World Chase Tag

Do you remember playing tag on the playground when you were a kid?  Well, now they have taken that game of elusiveness, pumped it up on steroids, and made it into a sport.  It’s called World Chase Tag, and it’s a combination of tag and parkour.  Two teams of four people send one person onto the floor at a time.  One of them is the chaser, and one of them is the evader.  The chaser has 20 seconds to try to catch the evader as he runs around the course.  But the catch is that the course is littered with parkour obstacles.  Ramps, platforms, bridges, pipes…all kinds of things that the evader can use to jump, slide, swing, and dodge behind while he runs out the clock.  If the chaser manages to tag the evader before the time is up, then his team gets a point.  If the evader can stay one step ahead of him, then his team gets a point.

Playground games are no longer just for kids.  They are now extreme!  Tag, you’re it!

The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura

“Cateura, Paraguay is a small city that has grown atop a massive dump.  It is regarded as one of the poorest slums in Latin America, a village where people live among a sea of garbage.  Incredibly, the landfill itself is the primary form of subsistence for many residents, who pick through waste for items that can be used or sold.  Prospects for most of the children born in Cateura is bleak as gangs and drugs await many of them.  But then one day, something amazing happened.

A garbage picker named Nicolás Gómez (known as “Cola”) found a piece of trash that resembled a violin and brought it to musician Favio Chávez.  Using other objects collected from the dump, the pair constructed a functional violin in a place where a real violin is worth more a house.  Using items gleaned completely from the dump, the pair then built a cello, a flute, a drum, and suddenly had a wild idea: could a children’s orchestra be born in one of the most depressed areas in the world?  As you can guess, the answer was yes.”

- Colossal (Online): April 2013

The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura gave people a purpose, a hope for a better future.  It taught children about music and inflamed a passion in them that they didn’t know they had.  It became an international success, playing all over the world and touring with some of the biggest bands and orchestras from every nation.  What started out as a hair-brained idea, turned into one of the most innovative ideas to ever revolutionize the music industry.  It paired cast-off garbage with cast-off children to form something beautiful.  It also inspired a documentary called “Landfill Harmonic,” which was released in 2015.

“There were a lot of drugs, alcohol, violence, child labor – a lot of situations that you wouldn’t think are favorable for kids to learn values.  However, they have a spot in the orchestra.

“Like an island within the community, a place where they can develop these values.

“We’ve seen cases where parents with addiction problems have quit taking drugs to go to their kid’s concerts.  And in a lot cases, the parents have gone back to finish school because their kids are being seen all over and they think, ‘They are going forward.  I want to, as well.’

“They are not only changing their lives but the lives of their families and their community.”

- Favio Chavez, Orchestra Director

Gender Neutral

There is a big push right now in society for gender self-identification.  People want the right to choose what gender they want to be.  If you’re not happy with being a man, just overcome it with the sheer power of your mind.  Will it hard enough, and your genitalia will suddenly change into what it was “always supposed to be.”

This is a new, and frankly asinine, take on sexual orientation.  It is no longer enough to corrupt God’s creation by choosing to be with someone of the same gender.  People must now justify it by claiming that God messed up in the first place, because they aren’t the gender they were meant to be.  But it’s okay, because they can fix it by simply choosing to be something different.  So, if a man chooses to be with another man, it’s okay, because he identifies as a woman inside.  The whole concept of making something so just by saying it is so is ludicrous.  Simply saying I’m a woman does not change the science involved that would prove that I am in fact a man.

It has gotten so far out of hand, that people have started to push this concept down to children.  Society is in outrage at parents that dress their little girls in pink and their little boys in blue.  They are appalled at buying girls dolls and dressing them up as princesses.  Apparently, the only acceptable thing to do anymore is to buy a little girl a doll and an action figure and let her choose which gender she wants to identify with. 

Do we really think that children are thinking about this stupid stuff?!  Only adults who have lost their purity and innocence could come up with this junk.  People so lost in the sin of their own self-righteousness that they have to find ways to destroy the beauty of the original creation. 

Well, I’m going to teach my daughter to be a girl.  I’m going to teach her that it’s okay not to be a man, because she’s special and beautiful just the way she is.  I’m going to teach her to celebrate the differences in the genders, because those differences compliment each other.  I’m not going to teach her that everyone is the same, and the world is just a blending of cross-over confusion.  If she wants to dress up in a fluffy dress, then I’ll put a tiara on her head and treat her like the princess that she is.  

And if she decides to get a little more edgy and go for something a little more badass, then we’ll get her a mask instead of a tiara, so she can be a princess by day and a crime-fighter by night!  Cleaning up the playgrounds in style.  

"Bring it, you overgrown turds!  I'll kick your behinds without even getting my tutu dirty!"

Gurgle, Gurgle

My stomach is so messed up today that I just apologized to the air freshener before leaving the bathroom.

Mary and Martha

I had a Mary and Martha moment today, when my wife texted me to say that two of her friends were coming over to pray for her and the latest baby process.  I freaked out because she only gave me 30 minute’s notice to straighten up and clean the house.  In all honesty, it’s not that we’re slobs or anything.  Generally speaking, our house is usually in good shape.  But we do live in it, if you know what I mean, so a certain amount of effort would need to be involved to get it ready for public visitation.

So, I found myself frantically running from room to room, grumbling the entire time about my wife’s complete disregard for my time.  Of course, she wasn’t even home to help, so I had to do it all myself.  And all of a sudden, the Lord put the story of Mary and Martha on my heart.

In the story, Martha was in the kitchen preparing a meal for Jesus, while her sister Mary was sitting in the other room talking to Him.  Finally having enough, Martha complained to Jesus that He should tell Mary to help her.  He responded that Martha was unnecessarily worried about things that weren’t that important and missing the things that were.  She should have been focused on the life-giving words that Jesus was speaking instead of the food, like her sister.

So, I stopped grumbling and focused on the fact that these women were coming to speak life over my wife.  They weren’t there to judge the state of our house.  And the stories of the Bible suddenly came to life and intersected with my own living reality.

To top it off, the women brought oil and anointed my wife’s feet…just like Mary did with Jesus.

The Adaptability of Dreams

Last night, I was dreaming about driving down a freeway in a car, racing some guy so that he didn’t cut me off.  When all of a sudden, there was a gigantic statue located right in the middle of the lane.  We both swerved to miss it, and then there was another statue.  Statue after statue was staggered across the various lanes of the freeway, and we had to slalom around them all. 

They were fanciful pieces of art, featuring perfectly formed men creating planets and discovering scientific advancements.  Statues commemorating creation in various forms.  In my mind, I realized that this was part of a visiting art exhibit in town, and we were driving right through the middle of it! 

As we progressed, the statues got closer and closer together, so that it was becoming nearly impossible to maneuver the car around them all.  At some point, they became so dense that I began to panic…and just like that, I was riding a bicycle instead.  I suddenly had no problems making the turns and sliding through the smaller openings.

I love the adaptability of dreams.  Your mind will encounter something impossible in the real world and seamlessly adapt the surroundings so that it’s possible again.  And the beauty of it is that you don’t even question it.  You accept that it is and that it totally makes sense.

The Wizard of Oz

At my job, I often feel like I have to overcome the impossible and take on the brunt of the burden.  People rely on me and come to me for so many things that I often feel as if I’m drowning in a sea of bodies.  I even have people from other teams that I have never met before coming to me with questions about integrations, because someone that they know told them that I was the guy with the answers.  At first, it was flattering; but after a while, it just became suffocating.  The more I gave, the more people wanted.  The consequences of reliability and generosity were a hundred more hands tugging at my clothes.  Each day became a construct of illusion and magic just to survive.  On my way out the door each morning, I used to joke with my wife, “I’m off to be the wizard!”

When my boss recently left, my former manager (who was now my peer) was promoted to his position.  I supported this because she had the most experience dealing with the bureaucracy and corporate politics, and I felt she had the best chance to quickly step in and calm the waters.  As with everyone, she has strengths and weaknesses.  She is a strong task manager.  She is a weak innovator.  When she has a plan, she is very good at driving it to completion, but it’s the coming up with the plan that she struggles with.  That’s where I come in.

She has come to rely heavily on my counsel.  She runs every question, every decision, every issue past me to get my ideas.  It has gotten to the point that she won’t decide on anything until she has consulted me on it first.  While I am again flattered that my opinions are valued, and I appreciate the experience of being involved and learning the business side of things, I still can’t help but feel like I am secretly running the team from behind a curtain.  In reality, I truly have become the wizard.

Mobile Life

When we decided to leave Missouri, our first choice was New Haven, Connecticut.  My wife had received a post-doc invitation from Yale University, and at first, she was eager to accept it.  I mean, it’s Yale!  We visited, we secured an apartment, and we started to pack.  But as the time drew closer, my wife found her heart longing for the silver screen instead.  She wanted to take a hiatus from science and explore the alluring world of acting.  So, she instead headed to Los Angeles.  For three months, she attended a prestigious acting school, all the while being sucked into the glamor of Hollywood.  I stayed behind and worked.

One night, I received a phone call from her that she wanted to move to L.A. full time and pursue her acting dream.  I was reluctant, but I had always supported her, so we cancelled New Haven and turned our sights to L.A.  She secured an apartment, I sold the house, we packed up our stuff into a moving truck, and we shipped our life to L.A.  It traveled through Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada…before finally arriving in California.

But destiny had other plans for us, and I quickly discovered that I couldn’t find work.  For three months, I scoured the internet, sent my resume to every job even remotely close, and was rejected time and time again on interviews.  It wasn’t happening.  And that’s when I got an email from an old friend of mine that his company in Dallas, TX was hiring.  I decided to apply…I mean, what could it hurt?!  And within two weeks, I had a job offer. 

It truly felt like this was where God was leading me, but not wanting to destroy my wife’s happiness, I told her that I was going to Dallas, and she could stay in L.A.  She ultimately chose our marriage over Hollywood and decided to come with me.  So, she sublet our apartment, repacked our stuff, and shipped it back to Texas.  It traveled through California, Arizona, and New Mexico…before finally arriving in Texas.

All told, our stuff has seen more of the United States than we have!  Or at least the western half.

Ceiling Fan Helpdesk

I bought some new ceiling fans for the house, and today, I decided to try to put them up.  Despite the fact that I’m electrically-challenged, I somehow managed to get the first one installed with minimal incident.  Before I put all of the finishing screws, caps, and fan blades on it; I felt it would be prudent to actually make sure that it would turn on.  I turned on the breaker, flipped on the switch, and I waited.  Nothing happened.  I flipped the switch on and off several times just to make sure that it didn’t need a jolt.  Nothing.  I flipped the light switch on too, just to make sure that I didn’t wire the two backwards.  Nothing.

So, I went back downstairs to turn off the breaker, climbed back up the ladder, and I re-checked all of the wires to make sure that they were still connected.  Everything was fine.  I tried switching the wires just in case the electrician had gotten them backwards.  Made no difference.  I took the switch plate off the wall and made sure that the wires were actually hooked to the switches, and they were.  I plugged in a wall lamp just to make sure that the room was getting power, and it lit up fine. 

I was stumped.  So, I decided to break down and call my father for advice.  He patiently walked through every single thing that I had tried myself, and then he paused.  After several seconds, he said, “Did you pull the chain on the fan, because it comes from the factory in the ‘off’ position?” 

I instantly felt a wave of embarrassment come over me.  I had just had the ceiling fan equivalent of an IT helpdesk call.  “Is the computer actually switched on?”

Of course, it would be the simplest, most-obvious thing.  I was just over-thinking it.  As I always tell my associates when they are troubleshooting an issue…always check security first.  In other words, start with the easiest solution and work toward the more complicated.  I should heed my own advice.  I was just schooled by a ceiling fan.

Kopi Luwak

Today, HR was telling us about kopi luwak, which is a gourmet coffee from Indonesia.  It is made from partially-digested coffee cherries that are eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet.  The defecated coffee cherries are then collected, washed, and roasted.  Producers of the coffee beans argue that this process of digestion and defecation actually improves the quality and taste of the coffee through both selection and digestion.

The fact that the Asian palm civet, or luwak, a nocturnal catlike animal, will choose only the ripest and most flawless coffee cherries to eat ensures that the coffee beans are of the highest quality.  The biological and chemical mechanisms in the luwak’s digestive tract alter the coffee beans, making shorter peptides and more free amino acids and reducing the beans’ bitterness through malting germination.  Kopi (the Indonesian word for “coffee”) luwak is more of a gimmick or fad coffee rather than being known for its exquisite taste, but it is still one of the most expensive coffees in the world with a retail price of $700 per kilogram.

This got me to thinking.  If horses are valued based on their bloodlines and heritage, then are luwaks also valued for the quality of the coffee that they produce?  Are there domesticated luwaks out there being force-fed coffee cherries laced with laxatives to speed up production?  Are luwak babies bought based on who their sire was with the hope and anticipation that they will defecate high-quality coffee too?

In all honesty, while defecated coffee beans might sound completely disgusting to you, I’m not actually bothered by this.  As far as I’m concerned, this is no different than regular coffee in taste and style.  All coffee is crappuccino, no matter where it comes from.  So, you can keep your Poopi Kopi, and I’ll wake up the old-fashioned way…with a shower and a hot meal.

A Matter of Color

I don’t know why it’s so taboo to say that someone is a different color than you.  It’s not an insult or an insinuation of lesser value.  It’s just an observation.  They are a different color.  I don’t think acknowledging that is racist.  I think associating a value or social standing to someone’s color is racist.  But just noticing it and pointing it out is not.  People are too sensitive about those things.

SR was telling us that her little 4-year-old daughter was talking about one of her friends at school, and when SR asked her who she was talking about, her daughter said, “the little brown girl.”  SR was appalled and told her daughter that she couldn’t say that about people.  And my question is, “Why not?”

If we were to think from the innocence of a child instead of the ignorance of an adult, then we wouldn’t see anything wrong with that.  Her friend is brown.  That’s a fact.  It doesn’t make her less of a human being.  It doesn’t make her less of a friend.  Our terrible history has wired us to freak out about such things, and we pass it along from generation to generation.  Now, SR’s once-innocent daughter might feel that something is wrong with her friend.  A thought that she might never have developed on her own has now been implanted in her head.

Honestly, I don’t even think about race or someone’s skin color until someone points it out to me.  I mean I notice it as a passing thing, but only to recognize how God has made us all unique and beautiful.  I don’t think of someone else as anything but human.  I try to view people like God views them…with the same innocent, accepting eyes as SR’s daughter.

The Almost First Husband

My wife and SR went to the spa today, and they were talking about their pasts.  SR was telling my wife about her first husband and about how God used those experiences to lead her to her current husband.  I looked my wife straight in the eyes, and I asked, “Did you tell SR about your first husband?”  She replied, “I don’t have a first husband.”

I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation and exclaimed, “What am I?!  Flying liver?!”  I’m now starting to understand why she still hasn’t acknowledged that she’s married to me on Facebook.  I mean it’s been 14 years!  What do I have to do to get out of the probationary period?!

Ramadan in Alaska

My friend ML will be observing Ramadan at sunset tonight. According to Wikipedia, “Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and is observed by Muslims worldwide…to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad.”  The annual observance lasts for thirty days and consists of fasting from sunrise until sunset every day.  So, during the daylight hours, “Muslims refrain from consuming food, drinking liquids, smoking, and engaging in sexual relations.”  That’s right, no nothing while the sun is in the sky!

So, this led me to wonder what Muslims in Alaska do when they get a time of midnight sun, when the day can last for 24 hours.  That is a long time to go without sexual relations…I mean, eating.  Funny enough, I’m not the first person to ask this question.  Rules have actually been established for Muslims living in areas of the midnight sun.  They can either follow the timetable of Mecca and observe a “day” based on hours rather than the sun in the sky, or they can follow the day/night cycle of the closest country to them.

Dog Metal

RH showed me a gem today during our one-on-one meeting.  It was a YouTube video of dogs playing death metal music.  The video employed all of the classic elements of death metal from deep growling vocals, to powerful drumming, to aggressive guitar riffs, to slow-motion body movements.  But all of it is played by a variety of dogs.  The video is only around a minute long, but its effectiveness is brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFK1ivuS1k0

View from the Parking Garage

I thoroughly enjoy the mornings when the sky is filled with an abundance of clouds in a myriad of shapes and sizes.  I love how they float together, changing their shape as they collide and combine, forming new clouds.  I love how the texture can be imagined from the varying shades of grays and whites.  They are like silent sentinels floating above us, casting fleeting shadows, as they make their way across the unhindered blue landscape above.  No matter how many times I see it, it is never the same from day to day.

There is something so serene and peaceful watching the clouds move, seeing the sun’s light cut through their softness and radiate its beams to the world below.  And just when you think the sun will overtake the clouds, because its brilliance can’t possibly be contained by masses of floating water droplets, the clouds glide together, completely unfazed by the light, and cover the sun in darkness.  So that their floating, hulking masses are rimmed in luminescent beauty.

I love getting to work early, so that I can drive up to the top of our parking garage and watch the clouds perform their dance without power lines, or buildings, or trees getting in the way.  I get an unhindered view of God’s beauty at work in the city.  When the air is cool, and the breeze is nice, I wish I could stay up there all day and just watch the simplistic complexity play out before me.

$500 Apple

A woman flying on Delta Air Lines from France to the United States was fined $500 by the U.S. customs agency for carrying undeclared agricultural items across international borders.  The item in question was an apple that was given out by the airline as a snack during the flight.  She had placed the apple in her bag to eat on a later flight, and it was found during a random bag search.  The customs agent who found it asked the woman if her flight to France had been expensive.  When she replied that it had been, the customs agent replied, “It’s about to get a lot more expensive after I charge you $500.”

In addition to the fine, they also revoked her Global Entry status, which allows for expedited security checks, and put her on the watch list, so that she will automatically be searched on every flight for the rest of her life.  A Delta Air Lines spokesperson stated that “The apple in question was part of an in-flight meal meant to be consumed on the aircraft.”

The woman is pursuing a legal case against both the airlines and government, and she has taken to Twitter to warn others about this injustice. #anappleadaydoesntkeepcustomsaway

Honestly, this story sounds like something that would happen to me.  But the guy sitting next to me on the plane smuggling drugs would get through.

End of an Era

Today was my boss’s last day.  He had been with the company for over six years, and hired pretty much everyone on the team, including myself.  And while we have known other bosses during those six years (such as the one-year stint when he got demoted), in the hearts of his people, he was always the boss.  He garnered a sense of respect that no other leader of the team did.  He was loved.  He will be missed.

In the last three months, I saw flashes of the man that I knew in the beginning.  He was more focused on his associates, more engaged in the team, and more humble and thoughtful.  The experiences and politics that he had endured over the years had finally broken him.  And when you are broken, then God can finally help you reorient and see what matters.

In his words, he was able to see his legacy and be proud of what we had built.  He could be satisfied that he was leaving things in a better place than when we started.  I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring.  If I have learned anything about corporate life, it is to expect everything and just go with the flow.  We will adapt; we always do.  I hope the next steps allow us to build on the foundation we have and reach the potential that is sitting untouched and untapped.  We are in a good place, but we can be so much more.  My biggest fear is that we will get someone that will just keep the status quo.

The War Cry of the Sprinkler

This morning my sprinkler went off while I was eating breakfast.  It was still dark outside, but I could hear it as it cleared the air out of the line and started spraying water on the yard.  It said, “pfft, pfffft…sphlfffffft!”

All my mind could imagine was my sprinkler telling the world and the day what it thought of them.  One big, wet raspberry in defiance and rebellion.  A war cry of “Yeah, you may have beaten me down, but I’m still here!  I’m still in the fight!  So, let’s go…bring it…give me your best shot!”  And I was inspired…by a sprinkler.

The Pens

ML wanted to do a tribute for our departing leader.  Taking him out to lunch or giving him a card wouldn’t do justice to the impact that the man had had on all of our lives.  For many, he was the only boss they had ever known, this being their first job out of college.  He represented someone that was willing to take a chance on them and help them get their start in the world.  So, the tribute had to equal the feelings and emotions for the man.

He came to me with an idea of giving KE a pen.  To be honest, I was confused, as this seemed like an odd tribute.  But then he explained that it was like the scene from A Beautiful Mind, where all of the professors placed a pen on the table in front of John Nash.  The gesture was a sign of respect that acknowledged the contribution and impact that the man had had on their field…and on their lives.  And suddenly it was the perfect idea.  I suggested that we also write a note, a personal memory of KE, and attach it to the pen, which ML loved.

We decided to get our entire team involved and to do it after our on-site conference, when the entire team would be in town and at the office.  I was overwhelmed by the response.  Everyone brought a pen, each unique to the bearer’s personality.  The notes ranged from a simple Post-It note to a full-blown card.  One by one, we each made our way to KE’s desk and placed the pen in front of him.  Many also gave him a handshake or a hug, as he was much more than a boss…he was a friend.  At first, he was confused; but slowly, slowly he understood that this was an acknowledgment of his time with us.  We were honoring him.

Some people get a plaque or a watch.  KE got pens.  And I think he’ll cherish them much more than the other two.  Each pen, each note, was more personal than a plaque or watch.  It was a fitting tribute, and he got choked up as he tried to express how much it all meant to him.  Even though the Lord has other plans for KE, he will still miss his team.  He will still miss that which he spent the last six years of his life building and shaping.  He will still miss his interactions with us and how he helped us become wiser, more mature adults.

We wish you well, KE.  Godspeed, and know that you are missed.

Sumo Prom

After my high school prom, the planning committee put on an after-prom.  This was supposed to deter people from going off to other parties and participating in harmful or regrettable activities.  The theme of the after-prom was Casino Night, so they transformed the hall into a casino; complete with a Blackjack table, a Roulette Wheel, a karaoke machine, and other various games.  But when the fun began, I bypassed all of these and led my date straight to the sumo wrestling mat.

That’s right, sumo wrestling!  For anyone that has not seen this, they dress you up in a large padded suit, complete with sumo hair and mawashi (the belt and loincloth), and you attempt to knock each other down or bounce each other out of the ring.  There is so much padding in the suits to “fatten” you up to sumo size that you can barely feel anything.

But to truly understand the scene that night, you have to have a better picture of my date.  KE was 5’1” tall and probably weighed around 120 lbs.  In contrast, I was 8” taller, although I probably didn’t outweigh her by more than 5-6 pounds.  But the height was definitely an advantage with the sumo suits, because the smallest ones were made for people with an average height of around 5’4”.  So, KE was struggling to even see out of the top of it.  Her suit was so bunched up that she could barely move.  Honestly, it was more of a waddle.

I have been told that to truly be romantic, you’re supposed to let the girl win.  But when an ultra-competitive streak goes up against romance, all while dressed in a sumo suit, bad things can happen.  The moment that whistle blew, I was off like a shot, charging my way across the mat as KE was slowly waddling towards me.  By the time we made contact, I had built up so much momentum, that KE went flying out of the ring!  She landed with a “bumphf!” and then lay there sort of rolling from side to side with her little arms and legs waving and kicking frantically, trying to turn her over.

I am not proud of what happened next.  I am still tortured by the scene in my darkest nightmares.  All I can say in my defense is that sometimes the logical side of your brain stops working; the red bloodlust comes over you, and you cannot stop your body from moving…almost like it’s on auto-pilot.  Seeing my date laying there, completely defenseless and struggling to get up, should have made me feel sympathy.  Instead, I went for the knock-out punch.  I charged across the ring, leapt up into the air, and sumo-squashed her into the mat.

The padding from our suits collided and compacted for a moment before re-expanding and flinging me back up.  I flew off to one side and landed on my back with a “bumphf!” and then lay there sort of rolling from side to side with my arms and legs waving and kicking frantically, trying to turn over.  But I suddenly stopped, and a look of horror came over me, as I looked up into the vengeful eyes and wicked smile of my prom date, standing over me.  Apparently, the momentum of our collision was the impetus she needed to roll her the rest of the way over, and she was able to finally push herself back up into a standing position.

A panic came over me, and I began to struggle with renewed vigor, as she slowly back-waddled her way across the ring.  The next thing I saw was KE suspended in the air above me, little arms and legs sticking straight out spread-eagle.  It was like time went in slow motion, as I watched her sumo suit-covered form descending toward me.  The entire time, she was grinning from ear to ear at the retribution that was coming.  At that moment, there was no love in her eyes, only the bloodlust. 

The impact knocked the air out of me, and the weight of the suits and her body were crushing me, until a moment later, she was flung ungracefully off of me back onto the mat.  I looked over at her grinning face, and I couldn’t help but smile.  Karma may be a bugger, but it sure can be fun too.  Best after-prom ever!

Coincidence

HR was telling one of her running friends about her encounter with God, involving the mattress, the bookcase, and the truck.  This friend is supposedly a Christian, which at this point in HR’s journey, represents an authority; someone to be believed and trusted, someone who can offer confirmation.  What he told her was that all of those things were coincidence, all except the man walking out of the apartment right after she had prayed about it.  That was the one single act where God had moved.

If this friend is truly a Christian; which after that statement, I have my doubts; then he failed HR miserably.  None of that was coincidence.  It was the workings of a beautiful plan, set into motion before we even perceived it.  It was the checkmate in a complex game of chess, where the Almighty had been moving and positioning pieces into place with a strategy and a plan to where those pieces were going to be needed later.  God doesn’t just drop in every once in a while, He is always there, making moves.

Imagine for a moment that HR’s neighbor bought that truck ten years ago.  The neighbor had no idea when he bought that truck that he’d need it to help HR move.  And when all those opportunities came along when he thought to sell it, but he changed his mind, he never dreamed that he was hanging on to that truck to help HR.  He didn’t even know HR yet.  Neither one of them had even moved into that apartment complex yet.  But God knew.  He already knew that one day, ten years from now, HR was going to pray for help, and He was going to have the answer ready.  Her prayers were a delight to His ears.  He loved her so much that He wanted to reward her faith.  So, he set a plan into motion ten years before she needed it, with each move leading to the next, until it finally culminated into that precise moment when a list of seemingly random events finally all made sense.

That is not coincidence.  That is a deliberate act by an all-powerful God who can transcend time and space.  If you truly believe that God can only move in that single moment to bring that neighbor outside, then you are limiting His abilities.  I think HR’s running friend was in that moment an instrument of the devil.  I believe that he was repeating lies to HR; lies that he had heard from a sinister force bent on distorting miracles with the aim of inserting doubt and destroying belief.  I believe the devil is scared that HR is starting to believe that God exists, that He is listening, and that He cares about her.  He doesn’t want her to have a relationship with God, so he is trying to kill it before it can grow.  But have no doubt that God wants HR, and He will not give up without a fight.

Other Prayers

I have never understood when someone tells you something terrible or rough that is going on, and then they ask you to pray for them or someone else.  First of all, don’t they know that they have a conduit directly to God?  They don’t need someone to intercede on their behalf.  Second of all, do they really think that God will not act unless enough people pray for it?  This is not an election where people vote to enact a policy.

And by asking, it takes out the chance that I might act on my own choice, and demonstrate my own faith.  I might have prayed for them anyway, and because I made the choice without having to be asked, I would have been more passionate and enthusiastic about it.  I would have been more moved in my heart, drawing on my faith, rather then checking something off the list.

A friend once told me that God wants us to sometimes ask for things more than once.  The delay and the asking builds our faith, because the more “disappointment” we face, the more faith it takes to keep asking.  But if we pass the task to someone else, then how is it building our faith?  And if we ask someone to pray, and they do it, is it really building their faith?  Wouldn’t it have built their faith more, if they would have done it on their own?  Are we actually taking away an opportunity for someone to build their faith by asking them to pray, instead of giving them the opportunity to do it without being asked?  And if they didn’t pray, do we really believe that God won’t still answer our prayer alone?

The Perfect Storm of Emotions

There is something so beautiful about a movie that touches you on an emotional level.  It slides past the surface of entertainment to move something in your heart…in your soul.  You may not even be aware of why or how you connect with it, just that you do.  You are a part of it.  You are in it.  You cry.  They might be tears of sadness.  They might be tears of laughter and joy.  But you cry.  You can’t help it, and you can’t stop it.  It is so deep, so touching…so you cry.  And when this happens, you just let the tears come.  You don’t try to stop them.  You don’t wipe them away.  You just let them snake down your cheeks and soak into your shirt.  Because it’s real.  Emotions that you have been holding back, bottling up for weeks, months, or even years, suddenly come rushing out in a torrent.  Everything you have, everything you feel is in those tears.  It’s cleansing and cathartic. 

And it was a movie that brought it out of you.  Someone wrote that script, someone acted it out, and someone directed and produced it.  Without ever knowing you or how it would affect you, they put that project together.  And with that work, they managed to evoke something deep inside you.  Chances are that if you were to have seen that exact same movie at a different time, it would not have had that effect on you.  It was a perfect storm of emotions.

And other people can’t understand it.  They walk in, and they see you crying at a movie, and they don’t get it.  And that makes it all the more beautiful, because it’s rare and special.  You are connected like nobody else.  Nobody feels like you do.  Those are your emotions.  Those are your tears.

Loathing and Needing

It really sucks when you need something from the one person that you’re not currently talking to.  My wife and I are in “tiff mode” again for some reason that eludes me.  I’m pretty sure that this time it was actually her fault, not that she would ever admit it.  This means that she is going out of her way to distance herself from me and not utter a single syllable in my vicinity.

However, this morning, she needed help adjusting her undergarments, because they were cutting into her back.  It was something that required two people, and lo and behold, she suddenly realized that the only other person in the house was the one person that she had spent the last 24 hours avoiding. 

That is both a humbling and irritating moment all at the same time.  I know because I have been there many times.  It is amazing, though, how something so simple as adjusting an undergarment can make the last 24 hours just disappear.

The Butt Seat

MR was telling me today that he just ordered a custom seat for his motorcycle.  He said this one is more like a saddle, where “you sit in it, rather than on it.”  He was describing the process of how they make the seat, which requires not only sending in your old seat, but also sending in pictures and measurements of your backside. 

I couldn’t help it, I had to ask him how he was taking pictures of his backside, imagining him trying to do a butt selfie.  And he replied that he had to have his wife do it.  This of course set off a series of images in my mind of MR posing, jutting his backside out and instructing his wife on how to get the best angle to make his backside more flattering.  I started imagining MR doing a model shoot with his wife saying things like, “That’s it, that’s it, work it…the camera loves you!” or “Come on, give me more steam…it’s steamy…you’re hot…show me hot!” or “Ride that motorcycle…ride it…show me what a baaaad man you are!” 

I was laughing so hard, I was crying.  MR looked at me like I had lost my mind.  Apparently, he just had to sit on the motorcycle, and she snapped a few pictures, so they could see his posture and style.  But I think my imaginings are better.

The Little Prayers

HR has finally had enough of the cat neighbor, and she’s moving apartments.  It’s just to an apartment complex a block away, so it’s really not that big of a deal.  However, she got down to the last two pieces of furniture, which were a bed and a bookcase, and she realized that she had no way to move them in her little Honda Civic.

As she stood there pondering her predicament, she noticed that there were three pick-up trucks and a Suburban sitting outside her apartment.  Not for the first time, she rued having never taken the time to get to know her other neighbors better, so that she could ask for help.  She stood there staring at the Suburban, thinking that it would be perfect for moving her stuff.  So, she decided to do something that she never does…she prayed to God.  Specifically, she prayed that God would provide her some way to use that Suburban (this is a perfect lesson with prayer, always pray for what you want…be specific and don’t hold back…you have nothing to lose in the asking).

Less than one minute later, one of her neighbors walks out of his apartment, sees her with a car full of boxes, and asks if she’s moving.  They get into a conversation about where she’s going, and she jokingly tells him about the bed and bookcase and her prayer to use that Suburban.  He looks at the Suburban, then back at her, and says, “That’s my Suburban.”

It was at that moment, that God had floored HR.  He had heard her prayer and answered almost instantaneously.  There is no coincidence to something like that.  It is supernatural.  Only God could do something so amazing and specific.  But the story doesn’t end there.

The neighbor said, “But it would take two trips in that, why don’t we just use my pick-up truck right here?  Let me grab my keys.”  He proceeded to help her load the furniture into his truck, drove it over to her new apartment, and then unload it.  He asked her how she and her partner were planning to get it up to the third floor.  Not wanting to impose on him further, HR told him that they’d manage somehow.  To which the neighbor replied, “I worked for a moving company one summer, I got this.”  And he hoisted the furniture up by himself and muscled it up the stairs.

You see, God doesn’t just give you what you want.  He gives you what you need.  HR may have wanted the Suburban, but God provided her a truck instead, so that she could make less trips.  And she never dreamed of having assistance to get it up to her apartment, but God gave her that too.  Never be afraid to pray the little prayers, and never doubt that God is listening.

Sexual Squeaking

Years ago, my spousal unit was in a lab at Texas A&M that up and decided to move to Missouri.  Not wanting to start her PhD over for a fourth time, we decided that she should move with it.  At the time, I thought I would easily be able to find a job and quickly rejoin her in Missouri.  But God had other plans, and for the next year and a half we lived in separate states.  But that is not this story…

My spousal unit and I would talk on the phone every evening, sharing our days with each other, expressing how much it sucked to live apart, and generally trying to stay connected.  It was during one of these nightly conversations that she complained about the woman living in the apartment above her.  Apparently, this woman had a healthy sexual appetite and would satisfy her urges at all hours of the night and day.  (Later observations revealed that it was in fact different men going into her place.  To which I declared that I thought she was actually a call girl, using her body to pay her way through college.  This was never proven factually, but I still think I was onto something.)

At first, I thought my spousal unit was overreacting, as she is sometimes wont to do.  But after several nights of hearing the same complaints, I finally asked how she knew that they were having sex.  To which my spousal unit replied, “Her bed squeaks…a lot.”  She proceeded to describe the pattern, which was apparently always the same, whereby it would start slowly and then pick up speed, until my spousal unit was sure that the bed was actually lifting off the floor.  Never voices or any other kinds of noises, just the perpetual squeaking.  Honestly, I laughed when I heard this.  What else can you do?  It was so absolutely ludicrous.

A month or so later, I went to visit my spousal unit in Missouri, and I had completely forgotten about the call girl upstairs.  Suddenly, around 2 o’clock in the morning, I heard this eerie squeaking echoing through the bedroom.  Slowly, slowly it got louder and faster until it was an almost indistinguishable crescendo of high-pitched noise peeling through the otherwise silence of the night.  It was followed by a few minutes of thumping and then it just as suddenly stopped.  The whole event probably only lasted five to seven minutes, but it was enough.  I was wide awake.  I looked over at my spousal unit’s face silhouetted in the blue light of the clock, and she was smiling at me.  “I told you so,” was all she said before she rolled over and went to sleep.

When it happened again the next night, I ran to the bathroom and grabbed the plunger, and I started throwing it against the ceiling, hoping that the noise would make them realize that they were not alone in this endeavor.  Of course, I wasn’t prepared for it to suction-cup itself to the ceiling and stay hanging there; stick dangling tantalizingly out of reach as an insult to injury.  I stood, staring at that stupid plunger stuck to my ceiling, wondering how I was going to explain it to anyone that came over, listening to the rhythmic music being played in the apartment above us.  The minutes ticked by, the thumping, and then silence.

Suddenly, the story that I had laughed at over the phone was annoying and real.  There was no way that I was going to endure this all weekend long.  So, the next morning, I got dressed, and I headed down to the hardware store to buy a can of WD-40.  I took it upstairs, and I placed it in front of her door with a note taped to the side, “Your bed squeaks.”  The rest of the weekend was peaceful and quiet.

A few nights after I had gone back to Texas, I once again was privy to my spousal unit complaining that the squeaking was back.  This time it was occurring early in the morning, late at night, and sometimes even in the middle of the day.  She was making up for lost time by taking on several “clients” a day.  No longer laughing, I called the apartment complex office and complained to the manager.  She asked me what I would like for her to do.  I said, “I want you to talk to her.  I can’t control what she does in her home, but at the very least, she needs to do something about the squeaking.  Obviously, the WD-40 isn’t working.”  She asked me what WD-40 I was referring to, and I told her about the can and note.  She snickered, and then she composed herself.  “Well, this is very awkward.  There is no precedence for something like this.”  I replied that there was a noise ordinance in the complex that there was to be no loud noises after 10 p.m., and this was definitely a loud noise.  She assured me that she would take care of it.  The noises stopped, and all was quiet for about three weeks.

Once again, the ominous squeaking made a vigorous return, and once again, I called the apartment manager.  One more conversation with the call girl upstairs, and the next thing we know, a moving truck was parked outside, and she had moved out.  I’m not sure if she was that annoyed by our complaints, or if she was afraid that the police would find out about her side business.  Either way, we no longer had to worry about being woken up by the sexual squeaking upstairs.  I still woke up, but it was because I was now bothered by the stupid plunger hanging from the ceiling.

This event taught me a valuable lesson…this is why people invented noise-cancelling headphones.

Maniac with a Mop

Every Monday evening, my wife has a group of women that come over to our house to break bread and have a Bible study.  When we first started hosting, we would meticulously clean every inch of our house every Sunday.  And I mean clean…dusting, vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing the bathrooms, doing the dishes, taking out the trash and recycling, cleaning every surface of the kitchen, making the beds with the fancy comforters, and straightening up the couches and cushions in the den.  This is not to say that we are normally dirty people.  On the contrary, we keep our house tidy as a general rule.  But something manic would come over my wife, and she would insist that everything needed to be deep cleaned.

We have been hosting for several months now, and I realized this week that we barely did anything to prepare.  We went from manic, deep clean to “eh” we might get around to it.  Honestly, I don’t think the women notice the difference.  I don’t think they ever realized how much work we were putting into it, nor do I think they required or cared for that level of “clean.”  We were only doing it to ourselves.

Samwise Gamgee

I was watching the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King tonight, mostly because it’s about the 25^th time that they have shown it.  There is a scene near the end of the movie where Frodo and Sam are at the base of Mount Doom.  Frodo is laying on his back, and he tells Sam that he can no longer go on, that he’s lost in the darkness.  Sam, covered in grime, exhausted and worn out from sleepless nights, staying awake to keep an eye on Gollum, looks down at Frodo, and he says, “Let’s end this.”  He follows up by saying that he might not be able to carry the burden of the ring for Frodo, but he can carry Frodo.  He proceeds to lift Frodo off the ground, flings him over his shoulders, and starts to slowly trek up the side of the mountain of fire.

As I’m watching this, I think to myself, “Now that’s the kind of friend I need!  Someone that will pick me up, carry my butt up the side of a mountain, and throw me into a river of fire!”

Shallow Hal

They have been showing the movie Shallow Hal quite frequently on cable lately.  I thoroughly enjoy the movie for its concept, screenplay, and dialog.  There is just one thing that is hanging me up…

For those of you unfamiliar with this movie, it’s about a man, Hal, who is superficially hung up on the outside appearance of women.  In all other respects, Hal is a genuinely nice guy, caring and fun.  But because looks are the first thing he uses to judge people, he never makes it past the surface to their inner beauty.

One day Hal gets trapped in an elevator with Tony Robbins, the famed self-help guru, and shares his trouble with dating.  Tony hypnotizes him, so that he no longer focuses on the outer looks, but focuses on the inner beauty.  This transforms Hal’s world, as he starts to be attracted to women that he didn’t look twice at before.  The comedy of this comes when everyone else around Hal can still see them for their outer looks, and there is a disparity between the way Hal describes them and how they see them for real.

Which leads me to the thing that hangs me up.  Hal doesn’t see EVERYONE differently, only strangers.  For example, his best friend, Mauricio; his neighbor, Jill; and his co-workers are still portrayed and seen exactly the same.  My first thought on this was that he was seeing them the same, because they were genuinely portraying themselves exactly as they are.  But then I took it another level deeper and realized that the writers of the screenplay had a fundamental dilemma to overcome.

Hal COULDN’T see them differently, because then he’d realize something was up.  So, everyone he already knew is exactly the same, so that his brain has no awareness that he’s been hypnotized.  I realize that Tony Robbins could have layered that into the hypnosis, so that his brain wasn’t aware, but I’m not sure it would have “taken.”  The brain is a wonderous thing, and if the “trick” is too far-fetched, then the brain will reject it.  It had to be plausible without pushing the boundaries of what the brain would accept.  I realize that I probably analyzed it way deeper than the writers.  They probably thought about this, and then just decided that either nobody would notice, or they wouldn’t question the fact that certain people didn’t change in Hal’s mind.  Or perhaps they just thought this would add to the comedic irony of it all.

But it made me wonder about how I would see the people around me.  Would they appear more beautiful, more ugly, or exactly the same?

Shattered Bowls

Today, my heart is overflowing with love.  I dropped my glass bowl today in the kitchen at the office.  I had just finished heating up my lunch, and I was carrying it back to the table, when the lid came off of it, and it dropped to the floor and shattered.  The sound it made was like a gunshot that echoed through the open cafetorium.  My lunch, as well as hundreds of tiny glass fragments, went everywhere.

Being no stranger to broken dishes, I set about pushing the glass into a little pile, so that it at least wasn’t creating a dangerous situation.  As I was getting some of the shards furthest from the scene of the crime, I turned around and HR and SB were at the other end of the kitchen, squatting down and pushing glass from the other direction.  They had left their lunch to come check on me, saw what had happened, and stayed to help me clean it up.  It wasn’t their job.  It wasn’t their mess.  They just did it, because I needed help.

I can’t tell you how touched I was by this act of kindness.  I felt so lucky, so loved by that simple gesture.  I have a great group of friends that I eat lunch with.  They proved that not only are they great company, but they have great hearts as well.

The Invisible Competition

I had an incident happen at work today that I found out later was a known issue on the team.  I was furious, because it could have been prevented if someone had just shared the knowledge after they had been through it, instead of waiting for me to go through it myself.  As I was complaining about this with HR, she shared some insight with me.  People gratefully accept knowledge, but reluctantly give it away.  Knowledge is power, so the more you have, the more powerful you are.  But if you give it away, then it dilutes that power, making your competition more powerful and thus leveling the playing field.

I was stunned by this idea, because I don’t think of people as competition, especially within the same team.  I think of us as a family all trying to help each other be the best we can be, because it will make the entire family better as a whole.  But apparently each individual is constantly looking at everyone else as someone that will get something they should have or keep them from getting something that they deserve.  So, they are constantly looking for ways to make themselves more valuable and set themselves apart from this invisible competition. 

Which means that I can expect to have other issues in the future that could have been avoided.