.  2)  It’s a good way to assure you keep “practicing” writing,  3)  it’s a good way to get feedback on your work,  4) it’s a way of chronicling and journaling about my life so my kids can read it one day,

He interrupted me.

“I’m a little disappointed in your answer.”

I was silent.

“I thought it was going to be about more than building a following.  Aren’t you trying to change the world or something?”

Hmmm….

Jim is absolutely right.  This whole blog experiment started as a way for me to write.  A fun diversion.  Encouragement to finish a book about a seven-year-old experience that I am just now beginning to understand.  At the end of said project, my wife and I will have a complete journal of an incredibly meaningful experience in our lives that still influences the way we live.  On top of that, writing about it would remind us of our own vow to live with integrity and serve, because those are things that easily get swept under the rug when you’re yelling at your kids or filling their lunch boxes.

But maybe there is something more here.

Something pink-eye-ish.

Something contagious.

There is a large body of research that shows how behaviors are contagious.  Nothing earth-shattering here.

Call it the “Pay It Forward” law, if you must.  What you’ve learned based on anecdotal evidence in your own life has been proven by honest-to-goodness research.  Behaviors are contagious.  Do your own experiment and yawn at your next office meeting.  See what happens.

But recent science carries the whole “yawn phenomenon” a lot further.  They find that bad stuff is contagious. Like obesity.  Vandalism.  Smoking.  Fascinating stuff!

But it’s not just the bad things.  Cooperation is contagious.  So is generosity.  Altruism.

There is a disease I’d like to spread.

The good news is, we’re all inextricably linked.  This new year, I am realizing that my actions and my words have an impact that extends beyond my body.  Each day I have a choice which direction I will go.  Will I enrich someone’s life today?  Or simply ignore them in indifference?  Will I forgive?  Or hold a grudge?  Will I serve?  Or settle for status quo?

So, as I sit and ponder what this is all for, and contemplate writing a mission statement for this here blog, I will start the year off with a simple resolution.

Be contagious.

And Dr. Costanza would tell you, I’m off to a good start.

Christmas, Fireworks, And A Gift Fit For A King

Merry Christmas!  As you might have noticed, I’ve been taking a slight break from blogging.  Trust that I’m not slacking off.  Just trying to get the figgy pudding out of my hair due to an unfortunate kitchen incident.  Peanut butter and tomato juice should do the trick.  Or so I’ve been told. The craziness of the season always reminds me of the Christmas Gabby and I spent in Guatemala during our mission year.  So, it seems only fitting that I share the story on Christmas Eve, seven years after the fact.

I would be lying if I didn’t say Christmas in Guatemala started off as a very sad affair.  Being away from home on the biggest holiday of the year is depressing.  Our mission program had a specific policy against traveling back to the States for any reason.  It was the first Christmas after Gabby lost her mom.  To top it off, we knew that piles of corn tortillas would be a lackluster substitute for traditional Christmas cookies.

In the village where we lived, Christmas doesn’t get a lot of press.  And it’s not because there aren ‘t any Christians.  In fact, there is a greater percentage of Christians in Guatemala than there is in the U.S.

But the reason Christmas isn’t all that huge is that, as you might imagine, loads and loads of indigenous Mayan people who had nearly been exterminated by their own government from the 60’s through the 90’s have a hard time understanding how some 8lb. 6oz. Jesusito is going to save the world.  Instead, they resonate a whole lot more with Easter.  The suffering Christ.  The guy with the bloody face.  And the resurrected Christ.  The one who brings hope.  They take the whole week off in celebration.  Parades.  Costumes.  Feasts.  The works.  They do Easter as Easter should be done.

But Christmas?

Not so much.

By December 22^nd, we still hadn’t heard a single Christmas song unless we were the ones singing it. To try and get into the spirit, we asked our host brother Francisco, “Is it tradition to put up a Christmas tree here in Guatemala?”

“Si!” he replied.  “Let’s go get it!”

So we followed him out the door, past the chickens and stray dogs, and climbed the mountain behind our house.

Is there a Home Depot up here?

As we trekked, we carried the magic of Christmas in our hearts.

Francisco, on the other hand, carried a rusty machete in his fist.

We came upon a thirty foot cypress tree, and Francisco beamed, “This will work!”  And he started hacking at a branch.  We had envisioned a tiny, six foot fir to dress for the Holiday.  Instead, Francisco wrestled a large, gnarly limb from the cypress and dragged it back down the mountain.  It looked like something you might leave on the curb in front of your house after a wind storm.

We brought the branch home and propped it up in an old coffee can with dirt and rocks in it.   It fell over instantly, so we gave it some support by tying strings to it and tying the other end to the wall.

Time to decorate.

Much to our surprise, Marlon, another of our brothers, brought out a ball of Christmas lights complete with mechanical Christmas music.  Next, the boys unwrapped a good-sized ceramic nativity scene and placed it beneath the tree on a bed of pine needles.  Even though the donkeys had long since lost their ears, and Joseph was a no-show due to the fact that he was shattered to smithereens in an accident a few Christmases back, the scene was very pretty.  We searched high and low for a Joseph stand-in so Maria wouldn’t be “soltera”.  I stumbled upon an old Power Ranger figurine, which seemed to do the trick.

That is, until Marlon blurted “That won’t work.”

“Why?”  I asked.

"Es chica" (it's a girl) he said.

Sorry Maria, I tried.

* Mary, the single woman, surrounded by friends and a decorated coffee can.

We didn't have a huge box of ornaments for the tree.  Instead, we made some.  The tradition is to go to the market and buy honest-to-goodness mandarin oranges and candy, and hang them from the branches of the tree.

This whole idea of edible ornaments is something I can get used to, though our mandarin oranges in the states come in a can complete with high fructose corn syrup, which would be far too heavy for our branches.

Since Gabby and I grew up with Christmas trees that look like a bunch of Santa’s decorating elves threw up on ‘em, we both wanted more ornaments.  So Gabby got all Martha-Stewarty and corralled the kids.  We were a virtual ornament factory, cranking out decorations made from old plastic lids and magazine cutouts.  The whole gang got into the mix, and the branch was drooping under the weight.

Bring on Christmas!

On Christmas Eve we took the 30-minute walk up the mountain to the pueblo of Cantel.  We were excited.  We heard they would put on the nativity play, and then we’d have a big dinner with the whole church.

* Gabby and our host brother, Eduardo.

We arrived to find Graciela's sister there, in charge of making 200 sandwiches for the post-service get-together.  Rather than leave her with all of the work, we chipped in.  Using what looked to be an old canoe paddle, we stirred giant tin barrels full of chicken salad, and spooned it onto about a zillion loaves of white bread.

In all the hubbub, we nearly missed the whole service.  We walked into the sanctuary in time for the short drama that starred our brother, Edwin, as one of the two (not three) kings.  There are only so many costumes to go around in the village, you see.

Since the most popular, and perhaps only, Christmas song in our church is "Noche De Paz" ("Silent Night" in Spanish), we sang it four times.  Painfully slowly.

And it was beautiful.

Something about singing a familiar song in another language makes you feel like the whole world is singing at the same time.  All voices.  Lifting up.  Together.

After the sandwich feast, we arrived home at about 10:30pm.  The power was out again – a 40% chance on most nights.  Everyone made their way to the kitchen table, which was the only furniture in the house save for beds and a few stray chairs here and there.  We rested for a bit in the candlelight.  We talked and laughed.  That is, until one of the kids broke out the fireworks around 11:15pm.

Fireworks?

It's the tradition here to set off fireworks for any and all celebrations.  Weddings.  Birthdays.  Loose tooth.  So Christmas Eve definitely qualified.  At the stroke of midnight, our family did it up right.  You could hear people shooting off Black Cats throughout the whole valley.  The local factory sounded it's siren that could be heard for miles.  Fun and flash burns were had by all.

When the last firework boomed, we gathered for a meal by candlelight.  Leftover chicken salad sandwiches that we brought home from the church, complete with hot chocolate.  By this time of the night, everyone was exhausted.  Kids were falling asleep.

That’s right.

Kids.

Falling asleep.

Because there is no Santa Clause tradition in this house.

But there was a small gift exchange. I’m not sure if this was the norm, or if it happened just because we gringos happened to be living there.  It was the only gifts we saw our host parents give to any of the six kids the entire year.   The three youngest boys each received a small, battery-operated car with a remote control.  Anyone over the age of eleven didn’t receive anything.

Except us.

Martin and Graciela, our host parents, gave us our gifts.  Tropical parrot figurines with a small snow-globe containing another tiny parrot.  Parrots were Martin's thing.  His dream was to own one.  So we knew this small gesture that came from a big place.  We also remembered how Martin had recently told us that he didn't have enough money to buy medicine to treat a stomach condition.

But he had money for the snow globes.

One of the best gifts we’ve ever received.  It sits on a shelf in my office.  A reminder of a special night, and a special Christmas -- perhaps one of our most significant.

Because it wasn’t about the gifts, or the decorations, or the symbols.  It was about a real genuine connection between people.  Once strangers.  Separated by miles and language.  Now living together as family.  The joys and the sorrows.  Sharing our lives.

And that’s the perfect gift for a king who has everything.

Help Me!

Well, it finally happened.  I was surfing the web and ran across someone who quoted my blog.  Unfortunately, he attributed the quote to some other guy who, one month before I started the blog,  had just published a book titled "The Accidental Missionary." Time to change the name of the blog.  Below are some random options.  Please weigh in with your vote, or come up with something on your own.

The Ordinary Missionary

The Misadventures of a Wayward Missionary

Stumbling Into The Missionary Position

The Bumbling Missionary

The Everyday Missionary

The Regular Guy Improvement Project

Misadventures of a Do-Gooder

Do-Gooder Done Wrong

The Fumbling Do-Gooder

The Do-Gooder Diaries

What Was He Thinking?

What's your idea? If we choose your title, I'll send you a free copy of the book (when finished) and my children for a week.

Love, The Unnamed Missionary

The Simple Life

Disclaimer:  This is a refreash of a five-year-old thought of mine.  But it's the Holiday Season, so you have to give me some leeway, right?

I went to the mailbox today in search of something inspiring.  Maybe a real-hand-written letter.  A Christmas card from a friend with an update of how his family is doing.

Instead, I got the usual.  A few bills.  Junk mail.  And a bunch of catalogs.

And that’s where my rant begins.

Of the items mentioned above, the most problematic are the catalogs.  We receive no less than 3-5 per day.  While my complaint is the weight and waste, Gabby’s beef is that she has to call every one of these companies to cancel the catalogs.  Though neither one of us knows why we started getting, say, ‘Macramé Madness”, Gabby still has to call the wild and wacky crafters and justify why she doesn’t want to receive their monthly “Craptacular” savings magazine (Oops!  Typo! It should read “Craftacular”).

That being said, I did find myself quite interested in one catalog that arrived a few weeks ago.  It is simply titled “Solutions:  Products That Make Life Easier.”  Now THAT’S something I can get into!  I opened to page one, hoping to find numerous products that would “make my life easier” as promised in the title.  For instance:

1. “TidyTurf”:  Dog-Poo Absorbing Grass
2. “BuffStuff” Exercise substitute pill.
3. “HubbyBuddy Millennium Edition”:  Gives automatic correct response to wife’s questions such as “How did our daughter get that mark on her face?”

Unfortunately, as I leafed through the pages, I couldn’t find a single one of these products.  Instead, I found a lot of false and misleading advertising.  The vast majority of the products actually make life harder.  The prosecution presents its evidence (and I’m not making this stuff up):

Stair Rugs ($24.50 each): These things are little “ruglets” that you place on each individual step on a flight of stairs.  Now you can worry about 73 of these little guys staying in place, and then wash each one individually when they get soiled.  Or, you can cut down on the washing by telling people to avoid stepping on them.  There’s nothing upstairs worth seeing anyhow.

Baking Soda Keeper ($5.00): A clear plastic box to hold your baking soda.  No, you don’t pour the baking soda out of its original box, you simply set the baking soda box INSIDE the second box, or “Keeper”, if you will.  The Keeper also has a ventilated lid, so you can keep the open box of baking soda inside an open plastic box.  Kinda’ reminds me of my last trip to Target where I bought a bag, and the cashier put it in a plastic bag so I could carry it out of the store.  Am I taking crazy pills?

Large Clear Plastic Box ($24.50): And I quote, “Large bulk food container holds up to 22 pounds of cereal”  22 POUNDS!  Who needs to store 22 pounds of cereal!?  Apparently the target market for this catalog is individuals who live in nuclear fallout shelters.  I am stressing out just thinking about having to eat that much of ANYTHING, even if it is Cookie Crisp.  The picture in the catalog shows the box filled brim-full with colorful Trix.  When the cereal is not being eaten, the whole kit-and-kaboodle doubles as the “Ball Pit” at Chuck-E-Cheese.

Paw Step Ramp w/ Extension ($159.00): This is a carpeted ramp that you put beside your bed so that your dog can easily get in and steal the covers.  The side of the ramp is hard plastic, perfect for stubbing toes when you get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom.  Such newfound ramp-climbing skills would only encourage my dog to join the circus.  Then, it’s nothing but sleepless nights hoping he doesn’t run off to Vegas with the dancing bear or, worse yet, the half-person-half-wolf lady.  $159.00 price does not include doggie prenuptial agreement or counseling.

Worthless crap.

I threw the catalog into our large-cardboard-box-turned-recycling-bin.  But I was sad.  A small part of me wanted to believe that little catalog really did have answers for me.  And it did.

Sort of.

As I threw the catalog into our sad excuse for a recycling bin, I began to feel inferior.  I thought

I’ll bet the neighbors have a really nice decorative recycling bin

I reached back into the bin to retrieve the catalog, hoping to find a bin-type item adorned with attractive stars or suns or moons.   Leafing through the pages, I did NOT find such an item.  However, I DID find a big metal trellis that is used to disguise your recycling bin.  (again, I’m not making this stuff up).

It was in that moment that I realized that the products in the catalog weren’t necessarily there to make my life “easier”.  Instead, the products are geared to make my life more “enviable.”

What really makes life hard?  Is it my smelly trash can?  How about the static cling in my socks?  Dull, lifeless hair?  Nope.  What makes life hard is that I make it hard on myself.

I listen to all of the people on TV, on the radio, and on the street who try and convince me that I lack something.  I buy into the idea that more “stuff” will make my life easier.  I start to believe that my worth is measured by the size and prestige of the things that I own. I try and differentiate myself by buying a new, truly unique shirt at the store, knowing full well that Old Navy manufactured about 7,000,000 of them.

“But mine has white stitching on the sleeve!” I say.

After a while, I start believing that my life satisfaction is wrapped up in increasing my standard of living.  I currently live in a small house in a nice neighborhood, where I can vacuum every room in the whole place without having to move the plug to a different outlet.

No lie.

It’s a nice, simple existence.  A small house (and small mortgage) gives us the flexibility to say, go back to school, take some time off to do more missionary work, or star on a reality show featuring people with large teeth.

But there are still those moments when I fell like a failure because I should have a bigger house with more amenities.

That’s when I realize it.  I’ve been hijacked.

It’s like when you were in grade school.  When it came time for sleepovers and play dates, you always wanted to go visit the kid who had the coolest stuff.  It was fun.  My neighbor was a great friend of mine, and he was also this kid.  In his house were treasures like a Nerf Gun, Slip-N-Slide, Atari, and an unlimited supply of Slim Jims.  The problem was, when visiting this house, you also knew who made the rules.  Inevitably, at the end of any game, the rules could be changed by the Keeper Of The Slim Jim, as it were.  You could be on the cusp of victory in the “Who-Can-Disembowel-My-Sister’s-Stuffed-Animal-Collection-The-Fastest” game, only to find that the object of the game was to go to the family room and put on a Village People record.

Who is making the rules now?  After watching TV, reading the paper, and listening to the radio, I get the feeling that those with all of the shiny junk (and TV stations and advertising budgets) have decided that shiny junk is the goal.

Coincidentally, they made these rules after they had already won the game.

The question is, “Why does owning all of the TV stations and/or Slim Jims give someone the right to make all of the rules?”  I get this crazy feeling that we’re all playing this game of life without knowing the true objective.

I read a really alarming statistic recently.  Every week, the average American spends six hours shopping, and spends forty minutes playing with his or her children.  Working couples spend, on average, 12 minutes per day talking to each other.

Three minutes if you accidentally washed your wife’s favorite white blouse with your favorite red sweat pants.

Does this seem out of whack to anyone else?

We’re trying hard to be successful, but in the end, we’re gonna’ figure out that the key to it all was something totally different. I don’t purport to know what the key is, but I feel like I’m learning that disemboweling stuffed animals ain’t where it’s at.

One day I hope to meet God and ask all sorts of questions.  Stuff like, “What were you thinkin’ when you made the platypus?” and “How did the cast of Jersey Shore really get so famous?”  But most of all, I want to get the final answer on what his purpose was for my life.

If only we could redefine success and winning in life and pursue it with the tenacity of an Olympic athlete.  Those same athletes who, when polled, 51% of them said that they would take a pill to win a Gold Medal even if it killed them in five years.  We could just change the rules of the game so that the winner wasn’t the one who could accumulate the most the fastest, but rather, the one who understood “enough” the fastest, and worked the hardest to make sure everyone had it.

The ultimate judge would be The Almighty.  I imagine it all looking a bit like the Price is Right.

God would be the Bob Barker of the Universe, asking us all to get as close to “enough” as possible, without going over.  Inevitably, in our world, the one who wins would be some grandma from Pomona named Ethel who bid $1, after she had seen all of us overestimate how much we really needed to survive.  She would then get to kiss and hug The Big Guy, while the rest of us were left holding our Year’s Supply of Turtle Wax and Rice-A-Roni – parting gifts for the overindulgent.  If only we knew what “enough” truly was, and worked hard to make sure EVERYONE made it to the Showcase Showdown!?

My guess is that God, my God and your God, probably has an opinion as to where He would like us to invest the blessings He’s bestowed upon us.  If I were to ask God if I should buy a fifth guitar, He would probably subtly remind me that the Second Harvest Food Bank could feed 2500 people for what it costs to buy that $500 guitar.

Maybe that’s what Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 was all about.  We often see this miracle as some sort of magic trick.  I can see the headlines in the local paper.  “Bearded Man With Great Abs Turns Two Fish and Five Loaves Into Enough Food for 5000 People!”  Might as well have had just two guitars, eh?

However, when we read In the Bible, it doesn’t talk of magic.  The disciples saw a throng of people gathered to hear Jesus and learn from him.   After Christ had spoken, the disciples said,

“This is a very remote place,” they said, “and it is very late.  Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” (Mark 6:35-36)

The disciples thought it only fair to let everyone fend for himself.   Hey!  Concessions aren’t free at the JesusPalooza!  You’re on your own, bro!

But Jesus answered,

“You give them something to eat.”

They said to him, “That would take eight months of a man’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”

“How many loaves do you have?”  he asked.  “Go and see.”

When they found out, they said, “Five – and two fish.”

Then Jesus directed them to have all of the peoples sit down in groups on the green grass.  So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties.  Taking the five loaves and two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves.  Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people.  He also divided the two fish among them all.  They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish.  The number of men who had eaten was five thousand.  (Mark 6: 37-44)

In this entire passage, there is no mention of Jesus multiplying or adding.  No.  Jesus divided.  He broke.  Mathematically speaking, these are very different.  This feast was not about bread and fish magically appearing.  No, the miracle was that a small amount of resources, equally shared, could satisfy so many.

What will it take to satisfy me?  What is “enough” for me?  Will I share my abundance?

God is asking me these same questions.  Will you share?  Will you stop?  Reflect?  Own what you have?  Love?  Cherish?  Savor?  Give?

This Christmas, God is challenging me to live the simple life.

Simple.

But not easy.

Love, Fear, and Toenails In Your Hair

* I've been taking a break from blogging for Lent.  However, I figured reposting this for Holy Thursday to commemorate Jesus' foot washing made sense.  Re-enjoy!

“You ready to go to lunch?”  Gabby asked.

“Not yet.” I said, straight-faced.  “I just need to pick a homeless man’s toenails out of my hair.”

She nodded in agreement.  Like it was no big deal.

This is not a typical conversation.  But yesterday was not a typical day.  Allow me to explain.

I know I’ve told the story a million times.  Like the million times your dad told you how he used to be so poor that his mom packed baked bean sandwiches in his school lunchbox.  OK.  So maybe that’s just my dad.  But you get the idea.  In the context of our latest escapade, our story bears repeating.

Seven years ago, Gabby and I quit our kooshy corporate jobs, sold the house, sold the cars, and spent a year as missionaries living with a Mayan family in the highlands of Guatemala.  The book should be out sometime next year if I could only stop blogging long enough to write a few more chapters.  Meantime, the Cliff’s Notes version is this – it was an intense year filled with miracles as well as faith-testing moments.

Prior to Guatemala, Gabby and I hadn’t done a lot of service.  So, when you embark on such a life-altering adventure your first shot out of the gate, it can leave you feeling a bit like Norah Jones whose first album won eight Grammy awards.  While I don’t really believe our mission year is Grammy-worthy, we’re similar with respect to anything we do after that makes people say, “But what have you done lately?”

My cynical self says a full year of third-world mission service should add up to 52 years of week-long mission trips.  So, when anyone comes looking for volunteers for a canned food drive or a United Way campaign, I should be able to say, without remorse, “I gave at the office.”

But it doesn’t work that way.

My heavy guilt and foolish pride don’t let that happen.  I firmly believe that these are emotions that God puts in my soul to remind me that He’s still in charge.  So, instead of feeling content with what could arguably be called a selfish year of service (yes, you read that right), I am left wondering what else I could do.  How can I truly be selfless?  What opportunities exist that could be God-centered enough to help me develop a deep spiritual connection, while at the same time be challenging enough from a service perspective to scare the Baby Ruth out of me like Guatemala did?

I got my answer a couple of weeks ago via email from my fried Jeff.

“I have a great opportunity for you service-minded types.  Nashville's third annual Project Homeless Connect is coming up Wednesday, December 8.  This is a day when the community comes together to offer numerous services to those who are experiencing homelessness.

I am coordinating Room In The Inn's foot clinic, and I need volunteers to help me.   Volunteering would entail offering basic foot care--washing feet, clipping nails, and giving a foot massage.  For anyone who is a little squeamish about feet, there are ways you can help as well.  It really is not as bad as you might think.”

I had to read the email twice.

Is this a God-centered opportunity?  Sure.  The Bible says that Jesus performed just such a spa treatment for his disciples, complete with exfoliating brush and tea-tree oil . (John 13: 1-17  SNRS  Scott’s New Revised Standard)

Is this a challenging/scary opportunity?

It depends.

I’m not sure where you stand on feet (pun intended).  If you are a nurse, masseuse, podiatrist, shoe salesman, or freak with a foot fetish, this is right up your alley.  You probably wouldn’t think twice.  You could just go on auto-pilot for the day and handle hundreds of feet like a baker handles buns.

But me?

Touching feet is an intimate thing.  Think about it.  How often do you touch someone else’s feet, much less a perfect stranger?  Besides, I have a long list of fears.  Ignoring my OCD compulsion with the number 7 and multiples thereof, allow me to showcase just a few of them here, in descending order from heart-stopper to rash-inducer.

1.       Eating food on or past the expiration date

2.       Not having lip balm

3.       Being trapped with a bad smell (except my own B.O., oddly enough)

4.       Going a full day without showering

5.       Hanging Christmas lights on the tallest gable of our house

6.       Clipping the kids’ (or dog’s) toenails

7.       Forgetting to put on deodorant on a muggy day

7a.     Tapioca pudding

7b.     Being sweaty without a change of clothes nearby

7c.      Confronting my wife about something when she’s stressed

As you can see, five or six of these have to do with hygiene in some form.  And this service opportunity would have me facing several fears head-on.  Then I read something else Jeff sent us.

“Organizers are expecting between 1,500 and 2,000 people to receive important services that will help them on their journey toward obtaining housing.  The foot clinic can be an important part of this process.  Physical needs are met, but more importantly it is an experience of sanctuary for our guests, a place where they are cared for as individuals and experience a few moments of unconditional love and respect that can help sustain them in the difficult experience of homelessness”.

Here I am, worried about my crazy phobias while someone. Some person. Flesh and blood.

Has no home.  No roof.  No place to feel safe.

For me, it now becomes a simple math problem to be solved.   True or false.

Is love greater than fear?

Time to find the answer for myself.

I sent Jeff an email to let him know that Gabby and I were in for the foot clinic.  Granted, I hadn’t confirmed this with Gabby, but I figured it was only fair that I sign her up for the foot clinic as payback for her volunteering me to be a youth group leader.  Not once, but twice.  In truth, I needed her support.  Gabby is the strong half of this marital union, and strangely attracted to physical abnormalities of all sorts.  A menagerie of corns and calluses could be right up her alley.

The day arrived, and Gabby held my hand as we walked into the building.

“Deep breaths, “ she said.  “No big deal.”

As soon as we entered, I immediately excused myself to the bathroom.

Gabby supported me by stifling a giggle.

The event center was a large exhibit hall.  It was an incredible sight.  Different services and ministries had their own designated area.  There was a place to get your hair cut.  Another area for medical questions.  A section for legal services.  A place to get new ID’s.  All things to help the homeless get back on their feet (pun intended).  As we looked around the hall, the most startling thing is how it would have been next to impossible to distinguish the homeless from the volunteers had it not been for our free brightly-colored T-shirts.

Children of God.

Then we found Jeff.  He gave us a brief orientation.   I figured I would start small.  Help people fill out the intake form.  Wash the trimmers and pumice pads between sessions, etc.  You know.  Ease my way into it.

Then, thirty seconds after removing my coat, Hillary, a volunteer coordinator, taps me on the shoulder.

“We have a space open for foot care.  Can you help out?”

Round One begins:  Fear just hit Love below the belt.

Gabby smiled.  Why shouldn’t she?  She had been standing there, and would have been more than willing to jump right in.  But who does Hillary tap?  Me.  Mr. Weak Stomach.

I would have thought it comical if it hadn’t been so personally mortifying.

My heart began to race.  The next thing I knew, I was seated on a stool in front of a metal folding chair.  On the floor was a washtub filled with warm water.  Another volunteer came by and gave me three towels, rubber gloves, nail trimmers, a pumice stone, a nail file, soap and lotion.

“Do you need a cheat sheet?” he asked.

I nodded.

He brought me the instructions.  I tried to commit them to memory.  Soak feet.  Wash feet with cleanser.  Clean out around and under toenails with cuticle stick.  Really? Clip nails.  Be especially careful with diabetics.  Apply callus remover and scrub with pumice stone to remove calluses.  Not sure about that. Massage feet with lotion.  Try not to look like you’re going to soil yourself.

OK.  So the last one was mine.

When I was finished reading, he asked, “Are you ready?”

I nodded.

“Then I’ll go bring you a client.”

I said a prayer.  Not the prayer you might think.  I prayed for God to settle my nerves.  And perhaps, if it wasn’t too much trouble, he could do this by sending me a client with dainty, pretty feet.  Like Jennifer Aniston.  Or Halle Berry.  Or Ashley Judd.  I’m not picky.

“Hi, this is Raymond.”

Raymond did not bear any resemblance to the aforementioned women, and had feet the size of canned hams.  I squashed my squeamishness and shook his hand.  Motioning toward the chair before me, I said, “Make yourself comfortable.”

As Raymond removed his shoes, I asked him if he had any special requests, or if he had any spots on his feet that I needed to be careful with.  Sore tendons.  Twisted ankle.  You know the kind of stuff I’m talking about.  As he removed his white athletic socks, he pointed to piggy #2 on his left foot.

“You see that one right there?”

“Yes,” I replied, gazing at a thick, discolored nail.

“That one has a fungus on it.  If you could smooth that one out a bit, I’d appreciate it.”

Fear staggers Love with a right cross to the jaw!

I got right to work.  Raymond and I chatted a bit.  He was in construction, but lost his job in the economic downturn.  Now he didn’t have a place to live.  As I scrubbed his size twelves with Cetaphil cleanser, I smiled at the sight of myself.  Here I was, a goofy, skinny, pale corporate consultant seated opposite a large, homeless, African American man, caressing his sudsy feet.  Not an image I could have conjured up just a few days before.  But now, it had an air of normalcy to it.

Love stands up straight, ready to take on Fear once more.

Normal, until I started cleaning with the cuticle stick.  I know my own feet can harbor a veritable treasure trove of goodies beneath each nail.  But prospecting for gold underneath a stranger’s toenails is another adventure entirely.  The big toe was particularly awe-inspiring.

Love takes an uppercut to the ribs!

After the cleaning was the clipping.  This wasn’t a huge job, as Raymond took decent care of his feet.  I moved on to buff out some rough spot with the pumice stone, and smoothed out the offending fungal nail with a file.  Next up was the massage, and Raymond was very appreciative.

“Man, I spend a lot of time on my feet walking from place to place.  This is just what I needed.”

Twenty five minutes after we started, Raymond was breathing a sigh of relief, looking more relaxed than before.  He gathered his things and shook my hand.

He left with, “God bless you, sir,” and slowly walked away.

Ding Ding!  Round one is a draw.  The fighters move to neutral corners.

With one client under my belt, I was gaining confidence.  The churning in my belly was reduced to a gentle kneading.

My next client was Kathy.  She was a heavy-set woman from Florida with brown curly hair who walked with some effort.  She had only been in Nashville for the past two months, and was living at the women’s shelter.  She had come to town to look for work and escape unspoken troubles.  She was chatty at first, but as time went by, I caught her leaning back in the chair and closing her eyes.  A soft smile drew across her cheeks.

“I don’t know if I ever remember someone taking care of me like this,” she said. “This is fantastic.”

Love takes round two!

Thirty minutes later, I was tending to James, a wiry Tennessee native.  Compared to Kathy and Raymond, his feet felt like they were filled with helium.  James admitted he had never had anyone tend to his feet before.  A proud man, he mentioned several times how he took very good care of himself, and was only sitting here because a friend recommended it.  He talked about losing his factory job in the recession, and living at the mission because “I can’t go home and stay with my family.  I just get in trouble there.  If I can stay away from them, I’m much better off.”

In that moment I realized how tough this must be for the homeless.  During the good times, you have a steady job and the means to put a roof over your head.  Then something happens and the rug gets ripped out right beneath your tired feet.  Now, you must swallow your pride and admit you can’t do it alone.  I can only imagine how much I would resist that.  Heck, I have a hard time admitting when I’ve had a bad day, much less anything worse.

But here was James, reluctantly accepting grace.  I easily saw myself in his chair.

Fear is knocked on its heels in round three!

It was nearing lunch time, so I mentioned to the coordinator that I would likely take one more person before a quick break to grab a bite.  James left with a handshake and I started to replenish my supplies.

“Hi.  I’m Charles.”

Charles was about 6’3” with plenty of gray hair on his temples.  I’m not sure of his age, but his skin showed that whatever years he had spent on the planet had been hard.  He spoke in a rapid-fire staccato.  He was missing several teeth, which gave him an interesting inflection that colored his speech with a mixture of lisp and drawl.

“Hey Charles.  Nice to meet you.  Get comfortable.  I’ll be right with you.”

As I said this, Gabby came by to tap me on the shoulder.  She had just finished with a client and heard that I was about to take a lunch.

“I’m just going to do one more and then I’m taking a break,” I said.  “Could you get me a couple of fresh towels?”

Gabby obliged.  I turned back toward Charles, who had removed his shoes.

“I want them two things gone!” He said with authority as he pointed to his left foot.  When I looked down I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Just when Fear looked like it was down for the count, it connects with a right hook to Love’s jaw. Down goes Love!  Down goes Love!

“It’s been years since I’ve done anything to that one there,” he said.

Years?

He wasn't kidding.  He touched the nail on his big toe, which, like all the other nails, had outgrown the limits of his shoes and retreated downward, covering the front of every toe like giant thimbles as thick as wooden spoons.  The only thing that prevented them from growing even more was that the bottom of his foot had acted as a file of sorts.  Otherwise, the nails would have covered the soles of his feet.

On his second toe was a growth the size of a marble.  As he touched his big toenail and the growth, he repeated, “I want them two things gone.”

My face must have looked as if I had just witnessed a sea cow riding a unicycle.  Completely dumbfounded.

And the referee is counting!  1, 2, 3, 4 ,5 ,6 ,7 ,8…

Gabby came back with the towels.  She said in a tone of great understatement, “I’ll go help with intake.  Let me know when you’re done.”

I turned toward the woman seated on the stool at my right.  She was a registered nurse who had also been providing foot care throughout the morning.   She had heard my conversation with Charles.

“Anything special I need to do here?” I begged, secretly hoping she would take my case as a research project.  She only giggled at my novice fear and said,

“Nothing special.  Just trim the nails as best you can, and get a few medicated corn pads to help with the bump there.”

And Love somehow staggers back to his feet!

Charles seemed pleased with the response and settled in, soaking his feet in the tub.  Meanwhile, I was petrified.  I scrubbed his feet with the special soap, hoping against hope that the concoction was something akin to Toenail Nair, which would just make them disappear in a flash of light.

No such luck.

After the soap, I was supposed to use the cuticle stick to get under the nails.  I looked down at the poor stick, and I heard it faintly whimper.  So I instead opted to work off the calluses with the pumice stone to allow each foot a bit more soaking time.

The rough side of the stone was like 100 grit sandpaper.  Before I went to work, I asked Charles, “Let me know if this is too uncomfortable for you.”

He replied, “Ain’t nothin’ gonna’ hurt these big size thirteen canoes, boy.  You doin’ a fine job. ”

I worked his foot like an auto body mechanic sanding paint off a Buick.  The pumice wilted under the pressure.  I commented to Charles, “I think I may rub off a size or two of foot here Charles.  When you walk out of here, you may be an eleven and a half.”  He laughed at the comment, and added, “Sho ‘nuff.  It’s about time them feet had some work done on ‘em.  This feels real good.  I really appreciate you doing this.”

When the scrubbing was done, it was nail time.  I steadied myself to tackle my fear head-on.  When I grabbed the toenail trimmers, I saw the nurse glance my way.  I believe she was watching to see if I would fold under the pressure.

I wasn’t sure exactly how to handle this.  Because of the unique growth of the nails, there was no way to just take the nail off in one clip.  I would have to take them all off a quarter-inch chip at a time.  The trimmers were the kind that look like a pair of pliers.  I grabbed them firmly in my right hand and settled in on the first chunk of the first nail.

I may not be the strongest man in the world, but I’ve done my fair share of working out.  Still, when I pressed down, the trimmers merely made an impression.  Like I was notarizing his big toe.  It didn’t budge.

Refusing to yield, I grabbed on with both hands and clamped down.  There was a sound like someone snapping a pencil, and the first chunk of nail flew off and hit the nurse in the cheek.

“Hold on there now!” Charles joked.  “I don’t wanna’ be responsible for hurtin’ nobody.”

What’s this?!  Love lands a right cross to Fear!

I had to laugh, and so did the nurse.  I continued chopping away at the nail.  As Gabby can attest, the big toe alone took four minutes.  Stuff was flying everywhere.  The area around my seat looked as if someone had been whittling one of those bear statues out of an old stump.  Toenail chips hit me in the eye, the cheek, and the lower lip.  My waxy hair care product, an unfortunate choice this day, was trapping slivers in my coif.

And my hands got tired.

As you might imagine, a couple years of growth can trap quite a bit of interesting stuff beneath a toenail.  I was quite certain that I would unearth the contents of Al Capone’s vault.  It made Raymond’s cleaning look like a speck of dust. This rattled me, but I pressed on, frequently cleaning my supplies and focusing.

And Fear takes one on the chin!  Up against the ropes!  Will this be the end?!?!

As I worked, Charles continued to voice his appreciation, and an occasional hint that my grip might be a bit rough.

And God was blessing it all.  Beauty for ashes, as they say.

Because as tough as this was for me, I can only imagine that it was ten times as difficult for him.   If you have no money and no place to live, the last thing you’re concerned about purchasing is a pair of nail clippers.  And when you look like Charles, out on the street, it’s likely that you would go weeks, if not months, without feeling the physical touch of another human, save for an occasional police officer lifting you off a bench and pointing you elsewhere for the night.

Can you imagine?

I can.

And it must be very lonely.  Enough to make you feel less than human.

Like I had treated Charles.  As a pair of feet instead of a man with a soul.

When Charles’s feet were back to normal, I felt beads of sweat on my forehead.  He looked at my handiwork and said, “Those babies haven’t looked that good in years!  Thank you!”

“But we’re not done yet, Charles,” I reminded him.  “We save the best for last.”

I poured peppermint-scented lotion into my hands, and got to work on the feet.  For ten minutes they soaked up a quarter-bottle of the stuff.  Like Kathy before him, he leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and sighed.  It was the sound of pure peace.  Breathing in a pleasant scent.  Both of us drenched in human kindness.  Bringing a subtle smile to my face as fear melted into the floor.  Showing.  Telling.  Proving that when you push yourself to the edge of your faith.

No matter the odds.

Love wins.  Every time.

Top Ten things We Said We'd Never Do (Vow #1)

Here it is.  What you’ve been waiting for.  The number one thing we said we’d never do as parents (which started in this post).  And I’d bet my collection of slobber-and-snot-stained clothing that it’s your number one as well. DRUMROLL PLEASE…………………………………..

Vow #1:  I will never talk incessantly about my kids

Result:  FAIL

Allow me to paint a picture for you.  I know this has happened to you and your significant other.  It might have been while you were dating.  Maybe while you were engaged.  But definitely after you got married.

You went out on a double date with another couple who has kids.

You were really excited to see them.  It had been forever.  You couldn’t wait to catch up with them.  Since they had the baby they had been missing in action. But they were finally able to find a babysitter and carve out some time to go out on the town with you like old times.

But it’s wasn’t like old times.  Unless old times involved talking about spitting up, nonstop crying, or pants filled with poop.  Which is entirely possible if your past was spent at fraternity and/or sorority parties together.

It all starts innocently enough.  You ask the polite question.

“So how’s the baby?”

Your friend replies, “She’s doing great.  So cute!  Thanks for asking.  She just now started to roll over on her own.  She just motors around the living room bumping into th…”

Her husband interrupts.

“Honey, we promised that we wouldn’t talk about the baby tonight.”

“You’re right, Dear.” She replies.  “We don’t want to ruin ‘date night’ by talking about the kids the whole time.”

Whew!

Ten minutes later, you’re reminiscing about how your old college friend dated that totally crazy chick back in ’92 named Betty who got so mad at him she stuck his remote control in a blender.  And then…

“Speaking of Betty, there is the CUTEST little girl in our son’s Toddler Time Music class named Betty.  She is soooo funny!  She and our little Jamison dance together like they’re at the high school prom.”

And then the husband gets sucked in…

“Oh Lord!  I hope our son doesn’t want to grow up to be a dancer.  Not sure I could handle that.  Better start playing some more football with him!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA”

The next hour of conversation focuses on Jamison’s skin color, head circumference, and potential college choice.  The night is ruined.  Hijacked.  You’re only laughing on the outside.  Your insides are wondering what the heck happened to these people who used to be fun.  Through a big fake laugh you look at your spouse to send a telepathic message.

We will never be like them!

And then you have kids, and your worst nightmare becomes reality.  You are now that couple.

Case in point, this “top ten” series of blog posts now contains 3789 words (thanks, WordCount Feature!)  Ninety-seven percent of you who have made it this far have kids of your own.  The remaining 3% are being forced to read at gunpoint, which is an effective, yet unsustainable means of increasing my blog subscribers.

But that’s our life now.  We talk about the kids.

Nonstop.

During the day, we talk about how great they are.  Late in the day, we talk about how we can’t wait for them to go to bed ‘cause their behavior is giving us a mental condition.  Once they go to bed, we say everything about our kids that we’re not allowed to say when they’re within earshot.  Like my completely irrational worries that Jake’s frequent requests for Childrens' Tylenol will one day lead to a drug addiction, and how Audrey’s clothing choices will one day get her kicked out of school for dressing like the world’s only goth-vampire-turned-ballerina-turned-street-mime.

Hey.  Anything’s possible.  You gotta’ catch this stuff early.

And it’s no different when we’re out with friends.  That’s why the only people we see anymore are couples with kids.  Single people are allergic to us.  Mini vans and mom jeans give them a skin condition.  So, we commiserate with others that are afflicted with TalkAboutOurKids-itis.  Just go to a Chuck-E-Cheese.  That’s where they quarantine people like us.  Places that make single men sterile.  It has something to do with toxins leeching from the artificial fur on the giant mouse costume.  Trust me, fellas.  Stay away.  It’s not healthy.

But it’s how we roll now.  And it’s oddly satisfying.

******************

So that’s it.  The Top Ten Things We Said We’d Never Do.  Quite a list.  But it represents so much more.

This list of failures is what makes parenting one of the best jobs around.  It’s a humbling experience.  We make all these promises based on our vanity.  Based on our pride.  Based on the fact that we think we’re in control.  Then God gives you this gift.  This bundle of joy.  Wrapped up like a series of Russian dolls.

Because inside the bundle of joy is a bundle of worry.  And inside the worry is a bundle of excitement.  And inside that, a bundle of wonder.  Then fear.  Then  anxiety.  Then peace.  Then hope.  Promise.  Pain.  Laughter.  And Love.  Each day more surprising than the next.

All wrapped up in a life on loan to us.

So parents, this Holiday Season, may you enjoy the gift of life – your and theirs – and the God who grants it all.

Top Ten Things We Said We'd Never Do (Vows 4 - 2)

Hey folks!  Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!  The leftovers at our house are finally gone, so I can get back to the work of writing.  Once again, this is a continuation of my previous posts.  For numbers 10-5, click here.  I'll wrap up with #1 later in the week.

Vow #4:  I will never let my kids’ schedule restrict my schedule

Result:  FAIL

Everyone knows parents like this:

They used to be fun to go out with.  Life-of-the-party kinda’ folks.  Paparrazi-worthy.  They never missed a happy hour, birthday bash, or Jimmy Buffet concert.

And then they drop off the face of the Earth like Johnny Carson.  Why?  They have either birthed, adopted, or stolen a child.  Their house becomes like Saddam Hussein’s hidden bunker.  No one is allowed to enter or exit without express written consent of the baby.

“We will never be like that,” we vowed.

And then we learned what life was like with a child.

The first three months are like one long day lived in three-hour chunks.  Feed the baby.  Change the baby.  Clean someone else’s puke off your neck.  You’re so tired you can’t even chew your own food.  Ask any parent about this time and they’ll tell you the same thing.

“What did we ever do with our time before we had kids?  I just don’t remember!”

They lie.

We all remember.  We used to go shopping, have conversations, and go to movies at a real movie theater.  If we got bored, we would make out on the couch just to pass the time.  But we’ve blocked all of that out, like a disaster survivor with PTSD.

It’s a coping mechanism.  Once you get through this Baby Boot Camp, you achieve a sense of balance.  You never want to go back to that out of control time.  Any hint at chaos becomes a trigger.  At our house, chaos comes in the form of very tired, irritable children.  If you have seen the climactic scene from the horror movie, “Carrie,” you have seen what our living room looks like at 5pm on days when we decided to skip nap time.

For this reason, all invitations are weighed against the price we might have to pay for attending.  Afternoon sale at Kohl’s?  Forget about it.  Late lunch with friends?  Not a chance.  Private audience with the Pope?

We’ll get back to you.

Now that our kids are finally outgrowing nap time, our schedules are opening up a bit.  Ever so slightly.  So, if we turned you down for an afternoon tea invite a few years ago, don’t take it personally.  We fully intend to make it up to you by scheduling some alone time with you, and then boring you with tales of our children’s brilliance in hopes that you will join the club.  If you haven’t already.

Vow #3:  I will never put my kid on a leash

Result:  YOU DECIDE

We’ve all seen them, and some of you may have even used them.  These are the harnesses that you strap around your kids that allow you to tether them to your forearm or belt loop.

Muzzle optional.

Anytime I saw a parent using this, I considered calling Child Protective Services.  It seemed so barbaric.  What kind of parent would treat their kid like a dog? I wondered.

Every parent.  That’s who.

If I had a nickel for every time I whistled at my kid to get their attention, bribed them to get them to sit, or commanded that they “heel” next to me while walking through a crowded grocery store, I could buy a Tickle-Me-Elmo factory.  Many of the faces I make at my kids to convey my alpha male status are the same ones Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer, uses to keep a Doberman from turning your La-Z-Boy into a chew toy.

So, while we have yet to physically lasso our children in order to keep them from running away, we do have a no tolerance policy for walking through a parking lot without holding hands.  But we do allow them to lead each other around on leashes.  Which is somewhat disturbing and cute all at the same time.

Vow #2:  I will never let my kids eat in the car

Result:  FAIL

If you have ever been the back seat passenger in a car normally used for ferrying toddlers around the city, you’ve seen it.  The upholstery looks like the floor of a movie theater after a Harry Potter premiere.

Did I just sit on a Fruit Roll-Up covered in nacho cheese?  How can that be?

Well, let me tell you.

We never intended for our kids to eat in the car.  Sure, there are the horror stories of parents stopping along the highway trying in vain to dislodge a grape from their child’s throat.  That’s an obvious motivator.  But on top of all that, we just didn’t want our car to smell like a grade school dumpster.

So we made the vow, and quickly broke it.

This one is a matter of convenience and practicality.  Sometimes, if Saturn aligns Neptune,  you actually get to leave the house to attend an event.  Unfortunately, if nap time runs into dinner time and you have to be somewhere, it’s only natural that you have a meal in the car.

And this is a very slippery slope.

Once you’ve allowed food in the car, you can’t get the toothpaste back into the tube, so to speak.  You take a long car trip, so to avoid too many stops, you throw some snacks in the back seat.  And then comes my son’s persistent questioning.  He has a record-breaking qpm (Questions per minute) speed.  Audrey is quickly gaining ground. Just the other day, she asked for a cracker no less than 27 times in sixty seconds.  All of her attempts were rejected, but she kept asking.   She should have a long and lucrative career as a telemarketer.  Some days, you just can’t handle the noise coming out of their pie-holes.

So you feed them pie.  In the back seat.

There.  I said it.  I’m not proud, but that’s the way it is.

Stay tuned for #1, and the wrap up!

Top Ten Things We Said We'd Never Do (Vows 8 - 5)

If you missed the previous blog post, this one is a continuation of the “Top Ten Things We Said We’d Never Do.”.  If you wanna’ check out #9 and #10, you can find it here.  Otherwise, just know that we had grand ideas to be fantastic parents, and now we’ve become quite ordinary at best. Vow #8:  I will never let my kid wear ridiculous outfits

Result:  FAIL

OK… so I confess this one is more mine than Gabby’s.

As parents, it is inevitable that we view our children as a reflection of us.  If they are well-behaved, then we must be good disciplinarians.  If they are well-groomed, then we must be relatively hygienic.  Conversely, if they destroy a neighbor’s flower garden, then we must be serial killers.

Based on my kids’ recent fashion choices, Gabby and I must be rodeo clowns

I always used to believe that one thing parents can control is their children’s choice of clothing.  Granted, they may be covered in dirt or oatmeal, but the underlying outfit choice should be something semi-respectable.  In my mind, Halloween costumes are kinda’ like a wedding dress, and should be worn only once.

And then I learned something by watching my wife.  Apparently,  choosing an outfit for an important engagement involves mental gymnastics reserved only for Mensa candidates and astrophysicists.  Though the monologue is all internal, there are long, silent moments spent staring into the closet, formal planning sessions which involve laying out clothing onto the bed, the physical act of trying things on in various combinations, and finally, the “Which do you like better?” question that can (and I’m sure will) ultimately trigger divorce proceedings.  Me?  I try things on at the last minute.  Like the sweater my wife bought for me for our family photo shoot, which we found fit very awkwardly.  If you get our Christmas card, notice how I always have a child strategically placed in front of me.

Children are unable to do this "fashion math" in their heads, so these mental gymnastics take place in the open, in the form of screaming, crying, flailing tantrums filled with the fuzzy logic of schizophrenic hostage negotiations.  It’s just not pretty.  Sometimes giving two outfit choices will be sufficient.  But usually, it turns into shoving a kid into her clothes, which I imagine is a bit like trying to shove a cat into a bucket of vegetable oil.

Not that I’ve ever tried it.

To avoid this, one must make concessions to remain sane.  Case in point, I took Audrey to her three-year old well check last week wearing tights, a poofy ballerina dress, a pink princess baseball cap, frog galoshes, and a purple coat.  And Jake attended the church’s Thanksgiving celebration for ESL students wearing his Buzz Lightyear costume complete with laser cannons.

I figure that if we don’t show a little flexibility now, Audrey will  be rebelling like crazy and wearing studded dog collars and a garbage bag to senior prom.

So we bend a little.

Vow #7:  I will never play “kid music” in my car

Result:  FAIL

A leak inside the U.S. military has confirmed that two of the top ten songs interrogators used to induce torture and sleep deprivation in Iraq and Gitmo are children’s songs.  That said, I would bet my retirement savings that any parent could name one of the two without stopping to take a breath.

1.        The “I Love You” song made popular by Barney.

2.        The Sesame Street Theme Song

And a third on the list could qualify as kids’ music, the Meow Mix cat food jungle.

Allow me to apologize for dumping these tunes in your subconscious.  I fully expect some of you to throw a brick through my window this evening, adorned with a disturbing message and eerie drawing of how you would like to torture me.

For this reason, Gabby and I vowed we would never introduce our kids to children’s’ music.  Instead, we would offer them only a steady diet of our own favorites to condition them to like the music we like.  James Taylor.  Norah Jones.  David Wilcox.  Corrine Bailey Rea.  Jack Johnson.

This was relatively easy when Jake was just two months old.  We thought we were really successful.  He could be lulled to sleep on any car ride, even if we were thumping some Sir-Mix-A-Lot (Gabby’s CD collection, not mine).  Unfortunately, the sleep was induced not by the music, but rather, the motion of the vehicle.

Then, we got sucked into a program called Music Together, which is supposed to teach your ten-month-old how to play the bassoon or something.  Jake was a boy genius and could name a song if you hummed just a few bars of it.  This would have been fantastic if “Name That Tune” was still a lucrative game show on TV.  But all we ended up with was a kid with a great ear for music, and a keen eye to notice that we had stuck our favorite CDs in his children’s music CD case.  We’re weren’t fooling anybody.

It turns out that the only thing more cringe-inducing than listening to a big, purple dinosaur sing about how much he loves you is to listen to your own toddler scream and cry and tell you they hate your 80’s playlist.

Ironically enough, in my research for this post, I also learned that Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian dictator, was flushed out of hiding by blaring Rick Astley and Neil Diamond.

So sad.  They are some of the tops on my iPod workout mix.

Vow #6:  I will never yell at my children

Result:  FAIL

I fancy myself a pacifist.  No need for violent outbursts to get your point across.  I always thought this was in my genes.  My grandmother raised twelve children (yes, you read that right) without ever raising her voice.

This is a pretty easy motto to follow until your two-year-old gives you a Cool Hand Luke stare down and tells you for the fifth time, in no uncertain terms, that they will not be cleaning up their mess.  Worse yet, when you ask a tiny person to “please stop writing on the table with your crayon,” and they look you dead in the face with eyes full of venom and do it three more times, it’s hard not to lose it.

I’m not proud of it, but from time-to-time, I can do a pretty darn good Mike Ditka impersonation.  Why?  I don’t know.  Because what I hope will be a big attention grabber to shock my kids into submission backfires 98% of the time, as they become more defiant, scream louder, or cry and kick the floor.

But sometimes, like hitting that perfect tee shot on the golf course keeps you coming back to the game, a well-timed bellow can wake the kids up and help them realize that they are being ridiculous.

Just like me.

Vow #5:  I will never have noisy toys in the house

Result:  FAIL

There are two kinds of toy stores.

There are the toy stores for smart kids.  They have names like The Imaginarium and Growing Tree Toys.  Shelves are stocked with specialty wooden playthings and learning games that engage a child’s mind.  These are the places that you browse when you have no kids, marveling at the real-life microbiology kit and the build-your-own  sustainable eco-farm.  Won’t it be fun to sit quietly with our kids one day and play and learn the wonders of the Universe?

Then there are toy stores for the mouth breathers.

They have names like Toys-R-Us and Rocko’s House of Loud.  The toys in these places are specially designed to irritate anyone over the age of eighteen.  There are toys for maiming children, toys for bursting eardrums, and specialty toys for causing epileptic seizures.

Here’s the problem.  Parents love the toys from toy store number one.  Granted, it’s a good thing that they teach your kids a thing or two, because you will liquidate your family’s 529 college savings account to purchase them.

But kids don’t give two hoots about ‘em.  Dumb kids or smart kids.  Doesn’t matter.

The only time your kids like those toys is when you are there to play with them.  Then, they are far less interested in the toy as they are in you.  Either that, or they find out how fun the ecological ant farm can be when they fill it to the brim with Pop Rocks and Diet Coke and watch it burst forth like a Yellowstone geyser.

So, as much as we would love to fill the playroom full of carved wooden toys and learning games, people buy our kids the toys that they truly love.  The loudest ones imaginable.  In colors not found in nature.

And they love ‘em.

To be continued.

Top Ten Things We Said We'd Never Do (Vows 9 and 10)

Parenting is an interesting sport. I know what you’re thinking.  “Parenting isn’t a sport!”

Yes it is.  If bowling, curling and golf can be called sports, then parenting is a sport.  Let’s run down the similarities.

1.       All require practice.

2.       All require specialized equipment.

3.       All require a certain degree of physical skill.

4.       And all are best played while simultaneously consuming beer.

I have often watched these so-called sports on TV, especially bowling, thinking “If I really wanted to do that, I could totally be a top professional.  Olympic caliber!  How hard could it be?”

And then I remembered I used to say the same thing about being a parent before my kids were born.

I would see some frazzled guy chasing after his kids like an idiot.  They would be taunting him.  Screaming at him.  Crushing his manhood in a vice grip.  The poor guy would have absolutely no control.  He would give his strongest, sternest look in the hopes of putting the fear of God in his kids.  Promising torture using a voice that James Earl Jones would be proud of.

And they would just giggle and make fart noises with their faces.

How hard could it be?

Before we had kids, Gabby and I had some long discussions about the things we would never do as parents.  Our mission is life would be to raise loving, giving, God-centered children who make the world a much better place that we ever could have.  No mistakes.  No regrets.

Now that Jake is four and Audrey is three, I would like to publish the results of our parental vows top ten.

* My two kids.  They sucker-punched each other shortly after this was taken.

Vow #10:  I will never argue with a toddler

Result:  FAIL

After seeing countless parents enter into a battle of wits with two-year-olds that lack higher reasoning skills, both Gabby and I vowed that we would never get sucked in to such insanity.  But for some reason, it is virtually impossible to stay calm and collected when a tiny person is arguing the losing side of a point that makes no sense.  Morning at the Dannemiller house resembles the courtroom scene from “A Few Good Men” with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.

Case in point:  Just this morning, Jake and I spent three minutes debating  whether or not today was Wednesday.  In his mind, if he could convince me that it is Tuesday (a non-school day), then he would not have to attend.  I actually said, “Jake, the only way you can have two Tuesdays in a row is if you fly non-stop to Asia and pick up 14 hours.  And even then, it’s only sorta’ possible.”

He’s four.  Now I’m confused.

Case in point #2:  Again, just this morning, Audrey insisted that her preschool outfit contain at least one “fuzzy” item.  We went round-and-round  for five minutes whether or not knit pants were indeed “fuzzy.”  As she writhed on the floor screaming, I heard myself say as I rubbed tiny pants on my clean-shaven face, “Look Audrey.  The ruffles on the cuffs help make them fuzzy!  Don’t you see?!  They’re fuuuuuzzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyyy!”

Apparently, she can’t handle the truth.

Vow #9:  I will never bribe my children

Result:  FAIL

When I used to see parents give rewards for things that their kids should be doing anyway, it made me cringe.  A kid should do his chores because that’s what family members do!  A kid should eat all of his food because that’s what people do!  That’s like giving me a $100 bill for breathing.  Pure craziness.

And then I tried to potty train my son.

I don’t know about you, but I have never met a single adult that voluntarily poops his pants.  Involuntary?  Sure.  Some jokes are just that funny.  But voluntarily soiling yourself?  Not fun.

So it stands to reason that it’s unnecessary to rush the process with your kids.  Sooner or later, such behavior will become social suicide.  And it’s rare that it progresses to that point.

Still, when I was potty training Jake, I would hover over him like a hawk.

“Do you need to go potty Jake?”

“No.”

(45 seconds pass)

“Do you need to poop, Jake?”

“No.”

(14 seconds pass)

“What’s that smell, Jake?”

“I pooped.”

“In your pants?!”

“Yes.”

Such lunacy will cause you to do anything to avoid having to ever come in near contact with human feces again.  With our kids, you get one M&M for #1, and three M&M’s for #2.  Potty brilliance without being prompted will get you a lollipop or a handful of mashmellows.  Successfully wiping your own hiney the first time you sit on the toilet gets you a Ferrari on your 16^th birthday.

Even though the kids are self-reliant now, the bribes have created long term behaviors.  Every time Audrey sees a bag of marshmallows, she says “we don’t eat those anymore at our house, ‘cuz I’m good at pooping in the toilet now.”  And, both of them pee as frequently as a stray dog marking his territory.  But at least our house no longer smells like a kennel.

P.S.  Just in case you have a sweet tooth, know that the rewards don’t apply to adult guests who come to visit.

Stay tuned for the results of Parental Vows 8-5… and there is a point to all of this, that will be revealed after #1.

For the Broken

*Audrey mugging for the camera, and then spontaneously hugging and kissing "Garage Door Piggy"

My daughter Audrey celebrated her third birthday this weekend.  What started as an idea to have a small little party at the house turned into “Piggypalooza,” an overly-indulgent, pink-tacular porcine blowout attended by forty-five people.

To give you an idea of the space issues we had, you can vacuum every room in our house without having to move the plug to a different outlet.  No lie.  If those forty-five people didn’t know each other before they arrived, they have now shimmied up against each other in ways normally reserved for tandem skydivers.  We all literally rubbed elbows during the piggy storytime, piggy dance-party, no-hands piggy slop eating contest (disgusting, but a big hit), and pig-balloon decorating.

Due to the overcrowded mayhem, we opted to have Audrey unwrap her gifts after everyone had left.  When the dust finally settled, she began combing through her presents.  There were princess outfits, puzzles, games, stuffed animals and sparkly things.  Then she finally opened a rather odd one that we had purchased for her.

A broken, red ukulele.

So why did we buy her a broken ukulele, you ask?

Two months ago, Gabby bravely took both of the kids to a music store owned by a family member.  Turning our kids loose in a place filled with fragile musical instruments is like teaching blindfolded orangutans to play racquetball in a Venetian glass blowing factory.

Not for the faint of heart.

Audrey was showing some interest in music, so we were considering getting her a little something to rival Jake’s tiny guitar.  Before entering the shop, Gabby coached the kids on appropriate behavior.  No screaming.  No running.  No touching things without permission.  Check?

Check.

When they got in the store, Gabby assured Larry and the other employees that she’d keep a close eye on the kids.  Jake politely asked if he could play a tiny red ukulele, and Gabby obliged.  He quickly lost interest and moved to put the ukulele back on the wall hanger.  As he did this, Audrey darted off in another direction toward something loud and enticing, like a bird dog spotting wild game.  When Gabby turned, Jake let go of the instrument, not realizing it wasn’t seated properly on the hook.  It fell to the floor, inheriting a pretty nasty crack in the process.  He knew what he had done and apologized like crazy.

Gabby insisted we pay full price for the item.  She felt terrible, especially after she had promised that the kids would be well-behaved.  But Larry, ever the kind family member, cut us a break and gave us a deal.  Unplanned birthday gift purchase?  Complete!

On the way home, Gabby was re-hashing the experience in her mind.  Jake sat in the back seat, quieter than usual.  He was feeling pretty remorseful for a four-year-old.  Then, Audrey’s  tiny, two-year-old voice cut through the silence.

“Mommy?”

“Yes Audrey.” Gabby answered.

“Can we break a pink one next time?”

I love her little question for two reasons.  First, it shows how her brainlette is starting to put together some pretty complex thoughts.  I know I’m biased, but she may be the smartest kid in the universe.  If they were to measure that sort of thing.

Second, I love the idea that my daughter believes that something holds its value even when it’s broken.

That’s powerful stuff.

It gets me thinking about the service that Gabby and I have done.  How often have we sought to give to others in order to fix what is broken?  When we originally went to Guatemala to serve as missionaries, I had grand ideas that we were going to bring God’s love to a broken place so we could heal wounds, alleviate poverty, and build something sustainable.

We were going to fix Guatemala.

But it wasn’t about that at all.  Though, I must say that there is nothing inherently wrong about wanting to help in places where help is desperately needed.  Those places exist as much in our own neighborhoods as they do in faraway lands.  And there are plenty of them.

The problem arises when the desire to help comes from a place of imbalance and division.  I’ve heard it in my own words at times.  “We went to Guatemala to help ‘those people.’”  Or serving at the soup kitchen.  “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could provide more opportunity for ‘those people’ so they could get a job and feel a sense of fulfillment.”

Like me.

Do you hear it?  It’s subtle, but my guess is there are times when those I’m serving can hear it loud and clear.  The look of pity on my face.  The sad eyes that say “poor them.”  These unspoken words create so much noise and distraction that it drowns out what they are trying to say to me.  That they have something to offer.  Something to give.  Not based on their potential, but just as they are.  Right here.  Right now.

I’m reminded of an interview I heard some time ago with a man who was injured in an accident.  He was a quadriplegic, who had made the most of circumstance, and was traveling around the country to raise awareness and money for spinal cord injuries.  He was also a deeply spiritual man, so the interviewer asked.

“I imagine your faith has sustained you, with the idea of Heaven being a place where you will be made whole again.  Do you often dream of what Heaven will be like?”

For a moment, there was silence.  As I listened, I imagined the man to be conjuring images of himself running through golden fields, doing the moonwalk, or playing sports.

Then his voice cut through.

“I have a problem with that image if Heaven, and even take offense to it,” he said.  “Many people I talk to speak of Heaven as a place where broken people are fixed.  Even those who are disabled due to injury like I am.”

I, like the interviewer, was stunned.  The man continued.

“In my Heaven, no one needs fixing.  Instead, I see Heaven as a place where it just doesn’t matter  anymore.  I am not treated as some broken person to be pitied, but rather, I am seen as having value just as I am.

That’s what Heaven is to me.”

And such a Heaven is possible here on Earth.  Lord knows there’s plenty of raw material to work with.  Because we’re all here.  Broken.  Different.  Imperfect.

But seeing all that as a gift to be unwrapped and treasured?

That takes fresh eyes and a fresh perspective.  Perhaps the eyes of a child.

What Would Jesus Tweet? (WWJT)

Gabby and I were driving around town this past Saturday having a normal conversation.  My mom had taken the kids to see a play.  “Snow White and the Seven Doras” as Audrey calls it, since all the dwarfs apparently look like Dora the Explorer, her  favorite, tiny, animated, Hispanic TV hero that saves the world accompanied by her monkey that wears red moon boots. The talk turned to our blog, and we kicked around some ideas for a topic.  One of us suggested “What Would Jesus Tweet?”

What a clever idea!

Well, apparently, a quick Google search shows that 281,000 other people thought it was clever before we did.  The same goes for the following:

“What Would Jesus Eat?”

Answer:  a low calorie balanced diet… have you seen The Lord’s abs?

Or “What Would Jesus Drive?”

Answer:  A Christler

But I remain undeterred.  Much like I remain undeterred that a month after I bought the domain name accidentalmissionary.com, a guy came out with a book by the same name.  Dang.  Shoulda’ Googled it!  (By the way, new blog/book name suggestions are welcomed!  I could use the help.)

So, make that 281,001.  I’ll take a crack at the Jesus tweet.

Lots of the websites I visited had some very uplifting faux Jesus tweets.  Most were scriptures.  Others were thoughtful messages.  Still more were in the “God Loves You” vein.  While these were very inspirational, I don’t think that’s the kind of stuff Jesus would be texting into his account every day.

Now, I realize that this may sound sacrilegious, but stick with me here.  I am not denying that Jesus is Emmanuel.  “God with us.”  I believe that he came down from a nice cozy spot in Heaven to hang with us mere mortals.  A perfect presence on Earth to assure that we could see God in human form.

But one of the things I think is so fantastic about Jesus, is that he’s not some towering, 500-foot tall god that shoots lightning bolts from his fingertips and fire from his nostrils.  No, Jesus was a man, too.  Like us.  A regular guy.  Wore sandals like we do.  Ate bread like we do.  Had a job like 90.4% of us.

Or 85.7% in Detroit.

For that reason, I think he would have tweeted like a regular guy.  It would be his way of connecting with us.  Here’s how I think Jesus’ Twitter account would look.

With all of Jesus’ miracles and teachings, we tend to forget that he didn’t actually start his ministry until he was 30 year old.  Up until that time, he spent his days cutting wood and fashioning it into something useful.  The guy built tables and chairs and sold them to earn a living.  But Jesus’ time card never made it into the Bible.  Not even the appendix.  Stories about crafting shelving units aren’t quite as engaging as curing leprosy or walking on water.  Go figure.

But I think this untold story is just as powerful, if not more powerful, than the stuff that is written in the Bible.

Why?

Because we have a tough time relating to a perfect, God-like being.  It’s inspiring, but I can’t see myself catering a feast for 5000 people by just the waving of my hand.  Martha Stewart?  Maybe.  Me?  Don’t think so.

But the regular Jesus?  He’s my kinda’ guy.  Though we don’t have a catalog of Jesus’ line of furniture, I have a hard time believing that he would make a shoddy table.  Jesus stands for quality.  He probably didn’t have a lot of returns.  And if he did, you gotta’ imagine that his customer service was impeccable.  Full refund.  No questions asked.

Bottom line, he did his job well.

So often we sit and fret about how to be more like Jesus, and then feel guilty that we fall short.  We have a laundry list of all of Jesus’ teachings and how he asked us to live, and measure ourselves against an impossible yardstick.  In thinking this, we forget that the Savior of the World spent the bulk of his time on Earth honoring God by making really nice furniture and treating people right.

So the message for us?

Start with your job.  Let your work be your ministry.  Do it well.  With honesty, respect and integrity.  That in itself is a testament to Jesus.

But the bigger lesson is this.

We underestimate ourselves.  We get a picture in our heads of what a true God-follower looks like.  People who are deeply spiritual.  Those who do beautiful things for God.  Pastors.  Missionaries.  Monks.  Nuns.  Priests.  Holy people.  They are qualified to be servants of God.  They’ve known since the day they were born.

In doing that, we neglect the real Jesus.  The regular guy.  The simple carpenter who created a faith that has lasted for over 2,000 years.

In truth, we are all carpenters.  We’re also painters, plumbers, accountants, teachers and engineers.  We are managers and telemarketers and bus drivers.

And we are all called.

Right now, as you sit in your chair, munching on Cheez-Its and reading this post, there is an idea buried deep within your soul.  That thing you have always wanted to do.  That tingling in your gut.  That thing you’re putting off because you don’t feel you’re qualified.  Or ready.  You fear failure.  It’s outside your comfort zone.

Maybe it’s forgiving the unforgivable.  Or reaching out to the lost.  Connecting with a stranger.  Giving more than others think is reasonable.  Serving beyond what you think is possible.

Guess what?

That’s Jesus talking.  The regular Jesus.  The nobody from nowheresville who healed the sick, walked on water, fed thousands and revolutionized the world.  He’s got a message for you.

Do You have Cheez-Its in Your Car?

Gabby’s long-time friend and former roommate, Jeanie, came for a visit this past weekend.  She’s one of the most delightful human beings on the planet.  Lights up a room.  No.  Scratch that.  She sets rooms on fire.  In fact, she’s so wonderful to be around that Gab and I invited her to come live with us. And we weren’t joking.  Jeanie, if you’re reading this, come live with us.

Among the many things we love about Jeanie is her ability to tell stories.  One night after the kids went to bed, she told a great one that I have to share.

* Pictured here:  the oh-so-heavenly Cheez It

Our friend Robin was out one day with a few other people.  One of her companions brought along her four-year-old daughter.  While the adults were making idle chit-chat, the girl approached Robin and asked,

“Do you have Cheez-Its in your car?”

Robin thought it was an odd question, but that’s what you get with four-year-olds.  She responded, “Sometimes, but not today.”

The girl gave Robin a bewildered, hurt look, started to cry, and then ran to her mommy who was standing several yards away.

Sheesh, that kid must really like Cheez-Its.

When Robin finally met up with the girl’s mom later, she apologized.

“Listen.  I’m sorry I made your daughter so upset.  She was asking if I had any Cheez-Its in my car, and I don’t have any snacks.  But maybe I can find something close by around here.”

Laughing, the mother replied.

“Oh no, Robin.  I need to apologize.  She’s been on this kick lately.   She didn’t ask ‘Do you have Cheez-Its in your car?’  she asked

‘Do you have Jesus in your heart?’”

Sometimes, but not today.

Hilarious.

But it’s true, isn’t it?  There are some days when Jesus has a shiny four bedroom penthouse in my left ventricle.  Complete with granite countertops and a giant two person Jacuzzi tub.  Perfect for spontaneous baptisms and working out sore muscles from long donkey rides.

I hear Jesus likes the bubbles.

Other days, I kick him to the curb like some bad subprime lender.   I gave him my word that he’d have a place to live for life, but now I’m foreclosing on the Savior of the World because times are tough, and I think someone else could do a better job taking care of the property.  Someone like me.

But what does it mean, anyway?  To have Jesus in your heart.

My guess is that it means different things to different people.  To some, it means that their every waking moment will be spent introducing everybody to their buddy, Jesus.  To others, it means that every decision they make will be guided by Jesus.  Still more would likely say that having Jesus in your heart means that you have a sense of peace knowing that you’re Heaven-bound.

For me, it’s a little bit of those, but something more.

If you’re like me, you spend a good part of your life earning your value.  What do I mean by that?

If you have a job and a boss, this means that you try really hard to do your best.  To get the project done on time.  To do a good job.  To meet expectations.  Better yet, to exceed them.  Knowing you’ve done good work is satisfying, right?  It’s an added bonus when we get noticed by the right people so that we get the recognition we deserve.  The promotion.  The corner office.  Heck, even a ‘thank you’ is really nice.

If you’re a parent, you try with all your might to be the best mom or dad you can be.  To raise your kids to be productive citizens.  To be present for them.  To provide a good home filled with love.  To make the mundane moments special.  To create magical memories.

If you’re married, you want to be the best spouse you can be.  Attentive.  Caring.  Considerate.  You want to listen like you should.  To be the rock that your spouse needs.  To be the supporter when they’re down.  The shoulder to cry on.

So here’s the sucky part.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t do all that.  I hate to break it to you.  You’re going to fail.  It’s going to stress you out.  You’re going to prepare like mad for that big presentation, and then rip your pants five minutes before showtime.  You’re going to bite off more than you can chew, and it’s going to come back and bite you in the back side.  You’re going to work your tail off on-the-job, and no one will notice.  Worse yet, they’ll notice the wrong guy.  Joe Schmo will take credit for your work and get the big promotion, and the corner office.

I hate that Joe Schmo.

Wanna’ hear something worse?

You’re going to fail your kids, too.  You’re going to plan what you believe will be the most incredible birthday party in the world.  Then the day of the party, your daughter tells you she wants a mermaid party theme, even though you’ve spent your entire paycheck on piggy stuff.  Or worse yet, no one will show up.  Then that carries over into adolescence when you tell her she can’t wear the low-cut jeans that show the waistband of her underwear and this causes her boyfriend to dump her for the girl who actually wears jeans with a hole in the keester.  You’ll try and make it up to them by throwing them a beautiful outdoor wedding fifteen years later, but it’s gonna’ rain.  Trust me.  Cats and dogs.  Ruin the whole thing.  ‘Cuz you’re the one that suggested it.  And they’ll talk about you.  In therapy.  That they pay for using the money you saved up for their college education.

And what about your spouse?

When they need you most, you’re going to be tired.  Too tired to talk.  Too tired to be supportive.  And then you’ll say the wrong thing.  Ladies, you’ll tell him he’s just not trying hard enough.  Guys, you’ll tell her she’s worrying just like her crazy ol’ mother used to worry.  And you’ll spend the night on the couch.  And you’ll try and make it up to her by buying her a special dress, giving it to her as a surprise right before you take her out for a night on the town.  The same night she had planned on seeing a movie with her best girlfriend she hasn’t seen in months.  But she’ll go anyway, because she loves you, and then the night will be ruined because you didn’t realize that The Marble Room doesn’t take walk-ins, and is booked three months in advance.  Golden Arches it is!

That’s what we do.  We fail.  It makes us feel worthless.  It’s stressful.  It sucks.  It’s sad.  Sad enough to make a little girl cry and run to her mom.  It’s the way our world works.  The first question out of our mouths at a dinner party is “what do you do for a living?”  We’ve created this system where our worth is wrapped up in what we can accomplish.  What we can buy.  How many people we can make happy.

But guess what?

None of that matters.  It’s all smoke and mirrors.  The worry and the stress and the fretting and fussing.  ‘Cuz the instant you were born, God decided to love you.  It’s a given.  No take-backsies.  You will never be worth any more or any less than you are right now.  You are fully and completely loved, and you didn’t have to do a darn thing to deserve it.  Breathing is gravy.  You don’t even have to do that!  But God’s choice wasn’t a hard choice when you think about it.  He created us in His image, so essentially He loves Himself.

Whaddaya’ know?  God’s as narcissistic as the rest of us.

And that’s what it means to me to have Jesus in your heart.  It’s carrying that love of God deep in your soul.  Not love for others.  Not love for yourself.  That comes later.  It’s carrying the knowledge that no matter what you do, how bad you screw up, or who you disappoint today, you’re loved.  It’s realizing that you’ve been spending your time worried and worn out, searching for the acceptance you never lost in the first place.

And this is what frees us to do truly wonderful, glorious things.  It’s amazing how much love can flow through you when you’re truly at peace.  You’re able to truly open yourself up to others.  To love as God loved.

So do I have Jesus in my heart?

Sometimes, but not every day.

It’s tough to remember I’m fully loved when the ads on TV and the junk between my ears tells me different.  When the expectations I put on myself overshadow reality.  I kick Jesus to the curb and there sits my heart.

Empty.

So on those days when I forget, it’s nice to know there is now a tangible reminder.  Thanks to a curious little girl and her misunderstood question.  A lovely, carb-o-licious snack food filled with cheesy goodness.  All I have to do is open the box,  pop a cracker in my pie-hole, and I’m reminded.

So my prayer to you is that you will always remember that you’re loved, no matter the circumstances.  And just in case you forget, and you’re left with that hunger that is hard to satisfy.

Always keep Cheez-Its in your car.

The Greatest Game Ever Played

I was busily working in my office yesterday when a colleague barged in for an emergency meeting.  By his demeanor, I could tell it was urgent.  He was short of breath.  Rapid pace.  High volume.  In my face. And he was wearing a pirate outfit.  Complete with plastic hand-hook and swashbuckling sword.

* For your visual, here's Jake in full pirate garb a few months ago

“Daddy, daddy, daddy!  My eye patch keeps falling off when I’m fighting.”

Such are the joys of working from home.  You’re in your office on a conference call and there is a three-foot tall pirate in the office next door screaming “AAAARGH” and swinging his sword at the family dog.  She isn’t fighting back.  Bailey is 98 in dog years.  She can’t hear anything softer than a freight train, and had her fetching merit badge revoked for lack of use.   She’s like a soft bathroom rug that makes guttural noises and eats 45-pounds of kibble per month.

“Jake.  Can you go play in the playroom?  I have to send some emails and I need to concentrate.”

“How long?  I want to go play in the front yard.” He begs.

“Five minutes,” I say.

Miraculously, he walks away with a newly-tightened eye patch.  I know he’ll be back soon.  Kids don’t understand that parents work in order to provide for the family.  Gabby tried to explain the concept to them when I was away on a business trip.  Jake was in the bathroom, using far more bath tissue than one human being needs, even after eating a bad meal.

“Jake, stop using so much toilet paper!”

“Why?”

“Daddy has to work to buy things like toilet paper.  When you waste it, daddy has to work even more.  Do you want that?”

“No.”

Now when I’m out of town, the kids tell everyone that daddy is off working so he can buy toilet paper.  They must think the entire family has Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Anyhow, back to the story.  I continue working at my computer, quickly typing and clicking.  Reading and organizing.  Printing and filing.  Preparing for this week’s workshop.  Jake comes in a few minutes later.

“Are you done yet, dad?”

“Not yet.” I bark, quite frustrated now.  “Just two more minutes.”

I stare at my computer screen as if I’m looking for it to give me instructions.  This kind of information work is very odd when you think about it.  How many people get paid to simply transfer information from one place to another every day?  Responding to requests.  Asking for clarification.  Scheduling stuff, and re-scheduling.  For someone who actually produces real, tangible items like houses, cars, and landscaping, it must seem like fairy dust.  I’m sure that’s what it seems like to my kids.

“Dad, are you done yet?”

“Not yet, son.”  I was really on a roll, and these interruptions aren’t helping at all.

“But dad, you said five minutes.  And that was ten or eleven minutes ago.”

He’s right.  I curse myself for teaching the kid to read a clock at age four.

“Actually, you’re right, Jake.  Let’s go outside.”

I look in his hand and see something that makes me shudder.

A football.

I have never been a physical guy.  In my entire life, I have never been in a fist fight.  When the neighborhood kids got together to try out Theron Brown’s new boxing gloves, I put them on, climbed into the makeshift ring, and fell to the ground before the first punch was fully thrown.  It was like watching a bad karate movie where people react to fake jabs and kicks.  One kid thought I had fainted, and suggested I go see a doctor.

In seventh grade, I was one of two guys in a class of roughly one hundred and fifty boys who didn’t either play football or participate in the school marching band.  The other guy was a soccer stud who went through puberty at age six and was being groomed for the high school varsity team.

I had no excuse.  Fortunately, the soccer god could only handle three or four girlfriends at a time, and there were no less than ninety or a hundred lovely starlets surrounding me in the stands.  Unfortunately, junior high girls find football players far more attractive than skinny kids with big heads that go to Gifted and Talented class in the portable classroom outside the school.

To top it all off, I am a little OCD about being dirty without there being a specific purpose for the dirtiness.  I have been known to shower three-to-four times per day to get rid of a few beads of sweat or the faint smell of smoke from our backyard grill.  Granted, I’ll get in the muck for household projects and honey-dos.  But getting thrown on the ground just for fun?

I’ll pass.

“Let’s play football!” Jake exclaims.

“Football?  OK.  We can throw the football.”  I subtly try and guide the play to something that won’t involve me falling down.

“No.  Let’s play it.  Like on TV!  Let’s tackle!  Like the game with the white team against the blue team.”

This past weekend we had watched my beloved University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane beat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and Jake knew the game was something I must enjoy.  But watching football on TV is much different than playing.

“But Jake, I don’t have a long sleeved shirt that can get dirty,” I hedged.  “And it’s cold outside!”

Then I realize how absurd this must sound to a kid dressed in a pirate costume.

Undeterred, Jake bellows, “Yes you do!”

He runs to the laundry room, reaches into a basket, and pulls out a gray, long sleeved T-shirt with holes in the armpits.

Once again, he’s right.  I change into the t-shirt and we march ourselves out onto the front lawn.

“Let’s play right here!” he shouts, positioning our field markers.  “You gotta’ run between my bike and Audrey’s pink car to get a score.”

Looking out toward the yard, he sees as a perfect football field.   I see as a patch of dead grass, slightly damp, strewn with leaves, harboring allergens that could overpower even the strongest of prescription medications.  The thought of laying on the grass instantly makes my skin itch.  I feel a sneeze coming on.  I have visions of Theron Brown barreling down on me.

Jake throws the ball at me.

“OK, dad.  Try to get a score!”

I jog around in a circle, dodging him, and run past him to the end zone.  He’s having fun.  And I’m happy that I didn’t have to touch the grass.  Dad is up, 7-0.

“My turn!”

Jake runs around, darting this way and that.  I run toward him, grab him, sling him around my shoulders, and set him down on the ground.

“I missed!” I yell.  He runs to the end zone for a score, giggling the whole time.  Tie game 7-7.  I feel a bead of sweat forming on my upper lip.

I think I need a shower.

He throws the ball back to me.  I do the same dance as before.  But Jake darts in front of me when I least expect it.  Trying not to bowl him over, I zig when I should have zagged.  I trip over my own two feet and tumble to the ground.  It’s as if the whole thing is in slow motion.  I see dust and dead grass puff into the air.  I feel myself breathing in the smell of fall, complete with allergens and chiggers.

In an instant, Jake is on top of me.  Laughing hysterically.  Like I’ve just given him tickets to Disney World.  His smile is painted with joy.  Without a care.  He is bathing in the moment, and savoring it.  There is no place he would rather be.

“I tackled you daddy!”

“You sure did.” I say.

I forget about the dust.  I forget about the dirt.  I forget about seventh grade.  I forget about boxing gloves and the wet spot on the butt of my jeans.

I forget about the worries and the responsibility.  I forget about the reasons why I can’t play because I’m too busy earning money to buy expensive things that have no real value.  I forget about the shiny junk that gets in the way of the stuff that really matters.

I forget about being a father just long enough to be a dad.

Jake recorded seventeen tackles yesterday in an epic battle for football domination on Ramble Wood Circle.  Seventeen.  The stats won’t show up in the box score in the newspaper.  In fact, there was no score to keep.  But the game meant the world to those who played.

As I sit here in 7C, happily nursing a runny nose somewhere high above the Midwest, I’d like to close by sharing a few snippets from a passage our pastor read this weekend.  It sums up the idea of selfless giving very well.  Focusing on what’s truly important.  I do a lot of writing about service to others, often forgetting that we must start by serving at home, not as we would like to serve, but as those in need intend for us to serve.

And that, my friends, is the definition of love.

Excerpts from  If I found a Wistful Unicorn by Ann Ashford

If I found a wistful unicorn and brought him to you, all forlorn… would you pet him?

If I picked a little flower up and put it in a paper cup… would you smell it?

If I found a secret place to go with you the only one to know… would you be there?

If my cricket coughed and got the flu and needed warmth and comfort too… would you hold him?

If my rainbow were to turn all gray and wouldn’t shine at all today… would you paint it?

If I ran backwards up a tree and called for you to follow me… would you do it?

If I said that I could dance for you as hard as that would be to do… would you watch me?

If all that I would want to do would be to sit and talk to you… would you listen?

If any of these things you’ll do I’ll never have to say to you… “Do you love me?”

Split Personalities and My Mysterious Email

When I was a kid, I saw a fascinating program on TV about Bob Smith. “Who is Bob Smith?” you might ask.

Well, the proper way to phrase the question is actually “Who are Bob Smith?”

You see, the show was about an annual reunion of all the Bob Smiths in the country.  Some Bob Smith somewhere started the trend, after being mistaken for another Bob Smith.  The name is so common, he wanted to do something uncommon with it.  So, he thought it might be fun to meet all of the other Bob Smiths in the country so that they could share stories, have a few laughs, and presumably, swap monogrammed clothing.

Summer camp underwear included.

The reunion was huge, and I found this fascinating.  Those of us with uncommon monikers (Dannemiller, Pfreugenberger, Stachkew) have a love/hate relationship with our names.  All at once we love our uniqueness, yet curse the fact that the mention of our name to any restaurant hostess or tech support rep requires an additional five minutes of spelling.

And re-spelling.

I always thought a Scott Dannemiller reunion party would be a lonely affair.  Then one day back in high school, we received a call at our home.  My dad answered the phone.

“Dannemiller residence.”

The voice responded, “Hello.  Yes.  This is Scott Dannemiller.”

“No it’s not.” Dad answered.  “ Scott Dannemiller is taking a nap in my La-Z-Boy.”

That’s a party of two, please.

We learned that another Scott Dannemiller had moved to Oklahoma City.  Apparently, he had come to town for a job opportunity.  When he went to the bank to cash his first check, the teller refused to give him money.  She was a high school friend of mine, and was afraid this guy was trying to empty my checking account of all twenty-six dollars and eighty-two cents.  Luckily, he was able to clear up the matter.  He couldn’t believe the coincidence, and just wanted to call and introduce himself to us, given that we are distant relatives.

Over the years, I have enjoyed this name-sharing connection.  The other Scott Dannemiller is an avid triathlete.  His name constantly appears in newspaper clippings and on websites for ultra fit people who eat equal amounts of protein and carbs, and compare body fat percentages.  I’ll often get approached by folks who say, “Hey Scott, I saw that you ran one of those 70-mile races this past weekend.  I had no idea you were such a runner!  Congratulations!”

“Thanks!” I’d reply.

Why make them feel stupid, right?

Back when Gabby and I got married, we started receiving odd gifts in the mail.  Stuff we hadn’t registered for.  When we called the department store in Austin to clear things up, we found out that the other Scott Dannemiller was getting married as well.

The same day of our wedding.

In my old hometown.

To a girl who went to my high school.

After a few hours, I was fortunate enough to convince Gabby that I wasn’t a closet polygamist, and we got down to the business of returning all their gifts to them, save for the big screen TV from his Uncle Al. It would be impolite to refuse such generosity.

Every so often, I’ll Google my name for the sake of narcissism.  There will be stories of our mission service alongside stories of his athletic achievements.  But last time I surfed for myself I was shocked  to learn that I had died in an electrical fire about fifteen years ago.  It seems there is a third Scott Dannemiller, an electrician, that I will never have the chance to meet face-to-face, may he rest in peace.  And a fourth who is a high school baseball player.  And a couple others.

But perhaps the biggest shock of all came last week when I received a very curious email.  The names have been changed for obvious reasons.

To:  [scott@dannemiller.net]

From:  [JaneDoe@fakeaddress.com]

Subj:  could you please respond to me in private… this is Jane Doe… Julie Doe’s sister

Scott---I tried to look you up on facebook but couldn't find you.  I did a yahoo search and found this e-mail.  Out of respect for your wife and her being pregnant---I will not contact her and cause her undue stress.   But---I do have some questions if you would be so kind.   Can you please just email me back so I know that you are the Scott I'd like to communicate with.  My sister does not know that I am trying to contact you.  Just let me know if you would be willing to communicate with me.  I am concerned about my sister.

Thanks for your time---Jane Doe

My stomach instantly began to churn.  Jane Doe?  Julie Doe?  What could I have done to warrant this clandestine email?  Must have been pretty bad.  I scanned my memory.

Nothing.

The stomach churning stopped when I remembered that I don’t know a Jane Doe.  Or a Julie Doe.  Or any Doe for that matter.  Unsure what to make of this email, I just deleted it.  I thought it was probably some sort of SPAM, where someone wanted to make contact with me so they could sell me something to make certain body parts smaller, or others bigger.  Worse yet, they would sucker me into giving them $10,000 to retrieve the millions that the prince of Bundesia had left for me.

Fool me once, shame on you, I say.

The next day, I received another email.

To:  [scott@dannemiller.net] From:  [JaneDoe@fakeaddress.com]

SORRY SCOTT!!!!  You are the wrong Scott.  No need to respond to my previous email.  I hope I didn't cause you stress by not knowing who the heck I was.  ---Jane

OK.  So I guess it wasn’t SPAM.  My mind immediately drifted to thinking about this poor woman.  How mortified she must be.  She obviously had some significant drama in her life, and now she had involved a complete stranger.  I imagined her realizing her mistake and running to the keyboard in slow motion, trying to delete the message that had already been sent.  But the toothpaste is already out of the tube.

Wanting to calm her fears, I responded.

No worries, Jane.  I hope everything turns out ok for you.  I’m just glad to know that my wife isn’t pregnant.  Thanks for clearing that up.    -Scott.

All of these episodes of mistaken identity got me to thinking .  Maybe the identities weren’t so mistaken after all.  I am all of these people.   The singer, the writer, the triathlete, the electrician, the baseball player, the one who creates drama and conjures up clandestine emails.

Aren’t we all?

We are multiple personalities wrapped into one.  The boring and the exciting.  There are some days where we are super parents, and others when we should just be glad our screaming antics aren’t on some secret Child Protective Services video tape.  There are times when we are selfless to a fault, and others when our selfishness knows no bounds.  The shining moments when we love unconditionally, and the dark hours when we feel unworthy of love.

We’re all human, and therein lies the beauty of it all.  We are as The Creator made us.  Broken and blessed.

And I believe God’s message is this.  Love yourself.  Every part of you.  The bright spots and the shadows.  The stuff that works and the garbage that doesn’t.  Without the ability to give thanks for the you that was made, we have no ability to fully bestow love on others.  So today, I pray that I can come to love both the good and bad in myself.  And to fully immerse myself in this world where I can use what I’ve been given to make a difference.  In big ways and small ways.  Common or uncommon.

Amen.