February 2013 – Welcome To My Mind

Compassion

There is a video making the rounds on Facebook which many of you have probably already seen. I’ve attached it to this post. Before you read any further, please click on the word “Compassion” in blue above, and watch the video.

Now that you have watched, and possibly had to dry your eyes, let’s talk about it.

Let’s focus on the main characters in this story. Peter the coach, Mitchell the team manager/player and Jonathan, the opposing player.

Listen to the coach, Peter Morales. He planned to play Mitchell at the end of the game, no matter what the score. When asked if he would do it even if there was a risk of losing the game, his reply was emphatic, “For his moment in time, yes” And I believe him.

Watch Mitchell’s reaction when he misses the pass from his teammate. Who does he feel bad for? Himself? It doesn’t look that way to me. He isn’t throwing his hands up in the air or stomping his foot. His head looks up to the heavens and then down as he walks away. He appears to be someone who feels that he has let down not himself, but others. His teammates, his coach, his parents.

Now listen to Jonathan, the opposing player who throws Mitchell the ball at the end of the game. Listen not only to what he says, but try and interpret what he isn’t saying. Does it sound like he feels sorry for Mitchell, I don’t think so. He says, “I was raised to treat others how you want to be treated.”

And what about the referee. Mitchell actually walks a few steps after receiving the ball from Jonathan. Technically that’s traveling and the ball should go back to the other team. Fortunately the ref does not blow his whistle, he lets Mitchell continue playing. Right now you might be saying, “Oh come on Dale of course he didn’t blow his whistle. He’d have to be a real jerk to do that!” Then I might say to you, “This world is filled with them, isn’t it?”

Even the fans did something special by chanting Mitchell’s name and rushing onto the court to pick him up and carrying him off on their shoulders.

I’m sure all of you have heard the phrase What Would Jesus Do. In fact some of you may think you have heard it so much that if you have to hear it one more time you will become physically ill. Others are thinking, I love that phrase, I proudly wear my WWJD bracelet every day!

The fact is, I can’t help but watch this video and wonder just that. What would Jesus do? I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t know what Jesus would have done if He was a part of this story. Maybe if He was the coach He would have allowed Mitchell to play the whole game rather than just the last few minutes. Thus giving him a better opportunity to score a basket.

Maybe if Jesus was the referee He would not only have refrained from calling a traveling violation, but He might have carried Mitchell over to the basket lifted him up and allowed him to dunk the ball, insuring that the shot would not be missed.

Maybe if Jesus was one of the fans He would have hoisted Mitchell onto His shoulders and healed him as well.

The point is, none of us truly know exactly what Jesus would have done. However we do know what these people did. They came about as close as you can come to getting it right. No, not just right, perfect.

There’s hope for us all.

Why So Silent?

I woke this morning and went through my normal routine, or at least the routine that I try to follow daily.

I went to the kitchen, made a cup of coffee, talked to my wife before she left for work, (mostly I just listened, but you get my point) turned on my computer, searched for employment, and finally clicked on MSN.Com to get my morning news.

I normally start by scanning the large boxes, the ones that scroll near the top of the page, until I find something that interests me. Today there were a number of Oscar stories that I didn’t care too much about. Also Daytona 500 coverage and an article about 7 crucial moves I should make before retiring. I assumed that any of the “crucial moves” that needed to be made, first required you to have a job, so I skipped that story.

Next I moved down to the Editors Picks section and discovered that IKEA has been using horse meat in their Swedish meatballs and Iran is upset about the movie Argo winning an Academy Award, as if I care.

Lower on the page under Entertainment I learned about a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion and under the section titled Living, I had the opportunity to read about a chemical that could give me man boobs. It’s the truth, I couldn’t make this stuff up.

Not finding anything of interest I scrolled back to the top of the page where there is a complete list of categories. News, Entertainment, Sports, Money, Living, Local, Autos, Job Search, More, and finally something called NOW. All of these tabs, when highlighted, come up with sub categories.

I decided to look for what type of pages MSN had devoted to religion. Primarily I was interested in articles concerning Christianity. Not seeing anything in the main categories mentioned above, I naturally assumed that I would find religion as one of the sub categories.

Not really sure where to start, I moved my cursor over News. I found subjects that included Science and Technology, Pop Culture, and and even one called Rumors which confused me because I wouldn’t think that rumors would be considered news, but such are the times we live in I guess. No religion though. No religion under the Entertainment, Sports,” or Money tabs either. Under Living there was Style, Sex and Relationships, and even Horoscopes, but still no religion. Local, Autos, and Job Search came up empty of any reference to religion as did More and NOW, although the NOW section did have some funny as well as disturbing viral videos. I finally gave up and came to the conclusion that if there is a special section devoted to religious studies it is being well hidden.

This past Christmas a Gallup poll on religion was taken. The results indicated that 77% of the United States population still identify themselves as Christians. While that percentage is down from 82% in 2007, it is still quite a significant number.

I began to wonder. Is there any other interest group that makes up over three quarters of the population which is so completely disregarded? If over 240 million people living in the United States began to identify as a group with anything else, would MSN, or any other form of news media for that matter, not devote a significant amount of attention to it? I suspect they would. It would be irresponsible and bad business for them not to. So why not God?

Plenty of time and space for horoscopes, rumors, and viral videos, but no time or space for God? I find that to be many things, but mostly I find it to be sad.

Beware of Dog

Are you a dog lover? If you are, you probably fall into one of the following categories;

1.) The dog never sleeps on your bed.

2.) The dog occasionally sleeps on your bed.

3) The dog always sleeps on your bed.

4) The dog thinks he’s letting you sleep on his bed.

My wife and I fall somewhere between numbers 3 and 4 and recently I have noticed a trend. Our dogs are attempting to tilt the balance of power more toward the direction of number 4.

I have to admit that their plan to completely take over is brilliant. Laying across the middle of the bed, they have effectively, A) Made sleeping uncomfortable enough for me to want to go lay on the couch, and, B) Turned the middle of the bed into a virtual no man’s land, never allowing my wife and I to get close enough to each other to do anything that could even remotely be confused with trying to reproduce.

My first clue that I was under siege came a few nights ago when one of our dogs came racing through the house and into the bedroom. In a leap that would make an equestrian horse proud, she jumped onto the bed and landed directly on my genitals. Curling into the fetal position, I rolled onto my right side and groaned. My wife saw something really funny in this. I on the other hand, not only didn’t see it as funny, but could barely see anything at all as bright flashes of light seemed to be going off in front of my eyes. The dog yawned and laid down, taking over nearly my entire side of the bed, leaving me a space to sleep on that was about the width of a gymnastics balance beam.

At this point you might be saying to yourself, “Why don’t you just kick the dogs off of the bed? After all, you’re the master, the boss of the house, aren’t you?” Uh, no I’m not. I’m married with two children, one grandchild and two dogs. I’m about as far from being the boss of the house as I could possibly get.

However what happened last night scared me a little and made me start thinking that I may have to take action soon.

I woke in the middle of the night to a strange sensation. A feeling like my head was duct taped to the mattress. Who would have done such a thing? I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t, and I was having trouble breathing. In a panic I attempted to jump out of bed and discovered I couldn’t move my legs either. Trying to remain calm, I began waking up enough to assess the situation. Discovering I could still move my arms I reached up toward my head and felt something hairy.

Suddenly it was all clear to me. With one hard shove I pushed Wrigley our Lab/Beagle mix off of my face and at the same time kicked frantically in order to dislodge my legs from under Harley our 60 pound mutt. Harley got up, stretched, and laid down next to my wife. Wrigley wagged her tail and licked my face. Both acted as if nothing had happened. Very clever.

Last night I somehow escaped the dogs devious plot to kill me in my sleep and completely take over not only the bedroom but maybe the entire house. But what about tomorrow, or the night after that?

Are you a dog lover? Beware.

Devotion

I need to take more showers. Don’t get me wrong, I take one everyday but I may want to increase that number because I seem to do my best thinking in the shower. The only thing that troubles me a little about this great revelation is that I also think I do my best singing there.

Yesterday I was asked to give a devotion at an upcoming church meeting and discovered that my Christian devotional book had mysteriously come up missing. OK, truthfully there is nothing too mysterious about it. I hate to admit that I haven’t looked at it in years.

There was an outside chance my wife would have a suggestion on where to find it but that would mean calling her at work and asking. Bad idea, a call could remind her to ask if I had mopped the kitchen floor yet. Instead of going down that road, I decided to hop in the shower in the hope that either a devotion or the whereabouts of my book would come to me.

It helped. The shower triggered a memory of the first devotion I ever gave almost 20 years ago. I can’t recall what type of meeting I was at or who was there but I do remember that I was new to the church and I was terrified. I didn’t realize at the time that I could go out, buy a book, read a passage and be done with it. My impression was that it had to be something more elaborate. So I made a 9×7 inch wooden cross and brought it, along with a hammer and some nails, to the meeting that night. The climax of my devotion was for everyone at the meeting to write down on a small piece of paper, a sin for which they needed to ask forgiveness, then nail it to the cross. While some worried looks were exchanged around the room, everyone did as they were asked, until 8 small folded pieces of paper, including mine, were nailed to that home made wooden cross.

Someone nervously asked what I was going to do with the papers. I said that since our sins are between us and God, the only logical thing to do now would be to destroy them, and that’s what we did. All remained a private thought between the sinner and the Savior. I had never wanted or needed to see what anyone had written on their paper, and I know they didn’t need to see what was on mine. If we all knew each others past indiscretions, could we ever look at each other in the same way again? Probably not. Fortunately God has reserved that burden for Himself, and I am thankful that He has.

The reason I know there were 8 pieces of paper is because I still have that cross standing on the work bench in my basement. It’s always there, and much like Thomas, the doubter, it sometimes helps my faith to occasionally touch the 8 nail holes in that wood.

Today I looked for some symbolism in the fact that 8 people attended that meeting. Did the number 8 mean something? I wanted it to. I wanted to find a message somewhere. I couldn’t find one.

But maybe I discovered that God is not really so cryptic. He is actually quite clear. His message is simple. It’s not hidden in codes or puzzles. He wants you and me to get it. 8 people took a chance and trusted each other. They laid their private sins at the foot of His cross and risked being found out. Why? Because they had faith that they were in a safe place. They were in His house.

Maybe I found a message after all.

Crap, The Baby’s Pissed!

I’ve been doing a lot of baby sitting with my grandson lately and I have to admit there are a number of things that I need to reacquaint myself with when it comes to caring for a three month old.

The thing that concerns me the most is what to do when he is unhappy. Not the kind of unhappy like he has a sad look on his face. The kind of unhappy where he screams so loud and long that you feel your only option is to run around the house screaming right along with him until one of you finally tires out, keels over and falls asleep.

I’ve been told by so called experts (wife, daughter, sane people) that this is not the way crying should be handled. Apparently there are things to check on before banging your head against the wall into unconsciousness. I have decided to call this my “Please stop crying or I may kill myself and then you will have to sit in poopy diapers until mommy or grandma get home” check list.

1) Is the baby hungry? I don’t think so. He took seven ounces of formula a half hour ago. I tried to squeeze eight into him but when it started squirting out the corners of his mouth I took that as a sign that he had had enough.

2) Does he need to burp? The sour smell of Enfamil and the huge stain on my shoulder which looks like a design that could be used as part of a Rorschach Test, indicate that this is highly unlikely. I probably should not have force fed him that last half ounce of formula. (Note to self, remember to put, “Place towel over shoulder when burping” somewhere on my check list.)

3) Is he bored? If he is I don’t know what to do. I laid him on the floor and let our dog Wrigley push him around with her nose for a while. That worked for about 30 seconds. I’m out of ideas.

4) Does he need to be changed? This is near the bottom of the list for a very good reason. The sniff test comes up inconclusive but a visual inspection confirms my worst fears. OK, it is what it is. I’m going in!

So here’s where we now stand. He’s fed, he’s burped, his diaper is clean. The dog, who has done her best to amuse him outside of using him as a chew toy, gives me a look as if to say, “You really don’t have a clue as to what you are doing here do you?” Her insight and grasp of the situation amazes me. He’s still crying and I’m down to the last item on my check list.

5) Is he tired? I’m not sure about him, but I’m exhausted. If he is tired, what am I supposed to do about it?

The dog grabs a piece of material that is attached to the baby’s swingy chair and attempts to pull it toward me. I suddenly feel like I’m in an episode of Lassie. I’m the idiot kid Timmy saying, “What is it girl? What are you trying to tell me? Did Leland fall down a well or does he want to sit in his swingy seat?” I can tell he’s not down the well, we don’t have one and anyway I can still hear him screaming. I leap into action and put him in his chair. Oh my gosh, it’s working. He’s swinging himself to sleep. Good girl Lassie, I mean Wrigley.

Feeding starts again in 30 minutes.

I Like Your Style

The following definitions are taken from The Merriam Webster Dictionary.

Style – Manner or method of acting, making, or performing.

Substance – Essential nature, the fundamental or essential part or quality.

Here is my question. When did we become more interested in style than in substance? It’s a rhetorical question of course, one that can’t be answered with a specific day or time. Maybe it’s always been this way. Maybe we have always been a people easily impressed by bravado and accomplishment.

I’m honestly not trying to be funny when I tell you that this popped into my head yesterday when I was eating a piece of cake that was covered in fondant. For those of you who have never watched “Cake Boss,” fondant is an icing that allows you to mold or sculpt any type of shape onto a pastry. While the decorations were beautiful and looked delicious, with shapes and designs that could only be achieved by using fondant, the cake itself was not that great. The taste and texture of the fondant could never replace the less versatile but more flavorful butter or whipped cream topping, and the actual cake was dry. In my opinion, the only purpose the fondant served was to add more style while sacrificing substance. It made the outside of the cake prettier but could not make the cake as a whole, tastier.

I have been discovering something similar to this in my attempts to find employment. I was surprised to find that often when you send a resume to a prospective employer, the first thing that happens is that it goes through a computer system looking for key words to either eliminate or qualify it for further consideration by an actual human being. According to one article I read, words like, strong, excellent, good, exceptional, and outstanding can cause you to be rejected because they lack objectivity and make it sound like you are patting yourself on the back. On the other hand, reduced, developed, improved, researched, and created (words that I think can also be confused with patting yourself on the back, as in, “I developed a whole new operating system for ABC Company.” when actually it was you and 17 other people) can get you past the computer and on to a possible interview. My point is, you don’t need to have reduced, developed, improved, researched, or created anything, because what really matters is that you said you did. What matters is not the substance of who you are but the style you are using to sell yourself.

We like pretty things and pretty people. Things that trick us into feeling good. People that tell us what we want to hear. We fall so in love with the package, that we either forget or are afraid, to open it up and look inside. Maybe we don’t really want to know what’s in there.

Go back to the definitions at the top of the page one more time. Style is described as acting and performing while substance is an essential part or quality.

Substance is who we truly are. Style is what we want people to see. What is it that has caused us to become so impressed with style anyway?

Stop Or I’ll Shoot – Your Picture

I just read an article where Beyonce’s publicist wants some unflattering photos of her removed from the internet.

Nowadays due to modern technology, anyone can be made to look stupid in a picture either by freezing frames from a video or just by continually taking a bunch of pictures in rapid succession until you finally get a goofy looking one. So it’s no surprise that during her halftime performance at the Super Bowl Beyonce’ ended up with some funny looks on her face. It’s inevitable, and her “people” don’t want them seen.

I can sympathize with her. She may want to give up performing. After all, the very reason that I stopped fast dancing at weddings was because I saw a picture of myself. Thank goodness it has never made its way to the internet the way Beyonce’s has. If it had, here is what you would have seen;

I’m dressed in a really sharp looking black pinstriped suit. (If I was smart I would have realized that my best look of the night was just sitting quietly at table 38, minding my own business, sipping a Belvidere Vodka and Red Bull. But no, I had to push my luck and get on the dance floor. That’s what vodka and Red Bull does to you. It impairs your judgement while at the same time making you extremely energetic.)

On the dance floor, my body is in a position that at my age I thought it was unable to get into anymore. Arms twisted weirdly above my head, one leg kicking out to the side while I balance precariously on a tip toe. If you laid me on the floor in this position it would appear that I had either been run over by a bus or trampled while running with the bulls in Pamplona Spain.

Unfortunately the look on my face is worse than that. I have one eye completely shut. The other is open just halfway, and you can only see the white because my eyeball is rolled back up into my head. I appear intoxicated. Imagine that!

My lip is curled into what I can only describe as my patented insane dancing snarl. It looks like I am desperately trying to suck out a piece of spinach salad that is lodged between my teeth.

OK to be honest, I haven’t really applied for a patent on the insane dancing snarl. Not only do I not think you can patent something like that, but also I’m not all that worried about someone trying to steal “my look.” There just aren’t that many people who want to appear as if they should have their own tent between the two headed calf and the bearded lady at the carnival freak show.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, step right up and see the 57 Year Old Wedding Dancer! He twists, he turns, he contorts his face into a grotesque mask the likes of which you have not seen since the untimely death last year of Latex Man! Grown men will gasp, women will cover their eyes. Children under 16 will not be admitted without adult supervision. Enter at your own risk!”

So yes, I can sympathize with Beyonce, but dare I say this? I think my situation is worse than hers. While she has thousands of excellent pictures of herself, I do not. That means, someday the Bride and Groom from this wedding are going to be sitting down with friends and looking through their wedding album. The friends will most likely be people who don’t know who I am. At some point they will flip to that picture of me on the dance floor. The men will gasp, the women will cover their eyes and this is how I will be remembered. “The 57 Year Old Wedding Dancer.”