I was hanging out with some friends last night and I mentioned something I've been thinking about as I've listened to the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. My friends seemed to enjoy the analogy and I've never heard any news sources mentioning it so I thought I'd share it with the rest of you.
If the candidates were computers, Clinton would be a PC and Obama would be a Mac.
No elaboration, I think it's pretty self-explanatory and not to be taken seriously anyway.
(if the link below doesn't work, try here)
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
289. the Harold experiment
For those who read my blogger blog (I also mirror my posts on MySpace), I don't know if you've noticed, but I've started tagging some of my posts. One of the tags is called The Harold Experiment and those posts are all about my ex-coworker whom I code-named "Harold." I labeled it an "experiment" because after a while, that's how it felt.
(Brief synopsis - if you're up on the situation, feel free to skip this paragraph.) See, I work in a small, specialized department of a much larger warehouse where it's just me and Harold. Harold is difficult to work with. He's not efficient, he can't (doesn't) prioritize projects, has a very short temper, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say he's lazy...I take that back, he's pretty lazy. He's also not much of a team player - unless you consider dumping all of the hard work on your coworker (me) teamwork.
It would have been really easy on numerous occasions for me to have reported Harold to my supervisors, and it was hard not to but at some point I came to see our little specialized department as a kind of laboratory and my interactions with him as a kind of experiment. I mean, I didn't think of it that way at the time, but looking back on it, that's an apt way to put it. It was a test to see if living out the Gospel in the way I had come to understand it really worked.
See, I've done a lot of thinking in the last few years about what it really means to live as a christian. One of the ways of understanding the Gospel that has been key to me is the idea that being a christian means living now the way I would if the fall had never happened or the way I will after Christ returns and redeems all of creation. So my little experiment involved trying my best to work with Harold as if he was a kick-ass, hard driving uber-worker even though he was the opposite of that.
That meant I had to bite my tongue a lot. There were so many instances where I wanted to blow up at Harold, shove his shitty work habits back in his face but I didn't. When his lack of initiative left unfinished projects strewn about, instead of letting them slip past deadline and pointing towards Harold when asked who was to blame, I stepped in and finished them for him. There were even a couple of occasions where I flat out caught him taking shortcuts that were clearly breaking company rules but instead of reporting him, I just told him I knew what he was doing and asked him not to go there again (and to his credit, he never did...at least I never caught him doing it again).
I don't mean to paint myself as a saint in this situation. I bitched a lot about Harold to some of the other people I worked with and of course I've dished it out in this blog but honestly, I did the best I could. And it's not like I had anything like a holy or reverent attitude about this little experiment. Especially in the past few months, it felt stupid and pointless because no matter how many times I finished his projects or cleaned up his mistakes, he just kept being his slow and lazy and unorganized self.
You know, looking back on it now, I'm not sure what I expected to get out of this little experiment. I mean, I did my best to not think about how unfair the situation was, how little he was working, how his lack of consideration made my job more difficult that it had to be, but I don't know if I ever expected anything to change. I just did my best to soldier on and do the job as if working for the Lord and not for Leroy (code name for my supervisor). I did my best to be Jesus to Harold.
It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done. And it took its toll on me. In the last couple months, there have been times when I've been working in the racks and I found myself punching the shit out of some of the boxes. See, in the racks, boxes are stacked three high and three deep. Sometimes the file you need is buried back in the last set of boxes and when you try to get it out, boxes in adjacent stacks get in the way and so you have to push them aside to get the box you want out. Normally all you have to do is tap the offending box a bit to make room but there were times when a kind of rage took over and I would start slamming the box with my fist, over and over again, as hard as I could.
The scariest part of this is that these little rage episodes didn't always coincide with Harold pissing me off. Sometimes it would just be an ordinary day where Harold and I were working on different things and everything would be fine until I'd run across some small, insignificant situation and all of a sudden I'm overtaken by an urge to throw something across the room or kick in the side of a box. Not like me at all.
And I've only been working there for a year. Harold's been there for five years so maybe it's no wonder that he's the way he is. But then again, Harold never had to work with a Harold.
Anyway, this past Friday was my last day working with Harold because he has the next week off (my last week at work). Normally I don't like goodbyes but I was really looking forward to the end of Friday because I knew that was going to be the last time I'd ever have to work with him. The day goes by like any other - me working like a dog and Harold working like a tree but in the last few minutes, Harold motions me aside and while I can't remember the exact words, he says something like:
"Randall, I've learned a lot from you."
Now I'm thinking he's talking about some of the work flow things that I've developed to streamline the process of getting orders pulled and out on time but then he continues,
"your work ethic and the way you treat people, I've never seen anything like it before and it's taught me a lot and I want to thank you. I know I'm not the easiest person to work with but you've really shown me something and I'm going to try to use some of what I've seen in you. So thanks, and I hope things go well for you at your new job."
I don't know how I kept myself from fainting or just staring at him with a blank look of disbelief. Instead, I shook his hand, thanked him for his kind words and wished him the best as well. He then walked out of our department, clocked out, and went home.
I couldn't believe it. That was probably one of the most stunning things anyone has ever said to me. All this time I thought he wasn't paying any attention. I thought, if anything, he was just taking advantage of my drive.
Earlier that day, I had been thinking a bit about what I was going to say to Harold when he left. I knew I wasn't going to lie to him and say something like, "it was a pleasure working with you," because it wasn't. I didn't know what I was going to say to him, I figured I'd just come up with something when that time came around. Actually, to be honest, when I did think of Harold these past couple days, I was relishing the thought of all the workload that I'd been shouldering falling squarely on him. I mean, we are training someone to take my place but she's new and so if anything, she'll be a drag on his productivity. I imagined our department full of boxes that weren't getting put away, orders that weren't getting pulled on time or correctly. I imagined the CSRs and supervisors coming down hard on Harold and once all that pressure hit his notoriously short temper, I pictured some really volatile, explosive situations.
I felt pretty stupid and evil and guilty for these thoughts after what Harold said.
I thought my little experiment was a failure, that soldiering on despite Harold's sloth was fruitless and futile. I thought I was a dolt for not complaining when I had the chance. I thought I was just banging my head against a wall that wouldn't budge.
But what if during all this time when I thought I was firing blanks I was actually planting seeds?
Of course the cynical side of me says he's just talk - that he's going to remain his slow, unorganized self, that he's going to push the bulk of the work on the new trainee. But what if some change does occur? What if he's been watching me closer that I ever considered? What if God's somehow used me to upset his world-view, showing him that there is another way to live? I mean, he's not exactly an effusive guy. Something must have been on his mind for him to open up the way he did. He could have easily just said, "good bye and good luck."
I don't know. My head is still reeling from the shock of what he said. I don't know if I'll ever see him again. I gave him my number because earlier this week he had mentioned that he was going to use his week off to try and find a new place to live so I gave him my number and told him I'd help him move if he needed it. Maybe he'll call, maybe he won't.
I don't know what's in store for Harold and I'm still processing the results of this little "experiment," but a part of me wants to believe that God will grow this little seed and give Harold new life. He doesn't have to be his crusty old self, that's just the hard, ugly shell that sin has painted over him.
And I don't know if not reporting his poor work habits was really the best way to live out the Kingdom of God (something I define as doing your best to make wherever you are a bit more like Eden and less like Babylon in whatever way you can). One thing I completely failed to consider is the work situation for the person who would take my place. If Harold remains anything like he was when I worked for him then Newbie is in for a world of hurt. Perhaps if I had known that I was going to be resigning for a new job a few months ago I would have worked more purposely at getting Harold to clean up his act so that the next person wouldn't have to face the brunt of his poor work ethic.
Again, I don't know.
But here's one thing I do know. God used me to make an impression on Harold and I don't know what God has in store for him but I feel humbled and blessed that I got to play a part.
Perhaps you've heard the phrase attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary." A brief Google search turned up this link that suggests that it's not really something St. Francis said, but the story surrounding the quote is useful here so I'm going to use it anyway - because even fiction can be instructive (sometimes more so than the truth).
Story goes that St. Francis took a trip out to the local village with the members of his monastery. When asked why they were going, he told them they were going to preach the Gospel. Once in the village, St. Francis started assigning fellow monks to tasks like fixing roofs and broken fences, helping farmers haul bags of wheat, helping people haul water, sweeping and cleaning dirty streets. They spent their whole day just helping the villagers in whatever way they could.
Late in the afternoon, one of the monks asked St. Francis, "when are we going to start preaching?" And that's when he supposedly replied, "Preach the gospel always. Use words if necessary."
I share this story because I wonder if in my imperfect, clumsy way, I've been able to preach the Gospel to Harold. I never shared the Four Spiritual Laws with him or asked him to pray the Sinner's Prayer, and I don't know if I've ever told him flat out that I'm a christian but he knows I go to church and I hope I've been able to share Jesus with him through the way I've worked.
I don't know. My (ongoing) Layman's Theology series is all about a way of understanding the Gospel that has made christianity rich and meaningful for me and there are many areas of my life where I'm trying to figure out how to turn thought and theory into lifestyle and application. My little Harold experiment was a part of this exploration and, thanks be to God, it's returned a surprisingly positive result.
Further study needed to verify long term effects of experimental data but that's (literally) not my job.
(Brief synopsis - if you're up on the situation, feel free to skip this paragraph.) See, I work in a small, specialized department of a much larger warehouse where it's just me and Harold. Harold is difficult to work with. He's not efficient, he can't (doesn't) prioritize projects, has a very short temper, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say he's lazy...I take that back, he's pretty lazy. He's also not much of a team player - unless you consider dumping all of the hard work on your coworker (me) teamwork.
It would have been really easy on numerous occasions for me to have reported Harold to my supervisors, and it was hard not to but at some point I came to see our little specialized department as a kind of laboratory and my interactions with him as a kind of experiment. I mean, I didn't think of it that way at the time, but looking back on it, that's an apt way to put it. It was a test to see if living out the Gospel in the way I had come to understand it really worked.
See, I've done a lot of thinking in the last few years about what it really means to live as a christian. One of the ways of understanding the Gospel that has been key to me is the idea that being a christian means living now the way I would if the fall had never happened or the way I will after Christ returns and redeems all of creation. So my little experiment involved trying my best to work with Harold as if he was a kick-ass, hard driving uber-worker even though he was the opposite of that.
That meant I had to bite my tongue a lot. There were so many instances where I wanted to blow up at Harold, shove his shitty work habits back in his face but I didn't. When his lack of initiative left unfinished projects strewn about, instead of letting them slip past deadline and pointing towards Harold when asked who was to blame, I stepped in and finished them for him. There were even a couple of occasions where I flat out caught him taking shortcuts that were clearly breaking company rules but instead of reporting him, I just told him I knew what he was doing and asked him not to go there again (and to his credit, he never did...at least I never caught him doing it again).
I don't mean to paint myself as a saint in this situation. I bitched a lot about Harold to some of the other people I worked with and of course I've dished it out in this blog but honestly, I did the best I could. And it's not like I had anything like a holy or reverent attitude about this little experiment. Especially in the past few months, it felt stupid and pointless because no matter how many times I finished his projects or cleaned up his mistakes, he just kept being his slow and lazy and unorganized self.
You know, looking back on it now, I'm not sure what I expected to get out of this little experiment. I mean, I did my best to not think about how unfair the situation was, how little he was working, how his lack of consideration made my job more difficult that it had to be, but I don't know if I ever expected anything to change. I just did my best to soldier on and do the job as if working for the Lord and not for Leroy (code name for my supervisor). I did my best to be Jesus to Harold.
It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done. And it took its toll on me. In the last couple months, there have been times when I've been working in the racks and I found myself punching the shit out of some of the boxes. See, in the racks, boxes are stacked three high and three deep. Sometimes the file you need is buried back in the last set of boxes and when you try to get it out, boxes in adjacent stacks get in the way and so you have to push them aside to get the box you want out. Normally all you have to do is tap the offending box a bit to make room but there were times when a kind of rage took over and I would start slamming the box with my fist, over and over again, as hard as I could.
The scariest part of this is that these little rage episodes didn't always coincide with Harold pissing me off. Sometimes it would just be an ordinary day where Harold and I were working on different things and everything would be fine until I'd run across some small, insignificant situation and all of a sudden I'm overtaken by an urge to throw something across the room or kick in the side of a box. Not like me at all.
And I've only been working there for a year. Harold's been there for five years so maybe it's no wonder that he's the way he is. But then again, Harold never had to work with a Harold.
Anyway, this past Friday was my last day working with Harold because he has the next week off (my last week at work). Normally I don't like goodbyes but I was really looking forward to the end of Friday because I knew that was going to be the last time I'd ever have to work with him. The day goes by like any other - me working like a dog and Harold working like a tree but in the last few minutes, Harold motions me aside and while I can't remember the exact words, he says something like:
"Randall, I've learned a lot from you."
Now I'm thinking he's talking about some of the work flow things that I've developed to streamline the process of getting orders pulled and out on time but then he continues,
"your work ethic and the way you treat people, I've never seen anything like it before and it's taught me a lot and I want to thank you. I know I'm not the easiest person to work with but you've really shown me something and I'm going to try to use some of what I've seen in you. So thanks, and I hope things go well for you at your new job."
I don't know how I kept myself from fainting or just staring at him with a blank look of disbelief. Instead, I shook his hand, thanked him for his kind words and wished him the best as well. He then walked out of our department, clocked out, and went home.
I couldn't believe it. That was probably one of the most stunning things anyone has ever said to me. All this time I thought he wasn't paying any attention. I thought, if anything, he was just taking advantage of my drive.
Earlier that day, I had been thinking a bit about what I was going to say to Harold when he left. I knew I wasn't going to lie to him and say something like, "it was a pleasure working with you," because it wasn't. I didn't know what I was going to say to him, I figured I'd just come up with something when that time came around. Actually, to be honest, when I did think of Harold these past couple days, I was relishing the thought of all the workload that I'd been shouldering falling squarely on him. I mean, we are training someone to take my place but she's new and so if anything, she'll be a drag on his productivity. I imagined our department full of boxes that weren't getting put away, orders that weren't getting pulled on time or correctly. I imagined the CSRs and supervisors coming down hard on Harold and once all that pressure hit his notoriously short temper, I pictured some really volatile, explosive situations.
I felt pretty stupid and evil and guilty for these thoughts after what Harold said.
I thought my little experiment was a failure, that soldiering on despite Harold's sloth was fruitless and futile. I thought I was a dolt for not complaining when I had the chance. I thought I was just banging my head against a wall that wouldn't budge.
But what if during all this time when I thought I was firing blanks I was actually planting seeds?
Of course the cynical side of me says he's just talk - that he's going to remain his slow, unorganized self, that he's going to push the bulk of the work on the new trainee. But what if some change does occur? What if he's been watching me closer that I ever considered? What if God's somehow used me to upset his world-view, showing him that there is another way to live? I mean, he's not exactly an effusive guy. Something must have been on his mind for him to open up the way he did. He could have easily just said, "good bye and good luck."
I don't know. My head is still reeling from the shock of what he said. I don't know if I'll ever see him again. I gave him my number because earlier this week he had mentioned that he was going to use his week off to try and find a new place to live so I gave him my number and told him I'd help him move if he needed it. Maybe he'll call, maybe he won't.
I don't know what's in store for Harold and I'm still processing the results of this little "experiment," but a part of me wants to believe that God will grow this little seed and give Harold new life. He doesn't have to be his crusty old self, that's just the hard, ugly shell that sin has painted over him.
And I don't know if not reporting his poor work habits was really the best way to live out the Kingdom of God (something I define as doing your best to make wherever you are a bit more like Eden and less like Babylon in whatever way you can). One thing I completely failed to consider is the work situation for the person who would take my place. If Harold remains anything like he was when I worked for him then Newbie is in for a world of hurt. Perhaps if I had known that I was going to be resigning for a new job a few months ago I would have worked more purposely at getting Harold to clean up his act so that the next person wouldn't have to face the brunt of his poor work ethic.
Again, I don't know.
But here's one thing I do know. God used me to make an impression on Harold and I don't know what God has in store for him but I feel humbled and blessed that I got to play a part.
Perhaps you've heard the phrase attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary." A brief Google search turned up this link that suggests that it's not really something St. Francis said, but the story surrounding the quote is useful here so I'm going to use it anyway - because even fiction can be instructive (sometimes more so than the truth).
Story goes that St. Francis took a trip out to the local village with the members of his monastery. When asked why they were going, he told them they were going to preach the Gospel. Once in the village, St. Francis started assigning fellow monks to tasks like fixing roofs and broken fences, helping farmers haul bags of wheat, helping people haul water, sweeping and cleaning dirty streets. They spent their whole day just helping the villagers in whatever way they could.
Late in the afternoon, one of the monks asked St. Francis, "when are we going to start preaching?" And that's when he supposedly replied, "Preach the gospel always. Use words if necessary."
I share this story because I wonder if in my imperfect, clumsy way, I've been able to preach the Gospel to Harold. I never shared the Four Spiritual Laws with him or asked him to pray the Sinner's Prayer, and I don't know if I've ever told him flat out that I'm a christian but he knows I go to church and I hope I've been able to share Jesus with him through the way I've worked.
I don't know. My (ongoing) Layman's Theology series is all about a way of understanding the Gospel that has made christianity rich and meaningful for me and there are many areas of my life where I'm trying to figure out how to turn thought and theory into lifestyle and application. My little Harold experiment was a part of this exploration and, thanks be to God, it's returned a surprisingly positive result.
Further study needed to verify long term effects of experimental data but that's (literally) not my job.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
(preview) new job
[preface]
Yeah, I got a new job and I have a lot on my mind about my old job...but I'm going to wait until I'm officially out of my old position before posting my thoughts. Call me paranoid, but I just don't want to risk being fired for insubordination because of something I post here (how's that for a teaser).
So here's the first few paragraphs of a much longer entry, the rest of which will be posted in two weeks.
[end preface]
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
The righteous may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers them from them all;
Psalm 34:18-19
Well, I don't know if I would go so far as to call myself righteous, but I certainly feel as one who has been delivered.
So some of you know this already, but I recently got a new job! I gave my two weeks notice at my current job on Monday and I wouldn't call it was bittersweet because it was all sweet. Though now that I think about it, my supervisor looked kind of bitter after I told him I was leaving...
Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what my new job will entail but based on the interview with and tour of the company I had last week, it will be nothing like my old job. They told me some aspects of the job can get tedious and boring. I told them I've been stacking boxes for over a year now - nothing they can throw at me can come close to matching the monotony that was my old job. I'll be working for a tech company that has some really impressive voice recognition products that end up being used in in-car GPS navigation units and smart phones and probably lots of other places that I don't know about yet. Honestly, I still can't believe they offered me a position. Almost everyone there has a degree either in programming or electrical engineering. I have a degree in English Literature.
I have to give credit where credit is due and so big ups to George (who asked me to send him a copy of my resume) and Aaron (who got my resume from George and ran it by his boss...and I know he vouched for me so double thanks there). A few months ago, I wrote about how I was a part of a huge church renovation project. Most of the work I did there was with the church's new audio system and a lot of that work was done alongside George and Aaron. It was a lot of sweaty, dirty, sometimes intricate work but it paid off - the new sound system is bangin' and I can't help but think that seeing my work ethic firsthand made Aaron's pitch for my position to his boss that much more effective. Who says volunteering doesn't pay?
Yeah, I got a new job and I have a lot on my mind about my old job...but I'm going to wait until I'm officially out of my old position before posting my thoughts. Call me paranoid, but I just don't want to risk being fired for insubordination because of something I post here (how's that for a teaser).
So here's the first few paragraphs of a much longer entry, the rest of which will be posted in two weeks.
[end preface]
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
The righteous may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers them from them all;
Psalm 34:18-19
Well, I don't know if I would go so far as to call myself righteous, but I certainly feel as one who has been delivered.
So some of you know this already, but I recently got a new job! I gave my two weeks notice at my current job on Monday and I wouldn't call it was bittersweet because it was all sweet. Though now that I think about it, my supervisor looked kind of bitter after I told him I was leaving...
Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what my new job will entail but based on the interview with and tour of the company I had last week, it will be nothing like my old job. They told me some aspects of the job can get tedious and boring. I told them I've been stacking boxes for over a year now - nothing they can throw at me can come close to matching the monotony that was my old job. I'll be working for a tech company that has some really impressive voice recognition products that end up being used in in-car GPS navigation units and smart phones and probably lots of other places that I don't know about yet. Honestly, I still can't believe they offered me a position. Almost everyone there has a degree either in programming or electrical engineering. I have a degree in English Literature.
I have to give credit where credit is due and so big ups to George (who asked me to send him a copy of my resume) and Aaron (who got my resume from George and ran it by his boss...and I know he vouched for me so double thanks there). A few months ago, I wrote about how I was a part of a huge church renovation project. Most of the work I did there was with the church's new audio system and a lot of that work was done alongside George and Aaron. It was a lot of sweaty, dirty, sometimes intricate work but it paid off - the new sound system is bangin' and I can't help but think that seeing my work ethic firsthand made Aaron's pitch for my position to his boss that much more effective. Who says volunteering doesn't pay?
Thursday, January 03, 2008
288. just a couple little links...
Last week's post took a lot out of me. I deserve a break.
Oh, and in the comments section, of my pastor's blog, he said some nice things about my blog then (not so) subtly said I write too much, likening my posts to "novels."
It's all good because I know I ramble on and on. When I write, I make it up as I go along - I seldom (if ever) have what I'm going to say planned out. Words spill onto the page and while I try and do some minor editing (thanks for pointing out that spelling error, Nate), I pretty much just leave posts as I originally wrote them.
When I go back and read my old posts, it's obvious there's a lot of fat that could be trimmed but by that time, I'm sure nobody's reading those old entries so tinkering with them would be of no practical use.
So to give myself a break (and to keep this post to short-story length), let me just share a link to one of the funniest, most interesting blogs I've seen in a long time:
Local Girl's day in pictures
And if you haven't seen it already, Blogger has a feature called Blogger Play where (as I understand it) it takes photos that have been uploaded to Blogger blogs and places them randomly into a never-ending slideshow. It's hypnotic and fascinating. It's kind of like people watching but on a global scale.
http://play.blogger.com/
Enjoy.
Oh, and in the comments section, of my pastor's blog, he said some nice things about my blog then (not so) subtly said I write too much, likening my posts to "novels."
It's all good because I know I ramble on and on. When I write, I make it up as I go along - I seldom (if ever) have what I'm going to say planned out. Words spill onto the page and while I try and do some minor editing (thanks for pointing out that spelling error, Nate), I pretty much just leave posts as I originally wrote them.
When I go back and read my old posts, it's obvious there's a lot of fat that could be trimmed but by that time, I'm sure nobody's reading those old entries so tinkering with them would be of no practical use.
So to give myself a break (and to keep this post to short-story length), let me just share a link to one of the funniest, most interesting blogs I've seen in a long time:
Local Girl's day in pictures
And if you haven't seen it already, Blogger has a feature called Blogger Play where (as I understand it) it takes photos that have been uploaded to Blogger blogs and places them randomly into a never-ending slideshow. It's hypnotic and fascinating. It's kind of like people watching but on a global scale.
http://play.blogger.com/
Enjoy.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
287. thoughts on the trajectory of the Bible
[preface]
How's that for a fun, provocative title?
When I first started my Layman's Theology Series, I originally planned on starting with foundational ideas like salvation and communion and then work my way up to some really big, crazy, likely controversial thoughts I've been having recently about God and the Bible and christianity.
And there are still some basic tenets that I want to write about like sin and prayer and worship, but I can't wait anymore and I want to fast forward to get some of the more crazy ideas out before I forget about them or get too scared to put them up.
I think most of what I've written before about my take on theological ideas has been well within the realm of orthodoxy - the ideas were gleaned from books I'd already read by authors like Brian McLaren, Anne Lamott, N.T. Wright, Lauren F. Winner, and others.
But I've never read anything like what I'm going to share below. It may have been hinted at and that's probably where I got the idea, but still, it feels a bit scary to post because I'm not one to just speculate wildly about the nature of God because, well, God is GOD, you know?
As always, I'd love to hear from you - what do you think, am I completely off in left field on this one?
[end preface]
So one of the things that's always puzzled me about the Bible is, if God doesn't change, then why does he seem so mean and mad in the Old Testament and so warm and full of grace and love in the New Testament?
Well what if God seems to change between the OT and the NT not because he is different but because society and social systems changed and so the way he related to them changed?
The best way to explain this idea is to think of parenting. The way parents treat and relate to an infant is far different than the way they behave when their son/daughter is a teenager or when they become an adult. And this is understandable because the needs and abilities of their kids change as they age. More and different responsibilities are relinquished to them as they are able to handle them.
What if the same thing is happening between the end of the OT and the beginning of the NT? Think about the nation of Israel back when Abraham and Sarah gave birth to it. It was helpless and small and undefined. Israel was very much like an infant at this point. Then think of the Exodus - the wandering in the desert and the complaining and the time when Israel entered the promised land. This could be seen as the early adolescence of Israel when it tested boundaries and struggled to find its identity. The rest of the OT can be seen as Israel's late adolescence and early adulthood where it was trying to find meaning and purpose while sometimes shirking responsibilities and suffering the consequences.
Now think of the way God interacted with Israel during these periods. During this formative time, God was pretty hands-on and brutal because he had to be because perhaps the young nation of Israel needed this kind of discipline and guidance.
Take the OT dietary and cleanliness laws (Leviticus 11 and on). On a pragmatic level, what if they were there to keep the Israelites from getting food poisoning and keeping them sanitary? I mean, think about it. They didn't know anything about microbes or how diseases spread the same way a young person doesn't know that fire burns or that too much candy leads to indigestion and bad teeth. Because they don't know any better, we grab kids' arms away from the flame and hide treats up where they can't get to them. And they don't get it - they think we're being cruel and arbitrary. When they grow and come to understand why we've kept things from them, we let them restrain themselves.
This idea could help explain why God loosened up on the dietary laws in the NT (Acts 10:9-16). What if his change took place because enough was known about how to properly handle and cook meats?
I don't know nearly enough about culinary customs of the time so I have no idea if this way of looking at dietary laws holds any water, so maybe that's a bad example. How about this one.
The heavy-handed nature of God in the OT can be likened to old-school parenting. I'm talking spankings and no-TV, no-phone, no-internet groundings style parenting. Children need discipline and because they can't understand the long-term consequences (growing up to be an asshole) of bad behavior, a firm hand is needed to keep them in line.
Think about the early years of Israel. Before being delivered from Egypt, they didn't have any kind of governmental structure, they didn't have written laws, and little in the way of customs - basically, no culture. In a way, the only defining characteristic of the people of Israel was circumcision. That sounds to me like a pretty wooly, loosly organized band of people - hardly the stuff out of which to birth a nation.
So God intervenes and literally lays down the law. The Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) are where God lays down rules and customs for the people of Israel. And there are lots of them and if your use your imagination, doesn't it read a bit like a parents laying down the rules of the house and chores for their children?
But kids don't like to follow rules or do chores so a firm hand is required to impose order. This need for parents to be firm helps me understand the way God acted out the way he did during the Exodus where over and over again, he comes down hard on the Israelites. For example, there's this episode where the people of Israel are tired of eating manna day after day (forgetting that manna was a gift, appearing miraculously every morning) and they yearn for the taste of meat (Numbers11:4-35). And God gives it to them along with a plague that killed many - the story seems to suggest that it was the ones who complained about wanting meat that died there.
And there are lots of stories like this in the OT.
Maybe this picture of God violates our modern sense of justice and compassion because the punishment seems excessive in the extreme but the brutal fact of the matter is that the birthing of a nation is a messy, bloody, painful process (take a look at any political revolution of the past century). For me, reframing God's heavy hand as the discipline of a loving parent towards an unruly, young nation helps me see the Bible as a seamless work rather than one that portrays two different, unreconcilable Gods.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Fast forward a couple hundred years or so and we see the birth of Christ. By this time, Israel is a fully fledged nation (albeit, one that is under the thumb of the Romans). They have a robust culture and identity as well as social structures that do their best to keep everything in line. But they seem to have forgotten something. Perhaps afraid of invoking the wrath of God, they have become all about following the law. They have forgotten that they were called to be a blessing to all nations.
And so Jesus enters the scene to remind them. But because Israel is older and wiser now, the reminder comes not in the form of fire and brimstone but as a man who walked around, healed people, and challenged religious leaders.
Once a child becomes an adult - gets a job, starts making his/her own decisions, takes responsibility for their mistakes - the relationship between parent and child becomes less top down and becomes more peer to peer or mentor to mentee. The parents will always be older and have more life experience and so retains the right to offer guidance and advice but when advice is not heeded, it's allowed to happen - they don't get out the old spanking paddle.
And that's how I see the move from the OT to the NT. It's not that God changed, he just changed the way he related to his people - a shift that occurs because of the "maturity" of the nation of Israel.
Well one might object, what about the NT story where God strikes down a couple in the early church after they lie about how much of their possessions they donated (Acts 5:1-11)? Well I see the same parallels I outlined earlier. Just as the early, less organized nation of Israel needed a more firm hand from God, the early, less organized church needed to be reminded that this was a serious business they were involved in. And to my knowledge, it's the only story in the NT of people being struck down like this for sinning.
Of course the parenting metaphor is not a tight fit. I only use it to provide a kind of framework to talk about why God seems so different between the OT and the NT, but why do I do this? Why do I try to justify and make sense of God's behavior? Is there a point to this or is this just some intellectual exercise?
The reason I share these ideas is because for me, they help make the Bible real and relevant for today. Because if God changes the way he relates and reveals himself to his people based on how they are able to receive him, then this shift continues today and we need to be sensitive to and aware of and looking for the way that God is relating to us as we are here and now.
See, some christians are still trying to experience God as he expressed himself in the Old and New Testaments. They want to see healings happen, they want to hear the taingible, audible voice of God, they want radical intervention. And let me say now before I get flamed that I don't discount such desires - I do believe God still heals and that he does choose to express himself more palpably to some people - but I also think that in general, God is choosing to relate to us today in a different way than he did even in the NT.
Why? Because we as a society have grown and changed and matured.
Here's what I mean. Some christians lament the fact that God doesn't seem to be healing people the way he did in the Bible but here's what I think. I think God has given us the gift of medicine and science and he is waiting for us to use these gifts to bring healing to the sick, the poor, and the needy.
I have a friend (let's call him D) who used to live in Hawaii who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Now this is a guy who has experienced big miracles in his life. For example, when he first moved to Hawaii, he didn't have a car and started praying for one. Lo and behold, someone walks up to him after church that week and says to him, "God told me you needed transportation so here are the keys to my old car." But that's not the crazy part. See, D drives this car around for a week and discovers that it's a piece of shit. So he gives it back to the guy saying, "I don't think this is the car God has for me." Then a couple weeks later, someone else from the church gives him a car - this time an old (but fully functioning) Cadillac!
I share that story to show that this is a guy who's not unfamiliar with God's provision. So last year he gets diagnosed with a brain tumor and the prayer chain goes into overdrive. He's got lots of Pentecostal-type friends so they pray for radical intervention and complete healing but that doesn't happen. He has an operation and recovers completely. But he didn't have medical insurance so he got stuck with a mega-buck bill from the hospital. However, donations and support checks start appearing from friends and long story short, he's able to cover all medical costs.
The point I'm trying to make is that maybe a hundred years ago, prayers for God to heal D's tumor would have been answered because there was no other way for D to survive but now that the technology is available, God let the tumor remain so that he could let the church step up and provide the financial support D needed for the operation.
Today, I think that praying for medical miracles in cases where there are already treatments available is like an adult asking his parents to continue giving him an allowance instead of getting a job using the college education that his parents paid for.
Let me try and say this another way.
Take a look at this bit from John 14:11-14:
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Some look at verse 12 and conclude that by doing "even greater things than these," Jesus meant that christians will be able to heal the sick and the blind and the possessed. And Jesus does mean that, but not necessarily in the sense of laying hands on a lame person and seeing his/her legs instantly made well again. What if by "greater things" he was referring to modern advances in prosthetics technology and the opportunity to help victims of land-mines in places like Cambodia and Afghanistan and Burma?
Maybe that isn't as sexy as a flesh and bone healing but while some christians are waiting on God to provide healing power, I would argue that God is actually waiting on us to use the knowledge and technology that he's already given us.
Because some still expect an OT/NT God, they point fingers at him when he doesn't provide relief in Indonesia or New Orleans or Sudan. What we don't see is God pointing his finger back at the excesses of Las Vegas, at outrageous CEO salaries and corporate profits, at all the money our government is throwing at the war in Iraq. More ominously, God is pointing his finger at mega-church ministries that fly their pastors around in church-owned lear jets and provide $23,000 commodes (NPR story).
To finish off the parenting analogy, I believe that today in these modern, technological, scientific times, our society can be likened to a highly skilled adult and maybe God seems to be more hands-off today because he wants to see what we will do with the skills he's blessed us with. As a social species, he's moved us through birth, adolescence, young-adulthood and now that we are older, wiser, and better able to navigate this tricky planet, God wants to see what we will do.
The resources exist today to eradicate diseases like malaria and tuberculosis that are still ravaging developing countries. It would take a fraction of the current military budget in the US to provide clean water and sanitation for the 1.1 billion without it (2000 WHO report). Can't get your head around a number that big? The UN estimates that the global population topped 6 billion in October of 1999. That means about one in six people on this planet do not have access to clean, safe water. Think of six of your closest friends. Now pick one of them and contaminate his/her lifetime water supply with parasites, pesticides, and industrial waste chemicals. Then watch them waste away while you go on with your own comfortable life.
I mention the problem of clean water because I'm excited about something that my pastor is working on. He's blogged recently about a non-profit that he wants to set up and while I'm not exactly sure what it is yet, it seems to be exactly the kind of work that pastors and churches should be doing - helping to redeploy the gifts that God has blessed us and our country with to those truly in need.
Not to dis on any others, but my church is the bomb, yo.
Here's the deal.
It's easy to read the headlines and to be overwhelmed by all of the problems out there. But those problems aren't the problem. The solutions to those problems exist today, now. The problem is $25,000 desserts, perfumes that retail for $2,150 an ounce, a military budget that is looking to spend $439.3 billion this year (that's about 1.3 billion per day) - a fact that wouldn't be so bad (because defense is a priority) if the money were being used wisely but sadly, it isn't (warning, this story will make your blood boil).
God is not aloof or ambivalent. He wants desperately to take loving care of this world he's created and the people he's populated it with but he's not going to go in and fix things - not when we already have what we need to fix them ourselves. The reading of the Bible that I'm putting forward suggests a trajectory where God is placing more and more responsibility and expectation on us as we are able to handle it. Again, not because he's lazy or doesn't care but just as a parent of talented children wants to see them thrive with the talents they have, I picture God in anxious expectation just waiting to see the "greater things" that we will do with the resources he has equipped us with.
But he's not going to wait forever.
How's that for a fun, provocative title?
When I first started my Layman's Theology Series, I originally planned on starting with foundational ideas like salvation and communion and then work my way up to some really big, crazy, likely controversial thoughts I've been having recently about God and the Bible and christianity.
And there are still some basic tenets that I want to write about like sin and prayer and worship, but I can't wait anymore and I want to fast forward to get some of the more crazy ideas out before I forget about them or get too scared to put them up.
I think most of what I've written before about my take on theological ideas has been well within the realm of orthodoxy - the ideas were gleaned from books I'd already read by authors like Brian McLaren, Anne Lamott, N.T. Wright, Lauren F. Winner, and others.
But I've never read anything like what I'm going to share below. It may have been hinted at and that's probably where I got the idea, but still, it feels a bit scary to post because I'm not one to just speculate wildly about the nature of God because, well, God is GOD, you know?
As always, I'd love to hear from you - what do you think, am I completely off in left field on this one?
[end preface]
So one of the things that's always puzzled me about the Bible is, if God doesn't change, then why does he seem so mean and mad in the Old Testament and so warm and full of grace and love in the New Testament?
Well what if God seems to change between the OT and the NT not because he is different but because society and social systems changed and so the way he related to them changed?
The best way to explain this idea is to think of parenting. The way parents treat and relate to an infant is far different than the way they behave when their son/daughter is a teenager or when they become an adult. And this is understandable because the needs and abilities of their kids change as they age. More and different responsibilities are relinquished to them as they are able to handle them.
What if the same thing is happening between the end of the OT and the beginning of the NT? Think about the nation of Israel back when Abraham and Sarah gave birth to it. It was helpless and small and undefined. Israel was very much like an infant at this point. Then think of the Exodus - the wandering in the desert and the complaining and the time when Israel entered the promised land. This could be seen as the early adolescence of Israel when it tested boundaries and struggled to find its identity. The rest of the OT can be seen as Israel's late adolescence and early adulthood where it was trying to find meaning and purpose while sometimes shirking responsibilities and suffering the consequences.
Now think of the way God interacted with Israel during these periods. During this formative time, God was pretty hands-on and brutal because he had to be because perhaps the young nation of Israel needed this kind of discipline and guidance.
Take the OT dietary and cleanliness laws (Leviticus 11 and on). On a pragmatic level, what if they were there to keep the Israelites from getting food poisoning and keeping them sanitary? I mean, think about it. They didn't know anything about microbes or how diseases spread the same way a young person doesn't know that fire burns or that too much candy leads to indigestion and bad teeth. Because they don't know any better, we grab kids' arms away from the flame and hide treats up where they can't get to them. And they don't get it - they think we're being cruel and arbitrary. When they grow and come to understand why we've kept things from them, we let them restrain themselves.
This idea could help explain why God loosened up on the dietary laws in the NT (Acts 10:9-16). What if his change took place because enough was known about how to properly handle and cook meats?
I don't know nearly enough about culinary customs of the time so I have no idea if this way of looking at dietary laws holds any water, so maybe that's a bad example. How about this one.
The heavy-handed nature of God in the OT can be likened to old-school parenting. I'm talking spankings and no-TV, no-phone, no-internet groundings style parenting. Children need discipline and because they can't understand the long-term consequences (growing up to be an asshole) of bad behavior, a firm hand is needed to keep them in line.
Think about the early years of Israel. Before being delivered from Egypt, they didn't have any kind of governmental structure, they didn't have written laws, and little in the way of customs - basically, no culture. In a way, the only defining characteristic of the people of Israel was circumcision. That sounds to me like a pretty wooly, loosly organized band of people - hardly the stuff out of which to birth a nation.
So God intervenes and literally lays down the law. The Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) are where God lays down rules and customs for the people of Israel. And there are lots of them and if your use your imagination, doesn't it read a bit like a parents laying down the rules of the house and chores for their children?
But kids don't like to follow rules or do chores so a firm hand is required to impose order. This need for parents to be firm helps me understand the way God acted out the way he did during the Exodus where over and over again, he comes down hard on the Israelites. For example, there's this episode where the people of Israel are tired of eating manna day after day (forgetting that manna was a gift, appearing miraculously every morning) and they yearn for the taste of meat (Numbers11:4-35). And God gives it to them along with a plague that killed many - the story seems to suggest that it was the ones who complained about wanting meat that died there.
And there are lots of stories like this in the OT.
Maybe this picture of God violates our modern sense of justice and compassion because the punishment seems excessive in the extreme but the brutal fact of the matter is that the birthing of a nation is a messy, bloody, painful process (take a look at any political revolution of the past century). For me, reframing God's heavy hand as the discipline of a loving parent towards an unruly, young nation helps me see the Bible as a seamless work rather than one that portrays two different, unreconcilable Gods.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Fast forward a couple hundred years or so and we see the birth of Christ. By this time, Israel is a fully fledged nation (albeit, one that is under the thumb of the Romans). They have a robust culture and identity as well as social structures that do their best to keep everything in line. But they seem to have forgotten something. Perhaps afraid of invoking the wrath of God, they have become all about following the law. They have forgotten that they were called to be a blessing to all nations.
And so Jesus enters the scene to remind them. But because Israel is older and wiser now, the reminder comes not in the form of fire and brimstone but as a man who walked around, healed people, and challenged religious leaders.
Once a child becomes an adult - gets a job, starts making his/her own decisions, takes responsibility for their mistakes - the relationship between parent and child becomes less top down and becomes more peer to peer or mentor to mentee. The parents will always be older and have more life experience and so retains the right to offer guidance and advice but when advice is not heeded, it's allowed to happen - they don't get out the old spanking paddle.
And that's how I see the move from the OT to the NT. It's not that God changed, he just changed the way he related to his people - a shift that occurs because of the "maturity" of the nation of Israel.
Well one might object, what about the NT story where God strikes down a couple in the early church after they lie about how much of their possessions they donated (Acts 5:1-11)? Well I see the same parallels I outlined earlier. Just as the early, less organized nation of Israel needed a more firm hand from God, the early, less organized church needed to be reminded that this was a serious business they were involved in. And to my knowledge, it's the only story in the NT of people being struck down like this for sinning.
Of course the parenting metaphor is not a tight fit. I only use it to provide a kind of framework to talk about why God seems so different between the OT and the NT, but why do I do this? Why do I try to justify and make sense of God's behavior? Is there a point to this or is this just some intellectual exercise?
The reason I share these ideas is because for me, they help make the Bible real and relevant for today. Because if God changes the way he relates and reveals himself to his people based on how they are able to receive him, then this shift continues today and we need to be sensitive to and aware of and looking for the way that God is relating to us as we are here and now.
See, some christians are still trying to experience God as he expressed himself in the Old and New Testaments. They want to see healings happen, they want to hear the taingible, audible voice of God, they want radical intervention. And let me say now before I get flamed that I don't discount such desires - I do believe God still heals and that he does choose to express himself more palpably to some people - but I also think that in general, God is choosing to relate to us today in a different way than he did even in the NT.
Why? Because we as a society have grown and changed and matured.
Here's what I mean. Some christians lament the fact that God doesn't seem to be healing people the way he did in the Bible but here's what I think. I think God has given us the gift of medicine and science and he is waiting for us to use these gifts to bring healing to the sick, the poor, and the needy.
I have a friend (let's call him D) who used to live in Hawaii who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Now this is a guy who has experienced big miracles in his life. For example, when he first moved to Hawaii, he didn't have a car and started praying for one. Lo and behold, someone walks up to him after church that week and says to him, "God told me you needed transportation so here are the keys to my old car." But that's not the crazy part. See, D drives this car around for a week and discovers that it's a piece of shit. So he gives it back to the guy saying, "I don't think this is the car God has for me." Then a couple weeks later, someone else from the church gives him a car - this time an old (but fully functioning) Cadillac!
I share that story to show that this is a guy who's not unfamiliar with God's provision. So last year he gets diagnosed with a brain tumor and the prayer chain goes into overdrive. He's got lots of Pentecostal-type friends so they pray for radical intervention and complete healing but that doesn't happen. He has an operation and recovers completely. But he didn't have medical insurance so he got stuck with a mega-buck bill from the hospital. However, donations and support checks start appearing from friends and long story short, he's able to cover all medical costs.
The point I'm trying to make is that maybe a hundred years ago, prayers for God to heal D's tumor would have been answered because there was no other way for D to survive but now that the technology is available, God let the tumor remain so that he could let the church step up and provide the financial support D needed for the operation.
Today, I think that praying for medical miracles in cases where there are already treatments available is like an adult asking his parents to continue giving him an allowance instead of getting a job using the college education that his parents paid for.
Let me try and say this another way.
Take a look at this bit from John 14:11-14:
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Some look at verse 12 and conclude that by doing "even greater things than these," Jesus meant that christians will be able to heal the sick and the blind and the possessed. And Jesus does mean that, but not necessarily in the sense of laying hands on a lame person and seeing his/her legs instantly made well again. What if by "greater things" he was referring to modern advances in prosthetics technology and the opportunity to help victims of land-mines in places like Cambodia and Afghanistan and Burma?
Maybe that isn't as sexy as a flesh and bone healing but while some christians are waiting on God to provide healing power, I would argue that God is actually waiting on us to use the knowledge and technology that he's already given us.
Because some still expect an OT/NT God, they point fingers at him when he doesn't provide relief in Indonesia or New Orleans or Sudan. What we don't see is God pointing his finger back at the excesses of Las Vegas, at outrageous CEO salaries and corporate profits, at all the money our government is throwing at the war in Iraq. More ominously, God is pointing his finger at mega-church ministries that fly their pastors around in church-owned lear jets and provide $23,000 commodes (NPR story).
To finish off the parenting analogy, I believe that today in these modern, technological, scientific times, our society can be likened to a highly skilled adult and maybe God seems to be more hands-off today because he wants to see what we will do with the skills he's blessed us with. As a social species, he's moved us through birth, adolescence, young-adulthood and now that we are older, wiser, and better able to navigate this tricky planet, God wants to see what we will do.
The resources exist today to eradicate diseases like malaria and tuberculosis that are still ravaging developing countries. It would take a fraction of the current military budget in the US to provide clean water and sanitation for the 1.1 billion without it (2000 WHO report). Can't get your head around a number that big? The UN estimates that the global population topped 6 billion in October of 1999. That means about one in six people on this planet do not have access to clean, safe water. Think of six of your closest friends. Now pick one of them and contaminate his/her lifetime water supply with parasites, pesticides, and industrial waste chemicals. Then watch them waste away while you go on with your own comfortable life.
I mention the problem of clean water because I'm excited about something that my pastor is working on. He's blogged recently about a non-profit that he wants to set up and while I'm not exactly sure what it is yet, it seems to be exactly the kind of work that pastors and churches should be doing - helping to redeploy the gifts that God has blessed us and our country with to those truly in need.
Not to dis on any others, but my church is the bomb, yo.
Here's the deal.
It's easy to read the headlines and to be overwhelmed by all of the problems out there. But those problems aren't the problem. The solutions to those problems exist today, now. The problem is $25,000 desserts, perfumes that retail for $2,150 an ounce, a military budget that is looking to spend $439.3 billion this year (that's about 1.3 billion per day) - a fact that wouldn't be so bad (because defense is a priority) if the money were being used wisely but sadly, it isn't (warning, this story will make your blood boil).
God is not aloof or ambivalent. He wants desperately to take loving care of this world he's created and the people he's populated it with but he's not going to go in and fix things - not when we already have what we need to fix them ourselves. The reading of the Bible that I'm putting forward suggests a trajectory where God is placing more and more responsibility and expectation on us as we are able to handle it. Again, not because he's lazy or doesn't care but just as a parent of talented children wants to see them thrive with the talents they have, I picture God in anxious expectation just waiting to see the "greater things" that we will do with the resources he has equipped us with.
But he's not going to wait forever.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
286. just a little something for Chrismas
Thanks, one and all for reading. Honestly, if it weren't for the trickle of hits I get on my Site Meter counter (as well as the fact that people start complaining if I don't put anything up for a while), I don't know if I'd write as much...or at all.
And so this is for you who put up with my inconsistent writing and my potty mouth and my excuses. It's a poem by Allison Smythe (I hope she doesn't mind that I'm posting this). It's about searching...and I won't say too much about what it's about because that takes half the fun out of enjoying poetry.
Maybe this is an odd poem to share at Christmas, but I guess I chose it because the words she uses and the way she deploys them are just so beautiful. It reminds me of what I love about writing: words. And maybe for some that seems to be an odd thing to say but I really do love words. They're so much fun to play with.
Take a word like "obfuscate" which means to "render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible," (from the Mac Dictionary). Just pronouncing the word obfuscate makes your mouth work, twisting your tongue and lips into odd, uncomfortable shapes. And just look at the word - all those odd consonants and vowels jumbled together. The way the word sounds and even the way it looks perfectly conveys its meaning. That is a kick ass word!
And I love how a word that normally means one thing can be used in an unexpected way or in an unexpected context and it still makes sense - you know exactly what it's trying to say.
At my church, the sound equipment is located in a tiny loft that is only accessible by a retractable ladder. I usually run sound at the 5PM evening service so I use the ladder quite a bit. Well recently, I'd been noticing that the piece of wood that the ladder was attached to seemed to be pulling out and I was worried about something going awry (that's another great word). I shared my concerns with leadership and they had some people look at it and they said that the problem was merely a cosmetic one - that the box to which the ladder is attached is secure and sturdy. But to ease my concerns, they added some reinforcement and that put my fears to rest.
I share this story because when the engineer took a look at the ladder and said he was going to add reinforcement, the word he used was "beef," as in, "I'm going to add some beef up there." And even though he wasn't going to lather the anchor point in hamburger meat, I instantly knew what he meant. I love that about our language.
And one last brilliant example before I get to the poem.
Take a look at this line by one of my favorite singer/songwriters, the late great Kristy MacColl (two links there):
"But I'm not crazy, no I'm just mad. . ."
That's genius right there, even out of the context of the rest of the song. It's brilliant because in that line, the word "bad" means two different things (mad as in angry or mad as in insane) and the fact that the line makes sense both ways gets you that much more in the head of the character in the song.
The English language is just so much delicious fun.
"Hunt the Thimble" by Allison Smythe
That game we played as kids:
You're getting warm. . . warmer. . . warmer. . . hot!
maneuvering as if by remote control for the hidden
thing -- someone's red sock, lollipop, or secret
note, knowing the hunt was richer than the prize.
It's not so simple now if it ever was
simple, the universe as we have known it
inflating in theories of everything.
Hints lie everywhere like feathers
in a chicken coop, scattering just as you
bend to pick one up. God, the child's
game, with all his halls of doors.
It started with a word
in a language that never was and every stab
at translation in our currency of morning
and night, of skinned knees and long departures
slants a bit of the original intent and thus complicates
the game. Maybe it's all the concrete under
our feet or that mountains eventually hitchhike
to the sea or that I haven't read every book
not yet written that makes time something that needs
to be found and cut loose from space; perhaps
there is something like light that we have
not yet detected but can't stop looking
for and the one who hid it laughing
because there is always another door
cold. . . colder. . . colder
and the hider always has the most fun.
You know, it struck me while copying this poem, how apropos it is for this month of December. It's been a great year overall but this month has been difficult and not just because of Christmas. I know of at least three friends at my church who have lost loved ones this month and I know there have been others at my church who have suffered the same. Just in this month.
And honestly, even for myself, it's been a hard month. Writing that post a few weeks ago about love - it made me face some uncomfortable realities in my own life and even though I like to think that my life is on a pretty even keel overall, I wonder if I'm just ignoring the hidden rot underneath.
And even though that poem seems to end on a dour note, there is (THERE IS!) "something like light" to be found even as we stumble towards and away from it. And to bring it all, clumsily, back to Christmas, isn't that what Advent is all about? The fact that Light came into the darkness via a baby in a manger to show us the way. And this Light remains.
Merry Christmas, all.
And so this is for you who put up with my inconsistent writing and my potty mouth and my excuses. It's a poem by Allison Smythe (I hope she doesn't mind that I'm posting this). It's about searching...and I won't say too much about what it's about because that takes half the fun out of enjoying poetry.
Maybe this is an odd poem to share at Christmas, but I guess I chose it because the words she uses and the way she deploys them are just so beautiful. It reminds me of what I love about writing: words. And maybe for some that seems to be an odd thing to say but I really do love words. They're so much fun to play with.
Take a word like "obfuscate" which means to "render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible," (from the Mac Dictionary). Just pronouncing the word obfuscate makes your mouth work, twisting your tongue and lips into odd, uncomfortable shapes. And just look at the word - all those odd consonants and vowels jumbled together. The way the word sounds and even the way it looks perfectly conveys its meaning. That is a kick ass word!
And I love how a word that normally means one thing can be used in an unexpected way or in an unexpected context and it still makes sense - you know exactly what it's trying to say.
At my church, the sound equipment is located in a tiny loft that is only accessible by a retractable ladder. I usually run sound at the 5PM evening service so I use the ladder quite a bit. Well recently, I'd been noticing that the piece of wood that the ladder was attached to seemed to be pulling out and I was worried about something going awry (that's another great word). I shared my concerns with leadership and they had some people look at it and they said that the problem was merely a cosmetic one - that the box to which the ladder is attached is secure and sturdy. But to ease my concerns, they added some reinforcement and that put my fears to rest.
I share this story because when the engineer took a look at the ladder and said he was going to add reinforcement, the word he used was "beef," as in, "I'm going to add some beef up there." And even though he wasn't going to lather the anchor point in hamburger meat, I instantly knew what he meant. I love that about our language.
And one last brilliant example before I get to the poem.
Take a look at this line by one of my favorite singer/songwriters, the late great Kristy MacColl (two links there):
"But I'm not crazy, no I'm just mad. . ."
That's genius right there, even out of the context of the rest of the song. It's brilliant because in that line, the word "bad" means two different things (mad as in angry or mad as in insane) and the fact that the line makes sense both ways gets you that much more in the head of the character in the song.
The English language is just so much delicious fun.
"Hunt the Thimble" by Allison Smythe
That game we played as kids:
You're getting warm. . . warmer. . . warmer. . . hot!
maneuvering as if by remote control for the hidden
thing -- someone's red sock, lollipop, or secret
note, knowing the hunt was richer than the prize.
It's not so simple now if it ever was
simple, the universe as we have known it
inflating in theories of everything.
Hints lie everywhere like feathers
in a chicken coop, scattering just as you
bend to pick one up. God, the child's
game, with all his halls of doors.
It started with a word
in a language that never was and every stab
at translation in our currency of morning
and night, of skinned knees and long departures
slants a bit of the original intent and thus complicates
the game. Maybe it's all the concrete under
our feet or that mountains eventually hitchhike
to the sea or that I haven't read every book
not yet written that makes time something that needs
to be found and cut loose from space; perhaps
there is something like light that we have
not yet detected but can't stop looking
for and the one who hid it laughing
because there is always another door
cold. . . colder. . . colder
and the hider always has the most fun.
You know, it struck me while copying this poem, how apropos it is for this month of December. It's been a great year overall but this month has been difficult and not just because of Christmas. I know of at least three friends at my church who have lost loved ones this month and I know there have been others at my church who have suffered the same. Just in this month.
And honestly, even for myself, it's been a hard month. Writing that post a few weeks ago about love - it made me face some uncomfortable realities in my own life and even though I like to think that my life is on a pretty even keel overall, I wonder if I'm just ignoring the hidden rot underneath.
And even though that poem seems to end on a dour note, there is (THERE IS!) "something like light" to be found even as we stumble towards and away from it. And to bring it all, clumsily, back to Christmas, isn't that what Advent is all about? The fact that Light came into the darkness via a baby in a manger to show us the way. And this Light remains.
Merry Christmas, all.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
285. going back to school at Berkeley and MIT...sort of
The internet is amazing. So much better than television.
Did I mention that I don't have a TV where I live? It's funny because whenever I go to a friend's house where the TV is on, I sit rapt in attention, glued to the tube regardless of what's on. I mean it's not that I miss having a TV because back when I was in Hawaii, the television was my crack cocaine. I was an addict. I'd sit down to watch a show while eating dinner and next thing I knew, it was 2AM and I was watching yet another infomercial. And this wasn't a rare occurrence. So like I said, when I'm at a friend's house and the TV is on, I watch the way a recovering alcoholic watches their friends drink.
Not that I miss it. The other day I was at someone's house and we were watching NBC's Battle of the Choirs. What a heaping pile of a show. And what's up with Nich Lachey's choir winning out over Patty LaBelle's? Lame-o!
Anyway, back to the internet.
I found out recently that UC Berkeley posts some of their courses online for FREE. And you don't even need to sign up or anything. You just click on the class you want to sit in on and watch. I'm currently watching the Physics for Future Presidents course - a basic survey of fundamental physics principles. I've also got my eye on the Integrative Biology classes.
Also, a friend recently put a link up on facebook to online courses that MIT offers!
I am in geek heaven.
I must have been a really good boy this year because Santa has hooked me up.
Did I mention that I don't have a TV where I live? It's funny because whenever I go to a friend's house where the TV is on, I sit rapt in attention, glued to the tube regardless of what's on. I mean it's not that I miss having a TV because back when I was in Hawaii, the television was my crack cocaine. I was an addict. I'd sit down to watch a show while eating dinner and next thing I knew, it was 2AM and I was watching yet another infomercial. And this wasn't a rare occurrence. So like I said, when I'm at a friend's house and the TV is on, I watch the way a recovering alcoholic watches their friends drink.
Not that I miss it. The other day I was at someone's house and we were watching NBC's Battle of the Choirs. What a heaping pile of a show. And what's up with Nich Lachey's choir winning out over Patty LaBelle's? Lame-o!
Anyway, back to the internet.
I found out recently that UC Berkeley posts some of their courses online for FREE. And you don't even need to sign up or anything. You just click on the class you want to sit in on and watch. I'm currently watching the Physics for Future Presidents course - a basic survey of fundamental physics principles. I've also got my eye on the Integrative Biology classes.
Also, a friend recently put a link up on facebook to online courses that MIT offers!
I am in geek heaven.
I must have been a really good boy this year because Santa has hooked me up.
Monday, December 17, 2007
284. tell me about love (part 2)
Couple weekends ago I was asked to play drums at my church's morning services (two morning services). During the second service, the band gets together during the sermon (since we've already heard it during the first service) and hangs out so we can get to know one another better or catch up on what's been going on. This week, the worship leader asked an interesting ice-breaker type question. He asked us to share something that no one or very few people knew about us - something we felt comfortable sharing.
I shared that I'd never had a girlfriend but not for lack of trying. When I shared that, I thought it was something only my closest friends knew but after thinking about it later, I realized that I had already shared this fact in my blog (see entry 162). So I guess it wasn't as much of a secret as I thought it was. Maybe I should have shared how I went skinny dipping in the ocean in the first early hours of January 1, 2000 (true story).
I'm not sure how the other members of the worship team took what I shared about being single, but it's funny because later that day while we were packing and cleaning up after church, the worship leader asked me if I'd be willing to go out with someone who was Chinese. In jest, told him I'd go out with anyone with a pulse. The truth of the matter is, the list of things I'm looking for in a significant other is pretty long and esoteric (see blog 62 and 275) but I'm open to the idea that the person I end up with might be someone I never would have expected so consider this an invitation to set me up at will.
All that said, I've also written before about how after years of longing, pining, craving a girlfriend, I've found ample contentment as a single man. And I have. Among other things, I've come to appreciate the freedom being single affords. I can go where I want, when I want. I can eat whatever I want wherever I can get it. And that's one less gift I have to buy this year.
But in the back of my mind, I know I'm missing out.
In my previous post about love, I wrote a bit about 1 Corinthians 13. Paul ends that epistle with this line, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love," (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Honestly? If asked, I suppose I could rattle off a list of ideas that I think describe love but it would be like me describing the surface of the moon - I've seen pictures but I've never really been there.
And I've heard it said that in order to get love you've got to give love. But how do you give something you don't understand? When I heard this idea, I figured the best way to show love would be to give of myself to others - to help in what ever ways I could and I think (at least I like to think) that those who know me will say that I'm someone who will drop what I'm doing at the drop of a hat if I see someone with a need that I can fill.
But what if that's not how love works?
Take a look at this other piece from 1 Corinthians 13 - this time from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, The Message:
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7
Ouch.
What if all the generosity I gave that I thought was love was just "the creaking of a rusty gate?"
What if I have no idea what love is?
Because (and maybe this is the secret that few people know about me) I don't think I know what love is.
And that's a pretty screwed up thing to write but there it is.
Well, let me clarify that a bit. Of course there are people in my life who I love - family, the guys in my band, friends back in Hawaii, new friends in Seattle - but even with these people, it's sometimes hard for me to know how to love them. I know I love them, but how so? How do I show it, how do I live that out?
And if I have uncertainties about loving those I love, how am I supposed to love my neighbor or my enemy or Harold?
[insert long pause (say, 20mins) where I'm staring at the screen, wondering if I should write this next bit]
I hesitate to write this because, to me, it sounds terribly self-indulgent and selfish and spoiled but it's where this entry is headed so I may as well just go there.
See. . .
I. . .
I wonder if I'm not sure what love is because I don't think I've felt loved in a really long time.
Is that okay to say?
There's a really popular book which I haven't read but I've heard a lot of people talk about it so I'm vaguely familiar with its concepts. It's called The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. In it, Chapman talks about five "languages" of love - five different ways that people experience and give love. They are:
1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch.
I don't think I speak any of those languages.
Well, let me qualify that. I think I show love to others though acts of service. But I don't know if that's how I receive love. In fact, looking at Chapman's list, I'm not sure if any of those is how I receive or feel loved.
There are lots of different versions of this Love Languages book. There's a Men's edition, a children's edition, and a teenager's edition. I think I need a geeky introvert edition. I'd feel loved if he wrote that.
I guess I write all of this to make this point. I wonder if the easiest way to learn about how to love and be loved is to, well, be in love - ideally with someone who loves you back. And so I wonder if I need to get over the comfort I've found as a single person and put myself back out there and try and find someone I can grow old with.
I don't know.
So tell me about love.
What's the best way to give and receive love?
What is it about modern society that makes it so hard to express and/or feel loved even as we are supposedly more "connected" through cell phones and email?
Should I get off my lazy, single ass and put myself out there more?
Lastly, I got no game when it comes to dating. Does anybody think reading this book would help me learn some moves?
I shared that I'd never had a girlfriend but not for lack of trying. When I shared that, I thought it was something only my closest friends knew but after thinking about it later, I realized that I had already shared this fact in my blog (see entry 162). So I guess it wasn't as much of a secret as I thought it was. Maybe I should have shared how I went skinny dipping in the ocean in the first early hours of January 1, 2000 (true story).
I'm not sure how the other members of the worship team took what I shared about being single, but it's funny because later that day while we were packing and cleaning up after church, the worship leader asked me if I'd be willing to go out with someone who was Chinese. In jest, told him I'd go out with anyone with a pulse. The truth of the matter is, the list of things I'm looking for in a significant other is pretty long and esoteric (see blog 62 and 275) but I'm open to the idea that the person I end up with might be someone I never would have expected so consider this an invitation to set me up at will.
All that said, I've also written before about how after years of longing, pining, craving a girlfriend, I've found ample contentment as a single man. And I have. Among other things, I've come to appreciate the freedom being single affords. I can go where I want, when I want. I can eat whatever I want wherever I can get it. And that's one less gift I have to buy this year.
But in the back of my mind, I know I'm missing out.
In my previous post about love, I wrote a bit about 1 Corinthians 13. Paul ends that epistle with this line, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love," (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Honestly? If asked, I suppose I could rattle off a list of ideas that I think describe love but it would be like me describing the surface of the moon - I've seen pictures but I've never really been there.
And I've heard it said that in order to get love you've got to give love. But how do you give something you don't understand? When I heard this idea, I figured the best way to show love would be to give of myself to others - to help in what ever ways I could and I think (at least I like to think) that those who know me will say that I'm someone who will drop what I'm doing at the drop of a hat if I see someone with a need that I can fill.
But what if that's not how love works?
Take a look at this other piece from 1 Corinthians 13 - this time from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, The Message:
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7
Ouch.
What if all the generosity I gave that I thought was love was just "the creaking of a rusty gate?"
What if I have no idea what love is?
Because (and maybe this is the secret that few people know about me) I don't think I know what love is.
And that's a pretty screwed up thing to write but there it is.
Well, let me clarify that a bit. Of course there are people in my life who I love - family, the guys in my band, friends back in Hawaii, new friends in Seattle - but even with these people, it's sometimes hard for me to know how to love them. I know I love them, but how so? How do I show it, how do I live that out?
And if I have uncertainties about loving those I love, how am I supposed to love my neighbor or my enemy or Harold?
[insert long pause (say, 20mins) where I'm staring at the screen, wondering if I should write this next bit]
I hesitate to write this because, to me, it sounds terribly self-indulgent and selfish and spoiled but it's where this entry is headed so I may as well just go there.
See. . .
I. . .
I wonder if I'm not sure what love is because I don't think I've felt loved in a really long time.
Is that okay to say?
There's a really popular book which I haven't read but I've heard a lot of people talk about it so I'm vaguely familiar with its concepts. It's called The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. In it, Chapman talks about five "languages" of love - five different ways that people experience and give love. They are:
1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch.
I don't think I speak any of those languages.
Well, let me qualify that. I think I show love to others though acts of service. But I don't know if that's how I receive love. In fact, looking at Chapman's list, I'm not sure if any of those is how I receive or feel loved.
There are lots of different versions of this Love Languages book. There's a Men's edition, a children's edition, and a teenager's edition. I think I need a geeky introvert edition. I'd feel loved if he wrote that.
I guess I write all of this to make this point. I wonder if the easiest way to learn about how to love and be loved is to, well, be in love - ideally with someone who loves you back. And so I wonder if I need to get over the comfort I've found as a single person and put myself back out there and try and find someone I can grow old with.
I don't know.
So tell me about love.
What's the best way to give and receive love?
What is it about modern society that makes it so hard to express and/or feel loved even as we are supposedly more "connected" through cell phones and email?
Should I get off my lazy, single ass and put myself out there more?
Lastly, I got no game when it comes to dating. Does anybody think reading this book would help me learn some moves?
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
283. What It's Like to be Shy (fiction)
I was about to start on this week's post when (for some reason...probably to delay the actual work of writing) I took a look at my "secret" blog where I used to post pieces of fiction that I was working on. I haven't put anything up there in months (like since April).
Anyway, I'm looking again at what I had posted there and I came across this little story and I was cracking up because it was so much fun (if I can be so modest). And I thought I'd share it with ya'll.
Just a note, this is FICTION! It might sound like me and while it's loosely based on me, it's not about me (mostly).
Hope you like it.
What It's Like to be Shy
At The Coffee Shop:
I dress anonymously. I avoid color and fashion. Blue jeans and a dark (but not too dark) shirt.
I sit in the corner and face the window. I used to face the wall but one of my friends (one of four) told me it makes me look a bit crazy and kept me from blending in.
I scan the crowd but avoid eye contact. At the window in the front of the shop there is a row of barstools and a counter where patrons rest their lattes while flipping through the local weekly or write on their laptops. Sometimes I'll spot a woman sitting there whose hair style attracts me and I imagine that she has a face with a beauty unique to my quirky aesthetic. Sometimes she turns and shatters the illusion, but more often than not, all I ever get is her ear lobe and the curve of her chin. And that can be enough.
At the Barber Shop:
When I get a trim, I always hope for a stylist who just cuts hair, who doesn't bother with small talk.
I would never say this, because that would be too forward of me, but as I'm sitting in their chair, I always think to myself, "please, please, just cut my hair. Don't ask me how my day has been. Don't ask me what I do for work or for fun. Don't ask me if I've seen any good movies. Don't ask me about the latest reality show."
"Just ask me how I want my hair done (short and thinned out), ask about my sideburns if you must (just even them out), but overall, just let your scissors do the talking and I promise a generous tip in return."
In a Group Setting (say at a staff meeting):
People are often surprised at my insight and willingness to speak up. They think that because I am soft-spoken and reserved one-on-one that I would be more so in a formal group setting.
What they don't understand is that it's the personal part of personal interaction that I find acutely uncomfortable. Speaking in front of a crowd is easy because in a group, people become anonymous, impersonal, other. And when someone from the group responds to what I say, they are responding to the idea presented not to me, and that makes me feel safe.
Sometimes after a meeting where I had been especially vocal, a person will come up to me and ask if I would be interested in discussing my ideas further with them, perhaps over lunch. I find a polite way to tell them I can't and that surprises them. I don't tell them this, of course, but I decline because that's just too much, too close for comfort.
Perhaps I miss out on promotions this way, and I'll admit that it's frustrating to watch people with an abundance of social skills but a dearth of intelligence work their way up the pay scale, finally settling in a position where their ignorance can flourish.
At the Bookstore:
I head first for the magazine rack, but my time there is short - catching up on the latest computer news and reviews. Most of my time is spent among the Literature shelves, particularly the New Fiction section.
Some recommend meeting women in the grocery store but that seems wrong to me. How much can you learn about a person based on vegetables, meats, and starches? I find the bookstore much more telling. I mean if I see a woman smelling the rind of a cantaloupe, what does that tell me, that she likes fresh fruit? But if I see a woman flipping through Sylvia Plath, I know she's hurting something bad. If she's reading Jane Austin, I'm thinking she's probably got impossibly high standards. Jack Kerouac tells me she's probably too bohemian for me and Toni Morrison that I'm not smart enough for her. And on and on. Much more informative.
Of course, being as shy as I am, all I ever do is watch. . .or what's the more modern word for it? I lurk. And if I see a woman reading Douglas Coupland or Michael Chabon or T.C. Boyle, I just dream about what might be if I had bravado, and lines, and looks.
In My Dreams:
I'm taller and better looking. I dress better because I know how to dress better. I'm smooth and suave. I have women at hello.
I had a phase where I dated casually and widely. I unintentionally stole a couple girlfriends from their boyfriends though I didn't know it at the time. However, I am now past all that exploration because I have found the love of my life. She is warm, witty, sharp, and in possession of natural, effortless beauty.
We work at our relationship. We do our best to fight fair. We agree to never hold grudges and we try not to.
I enjoy spoiling my love with style and surprise. I send her random, gooey text messages while she is at work - things like, "all u ever have to be is u and I'll fall in love over and over again." I imagine her reading those messages in the middle of a meeting. I imagine her hiding her smile behind her hand, pretending to cough. After the meeting is over she shows the message to her girlfriends and they laugh while wondering why their boyfriends aren't as wildly romantic.
She finds surprising ways to return my favors. She sneaks a secret cup of pudding into my lunch bag. She draws a heart on the back side of my spoon so I don't notice it until one of my coworkers points it out. He laughs at me just as her coworkers laughed at her but he laughs for a different reason, though deep down inside where he'll never admit it, he laughs for the same reason.
[the end]
BTW, if you'd like a link to my "secret" story blog, email me (lonetomato at yahoo dot com) and I'll send you the link.
Anyway, I'm looking again at what I had posted there and I came across this little story and I was cracking up because it was so much fun (if I can be so modest). And I thought I'd share it with ya'll.
Just a note, this is FICTION! It might sound like me and while it's loosely based on me, it's not about me (mostly).
Hope you like it.
What It's Like to be Shy
At The Coffee Shop:
I dress anonymously. I avoid color and fashion. Blue jeans and a dark (but not too dark) shirt.
I sit in the corner and face the window. I used to face the wall but one of my friends (one of four) told me it makes me look a bit crazy and kept me from blending in.
I scan the crowd but avoid eye contact. At the window in the front of the shop there is a row of barstools and a counter where patrons rest their lattes while flipping through the local weekly or write on their laptops. Sometimes I'll spot a woman sitting there whose hair style attracts me and I imagine that she has a face with a beauty unique to my quirky aesthetic. Sometimes she turns and shatters the illusion, but more often than not, all I ever get is her ear lobe and the curve of her chin. And that can be enough.
At the Barber Shop:
When I get a trim, I always hope for a stylist who just cuts hair, who doesn't bother with small talk.
I would never say this, because that would be too forward of me, but as I'm sitting in their chair, I always think to myself, "please, please, just cut my hair. Don't ask me how my day has been. Don't ask me what I do for work or for fun. Don't ask me if I've seen any good movies. Don't ask me about the latest reality show."
"Just ask me how I want my hair done (short and thinned out), ask about my sideburns if you must (just even them out), but overall, just let your scissors do the talking and I promise a generous tip in return."
In a Group Setting (say at a staff meeting):
People are often surprised at my insight and willingness to speak up. They think that because I am soft-spoken and reserved one-on-one that I would be more so in a formal group setting.
What they don't understand is that it's the personal part of personal interaction that I find acutely uncomfortable. Speaking in front of a crowd is easy because in a group, people become anonymous, impersonal, other. And when someone from the group responds to what I say, they are responding to the idea presented not to me, and that makes me feel safe.
Sometimes after a meeting where I had been especially vocal, a person will come up to me and ask if I would be interested in discussing my ideas further with them, perhaps over lunch. I find a polite way to tell them I can't and that surprises them. I don't tell them this, of course, but I decline because that's just too much, too close for comfort.
Perhaps I miss out on promotions this way, and I'll admit that it's frustrating to watch people with an abundance of social skills but a dearth of intelligence work their way up the pay scale, finally settling in a position where their ignorance can flourish.
At the Bookstore:
I head first for the magazine rack, but my time there is short - catching up on the latest computer news and reviews. Most of my time is spent among the Literature shelves, particularly the New Fiction section.
Some recommend meeting women in the grocery store but that seems wrong to me. How much can you learn about a person based on vegetables, meats, and starches? I find the bookstore much more telling. I mean if I see a woman smelling the rind of a cantaloupe, what does that tell me, that she likes fresh fruit? But if I see a woman flipping through Sylvia Plath, I know she's hurting something bad. If she's reading Jane Austin, I'm thinking she's probably got impossibly high standards. Jack Kerouac tells me she's probably too bohemian for me and Toni Morrison that I'm not smart enough for her. And on and on. Much more informative.
Of course, being as shy as I am, all I ever do is watch. . .or what's the more modern word for it? I lurk. And if I see a woman reading Douglas Coupland or Michael Chabon or T.C. Boyle, I just dream about what might be if I had bravado, and lines, and looks.
In My Dreams:
I'm taller and better looking. I dress better because I know how to dress better. I'm smooth and suave. I have women at hello.
I had a phase where I dated casually and widely. I unintentionally stole a couple girlfriends from their boyfriends though I didn't know it at the time. However, I am now past all that exploration because I have found the love of my life. She is warm, witty, sharp, and in possession of natural, effortless beauty.
We work at our relationship. We do our best to fight fair. We agree to never hold grudges and we try not to.
I enjoy spoiling my love with style and surprise. I send her random, gooey text messages while she is at work - things like, "all u ever have to be is u and I'll fall in love over and over again." I imagine her reading those messages in the middle of a meeting. I imagine her hiding her smile behind her hand, pretending to cough. After the meeting is over she shows the message to her girlfriends and they laugh while wondering why their boyfriends aren't as wildly romantic.
She finds surprising ways to return my favors. She sneaks a secret cup of pudding into my lunch bag. She draws a heart on the back side of my spoon so I don't notice it until one of my coworkers points it out. He laughs at me just as her coworkers laughed at her but he laughs for a different reason, though deep down inside where he'll never admit it, he laughs for the same reason.
[the end]
BTW, if you'd like a link to my "secret" story blog, email me (lonetomato at yahoo dot com) and I'll send you the link.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
282. preliminary thoughts on Faith and Race
I've mentioned before that through the past few weeks I participated in a class my church put on called Faith and Race. It was an eye-opening, challenging, paradigm-challenging experince. So much so that I hardly know where to start thinking/writing about it, but one of the first issues we discussed was that of privilege - White privilege in particular.
Now let me say up front that as an Asian-American who grew up in Hawaii, I come from a unique (compared to the mainland) background. According to what I could find on the U.S. Census Bureau website, in Hawaii, Asians make up almost 40 percent of the population while Whites account for about 26 percent. In contrast, even in a city as diverse as Seattle, Asians make up about 13 percent of the population while Whites account for nearly 70 percent. This means that my experiences growing up Asian-American were very different from that of Asian-Americans who grew up on the mainland.
I mention this because one of the things we learned in our class was the idea that more often than not, people who have privileges because of their race never have to think about, acknowledge, or otherwise be aware of their privileged status. In contrast, those without privilege are constantly confronted by the fact that their life is different from those who hold privilege.
Those are pretty loaded statements so let me unpack them a bit by talking about why I say growing up Asian-American in Hawaii is different from growing up Asian-American in the mainland.
In Hawaii, it was no problem for me to find people who looked like me and understood my cultural background. I grew up with lots of other Asian-American kids around me in school and in my neighborhood. Teachers knew how to pronounce my last name without asking. Among my peers, it wasn't hard to find role models who looked like me. The cool kids were Asian-American. The bullies were Asian-American. The jocks were Asian-American. The homecoming king and queen were often Asian-American. That's not to say that there weren't any White or African-American kids around, there were, but the point I'm trying to get across is that in Hawaii as an Asian-American, I didn't feel out of place and I never had to think about how my ethnicity affected me.
In the Faith and Race class, it was painful to hear some of the Asian-Americans in my group talk about their experiences growing up in the mainland. For them, their race walked into the room before they did. In other words, when they walked into a new classroom, the first thing the other kids would see was not another student but another Asian student - another other. They were instantly stereotyped - imprinted with whatever images non-Asians had of them - and they had to actively work past these stereotypes (often one person at a time) before they could be seen for who they truly were.
Growing up in such an environment takes its toll. And it's not like the problems are confined to high school. These experiences take on different forms in adulthood and only serve to reinforce the conscience/unconscience/subconscience idea that as an Asian-American, they are not the norm.
When we talked about privilege in the Faith and Race class, I felt like someone who had been on both sides of the fence. In Hawaii, I was part of the group that enjoyed privilege but now, in Seattle, I am outside of that group. One of our readings for that class was White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, and in her article she lays out a long list of conditions that benefit her because she is white.
In our class, we used this list in an exercise where we looked at each item and answered "yes" or "no" as to whether we could claim that privilege in our lives. We tallied up our individual responses and the class facilitator asked those who were able to check off forty to fifty items to stand on one side of the room, those with zero to ten to stand on the other side of the room and also designated areas in between for those with ten to twenty and twenty to thirty. Most people were at the ends of the room, kind of like an inverse bell curve.
It was a stark reminder of just how divided we still are in this country because of race.
For me, the difficult and interesting part of this exercise was realizing how my responses would have been different if I were back in Hawaii. For example, the first quality of privilege listed was "I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time." And I could say "yes" to that in Hawaii but not in the mainland.
I make it a point to state up front that I grew up Asian-American in Hawaii because I don't know what it's like to be a minority the way Asian-Americans in the mainland do and because of that, I feel as if I'm in a kind of odd situation. I want to talk about my thoughts coming out of the Faith and Race class but my perspective is different from those of mainland Asian-Americans, so please don't take the things I write as definitive in any way in regards to the Asian-American experience. I'm just some guy who's trying to think through some issues of race through his blog.
But.
But before I say more about faith and race and racism, I realize that I need to read up on the subject a bit more. I feel now the way I did years ago when I first started asking fundamental questions about Christianity. I knew there were ideas that I had about being a Christian that just didn't sit right with me but I wasn't sure why. It took a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and countless hours staring at my computer screen trying to think things through but I finally have some...not answers, but a kind of rough sketch of beliefs that have made Christianity more practical and real and livable for me. I've been sharing a kind of summary of my most recent thoughts about being a Christian in what I've recently called my Layman's Theology Series (ongoing...stay tuned for more episodes).
So to continue my education on issues of race and racism, I picked up Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum's book, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? I'm only a few pages into it but I already feel my perspective on the world opening up.
I realize that I'm opening a huge can of worms, but I love living in America and being an American (and Asian-American). I think it's the best place on earth to live but there are a lot of huge problems that this nation will have to deal with if the American experiment is to live on. Race is certainly one such issue. As the racial makeup of America continues to change (census data project that whites will be a minority in America by as soon as 2040), issues of race and racism will continue to come into play.
If I have one minor criticism of my church's Faith and Race class, it's that while it did a great job of highlighting the problems (subtle and not so) of racism, we never went on to talk about potential solutions and how Jesus would have us (as individuals and as the body of Christ) move forward.
But I understand. Advocating solutions in issues of racism is a touchy subject but I believe that the metaphor of the Kingdom of God that Jesus speaks so much about is a kingdom where the problem of racism no longer exists. I also believe that as christians, we have an obligation to work towards this vision of the kingdom, and it would help to have some ideas about what that might look like.
But you can't deal with a problem unless you know what it is and for helping me take the first steps in better understanding the problem, I'm truly, superlatively grateful for the class.
Now let me say up front that as an Asian-American who grew up in Hawaii, I come from a unique (compared to the mainland) background. According to what I could find on the U.S. Census Bureau website, in Hawaii, Asians make up almost 40 percent of the population while Whites account for about 26 percent. In contrast, even in a city as diverse as Seattle, Asians make up about 13 percent of the population while Whites account for nearly 70 percent. This means that my experiences growing up Asian-American were very different from that of Asian-Americans who grew up on the mainland.
I mention this because one of the things we learned in our class was the idea that more often than not, people who have privileges because of their race never have to think about, acknowledge, or otherwise be aware of their privileged status. In contrast, those without privilege are constantly confronted by the fact that their life is different from those who hold privilege.
Those are pretty loaded statements so let me unpack them a bit by talking about why I say growing up Asian-American in Hawaii is different from growing up Asian-American in the mainland.
In Hawaii, it was no problem for me to find people who looked like me and understood my cultural background. I grew up with lots of other Asian-American kids around me in school and in my neighborhood. Teachers knew how to pronounce my last name without asking. Among my peers, it wasn't hard to find role models who looked like me. The cool kids were Asian-American. The bullies were Asian-American. The jocks were Asian-American. The homecoming king and queen were often Asian-American. That's not to say that there weren't any White or African-American kids around, there were, but the point I'm trying to get across is that in Hawaii as an Asian-American, I didn't feel out of place and I never had to think about how my ethnicity affected me.
In the Faith and Race class, it was painful to hear some of the Asian-Americans in my group talk about their experiences growing up in the mainland. For them, their race walked into the room before they did. In other words, when they walked into a new classroom, the first thing the other kids would see was not another student but another Asian student - another other. They were instantly stereotyped - imprinted with whatever images non-Asians had of them - and they had to actively work past these stereotypes (often one person at a time) before they could be seen for who they truly were.
Growing up in such an environment takes its toll. And it's not like the problems are confined to high school. These experiences take on different forms in adulthood and only serve to reinforce the conscience/unconscience/subconscience idea that as an Asian-American, they are not the norm.
When we talked about privilege in the Faith and Race class, I felt like someone who had been on both sides of the fence. In Hawaii, I was part of the group that enjoyed privilege but now, in Seattle, I am outside of that group. One of our readings for that class was White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, and in her article she lays out a long list of conditions that benefit her because she is white.
In our class, we used this list in an exercise where we looked at each item and answered "yes" or "no" as to whether we could claim that privilege in our lives. We tallied up our individual responses and the class facilitator asked those who were able to check off forty to fifty items to stand on one side of the room, those with zero to ten to stand on the other side of the room and also designated areas in between for those with ten to twenty and twenty to thirty. Most people were at the ends of the room, kind of like an inverse bell curve.
It was a stark reminder of just how divided we still are in this country because of race.
For me, the difficult and interesting part of this exercise was realizing how my responses would have been different if I were back in Hawaii. For example, the first quality of privilege listed was "I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time." And I could say "yes" to that in Hawaii but not in the mainland.
I make it a point to state up front that I grew up Asian-American in Hawaii because I don't know what it's like to be a minority the way Asian-Americans in the mainland do and because of that, I feel as if I'm in a kind of odd situation. I want to talk about my thoughts coming out of the Faith and Race class but my perspective is different from those of mainland Asian-Americans, so please don't take the things I write as definitive in any way in regards to the Asian-American experience. I'm just some guy who's trying to think through some issues of race through his blog.
But.
But before I say more about faith and race and racism, I realize that I need to read up on the subject a bit more. I feel now the way I did years ago when I first started asking fundamental questions about Christianity. I knew there were ideas that I had about being a Christian that just didn't sit right with me but I wasn't sure why. It took a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and countless hours staring at my computer screen trying to think things through but I finally have some...not answers, but a kind of rough sketch of beliefs that have made Christianity more practical and real and livable for me. I've been sharing a kind of summary of my most recent thoughts about being a Christian in what I've recently called my Layman's Theology Series (ongoing...stay tuned for more episodes).
So to continue my education on issues of race and racism, I picked up Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum's book, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? I'm only a few pages into it but I already feel my perspective on the world opening up.
I realize that I'm opening a huge can of worms, but I love living in America and being an American (and Asian-American). I think it's the best place on earth to live but there are a lot of huge problems that this nation will have to deal with if the American experiment is to live on. Race is certainly one such issue. As the racial makeup of America continues to change (census data project that whites will be a minority in America by as soon as 2040), issues of race and racism will continue to come into play.
If I have one minor criticism of my church's Faith and Race class, it's that while it did a great job of highlighting the problems (subtle and not so) of racism, we never went on to talk about potential solutions and how Jesus would have us (as individuals and as the body of Christ) move forward.
But I understand. Advocating solutions in issues of racism is a touchy subject but I believe that the metaphor of the Kingdom of God that Jesus speaks so much about is a kingdom where the problem of racism no longer exists. I also believe that as christians, we have an obligation to work towards this vision of the kingdom, and it would help to have some ideas about what that might look like.
But you can't deal with a problem unless you know what it is and for helping me take the first steps in better understanding the problem, I'm truly, superlatively grateful for the class.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
281. tell me about love (part 1)
You know, it's happened twice already. I write about some frustrating situation at work and through the process of venting on the page, I come to some epiphany that helps make sense of what I do (see blog 267 and 277). But you know, despite these new insights, somehow my coworker seems to find innovative new ways to just plain piss me off.
I don't really want to get into the latest ways he's been getting on my nerves. I want to delve a bit deeper into what I wrote about in my last post about work. In that entry, I talked about how I decided to try my best to treat Harold as a hard-working peer even though he's actually a hardly-working one. And for a couple weeks, it went really well. I mean, he didn't work any harder or faster but he seemed to be in a better mood. As for myself, because I wasn't always scrutinizing Harold - watching him out of the corner of my eye to catalog all the ways he wasn't working - I was able to relax as well and just do my job.
But you know, just when I think I've seen the limits of his poor work ethic and lack of empathy for the amount of work I put in, Harold somehow manages to find a new way to just frustrate the hell out of me.
But that's not what I want to talk about because it's really just more of the same ole situation.
There's something else I've been thinking about. See, the reason I decided to try and treat Harold as a peer was because I took a fresh look at some of the things Jesus said in the Gospels - in particular, the bit where he talks about loving your neighbor as yourself and loving the less than perfect the way God loves us.
And the bit that's tripping me up is that word, "love."
In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Paul talks about how doing what seems like holy work without love is equivalent to banging a cheap cymbal. And then he goes on to describe love in that passage you hear at so many weddings (appropriately so, I might add):
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Now if those are the elements of love then how am I doing at work with Harold?
1. patient - most of the time (1).
2. kind - try to be (1).
3. does not envy - there are times when I wish I could just sit around instead of breaking my back lifting boxes but besides that, there's not a whole lot about Harold that I envy (1).
4. does not boast, is not proud - I sometimes complain to one of our drivers, telling him how much work I've done that day compared to Harold so I guess I fail on this one (0).
5. is not rude - nope, not me (1).
6. is not self-seeking - nah...although I'm hoping for a generous raise once my yearly review comes around (1).
7. not easily angered - that's me (1).
8. keeps no record of wrongs - I try to forgive and forget but it's hard when Harold keeps reminding me (0).
9. does not delight in evil - I don't like evil (1).
10. rejoices with the truth - that's why I blog (1).
11. always protects - well, I haven't reported my complaints about Harold to my boss yet, does that count as protecting him (0)?
12. always trusts - I don't trust Harold (0).
13. always hopes - I do hope he'll do better (1).
14. always perseveres - well, I'm still working there...(1)
Ten out of fourteen ain't bad right?
But here's the thing I've been thinking about. Is living out the qualities of love that Paul lays out really love? I don't think so. The qualities that Paul lists are like signposts or indicators that show that a person is motivated by love. In this way, I think it's an all or nothing list.
Here's what I mean. Pregnancy tests work not by going in and verifying that an egg has been fertilized and has attached itself successfully to the uterine wall, they work by detecting the chemical/hormonal changes that take place once those things have happened. In other words, the test doesn't verify actual conception, it tests for signs that conception has occurred. Now in order to weed out false positives, the tests look for a multitude of indicators. If it doesn't find all the right signs, it returns a negative result. (Don't ask me how I know this.)
So I picture Paul writing this letter to the Corinthians and he comes up with this list of qualities that describe someone motivated by love. This is the last thing he writes in this letter and it's pretty long already so I'm thinking he's not all that interested in compiling a comprehensive inventory. Instead, he highlights the sure-things, the things that have to be there if someone is truly motivated by love. So these are the essentials, the bare minimums, and like the pregnancy test, if you ain't got all the signs, you ain't really lovin'.
There's another reason I know I don't treat Harold with love. I have zero respect for the guy. I don't know how to respect someone who consistently takes on the lightest workload possible (leaving me to do the heavy lifting), someone who doesn't check his work (twice in the past couple months I've had to hunt through the shelves to find boxes that Harold scanned in wrong), someone who complains when a rush order comes in because it means he'll have to get up out of his chair and actually do something (since I'm probably already out in the racks working on something else).
But he's my neighbor and Jesus wants me to be Jesus to Harold.
It's so hard to remember that Harold has been fearfully and lovingly made by God, that he is not beyond redemption. It's so hard to look past all the sin that's distorting the beauty God gave him. But that is my job as a christian.
I don't know.
Tell me about love. How do I love this guy? Does going through the motions of love count for anything? What would loving Harold look like?
I don't really want to get into the latest ways he's been getting on my nerves. I want to delve a bit deeper into what I wrote about in my last post about work. In that entry, I talked about how I decided to try my best to treat Harold as a hard-working peer even though he's actually a hardly-working one. And for a couple weeks, it went really well. I mean, he didn't work any harder or faster but he seemed to be in a better mood. As for myself, because I wasn't always scrutinizing Harold - watching him out of the corner of my eye to catalog all the ways he wasn't working - I was able to relax as well and just do my job.
But you know, just when I think I've seen the limits of his poor work ethic and lack of empathy for the amount of work I put in, Harold somehow manages to find a new way to just frustrate the hell out of me.
But that's not what I want to talk about because it's really just more of the same ole situation.
There's something else I've been thinking about. See, the reason I decided to try and treat Harold as a peer was because I took a fresh look at some of the things Jesus said in the Gospels - in particular, the bit where he talks about loving your neighbor as yourself and loving the less than perfect the way God loves us.
And the bit that's tripping me up is that word, "love."
In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Paul talks about how doing what seems like holy work without love is equivalent to banging a cheap cymbal. And then he goes on to describe love in that passage you hear at so many weddings (appropriately so, I might add):
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Now if those are the elements of love then how am I doing at work with Harold?
1. patient - most of the time (1).
2. kind - try to be (1).
3. does not envy - there are times when I wish I could just sit around instead of breaking my back lifting boxes but besides that, there's not a whole lot about Harold that I envy (1).
4. does not boast, is not proud - I sometimes complain to one of our drivers, telling him how much work I've done that day compared to Harold so I guess I fail on this one (0).
5. is not rude - nope, not me (1).
6. is not self-seeking - nah...although I'm hoping for a generous raise once my yearly review comes around (1).
7. not easily angered - that's me (1).
8. keeps no record of wrongs - I try to forgive and forget but it's hard when Harold keeps reminding me (0).
9. does not delight in evil - I don't like evil (1).
10. rejoices with the truth - that's why I blog (1).
11. always protects - well, I haven't reported my complaints about Harold to my boss yet, does that count as protecting him (0)?
12. always trusts - I don't trust Harold (0).
13. always hopes - I do hope he'll do better (1).
14. always perseveres - well, I'm still working there...(1)
Ten out of fourteen ain't bad right?
But here's the thing I've been thinking about. Is living out the qualities of love that Paul lays out really love? I don't think so. The qualities that Paul lists are like signposts or indicators that show that a person is motivated by love. In this way, I think it's an all or nothing list.
Here's what I mean. Pregnancy tests work not by going in and verifying that an egg has been fertilized and has attached itself successfully to the uterine wall, they work by detecting the chemical/hormonal changes that take place once those things have happened. In other words, the test doesn't verify actual conception, it tests for signs that conception has occurred. Now in order to weed out false positives, the tests look for a multitude of indicators. If it doesn't find all the right signs, it returns a negative result. (Don't ask me how I know this.)
So I picture Paul writing this letter to the Corinthians and he comes up with this list of qualities that describe someone motivated by love. This is the last thing he writes in this letter and it's pretty long already so I'm thinking he's not all that interested in compiling a comprehensive inventory. Instead, he highlights the sure-things, the things that have to be there if someone is truly motivated by love. So these are the essentials, the bare minimums, and like the pregnancy test, if you ain't got all the signs, you ain't really lovin'.
There's another reason I know I don't treat Harold with love. I have zero respect for the guy. I don't know how to respect someone who consistently takes on the lightest workload possible (leaving me to do the heavy lifting), someone who doesn't check his work (twice in the past couple months I've had to hunt through the shelves to find boxes that Harold scanned in wrong), someone who complains when a rush order comes in because it means he'll have to get up out of his chair and actually do something (since I'm probably already out in the racks working on something else).
But he's my neighbor and Jesus wants me to be Jesus to Harold.
It's so hard to remember that Harold has been fearfully and lovingly made by God, that he is not beyond redemption. It's so hard to look past all the sin that's distorting the beauty God gave him. But that is my job as a christian.
I don't know.
Tell me about love. How do I love this guy? Does going through the motions of love count for anything? What would loving Harold look like?
Saturday, November 17, 2007
280. stay tuned..
I apologize again for not keeping up with my one-post-per-week "rule." I had another friend visiting from Hawaii last week and that cut into my time quite a bit but that's not the only reason I didn't write.
There's something that stirring in my subconscious - I can sense it but it's just brewing, sorting itself out beneath the surface. I'm not exactly sure what it is. To be honest, it could be something as mundane as a new idea about the lunch I make to eat at work. Or it could be some profound breakthrough as to how I can change the world through the way I live out my belief in Christ.
That's not to say there's nothing on the conscious side of the brain that I'm working on. There's quite a bit on the plate there as well. One item I've been thinking about lately - the other night at my church's Faith and Race class, we saw a powerful short film about race and racism called The Color of Fear. It's a pretty brutal film that highlights just how far we still need to go in terms of race reconciliation. This film, as well as the readings and the teachings I've been going through in this class, has given me lots to think and write about. But I'm not quite ready to do so yet.
On another note, I just discovered that they sell poi at Uwajimaya! Next week is the final week for the Faith and Race class and we're having a pot luck where people are encouraged to bring something unique (or not) that they grew up eating. I already knew of a place where I could buy Spam musibi (and yeah, I know I could make it myself but I'm far too lazy and sloppy in the kitchen) and so I was planning on bringing that but then I had a brilliant idea.
If you've never had it before, poi is cooked taro that's been mashed into a paste. It's an acquired taste. People who try it for the first time describe it as purple Elmer's glue. So my plan is to take poi to the pot luck. I'm guessing that most people will taste a bit of it before politely moving on to the next dish which means that at the end of the night I'll be able to take the bulk of it back home with me.
Yeah, I'm evil like that, but there are few things better in this world than poi for breakfast.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned.
There's something that stirring in my subconscious - I can sense it but it's just brewing, sorting itself out beneath the surface. I'm not exactly sure what it is. To be honest, it could be something as mundane as a new idea about the lunch I make to eat at work. Or it could be some profound breakthrough as to how I can change the world through the way I live out my belief in Christ.
That's not to say there's nothing on the conscious side of the brain that I'm working on. There's quite a bit on the plate there as well. One item I've been thinking about lately - the other night at my church's Faith and Race class, we saw a powerful short film about race and racism called The Color of Fear. It's a pretty brutal film that highlights just how far we still need to go in terms of race reconciliation. This film, as well as the readings and the teachings I've been going through in this class, has given me lots to think and write about. But I'm not quite ready to do so yet.
On another note, I just discovered that they sell poi at Uwajimaya! Next week is the final week for the Faith and Race class and we're having a pot luck where people are encouraged to bring something unique (or not) that they grew up eating. I already knew of a place where I could buy Spam musibi (and yeah, I know I could make it myself but I'm far too lazy and sloppy in the kitchen) and so I was planning on bringing that but then I had a brilliant idea.
If you've never had it before, poi is cooked taro that's been mashed into a paste. It's an acquired taste. People who try it for the first time describe it as purple Elmer's glue. So my plan is to take poi to the pot luck. I'm guessing that most people will taste a bit of it before politely moving on to the next dish which means that at the end of the night I'll be able to take the bulk of it back home with me.
Yeah, I'm evil like that, but there are few things better in this world than poi for breakfast.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
279. thoughts on communion
The act of taking communion (aka the eucharist) is supposed to be way up there when it comes to the sacred rites of the church. Indeed, in some denominations, the act of taking communion is considered the high point of the service. The rite is observed in a variety of ways - I've experienced everything from very formalized, liturgical services to very informal ones where the elements were placed on a table at the front of the church and people were invited to partake as they felt led (taking a piece of bread and dipping it in the grape juice/wine). There was even one service I attended where the ushers passed out tiny covered plastic cups filled with grape juice. At first I couldn't figure out where the body/bread part of communion was until I noticed that the "lid" of the cup had two layers to it. Under the clear top layer was a tiny wafer that symbolized the bread and below that was the actual cover for the juice. You were supposed to peel back the top layer to get the wafer and then peel back the second layer to get at the juice. Surreal, to say the least.
It's still rather embarrassing to admit this but until a couple years ago, I had only the vaguest notion of what it was I was doing while taking communion. I mean I understood that we were remembering Jesus and obeying his command to "do this in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:23-25), and that the wine and the bread symbolized Jesus' blood and body, and while I suppose those are the nuts and bolts of what's happening, it just didn't feel all that meaningful for me. I did my best to participate with a sincere heart. I tried to think of Jesus dying on the cross for my sins, I tried to confess my sins before partaking so I could receive the elements cleansed, but I still didn't get it. I mean, it just felt like going through the motions.
Before moving to Seattle, I was a part of a house church back in Hawaii. We took turns teaching on Sundays and although I can't remember how it happened, I got picked (or maybe I volunteered) to share a message about communion. Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember a bit of how this teaching opportunity came about.
We had been meeting as a house church for a few months when someone observed that we had never had communion. We all felt bad about this and so the next week we brought bread and wine and decided to give it a go. One of the features of our house church was that it was very open and discussion oriented. Before we shared the communion meal, someone asked the simple question, "what are we doing this for?" And then one by one we began to admit that beyond rote Sunday school answers, we didn't really know. Despite our ignorance, we broke bread anyway but we also said one of us should do some research and share what they learned. And then I got picked...or maybe I volunteered, I still can't remember that part.
I put nose to grindstone. I read the accounts of the Lord's supper in the Gospels and the bit in 1 Corinthians 11 and 12, but I had heard these portions of scripture so often that they didn't help much. So I consulted the all-knowing Wikipedia, but that just gave me a raft of doctrinal history which was about as useful to me understanding communion as learning how to operate a printing press would be in learning how to read. I knew what I needed was to get in the heads of the disciples as they sat around the table with Jesus in the upper room - what were they thinking as they heard Jesus tell them to eat his body and drink his blood?
That's when I found N.T. Wright's book, The Meal Jesus Gave Us. An excellent book and while there are brief bits where he picks at some obscure doctrinal nits, it really helped me reach a deeper, fuller understanding of communion. Much of what follows came about with help from Mr. Wright's book. (I've put my own slant on it so if you disagree on my take on communion, don't slight his book, it's probably my mistake.)
In order to get a fuller understanding of communion, we need to take a trip in the way back machine - way back to 1500 BC, to Moses and the Exodus. I won't rehash the entire story but the salient points are these. The Israelites were held in captivity and made slaves of the Pharaoh until God spoke to Moses through a burning bush, instructing him to free his people and take them to a land that God had chosen for them - the promised land, flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:7-10). Ten nasty plagues ensued, culminating in the death of all the first-born children in Egypt. However, this plague passed over the Israelites. To this day, the Passover holiday is celebrated by Jews around the world as commanded by God. It's a time when they remember both their ancestors' suffering under slavery and the work God did to free them.
More significant for this discussion on communion, it's this Passover ceremony that Jesus shared with his disciples where he poured wine and broke bread and told us to do likewise (Matthew 26:17-19). As with everything else in Jesus' life, this is no coincidence - it's a date with deep, beautiful, nuanced meaning.
As I understand it, the Exodus is central to the identity of the Jewish people. Had God not led them out of Egypt through Moses, they say that they would still be living as slaves. In the same way, one of the central tenants of the christian faith is the idea that through the death of Jesus on the cross, those who believe and follow Christ are freed from being slaves to sin (Romans 6:6-7).
But the Passover story doesn't end with freedom. Once freed from Egypt, the Jews wandered the desert for forty years before being led to the land promised to them. And just as times of adversity build character, it was through this time of wandering that the "character" of the Jewish people was developed. Lauren F. Winner puts it this way in her excellent book, Girl Meets God:
"In The Star of Redemption, [Franz] Rosenzweig discusses [Jewish] time and calendars and holidays. About Pesach, he writes, 'The welding of people into a people takes place in its deliverance.' And that, it seems to me, is what both passover and Maundy Thursday are about - making a people. In the Exodus, the Jews are transformed from people into a people and at the Eucharist, instituted there at the Last Supper, we Christians are transformed into a people, too." (Winner 173)
I happen to believe that christians today are like those Jews wandering, stumbling, complaining towards the promised land. They were working their way to what would become Israel. We are working our way to the Kingdom of God - the time when Christ will come again to finish the work of redeeming this fallen world. For me, seeing the Eucharist in this way transforms what was once a staid, Sunday school answer - "we take communion to remember Christ's death on the cross" - into a vibrant reminder that we are all on a journey, that as bleak as the world seems, there is a promised land ahead of us. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that when Jesus instructed us to "do this in remembrance of me," he meant for us to remember both what he did on the cross as well as what he will do when he comes again.
[warning: unorthodox view ahead, please don't stone me]
To be honest, there are still times, while taking communion, that I find it difficult to remember what I'm supposed to be remembering. And I wonder.
As many churches do, my church celebrates communion every Sunday. Other churches I've attended took communion on a monthly or quarterly schedule. But for Jews, the Passover meal is a yearly event and as such, it's a big deal. The ceremony literally lasts all night and it's full of discussion on what the different foods symbolize. In taking communion every week, I have to fight the temptation to think of it as just that thing we do every Sunday.
I wonder if it would be better to take communion just once a year and to make it a really big deal. I think it'd be great to devote one service every year to a fuller discussion of the Last Supper and how Jesus was reworking the Passover celebration. Can you imagine how deep and meaningful drinking the wine and eating the bread would be on a Sunday like that?
Now I know some christians get together on Passover week to celebrate a christian Seder, but this is seen as kind of a fringe thing done only by hardcore christians. And I understand that devoting a Sunday service during Passover week to focus on communion would interfere with Easter Sunday but how about the week before or the week after or maybe some other date entirely?
I would love to see a Sunday where the whole church gets together and celebrates a Seder meal together...but that's just me and my two cents.
It's still rather embarrassing to admit this but until a couple years ago, I had only the vaguest notion of what it was I was doing while taking communion. I mean I understood that we were remembering Jesus and obeying his command to "do this in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:23-25), and that the wine and the bread symbolized Jesus' blood and body, and while I suppose those are the nuts and bolts of what's happening, it just didn't feel all that meaningful for me. I did my best to participate with a sincere heart. I tried to think of Jesus dying on the cross for my sins, I tried to confess my sins before partaking so I could receive the elements cleansed, but I still didn't get it. I mean, it just felt like going through the motions.
Before moving to Seattle, I was a part of a house church back in Hawaii. We took turns teaching on Sundays and although I can't remember how it happened, I got picked (or maybe I volunteered) to share a message about communion. Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember a bit of how this teaching opportunity came about.
We had been meeting as a house church for a few months when someone observed that we had never had communion. We all felt bad about this and so the next week we brought bread and wine and decided to give it a go. One of the features of our house church was that it was very open and discussion oriented. Before we shared the communion meal, someone asked the simple question, "what are we doing this for?" And then one by one we began to admit that beyond rote Sunday school answers, we didn't really know. Despite our ignorance, we broke bread anyway but we also said one of us should do some research and share what they learned. And then I got picked...or maybe I volunteered, I still can't remember that part.
I put nose to grindstone. I read the accounts of the Lord's supper in the Gospels and the bit in 1 Corinthians 11 and 12, but I had heard these portions of scripture so often that they didn't help much. So I consulted the all-knowing Wikipedia, but that just gave me a raft of doctrinal history which was about as useful to me understanding communion as learning how to operate a printing press would be in learning how to read. I knew what I needed was to get in the heads of the disciples as they sat around the table with Jesus in the upper room - what were they thinking as they heard Jesus tell them to eat his body and drink his blood?
That's when I found N.T. Wright's book, The Meal Jesus Gave Us. An excellent book and while there are brief bits where he picks at some obscure doctrinal nits, it really helped me reach a deeper, fuller understanding of communion. Much of what follows came about with help from Mr. Wright's book. (I've put my own slant on it so if you disagree on my take on communion, don't slight his book, it's probably my mistake.)
In order to get a fuller understanding of communion, we need to take a trip in the way back machine - way back to 1500 BC, to Moses and the Exodus. I won't rehash the entire story but the salient points are these. The Israelites were held in captivity and made slaves of the Pharaoh until God spoke to Moses through a burning bush, instructing him to free his people and take them to a land that God had chosen for them - the promised land, flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:7-10). Ten nasty plagues ensued, culminating in the death of all the first-born children in Egypt. However, this plague passed over the Israelites. To this day, the Passover holiday is celebrated by Jews around the world as commanded by God. It's a time when they remember both their ancestors' suffering under slavery and the work God did to free them.
More significant for this discussion on communion, it's this Passover ceremony that Jesus shared with his disciples where he poured wine and broke bread and told us to do likewise (Matthew 26:17-19). As with everything else in Jesus' life, this is no coincidence - it's a date with deep, beautiful, nuanced meaning.
As I understand it, the Exodus is central to the identity of the Jewish people. Had God not led them out of Egypt through Moses, they say that they would still be living as slaves. In the same way, one of the central tenants of the christian faith is the idea that through the death of Jesus on the cross, those who believe and follow Christ are freed from being slaves to sin (Romans 6:6-7).
But the Passover story doesn't end with freedom. Once freed from Egypt, the Jews wandered the desert for forty years before being led to the land promised to them. And just as times of adversity build character, it was through this time of wandering that the "character" of the Jewish people was developed. Lauren F. Winner puts it this way in her excellent book, Girl Meets God:
"In The Star of Redemption, [Franz] Rosenzweig discusses [Jewish] time and calendars and holidays. About Pesach, he writes, 'The welding of people into a people takes place in its deliverance.' And that, it seems to me, is what both passover and Maundy Thursday are about - making a people. In the Exodus, the Jews are transformed from people into a people and at the Eucharist, instituted there at the Last Supper, we Christians are transformed into a people, too." (Winner 173)
I happen to believe that christians today are like those Jews wandering, stumbling, complaining towards the promised land. They were working their way to what would become Israel. We are working our way to the Kingdom of God - the time when Christ will come again to finish the work of redeeming this fallen world. For me, seeing the Eucharist in this way transforms what was once a staid, Sunday school answer - "we take communion to remember Christ's death on the cross" - into a vibrant reminder that we are all on a journey, that as bleak as the world seems, there is a promised land ahead of us. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that when Jesus instructed us to "do this in remembrance of me," he meant for us to remember both what he did on the cross as well as what he will do when he comes again.
[warning: unorthodox view ahead, please don't stone me]
To be honest, there are still times, while taking communion, that I find it difficult to remember what I'm supposed to be remembering. And I wonder.
As many churches do, my church celebrates communion every Sunday. Other churches I've attended took communion on a monthly or quarterly schedule. But for Jews, the Passover meal is a yearly event and as such, it's a big deal. The ceremony literally lasts all night and it's full of discussion on what the different foods symbolize. In taking communion every week, I have to fight the temptation to think of it as just that thing we do every Sunday.
I wonder if it would be better to take communion just once a year and to make it a really big deal. I think it'd be great to devote one service every year to a fuller discussion of the Last Supper and how Jesus was reworking the Passover celebration. Can you imagine how deep and meaningful drinking the wine and eating the bread would be on a Sunday like that?
Now I know some christians get together on Passover week to celebrate a christian Seder, but this is seen as kind of a fringe thing done only by hardcore christians. And I understand that devoting a Sunday service during Passover week to focus on communion would interfere with Easter Sunday but how about the week before or the week after or maybe some other date entirely?
I would love to see a Sunday where the whole church gets together and celebrates a Seder meal together...but that's just me and my two cents.
Monday, October 29, 2007
278. not slacking off...not exactly
Yeah, I didn't post last week. But I had friends from Hawaii in town.
Also, on Monday nights I've been attending a series my church is hosting called Faith and Race. Thoughtful, challenging stuff.
I'm ninety percent sure I can get to another post in the Layman's Theology series by the end of this week but right now I'm working on something to put on my bass drum.
Here's a preview:
There are places out there where you can send in a design and they'll custom make you a bass drum head but that route costs about $100.
I have other plans. Not sure if it's going to work but it'll be a helluva lot less than the mail-order version.
Wish me luck.
Also, on Monday nights I've been attending a series my church is hosting called Faith and Race. Thoughtful, challenging stuff.
I'm ninety percent sure I can get to another post in the Layman's Theology series by the end of this week but right now I'm working on something to put on my bass drum.
Here's a preview:
There are places out there where you can send in a design and they'll custom make you a bass drum head but that route costs about $100.
I have other plans. Not sure if it's going to work but it'll be a helluva lot less than the mail-order version.
Wish me luck.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
277. cowboys and the kingdom of God
[PREFACE]
Earlier this week I mentioned that I would be adding another installment of the Layman's Theology series. I'm not sure if this entry qualifies because most of it is about a recent situation at work but I do talk a bit about the kingdom of God near the end. Maybe think of this as a practical, real-world application of some of what I've been writing about.
And a word of caution. I've written before about how I made it a point to swear less in my blog (I used to have a potty mouth...see blog 30) but sometimes you just gotta haul out the heavy artillery and drop the almighty f-bomb because no other word will do.
[END PREFACE]
So I haven't said much about what's been going on at work. I've written before about my workplace, - about how dehumanizing it can be and how hard it is to work with a certain coworker (code name: Harold).
These last couple months have been especially busy. I've been working like mad from the moment I start until the moment I leave but I still haven't been able to get on top of things. Thankfully, I've been able to maintain a kind of steady state of chaos (not letting it overwhelm me) but it hasn't been easy. And yeah, there are two of us in the department and so I suppose I should be using the pronoun "we" instead of "I" but you know that thing about eighty percent of the work being done by twenty percent of the workers? In this case, it seems like eighty percent of the work is being done by fifty percent of the workers: me.
Well earlier this week, I'd been noticing that a relatively low priority project (LPP) was really piling up. I asked Harold if he could take care of it. He responded that our boss (let's call him Leroy) had given him a special project (SP) to work on so he was too busy. I knew he was working on SP but it was from another department and I knew I had far too many more pressing matters in our department to get to LPP myself so right before I left for the day, I popped into Leroy's office and told him about the situation. Leroy told me that things in our department come before things in other departments. He said he'd talk to Harold and make sure he set aside his SP to work on LPP.
I've said before that Harold isn't exactly the easiest person to work with - he has a short fuse and he's not exactly what I would call efficient or organized. Now it's not like I walk on eggshells around him, but to be honest, I basically try to stay out of his way (which often isn't hard to do since he spends most of his day at his desk working on...something, don't ask me what because most of the work that needs to be done is out in the racks where the boxes and the files are...where I am).
Anyway, the next day, I knew Leroy was going to talk to Harold and I wasn't sure how he would respond. When I got there in the morning, things were cool and so I figured everything was copacetic. But then in the afternoon, Harold comes back from his lunch break and I see him grab the box that holds the files that have to do with LPP. It's a project that I'd worked on before and I didn't think that Harold had ever done it before so I casually offered to show him what to do but before I could even finish my offer, he brusquely interrupts me saying, "yeah, I know what to do."
Taken aback, I said okay, but there are two parts to this project. I knew the first half was very similar to other things we do on a regular basis but the second half is a bit different and so I went on to ask him to let me know when he was done with the first half so I could tell him about what was different about the second half. Again, before I could finish my offer, he interrupts and says, "hey, I've been doing this for over five years all right? I got it, okay?"
Now before I tell you how I responded, you need to understand something. Like I said before, the reason I wasn't able to get to LPP was because for the past couple months, things have been SUPER busy and no matter how much work I did or how fast I did it, I just couldn't get to the lower priority projects. During this time, Harold was spending the majority of his day working on SP - a project that he can do comfortably while sitting at his desk - while I worked my ass off out in the racks. There were a bunch of times when I'd walk by Harold's desk sweating after finishing yet another kick ass order and I'd see him just sitting at his desk casually working on SP. It didn't seem fair and it didn't seem right and while I just kept doing the best work I knew how, I'd be a bald-faced liar if I told you I wasn't irritated by this situation. But I bit my tongue and kept nose to grindstone.
Well all that latent frustration sprung to the surface upon hearing Harold's blunt/rude/abrasive response to my best attempts at merely offering to help. But while Harold has a short fuse and a loud pop, I have a long fuse and the most aggro response I could muster was to say, "alright, fine. If you got it, you got it." I shook my head, grabbed another order and headed back out into the racks to pull more files.
Of course what I really wanted to say was: "Hey, fuck you, you lazy mutherfucker. It's hard to believe you've worked here for five years seeing as how slow, lazy and unorganized you are. You know, you're so full of shit it's no wonder your breath stinks!"
But I didn't.
Yeah, I'm passive-aggressive. I'm working on it. But you gotta admit, that would have been a sweet response.
Anyway, while I was out pulling my order I calmed down a bit and thought about what I'd written before about trying to spread the kingdom of God at a workplace where I spend most of my time with boxes and files.
And then it hit me.
Yeah, I spend most of my day with inanimate objects but Harold is there as well even though I don't interact with him all that much (and not just because I try to avoid him). How stupid is it for me to be so proud of how I keep those lifeless boxes neat and organized while I secretly harbor gross, nasty thoughts about my living, breathing coworker?
I also thought about the book I've been reading during my lunch breaks, Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. He calls himself an "ordinary radical" but his story is anything but ordinary - among other things, he spent a summer in Calcutta with Mother Theresa and he spent time in Iraq before and during the American shock and awe campaign. He would say that it's a shame that his life is seen as extraordinary because all he did was ask the simple question, "what if Jesus really meant what he said in the Bible," and everything else just followed as a result.
And so that got me thinking. What if Jesus meant what he said when he told us (me) to love our enemies? Now Harold isn't my enemy per se, but that loophole is covered by that bit where Jesus said the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself and there's no weaseling myself out of that one.
And then that got me thinking. What if I include Harold in my little mission to live out the kingdom of God at my workplace? I mean, what if I look past all the shortcomings I see in him and treated him the way I would if he were a kick ass filing and box-shelving machine? Because I really believe that as a christian, the way the kingdom of God gets spread is by living now the way I would if the fall had never happened or the way I will after Jesus comes again to restore the world. If I believe that then why shouldn't I do my best to treat Harold as a peer?
I mean, what if Harold wasn't always this way? What if life has been really shitty to him and that's why he is the way he is now? What if he only does the minimum to get by at work because he's the kind of person Bruce Springsteen was thinking of when he wrote the lines: "end up like a dog that's been beat too much / 'til you spend half your life just covering up." What if he's hyper-defensive because other coworkers in the past have treated him poorly.
And that led to more questions: What if I did my best to treat Harold with respect? What if I tried treating him the way Jesus would if he were working here? What if Matthew 5:46 were translated this way:
"If you only treat hard working coworkers with respect then what reward will you get? Is not your boss already doing that?"
I'm sure there are some who would say that I'm an idiot, that I should bitch and moan to Leroy about the way Harold works, that I shouldn't stand for this kind of injustice.
Maybe they're right to raise those objections but again, what if Jesus meant it when he talked about an entirely new way of living in his Sermon On the Mount - a way of living where love and grace are extended to all, regardless?
According to the rules of this world, it's backwards, upside-down, inside-out, but I'm not a citizen of this world. This week at my Bible study we looked at John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus that "no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." And one of the things we discussed is the idea that being "born again" means adopting an entirely new way of living which can (should) be different from the normal way of life.
Back when I lived in Hawaii, every once in a while (usually in Waikiki or in other spots frequented by tourists) I'd see someone walking around with a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and a huge belt buckle. They'd stick out like sore thumbs because the standard dress code in Hawaii is shorts, t-shirt, and slippers (aka flip-flops). But I think that's kind of what it's like to be a christian. I mean, we don't dress different but we live different - we love the unloved, we extend grace where judgement should be, we live now the way we would if the fall had never happened, the way we will in heaven.
I thought all these crazy things our there in the racks, pulling my order, and when I was done, when I went back to my desk to verify my items, I walked over to Harold and apologized to him. I told him that I didn't mean to imply that he didn't know how to do his job and that if I gave him that impression then I was sorry.
He said, "don't worry about it," and I couldn't tell how he took what I said but I figured I'd just take his response at face value and I replied, "cool, thanks."
I don't know.
Maybe he'll never change. Maybe he'll think I'm a schmuck and take advantage of my willingness to put up with his work ethic. Maybe he won't even notice that I'm trying to be nice to him.
Doesn't matter to me...well, that's not entirely true. It's still a huge struggle to not think of Harold as a lazy bum but I'm going to do my best (so help me God) to be Jesus to Harold - to practice preemptive forgiveness and grace. Because just as a cowboy walks through Waikiki with a huge Stetson hat on, I walk through life as a newborn citizen of the kingdom of God.
Earlier this week I mentioned that I would be adding another installment of the Layman's Theology series. I'm not sure if this entry qualifies because most of it is about a recent situation at work but I do talk a bit about the kingdom of God near the end. Maybe think of this as a practical, real-world application of some of what I've been writing about.
And a word of caution. I've written before about how I made it a point to swear less in my blog (I used to have a potty mouth...see blog 30) but sometimes you just gotta haul out the heavy artillery and drop the almighty f-bomb because no other word will do.
[END PREFACE]
So I haven't said much about what's been going on at work. I've written before about my workplace, - about how dehumanizing it can be and how hard it is to work with a certain coworker (code name: Harold).
These last couple months have been especially busy. I've been working like mad from the moment I start until the moment I leave but I still haven't been able to get on top of things. Thankfully, I've been able to maintain a kind of steady state of chaos (not letting it overwhelm me) but it hasn't been easy. And yeah, there are two of us in the department and so I suppose I should be using the pronoun "we" instead of "I" but you know that thing about eighty percent of the work being done by twenty percent of the workers? In this case, it seems like eighty percent of the work is being done by fifty percent of the workers: me.
Well earlier this week, I'd been noticing that a relatively low priority project (LPP) was really piling up. I asked Harold if he could take care of it. He responded that our boss (let's call him Leroy) had given him a special project (SP) to work on so he was too busy. I knew he was working on SP but it was from another department and I knew I had far too many more pressing matters in our department to get to LPP myself so right before I left for the day, I popped into Leroy's office and told him about the situation. Leroy told me that things in our department come before things in other departments. He said he'd talk to Harold and make sure he set aside his SP to work on LPP.
I've said before that Harold isn't exactly the easiest person to work with - he has a short fuse and he's not exactly what I would call efficient or organized. Now it's not like I walk on eggshells around him, but to be honest, I basically try to stay out of his way (which often isn't hard to do since he spends most of his day at his desk working on...something, don't ask me what because most of the work that needs to be done is out in the racks where the boxes and the files are...where I am).
Anyway, the next day, I knew Leroy was going to talk to Harold and I wasn't sure how he would respond. When I got there in the morning, things were cool and so I figured everything was copacetic. But then in the afternoon, Harold comes back from his lunch break and I see him grab the box that holds the files that have to do with LPP. It's a project that I'd worked on before and I didn't think that Harold had ever done it before so I casually offered to show him what to do but before I could even finish my offer, he brusquely interrupts me saying, "yeah, I know what to do."
Taken aback, I said okay, but there are two parts to this project. I knew the first half was very similar to other things we do on a regular basis but the second half is a bit different and so I went on to ask him to let me know when he was done with the first half so I could tell him about what was different about the second half. Again, before I could finish my offer, he interrupts and says, "hey, I've been doing this for over five years all right? I got it, okay?"
Now before I tell you how I responded, you need to understand something. Like I said before, the reason I wasn't able to get to LPP was because for the past couple months, things have been SUPER busy and no matter how much work I did or how fast I did it, I just couldn't get to the lower priority projects. During this time, Harold was spending the majority of his day working on SP - a project that he can do comfortably while sitting at his desk - while I worked my ass off out in the racks. There were a bunch of times when I'd walk by Harold's desk sweating after finishing yet another kick ass order and I'd see him just sitting at his desk casually working on SP. It didn't seem fair and it didn't seem right and while I just kept doing the best work I knew how, I'd be a bald-faced liar if I told you I wasn't irritated by this situation. But I bit my tongue and kept nose to grindstone.
Well all that latent frustration sprung to the surface upon hearing Harold's blunt/rude/abrasive response to my best attempts at merely offering to help. But while Harold has a short fuse and a loud pop, I have a long fuse and the most aggro response I could muster was to say, "alright, fine. If you got it, you got it." I shook my head, grabbed another order and headed back out into the racks to pull more files.
Of course what I really wanted to say was: "Hey, fuck you, you lazy mutherfucker. It's hard to believe you've worked here for five years seeing as how slow, lazy and unorganized you are. You know, you're so full of shit it's no wonder your breath stinks!"
But I didn't.
Yeah, I'm passive-aggressive. I'm working on it. But you gotta admit, that would have been a sweet response.
Anyway, while I was out pulling my order I calmed down a bit and thought about what I'd written before about trying to spread the kingdom of God at a workplace where I spend most of my time with boxes and files.
And then it hit me.
Yeah, I spend most of my day with inanimate objects but Harold is there as well even though I don't interact with him all that much (and not just because I try to avoid him). How stupid is it for me to be so proud of how I keep those lifeless boxes neat and organized while I secretly harbor gross, nasty thoughts about my living, breathing coworker?
I also thought about the book I've been reading during my lunch breaks, Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. He calls himself an "ordinary radical" but his story is anything but ordinary - among other things, he spent a summer in Calcutta with Mother Theresa and he spent time in Iraq before and during the American shock and awe campaign. He would say that it's a shame that his life is seen as extraordinary because all he did was ask the simple question, "what if Jesus really meant what he said in the Bible," and everything else just followed as a result.
And so that got me thinking. What if Jesus meant what he said when he told us (me) to love our enemies? Now Harold isn't my enemy per se, but that loophole is covered by that bit where Jesus said the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself and there's no weaseling myself out of that one.
And then that got me thinking. What if I include Harold in my little mission to live out the kingdom of God at my workplace? I mean, what if I look past all the shortcomings I see in him and treated him the way I would if he were a kick ass filing and box-shelving machine? Because I really believe that as a christian, the way the kingdom of God gets spread is by living now the way I would if the fall had never happened or the way I will after Jesus comes again to restore the world. If I believe that then why shouldn't I do my best to treat Harold as a peer?
I mean, what if Harold wasn't always this way? What if life has been really shitty to him and that's why he is the way he is now? What if he only does the minimum to get by at work because he's the kind of person Bruce Springsteen was thinking of when he wrote the lines: "end up like a dog that's been beat too much / 'til you spend half your life just covering up." What if he's hyper-defensive because other coworkers in the past have treated him poorly.
And that led to more questions: What if I did my best to treat Harold with respect? What if I tried treating him the way Jesus would if he were working here? What if Matthew 5:46 were translated this way:
"If you only treat hard working coworkers with respect then what reward will you get? Is not your boss already doing that?"
I'm sure there are some who would say that I'm an idiot, that I should bitch and moan to Leroy about the way Harold works, that I shouldn't stand for this kind of injustice.
Maybe they're right to raise those objections but again, what if Jesus meant it when he talked about an entirely new way of living in his Sermon On the Mount - a way of living where love and grace are extended to all, regardless?
According to the rules of this world, it's backwards, upside-down, inside-out, but I'm not a citizen of this world. This week at my Bible study we looked at John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus that "no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." And one of the things we discussed is the idea that being "born again" means adopting an entirely new way of living which can (should) be different from the normal way of life.
Back when I lived in Hawaii, every once in a while (usually in Waikiki or in other spots frequented by tourists) I'd see someone walking around with a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and a huge belt buckle. They'd stick out like sore thumbs because the standard dress code in Hawaii is shorts, t-shirt, and slippers (aka flip-flops). But I think that's kind of what it's like to be a christian. I mean, we don't dress different but we live different - we love the unloved, we extend grace where judgement should be, we live now the way we would if the fall had never happened, the way we will in heaven.
I thought all these crazy things our there in the racks, pulling my order, and when I was done, when I went back to my desk to verify my items, I walked over to Harold and apologized to him. I told him that I didn't mean to imply that he didn't know how to do his job and that if I gave him that impression then I was sorry.
He said, "don't worry about it," and I couldn't tell how he took what I said but I figured I'd just take his response at face value and I replied, "cool, thanks."
I don't know.
Maybe he'll never change. Maybe he'll think I'm a schmuck and take advantage of my willingness to put up with his work ethic. Maybe he won't even notice that I'm trying to be nice to him.
Doesn't matter to me...well, that's not entirely true. It's still a huge struggle to not think of Harold as a lazy bum but I'm going to do my best (so help me God) to be Jesus to Harold - to practice preemptive forgiveness and grace. Because just as a cowboy walks through Waikiki with a huge Stetson hat on, I walk through life as a newborn citizen of the kingdom of God.
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