I HOPE your ice is slowly melting

I HOPE your dead place is coming alive like this dead and discouraged unemployment office in Madrid came alive when a small flash mob materialized.

I HOPE you know that just as everything can go horribly wrong in only five minutes, so in five minutes your face can be lifted up.

I HOPE you know that a tiny bit of joy you contribute can go deeper and farther than you’d ever imagine.

I HOPE you see that where and when you contribute your little piece of joy can magnify it and make it mean more.

I HOPE you realize that just as George Harrison never knew a little song he created while walking in a garden would surprisingly encourage unemployed Spaniards forty-three years later, so something you do today can live.

I HOPE you know you have the power to leave any situation better than you found it. How do I know you have that power? Because you are a human being created by God in his image and that’s what he does.

Maybe I appreciate this more because there was a season long ago when I spent a lot of time in an office like this with no one to sing to me.

Please sing.

(if you’re reading this in your email or reader and can’t see the video, please click over to the blog HERE to view it.)

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What Lance Armstrong whispered in my ear

I don’t know exactly when I heard it. It was sometime in the last few months when our opinion of him was doing a 360. I heard it again last week when he was with Oprah.

Several times I jerked my head expecting to find him right on my shoulder whispering. I mean, it had to be him. Tell me you don’t think this was him . . .

I know your game isn’t the same as mine, but you can still be world class like me.

Just convince yourself that no one will know, that no one will get hurt, that this is just a little secret among friends. Tell yourself that others have done much worse, that in the big picture this is not so bad at all.

I discovered the power of this little deception right at the beginning, and it’s amazing how it serves everything from your thought life to secret habits to ‘emotional’ relationships to the Tour de France.

The beauty of this baby is that the longer you go, the better you do it. This enables you to keep at it even longer, until you’re 100% convinced it’s true, and you have succeeded at changing reality.

I was so good at it that I was able to threaten and punish people who told the ‘truth’ about me and I didn’t feel a bit of guilt or regret. THAT, my friend, is world class.

It was so clear I almost wanted to take notes. This is Lance Armstrong, right? Then the tone of his voice changed and he slowly whispered:

Reality . . . hits . . . hard.

And when it does–when you’re discovered and everyone knows–it’s impossible to look at yourself and how bad you are. So you don’t. You downplay it. You insist things can stay the same.

Okay, you may cheat and lie, but that doesn’t make you a cheater and liar. (Although when it’s someone else, you easily toss out the cheater and liar conclusion.)

You’re compelled to tell people they’re judgmental, legalistic, unloving, and ‘just as bad.’ You do anything to escape the pain and responsibility of guilt.

Nothing works. To come clean is as impossible as winning the Tour de France.

Because to come clean means you have to change who you think you are.

Everybody else has already changed their mind about who you are. Try doing that when it’s you! It took years to create your own reality. No way you can change back overnight.

You convinced yourself it’s only a little corner of your life, it’s not really who you are. Now your little corner IS your whole life.

That’s all Lance, right? That’s not me talking to me about what could happen if I’m not careful.

Right?

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How to have friends after you’re dead

At dinner recently I mentioned that Oswald Chambers helps me almost every day.

John said, very seriously, “He’s a good friend of yours, isn’t he?”

I hadn’t thought of him as a friend but yes, he is.

Chambers has been dead 96 years. Seven years after he died his wife put his words into a devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. Technically, Chambers did not write the book. His wife took shorthand notes when he gave talks to students and soldiers during WWI. Those talks became Utmost.

I have another friend who is still alive. We don’t see each other much anymore, but the quality of his life, words, advice, and wisdom still encourage me.

You’re going to spend a lot more time as history than you are as today.

Some people are influential today, but irrelevant in the future.

Some are irrelevant today, but are influential in the future.

Some are both.

What one thing can you do today that could live as a friend in someone after you’re gone?

If what you say has value, it will last longer than you will

- Vance Havner

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The unselfish kind of selfishness

Maybe you’ll be kind to someone this week because you want kindness.

Maybe you’ll forgive because you need forgiveness.

Maybe you’ll be generous, tell the truth with love, give the benefit of the doubt, encourage.

Because you want it. You need it in your world.

Like writing the novel you want to read, and hoping there are others like you, so you do the thing you want and need. And hope there are others like you.

You have good reason to have that hope:

With the measure you use it will be measured to you – Luke 6.38

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The foot-long Christmas chili dog

What new scene or story from this Christmas is going into your family hall of fame?

Every family and relationship has stories you repeat year after year. Happy, sad, tragic, funny, unforgettable stories. They describe and affirm you and the people in your family. They’re a picture of how you all relate to each other.

You don’t get tired of repeating the stories. You don’t get tired of hearing them. In fact, you must repeat them to keep them alive. They are an oral history, part of the legacy of your family.

Little family legends.

Our daughter the Nester and her family head for her sister’s house – our other daughter – on Christmas day. They stop for gas. Her husband runs into the gas station for a snack to hold him for the ninety-minute drive. He comes out with a foot-long chili dog and a package of Little Debbies.

The Nester tells the story and says, “What kind of man gets a foot-long chili dog from a gas station for lunch on Christmas Day? The gas station clerk must have thought that was so sad.”

“What kind of man. . .” Precisely.

If the man is in your family, you know exactly what kind of man, and this is another wonderful piece of evidence of the uniqueness of your family. And from now on “foot-long chili dog. . . on Christmas. . . . FROM A GAS STATION,” will be another legendary catch-phrase in your family hall of fame.

We need these stories. They are the colors on our family flag.

Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and into the stories they share about you

- Shannon Adler

What new scene or story from the holidays is going into your family hall of fame?

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I can’t decide how to be selfish

Thanksgiving is at our house this year.

That means what it always means when you’re the host. Time to spruce up.

So my wife wants to change the bedroom around, make it better. At first I do the guy default and think, “That means work and money.” Of course I don’t say that.

After a day or so I start realizing how happy it would make her. Then I remember how happy I get when she’s happy. And how easy she is to please. And how she gives me more credit than I deserve.

Hmmm

Then I realize she’s just talking about some paint and accessories. Not all new furniture. Sure I’d have to paint the bedroom, but it’s been seven years–I’ll have to do it sometime anyway.

Let’s see, a couple of days work, minimal expense, nice bedroom, super-happy wife, hero status.

So what’s more selfish? Complain, do things grudgingly, and maybe she even gives up and so you get out of the trouble? Is that selfish?

Or is it selfish to think of how happy you’ll be when she’s happy? So you gladly do it for her but really it’s for yourself.

Are you selfish if you do it or don’t do it?

Getting joy from the joy of someone you love sure makes life complicated.

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Can’t get there alone : Day 31 of 31

One of the Myers-Briggs personality types is INTP.

INTP’s connect dots automatically.

They can’t help looking for things to help the world make sense. Here’s a summary from a place that explains that kind of thing:

The task of the INTP’s mind is to fit each encountered idea or experience into a larger structure. Their central goal is to understand and seek truth.

They like to understand the structures and processes that govern the world and mold them with their own ideas and designs. They like to understand many things at deep levels.

You’re probably some other personality type. You’re not driven to connect the dots.

But you still want your life, your world, your hopes and dreams to make sense.

I’m an INTP, so since I’m going to be covering this corner of the pool anyway, you’re welcome to hang out here.

From now on I may not always describe it as ‘connecting the dots.’ I may not always take you in the kitchen like we did some here during the 31 Days. It might be more subtle. I may just catch the fish and cook the meal and present it.

If you like that kind of thing I hope we can become friends.

You’ve been assigned your own corner of the pool. I’m sure the way God has made you will end up helping me just like I want to help you. Thanks in advance.

~~~~

This is the last of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. You can visit the Nester to choose from over 1,200 more 31 Dayers.

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My scars, they are your scars, and your world is mine

That’s my daughter about to ring the doorbell at the home of the mother of her childhood best friend. The best friend died of brain cancer two years ago.

My daughter was nervous. She hadn’t seen her friend or her friend’s mom in ten years. She didn’t know what she was going to say.

Her friend’s mother wasn’t home. Whew.

As my daughter walked away a neighbor across the street asked if she could help. The neighbor said the mom wasn’t there but would be down the street the next day.

My daughter wasn’t sure about going back. Through the window when she was ringing the doorbell she had seen a lift rigged to the stairs and she pictured the mom old and disabled and maybe it would just be too sad for everyone for her to visit. Now she was even more nervous.

She want back anyway. She took her sister. And her own mom, my wife. We all used to be neighbors, but that was 25 years ago.

It was a short, good visit. The mom wasn’t sick or disabled or sad. What a relief. But then she pulled out photos of her daughter’s small child. My daughter didn’t know her friend had any kids. Now THAT was sad. The visitors were sadder than the host. The mom had been through the grieving process. The guests hadn’t.

They held their tears until they left the house with their backs to the door. Then they boo-hoo’d in the car.

Why invite pain? Why invite sadness? The mom will never know if you choose not to knock.

Yes she will

If you knock she gets another little sign that she’s not forgotten and alone. Little signs might be all she has.

You have kids. You imagine how she feels.

YOU don’t want to be forgotten and alone.

So you knock.

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I just noticed two age spots on my hands

When we were teenagers “bombing around” (that’s what we called it) with our friends, my brother sometimes yelled out the car window at senior citizens, “Hey you old bag! You oughta be dead!” Then he’d laugh. He thought he was hilarious.

Today he’s really a good guy. Back then, like all teens, his brain was not fully formed yet.

When you’re growing up it’s easy to think you’re on a different road than your parents, a different road than “old people.”

It’s the same road

Parents and others are just farther down that same road than you. And the farther you go, the more people there are behind you; people who think they’re on a different road.

Somewhere along the road you realize this.

That’s when the catharsis begins. The confrontation with the brutal reality that you’re not an exception. For some it’s too much–you keep the look, the clothes, the hair style. Or you adopt the look, the clothes, the style of those now at the age you refuse to leave behind.

Everybody sees the comb-over but you

Best to embrace this road we’re all on.

Do not despise the era and generation in which the Lord has chosen to give you influence. It’s on purpose. You’ll not pass this way again.

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Everybody carries a pee cup

The nurse steered me into the bathroom and handed me the plastic cup.

“When you get done, put it in the little door over there.”

‘Over there’ was on the wall across the hall from the bathroom. You have to leave the bathroom with your cup.

Great, I just know that as soon as I get done and open the bathroom door, that waiting room door is going to open and the nurse will walk into the hall with someone else and I’ll be standing here with a cup of pee.

That’s exactly what happened

Before I opened the door, I even listened closely for a second to see if all was quiet in the hall. It was. And as soon as I opened the door, the waiting room door opened and we all almost bumped into each other.

“Excuse me,” I said, and we did the awkward “No you go ahead” dance. I almost said, “Hi! This is my pee! That came from inside me! You know, that no one EVER SEES! Until now.”

I didn’t say that. But it’s what I felt. Exposed. Like a big flashing yellow neon arrow was pointing at the cup in my hand.

Then…

I noticed the new patient in the hall had her empty cup in her hand. She was next in the bathroom.

I wasn’t alone.

Every patient in that office—dozens a day—listens at the bathroom door and then walks out into public holding their pee in their hand. And feels alone but isn’t.

Isn’t that how it is?

You try to hide the ‘private’ stuff, the stuff that’s so personal you just know no one else has this, does this, knows this, feels this, experiences this, thinks this, or had this happen to them.

And then for a second you stop thinking of yourself and look down and you see they’re holding a cup of pee too.

You’re so busy walking around trying to hide it that you don’t realize everyone else is trying to hide theirs.

We all just need to fess up

“Hi, this is my stuff I don’t want anyone to see. I see you have yours too. Now can we just move on and stop pretending we can hide?”

Pretending and hiding takes a lot of energy that could go towards other more fun, beneficial things.

You can spread a lot of encouragement with the energy you save by not worrying about hiding what everyone knows anyway.

You’re not alone

I’ll give you grace and you give me grace. I won’t point and laugh at your pee and you don’t laugh at mine.

Now let’s go have a Mountain Dew.

 

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