Did you mean what I heard?

Did you mean what I heard? Category: Religion and Philosophy Communication has never been a strong point for me, and I have been lived most of my life within a very limited worldview. Therefore, I wonder how often I misunderstand people (okay... stop laughing. Some who know me well are thinking, "dugh-hello!"). So I get this email from a friend, someone I thought to be one of my closest friends, and they tell me that they were a fool to invest so much time into our friendship (ouch!). Where did that come from? I understand that I'm a clueless guy when it comes to maintaining a friendship, and I've heard about making deposits and withdraws from a "love bank," but I have trouble keeping up with my checking account deposits and with draws, and I can look at those online at anytime. I've tried to talk to my friend about it, but it seems that everything I say to salvage the friendship gets misunderstood and/or used against me. One might say, it must have been a shallow friendship to crumble so easily, but it makes me wonder how many friendships, or potentially deep friendships, I have thrown away before they started because I misunderstood or prejudged the person. I've been thinking a lot about prejudging and skepticism lately. This came to a head recently when I attended a conference for Wesleyan Pastors (appropriately for me named, "Summit to Soar") As most people, I used to assume things about pastors and the church. Even though I grew up in the church, I didn't trust the "system." God has been melting my negativity for sometime now. I didn't set out to be a church leader nor did I earn it through some righteous life or remarkable wisdom, but there I was stuck at a hotel for a couple days with a bunch of pastors to talk about church stuff. I expected to see a lot of suits, politics and number crunching. What I saw was a bunch of blue jeans, broken hearts and vision casting. These were simply men that wanted to help the Kingdom grow. Many of them (probably all of them) had been hurt and misunderstood by the very people they so desperately love and wanted to serve. I have for some time now tried to figure out what God wants the church to look like and how it should operate and function, and in turn, how I should live and function in the church and the world. It's so easy to point out the flaws in the church, as an organization and individual people. I'm finding that the church, under God, is managed by a lot of flawed people with good intentions that are struggling to communicate to a world with hundreds of cultures, divided into hundreds of languages, subcultures and forms of communication, and we want it to fit into our comfortable little building and feed us and/or strategically turn the world upside-down. So the question that remains is� if we, the church, can't even communicate clearly, understand and trust each other, how can we build trust with nonbelievers and be the fishers of men we are all called to be? God help us all. I don't know if this will make sense to any potential readers, but... I feel a little better. 6:58 PM - 8 Comments - 6 Kudos

Growing pains

Growing pains Current mood: content Category: Life I went up stairs the other day, and found a dtr on the computer. "Whach' ya doin?" I figured she was playing games or taking care of her online pet. No, she was emailing the president! Just telling Bush how much we love him. The other two have been playing basketball on Saturdays. I can take no credit, but the boy is one of their star players. The coach came out to the middle of the court the other day, and I heard him tell my son, "We're far enough ahead; you can stop shooting for a while." The youngest dtr has had an unusual week. We're in a small school, and she was the topic of the grade school gossip this week. Evidently, a young man (we'll call him "Bobby") asked her to be his Valentine, and she accepted. I asked her about it later, and she claims that she meant nothing by it. She was just being nice, but it wasn't long before she was in tears over all the teasing from the other kids, 3rd - 6th grades. It got so bad that her teacher took class time to scold all four grades. Although, the next day when I saw her between classes, she was glowing. Bobby had given her a rose. (I'm fighting the instinct to hang Bobby out an upstairs window by an ankle.) 10:45 AM - 5 Comments - 2 Kudos

It's my dad's fault, Your Honor.

It's my dad's fault, Your Honor. Category: Life My last couple blogs have been rather deep, so I thought I might turn to the lighter side and share a pointless example of poor parenting. These are not hard to come by. One of my kids (those of you who know them can guess which one) asked me the other day if I know what their favorite color and animal was. These things tend to change often, so of course, I guessed both wrong. "No, Dad! Do you want to hear what my schedule is?" "Your schedule?" I replied. "Okay." "This year it's elephants and green. Next year it's rhinos and red, and the next year it will be hippos and blue. Do you know why?" "No, why?" "Because hippos spend their time in water so they go with blue..." "Oh I get it!" I jumped in, "and rhinos stab people with their big horn, and blood gushes out...so they're red, right!?" Pause...smile...nod, "Yah, pretty much, and elephants eat plants, so they go with green." 4:00 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos

Our Christmas Guest

Our Christmas Guest Current mood: content Category: Life Can I tell you how much I despise the Santa Clause movies staring Tim Allen (even though we loved him as "Tim the Toolman Taylor," the Shaggy Dog, and more)? Yes, that's the movie Kim took us to see while she was in town, The Escape Clause. In case you haven't seen the trilogy, let me explain. Each one of them deals with divorce, remarriage, and falling in and out of love. If you read my last blog, you will understand how that just doesn't fit into my understanding of life, family, happiness, love and so on. My kids and I have this little game we play with the movies we watch. After the movie, we like to see how many lines we can quote from it. We laugh and recreate scenes, but when we left the Santa Clause III, there was an awkward silence. Well, there was a lot of that this weekend. It's been a year since we've seen Kim. What do you say to someone who occupies a place in your heart that cannot be removed or replaced (I'm speaking for the kids and myself) when they choose not to give back? Yes, I flirted with her a bit, and she flirted back, but the communication gap was enormous. At one point we were alone in the car with the kids inside getting ready for bed. I'm thinking, what a perfect opportunity for a heart-to-heart, and she jumps me with a lecture about how upset she was about Kendra saying that people say bad things about her. Neither one of us knew who or what Kendra was talking about, but evidently I'm suppose to confront these people and defend Kim's honor. I was speechless (well, there was a lot of things I wanted to say, but I chose not to). Kim had a talk with Kendra later about it, and the only person Kendra named was her sister. Knowing the kids and past Christmas tradition, I explained to Kim that I was expecting to open presents at 6:00AM. She wanted to come over a little earlier so the presents she brought could be under the tree when the kids came down. As it turned out, the kids slept in a surprising 45min and came down with the typical Christmas morning excitement. We gathered in the living room, the kids sat down and there was again the awkward silence. It was almost 7:00, and Kim wasn't there. She drove all the way from KY two days earlier to spend Christmas with us, and we opened presents without her. She showed up later around 11:30. The next day we were planning to have breakfast together at Krispy Cream (that's a real treat for my kids) and do some more shopping. At around 9:45 I decided to skip the donuts and go on without her. She eventually caught up with us after lunch. I'm learning and growing through all this. I have become a student of myself and others. I think we all should study why we do what we do and question if they are the right actions based on the right emotions and motivators. There where so many mixed emotions filling this weekend, so many things I wanted to say and hear, but didn't. I've experienced pushy love before and I know how annoying it is to be chased when you've made it clear that you're not interested. Kim is now engaged to a doctor in KY, and I'll admit that within me there was a since of hope, urgency, and excitement about her visit. She may be remarried before we see her again. This might have been my last chance to win her back. I used to live on hope. Hope that she was just going through a rebellious faze; hope that she will have some great, humbling conversion and come back; hope we would both mature to a point where we could define and admit our mistakes and put our family back together again. I still have hope, but I realized Sunday night that it's no longer my life's motivation. I'm okay; my kids are okay, and they are going to turn out just fine. 11:24 PM - 7 Comments - 7 Kudos

Love

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Love Category: Romance and Relationships There are very few subjects on which I feel qualified to speak with authority, but although I am still quite a student in the matter, I have reached some firm conclusions that I feel I should clear up for anyone who might not understand my thoughts. Love is not something that can be lost. When you love someone you are not self-seeking, you keep no records of wrongs, you always protect, always hope, always persevere. True love never fails. That is not the dream of love that is the definition (see I Corinthians 13). I love my wife, and I don't want to be with anyone else. My love is for better or for worse. No matter what she does, I will always love her. Even if I am "biblically justified" to divorce her, I will always love her. I will boldly strive to love my wife as Christ loved the church. He gave his life for us before we showed any love in return, and so following His example, I have given my life to her without anything expected in return. Do I love because I have to? Yes and No. It depends on how one defines "have to." I am commanded to love my wife, but a loving heart is compelled by two things: choice (conscience) and feelings (emotion). You must have both to have true love. There comes a point when you are so deeply connected to someone that, yes, you "have to" love them because they are a part of you. They complete you and give you purpose and definition. Do I pass judgment on others who remarry after a divorce? No, I understand the desire for companionship, but I have studied my heart for years, and I simply must listen to and follow my own understanding of love and forgiveness. 8:32 PM - 8 Comments - 6 Kudos