Learning from my mistakes #3: Standing Up For Myself

I absolutely love the street we live on. Well, except for that huge section where the blacktop got torn up so its not just gravel and makes a huge mess. But besides that I'm a big fan.

One of the best parts is all the kids. There is rarely a day where our doorbell doesn't ring and somebody is down wanting to play with our kids. I love the interaction he has with them and the little ways they set up kickball games or recreate Bulls and Celtics basketball games.

Occasionally, okay just about every time, somebody ends up getting mad at somebody else and they quit playing. At least for as long as 8 to 11 year old boys can stay mad. Then they realize being in the house with mom and dad is lame and strike a new peace accord.

Last week Ang and I were talking with Carter because he's learning the lifelong lesson called "Being a Leader, Being a Follower". Since he's the youngest, he does more of the latter and less of the former and we'd like. Sometimes this means our toys get broken, sometimes this means they say mean things to each other or Brynn and sometimes it is just kids being kids. My personal favorite is how those kids run like our family has the plague as soon as we say "Time to clean up the toys."

So in the midst of this impromptu John Maxwell leadership lesson at our dining room table, we encouraged Carter to stand up to his friends. Through tears he said "But if I tell them to stop, they might get mad and leave."

Now, being all knowing, we realize this is not true. As mentioned before, being at home with mom and dad is lame. But I get where the manchild was coming from. Sometimes speaking our mind or setting boundaries is tough and sometimes, those friends don't come back.

Which makes you wonder how good of a friend they were.

Could it be that part of friendship is being able to set and respect boundaries with each other? As a person who for far too long hated confrontation and was a people-pleaser too often I too sat knowing I should speak up but was more content with the discontent of the moment than I was with saying what needed to be said.

It's a good thing I've figured this all out now isn't it? I assume the same is true for you.

Learning from my mistakes #2: Dirty Looks

It was the last Friday of February and I decided it was time to renew the tags on my car at the DMV. Yeah, I know I'd had the paperwork on it for over a month. It wasn't technically the last day of the month but it was the end of a long week and I figured what better way to cap a busy and stressful week than to hang out at the DMV on Friday afternoon right? It's true, I DO know how to party.

So after finding out I didn't have all the right paperwork (I've only lived here for 6 years so I'm still new at this whole thing) I headed over to the courthouse to secure the document saying that I was in deed a tax paying citizen of Missouri.

However once I talked with the lady I found out I indeed was not yet a tax paying citizen. The lady behind the desk was, well, not as helpful as I'd like and I was annoyed. She then asked me for the paperwork I was referring to which I of course had left in my car. The whole interchange was about as awkward and unproductive as that one time I tried to ask out a cheerleader.

So in much the same level of frustration I gave her the meanest look I could and said dismissively as I walked out the door "Thanks so much." At least on this occasion I didn't do anything overtly rude, I was just a jerk and by the time I was halfway home I knew it.

Since it was Friday afternoon when all this happened, I had all weekend to stew on the fact that I'd not handled the situation well and when I really thought about it, I was the person who was in the wrong. To make it worse I realized on Monday I was going to have to go back into the same office and face the same lady and still needed to pay my taxes. What's worse than one bad interaction with a person? Well, two of them would qualify in my book!

So Monday afternoon I prepared myself to eat some humble pie. I decided I would own up to being a turd and take whatever punishment was mine. And I would pay my taxes.

Monday afternoon arrived and as I opened the door to the room, I realized I was not the only person in the room with my nemesis. Turns out she'd done something to anger the woman across the counter from her. This lady was going off on the courthouse worker. I mean, it was epic. Like, you know when you have a dream of going off on that one person you are mad at and you imagine saying everything you are thinking and finally finding the justice you've been without? Yeah, this lady was doing that.

If there was an academy award for "best performance at the courthouse" this woman would win. She'd probably have earned best art direction, best makeup, best direction and earned the supporting actor role as well. I mean this in all respect, it was amazing. Now, it was inappropriate, she looked ridiculous but holy cow, she got her money's worth. When she was done being baby Mt. Vesuvius, she stormed out of the room and left me with my friend who I'd had the run in with on Friday.

"Well." I thought. "That certainly set me up to look nice."

The lady looked up from her paperwork and led with this question, "So, are you in a bad mood today too?"

Let's just say I had scripted how this reconciliation was going to go and things were waaaay off script by this point.

"No, I'm not but I was on Friday and I'm certain I was a big jerk to you so I want to apologize." I said.

For a brief second she looked at me and then responded, "Honey, I don't even remember you. What are you here for today?"

It clicked in that brief moment that all that I had beaten myself up over didn't matter. Had I come in today without a desire to apologize, I would have gotten away with it because she didn't even recognize me. That's great I guess but it doesn't account for the fact that I still hadn't handled myself in the right way.

So in the end, I got back on the right side of the law, regained a friend at the courthouse and owned up, whether I had to or not, for having a bad attitude. Mind you, I'd done nothing "wrong" I'd just not shown another human the dignity they deserved and I'd taken my frustration at myself out on the wrong person.

So here's to owning up to our own messes. Here's to treating everyone with respect. And here's to making sure we slow down to realize that everyone we have interaction with matters and deserves our best, not just the people above us on the social ladder that we want to respect us.

And the rest of the story? On my way out the door, the police officer who runs security in the lobby of the courthouse leaned in the door as I was walking out and said with a smile on his face, "Could you guys quit pissing people off in here today?"

Learning from my mistakes #1 : Cussing

I have to admit as I logged in to post this, I saw that picture of the grilled cheese burger from my previous post. Wow, I'm hungry now.

So last week was Carter's spring break. Ang had a very wise idea to not just sit around the house eating bon bon's and catching up on the latest season of Real Housewives but instead do some Home Improvement.

I know, this is all starting to make sense already isn't it?

So one of the projects she had me working on was a minor face lift to our guest bathroom. Instead of spending ridiculous amounts of cash, we opted for some well-chosen changes that together made a big difference. On this particular day I had built/replaced/repaired a number of things and to this point was batting 1.000. For those of you who don't know sports, I was perfect.

I'd replaced the TP hangar, put in a new towel rack and was now on to installing the new light fixture. Let's just say (and yes, I did turn the power off before I started) that things didn't go perfectly. And let's go on to say that I didn't run my reaction through the WWJD filter. And let's finish up by saying that my wonderful 8 year old son heard a couple words usually reserved for those moments when the censor guy at ESPN doesn't hit mute quick enough during games.

I knew right away I'd messed up. Ang quickly summoned Carter upstairs before any eternal damage was done and I finished my project.

But it kept bothering me. Because I'd seen this play out before. Only I was the kid.

I've said before, I inherited my temper or at least caught how to handle frustrating situations. Mind you, this is not how I handle every stressful situation. That would have ended my youth ministry career quickly and left me with nothing but 15 minutes of YouTube fame.

So what got me is I know I can handle myself. Sometimes I don't.

So I did what my dad never did. I went and got Carter and sat down on the steps and talked with him. Now let me be clear, I have an awesome father. I'm blessed and wouldn't trade a thing but here's the deal. He's not perfect. And neither am I. And my son needs to know that.

And even more than that, he needed me to apologize. So we talked it out and I admitted I was being less then super. I told him that wasn't how we handle ourselves and I wanted him to learn sooner than I did how to deal with moments when things don't go as planned.

But I also wanted him to know that I'm not perfect. I'm trying. But I will make mistakes and what makes us better people is not pretending to be perfect or living in such a way where things are easy but in admitting our mistakes, learning from them and doing our best to never repeat them.

By the way, the light looks incredible and it made the next 4 hours of installing the new faucet a great opportunity to practice what I had just preached. Happy to announce it was a success. There were a couple close calls though.....

On why I hate hybrids

Maybe it's just me but I'm growing a little tired of all this hybrid talk. I know, I'm supposed to be a treehugger and all so how can I not love these little electric gizmos?

Well to be fair, I'm not against the car. In fact I've never driven one. I had the chance once when renting a car in Denver but they told me I had to go through a brief training period on how to use it. Uh, no thanks. I know how to drive and when I'm in town to get to work, the last thing I want to do is hang out at Enterprise getting my "how to drive a hybrid" certification. If that's what it takes to rent one of those things, give me the SUV. And not one of those stupid Hybrid SUV's. That's just ridiculous, that's like a veggie burger. Oh wait, nevermind, I love those things--why would anyone ever eat beef?

So I have some serious questions about hybrids. I will freely admit I am skeptical of them and their "good" they supposedly do. Plus I don't think my electric bill could accomodate one. But in the end if you want to drive a Prius, go for it.

The hybrid I'm getting tired of is the term. It seems like everywhere I turn now, hybrid is the new term for compromise between two terms or ideas that can't mesh. It sounds a little like this.

"I like both ideas, so what about a hybrid where we have a little of both." Sounds great. Seriously, it sounds like a great idea. Here's the thing, most of the time, when two people can't agree its because their ideas are different. Sure, meshing them might make it dynamic. Or it might make it a hot mess. Two ideas crammed into one implementation is not always the way to success.

Now to be fair, I love the idea of compromise. I'm all about keeping the peace in meetings and everyone leaving feeling warm and fuzzy. It's just that sometimes that's not an option.

In my opinion, and that's entirely what this is, its our desire to create hybrids that's gotten us in so much trouble. It seems as though we lack the intestinal fortitude to stand by a decision so we try to make a groupthink collective that ends up looking like a bad stew.

In the end, all I'm saying is that there is a time for a combination of ideas such as the grilledcheeseburger. But there are other times where let's just do one or the other and not try to mesh things. I guess I like the old Revelation idea of being hot or cold because lukewarm ain't that great.

So here's to having an idea and sticking with it, maybe even fighting for it because to compromise it might just make it lame.

Incomplete thoughts on poverty, part 3

I am going to warn you, my thought process is all over the place in this post. If that doesn't scare you off, at least consider yourself warned.

I have some friends who are going through hard times right now. I think about them often, even have some reminders set up so that throughout my day I can stop and pray for them. For one, I just got done writing them a quick email to let them know they were in my thoughts and prayers.

I didn't send the email for quite a while because I wasn't sure if it would make any difference.

Have you ever wondered that? Like, if you are going through a hard time does it mean anything if you get 4 people saying they are praying for you verses 40? I guess that's kind of extreme. Maybe I am weird, but there are certain people I EXPECT to hear from and then the others are nice. What kind of a judgmental creep does this make me?!

Maybe this comes from my years as a pastor where I would go do hospital calls (when they made me) and people would thank me for coming but want to know when the senior pastor was coming. Like I brought the JV prayer squad but they can't wait for the All Pro. But I know I've acted that way before too.

So then I wondered if I was sending the email because it made me feel better. Like in some water cooler conversation someone would ask if I had heard about the situation and I could now self-righteously comment "Yeah, I sent them an email." and the other people would be shamed at their sinfulness or amazed at my piety.

Now the reality is not every need I hear about I can personally respond nor do people want me to. There are people in my life though the moment something hits the fan I will drop everything to be there with them. For others, I mourn, grieve, hurt or sympathize from a distance.

On a separate but related issue(at least in my mind), I wonder about those that we try to serve that are needy. Maybe I am confessing that much of my "selfless service" is a lot more selfish than I want to admit. I just wonder if our way of caring for them or letting them know we are aware of their need is done in a way that they can appreciate or that really speaks to the situation.

Sure, we respond but we've done so on our schedule and in some level of convenience to us. I always think of Job's friends who drop everything and come and just sit. They don't talk, they just sit in some sort of quiet solidarity.

I guess what I'm saying is what we've heard a number of times, that we too quickly say things like I'll pray for you or you are in my thoughts. What if those words meant as much to the person as they do to us when we say them. I'm willing to admit if you are that I've told someone I will pray for them and then never done it.

So how do we raise the conversation out of the christianese and into reality that is meaningful and helpful. In the meantime, I'll keep praying for my friends and doing my best to mean what I say.

Incomplete thoughts on poverty, part 2

This thought is so incomplete, it is actually 3 peoples thoughts put together at one time. What you or I do with them is up to us now.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do." -Mark Twain

"The opposite of love is not hatred; it is indifference. When we have learned indifference, when we are really skilled and determined at the business of ignoring others, of putting our own well-being, our own options first--of thrusting our own ego into life, as the ideal form of life itself--we may be quite certain that at that point, life has become hell. We need be no more thoroughly damned."
--Daniel Berrigan

"Strangely enough, the havoc wreaked by indifference may be even 'greater than that brought by felt, lived, practiced hatred.'" --Miroslav Volf

The difference between a kind act and determined effort to solve a problem through action is becoming bigger to me every day. At least for me I am more and more convicted by the fact that I am aware of a lot of things that bother me, but I've found a way to file them in some part of my brain that isn't usually associated with action. Could it be that my inaction is actually worse than joining in with the practices I hate?