Fear and other immobilizing objects.

            What do you think of when you’re driving?

Well a couple days ago I was driving and can’t remember what I was thinking of other than my immediate desire for coffee.  I was pulling into a coffee shop, crossing the sidewalk, when I noticed in my left peripheral vision, a boy on a bike.  Judging from the distressed look on his face, he had noticed me a split second sooner.   He was making every attempt to stop, but all evidence suggested that any second now he would plow face-first into my driver’s side door!

As it turned out, he did manage to stop with only minimal influence from my mini-van.  He sort of skidded to the side and the only thing that actually made contact with the van was his hand.  He ended up on the ground, but I was certain that he had made it through unscathed.  I quickly opened my door and asked if he was okay, but all he kept saying was how sorry he was.

I noticed that the chain on his bike had become separated from the gear on his back tire, rendering it immobile.  Feeling fairly certain I could handle such mechanical travesties, I asked if I could help.  He spoke with a bit of an accent, and I thought he was saying something like “Can you please help for me?” in response to my offer.  He repeated the question a few times and I responded in affirmation, “Yeah, yeah, Yeah!” So I pulled my car out of the entry way a few feet, and got out to help.  By the time I had parked and gotten out, a span of about 20 seconds, he was gone!  I looked up the hill he had just traveled down to see him running the other way, carrying his bike.  In this second, I involuntarily replayed his words in my mind and realized, from the fact that he was running, that he was asking me if I was going to call the police… “You call Police on me?”   Then I realized that I unwittingly, told him that I was, “Yeah, yeah, yeah!”   

I waved my hand and yelled that it was okay, to which he responded by stopping for a second to give me a puzzled look before turning and running again.

What’s the worst that could have happened?

Let’s just pretend that I was a world class, supreme, jerk of jerks, and that I did call the police.  Unless they were also world class, supreme jerks of jerks (See to what lengths I go to avoid profanity.) they would not have even bothered to show up.  Most likely they would have told me to take my deluxe, prime exemplary, jerk of jerks, jerky… butt home and carefully remove the obstruction from my, afore mentioned… jerky butt.

Hopefully the point has been made that the boy had nothing to fear.  But that is the thing about fear… there is nothing to it.  It is pointless.  But it doesn’t stop there.  It steals.  And the worst part is that you never get to see what it takes from you.  You never realize the possibilities; the experiences you could have had, if fear had not come into the story. 

Let’s consider the facts.

       I felt pretty horrible for not seeing him in the first place, and I was actually planning on trying to start a conversation with him while I fixed his bike, to maybe ascertain if he needed anything.  I was thinking of anything I could do to make up for the unfortunate incident.  At the very least I would have bought him a milkshake or something, maybe more if he needed it.   But he will never know this.  And that’s pretty sad when you think about it.  I considered chasing him, but you can imagine the complications that would have arisen from that.

If you want your life to start changing right now, then take a minute to think.  Think about one thing you are afraid of and how your life would be different if you weren’t.  I’m not talking about jumping off of a bridge… Don’t be stupid. J   But I am talking about something as simple as asking for a raise, or even talking to someone you don’t know OR… bring up a taboo subject in conversation with someone with whom all communication has become excruciatingly safe.  Just being random here.

I have found that once you remove fear even in one area of your world, the entire spectrum is affected.  I believe that jumping out of a plane (with a parachute of course) can improve your public speaking.  It may take more than one time.  You have to practice fearlessness.  A good, albeit cliché bit of advice is to do one thing every day that you are afraid of.  For some it might be as simple as actually answering the phone.  Who cares if it’s a telemarketer?  Tell them no, and be done with it.

There is more to say about fear, books have been written about it, but still there is nothing to it.  Think of facing fears as opening presents.  Even if you don’t always like what’s inside, at least it’s one less thing you don’t know. 

 We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.”

Fulton Oursler

"Upon Consideration, I Have a Few Questions."

One of the things well-meaning Christians love to say is, “When you are too busy to do everything that you need to do on your own; then God will send someone to help you.” No offense if you really believe this… Don’t change on my account.  For many years I too have nodded in affirmation, even at times hoping that it was so simple.  But I just can’t help thinking of a bumper sticker I saw once, “Jesus is Coming; Look Busy.”  Hey, take it easy, I was offended when I saw it first too.  But think of the way we (Christians) act sometimes… Anyway, I can’t really fault the people who say this, after all that’s the way it happened for them right?  But upon consideration, I have a few questions.

Like so many easy answers, this seems to make sense.  But once I began to more deeply understand God’s grace, and our freedom from the law and busy-ness, (Thanks Joseph Prince) this theory started to fade through  (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naïve enough to believe I understand God’s grace, I’m glad we don’t have to get it before we… get it.  Get it? Sorry about that).  The problem I have with this advice is that it suggests that we are only here to do and do some more, and that the only point there is to marriage is to help us accomplish more…  If this is true, why not just hire an assistant, or become a mentor?  I wash my minivan almost twice a week sometimes…  Is this considered busy?  Please don’t judge me.

Obviously I see the difference between empty, pointless busy-ness and being busy doing things for God; significant things.  But the truth is, our whole existence is not centered on doing things… “Human Beings.”

The thing with pad answers is that they always elicit more questions…  What about the single mother who is, by definition, already too busy?  For that matter, what about people who aren’t busy at all? Or busy doing nothing?  Was everyone who’s ever gotten married busy?  Does God reward us for being busy? I won’t say it’s false, but I still must unlike this.  So with a little bit of disappointment in my finger, I have to click “Misleading.”

^{Psalm 46:10}"Cease striving and know that I am God.”

"It'll Happen When the Planets Align."

          Before I get into the subject at hand, I’d like to mark this blog date as “around the time the planets aligned.” (Literally… check the dates.)

          Relationships are a thing that many people fancy themselves to know a little something about, which is all well and good, But it kind of freaks me out to think that people are willing to give advice that took them all of ten seconds to come up with, but could potentially ruin my entire life. Not everyone is that flippant; some couples still look across the room at each other after 35 years with the same wonderment as the first time. When these lovers speak, I listen.


         But too often what happens is that good advice tends to get jumbled around with the bad and the elusive “pearl of wisdom” gets passed around under too many cups and you get distracted by what the magician says and soon you find yourself in a cosmic game of keep away.


          “Opposites Attract,” “Find out your compatibility score.”
          “You can tell if someone’s right for you in the first five minutes of meeting them.” “Take some time to get to know them first.”
          “Date.” “Court.”
          “Pray about it.” “Go with your gut.”
          “Find someone you can’t live without.” “You need to be secure in yourself before you can love someone else.”   And   so   it   goes.


          I really wish we could field these answers like ads on Facebook. Imagine it: You’re walking around through the social network of life, and a well-intentioned passer-by happens to notice from your wall that you’re single. They decide to speak up and you hear something like, “You know what? Love comes along when you’re not looking for it.” Even though this sounds sweet and part of me wants to believe it, I’d have to click the “x” and choose “other” as my reason for not liking. I’d enter a simple “I wish” into the box, because in a way, I wish that were true and also the box doesn’t give you enough room to fully explain yourself. I’m definitely not one for economy of words when it comes to relationships. But really, who isn’t looking for love? I am immediately reminded of the antithesis, from the Daniel Johnston line, “This is a promise with a catch, only if you’re looking will it find you.” From the aptly titled, True Love Will Find You in the End. And of course we know that songs are a wealth of accurate information, especially about love.


          Most other easy answers require a little more room to properly debunk. The space provided in a blog would be adequate. so in the next couple of entries I will be doing just that. We’ll begin to look at one pad answer per entry, and then we might go to something else for a while and come back to it. I don’t know exactly how we’ll do it but it’ll be fun and possibly, just maybe… you never know… but it might even be… enlightening. We’ll see.

What are the odds?

          Statistically, it’s actually harder not to ever be married than to get married. I liken it to walking between the raindrops, only without even trying. Nearly every one of my friends from child hood, high school and college are married, or have at least been married. Every circle of friends I go through eventually follows the same inevitable course: School, a little bit of down time, maybe college, and then marriage, kids, and so on. And with each phase we grow
further    and    further   apart,
having less and less in common. And you know that all married couples just love other married couples, and all couples with kids just love other… well, you get the point. Don’t get me wrong it makes perfect sense, but let me just take this time to show appreciation to all my married friends who don’t care about making sense and have held onto me for all these years. You guys are the best and you know I love you. Appreciation and empathy are also due to the precious few who are in the same boat, from one third wheel to another. So I’m not the only one, but we’re definitely the minority. And the mystery remains: Everyone walks out into the same rainy day, with the same plans, but still some of us come up dry.