Building Your Foundation

It's what we do when times are good that determines how we do when times are bad. Right now, things are good. My kids are healthy and wise and gaining a wealth of childhood experience that should serve them well when they grow older. My wife is as wonderful a partner and mate as I could expect. Work's a pain in the butt some days, but they keep sending money twice a month and it doesn't seem like they're going to stop any time soon.

But eventually, things will be less bright. Parents die. People get sick. Bad things happen from time to time. These things are as sure as the sun rising tomorrow. Life isn't life without them. So why am I thinking that maybe I'm not setting myself up well to weather the storm that will most certainly come some day?

The wise man built his house upon the Rock. It's more than a Bible verse or a song. It's Truth. I've recently watched Schindler's List and read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz. I'm currently reading a book by Deitrich Bonnhoeffer, a brilliant theologian who was cut down in the prime of his life by Nazis.

Frankl could have escaped his rigorous journey through hell. He had a visa to the United States, but decided he couldn't leave his parents behind to face the monster alone. The Nazis murdered them. And his wife. His work, Man's Search for Meaning, describes how a person who sees a meaning in life, a worthy purpose, can weather almost anything. Those without a purpose gave up. It was actually a very clear progression, he wrong. One morning, the man didn't get up. No matter what, he refused to get up. Then, he decided to pull out the one hidden cigarette he had and smoke it, rather than save it or trade it. Within a few days, he was dead, a victim of the Nazi death machine, but of his own surrender to it, as well.

I don't know much about Bonnhoeffer, but it seems that he, too, could have escaped his fate, if only he'd played along. He didn't, and he died. But he died with dignity and a purpose.

Frankl's purpose, his determination to live, literally carried him through circumstances that should have killed him. Bonnhoeffer's cost him his life, but on his terms. In both cases, these men had built themselves an unshakeable foundation, and it weathered the storm.

My foundation is stonger than it was. But it should be stronger than it is. Instead of building it while times are good, I spend time on the frivolous and the suspect. I should be building for the storm that will most certainly come.

Never Again? A lie.

If it were to happen now, we would have a precedent that we could look out for, so it wouldn't happen again.

A woman, unnamed on the DVD, in the Voices of the List part of the Schindler's List DVD. If this were to happen now...

"Never again" has been said less and less my adult life. The people who lived through the Holocaust are nearly gone. And the people who they raised are dying. And soon, the Holocaust will be nothing more than something we covered once in Social Studies.

Imagine, if you will, being told that because of your religion or ethnicity, you have to wear a special tag so everyone will know where you are. Imagine that one day, by fiat, the government takes what you have the in the bank and your investments, then comes and rounds you up and takes you out of your house and herds you into rundown apartments, six to eight to a room. You can't go anywhere without permission. You can't buy or sell or own anything. People you know, friends and relatives, are herded into trucks to be forced to work at hard labor, then never returning.

Imagine the world turning upside down as if it were a nightmare and no one does anything. Imagine that there's no visible chance that it's going to end. Don't just read the words, but yourself in that position and feel it. Feel what it is to watch indiscriminate murder every single day and wondering when it's going to be your day.

In one of the extras on the DVD, they talk of the day they took the children from the camp and sent them to Auschwitz, never to return. Imagine watching as your children, your babies, are herded onto a truck and knowing that you will never see them again. Imagine being told to lie on the ground as you watch them leave or you will be killed.

One of the pictures was of a boy, eight or nine years old, with big ears and a crooked smile. In the picture, an old black-and-white, he looked happy and very pleased with himself. He was one of the children who never came back.

I can't imagine it. It's all bigger than I can think of.

But it happens. It still happens. Never again is a lie. Anti-Semitism is a on the rise in Europe, and we may turn into an anti-Muslim country. The murmurs are there. But they're faint and don't seem to be threatening. Maybe they didn't in the mid-1930s.

Never Again...As If That Were Likely

Apparently, I've had nothing to say lately. Part of that revolves around my new habit of waking up at 3 am (give or take) every morning. When you struggle just to stay awake, posting riveting, thought-provoking material on a website you don't get paid to maintain isn't a priority.

But, this morning, I actually slept until nearly five, though it took a long time to fall asleep last night.

You see, my daughter flies to visit a friend in Germany this week. As part of her time there, she will visit Dachau. So, to prepare her, we rented Schindler's List and watched the first half of it last night. I toddled off to bed around 10, but then wound up walking back out and hanging around until about twenty of eleven.

The last thing I watched was when Ralph Fiennes' character decided to pick off the Jews in his camp, randomly capping a couple from his balcony with a high-powered rifle, while his sex partner grew annoyed at him for boring her. Then, as they built a barracks, a Jewish woman engineer came to him and said that they needed to rebuild it because it would collapse. He had her executed and then had the barracks rebuilt.

I haven't seen Schindler's List since it came out in 1993. It's not the type of movie you watch to fritter away an afternoon. When I watched it the previous time, I remember being overwhelmed and sad. Last night, I was angry. I was angry at a movement that killed the beauty of a whole class of people simply because of their religious beliefs. Angry at a man who ended human life with less regard than most people give to swatting a fly. Angry at a human race that could become such a thing. And maybe a little angry at God for allowing it.

"Never again," was a refrain from survivors of the Holocaust, but it's happened again. It hasn't happened to European people as part of a World War, but in Rwanda, Serbia, and any number of any other places, it's happened.

And it will happen again. And maybe this time it will happen closer to home.

Happy Thursday.

Rossy

My grandfather is probably still my favorite person ever. For whatever reason, we always called him Rossy. His name was Ross, but Rossy meant love.

He died when I was six or seven and there's still and empty spot in me where he used to live. I don't remember his voice any more. If it weren't for cameras, I'd have long since forgotten what he looked like.

But I'll never forget him. He probably wasn't a big man, but he seemed like it. His hands seemed big to me, too. They seemed big and strong. Maybe they weren't, but they seemed like it. God, I loved him. I think I loved him more than anyone I've ever known. He knew me and I was okay with him. He loved me and accepted me as I was and he was happy to be with me. The thing I remember most was how gentle he was.

When he died, the spot he occupied in my soul died with him. And I've never been gentle like he was.

Jesus, according to the Gospel of John, was gentle with the woman accused of adultery. He was gentle with the woman who touched his cloak and with the rich young man. He took away the boulder on their souls. It'd be interesting to know if they were able to resist taking it back.

You can't be gentle and have peace until you put down the things that you carry with you. To put them down, you have to acknowledge them and acknowledge that they are yours and what the results were. You can't put down what you don't acknowledge. And only after you acknowledge it, all of it, can you shed it and go to the throne as what you really are.

That's what my grandfather taught me, was his unreserved joy at being with me. But for me to share his joy, I had to be able to be unreservedly joyful with me. Until very recently, I haven't been able to do that.

I think I understand now. I understand what his presence was supposed to teach me.

I think he's happy that I get it.

Zero. Fun. Sir.

I've been posting on message boards or one type of another for nearly 15 years. I started on Prodigy, which was really cool when it first came out. If I remember correctly, the first thing I posted to was a thread about the relative merits of minor leaguers Eddie Zosky of the Blue Jays organization and Larry Jones of the Braves organization. You may have heard of Larry. He goes by the name Chipper and is the primary reason the Mets didn't make it to the World Series in 1999.

Most of the message boards I've belonged to haven't really been that diverse. They've had a core group of users that more or less define the board's collective stance on things. Or, on other boards, there are two groups of users, more or less equally divided, who live in a constant state of peaceful co-existence.

Either way, it's taken me 15 years to realize that what passes for discourse on the Internet is typically the same people saying the same things over and over again in different ways, then aligning the facts to suit their position. Including me.

It used to be fun.

I wouldn't want to be on this jury

In February 2005, nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford was abducted from her home and raped. After being tied up and put in a closet, she was wrapped in plastic bags and duct tape--her hands bound in front of her--and buried alive. She died sitting in the bottom of a four-foot deep grave, holding a stuffed pink dolphin and trying to scratch her way out of the plastic bag. Police found her body on March 19.

John Couey, her accused rapist and murderer, was apprehended several days later in Augusta, Georgia. During interrogation, Couey graphically described to FBI agent Terry Wetmore what he'd done to her. He said where to find her body, as well as exactly what police would find. However, in other interrogation the day before, he told two Citrus County (Florida) detectives eight times that he wanted to talk to a lawyer. His requests were ignored.

As a result, Florida Circuit Judge Richard A. Howard ruled that the taped confession Couey gave Wetmore was inadmissable. Because the confession was eliminated, prosecutors can't even tell jurors that Couey directed them to the body. Judge Howard also ruled that prosecutors can't mention a previous burglary in which Couey went into the room of a 12-year-old girl and put his hand over her mouth.

The jury in this case is being imported because the publicity made it impossible to give Couey a fair trial. Jurors will come from nearby Lake County.

What if the prosecution doesn't prove Couey's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? According to the law of the land, the jury cannot convict. Police misconduct has already turned what ought to be a slam-dunk conviction into a more difficult case to prove.

If the prosecution doesn't prove the case, would you be comfortable finding this guy not guilty, even if you thought he did it? Would you be comfortable being identified as one of the people who let little Jessie's killer walk? If Couey's found not guilty, I've got five bucks that says public outrage won't be directed at the two detectives whose conduct got the confession thrown out of court. It will be directed at the jury who let him walk.

What would you do?

There's not enough money in the world to put me on that jury.

A Sharp Tongue

A mild answer calms wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. -- Proverbs 15:1

I'm a witty guy. When I'm in the right mood, I can make anyone laugh. I'm articulate and though my tongue sometimes slips, the words are typically crisp and well-stated. My mind usually works pretty fast with the snappy retort.

And sometimes I get angry and judgemental. And my words, though clever, vivid, and sometimes funny, are often harsh. In those times, my ability to choose the right words amplifies my anger and redoubles my rage.

It's pretty clear that's not how it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to do better. And though God will forgive my slipping and backsliding, He'd prefer less complacency about it.

Today is the day I do better to melt away the anger. And failing that, tomorrow is the day. It will, however, be done, so that I can be in better fellowship with those around me.

My Fourth

We gathered about an hour before the parade started, in slot number 30. I'd hoped for more boys, but Josh showed up, and Logan and Zach and Austin and Phil. Another boy, Chris, showed up, even though he was in another pack, and marched with us.

The parade route was about a mile and a half long, and we exhausted the beads we had about three-quarters of the way through. I'd tried to put them on the first kid I gave them to, a little girl who didn't have any. Her father got irritated and took them from me and said "thank you" with a little more attitude than necessary. The rest of the parents were happy when their kids got beads.

I'm new at CubMaster and I had to throw this together in a week (most of which I wasn't around for) because no one else did. Next year, the communication will be better and we'll have budget for more beads and hopefully more kids.

It was hot--it's July in Florida; that's the rules. I have salt rings in the shirt I wore under my scout uniform shirt and it's still damp. As I walked back, I met up with Chris's mom. He was in day camp, too, and was a lot of fun to have around. I told her that, and she seemed very happy to hear it. Unfortunately, this was probably his last event in Scouting. He's a great kid.

I'm not an enthusiastic person. I don't get excited about stuff. I'm excited about these kids. They're good kids. Really good kids. Every time I'm with them, I come away happier than when I started.

I came away happier again today. The last item in the Beatitudes for Leaders says "Blessed is the leader who considers leadership an opportunity for service." I hope that I see it that way. And I hope that I honor the opportunity for service I've been given with these kids.

My Church: My Other Family

Church is like a family. Sometimes you love the people; sometimes you hate them. Sometimes you wish you were alone and think you're better off. If you'd asked me two years ago about my church, I'd have told you that it was, at best, a necessary evil. At worst, I thought it was collect of self-important petty tyrants serving God even if it meant hurting people.

But as I look back, I've gotten far more out of my church than I've put into it. And this, in spite of being involved in at least seven different ministries at one time or another.

For me, at least, church is like family. You love them; you hate them; at times, they can carry you when it's hard to carry yourself.

To be sure, my church is far from perfect. It tends to be run by the more well-to-do parishioners, and the reasoning behind what's officially supported and what's not sometimes seems arbitrary and capricious.

But each week, I can go there even when the rest of it is bad and approach my Father with other people who are like me. At its best, it's the place I can go where everything else is going wrong.

I have a group of guys I've met with on Saturday mornings for almost eight years. Outside my blood relatives, I would trust these guys more than any other group of people I know. They know more about me than anyone other the maybe my wife.

You may not have the same group of people I have, but church, like family, pays you back based on what you put into it. I've put a lot of Saturday mornings into this. I'd love to stay in bed until I feel like getting up, but this is more important.

If you aren't getting anything out of church, it might be worth asking what you've put into it.

P. O. W.

The men thought they'd endured the worst after their capture and the harsh march to this place, wherever this place was. The fence looked almost ricketty, made up of rough-hewn logs, squared off by forced labor. Those who were able to think of such things knew the rickety appearance was mirage, for though the wall appeared to have been put up quickly, the logs were easily a foot thick and were guarded by men on what looked like pigeon roosts every hundred feet or so.

The smell was the first thing they noticed, easily half a day ago. As they neared what would be their new home, they started to hear a din of voices and movement, even over the 20-foot wall.

The man commanding the transport party told them to stop. Then, the giant doors opened, revealing a log portico, a buffer zone between the hellish mirage that they'd known and the true hell into which they would soon be cast.

Their metal cuffs were removed and the door swung shut behind them. Only then did the doors in front of them open, casting them into the sea of humanity that would serve as the place they stayed--but never a home--until they either died or somehow release came.

Camp Sumter, they called it, though it was anything but a camp. At its peak, the 26.5 acre stockage housed more than 30,000 men. who were forced to scavenge for what they could to provide shelter. The only source of water was the stockade branch. On paper, it was a stroke of genius, the prisoners could get their water where the stream entered the stockade, and relieve themselves where the stream left the stockade. In reality, the plan didn't work. The logs cut the water entering the stockade to a trickle. The water leaving the stockade was also backed up, creating a toxic marsh that men would sink to their hips in just to get fetid water.

Over its life, about a year, more than 45,000 men were housed at Andersonville. About 13,000 of them died.

The experience of being a prisoner of war must be among the most humbling. Sent out to fight for your country, you are taken and then must rely for your subsistence on whatever your captors allow. Typically, the captors allow near-starvation diets, torture, hard labor, solitude, and psychological manipulation.

The Prisoner of War Museum at Andersonville paints a vivid picture of the POW experience and the hell endured by both the POWs and their families. Two testimonials stick in my mind.

A pretty blonde woman about my age told how she would feel when other childrens' fathers were released from Vietnam and how she longed for the same experience they had, in meeting their fathers when they returned. Only her father never returned. He died as a POW.

In another story, a man taken prisoner in either Korea or WWII (I don't know which) held on to the vision of coming home to his wife. While he was in captivity, though (for several years), his wife re-married. Although the first instinct is to condemn the woman for not staying true, the stories of the other families make her decision understandable. The families, too, are prisoners of war.

The stories at the museum end with the release of those who survived and touch on the coming home. It's not the time of euphoria you'd think. It's a time of fear and trepidation. What about this man--or woman--coming home? Is this the same person who left? Will this person be changed, ruined, by what happened? Will I live with the shell of my loved one and what will I do if he or she isn't the same?

Will they accept me back? Will they even know me any more? Am I damaged beyond repair by this experience? Can I be a good spouse, parent, child, and friend again?

We do some horrible things to each other. Makes me want to re-examine what we're doing at Guantanamo.

The Unclean Woman

The woman sat along the side of the road, alone in the crowd. No one recognized her. She might as well not be there. She was a woman of means, or had been once. Lauded for her works and her personality. The center of the social scene.

Now, money gone, she was reduced to this. She didn't care about the money or the attention. She just wanted some slice of what she'd had before. When Jonathan had died, he'd left her a good deal. She would never want for anything, and as a result, instead of moving in with her son, as was custom, she stayed on her own. Her son lived three days' walk away. Leaving would cut her off from everyone she knew and loved. The synagogue--this synagogue--was her life, even if she wasn't really a full member as the men were.

She laughed as she remembered. They'd been able to help so many, yet when she became...inflicted...when she became inflicted, the nature of her affliction cut her off from the same type of help she'd given so many others.

She was unclean. It wasn't that she could do anything about it. She couldn't. Neither could anyone else. All of Jonathan's money had gone to people who'd tried and failed. And, by Law, she wasn't allowed to be part of anything. She could live, though she's increasingly had to beg for food. She just couldn't be part of anything. Her life, once so rich because of her ability to be part of something, was barren.

Though she was cast out as unclean, she's still dared talk to G-d, approach Him and beg him for restitution. She didn't care about the money or the opulence. She missed the people. Elizabeth and Hannah and Ruth and Deborah, all of them. She could see their faces with her eyes open, even. Hear their voices. Feel their embrace, though not one had dared touch her in more than a year. Hannah had at first, which made her unclean, too. After a couple weeks, Levi had demanded she stop. He'd been spoken to about propriety and having an unclean wife, even if she were helping someone.

This morning, when she'd gotten up, she'd thought once again about ending it. She could walk out into the desert more than a day out, and wait for the end. Of swim out in the sea. With her luck, someone would stop and save her, bring her back, then understand what she was and cast her out again.

But as soon as those thoughts had faded, and they usually did, new thoughts replaced them. When she'd said her morning prayers, she'd first noticed the impulse. As she continued, it had grown stronger, until she was almost propelled to this spot where the throng had gathered. As she sat and waited, she became curiously peaceful. When she needed to do something, she'd know. She wasn't quite sure how she'd know, but she'd know.

Meanwhile, she sat. She supposed that if this didn't work, it could be the last thing. She could walk into the desert and disappear. Move away from the main roads and wait for final peace. She'd always found solace in those thoughts before, but this morning, something within her rebelled against them, almost violently, to the point where she stood up rather abruptly without even realizing it.

The crowd had changed now. Instead of milling around, the people were directed at something. At someone. When she following the focus of attention, she found herself watching a man walk away. He wasn't much of a man. In a fight, he'd be worthless. He was sinewy and small, but for a second her eyes met his and something happened within her.

Without realizing it, she followed him. She was drawn to that man, to his eyes. There was something about him. She followed him as if propelled at first, almost as if she were driven. She tried to fight it at first. After all, what could this simple little man have to offer her, the filthy, unclean widow? The embarrassment to herself and God that everyone avoid.

She didn't have to push anyone. Somehow they just moved to allow her to get closer. Before she knew it, she was within a man's height of him, then within arm's length. She saw her arm reach out to his cloak and though she thought it might be good to pull it back, so this stranger would not be unclean like she was, it touched him. Actually, she only got his shawl.

Whatever spell had driven her to him, and it must have be insanity borne of loneliness, it broke when she touched it.

What have I done? She thought. She slid away through the crowd, unaware that they had stopped because the man had stopped.

"Who touched me?" she heard the voice say. It wasn't much of a voice and he hadn't spoken loudly, though somehow she heard it above the din.

"What?" another man asked. She turned to face them. The other man was much bigger and had a dark tan and calloused hands. He looked rough. "Master, there are so many people here, how could you ask who touched you?"

"I felt the power go out of me," the slight man said. "Someone touched me."

The crowd now understood that something had changed and how now stopped and started looking around. She swallowed. This would be it, she thought. This would be the final humiliation before she allowed death to claim her. He would curse her for making him unclean and then she could die.

She looked at him, met his eyes again, and suddenly, she felt naked and vulnerable, as if all her secrets were known to him. She felt little, worse than she'd felt since the discharges had started.

"Who touched me?" he said softly, looking at her with those piercing eyes that knew everything.

"I did," she said, her voice so soft she could barely hear it. She trembled now and felt her own frailty more fully than ever before. The crowd parted before her and she approached the man. She felt like crying, like laying everything out to him and asking him for comfort. Instead, she fell at his feet. She knew her place and it wasn't speaking as an equal to this man. Although she'd tried to live a good life, G-d had obviously cursed her for something.

"I've had a discharge for a year. I'm unclean and nothing can stop it. I'm sorry to have made you unclean, too, sir. Please let me go so I can die in peace."

She could see the grains of sand before her eyes as she wished for the end of her now-pathetic life.

Then, she felt his hand on her back. This man knew she was unclean and yet he was touching her. The soft and gentle touch, almost a caress reminded her of Jonathan and she closed her eyes and pushed back tears.

"Get up," he said to her gently. She sat back so she was kneeling in front of him and he put his hand out. She extended hers to him and he lifted her from her kneeling position.

"Thank you," he said. His voice soothed her, like a thousand harps. Slowly she raised her head so that she looked him in the eyes again. She felt a jolt of fear. Somehow she knew this man knew all about her. But the fear quickly subsided.

"Why did you touch me?"

"I-I don't know," she said.

He smiled at her and she swallowed. His gaze was unflinching, uncompromising, but she was coming to realize that it wasn't threatening.

"Why did you touch me?"

"Oh my Lord," she heard her voice say. "I just want so much to be clean again."

She burst into tears, unable to stop them, magnifying this, her final, most public humiliation. He reached up with his other hand and touched her cheek, raising her face to his.

"Shhhh," he said. "My daughter, your faith has saved you. Go now, in peace, offer the appropriate sacrifice to God who loves you, and be cured of your affliction."

"What?"

"I promise you," he said.

"Ye-Yes, my lord," she said. He smiled at her again and squeezed her hand, then turned from her. She was homeless now, and there weren't many places a woman could find privacy, but she finally found one and looked and the discharge was gone. The stains in her clothes were gone. It was like it had never happened. She felt to her knees and wept again as the realization of her new circumstance saturated her. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up again.

"Hannah," she said.

Hannah smiled at her and took both her hands and helped her to her feet.

"Welcome home," Hannah said.

Alone again...not really

When I got laid off, I felt like I was alone.

As much as work in a pain in the butt, it's a social interaction, one where you can commisserate with those who are more or less in the same boat. After all, if a person or process is a pain to one person in the department, everyone else is likely in the same position.

When you're laid off, you lose that support structure. At the risk of being sexist, when you're a man, it's worse. After all, from childhood, you're brought up to be responsible, to be "the man" who brings home the bacon and makes the problems go away. You're supposed to be the unflinching, stoic rock who solves problems and makes things right, dispensing wisdom and making sure the bills get paid. For the kids of my generation, you're supposed to be Mike Brady.

When I got laid off, I felt a lot of pressure to make sure the bills got paid, but also to not add to the stress and the problems. And that's one of the places I have ample room for improvement if I'm ever laid off again. I tried to handle it all myself and encapsulate the stress and worry, and in doing do, I just added more stress, first to myself, and inevitably to the entire house.

To be sure, I had a wonderful support structure. My wife never even hinted, as hard as things got, at leaving. And I'm sure I made things much more difficult for her than they could have been.

I also have a group of guys I've met with on Saturday mornings since 1998. Without them and their support, I'm not sure what would have happened.

That's the great illusion of life. Though we're brought up, especially as men, to be rugged individualists, we are really part of a web of people. At times, we need that web to help support us, and that's okay because at times, we form the part of the web that helps support others.

In that way, our hands become, for lack of a better phrase, the hands of God, with support both freely given and freely accepted when we need it.

No matter how bad things are, the simple fact of the matter is, you are most likely not alone. The trick is to recognize that and accept the support.

When I Got Laid Off

On May 25, 2001, I got laid off. Tampa is a very small town when it comes to the IT industry, and when the industry goes through a major correction, as it did from late 2000 until early 2003, everyone suffers. A company that was located two floors down from my former company started work one day with 120 based at that location and ended the day with six. When the ax dropped on me, the severence pay was a pittance, but then again, to give us more, they'd have to lay off more people.

To be coarse about it, the experience sucked. It's a coarse word, but the experience isn't easy. After all, we're socialized in this country that a man is the provider for his family and the Bible even says that someone who doesn't provide for his family is worse than a non-believer.

To make a long story short, I was out of work for almost two years. We scraped by with whatever came my way in terms of work. I was paid a total of eight weeks of unemployment. We never defaulted on a bill. We still live in the house we had when I got laid off. When we exhausted COBRA, my wife took a job at Walgreen's for the health benefits. Although there are financial repercussions we still feel today, we made it through intact (and if you get laid off and keep your head, so will you).

But the experience was life-changing. As I feel like writing about it, I'll tell you how it changed my life. I can't say life is better because I got laid off, but I can say that I have a greater understanding about life.

The first misconception shattered by getting laid off was the idea that I'm in control. I've never been in control of much--and deep down, I always knew that. But the experience of being laid off laid waste to any fantasies of control I had. There's only one thing I can control, and that's how I react. I did a number of things wrong when I was laid off, but one thing I didn't do was give up. I controlled how hard I looked for work and the job I did when I found it. Within a month, I had temporary work. And I went from job to job until the time I was hired by my current employer in March 2003.

When I got the jobs, I worked hard at them. Because my continued employment was based on day-to-day productivity and quality, my work was never better than when I could go away at any time. I provided value to the people I worked for, and every contract I started got extended. I was a disaster in a lot of other areas, but that's an area in which I excelled. I had to. I had people counting on me. As the cliche goes, failure was not an option. And failure did not happen.

I controlled how hard I worked and how creative I was in finding and taking advantage of opportunities. I failed miserably at understanding the boundary of what I controlled and didn't.

More on that another time.

When God tests us

In The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren writes:

To mature your friendship, God will test it with periods of seeming separation--times when it feels as if He has abandoned or forgotten you....[T]his feeling of abandonment or estrangement from God has nothing to do with sin. It is a test of faith.

I don't believe that. I don't believe that God goes out of His way to make bad things happen to us so that we'll pull closer to Him. A lot of the bad things are self-inflicted. I don't take care of my body and then I have medical problems. I don't put out at work and I get laid off. These are things that we do, and the bad things that follow them aren't from God. They are the natural consequences of our actions.

But sometimes, the problems just happen. When I got laid off, it was because I worked in an industry that had gone insane and needed a correction. The nature of life is such that bad things are sometimes going to happen.

It is also the nature of life that sometimes, God will feel distant. It could be that we're not where we're supposed to be. But it could also be that life gets busy and sometimes it takes everything just to keep up. Either way, God doesn't teach to be dependent on Him by withdrawing from us. If that teaches us anything, it's how to become more self-reliant. Sometimes things just happen.

There's a great danger in these conversations of falling into a black-and-white construct in which everything good comes from God and everything bad comes from us. Just as sometimes bad things are our fault and sometimes they aren't; sometimes good things come from God and sometimes they're the result of our own creativeness and hard work.

God is the one who provided talents and a situation in which we can and should use them. But when we use them and do the right thing, we can feel a certain satisfaction of accomplishment.

In short, God is not a puppetmaster, and neither has He created a circumstance where we can only fail. Finally, He doesn't test us just to see how much we measure up. He is our loving father and is always as close by as our asking.

Hitting with My Son

My right arm and shoulder hurt tonight. I should probably take some Motrin.

My son played baseball for the first time last year. He improved over the fall season and again in the spring season, but if he didn't practice and get some time in getting comfortable with the bat, glove, and ball, there's only so much he'll be able to do come fall. So we've been going out a couple times a week working on hitting, throwing, and fielding.

We started with 20 baseballs in the ball bag and someplace picked up three more. I cycle through the bag five times, so he sees 100 balls twice a week. Now that he's hitting better, I can field some of the balls that come back to me and I just turn around and pitch them again. So tonight, he probably got someplace around 130 pitches. Some of them were almost as hard as I could throw, and while he wasn't scorching the ball, he was making contact with almost every pitch. And that's why my arm hurts tonight.

It feels good.

I'm hoping that when he gets older, whether he ever goes anyplace with baseball or not, he remembers that he worked at something and got better, and that it was worth the effort.

More than that, I hope he remembers that someone gave a damn.

My Daughter

Thirteen years ago, my daughter was born. I am a different and better person because of her and I admire her greatly. If I had heroes, she would be one of them.

No good deed...

Jesus said to his disciples: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. Matthew 6:1-6 (NAB)

We've all been through it. You go out of your way to do something for someone, to make a real difference, and your efforts are met with a mix of indifference, hostility, and entitlement. After all, no good deed goes unpunished. And if you've done it for someone once, well, you own it, and it expected from now on.

In some cases, your attempts to serve someone--to be a decent human being and try to make things easier--sow seeds of contempt. After all, if you're my servant, I'm entitled to the service and get to it!

So why bother? Why go the extra mile? If I'm going to get hostility in return for my efforts, why make the effort?

When I read this passage of Gospel, it turned the entire scenario around. Prayer isn't just what you do on your knees in your room with the door shut, or before meals, or at church on Sunday. Prayer is the active use of what you have to serve God and those around you, as well. And if you pray, you do it for others, but for Him, too. And if you do the nice things for people and they thank you and notice, then you have gotten a reward, which is always nice. But if you do something nice and you are met with indifference or hostility, it's still noticed. Your heavenly Father sees and appreciates that, and will reward it.

So it's not a pointless exercise. On the contrary, it's a very important exercise. For when God came to earth in human form, He received no less, and look at the results of that. Doing good is as valuable a thing as there is, even when it's met with hostility.

Why bother?

Sometimes it seems as if it doesn't matter what you do? The outcome seems like a forgone conclusion. The winners will win; the losers will lose. Live goes on today the same way it did yesterday and the day before that. For all the times we say that change is the only constant in life, that's really not true. Things evolve over time, but revolution is rare.

So you sit and plug away at what God's supposed purpose is for your life and it's the same today as it was yesterday, which is the same as the day before. Others may excel or crash and burn, but life isn't like college football, where you get eleven chances and that's it. It's like baseball, where you get up every day and go at it. Sometimes the winners stink it up and the losers do everything right, but more often than not, at the end, it works as expected.

God doesn't predestine us for victory or defeat, but we sure do it to ourselves and each other. Once you project the aura of a winner, you're seen that way. And once you project the aura of a loser, it doesn't much matter what you do.

It is worth the effort to work extra-hard to change the perception? Maybe.

Why can't this time be sometime?

The last time I made a good decision getting a car, it was 1989 and I bought a lovely blue Honda Civic 3-door hatch. The losing streak continued with the last car, a 1999 Kia Sportage that wouldn't start when we got a little more than three-quarters of the way to Huntington, West Virginia.

But, with little hiccups here and there, that car wasn't too bad--until it his 60,000 miles. Then it started stalling and not starting. After $1,500 of this, that, and the other thing, it stopped stalling--mostly--but continued to be a crapshoot in starting.

The worst, the time when I just couldn't deal with it any more, was about a month ago when I took my son and his friend to a ballgame in St. Pete. We got there fine. Got back fine. But we stopped at Kane's furniture on the way home for pizza certificates because the Rays' starting pitcher had struck out more than ten. It took nearly 15 minutes for the car to start. Never, I though, would I get another car. Well, functionally never. In the meantime, I'd baby the Sportage until it just died.

Now, a month later, I have a new car, which is something I didn't think we could afford. After dropping more than two grand on the sick cat, it's going to be a little tighter than we want it to be, but that's how it goes.

Sometimes when you think everything is cast in stone and nothing can change, it all does. Why can't this time be sometime?

Someplace to go

Still, you insist on sincerity of heart; in my inmost being teach me wisdom. Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure; wash me, make me whiter than snow. Let me hear sounds of joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Turn away your face from my sins; blot out all my guilt. A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a steadfast spirit. Do not drive me from your presence, nor take from me your holy spirit. Restore my joy in your salvation; sustain in me a willing spirit. -- Psalm 51:8-14

Jesus is the one, at the end of the day, when you've tried your best and failed anyway, He's the one who takes you back. When the day is nothing but a series of egregious errors and stupid mistakes and frustration and anger, when you sit in the dark just before sleep and you need someone to not turn their back on you, Jesus is the one.

Paul has talked about groans that exceed human comprehension in prayer. In a way, it reminds me of the cries of Westley in The Princess Bride, when he has lost his true love. His heart is breaking and he has no place to go. We have someplace to go.

And so, having that someplace to go, we also try to be someplace for someone else whose groans transcend language.