Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Out of Place

A couple of times a year it seems that I am required to spend a few days in Vegas. It is the least favorite thing I am asked to do. It is an assault on my ears and eyes and spirit. I can't hear well because of all the noise, I can't breath well because of all the smoke, and I can't think well because of the lifestyle exhibited here. Vegas stands for all the things that I do not. Yet, there is a certain fascination with this place. It is like a little boy peering in the window of a candy store at all the pretty, fake candies. They lure him in, yet if he eats them, because they are fake they will make him desperately ill. So Vegas is for the adult boys and girls. We peer in the windows, knowing the lights and fun are fake, knowing the participation will coarsen the soul and make us desperately ill. Yet we are tempted.

So when I come here my disciplines get better. While on the road I try to spend a portion of every morning in Word, prayer, and thought. But sometimes I miss, I slack or am too tired or bored or lazy. But it is not the same missing the disciplines in Albany, GA or Syracuse NY or Tampa FL, these places are not specifically designed to trip me up. Vegas was created for the sole purpose of extracting money and morals from the military personnel to or from billets in the service. It has grown to ensnare all of us.

This morning I was simply looking for a moment of guidance. The city, the sales meeting, the temptations will be relentless over the next few days. Here is what the Spirit offered up:

Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
  Who may live on your holy hill?
He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous,
   who speaks the truth from his heart
   and has no slander on his tongue,
   who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman,
   who despises a vile man
   but honors those who fear the Lord,
   who keeps his oath even when it hurts,
   who lends money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things will never be shaken.
Psalm 15

"who speaks the truth from his heart" This tells me that the Lord would prefer we speak to people truthfully in love. This city is not built on this standard. I cannot adopt the ways of this city without sacrificing or mortgaging my place in the "sanctuary". It is too easy to speak the truth and intentionally harm by doing so. It is also easy to forgo the truth and turn our lives from God. It requires both.
"who keeps his oath even when it hurts" This life has become a series of "deals" that are easily broken. Who may live in God's presence? The one who tells the truth in love and who stands by what he says.

This moment in the Word has given me a point for the day. While I may be tempted by the fake candy, I know that there is a better and more satisfying way to live. So in the midst of all that is not God, He whispers a quiet truth, "You are still mine."

Godspeed to us all, though tempted, return to the sanctuary.
Don

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Night Wonderings...or Wanderings

Occasionally my mind wakes me up to work on  a few things. Sometimes it is working out a thought or idea, to follow the thought strings and see where they go. On some occasions the night thoughts turn to projects that need to be completed and have stumped me for a time. But in some moments, though rare, my mind wakes me up to dwell on past mistakes. This is the least favorite wake up call.

This morning was one of those moments. The reflections were of past mistakes, errors in judgment, lapses in emotional honesty, moral breakdowns. I am not sure why this is a part of my nature. Maybe it is simply a part of the human condition. My mind would skitter and jump from one mistake to another, then dwell on a single incident for a time, bubbling up the regret, the angst, the embarrassment, the shame all over again.

And the moments used the entire library of my life for resource. Stupid stunts as a kid, when I embarrassed my parents. Hard headed teenage decisions that could have changed the shape and scope of my future (and probably did at some level). And adult mistakes that harmed not only me, but those around me, those closest to me. These thoughts were not time sequential, just lined up one after another in random order to bring their special form of pain.

We all have the knack for blaming others for these mistakes.
     He started it
     I didn't know...
    No one was looking..
    It is not my fault..
But in these night wonderings, in the still of the house, it comes back to me. No matter how I turn the little object in my hand it is a small mirror showing only my face. It is a moment of emotional clarity. These reflected memories were all on me. They were my fault.

So other than lose sleep, and spend a lot of anxiety about events I can't change, what do I do with them? Even the ones that are recent I can't alter. The events occurred, I failed, the world keeps spinning. So now what?

Then when it seems that the conclusion in my own head is that I am, in general, a failure. I reach to my right and touch someone who has seen most of these mistakes, taken the brunt of most of them...and stayed with me. My bride still sends me texts telling me she loves me. Snapshots start floating by of three kids who also saw most of these failures and call me often and tell me they love me, even the add-on kids-in-law tell me they love me and invite me to dinner and on trips and into their homes. Then there is my six-pack, Eli and Phoebe, Isaac and Abby, Lincoln and Lola, who all laugh and climb on me. They don't know all the mistakes, but I think they are responding to someone they know loves them, will do anything for them. Somewhere this crowd of 13 have decided that there is something of value in this flawed, stupid, egotistical, brain numb knucklehead. The mistakes become secondary.

Here is my big conclusion. Whatever knowledge, or insight, or wisdom I have has come, not from my training or mental intellect, or innate ability, but from my mistakes. The mistakes are woven into the very fabric of who I am. The greatest crime I can commit is to see the brown eyes of my bride well up with tears of hurt or shame or disappointment. The same trickles all the down to the littlest ones. I cannot bear to bring them sorryow through my actions. But past mistakes slow the making of new mistakes.

Then on a deeper level, I realize that the Creator has given me the chance to use my mistakes, not bear the burden of them. He knew what he was creating when He formed me. And He formed me flawed for a reason. The reason is that He knew that whatever help I could lend to my little community would be out of the wisdom and pain of my mistakes. I do not understand this wisdom He possesses, but I trust it.

Godspeed to the night wanderers. The journey comes with both stumbles and insight, usually at the same time.
Don


Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Vacation for Two

It has been a while since my bride and I have taken some days, went somewhere and just enjoyed the trip. No one to visit, no agenda, no plan. Just a 4 day trip using some of my airline miles, some of my hotel points, and renting a car for about $10/day. We targeted Tamps/St. Pete, packed our swimsuits and headed out early on a Friday morning.

A few discoveries were found along the way for me. Apparently I have a hard time ratcheting down from business travel to vacation travel. When traveling on business I am quick through the security at airports, I make my way as quickly as possible to the gate, I run at a different RPM. My bride is not on this pace.

So for the first day I had to slow down, take deep breath, and enjoy the ride.
Also on the first day I was bombarded with emails from work. So I am covertly trying to answer the questions, put out the fires, conduct business. This dual life was making me grumpy. It manifested in our trip as mild, constant bickering. Couples who have logged as many years as we have rarely have the towering infernos of fights that marked our younger years. No, it is more of a constant little skirmish that can go on days and if not checked can become a lifestyle. In the midst of one of our little back and forths I realized this was all my fault for not putting the silly phone away and pay attention to our trip. I texted the kids and told them to use my personal cell number or their mother's number that I was signing off on the business phone. I shut it down, plugged it in to recharge, and had a very pleasant remainder of the weekend.

On landing in Tampa we got our car, checked into our suite at the Doubletree, changed into shorts and tees (I always travel with long sleeves and long pants, airplanes can be brutally cold) and headed out to explore Clearwater and surrounding areas. I drove, my bride navigated. This is where technology has changed our relationship. In the old days my bride's sense of direction was suspect. Now she reads the instructions and passes them along to me. We have found our destination every time. She is a wizard with the I-phone apps, so she gets to guide us from one spot to the next.

We headed back and had dinner in Ybor city at a Spanish restaurant, left before dark (if you know the area you know why), not a great area. Saturday morning was a trip to the beach in St. Pete, where the sand was primarily prickly little seashell parts which prompted a trip to Target for beach shoes. Dinner in Hyde Park in Tampa at the Green Lemon which was a good choice. If you ever find yourself in Tampa for dinner go to Hyde Park, a great little area for dining.

Sunday morning found us on Venice Beach, black grainy sand mixed with white sand gave it a more "gray" look, but fewer folks and a lot more families. Then lunch at a great Italian place in downtown Venice and a meandering trip back to the hotel where we swam in the pool and dodged late afternoon thunderstorms.

Then back to Clearwater on Monday and lunch and finally back to airport for my bride to fly home while I worked in Tampa for a few days.

That hotel suite was one lonely, quiet place after she left, so I broke out the workout clothes and spent an hour working off all the good food and the morose attitude.

It was one of those trips where I struggled to remember our stops along the way as I wrote this, but I remembered certain snapshots of our trip. Little jokes that cracked us up that no one else would get. Observations that we shared, observations that we didn't agree on, but could laugh about while discussing. The little texts that we shared after she was home that seemed to continue the trip a little longer.

There is not anyone else in the world that I can share this type of trip with. We have the shared scars of what the world has tried to do to us. We have the scars of what we have done to each other. But there is no one else who understands the relationship like we do. We have been through all the battles and come out the other side, still committed to each other, still in love, still willing to take up arms against a world that does everything in its power to split us up. There is just something about this chick that makes me tick.

Godspeed to all the lifetime lovers, sometimes the journey is level and straight and lovely to see.
Don

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Cousin's Camp

Apparently my daughters and my daughter-in-law, plus a lot of encouragement from my bride have instituted a new tradition. It is called "Cousin's Camp" and it been an annual event for 3 years or so. The idea is quite simple. All the ladies bring their kids to our house for part or all of a week of swimming, movies, shopping, and just general fun. The age span this year was 10 down to a year old. We use about 6 gallons of sunscreen, a landfill worth of diapers, and the dishwasher runs non-stop for a week. It is a good time had by all.

Our ten-year-old grandson is the ringleader for the three boys. The 3+-year-old and the just turned 3-year-old adore him and follow him around like puppies. One night Lincoln, our 3+ spent the night and apparently tried to talk his way to sunlight. Eli, the 10 year old asked his Nena for some help getting Lincoln to hush long enough for all to sleep. I think it worked, both seemed pretty well rested the next day.

I have a sore muscle in my neck from trying to watch 2 little girls who can not swim step off the side of the pool with no regard to water depth, to Isaac, our newly minted 3-yr-old who while wearing floaties still makes me nervous, and Lincoln, who just took swim lessons has more confidence than expertise. My head was on a swivel the entire time. I will say at one point I was watching most of them and realized my bride, and both my daughters had taken up sun-bathing, leaving me with the kids in the pool. I called time out and herded the entire troupe to their mothers. Sun-bathing time was over.

One of the joys for me in all this is the cooking. We had everything from shrimp/pasta in foil to grilled chicken to a dish my daughter calls "pretzel chicken". We are terrible at judging food quantities, so the last night we had left overs and cleared out a surprising number of containers. But the cooking and the grocery shopping and the sharing of cooking ideas with my eldest daughter is joy that I hold close.

It was a week of laughter, meltdowns, sniffling noses, dirty diapers, damp towels and warm memories. I think we value the bond of family when we see them only occasionally. It reminds us that friends are great, but family is eternal. For a week a year, I get to talk to Eli about his life. I get to sing and act surprised by the princess called Phoebe. I get to enjoy the mischievous humor of sturdy little Lincoln. I get to be startled and delighted by the wit and song of Isaac. I get to experience the growing relationship with wide-eyed Lola. I get to begin the games of life with serious little Abby. And of course I get to bask again in the contentment and the pride of my girls, Jordan, Carrie, and Sarah.

And there was one moment last night when my bride and I hugged in the middle of the living room. We sort of leaned against each other in contented fatigue, but I held the woman who has made all this reward possible for me. She may be the best part of cousin's camp. Then she said, "BREAK!" The moments were not over.

Godspeed to those who have the chance to gather the group, the original recipe and all the great flavors added in. It is a dish that tastes better as the years slip by.
Don