We're Way Past Politics

This post is not about politics. If you really want to know my stance on politics (though why would you?), you can read about it here and here. This post is about what lies beneath. Maybe think of it as a cautionary tale.

Bob and Susie are friends.

Bob voted for President Jones, but Susie did not. No big deal.

Over time, President Jones repeatedly and clearly reveals himself to not be very smart. Bob still supports him. Though she feels badly about it, Susie starts to question Bob's intelligence; but eh, still no big deal.

Over time, President Jones also repeatedly and clearly reveals himself to be a man of incredibly low moral character. Bob still supports him. Still feeling at least a little badly, Susie starts to question Bob's morality...and this is a big deal.

Susie starts to ask herself questions like,

• "How can my friend Bob still support Jones?"
• "Does Bob not see (or not care!) about how Jones' words, actions, and presidency are affecting most people, especially people like me?"
• "What does Bob get (or hope to get) out of Jones being president (e.g., financially)?"
• "Is that more important to Bob than all the bad stuff (Mt 6:19-24)?!"
• "Do I really even know Bob, the real Bob??"
• "How is this going to affect our friendship?" ("Were we really ever even friends??")

Again, this is not about politics; this is about one person and those who still, somehow, support follow him. If this is you:

• the rest of us find it all but impossible to believe that you truly care about us, or our children;
• this and this pretty much sum up how the entire rest of the world sees you; and,
• if you call yourself a Christian, you need to dig deeper.

Surviving the Boundary Waters

I was 21 years old. Three of my closest friends and I decided to go on an impromptu ten-day camping trip in the Boundary Waters - a series of smallish lakes and islands between Minnesota and Canada. At least two of them were experienced outdoorsy guys, and one of them already had quite a plan put together. What could go wrong?

Heh, it occurred to me as I created that link above how helpful it would have been to be able to "Google" this place ahead of time back then. Ah well.

NOTE: Everything that follows is true, or at the very least, how I genuinely remember it.
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So the morning comes, and we set out on our 6- or 7-hour drive. We have tents, sleeping bags, food, canteens, clothing, camp tools (e.g., fold-able poop hole shovel), and backpacks. The plan is to catch fish for our dinners, so the food we bring is either intended as a "side dish" or snacky stuff for during the day. We bring things like granola bars, cheese, salami...and potatoes. 80 pounds of potatoes. Because they are gonna be really good with all the seasonings and butter we also brought, served alongside all our yummy fish. But we'll get to that later.

We are set! We are excited! We are ready to go! As we get close, we come around a curve and have to brake quickly to avoid hitting a bear that's standing in the road. This is gonna be awesome!

We get there, and the way it works is, you park your car, check in, and begin your adventure. This is not a campground or anything like that; this is genuine, old-fashioned roughing it. You need to have thought of and brought whatever you may need, because there is nothing there once you go in but Nature. You get your canoe (one per two people), put your stuff in it, pick an island, and head out. When you get to the island, you take everything out of the canoe, put on your (heavy) backpack, pick the canoe up over your head, and portage up, down, and across the island. When you get to the other side of the island...rinse and repeat. You do this until you feel like it's time to pick an island to make camp for the night.

It is beautiful! Amazing! Peaceful! We see the Aurora borealis several nights, so close that it feels like we could touch it! It is even, some might say, genuinely life changing: it is immediately after this trip that I stop eating red meat (and this lasts a whole two years!); and, it is not much later that I become a Christian for real. Of course, all of this may have something to do with the fact that the four of us almost don't make it out of these beautiful, majestic Boundary Waters, but who can say for sure?

Remember how we had planned our ten-day trip around catching fish? In ten days, we catch...wait for it...three fish. Three. For ten days. For four young guys, who are canoeing and portaging all day, every day. Now, while they are the best tasting fish I have ever eaten in my entire life, before or since(!), they are, as you can imagine, not quite enough. By day three, we've caught one fish, so we are rather hungry. We start asking ourselves, what do we do? Do we turn around and go back? Remember, there is NOTHING out here (well, except for bears apparently); and at this point, it will already take us three more days just to get back.

Ha, nonsense! We decide instead to start rationing the snacks -- one slice of cheese, one slice of salami, and one granola bar apiece for lunch -- and keep going. There have to be more fish in all this beautiful, clean water! We just haven't found them yet. Besides, it's fun! At one point, Jim is walking just a bit behind me and I hear...something. I go back, and as I round the bend, I see Jim's canoe on the ground, with Jim inside it...upside-down, with his legs flailing in the air, laughing and calling for help. I should rush to his aid, but I just can't...because I too am on the ground, laughing way too hard to be at all useful. After finally getting myself together and everything (and everyone) right-side-up again, we continue.

A couple days later -- so day five or so -- we discover that we're almost out of granola bars. Somehow, we've gone through them a lot faster than we calculated we would. For a moment, we all get upset because someone must be eating more than his share! The next moment, however, we all realize (at about the same time I think) that none of us would do that. Then Mark, examining the box, realizes that the "serving size" is one bar, but they come two per package. So, as we've been eating a package apiece, we have gone through our granola bar supply twice as fast.

And we stink. Only Matt is brave enough to go into that freezing water to try to clean up a little. The rest of us just accept our natural stench and move on. We're way too hungry to care about such piddly things, anyway. Speaking of which, remember the 80 pounds of potatoes? Yeah, so, we've now been rowing and portaging with all our equipment, plus 80 pounds of potatoes, for five or six days. Why haven't we eaten them by now, you ask? Why, because we are SAVING THEM FOR WHEN WE CATCH FISH!!

By day seven, we are now on our way back, and we are famished. We are a little dazed, and everything is funny. We have eaten pretty much all the potatoes, partly because it was just time, but largely because the night before was our second and last time catching fish -- two split between the four of us. Someone -- Mark I think -- had brought some sort of astronaut rice with him. Unfortunately, even with all the seasonings and butter we brought, it is still so nasty that only one of us eats it. The good news, though, is that our rowing/portaging load is now a lot lighter, made so even more by the fact that we've all lost a good amount of weight.

Finally, we make it back. As we check out, we ask if there are any restaurants nearby. The lady helping us tells us -- I'm pretty sure with a slight smirk -- that there's a Pizza Hut down the road a bit. I think at least two of us are about to break into tears of joy right there. All four of us do start laughing, probably more than a little from delirium. At Pizza Hut, the waitress tells us we are far from the first to come in in our current state. We order:

• one large pizza, each;
• one salad bar, each;
• one pitcher of beer, each; and,
• one pitcher of soda (to share).

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Short of something like dementia, I will never forget this experience as long as I live. I loved it, every moment of it, even when I thought my best friends and I might just starve to death on some random little island in the middle of a bunch of lakes between two countries. I loved it so much, in fact, that I tried to get Mark, Jim, and Matt to do a "reunion" trip a couple years ago.

They said no.

What Does God Want?

I mean, what does He really want?

The other night when I was putting my kids to bed, I told my son (11yo), "Goodnight son, I love you." He replied, "Goodnight, I love you too. You're awesome."

I don't think I could describe how that felt if my life depended on it!

As I was falling asleep, it occurred to me that this is basically all God wants. True Christianity is not about religion; it's about relationship.

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” [Jesus] said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

 - Matthew 22:36-40

It can be so easy to forget, misunderstand, or be distracted from this; but, that really is it!

(Why not come see for yourself? 😀)

Manager vs. Leader

What is the difference between a manager and a leader?

This is one of the three questions I now ask in every job interview. What I have found in asking a couple CEOs this question -- and what you will find if you "Google" this question or read any of the many books on the subject -- is what I would call...characteristics, or evidences, of leadership; but, I am looking for the core, fundamental difference between the two.

And quite simply, I think Jesus explained and illustrated this the best, when he contrasted the good shepherd and the hired hand:

 "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep."
 - John 10:11-13


What is the difference between a manager and a leader?

A leader cares.

A leader cares about his/her people, even to the point of self sacrifice!

(Conversely, a manager cares about self, even to the point of sacrificing his/her people.)

And it is from there that all the other answers/evidences/characteristics/practices that people give in answer to this question, stem.

    vs.

Grieving, Part III: Completion

Yesterday I did something that was very hard to do but was very worth doing: I went on a Griefcation (TM).

This post, however, is not for the purpose of sharing details about what I did yesterday. The purpose of this post is to reach out to a few of you. Loss is a part of life; and, grieving is a part of loss. I have noticed, though, that there seem to be three groups of folks when it comes to loss and grieving: those who get it, those who don't get it yet, and those who refuse to get it. This post is for you in the first group.

The Grief Recovery Handbook (link in upper-right, recommended in an earlier post, still HIGHLY recommended) is basically first half reading and second half assignments. When I started the book a year and a half ago, I got to the assignments and stopped because of how challenging they are. My heart has been weighted down long enough, though, so I decided to just "git 'er done!" So yesterday I had the house to myself and I completed the assignments and the book.*  And I am so glad I did.

Just to clarify: this process is not about never being sad again, or forgetting the loss, or anything like that; I guess I would say that it's about saying good-bye to the power the loss has over you.

So, if you get it, and you've been putting something like this off, I urge you to get to it and get through it! Also, if you think you might want to talk to someone else who gets it, just let me know (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

*Griefcation, and yes I may just trademark that. ;)

George, Trayvon, You, and Me

I've been watching/reading others' reactions all week, as well as having a discussion or two myself, and I think I'm seeing a glimpse of what God intended (Psalm 133:1) through this whole situation. I can't help but notice that every one of us seems to see this entire thing -- from the night in question to the verdict and beyond -- from a perspective borne out of our own experiences (or lack thereof) right up to our current places in life, and the biases that have resulted from them.

I get this; it only makes sense. What makes me sad is how unwilling we usually are to meet in the middle. For example, I just finished watching Obama's statement; and, I have to say that this is the first time I saw him as something more than just another politician. I thought it was really good. Yet, I have already seen one person express that it was divisive and not healing. I literally don't understand that, but there it is. My first thought is that this person (older, White woman) just doesn't get it (i.e., no one is making this a race issue - it already is a race issue, and you either get that or you don't); but, this is her perspective, and it really is not any less valid than mine.

The things is, if we all could discuss things calmly, respectfully, and humbly -- truly listening to each other's perspectives -- we could see different points of view, gain perspective as they say, and truly become the unified family God intended. I mean, just try to imagine what kind of world we could make for ourselves if we brought all our different pieces to the table and put them together.

If only we didn't find this so hard to do (Proverbs 18:2)....

One Year Ago

One year ago yesterday, I made the final decision to move my mom to hospice.

One year ago tomorrow, she died.

One year ago, I simultaneously lived through one of the worst times of my life and got to know some truly wonderful people.

One year ago I got to spend some great time with family, whom I miss...ridiculously.

One year. That can seem like such a long time (like when waiting for something we want), and it can seem like a very short time (like when we remember something we didn't want).

Time and relationships may be the only true assets we have that can't be replaced.
Try to not waste either.