Dying

This morning I had Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying" stuck in my head. It's about a guy who has been diagnosed with a terminal disease. And when he realizes he's dying, he says this:

"I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing,

I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu

And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,

And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying.

Some day, I hope you get the chance,

To live like you were dyin'."

Now. Let me say first off that I've always hated the concept of living each day like it's your last day on earth. It's impractical. Would I ever do laundry if I thought I wouldn't need clothes tomorrow? Would I ever go to work if I thought it was truly my last day on earth? I love my job, but that's not how I'd spend my last day. It just doesn't make sense.

But I've always liked this song. And I like the concept of loving people more, speaking more kindly, and forgiving others. I like that he had this wake-up call.

What I don't get is the sky diving, mountain climbing, and bull riding. I mean, if I got diagnosed with a terminal disease, my goal wouldn't be to accomplish big risks that I'd never taken before. It would be to make sure I leave my mark on this world. Spend more time with people. Write all the books I want to write. Volunteer more to touch more people's lives. Leave a legacy.

What would you want to do if you knew you had 3 months to live?

Locked Out

Dan and I went for a romp with the pups in the school field by our house tonight, in the dark. Without a flashlight. Which was fine, until we got back home and discovered we'd dropped the keys. In the dark. In a big field. Without a flashlight.

So we went back, armed with Dan's cell phone (mine was locked in the house) and a carefully planned grid search (we watch a lot of CSI). We searched and searched, I turned up a lot of bright leaves thinking they were keys, and we were getting pretty discouraged. Our grid search had been abandoned. I decided to go to the neighbors and see if they had a good, bright flashlight. Dan stayed and continued looking.

And as I was about halfway home, I heard a soft jingle in the distance behind me. I turned around and Dan was walking toward me with Peanut, whose whining had been the cause of Dan's finding the keys. She was wet from the freshly sprinkled grass, cold, and getting upset that I had left. And as he turned around to check on her, he saw the gleam of something sticking up in the grass. One key, standing up straight as a beacon. Angled perfectly for the light from the school to hit it.

I'd been praying as we searched, that we would find the key. And I knew that if worse came to worse, we could call our friend with the spare key to come rescue us, and resume our search in the daylight. And I knew that if our friend was unavailable, we could find someone who would take us (and the pups) in for the night. Thankfully, God answered my prayer and we didn't have to resort to back-up plans.

But I think about how there are so many people without homes. Without keys to lose. Without a back-up plan of where to spend the night. And I am so grateful that God helped us find our keys, but even more than that - that God has given us a home to have keys to.

Fear

For as long as I can remember, I've had a fear of snakes. Even though in Rhode Island there were really just little harmless garden snakes, they scared me when I saw them. Even dead ones.

But when I didn't see one, I really didn't give them much thought. I just didn't like to see pictures or videos of them. But as long as they were out of sight, they were out of mind. Same thing in Wisconsin.

But then I moved to Colorado. And, well, there are rattlesnakes here. That's a fact. And they're bigger than garden snakes, and definitely more harmful. So I started worrying about snakes more. What if I ran into one? Would I find one in the parking lot at work? What about my car. Could they get in there? It started as caution and grew into an irrational phobia. And it was impacting what I would do. I didn't want to hike below 8,000 feet, because even though they CAN live above that altitude, the chances of running into one are lower and I felt safe enough to do it. But not below that height.

So I saw a counselor about it. And she did some different psychology techniques with me to help me feel confident and in-control. It got worse before it got better. I started having nightmares and picturing them when I went to bed. But in today's session, as I visualized being close to a rattlesnake, I felt confident and relaxed. And she says that will transfer to real life if I see one.

We'll see if she's right. I hope she is. But for now, I'm glad to say that I've done what I can to take control of a fear and stop letting it limit and control me.

Roses

I feel like I've been the Energizer Bunny the past couple of weeks. Going and going and going. Not stopping to just enjoy what I'm doing.

But today, after some long days this week, I left work early. And I was walking to my car, I took a deep breath. Now, we breathe all the time. We can't really help it. But I paid attention to this deep breath. I enjoyed it. I let it relax me. And it felt good to enjoy a deep breath.

And that's when I noticed that the weather today is the most perfect weather you could imagine. The temperature is that perfect balance between too hot and too cold. The sun is shining brightly. The sky is that shade of blue that is so rich and beautiful. The smell of summer still lingers in the September air. How many days like this have I missed because I'm not paying attention?

And then I partook in a triple chocolate cookie. You probably know I eat those fairly often. At least once a week. But I'm so often eating it while I'm busy doing other things that I don't savor it. But today I took a bite and let it sit in my mouth. Let the flavor rush to my tastebuds. What a delectable cookie. What a waste to eat such a wonderful thing and not really pay attention to the sheer enjoyment.

In the midst of being the Energizer Bunny, I found a time to stop and smell the roses. And I'm determined to do this more often. To slow down, stop, and enjoy the beauty of a gorgeous day, a deep breath, and a delicious cookie.

So now I'm headed to the kitchen to eat a delicious sandwich and then sit in the backyard with a good book and the warm sunshine.

Facelessbook

I was remembering the other day that Myspace didn't have status updates (until it was already a sinking ship) and that Facebook used to not have status updates either. That was just a Twitter thing, once upon a time. And then I was like, "well wait, what did we even do on Facebook and Myspace then?"

And that's when it hit me. We talked to each other. It really was social networking. If I wanted to see how a friend was doing, I'd write on her wall and say, "hey, how are you doing?" And then she'd write back and tell me what was going on in her life. It still wasn't face-to-face but it was personal.

But now if I want to see how a friend is doing, I already know. Because I've seen her status updates. Take my friend Jackie from Elmbrook. Haven't talked to her in months, but I know she went backpack shopping with her little girl a couple weeks ago, and that she started preschool at Elmbrook this week. And if I look at her profile I can probably find out what TV shows she's into nowadays, and what music she's listening to. All without ever having any personal contact with her.

Instead of talking to people on a personal level, we broadcast our life happenings and our random thoughts to the world. We've become more open than ever before, but more isolated than ever before. Those two wouldn't have seemed to go hand in hand before the days of Facebook and Twitter. But there's less risk in post something to the ambiguous "they" than talking to someone who might just hurt you at some point.

I wonder what the generation we're raising up will be like. The generation who has had Facebook as a part of their formational preteen and teen years. Relationships are becoming more about knowing about people and less about interacting with people. I know I sound like an old codger at the young age of 26, but I really do fear for what this open-isolation will do for the generation just after mine. And to be quite honest, what it will do to my generation.

Sermons

Group is all about active learning. Everyone is involved. It's not sitting and listening to someone talk. Which is awesome...but I think it's made me more easily bored with things that DON'T fit into that mold.

Sermons, namely. I mean, in Acts Eutychus literally DIED of boredom during a sermon when he fell asleep and tumbled out the window. Is that really the model of teaching we want to follow? (Not that Paul got the message...he brought Eutychus back to life and continued preaching the rest of the night...)

And sure, there are some people who are very gifted at public speaking. Their voice, their stories, their comedic style...it's all captivating and you can stay awake and pay attention. But by and large, you won't remember those speeches. Research shows that people don't remember very much of what they hear, but they do remember a lot of what they experience and discover for themselves. Which is why Group is all about experiencial learning.

Dan and I love our church. But this Sunday after we got done teaching, we walked upstairs to go to service and both decided it looked too boring. So we went home. We just have no desire to go to services. We do go to a small group which we love and it's awesome - because it's interactive. We're actively involved in the learning. But this passive listening thing? I just don't think I can keep it up.

Grown-Up

I had this weird moment last night. I was working on some paperwork at home, and I was lying across my bed on my stomach, work in front of me, legs in the air. And I had this weird flashback to my high school days of doing homework.

And then I had this realization that I am a grown-up. I mean, it's not like I didn't know it before. It's just weird to think about how I went from high school to this 26 year old grown-up. Somewhere in there I started doing grown-up things like doing my own laundry, paying bills, finding places to live, planning my tasks for a job. Unlike high school where you're told what homework to do when, what chores to do when, and everything else is taken care of for you, as a grown-up I have to figure all that out my own. Or I can choose to just ignore the chores and wear dirty underwear. But that'd be gross.

I don't really know how to explain what I was thinking and feeling in that moment. It was just this sense of wonder that the sheltered teenager, afraid to grow up because I might not be good at it, became the me I am today. And it's weird to think that most of my friends are either parents or thinking about being parents. Without warning, I was whisked into the "friends with babies" stage of life.

Now, I'm all for holding onto some of those elements of childhood that make life fun, like swinging and jumping in puddles and coloring and not eating my vegetables. But without me really thinking about it too much, I've added a sense of responsibility to all of those things. I've transitioned into being a grown-up without seeing the transition.

Responsibility

Today on the way home from work I saw a dump truck with a sign on the back that said, "Stay back 200 ft. NOT responsible for broken windshields."

It stood in sharp contrast to a dump truck I'd seen on our vacation with a tarp on top and a sign that said, "We tarp our loads because we care."

There's no law that says dump trucks have to tarp. And so the truck I saw today denied any responsibility for damage their loads may cause. They put all the responsibility on the drivers to stay back a considerable distance.

But the other truck took on extra responsibility. I'm sure it cost them money to tarp each load, but they knew that they shared some of the responsibility, and they wanted to do what they could to limit damage.

Too often we shirk responsibility. "That's not my job" or "it's his fault." Who knew a dump truck would set the example of how to own our part of a problem?

I don't know the name of either trucking company. But if I did and I needed a dump truck for something, I'd hire the dump truck company that cares.

Failure

You know those times when you just feel frustrated with yourself? Like a miserable failure? I'm going through such a period.

First, there's my wrist. It's not really that painful, just enough to slow me down. Just enough that if I use it a lot, even for typing without taking breaks, it starts hurting more. I'm getting so frustrated having to take breaks from typing, having to write with messy handwriting, having to struggle with my left hand to do things. It's really wearing me down.

On Friday I reached rock bottom. My wrist was hurting especially, I'd had a week full of cancelled appointments (all for good reasons, but it was still starting to hit me), and then I got a really discouraging email that got me questioning my ability to do a lot of things. I felt so demotivated I just wanted to sit and do nothing. Because even though it may be boring, it's hard to fail at being lazy.

There's a part of me deep inside that says I should take that failure, learn from it, and let it motivate me to improve. But it's hard to kindle that part of me.

Rest

While I was at urgent care, even though there were absolutely NO other patients there, I had to do some waiting. And I was pretty bored. They didn't even have any good magazines with articles about Ali the Bachelorette. Just dumb medical magazines.

So I'd just gotten my wrist x-rayed and was sitting next to the x-ray machine while the nurse made sure the x-rays had all come out well, and emailed them to the guy who checks them. And before she left me to do that she said, "Now you get to just relax while I check your x-rays."

The phrase "get to" struck me. It wasn't an obligation to sit and be bored. It was an opportunity to rest.

I'm not very good at just resting. I like to always be doing SOMETHING. Even if it's restful, like reading or watching TV, I can't just sit there and rest. The skill seems to be conditioned out of us here in America.

And as I sat and waited for her, I thought about what it would be like if I could really just sit and rest and be OK with that. If I could see waiting as an opportunity to relax, not a boring time to be impatient. It seems like that would be a nice outlook.