Month: February 2024

Design For Life

This morning, I was listening to a playlist (the modern ‘mixtape’), and the song “Internet Killed The Video Star,” by the Limousines came on. It’s a perfect title and a terrific song, and it has this peach of a lyric:

“Well, I’m a horrible dancer; I ain’t gonna lie, but I’ll be da**ed if that means that I ain’t gonna try. Yeah, I’m a [expletive] romancer, baby; I ain’t gonna lie, but I’ll be da**ed if that means that I ain’t gonna try. Get up, get up, get up, and dance.”

So, I texted this song and lyric to my brother and sister, and she shared with me the message from her yoga class (written by yoga master Becky Hemsley):

“I know there may have been times in your life when you’ve stopped dancing, stopped singing, stopped being yourself, because someone was watching you. Judging you….We’ve been taught that we must only be ourselves if it suits other people…The birds sing – not because we might listen – but simply with the joy of being alive….So sing as loud as you wish, and dance as much as you like. You do not exist for the enjoyment of others. You exist to be alive. Properly, fully, beautifully alive.”

I’d only change one thing about her message: “You do not exist for the enjoyment of others. You exist to be alive. You exist for the enjoyment of your Creator, to feel His love, and to engage with the life He’s given you.” He is so pleased when we express our joy, our delight in Him and the gifts He’s so abundantly given. As followers of the Risen Christ, we should be the most joyful. We should throw the best parties, laugh the loudest, and dance the easiest.

Sometimes the world sends you messages so obvious, so clear, so coincidental that coincidence is impossible. It’s a specific message from the Creator of the Universe to us – in this case, a message to dance and/or romance, or share the message to dance and/or romance, or witness to the importance and imperative that we all dance and/or romance. I’m choosing to do all 3 today.

We have been conditioned into self-consciousness, even when that means we miss out on all sorts of beauty and wonder. When did that happen? When did we stop dancing (even if we’re bad at it)? Who told us we’re bad at it? For that matter, who are they to decide? When did we stop romancing (even if we don’t know how to do it yet)? When did we stop singing, stop living, and when did we replace it with just quietly getting by?

Well, I don’t think we should do that anymore. I think we should dance whenever and however we want. It’s super fun to be so free.

And as far as romancing, the characteristic that makes each of us so sexy is confidence, passion, interest, joy. We are good dancers when we dance…when we love to turn the music up and move. We are great romancers when we lean in and give our authentic selves to each other, with vulnerability, honesty, trust, and open-ness. We are great lovers when we love. And the more we practice, the better we are.

You don’t have to apologize for dancing or singing. If anything, you can apologize for not dancing and singing earlier. Have a good time. This life is a gift, and it can be very hard and hurt a lot, so we are well served to enjoy it when we can, to move our hips when whenever we feel like it.

The next song in the playlist was “Murder On The Dance Floor,” where Sophie Ellis-Bextor sings, “you better not kill this groove,” which is more solid advice as we design our lives. The point is to not kill any more grooves, to not squash anyone else’s dancing, and to sing and romance, to love, as loud as we can.

Thankful Again

My last post was on the 8th, which is too long between conversations. That post was about a high school basketball game (sort of), and you may be interested to know that in the meantime, the local high school boys basketball team made the district playoffs. That was a pleasant surprise. What was not quite as pleasant was the result. They were soundly beaten by the higher seed, and as I sat watching the wheels fall off, I began thinking about gratitude.

This morning, our local mechanic called me with some terrible news about my car. I had a very reliable Ford Focus for roughly 15 years that I loved more than a reasonable person should love an inanimate object. So, when it reached the end of it’s life, of course I’d replace it with another, newer Focus. What I could not have known is that the first Focus was the wild exception. Ford Focuses (Foci) are rolling trash cans – at least the later year models, before they were put out to pasture. A basic Google search (which I did not do…) returns a long history of recalls and transmission defects. The terrible news is a price tag that is much too high. In retrospect, this isn’t a surprise, it’s just the latest in a long line of too-high price tags for repairs.

I’m fairly certain it’ll be the last, though. Before I pay another one, I’ll set it on fire and roll it into Memorial Lake. Incidentally, if you happen to be looking for an as-is money pit, I have a Ford Focus that I’d part with for only the remaining payments. Message me if you’re interested.

Now. I’m angry at my poor decision to purchase such an albatross. I’m angrier at Ford for the sick joke they’ve played on me, a loyal customer. (I’ve had only Fords since I was 16; an Escort, Probe, the Greatest Focus, and this current wreck. The Greatest Focus was the only wholly positive experience.) I’m not angry at my mechanic, they’re trustworthy and seemingly sorry for my plight.

Immediately after the terrible news, as I was screaming, alone in my wife’s car, my mind turned to Tuesday’s playoff game and gratitude. The team was lucky to get into the playoffs, the boys are healthy and some of them are quite extraordinary at the sport. Do you know how rare exceptional athleticism is, how this gift is something most people in the world would love to have? Can you imagine what so many would give for the privilege of getting trounced in a playoff game? We are so lucky to go to a school with sports like this, safe travel, parents & fans that can attend. Of course, it’s disappointing to lose, but the real loss for me was my perspective (even if only for a few minutes).

And we have 3 cars. Only 18% of people in the world have 1, 10% of Americans don’t have a car at all. And we have 3. I can pay the too-high bill. I work from home, and got the terrible news as I was driving home from the gym. I took a hot shower, put on clean clothes, and ate breakfast. Samuel is home today putting together a massive LEGO set. I really like him – which is not something to be taken for granted. I have to love him, but he’s really wonderful to be around. I would want him to be my friend, if he wasn’t my son. I’m able to drive the Angel’s car while mine is in the shop, which means I take her to work and pick her up, which is no problem at all. She’s the best, so far out of my league and ridiculously more than I could ever deserve. And I get to kiss her at drop off and pick up.

This is the trouble with gratitude, for me. When the terrible news comes, my vision narrows until I can only see the terrible news. The challenge is to notice this myopia and adjust my perspective, until that period where I am lost is shorter and shorter. I’m not convinced that we can eliminate it altogether, but we probably can reduce the time we check out of our real lives full of blessing. We can compress the disappointment of losing into a few minutes, and then regain our perspective. The Bible says to always be thankful, and maybe that’s a bit much. How about if we are thankful now, whenever now is, so that when we inevitably lose the plot and aren’t too thankful for our rolling Ford Refuse, we can always start again, here, now? And maybe our verse can be “always be thankful, again.”

Those People, pt 2: Sports & Sandals

Last night was a big high school basketball game. Our local high school hosted a hated (as hated as high school rivalry is, which is to say, manufactured and superficial) rival school, the winner would go to the playoffs, the loser would not. The teams are very well matched, the schools are mirror images. The officiating was abysmal, again, and had more of a role in the outcome than any of us would like. The good guys lost, in overtime, in a too-stressful, exciting, if not overly well played, game.

There is no reason to write about that, nothing unusual or noteworthy – in sports, people & teams win, and others lose. Lessons are learned, we develop (or not) through both results.

However, what happened after the game is what I want to tell you.

High school kids are mostly the same, loud, and loudly obnoxious. We don’t think they’re all that similar, but that’s because these are ours and those aren’t. We think their student section is worse, absolutely horrible, their players and coaches are unsportsmanlike, and they think the same about our student section, players and coaches. It’s situational blindness, and it’s common in all -isms.

Our student section was boisterous and aggressive, their players played to that increased energy. When their player hit a 3-pointer, he’d turn and glare at them with 3 fingers raised, which threw our kids into a frenzy. It was hot and noisy and passionate and looked like we were heading for a bench clearing melee.

The game ended, emotions soared, our players cried at a missed opportunity where a game was won/lost in 1,000 different ways and could have easily gone our way. They may look like adults, but they are 16 years old. They are kids, and we can say it’s just a game, but at 16, everything is of the highest importance. Do you remember having your heart broken, thinking you’d never recover? That you would never love again? That she was your soul mate, your person, and there would never be another like her? And now we don’t remember her name or what color her eyes were. We held strong opinions on trivialities, fought over pro football teams, and made list after list of best albums (and whoever didn’t agree was wrong, and was only embarrassing themselves.) A basketball game does matter, A LOT, to a 16 year old who had sweat for months, or in the case of my boy, the last several years, thinking, dreaming of this moment, and to come up short is absolutely devastating.

They would be forgiven for an angry outburst or moment of regret.

After moving through the line, shaking hands, their players moved quickly in the direction of our bleachers… We held our breath and waited.

We’ve been talking about divisions, right? And how we build our walls so high and thick to emphasize the difference between US and THEM. We are right, obviously, and they are wrong. And this week’s quote/question was about if our relationship with Jesus, His sacrifice, His Kingdom was more important than any and every difference we have with others.

What would these pretend distinctions lead to, in a high school gym in Pennsylvania? We already know, have read countless news stories and watched too many new stories, where it has already led, so many times before. We already know we’ve too often chosen our walls over Jesus.

So, what happened? They shook hands, smiled, appreciated the terrific environment for high school sports, affirming the discipline, effort, and skill of the contest. They celebrated the experience they were privileged enough to share.

Then, afterwards, they all met up again to talk, as friends might, with more that united them than could ever divide, in the hallway on their way to the bus.

I watched, with tears in my own eyes. Sure, from the loss and my boy’s crushed spirit, but also from this gorgeous picture of the Sandals of Peace. If we can just keep our eyes open to the divine all around us, I think we’re probably treated to beauty like this, to the sight of God’s Kingdom breaking through into this hurting world, more than we can possibly imagine. We just get so cynical sometimes, believing the darkness will never lift, believing that we’re mean, nasty, untrustworthy and irredeemable in our broken-ness. We can close our eyes and lose hope, but sometimes, in an unlikely place, we see that our faith has not been misplaced, that Jesus, and love, wins.

Those People

Sunday, we discussed a gigantic question that sprang forth from a quotation by David Guzik in his Bible commentary.

Guzik wrote, “If the Lordship of Jesus Christ is not greater than any difference you have with others – be it political, racial, economic, language, geography, or whatever, then you have not fully understood what it means to be under the Lordship of Jesus.” And the question was, “is it?” Or “Has it?” Or something like that. Have we decided that our wholly arbitrary love of the Dallas Cowboys and hate of the New York Giants is bigger and more important than a cross and empty tomb? Or where we live, or what we do, or what we think about the tax code? Are there places in our lives where we use the phrase that can so easily expose the innermost parts of our own perspective, “those people?”

Then, as so often happens, I was immediately faced with a situation that confronted me with the implications of living a life without walls, and free of “those people.” It’s a bit of an occupational hazard, but more than that, it’s a human phenomenon. When we decide to consider our own patience, for instance, we immediately receive opportunities to practice that patience, where we can easily see where we are deficient.

A boy on the basketball team is academically ineligible for the rest of the season and playoffs. He is very likable and a nice basketball player, and he is also lots of other things we might infer from his situation that takes him out of the game. And probably those inferences are the gate to a path we don’t belong. Maybe those inferences are right, too. But does their rightness matter?

Inferences invite us to look at their motivation from across the room, empathy asks us to imagine from inside their skin. Jesus asks neither. Jesus asks us to love them, without thought of motivation.

Now, as a side note, it can be important teaching & learning to explore the behavior of others. In addition, it’s vital to practice empathy (whether we are gifted with it or not) to make connections and allow us to better agape someone else. We can use another person as case study to look inside our own motivations. They become, in effect, mirrors. It’s not gossip (unless it is), it is curiosity and accelerates growth.

But back to this boy. When I heard, I was disappointed and frustrated at the impact upon the team. I inferred, and began the foundation on a wall that separated us. In my initial reaction, I was one thing and he was another, both of which are completely irrelevant, “under the Lordship of Jesus.” In this Kingdom, we are not different in the least, we are both children of the Living God, created in love, by love, and for love. He’s ineligible, I wasn’t (but could have been as a high school junior), but neither matters in the way Our God sees us, and the way we are called to see each other and bring peace.

Now, is it ineligibility, or is it the party designation on our licenses, how we maintain our yards, cars, and garages, or our habits and/or personality quirks? There is no us & them, only we.

To be honest with you, it’s uncomfortable and a real nuisance when this happens. It’s just eligibility on a high school basketball team, I’d like to leave it there, just once. Offhand thoughts and comments might not be windows into our souls. Not everything is a matter of divine significance. Except, of course, that it is. And that is kind of a pain in the neck.

The choice we’re asked to make, that plays out in a bazillion different ways, several bazillion times per day, is simple (yet never easy), “He is either the Lord of our lives, or we are.” Now what?