The old spinach eater knew a lot about people. Over the years I have come to understand that people are wired a particular way and no amount of training or self-help or positive thinking will change the original wiring.
For instance. There are people who are inherently generous. Then there are people who are not encumbered with the chip of generosity. I have worked for people who simply could not stand to be generous, earned bonuses drove them to distraction. I think it made them literally ill to consider giving to others. Even when those others made their business profitable after years of declining revenue and declining profits. The spirit simply could not find a way to accept the contributions with grace and reward.
There are people who struggle to empathize, to understand the struggles of others. Mercy, humility, steadfastness, and the list goes on describe people who have a particular nature, and describes those who don't.
My favorite Christmas story is from a funny little book called Red Ranger Came Calling by Berkley Breathed, narrated by the little boy in the story tells us what his mother thought of him.." I did not typically give much thought to the feelings of others, and - true to form - I did not that night. My mother used to tell me that there is a natural order to all things and that mine must have been to prickliness, She said that blaming me - or anyone else - for my distant nature would be like blaming a polar bear for eating Canadians. It was the natural order and that was that."
So I have come to accept the moniker of Grinch for my family. I do not fully accept the designation, but in comparison to my bride and my daughters, I fall closer the Grinch end of the continuum than I do the Christmas Spirit end. I yam what I yam. I love the family being together, I love the flush of joy when someone opens a gift of particular meaning. I'm not a big fan of the musical score of the season, the crowds around malls give me a headache, it makes my stomach hurt when I think my kids have spent too much on my gifts, so I guess the green T-shirt should be worn with pride, or at least some level of recognition.
But the chances are that I won't change much in the years to come. I will continue to cherish the moments with my bride, with Jordan and Brad, with Eli and Phoebe, with Ben and Sarah and little Isaac, and Shane and Carrie and of course lincoln. If that moves me into the Grinch area..well so be it.
Godspeed to all you Christmas Spirit crowd, the verde crowd will pick up the wrappings.
Don
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Connected
If you follow this post you know my girls set me up on Facebook over the Thanksgiving break. This connecting me to the world of cyber-relationships has been both a bother and an eye-opener.
1. Blackberry's are not designed to be efficient in Facebooking. Oh, you get the notices of people befriending, you get notices of chatter back and forth. You can even send a response. What you can't do is read it because the font is too small! My bride and I spend enough time passing assembly instructions, prescription directions, ad small print, etc back and forth and saying.."Can you read this?" Neither of us can, so we guess at a large part of the informational age. I am just a little jealous of my son-in-law's I-pad. Huge print, easy to read. However, it does look like the equivalent of those giant pencils and Red Chief notebooks we used in first grade.
2. Where the heck did my quiet, strongly introverted bride get all these friends?!? Some of them are probably work associates, some are probably church people who don't like me but like her (far more common than you would imagine) some might be yoga pals, college chums. Who knows? But because she and I are linked (Facebook wise) I get to wade around in all their lives. But there are tons of them!
3. What is up with the "like" designation. Does this mean we agree? Does it mean that the entry has some significance? Does it mean that I now have to formulate an opinion about it? Should I comment? Should I tell them when I don't "like" their inane comment? What is the protocol. In real life (not cyber life) I can call someones hand on a stupid comment, I can argue, I can close the conversation. Who cares if I "like" your comment, or if you "like" mine. By the way, if you don't like mine it means you are not quite cerebral enough or knowledgeable enough or in-crowd enough to get it.
4. And here is the real observation. My generation feels that all this cyber-relational stuff is going to stunt our children and grandchildren. That this new conversational construct will harm us all in some way. I felt that way. This past month has changed my mind. I am able to keep up with folks that I used to never speak to, or at least only occasionally. Now I know when their kids are sick, or hurting, or accomplished. Now I can tell when the other shoe has dropped. Now I know when to pick up the phone and call, instead of hearing months later that an old friend could use an encouraging word. This new level of relational connection has shrunk the globe and the clock to a manageable proportion. The communities that will be truly efficient in caring for the inhabitants of that community will embrace this new world. Some of us who are older will do so slower and with a considerable amount of grumbling, but we will do it.
By the way, I still enjoy a good phone visit.
Godspeed to all you cyber-relationalists, stay in touch.
Don
1. Blackberry's are not designed to be efficient in Facebooking. Oh, you get the notices of people befriending, you get notices of chatter back and forth. You can even send a response. What you can't do is read it because the font is too small! My bride and I spend enough time passing assembly instructions, prescription directions, ad small print, etc back and forth and saying.."Can you read this?" Neither of us can, so we guess at a large part of the informational age. I am just a little jealous of my son-in-law's I-pad. Huge print, easy to read. However, it does look like the equivalent of those giant pencils and Red Chief notebooks we used in first grade.
2. Where the heck did my quiet, strongly introverted bride get all these friends?!? Some of them are probably work associates, some are probably church people who don't like me but like her (far more common than you would imagine) some might be yoga pals, college chums. Who knows? But because she and I are linked (Facebook wise) I get to wade around in all their lives. But there are tons of them!
3. What is up with the "like" designation. Does this mean we agree? Does it mean that the entry has some significance? Does it mean that I now have to formulate an opinion about it? Should I comment? Should I tell them when I don't "like" their inane comment? What is the protocol. In real life (not cyber life) I can call someones hand on a stupid comment, I can argue, I can close the conversation. Who cares if I "like" your comment, or if you "like" mine. By the way, if you don't like mine it means you are not quite cerebral enough or knowledgeable enough or in-crowd enough to get it.
4. And here is the real observation. My generation feels that all this cyber-relational stuff is going to stunt our children and grandchildren. That this new conversational construct will harm us all in some way. I felt that way. This past month has changed my mind. I am able to keep up with folks that I used to never speak to, or at least only occasionally. Now I know when their kids are sick, or hurting, or accomplished. Now I can tell when the other shoe has dropped. Now I know when to pick up the phone and call, instead of hearing months later that an old friend could use an encouraging word. This new level of relational connection has shrunk the globe and the clock to a manageable proportion. The communities that will be truly efficient in caring for the inhabitants of that community will embrace this new world. Some of us who are older will do so slower and with a considerable amount of grumbling, but we will do it.
By the way, I still enjoy a good phone visit.
Godspeed to all you cyber-relationalists, stay in touch.
Don
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Creative Dissonance
My body is at odds with what is going on in the world. This very cold weather creates the appetite for the very best foods. Stews, soups, warm pasta dishes with heavy sauce, all flavor the kitchen and the dinner table. This may be why I love this time of year. The dutch oven is my refound old friend. So far this past week or so, it has been chili, jolly girl's stew, and beef/vegetable soup. Of course all this has to be served with either cornbread (my mom's recipe, which she made at least 6 or 8 times a week and had to be stopped and measured by my bride and s-i-l to get the right blend; Mom never measured, she just threw it together and it was always good) or with really good bread and lots and lots of real butter. My eldest daughter insists on real butter. So the house smells great, the jeans fit a little snugger.
So my bride's solution is to work out. we started months ago heading to the gym at 4:30...AM. Yes, children there is a 4:30 in the morning. We have been very faithful in this. Three times a week I hit the elliptical for 30 minutes in "interval" or "sprint" training. The other two days are weights for upper body, legs, and back. It makes me feel good, it keeps my weight slightly under the morbidly obese level, and it is quality time with my bride where I am not wanted or expected to communicate. Of course at 4:30 in the AM what could we possibly have to discuss? So we roll out, get into our workout togs and head out.
Gym culture is a very different culture. We each prefer no one speak to us and we find it a huge burden and incredible gym faux pas to have anyone say anything other than, "are you finished with that machine?" We have a guy who is there every other week we call the "groaner" He makes a lot of noise working out, groaning while he lifts, belching loudly, and horror of horrors, talking to us occasionally. He hit on my youngest child once about running barefooted (yes, he works out barefooted, and doesn't wipe down the machines.) I have thought about discussing his lack of manners, but the humiliation of getting pounded by this lout keeps me quiet. More people are showing up recently and I'm hoping this puts him off enough to keep it all to himself. My quiet, sweet, non-confrontational bride just turns on the TV so loud that none of the rest of us can hear him half the time anyway.
So I am finding this dissonance about eating and working out a struggle to balance. My nature tends towards the eating, but my natural gift towards weight gain pushes me towards the gym, in the dark, in the cold, against all that is human. I just have to last until spring when the menus will hold things like summer hash, grilled meats, and fresh veggies. And my bride is off from the school year and we can make the trek at a more reasonable hour.
Godspeed to those out there who are density gifted and vertically challenged.
Don
So my bride's solution is to work out. we started months ago heading to the gym at 4:30...AM. Yes, children there is a 4:30 in the morning. We have been very faithful in this. Three times a week I hit the elliptical for 30 minutes in "interval" or "sprint" training. The other two days are weights for upper body, legs, and back. It makes me feel good, it keeps my weight slightly under the morbidly obese level, and it is quality time with my bride where I am not wanted or expected to communicate. Of course at 4:30 in the AM what could we possibly have to discuss? So we roll out, get into our workout togs and head out.
Gym culture is a very different culture. We each prefer no one speak to us and we find it a huge burden and incredible gym faux pas to have anyone say anything other than, "are you finished with that machine?" We have a guy who is there every other week we call the "groaner" He makes a lot of noise working out, groaning while he lifts, belching loudly, and horror of horrors, talking to us occasionally. He hit on my youngest child once about running barefooted (yes, he works out barefooted, and doesn't wipe down the machines.) I have thought about discussing his lack of manners, but the humiliation of getting pounded by this lout keeps me quiet. More people are showing up recently and I'm hoping this puts him off enough to keep it all to himself. My quiet, sweet, non-confrontational bride just turns on the TV so loud that none of the rest of us can hear him half the time anyway.
So I am finding this dissonance about eating and working out a struggle to balance. My nature tends towards the eating, but my natural gift towards weight gain pushes me towards the gym, in the dark, in the cold, against all that is human. I just have to last until spring when the menus will hold things like summer hash, grilled meats, and fresh veggies. And my bride is off from the school year and we can make the trek at a more reasonable hour.
Godspeed to those out there who are density gifted and vertically challenged.
Don
Friday, December 10, 2010
Urge, Instinct, Energy?
Last night while flying in from Ft. Lauderdale, we approached from the southeast into the Dallas area, swung around the airport and glided in from the north. I had a window seat and watched as the ground below turned from an occasional sparkle of light to concentrated towns and 'burgs, then the slow and inevitable wash of solid lights from under the plane to the far horizon. An impressive amount of light, lined up in rows in some places marking streets and thoroughfares, at other times buildings and commerce. Light rising from under my vantage point marching outward into nothingness on the horizon. My thoughts turned from the number of lights to the number of people that this man made phenomenon represented. It is even more stunning to fly into Los Angeles and to realize that the plane has carried a vista for more than 30 minutes at the rough speed of a .45 caliber bullet leaving the handgun. Millions of lights..millions of people.
A quote popped unbidden into my head. I have no idea where I read it. "Every time I see a huge gathering of people in a football stadium or any other event, it occurs to me that every one of those people are there because two people had sex." I will pause a moment and let the little gasps stop, to allow the Beavus and Butthead snickers to subside. There, done?
Now think about the incredible power that this one aspect of our human nature represents. There is simply no way to quantify the magnitude of it. It is at once incredibly personal, intimate, and private; and yet it is also undeniably forceful, an incredible force that simply cannot be stopped.Evident in the lights and scurrying activity of all the metropolises in the world. Even as I fly west towards the left hand coast I fly over miles and miles of desolation, but not empty. A few sparkling lights that indicate that even where there is no water, no industry, a moonscape of rock and sand..there is still a few hardy souls that have outposted an unforgiving existence and have managed to repopulate, to extend the force into inhospitable locales.
This simple sole-focused activity is so powerful that it can only be the desire of a greater power. To allow this power as a force on earth over the centuries indicates a collaboration of flesh and divine. I have always wondered if in the moment of release if we are not experiencing the closest thing to heavenly rapture we know here on this plane. Perhaps this is, in some way, a preview of the rapture we will experience in the future.
You might say that the American culture is too focused on this power, too much in our secular lives. But I tell you the power exists in every culture and in every moment in time, unyielding in its presence and always marching forward. God built a powerful engine when he developed this in our DNA, it is even more powerful than governments, nation-states, global economy, or military might. And it is held in the hand of the creator, the ultimate power.
Godspeed, every once in while these moments overwhelm me for a few seconds.
Don
A quote popped unbidden into my head. I have no idea where I read it. "Every time I see a huge gathering of people in a football stadium or any other event, it occurs to me that every one of those people are there because two people had sex." I will pause a moment and let the little gasps stop, to allow the Beavus and Butthead snickers to subside. There, done?
Now think about the incredible power that this one aspect of our human nature represents. There is simply no way to quantify the magnitude of it. It is at once incredibly personal, intimate, and private; and yet it is also undeniably forceful, an incredible force that simply cannot be stopped.Evident in the lights and scurrying activity of all the metropolises in the world. Even as I fly west towards the left hand coast I fly over miles and miles of desolation, but not empty. A few sparkling lights that indicate that even where there is no water, no industry, a moonscape of rock and sand..there is still a few hardy souls that have outposted an unforgiving existence and have managed to repopulate, to extend the force into inhospitable locales.
This simple sole-focused activity is so powerful that it can only be the desire of a greater power. To allow this power as a force on earth over the centuries indicates a collaboration of flesh and divine. I have always wondered if in the moment of release if we are not experiencing the closest thing to heavenly rapture we know here on this plane. Perhaps this is, in some way, a preview of the rapture we will experience in the future.
You might say that the American culture is too focused on this power, too much in our secular lives. But I tell you the power exists in every culture and in every moment in time, unyielding in its presence and always marching forward. God built a powerful engine when he developed this in our DNA, it is even more powerful than governments, nation-states, global economy, or military might. And it is held in the hand of the creator, the ultimate power.
Godspeed, every once in while these moments overwhelm me for a few seconds.
Don
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Back in the Saddle
Back to work. No money yet, but while working at least I'm busy and have a place to go, people to see. While I worry about the money at least I'm able to do something, to stay in the game. Several times a day I am reminded of the movie "Dumb and Dumber" ...So you're saying I've got a chance! For the aficionados of this movie you will know what I'm talking about. Meanwhile a few observations.
Flew to the city of Angels last week, then to Phoenix, then home. This week to St. Louis, connect through Chicago, on to Ft. Lauderdale. Six opportunities to go through security. Six opportunities to be scanned, to undergo a pat-down. Nothing. Regular process, shoes off, cell phone off, anticipation....off. The usual frustration with the amateur fliers, you mean I can't carry on this 64oz bottle of lotion I bought at Walmart? Those of us in line behind these folks want them to be scanned, just to get out of the way. TSA agents look just as disinterested as they did before this entire broohaw over the scanning deal. Actually I feel bad for them. I can't imagine they want to grope us any more than we want to be groped.
On a whim yesterday I grabbed my leather coat for the trip. I had on a sweater. Should be enough, right? Landed at STL, grabbed my bags, stood outside waiting for a car-rental shuttle for 20 minutes..in 16 degree weather. Upper body just fine. Legs freezing because of the summer weight slacks. Rookie mistake. Shuttle driver finally arrived full of good cheer, "Welcome! Glad you are here! Thanks for doing business with us!" I thought, "Get the hell out of my way, I'm freezing my cajones off here!" I said nothing, couldn't, jaw was frozen.
Customers are really picking apart the product line. I love it, it only confirms what I have been telling the folks in the office. There is a real tendency in most organizations to feel that the product is the be-all, end-all. It is what I refer to as "breathing your own air" The customers will tell you like it is, no sugar-coating. It is my firm belief that there is no such thing as bad information. There is only useful information (both positive and negative) or less-useful information. But I get to do what I love to do, developing a story for the product line. Gathering all the information I can to give my reps the best chance of placing the business. My bride feels there is something desperately wrong with me, that this particular challenge drives me. But I do love it, and I have missed it over the past 8 months.
If you are a praying person, lift a short one up for me. I will need all the help I can get.
Godspeed out there. Back in the saddle is such a good thing.
Don
Flew to the city of Angels last week, then to Phoenix, then home. This week to St. Louis, connect through Chicago, on to Ft. Lauderdale. Six opportunities to go through security. Six opportunities to be scanned, to undergo a pat-down. Nothing. Regular process, shoes off, cell phone off, anticipation....off. The usual frustration with the amateur fliers, you mean I can't carry on this 64oz bottle of lotion I bought at Walmart? Those of us in line behind these folks want them to be scanned, just to get out of the way. TSA agents look just as disinterested as they did before this entire broohaw over the scanning deal. Actually I feel bad for them. I can't imagine they want to grope us any more than we want to be groped.
On a whim yesterday I grabbed my leather coat for the trip. I had on a sweater. Should be enough, right? Landed at STL, grabbed my bags, stood outside waiting for a car-rental shuttle for 20 minutes..in 16 degree weather. Upper body just fine. Legs freezing because of the summer weight slacks. Rookie mistake. Shuttle driver finally arrived full of good cheer, "Welcome! Glad you are here! Thanks for doing business with us!" I thought, "Get the hell out of my way, I'm freezing my cajones off here!" I said nothing, couldn't, jaw was frozen.
Customers are really picking apart the product line. I love it, it only confirms what I have been telling the folks in the office. There is a real tendency in most organizations to feel that the product is the be-all, end-all. It is what I refer to as "breathing your own air" The customers will tell you like it is, no sugar-coating. It is my firm belief that there is no such thing as bad information. There is only useful information (both positive and negative) or less-useful information. But I get to do what I love to do, developing a story for the product line. Gathering all the information I can to give my reps the best chance of placing the business. My bride feels there is something desperately wrong with me, that this particular challenge drives me. But I do love it, and I have missed it over the past 8 months.
If you are a praying person, lift a short one up for me. I will need all the help I can get.
Godspeed out there. Back in the saddle is such a good thing.
Don
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