Soul Cleaning

These little stories keep falling into my lap and so excuse me while I overblog and share.

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I’ve worn contacts - abusively - for years.  Out of necessity, I’ve recently been forced into taking them out at night.  Turns out the buggers want some oxygen.

As a result of my new practice I’ve gotten reacquainted with my glasses in the morning.   Because I’m not yet of Liz Lemon-wearing caliber, there is a lot of eyebrow rubbing and itching behind my ear that causes me momentary bouts of blindness as I pause to have a face-to-face with my spectacles.

This morning, with glasses in my lap, I looked round the room and challenged myself to a game of I Spy. I spied four chairs and a general feeling that the table was cleared.  (It wasn’t.)  That was good enough feedback to reach for my daily devotional and take a moment of quiet.  With the book pressed to my nose, I flipped to January 14 passing through (without self-judgment) the first 13 days I had missed.

The title of the entry was:  “14 January.  Blurry Visions of God.”  I kid you not.  Now I’m not a believer in horoscopes or God intervening to insure the Seahawks win (best fans in the NFL will make that happen), but I do think all of our paths are sprinkled with signs and wonders and every once in a while one of them comes at you like a billboard.  It’s best to sit up and pay attention when that happens.

That C.S. Lewis.  He was such a wise theologian.  “And it a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred – like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope.  That is why horrible nations have horrible religions; they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.”

My first thought was of the religious crazies we saw in Paris last week.  I sat with that one for a while until my anger expanded into a general feeling that I needed to move on.  My second thought was maybe this is why the Christian tradition has always taught confession before petition.  That we can’t find or implore God until we are willing to examine ourselves.  Or if you not religiously inclined, why we need to get our own sh** together before we have any possibility of seeing things right.   That idea applies to the extremists and everyone in between.

I know it’s sappy to tell you that right after I had a little confessional moment, I put my glasses back on.  Things were definitely less blurry … until I teared up.  Because of course, confession is a release – a sending up of a helium balloon that has no way of coming back to you -  and it doesn’t know how not to come through your tear ducts.  

God/healing/inspiration isn’t reserved for the special few, but you do have to be willing to clean out your soul closets if you want to see the fully set table in front of you.  Perhaps with enough cleaning you can even see far enough to your neighbor’s table, set differently but with crumbs under his too.  As C.S. Lewis said so beautifully this morning to me and maybe now to you, “Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dirty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s been 13 days or 13 years since your last Windex.  What matters is though we may wish it different, the only instrument we have to clean is ourselves.

When the best pictures don't make it to your camera roll

I saw something yesterday.  It was one of those things that didn’t just make me smile.  It made my heart swell big enough that I could feel it in my throat.

Yesterday I went to watch my oldest son’s basketball game – a plan requiring that we be at the gym thirty minutes early.  Taking a seat in the stands, I buried myself in my Kindle as I waited for the game in progress to finish.  Normally this strategy of “ignoring the world around me while I wait” works.  It is harder though to abide in a noisy gym.  

Double checking there was not a French fire drill in progress, I looked up to register the unusual commotion.  No one was moving toward the exit but everyone’s eyes were glued on the court.   A peek at the scoreboard confirmed it was a close game.  The fan appreciation told me there was something more worth watching.  

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary game of big bodied sixteen year old boys.   One of the teams I recognized as being in my son’s club.  The other team was new to me.  Though a player on the other team had just gotten fouled on a very nice move to the hoop, I can say with 100% confidence we weren’t watching the next Lebron James. 

It was the following beat when I understood why the audience was captivated.   Rather than going to the foul line to take his free throws, the big guy positioned one of his teammates on the line.  A highly unusual move to have an understudy take your shots, it did not take any powers of observation to notice that his teammate had down syndrome.  It was also evident how happy he was to be there.  Unskilled but with full-to-bursting effort, he threw up two prayers - both of which missed.  

While the team hustled back on defense, I noticed a second player - not with down syndrome, but some form of intellectual disability.  He was easy to spot as he was taking the mandate to “stay with his man” with an unyielding if not always effective determination.  Rounding out the roster with the big guy and dynamic duo were two more able-bodied and skilled players who helped keep the tempo up and score close.   Against a competitive club team. 

This was not a charity game. 

The dynamo duo kept on with the defensive pressure, passed the ball in and continued to stand-in (90% unsuccessfully) for free throws.  Meanwhile the other three were finding the basket and crashing the boards.   As the game play entered the last period, the dynamic duo subbed out for a new pair of players.  Any assumption that the big guns were coming back was quickly dismissed when one of the guys hugged the scorekeeper to let him know he was coming in and both occasionally needed to be gently but bodily redirected when out of position.  In the flow of the game, the three starters involved their rotating cast in small but meaningful ways.   In return they received a steady stream of high fives and endless encouragement.

The game stayed close.  The club team did not dial down their game.  It was a beautiful thing to watch.  This team of seemingly misfit, certainly unevenly yoked players playing hard and playing together.   Able-bodied young men supported by whole-hearted young men playing a game they clearly all loved.  They won by two points.  Of course they did.   Against a conventional team that wasn’t pandering.  The coach of the club team laid into his team as soon as the buzzer sounded.  As he should.

This was not a charity game. 

This, I think, was a picture of what living with our differences can look like.  When a group of seemingly misfit, certainly unevenly minded/skilled/believing people come together - not in a special summit to celebrate our differences - but when they come together in the real flow of life to accomplish something.  There’s nothing conventional about that. Maybe even a winning formula?

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the dynamic quad did not wait for the post-game handshake.  They bounded over to the opposing bench to congratulate the team on a game well played.

This morning I read this:  “Let everything be human and flawed, and be completely taken and thankful when it is good.” 

When our hearts are in our throat…  That, I think, is what it feels like to be completely taken when we see something good.   And many of those good things never make it on our camera roll.

Je Suis Charlie

Blowing in the Wind - Ecochic 75/25 by Rosanne on Etsy

I live 2 hours from Paris, but we all live in close proximity to unspeakable evil.

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Howling winds shake the windows

Like bandwagons begging for company

The myth that we can keep ourselves safe

Independent

Without enemies

To not be afraid, yes

In a broken, precarious world

Booming with wonder

Goodness still

Like a fire that must be constantly stoked

Fed by the confidence that justice will prevail

              Some now

                             More later

Better together

The belief that God is in all things

              Not just what I see

                             Or you know

                                           Or what any of us says

Howling winds shake the windows

Rain and hail now too

Let us push our logs inward together

              To increase the heat

                             Towards justice

Black Friday

On this Black Friday
Nothing purchased
Nothing accomplished
Instead may your gratitude hang over
Into longing for
Transcendent moments of joy
The divine tickle in the ordinary
Unconstrained by reason
The whispered reassurance you have enough, are enough
Inexplicably fueling
Persistence in knotty places
Peace in things still unknown
Potentially, hope in sorrow
On a different Friday
Something was purchased
Everything accomplished.

Unscheduled appointments

Like a plumber who arrives unannounced

To finally tend to some clogged drains

Excavating debris from places unknown

Every hair out of place and now on display

Replacing valves narrowed by calcification

Hard leaking out and encrusting itself as scale

We would have swiped the traps had we known

Snaked the drains to show we tried

Instead the towels are all hanging out

Not expecting company

It is hard to tell with this visitant

Too embarrassed are we to lock eyes

He sees the mess we're in

With judgment we can only suppose.

Afterwards, we scamper around tidying

With brush and bleach in hand

A deeper clean than normal

Reinforcing our capacity for Good Housekeeping

The mirror now sparkles, “Ready.”

Forgetting the blocked water flow solved

Oh the hubris, the silliness to think

We can keep it all pristine

That a hair shall never fall out our heads

That hard water is ours alone to bear

Something is forgotten

We were not the ones who called for help?

Wine, Dine and Tweet

Never has there been a time when a great idea, a job well done, or talent been enough on its own.   Dues have to be paid, hours logged, and a stroke of luck – or good timing – has always been the basic recipe for success and advancement.  Great hair also never hurt.

Today, genuinely created value and measured tenacity aren’t enough.   It’s the noisemakers who win.   Shameless self-promotion has become our Common Core. 

Musicians are expected to get people to their casino gig and cultivate online fan groups.  Employees seeking advancement either have to jump ship to get noticed or overshoot every target, preferably into the lap of a senior executive.  Writers, especially in the advent of self-publishing, are required to spend more time pedaling then penning their masterpiece.  Marketers are constantly trolling for new customer bases while beseeching their existing customer base to upgrade NOW.  Soon our college applicants will be asked to submit a song and dance along with their essay.  In the age of wine, dine and tweet, everyone needs their own personal marketing plan.

It’s a lot of racket.  With so much choice and the lack of time and resource to sift through the real talent/best product/most worthy candidate, mediocrity prospers.  Attention is a limited commodity and the loudest voices hold court.  It's labor intensive to filter the message from the messenger.  Some other things are lost with all this YOU, INC. noise.

First, it demotivates.  Talented people understand positive motivation involves extrinsic reward or punishment.  They are inherently adaptable because they know how to read what will resonate with their audience.  However, nothing slows a person down quite like an arbitrary stick in the eye simply because your megaphone volume was turned down too low.

Secondly, there’s the ick factor.   It doesn’t take too many conversations turned talking points for a gifted non-salesy person to feel like a fraud or a walking selfie using his or her most flattering filter.  No one wants to be the guy who’s asking for the ball every time down the court.  Talented people need to be ready for the pitch, but it’s hard to feel authentic – and virtually impossible to listen well – when you’ve been conditioned to treat every interaction as a marketing tactic or a play-by-play of your recent achievements that sniff of a bad combination of Tony Robbins and Gandhi.

Third, it takes time away from the real work.  Valuable energy that could be poured into the work itself instead has to build Powerpoints and dinky dead-end websites and schedule meetings with busy people who will never see your actual work.   Instead of the reasonable challenge of working in a competitive landscape, you’re surrounded by armies of able and more than a few incompetent people launching blind missives in hopes of landing an audience with Oprah or the next ice bucket challenge.   The real work not only moves to the margins of your time, less of it gets done.

And finally, a few gems get overlooked.  In a saturated market, you need more impressions.  You can’t be heads down and expect that someone will notice even if you have a Matisse on your hands.  Everyone needs to arbitrate for themselves sometimes, but you’ll never see the self-possessed or humble make that their primary goal.  It’s like when a wave circles through a stadium, the true sports fan might join in the first time, maybe even the second time, but at some point, he’ll miss the wave and stay seated, eyes glued to the game.   The work always means more than the circus around the work.

Ordinary Days

A blog on Budapest is in development, but then there was this headache...

This pile of papers reminds me that every mountain top moment is preceded by an arduous climb and followed by a descent into the mundane, where foundational character is built and dirty floors are swept. 

This excessive collection of travel books, along with the opportunity to use them, signals that I am gradually shifting focus to spending more on experiences and less on things while a peek in my closet gently tells me there is still more work to do.

This unrelenting headache, though I wish it away, my real-time cue to remember that I get to choose my thought patterns, every moment of every day.

This unhurried cup of coffee reminds me that I have moved beyond the busy zone to a place where relationships have room to breathe and ideas to percolate, where journals are friends and clocks not masters.

This padded belly, which no longer responds to my crash demands, jests at the number of rice cakes I’ve been spared and softly urges me to drop and do a few crunches because ten minutes of exercise is better than none.

This unpredictable flicker of self-doubt in the steady stream of other people’s  greater intelligence/beauty/achievement/fill in the blank, where a quick scan of my rank only caves me in, is not a call to action to compare but a cause to celebrate for a world where gifts and talents are widely scattered. 

The magnitude of disquieting news around the world now piped into all our homes, an urgent invitation to move from the couch to our knees and to call the “me train” into the station for a moment. 

This modest ring on my finger compels me to count the years that I have been well cherished, and think of those who are in between seasons of being someone’s most prized gift.

This wrinkle, no these wrinkles, which carry the stories of my many sunny days lived.  The contrasting smoothness of my child’s skin a summons to drink up the beauty of being able to pass on those stories.

This reach for my phone to connect a flag that I have flesh and blood in the other room if not waiting at least open to a story-time interruption, eager to lavish on more than just a “like” for well-placed humor and drama.  

The recall of only yesterday, in all its unremarkable and yet unforeseen twists and halts, which shouts at me once again to stop fantasizing that future-proofing is possible.  It is not. 

It is today, and it’s an ordinary day.  Most of them are.  However, I’ve temporarily sidelined worry and spent time on the floor with crumbs, crunches and petitions.  With that, I’ve gotten some clearance to see that today’s harrumphs deserve a round of applause – headache and all.

Be the Be-Loved for Someone

I was on a bit of a rampage yesterday.  It was not a cleaning frenzy.  Instead, I was leaving notes around the house reminding a certain family member that he is loved.  Some Moms do this consistently with daily lunch notes or other methods.  I decided on the full court press.  I was feeling it and wanted him to know.

I left notes in his room, in his basketball shoes, in the pantry.  I co-opted every screen in the house with a selection of “You are Loved” wallpapers.  There was the note on the bathroom mirror near his Axe hair cream: “Did you know that God loves you so much that he knows the number of hairs on your head?  Axe Him!”   (I’m not too proud to say that I did a selfie LOL.)  The note near a window that he sometimes likes to escape out of when mad: “FYI.  Neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation -- including this window – can separate you from the love of God.”  The note under his pillow with my string of pearls, “Guess what.  YOU are the pearl of greatest treasure.”

Oh my goodness, he is.  A pearl.  How does he not know that?  Some of us get that we are loveable without much convincing.  I’m like that.  Others of us are naturally more suspicious that we can be loveable without doing something to deserve it.  Some need to hear it over and over again until it penetrates.  I think I used to think he wasn’t listening.  Now I think some people just have a thin understanding of this and when they get bumped or bruised by life, it’s like starting over again. We all learn at different paces and have different thresholds for the reps we require.  Some of us need to hear the same message in several different ways.  Cheap flattery won’t get it done – the suspicious among us have radar for that – but it’s always appropriate to BE that someone who reminds the people we love that they are Beloved.

I’m not suggesting my full note assault is parenting to model.  It was a little over the top for one 24 hour period.  In fact I knew it was by the time we got to the written out mealtime prayer, which was opened belatedly.  By mid meal we were all in happy laughter, and the time for blessing our meal was passed.  One of the boys tried to humor me by reading though the noise, until the boy it was intended for asked if he could read it instead.  It was kind of too long for the moment, but we all tuned in for the punch line: “Love never fails.”

Someone you love needs to hear that today.  Remind them.   Then remind them again.  Get a singing telegram if you have to.  Every rep counts.

Let’s Talk About the Flu. My Flu.

This American Life aired a story in November 2013 called “The Seven Things You’re Not Supposed to Talk About.”  The show was about the things you’re not supposed to talk about not because they are controversial like politics and religion, but because no one cares.   The seven off-limit conversation topics according to this one French lady’s list include:  how you slept, your period, your health, your dreams, money, diet, and route talk (ie which road and how long it took.)  I might also add to this list:  your busyness.

It’s a solid list, but one that I have every intention of transgressing right now.  I’ve been sick this week.  In bed kind of sick.  I’m calling it the flu though this has not been confirmed by a swab test.  I’ve wanted to sound Facebook alarms to let the world know my miserable status, but instead I’ve been saving up all the depressing details over the last 72 hours for this post.

I really don’t want to make this post all about me though.   You have had the flu before too.  (Although I’m sure mine is worse of course.)  I want to stay people focused and offer some general tips on what we all want when we have the flu:

Bulleted speech.   We need those around us to speak in short sentences allowing space in the conversation for us to whimper and you to say, “You sound awful.  Anything I can do?”

Why yes, read on.

• First things first, please don’t ask us if we got the flu shot.   No is a complicated answer.

• A thermometer that runs hot.  A temperature of 100.8 does not tell you how we really feel.  If anyone asks, I’m adding one degree.  That’s what our rectums would have said anyway.

• With a well-supplied water heater and a shower stool, we’d really like to make the shower our primary place of rest.

• A proxy to drink all this water that is being asked of us.  Please, please help us hydrate.

• Your spouse to vacate the bed on first symptom onset, and then go clean the bathroom.   This will all go down easier if you have the bed to yourself and the toilet bowl rings gone in case you need to heave.  We don’t know when and if we will throw up (and YES we know that vomiting is not common with typical flu), but when your nose is discharging phlegm to your stomach signaling nausea– we need this contingency plan in place.

• All the blankets in the house.  Every last one of them.

• You know how when your body aches and you just wish someone could be there massaging exactly where it hurts without any direction –not too hard and not too soft and for very, very long.  We want that more than anything.

• Honey Nut Cheerios in a snack bowl.

• Advil.  Every 4 hours ON THE DOT.

• Your forgiveness for only being able to like pictures, funny stuff, or things that don’t require an extra click on Facebook.

• The VANITY bullet: Hair that lays down flat and naturally dark eye lashes. 

• We understand the pounding headache, sore throat and dry cough but we need someone to explain why even our gums ache.  And then make it stop. Advil doesn’t seem to know about the gum situation.

• Sick clothes – warm fleeces, elastic-waisted pants, house shoes and maybe a kitty to borrow.

• A house delivery of chicken rice soup … which has just arrived thanks to Holly!

Turns out my community of friends are total rule breakers.  Feeling the love from friends near and far.  So ... Tell me your dreams!  Tell me your exercise plans! I’m all ears – they just happen to be a little stuffed up right now, but then again – you knew that.

Dear Dads of boys

I know this is a little unusual to share, but I share it in the hopes that it might be an encouragement to you Dads.  Guys: your sons need for you to be tender with them.  They need to know not just that you love them and are proud of them, but that you have their back when things aren't going so well.  They want your compassion just as much as they want your help problem solving.  Our 10 year old has had a rough week, and Brett is traveling.  Brett isn't a Perfect Dad.  He makes a lot of parenting mistakes like we all do, but he got this one right. 

Brett wrote this email to Colin during his busy work day today.  He asked me to print it out and give it to him when I shuttled him between basketball practices this afternoon.  I made banana nut muffins for the occasion. 

Colin,

I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you this morning.  I’m proud you found the strength to go to school.  Mom told me you were very sad.  I was very sad to hear that when I landed in London.  It made me wish I could be with you.  But, I’m so glad to hear you persisted.

I want to make sure you know a couple of important things.  You are not in trouble and no one is mad at you.  You know the whole – “he has bad form on his jump shot….” –“does that mean you don’t like him, Dad?” exchange we have on various topics?  We know you are having some challenges at school, but that does not make you a bad person or that we (or other people) like you any less.  I think it’s really important that you know you have a lot of pulling people for you.  Mom and I are trying very hard to help you with the confusing and frustrating things. That’s our job and we couldn’t be more committed to that job.  It doesn’t mean that we, or other adults, are always going to do or say exactly what you want.  But, we really are trying to do what’s best.  We are praying and working to find ways to help.

Remember when we talked about the sermon  where God doesn’t make mistakes and he always puts us exactly where he wants us to be.  Well, it’s probably not very fun working thru some of the things you are right now – but God made Colin Ballbach in a certain way and he has a plan for who you are going to become and right now – in 5th grade, in Luxembourg, in Mr. Fosters class, at ISL, playing basketball, playing Xbox, with 2 brothers, a Mom and Dad that love him, a passion for sports and stats, a warmth and kindness that he shows his family, a dislike for bad food, a brave boy, a courageous boy – that’s where God wants you to be.  I don’t expect you to understand now, but one of the things Mom and I have learned now that we are old (and, boy, are we old) is that the times we really grow and get better are when difficult things happen NOT good things.  We don’t really get better when things are easy.  So, you are learning a lot and we are here with you.  And, believe it or not you are growing.  We can see that.  I saw it in how you calmed down after the disappointment of going to Gabe’s and how you reacted at times on the Venice trip.

Here is all that we ask of you:

1) Do your best – do the very best that you can in every situation. 

2) Be Kind and Respectful

3) Trust – trust us, trust God.  Know that all of us want whats best for Colin.  It won’t always make sense or seem like that.  But we do.  Please trust us.

We love you very much Colin.  I hope you have a good Sparta practice, good evening and a GREAT day at school tomorrow and trip to Dusseldorf.  I can’t wait to hear about it and see you on Saturday.

Love,

Dad

And for the response?  Silent reading, hard fought sniffles, lots of muffins consumed, a call to Brett's mobile with a quiet greeting: "Is this a convenient time, Dad?" and then the watershed.  A big one. 

Dads, it doesn't matter your physical geography.  You can move the earth under your son's feet from a neighboring country when you let them in on the geography of your heart.   Not just your heartbeat, but the contours of your specific, totally unique love for them.  Don't wait for a celebratory moment.  If today was any indication, the valleys are good opportunities.  And Moms: banana nut muffins can only help.